This paper analyzes the impact of anticipated old age support, provided by children to parents, on intra-family transfers and education. We highlight an education motive for remittances, according to which migrants have an incentive to invest in their siblings' education via transfers to parents, in order to better share the burden of old age support. Our theory shows that in rich families, selfish parents invest optimally in children education, while in poor families, liquidity constraints are binding and education is fostered by migrant remittances. We test these hypotheses on Indian panel data. Identification is based on within variation in household composition. We find that remittances received from migrants significantly increase with the number of school age children in the household. Retrieving the effects of household characteristics shows that more remittances tend to be sent to poorer and older household heads, confirming the old age support hypothesis.


The rate of progression of certain renal diseases in animals is greater in men than in women. In various animal models of renal disease, investigators have concluded that the presence of testosterone explains the worse course in men compared with women, whereas in other diseases, estrogen seems to confer protection for women. The gender disparity in renal disease progression found in animals is seen in certain human renal diseases, including chronic renal disease, membranous nephropathy, immunoglobin A nephropathy, and polycystic kidney disease. In humans, the differences between the genders in renal disease progression cannot be fully explained by differences in blood pressure or serum cholesterol levels. The underlying mechanisms for this gender disparity are potentially related to differences between the sexes in glomerular structure, glomerular hemodynamics, diet, variations in the production and activity of local cytokines and hormones, and/or the direct effect of sex hormones on kidney cells. Further investigation into the contribution of gender to renal disease progression may aid us in developing strategies for slowing this pathological process.


In this paper, we briefly review women's integral participation in the development of Mormonism's distinct healing liturgy by the time of the settlement of the Great Basin, highlighting the interaction of healing ritual and power with the development of the temple. We then discuss the various healing rites employed by women in Utah and the contexts in which they administered. All Mormon ritual operates in two partially overlapping liturgical modalities: one folk and the other formal. Throughout the nineteenth century, Mormon liturgy generally existed as oral tradition. There were no manuals to dictate precise ritual formulations; instead Latter-day Saints learned ritual performance from the example and mentoring of both male and female church leaders. Folk pedagogy served the Latter-day Saints well; however, due to pressures within and outside of the Church, the hierarchy first reformed liturgical authority and then explicitly formalized the Church liturgy itself. In this paper, we show how female ritual healing evolved in context of this history and how it is a key feature in understanding the development of Latter-day Saint liturgy. Furthermore, we show how these dynamics led to the end of female administration of healing ritual in the Church.


Nowadays, instant message has become a key tool for students to stay connected with existing friends and family, as well as to create new friendships. WeChat as a third party software that exists in the current market, is an instant messaging application that enables users to send voice, video, pictures and text to their contacts through mobile network. Being a new application, the user adoption of WeChat has not been studied. Therefore, the result of this study will be valuable to fill the knowledge gap about user adoption study of this mobile application, and future development of other similar instant messaging mobile application could also benefit from this study. This study focuses on WeChat users and answers to the following research question: What are the factors that affect the users' adoption of WeChat?The purpose of this study is to explain factors that affect the users' adoption of WeChat among WeChat users.This study adopts a theory testing approach. The research model will propose through UTAUT model and semi-structured interview. A survey was conducted subsequently to collect quantitative data. Hypotheses were tested through analyzing the quantitative data by using SPSS.


Fresnel zone plates (450 nm thick Au, 25 nm outermost zone width) used as objective lenses in a full field transmission reached a spatial resolution better than 20 nm and 1.5% efficiency with 8 keV photons. Zernike phase contrast was also realized without compromising the resolution. These are very significant achievements in the rapid progress of high-aspect-ratio zone plate fabrication by combined electron beam lithography and electrodeposition.


A method for determining Stokes flow around particles near a wall or in a thin film bounded by a wall on one side and a nondeformable gas-liquid interface on the other side is developed. The no-slip boundary conditions at the wall are satisfied by constructing an image system based on Lamb's multipoles. Earlier results for the image systems for the flow due to a point force or a force dipole are extended to image systems for force or source multipoles of arbitrary orders. For the case of a film, the image system consists of an infinite series of multipoles on both sides of the film. Accurate evaluation of the flow due to these images is discussed, including the use of Shanks transforms. The method is applied to several problems including chains of particles, radially expanding particles, drops, and porous particles.


Unlocking the full potential of residential-sector energy efficiency gains will require the efforts of external agents (whether in the public, private, or not-for profit sectors) engaging with individual homeowners in order to encourage the adoption of energy-saving measures. To achieve this result efficiently and effectively, such agents require an easily-obtained understanding of the "energy context" governing a household's energy use and efficiency investment decisions: factors from the number, characteristics, attitudes, and values of occupants to the physical state of a dwelling to broader geographic, financial, and legal considerations. Continuously-emerging sources of contextual and household-specific data have the potential, if integrated appropriately, to provide this understanding – but to what extent can this be achieved with current methodological tools, and can the state-of-the-art be improved? This research has attempted to address this question, with an emphasis on the physical characteristics of homes and the behavioural patterns of their occupants. A review of existing characterization techniques in the literature yielded a set of methodological best practises and theoretical shortfalls, which were integrated with physical first principles and empirically-observed statistical trends to develop new modelling approaches to make use of hourly whole-house electricity consumption data, aiming to improve upon the state-of-theart. A subset of these models (chosen for their speed and stability of parameter estimation) were compared to existing techniques: while one of the novel approaches yielded improved behavioural disaggregation performance and a simpler formulation compared to existing alternatives, there would seem to remain considerable opportunity for improvement, with results suggesting several potentially-promising areas for further research.


This study calibrated a gas transport model that uses multicomponent approaches, i.e., the dusty gas model (DGM) and Stefan–Maxwell (SM) equations, to soil gas concentration depth profiles to determine aerobic biodegradation rates of hydrocarbons in unsaturated soils. I found that viscous advection induced by multicomponent gas transport in porous systems and Knudsen diffusion may be neglected for soil systems with intrinsic permeabilities >10−13 m2, and intrinsic permeability of low‐permeability layers, such as cemented limestone or concrete pavement on the ground surface, calibrated by the DGM model ranged from 10−15 to 10−18 m2. The SM model may be applicable for gas transport in soil systems with low‐permeability layers if low obstruction factor values are assigned for these layers. The obstruction factor defined in the DGM and SM equations accounts for impedance to gas diffusion in unsaturated soils and is similar to tortuosity for Fick's law of diffusion. Results further showed that flux rates of hydrocarbon vapors from sources in unsaturated soils need to be measured or assessed before models are fitted to hydrocarbon vapor depth profiles. If the flux rates are not assessed, and if the obstruction factor and intrinsic permeability in the low‐permeability layers are of uncertain magnitudes, models may produce nonunique results for biodegradation rates of hydrocarbons. Thus, I propose a two‐step procedure for determining aerobic biodegradation rates of hydrocarbons.


This study aims to identify the innovation practices and obstacles in a sample of small and medium enterprises at the province of "Batna", Algeria. The researcher has distributed 88 questionnaires to the individuals of the study's sample: managers and their assistants, heads of departments. Eighty-two (82) questionnaires were restored, and after sorting them, it was observed that they are all valid for analysis. The researcher relied on the statistical software (SPSS) for data processing using percentages, arithmetic averages, standard deviations, one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) and simple regression. After a descriptive analysis of the study and testing hypotheses, and based on the obtained results, a set of recommendations were provided including:  There is an important statistically significant effect of the dimensions of the supporting factors for innovation (the entrepreneur's personal characteristics, information technology, human resources management and financing source) in the innovation types (product and production process).  There is a statistically significant positive relationship between innovation obstacles and the types of achieved innovation.  The respondents' perceptions of the innovation outputs level moderately available.  There is a low correlation between chronological age, the number of the products of the enterprises under study and the types of innovation, while the correlation was high with the industrial sector.


New England was built on letters. Its colonists left behind thousands of them, brittle and browning and crammed with curls of purplish script. How they were delivered, though, remains mysterious. We know surprisingly little about the way news and people traveled in early America. No postal service or newspapers existed not until 1704 would readers be able to glean news from a public print. But there was, in early New England, an unseen world of travelers, rumors, movement, and letters. Unearthing that early American communications frontier, American Passage "retells the story of English colonization as less orderly and more precarious than the quiet villages of popular imagination.The English quest to control the northeast entailed a great struggle to control the flow of information. Even when it was meant solely for English eyes, news did not pass solely through English hands. Algonquian messengers carried letters along footpaths, and Dutch ships took them across waterways. Who could travel where, who controlled the routes winding through the woods, who dictated what news might be sent in Katherine Grandjean s hands, these questions reveal a new dimension of contest and conquest in the northeast. Gaining control of New England was not solely a matter of consuming territory, of transforming woods into farms. It also meant mastering the lines of communication."


Despite documentation of the atrocities of the Holocaust, there are those who deny its occurrence. Previously, the Holocaust denial movement had been confined to the western world. Western Holocaust deniers, however, faced with opposition and legal restriction by countries such as the United States, Canada, France, and Germany, have expanded their efforts into many Arab nations, such as Egypt, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority. While Holocaust-inspired antiSemitism is nothing new in these countries, the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict provides a fertile ground for efforts to promulgate Holocaust denial as a new anti-Semitic propaganda tool. Most disturbing is that many Arab governments and political leaders not only support, but even perpetuate Holocaust denial themselves. With no internal remedies in these Arab countries to suppress deniers' activities, the international community must act to combat Holocaust denial


Exploiting the unique institutional setting of Hong Kong's real estate market, we uncover a curious ripple effect of haunted houses on the prices of nearby houses. Prices drop on average 20% for units that become haunted, 5% for units on the same floor, 3% for units in the same block, and 1% for units in the same estate. Our study makes two contributions. First, our results provide an estimate of a large negative spillover on asset prices caused by an idiosyncratic shock to the perceived quality of an asset. Second, since we observe that this ripple effect exists even if the haunted house is not sold, we can isolate the quality channel from the price pressure channel. We find that the quality channel contributes significantly to spillovers in asset prices.


I am concerned about industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology's relevance to the gig economy, defined here as the broad trends toward technology-based platform work. This sort of work happens on apps like Uber (where the app connects drivers and riders) and sites like MTurk (where human intelligence tasks, or HITs, are advertised to workers on behalf of requesters). We carry on with I-O research and practice as if technology comprises only things (e.g., phones, websites, platforms) that we use to assess applicants and complete work. However, technology has much more radically restructured work as we know it, to happen in a much more piecemeal, on-demand fashion, reviving debates about worker classification and changing the reality of work for many workers (Sundararajan, 2016). Instead of studying technology as a thing we use, it's critical that we "zoom out" to see and adapt our field to this bigger picture of trends towards a gig economy. Rather than a phone being used to check work email or complete pre-hire assessments, technology and work are inseparable. For example, working on MTurk requires constant Internet access (Brawley, Pury, Switzer, & Saylors, 2017; Ma, Khansa, & Hou, 2016). Alarmingly, some researchers describe these workers as precarious (Spretizer, Cameron, & Garrett, 2017), dependent on an extremely flexible (a label that is perhaps euphemistic for unreliable) source of work. Although it's unlikely that all workers consider their "gig" a full time job or otherwise necessary income, at least some workers do: An estimated 10–40% of MTurk workers consider themselves serious gig workers (Brawley & Pury, 2016). Total numbers for the broader gig economy are only growing, with recent tax-based estimates including 34% of the US workforce now and up to 43% within 3 years (Gillespie, 2017). It appears we're seeing some trends in work reverse and return to piece work (e.g., a ride on Uber, a HIT on MTurk) as if we've simply digitized the assembly line (Davis, 2016). Over time, these trends could accelerate, and we could potentially see total elimination of work (Morrison, 2017).


The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the effects of music therapy on comfort in acute mechanically ventilated patients in the Intensive Care Unit. Mechanical ventilation leads to decreased comfort. Pain and anxiety may increase during this treatment modality, and the literature suggests this may directly affect patient comfort levels. Music therapy as a nursing intervention within the context of comfort, pain, and anxiety of mechanically ventilated patients was investigated. This quasi-experiemental study used a pre-test and post-test design with subjects serving as their own control. The convenience sample consisted of 2 men and 3 women who were mechanically ventilated and fit the selection criteria. Dependent variables measured included comfort, pain, and anxiety. Physiologic dependent measures included heart rate, respiratory rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure collected at timed intervals. Comfort was measured using a modified version of the Hospice Comfort Questionnaire. Pain was measured using the Numerical Graphic Rating Pain Scale. Anxiety was measured using the Faces Anxiety Scale. Important preliminary quantitative results are provided by this pilot study. The mean, standard deviation, significance, and paired t-tests were compared for each tool to determine changes in scoring before and after the intervention and control. This was also completed for physiological data including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, and heart rate. Paired t-tests showed no significant mean differences between two points of measurement on systolic, diastolic, heart rate, and respiratory rate in both the intervention and control groups. Comfort, anxiety, and pain scores before and after the intervention and control also did not demonstrate significance. The small sample size makes generalization of these findings impossible to the entire population of acute mechanically ventilated patients in Billings, Montana.


The scarcity of labeled data often limits the application of deep learning to medical image segmentation. Semi-supervised learning helps overcome this limitation by leveraging unlabeled images to guide the learning process. In this paper, we propose using a clustering loss based on mutual information that explicitly enforces prediction consistency between nearby pixels in unlabeled images, and for random perturbation of these images, while imposing the network to predict the correct labels for annotated images. Since mutual information does not require a strict ordering of clusters in two different cluster assignments, we propose to incorporate another consistency regularization loss which forces the alignment of class probabilities at each pixel of perturbed unlabeled images. We evaluate the method on three challenging publicly-available medical datasets for image segmentation. Experimental results show our method to outperform recently-proposed approaches for semi-supervised and yield a performance comparable to fully-supervised training.


In this paper, the intersection of bivariate orthogonal polynomials on triangle patches will be investigated. The result is interesting on its own but also has important applications in the theory of a posteriori error estimation for finite element discretizations with $ p$-refinement, i.e., if the local polynomial degree of the test and trial functions is increased to improve the accuracy. A triangle patch is a set of disjoint open triangles whose closed union covers a neighborhood of the common triangle vertex. On each triangle we consider the space of orthogonal polynomials of degree $ n$ with respect to the weight function which is the product of the barycentric coordinates. We show that the intersection of these polynomial spaces is the null space. The analysis requires the derivation of subtle representations of orthogonal polynomials on triangles. Up to four triangles have to be considered to identify that the intersection is trivial.


This research aims to deepen knowledge whether caring and learning are an intertwined phenomenon in Dedicated Educational Units (DEU). The context is psychiatric and orthopaedic care, and the research is based on caring science.The research question is this: What characterizes the relationship between caring and learning in a DEU? This will be illuminated from three perspectives; the student, supervisor and patient perspectives.The question for the student is this: What is it like to learn the nursing profession by caring for patients on a DEU? The question for the supervisor is this: What is it like to supervise nursing students on a DEU? And the final question is directed at the patient: What is it like to be cared for by nursing students in a DEU?The underpinning philosophical and theoretical perspectives are lifeworld theory, caring science and its didactics.The aim of this project is to develop a supervision model that views caring and learning as an intertwined concept with the potential to support students" learning processes as well as patients" caring processes.


Discussions on the developing worldA¢â'¬â"¢s industrial policies have largely neglected the role of state-owned entities.This paper argues that the resurgence of state capitalism has been, in part, the response of developing countries to the recent pattern of structural transformation involving weak manufacturing. Using the case of Indonesia, this paper demonstrates that many middle-income countries have large and diverse state-owned entities in their development policy toolbox and have begun to experiment with these tools in order to change the pace and characteristics of structural transformation.Considering these trends, there is a need to reconsider or A¢â'¬EœnormalizeA¢â'¬â"¢ the debate on the positive role that state-owned entities can play in stimulating structural transformation and on the institutional and policy design that can foster that role.


This edition is complete, clear, and practical as well as being scholarly and authoritative. It returns to the primary sources to present the music and libretto as performed during the original Savoy Theatre run. Vocal scores and full scores include the complete libretto. Clearly printed orchestral parts, matching exactly the text given in the full and vocal scores, are available on hire. Vocal scores and full scores include all the important completed but discarded material, and a series of appendices includes hitherto unpublished material from the Ghost Scene and elsewhere. This is conveniently cued from the music pages for easy inclusion. The full score, handsomely engraved and bound, contains extensive introductory notes.


The Texas Supreme Court must clarify the law of restitution. The law of restitution regulates a major area of litigation in Texas and suffers from a significant degree of confusion. The Texas Supreme Court has adopted the modern view of restitution, but its rulings lack the detailed guidance needed by lower courts. The Texas Supreme Court should establish an independent and generally applicable cause of action for unjust enrichment, describe clearly the elements of that cause of action, and lend its authority to the modern terms that describe the law of restitution. The Texas Supreme Court's rulings on restitution describe a generally applicable cause of action aimed at preventing unjust enrichment. This cause of action supports both equitable and common law remedies in restitution. The quasi-contract cause of action identified by some lower Texas courts cannot, without stumbling over its own history, authorize equitable restitution. The Texas Supreme Court rulings also tend to label unjust enrichment as a general cause of action that is independent of tort or contract claims. The Texas Supreme Court's actions have created a foundation for clarification of its unjust enrichment cause of action. That clarification should begin with an authoritative statement describing the elements of the cause of action and the breadth of its application. Those steps by the Texas Supreme Court will necessarily diminish the significance of the confusing terms concerning unjust enrichment. Texas courts do not need the linguistic cover provided by quasi-contract terminology, and the law is better served by allowing judges and litigants to confront the problem of unjust enrichment directly.


In Pakistan, agriculture is vulnerable to multiple risks, especially in the rain-fed areas. The crop insurance can serve as a useful tool to manage risks in the rain-fed areas of Pakistan. This study has assessed farmers' willingness to pay for insurance in the rain-fed areas of Pakistan by conducting a survey of 531 farmers in the Soon valley and Talagang areas of Pakistan. The farmers' willingness to pay for the index based crop insurance has been studied by employing the different econometric models. It has been found that these rain-fed areas consider indexed based insurance to be an important risk management strategy. The empirical results have indicated that farmers' economic status, household assets and membership of community organization are the important determinants of their willingness to pay a higher insurance premium. The propensity score matching results have revealed that farmers were satisfied with index based insurance and were also willing to increase the area under food as well as cash crops. This study has suggested that to make agricultural insurance scheme more successful, the government should provide subsidy which will help in increasing the area under food and cash crops and shall ensure food security in the region.


Background The diagnostic value of a contrast‐enhanced T2‐weighted FLAIR sequence (ceFLAIR) in brain imaging is unclear. Hypothesis/Objectives That the number of brain lesions detected with ceFLAIR would be no greater than the sum of lesions detected with nFLAIR and ceT1W sequence. Animals One hundred and twenty‐nine animals (108 dogs and 21 cats) undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the head between July 2010 and October 2011 were included in the study. Methods A transverse ceFLAIR was added to a standard brain MRI protocol. Presence and number of lesions were determined based on all available MRI sequences by 3 examiners in consensus and lesion visibility was evaluated for nFLAIR, ceFLAIR, and ceT1W sequences. Results Eighty‐three lesions (58 intra‐axial and 25 extra‐axial) were identified in 51 patients. Five lesions were detected with nFLAIR alone, 2 with ceT1W alone, and 1 with ceFLAIR alone. Significantly higher numbers of lesions were detected using ceFLAIR than nFLAIR (76 versus 67 lesions; P = 0.04), in particular for lesions also detected with ceT1W images (53 versus 40; P =.01). There was no significant difference between the number of lesions detected with combined nFLAIR and ceT1W sequences compared to those detected with ceFLAIR (82 versus 76; P =.25). Conclusion and Clinical Importance Use of ceFLAIR as a complementary sequence to nFLAIR and ceT1W sequences did not improve the detection of brain lesions and cannot be recommended as part of a routine brain MRI protocol in dogs and cats with suspected brain lesions.


Diamond-bearing gravels of the Lichtenburg-Ventersdorp area of the North West Province are associated with north-south orientated sinuous 'runs' that occur almost entirely on a flat erosional surface of the Malmani dolomites (Transvaal Supergroup) at some 1,500 m elevation. East to west, this dolomite plain measures 150 km, and north-south it is on average 40 km wide. This unconformity, which first developed before the Pretoria Group sedimentation over a period of at least 80 Myr, is marked by siliceous breccias (palaeo-karst infill) and conglomerates (reworked breccias). It was exhumed in pre-Karoo and post-Gondwana times. Glacial pavements and remnants of thin Lower Karoo sediments are also found on this polyphase surface. The gravels that make up these 'runs' and sinkholes directly or indirectly linked to these runs, are coarse-grained, very poorly-sorted, and are best described as diamictites. The 'runs' are narrow, elongated, generally positive ridges that meander across the dolomite surface and are up to 30 km long and between 80 to 300 m wide. They have always been regarded as post-Cretaceous drainage features linked to southward-flowing river systems. Diamonds were discovered in these 'runs' and they have produced some 12 million carats. However, no Cainozoic fossils or artefacts have ever been found in almost 90 years of mining. From new field evidence, geomorphological studies, age dating from inclusions in diamond and zircon and clay analyses, it is proposed that these coarse-grained runs represent proximal palaeoeskers of the last deglaciation of the Dwyka continental ice sheet, that are preserved on this ancient 'palimpsest' surface. The age of the deposit is constrained by two populations of agate within the diamictites that are linked to two separate volcanic units of the Pretoria Group. In addition, the youngest crustal zircon ages from the gravels are 1 Ba, but mantle zircons from Lichtenburg suggest that these have been derived from Cambrian age kimberlites. Analysis of inclusions in diamond support a Neoproterozoic to Cambrian source for the diamonds, so the absence of diamonds from Mesozoic kimberlites and Cainozoic fossils within the gravels support the conclusion that the runs are of Karoo age.


The present study examined the impact of motivational music and oudeterous (neutral in terms of motivational qualities) music on endurance and a range of psychophysical indices during a treadmill walking task. Experimental participants (N=30; mean age=20.5 years, SD=1.0 years) selected a program of either pop or rock tracks from artists identified in an earlier survey. They walked to exhaustion, starting at 75% maximal heart rate reserve, under conditions of motivational synchronous music, oudeterous synchronous music, and a no-music control. Dependent measures included time to exhaustion, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), and in-task affect (both recorded at 2-min intervals), and exercise-induced feeling states. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze time to exhaustion data. Two-way repeated measures (Music Condition ? Trial Point) ANOVAs were used to analyze in-task measures, whereas a one-way repeated measures MANOVA was used to analyze the exercise-induced feeling states data. Results indicated that endurance was increased in both music conditions and that motivational music had a greater ergogenic effect than did oudeterous music (p<.01). In addition, in-task affect was enhanced by motivational synchronous music when compared with control throughout the trial (p<.01). The experimental conditions did not impact significantly (p>.05) upon RPE or exercise-induced feeling states, although a moderate effect size was recorded for the latter (etap2=.09). The present results indicate that motivational synchronous music can elicit an ergogenic effect and enhance in-task affect during an exhaustive endurance task.


A solo exhibition which is the second phase of a project working with scientists at The Natural History Museum, London and The Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) at UCL, London.

This exhibition presents a selection of current work by British artist Johanna Love, who is working closely with scientists at The Natural History Museum, London and The Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) at UCL, London. Through a combination of photography and drawing, the project seeks to examine problems of human perception in relation to modern technology. It questions the scientific image as one that remains detached and outside of our experience, sitting at the precipice of our perceptual understanding, and making visible matter that is beyond human vision.

What drives this work is a fascination with how tiny specks of dust – what seems most insubstantial – has the material power to fascinate, to generate and to sustain thought. The scientific technical image is a starting point for the work, either obtained through the electron microscope or the digital scanner. However, it is always submitted to some kind of digital manipulation and then manual intervention through drawing. In drawing from or within the original photographic image, there is a critique of technology and a questioning of the scientific approach. Through the process of drawing and digital manipulation, there is an attempt to bring the image back into the physical, material world of the living and imagination, for as Merleau Ponty (1964) states, 'science manipulates things and gives up living in them.'

The first stage and the body of work made was exhibited at GiG Gallery, Munich in 2015.


Most fish are ectotherms and for this reason, water temperature is thought to be one of the main physical determinants of behaviour. We tested the hypothesis that be havioural thermo regulation occurs in 4 species of reef sharks (n = 58), where water temperature influences patterns of long-term (>1 yr) movement, by analysing acoustic monitoring and environmental datasets. We also used biotelemetry to measure the body temperature of 5 adult female blacktip reef sharks Carcharhinus melanopterus in response to changes in water temperature, to test whether they participate in inshore aggregations potentially to increase metabolic rates. We found that water temperature had the greatest influence on shark presence at each of our study sites (deviance explained = 3.7−54.6%), when compared to other variables. On average, body temperatures of female blacktip reef sharks were consistently warmer than average (±SE) water temperature  by 1.3 ± 0.57°C, providing support for behavioural thermoregulation. The maximum body temperature of blacktip reef sharks while at the aggregation site corresponded to peak daily water temperatures. The average hourly body temperature varied little among individuals. Our models showed that the relationship between water temperature and the presence of female blacktip reef sharks was strongest at the aggregation site relative to other sites. These results suggest that reef shark movements are influenced by water temperature and provide additional support for the behavioural thermoregulation hypothesis. Such data are necessary for predicting how sharks might be affected by climate change and other human modifications to water temperature patterns.


Cross-selling is becoming an increasingly prevalent practice in call centers, due, in part, to its unique capability to allow firms to dynamically segment their callers and customize their product offerings accordingly. This paper considers a call center with cross-selling capability that serves a pool of customers that are differentiated in terms of their revenue potential and delay sensitivity. It studies the operational decisions of staffing, call routing, and cross-selling under various forms of customer segmentation. It derives near-optimal controls in each of the settings analyzed, and characterizes the impact of a more refined customer segmentation on the structure of these policies and the center's profitability.


Three dimensional (3D) imaging systems have been recently suggested for passive sensing and recognition of objects in photon-starved environments where only a few photons are emitted or reflected from the object. In this paradigm, it is important to make optimal use of limited information carried by photons. We present a statistical framework for 3D passive object recognition in presence of noise. Since in quantum-limited regime, detector dark noise is present, our approach takes into account the effect of noise on information bearing photons. The model is tested when background noise and dark noise sources are present for identifying a target in a 3D scene. It is shown that reliable object recognition is possible in photon-counting domain. The results suggest that with proper translation of physical characteristics of the imaging system into the information processing algorithms, photon-counting imagery can be used for object classification.


This MRP looks at the communication used in mental health campaigns for a post-secondary student audience, focusing on how language use and visual design choices impact the stigma associated with mental health. This MRP focuses specifically on the communications seen on Ryerson University's campus in the 2016 – 2017 academic school year. A video available on Ryerson's YouTube channel and a sample of posters available throughout campus were analyzed for language and visual design choices to determine how they fit within stigma management communication strategies and how those choices had the potential to influence perceived stigma in viewers."
Goffman's (1963) theory on stigma and an individual's identity was used to analyze the content of the video and posters. Goffman's theory outlines the various stages of stigma that an individual experiences, and the impact of each stage on how that individual chooses to interact with others. Miesenbach's (2010) model for stigma management communication, along with information from an expert interview with a front-line worker will also be used to analyze content in the video and posters. By understanding the communications around mental health through the lens of Goffman (1963) and Miesenbach (2010), it will be possible to understand how the communications are increasing or reducing the stigma around mental health. The analysis of the rhetoric in the
messages gives a hint as to how our culture reflects stigma in the messages created, and how this rhetoric may affect students in a culture. This research analyzes Ryerson's mental well-being campaign for the purpose of identifying a list of best practices for communicating about mental health. The findings show that one of the campaigns accomplishes this better than the other. Effective mental well-being campaigns are those that incorporate elements that normalize discussion of mental health topics, offer strategies for dealing with mental health concerns and overall, promote a culture that prioritizes mental well-being.


The radiation-use efficiency (RUE) is a parameter that represents a crop canopy's ability to convert intercepted solar energy to dry matter. The RUE is used in simulation models and can vary with crop type and environment. The objective was to examine the effects of varying row width and seeding rate on the amount of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation (IPAR) and the RUE in summer rape (Brassica napus L.). 'Westar' summer rape was seeded at rates of 1.5, 3.0, 6.0, and 12.0 kg ha -1 in rows spaced 15 or 30 cm apart. Plant sampling was done at key growth stages, and the leaf and pod areas and total plant dry weights were determined. After flowering, plants intercepted more PAR when grown in 15-cm-wide rows than 30-cm-wide rows. For both row widths, as seeding rate increased from 1.5 to 12.0 kg ha -1 , IPAR increased. The RUE was greater for plants grown in 15-cm-wide rows than for those grown in 30-cm rows ; however, RUE decreased with increasing seeding rate. The mean RUE value was 233 g MJ -1 PAR. When the pod area was added to the leaf area, the IPAR increased and the RUE decreased.


THE two Carlton House Terraces stand on the site of the gardens of Carlton House. Carlton House itself stood further north towards Pall Mall but it was Carlton House which determined the axis to east and west of which the new terraces were built. This happened in a somewhat roundabout way. The first Carlton House (taking its name from Henry Boyle who became Baron Carleton in 1714) was disposed of, in 1732, to Lord Chesterfield who held it in trust for Frederick, Prince of Wales. The Prince held his court there and died in 1751. His widow lived there and absorbed the house next door westwards. She died in 1772 and the house stood empty. At this time Carlton House was a large but rather shapeless building with a courtyard and entrances towards Pall Mall and a garden sloping down to St James's Park. Then, in 1783, another Prince of Wales—the future Prince Regent and George IV—took it over. He lost no time in instructing his private architect, Henry Holland, to improve the house out of recognition. The main result, so far as we are here concerned, was the creation of a symmetrical facade with a magnificent Corinthian portico and, on the same axis, a columnar screen with two arched entrances, towards Pall Mall.


The Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory (LCZO) is in the northeastern portion of Puerto Rico. This subtropical, humid and maritime region is one of the wettest in the Caribbean. One LCZO data set that has not been previously analyzed is ozone at the canopy level. Ozone generally has not been recorded or studied much in tropical regions of the world, but needs to be better understood since increasing numbers of people around the world will be living in the urban tropics. The data for this study has been collected since April 2008 from the Bisley Lower Tower, which also collects weather, climate and rainfall data. The purpose of this study is ultimately to understand the variations of canopy level ozone in this montane tropical rainforest. The study analyzed the ozone levels across time—hourly, monthly and seasonally. 8-hour averages were calculated to compare to US ozone standards. The ozone data was then combined with climate data to find correlations between ozone with temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, solar radiation and wind. From the results, overall the air quality of the Luquillo Mountains is good as compared to US ozone standards and to other forested or high elevation sites. The forest has plenty of VOCs, so the NOx are likely the limiting factor for ozone production, with climatic conditions also affecting the likelihood that ozone will form. Ozone varies temporally with sunlight, where it is highest at noon during each day and highest in the summer during each year. The highest ozone days did get over the US standards for ozone and occurred on hot, sunny dry days with relatively stagnant air. The air pollution that contributed the highest ozone days may not have come from one specific area, implying that pollution may be coming from many directions, which policies need to address. This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/mes_capstones/45 UNDERSTANDING TROPOSPHERIC OZONE IN A MONTANE TROPICAL RAINFOREST AN ANALYSIS OF OZONE LEVELS IN THE LUQUILLO MOUNTAINS OF PUERTO RICO


This memo defines an extension to the Network News Transport Protocol
(NNTP) to allow an NNTP client and server to use Transport Layer
Security (TLS). The primary goal is to provide encryption for single-
link confidentiality purposes, but data integrity, (optional)
certificate-based peer entity authentication, and (optional) data
compression are also possible.


This title is the first in a fantastic new range of science books, explaining biology in an informal, fun and informative way. Written in a conversational style, this book offers children an approachable source of information on key subjects such as the life cycle, the human body, plantlife, evolution and ecosystems. It is filled with up to date information straight from the headlines on such topical issues as stem cell research and the latest dinosaur discoveries. Complicated topics are kept fun with a variety of techniques including comic strips, fact boxes and 'nerdy notes' post -its with handy mnemonics written on them. Fun yet simple experiments give children working examples to learn from. This title is humorously illustrated by Adam Larkum.


We recorded vocalisations of wild Eulemur mongoz groups in Madagascar and the Comoros Islands, as well as from habituated captive groups housed in European and Madagascan zoos. Each vocalisation was quantitatively described by means of an acoustic analysis procedure implemented in Praat, and vocal types were distinguished both by ear and by the visual screening of spectrograms. Vocal signals were then associated with the context in which they were produced, to explore whether they occur only in specific behavioural contexts or are uttered in a range of situations. We found that mongoose lemurs possess highly context-specific aerial alarm calls and territorial calls, while the 'croui-croui' is usually emitted to communicate between individuals regrouping at sunset. The other calls we recorded, such as those including low-pitched pulse trains sometimes followed by harmonic elements, were not tightly associated with a particular context. Mongoose lemur utterances included calls produced with closed mouths and the involvement of nasal resonance, or with constant degrees of mouth opening or mandible 'articulation' during phonation. We observed 15 vocal types, nine of which were entered into a multivariate model that classified vocal types with a high degree of reliability. The second and third formants played an important role in discriminating among types of calls.


Objectives: The study was undertaken to investigate the effect of decreased oxygenation status in a patient of head injury and its outcome in terms of prognosis of patients with regards to neurological damage. The objective was to find out a co-relation between the SpO2 levels in a patient on admission and the severity of head injury. Methods: Prospective observational study was carried out after the approval of Institutional ethical committee. Patient with head injury coming to the emergency department of Pravara Rural hospital were assessed for the severity using Glasgow Coma scale (GCS) and hypoxic status by using pulse oximeter with bedside monitors. The SpO2 levels were monitored at 2hrs, 4hrs, 8hrs, 24hrs and 48hrs by pulse oximeter. At the time of discharge outcome was assessed again by Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and the treatment that followed it. Results & Conclusions: Oxygenation status of patient on admission affects the prognosis of the patient in terms of residual neurological deficit as assessed by the Glasgow Outcome scale. There is significant co-relation between the Oxygen saturation at the time of admission and the outcome at the time of discharge. Therefore the SpO2 values are significant in patients with head injury as a prognostic factor.


In this paper we question the one-sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under-recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals' internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self-reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.


"A Broken Flute" is a book of reviews that critically evaluate children's books about Native Americans written between the early 1900s and 2003, accompanied by stories, essays and poems from its contributors. The authors critique some 600 books by more than 500 authors, arranging titles A to Z and covering pre-school, K-12 levels, and evaluations of some adult and teacher materials. This book is a valuable resource for community and educational organizations, and a key reference for public and school libraries, and Native American collections.


Access to bioavailable nitrogen often limits primary production in marine and freshwater ecosystems. Around 70% of nitrogen transported by rivers worldwide consists of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), but its bioavailability has been poorly investigated. To assess the potential bacterial growth on DON, we developed a bioassay employing natural DON and bacterial inocula in medium manipulated to make N the limiting nutrient. We analyzed the bacterial utilization of the high‐molecular‐weight fraction of DON isolated by ultrafiltration from three wetlands in South Sweden throughout the year. The bioavailability of low‐molecular‐weight and bulk DON was also analyzed in one of the wetlands, where inorganic nitrogen concentration was sufficiently low and did not interfere with bioassays. The bioavailability of bulk DON in the latter wetland varied from 2% to 16%, suggesting that DON is an important nitrogen source for the biota of coastal waters. DON may be the dominant input of bioavailable nitrogen during summer, when nitrate concentrations in rivers decrease and DON bioavailability increases. Marine bacterioplankton assimilated a substantially larger fraction of DON than did freshwater bacterioplankton, on average by a factor of 2.4. This finding indicates that the susceptibility of DON to bacterial mineralization increases as it is transported from freshwaters into saline environments.


The central purpose of this work is to test the Sharpe-Lintner-Black Capital Asset Pricing Model in the Brazilian equity market. We have concluded that the CAPM is dead in the Brazilian equity market because, besides using the market premiums to explain the panel equity premiums, there are also some anomalies, such as, the firm size, the equity price-to-book value, the dividend yield, and the price-earnings ratio. Furthermore, by using the panel cointegration FMOLS (fully modified OLS) estimator, this paper corroborates the Fama & French three-factor model (1992, 1993). This work finds also two new three-factor models to explain the local market that satisfy the non-arbitrage condition. These results are important for the purpose of asset pricing and hedging in the Brazilian equity market.


The analysis of aerosol particles in Earth9s atmosphere is highly challenging, because the particle concentrations are low, the particles small, and their compositions highly complex. Yet knowledge of their properties is crucial for understanding how they influence climate and human health. In his Perspective,
 Murphy
 discusses recent advances in developing instruments that analyze these particles directly from the air. Such i?½on-linei?½ techniques have shed light on the complex chemical composition of the particles and have contributed to the recognition that organic compounds play a globally important role in atmospheric aerosols.


The resurrection of ancestral proteins provides direct insight into how natural selection has shaped proteins found in nature. By tracing substitutions along a gene phylogeny, ancestral proteins can be reconstructed in silico and subsequently synthesized in vitro. This elegant strategy reveals the complex mechanisms responsible for the evolution of protein functions and structures. However, to date, all protein resurrection studies have used simplistic approaches for ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR), including the assumption that a single sequence alignment alone is sufficient to accurately reconstruct the history of the gene family. The impact of such shortcuts on conclusions about ancestral functions has not been investigated. Here, we show with simulations that utilizing information on species history using a model that accounts for the duplication, horizontal transfer, and loss (DTL) of genes statistically increases ASR accuracy. This underscores the importance of the tree topology in the inference of putative ancestors. We validate our in silico predictions using in vitro resurrection of the LeuB enzyme for the ancestor of the Firmicutes, a major and ancient bacterial phylum. With this particular protein, our experimental results demonstrate that information on the species phylogeny results in a biochemically more realistic and kinetically more stable ancestral protein. Additional resurrection experiments with different proteins are necessary to statistically quantify the impact of using species tree-aware gene trees on ancestral protein phenotypes. Nonetheless, our results suggest the need for incorporating both sequence and DTL information in future studies of protein resurrections to accurately define the genotype–phenotype space in which proteins diversify.


Eucalyptus camaldulensis is one of the most widely planted eucalypts in the world. However, rich extractives in E. camaldulensis wood leads to serious defects such as amount of pulping wastewater, lower bonding strength, bad finishing effect, and the wood extractives is considered as the key negative factors. Therefore, the leaching characteristics of wood extractives was studied bymathematicalmodel according to fuzzy theory. Theresultsshowed thatthe kinetics of wood extractives were divided into three phases: the rapidly leaching stage, the slowly leaching stage, the equilibrium leaching stage. The reaction of wood extractives leaching from E. camaldulensis biomass could be considered as a first-order reaction. Theorder of reaction was 1.02, the activation energy ofreaction Ea=14549.86J/mol, and the pre-exponential factorA=20.48min-1.


This Agenda article first considers whether social psychology is in the best or worst of times and suggests that we are instead in extraordinary times, given exciting agendas and potential policy relevance, if we are careful. The article illustrates with two current research agendas-the hybrid vigor of multiple categories and the psychology of social class-that could inform policy. The essay then reflects on how we know when our work is indeed ready for the public arena. Regarding hybrids: World immigration, social media, and global businesses are increasing. How will this complicate people's stereotypes of each other? One agenda could build on the existing social and behavioral science of people as social hybrids, emerging with a framework to synthesize existing work and guide future research that better reflects our changing world. Policy implications already emerge from our current knowledge of hybrids. Regarding the social psychology of social class: We do not know enough yet to give advice, except to suggest questioning some common stereotypes, e.g., about the economic behavior of lower-income people. Before the budding social psychology of class can be ready for policy export, the research results need replication, validation, and generality. Overall, principles of exportable policy insights include peer-reviewed standards, honest brokering, nonpartisan advice, and respectful, trustworthy communication. Social psychology can take advantage of its extraordinary times to be innovative and useful.


Over the last years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an important component of business activities for many companies in the world. Much attention has been devoted considering also supply chain perspective. Multinational corporations are not only responsible for sound environmental and social practices within their own premises, but increasingly also for sustainable performance of their suppliers, and ultimately for the entire supply chain which they lead as channel leaders. That is why, large buyers have recently come under pressure to increase monitoring of  suppliers' behaviours to bolster CSR compliance. This paper aims to present  a conceptual framework for analyzing the Sustainable Procurement practices  in global supply chains. An important aspect of implementing such supply chain CSR initiatives involves achieving supplier compliance. It also seeks to demonstrate how a specific consortium of Large European Telecommunications Companies, implements and manages together CSR practices, integrating social and environmental aspects at its suppliers based in Asia. This cooperation is an opportunity for members to collectively work on issues of common concern to find industry-wide solutions, aimed at jointly  auditing suppliers in developing countries on sustainable sourcing. The information collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing CSR beyond the superficial and often ineffectual 'code of conduct' stage.


The patient-centered medical home has emerged as a promising solution to address the significant fragmentation, poor quality, and high costs that afflict the U.S. health care system. The medical home model includes core components of primary and patient-centered care, recent innovations in practice redesign and health information technology, and changes to the way practices and providers are paid. There are initiatives across the country testing the promise of the medical home model. However, to properly evaluate and compare results that will aid in the implementation of these and other initiatives, researchers need a standard set of core measures. This brief describes the process and recommendations of more than 75 researchers who came together to identify a core set of standardized measures to evaluate the patient-centered medical home. It focuses on two domains of medical home outcomes: cost/utilization and clinical quality.


Amplitude-squeezed light with intensity fluctuations 29% below the standard quantum limit (SQL) is produced from a pump-suppressed room-temperature semiconductor laser, corresponding to 41% below the SQL after correction for detection efficiency. Excess noise, which degrades the observed squeezing, appears to be associated with the presence of weak longitudinal side modes.


These items are selected and annotated by the ABS staff in a periodic search of new issues of 250 journals and reviews, including about 100 that are published outside the United States, and from announcements and review copies of books and fugitive materials recently published. Some items are boxed for emphasis. The question underlying the whole selection is: What might a professional person read to keep abreast of the development of method and content in the various areas of the study of man.


In this paper few high speed (i.e. as high as 80 GB/s) all-optical logic gates has been studied. These logic gates include a ( 80Gb/s XOR ) gate using semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) based Mach-Zehnder interferometer incorporated with a delayed interferometer (DI), The performance of XOR operation has been investigated using numerical simulations. The quality of the XOR result is improved using a (DI) delayed interferometer after the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. . A (80Gb/s XNOR) gate using four wave mixing (FWM) in highly nonlinear fibers (HNLF) have been studied also, the four wave mixing process is a very fast process in fibers ,the nonlinear Schrodinger equation that describes (FWM) process in fiber is solved numerically using the split-step Fourier transform method ,this scheme is capable of operating at a data rate as high as 250Gb/s ,finally A(40Gb/s) NOR gate operation has been analyzed by a numerical solution of the SOA rate equations. To investigate the quality of NOR operation by simulation, Q factor of the NOR output signal has been calculated. Q factor gives the information of the optical signal to noise ratio in digital transmission .All numerical simulation programs performed through Matt-Lab 7.0 prgram.


Summary
To obtain information on the prevalence of histoplasmin sensitivity in Indonesia and its relation to radiographic evidence of pulmonary calcifications, a preliminary survey including simultaneous skin-testing with histoplasmin and tuberculin and X-ray examination of the chest was carried out in Djakarta Java in 1953–54. The study population comprised a total of 2,542 persons—795 university students, 267 patients in a general hospital, 458 nurses and 1022 schoolchildren.
The survey results indicate that skin sensitivity to histoplasmin is at least moderately prevalent in Indonesia; 2.7 per cent in the school-age group and from 9 to 12 per cent in the adult groups had sizable reactions to histoplasmin (6 mm. or more of induration). In all four groups the percentage was somewhat higher for the males than for the females. Among the nurses and the students those coming from West Sumatra had the highest percentage of positive histoplasmin reactions and those coming from North Java the lowest; the difference, however, was not very marked. The simultaneous tuberculin test was negative in about one-third of the histoplasmin reactors.
Out of a total of 2,311 persons X-rayed, only 25 or 1.1 per cent had pulmonary calcifications. For the adult groups the corresponding percentage was 1.5. Almost all of the calcifications were found in persons positive to tuberculin, yet the proportion of calcifications was higher among those positive to both tuberculin and histoplasmin than among those positive to tuberculin only. This suggests that histoplasmosis as well as tuberculosis is a cause of pulmonary calcification in Indonesia.


This thesis is divided into three main parts. The contribution of the first part is to present a controller synthesis method to stabilize piecewise-affine (PWA) slab systems based on invariant sets. Inspired by the theory of sliding modes, sufficient stabilization
conditions are cast as a set of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) by proper choice of an invariant set which is a target sliding surface. The method has two steps: the design of the attractive sliding surface and the design of the controller parameters. While previous approaches
to PWA controller synthesis are cast as Bilinear Matrix Inequalities (BMIs) that can, in some cases, be relaxed to LMIs at the cost of adding conservatism, the proposed
method leads naturally to a convex formulation. Furthermore, the LMIs obtained in this work have lower dimension when compared to other methods because the dimension of
the closed-loop state space is reduced.

In the second part of the thesis, it is further shown that the proposed approach is less conservative than other approaches. In other words, it will be shown that for every solution of the LMIs resulting from previous approaches, there exists a solution for the LMIs obtained from the proposed method. Furthermore, it will be shown that while previous convex controller synthesis methods have no solutions to their LMIs for some examples of PWA systems, the approach proposed in this thesis yields a solution for these examples.

The contribution of the last part of this thesis is to formulate the PWA time-delay synthesis problem as a set of LMIs. In order to do so, we first define a sliding surface, then control laws are designed to approach the specified sliding surface and ensure that the trajectories will remain on that surface. Then, using Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals, sufficient conditions for exponential stability of the resulting reduced order system will be obtained.

Several applications such as pitch damping of a helicopter (2nd order system), rover path following example (3rd order system) and active flutter suppression (4th order system)
along with some other numerical examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approaches.


This paper provides an overview of software interoperability as it relates to the energy simulation of buildings. The paper begins with a discussion of the difficulties in using sophisticated analysis tools like energy simulation at various stages in the building life cycle, and the potential for interoperability to help overcome these difficulties. An overview of the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), a common data model for supporting interoperability under continuing development by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) is then given. The process of creating interoperable software is described next, followed by specific details for energy simulation tools. The paper closes with the current status of, and future plans for, the ongoing efforts to achieve software interoperability.


Individual differences in cognitive performance are partly dependent, on genetic polymporhisms. One of the single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of the CNR1 gene, which codes for cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R), is the rs2180619, located in a regulatory region of this gene (6q14–q15). The alleles of the rs2180619 are A > G; the G allele has been associated with addiction and high levels of anxiety (when the G allele interacts with the SS genotype of the 5‐HTTLPR gene). However, GG genotype is observed also in healthy subjects. Considering G allele as risk for 'psychopathological conditions', it is possible that GG healthy subjects do not be addicted or anxious, but would have reduced performance, compared to AA subjects, in attentional control and working memory processing. One hundred and sixty‐four healthy young Mexican‐Mestizo subjects (100 women and 64, men; mean age: 22.86 years, SD=2.72) participated in this study, solving a task where attentional control and working memory were required. GG subjects, compared to AA subjects showed: (1) a general lower performance in the task (P = 0.02); (2) lower performance only when a high load of information was held in working memory (P = 0.02); and (3) a higher vulnerability to distractors (P = 0.03). Our results suggest that, although the performance of GG subjects was at normal levels, a lower efficiency of the endocannabinoid system, probably due to a lowered expression of CB1R, produced a reduction in the performance of these subjects when attentional control and working memory processing is challenged.


Lipid infusion and high fat feeding are established causes of systemic and adipose tissue insulin resistance. In this study, we treated 3T3-L1 adipocytes with a mixture of free fatty acids (FFAs) to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying fat-induced insulin resistance. FFA treatment impaired insulin receptor-mediated signal transduction and decreased insulin-stimulated GLUT4 translocation and glucose transport. FFAs activated the stress/inflammatory kinases c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and IKKβ, and the suppressor of cytokine signaling protein 3, increased secretion of the inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and decreased secretion of adiponectin into the medium. RNA interference-mediated down-regulation of JNK blocked JNK activation and prevented most of the FFA-induced defects in insulin action. Blockade of TNF-α signaling with neutralizing antibodies to TNF-α or its receptors or with a dominant negative TNF-α peptide had a partial effect to inhibit FFA-induced cellular insulin resistance. We found that JNK activation by FFAs was not inhibited by blocking TNF-α signaling, whereas the FFA-induced increase in TNF-α secretion was inhibited by RNA interference-mediated JNK knockdown. Together, these results indicate that 1) JNK can be activated by FFAs through TNF-α-independent mechanisms, 2) activated JNK is a major contributor to FFA-induced cellular insulin resistance, and 3) TNF-α is an autocrine/paracrine downstream effector of activated JNK that can also mediate insulin resistance.


Previously we examined the health care system reform proposals of the major candidates in the 2008 Presidential Primaries (Flint & Gorin, 2008). Whatever the outcome of the 2008 election, pressure for reform is not likely to dissipate. In this article we assess the current climate for and possibility of reform. We also identify and discuss four current approaches--conservative reform, a single-payer system; private--public models; and state reform. BACKGROUND Readers of this journal are well aware of the problems facing our health care system, particularly in the areas of access and cost. More than 47 million Americans are completely uninsured, and the number of underinsured people (that is, individuals with inadequate coverage) has reached 25 million, having grown 60 percent between 2003 and 2007 (Schoen, Collins, & Kriss, & Doty, 2008). According to the Urban Institute, 22,000 adults (ages 25 to 64) a year die because of a lack of health insurance (Dorn, 2008). Although health care inflation has slowed in recent years, this modest respite is likely temporary (Ginsburg, 2008). Despite the recent moderation in medical care inflation, nearly a fifth of the population went without or delayed receiving "needed" care (Cunningham & Felland, 2008). Although problems with access were particularly intense for individuals without coverage and those in poorer health, "insured people also faced large increases in unmet need" (Cunningham & Felland, 2008, p. 1). The central reason cited for problems with access was concern about cost. Health care costs are spreading beyond impeded access to care. The Government Accountability Office recently warned that health care inflation poses a serious threat to the long-term fiscal stability of the nation ("Long-Term Fiscal Outlook," 2008). Given these circumstances, the pressure for health reform is not likely to dissipate any time soon. Prospects for Reform Prognosticating is fraught with risk, particularly because at the time of this writing we do not know which party will win the White House or control the Congress. Nonetheless, on the basis of the information we have, this is our best estimate of the current climate and prospects for reform. Wyden and Bennett (2008) argued that we have entered a period during which it may be possible to "break 60 years of gridlock" and enact meaningful health care reform. They point to bipartisan support for Senate Bill 334, the Healthy Americans Act (2007), which guarantees universal coverage though "market-driven health care choices like those that members of Congress have today" (Wyden & Bennett, 2008, p. 690). They cite "an ideological truce" between Republicans and Democrats, and recognition by business and labor groups that they must work together to modernize our employer-based system to "meet the needs of both workers and employers" (Wyden & Bennett, 2008, p. 690). Democratic pollsters assert that "fundamental" reform may be possible, but warn that "the opportunity could easily dissipate" (Lake, Crittenden, & Mermin, 2008).Voters believe that health care should be a right and recognize reform as an investment in the future. They also want the security and "peace of mind" universal coverage would bring. Despite this, opponents will actively work "to sow confusion, doubt, and fear about major change" (Lake et al., 2008, p. 698). Immigration is a particular "wild card." Opponents of reform are likely to attack any universal proposal as benefiting "illegal immigrants," a charge that is "potentially a greater liability than any of the usual attacks on taxes, government control, and so on" (Lake et al., 2008, p. 697). Although reform is a "real possibility," advocates cannot take it for granted but must work "strategically as well as passionately for the changes they seek" (Lake et al., 2008, p. 698). McInturff and Weigel (2008), prominent Republican pollsters, argue that the situation we face today is similar to that in the early 1990s. …


The article deals with a discussion of the concept and implementation of the procedure within a reasonable time as a legal principle. The main purpose of the article is to reveal the content and functioning of this principle. The author presents new insights into this principle. From time to time this legal ground evolves into new forms or the criteria, on which it depends, changes; therefore, such issues have to be taken as the basis for evaluating this principle. The following conclusion is drawn in the article: the effect of the principle of the procedure within a reasonable time is not only tied to the obvious suspicion or indictment, but also to any reasonable assumption about the probable prosecution due to various actions carried out by criminal procedure officers under the Code of Criminal Procedure. After summing up the arguments, the author concludes that it is important to estimate the procedural interest of the suspect, defendant or sentenced person.


Introduction: Acute Toxoplasmosis is more critical in immunocompromised patients with cancer. The present study was conducted to investigate the anti-Toxoplasma gondi antibodies and assess the toxoplasmosis risk in women with breast masses in western of Iran in 2012. This research was done as a case-control study on women who referred to the treatment centers in cities of Kermanshah and Ilam in 2011. Materials and methods: 60 women with breast cancer were selected as cases, and also 60 healthy ones as the control group. They were evaluated in terms of IgG, IgM, estrogen and progesterone levels using immunoassay method. Women in this study were in the secretory phase and were under the age of menopause. Results were analyzed using SPSS software 16 with independent T test. Results: Relationship between Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection and breast cancer was statistically significant (P<0.01). There was a significant relationship between anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibody and breast cancer (P=0.01). Women with breast cancer and healthy women were not reported positive in terms of IgM anti-Toxoplasma. Significant relationship was detected between estrogen and Toxoplasma in women with breast cancer (P<0.01). There was no significant relationship between the level of progesterone and anti-Toxoplasma antibodies. A total of 30 patients (50%) from the women under study had the tumor marker CEA 19-9 (Carcino embryonic antigen). Conclusion: Patients with breast tumors may be at risk of opportunistic infections such as toxoplasmosis. Therefore, periodic examination of breast cancer patients should be conducted by clinicians to prevent the potential occurrence of toxoplasmosis.


China has emerged as sub-Saharan Africa's largest development financier over the past two decades. While commentators have observed novel, sui generis transactional structures in China's financing arrangements, legal analysis of those contractual forms and their relationships to incumbent international economic governance regimes remains scant. This note addresses those scholarly lacunae, taking as its case study the 2008 Sicomines Agreement—a multi-billion USD investment financing agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and various Chinese corporate entities that merges infrastructure investment with a mineral extraction joint-venture project. It demonstrates that the Sicomines Agreement selectively draws on and integrates pre-existing modes of sovereign development finance, but in ways that subvert the extant legal and customary frameworks those modes have depended on. Legal issues arising under the Sicomines Agreement fall under two analytical categories: (1) areas of the Sicomines Agreement that the extant, "rules-based" framework governing sovereign development finance adequately captures; and (2) elements of the transaction that subvert that framework, confounding existing rules. This note concludes by considering what broader implications Chinese-origin development finance may have on the legal regimes and institutions governing the international financial system as a whole.


Cliff-top dunes are a locally important geomorphic features of sedimentary coasts. They are traditionally interpreted as being sourced by (or with) sand derived from the beach below the cliff. This paper presents the results of a stratigraphic and geochronological study of Carlo Sand Blow, a coastal blowout that has developed on top of a high sandy cliff in the Cooloola Sand Mass, south-east Queensland. We use a combination of sedimentological, pedological and geophysical techniques along with optically stimulated luminescence dating to determine the depositional history and evolution of the blowout. We demonstrate that the blowout is dominantly nourished by sand eroded from its floor rather than the adjacent beach. The original dune surface dates to the first half of the last glacial period (c. 40–70 ka) and this dune was deflated in the late-Holocene. Dune activity is directly associated with cliff undercutting because of coastal retreat in the late-Holocene, but coastal erosion on its own is not capable of maintaining aeolian activity. Blowout activity occurred between 2.6 and 2.3 ka and again at 0.3 ka with aeolian sand burying palaeosols. Both soil surfaces contained charcoal and tree stumps in growth position and our study suggests that fire is the immediate trigger for blowout reactivation. It is likely that these fires were anthropogenic in origin, because the site is somewhat protected from natural fire and the ages coincide with intensification of human use of coastal sites in the area.


Abstract. Diatoms are generally the dominant contributors to the Arctic Ocean spring
bloom, which is a key event in regional food webs in terms of capacity for
secondary production and organic matter export. Dissolved silicic acid is an
obligate nutrient for diatoms and has been declining in the European Arctic
since the early 1990s. The lack of regional silicon cycling information
precludes understanding the consequences of such changes for diatom
productivity during the Arctic spring bloom. This study communicates the
results from a cruise in the European Arctic around Svalbard, which reports the
first concurrent data on biogenic silica production and export, export of
diatom cells, the degree of kinetic limitation by ambient silicic acid, and
diatom contribution to primary production. Regional biogenic silica
production rates were significantly lower than those achievable in the
Southern Ocean and silicic acid concentration limited the biogenic silica
production rate in 95 % of samples. Compared to diatoms in the Atlantic
subtropical gyre, regional diatoms are less adapted for silicic acid uptake
at low concentration, and at some stations during the present study, silicon
kinetic limitation may have been intense enough to limit diatom growth. Thus,
silicic acid can play a critical role in diatom spring bloom dynamics. The
diatom contribution to primary production was variable, ranging from
<10 % to ∼100 % depending on the bloom stage and
phytoplankton composition. While there was agreement with previous studies
regarding the export rate of diatom cells, we observed significantly elevated
biogenic silica export. Such a discrepancy can be resolved if a higher
fraction of the diatom material exported during our study was modified by
zooplankton grazers. This study provides the most direct evidence to date
suggesting the important coupling of the silicon and carbon cycles during the
spring bloom in the European Arctic.


Two alternative synthetic approaches affording a low-symmetry A3B-type phthalocyanine 1 bearing two [2'-(2''-mercaptoethoxy)ethoxy] anchoring substituents were developed. Due to the presence of thiol groups, this phthalocyanine could be conjugated with TOPO-capped (TOPO - trioctylphosphine)-capped CdSe quantum dots (CdSe-QDs) or oleylamine capped silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs). The nonlinear optical behaviour of starting phthalocyanine, quantum dots, nanoparticles and their conjugates was studied by using an open aperture Z-scan technique, revealing that the grafting of 1 onto the nanomaterials resulted in a significant enhancement of the optical limiting of 1-Ag and 1-CdSe in comparison with the individual components. The conjugate 1-CdSe, being the first example of Pc-based thiol conjugated with quantum dots, revealed superior limiting characteristics with a limiting threshold below 0.18 J cm-2.


With the huge global and wide range of attention placed upon quality, promoting and optimize the reliability of the products during the design process has turned out to be a high priority. In this study, the researcher have adopted one of the existing models in the reliability science and propose a bi-objective model for redundancy allocation in the series-parallel systems in accordance with the redundancy policygiven that failure rate depends on the number of the active elements. The objective behind the proposed model is to maximize the reliability and to minimize the total cost of the system. Internal connection cost, which is the most common parameter in electronic systems, put in this model in order to simulate the real-world conditions. As the proposed model is an NP-Hard one(for getting results), the researcher adopted a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA II) after optimizing its operators rate by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM).


This paper calculates implied recovery rates and implied default probabilities in a risk neutral setting for Argentine US-Dollar Eurobonds during the Argentine crisis from 2000 to 2002. In a model which is related to Jarrow (1995), the hazard rate is modelled as risk neutral probability using the Gumbel probability distribution. The results show that implied probabilities roughly take five levels, allowing to cut the time frame analyzed into five periods. The jumps between the levels are associated with rating cuts in most cases. In 2000, the estimated location parameter of the Gumbel distribution makes a default event appear most probable after four to five years. Estimated recovery ratios range from above 50% in the beginning to an average of 25% in the end


Virtual reality (VR) can be used in the treatment of gambling disorder to provide emotionally charged contexts (e.g., induce cravings) where patients can practice cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) techniques in the safety of the therapist's office. This raises practical questions, such as whether the cravings are sufficient to be clinically useful but also manageable enough to remain clinically safe. Pilot data are also needed to test the development of a treatment manual and prepare large randomized control trials. This paper reports on three studies describing (a) cravings induced in VR compared to real gambling and a control game of skill with no money involved (N = 28 frequent gamblers and 36 infrequent gamblers); (b) the usefulness of a treatment protocol with only two CBT sessions using VR (N = 34 pathological gamblers); and (c) the safety of a four-session treatment program of CBT in VR (N = 25 pathological gamblers). Study 1 reveals that immersions in VR can elicit desire and a positive anticipation to gamble in frequent gamblers that are (a) significantly stronger than for infrequent gamblers and for playing a control game of skill and (b) as strong as for gambling on a real video lottery terminal. Study 2 documents the feasibility of integrating VR in CBT, its usefulness in identifying more high-risk situations and dysfunctional thoughts, how inducing cravings during relapse prevention exercises significantly relates to treatment outcome, and the safety of the procedure in terms of cybersickness. Results from Study 3 confirm that, compared to inducing urges to gamble in imagination, using VR does not lead to urges that are stronger, last longer, or feel more out of control. Outcome data and effect sizes are reported for both randomized control pilot trials conducted in inpatient settings. Suggestions for future research are provided, including on increasing the number of VR sessions in the treatment program.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) has a devastating impact on aged people worldwide. Although sophisticated and advanced molecular methods have been developed for its diagnosis since early phases, pharmacological treatment still represents an unresolved topic. The more the disease progresses, the more the uneffectiveness of antidementia drugs emerges. New and encouraging results from experimental works indicate that glutamate pathway may play a substantial role in the pathogenesis since early stages of the disease. Several experimental data together with the clinical use of the uncompetitive N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) antagonist memantine strengthen this idea. Unfortunately, definitive data on the glutamatergic transmission involvement in AD are still incomplete. Moreover, clinical results indicate only temporarily limited effects of memantine. Currently, memantine is indicated for moderate‐to‐severe cases of AD, an indication that may limit its efficacy and impact on Alzheimer's dementia. The association of memantine with the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor drugs used to treat dementia symptoms appears to be beneficial, in both experimental and clinical studies. Because cholinergic and glutamatergic dysfunction occurs early in AD, the coadministration of appropriate treatment in early stages of the disease might represent a valid option from the beginning of cognitive decline. Moreover, to better evaluate drug efficacy, the association of the recently introduced biomarkers with a clinical AD profile should be considered an aim to pursue.


Recently, hashing based approximate nearest neighbors search has attracted much attention. Extensive centralized hashing algorithms have been proposed and achieved promising performance. However, due to the large scale of many applications, the data is often stored or even collected in a distributed manner. Learning hash functions by aggregating all the data into a fusion center is infeasible because of the prohibitively expensive communication and computation overhead. In this paper, we develop a novel hashing model to learn hash functions in a distributed setting. We cast a centralized hashing model as a set of subproblems with consensus constraints. We find these subproblems can be analytically solved in parallel on the distributed compute nodes. Since no training data is transmitted across the nodes in the learning process, the communication cost of our model is independent to the data size. Extensive experiments on several large scale datasets containing up to 100 million samples demonstrate the efficacy of our method.


To understand the uptake into the body of bioactive "healthy" molecules from fruits and vegetables it is necessary to know where they are located within the original plant structures and what path they take as the plant is processed before consumption. This means not only the location but also the physical state of the molecule, e.g., crystalline or solvated, as this affects uptake. This study demonstrates how confocal Raman microspectroscopy can be used to follow changes in the physical state of carotenoids in tomatoes. We show how the three main carotenoids found in tomatoes, lycopene, β-carotene, and lutein, are distinguished from each other and how their physical state can be determined. We then show how this information can be used in situ within tomato fruit organelles, in three different tomato varieties, to locate the different carotenoids and determine their physical status. The effect of processing on carotenoids in tomatoes is also shown. This type of information can be of great benefit in availability trials to help rationalize results and define the state in which foods should be presented to the body to maximize uptake.


It is common to hear Māori discuss primordial states of Being, yet in colonisation those very central beliefs are forced into weaker utterances. In this process those utterances merely conform to a colonised agenda. 'Mātauranga', a tidy term that overwhelmingly refers to an epistemological knowing of the world, colludes nicely with its English equivalent, 'knowledge', to further colonise those core contemplations of Being. Its plausibility relies on an orderly regard of things in the world. In education, historical and current practices of schooling pave the way for things in the world so that they amount to mātauranga for Māori, and even the term 'ako' will conspire in its own way. Both Novalis and Heidegger have the ability to identify subtly colonising philosophies, and may even propose some theoretical solutions for Māori.


From the Publisher:

With this edition of Special Edition Using Office XP there is a continual emphasis on realistic applications and uses of the program features. While there are many other big books in the Office market today, there are few that tailor coverage uniquely for the intermediate to advanced Office user as Special Edition Using does, delivering more focused value for the customer. It has been updated to reflect Office XP's Smart tags, collaboration features, speech and dictation tools, built-in recovery features, "add network place" wizard and much more


Based on the systematic review, periodic Doppler assessment is essential in IUGR. However, there is no novel method to detect the various anomalies of IUGR. Therefore there is a need to conduct further reviews on non-invasive Doppler study for identifying all the methods. Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) caused by various etiologies results in an increased risk of perinatal mortality and morbidity. This paper systematically reviews the various methodologies adopted in predicting growth restriction and its fetal outcome. A systematic search of articles (PubMed, Scopus, Google scholar, CINAHL and Web of Science) was undertaken for English language articles which were published between 1st June 1986 and 31st December 2013. Total 2049 articles related to the topic was searched and finally, 11 articles are selected. A total of eleven articles are included in the review. The Doppler study included were an umbilical artery, middle cerebral rtery, aortic isthmus, descending thoracic artery and ductus venous flow. Pulsatility index (PI),resistivity index (RI) and S/D ratio are studied by various authors. The Doppler flow predicts the adverse effect of the fetal outcome in IUGR and non- IUGR group. A review highlighted that periodic Doppler assessment in IUGR has the effective tool in assessing the hemodynamic state of the fetus and abnormal patterns that predict the adverse perinatal outcome. This engages the IUGR subjects in close monitoring and helps in minimising perinatal complications.


In 2002 to 2003, an evaluation of the ClubSafe responsible gambling program, implemented by clubs in New South Wales, Australia, was conducted (Hing, 2003). The study surveyed members from ten large Sydney clubs to assess their level of awareness of their clubs' responsible gambling measures, how adequate they considered these measures to be, and whether these measures had changed their gambling behaviour in terms of frequency, expenditure and gambling session length. Comparisons were drawn between "problem" and "recreational" gamblers. This paper draws on that study to reflect on some implications of its findings for clubs in New Zealand. This is pertinent, given that Clubs New Zealand have recently licensed the ClubSafe program from Clubs NSW for implementation in New Zealand clubs. However, there are many differences between the clubs in these two jurisdictions. These include size of gaming machine installations, staff and management training and education, membership numbers, and patronage by visitors. Additionally, differences exist between the two in the legislative requirements for responsible conduct of gambling, the competitive environments they face and certain characteristics of their respective markets. This paper discusses how these factors may pose opportunities and challenges for the effective implementation of ClubSafe in New Zealand.


In the Mediterranean Sea, dense populations of the gorgonian Paramuricea clavata shape marine animal forests, characterizing the seascapes of coralligenous habitats. Despite concerns for its health, with several anthropogenic threats and recent mass mortality events, mainly triggered by thermal anomalies, the understorey of its forests and the ecological processes that they promote are still little known. Here, the abundance and composition of epibenthic assemblages inside and outside P. clavata forests were investigated across the central and western Mediterranean Sea, by applying a multifactorial sampling design. In spite of the large variability in the structures of epibenthic assemblages at local and regional scales, the gorgonian understoreys share some common features, such as higher abundances of calcareous builder organisms and reduced invasion by the non‐indigenous alga Caulerpa cylindracea, compared with the adjacent unforested rocky bottoms. Paramuricea clavata showed non‐linear density‐dependent relationships with algal turfs and non‐encrusting algae belonging to the genus Peyssonnelia. Moreover, by entrapping benthic mucilaginous aggregates with their branches, these gorgonians risk topical necrotic lesions, but may reduce the suffocation risks for understorey organisms. Overall, P. clavata forests may enhance bioconstruction processes and increase resistance and resilience of the benthic assemblages in the Mediterranean coralligenous habitats. This species and its forests, together with their understoreys, should be considered as essential elements of the ecology of the Mediterranean Sea, and therefore worthy of specific and effective protection measures. Conservation strategies should reduce the risk of mechanical damage by regulating fishing activities, anchorages, and scuba diving where gorgonian forests are present. Moreover, when evident alterations are documented, restoration actions should be implemented to recover the integrity of gorgonian forests.


Estimating the early parent–child bonding relationship can be valuable in research and practice. Retrospective dimensional measures of parental bonding provide a means for assessing the experience of the early parent–child relationship. However, combinations of dimensional scores may provide information that is not readily captured with a dimensional approach. This study was designed to assess the presence of homogeneous groups in the population with similar profiles on parental bonding dimensions. Using a short version of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), three parental bonding dimensions (care, authoritarianism, and overprotection) were used to assess the presence of unobserved groups in the population using latent profile analysis. The class solutions were regressed on 23 covariates (demographics, parental psychopathology, loss events, and childhood contextual factors) to assess the validity of the class solution. The results indicated four distinct profiles of parental bonding for fathers as well as mothers. Parental bonding profiles were significantly associated with a broad range of covariates. This person-centered approach to parental bonding has broad utility in future research which takes into account the effect of parent–child bonding, especially with regard to "affectionless control" style parenting.


Aerial surveys are an efficient technique for counting animals over large geographic areas such as rangelands. In southwestern rangelands, aerial surveys are routinely conducted for ungulates, with the implicit understanding that abundance estimates represent an undercount. Distance sampling can correct for visibility bias, but assumes perfect detection on the survey line, a condition often violated in aerial surveys of ungulates. The incorporation of mark‐resight methods into the distance‐sampling framework, termed mark‐ recapture distance sampling (MRDS), corrects for both visibility bias and imperfect detection on the survey line. However, the use of MRDS introduces logistical and technical constraints that may not be practical for aerial surveys. We conducted aerial surveys of ungulates on rangelands in south Texas, USA, to evaluate the feasibility and performance of MRDS relative to conventional distance sampling (CDS) and multiple covariate distance sampling (MCDS). We conducted surveys prior to and after leaf‐fall in 2013–2015 to test the hypothesis that distance sampling corrected for changes in visibility bias. We surveyed white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), collared peccary (Pecari tajacu), and feral swine (Sus scrofa) on 4 sites. Each site was surveyed seasonally for 2 years; twice both prior to (Nov) and after leaf‐fall (Feb). Probability of detection on survey lines for each species was high (range= 0.82–0.97) and the average for each species was similar between seasons (0.89 and 0.92 during pre and post leaf‐fall, respectively). The MRDS density estimates often were only ~10% greater than CDS and MCDS estimates; all population estimates had overlapping 95% confidence intervals. Further, CDS and MCDS estimates were similar indicating that measured covariates (seat position, vegetation type, and cluster size) contributed little towards detection probabilities. Despite similar average probability of detection for all species before and after leaf‐fall (0.47 and 0.51, respectively), deer and nilgai population estimates were 22–59% lower during fall surveys than winter surveys. The discrepancy between consistent probability of detections with different population estimates suggests that availability bias, which cannot be addressed with distance sampling, was an issue. Overall, the MRDS technique addressed imperfect detection on the survey line and generated probabilities of detection in the survey area consistent with previous studies done in Texas. However, the extra costs (~US$13,000) and logistical hurdles to preserve observer independence for a small increase in precision of population estimates may not be justifiable. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.


Sample selection approaches are popular in robust learning from noisy labels. However, how to properly control the selection process so that deep networks can benefit from the memorization effect is a hard problem. In this paper, motivated by the success of automated machine learning (AutoML), we model this issue as a function approximation problem. Specifically, we design a domain-specific search space based on general patterns of the memorization effect and propose a novel Newton algorithm to solve the bi-level optimization problem efficiently. We further provide theoretical analysis of the algorithm, which ensures a good approximation to critical points. Experiments are performed on benchmark data sets. Results demonstrate that the proposed method is much better than the state-of-the-art noisy-label-learning approaches, and also much more efficient than existing AutoML algorithms.