Infectious diseases are notorious for their complex dynamics, which make it difficult to fit models to test hypotheses. Methods based on state-space reconstruction have been proposed to infer causal interactions in noisy, nonlinear dynamical systems. These "model-free" methods are collectively known as convergent cross-mapping (CCM). Although CCM has theoretical support, natural systems routinely violate its assumptions. To identify the practical limits of causal inference under CCM, we simulated the dynamics of two pathogen strains with varying interaction strengths. The original method of CCM is extremely sensitive to periodic fluctuations, inferring interactions between independent strains that oscillate with similar frequencies. This sensitivity vanishes with alternative criteria for inferring causality. However, CCM remains sensitive to high levels of process noise and changes to the deterministic attractor. This sensitivity is problematic because it remains challenging to gauge noise and dynamical changes in natural systems, including the quality of reconstructed attractors that underlie cross-mapping. We illustrate these challenges by analyzing time series of reportable childhood infections in New York City and Chicago during the pre-vaccine era. We comment on the statistical and conceptual challenges that currently limit the use of state-space reconstruction in causal inference.


For critics of the Disney Corporation, the World Wide Web is a convenient medium for providing information and expressing concern. The majority of anti–Disney Web sites are run by either Christian or labour rights organisations as utilitarian adjuncts to offline campaigns. In contrast are a number of idiosyncratic individual anti–Disney sites that provide links to criticism from a variety of perspectives. The Web appears to facilitate this type of cross–issue critique. On the other hand, some forms of opposition to Disney, such as by employees and corporate competitors, are largely absent from the Web. Assessing challenges to a corporation by examining Web sites is likely to give a partial picture.


Mathematical models such as sets of equations are used in engineering to analyze the behaviour of physical systems. The conventional notations in formulating engineering models do not always provide the details required in fully comprehending those equations and, therefore, artefacts like ontologies, which are the building blocks of knowledge representation models, are used to fulfil this gap. Since ontologies are the outcome of an inter-subjective agreement among a group of individuals about the same fragment of the objective world, their development and use are questions in debate with regard to their competencies and limitations to univocally conceptualize a domain of interest. A network of semantics is defined as a directed graph, consisting of vertices representing heterogeneous ontologies and edges representing alignments among them. Both its components are carriers of meaning and they undergo changes in order to be adapted to different contexts of applications. This paper aims at, firstly, defining changes occurring in networks of aligned ontologies, a difficult task, since one has to take into account that making changes based on isolated components, while ignoring the semantic interrelations among them, may result in non logical continuity, or inconsistency of the underlying semantic model and, secondly, proposing a category theoretic framework in order to overcome the obstacles emerging from the changes occurring in networks of semantics, by introducing an enriched category that can capture the overall structure of a network of aligned ontologies.


This thesis explores the relationship between development representations and diaspora audiences. It brings together literature on representations, with concepts of audience, diaspora and identity to provide an in-depth study of how and with what effects, visual representations of development in NGO fundraising campaigning that depict Africa, impact on Nigerian diaspora audiences. This study challenges the tendency in much of development literature in this field to homogenise British audiences of NGO communication. This has imagined audiences as some form of monocultural Western-situated community, coextensive with the ?general? British public. It further assumes audiences read, interpret and are impacted by NGO representations in very similar ways. This assumption precludes critical engagement with the complexities and particularities of audiences and is unable to reflect the multiple and differentiated ways in which audiences think, feel and behave in response to development representations.
By using focus group discussions with UK Nigerian diaspora audiences, one-to-one interviews and online-ethnography as the methodological tool, and postcolonialism as an analytical framing, this thesis reveals the complex and contested ways that individual diaspora subjectivities, positionalities and life experiences are implicated in their construal of development representations and the perspicuity of their impact.
One of the key findings of this study is that development representations impact African diaspora audiences in diverse and complicated ways, that both reproduce and contradict negative and, stereotypical ?ways of seeing? and knowing Africa. Furthermore, it highlights how diaspora ethno-racial/cultural identities affect, and are implicated in, the reading and interpretation of development representations of Africa. Indeed, diaspora audiences affirm and challenge their connections or, lack thereof, with their country of origin through these representations. Moreover, the study shows how NGO development representations provide symbolic spaces from which diaspora audiences can articulate their identities as well as, forge relationships among themselves and with their wider communities.
This study builds on Stuart Hall?s ([1973]1980) Encoding/Decoding theorisation on audiences, by demonstrating that Nigerian diaspora audiences of development representations are sophisticated, varied and paradoxical in how they interpret and decipher media representations. Indeed, their socio-cultural positioning, personal histories and lived-experiences inform and shape how they discursively construct perceptions and knowledge of their place of origin through representations. Furthermore, it contributes to postcolonial theorisations of hybridity in diaspora identities, by showing that Nigerians strategically adopt new and preferential ethnosymbolic identities, in response to representations. These re-configurations of the Diaspora ?Self? are neither stable or consistent but are nonetheless utilised by Nigerians to subvert development representations and harmful public perceptions and stereotypes about Africans that they shape.
University of Manchester
Edward Adedamola Adeleke Ademolu, 2018
Submitted for the degree PhD


OBJECTIVES
The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of renal disease among workers with silicosis.

METHODS
A population of 1,328 workers with definite silicosis and adequate work history information, drawn from three states with silicosis surveillance systems, was followed. Renal disease was ascertained via linkage of the cohort with a United States register (which has existed since 1977) of end-stage renal disease.

RESULTS
In the first analysis, it was assumed that the risk of end-stage renal disease began upon exposure to silica. In this analysis 12 cases of end-stage renal disease were found versus 15.6 expected, for a rate ratio of 0.77. Four cases of glomerular end-stage renal disease were found (standardized incidence ratio 2.65, 95% confidence interval 0.56-5.25). It is possible that some persons with end-stage renal disease died before being entered into the silicosis registers. In a second analysis, person-time at risk was assumed to begin at the date of entry into the silicosis register. A rate ratio of 1.67 (95% confidence interval 0.76-3.17) was found for end-stage renal disease on the basis of nine observed cases.

CONCLUSIONS
The results do not clearly show that patients with silicosis have an excess of end-state renal disease, although they do suggest an excess of glomerular end-stage renal disease. Analyses were limited by small numbers and possible selection biases.


The elemental composition of fish otoliths may represent a permanent record of the environmental conditions an individual has experienced as trace elements, incorporated into the growing surface of the otolith, reflect the physical and chemical characteristics of the ambient water. We tested the utility of trace element signatures in otoliths as natural tags of the river of origin of juvenile American shad (Alosa sapidissima) collected from the Connecticut, Hudson and Delaware Rivers in August and October 1994. Four elements (K, Mn, Sr, and Ba) showed significant variability among sites within rivers in August, although only Mg showed a significant site effect by October. Four elements (Mg, Mn, Sr, and Ba) differed significantly among rivers in both months. Linear discriminant functions based on the trace element signatures classified fish to their natal river with ~90% accuracy in both August and October collections. The discriminant function generated from the August data was able to classify fish collected in October successfully with better than 80% accuracy. On the basis of our findings, the river of origin of adult fish could be accurately determined by quantifying the trace element composition of the juvenile portion of their otoliths.


The originators of classical political economy - Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others - created a discourse that explained the logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism's creation: for it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention.Directly contradicting the laissez-faire principles they claimed to espouse, these men advocated government policies that deprived the peasantry of the means for self-provision in order to coerce these small farmers into wage labour. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labour and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists.He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy - to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land. This rereading of the history of classical political economy sheds important light on the rise of capitalism to its present state of world dominance. Historians of political economy and Marxist thought will find that this book broadens their understanding of how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.


Abstract
Relative to the randomized controlled trial (RCT), the basic regression discontinuity (RD) design suffers from lower statistical power and lesser ability to generalize causal estimates away from the treatment eligibility cutoff. This chapter seeks to mitigate these limitations by adding an untreated outcome comparison function that is measured along all or most of the assignment variable. When added to the usual treated and untreated outcomes observed in the basic RD, a comparative RD (CRD) design results. One version of CRD adds a pretest measure of the study outcome (CRD-Pre); another adds posttest outcomes from a nonequivalent comparison group (CRD-CG). We describe how these designs can be used to identify unbiased causal effects away from the cutoff under the assumption that a common, stable functional form describes how untreated outcomes vary with the assignment variable, both in the basic RD and in the added outcomes data (pretests or a comparison group's posttest). We then create the two CRD designs using data from the National Head Start Impact Study, a large-scale RCT. For both designs, we find that all untreated outcome functions are parallel, which lends support to CRD's identifying assumptions. Our results also indicate that CRD-Pre and CRD-CG both yield impact estimates at the cutoff that have a similarly small bias as, but are more precise than, the basic RD's impact estimates. In addition, both CRD designs produce estimates of impacts away from the cutoff that have relatively little bias compared to estimates of the same parameter from the RCT design. This common finding appears to be driven by two different mechanisms. In this instance of CRD-CG, potential untreated outcomes were likely independent of the assignment variable from the start. This was not the case with CRD-Pre. However, fitting a model using the observed pretests and untreated posttests to account for the initial dependence generated an accurate prediction of the missing counterfactual. The result was an unbiased causal estimate away from the cutoff, conditional on this successful prediction of the untreated outcomes of the treated.


Background There are several frameworks that attempt to address the challenges of evaluation of health information systems by offering models, methods, and guidelines about what to evaluate, how to evaluate, and how to report the evaluation results. Model-based evaluation frameworks usually suggest universally applicable evaluation aspects but do not consider case-specific aspects. On the other hand, evaluation frameworks that are case specific, by eliciting user requirements, limit their output to the evaluation aspects suggested by the users in the early phases of system development. In addition, these case-specific approaches extract different sets of evaluation aspects from each case, making it challenging to collectively compare, unify, or aggregate the evaluation of a set of heterogeneous health information systems. Objectives The aim of this paper is to find a method capable of suggesting evaluation aspects for a set of one or more health information systems—whether similar or heterogeneous—by organizing, unifying, and aggregating the quality attributes extracted from those systems and from an external evaluation framework. Methods On the basis of the available literature in semantic networks and ontologies, a method (called Unified eValuation using Ontology; UVON) was developed that can organize, unify, and aggregate the quality attributes of several health information systems into a tree-style ontology structure. The method was extended to integrate its generated ontology with the evaluation aspects suggested by model-based evaluation frameworks. An approach was developed to extract evaluation aspects from the ontology that also considers evaluation case practicalities such as the maximum number of evaluation aspects to be measured or their required degree of specificity. The method was applied and tested in Future Internet Social and Technological Alignment Research (FI-STAR), a project of 7 cloud-based eHealth applications that were developed and deployed across European Union countries. Results The relevance of the evaluation aspects created by the UVON method for the FI-STAR project was validated by the corresponding stakeholders of each case. These evaluation aspects were extracted from a UVON-generated ontology structure that reflects both the internally declared required quality attributes in the 7 eHealth applications of the FI-STAR project and the evaluation aspects recommended by the Model for ASsessment of Telemedicine applications (MAST) evaluation framework. The extracted evaluation aspects were used to create questionnaires (for the corresponding patients and health professionals) to evaluate each individual case and the whole of the FI-STAR project. Conclusions The UVON method can provide a relevant set of evaluation aspects for a heterogeneous set of health information systems by organizing, unifying, and aggregating the quality attributes through ontological structures. Those quality attributes can be either suggested by evaluation models or elicited from the stakeholders of those systems in the form of system requirements. The method continues to be systematic, context sensitive, and relevant across a heterogeneous set of health information systems.


This study estimates the potential impacts of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) on the Korean raw-milk market. The DDA has not reached an agreement yet. Although there are different attitudes about several issues such as Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM), Sensitive Products (SP), and Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) creation, WTO member countries have reached an agreement for major issues of the modalities in the DDA. Hence, this study estimates the impacts of the DDA that will finally reach an agreement sooner or later. For estimating the impacts of the DDA, this study makes a dairy trade model for the Korean dairy industry and measures the impacts of the DDA in terms of raw-milk price for fluid use incurred by further tariff cuts in the Korean dairy market by the DDA. This study considers several scenarios because the status of Korea is not settled yet and a country can select dairy products as sensitive products, special products, or general products and a country can select different options in each category. The results of this study can be used for preparing policies for subsidizing the domestic raw-milk producers to rebalance their loss in the raw-milk market incurred by the DDA.


This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers.An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why "being first" is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today's machines.Contributors : Titiimaea F. Ala'ilima, Lin Ping Ang, William Aspray, Friedrich L. Bauer, Andreas Brennecke, Chris P. Burton, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzi, I. Bernard Cohen, John Gustafson, Wilhelm Hopmann, Harry D. Huskey, Friedrich W. Kistermann, Thomas Lange, Michael S. Mahoney, R. B. E. Napper, Seiichi Okoma, Hartmut Petzold, RaAol Rojas, Anthony E. Sale, Robert W. Seidel, Ambros P. Speiser, Frank H. Sumner, James F. Tau, Jan Van der Spiegel, Eiiti Wada, Michael R. Williams.


As well as world class Fe and REE resources the Bayan Obo mineral deposits also hosts significant niobium resources (estimated as 2.2Mt Nb with an average grade of 0.13 weight % Nb). Niobium in this study is primarily hosted in aeschynite-(Ce) and –(Nd), but with subsidiary amounts of pyrochlore, fergusonite-(Ce), fersmite and columbite. Here we report on the paragenetic and textural setting of aeschynite, pyrochlore and fergusonite in the main ore bodies and in a carbonatite dyke. Niobium in a carbonatite sample is hosted in a phase tentatively (due to significant Ca, Mn and Ti contents) identified as fergusonite-(Ce). Aeschynite occurs overgrowing foliation in banded ores, in fractures and vugs in aegirine-rich rocks and in calcite veins. The composition in all settings is similar, but some examples in banded ores develop significant zonation in Y, Th and the REE, inferred to relate to buffering of halogen acid species to low levels by dissolution and fluoritisation of calcite, and the preferential precipitation of LREE from solution due to lower mineral solubility products compared to the HREE. Although lower in total concentration the ratios of REE in pyrochlore are similar to those of aeschynite and suggest the same metal source. The crystallisation of pyrochlore probably relates to growth in paragenetic settings where carbonates had already been eliminated and hence the buffering of F-species activities in the hydrothermal fluid was reduced. Both aeschynite and pyrochlore show evidence of alteration. Primary alteration of aeschynite resulted in leaching of A-site cations (Ca, REE, Th) and Nb, addition of Fe, and ultimately replacement by Ba-Ti phases (baotite and bafertisite). Secondary, metamictisation enhanced, possibly supergene alteration of pyrochlore resulted in hydration, leaching of A-site cations leading to the development of lattice vacancies and increases in Si. The presence of hydrothermal Nb resources at Bayan Obo suggests there may be potential for further Nb discoveries in the area, whilst the trends in element mobility during alteration have significant implications for the utility of A-B oxides as components of materials for immobilisation of radionuclides.


IN recent years many political leaders and publicists have sought to prove that the treaty-making process, requiring the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, has become too cumbersome, inefficient, and "undemocratic." Because of well established "usage," they claim, it has become valid and desirable to substitute for the treaty the executive agreement, preferably without congressional approval or, if necessary, with approval by a majority of Congress.' Advocates of the change point out that some 1300 executive agreements have been concluded during our national history, as contrasted with some 900 treaties. It is not mentioned, however, that up to 1928 only 15 treaties had been rejected by the Senate, usually for good reasons; that 47 were not acted upon; and that while some 160 treaties have been amended by the Senate,2 in most cases the changes have benefited the nation.


OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the current study are: to describe the prevalence of overweight/obesity among New Zealand adolescents and to describe the demographic characteristics, including neighbourhood deprivation, associated with overweight/obesity.

METHODS
Data for the current study were collected as part of Youth'07, a national survey of the health and well-being of 9 107 New Zealand secondary school students (approximate ages 13 to 17 years). Students answered a comprehensive, multimedia survey about their health and wellbeing and were weighed and measured for height. Small area deprivation was measured by the New Zealand Deprivation Index, based on the student's residential address.

RESULTS
One in ten adolescents was obese and an additional 24% were overweight. Body size was significantly associated with small area deprivation (p<0.001) and ethnicity (p<0.001). Furthermore, the association between socioeconomic deprivation and body mass index (BMI) was moderated by ethnicity (p=0.035 for interaction term.) A positive association between BMI and socioeconomic deprivation was observed for Pacific students, Māori students and European students, but not for Asian students and students of other ethnicities.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings demonstrate a high prevalence of overweight/obesity among New Zealand adolescents, particularly for Pacific Island adolescents, Māori adolescents, and those living in areas of high deprivation.


Rainwater harvesting (RWH) has proved to be a viable alternative water source in challenging environments where other means of water supply have no or very little potential. In the last two decades, interest in RWH has grown. Several governments of Southern countries have taken the initiative to scale up community-based RWH approaches and networks have been established between Southern and Northern civil society organizations, governments, private sector and research institutes to support and promote upscaling of RWH. This paper describes the approach taken by one of these network organizations in water-scarce, remote and marginalized areas, and discusses lessons learned, challenges and the way forward. The main challenges are: 1) the multi-layer institutional model requires substantial initial investment and effective communication between organizations, water users and governments; 2) women's involvement in community management of RWH systems is still weak; and 3) initial investment costs for rainwater ...


Ultrafast carrier dynamics at interfaces plays a major role in governing solar energy conversion efficiency in solar conversion systems, especially in solar cells and photoelectrochemical devices. In this perspective, we discuss recent advances in ultrafast spectroscopic probes to understand the dynamics at such interfaces. Transient reflectance (TR) enables monitoring of the surface carriers that are within ∼10 nm of the surface or interface of interest. Crucial parameters such as surface recombination velocity and carrier diffusion can be determined. When a strong surface or interfacial field is present the reflectance spectrum will exhibit Franz-Kelydesh oscillations. Monitoring the transient formation or decay of such oscillations informs about the interfacial field and is referred to as transient photoreflectance (TPR). Such fields are helpful in designing systems in order to move carriers away from surfaces where photocorrosion can occur and towards catalytic surfaces. Finally, we discuss transient infrared attenuated total reflection (TATR) to probe the ultrafast reaction intermediates in a photo-driven chemical reaction.


Mean Field Games (MFGs) have been introduced to efficiently approximate games with very large populations of strategic agents. Recently, the question of learning equilibria in MFGs has gained momentum, particularly using model-free reinforcement learning (RL) methods. One limiting factor to further scale up using RL is that existing algorithms to solve MFGs require the mixing of approximated quantities such as strategies or $q$-values. This is far from being trivial in the case of non-linear function approximation that enjoy good generalization properties, e.g. neural networks. We propose two methods to address this shortcoming. The first one learns a mixed strategy from distillation of historical data into a neural network and is applied to the Fictitious Play algorithm. The second one is an online mixing method based on regularization that does not require memorizing historical data or previous estimates. It is used to extend Online Mirror Descent. We demonstrate numerically that these methods efficiently enable the use of Deep RL algorithms to solve various MFGs. In addition, we show that these methods outperform SotA baselines from the literature.


The control mechanisms involved in the modification of wax crystal dimensions in crude oils and refined fuels are of joint scientific and practical interest. An understanding of these mechanisms allows strategies to be developed that lead to decreases in crude oil pour points or (for refined fuels) cold filter plugging points. The attainment of these goals involves the control and modification of wax crystals that spontaneously form in mixed hydrocarbon systems upon decreasing temperature. This work reports on the influence of random crystalline-amorphous block copolymers (ethylene-butene) upon the rheology of model oils. In a parallel fashion small-angle neutron scattering was exploited to gain microscopic insight as to how added poly(ethylene-butene) copolymers modify the wax crystal structures. The copolymers with different contents of polyethylene are highly selective with respect to wax crystal modification. Thus, the copolymer with the highest crystalline tendency is more efficient for the larger wax molecules while the less crystalline one is more efficient for the lower waxes.


The current study examined preschool children's understanding of the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial, i.e., a classification consisting of all natural kinds (both animate and inanimate) on the one hand, and of all artifacts on the other. Whilst previous research has studied children's differentiation of animate (i.e., animals, plants) from inanimate kinds (i.e., natural substances, artifacts) as well as animals from artifacts on the basis of the items' intrinsic structural and causal properties, no study has so far examined children's understanding of the dichotomy between natural and artificial kinds as a supraordinate conceptual division based on the items' extrinsic origin. Two experiments are reported which support the presence of a well-defined dichotomy in both preschool children and adults. That is, children in the current study have no difficulties understanding the contrast between natural and artificial as well-defined categories, unlike their counterparts in those studies which investigate the contrasts between different natural categories, on the one hand, and the single artificial category, on the other. The discrepancy between the present findings and the earlier research is explained in terms of children's greater familiarity with the criterion (extrinsic to the object) which underlies the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial than with criteria (intrinsic to the object) which underlie the less-inclusive divisions such as animate vs inanimate, and animal vs artifact.


Various food samples procured from local markets of Kashmir were used in this studyto isolate pigment producing bacteria. Two bacteria,one with orange andthe other with yellow pigmentation,were isolated and developed into axenic cultures. Morphological observations revealed that both the bacteria isolated were Gram positive, cocci and non-motile. Taxonomic characterization was carried out and isolates were identified as Micrococcus nishinomiyaensis and Micrococcus luteus. Maximum production of pigments was observed at 35°C, pH 9 and at 4% (W/V) NaCl concentration.


Influences of polarization-selected mutual injection on polarization switching behaviors of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are investigated numerically. For the polarization-preserved (PP) injection, the x mode is selected and is injected mutually into the two lasers. The two lasers show nearly identical polarization-switching (PS) behaviors, even if frequency detuning is nonzero. For the polarization-rotated (PR) injection, the x mode is selected and rotated 90° before being injected into the two lasers. When frequency detuning is considered, the two lasers show totally different PS properties, and mutual injection will switch to unidirectional injection with varying parameters. In both the cases of PP and PR injection, the partitions that correspond to different emission states and the switching points of the two VCSELs are mapped in the parameter space of injection rate and bias current. Furthermore, for each different emission state, the output dynamics and synchronization performance are evaluated in the time domain.


The Cluster HEritage project with XMM-Newton – Mass Assembly and Thermodynamics at the Endpoint of structure formation (CHEX-MATE) is a three-mega-second Multi-Year Heritage Programme to obtain X-ray observations of a minimally-biased, signal-to-noise-limited sample of 118 galaxy clusters detected by Planck through the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect. The programme, described in detail in this paper, aims to study the ultimate products of structure formation in time and mass. It is composed of a census of the most recent objects to have formed (Tier-1: 0.05 < z < 0.2; 2 × 1014 M⊙ < M500 < 9 × 1014 M⊙), together with a sample of the highest mass objects in the Universe (Tier-2: z < 0.6; M500 > 7.25 × 1014 M⊙). The programme will yield an accurate vision of the statistical properties of the underlying population, measure how the gas properties are shaped by collapse into the dark matter halo, uncover the provenance of non-gravitational heating, and resolve the major uncertainties in mass determination that limit the use of clusters for cosmological parameter estimation. We will acquire X-ray exposures of uniform depth, designed to obtain individual mass measurements accurate to 15 − 20% under the hydrostatic assumption. We present the project motivations, describe the programme definition, and detail the ongoing multi-wavelength observational (lensing, SZ, radio) and theoretical effort that is being deployed in support of the project.


Grid cells, found in the medial entorhinal cortex of mammalian brains, are among the most significant discoveries from the research into the brain's system for spatial navigation during the last decades. A lot of work has been done to uncover the details of their regular spatial firing pattern and how they operate together in permanent cohort across different environments. In particular, we now know that grid cells are organized in multiple largely independent modules, consisting of cells that respond coherently to new environments and have approximately equal spatial firing patterns, except for a spatial offset known as the phase. A lot of work has also been done on the theoretical front to develop models for how grid cells are part of a network that brings about their characteristic behavior. Some of these models make predictions about the distribution of the phase within a grid cell module. In particular, models based on continuous attractor networks predict that the distribution must be uniform. To evaluate the merit of these and other models, we must therefore develop rigorous methods of analysis to find out what experimental data can tell us about grid phase distribution. Here, we develop novel ways of analyzing the firing pattern and computing the spatial phase of a grid cell. To analyze the distribution of phases within a module, we employ methods from point process statistics that have not previously been used for this purpose. Our results indicate that there exist grid cell modules with phase distributions that deviate significantly from uniformity.


By limiting reactive oxygen species production, autophagy promotes cellular response to interferon γ. Autophagy not only supplies nutrients through cellular digestion during periods of starvation but also contributes to the cellular response to infection. Chang et al. show that when autophagy is compromised, the cellular response to the proinflammatory cytokine interferon-γ (IFN-γ) is also compromised. Analysis of mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs) deficient in either Atg5 or Atg7, two proteins essential for the formation of autophagosomes, showed that various IFN-γ–mediated responses (reporter gene expression, nitrite generation, and cytokine production) were reduced compared with the responses of wild-type cells. Detailed examination of the signaling pathway in the Atg5-deficient cells revealed that the interaction between the IFN receptor and the kinase Jak2 was not affected but that Jak2 phosphorylation and phosphorylation of its downstream targets, such as Jak1, Pyk2, and STAT1, as well as expression of STAT1-dependent genes, were reduced. Atg5-deficient MEFs had greater amounts of mitochondria and were in a more oxidative state relative to wild-type MEFs. Consistent with a role for reactive oxygen species (ROS) in mediating the differences in IFN-γ responsiveness between autophagy-competent and autophagy-impaired cells, treatment of wild-type MEFS with an antioxidant increased IFN-γ–mediated STAT1 phosphorylation, and the addition of hydrogen peroxide inhibited this response. The phosphatase SHP2 is activated by ROS, and knockdown of SHP2 in the Atg5-deficient MEFs restored IFN-γ–mediated STAT1 phosphorylation. Thus, the authors propose that autophagy limits mitochondrially produced ROS, which limits phosphatase activity, allowing IFN-γ signaling to proceed. Y.-P. Chang, C.-C. Tsai, W.-C. Huang, C.-Y. Wang, C.-L. Chen, Y.-S. Lin, J.-I. Kai, C.-Y. Hsieh, Y.-L. Cheng, P.-C. Choi, S.-H. Chen, S.-P. Chang, H.-S. Liu, C.-F. Lin, Autophagy facilitates IFN-γ-induced Jak2-STAT1 activation and cellular inflammation. J. Biol. Chem. 285, 28715–28722 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


South Africa has experienced an unprecedented influx of migrants in the 21st century. Immigration and race have contributed to the raising of important questions of identity and social inclusion. Immigration and race are two crucial phenomena for the church in South Africa because the overwhelming majority of immigrants to South Africa are affiliated to Christianity and active participants in worshipping communities. This article is an attempt to critically engage with the complex phenomena of immigration and race for the role of Christianity in identity. I will attempt to show how mainstream Christianity as an open-ended narrative and can provide the space for creative tension between the 'host' and 'stranger' for identity formation. I will use the theoretical framework of Don Browning's correlational approach to demonstrate how the experience of immigrants and minority race groups creates identity of self and the constructive other.


Abstract There are two different views regarding the genesis of gibbsite in tropical acid soils: (I) direct weathering of primary Al-silicate minerals; and (2) transformation through clay mineral intermediates. We investigated the genesis of gibbsite in two representative Ultisols from northeastern India. Gibbsite in these Ultisols appears to be the remnant of earlier weathering products of aluminosilicate minerals formed in a neutral to alkaline pedochemical environment. The mere presence of gibbsite in these soils, therefore, does not indicate their advanced stage of weathering. The formation of typically rod-shaped and well-crystallized gibbsite in both the coarse and fine soil fractions in the presence of large amounts of 2:1 minerals indicates that the anti-gibbsite hypothesis may not be tenable in these tropical acid soils. A schematic model for the formation of gibbsite and kaolin in Ultisols is proposed.


Opinions of Culturally Diverse Sample of Asians on Wisdom. The development of expert theories of wisdom shows a general shift from emphasizing the role of cognitive processes to broader definitions, which perceive wisdom as a way of integration of cognitive skills, emotional abilities and personality. Within the Eastern concepts of wisdom, its spiritual part is often mentioned. Research studies of public opinions about wisdom, conducted on a Western sample and confronted with pioneer findings obtained on non-Western samples show that it may result appropriate to contemplate the concept of Western wisdom as dominantly based on rationality, knowledge and reason and the Eastern approaches as the ones emphasizing emotions, intuition and transience. The sample of 646 students from culturally and religiously differentiated regions of Asia documents the variability of answers to the scale-type inventory questions and the sample introduces us to the diversity in basic parameters of Eastern understanding of wisdom. Sociológia 2010, Vol. 42 (No. 6: 619-637)


Learning the basic concepts required to understand magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is a straightforward process. Although the individual concepts are simple, there are many concepts to learn and retain simultaneously; this situation may give the illusion that learning the physics of MR imaging is complicated. It is important for the radiologist who interprets MR images to understand the methods used to create the images because image contrast specifically depends on how the image data were acquired. Initial concepts include formation of magnetic fields from electric currents in loops of wire, the resonance phenomenon, the hydrogen proton and its frequency of precession, and absorption of radiofrequency energy. These concepts can then be applied to learn about T1 and T2 relaxation and contrast and how the acquisition parameters of echo time and repetition time can be used to achieve these image contrasts. Basic pulse sequences include the spin-echo, multiecho spin-echo, turbo spin-echo, inversion-recovery, and gradient-recalled-echo sequences.


Natural killer (NK) cells play an important role in the containment of HIV replication during primary infection, though their functions are impaired during chronic HIV infection. Infants experience more rapid HIV disease progression than adults, but contributions of infant NK cells to containing HIV infection are unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of HIV infection on infant NK cell phenotype by evaluating samples and data from a cohort study of women and their infants, conducted in Nairobi, Kenya between 1999 and 2003. The percentage and phenotype of NK cells was evaluated longitudinally by multi-parameter flow cytometry over the first year of life in HIV-infected (HIV+, = 16), HIV-exposed uninfected (HIV-EU, n = 6), and healthy unexposed controls (HIV–, n = 4). At birth, NK subset distributions based on expression of CD56 and CD16 did not differ between HIV+, HIV-EU, or HIV– infants. However, HIV infection was associated with a subsequent decline in NK cells as a percentage of total lymphocytes (p < 0.001), and an expanding proportion of CD56-CD16+ NK cells (p < 0.001). Activated CD38brightCD69+ NK cells were more frequent in the HIV+ infants, followed by HIV-EU and HIV- infants, in both CD56dim (p = 0.005) and CD56bright compartments (p = 0.03). HIV infection and exposure was also associated with a significant decline in the percentage of perforin-expressing NK cells in the CD56dim compartment over the first year of life, with HIV+ infants losing approximately 2.5% (p < 0.001) and HIV-EU infants losing 3.0% (p = 0.01) of perforin+ cells per month. Thus, infant HIV infection is associated with alterations in NK cell subsets, activation, and cytolytic potential that could contribute to their poor control over HIV infection. Furthermore, exposure to HIV infection in infants who escaped infection is also associated with alterations in NK cells that may contribute to the reduced ability to fight infections that is observed in HIV-EU infants.


Objective: Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) are the serious public health problems and also impose a financial burden on the economy. Sexually transmitted infections are cured with single or multiple antibiotics. However, in many cases the organism showed persistence even after treatment. In the current study, the set of druggable targets in STD pathogens have been identified by comparative genomics. Materials and Methods: The subtractive genomics scheme exploits the properties of non-homology, essentiality, membrane localization and metabolic pathway uniqueness in identifying the drug targets. To achieve the effective use of data and to understand properties of drug target under single canopy, an integrated knowledge database of drug targets in STD bacteria was created. Data for each drug targets include biochemical pathway, function, cellular localization, essentiality score and structural details. Results: The proteome of STD pathogens yielded 44 membrane associated proteins possessing unique metabolic pathways when subjected to the algorithm. The database can be accessed at http://biomedresearchasia.org/index.html. Conclusion: Diverse data merged in the common framework of this database is expected to be valuable not only for basic studies in clinical bioinformatics, but also for basic studies in immunological, biotechnological and clinical fields.


The GRACE satellite mission observes the gravity field of the Earth with unprecedented accuracy. Gravity field products provided by the GRACE Science Data System allow to assess both the static geoid, as well as time-varying signals associated with changes of global water mass distribution. For estimating the capability of spaceborne gravity measurements to detect the temporal variability of oceanic mass distribution and currents, the GRACE data is validated against in-situ measurements of ocean bottom pressure (OBP) provided by Pressure Sensors located at the sea floor.In the framework of a joint BMBF (German Ministry for Education and Research) project, a database that includes globally available OBP observations is presented here. This database is used to carry out a comprehensive ground-truth validation of GRACE. The capability of GRACE solutions from different analysis centers to capture oceanic mass variability is assessed by comparisons with in-situ OBP data from the Southern Ocean, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is shown, that GRACE detects real oceanic variability in regions with a high signal-to-noise ratio (e.g. the Antarctic Circumpolar Current), and that reduced noise levels of more recent GRACEsolutions may improve GRACE performance in other parts of the Ocean (e.g. the tropical Atlantic). The ground-truth validation against OBP aids the further improvement of GRACE data processing that in the future GRACE may be used to monitor geostrophic transport variability and water mass changes on a global scale.


Structure and morphology of solid particles in precipitation from aqueous solutions correlate with formation (solution) conditions and thus reflect the growth mechanism. Calcium phosphate precipitation obtained from dilute aqueous solutions at room and body temperatures and pH5.5 - 7.5 were investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), transmission electron diffraction (selected-area diffraction and microdiffraction), scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, Supersaturated solutions of calcium phosphates were prepared by different methods of mixing of the stock solutions: diffusion-controlled mixing in space, convection-controlled mixing on earth and forced mixing on earth. A combination of HRTEM with image calculation, microdiffraction and image processing provided full information on the state of matter, local phase composition of crystals and atomic structure when small particles and small areas on large samples are considered. It was shown the strong dependence of these parameters on concentrations of the stock solutions, rate of solution mixing and duration of precipitation. Phase analysis by HRTEM and electron microdiffraction demonstrated two crystalline compounds in precipitation hydroxyapatite (HAP) and octacalcium phosphate (OCP) independent on the sizes of crystals and grains in crystals.


Coordinated animal-human health monitoring can provide an early warning system with fewer false alarms for naturally occurring disease outbreaks, as well as biological, chemical and environmental incidents. This monitoring requires the integration and analysis of multi-field, multi-scale and multi-source data sets. In order to better understand these data sets, models and measurements at different resolutions must be analyzed. To facilitate these investigations, we have created an application to provide a visual analytics framework for analyzing both human emergency room data and veterinary hospital data. Our integrated visual analytic tool links temporally varying geospatial visualization of animal and human patient health information with advanced statistical analysis of these multi-source data. Various statistical analysis techniques have been applied in conjunction with a spatio-temporal viewing window. Such an application provides researchers with the ability to visually search the data for clusters in both a statistical model view and a spatio-temporal view. Our interface provides a factor specification/filtering component to allow exploration of causal factors and spread patterns. In this paper, we will discuss the application of our linked animal-human visual analytics (LAHVA) tool to two specific case studies. The first case study is the effect of seasonal influenza and its correlation with different companion animals (e.g., cats, dogs) syndromes. Here we use data from the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC) and Banfield Pet Hospitals in an attempt to determine if there are correlations between respiratory syndromes representing the onset of seasonal influenza in humans and general respiratory syndromes in cats and dogs. Our second case study examines the effect of the release of industrial wastewater in a community through companion animal surveillance.


"Novel Development of Nonlinear Discrete Integrable Systems". September 2~4, 2013. edited by Junta Matsukidaira. The papers presented in this volume of RIMS Kokyuroku Bessatsu are in final form and refereed.


BACKGROUND
Genetic regulation of immunoglobulin G(IgG) responses to pneumococcal capsular polysaccharides (PPS), has been demonstrated in mice but not in humans. Earlier studies from this laboratory showed that healthy adults have a varying capacity to generate IgG antibody to PPS; this study sought to determine whether this capacity is genetically controlled.

METHODS
A 23-valent pneumococcal vaccine was administered to 72 unrelated White adults, 4 nuclear families, and 61 members of an extended Ashkenazic Jewish family. Selected individuals later received one or more doses of the vaccine and/or a single dose of protein-conjugated PPS. Four to six weeks after each vaccination, IgG to PPS was measured by ELISA. Immunoglobulin allotypes and HLA types were determined by standard techniques.

RESULTS
After vaccination, 53% of the 72 unrelated White adults had measurable levels of IgG antibody to all of 10 PPS studied (high-level responders), 36% had IgG to 6-9 PPS, and 11% had IgG to < or = 5 of 10 PPS (low-level responders). Persons who did not make IgG to an individual PPS also failed to make IgM or IgA to that antigen. Low-level responders had reduced mean IgG levels to PPS to which they did make IgG; nevertheless, their total serum concentrations of IgG, IgG2, IgA, and IgM were normal, and each made IgG2 to at least one PPS, all indicating that a global defect in Ig production was not responsible. The responder status of offspring was highly associated with that of their parents. Segregation analysis of 61 Ashkenazic family members revealed that the capacity to generate anti-PPS IgG was inherited in a mixed, codominant fashion. Repeated vaccination or administration of protein-conjugated PPS did not elicit measurable IgG in nonresponders. The HLA type was not associated with antibody responses. An association between IgG level and Gm(23)+ allotype was observed in unrelated Whites but not in Ashkenazic Jews.

CONCLUSIONS
Thus, humans exhibit a variable capacity to respond to PPS. This response is hereditable in a mixed, codominant fashion. The absence of IgG to a PPS, even after antigen is presented in a protein-conjugate form, may reflect a genetically mediated failure to recognize polysaccharide antigens. Since persons who respond to fewer PPS also have lower levels of IgG to PPS to which they do respond, genetically determined deficiencies in events that involve proliferation of committed B lymphocytes may also play a role.


An increasing number of people with disabilities are choosing to become parents. However, several official goverment reports and other evidence points to the fact that parents with disabilities sometimes experience negative bias and distrust of their capacities as parents. The aim of this study is to describe and analyse aspects of parenthood in the families including parents with disabilities and/or chronic illness, as well as to illuminate concepts of an thoughts on parenthood and disability in these families. This is a qualitative interview study, complemented with structured diaries and network maps. The impairments or chronic illness of the parents in the eleven families of the study are cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis.The different areas of the study are: the parents' reflections on becoming parents, the impact of the surrounding environment on the family, the effects of impairment or chronic illness in the family's everyday life and the parents' reflections on children and parenthood. The parents first and foremost describe their families as like any other families, but at the same time describe the special circumstances they live under. They work to handle the possibilities of negative consequences for the children with different strategies. The parents describe what they regard as the special experiences and knowledge that their children acquire which will benefit them as adults. The study recognises some dichotomous concepts relevant to different areas of family life in families with disabilities. The feeling the parents express of living in a world of double standpoints can be understood as ambivalence or in terms of embrace of paradox.


Global warming and other adverse climate change impacts induced by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is a major public policy concern around the world. This paper examines the impacts of market-based economic reforms on per capita CO2 emissions in the European and Central Asian transition economies where environmental degradation was pervasive prior reforms. A dynamic panel data model is employed for this purpose for 28 countries covering 22 years from 1990-2012. Our results suggest that reforms in competition policy and corporate governance are the significant driver of emissions reductions in the region. Therefore, advances in competition policy and governance reforms are desirable given the available scope to extend these reforms. The Kyoto Protocol had no significant effect in reducing emissions levels while the relationship between economic growth and emissions seems weak based on our results. The results indicate that reducing energy use by increasing energy efficiency and investments in renewable energy are necessary to reduce the carbon emissions level and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change in the region.


Aim: To deepen the knowledge of difficulties in registered nurses telephone advice and identify possibilities to master these. Background: Telephone advice increases the accessibility to health care and the streamlined work at primary health care centres. The goal of telephone advice nursing is to give a correct advice, adapted to the caller's situation, in order to reach correct care level. However, nurses' telephone advice includes risks for misjudgement and may risk the patient safety. Methods: A systematic and manual literature study was used in CINAHL and Pubmed. A total of 38 studies were identified and 13 articles were screened in full text. Findings: Nurses' had difficulties in telephone advice in following areas: computerized decision aids, non-visual communication, third-part communication, limited resources, the nurses' vulnerability, genus and ethnicity, and also ethical questions. Conclusion: Nurses perceived difficulties in telephone advice. They should take part in the development of computerized decision support and receive continuous training in communication skills. Nurses' telephone advice should be facilitated by the existence of an open climate at the workplace, to discuss and to reflect on difficulties, in order to reach patient safety.


In this paper, we explore the ontological and theological ground of political institutions in order to then reflect upon the eschatological calling of society. The paper builds on Tillich's ontological insight that love does not simply transcend justice, but that it permeates and drives justice, that justice gives form to love's reunion of the separated. This relation between love and justice is at play in political institutions: these unite human beings under forms of justice that must be transformed ever anew if they are not to lose touch with the dynamic power of love and freeze into increasingly unjust juridicalism. The modern history of Western civilisation bears witness to this ontological tension, and the phenomenon of globalisation is yet another instance of human society's mystical calling. Thus, love heads the dynamic movement that transforms political institutions ever anew. Yet society as a whole must become conscious of its ontology for humanity to truly reach its eschatological potential, and this will require both that theology recovers its ground and that political theory thinks theologically.


Using a binary co-transfection strategy of Ad/GT Bax and Ad/PGK-GV16, we have succeeded in inducing overexpression of Bax protein in three prostate cell lines (androgen- insensitive DU145 and PC3, and androgen-sensitive LNCaP). The expression of Bax protein by this system was sufficient to induce all three prostate lines to undergo apoptosis. The fact that DU145 cells which have a p53 mutation and are deficient in Bax, responded to this treatment, suggests that this effect is independent of these pathways. Initiation of the cleavage of Caspase-3 (CPP32/Yama/apopain) and PARP (poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase) by the introduction of Bax were confirmed by western blot analysis. Bcl-2 expression is relevant in the progression of prostate cancer and contributes to an androgen, apoptotic-resistant phenotype in the advanced stages. We examined stable Bcl-2 overexpressing DU145, PC3 and LNCaP cell lines as models of advanced prostate cancer. The adenoviral co-transfection system induced Bax protein expression and apoptosis even in these Bcl-2 transfected cell lines. Taken together, our results suggest that this Bax expression system might represent a useful gene therapy strategy when applied to the treatment of prostate cancer and its efficacy would be independent of the Bcl-2 status and androgen sensitivity of these cancers.


Objective We aimed to systematically review recidivism rates in individuals given community sentences internationally. We sought to explore sources of variation between these rates and how reporting practices may limit their comparability across jurisdictions. Finally, we aimed to adapt previously published guidelines on recidivism reporting to include community sentenced populations. Methods We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SAGE and Google Scholar for reports and studies of recidivism rates using non-specific and targeted searches for the 20 countries with the largest prison populations worldwide. We identified 28 studies with data from 19 countries. Of the 20 countries with the largest prison populations, only 2 reported recidivism rates for individuals given community sentences. Results The most commonly reported recidivism information between countries was for 2-year reconviction, which ranged widely from 14% to 43% in men, and 9% to 35% in women. Explanations for recidivism rate variations between countries include when the follow-up period started and whether technical violations were taken into account. Conclusion Recidivism rates in individuals receiving community sentences are typically lower in comparison to those reported in released prisoners, although these two populations differ in terms of their baseline characteristics. Direct comparisons of the recidivism rates in community sentenced cohorts across jurisdictions are currently not possible, but simple changes to existing reporting practices can facilitate these. We propose recommendations to improve reporting practices.


Although seagrasses and marine macroalgae (macro‐autotrophs) play critical ecological roles in reef, lagoon, coastal and open‐water ecosystems, their response to ocean acidification (OA) and climate change is not well understood. In this review, we examine marine macro‐autotroph biochemistry and physiology relevant to their response to elevated dissolved inorganic carbon [DIC], carbon dioxide [CO2], and lower carbonate [CO32−] and pH. We also explore the effects of increasing temperature under climate change and the interactions of elevated temperature and [CO2]. Finally, recommendations are made for future research based on this synthesis. A literature review of >100 species revealed that marine macro‐autotroph photosynthesis is overwhelmingly C3 (≥ 85%) with most species capable of utilizing HCO3−; however, most are not saturated at current ocean [DIC]. These results, and the presence of CO2‐only users, lead us to conclude that photosynthetic and growth rates of marine macro‐autotrophs are likely to increase under elevated [CO2] similar to terrestrial C3 species. In the tropics, many species live close to their thermal limits and will have to up‐regulate stress‐response systems to tolerate sublethal temperature exposures with climate change, whereas elevated [CO2] effects on thermal acclimation are unknown. Fundamental linkages between elevated [CO2] and temperature on photorespiration, enzyme systems, carbohydrate production, and calcification dictate the need to consider these two parameters simultaneously. Relevant to calcifiers, elevated [CO2] lowers net calcification and this effect is amplified by high temperature. Although the mechanisms are not clear, OA likely disrupts diffusion and transport systems of H+ and DIC. These fluxes control micro‐environments that promote calcification over dissolution and may be more important than CaCO3 mineralogy in predicting macroalgal responses to OA. Calcareous macroalgae are highly vulnerable to OA, and it is likely that fleshy macroalgae will dominate in a higher CO2 ocean; therefore, it is critical to elucidate the research gaps identified in this review.


Strategies for improving child survivorship in sub-Saharan Africa by the year 2000 have focused on low-cost, peripheral preventative and curative activities often with little reference to essential clinical services offered by hospitals at the district level. However, the recent World Bank World Development Report has re-emphasised the potential of district hospitals within selective PHC activities. We have estimated the likely impact of in-patient care offered by a rural district hospital on the Kenyan coast on under 5's mortality through comprehensive demographic and hospital surveillance. Within this population, childhood mortality may have been reduced by 44% as a result of hospital in-patient care. Strengthened referral systems, improvements in hospital accessibility, and better hospital care should be an integral part of PHC and other health promotion activities in sub-Saharan Africa.


This paper has been written within a research framework investigating the destructive potential of seismic events. The elastic response spectra seem insufficient to explain the behaviour of structures subject to large earthquakes in which they experience extensive plastic deformations. Recent works emphasise that there were many difficulties in the definition of a single pararneter linked to the destl-uctive potential of an earthquake. In this work a study on the effect of frequency content on structural damage has been carried out. The behaviour of two different elastoplastic oscillators has been analysed, considering several artificial earthquakes. The results obtained suggest a method for evaluating the destructive seismic potential of an earthquake through the response spectra ad the frequency content of the signal. and through the mechai~ical characteristics of the structures within the analysed area.


We present a clustering scheme that combines a mode-seeking phase with a cluster merging phase in the corresponding density map. While mode detection is done by a standard graph-based hill-climbing scheme, the novelty of our approach resides in its use of topological persistence to guide the merging of clusters. Our algorithm provides additional feedback in the form of a set of points in the plane, called a persistence diagram (PD), which provably reflects the prominences of the modes of the density. In practice, this feedback enables the user to choose relevant parameter values, so that under mild sampling conditions the algorithm will output the correct number of clusters, a notion that can be made formally sound within persistence theory.
 The algorithm only requires rough estimates of the density at the data points, and knowledge of (approximate) pairwise distances between them. It is therefore applicable in any metric space. Meanwhile, its complexity remains practical: although the size of the input distance matrix may be up to quadratic in the number of data points, a careful implementation only uses a linear amount of memory and takes barely more time to run than to read through the input.
 In this conference version of the paper we emphasize the experimental aspects of our work, describing the approach, giving an intuitive overview of its theoretical guarantees, discussing the choice of its parameters in practice, and demonstrating its potential in terms of applications through a series of experimental results obtained on synthetic and real-life data sets. Precise statements and proofs of our theoretical claims can be found in the full version of the paper [7].


ABSTRACT This study examined the effects of lower-body compression garments on perceived recovery and subsequent performance in basketball athletes. In a parallel-group design, 30 recreational, male basketball athletes were randomly allocated to either a control (CON, n = 15, loose-fitting clothing) or experimental group (COMP, n = 15, compression garments) for 15 h following fatigue-inducing, basketball-specific exercise in the evening (1600-1800 h). Perceptual measures of fatigue and muscle soreness, as well as physical performance tests (sprints, jumps and agility), were performed pre-exercise, post-exercise, and post-recovery (15 h following exercise). Subjective and objective measures of sleep were recorded following the exercise trial. There were non-significant (p > 0.05), unclear-trivial differences between groups for all performance measures. Perceived post-recovery fatigue (d = −1.27, large) and muscle soreness (d = −1.61, large) were significantly lower in COMP compared to CON (p < 0.05). COMP exhibited better perceived sleep quality (d = 0.42, small, p = 0.18) than CON, with an unclear difference in sleep duration between groups (p > 0.05). Wearing lower-body compression garments overnight improved perceived fatigue and muscle soreness, but had negligible effects on subsequent physical performance in basketball athletes. Future research should focus on longer periods of compression wear following fatiguing exercise.


[1] Understanding the roles of human and natural sources in contributing to aerosol concentrations around the world is an important step toward developing efficient and effective mitigation measures for local and regional air quality degradation and climate change. In this study we test the hypothesis that changes in aerosol optical depth (AOD) over time are caused by the changing patterns of anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and aerosol precursors. We present estimated trends of contributions to AOD for eight world regions from 1980 to 2006, built upon a full run of the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport model for the year 2001, extended in time using trends in emissions of man-made and natural sources. Estimated AOD trends agree well (R > 0.5) with observed trends in surface solar radiation in Russia, the United States, south Asia, southern Africa, and East Asia (before 1992) but less well for Organization for Economic Co-operative Development (OECD) Europe (R < 0.5). The trends do not agree well for southeast Asia and for East Asia (after 1992) where large-scale inter- and intraannual variations in emissions from forest fires, volcanic eruptions, and dust storms confound our approach. Natural contributions to AOD, including forest and grassland fires, show no significant long-term trends (<1%/a), except for a small increasing trend in OECD Europe and a small decreasing trend in South America. Trends in man-made contributions to AOD follow the changing patterns of industrial and economic activity. We quantify the average contributions of key source types to regional AOD over the entire time period.


Digital image processing analysis was carried out on As in topsoils of the Campania Region (Italy) to recognise any unknown spatial patterns. The highest As concentration is related to topsoils developed on the NW–SE-trending carbonate massifs overlain by pyroclastic rocks where the highest spatial variability and gradient magnitude of As concentration and the highest fault density were also observed. High As concentrations were also found in topsoils over volcanic rocks which played a control on its distribution pattern. The low As values are associated with topsoils along large fluvial valleys where the activity of rivers disturbed the As pattern by transporting larger grain-sized stream sediments with low As concentrations.


Learning expressive curve styles from example is crucial for interactive or computer-based narrative illustrations. We propose a method for online synthesis of free-hand drawing styles along arbitrary base paths by means of an autoregressive Markov Model. Choice on further curve progression is made while drawing, by sampling from a series of previously learned feature distributions subject to local curvature. The algorithm requires no user-adjustable parameters other than one short example style. It may be used as a custom "random brush" designer in any task that requires rapid placement of a large number of detail-rich shapes that are tedious to create manually.


The process of implementing and integrating state-of-the-art real-time analysis techniques with an existing industrial tool suite for the development of Distributed Real-time Embedded (DRE) systems offers many challenges. The implementer has to not only code and implement the analysis in the tool suite, but also deal with several issues such as extraction of unambiguous timing and tracing information from the design model. In this paper we present an implementation of the Holistic Response-Time Analysis (HRTA) as a plug-in for an industrial tool suite Rubus-ICE that is used for component-based development of DRE systems. We discuss and solve the issues encountered and highlight the experiences gained during the process of implementation, integration and evaluation of HRTA plug-in. We also provide a proof of concept by modeling an automotive application (autonomous cruise control system) using component-based development and analyzing it with HRTA plug-in.


Summary: In this Issue Brief I introduce a measure that estimates the factors that influence firm location choice in U.S. cities. I then investigate which of these factors may best explain the variance in employment trends across a select set of Massachusetts municipalities: the small and mid-sized post-industrial Massachusetts cities that the Federal Reserve Bank labels "working cities." The analysis suggests that the highest correlates to economic growth are the availability of sites for development, economic development marketing, and the timeliness of municipal approvals for development projects. These results provide some indication of the extent to which these cities and others might influence their own economic futures.


Immuno-Detection of PPAR Overexpression in Protein Turnover in Endocardial Tissues Suggesting Alterations in Energy Metabolism during Ischemic and Dilated Cardiomyopathy Conditions
The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) family regulates genes encoding enzymes involved in fatty acid and glucose metabolism. This role in the high-energy consuming heart organ has been a major target in cardiomyopathy studies. PPARs and nuclear protein levels were investigated in endocardial tissues samples obtained from ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy male patients. Control samples were obtained from male accident victims of same age group. The expression of PPAR isoforms in each sample was analyzed by, protein assay, SDS-PAGE, western blotting and densitometry. The mean milligram nuclear protein of endocardial tissues for each of the three groups was measured as follows: ischemic 17.6 ± 8.1; dilated 13.7 ± 3.4; control 21.0 ± 6.0; (n=3 per group). The range of protein variability by Pearson correlation coefficient r was -0.91 ≤ r ≤ +0.77, (n=9). However, the sample means of the ischemic and dilated groups were not significantly different from the control mean, P>0.5 in each case by student's test. The isoforms of PPAR are strongly expressed in cardiomyopathy conditions without change in nuclear protein turnover. The results also show that PPAR-α and PPAR-γ may be more predominant in the heart than PPAR-s. Furthermore, the expression of the spliced variants of PPAR-α and PPAR-γ were not affected by the cardiomyopathy conditions and PPAR-s have no spliced variant in the heart. The study provides an evidence of alteration in the heart's energy metabolic processes during cardiomyopathies.


Purpose: Most bankruptcy prediction models such as Altman, Beaver, and Zmijewski, only focuses on discriminant scores from which a determination is made about the financial health of firms. The most important indicators of financial distress and their order of importance as bankruptcy becomes imminent are not contained in literature. This paper aims to expand the domain of corporate bankruptcy by bringing to the fore the most important financial indicators in times of bankruptcy.

Design: This paper employs the Altman Z score as a proxy for financial distress. The independent variables are the discrete Altman variables. The Altman Z score of 105 firms for the last two years before bankruptcy were computed. A structured coefficient index was used to determine the most critical indicators of corporate distress.

Findings: A number of factors predicates financial distress. This paper focussed on indices in the Altman algorithm model. The paper provides empirical insights into how financial performance, relative to the Altman indices, deteriorates as bankruptcy approached. It suggests that profitability is the most significant predictor of bankruptcy.

Originality: This paper's foundation is the Altman algorithm model. However, the model does not explain how the discrete variables behave in the last two years before bankruptcy. This study is the first to examine the behavior of distressed firms relative to the Altman indices in the previous two years preceding bankruptcy.


Contract farming remains one of the most efficient tools for integrating small-scale farmers into modern food markets. However, the literature lacks evidence on best practices in designing contracts for food supply chains in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to analyse the design of an existing contract in the emerging Malawian paprika sector using a qualitative analytical approach. The study compared a contract design in Malawi's paprika supply chain with four similar contracts from the horticultural sector in Malawi, India, Zambia and Cape Verde. This study employed a thematic qualitative analysis and developed 17 categories for analysing contracts. The findings showed that the Malawian contract contained in total eleven defined clauses. There were missing clauses that influenced the risk and power distribution between parties in the contract. The comparison of the Malawian contract with other contracts revealed that none of the analysed contracts included all clauses necessary for a sustainable and fair relationship. The study proposed improved contract design and future actions to contribute to decreasing inequalities between parties engaged in the Malawi's paprika supply chain. The implications of the study include initiation of changes in public policies related to contract farming strategies as the findings suggest that vulnerable small-scale farmers might be left unprotected and generate low gains through supply contracts due to poorly formulated contract clauses.


Finance capital, jobs and restructuring corporate ownership in the United States David Peetz & Georgina Murray Griffith University We analyse data on ownership, global employment growth, assets and sale/revenue amongst the 221 largest US industrial corporations (by market capitalisation) to consider their patterns of ownership and how the restructuring of that ownership during the financial crisis may have affected the stability, concentration and composition of finance capital and changes in employment at the firm level. We found that instability associated with the global financial crisis created new patterns of dominance in finance capital, as banks lost their leading position, though less dramatically than some may have expected. We found strong evidence of high and increasing concentration of the ownership and control of leading industrial corporations by leading finance capital firms. Those in the most powerful positions in finance capital during periods of crisis were able to maintain their relative power, despite volatility elsewhere. And we found that employment growth was negatively linked to ownership instability and to ownership by banks in particular.


Three metamorphic aureoles around intrusions of the Caledonian 'Newer Granite' suite are described. Each represents a different orogenic environment. The Strontian complex is intruded into sillimanite grade Moinian metasediments at the core of the orogen. The aureole comprises three zones; a transitional muscovite + sillimanite + K-feldspar zone, a sillimanite + K-feldspar zone and an inner cordierite + K-feldspar zone. Contact migmatization occurs in the inner part of the aureole. Zoning profiles from garnets in both regional and aureole assemblages show retrograde Mn-rich rims. Fe and Mg compositions are re-equilibrated to contact conditions. Apparent re-equilibration of Ca compositions results from increasingly ideal solid solution behaviour of Ca in plagioclase and garnet with increasing temperature. Temperatures of 690°C at 4.1 kbar (XH2O = 0.53) are estimated in the cordierite + K-feldspar zone, dropping to 630°C (XH2O = 0.69) at the sillimanite + K-feldspar isograd. The zones increase in width to the east, influenced by the regional thermal gradient at the time of intrusion. The timer-scale of the contact event, t2, relative to the regional, tl, - is estimated as t2/t1 = 101.1+ -0.7 and is consistent with Intrusion at an early stage of regional uplift and cooling. The Foyers complex intrudes Moinian rocks at a higher structural level. Regional assemblages range from garnet to sillimanite grade. Three contact zones are recognised; a sillimanite zone, a sillimanite + K-feldspar zone and an inner cordierite + K-feldspar zone. The limit of the aureole is marked by the breakdown of garnet which shows disequilibrium, both texturally, and in complex zoning profiles, within it. Temperatures of 660°C at 3.9 kbar (XH20 = 0.14) are estimated in the cordierite + K-feldspar zone? The Dalbeattie complex is at the margin of the orogen, intruded into low grade Silurian metasediments. Two zones are recognised; a biotite zone and an inner hornblende zone. Cordierite and diopside are present in the inner zone.


The effect of oxidation on the levels of wine volatile aroma esters was studied. Chardonnay wine was bottled either in the presence of nitrogen or air in the headspace. Moreover, Fe II was added to the wine and the bottles were closed in the presence of air. Absorbance values were recorded at 420 nm (browning index), while volatile esters were evaluated during storage using SPME/GC-MS. During wine storage of up to nine months, wines bottled in the presence of air exhibited higher browning indexes and lower levels of several esters, such ethyl acetate, isoamyl acetate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate and ethyl decanoate, in comparison to wines bottled under nitrogen. Addition of Fe II led to higher browning indexes and lower levels of several esters during wine storage. In addition, Fe II was added along with H2O2 to Chardonnay wine and the bottles were closed in the presence of air. These additions led to wines with higher browning indexes and lower levels of several esters during wine storage up to 40 days. The present results demonstrate that wine volatile aroma esters can be decreased by oxidation under semi-oxidative and forced oxidative conditions. As a result, oxidation should be taken into account in the decrease of aroma esters during wine storage.


In this paper we use a dynamic model to analyze the composition and stability of international environmental agreements (IEAs) in an asymmetrical framework. Signatory countries are assumed to optimize the total welfare of the international agreement's members, while non-signatory countries optimize their own individual welfare, taking into account the dynamics of the pollution stock. Our model is calibrated using data from the MERGE climate policy assessment model. We briefly review two contrasting approaches to define stability of IEAs, and provide a numerical illustration in each case.


ABSTRACT Despite efforts to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality, drug-resistant parasites continue to evade control strategies. Recently, emphasis has shifted away from control and toward regional elimination and global eradication of malaria. Such a campaign requires tools to monitor genetic changes in the parasite that could compromise the effectiveness of antimalarial drugs and undermine eradication programs. These tools must be fast, sensitive, unambiguous, and cost-effective to offer real-time reports of parasite drug susceptibility status across the globe. We have developed and validated a set of genotyping assays using high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis to detect molecular biomarkers associated with drug resistance across six genes in Plasmodium falciparum. We improved on existing technical approaches by developing refinements and extensions of HRM, including the use of blocked probes (LunaProbes) and the mutant allele amplification bias (MAAB) technique. To validate the sensitivity and accuracy of our assays, we compared our findings to sequencing results in both culture-adapted lines and clinical isolates from Senegal. We demonstrate that our assays (i) identify both known and novel polymorphisms, (ii) detect multiple genotypes indicative of mixed infections, and (iii) distinguish between variants when multiple copies of a locus are present. These rapid and inexpensive assays can track drug resistance and detect emerging mutations in targeted genetic loci in P. falciparum. They provide tools for monitoring molecular changes associated with changes in drug response across populations and for determining whether parasites present after drug treatment are the result of recrudescence or reinfection in clinical settings.


With a great scalability potential, nonvolatile magnetoresistive memory with spin-torque transfer (STT) programming has become a topic of great current interest. This paper addresses cell structure design for STT magnetoresistive RAM, content addressable memory (CAM) and ternary CAM (TCAM). We propose a new RAM cell structure design that can realize high speed and reliable sensing operations in the presence of relatively poor magnetoresistive ratio, while maintaining low sensing current through magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs). We further apply the same basic design principle to develop new cell structures for nonvolatile CAM, and TCAM. The effectiveness of the proposed RAM, CAM and TCAM cell structures has been demonstrated by circuit simulation at 0.18 ¿m CMOS technology.


The ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Geostreaming (IWGS) was held for the second time in conjunction with the 19th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (ACM GIS 2011). The workshop has been a successful event that attracted participants from both academia and industry. The workshop addressed topics that are at the intersection of data streaming and geospatial systems. The workshop fostered an environment where geospatial researchers can benefit from the advances in geosensing technologies and data streaming systems.


Are there systematic trends around the world in levels of creativity, aggressiveness, life satisfaction, individualism, trust, and suicidality? This article suggests a new field, latitudinal psychology, that delineates differences in such culturally shared features along northern and southern rather than eastern and western locations. In addition to geographical, ecological, and other explanations, we offer three metric foundations of latitudinal variations: replicability (latitudinal gradient repeatability across hemispheres), reversibility (north-south gradient reversal near the equator), and gradient strength (degree of replicability and reversibility). We show that aggressiveness decreases whereas creativity, life satisfaction, and individualism increase as one moves closer to either the North or South Pole. We also discuss the replicability, reversibility, and gradient strength of (a) temperatures and rainfall as remote predictors and (b) pathogen prevalence, national wealth, population density, and income inequality as more proximate predictors of latitudinal gradients in human functioning. Preliminary analyses suggest that cultural and psychological diversity often need to be partially understood in terms of latitudinal variations in integrated exposure to climate-induced demands and wealth-based resources. We conclude with broader implications, emphasizing the importance of north-south replications in samples that are not from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies.


The outcome of the November elections in Washington for House and Senate seats, along with the 36 governor offices up for votes means that there may be a very different political landscape come January. But perhaps the greatest promise of the results of the upcoming elections is that Congress and state houses could find some common ground and new leaders may emerge to move the nation toward addressing sorely neglected education issues.


Results from recent space missions, in particular Spitzer and Herschel, have led to significant
progress in our understanding of the formation and transport of water from clouds to disks,
planetesimals, and planets. [n this review, we provide the underpinnings for the basic molecular
physics and chemistry of water and outline these advances in the context of water formation
in space, its transport to a forming disk, its evolution in the disk, and finally the delivery to
forming terrestrial worlds and accretion by gas giants. Throughout, we pay close attention to
the disposition of water as vapor or solid and whether it might be subject to processing at any
stage. The context of the water in the solar system and the isotopic ratios (D/H) in various
bodies are discussed as grounding data points for this evolution. Additional advances include
growing knowledge of the composition of atmospheres of extrasolar gas giants, which may be
influenced by the variable phases of water in the protoplanetary disk. Furthermore, the architecture
of extrasolar systems leaves strong hints of dynamical interactions, which are important
for the delivery of water and subsequent evolution of planetary systems. We conclude with
an exploration of water on Earth and note that all the processes and key parameters identified
here should also hold for exoplanetary systems.


Combinations of stressors occur regularly throughout an animal's life, especially in agriculture and aquaculture settings. If an animal fails to acclimate to these stressors, stress becomes chronic, and a condition of allostatic overload arises with negative results for animal welfare. In the current study, we describe effects of exposing Atlantic salmon parr to an unpredictable chronic stressor (UCS) paradigm for 3 weeks. The paradigm involves exposure of fish to seven unpredictable stressors three times a day. At the end of the trial, experimental and control fish were challenged with yet another novel stressor and sampled before and 1 h after that challenge. Plasma cortisol decreased steadily over time in stressed fish, indicative of exhaustion of the endocrine stress axis. This was confirmed by a lower cortisol response to the novel stressor at the end of the stress period in chronically stressed fish compared with the control group. In the preoptic area (POA) and pituitary gland, chronic stress resulted in decreased gene expression of 11βhsd2, gr1 and gr2 in the POA and increased expression of those genes in the pituitary gland. POA crf expression and pituitary expression of pomcs and mr increased, whereas interrenal gene expression was unaffected. Exposure to the novel stressor had no effect on POA and interrenal gene expression. In the pituitary, crfr1, pomcs, 11βhsd2, grs and mr were down-regulated. In summary, our results provide a novel overview of the dynamic changes that occur at every level of the hypothalamic-pituitary gland-interrenal gland (HPI) axis as a result of chronic stress in Atlantic salmon.


Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has inflammatory and immunoregulatory properties. CGRP directly inhibits IL-7 induced proliferation in developing B cells and also induces soluble factors that inhibit IL-7 responses. We identified 2 cytokines, IL-6 and TNF-alpha, induced by CGRP, that inhibit IL-7 pre-B cell responses. CGRP induction of IL-6 and TNF-alpha mRNA in long-term bone marrow cultures is transient and IL-6 or TNF-alpha inhibit IL-7 induced colony formation by 60%. When added with CGRP, colony formation is completely inhibited. TNF-alpha directly inhibits IL-7 responses in B220(+)/IgM(-) cells whereas IL-6 inhibits only colony formation with whole bone marrow. This suggests that the effect of IL-6 is mediated by other cells in the bone marrow. These results suggest that the indirect effect of CGRP on IL-7 depends in part on induction of IL-6 and TNF-alpha.


The fundamentals and thermodynamic analysis of high-temperature air combustion (HiTAC) technology is presented. The HiTAC is characterized by high temperature of combustion air having low oxygen concentration. This study provides a theoretical analysis of HiTAC process from the thermodynamic point of view. The results demonstrate the possibilities of reducing thermodynamic irreversibility of combustion by considering an oxygen-deficient combustion process that utilizes both gas and heat recirculations. HiTAC conditions reduce irreversibility. Furthermore, combustion with the use of oxygen (in place of air) is also analyzed. The results showed that a system, which utilizes oxygen as an oxidizer, results in higher first and second law efficiencies as compared to the case with air as the oxidizer. The entropy generation for an adiabatic combustion process is reduced by more than 60% due to the effect of either preheating or oxygen enrichment. This study is aimed at providing technical guidance to further improve efficiency of a combustion process, which shows very small temperature increases due to mild chemical reactions.


This study examines media coverage of genetically modified (GM) crops in a risk communication framework. Content analysis is employed to investigate how specific environmental, food safety, and landmark events, such as the monarch butterfly and Pusztai controversies, and the cloning of Dolly-the-sheep, were reported by the media. Media coverage is from United Kingdom and United States newspapers over the period 1990 through 2001. On balance, findings show that the UK press has been more negative than the U.S. press in its coverage of GM crops. In addition, environmental and food safety events had a significant impact on the level and cycle of GM crop coverage.


The 18–14 Ma Kamlial Formation Himalayan foreland basin sedimentary rocks in the Chinji Village region, Potwar Plateau, Pakistan, are characterized by: (1) lithofacies indicative of deposition by a large river; (2) a dominant magmatic arc provenance completely unlike the 'recycled orogen' foreland basin deposits stratigraphically below, above, or coeval with these rocks; and (3) subordinate contribution from a rapidly exhuming source, interpreted as either the Nanga Parbat Haramosh Massif or the southern margin of the Asian crust. The start of Kamlial Formation deposition at this locality at 18 Ma marks a major break with the older Murree Formation rocks, which were deposited by rivers draining predominantly the Himalayan thrust stack south of the arc. We interpret this change as the result of diversion of the paleo-Indus River to its present position, which crosses the Kohistan arc and Himalayas and debouches into the foreland. If the rapidly exhuming subordinate source region were the Nanga Parbat Haramosh Massif, then initiation of its uplift would have resulted in significant arc detritus to the basin as the overlying arc carapace was exhumed. As the carapace was progressively breached, arc material would have become a less substantial component of detritus to the basin, consistent with the reported petrography of the overlying Siwalik deposits.


RecA-like proteins homologs Rad51 and Dmc1 (disruption of meiotic control) promote recombination between homologous chromosomes by repairing programmed DNA Double-Strand Breaks (DSBs). Dmc1 is a Recombinase involved in meiosis-specific repair of DSBs, whereas Rad51 has been found to be involved in meiotic and non-meiotic DSBs repair. Previous studies showed that when RAD51 is overexpressed, interhomologous recombination still occurs even when DMC1 is knocked out. Dmc1 and Rad51 have not been fully characterized in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila. In order to more fully investigate the role of Rad51 and Dmc1 in Homologous Recombination Repair (HHR), this work focuses on using a model organism, T. thermophila, to further elucidate the contribution of Rad51 and Dmc1 in DNA repair following various genotoxic stressors (H2O2, MMS, and UV radiation). Bioinformatics was used to illustrate the extensive conservation of the Rad51 and Dmc1 homologs in various organisms and between one another. Expression of RAD51 and DMC1 was shown to be altered following exposure to H2O2, MMS, and UV radiation, and that the RAD51 expression was significantly higher than Dmc1 expression levels following all DNA damaging agents. Localization studies using Green fluorescent protein (GFP) and Red fluorescent protein (RFP) tagged to RAD51 or DMC1 and introduced back into T. thermophila revealed that Rad51 does not localize to the micronucleus or macronucleus following exposure to MMS. Tagging revealed that Dmc1 may localize in the micronucleus without DNA damage but does not localize after MMS treatment. Both proteins showed localization outside the nuclei, suggesting expression of the tagged Rad51 and Dmc1 in T. thermophila.


We test two potential hypotheses regarding the effects of major customer concentration on firm profitability. Under the collaboration hypothesis, customer power facilitates collaboration, and both the supplier firm and its major customers obtain benefits. Under the competition hypothesis, customer power results in rent extraction, and the major customers benefit at the expense of the supplier firm. We document that major customer concentration is negatively associated with the supplier firm's profitability but positively associated with the major customers' profitability. We demonstrate that these effects weaken as the supplier firm's own power grows over its relationship with major customers, supporting the competition hypothesis. We carefully reconcile our results with prior studies' findings that focus only on the supplier firm's profitability and identify their research design and interpretation problems. We obtain similar inferences in a setting of major customers' horizontal mergers and when we use an alternative measure of major customer power.


In RFID tag identification, tag-to-tag collisions pose a challenging problem to protocol designers. Currently the modulation silencing mechanism (MSM) has been proposed to overcome the time and power wasted on collision slots during tag identification. In MSM, the time of collision slots is reduced by the assistance of the continuous wave absence detection (CWAD) circuit. CWAD allows the tags to sense the reader's RF signal cutoff and terminate data modulation. In this paper, we propose an enhanced CWAD (ECWAD) design to reduce the time required for RF cutoff detection. The ECWAD circuit mitigates the tag-to-tag collision effects on both identification efficiency and throughput. ECWAD is a fast and low power sensing circuit that allows having shorter collision slots, faster tag identification, and limited voltage drop at the tag. When compared to the existing CWAD design, the proposed design detects the RF signal cutoff by the reader in less than 20% of that in CWAD and reduces the collision slot time by more than 32%.


Machine learning offers a set of powerful tools that holds considerable promise for investment management. As with most quantitative applications in finance, the danger of misapplying these techniques can lead to disappointment. One crucial limitation involves data availability. Many of machine learning's early successes originated in the physical and biological sciences, in which truly vast amounts of data are available. Machine learning applications often require far more data than are available in finance, which is of particular concern in longer-horizon investing. Hence, choosing the right applications before applying the tools is important. In addition, capital markets reflect the actions of people, who may be influenced by the actions of others and by the findings of past research. In many ways, the challenges that affect machine learning are merely a continuation of the long-standing issues researchers have always faced in quantitative finance. Although investors need to be cautious—indeed, more cautious than in past applications of quantitative methods—these new tools offer many potential applications in finance. In this article, the authors develop a research protocol that pertains both to the application of machine learning techniques and to quantitative finance in general.