Two sets of observations were made on the distribution of Pseudo-nitzschia taxa in a fjord in the San Juan Islands, Washington, USA. From May 21 to 31, 1996, we observed the spatio- temporal distribution of a dense bloom of P. fraudulenta. Microscopic observations of live material were compared to physical-optical water-column structure, currents and wind. At the start of the study, dense concentrations of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. were observed directly at the surface. Optical profiles indicated that most cells were concentrated in a thin layer at ~5 m depth, which appeared to be contiguous throughout the sound. Several days later, sustained winds forced a plume of lighter water over the surface of the sound, displacing the original water mass, with its entrained flora, to depth. The resulting near-bottom thin layer persisted for several days, and contained >10 6 Pseudo- nitzschia spp. cells l -1 . Microscopic examination of live cells from the deep layer revealed that colonies were alive and motile. In 1996 and again in 1998, we observed P. pseudodelicatissima living within colonies of Chaetoceros socialis. Water-column thin layers, near-bottom thin layers and popu- lations of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. within C. socialis colonies could easily escape detection by routine monitoring procedures, and may be a potential source of unexplained toxicity events.


"Devil in a Blue Dress," a defining novel in Walter Mosley s bestselling Easy Rawlins mystery series, was adapted into a TriStar Pictures film starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins and Don Cheadle as Mouse. Set in the late 1940s, in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles, "Devil in a Blue Dress "follows Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs."


A three-dimensional (3D) audio laser for VR systems is provided. The 3D audio laser is a system that includes a laser pointer and a dedicated audio location control. The system uses sound to orient a user to a virtual object and to provide an audible description of the virtual object. A location and a name (or other description) of virtual objects in the VR environment are known to the VR system. When the user aims the laser pointer at a particular virtual object and selects the dedicated audio location control, the VR system plays a series of tones with simulated locations at specified distances between the user and the virtual object. The distances are known to the user (e.g., given in the user manual for the VR system). After the series of tones is played, the name or description of the virtual object is played. The user can thereby discover the name and location of the virtual object, even if it the user cannot visually determine them.


The survey of 17 districts of the Punjab province of the country revealed that root-knot nematodes prevailed in 85.25% of okra fields with an average incidence of 38.89%. Hundred percent prevalence was recorded in Multan, Okara, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalnagar, Vehari, Rahim Yar Khan and Rawalpindi districts and a minimum prevalence of 22.4% was found in Lodhran district. The incidence was above 60% in Bahawalnagar, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Vehari and was only 4.44% in Lodhran. The severity of infection of the nematodes was highest in Bahawalnagar and Vehari, while it was lowest in Lodhran. Of the four most common root-knot species, M. incognita contributed 74.74%, M. javanica 24.02%, M. arenaria 2% and M. hapla 0.78%. Of the twelve cultivars of okra screened for resistance against M. incognita, none was found tolerant, highly resistant or moderately resistant. Two cultivars viz. Selection-31 and Okra Sindha were susceptible and the cultivar Punjab Selection was found highly susceptible. The rest of the cultivars showed moderate susceptibility towards the nematode. All the cultivars caused reduction in various growth parameters to varying levels over their respective controls. When the effect of different inoculum levels of M. incognita was investigated on the highly susceptible okra cultivar 'Punjab Selection', all the densities of nematode behaved differently. The reduction in growth parameters and increases in number of galls and egg masses were found directly proportional to the inoculum level as against, the nematodes build up which was found to be inversely proportional. 2 All the tested antagonists proved effective in controlling M. incognita and significantly increased the root and shoot lengths and weights and caused reductions in number of galls and egg masses. Pochonia chlamydosporia and Pasteuria penetrans were found equally effective at a concentration of 8 􀂯 103 chlamydospores / endospores per gram of soil. Incorporation of leaves of Azadirachta indica, Calotropis procera, Tagetes erecta and Datura stramonium in the soil @ 25, 50 and 75 g / kg of soil controlled M. incognita to varying degree. A. indica and C. procera caused maximum reductions in number of galls, egg masses and reproduction factor (Rf) of the nematode resulting into an increases in various growth parameters.


Collaborative accessibility improvement has great potential to make the Web more adaptive in a timely manner by inviting users into the improvement process. The Social Accessibility Project is an experimental service for a new needs-driven improvement model based on collaborative metadata authoring technologies. In 10 months, about 18,000 pieces of metadata were created for 2,930 webpages through collaboration. We encountered many challenges as we sought to create a new mainstream approach. The productivity of the volunteer activities exceeded our expectation, but we found large and important problems in the screen reader users' lack of awareness of their own accessibility problems. In this paper, we first introduce examples, analyze some statistics from the pilot service and then discuss our findings and challenges. Three future directions including site-wide authoring are considered.


Most academics' intuitions about statistics follow those of naive laypeople – that is, we often think that a sample should reflect the population characteristics more closely than it does, and expect less variability in samples than is truly found in them. These intuitions may prevent us from understanding why modern developments in statistics are needed. Another intuition most researchers hold is that it is better to be conservative when performing statistics, and this may involve adjusting p-values for multiple tests, using more conservative post hoc tests, or setting an alpha value lower than .05 when possible. However, the more we try to control against making an error in being overeager to find differences, the stronger the probability that we will make an error in not finding differences that actually exist. These two forces need to be counterbalanced, and this involves increasing the power of our tests. Robust statistics can increase the power of statistical tests to find real differences. I discuss the need for robust techniques to avoid reliance on classical assumptions about the data. Examples of robust analyses with t-tests, correlation, and one-way ANOVA are shown.


Parametrization of momentum surface roughness length in mountainous regions continues to be an active research topic given its application to improved weather forecasting and sub-grid scale representation of mountainous regions in climate models. A field campaign was conducted in the Val Ferret watershed (Swiss Alps) to assess the role of topographic variability and snow cover on momentum roughness. To this end, turbulence measurements in a mountainous region with and without snow cover have been analyzed. A meteorological mast with four sonic anemometers together with temperature and humidity sensors was installed at an elevation of 2500 m and data were obtained from October 2011 until May 2012. Because of the long-term nature of these experiments, natural variability in mean wind direction allowed a wide range of terrain slopes and snow depths to be sampled. A theoretical framework that accounted only for topographically induced pressure perturbations in the mean momentum balance was used to diagnose the role of topography on the effective momentum roughness height as inferred from the log-law. Surface roughness depended systematically on wind direction but was not significantly influenced by the presence of snow depth variation. Moreover, the wind direction and so the surface roughness influenced the normalized turbulent kinetic energy, which in theory should not depend on these factors in the near-neutral atmospheric surface layer. The implications of those findings to modeling momentum roughness heights and turbulent kinetic energy (e.g. in conventional K-epsilon closure) in complex terrain are briefly discussed.


Background: Medical surveillance including spirometry is periodically performed among workers who are exposed to agents causing occupational asthma in Finland. Surveillance has been shown to detect occupational asthma at an earlier stage, however only a few studies have assessed its benefits. Aims: Our aim of was to assess the role of surveillance and spirometry in intiating occupational asthma examinations. We also evaluated the quality of the spirometry. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical files of 60 patients diagnosed with sensitizer induced occupational asthma at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in 2012-2014 and participated surveillance program. Information about work exposure, respiratory symptoms, the occupational or primary health care visit initiating examinations, first spirometry and the details of the diagnosis were collected. Results: Altogether 11 (18%) cases were detected in medical surveillance and 49 (82%) at non-surveillance doctor9s practice. The median delay from the onset of asthma symptoms to the diagnosis was 2.2 years, it did not differ between these groups. No case was detected based on abnormal spirometry without respiratory symptoms. However, 5 (8%) of the patients reported solely work related rhinitis symptoms. The spirometry was normal in half of the cases, the quality criteria were fulfilled in 86% of the tests. Conclusions: Our results support the view that spirometry for non-symptomatic workers is not beneficial in occupational asthma surveillance and highlight the importance of work related nasal symptoms in detecting occupational asthma.


Book synopsis: The connection between archaeology and the Bible was forged by the discoveries of the nineteenth century, and archaeological finds became the primary catalyst for changes in biblical studies throughout the twentieth century. A distinct subfield, Biblical Archaeology, as conceived by William Albright, arose in response to a wealth of information recovered from expeditions of importance for biblical studies.

For many years, under Albright's influence, the hybrid field of Biblical Archaeology had a life of its own in the United States and was considered a coherent discipline. But many outside of Albright's sphere were unsure whether this field was a division of biblical studies or part of the broader world of general archaeology and saw these two pursuits in some disciplinary tension. At the same time, biblical scholars grew increasingly skeptical that archaeology could provide context for the specific events of the biblical text. Individual excavations persisted, but work ceased to be framed by research designs derived from the questions of Biblical Archaeology.

Yet archaeologists of the last twenty years have continued to produce material for biblical studies that is too critical to be ignored: inscriptions such as the Tel Dan stele or Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon, debates on the chronology and stratigraphy of the 10th century BCE or the stratigraphy of the Shechem temple, and publications such as those of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem or Herodian Jericho. Shifts in archaeological theory and biblical scholarship now present new potential for rapprochement between archaeology and the Bible. Recent archaeological work has uncovered the lifeways of the biblical world and begun to suggest how understanding these lifeways transforms the reading of the biblical text.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology represents a new way of conceiving of the relationship between archaeology and biblical studies that allows the results of a wide cross-section of excavations and regional studies to contribute to the interpretation of the biblical text through an elucidation of the lifeways of the ancient world. By going beyond mere chronology and focusing on the social organization of biblical society, the Encyclopedia is an important methodological breakthrough for the study of the Bible and archaeology.


From the field of artificial intelligence (AI) there is a growing stream of technology capable of being embedded in software that will reshape the way we interact with our environment in our everyday lives. This 'AI software' is often used to tackle more mundane tasks that are otherwise dangerous or meticulous for a human to accomplish. One particular area, explored in this paper, is for AI software to assist in supporting the enjoyable aspects of the lives of humans. Entertainment is one of these aspects, and often includes storytelling in some form no matter what the type of media, including television, films, video games, etc. This paper aims to explore the ability of AI software to automate the story-creation and story-telling process. This is part of the field of Automatic Narrative Generator (ANG), which aims to produce intuitive interfaces to support people (without any previous programming experience) to use tools to generate stories, based on their ideas of the kind of characters, intentions, events and spaces they want to be in the story. The paper includes details of such AI software created by the author that can be downloaded and used by the reader for this purpose. Applications of this kind of technology include the automatic generation of story lines for 'soap operas'.


Scurvy is now an almost forgotten disease, but it hasn't yet disappeared entirely. Here, we report the case of a patient with scurvy who presented with multiple hemorrhages about 5 years after undergoing pharyngeal surgery and radiochemotherapy for oropharyngeal cancer. This 60-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of sudden onset of dyspnea and purpura. A physical examination and computed tomography revealed multifocal hemorrhages, namely, purpuras and petechiae on the legs and intramuscular and alveolar hemorrhages. Coagulation tests indicated a normal bleeding time and mild extension of the activated partial thromboplastin time. The coagulation factor activities were not low enough to account for such severe hemorrhages. No new hemorrhages were observed after admission. On questioning about his past eating habits, the patient reported having long had an extremely unbalanced diet, namely, a diet that was composed largely of carbohydrates with few fresh fruits and vegetables. This was due to the development of mechanical dysphagia after the operation. Since his vitamin C level was 0.5 μg/mL (normal range: 5.5 - 16.8 μg/mL), a diagnosis of scurvy was established. Thus, scurvy can still occur in modern times due to poor eating habits that arise from unusual settings. We must keep in mind that scurvy may be the cause when a patient presents with an apparently inexplicable tendency to hemorrhage.


In the ∼20-m-thick Maiden Creek sill of the Henry Mountains
(Utah, USA) intrusive complex, two magma sheets are locally separated
by a 1.5-m-thick lens of sandstone. We studied the boundary between
these sheets at the termination of this sandstone lens, where the upper
sheet directly overlies the lower sheet, in order to test the reliability
of using magnetic susceptibility in delineating internal magmatic contacts.
The contact between these two sheets is along a cliff face and
defined by a thin (<1 cm) brittle-ductile shear zone. Measurements of
magnetic susceptibility (K) were collected within a grid every 20 cm
across this contact. Drill cores (72) were also collected along four traverses
across the shear zone. Mapping K across the cliff face reveals
an abrupt decrease immediately below the shear zone contact. 1 m
below the contact, K unexpectedly increases again to the same levels
observed above the contact. This lower boundary coincides with a
1–2-mm-thick minor fracture zone. The 1-m-thick low-K zone (LKZ)
is characterized by more intense microfracturing and is bleached compared
to the surrounding igneous rock. Plotting the magnetic foliation
from the drill cores reveals abrupt changes to the orientation across
both the shear zone and fracture zone. We hypothesize that the LKZ
was the original magma sheet that intruded the sandstone. The high-K
zones above and below the LKZ represent later sheets that intruded
above and below the original sheet, fracturing the partially or wholly
crystallized original intrusion. These later sheets exsolved fluids that
were injected into the original sheet, resulting in more advanced oxidation
of magnetite and thus lowering the K. Alternatively, it is possible
that the LKZ is simply the altered zone at the top of a thicker older
sheet that was modified by the intrusion of a younger overlying sheet.


Evidence suggests that physical inactivity in adolescence is a strong indicator that can predict
total abdominal obesity in young adulthood (Pietilainen et al., 2008: Obesity, 16, 409-414).
Recommendations now state that children should accumulate at least 60 minutes of MVPA
daily (WHO, 2010: Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health. Geneva:
Switzerland). There are many methods that are used to measure the amount of physical
activity in a field setting. Accelerometers offer an accurate and feasible method of gathering
physical activity in free-living individuals and are becoming easier to use and buy, thus
prompting an increased use in research. Due to advances in technology, measuring heart rate
has become easier and is therefore also becoming a popular method to gain insight into
physical activity intensity in a free-living environment (Achten & Jeukendrup, 2003: Sports
Medicine, 33, 517-538). The purpose therefore was to compare time spent in health enhancing
physical activity intensities and achievement of method-specific physical activity guidelines
assessed using heart rate monitoring and accelerometry in 11 to 16 year old school children.
Following ethical approval, 42 children (Male=20, Female= 22; Age 13.4±1.7yrs; height
156.9±8.7cm; weight 59.7±15.4kg) completed the study. The accelerometers and heart rate
monitors were fitted before school worn throughout the school day. Time spent with
accelerometer counts above the health enhancing physical activity threshold of 58 count per 5 seconds (Puyau et al, 2002: Obesity Research, 10, 150-157) and time spent above the heart
rate thresholds formulated by 50% Karvonen formula which is suggested by Scruggs et al.
(Scruggs et al, 2005; Measurement in Physical Activity Education & Exercise Science, 9, 203-
218) and 60% of (208- 0.7*age) suggested by Laurson et al. (Laurson et al, 2008: Research
Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79, 85-91) were calculated in minutes (ACC, HR1, HR2
respectively). Pearson correlation identified that there were relationships between the three
methods (ACC-HR1, r=0.39 p<.05; ACC-HR2, r=0.58, p<0.001; HR1-HR2, r=0.74,
p<0.001). A mixed factorial ANOVA was performed using the different methods as within
subject factors and gender, age and BMI category as the between subject factors. Sphericity
was assumed (Mauchly's χ2=4.60, p=0.1) and a significant within-subjects main effect for
method was identified (F(2,32)=89.04, p<.001, partial eta2 = 0.85) with no interaction effects.
Homogeneity of variances of the between-subject effects were confirmed (Levene's tests all
p>0.05) and no main effects were identified for gender (p=0.32), age group (p=0.07) or BMI
category (p=0.38). Post hoc analyses of the within-subjects main effect for method with
Bonferroni correction identified that ACC (49.59±17.41mins) was greater than both HR1 and
HR2 (11.98 ±13.21mins & 29.48±16.66mins respectively, p<0.001) with HR2 also greater
than HR1 (p<.001). Thirteen children achieved the ACC guideline, two achieved the HR2
guideline and none achieved the HR1 guideline levels.
Relationships existed between the minutes spent in health enhancing physical activity
measured using the three different methods of quantification. There was, however,
considerable disagreement with systematic bias evident with ACC recording almost double
the amount of time spent above its threshold compared to HR2 and nearly five times more
than HR1. Combined, the findings identify that there are considerable differences between the
methods in relation to both the quantification of minutes spent in health enhancing physical
activity and the subsequent achievement of the method specific guideline thresholds. As such
comparison of achievement of physical activity guidelines when quantified using different
monitoring methods is not possible. Further cross-sectional research is required to identify
which method specific guideline attainment (accelerometer, heart rate) is most closely related
to higher health status in children and adolescents. Longitudinal research is then required to
identify if this relationship is predictive of future health status and to determine if the relation
between guideline satisfaction and health status is transient throughout the life course.


Cooperative MIMO communication is a promising technology which enables realistic solution for improving communication performance with MIMO technique in wireless networks that are composed of size and cost constrained devices. However, the security problems inherent to cooperative communication also arise. Cryptography can ensure the confidentiality in the communication and routing between authorized participants, but it usually cannot prevent the attacks from compromised nodes which may corrupt communications by sending garbled signals. In this paper, we propose a cross-layered approach to enhance the security in query-based cooperative MIMO sensor networks. The approach combines efficient cryptographic technique implemented in upper layer with a novel information theory based compromised nodes detection algorithm in physical layer. In the detection algorithm, a cluster of K cooperative nodes are used to identify up to K - 1 active compromised nodes. When the compromised nodes are detected, the key revocation is performed to isolate the compromised nodes and reconfigure the cooperative MIMO sensor network. During this process, beamforming is used to avoid the information leaking. The proposed security scheme can be easily modified and applied to cognitive radio networks. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm for compromised nodes detection is effective and efficient, and the accuracy of received information is significantly improved.


To achieve human-like common sense about everyday life, machine learning systems must understand and reason about the goals, preferences, and actions of other agents in the environment. By the end of their first year of life, human infants intuitively achieve such common sense, and these cognitive achievements lay the foundation for humans' rich and complex understanding of the mental states of others. Can machines achieve generalizable, commonsense reasoning about other agents like human infants? The Baby Intuitions Benchmark (BIB) challenges machines to predict the plausibility of an agent's behavior based on the underlying causes of its actions. Because BIB's content and paradigm are adopted from developmental cognitive science, BIB allows for direct comparison between human and machine performance. Nevertheless, recently proposed, deep-learning-based agency reasoning models fail to show infant-like reasoning, leaving BIB an open challenge.


A working petroleum system was established on the shelf in offshore Labrador with the Bjarni H-81 discovery in 1973 in the Hopedale Basin. The same reservoirs as those targeted on the shelf are present in the deep water, which is currently receiving attention as the result of newly acquired seismic data. To date, only a very small number of wells have been drilled in the deep water, i.e., Blue H-28, Orphan Basin, and none off mainland Labrador. The wells that were drilled in the deep water had encountered significant overpressure, e.g., kicks that indicated overpressures of 26,850 kPa in the Mid-Cretaceous. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that pore pressures be similarly high for any new deepwater prospects identified. To help reduce the risk in unexplored environments, we developed an approach that can be adopted to model pore pressure in deepwater settings, with Labrador as the main case study area featured, but also we discussed other global examples such as the Voring Basin, Mid-Norway. Our results indicated, as a first approximation, that seismic velocity-based pore pressures in shale-rich intervals were similar to the geologic model down to the Lower Tertiary. Deep lithologies were, by regional analogue, likely affected by cementation that will act to preserve overpressure generated by disequilibrium compaction by reducing permeability but will not generate additional pore pressure. The cements (and any carbonate or volcanic lithologies) will, however, result in faster shales and will underpredict pore pressure by mimicking low porosity. A theoretical or "geologic modeling" approach can be used to sense-check any pore pressure interpretation from seismic velocity. The geologic approach also can be used to assess the risk for mechanical seal failure by allowing for estimates of the pore pressure, and related fracture pressure, to be made without the effects of cementation that affect the logs and seismic velocity data.


In this paper we consider an overlay cognitive network in which to guarantee a Quality of Service (QoS) for the primary users, a maximum probability of collision is enforced to secondary service. When collision, caused by imperfect spectrum sensing, happens, it results in increasing error rate in both primary and secondary systems. While such degradation in primary service conforms with QoS requirements of that service, this may not be acceptable from secondary user perspective. Such degradation can be dealt with in secondary service either by employing channel coding techniques at the expense of effective rate reduction or increasing the sensing time to reduce the collision probability. This results in the reduction of the data transmission time which also results in the reduction of effective data rate for secondary users. In this paper, we compare these two cases and show that using rate-compatible Low-Density Parity-Check codes, the effective data rate for the coded case can be significantly more than that of the case without channel coding while exhibiting a considerably better performance.


This comprehensive, step-by-step pictorial reference covers all the methods for making small boxes crafted in wood. Organised for quick access, the book makes it easy to find each technique and: - Tools - Box-making Materials - Box Joinery - Lids - Box Feet and Bases - - Box Interiors - Hinges and Hardware - Decorating Boxes - Shaped Boxes - More than 500 colour photographs and drawings illustrate how to make beautiful joined, turned and bandsawn boxes. Taunton's most successful series ever launched expands to include an illustrated, step-by-step guide to the essential techniques for elegant box joinery: turned and shaped boxes, making dividers and trays, lids, bases and feet, and installing hardware. * STEP-BY-STEP PICTORIAL REFERENCE, organised for quick reference. * Over 500 step-by-step colour photographs illustrate all the processes from basic tools to surface decorating in this book.


Mobile operators and mobile service providers like SMS aggregators and ticket providers have until now been the main actors in the provisioning of SMS tickets for public transportation services. The consumers have been charged for SMS payments using the mobile phone bill. Due to financial regulation (EU directive) mobile operators are no longer allowed to handle payments and transactions for non-telecom services without being a payment provider implying registration of the customers. In Sweden the mobile operators have joined forces and formed a joint venture that offers a separate charging solution, i.e. not using the phone bill. However, this new joint venture has in most cases not been involved in the public procurement of new ticket and payment solutions initiated 2012 by the Swedish transport companies. The outcome is that a number of new actors and constellations have entered the mobile payment business. In the paper the change of the market structure for SMS payment services in Sweden is analysed. The motivation for the research is to contribute to the understanding why mobile payment services do not take off on a large scale in Sweden although the technology and solutions are here. The case with the transformation of the SMS payment market provides insights about some of the barriers. There is no common national SMS payment solution. Users have to register accounts with a number of different payment providers. The registration process is an obstacle, the SMS payments have decreased with 50 – 90% compared to the same period 2012. We can see a fragmentation of the Swedish mobile payment service market. Due to the multitude of different solutions the incentives for both consumers and merchants to extend these payment solutions to other areas would be low.


The Village of Teslin, with a population of 450, is located in south-central Yukon, approximately 180 km southeast of Whitehorse. Since 1977, the community has been trucking its sewage to a nearby lagoon facility that comprises two anaerobic (primary) cells and two aerobic (secondary) cells. Although the lagoons have so far provided storage for the community's sewage, population increases coupled with the connection of previously unserviced residences are leading to the inevitable need to periodically discharge the lagoons. A proposal to discharge secondary effluent to the nearby waters of Teslin Lake was considered environmentally unattractive by the community's residents, who formed a citizen's group to look into other alternatives. The group concluded that wetlands treatment appeared to offer the best alternative method for further treating and disposing of the Village's sewage effluent, and that the option was worthy of further detailed study. This paper describes the resulting investigation, study and development of the selected wetlands treatment alternative, which is intended to provide tertiary treatment together with disposal. The selected treatment area slopes gently downward towards a creek which winds through what was once the bottom of a glacial lake. Soils include sands, silts, clays and organics. Vegetation consists of grasses, moss and peat, dense willows and buckbrush, and scattered spruce. Although a wetlands system was initially envisaged, the predesign process concluded that the site characteristics were appropriately suited to a combined slow infiltration/induced wetlands


International attention is currently focused on alleviating health disparities through the adoption of new paradigms of research and the development of culturally relevant theories of health and illness. Yet, in spite of consistent calls to inform these deficiencies, the methodological trajectory from problem identification to theoretical development has remained relatively elusive. In this article, the authors present a case study of a systematic research methodology that resulted in a refined theory of social capital with practical relevance for health disparities research. Their purpose is to demonstrate how the stages and strategies of the hybrid model of concept development were extended as a research trajectory.


We review a model of computation used in industrial practice in signal processing software environments and experimentally and other contexts. We give this model the name "dataflow process networks," and study its formal properties as well as its utility as a basis for programming language design. Variants of this model are used in commercial visual programming systems such as SPW from the Alta Group of Cadence (formerly Comdisco Systems), COSSAP from Synopsys (formerly Cadis), the DSP Station from Mentor Graphics, and Hypersignal from Hyperception. They are also used in research software such as Khoros from the University of New Mexico and Ptolemy from the University of California at Berkeley, among many others. Dataflow process networks are shown to be a special case of Kahn process networks, a model of computation where a number of concurrent processes communicate through unidirectional FIFO channels, where writes to the channel are nonblocking, and reads are blocking. In dataflow process networks, each process consists of repeated "firings" of a dataflow "actor." An actor defines a (often functional) quantum of computation. By dividing processes into actor firings, the considerable overhead of context switching incurred in most implementations of Kahn process networks is avoided. We relate dataflow process networks to other dataflow models, including those used in dataflow machines, such as static dataflow and the tagged-token model. We also relate dataflow process networks to functional languages such as Haskell, and show that modern language concepts such as higher-order functions and polymorphism can be used effectively in dataflow process networks. A number of programming examples using a visual syntax are given. >


According to the international trade theory, open market oriented industries, sectors or economies are more effective in allocating production factors among economics actors than the relatively closed ones. However; it is wondered whether being open market oriented is good for societies as a whole. Therefore, this study uses panel data analysis in order to examine the effects of trade openness with control variables on the living standards of medium high income level countries. For life standards indicators, human development index (HDI) was taken into account. Data were obtained from World Bank and data set covers the years between 1995 and 2010. In conclusion, the present study found positive effect of openness on living standards.


Bayesian networks with mixtures of truncated exponentials (MTEs) support efficient inference algorithms and provide a flexible way of modeling hybrid domains. On the other hand, estimating an MTE from data has turned out to be a difficult task, and most prevalent learning methods treat parameter estimation as a regression problem. The drawback of this approach is that by not directly attempting to find the parameters that maximize the likelihood, there is no principled way of e.g. performing subsequent model selection using those parameters. In this paper we describe an estimation method that directly aims at learning the maximum likelihood parameters of an MTE potential. Empirical results demonstrate that the proposed method yields significantly better likelihood results than regression-based methods.


Saliva as a matrix for human biomonitoring in occupational and environmental medicine

Purpose: Human biomonitoring (HBM) implies the assessment of internal exposure to hazardous substances by measuring the substances, their metabolites or reaction products, as well as effect parameters in human body fluids. Along with blood, plasma and urine, saliva is of increasing interest as an alternative matrix for HBM.

Methods: This paper reviews studies that measure salivary background levels of hazardous substances, elevated levels after environmental or occupational exposure, as well as references which deal with physiological and toxicokinetic behaviour of saliva and salivary parameters, respectively.

Results: The studies revealed that the determination of biomarkers in saliva is a promising approach for HBM, even if only few substances showed a satisfying correlation with exposure data or established biomonitoring matrices such as blood, plasma and urine. Saliva has been proven to be particularly suitable for substances of low molecular weight such as organic solvents, selected pesticides, cotinine, and for some specific trace elements. Besides several advantages, serious problems and limitations were identified. Above all, the complex interactions between substance properties, sampling procedure, sample preparation, measurement techniques or individual factors, and the salivary analyte level are discussed.

Conclusions: A major conclusion of the review is that more scientific studies are needed in order to systematically collect data on parameters, influencing salivary analyte levels. Crucially required is a harmonisation of the sampling as well as the sample preparation techniques and procedures, which is indispensable to achieve an overall comparability and interpretability of salivary biomarker levels.

Keywords:

Probenahme;
Speichel;
biologisches Monitoring;
Arbeitsmedizin;
Biomonitoring;
Umweltmedizin;
Biomarker


All living languages have the potential to coin neologisms which is indicative of their vitality to translate new knowledge and the ensuing changes in society. In economic and financial discourse, analysts, experts and popularisers often resort to figures of speech when explaining new realities in this area field, thus enabling them to have a greater impact on the recipients. The aim of this paper, based on a research corpus of texts spanning the 2007–2012 economic crisis taken from the press of four different European countries, is to attempt to resolve the difficulties involved with this kind of terminology. The questions addressed include the following: the attitude of the speakers of Romance languages towards the introduction of new concepts relating to the crisis; the field associated with each expression in the different cultures; to what extent conceptual metaphors coincide between cultures; the terminological variations involved in each case, etc. The answers to these questions can facilitate improved translator performance. The time lapse between the appearance of these terms and their inclusion in dictionaries poses a problem for translators who need to find solutions as quickly as possible, whilst at the same time providing a systematic approach to the problems encountered. Above and beyond solutions provided by dictionaries alone, translators are often faced with a choice between the terms found in vivo and those found in vitro. While an analysis of the way each concept is handled by dictionaries falls beyond the scope of our stated aims, it cannot be ignored completely inasmuch as it makes it possible to shed light on institutional terminological policies as well as divergences between the recommended standard and actual usage. At the same time, it should also be acknowledged that, despite the influx of terms within a globalised economy, there is still room for each community to maintain its own cultural specificity.


Although there are now several brands and types of honey wound-care products available as registered medical devices, there is little promotional advertising of honey products for wound care. The misconception that there is no evidence to support the use of honey, which seems to be quite common, may be due to this lack of advertising, and to the systematic reviews that have been published on honey concluding that the evidence is of low quality and/or there is a need for more evidence. However, the same lack of high-quality evidence exists with all the other options that clinicians have for dressing wounds. This places practitioners in a quandary. When clinical evidence of the highest level is not available, then decisions on modes of treatment need to be based on whatever evidence there is available. This review outlines the 16 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of honey in wound care published since Molan reviewed the previous 17 in 2006, which bring the total of participants in the trials up from 1,965 to 3,556 and broadens the range of types of wounds on which trials with honey have been conducted. Another important factor influencing the choice by clinicians of which product to use on a wound is scientific rationale. This review covers the evidence and explanation of mode of action for various bioactivities in honey which aid wound healing: a very broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity that is effective on antibiotic-resistant strains; activation of autolytic debridement; anti-inflammatory activity; antioxidant activity; stimulation of growth of cells for tissue repair; and an osmotic action. The need for standardisation of these bioactivities is discussed.


Background: HAS - BLED score was developed to assess 1-year major bleeding risk in patients anticoagulated with vitamin K antagonists (VKA) due to atrial fibrillation (AF). Objective: Of this study was to assess the ability of HAS-BLED score and its components to predict major bleeding in patients treated in an anticoagulation outpatient clinic of a tertiary hospital. Methods: A retrospective cohort study on AF patients treated with VKA was conducted. Logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the ability of individual score components to predict major bleeding. The significance level adopted in all tests was 5%. Results: We studied 263 patients with a mean age of 71.1 ± 10.5 years over a period of 237.6 patients-year. Median HAS-BLED score was 2 (1-3). The overall incidence of major bleeding was 5.7%, and it was higher among high-risk HAS-BLED score patients than in low risk patients (9.6 vs. 3.1%; p = 0.052). Area under the ROC curve was 0.70 (p = 0.01). Cut-off point ≥ 3 showed sensibility of 66.7%, specificity of 62.1%, positive predictive value of 9.6% and negative predictive value of 96.9%. Major bleeding-free survival was lower in high-risk group (p = 0.017). In multivariate analysis, concurrent antiplatelet use was the only independent predictor of major bleeding among score components (OR 5.13, 95%CI: 1.55-17.0; p = 0.007). Conclusion: HAS-BLED score was able to predict major bleeding in this cohort of AF patients. Among score components, special attention should be given for concomitant antiplatelet use, which was independently associated to this outcome. Antiplatelets in AF patients under VKA anticoagulation should be used in selected patients with favorable risk-benefit assessment. (Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2017;30(6)517-525)


ABSTRACT We assessed population genetic structure and rate of hybridization in Sarracenia flava and S. minor in Francis Marion National Forest. The forest has an abundance of potential habitat for our study species and has suffered less human mediated disturbance than much of the county's longleaf pine savanna and wet pine savanna ecosystems. We examined 63 S. flava and 62 S. minor individuals, as well as one hybrid across a 486.02 km2 study site. We used eight nuclear microsatellite loci and one non-coding chloroplast marker to assess population genetic structure and describe the parentage of the hybrid. We found relatively little population genetic structure across many distinct field sites, even when those sites were separated by unsuitable habitat. In very small populations surviving in shrub-dominated longleaf pine savanna, genetic divergence was greater than in larger populations with more suitable habitat. The single hybrid discovered was an F1 hybrid for which S. flava served as the maternal parent. We found no signs of introgression. We hope that these data can help inform conservation decisions regarding Sarracenia species, as the low genetic structure seems to suggest a high degree of connectivity between geographically distinct populations of plants.


There are many applications scenarios for which the computational performance and memory footprint of the prediction phase of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) need to be optimized. Binary Deep Neural Networks (BDNNs) have been shown to be an effective way of achieving this objective. In this paper, we show how Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) can be implemented using binary representations. Espresso is a compact, yet powerful library written in C/CUDA that features all the functionalities required for the forward propagation of CNNs, in a binary file less than 400KB, without any external dependencies. Although it is mainly designed to take advantage of massive GPU parallelism, Espresso also provides an equivalent CPU implementation for CNNs. Espresso provides special convolutional and dense layers for BCNNs, leveraging bit-packing and bitwise computations for efficient execution. These techniques provide a speed-up of matrix-multiplication routines, and at the same time, reduce memory usage when storing parameters and activations. We experimentally show that Espresso is significantly faster than existing implementations of optimized binary neural networks (≈ 2 orders of magnitude). Espresso is released under the Apache 2.0 license and is available at http://github.com/fpeder/espresso.


In an approach to explain why snow loads on roofs increase when an early melting period occurs, the increased snow load is seen as condensation of humidity of the air onto snow covered roofs. 2-D simulations were performed with the Fluent model. The humidity of the air is considered as small droplets. The condensation rate is 3-5 kg/m 2 h. The simulations show that the wind side of the roof is more subjected to condensation than the lee side. This study indicates that short-term condensation onto snow covered surfaces should be paid more attention


Flexible materials such as textiles, papers, polymers, and metals are transported on rollers during their processing. Maintaining web tension in the entire processing line under changing web speed is a key factor in achieving good final product quality. Many industrial applications use dancer position feedback to indirectly regulate tension. Although widely used in the industry, pendulum dancers (rotational motion of the dancer roller) have received very little attention in the literature compared to linear ones (translational motion). The lack of clearly identified controllers synthesis methods can thus be noticed, as industry typically uses hand-tuned decentralized PI controllers. An improved alternative based on H∞ methods is proposed in this paper to provide a systematic framework. The focus in this study is the unwind section of a processing line that contains a pendulum dancer (PD). The nonlinear and linear phenomenological models of the unwind section containing the PD are discussed first. The position controller based on dancer position feedback is synthesized using the standard H∞ approach with mixed sensitivity. Because of the high order of the controllers synthesized with this approach, techniques to generate reduced-order controllers are used to calculate a fixed-order controller resembling standard industrial practice. The performance of the proposed controllers is demonstrated by carrying out experiments on a large experimental web handling platform containing four driven rollers, many idle rollers, and a PD in the unwind section. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first published results of successful application of an H∞ controller to a real plant containing a PD.


We present an interactive tool for designing physical surfaces made from flexible interlocking quadrilateral elements of a single size and shape. With the element shape fixed, the design task becomes one of finding a discrete structure---i.e., element connectivity and binary orientations---that leads to a desired geometry. In order to address this challenging problem of combinatorial geometry, we propose a forward modeling tool that allows the user to interactively explore the space of feasible designs. Paralleling principles from conventional modeling software, our approach leverages a library of base shapes that can be instantiated, combined, and extended using two fundamental operations: merging and extrusion. In order to assist the user in building the designs, we furthermore propose a method to automatically generate assembly instructions. We demonstrate the versatility of our method by creating a diverse set of digital and physical examples that can serve as personalized lamps or decorative items.


THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM. By Frederick Gordon Bonser, professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. New York: The Macmillan Company. Cloth. 466 pp. Recent developments in connection with the suggested elimination of certain material and the introduction of desirable new 'material has led to the need of a thoroughgoing revision of the elementary school curriculum. In this book Professor Bonser attempts first to establish definite principles of selection, affected on the one han.I by'the aims and activities of life, and on the other by the natureand needs of children. Then he applies these principles to the various. branches of the curriculum in ~ suggestive way, discussing in order the Practical Arts, Geography, Arithmetic; History, English, Fine Arts, Music, Physical. Education, and Citizenship. A final chapter .offers extensive practical suggestions on the use of his book in improving curricula. An index is provided. Although not primarily a book on methods, no attempt is made to avoid discussion of method where it is pertinent, special attention being given to the proj ect method, both because it is new and because it is' highly important. One is impressed throughout with the essential reasonableness ~ of" Dr. Bonser's conclusions and the practicality of his concrete' suggestions. The book will at once take its deserved place as a standard treatise in this important field.


Wholesale electricity markets now operate in many countries around the world. These markets determine a spot price for electricity as the clearing price when generators bid in power at various prices. Because these markets are by nature repeated day after day, they are prone to tacit collusion between generators to raise prices. Tacit collusion occurs when a generator could improve its profits by changing its bid, but chooses not to do so because the long run result (as other generators also bid more aggressively) would be worse. A characteristic of such collusion is some type of punishment that occurs in the longer term if any player seeks a short-term advantage. It is hard to analyse such behaviour, partly because many possible (stable) collusive patterns exist. The approach taken here is to use a co-evolutionary genetic algorithm within a simple model of an electricity market to investigate the way that participants can learn collusive behaviour. We show that this framework does indeed lead to players adopting strategies of tacit collusion and we analyse the strategies that emerge. This also enables us to consider the ways in which the market environment increases or decreases the probability of collusion.


This working paper explores the importance of legal identity from both a theoretical and operational point of view. The need to investigate and deepen the understanding of the implications of being sans papiers in relation to social exclusion and governance issues is highlighted. This paper argues that proof of an adequate and secure identity document is not only the base of a democratic society and obligation of all governments, but also a fundamental citizenship right.


We present Picco, a tiny situated display for drawings and simple animations, which are created on a dedicated tablet app. Picco was designed to support playful messaging in the workplace through a glanceable desktop device that would place minimal demands on users. Two studies of the device at work demonstrated how crafting was an expression of intimacy when the device was used to connect the workplace to the home, and a way of demonstrating skill and humor to a broad audience when messages were sent amongst co-workers. However, the level of skill needed to produce these messages became a barrier to entry for some co-workers. Our findings suggest that visible ownership of a situated device, which can be personalized in other ways, can underpin a secondary level of participation that is crucial in supporting a sense of involvement when the level of crafting required can stifle more direct participation.


This study focuses on the implications of interpretation on the objectivity and authority of Islamic law. Premodern Muslim jurists developed a jurisprudence of Shari'a that acknowledged the inevitability of interpreting in the law. This should not be surprising if we assume legal systems generally require a degree of interpretive agency. The question for premodern Muslim jurists, though, was how to legitimate interpretive agency and offer standards of evaluation. As will be shown, Islamic jurists theorized about the authority of each interpretation in a system whose ultimate authority rests on a theological commitment to God as sovereign. The issues of objectivity and authority in the law are hardly unique to the Islamic legal tradition. Indeed, if there is a distinct contribution that this study offers, in addition to explicating the various Islamic legal theories, it is that however a legal system's sovereign is understood, similar questions about objectivity and authority will arise in legal systems. Whether the sovereign is God or the state, the issue of interpretation remains of central concern. The ways in which both religious and secular legal scholars problematize objectivity and interpretation, I suggest, is not so different as to render "religious" legal systems different in kind to other systems.


Introduction As searchers in a 20th century of world war and social upheaval, the American modernist poets H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and Wallace Stevens revised poetry's visionary tradition for a skeptical era by re-imagining the idea of God. The visionary poetics of H.D. and Stevens extends a tradition that includes William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. H.D. and Stevens neither embrace conventional religion, as T.S. Eliot eventually does, nor reject abstractions of the spirit, as William Carlos Williams does in calling the poem "a machine made out of words." (1) Instead, they evolve new poetries of the secular-sacred, inscribing themselves not as prophets of "transcendent forms" but as self-conscious artists whose "actual" words blaze with an art, or artifice, that can redeem the human spirit. (2) H.D. looks back to ancient myths, reclaiming but also revising female divinity in transgressive terms. Stevens re-conceptualizes poetry itself as a modern form of redemption. In bodies of work created through the mid-century (Stevens died in 1955; H.D., in 1961), they demonstrate poetry's capacity to redeem the human spirit singed by historical disasters and existential alienation. Their distinctive inward quests lead to discoveries of the other within themselves; then to something larger beyond themselves, an encompassing being or sense of being that may be considered an idea of god. (3) In the 21st century search for global accord amid perpetual war and ecological crisis, the work of H.D. and Stevens confirms the power of visionary poetry as a spiritual force for creating common ground. It demonstrates poetry's effectiveness as a catalyst for compassionate dialogue across religious divides that are used to fuel global conflict. When Stevens says, "God is in me or else is not at all (does not exist)," (4) he proclaims the divinity within, not a transcendent God separate and other from the human. "[T]his is the new heresy; /" H.D. writes in Trilogy: ... yet the ancient rubrics reveal that we are back at the beginning: you have a long way to go, walk carefully, speak politely to those who have done their worm cycle, for gods have been smashed before and idols and their secret is stored in man's very speech, (5) History has failed us, or we have failed it, and we must begin again in the present, informed by ancient wisdom and prepared to undergo a complete metamorphosis, or "worm cycle." Such a process has outlived gods as they have been defined and represented through time and various cultures. It is in language, "man's very speech," not in the idols of a religion, where ancient wisdom sets its store through the cyclical discourses of history. The "heresy" of H.D. and Stevens resulted from scientific, philosophical, and social change, along with massive world war. Nietzsche declared that God was dead and religion had lost its power long before World War I made poets face the brutal reality of large-scale modern warfare at odds with Romantic notions of heroism and honor. Darwin's theory of evolution was taking hold as the 20th century began, along with Freud's idea that unconscious motives control human behavior. When Stevens wrote, "The mind is the most powerful thing in the world," it followed that the idea of God was a human invention. (6) H.D. considered mind and body in her declaration that "the brain and the womb are both centres of consciousness, equally important." (7) H.D. was reared in the Moravian Christian community of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by a seminary-teacher mother and astronomer father. The Moravians believe in simple living, a communal spirit of unity, mission, and in mysticism, including the gift of "vision" manifesting as holy wisdom, insight, or talent. H.D., who titled her childhood memoir The Gift, wondered if "the gift" had passed to her, but was told that it had gone to her musical uncle. Her mother had musical talent but had stopped singing after criticism from her own father. …


Ideals of democratic participation and rational self-government have long informed modern political theory. As a recent elaboration of these ideals, the concept of deliberative democracy is based on the principle that legitimate democracy issues from the public deliberation of citizens. This remarkably fruitful concept has spawned investigations along a number of lines. Areas of inquiry include the nature and value of deliberation, the feasibility and desirability of consensus on contentious issues, the implications of institutional complexity and cultural diversity for democratic decision making, and the significance of voting and majority rule in deliberative arrangements.The anthology opens with four key essays--by Jon Elster, JA rgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, and John Rawls--that helped establish the current inquiry into deliberative models of democracy. The nine essays that follow represent the latest efforts of leading democratic theorists to tackle various problems of deliberative democracy. All the contributions address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens. Although the authors approach the topic of deliberation from different perspectives, they all aim to provide a theoretical basis for a more robust democratic practice.Contributors : James Bohman, Thomas Christiano, Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, David Estlund, Gerald F. Gaus, JA rgen Habermas, James Johnson, Jack Knight, Frank I. Michelman, John Rawls, Henry S. Richardson, Iris Marion Young.


Fully actuated multifingered robotic hands are often expensive and fragile. Low-cost underactuated hands are appealing but present challenges due to the lack of analytical models. This letter aims to learn a stochastic version of such models automatically from data with minimum user effort. The focus is on identifying the dominant, sensible features required to express hand state transitions given quasi-static motions, thereby enabling the learning of a probabilistic transition model from recorded trajectories. Experiments both with Gaussian processes (GP) and neural etwork models are included for analysis and evaluation. The metric for local GP regression is obtained with a manifold learning approach, known as Diffusion Maps, to uncover the lower-dimensional subspace in which the data lies and provide a geodesic metric. Results show that using Diffusion Maps with a feature space composed of the object position, actuator angles, and actuator loads, sufficiently expresses the hand-object system configuration and can provide accurate enough predictions for a relatively long horizon. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first learned transition model for such underactuated hands that achieves this level of predictability. Notably, the same feature space implicitly embeds the size of the manipulated object and can generalize to new objects of varying sizes. Furthermore, the learned model can identify states that are on the verge of failure and which should be avoided during manipulation. The usefulness of the model is also demonstrated by integrating it with closed-loop control to successfully and safely complete manipulation tasks.


This study was designed with three main purposes; to compare (a) the effects of two listening conditions on error detection accuracy, (b) error detection responses for rhythm errors and note errors, and (c) the influences of texture on error detection accuracy. Undergraduate music education students (n = 18) listened to purposefully incorrect performances of band literature in two formats, on recordings and while conducting a live ensemble. Note and rhythm errors were inserted into the musical excerpts to investigate responses to different types of errors. Half of the excerpts were played by the full ensemble and half by a single section. Participants served as their own controls by completing the error detection tasks under all conditions. Results indicated that participants were significantly more successful in identifying errors in the recording condition than in the conducting condition. A significant interaction existed between the error type (note or rhythm) and the ensemble texture (single section or full ensemble). Participants more accurately identified rhythm errors in the single section texture, and diagnosed note errors more successfully in the full ensemble excerpts.


This study explores data related to police staffing through a convenience sample of 68 American police departments. The relationship between police officer staffing, and exogenous variables such as crime, population, calls for service, and endogenous variables such as workload, response time, patrol deployment and service times was explored. The results indicate that the percentage of officers assigned to patrol, violent crime, the rate of calls for service, and summer response time are significantly related to the size of a police department. In addition, the study introduces workload variables that could be useful in understanding service demands and staffing decisions in local police departments in the United States and explores factors related to police staffing.


Several consumer speech devices feature voice interfaces that perform on-device keyword spotting to initiate user interactions. Accurate on-device keyword spotting within a tight CPU budget is crucial for such devices. Motivated by this, we investigated two ways to improve deep neural network (DNN) acoustic models for keyword spotting without increasing CPU usage. First, we used low-rank weight matrices throughout the DNN. This allowed us to increase representational power by increasing the number of hidden nodes per layer without changing the total number of multiplications. Second, we used knowledge distilled from an ensemble of much larger DNNs used only during training. We systematically evaluated these two approaches on a massive corpus of far-field utterances. Alone both techniques improve performance and together they combine to give significant reductions in false alarms and misses without increasing CPU or memory usage.


Motivation: Nanopore-based sequencing techniques can reconstruct properties of biosequences by analyzing the sequence-dependent ionic current steps produced as biomolecules pass through a pore. Typically this involves alignment of new data to a reference, where both reference construction and alignment have been performed by hand. Results: We propose an automated method for aligning nanopore data to a reference through the use of hidden Markov models. Several features that arise from prior processing steps and from the class of enzyme used can be simply incorporated into the model. Previously, the M2MspA nanopore was shown to be sensitive enough to distinguish between cytosine, methylcytosine and hydroxymethylcytosine. We validated our automated methodology on a subset of that data by automatically calculating an error rate for the distinction between the three cytosine variants and show that the automated methodology produces a 2–3% error rate, lower than the 10% error rate from previous manual segmentation and alignment. Availability and implementation: The data, output, scripts and tutorials replicating the analysis are available at https://github.com/UCSCNanopore/Data/tree/master/Automation. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available from Bioinformatics online.


Abstract With the use of a numerical three-dimensional (3-D) model the flow dynamics of the confluence area of Unteraargletscher, Bernese Alps, Switzerland, are studied. Previous predictions, based on conceptual two-dimensional models, about flow characteristics at confluence areas are tested against results from the fully 3-D model. Measured winter velocities are used for model verification. Despite some consistent systematic differences, good overall agreement between measured and calculated surface velocities is obtained. The calculated vertical strain-rate variation with depth is in good agreement with available measurements from boreholes. The ice is found to be almost three times stiffer than standard estimates of rheological parameters for glacier ice would predict. The model predicts a complicated yet realistic pattern of vertical velocity variation along the surface. The most noticeable features of the vertical velocity distribution across the surface are listed, and their relation to topographic surface undulations and the overall dynamics of the confluence discussed. In accordance with previous results from analytical models, a strongly localized surface trough and a concomitant negative (downward orientation) vertical velocity anomaly develop at the junction point. Although depth-integrated strain rates are positive (extension), the basal layer is compressed vertically. The ice-cored medial moraine is formed by differential ablation. The flow mechanics of the confluence area play only an indirect role, by enabling transfer of debris-covered marginal ice towards the confluence center. In the absence of differential ablation, an elongated surface depression would be formed in the down-glacier direction from the junction point instead of an elevated ice-cored medial moraine.


Resistance to contemporary broad-spectrum beta-lactams, mediated by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) enzymes, is an increasing problem worldwide. The Etest (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden) ESBL screen uses stable gradient technology to evaluate the MIC of ceftazidime alone compared with the MIC of ceftazidime with clavulanic acid (2 micrograms/ml) to facilitate the recognition of strains expressing inhibitable enzymes. In the present study, ESBL-producing strains (17 Escherichia coli transconjugants) were studied to define "sensitive" interpretive criteria for the Etest ESBL screen. These criteria (reduction of the ceftazidime MIC by > 2 log2 dilution steps in the presence of clavulanic acid) defined a group of 92 probable ESBL-positive organisms among the 225 tested strains of Klebsiella species and E. coli having suspicious antibiogram phenotypes. With a subset of 82 clinical strains, the Etest ESBL screen was more sensitive (100%) than the disk approximation test (87%) and was more convenient. The MICs of ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and tobramycin at which 50% of isolates are inhibited were 16- to 128-fold higher (coresistance) for the ESBL screen-positive group of strains than for the ESBL screen-negative group of strains. Some strains for which cephalosporin MICs were elevated and which were Etest ESBL screen negative were also cefoxitin resistant, i.e., consistent with a chromosomally mediated AmpC resistance phenotype. The Etest ESBL screen test with the ceftazidime substrate appears to be a useful method for detecting or validating the presence of enteric bacilli potentially producing this type of beta-lactamase.


Americans now hold trillions of dollars in individual retirement savings accounts. Concerned about conflicts of interest among financial advisers who provide advice to retirement savers, the Department of Labor has proposed imposing fiduciary status and a "best interest" standard on such advisers. To ameliorate the resulting compliance costs, the DOL has also raised the possibility of a safe harbor for certain "high-quality low-fee investments." However, the notion of a "high-quality" investment is in irreconcilable tension with the highly individualized assessment of risk and return that is required by modern portfolio theory, the well-accepted concept from financial economics that has been codified in the "prudent investor rule" as the standard of care for fiduciary investment. This policy incoherence is worrisome because of the potential for the safe harbor to swallow the best interest standard.


This paper presents a new analysis of dynamic constraint satisfaction problems (DCSPs) with finite domans and a new approach to solving them. We first show that even very small changes in a CSP, in the form of addition of constraints or changes in constraint relations, can have profound effects on search performance. These effects are reflected in the amenability of the problem to different forms of heuristic action as well as overall quality of search. In addition, classical DCSP methods perform poorly on these problems because there are sometimes no solutions similar to the original one found. We then show that the same changes do not markedly affect the locations of the major sources of contention in the problem. A technique for iterated sampling that performs a careful assessment of this property and uses the information during subsequent search, performs well even when it only uses information based on the original problem in the DCSP sequence. The result is a new approach to solving DCSPs that is based on a robust strategy for ordering variables rather than on robust solutions.


OBJECTIVES
Akathisia is a clinical important symptom, frequently induced by neuroleptic treatment. Despite its clinical importance, less is known about its pathophysiology.

METHODS
Using [18]-FDG-PET, imaging patterns of cortical metabolic activity were obtained in a patient during olanzapine-induced akathisia and after recovery.

RESULTS
Akathisia was characterized by a reduced metabolic activity in thalamus and cerebellum. After discontinuing medication akathisia disappeared, reflected by a recovery of metabolic activity in these brain areas.

CONCLUSION
[18]-FDG-PET may be useful to identify cortical regions mediating clinical aspects of drug-induced akathisia, thereby offering a deeper insight into the pathophysiology of this serious side effect.


The use of unmanned aerial drones - operated by remote pilots and capable of conducting pinpoint strikes on targets around the world - has revolutionized the fight against terrorism. Within the past few years, however, drones have also been used for domestic security and law enforcement purposes, and such local use is likely to expand in the near future. Whether the government's use of emerging, sophisticated technologies comports with the 4th Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures has confounded the courts, and there are growing concerns that traditional 4th Amendment analyses are no longer workable in the context of modern technologies. In U.S. v. Jones (2011), the Supreme Court applied a relatively new doctrine, the "mosaic theory," in determining whether the government's use of technology, in this case a G.P.S. tracking system, was consistent with fundamental 4th Amendment protections. This paper explores whether the "mosaic theory," laid out by legal scholar Orin Kerr and espoused by the Court in Jones, can be applicable to 4th Amendment challenges to domestic drone use. This paper first explains the extent to which drones are already operational domestically, and briefly discusses proposals to expand their domestic capabilities; second, provides a brief overview of the traditional 4th Amendment analyses in the realm of emerging technologies, with an eye toward determining whether the "property-driven" or "reasonable expectation of privacy" doctrines are no longer applicable to such sophisticated technologies; third, discusses the Jones case as well as the "mosaic theory" in order to provide a solid foundation from which to draw conclusions about its applicability to domestic drone use; and fourth, analyzes a particular type of domestic drone use under the "mosaic theory" rubric, and determines whether it is an appropriate framework to ensure 4th Amendment protections in the context of emerging technologies going forward. The domestic uses of drones are increasing and have been largely overlooked by the public. At the same time, the courts are struggling with how to check such use against the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. An appropriate analytical framework is needed to assist the courts in ensuring that the government's domestic use of drones does not infringe on the people's well-established civil liberties before drones become an even more ubiquitous part of the domestic American experience or facilitate the creation of a perpetual "nanny state" under the guise of providing national security.


Time delays reduces the performance of any controlled system. If neglected in the design phase, the system may even become unstable when using the designed controller. Several power control strategies have been proposed in order to improve the capacity of cellular radio systems, but time delays are usually neglected. Here, it is shown that the problems can be handled by considering the time delays in the design phase in order to choose the appropriate parameter values. Most popular algorithms can be seen as special cases of an integrating controller. This structure is extended first to a proportional integrating (PI)-controller and then further on to a general linear controller of higher orders. Corresponding design procedures are outlined based on techniques, such as pole placement, from the field of automatic control. The PI-controller is a very appealing choice of structure, with better performance compared to an I-controller and less complex than a higher order controller. The benefits are further illuminated by network simulations.


Indonesia's emergence in the palm oil trade could pose a strong threat to the
current competitive advantage that Malaysia is enjoying as Indonesia has large land
resources and an abundant supply of cheap labour. This study intends to evaluate the
Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil exports performances in the last two decades and to
identify the factors contributing to the competitiveness of the exports. The
competitiveness of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil exports are measured using
economic indicators like Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Constant Market
Share (CMS) analysis; while the potential export markets are ascertained through Shift-
Share technique.
This study utilises annual data from 1987 to 1998. The twelve year period is
decomposed into three sub periods with each period contains the four year average.
Period I covers 1987-90, Period II covers 1991-94 and Period III covers 1995-98 for RCA and CMS analyses. The Shift-Share calculations involve only two time periods, that
are Period I (1987-92) and Period IT (1993-98).
The results of RCA clearly show that the Malaysian palm oil export still
maintains strong comparative advantage. This is mainly due to the low level import of
palm oil. However, Malaysia shows a declining trend in Export Performance Ratio
throughout the periods of the study due to the declining share in world's palm oil export.
In the case of Indonesia, the RCA calculations show an increasing strength of
comparative advantage, which is attributed to the increasing palm oil export. CMS results
suggest that export gains of palm oil for both countries are mainly attributed to the size of
the market effect. Both countries show negative distribution effect, due to the
concentration of exports to low growth importing countries. The eMS analysis also
demonstrates that the competitiveness effect has contributed to the palm oil export
growth of Indonesia. On the contrary, Malaysian competitiveness effect is negative
between Periods I and II, Periods I and III, which is attributed to the reduction in the
Malaysia's share in the world export market. The Shift-Share analysis suggests that the
potential markets for palm oil export expansion for the two countries are almost similar,
covering China, Pakistan and India. However, Malaysia has a better opportunity to
increase her export to the EU countries.
From the calculations, the study concludes that Indonesia shows a better
competitiveness in the palm oil exports.


The aim of this work is to explore the possible types of phenomena that simple macroeconomic Agent-Based models (ABMs) can reproduce. We propose a methodology, inspired by statistical physics, that characterizes a model through its "phase diagram" in the space of parameters. Our first motivation is to understand the large macro-economic fluctuations observed in the "Mark I" ABM devised by Delli Gatti and collaborators. In this regard, our major finding is the generic existence of a phase transition between a "good economy" where unemployment is low, and a "bad economy" where unemployment is high. We then introduce a simpler framework that allows us to show that this transition is robust against many modifications of the model, and is generically induced by an asymmetry between the rate of hiring and the rate of firing of the firms. The unemployment level remains small until a tipping point, beyond which the economy suddenly collapses. If the parameters are such that the system is close to this transition, any small fluctuation is amplified as the system jumps between the two equilibria. We have explored several natural extensions of the model. One is to introduce a bankruptcy threshold, limiting the firms maximum level of debt-to-sales ratio. This leads to a rich phase diagram with, in particular, a region where acute endogenous crises occur, during which the unemployment rate shoots up before the economy can recover. We also introduce simple wage policies. This leads to inflation (in the "good" phase) or deflation (in the "bad" phase), but leaves the overall phase diagram of the model essentially unchanged. We have also explored the effect of simple monetary policies that attempt to contain rising unemployment and defang crises. We end the paper with general comments on the usefulness of ABMs to model macroeconomic phenomena, in particular in view of the time needed to reach a steady state that raises the issue of ergodicity in these models.


We have investigated the interaction of clotrimazole (CLT) and related compounds with the erythroid Ca(2+)-activated K+ channel, a mediator of sickle cell dehydration. We measured K+ transport, membrane potential, and cell volume upon activation of this pathway in sickle erythrocytes. CLT blocked almost completely Ca(2+)-activated K+ transport in homozygous hemoglobin S cells, with IC50 values of 29 +/- 15 nM in isotonic 20 mM salt solution and 51 +/- 15 nM in normal saline (n = 3). The inhibition of K+ transport by CLT was caused by a specific interaction with the Ca(2+)-activated K+ channel of human red cells, since it displaced bound 125I-Charybdotoxin, a specific ligand of the Gardos channel, with an IC50 (12 +/- 4 nM in isotonic 20 mM) similar to the IC50 values for flux inhibition. When homozygous hemoglobin S cells were dehydrated by incubation in the presence of 100 microM CaCl2 and the ionophore A23187, or by exposure to cycles of oxygenation and deoxygenation, CLT effectively inhibited cell dehydration and K+ loss. The IC50 of CLT for inhibition of Ca(2+)-activated K+ transport in sickle cells is significantly lower than plasma concentrations of CLT achievable after nontoxic oral doses. We therefore propose that oral administration of CLT may prevent red cell dehydration in patients with sickle cell anemia.


In the first part of this thesis, we present an adaptive optics implementation for multi-photon microscopy correcting sample-induced wavefront aberrations using either direct wavefront sensing to run a close-loop adaptive optics system (Chapter 3), or use a model-based sensorless approach to iteratively correct the wavefront aberrations (Chapter 4). In the second part we present an analysis of the disintegrating exoplanet KIC 12557548 b where we model the dust tail generated by the host star's induced evaporation of the planet in Chapter 5, and in Chapter 6 we investigate the eclipse of 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 observed by SuperWASP indicative of an exoplanet hosting a ring system and potentially exomoons


Introduction: Usik Wiwitan relaxation exercises in West Java is the local traditional complementary treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Uvik Wiwitan relaxation application in decreasing of anxiety in primipara pregnant women. Method: Pregnant women were divided into two groups: Intervention and Control randomly. The intervention group underwent the guided Usik Wiwitan relaxation for 12 weeks, while control group acted as controls. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to assess the scores associated with anxiety. Results: The anxiety scores decreased after Usik Wiwitan relaxation exercises in primipara pregnant women in third trimester. Conclusion: The Usik Wiwitan relaxation can decrease the anxiety of primipara pregnant women. It can be accepted that it has the potential method for the pregnant women's health programs.


Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. 6h2 The following notice applies to any unclassified (including originally classified and now declassified) technical reports released to "qualified U.S. contractors" under the provisions of DOD Directive 5230.25, Withholding of Unclassified Technical Data From Public Disclosure. 1. Export of information contained herein, which includes, in some circumstances, release to foreign nationals within the United States, without first obtaining approval or license form the Department of State for items controlled by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), or the Department of Commerce for items controlled by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), may constitute a violation of law. 2. Under 22 U.S.C. 2778 the penalty for unlawful export of items or information controlled under the ITAR is up to two years imprisonment, or a fine of $100,000, or both. Under 50 U.S.C., Appendix 2410, the penalty for unlawful export of items or information controlled under the EAR is a fine of up to $1,000,000, or five times the value of the exports, whichever is greater; or for an individual, imprisonment of up to 10 years, or a fine of up to 10 years, or a fine of up to $250,000, or both. 3. In accordance with your certification that establishes you as a "qualified U.S. Contractor", unauthorized dissemination of this information is prohibited and may result in disqualification as a qualified U.S. contractor, and may be considered in determining your eligibility for future contracts with the Department of Defense. 4. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for direct patent infringement, or contributory patent infringement or misuse of technical data. 5. The U.S. Government does not warrant the adequacy, accuracy, currency, or completeness of the technical data. 6. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for loss, damage. Or injury resulting form manufacture or use for any purpose of any product, article, system, or material involving reliance upon any or all technical data furnished in response to the request for technical data. 7. If the technical data furnished by the Government will be used for commercial manufacturing or other profit potential, a license for such use may be necessary. Any payments made in support of the request for data do not include or involve any license rights. 8. A copy of this notice shall be provided with any partial or complete reproduction of these data that are provided to qualified U.S. contractors. nfo'-matior s estimated to …


The R3B experiment is a part of the future FAIR project at GSI. It will be used to study reactions with relativistic radioactive beams (R3B). The setup will be placed in the high-energy branch of the Super-FRS. It aims to cover various physics programs. The CALIFA is a spectrometer and a calorimeter. It will surround the central target and detect high-energetic gamma-rays and light charged particles.
The CALIFA group made a DEMONSTRATOR to do a systematic study before a mounting together a complete detection system. It is a first step of the set-up and has been used at the first experiment in CAVE C of GSI.
The main parts of the DEMONSTRATOR are called PETAL, which is a group of 64 crystals in a holding carbon fiber structure.

For the first part of this thesis, I have tested a PETAL in the laboratory of the institute of nuclear physics (IKP), TU Darmstadt and also gone over the analysis framework (R3BRoot) by comparing the results of previous studies and my simulation. The basic properties of the detection unit, the event reconstruction and particle identification have been checked. In addition, the measurement programs have been simulated to be compared to the data. R3BRoot, which is an analysis and simulation toolkit of the R3B experiment, was used. Several measurements were done, for which different sources were used: an AmBe source (gamma-rays, fast neutrons), thermalized neutrons (high-energy gamma-rays via capture process) and muons from cosmic-rays.

The second part of this thesis is devoted to the development of a quality assurance test stand for the CALIFA APDs. A part of CALIFA employs CsI(Tl) crystals coupled with APDs as a detection unit. Every single APD has to be tested before it is assembled with the CsI(Tl) crystal. I have designed and tested the Q.A. test stand for the APDs. The main idea of the test stand is to provide controlled conditions and a testing signal for the APDs and to measure the variance of the output. As a result, it will provide information to characterize the individual units. This data will be used to compensate temperature-related gain shifts during the measurement.


CC This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. KOREAN JOURNAL OF ACUPUNCTURE ORIGINAL ARTICLE Korean Journal of Acupuncture Vol.33, No.4, pp.194-203, 2016 pISSN 2287-3368 / eISSN 2287-3376 https://doi.org/10.14406/acu.2016.024


In this article, the authors respond to certain criticisms made against the 1980 Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the 'CISG') and explain what they perceive as the shortcomings of, and impediments to, a particular model of a proposed new global code. A goal of both the CISG and the proposed global code is to create an environment which promotes international trade. Predictability in the law is a fundamental element to achieve such an environment. The CISG has been criticised as failing to provide such predictability. It has been suggested that it has not been uniformly interpreted, contains internal inconsistencies and allows countries to establish varying mini-codes. While there may be some merit in some of these criticisms there is also much that is overstated and wrong. The CISG may not be a perfect instrument. However, it has been widely accepted and that alone makes it a strong basis from which to develop. A global code applied with absolute uniformity throughout the world might provide predictability. However, such a uniform law is unrealistic and, in any event, undesirable. The authors propose a more realistic solution. The law should be the framework upon which individually nuanced contracts could be built. Predictability is obtained by developing and establishing avenues of communication. It is also obtained by developing and establishing means of explaining and understanding the concepts upon which the framework has been built. The CISG allows for all of this.


Abstract Individual egg size and clutch size of the largest of the dinosaurs (the sauropods) are both smaller than might be expected for such large oviparous organisms. We suggest that these effects can be understood in the light of likely incubation times of sauropod eggs. Using allometric relationships from extant birds and crocodilians, we estimate that time from laying to hatching was likely to have been 65–82 days. If total predation risk varies with length of incubation time, there may be egg sizes above which the advantages of larger initial hatchling size are outweighed by the increased risk of predation during the egg stage. Also, in seasonal environments there will often be a finite limit to the period over which environmental temperatures are high enough for egg development. Thus incubation time may have been an important constraint explaining the small individual size of sauropod eggs. We further suggest that for sauropods spatial dispersal of eggs in small clutches was an adaptive strategy to mitigate this high predation risk associated with long time of exposure in the egg stage. Such a dispersive strategy brings several benefits. Thus, incubation time may also be key to explaining the surprisingly small clutch sizes.


Tao Yuanming (365-427), although dismissed as a poet following his death, is now considered one of China's greatest writers. Over the centuries, portrayals of his life - some focusing on his eccentricity, others on his exemplary virtue - have elevated him to iconic status. This study of the posthumous reputation of a central figure in Chinese literary history, the mechanisms at work in the reception of his works, and the canonization of Tao himself and of particular readings of his works sheds light on the transformation of literature and culture in premodern China.It focuses on readers' interpretive negotiations with Tao's works and on changes in hermeneutical practices, critical vocabulary, and cultural demands, as well as the intervention of interested and influential readers, in order to trace the construction of Tao Yuanming. Driven by a dialogue on categories at the very heart of literati culture - reclusion, personality, and poetry - this cumulative process spanning fifteen centuries, the author argues, helps explain the very different pictures of Tao Yuanming and the divergent ways of reading his works across time and illuminates central issues animating premodern Chinese culture.


Author(s): Sterbenz, Ciara; Trager, Robert | Abstract: Governments across the globe have been quick to adapt developments in artificial intelligence to military technologies. Prominent among the many changes recently introduced, autonomous weapon systems pose important new questions for our understanding of conflict generally, and coercive diplomacy in particular. These weapons dramatically decrease the cost of employing military force, in human terms on the battlefield, in financial and material terms, and in political terms for leaders who choose to pursue conflict. In this article, we analyze the implications of these new weapons for coercive diplomacy, exploring how they will influence the course of international crises. We argue that drones have different implications for relationships between relatively equal states than they do for unbalanced relationships where one state vastly overpowers the other. In asymmetric relationships, these weapons exaggerate existing power disparities. In these cases, the strong state is able to use autonomous weapons to credibly signal, avoiding traditional and more costly signals such as tripwires. At the same time, the introduction of autonomous weapons puts some important forms of signaling out reach. In symmetric conflicts where states maintain the ability to inflict heavy damages on each other, autonomous weapons will have a relatively small effect on crisis dynamics. Credible signaling will still require traditional forms of high-cost signals, including those that by design put military and civilian populations at risk.


At present we are witnessing the intensive exploitation of natural resources but in the meantime we are producing more waste. Hence we should not expect the Earth to produce more but we should do more with what the Earth produces, and adopt a sustainable waste management. Therefore we must turn to Nature, where there is no waste and even surpluses are metabolised by the system itself. If these conditions are transferred to the world of production it's possible that output (waste) of a productive process is used as input (resource) for another one; waste enriched with new values becomes a resource. The research, in collaboration with Neosidea Group, is about the proposal of an instrument for analysis that would allow the configuration and realisation of networks of connections among different companies in geographic proximity, to achieve zero emission by implementing a sustainable management of their wastes.


Abstract. In this paper we present the automated software tool ELDA (EARLINET Lidar Data Analyzer) for the retrieval of profiles of optical particle properties from lidar signals. This tool is one of the calculus modules of the EARLINET Single Calculus Chain (SCC) which allows for the analysis of the data of many different lidar systems of EARLINET in an automated, unsupervised way. ELDA delivers profiles of particle extinction coefficients from Raman signals as well as profiles of particle backscatter coefficients from combinations of Raman and elastic signals or from elastic signals only. Those analyses start from pre-processed signals which have already been corrected for background, range dependency and hardware specific effects. An expert group reviewed all algorithms and solutions for critical calculus subsystems which are used within EARLINET with respect to their applicability for automated retrievals. Those methods have been implemented in ELDA. Since the software was designed in a modular way, it is possible to add new or alternative methods in future. Most of the implemented algorithms are well known and well documented, but some methods have especially been developed for ELDA, e.g., automated vertical smoothing and temporal averaging or the handling of effective vertical resolution in the case of lidar ratio retrievals, or the merging of near-range and far-range products. The accuracy of the retrieved profiles was tested following the procedure of the EARLINET-ASOS algorithm inter-comparison exercise which is based on the analysis of synthetic signals. Mean deviations, mean relative deviations, and normalized root-mean-square deviations were calculated for all possible products and three height layers. In all cases, the deviations were clearly below the maximum allowed values according to the EARLINET quality requirements.


All That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory. "Daring, ambitious, epic, moving". (Colm Toibin). Coloured sheets of paper fall from the sky. This is their first indication that something serious has happened. Each sheet bears a message: you have three hours to evacuate, bring only one suitcase. From their balconies they can see a dark column of smoke rising above the nuclear plant. For the people of Pripyat, these are the last moments they will spend in their homes. For a child piano prodigy, a dissident factory worker, a broken-hearted surgeon and unknowing others, this disaster will change their lives forever..."Shocking, vivid...sweeps with epic confidence across lives". (Sunday Independent). "Astonishing...A page-turner". (Irish Times). "A stunning debut. The reader cannot help but root for a boy genius who, coming from a line of damaged men is now the only hope his mother and aunt have to sustain them." (Guardian). Darragh McKeon was born in 1979 and grew up in the midlands of Ireland. He has worked as a theatre director, and lives in New York. This is his first novel.


Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence, broadly defined as a machine's capability to imitate intelligent human behavior. Like humans, machines become capable of making intelligent decisions by learning from their past experiences. Machine learning is being employed in many applications, including fraud detection and prevention, self-driving cars, recommendation systems, facial recognition technology, and intelligent computing. This book helps beginners learn the art and science of machine learning. It presens real-world examples that leverage the popular Python machine learning ecosystem,

The topics covered in this book include machine learning basics: supervised and unsupervised learning, linear regression and logistic regression, Support Vector Machines (SVMs). It also delves into special topics such as neural networks, theory of generalisation, and bias and fairness in machine learning. After reading this book, computer science and engineering students - at college and university levels - will receive a complete understanding of machine learning fundamentals and will be able to implement neural network solutions in information systems, and also extend them to their advantage.