EAP-TTLS is an EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) method that
encapsulates a TLS (Transport Layer Security) session, consisting of a
handshake phase and a data phase. During the handshake phase, the
server is authenticated to the client (or client and server are
mutually authenticated) using standard TLS procedures, and keying
material is generated in order to create a cryptographically secure
tunnel for information exchange in the subsequent data phase. During
the data phase, the client is authenticated to the server (or client
and server are mutually authenticated) using an arbitrary
authentication mechanism encapsulated within the secure tunnel. The
encapsulated authentication mechanism may itself be EAP, or it may be
another authentication protocol such as PAP, CHAP, MS-CHAP, or MS-
CHAP-V2. Thus, EAP-TTLS allows legacy password-based authentication
protocols to be used against existing authentication databases, while
protecting the security of these legacy protocols against
eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle, and other attacks. The data phase
may also be used for additional, arbitrary data exchange. This memo
provides information for the Internet community.


The practice of non-proliferation has evolved significantly since its origins during the Cold War. The most recent and notable contribution to the non-proliferation regime has come in the form of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a loose consortium of 102 nation-states through which countries can coordinate, share intelligence, and build capacity to interdict weapons of mass destruction (WMD) related transfers. My objective in this paper is to move beyond the "activity not an organisation" rhetoric espoused by proponents of the PSI and to ask a set of deeper and broader questions regarding why transgovernmental networks (TGNs) like the PSI arise and take the form that they do. I argue that for certain issue areas TGNs provide a more suitable organisational design and mechanism for cooperation than IGOs. They offer managerial and participating states a range of functional and strategic benefits that a formal centralised structure is unable to provide. To achieve this objective, I identify 14 threshold criteria for an entity to qualify as a TGN from which I derive six drivers of TGN-formation and cooperation. I also explore the relationship between power and transgovernmental networking, focusing specifically on the role of the U.S. in establishing, managing, and monitoring these institutions. I suggest that TGN-based cooperation is more likely to occur and succeed when there is concentrated power, that is, the presence of a resource rich actor, like the U.S. willing to exercise managerial power in a productive way.


Background: Skeletal muscle glucose utilization (SMGU) can be accessed by positron emission tomography (PET) and18F-FDG to characterize insulin resistance. The quantity of skeletal muscle in the lumbar is sufficient to indicate that SMGU in the lumbar (SMGU- lumbar) can be measured with18F-FDG PET of the chest instead of obtaining thigh muscle SMGU (SMGU-thigh). This would reduce PET scan time to avoid thigh muscle PET scan. This study was aimed to compare SMGU-lumbar and thigh muscle SMGU under insulin clamping to identify the validity of measurements of SMGU in the lumbar for studies of insulin resistance. Methods: Thirty-three patients underwent sequential dynamic18F-FDG PET of both the thoracic (37 min) and thigh region (22 min) during hyperinsulinemic euglycemic insulin clamping. Both SMGU-lumbar and SMGU-thigh were calculated by Patlak graphical analysis. Whole body insulin resistance was assessed by a whole body glucose disposal rate during hyperinsulinemic euglycemic insulin clamping. Input function was obtained from the time activity curve of the descending aorta and venous blood sampling as previously validated. Results: SMGU-thigh (0.0506 ± 0.0334 μmol/min/g) was comparable to SMGU-lumbar (0.0497 ± 0.0255 μmol/min/g). The Bland-Altman method of difference plot analysis showed a significant correlationship between SMGU- thigh and SMGU-lumbar (r = 0.506, p = 0.0028). There were seen very good significant correlationship between whole body glucose utilization rate in both thigh (r = 0.737, p = 0.0001) and lumbar (r = 0.772, p = 0.0001). Conclusion: These results support the validity of measuring SMGU-lumbar to estimate insulin resistance during PET imaging of the chest.


Abstract Periodic shortfalls of organic food have been commonplace in the USA. Shortages, created when demand grows faster than supply, have been exacerbated by relatively slow growth of certified organic farmland (in comparison to growth in retail sales) over the past decade. Organic intermediaries, referred to as handlers in the US national organic standards, work with farmers and other handlers in moving organic products along the supply chain, and are often the first to feel the effects of tight supplies at the farm level. These firms have a variety of mechanisms available to procure needed ingredients when organic products are in short supply: contracts with suppliers, encouraging suppliers to transition to organic, working with suppliers to increase their output, working with new suppliers, providing technical assistance with organic standards and production methods, and making less than load shipment arrangements with suppliers. Survey data collected from certified organic handlers are used to identify characteristics that make it more likely that an organic handler will undertake activities with suppliers to affect the supply of organic products. Handlers most likely to work with their suppliers had been in business for longer periods of time, bought from growers or grower cooperatives, and were more likely to be wholesalers. Handlers who consider price as important were less likely to undertake activities with their supplies to increase the supply or flow of organic products.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the self-rated health of adolescents and to identify its predictors using longitudinal data from the KCYPS. Methods: A sample of 2,351 adolescents who were in the first grade of middle school in 2010 was analyzed. The study employed latent growth analysis using data from 2010 to 2016. Results: Results indicated that self-rated health of adolescents increased, following the form of a linear function. The analyses revealed that adolescent self-perception of health were conceptualized not only by their health-related behaviors, but also by personal, socioeconomic and psychological factors. Specifically, physical activity, passive leisure time activities, gender (initial: b=-.060, slope: b=.030), place of residence (initial: b=-.079), self-rated economic condition (b=.098), working status of mother (b=.016), monthly family income (b=-.001), aggression (b=.061), depression (initial: b=-.104, slope: b=.012), stress (initial: b=-.172, slope: b=.014, ego-resiliency (initial: b=.197, slope: b=-.021), and self-esteem (initial: b=.106, slope: b=-.017) had significant effects on the overall linear change of self-rated health (p<.05 for all estimators above). Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that adolescents' self evaluation of their health is shaped by their total sense of functioning, which includes individual, health-related behavioral, socioeconomic, and psychological factors.


| Background: Milk production is a work system that comprises several tasks from cattle handling, feeding and milking to product consumption. Isometric lumbar extension dynamometry is considered a satisfactory instrument for occupational evaluation and monitoring, especially for populations of workers whose activities demand high levels of strength. Objective: To investigate isometric lumbar extension strength among rural milk production workers. Methods: The sample comprised 47 rural milk production workers affiliated with the Technical Assistance and Rural Outreach Company/Southern Credit and Rural Assistance Company (Empresa de Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural/Associação Sulina de Crédito e Assistência Rural — EMATER/ASCAR), Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The participants were analyzed based on a sociodemographic questionnaire and lumbar extensor muscle strength testing by means of an isometric dynamometry system. Results: Participants were 20 men with average age 50.45±9.44 years old and 27 women with average age 46.15±7.56 years old. The isometric lumbar extension strength was 1,169±289.96 N for the men and 571.34±190.36 N for the women. Conclusion: The lumbar extensor muscle profile of rural milk production workers was characterized by higher values for the men, which might be attributed to the fact that men exhibit higher body mass levels, and consequently produce greater force.


A b str a ct A fundamental change in the planning and delivery of new housing projects has taken place in the last years, with the focus shifting towards adding value to projects based on a better understanding of housing preferences. This issue becomes even more critical when it is intended to the provision of affordable houses for low and middle income groups. This paper describes a model designed to help developers and housing users to achieve their expectations regarding quality, affordability and including also reasonable profits. Developed through a "methodological pluralism", this study identifies people-oriented variables and assumptions. The model was developed based on a case study in the city of Guayaquil-Ecuador, and information obtained from field work research was used to test it. The study examines impli cations and limitations of the model for inclusion of housing preferences considering local conditions and cultural val ues. The different parts of the model along with data requirements for each part are described. The paper concludes with findings regarding the identification of most preferred attributes by housing users and the use of alternatives meth ods to incorporate additional value into projects, translated into more appealing profits for developers and the provi sion of better and more affordable houses for users.


This study examines the change in entering class median LSAT, a key input into the U.S. News & World Report rankings, between 1993 and 2004. Using multivariate regression analysis, the authors model several factors that can influence the direction and magnitude of this change. The study presents six specific findings: (1) the market for high LSAT students is divided into two segments that operate under different rules; (2) initial starting position is a strong predictor of the future gain or loss in LSAT scores; (3) the allure of the high-end corporate law firms appears to cause a significant portion of students to discount the importance of rankings in favor of locational advantages related to the regional job market; (4) students will pay a tuition premium to attend elite law schools but, when deciding among non-elite schools, are willing to forgo a higher ranked school for lower tuition, thus producing a measurable gain in median LSAT scores for lower priced, non-prestigious law schools; (5) there is little or no association between change in lawyer/judge and academic reputation and median LSAT scores, and (6) two well-known gaming strategies for driving up median LSAT scores appear to work. Drawing upon these results, the authors suggest that the current rankings competition among law schools has all the hallmarks of a positional arms race that undermines social welfare. The authors outline the emerging equilibrium in which non-elite schools engage in costly strategies to boost their reputations while elite law schools are able to further leverage their positional advantage. Because this dynamic spawns rapidly escalating costs in the form of higher tuition, continuation of the ranking tournament threatens the long-term viability of the current model of legal education. The authors conclude with four specific recommendations to law school deans and the editors of U.S. News & World Report.


Social media is emerging as a powerful source of communication, information dissemination and mining. Being colloquial and ubiquitous in nature makes it easier for users to express their opinions and preferences in a seamless, dynamic manner. Epidemic surveillance systems that utilize social media to detect the emergence of diseases have been proposed in the literature. These systems mostly employ traditional document classification techniques that represent a document with a bag of N-grams. However, such techniques are not optimal for social media where sparsity and noise are norms. The authors address the limitations posed by the traditional N-gram based methods and propose to use features that represent different semantic aspects of the data in combination with ensemble machine learning techniques to identify health-related messages in a heterogenous pool of social media data. Furthermore, the results reveal significant improvement in identifying health related social media content which can be critical in the emergence of a novel, unknown disease epidemic.


Central venous catheters have become an integral part of patient management however they are associated with many complications including infection. Despite efforts being made to reduce the incidence of such infect ions the problem continues to increase and has resource implications for the Health Service. Studies relating to the source of microorganisms causing CVC-associated infection, the cost of such infections and the efficacy of an antimicrobial catheter have been undertaken. Thirty patients who required a CVC as part of their medical management and underwent cardiac surgery had the distal tips of their catheters sampled whilst in situ. Sampling took place within 1 h of catheter placement. Bacteria were isolated from 16% of the catheter distal tips sampled in situ. The guidewires used to insert the devices were also contaminated (50%). When CVC were inserted via a protective sheath, avoiding contact with the skin. the incidence of microbial contamination was reduced. These findings suggest that despite rigorous skin disinfection and strict aseptic technique, viable microorganisms are impacted onto the distal tip of CVC during the insertion procedure. Needleless intravascular access devices have been introduced in order to reduce the incidence of need1estick injury. However, it was unclear whether such connectors would act as a portal of entry for microorganisms to CVC. The efficacy of these devices was investigated. Within the controlled laboratory environment it was demonstrated that needleless devices, when challenged with microorganisms, did not allow the passage of microbes when flu id was injected. This therefore suggested that the devices should not increase the risk of catheter colonisation. When used in clinical practice however microbial contamination of the needleless connectors was 55 % in comparison to the routinely used luer connectors (23%). The cost of infections associated with CVC was determined. Twenty patients catheterised with a CVC designed for long term use who were admitted to hospital with a presumptive diagnosis of catheter-related infection were studied. The treatment given specifically for this infection was costed. The mean cost of such an infection was £ 1781.81. Throughout the UK this may amount to £1.565.906 per annum. The cost of infections associated with CVC designed for short term use was estimated to be between 5 and 7 million pounds per annum in the UK. In an attempt to reduce both the incidence and cost of catheter- related infection antimicrobial CVC have been developed. The efficacy of a novel polyurethane CVC impregnated on both the internal and external catheter surface with the quaternary ammonium compound benzalkonium chloride was investigated. Eighty eight patients received an antimicrobial catheter and 78 patients a conventional polyurethane CVC. The anti-microbial CVC resulted in a reduction in microbial colonisation of the external and internal polymer surfaces as compared to the control device. The observed reduction in microbial colonisation with the anti-microbial CVC may decrease the likelihood of subsequent infection offering a useful approach to the prevention of catheter-related infections.


A word on the n-letter alphabet is a finite length string of symbols formed from a set of n letters. A word is doubled if every letter that appears in the word appears at least twice. A word w avoids a word u if there is no non-erasing homomorphism h (a map that respects concatenation) such that h (u) is a subword of w. Finally, a word w is n-avoidable if there is an infinite list of words on the n-letter alphabet that avoid w. In 1906, Thue showed that the simplest doubled word, namely xx, is 3-avoidable. In 1984, Dalalyan showed that each doubled word is 4-avoidable and that each doubled word on 6 or more letters is 3-avoidable. In 2013, Blanchet-Sadri and Woodhouse, building on the work of Bell and Goh that is similar to Dalalyan, strengthened the result by showing that all doubled words of length at least 12 are 3-avoidable. Cassaigne in his dissertation classified all the words on the 2-letter alphabet and most of the words on the 3-letter alphabet, and as a result, showed that each doubled word in which at most most 3 distinct letters appear is 3-avoidable. These results leave 7441 doubled words in which exactly 4 or 5 distinct letters appear to check for 3-avoidability. In this dissertation, we show that each doubled word in which at least one letter occurs 3 or more times is 3-avoidable. This leaves only the doubled words to check for 3-avoidability in which exactly 4 or 5 letters appear in the word and each letter appears exactly twice. In fact, we give a list of just 99 doubled words so that if each word on the list can be shown to be 3-avoidable, then we would know that each doubled word is 3-avoidable.


Introduction: The objectives of continuing medical education (CME) programs include knowledge acquisition, skill development, clinical reasoning and decision making, and health care outcomes. We conducted a yearlong medical education research study in which knowledge acquisition in our CME programs was assessed. Method: A randomized separate‐sample pretest/post‐test design, a quasi‐experimental technique, was used. Nine CME programs with a sufficient number of participants were identified a priori. Knowledge acquisition was compared between the control group and the intervention group for the nine individual programs and for the combined programs. Results: A total of 667 physicians, nurses, and other health professionals participated. Significant gain in knowledge was found for six programs: Perinatology, Pain Management, Fertility Care 2, Pediatrics, Colorectal Diseases, and Alzheimer's Disease (each p <.001). Also, the intervention group differed from the control group when the nine programs were combined (p <.001), with an effect size of .84. Discussion: The use of sound quasi‐experimental research methodology (separate‐sample pretest/post‐test design), the inclusion of a representative sample of CME programs, and the analysis of nearly 700 subjects led us to have confidence in concluding that our CME participants acquired a meaningful amount of new knowledge.


Abstract This article examines and responds to a doctrinal claim, made by an increasing number of commentators, that English administrative law is in the midst of a "reformation" or "reinvention", with the notion of "rights" at the heart of this radical recalibration. The article is critical of such claims on several grounds. First, these claims are steeped in ambiguity, such that the nature and doctrinal scope of the claimed metamorphosis are not clear. Second, these commentators have not undertaken the sort of detailed doctrinal analysis which is required to make credible claims about the development of the law, meaning their broad claims have a strong propensity to mislead, and pass over the nuances and complexities of doctrine. An analysis of significant features of doctrine tends to tell against a wholesale recalibration of administrative law around rights, and indicates an increasingly pluralistic rather than unitary legal order. Third, despite the centrality of the idea of "rights" to their claims, these commentators do not squarely address what they mean by "rights", in general using the term indiscriminately, and thereby plunging their claims into uncertainty. The article demonstrates the importance of conceptual clarity in analysing "rights"-based developments through a doctrinal analysis of "rights" in administrative law, conducted through the prism of W.N. Hohfeld's analytical scheme.


Transduction of sound in the inner ear demands tight control over delivery of oxygen and glucose. However, the mechanisms underlying the control of regional blood flow are not yet fully understood. In this study, we report a novel local control mechanism that regulates cochlear blood flow to the stria vascularis, a high energy-consuming region of the inner ear. We found that extracellular lactate had a vasodilatory effect on the capillaries of the spiral ligament under both in vitro and in vivo conditions. The lactate, acting through monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1), initiated neuronal nitric oxide (NO) synthase (nNOS) and catalyzed production of NO for the vasodilation. Blocking MCT1 with the MCT blocker, α-cyano-4-hydroxycinnamate (CHC), or a suppressing NO production with either the nonspecific inhibitor of NO synthase, N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), or either of two selective nNOS inhibitors, 3-bromo-7-nitroindazole or (4S)-N-(4-amino-5[aminoethyl]aminopentyl)-N'-nitroguanidine (TFA), totally abolished the lactate-induced vasodilation. Pretreatment with the selective endothelial NO synthase inhibitor, L-N(5)-(1-iminoethyl)ornithine (L-NIO), eliminated the inhibition of lactate-induced vessel dilation. With immunohistochemical labeling, we found the expression of MCT1 and nNOS in capillary-coupled type V fibrocytes. The data suggest that type V fibrocytes are the source of the lactate-induced NO. Cochlear microvessel tone, regulated by lactate, is mediated by an NO-signaled coupling of fibrocytes and capillaries.


Recent studies from social, biological, and engineering network systems have drawn attention to the dynamics over signed networks, where each link is associated with a positive/negative sign indicating trustful/mistrustful, activator/inhibitor, or secure/malicious interactions. We study asymptotic dynamical patterns that emerge among a set of nodes that interact in a dynamically evolving signed random network. Node interactions take place at random on a sequence of deterministic signed graphs. Each node receives positive or negative recommendations from its neighbors depending on the sign of the interaction arcs, and updates its state accordingly. Recommendations along a positive arc follow the standard consensus update. As in the work by Altafini, negative recommendations use an update where the sign of the neighbor state is flipped. Nodes may weight positive and negative recommendations differently, and random processes are introduced to model the time-varying attention that nodes pay to these recommendations. Conditions for almost sure convergence and divergence of the node states are established. We show that under this so-called state-flipping model, all links contribute to a consensus of the absolute values of the nodes, even under switching sign patterns and a dynamically changing environment. A no-survivor property is established, indicating that every node state diverges almost surely if the maximum network state diverges.


For catalysing dioxygen reduction, iron–nitrogen–carbon (Fe–N–C) materials are today the best candidates to replace platinum in proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) cathodes. Despite tremendous progress in their activity and site-structure understanding, improved durability is critically needed but challenged by insufficient understanding of their degradation mechanisms during operation. Here, we show that FeNxCy moieties in a representative Fe–N–C catalyst are structurally stable but electrochemically unstable when exposed in an acidic medium to H2O2, the main oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) byproduct. We reveal that exposure to H2O2 leaves iron-based catalytic sites untouched but decreases their turnover frequency (TOF) via oxidation of the carbon surface, leading to weakened O2-binding on iron-based sites. Their TOF is recovered upon electrochemical reduction of the carbon surface, demonstrating the proposed deactivation mechanism. Our results reveal for the first time a hitherto unsuspected key deactivation mechanism during the ORR in an acidic medium. This study identifies the N-doped carbon surface as the Achilles' heel during ORR catalysis in PEMFCs. Observed in acidic but not in alkaline electrolytes, these insights suggest that durable Fe–N–C catalysts are within reach for PEMFCs if rational strategies minimizing the amount of H2O2 or reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced during the ORR are developed.


Model error estimation remains one of the key challenges in uncertainty quantification and predictive science. For computational models of complex physical systems, model error, also known as structural error or model inadequacy, is often the largest contributor to the overall predictive uncertainty. This work builds on a recently developed framework of embedded, internal model correction, in order to represent and quantify structural errors, together with model parameters, within a Bayesian inference context. We focus specifically on a Polynomial Chaos representation with additive modification of existing model parameters, enabling a non-intrusive procedure for efficient approximate likelihood construction, model error estimation, and disambiguation of model and data errors' contributions to predictive uncertainty. The framework is demonstrated on several synthetic examples, as well as on a chemical ignition problem.


BACKGROUND
The body adiposity index (BAI) comprises a simple method for estimating body fat (BF) that needs to be validated in patients with severe obesity. The present study aimed to determine BAI accuracy with respect to the determination BF in patients with severe obesity.

METHODS
A cross-sectional prospective study comparing two methods for BF estimation was conducted in 433 patients with severe obesity between August 2012 to December 2014. BF was estimated by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) with specific equations developed for BF estimation in patients with severe obesity and BAI. The BF estimation in 240 patients with severe obesity (Group 1: G1) was used to evaluate BAI limitations and to develop a specific equation in this population. The new equation proposed was validated in another 158 patients with severe obesity (Group 2: G2).

RESULTS
There was a significant difference between BF determination by BIA and BAI (P = 0.039). The mean (SD) BF in G1 was 52.3% (6.1%) determined by BIA and 51.6% (8.1%) determined by BAI. Sex, waist-hip ratio (WHR) and obesity grade determined significant errors on BF estimation by BAI. A new equation (modified body adiposity index; MBAI) was developed by linear regression to minimise these errors [MBAI% = 23.6 + 0.5 × (BAI); add 2.2 if body mass index ≥ 50 kg m-2 and 2.4 if WHR ≥ 1.05]. The new equation reduced the difference [1.2% (5.9%), P < 0.001 to 0.4% (4.12%), P = 0.315] and improved the correlation (0.6-0.7) between methods.

CONCLUSIONS
BAI present significant limitations in severe obesity and MBAI was effective for BF estimation in this population.


Abstract Law enforcement is not a task usually undertaken by military forces, at least within domestic legal contexts. Conversely, maintaining or restoring security within dysfunctional or 'post-conflict' areas of operation is a role commonly undertaken by them. Within these latter operations, the skill sets and highly calibrated application of force that are commonly associated with police forces in their law enforcement role are in fact manifested in a decisively military context. This article reviews the experiences and legal frameworks associated with military participation in two separate types of mission, namely UN-sponsored peace operations and unilateral/multilateral stabilization and counter-insurgency operations. It argues that these contexts have demanded a revised interpretative approach to the applicable law, one that is much more sensitive to social and political effect.


Two questions thought to have a significant effect on SiC-MOS device characteristics are treated. The existence of carbon clusters or carbon containing by-products and the existence of sub-oxides at the SiO2/SiC interface. Results of photoemission studies using synchrotron radiation of the interface of the Si-terminated surface of n-type SiC(0001) crystals are presented. The results show that no carbon clusters or carbon containing by-product can be detected at the interface of in situ or ex situ grown samples with an oxide layer thickness larger than A. The presence of sub-oxides at the SiO2/SiC interface was predicted in a theoretical calculation and has been revealed in Si 2p core level data by several groups. These results were not unanimous; significant differences in the number of sub-oxide and shifts were reported. A study also including the Si 1s core level and Si KLL Auger transitions was therefore made. These data show the presence of only one sub-oxide at the interface, assigned to Si1+ oxidation states. The SiO2 chemical shift is shown to exhibit a dependence on oxide thickness, similar to but smaller in magnitude than the thickness dependence earlier revealed for SiO2/Si.


The regulation of transcription requires complex interactions between proteins bound to DNA sequences that are often separated by hundreds of base pairs. As demonstrated by a nuclear ligation assay, the distal enhancer and the proximal promoter regions of the rat prolactin gene were found to be juxtaposed. By acting through its receptor bound to the distal enhancer, estrogen stimulated the interaction between the distal and proximal regulatory regions two- to threefold compared to control values. Thus, the chromatin structure of the prolactin gene may facilitate the occurrence of protein-protein interactions between transcription factors bound to widely separated regulatory elements.


Measuring the morphological parameters of galaxies is a key requirement for studying their formation and evolution. Surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have resulted in the availability of very large collections of images, which have permitted population-wide analyses of galaxy morphology. Morphological analysis has traditionally been carried out mostly via visual inspection by trained experts, which is time consuming and does not scale to large (≳104) numbers of images. Although attempts have been made to build automated classification systems, these have not been able to achieve the desired level of accuracy. The Galaxy Zoo project successfully applied a crowdsourcing strategy, inviting online users to classify images by answering a series of questions. Unfortunately, even this approach does not scale well enough to keep up with the increasing availability of galaxy images. We present a deep neural network model for galaxy morphology classification which exploits translational and rotational symmetry. It was developed in the context of the Galaxy Challenge, an international competition to build the best model for morphology classification based on annotated images from the Galaxy Zoo project. For images with high agreement among the Galaxy Zoo participants, our model is able to reproduce their consensus with near-perfect accuracy (>99 per cent) for most questions. Confident model predictions are highly accurate, which makes the model suitable for filtering large collections of images and forwarding challenging images to experts for manual annotation. This approach greatly reduces the experts' workload without affecting accuracy. The application of these algorithms to larger sets of training data will be critical for analysing results from future surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.


The aim of this article is to conduct an exploratory study into how SMEs apply Reengineering. In particular, the approach of SMEs to Reengineering definition and methodology are examined. Reengineering has developed from a background in large enterprises. Existing methodologies mainly assume a large organization setting with large-scale resources dedicated to bringing about the large-scale reengineering changes. The paucity of studies in SMEs is surprising given the current and anticipated future market challenges in the SME environment that increase pressure for organizational realignment and responsiveness and market agility. The research involved a literature review and an exploratory multiple case study analysis. In total eight case studies on SMEs, where reengineering had been applied, were analysed using an inductive research methodology, which analysed positivistic reengineering approaches and less structured, more phenomenologically based approaches, which emerged within the case analysis. The analysis indicates that the taxonomy and nomenclature of reengineering, as defined by large organization-based studies, has not translated into SMEs, who use much more general terminology.


A twentieth century-long coupled atmosphere-ocean regional climate simulation with COSMO-CLM (Consortium for Small-Scale Modeling, Climate Limited-area Model) and NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) is studied here to evaluate the added value of coupled marginal seas over continental regions. The interactive coupling of the marginal seas, namely the Mediterranean, the North and the Baltic Seas, to the atmosphere in the European region gives a comprehensive modelling system. It is expected to be able to describe the climatological features of this geographically complex area even more precisely than an atmosphere-only climate model. The investigated variables are precipitation and 2 m temperature. Sensitivity studies are used to assess the impact of SST (sea surface temperature) changes over land areas. The different SST values affect the continental precipitation more than the 2 m temperature. The simulated variables are compared to the CRU (Climatic Research Unit) observational data, and also to the HOAPS/GPCC (Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre) data. In the coupled simulation, added skill is found primarily during winter over the eastern part of Europe. Our analysis shows that, over this region, the coupled system is dryer than the uncoupled system, both in terms of precipitation and soil moisture, which means a decrease in the bias of the system. Thus, the coupling improves the simulation of precipitation over the eastern part of Europe, due to cooler SST values and in consequence, drier soil.


Genuine dialogues reflect the way that language is initially developed by providing opportunities to hear and practice language. Participants within dialogues are found to speak in similar ways through the priming effect, giving language learners continued opportunities to hear and practice a greater variety of syntactic structures. The purpose of this study was to determine if genuine dialogue, and the priming that occurs, could aid in the use and expansion of syntactic structures. Within the context of Reading Recovery, the teacher/researcher (a female member of the dominant culture) and a single student participant (male, African American, 6years-old) were engaged in dialogue. Dialogues were transcribed and analyzed for the syntactic structures used, relationships between the syntactic structures of dialogue participants, and the engagement of the student participant in genuine dialogue. The results indicated that the student participant was engaged in genuine dialogue and was primed to use similar syntactic structures as the teacher/researcher. The student participant had more opportunities to talk (using a variety of syntactic structures) during genuine dialogue than in explicit instruction. The most profitable dialogue for the student participant, in terms of talking opportunities and primed contributions, was a dialogue in which the teacher/researcher and the student participant discussed a shared experience. Through the course of this study, the student showed evidence of varied syntactic usage and growth. Children can be primed within the context of genuine dialogue, possibly providing opportunities for continued language growth and expansion. The use of genuine dialogues within classrooms can provide similar opportunities to lessexperienced language users. Further research could include studies that (a) utilize a greater number of subjects, (b) concern the topic of dialogue, and/or (c) examine the application of new syntactic structures practiced through dialogic priming in other language forms. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN DIALOGUE: THE ROLE OF INFLUENCE A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Education Brenda Ellen Hite University of Northern Iowa July, 2016


This book examines Public–Private Partnerships (PPP), and tracks the movement from early technical optimism to the reality of PPP as a phenomenon in the political economy. Today's economic turbulence sees many PPP assumptions changed: what contracts can achieve, who bears the real risks, where governments get advice and who invests. As the gap between infrastructure needs and available financing widens, governments and businesses both must seek new ways to make contemporary PPP approaches work.


A t-design is a combinatorial structure consisting of a collection of blocks over a set of points satisfying certain properties. The existence of t-designs given a set of parameters can be reduced to finding nonnegative integer solutions to a given integer matrix equation. The matrix in this equation can be quite large, but by prescribing the automorphism group of the design, the matrix in the equation can be made more manageable so as to allow the equation to be solved via integer programming tools; this fact was developed by Kramer and Mesner. Algorithms to generate the matrix equation generally follow a simple template. In this thesis, a generic framework for generating the Kramer-Mesner matrix equation and solving it via integer programming is presented.


Atmospheric inverse estimates of gas emissions depend on transport model predictions, hence driving a need to assess uncertainties in the transport model. In this study we assess the uncertainty in WRF‐STILT (Weather Research and Forecasting and Stochastic Time‐Inverted Lagrangian Transport) model predictions using a combination of meteorological and carbon monoxide (CO) measurements. WRF configurations were selected to minimize meteorological biases using meteorological measurements of winds and boundary layer depths from surface stations and radar wind profiler sites across California. We compare model predictions with CO measurements from four tower sites in California from June 2013 through May 2014 to assess the seasonal biases and random errors in predicted CO mixing ratios. In general, the seasonal mean biases in boundary layer wind speed (< ~ 0.5 m/s), direction (< ~ 15°), and boundary layer height (< ~ 200 m) were small. However, random errors were large (~1.5–3.0 m/s for wind speed, ~ 40–60° for wind direction, and ~ 300–500 m for boundary layer height). Regression analysis of predicted and measured CO yielded near‐unity slopes (i.e., within 1.0 ± 0.20) for the majority of sites and seasons, though a subset of sites and seasons exhibit larger (~30%) uncertainty, particularly when weak winds combined with complex terrain in the South Central Valley of California. Looking across sites and seasons, these results suggest that WRF‐STILT simulations are sufficient to estimate emissions of CO to up to 15% on annual time scales across California.


The english name of this essay is "One man among many women". This essay takes its starting point in the situation today with few male teachers in the earlier years of elementary school. I have decided to look at the small group of males that actually started the education to become teachers and why they did it when the profession as teacher today is low-paid, low status and is a profession with a large dominance of female teachers. I have chosen to write about this because of the importance for the children to meet both men and women as teachers in the early schoolyears. I am myself one of few men that are studying to become a teacher in the elementary school. The purpose is to see which motives and driving forces that have had an influence on the male teacherstudents. The purpose is also to see if their social background have had an influence on their choice of education and profession. The theoretic perspective is that the profession as a teacher is a small choice of education because of the lack of different occupational branches and that the men and women that are starting the education today has a different background, both social and educational in comparison with earlier years. The teacherprofession is today low-paid and not very attractive. If you look at the dominance of female teachers, you can see that it is almost total, with a percentage och over 80% of females that during the last 30 years has started the education to become compulsory school teachers. When you see this numbers you realize that there can´t be many male teachers in the schools today. When you choose to become a teacher you also choose to be identified with a poor status. My choice of method has been to do a qualitative inspection by making interviews with mal teacherstudents at Linneuniversitetet in Vaxjo. The result of the essay is that the primary motive and driving force to choose to become a compulsory school teacher is that they want to work with children and their development in school. They have not chosen the profession because of their interest in any specifiv subjects. I can see that none of them has any larger dreams or goals to make a big career. All of them are really certain of their choice and that they don´t care what people say about their choice of profession.


The possibility that mechanisms of synaptic modulation differ between males and females has far-reaching implications for understanding brain disorders that vary between the sexes. We found recently that 17β-estradiol (E2) acutely suppresses GABAergic inhibition in the hippocampus of female rats through a sex-specific estrogen receptor α (ERα), mGluR, and endocannabinoid-dependent mechanism. Here, we define the intracellular signaling that links ERα, mGluRs, and endocannabinoids in females and identify where in this pathway males and females differ. Using a combination of whole-cell patch-clamp recording and biochemical analyses in hippocampal slices from young adult rats, we show that E2 acutely suppresses inhibition in females through mGluR1 stimulation of phospholipase C, leading to inositol triphosphate (IP3) generation, activation of the IP3 receptor (IP3R), and postsynaptic endocannabinoid release, likely of anandamide. Analysis of sex differences in this pathway showed that E2 stimulates a much greater increase in IP3 levels in females than males, whereas the group I mGluR agonist DHPG increases IP3 levels equivalently in each sex. Coimmunoprecipitation showed that ERα–mGluR1 and mGluR1–IP3R complexes exist in both sexes but are regulated by E2 only in females. Independently of E2, a fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibitor, which blocks breakdown of anandamide, suppressed >50% of inhibitory synapses in females with no effect in males, indicating tonic endocannabinoid release in females that is absent in males. Together, these studies demonstrate sex differences in both E2-dependent and E2-independent regulation of the endocannabinoid system and suggest that manipulation of endocannabinoids in vivo could affect physiological and behavioral responses differently in each sex. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many brain disorders vary between the sexes, yet the degree to which this variation arises from differential experience versus intrinsic biological sex differences is unclear. In this study, we demonstrate intrinsic sex differences in molecular regulation of a key neuromodulatory system, the endocannabinoid system, in the hippocampus. Endocannabinoids are involved in diverse aspects of physiology and behavior that involve the hippocampus, including cognitive and motivational state, responses to stress, and neurological disorders such as epilepsy. Our finding that molecular regulation of the endocannabinoid system differs between the sexes suggests mechanisms through which experiences or therapeutics that engage endocannabinoids could affect males and females differently.


Paediatric rehabilitation as a discipline is rapidly changing, especially during the last decades. In the past, paediatric rehabilitation was characterized by merely adult intervention strategies in a miniaturized form, delivered by a merely adult patients-oriented profession. Theories on childhood development, however, changed, as did the focus of interventions: from impairments to function, from the child itself to family, community and peers. The call for outcome-oriented and evidence-based medicine lastly, changed paediatric rehabilitation into a mature paediatric profession with it's own scientific framework. This is reflected among other things in the increasing number of paediatric measures and instruments specifically geared to the paediatric rehabilitation profession, for example the Gross Motor Function Measure, Paediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory and Movement ABC. More recently, paediatric exercise physiologists are pointing to the benefits of an active lifestyle and training for patients with chronic diseases and disabilities. Several studies have evaluated the effects of such training programmes and came up with positive results. It shows that paediatric rehabilitation continues to develop as a dynamic profession, having growth, childhood development and childhood activities as it's core business.


A method is presented for determining the surface profile of a deterministic, perfectly conducting rough surface boundary from fixed-frequency scattering data. The proposed inversion scheme is based on the use of a perturbation expansion of the phase of the wave scattered from the surface and, as such, is analogous to the use of the Rytov approximation in inverse scattering from penetrable scatterers. A simple algorithmic procedure is derived for determining the surface profile from the scattering amplitude of the surface, and a number of examples illustrating the procedure are presented.


In the recent history of masculinity, the male body has gained ground as a fresh field of interest, parallel in many ways to earlier emphases on the female body in women's history. This article explores male baldness as a constituent of masculinity in early modern England. Drawing from printed texts of various genres, combined with evidence from diaries and (auto)biographical writings, it shows that baldness could have many meanings to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Englishmen. The article argues that the key contexts for understanding hair loss were age, health, and physical attractiveness—all linked to questions of honor and shame, but most often discussed with an ironic tone. Matters of outward appearance were deemed trivial, particularly in the case of men, and baldness too emerges as an ambiguous marker of masculinity—one best taken rather lightly.


ABSTRACT When assessing the impact of extreme events, it is often not just a single component, but the combined behavior of several components which is important. Statistical modeling using multivariate generalized Pareto (GP) distributions constitutes the multivariate analogue of univariate peaks over thresholds modeling, which is widely used in finance and engineering. We develop general methods for construction of multivariate GP distributions and use them to create a variety of new statistical models. A censored likelihood procedure is proposed to make inference on these models, together with a threshold selection procedure, goodness-of-fit diagnostics, and a computationally tractable strategy for model selection. The models are fitted to returns of stock prices of four UK-based banks and to rainfall data in the context of landslide risk estimation. Supplementary materials and codes are available online.


Brucellosis is an important re-emerging zoonotic disease. Apart from the public health hazard significant it has a great economic impact on both health and agricultural sectors. In health sector the burden of the disease is usually quantified in monetary and non –monitory terms. In agriculture the disease affects a range of domesticated animals resulting a huge economic loss in term of production and reproduction evolvement also the disease acts as trade impeder. This paper deals with the economic impacts of bovine brucellosis in Khartoum State, Sudan. Khartoum State as well as the country at large was proved to be endemic with both human and animal brucellosis. Many studies were carried out on the epidemiology of the disease, yet few studies were focused on the economic significant of the disease. In this work a comprehensive epidemiological survey covering the seven localities of the State was held to determine the situation of bovine brucellosis. A multi stage cluster sample was used to determine the prevalence rate in each locality where Rose Bengal Plate Test was used to identify the positive reactors. A weighed average of 25.1% prevalence rate was introduced to the economic model for assessment of the financial loss due to the disease. Accordingly the loss attributed to the disease was estimated at State, Locality and animal levels. Moreover, the cost due to reproduction, production and veterinary intervention was also quantified. The paper concluded that the disease constitutes a serious economic burden to the economy of the State and the producer in the absence of a formal control strategy. The paper recommended that there was an urgent need to formulate and implement livestock brucellosis control strategy in the State and the whole country for the benefit of both agriculture and health sectors.


Contingent capital, a regulatory debt that must convert into common equity when a bank's equity value falls below a specified threshold (a trigger), does not in general lead to a unique equilibrium in the prices of the bank's equity and contingent capital. Multiplicity or absence of equilibrium arises because economic agents are not allowed to choose a conversion policy in their best interests. The lack of unique equilibrium introduces the potential for price manipulation, market uncertainty, inefficient capital allocation, and unreliability of conversion. Because contingent capital may not convert to equity in a timely and reliable manner, it is not a substitute for common equity as capital buffer. The problem exists even if banks can issue new equity to avoid conversion. The problem is more pronounced when bank asset value has jumps and when bankruptcy is costly. For a unique equilibrium to exist, allowing for jumps and bankruptcy costs, we prove that, at trigger price, mandatory conversion must not transfer value between equity holders and contingent capital investors. Besides the challenge of practically designing such contingent capital, absence of value transfer prevents punishment of bank managers at conversion. This is problematic because punitive conversion is desirable to generate the desired incentives for bank managers to avoid excessive risk taking.


An interrogation scheme based on wavelength-to-time mapping to achieve ultrafast, high-precision, and large dynamic range interrogation of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The wavelength-to-time mapping, also called temporal self-imaging effect, is realized in the optical domain, using a dispersive element that has a large group velocity dispersion. For a practical dispersive element, higher order dispersions exist, which makes the wavelength-to-time mapping nonlinear. Thus, an interrogation system based on wavelength-to-time mapping without considering the high-order dispersion would reduce the interrogation accuracy. In this paper, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, a mathematical model that incorporates higher order dispersion to achieve an accurate wavelength-to-time mapping is developed, which is then verified by a numerical simulation. An FBG-based strain sensor interrogated based on the developed wavelength-to-time mapping scheme is experimentally investigated. The system has a sampling speed of 48.6 MHz, a dynamic range as large as 20 nm, and a sensing accuracy as high as 0.87 ¿¿ for a single-shot measurement.


The thesis is divided into four sections. The first is a brief introductory section dealing with the historical, social, and religious background. The historical survey concerns the Panjab and covers the period AD 1398-1540. The treatment of the religious background principally concerns the Sant tradition of Northern India. The second section describes the sources available for a reconstruction of the life of Guru Nanak. It begins with a brief survey of the more important contributions by European writers and then considers the limited contribution of the Adi Granth to our knowledge of Guru Nanak's life. The greater part of the section concerns the Panjabi janam-sakhis which, notwithstanding their general unreliability, constitute our principal source of biographical information. The third section deals with the life of Guru Nanak. It begins with a translation of the relevant portion of Bhai Gurdas' first Var, followed by paraphrases of the Puratan janam-sakhis and the first pothi of the Miharban Janam-sakhi. Five categories are postulated, namely the established, the probable, the possible, the improbable, and the impossible. The criteria to be employed in testing the manifold janam-sakhi traditions are defined, and a conspectus of the various traditions is set out in the form of a chart, in attempt is then made to fit the various sakhis into their appropriate categories, This is followed by an examination of the chronology of Guru Nanak's travels, and the section concludes with an account of the Guru's life based upon the sakhis which have been accepted as established or probable. The fourth section represents an effort to gather into a systematic pattern the teachings of Guru Nanak which are dispersed throughout the Adi Granth. The section is subdivided into subsections treating Guiu Nanak's doctrines of the nature of God, the divine self-expression, the nature of unregenerate man, and the discipline required in order to attain salvation.


This paper proposes the building of Xiaomingbot, an intelligent, multilingual and multimodal software robot equipped with four inte- gral capabilities: news generation, news translation, news reading and avatar animation. Its system summarizes Chinese news that it automatically generates from data tables. Next, it translates the summary or the full article into multiple languages, and reads the multi- lingual rendition through synthesized speech. Notably, Xiaomingbot utilizes a voice cloning technology to synthesize the speech trained from a real person's voice data in one input language. The proposed system enjoys several merits: it has an animated avatar, and is able to generate and read multilingual news. Since it was put into practice, Xiaomingbot has written over 600,000 articles, and gained over 150,000 followers on social media platforms.


This paper examines regional differentials in pass rates in Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in Mainland Tanzania. In particular, the paper investigates the effects of pupil-teacher ratio (PTR), pupil-latrine ratio (PLR), pupil-classroom ratio (PCR), availability of electricity in schools, and secondary school and above education of women and men aged 15-49 years on the percentage of students passing the PSLE. The paper employs a multilevel framework using aggregate regional data from Basic Education Statistics in Tanzania (BEST) and Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS). The results indicate that regional pass rates in PSLE are negatively associated with regional PTR and PLR, and that there are regional  differences in these education resources. However, their effects were found to be statistically insignificant. Education of women on the other hand, was positively and significantly related to the pass rate in the PSLE. Accordingly, there is a need for formulating education policies that would promote the enrolment of women in higher education in Tanzania so as to ensure that children achieve progress in education and social economic  development later in life. In addition, measures to ensure efficient  allocation of resources are needed in order to address apparent regional disparities regarding access to essential education resources. Keywords : contextual analysis; efficient allocation; pass rates; primary school leaving examination; Tanzania


The Saint Elias orogen of southern Alaska and adjacent Canada is a complex belt of mountains formed by collision and accretion of the Yakutat terrane into the transition zone from transform faulting to subduction in the northeast Pacific. The orogen is an active analog for tectonic processes that formed much of the North American Cordillera, and is also an important site to study (1) the relationships between climate and tectonics, and (2) structures that generate large- to great-magnitude earthquakes. The Yakutat terrane is a fragment of the North American plate margin that is partly subducted beneath and partly accreted to the continental margin of southern Alaska. Interaction between the Yakutat terrane and the North American and Pacific plates causes significant differences in the style of deformation within the terrane. Deformation in the eastern part of the terrane is caused by strike-slip faulting along the Fairweather transform fault and by reverse faulting beneath the coastal mountains, but there is little deformation immediately offshore. The central part of the orogen is marked by thrusting of the Yakutat terrane beneath the North American plate along the Chugach–Saint Elias fault and development of a wide, thin-skinned fold-and-thrust belt. Strike-slip faulting in this segment may be localized in the hanging wall of the Chugach–Saint Elias fault, or dissipated by thrust faulting beneath a north-northeast–trending belt of active deformation that cuts obliquely across the eastern end of the fold-and-thrust belt. Superimposed folds with complex shapes and plunging hinge lines accommodate horizontal shortening and extension in the western part of the orogen, where the sedimentary cover of the Yakutat terrane is accreted into the upper plate of the Aleutian subduction zone. These three structural segments are separated by transverse tectonic boundaries that cut across the Yakutat terrane and also coincide with the courses of piedmont glaciers that flow from the topographic backbone of the Saint Elias Mountains onto the coastal plain. The Malaspina fault–Pamplona structural zone separates the eastern and central parts of the orogen and is marked by reverse faulting and folding. Onshore, most of this boundary is buried beneath the western or "Agassiz" lobe of the Malaspina piedmont glacier. The boundary between the central fold-and-thrust belt and western zone of superimposed folding lies beneath the middle and lower course of the Bering piedmont glacier.


This paper addresses interference issues in multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink heterogeneous networks in which multiple small cells are deployed in macrocell coverage. With the higher priority to access the frequency bands, the macro base station (MBS) will exploit eigenmode transmission along with water-filling based power allocation to maximize its data rate. To avoid harmful interference to macro users, we propose structures of the precoders at the small cell BSs (SBSs) as cascades of two precoding matrices. In addition, to mitigate intra-tier inference in small cells, the SBSs exploit the user scheduling schemes for their associated users. We investigate two user scheduling schemes using the minimum interference leakage and maximum signal to noise ratio criteria. The sum rate of the selected users can be further improved by power allocation. We develop an iterative algorithm using the difference of convex functions (d.c.) programming to tackle the mathematical challenges of the nonconvex power allocation problem, Numerical simulation results show that the proposed strategy outperforms the conventional methods in terms of the achievable sum rate.


The aim of this study is to find a suitable approach to model econometrically exchange-rate dynamics. In the first chapter, I examine the empirical properties of four exchange rates. The data used are daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly exchange rates of the German mark, the British pound, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar from July 1974 to December 1987.1 study the moment properties and time-series properties of these exchange rates and find in daily and weekly data leptokurtosis and heteroskedasticity. On the other hand, the hypotheses of no serial correlation, of a constant mean of zero, and of a symmetric distribution cannot be rejected. The fact that the daily and weekly data are not strictly equi-distant does not have a strong impact on these empirical regularities. In chapter 2, static distributional models (mixture of distributions, compound Poisson process, Student distribution, and stable Paretian distributions) are estimated. Chi-squared goodness-of-fit tests reject these models. Direct inferential evidence against stable distributions is found by estimating the characteristic exponent by FFT and by estimating the exponent of regularly varying tails. In chapter 3, dynamic models of heteroskedasticity (ARCH and Markov-switching models) are introduced. Quite satisfactory results are obtained for the EGARCH model and the Markov-switching model whereas the ARCH, GARCH and GARCH-t models are in conflict with stationarity conditions for the variance. Chapter 4 compares the static and dynamic models with respect to goodness-of-fit and forecasting performance. With respect to goodness-of-fit criteria, the dynamic models appear to be superior to the static models. Furthermore, the dynamic models outperform a naive model of constant variance with respect to unbiasedness but not with respect to precision. Chapter 5 studies the option-price implications of the static and dynamic models. The spot-rate effects of static models are rather small and they disappear, as expected, under temporal aggregation. GARCH and EGARCH models, on the other hand, imply higher option prices compared to Black-Scholes option prices along the whole spectrum of moneyness. Only the Markov-switching model is compatible with observed smile effects.


Contact centres have become an important growth industry in many developing and emerging countries, and there are good opportunities for countries with sound IT infrastructure to attract outsourced business from Northern Hemisphere organisations through offshoring. Executives from major companies in the Western Cape, South Africa that offer outsourcing services to European and American countries were interviewed. Using hermeneutic content analysis a SWOT analysis of important issues for setting up and operating contact centres in South Africa was performed. These issues are summarised, together with some relevant quotes from contact centre management. It was found that the strengths far outweighed the weaknesses, and opportunities exceeded threats. It is suggested that organisations in similar developing countries note the wide range of issues that emerged, and bear these in mind, with possible local adaptations, when themselves considering offering outsourced services.


Nonlinear optical imaging is a powerful method for observing bulk and interfacial phenomena in time and space. Here, we present a step-by-step description of how to carry out second harmonic generation imaging with a kHz amplifier laser system and demonstrate its applicability for SHG microscopy studies of highly size-resolved colloidal CdSe quantum dots having radii of 1-2 nm deposited on glass slides. It is found that not all quantum dots are SHG active, which suggests that environmental effects and particle distributions are important for SHG activity of quantum dots.


Chinese Reportage details for the first time in English the creation and evolution of a distinctive literary genre in twentieth-century China. Reportage literature, while sharing traditional journalism's commitment to the accurate, nonfictional portrayal of experience, was largely produced by authors outside the official news media. In identifying the literary merit of this genre and establishing its significance in China's leftist cultural legacy, Charles A. Laughlin reveals important biases that impede Western understanding of China and, at the same time, supplies an essential chapter in Chinese cultural history.

Laughlin traces the roots of reportage (or baogao wenxue ) to the travel literature of the Qing Dynasty but shows that its flourishing was part of the growth of Chinese communism in the twentieth century. In a modern Asian context critical of capitalism and imperialism, reportage offered the promise of radicalizing writers through a new method of literary practice and the hope that this kind of writing could in turn contribute to social revolution and China's national self-realization. Chinese Reportage explores the wide range of social engagement depicted in this literature: witnessing historic events unfolding on city streets; experiencing brutal working conditions in 1930s Shanghai factories; struggling in the battlefields and trenches of the war of resistance against Japan, the civil war, and the Korean war; and participating in revolutionary rural, social, and economic transformation. Laughlin's close readings emphasize the literary construction of social space over that of character and narrative structure, a method that brings out the critique of individualism and humanism underlying the genre's aesthetics.

Chinese Reportage recaptures a critical aspect of leftist culture in China with far-reaching implications for historians and sociologists as well as literary scholars.


The field of Knowledge Management (KM) promises considerable benefits to organizations attempting to manage their intellectual resources, but it remains unclear exactly what it is that is being managed? Many authors claim that organizations must value "their" knowledge in order to develop and maintain a competitive advantage, in so doing making an assumption that there is such a thing as organizational knowledge. In this paper the notion of organizational knowledge will be examined from an autopoietic perspective. It will be argued that autopoietic theory as developed by Maturana and Varela (1980), offers a useful epistemological basis from which the idea of organizational knowledge may be considered and KM may develop as a discipline.


Correlation of late Mesozoic mafic and ophiolitic rocks suggests that in the late Lower Cretaceous a northeasterly-facing mafic arc was emplaced onto southeast Borneo, western Sumatra, western Myanmar (Burma) then 1100 km south of its present position, the Mogok belt of Myanmar and the Denqen–Bangong Co ophiolite zone in Tibet, all then situated on the southwestern margin of Asia. Reversal in tectonic polarity and eastward subduction generated a late Cretaceous magmatic arc in western Myanmar and Sumatra, and its continuation through the Mogok belt into the Gandise batholith of Tibet. Magmatism, interrupted in the latest Cretaceous, probably resumed in the western Myanmar–Tibet and Sumatra arc segments in the early Palaeogene. It was again interrupted in the Mid-Eocene when an east-vergent ophiolite nappe overrode the Indo-Burman Ranges, deforming Lower Eocene turbidites derived from the magmatic arc to the east. Following renewed northward and eastward subduction of ocean floor in the latest Eocene, India collided with northern Myanmar, and with Tibet along a suture south of the Jurassic–Triassic flysch and adjacent Yarlung ophiolite. In the Mogok segment of the late Cretaceous arc, crust thickened in the early Cretaceous orogeny underwent extension to form a metamorphic core complex as Myanmar, west of the Sagaing Fault moved northward. More than half of this northward movement preceded the well-documented 450 km of post-early Miocene dextral displacement on the Sagaing Fault and related spreading in the Andaman Sea. Generation of late Cretaceous to early Eocene I- and S-type granites in and east of the Mogok belt was related either to crustal shortening, or more probably, to subsequent extension in the Mogok belt.


We present a theoretical and experimental study on the biosensing sensitivity of Au/Co/Au multilayers as transducers of the magneto-optic surface-plasmon-resonance (MOSPR) sensor. We demonstrate that the sensing response of these magneto-plasmonic (MP) transducers is a trade-off between the optical absorption and the magneto-optical activity, observing that the MP multilayer with larger MO effect does not provide the best sensing response. We show that it is possible to design highly-sensitive MP transducers able to largely surpass the limit of detection of the conventional surface-plasmon-resonance (SPR) sensor. This was proved comparing the biosensing performance of both sensors for the label-free detection of short DNA chains hybridization. For this purpose, we used and tested a novel label-free biofunctionalization protocol based on polyelectrolytes, which increases the resistance of MP transducers in aqueous environments.


Modeling dispersed solid phases in fluids still represents a computational challenge when considering a small-scale coupling in wide systems, such as the atmosphere or industrial processes at high Reynolds numbers. A numerical method is here introduced for simulating the dynamics of diffusive heavy inertial particles in turbulent flows. The approach is based on the position/velocity phase-space particle distribution. The discretization of velocities is inspired from lattice Boltzmann methods and is chosen to match discrete displacements between two time steps. For each spatial position, the time evolution of particles momentum is approximated by a finite-volume approach. The proposed method is tested for particles experiencing a Stokes viscous drag with a prescribed fluid velocity field in one dimension using a random flow, and in two dimensions with the solution to the forced incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Results show good agreements between Lagrangian and Eulerian dynamics for both spatial clustering and the dispersion in particle velocities. This demonstrates the suitability of the proposed approach at large Stokes numbers or for situations where details of collision processes are important.


This article aims at investigating the indeterminate voices in the short prose of Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Eakins and Barry Hannah. Thus, it focuses on the 'acousmatic voice' of O'Connor's prose: all the hidden sounds, noises and silences that reveal more than the overt narrative voice and trigger a hermeneutic response from the reader. In relation to Patricia Eakins's short stories, the article analyses how the voice of her prose compensates for the indeterminacy of her surrealist universe. It investigates, in this respect, the musical quality of her prose as well as the poetic rhythms which help to sustain the reader's interest and generate meaning. The voices in Barry Hannah's post-modern prose, finally, are shown to compensate for the renowned complexity of his writing style. By analysing the specificity of each writer's voice, this article aims to recover the unheard lost 'voices of prose', the mythic space of vocality which gives a vocal but mute joy to the reader.


Numerous optimization problems in production systems can be considered as decision-making
processes that determine the best allocation of resources to tasks over time to optimize one or more
objectives in concert with big data. Among the optimization problems, production scheduling and
routing of robots for material handling are becoming more important due to their impacts on
system performance. However, the development of efficient algorithms for scheduling or routing
faces several challenges. While the scheduling and vehicle routing problems can be solved by
mathematical models such as mixed-integer linear programming to find optimal solutions to smallsized problems, they are not applicable to larger problems due to the nature of NP-hard problems.
Thus, further research on machine learning applications to those problems is a significant step
towards increasing the possibilities and potentialities of field application. In order to create truly
intelligent systems, new frameworks for scheduling and routing are proposed to utilize machine
learning (ML) techniques. First, the dynamic single-machine scheduling problem for minimization
of total weighted tardiness is addressed. In order to solve the problem more efficiently, a decisiontree-based approach called Generation of Rules Automatically with Feature construction and Treebased learning (GRAFT) is designed to extract dispatching rules from existing or good schedules.
In addition to the single-machine scheduling problem, the flexible job-shop scheduling problem
with release times for minimizing the total weighted tardiness is analyzed. As a ML-based solution
approach, a random-forest-based approach called Random Forest for Obtaining Rules for
Scheduling (RANFORS) is developed to solve the problem by generating dispatching rules
automatically. Finally, an optimization problem for routing of autonomous robots for minimizing
total tardiness of transportation requests is analyzed by decomposing it into three sub-problems.
In order to solve the sub-problems, a comprehensive framework with consideration of conflicts
between routes is proposed. Especially to the sub-problem for vehicle routing, a new local search
algorithm called COntextual-Bandit-based Adaptive Local search with Tree-based regression
(COBALT) that incorporates the contextual bandit into operator selection is developed. The
findings from my research contribute to suggesting a guidance to practitioners for the applications
of ML to scheduling and control problems, and ultimately to lead the implementation of smart
factories.


Flapping flight is ubiquitous in Nature, yet cilia and flagella, not wings, prevail in the world of micro-organisms. This paper addresses this dichotomy. We investigate experimentally the dynamics of a wing, flapped up and down and free to move horizontally. The wing begins to move forward spontaneously as a critical frequency is exceeded, indicating that 'flapping flight' occurs as a symmetry-breaking bifurcation from a pure flapping state with no horizontal motion. A dimensionless parameter, the Reynolds number based on the flapping frequency, characterizes the point of bifurcation. Above this bifurcation, we observe that the forward speed increases linearly with the flapping frequency. Visualization of the flow field around the heaving and plunging foil shows a symmetric pattern below transition. Above threshold, an inverted von Kármán vortex street is observed in the wake of the wing. The results of our model experiment, namely the critical Reynolds number and the behaviour above threshold, are consistent with observations of the flapping-based locomotion of swimming and flying animals.


Particular attention to the relationship between architecture and nature, especially in the past three decades, has flourished a very distinctive accomplishments, and yet more useful than the past, in terms of the emergence of new architectural approaches as well as the coordination of new technologies, such as nanotechnology. Structure, as one of the essential components of architecture, is of particular importance. Different and sometimes contradictory approaches to designing structure and architecture, "with" each other or "on" each other, may create different qualities and affect the value of architecture and structure. Relying on the fact that the dialogue between the architect and the designer of the structure is one of the necessities of creating an architectural work, this paper puts a substantial emphasis on the learning of structural sciences by the architects and their mastery in the recognition of structural principles. Furthermore, with a critical look at the adherence of architecture to structure and the key role of naturalism the paper seeks out the origins of this problem in the method of structure training for architects. The pathology of failure to realize the use of nature strategies for the harmony of architecture and structure in the current architecture of Iran is the main research question in this study. This research has been based on three pillars of analysis, assessment and evaluation. In the first step, using a causal-comparative research methodology, the challenges of naturalism in architectural techniques after the industrial revolution are addressed and the position of structure in the naturalistic approach of these styles is evaluated. In the second step, applying interpretive-historical research method, the critics of architecture under discussion are addressed and the achievements of nature in architecture and in particular structure in academic arena are then pointed out. The survey and analysis with the help of SPSS software is the last instrument used for assessment and evaluation in this research. It should be noted that in this survey, the structural and experimental knowledge of the architect in forms, structures and natural structures were considered as the independent variables, whereas the design skills of architect in the harmony of architecture and structure using more naturalist strategies were considered as the dependent variable.Comparison of previous research with the survey indicates that the failure of Iran's current architecture for the harmony with structure and better exploitation of nature is due to the incorrect reception of the Iranian public architecture in this area, which is often formed in the area of education. Finally, this research accentuates on the purposeful change in teaching method of technical courses to improve the understanding of the behavior and structures by architects. Suggestions to improve such an important phenomenon in professional workspace are also presented.


The Reformation provided a powerful source of legitimacy for secularization of governance and enabled the regional authorities to change the institutional structure to eliminate the inefficiencies under the prevailing (Catholic) regime. We investigate this idea in a simple model of regime change and show that the regions where the prevailing institutions are less appropriate, i.e. poorer regions with greater economic potential, should have been more likely to adopt the Reformation. Using detailed data on religious denominations, city characteristics and exogenous measures of agricultural potential, we empirically confirm this hypothesis for the cities in the 16th century Holy Roman Empire. This finding points to an economic rationale of the adoption of Protestantism as a vehicle of institutional change.


Childbirth is a normative event in a woman's life and is considered as a positive event. However, one in three women perceive childbirth as a physical threat to themselves or their new-born and 3% of women develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following childbirth. Poor coping strategies have been associated with PTSD following childbirth. However, previous studies mainly utilised unidimensional measures of coping strategies, therefore, it remains to be investigated which specific dimensions of coping are more predictive of PTSD after childbirth. The aims of this study were to explore whether women in Croatia report PTSD symptoms following childbirth, and how different coping styles were related to PTSD and depression symptoms. Women (N = 160) who gave birth in the last two years, completed an online questionnaire measuring PTSD symptoms (Impact of Event Scale – IES), postnatal depression symptoms (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale – EPDS) and coping styles (Brief Cope). In this sample, 1.9% reported severe PTSD symptoms following childbirth and 21.9% reported depression symptoms. Many women (66.7%) with PTSD symptoms reported depression symptoms. On the other hand, 28.6% of women with depression symptoms also reported PTSD symptoms, showing that there is a higher co-morbidity of PTSD and depression than vice versa. Avoidant coping styles, specifically, denial and self-blame were positively correlated with both PTSD and depression symptoms. Moreover, of avoidant coping styles, behavioural disengagement was positively correlated with PTSD symptoms only, while self-distraction was positively correlated with depression symptoms only. Also, lower levels of planning and higher levels of emotional support were related to higher levels of depression. However, after controlling for postnatal psychopathology symptoms, coping styles were not significant predictors of PTSD symptoms, but self-blame was a significant predictor of depression symptoms. Psychopathological symptoms following childbirth are reported by Croatian women and are related to coping styles. The avoidant coping style, self-blame, is particularly associated with depression symptoms. Future studies should explore predictors of postpartum PTSD in Croatian women in more representative samples during pregnancy and with the follow-up after childbirth. Also, screening for postnatal psychopathological symptoms should be performed both for depression and PTSD symptoms.


The condition of young adulthood appears to be a structural necessity in the human being's process of becoming. This time of life is distinct from both adolescence and so-called adult maturity. The author explores the factors that differentiate the specific nature of the intrapsychic, interpersonal and psychical economy of the young adult.
 The second problematic consists of finding out if there is enough containing function to make possible the working-through of primitive sufferings that have not yet been elaborated and open the way to decisive introjections.
 The third concerns the assimilation of identifications to identifying models, now de-sexualized enough (apprentice identification), an assimilation which can take place « without too much thought », and which helps reinforce the subconscious.
 The fourth and last problematic, the relation with the body of the parents, can be clearly recognized, in view of the reduction of incestuous anxieties, and the intracorporal identifications can thus be revealed and elaborated.
 The clinical material shows that these patients are more disposed to analysis on the couch but less sensitive to the subjectalizing holding function than adolescents.


Modern development environments handle information about the intent of the programmer: for example, they use abstract syntax trees for providing high-level code manipulation such as refactorings; nevertheless, they do not keep track of this information in a way that would simplify code sharing and change understanding. In most Smalltalk systems, source code modifications are immediately registered in a transaction log often called a ChangeSet. Such mechanism has proven reliability, but it has several limitations. In this paper we analyse such limitations and describe scenarios and requirements for tracking fine-grained code history with a semantic representation. We present Epicea, an early prototype implementation. We want to enrich code sharing with extra information from the IDE, which will help understanding the intention of the changes and let a new generation of tools act in consequence.


Diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (DRIFT) in conjunction with gas chromatography has been used to investigate the interaction of light hydrocarbons with the molecular sieve catalyst H-ZSM-5. Experiments were conducted in a controlled-environment (temperature, gas composition) diffuse reflectance cell interfaced with an on-line gas Chromatograph. The reactivity of CH3OH, CH3CH2OH, and CH2=CH2 on H-ZSM-5 has been investigated by observing the changes in intensity of the framework hydroxyl stretching vibrations as a function of the type of reactant, temperature, and product mix. C-H stretching vibrations of the organic fragments that form in the molecular sieve channels and pores are also observed in these experiments, and they too are correlated with reactant, temperature, and product mix with the use of spectral subtraction techniques. Important functional features of molecular sieve catalysis detectable by the DRIFT method include (1) the creation of protonated sites during calcining of the synthesis template (the process by which the catalytically active form of the sieve material is produced); (2) the labile nature of these protons as a function of reactant and temperature; and (3) the onset of coking of the molecular sieve as a result of extended use or use at higher temperatures.


In expected utility theory, risk attitudes are modeled entirely in terms of utility. In the rank-dependent theories, a new dimension is added: chance attitude, modeled in terms of nonadditive measures or nonlinear probability transformations that are independent of utility. Most empirical studies of chance attitude assume probabilities given and adopt parametric fitting for estimating the probability transformation. Only a few qualitative conditions have been proposed or tested as yet, usually quasi-concavity or quasi-convexity in the case of given probabilities. This paper presents a general method of studying qualitative properties of chance attitude such as optimism, pessimism, and the "inverse-S shape" pattern, both for risk and for uncertainty. These qualitative properties can be characterized by permitting appropriate, relatively simple, violations of the sure-thing principle. In particular, this paper solves a hitherto open problem: the preference axiomatization of convex ("pessimistic" or "uncertainty averse") nonadditive measures under uncertainty. The axioms of this paper preserve the central feature of rank-dependent theories, i.e. the separation of chance attitude and utility.


This article explores the outer limits of congressional power. The debate over those limits began in 1791 when James Madison challenged the constitutionality of Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United States in the First Congress and has continued through the present. According to Madison, the Necessary and Proper Clause was constrained by three doctrines: implied powers must be "direct and incidental" to express powers; they could not be used to invert constitutional ends and means; and powers of exceptional importance could not be derived from implication. Although Madison's challenges to the Bank failed in the First Congress and in McCulloch v. Maryland, his limiting doctrines have recently been resurrected in an impressive body of scholarship and adopted by several Supreme Court Justices. In addition, eminent scholars have meticulously analyzed McCulloch and argue that this foundational opinion, conventionally regarded as affording great discretion to Congress in the use of implied powers, is actually a moderate and defensive validation of federal power.This article is in three parts. The first part examines the Bank debate and other legislation enacted by the First Congress. This historical review demonstrates a mainstream Federalist constitutional philosophy that broadly construed and applied the express and implied powers of Congress. That philosophy was synthesized in Hamilton's influential opinion on the constitutionality of the Bank and became the blueprint for McCulloch. This material contains arguments that greatly influenced the Marshall Court but tend to be overlooked in modern scholarship.The second part of this article presents an extensive analysis of McCulloch. The early portions of the opinion are connected to the pressing constitutional issues of the time. The opinion's determinations of the breadth of Congress's implied powers and the constitutionality of the Bank, when related back to the Federalist blueprint, establishes McCulloch as an aggressive, albeit not unlimited, endorsement of national power. The Bank was upheld not only as a means of carrying out specific enumerated powers but also as Congress's agent in implementing an aggregated national fiscal power. This part of the article also shows how each of Madison' limiting principles was rejected and explains why the degree of necessity is a political question, what Marshall meant by the "spirit" of the Constitution, why legislative and judicial approaches to the relationship of means and ends can be contradictory, whether McCulloch requires the application of the rational basis test, and what the limits of congressional power are. Part three of the article returns to Madison's theory that the implied powers of Congress are limited by the degree of their importance. This part reflects Edmund Randolph's forgotten warning against overreliance on intra-textualism as a method of constitutional construction. It then shows that the intratextualist methodology used by Madison and modern scholars does not accurately account for the enumeration of legislative powers in Article I. This part concludes by offering an alternative theory for the construction of Article I that explains why seemingly incidental powers are included among the express powers, how the enumerations serve the separation of powers, how certain express powers are actually limitations on powers that could be derived through implication (including, potentially, the Necessary and Proper Clause), and how the constitutionality of the implied powers of Congress is not inversely proportional to their importance.


The present study examines the relationship between acculturation, parental control, and psychological adjustment among adult first and second-generation Asian Indian women who have immigrated, or whose parents have immigrated to the United States, from the Indian state of Kerala. Data from 73 participants indicate second-generation immigrants report poorer psychological adjustment than do their counterparts. Additionally, regression analyses reveal discomfort towards Kerala culture significantly predicts depressive symptoms, while high maternal control predicts self-esteem. Qualitative data were collected to provide richer understanding of immigrants' adaptation to the U.S. Implications of this research may impact mental health practitioners' ability to improve quality of life with Asian Indian women from Kerala.


Linking population health and environment (PHE) issues is becoming increasingly important for the Philippines where natural resources and public health and well-being are often negatively affected by factors such as population pressures and poverty. Understanding these connections-including the economic and social context in which they occur-and addressing PHE issues in an integrated manner is critical for achieving sustainable development. This regional PHE profile highlights key population health and environment indicators and important development challenges for the National Capital Region (NCR). The profile is designed to help educators policymakers and community leaders identify key threats to sustainable development and explore possible approaches to addressing them. This profile is part of a series covering select regions of the Philippines and is intended as a companion publication to the Population Reference Bureaus 2006 data sheet Making the Link in the Philippines: PopulationHealth and the Environment. (excerpt)


This article, which is based on research undertaken on behalf of the North Wales Family Justice Council, considers the impact of devolution on the development of family and child law in Wales. The article examines key developments that have taken place to date, and considers how the position may change following the Government of Wales Act 2006, particularly in the light of the proposed Legislative Competence Order Relating to Vulnerable Children and Child Poverty. It is suggested that the divergences that are beginning to emerge between Wales and England are likely to become far more accentuated in the future.


The use of photons as qubits is a promising implementation for quantum computation. The inability of photons to interact, especially with the environment, makes them an ideal physical candidate. However, this also makes them a difficult system to perform two qubit gates on. Recent breakthroughs in photonic quantum computing have shown methods around the requirement of direct photon-photon interaction. In this thesis we study three recently discovered schemes for optical quantum computation. We first investigate the so called linear optical quantum computing (LOQC) scheme, exploring a method to improve the original proposal by constructing a photon-number QND detector that succeeds with a high probability. In doing this we present a new type of LOQC teleporter, one that can detect the presence of a single photon in an arbitrary polarisation state when the input state is a sum of vacuum and multi-photon terms. This new type of teleporter is an improvement on the original scheme in that the entangled states required can be made offline with fewer entangling operations. We next investigate the so called quantum bus (qubus) scheme for photonic quantum computing. We show a scheme to measure the party of n qubit states by using a single qubus mode, controlled rotations and displacements. This allows for the syndrome measurements of any stabilizer quantum error correcting code. We extend these results to a fault tolerant scheme to measure an arbitrary Pauli operator of weight n, incorporating so called single bit teleportations. We investigate the construction of a Toffoli gate by using a single qubus mode, controlled rotations and displacements that works with a success probability of at least 25%. We also investigate the use of single bit teleportations to construct a universal set of gates on coherent state type logic and in the construction of cluster states. We finally investigate the optical Zeno gate, a gate that uses the Zeno effect in the form of two photon absorbers to induce a csign. We model realistic two photon absorption and include realistic single photon loss for this gate, examining the use of encoding to overcome the single photon loss, showing that our results are competitive with the leading equivalent LOQC scheme.


Through the latter half of the nineteenth century, Mormons in the United States engaged in a highly charged struggle to defend a religious principle——plural marriage (polygyny)——against political
 and cultural opposition among non-Mormon groups and institutions. The practice of plural marriage, however, remained statistically rare, hierarchical, and rooted in Victorian marriage and family norms. Moreover,
 the struggle took place as Mormon communities and businesses gradually assimilated to mainstream institutional and political economics. This article asks why, in light of such ambiguities, the Latterday
 Saints defended plural marriage with such vigor, capitulating only in the face of the most aggressive federal anti-polygamy legislation. I argue that plural marriage was a vital symbol of early Mormon sectarian
 identity, and that sustained activism in support of the principle allowed Mormons to embody the radical "peculiarity" of the church9s charismatic origins. This has theoretical implications for an understanding
 of charisma as a complex and fundamentally socio-cultural phenomenon.


Competitiveness is a subject of study that affects different aspects of the individual and of the organizations. The demand that the modern environment towards the acquisition of skills, abilities and capacities impels diverse studies on the satisfaction that is obtained when trying to fulfill all the requirements in the process of development. In this research, we try to find a relation between competitiveness and the variables of happiness, welfare and education to validate the existence or significant influence among them. For these effects a correlation analysis and quantitative structural equations were used in a case study with a sample of 106 university graduates. The main findings indicate that happiness is a perception that can be presented as independent of competitiveness. In contrast, welfare and education have a more significant relationship among respondents.


Systematic review and meta-analysis are powerful tools to provide an unbiased overview of all available literature addressing a specific research question. However, systematic reviews are resource-intensive. To address this, the development of automation tools to aid systematic review research is increasing. But despite the development of these automation tools, recent research suggests that uptake of these tools is slow among evidence synthesis researchers and are potential barriers to using automation tools which include: steep learning curve, mismatched workflow, and lack of support. Here we propose a set of standards for automation tools and platforms that have been built to aid the systematic review community. The aim of these standards is to improve the integration of different tools into the research process and to increase transparency in the field of automation tools for evidence synthesis. The technical standards set out a minimum level and format of documentation required for publishing and disseminating automation tools. Further, we present an orchestrator platform, the Integration Interface, a system to bring compliant automation tools together, independent of programming language, into a succinct workflow. The Integration Interface aims to reduce the barriers associated with using a single or multiple automation tools in the evidence synthesis research process.