Models of meaning making and post-traumatic growth contend that traumatic events are catalysts for significant and long-lasting change in a person's worldview—that is, their beliefs about social, metaphysical, theological, and political reality. Nearly all tests of this contention have employed retrospective and cross-sectional methods. However, the limitations inherent in these designs preclude causal conclusions. The current study represents the first longitudinal, laboratory-based experimental examination of belief change following trauma exposure using the trauma film paradigm. Findings reveal that the trauma film paradigm can successfully induce posttraumatic affective responses with live news coverage of a mass trauma (i.e., the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing), and that these affective responses are associated with retrospective accounts of having reexamined core beliefs. However, neither experimental condition effected significant directly observable change in beliefs. We consider our findings through the lens of alternative theoretical accounts of posttraumatic response (i.e., meaning making theory, narrative theory, and terror management theory). Finally, we conclude by recommending that researchers employ the trauma film paradigm in future research on meaning making and posttraumatic change processes.


There is increasing international recognition of indigenous peoples' right to influence development activities in their territories. Free, Prior and Informed Consent is the strongest available instrument to assert this right, and this article provides a case study on its implementation in the northeastern Philippines. Under the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997, extractive companies must seek consent from indigenous communities if these inhabit the proposed concession areas. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, a government agency, facilitates this process. This article documents how extractive companies have obtained consent from the Agta, a resource-dependent indigenous group. The results, which cover the period 2003–2011, show that the implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent fails in terms of the process and its outcome. Consent is manipulated, the role of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples as facilitator is problematic, and the agreements are culturally inappropriate, weakly operationalized, and poorly realized.


This study had five aims: (1) to ascertain the numbers of persons with personality disorder admitted to adult acute psychiatric wards (AAPWs) between 2004 and 2009 throughout a Mental Health NHS Trust; (2) to ascertain the number of referrals to community services of persons with personality disorder; (3) to uncover the number of persons with personality disorder having co-morbid disorders; (4) to see if the results obtained are in keeping with previous research and national statistics; and (5) to briefly uncover the cost of these admissions both locally and nationally. A survey was conducted throughout a Northern Mental Health Trust which found that 271 persons with personality disorder have been admitted to AAPWs from 2004 to 2009 throughout this Trust. Ninety-six persons having a secondary diagnosis of personality disorder were also found. One hundred ninety-four persons with personality disorder having a co-morbid disorder were found. Examination of national statistics from the Hospital Episodes Statistics web site from 2002 through 2008 found 993 admissions for persons with personality disorder throughout the Trust. Questions are raised about treatment outcomes in relation to multiple and short-term admissions. Questions concerning the training and knowledge among mental health professionals were also explored.


This manuscript highlights several processes that may have been influential in the development of the Rio Grande rift by reviewing important results from recent studies. In the Albuquerque Basin, low-angle normal faults exist in several locations, but are discontinuously preserved and generally offset and rotated by high-angle normal faults. The Sandia and Sierra Ladrones rift flank uplifts, which are the highest elevation rift flanks on opposite sides of the Albuquerque Basin, both have low-angle normal faults, have maximum extension in the Albuquerque Basin, show fault dips that increase from the rift margin towards the axis of the basin, and show fault ages that young towards the center of the basin. Thermochronologic data suggest that both of these rift flanks were exhumed at nearly the same time, 10-25 Ma. These observations suggest a rolling-hinge mechanism for the formation of low-angle normal faults in the Rio Grande rift, where isostatic uplift appears to be a dominant process in regions of maximum extension. This process can therefore dramatically affect basin and rift-flank geometry as rifting progresses and suggests that the Sandia and Ladron uplifts are moderate-extension analogs to core complexes. To further understand extensional processes and timing of extension within the Rio Grande rift, apatite fission-track (AFT) and apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronologic methods were used to produce thermal history models from Rio Grande rift flank uplifts in Colorado and New Mexico. These models indicate that extension along the majority of the length of the rift was synchronous from 10-25 Ma. Existing geodynamic models for rift formation such as collapse of high topography or reduction of far field stresses due to growth of the San Andreas transform, or reactivation of older weaknesses, may not adequately explain the simultaneous 10-25 Ma opening of the Rio Grande rift from Colorado to Texas, nor explicitly link rifting to prior events such as the ignimbrite flare-up and Laramide orogeny. A model is therefore favored that involves Laramide flexure of the downgoing Farallon plate at the eastern Rocky Mountain front, delamination of sections of the Farallon Plate beneath the San Juan and Mogollon Datil volcanic fields to initiate and explain migrations of volcanism in the ignimbrite flare up, then a "big break" and foundering of the Farallon plate beneath the Rio Grande rift at ca. 25-30 Ma. This event focused asthenospheric upwelling along a north-south trend, weakening the overlying North American lithosphere and facilitating E-W extension from Colorado to southern New Mexico. 195


The purpose of this paper is to present concepts and implementation principles related to the design and development of reusable software services that are capable of assisting users at the operational level. Knowledge Management Enterprise Services (KMES) are an implementation of the service-oriented architecture paradigm, with a focus on the exchange of data within the meaningful context of a particular application (i.e., knowledge) domain. This requires a KMES service to incorporate a high level representation of this knowledge domain in the form of an ontology that is shared among all collaborating services within the application environment and at the same time specialized to the perspective that is appropriate to the servicing capabilities of the particular KMES service. Although KMES services can operate in any distributed system environment, they represent a step toward semantic web services by incorporating many of the same objectives, such as selfsufficiency, interoperability, discovery, asynchronous interaction with clients, and context-based intelligence. Therefore, this paper also deals briefly in an Appendix with the notion of web enabled and the different types of thin-client user-interfaces that are prevalent today. Finally, the paper discusses the software development process of a software system environment that maximizes the use of KMES services. Based on our CADRC Center's experience with the development of mostly military decision-support systems incorporating collaborative software agents, such KMES-based systems offer several advantages including a significant reduction in development time, decreased software development costs, and higher quality end-products.


We present a method to reconstruct indoor environments from stereo image pairs, suitable for the navigation of robots. To enable a robot to navigate solely using visual cues it receives from a stereo camera, the depth information needs to be extracted from the image pairs and combined into a common representation. The initially determined raw depthmaps are fused into a two level heightmap representation which contains a floor and a ceiling height level. To reduce the noise in the height maps we employ a total variation regularized energy functional. With this 2.5D representation of the scene the computational complexity of the energy optimization is reduced by one dimension in contrast to other fusion techniques that work on the full 3D space such as volumetric fusion. While we show only results for indoor environments the approach can be extended to generate heightmaps for outdoor environments.


Hubert Escaith is Director of Statistics and Economic Projections Division, ECLAC. The views expressed in this document, which has been reproduced without formal editing, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Organization.. This paper was prepared for the REDIMA workshop on Modeling Macroeconomic Coordination in the Andean Community, Santiago, Chile 22 October 2003. Introduction The early 1990s opened a new era for the analysis of economic interactions between Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries. Two channels, real and financial, conveyed the transmission of shocks. Intra-regional trade recuperated strongly in the wave of trade liberalization and the resumption of economic growth after the "lost decade" that marked the 1980s. The first year of the 1990s decade coincided also with the large scale introduction of new financial instruments that allowed operators to trade riskier papers, opening the door to an active market of financial titles emitted by the so called "emerging economies". As a result of this innovation, and the settlement of the old debt problem through the Brady agreement, and an increasing flow of foreign direct investment, the net transfer of resources to the region became once again positive, and growth resumed. But growth resumption was accompanied by higher volatility, due to the nature of the new international financial market, where contagion and herding have become a prominent reality. As a result, shocks initiating in one country will have direct impacts upon trade and other real variables, financial spreads and exchange rates in its neighbouring geographical area, as well as upon the international business climate if the troubled country is large enough (e.g., Argentina, Brazil or Mexico). This common destiny, in spite of differences in policies or fundamentals from one country to another, is a clear symptom of the emergence of a subregional dimension as a result of trade integration and financial globalization. (Studart, 2002). Indeed, because of this common component, national macroeconomic stability (including real aspects) should now be treated as a regional public good. The existence of such externalities calls for more coordination of national economic policies in the region. Despite these interdependencies and notwithstanding major initiatives in promoting macroeconomic coordination in several LAC subregions, cooperation does not always emerge naturally, even when it would be optimal to do so. Reflecting on this situation, Escaith, Ghymers and Studarts (2002) states that "it is striking that there is no systematic, operational regional or subregional scheme to deal with these regional or subregional spillovers… Indeed, economic policies are still totally uncoordinated and all the decisions continue to be taken in close-knit national circles without considering any spillovers at all. The clearest symptom of this is the choice of exchange-rate regimes based on strictly national considerations." The paper is available in PDF format (Only english version).""


The aim of our project is to compare pulse compression of different waveforms using correlation of real signals or matched filter for analytic signals. In this thesis a set of programs is developed for this comparison. The characteristic of the matched filter is that it processes the highest possible Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) under the assumption of white noise. The implementation of the algorithm is made in Matlab. Radar signal processors are usually carried out over a specified range window. Returns from all targets within the received window are collected and passed through the matched filter to perform the pulse compression. Because of the recent development of digital signal processors (DSPs), this process is often performed digitally. The aim of this work is to get better quality in the radar images, including SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and to explain the characteristics of each waveform. The thesis also includes an appendix, where the implemented programs and program code are attached. The work also aims at illustrative and didactic purposes. The programs have been developed so as to be easily understood and therefore useful for engineering students.


The provision of at-stop bus arrival time information has numerous potential benefits to bus users. With real-time passenger information well established in the UK the challenge is relaying accurate bus arrival times to passengers in a cost effective manner. Display screens are costly to install and maintain, rendering placement at all bus stops economically undesirable. QR codes represent an inexpensive alternative to delivering this information, usually at zero marginal cost to users. QR codes linking to a webpage displaying the arrival times of the next nine buses servicing a given stop were placed in the display cases of 44 bus stops in six distinct areas of Southampton. Scanning the QR code using a smartphone linked automatically to bus arrival information, the majority of which was in real-time. Arrival data was skimmed from the ROMANSE Traffic Control Centre website and adapted for convenient, smartphone friendly display. The project was split into two broad areas of investigation; QR code uptake and the effects of QR code use. QR code uptake examined usage trends over the project life and variations in usage by time of day, day of the week, stop location, stop characteristics and whether system explanation and promotion was displayed. Users had the option of obtaining the same information through typing the URL into a mobile browser rather that scanning the QR code, the use of which was also explored. The results of this section are anticipated to be useful for information providers in allocating resources, detailing where, when and under what circumstances there was greatest demand for QR code provision. The necessary data such as the time, date and location of scans was collected automatically over the life of the project. The second area investigated possible positive psychological factors, adjusted travel behaviour, effects on patronage, perceived information accuracy and easy of system use. Data was collected through the use of a smartphone friendly survey optionally completed by system users and a face to face survey conducted at trial bus stops. Results saw a trend of increasing use over the life of the project but remarkably little variation in use by the day of the week or between peak and inter-peak times. Virtually all users scanned the QR code rather than typing the URL. Surprisingly neither the stop having a shelter or display screen had a significant effect on usage, nor did promotion and explanation of the trial. There was however substantial variation in use by geographical area. Survey results were encouraging with the vast majority of users finding the system easy to use, although a significantly higher proportion of older users found it more challenging. QR code use increased wait time acceptability for over two thirds of respondents and over a third felt safer. Potential patronage increases were also very positive, however results should be treated with caution. Adjustments to users' travel behaviour were present although limited and perceived system accuracy was considered acceptable. The study concluded that given the low cost of implementation and the clear current, and potentially greater future benefits, the system should be employed wherever mobile internet connection and real-time information render it viable.


A new algorithm for on-line learning linear-threshold functions is proposed which efficiently combines second-order statistics about the data with the "logarithmic behavior" of multiplicative/dual-norm algorithms. An initial theoretical analysis is provided suggesting that our algorithm might be viewed as a standard Perceptron algorithm operating on a transformed sequence of examples with improved margin properties. We also report on experiments carried out on datasets from diverse domains, with the goal of comparing to known Perceptron algorithms (first-order, second-order, additive, multiplicative). Our learning procedure seems to generalize quite well, and converges faster than the corresponding multiplicative baseline algorithms.


A long-standing challenge for data management is the ability to correctly relate information corresponding to the same entity distributed across databases. Traditional research into record linkage has concentrated on string comparator metrics for records with common, or relatable, attributes. However, spatially distributed data are often devoid of such crucial information for database schema integration. Rather than directly relate schemas, spatially distributed data can be related through location-based linkage algorithms, which link patterns in location-specific attributes (e.g. visit). In this paper we focus on two fundamental algorithms for location-based linkage and we investigate how different distributions of how entities visit locations influence linkage performance. We begin by studying algorithm accuracy for linking real-world data. We then outline a theoretical framework rooted in information theory that allows us to provide insight into observed phenomena. Our framework also provides a useful basis for studying the performance of location-based linkage algorithms: we analyze two opposing cases where location visit patterns arise from uniform and power distributions of entities to locations. We carry out our investigations under both the assumption of complete and incomplete information. Our findings suggest that low skew distributions are more easily linked when complete information is known. In contrast, when information is incomplete high skew distributions lead to higher linkage rates.


Many countries today appoint their governments on the basis of competitive elections but fall short with respect to other properties of liberal democracy. Such regimes can be classified in a conceptual typology based on a hierarchical distinction between electoral rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Empirical realities provide an almost perfect match with this hierarchy as high respect for the rule of law hardly ever exists without high respect for civil liberties, which almost never exists without high respect for electoral rights. This finding questions the potential of an 'authoritarian' pathway to liberal democracy which privileges the rule of law over electoral rights.


It is well established that what happens to older people in one domain (like paid work) is likely to be related to what happens in another domain (like family caring or voluntary work). There is, however, limited research on the interplay between multiple activity domains in later careers. Research tends to focus on one domain (such as employment), and bring in aspects from other domains (such as volunteering) to explain outcomes. This article instead examines the interplay between 3 domains—paid work, care provision, and volunteering—using sequence analyses, cluster analyses, and loglinear modeling. It assesses 2 competing perspectives. The role substitution perspective suggests people take on activities (such as volunteering) to replace the loss of other activities (such as paid work). The role extension perspective alternatively suggests that people that are active in one area are likely to be active in others as well. Using the first 6 waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we examine 10-year pathways taken by individuals aged 50+ in relation to paid work, care provision, and volunteering. We find little support for either view of role substitution or extension. The 3 activity domains were largely independent of each other, suggesting that the factors influencing involvement in different combinations of activities are more complex. Nevertheless, we found some indicative evidence that part-time work and volunteering were complementary. Gender was important for the combination of pathways in paid work and care provision.


Abstract. As the understanding and representation of the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate have improved in the last decades, uncertainties in the stratospheric aerosol forcing from large eruptions are now linked not only to visible optical depth estimates on a global scale but also to details on the size, latitude and altitude distributions of the stratospheric aerosols. Based on our understanding of these uncertainties, we propose a new model-based approach to generating a volcanic forcing for general circulation model (GCM) and chemistry–climate model (CCM) simulations. This new volcanic forcing, covering the 1600–present period, uses an aerosol microphysical model to provide a realistic, physically consistent treatment of the stratospheric sulfate aerosols. Twenty-six eruptions were modeled individually using the latest available ice cores aerosol mass estimates and historical data on the latitude and date of eruptions. The evolution of aerosol spatial and size distribution after the sulfur dioxide discharge are hence characterized for each volcanic eruption. Large variations are seen in hemispheric partitioning and size distributions in relation to location/date of eruptions and injected SO2 masses. Results for recent eruptions show reasonable agreement with observations. By providing these new estimates of spatial distributions of shortwave and long-wave radiative perturbations, this volcanic forcing may help to better constrain the climate model responses to volcanic eruptions in the 1600–present period. The final data set consists of 3-D values (with constant longitude) of spectrally resolved extinction coefficients, single scattering albedos and asymmetry factors calculated for different wavelength bands upon request. Surface area densities for heterogeneous chemistry are also provided.


The Daedalus Project has devised new methods for recovering 3D models of scenes
from wide-baseline photographs. Current work is focused on developing novel shape-fromshading
methods (referred to as Depth Hallucination) to add fine-grain surface detail to the
reconstructed models. In doing this, our goal is to reconstruct models that appear visually
correct under varying illumination, including subtle effects such as surface self-shadowing.
Output from the current software is in the form of a dense polygon mesh and corresponding
albedo and normal-depth maps. The main goal of this thesis is to explore GPU algorithms for
rendering such models in real time or at interactive frame rates.
The aspects explored include rendering with relief textures, and how best to store
the raw data and process it on the GPU. We also study the best way to illuminate the scene in
a realistic way, keeping the interactive frame-rates as the most important characteristic.
Evaluation includes measures of performance, and test cases with varying illumination
to compare the results of the project with those achieved with a global illumination
algorithm.
Another goal of the project is to use only free software. This will concern from the
programming environment to the libraries used including the programs that we use for
working with images


OBJECTIVE
Elevated levels of platelet activating factor (PAF), a potent inflammatory mediator in periodontal disease and decreased PAF levels following periodontal surgical therapy have been previously detected in gingival tissues and gingival crevicular fluid (GCF). Platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase (PAF-AH) is a calcium-independent phospholipase A2 that catalyses the hydrolysis of PAF, thereby inactivating this mediator The hypothesis, a relationship between activity of PAF-AH and healing following periodontal therapy, was tested by detecting activity of PAF-AH in GCF samples collected from sites that had undergone phase I periodontal therapy with generalized chronic periodontitis.

METHODS
Twenty patients with generalized chronic periodontitis were divided into two groups (n = 10): group 1 with probing pocket depth (PPD) 4-5 mm and group 2 with PPD > or = 6-8 mm. Clinical parameters were recorded and GCF was sampled before phase I periodontal therapy and at the 2nd, 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day follow-up evaluation visits. Activity of PAF-AH in GCF was analysed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

RESULTS
Probing pocket depth at the 21st and 28th day in group 1, and PPD at the 14th, 21st and 28th day in group 2 were significantly decreased when compared to the baseline values (p < 0.001). Activity of PAF-AH (micromol/ml) was significantly decreased at the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day following phase I periodontal therapy in both groups 1 and 2 compared to the baseline values (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase is detectable in GCF by ELISA and showed a continuous decrease following phase I periodontal therapy. Changes in the PAF-AH activity would be a progressive marker of periodontal healing to evaluate the success of periodontal therapies.


Recent results from the Curiosity Mars rover have helped scientists formulate a plan for the next phase of its mission: looking for possible "molecular fossils" left by ancient martian microbes. Analyses of rocks show that Curiosity landed near a former lake that at least intermittently held enough water to have supported life. Now, papers published online in Science show that rocks that once formed the lakebed and bottom mud layer are high in organic carbon molecules. Researchers can9t tell yet whether the molecules came from ancient life or rained down from space. But future analyses—especially of recently eroded rocks that spent most of their history shielded from the cosmic rays thought to sterilize the top meter or so nearest the martian surface—should help researchers determine whether Mars ever harbored life.


We report on a complete set of early optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) obtained with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE-III) telescope network from 2005 March through 2007 June. This set is comprised of 12 afterglows with early optical and Swift/X-Ray Telescope observations, with a median ROTSE-III response time of 45 s after the start of γ-ray emission (8 s after the GCN notice time). These afterglows span 4 orders of magnitude in optical luminosity, and the contemporaneous X-ray detections allow multi-wavelength spectral analysis. Excluding X-ray flares, the broadband synchrotron spectra show that the optical and X-ray emission originate in a common region, consistent with predictions of the external forward shock in the fireball model. However, the fireball model is inadequate to predict the temporal decay indices of the early afterglows, even after accounting for possible long-duration continuous energy injection. We find that the optical afterglow is a clean tracer of the forward shock, and we use the peak time of the forward shock to estimate the initial bulk Lorentz factor of the GRB outflow, and find 100 ≲ Γ0 ≲ 1000, consistent with expectations.


A wide variety of Synthetic polypropylene (PP) meshes are currently being used to restore pelvic organ support for women suffering from pelvic organ prolapse. These meshes are implanted in over 200,000 women annually. However, they are essentially modified abdominal hernia meshes; and, as such, their use in the field of urogynecology has undergone little oversight. With more patients experiencing morbidity, the FDA has released two Public Health Notifications in 2009 and 2011 informing the public about the potential complications associated with urogynecological mesh implantation.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


This study aimed to assess the role of complement C3, hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL), and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) gene expression in familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCHL). mRNA expression of these 3 determinants of adipose tissue fatty acid (FA) metabolism was quantified in subcutaneous adipose tissue of 41 Finnish FCHL patients and 14 normolipidemic control subjects. No difference in steady-state mRNA expression level of C3, HSL, or PPARgamma mRNA was detected between the FCHL patients and the control subjects. Adipose tissue C3 mRNA expression level correlated with the area under the curve (AUC) for glucose and for insulin in FCHL patients and control subjects. HSL mRNA level was positively correlated with waist-to-hip ratio in patients, whereas the correlation was negative in control subjects. A significant correlation was observed for PPARgamma with free FA (FFA)-AUC in the FCHL group, and an inverse correlation with serum triglycerides (TG) in the control subjects. Although no difference in adipose tissue gene expression of C3, HSL, or PPARgamma was observed between the FCHL patients and the control subjects, several significant correlations were observed between the mRNA levels and FCHL-related metabolic parameters. Thus, the genes of C3, HSL, and PPARgamma may exert a modifying effect on lipid and glucose metabolism in FCHL. However, defects in adipose tissue expression of these genes are not likely to play a primarily role in the pathogenesis of FCHL in Finnish FCHL families.


This study evaluated the potential of preparing fish silage (FS) as a low-cost, protein-rich supplement for livestock feeding in Oman from ground Indian oil sardines (Sardinella longiceps) using organic and inorganic acids. It was co-dried with wheat bran before being mixed with other feed ingredients and pelleted for feeding Omani sheep. Forty Omani sheep were offered one of five diets aiming to gradually replace soybean meal (SBM) with FS. The proportions of FS in the diet were 0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 g/kg, whereas the parallel SBM levels ranged from 17% to 0%. Animals were fed 500 g/d of the concentrates and allowed ad libitum access to Rhodes grass hay. A digestibility experiment was carried out on 12 sheep fed 0, 100 and 200 g/kg FS. The fresh FS dry matter (DM) was 393 g/kg and it contained 510 g/kg crude protein (CP), 220 g/kg ether extract (EE), 153 g/kg ash, 34 g/kg calcium (Ca) and 31 g/kg phosphorus on DM basis. The 75:25 silage:wheat bran mixture contained 883 g/kg DM and 390, 139, 120, 17, 17 g/kg DM CP, EE, ash, Ca and phosphorus, respectively. The FS amino acid contents were comparable to that of the SBM. No ill health signs were observed on experimental animals. There were no differences (P > 0.05) in digestibility coefficients of CP, acid detergent fibre and neutral detergent fibre between the 0, 100 and 200 g/kg FS diets. However, the 200 g/kg silage diet had lower (P < 0.001) DM, ash, Ca, P and energy digestibility coefficients. The study indicated that FS can successfully be made under Omani conditions and may be used as an excellent protein source for feeding sheep.


ABSTRACT Permo-Triassic, Rakaia Terrane, pelitic and psammitic schists at Lake Hāwea, Otago, show progressive metamorphism from TZII, pumpellyite–actinolite facies to TZIV, greenschist facies. The sequence shows evidence of five phases of deformation. D1 and D2 are progressive synmetamorphic phases, forming macroscopic nappe-like folds, interpreted to have formed by internal deformation within the Rakaia–Caples accretionary wedge during terrane collision. Thick S1 quartz veins are the form surface for definition of D2 folding, intensification of which progressively destroys evidence of D1 at higher textural and metamorphic grades. D3–5 are post metamorphic, less pervasive, kink folds (commonly conjugate) and brittle fault zones that predate the intrusion of lamprophyre magma and carbonatitic fluids associated with the Alpine Dike Swarm (c. 25 Ma). They relate to tectonic relaxation and exhumation of the schist in Cretaceous–Paleogene times. Fluid flow has been ubiquitous throughout the deformation, resulting in extensive quartz veining with diffusion of silica from the immediate country rock.


Pulmonary hypertension may coexist with certain diseases in neonates. Iloprost inhalation is one of the treatments which cause selective pulmonary vasodilatation. Inhalation is not an easy way of drug administration in mechanically ventilated infants; as some exhibit desaturations during inhalation. Moreover, inhalation of drug requires cessation of mechanical ventilation, if patient is on high frequency oscillatory ventilation. We presented two patients with pulmonary hypertension; term baby with congenital diaphragmatic hernia and preterm baby with respiratory distress syndrome; who had iloprost instillation during mechanical ventilation treatment. Iloprost instillation was well tolerated with no side effects in the term patient with diaphragmatic hernia; whereas severe blood pressure fluctuations were observed in the preterm infant. This report may courage administration of iloprost in term neonates with resistant pulmonary hypertension.


1. The mixed disulphide of cysteine and homocysteine is known always to be present in the plasma of patients with homocystinuria, an abnormality of methionine metabolism. Recently we have shown that it is also detectable in low concentration in the plasma of normal fasting man. In the present study we measured mixed disulphide concentrations after an overnight fast in 24 normal men and compared the findings with those obtained in 24 normal premenopausal women of similar age. 2. The mean value for men (+ SD) of 3.3 & 0-8 ,umol/l was significantly higher than that for women (2.4 f 0.7 ,umol/l; P < 0.001). Of the other neutral and acidic amino acids measured mean values for leucine, isoleucine and valine (P < 0.001) and cystine (P < 0.01) were also higher in the men but methionine concentrations were not significantly different. 3. The higher branched-chain amino acid concentrations in men could be related to larger muscle bulk and protein intake, but the higher cysteine-homocysteine mixed disulphide concentrations are consistent with differences in methionine metabolism between men and women under the age of 50 years.


Introduced during the late 1990's, medical savings accounts (MSAs) increase cost sharing between employers and employees. Despite assurances from proponents claiming cost sharing will stem the tide of rising health care prices and expenditures, skeptics argue that MSA enrollment could reduce utilization of preventative care. This paper estimates preventative care demand models based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. These models measure the association between MSA enrollment and the utilization of physicals among adults and doctor visits among children. The models control for endogeneity using a variety of techniques. The results indicate that medical savings account enrollment does not significantly impact the utilization of preventative care.


This book presents the foundations of the science of polymer derived ceramics, enriched with many descriptions of applications. Written by a team of selected researchers, the text is a systematic, comprehensive introduction to all phases of polymer derived ceramics from synthesis strategies through properties measurement, and applications. New material is given on the nanolevel structure of PDCs, and it is shown how nano-sized modifications can alter and improve the properties of polymer derived ceramics, including high chemical durability, oxidation resistance, luminescence, and piezo-resistivity. Groundbreaking work is also described on novel precursors such as stoichiometric SiC, BN, and SiBCN ceramics. In terms of technology, this volume explains how PDCs are fabricated and how these novel materials are used in membranes, filters, MEMS, fibers, and micro-components. This book covers: synthesis, structure, properties and applications; strategies for characterizing and synthesizing PDCs; and, original research on pre-ceramic PDC precursors.


The correct approach to the formulation of a new basis of quantum theory and new foundations of theory of atom is proposed. The unity of formal logic and rational dialectics is the correct methodological basis of the approach. The main result is the following principles: (1) the principle of motion of quantum particle; the principle of stability of quantum particle; (3) principle of energy of quantum particle; (4) the principle of speed of translational motion of quantum particle; (5) the principle of rectilinearity of the external (translational) motion of quantum particle; (6) the principle of mass of quantum particle; (7) the principle of acceleration and of deceleration of quantum particle; (8) the principle of translational motion of electron in atom: the translational motion of electron in atom represents the periodical "scattering" of the electron by nucleus; (9) the principle of translational motion of electrons in many-electron atom: the translational motion of electrons in many-electron atom does not lead to formation of the electron shells. The proposed foundations furnish the clue to correct description of reality.


Compared to conventional chlorination methods which apply chlorine at water treatment plant, booster chlorination has almost solved the problems of high dosages of chlorine residuals near water sources and lack of chlorine residuals in the remote points of a water distribution system (WDS). However, control of trihalomethane (THM) formation as a potentially carcinogenic disinfection by-product (DBP) within a WDS has still remained as a water quality problem. This paper presents a two-phase approach of multi-objective booster disinfection in which both chlorine residuals and THM formation are concurrently optimized in a WDS. In the first phase, a booster disinfection system is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem in which the location of booster stations is determined. The objectives are defined as to maximize the volumetric discharge with appropriate levels of disinfectant residuals throughout all demand nodes and to minimize the total mass of disinfectant applied with a specified number of booster stations. The most frequently selected locations for installing booster disinfection stations are selected for the second phase, in which another two-objective optimization problem is defined. The objectives in the second problem are to minimize the volumetric discharge avoiding THM maximum levels and to maximize the volumetric discharge with standard levels of disinfectant residuals. For each point on the resulted trade-off curve between the water quality objectives optimal scheduling of chlorination injected at each booster station is obtained. Both optimization problems used NSGA-II algorithm as a multi-objective genetic algorithm, coupled with EPANET as a hydraulic simulation model. The optimization problems are tested for different numbers of booster chlorination stations in a real case WDS. As a result, this type of multi-objective optimization model can explicitly give the decision makers the optimal location and scheduling of booster disinfection systems with respect to the tradeoff between maximum safe drinking water with allowable chlorine residual levels and minimum adverse DBP levels.


ABSTRACT Migration processes are often said to involve elements of choice and constraint in variable measure. However, this bipolar framing may fail to capture the twists and turns in many migrants' erratic lives. In this article, we introduce the concept circumstantial migration to describe how migration trajectories and experiences unfold in unpredictable ways under the influence of micro-level context and coincidence. We expound on the concept through the case study of a cohort of Gambians who travelled to Guangzhou in South China, unexpectedly found that their prospects in China were limited, and struggled to leave the country. Our analysis examines the particularities of the Chinese immigration regime and its effects while presenting a broader argument against Chinese exceptionalism in migration studies. The concept of circumstantial migration underpins the questions guiding the analysis: how do latent influences trigger immediate circumstances? How do migrants engage with volatile circumstances? How are circumstances mediated by a variety of brokers? How does circumstantial migration produce particular temporalities? The core empirical data comes from interviews with returnees in Gambia, though the analysis draws upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Guangzhou over the past decade. Video Abstract Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo


In recent years it has become clear that climate change is an inevitable process. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the expectation is that climate change will have an especially negative impact, not only a result of projected warming and rainfall deficits, but also because of the vulnerability of the population. The impact upon food security will be of great significance, and may be defined as being composed of three components: availability, access, and utilization. To further investigate the link, a systematic literature review was done of the peer-reviewed literature related to climate change and food security, employing the realist review method. Analysis of the literature found consistent predictions of decreased crop productivity, land degradation, high market prices, negative impacts on livelihoods, and increased malnutrition. Adaptation strategies were heavily discussed as a means of mitigating a situation of severe food insecurity across the entire region. This is linked to issues of development, whereby adaptation is essential to counteract the negative impacts and improve the potential of the population to undergo development processes. Findings additionally revealed a gap in the literature about how nutrition will be affected, which is of importance given the links between poor nutrition and lack of productivity.


In less than one year, the country-led exercise in preparing Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) has accomplished what the top-down approach characteristic of the UNFCCC has not been able to achieve in over 21 years of negotiations, namely to produce a sound agreement to reduce climate change. As such, the UNFCCC should adopt a new process similar to that used in developing the INDCs, in which Parties to the Convention would mobilise their national efforts, but on a wider scale and under certain agreed binding conditions.

To ensure a comprehensive engagement, this Policy Brief recommends the introduction of a four-tier system in which the most developed nations called upon to take the lead, but with the very least developed nations also contributing to the intended UN objective.


The annual anthropogenic ocean carbon uptake of 2.6 ± 0.5 Gt C is changing ocean composition (e.g., pH) at unprecedented rates, but our ability to track this trend effectively across various ocean ecosystems is limited by the availability of low‐cost, high‐quality autonomous pH sensors. The Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE was a year‐long competition to address this scientific need by awarding $2 million to developers who could improve the performance and reduce the cost of pH sensors. Contestants' sensors were deployed in a series of trials designed to test their accuracy, repeatability, and stability in laboratory, coastal, and open‐ocean settings. This report details the validation efforts behind the competition, which included designing the sensor evaluation trials, providing the conventional true pH values against which sensors were judged, and quantifying measurement uncertainty. Expanded uncertainty (coverage factor k = 2, corresponding to 95% confidence) of validation measurements throughout the competition was approximately 0.01 pH units. A custom tank was designed for the coastal trials to expose the sensors to natural conditions, including temporal variability and biofouling, in a spatially homogenous environment. The competition prioritized the performance metrics of accuracy, repeatability, and stability over specific applications such as high‐frequency measurements. Although the XPRIZE competition focused on pH sensors, it highlights considerations for testing other marine sensors and measuring seawater carbonate chemistry.


This chapter offers a twofold shift in the application of the 'credible commitment' concept laid down by North and Weingast in their classic 1989 article. It examines the concept in the context of charter-granting, rather than in that of the national debt and the government bond market, and applies the concept to the pre-Civil War period, rather than the post-Glorious Revolution period. The chapter focuses on charters for the incorporation of business corporations. At a basic level the puzzle is: if the state could not credibly commit to enforce or not to annual charters why were incorporators willing to pay for the charters and accompanying privileges? The chapter examines multiple mechanisms that could have succeeded in solving the commitment problem: reputation, type of charter activity and its organizational form, the law and judiciary, the extent of parliamentary or common law restraint on the sovereign and interest groups organizing to discourage default. Four case studies demonstrate how each of these mechanisms functioned. This chapter shows the usefulness of the 'credible commitment' framework. A nascent rule of law, unavailable elsewhere in Europe, explains the widespread use of charters and corporations in late Tudor and early Stuart England.


Philosophers and ethicists have long neglected moral questions that arise from our interaction with non-human animals. Most assumed that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals, and that it is therefore morally permissible to use non-human animals as a source of food, clothing, and entertainment, and for scientific purposes. In recent decades, however, that assumption has been challenged, and the moral status of non-human animals is now the subject of a lively and controversial academic debate. Advances in sciences, particularly the advent of evolutionary theory, made us realize that human beings and other animals are more similar than different, and force us to rethink our place in nature. We are no longer justified in thinking of ourselves as the crown of creation. We now understand that we are just one species among others, and we must ask ourselves anew – with an open and critical mind and without bias – which values and principles should guide our interaction with non-human animals, and how we should weigh our interests against those of other animals. Recognizing this important trend in moral thinking, the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics invited me to edit a special issue on animal ethics. The interest was so great that one issue became two, of which this is the first. I am grateful to Professor Shamima Parvin Lasker and Ms. Tahera Ahmed for giving me the opportunity to serve as a guest editor, and for their assistance during the editing process. I also thank our contributors for choosing this journal to publish their excellent work, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. This, the first special issue on animal ethics contains the following five articles: Robin Attfield and Rebekah Humphreys ("Justice and Non-Human Animals") challenge the widely held belief that non-human animals are not included within the scope of the principles of justice, and suggest that the interests of non-human animals sometimes take precedence over the interests of human beings. The implications of their argument for our interaction with other animals are profound: E.g., it is a matter of justice and fairness to prevent avoidable and unnecessary animal suffering, rather than a mere matter of compassion. Eric X. Qi ("Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism") develops an account of the moral significance of special relations, and uses it to argue for a modest form of speciesism that steers a middle ground between anti-speciesism and crude speciesism. Unlike anti-speciesists, he maintains that species co-membership grounds special moral obligations among the members of the same species. In contrast to crude speciesists, however, he holds that our special obligations to fellow human beings do not warrant that we always attach more weight to their interests than to the comparable interests of non-human animals. Yamikani Ndasauka and Grivas M. Kayange ("Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals") argue that the existentialist view that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals rests on a weak foundation. They consider a number of arguments that have been made in support of this view and conclude that none of them holds up to critical scrutiny. They then suggest that human beings and other animals in fact deserve equal moral consideration, and – drawing from Martin Heidegger and Abraham Maslow – ground that claim in two important commonalities between them. Sreetama Chakraborty ("Animal Ethics: Beyond Neutrality, Universality, and Consistency") explains how the postmodern approach to animal ethics departs from the traditional approach, particularly its emphasis on the principles of neutrality, universality, and consistency, and draws attention to the pernicious hierarchy of domination that separates human beings from other animals. Building on the insights of postmodernism, she takes first steps towards a new, non-anthropocentric paradigm, in the hope to achieve a sustainable balance between human interests and the interests of non-human animals. Gabriel Vidal Quinones ("Singerian Vegetarianism and the Limits of Utilitarianism: A path towards a Meaning Ethics") takes a critical look at Peter Singer's utilitarian argument for vegetarianism, and argues that the conceptual resources of utilitarianism only allow for an incomplete moral understanding of our relationship with other animals. What is lacking, he suggests, is an ethical vision. He argues that, without an ethical vision, human action threatens to degenerate into mere automatism without meaning. He proposes a "meaning ethics" that he thinks is better equipped to help us decide how we ought to treat other animals. I hope you, dear reader, will enjoy reading through this remarkable collection of articles as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Maybe you will even be inspired to do some thinking of your own about issues of animal ethics and put your thoughts down on paper. If so, I sincerely hope that you will choose the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics to publish your article. Warm regards and best wishes for the new year,


Dramaturgy, in its many forms, is a fundamental and indispensable element of contemporary theatre. In its earliest definition, the word itself means a comprehensive theory of "play making." Although it initially grew out of theatre, contemporary dramaturgy has made enormous advances in recent years, and it now permeates all kinds of narrative forms and structures: from opera to performance art; from dance and multimedia to filmmaking and robotics.

In our global, mediated context of multinational group collaborations that dissolve traditional divisions of roles as well as unbend previously intransigent rules of time and space, the dramaturg is also the ultimate globalist: intercultural mediator, information and research manager, media content analyst, interdisciplinary negotiator, social media strategist.


Tracing the history of television as a therapeutic device, Joy V. Fuqua describes how TVs came to make hospitals seem more like home and, later, "medicalized" the modern home. She examines the introduction of television into the private hospital room in the late 1940s and 1950s and then moves forward several decades to consider the direct-to-consumer prescription drug commercials legalized in 1997. Fuqua explains how, as hospital administrators and designers sought ways of making the hospital a more inviting, personalized space, TV sets came to figure in the architecture and layout of health care facilities. Television manufacturers seized on the idea of therapeutic TV, specifying in their promotional materials how TVs should be used in the hospital and positioned in relation to the viewer. With the debut of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising in the late 1990s, television assumed a much larger role in the medical marketplace. Taking a case-study approach, Fuqua uses her analysis of an ad campaign promoting Pfizer's Viagra to illustrate how television, and later the Internet, turned the modern home into a clearinghouse for medical information, redefined and redistributed medical expertise and authority, and, in the process, created the contemporary consumer-patient.


Contextual embedding-based language models trained on large data sets, such as BERT and RoBERTa, provide strong performance across a wide range of tasks and are ubiquitous in modern NLP. It has been observed that fine-tuning these models on tasks involving data from domains different from that on which they were pretrained can lead to suboptimal performance. Recent work has explored approaches to adapt pretrained language models to new domains by incorporating additional pretraining on domain-specific corpora and task data. We propose an alternative approach for transferring pretrained language models to new domains by adapting their tokenizers. We show that domain-specific subword sequences can be determined efficiently directly from divergences in the conditional token distributions of the base and domain-specific corpora. In datasets from four disparate domains, we find adaptive tokenization on a pretrained RoBERTa model provides greater than 85% of the performance benefits of domain specific pretraining. Our approach produces smaller models and less training and inference time than other approaches using tokenizer augmentation. Although using adaptive tokenization incurs a 6% increase in model parameters (due to the introduction of 10k new domain-specific tokens), our approach, using 64 CPUs, is >72x faster than further pretraining the language model on domain-specific corpora on 8 TPUs.


Y chromosome acts as a single nonrecombining unit that is male specific and in effect haploid, thus ensuring the preservation of mutational events as a single haplotype via male lines. In this study, 6 Y chromosome-specific microsatellites (SSR) were tested for the patrilineal genetic variations of 573 male samples from Chinese domestic horse (30 breeds), Przewalski's horse, and donkey. All the 6 loci appeared as a haplotype block in Przewalski's horse and the domestic donkey. There were notable differences, however, at Y chromosome markers between horse and donkey. There were 2 haplotypes of Eca.YA16 in the domestic horse breeds, Haplotype A (Allele A: 156 bp) and Haplotype B (Allele B: 152 bp). Allele A was the common allele among 30 horse breeds, and Allele B was found in 11 horse breeds. This is the first description of a Y chromosome variant for horses. The 2 haplotypes of Y chromosome discovered in the domestic horse breeds in China could be helpful in unveiling their intricate genetic genealogy.


Interest in microthrusters has grown significantly in the last two decades for possible applications in small satellites and deep space missions. This thesis is motivated by the need of experimental setup for characterization of microthrusters. In the first part of the thesis, a time-of-flight (ToF) mass spectrometer with an electrostatic ion-guide has been developed for characterization of electrospray microthrusters that can focus all mono-energetic emitted charges within about 23 degree emission half-angle on a small detector placed at a distance nearly 60 times larger than the diameter of the detector. This helps time-of-flight analysis from a large fraction of the emission in real time. Experiments performed with externally wetted tungsten emitters have shown up to 80% charge collection from a nearly 15 degree half-angle in positive and negative polarities of emission. From capillary emitters with about 40 degree emission half-angle, nearly up to 30% of the emission has been collected for ToF measurement. Despite accommodation of large beam spread and increase in flight time, flight time measurement has been possible quite accurately. In the second part of the thesis, a nano-Newton thrust stand has been developed that can measure thrust up to about 100 IŒN with a resolution of 10 nN from different types of microthrusters. The operating principle of the thrust stand is different from other nano-Newton thrust stands developed in the last few years and it works by measuring impingement force of the emitted particles on a suspended plate with a sensitive force sensor. The suspended plate possesses a natural frequency around 50 Hz, and, by a homodyne thrust measurement scheme, avoids coupling of facility vibrations with the measurement. The resolution is among the best reported so far from thrust stands that measure thrust directly on the thruster and the first of its type to demonstrate less than 3 IŒN resolution. The setup has been characterized with the help of a cold-gas ejecting capillary and an electrospray device. Experiments with cold-gas ejector have shown that thrusts can be resolved with 10 nN resolution and a minimum thrust of about 10 nN can be detected. Measurements up to 2-3 IŒN from the electrospray device has been demonstrated with the thrust stand and the results are within 50-150 nN from that obtained from indirect beam diagnostics.


The origin of tumor heterogeneity is poorly understood, yet it represents a major barrier to effective therapy. In melanoma and in melanocyte development, the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf) controls survival, differentiation, proliferation, and migration/metastasis. The Brn-2 (N-Oct-3, POU3F2) transcription factor also regulates melanoma proliferation and is up-regulated by BRAF and beta-catenin, two key melanoma-associated signaling molecules. Here, we show that Brn-2 also regulates invasiveness and directly represses Mitf expression. Remarkably, in melanoma biopsies, Mitf and Brn-2 each mark a distinct subpopulation of melanoma cells, providing a striking illustration of melanoma tumor heterogeneity with implications for melanoma therapy.


Introduction While sub-Saharan African migrants are the second largest group affected by HIV in Europe, sound HIV prevalence estimates based on representative samples of these heterogeneous communities are lacking. Such data are needed to inform prevention and public health policy. Methods This community-based, cross-sectional study combined oral fluid HIV testing with an electronic behavioral survey. Adopting a two-stage time location sampling HIV prevalence estimates for a representative sample of adult sub-Saharan African migrants in Antwerp, Belgium were obtained. Sample proportions and estimated adjusted population proportions were calculated for all variables. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis explored factors independently associated with HIV infection. Results Between December 2013 and October 2014, 744 sub-Saharan African migrants were included (37% women). A substantial proportion was socially, legally and economically vulnerable: 21% were probably of undocumented status, 63% had financial problems in the last year and 9% lacked stable housing. Sexual networks were mostly African and crossed national borders, i.e. sexual encounters during travels within Europa and Africa. Concurrency is common, 34% of those in a stable relationship had a partner on the side in the last year. HIV prevalence was 5.9%(95%CI:3.4%-10.1%) among women and 4.2% (95%CI:1.6%-10.6%) among men. Although high lifetime HIV testing was reported at community level (73%), 65.2% (CI95%:32.4%-88.0%) of sub-Saharan African migrants were possibly undiagnosed. Being 45 years or older, unprotected sex when travelling within Europe in the last year, high intentions to use condoms, being unaware of their last sexual partners' HIV status, recent HIV testing and not having encountered partner violence in the last year were independently associated with HIV infection in multivariable logical regression. In univariable analysis, HIV infection was additionally associated to unemployment. Conclusions This is the first HIV prevalence study among adult sub-Saharan African migrants resettling in a European city based on a representative sample. HIV prevalence was high and could potentially increase further due to the high number of people with an undiagnosed HIV infection, social vulnerability, high levels of concurrency and mainly African sexual networks. Given this population's mobility, an aligned European combination prevention approach addressing these determinants is urgently needed.


This book is a practical, user friendly text designed specifically for those undertaking dissertations or research projects in the final year of nursing programmes. Research forms a central part of nursing degrees, and final year dissertations are often based on literature searching and writing research project proposals. This book addresses the need for a clear and practical text to guide students from the initial stage of deciding on a research topic, completing a literature review and designing their research, through to choosing data ...


Abstract The subject of Riddle 15 of the Exeter Book is an animal that lives with its cubs in a burrow where it is hunted by an aggressive intruder. The poem describes how the family escapes through the tunnels of the burrow and how the mother reaches the open; there, she turns on her enemy to strike him with her 'war-darts'. The proposed solutions to the riddle are usually either 'badger' or 'fox', whereas the alternative, 'porcupine', which was first suggested more than a century ago, has traditionally been rejected on the grounds that the porcupine is not an indigenous species in England. However, there are several strong arguments in favour of the porcupine. In the Latin tradition, the porcupine occurs not only in the zoological writings of Pliny the Elder and Solinus, but also in the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, which already provided the Anglo-Latin enigmatists (Aldhelm, Tatwine and Eusebius) with both facts and legends about beasts. Among these is the old belief that the porcupine is able to shoot out its long, sharp quills, especially at dogs pursuing it – just like the animal in Riddle 15. Other details and clues, too, tally with the characteristics of the porcupine, which was said to resemble the hedgehog and, therefore, was known to the Anglo-Saxons as se mara igil ('the larger hedgehog'). This paper explores the imaginative language and rhetoric of Riddle 15 and discusses the solutions hitherto proposed in the light of Latin animal riddling and animal lore, both of which informed the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book. In this context, the 'porcupine' – though exotic and long refuted – emerges as the most likely solution to Riddle 15.


A technique is demonstrated to enhance the contrast between sea ice and low-level water clouds. The approach uses the brightness temperature difference (BTD) feature from data collected in the split-window, mid-wavelength infrared (IR) region (i.e. two bands at 3.7 μm and 4.0 μm). These spectral data are available with Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) moderate-resolution bands M12 and M13, respectively. Under daytime conditions, the data collected in these bands contain energy that originates from both the sun and the Earth–atmosphere system. Due to the small wavelength difference between these, the terrestrial energy component in the bands is typically quite similar as are the surface reflectances for sea ice and ocean surfaces. Thus, the enhanced contrast between sea ice and water clouds, evident in a M12–M13 BTD image, results from differences in the solar energy, which decreases rapidly across this atmospheric window. Observed BTD values for water clouds can exceed 30K, while those for snow-ice fields are typically much smaller (e.g. 0–5K). Thus, water clouds appear bright in the image while sea ice, oceans, and most land surfaces are very dark. The enhanced contrast in the split-window, mid-wave IR BTD image makes it valuable for both image analysis and use in cloud algorithms. In addition, these images support the creation of manually generated cloud masks that have been shown useful for quantitatively evaluating the performance of automated cloud analysis algorithms and cloud forecast models. In this article, the value of 3.7 μm minus 4.0 μm BTD imagery for distinguishing between sea ice and low-level water clouds is shown using VIIRS data collected over the Beaufort Sea on 31 May 2012. Manually generated cloud masks, derived in part from these data, are then used to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of various cloud tests, including those used in the VIIRS cloud mask algorithm and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud mask algorithm. The results strongly suggest that split-window, mid-wavelength IR imagery provides valuable information to help differentiate between clouds and sea ice. It is concluded that collecting data in these mid-wavelength IR bands should be considered part of any future satellite sensor designed for environmental monitoring, especially over the polar regions.


Value at risk has become a standard approach for estimating and expressing a firm's exposure to market risk. Unlike the traditional risk measure, standard deviation, VaR focuses only on the tail of the distribution of outcomes - the extreme events. This makes a lot of sense in theory, but a major problem arises in practice, because empirical returns distributions tend to have tails that look quite different from those of the normal and lognormal distributions that we typically assume in finance. Extreme value theory offers an elegant solution. Like the familiar central limit theorem, which proves that under general conditions the distribution of the average of n identically distributed random variables will converge to the normal as n grows large, extreme value theory provides similar convergence results for the extreme tails of distributions. In this article, Neftci gives a clear and intuitive introduction to extreme value theory and demonstrates how to use it. In an example applying it to forecasting the tails of the distributions of interest rate and exchange rate changes, extreme value theory is shown to be much more accurate than the standard value at risk calculated from the normal distribution.


Biodiversity is declining, with direct and indirect effects on ecosystem functions and services that are poorly quantified. Here, we develop the first global assessment of trends in pollinators, focusing on pollinating birds and mammals. A Red List Index for these species shows that, overall, pollinating bird and mammal species are deteriorating in status, with more species moving toward extinction than away from it. On average, 2.5 species per year have moved one Red List category toward extinction in recent decades, representing a substantial increase in the extinction risk across this set of species. This may be impacting the delivery of benefits that these species provide to people. We recommend that the index be expanded to include taxonomic groups that contribute more significantly to pollination, such as bees, wasps, and butterflies, thereby giving a more complete picture of the state of pollinating species worldwide.


Cognitive radar is a radar system that acquires knowledge and understanding of its operating environment through online estimation, reasoning and learning or from databases comprising context information. Cognitive radar then exploits this acquired knowledge and understanding to enhance information extraction, data processing and radar management. In order to make progress to this goal, the topic of cognitive radar attempts to shift the cognitive processes previously performed by an operator into automated processes in the radar system. Families of cognitive processes are well defined in cognitive psychology [1], such as the perceptual processes, memory processes, languages processes and thinking processes. In this chapter, we discuss radar management techniques that enable the manifestation of one or more cognitive processes, with a particular view towards electronically steered phased array and multifunction radar systems. In particular, this chapter focuses on two cognitive processes: attention and anticipation. Attention can be manifested by effective resources management, whereby a quality of service-based task management layer connects radar control parameters to mission objectives. Anticipation can be generated using stochastic control that is non-myopic, allowing the radar system to act with a consideration of how the radar system, scenario and environment will evolve in the future.


Performance contracting, or contract energy management as it is called in the UK, refers to the practice of financing energy services based on the savings stream that those energy services are projected to generate. While performance contracts have not traditionally incorporated renewable energy systems (Goldman et al., 2002), a number of recent contracts have incorporated photovoltaic (PV) systems as part of an overall building energy service strategy. This paper presents the results of a survey of US PV performance contracts and describes how, when examined in aggregate, PV performance contracts represent an important share of new US installations. This paper will also report on the diffusion of the PV performance contracting model from the US Federal government to other sectors.


The effects of nuclear data covariance on the rod ejection transient of the pressurized water reactor mixed-oxide/UO2 core benchmark sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are investigated. For this purpose the uncertainty and sensitivity software package XSUSA developed at Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit is applied to propagate uncertainties in nuclear data libraries to the transient calculations. A statistically representative set of transient calculations is analyzed, and both integral and local output quantities are compared with the benchmark results of different participants. It is shown that the uncertainties in nuclear data play a crucial role in the interpretation of the simulation results. The work is a step forward in establishing a methodology that combines best-estimate calculation with performing uncertainty analysis for coupled full-core calculations.


The development objectives of the Assam Inland Water Transport Project for India are to: (a) improve passenger ferry infrastructure and services in Assam, and (b) improve the institutional capacity and framework. Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) employment to at least one member per affected family in the project or arrange for a job in such other project as may be required after providing suitable training and skill development in the required field and at a rate not lower than the minimum wages; (2) subsistence allowance of rupees 3,000 per month for a period of one year to affected households who require to relocate due to the project; (3) transportation assistance of rupees 50,000 for affected households who require to relocate due to the project; (4) an alternative house for those who have to relocate, as per PMAY-G specifications in rural areas and a constructed house or flat of minimum 50 square meters in urban areas; (5) compensation at scheduled rates without depreciation for structure with 1-month notice to demolish affected structure; and (6) 3-month notice to harvest standing crops or market value of compensation for standing crops.


The Mekong River is undergoing rapid dam construction. Seven mainstem dams are completed or under construction in China and 133 completed or proposed for the Lower Mekong River basin. We developed geomorphically-based estimates of sediment yield from different geologic provinces and applied the 3W model to calculate the net sediment trapping from existing and future proposed dams, using improved methods and data over prior such estimates. Our results indicate that the 133 dams built as planned would trap 96% of the river's former sediment supply to the delta, a significantly greater trapping than prior estimates of 50-75%. The most significant downstream impacts of this sediment-starved water will be accelerated erosion and subsidence of the delta in response to the virtual elimination of its sediment supply. Upstream, the mostly bedrock channel upstream of Kratie will have its thin sediment deposits stripped away (with consequences for aquatic organisms dependent on the alluvium) and the bedrock reach of Vientiane will likely incise. The impacts of dam- induced sediment starvation can be partially mitigated by implementing strategies to pass sediment through or around dams (e.g., sediment sluicing, flushing, density current venting, and bypasses), and our team is currently working with staff of Laotian and Cambodian ministries to identify opportunities to relocate/redesign dams to make such sustainable sediment management feasible.


Abstract Background: Families living with mental illness are a vulnerable group in the community. In the African culture, it is accepted that families are embedded safely in a community. In accordance with the principles of Ubuntu, people with mental illness should be well supported and cared for by their families and the wider community. Traditionally, people with mental illness are institutionalised, out of sight of the family and the general population. However, the deinstitutionalisation of mental health services has changed the structure and mode of caring for people with mental illness. The family and community are now regarded as the dominant care givers and providers. Method: A qualitative grounded theory method was used. Results: This article discusses research in progress that demonstrates how families in the community experienced stigma and isolation in the community, as well as crime. There was little support from the community in assisting families to shoulder their burden of care. In this article, we reflect on the possibility that the spirit of Ubuntu may well assist families living with mental illness, despite the burden that communities have to shoulder when fulfilling their own family obligations. Conclusion: In a community in which Ubuntu is the underpinning life philosophy and way of life, these values could be reinstated and revived to promote the survival and recovery of families living with mental illness in the community, and to reintroduce humanness in the community.


The increasing level of realism in digital games depends not only on the enhancement of modeling and rendering effects, but also on the improvement of different aspects such as animation, characters artificial intelligence and physics simulation. Normally, games process most of their tasks in the CPU, using the GPU only for graphics processing. Several games and previous works also use GPU computing to process some selected non-graphics subtasks (normally the game physics), while the remaining tasks remain on the CPU. Such a processing partition is frequently pointed to as the bottleneck in these games, as it may induce several expensive data transfers between the CPU and GPU. This paper shows some game examples that execute all their methods entirely on the GPU using of a new GPU computing architecture for keeping the GPU-CPU communication to a minimum. Using the techniques explained in this paper, we present a game that can have an average optimization of about 25% when compared to traditional GPGPU game programing (i.e. only using GPGPU for physics and processing the AI in the CPU) and 200% when compared to traditional CPU programming.


We study the impact of plausibly exogenous global food price shocks on local violence across the African continent. In food-producing areas, higher food prices reduce conflict over the control of territory (what we call "factor conflict") and increase conflict over the appropriation of surplus ("output conflict"). We argue that this difference arises because higher prices raise the opportunity cost of soldiering for producers, while simultaneously inducing net consumers to appropriate increasingly valuable surplus as their real wages fall. In regions without crop agriculture, higher food prices increase both factor conflict and output conflict, as poor consumers turn to soldiering and appropriation in order to maintain a minimum consumption target. We validate local-level findings on output conflict using geocoded survey data on interpersonal theft and violence against commercial farmers and traders. Ignoring the distinction between producer and consumer effects leads to attenuated estimates. Our findings help reconcile a growing but ambiguous literature on the economic roots of conflict.


Abstract. The objective of this paper is to assess the performance of methods that predict low flows and flood runoff in ungauged catchments. The aim is to learn from the similarities and differences between catchments in different places, and to interpret the differences in performance in terms of the underlying climate-landscape controls. The assessment is performed at two levels. The Level 1 assessment is a meta-analysis of 14 low flow prediction studies reported in the literature involving 3112 catchments, and 20 flood prediction studies involving 3023 catchments. The Level 2 assessment consists of a more focused and detailed analysis of individual basins from selected studies from Level 1 in terms of how the leave-one-out cross-validation performance depends on climate and catchment characteristics as well as on the regionalisation method. The results indicate that both flood and low flow predictions in ungauged catchments tend to be less accurate in arid than in humid climates and more accurate in large than in small catchments. There is also a tendency towards a somewhat lower performance of regressions than other methods in those studies that apply different methods in the same region, while geostatistical methods tend to perform better than other methods. Of the various flood regionalisation approaches, index methods show significantly lower performance in arid catchments than regression methods or geostatistical methods. For low flow regionalisation, regional regressions are generally better than global regressions.


ObjectiveThis article proposes and illustrates a conceptual model of medical student well-being.MethodThe authors reviewed the literature on medical student stress, coping, and well-beingand developed a model of medical student coping termed the "coping reservoir."ResultsThe reservoir can be replenished or drained by various aspects of medical students' experiences. The reservoir itself has an internal structure, conceptualized as consisting of the individual's personal traits temperament and coping style. The coping reservoir metaphor is used to highlight the dynamic nature of students' experiences, with potential outcomes including enhanced resilience and mental health versus distress and burnout.ConclusionMedical student well-being is affected by multiple stressors as well as positive aspects of medical training. Attention to individual students' coping reservoirs can help promote well-being and minimize burnout; formal and informal offerings within medical schools can help fill the reservoir. Helping students cultivate the skills to sustain their well-being throughout their careers has important payoffs for the overall medical education enterprise, for promotion of physician resilience and personal fulfillment, and for enhancement of professionalism and patient care. This and other models of coping should be empirically validated.


In neocortical neurons, network activity can activate a large number of synaptic inputs, resulting in highly irregular subthreshold membrane potential (V(m)) fluctuations, commonly called "synaptic noise." This activity contains information about the underlying network dynamics, but it is not easy to extract network properties from such complex and irregular activity. Here, we propose a method to estimate properties of network activity from intracellular recordings and test this method using theoretical and experimental approaches. The method is based on the analytic expression of the subthreshold V(m) distribution at steady state in conductance-based models. Fitting this analytic expression to V(m) distributions obtained from intracellular recordings provides estimates of the mean and variance of excitatory and inhibitory conductances. We test the accuracy of these estimates against computational models of increasing complexity. We also test the method using dynamic-clamp recordings of neocortical neurons in vitro. By using an on-line analysis procedure, we show that the measured conductances from spontaneous network activity can be used to re-create artificial states equivalent to real network activity. This approach should be applicable to intracellular recordings during different network states in vivo, providing a characterization of the global properties of synaptic conductances and possible insight into the underlying network mechanisms.


Regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) and crop-load adjustment are regarded as important viticultural practices for premium-quality wine production, although little is known about their interactive effects. Crop loads were altered on field-grown, own-rooted Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines exposed to RDI varying in severity and timing in the arid Columbia Valley (Washington) from 1999 to 2003. Following a dry-down period through fruit set to stop shoot growth, vines were irrigated at 60 to 70% of full-vine evapotranspiration until harvest. Other vines either received the same amount of water up to veraison, after which the irrigation rate was cut in half, or had their irrigation halved before veraison but not thereafter. Clusters were thinned within irrigation treatments during the lag phase of berry growth to achieve a target yield of 6.7 t/ha, compared with an unthinned control. The severity and timing of RDI had only minor effects on vegetative growth, yield formation, fruit composition (soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, K+, color), and cold hardiness. The more severe water-deficit treatments slowed berry growth while the treatments were being imposed, but final berry weights were similar in three of five years. Although cluster thinning reduced yields by 35% and crop loads by 32%, crop load had little or no influence on vegetative growth and cluster yield components and advanced fruit maturity at most by three to four days. Very few interactive effects of RDI and crop load were observed, indicating that the crop load did not influence the response of vines to RDI.


In the present research we evaluated the antibacterial and antifungical activity of marine actinomycetes over pathogen of clinical origin. Likewise, it was evaluated the capacity to produce extracellular enzymes like carbohidrases, lipases and proteases. The Actinomycetes were isolated from sediments collected between September to December 2005 of Ancon (Lima) and Independencia (Ica) Bays at depths of 34 and 100 m. The isolation was performed in Casein - Starch Agar (CSA) and Marine Agar (AM) with addition of Cicloheximide (10 µg/mL). The antimicrobial evaluations were done comparing them with pathogenic antibiotic-multiresistant bacteria and fungi from clinical origin; in as much, to evaluate their multienzimatic activity several polimeric substrates were used. A total of 62 actinomycetes were isolated, 31 of there (50%) showed antibacterial activity in opposite to Staphylococcus aureus, 36 (59%) in opposite to Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 23 (37%) to both pathogens. Strains of actinomycetes I-400A and M10-77 identified in each case like Streptomyces and Thermoactinomyces exhibited higher inhibitory activity against S. aureus and P. aeruginosa respectively. Also, 13 actinomycetes (20,97%) showed to antifungical activity against cultures of Candida albicans strain 1511 and 17 (27,42%) with Candida albicans strain 1511MIC; nevertheless, no actinomycete displayed inhibitory activity to the growth of Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. Most Actinomycetes showed to have multienzymic activity able to hydrolysis polymerics compounds like the tween-80 (96%), gelatin (95%), starch (93%), lecitine (88%) and casein (74%). Extracts of the active compound obtained from the strain M10-77 with ethyl acetate produced a notable inhibitory activity against S. aureus. We conclude that the marine sediment is source of Actinomycetes with great capacity to produce bioactives substances of medical-pharmacological and industrial relevance.


It is becoming conventional approach to evaluate the building envelop losses using detailed dynamic tools such as EnergyPlus, ESP-r and TRNSYS. However, the user-related loads (and their variations) in the building are usually oversimplified during performance evaluation of those buildings and associated HVAC systems. This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the performance of buildings and their energy supply systems while taking into account the user-related loads (non-HVAC & DHW) at individual household levels. For this purpose, a single family house (two different insulation cases) built in Oslo climate using an alternate duty air to water heat pump is used as a case study. The investigation shows that a large variation occurs in space heating needs for the same standard house when actual user loads are considered. The study also shows that the storage losses dominate the performance of total heat supply system in case of passive house insulation.


The article speaks of the "cosmogonic Egg" and the "chromatic dualism" related to the ancient Iranian religion. According to this traditions, there are two principles represented as an endless clash of two mountains of different colors. This explain the contrastive power of the two levels of existence, the menog «mental, heavenly» and the getig «terrestrial, corporeal», a sort of initiatory death that leads to a rebirth from the inner space into a space of Light. Because the dualistic symbolism of colors is based upon the antithesis between the totality of colors (white) and the absence of color (black), the final stage of the primordial fight is a paradoxical return into a dark, embryological void.


Political lobbyists are a part of government decision-making processes, and many countries have stringent regulations to ensure their activities are somewhat transparent, especially as some use ethically questionable tactics. In New Zealand, however, there are no similar legislative regulations and lobbyists can stay undetected while trying to influence policymaking.  More concerning, however, is that the results of this study indicates that lobbyists are also able to skirt around scrutiny in New Zealand media because of current journalism practices.  This research's content analysis indicates the media neglects to identify lobby organisations, thereby allowing them to operate without detection of their agenda, leaving the public unaware of who is influencing decision makers.


My dissertation explores how people are persuaded by narratives. The first essay is a review of the literature over the past decade where I develop and then apply an overarching framework to synthesize the empirical work that examine antecedents and consequences of narrative persuasion as well as moderators and mediators that are involved in this process. In the second essay, I adopt a structural equations approach to examine the process through which consumers are persuaded by online consumer reviews, a common form of consumer narrative. A review that reads like a narrative (story) is likely to evoke transportation into that review, which affects persuasion-related outcomes. Across three studies, I explore how variables identified in essay 1 and important to the persuasion-related literature affect this process. In the third essay, I adopt an experimental approach to further explore the process of reflection, which is introduced in essay one. I demonstrate that this process is distinct from transportation, and that mediates the relationship between transportation and persuasion-related outcomes.


Red blood cells containing hemoglobin S are less deformable than normal erythrocytes and have a major effect on the viscoelasticity of blood. This alteration in rheology increases the impedance to flow, leading to an increase in RBC aggregation and reduction in oxygen saturation, which induces further sickling and occlusions in the microcirculation. Patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) can experience severe complications, such as acute pain and stroke. Automated red blood cell exchange transfusion, or erythrocytapheresis, is used with homozygous SCD (Hb SS) to replace sickled cells with normal cells, thereby decreasing the percentage of sickle hemoglobin (%Hb S) and maintaining a net balance in iron accumulation. These patients received monthly erythrocytapheresis with a goal to maintain a pre-pheresis %Hb S at less than 30%. In this study, viscoelastic parameters were used to quantify the effectiveness of this therapy for six patients undergoing chronic erythrocytapheresis. Whole blood viscosity, elasticity and relaxation time at oscillatory strains of 0.2, 1 and 5, and hematocrit and %Hb S were measured prior to erythrocytapheresis and 15 minutes after completion and compared with normal reference values at the patient's hematocrit. This study confirms the beneficial effects on viscosity, elasticity, and relaxation time of erythrocytapheresis.


Seasonal tourism workers in the Swedish mountains can be conceptualised as members of occupational communities. For members of such a community, the dual relationship between the job and other members are important. However, a place perspective might be fruitful, as place amenities are expected drivers of job acceptance. By studying seasonal workers' relation to place, through the lens of their 'membership' of an occupational community, it is possible to capture both the individual sense of place and the group's shared sense of place. The former is highly important, as social relations among the workers are particularly significant. In this study, the conceptual framework of occupational communities is modified to better suit temporary and mobile workers in amenity-rich rural areas. The overall aim of this paper is to investigate how seasonal tourism employees can be analysed as an occupational community. Further, it studies the ways in which a particular tourism-related occupational community perceives and connects to its location, as well as the ways in which seasonal tourism workers perceive the role of place and community in their everyday lives and future plans. Hence, this article concludes that members of an occupational community have a dual attachment to place. This type of community could exist and move around without being affected by the geographical place, but the place has affective possibilities influencing the workers, and in an isolated rural place, the community has more space to grow stronger. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A stopped clock is right twice a day. Similarly, any portfolio allocation is likely to be optimal at least at some point. Risk parity is no stopped clock. The authors derive a general result regarding when and why risk parity is Sharpe ratio optimal, even with negative-Sharpe-ratio assets. This derivation goes beyond the simple observation that risk parity is Sharpe ratio optimal when asset correlations and Sharpe ratios are identical. Based on the analytical result, the authors develop an indicator to describe when risk-parity strategies are likely to be more or less optimal. They also explain how negative-Sharpe-ratio assets can still be an important part of a portfolio—whether it is a risk-parity portfolio or not. Although risk parity and risk balancing in general do not require assumptions about returns, the authors provide guidance regarding how to infer returns that are consistent with the portfolios built from targeting risk. TOPICS: Statistical methods, portfolio theory, portfolio construction Key Findings • Conditions that are generally sufficient for risk-parity portfolios to be Sharpe ratio optimal are provided, beyond the special case of identical cross-asset correlations and Sharpe ratios. From this, an indicator of how likely risk parity is to be Sharpe ratio optimal can be derived. • Based on diversification properties of assets, the generally sufficient conditions for risk-parity portfolios to be Sharpe ratio optimal explain why even negative-return assets can be included in a diversified portfolio. • A method is provided to translate risk targets into a rank ordering of asset returns. With an additional set of assumptions, these rank orderings can be translated into returns for a coherent set of risk targets, risks, and returns.


Abstract
 (Oomycota from "Parque Estadual da Ilha do Cardoso" (PEIC): first records for São Paulo State and Brazil). We studied the oomycetes diversity from soil and freshwater samples collected quarterly from August 2012 to June 2013 at "Parque Estadual da Ilha do Cardoso" (PEIC), São Paulo State, Brazil. Among the species identified by morphological and/or molecular (complete ITS rDNA region) analysis, four are recorded for the first time for Brazil: Araiospora streptandra var. streptandra Kevorkian, Achlya primoachlya (Coker & Couch) TW Johnson and RL Seym., Aplanopsis terrestris Höhnk and Saprolegnia aenigmatica Sandoval-Sierra & Diéguez-Uribeondo and three for São Paulo State: Achlya crenulata Ziegler, Brevilegnia longicaulis TW Johnson and Saprolegnia truncata RL Seym. All species are described, commented and illustrated herein. The specimens were deposited in the culture collection of the "Instituto de Botânica (CCIBt)" and/or in the Herbarium SP. The ITS rDNA sequences obtained were deposited in the GenBank.


The calibrated 3D seismic data were studied to characterize the carbonate
facies in a carbonate buildup located in southeast Central Luconia Province. The
sequence stratigraphy and seismic attributes analyses were carried on the carbonate
bearing intervals to characterize the facies. understand the evolution and map-out their
distribution. The carbonate bearing intervals, which is defined by Top Carbonate and
Base Carbonate horizons were accumulated in Early Miocene to Middle Miocene
time in two major sequences. These sequences were developed in response to the
changes of relative sea level, with well defined associated system tracts. The stacking
pattern of the system tracts and stratigraphic unit reveal the growth architecture and
the evolution of the buildup. Three main factors have been identified in controlling
the growth, evolution and architecture of the buildup; which are tectonics (faulting
and subsidence, relative sea level and also paleowind direction in addition to the rate
of carbonate production. Using seismic facies approach, the mounded reefal and
progradational facies are potentially associated with good reservoir properties. They
are extensive in peripheral area of the buildups, whereas the tight lagoonal facies is
commonly found in the central of the buildup. The porosity and permeability
enhancement through secondary processes such as karstification and late leaching has
been identified as one of the main contribution to the reservoir formation. These
facies is distributed in association with the formation of the sequence boundaries
during lowstand sea levels. The findings from the study could contribute in lowering
the future exploration and development risks and also to maximize the returns.


Smoking is one of the main risk factors that has affected human mortality and life expectancy over the past century. Smoking accounts for a large part of the nonlinearities in the growth of life expectancy and of the geographic and sex differences in mortality. As Bongaarts (2006) and Janssen (2018) suggested, accounting for smoking could improve the quality of mortality forecasts due to the predictable nature of the smoking epidemic. We propose a new Bayesian hierarchical model to forecast life expectancy at birth for both sexes and for 69 countries with good data on smoking-related mortality. The main idea is to convert the forecast of the non-smoking life expectancy at birth (i.e., life expectancy at birth removing the smoking effect) into life expectancy forecast through the use of the age-specific smoking attributable fraction (ASSAF). We introduce a new age-cohort model for the ASSAF and a Bayesian hierarchical model for non-smoking life expectancy at birth. The forecast performance of the proposed method is evaluated by out-of-sample validation compared with four other commonly used methods for life expectancy forecasting. Improvements in forecast accuracy and model calibration based on the new method are observed.