The effects of potassium or lanthanum additives on the catalytic properties of alumina-supported cobalt catalysts were examined through carbon monoxide hydrogenation reaction. The catalysts were characterized by hydrogen or carbon monoxide chemisorption, oxygen titration, and temperature-programmed desorption. The reactions were carried out at 270 o C and atmospheric pressure. When a small amount of potassium was added to alumina-sup- ported cobalt catalysts, the amount of hydrogen adsorption decreased more significantly than that of carbon monoxide adsorption, and the extent of reduction also decreased. With the addition of potassium, the overall carbon monoxide conversion decreased, while the selectivity to higher hydrocarbon and olefin increased. The effect of lanthanum on activity and selectivity in carbon monoxide hydrogenation was less significant than the effect of potassium. Tempera- ture-programmed desorption showed that the presence of additives changed the adsorbed state of CO on cobalt.


Only the Envelope (OTE) combines research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere, and document our practices as scholartists. In a live art installation, a "scientist" invited visitors to be involved in an "experiment": viewing a film while wearing a wireless eye-tracking device. This surveillance technology generated data about viewing behaviour, but of more interest, the work staged encounters that dramatize the act of looking. Engaging in OTE as performance research led to unanticipated findings and the creation of new audiovisual documents when the eye-tracking device was redeployed as a head-mounted camera to reenact the visitor's experience. These documents extend the work's artistic outcomes, but are they "the work" or "records" of the work? OTE engages with the traditional debate in performance studies about the supposed ephemerality of performance by illustrating Schneider's position that the live is a vehicle for recurrence such that a distinction between record and performance collapses, and that photography can mix theatricality and documentality (2011). OTE refused to keep still to submit to its documentation, just as personal data in the public sphere is endlessly generated, captured and recycled in unstable recursion.
My acknowledgements are due to research assistant and performer Rachelle Rechichi; technology consultant Neil Ferguson; to all partici¬pants, consenting and otherwise; to eResearch Coordinator Heather Boyd, who reached out to me as a creative arts researcher; to Edith Cowan University's eResearch Technology Funding Scheme, and School of Arts and Humanities, for their financial support.


Abstract : This dissertation pioneers the concept of traffic-adaptive, flow-specific medium access and demonstrates that it outperforms contention, non-contention and hybrid techniques. The novel traffic-adaptive Cooperative Wireless Sensor Network Medium Access Control (CWS-MAC) scheme is proposed and shown to provide better throughput and delay performance than slotted, non-persistent carrier sense multiple access (CSMA), upon which the IEEE 802.11 standard is based, and time division multiple access (TDMA). A general model for traffic-adaptive, flow-specific medium access control is developed and hybrid, contention and non-contention schemes are shown to be special cases. This work also compares the energy efficiency of centralized and distributed solutions and proposes an energy efficient version of traffic-adaptive CWS-MAC that includes an adaptive sleep cycle coordinated through the use of preamble sampling. A preamble sampling probability parameter is introduced to manage the trade-off between energy efficiency and throughput and delay performance. Finally, this research quantifies the effect of large propagation delays on contention and contention-free medium access and proposes a flow-specific medium access scheme for networked satellite systems that is based on traffic-adaptive CWS-MAC and is shown to outperform both CSMA- and TDMA-based solutions.


A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of work, some general skills would include time management, teamwork and leadership, self motivation and others, whereas domain-specific skills would be useful only for a certain job. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used. People need a broad range of skills like Life Skills, Soft Skills, Communication Skills and Employability Skills in order to contribute to a modern economy and take their place in the technological society of the 21st century. A joint ASTD and U.S. Department of Labor study showed that through technology, the workplace is changing, and identified 16 basic skills that employees must have to be able to change with it. The importance of continued training and skill development has been highlighted by a recent international workplace survey that shows approximately nine out of ten Indian respondents believe their current skills will be outdated within five years.


Introduction: Since the introduction of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology/European Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy (ESHRE/ESGE) classification of Mullerian anomalies, various authors have raised major concern about its clinical implications, as specific diagnostic criteria that clearly correlate to pregnancy have not yet been validated in clinical practice by any prospective or retrospectives studies. In this study, we aimed to correlate the ESHRE/ESGE classification with the occurrence of pregnancy, consideringthetwo different definitions of myometrial thickness. Methods: A retrospective study, including an ultra-selected cohort of 79 patients, from January 2010 to March 2014. All women with fertilityproblems, who had an isolated andsuspected uterine malformation, t ultrasound and hysteroscopy, were retrospectively included in this study. Myometrial thickness was defined as the entire myometrial layer, as suggested by the ESHRE/ESGE criteria, or the free myometrial layer, as suggested by Gubbini. Results: We failed to evidence an association between the occurrence of pregnancy in the two most representative classes (U0 and U2), considering the free myometrial layer, and the entire myometrial layer. When we considered the effect of hysteroscopic surgery on the occurrence of pregnancy, we also failed to obtain a statistically significant difference. Discussion: The ESHRE/ESGE classification may be useful in classifying Mullerian anomalies, but it needs to be applied in larger series. However, we think that new parameters and algorithms are needed for a better prediction of pregnancy. We recommendto associate the fundal uterine vascularization to the ESHRE/ESGE criteria to be analysed in further studies.


TSC (OMIM#191100) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by a broad phenotypic spectrum including epilepsy, mental retardation, skin lesions and tumors in various organs. The broad phenotypic spectrum reflected the development of hamartomas in multiple organs throughout the body (Schwartz et al., 2008). The incidence of TSC has been reported to be 1 in approximately 6000 (Osborne et al., 1991). However, its true incidence is not known because of a number of undiagnosed cases consisting mostly of mildly affected or asymptomatic individuals (Osborne et al., 1991). Two-thirds of TSC patients have sporadic mutations and only about one-thirds is familial. The genes in which abnormalities are found are called TSC1 and TSC2. Both genes have been studied by multigenerational linkage analysis (Fryer et al., 1987 and Kandt et al., 1992). TSC1 is located at position 9q34, and encodes a protein called hamartin, with an mRNA transcript of 8.6 kb containing 23 exons and encompassing 55 kb of DNA (van Slegtenhorst et al., 1997). TSC2 is located at position 16p13.3, and encodes a protein called tuberin, with an mRNA transcript of 5.5 kb, containing 41 exons and encompassing 40 kb of DNA (Eur TS Consortium, 1993).


Diabetes mellitus is one of the common endocrine disorders prevalent in almost all of the countries. This chronic pathology is characterized by hyperglycemia caused by defective insulin action, insulin secretion, or the combination of both. Prolonged persistence of elevated blood glucose level consequently caused a series of complications such as nephropathy, retinopathy, and cardiomyopathy. Currently available synthetic drugs for treating this disease are found to be associated with many adverse effects. The use of plants in medicine is an age-long practice in various parts of the globe for both preventive and curative purposes. Several warnings have been issued over lack of quality control, scientific evidence for the efficacy, and potential adverse effects of herbal remedies including hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity among others. Despite all of these, reliance on herbs as medicine for the management of diabetes mellitus is still much practiced by a large proportion of the world population because they are readily available and affordable with perceived reduced toxicity. Therefore, with the upsurge of interests in medicinal plants, there is a need for thorough scientific investigations of these plants for both efficacy and potential toxicity. In this issue, we present some recent advances in the use of medicinal plants for treating diabetes mellitus. B. Pang et al. ("Innovative Thoughts of Treating Diabetes from the Perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine")presented a review article on the contribution of traditional Chinese medicine to the development of alternative and complementary medicine for the treatment and prevention of diabetes mellitus. In another paper ("Effect of Rhizoma Coptidis (Huang Lian) on Treating Diabetes Mellitus"), B. Pang et al. discussed the efficacy and safety of Rhizoma Coptidis in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. In another study ("Evaluation of the Effects of Cornus mas L. Fruit Extract on Glycemic Control and Insulin Level in Type 2 Diabetic Adult Patients: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial"), R. Soltani et al. reported the results of a clinical trial on the effect of Cornus mas L. fruit extract on hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetic patients. In addition, W. Liu et al. ("The Effects of Chinese Medicine on Activation of Wnt/β-Catenin Signal Pathway under High Glucose Condition") present a valuable review on some compounds implicated in the regulation of Wnt/β-catenin signal pathway as a mechanism of action involved in the antihyperglycemic activity from Chinese medicine. Furthermore, A. O. T. Ashafa and M. I. Kazeem ("Toxicopathological Evaluation of Hydroethanol Extract of Dianthus basuticus in Wistar Rats") reported on the effects of Dianthus basuticus (a Basotho plant with acclaimed antidiabetic activity) on some biochemical parameters and histology of Wistar rats. Finally, X.-J. Li et al. ("TCM Formula Xiaoyaosan Decoction Improves Depressive-Like Behaviors in Rats with Type 2 Diabetes") evaluated the effect of traditional medicine formula, Xiaoyaosan, on the cognitive function of diabetic rats. After the first volume of this special issue that was published in 2014, we hope that this issue will present additional valuable information for scientists and clinicians.


The French national collaboration CLaRyS aims at the on-line monitoring of hadron therapy by means of imaging nuclear reaction products that are related to the ion range. For this purpose, the MoniDiam project is dedicated to the development of a large area detector with a high detection efficiency for the primary carbon or proton beams, giving time and position measurements at count rates greater than 100 MHz. High radiation hardness and intrinsic electronic properties make diamonds reliable and very fast detectors with a good signal to noise ratio. Commercial Chemical Vapor Deposited (CVD) diamonds are studied starting with plasma etch thinning and contact metallization done at the LPSC laboratory. Their applicability as particle detector is being investigated using a and β radioactive sources, 95 MeV/u carbon ion beams and short-bunched 8.5 keV photons from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). This last facility offers unique capability of highly focused beams, the X-ray energy deposition is continuous along the irradiated detector volume. It permits us to mimic the interaction of single ion beams. The possible application of diamonds as a position sensitive detector will be discussed from these radiation tests results. Finally, we focused on the diamond time response and energy resolution measurements. The reported study prefigures dedicated microelectronics developments.


Ontologies play a central role in the development of the semantic web, as they provide precise definitions of shared terms in web resources. One important web ontology language is DAML+OIL; it has a formal semantics and a reasoning support through a mapping to the expressive description logic ! with the addition of inverse roles. In this paper, we present a probabilistic extension of ! , called P" # $ , to allow for dealing with probabilistic ontologies in the semantic web. The description logic P" # $ is based on the notion of probabilistic lexicographic entailment from probabilistic default reasoning. It allows to express rich probabilistic knowledge about concepts and instances, as well as default knowledge about concepts. We also present sound and complete reasoning techniques for P! , which are based on reductions to classical reasoning in " ! and to linear programming, and which show in particular that reasoning in P! is decidable.


This paper is centered on covariant dynamics on random graphs and random networks (marked graphs), which can be described as rules to navigate the vertices that are preserved by graph/network isomorphisms. Such dynamics are referred to as vertex-shifts here. Unimodular random networks can be heuristically described as networks seen from a vertex chosen uniformly at random, both in the finite and in infinite network cases. Some general ways of constructing unimodular random networks are reviewed together with instances of vertex-shifts.
The main result of the paper is a classification of vertex-shifts on unimodular random networks. Each such vertex-shift partitions the vertices into a collection of connected components and foils, which correspond to the orbits and the stable manifold of the dynamics, respectively. The classification is based on the cardinality of the connected components and foils. It is shown that up to an event of zero probability, there are three types of foliations in a connected component: F/F (with finitely many finite foils), I/F (infinitely many finite foils), and I/I (infinitely many infinite foils). Distinctive properties of each type are also derived.
An infinite connected component of the graph of a vertex-shift is a tree which, in the unimodular case, shares some similarities with a critical branching process. Such trees are referred to as Eternal Family Trees here. Construction techniques of such trees are also discussed. These lead to additional structural results on the graphs of vertex shifts in each case of the classification.
The results are illustrated by concrete examples stemming from classical domains of probability theory: random graphs, branching processes and stationary point processes.


Maternal nutrient intake during early- and mid-gestation can alter fetal growth and development with long-term consequences on the postnatal productivity and health of offspring. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of maternal nutrition level during mid-gestation on postnatal growth rate, carcass composition, muscle fibre characteristics and meat quality in lambs. Ewes were fed from Days 30 to 80 of gestation as follows: 100% (control group, C), 50% (undernutrition, UN) or 175% (overnutrition, ON) of their daily requirement. During the rest of the gestation, the ewes in all groups were fed 100% of their daily requirements. Birth and weaning (at Day 90) weights of lambs born to ewes in nutritional groups were similar, but slaughter weights (at Day 150) and daily weight gain during finishing period of lambs born to the UN group were lower (P < 0.05). Similarly, a decrease in weights of semitendinosus (ST), semimembranosus and gastrocnemius muscles was observed in the lambs born to the UN group (P < 0.05). Lambs born to the ON group had a higher (P < 0.05) concentration of DNA in longissimus dorsi (LD) and ST muscles than UN groups, but they had a lower (P < 0.05) total protein and other proteins concentrations in LD and ST muscles than those to C and UN groups. Protein to DNA ratio in LD and ST muscles of lambs born to ON group were lower than those to C and UN groups (P < 0.05). However, lambs born to the ON group had a higher number of Type IIA and IIB muscle fibres in ST muscles but not in LD muscles than those in the C and UN groups (P < 0.05). Additionally an increase in the number of fibres/mm2 muscle area in lambs born to the ON group was observed in LD and ST muscles (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences between treatment groups in terms of meat quality parameters studied. This study confirms that maternal nutrition level during mid-gestation alters the postnatal growth and muscle fibre development of lambs.


The domestic fowl, as a species, is considered a unique experimental model in immunological research where the humoral and cellular components of the immune response can be delineated by selective surgical bursectomy of newly hatched chicks combined with sublethal whole-body X-irradiation. Search for an effective, safe, and a short-acting general anesthetic for application in such young birds is, therefore, essential. Ketamine is a phencyclidine derivative with analgesic and anesthetic properties in both mammalian and avian species. Studies on its efficacy on young or naturally small birds, however, are apparently lacking. Our previous studies indicated that dose levels as high as 51 mg/kg and 37.2 mg/kg are not lethal to 2-day- and 6-day-old Hisex White domestic fowl chicks when given intramuscularly, respectively. Results of the present study show that the onset of ketamine anesthesia varied between 40 - 98 seconds in 2-day-old chicks of this breed depending upon dose level. The dose and response are inversely related (y = -19.3x + 107.5) where "y" is the time for onset of anesthesia in seconds and "x" is the dose as mg/bird. The time for recovery from anesthesia also varied (6.6 - 74.7 min) depending upon dose level. The dose and response, however, are positively correlated (y = 20.92x - 21.15). Doses ranging between 43.77 to 47.74 mg/kg are considered optimum to produce anesthesia with onset in 74 - 77 sec and recovery within 12 - 15 min. It is concluded that Ketamine has the potential for application as a general anesthetic for domestic fowl chicks for bursectomy. Critical clinical tests are necessary to evaluate further the performance of this drug when administered to young chicks.


Abstract The position of an author on the byline of a paper affects the inferences readers make about their contributions to the research. We examine gender differences in authorship in the ecology literature using two datasets: submissions to six journals between 2010 and 2015 (regardless of whether they were accepted), and manuscripts published by 151 journals between 2009 and 2015. Women were less likely to be last (i.e., "senior") authors (averaging ~23% across journals, years, and datasets) and sole authors (~24%), but more likely to be first author (~38%), relative to their overall frequency of authorship (~31%). However, the proportion of women in all authorship roles, except sole authorship, has increased year‐on‐year. Women were less likely to be authors on papers with male last authors, and all‐male papers were more abundant than expected given the overall gender ratio. Women were equally well represented on papers published in higher versus lower impact factor journals at all authorship positions. Female first authors were less likely to serve as corresponding author of their papers; this difference increased with the degree of gender inequality in the author's home country, but did not depend on the gender of the last author. First authors from non‐English‐speaking countries were less likely to serve as corresponding author of their papers, especially if the last author was from an English‐speaking country. That women more often delegate corresponding authorship to one of their coauthors may increase the likelihood that readers undervalue their role in the research by shifting credit for their contributions to coauthors. We suggest that author contribution statements be more universally adopted and that these statements declare how and/or why the corresponding author was selected for this role.


A sensitive micromethod for estimating the activated partial thromboplastin time in diluted capillary blood with excellent reproducibility is presented, as are results of test conditions with regard to sampling, calcium concentration, osmolarity of the diluent and the influence of the packed cell volume.


Reflection electron energy loss spectroscopy and electron Rutherford back-scattering have been used to study the formation of nickel and cobalt silicides. The metal was evaporated on a silicon wafer, and subsequently annealed to different temperatures. The energy loss spectra and the deconvolution of the elastic peak into its elemental components are used to help identify the three distinct silicides for each element, Ni2Si, NiSi, NiSi2, Co2Si, CoSi and CoSi2.


Thermal expansion, lattice dynamics, heat capacity, compressibility, and pressure stability of the intermetallic clathrate Na 24 Si 136 have been investigated by a combination of first-principles calculations and experimentation. Direct comparison of the properties of Na 24 Si 136 with those of the low-density elemental modification Si 136 provide insight into the effects of filling the silicon clathrate framework cages with Na on these properties. Calculations of the phonon dispersion only yield sensible results if the Na atoms in the large cages of the structure are displaced from the cage centers, but the exact nature of off-centering is difficult to elucidate conclusively. Pronounced peaks in the calculated phonon density of states for Na 24 Si 136 , absent for Si 136 , reflect the presence of low-energy vibrational modes associated with the guest atoms, in agreement with prior inelastic neutron-scattering experiments and reflected in marked temperature dependence of the guest atom atomic displacement parameters determined by single-crystal x-ray diffraction. The bulk modulus is only weakly influenced by filling the Si framework cages with Na, whereas the phase stability under pressure is significantly enhanced. The room-temperature linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is nearly a factor of 3 greater for Na 24 Si 136 compared to Si 136 . Negative thermal expansion (NTE), observed in Si 136 below 100 K, is noticeably absent in Na 24 Si 136 . In contrast to Si 136 , the thermal expansion behavior in Na 24 Si 136 is relatively well described by the conventional Grüneisen-Debye model in the temperature range of 10–700 K. First-principles calculations in the quasiharmonic approximation correctly predict an increase in high-temperature CTE with Na loading, although the increase is less than observed in experiment. The calculations also fail to capture the absence of NTE in Na 24 Si 136 , perhaps due to anharmonic effects and/or inadequateness of the ordered structural model.


Abstract The thermal and hydric environment during incubation of turtle eggs influences hatchling size, sex, energy reserves, and thus their quality. Information on the natural nest environment of flatback turtles (Natator depressus) is lacking. Therefore, the current study investigated the thermal and hydric environment of their nest chambers and nesting beach (at Peak Island, east coastal Queensland during the 1996/1997 and 1997/1998 nesting seasons). The temperature of nest chambers and the nesting beach showed temporal and spatial variation. Beach temperature increased through the nesting season as summer progressed and showed significant vertical and lateral variation. The temperature in the core of nest chambers increased as incubation progressed (on average 7 C) apparently because of both metabolic heating and the natural seasonal increase in sand temperature. The temperature range of nests was 25.5–36.5 C, with many nests exposed to temperatures above 35 C for extended periods. Water content of sand surrounding nest chambers at the beginning of incubation ranged from 2.6–7.8% (w/w), varying with date of laying and location on the beach. Natator depressus eggs may be more tolerant of high incubation temperatures and severe moisture stress than those of most other sea turtle species. Nest success was not influenced by the position of the nest on the beach but was positively related to clutch size. Neither nest success nor clutch size varied significantly between subsequent clutches of an individual female. Hatchling sex ratio at this beach possibly depends on the date of egg laying. Because high density nesting occurs when beach temperature appears to produce almost all female hatchlings, the hatchling sex ratio at Peak Island is likely to be biased toward females. Data gathered in the current study will assist in the development of management strategies to protect this endemic species.


At the beginning of 2022, the public was in an uproar because Ghozali, a student, suddenly became a billionaire just by selling selfies in NFT form on OpenSea. The name of his NFT is Ghozali Everyday. Not only had it become a topic of discussion in Indonesia, the Ghozali Everyday had also become the subject of news in Singapore, India, Philippines, England, and even United State of America. This study aims to analyze why and how the Ghozali Everyday could occur. By analyzing 280 samples of Ghozali Everyday NFT, this study found that what happened to Ghozali Everyday was a pop sales phenomenon. And, using the netnographic method, this study found that Ghozali Everyday's pop sales occurred due to several factors, i.e. community, momentum, low prices, and promotions. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first research on Ghozali Everyday. Thus, this study will add a new literature in NFT research that are still scarce


The characteristics of heat exchangers with offset-type plate fins for space stations are studied for Reynolds numbers less than 300 based on the hydraulic diameter. A three-dimensional analysis is carried out to study the effects of the following parameters on the heat transfer and the flow characteristics: (a) the thermal boundary layer developing on the bottom plate and on the fins on the plate, (b) the aspect ratio (height/pitch) of the cross section of the flow passage, the fin thickness, the fin length in the direction of the flow, the thermal conductivity of the fluid and the fins, and the Prandtl number of the fluid. The results obtained are as follows. (1) The heat-transfer coefficient on the fin surface is characterized by the thermal-conductivity ratio of fluid to fin material. When the thermal conductivity of the fin material approaches that of the fluid, the heat-transfer coefficient on the fin surface becomes low. (2) The optimum condition of the aspect ratio depends on the value of the thermal-conductivity ratio between the fluid and the fins. (3) When the aspect ratio becomes large or small, the friction factor of offset fins approaches that of fully developed duct flow with the same aspect ratio as the Reynolds number decreases.


In clinical cardiology, different imaging technologies can be used to assess cardiac anatomy, ventricular function and focal myocardial disease. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) using late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) is the gold standard non-invasive method for focal myocardial tissue characterisation. However it has limitations, including not allowing quantification of the extracellular volume (ECV) or assessment of diffuse processes. In this thesis, these shortcomings were addressed using novel CMR T1 based methodologies. In early work, the ECV was assessed in health and a variety of cardiac diseases. It was found to be elevated in dilated and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and aortic stenosis – diseases where diffuse fibrosis is known to occur. There was a more marked ECV elevation in cardiac AL amyloidosis. Further work assessed a potential role for pre contrast T1 in Anderson Fabry disease, finding that it detects disease at an earlier stage than any other imaging marker and is diagnostic of this disease in patients with left ventricular hypertrophy. In patients with iron overload, the T1 was found to strongly correlate with the previous non-invasive gold standard test of CMR T2*. However the T1 appeared to be more sensitive for the detection of earlier disease. Lastly, pilot technical development work evaluated new and faster methods for ECV and T1 assessment and suggested a potential role for this technique in other body organs. The above results were particularly notable in Anderson Fabry disease, iron overload and cardiac amyloidosis. In the case of Anderson Fabry disease and cardiac amyloidosis, sphingolipid and amyloid deposition respectively cannot be measured using current non-invasive clinical techniques. In conclusion, this work has pioneered the use of novel tissue characterisation techniques which have potential roles in earlier diagnosis, pathophysiological insights, prognostication and therapy monitoring in cardiac disease. This will ultimately provide benefit to patients with cardiac disease.


A procedure for airplane model structure determination from flight data based on modified stepwise regression (MSR), several decision criteria and postulated aerodynamic model equations is presented. The MSR is constructed to force a linear model for the aerodynamic coefficient first, then select significant nonlinear terms and reject nonsignificant terms from the model. In addition to the statistical criteria in the stepwise regression, the prediction sum of squares (PRESS) criterion and analysis of residuals are examined for the selection of an adequate model. The procedure is used in examples with simulated and real flight data. It is shown that the MSR performs better than the ordinary stepwise regression and that the technique can be also applied to the large amplitude maneuvers.


This paper is concerned with the inverse problem of reconstructing a small object from far field measurements by using the field interaction with a plasmonic particle which can be viewed as a passive sensor. It is a follow-up of the work [H. Ammari et al., Reconstructing fine details of small objects by using plasmonic spectroscopic data, SIAM J. Imag. Sci., to appear], where the intermediate interaction regime was considered. In that regime, it was shown that the presence of the target object induces small shifts to the resonant frequencies of the plasmonic particle. These shifts, which can be determined from the far field data, encodes the contracted generalized polarization tensors of the target object, from which one can perform reconstruction beyond the usual resolution limit. The main argument is based on perturbation theory. However, the same argument is no longer applicable in the strong interaction regime as considered in this paper due to the large shift induced by strong field interaction between the particles. We develop a novel technique based on conformal mapping theory to overcome this difficulty. The key is to design a conformal mapping which transforms the two particle system into a shell-core structure, in which the inner dielectric core corresponds to the target object. We show that a perturbation argument can be used to analyze the shift in the resonant frequencies due to the presence of the inner dielectric core. This shift also encodes information of the contracted polarization tensors of the core, from which one can reconstruct its shape, and hence the target object. Our theoretical findings are supplemented by a variety of numerical results based on an efficient optimal control algorithm. The results of this paper make the mathematical foundation for plasmonic sensing complete.


Having contextualized the rise of a market-driven neoliberal ideology with the broadcasting policies of the Thatcher governments in the first article of this series, in this second piece we lay out the policy narrative from 1990 to the rise of New Labour in 1997. Focusing on the BBC under Director General John Birt (1992-2000), we examine the continuity of the emergent policies in the post-Thatcher years, covering development that led to the Broadcasting Act 1990, BBC Charter renewal in 1994, the Broadcasting Act 1996 and beyond. Birt's signature policy Producer Choice introduced a market into the programme-making practices of the BBC. It signified the emergence of a new management culture and has been criticized for eroding creativity and increasing bureaucracy. The argument is made that its organizational procedure comes to substitute for a larger, more existential purpose.


Employing an effective field theory approach to inflationary perturbations, we analyze in detail the effect of curvature-generated Lagrangian operators on various observables, focusing on their running with scales. At quadratic order, we solve the equation of motion at next-to-leading leading order in a generalized slow-roll approximation for a very general theory of single-field inflation. We derive the resulting power spectrum, its tilt and running. We then focus on the contribution to the primordial non-Gaussianity amplitude fNL sourced by a specific interaction term. We show that the running of fNL can be substantially larger than what dictated by the slow-roll parameters.


Epidermal hyperplasia is one of the major histopathological features seen in dogs with Malassezia dermatitis. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of extracts and culture supernatants from Malassezia pachydermatis on the proliferation of canine keratinocytes. Keratinocyte cultures were established from normal dog skin, and cell monolayers were co-cultured with Malassezia extracts (prepared either with or without protease inhibitors) and supernatants derived from organisms grown in liquid culture. The proliferation of keratinocytes was measured using a colourimetric assay. Neither the culture supernatants nor the Malassezia extracts had significant effects on the proliferation rate of canine keratinocytes, regardless of whether protease inhibitors were present or not. The results indicate that the epidermal hyperplasia seen in Malassezia dermatitis is unlikely to be caused directly by secretion of products from the organism.


The use of short-term vacation rental services has grown significantly since their establishment, but little concrete information is known about their effects on communities. The research that exists on the impacts of short-term rentals is heavily skewed toward larger cities and metropolitan areas, leaving smaller cities and rural areas unexamined. However, rural areas in Canada are experiencing faster growth of short-term rentals than urban areas. This study examines the regulations and enforcement regimes of three case study local governments across Canada, using interviews with planning professionals to consider the regulatory responses put forward by these communities and their perceived effects on STVR operations. Findings suggest that appropriate regulatory measures vary widely between communities. Recommendations are for those considering implementing STVR regulations, addressing housing protection, data gathering, and regulation typology.Key words: short-term rental, regulation, enforcement, planning, small cities.


The current "Ambient Water Quality Guidelines for Sulphate (Singleton 2000)" is largely based on studies that have serious flaws that do not accurately assess the toxicity of sulphate. Replication of the principle studies used in the current sulphate guideline rational indicates that the original studies were either flawed in their methodology or the results were misinterpreted. The authors used organisms representing a number of trophic levels and examined sulphate toxicity to the amphipod Hyalella azteca (Davies 2002a), the cladoceran Daphnia magna (Davies 2002b), the stripped bass (Morone saxatilus) (Davies 2002c) and the aquatic moss (Fontinalis antipyretica) (Davies 2002d). These replicated studies can be found in the appendices of this report. These studies, as well as others in the literature, indicate that organisms exhibit reduced toxicity from sodium sulphate exposure in waters of increasing hardness and more specifically, waters with increasing calcium content. The incorporation of these new studies into the available literature indicate that in consideration of the relatively low toxicity of sulphate, the current guideline is overly conservative and proposes unnecessarily strict discharge limits. Therefore, a new guideline, taking into consideration the water hardness of the receiving waters is proposed. In waters of hardness (as CaCCb) of less than 50 mg/L, a maximum allowable discharge that should be sufficient in the protection of ecosystem integrity is proposed at 200 mg/L sulphate. In the range of hardness of 50 to 100 mg/L and in waters of over 100 mg/L hardness, allowable discharge limits of 300 and 400 mg/L sulphate respectfully are proposed. Two experiments examining the toxicity of molybdenum to rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) indicate that the results of an earlier study which reported a 29 day LC50 to be 0.79 mg/L molybdenum (Birge et al. 1980) highly exaggerated the toxicity of molybdenum (Davies 2002e). An experiment mimicking the experimental conditions of Birge et al. (1980) study did not cause sufficient mortality to calculate an LC50 up to molybdenum concentrations of 400 mg/L. A second study, which used standard methodology, also did not cause sufficient mortality up to concentrations of 1500 mg/L molybdenum to calculate an LC50.


In conscious kelp gulls, intravenous infusion of arginine vasotocin (AVT) at rates of 0.03, 0.1, 0.3, and 1.0 ng.kg-1.min-1 resulted in a linear relationship between the log values of the AVT plasma concentrations (measured by radioimmunoassay) and the infusion rates, which indicated a plasma clearance rate for AVT of 15.4 ml.min-1.kg-1 when endogenous AVT formation is considered. Evaluation of the renal actions of AVT at each dose level showed that antidiuresis was consistently associated with reductions in glomerular filtration rate as well as changes in tubule water permeability. Thus the water-conserving action of plasma AVT on the kelp gull kidney involves contributions from both glomerular and tubular mechanisms over the entire physiological range found in these birds.


This paper argues that if Europe needs economic and political integration for strength and prosperity, Africa needs it for survival. It calls for a fresh look at regional integration in Africa and notes that in various previous integration attempts in Africa, political leaders jealously guarded their sovereignty and were unwilling to transfer any of it to supra-national bodies, yet the transfer of authority to elected supra-national bodies has the potential of enhancing their ability to plan, strategize, coordinate, monitor and evaluate the implementation of collective projects and programs. The paper further expresses the view that to be successful, African sub-regional and regional integration arrangements need to embrace a knowledge-based development strategy. It concludes by noting that new and imaginative visions, long-term policies and predictable institutions will have to be created, developed and nurtured, if regional integration in Africa is to reach a new frontier.


Rotaxanes are mechanically interlocked molecules, in which an axle is threaded into a wheel and trapped with bulky stopper groups at the termini. Bistable rotaxanes possessing two or more station moieties have attracted particular interests, because they can switch on/off and change the molecular lengths in response to external stimuli. In addition to the molecular─level properties of these molecules in solution, properties in nano─, micro─, and macroscale of the molecular─integrated systems recently have attracted attentions. This review highlights the development in the design and synthesis of bistable rotaxanes to integrate from molecules to the systems to show actuation and locomotion.


A widely tunable Ce/sup 3+/-/sup Er3+/-ZBLAN fiber laser with 975-nm pumping is demonstrated. Tunable range between 1495 and 1605 nm is attained, which can be expanded further by optimizing wavelength-dependent reflectivity of the cavity mirror.


Conditions for staticity are investigated in the case of non-rotating black holes in Einstein - Maxwell axion - dilaton gravity. It is proved that given a vanishing asymptotic value of the quantity assembled by means of -duals to the U(1) gauge fields and fulfilling the additional inequality, the metric staticity condition and the staticity condition for the field in the theory under consideration will be satisfied in the domain of outer communication.


Nanofilled composite resin is a kind of composite thatis used for restorative material. Nanofilled composite resin has nanometer sized silica filler, providinghigh level of aesthetic and refinement properties. Monomerbis-GMA, UDMA dan TEGDMA from composite resincan be releasedwhen in contact with oral fluid. Concentration of monomer release may affect the biocompatibility of composite resin. The objective of this studywas to determine the effect of pH variation on monomer release of nanofilled composite resin.The samples used were nanofilled composite resin Filtek Z250XT (3M ESPE, Seefeld, Germany). Twelve samples with size of 6 x 4 x 2 mm were divided into three groups and then soaked into solution of ± pH 3.5 (citric acid), ± pH 7 (distilled water), and ± pH 8 (sorensen's phosphate) for 7 days. After 7 days of immersion, eachof the solutions was analyzed using HPLC to determine the concentration of monomer release. Monomer was analyzed using a mobile phase of acetonitrile and water with ratio of 7:3, flow rate 1 ml/min at room temperature. The column used was C18 5 µm, 125 mm in length and 4 mm in diameter. The wavelength used was 220 nm. Data were statistically analyzed usingONE-WAY ANOVA. The means concentration of monomer release (µg/ml) on the three pH groups were 2.97 ± 1.13; 1.50 ± 0.67; and 4.07 ± 0.91. Results of ONE-WAY ANOVA showed that there were differences between means concentration of monomer release from the three groups (ρ<0.05). The conclusion of this study wasthe immersion of nanofilled composite resin in an acid solution and alkaline solution increased thebis-GMAmonomer release from nanofilled composite resin.


BACKGROUND
Multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) are now major threats in areas of South Africa with a high prevalence of TB and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The role of exogenous reinfection as a cause of MDR and XDR TB in these settings has not been determined.

METHODS
We reviewed data from patients with culture-positive TB who later developed MDR or XDR TB in Tugela Ferry, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa during 2005-2006. We performed spoligotyping on initial isolates (obtained at the time of treatment initiation) and follow-up isolates obtained from these patients.

RESULTS
We identified 23 patients who developed MDR or XDR TB after being treated for less resistant TB between June 2005 and June 2006. Both initial and follow-up isolates were available for spoligotyping for 17 of these patients. In all cases, the follow-up isolates' spoligotypes differed from those of the initial isolate, indicating exogenous reinfection. Two genotypes (shared type [ST] 34 and ST 60, associated with MDR and XDR TB, respectively) were responsible for 85% of reinfections. All 17 patients had been hospitalized; all 15 whose HIV infection status was known were HIV-infected.

CONCLUSIONS
Exogenous reinfection is an important mechanism for the development of MDR and XDR TB. In addition to strengthening TB treatment programs, effective infection control strategies are urgently needed to reduce the transmission of MDR and XDR TB.


Twenty-three patients with dislocated intrarticular fractures of the base of the fifth metacarpal were treated during the last 3 years in our department. This fracture characteristically occurs in young, active males, and the most frequent mechanism of this injury is axial force striking the metacarpal head, mostly in fist fights. In 8 patients, the fracture was caused by direct force hitting the base of the fifth metacarpal. Four certain fracture patterns are described. Operative treatment by open reduction and fixation with two Kirschner wires generally gave good results.


Thomas claimed that his poetry was "the record of my individual struggle from darkness toward some measure of light.... To be stripped of darkness is to be clean, to strip of darkness is to make clean." He also wrote that his poems "with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damned fool if they weren't." Passionate and intense, vivid and violent, Thomas wrote that he became a poet because "I had fallen in love with words." His sense of the richness and variety and flexibility of the English language shines through all of his work. Dylan Thomas uses symbols and images of nature to express how he feels towards death and childhood. He says that images are used to create a feeling of love towards life. Despite Dylan Thomas's obscure images, he expresses a clear message of religious devotion in many of his poems. The style of Dylan Thomas is an opaque poetic style which Thomas used to perfection. He possessed tremendous talent and was blessed with immense gifts that made him a professional success at a relatively young age.


Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to explore the non-linear relationship between income diversification and efficiency of Ghanaian banks within the universal banking era. Design/methodology/approach - – The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) technique is employed on annual data of 26 Ghanaian banks from 2003 to 2011 to estimate cost and profit efficiency scores. In the second stage analysis, a tobit regression model is estimated to examine the empirical effect of diversification into non-interest generating activities on estimated cost and profit efficiency scores while controlling for other bank specific characteristics. Findings - – The findings of the SFA reveal high levels of efficiency in cost compared with profit to reflect high inefficiencies on the revenue side. An analysis of efficiency scores by two categories of bank size suggests that large banks have high cost and profit efficiency compared to small banks. A non-linear relationship is found between income diversification and efficiency while size was also found to be important in enabling banks exploit the potential benefits of income diversification. Research limitations/implications - – This study focuses on one banking market in Africa. A comparative analysis in a cross-section of banking markets in Africa will be useful to bring robustness to the findings of this study. Practical implications - – The findings of this study provides useful insights for management on the best corporate model in ensuring that diversification activities are efficiency-enhancing. Originality/value - – This study presents the first empirical evidence on the non-linear relationship between efficiency and income diversification in emerging banking markets in Africa.


Worldwide commercial aviation has been expanding rapidly. This expansion is set to continue with major aircraft manufactures like Boeing in 2018 forecasting an additional 790,000 new pilots will be required worldwide by 2036. This expansion is changing the dynamics of pilot training and the flow on effect of less experienced pilots entering airlines. This changing dynamic led to an Australian Senate enquiry into pilot standards in 2010. In 2018 the Australian Minister for Transport commissioned an expert panel of pilot training organisations and senior airline managers to investigate aviation. The panel stated the current expansion played a significant threat to the commercial aviation industry. Threats included the prohibitive costs for new students to become pilots, airlines poaching flight instructors and a reducing number of flight examiners (FE).
The flight examiner is responsible for the assessment of pilots at all stages of their career. In early pilot training there is a significant focus on aviation knowledge (e.g. rules of the air and aerodynamics) and flying skills (e.g. landing, turning, navigation) referred to as technical skills. Accidents over the last thirty to forty years in commercial aviation demonstrated that large aircraft in multi-crew flights were also attributed to human factors such as communication, teamwork and decision making, referred to as non-technical skills (NTS).
The assessment of technical skills has remained somewhat unchanged. However, non-technical skills are still evolving with research showing there remains issues centred on the separation of technical and non-technical skills, the constructs used, and the low inter-rater reliability in non-technical skills assessment. Nevertheless, experience by the researcher over the last five years as an Occupational Therapist (OT) working with airlines showed pilots with reoccurring performance issues, while initially signalled by a flight examiner as a technical and/or non-technical skills issue, could be better explained and remediated when categorised as issues associated with the postural, sensory, visual and/or cognitive systems.
This master's thesis explores airline pilot performance using fundamental tools and perspectives used by Occupational Therapists. This exploration is not for the purpose of pilot selection, but rather, an opportunity to provide airlines with greater layers of intervention when performance issues arise with pilots. Accordingly, the study aimed to:
1. Identify a small number (four) of airline pilots previously assessed by a flight examiner demonstrating performances ranging from low to high.
2. Conduct further standardised and non-standardised occupational therapy assessments.
3. Determine if certain variables could impact on pilot performance.
The study showed the poor performing pilot had issues across all four systems - postural, sensory, visual and cognitive systems. The average performing pilots had issues across three of the systems - sensory, visual and cognitive systems. The highest performing pilot had no major difficulties across any of the systems. Interestingly some tests showed a reversal of results, with the poor performing pilot testing higher on some sub-tests, while the highest performing pilot tested poorly. The study discusses the findings in relation to pilot assessment and remedial training.


Mobile media have generally been found to reinforce close ties. Many have predicted this will bring about an onerous social insularity or "network privatism." However, mobile media now enable frequent communication and multimedia activities with larger, more diffuse social networks. Might we be at a tipping point where certain groups benefit from weak tie connections on mobile social media? To answer this question, this study considers how mobile media altered social capital outcomes on Facebook among parents with young children, a group that are heavy users of mobile media and requiring social support. An online survey (N = 262) conducted with parents with young children reveals a generally positive picture. Results show differences between desktop and mobile use of Facebook. Toward a contextual understanding of the impact of visual media, multimedia activities with social ties accrued bridging over bonding capital. Social capital was in turn correlated with mobile Facebook activities beneficial for parents' well-being. Far from negative predictions, this study provides evidence of how mobile social media broaden our social spheres.


Online tech support communities have become valuable channels for users to seek and provide solutions to specific problems. From the resource exchange perspective, the sustainability of a social system is contingent upon the size of its members as well as their communication activities. To further extend the resource-based model, the current research identifies a variety of social roles in a large tech support Q&A forum and examines longitudinal changes in the community's structure based on the identification. Moreover, this study also investigates the relationship between the community's functionality and its traffic. Results suggest that the proportion of unsolved questions negatively impacts the number of future incoming questions and the outcome of a given question is not only dependent on users' interactions within the discussion, but also on the community activities preceding the question. These observations can help community managers to improve system design and task allocation.


Background People at risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may be candidates for interventions aimed at preventing RA development [1]. The identification of such "at risk" populations includes testing for genetic and other (e.g. autoantibody) biomarkers. However, little is known about the people's perspectives on these tests, how they react and cope when identified as being a person "at risk" and what their unmet needs are. Objectives To expore the perceptions about RA and predictive testing and to understand the various reactions and coping strategies used when identified as being at risk of developing RA from the perspective of those directly concerned. Methods As part of the EuroTEAM project, a qualitative interview study with people who were informed of being at risk of developing RA was conducted. An interview schedule was developed and pilot-tested. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results A total of 34 individuals (with rheumatoid factor and/or ACPA positive) already informed of being at risk of developing RA participated in the study, from Austria (n=15), Germany (n=15), and the UK (n=4). In Vienna, people who had been tested within an expanded health exam participated in this study. In Birmingham and Erlangen, people with arthralgia were recruited from the outpatient clinics. Analysis of the interview data revealed five overarching themes related to predictive testing in the context of RA (Figure). There were differences between the perceptions of althralgia patients and asymptomatic individuals. People suffering from pain were much more frightened and worried when informed of being at risk of developing RA. As a consequence, they modified their lives in a larger extent and had greater knowledge about RA than those without any symptoms who were rather surprised, kept calm and hardly changed their lifestyle after being tested positive. Allmost all participants in this study would appreciate precise predictive tests in the context of RA. However, more than half of them would refuse synovial biopsy (even if this could help quantify risk more accurately) or preventive medication. Recommendations for an improved procedure of predictive testing in the field of RA were given, which could promote uptake of preventive strategies. Conclusions Participants showed large differences in views about predictive testing in the context of RA risk and offered specific suggestions that should be incorporated into service design and delivery in the context of future predictive testing programmes. These findings may also be relevant to prediction and prevention in the context of other diseases where multiple genetic risk factors interact with environmental risk factors to drive disease development. References van Steenbergen, H.W., T.W. Huizinga, and A.H. van der Helm-van Mil, The preclinical phase of rheumatoid arthritis: what is acknowledged and what needs to be assessed? Arthritis Rheum, 2013. 65(9): p. 2219–32. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This work provides a computable, direct, and mathematically rigorous approximation to the differential geometry of class manifolds for high-dimensional data, along with nonlinear projections from input space onto these class manifolds. The tools are applied to the setting of neural network image classifiers, where we generate novel, on-manifold data samples, and implement a projected gradient descent algorithm for on-manifold adversarial training. The susceptibility of neural networks (NNs) to adversarial attack highlights the brittle nature of NN decision boundaries in input space. Introducing adversarial examples during training has been shown to reduce the susceptibility of NNs to adversarial attack; however, it has also been shown to reduce the accuracy of the classifier if the examples are not valid examples for that class. Realistic"on-manifold"examples have been previously generated from class manifolds in the latent of an autoencoder. Our work explores these phenomena in a geometric and computational setting that is much closer to the raw, high-dimensional input space than can be provided by VAE or other black box dimensionality reductions. We employ conformally invariant diffusion maps (CIDM) to approximate class manifolds in diffusion coordinates, and develop the Nystr\"{o}m projection to project novel points onto class manifolds in this setting. On top of the manifold approximation, we leverage the spectral exterior calculus (SEC) to determine geometric quantities such as tangent vectors of the manifold. We use these tools to obtain adversarial examples that reside on a class manifold, yet fool a classifier. These misclassifications then become explainable in terms of human-understandable manipulations within the data, by expressing the on-manifold adversary in the semantic basis on the manifold.


The endohedral fullerene H2O@C60 is a supramolecule composed of a single water molecule trapped inside a C60 molecule. The large inner cavity of the C60 molecule, together with the absence of bond formation between C60 and H2O, provides a highly symmetrical, nanoscale laboratory for H2O, allowing it to exhibit its single-molecule behaviours in complete isolation from strong interactions. Although strong interactions are absent, weak interactions between H2O and the C60 cage are expected to have some influence on the guest and host molecules. There has been much interest in the dynamics of the confined H2O molecule, which is an asymmetric top rotator, since inelastic neutron scattering measurements depicted a splitting in the lowest rotational state of its ortho spin isomer. Explaining the nature of this splitting will provide a greater understanding of the interesting H2O@C60 system.
In this work, a variety of theoretical techniques are used to investigate various properties of the endohedral fullerene H2O@C60. The density functional theory is used to probe the structural properties of H2O@C60 at a number of points on its potential energy surface, using a different theoretical level than currently exists in the literature. Encapsulation of H2O is shown to cause a small perturbation of the molecular orbitals of the C60 cage. Those features of the perturbed frontier orbitals of the C60 cage that can be captured by scanning tunnelling microscopy are predicted analytically using the Huckel molecular orbital theory, the Tersoff-Hamann approach and the technique of projection operators. This thesis reports the first density functional theory simulations of the structural properties of the endohedral fullerenes (H2O)n=2,3,4@C60. The obtained geometries differ from those calculated using the Hartree-Fock method. Encapsulation of these water clusters is found to increase the perturbation of the molecular orbitals of the C60 cage. This thesis represents the first study of the effect of a Jahn-Teller distortion of the C60 cage on the dynamics of the confined H2O molecule. Appropriate extended symmetry groups are developed for the translation-rotation Hamiltonian of H2O when the fullerene cage undergoes a static Jahn-Teller distortion. Matrix representations of these groups are derived from the matrix representation of the icosahedral symmetry group of undistorted C60. An analytical potential function for the symmetry lowering intra-cage interactions is constructed from the quantised translation-rotation symmetry adapted states of the confined H2O molecule. For a C60 cage distorted by Jahn-Teller interactions, the second-order perturbation on the translation-rotation states of H2O can be approximated to
that resulting from a spheroidal distortion of the C60 cage along a C5, C3, C2 rotational axis or any radial axis in a plane containing, or perpendicular to, a C-C double bond. The developed function can also be used to model inter-cage interactions with S6 symmetry. It can explain the splitting in the 101 ortho ground state seen in the INS spectra of solid H2O@C60, and gives a prediction of higher translation-rotation states that have not yet been determined experimentally.


Chronic right ventricular failure was observed in a young female operated at 25 years of age for Fallot's tetralogy despite surgical refixation of the patch closing the ventricular septal defect which had previously worked loose. The signs of right ventricular failure were due to severe tricuspid incompetence, confirmed at catheterisation and selective right ventricular angiography. They were associated with major hypoproteinaemia which was not due to urinary loss nor hepatic dysfunction, but which was attributed to an exudative enteropathy. The correction of the valvular defect by valvuloplasty was followed by rapid correction of the biological abnormality. The authors review the relationship between serum proteins and cardiac disease, discuss those cardiac affections with known associations with exudative enteropathy, and also the possibilities of reversing the biological abnormality after surgical cure of the causal cardiac lesion.


Simultaneous studies have been made of the macroscopic organisms of a series of sites in a secondary succession to determine the extent to which the bionomic strategies of the organisms and the features of the communities show consistent patterns or trends. In the estimation of primary productivity allowance was made for turnover. Although standing crop and litter biomass increased through succession, the level of primary production remained within the range 750–980 g m-2. The following trends, with successional age, were recorded: leaf life expectancy increased, the amount of biomass allocated to reproduction fell, as did the ratio of flowering to reproductive structures in the herb layer, average germinule size increased and seedling survival fell. The flowering structures of the dicotyledons were predominantly hermaphrodite in the field seral stages, but monoecious in the woodland trees; dioecious plants were relatively rare. The early successional plants were often self pollinated; this mechanism is characteristic of very few of the plant species found in the other seral stages. Insect pollination was the most frequent mechanism in the forbs of the old field and wind for the woodland trees. In the assessment of these characters, from direct observation or from existing published information, frequency was expressed not only simply as species presence, but also by weighting the different species for their relative abundance in the vegetation of that site: the patterns revealed by these approaches differed in emphasis. The seed bank closely predicted the composition of the early successional flora. The pattern of succession in these sites would seem to conform most closely to the initial floristic composition model of Egler (Vegetatio 4, 412 (1954)), with a tolerant stage followed by an inhibitory stage, the latter in the old field. Here the conditions provided by the thick grass vegetation maintain large populations of small mammals and molluscs that increase the mortality of seedlings, including tree seedlings, and so retard the rate of succession. Non-native (immigrant) plant species contributed up to 16% of the vegetation cover in the first two years of the succession, but thereafter they were rare or absent. Because the comprehensive nature of the study often precluded elaborate replication, the general conclusions could be limited by the extent that the findings were site specific, therefore comparisons have been made with other studies of particular features to evaluate the biological robustness of the findings. Within the trends and patterns summarized above there were interesting exceptions, but the life-history traits observed conformed to previously published predictions for habitats with similar levels of productivity, but varying levels of disturbance.


In this paper, we introduce a new block cipher mode of operation targeted to providing high-speed hardware-based self-synchronizing stream encryption. The proposed mode is a modification of statistical cipher feedback (SCFB) mode and is designed to be implemented using pipeline architectures for the block cipher. We refer to the mode as pipelined SCFB mode or PSCFB. In this paper, we consider the implementation characteristics and show that PSCFB is able to achieve speeds that are very close to pipelined block cipher implementations configured for counter mode. Such speeds are achieved with modest latency through the system and a small amount of memory required for the system queues with a provable guarantee of no queue overflow. Further, we examine the characteristics of PSCFB mode in response to bit errors and synchronization losses in the communication channel. Specifically, we show that the error propagation factor is modest and comparable to conventional SCFB and that synchronization recovery delay is reasonable given the expectation that synchronization loss is infrequent. Given the high efficiency and good communication characteristics of the mode, it is concluded that PSCFB is an excellent choice for high-speed network applications requiring stream-oriented encryption with self-synchronizing capabilities.


BACKGROUND
Isolated patellar tendon rupture (PTR) is the final stage of a long-standing tendon chronic degeneration. PTR requires immediate repair in order to avoid important muscle retraction and tendon fibrosis. The aim was to describe the effects of a rehabilitation protocol after chronic-degenerative PTR on subjective functional outcomes, knee range of motion (ROM), size, and strength in a professional football player.

CASE REPORT
A 26-years-old football player who experienced RPT after a 3-year history of proximal patellar tendinopathy. After early surgical repair of the tendon, the athlete underwent a 9-months multidisciplinary rehabilitation program, based on early post-operative mobilization.

CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT
Early knee mobilization and gradual controlled load from the second week determined a large increase in flexion ROM, muscular strength and trophy over the weeks by the athlete. Early surgical repair of PTR together with an early knee mobilization program demonstrated excellent results after a 9-months follow-up.


We report on the feasibility and process parameters of nanoimprint lithography to fabricate low refractive index passive optical devices. Diffraction gratings printed in polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) exhibit a sharp dispersion with a full width at half maximum of about 20 nm. Waveguides were printed in polystyrene (PS) on silicon oxide and had losses between 8–20 dB cm−1 at wavelengths between 650–400 nm, respectively. Finally, one-dimensional photonic structures were also printed in PS and their transmission and morphology characterized. The expected Bragg peak was observed in transmission and atomic force microscopy images have shown a good pattern transfer. A square lattice was printed in PMMA and more than 40 print cycles were obtained, i.e., potentially more than 1000 imprints from one master stamp.


The theory of Fitting classes is, by now, a well established part of the theory of finite soluble groups. In contrast, Fitting classes have received rather scant attention in infinite groups, although some recent work of Beidleman and Karbe [2] and Beidleman, Karbe and Tomkinson [3] suggest that one can obtain results in this direction. The paper [2], cited above, in fact generalizes earlier work of Tomkinson [9] to the class of locally soluble FC-groups. The present paper is concerned with the theory of Fitting classes in a class of groups somewhat similar to the class of FC-groups, namely the class of CC-groups, introduced by Polovickiǐ in [6]. A group G is a CC-group if G/CG(xG) is a Černikov group for all x ∈ G where, as in the rest of this paper, we use the standard group theoretic notation of [7]. Recently, Alcázar and Otal [1] have shown how to generalize results of B. H. Neumann [5] to the class of CC-groups. The main purpose of the present note is to illustrate further how one can handle CC-groups, in an analogous manner to FC-groups, by using techniques similar to those used in [1] and [4].


Separate collection of municipal solid waste (MSW) is mandatory in Italy, and an increasingly higher standard of efficiency is applied; in fact, the target value set by regulation is 65%. In the last 20 years, separate collection efficiency increased from 9.4% with 80% national MSW landfilled, and only one region was over 25% separate collection to 58.1% with 22% national MSW landfilled and 12 of 20 regions over 55% separate collection. However, significant differences are present in the three Italian macro regions (North, Center and South). This paper analyzes the composition of waste carried in most Italian regions to evaluate the effect of separate collection on the composition of mixed municipal solid waste (unsorted). Moreover, a regression analysis on the same data allows to assess this latter as a function of separate collection efficiency.


Due to the rugged terrain surface of the search space of a placement instance, it often is stuck at a locally optimum configuration. In this paper, we propose a solution space smoothing technique for VLSI block placement. A placement instance with the simplest terrain structure is solved first, and the original problem instance with more complicated terrain structure is solved last. The solutions of the simplified problem instances are used to guide the search of more complicated ones. Compared with the simulated annealing algorithm, the solution space smoothing method needs few control parameters and the parameters are easy to determine. Experimental results of MCNC benchmarks show that solution space smoothing is very efficient for VLSI module placement. It can be applied to floorplanning representations, such as BSG, SP, CBL, B*-tree, O-tree, etc.


BACKGROUND
Since many successful dieters regain the weight they lose, programs that teach maintenance skills are needed. We developed a maintenance program based on self-regulation theory and tested the efficacy of delivering the program face to face or over the Internet.

METHODS
We randomly assigned 314 participants who had lost a mean of 19.3 kg of body weight in the previous 2 years to one of three groups: a control group, which received quarterly newsletters (105 participants), a group that received face-to-face intervention (105), and a group that received Internet-based intervention (104). The content of the programs in the two intervention groups was the same, emphasizing daily self-weighing and self-regulation, as was the frequency of contact with the groups. The primary outcome was weight gain over a period of 18 months.

RESULTS
The mean (+/-SD) weight gain was 2.5+/-6.7 kg in the face-to-face group, 4.7+/-8.6 kg in the Internet group, and 4.9+/-6.5 kg in the control group, with a significant difference between the face-to-face group and the control group (2.4 kg; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.002 to 10.8; P=0.05). The proportion of participants who regained 2.3 kg or more over the 18-month period was significantly higher in the control group (72.4%) than in the face-to-face group (45.7%; absolute difference, 27%; 95% CI, 14 to 39; P<0.001) or the Internet group (54.8%; absolute difference, 18%; 95% CI, 5 to 30; P=0.008). Daily self-weighing increased in both intervention groups and was associated with a decreased risk of regaining 2.3 kg or more (P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
As compared with receiving quarterly newsletters, a self-regulation program based on daily weighing improved maintenance of weight loss, particularly when delivered face to face. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00067145 [ClinicalTrials.gov].)


The present study investigated the role of biomedical knowledge in clinical case representations of experienced family physicians and advanced medical students. Two views on the role of biomedical knowledge were compared: The knowledge encapsulation and the two-worlds view. According to the knowledge encapsulation view, biomedical knowledge still plays a role in the physician's clinical case representation, whereas the two-worlds view assumes that it does not. In order to investigate this issue, participants were instructed to carefully study a short case description that was associated with a particular disease. Subsequently, medical students and family physicians were instructed to judge whether or not a presented target item was related to the case description. Targets were biomedical or diagnostic items that were either related or unrelated to the case. Findings were more in line with the knowledge encapsulation than with the two-worlds view, in that physicians judged related biomedical items faster than unrelated items, and physicians outperformed medical students in judging related biomedical and diagnostic items. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Dimethyl ether (DME) has been considered a potential and promising energy alternative for petroleum subproducts due to its good burning characteristics, and to its high cetana content which is superior to that of diesel. Furthermore, DME can be considered a cleaner fuel than diesel. DME can be produced by dehydration reaction of methanol by using solid catalysts in catalytic reactions. This report consists of a pre-preliminary study of dimethyl ether which is alternative fuel. Dmethyl ether is used in different applications. The important features of dimethyl ether, applications, methods of preparation, the factors should be consider at the time of plant construction and the safety methods are discussed here. This study shows dimethyl ether is a future energy source.


Zieve syndrome is characterized by hepatic dysfunction, jaundice, hyperlipidaemia, and reversible hemolytic anaemia after alcohol abuse. We report a rare case of this syndrome presenting with coagulopathy and subcutaneous haemorrhage. Laboratory tests showed macrocytic anaemia, hyperbilirubinemia, increased activity of aminotransferases, hyperlipidemia, coagulopathy, signs of haemolysis: reduced concentration of haptoglobin, free hemoglobin. These abnormalities improved during 20 days. Ultrasonography revealed subcutaneous haemorrhagias, liver biopsy was consistent with steatohepatitis. There are a small number of reported cases of Zieve syndrome, and the reason could be the lack of pathognomonic symptoms, rapid decrease of hyperlipidaemic serum levels after alcohol withdrawal, patients denial of drinking. There is no specific treatment, therapy is similar to that for acute alcoholic hepatitis. The Zieve syndrome must be allways considered in the differential diagnosis of uncertain origin liver injury, hemolysis or coagulopathy.


Complement activity in turkey serum was examined by using inhibitors or activators of mammalian complement. Hemolytic test systems using sheep red blood cells sensitized with specific antibody (SSRBC) and horse red blood cells (HRBC) were developed to measure residual complement activity of turkey sera treated with the various inhibitors or activators. Lysis of SSRBC was blocked by treatment with 6-mM EDTA, 10-mM ethylene glycol-bis-beta aminoethylether N,N,N',N' tetraacetic acid (EGTA), and carrageenan. In contrast, lysis of HRBC was blocked by 6-mM EDTA, but not by 10-mM EGTA or carrageenan. Addition of magnesium to EGTA-chelated serum facilitated the lysis of HRBC but not the lysis of SSRBC. Treatment of serum with zymosan at 1 mg/mL and inulin at 5 mg/mL depleted hemolytic activity against both SSRBC and HRBC, suggesting depletion of components common to both pathways. Differences in the hemolytic activities of sera against SSRBC and HRBC after treatment with the various complement inhibitors and activators demonstrate the presence of two complement pathways in turkeys.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Background: Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) has low 5 year survival rate and is resistant to radiation and chemotherapy. Phenethyl Isothiocyanate (PEITC) is a naturally occurring phytochemical that has a variety of anti-cancer properties. Here we explore two anti-cancer properties of PEITC: induction of apoptosis and induction of cell cycle arrest in RCC cell lines and the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: We used two human RCC cell lines Caki-1 and Caki-2. Survival and cell proliferation was assayed using Calcein AM. Annexin V staining was used to measure apoptosis. Caspase-3/7 induction was measured using a fluorescent substrate. Cell Cycle was studied using Propidium Iodide staining. DNA damage was determined using H2AX-γ antibody. Protein expression and phosphorylation was determined using immunoblotting.

Results: PEITC significantly reduced survival of Caki-1 and Caki-2 cells and inhibited their proliferation as determined by Calcein AM. 15 and 20 μM PEITC induced apoptosis (revealed by Annexin V staining) in both cell lines and induced caspase-3/7 activity. Western blot analysis revealed caspase-8, caspase-9 and Bid cleavage suggesting that the apoptosis is mediated through the extrinsic pathway. Lower doses (up to 10 μM) arrested Caki-1 cells in G2/M phase, and this was associated with an increase p38 and MK2 (Thr334) phosphorylation (as revealed by Western Blot). The p38 inhibitor SB203850 inhibited this G2 arrest induced by PEITC. In order to determine if DNA damage was responsible for the apoptosis and G2 arrest, we used an antibody to H2AX-γ phosphorylation. 15 and 20 µM treatment resulted in increased H2AX-γ phosphorylation, but this was completely blocked by caspase-3 inhibitor.

Conclusion: PEITC induces apoptosis in Caki-1 and Caki-2 cells by a mechanism that likely involves the extrinsic pathway. We will use immunoblotting and siRNA to determine which of the extrinsic receptors (DR4, DR5, TRAIL or FAS) is responsible for this apoptosis induction. PEITC does not cause direct DNA damage to the cells; the observed DNA damage is a result of the apoptotic process and is blocked by caspase-3 inhibitors. PEITC induces G2/M arrest in Caki-1 cells and the mechanism is dependent on p38 phosphorylation which activates MK2. Inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis may play an important role in the anti-cancer properties of PEITC. Fully understanding the mechanism by which PEITC induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in RCC cells may lead to development of novel chemotherapeutic drugs against RCC.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4222. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-4222


We consider Arnoux–Rauzy subshifts X and study various combinatorial questions: When is X linearly recurrent? What is the maximal power occurring in X? What is the number of palindromes of a given length occurring in X? We present applications of our combinatorial results to the spectral theory of discrete one-dimensional Schrodinger operators with potentials given by Arnoux–Rauzy sequences.


While the existence of stable knotted and linked vortex lines has been established in many experimental and theoretical systems, their existence in oscillatory systems and systems with nonlocal coupling has remained elusive. Here, we present strong numerical evidence that stable knots and links such as trefoils and Hopf links do exist in simple, complex, and chaotic oscillatory systems if the coupling between the oscillators is neither too short ranged nor too long ranged. In this case, effective repulsive forces between vortex lines in knotted and linked structures stabilize curvature-driven shrinkage observed for single vortex rings. In contrast to real fluids and excitable media, the vortex lines correspond to scroll wave chimeras [synchronized scroll waves with spatially extended (tubelike) unsynchronized filaments], a prime example of spontaneous synchrony breaking in systems of identical oscillators. In the case of complex oscillatory systems, this leads to a topological superstructure combining knotted filaments and synchronization defect sheets.


This study evaluates the quality of the services provided by a helpline according to the type of caller and the type of request. One hundred and fifteen bogus calls made by simulated clients were used for the evaluation. Results showed that 87% of the calls received an adequate response from the helpline information/referral counsellors (IRCs). Referral requests made by a loved one were less frequently rated as adequate. The quality of responses was better for requests for a referral than they were for information. The simulated client method allowed for experimentation in how a caller could respond emotionally when contacting the helpline. The method revealed that answers given to a loved one could be frustrating and that some IRCs have more difficulties providing general information about gambling than providing the name of a rehabilitation centre. These results should help to improve the quality of the services offered by the helpline to respond more specifically to the callers' information and referral requests.


On 13 April 2011 the medical service of a French military parachuting unit reported an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis involving 147 persons among the military personnel. Meals suspected to have caused the outbreak (pasta and some raw vegetables) were tested for norovirus by PCR. The same norovirus (genogroup I) was found in some of the food items consumed by the cases and in a cook who prepared the meals.


The biology of freshwater crab Dilocarcinus pagei Stimpson, 1861 has been poorly studied, mainly in relation to growth in the Trichodactylidae species. This study aims to determine size/weight growth curves, longevity and age in the puberty molt of the freshwater crab Dilocarcinus pagei Stimpson, 1861. The samples were taken monthly in the Sao Jose do Rio Preto county dam (Sao Paulo), from October 1994 to September 1996, the individuals being sexed, measured (CW = cephalotorax width) and weighed (WW = wet weight). Growth was determined by distribution of the specimens by size classes, where as the FiSAT program was used to determine non-linear estimation of growth parameters by the Bertalanffy equation. A total of 962 specimens (534 males and 428 females) was analyzed. Growth size curves were expressed by the equations CWMales = 61.7[1-e-0.97(t+0.041)] and CWFemales = 57.1[1-e-1.41(t+0.031)], while growth in weight was better represented by WWMales = 65.2[1-e-0.97(t+0.041)]3.08 and WWFemales = 44.9[1-e-1.41(t+0.031)]2.82. Assintotic size of the males (61.7 mm) was greater than that of the felamles (57.1 mm), the opposite occurring for longevity, estimated at 2.4 and 2.7 years, respectively. The maximum size (95% of the CW¥) was 58.6 mm for males and 54.2 mm for females, very close to maximum sizes recorded in nature to each sex (55.8 mm). The puberty molt in males occurred at a higher age level when compared to that of females (tMales = 1.2 years and tFemales = 0.9 years). The results present here are inedited in the carcinological literature, this being very important in population management and preservation of this species, as it is explored intensely and used as bait in fishing.


The ever-increasing number of customers and the need for higher data rates and multimedia services require the deployment of Small Cell Networks. In this paper, we propose a new computational approach to study performance and reliability of Small Cell Networks, taking into account the retrial phenomenon, the finite number of customers (mobiles) served in a cell and the random breakdowns of the base station channels, using the Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPNs) model as a support. However, one of the major drawbacks of this high-level formalism in performance evaluation of large networks is the state space explosion problem which increases when considering repeated calls and multiple unreliable channels. Hence, the novelty of this investigation is the presentation of an approach which allows a direct computing of the infinitesimal generator describing the customers behavior and channels allocation in as small cell, without generating nor storing the reachability set. In addition, we develop the formulas of the main stationary reliability and performance indices as a function of the network parameters, the stationary probabilities and independently of the reachability set markings.


We describe a new approach to providing adaptable thin client interfaces for web-based systems that allows a developer to specify a web-based interface using a device-independent mark-up language embedded in conventional Java Server Pages. At run-time this single interface description is used to automatically provide an interface for multiple web devices e.g. desk-top HTML and mobile WML-based systems, as well as highlight, hide or disable interface elements depending on the current user and user task. Our approach allows developers to more easily construct and maintain web-based user interfaces than other current approaches while utilising their existing server-side web components. We describe the software architecture of our system, its implementation using Java Server Page custom tag libraries, and an example application of our technique. We report our experiences using the technology to build three web-based applications and the results of two empirical studies of its effectiveness.


Inspired by the foundational works by Spivak and Fong and Cruttwell et al., we introduce a categorical framework to formalize Bayesian inference and learning. The two key ideas at play here are the notions of Bayesian inversions and the functor GL as constructed by Cruttwell et al.. In this context, we find that Bayesian learning is the simplest case of the learning paradigm. We then obtain categorical formulations of batch and sequential Bayes updates while also verifying that the two coincide in a specific example.


Purpose: The purpose of the study was to establish the effectiveness of public-private partnerships (PPP) in enhancing the performance of an entity, challenges faced in implementing PPP, and the extent to which the resources support through PPP affect performance in road services delivery. Design/Methodology/Approach: A desktop approach was used. The study made use of secondary data. Findings: The study established that factors that influenced companies to adopt PPPs were, the need for financial resources, infrastructure development, improving efficiency, reducing poverty, and fueling economic growth. Practical Implications: The study concludes that contract renegotiation, performance enforcement, political acceptability, lack of sound regulatory framework was some of the challenges prevailing. The study offers six policy recommendations to improve the performance of SEPs in Zimbabwe. Originality/Value: It considers the fact that PPP reduces pressure on government budgets due to the use of private financing for infrastructure and provides better value for money in public infrastructure provision.


This technique detects all active pins in a test pattern electrically using an ATE system. Exhaustive checks on signal pins with different input and output levels ensures that all patterns are stable. Information gathered on active pins for all patterns allows optimised pattern selection for level testing. The technique is portable across different ATE systems and devices. Results show that the test time can be reduced, by up to 31.1% with the proper selection of patterns for level tests of VLSI devices.


Most rural households in Malawi often opt to supplement their farm income with additional casual work on the farms of others ("ganyu" labor). However, there is a growing concern that such informal off-farm work will eventually drive rural households into absolute poverty. Using data from a 2010 Malawi household survey, this study seeks to explore this conjecture, first by examining the factors that motivate rural households to participate in informal off-farm work (ganyu) and later evaluate its outcome. Results from the average treatment effect indicate that participating in ganyu increases an individual"s annual total off-farm income. On the other hand, it has a negative effect on own-farm income.


Afibrinogenemia is a rare coagulation deficiency, inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. It can be manifested in homozygotes or compound heterozygotes by a severe bleeding tendency caused by deficiency of fibrinogen (factor I). The estimated prevalence in Italy is about 1:1,000,000, and 0.2% of the patients with a coagulation deficiency in the United Kingdom have afibrinogenemia1,2. In Switzerland, nine patients are listed in the national hemophilia registry.

Among severe bleeding symptoms, umbilical cord bleeding is the most frequent and life-endangering event3. Intracranial hemorrhage is the major cause of death and is the primary reason for prophylaxis. Less severe findings, such as spontaneous muscle hematomas, epistaxis, and menorrhagia, are also frequent3.

Patients with afibrinogenemia have remarkably fewer spontaneous hemarthroses in contrast to better known bleeding disorders such as hemophilia A and hemophilia B3-6.

We report the case of a patient with congenital afibrinogenemia who had severe elbow arthropathy and was treated with a total elbow arthroplasty. The patient was informed that data concerning the case would be submitted for publication, and he consented.

A forty-seven-year-old man was referred to our institution with a severe arthropathy of the left, nondominant elbow. Afibrinogenemia was diagnosed at birth. For many years, he was administered 4 g of Haemocomplettan HS (human fibrinogen; CSL Behring, Bern, Switzerland) intravenously every two weeks. The causative mutation in his family (the parents were nonconsanguineous, and his brother and two cousins were also affected) was identified as a homozygous deletion of approximately 11 kb of the fibrinogen alpha chain gene7. Over the years, the left elbow became increasingly symptomatic secondary to recurrent hemarthroses. The elbow was always the primary joint involved, although mild osteoarthritic changes were noted in the ankles. In 1991, at the age of …


The relationship between language and thought has been a major area of discussion and debate for many philosophers, linguists, and researchers. While some considered that these two variables are separate faculties, others argued that they share many links and relationships. The study conducted in this research paper aimed at investigating whether there exists an influential relationship between language and thought. The participants were first year university students who viewed magazine images in the presence and absence of linguistic interference. Content analysis was done on the participants' responses to an openended questionnaire which questioned the interpretation of the images. The findings of the study suggest that language has an evident impact on thought and cognition.


We report a case of myasthenia gravis in a young Melanesian woman. It is only the second case described from Papua New Guinea and the first in which antibodies to the acetylcholine receptor have been demonstrated. The patient's complaint of occasional dysarthria was initially dismissed as hysterical in nature due to her apparent normal speech on conversation. The true nature of her problem only became apparent when she was asked to read a prolonged monologue. Myasthenia gravis may present without involvement of the eye muscles and the diagnosis may only become apparent if muscle groups are specifically tested for fatiguability.


We investigate local heat generation by molecules at the apex of polymer-embedded vertical antennas excited at resonant mid-infrared wavelengths, exploiting the surface enhanced infrared absorption effect. The embedding of vertical nanoantennas in a non-absorbing polymer creates thermal isolation between the apical hotspot and the heat sink represented by the substrate. Vibrational mid-infrared absorption by strongly absorbing molecules located at the antenna apex then generates nanoscale temperature gradients at the surface. We imaged the thermal gradients by using a nano-photothermal expansion microscope, and we found values up to 10 K/μm in conditions where the radiation wavelength resonates with both the molecule vibrations and the plasmonic mode of the antennas. Values up to 1000 K/μm can be foreseen at maximum quantum cascade laser power. The presented system provides a promising thermoplasmonic platform for antenna-assisted thermophoresis and resonant mid-infrared photocatalysis.We investigate local heat generation by molecules at the apex of polymer-embedded vertical antennas excited at resonant mid-infrared wavelengths, exploiting the surface enhanced infrared absorption effect. The embedding of vertical nanoantennas in a non-absorbing polymer creates thermal isolation between the apical hotspot and the heat sink represented by the substrate. Vibrational mid-infrared absorption by strongly absorbing molecules located at the antenna apex then generates nanoscale temperature gradients at the surface. We imaged the thermal gradients by using a nano-photothermal expansion microscope, and we found values up to 10 K/μm in conditions where the radiation wavelength resonates with both the molecule vibrations and the plasmonic mode of the antennas. Values up to 1000 K/μm can be foreseen at maximum quantum cascade laser power. The presented system provides a promising thermoplasmonic platform for antenna-assisted thermophoresis and resonant mid-infrared photocatalysis.


This paper deals with the problem of evaluating and optimizing a stochastic measure that integrates flexibility and reliability in multiproduct batch plants. It is assumed that uncertainties in the product demands are given in terms of statistical distributions, and that expected failure rates of the equipment are given in terms of discrete probabilities. Based on recent work by the authors (Straub and Grossmann, 1989), an efficient computational method is proposed to evaluate the expected stochastic flexibility in multiproduct batch plants. It is also shown that this method can be incorporated in the optimization for determining the sizes and parallel equipment that maximize the expected stochastic flexibility under a capital investment constraint. By varying the specification of the latter, trade-offs can be established between investment cost and flexibility.


Stereo perception is important for a truly immersive virtual reality VR system Recent improvements in computer and video technology have made stereoscopic display systems more prevalent than ever However most panoramic imaging systems which can display photo realistic VR world still have di culties in automatic production of high quality stereo panoramas This paper presents a stereo panoramic imaging system SPISY that can automatically generate high quality photo realistic stereo panoramas The major di culty of generating a stereo panorama from a sequence of stereo images taken by two cameras comes from the image disparity between the two adjacent images to be stitched together which is caused by the inherent restriction that only one of the two cameras can have its lens center passed by the rotation axis In this paper we rst analyze the image disparity problem caused by the dislocation of the lens center from the vertical rotation axis and then propose a disparity morphing algorithm to solve it Other characteristics of the SPISY include the capability of generating complete focus views and balanced exposure views and of correcting the e ect caused by camera tilt and epipolar line inconsistency With the stereo and automatic correction features the SPISY can easily provide realistic degree panoramic stereo views for image based VR systems