The persistence behavior for fluctuating steps on the Si(111)-(sqrt[3]xsqrt[3])R30 degrees -Al surface was determined by analyzing time-dependent STM images for temperatures between 770 and 970 K. Using the standard persistence definition, the measured persistence probability displays power-law decay with an exponent of theta=0.77+/-0.03. This is consistent with the value of theta=3/4 predicted for attachment-detachment limited step kinetics. If the persistence analysis is carried out in terms of return to a fixed-reference position, the measured probability decays exponentially. Numerical studies of the Langevin equation used to model step motion corroborate the experimental observations.


Dravet syndrome (DS) is a form of epilepsy with a high incidence of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). Respiratory failure is a leading cause of SUDEP, and DS patients' frequently exhibit disordered breathing. Despite this, mechanisms underlying respiratory dysfunction in DS are entirely unknown. We found that mice expressing a recurrent SCN1a missense mutation (A1783V) conditionally in inhibitory neurons (SCN1aA1783V/+; mixed C57B/6 background) exhibit spontaneous seizures, die prematurely and present a respiratory phenotype similar to DS patients including hypoventilation, apnea and a diminished ventilatory response to CO2. At the cellular level in the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN), we found inhibitory neurons expressing the SCN1a A1783V variant are less excitable, whereas chemosensitive RTN neurons, which are a key source of the CO2/H+-dependent drive to breathe, are hyper-excitable in slices from SCN1aA1783V/+ mice. These results show loss of SCN1a function can disrupt brainstem respiratory control including at the level of the RTN.


Carbon materials are good candidates as electron emitters. In this article will be described emission properties of carbon nanotubes prepared by chemical vapour deposition (CVD). The measurement of emission current density flowing through the electrodes will be carried out in a vacuum chamber pumped by a turbomolecular pump. The vacuum chamber will be equipped with a linear nano-motion drive SmarAct that enables precise changes of the distance between two electrodes inside the vacuum chamber (step width from 50 nm to 1000 nm, sub-nanometer resolution). The measured results will be compared with FowlerNordheim theory. One of the proposed solutions for usage CNTs as emitters is in a pressure sensor. A method for packaging emission pressure sensor will be also invented so the emission could exist outside the laboratory vacuum chamber. The electrodes of the sensor could be bonded using glass frit bonding or anodic bonding technology.


Efficient management of an aquifer depends primarily on adequate knowledge of its hydro-geologic parameters. Estimation of the spatially distributed aquifer parameters in large aquifer systems often involves considerable amount of time and financial resources. These parameters are required for the groundwater system simulation to predict head and concentration behaviour in the flow domain. Inverse modelling of the system helps in the adequate assessment of these parameters for a meaningful system simulation. A parameter estimation method is developed based on genetic algorithm (GA) a global optimization method. A finite element model (FEM) based on Galerkin's approach is developed for computing the head and concentration distribution in the aquifer domain. The developed numerical model is applied to a confined aquifer involving a set of boundary conditions, source and sink terms to compute the system parameters within the chosen three zones of the aquifer. The results show that the genetic algorithm can be successfully used to obtain optimal estimate of aquifer parameters. The chosen aquifer problem is also solved by Gauss-Newton-Marquardt (GNM) method to estimate aquifer parameters and the results are compared with those obtained by using genetic algorithm. Largely the GA results are better compared to GNM parameter estimates, except, when error free head and concentration data (practically not possible) is used.


Introduction An early diagnosis of Intensive Care Unit–acquired weakness (ICU–AW) using muscle strength assessment is not possible in most critically ill patients. We hypothesized that development of ICU–AW can be predicted reliably two days after ICU admission, using patient characteristics, early available clinical parameters, laboratory results and use of medication as parameters. Methods Newly admitted ICU patients mechanically ventilated ≥2 days were included in this prospective observational cohort study. Manual muscle strength was measured according to the Medical Research Council (MRC) scale, when patients were awake and attentive. ICU–AW was defined as an average MRC score <4. A prediction model was developed by selecting predictors from an a–priori defined set of candidate predictors, based on known risk factors. Discriminative performance of the prediction model was evaluated, validated internally and compared to the APACHE IV and SOFA score. Results Of 212 included patients, 103 developed ICU–AW. Highest lactate levels, treatment with any aminoglycoside in the first two days after admission and age were selected as predictors. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the prediction model was 0.71 after internal validation. The new prediction model improved discrimination compared to the APACHE IV and the SOFA score. Conclusion The new early prediction model for ICU–AW using a set of 3 easily available parameters has fair discriminative performance. This model needs external validation.


ABSTRACT This study examined whether pain is associated with subjective memory problems or cognition in Puerto Rican older adults. Participants came from the Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions (PREHCO) study, aged 60 and over (n = 2,144). Analyses examined concurrent and longitudinal associations of pain with subjective memory problems and cognition using a cognitive screener. Overall, participants with pain were more likely to report concurrent subjective memory problems than those without pain. Older adults with pain also exhibited slightly lower concurrent cognition. Novel pain was associated with cognitive decline and greater likelihood of incident subjective memory problems at follow-up. Persistent pain was only related to incident subjective memory problems at follow-up. Pain is associated with cognitive decline and subjective memory problems in older Puerto Ricans. Future studies should implement more in-depth neuropsychological assessments and examine the potential role of barriers to pain management in this population.


Design is assuming more strategic roles in the industry, bringing different approaches to the development of new products that enables innovations and higher acceptance. Like other segments, the toy industry is also modifying to meet new demands, seeking to develop games and toys aligned with the contemporary child. To improve the quality of the national toy, design insertion has been stated as a desired goal. However, there are not significant reports in the literature about how it is integrated in the segment. This study aimed to evaluate the integration of designers in the development process of new products of three different Brazilian toy companies that acted as case studies. Based on Design Management (DM) and Product Development Process (PDP) Models, we implemented a new model that aided in organizing and analyzing records of the companies' structures and development processes. Results indicated the difficulties and improvement points to insert Designers in a formalized process, being those located mostly on the initial planning, product prototyping, and post launch stages. A recent increase in design acceptance and usage, however, was noted, with Design being considered as directly related with the quality increase of the company's products. Keywords: design management, toy industry, development of new product, Brazilian industry, industrial design.


Traditional mode of preservation of fatty fish in most countries is either by smoking or pickling. Mackerel is a commonly used fatty fish in the preparation of "jaadi", a locally prepared pickled fish product in Sri Lanka produced especially in the glut season. The aim of this study was to assess the formation of cholesterol oxidation products (COPs) during storage time during 18 wk in traditionally preserved mackerel. The most common COPs were quantified and identified by GC and GC-MS, respectively. Total cholesterol and COPs ranged from 20 to 113 mg/100 g sample and from 0.2 to 3.8 mg/100 g sample, respectively. The content of COPs increased up to 6 wk and gradually decreased during the storage. The formation of COPs is low until week 4 of storage of jaadi. Between week 4 and 6 of storage the formation of COPs reaches its maximum level and then decreases during storage. Regular consumption of this pickled fish can be a source of considerable amounts of COPs in the diet of the local population in Sri Lanka.

Practical applications: Cleaned mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta) covered with sun-dried salt powder and a paste of sun-dried Garcinia (Garcinia cambogia) fruit locally known as "goraka" is used to produce jaadi in Sri Lanka. Garcinia is a traditional commodity used for fish preservation and cooking, probably due to its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. The results of this preliminary study could be useful in the future to increase the stability of preserved mackerel.


Removal of rain streaks from a single image is an extremely challenging problem since the rainy images often contain rain streaks of different size, shape, direction and density. Most recent methods for deraining use a deep network following a generic "encoder-decoder" architecture which captures low-level features across the initial layers and high-level features in the deeper layers. For the task of deraining, the rain streaks which are to be removed are relatively small and focusing much on global features is not an efficient way to solve the problem. To this end, in this article, we propose using an overcomplete convolutional network architecture which gives special attention in learning local structures by restraining the receptive field of filters. We combine it with U-Net so that it does not lose out on the global structures as well while focusing more on low-level features, to compute the derained image. The proposed network called, over-and-under complete deraining network (OUCD), consists of two branches: overcomplete branch which is confined to small receptive field size in order to focus on the local structures and an undercomplete branch that has larger receptive fields to primarily focus on global structures. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real datasets demonstrate that the proposed method achieves significant improvements over the recent state-of-the-art methods. Code is available at https://github.com/jeya-maria-jose/Derain_OUCD_Net


Insect repellents are widely used to fend off nuisance mosquitoes and, more importantly, to reduce or eliminate mosquito bites in areas where viruses and other vector-borne diseases are circulating. Synthesized more than six decades ago, DEET is the most widely used insect repellent. Plant-derived compounds are used in a plethora of commercial formulations and natural recipes to repel mosquitoes. They are also used as fragrances. We analysed Bombshell® to identify the constituent(s) eliciting a previously reported "off- label" repellence activity. The two major fragrance ingredients in Bombshell, i.e., methyl dihydrojasmonate and lilial, demonstrated strong repellence against the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, in laboratory assays. Both compounds activated a previously identified DEET-sensitive odorant receptor, CquiOR136. These compounds were also major constituents of Ivanka Trump eau de parfum. The methyl dihydrojasmonate content was higher in the Ivanka Trump perfume than in Bombshell, the reverse being true for lilial. Both Bombshell and Ivanka Trump eaux de parfums retained activity for as long as 6 hours in laboratory assays. Although wearing these perfumes may repel nuisance mosquitoes, their use as "off-label" repellents against infected mosquitoes is not recommended.


A new type of Alfven vortices which can exist in a plasma of very low pressure beta identical to pi p/B02 me/mi is found. The reduced equations of drift-Alfven waves (DAW) are obtained. The vortices being solutions of the DAW equations have the analogous structure in both cases. With the help of the solutions the estimation on the main vortex parameters phi approximately A approximately ur0 is done which gives the values of a characteristic rotational velocity and a perturbation of the magnetic field in the vortex. Energy of the vortex tubes per length unit is calculated and it is shown that in both cases the vortex energy is negative. This means that in dissipative media the vortex energy is growing in absolute value (their size as well as the rotational velocity becomes higher).


An important rule that underpins international and domestic labor law is the principle that labor is not a commodity. This principle has interesting application to the labor regulation in professional team sports such as baseball that utilize drafts, salary restraints, the reserve system, and free agency. The article will examine whether these and other labor controls in Major League Baseball in the United States and Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan commodify labor. Baseball's labor controls and practices will be assessed to determine if labor is treated as a commodity, and if so, whether there is undue commodification. In doing so, a construct will be created of labor practices that commodify labor on a spectrum. These labor practices and controls will also be evaluated in the context of antitrust law and restraint of trade. The article concludes by suggesting ways to improve the treatment of players that will decommodify labor.


ABSTRACT Background: Rapid response to antidepressant therapy is desirable and may be particularly critical in elderly patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: Findings are based on post-hoc analyses from a double-blind trial of elderly patients with MDD ≥ 65 years, randomly assigned 2:1 to duloxetine 60 mg QD (N = 207) or placebo (N = 104) for 8 weeks. Depression and pain measures included the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), 17-item Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD17), CGI-Severity, and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for overall pain. The time to response and remission for duloxetine compared with placebo was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards (PH) modeling, Kaplan-Meier estimation, and categorical repeated measures analysis. Results: Significant improvements of estimated HAMD17 response and remission rates for duloxetine started at week 2 (P = 0.022 and P = 0.033, respectively). Time to HAMD17 response and remission were significantly shorter for duloxetine versus placebo (P < 0.001 and P = 0.004, respectively). Placebo-referenced duloxetine hazard ratios (HR) for HAMD17 response and remission were 2.03 (P = 0.002) and 2.01 (P = 0.006), respectively. Results for GDS-based response (HR = 1.54, P = 0.023) and remission (HR = 1.54, P = 0.104) rates were consistent with the HAMD17 findings. Patients ≥75 years (n = 93) responded with similar rapidity to duloxetine compared with those <75 years (n = 199, P > 0.10 for all PH treatment-by-age interactions). The placebo-referenced duloxetine HR for time to 50% reduction in overall pain was 1.75 (P = 0.024) for patients with moderate to severe pain. Conclusion: Duloxetine demonstrated a faster time to antidepressant response and improvement in self-reported pain as compared with placebo. Clinical trial registry number for this study: NCT00062673, at www.clinicaltrials.gov.


This work presents a new architecture for creating virtual assistants on personal computers, building upon prior work on deep learning neural networks, image processing, mixedinitiative systems, and recommender systems. Recent progress in virtual assistants enables them to converse with users and interpret what the user sees. These systems can understand the world in intuitive ways with neural networks, and make action recommendations to the user. The assistant architecture in this work is described at the component level. It interprets a computer screen image in order to produce action recommendations to assist the user. It can assist in automating various tasks such as genetics research, computer programming, engaging with social media, and legal research. The action recommendations are personalized to the user, and are produced without integration of the assistant into each individual application executing on the computer. Recommendations can be accepted with a single mouse click by the computer user. Keywords–Recommender systems; Image processing; Deep learning.


Sepsis is still a major cause of postoperative morbidity and mortality. Numerous biochemical indicators have been evaluated regarding their potential in predicting prognosis in sepsis. Generally, one must differentiate between indicators: those for preoperative risk of lethal sepsis, those for early prediction of lethal outcome and those for evaluating effectiveness of therapy. In the past, immunomodulatory therapies developed in various animal studies failed to be successful in humans. It has been proposed that present models have to be reevaluated, and new, clinically more relevant models should be evolved. This article will give a short overview on the most common animal models and a comprehensive overview on markers for sepsis in animal models and clinical studies. The focus will be on abdominal sepsis with a mortality rate up to 80 percent after major surgery. Two animal models designed to closely mimic the clinical course of intra-abdominal sepsis, will be compared. Furthermore, relevant clinical parameters for predicting prognosis before and after major visceral surgery are illustrated.


Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) can affect epigenetic mechanisms and obesity development. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) — widely used to make flames — are one of the important POPs. Prenatal exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as POPs, may affect global DNA methylation in long interspersed nuclear elements (LINE-1), increasing the risk of obesity later in life. Therefore, pregnant Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were used to elucidate whether BDE-47 and BDE-209 transferred through placenta and breast milk cause epigenetic changes in LINE-1 and increase genetic susceptibility to obesity as obesogen during the developmental periods. Global DNA methylation in LINE-1 and gene expression related to obesity were measured in dams and offspring, using a methylation-sensitive high resolution melting analysis (MS-HRM) and direct bisulfite sequencing and quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), respectively. The results of MS-HRM showed global DNA hypomethylation patterns in LINE-1 of exposed offspring (2 of total 4) at PND 4, but bisulfite sequencing showed no difference in both the exposed and non-exposed groups. Gene expression in dams related to  -oxidation pathway and those related to adipokines showed different patterns between the two groups. On the contrary, gene expressions of offspring showed a similar pattern. Gene expressions related to  -oxidation pathway and obesity were significantly increased when compared with 'at birth', but not PPAR-  . In conclusion, this study demonstrated the possibility that co-exposure to BDE-47 and BDE-209 — via the placenta and breast milk — may affect epigenetic changes and modulate gene expression levels


ABSTRACT This article transcribes an interview with the President of the European Film Academy, film director and scriptwriter Agnieszka Holland. It traces the filmmaker's journey from her early filmmaking career and the potential influence of acting as a global citizen. Agnieszka Holland studied directing at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. She began her career as an assistant director to Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. In 1977, Agnieszka Holland made her co-directing debut with 'Screen Tests.' In 1978, Holland wrote her first screenplay for Wajda, 'Without Anaesthesia.' Her solo feature directing debut started with 'Provincial Actors,' which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes Film Festival (1980). Since then, she has directed over 30 films, won numerous awards, including the Golden Globe and Silver Bear Berlinale. Agnieszka Holland was nominated for a BAFTA and Emmy, while her films 'Angry Harvest' (1985), 'Europa Europa' (1990), and 'In Darkness' (2011) were nominated for an Academy Award. The emotional impact and foresight of these films have earned her international fame. Throughout her career, Holland's vision of cinematography and the way reality is depicted influenced the further history of cinema.


Planning is a decision-making process which is about "the future". In each scale of planning process, spatial rules of the social life are formed. In this process, firstly series of spatial analyses should be practised. Throughout the adapt an ecological approach and both the regional and urban planning also in Turkey, spatial planning strategies should be urgently reviewed and any level of planning process should be directed to ecological bases. Furthermore, in all these steps, natural resources and ecological characteristics should be taken into consideration. In the city of Bartin, where Bartin River flows through, a case study has been carried out regarding the above mentioned planning strategies. The case study has three stages. These stages also frame the data, analysis and evaluation stages. In the case study, a combination of McHarg's ecological evaluation method and Kiemstedt's usage value analysis in planning has been employed. With the help of ecological analyses, in the rural areas that have not been settled yet, the potential of the natural resources has been examined for the new residential areas. As a result, in the city of Bartin, the potential residential areas have been defined on the unsettled regions. What is more, concerning the subject, a map has been formed on the scale of 1/25 000. As a result of the case study, it has been concluded that in Bartin city because of the physical planning which ignores the potential of the natural resources, some of the existing residential


Attributes of sound inherent to objects can provide valuable cues to learn rich representations for object detection and tracking. Furthermore, the co-occurrence of audiovisual events in videos can be exploited to localize objects over the image field by solely monitoring the sound in the environment. Thus far, this has only been feasible in scenarios where the camera is static and for single object detection. Moreover, the robustness of these methods has been limited as they primarily rely on RGB images which are highly susceptible to illumination and weather changes. In this work, we present the novel self-supervised MM-DistillNet framework consisting of multiple teachers that leverage diverse modalities including RGB, depth and thermal images, to simultaneously exploit complementary cues and distill knowledge into a single audio student network. We propose the new MTA loss function that facilitates the distillation of information from multimodal teachers in a self-supervised manner. Additionally, we propose a novel self-supervised pretext task for the audio student that enables us to not rely on labor-intensive manual annotations. We introduce a large-scale multimodal dataset with over 113,000 time-synchronized frames of RGB, depth, thermal, and audio modalities. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods while being able to detect multiple objects using only sound during inference and even while moving.


PTEFb/CDK9 mediated transcription of short-lived anti-apoptotic survival proteins like MYC, a key oncogene in multiple tumors, plays a critical role in cancer cell growth and survival. In addition, these survival proteins exhibit important functions in the development of resistance to chemotherapy. In contrast to pan-CDK inhibitors which are currently evaluated in Phase I and II clinical trials, to our knowledge PTEFb selective inhibitors have not been explored for clinical utility. We report for the first time the preclinical profile and structure of BAY 1143572, a novel selective PTEFb/CDK9 inhibitor currently being investigated in a Phase I clinical trial. BAY 1143572 had potent and highly selective PTEFb-kinase inhibitory activity in the low nanomolar range against PTEFb/CDK9 and an at least 50-fold selectivity against other CDKs in enzymatic assays. Furthermore, BAY 1143572 showed a favorable selectivity against a panel of non-CDK kinases in vitro. The potent enzymatic activity on PTEFb translated into broad antiproliferative activity against a panel of tumor cell lines with sub-micromolar IC-50 values. In line with the proposed mode of action, a concentration-dependent inhibition of the phosphorylation of the RNA polymerase II and downstream reduction of MYC mRNA and protein levels was observed in vitro. This inhibition was accompanied by an induction of apoptosis in cellular assays. BAY 1143572 also showed single agent in vivo efficacy at tolerated doses in various xenograft tumor models in mice and rats upon once daily oral administration. Potent anti-tumor activity characterized with partial or even complete remissions could be documented in models showing different MYC gene alterations like amplifications and translocations. Treatment with BAY 1143572 resulted in a transient inhibition of intratumoral MYC mRNA and protein levels and an induction of apoptosis in these models. The inhibition of MYC mRNA was also observed in blood cells of BAY 1143572-treated rats indicating the potential clinical utility of MYC in blood cells as a pharmacodynamic marker in clinical development. The in vivo efficacy of BAY 1143572 was significantly enhanced in combination with several chemotherapeutics in different solid tumor models. These pharmacology data provided the rationale for the initiation of clinical development of BAY 1143572 in advanced cancer patients (NCT01938638). In conclusion, our data provide preclinical proof of concept for BAY 1143572 as a potent and highly selective inhibitor of PTEFb/CDK9 with first-in-class potential. Further clinical evaluation of BAY 1143572 for the treatment of cancers dependent on the transcription of the key oncogene MYC and other short-lived survival proteins is warranted. Citation Format: Arne Scholz, Ulrich Luecking, Gerhard Siemeister, Philip Lienau, Ulf Boemer, Peter Ellinghaus, Annette O. Walter, Ray Valencia, Stuart Ince, Franz von Nussbaum, Dominik Mumberg, Michael Brands, Karl Ziegelbauer. BAY 1143572: A first-in-class, highly selective, potent and orally available inhibitor of PTEFb/CDK9 currently in Phase I, inhibits MYC and shows convincing anti-tumor activity in multiple xenograft models by the induction of apoptosis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr DDT02-02. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-DDT02-02


In the past, only mobiles and computers were connected to the internet but in the new era with the advent of new tech nologies other things like security cameras, microwaves, cars and industrial equipment's are now connected to internet. Internet of things (IoT), there are over several bil lion electronic equipment de vices already on the internet, and within a decade these number is expected to scale above 20 billion devices. Smartphones and computers have various software security solutions to defend and protect them from most of threats and attacks, although there are indiscernible security solutions to take care of the rest of the IoT [1]. Lately, as a strong example, several thousands of security cameras were breached to proceed DOS and DDOS attacks that caused the Twitter down. Solutions in the IoT are not exclusively software but the entire physical environment of hardware, World Wide Web (WWW), Software, Cloud and mobile interfaces involved. The IoT ecosystem services are young and not very fully developed yet for these reasons there are main primarily concerns fact around IoT adoption due to security threats/attacks. IoT Top Security Concerns: Secure constrained devices, Secure communication, Keeping IoT hardware updated, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Authorize and authenticate devices, Ensure data privacy and integrity. This research reviews the achievements of mitigation IoT security challenges and the key viewpoint is for authors to clearly dene adversary goals, assumptions and dependen


Distributional Reinforcement Learning (RL) maintains the entire probability distribution of the reward-to-go, i.e. the return, providing more learning signals that account for the uncertainty associated with policy performance, which may be beneficial for trading off exploration and exploitation and policy learning in general. Previous works in distributional RL focused mainly on computing the state-action-return distributions, here we model the state-return distributions. This enables us to translate successful conventional RL algorithms that are based on state values into distributional RL. We formulate the distributional Bellman operation as an inference-based auto-encoding process that minimises Wasserstein metrics between target/model return distributions. The proposed algorithm, BDPG (Bayesian Distributional Policy Gradients), uses adversarial training in joint-contrastive learning to estimate a variational posterior from the returns. Moreover, we can now interpret the return prediction uncertainty as an information gain, which allows to obtain a new curiosity measure that helps BDPG steer exploration actively and efficiently. We demonstrate in a suite of Atari 2600 games and MuJoCo tasks, including well known hard-exploration challenges, how BDPG learns generally faster and with higher asymptotic performance than reference distributional RL algorithms.


The paper presents results from a climate change detection and attribution study on the decline of Arctic sea ice extent in September for the 1953–2012 period. For this period three independently derived observational datasets and simulations from multiple climate models are available to attribute observed changes in the sea ice extent to known climate forcings. Here we direct our attention to the combined cooling effect from other anthropogenic forcing agents (mainly aerosols), which has potentially masked a fraction of greenhouse gas–induced Arctic sea ice decline. The presented detection and attribution framework consists of a regression model, namely, regularized optimal fingerprinting, where observations are regressed onto model-simulated climate response patterns (i.e., fingerprints). We show that fingerprints from greenhouse gas, natural, and other anthropogenic forcings are detected in the three observed records of Arctic sea ice extent. Beyond that, our findings indicate that for the 1953–2012 period roughly 23% of the greenhouse gas–induced negative sea ice trend has been offset by a weak positive sea ice trend attributable to other anthropogenic forcing. We show that our detection and attribution results remain robust in the presence of emerging nonstationary internal climate variability acting upon sea ice using a perfect model experiment and data from two large ensembles of climate simulations.


In this article, a video multicast protocol for multi-homed mobile terminals is proposed as an alternative stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) for partially reliable multicast services. It works with overlay peer-to-peer video multicast facility in the application layer. For a multi-homed mobile terminal, an error burst may occur when a handover is in process in the primary path switching procedure. The key issue concerned in this protocol is the ability to predict packet loss and to retransmit the lost packets as soon as a mobile terminal completes its primary path switching procedure. This property controls the delay sensitivity of transmissions. Conversely, the protocol can tolerate partial loss in video transmission as long as the loss is limited to a relatively short error burst. In addition, it reduces the message overhead significantly and provides a scalable communication mechanism for multicast applications. The performance improvement of the proposed protocol comes from 1) the estimation of temporal velocity of mobile terminals with lost packet prediction in a long error burst, and 2) the requirement for each mobile terminal to indicate which packets can be safely discarded from its agent.


Master's thesis, pages 80 Spring 2018 As the gap between those physically active and inactive continues to widen, one purpose for this study was to provide further understanding surrounding exercise behavior, particularly of those physically inactive. The issues at focus are perceived barriers and motivations towards exercising, in this case examined through personaland weight training participation. In addition to previous research on the field, theories of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations from the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) are used to support the analysis of the participants' experiences. This research takes a phenomenological approach. The five previously physically inactive participants were individually interviewed using semi-structured interviewing, between October and December 2017. The study analyzes a selected phase of the participants' lives, starting from physical inactivity and proceeding towards the maintenance of constant exercising. In addition to supporting the understanding of barriers and motivations to exercise, the research gives insight to the customer perspective behind personal training, on which completed research has only begun to appear during the last decade in Finland. Therefore, following the phase of their physical inactivity, the participants became long-term personal training customers. The results successfully identified a range of both common and uncommon perceived barriers to exercise of those physically inactive. Additionally, a motivational change between the beginning of exercise and its active maintenance was identified. Commonalities were found between the participants, from their experienced barriers to exercise, motivations to begin exercise and the motivational transformation towards long-term exercise. The participants had no contact with each other and lived in differing life stages. Previous research, the understanding of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations along with the timely stages of the Transtheoretical Model supported analyzing the exercise experiences at hand. Suggestions of future research include adapting the found barriers from this study to a larger scope of physically inactive individuals, in some cases lacking research on. It is suggested, that including the views of those who have experienced physical inactivity themselves should be taken to consideration in the promotion of physical activity and exercise. Likewise, gender differences in both barriers and motivations to exercise could be further investigated from a larger scope. Finally, the personal training industry remains to be a relatively new field of business in Finland, with a wide range of its aspects lacking research. Therefore, further studies on customer perspectives for its improvement could benefit the business in the future.


Of the high rate anaerobic wastewater treatment systems the UASB (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket) reactor has found the widest application. Therefore the attention with respect to design, operation and economy will be focussed on this reactor type. In designing a UASB reactor specific attention is needed for the GSS (Gas-Solids Separator) device and the feed inlet system. For soluble wastewater generally no phase separation is required. Only for wastewaters high in suspended solids pre-acidification in a separate acidification reactor can be beneficial. Increasing attention is given to the development of modified UASB systems, such as a combination of a sludge bed reactor and an anaerobic filter. Other possible modified UASB systems may be found in a FS (Floating Settling) UASB reactor, the EGSB (Expanded Granular Sludge Bed) reactor and the UASB IC (Internal Circulation) reactor. As many factors are involved in the costs of a UASB reactor, only some rough data on reactor costs are presented.


Introduction Micro-structured, multi-component material systems are of high interest due to their broad range of application fields. In this presentation we focus on metallic foams in early stages produced by heating compacted powder precursors as well as biocompatible ceramics implanted in sheep jawbones. Al foams are very interesting for lightweight constructions but there is still a need for basic approaches to control the pore structure [1]. Biodegradable materials are an alternative to autogenous bone grafts for supporting the bone regeneration in defects [2].


Background: The impact of oil exploitation on local economy is often subject to the national resource management system. Monopolistic vertical resource management often makes local struggle ineffective. However, there is a successful local oil economy in China. This paper focuses on the formation of a special oil economy and reallocation of resources, power, and capital in Northern Shaanxi, China. This is a typical case of competing interests across multiple scales. It presents a typical case of the reconfiguration of resources, power, and capital at multiple scales.Methods: We introduce the 'politics of scale' to analyze the decentralization & centralization of oil exploitation rights, and the game among the government, state-owned enterprises, private enterprises and residents.Results: There are three findings. First, driven by fiscal interests, governments as the actual owners of the state capital, were directly involved in the politics of scale. Second, the interest conflicts among local state-owned enterprises, local governments were concealed owing to the strict administrative hierarchy and authority of the power, and they became a unified whole of interests and won the battle for oil resources with the central state-owned enterprises. Third, governments' behavior strategies were simple and crude in scaling-down, mainly by hierarchical control and administrative orders. Private capital's behaviors were more diversified in scaling-up, but were completely suppressed and eliminated by the government agencies.Conclusions: We argue that politics of scale is an effective framework to explain multi-scale regulation, and is also a strategy of power competition among all practice parties.


Although the Atlantic continental margin of the eastern United States is an archetypal passive margin, episodes of rejuvenation following continental breakup are increasingly well documented. To better constrain this history of rejuvenation along the southern portion of this continental margin, we present zircon U-Pb (ZUPb) age, zircon fission-track (ZFT) age, apatite U-Pb (AUPb) age, and apatite fission-track (AFT) age and length data from six bedrock samples. The samples were collected along the boundary between the exposed Appalachian hinterland (Piedmont province) and the updip limit of passive margin strata (Coastal Plain province). The samples were collected from central Virginia southward to the South Carolina–Georgia border. ZUPb age distributions are generally consistent with geologic mapping in each of the sample areas. The AUPb data are highly discordant owing to high common-Pb abundances, but for two plutons at the northern and southern ends of the sample area, they define a discordia regression line that indicates substantial Permo-Triassic exhumation-driven cooling. ZFT age distributions are highly dispersed but define central values ranging from Permian to Jurassic. AFT data mostly appear to define a singular underlying cooling age, generally approximately Jurassic or Early Cretaceous. Apatite fission tracks are moderately long (mean lengths in the range of ~13.5 µm), however track lengths for one sample in central North Carolina are shorter (~12.5 µm).
 To interpret the post-breakup thermal history, we present inverse models of time-temperature history for the five plutonic samples. The models show a history of (1) rapid cooling (>10 °C/m.y.) from deep-crustal to near-surface temperatures by the Triassic, (2) hundreds of degrees of Triassic reheating, (3) Jurassic–Early Cretaceous cooling (at rates of 1–10 °C/m.y.), and (4) slow Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic cooling (~1 °C/m.y.). An additional suite of forward models is presented to further evaluate the magnitude of maximum Triassic reheating at one sample site that is particularly well constrained by thermal maturity data. The model results and geologic reasoning suggest that the inverse models may overestimate Triassic paleotemperatures but that other aspects of the inverse modeling are robust. Overall, this thermal history can be reconciled with several aspects of the lithostratigraphy of distal parts of the continental margin, including the lack of Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous strata beneath the southern Atlantic coastal plain and Cretaceous–Cenozoic grain-size trends.


An intelligent window based on the embedded system is introduced in this paper, the control system of which can automatically close or open the window according to the alteration of humidity and wind speed. In addition, network communication and network control functions can also be realized in this intelligent system. We established a fuzzy inference modeling with two inputs of temperature and wind speed. The network communication function extremely facilitated our remote monitoring. The system adopted ARM chip S3C2410 as main controller, and chip OV6630 of the Omnivision company as image sensor, and use step-motor for driving the window. More over, we use the Hall sensor for indicating the different positions of the window. Generally we use the fuzzy inference control and network control to realize the auto and remote moving of the window.


A pseudo-three-dimensional network, called a 2½-dimensional systolic array, to compute matrix-vector and matrix-matrix multiplications is introduced. The new architecture achieves twice the throughput rate as that of the conventional systolic arrays with the same number of processing elements. This new approach provides a practical means for the implemention using current integration technology.


Abstract: The traditional identification method of access path information requires a lot of data packets, and uses a fixed probability, and the identification accuracy is low. To this end, a new method for accurate identification of access path information of hierarchical geographic traffic network is proposed. Under the construction of big data, the access path information is marked with a certain probability, and part of the access path information of the corresponding router is recorded. According to the collected data packet, the accessed node reconstructs the path by using the access path information identified in the packet, to determine the identity range selection and identification format. According to the big data, the hierarchical geographic traffic network router is constructed. According to 1 p , it is judged whether the current data packet is identified, and the identification result is judged by 2 p . The particle cluster algorithm is used to optimize the identification result of the parameter and the penalty factor to complete the accurate identification of access path information of hierarchical geographic traffic network. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional method, the proposed technique has high accuracy and strong convergence.


In this paper, our interest has been to analyze the attempt for improving the trade of salt on the Ibiza island on the part of the Spanish Monarchy in the second half of the XVIIth Century. The salt consumed in the Duchy of Milan traditionally was sent from Ibiza, but the Monarchy verified that the Venetians was taking possession of the above mentioned market, and they were sending salt from other places of the Mediterranean. This situation created problems of diverse type, but especially it was limiting the possibillities of recovery of the salt mines of Ibiza, the only resource of the island capable of generating income (if they were well managed). The used documents come from the files corresponding to Ibiza inside the Secretariat of Majorca of the Council of Aragon, deposited in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Barcelona), and documents depodited in the series Provincial Secretaries of the Archivo General de Simancas (Valladolid) and the series State of the Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid).


The close similarity of the voices of consanguineous persons has suggested that there must exist hereditary phonetic parameters. To test this hypothesis, a method for characterizing numerically the similarity or dissimilarity of voices of twins with zygosity previously established by anthropological methods was elaborated. By speech processing and appropriate classification strategy the method has attained the discriminating power of blood-group determination for zygosity. The hereditability of certain physical parameters of the human voice has also been suggested.


This paper presents a novel content-driven associative memory (CDAM) to associate large-scale color images based on the subjects that represent the images' content. Compared to traditional associative memories, CDAM inherits their tolerance to random noise in images and possesses greater robustness against correlated noise that distorts an image's spatial contextual structure. A three-layer recurrent neural tensor network (RNTN) is designed as the network model of CDAM. Multiple salient objects detection algorithm and partial radial basis function (PRBF) kernel are proposed for subject determination and content-driven association, respectively. Convergence of the RNTN is analyzed based on the properties of PRBF kernels. Extensive comparative experiment results are provided to verify the CDAM's efficiency, robustness, and accuracy.


RAPID DETECTION OF Salmonella IN SHRIMP BY POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION [Deteksi Cepat Salmonella pada Udang dengan Polymerase Chain Reaction] Ulfah Amalia 1,2) , Ratih Dewanti-Hariyadi 2,3) * and Achmad Poernomo 4) 1) Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Diponegoro University, Semarang 2) Department of Food Science and Technology, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor 3) Southeast Asian Food and Agricultural Science and Technology (SEAFAST) Center, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor 4) Center for Research and Development and Product Processing and Marine Biotechnology Fisheries (CRDPPMBF), the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Jakarta Accepted September 27 th 2013 / Approved July 4 th 2014 ABSTRACT Shrimp is an important non-oil commodity for foreign trade in Indonesia. However, rejection of shrimp exports by the importing countries is still commonly encountered. In 2011, the USFDA recorded two cases of Salmonella spp. contamination in shrimp products from two shrimp processing companies in Indonesia. Analysis of Salmonella spp. in seafood is generally performed using a conventional method which takes at least 5 days. The objective of the study is to get a Salmonellae rapid detection method in shrimp by PCR. In this study, optimization of PCR protocol method to detect Salmonella invA gene was conducted using six different annealing temperatures (59, 59.5, 60.8, 62, 64 and 64.5°C). The results showed that 64°C was the optimum annealing temperature to detect the 284 bp fragment of Salmonella invA gene. The PCR based detection method has a DNA detection limit of  27.81mg/mL and 10°CFU/mL of viable salmonellae with 100% specificity. The PCR protocol is capable of detecting six different Salmonella serovars (S. Enteritidis, S. Hadar, S. Heidelberg, S. Kentucky, S. Paratyphi and S. Typhimurium) but none of the non salmonellae isolates. Application of the PCR assay on Salmonella in shrimp after the selective enrichment step suggested that all 16 samples were positive for Salmonella. At the same time, the conventional method could only detected 3 samples for Salmonella positive.


Preparations enriched in apparently intact secretory vesicles were isolated from homogenates of lactating rat and bovine mammary tissue by differential and density gradient centrifugation in isoosmotic media. Morphologically these preparations consisted nearly entirely of vesicles of varying sizes, at least some of which contained casein micelles. Endoplasmic reticulum vesicles, Golgi apparatus cisterna and dictyosomes, mitochondria, peroxisomes, lysosomes, and nuclei were not observed in secretory vesicle-rich fractions. Vesicle preparations were enriched in lactose relative to total membrane fractions from mammary gland. The galactosyltransferase of lactose synthase (UDPgalactose: D-glucose 4 beta-galactosyl-transferase, EC 184.108.40.206) was also present in secretory vesicle preparations, alphas1- and beta-caseins, alpha-lactalbumin, and beta-lactoglobulin, the major secretory proteins of differentiated mammary epithelial cells, were identified as constituents of vesicle-rich fractions from bovine mammary gland. These observations suggest that the major carbohydrate and major proteins of milk are compartmentalized into secretory vesicles and are secreted by exocytotic fusion of secretory vesicles with the apical plasma membrane.


This study investigated contextual antecedents (i.e., cross-ethnic peers and friends) and correlates (i.e., intergroup attitudes) of social identity complexity in seventh grade. Social identity complexity refers to the perceived overlap among social groups with which youth identify. Identifying mostly with out-of-school sports, religious affiliations, and peer crowds, the ethnically diverse sample (N = 622; Mage in seventh grade = 12.56) showed moderately high complexity. Social identity complexity mediated the link between cross-ethnic friendships and ethnic intergroup attitudes, but only when adolescents had a high proportion of cross-ethnic peers at school. Results are discussed in terms of how school diversity can promote complex social identities and positive intergroup attitudes.


We study the phenomenology of the Higgs-Dilaton model in the context of Einstein-Cartan gravity, focusing on the separate impact of the Holst and Nieh-Yan terms on the inflationary observables. Using analytical and numerical techniques, we show the predictions of these scenarios to display an attractor-like behaviour intrinsically related to the curvature of the field-space manifold in the metric formulation of the theory. Beyond that, the analysis of the Nieh-Yan case reveals the existence of an additional attractor solution induced by a cubic pole in the inflaton kinetic term that becomes relevant at large dilaton couplings. This constitutes a unique feature of the Einstein-Cartan formulation as compared to the metric and Palatini counterparts.


On December 6, 1941, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was one of a handful of men selected to skipper midget subs on a suicide mission to breach Pearl Harbor's defenses. When his equipment malfunctioned, he couldn't find the entrance to the harbour. He hit several reefs, eventually splitting the sub, and swam to shore some miles from Pearl Harbor. In the early dawn of December 8, he was picked up on the beach by two Japanese American MPs on patrol. Sakamaki became Prisoner No. 1 of the Pacific War. Japan's no-surrender policy did not permit becoming a POW. Sakamaki and his fellow soldiers and sailors had been indoctrinated to choose between victory and a heroic death. While his comrades had perished, he had survived. By avoiding glorious death and becoming a prisoner of war, Sakamaki believed he had brought shame and dishonour on himself, his family, his community, and his nation, in effect relinquishing his citizenship. Sakamaki fell into despair and, like so many Japanese POWs, begged his captors to kill him. Based on the author's interviews with dozens of former Japanese POWs along with memoirs only recently coming to light, "The Anguish of Surrender" tells one of the great unknown stories of World War II. Beginning with an examination of Japan's pre-war ultranationalist climate and the harsh code that precluded the possibility of capture, the author investigates the circumstances of surrender and capture of men like Sakamaki and their experiences in POW camps. Many POWs, ill and starving after days wandering in the jungles or hiding out in caves, were astonished at the superior quality of food and medical treatment they received. Contrary to expectations, most Japanese POWs, psychologically unprepared to deal with interrogations, provided information to their captors. Trained Allied linguists, especially Japanese Americans, learned how to extract intelligence by treating the POWs humanely. Allied intelligence personnel took advantage of lax Japanese security precautions to gain extensive information from captured documents. A few POWs, recognizing Japan's certain defeat, even assisted the Allied war effort to shorten the war. Far larger numbers staged uprisings in an effort to commit suicide. Most sought to survive, suffered mental anguish, and feared what awaited them in their homeland. These deeply human stories follow Japanese prisoners through their camp experiences to their return to their welcoming families and reintegration into post-war society. These stories are told here for the first time in English. Ulrich 'Rick' Straus served as a U.S. Army language officer in Japan during the Occupation and participated in the trial of Japan's major war criminals. He was Consul General in Okinawa from 1978 to 1982 and retired from the Foreign Service in 1987.


The timing of early reproductive events for the Natal long-fingered bat, Miniopterus natalensis, was examined during its breeding season (August to December) in its maternity roost at the De Hoop Nature Reserve (South Africa). This migrating species is monoestrous with copulation occurring around April in South African populations. Embryonic development is stalled during hibernation by delayed implantation of the blastocyst. As a result, limb bud stage embryos (CS13) are first noted in other South African populations in mid-September. The timing of these reproductive events for the De Hoop population is similar with bats arriving at the maternity roosts in September and embryos at the limb bud stage (CS13) being noted in this month. Pregnancy was not synchronous in the population with bats dissected on the same day exhibiting differences in the stage of development of their young (CS11 to CS21 being the largest range). Maternal features (progesterone concentration, body mass and abdominal distension) were analysed to determine if they provided a reliable estimate of embryonic stage. The progesterone concentrations of pregnant bats showed a similar profile to the Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Eastern Cape populations. Though progesterone concentration did increase as pregnancy progressed, it was not an accurate predictor of embryonic stage. Maternal body mass did not correlate with the stage of embryonic development. However, abdominal distension determined by palpation is an accurate field based predictor of the stages of pregnancy: no abdominal distension, small to medium abdominal distension and large abdominal distension distinguished between non-pregnant bats and those carrying either early (CS11–CS15) or mid-developmental stages (CS16–CS21), respectively.


Comparing single-stranded nucleic acids (ssNAs) secondary structures is fundamental when investigating their function and evolution and predicting the effect of mutations on the ssNAs structures. Many comparison metrics exist, although they are either too elaborate or not enough sensitive to distinguish close ssNAs structures. In this context, we developed AptaMat, a simple and sensitive algorithm for ssNAs secondary structures comparison based on matrices representing the ssNAs secondary structures and a metric built upon the Manhattan distance in the plane. We applied AptaMat to several examples and compared the results to those obtained by the most frequently used metrics, namely the Hamming distance and the RNAdistance, and by a recently developed image-based approach. We showed that AptaMat is able to discriminate between similar sequences, outperforming all the other here considered metrics.


Let f be an orientation-preserving homeomorphism of the disk D, P a finite invariant subset and [f] the isotopy class of f in D\P. We give a non trivial lower bound of the topological entropy for maps in [f], using the spectral radius of some specializations in GL(n,C) of the Burau matrix associated with [f] and we discuss some examples.


Writing in June 2011, while the Syrian army besieges whole towns and racks up a death and injury toll of thousands, it might seem untimely – distasteful even – to dwell on some of the Ba'th regime's laudable contributions to the field of film production. However, as a line of anonymous medieval graffiti warns from its home in Edessa church (once in Syria, now in Turkey, along with a multitude of new refugees): "Time has a habit of exiling chosen persons." Such remnants of vandalism represent history at its most illegitimate, some would say anti-social, but, despite this one's longevity, it still feels timely. How and why are certain documents from the past preserved, as both objects and as pertinent contributors to contemporary chronologies? This centuries-old statement highlights just how frequently time-in-the-abstract unfairly shoulders the blame for human history-making's doggedly political actions, its banishment of people, ideas and ways of living that contradict an ascendant mode of governance. In the case of contemporary Syria, the uprisings against the Arab socialist autocracy may or may not result in the country absorbing greater democracy and neo-liberalism. Whatever their outcome, conflicting ideologies are at war here and such upheavals are always driven by the aim of casting something off, discarding it as untimely. What should stay, and what, or whom, should be exiled?


The design of aircraft for ground manoeuvres is an essential part in satisfying the demanding requirements of the aircraft operators. Extensive analysis is done to ensure that a new civil aircraft type will adhere to these requirements, where the nonlinear nature of the problem generally adds to the complexity of such calculations. Small perturbations in velocity, steering angle or brake application may lead to significant differences in the final turn-widths that can be achieved. Here, the U-turn manoeuvre is analysed in detail, with a comparison between the two ways in which this manoeuvre is conducted. A comparison is also made between existing turn-width prediction methods that consist mainly of geometric methods and simulations, and a proposed new method that uses dynamical systems theory. Some assumptions are made with regards to the transient behaviour, where it is shown that these assumptions are conservative when an upper bound is chosen for the transient distance. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the results from the dynamical systems analysis are sufficiently close to the results from simulations to be used as a valuable design tool. Overall, dynamical systems methods provide an order of magnitude increase in analysis speed and capability for the prediction of turn-widths on the ground, compared to simulations.


In this research the influence of the use of index numbers of maintenance costs on the outcome
of cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) is analysed. First the importance of maintenance costs in decisionmaking
is researched. Then, an overview of maintenance costs for various types of infrastructure
and vehicles is made. Next, it is tried to explain possible variations in the maintenance costs. Finally,
newly estimated maintenance costs are substituted in already existing CBAs, to study its effect on
the outcome of these CBAs.
To research if maintenance costs are taken into account in decision-making, twelve interviews are
held. The interviews are held with transport authorities, rail operators, a bus operator, municipalities,
and a consultancy. Based on these interviews, it can be concluded that in general maintenance
costs are taken into account in decision-making. This is mainly the case for bus vehicles, rail vehicles,
and bus infrastructure, but less so for rail infrastructure. One way of including maintenance
costs in decision-making, is the use of a CBA.
In this study an overview of maintenance costs for five types of infrastructure and eight types of
vehicles is made. This overview, which simply is an overview of index numbers of maintenance
costs, includes both data of rail systems as well as of bus systems. The maintenance costs of rail
infrastructure and vehicles are mostly based on documents of four Dutch urban rail systems. These
documents include among others, annual plans, subsidy applications, multi-annual plans, sheets
with capital expenses, and financial results. Estimations of maintenance costs for bus infrastructure
and vehicles are based on the interviews.
It was found that maintenance costs of both rail infrastructure and rail vehicles are much higher
than maintenance costs of bus infrastructure and bus vehicles. Furthermore, metro infrastructure
has much higher maintenance costs per kilometre than tram and light rail. Metro vehicles are in
contrast, when looking at standardised vehicles with a length of 30 meter, slightly cheaper to maintain
than tram and light rail vehicles.
Some variation in maintenance costs was observed among modes, among companies, and among
municipalities. Based on the data and the interviews, multiple factors are given which can explain
these and other variations in maintenance costs.
An example is the large variation in maintenance costs between underground and aboveground
metro. The maintenance costs for underground metro can be up to eighty percent higher than the
estimated average maintenance costs for metro, where costs for aboveground metro can be around
ten to twenty percent lower than the estimated average.
Finally, the estimated maintenance costs were substituted in CBAs, to find potential influence of the
use of these index numbers on the outcome of the CBAs. It was shown that the total maintenance
costs in these evaluated situations deviate from the original results, with results ranging from a
decrease of 97 percent to an increase of 85 percent. Most projects, including all bus and metro
projects and some light rail projects, showed a decrease in maintenance costs.
These changes in maintenance costs did also result in changes in the benefit-cost ratio (b/c-ratio)
of the CBAs. This effect is relativity small for light rail and metro projects, with a maximum change
of 0.13. This change is much larger for bus projects, with a change of up to 1.20. However, in none
of the cases a change in b/c-ratio from below 1 to above 1, or vice versa, was observed.


Many versions of Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relations (TUR) have recently been discovered, which impose lower bounds on relative fluctuations of integrated currents in irreversible dissipative processes, and suggest that there may be fundamental limitations on the precision of small scale machines and heat engines. In this work we rigorously demonstrate that TUR can be evaded by using dynamic protocols that are asymmetric under time-reversal. We illustrate our results using a model heat engine using two-level systems, and also discuss heuristically the fundamental connections between TUR and time-reversal symmetry.


Agriculture currently faces many challenges including a changing climate, the need to produce more nutritionally healthier foods, concerns about environmental impacts and a growing population to provide for. This means that new technologies and methodologies need to be applied to increase the efficiency of agriculture.
Alopecurus myosuroides presents a significant challenge to crop production owing to its competitive effects on yields of arable crops in the UK and beyond. Apart from effects on yields, weeds such as this are expensive and time-consuming to control. Precisely knowing where the weed is in a field potentially allows farmers to tailor management practices to the specific site, generating better control of the weed populations year to year.
 Here I present an investigation into the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for mapping populations of A. myosuroides across multiple locations and years, whilst assessing the use of alternative machine learning techniques to model the data generated from the UAS. I undertook 3 seasons of field walking and UAS flights. This generated the largest known ground-truthed labelled dataset of remotely sensed images of an arable weed.
 Using the first year's data I developed a novel methodology for the combination of ground-based sampling in conjunction with aerial mapping to showcase the applicability of UAS for mapping A. myosuroides using linear models and random forests (published in Weed Research).
In the latter two field seasons I advanced the data collection methodology to create a more standardised process, and implemented a Convolution Neural Network, resulting in an improved ability to classify A. myosuroides in new previously unseen plots (published in Pest Management Sciences).
Finally, I assessed the use of alternative vegetation indices for the classification of A. myosuroides and compared the best performing CNN models to skilled human observers. This showed that Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI) was the optimum index and that the models performed better than the observers across all vegetation indices.
Overall, this work established:
⦁ A methodology that can be expanded for the use of UAS to map plant populations.
⦁ The suitability of CNN for mapping A. myosuroides.
⦁ How data engineering can be used to increase the performance of CNN.
⦁ The need for further analysis into the factors driving the limited transferability of models.


The non-invasive ability of infrared thermal imaging has gained interest in various food classification and recognition tasks. In this work, infrared thermal imaging was used to distinguish different pineapple cultivars, i.e., MD2, Morris, and Josapine, which were subjected to different storage temperatures, i.e., 5, 10, and 25 °C and a relative humidity of 85% to 90%. A total of 14 features from the thermal images were obtained to determine the variation in terms of image parameters among the different pineapple cultivars. Principal component analysis was applied for feature reduction in order to prevent any effect of significant difference between the selected features. Several types of machine learning algorithms were compared, including linear discriminant analysis, quadratic discriminant analysis, support vector machine, k-nearest neighbour, decision tree, and naïve Bayes, to obtain the best performance for the classification of pineapple cultivars. The results showed that support vector machine achieved the best performance from the combination of optimal image parameters with the highest classification rate of 100%. The ability of infrared thermal imaging coupled with machine learning approaches can be potentially used to distinguish pineapple cultivars, which could enhance the grading and sorting processes of the fruit.


Traditionally, CMUTs are modelled using the isotropic plate equation and this leads to deviations between analytical calculations and FEM simulations. In this paper, the deflection profile and material parameters are calculated using the anisotropic plate equation. It is shown that the anisotropic calculations match perfectly with FEM while an isotropic approach causes up to 10% deviations in deflection profile. Furthermore, we show how commonly used analytic modelling methods such as static calculations of the pull-in voltage and dynamic modelling through an equivalent circuit representation can be adjusted to include the correct anisotropic behaviour by using an effective flexural rigidity. The anisotropic calculations are also compared to experimental data from actual CMUTs showing an error of maximum 3%.


A reservoir manager at a hydropower plant has to decide whether or not to release water in order to produce electricity, and the level at which to produce. These production levels have different related efficiencies as well as other related technical aspects. Often, the plant will produce at the most efficient, i.e. release water at a rate that produces the highest amount of electricity per unit of water. In this thesis, a structural estimation model was applied to an undisclosed hydropower plant in the Norwegian electricity price zone NO5, in order to discover the managers' preferences related to the different production levels. This model is based on time series models in order to replicate the managers' expectations of future conditions. The results show a greater willingness of the manager to produce at levels below than above the best efficiency point, which we argue is mainly due to the increased level of cavitation. They also imply that the reservoir managers' preferences have changed over time, showing an increased willingness to produce at production levels both above and below the most efficient level.


Understanding the work in order to transform it is the concern of ergonomics. To expand its capacity of effective intervention this discipline gets closer to the field of engineering, especially the production engineering, searching for methods, techniques and tools, which assist it in the design process of productive facilities. The knowledge domains related to the engineering design and, specifically, the workspace design might be of a substantial contribution to the effectiveness of the incorporation of the activity's perspective (according to the concept of situated ergonomics) in this process. From a theoretical and conceptual articulation, which laid the foundation to the field research in an oil refining company, is sought the comprehension of how the different simulation supports were determinant to the incorporation of rationale, interests, constraints and expectations from the actors participating in the conception process. To achieve this comprehension is used the concept of intermediary objects of conception and their theoretical stances in the axis "commissioning-mediator" and "closed-open". The research makes evident the role the simulation supports play in the creation of simulation situations allowing divergent (and innovative) processes in the action of designing technical systems and convergent processes in the conduction of the project. The prescriptive propositions (from the practical world, including the activity's perspective) and descriptive (from the theoretical world, containing in it the exact sciences and related technical questions) are also incorporated in the articulation, allowing a dialogic process of conception. The research presents recommendations which enable the design of productive facilities to entail an ongoing and distributed conception, having the simulation as an instrument oriented to the object (design action of the technical system), to the other (coordinated action) and to the self (when encompassing space to its development, learning and transformation).


Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a robust method, which can rapidly analyze mixtures at the molecular level without requiring separation and/or purification steps, making it ideal for applications in food science. Despite its increasing popularity among food scientists, NMR is still an underutilized methodology in this area, mainly due to its high cost, relatively low sensitivity, and the lack of NMR expertise by many food scientists. The aim of this review is to help bridge the knowledge gap that may exist when attempting to apply NMR methodologies to the field of food science. We begin by covering the basic principles required to apply NMR to the study of foods and nutrients. A description of the discipline of chemometrics is provided, as the combination of NMR with multivariate statistical analysis is a powerful approach for addressing modern challenges in food science. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview of recent and key applications in the areas of compositional analysis, food authentication, quality control, and human nutrition is provided. In addition to standard NMR techniques, more sophisticated NMR applications are also presented, although limitations, gaps, and potentials are discussed. We hope this review will help scientists gain some of the knowledge required to apply the powerful methodology of NMR to the rich and diverse field of food science.


Teaching responsive to the needs of students with learning disabilities (LD) can be provided through understanding students' conceptions and their ways of learning. The current research, as a case study based on qualitative design, aimed to investigate the conceptions of students with learning disabilities with regard to the different representations of length (width, length, and height). The participants were 3 Turkish students at 4th, 5th and 6th grades recognised by the local Counselling and Research Centre (CRC) as having learning disabilities. The data were collected through semistructured and task-based interviews, and analysed via content analysis method. The findings suggest that width, length, and height conceptions of students with learning disabilities are influenced by their conceptions of length and visual-spatial abilities.


Summary 1. The behaviour of predators is rarely considered in models of predator‐prey interactions, nor is it common to include multiple predators in models of animal behaviour. 2. We introduce a model of optimal diel vertical migration in zooplankton prey facing predation from two functionally different predators, fish and other zooplankton. Zooplankton predators are themselves subject to predation from larger zooplankton, and all zooplankton face the classical trade-off between increasing growth rate and predation risk from fish towards the surface. Prey are most vulnerable to zooplankton predators at small sizes, but become more visible to fish as they grow. However, by habitat selection prey continuously manage their exposure to different sources of risk. 3. We analyse situations with cascading behavioural interactions of size-structured predator‐prey interactions in the pelagic. In particular, we explore how vertical gradients in growth rates and relative abundance of fish and zooplankton predators affect optimal distribution patterns, growth and mortality schedules. 4. A major model prediction is that prey susceptibility to one functional predator type depends on the abundance of the other predator. Higher abundance of zooplankton predators leads to risk enhancement from fish, minor increases in predation rate from zooplankton and unchanged prey growth rates. Increasing abundance of fish does not alter the risk from zooplankton predators, but reduces growth and development rates. Such asymmetric emergent effects may be common when prey and predators share the same spatial refuge from a common top predator.


Introduction This second paper of the series looks at patient/client autonomy from a practical occupational therapy perspective. A literature search of professional occupational therapy journals, books and dissertations revealed a dearth of literature with specific guidelines, particularly with reference to the South African situation, hence the need for this paper. Having considered the relevant legislation and the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) Rules in the previous article1, the focus here will be on professional ethical codes and how these require practitioners to address patient/client autonomy. The paper briefly deals with limitations to autonomy and implications for practice and proposes practical guidelines for implementation.


The practice of 'social and therapeutic horticulture' (STH) has developed from rehabilitation and occupational therapy and has been used extensively among many different vulnerable groups both in the US and the UK. However, the need for more research evidence to support the claims of its effectiveness has been recognised. This paper summarises the results of the 'Growing Together' programme, the first major study to survey the current level of STH activity in the UK and to examine its effectiveness through an in-depth study of gardening projects. It concludes that benefits arise from activities that have purpose and coherence and which promote social inclusion. These activities take place within a specific garden space that has been created, defined and decorated by project users. There is a sense of place and belonging. The natural settings of the garden projects may act as a restorative environment within the context of environmental psychology.


The development of airway obstruction is decisively influenced by the formation of emphysemata. Preventing the formation of emphysemata will have a substantial influence on the progression of obstructive airway diseases. Absolute as well as relative protease excess can be regarded as essential cause for emphysemata. Alpha 1-antitrypsine as significant protease inhibitor in alveolar regions is capable of compensating for a protease imbalance. Processes accompanied by an excess of proteases in the alveolar region should be influenced by adequate alpha 1-antitrypsine substitution to prevent the development of emphysemata. This promising preventive as well as therapeutic principle is apt to be extended and specified.


The main aim of this study is to compare and analyses the financial performance and non-financial analyses related to the corporate governance of Islamic banks, as reported in narrative communication. It also examines the presence of board impression management in leading the company through level optimism, positive emotion, and so on. The data is obtained from the annual report of two Islamic banks, which are BankIslami Pakistan Limited (BIP) from Pakistan and Warba Bank (WB) from Kuwait during 2012-2016. However, the analyses excluding 2014 because WB only provides a report in the Arabic language. Financial and other non-financial aspects comprising of country analysis, company-level analysis and narrative quality analysis are conducted to investigate the effect of how social system covers nation and company culture, governance structure, and management quality influence the performance of Islamic banks. The comprehensive content analysis method is used to measure the suitability of Islamic value and the impact of the non-financial institution; therefore, it can be the main contribution of this paper. The study found, in the financial aspects, WB has better performance that contributes to IFDI indicators and able to provide information about the source and disbursement zakat fund. Further, in non-financial performance found both Islamic banks still lack information in delivering detail contracts via uqud , environmental aspect, and code ethic of the employee. However, BIP poses bad political affairs in corruption level and role-duality within board structure that can contribute to the lack of transparency and the absence of independence.


The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is the most widely used measure to assess automatic evaluations. One classic phenomenon that has been well established both using the IAT and self-report measures of liking is evaluative conditioning (EC), which refers to a change in the evaluation of a stimulus due to its pairing with another stimulus. Research has documented that EC can also occur when participants are merely informed about upcoming stimulus pairings. In a recent study, participants reported a more negative evaluation of non-words that were instructed to be followed by an unpleasant sound compared to non-words that would not to be followed by this sound (De Houwer, Mattavelli, & Van Dessel, 2019). Interestingly, however, an unexpected pattern was observed on an IAT, that is, a preference for the stimulus said to be followed by the sound. We report three pre-registered experiments (N = 650) in which we manipulated different aspects of the procedure such as the stimuli, instructions, and the measure, but that still revealed the same dissociation. Based on three pilot experiments (N = 92), we then conducted a registered report study (Experiment 4) testing whether the unexpected effect depends on how the USs are labelled in the instructions. Although describing the aversive sound as negative eliminated the unexpected IAT effect, the type of instruction only had a weak impact on IAT effects. These results are in line with prior evidence showing that IAT scores are malleable.


This paper describes how current developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be exploited to enhance a smooth implementation of Kilimo Kwanza (Agriculture First) in Tanzania. It defines Kilimo Kwanza and provides a brief overview of the historical development of ICT in Tanzania. The use of ICT can enhance implementation of Kilimo Kwanza through improved quality of research and training to stakeholders, reduced administrative costs and enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in information access, retrieval, processing, storing and dissemination. The paper highlights constraints limiting effective use of ICT in Tanzania and makes recommendations if the benefits of ICT in implementation of Kilimo Kwanza are to be realized.


Subject scheduling is an important element in teaching and learning activities in schools. Scheduling lessons often take a long time due to many factors such as determining teacher teaching hours allocation, the limited number of teachers and teaching in a large number of classes. The problem that often arises is the clash of teaching hours at the same time. One solution to scheduling problems is through the optimization method of Genetic Algorithms. Genetic Algorithms are methods inspired by Mendell's theory of genetics and evolution to solve problems that require optimization. The constraints that were used as constraints in this study were clashing hours of teaching teachers and clashing the same class at the same time. In this study, the results of implementing Genetic Algorithms as a method of optimizing lesson scheduling have not yet obtained optimal results. The solution with the best fitness value is achieved by the number of chromosomes as many as 20, the number of generations is 200, the probability of crossover (Pc) 0.5 and the probability value of mutation (Pm) is from 0.15 to 0.35. The fastest time for Pm value is 0.15 for 91.22 seconds, while for Pm value of 0.35, it takes 91.65 seconds.


The results of skin tests in three quinine-sensitive subjects with 42–48 cinchona alkaloids, including several pairs and one quartette of optical isomers, and with some chemically related substances show that the allergic reactions rest on somewhat different chemical bases in all three cases. In the optically isomeric quartette, quinine (ddll), epiquinine (ddld), epiquinidine (dddl) and quinidine (dddd) all three had allergic reactions to quinine that did not appear on administration of quinidine, and judging from skin tests were possibly insensitive to both epialkaloids also.
 Results with five of the more common alkaloids in a fourth individual, with coryzal reaction to quinine, are given. Two other subjects, with urticarial reaction to quinine, had no such side effect from quinidine. These subjects with allergic reactions to quinine did not give positive skin scratch reactions to quinine.
 A female subject with bleeding from the genital tract as a result of quinine administration was similarly affected by quinidine.


The C-O stretching frequency (nu(CO)) of atop CO/Pt in PtRu alloys is compositionally tuned in proportion to the Pt mole percent. The application of a Blyholder-Bagus type mechanism (i.e., increased back-donation from the metal d-band to the hybridized 2pi CO molecular orbitals (MOs)) to compositional tuning has been paradoxical because (1) a Pt-C bond contraction, expected with increased back-donation as the Pt mole percent is reduced, is not observed (i.e., calculated Pt-C bond is either elongated or insensitive to alloying and the binding energies of CO/Pt decrease with alloying) and (2) the lowering d-band center and increased d-band vacancies upon alloying (suggesting less back-donation to the higher energy metal hybridized 2pi CO MOs) must be reconciled with the alloy-induced red shift of the nu(CO). A library of spin-optimized Pt and Pt alloy clusters was the basis of density functional theory (DFT) calculations of CO binding energies, nu(CO) values, shifts, and broadening of 5sigma/2pi CO MO upon hybridization with the alloy orbitals and a DFT derived Mulliken electron population analysis. The DFT results, combined with FEFF8 local density of states (LDOS) calculations, validate a 5sigma donation-2pi back-donation mechanism, reconciling the direction of alloy compositional tuning with the lowering of the d-band center and increased vacancies. Although the d-band center decreases in energy with alloying, an asymmetric increase in the dispersion of the d-band is accompanied by an upshift of the metal cluster HOMO level. Concomitantly, the hybridization and renormalization of the CO 5sigma/2pi states results in a broadening of the 5sigma/2pi manifold with additional lower energy states closer to the upshifted (with respect to the pure Pt cluster) HOMO of the alloy cluster. The dispersion toward higher energies of the alloy d-density of states results in more 5sigma/2pi CO filled states (i.e., enhanced 2pi-back-donation). Finally, Mulliken and FEFF8 electron population analysis shows that the increase of the average d-band vacancies upon alloying and additional 2pi back-donation are not mutually exclusive. The d-electron density of the CO-adsorbed Pt atom increases with alloying while the average d-electron density throughout the cluster is reduced. The localized electron density is manifested as an electrostatic wall effect, preventing the Pt-C bond contractions expected with increased back-donation to the 2pi CO MOs.


The feasibility of training an artificial neural network (ANN) for accurately predicting transient water levels in a complex multilayered ground-water system under variable state, pumping, and climate conditions is demonstrated. Using real-world data, an ANN was developed for a public supply wellfield and ground-water monitoring network located near Tampa Bay, Florida. The ANN was trained to predict transient water levels at 12 monitoring well locations screened in different aquifers in response to changing pumping and climate conditions. The trained ANN was then validated with ten sequential seven-day periods, and the results were compared against both measured and numerically simulated ground-water levels. The absolute mean error between the ANN predicted and the measured water levels is 0.16 m, compared to the 0.85 m absolute mean error achieved with the calibrated numerical model at the same locations over the same time period. The ANN also more closely reproduced the dynamic water level responses to pumping and climate conditions. The practical implication is that if ANN technology can achieve superior ground-water level predictions, it can be used to improve management strategies for a wide range of ground-water problems, from water quantity to water quality issues. It can also serve as a powerful sensitivity analysis tool for quantifying interrelationships between different variables, fostering a better understanding of the hydrogeologic system, and improving future modeling endeavors. And while physical-based numerical modeling retains some advantages over the ANN technology, both approaches may be used in a complementary fashion to achieve sound decision-making for complicated ground-water management problems.


The family of IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) standards supports multiple transmission rates in the physical layer (PHY). This multi-rate capability offers a viable means of coping with dynamically-fluctuating wireless channel conditions. We propose a cross-layer approach for the optimal PHY mode control to maximize the system goodput. Our key idea is to exploit the underlying channel fading characteristics and the history of PHY mode control and observations to infer the current channel condition, so that the optimal PHY mode may be selected. Assuming Rayleigh fading, we describe the receiver-side signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) fluctuations as a finite-state Markov channel (FSMC) model. Since the channel condition (i.e., fading level) is not directly observable by the transmitter, we formulate the PHY rate adaptation problem as a partially-observable Markov decision process (POMDP) to find the optimal transmission policy. We use the belief state vector to represent the channel state probabilistically. The belief state is updated solely based on the channel state-transition matrix and acknowledgement (ACK) information. Our evaluation results show that the POMDP-based rate adaptation outperforms two most well-known rate adaptation schemes, Auto Rate Fallback (ARF) and Adaptive ARF (AARF), in terms of average goodput under various fading conditions, and achieves up to 92% of the ideal performance.


In this paper, we introduce spatial attention for refining the information in multi-direction neural beamformer for far-field automatic speech recognition. Previous approaches of neural beamformers with multiple look directions, such as the factored complex linear projection, have shown promising results. However, the features extracted by such methods contain redundant information, as only the direction of the target speech is relevant. We propose using a spatial attention subnet to weigh the features from different directions, so that the subsequent acoustic model could focus on the most relevant features for the speech recognition. Our experimental results show that spatial attention achieves up to 9% relative word error rate improvement over methods without the attention.


Background—Mutations in SCN2B, encoding voltage-gated sodium channel &bgr;2-subunits, are associated with human cardiac arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation and Brugada syndrome. Because of this, we propose that &bgr;2-subunits play critical roles in the establishment or maintenance of normal cardiac electric activity in vivo. Methods and Results—To understand the pathophysiological roles of &bgr;2 in the heart, we investigated the cardiac phenotype of Scn2b null mice. We observed reduced sodium and potassium current densities in ventricular myocytes, as well as conduction slowing in the right ventricular outflow tract region. Functional reentry, resulting from the interplay between slowed conduction, prolonged repolarization, and increased incidence of premature ventricular complexes, was found to underlie the mechanism of spontaneous polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. Scn5a transcript levels were similar in Scn2b null and wild-type ventricles, as were levels of Nav1.5 protein, suggesting that similar to the previous work in neurons, the major function of &bgr;2-subunits in the ventricle is to chaperone voltage-gated sodium channel &agr;-subunits to the plasma membrane. Interestingly, Scn2b deletion resulted in region-specific effects in the heart. Scn2b null atria had normal levels of sodium current density compared with wild type. Scn2b null hearts were more susceptible to atrial fibrillation, had increased levels of fibrosis, and higher repolarization dispersion than wild-type littermates. Conclusions—Genetic deletion of Scn2b in mice results in ventricular and atrial arrhythmias, consistent with reported SCN2B mutations in human patients.


The international competition and the demand to increase productivity of manufacturing and production lines have attracted the management of industrial organisations from a wide spectrum to implement Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) as a tool for improving productivity and system's output. Some Libyan companies are still facing many problems concerning maintenance activities of assets. Inadequate maintenance can have cost impact on the maintenance performance and production. Following the privatisation of the Cement industry in Libya, companies are now interested in improving productivity, reducing cost, improving maintenance procedures and reducing the negative effect on the environment. To address the above issues within the Libyan industry, this research presents an investigation into the need for implementation of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) in Libyan cement industry. TPM is a generic maintenance philosophy that transforms maintenance activities from what is considered to be the 'necessary evil' into an essential part of the business. In TPM, maintenance and downtime is integrated within the production system and scheduled as an essential part of the manufacturing process. This thesis investigates the problems facing four cement factories in Libya. Following a comprehensive literature review around the research problem; case studies, statistical data, semi-structured interviews, detailed questionnaires and site visits are utilised to evaluate and understand the problems within the four factories. Based on the analysis, this thesis suggests a new Framework and associated models for implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and identifying the key Factors to improve the overall maintenance performance.


The quantum dynamics of two weakly coupled nonlinear oscillators is analytically and numerically investigated in the context of nonlinear dissipation. The latter facilitates the creation and preservation of nonclassical steady states. Starting from a microscopic description of two oscillators individually interacting with their dissipative environments, it is found that in addition to energy relaxation, dephasing arises due to the mutual coupling. Using the negativity as an entanglement measure, it is shown that the coupling entangles the oscillators in the long-time limit. For finite temperatures, entanglement sudden death and rebirth are observed.


Accurate delineation of drainage networks is critical for many hydrologically related applications. The commonly used methods for drainage network extraction from digital elevation models (DEMs) have limitations in low-relief terrain areas. High-quality DEMs are required for effectively applying these methods in extracting drainage networks in low-relief terrains. Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) offers high-accuracy terrain data. With LiDAR data, high-accuracy and high-resolution DEMs can be generated. The results of drainage network extraction for two sub-catchments on the western Victorian Volcanic Plains (VVP) are reported. Drainage networks and some parameters describing drainage network composition, including the stream orders, the numbers of streams and the stream lengths, were derived from both the LiDAR DEM and the Vicmap DEM. The LiDAR-derived DEM is shown to offer significantly more detail, especially for delineating low-order stream (headwater) segments in sub-catchments of low-relief terrain.


The social distancing necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about many changes in education where teachers and learners have had to move, willingly or unwillingly, from presence to distance. While schools and universities are mentioned, the field of leisure is often overlooked, but this field also includes many other forms of more or less formal educational activities, especially in the arts, culture and sports. However, these activities have also had to deal with containment measures. The case of dance as a leisure activity involving amateurs and professionals seems particularly interesting to us, in that a number of dance teachers earn a living from this teaching as self-employed workers, while for their students it is an amateur activity intended to give them pleasure through participation in parties or shows―these, like dance classes, are prohibited social encounters when containment measures are in place and challenging when it comes to maintaining social distancing. To what extent have the practices of professional and amateur dancers adapted to this new reality?

We conducted a survey among professionals and amateurs practicing a variety of dance styles, and asked them about their relationship with dance and their practices during lockdown. This survey was disseminated mainly in France and Canada, via the social network Facebook, which is very popular with dancers at all times. The survey is still open at the time of writing this proposal and the responses received so far show that 85% of respondents feel they belong to a community of dancers and that half of them normally take classes several times a week and attend a convention at least once a year. Whether they teach or not, the dancers surveyed present distance education as a way out, because they cannot be in the presence of others, and point to several difficulties related to distance dance training. The primary challenges identified are the lack of interaction and possibilities for making corrections to movements, and additional problems mentioned include the lack of a partner for couple dances, trouble with positioning for group choreographic dances, the discrepancy between sound and image in videoconferencing, and even the difficulty of finding a space conducive to performing movements at home. Although two thirds of the amateur dancers do not think that they will continue taking online classes once in-person classes can resume, they nevertheless appreciate the possibility of continuing their learning with their teachers and, in particular, with other instructors who are geographically distant and with whom they would not have been able to take regular classes.

To conclude, we will discuss the diversity of distance training that continues to be developed in the field of dance, both at a distance through online courses, and in person with dance practices that respect social distancing, with the follower being guided by the leader without a physical connection between them. This is comparable to a Wi-Fi connection working without hardware.