In 144 C.E., at his own command, the dying sophist Polemon was carried before dawn to his family tomb outside the gates of Laodicea and buried alive. He urged the men closing up the tomb to hurry, so that the sun would never see him speechless; to his friends, overcome with grief, he cried out in a loud voice: "Give me a body and I will declaim!" ([LANGUGAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 544). (1) A grand performer to the end, Polemon makes his last appearance in Philostratus longing not for extended life, but for a chance to perform once more-a remarkable request, made more so by the fact that he specifies precisely what kind of performance he would like to give: a [LANGUAGE NOT PRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] one of several types of formal speech commonly performed by Greek sophists of the imperial period in their masterly displays of epideictic oratory. With their shocking fusion of melodramatic theatricality and deadly seriousness, Polemon's last words crystallize the strains shot through the relationship between an cient manly virtue and its performance- strains that I shall read against the backdrop of contemporary ethical thought and in the broader terms of Greek cultural identity under the Roman empire. Marcus Antonius Polemon was one of a highly competitive assortment of Greekspeaking orators known as "sophists" who visited urban centers throughout much of the Mediterranean world giving epideictic performances based on mythological narratives and classical thought; rephrasing, for instance, Demosthenes' Against Leptines (attested in VS 527) or giving voice to Xenophon's imagined plea to be executed alongside Socrates (VS 542); or transforming Odysseus' reproach to the Achaeans in Iliad Book 2 into stylish prose (Tiberius, [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 11.538). Active throughout the early and middle principate, these men also worked as imperial legates and as informal mediators between Greek cities in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire and, in these and other circumstances, gave speeches on current events. (2) Their Severan biographer Philostratus, with some exaggeration, named the period of their prominence a[LANGUAGE NOT REPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII], explaining, "it must not be called new, since i t is old, but rather second," following the sophistic movement in fifth- and fourth-century Athens (VS 481). (3) The last thirty years have witnessed something of a scholarly explosion on the Second Sophistic (or. to call it by a more neutral term, the Greek imperial period) which has featured innovative work on the Greek novel as well as the sophists' oratorical performances. (4) Recently, the period has been viewed in the light of the historical and philosophical developments sketched out in the third volume of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality. (5) Foucault draws attention to the gradually intensified energy directed by Greek and Roman imperial writers along the following lines: the fashioning of an internally constructed and managed self, as opposed to the "natural" development of an individual actor shaped by and subject to the external laws of civic society; and the specific disciplinary practices through which the self is contemplated and maintained, practices that generally uphold and justify dominant hierarchies of gender, ethnicity, and class. In Foucault's writings, it is the philosophers and physicians active in the Latin-speaking West, notably the younger Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch, Galen, and Marcus Aurelius, who dominate the ethical discourse of selfhood in the first three centuries C.E. Added to his list, as I am not the first to suggest, must be the sophists, who, as learned men [LANGUAGE NOT REPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII] and walking exemplars of elite Greek culture, well-read in classical philosophy and familiar with the principles of physiognomy and medicine, were expert participants in the cultural experience Foucault characterizes as "the care of the self." (6) It is unquestionably the case that the sophists, particularly in their role as teachers of elite youth, espoused and advocated many of the beliefs and practices Foucault describes. …


We use an updated model for global relative plate motions during the past 130 m.y. together with a compilation of bathymetry and recently published radiometric dates of major hotspot tracks to derive a plate-motion model relative to major hotspots in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Interactive computer graphics were used to find the best fit of dated hotspot tracks on the Australian, Indian, African, and North and South American plates relative to present-day hotspots assumed fixed in the mantle. One set of rotation parameters can be found that satisfies all data constraints back to chron 34 (84 Ma) and supports little motion between the major hotspots in this hemisphere. For times between 130 and 84 Ma, the plate model is based solely on the trails of the Tristan da Cunha and Great Meteor hotspots. This approach results in a location of the Kerguelen hotspot distinct from and south of the Rajmahal Traps for this time interval. Between 115 and 105 Ma, our model locates the hotspot underneath the southern Kerguelen Plateau, which is compatible with an age estimate of this part of the plateau of 115-95 Ma. Our model suggests that the 85°E ridge between lat 10°N and the Afanasiy Nikitin seamounts may have been formed by a hotspot now located underneath the eastern Conrad rise.


Slit-Robo could be a cell signaling pathway with numerous functions such as axon steering and ontogenesis. Slit is a secreted macromolecule and most generally referred to as a repulsive axon steering cue, and Robo as its trans-membrane macromolecular receptor. This ligand-receptor combination has been concerned in different kind of neuronal and non-neuronal processes starting from cell migration to ontogenesis, tumorigenesis and organogenesis like kidneys, lungs and breasts, etc.
Roundabout receptors (Robo) and their Slit ligands were detected in axon steering. Slit was primarily associate degree extracellular matrix super molecule and expressed by plane interstitial tissue in fruit fly. Slits acted as chemorepellents for axons crossing the plane in vertebrates and invertebrates. The origin of Robo proteins were from fruit fly in an exceedingly mutant screening for genes concerned with the regulation of plane crossing. This ligandreceptor try has been involved exceedingly in somatic cell and non-neuronal processes starting from cell migration to maturation, tumorigenesis and organogenesis of tissues like kidneys, lungs and breasts, etc. This pathway act as a substance receptor pathway where Slit proteins bind with Robo receptors and convert signals for axon steering through plane commissures. Recent studies have confronted the role of this signal in numerous fields outside ontogeny like maturation and cancer progression. Here the fundamental framework of Slit/Robo structure and its general pathway with special stress on its operation in stomach cancer are summarized.


Metallic nanoclusters form a family of novel materials with atomically defined hybrid organic/inorganic structures. Among these materials, clusters containing 44 silver atoms have emerged as one of the most interesting, because of their exceptional electronic and optical properties. Recently synthetic progresses made possible their crystallisation. Crystals of Ag44 clusters form what is defined as a superlattice, a periodic three dimensional structure, whose properties are expected to depend on the collective interaction of its constituents. In this thesis, clusters with a molecular formula Ag((SC6H4F)30)4-€" have been crystallized in the presence of four tetraphenyl phosponium [(C6H5)4P+] counterions and the crystals have been fully characterized. The response of these crystals to an external electric field was then tested in a two- and four- terminal configuration, and showed conductivity switching at high voltages between a less and a more conductive phase. Single crystal X-ray diffraction measurements showed that each of the conductive phase was characterized by a different crystal structure, suggesting an electric-field induced phase transition. The change in properties is attributed to the collective displacement of the tetraphenyl phosphonium counterions, which causes a change in orientation of 3 of the 30 fluorophenyl thiols that coat the cluster. Overall all these local changes lead to a global redistribution of the charges in the crystal. To the best of my knowledge, this work presents the first experimental observation of the phenomenon due to a collective behavior in a crystal of nanoclusters as well as in a crystal with more than 1000 atoms in the unit cell.


The invariator principle is a measure decomposition that was rediscovered in local stereology in 2005 and has since been used widely in the stereological literature. We give an exposition of invariator related results where existing formulae are generalized and new ones proposed. In particular, we look at rotational Crofton-type formulae that are obtained by combining the invariator principle and classical Crofton formulae. This results in geometrical quantities represented as averages over weighted Crofton-type integrals in linear sections. We refer to these weighted integrals as measurement functions and derive several, more explicit representations of these functions. In particular, we use Morse theory to write the measurement functions in terms of critical values of the sectioned object. This is very useful for surface area estimation.


and security risks taken place from the application of different data mining techniques to great organizational data storehouses have been exclusively inspected by a new research domain, the so-called privacy preserving data mining. Association rule hiding is one of the privacy preserving techniques which study the problem of hiding sensitive association rules. There are many algorithms and techniques were developed to solve this problem. In this research work, we have used genetic algorithm optimization technique for protecting sensitive association rules.


Representing the Northeastern Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES), this document is one of the entries in the Ten Hundred and One Word Challenge. As part of the challenge, the 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers were invited to represent their science in images, cartoons, photos, words and original paintings, but any descriptions or words could only use the 1000 most commonly used words in the English language, with the addition of one word important to each of the EFRCs and the mission of DOE energy. The mission of NECCEC is to identify the key atomic-scale processes which govern electrode function in rechargeable batteries, over a wide range of time and length scales, via the development and use of novel characterization and theoretical tools, and to use this information to identify and design new battery systems.


A complete simulation for the regional water cycle and the catchment-scale hydrological response to climate change requires hydro-meteorological models, which represent the relevant processes taking place in the atmosphere, at the land surface, and in the subsurface, as well as their interactions. In this study, a coupled Atmospheric and Hydrological Modelling System (AHMS) is developed by two-way coupling the atmospheric model WRF and the distributed hydrological model HMS via the land surface model Noah-MP LSM. This fully coupled system enables to explicitly describe hydrological processes for the atmospheric modelling at catchment and continental scale. The Huaihe basin in China is selected as a study case.
A new parameterization of hillslope runoff is developed by considering the effect of hillslope topography on infiltration capacity. This new parameterization is first applied in the coupled land surface and hydrological model NoahMP-HMS that is offline driven by surface meteorological data. The offline simulations with and without the new parameterization are compared to the observations. The comparison shows that this new parametrization significantly enhances the production of surface runoff. By including this enhancement in the runoff estimates, the NoahMP-HMS can reproduce the hydrological processes within the Huaihe basin and the regional water balance at high precision. It is revealed by the statistical evaluations. The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficients (NSIs) are 0.67, 0.81, and 0.80 for the simulated daily streamflow from 1980 to 1987 at three hydrological stations in the main river; and their water balance indexes (WBIs) are close to 1.0.
The spatiotemporal variability of hydrological processes in the basin is studied, based on the NoahMP-HMS simulation from 1979 to 2003. On monthly scale, the change of water storage in the aquifer is linearly correlated to net precipitation. Due to a large amount of net precipitation from June to August, the groundwater table starts uplifting from June and reaches its maximum in September. Over the basin, deep groundwater is found in the mountains, and shallow groundwater at the foothills of the mountains and in the downstream plains. The monthly precipitation largely determines the monthly runoff in the basin, nevertheless, the runoff shows a larger temporal variability. Throughout the year, the groundwater continuously supplies water for the rivers, while the surface runoff shows an obvious monthly variation. Furthermore, the runoff coefficients in the mountains are significantly higher than in the plains, which implies a high flood risk by the intense rainfall in this region.
The AHMS with the new parameterization is used for the coupled atmospheric and hydrological simulation in the Huaihe basin from July to November 1991. The evaluation of AHMS results with the observations indicates that the AHMS performs well in modelling atmospheric variables and provides reasonable daily streamflow estimates (NSIs = 0.55, WBIs = 0.63–0.79). Compared to the stand-alone WRF simulation, the soil water dynamics behaves differently in the AHMS simulation, on which the impact of hydrological processes is associated with groundwater depth. Under suction of deep unsaturated soil and gravity effect, soil drainage occurring at the bottom of soil model domain is higher than gravitational drainage (in WRF); it results in drier soil conditions in the mountains. Groundwater is capable of moistening overlaying soil by capillary rise; these capillary fluxes widely occur in the relatively deep groundwater region, especially in dry soil conditions, which efficiently recharges soil water content. Besides, gravitational water can accumulate above groundwater table and laterally flows, which is described in the AHMS but not in the WRF; consequently, the soil moisture in the shallow groundwater region (depths of 0–2 m) is significantly higher (increased by 26%) in the AHMS.
Due to the spatial variation of groundwater depth in the basin, the impact of the coupled atmospheric and hydrological simulation on soil moisture presents a large spatial variability. Consistently, the shift of evaporation and air temperature exhibits a similar spatial patter as that of soil moisture. On average, the embedment of hydrological processes into the AHMS results in higher soil moisture (by 7%) and evaporation (by 8%), as well as lower air temperature (-0.2 oC) in the Huaihe basin. Their effect on basin-averaged precipitation is insignificant, but results in a spatial redistribution of precipitation in the basin, with local changes up to ±30%.
In summary, the simple, but efficient parameterization of hillslope runoff is achieved. Benefiting from it, the model captures well the hydrological processes in the Huaihe basin. The AHMS can appropriately simulate the atmospheric and the hydrological processes at catchment scale, and their interaction.


We study spin tunneling in magnetic molecules, with special reference to Fe8. The article aims to give a pedagogical discussion of what is meant by the tunneling of a spin, and how tunneling amplitudes or energy level splittings may be calculated using path integral and discrete phase integral methods. In the case of Fe8, an issue of great interest is the oscillatory tunnel splittings as a function of applied magnetic field that have recently been observed. These oscillations are due to the occurrence of diabolical points in the magnetic field space. It is shown how this effect comes about in both the path-integral and the discrete phase integral methods. In the former it arises due to the presence of a Berry-like phase in the action, which gives rise to an interference between tunneling trajectories. In the latter, it arises due to the presence of further neighbor terms in the recursion relation for the energy eigenfunction. These terms give rise to turning points which have no analog in the onedimensional continuum quasiclassical method. Explicit results are obtained for the location of the diabolical points in Fe8.


In the pursuit of synthesizing unsymmetrical complexant molecules with frustrated Lewis pairs for potential use in SANEX-type processes, a recently published method has been developed for the cleavage of BOC-protecting groups on various deactivated substrates. Under mild conditions, BOC-protected indoles, 1,2-indazoles, imidazoles, and 1,2-pyrazoles were deprotected utilizing addition-elimination reactions with nucleophilic primary amines. In comparison to more common BOC-deprotection methods, such as treatment with mineral acids, reducing agents, or Lewis acids, these mild conditions afford a feasible means to deprotect heterocycles that are acid sensitive, thereby expanding the scope of potential protection-deprotection synthetic methodologies relevant to many branches of chemistry. Synthesis of BOC-protected substrates, condition optimization, purification protocol, and substrate scope will be discussed.


Efficient application provisioning is one of the most important issues in Cloud Computing today. For that purpose, various provisioning automation technologies have been developed that can be generally categorized into two different flavors: (i) declarative approaches are based on describing the desired goals whereas (ii) imperative approaches are used to describe explicit sequences of low-level tasks. Since modern Cloud-based business applications become more and more complex, employ a plethora of heterogeneous components and services that must be wired, and require complex configurations, the two kinds of technologies have to be integrated to model the provisioning of such applications. In this paper, we present a process modelling concept that enables the seamless integration of imperative and declarative provisioning models and their technologies while preserving the strengths of both flavors. We validate the technical feasibility of the approach by applying the concept to the workflow language BPEL and evaluate its features by several criteria.


This communication elaborates a case study in Kerala, where 61 surveys have been conducted from 1990 to 2008 in 21 protected areas and reserve forests in the southern Western Ghats for monitoring bird fauna using the amateur bird-watcher network. Four different methodologies have been used in these surveys, with encounter-based transects being the most common. A significant result of these surveys is in identifying the relative conservation value of these forest areas in protecting endemic and threatened avifauna.


Teleost fish represent unique models to study the role of neuroestrogens because of the extremely high activity of brain aromatase (AroB; the product of cyp19a1b). Aromatase respectively converts androstenedione and testosterone to estrone and 17beta-estradiol (E2). Specific inhibition of aromatase activity by fadrozole has been shown to impair estrogen production and influence neuroendocrine and reproductive functions in fish, amphibians, and rodents. However, very few studies have identified the global transcriptomic response to fadrozole-induced decline of estrogens in a physiological context. In our study, sexually mature prespawning female goldfish were exposed to fadrozole (50 mcirog/l) in March and April when goldfish have the highest AroB activity and maximal gonadal size. Fadrozole treatment significantly decreased serum E2 levels (4.7 times lower; P = 0.027) and depressed AroB mRNA expression threefold in both the telencephalon (P = 0.021) and the hypothalamus (P = 0.006). Microarray expression profiling of the telencephalon identified 98 differentially expressed genes after fadrozole treatment (q value <0.05). Some of these genes have shown previously to be estrogen responsive in either fish or other species, including rat, mouse, and human. Gene ontology analysis together with functional annotations revealed several regulatory themes for physiological estrogen action in fish brain that include the regulation of calcium signaling pathway and autoregulation of estrogen receptor action. Real-time PCR verified microarray data for decreased (activin-betaA) or increased (calmodulin, ornithine decarboxylase 1) mRNA expression. These data have implications for our understanding of estrogen actions in the adult vertebrate brain.


In this study, we aim to find an optimally sized battery that can be installed to an existing grid-tied solar home system without a prior energy storage system, in order to maximize the user's financial benefits while maintaining reliable power supply to the home. To solve this optimization problem, we formulate the objective function as the net present value of the investment on the battery. Solution to the optimization problem returns the optimal battery size, power flows and battery age status during a 10-year evaluation period. In order to identify the most favorable solution to the user, we apply the proposed optimization algorithm to five typical photovoltaic (PV) generation and home load levels, and find that the optimal battery size is very sensitive to the level of PV power generation and the home load. In addition, it is more financially viable to have the battery when the daily PV power generation is less than the home load.


: The article analyses the purpose of audit in the current market economy. The article focuses on the demand for the audit. The article presents theories of audit (Policeman theory, Lending credibility theory, Theory of inspired confidence and Agency theory) and hypothesis of existence of audit (Monitoring hypothesis, Information hypothesis and Insurance hypothesis). These theories explain the reasons for the existence of the audit and its functions. These theories and hypothesis are compared with the factors determined as crucial for forming the demand for audit services. The article compares the results to the current development and repetitive misstatements in audited financial statements. The results and presents the reasons for that.


Slowly reacting enzymatic variants of the Lee strain of influenza B virus were isolated by the serial application of a technique which concentrated the fraction of the virus population obtained by slow elution followed by passage of this fraction at high dilution in chicken embryos. The variants were stable upon serial passage in chicken embryos and did not differ significantly from the parent virus in any of the characteristics tested other than those relating to the virus enzyme. Enzymatically, the variants had a much slower rate of activity on chicken mucoproteins than the parent virus. Their activity was greater at 25°C. than at 37°C. and was much enhanced by calcium ions and depressed by a calcium chelating agent. The enzyme of the variant virus was more labile to heat than that of the parent virus although their hemagglutinins were equally stable. It was estimated that the variants comprised less than 3 per cent of the original population of the Lee strain of influenza B virus particles.


Meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is vital to distributing heat, freshwater, and dissolved matter in semienclosed deep marginal seas such as the East Sea (ES) (Sea of Japan). As our understanding of the ES MOC remains incomplete, we attempted to fill this research gap. We analyzed the ES MOC and its decadal change (1993–2012), employing Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) global reanalysis. We found that the ES MOC, consisting of two counterrotating overturning cells in the late 1990s, changed into a single full-depth cell in the 2000s and reverted to two cells in the 2010s. The decadal change relates to weakening of the southward western boundary current at the intermediate layer and northward eastern boundary currents at the deep abyssal layer. We propose that surface warming and salinification favored reduced intermediate water formation and enhanced bottom water formation in the northwestern ES in the 2000s and were, therefore, key to the decadal change. Conditions unfavorable to intermediate water formation and favorable to bottom water formation in the winters of the 2000s, compared with the late 1990s, enhanced northward (westward) Ekman transport in the southern (northeastern) ES, successive advection of surface warm, saline water into water formation areas, and air–sea heat and freshwater exchanges linked to the January Arctic Oscillation. Our results indicated that the ES MOC is sensitive to both external atmospheric forcing and internal ES processes, which have implications for significant changes in the response of other marginal seas and global oceans to future climate variability.


The advanced nondestructive method of neutron tomography, together with image analysis, is used to evaluate the structural evolution of an aggregated soil during one‐dimensional compression tests. Aggregation of primary particles is a commonly observed phenomenon in natural and compacted soils that causes an open soil structure with two dominant pore sizes corresponding to macropores (interaggregates) and micropores (intra‐aggregates). The evolution of macroporosity and the degradation of structures are evaluated by means of morphological parameters such as volume fraction, size distribution, and chord length. Change in the structure is then linked to the macroscopic soil response. It is observed that the major structural modifications are associated with irreversible strains in soil.


ABSTRACT Purpose The aim of this study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of persons providing home care for community-dwelling relative with heart failure (HF) in Jordan. Design: It was a phenomenological study. Methods: Data were collected through interviews with 29 participants and analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Findings: Four core themes have emerged: caregiving as a mandatory responsibility, positive experiences, negative experiences, and factors influencing the quality of the experiences. Conclusion: Although the hallmark of the participants' experience was negative, they showed a strong commitment to caring for their ill relatives. Clinical Evidence: The findings underscore the need for frequent assessment and support of family caregivers.


An experimental validation of a 3D kinetic, Monte Carlo model for simulation of microstructural evolution during solid state sintering will be presented. The model – a statistical mechanical model, which can simulate curvature-driven grain growth, pore migration, and vacancy formation, diffusion and annihilation – is validated by comparing microstructural evolution obtained experimentally for a copper powder compact. The 3D microstructural evolution of copper powder particles sintering was imaged in-situ by microtomography. The images show particles with internal porosity percolating through the particles. Microstructural features – e.g., neck formation and growth – from the experimental images as well as the overall densification rates are compared to the simulations.


CASE DESCRIPTION The primary subject matter of this case involves the use of GAP analysis to measure the interest-rate risk exposure of a credit union. Secondary issues examined include interest-rate changes in the economy overtime and the Fisher Effect. The case has a difficulty level appropriate for junior level students and is designed to be taught in about 45 minutes. This case could be used for classes in money and banking (economics), managerial economics, depository institutions management and possibly other management courses. CASE SYNOPSIS This case could be used to familiarize students with the balance sheet of a credit union and to understand the interest-rate risk that results from the nature of a depository institution's balance sheet. Students will also learn to calculate a GAP analysis for the credit union and to critically analyze the GAP methodology used by credit union management and are asked to offer an opinion on what this credit union could do to manage their interest-rate risk. INTRODUCTION Gem State Credit Union (GSCU) is a medium sized credit union located in the mountain west. In 2002, it had $50 million in assets and a relatively healthy capital-to-asset ratio of around nine percent. Increasingly, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has emphasized that credit unions show that they understand interest-rate risk due to their asset/liability structure and that they are able to manage it. In their examinations of credit unions, they look in the board of directors' minutes for evidence that the board does monitor its asset/liability structure. Also, many credit unions now have an asset/liability management (ALM) committee that typically meet monthly to examine their asset/liability structure and recommend to the board any changes in interest rates or products that are needed to limit their interest-rate risk. GSCU soundly passed their annual NCUA examination in the spring of 2002. This case takes a closer look at the ALM analysis done by GSCU. Les Norris has been the CEO of GSCU for the past 24 years, having brought it back from the brink of bankruptcy when he was hired in 1980. He is the chair of the ALM committee. Also serving on the committee are Ken Whitmore, VP of operations, John Harris, VP of lending, and Bob Thomas, chairman of the board of directors and president of G&T Economics, an econometric forecasting firm. Members of the ALM committee have worked well together for several years, but recent economic developments have caused a divergence in opinions as to how to set future rates. WHY IS ASSET/LIABILITY MANAGEMENT NEEDED? Depository institutions (DIs), which include banks, savings and loan associations and credit unions, have two major types of risks. Credit risk is the risk a DI takes when it makes a loan that may not be paid back in full. When a loan is not paid back in full the unpaid portion must be charged-off, which reduces the DI's capital and profits. DIs try to manage credit risk by screening and monitoring borrowers. Interest--rate risk results in changes of profitability that a DI experiences from changes in interest rates in the economy. This risk is transmitted through their asset/liability structure, since asset yields and liability costs (largely interest paid on deposits) will have different sensitivities to interest changes. For example, a classic case of interest-rate risk that caused major problems happened to savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the 1980's. The major assets for S&Ls were home mortgages, which typically are long-term loans of 15 to 30 years. Also, all mortgages until the mid- 1970's had fixed-interest rates, as most also have today. However, the major liabilities for S&Ls were savings deposits. Thus, the S&Ls had a maturity mismatch of assets and liabilities. Their assets had long-term maturities while their liabilities had short-term maturities and were much more interest rate sensitive. …


Computer vision is a rapidly growing field devoted to analyzing, modifying, and high-level understanding of images. Its objective is to determine what is happening in front of a camera and use that understanding to control a computer or robotic system, or to provide people with new images that are more informative or aesthetically pleasing than the original camera images. Application areas for computer-vision technology include video surveillance, biometrics, automotive, photography, movie production, Web search, medicine, augmented reality gaming, new user interfaces, and many more.


Abstract Currently, there is no precise information on the degree of transformation of Tropical Andes hotspot landscape and native ecosystems due to the intensification of agricultural and urban land-use. Proper knowledge of these changes would provide crucial information for planning conservation strategies. We evaluated the impact of the intensification of agricultural and urban land-use on the Inter-Andean Dry Forest and Tropical Montane Forest, both of which are categorized as Critically Endangered, and the state of the landscape in the High Rio Guayllabamba watershed, Ecuador, during the periods 1991–2005 and 2005–2017. The evaluation was carried out using Landsat satellite images of 30 x 30 m pixels and landscape metrics. We found an advanced state of landscape transformation. Since the 1990s, the loss of both ecosystems was largely caused by the conversion of forest to agriculture, resulting in substantial changes in the spatial configuration of these ecosystems. From 1991 to 2017, 19.8 % and 16.1 % of Inter-Andean Dry Forest and Tropical Montane Forest respectively, were converted to agriculture. The loss of Inter-Andean Dry Forest was 28 % and the number of forest patches increased by more than 150%. The loss of Tropical Montane Forest was 16.5 % and the number of forest patches increased by more than 300 %. The largest loss and fragmentation of forest cover occurred from 1991 to 2005. We suggested planning landscape-scale conservation, using the patch-corridor-matrix model. This model is appropriate given the current configuration of the landscape studied, with Inter-Andean Dry Forest and Tropical Montane Forest restricted to small patches sparsely distributed across the landscape.


Radio access network (RAN) slicing is an effective methodology to dynamically allocate networking resources in 5G networks. One of the main challenges of RAN slicing is that it is provably an NP-Hard problem. For this reason, we design near-optimal low-complexity distributed RAN slicing algorithms. First, we model the slicing problem as a congestion game, and demonstrate that such game admits a unique Nash equilibrium (NE). Then, we evaluate the Price of Anarchy (PoA) of the NE, i.e., the efficiency of the NE as compared with the social optimum, and demonstrate that the PoA is upper-bounded by 3/2. Next, we propose two fully-distributed algorithms that provably converge to the unique NE without revealing privacy-sensitive parameters from the slice tenants. Moreover, we introduce an adaptive pricing mechanism of the wireless resources to improve the network owner's profit. We evaluate the performance of our algorithms through simulations and an experimental testbed deployed on the Amazon EC2 cloud, both based on a real-world dataset of base stations from the OpenCellID project. Results conclude that our algorithms converge to the NE rapidly and achieve near-optimal performance, while our pricing mechanism effectively improves the profit of the network owner.


Submitted 2020-07-23 | Accepted 2020-08-16 | Available 2020-12-01 https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2020.23.mi-fpap.265-268 The study was performed on 136 pig carcasses representing the Croatian pig population with regards to the breed structure. The carcasses were dissected according to the EU reference method and lean meat percentage was estimated using the Hennessy Grading Probe (HGP7) device and the "Two points" (ZP) method. Comparison of lean meat percentage obtained by dissection and two prediction methods showed significant differences in estimating the lean meat percentage of pig carcasses (P <0.05). The distribution of carcasses according to SEUROP system showed a difference in the classification depending on the applied method, indicating a need for adjustment of current formulae for lean meat percentage estimation in Croatia. 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Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1249/2008 (2008, 12.16). of 10 December 2008 laying down detailed rules on the implementation of the community scales for the classification of beef, pig and sheep carcases and the reporting of prices thereof. Official Journal of the European Union, L337. EEC Commission. (2013). Regulation (EU) No. 1308/2013 (2013, 12.20). of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No 922/72, (EEC) No 234/79, (EC) No 1037/2001 and (EC) No 1234/2007. Official Journal of the European Union, L347. EEC Commission. (2017). Commission Implementng Regulaton (EU) 2017/1184 of 20 April 2017 laying down rules for the applicaton of Regulaton (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the Union scales for the classifcaton of beef, pig and sheep carcasses and as regards the reportng of market prices of certain categories of carcasses and live animals. Official Journal of the European Union. htps://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri= CELEX%3A32017R1184. Font-i-Furnols, M., Candek-Potokar, M., Daumas, G., Gispert, M., Judas, M. & Seynaeve, M. (2016). Comparison of national ZP equations for lean meat percentage assessment in SEUROP pig classification. Meat science, 113, 1-8. Gangsei, L. E., Kongsro, J., Olsen, E. V., Roe, M., Alvseike, O. & Saebo, S. (2016). Prediction precision for lean meat percentage in Norwegian pig carcasses using 'Hennessy grading probe 7': Evaluation of methods emphasized at exploiting additional information from computed tomography. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A — Animal Science, 66(1), 17-24. Kusec, G., Kralik, G., Djurkin, I., Margeta, V., Maltar, Z. & Petricevic, A. (2006). Comparison of different methods for lean percentage evaluation in pig carcasses. Acta Agraria Kaposvariensis, 10(2), 57-62. Kusec, G., Đurkin, I., Petricevic, A., Kralik, G., Maltar, Z., Margeta, V. & Hanžek, D. (2007). Equations for lean share estimation in swine carcasses in Croatia. Poljoprivreda, 13 (1), 70-73. Kusec, G., Đurkin, I., Petricevic, A., Kralik, G., Maltar, Z. & Margeta, V. (2009). Carcass leanness of pigs in Croatia estimated by EU referent method. Italian Journal of Animal Science, 8(3), 249-251. Kusec, G., Đurkin, I., Lukic, B., Radisic, Ž., Petricevic, A. & Maltar, Z. (2011). The Equation for Prediction of Lean Meat Percentage by Hennessy Grading Probe in Croatia. Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus, 76 (4), 329-331. NN 71/2018 Pravilnik o razvrstavanju i oznacivanju goveđih, svinjskih i ovcjih trupova te oznacivanju mesa koje potjece od goveda starih manje od 12 mjeseci. Sack, E. (1983). Using instruments to grade pork sides. Fleischwirtschaft, 63(3), 372–379. Vester-Christensen, M., Erbou, S.G.H., Hansen, M.F., Olsen, E.V., Christensen, L.B., Hviid, M., Ersboll, B.K. & Larsen, R. (2009). Virtual dissection of pig carcasses. Meat Science, 81, 699–704 Walstra, P. & Merkus, G. S. M. (1996). Procedure for assessment of the lean meat percentage as a consequence of the new EU reference dissection method in pig carcass classification: based on discussion in the EU Management Committee on Pig Meat and based on discussions with dissection experts during a meeting on May 18-19, 1994 at Zeist, NL (No. 96.014). ID-DLO.


Between September 2006 and December 2008, Simon Bikindi stood trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, accused of inciting genocide with his songs. In the early 1990s, Bikindi had been one of Rwanda's most well-known and popular figures - the country's minister for culture and its most famous and respected singer. But by the end of 1994, his songs had quite literally soundtracked a genocide.Acoustic Jurisprudence is the first detailed study of the trial that followed. It is also the first work of contemporary legal scholarship to address the many relations between law and sound, which are of much broader importance but which this trial very conspicuously raises. One half of the book addresses the Tribunal's 'sonic imagination'. How did the Tribunal conceive of Bikindi's songs for the purposes of judgment? How did it understand the role of radio and other media in their transmission? And with what consequences for Bikindi?The other half of the book is addressed to how such concerns played out in court. Bikindi's was a 'musical trial', as one judge pithily observed. Audio and audio-visual recordings of his songs were played regularly throughout. Witnesses, including Bikindi himself, frequently sang, both of their own accord and at the request of the Tribunal. Indeed, Bikindi even sang his final statement. All the while, judges, barristers, and witnesses alike spoke into microphones and listened through headphones. As a result, the Bikindi case offers an ideal opportunity to explore what this book calls the 'judicial soundscape'.Through the lens of the Bikindi trial, the book's most important innovation is to open up the field of sound to jurisprudential inquiry. Ultimately, it is an argument for a specifically acoustic jurisprudence.


Using an extensive database of non-macroeconomic state interventions implemented since the global economic crisis began, this paper provides quantitative evidence on the resort to selectivity by several major economic powers. The propensity to promote certain sectors, certain firms within sectors, and domestic over commercial interests is contrasted across jurisdictions. At least one prominent contention in the industrial policy literature is not borne out in the data, and certain cross-country and cross-sectoral variations found here could benefit from further analysis. A crisis-era shift towards selectivity and away from the 'level playing field' can be detected in the major trading nations. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.


Bloodstream forms of Trypanosoma brucei lack cytochromes and are, therefore, insensitive to cyanide. Azide is a toxic anion that bears chemical and biological properties in common with cyanide and may act in a similar way by inhibition of cytochrome c oxidase. It was, therefore, surprising to find that bloodstream forms of T. brucei are sensitive to azide; growth is reduced by 50% with 0.1 mM azide. So far, the only enzyme known in bloodstream forms of T. brucei to be sensitive to azide is the iron-containing superoxide dismutase. However, because the activity of the superoxide dismutase was not affected in parasites incubated for 16 hr with 0.5 mM azide (a concentration at which no cell proliferates), the toxic action of azide cannot be due to inhibition of this enzyme. These results indicate that the general toxicity of azide is different from that of cyanide.


The complex interactions between the central nervous system and the immune system are mainly mediated via synthesis and secretion of cytokines. Disturbance of the fine balance between different cytokine subpopulations is undeniable factor in the development of pathological process in multiple sclerosis. Experimental and clinical studies examining the impact of individual cytokines on the course of the disease often give conflicting results. The reason for this may be searched in the complex interactions within the cytokine network, dependent on the local milieu in the central nervous system. Efforts to modulate autoimmune process in multiple sclerosis have shown that effective treatments alter cytokine expression in a favorable way, indicating cytokines as possible therapeutic targets. The widely approved disease modifying treatments with interferon-beta, glatiramer acetate, cytostatic drugs, but also experimental therapeutic agents like estriol, statins and vitamin D have been proved to exert their beneficial effect partially by impact on different aspects of cytokine production. The purpose of this review is to highlight the importance to consider the complexity of cytokine interactions in pathogenesis and treatment of multiple sclerosis. Increase of the knowledge in this area will create opportunities for more precise determination of targets for immunologically active drugs in order to improve their effectiveness.


Kingdom Witness in Nashville: Connecting the Small Groups of the Acklen Church to Community Ministry J.P. Conway Doctor of Ministry School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary 2014 The purpose of this project was to lead the existing small groups of the Acklen Church in forming ongoing partnerships with local community ministries. After surviving and rebuilding after the flood of 2010, the Acklen Church wrestled with its relationship to its neighborhood, currently in the late stages of gentrification yet within walking distance of many in poverty. Despite the abundance of churches in Nashville, community ministries and nonprofits consistently lack volunteers. For this reason, this paper argues for neighborhood partnerships, in contrast to mere episodic involvement. In the two years prior to the project, the Acklen Church developed positive momentum in a weekly relationship with Room in the Inn, organized through its small groups. Therefore, this paper argues that small groups represent a hopeful paradigm for further community partnerships. The paper centers on a ten-week series entitled Kingdom Witness in City, conducted in the spring of 2013. The author wrote and presented a Sunday morning curriculum centering on the belief that the church is a community of kingdom exiles. Moreover, the mission of the church is to witness to the kingdom, and Christian exiles witness to the kingdom by loving the city. In developing the curriculum, the author drew inspiration from the writings of Gareth Icenogle, Everett Ferguson, Timothy Keller, Lesslie Newbigin, Ron Sider, James K.A. Smith, and Dallas Willard. On Wednesday nights, guest speakers from community ministries and non-profits presented on ministry in the city and offered avenues for partnership. On Sunday nights, small groups discussed these presentations and discerned opportunities, giftedness, and obstacles in relation to involvement. At the end of the series, the groups received opportunities to make partnership commitments. In the spring of 2014, the author analyzed the mixed results of the series. The number of community partnerships of the Acklen Church more than doubled. However, the partnerships did not always come from the small groups. Moreover, busyness revealed itself as a formable foe to community service. In addition, the Acklen Church discovered that many of its members already participated in community partnerships yet never really shared or vocalized their involvement. Finally, the paper offers an assessment of a way forward in the Acklen Church's quest to witness to the Kingdom in Nashville. Words: 368 To my wife, Beth, whose witness to the kingdom daily invites me into the reign of Jesus


The current study focuses on theory, data and analyses from the Forum BEVI Project (www.ibavi.org/content/featured-projects/), a national learning assessment initiative, with a particular emphasis on the "Gender Traditionalism" scale from the Beliefs, Events and Values Inventory (BEVI). Because Gender Traditionalism is central to Equilintegration Theory (EI Theory), the EI Self and the Beliefs Events and Values Inventory (BEVI), issues of definition, measurement and theory are considered with respect to this model, framework and method along with an examination of data and analyses from the BEVI, which are relevant to a deeper understanding of this construct. Results suggest that the EI model and BEVI method are highly resonant with extant literature and help to further our understanding of the predictors and outcomes of the "gendered self." For example, the BEVI may demonstrate that certain formative variables (e.g., such as socioeconomic status and parental education level) impact the development of traditional gender beliefs, and that the relative degree to which one endorses gender traditionalism is correlated with other belief structures (e.g., concern about the environment) as well as specific outcomes (e.g., attunement to one's own emotional experience and the emotional experiences of others). Additionally, implications of this theoretical model and assessment method for the facilitation of better understanding and relations within and between the genders also are offered.


Multiple transmit and receive antennas can increase the system capacity, as well as increase reliability in wireless communication. Vertical Bell Laboratories layered spaces-time (VBLAST) scheme is widely used to achieve high spectral efficiencies in scattering environments. In V-BLAST systems, receiver design is usually based on the nulling-canceling algorithm which offers a good tradeoff between the computational complexity and system performance. In this thesis, we propose a nulling-canceling based detection algorithm that performs selective maximum-likelihood decoding. We first compare the symbol estimates from two nulling-canceling implementations with different orders. If the symbol estimates do not agree, then maximum-likelihood detection is performed on the discrepant symbols and the rest of the symbols are detected via nulling and canceling. If there is no discrepancy in the comparison, then only nulling and canceling are performed. In our numerical results, 4-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) and 16-QAM constellations are considered, and both Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) and Zero-Forcing (ZF) based detections are implemented. We show that our proposed algorithm can achieve a better performance than the nulling-canceling algorithm and requires a relatively small increase in computational complexity, especially at high SNR. Based on the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance result, we show that our proposed algorithm can achieve a better performance than the nulling-canceling algorithm and requires a relatively small computational complexity increase, especially at high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) scenario. The BER performances of an unordered system with BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) or 4-QAM modulation and hybrid detection algorithms are given, under the joint consideration of nulling-canceling of several subchannels and block maximum-likelihood


Water use is a significant operational cost factor for large swimming pool facilities, however it has been overshadowed by the recent focus on energy consumption and carbon emissions. Currently, it is difficult for operators to make decisions in relation to water efficiency due to the lack of information about the relationship between pool operation and water use. This study has started to address this issue by reviewing water use at a fully operational facility. The analysis of the consumption data has led to a proposal for a new water performance indicator, the water exchange deficit. Modifications to the method of estimating water consumption have also been proposed to enable enhanced water management guidance to be developed.


Background Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS) is a rare congenital neurocutaneous disorder. It is characterized by the presence of facial port wine stains, neurological abnormalities like seizures and mental retardation, ocular disorders, oral involvement and leptomeningeal angiomas. Case Report A 13-year-old boy presented with the chief complaint of swollen, bleeding gums and deposits on the teeth. Detailed medical and dental history, clinical examination and investigations confirmed the diagnosis of Sturge-Weber syndrome. The treatment comprised of a thorough plaque control regimen to reduce the gingival enlargement, and it included oral hygiene instructions, thorough scaling, root planing at regular intervals and plaque index scoring which motivated the patient at each visit. Conclusion This case illustrates that early intervention in a patient with Sturge-Weber syndrome is quintessential because of its associated gingival vascular features and their complicating manifestations. Furthermore, the need for periodic oral examinations and maintenance of good oral hygiene to prevent any complications from the oral vascular lesions has been highlighted.


This study is a comparative examination of the musical lives and improvisational styles of jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown, and two prominent jazz trumpeters whom historians assert were influenced by Brown—Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard. Though Brown died in 1956 at the age of 25, the reverence among the jazz community for his improvisational style was so great that generations of modern jazz trumpeters were affected by his playing. It is widely said that Brown remains one of the most influential modern jazz trumpeters of all time. In the case of Donald Byrd, exposure to Brown's style was significant, but the extent to which Brown's playing was foundational or transformative has not been examined. With regards to Hubbard, assertions of his affinity for Brown's playing during his formative years are well founded, but how much of Brown's influence was retained by Hubbard as he developed his own personal style has been unexamined. This study examines the early life, musical training, significant professional experiences, and musical influences of Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, and Freddie Hubbard to assist in forming a more complete picture of the evolution of their respective improvisational styles. In order to call into question the extent of Brown's influence upon Byrd and Hubbard I scrutinize the playing of these three men in a comparative manner, focusing on traditionally analyzed elements such as melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic tendencies as well as performance elements specific to the trumpet. When one jazz musician is influenced by the improvisational style of another many of the aforementioned elements may be transferred and adopted in the formation of style. Therefore, by identifying the elements that make up Clifford Brown's modern jazz trumpet style and looking for commonalities and differences among the three trumpeters, a more complete and accurate understanding of the interrelationships between Brown, Byrd, and Hubbard is achieved.


In recent years, there have been instances of unusually heavy rain in Japan, including rainfall in excess of 200 mm/day. The aim of flood-control planning in Japan since 1945 has been to confine river water to within riverbanks and to ensure that levees protect river basins from flooding. In many rivers, dams were constructed in upstream areas and long levees were built along the riverbanks. The main aim of flood-control planning is to prevent the flooding of river basins by the over-flow of river water across riverbanks; however, as rainfall prediction has recently become difficult because of the effects of global warming, the main emphasis of flood-control planning has shifted from prevention to providing areas of refuge. Flood hazards must be dealt with by 'hard measures' such as levees and reservoirs, and 'soft measures' such as the provision of hydrological information, regulation of land use, and evacuation advice. In 2001, the Japanese Government made it mandatory for all regional bodies to compile and distribute flood-hazard maps to inform inhabitants of the danger of flooding and the locations of sites of refuge for all inhabitants. It is difficult to provide residents with complete protection from flooding hazards. Many people in Japan live alongside rivers, and Japanese culture has long encompassed wet-rice cultivation. Communities have always lived under the threat of flooding, but the profitability of river water makes it preferable to live close to a river even if flooding occurs at times of heavy rain. In this paper, we describe measures taken to mitigate flood hazards and present a number of case studies.


Musicians playing wind instruments and risk of lung cancer: is there an association? Lung cancer is an important public health problem. Tobacco is its main risk factor. Occupation is also an important risk factor. Some jobs have shown higher risks than others, but few investigations have asked about activities or hobbies in leisure time in relation to the risk of lung cancer. A case-control study was performed between 1999 and 2000 in the Santiago de Compostela Health District (Galicia, northwest Spain). A total of 132 cases with confirmed diagnosis of lung cancer and 187 controls were enrolled. Controls underwent trivial surgery at the same hospital as did the cases. A personal interview about lifestyle and activities (past and present) was conducted by a trained researcher. We found that, besides tobacco and occupational exposure to carcinogens, some leisure time activities were risk factors for lung cancer. Among the cases there were two musicians who played wind instruments, whereas there were no wind instrument players among the controls. The two cases had been playing the clarinet and trombone for 35 and 30 years respectively. Both were exsmokers (moderate smokers) and played music as a hobby. They had epidermoid lung cancer and were diagnosed at 57 and 76 years of age. Since in our population the prevalence of persons playing musical instruments and specifically wind instruments is extremely low, we think that this activity might be a risk factor in development of lung cancer. The very low number of persons playing this type of musical instrument is probably a reason for the lack of studies focused on this activity, as many occupational studies of lung cancer and occupation are based on registries of workers. One study found an increased mortality rate of lung cancer for a category that included painters, potters, musicians, and actors—an inhomogeneous category that did not allow us to extrapolate results. The results were not adjusted according to smoking history. This hobby requires inspiration and breathing of large volumes of air, making the lung alveoli expand more than in other people. This fact could facilitate the penetrance of carcinogens in the cells of the lung epithelium, and this could be more harmful in smokers. We have found no other studies that have reported this possible association. It would therefore be necessary to explore this association in greater samples of professionally exposed persons in order to ascertain whether this finding is consistent or due to chance.


In this paper, we analyze the optical conversion efficiency of a multimode pump source into a diffraction-limited beam in cladding-pumped Raman fiber lasers and amplifiers. We theoretically derive a relation of the cladding/core area ratio for efficient energy transfer from the pump into the first Stokes while avoiding the second Stokes generation that impedes the conversion efficiency of the first Stokes. In addition, we investigate experimentally the limits on the conversion efficiency in a pulse-pumped double-clad Raman fiber. We obtained a peak power conversion efficiency into the first Stokes in excess of 75% and a pulse energy conversion of 60%. We found that spatial pump mode depletion is the main limiting factor in this fiber, with concentric cladding and core. We discuss various solutions to overcome these limitations and improve on the current results.


The nonlinearity index is a measure of the nonlinearity of dynamical systems based on computing the initial-condition sensitivity of the statetransition matrix. The Cayley form is a representation for dynamical systems that relates their motion to N -dimensional rotations. The generalized coordinates of the system are used to define an N -dimensional orientation, and a set of quasi velocities is defined equal to the corresponding angular velocity. The nonlinearity index of the Cayley-form representation is computed for an elastic spherical pendulum and a planar satellite example. These results are compared to values for alternative dynamical representations. Additionally, the nonlinearity is evaluated by analyzing how well the linearized equations of each representation capture certain properties of the motion. These results show that the Cayley form can have lower nonlinearity than traditional representations, in particular those representations that suffer from kinematic singularities.


Quantum spin liquids are elusive but paradigmatic examples of strongly correlated quantum states that are characterized by long-range quantum entanglement. Recently, the direct signatures of a gapped topological $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquid have been observed in a system of Rydberg atoms arrayed on the ruby lattice. Here, we illustrate the concrete realization of a fundamentally different class of spin liquids in a honeycomb array of Rydberg atoms. Exploring the quantum phase diagram of this system using both density-matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization simulations, several density-wave-ordered phases are characterized and their origins explained. More interestingly, in the regime where third-nearest-neighbor atoms lie within the Rydberg blockade radius, we find a novel ground state -- with an emergent $\mathrm{U}(1)\times \mathrm{U}(1)$ local symmetry -- formed from superpositions of classical {\it trimer} configurations on the dual triangular lattice. The fidelity of this trimer spin liquid state can be enhanced via dynamical preparation, which we explain by a Rydberg-blockade-based projection mechanism associated with the smooth turnoff of the laser drive. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the trimer spin liquid phase under realistic experimental parameters and demonstrate that our proposal can be readily implemented in current Rydberg atom quantum simulators.


We explicitly formulate (optimization) problems of finding a key sector and a key group of sectors within the framework of a hypothetical extraction method (HEM), and derive their solutions in terms of simple measures termed industries' factor worths. It is shown that the top k ≥ 2 sectors with the largest total contributions to some factor, in general, do not constitute the key group of k sectors, the issue which is totally ignored in the input-output linkage literature. The link to the fields of influence approach is discovered, which gives an alternative economic interpretation for the HEM problems in terms of sectors' input self-dependencies. Further, we examine how a change in an input coefficient affects the importance of an industry. The key group problem is applied to the Australian economy for factors of water use, CO2 emissions, and generation of profits and wages.


Integration of immigrants is a complex socioeconomic phenomenon considered difficult to describe, understand, and predict. We address the problem of how integration changes with immigration density, and we propose a novel approach to its study guided by a statistical mechanics perspective. More precisely, we focus on studying the dependence of classical integration quantifiers such as the percentage of jobs, temporary and permanent, given to immigrants, mixed marriages, and newborns with parents of mixed origin on the density of immigrants in the population. Analysis of the average data behavior shows that while the McFadden discrete choice theory is in excellent agreement with the job market quantifiers, the mixed marriages and newborns quantifiers behave in accordance with an imitative theory similar to the one introduced by Brock and Durlauf and suitably extended to a monomer-dimer model with interacting social network. Our findings show that a model that allows for imitation explains the anomalous high growth in the rate of mixed marriages and newborns with mixed parents observed at low immigration densities. Ignoring the possibility of imitation would instead underestimate the observed quantities by as much as 30% when immigrant densities are low, and overestimate them with a similar error when the densities are high. Our method open up the possibility of predicting immigrant integration quantifiers for all the immigration densities starting from their observation at small densities.


The in situ real-time monitoring of the selective etching of semiconductor structures with a Raman microprobe system is demonstrated for the first time. The technique that is applied to GaSb/AlSb/InAs heterostructures allows the accurate timing of the etching as well as a study of the chemistry of the etching process and can be applied to many problems in the processing of compound semiconductors. During etching of AlSb a surface layer rich in Sb builds up that slows down the etch rate, whereas GaSb is etched without producing this residue layer. The different etching behaviour of AlSb and GaSb is confirmed by measurements of the etching depth in patterned samples by means of a Dektak stepper. The origin of the antimony layer is explained.


Introduction: Elite competitive golfers commonly use physical conditioning as a way of improving playing results. Multiple studies have investigated the use of different training methods for improving performance but few studies have investigated the use of isokinetic power training as a way of improving swing kinematics and/or club head speed (CHS). The specific objective of the study was to investigate if eight weeks of isokinetic power training was more effective than traditional power training in improving swing kinematics and CHS.Methods: 20 competitive elite golfers (handicap better than -3.1), 13 men and 7 women, (age 22±2 years) were tested for lower body power (countermovement jump and loaded vertical squat jump 20,40 & 60kg), rotational power (seated upper body rotational power at 10% of body weight; bw) and golf swing kinematics (pelvis, thorax and lead arm peak rotational velocities using electromagnetic motion capture system; Polhemus Inc. USA ) and club head speed (doppler-radar launch monitor system; Flightscope, South Africa), Participants were split into a control (CTL) group (n=10) who continued with the regular strength and power training and an intervention (IK) group (n=10) performing isokinetic power training in the isokinetic 1080Quantum system (1080Motion, Sweden) during 8 weeks. The intervention focused on barbell squat (22kg at 0.5 ms-1) and standing rotation (10% body weight at 1 ms-1).Statistical analysis: a 2 (between; groups) x 2 (within; time) ANOVA assessed any differences in power, club and swing kinematics.Results: Statistically significant improvements were observed in both the IK and CTL group for rotational power (p<0.001), CHS (p=0.025), and peak arm speed (p=0.001). There were no significant differences in countermovement jump height, peak power during squats, peak pelvis speed, or peak thorax speed following the intervention period.Discussion: After 8 weeks of power training, both rotational power and peak arm speed improved as did the performance measure of CHS in both the IK and CTL group. However no significant changes were found between the two groups. In conclusion, there was no evidence suggesting that isokinetic training, as performed in this study, is neither detrimental, nor more effective, than traditional strength training when it comes to increasing CHS in golf performance.


Previously interpreted archaeological and geological field data from the Argive Basin, Greece, have been used to hypothesized that the nearby Late Bronze Age Mycenaean citadels of Tiryns and Midea, which settled on bedrock, might record synchronized co-seismic structural damage due to earthquake ground-shaking at ca. 1190 BCE, the end of the Mycenaean palatial period. However, from a quantitative archaeoseismological perspective, this hypothesis has flaws: ( a ) it overlooks that several structures excavated in the undeformed Holocene sediments lack evidence of co- seismic structural damage and damage is only documented for sturdier structures within the citadels, ( b ) it leaves unexplained the moment magnitude of the 'causative' surface-rupturing earthquake, and ( c ) disregards the role of local site effects on surface ground-motion. The plausibility of the previously proposed earthquake hypothesis is tested by estimating the earthquake magnitude of the alleged ancient earthquake and its local site effects at and around the citadels, assuming that the earthquake truly occurred. A retrospective geotechnical site microzonation coupled with the calculation of seismic amplification factors, surface ground-motions, and earthquake intensity account for the local site effects assessment. The present numerical modeling results indicate that the citadels and contemporaneous adjacent structures of the peasants had a lower and higher seismic hazard, respectively. Seismic amplification factors, earthquake-induced ground shaking, and seismic intensity are indeed lower for Tiryns than for Midea. Therefore, these results refute the idea of seismically induced destruction of the citadels and challenge the plausibility of the earthquake hypothesis. The previously archaeologically documented destruction patterns unlikely represent physical evidence of co-seismic damage by the archaeologically proposed earthquake. Other explanations ought to be sought to elucidate the interpreted destruction pattern seen in these Mycenaean centers.


Superconducting qubits are electronic circuits comprising lithographically defined Josephson tunnel junctions, inductors, capacitors, and interconnects. When cooled to dilution refrigerator temperatures, these circuits behave as quantum mechanical "artificial atoms," exhibiting quantized states of electronic charge, magnetic flux, or junction phase depending on the design parameters of the constituent circuit elements. Their potential for lithographic scalability, compatibility with microwave control, and operability at nanosecond time scales place superconducting qubits among the leading modalities being considered for quantum information science and technology applications. Over the past decade, the quantum coherence of superconducting qubits has increased more than five orders of magnitude, due primarily to improvements in their design, fabrication, and, importantly, their constituent materials and interfaces. In this article, we review superconducting qubits, articulate the important role of materials research in their development, and provide a prospectus for the future as these devices transition from scientific curiosity to the threshold of technical reality.


Abstract Hunter–gatherer adaptations to moist tropical grasslands are not well known from either the ethnographic or the archaeological record. This is unfortunate as grassland adaptations are clearly significant to human biological and behavioral evolution. The most effective strategy for remedying this problem is to develop models for grassland exploitation based on strong understandings of the ecological similarities and differences between cold, temperate, and tropical grasslands. Cold, temperate, and tropical grasslands are similar in that water and raw materials are often scarce and the most abundant large mammals are gregarious and mobile. Tropical grasslands differ from cold and temperate grasslands by having a greater diversity and biomass of edible above-ground plants and plants with underground storage organs, making carbohydrate availability greater and less seasonal. Large mobile mammals and resident large mammals are more diverse and have greater biomass in tropical grasslands. Overall, tropical grasslands are a richer and less seasonally punctuated environment than either cold or temperate grasslands. A comparison of ethnographic data regarding variation in foraging strategies in different cold, temperate, and tropical settings lead to the construction of three models for hunter–gatherer exploitation of tropical grasslands: a Generalized Grassland Model (no specialized tactical hunting—considered the favored model given modern African grassland conditions), a Seasonal Grassland Model (only seasonal use of specialized tactical hunting techniques—considered unlikely for Africa), and a Specialized Grassland Model (regular use of specialized tactical hunting strategies—considered highly unlikely for Africa). A preliminary test of these models shows the Athi-Kapiti Plains Holocene archaeological evidence is most consistent with the Generalized Grassland Model. The Last Glacial Maximum is most consistent with the Seasonal Grassland Model. A single MSA occupation also suggests that specialized tactical hunting strategies were used. These differences in hunting strategies were probably due to the differences in ecological conditions between the Holocene and the Last Glacial Maximum.


The combination of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Molecular Mechanics (MM) methods has become an alternative tool for many applications for which pure QM and MM are not suitable. The QM/MM method has been used for different types of problems, for example: structural biology, surface phenomena, and liquid phase. In this paper we have used this method on the molecular structure of ipolamiide. The equilibrium geometry, harmonic vibrational frequencies and Raman activities were calculated byQM/MMmethodwithB3LYP/6-31G(d,p) and universal force field (UFF) combination usingONIOMcode.We found the geometry obtained by the QM/MM method to be very accurate, and we can use this rapid method in place of time consuming ab initio methods for large molecules. A detailed interpretation of the Raman spectra of ipolamiide is reported. The scaled theoretical wave numbers are in perfect agreement with the experimental values. The FT-Raman spectra of ipolamiide has been taken fromthe literatures.


The capacity of a WCDMA-based cellular system like a UMTS-FDD network can be highly improved by utilizing the smart antenna concept. The amount of interference power in the entire network can be reduced by employing antenna arrays at the base station side and performing beamforming. The number of antenna elements as well as the characteristics of the single antenna element have a strong influence on the amount of achievable capacity improvement Therefore, close-to-reality investigations on the network capacity must incorporate realistic antenna element characteristics. In this contribution, a UMTS-FDD network equipped with smart antennas at the base stations is analysed on system level to gain insight on the effect of different realistic antenna and array characteristics on the network capacity. For investigations on system level, the limitation of available resources of the cellular network has to be included into the analysis. For this purpose, different types of antenna elements like dipoles and commercially available real-world base station antennas for UMTS are compared for different array topologies in scenarios with and without code limitation.


Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is a manufacturing process capable of machining electrically conductive materials regardless of their mechanical properties. It finds extensive usage across the aerospace, automotive, medical implant and mould/die industries, and is particularly useful for the micro-machining of precision components with complicated shapes. The surface integrity of materials machined by EDM is typically poor, and reduced service life is often expected as a result of surface properties. For example, reduced fatigue performance can result due to the presence of surface cracks as well as porosity, high surface roughness and tensile residual stress. Increased surface area due to surface cracks, porosity and surface asperities also inhibits corrosion performance.

This thesis explores from a fundamental perspective the damage and contamination occurring in the surfaces of materials machined by EDM, and investigates the use of a novel surface modification technique, pulsed electron beam irradiation, to improve the most damaging surface property; surface cracking.

A transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study was conducted on the surface of single-crystal silicon, which is a chemically and crystallographically homogenous material. For the first time, porosity, contamination and cracking were observed at a scale not visible to conventional imaging techniques such as SEM and optical imaging. The study suggested that conventional microscopic techniques such as SEM and optical microscopy are not sufficient to characterise recast layers created by EDM, and the properties of materials machined by the process are in fact determined by phenomena occurring at the nano-scale.

The mechanism behind the movement of material between electrodes was investigated in this thesis. The flushing process in EDM is used to take machined material away from the machining region, and this material is not expected to reattach to electrode surfaces. Using the observation of single discharges and elemental analysis, the mechanism of attachment was determined to be a two-stage process, whereby material ejected at the end of discharge on-time is resolidified in the discharge gap by a successive discharge, which causes its fusion into the opposite electrode surface. This information is critical to the avoidance, or the deliberate deposition of foreign material on a workpiece.

Pulsed electron beam irradiation was demonstrated as a rapid and simple method of repairing surface cracks induced by the EDM process. A 4 µm depth of surface cracks created by EDM of stainless steel could be completely eliminated in a pore-free layer. Only a small section of recast layer remained unaffected. The cathode voltage parameter was identified as key to increasing the depth of the remelted layer in future developments of the process. Roughness was at the same time reduced from 3.06 µm to 0.89 µm Sa value. A predominantly austenitic graded nanostructure with grain size down to 6 nm was characterised using TEM and XRD. Such structures have implications for improved mechanical properties via grain boundary strengthening


This paper proposes a method to construct conceptual semantic knowledge base of software engineering domain based on Wikipedia. First, it takes the concept of SWEBOK V3 as the standard to extract the interpretation of the concept from the Wikipedia, and extracts the keywords as the concept of semantic; Second, through the conceptual semantic knowledge base, it is formed by the relationship between the hierarchical relationship concept and the other text interpretation concept in the Wikipedia. Finally, the semantic similarity between concepts is calculated by the random walk algorithm for the construction of the conceptual semantic knowledge base. The semantic similarity of knowledge base constructed by this method can reach more than 84%, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.


A large and continually-growing body of research has explored the ways in which deception might be detected. The area is developing rapidly, opening up new avenues of study. This special issue of the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling brings together an exciting array of papers on the detection of deception within investigative contexts, examining a wide range of issues including; the efficacy of different interviewing techniques, the reliability of statement veracity assessment, factors influencing ability to detect deception and the need for applied research and ecologically valid studies. This examination of the key challenges and core issues surrounding the detection of deception within the criminal justice domain helps move the field forward, providing powerful results that have potentially far-reaching impacts. These are considered in detail throughout the following discussion.


The most widely used methods for the estimation of the living/dead fractions of bacterial cells involve specific stains that are able to reveal membrane integrity. Here, we have compared two different probes (propidium iodide and ethidium homodimer-2) that have different molecular weights and steric hindrance effects. We have also combined this method with the staining/destaining procedure that is currently used in the identification of potentially active cells. The procedure for marine sediments described here allows the synoptic (i.e. from the same filter) identification of: (i) the number of living bacteria; (ii) the number of active vs. dormant cells within this living fraction; (iii) the bacterial fraction with an intact nucleoid region without membrane integrity; and (iv) dead cells (devoid of the nucleoid region and without membrane integrity). Our results demonstrate that the concentration of propidium is crucial for the correct estimation of the dead bacterial fraction, ethidium homodimer-2 allows efficient and accurate estimates that are independent of the concentrations used and the sample storage. The active bacterial fraction represented c. 40% of the total bacterial abundance, the inactive/dormant fraction c. 30%, and the dead fraction was, on average, c. 30%. This method allows the processing of a large number of samples with high precision and at relatively low cost, and thus it provides additional synoptic insights into the metabolic state of bacteria in marine sediments.


Fourier Transform Interferometry (FTI) is an interferometric procedure for acquiring HyperSpectral (HS) data. Recently, it has been observed that the light source highlighting a (biologic) sample can be coded before the FTI acquisition in a procedure called Coded Illumination-FTI (CI-FTI). This turns HS data reconstruction into a Compressive Sensing (CS) problem regularized by the sparsity of the HS data. CI-FTI combines the high spectral resolution of FTI with the advantages of reduced-light-exposure imaging in biology. In this paper, we leverage multilevel sampling scheme recently developed in CS theory to adapt the coding strategy of CI-FTI to the spectral sparsity structure of HS data in Fluorescence Spectroscopy (FS). This structure is actually extracted from the spectral signatures of actual fluorescent dyes used in FS. Accordingly, the optimum illumination coding as well as the theoretical recovery guarantee are derived. We conduct numerous numerical experiments on synthetic and experimental data that show the faithfulness of the proposed theory to experimental observations.


The work presented in this article proposes an original method that models the medium-term market equilibrium under imperfect competition circumstances in multi-area electricity systems. It provides a system analysis considering multiple market splitting possibilities, where local market power may appear according to the status of the interconnections. As a result of new policies and regulations, power systems are increasingly integrating the existing electricity markets in unified frameworks. The integration of electricity markets poses highly challenging tasks due to the uncertainty that comes from the agents' strategic behaviors which depend on multiple factors, for instance, the state of the interconnections. When it comes to modeling these effects, the purpose is to identify each strategy by using conjectured-price responses that depend on the different states of the system. Consequently, the problem becomes highly combinatorial, which heightens its size as well as its complexity. Therefore, the purpose of this work's methodology is the reduction of the possible network configurations so as to ensure a computational tractability in the problem. In order to validate this methodology, it has been put to the test in a realistic and full-scale two-year operation planning model of the European electricity market that consists of a group of nine countries.


ABSTRACT The waste sector is a significant and growing source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most developing countries are minor contributors to global GHG, and produce limited emissions from municipal solid waste. However, as poor countries become integrated into global circuits of production and consumption, their contributions to global GHG emissions are likely to increase concomitantly. National and local governments and international agencies have identified municipal waste sector reform and modernisation in emerging economies as a global priority for climate change mitigation. International attention and funding is increasingly targeted towards improved and sustainable waste management in developing countries, both as part of climate change mitigation strategies and as a response to the marine litter crises. However, when moving towards more sustainable practices of waste management, it is important to take into account socioeconomic factors and how modern approaches to sustainable waste management will impact the livelihoods of people who currently find their income – often informally – in current waste management activities. Here we look at how gender norms play an important role in current waste management practices and how gender equality is influenced if the modernisation of waste sector is not taking into account gender aspects.


We present-a low-complexity soft detection and soft decoding magnetic disk drive read channel with a modified soft-output signal space detector (S/sup 3/D) which uses 3D-110 equalization and an error/erasure decoding Reed Solomon (RS) code. The detector determines max-log reliability information for intersymbol interference (ISI) channels with stationary white and colored noise. It can be implemented with only little additional hardware compared to the ordinary signal space detector. The erasures of the RS code are determined by the soft information and by an additional inner error detecting code (EDC) which is matched to the error patterns of the S/sup 3/D. The proposed system permits an improvement of the decoding performance in practical hard disk applications.


Model experiments on the preliminary design of a section of pipeline for the Glen Shira hydroelectric scheme showed that under certain conditions air was entrained by a stream of water and carried into the main pipeline. Although the design was altered to overcome this, these experiments emphasised the need for further knowledge of the behaviour of such systems. Information was lacking regarding the proper scaling laws to use, the possibility of predicting behaviour of a prototype from model tests in such cases and the mechanism whereby air is entrained at a free surface. An investigation into the more fundamental aspects of the problem was therefore made and forms the subject of this thesis. The experiments were also designed to supply data which would be useful in the design of hydraulic compressors, devices which depend for their functioning on air entrainment. A technique had to be developed whereby air was entrained by a jet of water striking a free surface and subsequently collected and measured, and the experimental difficulties encountered are described. In the method finally evolved, jets of water from nozzles of various sizes (.0353 inch to .1497 inch diameter) were directed vertically into water in a receiver into which was also led a secondary flow of sufficient magnitude to carry the entrained air into a separator. After separation from the water, the air was measured by a gas flow-meter. A series of experiments was also made to investigate the possibility of increasing the quantity of air entrained, this being of importance for the design of hydraulic compressors. The results of the experiments are analysed and discussed. A comparison is made with the results of Shirley who, in a thesis to the State University of Iowa, has given the only known comparable data. Allowing for the experimental difficulties, the difference in method and range of jet sizes used, reasonably good agreement is recorded. The results show that the Froude Number alone is not the correct similarity criterion if the start of air entrainment is of importance. For the smaller jets, the entrainment starts at a critical value of Weber Number. The quantity of air entrained depends most closely on Reynolds Number. When plotted on a base of d2V2 (where d = jet diameter and V = jet velocity) both the results of Shirley and those of the writer lie scattered about a mean straight line. This curve and others included in the thesis enable estimates to be made of the quantity of air likely to be entrained toy jets working under given conditions. The supplementary experiments showed that simple circular jets are "best for a hydraulic compressor. The data collected would therefore be applicable to the design of such a machine. For model experiments, such as those mentioned at the beginning, the experiments indicated that different similarity criteria are required depending on whether conditions at the start of entrainment or the quantity of air entrained is the major concern. Both cannot be simulated simultaneously in one model.


Staphylococcus aureus is a common aetiological agent of bacterial brain abscesses. We have previously established that a considerable IL-1 (interleukin-1) response is elicited immediately following S. aureus infection, where the cytokine can exert pleiotropic effects on glial activation and blood–brain barrier permeability. To assess the combined actions of IL-1α and IL-1β during CNS (central nervous system) infection, host defence responses were evaluated in IL-1RI (IL-1 receptor type I) KO (knockout) animals. IL-1RI KO mice were exquisitely sensitive to intracerebral S. aureus infection, as demonstrated by enhanced mortality rates and bacterial burdens within the first 24 h following pathogen exposure compared with WT (wild-type) animals. Loss of IL-1RI signalling also dampened the expression of select cytokines and chemokines, concomitant with significant reductions in neutrophil and macrophage infiltrates into the brain. In addition, the opening of astrocyte hemichannels during acute infection was shown to be dependent on IL-1RI activity. Collectively, these results demonstrate that IL-1RI signalling plays a pivotal role in the genesis of immune responses during the acute stage of brain abscess development through S. aureus containment, inflammatory mediator production, peripheral immune cell recruitment, and regulation of astrocyte hemichannel activity. Taken in the context of previous studies with MyD88 (myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88) and TLR2 (Toll-like receptor 2) KO animals, the current report advances our understanding of MyD88-dependent cascades and implicates IL-1RI signalling as a major antimicrobial effector pathway during acute brain-abscess formation.


Increasing the efficiency of conventional power plants is a crucial aspect in the quest of reducing the energy consumption of the world and to having sustainable energy systems in the future. Thus, within the scope of this thesis the possible efficiency improvements for the Wartsila 18V50DF model gas engine based combine power generation options are investigated by recovering waste heat of the engine via Organic Rankine cycle (ORC). In order to this, four different ORC models are simulated via Aspen Plus software and these models are optimized for different objective functions; power output and price per unit of electricity generation. These ORC models are: regenerative Organic Rankine cycle (RORC), cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with an economizer (CORCE), cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with two heat sources (CORC2) and cascaded Organic Rankine cycle with three heat sources (CORC3). In the cascaded cycle models there are two loops which are coupled with a common heat exchanger that works as a condenser for the high temperature (HT) loop and as a preheater for the low temperature (LT) loop. By using this common heat exchanger, the latent heat of condensation of the HT loop is utilized. The engine's hot exhaust gases are used as main heat source in all the ORC models. The engine's jacket water is utilized in the CORC2 models as an additional heat source to preheat the LT working fluid. In the CORC3 models engine's lubrication oil together with the jacket water are used as additional sources for preheating the LT loop working fluid. Thus, the suitability of utilizing these two waste heat sources is examined. Moreover, thermodynamic and economic analyses are performed for each model and the results are compared to each other. The effect of different working fluids, condenser cooling water temperatures, superheating on cycles performance is also evaluated.The results show that with the same amount of fuel the power output of the engine would be increased 2200 kW in average and this increases the efficiency of the engine by 6.3 %. The highest power outputs are obtained in CORC3 models (around 2750 kW) whereas the lowest are in the RORC models (around 1800 kW). In contrast to the power output results, energetic efficiencies of the RORC models (around 30 %) are the highest and CORC3 models (around 22 %) are the lowest. In terms of exergetic efficiency, the highest efficiencies are obtained in CORC2 (around 64.5 %) models whereas the lowest in the RORC models (around 63 %). All the models are found economically feasible since thermodynamically optimized models pay the investment costs back in average of 2 years whereas the economically optimized ones in 1.7. The selection of the working fluid slightly affects the thermodynamic performance of the system since in all the ORC configurations Octamethyltrisiloxane (MDM) working fluid cycles achieve better thermodynamic performances than Decamethyltetrasiloxane (MD2M) working fluid cycles. However, the choice of working fluid doesn't affect the costs of the system since both working fluid cycles have similar price per unit of electricity generation. The CORC2 models obtain the shortest payback times whereas the CORC3 models obtain the longest Thus the configuration of the ORC does affect the economic performance. It is observed from the results that increasing the condenser cooling water temperature have negative impact on both thermodynamic and economic performances. Also, thermodynamic performances of the cycles are getting reduced with the increasing degree of superheating thus superheating negatively affects the cycle's performances. The engine's jacket water and lubrication oil are found to be sufficient waste heat sources to use in the ORC models.


Enzymes of the radical SAM (RS) superfamily catalyze a diverse assortment of reactions that proceed via intermediates containing unpaired electrons. The radical initiator is the common metabolite S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM), which is reductively cleaved to generate a 5′-deoxyadenosyl 5′-radical, a universal and obligate intermediate among enzymes within this class. A bioinformatics study that appeared in 2001 indicated that this superfamily contained over 600 members, many catalyzing reactions that were rich in novel chemical transformations. Since that seminal study, the RS superfamily has grown immensely, and new details about the scope of reactions and biochemical pathways in which its members participate have emerged. This review will highlight only a few of the most significant findings from the past 2-3 years, focusing primarily on: RS enzymes involved in complex metallocofactor maturation; characterized RS enzymes that lack the canonical CxxxCxxC motif; RS enzymes containing multiple iron-sulfur clusters; RS enzymes catalyzing reactions with compelling medical implications; and the energetics and mechanism of generating the 5′-deoxyadenosyl radical. A number of significant studies of RS enzymes will unfortunately be omitted, and it is hoped that the reader will access the relevant literature - particularly a number of superb review articles recently written on the subject - to acquire a deeper appreciation of this class of enzymes.


Intersection cuts were introduced by Balas and the corner polyhedron by Gomory. It is a classical result that intersection cuts are valid for the corner polyhedron. In this paper we show that, conversely every nontrivial facet-defining inequality for the corner polyhedron is an intersection cut.


A 23-month-old girl presented with an erythematous papular rash on her torso that extended in a linear pattern around to the back. The mother first noticed the rash while bathing the child 3 days earlier. The child had no associated itching, irritability, or fever, but she had mild rhinorrhea preceding the rash that resolved without treatment. The patient and her older sibling were cared for at home by their mother.


R eports in the medical literature of "acute myelitis" date back to 1882 and are credited to H. C. Bastain, MD Lond, FRS, a consulting physician to what was then called University College Hospital and the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic (London, England). He described several cases of acute myelitis resulting in "softening of the spinal cord." He presented the pathologic findings of several autopsies from patients who died of the myelitis and divided the cases into those that he thought were due to "blood changes and toxins, often associated with feeble cardiac action, which may well act as causes of thrombosis in vessels of the spinal cord" and those that were due to acute inflammation. The "inflammatory" cases were postulated to be due to an infectious or an allergic mechanism.


This is the first o f three sh o rt articles w hose purpose is to examine a variety o f ideas which, taken collectively, might be said to represent an 'appropriate technology' approach to CDT work . The subjects considered range widely from pneumatic toys to relatively exotic metal forming techniques, but common to all of them is the notion that getting technology into school can actually cost very little or nothing at all. It will become clear , I imagine, that many of these ideas might be applied in different ways right across the school age range ; what follows therefore is not intended to be prescriptive - that is, a miscellaneous collection of potential 'jobs' or experiments. Rather, it aims to draw attention to some interesting possibilities that appear to merit further thought .