An attempt of abundance estimation of fish schooling close to surface using sonar was conducted in Eastern North Sea Skagerrak in September 1990. The method is based on measurements of the school area· by the Furuno CSH-70 sonar and purse seine capture of schools to establish a school-area to school-biomass relationship. In the actual region, the biomass of herring and mackerel was estimated to about 90 000 ton and 430 000 ton, respectively. The accuracy of the method is discussed and improvements suggested.


We quantify the relationship between magnetic fields and strains in dynamic Ni-Mn-Ga actuators. As a result of magnetic field diffusion and structural actuator dynamics, the strain-field relationship changes significantly relative to the quasistatic response as the magnetic field frequency increases. We model the magnitude and phase of the magnetic field inside a Ni-Mn-Ga sample as a 1-D magnetic diffusion problem with applied dynamic fields known on the surface of the sample, from which we calculate an averaged or effective field. We use a continuum thermodynamics constitutive model to quantify the hysteretic response of the martensite volume fraction due to this effective magnetic field. We postulate that the evolution of volume fractions with effective field exhibits a zero-order response. To quantify the dynamic strain output, we represent the actuator as a lumped-parameter, single-degree-of-freedom resonator with force input dictated by the twin-variant volume fraction. This results in a second-order, linear ordinary differential equation whose periodic force input is expressed as a summation of Fourier series terms. The total dynamic strain output is obtained by superposition of strain solutions due to each harmonic force input. The model accurately describes experimental measurements at frequencies up to 250 Hz.


Photo Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU) based camera attribution is an effective method to determine the source camera of a visual object (an image or a video). To apply this method, images or videos need to be obtained from a camera to create a "camera fingerprint" which then can be compared against the PRNU of the query media whose origin is under question. The fingerprint extraction process can be time consuming when a large number of video frames or images have to be denoised. This may need to be done when the individual images have been subjected to high compression or other geometric processing such as video stabilization. This paper investigates a simple, yet effective and efficient technique to create a camera fingerprint when so many still images need to be denoised. The technique utilizes Spatial Domain Averaged (SDA) frames. An SDA-frame is the arithmetic mean of multiple still images. When it is used for fingerprint extraction, the number of denoising operations can be significantly decreased with little or no performance loss. Experimental results show that the proposed method can work more than 50 times faster than conventional methods while providing similar matching results.


Evolutionary biology - or, more precisely, two (purported) applications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, namely, evolutionary psychology and what has been called human behavioral biology - is on the cusp of becoming the new rage among legal scholars looking for interdisciplinary insights into the law. We argue that as the actual science stands today, evolutionary biology offers nothing to help with questions about legal regulation of behavior. Only systematic misrepresentations or lack of understanding of the relevant biology, together with far-reaching analytical and philosophical confusions, have led anyone to think otherwise. Evolutionary accounts are etiological accounts of how a trait evolved. We argue that an account of causal etiology could be relevant to law if (1) the account of causal etiology is scientifically well-confirmed, and (2) there is an explanation of how the well-confirmed etiology bears on questions of development (what we call the Environmental Gap Objection). We then show that the accounts of causal etiology that might be relevant are not remotely well-confirmed by scientific standards. We argue, in particular, that (a) evolutionary psychology is not entitled to assume selectionist accounts of human behaviors, (b) the assumptions necessary for the selectionist accounts to be true are not warranted by standard criteria for theory choice, and (c) only confusions about levels of explanation of human behavior create the appearance that understanding the biology of behavior is important. We also note that no response to the Environmental Gap Objection has been proffered. In the concluding section of the article, we turn directly to the work of Professor Owen Jones, a leading proponent of the relevance of evolutionary biology to law, and show that he does not come to terms with any of the fundamental problems identified in this article.


Rural land use is important for New Zealand's economic and environmental outcomes. Using a dynamic econometric model and recent New Zealand data, we estimate the response of land use to changing economic returns as proxied by relevant commodity prices. Because New Zealand is small, export prices are credibly exogenous. We show that land use responses can be slow. Our result implies that policy-induced land-use change is likely to be slow or costly.


Stakeholders and contracting board have begun to utilize innovative contracting methods that provide new incentives for reducing construction duration. These methods have placed increasing pressure on decision makers in the construction industry to search for an optimal construction plan that minimizes construction time and cost while preserving quality. This paper considers the problem of finding the optimal number of segment(s) that minimizes total project cost of a non-homogenous road construction project located in a city in South West, Nigeria. A mathematical programming model approach was adopted to obtain the optimal number of segments as opposed to when the activities of the project are scheduled sequentially. Also, Binary interaction matrix (BIM) was used to define stated relationships between fixed and variable quantities of the cost and duration respectively. Given stipulated due date of 8 months with a penalty / bonus of N 63091791/month. The analysis shows that the optimal number of segments into which the project can be divided into is three and that by working in parallel the project will be completed in 5 months at a cost of N 1,409,609,413. This is opposed to the original contract lump sum of  N 1, 577, 294, 775 with a normal duration of 12 months. A saving of 1.55% was realized. This work demonstrated the possibility of dividing a continuous repetitive project into a numbers of segments of equal work content, working in parallel, using optimum crew size such that the duration and the total cost of the project can be minimized. Key words : Project Management, Scheduling, Construction planning, Natural Rhythm, Project Segmentation


In the agrarian sector several tens of billions Czech crowns of state and European aid is redistributed annually. The openness of related data and any other that can support economic stability and competitiveness of Czech agrarian sector is a challenge not only for officials but also for research and non-profit sector. In order to determine the current state of availability of open data in agrarian sector 10 departmental institutions have been selected, which are the main producers of agricultural data in the Czech Republic, along with the CZSO (Czech Statistical Office) which is another significant source of agricultural data. The evaluation took place in the first quarter of 2016. The result is a statement that data in formats that allow further processing is published only by two out of ten surveyed departmental organizations. A similar situation prevails in the National Catalog of Open Data where there is no data coming from regarding the agricultural sector. It is proven that making the data open can bring benefits to both farmers themselves, end consumers and other commercial entities. On the other hand, it is necessary to ensure the safety of data providers, data creators and in turn, the national security.


The objective of this paper is to derive a simple dynamic model of a wind turbine system, with focus on mechanical conditions. The investigated system is assumed to be a 10 MW reference wind turbine, with variable speed operations and a direct-drive permanent magnet synchronous generator. The model will include the mechanical dynamics where the joint inertia, the electromagnetic torque and the aerodynamic torque will influence the turbine rotational speed. Three different control strategies for the generator-side converter system will be investigated, where steady-state power flow equations are utilized to describe the system. The variable turbine rotational speed and demanded electric torque will influence the electrical quantities. The derived control strategies will be implemented in a wind turbine model in the computer tool MatLab/SIMULINK to perform several simulations with different wind speeds. Signals containing information about the armature current, terminal voltage, load angle and power output will be analyzed. The intended generator implemented in the model will be designed to deliver 10 MW to the grid, including losses in generator and converter. Voltage and current restrictions can cause a limitation on the desired delivered power output. The system should be optimized for operations at rated wind speed, but must be able to handle situations with high turbine rotational speed and possible grid faults. The desired induced torque will be delivered during ideal operations, maintaining steady-state operations for the wind turbine. Identical power output will be delivered from the three different control strategies implemented in the generator subsystem. Both the current and voltage values will be different causing various operating modes. A beneficial control strategy would be to minimize losses and maximize the power factor. The maximum voltage and current tolerance on the generator-side converter should be determined to minimize costs and weight, and maximize the turbine operations and security. At the same time the generator must be designed to handle the thermal stress caused by a high current value during high rotational speeds. A development where the mechanical structure and the electrical system are more integrated should be emphasized in future research.


The first test culture of shrimp (Penaeus semisulcatus and Penaeus japonicus) in earthen ponds was carried out in Izmir, a city near the Aegean Sea in western Turkey. In this experiment, it was aimed at investigating the effects of different regional and climatic conditions on the growth, survival rate and biomass gain of P. semisulcatus and P. japonicus and compare their results. Experiment took place at a marine fish farm (Pinar Sea Products) located in Ildir-Izmir in 2002. Brood stocks were transferred from Antalya, Turkey, and larvae culture was conducted on the farm. Two rectangular ponds (size 100 m2 and water depth 1.2 m) were used. The ponds were stocked at the rate of 15 individuals per m2 when the shrimps were 25 days post larval (PL) stage. Prior to stocking, PL quality was tested using morphological and viability characteristics. Starting on the day of stocking, ponds were sampled fortnightly at 7 h and 15 h for temperature (◦C), salinity (h), pH, dissolved oxygen (ppm) and turbidity (cm). The water exchange rates were 0–15 % daily for the two ponds. Shrimp were fed sea bream feed and feeding frequency was changed from 3 to 1 times daily. A yield of 1920 kg ha−1 for P. semisulcatus and 516 kg ha−1 for P. japonicus was obtained in 150 days of culture with survival rates of 82 % and 59.3% respectively. At the end of the rearing cycle, average final weights for P. semisulcatus and P. japonicus were 15.6 g (SD 1.3) and 5.9 g (SD 0.9), respectively. As a consequence, P. semisulcatus seems to be the more suitable species under Izmir conditions as far as growth performance, final yields and survival rates are concerned.


Network managers have many options for site-to-site connectivity. Traditional leased lines, Frame Relay, and ATM based connectivity solutions are giving way to newer VPN technology. Two types of modern VPNs, BGP/MPLS and IPSec are becoming increasingly attractive to network managers. This paper gives an overview of MPLS and then discusses the mechanisms used to provide VPNs based upon BGP/MPLS and IPSec. The paper assesses the security provided by both solutions and suggests guidelines for network managers to assist in evaluating these two options. Introduction Recent advances in Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology offer great benefits to network managers, especially in terms of cost savings. VPN technology can offer the ability to connect remote offices at a fraction of what it costs for a traditional leased line. Traditional service provider VPNs, such as ATM or Frame Relay, are giving way to more cost effective alternatives. VPN networks based upon IP Security (IPSec) or a combination of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Multiprotocol Layer Switch (MPLS) are viable alternatives that are growing in popularity. IP Security (IPSec) VPNs are proliferating throughout the enterprise and medium-small business space due to the ability to not only connect remote users, but disparate offices over an existing IP infrastructure. In the case of IPSec, the existing IP infrastructure is the Internet and an individual company can own the VPN equipment. In addition, service providers, such as Virtela, are beginning to offer IPSec based VPN services to clients. (Jones, 1) BGP/MPLS VPNs, based upon RFC 2547, are an alternative to IPSec VPNs. MPLS VPNs are network based, meaning that they are not the CPE-based VPNs that are more prevalent in the US today. Rather, MPLS VPNs travel over existing service provider IP infrastructures and can only be only utilized as a purchased service. IPSec VPNs based upon CPE have been popular in the US for the past few years. However, that is not the case throughout the world. "Amid U.S. enterprises, traditional CPE-based VPN solutions are favored. VPN technology overall has enjoyed wide acceptance abroad where networked-based solutions are taking hold more quickly." (Jones, 2) Despite international differences, it is clear that the use of VPN technology will continue to grow, and an increasing amount of providers, in both the United States and abroad, will offer BGP/MPLS based VPN service. This gives network managers a choice between MPLS or IPSec © S A N S In st itu te 2 00 2, A ut ho r r et ai ns fu ll ri gh ts . Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 © SANS Institute 2002, As part of the Information Security Reading Room. Author retains full rights. VPN technology. This choice should be made after a careful comparison between the two options. MPLS The Basics An understanding of the basics behind MPLS is required for understanding MPLS based VPNs. MPLS evolved for a number of reasons. The first was that it provided a more scaleable method of allowing IP traffic to travel over an ATM network. Second, MPLS enhances routing functionality. On a traditional service provider IP Network, traffic is routed via an interior routing protocol such as OSPF. The sum result of relying on traditional Layer 3 routing protocols is that all traffic routes based upon best path. This means that the best paths through service provider cores are used heavily while other, redundant paths, are underutilized. MPLS can be used to move network traffic over these underutilized paths allowing a greater return on redundant architecture investment for the service provider. Finally, MPLS allows service providers to offer customers enhanced services. Utilizing constraint based routing and MPLS's quality of service features, service providers can provide several layers of service to their customers based upon many factors. Of course, MPLS also allows a service provider to offer value added services such as VPNs. MPLS is based upon routers, or switches, performing label switching to provide a Label Switched Path (LSP) through a network. Essentially, when an IP packet enters an interface of an MPLS ingress router, that router assigns the packet to a Forwarding Equivalency Class (FEC). FEC assignment can be based on a variety of Access Control List (ACL) matches such as source address, destination address, BGP next hop, application type, and Differentiated Service flag. (Cosine, 2) The router then assigns the packet to an LSP and "pushes" a label onto the packet header before sending it out the appropriate interface. Since FEC assignment is based upon a number of different factors, rather than just destination, packet forwarding can be policy based providing an advantage over traditional IP networks. Similar to an ATM VPI/VCI or a Frame Relay DLCI, MPLS labels only have local significance. Intervening Label Switch Routers (LSRs) "swap" the incoming label with a label defined in their own MPLS forwarding database. When the MPLS egress, or final, router is reached, the label is permanently removed, or "popped", prior to the egress router forwarding the regular IP packet. An example of this process is shown in Figure 1. An IP packet arrives at the ingress router with a destination of 22.214.171.124. The ingress router pushes a label of 10 onto the packet and forwards it out a second interface. The intermediary LSR does a lookup on the label of 10 and swaps the 10 with a label of 2. The egress router terminates the LSP by popping the label of 2 and forwarding the regular IP packet onward. © S A N S In st itu te 2 00 2, A ut ho r r et ai ns fu ll ri gh ts . Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 © SANS Institute 2002, As part of the Information Security Reading Room. Author retains full rights. Push 10 18.104.22.168 10 220.127.116.11 2 188.8.131.52 184.108.40.206 Swap 10 with 2 Pop label Figure 1. Basic MPLS Operation When a label is pushed, a MPLS header is added to each packet. MPLS headers contain the following information (Figure 2): • A 20 bit label field that contains the actual label information. • A 3 bit Class of Service field that can have an impact on the packet as it travels the network. • A 1 bit stack field that supports a hierarchical label stack. • An 8 bit Time to Live field which can support conventional IP TTL functionality (Semeria, 13) Layer 2 Header MPLS Header IP Header Payload Label Class of Service Stack Time-toLive Figure 2. MPLS Header Information LSPs can be setup throughout a network utilizing a variety of methods. LSPs can be manually configured on each LSR that participates within the LSP. Constraint based routing protocols such as Constrained Shortest Path First (CSPF) can also be used to define LSPs. Label Distribution Protocol (LDP), Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), and Constraint Based Routing-Label Distribution Protocol (CR-LDP) are signaling methods used to setup the LSP through a network. BGP/MPLS VPN Mechanics RFC 2547 defines BGP/MPLS VPNs. In defining BGP/MPLS VPNs, the authors write: MPLS is used for forwarding packets over the backbone, and BGP is used for distributing routes over the backbone. The primary goal of this method is to support the outsourcing of IP backbone services for enterprise networks. It does so in a manner which is simple for the enterprise, while still scalable and flexible for the Service Provider, and while allowing the Service Provider to add value. These techniques can also be used to provide a VPN which itself provides IP service to customers. (Rosen and Rekhter, 1) © S A N S In st itu te 2 00 2, A ut ho r r et ai ns fu ll ri gh ts . Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4E46 © SANS Institute 2002, As part of the Information Security Reading Room. Author retains full rights. The RFC defines three functional types of routers that comprise a VPN. Customer edge (CE) routers sit at the customer site and are typically owned by the customer. However, some service providers provide equipment for CE routers. CE routers are connected to provider edge (PE) routers. Owned by service providers, these are usually located at POPs and are the entry points into the provider's network. Finally, provider (P) routers are defined as transit routers within the provider's core. Routing information is passed between a CE and its directly connected PE through an IGP, BGP, or through default routes defined on each router. Each PE router keeps one or more per-site forwarding tables known as VPN Routing and Forwarding Tables (VRFs). Within every PE, each VRF serves a particular interface, or set of interfaces that belong to each individual VPN. In other words, each interface that leads to a customer within a PE has its own VRF. The only time this s not the case is when a customer has two or more sites connected to the same PE. In this case, the VRF is used for all interfaces facing that customer. Each PE is configured with it's own unique VRF meaning that routers do not share VRF information directly. (Figure 3) Service Provider Network Customer Red Customer Blue Customer Red Customer Blue CE


To elucidate the mechanisms underlying the suspected immune-related pregnancy failures in humans, we established experimental systems to induce pregnancy blocking and abortion in mice. One system, based on the preimmunization of C57BL/6J females with a syngeneic regressor tumor, is described. Such females fail to develop normal gestations when mated to C57BL/6J x DBA/2 F-1 (B6D2F-1) males or DBA/2 males but sustain normal pregnancies when impregnated by CBA/J or C57BL/6 males. An investigation into the cause of these male-specific pregnancy failures led us to identify colony-stimulating factor-1 (CSF-1) as responsible for both pregnancy-block and resorption of embryos. Indeed, injection of very small amounts of CSF-1 into plugged females, for the first 5 days of pregnancy, was sufficient to block B6D2F-1-induced gestations but had no effect on CBA/J-mated females. It also induced a high rate of fetal resorptions in the sensitive mating. These results suggest a novel mechanism underlying pregnancy failures: a mechanism based on cytokines and their effect on early embryonic development in certain mating combinations.


The aim of the current study was to identify genetic abnormalities in human colorectal adenoma and carcinoma derived cell lines, and to determine whether the genetic changes which occur in vitro are relevant to the in vivo situation. Loss of 1p(33-35) region was shown to be the most common chromosome 1 abnormality and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of the DCC gene and/or adjacent sequences was detected in all adenoma derived cells as well as the carcinoma cell lines. The level of p53 protein was also investigated as increased cellular p53 protein had previously been associated with mutation of the p53 gene. A further aim was to investigate genetic changes in our in vitro model of tumour progression, where the adenoma derived PC/AA cell line has previously been converted in vitro to two distinct tumorigenic phenotypes, producing either an adenocarcinoma or a mucinous carcinoma in athymic nude mice. Progression to the adenocarcinoma phenotype was shown to involve a specific chromosome 1 rearrangement, loss of both normal copies of chromosome 18 (although DCC gene sequences were retained), loss of the remaining wild type allele of k-ras resulting in homozygosity for the k-ras codon 12 mutation and increased cellular p53 protein as detected by SDS-PAGE Western blotting. The increase in p53 protein was shown not to be due to the acquisition of a mutation in the p53 gene. Interestingly, progression of the adenoma derived PC/AA cell line to the mucinous malignant phenotype did not involve any of these molecular rearrangements, suggesting that different genetically distinct pathways are involved in colorectal carcinogenesis. These studies show that the genetic changes in our in vitro model of human colorectal tumour progression are similar to those observed in in vivo studies.


I extend a previous work to susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) models on weighed Barab\'asi-Albert scale-free trees. Numerical evidence is provided that phases with slow, power-law dynamics emerge as the consequence of quenched disorder in topologies previously studied with Contact Process. I compare simulation results with a spectral analysis of the networks and show that the quenched mean-field (QMF) approximation provides a reliable, relatively fast method to explore activity clustering. This suggests that QMF can be used for describing rare-region effects and smeared phase transitions due to network inhomogeneities. Finite size study of the QMF shows the expected disappearance of the epidemic threshold $\lambda_c$ in the thermodynamic limit and suggest a nontrivial mean-field behavior characterized by the order parameter $\beta=2$. This means that the order parameter of the infection $\rho(\lambda)$ vanishes tangentially at the $\lambda_c=0$ transition point. Application of this method to other models may reveal interesting rare-region effects, Griffiths Phases as the consequence of quenched topological heterogenities.


This paper revisits the licensing of a non-drastic process innovation by an outside innovator to a Cournot oligopoly. We propose a new mechanism that combines a restrictive license auction with royalty licensing. This mechanism is more profitable than standard license auctions, auctioning royalty contracts, fixed-fee licensing, pure royalty licensing, and two-part tariffs. The key features are that royalty contracts are auctioned and that losers of the auction are granted the option to sign a royalty contract. Remarkably, combining royalties for winners and losers of the auction makes the integer constraint concerning the number of licenses irrelevant.


Section one of this thesis describes a meta-ethnographic approach to the synthesis of 24 qualitative studies exploring the experiences of stigma in adults with epilepsy across the globe. Five themes were generated: societal negative perceptions of epilepsy result in discrimination and rejection; internal attributions of blame lead to negative self-perception and shame; impact of stigma on everyday life and associated reliance on others; attempts to manage stigma through concealment and avoidance; support from others is beneficial but dependent on own and others' understandings of epilepsy. The synthesis highlighted the key individual experiences of epilepsy stigma, which appeared to be to some degree culturally specific. Culturally informed misconceptions of epilepsy were readily internalised which resulted in emotional challenges for participants and impacted on participants' lives. Section two provides an empirical report of a qualitative exploration into the experiences of self-disgust in adults with epilepsy. Three key themes were identified from analysis of the data: being an outsider, "the feeling of being a bit of a freak;" the inescapable presence of self-disgust, "it's a niggling feeling that something's not quite right" and preventing exposure, "living a protected life." People with epilepsy experienced disgust in reaction to the physical symptoms of seizures and these disgust-based feelings appeared to become internalised following others' disgust reactions. Avoidance as a strategy to manage self-disgust can be protective but may inadvertently maintain self-disgust. Section three provides a critical appraisal of the thesis. This offers a reflective account of the experiences of developing and conducting this research and some of the strengths and weaknesses of the research. The potential implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed, as well as personal reflections of the research process.


Recent cascade Multi- View Stereo (MVS) methods can efficiently estimate high-resolution depth maps through narrowing hypothesis ranges. However, previous methods ignored the vital geometric information embedded in coarse stages, leading to vulnerable cost matching and sub-optimal reconstruction results. In this paper, we propose a geometry awareness model, termed GeoMVSNet, to explic-itly integrate geometric clues implied in coarse stages for delicate depth estimation. In particular, we design a two-branch geometry fusion network to extract geometric pri-ors from coarse estimations to enhance structural feature extraction at finer stages. Besides, we embed the coarse probability volumes, which encode valuable depth distri-bution attributes, into the lightweight regularization network to further strengthen depth-wise geometry intuition. Meanwhile, we apply the frequency domain filtering to mit-igate the negative impact of the high-frequency regions and adopt the curriculum learning strategy to progressively boost the geometry integration of the model. To intensify the full-scene geometry perception of our model, we present the depth distribution similarity loss based on the Gaussian-Mixture Model assumption. Extensive experiments on DTU and Tanks and Temples (T&T) datasets demonstrate that our GeoMVSNet achieves state-of-the-art results and ranks first on the T&T-Advanced set. Code is available at https://github.com/doubleZ0108IGeoMVSNet.


World-wide multiplayer games present several scalability challenges for large-scale deployment. In recent years, significant research has been devoted to scaling in terms of number of players so that the same virtual world can accommodate larger number of simultaneous avatars. A possible solution is to use grid computing techniques for distribution of processing over a cluster or a distributed set of servers. Scalability with respect to geographical distribution of players is another challenge. Large geographical distances between players introduces propagation delays which are impossible to avoid. Without proper design, responsiveness of the application to user inputs is degraded even when there is abundant processing and network resources available to the game. Currently, most subscription based commercial massively multiplayer games, such as Dark Age of Camelot or Lineage II, deploy independent virtual worlds on different continents to reach their clients. Geographical distribution of game servers with proper state synchronisation in overlay networks can help cope with propagation delay. Relevant publications are reported in references [1], [2] and [3]. Game server distribution can be extended in the extreme towards a peer-to-peer situation where each player's machine becomes a server itself. In this case, the same state synchronisation strategies as classic server distribution, which will be discussed here, can be used. However, specific issues to peer-to-peer game architectures [4] [5] such as limitations in the users' access bandwidth and increased risks of cheating are outside the scope of this work. This article first introduces, through simple examples, the notions of response time and paradoxes along with conservative and optimistic synchronisation techniques using local lag and timewarps. Next, we briefly present the distributed game simulator we developed and the methodology used for the simulations before presenting the two tailoring local lag techniques along with their associated simulations results.


The Peace Process brought forward between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla group demanded a new understanding of the internal conflict that Colombia has been living in since the second half of the last century. Within the formative options that were pronounced on this political conjuncture, it is worth mentioning the non-formal education processes that arise within communities and which reflect the thematic and pedagogical interests of their participants. The Post-Conflict Diploma Course (Medellin, 2016) is a milestone in education for peace, as it was managed as part of the Local Planning and Participatory Budgeting Program, a democratic tool that allows communities to prioritize resources for intervention in their most pressing problems. This educational scenario was built on the guidelines of the SFCP, which is based on critical and social pedagogies, and on the approach of capability and skills development of the subjects in formation.


Why do some terrorist groups last much longer than others? This dissertation is among a small but growing number of studies to apply social networks analysis to the study of terrorism, and addresses an outcome of interest that is important but under analyzed. Terrorist group survival is puzzling because it is not explained by the conditions that encourage terrorism generally. Much of the literature has focused on terrorist attacks as an outcome of interest, ignoring the group context in which most incidents occur. Organizational and social network research suggests that group dynamics have important effects on outcomes, but connections between these studies and terrorism are underdeveloped. The dissertation presents an organizational-network model of terrorist group survival. Organizational aspects are the base of the model, but network attributes are a greater innovation, as this research offers the first explanation of terrorist group longevity to incorporate network attributes. The argument suggests the importance of direct ties between terrorist groups – cooperative and adversarial. It also argues for a role of interorganizational relations more broadly, in terms of indirect competition and eigenvector centrality. Finally, I incorporate the state into the explanation, emphasizing how state attributes condition intergroup relations. Hypotheses are evaluated on a newly-extended global dataset of terrorist group networks 1987-2005. Case studies of terrorist groups in Colombia, Northern Ireland, and Pakistan illustrate how causal mechanisms often function as argued.


We reconstructed subsurface (∼45–200 m water depth) temperature variability in the eastern Antarctic continental margin during the late Holocene, using an archaeal lipid‐based temperature proxy (TEX86L). Our results reveal that subsurface temperature changes were probably positively coupled to the variability of warmer, nutrient‐rich Modified Circumpolar Deep Water (MCDW, deep water of the Antarctic circumpolar current) intrusion onto the continental shelf. The TEX86Lrecord, in combination with previously published climatic records, indicates that this coupling was probably related to the thermohaline circulation, seasonal variability in sea ice extent, sea temperature, and wind associated with high frequency climate dynamics at low‐latitudes such as internal El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). This in turn suggests a linkage between centennial ENSO‐like variability at low‐latitudes and intrusion variability of MCDW into the eastern Antarctic continental shelf, which might have further impact on ice sheet evolution.


DNA−protein conjugates are potentially repaired via proteolytic digestion to DNA−peptide conjugates. The latter have been modeled with the amino-terminal lysine of the peptide KWKK conjugated via a trimethylene linkage to the N2-dG amine positioned in 5′-d(GCTAGCXAGTCC)-3′·5′-d(GGACTCGCTAGC)-3′ (X = N2-dG−trimethylene link−KWKK). This linkage is a surrogate for the reversible linkage formed by the γ-OH-1,N2-propanodeoxyguanosine (γ-OH-PdG) adduct. This conjugated KWKK stabilizes the DNA. Amino acids K26, W27, K28, and K29 are in the minor groove. The W27 indolyl group does not intercalate into the DNA. The G7N2 amine and the K26 N-terminal amine nitrogens are in the trans configuration with respect to the Cα or Cγ of the trimethylene tether, respectively. The structure of this DNA−KWKK conjugate is discussed in the context of its biological processing.


Abstract Quantitative, comparative clinical trials can sometimes be better accomplished with technics other than randomization for selection of a control group. These include selection of literature controls, matched controls and controls from a previous study. Such controls have permitted detection of therapeutic activity for many anti-cancer agents. Circumstances of greatest utility are as follows: when the primary purpose of study is to estimate effectiveness of treatment; when large differences in response rate are expected on the basis of preliminary studies; or when the new therapy would only be interesting if it was substantially more effective than the standard. When a new therapy is to be evaluated, clinical investigators must consider both ethical responsibility to administer best available therapy and scientific responsibility to conduct a proper evaluation. Selected control patients can permit valid evaluation of a new therapy without the requirement of prescribing control therapy known to be ...


Precise fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) self-standing microstructures on thin glass plates via two-photon induced polymerization (TPP) has been an important issue for innovative 3D nanodevices and microdevices. However, there are still issues remaining to be solved, such as building 3D microstructures on opaque materials via TPP and being able to implant them as functional parts onto practical systems. To settle these issues simply and effectively, the authors propose a contact print lithography (CPL) method using an ultraviolet-curable polymer layer. They report some of the possibilities and potential of CPL by presenting their results for transplanting 3D microstructures onto large-area substrates and also their examination of some of the effects of the process parameters on CPL.


Ab initio electron-propagator calculations on the electron detachment energies and associated Dyson orbitals of NnH3n+1− for n = 1–5 confirm the assignment of low-energy peaks in anion photoelectron spectra to double Rydberg anions, species in which a closed-shell cation binds a diffuse pair of electrons. The most stable double Rydberg anions contain NnH3n+1+ cores, wherein the NH4+ kernel forms n − 1 hydrogen bonds with ammonia molecules. Other low-energy peaks for a given n pertain to double Rydberg anions of lower n that are weakly bound to ammonia molecules. High-energy peaks arise from the most stable isomers which consist of hydrides bound to N–H bonds of coordinating ammonia molecules. Dyson orbitals of electron detachment are distributed over the periphery of the bonding regions of the NnH3n+1+ cores. For n = 2–4, negative charge accumulates mostly outside the N–H bonds of the NH4+ kernels that are not engaged in hydrogen bonds. For the tetrahedral cases, where n = 1, 5, Dyson orbitals are diffuse, symmetric functions that are orthogonalized to occupied a1 orbitals of the cationic core. Shake-up features in spectra have been assigned to doublet states with a single diffuse electron in an s, p, d, or f orbital.Ab initio electron-propagator calculations on the electron detachment energies and associated Dyson orbitals of NnH3n+1− for n = 1–5 confirm the assignment of low-energy peaks in anion photoelectron spectra to double Rydberg anions, species in which a closed-shell cation binds a diffuse pair of electrons. The most stable double Rydberg anions contain NnH3n+1+ cores, wherein the NH4+ kernel forms n − 1 hydrogen bonds with ammonia molecules. Other low-energy peaks for a given n pertain to double Rydberg anions of lower n that are weakly bound to ammonia molecules. High-energy peaks arise from the most stable isomers which consist of hydrides bound to N–H bonds of coordinating ammonia molecules. Dyson orbitals of electron detachment are distributed over the periphery of the bonding regions of the NnH3n+1+ cores. For n = 2–4, negative charge accumulates mostly outside the N–H bonds of the NH4+ kernels that are not engaged in hydrogen bonds. For the tetrahedral cases, where n = 1, 5, Dyson orbitals are diffuse...


West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging mosquito-transmitted encephalitis virus first recognized in North America in 1999. The pathologic manifestations of WNV infection have not been well defined. This study documents the clinicopathologic features, including autopsy findings, of 2 cases: an 81-year-old man who contracted WNV infection with meningoencephalitis and a polio-like paralysis and a hospitalized 74-year-old woman with meningoencephalitis who acquired WNV through transfusion. The pathologic findings in both cases were marked by perivascular and leptomeningeal chronic inflammation, microglial nodules, and neuronophagia, predominantly involving the temporal lobes and brainstem. These findings also were present in the spinal cord, especially the lumbar region, of the patient with polio-like paralysis. In both cases, most of the inflammatory infiltrate was composed of CD3+ T lymphocytes (a predominance of CD8+ over CD4+ T cells), CD68+ macrophages, and rare CD20+ B lymphocytes. These cases further define the clinical and pathologic spectrum of central nervous system disease in WNV infection.


Overtraining leads to an increase in IL-1β systemically due to muscle microtrauma, which affects the hippocampus, an important structure in spatial memory consolidation. The administration of Hibiscus sabdariffa Linn is expected to decrease IL-1β and increase IL-1ra, thereby potentially preventing impairments in spatial memory consolidation. This research was an experimental study using 20 male Wistar rats. The overtraining of Wistar rats altered the ratio of IL-1β/IL-1ra in the plasma and hippocampus. Moreover, this overtraining impaired spatial memory consolidation. The methanol extract of H. sabdariffa improved spatial memory consolidation in Wistar rats and prevented impairment in spatial memory consolidation by maintaining the ratio of IL-1β/IL-1ra in the plasma and hippocampus of Wistar rats who experienced overtraining. H. sabdariffa is a potent anti-inflammatory substance that prevents impairments in spatial memory consolidation in overtrained Wistar rats.


In this paper we describe first experiences with AdeLE prototype, a framework for adaptive e-learning utilising both eye tracking and content tracking technology. We outline features of the first prototype and their relevance for the user. We report more in detail about current research challenges where we observe users' learning behaviour in real time by monitoring characteristics such as objects and areas of focus, time spent on objects, frequency of visits, and sequences in which content is consumed. This research is focused on analysing eye-movement patters during learning and linking these patterns with cognitive processes. Possible areas of application are described, such as using the information about the position of the eye for providing additional context specific information to the learner. The framework ensures not only adaptivity to the users' preferences, knowledge level and the real-time tracking of their behaviour, but also the relevance, accuracy and reliability of the knowledge provided.


This study aimed to determine the business-related skill and competency requirements of industries, business firms, financial and academic institutions in Iligan City. It used personal factors as parameters in determining these skills. These competencies are personal, communication, computer, organizational, entrepreneurial, international/cultural and domain competencies. The descriptive method of research applying basic descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages and proportions, mean, standard deviation and, coefficient variation was used. A structured survey questionnaire was used to gather data from 33 business organizations. Results of the study indicated that in general, industries and business firms in Iligan City today give more importance to the organizational competencies of individuals as a main requirement from their applicants and employees. In the personal competency category, integrity topped among the four factors while problem solving is the least, although all of the four factors were rated as "very important." In the communication competency category, the survey revealed that all of the six factors are very important but writing and oral communication skills as the most important among the six communication competencies while public speaking was found to be the least important in this competency category. In the computer competencies category, accuracy, which is under the encoding skills, topped as the most important while the skill in blogging, which is under the Internet subcategory, is rated as the least important. In the organizational competencies category, all factors are rated as very important though the leadership/ management skill was regarded as the most important; and, economics/statistics as the least but still indicated as very important; In the entrepreneurial competency category, only risk-taking is regarded as important and the rest are indicated as very important. Demand for efficiency and quality is considered as most important among the entrepreneurial competency factors while risk taking as the least important. In the international and intercultural competencies, the data showed that cross-cultural competencies were rated as the highest. It is followed by having international knowledge, then by having knowledge in International Human Resource. Learning a second language is also rated as the fourth important factor. International marketing, international trade theory and international management were rated least important among the factors. When it came to domain competencies, having knowledge in Financies was preferred on knowledge in Accounting. Industries and business firms, therefore, in Iligan City are generally giving more importance to the organizational competencies of individuals as a main requirement from their applicants and employees. The seven skills and competency factors used in the study are regarded as important, thus, must be incorporated in any business curriculum.


A tentative plan of phenol wastewater treatment by using the carbon cycling micro-electrolysis reactor (CCMER) was designed and its result was analyzed with Design-Expert 7.1 software. The experiment results showed that the relation model between CODcr removal efficiency and the effective factors with different operating variables was established and normal probability plot of residual, response surface and contours for desirability function of CODcr removal efficiency with different effective factors were given. A group of optimization parameters for CODcr removal efficiency would be consulted by Design-Expert 7.1.


Background : Some chronic conditions may result from similar underlying mechanisms or may exacerbate lung disease suggesting the investigation of disease inter-relationships. We sought to determine if SOB was more common among adults with chronic conditions and to examine this association among those with and without asthma or COPD. Methods : In 2010 we conducted a cross-sectional mail survey of rural households as part of the Saskatchewan Rural Health Study. One adult per home provided information about each adult living in the home. There were 8261 adults from 4624 households (42% participation) included. We examined the associations between reported diagnosed chronic conditions (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and sleep apnea) and SOB after adjusting for potential confounders and stratifying by history of doctor-diagnosed asthma or COPD. High SOB was defined by a score of ≥3 on the MRC breathlessness scale. Results : The respondents9 mean age was 56 years (SD=16 years) with 51% of the population being female. Approximately 14% had a MRC score ≥3. After adjustment, there was increased risk of high MRC score associated with the presence of diabetes [odds ratio (OR)=1.68, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.32-2.14], cardiovascular disease (OR=2.18, 95%CI=1.80-2.65), and sleep apnea (OR=2.19, 95%CI=1.60-3.00). The associations with SOB were weaker among those with asthma or COPD with the exception of that for sleep apnea, which was stronger. Conclusions : Some conditions were associated with high SOB among those with and without a history of lung disease. These relationships may result from common pathways, possibly inflammatory, and may precede more serious chronic lung disease.


Maximal and non-maximal supergravities in three spacetime dimensions allow for a large variety of semisimple and non-semisimple gauge groups, as well as complex gauge groups that have no analog in higher dimensions. In this contribution we review the recent progress in constructing these theories and discuss some of their possible applications.


Many studies address the relationships between diversity or distribution and attributes of the physical environment. However, how these relationships are connected to variation in life history is poorly understood. This is particularly true in the case of pteridophytes. Japanese ferns and their allies comprise one of the best-known pteridophyte floras in the world. We analyzed ca 600 species of Japanese pteridophytes for which there is detailed information on distribution, reproduction, and chromosome number. Species richness was greatest in groups with a single reproductive mode (sexual, followed by apogamous), but distribution was greatest in species groups with multiple reproductive modes: sexual plus either sterile (irregular in meiosis) or apogamous. Geographical ranges varied greatly among species with small chromosome numbers but were uniformly small among species having high chromosome numbers. Seasonally green (mostly summer green) species had significantly larger distribution ranges than evergreen species. Endemic species had higher proportions of apogamy and sterility than non-endemic species. Seasonally green species had significantly larger distributional ranges, and a smaller proportion of species with apogamous reproduction, than evergreen species. There was no clear relationship between distribution and spore size, either among endemic species, non-endemic species, or all species combined. There was no relationship between spore size and chromosome number when all species were combined. However, positive relationships were detected within three of the nine largest genera, suggesting potential phylogenetic effects. We concluded that habitat availability, rather than dispersability, may be the limiting factor for the distribution of pteridophytes in Japan.


In this paper, we investigate a multi-period portfolio selection problem with a comprehensive set of real-world trading constraints as well as market random uncertainty in terms of asset prices. We formulate the problem into a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer program (SMIP) with recourse. The set of constraints is modelled as mixed-integer program, while a set of decision variables to rebalance the portfolio in multiple periods is explicitly introduced as the recourse variables in the second stage of stochastic program. Although the combination of stochastic program and mixed-integer program leads to computational challenges in finding solutions to the problem, the proposed SMIP model provides an insightful and flexible description of the problem. The model also enables the investors the make decisions subject to real-world trading constraints and market uncertainty. To deal with the computational difficulty of the proposed model, a simplification and hybrid solution method is applied in the paper. The simplification method aims to eliminate the difficult constraints in the model, resulting into easier sub-problems compared to the original one. The hybrid method is developed to integrate local search with Branch-and-Bound (B&B) to solve the problem heuristically. We present computational results of the hybrid approach to analyse the performance of the proposed method. The results illustrate that the hybrid method can generate good solutions in a reasonable amount of computational time. We also compare the obtained portfolio values against an index value to illustrate the performance and strengths of the proposed SMIP model. Implications of the model and future work are also discussed.


This paper details the CHESS system developed at the University of Wollongong. CHESS aims to provide a hardware and software platform for the creation, manipulation and playback of complex three-dimensional sound scenes. Ambisonic techniques are used to render a virtual sound scene on sixteen speakers arranged hemispherically around a user. A 3D visual representation of the scene is provided, which may be viewed on one or more display devices, including a virtual reality headset. User input may be provided via a 3D glove. These elements are combined to produce highly configurable immersive audio-visual applications with true threedimensional audio. A control system has been developed for this system, which allows users to easily create complicated applications. We conclude by considering an example application of the system: cockpit and air traffic control systems.


E-learning is a new strategic arena for higher education, and higher education institutions (HEIs) need to acquire the necessary competencies and capabilities to participate. These may be developed in-house or acquired externally. E-learning involves acquisition and management of new information systems, and deployment of new capabilities. A resource-based view (RBV) suggests a rational stepwise model of how organisations approach entry to a new strategic area. This research uses case analysis in five universities to test this view and identifies two models for implementing e-learning, one confirming the rational model, and one that is emergent. These outcomes permit a richer RBV of strategy, and suggest a diverse range of strategic options for HEIs as they engage in e-learning.


This thesis compares the different trauma received at the three major hiding places for Jewish children in Belgium during the Holocaust: Christian establishments, private families, and Jewish orphanages. Jewish children hidden at Christian establishments received mainly religious trauma and nutritional, sanitary, and medical neglect. Hiding with private families caused separation trauma and extreme hiding situations. Children staying at Jewish orphanages lived with a continuous fear of being deported, because these institutions were under constant supervision of the German occupiers. No Jewish child survived their hiding experience without receiving some major trauma that would affect them for the rest of their life. This thesis is based on video interviews at Shoah Visual History Foundation and Blum Archives, as well as autobiographies published by hidden children.


This paper describes research focused on the design of an agent-based virtual environment architecture that allows developers to create applications that can ease the burden of interfacing to complex systems. We are concerned with designing an architecture that supports applications that can integrate multiple, heterogeneous systems into one consistent user interface and to function as a collaborative tool so that concurrent users can share information, expertise, and resources. At the heart of our architecture is a Virtual Environment CORBA Facility. This facility provides an improved method of distribution and most importantly, explicitly supports the integration of information from external systems and provides a method for interacting with those systems by using the virtual environment as a user interface. What we present in this paper is a method from representing and distributing a virtual environment so that it can support advanced agent functionality. The nature of that functionality is ultimately left to the discretion of virtual environment developers. We have developed a granular, object-oriented representation for virtual environments that allows developers to incorporate agent technology into a web-based distributed virtual environment.


The phenol phase soluble lipopolysaccharide of Pseudomonas maltophilia strain 555, obtained from cells by the hot aqueous phenol method, was of the smooth type. Sodium dodecyl sulfate – polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, hydrolysis, methylation, and 13C and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance analyses showed that this lipopolysaccharide has an O-chain polysaccharide composed of a repeating pentasaccharide unit, containing D-rhamnose (D-Rha, one part), 3-acetamido-3,6-dideoxy-D-galactose (D-Fuc3NAc, one part), and 4-acetamido-4,6-dideoxy-D-mannose (D-Rha4NAc, three parts) and having the structureThe serological cross-reactions between P. maltophilia 555 and Brucella species can now be related to the occurrence of N-acyl derivatives of 4-amino-4,6-dideoxy-D-mannopyranosyl residues in the O-chains of their respective lipopolysaccharide components.


Discipline is a very important aspect to support the quality of these human resources. If there are insufficient or undisciplined resources, it will affect the quality of human resources. In its implementation the process of evaluating employee discipline is still done manually so it takes a long time. For this reason, a decision support system is needed to identify the level of discipline of staff and employees at STIKes and STMIK Hang Tuah Pekanbaru. The method used to develop this DSS is Simple Multi Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) with 6 attributes, namely performance, warning letters, absenteeism, discipline, complience to regulations, and compliance to superior's order. The final result are divided into 3 categories, namely Very Good, Enough, Do Coaching. From the application of this method, it was found that 120 people got Very Good evaluation results, 11 people got Enough results, and 2 people got the results of Do Coaching. Decision support system with SMART method can identify the level of discipline of staff and, to later be given guidance to staff who get evaluation results. Do Coaching to become more disciplined and improve the quality of human resources in STIKes and STMIK Hang Tuah Pekanbaru


The Russian electricity industry is on the verge of fundamental change. Until now, electricity in Russia has been produced, transmitted, and distributed under the auspices of two main entities: Unified Energy System of Russia (UES), and the Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom). Minatom oversees Russia's 30 civilian nuclear power plants, of which only 9 are fully operational. These nine plants account for roughly 16 percent of the country's total annual electricity production of 815 billion kilowatt-hours. The percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power plants has been increasing in recent years as a result of the effort by Gazprom (the natural-gas monopoly) to emphasize exports and to cut back on the gas it provides for domestic consumption. Even so, fossil fuels and especially natural gas will likely remain the dominant source of electricity production.


An analysis of findings of complex clinical examinations and treatment of 46 patients with open cranio-cerebral traumas was made. Specific features of clinical manifestations are shown which are substantially different from closed cranio-cerebral traumas. They are primary infection of the cranio-cerebral wound, haemorrhage, liquorrhea, foreign bodies in the cranial cavity. Curative measures for the first aid, indications and contraindications for early surgical treatment, its technique are elucidated.


Modeling human conversations is the essence for building satisfying chat-bots with multi-turn dialog ability. Conversation modeling will notably benefit from domain knowledge since the relationships between sentences can be clarified due to semantic hints introduced by knowledge. In this paper, a deep neural network is proposed to incorporate background knowledge for conversation modeling. Through a specially designed Recall gate, domain knowledge can be transformed into the extra global memory of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), so as to enhance LSTM by cooperating with its local memory to capture the implicit semantic relevance between sentences within conversations. In addition, this paper introduces the loose structured domain knowledge base, which can be built with slight amount of manual work and easily adopted by the Recall gate. Our model is evaluated on the context-oriented response selecting task, and experimental results on both two datasets have shown that our approach is promising for modeling human conversations and building key components of automatic chatting systems.


Data are presented here on the efflect that four types of green manure had, on the yields of one sweet potatoes and two corn crops planted in two acid soils of Puerto Rico, in the absence or presence of lime and phosphorus. Comparison is also made as to what effect the green manure had on the crop yields when it was applied as a mulch or when it was plowed under the soil. In the last corn crop, the effect of fertilizing with potash was also studied as well as the effect of adding inorganic nitrogen and potash to the check plots, in the absence or presence of lime and phosphorus. The field experiments were established in Fajardo clay at Rio Piedras and in Catalina clay level phase at Mayaguez, located about 75 miles apart. The green manure sources were from four leguminosae: velvet beans Stizolobium deeringianum; crotalaria Crotalaria striata; cowpeas Vigna sinensis; and soybeans Soja max Otootan variety. The sweet potato used was the Don Juan variety and the corn was the Mayorbela variety, a flinty type. In general, the leguminosae and the crops responded significantly to lime and phosphorus. Velvet beans gave the highest significant yields of green manure. In general, the velvet beans with lime and phosphorus gave the highest significant yields of sweet potatoes and corn. Cowpeas showed a highly significant detrimental effect in the yield of sweet potatoes. When the green manure was either mulched or plowed under the soil there was no significant difference between the yields of sweet potatoes and corn. The last corn crop at Mayaguez responded significantly to the application of potash and to the application of potash and inorganic nitrogen specially when lime and phosphorus were added to the checks, but no response was obtained with the green manures. No response to potash in the check and green manure plots were obtained at Rio Piedras.


MicroRNAs are tiny, 18-25 nucleotides in length, non-coding RNA molecules preserved throughout evolution. These molecules primarily control gene expression at the post-transcriptional and transcriptional levels. MicroRNAs control target gene expression by a phenomenon known as RNA interference. RNA interference based therapeutics that utilize target gene silencing/degradation by specific microRNAs have potentially enormous advantages over traditional methodologies to treat diseases such as cancers with wide-ranging applicability, precision, and therapeutic selectivity, with decreased adverse side effects. If microRNA profiles can accurately predict malignancies, this technology may be exploited as a tool to surmount diagnostic challenges. This review highlights the successful use of RNA interference inducers against different type of cancers, thereby paving the way for specific therapeutic medicines. Studies have shown the association of microRNA dysregulation with diseases such as cancer. MicroRNAs can function as oncogenes as well as tumor suppressors. Thus, microRNA expression profiles can be used to determine prognosis, predict treatment efficiency and response to drug therapy, as well as patient susceptibility to cancer and metastasis. In addition, they may offer new candidate targets to be exploited for both prognostic and therapeutic strategies in patients with cervical cancer.


Research on online auctions has attracted much attention from both practitioners and academicians. This paper aims to apply stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm to construct the model of eloyalty of online auction websites. Technology effectiveness, network effect, and product diversity are determinants proposed to influence customers' brand perceptions, which in turn, affect e-loyalty. Empirical analysis shows that e-loyalty to an online auction website is significantly influenced by the factors proposed.


Borders are where the state is keen to stress its presence and yet are simultaneously places where that presence is challenged. They are sites of resistance to the state, and at the same time places where the national interest is vigorously maintained. This constant ambiguity generates questions about the dynamics of borderland-state relations, and about how what happens along the border can undermine state policies. Using case studies of national and state relations in borderlands in Europe, this book seeks to understand structures of power. "Thomas M. Wilson" is a researcher at the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Binghamton University. "Hastings Donann" is a researcher at the School of Anthopological Studies at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland (U.K.).


Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, everyone has observed many disruptions in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Indeed, this global and complex supply chain is vulnerable, especially when it must face a sudden rise in global demand. To adapt to the increasing demand and the numerous shortages, the United States White House has suggested several recommendations (The White House, 2021). Three of them will be detailed in this report: boosting local production, building an emergency capacity, and promoting international cooperation. With more than 10,000 locations and retail stores in the United States and with the competition of large retail stores like Target and Walmart, CVS has continued to enhance its supply chain by rolling out vendor technological portals designed to facilitate its supply chain programs and models. Most of CVS's generic products and retail merchandise are manufactured outside the United States. To ensure the sustainability and efficiency of their models, integrated planning, internal and external collaborations, and dissemination of forecasting models with suppliers help them to predict and manage demand uncertainties. CVS is digitally connected to give people more options by using their artificial intelligence platform, thereby harnessing the power of digital technology and the Omni channel sourcing to ensure that their customers are reached/served whenever, and by whatever means possible. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CVS faced three major issues related to the distribution of common drugs between patients with chronic illnesses and patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, a high volume of customer calls, and high procurement costs of medicines from suppliers due to shortages. This led CVS to implement temporary mitigation measures that set it apart from its competitors and helped serve more patients in an orderly fashion. Based on the learnings from CVS, this report presents a set of short-term solutions that can be implemented by CVS to insulate it from future shortages until the long-term solutions are implemented in collaboration with the FDA and drug suppliers.


This brief essay responds to Drew Daniel's account of masochism and melancholia in The Merchant of Venice. Reading Daniel's account in the context of Venetian republicanism helps us see the political stakes of his argument and helps to uncover masochism's antipatriarchal and constitutive elements. It also helps us to understand interrelations between the sexual and political plots of Shakespeare's Venetian plays.


A major component of pigment gallstones (PS) is a black, insoluble substance. It has been suggested that this pigment material might be a highly crosslinked polymer, and if such were the case, it should imbibe solvent (swell) to the maximum permitted by the crosslinks of its macromolecular network. We measured the equilibrium amount, qeq, by which pulverized, desiccated PS swells in different liquids, including isotonic aqueous buffers at pH values from 1.5–11.5. For ionic strengths ≥ 0.15, the dependence of qeq on pH exhibits a broad titration curve with a midpoint near pH 7. qeq was < 1.2 in methanol, dimethylformamide, dimethylsulfoxide, and chloroform. The ir absorbance from vinyl groups in the black pigment was only one‐eighth that of unconjugated bilirubin, the primary chemical building block of PS; this implicates vinyl groups in the formation of a polymer network. The rise in qeq with increasing pH suggests that the carboxyl groups are free to ionize and are therefore not involved in the covalent bonds that make the crosslinked polymer. A network polymer structure would account for the inability to dissolve PS in those solvents in which unconjugated bilirubin is soluble.


Contrary to its self-proclamation, philosophy started not with wonder, but with time thrown out of joint. It started when the past has become a problem. Such was the historical situation facing Athens when Plato composed his Socratic dialogues. For the philosopher of fifth century BCE, both the immediate past and the past as the Homeric tradition handed down to the citizens had been turned into problematicity itself. In this essay, I will examine the use of philosophy as memory theatre in Plato's Republic. I shall do so by interpreting Book X of the Republic as Plato's "odyssey" and suggest that such Platonic odyssey amounts to an attempt to re-inherit the collapsed spatial and temporal order of the fallen Athenian maritime empire. In my reading, the Odysseus in the Myth of Er comes forth for Plato as the exemplary Soldier-Citizen-Philosopher who must steer between the Scylla of ossified political principles and the whirling nihilism of devalued historical values, personified by Charybdis. I shall further suggest that Plato's memory theatre also constitutes a device of amnesia and forgetting. The post-Iliadic Odysseus must drink of forgetfulness from the river Lethe, so that the revenant soldier, Er, and those who inherited the broken historical present during and after the Peloponnesian War, would be enabled to remember in a particular way. Such remembrance, I shall conclude, may be what Plato means by philosophy, a memory theatre of psychic regulation and moral economy that sets itself decidedly apart from earlier tragic and comic catharsis.


To evaluate the response of pile groups under lateral loading, a widely accepted approach is to use the curve of soil resistance, p versus local pile deflection, y (p-y curve) together with p-multiplier. The limiting force per unit length pu (limit of p) is often attained within a depth normally up to 8d (d = pile diameter), and the response of laterally loaded piles is generally controlled by the mobilized pu. Thus, determination of this pu is critical to a satisfactory prediction of the pile response. Various expressions have been developed previously for the pu. However, based on 70 field tests on single piles and 20 tests on pile groups, an extensive study conducted recently by the author and his team indicates that only three parameters are sufficient to describe the limiting force profile (LFP), while the parameters themselves may be modified to account for other factors. This paper addresses the effect of pile-head conditions, and group interaction on the LFP by comparing measured with predicted response of a few typical pile tests.


Background: Malnutrition in children < 5 years is a public health concern due to its associated high morbidity, mortality and serious long-term consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 10 steps for the management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) children which also involves correction of electrolyte disturbances. Treatment with diets having inadequate amounts of minerals like phosphate can result in refeeding syndrome and other abnormalities. We conducted the study among children with medically complicated SAM to evaluate their serum phosphate levels after receiving locally prepared therapeutic feeds and its associations of other factors. Methods: The study was conducted with 120 hospitalized SAM children aged 6 - 59 months with presence of other illnesses. All children were managed according to the WHO protocol and facility-based management of SAM guidelines of the government of India. Basic demographic details of the child were recorded. Weight of the child was recorded daily, while length/height and mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) were recorded weekly. We evaluated changes in serum phosphate levels at three time points: on admission, during transition and at discharge. Binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the association of hypophosphatemia with several other indicators. Results: Mean serum phosphate was 4.38 ± 1.07, 4.48 ± 1.16 and 5.13 ± 1.10 mg/dL on admission, during transition and at discharge, respectively. Hypophosphatemia was present among 30 (25%) children on admission, 28 (23.3%) children during transition and 10 (8.3%) children at discharge, which showed a decrease in the prevalence of hypophosphatemia from admission to transition and discharge using the current treatment. The finding also showed positive and significant changes in serum phosphate levels among children who were admitted without edema compared to those admitted with edema. Binary logistic regression estimates showed that older children, children with lower WAZ, hypokalemia, hyponatremia and anemia had higher odds of hypophosphatemia. Male children had lower odds of hypophosphatemia. Conclusion: The nutritional therapy with locally prepared starter and catch-up diet was effective in normalizing hypophosphatemia in the majority of children treated. Serum potassium and serum sodium levels were significantly associated with serum phosphate, indicating the need for careful monitoring of serum phosphate in the presence of hypokalemia and hyponatremia among SAM children. Int J Clin Pediatr. 2021;10(2-3):35-42 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/ijcp458


Dry powder aerosols have attracted increasing attention for the treatment of pulmonary diseases due to their capability of providing direct and effiCient drug delivery to the lungs. Unfortunately, barriers exist in the implementation of dry powder pulmonary delivery systems, including: (1) dry powder aerosols with aerodynamic diameters smaller than 1 μm will often be exhaled; (2) particles with aerodynamic diameters above 5 μm tend to deposit in the mouth, throat or upper lung mucosa and will then be eliminated due to mucosal clearance mechanisms; and (3) particles larger than 1 μm that deposit in the deep lung area may be cleared from the alveoli via macrophages. Spray-dried nanocomposite microparticles (nCmP), combining the advantages of nanoscale and microscale carriers, can be employed to overcome these issues. Microscale powders facilitate effective deep lung deposition while the embedded nanoscale carriers can provide multiple functions such as the protection of active ingredients from degradation, enhancement of the solubility of drugs, controlled drug release, and reduction of systemic side effects. Several nCmP systems have been developed for various applications, but few comprehensive studies have been completed to illustrate how to effectively engineer optimal nCmP systems with desired properties including: targeted deposition in airways, controlled release of payloads, ability of overcoming physiological barriers, and favorable formulation stability. This dissertation focuses on the development, characterization, and optimization of various dry powder aerosol nanocomposite microparticle systems for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. In the production of nCmP, acetalated dextran (Ac-Dex) nanoparticles loaded with therapeutics are synthesized, suspended in an excipient solution or DI water, and transformed into microscale dry powder microparticles via spray drying. Upon pulmonary administration, the nCmP will deposit on the surface of the mucosal layer of the lungs and decompose into free NP, allowing the nanoparticles to reach the mucus and/or cell epithelium and then release drug(s) at sustained rate. Nanoparticles were prepared using Ac-Dex with different degradation rates to control the drug release profiles. In this work, various therapeutics were encapsulated in nanoparticles, and subsequently nCmP, for applications in the treatment of cystic fibrosis-related lung infections or pulmonary arterial hypertension. The physical properties of the nanoscale carriers in terms of size, size distribution, and surface properties were modified by manipulating the parameters of the nanoparticle preparation process. Dry powder aerosols embedded with nanoparticles were formulated using spray drying. The aerosol performance was optimized by manipulating the composition of feed solution and spray drying parameters. The optimal parameters to form nCmP with deep lung and whole lung deposition were studied. Furthermore, the favorable drying conditions necessary to achieve high therapeutic stability and formulation stability of the particles was also evaluated. Overall, dry powder aerosol nanocomposite microparticles have the ability to provide pulmonary drug delivery systems with tunable properties to fit a wide variety of desired applications. These general-purpose systems exhibit promising potential in the improved treatment of pulmonary diseases through particle engineering and design.


This paper was presented at the NCRM Oxford Methods Festival (2010) and considers some analytical problems observed within recent innovations in qualitative research; specifically, the use of GPS technology and the various ways in which such spatial data may be represented. The paper is intended as a reminder of the critique of the social sciences posed by Ethnomethodology and, in particular, applies these observations to the recent focus upon matters of space, place, and practice. It is argued below that in mapping and representing spatial practice the analyst runs the risk of obscuring the just what and just how of the practice they claim to gain access to. The paper draws on the three examples, outreach work in Cardiff, housewives' cleaning, and people crossing the road, to demonstrate the form of reduction that can be observed operating in what we may call 'formal spatial analysis'.


Different faulty states of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) connected to a microgrid are investigated in this paper. First, the simulation model consisting of two DFIGs connected to IEEE 34-bus test feeder for two vector control based was set up to investigate the transient performance of the microgrid. Then, different types of faults of the DFIGs, including partial loss of excitation (PLOE), complete loss of excitation (CLOE), and interturn short circuit (ISC) were analyzed through the simulation model using vector control strategy. The experimental results indicate that the active power will increase during the PLOE, and the average increase of the amplitude is about 26%, which will decrease the electromagnetic torque by 8% and increase the voltage at the neighbor node, the stability of the microgrid will be broken eventually. For the CLOE, the active power decreases about 80%, and node voltage decreases by 9.4% due to the inverse absorption of the reactive power. When the ISC occurs, the average node voltage and the active power decrease together. Finally, the suggestion for the detection of the DFIG faults is presented, which could be helpful to protect the DFIG from fault accident.


The purpose of this study is to address a micro-scale environmental-friendly landscape design methods in consideration of hot and humid climate with a combination of spatial data and physical environmental data in the new residential area in Johor, malaysia. In this study, we showed research achievements so far as a first step as follows. 1. literature review has cleared current research situation and necessity of effective investigation for environmental-friendly design methods in Malaysia. 2. We have gathered relevant spatial and climate observation data and improved data format for integrated database to develop the GIS (Geographic Information System) environment for quantitative spatial analysis. 3. Several candidate design elements for the next step investigation became clear through the physical comparative study of the target sites using GIS-generated thematic maps.


Previously, we have shown that Bcl2l10 is highly expressed in metaphase II (MII)-stage oocytes. The objective of this study was to characterize Bcl2l10 expression in ovaries and to examine the function of Bcl2l10 in oocyte maturation using RNA interference. Bcl2l10 transcript expression was ovary and oocyte specific. Bcl2l10 was highly expressed in oocytes and pronuclear-stage embryos; however, its expression decreased at the two-cell stage and dramatically disappeared thereafter. Microinjection of Bcl2l10 double-stranded RNA into the cytoplasm of germinal vesicle oocytes resulted in a marked decrease in Bcl2l10 mRNA and protein and metaphase I (MI) arrest (78.9%). Most MI-arrested oocytes exhibited abnormalities in their spindles and chromosome configurations. Bcl2l10 RNA interference had an obvious effect on the activity of maturation-promoting factor but not on that of mitogen-activated protein kinase. We concluded that the role of Bcl2l10 is strongly associated with oocyte maturation, especially at the MI–MII transition.


This work describes the effect of the support (TiO2, hybrid 2TiO2–SiO2, SBA-15 and SBA-15 decorated with TiO2 particles) on the catalytic activity of ZnNi catalysts in the gas-phase hydrodeoxygenation (HDO or O-removal) of phenol and the liquid-phase hydrodearomatization (HDA) of synthetic diesel. These reactions are representative of the two major challenges of the hydrotreating unit embedded in a sustainable refinery: (i) decreasing oxygen content of bio-oils (produced in the pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass); and (ii) decreasing aromatics content in diesel. The fresh and deactivated catalysts were characterized by XRD, N2 adsorption–desorption, TPR, MS/TPD-NH3, XPS, SEM, HRTEM and coke combustion. Under steady-state conditions, the ZnNi catalyst supported on SBA-15 decorated with TiO2 particles displayed the highest activity in the hydrodeoxygenation of phenol (selectivity toward deoxygenated products > 95%) whereas the ZnNi/SBA-15 catalyst displayed the highest activity in the hydrodearomatization of synthetic diesel. It has been shown that dispersion of the active ingredient is favoured on the SBA-15 substrate. The relationship between structure and activity demonstrated that HDO and HDA reactions require optimized metal dispersion and acid function, metal dispersion being more important for HDA than for HDO reactions.


SIR,-We would agree with Dr L M McEwen's observations (13 September. p 649) that prophylactic steroid cover is unlikely to be of any help in the treatment of anaphylaxis, but we cannot possibly agree with his statement that "when faced with profound anaphylactic collapse most doctors give adrenaline intravenously, using 0 5 ml of 1/1000 solution, diluted if possible, given slowly." We consider the risks of intravenous adrenaline are so great that no general practitioner should ever give it in this way. Besides the very severe subjective symptoms that will arise, the more serious effects of cerebral haemorrhage and cardiac arrhythmias preclude its use intravenously except in exceptional circumstances, when it must be adequately diluted.' A W FRANKLAND Allergy Department, St Mary's Hospital, London Wl RAOUF ABDEL-MAGUID Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria


In a base station, the power amplifier (PA) experiences rapid fluctuations in behavior because of the varying power levels and bandwidth of its excitation signals. High peak-to-average power ratios and non-constant envelopes of wideband signals impose stringent linear and efficiency requirements on the PA required for amplification. It is necessary to design fast and non-complex digital pre-distorters that are able to achieve and maintain acceptable linearization performance and compensate for the dynamic distortions generated by the PA. This thesis explores an adaptive DPD scheme using multiple model control that combines a switching and a simple adaptation algorithm. Experimental data are used in evaluating the proposed scheme. The multiple model scheme reduces the transient error response and requires a relatively small number of data samples for identification, switching and adaptation. The scheme is demonstrated to be fast, less complex, and capable of maintaining and achieving the linearity requirement of the PA.


Khadi phrase reminds us of the freedom struggle, it brings the picture of Charkha and Mahatma Gandhi to our minds. Khadi is not only a few random cloth, it performed a prime position in India's independence have become an image of self-reliance for the Indian pleasure. Hand spinning has been acknowledged to Indians for hundreds of years however Gandhi revived India's flagging khadi enterprise, he made the material the image of swadeshi. He advocated humans throughout the country to boycott British made fabric, spin their own yarn and sport khadi. Nearly after more than seventy years of freedom, khadi maintains to amaze human beings around the world and promoting sustainable style. It acquired a higher degree of interest from the fashion enterprise. The present study takes a look at khadi as a signature material of Gandhi and its place in the independence war. It exhibits that khadi material is an image of freedom that experiences the India's historic weaves, but embraces modern-day India to discover its relevance. The study, at additionally, investigates the growth of the Khadi and Village Industries (KVI) and propose the policy suggestion for the future improvement.


Ankle sprains in the athlete are one of the most common injuries, and syndesmosis or "high-ankle" sprains seem to being diagnosed at an increasing rate. As a result, there has been a heightened interest in recognizing and treating these difficult injuries on a timely basis, particularly in the athlete. Although the recognition and diagnosis of these injuries have improved, there still exists a paucity of information on optimal conservative and operative management. In this paper, a systematic review of the literature was conducted to provide an evidence-based rationale in the diagnosis and treatment of syndesmosis (high ankle) sprains in athletes. It is obvious from the low level of evidence available in the literature on this topic that a great deal of work is needed before conclusive statements regarding the management of these injuries can be made with confidence. The current diagnostic tests are not very specific. Because this is a spectrum of injury, there is a lot of variability in the time lost from sport. It is clear that we need a much more definitive diagnostic process for this injury that allows us to predict the severity of the injury, time loss from sport, and the treatment required.


We investigate the effects of meetings between the unemployed and their case workers on the transition rate from unemployment to employment using detailed Danish event history data obtained from administrative registers. We find large positive effects of meetings. The transition rate strongly increases in the week the meeting is held, and this effect persists for some weeks after the meeting. The effect size tends to increase with the number of meetings. The effect of the first meeting on the transition rate to work does not depend on the timing of the meeting.


Inspired by military tactical, civil help-and-rescue applications, it is desirable yet challenging to develop networked systems of autonomous vehicles and sensors in dynamic, resource-constrained and adversarial environments. An essential aspect of designing such collaborative systems is to address the communication needs of the vehicles in order to perform a given mission. The vehicles' communication network should maintain a connectivity pattern based on the requirements of the mission. In this paper, we consider both the control and communication aspects for coordinated path planning of a group of autonomous vehicles in an adversarial environment. We propose distributed algorithms to control the vehicles' trajectories over a wireless vehicle-to-vehicle network. Distributed control algorithms both with and without collaboration between the vehicles are presented. We study the performance of the wireless network over the distributed controlled autonomous vehicles. Simulation results show that collaboration between vehicles results in better performance for path planning and wireless inter-vehicle communications. However, contention-based communication protocols are likely to fail due to severe channel conditions.


Ovarian cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death among women. If diagnosed at early stages, 5-year survival rate is 94%, but drops to 68% for regional disease and 29% for distant metastasis; only 19% of cases are diagnosed at early, localized stages. Optical coherence tomography is a recently emerging non-destructive imaging technology, achieving high axial resolutions (10-20 µm) at imaging depths up to 2 mm. Previously, we studied OCT in normal and diseased human ovary ex vivo. Changes in collagen were suggested with several images that correlated with changes in collagen seen in malignancy. Areas of necrosis and blood vessels were also visualized using OCT, indicative of an underlying tissue abnormality. We recently developed a custom side-firing laparoscopic OCT (LOCT) probe fabricated for in vivo imaging. The LOCT probe, consisting of a 38 mm diameter handpiece terminated in a 280 mm long, 4.6 mm diameter tip for insertion into the laparoscopic trocar, is capable of obtaining up to 9.5 mm image lengths at 10 µm axial resolution. In this pilot study, we utilize the LOCT probe to image one or both ovaries of 17 patients undergoing laparotomy or transabdominal endoscopy and oophorectomy to determine if OCT is capable of differentiating normal and neoplastic ovary. We have laparoscopically imaged the ovaries of seventeen patients with no known complications. Initial data evaluation reveals qualitative distinguishability between the features of undiseased post-menopausal ovary and the cystic, non-homogenous appearance of neoplastic ovary such as serous cystadenoma and endometroid adenocarcinoma.


In this paper we analyze the effects of different strategies to construct Shariah compatible financial portfolios. The difference between conventional and current Shariah portfolio management is the application of sector screens and financial screens by which the asset universe is reduced. Yet, here different schools of scholars define different screening rules leading to significant differences with respect to compliance, but also with respect to performance. After analyzing this discrepancy we propose several new strategies to apply the inconsistent rule systems and a new paradigm for defining Shariah-compliance. Under this new paradigm compliance is attributed to the portfolio and not to the individual assets of the universe. We report results of an empirical study analyzing the potentials of these strategies and of the paradigm. We can show that under the proposed concepts Shariah-compliant portfolios can be realized which have return and risk profiles comparable to the conventional non-constrained portfolios.


An actinobacterial strain, designated FW100M-8T, was isolated from a gut sample of larva of Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis at the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Wanju-gun, South Korea. Cells were Gram-stain-positive, microaerophilic to aerobic, non-spore forming and non-motile. It grew at pH 7.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 8.0), at 15-35 °C (optimum, 28 °C) and 0-3.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0 %). According to the 16S rRNA gene analysis, strain FW100M-8T shared the highest sequence similarity with Agromyces mediolanus DSM 20152T (98.4 %), Agromyces ulmi XIL01T (98.3 %), Agromyces indicus NIO-1018T (98.3 %), Agromyces soli MJ21T (98.3 %), and Agromyces arachidis AK-1T (97.9 %). Phylogenetic trees showed that strain FW100M-8T fell into the lineage of the genus Agromyces. The polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified glycolipid and an unidentified lipid. The menaquinones of strain FW100M-8T were MK-12 (46 %), MK-11 (36 %), MK-10 (14 %) and MK-13 (4 %). The major fatty acids were anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0. The peptidoglycan type was supposed to be the type B1, comprising d-Ala, d-Glu, Gly and l-A2bu. The G+C content of the genomic DNA is 70.5 mol%. On the basis of the genotypic and phenotypic data, we conclude that strain FW100M-8T represents a novel species of the genus Agromyces, for which the name Agromyces protaetiae sp. nov. is proposed with strain FW100M-8T (=KACC 19308T=NBRC 113048T) as the type strain.


Wavelet based compression schemes belong to the general class of transform coding schemes. We show how the genetic programming approach can be used to optimize such a compression scheme in the sense of rate-distortion. The results of optimized wavelet based compression scheme are compared with the JPEG compression standard. A prototype implementation of the method is realized as a distributed, parallel implementation on a heterogeneous Unix network.


Cash transfers can be defined as the provision of assistance in the form of cash to the poor or those who face a probable risk, in the absence of the transfer, of falling into poverty. Cash transfers, broadly defined, can be given in the form of social assistance, insurance, near-cash tax benefits, and private transfers. This note focuses on government programs, recognizing that private transfers and public programs serve multiple objectives, of which social safety net protection is just one.


One of the most important allergens which cause allergic disease of upper and lower respiratory system is the effect of the airborne pollen grains belonging to Gramineae (Grass) family. In this compilation, it was pointed out that airborne pollen studies was carried out in Turkey and the monthly changes of allergenic Grass pollens rates for 51 regions of Turkey were presented as a calendar. In the studies carried out, the highest Grass pollen grains were recorded between april and august.


Single point incremental forming (SPIF) is a promising new production technique in which a metal sheet is formed stepwise by a spherical tool. However, the technique still shows some particularities. It is observed that the final geometry of a SPIF part can deviate significantly from the programmed tool path. As illustrated in this paper, elastic springback is only to a minor extent responsible for this phenomenon. The goal of the presented paper is to illustrate the gradual emergence of unintended deviations as measured by means of a Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique. Two CCD cameras were used to take the necessary in-process images. The mechanism of deformation in function of the forming depth is documented and discussed.


Literature of the Black Diaspora locates within its multi-layered gamut, a kaleidoscope of artistic productions; self-narratives careered by the quest for identity and self-expatriation from a ruthless atmosphere of slavery and racial subjugation. Studies have fixated on thematic preoccupation, language form in works of Afro-American and Caribbean traditions. Not so much has been explored especially on identity and journey motifs in the autobiographical novels of both traditions. This study seeks to interrogate novels from both climes for the purpose of foregrounding the signposts of journey through plot characterisation. For the purpose of this study on plot character reading of novels of the two literary traditions, we shall deploy aspects of Aderemi Raji-Oyelade's reading kinesis, a character theory which hinges on two axioms of character kinesis. One privileges the reader who attempts to construct a network of transformative acts of the main character negotiating a conscious retrieval of his/her presence in the text. The other is the kinetic dimension which underlines the function of the character as he/she evolves in a process of motion introducing, confirming or contradicting and ultimately completing the image of the self. Characters' movements towards awareness are evident in V.S Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas, Michael Anthony's A Year in San Fernando, George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Black Boy. These texts were subjected to critical analyses to show their identarian aesthetics informed by character transmutability. All the texts evince a great degree of the kinetic reader's locomotive sense of self struggle and realization gleaned from the characters' textual kinesis. Literature of the Black Diaspora, drawing from two major traditions of prose writings, employs similar aesthetic rendering of the self; that is, their ordeals in the excruciating environment where their colour confines them to the receiving side of the yoke of second class citizenry.

 Key words: Identity, self-narrative, Afro- American- Caribbean traditions, reading kinesis


Objective: To characterize the nutritional and biochemical content of 25 genotypes: 5 S4 inbred lines and the 20 possible single crosses formed between them. Design/Methodology/Approach: The content of oil, starch, protein, ash and phytic acid was determined in kernels of each genotype, using the American Association of Cereal Chemists' methods; the information obtained was analyzed by a complete randomized experimental design and Tukey's means tests. Results: For the parents and the crosses, correspondingly, the intervals of the substances under study were: a) Oil: from 5.99 to 3.84 and 6.40 to 3.55 g ∙ 100 g1, b) Protein: from 8.26 to 5.43 and 9.83 to 5.56 g ∙ 100 g1, c) Starch: from 88.25 to 74.48 and 96.64 to 72.57 g ∙ 100 g1, d) Ash: from 1.90 to 1.20 and 2.0 to 0.89 g ∙ 100 g1, e) Phytic acid: from 2.40 to 1.08 and 2.29 to 1.11 g ∙ 100 g1. Study Limitations/Implications: The study shows that in comparison to the parents, the crosses were only significantly superior in the content of starch, although there were statistical differences of the contents within each group. The crosses that showed higher contents for a nutritional component were those in which at least one parent had a high composition of the nutrient. Findings/Conclusions: The variation in the nutritional and biochemical content showed that there is diversity among genotypes, which is linked to the contrasting genetic origin of the inbred lines and is feasible to be used. This research showed the potential of taking advantage of the nutritional components of white maize through crosses (specially its starch content).