The paper focuses on the issue of the impact of the Fascist regime's own language on the activity of the administrative judge. After recalling the problem of the context in which the language of the administrative judge is framed, the investigation highlights some possible "symptoms" of a "sensibility" to be assessed on the level of stylistic and expressive formulas. If, in some cases, this language has been the subject of a particular criticism and attack, in others cases it is possible to highlight how a certain assonance emerges indirectly with the typical speech of the regime. In this perspective, it can be recognized that the linguistic "charm" of the regime, while not affecting the independence of judgment of the administrative judge, had a certain impact on the style of some decisions of the Italian Council of State. An analysis conducted on some paradigmatic cases is able to identify, with regard to a part of the jurisprudence developed after the Thirties, a real "climax" on the linguistic and expressive level.


The development of genomic instability is a hallmark of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) associated cervical carcinogenesis. We have previously shown that the HPV-16 E7 oncoprotein rapidly subverts mitotic fidelity by inducing abnormal centrosome numbers and multipolar mitotic spindles. Here we report that expression of HPV-16 E6 and E7 independently results in various mitotic abnormalities. HPV-16 E6 and E7 were each associated with unaligned or lagging chromosomal material, indicating relaxation of spindle checkpoint control. Moreover, by overwhelming checkpoint control mechanisms that may prevent cells with multiple spindle poles to enter anaphase, expression of HPV-16 E6 and E7 leads to a small but significant number of cells with altered polarity at later stages of the cell division process. In addition to changes that have the potential to give rise to numerical chromosome imbalances, we discovered that expression of HPV-16 E7 could trigger anaphase bridge formation to an extent similar to that of high-risk HPV E6. Anaphase bridges typically develop after chromosomal breaks and alterations of chromosomal structure. Further investigation of mechanisms by which HPV-16 E6 and E7 contribute to the destabilization of the host cell genome revealed that both high-risk HPV oncoproteins induce DNA damage. Moreover, expression of HPV-16 E7 was associated with an increased number of cells exhibiting nuclear foci of phosphorylated histone H2AX as well as activation of cell cycle checkpoints triggered by DNA repair. Our results therefore suggest that HPV oncoproteins are a source for both numerical and structural chromosome instability during HPV-associated carcinogenesis.


Like Apollo 13 in the eponymously named 1995 film, crop protection has a problem, well actually, more than one problem. Unlike the Apollo disaster there is however, no quick fix on the horizon. The first, and for growers often the more serious problem, is that populations of insects and other pests, are developing resistance to pesticides; indeed there are almost 600 species of arthropod for which resistance to the most commonly used crop protection products has been reported. The situation with weeds and plant pathogens is equally parlous, with cases of resistance to herbicides and fungicides growing at an alarming rate worldwide. The second problem, and one that potentially poses a danger to us all is the realization that the use of some conventional synthetic pesticides, widely perceived by the public and some scientists, as a danger to beneficial insects such as pollinators, may also be a threat to insects in general. The pressure put on growers by the public condemnation of the use and the reducing commercial availability of effective conventional synthetic pesticides means that the development of viable alternatives is of increasing importance. The obvious, and the option favoured by the European Union, is to increase the wholehearted uptake of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by growers of all kinds. Given that successful IPM programmes and those likely to do not preclude the use of pesticides it would be foolish, in most cropping situations at least, to advocate reliance on biological control options on their own. Where approaches to prevent pest problems, such as through the use of host-plant resistance and crop rotations, have been unsuccessful, this effectively leaves us with the biopesticides to combat pest outbreaks. Biopesticides are typically either derived from plants (the botanicals) or from microbial agents such as entomopathogenic fungi. We desperately need further work in this area, without increased funding and just as importantly, changes in the regulatory framework and the attitudes of growers, improvements in developing sustainable and environmentally friendly crop production will be a long time coming.


A descriptive role is suggested for uracil as a temporal divide in the immediate aspects of metabolism verses long term maintained genetic transmission. In particular, details of the mechanism of excision repair of uracil from DNA based on differential parameters of spatial distortion of the planar uracil molecule within the DNA helix verses RNA, when viewed in analogy to a proposed model for space involving the substitution of the act of mirroring for the element of time in processes and a descending complexity of structure with time of evolution, suggest the possibility that negative selection against decreased lifetime is the singular motive force of natural selection. The geometry of the Mobius strip, as it has a plane of mirroring symmetry, a twist able to account for torque in nature, an inversion of inside and out seen in biological structures, and an endless surface that can be accommodated to an atemporal account of physical processes is employed in a holistic model to elaborate a negative selection opposing death as zero volume or the logical existence of physical constraint to volumes that is represented as the ubiquitous inability of witnessing objects of any type to witness simultaneously both a self reflection and the reflection of self reflection. A role for uracil and its' physical structure, in a model in which both are evolved from the mirroring of events of the witnessing of energies, is elaborated in which temporal aspects such as those entailed in existing models of natural evolution are considered inappropriate in perspectives that are oriented positively towards a successful comprehension of processes; focus is placed instead upon the geometry and arrangement of physical spaces.


Phosphor thermometry has been developed for wall temperature measurements in gas turbines and gas turbine model combustors. An array of phosphors has been examined in detail for spatially and temporally resolved surface temperature measurements. Two examples are provided, one at high pressure (8 bar) and high temperature and one at atmospheric pressure with high time resolution. To study the feasibility of this technique for full-scale gas turbine applications, a high momentum confined jet combustor at 8 bar was used. Successful measurements up to 1700 K on a ceramic surface are shown with good accuracy. In the same combustor, temperatures on the combustor quartz walls were measured, which can be used as boundary conditions for numerical simulations. An atmospheric swirl-stabilized flame was used to study transient temperature changes on the bluff body. For this purpose, a high-speed setup (1 kHz) was used to measure the wall temperatures at an operating condition where the flame switches between being attached (M-flame) and being lifted (V-flame) (bistable). The influence of a precessing vortex core (PVC) present during M-flame periods is identified on the bluff body tip, but not at positions further inside the nozzle.


Purpose: To characterize the swallowing process of different food consistencies and quantities, with and without verbal commands, through videofluoroscopy. METHODS: Quantitative cross-sectional, observational study held in the period between January and March 2010 with 40 healthy subjects with no apparent signs of swallowing problems. Mean age was 23 years and 5 months (SD±2.5), with a minimum age of 20 years and a maximum of 30 years, and 87.5% of the subjects were female (35/40). A videofluoroscopy swallowing study (VFSS) was carried out with the ingestion of barium in the liquid, thick liquid, pureed and solid consistencies. Two swallowing tests were held during the administration of the liquid consistency, with and without verbal commands. The place of beginning of the pharyngeal phase of swallowing in different structures was analyzed, as well as the presence of premature spillage of food, delayed oral transit time, multiple swallowing, stasis, and laryngeal penetration and/or aspiration in both situations. RESULTS: The beginning of the pharyngeal phase took place in the base of the tongue and in the valleculae for most consistencies and quantities, with the exception of the liquid swallowing (5 ml), which started in the valleculae. There was no influence of the verbal command both in the place where the pharyngeal phase of swallowing started, and the presence of stasis of residue. However, the command was effective in reducing oropharyngeal findings. CONCLUSION: The pharyngeal phase of swallowing occurred in the base of the tongue and valleculae. The verbal commands influenced the dynamics of swallowing.


Finland, a northern nation, has built more than half of the icebreakers in operation today. Finland's strong position in the arctic maritime technology resulted not from the northern location, however, but from competitiveness based on a combination of political, economic and technological factors. In this article it is argued that bipolarization of technology markets, politicization of technology transfer and the special relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for the Finnish shipbuilding industry to concentrate on research and development in a specialized technology during the Cold War. The strategic decision of the privately owned Helsinki shipyard, Sandvikens, to invest in icebreaker development was focal, but towards the end of the Cold War other organizations and companies also got involved in the development of ice going vessels. Consequently, Finnish icebreakers were not anymore just one branch of industry inside a conglomerate, but an integrated part of Finnish infrastructure and industrial policy.The Cold War formed the framework in which the Finnish arctic maritime technology cluster – a technological system of shipyards, industrial laboratories, universities, engineering design and consulting companies – emerged, evolved and expanded. Their interconnections helped the system to gather momentum and to keep up with international competition despite the end of the Cold War and the subsequent radical change in the organizational and institutional environment of shipbuilding business.


This paper introduces a new generic platform for onboard payload signal processing. The system is built up around an NoC with a bridge to an AMBA system which supports easy integration with existing AMBA based platforms. With the use of a pthreads interface the platform allows for simple programming and easy extension. For prototyping purposes, an implementation has been made on an FPGA together with a range of I/O options to assess its capabilities. SpaceWire and other interfaces support the extension of the demonstrator platform across multiple boards and allow to connect it to onboard networks and systems. This paper shows that novel and established chip architectures can be integrated in a way that combines their benefits, and represents a promising candidate architecture for future on-board processing platforms.


Objective: To evaluate a novel technology for real time tracking of RF-Identified (RFID) surgical tools (Biotic System), providing intraoperative data analytics during simulated cardiovascular procedures. Ineffective asset management in the Operating Room (OR) leads to inefficient utilization of resources and contributes to prolonged operative times and increased costs. Analysis of captured data can assist in quantifying instrument utilization, procedure flow, performance and prevention of retained instruments. Methods & Results: Five surgeons performed thirteen simulated surgical cases on three human cadavers. Procedures included (i) two abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repairs, (ii) three carotid endarterectomies (CE), (iii) two femoropopliteal (fem-pop) bypasses, (iv) thoracic aortic aneurysm repair, (v) coronary artery bypass graft, (vi) aortic valve replacement, (vii) ascending aortic aneurysm repair, (viii) heart transplants, and (ix) mitral valve replacement. For each case an average of 139 surgical instruments were RFID-tagged and tracked intraoperatively. Data was captured and analyzed retrospectively. Of the 139 instruments tracked across each of the 13 cases, 55 instruments (39.5%) were actually used, demonstrating a high level of redundancy. For repeat cases (i.e. CE/AAA/fem-pop): (i) average instrument usage was 41 ± 3.6 (8.8% variation) for CE (n=3); (ii) average instrument usage was 69 ± 4.0 (5.8% variation) for AAA (n=2); and (iii) average instrument usage was 48 ± 2.5 (5.3% variation) for fem- pop (n=2). Results also showed a reduction in end-of-procedure instrument counting times of 58-87%. Conclusions: We report on a method for collecting intraoperative data analytics regarding instrument usage via RFID technology. This system will help refine instrument selection, quantitate instrument utilization and prevent inadvertent retention in a patient. This should help increase efficiency in packaging and sterilization and let surgeons make objective decisions in the composition of surgical trays. Clinical and Translational Impact Statement—Intraoperative analytics of surgical tools and associated equipment may ultimately lead to safer more efficient surgeries that increase patient outcomes while decreasing the cost of care.


This dissertation contributes to three fields within design research:
- Explorations of a design space related to aesthetics of Tangible Interaction, which have led to a set of design imaginations as well as perspectives on salient design qualities.
- Views on and a designerly example of knowledge construction related to Research through Design as well as to programmatic approaches to design research.
- Rich and reflected examples of how to co-develop design and pedagogy in the field of profound disabilities.
Through the programme Tangible Participation the research seeks and expresses alternatives by critical questioning and imaginations of change. Such alternatives are articu¬lated in a set of designs making the possible present.
These designs have been part of collaborative question¬ing and imaginations in a long-term engagement with pedagogical praxes. Through this engagement, design and pedagogy have co-developed; and from this, the programme has matured and collaborative ways of criticality has been developed.
The matured programme presented in this dissertation entails seven designs built and used in the pedagogical praxes as well as evolved framings able to generatively address a design space: a tangible interaction designer's palette, a sensuous perspective, a compositional principle and potentials of tangibles for participation.


Sperm parameters are known to be impaired in men with sickle cell disease (SCD). Although treatment with hydroxyurea (HU) impacts sperm quality, sperm preservation is impossible before puberty. The present study's primary objective was to analyze and compare sperm parameters in male SCD patients exposed (or not) to HU before puberty. Twenty-six sperm samples from 15 patients (median (range) age: 17 (16-23)) treated with HU during childhood were compared with 46 samples from 23 HU-naïve patients (median (range) age: 20 (16-24)). The median (range) age at HU initiation was 6 years (1-14), the median duration of HU treatment was 4 years (0.5-10) and the mean ± standard deviation dose of HU was 22.4 ± 3.7 mg/kg/day. Although we observed substantial quantitative and qualitative semen abnormalities in all patients, there were no significant differences in semen volume, sperm concentration, total sperm count, and spermatozoa motility, morphology and vitality between the HU-exposed and HU-naïve groups. At the time of the semen analysis, respectively 100% and 52% of the patients in the HU-exposed and HU-naïve groups were on transfusion therapy. Hydroxyurea's specific effect on spermatogenesis in very young infants and the putative value of transfusion for reversing HU's toxicity warrant further investigation.


We present an interactive scheme for processing of digital mammograms relying upon a steerable dyadic wavelet transform. Coefficients of the translation and rotation-invariant transform are interactively processed before an inverse transform is applied. Analysis is carried out at dyadic scales and along arbitrary orientations. Local orientation is computed at each level of scale and spatial position and formulated into criteria for including or excluding specific orientations for contrast enhancement and enhancing locally radiating structures. Transform coefficients that were selected for contrast enhancement are modified by a piecewise linear enhancement function. The presented scheme is flexible enough to enable efficient position, scale, and orientation based interactive processing and analysis.


In the present thesis DNA double strand break (DSB) induction and repair are analysed after laser-microbeam irradiation. Live cell imaging of DNA repair proteins fused to Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as well as immunofluorescent detection of endogenous protein are used. Laser induced DNA damage, detected by gamma-H2AX foci staining depend on a subtle combination of used laser pulse wavelength, pulse energy and dose. The recruitment times of repair proteins depend inverse linearly on laser pulse energy. By extrapolation to zero, the recruitment time at biological relevant conditions is calculated. Interestingly, considerable spatial dynamics of the foci is found. Two neighbouring foci even can fuse within ~20 min. Recruitment time comparison of molecules representing early and late Non-Homologous end Joining (NHEJ), Homologous Recombination Repair (HRR) and the Mre11-Rad50-NBS1 (MRN) complex reveals that the whole NHEJ machinery is assembled to DSBs within 1 min. Recruitment of latest NHEJ factor (XRCC4) is faster than NBS1 and is not directly influenced by the absence of NBS1. XRCC4 persists at DSBs longer in the G1 cell cycle phase than in G2 where the replacement of NHEJ by HRR molecules occurs. Rad51 is recruited when XRCC4 is released with the complementary kinetics. DNA-PKcs phosphorylation at two sites, known to facilitate DNA end processing, occurs between the recruitment of NHEJ and HRR. A new modification of Comet-assay technique the Immunofluorescent Comet-assay (IFCA) is developed in this work for direct visualisation of DSBs in single cells. IFCA uses the immunofluorescent detection of histone H1 in neutral and alkaline Comet-assay, and enables simple and clear visualisation of details in the comet tail, which are hardly detectable by conventional DNA staining dyes such as SYBR Green. Using IFCA, the fragment size at the end of the neutral comet tail is determined for the first time.


NiRs (nitrite reductases) convert nitrite into NO in the denitrification process. RpNiR (Ralstonia pickettii NiR), a new type of dissimilatory Cu-containing NiR with a C-terminal haem c domain from R. pickettii, has been cloned, overexpressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity. The enzyme has a subunit molecular mass of 50515 Da, consistent with sequence data showing homology to the well-studied two-domain Cu NiRs, but with an attached C-terminal haem c domain. Gel filtration and combined SEC (size-exclusion chromatography)-SAXS (small angle X-ray scattering) analysis shows the protein to be trimeric. The metal content of RpNiR is consistent with each monomer having a single haem c group and the two Cu sites being metallated by Cu(2+) ions. The absorption spectrum of the oxidized as-isolated recombinant enzyme is dominated by the haem c. X-band EPR spectra have clear features arising from both type 1 Cu and type 2 Cu centres in addition to those of low-spin ferric haem. The requirements for activity and low apparent K(m) for nitrite are similar to other CuNiRs (Cu-centre NiRs). However, EPR and direct binding measurements of nitrite show that oxidized RpNiR binds nitrite very weakly, suggesting that substrate binds to the reduced type 2 Cu site during turnover. Analysis of SEC-SAXS data suggests that the haem c domains in RpNiR form extensions into the solvent, conferring a high degree of conformational flexibility in solution. SAXS data yield R(g) (gyration radius) and D(max) (maximum particle diameter) values of 43.4 Å (1 Å=0.1 nm) and 154 Å compared with 28 Å and 80 Å found for the two-domain CuNiR of Alcaligenes xylosoxidans.


ABSTRACT Chertified oolite in the lower part of the Precambrian Bhander Limestones, around Maihar, Madhya Pradesh, India, shows extensive compaction-deformation of ooids into oblate bodies, lying preferably parallel to bedding. Chertification, though begun locally when compaction was only slight, continued through and outlasted compaction-deformation in most parts. Unusual deformation of ooids is caused by overpressurization of ooids against a preburial rigid emersion surface below the chertified oolite. Unlike common fabrics of tectonically deformed rocks, compaction-deformation fabrics are uneven with respect to both shape and orientation of ooids. Though there is a strong tendency for preferred orientation of the deformed ooids parallel to bedding, directional variability is not uncommon. T is difference of soft-sediment deformation fabric from that of tectonically deformed rocks mainly stems from the fact that overburden stress is transmitted heterogeneously from grain to grain in unconsolidated sediments. Lithification, on the other hand, homogenizes stress distribution leading to greater uniformity of shape and orientation of fabric elements in tectonically deformed rocks. In addition, the soft-sediment deformation fabric lacks relationship with the external geometry of the rocks.


Background: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the aromatase enzyme (CYP19A1) and estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1) may be associated with breast cancer susceptibility and endocrine-mediated side effects. The IBCSG Tamoxifen (Tam) and Exemestane (Exe) Trial (TEXT) includes a translational research project to assess whether selected SNPs may influence treatment efficacy and toxicity. We report on early-onset hot flashes and sweating (HF/S) and musculoskeletal symptoms (MS; myalgia, arthralgia, stiffness) with respect to CYP19A1 and ESR1 SNPs under combined endocrine therapy. Patients and Methods: 2,672 premenopausal women with HR+ early breast cancer were randomized to treatment with the GnRH-agonist triptorelin (Trip)+Tam or Trip+Exe for 5 years. Randomization was stratified according to intended use of chemotherapy (yes/no) and lymph node status (N- vs N+). Estrogen-depletion side effects (HF/S and MS) were recorded at baseline, 3-monthly during the first year and 6-monthly thereafter using the NCI CTCAE v3.0. DNA was centrally extracted from whole blood with Qiagen kits. SNPs of CYP19A1 (rs4646 and rs10046) and ESR1 (rs207764, rs2234693 and rs9340799) were analyzed by a pyrosequencing method (Diatech Pharmacogenetics S.r.l., Jesi, Italy). Control genotypes (wt/wt; wt/v; v/v) for all SNPs were processed in each run. Logistic regression was used to analyze two endpoints: presence or absence of grade (gr) 2-3 HF/S during first 6 months and gr 2-4 MS during first 12 months. Four genetic models were used to explore associations with side effects: genetic (wt/wt; wt/v; v/v), additive, dominant and recessive. Results: DNA was isolated and genotyped for 1970 (74%) consenting women. Clinical characteristics and outcomes of this cohort were consistent with the overall trial. At baseline median age was 44, median BMI 24 kg/m2 and 86% had regular menses. During follow-up, 43% reported gr 2-3 HF/S and 27% reported gr 2-4 MS. The 5 SNPs did not deviate from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p>0.30) and minor allele frequency ranged from 29%-48%. The CYP19A1 SNP rs10046 (C>T) was associated with gr 2-3 HF/S. Specifically, women with variant homozygote genotype (T/T) had a reduced risk of HF/S (39% T/T vs 45%). The univariate odds ratio (OR) was 0.77 (95%CI: 0.62-0.96; p=0.02) compared with other variant groups. The multivariate model showed consistent results after adjusting for age, BMI, menstrual status, chemo use, treatment allocation (Tam vs Exe) and baseline HF/S. The other 4 SNPs were not associated with the selected side effects. Conclusions: Our analysis indicates association of HF/S with CYP19A1 rs10046 genetic variants. The lack of association between early-onset of selected estrogen-depletion side effects and the other 4 SNPs may be masked by the concurrent Trip. Ovarian reserve before treatment may also influence the impact of SNP genotypes on early-onset side effects. Further analysis with details of concurrent medications and treatment adherence will contribute to the interpretation of these results. Funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Citation Format: Harriet Johansson, Kathryn P Gray, Olivia Pagani, Meredith M Regan, Giuseppe Viale, Valentina Aristarco, Debora Macis, Antonella Puccio, Susanne Roux, Rudolf Maibach, Marco Colleoni, Manuela Rabaglio-Poretti, Alan S Coates, Richard D Gelber, Aron Goldhirsch, Roswitha Kammler, Bernardo Bonanni, Barbara A Walley. CYP19A1 and ESR1 polymorphisms and selected early-onset side effects during combined endocrine therapy in the IBCSG TEXT trial for premenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) early breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P1-12-01.


Abstract Objectives The study aimed to explore new United Kingdom (UK) graduate physiotherapists' perceived preparedness for clinical practice to provide valuable information to support curriculum development. Methods An online, mixed method cross-sectional questionnaire was used. Newly qualified UK physiotherapists completed a survey, capturing how physiotherapy degrees prepared them for practice against (1) UK proficiency standards and (2) cross-discipline physiotherapy related clinical skills. Respondents were asked for reflections of their degree course including teaching and effectiveness. Data were converted into proportions with a 95% confidence interval. Likert-scale questions were treated as numeric variables with the mean and standard deviation (SD) calculated for combined responses. Thematic analysis reported patterns of data extracted from open-ended questions. Results Of a total of 376 respondents, 365 were included in data analysis. Overall respondents perceived that courses prepared them 'well' against 12 of the 15 standards, on a Likert scale of 1–5. Respondents reported that perceived competence was 'indifferent' for manual therapy skills (mean 3.14 ± SD 1.13), red flag (3.45 ± 1.11) and clinical flag management (2.92 ± 1.16). Exercise prescription (2.42 ± 1.35), psychosocial skills (2.27 ± 1.23) and patient management (2.41 ± 1.12) were areas identified for further teaching focus. Placements were the preferred teaching method most applicable to practice followed by practical seminars. Conclusion Respondents felt sufficiently prepared for practice against UK proficiency standards but not physiotherapy related clinical skills. Areas for curricula development included exercise prescription, psychology and pain management.


Abstract Bertho, J. M., Roy, L., Souidi, M., Benderitter, M., Gueguen, Y., Lataillade, J. J., Prat, M., Fagot, T., De Revel, T. and Gourmelon, P. New Biological Indicators to Evaluate and Monitor Radiation-Induced Damage: An Accident Case Report. Radiat. Res. 169, 543–550 (2008). The aim of this work was to use several new biological indicators to evaluate damage to the main physiological systems in a victim exposed accidentally to ionizing radiation. Blood samples were used for biological dosimetry and for measurement of the plasma concentrations of several molecules: Flt3 ligand to assess the hematopoietic system, citrulline as an indicator of the digestive tract, and several oxysterols as lipid metabolism and vascular markers. The cytogenetic evaluation estimated the dose to the victim to be between 4.2 and 4.8 Gy, depending on the methodology used. Monitoring the Flt3 ligand demonstrated the severity of bone marrow aplasia. In contrast, the citrulline concentration showed the absence of gastrointestinal damage. Variations in oxysterol concentrations suggested radiation-induced damage to the liver and the cardiovascular system. These results were correlated with those from classic biochemical markers, which demonstrated severe damage to the hematopoietic system and suggested the appearance of subclinical damage to the liver and cardiovascular system. These results demonstrate for the first time the importance of a multiparameter biological approach in the evaluation of radiation damage after accidental irradiation.


In a recent article (Lawson, 2013), Tony Lawson argues for a Veblenian interpretation of the term "neoclassical", according to which a neoclassical economist is one whose methodology is at odds with their ontological presuppositions. This leads him to categorize many heterodox economists as neoclassical on the basis that their use of mathematical modeling is at odds with their (implicit) acceptance of an open-systems ontology. The reason is that, according to Lawson, mathematical modeling is deductivist: it presupposes that social systems are closed. The argument advanced in this paper is that this last claim is true only some of the time, and problematic only some of the time that it is true. It therefore amounts to a defense of mathematical modeling by heterodox economists that is, at the same time, sympathetic to Lawson's claims that the social realm is structured but open and that this ontology is (implicitly) accepted by many heterodox economists.


My result address the problem that getting back up in the boat after one have fallen in can be very difficult. My research led me to focus on the very smallest boats, rowing boats and open motorboats under 6 meters in length.My solution to the problem is to provide an easily attached footstep that can be reached and pulled down from water level. The product can be adapted to different boats. For the smallest boats, manually activated flotation units can be integrated to prevent the boat from tipping.


Many interesting natural phenomena are sparsely distributed and discrete. Locating the hotspots of such sparsely distributed phenomena is often difficult because their density gradient is likely to be very noisy. We present a novel approach to this search problem, where we model the co-occurrence relations between a robot's observations with a Bayesian nonparametric topic model. This approach makes it possible to produce a robust estimate of the spatial distribution of the target, even in the absence of direct target observations. We apply the proposed approach to the problem of finding the spatial locations of the hotspots of a specific phytoplankton taxon in the ocean. We use classified image data from Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), which automatically measures individual microscopic cells and colonies of cells. Given these individual taxon-specific observations, we learn a phytoplankton community model that characterizes the co-occurrence relations between taxa. We present experiments with simulated robot missions drawn from real observation data collected during a research cruise traversing the US Atlantic coast. Our results show that the proposed approach outperforms nearest neighbor and k-means based methods for predicting the spatial distribution of hotspots from in-situ observations.


Abstract This article proposes a Bayesian learning framework for online change detection of high-dimensional data streams where only a subset of variables can be observed at each time point due to limited sensing capacities. On the one hand, we need to build a change detection scheme based on partial observations. On the other, the scheme should be able to adaptively and actively select the most critical sensing variables to observe to maximize the detection power. To address these two points, in this article, first, a novel Bayesian Spike-Slab Composite Decomposition (BSSCD) is proposed to decompose the high-dimensional signals onto normal and abnormal bases, where the projection coefficients are efficiently estimated via variational Bayesian inference. Built upon it, the posterior Bayes factor is constructed as the detection statistic. Second, by further formulating the detection statistic as the reward function of combinatorial multi-armed bandit (CMAB), a Thompson sampling strategy is proposed for selecting the potential changed variables with the balance of exploration and exploitation. The efficacy and applicability of our method are demonstrated in practice with numerical studies and a real case study.


MarK lee Advertising Director During the current economic crisis, bond portfolio managers are focused on fundamentals, liquidity, and systematic risk. We begin this issue of The Journal of Fixed Income with an article by Austin Murphy and Adrian Headley that empirically demonstrates that credit default swap (CDS) prices across the term spectrum can be explained by measures of inadequate liquidity to pay current liabilities, insufficient income to cover interest expenses, valuation insolvency, systematic risk, and the risk of jumps to default. Next, Hendrik Kaufmann and Philip Messow find a strong positive relationship between equity momentum and the excess returns on corporate bonds. They also provide evidence of superior investment performance from bond trading strategies based on equity momentum. Active managers and investors at-large need to be aware of the supply-demand effects of the increasing size of index funds on its security components. In the next article, Friedrich-Carl Franz examines the corporate bond market and finds that downgrades earn statistically and economically significant abnormal returns after the announcement date. This implies a profitable trading strategy for active investors and a noted loss for passive investors as the index managers rebalance. Next, Xinjie Wang, Hongjun Yan, and Zhaodong Zhong advocate a methodology for correcting a bias in CDS spreads associated with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association CDS assumption of a constant default intensity as opposed to an empirically supported term structure of hazard rates. Their findings suggest that the bias is large, especially for CDS contracts with longer maturities. The quality of prepayment modeling is crucial to the security selection decisions and investment performance of mortgage-backed securities traders and portfolio managers. In the next article, Jiawei Zhang argues that multidimensional rank-based error tracking creates more opportunities in specified pool and collateralized mortgage obligation markets. Finally, Lee Baker, Lihong McPhail, and Bruce Tuckman investigate the relative liquidity in the markets for US Treasury cash bonds versus futures contracts with mixed results. However, futures contracts are more useful for risk management during periods of high volatility. We hope you enjoy this issue of The Journal of Fixed Income. Your continued support of the journal is greatly appreciated.


Abstract. Litter fall and litter decomposition were studied in four mature stands of Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine) in the eastern Pyrenees. The stands were located in environments differing in bedrock type and exposition and were studied for two years. Mass-loss during the first year of decomposition was compared with other European P. sylvestris forests and regressed with environmental variables (temperature and rainfall) and latitude. The results suggested that the mean amount of needle fall (1760 kg-ha-1·yr-1) was within the range reported for northern European stands. There were more differences in the amount of litter fall between the four stands than between the two years studied. However, the needle fall pattern over the year showed significant differences between years in three of the four stands. Litter decomposition was similar in all the stands and only the one in drier conditions showed a lower decomposition rate. On the European scale the decomposition rate was positively related to mean annual temperature and annual rainfall. However, regression analysis suggests that there are other factors, not taken into account in this study, that are important for predicting the decomposition rate.


The equity premium is a well-known and well-explored artifact of financial economics. Relatively poor equity performance over the last decade, however, has left many investors questioning the persistence of the equity premium into the future. The lack of a relatively simple forward-looking equity premium model with sufficient historical data availability compounds this uncertainty. Such an equity premium model essentially needs to compare a reasonable forward-looking equity earnings yield to real bond return expectations and be fairly predictive of future relative returns. The data necessary to calculate a cyclically adjusted earnings yield have been available for decades, but real bond return expectations, based on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities or a similar measure, are only recently available in the United States. This article presents a forward-looking equity premium model based on cyclically adjusted S&P 500 Index earnings yield data and nominal Treasury bond data that have been adjusted by using the Cleveland Federal Reserve Index of Inflation Expectations. The resulting data series, representing forward-looking equity premium expectations across various time horizons for the 1982-2012 period, exhibits statistical significance and reasonable predictive power. Currently, this ERP model implies far better returns on stocks than bonds over the balance of the next decade: 6.7%, 6.4%, and 5.8% annualized for the next 2, 5, and 10 years, respectively.


For decades, courts and scholars have been engaged in a protracted and largely polarized debate over a seemingly simple question: how should courts address cases that implicate foreign affairs? On the one hand are those who seek expansive deference to the Executive's conduct of foreign affairs. On the other are those who argue that the courts must enforce the rule of law in foreign affairs cases lest they abdicate their responsibility to keep the Executive in check. This Article provides an alternative approach to the judicial role in foreign relations cases — one that navigates between judicial abdication and judicial entanglement. It argues that administrative law's doctrine of hard look review can be usefully applied to many situations of executive foreign policymaking. Foreign hard look review would allow the courts to exercise their duty to prevent arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking while still preserving the Executive's expertise in foreign affairs. In areas of foreign relations law as diverse as the political question doctrine, the President's completion power, national security deference, the Executive's power to violate customary international law, and the making of executive agreements and other international obligations, foreign hard look review provides a way for courts to fulfill their constitutional role without encumbering the Executive's making of foreign policy.


Background: Service industries have grown extensively over the past few decades on the back of globalized business trends. With increasing competition, product firms are struggling on product sales alone. Hence, both products and services are being bundled into what is known as offerings. Moreover, firms are looking into how they can improve their offerings to meet customer needs with the help of smart products. Smart products are described as products able to communicate and interact with other electronic devices as well as being self aware. One of these examples is conditional monitoring whereby the product is houses built in sensors to communicate with a back end ERP system providing the supplier a transparent view and real-time update into the status and service needs for both the product and customer. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore how smart products can help leverage services for product firms moving towards a service focus. Method: In addressing the purpose a case study strategy was applied. An inductive approach was used, and interviews were conducted with two Swedish manufacturers, SKF and Atlas Copco. SAP, a software provider was also interviewed. Lastly, a qualitative approach was used and secondary data was collected through annual reports, as well as public company information. Conclusions: Smart products show the capability of being able to record, transmit and act upon their behavior and usage. One major finding from the thesis is that smart products enable product firms to extend their service portfolios from a transactional to a relational standpoint through real time information feeds. This includes asset maintenance as well as monitoring and visibility into client operations. In addition, traditional product firms help product firm's move towards a service strategy. Another finding of the thesis is that information visibility shows a positive co-relation with the service provider's ability to take on more risk increasing service revenues and customer lock in and increase value co-creation. On the other hand smart products show to be challenging to product firms new to service development. These challenges include increasing initial infrastructure costs and high level of maintenance and complexity of the smart products.


Author(s): Finley, Katelyn | Advisor(s): Kaminski, Marek | Abstract: While under the communist regime, states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia shared similarly low levels of income inequality. When the regime collapsed, levels began to rise and vary substantially across countries. While many of the Central and Eastern European countries managed to maintain low levels of inequality, many of the former Soviet Union countries in Eurasia became fairly unequal. In this dissertation, I ask: What explains the variation in levels of inequality across former communist countries since communism's collapse? In answering this question, I pay particular attention to the varying levels of redistribution across former communist countries. While states in Central and Eastern Europe typically have lower levels of net (post-tax, post-transfer) inequality than former Soviet Union countries, they do not have lower levels of market (pre-tax, pre-transfer) inequality. The variation in redistributive policies across states is consequently a key factor explaining the variation in levels of income inequality that citizens experience. I argue that Central and Eastern European states maintained fairly low levels of inequality throughout the market transition because their democratic governance structure motivated higher levels of income redistribution. Democracy shapes both the demand for and supply of redistribution.In using large-N cross-national survey data, I find that democratic institutions significantly shape people's perceptions of distributional fairness. In particular, a free media makes people more critical of the notion that the path to economic success as fair. People's perceptions of whether success is fair in turn significantly shape their demand for income redistribution. I therefore argue that democracy indirectly shapes the demand for distribution by affecting the way people perceive some aspects of distributional fairness.Using a time series, cross-sectional analysis, I also find that democracy significantly shapes the supply of redistributive policies. Several features of the democratic political system are necessary for high levels of redistribution. However, although democracy is associated with higher levels of redistribution, I also argue democratization is just one part of the complex story explaining inequality dynamics in the post-communist context. It combines with other factors in facilitating lower levels of inequality.


We have previously shown that experimental hyperthyroidism produces premature and difficult delivery and absence of lactation in spite of apparently adequate luteolysis and lactogenesis. To study the possible causes of these alterations we measured the effect of treatment with T4 (0.25 or 1 mg kg(-1), s.c., daily, started 10-15 days before mating, HT0.25 and HT1) on serum hormones and their receptor (R) concentrations in reproductive tissues on day 20 of pregnancy (1800 hours), comparing them with controls on the same day (C20), or on day 21 of pregnancy (1800 hours) (C21). Serum prolactin (PRL) and corticosterone (B) concentrations increased in the HT groups, progesterone (Pg) and GH decreased and estradiol (E2) did not change, compared with C20 group. C21 rats had increased serum PRL and decreased Pg and GH. In HT rats mammary DNA and protein tissue content was doubled. Receptor concentrations were expressed per mg DNA. Mammary PRL-R were increased in HT1 rats, while E-R and Pg-R were significantly lower in both HT groups. HT0.25 and HT1 rats had increased uterine E-R and Pg-R and decreased liver PRL-R and GH-R as well as their mRNAs. Liver E-R, PRL-R and GH-R were decreased in C21 rats, while uterine Pg-R were increased. Thus, some of the observed changes (serum Pg and GH, mammary and uterine Pg-R, and liver GH-R and PRL-R decreases and serum PRL increase) may be due at least partially to the advancement in luteolysis and delivery, being similar to the changes observed between days 20 and 21. The changes in serum B, mammary PRL-R, and mammary and uterine E-R may be caused solely by the T4 treatments and may play a role in the alterations previously observed.


Sampling technology has been widely deployed in measurement systems to control memory consumption and processing overhead. However, most of the existing sampling methods suffer from large estimation errors in analyzing small-size flows. To address the problem, we propose a novel adaptive non-linear sampling (ANLS) method for passive measurement. Instead of statically configuring the sampling rate, ANLS dynamically adjusts the sampling rate for a flow depending on the number of packets having been counted. We provide the generic principles guiding the selection of sampling function for sampling rate adjustment. Moreover, we derive the unbiased flow size estimation, the bound of the relative error, and the bound of required counter size for ANLS. The performance of ANLS is thoroughly studied through theoretic analysis and experiments under synthetic/real network data traces, with comparison to several related sampling methods. The results demonstrate that the proposed ANLS can significantly improve the estimation accuracy, particularly for small-size flows, while maintain a memory and processing overhead comparable to existing methods.


The introduction of electromobility causes major challenges as new components and materials enter vehicle recycling. This paper discusses the current developments in the recycling of traction batteries, electric motors, and power electronics, which constitute the key components of (hybrid) electric vehicles. Both technical and ecological aspects are addressed. Beside base metals, all components contain metals that are considered critical by the EU (European Union), e.g., rare earth elements, cobalt, antimony, and palladium. As electromobility is a new trend, no recycling routes have been established at an industrial scale for these components. The implementation is complicated by small return flows and a great variety of vehicle concepts as well as components. Furthermore, drastic changes regarding design and material compositions can be expected over the next decades. Due to hazards and high weights, there is a strong research emphasis on battery recycling. Most pilot-scale or semi-industrial processes focus on the recovery of cobalt, nickel, and copper due to their high value. Electric motors and power electronics can be fed into established recycling routes if they are extracted from the vehicle before shredding. However, these processes are not capable of recovering some minor metals such as rare earth elements and antimony.


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a syndrome that comprises several lung pathologies, but subphenotyping the various disease subtypes has been difficult. One reason may be that current efforts focused on studying COPD once it has occurred do not allow tracing back to the different origins of disease. This perspective proposes that emphysema originates when susceptible airway, endothelial, and/or hematopoietic cells are exposed to environmental toxins such as cigarette smoke, biomass fuel, or traffic emissions. These susceptible cell types may initiate distinct pathobiological mechanisms ("COPD endotypes") that ultimately manifest the emphysematous destruction of the lung. On the basis of evidence from the "airway" endotype, we suggest that grading these endotypes by severity may allow better diagnosis of disease at early stages when intervention can be designed on the basis of the mechanisms involved. Therefore, genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic studies on at-risk patients will be important in the identification of biomarkers that help designate each endotype. Together with understanding of the involved molecular pathways that lead to disease manifestation, these efforts may lead to development of intervention strategies.


Honk A., Kocian M., Martinková Z. (2012): Rove beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) in an apple orchard. Plant Protect Sci., 48: 116–122. Many rove beetle (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) species are carnivorous. Despite their positive role in the biological control of agricultural arthropod pests rove beetles are relatively poorly studied in general, and little is known about their habitat associations including their occurrence and seasonal activity in the apple-orchard environment. In 1994, abundance and composition of adult staphylinid taxocenosis was established in a 12-years-old apple orchard at Prague-Ruzyně, and compared with taxocenoses inhabiting nearby grassy ridge, winter wheat field and forest. The staphylinids were collected throughout the vegetation season using unbaited pitfall traps. Staphylinid activity was highest in the apple orchard where 28 species were established in the total sample of 1238 individuals. Dominant species Drusilla canaliculata (F.), Ocypus nero semilanatus Müller, Dinarea angustula (Gyllenhal) and Oxytelus insecatus Gravenhorst together represented 93% of the total sample. The former two species dominated also the taxocenosis of grassy ridge and could disperse to the orchard from surrounding swards. Most established species are polyphagous predators or parasitoids that might contribute to the biological control of some orchard pests.


The Mn4 CaO5 cluster of Photosystem II (PSII) advances sequentially through five oxidation states (S0 to S4 ). Under the enzyme cycle, two water molecules are oxidized, O2 is generated and four protons are released into the lumen. Umena et al. (2011) have proposed that, with other charged amino acids, the R323 residue of the D1 protein could contribute to regulate a proton egress pathway from the Mn4 CaO5 cluster and TyrZ via a proton channel identified from the 3D structure. To test this suggestion, a PsbA3/R323E site-directed mutant has been constructed and the properties of its PSII have been compared to those of the PsbA3-PSII by using EPR spectroscopy, polarography, thermoluminescence and time-resolved UV-visible absorption spectroscopy. Neither the oscillations with a period four nor the kinetics and S-state-dependent stoichiometry of the proton release were affected. However, several differences have been found: i) the P680 + decay in the hundreds of ns time domain was much slower in the mutant, ii) the S2 QA - /DCMU and S3 QA - /DCMU radiative charge recombination occurred at higher temperatures and iii) the S0 TyrZ • , S1 TyrZ • , S2 TyrZ • split EPR signals induced at 4.2 K by visible light from the S0 TyrZ , S1 TyrZ , S2 TyrZ , respectively, and the (S2 TyrZ • )' induced by NIR illumination at 4.2 K of the S3 TyrZ state differed. It is proposed that the R323 residue of the D1 protein interacts with TyrZ likely via the H-bond network previously proposed to be a proton channel. Therefore, rather than participating in the egress of protons to the lumen, this channel could be involved in the relaxations of the H-bonds around TyrZ by interacting with the bulk, thus tuning the driving force required for TyrZ oxidation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


The literature on the relationship between regions and the European Union (EU) has generated important insights. Firstly, existing scholarship has found that the EU has empowered, as well as disempowered, regions and sub-national governments. Secondly, researchers have convincingly demonstrated how regions have adapted to the EU opportunity structure. Finally, studies exist that have investigated the ways in which regions and sub-national governments have also influenced the EU opportunity structure. These dimensions are rarely brought together to examine the mutual influence and constant interaction of regions and the EU. Accordingly, this article aims to provide a short systematic account of how empowering and disempowering structures and sub-national governments' endeavours in the United Kingdom (UK) interacted with the European level. It will do so through the Strategic-Relational Approach, showing how regional motivations, processes of devolution, differential opportunities and constraints and strategies of adaptation and transformation are interrelated. The last section will discuss some of the disempowering issues Brexit presents for the UK's territorial and constitutional future.


The implementation of cloud technologies in education began relatively recently in Ukraine. Particularly in preschool education it is still at an early stage of development and requires further study. Using cloud services releases prospects for improving the quality of preschools' management processes. Purpose of the study: to describe the characteristics of Google cloud services in terms of preschool educational institution management. Object of study: informatization of preschool education management. Subject of study: the use of cloud services in the preschool educational institution management. Research methods: analysis, generalization and systematization of scientific and methodological sources on the use of cloud technologies in education; study of characteristics, comparison of different vendors' cloud service to determine the most optimal ones for use in preschool educational institution management. The main results and conclusions: after a preliminary analysis of various cloud services, we have chosen Google services, as optimal for use in preschool educational institution management. Their main advantages which are principal for Ukrainian preschools, were defined: free of charge; ease of use, intuitive interface; availability of universal account that provides access to all services; the use on different platforms (Windows, Android, iOS); the available functionality, required for preschool management; the availability via any digital device connected to the Internet; no need to deploy "cloud". The characteristics of Google services (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Office suite, Google Sites, Google+, Blogger, Hangouts, Google Forms) in terms of preschool educational institution management were considered.


Place descriptions in everyday communication or in online text provide a rich source of spatial knowledge about places. Such descriptions typically consist of references to places and spatial relationships between them. An important step to utilize such knowledge in information systems is georeferencing the referred places. Beside place name disambiguation, another challenge is that a significant proportion of place references in such descriptions are not official place names indexed by gazetteers, thus cannot be resolved easily. This paper presents a novel approach for georeferencing places from collective descriptions using place graphs, regardless of whether they are referred to by gazetteered names or not. The approach leverages spatial relation models for approximate locating and matching. Different models are proposed and evaluated using several metrics.


The relationship between perceived overqualification and psychological well-being was explored within the framework of stress-illness models, using multiple regression analysis. Data were collected from 179 male and 109 female members of a local midwestern chapter of the American Postal Workers Union. As expected, there was a significant, positive relationship between perceived overqualification and psychological well-being: The greater the perceived overqualification, the greater the psychological distress. The interaction between perceived overqualification and gender was not significant.


Myers addresses John's use of Moses traditions in his characterization of Jesus. Stewart examines the Johannine use of Ps. 82 by merging a broader contextual examination with an analysis of formal logic. Moyise discusses Paul's quotations adn explores their relevance for the scholarly consensus. Lincicum studies Paul's letters and the Temple Scroll and compares their exegetical practice with references to Deuteronomy. Wells discusses the topic of divine and human agency in Pauline theology and soteriology. Luckensmeyer investigates how Paul wove words, phrases, and themes from Obadiah into his first letter to the Thessalonian Christians. Becker examines 2 Cor. 3.4-18 and Mk 9.2-9. Bucur investigates the peculiar reading of Hab. 3.2. Jobes probes the extent of the influence of the Twelve Minor Prophets on the writers of the New Testament. Matlock examines Solomon's prayer of dedication of the Jerusalem temple. Stern proposes a new model for understanding both the role of biblical texts in early Jewish liturgy and the relationship between biblical and non-biblical utterances in the early synagogue context.


ABSTRACT Angnuureng, D. B., Almar, R., Appeaning Addo, K., Senechal, N., Castelle, B., Laryea, S. W., Wiafe, G., 2016. Video observation of waves and shoreline change on the microtidal James town Beach in Ghana.. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 1022 - 1026, Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The morphology of sandy beaches is highly dynamic. They are influenced by the geology of the coastal area and external hydrodynamic forcing. On long timescales (years to decades), it is more efficient and convenient to monitor beach evolution through remote sensing technics rather than through direct field measurements. Erosion is a major problem along the coastline of Ghana with over 25 erosion hotspots, including James town. Here, tides, ECMWF EraInterim re-analysis wave data and images covering the beach area have been obtained for the 2013–2014 period. This paper presents preliminary results of the first efforts in processing video-derived observations of waves and shoreline change in Ghana. The pilot application shows a strong potential of the video system in providing fair quality wave data for beach management purposes where video wave characteristics are in good agreement with EraInterim global reanalysis (daily RMSE = 0.8 m and 0.7 m for Hb and Tp, respectively). Shorelines extracted from video suggest large monthly variability driven by wave seasonality while shoreline change shows a subsequent erosion/accretion cycle.


Business organizations are faced with the reality of the compelling need to show commitment towards Corporate Social Responsibility. Whereas organizations are participating in CSR activities, there is an emerging thought where firms are asking questions about business sustainability of these activities. It is with this background that this research investigated the effects of corporate social responsibility on the performance of firms operating within the financial sector. Postbank which is the only pure savings bank in the country was selected for purpose of the study. The study determined the extent to which environmental issues, customer concerns, employee concerns, philanthropic activities and products and services influences the performance of the Bank. It is important to note that no such study had been done in the Bank and it is therefore deemed that its findings provides input for policy improvement as well as enhance the existing knowledge relating to the area of study. The population of the study comprised 300 staff of Postbank from specific departments and working within the CBD area of Nairobi. A sample of 20% of the population was obtained using stratified random sampling. Questionnaires were used to source data. Other sources were journals, company publications, reports, circulars, text books and information from web sites in the internet. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistical methods including measures of central tendencies and dispersion to explain the population distribution. Findings indicated that CSR activities have a higher effect on the performance of the bank as performance focused on image, profitability, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, costs and risk profile of the organization. Given that the market place has become competitive and players in the industry compete for customers with an intention of increasing the deposits level, the findings indicated that CSR may be considered a differentiation strategy by the bank. Based on the findings the study recommends that the bank should participate more on corporate social responsibility activities while at the same time using it as a platform for marketing its products. The study advocates for CSR to be accommodated as a differentiation strategy with the objective of making the organization attain increased performance. The study confined itself to Kenya Post Office Savings Bank which is a purely savings bank and is not a commercial bank. It may therefore not be fully representative of the financial sector and as such it is proposed that a study of the whole industry in Kenya comprising over 45 banks be undertaken.


Self-contained single-chip charge-coupled split-electrode filters with 55 taps and a novel channel structure have been built with a double-level polysilicon NMOS process. Operating at a sample rate of 32 kHz, these devices provide a low-pass filter function with a passband from 0 to 3.2 kHz and a stopband above 4 kHz. The image charge on the sense electrodes is detected with a novel sensing circuit employing two on-chip operational amplifiers, one of which suppresses the common-mode signal on the two sense buses while the other one integrates the difference signal. In addition, the chips carry antialiasing prefilters, a correlated double sample-and-hold circuit to minimize reset noise and to restore the output signal, and all the necessary peripheral logic and biasing circuitry so that the devices can be operated from a single master clock and two power supplies of +12 and -5 V, respectively.


Proximity search on heterogeneous graphs aims to measure the proximity between two nodes on a graph w.r.t. some semantic relation for ranking. Pioneer work often tries to measure such proximity by paths connecting the two nodes. However, paths as linear sequences have limited expressiveness for the complex network connections. In this paper, we explore a more expressive DAG (directed acyclic graph) data structure for modeling the connections between two nodes. Particularly, we are interested in learning a representation for the DAGs to encode the proximity between two nodes. We face two challenges to use DAGs, including how to efficiently generate DAGs and how to effectively learn DAG embedding for proximity search. We find distance-awareness as important for proximity search and the key to solve the above challenges. Thus we develop a novel Distance-aware DAG Embedding (D2AGE) model. We evaluate D2AGE on three benchmark data sets with six semantic relations, and we show that D2AGE outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines. We release the code on https://github.com/shuaiOKshuai.


Allogeneic hand transplantation is now a clinical reality. While results have been encouraging, acute rejection rates are higher than in their solid‐organ counterparts. In contrast, chronic rejections, as defined by vasculopathy and/or fibrosis and atrophy of skin and other tissues, as well as antibody mediated rejection, have not been reported in a compliant hand transplant recipient. Monitoring vascularized composite allograft (VCA) hand recipients for rejection has routinely involved punch skin biopsies, vascular imaging and graft appearance. Our program, which has transplanted a total of 6 hand recipients, has experience which challenges these precepts. We present evidence that the vessels, both arteries and veins may also be a primary target of rejection in the hand. Two of our recipients developed severe intimal hyperplasia and vasculopathy early post‐transplant. An analysis of events and our four other patients has shown that the standard techniques used for surveillance of rejection (i.e. punch skin biopsies, DSA and conventional vascular imaging studies) are inadequate for detecting the early stages of vasculopathy. In response, we have initiated studies using ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) to evaluate the vessel wall thickness. These findings suggest that vasculopathy should be a focus of frequent monitoring in VCA of the hand.


The family Pectinaceae are the only bivalves that have been well documented as swimmers (DeMont, 1992), although Ensis minor has been observed to swim (McMahon and McMahon, 1983). The behaviour was once regarded only as an escape response (Gade, 1981; McMahon and McMahon, 1983), but some studies suggest seasonal migrations are involved (Gruffydd, 1976; DeMont, 1990). DeMont (1990) suggests that they swim at the natural frequency of the shell-hinge system for more efficient use of energy.


Phishing is a kind of cyber-attack that targets naive online users by tricking them into revealing sensitive information. There are many anti-phishing solutions proposed to date, such as blacklist or whitelist, heuristic-based and machine learning-based methods. However, online users are still being trapped into revealing sensitive information in phishing websites. In this paper, we propose a novel phishing webpage detection model, based on features that are extracted from URL, source codes of HTML, and the third-party services to represent the basic characters of phishing webpages, which uses a deep learning method – Stacked Autoencoder (SAE) to detect phishing webpages. To make features in the same order of magnitude, three kinds of normalization methods are adopted. In particular, a method to calculate correlation coefficients between weight matrixes of SAE is proposed to determine optimal width of hidden layers, which shows high computational efficiency and feasibility. Based on the testing of a set of phishing and benign webpages, the model using SAE achieves the best performance when compared to other algorithms such as Naive Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN). It indicates that the proposed detection model is promising and can be applied effectively to phishing detection.


The objective of this study is to identify successful strategic factors and priority for the development of Integrated Resort(IR) casino in Korea. The study proposed a hierarchical structure for the assessment of strategic factors for IR casino. To achieve this objective this study employed Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) and Delphi methods with 31 casino related experts. Delphi data were collected from the experts using an online survey through e-mail. The experts suggested five main factors with 39 components which included game facilities, casino service & marketing, themed facilities, hotel/convention facilities, and corporate responsible management. The results of AHP indicate that the most important factor of IR casino development was the development of themed facilities and landmarks, followed by casino service and marketing, hotel/restaurant, convention facilities, table game, atmosphere of casino, Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR), and slot machine. The findings will provide policy makers and developers with significant insights in preparing for the development of strategic IR casino.


Interlocked pipelined CMOS (IPCMOS), a new asynchronous set of clock circuits suitable for high-frequency and low-power operation, is described. In IPCMOS, the reduced power results from enabling the local clocks only when there is an operation to perform and from a simple single-stage latch. The single-stage latch can be used because the locally generated clocks driving adjacent stages are not enabled simultaneously. The combination of enabling the clocks only when there is an operation to perform and the simple latch can lower power by a factor of five to ten times in many applications. In IPCMOS, the staggered local clocks also result in a significant reduction of dynamic Ldi/dt noise. In addition to the locally generated interlocked clocks and the single-stage latch, unique circuits that combine the function of a static NOR and an input switch are key to achieving high performance and minimizing the overhead in the interlocking. In a 0.18-/spl mu/m bulk CMOS technology, these circuits drive a path through a typical 64-b multiplier stage at 3.3-4.5 GHz on an experimental chip. IPCMOS also provides a way to implement the interface between asynchronous and synchronous portions of a design, thereby giving the approach a great deal of flexibility by making it possible to drop IPCMOS into portions of an existing synchronous design.


This paper will present a case where designers are educated through a studio approach to position and develop their own design knowledge and theory building. The paper discusses a selection of exercises that bring theory close to product design student practice by connecting the materialising, body-based and future-shaping practice that is design, to that of more lecture-based learning such as in disciplines of design history and design theory. It looks at how design theory may be conceptualised and taught in a design school, to challenge how design thinking is increasingly taught with limited design studio practice. As design practice is increasingly abstracted to design thinking and theorising, from the body to the head so to speak, what is at stake when we ignore the designing, culture-building and connecting body? The paper will reflect on some of these concerns and considerations in building conceptual structures to support design as practice and design as theory building. The paper makes a contribution to a theorising design discourse by examining some underpinnings of theory building relevant for design and to position embodied, material knowledge from studio work as a necessary experience for understanding and incorporating theory in design futures.


One of the most significant developments in the current economic scene in Pakistan has been the sharp increase in the rate of inflation. The annual average rate of increase in the wholesale price index (WPI) during the first seven months (July-January 1994-95) of the current fiscal year has been about 19 percent as opposed to 11.3 percent during the same period last year. A similar increase was also witnessed in the consumer price index (CPI) which accelerated to 13 percent as opposed to 11.1 percent during the previous period. Such a sharp increase in prices in recent months has not only caused alarm in the academic circles but has equally disturbed the country's chief executive, the Prime Minister. The recent surge of inflation is a matter of serious concern for a variety of reasons. First, Pakistan has been a low-inflation country as it has experienced price stability during the last three decades. The rate of inflation, as measured by an increase in the WPI, averaged 2.6 percent during the 1960s. The components of the WPI, i.e., food, raw materials, manufactures, and fuel and lubricants, also grew by an average rate ranging from 2.0 to 3.4 percent p.a. during then 1960s (see Table 1 for relevant statistics). The rate of inflation crossed the single-digit threshold during the 1970s. The WPI and its components increased at an annual average rate ranging from 12 to 18 percent. The double-digit inflation during the 1970s has been the result of two major oil shocks, a massive devaluation of currency, and devastating floods destroying agricultural crops. Pakistan returned to the fold of the single-digit inflation during the 1980s. The rate of inflation remained at the single-digit level during the first three years of the 1990s with the exception of 1990-91, when the rate of inflation increased to 11.7 percent as a result of the Gulf War. It is only during the outgoing fiscal year and in the current year that the rising inflation is posing a major threat to macroeconomic stability.


The Strait of Istanbul is one of the world's busiest, narrowest and most winding waterways. As such, there is a high grounding probability for vessels. Although a number of grounding probability models exist, they have been deemed unsuitable by local maritime experts, due to their insufficient stopping distance criteria for narrow waterways. Thus, there is a need for a new model. This paper proposes a two-component grounding probability model that multiplies the geometric grounding probability (calculated with a kinematic-based model) with the causation probability (calculated with a specially designed Bayesian network). The geometric probability model is improved in terms of stopping distance parameters and the Bayesian network is crafted for narrow waterways. The model is then deployed with pre-determined parameters within the Strait of Istanbul to run risk analysis scenarios. The results, validated with actual grounding records, show that the causation probability is the key component for quantifying the probability of grounding in narrow waterways. If navigated without frequent evasive manoeuvres, grounding would be almost inevitable. Although this study focuses on the Strait of Istanbul, the proposed approach can be applied to research into grounding probability of vessels navigating through other waterways.


Missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud has received a lot of domestic enforcement attention. True cross border enforcement (joint or coordinated multi-Member State audit) has been limited. There are signs that this is changing as the Member States become more aggressive in their search for revenue. Along with this shift in enforcement focus, triangulation analysis has moved from being an interesting aspect of the MTIC fraud structure to the central element in a larger understanding of how a fraudster thinks and how he carries out his fraud. We are coming to understand that triangulations are not only the mechanism of how the fraud is carried out; they are a cloak of invisibility that the fraudster casts upon his fraud to hide it from the authorities. Germany for example, is currently engaged in a multi-billion euro fraud investigation involving the triangulation of consumer goods and CO2 certificates. The Augsburg District Court is overseeing the investigation. The Augsburg investigation is not only uncovering triangulations that "hide the goods," but it is also uncovering sophisticated payment platforms that "hide the money transfers." The intent of these structures is to make the fraud fully invisible to the authorities (goods and funds) until after the trader has disappeared. The breadth of the German investigation is breathtaking, but with the Mutual Assistance for the Recovery of Claims (MARC) Directive, in effect as of January 1, 2012, this kind of comprehensive multi-jurisdictional MTIC investigation may be becoming the new norm. If so, triangulations will most certainly be at its core. This paper focuses on the developing law. It explains triangulation, triangulation simplification, and then considers several recent court decisions where fraudsters manipulated the VAT system with triangular trades. The cases illustrate both the enforcement problems with triangular trades, and highlight how the courts' examination of triangular frauds is leading to significant developments in the VAT law. Three cases are drawn from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and three are from national courts.


– Flagfin shiners, Pteronotropis signipinnis, were collected from Sweetwater Creek, a second-order blackwater stream in southeastern Mississippi, during each month of 1996. Analysis of length frequency histograms indicated a life span of 1 to 2 years. Sex ratio was not different from a 1:1 ratio. Adult males were larger and more heavily pigmented near the abdomen than females. Females were reproductive from April to mid-August. All females attained sexual maturity by 27 mm SL and produced multiple clutches of ova. Clutch size varied from 12 to 101 ova and was correlated with SL. Mean mature oocyte diameter was 0.88 mm (range 0.76–0.96). Despite the relationship between clutch size and body size, P. signipinnis may be selected to invest in early reproduction rather than growth. This idea is supported by the small size at maturity in this species and is consistent with an opportunistic life-history strategy.Note


Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have received widespread adoption for military and civilian purposes due to their versatility, flexibility and relatively small operating expenses. With various on-board sensors, UAVs have been playing great roles in the fields of reconnaissance, forestry fire monitoring, Earth science research, volcanic gas sampling, humanitarian observations, etc. This paper attempts to compile and survey the recently published articles in the present decade. In the design of multi-UAV systems, communication is crucial for cooperation and collaboration between UAVs. Communications between UAVs of a given system may be through a central infrastructure, such as a ground base or a satellite, or directly among the UAVs through ad hoc networking. Infrastructure based communication architecture restricts the span and the capabilities of the multi-UAV system. Ad-hoc networking between UAVs solves the problems. This paper attempts to compile and survey the recently published articles in the present decade.


The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a part of the reticular activating system and one of the main sources of the cholinergic fibers in the midbrain, while it is also subject to cholinergic modulation. This nucleus is known to be a structure that controls sleep–wake cycles, arousal, and locomotion. Neurons of the PPN are targets of several neuromodulatory mechanisms, which elicit heterogeneous pharmacological responses including hyperpolarization and depolarization, whereas lack of response can also be observed. In agreement with previous findings, we found that PPN neurons respond to the muscarinic agonist carbachol in a heterogeneous manner: they were depolarized and showed increased firing rate, decreased firing frequency, and were hyperpolarized, or showed no response. The heterogeneity of the muscarinic activation was similar to our previous observations with type 1 cannabinoid (CB1) receptor agonists; therefore, we investigated whether muscarinic and endocannabinoid modulatory mechanisms elicit the same action on a certain neuron. To achieve this, whole-cell patch clamp experiments were conducted on midbrain slices containing the PPN. Carbachol was applied first and, after recording the changes in the membrane potential and the firing frequency and achieving washout, the CB1 receptor agonist arachidonyl-2′-chloroethylamide (ACEA) was applied. A marked but not full overlap was observed: all neurons depolarized by carbachol were depolarized by the CB1 receptor agonist ACEA, and all neurons lacking response to carbachol lacked response to ACEA as well. However, neurons hyperpolarized by carbachol were depolarized, hyperpolarized, or not affected by the ACEA. These results indicate that endocannabinoid and muscarinic modulatory effects involve similar mechanisms of action.


Esophageal cancer, according to GLOBOCAN 2018 data, ranks seventh in terms of incidence and sixth in mortality among all cancers worldwide. In India, it is considered the fourth most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Influenced by lifestyle, socioeconomic and environmental factors, striking geographic variations in incidence exist. With regard to histopathology, esophageal cancers are unique among malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract in that they principally comprise two variants: squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma, with the former accounting for up to 80% of cases. Etiological factors for SCC show marked variations worldwide, with tobacco consumption, alcohol, hot beverages, and poor nutrition constituting the predominant predisposing factors. Although present day therapeutic interventions have begun to positively influence disease prognosis, with significant improvements in survival noted over the last 3 decades, cancer of the esophagus remains a highly lethal disease with a case fatality rate approaching 90%. Management of this disease includes all three primary modalities of treatment; surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Surgical resection, the only curative modality of treatment, remains a challenge even with advances like minimal access surgery and is feasible only in early stage disease. Early diagnosis and accurate staging are paramount for optimizing treatment and hence, prognosis.


Abstract. The capability of global chemistry and transport models (CTMs) to simulate atmospheric composition and its spatial and temporal changes highly relies on the input data used by the models, in particular the emission inventories. Biomass burning emissions show large spatial, diurnal, seasonal and year-to-year variability. In the present study, we applied a global 3-D CTM to evaluate uncertainties in the computed atmospheric composition associated with the use of different biomass burning emissions and identify areas where observational data can help to reduce these uncertainties. We find the emission inventory choice to lead to regional differences in the calculated load of aerosols up to a factor of 4. Assumptions on the injection height of the biomass burning emissions are found to produce regionally up to 30% differences in the calculated tropospheric lifetimes of pollutants. Computed changes in lifetimes point to a strong chemical feedback mechanism between emissions from biomass burning and isoprene emissions from vegetation that are linked via NOx-driven oxidant chemistry, NOx-dependent changes in isoprene oxidation products, aerosol emissions and atmospheric transport. These interactions reduce isoprene load in the presence of biomass burning emissions by 15%, calculated for the same amount of isoprene emitted into the troposphere. Thus, isoprene load and lifetime are inversely related to the quantities of pollutants emitted by biomass burning. These interactions are shown to be able to increase the global annual secondary aerosol yield from isoprene emissions, defined as the ratio of tropospheric loads of secondary aerosol from isoprene oxidation to isoprene emissions, by up to 18%.


Is equality a distributive value or does it rather point to the quality of social relationships? This article criticizes the distributive character of luck egalitarian theories of justice and fleshes out the central characteristics of an alternative, relational approach to equality. It examines a central objection to distributive theories: that such theories cannot account for the significance of how institutions treat people (as opposed to the outcomes they bring about). I discuss two variants of this objection: first, that distributive theories fail to account for the importance of how institutions cause good shortfalls and, second, that they fail to account for the normative attitude of social and political institutions expressed in different ways of treating people. The article argues that the causal variant of the objection has only very limited reach, and endorses the expressive variant: the attitudes expressed by institutions in their treatment of persons, such as contempt or neglect, generate potentially unjust social relationships and hierarchies. This should be the focus of a relational egalitarian approach to social justice. The article proceeds to explain how it is possible that artificial agents such as institutions have attitudes and how these attitudes are not reducible to those of the individuals that sustain them, and argues that distributive theories cannot be so modified as to account for such attitudes. It concludes by indicating several directions for the development of more worked-out conceptions of relational equality on this basis.


The perception of a democratic deficit in the European Union (EU) is widespread. In which circumstances is this perception affected by mass media and interpersonal communication? To answer this question, we analyze data from representative samples of citizens in 21 EU member states (N = 22,806) and linked to news items (N = 36,881) these citizens were exposed to in the 2009 European election campaign. Our results indicate that theoretically expected interpersonal communication effects exist in all countries. We find media effects in countries with a one-sided message flow that is positive about EU democratic performance. In these countries, the media have a positive effect on EU democratic performance perceptions, and the effect is larger among less sophisticated citizens. Negative interpersonal communication effects are stronger among sophisticated citizens. Furthermore, among less sophisticated citizens, we find a positive reinforcement effect of mass media and interpersonal communication. These findings suggest that the EU has more possibilities to positively affect public opinion than has been assumed.


Skates (family Rajidae) are benthic elasmobranchs that are highly vulnerable to incidental fi shery bycatch, are discarded at sea, and are poorly accounted for in catch records. Many aspects of skate life history, such as population structure, are not well understood. Without this knowledge, indiscriminate removal may have deleterious effects on scienti fi c, conservation, and management efforts. The Clearnose Skate Rostroraja eglanteria is seasonally migratory and widely distributed in the coastal waters of the eastern United States and in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. This study used molecular techniques to assess the population structure of Clearnose Skate for use as a biological reference point for further research and management. Specimens were collected from 2014 to 2019 by fi sheries-independent surveys. High-throughput genotyping-by-sequencing was used to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms, resulting in two data sets: one consisting of 8,914 loci (outlier and neutral) and the other comprised of 30 outlier loci. Results from all analyses and using both data sets indicated a high level of genetic differentiation between specimens from the Gulf of Mexico and specimens from the U.S East Coast. Using the outlier data set, a low but signi fi cant level of genetic differentiation was also found among specimens from the U.S. East Coast, with a subtle break near the North Carolina and South Carolina border. Genetic differences along the U.S. East Coast were spatially autocorrelated, indicating a latitudinal genetic gradient. The level of observed genetic differentiation between the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. East Coast is likely due to physical barriers such as Florida and the Gulf Stream current, while the subtle structure along the U.S. East Coast is likely attributable to isolation caused by dispersal limitations and local temperature preferences. The results from this investigation of Clearnose Skate population structure can be used to better monitor and manage this vulnerable elasmobranch.


This chapter describes methods for the isolation of specific cell types that reveal how and where expansion can occur. For the hereditary component of expansion, the male germ cell has proved useful in distinguishing processes that can contribute to expansion, as described in our article (Nature Genetics 27, 407, 2001). Mature spermatazoa (SZs) can be isolated directly from the epididymis. Haploid spermatids (STs), diploid spermatagonia (SGs), and tetraploid spermatocytes (SCs) can be removed from the testis and sorted by fluorescence-activity cell sorting (FACS); differences in DNA content and morphology allow resolution by fluorescence and light scattering. Repeat-length measurement can pinpoint the stage at which expansion occurs. Because the timing of meiosis and mitosis with respect to sperm development is known, the analysis can distinguish repair and replication processes. Furthermore, the possible contribution of Y- or X-specific factors can be evaluated by sorting X- and Y-bearing germ cells. To enable analysis of female germ cells, we describe methods for oocyte preparations and a method for the isolation of the eight-cell-stage embryo. Therefore, the methods described here can help to answer such questions as the timing during development of expansion, whether expansion is limited to a single period, whether both replication and repair contribute to instability, and the role of somatic instability in disease. If further expansion of the inherited allele contributes to the phenotype, then intervention in somatic tissue might be therapeutic.


The simple object access protocol (SOAP) is recognized as a more promising middleware for electronic commerce applications among other leading candidates such as CORBA. Many recent polls reveal however that security and reliability issues are major concerns that discourage people from engaging in electronic commerce transactions. We note that these issues are not adequately addressed in the current standard, i.e., SOAP 1.2. Active replication is a common approach to building readily available and highly reliable distributed software applications. The redundant nested invocation (RNI) problem arises when servers in a replicated group issues nested invocations to other server groups in response to a client invocation. Automatic suppression of RNI from active group is always a desirable function, yet this function usually requires careful if not complex design. The design complexity increases if the system involves multithreading implementation. Existing solutions either solve RNI problem for single-threading cases or solve multithreading cases at the expense of portability. In this work, we propose a mechanism to perform auto-suppression of redundant nested invocation on an active replication fault tolerant Web service. Our approach is portable so that the Web service running on our platform is able to interact with any other SOAP applications. Our preliminary experiments show that the proposed auto-suppression mechanism is efficient in most cases.


The anti-prohferative function of the p53 tumour suppressor depends primarily on its ability to act as a transcription factor and to coordinate the cellular response to various stress signals. p53 can induce several cellular responses, including cell-cycle arrest, DNA repair and apoptosis. The choice of the p53 response is thought to depend on many factors, including the action of p53-cooperating molecules. The cofactor JMY has been demonstrated to cooperate with the p300 coactivator to augment p53 activity. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms regulating JMY function to further understand its role in the stress response. Results presented here indicate that the subcellular localisation of JMY is regulated by the cellular environment. Whilst DNA damage stimulated the translocation of JMY from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, removal of proliferative and survival signals by serum deprivation induced rapid nuclear export of JMY and compromised its ability to affect cell cycle progression and stimulate apoptosis. The Mdm2 oncoprotein negatively regulates p53 activity at multiple levels including regulation of the intracellular location of p53 and inhibition of its interaction with the transcriptional coactivator CBP. Mdm2 interacts with JMY in cells, and enhances its cytoplasmic localisation without promoting its degradation. Leptomycin B blocked Mdm2-dependent redistribution of JMY, implying the involvement of a nuclear export mechanism. DNA damage was found to abrogate the effect of Mdm2 on the subcellular localisation of JMY, and to reduce the interaction between the two proteins. Mutations in the ubiquitin ligase domain of Mdm2, as well as removal of the proline-rich region in JMY abolished the Mdm2- mediated cytoplasmic translocation of JMY. These data suggest the existence of a functional relationship between the p53 cofactor JMY, and its major inhibitor Mdm2, which is likely to impact on p53 activity. Importantly, regulation of the intracellular localisation of JMY might provide an additional mechanism of modulating the p53 response.


A disadvantage of Link State routing schemes is that exact shortest path calculations require a complete topology, which can overload the capacity of small nodes in a large network. Area routing schemes (when destination names are structured corresponding to the network topology) allow nodes to reduce the size of routing tables, by recording only one entry for an entire region rather than one for each node in the region. A description is presented of a general hierarchical routing scheme that allows all nodes to participate in a distributed routing network, using close to optimal paths, with short routing tables, and a reduction of topology information for minor nodes.<<ETX>>


Noise suppression from image is a still a big challenging problem for researchers. Image may be corrupted during the transmission or storage time, so removing the noise from the processed image and should preserve the important information. In this paper image patch is representing as sparse code. We are selecting the sparse code from the complete dictionary which is linear group of few atoms. By the addition of sparse coding noise to image we can enhance the performance of sparse representation. Here by restoring the image reducing the sparse coding noise in this paper we are adopting the method of adding the sparse coding noise. For getting of high resolution output the sparse coding noise should be least amount with high PSNR.


The Levantine basin is a world class site to study the onsets of salt tectonics. A commercial data set will be processed in a conventional processing flow, as well as, several prestack data enhancement methods. These methods include partial Common Reflection Surface processing, Partial Time Migration and the application of a Differential Evolution CRS global search. The data set is masked by noise and multiples, which will be attenuated. The Kirchhoff migration from the conventional processing flow shows the best results and is compared to the commercial TGS time migration. The shallow subsalt has been imaged. The deeper sections did not provide enough seismic energy to gain any improvement from prestack data enhancement.


Adhesion strength for single layer ceramic capacitor sheet, used in MLCC(Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor), was measured by peel tests. The peel strength was measured during the separation of the ceramic sheet from the PET film using the peel testing system developed in this study. The sheet specimen was adhered on the glass jig floating on the liquid media, which was designed to minimize the friction, and the specimen was pulled up by micro-actuator. In this study, the dependency of the specimen width, peel angle and testing speed on the adhesive strength was experimentally investigated. It was found that the adhesive strength for the ceramic sheet is nearly identical, irrespective of the specimen width ranged from 5 to 20 mm, and the adhesive strength was increased with increasing testing speed. Furthermore, the strength was shown to be dependent on the peel angle.


Most of the inspiralling compact binaries are expected to be circularized by the time their gravitational-wave signals enter the frequency band of ground-based detectors such as LIGO or VIRGO. However, it is not excluded that some of these binaries might still possess a significant eccentricity at a few tens of hertz. Despite this possibility, current search pipelines—based on matched filtering techniques—consider only non-eccentric templates. The effect of such an approximation on the loss of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) has been investigated by Martel and Poisson (1999 Phys. Rev. D 60 124008) in the context of initial LIGO detector. They ascertained that non-eccentric templates will be successful at detecting eccentric signals. We revisit their work by incorporating current and future ground-based detectors and precisely quantify the exact loss of SNR. In order to be more faithful to an actual search, we maximized the SNR over a template bank, whose minimal match is set to 95%. For initial LIGO detector, we claim that the initial eccentricity does not need to be taken into account in our searches for any system with total mass M ∊ [2–45]M⊙ if e0 ≲ 0.05 because the loss of SNR (about 5%) is consistent with the discreteness of the template bank. Similarly, this statement is also true for systems with M ∊ [6–35]M⊙ and e0 ≲ 0.10. However, by neglecting the eccentricity in our searches, significant loss of detection (larger than 10%) may arise as soon as e0 ⩾ 0.05 for neutron-star binaries. We also provide exhaustive results for VIRGO, Advanced LIGO and Einstein Telescope detectors. It is worth noting that for Einstein Telescope, neutron star binaries with e0 ⩾ 0.02 lead to a 10% loss of detection.