To overcome the problem of low convergence speed and sensitivity to local convergence with the traditional Artificial Fish-swarm Algorithm (AFSA) to handle complex functions, a novel compound evolutionary algorithm, called AFS-EMPCEOA, was introduced which is combined Artificial Fish-swarm Algorithm with the Elite Multi-parent Crossover Evolutionary Optimization Algorithm (EMPCEOA) that is GuoTao Algorithm improved by elite multi-parent crossover method. AFSEMPCEOA algorithm program with hybrid discrete variables was also developed. The computing example of mechanical optimization design shows that this algorithm has no special requirements on the characteristics of optimal designing problems, which has a fairly good universal adaptability and a reliable operation of program with a strong ability of overall convergence and high efficiency.


This is a report of a patient with a thrombosed Warren shunt and recurrent variceal hemorrhage who demonstrated compartmentalized venous hypertension in the mesenteric and gastrosplenic systems. Although the mesenteric presssure was normalized by the construction of a mesocaval interposition shunt, the gastrosplenic venous pressure remained elevated until splenectomy was performed. Warren shunt occlusion should be considered as a cause of segmental portal hypertension. Splenectomy may be a necessary adjunct in patients suitable for reshunting.


Abstract The aim of this study is to analyze the reasons behind users' selection of news results on the news aggregator website, Google News, and the role that news factors play in this selection. We assume that user's cognitive elaboration of users influences their news selection. In this study, a multi-method approach is used to obtain a complete picture of the users' news selection reasoning: an open survey, a closed survey, and a content analysis of screen recording data. The results were determined from online news selection of 90 news results from 47 users on Google News. Different news values could be identified as relevant for selection: time-referenced news factors and news factors of social significance were shown to be more important than the news factors of deviance. News cues (presence of a picture, position of a news result, source) were identified as selection reasons regardless of the level of cognitive elaboration during the online browsing process.


This paper describes, analyzes and evaluates an algorithm for estimating portfolio loss probabilities using Monte Carlo simulation. Obtaining accurate estimates of such loss probabilities is essential to calculating value-at-risk, which is a quantile of the loss distribution. The method employs a quadratic ("delta-gamma") approximation to the change in portfolio value to guide the selection of effective variance reduction techniques; specifically importance sampling and stratified sampling. If the approximation is exact, then the importance sampling is shown to be asymptotically optimal. Numerical results indicate that an appropriate combination of importance sampling and stratified sampling can result in large variance reductions when estimating the probability of large portfolio losses.


One potentially devastating critique of investment arbitration is that it undermines or hampers development of national legal institutions. Investment arbitration was originally conceived of as a means of encouraging foreign investment and strengthening rule of law for investment protection. Critics often question whether it actually contributes to either of these goals. If investment arbitration could not deliver on intended goals related to improvements in local legal institutions, it would be disappointing. If, however, investment arbitration not only failed to deliver benefits to, but instead affirmatively undermined, local legal institutions, it would be devastating. While numerous critics have leveled this charge, no empirical evidence has been marshalled to support it.This essay sketches an alternative account of how investment arbitration affects development of local legal institutions, in particular domestic courts. When investment arbitration is introduced into a local legal environment, it becomes integrated with international commercial arbitration, and often domestic arbitration. This integration occurs because the local economic elites, private law forms, and local businesses that deal with foreign investors and investment arbitration disputes also deal with international commercial matters, international commercial disputes, and domestic arbitration.


The aim of this study was to determine if a change in antibiotic prophylaxis for routine hip and knee replacement was associated with an increased risk of acute renal impairment. We identified 238 patients (128 knees and 110 hips) who had received a single prophylactic dose of 1.5 g cefuroxime before joint replacement. We compared them with prospectively collected data from 254 patients (117 knees and 137 hips) who received a single prophylactic dose of 2 g flucloxacillin and a height- and gender-determined dose of gentamicin. The primary outcome measure was any new renal impairment as graded by clinically validated criteria. We identified four patients (1.69%) in the cefuroxime group who developed renal impairment. All four had mild impairment and all renal function was normal by the third post-operative day. The incidence of new-onset renal impairment was significantly higher in the flucloxacillin-and-gentamicin group at 9.45% (24 patients) (p < 0.001). Three of these patients remained with acute renal impairment after a week, although the serum creatinine levels in all subsequently returned to normal.


The authors, reporting on their experience, confirm as the incidence of the hepatic hydatidosis and the complications related to this pathology today are very meaningful. They specify that the objectives to be pursued are: elimination of the parasite, prevention or treatment of the complications, prevention of the development of a new infestation. They dwell therefore upon the various techniques, both conservative and radical, that marked the history of the hepatic hydatidosis surgery, and they conclude affirming that the procedures of eradication of the parasite and the pericystectomy, in particular in laparotomic way, also represents the ideal treatment in consideration of the a little encouraging results of the medical therapy.


Federated learning (FL) rests on the notion of training a global model in a decentralized manner. Under this setting, mobile devices perform computations on their local data before uploading the required updates to the central aggregator for improving the global model. However, a key challenge is to maintain communication efficiency (i.e., the number of communications per iteration) when participating clients implement uncoordinated computation strategy during aggregation of model parameters. We formulate a utility maximization problem to tackle this difficulty, and propose a novel crowdsourcing framework, involving a number of participating clients with local training data to leverage FL. We show the incentive-based interaction between the crowdsourcing platform and the participating client's independent strategies for training a global learning model, where each side maximizes its own benefit. We formulate a two-stage Stackelberg game to analyze such scenario and find the game's equilibria. Further, we illustrate the efficacy of our proposed framework with simulation results. Results show that the proposed mechanism outperforms the heuristic approach with up to 22% gain in the offered reward to attain a level of target accuracy.


The paper presents the usage of modern strap-down inertial measurement systems with innovative signal processing within the wide range of applications from highly precise aircraft motion surveying and aircraft testing to airborne gravimetry. A unified hardware and software architecture is shown which allows covering quite different applications like vehicle testing or geodetic surveying with the same platform approach. High dynamics measuring capabilities as well as reliability and accuracy are key requirements for aircraft testing applications, while e.g. quite static flight conditions are the challenge for the missions when determining the Earth's gravity on micro-g level. Between both applications, which are discussed in the paper, based on practical flight data obtained from a test mission of upgraded CH-53OBS and flight tests for aircraft certification of Airbus A350XWB (and other civil Airbus A/C types like A330neo, etc.), located for most of them over South of Europe, also flight missions from fighter aircraft up to supersonic missile navigation with similar systems of iMAR's iNAT INS/GNSS family are presented as well as the usage of these systems on optical surveying pods for environmental monitoring tasks. Beside these applications, the impact of used inertial sensor technologies like MEMS, fibre-optic or ring-laser gyroscopes is explained. As a counterpart or in addition to airborne surveying with aircraft installed equipment, in the third section of the paper a new generation of ground-based aircraft trackers of type iIPSC-MSG with highspeed and IR cameras for surveying tasks is presented.


We show how to reason about distributed database management systems, in which a commit protocol is used to coordinate activity of several resource managers. This is an interesting case study of an open system, in which each component is developed independently to operate with many possible environments. We give specifications for each resource manager, and a specification for the commit protocol, and show that the whole system is correct as long as each component has the properties required of it. We then show how to prove that specific examples have these properties.<<ETX>>


Electronic commerce is becoming a significant hub for sourcing products/services which helps organizations to connect with potential customers and gain competitive advantages, though little empirical work focuses on small businesses operating in developing countries to date. Increasingly, companies are looking to utilize social media to connect with stakeholders and pursue several benefits. This study aims to investigate the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) factors that influence smalland medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) social media (SM) adoption in developing countries. This study used a closed-ended questionnaire to collect data from randomlyselected respondents (owners, executives, and managers) from SMEs in Pakistan. SMART PLS version 3.2.8 was used for path analysis of 316 responses and for structural equation modeling. The research findings include the direct influence of TOE factors (relative advantage, interactivity, visibility, top management support, and institutional pressure) on SMEs' SM adoption, and in turn SM adoption also has a positive influence on SMEs performance. Moreover, the coefficient of determination of the study showed that 77.7% of the variation in SM adoption occurs because of TOE factors and 29.8% variation in SMEs occurred because of SM adoption. This paper has implications for practitioners and scholars interested in exploring the SM adoption and usage by SMEs.


A study was conducted to investigate the accuracy of perceptions of a car load space in a CAVE virtual environment. A total of 46 participants rated load space width, height, depth, usability and overall capacity after viewing either a virtual Range Rover Evoque in the CAVE or the real car. Participants were also asked to estimate how many 100mm3 blocks could fit in the load space in width, depth or height. The only significant difference was in usability, which was rated higher in the CAVE. There was no systematic over- or under-estimation of distances in the virtual environment. Equivalence was demonstrated for width and depth in the block estimation task. The results suggest that virtual environments can be used for car load space design, particularly for estimates of size, but further work is required to be confident that subjective ratings of virtual properties are equivalent to those of real vehicles.


The sensitivity and selectivity of UV-excited resonance Raman spectroscopy indicate that this technique may be useful in studying certain biochemical changes in cells, especially changes in DNA that occur during the development of cancer. To determine whether this technique can distinguish normal from malignant cells, we have measured UV resonance Raman spectra at 257.26 nm excitation of suspensions of normal and malignant cultured breast and cervical cells. Samples were excited with the use of an intracavity doubled argon-ion laser, and the spectra were recorded with a single grating spectrograph and a liquid nitrogen-cooled charge-coupled device. Cell spectra obtained closely resembled that of DNA, with peaks around 1330, 1480, and 1580 cm−1, due to the nucleotide bases. In addition to these, the uracil base in RNA provides a peak at 1230 cm−1. Strong tryptophan and tyrosine contributions appear in the 1520–1670 cm−1 range. The ratios of Raman spectral peaks 1480/1614 cm−1 and 1480/1540 cm−1, which are sensitive to the concentration of nucleic acids relative to cell proteins, were found to be higher in malignant cells than in normal cells. Normal and malignant cells could also be differentiated by using the ratio at 1330/1480 cm−1. This difference may be the result of decreased hypochromism due to changes in stacking of the purine bases. Changes in relative amounts of RNA may also contribute to this ratio. The results of this pilot study indicate that there may be significant differences in the UV resonance Raman spectra of normal and cancerous cells. These differences may be related to changes in nucleotide/protein concentrations in the cell, as well as changes in the vibrational structure of the nucleic acids associated with the malignant cell phenotype.


The increasing technical capabilities as well as the wide distribution of mobile devices challenge educational institutions to develop appropriate concepts and applications of mobile learning. In this article, didactical and usability aspects, results and experiences of the first stage of an mLearning project in medical education will be described in detail. Within this project, a multimedia-based course-unit was created for use with personal digital assistants (PDAs) in the context of the medical student's physical examination course. In addition, the effectiveness of video support is considered important in the field of education in medicine and dentistry. By using simple software tools, existing video clips in different video formats can easily be converted for use on a PDA.


This study is concerned with the roles and relationships between artists-in-residence, community audiences, and program coordinators/art educators as they engage together in community arts programs. This study takes place at Project Row Houses (PRH), a community arts organization located in Houston, Texas and focuses on the artist-in-residence program, which commissions a group of national and international artists for a 6-month period to create art installations in relation to the community and its African-American heritage. This ethnographic case study is based on the activities and events surrounding the 2008 PRH exhibition, Round 29, Thunderbolt Special: The Great Electric Show and Dance, after Sam Lightnin' Hopkins and employed qualitative data gathering methods of participant-observation, conducting semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews, and through document collection, and contextual information. Observations were recorded through field notes, photographs, and video. Interviews were conducted with 3 artists-in-residence, 3 community audience members, and 3 program coordinators or staff members involved with the program, regarding their experiences at the site and experiences with each other. My analysis presents the roles of artist, community audience, and program coordinator/art educator through three sections on cultural work. Within these sections I discuss topics related to the power of voice, situatedness, and creativity, as it relates to the artists and community audiences. For the role of program coordinator/art educator, I focus more closely on her role in the process of mediation. Topics of power, social dynamics, identity, and representation are also framed within these discussions.


One of the fundamental hypotheses in observational cosmology is the validity of the so-called cosmic distance-duality relation (CDDR). In this paper, we perform Monte Carlo simulations based on the method developed in Holanda, Goncalves & Alcaniz (2012) [JCAP 1206 (2012) 022] to answer the following question: what is the number of galaxy clusters observations N_{crit} needed to check the validity of this relation at a given confidence level? At 2\sigma, we find that N_{crit} should be increased at least by a factor of 5 relative to the current sample size if we assume the current observational uncertainty \sigma_{obs}. Reducing this latter quantity by a factor of 2, we show that the present number of data would be already enough to check the validity of the CDDR at 2\sigma.


The notion of semantic field is a structural model for lexical semantics which is attributed to Jost Trier in the Semantic Field Theory. The semantic field is an indispensable part of any language since without it information may not be conveyed appropriately. To find the best way to help people comprehend semantic fields, and especially the domain of church sermons, is an issue which requires research to crystallize. However, studies conducted on semantic fields and their implications on the comprehension of church sermons remains scanty. It is against this background that the study analyses the semantic fields in Gĩkũyũ church sermons in Nyeri County, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey design and targeted live sermons delivered in 84 parishes of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa in Nyeri County, Kenya. Eight live sermons were purposively sampled. The data was collected through tape recording. A lexical semanticist was also interviewed. Content data analysis was used to analyse the semantic fields in Gĩkũyũ church sermons. Data is presented in tables in which Gĩkũyũ semantic fields used in the sermons are listed and their gloss provided. The semantic fields identified are subjected to further analyses based on the tangibility and non-tangibility criteria. The study found that semantic fields are elaborately utilized in Gĩkũyũ church sermons. Based on the semantic field analyses, the following implications for the study are noted: (i) there is merit of an extensive theoretical overview of semantic fields of church sermons (previously subject to cursory treatment), (ii) there are methodological consequences for the study of semantic fields addressing church sermons, (iii) the ability to use semantic fields correctly and appropriately is an important part of linguistic competence, and (iv) it is easier for vocabulary items that belong to the same semantic field to be understood since they will be able to form a pattern of interrelated words in a person's mind. The study concludes that, inter alia , the broad semantic fields are based on the key issues addressed by the sermons, that is, challenges and sins, which are believed to be part and parcel of a Christian life. The study recommends that further research on semantic fields be conducted on other items of the church service like songs and prayers. Key words: Church Sermons, Gĩkũyũ, Nyeri County, Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Semantic Fields


The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), al-lowing a fast development cycle for high quality applications. APIs can be used by programmers with different expertise levels and choosing an adequate API may have a dramatic impact on the productivity achieved by those programmers. Our goal is to compare maps APIs with respect to their usability. We compare three different APIs: the Google Maps JavaScript API, the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and the OpenLayers JavaScript Mapping Library. Our comparison is supported by a set of software metrics and is performed in two orthogonal ways: the comparison of three implementations of the same system prototype, each using one of the APIs under scrutiny; the comparison of the APIs specifications. The main results of the study are related to the size of the APIs, with the Google API being significantly smaller than the others.


Objective: To analyse the context in which the diagnosis of autism is revealed and the impact of this revelation on family relationships. Methods: This is a qualitative study with 10 families of autistic children assisted at the Psychosocial Care Centre for Children and Youths in a municipality of Paraíba. Data were collected between July and August 2013 through semi-structured interviews and interpreted using thematic content analysis. Results: The identified Main Unit of Analysis and the respective categories were: the impact of disclosing the diagnosis of autism to the family; characteristics of diagnosis disclosure: the place, time, and the dialogic relationship between the professional and the family; changes in family relationships and the mother's burden when caring for the autistic child. Conclusions: The health professionals who report autism should better prepare the family to cope with the difficulties of this syndrome and autonomously care for the autistic child.


A nonlinear multireaction model was used to describe kinetic data for HgCl₂ retention by five soils. A three-parameter version of the model consisting of a reversible nonlinear (nth order, n < 1) reaction and an irreversible first-order reaction was capable of describing HgCl₂ retention data for Cecil (clayey, kaolinitic, thermic Typic Kanhapludult) and Windsor (mixed, mesic Typic Udipsamment) soils at all initial solution Hg concentrations, and data for Norwood, [fine-silty, mixed (calcareous), thermic, Typic Udifluvent], Olivier (fine-silty, mixed, thermic Aquic Fragiudalt), and Sharkey (very-fine, montmorillonitic, nonacid, thermic Vertic Haplaquept) soils at initial solution Hg concentrations below 5 mg/L. A five-parameter version of the model, with an added reversible nonlinear reaction, provided a more accurate description of the retention data for the Norwood, Olivier, and Sharkey soils at initial solution Hg concentrations above 5 mg/L. The second reaction needed to describe the data at higher Hg concentrations suggests the presence of a second type of sorption sites, or a precipitation or coprecipitation reaction not encountered at lower Hg concentrations. Release of Hg from the soils was induced by serial dilution of the soil solution, but not all the soil Hg was reversibly retained. This was also indicated by the model. Release of soil Hg depended on the concentration of retained Hg with significant Hg release occurring only at high concentrations of retained Hg. A multireaction model is needed to describe Hg retention in soils because of the many solid phases that can remove Hg from solution. Joint contribution from the USDA Forest Serv. Intermountain Res. Stn.; Hatch Project 2469, Louisiana Agric. Exp. Stn. as Manuscript no. 89-09-3338; and U.S. Army CRREL.


The main objective of this paper is to find the possible relationship between several factors that might have effect on level of debt among construction companies in Malaysia. Previous studies identified number of factors that affect level of debt (leverage) - such as size of firms, growth opportunity, firm's reputation, generated resources, level of warrants, debt cost and others. In addition, these studies also identify the concept of leveraging and capital structure formation among companies worldwide. Recent papers investigated whether some of the factors mentioned have significant impact on firm's leverage. They found that not all variables have significant correlation that fits the basic model. The study used the data from ten selected Malaysia's construction companies from 2001 until 2008. The model used in this research paper was the one derived from previous study. The estimation results show that the size of construction companies have significantly strong positive relationship to the firm's leverage. The finding is consistent with the previous findings that firm's size adds huge information in explaining the level of debt. The results also suggest that company's leverage is positively affected by firm's reputation. On the other hand, growth opportunity had inverse relationship with leverage, showing that greater leverage would mean a declining growth opportunity for firms. Finally, the analysis results suggest that, by including some other factors, and by taking a bigger sample subset of population might improve the results in future research.


With the development of multicast service in the Internet, much attention has been drawn to multicast congestion control and analysis. Multicast traffic poses new challenges to the design of Internet congestion control protocols and system stability analysis. The rate control problem of feedback-based sessions on the coexistence of both unicast and multirate multicast traffic architecture networks is focused upon in this paper. First, a fairness problem is discussed in detail, and a reasonable consumption strategy is proposed. In the reasonable consumption strategy, scaling functions are adaptively adjusted based on a relationship between the session rates. Second, contraposing the case that available link capacities are changing with time for these feedback-based unicast and multicast sessions, stability analysis of a closed-loop rate control system under the modified rate mechanism is made based on Lyapunov stable theory. Finally, the simulations illustrate the effectiveness and goodness of the reasonable consumption strategy


Underground pipelines are vital means of transporting fluid resources like water, oil and gas. The process of locating buried pipelines of interest is an essential prerequisite for pipeline maintenance and repair. Acoustic pipe localization methods, as effective trenchless detection techniques, have been implemented in locating underground utilities and shown to be very promising in plastic pipeline localization. This paper presents a comprehensive review of current acoustic methods and recent advances in the localization of buried pipelines. Investigations are conducted from multiple perspectives including the wave propagation mechanism in buried pipe systems, the principles behind each method along with advantages and limitations, representative acoustic locators in commercial markets, the condition of buried pipes, as well as selection of preferred methods for locating pipelines based on the applicability of existing localization techniques. In addition, the key features of each method are summarized and suggestions for future work are proposed. Acoustic methods for locating underground pipelines have proven to be useful and effective supplements to existing localization techniques. It has been highlighted that the ability of acoustic methods to locate non-metallic objects should be of particular practical value. While this paper focuses on a specific application associated with pipeline localization, many acoustic methods are feasible across a wide range of underground infrastructures.


Algorithmic reconstruction of neurons from volume electron microscopy data traditionally requires training machine learning models on dataset-specific ground truth annotations that are expensive and tedious to acquire. We enhanced the training procedure of an unsupervised image-to-image translation method with additional components derived from an automated neuron segmentation approach. We show that this method, Segmentation-Enhanced CycleGAN (SECGAN), enables near perfect reconstruction accuracy on a benchmark connectomics segmentation dataset despite operating in a "zero-shot" setting in which the segmentation model was trained using only volumetric labels from a different dataset and imaging method. By reducing or eliminating the need for novel ground truth annotations, SECGANs alleviate one of the main practical burdens involved in pursuing automated reconstruction of volume electron microscopy data.


The teachers have a substantial role for students through consciously the Internet usage and struggle with cyberbullying. The purpose of this study is to investigate cyberbullying tendency and multidimensional perceived social support status of the teacher candidates. The participants of this research have become 412 teacher candidates as education faculty students. In this research, co-relational screening model has been used. In addition, Mann Whitney-U and Kruskal Wallis statistical analysis have been used to determine differences within variables. The findings of the study indicate that cyberbullying tendency and multidimensional perceived social support status have been differentiated in accordance with daily the Internet usage time and sexuality. Moreover, according to the attractive findings of this study, the cyberbullying tendency ratio of females has higher than males and the social support ratio of males has higher than females.


Globally, over 40 million people have been forced to leave or flee their homes due to conflict, violence, and human rights violations either as refugees outside their country of origin or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). A substantial number live in protracted displacement where return has not been possible.Forced displacement is a humanitarian crisis: but it also produces developmental impacts - short and longer term, negative and positive - affecting human and social capital, economic growth, poverty reduction efforts, environmental sustainability and societal fragility. A prevailing view is that refugees are a burden on the development aspirations of host countries and populations and that negative socio-economic and environmental impacts and costs outweigh the positive contributions (actual or potential) that forcibly displaced people might make. The losses incurred by the displaced populations themselves reinforce perceptions of vulnerability and dependency and thus assumptions of the burden they might impose. This study provides such a methodology. The development and drafting of the methodology and the state of the art literature review was conducted by the refugee studies centre, with valuable and constructive inputs from the partner organizations.


In this paper magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is investigated for monitoring the penetration of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ex vivo and in vivo rabbit brain. A single element spherically focused transducer of 5 cm diameter, focusing at 10 cm and operating at 2 MHz was used. A prototype MRI- compatible positioning device is described. MRI images were taken using fast spin echo (FSE). The length of the lesions in vivo rabbit brain was much higher than the length ex vivo, proving that the penetration in the ex vivo brain is limited by reflection due to trapped bubbles in the blood vessels.


Hosta undulate, Hosta plantaginea and Hosta plantaginea 'Rosea' were introduced to Harbin to evaluate the cold resistance compared to Hosta ventricosa stearn which can survive during the winter in Harbin. The physiology characteristics of Hosta species were determined under ground conditions. Along with the temperature drop, the increase of relative conductivity and MDA content of Hosta undulate were lower than Hosta plantaginea and Hosta plantaginea 'Rosea'. Whereas contents of soluble sugar and free praline of Hosta undulate were higher than these two Hosta species. In view of the minimum temperature of winter in Harbin, chilling tolerance were conducted at -35°C and -40°C for 3h, 6h and 9h. Hosta undulate shows outstanding cold resistance and recovery growth.


Considered by many as the founding moment of Muslim separatism in Mindanao, the Jabidah massacre, which took place on Corregidor Island, involved the killing of Muslim trainees who were being prepared by the Philippine military in 1967 and 1968 to infiltrate and sabotage neighboring Sabah. This article analyzes the ways by which memories of this iconic event have in the past four decades been recorded, remembered, mythicized, appropriated, or simply consumed for their own purposes by political elites, civil society actors, and ordinary people in the Philippines. Our angle of vision is directed toward what we term "contentious vectors" —news media, novels, films, and blogs—to analyze the processes by which memories are recast. The ways by which the Jabidah massacre is remembered and appropriated reflect the contestations between civil society and the government in the Philippines, as well as the intense rivalry among the political elites both within and between the Christian-elite–dominated Filipino polity and Muslim communities. The struggle to influence the shape of memories of Jabidah is part and parcel of an ongoing struggle to create competing nations-of-intent amidst the persistent tensions between the state and its dissenters.


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of postpartum depression (PPD), accompanying risk factors, and obstetrics and neonatal outcomes in adolescent pregnancies. Study Design: This prospective study was conducted on adolescent and adult pregnant patients giving birth in Diyarbakir Gazi Yasargil Training and Research Hospital of Health Sciences University between January 01 and 31, 2018. Groups were compared in terms of PPD rates and PPD-related factors were also determined in both groups. Results: The frequency of PPD was higher in adolescent patients than in adult patients but the difference was not considered statistically significant (p> 0.05). In adolescent and adult patients, the following factors were found to increase PPD risk: illiteracy, living in an urban area, divorced parents, having fewer than 4 siblings, anemia and caesarean delivery. Conclusion: The study results showed no significant difference in PPD rates between adolescent and adult pregnant patients. In both groups, the factors of illiteracy, living in an urban area, divorced parents, anemia, fewer than 4 siblings, and caesarean delivery were found to increase the risk of development of PPD.


Over the next few decades, the share of the elderly population in France (i.e., aged 65 and older) will increase steadily. There is concern that upon retirement aging people cannot maintain the pre-retirement level of consumption, giving rise to nutrition and health deprivation, even food insecurity. Compounded by the increasing proportion of the aging population, this can quickly become a public health threat. Although there is empirical evidence that the expenditure for durables decreases as households age, there does not seem to be any evidence whether the quantity, quality or the structure of food baskets change in France. The objective of this research is to investigate this issue. In particular, we establish that aging households pay effectively lower prices through changing shopping tactics, leaving the food quantities practically uncompromised.


Acute pneumonitis following aspiration of petroleum products is usually related to accidental poisonings in children. We describe here two cases of hydrocarbon pneumonitis in fire-eaters, caused by accidental aspiration of petroleum during the performance of fire-eating. Both patients had cough, dyspnoea, chest pain and fever. Chest X-rays showed basal lung infiltrates and, 2 weeks later, pneumatocele formations. Reversible bronchial hyperresponsiveness and restrictive ventilatory limitation were demonstrated in one of the patients. The bronchoalveolar lavage specimen showed cytoplasmic vacuolation of the macrophages and neutrophilia. After treatment with antibiotics and corticosteroids the symptoms disappeared and the lung function values returned to normal within 2-3 weeks. Radiological resolution of the pneumatoceles occurred within 2-12 months.


A B S T R A C T A fluorescent duplex-PCR test was developed based on polymorphisms of the THCA synthase gene in order to discriminate the fiber- and drug-type Cannabis sativa L. and to indicate the presence of Cannabis trace in suspected materials by the numbers and sizes of PCR-amplified products. DNA analysis of drugtype Cannabis resulted in two different PCR-amplified DNA fragments of 94 and 158 bp, whereas only the 94 bp PCR product was amplified from the fiber-type DNA. DNA test results of another 6 Cannabis sativa L. collected from the field agreed with chemotype determined by GC-MS. However, it was noted that the only intermediate drug-type sample tested gave a drug-type result for DNA testing. Specificity of the duplex PCR was shown by testing with DNA from species that may be related to Cannabis abuse, i.e., common hop (Humulus lupulus L.), 2 narcotic plants (Papaver somniferum and Mitragyna speciosa), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and human. Sensitivity of detection was as low as 100 pg of genomic DNA.


Osteogenic repair is highly dependant upon the substrate carrier or matrix. As a part of the effort to develop a suitable scaffold optimizing bone regeneration, we evaluated the efficiency of bovine bone ash particles, prepared by ashing at 600 °C for 8 hrs and pulverizing to 150-250 µm size particles, as a scaffold for bone tissue regeneration. The non-cytotoxic bovine bone ash particles, evaluated by Agar over lay test, showed no disturbance in cellular proliferation and osteogenic differentiation in an in vitro cell culture system. Furthermore, the implanted bone ash particles in artificial bone defects on rat mandible revealed favorable biocompatibility and regeneration of bone and dentin associated with bone ash particles. The new bone and reparative dentin were well integrated with bone ash particles. These findings suggest that allogenic bone ash particles composed mainly of hydroxyapatite are applicable for repair of tooth related bone defects as well as pulp damaged tooth repair.


We prove a connection between Schmidt rank and weight of quadratic forms. This provides a new tool for the classification of graph states based on entanglement. Our main tool arises from a reformulation of previously known results concerning the weight of quadratic forms in terms of graph states properties. As a byproduct, we obtain a straightforward characterization of the weight of functions associated with pivot-minor of bipartite graphs.


Purpose: The most important goal of the paper is to demonstrate the possibility of developing and implementing the methodology of automatic generation of warehouse models of various types with the use of ABS – agent-based simulation. Methodology: The highlights of the paper include management support through simple simulation modeling of storage and logistics systems using an agent-based approach, methodology of automatic generation of simulation models using Agent Based Simulation; Description of a new type of mobile, automatically controlled shelves. Simulation modeling is performed with the use of LogABS simulation software. The software engine/source code is written in the C ++ language. Findings: The described mechanism can be extended with the ability to generate other types of storage systems to enable comparisons of their usability for specific input and output streams. Practical implications: The paper describes the methodology, the use of which significantly reduces the time of decision-making in designing warehouse layouts. These decisions concern the organization of space and the choice of the storage technology. Using the described tools enables rapid verification of the given concept by automatically generating simulation models of warehouses, considering various storage technologies, including the drawer rack system. Originality/value: The publication proves that automating the simulation modeling processes of warehouses brings many benefits, allowing simulation technologies to become a tool available to users with neither advanced programming skills nor previous experience in working with such programs.


Background Nabiximols (THC/CBD Oromucosal Spray, Sativex) is used as an add-on therapy to treat moderate to severe spasticity of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Objectives To examine the impact of physiotherapy (PT) programs on effectiveness and persistence of nabiximols treatment in people with MS-related spasticity. Methods This is an observational multicenter study with a follow-up period of 12 weeks, conducted in routine care settings in Italy. Patients with moderate to severe MS-related spasticity who started nabiximols were included. Spasticity was evaluated by the patient-rated 0–10 numerical rating scale (NRS). Clinical data were collected at baseline (T0), 4 weeks (T1) and 12 weeks (T2) months after enrollment. Results A total of 297 MS patients were selected, 290 completed the 3 months follow-up period. Mean NRS scores were 7.6 ± 1.1 at T0, 5.8 ± 1.4 at T1 and 5.5 ± 1.5 at T2. At T1, 77% of patients reached ≥20% improvement (initial response, IR); 22% reached ≥30% improvement (clinically relevant response, CRR). At T1, patients undergoing PT had a higher probability to reach CRR (Odds Ratio = 2.6 95% CI 1.3–5.6, p = 0.01). Nabiximols was discontinued in 30/290 (10.3%) patients at T1 (early discontinuers) and in 71/290 (24.5%) patients at T2 (late discontinuers). The probability of being late discontinuers was reduced in patients undergoing PT (Hazard Ratio = 0.41; 95% CI 0.23–0.69, p = 0.001). Conclusions Our real-life study confirms nabiximols' effectiveness in MS-related spasticity and suggests that the association of a PT program may improve overall response and persistence to nabiximols treatment.


800x600 Over the last two decades, the 'graphic novel' has increasingly become of interest to literary scholars of trauma, who praise the form for its innovative approach to storytelling. This article critically examines Marianne Hirsch and Edward Brunner's thesis that multimodal trauma narratives succeed in making the unspeakable visible and audible to the reader. By analyzing David Small's graphic memoir Stitches , I shed light on the potential as well as on the limitations that the comics medium faces in its representation of trauma. In so doing, this paper aims to demonstrate the ambivalent effects that the negotiation of disability has on graphic trauma narratives.


The public transport users tend to shift public transport mode in search of a better one. The choice depends on the various attributes of public transport, such as travel time, waiting time, comfort, safety, etc. Since there were competition among different public modes, such as buses, minibuses, microbuses, and even three-wheeler (tempo), the sustainability of the public transport directly depends on the public or users. The users continue to use those public transport which meet their expected level of service. This study focuses on examining attributes of different public transport alternatives available, investigating factors affecting preference of public transport alternatives and developing choice model for public transport alternatives. Multinomial logistic model was developed from the SPSS to find the probability of selecting particular public transport. The public transport choice among the four alternatives, whose destination was same, was found to be influenced by the variables, such as monthly income, age, travel time, walking time, waiting time, fare and gender. The model helps to understand the choice behavior of traveler and can be used for transport planning in future.


South Africa continues to contend with an HIV pandemic. Teachers have the potential to address prevention and treatment with their learners but they struggle to implement HIV and AIDS education. Cellphilm projects using cellphones to create videos, and then screening these is one example of how digital technology can be used to address barriers to teacher-implemented HIV education. In this article we focus on the work of nine teachers who screened their cellphilms to three youth audiences. We explore how teachers can integrate cellphilm screenings into their teaching practice to address HIV and AIDS, and we consider what this integration tells us about the potential and challenges of teachers dealing with this issue in rural South Africa. Informed by a framework of discomfort, we analyse participant observation notes, field notes, and pre- and post-event interviews. We argue that moments of discomfort during the events reveal the difficulties and strategies that teachers use to negotiate multiple sometimes contradictory sexual health education policies. The cellphilm screening events provided an opportunity for teachers and youth to learn from each other, even as it contributed to a more nuanced response to the teaching that addresses HIV and AIDS.


How ideas of -symmetric quantum mechanics can be applied to quantum graphs is analyzed, in particular to the star graph. The class of rotationally symmetric vertex conditions is analyzed. It is shown that all such conditions can effectively be described by circulant matrices: real in the case of odd number of edges and complex having particular block structure in the even case. Spectral properties of the corresponding operators are discussed.


Chestnut flours (CFs) were produced from 3 chestnut samples (Aydin, Kutahya, and Bursa) by 2 different methods (boiled and oven-dried: BOD-CF and freeze-dried: FD-CF). Functional properties and effects of CF addition (10, 20, and 30%) on the qualities of regular and low-fat cookie were investigated. The freeze drying significantly increased water solubility of CFs but decreased their water binding capacity. The emulsion capacity and stability of FD-CFs were higher than those of BOD-CFs. At pH 4, 6, 8, and 10 FD-CFs had better gelation properties. Spread ratio (SR) values of BOD-CF supplemented regular or low-fat cookies decreased with increasing CF levels. Hardness values of CF supplemented regular cookies were generally lower compared to control. SR and hardness values of FD-CF supplemented cookies were higher than those of BOD-CF supplemented ones. Surface colors of the cookies were darker with FD-CF addition as compared to BODCF addition. In low-fat cookies, the sample supplemented with 10% Kutahya FD-CF had the highest taste-flavor value. FDCF supplementation generally resulted in higher appearance and taste-flavor scores than BOD-CF supplementation in cookies.


The practice of utilizing gameful design elements in in-house enterprise settings is an emerging phenomena. Research on the subject is, however, disciplinarily dispersed and difficult to find. Further, there are no summary overviews of subject. Through a literature review of existing research, this thesis illuminates gaps in the current research, avenues of interests for approaches to the application of gameful design elements in in-house enterprise settings and provides a conceptual overview of the state of the field. This is accomplished by answering the research questions: how has research approached the study of gamification of in-house-enterprise settings and what does research contribute? The review concludes that research sees both promises and perils with the gamification of work settings for both employees and enterprises in general. In constructing these arguments research draws upon theory from various academic disciplines. However, the proliferation of unfounded arguments, for and against, the utilization of gamification are identified. Empirically grounded research lends some credence to the assumption that gamification can benefit both employees and enterprises. Effects of gamification are however not conclusive and should be studied further.


The tsunami that affected Asia and African countries in December 2004 was one of the most destructive natural disasters in recent time s. Aceh alone suffered an estimated 167,000 deaths and 566,000 displaced persons (USAID, 2005). The response by donor countries and individuals was swift and unprecedented in magnitude, however, after more than one year, thousands of families remained effected by corruption and were forced to huddle in tents instead of living in permanent housing (TI, 2010). Review studies such as Mitchell (2010), show that the outcomes achieved through the aid response we re inefficient and inequitable. Natural disasters, especially when they occur in developing countries, strain government budgets significantly. With large populations (among donors or beneficiaries) believing provisional aid is substantial when in reality it is small (Mitchell, 2010), powers amongst NGO lobbyists growing, and the media's willingness and ability to distribute damaging stories about corrupt aid practices (Oxfam , 2010), it is easy to see why national governments, eager to appease electorates (presuming they are democratic of course) and the international community, are motivated to provide effective natural disaster aid. In this context, giving aid to countries plagued wi th corruption poses a difficult dilemma. This paper highlights market failures in natural disaster aid using the case of Aceh, and recommends a strategy that adjusts government agents' incentives to take a path that could arguably assuage the problem of corrupt ion by reducing the severity of the moral hazard problem in an afflicted government.


Terahertz imaging and spectroscopy has been shown to have the potential to use very low levels of nonionizing radiation to detect and identify objects hidden under clothing. In this paper we discuss some of the important factors involved in addressing practical systems in the security industry, and describe our recent work on the development of a prototype terahertz standoff detection system. Using this system we demonstrate the spectroscopic detection of concealed explosives at a standoff distance of 1 m, both real time, in reflection, and under normal atmospheric conditions.


Negative regulation of TCR signaling is an important mechanism enforcing immunological self-tolerance to prevent inappropriate activation of T cells and thus the development of autoimmune diseases. The lymphoid-restricted serine/threonine kinase death-associated protein-related apoptotic kinase-2 (DRAK2) raises the TCR activation threshold by targeting TCR-induced calcium mobilization in thymocytes and peripheral T cells and regulates positive thymic selection and peripheral T cell activation. Despite a hypersensitivity of peripheral drak2-deficient T cells, drak2-deficient mice are enigmatically resistant to induced autoimmunity in the model experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. To further evaluate the differential role of DRAK2 in central vs peripheral tolerance and to assess its impact on the development of autoimmune diseases, we have generated a transgenic (Tg) mouse strain ectopically expressing DRAK2 via the lck proximal promoter (1017-DRAK2 Tg mice). This transgene led to highest expression levels in double-positive thymocytes that are normally devoid of DRAK2. 1017-DRAK2 Tg mice displayed a reduction of single-positive CD4+ and CD8+ thymocytes in context with diminished negative selection in male HY TCR × 1017-DRAK2 Tg mice as well as peripheral T cell hypersensitivity, enhanced susceptibility to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, and spontaneous autoimmunity. These findings suggest that alteration in thymocyte signaling thresholds impacts the sensitivity of peripheral T cell pools.


SILVA, J. F. A. Predictive models for LGD. 2018. 113 p. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estatística – Programa Interinstitucional de Pós-Graduação em Estatística) – Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação, Universidade de São Paulo, São Carlos – SP, 2018. Financial institutions willing to use the advanced Internal Ratings Based (IRB) need to develop methods to estimate the LGD (Loss Given Default) risk component. Proposals for PD (Probability of default) modeling have been presented since the 1950s, in contrast, LGD's forecast has received more attention only after the publication of the Basel II Accord. LGD also has a small literature, compared to PD, and there is no efficient method in terms of accuracy and interpretation such as logistic regression for PD. Regression models for LGD play a key role in the risk management of financial institutions, due to their importance this work proposes a methodology to quantify the LGD risk component. Considering the characteristics reported on the distribution of LGD and in the flexible form that the beta distribution may assume, we propose a methodology for estimation of LGD using the zero inflated bimodal beta regression model. We developed the zero inflated bimodal beta distribution, presented some properties, including moments, defined estimators via maximum likelihood and constructed the regression model for this probabilistic model, presented asymptotic confidence intervals and hypothesis test for this model, as well as selection criteria of models, we performed a simulation study to evaluate the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters of the zero inflated bimodal beta distribution. For comparison with our proposal we selected the beta regression models and inflated beta regression, which are more usual approaches, and the SVR algorithm, due to the significant superiority reported in other studies.


Amphiphilic poly(methyl methacrylate)-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PMMA-b-PAA) copolymers with 4 and 6 arms were synthesized by Atomic Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP). The polymers were characterized by GPC, H-NMR and FTIR analysis. Polymer samples synthesized at various molecular weights between 18-80 kDa were investigated in terms of maximum loading capacity and critical micelle concentration by fluorescence spectroscopy. 4 arm PMMA-b-PAA (MW 30 kDa) was loaded with hydrophobic model drug indomethacin with an extremely high drug loading efficiency (22.5% drug content). Drug loaded polymer formed a stable and biodegradable complex in aqueous medium.


Studies of ecosystem functions are gaining traction in the scientific community along with a growing consensus that losses in ecosystem functions have widespread consequences. Food webs, which are networks comprising all trophic interactions (represented by links) between taxa present in a community (represented by nodes), are important aspects of ecosystem functioning, yet a clear understanding of the factors and mechanisms influencing their assembly and structure is lacking. In our study, we addressed this fundamental question by investigating the respective roles of (1) environmental filtering and (2) biotic filtering, in governing food web structure. We did this by assessing the relationship between the network structure of five high‐resolution empirical tropical food webs and associated environmental and biotic covariates. Our data suggest that only environmental filtering is important in shaping food webs. Further, we found that the underlying ecological mechanism is a function of bottom‐up influences comprising resource levels, and to a lesser degree, resource type (i.e., terrestrial organic matter) available. Specifically, our data suggest high‐nutrient environments favor greater food web complexity. In the general context of community assembly, our findings add to existing knowledge of the process by demonstrating that environmental conditions previously shown to influence species assemblages can also drive trends in prevailing species interactions.


The intestinal microbiome is emerging as a crucial mediator between external insults and systemic infections. New research suggests that our intestinal microorganisms contribute to critical illness and the development of non-gastrointestinal infectious diseases. Common pathways include a loss of fecal intestinal bacterial diversity and a disproportionate increase in toxogenic bacterial species. Therapeutic interventions targeting the microbiome - primarily probiotics - have yielded limited results to date. However, knowledge in this area is rapidly expanding and microbiome-based therapy such as short-chain fatty acids may eventually become a standard strategy for preventing systemic infections in the context of critical illness.


Mission-critical networks show great potential in emergency response and/or recovery, health care, critical infrastructure monitoring, etc. Such mission-critical applications demand that security service be ldquoanywhere,rdquo ldquoanytime,rdquo and ldquoanyhow.rdquo However, it is challenging to design a key management scheme in current mission-critical networks to fulfill the required attributes of secure communications, such as data integrity, authentication, confidentiality, nonrepudiation, and service availability. In this paper, we present a self-contained public key-management scheme, a scalable method of cryptographic key management (SMOCK), which achieves almost zero communication overhead for authentication, and offers high service availability. In our scheme, a small number of cryptographic keys are stored offline at individual nodes before they are deployed in the network. To provide good scalability in terms of the number of nodes and storage space, we utilize a combinatorial design of public-private key pairs, which means nodes combine more than one key pair to encrypt and decrypt messages. We also show that SMOCK provides controllable resilience when malicious nodes compromise a limited number of nodes before key revocation and renewal.


This article investigates the time series properties of per capita real output for 19 Latin American Countries over the period 1965 to 2004. This empirical study examines the significance of contemporaneous correlations among cross sectional residuals using two newly developed tests. The tests find evidence of cross sectional dependence and induce us to use the SURADF and the CADF panel unit root tests, which allow for cross sectional dependence. The tests indicate that the real output in Latin American countries are characterized by a difference stationary process and output fluctuations seem to be permanent. These findings have important policy implications for these countries.


The autoregressive moving-average (ARMA) modeling of time series is popular and used in many applications. In this paper, we introduce a new robust method to estimate the parameters of a Gaussian ARMA model contaminated by outliers. This method makes use of the median and is termed ratio-of-medians estimator (RME). The ratios of medians are used to estimate robustly the autocorrelation function and thus estimate the parameters. Its theoretical robustness is analyzed by the computation of robust measures such as maximum bias, breakdown point and influence function. The RME estimator is shown to be asymptotically normal and its asymptotic variance is computed under Gaussian autoregressive models of order p (p ≥ 1). The new method is evaluated and compared with other robust methods via simulations. Its effectiveness in terms of parameter estimation and forecasting is demonstrated on an example of the French daily electricity consumptions. The new approach improves the load forecasting quality for "normal days" and presents several interesting properties such as good robustness, fast execution, simplicity and easy online implementation.


Huanglongbing disease (HLB) or citrus greening disease (CGD) is the number one threat to the citrus production of Nepal. The greening organism produces leaf mottle symptoms, but they are not specific for confirmative diagnosis. The pathogen cannot be cultured in artificial medium that makes its diagnosis more complicated. In this context quick and reliable polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based molecular diagnosis of this disease is crucial. In the present investigation, two PCR-based assays viz. one based on 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and another based on ribosomal protein gene from the  b operon (rpl KAJL-rpoBC) of HLB oganism were used to diagnose HLB disease in suspected citrus samples collected from 10 districts of Nepal. Out of 198 samples tested, 38 were detected positive for HLB. Of the 10 districts studied, eight were found infested with HLB disease. Result of the present preliminary study on distribution of HLB disease in Nepal highlights the alarming potential threat to citrus industry of Nepal. In order to save Nepalese citrus industry this disease has to be properly understood not only by the scientific community but by all those who are directly or indirectly involved (planners, business people, nurserymen and farmers) in citrus cultivation in Nepal. This paper highlights the importance of PCR-based diagnosis of HLB for the integrated management of this disease in Nepal


Myotonic Dystrophy (Dystrophia Myotonica, DM) is the most frequently inherited neuromuscular disease of adult life. DM is a multisystem disease with major cardiac involvement. Core features of myotonic dystrophy are myotonia, muscle weakness, cataract, and cardiac conduction abnormalities. Classical DM (first described by Steinert and called Steinert's disease or DM1) has been identified as an autosomal dominant disorder associated with the presence of an abnormal expansion of a CTG tri nucleotide repeat on chromosome 19q13.3 (the DM 1 locus). DM1 is inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern. And the underlying mutation is an unstable expansion of CTG repeats in the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of the dystrophia myotonica protein kinase gene (DMPK, MIM* 605377) and in the promoter of the downstream SIX homeobox 5 gene (SIX5, MIM* 600963).Based on the nature of the causing mutation, DM1 belongs to "disorders of unstable repeat expansion". Being the first disease described with an RNA gain-of-function mutation effect, DM1 is now the paradigm for RNA toxicity model of the disease pathogenesis, as reviewed elsewhere. A similar but less common disorder was later described as proximal myotonic myopathy, caused by alterations on a different gene on chromosome 3q21 (the DM2 locus). This article will mainly focus on DM1. It will provide an insight into the epidemiology and genetic alterations of the disease and provide up-to-date information on postmortem and clinical findings and on diagnostic and therapeutic options in patients presenting cardiac involvement.


Abstract Businesses play an important role in societies in conflict, contributing to trajectories of continued conflict or transitioning out of conflict. The institutional and historic context affects the potential of entrepreneurship and can be particularly important during times of change. In this paper, I discuss the relevance of the institutional and historic context of two cities in southern Iraq.


Culture' is difficult to conceptualise and articulate, and its value often challenging to describe. Cultural policy is subsequently difficult to evaluate, and cultural data is often porous, inconsistent and incomparable. These are three elements that together form the foundation of this thesis which has its grounding within 'cultural value' (Holden, 2004, 2006), evidence-based policymaking, and the evaluation of cultural policy. These aspects are further contextualised within cultural policymaking in Wales between 2004 and 2014, itself a period when the newly established devolved Welsh Assembly Government in 1999 was embedding itself. Comparisons are made with the evaluation of culture in England, but for both nations, measuring 'outcomes' and 'impacts' for cultural policy is challenging due to issues of causality, in addition to the ongoing contention between policymakers/politicians and cultural professionals the prior emphasising the 'instrumental' value of culture for policymaking and practice, and the latter its 'intrinsic' value, with the argument implicitly relating to whether cultural services should be funded on their own merit and outside of an accountability framework. Thus, finding a 'language' to articulate and measure the effectiveness and efficiency of cultural policy and implementation, and that provides both a tangible evidence-base for culture and which is representative of the totality of 'cultural value' is highly problematic. Set against a devolved Welsh context, this thesis embraces the fusion of politics, cultural policymaking, and its evaluation. Still, whilst the difficulties associated with evaluating culture is not unique to Wales, it has its own story to tell on its 'iterative' policymaking journey, with implications for cultural policymaking considered and recommendations for development proposed. Project One (2004-2005) and Project Two (2005) are indicative of the volume of research on the arts and culture in Wales during 2004-2005, and were commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government and Creative & Cultural Skills respectively. Project Three (2014) expands on the findings of those reports and analyses the changing approach to the use of evaluation and evidence for cultural policymaking and practice over ten years of devolution in Wales (20042014). For culture, devolution and a desire for 'Made in Wales' policies appears to embrace the opportunity to use its 'distinctiveness' as a discourse for modernity, and for an increased momentum for cross-cutting policymaking. Thus, the economic contribution of culture is perceived as a means of broadening or narrowing the debate around cultural value, which is simultaneously upheld or contested. Consequently, despite the quest in England and Wales for commonality of shared concepts and definitions for culture, and for shared cultural metrics, no such 'common language' has currently been achieved. Instrumental cultural policy nonetheless is perceived as not being a threat to the legitimacy of cultural policy, and the debate needs to focus in Wales, as elsewhere, on refining and improving the metrics of cultural value for evaluation purposes.


Recognizing various subcubes in a hypercube computer fully and efficiently is nontrivial because of the specific structure of the hypercube. The authors propose a method that has much less complexity than the multiple-GC strategy in generating the search space, while achieving complete subcube recognition. This method is referred to as a dynamic processor allocation scheme because the search space generated is dependent upon the dimension of the requested subcube dynamically, instead of being predetermined and fixed. The basic idea of this strategy lies in collapsing the binary tree representations of a hypercube successively so that the nodes which form a subcube but are distant would be brought close to each other for recognition. The strategy can be implemented efficiently by using shuffle operations on the leaf node addresses of binary tree representations. Extensive simulation runs are carried out to collect experimental performance measures of interest of different allocation strategies. It is shown from analytic and experimental results that this strategy compares favorably in many situations with any other known allocation scheme capable of achieving complete subcube recognition.<<ETX>>


This doctoral dissertation presents contributions advancing the state-of-the-art of secure twoparty computation (S2PC) — a cryptographic primitive that allows two mutually distrustful parties, with respective private inputs, to evaluate a function of their combined input, while ensuring privacy of inputs and outputs and integrity of the computation, externally indistinguishable from an interaction mediated by a trusted party. The dissertation shows that S2PC can be made more practical by means of innovative cryptographic techniques, namely by engineered use of commitment schemes with special properties, enabling more efficient protocols, with provable security and applicable to make systems more dependable. This is one further step toward establishing S2PC as a practical tool for privacy-preserving applications. The main technical contribution is a new protocol for S2PC of Boolean circuits, based on an innovative technique called forge-and-lose.1 Building on top of a traditional cut-andchoose of garbled circuits (cryptographic versions of Boolean circuits), the protocol improves efficiency by reducing by a factor of approximately 3 the needed number of garbled circuits. This significantly reduces a major communication component of S2PC with malicious parties, for circuits of practical size. The protocol achieves simulatable S2PC-with-commitments, producing random commitments of the circuit input and output bits of both parties. The commitments also enable direct linkage of several S2PCs in a malicious adversarial setting. As second result, the dissertation describes an improvement to the efficiency of one of the needed sub-protocols: simulatable two-party coin-flipping.1 The sub-protocol is based on a new universally composable commitment scheme that for bit-strings of increasing size can achieve an asymptotic communication-complexity rate arbitrarily close to 1. The dissertation then discusses how S2PC-with-commitments can enable in brokered identification systems a difficult-to-achieve privacy property — a kind of unlinkability.1 This mitigates a vector of potential mass surveillance by an online central entity (a hub), which is otherwise empowered in systems being developed at nation scale for authentication of citizens. When the hub mediates between identity providers and service providers the authentication of users, an adequate S2PC (e.g., of a block-cipher) can prevent the hub from learning user pseudonyms that would allow linking transactions of the same user across different services providers.


In the simulation-of electromagnetic transients using time-domain programs like the Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP), a user must select the model or models which are most suitable to the particular simulation at hand. The EMTP provides a number of choices which have limitations, advantages and disadvantages. This paper summarizes the characteristics of the cable models available in the EMTP and gives practical guidelines for their use. A number of examples illustrate the recommendations.


How to obtain the results of the time-consuming Sommerfeld integrals in multiplayer media quickly is very important to the EMC problems such as lighting, grounding and PCB design. In this paper, an improved method based on the complex image approach is developed to calculate the Sommerfeld integrals. A self-adaptation method to find a suitable sampling is presented. Generalized pencil-of-function method is used to obtain the complex images. With the method, the value of Green's function in half lossy space can be obtained quickly and accurately. The computational results are in good agreement with those obtained by numerical integral method.


Motivated by the stability and performance analysis of model predictive control schemes, we investigate strict dissipativity for a class of optimal control problems involving probability density functions. The dynamics are governed by a Fokker-Planck partial differential equation. However, for the particular classes under investigation involving linear dynamics, linear feedback laws, and Gaussian probability density functions, we are able to significantly simplify these dynamics. This enables us to perform an in-depth analysis of strict dissipativity for different cost functions.


Single-switch scanning is one of the slowest way for people with severe motor impairments to access a wide range of assistive technologies, such as entering text into computer applications, manipulating alternative and augmentative communication devices, and operating power wheelchairs. Automating scanning rate adjustment has been investigated as a means of improving selection rate by several research groups [1-6], using probabilistic methods such as uncertainty factors and Bayesian networks. In practice, however, when assessing and documenting their client's needs, clinicians tend to prefer specifying linguistic values, such as slow, medium, and fast, rather than numerical values. In this respect, fuzzy logic can be an alternative to the existing approaches because it can capture the meaning of linguistic variables whose values are words rather than numbers [7, 8]. This paper describes our approach to modeling the automatic adjustment of scan rate using fuzzy logic.


The cold start advance solenoid sleeve was found leaking through the wall during troubleshooting complain of a diesel engine that failed to start in cold weather. The component was revealed to be a tubular product with a "bulb" section at one end and threads on the other. The manufacturing method used to create the bulb shape was hydroforming, using a 300 series stainless steel tube in the full-hard condition. The leak was attributed to a crack in the sleeve in the radius between the bulb area and the cylindrical portion of the sleeve. Fatigue cracks initiated at multiple sites near the OD of the sleeve were revealed by scanning electron microscopy of the broken-open crack. It was revealed by analysis that during the hydroforming process, heavy biaxial strains were imparted to the sleeve wall. It was interpreted that when combined with the heavy strains inherently present in the full-hard 300 series stainless steel, the hydroforming strains in the radius caused the microcracking. The root cause for this failure was identified to be omission of an intermediate stress relief or annealing treatment prior to hydroforming to the final shape.


Diagnosis and treatment of biliary tract disease requires an intraductal radiocontrast agent. Although iodine-based contrast medium is commonly used, some patients show severe allergy to iodinated contrast agent. We have retrospectively reviewed the usefulness and safety of gadolinium as an alternative radiocontrast agent in 3 patients with allergy to iodine-based contrast medium in the diagnosis and treatment of biliary tract diseases. In case 1, percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage and cholangiography were performed successfully and it was possible to visualize an intrahepatic bile duct stone. Percutaneous transhepatic cholangioscopic lithotomy was performed and the intrahepatic bile duct stone was removed. In case 2, endoscopic biliary lithotripsy was performed. In case 3, percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography and cholangioscopy provided a diagnosis of moderately differentiated carcinoma. He underwent pancreatoduodenectomy. Postoperative cholangiograms were also obtained successfully. Gadolinium contrast agent is an alternative to iodine-based cholangiography for the patients with allergy to iodine.


In recent years, the development of nanopore-based membranes has revitalized the prospect of harvesting salinity gradient (blue) energy. In this study, we systematically analyze the energetic performance of nanopore-based power generation (NPG) at various process scales, beginning with a single nanopore, followed by a multipore membrane coupon, and ending with a full-scale system. We confirm the high power densities attainable by a single nanopore and demonstrate that, at the coupon scale and above, concentration polarization severely hinders the power density of NPG, revealing the common, yet significant, error in linearly extrapolating single-pore performance to multipore membranes. Through our consideration of concentration polarization, we also importantly show that the development of materials with exceptional nanopore properties provides limited enhancement of practical process performance. For a full-scale NPG membrane module, we find an inherent tradeoff between power density and thermodynamic energy efficiency, whereby achieving a high power density sacrifices the energy efficiency. Furthermore, we derive a simple expression for the theoretical maximum energy efficiency of NPG, showing it is solely related to the membrane selectivity (i.e., S2/2). Through this relation, it is apparent that the energy efficiency of NPG is limited to only 50% (for a completely selective membrane, i.e., S = 1), reinforcing our optimistic full-scale simulations which result in a (practical) maximum energy efficiency of 42%. Finally, we assess the net extractable energy of a full-scale NPG system which mixes river water and seawater by including the energy losses from pretreatment and pumping, revealing that the NPG process-both in its current state of development and in the case of highly optimistic performance with minimized external energy losses-is not viable for power generation.


Abstract. The application of consumer-grade cameras for photogrammetric measurement has traditionally been subject to the requirement that imagery is recorded at fixed zoom and focus settings. The camera is then metrically calibrated, usually via self-calibration, for the lens setting employed. This requirement arises since camera parameters, and especially principal distance and lens distortion coefficients, vary significantly with zoom/focus setting. A recently developed process, titled zoom-dependent (Z-D) calibration, removes the necessity for the zoom setting to be fixed during the image capture process. Implementation of Z-D calibration requires that the camera be pre-calibrated at four or more focal settings within the zoom range, nominally at shortest and longest focal lengths, and at two mid-zoom settings. This requirement, coupled with issues of data management in carrying different focal settings for potentially every image within a bundle adjustment, has largely accounted for the reason that Z-D calibration has not previously been implemented within COTS software for close-range photogrammetry. The objective of this paper is to describe the practical implementation of Z-D calibration within software, along with its associated workflow, and to discuss issues that impact upon the accuracy, reliability and appropriateness of the technique. Experimental testing is used to highlight the merits and shortcomings of ZD calibration.


The occurrence of GATC (Dam-recognition) sites in available E. coli DNA sequences (representing about 2% of the chromosome) has been determined by a simple numerical analysis. Our approach was to analyze the nucleotide composition of nine large sequenced DNA stretches ("cantles") in order to identify patterns of GATC distribution and to rationalize such patterns in biological/ structural terms. The following observations were made:(i) In addition to oriC, GATC-rich regions are present in numerous locations. (ii) There is a wide variation in GATC frequency both between and within DNA cantles which led to the identification of a void-cluster pattern of GATC arrangement. The distance between two GATCs was never greater than 2 kb. (iii) GATC sites are found more frequently in translated regions than (in decreasing order) non-coding or non-translated regions. In particular, rRNA and tRNA encoding genes exhibit the lowest GATC content. INTRODUCTION In Escherichia coli, the 5'-GATC-3' palindromic sequence is methylated by the dam gene product. Modification takes place at the N6 position of the adenine residue and is thought to occur shortly after the passage of the replication fork. The existence of both methylated and unmethylated forms acts as a regulatory signal for directing the mismatch repair machinery (1). Potential roles for the methylation of GATC sites have been invoked in various aspects of the cell cycle, such as replication initiation, recombination and gene expression (2,3). The hypothesis that GATC sites are involved in the replication initiation process comes partly from the observation that 11 of these sites are located within the minimal oriC region (4). Since the minimal origin is 250 bp in size, this number of GATCs has been interpreted as being unusually high compared to what would be expected from a random occurrence, i.e., 1 GATC in 256 © I R L Press Limited, Oxford, England. 982 1 Nucleic Acids Research bp. However, this assumption is not valid since it has unambiguously been shown that the nucleotide composition of the E. coli genome is non-random (5). This non-randomness prevents most statistical analyses from achieving sound predictions. Recently, Phillips et al.,(6,7) tested several statistical methods and concluded that a Markov chain is the most accurate in predicting oligonucleotide frequency. This allowed these authors to show that codon usage strongly influences oligonucleotide composition of the E. coli genome. However, this method failed to predict accurately the frequency of occurrence of 45 of the 256 possible tetranucleotides, among which was GATC. The existence of a counterselection acting specifically at the tetranucleotide level was postulated (6,7,8). The role played by the cluster of GATC sites at oriC is unclear. It has been proposed that they regulate the formation of secondary structures and influence the binding of ancillary proteins for the initiation of chromosome replication (9,10,11). Recently, Ogden et al.,(12) have shown that hemimethylated, but not fully methylated, oriC DNA binds to an outer membrane fraction of E. coli. This suggests that methylation of GATC sites in oriC is important in efficient segregation of chromosomes. Other GATC clusters have been identified within the dnaA (13) and metL genes (8) but their function is unknown. Hemimethylated GATC sites allow the mismatch repair system to recognize and act upon the newly synthesized strand. These sites are recognized by an enzyme, MutH, that initiates the repair process by nicking DNA 5' to GATC (14). Recent studies have revealed the existence of a correlation between the number of GATC sites within a DNA duplex and the efficiency of the repair system to correct a mismatch (15). In addition it has been shown that the distance between a mismatch and a GATC site should not be more than 1 kb for efficient repair to take place (16). Since mismatch repair is thought to work in both directions from a given GATC, a DNA region that is flanked by two GATCs 2 kb apart should be protected from mutation induction. The methylation of GATC has also been shown to affect gene expression and transposition (2). In both cases GATCs were located within DNA regions such as promoters and transposon ends.


We present a novel approach for learning a finite mixture model on a Riemannian manifold in which Euclidean metrics are not applicable and one needs to resort to geodesic distances consistent with the manifold geometry. For this purpose, we draw inspiration on a variant of the expectation-maximization algorithm, that uses a minimum message length criterion to automatically estimate the optimal number of components from multivariate data lying on an Euclidean space. In order to use this approach on Riemannian manifolds, we propose a formulation in which each component is defined on a different tangent space, thus avoiding the problems associated with the loss of accuracy produced when linearizing the manifold with a single tangent space. Our approach can be applied to any type of manifold for which it is possible to estimate its tangent space. In particular, we show results on synthetic examples of a sphere and a quadric surface and on a large and complex dataset of human poses, where the proposed model is used as a regression tool for hypothesizing the geometry of occluded parts of the body.


This volume explores an underappreciated feature of the standard Tiberian Masoretic tradition of Biblical Hebrew, namely its composite nature. Focusing on cases of dissonance between the tradition's written (consonantal) and reading (vocalic) components, the study shows that the Tiberian spelling and pronunciation traditions, though related, interdependent, and largely in harmony, at numerous points reflect distinct oral realisations of the biblical text. Where the extant vocalisation differs from the apparently pre-exilic pronunciation presupposed by the written tradition, the former often exhibits conspicuous affinity with post-exilic linguistic conventions as seen in representative Second Temple material, such as the core Late Biblical Hebrew books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira, rabbinic literature, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and contemporary Aramaic and Syriac material. On the one hand, such instances of written-reading disharmony clearly entail a degree of anachronism in the vocalisation of Classical Biblical Hebrew compositions. On the other, since many of the innovative and secondary features in the Tiberian vocalisation tradition are typical of sources from the Second Temple Period and, in some cases, are documented as minority alternatives in even earlier material, the Masoretic reading tradition is justifiably characterised as a linguistic artefact of profound historical depth.


The northern provinces of Burundi have suffered from an inferior education system since independence. This paper shows that the current, northern-led regime has chosen a drastic way to reverse that subordination. The national test (Concours National) at the end of primary school is at the heart of the matter. Using the universe of individual test score data which can be used to construct a school-level panel and applying differencein-differences analysis, the paper shows strong improvements in test scores in northern versus southern schools since the ruling party won an absolute majority in the 2010 elections. Immediately after these elections, schools situated in very poor, rural areas in the north scored as high as schools in non-poor areas of the capital. The paper finds that increased success rates, improved mean test scores and decreased standard deviations are explained by the percent of votes at the municipality level obtained by the ruling party in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Controlling for school budget and cohort size variables does not change the results. The latter are interpreted in the political economy of education reform in Burundi and considered as a case of ethno-regional favoritism in Africa.


OBJECTIVE--To establish whether stress management had a larger effect than a control treatment on resting blood pressure, ambulatory blood pressure, and left ventricular mass. DESIGN--A 12 week baseline period of habituation to measurement of blood pressure was followed by randomisation to either stress management or mild exercise for six months and follow up six months later. SETTING--General practice, district general hospital, and medical school. PATIENTS--Of the 184 patients aged under 60 with mild primary hypertension who entered the baseline habituation period, 88 were excluded because they failed to meet the entry criteria or they withdrew from the study. The remaining 46 men and 50 women underwent treatment. INTERVENTIONS--10 clinical sessions and daily practice at home of either stress management based on relaxation or non-aerobic stretching exercises. Mildly stressful 15 minute interviews before and after treatment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Diastolic and systolic blood pressure in the clinic and during 12 hours of ambulatory recording, and left ventricular mass measured by echocardiography. RESULTS--The patients' blood pressure fell during habituation (systolic pressure from 152 mmHg to 140 mmHg, diastolic pressure from 98 to 93 mm Hg), but neither resting nor ambulatory blood pressure was changed by the treatments. Left ventricular mass was also unchanged. Blood pressure rose during the stressful interview, but this rise was reduced by stress management (systolic pressure rose by 7.4 mmHg before treatment and by 3.7 mmHg after treatment). CONCLUSION--Stress management of a type advocated for treating mild primary hypertension is ineffective in lowering blood pressure in patients who are well habituated to measuring blood pressure.


A novel method for measuring dead time in nuclear pulse processing circuitry has been developed using the autocorrelation measurement capability of the Nuclear Weapons Inspection System (NWIS). Initially developed for active neutron interrogation of nuclear weapons and other fissile assemblies, NWIS employs a custom gallium arsenide application specific integrated circuit and a new signature analysis software package to simultaneously acquire and display the autocorrelation and cross-correlation spectra of up to five detector/electronics systems. The system operates at clock frequencies up to 1 GHz, permitting the collection of timing pulses in bins as narrow as 1 ns. In normal operation NWIS uses well characterized detectors and constant fraction discriminators, but it may also be configured to accept pulses from any circuit and to use the autocorrelation spectrum to accurately determine dead-time. Unlike traditional dead-time assessment techniques that typically require multiple sources and an assumed dead-time model, NWIS provides single-measurement assessment of circuit dead time and does not require an assumed dead-time model or a calibrated high count-rate source.


This paper deals with an integrated multi-stage supply chain inventory model with the objective of cost minimization by synchronizing the replenishment decisions for procurement, production and delivery activities. The supply chain structure examined here consists of a single manufacturer with multi-buyer where manufacturer orders a fixed quantity of raw material from outside suppliers, processes the materials and delivers the finished products in unequal shipments to each customer. In this paper, we consider an imperfect production system, which produces defective items randomly and assumes that all defective items could be reworked. A simple algorithm is developed to obtain an optimal production policy, which minimizes the expected average total cost of the integrated production-inventory system.


Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) is a relatively new technique that uses different coils for the treatment of different neuropathologies. The coils are made of soft copper windings in multiple planes that lie adjacent to the skull. They are located within a special helmet so that their magnetic fields combine and improve depth penetration. The H1 dTMS coil is designed to stimulate bilateral prefrontal cortices with greater effective stimulation over the left than the right. By positioning the left side of the coil close to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the H1 coil was used in a multisite study, leading to FDA approval for treatment-resistant depression. In this same position, the H1 coil was also explored as a possible treatment for negative symptoms of schizophrenia, bipolar depression, and migraine. When moved to different positions over the subject's skull, the H1 coil was also explored as a possible treatment for other conditions. Such manipulation of the H1 coil was demonstrated for PTSD and alcohol dependence by positioning it over the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), for anxiety by positioning it over the right prefrontal cortex (rPFC), for auditory hallucinations and tinnitus by positioning it over the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and for Parkinson's and fatigue from multiple sclerosis (MS) by positioning it over the motor cortex (MC) and PFC. Corresponding electrical field diagrams measured with an oscilloscope through a saline-filled head are included.


In both general equilibrium theory and game theory, the dominant mathematical models rest on a fully rational solution concept in which every player's action is a best-response to the actions of the other players. In both theories there is less agreement on suitable out-of-equilibrium modeling, but one attractive approach is the level k model in which a level 0 player adopts a very simple response to current conditions, a level 1 player best-responds to a model in which others take level 0 actions, and so forth. (This is analogous to k-ply exploration of game trees in AI, and to receding-horizon control in control theory.) If players have deterministic mental models with this kind of finite-level response, there is obviously no way their mental models can all be consistent. Nevertheless, there is experimental evidence that people act this way in many situations, motivating the question of what the dynamics of such interactions lead to. We address the problem of out-of-equilibrium price dynamics in the setting of Fisher markets. We develop a general framework in which sellers have (a) a set of atomic price update rules which are simple responses to a price vector; (b) a belief-formation procedure that simulates actions of other sellers (themselves using the atomic price updates) to some finite horizon in the future. In this framework, sellers use an atomic price update rule to respond to a price vector they generate with the belief formation procedure. The framework is general and allows sellers to have inconsistent and time-varying beliefs about each other. Under certain assumptions on the atomic update rules, we show that despite the inconsistent and time-varying nature of beliefs, the market converges to a unique equilibrium. (If the price updates are driven by weak-gross substitutes demands, this is the same equilibrium point predicted by those demands.) This result holds for both synchronous and asynchronous discrete-time updates. Moreover, the result is computationally feasible in the sense that the convergence rate is linear, i.e., the distance to equilibrium decays exponentially fast. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first result that demonstrates, in Fisher markets, convergence at any rate for dynamics driven by a plausible model of seller incentives. We then specialize our results to Fisher markets with elastic demands (a further special case corresponds to demand generated by buyers with constant elasticity of substitution (CES) utilities, in the weak gross substitutes (WGS) regime) and show that the atomic update rule in which a seller uses the best-response (=profit-maximizing) update given the prices of all other sellers, satisfies the assumptions required on atomic price update rules in our framework. We can even characterize the convergence rate (as a function of elasticity parameters of the demand function). Our results apply also to settings where, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no previous demonstration of efficient convergence of any discrete dynamic of price updates. Even for the simple case of (level 0) best-response dynamics, our result is the first to demonstrate a linear rate of convergence.


Background Electro-acupuncture (EA) treatment has been shown to decrease pain and improve the function of ovariectomised (OVX) rats with osteoarthritis (OA); however, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Object We used OVX rabbits to replicate natural human menopausal processes and to evaluate whether EA could be used to prevent and treat postmenopausal OA. Methods The rabbits were randomly divided into four groups of eight: a normal control group (NC), an OVX group, an ERT group (oestrogen replacement therapy after OVX) and an EA group (EA therapy after OVX). After the interventions, all of the animals were killed. Serum oestrogen levels and body weight were measured. The transcription of matrix metalloproteinase-13 (MMP-13) mRNA was detected using reverse transcriptase-PCR. Modified Mankin scores were used for histological assessment. Expression of MMP-13 in cartilage was determined by immunohistochemistry. Results Both the EA group and the ERT group had increased serum oestrogen levels (p=0.028, p=0.037 respectively), as well as decreased expression of MMP-13 (p=0.000, p=0.000, respectively), relative to the OVX group. The body weight of the EA group was lower than that of the OVX group and the NC group (p=0.007), as well as the ERT group (p=0.010). Conclusions EA could be a new method for preventing and treating postmenopausal OA by producing endogenous sex hormones that inhibit the expression of MMP-13 and cause weight loss with no side effects and a relatively low cost.


Distance measurement is the main requirement in a mobile robot navigation system. By knowing the distance to the object, the robot can maneuver to avoid the object. Today, the uses of vision sensors such as cameras become the first choice in mobile robot navigation system. By using the vision sensor, in addition to measuring the distance, shape and color of objects can also be known. In this research we used a Kinect sensor that can produce RGB and depth images. A polynomial equation can be established by measuring the change of hue value that proportional to distance. The results showed the average measurement error is 3.39% with accuracy of 1 cm.


A real time wideband wireless channel sounder based on WCDMA system is introduced in this paper. After installing a baseband data acquisition device to the base station and some modifications on test UE, a real time wideband wireless channel sounder is established with fairly high performance and low cost comparing to commercial channel sounders. The time resolution of this sounder is limited by the WCDMA system bandwidth and chip rate; however it can provide an extremely high data storing rate up to 100 Mbyte/s which guarantees a high sampling speed up to 15000 Hz of the time variant wireless channel and multichannel measurement simultaneously. The high sampling rate make it available to have a close sight of the time variant characteristics of the wireless channel such as small scale fading and Doppler effect. The performance of sounder is analyzed and summarized in detail; also the post-processing method of the measurement data is described briefly. Some measurement results corresponding to different wireless environments are presented as examples; wireless channel propagation characteristics analysis and a wireless channel modeling application are introduced finally.


Signal peptides that specifically direct precursor proteins to the thylakoid Delta pH pathway possess an N domain RR motif. Signal peptides that direct transport of bacterial proteins across a non-Sec export pathway possess an N domain RRXFLK consensus motif. Recent genetic studies suggest an evolutionary link between these two protein translocation pathways. To further explore this relationship, we examined the thylakoid targeting capability of the signal peptide for Escherichia colihydrogenase 1 small subunit (HyaA) by linking it to plastocyanin and assaying the chimeric protein in an in vitro thylakoid transport assay. The chimeric precursor was transported across thylakoids with high efficiency. Transport was characteristic of the Delta pH but not the Sec pathway, i.e. it was eliminated by ionophores that dissipate the ΔpH but occurred in the absence of stromal extract or ATP. This result was confirmed by competition with chemical quantities of a Delta pH pathway precursor. This indicates that the HyaA signal peptide has the necessary elements for efficient and exclusive targeting to the Delta pH pathway and further supports the notion that the alternate targeting pathways in prokaryotes and plant thylakoids are analogous.