The calorimetric and photographic principles of additive color reproduction are reviewed. The significance of the concept of photographic spectral sensitivity is examined, and the desirability of emulsions having contrast independent of wave-length is emphasized. Although the desirability of partially negative spectral sensitivities, such as described by Hardy and Wurzburg, is acknowledged, the photographic methods proposed by those authors for the realization of such sensitivities are shown to be rendered useless by fundamental difficulties. Two masking methods are described, one of which utilizes unusual types of emulsions to realize completely the desired partially negative spectral sensitivities, and the other of which utilizes conventional materials and techniques to realize a close approximation to the desired sensitivities. The errors of additive color reproductions resulting from several different compromises in which negative portions of the spectral sensitivity curves are ignored or avoided are computed and compared. The simple omission of all sensitivity in the wave-length regions where the theory calls for negative sensitivity, utilizing only the positive portions of the theoretical spectral sensitivity curve, results in the smallest errors. Finally, the effect of increase of contrast is examined, with the conclusion that purity can be increased, compensating for the loss of purity resulting from the failure to realize partially negative spectral sensitivities, but that considerable errors in dominant wave-length as well as in brightness result from the excessive contrasts.


With different environmental policy instruments (EPIs) that target individual citizens, the state can change activities or behaviors that have negative environmental consequences. However, EPIs are not likely to be implemented or have the intended effects unless people support these policies since a lack of support may affect willingness to comply, and politicians may not even introduce them due to the risk of loss in electoral support. Previous studies have suggested that political and generalized trust are important explanatory factors in EPI support. On an individual level and at least in some contexts, investigations have found that political and generalized trust generate more positive attitudes and higher acceptance of EPIs. There is, however, a lack of comparative studies. The effects of political and generalized trust on EPI support are investigated in this thesis by studying cross-national differences in EPI preference. By using a comparative design, it is possible to study not only perceptions of whether public institutions are trustworthy and whether we find those effects in different countries, but also the effects of living in a society with more or less effective or corrupt public institutions. It is suggested that people support different kinds of EPIs in different contexts. The data used are three international surveys and a Swedish mail survey. The results suggest several effects of trust on preferences for policies. One could be described as the coercion effect, where people with low trust choose more coercive policies in order to punish defectors; the second is the bureaucratic discretion effect, where people accept certain kinds of policies (typically economic instruments) only when the bureaucracy has a potential to deliver; third is an effect of trust in others, for people who do not trust others are not likely to choose certain policies when the risk of free-riding is high; and fourth is an indirect effect, for trust affects people's willingness to perform environmental action, which in turn affects policy preferences. In conclusion, as political and generalized trust are important explanatory factors in EPI support, we should expect the potential for such policy instruments to vary quite significantly across countries.


This volume presents the site of Northton in the Western Isles of Scotland (at Toe Head on Harris). During excavations in 1965 and 1966 two early horizons were identified beneath and close to the base of the machair sands. With excavation the stratigraphically later of these horizons furnished evidence for a probable stone structure, funerary and faunal remains, and an abundance of artefacts, particularly pottery, which in turn dated the horizon to the Neolithic period. In contrast, the lower horizon lay directly above the natural boulder clay, was sealed by the machair sands, and contained a general paucity of faunal and artefactual remains. Due to the discovery of one small sherd of Neolithic pottery it was assumed, however, that this horizon might represent an earlier phase of Neolithic occupation. During a brief season of fieldwork in 2001 a seemingly comparable horizon, which also rested above the boulder clay, was identified in a section which had been exposed through coastal erosion. Following a limited investigation this basal horizon produced evidence for human activity in the form of possible stone settings, charred plant macrofossils, faunal remains and a small assemblage of chipped stone artefacts. Significantly, a series of dates obtained from the plant macrofossils indicate that this material is unambiguously of the Mesolithic period. Whilst these somewhat unexpected results have major implications for constructing the internal chronology of the site, as they appear to extend human activity at Northton back to the seventh millennium cal. BC, they are also of considerable interest at both a regional and national level, as they may represent the first direct evidence for Mesolithic activity in the Western Isles. The volume has chapters on the sites early occupation, the Beaker period, Bronze, Iron, and later periods, and a history of the Northton Machair. There are six Appendices and Catalogues of finds and data.


The article explores how the concept of Knowledge is interpreted in English and Uzbek classical literature by the works of Alisher Navai and William Shakespeare. These remarkable writers present the peculiarities of people who possess humanism, dignity, love, respect and the development of high moral qualities through the heroes of Navai and Shakespeare. Although the highest point of perfection in the view of two thinkers is love, it has sought to express in the literature that man must be educated and knowledgeable before reaching this love. While the Western Renaissance thinkers focused attention on their own beauty, physical and spiritual perfection. Shakespeare acted as a scientist, he had an insatiable curiosity that seems to have extended beyond humans to nature itself – but it was as an artist that he drew on those thoughts and ideas to create some of the world's most powerful dramas. The Eastern Renaissance thinkers concentrated on the issue of human perfection. In Navai's viewpoint, this beautiful life is not a major aim, but it is only a means of examination for attaining spiritual growth. This is the basis of the works of Alisher Navai and Shakespeare.


Cocaine experience generates AMPA receptor (AMPAR)-silent synapses in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which are thought to be new synaptic contacts enriched in GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors (NMDARs). After drug withdrawal, some of these synapses mature by recruiting AMPARs, strengthening the newly established synaptic transmission. Silent synapse generation and maturation are two consecutive cellular steps through which NAc circuits are profoundly remodeled to promote cue-induced cocaine seeking after drug withdrawal. However, the basic cellular processes that mediate these two critical steps remains underexplored. Using a combination of electrophysiology, viral-mediated gene transfer, and confocal imaging in male rats as well as knock-in (KI) mice of both sexes, our current study characterized the dynamic roles played by AMPARs and NMDARs in generation and maturation of silent synapses on NAc medium spiny neurons after cocaine self-administration and withdrawal. We report that cocaine-induced generation of silent synapses not only required synaptic insertion of GluN2B-containing NMDARs, but also, counterintuitively, involved insertion of AMPARs, which subsequently internalized, resulting in the AMPAR-silent state on withdrawal day 1. Furthermore, GluN2B NMDARs functioned to maintain these cocaine-generated synapses in the AMPAR-silent state during drug withdrawal, until they were replaced by nonGluN2B NMDARs, a switch that allowed AMPAR recruitment and maturation of silent synapses. These results reveal dynamic interactions between AMPARs and NMDARs during the generation and maturation of silent synapses after cocaine experience and provide a mechanistic basis through which new synaptic contacts and possibly new neural network patterns created by these synapses can be manipulated for therapeutic benefit. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Studies over the past decade reveal a critical role of AMPA receptor-silent, NMDA receptor-containing synapses in forming cocaine-related memories that drive cocaine relapse. However, it remains incompletely understood how AMPA and NMDA receptors traffic at these synapses during their generation and maturation. The current study characterizes a two-step AMPA receptor trafficking cascade that contributes to the generation of silent synapses in response to cocaine experience, and a two-step NMDA receptor trafficking cascade that contributes to the maturation of these synapses after cocaine withdrawal. These results depict a highly regulated cellular procedure through which nascent glutamatergic synapses are generated in the adult brain after drug experience and provide significant insight into the roles of glutamate receptors in synapse formation and maturation.


The interest in the antioxidant materials increased due to their free radical scavenging properties avoiding various pathologies. Tannic Acid (TA) is known to have high free radical scavenging activity, but its application is still limited.
 This paper had the objective of synthesis, characterization and evaluation of free radical scavenging activity of TA associated with Cu (II) and Zn (II) ions, in a buffered aqueous medium.

 Techniques of FTIR, simultaneous TG-DSC characterized the obtained compounds, and the evaluation of free radical scavenging activity was made using 2,2–diphenyl–1–picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical. The FTIR analysis of the compounds showed significant displacement of the main bands in the TA spectrum (νC=O, δO-H, σO-H), suggesting an association of metal ions with the oxygen of the hydroxyl group of TA. TG-DSC curves showed information about the thermal stability, stoichiometry, hydration water, and residues formation.

 The TA association with the metal ions Cu(II) and Zn(II) decreased the antioxidant activity of the molecule significantly, showing that these compounds could be potentially used as pro-oxidant agents.


This paper explains the growing relationship between the crises in Africa's most widely used energy of wood fuel and food production in the continent. It argues that the optimal productivity of agricultural land has been on a steady decline due to the massive disappearance of soil nutrients occasioned by systematic tree cutting, constituting one of the central factors responsible for lowering food production in Africa. Wood fuel is the biggest source of energy for the overwhelming African households, in which over ninety percent of the continent's populations depend on for cooking, heating and other domestic energy generating activities. It is, at the same time, the fastest diminishing energy due partly to its wasteful mode of utilization and partly to the growing gap between its consumption and production. The food crisis, manifests itself at the growing Africa's food deficits and imports, shortages and soaring prices, and the increasing number of Africa's population afflicted by hunger, malnutrition and mortalities. Using gap theory, data accumulated from wood fuel consumption and food production for the past forty years have been correlated in order to establish the growing pattern of their linkages and intersection. The result of the study shows that wood fuel and food crises are not only interconnected, but they also reinforce each other in their growing manifestation and gravity. The current Africa's food deficit could be attributed to up to 70% to the negative effects of wood fuel utilization and depletion. In fact, by the current rates of wood fuel consumption, population explosion and food decline, food deficit in Africa is expected to double in the next decade. This ugly situation can be prevented on the short term by reducing the wood fuel wastage and utilization of non tree or dead biomass, through an effective but multiple purpose stoves, which could save about 90 percent of the inefficiently utilized trees and increase food production by the same percentage in the continent. The long term solution to wood fuel and food crises could be sought in what I propose as a complete shift from wood fuel to much more easily renewable and sustainable solar and wind energy, in order to provide sufficient food for all and protect the biodiversity of the African environment.


methodology for the mechatronic modules of machine tools by considering all important characteristics from all structural and control domains in one single process. The relationship between these two domains is strongly coupled. In order to reduce the disturbance caused by parameters in either one, the mechanical and controller design domains need to be integrated. Therefore, the concurrent integrated design method Design For Control (DFC), will be employed in this paper. In this connect, it is not only applied to achieve minimal power consumption but also enhance structural performance and system response at same time. To investigate the method for integrated optimization, a mechatronic feed drive system of the machine tools is used as a design platform. Pro/Engineer and AnSys are first used to build the 3D model to analyze and design structure parameters such as elastic deformation, nature frequency and component size, based on their effects and sensitivities to the structure. In addition, the robust controller,based on Quantitative Feedback Theory (QFT), will be applied to determine proper control parameters for the controller. Therefore, overall physical properties of the machine tool will be obtained in the initial stage. Finally, the technology of design for control will be carried out to modify the structural and control parameters to achieve overall system performance. Hence, the corresponding productivity is expected to be greatly improved.


We give an exact characterization of admissibility in statistical decision problems in terms of Bayes optimality in a so-called nonstandard extension of the original decision problem, as introduced by Duanmu and Roy. Unlike the consideration of improper priors or other generalized notions of Bayes optimalitiy, the nonstandard extension is distinguished, in part, by having priors that can assign "infinitesimal" mass in a sense that can be made rigorous using results from nonstandard analysis. With these additional priors, we find that, informally speaking, a decision procedure δ0 is admissible in the original statistical decision problem if and only if, in the nonstandard extension of the problem, the nonstandard extension of δ0 is Bayes optimal among the extensions of standard decision procedures with respect to a nonstandard prior that assigns at least infinitesimal mass to every standard parameter value. We use the above theorem to give further characterizations of admissibility, one related to Blyth's method, one to a condition due to Stein which characterizes admissibility under some regularity assumptions; and finally, a characterization using finitely additive priors in decision problems meeting certain regularity requirements. Our results imply that Blyth's method is a sound and complete method for establishing admissibility. Buoyed by this result, we revisit the univariate two-sample common-mean problem, and show that the Graybill–Deal estimator is admissible among a certain class of unbiased decision procedures.


There has been a considerable research interest in the area of drug delivery systems using nanoparticles. Nanostructured biomaterials have unique physicochemical properties such as ultra small and controllable size, large surface area to mass ratio, high reactivity and functionalizable structure. It alter and improve the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of various types of drug molecules that are capable of targeted delivery of both imaging agents and anticancer drugs and early detection of cancer lesions, determination of molecular signatures of the tumor by noninvasive imaging and, most importantly, molecular targeted cancer therapy. These properties can be applied on drug to overcoming some of the limitations in traditional therapeutics. They have been used in vivo to protect the drug entity in the systemic circulation, restrict access of the drug to the chosen sites and to deliver the drug at a controlled and sustained rate to the site of action, minimizes undesirable side effects of the drugs and allow for more efficient use of the drug. It should be present at appropriate concentrations at the target site, and it should not lose its activity or therapeutic efficacy while in circulation. Here, we review various aspects of nanoparticle formulation, characterization, effect of their characteristics and their applications in delivery of drug molecules, improving the targated delivery of therapeutic agents, the potential of nanomedicine, development of novel and more effective diagnostic and screening techniques to extend the limits of molecular diagnostics and challenges in synthesizing nanoparticle platforms for delivering various drugs.


Countee Cullen's literary oeuvre emerged in a cultural context wherein Harlemite leaders took pride in an emerging intellectual and literary vanguard. Interestingly, Cullen's work foregrounds many of the negative aspects of both personal and group pride. Pride for Cullen is typically unnatural, a compensatory excrescence to be shed or managed; this corresponds more closely to a Christian than to a pagan ethos of pride. As regards pride in one's group identity, although readings of Cullen in terms of gay pride would be anachronistic, he deliberately treats the topic of racial pride—particularly in his novel One Way to Heaven, wherein pride figures a structurally integral leitmotif.


We propose in this paper a method to enhance the performance of a coupled global positioning/inertial navigation system (GPS/INS) for land navigation applications during GPS signal loss. Our method is based on the use of an artificial neural network (ANN) to intelligently aid the GPS/INS coupled navigation system in the absence of GPS signals. The proposed enhanced GPS/INS is tested in the dynamic environment of a land vehicle navigating around a closed path on the METU campus and we provide the results. Our GPS/INS+ANN system performance is thus demonstrated with a land trial.


NEURODEVELOPMENT![Figure][1]

Brain asymmetry regulates anxiety in zebrafish

PHOTO: MARK SMITH/SCIENCE SOURCE

Although fish are overall bilaterally symmetrical, the devil is in the details. For instance, in zebrafish, a part of the forebrain called the epithalamus exhibits asymmetry. However, this orientation is reversed in the brains of a small percentage of zebrafish. Facchin et al. asked whether this matters to the fish. They found that fish with brains of the minority configuration showed signs of increased anxiety when compared to their majority-configuration siblings. But their brains were not simply flipped. Within the epithalamus, neuronal axons projected in unusual patterns. The results suggest that asymmetries in how the brain processes rewards and aversions may favor neuronal circuits to organize in one way over another.

J. Neurosci. 35 , 15847 (2015).

 [1]: pending:yes


Social analysts find it hard to throw off the dualism of traditional psychology. Discursive psychology offers a non-dualistic approach to psychological matters that works with the displays and orientations of participants, and recognizes that psychological matters are managed immediately and subtly through the normative resources of interaction. James Cresswell attempts to provide an alternative account of 'experience'; drawing on the writing of Bakhtin, he offers a kind of socialized dualism. His account is illustrated by analysing talk from an open-ended interview. The current article (a) offers an alternative analysis of that talk highlighting the operation of highly conventional repair sequences; (b) questions Cresswell's inferences from the interviewee's talk to their underlying 'experiences'; (c) illustrates how matters that might classically be considered as 'experiential' can be handled from a non-dualistic interactional perspective, using an example from a research programme on crying and upset; and (d) offers some general principles for the study of 'experience'.


This study examines possible influences on the level of collaboration in published research by the most productive authors of accounting literature. Understanding the collaboration tendencies of these authors should benefit early-career-stage accounting faculty. Seven factors are examined for the publications of 93 of the most productive accounting authors. These productive authors are found to include fewer coauthors on their publications early in their careers. The number of coauthors increases through their first 16 to 17 years and then decreases through the remainder of their careers. The results also indicate that productive accounting researchers include a greater number of coauthors on more recently published articles and on longer articles. Fewer coauthors are included when a productive author is affiliated with a "top-10" university or on articles published in highly ranked accounting journals. Lastly, the results show that prolific authors seek out coauthorship throughout their careers and usually include one or more coauthors on their publications. Implications from these results and specific suggestions for accounting faculty are discussed.


Firms, research institutions and individuals have long realised the advantages of innovating in an open manner. Companies such as IBM, Philips and Procter & Gamble, increasingly seek to cooperate with outside individuals and organisations to tap into their ideas for new products and services. This approach makes good business sense, but it is also difficult to achieve. In particular, mechanisms that motivate innovators to 'open up' are critical in achieving the benefits of open innovation. Private–collective innovation (PCI) has become an increasingly important model for explaining innovation at the boundaries of traditional, closed and open innovation regimes. Previous work has examined PCI both conceptually and empirically, and recent scholarship has focused specifically on the initiation of PCI as it relates to problems of collective action. This work shows that a project will not 'take off' unless the right incentives are in place for innovators to contribute their knowledge to open innovation from the beginning. Drawing on behavioural game theory, this paper expands on prior work by exploring social preferences in the initiation of PCI. The authors conducted a simulation study that shows how inequality aversion, reciprocity and fairness affect the underlying conditions that lead to the initiation of PCI. The results indicate that reciprocity and the potential gains for other participants explain changes in individual knowledge sharing in PCI.


Recent developments in wireless capture of muscle activity signals have improved the freedom of motion and the ease of use. Nevertheless, no study has examined the quality of wireless electromyographic technology during water activities. In this study the performance of a surface electromyography (SEMG) wireless system on dry land and in water was compared. Tibialis anterior muscle activity of 1 subject while contracting against a resistance of 84 Newton (N) was measured in 2 conditions: using a wireless (KINE) system with waterproof taping on the pool deck and submerged. Analysis of the raw signal showed acceptable ratios of 37 to 44 decibel (dB) between rest activity and the force activity at 84 N in both conditions. The total spectrum analysis and short term frequency analysis showed that no filtering occurred in either of the two conditions as frequencies were picked up in the entire spectrum. Spectrum analysis of rest activity or of the force buildup showed no spikes indicating any pickup of noise. The wireless system produced clean results and submersion and as a consequence recollection from the memory of the unit did not cause additional noise. Furthermore, the wireless system provided a satisfactory signal-to-rest activity ratio of approximately 40 dB and a range of 4 millivolts (mV). The KINE EMG units provided a valid means to analyze muscle activity during swimming while permitting unrestricted movement and ease of use.


Changes in protein synthesis that occurred under the influence of heat shock (HS) in monolayer (L929) and suspension (LS) mouse cell cultures were studied. The rates of protein synthesis determined as 35S-methionine incorporations were seen reduced from the initial level up to 40-60 and 6-13% after HS at 42 and 44 degrees C, respectively. Simultaneously the rate of actin and tubulin syntheses decreased, the decrease being more pronounced in LS cells. According to electrophoresis and autoradiography data, after hyperthermia both the cell cultures were able to synthesize heat shock proteins (HSP), primarily HSP70. After a 40 min HS towards L929 and LS cells at 43 degrees C, the shares of their HSP70 bands in the total label loaded on the gel constituted, resp., 8.8 and 5.4%. The data suggest that L929 cells, with their synthetic activity lower than in LS cells, appear more resistant to HS and are able eventually to synthesize larger amounts of HSP70, compared to the latter.


Timing analysis plays a vital role in chip design, which analyze whether a chip design meets the timing constraints. The main objectives of timing analysis are speed and accuracy. There are two engines for timing analysis namely Statistical Timing Analysis (STA) and Statistical Static Timing Analysis (SSTA). VLSI CAD has been gaining a lot of interest in both STA and SSTA. As technology continues to advance deeper in to the nanometer regime, a tight control on the process parameters is increasingly difficult. To account these process parameters which are probabilistic in nature while performing timing analysis SSTA is preferred. The main goal of SSTA is to improve the accuracy without any reduction in speed by considering process variations. This paper presents a survey of SSTA approaches and techniques for improving accuracy and speed by considering the topological correlations and spatial correlations.


We predict stresses and strains in the Tarfaya salt basin on the West African coast using a 3D static geomechanical model and compare the results against a simplified 2D plane-strain model. Both models are based on present-day basin geometries, are drained, and use a poroelastic description for the sediments and visco-plastic description for salt. We focus on a salt diapir, where an exploratory well has been drilled crossing a major fault. The 3D model shows a significant horizontal stress reduction in sediments at the top of the diapir, validated with measured data later obtained from the well. The 2D model predicts comparable stress reduction in sediments at the crest of the diapir. However, it shows a broader area affected by the stress reduction, overestimating its magnitude by as much as 1.5 MPa. Both models predict a similar pattern of differential displacement in sediments along both sides of the major fault, above the diapir. These displacements are the main cause of horizontal stress reduction detected at the crest of the diapir. Sensitivity analysis in both models shows that the elastic parameters of the sediments have a minimal effect on the stress–strain behaviour. In addition, the 2D sensitivity analysis concludes that the main factors controlling stress and strain changes are the geometry of the salt and the difference in rock properties between encasing sediments and salt. Overall, our study demonstrates that carefully built 2D models at the exploration stage can provide stress information and useful insights comparable to those from more complex 3D geometries. Thematic collection: This article is part of the Mechanics of salt systems: state of the field in numerical methods collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/mechanics-of-salt-systems


ABSTRACT Efflux systems are important in determining the efficacy of antibiotics used in the treatment of bacterial infections. In the last decade much attention has been paid to studying the efflux pumps of mycobacteria. New classes of compounds are under investigation for development into potential candidate drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis. Quite often, these have poor bactericidal activities but exhibit excellent target (biochemical) inhibition. Microarray studies conducted in our laboratories for deciphering the mode of action of experimental drugs revealed the presence of putative ABC transporters. Among these transporters, Rv1218c was chosen for studying its physiological relevance in mediating efflux in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A ΔRv1218c mutant of M. tuberculosis displayed a 4- to 8-fold increase in the inhibitory and bactericidal potency for different classes of compounds. The MICs and MBCs were reversed to wild-type values when the full-length Rv1218c gene was reintroduced into the ΔRv1218c mutant on a multicopy plasmid. Most of the compound classes had significantly better bactericidal activity in the ΔRv1218c mutant than in the wild-type H37Rv, suggesting the involvement of Rv1218c gene product in effluxing these compounds from M. tuberculosis. The implication of these findings on tuberculosis drug discovery is discussed.


In this paper we estimate gravity models to see whether trade volumes of countries in the MENA region are significantly lower than what would be expected given their economic, cultural and geographical characteristics. Our empirical results show that the variables used in standard gravity models cannot explain a significant part of MENA's trade performance, particularly on exports. We then go on to 'augment' the standard gravity model with relevant variables from the World Bank's Business Enterprise surveys. Our results further show that these variables, and in particular transport constraints and inefficiencies in customs clearance processes, are important in explaining the MENA region's underperformance in trade.


The environmental challenges we face today have made the need to behave pro-environmentally increasingly salient. Many believe that the modern day "busyness" of life and lack of spare time have kept people from acting according to their values and behaving more pro-environmentally. This study uses microdata from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) to investigate the relation between pro-environmental behaviour, environmental self-perception and work-life balance. Pro-environmental behaviour covers 21 behaviours relating to home energy, personal transport, recycling and shopping. Work-life balance is defined with relation to the availability of discretionary time using both objective and subjective measures. The results from the regression models of overall pro-environmental behaviour suggest that work-life imbalance does not appear to affect, neither directly nor indirectly through environmental values and attitudes, pro-environmental behaviour. The main factors determining the extent of pro-environmental behaviour relate to individual's attitudes towards the environment, age, educational attainment, household income and the presence of young children. The sensitivity analysis looking at differing time demanding behaviours reveals that actual availability of discretionary time does not seem to affect pro-environmental behaviour, while the subjective experience of work-life imbalance can have a negative direct effect particularly for more time demanding pro-environmental behaviours.


State-of-the-art aeronautic Low Pressure gas Turbines (LPTs) are already characterized by high quality standards, thus they offer very narrow margins of improvement. Typical design process starts with a Concept Design (CD) phase, defined using mean-line 1D and other low-order tools, and evolves through a Preliminary Design (PD) phase, which allows the geometric definition in details. In this framework, multidisciplinary optimization is the only way to properly handle the complicated peculiarities of the design. The authors present different strategies and algorithms that have been implemented exploiting the PD phase as a real-like design benchmark to illustrate results. The purpose of this work is to describe the optimization techniques, their settings and how to implement them effectively in a multidisciplinary environment. Starting from a basic gradient method and a semi-random second order method, the authors have introduced an Artificial Bee Colony-like optimizer, a multi-objective Genetic Diversity Evolutionary Algorithm [1] and a multi-objective response surface approach based on Artificial Neural Network, parallelizing and customizing them for the gas turbine study. Moreover, speedup and improvement arrangements are embedded in different hybrid strategies with the aim at finding the best solutions for different kind of problems that arise in this field.


Photocatalysis by titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a water treatment method. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a microorganism resistant to chlorine and UV-C irradiation. TiO2 photocatalytic technology can destroy bacteria, which are resistant to oxidative destruction of cell membrane caused by sole UV irradiation. This study aims to investigate the total mineralization of the bacterium (P. aeruginosa) to the extent of death and cell-mass destruction using TiO2 photocatalytic oxidation process. In this work the effects of parameters such as amount of TiO2, irradiation time, initial concentration of bacterium, presence of ascorbic acid and effect of cell wall on removal of P. aeruginosa were studied. The data, which were obtained in this study, showed that the optimum concentration of TiO2 was 325 ppm. Also at the initial concentration of TiO2 equal to 325 ppm and initial microorganism MPN / 100 ml equal to 300 and after 75 min UV irradiation time, P. aeruginosa removal efficiency was 94.3 %. Removal efficiency of P. aeruginosa in the absence of TiO2 or UV irradiation was very low. Decreasing the concentration of microorganisms increased its removal efficiency. Removal efficiency of spheroplast cells was more than intact cells of P. aeruginosa, which shows the important role of cell wall on cell resistance against chemical agents. Ascorbic acid had inhibitory effect on this process.


We present a novel method for constructing Variational Autoencoder (VAE). Instead of using pixel-by-pixel loss, we enforce deep feature consistency between the input and the output of a VAE, which ensures the VAE's output to preserve the spatial correlation characteristics of the input, thus leading the output to have a more natural visual appearance and better perceptual quality. Based on recent deep learning works such as style transfer, we employ a pre-trained deep convolutional neural network (CNN) and use its hidden features to define a feature perceptual loss for VAE training. Evaluated on the CelebA face dataset, we show that our model produces better results than other methods in the literature. We also show that our method can produce latent vectors that can capture the semantic information of face expressions and can be used to achieve state-of-the-art performance in facial attribute prediction.


Cytotoxic evaluation using Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) was achieved by a novel series of (E)-1-(4-chlorobenzyl)-N'- benzylidene-5-bromo-1H-indole-2-carbohydrazide 6(a-j). Among the series, the compounds 6b, 6c, 6f, 6h and 6j were found to be active compared to other analogues. These compounds showed excellent dose dependent cytotoxicity on PBMCs, whereas, 6j showed reduction in activity. The in silico pharmacokinetic parameter study such as ADME and toxicity of the synthesized compounds were evaluated using ACD/Ilab and ADMETSAR@MDDM methods. The synthesized molecules 6a, 6b, 6c, 6f, and 6g are in acceptable range and less toxic in nature.


With advances in using the teachers' classroom as the foreground for teacher improvement, reflective and collaborative activities have been increasingly used in a variety of professional development contexts. It is widely held that reflective and collaborative activities are conducive to helping teachers to develop a positive attitude towards questioning their teaching for themselves and others as well as empowering them to have control over their professional development. It is in this view that I developed an intervention process to explore what happened, when teachers within one school were given an opportunity to engage in a planned series of critical dialogues relating to their own classroom teaching. The study also explored how the teachers use the Intervention Process to develop their thinking about their practices.

Using a case study approach, the IP that 'sit' in experimental research, action research which was more qualitative in nature was conducted in one school from, February 2007 to July 2007. Four mathematics teachers purposely and through theoretical sampling techniques were selected in a school considered to be a fair representative of basic schools in Ghana. The field research included interviews and reflective dialogue. Findings from the case study were presented and analyzed for their significance.

Key issues identified by the thesis include: the IP creating a conducive environment for reflective and collaborative practices, teachers developing rich and deep reflective dialogue, which provided them with opportunities to systematically and rigorously diagnosing their practices and socio-cultural influence in developing deeper discussions. In addition, the IP provided the participants' with detailed ways of reflection.

Based on the evidence from the data, I have argued, among others, that the IP promoted individualised and collaborative learning. The prevailing socio-cultural elements in the immediate environment supported a rich and deep professional dialogue as a tool for understanding and dealing with on-the-spot professional problems and supporting critical thinking that includes taking account of social, political and cultural issues as a process to analyze competing claims and viewpoints. Recommendations for policy recommendation and potential areas for further research were also made.


Eagle syndrome is a rare condition caused by elongation of the styloid process or calcification of the stylohyoid ligament. Patients with Eagle syndrome typically present with dysphagia, dysphonia, cough, voice changes, otalgia, sore throat, facial pain, foreign body sensation, headache, vertigo, and neck pain. Here we report a case in which the patient initially presented with sore throat, left-sided facial pain, and cough. This case report provides a brief review of the diagnosis and nonsurgical management of this rare syndrome.


Wild-type measles virus replicates better in immune cells and induces more durable antibody responses in macaques than the live-attenuated measles virus vaccine. Finding clues to life-long immunity Natural infection with wild-type (WT) measles virus (MeV) induces lifelong immunity, but immunity induced by infection with the live-attenuated measles strain used in the measles vaccine (LAMV) is less durable. To identify differences between WT MeV and LAMV, Lin et al. studied virus replication and immune responses in infected rhesus macaques. Both WT MeV and LAMV replicated well in respiratory epithelial cells. However, although WT MeV replicated well in lymphocytes and spread efficiently through the blood, LAMV did not. WT MeV induced more serum antiviral antibody and bone marrow antibody–secreting cells than did LAMV, suggesting that more efficient virus replication in lymphoid tissue led to a more vigorous immune response. Infection with wild-type (WT) measles virus (MeV) is an important cause of childhood mortality that leads to lifelong protective immunity in survivors. WT MeV and the live-attenuated MeV used in the measles vaccine (LAMV) are antigenically similar, but the determinants of attenuation are unknown, and protective immunity induced by LAMV is less robust than that induced by WT MeV. To identify factors that contribute to these differences, we compared virologic and immunologic responses after respiratory infection of rhesus macaques with WT MeV or LAMV. In infected macaques, WT MeV replicated efficiently in B and T lymphocytes with spreading throughout lymphoid tissues resulting in prolonged persistence of viral RNA. In contrast, LAMV replicated efficiently in the respiratory tract but displayed limited spread to lymphoid tissue or peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In vitro, WT MeV and LAMV replicated similarly in macaque primary respiratory epithelial cells and human lymphocytes, but LAMV-infected lymphocytes produced little virus. Plasma concentrations of interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-12, interferon-γ (IFN-γ), CCL2, CCL11, CXCL9, and CXCL11 increased in macaques after WT MeV but not LAMV infection. WT MeV infection induced more protective neutralizing, hemagglutinin-specific antibodies and bone marrow plasma cells than did LAMV infection, although numbers of MeV-specific IFN-γ– and IL-4–producing T cells were comparable. Therefore, MeV attenuation may involve altered viral replication in lymphoid tissue that limited spread and decreased the host antibody response, suggesting a link between lifelong protective immunity and the ability of WT MeV, but not LAMV, to spread in lymphocytes.


Ngg wa Thiong'o is one of the most important and celebrated authors of post-independence Africa as well as a ground breaking postcolonial theorist. His work, written first in English, then in Gky, engages with the transformations of his native Kenya after what is often termed the Mau Mau rebellion. It also gives voice to the struggles of all Africans against economic injustice and political oppression. His writing and activism continue despite imprisonment, the threat of assassination, and exile. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," provides resources and background for the teaching of Ngg's novels, plays, memoirs, and criticism. The essays of part 2, "Approaches," consider the influence of Frantz Fanon, Karl Marx, and Joseph Conrad on Ngg; the role of women in and influence of feminism on his fiction; his interpretation and political use of African history; his experimentation with orality and allegory in narrative; and the different challenges of teaching Ngg in classrooms in the United States, Europe, and Africa.


The failure of fisheries science to preserve life in the oceans is broadly recognized. Here, we argue that part of this failure is the result of the philosophical basis behind fisheries science. In the middle of the 20th century, synthesizing more than half a century of insights dealing with what they called the 'overfishing problem', British scholars gave birth to some of the first predictive fishery management tools. Although novel for their time, the main objective of the approach was to advise the fishing industry on how to maximize the exploitation of fish resources without jeopardizing the viability of fish populations. Half a century on from these first attempts, we need a wider historical perspective to understand species dynamics, both natural and anthropogenic. We are also aware that there are other benefits society obtains from the ocean than maximum sustainable catches and we need to understand the role of biodiversity in social welfare. Not only should fishing be regarded as an economic activity but also as a planetary-scale human experiment that requires experimental controls for a continuous evaluation of its performance and effects. Here, we present a philosophical approach to the problem, synthesizing material from the different disciplines that we consider should be addressed. A mix of insights may best help to deal with the 'overfishing problem.'


growth, dry matter accumulation and yield characters of maize planted under the same environmental conditions. The trial was conducted during the 2010 wet season at Bagauda the Kano University of Technology (KUST) temporary research farm (11° 39° N, 08° 20° E).The treatments consisted of three sowing dates (Beginning. of July, Middle, of July and End of July at 10 days intervals) and four varieties of maize ( Zea mays L.) that consist of Sammaz 17, Sammaz 18, Sammaz 20 and Hakorin Hajiya (H/H). The treatments were factorially combined and arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) and were replicated four times. However, sowing date and variety had significant (P≤ 0.05 or P≤ 0.01) effects on most of the considered characters like Plant height, Leaf area/plant, Number of leaves/plant, Fresh leaves weight, Fresh stem weight, Dry leaves and stem weights, Grain weight/plot, stover yield, number of ears/ha, ear weight, number of cobs and so on. It was observed that Sammaz 18 and Sammaz 20 out-performed the other varieties in terms of growth and yield characters. Sowing during the mid. of July proved significantly better than the other studied sowing dates for maize in the area. Key words: Growth, dry matter, Variety, Sowing date, Maize.


The "iterated prisoner's dilemma" is the most widely used model for the evolution of cooperation in biological societies. Here we show that a heterogeneous population consisting of simple strategies, whose behavior is totally specified by the outcome of the previous round, can lead to persistent periodic or highly irregular (chaotic) oscillations in the frequencies of the strategies and the overall level of cooperation. The levels of cooperation jump up and down in an apparently unpredictable fashion. Small recurrent and simultaneous invasion attempts (caused by mutation) can change the evolutionary dynamics from converging to an evolutionarily stable strategy to periodic oscillations and chaos. Evolution can be twisted away from defection, toward cooperation. Adding "generous tit-for-tat" greatly increases the overall level of cooperation and can lead to long periods of steady cooperation. Since May's paper [May, R. M. (1976) Nature (London) 261, 459-467], "simple mathematical models with very complicated dynamics" have been found in many biological applications, but here we provide an example of a biologically relevant evolutionary game whose dynamics display deterministic chaos. The simulations bear some resemblance to the irregular cycles displayed by the frequencies of host genotypes and specialized parasites in evolutionary "arms races" [Hamilton, W. D., Axelrod, R. & Tanese, R. (1990) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87, 3566-3573; Seger, J. (1988) Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London B 319, 541-555].


In this paper, a QR Code Identity Tag System designed for Turkish healthcare and served through the cloud is presented. The system designed is a distributed information management system as the medical data objects are geographically distributed over the system. The data objects are geographically distributed as they are placed on servers closest to the geographical location where they are most frequently required. This enables that the data is always available and the access is provided in minimum time. Additionally, to improve the performance the system employs Mobile Edge Computing technology in the form of cloudlets. The simulation results show that system performance improves as the number of cloudlets used increases and popularity threshold decreases.


We analyze the effects of the interactions that the two pillars of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy—market support and rural development—have on farmers' uptake of organic farming practices. Special attention is given to the 2003 reform, which substantially altered the relative importance of the two types of support by decoupling direct agricultural payments from the production of a specific crop. In our empirical analysis we study the case of Sweden, making use of the variation in the timing of farmers' decisions regarding participation in support programs. We estimate a dynamic non-linear unobserved effects probit model to account for unobserved individual heterogeneity and state dependence. Our results indicate the existence of a negative effect of the market support system in place when organic farming techniques were adopted before the 2003 reform. However, this effect is reversed by the introduction of decoupling. Furthermore, the effects of support differ between certified and non-certified organic production: both pillars have significant effects on non-certified organic farming, whereas certified organic farming is exclusively driven by agro-environmental subsidies.


Although adolescents around the world play video games, little is known about their longitudinal effects on adolescents from Eastern countries. This large longitudinal violent video game study has 4 strengths. First, it is the first longitudinal study conducted with Chinese adolescents. Second, it examines moral disengagement as a possible mediating variable. Because violent video games reward immoral behaviors (e.g., stealing cars, killing characters), they might lead players to believe immoral behaviors are "no big deal." These moral disengagement beliefs might "bleed over" from the virtual world to the real world after the game is turned off, by increasing subsequent aggression. Third, it tests the hypothesis that violent video game effects are stronger for early adolescents than for late adolescents, and for males than for females. Fourth, it separates between-person effects from within-person effects. The theoretical foundation for the study is Social Cognitive Theory, which proposes that 3 interacting components determine what events result in observational learning: (a) context (i.e., violent video game exposure), (b) personal cognition (i.e., moral disengagement), and (c) behavioral outcome (i.e., aggression). Participants in this 3-wave (each wave was 6 months apart) longitudinal study were 1,340 Chinese adolescents (45.1% boys) 12- to 19-years-old (M = 14.86, SD = 1.50). Moral disengagement was a significant mediator of the longitudinal relationship between violent game exposure and aggression in the cross-lagged panel and between-person analyses, but not in the within-person analysis. As expected, effects were stronger for early adolescents than for late adolescents, especially between persons. However, gender did not moderate the effects.


Innocence may be lost in the post-Cold War West, but the "imitation" of innocence is evident in the social and political landscape of the 1990s. Eminent sociologist David Reisman has argued that the current culture attempts to imitate a purity of action, motive, and spirit commonly associated with the 1950s: faith in government, optimism concerning the future, and a can-do social and political attitude. These essays by prominent scholars and former policy makers carry forward Reisman's assertions in exposing the pretense in supposedly moral-driven Western policy, especially as it pertains to the crisis in Bosnia. In his introduction to "The Conceit of Innocence," Stjepan Mestrovic shows how the theory of imitation--or conceit--flows out of Reisman's and his own previous works and acts as the theme that binds the essays of the contributing authors. Renowned anthropologist Akbar Ahmed discusses the existence of "ethnic cleansing" in the face of Western assertions that ethnic-based hatreds largely have been overcome. In his two essays, Richard Johnson shows the hypocrisy in the U.S. State Department's reaction to the genocide in Bosnia and demonstrates how the West--even as it pretends to expand NATO and enforce security and democratic principles--has begun to appease Russian expansionism as it had appeased Serbian aggression. Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer furthers this theme by exposing how the White House, the UN secretary-general, and a host of others pretend to follow resolutely the UN Charter while at the same time appeasing genocidal aggression. Keith Doubt reveals how the West attempts to "save face" and "give face" to Slobodan Milosevic, the man widely held to be responsible for starting the Bosnian War. Slaven Letica further unveils hypocrisy in examining the many international war criminals who have been lionized in the West. Brad Blitz finds Western universities to be dangerously duplicitous in their response to a moral crisis. Albert Wohlstetter removes the mask of Lincoln, placed on Boris Yeltsin by Western opinion makers, to reveal true Russian foreign policy motives. Chandler Rosenberger exposes the false innocence of Serbian mythology. And finally, Stephen W. Walker and Marshall Freeman Harris, the two former State Department officials who resigned their posts in protest over the Clinton administration's handling of Bosnia, dissect the U.S. peace plan, concluding that what pretends to be American moral leadership really follows in the wake of European appeasement. Interpreting the 1990s sociopolitical text crafted by spin and driven by hidden motive, these essays are at the vanguard of a cultural theory that is responding to the here and now. Sociologists, historians, and other interested in the Bosnian War and its global ramifications will find this book to be an invaluable contribution to a growing literature.


: An equation was derived: 1nC01 = 1nD1 - (a2/a1)1nD2 + (a2/a1) 1nC02 + 1/a1(b1-b2) which related the potency of a sample (C01) to the potency of a standard (C02) via the dilution factors (D1 & D2) that produced common clotting times for the sample and standard. This equation could not be used in practice since C01 and b1 were both unknown. Derivation of a usable formula for calculating sample potencies was found to require the assumption that b1 = b2. It was found that b is not always a constant in Factor VIII assays and may vary with the nature of the clotting assay mixtures.


The authors report two cases of hepatitis and a case of pancreatitis associated with indalpine. In one case of hepatitis, onset was acute and the clinical presentation was suggestive of cholecystitis; in the other case, hepatitis was discovered by biological tests. In the two cases, hepatitis was mainly cytolytic. Outcome was favorable upon interruption of drug administration. Onset of pancreatitis was inconspicuous, with progressively increasing pain. The pancreatic lesions were diffuse and massive. After interruption of administration, outcome was eventually favorable. Elevated amylasemia was also noted in the two cases of hepatitis. It is suggested that transaminase and amylase activities should be monitored during indalpine therapy.


Under a continuing program sponsored by the Air Force Avionics Laboratory, a variety of new phase-processing techniques have been developed at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory [1, 2, 3, 4]. Recently, special types of digital-phase-locked loops [3, 4] have been developed and appear to offer special advantages when applied to radio-navigation receivers and timing receivers. One of these loops, which is referred to as a serial digital phase filter (SDPF), appears to be so simple in construction and useful in application as to be worth producing as a basic LSI building block.

In this paper, the application of the SDPF to Omega receivers is explored. It is shown that the internal functions of an Omega receiver can be organized to take advantage of one or more SDPF's used in combination with an LSI microprocessor. The SDPF's can be used to reduce the load on the microprocessor by reducing the bandwidth of the phase data being presented to it. The SDPF's can also accomplish demodulation and analog-to-digital conversion, thereby eliminating the need for special circuitry to perform these functions. Because of the reduction in data bandwidth, there is an increase in efficiency and productivity of the microprocessor. The processing efficiency of the entire receiver is then more closely maximized with respect to hardware and software cost. The design approach is applicable to a bare-bones receiver, which would incorporate the most elementary and inexpensive microprocessor or no microprocessor at all, or to a high-performance airborne receiver where a variety of sophisticated functions must be performed automatically by the microprocessor.

The paper is divided into five main sections. First, the organization of the receiver is described and the advantages of the recommended approach are pointed out. Then the SDPF is described in detail. Then the hardware developed for laboratory demonstration is described. The tracking performance of the receiver is discussed next, and theoretical and experimental data are provided for illustration. Finally, procedures for automatic synchronization are described and supported by experimental data. Some important areas, such as lane identification, propagation prediction, antenna design, etc., are treated only lightly as being more relevant to specific designs than to the problem of reducing cost by improving the efficiency of phase processing.


The Reserve Bank of New Zealand sets monetary policy using the Official Cash Rate (OCR) as its policy tool to target price stability and maximum sustainable employment. However, the Reserve Bank's monetary policy stance is also set by its communication of what might happen to the OCR in the future. To set monetary policy appropriately, the Reserve Bank must assess overall financial conditions and their implications for inflation and employment. To do this, the Reserve Bank must take account of the range of interest rates at each borrowing horizon (i.e. the yield curve). This is because how household and firms view the outlook for interest rates can also have an effect on today's business activity, wage and price setting behaviour, and eventually inflation – it is not just the level of current interest rates that matters for economic activity and price setting. For example, a homeowner taking out a mortgage, or a firm taking out a loan, often borrow at longer terms and therefore consider current interest rates and the likely evolution of future interest rates when making decisions. The Reserve Bank uses a range of tools to assess financial conditions in New Zealand. In particular, the Reserve Bank attempts to gauge how stimulatory or contractionary monetary policy needs to be to stabilise the economy. One tool to help in a broad assessment of monetary conditions – how stimulatory interest rates are – is the effective monetary stimulus (EMS) measure. The EMS is a summary statistic that takes account of the (nominal) neutral interest rate and interest rate outlook. It provides a snapshot of the interest rates faced by businesses and households across the yield curve, and assesses whether these interest rates are stimulatory or contractionary for the economy. The EMS is, of course, just one summary of overall monetary/financial conditions. The Reserve Bank also takes account of other influences when assessing overall conditions. For example, exchange rates, credit spreads, and uncertainty indicators are all monitored as part of the Bank's policy assessment. It is that total assessment, rather than the EMS or yield curve alone, that is taken into account when considering the appropriate OCR setting to achieve the macroeconomic outcomes. In this Note, we show how the EMS is constructed for New Zealand. We also show that the EMS measure is a useful indicator of the stance of monetary conditions. Lastly, the EMS measure also fits with the Reserve Bank's narrative of the stance of monetary policy through history.


Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is widely used in device design to determine gas flow patterns and turbulence levels.  CFD is also used to simulate particles and droplets, which are subjected to various forces, turbulence and wall interactions. These studies can now be performed routinely because of the availability of commercial software containing high quality turbulence and particle models. In order to understand how the gas is brought down to wafer, it is necessary to have a knowledge of the gas flow behavior very early in the design spiral of the Tantalum nitride-Atomic layer deposition(TaN-ALD) chamber by undertaking parametric investigation of the interaction effect between gas flow and the funnel structure. This paper presents such a  parametric  investigation on a generic TaN-ALD chamber using CFD. The results presented have been analyzed for a total of 11 different cases by varying neck and nozzle angles for a process gas. The gas flow was mainly investigated for the nozzle angles of  4.5◦,  9◦,  12◦  and  20◦ and the film thickness results were compared with numerical flow patterns. CFD simulations using the turbulence model in ANSYS Fluent v.13 are undertaken. The parametric study has demonstrated that CFD is a powerful tool to study the problem of gas flow-structure interaction on funnel and is capable of providing a means of visualizing the path of the gas under different operating conditions


Northern European sea levels show a non-stationary link to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The location of the centers of the NAO dipole, however, can be affected through the interplay with the East Atlantic (EAP) and the Scandinavian (SCAN) teleconnection patterns. Our results indicate the importance of accounting for the binary combination of the NAO with the EAP/SCAN for better understanding the non-stationary drivers inducing sea level variations along the European coasts. By combining altimetry and tide gauges, we find that anomalously high monthly sea levels along the Norwegian (North Sea) coast are predominantly governed by same positive phase NAO+/EAP+ (NAO+/SCAN+) type of atmospheric circulation, while the Newlyn and Brest tide gauges respond markedly to the opposite phase NAO−/EAP+ combination. Despite these regional differences, we find that coherent European sea level changes project onto a pattern resembling NAO+/SCAN+, which is signified by pressure anomalies over Scandinavia and southern Europe forcing winds to trace the continental slope, resulting in a pile-up of water along the European coasts through Ekman transport. We conclude that taking into consideration the interaction between these atmospheric circulation regimes is valuable and may help to understand the time-varying relationship between the NAO and European mean sea level.


In this paper we first introduce the working context related to the understanding of an heterogeneous network of references contained in the Italian regulatory framework. We then present an extended analysis of a large network of laws, providing several types of analytical evaluation that can be used within a legal management system for understanding the data through summarization, visualization, and browsing. In the legal domain, yet several tasks are strictly supervised by humans, with strong consumption of time and energy that would dramatically drop with the help of automatic or semi-automatic supporting tools. We overview different techniques and methodologies explaining how they can be helpful in actual scenarios.


Fatherhood is a familial role that is historically bound, in the sense that it is subject to social, economic, and political influences that can change expectations for how fathers should act. In this essay, we discuss the cyclical nature of shifts in cultural prescriptions for North American fathers and echo arguments raised elsewhere that fatherhood is currently in the midst of such a shift, away from the authoritarian, emotionally detached father and toward the involved, nurturant father. We reason herein that such a shift should manifest itself in observable differences between the qualities of men's relationships with their fathers and the qualities of their relationships with their own sons. A study involving 139 father‐son dyads revealed that men felt closer to, were more satisfied with, and expressed more verbal, nonverbal, and supportive affection with, their sons than with their own fathers. These findings emerged from both fathers' and sons' reports. Moreover, fathers reported feeling greater closeness and expressing more affection to their sons than their sons felt or expressed to them.


Collaborative product development (CPD) processes are generally based on technological infrastructures. Various information technologies (IT) are proposed every day to facilitate collaboration, integration, co-design and co-development processes. In this highly uncertain environment, a systematic methodology is essential to plan the IT infrastructure needed to start and maintain a collaborative process. This study offers an integrated IT planning methodology combining fuzzy quality function deployment, fuzzy axiomatic design and fuzzy rule-based systems. The methodology is tested in a CPD case and the outcome presents an improvement path for IT for each of the collaborative parties.


This study examines the dynamic linkages between crude petroleum imports and GDP of Turkey. The vector autoregression analysis is carried on quarterly data for the period 1998Q1 to 2013Q2. This study utilized the generalized approach to forecast error variance decomposition and impulse response analysis which have many advantages against the traditional orthogonalized approach. The empirical results suggest that petroleum imports have positive impact on GDP until the second quarter. But, after the second quarter crude petroleum imports have negative impact on GDP. The results of the Granger causality test showed that crude petroleum imports granger caused GDP at 5% significance level, but not vice versa. Moreover, the generalized variance decomposition analysis exerted that the imports of crude petroleum shocks have only a small effect on GDP initially. However, after eighth quarters, the imports of crude petroleum shocks explain 31.7 pct. of the GDP, whereas 26.46 pct. of the variation in imports of crude petroleum shocks is explained by GDP shocks.


Abstract 1381 T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) remains a therapeutic challenge. T-ALLs are characterized by recurring chromosomal rearrangements causing aberrant expression of transcription factors (Myb; TAL/SCL; HOX) dividing patients into different subgroups. Activating mutations in NOTCH, the master regulator of T-cell development, are found in more than 60% of T-ALLs independently of subtype. Most T-ALLs display a hyperactivation of the PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway, a potential target for therapeutic intervention. The master regulator of PI3K-AKT signalling is PTEN, which is frequently inactivated in cancer. Recent data suggests that complete PTEN loss due to mutation is rare in primary human T-ALL, whereas PTEN-inhibiting posttranslational modifications are more common (Barata et al., J. Clin. Invest. 2008, 118). As these modifications decrease, but do not abolish the phosphatase activity of PTEN, we hypothesized that further input from tyrosine kinases, particularly receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK), may be needed to sustain PI3K-AKT-mTOR activation. In order to investigate how RTK-signaling may contribute to the pathogenesis of T-ALL we used an established murine bone marrow transplantation model (Li et al. Blood 2009, 113). To mimic tyrosine-kinase signaling we expressed δTrkA, a constitutively active TRKA receptor tyrosine kinase (TRK =tropomyosin-related kinase) from gammaretroviral or lentiviral vectors in c-kit + Sca-1 + Lin − (KSL) cells. Intravenous injection of δTrkA-transduced hematopoietic cells in C57BL6 mice (n=10) induced transplantable T-ALL with a latency of about 120 days. The resulting T-ALLs could be propagated in culture as clonal cell lines. Signaling studies showed that δTRKA activates predominantly ERK upon expression in murine hematopoietic cell lines. However, the obtained δTRKA + T-ALL lines (n=7) showed a profound shift in the use of downstream signaling cascades, displaying a very high activation of AKT-mTOR and absent ERK phosphorylation, resembling human T-ALL. High AKT activation was uniformly detected regardless of PTEN protein expression in all but one T-ALL (#003). To understand the rewired signaling network we looked for a potential contribution of insertional mutagenesis and chromosomal aberrations. Array-CGH showed homozygous deletions on chr14c2 involving the T-cell receptor alpha and delta genes in 3/3 cell lines and heterozygous deletions in Ikzf1 in 2/3 cell lines. Viral integration sites showed no common insertion pattern and no insertion in genes implicated in RTK-signaling. The expression of genes in proximity to viral integrations (±500 kb) appeared unaltered as determined by cDNA-microarray analysis of the T-ALL cell line #483 against wild type CD4 + CD8 + thymocytes. Microarray analysis revealed enrichment of Notch1 target genes in the T-ALL cell line #483. Sequencing of Notch1 revealed both, PEST domain mutations and the recently described (Aster et al, Blood 2010, 116) RAG mediated 59-deletions in cis , in all but one investigated T-ALL. Northern and Western Blots confirmed the expression of truncated Notch1 transcripts and protein, respectively. The one cell line (#003) which retained the original δTrkA signaling pattern had no Notch mutation and could only be cultured on OP9-Delta-like-1 stroma cells, highlighting the importance of Notch signaling. As this cell line was established from a mouse displaying an enlarged thymus, but no full manifestation of T-ALL, our data suggests that acquisition of Notch mutations is a late, but necessary step required for overt leukemia, whereas the initiating events may arise in kinase signaling pathways of prethymic progenitors. All T-ALL cell lines were sensitive to mTOR or Notch inhibition with Rapamycin or Compound E, respectively. Finally, we used phosphoprotein-arrays to monitor the phosphorylation of 42 RTK in childhood T-ALL samples with different activating NOTCH mutations (n=5) and detected several activated RTK (e.g. MSPR, FGFR, ErbB4, VEGFR) in the patient samples. Taken together, our findings suggest a cooperation of RTK and activating NOTCH mutations in mTOR activation seen in T-ALL and encourage further investigation of 1) aberrant RTK-signaling in T-ALL 2) the role of RTK activation in creating a preleukemic cell clone, 3) evaluation of combined therapy targeting RTKs and NOTCH, and 4) the role of activated NOTCH on mTORC2-AKT activation independently of PTEN. Disclosures: Baum: Patent office: Patents & Royalties.


Orthodontic force application leads to periodontal ligament tissue injury and the initiation of acute inflammatory processes. Therefore, it is recommended that light force should be used during orthodontic treatment to minimise tissue damage and subsequent pain and discomfort. The present study was aimed to assess the pain perception between two types of nickel-titanium wires. To investigate and compare the effects of Bio-kinetics plus nickel–titanium and conventional nickel-titanium archwires on pain during the initial hours of the initial phase of orthodontic treatment. To compare and evaluate the pain perception using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) between 0.016 Conventional NiTi (Group 1) and Bio-Kinetix Plus NiTi (Group 2) at regular intervals of 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours each consisting of a sample size of 7. A total of 14 subjects participated in the study, each group consisting of 7 subjects. The mean pain perception score was 1.71±0.48 and 1.71±0.48 at 0 hours, 2.42±0.97 and 2.71±0.48 at 24 hours, 3.42±0.97 and 2.85±0.69 at 48 hours, 3.85±0.69 and 2.57±0.53 at 72 hours, for Group 1 and Group 2 respectively. There is no significant difference between the two groups, but there is a significant difference (p=0.001) in group 2, by 72 hours, indicating there is a decrease in pain perception. For overall pain, there was no statistically significant difference between the two wires. However, subjects with bio-kinetix plus nickel–titanium archwires had a significantly lower pain at peak level.


The dual specific kinase SAPK/ERK1 kinase (SEK1; mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 4/Jun NH2 terminal kinase [ JNK] kinase) is a direct activator of stress-activated protein kinases ([SAPKs]/JNKs) in response to CD28 costimulation, CD40 signaling, or activation of the germinal center kinase. Here we show that SEK1−/− recombination-activating gene (RAG)2−/− chimeric mice have a partial block in B cell maturation. However, peripheral B cells displayed normal responses to IL-4, IgM, and CD40 cross-linking. SEK1−/− peripheral T cells showed decreased proliferation and IL-2 production after CD28 costimulation and PMA/Ca2+ ionophore activation. Although CD28 expression was absolutely crucial to generate vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-specific germinal centers, SEK1−/−RAG2−/− chimeras mounted a protective antiviral B cell response, exhibited normal IgG class switching, and made germinal centers in response to VSV. Interestingly, PMA/Ca2+ ionophore stimulation, which mimics TCR–CD3 and CD28-mediated signal transduction, induced SAPK/JNK activation in peripheral T cells, but not in thymocytes, from SEK1−/− mice. These results show that signaling pathways for SAPK activation are developmentally regulated in T cells. Although SEK1−/− thymocytes failed to induce SAPK/JNK in response to PMA/Ca2+ ionophore, SEK1−/−RAG2−/− thymocytes proliferated and made IL-2 after PMA/Ca2+ ionophore and CD3/CD28 stimulation, albeit at significantly lower levels compared to SEK1+/+RAG2−/− thymocytes, implying that CD28 costimulation and PMA/Ca2+ ionophore–triggered signaling pathways exist that can mediate proliferation and IL-2 production independently of SAPK activation. Our data provide the first genetic evidence that SEK1 is an important effector molecule that relays CD28 signaling to IL-2 production and T cell proliferation.


The Kenyan market is an interesting research setting because, despite being a developing economy, gains are still expected from cross listing with its relatively 'poor' neighboring economies (Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) (Dediti, 2008). Currently, Kenya Commercial Bank. Kenya Airways, Jubilee Insurance and East Africa Breweries are also listed at the Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda stock markets. Equity bank is also listed in Kenya and Uganda. Besides making shares of the companies accessible across the region, the regional listings have been mainly driven by market considerations. Yet, studies on Kenyan firms' cross listing activity are relatively scarce even though Kenya is the giant economy in the East African Region. The population of the study consisted of the five (5) companies that are cross listed. These five companies are: East African Breweries Ltd (EABL), Kenya Airways (KQ), Kenya Commercial Bank. Jubilee Insurance and Equity Bank. The study tracked its financial performance two years before and three years after cross listing. The data has been analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics being .Ratios have been mainly used to determine their performances before and after cross listing. Such Key performance indicators included Liquidity ratios, leverage ratios asset ratios, turnover ratios moan others. Inferential statistics included test of significance of the null hypothesis.


Flipped learning in higher education is becoming increasingly widespread. Although the number of fl ipped learning articles has increased since 2011, systematic reviews of fl ipped learning have been criticized for lacking a theoretical framework. The aim in this article is to explore the link between fl ipped learning and active learning: speci fi cally, which theoretical frameworks are described. A scoping review was adopted as the research methodology. The selected studies indicate that this link between fl ipped learning and active learning is rarely explicitly addressed or operationalized. Approximately 65% of the 435 full-text articles retrieved do not explicitly connect their research to theory or a conceptual framework. The remaining 155 studies included for analysis refer to a mix of pedagogical terms or approaches. The theoretical and conceptual underpinnings are generally only vaguely described, with a few exceptions. The results indicate an eclecticism and a reluctance to connect fl ipped learning with a speci fi c conceptual framework.


Background: Brain cholesterol levels are tightly regulated but increasing evidence indicates that cholesterol metabolism may drive Alzheimer's disease (AD)-associated pathological changes. Recent advances in understanding of mitochondrial dysfunction in AD brain have presented a vital role played by mitochondria in oxysterol biosynthesis and their involvement in pathophysiology. Oxysterol accumulation in brain is controlled by various enzymatic pathways including sulfation. While research into oxysterol is under the areas of active investigation, there is less evidence for oxysterol sulfate levels in human brain. Objective: This study investigates the hypothesis that AD brain oxysterol detoxification via sulfation is impaired in later stages of disease resulting in oxysterol accumulation. Methods: Lipids were extracted from postmortem frozen brain tissue and cerebrospinal (CSF) from late- (Braak stage III-IV) and early- (Braak stage I-II) stage AD patients. Samples were spiked with internal standards prior to lipid extraction. Oxysterols were enriched with a two-step solid phase extraction using a polymeric SPE column and further separation was achieved by LC-MS/MS. Results: Oxysterols, 26-hydroxycholesterol (26-OHC), 25-hydroxycholesterol (25-OHC), and 7-oxycholesterol levels were higher in brain tissue and mitochondria extracted from late-stage AD brain tissue except for 24S-hydroxycholesterol, which was decreased in late AD. However, oxysterol sulfates are significantly lower in the AD frontal cortex. Oxysterols, 25-OHC, and 7-oxocholesterol was higher is CSF but 26-OHC and oxysterol sulfate levels were not changed. Conclusion: Our results show oxysterol metabolism is altered in AD brain mitochondria, favoring synthesis of 26-OHC, 25-OHC, and 7-oxocholesterol, and this may influence brain mitochondrial function and acceleration of the disease.


We demonstrate real-time depth profiling of ultrafast micromachining of stainless steel at scan rates of 46 kHz. The broad bandwidth and high power of the light source allows for simultaneous machining and coaxial Fourier-domain interferometric imaging of the ablation surface with depth resolutions of 6 mum. Since the same light is used to machine as to probe, spatial and temporal synchronization are automatic.


The important genus Agathis is well represented in the rich flora of the island of Borneo. In some places it forms nearly pure stands and has been heavily exploited for its resin and for lumber. Three species, one of which merely represents leaf variations from another, have been proposed previously for this genus in Borneo (Warburg, 1900; Meijer Drees, 1940). Several hundred collection numbers can be found in the major herbaria, much the majority of which belong to one species. This is particularly true for the non-Asian herbaria. During several field trips to Borneo, however, I identified three additional quite distinct unnamed species. The great variability of leaf size and shape even on individual plants in this genus together with difficulty in making good representative collections from these immense trees has surely hindered the recognition of the distinctions to be described here. None of these species has been totally overlooked, to be sure, inasmuch as a few specimens of each have previously reached the major herbaria. Furthermore, Whitmore (1979) concluded after seeing some of this material that it did not correspond to any of the species already described from Borneo but in fact represented Agathis dammara, a species not actually found in Borneo. I will describe all five Borneo species in order to clarify their distinctions. Only fully mature pollen cones and seed cone scales will be considered in this description along with as much as possible the normal foliage leaves as opposed to the poorly developed leaves of primary branches and seed cone bearing shoots.


How a constitution deals with its foundational paradox – this issue is not restricted to the state constitution alone, but is also and pertinently applicable to the constitutions of other social systems. The starting point is Niklas Luhmann's argument, that the law, with the aid of the state constitution, externalises its original paradox towards politics, while politics externalises its own towards the law. Over and above this, the question will be raised about whether – and if so, how – the law also purses a comparable deparadoxisation vis-a-vis other social subsystems. Meanwhile, the same question is asked, but now in the opposite direction, about whether other social systems also behave like politics, externalising their paradoxes towards the law with the aid of a constitution, or whether they employ alternative deparadoxisations. Both of these lead to the concluding question, regarding which subsequent problems are generated by those externalisations. The differences between various approaches to deparadoxisation may possibly clarify four questions, so: why is judge-made law developing new prominence transnationally? Under what conditions will a particular kind of natural law make headway again against positivism even today? How is it that protest movements are shifting the sights of their protests? And for what reasons do social subsystems constitutionalise not in accordance with a standard pattern, but with clear differences of intensity?


Wear of hip implants is a significant problem for the life expectancy of artificial joints. By using alumina ceramic on ceramic couplings the wear can be decreased. But for further improvement of the safety of THR the aim is the development of new ceramic materials. For orthopaedic applications an Alumina Toughened Zirconia Ceramic ATZ (80% ZrO2-20%Al2O3) and a Zirconia Toughened Alumina ZTA (25% ZrO2-75%Al2O3) were tested regarding their tribological behaviour by means of hip simulator testing after hydrothermal treatment. The absolute wear amount for the aged samples after 5 million cycles is slightly increased on a very low level, but even less wear than for common alumina pairings. In consideration of these excellent results both dispersion ceramics are highly suitable for long term applications.


In search a hydrogen source, we synthesized TiO2-Cu-graphene composite photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution. The catalyst is a new and unique material as it consists of copper-decorated TiO2 particles covered tightly in graphene and obtained in a fluidized bed reactor. Both, reduction of copper from Cu(CH3COO) at the surface of TiO2 particles and covering of TiO2-Cu in graphene thin layer by Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) were performed subsequently in the flow reactor by manipulating the gas composition. Obtained photocatalysts were tested in regard to hydrogen generation from photo-induced water conversion with methanol as sacrificial agent. The hydrogen generation rate for the most active sample reached 2296.27 µmol H2 h−1 gcat−1. Combining experimental and computational approaches enabled to define the optimum combination of the synthesis parameters resulting in the highest photocatalytic activity for water splitting for green hydrogen production. The results indicate that the major factor affecting hydrogen production is temperature of the TiO2-Cu-graphene composite synthesis which in turn is inversely correlated to photoactivity.


By the impact of coal mining, coal floor will produce distortion and damage, and make the damage zone which may result in water inrush from the floor of coal seam. CT technology with DC electricity is used to analyze two-dimensional point source current field by employing the forward calculation, inverse iteration, model correction and other methods. On the basis, inverted resistivity image of the detecting zone is obtained, which can help to determine damage law and damage depth of coal seam floor. And then the possibility of water inrush from the coal floor is analyzed. Industry practice shows that the research results are credible and can play an important guiding role in the controlling of water inrush.


The development of compact size reconfigurable harmonic suppressed antenna is crucial in
today's wireless communication system. One set of Harmonic Suppressed Antenna (HSA) and its
reconfigurable configuration in the form of fractal dipole antenna that is integrated with the stubs and
tapered balun has been designed and tested in this study. The Koch dipoles are double-sided structure
while the tapered balun is triangular. Initial design is based on a 0.9GHz linear half-wavelength
dipole. The Koch dipole antenna has equal arm lengths of 128mm. These are fabricated on a lossy
FR-4 material. Printed fractal dipole antenna is designed to operate at 670MHz. This shows that the
linear dipole can be miniaturized by employing Koch curve fractals onto the radiating structure.
Fifteen bands reconfigurable antenna were designed to operate within 400MHz to 3.5GHz. However,
as the frequency of operation is a low microwave band, the antenna physical size is relatively large.
Tapered balun thus significantly enlarged the antenna size. In addition, the far field radiation pattern
resembles that of a linear dipole. The overall antenna is found to be large and has moderate gain and
efficiency. Nevertheless, it can potentially have higher gain and higher efficiency with the use of a
low loss Rogers RT/Duroid material. Thus, the study on the reduction of the tapered balun size is
worthwhile. Four sets of wideband tapered baluns with reduced sizes have been designed and tested
as a matching circuitry in all the designed antennas. All baluns are found to perform well in terms of
scattering parameters and power loss, despite having sizes of 25%, 50% and 75% smaller compared
to the original structure. On the other hand, the feeding line method is also investigated. The first
design takes into account of 38� input impedance of the fractal curve while the second design is a
direct connection from the 50� SMA connector to terminal. The latter is then selected as it
successfully eliminated the antenna's higher order modes, while the former is suitable for designing
an optimum typical dipole antenna. Both antenna and balun are fabricated on Rogers 4530B. Four
sets of HSA with reduced size have been designed and tested in this study. All sets were based on the
0.9GHz linear half-wavelength dipole and have equal arm lengths of 132mm. These are named as
MFDB, MFDB75, MFDB50 and MFDB25. The antennas operate at 691MHz with low return loss
and successfully suppressed their two harmonic frequencies. The MFDB25 antenna is found to
exhibit similar performance in terms of the S-parameters and gain. It is also a compact antenna
compared to the corresponding proposed HSA structure while the antenna achieved size reduction
close to 19.7%, 31.4% and 43.4%. Hence, four sets of harmonic suppressed reconfigurable antennas
named TMFDB, TMDB75, TMFDB50 and TMFDB25 have been designed and simulated. The total
numbers of switches are 56, 54, 54, and 50 units respectively. TMFDB25 antenna is then fabricated
and tested. It is found that the antenna has successfully configured 15 frequency bands and
simultaneously suppressed higher order modes. The first prototype of an active TMFDB25 antenna is
fabricated to enhance the performance. The suitability of this antenna for space–limited application
of future communication system such as cognitive radio has been demonstrated. . The developed
antenna can reduce the size of the front-end RF unit, reduce EMI interference and provide another
additional characteristic for reconfigurable antenna. Hence the aim of this project has been achieved.


This article discusses the ways in which the relationship between Britons and the Arctic has been positioned in recent political discussions. It is argued that both UK and Scottish politicians have used changes in the Arctic environment to argue for shifts in policy direction involving a reconfigured northern imagination. Within the Atlanticist wing of the British Conservative Party, the perceived need for the relationship between Britain and northern Europe to be reinforced, through the use of bilateral and multilateral partnerships, has been used as part of a wider strategy to revisit the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. For many subscribed to this section of British political thinking, the ultimate aim is withdrawal from the European Union. It is current UK Government policy that a referendum on British withdrawal from the European Union will be held before 2017. At the same time, a perceived lack of engagement by the UK with Arctic issues has been mobilized by Scottish nationalists in the debates that are preceding their independence referendum scheduled for September 2014. Moreover, this is complicated by the apparent desire of the Northern Isles, formerly dependencies of the Danish-Norwegian crown, to remain within the UK, regardless of the political future of the rest of Scotland. As such, northern visions about the Subarctic are being folded in complex ways into the domestic politics of the UK. This has implications for the constitution of arguments about the politics of the High North.


Vitamin B12 is a widely used compound in the feed and food, healthcare and medical industries that can only be produced by fermentation because of the complexity of its chemical synthesis. For this reason, finding better producer strains and optimizing their bioprocesses have been the main focus of industrial producers over the last few decades. In this review, we initially provide a historical overview of vitamin B12 research and the main biosynthetic characteristics of the two microorganism families typically used for its industrial production: several strains of Propionibacterium freudenreichii and strains related to Pseudomonas denitrificans. Later, a complete summary of the current state of vitamin B12 industrial production as well as the main advances and challenges for improving it is detailed, with a special focus on bioprocess optimization, which aims not only to increase production but also sustainability. In addition, a comprehensive list of the most important and relevant patents for the present industrial strains is provided. Finally, the potential applications of vitamin B12 in different markets are discussed.


Purpose: This study examined spontaneous, spoken-to-a-model, and two sung modes in speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD), speakers with cerebellar disease (CD), and healthy controls. Vocal performance was measured by intelligibility scores and listeners' perceptual ratings. Method: Participants included speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria secondary to PD, those with ataxic dysarthria secondary to CD, and healthy speakers. Participants produced utterances in four vocal modes: spontaneous speech, spoken-to-a-model, sung-to-a-model, and spontaneous singing. For spoken-to-a-model and sung-to-a-model modes, written material was provided the model. For spontaneous singing, participants sang songs that they endorsed as familiar. Dependent variables: In Experiment I, listeners orthographically transcribed the audio samples of the first three vocal modes. In Experiment IIa, raters evaluated the accuracy of the pitch and rhythm of the spontaneous singing of familiar songs. Finally, familiar songs and sung-to-a-model utterances were rated on a competency scale by a second group of raters (Experiment IIb). Results: Results showed increases in intelligibility during the spoken-to-a-model mode compared with the spontaneous mode in both PD and CD groups. Singing enhanced the vocal output of speakers with PD more than in speakers with CD, as measured by percent intelligibility. PD participants' pitch and rhythm accuracy and competency in singing familiar songs was rated more favorably than those produced by CD participants. Conclusions: The findings reveal a vocal task effect for spoken utterances in both groups. Sung exemplars, more impaired in CD, suggest a significant involvement of the cerebellum in singing. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21809544


p = 0.078) and DT also significantly higher in SS ( 1.41°C vs. 0.97°C, p = 0.011). Initial CST decrease during the first 2s after eye opening was slightly faster in SS ( 0.37 0.31°C/s vs. 0.26 0.2°C/ s, p = 0.22). Pearson analysis showed that Tmax (R = 0.36, p = 0.04) and Tmin (R = 0.46, p = 0.01) decreased with age at a rate of 0.02°C/year. Conclusions: The warmer corneal surface temperature in SS patients suggests a certain degree of anterior segment inflammation. Together with increased osmolarity, the greater temperature reduction between blinks found in SS may increase corneal cold thermoreceptor nerve activity, inducing dryness and discomfort sensations in these patients. (Support: SAF2017-83674-C2-1-R, MINECO-ERDF).


In a wireless system, dual-hop transmission requires Full-Duplex (FD) to transmit signals from the base station too far users. It is more beneficial if we deploy non-orthogonal multiple access to serve specific users, i.e. normal users (near and far users) and device-to-device users. The fairness and outage performance of these users can be studied. We particularly focus on mathematical analysis of outage performance which is computed based on Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of received signals at each kind of user. We derive a closed-form formula of such outage probability along with throughput. To realize both the FD NOMA, this paper performs system performance metrics and considers how self-interference make influences system performance. The simulation results validate the theoretical analysis and show that our scheme can obtain a better outage probability and throughput performance with high transmit SNR at the base station and lower required target rates.


The purpose of this article is to explain the determinants behind the decline of labour share in the last three to four decades in OECD countries. In our view, this decline was determined by financialisation and was deepened by the structural changes that occurred almost simultaneously in those economies. Financialisation, or finance-dominated capitalism, from the 1980s onwards, was a key element in the strategic offensive of the advanced countries' dominant classes to appropriate higher shares of national income and to restore their control over the political process, a control that had been threatened by a generalised advancement of the labour movement in the 1970s. The development of a finance-dominated capitalism was helped by the process of globalisation, which affected not only OECD countries but also many others. A new, though unstable, macroeconomic model emerged, which we will call financial capitalism. In financial capitalism, trade unions lost power vis-à-vis capital, labour flexibility increased enormously, and a structural change from manufacturing to services was accelerated in rich countries. This resulted in negative consequences for labour share and income inequality. After having provided a theoretical discussion of the determinants of the compression of the wage share, making reference to the relevant literature, we submit our hypotheses to empirical scrutiny, performing a panel data analysis on 28 OECD Countries. The results of the estimations provide support to the theoretical argument.


This study aims to identify the factors influencing commercial banks customers intention toward electronic payment services in Jordan (AL-Karak) province. To achieve the aim of the study, a questionnaire has been developed to explore the effect of the independent variables (relative advantages, simplicity, security, consciousness and self efficacy) on the dependent variable (banks customers intention toward E-payment services). Six hundred questioners had distributed and 543 were returned to be valid for the final analysis with response rate of 90.5%. SPSS v 18 was used to test the reliability and composite reliability, normal distribution and correlation between the study variables. Also, Amos v 8 software has been used to examine the study hypotheses. Results of this study indicates an acceptance to four hypotheses related to influence of security, self efficacy, consciousness and simplicity continually. We reject one hypotheses related to relative advantages on banks customers toward E-payment services adoption. Finally, set of recommendations had been present throughout the study.


The monarch butterfly uses a time-compensated clock in its antennae to calculate seasonal migration routes relative to the Sun's position. There are few more awesome sights in the animal world than the seasonal mass migrations of the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, from the northern United States and southern Canada to its overwintering grounds in central Mexico (1). As with other insect orientations, the monarch uses the position of the Sun to calculate where it should be going. However, as the Sun moves across the sky during the day, the monarch must continuously adjust its calculations, which it does by using its 24-hour circadian clock. So where is this time-compensated clock located? On page 1700 of this issue, Merlin et al. reveal that it's in the antennae (2).


Volume rendering is a widespread method for displaying graphical models in fields such as medical visualization or engineering. The required image information is stored in a volume dataset, which is a threedimensional array of voxel intensities. Sometimes it is necessary to transform a given volume dataset by geometric transformations like rotation, scaling or translation. In this process, a new volume dataset containing the transformed volume is generated. Straightforward algorithms with an emphasis on minimizing the resampling error are the standard approach to computing such transformations. In this paper we present a new algorithm, which is significantly faster than these. Since it is based on a simple interpolation scheme, it is useful for generating fast previews. Depending on their size and voxel bit depth, it can even provide realtime transformation of volumes.