Scottish letters and court-records from the late 16th and early 17th centuries give access to a rich variety of conflicts, ranging from international disputes to everyday spats. This thesis investigates verbal offences reported by correspondents or recorded as legal evidence. Current models of (im)politeness (Culpeper, 2011a, Spencer-Oatey, e.g. 2005), which have rarely been tested on historical data, are synthesized with insights from historical pragmatics. The aims are to create qualitative reconstructions of how participants communicated their period- and situation-specific understandings of verbal offences, and how their expressed perceptions were shaped by private and public dimensions of different contexts. This thesis thus addresses three comparatively understudied aspects of (im)politeness research: historical impoliteness, Scottish (im)politeness, and the examination of private-public aspects of social interactions. Regarding the third point, a multi-dimensional framework is developed for systematic descriptions of private-public dimensions of conflict-situations, remodelling an existing pragmatic approach to news discourse (Landert and Jucker, 2011). Letters are drawn from the Breadalbane Collection, 1548-1583 (Dawson, 2004/2007) and James VI's correspondence. Court-records are selected from editions of Justice Court papers and Kirk Session minutes.

Case studies reveal that the vocabulary and discursive structure of conflict-narratives in letters is largely distinct from reported offences in court-records. Differences are presumably influenced by the genres' contrasting contextual functions of more private versus more public conflict-settlement. However, the language of conflict-letters and court-records also shows shared moral and religious dimensions. Furthermore, verbal offences in the investigated letters and lawsuits refer primarily to collective identity-aspects of group-membership and social roles, while purely individual qualities appear to have been marginal. The perceived gravity of offence could be intensified by participants' notions of private and public in multiple ways. Concerning comparisons within genres, the Scottish king's epistolary language in conflicts shows similarities to that of Scottish upper-rank correspondents; nevertheless, it also has some distinct features reflecting James VI's understanding of his royal status. Criminal and ecclesiastical court-records had largely different, yet semantically related, inventories of verbal offence terms.


Optical Wireless (OW) technologies deploying narrow multiwavelength light beams offer a promising alternative to traditional wireless indoor communications as they provide higher bandwidths and overcome the radio spectrum congestion typical of the 2.4 and 5GHz frequency bands. However, unlocking their full potential requires exploring novel control and management techniques. Specifically, there is a need for efficient and intelligent resource management and localization techniques that allot wavelengths and capacity to devices. In this paper we present a resource allocation model for one such indoor optical wireless approach, a Beam-steered Reconfigurable Optical-Wireless System for Energy-efficient communication (BROWSE). BROWSE aims to supply each user within a room with its own downstream infrared light beam with at least 10Gbps throughput, while providing a 60GHz radio channel upstream. Using Integer Linear Programming (ILP) techniques, we have designed and implemented a resource allocation model for the BROWSE OW downstream connection. The designed model optimises the trade-off between energy-consumption and throughput, while providing TDM capabilities to effectively serve densely deployed devices with a limited number of simultaneous available wavelengths. Through several test-scenarios we have assessed the model's performance, as well as its applicability to future ultra-high bandwidth video streaming applications.


Drawing on a new materialist approach, this article discusses the concepts of the virtual and virtual topology, and their fruitfulness for historians' empirical work. It starts by following Gilles Deleuze's argument that the virtual, the transformative potential of the real, has to be distinguished from the possible, which is merely an imagined double of the given world. Embracing this premise, the article shows the potential of virtual topology to shed light on the transformation of a network in the past. It suggests that history is not only about actual and stable things, it is also a site of becomings. This idea is elaborated through an analysis that focuses on the changes in the nineteenth-century Finnish press. The virtual as a theoretical concept is combined with the methodological opportunities offered by recent developments in the digital humanities, in this case, text reuse detection.


In computing, especially in digital signal processing, multiply-accumulate is a common operation that computes the product of two numbers and adds that product to an accumulator. The VERILOG code for MAC operation is simulated and synthesized in Vendors tool like XILINX ISE and ALTERA QUARTUS II with different devices. Once the coding is error free the schematic for MAC unit will be generated and the bit stream to used to download is used as reference to get the approximately the same circuit by the application of extrinsic EHW using evolutionary algorithlm. This schematic obtained by EHW is realized as ASIC using Microwind to get the layout determining the area and power requirement. Depending on the different reports obtained, the optimized device which requires minimum area and less power consumption is identified.This can be applied to any devices like FPGA or CPLD of any vendor. Evolvable hardware (EHW) has attracted increasing attention since the early 1990's with the advent of easily reconfigurable hardware, such as field programmable gate arrays(FPGA's). It promises to provide an entirely new approach to complex electronic circuit design and new adaptive hardware. EHW has been demonstrated to be able to perform a wide range of tasks from pattern recognition to adaptive control. However, there are still many fundamental issues in EHW that remain open.In this paper it was more concentrated on the ASIC part rather than EHW because EXTINSIC EHW was used.


OF THE DISSERTATION Bayesian and Non-parametric Approaches to Missing Data Analysis by Yao Yu Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Applied Statistics University of California, Riverside, September 2012 Dr. Jun Li, Co-Chairperson Dr. Yaming Yu, Co-Chairperson Missing data occur frequently in surveys, clinical trials as well as other real data studies. In the analysis of incomplete data, one needs to correctly identify the missing mechanism and then adopt appropriate statistical procedures. Recently, the analysis of missing data has gained more and more attention. People start to investigate the missing data analysis in several different areas. This dissertation concerns two projects. First, we propose a Bayesian solution to data analysis with non-ignorable missingness. The other one is the non-parametric test of missing mechanism for incomplete multivariate data. First, Bayesian methods are proposed to detect non-ignorable missing and eliminate potential bias in estimators when non-ignorable missing presents. Two hierarchical linear models, pattern mixture model and selection model, are applied to a real data example: the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) education survey data. The results show that the Bayesian methods can correctly recognize the missingness mechanism and provide model-based estimators which can eliminate the possible bias due to non-ignorable missing. We also evaluate the goodness-of-fit of these two proposed models using two methods: the comparison of the real data with the predictive vi posterior distribution and the residual analysis by cross validation. A simulation study compares the performance of the two proposed Bayesian methods with the traditional design-based methods under different missing mechanisms and show the good properties of the Bayesian methods. Further, we discuss the three commonly used model selection criteria: the Bayes factor, the deviance information criterion and the minimum posterior predictive loss approach. Due to the complicated calculation of the Bayes factor and the uncertainty of the DIC, we conduct the last approach, which fails to correctly detect the real model structure for the hierarchical linear model. Second, as an alternative to the fully specified model-based Bayesian method, a novel non-parametric test is proposed to detect the missing mechanism for multivariate missing data. The proposed test does not need any distributional assumptions and is proven to be consistent. A simulation study demonstrates that it has well controlled type I error and satisfactory power against a variety of alternative hypotheses.


This paper describes the microstructures of the oxide films formed on a type 316L stainless steel material exposed under simulated BWR water chemistry conditions. High resolution electron microscopy (both FE-SEM and FE-TEM) was used. A TEM specimen was prepared by using focused ion beam technique. It is revealed that the inner thin oxide layer, unlike commonly believed, contains a large fraction of voids in some locations. There are concentration gradients of Fe, Ni and Cr elements in this layer. Furthermore, the TEM investigation revealed that the relatively large grains as commonly seen on the corroded surface sometimes consist of several small crystals of either different crystallographic orientations or different chemical compositions. The implication of the observed microstructures of the oxide films to the radioactivity build-up on BWR plant system piping surfaces is elaborated.


Kritical Works in SL is an inWorld exhibition hosted on Kriti Island on the Second Life (SL) grid, curated by Wanderingfictions Story, my virtual counterpart, and includes work by ten international artists produced in and for SL. The project was launched at ISEA2008 in Singapore. The artists invited to contribute to Kritical Works in SL were selected because they were already exploring the SL platform in some way in their creative practice. Many of the contributors were already well known within SL for their virtual arts practice through their virtual personas and avatars. Under the theme of Reality Jam, the work produced explored the relationship between the virtual and the real within the SL environment. This is the discursive space, described by Jones as the struggle between the real and the virtual, 'that makes virtual reality and virtual worlds so compelling to the contemporary imagination' (2006: 15). This paper will reflect upon the challenges and opportunities of inWorld spaces for creative practice, the role of the virtual artist, and how new virtual practices and virtual relationships are transforming creative opportunities in online and virtual worlds.


The strong continuous fiber reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCs) are recently used in aerospace and transportation applications as an advanced material due to its high strength and light weight. However, MMC is significantly affected by the interface under the transverse loading. Furthermore, the crack at the interface induces weakness of the characteristics of the overall mechanical response and strength of the MMCs. In order to be able to utilize these MMCs effectively and with safety, it must be determined their elastic plastic fracture behaviors at the interface. The influence of different regular fiber arrangement as like square and hexagonal arrangement on the strength of transversely loaded fiber reinforced matrix is analyzed. And the interface of fiber and matrix is modeled as thin multi layers with properties linearly gradient to distinguish the interface from the fiber and matrix. Different fiber arrangement of square and hexagon type is studied. And fiber volume fraction is changed for several kinds (5%-60%).


A significant challenge in the field of biomedicine is the development of methods to integrate the multitude of dispersed data sets into comprehensive frameworks to be used to generate optimal clinical decisions. Recent technological advances in single cell analysis allow for high-dimensional molecular characterization of cells and populations, but to date, few mathematical models have attempted to integrate measurements from the single cell scale with other types of longitudinal data. Here, we present a framework that actionizes static outputs from a machine learning model and leverages these as measurements of state variables in a dynamic model of treatment response. We apply this framework to breast cancer cells to integrate single cell transcriptomic data with longitudinal bulk cell population (bulk time course) data. We demonstrate that the explicit inclusion of the phenotypic composition estimate, derived from single cell RNA-sequencing data (scRNA-seq), improves accuracy in the prediction of new treatments with a concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) of 0.92 compared to a prediction accuracy of CCC = 0.64 when fitting on longitudinal bulk cell population data alone. To our knowledge, this is the first work that explicitly integrates single cell clonally-resolved transcriptome datasets with bulk time-course data to jointly calibrate a mathematical model of drug resistance dynamics. We anticipate this approach to be a first step that demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating multiple data types into mathematical models to develop optimized treatment regimens from data.


In healthcare settings knowledge exchange among important stakeholders such as doctors, family and patients, and other care providers is a critical imperative. However, such a community modelled approach is missing, limited in scope or its business value not well understood. In this study, the authors illustrate the value potential and subsequent development of a business model for knowledge exchange within the healthcare delivery model outside a hospital setting. Specifically, they illustrate how Synchronous Video Consultation with social media features, in a staged approach, can support knowledge exchange among a network of community health care professionals who address global health disparities and sustain this exchange through resource generation. The authors discuss the contributions and implications of the proposed framework towards value creation in a collaborative setting in general and suggest opportunities for future research.


Corporate-governance provisions related to takeover defenses and shareholder rights vary substantially across firms. In this paper, we use the incidence of 24 different provisions to build a "Governance Index" for about 1,500 firms per year, and then we study the relationship between this index and several forward-looking performance measures during the 1990s. We find a striking relationship between corporate governance and stock returns. An investment strategy that bought the firms in the lowest decile of the index (strongest shareholder rights) and sold the firms in the highest decile of the index (weakest shareholder rights) would have earned abnormal returns of 8.5 percent per year during the sample period. Furthermore, the Governance Index is highly correlated with firm value. In 1990, a one-point increase in the index is associated with a 2.4 percentage-point lower value for Tobin's Q. By 1999, this difference had increased significantly, with a one-point increase in the index associated with an 8.9 percentagepoint lower value for Tobin's Q. Finally, we find that weaker shareholder rights are associated with lower profits, lower sales growth, higher capital expenditures, and a higher amount of corporate acquisitions. We conclude with a discussion of several causal interpretations.


With the increasing water requirements and weather extremes, effective planning and management for water issues has been of great concern over the past decades. Accurate and reliable streamflow forecasting is a critical step for water resources supply and prevention of natural disasters. In this study, we developed a hybrid model (namely GMM-XGBoost), coupling extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) with Gaussian mixture model (GMM), for monthly streamflow forecasting. The proposed model is based on the principle of modular model, where a complex problem is divided into several simple ones. GMM was applied to cluster streamflow into several groups, using the features selected by a tree-based method. Then, each group was used to fit several single XGBoosts. And the prediction is a weighted average of the single models. Two streamflow datasets were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed model. The prediction accuracy of GMM-XGBoost was compared with that of support vector machine (SVM) and standalone XGBoost. The results indicated that although all three models yielded quite good performance on one-month ahead forecasting with high Nash-Sutclitte efficiency coefficient (NSE) and low root mean squared error (RMSE), GMM-XGBoost provided the best accuracy with significant improvement of forecasting accuracy. It can be inferred from the results that (1) XGBoost is applicable for streamflow forecasting, and in general, performs better than SVM; (2) the cluster analysis-based modular model is helpful in improving accuracy; (3) the proposed GMMXGBoost model is a superior alternative, which can provide accurate and reliable predictions for optimal water resources management.


Introduction
A freshwater fish Ophiocephalus striatus (OS) or known locally to Indonesian as haruan, has potentials to retain musclemass of critically ill patients following its high content of amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of OS on quantitative measurements of biceps brachii and rectus femoris in patients with mechanical ventilation.
Methods
This was a double-blinded randomized controlled trial at tertiary hospital between July- September 2019. The study included patients aged 18-65 years old with mechanical ventilation whereas patients with chronic kidney disease, paraparesis, or neuromuscular disorders were excluded. Forty-two patients were divided into extract group (n=19) who received 15 g of OS extract daily and control group (n=23) who received none. Quantitative measurements of both muscles were determined by measuring cross sectional area (CSA) using ultrasonography by one radiologist. Data were collected at 1st and 7th day, while the intervention was administered in-between. Independent sample T-test, Mann-Whitney test, and multivariate study using general linear model (GLM) were used for statistical analysis.
Results
The changes of CSA on biceps brachii and rectus femoris muscles from before to after intervention between extract group compared to control group were 5,30 ± 2,41 to 6,09 ± 1,81 vs. 5,16 ± 2,50 to 4,16 ± 1,94 (p=0.002) and 2,45 (1,10 – 5,90) to 3,47 (1,13 – 8,18) vs 3,85 (1,09 – 9,06) to 2,78 (1,06 – 7,27)  (p=0.230), respectively. Multivariate analysis showed significant differences between extract and control group for both muscles with p value of <0.001 and 0.001 respectively.
Conclusion
Supplementation of Ophiocephalus striatus extract was associated with a significant increase of biceps brachii and rectus femoris CSA in patients with mechanical ventilation.
Keywords: Ophiocephalus striatus, ultrasonography, cross sectional area, biceps brachii muscle, rectus femoris muscle


One of the most promising materials in nanotechnology such as sensors, actuators and resonators is annular Boron Nitride sheets (ABNSs) due to excelled electro-thermomechanical properties. In this study, however, differential quadrature method (DQM) and nonlocal piezoelasticity theory are used to investigate the nonlinear vibration response of embedded single-layered annular Boron Nitride sheets (SLABNSs). The interactions between the SLABNSs and its surrounding elastic medium are simulated by nonlinear Pasternak foundation. A detailed parametric study is conducted to elucidate the influences of the nonlocal parameter, elastic medium, temperature change and maximum amplitude on the nonlinear frequency of the SLABNSs. Results indicate that with increasing nonlocal parameter, the frequency of the coupled system becomes lower. The results are in good agreement with the previous researches. © 2014 IAU, Arak Branch. All rights reserved.


Abstract While there are a significant number of large and successful fashion brands accessible online, there has been a notable rise in the number of entrepreneurial online-only fashion retailers. These retailers are leveraging their social commerce capabilities for the co-creation of economic value and social value. Research is growing in terms of both co-creation, and social commerce, but little is known about what kind of activities take place on social commerce platforms, or their antecedents, including within the online fashion industry. Qualitative content analysis from focus group research reveals a range of activities requiring varying levels of emotional and informational commitment. Further, fashion involvement and willingness to participate are identified as antecedents to online co-creation behaviour with the UK's fashion retailers and their other consumers. Another valuable contribution is made with the hypothesis of a direct causal link between fashion involvement and willingness to participate, moderated by social desirability, the first time that these concepts have been linked in the literature.


Suicide is the third most common cause of death among adolescents globally, and poisoning is the leading method of attempted suicide. Survival after self-poisoning or drug overdose (OD) is common, providing an opportunity for secondary prevention. The aim of this study was to highlight pattern of presentations and preceding factors of OD in an adolescent population. We retrospectively evaluated the data of 85 adolescents presenting to a large regional hospital with OD over a 3-year period. The female-to-male ratio was 4.3:1. The median age of adolescents was 15.83 (range: 11.32 – 16.98) years. History of deliberate self-harm (DSH) was documented in 44.7%. Twenty-eight (33%) patients had been under the care of the CAMHS prior to index admission. Acetaminophen was the commonest drug used. Depression was the most common cause of mental illness in the study group. Substance abuse and conduct disorder were significantly commoner in males (p<0.05). Self-poisoning including OD in adolescence is a strong predictor of suicide; understanding the probable triggers can be significant in establishing appropriate prevention strategies.


The plastid terminal oxidase PTOX is a plastohydroquinone:oxygen oxidoreductase that is important for carotenoid biosynthesis and plastid development. Its role in photosynthesis is controversially discussed. Under a number of abiotic stress conditions, the protein level of PTOX increases. PTOX is thought to act as a safety valve under high light protecting the photosynthetic apparatus against photodamage. However, transformants with high PTOX level were reported to suffer from photoinhibition. To analyze the effect of PTOX on the photosynthetic electron transport, tobacco expressing PTOX-1 from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Cr-PTOX1) was studied by chlorophyll fluorescence, thermoluminescence, P700 absorption kinetics and CO2 assimilation. Cr-PTOX1 was shown to compete very efficiently with the photosynthetic electron transport for PQH2 . High pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis confirmed that the PQ pool was highly oxidized in the transformant. Immunoblots showed that, in the wild-type, PTOX was associated with the thylakoid membrane only at a relatively alkaline pH value while it was detached from the membrane at neutral pH. We present a model proposing that PTOX associates with the membrane and oxidizes PQH2 only when the oxidation of PQH2 by the cytochrome b6 f complex is limiting forward electron transport due to a high proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane.


An interesting parallel has been discovered when studying the sources of quality and safety management in healthcare and carrying out of live working in the maintenance of electrical installations. The awareness and efforts of healthcare professionals focused on the increase in patient safety as well as the electrical profession in carrying out live working have a hundred year tradition. In both fields, the first success was observed in Slovenia in the last decade. Patient safety is the first priority of all the persons involved in the healthcare system. The Slovene health policy started the systematic preparation of supporting documents in 2006 in order to assist the implementation of continuous improvement in quality and safety management in hospitals. In recent years, several medical institutions have started and successfully completed the certification under the quality management standards and many of them efficiently concluded the process of accreditation in accordance with the international standards. Live working was introduced into the Slovene electric power system in 2006 when the discussions about the benefits of preventive maintenance of electrical installations started In 2009, live working officially began in the Krško Nuclear Power Plant. In 2011, it was started in the Slovene electricity distribution and in the University Medical Centre (UKCL) when a very complex re-connection on the main low voltage panel was required. When reviewing the scientific and professional literature a large gap was discovered in patient safety when the reliable supply of healthcare institutions with electricity is to be provided and high requirements of standards in electrical installation maintenance in healthcare facilities are to be met. The paper presents the connections between live working, patient safety and the valuable Slovene experience in carrying out live working in healthcare. It has to be pointed out that the contribution of live working to the safety management in healthcare is indispensable.


Purpose: To understand the tensions that servitization activities create between actors within networks. Design/methodology/approach: Interviews were conducted with manufacturers, intermediaries and customers across a range of industrial sectors. Findings: Tensions relating to two key sets of capabilities are identified: in developing or acquiring (i) operant technical expertise and (ii) operand service infrastructure. The former tension concerns whom knowledge is co-created with and where expertise resides. The latter involves a territorial investment component; firms developing strategies to acquire greater access to, or ownership of, infrastructures closer to customers. Developing and acquiring these capabilities is a strategic decision on the part of managers of servitizing firms, in order to gain recognized power and control in a particular territory. Originality/value: This paper explores how firms' servitization activities involve value appropriation (from the rest of the network), contrasting with the narrative norm for servitization: that it creates additional value. There is a need to understand the tensions that servitization activities create within networks. Some firms may be able to improve servitization performance through co-operation rather than competition, generating co-opetitive relationships. Others may need to become much more aggressive, if they are to take a greater share of the 'value' from the value chain.


Theorist Jean Piaget in the 1920' s abandoned standardized testing which he viewed as, "forcing children to respond into artificial channels of set questions and answers" (as cited in Crain, 201 1 , p. 1 19). Piaget decided to create a different type of assessment which included an open-ended interview, "which encourages the flow of spontaneous tendencies" (as cited in Crain, 201 1 , p. 1 19). John Locke (2003), believed that an individual learns through experiences. Jean Rousseau (2003), believed more in the natural child-centered, and experience-based learning. Pestalozzi (2003), believed that children learn by doing, and that children should be educated physically, emotionally, and mentally (Henson, 2003). The purpose of the study was to explore the developmentally appropriate implementation of both the Common Core State Standards and the computer-based standardized testing for students in grades third through sixth. The FlyDAC questionnaire was distributed through email, to teachers who teach grades third through sixth. Seven participants answered demographic and developmentally appropriate Common Core State Standards, and computer-based standardized testing questions as well as open-ended questions. The demographics, the developmentally appropriate Common Core State Standards, and computer-based standardized testing data, were analyzed using frequencies. Qualitative analysis found three themes. 1) Developmental appropriate standards. 2) Teachers do not know what his or her students are being tested on. 3) Keyboards as a tool for written responses for students in the grades third through sixth. Further research should expand on the developmentally appropriate implementation of both the standards and computer-based testing by including more school districts. In addition, future researchers could compare TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVES ON STANDARDS AND TESTING the possible educational gaps which may exist due to the differences from one school district that uses iPads as an educational tool, compared to other school districts who do not have enough access to computers within the same region. vi TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVES ON STANDARDS AND TESTING vii


In recognition of the risky nature of most business, courts are reluctant to intrude into the boardroom and second-guess directors' decisions. Providing the directors have performed their duties without personal interests being served, have informed themselves, and have acted in what they believe are the company's best interests, the courts will not interfere, unless the decisions are really very foolish. Only then will honest directors have to face actions for negligence. Certainly, they can make bad decisions and not be pursued. This notion or principle, which shields directors from all but the most egregious carelessness, is called the business judgment principle. In some jurisdictions, as in Australia, the principle has been set out in the statute as the business judgment rule. It blunts the blade of the director's duty of care and diligence.


There are few areas of practice which present as much challenge as providing services for young people with high support needs. In the 'post-institutional' era many service models are being trialled or considered in a context which is characterised by a sense of crisis - for the young people and their service providers. As part of a response to this challenge, three leading practitioners/managers present contrasting opinions, based on their extensive practice experience and available research, on what must be done to develop a more effective service system.


This study documents five patients with neurological disease associated with evidence of recent Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. Four patients had encephalitis associated with coma. Two of these had hemiparesis (one with dysphasia), one had seizures, and one had cerebellar and brainstem involvement. Two also had evidence of a radiculopathy and peripheral neuropathy. One patient had aseptic meningitis with later transverse myelitis. Three patients had multiple sites of neurological involvement. Respiratory infections preceded the neurological syndromes in four cases. Antibiotic therapy did not appear to alter the course of the disease. All patients had a favourable outcome.


The iroN gene of Salmonella enterica and uropathogenic Escherichia coli encodes the outer membrane receptor of Fe3+‐bound salmochelin, a siderophore tailored to evade capture by the host's immune system. The iroN gene is under negative control of the Fur repressor and transcribed under iron limiting conditions. We show here that transcriptional de‐repression is not sufficient to allow iroN expression, as this also requires activation by either of two partially homologous small RNAs (sRNAs), RyhB1 and RyhB2. The two sRNAs target the same sequence segment approximately in the middle of the 94‐nucleotide 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of iroN mRNA. Several lines of evidence suggest that base pair interaction stimulates iroN mRNA translation. Activation does not result from the disruption of a secondary structure masking the ribosome binding site; rather it involves sequences at the 5′ end of iroN 5′ UTR. In vitro 'toeprint' assays revealed that this upstream site binds the 30S ribosomal subunit provided that RyhB1 is paired with the mRNA. Altogether, our data suggest that RyhB1, and to lesser extent RyhB2, activate iroN mRNA translation by promoting entry of the ribosome at an upstream 'standby' site. These findings add yet an additional nuance to the polychromatic landscape of sRNA‐mediated regulation.


A high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) approach to the characterization of dialkyl tertiary amine-N-oxides is presented. The methodology is based upon forming reconstructed ion current chromatograms (RICCs) of m/z values of product ions known to form through diagnostic losses from dialkyl tertiary amine-N-oxides. The diagnostic losses of N,N-dimethylhydroxylamine and N,N-diethylhydroxylamine were identified through the analysis of a structurally diverse library of compounds by ESI-low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID)-MS/MS using quadrupole ion trap-mass spectrometry (QIT-MS) and quadrupole time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (QqTOF-MS). The library consisted of dialkyl tertiary amine-containing commercially available pharmaceuticals, along with a number of model, synthetic N-oxides. The loss of the nitrogen-containing group was observed in 89% of the low-energy CID product ion spectra acquired using various collision energies. Further, the resultant product ions, formed through the loss of the nitrogen-containing group, were shown to be unstable because of the observation of second-generation dissociation. These observations regarding gas-phase ion chemistry could be useful to developers of in silico programs for fragmentation prediction by allowing the creation of improved algorithms and models for predicting dissociation. Using the information derived from the library analysis, the characterization methodology was developed and demonstrated using tetracaine. The approach is rapid, MS/MS platform independent, utilizes existing technology, and could be automated. Further, it is definitive and overcomes the limitations of other tools for N-oxide identification by localizing the site of oxidation. Thus, it provides a useful addition to the existing approaches for metabolite identification.


ABSTRACT The northern Colorado River extensional corridor (NCREC, USA) provides an excellent record of coeval volcanic and mid- to upper-crustal (<13 km) plutonic suites. The NCREC is a 50–100-km-wide zone that records late Tertiary lithospheric extension, volcanism, continental sedimentation and plutonism. Compilation of published studies of NCREC magmatic rocks permits an assessment of volcanic–plutonic links, magma sources and magmatic processes. The volcanic sections provide an excellent record of magma compositions (basalt, trachyandesite, trachyte and rhyolite) which span a 9-million-year period in the Miocene age (20–11 Ma). Contemporaneous Miocene plutons span a similar compositional range (gabbro, diorite, quartz monzonite and granite) and were emplaced during a 4·5-million-year interval from 17 to 12·5 Ma. Geochemical and isotopic compositions and compositional trends allow direct correlation between plutonic and volcanic suites across the entire compositional range. Petrogenetic models demonstrate that intermediate magmas formed by a combination of magma mixing and fractional crystallisation involving mantle-derived mafic with crustal-derived felsic end-member magmas. Plutons exhibit a variety of features which suggest magma chamber processes, including (1) mafic cumulate sequences, (2) felsic cumulate sequences, and (3) magma mingling and advanced stages of magma mixing. Thus, the NCREC plutonic-volcanic record provides a link between magmatic processes recorded in pluton magma chambers and magmatic products in the form of extrusive igneous rocks. The NCREC plutons represent upper crustal magma chambers which connected volcanic eruptive centres to deeper-level magma chambers, and ultimately, to zones of mantle and crustal mel


Sensors based on the ultrasonic, pulse-echo technique for measuring range have been the mainstay for robotic collision avoidance systems. Although these sensors have been successfully applied to both indoor and outdoor mobile robotic applications, certain disadvantages of these systems prompted our investigation of inexpensive sensors that use light to determine the range or presence of targets. A number of commercially available, light-based sensors are analyzed for application in a mobile robotic space application. The objective of the analysis is to develop a cost-effective, light-based ranging sensor for a collision avoidance system for an experimental Mars Rover. This paper presents some results from our investigation. >


There has been rapid change in the landcover/landuse in the Mekong delta, Viet Nam. The landcover/landuse has changed very fast due to intense population pressure, agriculture/aquaculture farming and timber collection in the coastal areas of the delta. The changing landuse pattern in the coastal areas of the delta is threatened to be flooded by sea level rise; sea level is expected to rise 33 cm until 2050; 45 cm until 2070 and 1 m until 2100. The coastline along the eastern Mekong delta has never been static, but the loss of mangrove forests along the coast has intensified coastline change. The objective of the present study is to map the changes in landcover/landuse along the eastern coast of the Mekong delta; and to detect the changes in position of the eastern coastline over the time period from 1989 to 2002.To detect changes in landuse, two satellite images of the same season, acquired by the TM sensor of Landsat 5 and the ETM+ sensor of Landsat 7 were used. The TM image was acquired on January 16, 1989 and ETM+ image was acquired on February 13, 2002. The landcover/landuse classes selected for the study are water, forest, open vegetation, soil and shrimp farms. Image differencing and post classification comparison are used to detect the changes between two time periods. Image to image correction technique is used to align satellite images. Maximum likelihood supervised classification technique is used to classify images. The result of the classification consists of five classes for 1989 and 2002, respectively. Overall accuracies of 87.5% and 86.8%, with kappa values of 0.85 and 0.84 are obtained for landuse 1989 and landuse 2002, respectively. The overall accuracy for the change map is 82% with kappa value 0.80. Post classification comparison is carried out in this study based on the supervised classification results. According to the results obtained from the post classification comparison, a significant decrease of 48% in forest and a significant increase of 74% in open vegetation and 21% in shrimp farms area observed over the entire study area. The coastline obtained by the combination of histogram thresholding and band ratio showed an overall advancement towards the South China Sea. The results showed that new land patches emerged along the eastern coast. The amount of new land patches appeared along the coast of the Mekong delta is approximately 2% of the entire study area.


ABSTRACT Although the initial isolates of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (CoV) are sensitive to neutralization by antibodies through their spike (S) glycoprotein, variants of S have since been identified that are resistant to such inhibition. Optimal vaccine strategies would therefore make use of additional determinants of immune recognition, either through cellular or expanded, cross-reactive humoral immunity. Here, the cellular and humoral immune responses elicited by different combinations of gene-based and inactivated viral particles with various adjuvants have been assessed. The T-cell response was altered by different prime-boost immunizations, with the optimal CD8 immunity induced by DNA priming and replication-defective adenoviral vector boosting. The humoral immune response was enhanced most effectively through the use of inactivated virus with adjuvants, either MF59 or alum, and was associated with stimulation of the CD4 but not the CD8 response. The use of inactivated SARS virus with MF59 enhanced the CD4 and antibody response even after gene-based vaccination. Because both cellular and humoral immune responses are generated by gene-based vaccination and inactivated viral boosting, this strategy may prove useful in the generation of SARS-CoV vaccines.


Who regulates sexuality in America? Given the high salience of federal laws and policies such as the Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA"), the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and states' legal activism regarding same-sex marriage, it would seem that sexuality is mostly a federal and state matter, and that cities play a secondary, if not insignificant role. This Article argues that in fact the opposite is true: the regulation of sexuality has been decentralized, with cities being the main locus where the most important issues affecting the lives of gays and lesbians are decided. This "localization of sexuality" happened as a result of a lack of comprehensive federal protection of gays and lesbians, the limited protection given to them by states, and the powers which cities regularly possess. These powers, which include zoning, business licensing, districting, education, and other police powers, are used by cities in ways that either benefit or harm sexual minorities. This legal structure can partly explain, notwithstanding other social and historical factors, the residential patterns of gays and lesbians who continue to concentrate in a relatively small number of cities. This "territorialization of sexuality," this Article contends, is a result of the attempt made by gays and lesbians to overcome their status as a permanent minority at both the federal and state levels. While these processes have gone almost unnoticed by scholars and courts, they have far-reaching consequences that this Article describes and evaluates: they enable the creation of safe havens for gays and lesbians, they allow these sexual minorities to "dissent by deciding," and they promote a pluralism of governmental practices concerning sexuality. Despite the risks that these two processes bear, such as fragmentation and radicalization, the localization of sexuality is a desirable legal structure. It should,


- Nowadays, storing and accessing data in multi-cloud infrastructure is a common solution adopted by large organizations. In this paper it presents two components mainly Administration Management and User Management. It contains the list of branches available for the bank in different countries and tree view which shows the country names under each country created. End User has manifested by administrator with the ability to identify and control the state of users logged into the account. The saving/current account holders can check person's own account balance; list of transactions done by the user, account personal information can be edited efficiently by giving request to the admin. The account holder can view that information only with the unique user id and password provided by the bank. After those process completed successfully a message will be displayed to the user about the transaction. If the account holder provides the wrong user ID or Password it will provide an error. If the intruder deletes the database, the database will be backed up by checking the nearest server, traffic and available storage of the multi-server. The encrypted key will be received immediately by the admin through mail to restore the deleted database. Data security for such a cloud service encompasses several aspects including secure channels, access controls, and encryption. And, when it considers the security of data in a cloud, it also must consider the security triad such as: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In the cloud storage model, data is stored on multiple virtualized servers.


This is my 35 th year of running most days a year. That was correct most days a year not a week. Running is my first priority each day. Developing a routine will assist those who want exercise to become a habit. After I awake I drink a glass of water and a cup of coffee then my dog "Jazz" and I hit the streets for a 3-4 mile run. Later in the day, we walk one to two miles after going to the gym to lift weights. I will admit that I am very addicted to running and working out. I enjoy the physical, psychological, and health benefits. This paper will focus on common foot injuries. There are several foot injuries that runners or walkers may suffer. Most of the injuries on that list may result from overuse. Other problems of the foot maybe related to chronic injuries that develop over a period of time. According to Mike Walden, a former teacher of sports injuries, sports massage, and sports science, "the average runner has between 37-56% risks of injury during the course of a year's training." (Walden 2005) Plantar fasciitis, metatarsal stress fractures, metatarsalgia, blisters, turf toe, and Morton's neuroma will be the focus of this paper.


A new fast and very rational instrument to measure the Z-directional tensile (ZDT) strength of paper and board has been developed by Lorentzen & Wettre. The traditional method to measure the out of plane strength of paper and board in the industry is the Scott-Bond method. There are lot of drawbacks of that method like, the critical and difficult sample preparation, and the high variability of the test results. As the new instrument needs very little manpower it can be used for cross machine profile measurements. Which means process optimization possibilities. Initial paper machine studies have shown that up to 20-25% lower ZDT values can be seen in the centre of a kraft liner CD profile compare to the edges of the web. Also streaks of poor ZDT strength have also been found when doing cross machine measurements.


Rising temperatures and changes in snow cover, as can be expected under a global warmer climate, may have large impacts on mountain grassland productivity limited by cold and long winters. Here, we elaborated :::::::: combined :::: two ::::::: existing :::::: models :: of : a multi-layer atmosphere-soil-vegetation model to account ::::::::: (SOLVEG) ::::: with ::: the ::::: grass :::::: growth :::::: model :::::::::: (BASGRA) ::::: which :::::::: accounts for snow, freeze-thaw events, grass growth, and soil microbiology. The model was applied to simulate the responses of managed grasslands to anomalously warm winter conditions. The grass growth module represented key ecolog5 ical processes under a cold environment, such as leaf formation, elongation and death, tillering, carbon allocation, and cold acclimation, in terms of photosynthetic activity. Input parameters were derived for the pre-alpine grassland sites in Germany, for which the model was run using three years of data that included a winter with an exceptionally limited amount of snow cover. The model reproduced the temporal variability of observed daily mean heat fluxes, soil temperatures and snow depth throughout the simulation :::: study : period. High physiological activity levels during the extremely warm winter led to a simulated 10 CO2 uptake of 100 gC m−2, which was mainly allocated into the below-ground biomass and only to a minor extend used for additional plant growth during early spring. If this temporary dynamics is representative of the long-term changes, this process, which is so far largely unaccounted for in scenario analysis using global terrestrial biosphere models, may lead to carbon accumulation in the soil and/or carbon loss from the soil as a response to global warming.


Computerized axial tomographic (CT) scans were performed on 16 patients over an 18-month period to determine which patients were candidates for removal of their esophageal tumors by blunt esophagectomy. Blunt esophagectomy was offered only to those patients whose tumors were confined to the esophageal wall on CT scan. Thirteen patients were able to undergo blunt esophagectomy, with only one complication, a tracheal injury, which was repaired. Three patients had extensive mediastinal invasion requiring standard thoracotomy to perform a palliative resection. The operative blood loss in the group of patients with blunt esophagectomy was 500 ml, and there was only one operative death related to chronic aspiration. The CT scan is a valuable adjunct in determining which patients are candidates for esophagectomy without thoractomy.


In this letter a new technique is introduced for implementing the basic logic functions using analog current-mode techniques. By expanding the logic functions in power series expressions, and using summers and multipliers, realization of the basic logic functions is simplified. Since no transistors are working in saturation, the problem of fan-out is alleviated. To illustrate the proposed technique, a circuit for simultaneous realization of the logic functions NOT, OR, NAND and XOR is considered. SPICE simulation results, obtained with 3 V supply, are included.


Integrating deep learning with latent state space models has the potential to yield temporal models that are powerful, yet tractable and interpretable. Unfortunately, current models are not designed to handle missing data or multiple data modalities, which are both prevalent in real-world data. In this work, we introduce a factorized inference method for Multimodal Deep Markov Models (MDMMs), allowing us to filter and smooth in the presence of missing data, while also performing uncertainty-aware multimodal fusion. We derive this method by factorizing the posterior p(z|x) for non-linear state space models, and develop a variational backward-forward algorithm for inference. Because our method handles incompleteness over both time and modalities, it is capable of interpolation, extrapolation, conditional generation, label prediction, and weakly supervised learning of multimodal time series. We demonstrate these capabilities on both synthetic and real-world multimodal data under high levels of data deletion. Our method performs well even with more than 50% missing data, and outperforms existing deep approaches to inference in latent time series.


Item Response Theory (IRT) models traditionally assume a normal distribution for ability. Although normality is often a reasonable assumption for ability, it is rarely met for observed scores in educational and psychological measurement. Assumptions regarding ability distribution were previously shown to have an effect on IRT parameter estimation. In this study, the normal and uniform distribution prior assumptions for ability were compared for IRT parameter estimation when the actual distribution was either normal or uniform. A simulation study that included a short test with a small sample size and a long test with a large sample size was conducted for this purpose. The results suggested using a uniform distribution prior for ability to achieve more accurate estimates of the ability parameter in the 2PL and 3PL models when the true distribution of ability is not known. For the Rasch model, an explicit pattern that could be used to obtain more accurate item parameter estimates was not found.


Feridun Bulbul 1 Irfan Koca Lut Tamam 1 Mehmet Emin Demirkol 1 Soner Cakmak 1 Emre Ersahinoglu 1 1Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey; 2Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Fizyoclinic Wellness Center, Gaziantep, Turkey Background: Sarcopenia (SP) is a syndrome described as generalized and progressive loss of muscle mass and strength that may cause fall, fractures, disability and death. Oxidative stress might be a probable etiologic factor in SP as well. SP is a comorbid syndrome that is seen in chronic illnesses. If these two considerations are taken together, one may also think that SP could be also seen in bipolar disorder (BD), because it is a chronic disorder and oxidative stress was related to both illnesses. In our study, we proposed to investigate the prevalence of SP in BD patients. Methods: We recruited 111 consecutive BD patients who registered in Mood Disorders Unit of Çukurova University. Blood tests were taken from patients to exclude the possible confounding factor related to SP. Socio-demographic variable forms were filled out. Every patient underwent physical mass, strength, and performance tests for the diagnosis of SP, which was determined by the criteria of European consensus. Results: The mean age of the patients was 38.00 ±11.44 years (18–68). Among the participants 69 (62.2%) were female, and 42 (37.8%) were male. Pre-SP was 6.3% (n=7), SP was 9.0% (n=10), and severe SP was 1.8% (n=2) in BD patients. The prevalence of preSP, SP and severe SP in BD patients was 7.1%, 16.7% and 2.4% in men and 5.8%, 4.3% and 1.4% in women, respectively. Although it was not marginally significant, a difference was observed in SP patients as they had more median psychotic features and median number of episodes per year for BD. Conclusion: This is the first study that investigated SP in BD patients. Sarcopenia was found more frequently in BD patients than in the general population.


Should peace be attributed mainly to democracy or to some intervening variable that influences both democracy and conflict? A second, perhaps related question is whether or to what extent democratization is driven by external drivers of threat. If regime type helps explain external conflict, does external conflict also help explain regime type? By examining the relationships among strategic rivalry, unstable boundaries, democracy, and interstate conflict in a regional context, we find that rivalry and unstable boundaries are alternative manifestations of external threat. Both have significant, if not identical effects on stimulating interstate conflict. Regime type does not appear to have an independent effect on interstate conflict when we take either rivalries or unstable boundaries into consideration. At the same time, we also find that external threat indicators negatively predict changes in democratization. In short, greater threat is associated with less democratization.


A real and typical example of the realities faced by many students who attend university today is exemplified by this students' journey having to leave home at 6.45 am to face no less than three train connections then a choice of a bus ride or 20-minute walk to campus to get to their 9.00 am lecture. This journey then being repeat in reverse at the end of the day. This demonstrates the commitment of many students particularly those attending university in large cities such as London. There is no doubt that commuting provides some universities with many of their unique features but at the same time presents them with distinctive challenges that run right to the heart of how they manage their student engagement activities from transition, learning and teaching strategies, timetabling and ultimately students' employability options. Lower scores in the NSS and TEF for many London institutions have been described as the 'London effect' and the prevalence of commuting students is likely to play a major role in making it harder for these universities to establish learning communities that students feel a strong part of and supported by. Research has shown that up to 65% of Kingston University's students commute, and when reviewed against other characteristics such as ethnicity reveal that three times the number of BME students commute with journeys over one hour when compared to their white counterparts. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of our life science, pharmacy and chemistry students are BME students, and when surveyed were less likely to have chosen to attend university to experience university life, meet new people or experience new places. BME students also reported a greater sense of belonging with school/college than their white counterparts who showed a greater sense of belonging at university. This paper will review the inclusive strategies that we have taken in terms of improving the student experience and engagement from transition, learning and teaching (reviewing content availability, assessment delivery strategies, policies), changes to the timetable delivery, the development of co-curriculum activities, and the use of social media along with the promotion of greater staff empathy to commuting students. This session will be relevant to those wanting to understand the challenges faced in developing inclusive learning communities.


Laser beam machining (LBM) is the most exciting thermal energy based non-contact type advanced material machining method to process almost whole range of materials. The laser microturning of ceramics are highly demanded in the present industries because of its wide and potential uses in various engineering fields such as automobile, electronics, aerospace, biomedical applications etc. The present paper addresses the basic experimental study of Nd:YAG laser microturning of advanced engineering cylindrical shaped ceramic material to explore the desired laser output responses i.e. depth of cut and surface roughness by varying laser micro-turning process parameters such as lamp current, pulse frequency and rotational speed of workpiece etc.


This book presents a geometric introduction to the homology of topological spaces and the cohomology of smooth manifolds. The author introduces a new class of stratified spaces, so-called stratifolds. He derives basic concepts from differential topology such as Sard's theorem, partitions of unity and transversality. Based on this, homology groups are constructed in the framework of stratifolds and the homology axioms are proved. This implies that for nice spaces these homology groups agree with ordinary singular homology. Besides the standard computations of homology groups using the axioms, straightforward constructions of important homology classes are given. The author also defines stratifold cohomology groups following an idea of Quillen. Again, certain important cohomology classes occur very naturally in this description, for example, the characteristic classes which are constructed in the book and applied later on. One of the most fundamental results, Poincare duality, is almost a triviality in this approach. Some fundamental invariants, such as the Euler characteristic and the signature, are derived from (co)homology groups. These invariants play a significant role in some of the most spectacular results in differential topology. In particular, the author proves a special case of Hirzebruch's signature theorem and presents as a highlight Milnor's exotic 7-spheres. This book is based on courses the author taught in Mainz and Heidelberg. Readers should be familiar with the basic notions of point-set topology and differential topology. The book can be used for a combined introduction to differential and algebraic topology, as well as for a quick presentation of (co)homology in a course about differential geometry.


The idea of Estonia's cultural and national self-sufficiency emerged in the nineteenth century. The contribution of writers and poets was essential to this development. Literature anticipated not only cultural, linguistic, and artistic, but also the economic and political emancipation of Estonians. Cultural practices leading to this emancipation were largely based on Baltic German models; many key elements to the independent Estonian national identity are of foreign origin. On the one hand, the nineteenth-century nationbuilding could therefore be described as self-colonization. On the other hand, it rather created a new nation than transformed a preexisting one, since the very concept of national identity was introduced by this process. Through various political and cultural upheavals, the most influential authors from this seminal period of the Estonian modern culture have remained iconic to this day. The traditional identification with them is so strong that the tentative origins of the nation and the identitary struggles of the national poets themselves may often be forgotten and the personal and individual nature of their contribution downplayed.


In recent years, energy saving of a container ship is becoming one of the most important issues from the point of environmental protection of the global marine transportation business. To solve this problem, we have developed a new gas injection inverter scroll compressor for marine container refrigeration unit. The new compressor is based on a conventional scroll compressor, which has been used in various industrial air conditioners for a long time, with some greatly improved technologies. For instance, the efficiency of the compressor is increased by optimizing the gas injection mechanism. On top of this, the efficiency at low speed operation is increased by using interior permanent magnet synchronous motor. As a result, it was possible to achieve higher refrigeration capacity without increasing the size of the new compressor. The energy consumption has decreased by 45% compared to conventional models. This paper describes details about the improvements of the compressor including the gas injection mechanism and the improvements in its performance at low speed operation.


In a warming climate, there was a long‐term expectation that the atmospheric evaporative demand would increase, which was challenged by an unexpected discovery two decades ago of decreases in measured pan evaporation, now widely termed as the 'pan evaporation paradox.' In this review, we summarize recent reports on the pan evaporation paradox around the world over the past half century, possible causes, implications for the water cycle, and its possible change in the future. We then present a case study of China based on the latest meteorological datasets and the state‐of‐the‐art General Circulation Models (GCMs). We confirm that pan evaporation (Epan) decreases in most parts of China at an average of about −2.60 mm/y2, and this decrease disappears around 1993. We introduce and develop a detrending approach in sensitivity analysis and find that changes in solar radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity overcompensate the positive contribution of increasing air temperature in Epan and lead to the well‐known pan evaporation paradox. Positive changes in Epan using 12 state‐of‐the‐art GCMs for 2021–2050 and for 2071–2100 under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively, when compared with their corresponding multiyear mean over 1971–2000 as base line, shows that the evaporation paradox would not appear in the future. We highlight that it is vital and promising to move forward to interpreting how the atmospheric evaporative demand would change in the future. WIREs Water 2017, 4:e1207. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1207


Nigeria has struggled to promote development in all facets of life in the five decades of its independence. The efforts have generally yielded very modest success and the reality is that in the early 21st century Nigeria continues to face what some scholars have described as the "crisis of development". This article examines the contribution of the development of technology and industrialization to this development crisis. It discusses the pattern of the development of technology and industrialization in the country in the colonial period and the influence on industrial policy after independence. The nature and changes which took place in technological and industrial development in Nigeria since 1960 as well as the factors responsible for the low level of development are also explored. We contend that the low level of technological and industrial development constituted a serious blight to Nigeria's development efforts up to 2010. The article argues that contrary to some perspectives, specialization has its limits even in the contemporary milieu of intense globalization and industrialization is central to development of all countries. Nigeria's ability to articulate effective industrial policy and commitment to the policy to achieve economic transformation are therefore important to the country's development in the future.


The characterization of quantum polarization of light requires knowledge of all the moments of the Stokes variables, which are appropriately encoded in the multipole expansion of the density matrix. We look into the cumulative distribution of those multipoles and work out the corresponding extremal pure states. We find that SU(2) coherent states are maximal to any order whereas the converse case of minimal states (which can be seen as the most quantum ones) is investigated for a diverse range of the number of photons. Taking advantage of the Majorana representation, we recast the problem as that of distributing a number of points uniformly over the surface of the Poincare sphere.


1 To examine the functional importance of the pre‐Bötzinger complex for breathing we micro‐injected, under in vivo conditions, the calcium channel blocker ω‐conotoxin GVIA and the sodium channel blocker tetrodotoxin (TTX) into the ventrolateral medulla of adult cats, while monitoring respiratory rhythmic motor output in the phrenic nerve. 2 ω‐Conotoxin GVIA caused a highly localized synaptic ablation by blocking presynaptic N‐type calcium channels. When injecting 5–60 fmol ω‐conotoxin GVIA unilaterally, the amplitude of phrenic nerve activity decreased bilaterally and sometimes disappeared, indicating central apnoea. These effects were reversible and could only be induced in a very localized area of the pre‐Bötzinger complex. By injecting ω‐conotoxin GVIA several times during an experiment and analysing the areas where injections affected respiratory activity, it was possible to map exactly the anatomical extent of the area critical for respiratory rhythm generation. 3 Following the precise localization of the pre‐Bötzinger complex with ω‐conotoxin GVIA, we injected TTX to induce an irreversible inactivation of this region. TTX injected unilaterally into the pre‐Bötzinger complex irreversibly reduced the amplitude of phrenic nerve activity. Bilateral TTX injections eliminated respiratory rhythmic activity, causing a persistent central apnoea. 4 After bilateral lesioning of the pre‐Bötzinger complex, it was still possible to induce gasping during hypoxia or asphyxia, indicating that respiration and gasping are generated by two different neuronal networks. 5 We propose that ω‐conotoxin GVIA as employed in this study to investigate the functional role of the pre‐Bötzinger complex can also be used as a general pharmacological approach to map other neuronal networks. We call this the 'ω‐conotoxin GVIA tracing' method.


Abstract The paper presents an analysis of problems of arable field weeds discussed by Polish authors in 2853 botanical scientific works published in the years 1870-2015. The research included both widely available publications and scientific works that appeared in Polish in regional and local journals, as well as the brief conference proceeding. The thematic structure of Polish studies on segetal weeds consists of several levels and includes eight main thematic groups and 51 subgroups. The review and multi-subject works were included in the ninth group. Taking into account the number of publications, main thematic groups are ranked as follows: (1) Weed flora and vegetation: structure, distribution and dynamics; (2) Weediness of different crop types, crop fields and fallow lands; (3) Interactions between weeds and the environment; (4) Biology and weed development; (5) Variability, taxonomy and weed diagnostics; (6) Research methodology; (7) Extinction and protection of weeds; (8) Weeds of archaeological localities.


Nationally known community organiser and activist Harry C Boyte incites readers to join today's "citizen movement", offering practical tools for how we can change the face of America by focusing on issues close to home. Targeting useful techniques for individuals to raise public consciousness and effectively motivate community-based groups, Boyte grounds his arguments in the country's tradition of "populism", demonstrating how mobilised citizens can be far more powerful than our frequently paralysed politicians. He offers practical tips on identifying potential citizen leaders and working through cultural differences without sacrificing identities. Each point is illustrated by inspiring real-life examples of Minnesotans who have prompted change: An immigrant community that created a cultural wellness center. An organisation of multiracial, multi-faith congregations that is tackling tough social problems. A cluster of suburban neighbourhoods that came together to take back Sundays from overzealous youth-sports organisations. For readers doubting their ability to make a significant difference in our world, this how-to book will show the way.


Since Language Learning Strategies (LLSs) have potential to be, "an extremely powerful learning
tool" (O'Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Russo & Kupper, 1985a, p.43), the use of LLSs helps the
learners retrieve and store material, and facilitate their learning (Grander & Maclntyre, 1992),they are
sensitive to the learning context and to the learner's internal processing preferences, also they are extremely
important part of second/foreign language teaching and learning, and there is relationship between the
frequent use of LLSs and achievement in the language (Bremner, 1999; Green & Oxford, 1995; Oxford &
Burry-Stock, 1995);there is need to understand what are LLSs, in what manner it is possible to teach them to
learners, how learners choice and use them, and which variables affect the choice and use of them. A review of
the relevant literature shows that there are various variables affect the choice and use of LLSs. Personality
traits as one the most predictors, significantly influence success in learning a second language (Gass & Selinker,
1994). In the current study, the investigator aims to explore the nature of LLSs and their relationship to
different variables.


In this paper, we compare running the Linux operating system on the compute nodes of ASCI Red hardware to running a specialized, highly-optimized lightweight kernel (LWK) operating system. We have ported Linux to the compute and service nodes of the ASCI Red supercomputer, and have run several benchmarks. We present performance and scalability results for Linux compared with the LWK environment. To our knowledge, this is the first direct comparison on identical hardware of Linux and an operatingsystem designedspecifically for large-scale supercomputers. In addition to presenting these results, we will discuss the limitations of both operating systems, in terms of the empirical evidence as well as other important factors.


Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) is a wireless technology that has the potential to improve cellular communication systems significantly. This paper considers enhancing the RIS beamforming in a RIS-aided multiuser multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system to enhance user throughput in cellular networks. The study offers an unsupervised/deep neural network (U/DNN) that simultaneously optimizes the intelligent surface beamforming with less complexity to overcome the non-convex sum-rate problem difficulty. The numerical outcomes comparing the suggested approach to the near-optimal iterative semi-definite programming strategy indicate that the proposed method retains most performance (more than 95% of optimal throughput value when the number of antennas is 4 and RIS's elements are 30) while drastically reducing system computing complexity.


Pili are surface-linked virulence factors that play key roles in infection establishment in a variety of pathogenic species. In Gram-positive pathogens, pilus formation requires the action of sortases, dedicated transpeptidases that covalently associate pilus building blocks. In Streptococcus pneumoniae, a major human pathogen, all genes required for pilus formation are harbored in a single pathogenicity islet which encodes three structural proteins (RrgA, RrgB, RrgC) and three sortases (SrtC-1, SrtC-2, SrtC-3). RrgB forms the backbone of the streptococcal pilus, to which minor pilins RrgA and RrgC are covalently associated. SrtC-1 is the main sortase involved in polymerization of the RrgB fiber and displays a lid which encapsulates the active site, a feature present in all pilus-related sortases. In this work, we show that catalysis by SrtC-1 proceeds through a catalytic triad constituted of His, Arg, and Cys and that lid instability affects protein fold and catalysis. In addition, we show by thermal shift analysis that lid flexibility can be stabilized by the addition of substrate-like peptides, a feature shared by other periplasmic transpeptidases. We also report the characterization of a trapped acyl-enzyme intermediate formed between SrtC-1 and RrgB. The presence of lid-encapsulated sortases in the pilus biogenesis systems in many Gram-positive pathogens points to a common mechanism of substrate recognition and catalysis that should be taken into consideration in the development of sortase inhibitors.


In the creation process, treated holistically, the stages of chaotic inspiration, ideas classification, selection and decision may be traced. Known models of engineering creativity have aimed usually at one of these stages, which becomes thus particularly emphasised. Frequently positive statements saying that "brainstorming is a useful process at the initial stage of creation" or that "morphological processes are recommended at the stage of details determination" can be found. Such statements, together with the creativity models based on them, diminish the possibility of the application of the stages mentioned above, though they will appear, even independently of the creator's consciousness. A model, however, of creativity (designing, constructing) which will not unnecessarily stress any stage of design and will be applicable to all creative activities may be suggested. A creator's searching for an inspired solution is a typical creative process which may be treated as a catastrophe model. In the selection, one of many methods of pattern recognition may be proposed. A specific model of creativity is presented and also a technique of method implementation using computer techniques.


Author(s): Withers, Kyle | Advisor(s): Olsen, Kim B | Abstract: The accuracy of earthquake source descriptions is a major limitation in high-frequency ($g1$ Hz) deterministic ground motion prediction, which is critical for performance-based design by building engineers. With the recent addition of realistic fault topography in 3D simulations of earthquake source models, ground motion can be deterministically calculated more realistically up to higher frequencies. We first introduce a technique to model frequency-dependent attenuation and compare its impact on strong ground motions recorded for the 2008 Chino Hills earthquake. Then, we model dynamic rupture propagation for both a generic strike-slip event and blind thrust scenario earthquakes matching the fault geometry of the 1994 Mw 6.7 Northridge earthquake along rough faults up to 8 Hz. We incorporate frequency-dependent attenuation via a power law above a reference frequency in the form $Q_0f^n$ ,with high accuracy down to Q values of 15, and include nonlinear effects via Drucker-Prager plasticity. We model the region surrounding the fault with and without small-scale medium complexity in both a 1D layered model characteristic of southern California rock and a 3D medium extracted from the SCEC CVMSi.426 including a near-surface geotechnical layer. We find that the spectral acceleration from our models are within 1-2 interevent standard deviations from recent ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) and compare well with that of recordings from strong ground motion stations at both short and long periods. At periods shorter than 1 second, Q(f) is needed to match the decay of spectral acceleration seen in the GMPEs as a function of distance from the fault. We find that the similarity between the intraevent variability of our simulations and observations increases when small-scale heterogeneity and plasticity are included, extremely important as uncertainty in ground motion estimates dominates the overall uncertainty in seismic risk. In addition to GMPEs, we compare with simple proxy metrics to evaluate the performance of our deterministic models and to determine the importance of different complexities within our model. We find that 3D heterogeneity, at both the long and short scale-lengths, is necessary to agree with data, and should be included in future simulations to best model the ground motion from earthquakes.


The essence of advancing livelihoods is to heighten socio-economic transformation among the poor, especially rural women through education. The statement above suggests that locating these women as critical stakeholders and affording them opportunities to improve their skills and knowledge can advance values significantly. In the country in general, rural women generate less income as compared to men. Hence, educational practices geared toward women are to address this gap. Transformation, however, does not come cheap. It takes consented effort on educators, learners, and society to embrace educational provisions, programs, and new teaching methods for a sustainable change, especially for rural women. To achieve these objectives, a reflection of critical pedagogy and stakeholder theories into women's lives is essential. The study primarily investigated the role of critical pedagogy in advancing livelihoods and transforming the socio-economic lives of women in Mthatha, South Africa. Interviews, focus group discussions, and documentary analysis form the basis for gathering data from rural women (n=35) purposely selected for the study. The emergent findings show that the curriculum of ACET does not add value to these women's livelihood because it does not empower them with the requisite skills to fend for themselves. Therefore, the study recommended a robust investigation into the theory of critical pedagogy and the possible benefit of transformative practices in adult education, mainly geared towards women's development.


The ultimate fate of (fossil fuel) CO2 emitted to the atmosphere is governed by a range of sedimentological and geological processes operating on timescales of up to the ca. hundred thousand year response of the silicate weathering feedback. However, how the various geological CO2 sinks might saturate and feedbacks weaken in response to increasing total emissions is poorly known. Here we explore the relative importance and timescales of these processes using a 3‐D ocean‐based Earth system model. We first generate an ensemble of 1 Myr duration CO2 decay curves spanning cumulative emissions of up to 20,000 Pg C. To aid characterization and understanding of the model response to increasing emission size, we then generate an impulse response function description for the long‐term fate of CO2 in the model. In terms of the process of carbonate weathering and burial, our analysis is consistent with a progressively increasing fraction of total emissions that are removed from the atmosphere as emissions increase, due to the ocean carbon sink becoming saturated, together with a lengthening of the timescale of removal from the atmosphere. However, we find that in our model the ultimate CO2 sink—silicate weathering feedback—is approximately invariant with respect to cumulative emissions, both in terms of its importance (it removes the remaining excess ~7% of total emissions from the atmosphere) and timescale (~270 kyr). Because a simple pulse‐response description leads to initially large predictive errors for a realistic time‐varying carbon release, we also develop a convolution‐based description of atmospheric CO2 decay which can be used as a simple and efficient means of making long‐term carbon cycle perturbation projections.


In this work, an aptamer-based colorimetric method for the detection of tetracycline (TC) was established by employing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as the colorimetric probe. In the absence of TC, the aptamers are readily adsorbed on the surface of AuNPs, which prevents aggregation of AuNPs and stabilizes the red colloidal solution against high concentrations of NaCl. In the presence of TC, the aptamers are subsequently released from the surface of the AuNPs due to binding with TC molecules. A gradual color change from red to blue was observed due to the salt-induced aggregation of AuNPs. Furthermore, a linear relationship between the absorbance intensity and the concentration of TC was observed in the range of 0.10 to 5.00 μM. The limit of detection was 0.071 μM. The developed assay was employed for the determination of TC in environmental water samples. The recoveries ranged from 106.7% to 115.6% with relative standard deviations being less than 3.0%. The results demonstrate that the method serves as a promising tool for the rapid, simple and cost-effective detection of TC.


Through a collection of cooperative agents called ants, the near optimal solution to the multi-reservoir operation problem may be effectively achieved employing Ant Colony Optimization Algorithms (ACOAs). The problem is approached by considering a finite operating horizon, classifying the possible releases from the reservoir(s) into pre-determined intervals, and projecting the problem on a graph. By defining an optimality criterion, the combination of desirable releases from the reservoirs or operating policy is determined. To minimize the possibility of premature convergence to a local optimum, a combination of Pheromone Re-Initiation (PRI) and Partial Path Replacement (PPR) mechanisms are presented and their effects have been tested in a benchmark, nonlinear, and multimodal mathematical function. The finalized model is then applied to develop an optimum operating policy for a single reservoir and a benchmark four-reservoir operation problem. Integration of these mechanisms improves the final result, as well as initial and final rate of convergence. In the benchmark Ackley function minimization problem, after 410 iterations, PRI mechanism improved the final solution by 97 percent and the combination of PRI and PPR mechanisms reduced final result to global optimum. As expected in the single-reservoir problem, with a continuous search space, a nonlinear programming (NLP) approach performed better than ACOAs employing a discretized search space on the decision variable (reservoir release). As the complexity of the system increases, the definition of an appropriate heuristic function becomes more and more difficult; this may provide wrong initial sight or vision to the ants. By assigning a minimum weight to the exploitation term in a transition rule, the best result is obtained. In a benchmark 4-reservoir problem, a very low standard deviation is achieved for 10 different runs and it is considered as an indication of low diversity of the results. In 2 out of 10 runs, the global optimal solution is obtained, where in the other 8 runs; results are as close as 99.8 percent of the global solution. Results and execution time compare well with those of well developed genetic algorithms (GAs).


Some dry and wet grinding experiments have been respectively conducted on titanium dioxide which is a noble photocatalyst material in a mortar, a tumbling mill and a planetary mill. Anatase is apt to transform to rutile via a metastable phase brookite in every kind of mills in the case of dry grinding. And it hardly takes place for phase transformation from rutile to other forms. It is shown that the kind of mill has not decisive effect on the mechanochemical polymorphic transformation of titanium dioxide, which merely influences the rate of phase transformation. On the other hand, the addition of other liquid media, such as water and acetone, is helpless for phase transformation of anatase. Only anatase can transform to metastable phase brookite by wet grinding. When ground titanium dioxide is heated, the amorphous phase is easier to transform to rutile than metastable phase brookite at lower temperature.


A compact microstrip antenna loaded with periodic patterns etched in the ground plane is proposed. The etched patterns are Jerusalem crosses which look the same as one of the common electromagnetic band gap structures, uni-planar electromagnetic band gap. In this paper, the dielectric backed with etched ground plane is analysed in terms of metamaterial. The permittivity and permeability are derived from the simulated reflection and transmission coefficients. Then a patch is stacked on the metasubstrate, and the antenna is designed to operate at 2.4GHz. The proposed antenna has a small dimension in comparison to two other published compact antennas. Compared to the conventional patch antenna, the proposed antenna achieves a 68.38% miniaturization of the patch, and a 2.84 times impedance bandwidth broadening. Furthermore, the operating frequency of the proposed antenna can be tuned over a large range of frequencies by physically adjusting the length of the surrounding slots or by voltage adjusting of the voltage controlled tunable inductive elements. The proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. The measurement results are found to agree well with the simulation ones.


The focus of this contribution is to propose a novel centralized authentication and authorization system, which can be used to share laboratories. This system optionally relies on existing mechanisms, such as those used by universities -e.g., Shibboleth, OpenID- or by social networks -e.g., Facebook Connect or Google with OAuth-. However, it still supports schools or universities not counting with an existing system, by providing its own system. The authentication and authorization system will be registered in other RLMSs. This way, users registered in the central system can consume laboratories from other institutions. This development is part of a project that includes the integration of the FCEIA-UNR lab with social networks. Based upon a previous development of a Remote Laboratory Management System at Universidad de Deusto, the authors also explain the advantages and drawbacks of the centralized approach.


The relationship of the resistivity versus synthesizing temperature of sol-gel YBa2Cu3O7-x samples, with Tc 91K, was studied while synthesizing in flowing oxygen atmosphere. A set of high temperature -T curves were obtained for the whole process. After four rounds of synthesizing, the resistivity of the sample was =1.00×10-3cm at room temperature. The -T curve of the last round also showed that the orthorhombic to tetragonal phase transformation of the sample occurred around 600oC that is lower than the YBa2Cu3O7-x sample prepared in ambient atmosphere. Other measurements such as X-ray diffraction, SEM measurement, low temperature R-T and M-T measurement were also taken to get more information of these samples.


This paper examines how institutional dynamics among regulatory institutions affect the governance of the recruitment of Indonesian low-skilled migrant workers. Two institutional reforms have been made to create better governance for Indonesian migrant workers in the post-authoritarian era. One was the establishment of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) while the other was the granting of greater responsibility to sub-national governments to supervise migrant worker recruitment. In spite of these institutional reforms, little progress has been made in the protection of Indonesian migrant workers. The paper reveals that the restrictive regulatory framework for the recruitment of migrant workers, which curbs private recruitment agencies, does not create better migrant worker governance. This regulatory framework does not take into consideration the horizontal relationship between the old and new institutions, and the vertical relationship between the central and sub-national governments. Horizontally, the institutional design of the proposed new regulatory framework has created institutional rivalry between the newly established regulatory actor and the old one. Vertically, the reluctance of central government to decentralise authority to sub-national governments has curtailed the ability of sub-national governments to perform a supervisory role in the recruitment process. These two inter-related factors have hindered the efforts to create a better recruitment process for Indonesian migrant workers.


Making reproducible, auditable and scalable data-processing analysis workflows is an important challenge in the field of bioinformatics. Recently, software containers and cloud computing introduced a novel solution to address these challenges. They simplify software installation, management and reproducibility by packaging tools and their dependencies. In this work we implemented a cloud provider agnostic and scalable container orchestration setup for the popular Galaxy workflow environment. This solution enables Galaxy to run on and offload jobs to most cloud providers (e.g. Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud or OpenStack, among others) through the Kubernetes container orchestrator. Availability All code has been contributed to the Galaxy Project and is available (since Galaxy 17.05) at https://github.com/galaxyproject/ in the galaxy and galaxy-kubernetes repositories. https://public.phenomenal-h2020.eu/ is an example deployment.


Book description: A contract is an agreement under which two parties make reciprocal commitments in terms of their behavior to coordinate. As this concept has become essential to economics in the last 30 years, three main theoretical frameworks have emerged: 'incentive theory', 'incomplete-contract theory' and 'transaction-costs theory'. These frameworks have enabled scholars to renew both the microeconomics of coordination (with implications for industrial organization, labor economics, law and economics, organization design) and the macroeconomics of 'market' (decentralized) economies and of the institutional framework. These developments have resulted in new analyses of a firm's strategy and State intervention (regulation of public utilities, anti-trust, public procurement, institutional design, liberalization policies, etc.). Based on contributions by the leading scholars in the field, this book provides an overview of the past and recent developments in these analytical currents, presents their various aspects, and proposes expanding horizons for theoreticians and practitioners.


Abstract The review is focused on the action of glucocorticoids released during activation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, on the susceptibility of gastric mucosa to injury. The data support the idea that glucocorticoids produced in response to acute stress or other ulcerogenic stimuli have a gastroprotective action but not ulcerogenic one as it has generally been considered for some decades. It has been shown that gastroprotective action of glucocorticoids may be mediated by multiple actions, including maintenance of glucose homeostasis, gastric mucosal blood flow, mucus production and attenuation of enhanced gastric motility and microvascular permeability. For maintenance of gastric mucosal integrity glucocorticoids may cooperate with other gastroprotective factors. Glucocorticoid hormones exert a pivotal role in the maintenance of gastric mucosal integrity in the case of impaired gastroprotective mechanisms provided by prostaglandins, nitric oxide and capsaicin-sensitive sensory neurons. These findings indicate that activation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical system could be considered as a significant hormonal gastroprotective component of stress reaction and therefore glucocorticoid hormones are natural gastroprotective factors.


Marsupial mammals show extraordinary karyotype stability, with 2n = 14 considered ancestral. However, macropodid marsupials (kangaroos and wallabies) exhibit a considerable variety of karyotypes, with a hypothesised ancestral karyotype of 2n = 22. Speciation and karyotypic diversity in rock wallabies (Petrogale) is exceptional. We used cross species chromosome painting to examine the chromosome evolution between the tammar wallaby (2n = 16) and three 2n = 22 rock wallaby species groups with the putative ancestral karyotype. Hybridization of chromosome paints prepared from flow sorted chromosomes of the tammar wallaby to Petrogale spp., showed that this ancestral karyotype is largely conserved among 2n = 22 rock wallaby species, and confirmed the identity of ancestral chromosomes which fused to produce the bi-armed chromosomes of the 2n = 16 tammar wallaby. These results illustrate the fission-fusion process of karyotype evolution characteristic of the kangaroo group.


Some countries develop illegal drugs industries, and others do not. Discerning the distinguishing characteristics-social, economic, and political-of countries with these industries forms the subject of this sophisticated and humane study. The author, Francisco E. Thoumi, though trained as an economist, rejects simplistic economic solutions as well as simplistic moral ones as he addresses the Andean countries of Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia and the attitudes and responses of the United States. He investigates how the United States and the Andean countries perceive drugs issues; the history, structure, and evolution of drug industries in the Andes; the size of the industries in Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia; and their economic, political, and social effects in each country. Thoumi also addresses the political systems and social characteristics of these countries and why they have been so vulnerable to influence from these industries. And he offers case studies of a variety of anti-drug efforts including crop substitution and alternative development, eradication, interdiction of illicit traffic and manufacturing facilities, and extradition to the United States of traffickers.


This chapter presents a practical method to investigate the effects of brittle fracture on the ultimate compressive strength of steel stiffened-plate structures under cryogenic conditions. Computational models are developed to analyse the ultimate compressive strength of steel stiffened-plate structures, triggered by brittle fracture, under cryogenic condition. A phenomenological form of the material model for the high-strength steel at cryogenic condition is proposed, that takes into account the Bauschinger effect, and implemented into a nonlinear finite element solver (LS-DYNA). Comparison between computational predictions and experimental measurements is made for the ultimate compressive strength response of a full-scale steel stiffened-plate structure, showing a good agreement between them.


PATANCHERU, INDIA-- Twenty-five years ago, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) was established here to do for the region9s chief subsistence crops what the Green Revolution had done for the cultivation of wheat and rice. But now a severe budget shortfall has triggered massive staff cuts and raised concern about organizational deficiencies. Those problems, in turn, led to a thorough house cleaning of senior management this summer. The turmoil comes on top of persistent criticism that ICRISAT has had too little impact on the practices of local farmers, despite a gene bank of 110,000 plant varieties and its success in developing a fast-growing, high-yield hybrid of pigeon pea. Ironically, the crisis comes amid forecasts that climate variability poses an increasing threat to productivity.


This paper addresses apparent definitional gaps and ambiguities in existing references to the marginal aspects of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and reviews its role as a benchmark in investment appraisal. A selection of typical statements, both from the finance and economics traditions, is presented to highlight limitations of the current state of the debate, and to reconcile modelling styles in the area. The commonly advanced justification for the use of WACC as a criterion on grounds of practicality only is criticised as subject to unduly restrictive conditions, especially unchanged gearing. Alternative Marginal Factor Cost (MFC) definitions for equity and debt are proposed, and their properties explored. The corresponding MFC curves cross over at the minimum WACC which can then serve as a marginal criterion under optimal gearing. Minimum WACC is also derived from a profit maximisation model and WACC is thus shown to be compatible with marginalism in so far as profit maximisation applies. A related aim of the analysis presented is to inform pedagogy in the area by crossing the boundary between economics and finance modelling.


This article is a call to describe Participatory Design (PD) projects in the making, i.e. to show how the heterogeneous elements in the field are gradually organised in a participatory manner as the projects progress. It is based on two arguments. The first is a negative argument. Very often, PD projects are not described in the making. As a result, the landmarks to be used to evaluate them remain unclear or invisible. The second argument is of a more positive nature. The articles that do describe projects in the making enable landmarks to be defined that can be effectively used to evaluate PD projects. The notion of emerging groups is one of these landmarks.