This paper deals with one of the most visible problems of our times: the conservation and protection of the environment. Today more than ever has mankind been faced with the crude limitedness of environmental resources, vis-a-vis the increasing demands of worldwide economic growth. The authors focus specifically on the preservation of the diversity of wildlife species, and on the challenges to this goal coming from the different policy value of free trade. In particular, this conflict is chiefly embodied by two different treaties: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The authors initially approach the problem by providing an overview of the substantive conflicts between the two agreements, with the CITES adopting a generally 'protectionist' stand, as opposed to the more liberalisation-oriented provisions of the GATT, such as the Most Favoured Nation or the National Treatment clauses, to name but a few. Such conflicts may ultimately push national policies in opposite directions, undermining the achievement of either of the two goals. In order to avoid the bold prevalence of one goal over the other, ie free trade over wildlife preservation or vice versa, Ishupal S. Kang and Charulata Chaudhary come to challenge the very premise of this supposed conflict, with a view to pointing the way to a possible solution. In particular, the authors cast the question whether free trade - and the goal of economic growth more generally - really ought to be in opposition to wildlife protection and environmental preservation more generally: is environmental depletion the only way to achieve prosperity? The answer ultimately borders into politics, which is why the authors propose - as a possible solution - deeper integration of environmental concerns in the WTO framework, whose mandate exceeds the liberalisation of trade in goods, and where enough countries are represented to try and achieve a concerted solution. In sum, the WTO and the environment ought not to be two separate entities, but the achievement of more environmentally-friendly economic development schemes should be obtained by working from within what has the potential to be one of the most effective international fora on economic issues.


ABSTRACT Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is known to exacerbate myocardial ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury. However, the underlying mechanisms are still not well understood. Despite various strategies for cardioprotection, limited studies have been focused on the prevention of CKD-induced myocardial susceptibility to IR injury. Here, we hypothesized that excessive endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-mediated apoptosis involved in myocardial IR injury in CKD mice and pretreatment with chemical ER chaperone rendered the heart resistant to myocardial IR injury in the setting of CKD. CKD was induced by 5/6 subtotal nephrectomy (SN) in mice, whereas sham-operated mice served as control (Sham). CKD significantly aggravated the cardiac injury after IR in SN group than Sham group as reflected by more severe cardiac dysfunction, increased myocardial infarct size and the ratio of myocardial apoptosis. The expression of ER stress-mediated apoptotic proteins (Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP), caspase-12) was markedly upregulated after IR injury in SN group than Sham group, whereas the expression of anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-2, was obviously downregulated. In addition, the chemical ER chaperone sodium 4-phenylbutyrate (4PBA) pretreatment ameliorated cardiac dysfunction and lessened the infarct size and myocardial apoptosis after IR injury in mice with CKD. Taken together, these findings demonstrated that excessive activation of ER stress-mediated apoptosis pathway involved in the CKD-induced myocardial susceptibility to IR injury, and chemical ER chaperone 4PBA alleviated myocardial IR injury in mice with CKD.


Objective To assess the impact of measured versus reported environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure on asthma severity and exacerbations in an urban paediatric population. Design We analysed cross-sectional data from the Chicago Initiative to Raise Asthma Health Equity study that followed a cohort of 561 children aged 8–14 with physician-diagnosed asthma between 2003 and 2005. Participant sociodemographic data and asthma symptoms were gathered by parental survey; exposures to ETS were determined by salivary cotinine levels and parent report. Multivariable negative binomial and ordered logistic regressions were used to assess associations between ETS and asthma outcomes. Results Among 466 children included in our analysis, 58% had moderate or severe persistent asthma; 32% had >2 exacerbations requiring a hospitalisation or an emergency room visit or same day care in the previous year. Half of caregivers reported that at least one household member smoked. In multivariable analyses, salivary cotinine was significantly associated with frequently reported exacerbations in the previous year (adjusted incidence rate ratio=1.39, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.79), but not significantly associated with asthma severity. Reported household smoking was not significantly associated with either asthma severity or frequency of exacerbations. Conclusions Salivary cotinine was more predictive of asthma exacerbation frequency but caregiver- reported household smoking was not. Use of a nicotine biomarker may be important in both the clinical and research settings to accurately identify an important risk factor for asthma exacerbations.


Abstract The classic Dinantian cherts of the Rhenish Massif and Harz Mountains, Germany, were analysed for their petrography and sedimentology. They occur in five lithostratigraphic units: the Lower Alum Shale Formation, the Black Chert Formation, the Pale Chert Formation, the Siliceous Limestone Formation, and the Siliceous Transitional Formation (upper Hastarian to Asbian, CuII to CuIIIα of the German cephalopod zonation). Mafic volcanic rocks are locally associated with these strata. Four regional facies zones have been defined. Radiolarian chert, spiculitic chert, homogeneous chert, and silicified quartz-trachytic tephra and tuffite are the main chert types. These mostly form current-laminated grey, black, greenish or reddish beds rhythmically alternating with layers of siliceous mudstone and, in places, variably intercalated with grey and black mudstones and siltstones, phosphorites, metabentonites, limestone turbidites, greywackes and quartz arenites. The siliceous rocks were deposited in a moderately deep (upper bathyal) strait of an equatorial sea that was part of palaeo-Tethys. Westward-driven nutrient-rich currents from the palaeo-Pacific Ocean favoured high radiolarian fertility. Relatively pure biosiliceous ooze was deposited under temporarily anoxic conditions when, due to dry climate and high sea-level, detrital input decreased. Deposition of the siliceous facies ended with increased detrital input and breakdown of the ocean-current system due to the collision of Laurasia and Gondwana during the Variscan Orogeny.


Experiments on sheared granular materials show that the stresses grow as the first power of the log of the shear rate, γ. We suggest that this may be evidence of the stress ensemble recently proposed by Henkes, O'Hern, and Chakraborty. The picture that we propose is that under steady shearing, the local force network builds up over time, and then fails when the force on the network exceeds a characteristic value. In analogy to soft glassy rheology, we assume that this is an activated process, but now, with the Boltzmann factor replaced by the stress ensemble analogue. We assume that the probability that a local part of the network fails is proportional to exp[(σ−σm)/σo], where σ is the local stress, σm is a failure threshold, and σo is related to the generalized temperature, α, of Henkes and Chakraborty. It is then possible to show that these assumptions lead to logarithmic increases in the stress as a function of γ. This contrasts with the SGR result that the stress grows as the square root of log(γ).


The role of algorithms in the detection, curation and broadcast of news is becoming increasingly prevalent. To better understand this role we developed CityBeat, a system that implements what we call "editorial algorithms" to find possible news events. This fully functional system collects real time geo-tagged information from social media, finds key stories, makes an editorial decision whether these events are of interest and eventually visualizes these stories on a big screen display. The system was designed in collaboration with journalists and tested at four New York City newsrooms. Our results show that while journalists were receptive to the idea of machine-generated news stories, the actual results of the system confirmed current concerns among journalists and researchers about the dangers of outsourcing news finding tasks to machines. This paper therefore exemplifies how news sourcing systems based on social media may favor specific type of news events, do not report results quickly enough, and cater to a biased population and interests.


In these last years, the world of the smartphones and the one of the videogames have merged, producing a new phenomenon, called Mobile Gaming. The global turnover, related to the mobile games, grew up, becoming one of the most productive activities of the last years, so much that, in the last months, were released smartphones optimized for mobile gaming.In this context, The Mak07 game was developed. It is a puzzle game based on the simple idea of combining together seven numbers, exploiting the arithmetic operations, sum, subtraction, multiplication and division, in order to obtain zero as final result. A group of seven numbers is called schema, and each time a schema is solved, a new one appear on the screen. A player has two minutes to solve the highest number of schemata. The game crossed several development phases, each of them has introduced new features in order to improve the game experience. The first release of the game gave, only, the possibility to solve schemata, one after the other, so the game experience was restricted. Then, in order to enhance the social aspect that each game should have, the possibility to have challenges among players was introduced, developing, also, a ranking classification among the Mak07 users. Now, in order to improve the competitiveness and to increase the game experience, the tournament feature was developed. This final elaborate has the purpose of designing and implementing the tournament feature for the Mak07 game. A tournament has the purpose of gather and managing a limited amount of player that want to compete each other until only one winner remains. Each tournament provides a number of rounds related to the maximum number of participant, and each round has a number of challenges according to the winners of the preceding round. A tournament has an execution time larger than a single challenge. It is composed by a registration phase that last 20 minutes, in which the users can sign up to the tournament, and a variable number of rounds, that last 10 minutes each one. So that, the tournament feature was designed to allow the users to have longer and satisfying game sessions, unlike those offered by the challenges, that last only two minutes.The starting development point is the situation in which the challenge feature was already available, so the tournament feature should be introduced without modifying the available features, but exploiting them. In fact, a big effort was spent not only to write, as much as possible modular and independent code, but also to create a working fusion among the time interval mechanism, related to the tournament, with the state transition mechanism, related to the challenge, focusing on the fact that each challenge has not a limited execution time, but can be played by the two players whenever they wont.The support architecture of Mak07 is composed by a server that contains the business logic and the database, and a mobile client that has a dialogue with the server. To develop the back end software is used the Spring framework, that, thanks to its functionalities, allows to create flexible and modular code respecting all the REST principles needed in a web based system. As databases was used MongoDB, in order to exploit the powerful of a non-relational database, even if some issues should be tackled, as the absence of transactions.In conclusion, it was developed an algorithm simple, in order to make the tournament experience rewarding as much as possible, but, at the same time, capable of managing all the synchronization problems that could arise in a multi-user environment.


Nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) indicate that over 65% of adults aged 51–70 years in the U.S. do not meet hydration criteria. They have hyponatremia (serum sodium < 135 mmol/L) and/or underhydration (serum sodium >145 mmol/L, spot urine volume <50 mL, and/or spot urine osmolality ≥500 mmol/kg). To explore potential public health implications of not meeting hydration criteria, data from the NHANES 2009–2012 and National Center for Health Statistics Linked Mortality Files for fasting adults aged 51–70 years (sample n = 1200) were used to determine if hyponatremia and/or underhydration were cross-sectionally associated with chronic health conditions and/or longitudinally associated with chronic disease mortality. Underhydration accounted for 97% of the population group not meeting hydration criteria. In weighted multivariable adjusted Poisson models, underhydration was significantly associated with increased prevalence of obesity, high waist circumference, insulin resistance, diabetes, low HDL, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome. Over 3–6 years of follow-up, 33 chronic disease deaths occurred in the sample, representing an estimated 1,084,144 deaths in the U.S. Alongside chronic health conditions, underhydration was a risk factor for an estimated 863,305 deaths. Independent of the chronic health conditions evaluated, underhydration was a risk factor for 128,107 deaths. In weighted multivariable Cox models, underhydration was associated with 4.21 times greater chronic disease mortality (95% CI: 1.29–13.78, p = 0.019). Zero chronic disease deaths were observed for people who met the hydration criteria and did not already have a chronic condition in 2009–2012. Further work should consider effects of underhydration on population health.


The Federal Government of Nigeria intensified the Formation of Cooperatives in the eighties as part of her economic reform and poverty alleviation programmes in almost all the states. Abia people's favourable disposition to adoption of cooperative system as a strategy for enhancing agricultural and rural development is evident from the great number of persons that are engaged in cooperative activities, especially in the rural communities of Abia State. Worrisome, however, is the high rate of membership turnover. This prompted an investigation with the aim of ascertaining factors responsible for fluidity of membership of these groups. A multi-stage, stratified sampling technique was adopted in selecting 25 cooperative societies and 150 cooperators covered in the study.  Descriptive statistics such as percentages was used in data analysis. Participation in cooperative activities was found to have been influenced mainly by poverty (58.7%) among the people. Cooperative membership was also perceived as an avenue for socialization (25.40%) and savings mobilization (37.3%). The inability of these societies to satisfy members social, affiliative and biological needs and, consequently, enhance their well-being was found to be a disincentive to belonging to such groups. Given the relevance of these societies, it is recommended that, among other things, the activities of Abia State Economic Empowerment Development Strategies (ABSEEDS) be intensified to improve participation in cooperative societies in the State.


The aim of this study was to assess the welfare of culled dairy cattle sent to an auction in the UK and identify associations between animal-based measurement and economic gain. The population of cull dairy cows sold at a Scottish livestock market were assessed on ten occasions for measures including body condition, mobility, hair loss and lesions, swelling, body cleanliness, claw conformation and total time in pre-sale pens. Details on breed, age, breeding status, farm, weight and price were gathered from market reports and cattle passports. Questionnaires sent to farms gathered information on reason for culling, retirement period (a finishing period to improve body condition), and number of lactations, among other variables. Measures such as bodyweight, breeding status, and breed type influenced price paid, with heifers and larger animals receiving higher prices. A negative effect over price paid was due to reduced mobility and hair loss scores, suggesting that some animal-based indicators of compromised welfare may be associated with a lower economic return from the cows sent to market. No influence of retirement length on price paid was noted. Reason for culling also did not influence price paid, but considering the association found between welfare and price paid, this suggests that the farmers' reason for culling may not be necessarily revealed by the visual appearance of the cow. This study reveals reasons for culling and quantifies the welfare of dairy cows at market and demonstrates how measures of breeding status and body size, as well as measures of welfare, influence the buyers' decisions and prices paid at auction.


This study was designed to investigate the relation between occupational exposure to mercury and cardiovascular risk, as well as free radicals. The study subjects included 30 male workers exposed to mercury from a fluorescent lamp plant in Alexandria after exclusion of 12 workers with conditions that may bias the results. A matched control group of 20 male subjects were selected from a food industrial plant. The participants were subjected to interview, clinical examination, electrocardiography and R-R deep breathing variability test as a measure of cardiac autonomic function. Spot urine and venous blood samples were collected to measure mercury levels. Free radicals related markers were measured in serum namely lipid peroxide, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, catalase activity and glutathione S-transferase. Results showed significant longer electrocardiographic Q-Tc interval, which is corrected to heart rate, in exposed workers than in controls (p=0.002). The R-R deep breathing variability indices were significantly increased among exposed workers in comparison to controls (maximal variation (MV) ratio, p=0.024 & MV rate, p=0.019). The mercury levels in both urine and blood of exposed workers were significantly higher than controls (p<0.0001), with mean levels exceeding the permissible limits. Free radicals related markers revealed significant higher level of lipid peroxide, as well as significant lower levels of SOD activity, catalase activity and glutathione S-transferase among exposed workers than among controls (p<0.0001 for all). Independent relations were observed between Q-Tc and lipid peroxide, and between MV rate and SOD and catalase activities among exposed workers after adjustment for the confounders by multivariate regression analyses. These findings may suspect a cardiac autonomic dysfunction probably related to free radicals in mercury exposed workers. Also, it may through light on some preventive implications.


Advocacy for fossil fuel divestment has been growing on college campuses nationwide in recent years. In contrast with prior literature, which focuses on the impact of divestment on returns, I investigate the "frictional" costs that college and university endowments incur in implementing fossil fuel divestment, including transaction costs and ongoing monitoring and active management costs. I find that these costs are likely to be substantial, for the following reasons. First, endowments are long-term investors that tend to hold illiquid assets that are costly to sell. Second, endowments frequently invest in mutual funds or commingled funds, which requires them to sell more than just fossil-fuel-related assets in order to divest. Third, since there is no well-defined and agreed-upon list of assets that are fossil-fuel-related, investment managers must undertake a degree of active management in order to maintain compliance with divestment goals. Overall, I estimate a total cost to endowments over 20 years due to the frictional costs of divestment that range between approximately 2 and 12 percent of the endowment's value, which, for a typical large university endowment, would translate to a decline in value of between $1.4 billion and $7.4 billion.


Jing Qicheng was the most distinguished psychologist of contemporary China and also the spokesman of Chinese psychology around the international arena after the opening and reform of China. With a broad view, he was both an experimental psychologist of high attainments and a theoretical psychologist with profound knowledge. This paper does not deal with his contributions in cognitive and developmental psychology, but analyzes his international psychological thoughts and practices from a theoretical perspective. It is observed that Jing Qicheng not only endeavored in his writings to bridge the gap between Chinese and western psychologies (both introducing foreign psychologies to China and advocating Chinese psychology abroad), but also, he actively participated in the organization and practice of international psychology. As a leader of the international union of psychological science, he organized and hosted the 28th International Congress of Psychology in 2004. Through his life, he had contributed significantly in highlighting the international aspect of psychology, promoting the exchange of international psychology and pushing Chinese psychology into the world stage.

 Key words: Jing Qicheng, international psychology, Chinese Psychological Society, International Union of Psychological Science, practice.


Diabetes being considered as an epidemic, long term untreated complicated diabetes resulting in retinopathy will be a leading cause of blindness worldwide. Many cross-sectional studies reported a strong relationship between chronic hyperglycaemia and development, progression of retinopathy, however the underlying mechanism that cause retinal microvascular damage following prolonged hyperglycaemia, yet to be revealed. Continued research worldwide focuses on understanding the molecular basis with the ultimate goal to prevent diabetic retinopathy by developing newer therapeutic targets. This article reviews multiple biochemical pathways that are implicated in diabetic retinopathy. Recent advancement in the molecular basis of the disease   as well as clinical trials undertaken to target these molecules in order to block the signalling cascade prevailing in diabetic retinopathy is also discussed. This review highlights the recent therapeutic targets to prevent the onset as well as the progress of retinopathy in diabetes.


Simulation is one of most important technique used for learning, it makes learning possible without cost and provides best way to improve the practical skills for learners. The purpose of this research was to design program to simulate processing of simplifying Boolean expression by using kranaugh-map depending on rules and procedures applied to Boolean equation in order minimize it to obtain final optimal expression with minimum number of variables ,and reduction in equipment that leads to reduce cost, and this research recommend to use modern methods in education which Simulation programs is one of this method to improve E-learning to keep up with universities which care to use E-learning with traditional education and make student more interactive with education progress


The purpose of school bus services is to carry children from their homes to school and back. Scheduling and routing such services manually can be a long and tedious task, as it gives rise to complex combinatorial problems. To tackle those, we propose various heuristics in order to build good quality schedules of school bus routes for small and large size problems. The school bus routing and scheduling problem is modeled by introducing a performance measure corresponding to the service level provided to the children. This quality measure focusing on the children differs from previous approaches to the subject, in which the solution evaluation generally depends on the number of buses used or the lengths of the routes of the vehicles. In addition, our schedules allow the vehicles simultaneously to carry children going to different schools, which to our knowledge has only been treated once in the literature. Two problems are considered: one consisting in maximizing the average quality of children service level and another to maximize the quality of the worst service level provided to a child. These problems can be formulated as binary integer programs, but their size is too large to consider an exact resolution with current software and computers. A constructive method is proposed to obtain a feasible schedule which is optimized thereafter with various heuristics: simulated annealing, tabu search and variable neighborhood search. Let us note that, during optimization, the use of schedules violating the vehicle capacity is authorized. The heuristics employed, in their variant exploring infeasible solution set, are more effective than those that are confined to the feasible solution set. These methods also yield much higher quality schedules for real data sets than those actually used by the schools in question. An ideal schedule should allow to simultaneously optimize both objective functions mentioned above. In order to approach such a solution, a two phase method is proposed. The first phase consists in maximizing the minimum service level and the second in maximizing the average service level without reducing the minimum obtained during the first phase. We also developed an extension of our methods based on decomposition adapted to large scale problems. The proposed decomposition approach allows to considerably reduce computing time without giving up quality and is essential in order to solve problems with a large number of children. Let us finally note that a graphical user interface was developed, allowing to visualize, analyze and modify schedules generated by the heuristics. It is thus possible to integrate additional constraints that have not been modeled, or to adapt a solution in case of a small modification to the problem data.


The East African Community (EAC) will be enhanced by the growth of Border towns of the partner states. This study will assess the effect of the EAC on Kenyan Border towns. To achieve this, the study will be guided by the various objectives of the EAC. In tandem with the EAC, the objectives of the study will be to assess the effect of free trade, free movement of people, capital, services and freedom to establish companies and businesses in partner states. The study will be conducted in the Kenyan border towns of Busia, Malaba, Namanga and Lunga Lunga. The target population will be 700 businesses of all registered businesses at the border points. The distribution will be Busia (100), Malaba (250), Namanga (200) and Lunga Lunga (150). A random sampling technique will be used to select the samples. Data will be collected using questionnaires and face to face interviews. The same will be analyzed using both correlation and regression tools. Findings will be presented using tables, pie charts, bar charts and descriptive statistics. While reviewing the. ,:,arious literatures on the effect of EAC integration on cross border business performance, it is evident that a lot of research is yet to be done to justify the effect of CBB performance. On free trade, Busse (2003) reviewed the effect of the common market in USA but .: ,. highlighted that little research had been done on the effect of CBB along the border points for Kenya. On free movement of services McCorm!ck (2007) reviewed the effect of free movement of services on EU but indicated the need to conduct similar studies for regional integration in Africa. On freedom to establish businesses Figlio (2000) reviewed the relationship between FDI and cross JJrder businesses in UK but highlighted the need for a similar study to cover East /~n;i(;a. Based on the above findings by the authors, it is evident that a lot of research. is yet to be done to narrow .. down the existing knowledge gap.


There are many uncertain sensitive issues such as parameter disturbance and edge effect when PMLSM running. In order to solve these problems, a method called mixed robust optimal and H controller is presented. Robust optimal and H∞ control strategy is made use to design the mixed robust optimal and H controller of PMLSM. Large external disturbance and internal nonlinear perturbations can well be eliminated by this controller, and it's easy to be practiced. MATLAB/SIMULINK is made use to simulate the system. With the help of PMAC board and COPLY controller permanent brushless motor controller, hardware test platform is built. The test results show that mixed robust optimal and H controller has strong robustness and traceability compared with traditional PID control method.


Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is slated to become a standard for tagging various products. As more and more products become RFID enabled, fast tag identification mechanisms will become important. Various tag identification (or anti-collision) algorithms have been proposed for RFID systems. This work focuses on methods to improve tag read efficiency in RFID Systems. In this report, we propose an Intelligent Query Tree (IQT) Protocol for tag identification that exploits specific prefix patterns in the tags and make the identification process more efficient. IQT is a memoryless protocol that identifies RFID tags more efficiently in scenarios where tag IDs have some common prefix (e.g., common vendor ID or product ID). IQT is suitable for readers deployed in exclusive showrooms, shipment points of big malls, where the products may come from same manufacturer and may have same product IDs. We provide the worst case complexity analysis of IQT and show the performance improvement of this protocol over traditional Query Tree protocol in different scenarios. For other cases we show the improvement using simulation results.


School trips to museums are an important means of introducing young people to museum collections and may have a long-term learning impact (Falk & Dierking, 1997). At the same time, activities in museum spaces can be challenging for students who are engaged in complex learning processes. The thesis considers the use of a microblogging technology (Twitter) by a Year 9 History class (13-14s) from a secondary school in Milton Keynes during a trip to the Museum of London (http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/). It draws on the view that mobile technologies can create a continuity of the learning experience despite changes in the physical and social context (Sharples, 2015) and contributes to the body of research on how such technologies can best support young people's visit experience and extend it beyond the museum.

The thesis is informed by sociocultural perspectives of learning with a focus on mediating artefacts in the development of understanding in situated learning activities. It draws on the Contextual Model of Learning which views the visit experience in relation to meaning making and situates this in visitors' personal, physical and sociocultural contexts (Falk & Dierking, 2000). This research employs a case-study methodology and adopts a research design that involved a pre- and post-visit approach. Evidence of students' activity in the museum and the classroom while using Twitter is considered. The findings are based on video analysis (Ash, 2007), analysis of questionnaires, interviews and personal meaning maps (Falk et al., 1998).

Evidence reveals that the use of microblogging reconfigures the museum space by creating an 'interconnected space'. Evidence also shows that the content generated by the students was 'designed' for an audience and offered opportunities for new ways of engagement with objects within the context of a semi-formal visit. The analysis illustrates that prominent practices in the museum were 'live' communication, documentation and sharing, while in the classroom the microblogging supported the students to connect to meanings made in the museum by providing prompts for reflection and recollection. Learners were able to weave everyday informal practices related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies with formal museum visiting practices. However, the analysis also points out that learners faced some threats in the continuity of their experience and the development of their trajectories of meaning making as reflected in the three types of visit experience: the 'focused', the 'hybrid' and the 'floating'.

Drawing on this evidence, the thesis makes a distinction between 'microblogging as a tool', 'microblogging as a space to create, review and share content' and 'microblogging as a practice'. The thesis also points to three intertwined areas of consideration for designing learning activities across contexts. These areas include: the technological properties of the tools in use, the types of activity the tools support and specific practices associated with the tools and the contexts. This work essentially contributes to the contemporary discourse around studying 'seamless learning spaces' (Chan et al., 2006) and has implications in designing approaches for technology-enhanced learning in museums.


A new stabilizing nonlinear controller for the vertical motion of an electrically actuated hopping robot is introduced and analyzed. The approach starts by finding reference limit cycles from the "passive dynamics" of a mass-spring system. The controller then modulates the system dynamics via the leg actuator during the stance phase to force the system trajectory to converge to this reference limit cycle. The controlled system dynamics is a continuous yet nonsmooth vector field. A piecewise-continuous Lyapunov function and the general forms of Lasalle's invariance and domain of attraction theorems are used to prove global asymptotic stability of the desired limit cycles. It is also shown that the derived passive dynamic cycles are indeed the positive limit sets of the controlled system. The rate of convergence can be adjusted but is limited by actuator constraints.


This paper explains the relationship and different arguments concerning freedom of speech. It uses Swedish newspaper columns, such as editorial pages, as its main source. The paper is mainly based upon the work of John Stuart Mill and his book On Freedom and Thomas Hobbes work Leviathan. The main focus is to see if there's any connection between the Swedish newspapers and the theories which in itself is based upon the two works. The method that was used throughout this thesis was a content analysis which means that all of the newspaper articles and columns were analyzed and put into three different categories with category number one being based upon John Stuart Mill and his ideas, and number three being based upon Thomas Hobbes. Number two worked as a middle way and combined both of the theories. In those separate categories they were read and analyzed after arguments. Arguments that were often recurring were the main focus and were also the ones that were used for the final conclusion. The conclusion was based on the articles and the output was that the majority of the articles actually went on the same line as John Stuart Mill and that a few would like to see some kind of restriction on freedom of speech.


The gravitational potential is a key function involved in many astrophysical problems. Its evaluation inside continuous media from Newton's law is known to be challenging because of the diverging kernel 1/|r-r'|. This difficulty is generally treated with avoidance techniques (e.g. multipole expansions, softening length) themselves not without drawbacks. In this article, we present a new path that basically fixes the point-mass singularity problem in systems with, at least, two dimensions. It consists of recasting the gravitational potential in an equivalent integro-differential form, namely the cross-derivative of a "hyperpotential" (i.e., an auxiliary scalar function). In contrast with the potential, the hyperpotential is the convolution of the mass density with a finite amplitude kernel. We show that closed-form expressions for this new kernel can be directly deduced from the potential of homogeneous sheets. We then give a few formulae appropriate to the Cartesian, cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems, including axial symmetry. The method is essentially not limited, either on the geometry of the source or on the distribution, and its implementation is straightforward. Several tests based upon simple quadrature/differentiation schemes are presented (the homogeneous rectangular sheet, cuboid and disk, the Maclaurin disk and a truncated Lane-Emden solution). Compared with a direct summation, the extra computational cost is low and the gain is real: no truncated series, no free parameter, and a relative accuracy better than 1% for typically 16 nodes per spatial direction using the most basic numerical schemes.


Abstract The Environmental Noise Directive (END) requires that regular updating of noise maps is implemented every five years to check and report about the changes occurred during the reference period. The updating process is usually achieved using a standardized approach, consisting in collating and processing information through acoustic models to produce the updated maps. This procedure is time consuming and costly, and has a significant impact on the budget of the authorities responsible for providing the maps. Furthermore, END requires that simplified and easy-to-read noise maps are made available to inform the public about noise levels and actions to be undertaken by local and central authorities to reduce noise impacts. To make the updating of noisemaps easier and more cost effective, there is a need for integrated systems that incorporate real-time measurement and processing to assess the acoustic impact of noise sources. To that end, a dedicated project, named DYNAMAP (DYNamic Acoustic MAPping), has been proposed and co-financed in the framework of the LIFE 2013 program, with the aim to develop a dynamic noise mapping system able to detect and represent in real time the acoustic impact of road infrastructures. In this paper, after a comprehensive description of the project idea, objectives and expected results, the most important steps to achieve the ultimate goal are described.


This Article argues that Sullivan was not only a "civil rights case," but also very much a libel case, one that was influenced by contemporaneous debates over libel law and freedom of the press. The Court intervened in what was perceived at the time as a near-crisis for the press caused by an increasing number of libel suits and large damage awards against publishers in the 1950s and '60s. This escalation was a notable departure from the relatively tame "libel climate" of the previous forty years. For most of the first half of the twentieth century, the press had been able, to a remarkable degree, to avoid and defeat libel suits through strategic navigation of the libel law landscape. By combining a tactical accommodation of libel law with a dedicated resistance to it, the press had learned to "liv[e] with the law of libel." By the 1940s, most of the nation's major newspapers faced only a handful of libel suits each year, and the amount paid in judgments and settlements was low. The upset of that equilibrium, starting in the 1950s, put libel on the Supreme Court's radar, and it spurred the Court to contemplate more aggressive intervention into the state law of libel.
In what follows, I shed new light on Sullivan through an account of the history of libel law and litigation in the United States in the years prior to the case, and the libel law context in which Sullivan was initiated and rose through the courts. This Article does not dwell on the constitutional law developments that influenced Sullivan or the common law of libel prior to Sullivan, but instead focuses on how the press dealt with libel, and the practical implications of libel law for American print media in the years leading up to Sullivan. In so doing, it reveals a reality about libel law that cannot be readily gleaned from a study of case law or treatises: that for much of the twentieth century, especially prior to the 1950s, libel did affect press behavior and the ability of the press to publish newsworthy stories, although it likely did not have the highly chilling effect on the press that its rigid formal doctrines suggested. Libel law did impose burdens on the press; it did require self-censoring to some extent. Yet many sectors of the press enjoyed broad latitude to report the news and to comment on politics and public issues, libel law notwithstanding.
That state of affairs, however, was seemingly threatened by changing libel trends in the 1950s and '60s. Changes in the nation's social and political culture, new dynamics of tort litigation, and new norms and practices of journalism increased the willingness and ability of plaintiffs to sue for libel and to recover damages. In an era when controversies around communism and civil rights, hostility towards the press, and large jury verdicts in tort cases encouraged the use of large-scale libel litigation as a weapon in political and cultural battles, when tort judgments increased nationwide, and when news publications received record-high jury verdicts in libel cases, many news outlets could no longer rely on their established systems for dealing with libel suits, and the likelihood of chilling effects was heightened. This change in the libel climate was not the only force encouraging the Court to institute constitutional protections in libel law, but it was an important factor, one that has been overlooked in standard accounts of the Sullivan case.
This Article describes the libel law history leading up to New York Times v. Sullivan. It explores the cultural and legal contexts that surrounded the case, and it suggests the influence of those contexts on the Supreme Court's actions in Sullivan. Drawing on legal sources, popular literature, journalism, and the archival papers of publishers, it offers an account of how the press accommodated and resisted libel, how libel law shaped the workings of the press, and how the press shaped libel law. The Article focuses on major newspapers (and to a lesser extent, magazines) that dealt regularly with libel issues and libel litigation, and also preserved substantial records of their operations.
This Article chronicles the rise, fall, and partial resurgence of libel as a critical concern for the press in the United States from 1880 to 1964. Part I provides background on the law of libel. Part II describes the development of the mass circulation press in the late 1800s and the many libel suits that accompanied the rise of popular publishing. A surge of libel suits, spurred in part by sensationalistic yellow journalism, posed a formidable burden and near-existential crisis for newspapers in the late nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century, however, the adoption of professional ethics and standards of accuracy and objectivity in journalism, including fact-checking and "libel-vetting" programs at many newspapers, reduced the number of potentially actionable statements and defused the libel crisis. The need to reduce or avoid libel had become an integral part of the professionalization of journalism.
Therefore, by the 1920s, primarily as a result of the press's own efforts, libel had receded to the periphery of the problems faced by most major newspapers. As Part III describes, those elaborate systems of editing and checking for libel, the use of legal counsel to conduct prepublication review, and aggressive litigation strategies kept the number of libel suits and judgments low at most publications. These efforts consumed resources and curtailed some news content. Yet anecdotal accounts from publishers and lawyers suggests that they did not impose stifling burdens on publishing. A fairly broad freedom of the press existed, if not in formal law, then in the law's practical operation.
The 1950s saw the resurgence of libel suits against the press. In the political ferment of the postwar era, an emboldened, well-funded press engaged more forthrightly in political critiques and investigative journalism, and the subjects of such reporting reacted with libel suits. As Part IV describes, the number of libel suits against the press increased, as did the amount of damages claimed and awarded. Many of the press's established strategies for dealing with libel no longer functioned as they once did. Libel law became more of a concern for the press, and libel cases became central to the era's political and culture wars. Against this contentious backdrop, the Supreme Court made its first, historic intervention into libel law in New York Times v. Sullivan.


Dorussen (1999) concludes that trade between states reduces the incentives for conflict, but that the effect of trade diminishes with a larger number of countries. I demonstrate that the indicator Dorussen uses to gauge the impact of trade is dependent on the size of the system itself, and therefore may be an inappropriate means by which to evaluate the relationship between the impact of trade and system size. Two alternative indicators to analyze the impact of trade on conflict in Dorussen's model are suggested: the ratio of the minimum winning probabilities required for war to pay with trade and without, and the threshold for war costs under which war will pay for one of the states. Using the alternative indicators, I corroborate his conclusion that trade does reduce the incentives for conflict in this model. The alternative indicators, however, indicate that trade reduces an actor's incentives for conflict more the more states there are in the system.


Natural killer T (NKT) cells are innate-like T lymphocytes that recognize glycolipid antigens in the context of the MHC class I-related glycoprotein CD1d. Recent studies have identified multiple ways in which NKT cells can become activated during microbial infection. Mechanisms of CD1d-restricted antigen presentation are being unraveled, and a surprising connection has been made to proteins that control lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis. It appears that several microorganisms have developed strategies to interfere with the CD1d antigen-presentation pathway. New studies have also provided important insight into the mechanisms that control effector cell differentiation of NKT cells and have revealed specialized functions of distinct NKT cell subsets. Finally, there is continued enthusiasm for the development of NKT cell-based therapies of human diseases.


Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of epimacular brachytherapy for the treatment of chronic, active neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Methods: A prospective, multicenter, interventional noncontrolled clinical trial recruited 53 participants with previously treated neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Participants underwent pars plana vitrectomy with a single 24 Gray dose of epimacular brachytherapy, delivered using an intraocular cannula containing a Strontium 90/Yttrium 90 source that was positioned over the active lesion. Participants were retreated with ranibizumab, administered monthly as needed, using predefined retreatment criteria. Coprimary outcomes at 24 months were the proportion of participants losing <15 Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study letters and mean number of ranibizumab retreatments. Results: Over 24 months, 68.1% lost <15 letters with a mean of 8.7 ranibizumab retreatments. Mean change in visual acuity was −6.3 (standard deviation, 18.9) letters. There was one case of nonproliferative radiation retinopathy. Conclusion: The apparent reduction in ranibizumab retreatment was less evident in Year 2 than Year 1, with the moderate reduction in visual acuity extending into the second year. Although radiation retinopathy occurred in one case, it was not vision threatening and safety remained acceptable.


Jammers characterized by their instantaneous frequencies can be effectively mitigated in direct sequence spread spectrum communications by using open-loop adaptive excision filters. The primary requirement for these filters is that they must possess a notch in tune with the jammer instantaneous frequency (IF) to annihilate the interference power at every time sample. The interference time-varying frequency can be obtained using existing IF estimators, including quadratic time-frequency distribution methods. Without focusing on any specific estimator, we develop expressions for the receiver performance using a general class of multiple-zero FIR excision filters and show the dependence of the bit error rate (BER) on the filter order and its group delay. The effect of inaccuracies in the jammer instantaneous frequency information on the receiver performance is considered and evaluated as a function of the filter notch bandwidth. The latter is defined by the filter zero multiplicity, which is shown to be an important factor in the analysis of the correlator signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).


A NiOx–graphene oxide (NiOx–GO) hybrid has been prepared by a simple solution-processed method and was used as hole-extraction material in perovskite solar cells with either gold or carbon as back contact electrode. The impact of GO content on the optoelectronic behavior of NiOx and the photovoltaic performance of the fabricated devices has been studied. Thus, GO incorporation showed a significant improvement in the performance of NiOx-based devices. The best attained efficiency was 13.3%, and it was 45% higher than that with pure NiOx. This is attributed to a significant improvement in the hole extraction, recombination resistance, and energy-level matching in comparison to pure NiOx. In addition, NiOx–GO/Au-based perovskite solar cell devices showed a negligible hysteresis effect and high reliability and repeatability. When carbon was used as back contact electrode, the obtained efficiencies were lower, but it leaves space for improvement. Devices based on inorganic hole transporters NiOx or NiOx–GO demonstrated higher stability in ambient air compared to a standard cell based on spiro-OMeTAD.


Diabetic ulcers and unhealed bedsores have resulted in serious complications all around the world. Anti-oxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) has been proved beneficial in diabetic studies. However, the low bioavailability of EGCG is always a problem for human application. In this study, topical gas-injection of a EGCG and gold nanoparticle (AuNP) liquid mixture (AuE) using the GNT GoldMed™ Liquid Drug Delivery System significantly accelerated the wound healing on wild-type and streptozotocin-induced diabetic mouse skin. Immunoblotting of the diabetic wound tissue showed a significant increase of the vascular endothelial cell growth factor on day 7 and the Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase expression from day 3 to day 7. Furthermore, the epidermal growth factor receptor and collagen I & III protein expression both increased significantly in the wound area. After gas-injection of the AuE liquid, hyaluronic acid (HA) expression also significantly increased on day 7 as measured by immunohistochemistry analysis. In conclusion, gas-injection of AuE significantly increases the rate of wound healing both in wild-type and diabetic mice. This study may provide a new approach for improving the EGCG bioavailability on diabetic wounds.


Though fluorine has been shown to induce apoptosis in immune organs in vivo, there has no report on fluoride-induced apoptosis in the cultured lymphocytes. Therefore, this study was conducted with objective of investigating apoptosis induced by sodium fluoride (NaF) and the mechanism behind that in the cultured splenic lymphocytes by flow cytometry, western blot and Hoechst 33258 staining. The splenic lymphocytes were isolated from 3 weeks old male ICR mice and exposed to NaF (0, 100, 200, and 400 μmol/L) in vitro for 24 and 48 h. When compared to control group, flow cytometry assay and Hoechst 33258 staining showed that NaF induced lymphocytes apoptosis, which was promoted by decrease of mitochondria transmembrane potential, up-regulation of Bax, Bak, Fas, FasL, caspase 9, caspase 8, caspase 7, caspase 6 and caspase 3 protein expression (P < 0.05 or P <0.01), and down-regulation of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL protein expression (P <0.05 or P <0.01). The above-mentioned data suggested that NaF-induced apoptosis in splenic lymphocytes could be mediated by mitochondrial and death receptor pathways.


A novel adsorption material was synthesized and characterized by the methods of X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The optimum reaction conditions of the 8-hydroxyquinoline modified bentonites were studied. And the modified bentonite was applied into the treatment of dyeing wastewater. The decoloration rate was invested as index. The effects of pH, adsorbent dosage, stirring speed, sedimentation time on adsorption have also been studied. The result showed that the decoloration rate of direct light turquoise blue dye on modified bentonites reached 94.12%, and the decoloration rate of acid orange dyeing wastewater reached 74.46%. So this type of modified bentonite was suitable for the treatment of dyeing wastewater.


In this paper, a series resonant converter and a LED driver have been implemented by using a film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR) in place of the inductor. This MEMS device can offer very high inductance density with excellent Q factor and can be conveniently fabricated in a CMOS compatible process. FBARs are smaller in size and weight compared to an inductor offering the same inductance per volume and quality factor, and therefore,, FBAR based power converters can offer higher power density. Simulation and experimental results with zero voltage switching (ZVS) and zero current switching (ZCS) have been provided to validate the use of FBARs in power converter circuits. The EMI of a discrete inductor based converter has been compared to that of an FBAR based converter, and the FBAR based converter showed better EMI performance. To the knowledge of the authors, the use of FBAR in power converter circuits has not been reported in the literature yet.


Power systems are on the cusp of a rapid technological, economic, and environmental evolution. Classical problems considered by the power community must naturally adapt to new requirements. Physical and computational constraints within a new landscape must be revisited. In this paper, we focus on the generator scheduling problem, which is also known as the unit commitment problem, in which we incorporate the new constraints of transmission line capacity limits and policy to give a more comprehensive view for planning in a smart grid. Moreover, we consider implications of our formulation to solution complexity. We introduce the concept of matroid theory to model unit commitment as a combinatorial problem and propose distributed solutions to facilitate optimal and correct generator scheduling. We account for communications and computational complexity and demonstrate how although the constrained generator scheduling problem is NP-hard, simpler versions of the problem lead to polynomial-time solutions.


: Prioritizing the repair of complex adnexal trauma is important. A logical rational systematic approach based on anatomic considerations has been presented. The use of these principles has resulted in maximizing functional and cosmetic return and, in addition, has decreased the extent and necessity for subsequent complex reconstructive procedures.


Several studies on the pathogenesis of allergy both in man and experimental animals continue to show the importance of commensal bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract in stimulating and directing the immune system. The interest in modulating commensal bacteria flora with pre- and probiotics to prevent and treat food allergy has multiplied in recent years. We recently studied 230 infants with atopic dermatitis and suspected cow's milk allergy. The infants were randomly allocated to groups which received Lactobacillus GG (LGG), a mixture of four probiotic strains (MIX) or placebo for 4 weeks. We inferred that probiotics induce systemically detectable low-grade inflammation, which may explain the clinical effects and the secretion pattern of cytokines induced by PBMC. To study the ability of probiotics to prevent allergy in children, we recruited 1223 pregnant women carrying fetuses at increased risk of allergy for a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Mothers used a mixture of four probiotic bacteria or a placebo from the 36th week of gestation. Their infants received the same probiotics plus prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides for 6 months. At the 2-year follow-up, a total of 925 infants participated. The cumulative incidence of allergic disease did not differ significantly between the synbiotic and the placebo group. However, synbiotics significantly reduced eczema. The preventive effect of synbiotics was more pronounced against IgE-associated diseases. At the 5 year follow-up, 891(88%) of the 1018 intention-to-treat infants attended. In the probiotic and placebo groups, frequencies of allergic symptoms and IgE-associated allergic disease and sensitization were similar, and the frequencies of eczema did not differ between the groups. Atopic eczema, allergic rhinitis and asthma appeared equal frequency in the groups. However, less IgE-associated allergic disease occurred in the cesarean-delivered infants given probiotics. In cesarean-delivered childen, we noticed a delayed rise in bifidobacteria recovery in placebo-treated children which was corrected by pro- and prebiotic supplementation. Indications from studies of feces and blood at the age 6 months suggest that probiotics may enhance both inflammation and immune defence of the gut. The probiotic treatment further stimulated maturation of the immune system since the infants given probiotics showed increased resistance to respiratory infections and improved vaccine antibody responses.


Book synopsis: This volume features the complete text of the material presented at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. As in previous years, the symposium included an interesting mixture of papers on many topics from researchers with diverse backgrounds and different goals, presenting a multifaceted view of cognitive science. This volume includes all papers, posters, and summaries of symposia presented at the leading conference that brings cognitive scientists together. The theme of this year's conference was the social, cultural, and contextual elements of cognition, including topics on collaboration, cultural learning, distributed cognition, and interaction.


Tire wear is the result of frictional work in the tire-pavement interface that is generated when tread surface elements go through a frictional force-slip cycle during each passage through the footprint. This review focuses on the nature of the two contacting materials in the treadwear process: the tread rubber and the pavement aggregate. To place the unique performance characteristics of rubber in their proper perspective, some text material is devoted to a brief review of the wear of materials in general and to the key role that visco-elastic behavior plays in the rubber-pavement contact. Laboratory abrasion testers of various sorts have proven to be valuable in investigating rubber wear mechanisms, and they are reviewed, citing both the technological and the theoretical approaches. A general background on tire wear is presented by the use of a simple wear equation. Next the role of the two contacting surfaces is examined: the pavement aggregate and the tread rubber. The key pavement element of in the tread-wear process is the microtexture, that roughness of surface in the 10 - 2 mm range. Several characteristics of the tread rubber are important: the glass transition temperature, the reinforcement system (carbon black), and the general resistance of the rubber to friction induced (chemical) degradation. The influence of two of the three known external (to the tire) treadwear factors, frictional or tractive tire force intensity and "ambient-tire" temperature, are next examined. (The third external factor is the pavement microtexture.) Finally some brief information is presented on the actual loss mechanism of tread rubber principally by way of microscopic examination of worn tread surfaces and the morphology of abraded rubber particles.


The signature verification is the oldest security technique to verify the identification of person. Recently, signature recognition schemes are growing in the world of security technology. It offers two different types of schemes those are offline and online method. The offline technique means to verify a signature written on paper which is scanned to convert it into a digital image, where as the online system required an online device such as Tablet PC, touch screen monitor by a pressure sensitive pen to verify the signature. Offline signature verification scheme is considered as a highly secured technique to recognize the genuine person's identity. Project will implement offline signature verification technique using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach.


This paper engages with Alain Badiou's understanding of evil as simulacrum in secondary social studies and history classrooms. Through family oral history as a vector for thinking with Badiou's philosophy this paper explores Badiou's premise that the Nazis upheld a simulacrum as truth, to the detriment and horror of millions. Anthonius and Johanna's actions, members of the Dutch resistance during the Second World War, provide an example of the complexities of ethics during difficult times that can inform teachers as they explore nuances regarding how ordinary people can act independently from authority, but interconnected with others in troubling times. Personal anecdotes are powerful tools in shaping knowledge and attitudes; thus, stories of resistance in our classrooms are vital as we seek to make emancipatory and egalitarian changes to our world.


The use of electronic money transfer through cellular networks ("mobile money") is rapidly increasing in the developing world. The resulting electronic currency ecosystem could improve the lives of the estimated 2 billion people who live on less than $2 a day by facilitating more secure, accessible, and reliable ways to store and transfer money than are currently available. The development of this ecosystem requires a network of agents to conduct cash-for-electronic value transactions and vice versa. This paper examines how service quality, competition, and poverty are related to demand and inventory (of electronic credit and physical cash) where, in this setting, service quality consists of pricing transparency and agent expertise. Among our results, we find that average demand increases with both pricing transparency and agent expertise, and that agent expertise interacts positively with competitive intensity. We also find that competition is associated with higher inventory holdings of both cash and electronic value, and that agents in high-poverty areas hold greater amounts of cash but do not carry a smaller amount of electronic value indicating that they devote more capital to their inventory. These results offer insight to mobile money operators with respect to monitoring, training, and the business case for their agents. This paper furthers our understanding of service quality, competition and inventory, while developing a foundation for the exploration of mobile money by OM scholars.


With reference to the mask-constrained power synthesis of shaped beams through fixedgeometry antenna arrays, we elaborate a recently proposed approach and introduce an innovative effective technique. In particular, the proposed formulation, which can take into account mutual coupling and mounting platform effects, relies on a nested optimization where the external global optimization acts on the field's phase shifts over a minimal number of 'control points' located into the target region whereas the internal optimization acts instead on excitations. As the internal optimization of the ripple is shown to result in a Convex Programming problem and the external optimization deals with a reduced number of unknowns, a full control of the shaped beam's ripple and sidelobe level is achieved even in the case of arrays having a large size and aimed at generating large-footprint patterns. Examples involving comparisons with benchmark approaches as well as full-wave simulated realistic antennas are provided.


A tropical smallholder cash crop farming system in a semi-arid
Inter-Andean valley of Ecuador was investigated. Intensive irrigated
agriculture with up to 400 kg of urea-N fertilization ha-1·a-1 prevails in
colluvial sites whereas urea application in the steep eroded sites is lower.
Farmers did recently introduce manure to partly replace urea fertilization.
Knowledge about the effects of mineral and organic fertilizers on nitrogen and
carbon cycling needs to be improved to maintain sustainable agriculture in
the research area. Therefore, a laboratory incubation experiment was conducted
to investigate effects of urea and guinea pig manure on microbial activity of
col-luvial foot slope and eroded upper slope soils. Soil samples were treated
with 200 kg·N·ha-1 either applied as
urea, guinea pig manure or a combination of both and compared to a control.
Urea fertilizer was labeled with 15N to trace its fate. Microbial
biomass and basal respiration were determined in different time intervals. Urea
fertilization induced an acceleration of soil organic matter (SOM)
mineralization (positive priming effect) in the first seven days of incubation.
The combined fertilization served as a positive alternative to the present urea
management since it increased the amount of microbial biomass and provided
mineral nitrogen for immediate plant uptake. Moreover, low recovery rates
suggested an immobilization of fertilized nitrogen into the microbial biomass
inducing an efficient and sustained nutrient release throughout the entire
growing season. SOM stocks in colluvial soils were 40% below those of eroded
soils which was partly due to the positive priming effect after urea
fertilization. Microbial activity and efficiency were not reduced by soil
erosion.


Background Plasma circulating cell-free mitochondrial DNA (ccf-mtDNA) is an immunogenic molecule and a novel biomarker of psychiatric disorders. Some previous studies reported increased levels of ccf-mtDNA in unmedicated depression and recent suicide attempters, while other studies found unchanged or decreased ccf-mtDNA levels in depression. Inconsistent findings across studies may be explained by small sample sizes and between-study variations in somatic and psychiatric co-morbidity or medication status. Methods We measured plasma ccf-mtDNA in a cohort of 281 patients with depressive disorders and 49 healthy controls. Ninety-three percent of all patients were treated with one or several psychotropic medications. Thirty-six percent had a personality disorder, 13% bipolar disorder. All analyses involving ccf-mtDNA were a priori adjusted for age and sex. Results Mean levels in ccf-mtDNA were significantly different between patients with a current depressive episode (n = 236), remitted depressive episode (n = 45) and healthy controls (n = 49) (f = 8.3, p<0.001). Post-hoc tests revealed that both patients with current (p<0.001) and remitted (p = 0.002) depression had lower ccf-mtDNA compared to controls. Within the depressed group there was a positive correlation between ccf-mtDNA and "inflammatory depression symptoms" (r = 0.15, p = 0.02). We also found that treatment with mood stabilizers lamotrigine, valproic acid or lithium was associated with lower ccf-mtDNA (f = 8.1, p = 0.005). Discussion Decreased plasma ccf-mtDNA in difficult-to-treat depression may be partly explained by concurrent psychotropic medications and co-morbidity. Our findings suggest that ccf-mtDNA may be differentially regulated in different subtypes of depression, and this hypothesis should be pursued in future studies.


An experiment was conducted to determine the in vitro first-order disappearance kinetics of dry matter in grain of six semi-arid native barley cultivars (Hordeum vulgare) adapted to grow at different climates known as cold (Bahman, Makoeei), moderate (Reyhan 03, Kavir) and hot (Dasht and Sahra). Samples (n=10) were assessed for bulk density (BD) and chemical composition. In addition, in vitro first-order kinetics of dry matter disappearance, medium pH and NH3-N concentration were determined using fermentation culture. Data were fitted to an exponential equation model: D(t) = D(i).exp (-k. time) + I; where D(t) was potentially a digestible residues at time t, D(i) was a potentially digestible fraction, k is a fractional rate constant of digestion (h -1 ) and I was an indigestible fraction. Results showed there was significant effect of adaption of varieties to climate on bulk density and crude protein, ash, NDF (neutral detergent fiber), ADF (acid detergent fiber), soluble sugars and starch concentrations in grain of the barley cultivars evaluated (P < 0.01). Barley grain cultivars from cold climate had the highest concentration of NDF and starch, whilst hot climate cultivars showed the highest amount of BD and CP (crude fiber). The amount of ash, ADF and soluble sugar in moderate climate barley grain cultivars was higher than those of the other climates. In vitro first order disappearance of dry matter was significantly (P < 0.01) influenced by the climate. Digestible fraction, fractional rate constant of digestion and indigestible fraction of grain from cold (0.78, 0.15, 0.146), moderate (0.77, 0.16, 0.157) and hot (0.75, 0.19, 0.206) were not similar in pattern. Dasht and Bahman grains had the highest and the lowest fractional rate constant (0.23 and 0.12 h -1 , respectively). Barley grain cultivars from cold and hot climates had the largest digestible fraction and fractional rate constant of digestion, respectively. The relationship between NDF content (g/kg DM) and fractional rate constant of digestion (X) was negative: NDF = 520.9X + 334.2, R 2 = 0.723. It was concluded that ruminal dry matter disappearance kinetic differences


While hearing is the primary sensory modality for odontocetes, there are few data addressing variation within a natural population. This work describes the hearing ranges (4–150 kHz) and sensitivities of seven apparently healthy, wild beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) during a population health assessment project that captured and released belugas in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The baseline hearing abilities and subsequent variations were addressed. Hearing was measured using auditory evoked potentials (AEPs). All audiograms showed a typical cetacean U-shape; substantial variation (>30 dB) was found between most and least sensitive thresholds. All animals heard well, up to at least 128 kHz. Two heard up to 150 kHz. Lowest auditory thresholds (35–45 dB) were identified in the range 45–80 kHz. Greatest differences in hearing abilities occurred at both the high end of the auditory range and at frequencies of maximum sensitivity. In general, wild beluga hearing was quite sensitive. Hearing abilities were similar to those of belugas measured in zoological settings, reinforcing the comparative importance of both settings. The relative degree of variability across the wild belugas suggests that audiograms from multiple individuals are needed to properly describe the maximum sensitivity and population variance for odontocetes. Hearing measures were easily incorporated into field-based settings. This detailed examination of hearing abilities in wild Bristol Bay belugas provides a basis for a better understanding of the potential impact of anthropogenic noise on a noise-sensitive species. Such information may help design noise-limiting mitigation measures that could be applied to areas heavily influenced and inhabited by endangered belugas.


An alternative to electrospinning, an original, simple yet effective biomaterial microfiber fabrication method is reported, in this paper, for tissue engineering fibrous scaffold fabrication. The method was discovered and proved to work as a concept without too much thought given to the automation. Though effective, it was tedious and inconsistent. Thus, an automated method based on the manual observations is developed and tested. Both methods can be used to obtain polycaprolactone microfiber scaffolds, and the automated method has a superior feature which enables easy and fast fabrication of aligned microfibers.


This study quantitatively examines benthic foraminifera (>125mu m) from 40 Pliocene-Pleistocene samples from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 241, Somali Basin. R-mode factor and Q-mode cluster analyses of the 26 highest ranked species define five significant factor assemblages and five clusters reflecting different environmental characteristics in the Plio-Pleistocene sequence. Assemblage 1, consisting of Bulimina marginata, Nonionella japonicum, Cassidulina carinata, and Uvigerina proboscidea, reflects high flux of organic matter from high surface productivity and dominates Custer II. Eggerella bradyi, Melonis pompilioides, and Oridorsalis umbonatus constitute Assemblage 2, which is inferred to reflect intermediate flux of relatively degraded organic matter (Cluster IV). Assemblage 3, characterized by Cibicides wuellerstorfi and Epistominella exigua, coincides with Cluster I. This assemblage indicates increased oxygenation and strongly pulsed food supply. Assemblage 4, marked by Loxostomum karrerianum (= Bolivina karrerianum), Trifarina angulosa and Bolivina spathulata, corresponds to Cluster III and suggests an oxygen-deficient, organic carbon-rich environment. The principal species of Assemblage 5 is Nuttallides umbonifera, with Astrononion umbilicatulum and Epistominella exigua as secondary species. This assemblage, which corresponds to Cluster V, suggests low food, high oxygen and increased bottom water corrosiveness. Mean test diameters of the planktic foraminifer Orbulina universa were used to interpret sea-surface temperature history at Site 241. Based on earlier observations that a positive correlation exists between the mean test diameter of O. universa and surface water temperature, several intervals of cool and warm sea-surface temperatures have been interpreted in the Pleistocene. The Pliocene surface water temperatures were less variable than those of the Pleistocene, indicating increased monsoonal activity in the younger interval.


Although there is considerable evidence that grapheme and body units are involved in assembling phonology from print, there is little evidence supporting the involvement of syllabic representations. We provide evidence on this point from a phonological dyslexic patient (ML) who, as a result of brain damage, is relatively unable to read nonwords. ML was found to be able to perform tasks assumed to reflect processes involved in assembled phonology (i.e. segmentation, orthographic-phonologic conversion, and blending) when the units involved were syllables, but demonstrated considerable difficulty when they were onset, body, or phoneme units. Additionally, both ML and matched controls were much better able to find words in an anagrams task (Treiman & Chafetz, 1987) when they resulted from the combination of segments corresponding to syllables than when they did not. It is suggested that the relationship between print and sound is represented at multiple levels (including the syllable) (Shallice, Warrington, & McCarthy, 1983) and that ML's nonword reading impairment is the result of disruption of representations below the level of the syllable.


The role of hetero-atom manipulation/hetero-aryl group insertion in the triarylamine to obtain hetero triarylamine as a donor in highly efficient photosensitizers was investigated to study the structure–efficiency relationship in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). A newly synthesized sensitizer was explored containing N-phenyl-N-(pyridin-2-yl) pyridine-2-amine (DPPA) and N-(pyridin-2-yl)-N-(thiophen-2-yl) pyridine-2-amine (DPTA) as the donor along with a strong electron-withdrawing cyano group (–CN) as the auxiliary acceptor group and cyanoacetic acid and rhodamine-3-acetic acid as anchoring groups. The triphenylamine donor was manipulated for the first time with the insertion of a nitrogen atom in the aryl ring for DSSCs. These hetero-aryl-based sensitizers showed a significant improvement in the photophysical as well as photovoltaic performance. The replacement of cyanoacetic acid by rhodanine-3-acetic acid as an anchoring unit resulted in a significant red-shift in absorption as well as emission maxima. The methylene group in rhodanine-3-acetic acid interrupted the LUMO delocalization on the anchoring group in sensitizers DP3 and DP4, as shown by DFT calculations. The presence of cyanoacetic acid in sensitizers DP1 and DP2 showed effective charge transfer from HOMO to LUMO and efficient electron injection from LUMO to the conduction band of the TiO2 semiconductor. The sensitizer DP2 showed a maximum efficiency of 4.7%, a short-circuit current Jsc = 11.78 mA cm−2, an open-circuit voltage Voc = 0.608 V and a fill factor FF = 0.62. The enhanced efficiency of sensitizer DP2 was attributed to the presence of the strong electron-withdrawing cyanoacetic acid anchoring group and the presence of the thiophene linker at the N-aryl core.


In this paper, we present a comprehensive study and evaluation of existing single image dehazing algorithms, using a new large-scale benchmark consisting of both synthetic and real-world hazy images, called REalistic Single Image DEhazing (RESIDE). RESIDE highlights diverse data sources and image contents, and is divided into five subsets, each serving different training or evaluation purposes. We further provide a rich variety of criteria for dehazing algorithm evaluation, ranging from full-reference metrics, to no-reference metrics, to subjective evaluation and the novel task-driven evaluation. Experiments on RESIDE sheds light on the comparisons and limitations of state-of-the-art dehazing algorithms, and suggest promising future directions.


Leading experts provide cutting-edge reviews of theory and research. This work: * Covers issues currently of most importance in terms of basic and/or applied research and policy formulation. * Discusses a wide range of topics from basic processes to problem behavior. * The ideal basis for a course on adolescent development or for applied professions seeking the best of contemporary knowledge about adolescents. * A valuable reference for faculty wishing to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in the field.


Studies of the spin and parity quantum numbers of the Higgs boson in the W W ∗ → e νμν final state are pre-sented,basedonproton–protoncollisiondatacollectedbythe ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb − 1 at a centre-of-mass energy of √ s = 8 TeV. The Standard Model spin-parity J CP = 0 ++ hypothesis is compared with alternative hypotheses for bothspinandCP. Thecasewheretheobserved resonance is a mixture of the Standard-Model-like Higgs boson and CP-even ( J CP = 0 ++ ) or CP-odd ( J CP = 0 +− ) Higgs boson in scenarios beyond the Standard Model is also studied. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model prediction and limits are placed on alternative spin and CP hypotheses, including CP mixing in different scenarios.


A recently introduced Adaptive Traveltime Inversion (ATI) provided us with a robust misfit function for reducing cycle skipping in Full-Waveform Inversion (FWI). Unlike the conventional L2-norm approach, ATI computes a matching filter first by deconvolution of the predicted data with the measured ones. If the velocity model is relatively accurate, the resulting matching filter is close to a Dirac delta function. Its traveltime shift, which characterizes the defocusing of the matching filter, is computed by minimization of the cross-correlation between a penalty function like t2 and the matching filter. ATI is constructed by minimization of the least square errors of the calculated traveltime shifts. It has been shown that the resulting traveltime shift corresponds to a first-order moment, which corresponds to the mean value of the resulting matching filter distribution. In order to accelerate the convergence and improve the robustness of the ATI approach, in this abstract, we propose to constraint the variance of the resulting matching filter using an information entropy function. We further demonstrate that, in comparison to AWI which tries to minimize the sum of the mean and the vairance of the resulting matching filter, the misfit of ATI with entropy minimizes the sum of the mean and the logarithm of the variance instead. We use the Marmousi example and an offshore field dataset to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


This paper investigates on the presence of innovation and production clusters in Europe. The analysis is based on an original statistical databank set up by CRENoS on regional patenting at the European Patent Office spanning from 1978 to 1997 and classified by ISIC sectors (3 digit) and on the Cambridge Econometrics database on production activity. We consider 138 regions of 17 countries in Europe, the 15 members of the European Union plus Switzerland and Norway. Firstly, an analysis of the spatial distribution of innovation and production activities in Europe is performed. Some global and local indicators for spatial association are presented, summarising the presence of a general dependence process in the distribution of the phenomena under examination. The analysis is implemented for different manufacturing macro-sectors to assess for the presence of significant differences in the their spatial features. Moreover, the extent and strength of spatial externalities are evaluated for three different periods: 1981-83, 1988-90 and 1995-97. Secondly, the spatial mapping of innovation is compared to the distribution of productive activity. Keywords: Innovation activity, Production specialisation, Spatial analysis, European regions.


This review focuses on previous work on honey pollen analysis (melissopalynology) to determine the bee floras of South Asian honeys. After a brief historical introduction on melissopalynology, the abundance and distribution of pollen and the nectar source for bees of specific regions are identified. With the help of 124 research papers referenced, a list of the bee flora of South Asia has been compiled, representing 750 plants serving as the pollen sources. Knowledge of bee floras of this region will prove to be significant for beekeepers during nomadic beekeeping, by increasing pollination and honey production and, hence, improving the apiculture industry of the region.


Commercial wearable devices are surfacing as an appealing mechanism to detect COVID-19 and potentially other public health threats, due to their widespread use. To assess the validity of wearable devices as population health screening tools, it is essential to evaluate predictive methodologies based on wearable devices by mimicking their real-world deployment. Several points must be addressed to transition from statistically significant differences between infected and uninfected cohorts to COVID-19 inferences on individuals. We demonstrate the strengths and shortcomings of existing approaches on a cohort of 32,198 individuals who experience influenza like illness (ILI), 204 of which report testing positive for COVID-19. We show that, despite commonly made design mistakes resulting in overestimation of performance, when properly designed wearables can be effectively used as a part of the detection pipeline. For example, knowing the week of year, combined with naive randomised test set generation leads to substantial overestimation of COVID-19 classification performance at 0.73 AUROC. However, an average AUROC of only 0.55 {+/-} 0.02 would be attainable in a simulation of real-world deployment, due to the shifting prevalence of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ILI to trigger further testing. In this work we show how to train a machine learning model to differentiate ILI days from healthy days, followed by a survey to differentiate COVID-19 from influenza and unspecified ILI based on symptoms. In a forthcoming week, models can expect a sensitivity of 0.50 (0-0.74, 95% CI), while utilising the wearable device to reduce the burden of surveys by 35%. The corresponding false positive rate is 0.22 (0.02-0.47, 95% CI). In the future, serious consideration must be given to the design, evaluation, and reporting of wearable device interventions if they are to be relied upon as part of frequent COVID-19 or other public health threat testing infrastructures.


Most research on degradation models and analyses focuses on nondestructive degradation test data. In practice, destructive tests are often conducted to gain insights into the changes of the physical properties of products or materials over time. Such tests sometimes provide more reliable degradation information than nondestructive tests that may only yield indirect degradation measures, such as temperature, amount of metal particles, and vibration. However, an obvious drawback of destructive tests is that only one measurement can be obtained from each specimen. Moreover, some products start degrading only after a random degradation initiation time that is often not even observable in destructive degradation tests (DDTs). Such a degradation-free period adds another dimension of complexity in modeling DDT data. In this paper, we develop two delayed-degradation models based on DDT data to evaluate the reliability of a product with an exponentially distributed degradation initiation time. For homogeneous and heterogeneous populations, fixed-effects and random-effects Gamma processes are considered, respectively, in modeling the actual degradation of units after degradation initiation. A maximum likelihood method as well as an expectation-maximization algorithm is developed to estimate the model parameters, and bootstrap methods are used to obtain the confidence intervals of the interested reliability indices. Numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed models and estimation methods are effective in analyzing DDT involving random degradation initiation times.


+)-myriceric acid A is known as a non-peptide ETA receptor antagonist. It is isolated from the natural plant Myrica cerfera with 0.01% yield which is very low. The total synthesis of (+)-myriceric acid A is being pursued in Hua's lab. (+)-myriceric acid A specifically blocks the vasoconstriction caused by endothelin-1 (ET-1). Because some derivatives of (+)-myriceric acid A were shown to have ET-1 receptor antagonistic effect, the tetracyclic terpenoid intermediates toward the total synthesis of (+)-myriceric acid A are postulated to have the similar antagonistic activities. The objective of this project is to study the release of vasoconstriction of these synthetic intermediates and compare their antagonistic potency. The ET-1 receptor antagonistic bioactivity of six (+)-myriceric acid A intermediates as well as (+)-myriceric acid A were evaluated by the in vitro spiral modiolar artery (SMA) bioassay. The synthetic intermediates which have not been reported in the literature were previously synthesized in Hua's laboratory by Dr. Angelo Aguilar and Dr. Aibin Shi. Their synthesis was described in Dr. Aguilar's PhD thesis. All the antagonistic effect evaluations were based on the SMA's diameter changes. SMA's diameter changes were induced by the superfusion of different extracellular solutions. The dose-response curves and straight lines were plotted to compare the antagonistic potency of these compounds. Based on the EC50 value of (+)myriceric acid A intermediates (0.090 μM ~ 0.582 μM for the curves and 0.095 μM ~ 0.385 μM for the straight lines), all of the compounds have ET-1 receptor antagonistic activity, therefore the synthesis and screening of (+)-myriceric acid A intermediates is probably a promising route to develop new non-peptide ETA receptor antagonists.


The extent of tax compliance has important implications for revenue yield, efficiency and the fairness of any tax system. Tax evasion undermines revenue collection, distorts competition, and undermines a country's development prospects. In this paper, we investigate whether higher productivity causally leads to lower tax evasion. We first present stylized facts consistent with this view and develop a model that illustrates one potential transmission channel. Second, we test the model predictions at the firm level using the self-reported share of declared income as proxy for tax evasion for a large sample of emerging and developing economies. Our results suggests that productivity improvements by firms can lead to lower tax evasion. JEL Classification Numbers: D20, H26, O47


INTRODUCTION
In spring 2017, the first case of bovine anthrax in 20 years in Switzerland occurred in the canton of Jura. Carcasses of anthrax-deceased animals should not be opened due to the formation of highly resistant spores bearing the risk of environmental contamination and aerosolization. Nevertheless, in the course of this local outbreak, one sick cow from the affected farm, whose blood repeatedly tested negative for Bacillus anthracis, was necropsied after euthanasia under special biosafety precautions at the Institute of Animal Pathology, Vetsuisse-Faculty Bern. Necropsy revealed ventral edema, fetal death, necro-hemorrhagic placentitis and necrotizing iliac lymphadenitis. Bacillus anthracis was isolated only from placenta and altered lymph node. The biosafety measures taken during and after necropsy prevented a contamination of the necropsy environment, which was proven with bacteriological swabs. This case shows that anthrax may elicit unspecific symptoms mimicking other diseases, and veterinarians must be aware of these non-septicemic cases.


A 63 years old male with a history of arterial hypertension presented with a current onset of chest pain and discrete headaches accompanied with dizziness. His blood pressure, 210/110 mmHg, had worsened and showed a reversed circadian rhythm with an average of 150/90 mmHg during night time. A CT angiography of the aorta demonstrated a type B dissection involving the right renal artery causing reduced perfusion of the right kidney. Subsequent invasive aortic angiography showed a continuously moving aortic dissection flap resulting in a dynamic stenosis proven by varying pressure gradients of between 5 and 35 mmHg. Stent placement of the renal artery ostium kept the vessel open and fixed the reno-aortic dissection flap in order to prevent it from progressing into the right kidney. Follow-up examinations revealed improved blood pressure control allowing for physiologic drop of blood pressure during night-time.


This work presents a methodology for modeling instrumental gestures in excitation-continuous musical instruments. In particular, it approaches bowing control in violin classical performance. Nearly non-intrusive sensing techniques are introduced and applied for accurately acquiring relevant timbre-related bowing control parameter signals and constructing a performance database. By defining a vocabulary of bowing parameter envelopes, the contours of bow velocity, bow pressing force, and bow-bridge distance are modeled as sequences of Bézier cubic curve segments, yielding a robust parameterization that is well suited for reconstructing original contours with significant fidelity. An analysis/synthesis statistical modeling framework is constructed from a database of parameterized contours of bowing controls, enabling a flexible mapping between score annotations and bowing parameter envelopes. The framework is used for score-based generation of synthetic bowing parameter contours through a bow planning algorithm able to reproduce possible constraints imposed by the finite length of the bow. Rendered bowing control signals are successfully applied to automatic performance by being used for driving offline violin sound generation through two of the most extended techniques: digital waveguide physical modeling, and sample-based synthesis.


We report the case of a patient with left parietal damage (MH) who is selectively impaired at both detecting and localising targets defined in terms of their orientation. Performance was relatively good in other tasks where the target was defined either by a single feature (colour) or an orientation conjunction. The results are consistent with the idea that the dorsal stream supports some aspects of basic visual perception (i.e., the discrimination and localisation of orientation‐defined targets). The effect of a parietal deficit may be to stress processing via the intact ventral stream, which groups information for object recognition, making differences in orientation less salient. Consistent with this, MH performed better when localising targets at a larger display size, where elements were less likely to group into a familiar shape and where local texture‐based processes can come into play. In addition, MH's ability to localise a target was more impaired than his ability to detect a target, supporting the argument that orientation discrimination precedes (or operates independently of) feature localisation.


Results of a four year experience on a combined anaerobic-anoxic-oxic municipal wastewater treatment process - named ANANOX® - are presented.

This process demonstrated to be highly efficient, with 89.6% CODt, 89.2% TSS and 81.2% N removal, and a sludge production of only 0.2 kg TSS.kg COD removed−1, a value which is roughly 50% less if compared with traditional nitrification/denitrification processes.

Energy needs are reduced with respect to aerobic plants, because the anaerobic COD degradation plays a major role, particularly during the warm season.

Sulphates play a very significant role in the process because, after being reduced in the anaerobic step, where they give a contribution to the organic matter degradation, they are reoxidized in the anoxic step by nitrates, reducing the organic matter need for denitrification.

Due to the high dependence of efficiency on temperature, the system proposed has advantageous uses for sewage treatment particularly in warm climates and in tourist and recreational areas where the population increases during the warm season.


Mammalian tissues contain networks and ordered arrays of collagen fibrils originating from the periodic self-assembly of helical 300 nm long tropocollagen complexes. The fibril radius is typically between 25 to 250 nm, and tropocollagen at the surface appears to exhibit a characteristic twist-angle with respect to the fibril axis. Similar fibril radii and twist-angles at the surface are observed in vitro, suggesting that these features are controlled by a similar self-assembly process. In this work, we propose a physical mechanism of equilibrium radius control for collagen fibrils based on a radially varying double-twist alignment of tropocollagen within a collagen fibril. The free-energy of alignment is similar to that of liquid crystalline blue phases, and we employ an analytic Euler-Lagrange and numerical free energy minimization to determine the twist-angle between the molecular axis and the fibril axis along the radial direction. Competition between the different elastic energy components, together with a surface energy, determines the equilibrium radius and twist-angle at the fibril surface. A simplified model with a twist-angle that is linear with radius is a reasonable approximation in some parameter regimes, and explains a power-law dependence of radius and twist-angle at the surface as parameters are varied. Fibril radius and twist-angle at the surface corresponding to an equilibrium free-energy minimum are consistent with existing experimental measurements of collagen fibrils. Remarkably, in the experimental regime, all of our model parameters are important for controlling equilibrium structural parameters of collagen fibrils.