This article advocates a hybrid legal-technical approach to the evaluation of technical measures designed to render information anonymous in order to bring it outside the scope of data protection regulation. The article demonstrates how such an approach can be used for instantiating a key anonymization concept appearing in the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) -- singling out. The analysis identifies and addresses a tension between a common, compelling theory of singling out and a mathematical analysis of this theory, and it demonstrates how to make determinations regarding the sufficiency of specific technologies for satisfying regulatory requirements for anonymization.

Doubts about the feasibility of effective anonymization and de-identification have gained prominence in recent years in response to high-profile privacy breaches enabled by scientific advances in privacy research, improved analytical capabilities, the wider availability of personal data, and the unprecedented richness of available data sources. At the same time, privacy regulations recognize the possibility, at least in principle, of data anonymization that is sufficiently protective so as to free the resulting (anonymized) data from regulation. As a result, practitioners developing privacy enhancing technologies face substantial uncertainty as to the legal standing of these technologies. More fundamentally, it is not clear how to make a determination of compliance even when the tool is fully described and available for examination.

This gap is symptomatic of a more general problem: Legal and technical approaches to data protection have developed in parallel, and their conceptual underpinnings are growing increasingly divergent. When lawmakers rely on purely legal concepts to engage areas that are affected by rapid scientific and technological change, the resulting laws, when applied in practice, frequently create substantial uncertainty for implementation; provide contradictory recommendations in important cases; disagree with current scientific technical understanding; and fail to scale to the rapid pace of technological development. This article argues that new hybrid concepts, created through technical and legal co-design, can inform practices that are practically complete, coherent, and scalable.

As a case study, the article focuses on a key privacy-related concept appearing in Recital 26 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) called singling out. We identify a compelling theory of singling out that is implicit in the most persuasive guidance available, and demonstrate that the theory is ultimately incomplete. We then use that theory as the basis for a new and mathematically rigorous privacy concept called predicate singling-out. Predicate singling-out sheds light on the notion of singling out in the GDPR, itself inextricably linked to anonymization. We argue that any data protection tool that purports to anonymize arbitrary personal data under the GDPR must prevent predicate singling-out. This enables, for the first time, a legally- and mathematically-grounded analysis of the standing of supposed anonymization technologies like k-anonymity and differential privacy. The analysis in this article is backed by a technical-mathematical analysis previously published by two of the authors.

Conceptually, our analysis demonstrates that a nuanced understanding of baseline risk is unavoidable for a theory of singling out based on current regulatory guidance. Practically, it identifies previously unrecognized failures of anonymization. In particular, it demonstrates that some k-anonymous mechanisms may allow singling out, challenging the prevailing regulatory guidance.

The article concludes with a discussion of specific recommendations for both policymakers and scholars regarding how to conduct a hybrid legal-technical analysis. Rather than formalizing or mathematizing the law, the article provides approaches for wielding formal tools in the service of practical regulation.


The problem of providing database systems customised to the specific needs of an organisation or application is addressed. The authors demonstrate that such customisations are expensive in existing database systems owing to the crosscutting nature of customisable features, and they propose a customisation approach based on `aspect-oriented programming' techniques which allow separation of crosscutting features using special constructs known as `aspects'. Changes to the features encapsulated by aspects are localised, making cost-effective customisation possible (at compile-time and run-time) at both the DBMS level and the database level.


The recent advancements in computer graphics (CG) image rendering techniques have made it easy for the content creators to produce high quality computer graphics similar to photographic images (PG) confounding the most naïve users. Such images used with negative intent, cause serious problems to the society. In such cases, proving the authenticity of an image is a big challenge in digital image forensics due to high photo-realism of CG images. Existing datasets used to assess the performance of classification models are lacking with: (i) larger dataset size, (ii) diversified image contents, and (iii) images generated with the recent digital image rendering techniques. To fill this gap, we created two new datasets, namely, 'JSSSTU CG and PG image dataset' and 'JSSSTU PRCG image dataset'. Further, the complexity of the new datasets and benchmark datasets are evaluated using handcrafted texture feature descriptors such as gray level co-occurrence matrix, local binary pattern and VGG variants (VGG16 and VGG19) which are pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models. Experimental results showed that the CNN-based pre-trained techniques outperformed the conventional support vector machine (SVM)-based classifier in terms of classification accuracy. Proposed datasets have attained a low f-score when compared to existing datasets indicating they are very challenging.


J Murray Roberts is a professor of applied marine biology and ecology in the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. His main research focus is deep-sea, or cold-water, corals. I interviewed him by Skype on January 27, 2016, and then over breakfast at a café in Edinburgh on April 20, 2016—in between two of his long excursions into the deep sea. I contemplated joining him on one of these excursions, but after finding out that this might require jumping out of a helicopter into the ocean, I thought better of the idea. I was interested in hearing from Roberts why deep-sea coral reefs were not really recognized as reefs by many coral conservation scientists (in his words, they are "Cinderella species") and how the material differences between deep- and shallow-water corals play out in terms of regulatory regimes and in the relationship between scientists and lawyers in particular. In his focus on the Cinderella of the coral world, rather than her more glamorous and visible tropical sisters, Roberts's narrative is an outlier. But then so are all of the other interchapter interviews, in significantly different ways....


Basic expert system terminology is reviewed, and several uncertainty management paradigms are surveyed. The focus is on subjective probability theory, Dempster-Shafer theory, and possibility theory, although a number of other methods are mentioned. The benefits and limitations of the various schemes are examined, examples of expert systems within each school are presented, and some relevant open problems are discussed.<<ETX>>


This paper presents an innovative application of wireless, mobile and ubiquitous technologies to support informal and collaborative learning in Kenyan rural farming communities. Such an approach is achieved by the development of a knowledge management system (KMS) integrated with existing local community communication channels, together with experimental knowledge management (KM) initiatives employing the VeSeL (Village e-Science for Life) distributed resource kits (DRKs). The initiatives support illiterate and semi-literate farming community groups, in learning new agriculture practices, and also enable the use of advanced digital technology to improve their agricultural practices and literacy levels. Results of a recent field trip to Kenya are presented and an application sketch is developed. The process of applying wireless and Internet technologies for the education of local farming communities, using irrigation and water management as the application, concludes the paper.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Most experimental studies of subarachnoid hemorrhage have demonstrated little histological evidence of injury. In the present study we examined both the expression of the hsp70 heat-shock gene, a molecular marker of reversible neuronal injury, and DNA fragmentation, a marker of irreversible cell injury and death.

METHODS
Lysed blood, whole blood, oxyhemoglobin, bovine serum albumin, and saline were injected into the cisterna magna of adult rats. The induction of hsp70 mRNA and HSP70 heat-shock protein was assessed with the use of in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry, respectively. Fragmentation of genomic DNA was studied by DNA nick end- labeling with the use of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase and biotinylated dATP.

RESULTS
Expression of the hsp70 gene was not induced in the brains of rats injected with whole blood, oxyhemoglobin, bovine serum albumin, or saline. Lysed blood injections, however, induced hsp70 mRNA at 6 and 24 hours in the cerebellar hemispheres and in focal regions of the basal forebrain. HSP70 protein was induced by 24 hours and persisted for at least 4 days in the same regions. HSP70 protein was localized to patches of glial cells and occasional neurons in the forebrain. In the cerebellum HSP70 was localized to Bergmann glial cells, granule cells, molecular layer stellate cells, and occasional Purkinje cells. DNA nick end-labeling showed patches of labeled cells in the basal forebrain that occurred in the same regions that hsp70 mRNA was induced.

CONCLUSIONS
The results demonstrate focal stress gene induction and DNA fragmentation after subarachnoid hemorrhage. It is hypothesized that the focal areas of hsp70 induction may reflect ischemic injury due to vasospasm produced by lysed blood and/or injury mediated by direct toxic effects of the lysed blood. The hsp70 induction and DNA nick end-labeling in the same regions suggests that lysed blood produces a spectrum of injury from HSP70 protein-labeled, reversibly injured cells to dead cells with fragmented DNA. Induction of the hsp70 stress gene and DNA nick end-labeling may be useful for evaluating the causes of injury, the spectrum of injury, and potential pharmacological therapies in experimental models of subarachnoid hemorrhage.


Abstract A new type of oxygen sensor for use on oceanic profiling CTDs has a response time that ranges from 0.4 to 0.7 s, depending on temperature. This oxygen (O2) sensor was calibrated in the field against O2 concentrations that were determined from Winkler titrations of Niskin-bottle water samples. Calibration coefficients were obtained from single casts and composite casts. When casts were calibrated separately, the mean error in predicting O2 concentrations was 1.22 ± 0.72 µM O2, n = 19 casts, and was not significantly different from the error between Niskin-bottle samples, which was 1.01 ± 2.33 µm O2, n = 33 triplicate or duplicate bottles. When casts wore combined into a composite cast for an entire cruise, however, the mean error in the calibrations increased to 5.03 ± 4.06 µm O2, n = 19 casts. These results also indicate that only three Niskin bottles on a cast are required to obtain an error of 1.0 µm in predicted oxygen. For routine use, we recommend calibrating each cast separately using eithe...


The acquisition and development of language are primary in a child's life, especially because language is one of the main means of social interaction. Therefore, it is of great importance that good language development has been assured to children and, when nec- essary, good intervention at their difficulties. Currently, in the field of children's language in Brazil, different therapeutic approaches are arguable, but the necessity of development of structured therapeutic programs is verified, elaborated with technical and scientific qual ity so that they may stimulate the different abilities of language, aiming at considering the specificities of each child in order to minimize the difficulties. Such intervention programs would guide speech-language pathologists to plan their therapies and provide more effects in the intervention process. The aim of this study is to elaborate a stimulation program for verbal language for children with language delay. For this reason, the stimulation program was judged by peers (experts) after it was designed. The experts verified if the strategies were coherent about (a) the stimulation target and (b) the complexity level. In conclusion, the program reached the goal, since it could give direction and enhance to speech-language pathologists in cases of difficulties in verbal language.


Marine polymer gels play a critical role in regulating ocean basin scale biogeochemical dynamics. This brief review introduces the crucial role of marine gels as a source of aerosol particles and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in cloud formation processes, emphasizing Arctic marine microgels. We review the gel's composition and relation to aerosols, their emergent properties, and physico-chemical processes that explain their change in size spectra, specifically in relation to aerosols and CCN. Understanding organic aerosols and CCN in this context provides clear benefits to quantifying the role of marine nanogel/microgel in microphysical processes leading to cloud formation. This review emphasizes the DOC-marine gel/aerosolized gel-cloud link, critical to developing accurate climate models.


: The number of defects of the secondary structure and dispersions of the molecular weights of DNA preparations were studied before and after their gamma-irradiation within a 5-2500 krad range of doses. These results are compared with the ability of the irradiated preparations to induce death of thymocytes irradiated in vivo during their combined incubation in vitro. It is established that the DNA biological activity is a result of the presence in the total preparation of molecule fractions of 5.10(6) or 1.10(6) Daltons with 3 or 50-80 defects of the secondary structure.


The aim of this study was the identification the pathogenic fungi causing the grapevine trunk diseases (GTD) in some Romanian vineyards. Twenty-one samples of biological material (bark, canes, and trunk wood) were collected from Tarnave, Aiud, Minis and Sarica Niculitel vineyards. Petri dish culture method was used to grow the fungi, inoculated at the central point on the Sabouraud medium. Fungal species were identified by macroscopic and microscopic examination based on the morphological characteristics of fungal colonies developed on medium: the type and color of mycelian hyphae, the shape, color and size of spores. In the studied Romanian vineyards GTD were caused by: Phaeoacremonium aleophilum, Phaeomoniella chlamydospora, Stereum hirsutum, Diplodia seriata, Cadophora luteo-olivacea, Diatrypaceae sp., Phomopsis viticola and Eutypa lata, being associated with diseases, such as: Esca, Petri, excoriosis and Eutypa, identified by plate culture method and microscopic examination.


Lower levels of parent-child affective flexibility indicate risk for children's problem outcomes. This short-term longitudinal study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility and positive affective content in mother-child problem-solving interactions at age 3.5 years (N=100) and whether these maternal and dyadic factors predicted child emotional negativity and behaviour problems at a 4-month follow-up. Dyadic flexibility and positive affect were measured using dynamic systems-based modelling of second-by-second affective patterns during a mother-child problem-solving task. Results showed that higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility, which predicted children's higher levels of negativity and behaviour problems as rated by teachers. Mothers' ratings of child negativity and behaviour problems were predicted by their own depressive symptoms and individual child factors, but not by dyadic flexibility. There were no effects of dyadic positive affect. Findings highlight the importance of studying patterns in real-time dyadic parent-child interactions as potential mechanisms of risk in developmental psychopathology.


A prescription by a doctor may be taken as a reflection of physician's attitude to the disease and the role of drug in its treatment. Feedback from the study would help both the pre-scriber and institutional authorities to review their prescribing practices and modify if nec-essary to facilitate better health care delivery. To evaluate the prescription patterns and to generate data on rational/irrational prescribing in patients suffering from upper respiratory tract infections attending paediatric OPD at a tertiary hospital. A prospective cross sectional study was conducted and the prescription data of patients with upper respiratory tract in-fection were collected for a period of three months. A total of 667 drugs were prescribed to 300 patients suffering from upper respiratory tract infection. Drug classes with largest rep-resentation were the antibiotics (37%). Penicillins represented the largest antibiotic drug class (76%). The most commonly used group of drugs were antibiotics out of which penicil-lins were largely prescribed. From the data it is understood that the administration of anti-biotics was inappropriate as the duration of treatment was insufficient (3 days). Over pre-scription of antibiotic for insufficient duration may increase the risk of resistance.


Abstract Background Prolactin-secreting pituitary adenomas in childhood and adolescence are rare. First-line therapy consists of dopamine agonists (DAs) like cabergoline. Experience in treating prolactinomas in paediatric and adolescent patients is limited. Methods This study was a retrospective analysis of clinical data, laboratory data, radiological findings and medical treatment of paediatric and adolescent patients with prolactinomas between 2009 and 2018. Results Our cohort of nine patients had a median age at diagnosis of 13 years (range 5–17). Main presenting symptoms were weight gain, disorders of the pituitary-gonadal axis and headache. Treatment with cabergoline resulted in a marked reduction in prolactin concentration in all nine patients. Tumour mass reduction was confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in seven patients. Noteworthy is that cabergoline therapy triggered frequent adverse effects in a total of eight patients – seven of whom suffered from mental disorders, five of whom had neurological symptoms and five of whom had gastrointestinal problems. The adverse effects occurred at a median dose of only 0.5 mg/week (range 0.25–2.0). Most symptoms were alleviated after the cabergoline dose was lowered. Therapy discontinuation was not necessary in any patient. Conclusions Cabergoline effectively lowers prolactin levels and may reduce tumour mass in paediatric and adolescent patients with prolactinomas. Potential adverse effects may include mental disorders and behavioural problems even at low cabergoline doses. Low starting doses and careful individual dose adjustments are required to enable therapy adherence.


For the purpose of valuing conservation of Walia Ibex, in this paper choice experiment environmental valuation technique is employed. 200 residents from Addis Ababa and 94 foreign visitors have been randomly chosen to reply to a CE survey questionnaire. Hence, four attributes; change in population size, change in listing status, funding mechanism and employment opportunity were taken along with a monetary attribute to describe various conservation management options. Furthermore, Random Parameters Logit model has been used to estimate the choice data set generated from the survey. The estimation result demonstrates that all the attributes are significant, except employment opportunity attribute in the case of visitors. Moreover, years of education and family size were found to significantly affect residents' utility with positive and negative impacts respectively. Age is found to positively and significantly affect visitors' utility for conservation improvements. The highest MWTP being accredited to change in listing status attribute for both the residents and visitors', conservation practitioners are advised to focus on conservation elements improving listing status of the species. Keywords : Choice Experiment, Walia Ibex, Endangered, Conservation, non-use value, Ethiopia.


Poly(ether ester) (PEE) copolymers were synthesized in a two-stage process involving transesterification and polycondensation. The synthesized copolymer and the zinc oxide (ZnO) were used in composite preparation by melt compounding. The influence of ZnO type and concentration on the morphology, thermal and mechanical properties of the composites were studied. DSC and XRD analyses indicated that crystallinity of composites was slightly reduced with ZnO content. Homogeneous dispersion of fillers in the polymer matrix was observed through morphological analyses. While in general tensile strength and elongation at break values of the composites decreased with increasing ZnO content, elastic modulus values increased with the addition of ZnO. Moreover, ZnO particles were modified with poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone) and a slight improvement in mechanical properties was observed, respectively over the composites containing unmodified particles. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


Chronic administration of opiates to laboratory animals induces supersensitivity of the dopamine receptors in the cerebral areas innervated by the mesotelencephalic dopamine pathways. In humans, the in vivo study of the sensitivity of the dopamine neurotransmitter system in Parkinson's patients can be done by means of the apomorphine test, which consists of measuring the number of yawns induced by the subcutaneous administration of low doses of apomorphine (0.005 mg/kg). If chronic opiate use in humans, as in experimental animals, results in supersensitivity of the dopamine systems, the apomorphine test could differentiate between heroin addicts and healthy volunteers, with the former showing greater number of yawns. In order to test this hypothesis we carried out the apomorphine test in two groups of subjects: a group of male heroin addicts attending our Addiction Treatment Centre for detoxification and the other group consisting of healthy volunteer male university students. Results showed that subcutaneous apomorphine administration induced a greater number of yawns (p < 0.05) in the group of heroin addicts as compared with the group of healthy volunteers, suggesting that heroin addicts present an enhanced sensitivity of the dopamine nuerotransmitter system.


A new method is described that allows the parallel purification of the pyruvate dehydrogenase and 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase multienzyme complexes from ox heart without the need for prior isolation of mitochondria. All the assayable activity of the 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase complexes in the disrupted tissue is made soluble by the inclusion of non-ionic detergents such as Triton X-100 or Tween-80 in the buffer used for the initial extraction of the enzyme complexes. The yields of the pyruvate dehydrogenase and 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complexes are many times greater than those obtained by means of previous methods. In terms of specific catalytic activity, banding pattern on sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis, sedimentation properties and possession of the regulatory phosphokinase bound to the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, the 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase complexes prepared by the new method closely resemble those described by previous workers. The greatly improved yield of 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase complexes occasioned by the use of Triton X-100 or Tween-80 as solubilizing agent supports the possibility that the bulk of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex is associated in some way with the mitochondrial inner membrane and is not free in the mitochondrial matrix space.


The current study aimed to investigate the coding sequence, polymorphisms, and expression of the RERG gene in indigenous Chinese goats. cDNA of RERG, obtained through reverse transcription PCR was analyzed using bioinformatic techniques. Polymorphisms in the exon regions of the RERG gene were identified and their associations with growth traits in three varieties of indigenous Chinese goats were investigated. Expression of the RERG gene in three goat breeds of the same age was detected using real-time quantitative PCR. The results revealed that the cDNA of RERG, which contained a complete open reading frame of 20-620 bp, was 629 bp in length. The associated accession numbers in GenBank are JN672576, JQ917222, and JN580309 for the QianBei Ma goat, the GuiZhou white goat, and the GuiZhou black goat, respectively. Four consistent SNP sites were found in the exon regions of the RERG gene for the three goat breeds. mRNA expression of the RERG gene differed between different tissues in adult goats of same age. The highest expression was observed in lung and spleen tissues, while the lowest expression was recorded in thymus gland tissue. In addition, the expression of the RERG gene in the muscle of Guizhou white goat, GuiZhou black goat, and QianBei Ma goat decreased sequentially. Our results lay the foundations for further investigation into the role of the RERG gene in goat growth traits.


The common approach in digital imaging follows the sample-then-compress framework. According to this approach, in the first step as many pixels as possible are captured and in the second step the captured image is compressed by digital means. The recently introduced theory of compressed sensing provides the mathematical foundation necessary to combine these two steps in a single one, that is, to compress the information optically before it is recorded. In this paper we overview and extend an optical implementation of compressed sensing theory that we have recently proposed. With this new imaging approach the compression is accomplished inherently in the optical acquisition step. The primary feature of this imaging approach is a randomly encoded aperture realized by means of a random phase screen. The randomly encoded aperture implements random projection of the object field in the image plane. Using a single exposure, a randomly encoded image is captured which can be decoded by proper decoding algorithm.


The U.S. railroad system is made up of over 700 railroads operating on 140,000 miles of track, with more than 130,000 at-grade public railway-highway crossings, or intersections in which any part of a roadway intersects with railroad tracks. Safety at these railroad-highway grade crossings and the related traffic control devices used to communicate with drivers is of major concern. There are three factors that influence a driver's behavior at a given crossing. First, traffic control devices, including warning devices at the railway-highway at-grade crossings, provide the driver with information. Second, assuming that the driver identifies the warning, the driver's prior knowledge influences his or her expectancy regarding various railroad-highway grade crossing situations and, therefore, the way in which the driver responds to the hazard presented by the crossing. Finally, the driver's own physiological (e.g., impaired) and psychological (e.g., distracted) state will modify the role that conspicuity and expectancy have on the driver's behavior In order to address the gap that exists in our understanding of driver distraction at railway-highway at-grade crossings, two driving simulator experiments were conducted to determine the role that distraction has on the effectiveness of warning devices at grade crossings. In the first experiment, the role of distraction in reducing the benefit of typical crossbucks and flashing lights is evaluated. Participants were either engaged or not engaged in a distracting task, which included either a mock cell phone conversation or an in-vehicle task. Based upon the fact that distractions reduce the advantage of flashing lights and crossbucks, an evaluation of an alternative treatment that might be used to warn drivers of an approaching train was conducted. The question being addressed is whether these alternative markings, known as dynamic envelope pavement markings are an effective application for mitigating the effects of driver distraction at at-grade railway-highway grade crossings. Initial findings point to the fact that even when flashing lights and its respective signage and markings are properly working, a distracted driver is more likely to ignore the cues.


A fundamental characteristic of Web APIs is the fact that, de facto, providers hardly follow any standard practices while implementing, publishing, and documenting their APIs. As a consequence, the discovery and use of these services by third parties is significantly hampered. In order to achieve further automation while exploiting Web APIs we present an approach for automatically extracting relevant technical information from the Web pages documenting them. In particular we have devised two algorithms that automatically extract technical details such as operation names, operation descriptions or URI templates from the documentation of Web APIs adopting either RPC or RESTful interfaces. The algorithms devised, which exploit advanced DOM processing as well as state of the art Information Extraction and Natural Language Processing techniques, have been evaluated against a detailed dataset exhibiting a high precision and recall–around 90% for both REST and RPC APIs–outperforming state of the art information extraction algorithms.


The growing importance of the electricity sector in many economies, and of energy and environmental policies, requires a detailed consideration of these sectors and policies in computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, including both technological and temporal aspects. This paper presents the first attempt to our knowledge at building temporal disaggregation into a CGE model, while keeping technological detail. This contribution is coupled with some methodological improvements over existing technology-rich CGE models. The model is able to account for the indirect effects characteristic of CGE models while also mimicking the detailed behavior of the electricity operation and investment present before only in bottom-up detailed models. The present paper is the first of two parts and focuses on the bottom-up topdown calibration methodology needed to build such a model. Part II will present the CGE model applied to the evaluation of an energy policy with temporal consequences.


Previous neuroimaging studies have suggested a dominant role of the right medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures- the hippocampal and parahippocampal regions in spatial memory processing. However, the underlying physiological hemodynamic response functions (HRF) of the MTL substructures remain undefined. Given the neuroanatomical differences between these substructures, it is posited that their hemodynamic characteristics are distinct. In this study, the hemodynamic responses of the MTL substructures are investigated using an optimization algorithm that penalizes the curvature (i.e. second derivative) of HRF. The time-to-peak characteristic of the hemodynamic responses revealed that the right CA3 and DG subfields of the hippocampus are significantly more active than the right CA1 subfield during
a specific spatial memory task. Further, the hemodynamic responses of the entorhinal, perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices are presented. Together, these findings may help advance our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease that are strongly associated to hippocampal dysfunction.


River flooding is the most frequently experienced natural hazard all over the World. The effects of flooding are mainly related to the function of the intensity and distribution of precipitation, and the rate of filtration of water into the soil and rock, vegetation and topography. Flood management is considered as one of the basic strategies that can reduce flood damages and in this context, flood protection planning should consider the full range of hazard mitigation activities. The realistic solution to reduce flood damages involves a combination of floodplain regulation and engineering approaches.  In 1998, there was a major flooding in Zonguldak - Bartin region located on north of Turkey. Due to this catastrophic flooding, people lost their live and a number of engineering structures built on the river and surrounding area were totally destroyed or heavily damaged. In this study, some solution methods for the region have been suggested and presented.

 Key words: Natural hazard, flood management, flood plain, land-use, mitigation.


We developed an assay for simultaneous amplification, detection and quantitation of HIV-1 gag gene and the DQ-alpha locus of the histocompatibility (HLA) region of the human genome by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Crude cell lysates from control cell lines and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from HIV-1-infected and control individuals were coamplified using optimized concentrations of primers directed at both loci, followed by simultaneous hybridization with radioactively labeled HIV-1-gag and HLA-DQ-alpha probes. Simultaneous quantitation of the 242-base-pair HLA and 115-base-pair HIV products was accomplished by both end-point dilution analysis and image analysis of autoradiographs relative to standard curves derived from infected cell lines. We observed good agreement between input cell counts on fresh samples and the HLA-DQ-alpha target copy number values determined by both end-point dilution analysis and comparison of band intensities with standard curves. HIV-1 proviral load in symptomatic patients ranged from 200 to 4000 HIV-PCR-units per 1 x 10(6) PBMC (mean of 1245 copies), whereas asymptomatic patients had levels ranging from two to 1000 HIV-PCR-units per 1 x 10(6) PBMC (mean of 213 copies). This HIV/HLA coamplification approach should be particularly useful for analysis of frozen repository samples from natural history studies, and may facilitate wider application of quantitative PCR analysis.


From March to July 1996 a measles outbreak occurred in northern Luxembourg with 110 reported cases centered around two primary schools (85 cases) and the surrounding community (25 cases). Eighty four suspected cases were confirmed serologically. Vaccine coverage was estimated from questionnaire-based surveys at the two primary schools to be 70 and 76%, respectively. Vaccine efficacy during the outbreak was estimated to be 94.6% [95% confidence interval (CI) 90·4–97·0]. Using the information from the school surveys, we obtained estimates of the basic reproduction number of measles of 7·7 (95% CI 4·4–11·0) and 6·2 (95% CI 3·5–8·9), respectively. Assuming a 95% vaccine efficacy, these estimates correspond to minimal vaccine coverages of 91·6% (95% CI 81·4–95·7) and 88·3% (95% CI 75·5–93·4) which would have been necessary to minimize the chances of a major outbreak occurring. We can confirm that major outbreaks in similar school settings can only be prevented if vaccination coverage exceeds 90%.


This paper looks at the multiple characteristics and investigations of two grinding anomalies: grinding burn and grinding chatter. A genetic programming (GP) of multiple classifications was investigated for different machining strategies and associated anomaly phenomena. Such a GP paradigm could evolve rules to provide the correlation between monitored signals and grinding phenomena. The investigation also looks at both Short-Time Fourier Transforms (STFT) and Wavelet Packet Transforms (WPT) to convert the raw acoustic emission (AE) signal into a time based frequency signal, segmented into different frequency bands. A set of encouraging results is presented.


How forests will respond to rising [CO2] in the long term is uncertain, most studies having involved juvenile trees in chambers prior to canopy closure. Poplar free‐air CO2 enrichment (Viterbo, Italy) is one of the first experiments to grow a forest from planting through canopy closure to coppice, entirely under open‐air conditions using free‐air CO2 enrichment technology. Three Populus species: P. alba, P. nigra and P. x euramericana, were grown in three blocks, each containing one control and one treatment plot in which CO2 was elevated to the expected 2050 concentration of 550 ppm. The objective of this study was to estimate gross primary production (GPP) from recorded leaf photosynthetic properties, leaf area index (LAI) and meteorological conditions over the complete 3‐year rotation cycle. From the meteorological conditions recorded at 30 min intervals and biweekly measurements of LAI, the microclimate of leaves within the plots was estimated with a radiation transfer and energy balance model. This information was in turn used as input into a canopy microclimate model to determine light and temperature of different leaf classes at 30 min intervals which in turn was used with the steady‐state biochemical model of leaf photosynthesis to compute CO2 uptake by the different leaf classes. The parameters of these models were derived from measurements made at regular intervals throughout the coppice cycle. The photosynthetic rates for different leaf classes were summed to obtain canopy photosynthesis, i.e. GPP. The model was run for each species in each plot, so that differences in GPP between species and treatments could be tested statistically. Significant stimulation of GPP driven by elevated [CO2] occurred in all 3 years, and was greatest in the first year (223–251%), but markedly lower in the second (19–24%) and third years (5–19%). Increase in GPP in elevated relative to control plots was highest for P. nigra in 1999 and for P. x euramericana in 2000 and 2001, although in 1999 P. alba had a higher GPP than P. x euramericana. Our analysis attributed the decline in stimulation to canopy closure and not photosynthetic acclimation. Over the 3‐year rotation cycle from planting to harvest, the cumulative GPP was 4500, 4960 and 4010 g C m−2 for P. alba, P. nigra and P. x euramericana, respectively, in current [CO2] and 5260, 5800 and 5000 g C m−2 in the elevated [CO2] treatments. The relative changes were consistent with independent measurements of net primary production, determined independently from biomass increments and turnover.


Lung segmentation is a fundamental step in many image analysis applications for lung diseases and abnormalities in thoracic computed tomography (CT). However, due to the large variations in pathology that may be present in thoracic CT images, it is difficult to extract the lung regions accurately. A major insight to deal with this problem is the existence of new approaches to cope with quality and performance. This poster presents an optimized superpixel clustering approach for high-resolution chest CT segmentation. The proposed algorithm is compared against some super-pixel algorithms while a performance evaluation is carried out in terms of boundary recall and under-segmentation error metrics. The over-segmentation results on a CT Emphysema Database demonstrate that our approach shows better performance than other three state-of-the-art superpixel methods.


We measured food provisioning to broods of Common Kingfishers Alcedo atthis. We collected regurgitated undigested fish remains from artificial nests. Using artificial nests ensured that fish remains originated from the current nesting period and were not a result of multiple use of a nest within one breeding season or between seasons. In total, 4722 specimens of 24 fish species were identified in six nests; the remains were used to estimate the mass of individual fish prey. Chicks were fed with fish weighing between 0.01 and 16.2 g (average: 3.0 g, median: 2.6 g). Provisioning rate significantly increased with increasing brood size from 1498 g (505 fishes for four nestlings) to 2968 g (894 fishes for eight nestlings). During the fledging period each chick consumed on average 334 g of fish, which resulted in an estimated daily food intake of 37% of the chick's body mass (average over the entire nestling period). The average daily energy intake was 73.5 kJ per chick, which was lower than expected for birds of equivalent size. It seems that the relatively low energy requirement of chicks, in conjunction with selecting for large and energy-rich prey, are the key factors enabling Common Kingfishers to have large and multiple broods during one breeding season. In the temperate zone of continental Europe, this reproductive strategy enables the species to compensate for the mortality caused by periodically severe winters.


Here we present the work and results of studies on a two-dimensional optical lattice. The initial work on the classical dynamics describes the onset of chaos using action-angle variables and techniques developed by Walker and Ford [1]. Having documented the classical transition to chaos, using a technique called the discrete variable representation, we calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the two-dimensional optical lattice Hamiltonian operator. The surprising fidelity of these numerical results to the true values (which can be verified for a certain parameter value) will hopefully allow for the future study of level repulsion and the development of quantum phase space distributions (e.g. the Wigner and Husimi quasi-probability distributions).


Abstract A combination of X-ray and neutron PDF measurements with powder diffraction and EXAFS data was used to determine the structures of a V—Mo—Nb-oxide catalyst and its poorly crystallized precursors that exhibit the strongest catalytic activities. The crystalline material belongs to space group P-4 21m, a = 22.8, c = 4.002, and is build up of pentagonal MeO7 bipyramids surrounded by edge sharing Me-octahedrons (Me = Mo, V, Nb). In the average structure all MeO7 units are at the same z-level, while the local structure analysis shows systematic shifts along [001]. Samples synthesized at 300 °C and 400 °C exhibit a nanostructure, whose local structure predates the final crystalline structure. Initial nanoparticles are spherical and grow predominantly along the c-axis. The successful analysis required a reverse analysis that took the crystalline material as starting model for the samples synthesized at lower temperatures.


ABSTRACT Field experiments comparing leaf-fall in the presence and absence of the red land crab, Gecarcoidea natalis, in rain forest on Christmas Island, Indian Ocean showed that, by eating and returning leaves to their burrows, they significantly reduced accumulation of leaf-fall on the forest floor. Red crabs removed 30–50% of the leaf-fall at the experimental sites during the study. Differences in leaf-fall mass between crab-access and exclusion quadrats were positively correlated with the density of foraging red crabs. Red crabs also generated spatial heterogeneity in the distribution of litter on the forest floor by returning litter to their burrows. Leaves lined chambers of 64% of excavated burrows and litter biomass around the entrances was significantly greater than that on off-burrow locations. This was reflected in the significantly higher concentrations of organic matter and nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Na, and Mg) associated with soils near burrow entrances. These results suggest that a single species, G. natalis, is the major processor of leaf-fall in rain forest on Christmas Island and may affect (1) the temporal and spatial patterns of nutrient availability and (2) the diversity and biomass of the litter fauna.


Some fault-tolerant architectures use the spare nodes or links to replace the faulty components. This paper gives solutions to spare processor placement problem for torus based networks. Optimal 1-hop spare processor placement methods for multi-dimensional tori and t-hop placement methods for 2D tori are described. In the presence of node failures, a system reconfiguration scheme using spare nodes is also given.


The research is aimed at knowing the influence ofmotivation and compensation on lecturers jobperformance at Informatics and Business Institute (IBI)Darmajaya Bandar Lampung. The problems of theresearch are 1) Do motivation and compensation receivedby the lecturers of IBI Darmajaya have an effect on theirjob performance? 2) How far is the relationship betweenmotivation and compensation and job performance? 3)Which factor is more dominant between motivation andcompensation that affects the job performance?This research uses double linear regression analysismethod. The variables of the research are motivation andcompensation as independent variables and jobperformance as dependent variable. To know theinfluence of independent variable on dependent variable ispartially used ttest and to know the influence ofindependent variable on dependent variable used Ftest.This research is a population research or a census studywhere 51 respondents taken out of the whole number ofactive fulltimelecturers at IBI Darmajaya.The result of the research indicates that motivation andcompensation variable affects lecturers job performance,both simultaneously and partially. In addition, in theresult of the research it is found that motivation variable ismore dominant that compensation variable in affectinglecturers job performance. KEY WORDS : Motivation, Compensation, and JobPerformance


Available data: Complex refractive index of Indium Tin Oxide, http://dx.doi.org/10.4121/uuid:59febf27-a532-4ac9-8ec0-29d4195b2c8c Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), such as the well-known indium-tin oxide, find widespread use in modern (nano)technological applications because of their unique combination of negligible optical absorption and good electric conductivity. We, however, show that despite the near-zero imaginary part of the refractive index that is responsible for the material's transparency, TCOs drastically quench optical emitters when the emitter is within 10 nm from the TCO. Our results reveal that the pure near-field nature of this dissipation makes for an exquisite short-range optical ruler. Previous quenching-based optical rulers, based on interactions with plasmonic or graphene materials, have allowed measuring distances in the 20–100 nm range. Distances below 20 nm have, however, been hard to assess due to poor photon yields or weak absolute variations. We show that TCO-based rulers close this gap, allowing distance measurements with far-field optics in the 1–10 nm distance range with deep subnanometer sensitivity.


When skilled readers make speeded categorization judgements about printed words, errors occur to homophones of real category exemplars. In Experiments 1 and 2, for example, subjects incorrectly accepted both the word STEAL (as a member of the category A METAL) and the nonword JEAP (as A VEHICLE) significantly more often than incorrect non-homophonic items matched in orthographic similarity to real exemplars. Experiment 3 demonstrated equivalent error rates for homophone targets differing from real exemplars by various types of single-letter change, but reduced error rates, especially for non-word homophones, when subjects were instructed to accept only correctly spelled instances. Experiments 4 and 5 established that the magnitude of the homophone effect is predicted by the degree of orthographic similarity between homophonic mates but not by spelling-sound regularity of the presented homophone. The results suggest that automatic phonological activation plays a major role in the comprehension of written words.


The recent reform of the Bundesagentur fijr Arbeit, Germany's Public Employment Service (PES), has introduced elements of New Public Management, including internal controlling and attempts at standardizing assessments ('profiling' of unemployed people) and procedures. Based on qualitative interviews with PES staff, we show that standardization and controlling are perceived as contradicting the 'case-oriented approach' used by PES staff in dealing with unemployed people. It is therefore not surprising that staff members use considerable discretion when (re-)assigning unemployed people to one of the categories pre-defined by PES headquarters. All in all, the new procedures lead to numerous contradictions, which often result in bewilderment and puzzlement on the part of the unemployed.


Looking carefully at the particulars of Charles Darwin's principle-driven behavior allows for the rebuttal of a persistent strand of opposition to his theories. Darwin's materialist reading of the world is not, as some anti-Darwinians have feared and claimed, necessarily at odds with an ethical sensibility. Instead, Darwin's ethos offers compelling evidence that, as George Levine has argued, a naturalistic vision need not be incompatible with an ethical one. Given the remarkable powers of innovation discernible in all aspects of Darwin's naturalistic vision, it may at first seem surprising to claim dial Darwin's ethical vision was largely conventional, though complex--but that is what I am going to argue here. His ethical principles, practices, and values were characteristic of those prevailing on both sides of his family: the progressive, privileged Darwins and Wedgwoods. The Darwins' and Wedgwoods' attitudes were typical of the well-educated, affluent, liberal-leaning segment of the professional people, capitalists, and landowners whose values gradually but significantly shaped the evolving moral culture of 19th century Britain. But if Darwin's ethical principles appear determined by his class, time, and family, he carried those principles into practice in distinctively personal ways involving compromise, nuance, and occasional self-contradiction. Here I'll focus on three ethical concerns relevant to Darwin's public career and thus will not examine the fascinating personal aspects of his ethical existence. Notably I'll not address Darwin's religious attitudes or consider at length the complex blend of increasing agnosticism with solid social conformity that made him live, in classic country-gentleman fashion, as what James Moore has called a "squarson," the squire-parson hybrid who was the moral and financial pillar of a rural neighborhood. Darwin generously supported the parish church which he did not attend and rejected its Christian tenets with increasing force. It's clear, though, that Darwin's personal and public ethics impinge on one another. For example, one touching and remarkable feature of Darwin's happy marriage to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood: though they disagreed profoundly on religious matters, he paid her the compliment of unquestioning trust in her intellectual talents, her ability to rise above personal beliefs and feelings, and her loyalty to him. Darwin specified in writing that should he die with his ideas on natural selection unpublished, Emma would be the literary executor in charge of seeing those ideas into print, if necessary using designated funds to pay for appropriate advice from the scientific community (Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging, 90, 94, 100, 143). The three cases I consider here are relevant to Darwin's public and publishing career, though they overlap with his personal life. First, Darwin's attitudes toward slavery, abolition, and what he and his culture called "savages." Secondly, the principled collaborative decision that resulted in the publication of a "joint paper" when Alfred Russell Wallace's written ideas on natural selection might have preempted Darwin's years of rumination and private writing on the subject. Finally, Darwin's carefully nuanced stance on the role of animals in experimental research and the responsibility of humane scientific experimenters. Charles Darwin's grandfathers Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were ardent supporters of the 18th century abolitionist movement. Indeed, the latter imagined, manufactured, and reaped rich profits from, the famous china medallion depicting a chained slave kneeling and suppliant below the words "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" After the British slave trade had been successfully ended, the ensuing generations of Darwins and Wedgwoods continued to support abolition of slavery everywhere. Part of a growing wave of popular opinion, they held a position that over decades had gone from progressive minority to mainstream. …


Superficial spreading melanoma (SSM) is the most common type of melanoma. Large, population-based studies analyzing the incidence and survival of SSM are limited. This retrospective study was designed to evaluate demographic factors influencing the incidence and survival of SSM using a national population-based database. The United States National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry was used to calculate incidence and disease-specific survival trends for SSM between 1973 and 2012. Patient data were stratified according to age, sex, race, ulceration, thickness, and stage. Of 97 702 patients, 52.66% were men, 94.93% were white, and 38.92% had a primary lesion on the trunk. The overall incidence is 5.987/100 000 and is increasing with an annual percentage change (APC) of 1.42%. Incidence increases with age, peaking at 70–79 years. Men (6.68/100 00, APC: 1.78) had a significantly higher incidence than women (5.565/100 000, APC: 1.10). A total of 79.16% of SSM are less than or equal to 1 mm and 92.32% are nonulcerated. The overall 5-year survival is 95.30% and is increasing steadily. Women (hazard ratio: 0.54), 'other' races (hazard ratio: 0.30), those with local disease, those with thin tumors, and those without ulceration had higher survival than their counterparts (P<0.0001). The incidence of this predominantly thin melanoma subtype is on the rise, creating enhanced concern. Primary and secondary prevention techniques should consider the mortality associated with thin melanoma.


We present results on a search for 86.243-GHz SiO (J = 2→1, $v$ = 1) maser emission toward 67 OH/IR stars located near the Galactic centre. We detected 32 spectral peaks, of which 28 correspond to SiO maser lines arising from the envelopes of these OH/IR stars. In OH/IR stars, we obtained an SiO maser detection rate of about $40\%$. We serendipitously detected two other lines from OH/IR stars at ≈86.18 GHz, which could be due to a CCS-molecule transition at 86.181 GHz or probably to an highly excited OH molecular transition at 86.178 GHz. The detection rate of 86-GHz maser emission is found to be about $60\%$ for sources with the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) A − E < 2.5 mag; but it drops to $25\%$ for the reddest OH/IR stars with MSX A − E > 2.5 mag. This supports the hypothesis by Messineo (2002, A&A, 393, 115) that the SiO masers are primarily found in relatively thinner circumstellar material.


Abstract Larval and adult mosquitoes mount immune responses against pathogens that invade their hemocoel. Although it has been suggested that a correlation exists between immune processes across insect life stages, the influence that an infection in the hemocoel of a larva has on the immune system of the eclosed adult remains unknown. Here, we used Anopheles gambiae to test whether a larval infection influences the adult response to a subsequent bacterial or malaria parasite infection. We found that for both female and male mosquitoes, a larval infection enhances the efficiency of bacterial clearance following a secondary infection in the hemocoel of adults. The adults that emerge from infected larvae have more hemocytes than adults that emerge from naive or injured larvae, and individual hemocytes have greater phagocytic activity. Furthermore, mRNA abundance of immune genes—such as cecropin A, Lysozyme C1, Stat‐A, and Tep1—is higher in adults that emerge from infected larvae. A larval infection, however, does not have a meaningful effect on the probability that female adults will survive a systemic bacterial infection, and increases the susceptibility of females to Plasmodium yoelii, as measured by oocyst prevalence and intensity in the midgut. Finally, immune proficiency varies by sex; females exhibit increased bacterial killing, have twice as many hemocytes, and more highly express immune genes. Together, these results show that a larval hemocoelic infection induces transstadial immune activation—possibly via transstadial immune priming—but that it confers both costs and benefits to the emerged adults.


Face detection is an important task in computer vision and often serves as the first step for a variety of applications. State-of-the-art approaches use efficient learning algorithms and train on large amounts of manually labeled imagery. Acquiring appropriate training images, however, is very time-consuming and does not guarantee that the collected training data is representative in terms of data variability. Moreover, available data sets are often acquired under controlled settings, restricting, for example, scene illumination or 3D head pose to a narrow range. This paper takes a look into the automated generation of adaptive training samples from a 3D morphable face model. Using statistical insights, the tailored training data guarantees full data variability and is enriched by arbitrary facial attributes such as age or body weight. Moreover, it can automatically adapt to environmental constraints, such as illumination or viewing angle of recorded video footage from surveillance cameras. We use the tailored imagery to train a new many-core implementation of Viola Jones' AdaBoost object detection framework. The new implementation is not only faster but also enables the use of multiple feature channels such as color features at training time. In our experiments we trained seven view-dependent face detectors and evaluate these on the Face Detection Data Set and Benchmark (FDDB). Our experiments show that the use of tailored training imagery outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on this challenging dataset.


OBJECTIVES
Inhibitors of the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1)-degrading enzyme, dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV), are being explored in the treatment of diabetes. We examined the long-term influence of a selective, orally active inhibitor of DPPIV (NVP DPP728), in normal female C57BL/6J mice and such mice rendered glucose-intolerant and insulin-resistant by feeding a high-fat diet.

DESIGN
In mice fed a standard diet (11% fat) or a high-fat diet (58% fat), NVP DPP728 (0.12 micromol/g body weight) was administered in the drinking water for an 8 week period.

RESULTS
DPPIV inhibition reduced plasma DPPIV activity to 0.01+/-0.03 mU/ml vs 3.26+/-0.19 mU/ml in controls (P<0.001). Glucose tolerance after gastric glucose gavage, as judged by the area under the curve for plasma glucose levels over the 120 min study period, was increased after 8 weeks by NVP DPP728 in mice fed normal diet (P=0.029) and in mice fed a high-fat diet (P=0.036). This was accompanied by increased plasma levels of insulin and intact GLP-1. Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion from islets isolated from NVP DPP728-treated animals after 8 weeks of treatment was increased as compared with islets from control animals at 5.6, 8.3 and 11.1 mmol/l glucose both in mice fed normal diet and in mice fed a high-fat diet (both P<0.05). Islet insulin and glucagon immunocytochemistry revealed that NVP DPP728 did not affect the islet architecture. However, the expression of immunoreactive glucose transporter isoform-2 (GLUT-2) was increased by DPPIV inhibition, and in mice fed a high-fat diet, islet size was reduced after treatment with NVP DPP728 from 16.7+/-2.6 x 10(3) microm(2) in controls to 7.6+/-1.0 x 10(3) microm(2) (P=0.0019).

CONCLUSION
Long-term DPPIV inhibition improves glucose tolerance in both normal and glucose-intolerant mice through improved islet function as judged by increased GLUT-2 expression, increased insulin secretion and protection from increased islet size in insulin resistance.


A novel on-wafer resistive noise source, useful for noise characterization of microwave devices with the cold noise power measurement technique, is described. The noise source enhances measurement accuracy by providing a calibrated noise temperature directly at the device reference plane. A procedure for determining the excess noise ratio of the noise source is presented and validated up to 40 GHz. The noise source is employed in an on-wafer measurement system, allowing the noise parameters of two-port devices to be extracted. Following a description of the apparatus and measurement procedure, an example of a high-electron-mobility transistor noise parameter measurement at millimeter-wave frequencies is presented.


Purpose

– Observes how the introduction of a new learning-management system has made training easier, cheaper and more effective at international freight-forwarder JAS.

Design/methodology/approach

– Examines the reasons for the new system, the form it takes and the advantages it has brought.

Findings

– Explains that using the system makes things easier for the end-users who have one place to go for their learning materials. It has allowed the company to evaluate end-users' knowledge of products and services.

Practical implications

– Reveals that the cost of delivering each individual piece of learning to any and every user is less than 20 USA cents.

Social implications

– Highlights the benefits of a learning-management system for organizations with large numbers of geographically dispersed employees.

Originality/value

– Describes a system that has helped JAS to standardize its approach to training globally, allowing consistent, controlled messaging and has created a method and process by which JAS can assess and evaluate its employees' skills, knowledge base and areas for improvement.


Vegetation was classified using aerial hyperspectral sensor (CASI-3) data and field survey data for the beech-forested Shirakami Mountains in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Previous study on German forest reported that different plants show similar hyperspectral response patterns and that the accuracy of vegetation classification using aerial hyperspectral sensor data alone was 66%. In this study, radiance in each grid was divided by average radiance in a vegetation-coverage area. This"normalized"spectral response pattern enabled finer plant discrimination than the non-normalized patterns used in the previous study.Plants typifying those in the study area were selected, their radiances were investigated at ground truth sites, and eight vegetation classifications were selected : walnut (high and low radiance), beech (high and low radiance), altherbosa, dwarf bamboo, bare ground, and other. Classification accuracy was 77.6% at the ground truth sites, but the classification accuracy for each of altherbosa, bamboo grass, and bare ground was 100%. Walnut classification accuracies (63.6% for high radiance and 50.0% for low radiance) were equal to or lower than beech classification accuracies (50.0% for high radiance and 88.9% for low radiance) . When radiance is disregarded, classification accuracy was 76.5% for walnut and 80.0% for beech. The classification accuracy of 76.5% for walnut 80.0% for beech suggests that aerial hyperspectral sensor data can be used to map vegetation.


Although gluten withdrawal is likely to remain the mainstay of treatment for adult coeliac disease, many patients find the diet inconvenient and unpalatable and compliance among asymptomatic patients is often poor. Oral corticosteroids have been used for patients who seem to be resistant to gluten withdrawal but preparations with low systemic bioavailability might be preferable. We have given a new glucocorticoid (fluticasone propionate) to 12 adults with untreated coeliac disease for six weeks while they were on a normal diet. One patient defaulted and one suffered a relapse in a pre-existing neoplasm. Excluding these, there was an improvement of symptoms, a mean weight gain of 2 kg, and a rise in albumin of 5.4 g/l. There was a significant improvement in the lactulose/mannitol excretion ratio (p less than 0.05) and in all histological variables examined in paired biopsy specimens (surface and crypt intraepithelial lymphocyte/enterocyte and goblet cell/enterocyte ratios and enterocyte height, p less than 0.01 or better). In six paired specimens sucrase and alkaline phosphatase activity increased in all (p less than 0.05) and lactase in five of six. No appreciable side effects were observed, but two patients had suppressed cortisol values and synacthen responses at six weeks. A further three, with normal pretrial results, had a blunted tetracosactrin response at six weeks. Fluticasone propionate seems worthy of further assessment in the treatment of coeliac disease as an adjunct to gluten withdrawal.


Reduced form pronunciations are widely used by native English speakers, especially in casual conversations. Second language (L2) learners have difficulty in processing reduced form pronunciations in listening comprehension and face challenges in production too. Meanwhile, training applications dedicated to reduced forms are still few. To solve this issue, we report on our first effort of using deep learning to evaluate L2 learners' reduced form pronunciations. Compared with a baseline solution that uses an ASR to determine regular or reduced-formed pronunciations, a classifier that learns representative features via a convolution neural network (CNN) on low-level acoustic features, yields higher detection performance. F-1 metric has been increased from $0.690$ to $0.757$ on the reduction task. Furthermore, adding word entities to compute attention weights to better adjust the features learned by the CNN model helps increasing F-1 to $0.763$.


The recent debate on alcohol tax reform and recommendations from the Henry Tax Review in Australia have highlighted the need for quantifying externalities of excessive alcohol consumption by beverage types. This paper presents micro-level information from the Australian National Drug Strategy Household Surveys to examine the association between risky drinking behaviour, drinker characteristics, health and labour market status, and types of alcohol beverages consumed. Drinkers of regular strength beer (RSB) and ready-to-drink spirits in a can (RTDC) have the highest incidences of heavy bingeing, whilst low alcohol beer, fortified wine or bottled wine drinkers are least likely. Bottled spirits (BS), RSB and RTDC are most likely to be linked to risky behaviour such as property damage and physical abuse under alcohol influence. All three spirit products are overwhelmingly the favourable drinks for the underage and young drinkers. Risky drinking behaviour is found not to be associated with the alcohol strength of the products.


Abstract
Empire is a smaller and more financially stable company that no longer has an externally imposed social mission. The board and management of Empire have decided to convert to a for-profit company, to compete in the marketplace. In light of this decision, they also decided to turn over the company's charitable value to a new foundation. Because Empire's board has chosen not to maintain a social mission, the Panel strongly supports its proposal to turn over the full value of the charitable asset. This will allow the asset to be used for purposes that are in keeping with Empire's original social mission. Exactly how this asset should be valued, what form it should take, when it should be turned over, who should control the assets, and what activities it should support are just a few of the many important issues that must be resolved during the next few months. Empire will not and should not remain stagnant during the next few months. Given the rapidly evolving health-care market, Empire's board and management must continue to pursue a market strategy that strengthens the company. However, given the factors discussed earlier--hospital deregulation, the increasingly competitive managed-care market, and other pressures in the health-care environment--it is clear that the road ahead for Empire will not be a smooth one and that the company's financial resurgence is no guarantee of continued stability. Much hard work remains. I am confident that Empire's board and its management will continue to do its part, that the Panel will continue to do likewise.


As Ainsworth (1982, 1989) and Bowlby (1979, 1980) pointed out, all infants develop some form of attachment to their primary caregiver. Indeed, attachment began at infancy and continued throughout life. Secure attachment is a necessary precursor of the ability to regulate affect and to reflect on the emotional functioning of self and others (Fonagy, 2001). According to Hazan and Shaver (1987), the purpose of this survey is to investigate the relationship between attachment styles and emotional dysregulation, and between adult attachment and metacognition in patients with personality disorders. The research has involved 120 participants, aged 18 - 65 years and recruited during psychotherapy training. Control group is formed by 60 adults (mean = 30.07; standard deviation = 14.09); experimental group is formed by 60 patients with personality disorder (mean = 31.88; standard deviation = 12.21) grouped into three clusters: A (the "odd, eccentric" cluster), B (the "dramatic, emotional, erratic" cluster), and C (the "anxious, fearful" cluster). Paricipants completed the following tests: Experiences in Close Relationships Inventory, ECR, Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20 and Metacognitive Functions Screening Scale, MFSS-30. The results confirm the relationship between attachment styles, emotional dysregulation, and metacognitive functions in patients with personality disorders. More specifically, adult attachment and metacognitive functions seem to be positively related, while adult attachment and emotional dysregulation seem to be inversely related.


This illustrated edition of Walden features 66 photographs by Herbert W. Gleason, one of the great American landscape photographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Gleason, who had a special love for what he called "the simple beauty of New England," became interested in Thoreau's work when commissioned in 1906 by the Houghton Mifflin Company to illustrate their edition of The Writings of Henry David Thoreau. With the help of the few surviving people who had known Thoreau, Gleason searched out the exact places Thoreau had described-all of them still looking much as they had when Thoreau knew them-and photographed them. Gleason became so interested in the project that he continued to photograph Thoreau country for more than forty years. Most of the photographs reproduced here were chosen by Gleason himself for an edition of Walden he planned but never published. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Background and Purpose:
 Stroke survivors need social support after a stroke since social support networks can influence the ability of the stroke survivor to return to their community in a functioning social role. The objective of this study was to determine if stroke survivors who attend a stroke support group reenter into community interaction/socialization sooner than those stroke survivors that do not attend a stroke support group.

 Methods:
 A non-experimental cross-sectional design using a purposeful sample was used. Using two survey instruments: a researcher developed demographic survey and the Subjective Index of Physical and Social Outcomes [SIPSO] tool, data was collected from 105 participants who were at least 3 months post stroke. At the end of the 30-day return period nonparametric statistics were used to evaluate the hypotheses that stroke survivors who attend a stroke support group will reenter into community interaction/socialization sooner that those stroke survivors that do not attend a stroke support group.

 Results:
 A statistically significant difference was found for participants who attend support groups as to those participants who do not attend support groups (
 p
 value < 0.001) and the SIPSO social subscale total. The results of the two factor analysis of variance showed attendance is the only significant factor (F=48.839, df=1,94, P<0.001). Neither gender nor the interaction between gender and attendance were significant (P=.749 and P=.879, respectively).

 Conclusions:
 Health disparities, such as stroke, leave devastating effects on individuals and their ability to return to society in a functioning capacity. This study demonstrated that stroke support groups were related to the stroke survivor's resocialization outcomes. This suggests that stroke support groups can positively impact social functioning and reintegration into the community after a stroke. The potential of stroke support groups should be further studied for their impact on overall social functioning and quality of life in stroke survivors.


For the past year, a 52-year-old man had dysphagia, which he described as a "knot stuck in the throat" and an associated 25-lb weight loss. He denied fever, chills, headache, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. The patient had been living in the Dominican Republic until about 1 year earlier, when he moved to the United States. He had a 30 pack-year smoking history; he also had hypertension, asthma, and coronary artery disease (none of which were pharmacologically treated). He denied alcohol and illicit drug use.


Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can be expanded and manipulated ex vivo . These cells demonstrated three biological characteristics that qualify them for the use in cellular therapy: (1) potential of differentiation, (2) secretion of trophic factors and (3) immunoregulatory properties. The bone marrow (BM) has been considered as the traditional source of MSCs and much knowledge for potential clinical applications has been obtained from studies using MSCs derived from adult bone marrow. MSCs need to be expanded in vitro for the purpose of cell therapy. However, sometimes, the culture expansion could generate cytogenetic and molecu‐ lar alterations. Accumulation of these alterations during many passages of culture could lead to malignant cell transformation. So, it is important to perform a rigorous control using different methods to test the safety and efficacy of MSCs for cell therapies. BM- MSCs have potential clinical applications in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) as an adjuvant cellular therapy. This chapter reviews the advances in the study of MSCs and the potential clinical applications of MSCs in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). We also describe the importance of statistical methods to aid the analysis of the efficacy and safety for the clinical use of MSCs for HSCT.


About 20% of U.S. households are credit constrained. This research analyzes credit constraints among those who have applied for credit and controls for the effects of past credit behavior on being credit constrained. It is the first to identify the impact on being credit constrained of being Hispanic separately from other racial/ethnic groups. We first employ a simple empirical multivariate analysis used by previous researchers, and find that Black households were more likely than otherwise similar White households to be credit constrained, but Hispanic households were not significantly different from White households. However, because many households considered "not credit constrained" had not applied for credit, we limited a second model to households that had applied for credit in the past five years and found that both Hispanic and Black households were more likely to be credit constrained than otherwise similar White households. In a third model, also limited to households that had applied for credit, we controlled for financial behavior problems in addition to household characteristics and found that the difference between Black and White households in the predicted credit constraint rate was slightly smaller than in the second model, but the difference between Hispanic and White households was larger than in the second model. These results from household data supplement analyses based on lender data, providing some evidence of discrimination against minority groups and/or unmeasured characteristics limiting access to credit among those households.


What did the early Greek philosophers think about animals and their lives? How did they view plants? And, ultimately, what type of relationship did they envisage between all sorts of living beings? On these topics there is evidence of a prolonged investigation by several Presocratics. However, scholarship has paid little attention to these issues and to the surprisingly "modern" development they received in Presocratics' doctrines. This book fills this lacuna through a detailed (and largely unprecedented) analysis of the extant evidence.
The volume includes also the first extensive collection of the ancient sources pertaining to living beings and life in early Greek philosophy, organized chronologically and thematically.


ABSTRACT Johnson, A.M.; Atkinson, R.B.; Steven, J.C.; Whiting, G.; Napora, K.; Sharrett, L., and Mirda, C., 2022. Determining carbon dioxide emission response in soil microcosms from a shallow mid-Atlantic peatland: The influence of water table restoration. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(2), 261–268. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Determining carbon dioxide emission response in shallow microcosms from a shallow mid-Atlantic peatland: The influence of water table restoration. Peatlands provide ecosystem services such as pollution filtration, flood control, and carbon storage as these ecosystems contain 33% to 50% of the global soil carbon pool. Reestablishing soil saturation in degraded peatlands can limit microbial oxidation of organic matter; however, drainage history may alter soil saturation patterns and challenge restoration efforts. The purpose of this study was to investigate carbon emission response to water table restoration for two shallow peatlands including a Histosol and an Ultisol with divergent drainage histories. Soil cores were gathered from the top 22.5 cm of organic-rich surface horizons within Cavalier Wildlife Management Area in Chesapeake, Virginia. Cores were randomly assigned to four water level treatments that simulated restoration conditions, and carbon dioxide emissions were measured using an LI-6400XT portable open-flow photosynthesis system twice a week for 4 weeks. Despite higher organic matter content in the long-drained site, emissions (2.1 to 3.9 µmol CO2 m–2 s–1) were higher than at the historically less drained site (1.5 to 2.3 µmol CO2 m–2 s–1). Volumetric water content trends revealed that longer-drained soils retained lower water content within restoration treatments and were associated with higher carbon emissions. Restoration of long-drained peats in the mid-Atlantic region may require higher water tables than otherwise predicted to overcome a resistance to rewetting where limiting microbial soil respiration is a management objective.


A survey of parasitoids of the citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), was carried out in the citrus orchards in the east Mediterranean region of Turkey during 1995-2001. Their relative abundance and rate of parasitism were also determined. Ten species of parasitoids were identified: Cirrospilus sp. nr. lyncus (Walker), C. pictus (Nees), C. variegatus (Masi), C. vittatus Walker, C. ingenuus Gahan, Ratzeburgiola incompleta (Boucek), Diglyphus isaea (Walker), Semielacher petiolatus (Girault), Citrostichus phyllocnistoides (Narayanan), Neochrysocharis formosa (Westwood) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae). Neochrysocharis sp., Chrysocharis sp., Barycapus sp., Pnigalio sp. (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) and the Pteromalus sp. (Hym.: Pteromalidae) were also identified. Among these species, R. incompleta in 1995-1996 and C. sp. nr. lyncus in 1997 were the most dominant of all encountered species. In 1998, a new parasitoid species, C. phyllocnistoides, expanded to all citrus growing orchards in the region, becoming the most abundant parasitoid species between 1998 and 2001. The parasitization rate was very low during the main peak of the pest in early summer, but increased considerably later in the season. It is determined that these parasitoids play a significant role in reducing the P. citrella population during the late summer and autumn flushes.


Read alignment is an important step in RNA-seq analysis as the result of alignment forms the basis for downstream analyses. However, recent studies have shown that published alignment tools have variable mapping sensitivity and do not necessarily align all the reads which should have been aligned, a problem we termed as the false-negative non-alignment problem. Here we present Scavenger, a python-based bioinformatics pipeline for recovering unaligned reads using a novel mechanism in which a putative alignment location is discovered based on sequence similarity between aligned and unaligned reads. We showed that Scavenger could recover unaligned reads in a range of simulated and real RNA-seq datasets, including single-cell RNA-seq data. We found that recovered reads tend to contain more genetic variants with respect to the reference genome compared to previously aligned reads, indicating that divergence between personal and reference genomes plays a role in the false-negative non-alignment problem. Even when the number of recovered reads is relatively small compared to the total number of reads, the addition of these recovered reads can impact downstream analyses, especially in terms of estimating the expression and differential expression of lowly expressed genes, such as pseudogenes.


In the United States, as in other industrialized nations, regulatory decisions to protect the environment and public health depend heavily on scientific information. Yet the process of decision-making places unusual strains on science. Knowledge claims are deconstructed during the rule-making process, exposing areas of weakness or uncertainty and threatening the cognitive authority of science. At the same time, the legitimacy of the final regulatory decision depends upon the regulator's ability to reconstruct a plausible scientific rationale for the proposed action. The processes of deconstructing and reconstructing knowledge claims give rise to competition among scientists, public officials and political interest groups, all of whom have a stake in determining how policy-relevant science should be interpreted and by whom. All of these actors use boundary-defining language in order to distinguish between science and policy, and to allocate the right to interpret science in ways that further their own interests. This paper explores the contours of such boundary disputes in the context of controversies over carcinogen regulation. It focuses on the contested definitions and strategic implications of three groups of concepts: trans-science or science policy, risk assessment and risk management, and peer review.


New technologies and innovations suspected to affect environment or public health need to be regulated. Scientific risk assessment is considered as a key element for the regulation. Its role is reinforced when the regulation has the potential of constraining the international trade. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement of the WTO dealing with this kind of issues gives primacy to scientific risk assessment. Interesting situations arise with small risks that is to say situations where the probability of damage is tiny and/or expected damages are very small. If risk assessment is the only scientific element considered, the mere presence of risk – even small - should give reason for regulation. Does it rationalize the public decision for all that? If the social benefits associated with the blocked activity are consequent accepting the risk could be worthwhile. Recent works from the economic literature have shown that in order to get a good 'risk governance' cost-benefit analysis should be considered together with risk assessment (Bureau et al. 1998, Turvey and Mojduszka 2005). The aim of cost-benefit analysis is indeed to help public decision making. It consists in a set of methods that enables to evaluate the relevance of a regulation, comparing it with other possible options (from other types of regulation to the absence of any regulation). For that purpose cost-benefit analysis aims at estimating a monetary valuation, on the one hand, for environmental (or public health) degradation and, on the other hand, for the expected benefits implied by environmental conservation and technologies' development.


We prove regenerative properties for the linear Hawkes process under minimal assumptions on the transfer function, which may have unbounded support. These results are applicable to sliding window statistical estimators. We exploit independence in the Poisson cluster point process decomposition, and the regeneration times are not stopping times for the Hawkes process. The regeneration time is interpreted as the renewal time at zero of a M/G/infinity queue, which yields a formula for its Laplace transform. When the transfer function admits some exponential moments, we stochastically dominate the cluster length by exponential random variables with parameters expressed in terms of these moments. This yields explicit bounds on the Laplace transform of the regeneration time in terms of simple integrals or special functions yielding an explicit negative upper-bound on its abscissa of convergence. These regenerative results allow, e.g., to systematically derive long-time asymptotic results in view of statistical applications. This is illustrated on a concentration inequality previously obtained with coauthors.


The Reception Reader is a web tool for studying text reuse in the Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) data. Users can: 1) explore a visual overview of the reception of a work, or its incoming connections, across time based on shared text segments, 2) interactively survey the details of connected documents, and 3) examine the context of reused text for"close reading". We show examples of how the tool streamlines research and exploration tasks, and discuss the utility and limitations of the user interface along with its current data sources.


The levels of glycogen, free trehalose, and lipid-bound trehalose were compared in Mycobacterium smegmatis grown under various conditions of nitrogen limitation. In a mineral salts medium supplemented with yeast extract and containing fructose as the carbon source, the accumulation of glycogen increased dramatically as the NH4Cl content of the medium was lowered. However, levels of free trehalose remained relatively constant. Cells were grown in low nitrogen medium and were then shifted to medium containing high nitrogen. Under these conditions, there was a rapid accumulation of glycogen in low nitrogen, and this glycogen was rapidly depleted when cells were placed in high nitrogen medium. Again the concentration of free trehalose remained fairly constant. However, when cells were grown in low nitrogen medium with [14C]fructose and then transferred to high nitrogen medium with unlabeled fructose, the specific radioactivity (counts per minute per micromole) of the free trehalose fell immediately, indicating that it was being synthesized and turned over continually. On the other hand, the specific radioactivity of the glycogen and bound trehalose declined much more slowly, suggesting that these two compounds were not turning over as rapidly or were being synthesized at a much slower rate. Experiments on the incorporation of [14C]fructose into glycogen and trehalose indicated that cells in high nitrogen medium synthesized much less glycogen than those in low nitrogen. However, synthesis of both free trehalose and bound trehalose was the same in both cases. The specific enzymatic activities of the glycogen synthetase and the trehalose phosphate synthetase varied somewhat from one growth condition to another, but there was no correlation between enzymatic activity and the amount of glycogen or trehalose, suggesting that changes in glycogen levels were not due to increased synthetic capacity. The glycogen synthetase was purified about 35-fold and its properties were examined. This enzyme was specific for adenosine diphosphate glucose as the glucosyl donor.


The genome and transcriptome of the endosymbiotic flavobacterium Candidatus Walczuchella monophlebidarum revealed its role in the synthesis of essential amino acids for its host, the wax cochineal Llaveia axin axin. There were, however, missing genes in the endosymbiont for some biosynthetic pathways. Here, we characterized TME1, another cochineal symbiont that may metabolically complement Walczuchella. TME1 was ascribed to the gammaproteobacterial genus Sodalis on a phylogenomic basis using gene sequences from 143 proteins core genome sequences and the core average nucleotide identity (ANI) confirmed its position. Additionally, we describe Sodalis as a coherent genus. TME1 genome is around 3.4 Mb and has complete gene sequences for the biosynthesis of 10 essential amino acids, for polyamines, flagella, nitrate respiration, and detoxification among many others. Transcripts from ovaries and bacteriomes allowed the identification of differentially transcribed genes from the endosymbionts and host. Highly transcribed genes were identified in TME1 and transcripts involved in amino acid biosynthesis were found. We review here that cosymbionts that derived from different bacterial classes and genera seem to be advantageous for insects that have Flavobacteria as the primary endosymbionts.


This study examines and analyzes the factors that play a role as the beginning of the Store Loyalty consisting Perceptions of Product Quality and Service Quality Perceptions, Perceived Value, and Customer Satisfaction. The sample used in this research is the Customer of a supermarket who has a supermarket member card and monthly shopping needs at that supermarket routinely in the past 3 months. This research consisting respondents totaled 144 respondents. The sampling method used in this study is a non-probability sampling design, while the technique using purposive sampling. Based on the results of data analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) obtained results: 1) Product Quality Perceptions has a positive influence on Customer Satisfaction; 2) Service Quality Perceptions has a positive influence on Customer Satisfaction; 3) Perceived Value has a positive influence on Customer Satisfaction; 4) Customer Satisfaction has a positive effect on Store Loyalty. Keywords : Customer Perceptions, Customer Satisfaction, Store Loyalty


This article analyzed how the United States and France regulate bias-motivated communication or hate speech on the Internet. Communication that is characterized by vitriolic expressions of hatred towards individuals or groups on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation is permissible in the United States because the country has an individualistic, libertarian worldview in which freedom of speech takes pride of place. Under the First Amendment, the rights of the speaker take precedence over the feelings of the listener. In contrast, France has a communitarian, moral philosophical system in which civility and equality take precedence over individual speech rights. These contrasting perspective were evident in the Yahoo! cases that were heard by courts in both countries.


The text of the Dutch laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide--Article 293, and its companion act, Article 294--seems straightforward enough: He who robs another of life at his express and serious wish is punished with a prison sentence of at most twelve years or a fine of the fifth category. He who deliberately incites another to suicide, then assists him therein or provides him with the means is punished, if the suicide follows, with a prison sentence of at most three years or a fine of the fourth category. These articles have been part of Dutch law since before the Dutch Penal Code, het Wetboek van Strafecht, replaced the French Code Penal in 1886. At present, these articles remain part of that law, despite the fact that in the winter of 1993, the Dutch parliament finally reached a compromise between those who clamor for legalization of euthanasia and those who fight to block such a change. The legislature approved a state-proposed change, not to the euthanasia law itself, but to the Coroner's Act, which governs, among other things, the disposal of dead bodies. The new law sets out guidelines which, if followed, generally prevent prosecution of physicians who commit euthanasia, even while the law continues to criminalize such acts. None of this is news really. The changes in Dutch euthanasia law have been percolating through the system for twenty years now, inspiring heated debate worldwide. As the harbingers of liberal social change, the Dutch hold an almost prophetic role as they work through the tangles of contemporary moral and legal debates. Still, while no one should be surprised that the Dutch finally stamped their approval on this novel compromise, the change itself continues to stir controversy around the globe. In large measure, one can attribute this to the sheer emotional nature of an issue such as euthanasia. Like abortion, the death penalty, and other legal issues involving the beginning and the end of human lives, euthanasia always will prompt strong reactions from its supporters as well as its detractors. There also seems to be little news in the kind of compromise reached by the Dutch, unique though it may sound to American ears. The kind of latitude in prosecution and sentencing that has drawn the world's interest in regard to euthanasia is well within the parameters of usual Dutch criminal jurisprudence. In one key aspect, however, the Dutch have resolved this medical puzzle in a way that deserves particular scrutiny: The courts turned to the medical profession to weave the legal and political tangle of euthanasia law into something that could remain consistent to Dutch legal tradition while at the same time satisfying the popular political demand for change. In large measure, the Dutch courts used the insights of the Royal Dutch Medical Society, the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot beverdering der Geneeskunst (KNMG), to design guidelines for the prosecution and punishment of doctors who commit euthanasia. In its acceptance of the KNMG guidelines and the defense of necessity the judiciary has, for all practical purposes, deferred to a completely extra-governmental body: the medical community. This Comment scrutinizes the results of this judicial deference. First, this Comment surveys the Netherlands' criminal justice system, to give non- Dutch readers a basic familiarity with the setting in which Dutch euthanasia law has developed. Next, an examination of the history of Dutch euthanasia law, both legislative and judicial, demonstrates that Dutch judges and lawmakers have, in essence, deferred to physicians for answers to this difficult legal issue. This Comment then analyzes the guidelines themselves as well as the subjective process that physicians report going through to make euthanasia decisions. Several features of this process call for a careful re-examination of the en tire premise of deference to medical professionals. In particular, this Comment shows that the physicians' criteria are neither legally precise nor scientifically quantifiable. Instead, these criteria invite a deeply subjective interpretation of the patient's circumstances based on the physician's beliefs about what is good and valuable in a human life.


In order to assess the service states of the permanent prestress of transverse prestressing bundle for the Xiangjiang Yinpenling Bridge (XYB), the permanent prestress values are measured. Appearance census of the diseases of transverse prestressing bundles for the cable-stayed part, the east and west incremental launching girder parts of the XYB are carried out. Three transverse prestressing bundles of the most serious corrosion are investigated by windowing damage inspection. The measured results and the analysis of the permanent prestress for the XYB show that the average permanent prestress of the three transverse prestressing bundles is about 300MPa to 550MPa, which do not meet the requirements of the design tension stress. It suggests that the appropriate treatment measures should be taken.


Wave field dislocations, so named because of their morphological similarity to dislocations in crystals, are singular lines in the phase of a wave. It will be demonstrated that they can be applied to the characterization of sound fields that exhibit a complicated spatial variation. Dislocations have been identified experimentally in wave fields formed by the scattering of pulsed ultrasound from rough surfaces and from the internal microstructure of metals. The statistics of these dislocations can be correlated with the length scale of the features responsible for the scattering. Experiments were performed using pulsed ultrasound, of central frequency 20 MHz, reflected from the specimen and detected in water immersion using a coincident source–receiver. The phase of the wave is defined in terms of the position of the wave crests in the signal detected as a function of time at a fixed receiver position.