This study focused on determining the implications that BDS has made to the growth of micro
and small scale enterprises located around Gikomba. The study aimed at establishing whether
services related to networking, technological services, market access and entrepreneurial training
have implications on the growth of MSEs. Literature shows that BDS has been imperative in
enhancing business operations. A Report from Government of Kenya indicates that there are
several agencies and Non Governmental Organizations that continue to provide these essential
services to the business people. However, there are some service providers who have closed
down their operations. However, MSEs continue to record increased growth in the sector. There
being few studies that seek to find out whether increase in MSEs growth could be as a result of
BDS provision, there is a gap that researcher need to fill. Therefore, this study established that
there are BDS implications on the MSEs growth. Cross sectional descriptive survey was utilized
in the study which is the most applicable research design. The target population in the study was
13,636 MSEs. Through stratified sampling technique, a sample size of 150 was selected on a
simple random basis which is a percentage of 1.1% of the entire population. This comprised
comprise of 91 elements from the microenterprises and 59 from small enterprises.
Questionnaires were distributed to all the selected samples but seven of them did not provide
their responses. Therefore, the response rate was 95% of the selected samples. The study utilized
a mixed research method that entailed both qualitative and quantitative research. Themes related
to the research questions in the study were identified and data was then coded and entered in the
computer for analysis using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). The findings were
presented in figures and interpretation of the findings were be made. From the findings, it was
apparent that BDS has substantial impacts on the growth of MSEs. It was established that Market
access, Networking services, Technological supply services and entrepreneurial education have
lead to growth of MSEs. This was noted through increased profits, opening of new branches,
employing more workers and increased return on investment. It was however noted that the BDS
provision is not uniform to all businesses. There are some businesses that have not taken
advantage of services provided to enterprises. Most of them sited unavailability of adequate
services providers as a challenge to effective BDS provision. Based on the findings, this study
recommends that there is Need for a transformed BDS approach. There is potential in Gikomba
area to transform from the existing traditional BDS approach to market development approach in
order to enhance business operations. The transformation processes needs a coordinated and
concerted effort by all stakeholders including the government. They should define their roles in
facilitating and providing Business Development services. The selected Institutions should
understand their position in the market and develop strategic directions for their interventions
accordingly.


Thermal arc spray coating is a protective coating which useful to protect steel surface from environment condition. Thermal arc spray coating offers better protection due to its capability to withstand high temperature and better corrosion control with low operation cost. Thermal arc spray coating is applied extensively in atmospheric condition to reduce corrosion rate but very less used in seawater condition. Most duty as a corrosion protection for subsea structure is carried out by cathodic protection system; putting anode as a sacrificial to protect cathode from corrosion. This research investigates suitability of aluminium material to be as a sacrificial anode and evaluate thermal arc spray aluminium coating performance as a sacrificial anode for structure protection under seawater condition by applying different coating thickness. Efficiency of aluminium alloy 99.5% material as sacrificial anode was studied by using DNV RP B401 Standard and measured by important parameters such as potential difference, anode efficiency, consumption rate and corrosion rate. It found that the material produced good consumption rate between 2.9 kg/A.year to 3.42 kg/A.year, high anode efficiency recorded at 96%, and constant potential difference at -0.712 V. Since aluminium alloy 99.5% give a good performance, then the material was used as a coating material in thermal arc spray application. 15 samples were prepared where all samples sprayed with different coating thickness ranges from 200 pm to 700 (am and immersed in artificial seawater. Daily data were recorded such as potential difference, salinity concentration, pH and corrosion rate in 12 months experiment. After completed the experiment, laboratory tests were conducted. The surface structure and cross section were examined by scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive x-ray. The hardness was inspected using Vickers Hardness testing. Surface roughness was inspected using InfiniteFocus G4 machine. From experimental results, it shows that the coating produced low corrosion rate at range o f 0.013 mm/year to 0.025 mm/year and recorded potential difference between -0.79 V until -0.886 V. It indicated that the sacrificial work well in coating form. It was supported by energy dispersive x-ray result which found calcium carbonate compound exists on the coating; increasing in coating thickness directly reduced the coatinghardness from 51.2 HV to 46.6 HV. The highest hardness was at coating thickness of 200 (jm to 300 |im. It was observed only small change or no direct correlation between surface roughness and coating thickness. Overall, it can be concluded that the coating thickness at 500 [im-600 |im provides better coating performance in terms of optimum potential difference and lesser corrosion rate.


Dr E. K. Walton said that it was most unsatisfactory to speak of Carboniferous cyclic sedimentation when it was obvious that the authors were not considering all types of cycle which occurred in that system. It should be made quite clear which cycles they were attempting to explain. He also objected to the use of ' cycle' in an apparently imprecise way. The authors gave little indication how, for example, a major cycle was picked out. Was there a clear distinction, as the authors implied, between their major and minor cycles? Was it not the case that very often separation of major and minor cycles was quite arbitrary? It was rather naïve to consider only two hypotheses concerning cyclic sedimentation and having disproved eustatic control, to their own satisfaction, to conclude that tectonic control must be the answer. There were several other possibilities, amongst which sedimentational control was favoured by many workers. Had the authors considered this possibility and what role did they suppose sedimentational factors played in the formation of the cycles? Professor W. D. Gill doubted if the cycles of sedimentation in rocks of deltaic association had any control from tectonic slope adjustments. The authors' examples seemed to lack adequate control of laterally equivalent non-cyclic sediments. Recent studies in the Lower Carboniferous Mullaghmore Sandstone Formation of north-west Ireland had shown a typical cyclic deltaic sequence round Mullagh-more and Kildoney (Co. Sligo and south Co. Donegal). In the southern areas of Co. Sligo, in Co. Cavan and Co. Leitrim,


We focus on the efficient parallel processing of meshes from biomolecular data so that they can be subsequently used for FEM simulation. All mesh processing about refinements and coherent indexations are applied in parallel. The simplices of the mesh are needed for the application in FEM having higher polynomial degrees. For biomolecular data, the only inputs are the atom coordinates, the van der Waals radii and the probe radius. Our principal goal is to obtain data which are well balanced among the different processors. To corroborate the parallel mesh processing, we show some application to FEM simulation. For that, we consider the parallel FEM of the linearized PoissonBoltzmann problem. We compare the FEM numerical results with known theoretical prediction to validate the accuracy of the parallel implementation.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Dupuytren's disease is a common complex disease caused by genetic and nongenetic factors. The role of many nongenetic risk factors is still unclear and debatable. This study aimed to systematically review the association between Dupuytren's disease and nongenetic risk factors. Methods: A search strategy was developed based on the Population, Exposure, Comparison, Outcomes and Study framework. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses–compliant literature search was conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from inception to November of 2018. Title and abstract and then full-text screening against eligibility criteria was performed independently by two reviewers, and consensus was achieved by a third reviewer. The Effective Public Health Practice Project and the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine tools were used to assess study quality and to evaluate the level of evidence of included studies, respectively. Results: Reviewers identified 4434 studies, of which 54 were included in the analysis. There was strong evidence for the association between Dupuytren's disease and advanced age, male sex, family history of Dupuytren's disease, and diabetes mellitus. Furthermore, heavy alcohol drinking, cigarette smoking, and manual work exposure showed a significant dose-response relationship. The quality of the included studies was mainly low or moderate, and most studies were level 3 or 4 on the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine scale. Conclusions: The study results show a strong association between Dupuytren's disease and advanced age, male sex, family history of Dupuytren's disease, diabetes mellitus, heavy alcohol drinking, cigarette smoking, and manual work exposure. Further studies are required to explain the causal relationship of these associations.


Among many options to tackle scalability issues of the current Internet routing architecture, the Locator Identity Separation Protocol (LISP) seems to be a feasible and effective one. LISP brings renewed scale and flexibility to the network, enabling advanced mobility management, with acceptable scalability and security. This paper gives a brief presentation about an open control-plane implementation of LISP currently working in the lisp4.net testbed. Our implementation includes most LISP control-plane functions, and also a module to allow the integration with an OpenLISP data-plane and, therefore, the deployment of a complete standalone Open-Source LISP Tunnel Router interoperable with existing Cisco LISP implementation.


This study explores the superelastic behavior of a recently developed Ni45.3Ti29.7Hf20Pd5 alloy that has favorable mechanical properties (high strength and hysteresis) over the well-known shape memory alloys. The effects of aging on shape memory properties of Ni45.3Ti29.7Hf20Pd5 polycrystalline alloys are revealed first. Next, the dependence of the superelastic response of an aged Ni45.3Ti29.7Hf20Pd5 alloys on the strain amplitude, loading rate and test temperature are examined via uniaxial compression tests. Then, the superelastic response of a solutionized sample is compared with that of the aged sample. Finally, a soft computing approach that employs neural networks and fuzzy logic is used to model the highly nonlinear behavior of Ni45.3Ti29.7Hf20Pd5 alloys by considering the loading rate and temperature effects. The tests results show that solutionized sample has wider stress hysteresis, larger energy dissipation and the equivalent viscous damping than the aged sample. It is found that loading rate does not significantly influence the superelastic behavior of NiTiHfPd. In addition, an increase in temperature shifts the hysteresis loops upward but result in no considerable change in damping characteristics. 2


A vast literature shows that the learning-based visual perception model is sensitive to adversarial noises, but few works consider the robustness of robotic perception models under widely-existing camera motion perturbations. To this end, we study the robustness of the visual perception model under camera motion perturbations to investigate the influence of camera motion on robotic perception. Specifically, we propose a motion smoothing technique for arbitrary image classification models, whose robustness under camera motion perturbations could be certified. The proposed robustness certification framework based on camera motion smoothing provides tight and scalable robustness guarantees for visual perception modules so that they are applicable to wide robotic applications. As far as we are aware, this is the first work to provide robustness certification for the deep perception module against camera motions, which improves the trustworthiness of robotic perception. A realistic indoor robotic dataset with a dense point cloud map for the entire room, MetaRoom, is introduced for the challenging certifiable robust perception task. We conduct extensive experiments to validate the certification approach via motion smoothing against camera motion perturbations. Our framework guarantees the certified accuracy of 81.7% against camera translation perturbation along depth direction within -0.1m ~ 0.1m. We also validate the effectiveness of our method on the real-world robot by conducting hardware experiments on the robotic arm with an eye-in-hand camera. The code is available at https://github.com/HanjiangHu/camera-motion-smoothing.


This paper addresses the diachronic development of the periphrastic construction, beon/wesan + the participial ending -ende in Old English, into the progressive construction in Modern English. Even though there are two different hypotheses regarding the origins of the progressive – the beon/wesan + -ende construction and the locative construction with the verb be + the preposition on + the nominal ending –ung– it is suggested that both forms somehow merged giving way to the present day construction be + -ing. Some of the examples of the construction in Old English correspond to the present day usage of the progressive but not others and this is why it is suggested that the usage of the beon + -ende construction was still undeveloped. In Middle English, the ending –ende had different dialectal forms in different parts of Britain but finally the –ing form prevailed over the rest of the endings. New forms of the progressive developed in this period, leading finally to the grammaticalization 1 of the construction in Modern English where it stopped being a stylistic variant and began to have a verbal status. Some of the new progressive forms developed in Modern English, such as the progressive passive, were forbidden by the grammarians. Nevertheless, the use of the latter form increased among literary people who used the construction in private letters to friends and as they started gaining prestige, this form was no longer forbidden. In this paper the semantic development of the construction will also be treated, showing the differences and the shift in meaning between Old English and Present Day English.


Analyses of 3-D seismic data in predominantly basin-floor settings offshore Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Gulf of Mexico, reveal the extensive presence of gravity-flow depositional elements. Five key elements were observed: (1) turbidity-flow leveed channels, (2) channel-overbank sediment waves and levees, (3) frontal splays or distributary-channel complexes, (4) crevasse-splay complexes, and (5) debris-flow channels, lobes, and sheets. Each depositional element displays a unique morphology and seismic expression. The reservoir architecture of each of these depositional elements is a function of the interaction between sedimentary process, sea-floor morphology, and sediment grain-size distribution.

(1) Turbidity-flow leveed-channel widths range from greater than 3 km to less than 200 m. Sinuosity ranges from moderate to high, and channel meanders in most instances migrate down-system. The high-amplitude reflection character that commonly characterizes these features suggests the presence of sand within the channels. In some instances, high-sinuosity channels are associated with (2) channel-overbank sediment-wave development in proximal overbank levee settings, especially in association with outer channel bends. These sediment waves reach heights of 20 m and spacings of 2-3 km. The crests of these sediment waves are oriented normal to the inferred transport direction of turbidity flows, and the waves have migrated in an up-flow direction. Channel-margin levee thickness decreases systematically down-system. Where levee thickness can no longer be resolved seismically, high-sinuosity channels feed (3) frontal splays or low-sinuosity, distributary-channel complexes. Low-sinuosity distributary-channel complexes are expressed as lobate sheets up to 5-10 km wide and tens of kilometers long that extend to the distal edges of these systems. They likely comprise sheet-like sandstone units consisting of shallow channelized and associated sand-rich overbank deposits. Also observed are (4) crevasse-splay deposits, which form as a result of the breaching of levees, commonly at channel bends. Similar to frontal splays, but smaller in size, these deposits commonly are characterized by sheet-like turbidites. (5) Debris-flow deposits comprise low-sinuosity channel fills, narrow elongate lobes, and sheets and are characterized seismically by contorted, chaotic, low-amplitude reflection patterns. These deposits commonly overlie striated or grooved pavements that can be up to tens of kilometers long, 15 m deep, and 25 m wide. Where flows are unconfined, striation patterns suggest that divergent flow is common. Debris-flow deposits extend as far basinward as turbidites, and individual debris-flow units can reach 80 m in thickness and commonly are marked by steep edges. Transparent to chaotic seismic reflection character suggest that these deposits are mud-rich.

Stratigraphically, deep-water basin-floor successions commonly are characterized by mass-transport deposits at the base, overlain by turbidite frontal-splay deposits and subsequently by leveed-channel deposits. Capping this succession is another mass-transport unit ultimately overlain and draped by condensed-section deposits. This succession can be related to a cycle of relative sea-level change and associated events at the corresponding shelf edge. Commonly, deposition of a deep-water sequence is initiated with the onset of relative sea-level fall and ends with subsequent rapid relative sea-level rise.


This study presents a novel approach to estimating the intensity of hurricanes using temperature profiles from Global Positioning System radio occultation (GPSRO) measurements. Previous research has shown that the temperature difference between the ocean surface and the eyewall outflow region defines hurricanes' thermodynamic efficiency, which is directly proportional to the storm's intensity. Outflow temperatures in the eyewall region of 27 hurricanes in 2004–2011 were obtained from GPSRO observations. These observations, along with ocean surface temperatures from NASA Modern Era‐Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, made it possible to estimate hurricane intensities using a simplified hurricane model. Our preliminary results are quantitatively consistent with best‐track values from the National Hurricane Center within 9.4%. As a by‐product of our study, we present for the first time GPSRO vertical temperature profiles in the vicinity of the eyewall region of hurricanes, which we compared with collocated temperature profiles from the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis Interim (ERA‐Interim). Some of the GPSRO data sets reveal a double tropopause in the vicinity of the eyewall—a characteristic that we do not see in ERA‐Interim. We conclude that GPSRO observations can be of supplementary assistance in augmenting existing data sets used in hurricane intensity estimation. GPSROs' cloud‐penetrating capability and high vertical resolution can be useful in providing soundings in the area close to the eyewall region of hurricanes revealing detailed information about their thermal structure, potentially advancing our current knowledge of their dynamics, evolution, and physics.


Face Fashion teaches how to draw, quickly and easily, the face as it appears in fashion drawing - an elegant and beautifully stylized face that complements and illuminates the accompanying garments. A comprehensive, highly effective, results-oriented guide, Face Fashion employs a similar foundation technique to that used in Riegelman's 9 Heads where the shapes, positions and proportions of the face's component parts are understood through direct measurement and comparisons. Beautifully and extensively illustrated with hundreds of original step-by-step drawings and diagrams, topics covered in-depth include the female face, skin tone and makeup, different racial/ethnic types, hairstyles, expressions, the male face and 'putting it all together' - combining the face, figure and garments.


Visual working memory (VWM) is traditionally assumed to be immune to proactive interference (PI). However, in a recent study (Endress & Potter, 2014), performance in a visual memory task was superior when all items were unique and hence interference from previous trials was impossible, compared to a standard condition in which a limited set of repeating items was used and stimuli from previous trials could interfere with the current trial. Furthermore, when all the items were unique, the estimated memory capacity far exceeded typical capacity estimates. Consequently, the researchers suggested the existence of a separate memory buffer, the "temporary memory," which has an unbounded capacity for meaningful items. However, before accepting this conclusion, methodological differences between the repeated-unique procedure and typical estimates of VWM should be considered. Here, we tested the extent to which the exceptional set of heterogeneous, complex, meaningful real-world objects contributed to the large PI in the repeated-unique procedure. Thus, the same paradigm was employed with a set of real-world objects and with homogenous sets (e.g., houses, faces) in which the items were meaningful, yet less visually distinct, and participants had to rely on subtle visual details to perform the task. The results revealed a large PI effect for real-world heterogeneous objects, but substantially smaller effects for the homogenous sets. These findings suggest that there is no need to postulate a new memory buffer. Instead, we suggest that VWM capacity and vulnerability to PI are highly influenced by task characteristics, and specifically, by the stimuli distinctiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


In this paper, we present an application of Riemannian geometry for processing non-Euclidean image data. We consider the image as residing in a Riemannian manifold, for developing a new method to brain edge detection and brain extraction. Automating this process is a challenge due to the high diversity in appearance brain tissue, among different patients and sequences. The main contribution, in this paper, is the use of an edge-based anisotropic diffusion tensor for the segmentation task by integrating both image edge geometry and Riemannian manifold (geodesic, metric tensor) to regularize the convergence contour and extract complex anatomical structures. We check the accuracy of the segmentation results on simulated brain MRI scans of single T1-weighted, T2-weighted and Proton Density sequences. We validate our approach using two different databases: BrainWeb database, and MRI Multiple sclerosis Database (MRI MS DB). We have compared, qualitatively and quantitatively, our approach with the well-known brain extraction algorithms. We show that using a Riemannian manifolds to medical image analysis improves the efficient results to brain extraction, in real time, outperforming the results of the standard techniques. Keywords—Riemannian manifolds, Riemannian Tensor, Brain Segmentation, Non-Euclidean data, Brain Extraction.


Developmental stammering (DS, also known as idiopathic stammering or stuttering) is a disorder of speech fluency that affects approximately 0.75% to 1% of the populations of Great Britain, Australia and America,1–4 although a recent study puts the point prevalence figure at between 1% and 3% in the UK.5 Prevalence is generally thought to be similar amongst communities worldwide, although there have been occasional suggestions that this figure might be lower in countries where there is less pressure on verbal acuity.6 DS may be distinguished from neurogenic stammering, which can occur subsequent to neurological damage of various aetiologies (for example, stroke, tumour, degenerative disease) and psychogenic stammering, whose onset can be related to a significant psychological event such as bereavement. While a diagnosis of neurogenic stammering might be made in early childhood and adolescence, both neurogenic and psychogenic types are typically associated with an adult onset. DS is by far the most common form of stammering and usually develops in the pre-school years. The mean age at onset is 42, with 75% of cases beginning before the age of 6.1 However, occasionally, stammering onset may be seen as late as 12 or 13 years of age.

A feature of DS is that complete recovery, either with or without therapy, is common before adolescence. Approximately 74% of all children diagnosed with stammering will cease to stammer by the time they reach their early teens, although the figure may be as high as 89% in young females.7 8 This latter statistic is consistent with the fact that while equal numbers of males and females are initially diagnosed with stammering, the sex ratio changes to around 4:1 (male:female) in the overall population. The poorest prognosis is for males who experience a later onset to their …


Daratumumab, a CD38 human monoclonal antibody, demonstrated significant clinical activity in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone versus bortezomib and dexamethasone alone in the primary analysis of CASTOR, a phase 3 study in relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma. A post hoc analysis based on treatment history and longer follow up is presented. After 19.4 (range: 0-27.7) months of median follow up, daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone prolonged progression-free survival (median: 16.7 versus 7.1 months; hazard ratio, 0.31; 95% confidence interval, 0.24-0.39; P<0.0001) and improved the overall response rate (83.8% versus 63.2%; P<0.0001) compared with bortezomib and dexamethasone alone. The progression-free survival benefit of daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone was most apparent in patients with 1 prior line of therapy (median: not reached versus 7.9 months; hazard ratio, 0.19; 95% con fidence interval, 0.12-0.29; P<0.0001). Daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone was also superior to bortezomib and dexamethasone alone in subgroups based on prior treatment exposure (bortezomib, thalidomide, or lenalidomide), lenalidomide-refractory status, time since last therapy (≤12, >12, ≤6, or >6 months), or cytogenetic risk. Minimal residual disease–negative rates were >2.5-fold higher with daratumumab across subgroups. The safety profile of daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone remained consistent with longer follow up. Daratumumab plus bortezomib and dexamethasone demonstrated significant clinical activity across clinically relevant subgroups and provided the greatest benefit to patients treated at first relapse. Trial registration: clinicaltrials.gov identifier: 02136134.


In Australia, the best use of limited national water resources continues to be a major political and scientific issue.  Average water allocations for rice-cereal irrigation farmers in the Riverina region have been drastically reduced since 1998 as a consequence of high rainfall variability and prolonged periods of drought, together with political changes. This has severely impacted regional crop production during the last decade, threatening the livelihoods of many farmers and is in stark contrast to much of this region's 100 year agricultural history, where water resources were available to farmers in steady abundance.  The water 'landscape' has changed - bringing with it considerable social, economic and environmental consequences and forcing a rethink of how valuable water resources are best used under such variable, changed and changing conditions.  This thesis presents details of investigations into on-farm adaptation options for rice-cereal farmers, using field experimentation, participatory engagement, and farming systems modelling as the major tools of research.  Additionally, a major component of this work has been the development and testing of new modelling tools and decision-support structures. Well-tested cropping systems models that capture interactions between soil water and nutrient dynamics, crop growth, climate and management can assist in the evaluation of new agricultural practices.  At the beginning of this research project, all available models were lacking in at least some major element required for simulation of rice-based cropping systems.  The capacity to simulate C and N dynamics during transitions between aerobic and anaerobic soil environments was added into the APSIM model, to facilitate our need to model farming system scenarios which involved flooded rice in rotation with other crops and pastures.  Thorough testing against international datasets was subsequently conducted.  Photosynthetic aquatic biomass (PAB – algae) is a significant source of organic carbon (C) in rice-based cropping systems.  A portion of PAB is capable of fixing nitrogen (N), and is hence also a source of N for crops.  To account for this phenomenon in long term simulation studies of rice-based cropping systems, the APSIM model was modified to include new descriptions of biological and chemical processes responsible for loss and gain of C and N in rice floodwater. Using this improved APSIM model as a tool, together with participatory involvement of Riverina case-study farmers, it was demonstrated that the best on-farm cropping and irrigation strategies in years of high water availability were substantially different to those when water supplies were low.  The strategies leading to greatest farm returns vary on a season-by-season basis, depending primarily on the water availability level.  Significant improvements in average farm profits are possible by modifying irrigation strategies on a season-by-season basis. The opportunities for Riverina farmers to exploit their irrigation water resources also extend beyond the farm gate.  Currently there is considerable confusion amongst farmers on how to evaluate and compare on-farm and off-farm water options.  Direct selling of water seasonally on the open market and even permanent sale of irrigation water entitlements are possibilities.  In response to this confusion, a new conceptual framework was developed that enables quantitative comparisons between various options. The framework is based on a method regularly employed in the financial world for share portfolio analysis.  Simulation modelling provided risk-return characteristics for on-farm options, and helped to elucidate circumstances under which off-farm options were viable. A modified version of alternate wet-and-dry water management for Australian rice-growing conditions (delayed continuous flooding, DCF) was investigated via a 2 year field experiment – aimed at reducing irrigation water requirement and increasing water productivity (WP).  We demonstrated up to a 17% increase in WP, and field data was generated on system performance for a range of discrete irrigation strategies.   The APSIM model was then parameterized, calibrated and validated before being used to extrapolate findings from the two year experimental period to a much broader climatic record (55 years), allowing detailed investigation of optimal management strategies and a more realistic estimation of likely long-term gains in water productivity, and associated risks, from this new rice irrigation practice.  Best practice guidelines were developed, and the potential impact of a changing climate on both optimal practice and likely benefits was assessed.   This thesis concludes by synthesising the approaches taken - addressing the question of whether improved rice irrigation practices, seasonally-flexible cropping and irrigation strategies and off-farm exploitation options, can in combination address the challenges of reduced irrigation water allocations in Australia's Riverina region.  Evidence is presented that the answer is yes under certain circumstances, but that limits to change exist beyond which the investigated on-farm adaptations are not enough.  The thesis also proposes that the concepts and methods developed during this project are globally applicable and useful in the design of farming system adaptation options. Keywords : irrigation, limited water resources, farming systems modelling, participatory engagement.


This chapter outlines three practical examples of uniting health and planning at a local authority or municipality level with a view to sharing learning that may be useful to other practitioners globally. It captures the experiences of public health practitioners from the Midlands area of the United Kingdom (UK) of working with planning authorities to develop a joined up response to healthy urban planning. That is, 'health-integrated planning and appraisal' as a mechanism for improving the population's health and well-being. It has not sought at this stage to capture the same experiences from a planning perspective; however, this is an interesting challenge for the future.


This dissertation focuses on the transfer of knowledge about sex and gender from academic research contexts to different societal domains in an effort to acquire a better understanding of how these knowledge transfer processes take place and to gain insight in the factors that impact the integration of this knowledge in society. The main academic field that produces knowledge about sex and gender is Women's Studies. In the Netherlands, this has developed into a well-established field of research and education within the academy. Since Women's Studies scholars aim to help improve women's position in society, the large body of knowledge about sex and gender they produce not only avails theoretical development; Women's Studies scholars aim to make a difference in society. They however do perceive a discrepancy between their ambitions to bring this knowledge to bear on society and the extent to which it is integrated in societal domains. In other words, there is a Women's Studies knowledge gap. Taking the Women's Studies knowledge gap as its starting point, the dissertation aims to provide a better understanding of the processes through which knowledge about sex and gender is transferred and integrated into society, as well as to assess what conditions hinder or enhance the integration of this knowledge in society. In four specific case studies, the dissertation considers the transfer of knowledge about sex and gender to different societal domains: policymaking, the university curriculum, and civil society. Taking into account the interdisciplinary character of Women's Studies, it deals with knowledge about sex and gender from different disciplines: Social Sciences, Medicine, and Humanities. Understanding knowledge as knowledge products as well as knowledge embodied in people, it also specifically studies embodied knowledge transfer by scrutinising the transfer of knowledge via Women's Studies graduates to professional settings in society. To analyse knowledge transfer processes, theories from Social Studies of Knowledge are employed. The dissertation combines the specific approaches of theories of Knowledge Utilisation, Feminist Science Studies, and the theoretical approach called Mode 2, each of which highlights important elements of knowledge transfer. Knowledge Utilisation theories identify concrete factors that may affect the integration of knowledge in societal domains, pointing in particular to the interactions between researchers and users. Focussing on the socio-political context that impacts the production of knowledge, Feminist Science Studies calls attention to both the fact that knowledge is invested with power and to possible power differences between knowledge transfer actors. The approach advocated by Nowotny and others as Mode 2 is important in that it highlights the interaction between academic and societal domains, and also because it understands knowledge as both knowledge products and as academically trained people, hence allowing for studying knowledge transfer in a broad sense. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on the Women's Studies knowledge gap and to contribute to the development of Social Studies of Knowledge theories about transfer and integration of knowledge


Stress is one of the most significant influences on behaviour and performance. The classical account is that stress mainly affects functions of the limbic system, such as learning, memory and emotion. Recent evidence, however, suggests that stress also modulates motor system function and influences the pathology of movement disorders. Most parts of the motor system show the presence of glucocorticoid receptors that render their circuits susceptible to the influence of stress hormones. Stress and glucocorticoids have been shown to modulate temporal and spatial aspects of motor performance. Skilled movements seem to be most prone to stress-induced disturbances, but locomotion and posture can also be affected. Stress can modulate movement through activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and via stress-associated emotional changes. The dopaminergic system seems to play a central role in mediating the effects of stress on motor function. This route might also account for the finding that stress influences the pathology of dopamine-related diseases of the motor system, such as Parkinson's disease. Clinical observations have indicated that stress might lead to the onset of Parkinsonian symptoms or accelerate their progression. Glucocorticoids are modulators of neuronal plasticity, thus determining the degree of structural and functional compensation of the damaged motor system. This may particularly affect slowly progressive neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease. That stress represents a significant modulator of motor system function in both the healthy and the damaged brain should be recognized when developing future therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.


ABSTRACT The anti-measles virus (MV) antibody titers in the sera of vaccinees and naturally infected individuals of different age groups were measured to help assess the efficacy of the current MV vaccination in Japan. Neutralizing (NT) antibody titers induced by vaccination were 23.2 times lower than those induced by natural infection and declined significantly by age 20. The once-decreased NT antibody titers of the vaccinees increased 23.6 times during their twenties to titers comparable to those of naturally infected individuals of the same age, implying the possible occurrence of natural infection in vaccinees with decreased anti-MV immunity. Although the current field strains in Japan, types D3 and D5, were reported to differ antigenically from each other and from vaccine strains (type A) to some extent, as demonstrated by different reactivities to monoclonal antibodies, the sera of vaccinees neutralized the two types of field strains and the vaccine strain with the same efficiency. This result suggests that the current vaccine strain would be suitable to elicit protection against types D3 and D5, as long as viral antigenicity is concerned. However, when compared at given hemagglutination inhibition titers, NT antibody titers of vaccinees were 21.1 to 23.2 times lower than those of naturally infected individuals, suggesting a qualitative difference(s) of anti-MV antibodies between the two groups. It should be emphasized that protective immunity induced by the one-dose vaccination currently implemented in Japan may not be strong enough to ensure lifelong immunity. A two-dose vaccination program with higher vaccination coverage needs to be considered in order to effectively control measles in Japan.


For shortening the product development time, this paper proposes a feature based parametric product modeling system, called ZD-MCADII, which is suitable for the integrated engineering design in CIM system environment. The architecture of ZD-MCADII and the characteristics of its modules are described in detail. The ZD-MCADII product data is managed by an object-oriented database management system OSCAR, and the product model is built according to the standard STEP. As the product design is established on a unified product model, all product data are globally associated in ZD-MCADII. ZD-MCADII provides various design features to facilitate the product design, and supports the integrity of CAD, CAPP and CAM.


E xercise testing remains one of the most useful noninvasive diagnostic tests for identification of the patient with coronary artery disease. Significant ST segment depression,' chronotropic incompetence,2 hypotensive systolic blood pressure response,3 and angina at low workload have all been shown to be of diagnostic and prognostic value in patients with severe coronary artery disease. However, the sensitivity of these criteria varies considerably, and their diagnostic value can be further limited in the presence of LVH,5 electrocardiographic conduction abnormalities such as LBBB,6 arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation,7 and in patients receiving medical therapy such as digitalis8 or beta adrenergic blockers.9 Thus, limitations of exercise ECGs in identifying patients with severe coronary artery disease has prompted research into newer and more sensitive criteria such as the ST/heart rate ratio and evaluation of the systolic blood pressure response during the recovery period. Recently, the systolic blood pressure recovery ratio (SBP-RR), the ratio of the postexercise systolic blood pressure to peak exercise systolic blood pressure, has been shown to be of diagnostic value in patients with coronary artery disease . '#{176} We have observed that a SBP-RR which is >1.0, 0.9, or 0.8 at respectively 1, 2, or 3 minutes in the recovery period and further increases from either minutes 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 of the recovery period ( '1'SBP-RR) is highly predictive and more sensitive than diagnostic ST segment depression or angina in the diagnosis of multivessel coronary artery disease." In this case report, we describe the usefulness of an SBP-RR in the identification of a patient with angiographically proven three-vessel coronary artery disease undergoing exercise thallium 201 scintigraphy.


The rapidly growing popularity and scale of data-parallel workloads demand a corresponding increase in raw computational power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). As single-GPU platforms struggle to satisfy these performance demands, multi-GPU platforms have started to dominate the high-performance computing world. The advent of such systems raises a number of design challenges, including the GPU microarchitecture, multi-GPU interconnect fabric, runtime libraries, and associated programming models. The research community currently lacks a publicly available and comprehensive multi-GPU simulation framework to evaluate next- generation multi-GPU system designs. In this work, we present MGPUSim, a cycle-accurate, extensively validated, multi-GPU simulator, based on AMD's Graphics Core Next 3 (GCN3) instruction set architecture. MGPUSim comes with in-built support for multi-threaded execution to enable fast, parallelized, and accurate simulation. In terms of performance accuracy, MGPUSim differs by only 5.5% on average from the actual GPU hardware. We also achieve a 3.5x and a 2.5x average speedup running functional emulation and detailed timing simulation, respectively, on a 4-core CPU, while delivering the same accuracy as serial simulation. We illustrate the flexibility and capability of the simulator through two concrete design studies. In the first, we propose the Locality API, an API extension that allows the GPU programmer to both avoid the complexity of multi-GPU programming, while precisely controlling data placement in the multi-GPU memory. In the second design study, we propose Progressive Page Splitting Migration (PASI), a customized multi-GPU memory management system enabling the hardware to progressively improve data placement. For a discrete 4-GPU system, we observe that the Locality API can speed up the system by 1.6x (geometric mean), and PASI can improve the system performance by 2.6x (geometric mean) across all benchmarks, compared to a unified 4-GPU platform.


Often the culmination of process development activity is the transfer of the chemical process to facilities for the manufacture of late phase or commercial launch stocks. Technology transfer is a critical business process, often overlooked in transforming a process from the laboratory to full manufacturing scale. Whether moving a process within the same site as development activity, to another site within the same company or to a separate manufacturing partner in a separate country, technology transfer remains an important step and one which, without proper preparation, can lead to significant delays to the delivery of valued medicine to patients. In this chapter we discuss how to successfully manage process technology transfer and suggest a stepwise approach covering the key elements of moving a process from one site to another.


Rooted in practice-based research, the article uses the author's artistic work as a springboard to discuss wider issues of ecology restoration, rewilding and environmental aesthetics. The first section of the article critically reviews and contextualizes the author's eight-year photographic project, Forest, which investigates the politics of nature restoration projects in two new Chinese cities. Hinged upon contemporary environmental awareness and canonical photography aesthetics such as the topographic, the documentary and the storytelling, the Forest project pictorially and dialectically discusses the complexities of urban nature while beginning to accept urbanized China as a possible homeland. Extending the notion of constructed nature to an international context, within the global conversation efforts of re-naturalization and rewilding, the second section of the article analyses the inherent contradictions of rewilding in the post-wild world. The rewilded landscapes, the neo-wilderness, are brought into attention as a physical space to be investigated. The third section of the paper returns to its roots as practice-based research and tries to understand the neo-wilderness from the perspectives of landscape aesthetic traditions of both the West and China. The article finds commonality between three generations of representative western and male environmental photographers in their aesthetic choices and their philosophical grounding towards the sublime, pristine nature, as well as the binary between nature and culture. Finally, after a cautious discussion around the potential mis-use of Chinese traditional landscape aesthetics within contemporary landscape photography, the article points out the need to find alternative landscape aesthetics in order to critically investigate the meaning of nature now, with the constructed, rewilded landscapes as a crux for artists to produce an informed pictorial understanding.


Reinforcement learning (RL) is frequently employed in fine-tuning large language models (LMs), such as GPT-3, to penalize them for undesirable features of generated sequences, such as offensiveness, social bias, harmfulness or falsehood. The RL formulation involves treating the LM as a policy and updating it to maximise the expected value of a reward function which captures human preferences, such as non-offensiveness. In this paper, we analyze challenges associated with treating a language model as an RL policy and show how avoiding those challenges requires moving beyond the RL paradigm. We start by observing that the standard RL approach is flawed as an objective for fine-tuning LMs because it leads to distribution collapse: turning the LM into a degenerate distribution. Then, we analyze KL-regularised RL, a widely used recipe for fine-tuning LMs, which additionally constrains the fine-tuned LM to stay close to its original distribution in terms of Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. We show that KL-regularised RL is equivalent to variational inference: approximating a Bayesian posterior which specifies how to update a prior LM to conform with evidence provided by the reward function. We argue that this Bayesian inference view of KL-regularised RL is more insightful than the typically employed RL perspective. The Bayesian inference view explains how KL-regularised RL avoids the distribution collapse problem and offers a first-principles derivation for its objective. While this objective happens to be equivalent to RL (with a particular choice of parametric reward), there exist other objectives for fine-tuning LMs which are no longer equivalent to RL. That observation leads to a more general point: RL is not an adequate formal framework for problems such as fine-tuning language models. These problems are best viewed as Bayesian inference: approximating a pre-defined target distribution.


unaware of its existence until it appeared-a week after my own report. In other words, I'm afraid, Now!, quite legitimately, "scooped" the Lancet on its own territory on this occasion. Although it verges on pedantry to expect a lay publication like Now! to be as scrupulous as a relatively academic joumal such as the BMJ in quoting recondite sources, I entirely agree that sources should be quoted. We will always give credit where it is due, and I hope the BMJ will try harder in future to do the same.


Weak-label learning deals with the problem where each training example is associated with multiple ground-truth labels simultaneously but only partially provided. This circumstance is frequently encountered when the number of classes is very large or when there exists a large ambiguity between class labels, and significantly influences the performance of multi-label learning. In this paper, we propose LCForest, which is the first tree ensemble based deep learning method for weak-label learning. Rather than formulating the problem as a regularized framework, we employ the recently proposed cascade forest structure, which processes information layer-by-layer, and endow it with the ability of exploiting from weak-label data by a concise and highly efficient label complement structure. Specifically, in each layer, the label vector of each instance from testing-fold is modified with the predictions of random forests trained with the corresponding training-fold. Since the ground-truth label matrix is inaccessible, we can not estimate the performance via cross-validation directly. In order to control the growth of cascade forest, we adopt label frequency estimation and the complement flag mechanism. Experiments show that the proposed LCForest method compares favorably against the existing state-of-the-art multi-label and weak-label learning methods.


To develop the rapid method for detecting of Cyprinid herpesvirus 2(CyHV2) and Spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV), 2 pairs of specific primers for duplex reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and 5 overlapping oligo primers were designed according to the nucleotide sequence information of CyHV2 and SVCV published in GenBank, and a DNA fragment about 228 bp of the SVCV G gene was synthesized in vitro by overlap extension PCR to construct the recombinant plasmid pMD19-T-SVCVG. Then, the 2 pairs of specific primers were evaluated via a serial of tests, including reaction temperature optimization test, sensitivity and specificity tests. The results showed that the 2 pairs of designed specific primers are suitable for CyHV2 and SVCV duplex RT-PCR detection which is a rapid method with high specificity and sensitivity, the detection limits for CyHV2 and SVCV detection were both approximately 88 copies of the cloned viral genomic fragments, as well as resulted in no cross-reaction for GCRV, Aeromonas veronii, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Streptococcus isolated from fish, and the DNA (cDNA) of the normal Carassius auratus gibelio samples


The attached article looks at the concept of command responsibility – the idea that a commander may be held liable for crimes committed by his or her soldiers, even if the commander did not order these crimes to be committed, and may not have been aware of the criminal activity at all. It examines command responsibility prosecutions attached to a number of different conflicts: World War II, the Yugoslavian and Rwandan genocides, and the Sierra Leonean civil war. It also discusses proposed standards for command responsibility prosecutions set out by the African Union and the UN (both in the International Criminal Court and in UN peacekeeping operations). As the article demonstrates, the standards used for prosecuting command responsibility cases in these various settings have differed significantly, making for important differences in the ability to hold the accused accountable. I propose one factor that helps predict how easy or difficult it will be to prosecute command responsibility cases: the extent to which those who write the standards have reason to fear that they themselves could be held liable under the standards they are establishing. If they have little to fear, then the rule setters will make it relatively easy to prosecute these cases. If they are worried, then it will be correspondingly harder to bring command responsibility prosecutions. I then discuss the implications of this conclusion for the legitimacy of international law in this area.


If AR becomes universal, then we can use it for casual, small things that will make our daily lives a bit easier. One of the more logical uses for AR is communication. For example, as many authors have observed, it would be handy to leave notes for each other in cyberspace, yet attach them to physical objects or locations. I suggest some of the applications that I'd like to have available for personal or individual use on an everyday basis. They communicate to users without text. Instead, graphics do all the work.


Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a combination of procedures, methods and tools intended to provide a set of evidence-based recommendations that can be used to inform the planning of programs, projects and policies. HIA seeks to maximize the positive health impacts and minimize the negative impacts of these proposed policies, programs or projects. A successful HIA involves the community and uses the results of the study to present recommendations to decision-makers. This particular project used HIA as a tool to communicate with stakeholders and to advocate to decision-makers in Yellowstone County, Montana.


BACKGROUND
Although emotional stress has long been suspected to exacerbate acne vulgaris, previous reports addressing its influence on acne severity have been mainly anecdotal.

OBJECTIVES
To elucidate the possible relationship between stress and acne exacerbation by evaluating changes in acne severity during nonexamination and examination periods and to assess the possible relationship of these changes in severity with perceived examination stress by using previously validated scales measuring acne severity and perceived stress.

DESIGN
Prospective cohort study.

SETTING
General university community.

PARTICIPANTS
A volunteer sample of 22 university students (15 women and 7 men) with a minimum acne vulgaris severity of 0.5 on the photonumeric Leeds acne scale (baseline scores, 0.50-1.75).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Participants were graded on their acne severity using the Leeds acne scale, and had their subjective stress levels assessed with the Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire during both nonexamination and examination periods.

RESULTS
Subjects had a higher mean grade of acne severity and mean perceived stress score (P<.01 for both) during examinations. Using regression analysis and adjusting for the effects of confounding variables, such as changes in sleep hours, sleep quality, diet quality, and number of meals per day, increased acne severity was significantly associated with increased stress levels (r = 0.61, P<.01), while self-assessed change in diet quality was the only other significant association (P =.02).

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with acne may experience worsening of the disease during examinations. Furthermore, changes in acne severity correlate highly with increasing stress, suggesting that emotional stress from external sources may have a significant influence on acne.


Virtual flux oriented direct power control (VFDPC) is combined space vector modulation (SVM) with PI of DC-link voltage, active power and reactive power to control the grid side converter in wind power generation system in this paper. VFDPC has reached good performances with PLL (phase lock loop). First the mathematical models of grid side converter, LCL filter and phase lock loop are given. Then the control strategy of grid side converter-based wind power generation system is given in detail. Finally the simulation model is modeled consisting of power circuits, such as the grid side converter, LCL filter, transformer grid, and control parts, such as PI controllers of DC-link voltage, active power, reactive power, and SVM, and so on. The simulation results have verified that the control strategy is feasible to fit for control of gird currents, active power, reactive power and DC-link voltage in wind power generation system.


Hyperimmune serum with the high content of antibodies to the saliva of noninfected ticks when injected into vertebrates, induced the development of resistance preventing the ticks from sticking to the skin and satiation, thus reducing the number of blood-sucking ticks reaching satiation and decreasing the weight of satiated ticks; as a result, the productivity of female ticks decreased the the number of ticks sharply dropped. When ticks infected with tick-borne encephalitis virus parasitized on the animals immune against the saliva antigens of noninfected ticks, the virus titers in the blood of these animals were lower than in the controls, and no infection of ticks, formerly free of the virus, occurred.


The dairy industry is moving toward selecting animals with better fertility to decrease the economic losses linked to reproductive issues. The reproductive tract size and position score (SPS) was recently developed in physiological studies as an indicator of pregnancy rate and the number of services to conception. Cows are scored as SPS 1, 2, or 3 based on the size of their reproductive tract and its position in the pelvis, as determined by transrectal palpation. The objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for SPS to assess its potential as a novel fertility trait. Phenotypes were collected at the University of British Columbia's research herd from 2017 to 2020, consisting of 3,247 within-and across-lactation SPS records from 490 Holstein cows. A univariate animal model was used to estimate the variance components for SPS. Both threshold and linear models were fit under a Bayesian approach and the results were compared using the Spearman rank correlation (r) between the estimated breeding values. The 2 models ranked the animals very similarly (r = 0.99), and the linear model was selected for further analysis. Genetic correlations with other currently evaluated traits were estimated using a bivariate animal model. The posterior means (± posterior standard deviation) for heritability and repeatability within-and across-lactation were 0.113 (± 0.013), 0.242 (± 0.012), and 0.134 (± 0.014), respectively. The SPS showed null correlations with production traits and favorable correlations with traditional fertility traits, varying from −0.730 (nonreturn rate) to 0.931 (number of services). Although preliminary, these results are encouraging because SPS seems to be more heritable than and strongly genetically correlated with number of services, nonreturn rate, and first service to conception, indicating potential for effective indirect selection response on these traits from SPS genetic selection. Therefore, further studies with larger data sets to validate these findings are warranted.


A petal graph is an aesthetically attractive and applauded tool for visualising parameter sets. For instance, petal graphs are often used by Norwegian policy makers and decision makers in higher education as the Ministry of Education and Research relies on petal graphs in their reports. This study argues that petal graphs are prone to misinterpretation. It is challenging to interpret a petal graph in general, it is hard to compare two or more petal graphs and this study demonstrates that the physical characteristics of petal graphs can be incorrect in terms of the parameters on display. This study concludes that the use of petal graphs should be abolished and that other visualisation techniques to be used instead. Several alternatives are suggested.


Snow is an important component of water storage in the Himalayas. Previous snowmelt studies in the Himalayas have predominantly relied on remotely sensed snow cover. However this provides no information on the actual amount of water stored in a snowpack i.e. the snow water equivalent (SWE). Therefore, in this study remotely sensed snow cover was combined with in situ meteorological observations and a modified version of the seNorge snow model to estimate climate sensitivity of SWE and snowmelt runoff in the Langtang catchment in Nepal. Landsat 8 and MOD10A2 snow cover maps were validated with in situ snow cover observations provided by surface temperature and snow depth measurements resulting in classification accuracies of 85.7 % and 83.1 % respectively. Optimal model parameter values were obtained through data assimilation of MOD10A2 snow maps and snow depth measurements using an Ensemble Kalman filter. The approach of modelling snow depth in a Kalman filter framework allows for data-constrained estimation of SWE rather than snow cover alone and this has great potential for future studies in the Himalayas. Climate sensitivity tests with the optimized snow model show a strong decrease in SWE in the valley with increasing temperature. However, at high elevation a decrease in SWE is (partly) compensated by an increase in precipitation, which emphasizes the need for accurate predictions on the changes in the spatial distribution of precipitation along with changes in temperature. Finally the climate sensitivity study revealed that snowmelt runoff increases in winter and early melt season (December to May) and decreases during the late melt season (June to September) as a result of the earlier onset of snowmelt due to increasing temperature.


Recent advances in renewable energy technologies and changes in the electric utility infrastructures have increased the interest of the power utilities in utilisation of distributed generation (DG) resources to generate electricity. The recent trends in the development and utilisation of DG resources for power generation application are subject to the deregulation of the electric power sector and technical constraints to extend distribution and transmission networks to some areas. The electric power system planners, regulators and the policy makers have derived many benefits from integration of DG units into the distribution networks. These benefits depend on the characteristics of DG units such as photovoltaic (PV), wind system and reciprocating engines, characteristics of the loads, local renewable resources and network configuration. This study comprehensively reviews various research works on the technical, environmental and economic benefits of renewable DG integration such as line-loss reduction, reliability improvement, economic benefits and environmental pollution optimisation. These benefits can be optimised if all the renewable DG units are optimally sized, located and configured. This study also reviews the current status of renewable DG technologies based on different characteristics and the operational issues of integration of renewable DG into the electric power systems.


Changes in vegetation cover within dune fields can play a major role in how dune fields evolve. To better understand the linkage between dune field evolution and interdune vegetation changes, we modified Werner's (Geology, 23, 1995: 1107–1110) dune field evolution model to account for the stabilizing effects of vegetation. Model results indicate that changes in the density of interdune vegetation strongly influence subsequent trends in the height and area of eolian dunes. We applied the model to interpreting the recent evolution of Jockey's Ridge, North Carolina, where repeat LiDAR surveys and historical aerial photographs and maps provide an unusually detailed record of recent dune field evolution. In the absence of interdune vegetation, the model predicts that dunes at Jockey's Ridge evolve towards taller, more closely‐spaced, barchanoid dunes, with smaller dunes generally migrating faster than larger dunes. Conversely, the establishment of interdune vegetation causes dunes to evolve towards shorter, more widely‐spaced, parabolic forms. These results provide a basis for understanding the increase in dune height at Jockey's Ridge during the early part of the twentieth century, when interdune vegetation was sparse, followed by the decrease in dune height and establishment of parabolic forms from 1953‐present when interdune vegetation density increased. These results provide a conceptual model that may be applicable at other sites with increasing interdune vegetation cover, and they illustrate the power of using numerical modeling to model decadal variations in eolian dune field evolution. We also describe model results designed to test the relative efficacy of alternative strategies for mitigating dune migration and deflation. Installing sand‐trapping fences and/or promoting vegetation growth on the stoss sides of dunes are found to be the most effective strategies for limiting dune advance, but these strategies must be weighed against the desire of many park visitors to maintain the natural state of the dunes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Relation narratives of transposition from the speech is one of the current issues in the fi eld of art criticism and painting .some of the iconoclastic cultures translate speech to image more than other cultures. For this reason Christian artists have long history and considerable diversity in this fi eld. Solomon's judgment is one of the short narrative but very attractive that many prominent artists specially painters have paid attention to it and have devoted some of the most beautiful Christian painting works.These narrative has speech suffi ciency for illustration and painting .In other words in addition to the advice in such narratives it is also very convenient especially for painting. The article intends to peruse some of the most prominent paintings of Solomon judgment with the theory of «imitation desire» of René Girard, the contemporary anthropologist and philosopher. This theory propound imitation of desire and how formation of violence and in solving the role sacrifi ce. «Imitation desire» is one of the reference theories for many analyzes of narratives and religious mythical and social-political competition. According to this theory the desire is not internal matter or completely internal but is formed following one the desire. Therefore, the desire of one person or group is imitated by the desire of another or others. This desire, which fi rst begins as an imitation of a pattern, over time leads to the imitation and the pattern relationship becoming a competitive relationship between the two to obtain the desired object. According to this theory, desire is not internal or completely internal, but is formed following another desire. When competition intensifi es, it becomes violence and the crisis begins. Because crisis means an unsolveable situation. According to Girard's theory, the only way to prevent complete destruction of all need a sacrifi ce. The sacrifi ce of society transforms "all against all" into the society of "all against one" and leaves the crisis by sacrifi cing. Girard himself refers to the interpretation of the narrative, but has never criticized the paintings of this narrative with his theory. The subject of Solomon's judging painted by prominent artists such as Vicar Jean-Baptiste, Paul Gustave Doré, Nicolas Poussin, Raffaello Sanzio, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Gaspar de


Ship Positioning's Thruster Allocation is a nonlinear programming problem with nonlinear equality and inequality. Morgan's direct thruster allocation method is simple and allocation's speed is quick. And Sequential Quadratic Programming, evolutionary algorithm is used to solve more complex performance index and constrains, however, load balance is not considered. In this paper, performance index is improved considering load balance. And evolutionary algorithm is used to solve the problem. Results show that search time is long. In the future, heuristic based on solved problem operator should be used to decrease time of evolutionary algorithm. For example, setting forbidden operator to eliminate unfeasible solutions. Sequential Quadratic Programming could be used to solve the problem presented in this paper with improved performance index.


Many agricultural species have undergone selection for traits that are consistent with those that increase the probability that a species will become invasive. However, the risk of invasion may be accurately predicted for the majority of plant species tested using the Australian Weed Risk Assessment (WRA). This system has been tested in multiple climates and geographies and, on average, correctly identifies 90% of the major plant invaders as having high invasion risk, and 70% of the noninvaders as having low risk. We used this tool to evaluate the invasion risk of 38 Eucalyptus taxa currently being tested and cultivated in the USA for pulp, biofuel, and other purposes. We predict 15 taxa to have low risk of invasion, 14 taxa to have high risk, and 9 taxa to require further information. In addition to a history of naturalization and invasiveness elsewhere, the traits that significantly contribute to a high invasion risk conclusion include having prolific seed production and a short generation time. Selection against these traits should reduce the probability that eucalypts cultivated in the USA will become invasive threats to natural areas and agricultural systems.


Central vein hyperalimentation completely relieved pancreatic ascites associated with rupture of the main pancreatic duct in a patient after unsuccessful peripheral vein alimentation therapy. In two patients with pancreatic ascites associated with pseudocysts, central vein hyperalimentation was associated with complete relief of ascites in one and marked reduction in the other. Endoscopic pancreatography and ultrasonographic or computerized scanning studies revealed lesions that were considered requiring operative treatment in all the three patients; these studies should therefore be done even in patients whose ascites is completely relieved during medical therapy.


The primary aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate the effect of an educational programme upon the attitudes of nursing students toward working with ill older people, with two main objectives:

1. To explore the contextual conditions necessary for the programme mechanisms to work, and

2. To investigate how these contextual conditions may influence the success of the programme mechanisms in changing attitudes.

Critical realism provided the theoretical framework, which guided the study design, from inception through to data analysis. Katz' (1960) functional approach to attitude change was used to develop the educational programme.

The study was quasi-experimental, using an interrupted time-series design. The attitudes of two groups of nursing students were measured over a period of 20 months, prior to and after the educational programme. A questionnaire-based tool was used to measure attitudes, selected because of its acknowledgement of the importance of contextual factors when measuring the attitudes of nursing students toward the field of older person care. One group attended the educational programme, the other did not. The attitudes of the second group were measured at identical points, to provide data for comparison.

The findings showed that the programme had no effect on the attitudes of nursing students toward working with ill older people, either immediately, or over time. Both existing and new mechanisms were identified, that appear to adversely affect the context in which nursing students learn about the practise of nursing, and make it difficult for students to experience the care of ill older people in a positive way. Detailed analysis showed that elements related to the clinical learning environment have a strong impact on students' attitudes towards the care of ill older people; very often, this impact is negative. The reality of clinical practice, it appears, is highly influential on students' attitudes toward working with this group.

The critical realist conception of a stratified clinical learning environment was developed in this study, informed by the work of Brown (2009). Mechanisms related to the structures and people in the clinical learning environment were identified which if addressed locally, may be pivotal in improving the contexts in which nursing students learn about the nursing care of ill older people.

The original contribution that this study makes relates to how nurse educators can begin to improve the attitudes of nursing students toward the nursing care of ill older people, by improving the contexts in which they learn, with reference to their mechanisms. In line with this study's findings, developmental work should begin within the psychological stratum, with concurrent action in both the socio-cultural and curricular strata of the clinical learning environment, in order to provide more immediate improvements in students' placement experiences. A number of recommendations were made that would begin this developmental process, and may result in negating the need for attitude change programmes, with the ultimate intention of improving the quality of care for ill older people.


Investigating uncertainties in computer simulations can be prohibitive in terms of computational costs, since the simulator needs to be run over a large number of input values. Building an emulator, i.e. a statistical surrogate model of the simulator constructed using a design of experiments made of a comparatively small number of evaluations of the forward solver, greatly alleviates the computational burden to carry out such investigations. Nevertheless, this can still be above the computational budget for many studies. Two major approaches have been used to reduce the budget needed to build the emulator: efficient design of experiments, such as sequential designs, and combining training data of different degrees of sophistication in a so-called multi-fidelity method, or multilevel in case these fidelities are ordered typically for increasing resolutions. We present here a novel method that combines both approaches, the multilevel adaptive sequential design of computer experiments (MLASCE) in the framework of Gaussian process (GP) emulators. We make use of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces as a tool for our GP approximations of the differences between two consecutive levels. This dual strategy allows us to allocate efficiently limited computational resources over simulations of different levels of fidelity and build the GP emulator. The allocation of computational resources is shown to be the solution of a simple optimization problem in a special case where we theoretically prove the validity of our approach. Our proposed method is compared with other existing models of multi-fidelity Gaussian process emulation. Gains in orders of magnitudes in accuracy or computing budgets are demonstrated in some of numerical examples for some settings.


Hydromechanical deep drawing (HDD) is one of the most convenient processes in which a sheet metal is drawn against a counter pressure rather than a rigid die in conventional stampings. This process has been increasingly used to produce aerospace and automotive components. More recently, aerospace industry is demanding new materials with capability to produce high strength to weight ratio products. Also several investigations have been carried out on hydromechanical deep drawing, numerical considerations in order to design the process parameters to produce a cost-effective with high quality component by using this process for superalloy cups has not been investigated. Nickle-based superalloy sheet metals are more prominent in aviation and spaceflight industries. In this paper, numerical simulation of hydromechanical deep drawing for Haynes230 nickle based superalloy has been investigated. Moreover, the pressure paths which yield rupture and wrinkling have been realized. Furthermore, differences between applying uniform and gradual pressure into the pressure chamber have been detected to nominate a pressure path for successfully producing a superalloy cup made by HDD. Subsequent to that, chamber pressure against punch travel curves were depicted. For this investigation, 3-D finite element method was employed and the results obtained from numerical simulation were validated using experimental data already available in the literature.


The present study successfully demonstrated the neuroprotective effects of purified Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBPS02) against glutamate (L‑Glu)‑induced differentiated PC12 (DPC12) cell apoptosis. Purified polysaccharide was obtained by using a diethylaminoethyl‑52 cellulose anion exchange column and a Sepharose G‑100 column. During identification and characterization, LBPS02 was validated to be a fraction with 68 kDa molecular weight, and with a structure containing 1→3, 1→4 and 1→6 linkages. Data further revealed that LBPS02 pretreatment effectively improved cell viability, reduced apoptosis rate, and restored the mitochondrial dysfunction in L‑Glu‑exposed cells. LBPS02 suppressed L‑Glu‑induced reactive oxygen species (ROS accumulation in DPC12 cells. N‑acetylcysteine, a ROS inhibitor, strongly enhanced the efficacy of LBPS02. Furthermore, LBPS02 normalized the levels of anti‑apoptotic proteins, and regulated the phosphorylation of extracellular signal‑regulated kinases (ERKs) and protein kinase B (Akt) in L‑Glu‑explored DPC12 cells. In conclusion, LBPS02‑mediated neuroprotective effects are at least partially associated with the modulation of Akt and ERKs, and the subsequent inhibition of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. LBPS02 may be a candidate for neurodegenerative disease treatment.


ASEAN is a group of countries that collaborate and have strategic strength in the Southeast Asia region to overcome various development problems, especially population problems. The ASEAN region as an integration of countries adjacent to developed countries began to experience anxiety in dealing with the problem of development inequality, especially the competition of local and foreign populations which increased in one region. Some researchers explain that a measure of inequality in the world can be seen from the low regional income of developing countries compared to developed countries. (Houghton, 2010) reveals that population inequality is also caused by geographical and cultural factors that do not support the development process which results in wider population differences than poverty. However, population inequality is a development problem caused by overcrowding of immigrants in areas that cannot be controlled. The emergence of high competition of local and foreign populations has resulted in an unbalanced area. This article aims to evaluate population inequalities from the perspective of high competitiveness by local and foreign residents who come from outside which suppress the existence of indigenous people to work. In addition, the impact of population competition can result in widespread marginalization of indigenous people.


Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common neurological disorder that affects 5%-12% of all whites. To genetically dissect this complex disease, we characterized 15 large and extended multiplex pedigrees, consisting of 453 subjects (134 affected with RLS). A familial aggregation analysis was performed, and SAGE FCOR was used to quantify the total genetic contribution in these families. A weighted average correlation of 0.17 between first-degree relatives was obtained, and heritability was estimated to be 0.60 for all types of relative pairs, indicating that RLS is a highly heritable trait in this ascertained cohort. A genomewide linkage scan, which involved >400 10-cM-spaced markers and spanned the entire human genome, was then performed for 144 individuals in the cohort. Model-free linkage analysis identified one novel significant RLS-susceptibility locus on chromosome 9p24-22 with a multipoint nonparametric linkage (NPL) score of 3.22. Suggestive evidence of linkage was found on chromosome 3q26.31 (NPL score 2.03), chromosome 4q31.21 (NPL score 2.28), chromosome 5p13.3 (NPL score 2.68), and chromosome 6p22.3 (NPL score 2.06). Model-based linkage analysis, with the assumption of an autosomal-dominant mode of inheritance, validated the 9p24-22 linkage to RLS in two families (two-point LOD score of 3.77; multipoint LOD score of 3.91). Further fine mapping confirmed the linkage result and defined this novel RLS disease locus to a critical interval. This study establishes RLS as a highly heritable trait, identifies a novel genetic locus for RLS, and will facilitate further cloning and identification of the genes for RLS.


Dr. Mason, who took over as head of the Public Health Service a year ago, talks about the agency's responsibilities in dealing with AIDS, health manpower shortages and medical treatment effectiveness.


For today's cellular mobile communication networks, the needed capacity is hard to realize without much more of (expensive) bandwidth. Thus new standards like LTE were developed. LTE advanced is in discussion as the successor of LTE and cooperative multipoint transmission (CoMP) is one of the hot topics to increase the system's capacity. System simulations often show only weak gains of the signal-to-interference ratio due to high interference from noncooperating cells in the downlink. This paper presents an interference mitigation framework to overcome the hardest issue, that is, the low penetration rate of mobile stations that can be served from a cluster composed of their strongest cells in the network. The results obtained from simulation tools are discussed with values resulting from testbed on the TU Dresden. They show that the theoretical ideas can be transferred into gains on real systems.


Abstract The purpose of this study was to analyze sequences of hepatitis A virus (HAV) Ia and Ib genotypes from Bulgarian patients to investigate the molecular epidemiology of HAV genotype I during the years 2012 to 2014. Around 105 serum samples were collected by the Department of Virology of the National Center of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases in Bulgaria. The sequenced region encompassed the VP1/2A region of HAV genome. The sequences obtained from the samples were 103. For the phylogenetic analyses, 5 datasets were built to investigate the viral gene in/out flow among distinct HAV subpopulations in different geographic areas and to build a Bayesian dated tree, Bayesian phylogenetic and migration pattern analyses were performed. HAV Ib Bulgarian sequences mostly grouped into a single clade. This indicates that the Bulgarian epidemic is partially compartmentalized. It originated from a limited number of viruses and then spread through fecal-oral local transmission. HAV Ia Bulgarian sequences were intermixed with European sequences, suggesting that an Ia epidemic is not restricted to Bulgaria but can affect other European countries. The time-scaled phylogeny reconstruction showed the root of the tree dating in 2008 for genotype Ib and in 1999 for genotype Ia with a second epidemic entrance in 2003. The Bayesian skyline plot for genotype Ib showed a slow but continuous growth, sustained by fecal-oral route transmission. For genotype Ia, there was an exponential growth followed by a plateau, which suggests better infection control. Bidirectional viral flow for Ib genotype, involving different Bulgarian areas, was observed, whereas a unidirectional flow from Sofia to Ihtiman for genotype Ia was highlighted, suggesting the fecal-oral transmission route for Ia.


T cell cross-reactivity describes the phenomenon whereby a single T cell can recognize two or more different peptide antigens presented in complex withMHCproteins. Cross-reactive T cells have previously been characterized at the population level by cytokine secretion and MHC tetramer staining assays, but single-cell analysis is difficult or impossible using these methods. In this study, we describe development of a novel peptide-MHC heterodimer specific for cross-reactive T cells. MHC-peptide monomers were independently conjugated to hydrazide or aldehyde-containing cross-linkers using thiol-maleimide coupling at cysteine residues introduced into recombinant MHC heavy chain proteins. Hydrazone formation provided bi-specific MHC heterodimers carrying two different peptides. Using this approach we prepared heterodimers of the murine class I MHC protein H-2Kb carrying peptides from lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus and vaccinia virus, and used these to identify crossreactive CD8[|#1#|] T cells recognizing both lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus and vaccinia virus antigens. A similar strategy could be used to develop reagents to analyze cross-reactive T cell responses in humans.


This paper presents a modified, distributed Q-learning algorithm, termed as sequential Q-learning with Kalman filtering (SQKF), for decision making associated with multirobot cooperation. The SQKF algorithm developed here has the following characteristics. 1) The learning process is arranged in a sequential manner (i.e., the robots will not make decisions simultaneously, but in a predefined sequence) so as to promote cooperation among robots and reduce their Q-learning spaces. 2) A robot will not update its Q-values with observed global rewards. Instead, it will employ a specific Kalman filter to extract its real local reward from the global reward, thereby updating its Q-table with this local reward. The new SQKF algorithm is intended to solve two problems in multirobot Q-learning: credit assignment and behavior conflicts. The detailed procedure of the SQKF algorithm is presented, and its application is illustrated using a prototype multirobot experimental system. The experimental results show that the algorithm has better performance than the conventional single-agent Q-learning algorithm or the team Q-learning algorithm in the multirobot domain.


"Osseo" refers to bone and "integration" refers to how a prosthesis can be integrated with the bone in residual limbs both arms and legs. Osseointegration(OI) was originally defined as a direct structural and functional connection between ordered living bone and the surface of a loadcarrying implant. OI could be described as the modality for stable fixation of titanium implant to bone structure. The OI has become a realized phenomenon of importance in the dental and rehabilitation sciences since recently developed dentures and artificial limbs are directly attached to human skeleton by using osseointegrated implants. Previously, a study showed that bone strain generated potential (SGP) that is an electrical potential and considered to be generated by fluid flow in bone could be used as a parameter to examine the amount of OI on bone-implant interface. Since no study was performed to understand according to the point on behavior of SGP for the boneimplant composite. In this study, we used a multi-channel measurement system and investigated SGP according to the point. Four white New Zealand rabbits underwent pure titanium implant insertion surgery to tibia after amputation. After checking full OI at the end of the 5 weeks, experimental animals were euthanized and the amputated tibia-implants were harvested. Holes of 0.5mm in diameter were made on the tissue of the tibia and electrodes of 0.16mm in diameter were inserted to the holes. Then, the instrumented bone-implant composites were placed to a servo material testing machine to apply axial compressive displacement loadings. During the compression tests, SGPs were also measured. Magnitude of SGP was found to be significantly increased near bone and implant interface for the osseointegrated bone-implant composite.


A novel approach is presented for studying the kinetics of specific protein-DNA interactions by NMR exchange spectroscopy. The experimental design involves the direct observation of translocation of a homeodomain between cognate sites on two oligonucleotide duplexes, differing by only a single base pair at the edge of the DNA recognition sequence. The single base-pair change perturbs the 1H-15N correlation spectrum of a number of residues, while leaving the affinity for the DNA unchanged. The exchange process has apparent rate constants in the 5-20 s-1 range which are linearly dependent upon the concentration of free DNA. These rates are about 3 orders of magnitude larger than the dissociation rate constant determined by gel shift assays at nanomolar DNA concentrations. The complete NMR exchange data set, comprising auto- and cross-peak intensities as a function of mixing time at five concentrations of free DNA, can be fit simultaneously to a simple model in which protein translocation between DNA duplexes occurs via a second-order process (with rate constants of approximately 6 x 104 M-1 s-1) involving direct collision of a protein-DNA complex with free DNA. This is akin to intersegmental transfer, and a physical model for the process is discussed. Rapid translocation at high concentrations of free DNA observed directly by NMR exchange spectroscopy reconciles the long half-lives of protein-DNA complexes measured by biochemical analysis in vitro with the highly dynamic behavior of such complexes observed in vivo. The relevance of this mechanism to the kinetics of protein-DNA interactions within the cell is discussed.


This study evaluates the temporal and spatial variations in nutrient concentrations within the period of 1990-2011, with the aim to assess the effectiveness of legislative implementation and associated control measures within the period. Annual nutrient emission data were been obtained from OSPAR's Joint Assessment Monitoring Programmes (JAMP's) to provide values of riverine flow, direct discharge and atmospheric concentration. Temporal assessments of annual nutrient emissions were carried out on a European and national scale, using statistical analysis within periods of legislative change to assess the regional and sub-regional response to legislative implementation. Nutrient data were also obtained from the EEA database "Waterbase" providing winter concentrations from sampling points within the North Sea region. These data were used for spatial analysis of nutrient concentrations within periods of legislative change, which was achieved via the geospatial plotting of values using GIS software. Changes in inputs of nitrate and phosphate have been determined within periods of assessment, indicating positive response to legislative change. However variations in response have been seen on both European and regional scale, indicating varied effectiveness of control measures associated with legislative implementation. Spatial variations within assessment periods have also reflected varied responses of nitrate and orthophosphate concentrations to legislative change on a sub-regional level, indicative of a non-linear relationship between the coastal response to land-based controls of diffuse and point source emissions. Where hydromorphological and physio-chemical factors have been considered, it has also highlighted the need for greater evaluation of the coastal interactions which influence the residence time of nutrients and occurrence of eutrophication. This study concludes that while reductions in emissions have been attributable to legislative change, a combined approach to monitoring and management is required to further understand the behaviour of nutrients within complex aquatic systems and to further the control of emissions and associated impacts of nutrients.


Endocrine-disrupting chemicals pose a growing threat to human health through their increasing presence in the environment and their potential interactions with the mammalian endocrine systems. Due to their structural similarity to hormones like estrogen, these chemicals can interfere with endocrine signaling, leading to many deleterious effects. Exposure to estrogenic endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDC) is a suggested risk factor for the development of breast cancer, one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers in women. However, the mechanisms through which EDCs contribute to breast cancer development remain elusive. To rapidly proliferate, cancer cells undertake distinct metabolic programs to utilize existing nutrients in the tumor microenvironment and synthesize macromolecules de novo. EDCs are known to dysregulate cell signaling pathways related to cellular metabolism, which may be an important mechanism through which they exert their cancer-promoting effects. These altered pathways can be studied via metabolomic analysis, a new advancement in -omics technologies that can interrogate molecular pathways that favor cancer development and progression. This review will summarize recent discoveries regarding EDCs and the metabolic reprogramming that they may induce to facilitate the development of breast cancer.


Rhodococcus equi is a facultative intracellular pathogen that can infect a wide range of animals, but which is best known as a casual agent of bronchopneumonia in 3-5 month old foals [1]. The organism is being increasingly recognised as an agent of necrotizing pneumonia and extrapulmonary infections in humans, especially in immunocompromised patients such as those with aids [2]. Initially, the organism was assigned to the genus Corynebacterium but was subsequently transferred to the genus Rhodococcus primarily on the basis of chemotaxonomic and numerical phenetic data [3]. The genus currently encompasses 30 validly described species which can be assigned to three 16S rRNA groups, the R. equi, R. erythropolis and R. rhodochrous subclades [4]. In the present study, 32 R. equi strains, composed of the type strain and isolates from clinical, environmental and veterinary sources, were the subject of a polyphasic taxonomic study designed to determine whether the organisms merited generic status. The strains formed a well circumscribed monophyletic branch in the 16S rRNA Corynebacterineae gene tree and were most closely related to R. kunmingensis. The taxonomic integrity of the two subclades that formed the monophyletic clade was underpinned by corresponding molecular fingerprinting (ARDRA and Rep-PCR), fatty acid and phenotypic data. The results provide good grounds for classifying R. equi strains into a new genus containing two species.


Without beautiful countryside, there will be no beautiful China. The family farm is a beautiful scene in the construction of new socialist countryside. However, the construction of family farms just starts in China. It still remains at pilot and fumbling stage. There are still mainly unfavorable factors including separate land, insufficient funds, lack of security for farmers, lack of talents, and service lagging behind. On the basis of analyzing various weak points, we put forward countermeasures and recommendations for construction of family farms on promoting orderly farmland circulation, strengthening financial support, improving professional quality, supplying social security, increasing public investment, and attaching importance to standardized operation.


It might seem impossible to "compute" ideas that humans feel most passionately about and have such difficulty codifying: their ethical beliefs. We've been attempting to make ethics computable for three reasons. First, to avert possible harmful behavior from increasingly autonomous machines, we want to determine whether one can add an ethical dimension to them. Second, we want to advance the study of ethical theory by making it more precise. Finally, we want to solve a particular problem in ethical theory, to develop a decision procedure for an ethical theory that involves multiple, potentially competing, and duties. We've adopted the action-based approach to ethical theory, where the theory tells us how we should act in ethical dilemmas. This approach lends itself to machine implementation by giving the agent either a single principle or several principles to guide its actions, unlike other approaches that don't clearly specify the correct action in an ethical dilemma. The approach to computing ethics that we describe in this article is illustrated by MedEthEx, a system that uses machine learning to resolve a biomedical ethical dilemma. This, we believe, lends support for our approach to computing ethics