The metal-dependent membrane alanyl aminopeptidase (amino-peptidase N, APN, CD13; EC 22.214.171.124) is a well-established marker of normal and malignant cells of the myelo-monocytic lineage. It is also expressed by leukaemic blasts of a small group of patients suffering from acute or chronic lymphoid leukaemia. CD13-specific monoclonal antibodies do not bind to the surface of normal B lymphocytes, and APN mRNA was not detectable by Northern analysis in normal lymphocytes or in T-cell lines. Recently the expression of the APN gene in T-cell lines as well as the ability of these cells to cleave chromogenic substrates preferred by APN have been demonstrated [Lendeckel, Wex, Kähne, Frank, Reinhold and Ansorge (1994) Cell. Immunol. 153, 214-226]. Here, by means of dot-blot hybridization and RNase protection assay, evidence is provided that human peripheral T-cells as well as derived cell lines contain significant amounts of APN mRNA, comparable to that in the promyeloic cell line U937, and that mitogenic activation of peripheral human T-cells leads to a more than 4-fold increase in their APN mRNA content. In the course of activation, T-cells increase their total alanine p-nitroanilide-hydrolysing activity to approx. 7-fold that of resting cells. Furthermore these cells become immunoreactive towards CD13 to a significant extent (up to 51%) as shown by surface staining and confirmed by activity staining and immunostaining after isoelectric focusing (pI of T-cell APN = 4.6). In addition it is demonstrated by fluorescence microscopy that viable, activated T-cells effectively cleave the fluorogenic aminopeptidase substrate bis-glycyl-rhodamine 110 and that the corresponding aminopeptidase activity is associated with the cell surface. We show that specific inhibitors of APN, probestin and actinonin, strongly decrease DNA synthesis in phytohaemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated T-cells. In summary, evidence is presented that in the course of mitogenic activation human peripheral T-cells increase the expression of APN both at the transcriptional level and at the cell surface. This has been demonstrated both at the APN mRNA level and at the protein level with respect to aminopeptidase enzymic activity and CD13 immunoreactivity.


Increase of automation in power systems, combined with introduction of open-access competition, has resulted in greater reliance by utilities on computer networks for their power system operations. This paper presents an effective security method to address uprising serious concerns about access controls of utility computer networks, particularly under open access environment. A new role-based access control model and an advanced security management architecture for utility computer networks are proposed. The significance of the model is to extend network access controls from a single domain to multiple domains interconnected with the Internet. This paper presents a method for managing security policies using XML. This method simplifies security policy administration for utility networks. Unlike most existing implementations, the authorization is independently defined, and separated from policy representation and implementation mechanisms. An XML-based security policy and a digital credential are introduced to establish trust and role assignment for users in different network domains.


The synthesis of a small collection of novel bile acid-bisphosphonate (BA-BP) conjugates as potential drug candidates is reported. The disclosed methodology relied on the installation of azide and thiol functionalities at the head and tail positions, respectively, of the BA scaffold and its subsequent decoration by orthogonal click reactions (copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, thiol-ene or thiol-yne coupling) to introduce BP units and a fluorophore. Because of the troublesome isolation of the target conjugates by standard procedures, the methodology culminated with the functionalization of the BA scaffold with a light fluorous tag to rapidly and efficiently purify intermediates and final products by fluorous solid-phase extraction.


ABSTRACT Eye-tracking was used to identify potential location 'premiums' in discrete choice experiments for certain positions in the computer screen in terms of increasing the visibility, general interest and attention of respondents. The search dynamics to choose the optimal alternative closely resembled the natural process of reading in a 'Z' motion going from left to right and top to bottom. An empirical application of water conservation showed that conservation practices in the production process were not statistically different than zero. On the other hand, respondents are interested in water conservation practices in their landscapes where they benefit directly from the sustainable practice.


Last year researchers "heard" black holes for the first time, when they detected the gravitational waves unleashed as two of them crashed together and merged. Now, they want to see a black hole, or at least its silhouette. Next month, astronomers will harness radio telescopes across the globe to create the equivalent of a single Earth-spanning dish—an instrument powerful enough, they hope, to image black holes backlit by the incandescent gas swirling around them. Their targets are the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*, and an even bigger one in the neighboring galaxy M87.


This work presents attenuation and sensitivity measurements of radiographic imaging plates (IPs) with quasimonoenergetic X-rays in the 8–60 kiloelectronvolt range. The measurements are used to validate theoretical predictions. A short overview of the theoretical model is given. The model can be used to describe the sensitivity of different detector types to a wide range of X-ray energies.


The article is devoted to the history and present of the Institute of Organic Chemistry of NAS of Ukraine. By Boris Paton's definition, the Institute of Organic Chemistry belongs to the memorial institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. On May 23, 1939, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, according to resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (May 8, 1939) decided to set up the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. There were four scientific departments in the Institute, headed by academicians of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR: General Organic Synthesis - V.P. Jaworski, fuel - M.I. Kuznetsov, macromolecular compounds - I.K. Matsurevich, fibrous substances and dyes - V.G. Shaposhnikov at the time of its foundation. V. P. Jaworski, the academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, was the first Director of the Institute. Since the institute's existence, such outstanding scientists have worked in the institution as: Andrei Kiprianov (founder of the color theory of organic dyes, phenomenon of interaction of chromophores "Phenomenon AI Kiprianov", VM Zubarovsky, OI Tolmachov, Yu.L. Slominsky, OO Ishchenko, KD Sych, IK Ushenko, FA (development of preparative chemistry of thiazole, benzothiazole, benzimidazole and a number of heterocycles), E.O. Shilov (formation of p-complexes of molecules of unsaturated compounds with electrophilic reagents, substantiation of mechanisms of biochemical processes), OA Yasnikov (theory of radical transformations in reactions modeling nicotinamide coenzymes, open catalytic properties of cytochrome production technology for phospho-rylated starch), OV Kirsanov (reaction of amino compounds with phosphorus pentachloride and reaction of oxidative imination of compounds of trivalent phosphorus with dichloramines), A.F. Plate, IL Knunanciec, M.I. Kabachnik, L.M. Markovsky (Chemistry of Sulfur Organic Com-pounds) and VP Kuchar (Works on Chemistry of Phosphorus Organic Compounds), Yu. Gololobov (Chemistry of Organo-Organic Compounds), A.D. Sinitsa (Methods of Synthesis and Investigation of the Properties of Imino-Phosphonates), OI Kolodyazhny (Chemistry of Phosphorus Illides), L.M. Yagupolsky (Yagupolsky principle, Buchwald – Hartwig – Yagupolsky reaction), M.O. Lozynsky, S.V. Komisarenko (chemistry of physiologically active heterocyclic compounds), V.I. Kalchenko (molecular design, synthesis and study of supramolecular interactions of macrocyclic compounds - crowneters, calixarenes, thiacalixarenes and calixresorbins). The Institute's developments have great innovation potential today. The Institute's staff published 8,000 scientific articles, 90 monographs and obtained 1550 copyright certificates and patents. The Institute has trained 350 candidates and 65 doctors of science during its work.


. Let X be a Banach space, C a weakly compact convex subset of X and T : C ! C an asymptotically nonexpansive mapping. Under the usual assumptions on X which assure the existence of (cid:12)xed point for T , we prove that the set of (cid:12)xed points is a nonexpansive retract of C . We use this result to prove that all known theorems about existence of (cid:12)xed point for asymptotically nonexpansive mappings can be extended to obtain a common (cid:12)xed point for a commuting family of mappings. We also derive some results about convergence of iterates.


Abstract Previous research proposed two future net discount rate estimators that improved on naive long-term average and random walk estimators. The proposed estimators were superior in the class of estimators that used only current and past observations on net discount rates. In this paper we consider two extensions. First we examine whether professional forecasts perform significantly better than the two alternatives. Second, we examine the properties and performance of multivariate estimators that account for the potentially differing time-series behaviors of the underlying wage growth and interest rate series.


A recent report on migrant domestic work in Lebanon has cited psychological disorder among Lebanese "Madams" as the leading cause of violence against their migrant maids (Jureidini, 2011, www.kafa.org.lb/StudiesPublicationPDF/PRpdf38.pdf). This report typifies much of the existing scholarship on the experiences of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in the Middle East, where the focus is on employer–employee relationships, especially the abusive Arab "Madam." In this paper, I argue that the portrayal of violations of MDW rights as abuse of one set of women by another is inherently problematic on several fronts. It privatizes the structural problem of workers' and immigrant rights violations, delegates it to the household, and absolves the state of its responsibility. Moreover, the focus on abusive employers takes attention away from the root of the problem – the inherently exploitative system of migration and recruitment in the region, the sponsorship system. The sponsorship system not only creates conditions for much of these violations, but also systematically produces a new population of readily exploitable worker – the category of "illegal workers." Oral histories and interviews with individual workers are employed to analyze the process by which illegal workers are "produced" in Lebanon. Finally, focus group discussions highlight critical policy recommendations made by the workers themselves, which address the systemic bases of their exploitation in Lebanon.


Performance evaluation of Globe's location service is becoming necessary in order to help steer development in the right direction. In this paper I put the current implementation of the location service to work and design and setup a number of tests with input data from a mobile phone environment provided by the Stanford University Mobile Activity Traces (SUMATRA). It turns out that the implementation is not ready for performance evaluation of this scale after all, and that no performance evaluation can be done with SUMATRA since too many inconsistencies are to be found in that data.


Introduction Cytosolic calcium overload triggers pancreatic acinar injury induced by pancreatitis toxins. Sustained Ca2+elevation depends on Ca2+entry through store-operated Ca2+entry (SOCE) channel Orai1, but the role of which in experimental acute pancreatitis (EAP) and human pancreatic acinar cell injury has not been determined. Method Confocal and patch clamp technology were used to examine the effects of GSK-7975A and CM_128, inhibitors of SOCE channel Orai1 on bile acid-, hystimulation-, thapsigargin-, or cyclopiazonic acid-induced calcium entry into murine and human pancreatic acinar as well as human Orai1/STIM1-transfected HEK 293 cells. The effects of GSK-7975A and CM_128 on human necrotic pancreatic acinar cell death pathway activation induced by bile acid were monitored. EAP was induced by seven hourly intraperitoneal cerulein injections (50 mg/kg), retrograde pancreatic ductal TLCS infusion (50 mL 3 mM) or two hourly intraperitoneal injections of 150 mg/kg palmitoleic acid and 1.35g/kg ethanol. Different doses of either compound were tested in three diverse clinical representative models of EAP, begun at different time point after disease induction. EAP severity was assessed by standard biochemical parameters and blinded histopathology. Results GSK-7975A and CM_128 inhibited toxin-induced SOCE and/or Ca2+release-activated Ca2+currents in a concentration-dependent manner up to >90% of control in all cells tested and significantly inhibited murine and human necrotic pancreatic acinar cell death pathway activation (p < 0.05). Administration of GSK-7975A or CM_128 after induction of EAP had pronounced inhibitory effects on all local and systemic disease parameters in all three models (all p < 0.05), demonstrating both dose- and time-dependency, with significantly greater effectiveness in a range of parameters when given one hour rather than six hours after disease induction. Conclusion This study confirms the pivotal role of cytosolic calcium overload in the pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis and provides robust preclinical validation for Orai inhibition as a treatment for acute pancreatitis. Disclosure of interest L. Wen: None Declared, S. Voronina: None Declared, M. Javed: None Declared, M. Awais: None Declared, P. Szatmary: None Declared, D. Latawiec: None Declared, M. Chvanov: None Declared, D. Collier: None Declared, J. Barrett Employee of: GlaxoSmithKline, M. Begg Employee of: GlaxoSmithKline, K. Stauderman Employee of: CalciMedica, M. Dunn Employee of: CalciMedica, A. Tepikin: None Declared, D. Criddle: None Declared, R. Sutton: None Declared.


Three experiments were designed to clarify the mechanisms underlying Eagly, Chen, Chaiken, and Shaw-Barnes's (1999) meta-analytic demonstration that attitudinally congenial information has typically not been more memorable than uncongenial information. Participants remembered congenial and uncongenial messages equally well, despite their disapproval of the uncongenial information. This null congeniality effect was obtained regardless of whether (a) messages pertained to abortion or gays in the military or presented information on both sides or only one side of the issue; (b) recognition or recall measures were administered soon after the message or 2 weeks later; and (c) participants were or were not activists on the issue, had stronger or weaker attitudes, had more prior knowledge of counterattitudinal (vs. proattitudinal) arguments, or did or did not have their attention constrained to the message. Process findings suggested that participants' thoughtful counterarguing of the uncongenial messages enhanced their memory for them.


The results of our experimental studies on the use of Marlex mesh to repair tissue defects in the abdominal wall, chest wall, and diaphragm of dogs have been reported by us. 2,3 We found that this monofilament mesh was superior to Teflon fabric as a surgical prosthesis because of more constant and uniform replacement by fibrous tissue. It was noted that the fibrous tissue replacement was limited to a uniform layer 3 to 4 mm. in thickness, which was well "bonded" to surrounding fascia and quite pliable. There was no increase in the thickness of this fibrous tissue replacement beyond six weeks. Examination of the recovered graft (by acid digestion of tissues) after six months' implantation showed no fragmentation and no decrease in tensile strength of the mesh. Infection studies in dogs showed that in the presence of purulent infection granulation tissue would grow through the mesh and wounds would


This guide is designed to support Public Policy PhD students conducting research for their field statements. It may also be of use to students working on literature reviews in political science and policy-related fields.


In 2004, the Georgia General Assembly enacted the Comprehensive State-wide Water Management Planning Act, which led to the development of the State Water Plan in 2008. The Plan established a range of state-wide water efficiency, water supply, and water quality policies and actions. One of the most innovative and novel aspects of the Plan was the framework for development of regional water plans (RWPs), by local leaders, to address water quality and quantity issues, evaluate future forecasts for water supply and wastewater treatment needs, and identify potential measures to meet these needs in the future. All 10 RWPs were successfully completed and were adopted by the Director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) in November 2011. Each RWP lays out a roadmap for implementing integrated and specific management practices designed to ensure each Region's goals and visions are met over the next 40 years. The practices target four water resource areas (water conservation, water supply, wastewater, and water quality) based on the results of a series of in-depth, technical resource assessments (surface water, groundwater and assimilative capacity). Since their adoption, these RWPs have guided EPD's water permitting decisions. Implementation strategies vary by region with several focused on utilizing the Regional Commissions (RCs), previously Regional Development Centers or RDCs to provide coordination assistance and resources to help facilitate implementation of the RWPs. To assist with initial implementation activities, each region was provided the opportunity to develop a Section 319(h) grant funded project to focus on issues identified in the RWPs, such as fecal coliform tracking investigations, water quality credit trading feasibility studies, and management practice demonstrations. This paper provides a summary of the implementation status for each RWP, including their 319(h) projects. In addition, the potential options to enhance implementation over the next 3 years are discussed.


Securing an overwhelming majority of the rural vote was vital to Donald Trump's surprise win in the 2016 presidential election. This article provides an analysis of the relationship between rural/urban residence and 2016 voting patterns. The Trump campaign's unique emphasis on economic and racial issues attracted large numbers of voters from groups threatened by rapid cultural, economic, and demographic change occurring in the US. Prominent among threatened groups is the rural, white working class. The analysis reveals that rural counties where a large percentage of the residents were white, with low levels of education and working in the goods-producing industries, cast a proportionally large share of their votes for Trump. The analysis also makes it apparent that it is not rural residence, per se, but other characteristics (white, poorly educated, and working in the goods-producing industries) that resulted in the strong Trump vote.


Examining ways in which gender is marked in the press coverage of self-produced, folk-rock artist and record label owner Ani DiFranco, this paper explores how language employed in rock criticism frequently functions to devalue and marginalise women artists' musicianship, influence on fans, and contribution to the rock canon. Investigating how the readerships of different publications may influence the ways in which journalists mark gender in rock criticism, this study utilises a corpus of 100 articles on Ani DiFranco published between 1993 and 2003 from print and online magazines and newspapers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Focusing on the use of inter- and intra-gender artist comparisons, adjectival gender markers and 'metaphorical gender' markers in artist background information, lyrical and musical analyses and descriptions of fans, this analysis maps the discursive conventions that music critics and theorists continue to rely on in reviews and profiles of women artists.


Movement disorders may result from autoimmune damage of the central nervous system. Examples include Sydenham's chorea and paraneoplastic encephalitis. Recently Dalmau et al. identified a new type of encephalitis, mostly in young women and children, exhibiting dyskinesias, psychiatric disturbances, autonomic instability, and seizures. There is increasing evidence that this disorder is mediated by circulating antibodies against NR1/NR2 heteromers of the Nmethyl-D-aspartate-glutamic-receptors (NMDAR). Exceptionally, patients with NMDAR encephalitis may not develop the full spectrum of symptoms. Here we report a patient with isolated subacute hemidystonia associated with NMDAR antibodies.


The supply projection for beef in Pakistan by the year 2030 AD has been made on the basis of time series data of the time period from 1980-81 to 2011-12. This study has been designed to estimate the beef meat projection supply chain in next decade in Pakistan. Both linear regression and polynomial price lag models are employed to analyze the effects of various factors on beef supply in the country. It is found that higher beef prices stimulate its production in the country. Availability of cattle and buffalo animal units for beef production also contributes positively and significantly to the production. Cattle and buffalo are good converters of fodder into products of highly nutritive value, thus increase in fodder prices has not affected beef production in the past and may not affect it to a large extent in future. However, a little impairment in the production technology for beef has been observed over time. It is projected that beef supply would be 2532 and 2535 thousand tones under linear and polynomial price lag models in the year 2030 AD, respectively. It is expected that beef production will grow at a lower rate of 2.0% per annum against past growth rate of 4.6% per annum from 1980-81 to 2011-12. Policy makers of the state may adopt policies to boost beef production in the country. This study draws the attention to set goals to achieve the expected target of beef meat in future to meet the needs of the country.


: Biomechanical analysis of the shoulder in tennis is still in early stages; however, the available data do allow some conclusions and some recommendations for conditioning, evaluation, and rehabilitation. Normal shoulder biomechanical function requires an intact kinetic chain to create the energy, produce the forces and stabilize the joint in tennis activities. Only through this mechanism can optimum performance with minimal injury risk be maintained. Conditioning of the shoulder for tennis should take this into account. Exercises should involve force generation by the large leg and trunk muscles, scapular stabilization, and closed chain co-contraction activity for the shoulder stabilizers. Similarly, clinical evaluation for shoulder problems must include assessment of areas distant to the shoulder. Kinetic chain failure can cause extra stress on the shoulder, causing or exacerbating clinical symptoms at the shoulder. Clinical evaluation of shoulder joint structures also is enhanced by knowledge of the integration of the constraint systems, and the fact that more than one system may be involved in shoulder pathology. Finally, rehabilitation efforts for shoulder problems need to focus on allowing functional return of the shoulder joint in the context of the entire kinetic chain of tennis specific activity. Rehabilitation of all areas of kinetic chain failure, such as trunk inflexibility or scapulothoracic dyskinesis, should be undertaken in conjunction with rehabilitation techniques for the shoulder. The sports medicine clinician will have a more functional framework for assessing shoulder activity and injury in tennis through the understanding of these biomechanical principles.


Аdvertising is a kind of communication which proceeds between two sides in unequal positions. One side (the sender of the message) is tangible and evident while the other (the recipient) is a mass of different minds which is usually named "target-audience" by the marketers. The successful transfer process is based on two factors – definition and differentiation.
The brand as initiator of the communication-act faces the problem of constructing the most appropriate code by means of which to transfer its message in such a way that allows it to reach the customer`s mind in the way intended by the initiator. This code simultaneously combines three functions: it defines the brand as such (indicating its existence), differentiates it from the competition (from the noise of the environment) and proposes a concrete reason for purchase to be done (i.e. makes the Unique Selling Proposition). Implementing these three functions in this particular order is a necessary condition for advertising to trigger a change in the consumer's behaviour. Without this implementation, advertising does not fulfill it's main goal of triggering a change in the customer's behaviour but becomes a piece of visual art and/or entertainment.
In addition, by means of a detailed segmentation of the market, the brand predetermines to a maximum degree the chances for the audience to take up the message. In this way it lays the foundations of the decoding process (focusing attention on and understanding the information encoded) and defines the set of verbal and visual signs which a given segment is "open" for.


Ion velocity distributions in the fast solar wind are usually characterized by nonthermal features such as multicomponent ions, temperature anisotropies and average relative drifts. These nonthermal features lead to the growth of several electromagnetic instabilities. Here, two‐dimensional hybrid simulations are used to study these instabilities in a homogeneous, magnetized collisionless plasma model. We show that for conditions typical of the fast solar wind the proton core temperature anisotropy plays a significant role in modifying the wave‐particle scattering of each proton component as compared to the isotropic cases. As a consequence, the scattering reduces both the heating and anisotropy enhancement of the proton beam and decreases the relative proton/ion flow speed below the corresponding isotropic instability thresholds in agreement with recent observations and with our previous one‐dimensional study. Our results are consistent with recent satellite observations and provide support to the physica...


Objective:
 to determine the predictors of poor outcome after IV thrombolysis for moderate to severe strokes in a statewide telestroke network.

 Background:
 The Arkansas SAVES (Stroke Assistance through Virtual Emergency Support) telestroke network provided emergency evaluation and therapy for acute stroke to 22 spoke sites statewide between November 2008 and May 2011. The spoke hospitals range from large, yet lacking neurologist's support, to critical access hospitals. Following thrombolysis, patients are cared for at the spoke, or get transferred to one of the hub PSC hospitals. Predictors of poor outcome after IV thrombolysis in a PSC are established. There is no available literature on such predictors in a hub and spoke model of a telestroke network, in which variables such as post thrombolysis care location could impact outcome.

 Methods:
 Institutional IRB approval was obtained to review the prospective database of the Arkansas SAVES program. We included patients with admission NIHSS ≥ 8. They were divided into two groups, based on 90-day outcome, dichotomized into mRS ≤ 2 and mRS > 2. Baseline characteristics, risk factors, time intervals, laboratory data, and post thrombolysis care location (hub vs. spoke) were compared between the two groups. For statistical analysis, we used independent T, and fisher's exact tests. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed.

 Results:
 The cohort included 562 patients receiving a teleconsultation between November 2008 and May 2011, of whom 116 underwent IV thrombolysis. Sixty-seven patients with admission NIHSS ≥ 8 were included in this analysis. Results are depicted in table 1. In multivariate regression analysis (table 2), patients with a 90-day mRS > 2 were more likely to have atrial fibrillation (OR = 6.76, p = 0.038), admission blood sugar > 8 mmol/L (OR = 7.45, p = 0.01), and an admission NIHSS > 12 (OR = 5.12, p = 0.017). Patients with a worse outcome at 90 days were more likely to have received post thrombolysis care at a spoke hospital (OR = 15.63, p = 0.019).

 Conclusion:
 In a hub and spoke model of a telestroke network, patients with moderate to severe strokes may benefit from transferring to a PSC after IV thrombolysis, a variable that could improve their functional outcome. Larger studies to confirm those results are needed.


Super-resolution (SR) and landmark localization of tiny faces are highly correlated tasks. On the one hand, landmark localization could obtain higher accuracy with faces of high-resolution (HR). On the other hand, face SR would benefit from prior knowledge of facial attributes such as landmarks. Thus, we propose a joint alignment and SR network to simultaneously detect facial landmarks and super-resolve tiny faces. More specifically, a shared deep encoder is applied to extract features for both tasks by leveraging complementary information. To exploit representative power of the hierarchical encoder, intermediate layers of a shared feature extraction module are fused to form efficient feature representations. The fused features are then fed to task-specific modules to detect landmarks and super-resolve face images in parallel. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed model significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art in both landmark localization and SR of faces. We show a large improvement for landmark localization of tiny faces (i.e., 16 × 16). Furthermore, the proposed framework yields comparable results for landmark localization on low-resolution (LR) faces (i.e., 64 × 64) to existing methods on HR (i.e., 256 × 256). As for SR, the proposed method recovers sharper edges and more details from LR face images than other state-of-the-art methods, which we demonstrate qualitatively and quantitatively.


Perceived conversational speech quality is a key quality of service (QoS) metric for voice over IP (VoIP) applications. Speech quality is mainly affected by network impairments, such as delay, jitter and packet loss. Playout buffer algorithms are used to compensate for jitter based on a tradeoff between delay and loss, but can have a significant effect on perceived quality. The main aim in this paper is to assess how buffer algorithms affect perceived speech quality and how to choose the best algorithm and its parameters to obtain optimum perceived speech quality (in terms of an objective mean opinion score). The contributions of the paper are three-fold. First, we introduce a new methodology for predicting conversational speech quality (conversational mean opinion score or MOSc) which combines the latest ITU-T speech quality measurement algorithm (PESQ) and the concepts of the E-model. Second, we assess different playout buffer algorithms using the new MOSc metric on Internet trace data. Our findings indicate that, in general, end-to-end delay has a major effect on the selection of a buffer algorithm and its parameters. For small end-to-end delays, an algorithm that seeks to minimise loss is preferred, whereas for large end-to-end delays, an algorithm that aims at a minimum buffer delay is best. Third, we propose a modified buffer algorithm together with an adaptive parameter adjustment scheme. Preliminary results show that this can achieve an "optimum" perceived speech quality for all the traces considered. The results are based on Internet trace data measurements between UK and USA, UK and China, UK and Germany.


This bachelor thesis has been performed at Atlas Copco's assembly department in Tierp, during a period of ten weeks. Lean production is an important part of their daily operation. Several other big Lean projects have been completed, where among other things, takt time has been introduced at several of the assembly lines. The Tensor-testing area is the part of the factory where all Tensor-tools will be tested. The Tensor-testing area was excluded from the Lean projects, as big improvements were in motion parallel with the projects.The aim with the bachelor thesis was to do a feasibility study with the following problem definition: Can the Tensor-testing area be included in the takt time of the assembly lines? If yes, how could it look like? If no, which changes can be implemented to make it possible?To answer the problem definition, different activities have been made. A two daylong practice has been completed. A time study was made and the collected data, in combination with available test data from Atlas Copco's database, was compiled into bar graphs. Normal distribution diagrams were created to simplify discovery of possible deviations. Simulations have been completed based on orders and delimitations. Suggestions for improvement were made, which were related to where you could see a lack of capacity. New simulations were performed based on these. From the conclusion, the Tensor-testing cannot be takted with the conditions that were; further work is necessary. The work is more a general study and not a detailed one. The reason was because of delimitations that have been necessary due to lack of time. The simulations which have been done, has created a model for further work. As there are many different types of products, other types of production sequences could be of interest, and be tested by using this model. Recommendations for further work have been made in the form of suggestions for improvements. The suggestions have theoretical support, which show that there is potential to include the testing in the takted assembly lines takt time.


Thermocompression bonding of gold is a promising technique for achieving low temperature, wafer-level bonding. The fabrication process for wafer bonding at 300/spl deg/C via compressing gold under 7 MPa of pressure is described in detail. One of the issues encountered in the process development was e-beam source spitting, which resulted in micrometer diameter sized Au on the surfaces, and made bonding difficult. The problem was solved by inserting a tungsten liner to the graphite crucible. Surface segregation of Si on the Au surface at the bonding temperature was observed. Using Auger spectroscopy, a 1500 /spl Aring/ SiO/sub 2/ barrier layer was shown to be sufficient in preventing Si from reaching the surface. Lastly, a four-point bend delamination technique was used to quantify the bond toughness. The associated process steps that were required to prepare the test specimens are described. The critical strain energy release rate for the bonds ranged between 22 to 67 J/m/sup 2/ and was not shown to be strongly associated with the gold bond layer thickness in the thickness range studied (0.23 to 1.4 /spl mu/m).


We sought to investigate whether programmes were designed to protect the health of pregnant women in Belgium from 1940 to 1945. We analysed archives and found that pre-natal care was actively promoted. The proportion of mothers attending public pre-natal clinics increased from 7.5% in 1940 to 14.6% in 1942. Women receiving pre-natal care from public or private providers were entitled to receive food supplements, vitamins, calcium and iron from the fourth month of pregnancy. Other benefits included priority cards to avoid queues, and supplements for coal and linen. In 1944, the Maternal and Child Care Organization had a network of 274 pre-natal clinics, 1,382 well-baby clinics and 389 home surveillance centres. We conclude that strong maternal and child health programmes were developed in spite of the German occupation and the wartime conditions.


In this paper, stability analysis of walking gaits and robustness analysis are developed for a five-link and four-actuator biped robot. Stability conditions are derived by studying unactuated dynamics and using the PoincarA© map associated with periodic walking gaits. A stable gait is designed by an optimization process satisfying physical constraints and stability conditions. Also, considering underactuation problem, a time-invariant control law is designed to track the stable motion of biped. Validation of proposed approach is achieved by numerical simulations. Moreover, the robustness of motion on the uneven surfaces and elastic contact model are investigated.


Active learning identifies data points from a pool of unlabeled examples whose labels, if made available, are most likely to improve the predictions of a supervised model. Most research on active learning assumes that an agent has access to the entire pool of unlabeled data and can ask for labels of any data points during an initial training phase. However, when incorporated in a larger task, an agent may only be able to query some subset of the unlabeled pool. An agent can also opportunistically query for labels that may be useful in the future, even if they are not immediately relevant. In this paper, we demonstrate that this type of opportunistic active learning can improve performance in grounding natural language descriptions of everyday objects—an important skill for home and office robots. We find, with a real robot in an object identification setting, that inquisitive behavior—asking users important questions about the meanings of words that may be off-topic for the current dialog—leads to identifying the correct object more often over time.


In this letter, we present a novel inverse kinematics (IK) solution for a robotic arm-hand system to achieve precision grasp. This problem is kinematically over-constrained and to address the issue and to solve the problem, we propose a new approach with three key insights. First, we propose a human-inspired thumb-first strategy and consider one finger of the robotic hand as the "thumb" to narrow down the search space and increase the success rate of our algorithm. Second, we formulate the arm-thumb serial chain as a closed chain such that the entire arm-hand system is controlled as a hybrid parallel-serial system. The closed-chain formulation simplifies the task hierarchy of the entire arm-hand system. Third, we attach a virtual revolute joint to the thumb's tip with its rotation axis aligning with the thumb's contact normal The virtual joint will embody the thumb's functional redundancy. By selecting the thumb's joints including the added virtual revolute joint as active joints of the arm-thumb closed chain, the arm-thumb system's self-motion (i.e., the palm pose) and the thumb's functional redundancy can be directly controlled without using the null space projection. This provides a new possibility to control the self-motion of arm-hand systems. Simulation results will demonstrate the advantages and superior performance of the proposed approach for achieving precision grasp compared to other classical approaches.


Numerous geometric patterns identified in nature, art or science can be generated from recurrent sequences, such as for example certain fractals or Fermat's spiral. Fibonacci numbers in particular have been used to design search techniques, pseudo random-number generators and data structures. Complex Horadam sequences are a natural extension of Fibonacci sequence to complex numbers, involving four parameters (two initial values and two in the defining recursion), therefore successive sequence terms can be visualized in the complex plane. Here, a classification of the periodic orbits is proposed, based on divisibility relations between orders of generators (roots of the characteristic polynomial). Regular star polygons, bipartite graphs and multisymmetric patterns can be recovered for selected parameter values. Some applications are also suggested.


Historic monuments are a valuable asset and provide information on man's past activities. They also provide the engineering geologist with useful guidance on rates of weathering. Man has, at a known time, taken rocks from the ground and combined them with other building materials such as mortars and renders. All of these materials have been exposed to weathering, which is now well advanced in some stones or structures. The work of the conservation bodies records, inter alia, the present status of the weathering process. The photographs were all taken at Fountains Abbey, near Ripon in Yorkshire. The Abbey was founded in 1132 but has been without a roof or windows since the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Some remarkable contrasts in weathering are apparent. The severe weathering shown in Fig. 4 is probably related to winds coming in through the large open East window; conversely the render and limewash seen in Fig. 7 is still in very good condition after over 400 years of exposure, albeit in a less exposed location. The records of such a building provide documentation on rates of weathering in engineering time, and also provide insights into the effect of various processes on a range of different materials. The obligation to record historic monuments satisfies a number of criteria. The survey produced is known as an 'as found' record of the building, i.e. its appearance before works take place. This can be used as a record of archive standard and also as the base for detailing


Abstract Authoritarian governments are by their very nature unconstitutional. Such government thinks of themselves as above the law, and therefore sees no necessity for separation of powers or representative governance. Constitutional democracy on the other hand, is however based on the notion of people's sovereignty, which is to be exercised in limited manner by a representative government. Accordingly, judicial activism in this paper is employed to establish the theory of popular participation of courts in the decision making processes through settlement of disputes, interpretation or construction of laws, determination of propriety of legislations, legislative and execution actions within the doctrine of separation of powers for the purpose of enforcement of the limitations in government on constitutional ground. This paper thus examines the concept of judicial activism, its legitimacy and as a mechanism for providing checks and balances in the Nigerian government. The paper demonstrates a game theory of judicial legislative interaction within their function and contends that the notion of judicial supremacy does not hold water because the legislature always has the second chance of invalidating the judgment of courts exercising the legitimate powers. The paper concludes that judicial activism in these countries is a veritable tool in advancing the compliance with the rule of laws on the ground of the Constitution.


This is a cross-sectional survey in Jos metropolis of a sample of hospitals, clinics and other types of western drug dispensing facilities reported to have been patronised by patients seen at the sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics in Nigeria. Its purpose was to obtain a better picture of the burden of STDs in the towns and villages in the different cultural areas of Nigeria. The results show that all the centres, from patent medicine store keepers upwards, treated STDs. A few of the non-physician manned centres denied treating STD patients. The estimated annual crude incidence rate of STDs in this town, from this study, was 6.8%, similar to the 7.4% estimated for Maiduguri town in an earlier study. Only 0.7% of the cases (compared with 0.8% in Maiduguri) were seen at the specialised STD clinic in the town. The implications of findings for the effective control of STDs in Nigeria are discussed.


The performance of non-hierarchical circuit switched networks at moderate load conditions is improved when alternate routes are made available. However, alternate routes introduce instability under heavy and overloaded conditions, and under these load conditions network performance is found to deteriorate. To alleviate this problem, a control mechanism that reserves a traction of the capacity of each link for direct routed calls is used. In this paper, a traffic management scheme is developed to enhance the performance of a mesh-connected, circuit-switched satellite communication network. The network load is measured and the network is continually adapted by reconfiguring the map to suit the current traffic conditions. The reconfiguration of the network is done by properly allocating the capacity of each link and placing an optimal reservation on each link. The optimization is done by using a neural network-based optimization technique called mean field annealing. The simulation results show that this method of traffic management performs better than pure dynamic routing with a fixed configuration.<<ETX>>


Abstract Paul Ricoeur declares that "being-entangled in stories" is an inherent property of the human condition. He introduces the notion of narrative identity—a form of identity constructed on the basis of a self-constructed life-narrative, which becomes a source of meaning and self-understanding. This article wishes to present chosen instances of life writing whose subjects resist yielding a life-story and reject the notions of narrative and identity. In line with Adam Phillips's remarks regarding Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975), such works—which I refer to as fragmentary life writing—emerge out of a profound scepticism about any form of "fixing" oneself and confining the variety and randomness of experience to one of the available autobiographical plots. The primary example of the genre is Joe Brainard's I Remember (1975)—an inventory of approximately 1,500 memories conveyed in the form of radically short passages beginning with the words "I remember." Despite the qualified degree of unity provided by the fact that all the recollections come from the consciousness of a single person, the book does not arrange its content in any discernible order—chronological or thematic; instead, the reader is confronted with a life-in-fragments. Although individual passages could be part of a coming-of-age, a coming-out or a portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man narrative, Brainard is careful not to let any of them consolidate. An attempt at defining the characteristics of the proposed genre will be followed by an indication of more recent examples of fragmentary life writing and a reflection on its prospects for development.


In Iran, the history of the scientific study of flood loss is not so long and is limited to structural losses. The calculation of agricultural losses due to flood are more difficult to assess, due to its dependence on plant type, plant's strength during flood period, and the coincidence of the flood occurrence with the plant growing stages. In this article, the required functions for determining the expected loss with respect to the most important hydraulic parameters and the plant's growing stages are presented for rice. In the case study the two factors of loss percent per growing stage (β) and the probability of the coincidence of flood occurrence with different growing stages (α) were used to calculate the expected loss. The CCHE was used as the hydraulic model and all calculations were performed in GIS environment. Currently for any flood prone area, the flood loss is considered as 100%. While the outcomes of this research illustrates that flooding may even cause no loss and one may find points in the flood prone area where the loss is zero. The presented procedure can be used as a basis for determining the required criteria for flood risk management and developing a comprehensive insurance program against flood.


The main focus of this research has been to investigate the effectiveness of optimal single and multiple Tuned Mass Dampers (TMDs) under different ground motions as well as to develop a procedure for designing TMD and MTMDs to be effective under multiple records. To determine the parameters of TMD and MTMDs under multiple records various scenarios have been suggested and their efficiency has been assessed. For numerical simulations, a ten-story linear shear building frame subjected to 12 real earthquakes as well as a filtered white noise record and optimum parameters of TMDs and MTMDs have been determined by solving an optimization problem using genetic algorithm (GA). The results show that when designing optimal TMD and MTMD under a specific ground motion, using the optimization procedure leads to achieve the best performance while the characteristics of the design earthquake strongly affects the performance of TMDs. Furthermore, it has been found that TMDs and MTMDs designed using only one earthquake as the design record have not worked successfully under multiple ground motions. For determining the parameters of TMDs to be effective under multiple records it has been suggested to use the mean of optimal TMDs parameters obtained using each of the design records. Received: 2 September 2017; Accepted 20 December 2017


The paper shows the design of an innovative magneto-rheological fluid brake (MRF brake). The integral brake torque from a conventional MRF brake is not quite large since it commonly adopts a single ring-type electromagnetic pole to produce magnetic flux to change the MRF viscosity. This presented innovative MRF brake features with multiple electromagnetic poles to significantly increase the active chaining areas for MRF, and then increase the brake torque. Because of the special arrangements of pole numbers and directions of magnetic flux for these poles, the active chaining areas of MR fluid and brake force are maximized. The simulation results confirmed the feasibility and ability of this innovative MRF brake. Performance comparison shows that the innovative MRF brake has 118% more torque output than a commercial one.


GeSn alloys with Sn contents of 8.4 % and 10.7 % are grown pseudomorphically on Ge buffers on Si (001) substrates. The alloys as-grown are compressively strained, and therefore indirect bandgap. Undercut GeSn on Ge microdisk structures are fabricated and strained by silicon nitride stressor layers, which leads to tensile strain in the alloys, and direct bandgap photoluminescence in the 3-5 µm gas sensing window of the electromagnetic spectrum. The use of pseudomorphic layers and external stress mitigates the need for plastic deformation to obtain direct bandgap alloys. It is demonstrated, that the optically pumped light emission overlaps with the methane absorption lines, suggesting that GeSn alloys are well suited for mid-infrared integrated gas sensors on Si chips.


This cross-national research is a comparative study of Muslim headteachers working in state schools in England and Pakistan. The primary focus of this research is to explore the role of religion in Muslim headteachers' professional practice; how it influences their leadership actions, the principles underlying these actions and the different sources from which the headteachers seek guidance while leading their schools. Bearing in mind the importance of context, this research considers various factors operating at the micro (personal), meso (institutional) and macro (national) levels and which influence the way Muslim headteachers in both countries perceive religion in their leadership role. Within the multi-level contextual framework, this thesis focuses on those factors which are particularly related to the Muslim headteachers' religion and to the place of religion in the public spheres of England and Pakistan.

The main participants of this research were Muslim headteachers selected from ten state-maintained schools (primary and secondary); five each in England and Pakistan. A qualitative approach was adopted using semi-structured interviews with the Muslim headteachers and focus group interviews with pupils and teachers in their schools. The interviews from Muslim headteachers provided insight into the influence of religion on their leadership principles and actions. The focus groups elicited the perceptions of teachers and pupils of their experiences of the headteachers' religion in a leadership role.

Key findings of the research have revealed that while the need to act professionally in a state school is somewhat similar between Muslim headteachers in both countries, the religion of the headteachers plays out very differently in the two countries. In England, the Muslim headteachers expressed their religion in a covert way although they acknowledged that religion was at the base of most of their leadership principles. The language/discourse of leadership principles used by these headteachers was mostly secular and reflected their consciousness of the need to conform to professional expectations as well as to the multi-religious and multi-cultural environment in the selected schools. In Pakistan, the Muslim headteachers viewed religion as the primary source of guidance for their personal as well as professional actions. Although the language/discourse of the leadership principles used by these headteachers was quite similar to their counterparts in England, they emphasised the religious foundation of their principles and guidance.

By demonstrating the impact of (a) the individual contexts of the schools and (b) the place of religion in the national context on the different ways in which the religion of Muslim headteachers is played out in their leadership, this research has made an original contribution to knowledge in England and Pakistan. Considering the historical weakening of the public expression of religion in England, this study on Islam in education and educational leadership has the potential of offering insights into how a minority religion in a Christian-majority country can be considered influential in the face of growing apprehensions about religion in general and Islam in particular. In Pakistan, while acknowledging the dominance of Islam in the public sphere, the findings of this research can contribute to wider debates about the role of Islam in education and its possible implications on issues pertaining to religious minority students.


As virtual 3D environments become more common in education, it is important to pay attention to and learn from the experiences that take place during the development of these environments. A team made up of graduate, undergraduate, and recently graduated students, took a conglomeration of open- source libraries and glued them together to create 3D simulation called HEAT (Hazard Emergency and Accident Training). The development team has gone through many iterations during the development of HEAT, while learning what it takes to build a fully functional simulation and 3D engine. We discuss the experiences and some of the processes the development team has gone through to create HEAT, the 3D engine, and the separation of the two for a more general use for other simulations. We discuss some of the benefits and challenges recognized during this experience.


The basis of this study is the serviceability requirement which arouse long after the structural erection has been completed. Beams with web openings can be competitive in such cases, even though more alternatives to solid web beams such as stub girders, trusses etc. are available and height limitation is common problem faced by designers in multistoried buildings due to economic requirements and aesthetical considerations. Substantial spaces are normally required to enable the passage for large pipes and ducts beneath steel beams which leads to uneconomic floor heights. Though web openings could lead to a significant decrease in beam's load carrying capacity depending on the adopted openings shape, size and location but can also be very helpful and important from the point of economy. So this study is concerned with the influence of the web opening on the strength of compressive elements and web crippling strength of steel sections. And the parametric analysis to be focused on size and location of opening. The paper summarizes the relevant study of provisions as given in the corresponding design standard and software based finite element analysis carried out by different authors and review the problem to arrive at meaningful conclusion for the study. And suggestion regarding the scope of further work.


As improvements in processor performance continue to far outpace improvements in storage performance, I/O is increasingly the bottleneck in computer systems, especially in large database systems that manage huge amoungs of data. The key to achieving good I/O performance is to thoroughly understand its characteristics. In this article we present a comprehensive analysis of the logical I/O reference behavior of the peak productiondatabase workloads from ten of the world's largest corporations. In particular, we focus on how these workloads respond to different techniques for caching, prefetching, and write buffering. Our findings include several broadly applicable rules of thumb that describe how effective the various I/O optimization techniques are for the production workloads. For instance, our results indicate that the buffer pool miss ratio tends to be related to the ratio of buffer pool size to data size by an inverse square root rule. A similar fourth root rule relates the write miss ratio and the ration of buffer pool size to data size.
In addition, we characterize the reference characteristics of workloads similar to the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) benchmarks C (TPC-C) and D(TPC-D), which are de facto standard performance measures for online transaction processing (OLTP) systems and decision support systems (DSS), respectively. Since benchmarks such as TPC-C and TPC-D can only be used effectively if their strengths and limitations are understood, a major focus of our analysis is to identify aspects of the benchmarks that stress the system differently than the production workloads. We discover that for the most part, the reference behavior of TPC-C and TPC-D fall within the range of behavior exhibited by the production workloads. However, there are some noteworthy exceptions that affect well-known I/O optimization techniques such as caching (LRU is further from the optimal for TPC-C, while there is little sharing of pages between transactions for TPC-D), prefetching (TPC-C exhibits no significant sequentiality), and write buffering (write buffering is lees effective for the TPC benchmarks). While the two TPC benchmarks generally complement one another in reflecting the characteristics of the production workloads, there remain aspects of the real workloads that are not represented by either of the benchmarks.


Ethnographic research has investigated academic institutions as sites where meaning making can be contested, collaborative and lead to transformation in social relationships. Such perspectives contrast with dominant deficit discourses where academic literacy has been regarded as a discrete set of neutral skills to be imparted to students. Academic literacies in the UK grew out of empirical research influenced by the New Literacy Studies, in contrast to the emphasis on literary theory and textual analysis in the US. An ideological commitment to transforming unequal power relations distinguishes academic literacies from related fields such as English for Academic Purposes. Theory and methodology in academic literacies has responded to the changes influencing knowledge construction in educational institutions, particularly the spread of marketisation, globalisation and electronic communication. The challenge for future researchers will be to address the perceived methodological limitations of small-scale ethnographic studies in terms of policy influence, to diversify from Western university contexts and to find ways of conceptualising 'academic' to take account of knowledge construction outside formal institutions


Background: There is a need to understand the concepts especially like court room procedures among the
medical students as the practical experience is encountered in many medico legal cases in future as doctors.
Creating an educational instructive video for promotion of understanding the concepts of forensic medicine
among all budding doctors in their curriculum.
Aim and Objectives: To study the utility and assess of role play using videos in improving the knowledge
and attitude of students regarding courtroom procedures in an Indian court.
Methodology: A descriptive questionnaire based study survey was done after obtaining informed consent
from students. The pretest and posttest were randomized by giving a number to the students and also to avoid
inter participation bias. Validation of questionnaire was then done. The video on court room procedure
was done and validated with the help of forensic experts and lawyer colleagues. Statistical and comparison
analysis was done.
Results: The present study about 222 second year medical students were assessed, the study showed gender
and varied age distribution between 18 to 23 years. The study showed various aspects of knowledge and
attitude. In knowledge component, some of the questions posed required a definitive positive or negative
response. In the knowledge component, out of the total 28 questions posed, 22 questions showed highly
significant changes [p < 0.5 significance] in the questionnaire results. In the attitude component about how a doctor behaves inside the court room, of the total 16 questions posed, 10 questions showed highly significant changes[ p< 0.5 significance] in the questionnaire results.The study also showed various responses regarding
the video and positively revealed that such an educational tool is needed and would definitely make a change in curriculum.


The clinical research programme with granisetron has involved a total of 1,229 patients, 982 receiving granisetron, 233 receiving currently available combination regimens and 14 receiving placebo. The true efficacy of granisetron was evaluated in a placebo-controlled trial with granisetron given prophylactically and being available as rescue medication in the placebo group. Granisetron produced a complete anti-emetic response in 92.9% of patients and was effective as intervention for the emesis experienced by the patients in the placebo group. Dose-finding studies have confirmed the wide therapeutic margin with four-fold increases in dose producing comparable results. In patients receiving high-dose cisplatin chemotherapy, two out of every three patients responded to a single prophylactic dose; which demonstrates granisetron's long duration of action (greater than 24 h). Additional granisetron also demonstrated benefit if the initial dose failed or delayed-onset emesis occurred. These results are also seen with other emetogenic regimens. Granisetron produces a greater degree of control than the anti-emetic combinations of metoclopramide/dexamethasone or dexamethasone/chlorpromazine. The side-effect profile in volunteers was favourable. The profile in patients is more difficult to define due to the range of potent drugs which cancer chemotherapy patients receive. Headache and constipation were the most common effects with granisetron, although the former was treatable with simple analgesics and the latter thought to be related to higher doses and subsided spontaneously. The future is promising, with the possible introduction of a fixed 3 mg i.v. dose administered over 5 min followed by oral maintenance therapy if and when required.


Stochastic extensions of the Schr¨odinger equation have attracted attention recently as plausible models for state reduction in quantum mechanics. Here we formulate a general approach to stochastic Schr¨odinger dynamics in the case of a nonlinear state space of the type proposed by Kibble. We derive a number of new identities for observables in the nonlinear theory, and establish general criteria on the curvature of the state space sufficient to ensure collapse of the wave function.


In contrast to animals, where polyamine (PA) catabolism efficiently converts spermine (Spm) to putrescine (Put), plants have been considered to possess a PA catabolic pathway producing 1,3-diaminopropane, D-pyrroline, the corresponding aldehyde, and hydrogen peroxide but unable to back-convert Spm to Put. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) genome contains at least five putative PA oxidase (PAO) members with yet-unknown localization and physiological role(s). AtPAO1 was recently identified as an enzyme similar to the mammalian Spm oxidase, which converts Spm to spermidine (Spd). In this work, we have performed in silico analysis of the five Arabidopsis genes and have identified PAO3 (AtPAO3) as a nontypical PAO, in terms of homology, compared to other known PAOs. We have expressed the gene AtPAO3 and have purified a protein corresponding to it using the inducible heterologous expression system of Escherichia coli. AtPAO3 catalyzed the sequential conversion/ oxidation of Spm to Spd, and of Spd to Put, thus exhibiting functional homology to the mammalian PAOs. The best substrate for this pathway was Spd, whereas the N-acetyl-derivatives of Spm and Spd were oxidized less efficiently. On the other hand, no activity was detected when diamines (agmatine, cadaverine, and Put) were used as substrates. Moreover, although AtPAO3 does not exhibit significant similarity to the other known PAOs, it is efficiently inhibited by guazatine, a potent PAO inhibitor. AtPAO3 contains a peroxisomal targeting motif at the C terminus, and it targets green fluorescence protein to peroxisomes when fused at the N terminus but not at the C terminus. These results reveal that AtPAO3 is a peroxisomal protein and that the C terminus of the protein contains the sorting information. The overall data reinforce the view that plants and mammals possess a similar PA oxidation system, concerning both the subcellular localization and the mode of its action.


Machine learning is a scientific computing discipline to automatically learn to recognize complex patterns and make intelligent decisions based on the set of observed examples (training data). Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning method used for classification. An SVM kernel based algorithm builds a model for transforming a low dimension feature space into high dimension feature space to find the maximum margin between the classes. In the field of geospatial data processing, there is a high degree of interest to find an optimal image classifier technique. Many image classification methods such as maximum likelihood, K-Nearest are being used for determining crop patterns, land use and mining other useful geospatial information. But SVM is now considered to be one of the powerful kernel based classifier that can be adopted for resolving classification problems. The objective of the study is to use SVM technique for classifying multi spectral satellite image dataset and compare the overall accuracy with the conventional image classification method. LISS-3 and AWIFS sensors data from Resourcesat-1, Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) platform were used for this analysis. In this study, some of the open source tools were used to find out whether SVM can be a potential classification technique for high performance satellite image classification.


Although Mr. Conrad did not disprove our theoretical analysis in any mariner or offer any new experimental evidence in the range of Reynolds numbers pertinent to the pulmonary alveolar blood flow problem, he did propose a new criterion for flutter. He based his criterion on the belief that the flow in a Starling resistor can be exactly represented by a one-dimensional analogue with a van der Pol oscillator. I agree that the relaxation-oscillation analysis by van der Pol is most suggestive to biological problems. The original paper by van der Pol (Arch Neurol Physiol LTiom Anim 14:418-443, 1929) was written as a simulation of the beating of the heart and as a tool for analyzing the electrocardiogram: an oscillating Starling mechanism indeed looks like a van der Pol oscillator. Thinking of the lung as a collection of van der Pol oscillators suggests many facets for exploration and leads to strong heuristic reasoning. But to stop at a heuristic argument is to stop progress; one must proceed beyond it. Although a certain analogue may be convincing, its reverse may not be true: a Starling resistor is not exactly a van der Pol oscillator, a heart is not exactly a combination of van der Pol oscillators. A relaxation oscillation may be identified as flutter, but all flutter is not relaxation oscillation. In the aeronautical, civil, and mechanical engineering fields, there are numerous examples of flutter which have nothing to do with relaxation oscillation. In other words, an analogue needs to be proven, not merely argued at.


The urban forest is a valuable ecosystem service provider that is garnering increasing attention in environmental research and municipal planning agendas. However, because of its location in heavily built-up and densely-settled environments, the urban forest is vulnerable. The purpose of this dissertation is to conceptualize, assess, and analyze urban forest ecosystems and their vulnerability at multiple spatial and temporal scales. An urban forest ecosystem classification framework that integrates biophysical, built, and human components is developed. Subsequent classification of ecosystems at the neighbourhood scale reveals the spatial arrangement of several
social-ecological interactions. Such information is valuable to ecosystem-based decision support while also informing future vulnerability research. The investigation of ecosystem vulnerability began with the development of a theory-based conceptual framework. Urban forest vulnerability is defined as the likelihood of decline in ecosystem service supply and its associated benefits for human populations, urban infrastructure, and biodiversity. It is comprised of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, which describe the built environment and associated stressors, urban forest structure, and the human population, respectively. This framework is applied using empirical field research in Toronto, Canada to explore the processes of vulnerability and their influence on ecological change. Results indicate that there are several significant predictors of urban forest decline and mortality, and emphasize the importance of applying diverse metrics to describe the built environment and urban forest structure at fine spatial scales. Vulnerability assessment and analysis at much broader spatial and temporal scales, using a spatially-explicit assessment approach and ecological modelling of alternative management and disturbance scenarios, is further investigated. This latter research emphasizes the importance of aligning scales of management with ecosystem function and the long-term influence of management intervention on ecological conditions. The multiple scales of investigation and methodological approaches developed in this study provide complementary opportunities to synthesize and apply existing theory in novel settings while also generating new theories pertaining to the processes of urban ecosystem change and decline. The intention of this study is to contribute to the
understanding of urban forest ecosystems and their vulnerability, while also providing practical knowledge and tools for the sustainable management of this resource.


The US' shale gas revolution, a spectacular increase in natural gas extraction from previously unconventional sources, has led to considerable lower gas prices in North America. This study focusses on consequences of the shale gas revolution on state stability of traditional oil and gas exporting countries in the vicinity of the EU. For this purpose, we developed two separate SD models. The first model was used for assessing the impact of shale gas and energy decoupling on oil and gas price developments. We selected some of these price developments as input scenarios for a second SD model. This SD model was used for assessing the impact of energy price scenarios on countries' economic development, and via the development of unemployment and purchasing power, on state stability. The conclusion of this study was that while shale gas developments may be seen as a part of the standard energy hog-cycle, this may lead to pressure on oil prices, which may cause instability in traditional oil and gas producing countries in the neighbourhood of the EU. Further, the effects of energy decoupling may have an even larger effect on putting energy prices under pressure, thus leading to social unrest.


Nitrogen-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond/hydrogenated amorphous-carbon (UNCD/a-C:H) composite films, grown on Si substrates by the coaxial arc plasma gun, were investigated using temperature-dependent impedance spectroscopy. The measurements were carried out in frequency and temperature ranges of 100 Hz–2 MHz and 300–400 K, respectively. Structurally, the nitrogen incorporation into the deposited films as well as sp2/sp3 ratio was studied by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), measured with synchrotron radiation. The results of temperature-dependent electrical conductance characterization of the examined films revealed that the heterogeneous structure possesses a low-frequency conduction mechanism with an activation energy of 46 meV. This possibly originated from charge carriers hopping in the deposited composite. Furthermore, the results manifested a relaxation process, with an activation energy of 41 meV, originated from space charges in grain boundaries of the films. Cole-Cole plots of measured and fitted impedance spectra exhibited equivalent resistance due to grain boundaries that are much smaller than that related to UNCD grains. This is owing to the nitrogen incorporated in the composite film inside the grain boundaries instead of the grains. This increases the concentration of charge carriers within the grain boundaries and therefore enhances their conductivity. Moreover, the deduced capacitance corresponding to grain boundaries was larger than that originated from the UNCD grains. This is due to the difference between the grain-size and grain-boundary width of the UNCD/a-C:H composite.


Economists long have argued that the severe sex imbalance that exists in many developing countries is caused by underlying economic conditions. This paper uses plausibly exogenous increases in sex-specific agricultural income caused by post-Mao reforms in China to estimate the effects of total income and sex-specific income on sex ratios of surviving children. The results show that increasing income alone has no effect on sex ratios. In contrast, increasing female income, holding male income constant, increases survival rates for girls; increasing male income, holding female income constant, decreases survival rates for girls. Moreover, increasing the mother's income increases educational attainment for all children, while increasing the father's income decreases educational attainment for girls and has no effect on boys' educational attainment.


Web service is a new service-oriented computing paradigm which poses the unique security challenges due to its inherent heterogeneity, multi-domain characteristic and highly dynamic nature. A key challenge in Web services security is the design of effective access control schemes. However, most current access control systems base authorization decisions on subject?s identity. Administrative scalability and control granularity are serious problems in those systems, and they are not fit for Web services environment. So an attribute-based access control model (WS-ABAC) is presented to address these issues in this paper. WS-ABAC grants access to services based on attributes of the related entities, and uses automated trust negotiation mechanism to address the disclosure issue of the sensitive attributes. It can provide administratively scalable alternative to identity-based authorization methods and provide fine-grained access control for Web services. Moreover, it also can protect user?s privacy.


The interaction ways made available by the evolution of the human-computer interfaces, led to novel Human-to-Human Interaction (HHI) modes, enabling people to cooperate for almost any task any time and any where. HHI nowadays is largely indirect and mediated by a wide variety of technologies and devices. This new and exciting field of design originates from the convergence of a few well-established research fields within the HCI area, such as traditional Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), Tangible User Interfaces (TUI), Touchless Gesture User Interface (TGUI), Voice User Interfaces (VUI), and Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI). We analyze and describe the evolution of the HCI in those fields, and how it paved the way for novel current and upcoming human-to human interaction ways.


The study aims to evaluate the implementation of the Rural Insurance Premium Subsidy Program, created by the Decree number 5121/2004 and managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (Brazil). With the support of documented research and interviews with leaders of the Program, this evaluation presents the background of its creation, main features, implementation and results achieved. After, the results of the goals of the Program proposed by the public policy and in regard of the criteria of sufficiency of resources, management tools and social participation were evaluated. The analysis points to a partial efficiency of the Program. The interest in joining the Program still prevails, demonstrating its need and importance. It is important, however, to step up at some points, as the effective exercise of the role of the Interministerial Steering Committee of the Rural Insurance and assurance of budgetary resources when it is necessary.


The axioms of utility theory are restated in terms of health outcomes, and some additional assumptions, consistent with the assumptions implicit in health status index models, are adduced to develop a consistent theory of the utility of health states. On the basis of the axioms and specific assumptions, techniques for measuring the health utility functions of individuals are described, and it is shown how these axioms and assumptions may be used to determine the utility to the individual of health programs that will affect him in various ways.


Background and Aim: Performance measurement is one of the important issues in management. In the health sector, evaluation of productivity; using resources and facilities, of hospitals is inevitable. This study was aimed to determine the related factors of effectiveness of Performance Measurement System (PMS) in teaching hospitals and to provide a model to optimize and predict the effectiveness. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, which was done in the first 8 months of 2010, 32 teaching hospitals of Tehran were selected by means of census method and 60 questionnaires were sent. Independent variables including design, implementation and applications and their relation with effectiveness as dependent variable were investigated. Data were analyzed by SPSS (version 18) using descriptive statistic tests, Pearson correlation and linear regression at the significant level of P<0.05. Results: The models of quality management, international organization for standardization (ISO) and balance scored card were the models with the highest usage in performance management. The studied independent variables were moderately considered. Significant relationships were observed between the components and the effectiveness. Linear regression test indicated the importance of strategy, users and the applications of performance measurement systems. Conclusion: The design and application are two basic steps in effectiveness of the PMS. Moreover, strategic planning, the users and the manner of using the results, have role in effectiveness of PMS.


The deep ocean below 200 m water depth is the least observed, but largest habitat on our planet by volume and area. Over 150 years of exploration has revealed that this dynamic system provides critical climate regulation, houses a wealth of energy, mineral, and biological resources, and represents a vast repository of biological diversity. A long history of deep-ocean exploration and observation led to the initial concept for the Deep-Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS), under the auspices of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). Here we discuss the scientific need for globally integrated deep-ocean observing, its status, and the key scientific questions and societal mandates driving observing requirements over the next decade. We consider the Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) needed to address deep-ocean challenges within the physical, biogeochemical, and biological/ecosystem sciences according to the Framework for Ocean Observing (FOO), and map these onto scientific questions. Opportunities for new and expanded synergies among deep-ocean stakeholders are discussed, including academic-industry partnerships with the oil and gas, mining, cable and fishing industries, the ocean exploration and mapping community, and biodiversity conservation initiatives. Future deep-ocean observing will benefit from the greater integration across traditional disciplines and sectors, achieved through demonstration projects and facilitated reuse and repurposing of existing deep-sea data efforts. We highlight examples of existing and emerging deep-sea methods and technologies, noting key challenges associated with data volume, preservation, standardization, and accessibility. Emerging technologies relevant to deep-ocean sustainability and the blue economy include novel genomics approaches, imaging technologies, and ultra-deep hydrographic measurements. Capacity building will be necessary to integrate capabilities into programs and projects at a global scale. Progress can be facilitated by Open Science and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) data principles and converge on agreed to data standards, practices, vocabularies, and registries. We envision expansion of the deep-ocean observing community to embrace the participation of academia, industry, NGOs, national governments, international governmental organizations, and the public at large in order to unlock critical knowledge contained in the deep ocean over coming decades, and to realize the mutual benefits of thoughtful deep-ocean observing for all elements of a sustainable ocean.


Over the centuries all of the great philosophers made psychology central to understanding social life. Indeed, the ancient Greeks thought it impossible to conceive of political life without insight into the human soul. Yet insufficient professional legitimization attaches to the central importance of modern depth psychology in understanding politics. Cultural Foundations of Political Psychology explores the linkages between psychology and politics, focusing on how rival conceptions of the good life and unspoken moral purposes in the social sciences have led to sectarian intolerance. Roazen has always approached the history of psychoanalysis with the conviction that ethical issues are implicit in every clinical encounter. Thus, his opening chapter on Erich Fromm's exclusion from the International Psychoanalytic Association touches on a host of political matters, including collaboration as opposed to resistance to Nazi tyranny. Roazen also brings a public/private perspective to such well-known episodes as the Hiss/Chambers case, the circumstances of Virginia Woolf's madness and suicide, and the matter of CIA funding of the monthly Encounter. He deals with the reaction to psychoanalysis on the part of three major philosophers - Althusser, Wittgenstein, and Buber - and looks at the link between psychology and politics in the work of such political theorists as Machiavelli, Rousseau, Burke, Tocqueville, Berlin, and Arendt. A chapter grappling with Vietnam and the Cold War illustrates how political psychology should be concerned with questions of an ethical or "ought" character. In examining the social and psychological bases for political theorizing, Roazen shows how both psychology and politics must change and redefine their methodologies as a result of their interaction. Roazen concludes with a chapter on how political psychology must deal with issues posed by changing conceptions of femininity. This volume will be of interest to those interested in the intersection of psychology and politics.


We have studied the chromatin organization of three promoters of the alc regulon of Aspergillus nidulans. No positioned nucleosomes are seen in the aldA (aldehyde dehydrogenase) promoter under any physiological condition tested by us. In the alcA (alcohol dehydrogenase I) and alcR (coding for the pathway‐specific transcription factor) promoters, a pattern of positioned nucleosomes is seen under non‐induced and non‐induced repressed conditions. While each of these promoters shows a specific pattern of chromatin restructuring, in both cases induction results in loss of nucleosome positioning. Glucose repression in the presence of inducer results in a specific pattern of partial positioning in the alcA and alcR promoters. Loss of nucleosome positioning depends absolutely on the AlcR protein and it is very unlikely to be a passive result of the induction of transcription. In an alcR loss‐of‐function background and in strains carrying mutations of the respective AlcR binding sites of the alcA and alcR promoters, nucleosomes are fully positioned under all growth conditions. Analysis of mutant AlcR proteins establishes that all domains needed for transcriptional activation and chromatin restructuring are included within the first 241 residues. The results suggest a two‐step process, one step resulting in chromatin restructuring, a second one in transcriptional activation. Partial positioning upon glucose repression shows a specific pattern that depends on the CreA global repressor. An alcR loss‐of‐function mutation is epistatic to a creA loss‐of‐function mutation, showing that AlcR does not act by negating a nucleosome positioning activity of CreA.


We provide new tools for worst-case performance analysis of the gradient (or steepest descent) method of Cauchy for smooth strongly convex functions, and Newton's method for self-concordant functions. The analysis uses semidefinite programming performance estimation, as pioneered by Drori en Teboulle [Mathematical Programming, 145(1-2):451--482, 2014], and extends recent performance estimation results for the method of Cauchy by the authors [Optimization Letters, to appear]. To illustrate the applicability of the tools, we sketch how to give a rigorous worst-case complexity analysis of a recent interior point method by Abernethy and Hazan [arXiv 1507.02528, 2015]. The algorithm of Abernethy and Hazan has sparked much recent interest, since it demonstrates the formal equivalence between an interior point method and a simulated annealing algorithm for convex optimization, but several details of the worst-case analysis are omitted in their paper.


Torday JS, Rehan VK. Lung evolution as a cipher for physiology. Physiol Genomics 38: 1–6, 2009. First published April 14, 2009; doi:10.1152/physiolgenomics.90411.2008.—In the postgenomic era, we need an algorithm to readily translate genes into physiologic principles. The failure to advance biomedicine is due to the false hope raised in the wake of the Human Genome Project (HGP) by the promise of systems biology as a ready means of reconstructing physiology from genes. like the atom in physics, the cell, not the gene, is the smallest completely functional unit of biology. Trying to reassemble gene regulatory networks without accounting for this fundamental feature of evolution will result in a genomic atlas, but not an algorithm for functional genomics. For example, the evolution of the lung can be "deconvoluted" by applying cell-cell communication mechanisms to all aspects of lung biology development, homeostasis, and regeneration/repair. Gene regulatory networks common to these processes predict ontogeny, phylogeny, and the disease-related consequences of failed signaling. This algorithm elucidates characteristics of vertebrate physiology as a cascade of emergent and contingent cellular adaptational responses. By reducing complex physiological traits to gene regulatory networks and arranging them hierarchically in a self-organizing map, like the periodic table of elements in physics, the first principles of physiology will emerge.


In the current work, we introduce Applab as a pedagogical framework and a transdisciplinary design approach to innovate HCI education. Students do not work for a client, but work together with urban stakeholders to better frame the problem in order to deal with societal challenges. In this way, Applab embraces design thinking as an approach to leverage a cross-disciplinary collaboration between research, government, industry, and HCI and design education. Results are described as well as lessons learnt. Consequently, the elaborate Applab model is discussed. Interestingly, the corresponding transdisciplinary design approach enabled a successful implementation of Applab into HCI education. Students learnt a lot, as did the urban stakeholders. The designed artefacts greatly leveraged their mind-shifting and meaningful learning experiences.


Native mucus is polymer-based soft-matter material of paramount biological importance. How non-Gaussian and non-ergodic is the diffusive spreading of pathogens in mucus? We study the passive, thermally driven motion of micron-sized tracers in hydrogels of mucins, the main polymeric component of mucus. We report the results of the Bayesian analysis for ranking several diffusion models for a set of tracer trajectories [C. E. Wagner et al., Biomacromolecules, 2017, 18, 3654]. The models with "diffusing diffusivity", fractional and standard Brownian motion are used. The likelihood functions and evidences of each model are computed, ranking the significance of each model for individual traces. We find that viscoelastic anomalous diffusion is often most probable, followed by Brownian motion, while the model with a diffusing diffusion coefficient is only realised rarely. Our analysis also clarifies the distribution of time-averaged displacements, correlations of scaling exponents and diffusion coefficients, and the degree of non-Gaussianity of displacements at varying pH levels. Weak ergodicity breaking is also quantified. We conclude that-consistent with the original study-diffusion of tracers in the mucin gels is most non-Gaussian and non-ergodic at low pH that corresponds to the most heterogeneous networks. Using the Bayesian approach with the nested-sampling algorithm, together with the quantitative analysis of multiple statistical measures, we report new insights into possible physical mechanisms of diffusion in mucin gels.


Objectives Old age refers to years near or passed the middle age and therefore, near to the end of life cycle. Old-aged people have limited reviving capability and are more at risk of catching diseases, syndromes, and ailments. Falling is one of the most common problems in the elderly that occur due to their inability to maintain balance. This study aimed to examine the effect of aerobic exercises on static and dynamic balance in healthy elderly inactive men. Methods & Materials This quasi-experimental research was done in older people living in a nursing home in Qazvin, Iran. The study population included 200 elderly men (65-75 years old); of them, 26 healthy, inactive men were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental (13 subjects) and control (13 subjects) groups. The experimental group participated in selected exercise programs for 8 weeks. We used personal information questionnaire to check the inclusion criteria that comprised independency in doing daily chores, lack of problems in vision or fall during the last year, and not having joints dislocation, chronic arthritis or vertigo. Stork balance test and Timed Up and Go test were used to measure the static and dynamic balance of subjects before the initiation and after the termination of the program. The statistical analyses were done by paired and independent t-tests. Results The results of independent t-test did not indicate any significant differences between 2 groups with regard to age, height, and weight (P>0.05). Homogeneity was observed in the 2 groups with respect to individual features affecting balance and walking. After performing the aerobic exercise program, the dynamic balance in the experimental group increased significantly (P<0.001). In the dynamic balance test, the lower mean time supported the better execution of the test, and significant changes were observed in the experimental group. The comparison of the two groups indicated the positive effect of aerobic exercise on the dynamic balance of healthy older people; however, no significant change was seen in static balance (P=0.36). Since we used Stork test for determining static balance, the higher mean time supported the positive effect but with no significant change in the static balance of experimental group after 8 weeks. We found that different factors like lower extremity muscles such as soleus, gastrocnemius, and hamstring have some roles in keeping static balance, and as the exercise protocol was related to aerobic exercise (walking and jogging), it did not reinforce these muscles. Conclusion Our results showed that regular aerobic exercise improves dynamic balance in elderly men. We also found that jogging and walking improved dynamic balance. The improvement in balance may be due to the increase in nervous compatibility (due to exercise); increase in fitness, strength, and motion domain; improvement in aerobic status, response time and mental status; improvement in neuromuscular control, including a decrease in changing movement units; and improvement in simultaneous movement units. Regular aerobic activities are recommended as a suitable training method for improv ing balance. A B S T R A C T


You and I would rather read that volume, (Taken to his beating bosom by it) Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas-- Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre-- Seen by us and all the world in circle. (1) "One Word More" laments the loss of the hundred love sonnets that Raphael had written to his mistress, Margherita, and cherishes the shared knowledge of this historical detail--this small secret from Filippo Baldinucci--as the quality that distinguishes Elizabeth's and Robert's veneration of the painter from that of the encircling world. The awareness of the loss rather than the loss itself is what matters most, since if the sonnets had survived, then, no doubt, the world would have closed in on them too, and because the regret defers the question of whether Raphael's poetry could really be more interesting than his painting. But the importance of losses and discoveries, of the knowledge of such things to the cognoscenti, and of the sharing of arcana with a readership, typified Robert Browning's response to Italian Renaissance art. Because he valued the sense of discovering the "life" behind the work, often in striking or improbable biographical details, and then tended to posit such life as the origin and key to the painting, his enthusiasm has sometimes been dismissed as inexpert or unsophisticated. (2) Relying on Vasari's Lives and Baldinucci's Notizie has obvious limitations, but the centrality of biography tailored with Browning's perception of a new emphasis upon "man" as subject in the paintings themselves. Browning's fascination for the so-called "primitives" ("Where you style them, you of the little wit, / Old Master This and Early the Other" "[Old Pictures in Florence," 8:60-61]), whom he began to collect, after a fashion, in Italy, is still essentially a poet's interest in what "One Word More" calls an "art alien to the artist's"(8.69). If his particular interest in and championing of Italian art of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, "the season/Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy," ("Old Pictures in Florence," XXLII.177-178) therefore attests to what Walter Pater would describe as the "partial alienation from its own limitations" whereby one art form would be "observed to pass into the condition of some other art," Browning's poems about painting may have something in common with other "primitivist" or "revivalist" modes of thinking, and most obviously with early Pre-Raphaelitism. (3) The primitivist revival had its roots in German Romanticism in the last part of the eighteenth century, but its purest expression came perhaps in the early years of the nineteenth century from the Nazarene community in the monastery of San Isidoro, in Rome. Valuing what they perceived to be the closer spiritual connection to an ascetic Christianity in the early Italian painters, the Nazarene group emphasized the devotional employment of images and celebrated the simplicity and clarity of iconographical traditions--all of which implied a sympathetic relationship to Catholicism. "Purity," of course, is always in one way or another the issue, and in the first years of the Pre- Raphaelite movement, at least as it was later to be memorialized by William Holman Hunt, a similar reverence for what Hunt described as the "naive traits of frank expression and unaffected grace" in early Italian art, had inspired the Brotherhood to pick its quarrel with the Victorian art establishment. (4) Browning, like many others, was influenced by Alexis Francois Rio's impassioned revaluation of Catholic art in De la poesie chretienne, first published in 1835 and later added to as De l'art chretien (1861-67), as well as by the art history of his friend Anna Jameson, who transmitted Rio's ideas to an English audience and made them more palatable to Protestant sensibility, and he was also familiar with Francis Palgrave's Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Northern Italy (1842), which, again, set about re-evaluating early Italian painting. …