In this paper, we develop the notion of media ambivalence to account for such seemingly unrelated practices as content filtering, screen-time limitation and social media rejection. We propose that as compared to resistances to dedicated communication technologies with an on/off button, resistances in a neoliberal age of ubiquitous, convergent media are temporary and local. Analyzing interviews with smartphone resisters, we discuss their critique of smartphone culture; their investment in their feature phones and their pride and unease over using them; and their sense that their resistance cannot last. Interpreting smartphone resistance as a form of media ambivalence, we suggest that in terms of scope , contemporary resistance is aimed at a single medium, platform or practice that is singled out of the convergence; that its meaning develops over time along with technological and cultural changes; and that it acquires personal, social and political significance from related uses and resistances.


PCT No. PCT/FI94/00054 Sec. 371 Date Dec. 2, 1994 Sec. 102(e) Date Dec. 2, 1994 PCT Filed Feb. 10, 1994 PCT Pub. No. WO94/18669 PCT Pub. Date Aug. 18, 1994A method of converting speech, in which reflection coefficients are calculated from a speech signal of a speaker. From these coefficients, characteristics of cross-sectional areas of cylinder portions of a lossless tube modelling the speaker's vocal tract are calculated. Sounds are identified from those characteristics of the speaker and provided with respective identifiers. Subsequently, differences between the stored characteristics representing at least one sound and respective characteristics representing the same at least one sound are calculated, a second speaker's speaker-specific characteristics modelling that speaker's vocal tract for the same at least one sound are searched for in a memory on the basis of the identifier of the respective identified sound, a sum is formed by summing the differences and the second speaker's speaker-specific characteristics modelling that second speaker's vocal tract for the respective same sound, new reflection coefficients are calculated (614) from that sum, and a new speech signal is produced from the new reflection coefficients.


Purpose: This study evaluated the dosimetric impact of surface dose reduction due to the loss of backscatter from the bone interface in superficial x‐ray radiation therapy.Monte Carlo simulation was carried out using the EGSnrc code. Methods: An inhomogeneous phantom containing a thin layer of tissue (1,3 and 5 mm) on top of a bone (thickness = 1 cm) was irradiated by a clinical 105 kVp photon beam produced by a Gulmay D3225 kV x‐ray machine. The field size and SSD was equal to 5 cm diameter and 20 cm, respectively. Surface doses for different phantom configurations were calculated using the DOSXYZnrc code. Photon energy spectra at the phantom and bone surface were determined according to phase‐space files at the particle scoring planes. For comparison, all Monte Carlo simulations were repeated in a phantom with the bone replaced by soft tissue. Results: Surface dose reduction was found when a bone was underneath the tissue layer. When the tissue thickness = 1 mm, a surface dose reduction of 3.5% was found. The dose reduction decreased to 2.1% and 1.8% when the tissue thickness increased to 3 and 5 mm, respectively. This shows that the impact of the surface dose uncertainty decreased while the tissue thickness on top of the bone increased. This result was supported by the decrease of intensity in the photon energy spectrum, when the tissue layer was with and over the bone, compared to without the bone. Conclusions: Surface dose reduction of 3.5%–1.8% was found when the tissue layer increased from 1 to 5 mm. This decrease of surface dose results in an overestimation of prescribed dose at the patient's surface, and should be a concern when using superficial x‐ray to treat skintumours in sites such as forehead, chest wall and kneecap.


Lost Foam Casting, pressurized casting, solidification, mechanical properties. Abstract. The paper presents the result of investigation on aluminum-silicon (LM6) alloy cast using pressurized lost foam casting process. The study investigated the effect of pressure and sand size on hardness and roughness of the casting produced. Air pressure of 1, 2, 3 and 4 bars was applied on the solidifying alloy poured in mould of sand sized 40-60(AFS). The roughness and hardness of the casting was measured using Hobson (Surtronic 3+) and Vickers hardness testing machine respectively and reported in the average of ten readings. For roughness measurement of the solidified castings, measurement was conducted in 25mm run whilst 11kgf was applied for Vickers hardness indentation test. The results show that using of finer sand size besides applying pressure during solidification of LM6 alloy has significant influence on roughness and hardness of the alloy. Increasing the applied pressure and used of fine sand size expedited heat transfer from the melt to the mould and surrounding thus decreasing solidification time. Consequently, reduced casting surface roughness as well as increased in hardness.


Ecological and genetic factors play a key role in determining the behaviour of mosquito vectors, which in turn influences malaria transmission and epidemiology. Malaria vector control strategies such as long lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) rely on the timing and location of mosquito vector feeding behaviour, and their choice of resting habitat (inside houses versus outside). In some settings where these control measures have been intensively used, the major malaria vectors have been reported to change their behaviour to bite more often outdoors and/or earlier in the evening before people are protected by LLINs, and to increasingly rest outdoors. Such shifts in vector behaviour may jeopardize the effectiveness of LLIN and IRS strategies. The potential for such changes to undermine malaria control can only be understood by: (1) developing better, standardized sampling tools for the surveillance of mosquito behaviours, and (2) identifying the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to these behavioural changes as is required to predict how quickly they can occur and spread.
This study developed and evaluated a range of novel tools to sample host seeking and resting African malaria vectors. These tools were used to characterize a range of epidemiologically relevant malaria vector behaviours within an endemic area of southern Tanzania, and investigate the role of potential ecological and genetic determinants of behavioural variation. Firstly, a novel mosquito electrocuting trap (MET) was developed and evaluated relative to a commercially available insect electrocuting trap (CA-EG) and the gold standard human landing catch (HLC) technique for measuring the abundance and host seeking behaviour of Anopheles gambiae s.l. and An. funestus s.l. A Latin Square experiment was conducted in a rural setting in the Kilombero Valley of Tanzania where the sampling performance of MET was promising, especially in outdoor sampling where it achieved >58% sampling performance relative to the HLC. In contrast, the CA-EG had poor performance relative to both the MET and HLC and was considered unlikely to be a viable sampling method. This study showed that electrocuting traps can be developed and used as alternative, realistic and exposure-free sampling tools to the HLC technique.

Secondly, a series of new lightweight, portable and standardized sampling traps were developed and compared relative to one another to identify which traps are optimal for measuring African malaria vector resting behaviour. Two existing resting traps, the Resting Bucket (RBU) and Resting Box (RBO) were used along with two modified versions of the RBU designed to test the influence of specific design features to mosquito catchability: a modified entry resting bucket (MERBU) and a sticky resting bucket (SRBU). The performance of all traps for sampling indoor and outdoor resting An. gambiae s.l. and An. funestus s.l. were evaluated relative to one another, and the back-pack aspirator method (BPA, indoor collections only). Mosquito vector densities in all resting traps were relatively low (<3 per night), but were consistently higher in the RBU and RBO. The SRBU had significantly poorer performance outside than inside, which gave rise to highly biased estimates of exophilic behaviour. The MERBU trap performed consistently poorly inside and outdoors. Based on their relative and consistent sampling performance, the RBO and RBU are recommended as the best choice for wider scale surveillance of vector resting behaviour and its response to control measures.

Thirdly, a candidate gene approach was used to test if variation in the host seeking behaviour of An. arabiensis is associated with genetic polymorphisms in their circadian rhythm genes. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 34 loci across 8 circadian genes in An. arabiensis were identified and analyzed for association with the timing ("early=7pm-10pm vs "late" = 4am-7am) and location (indoors vs outdoors) of their host seeking. No associations were found between the host seeking phenotypes and SNP polymorphisms in An. arabiensis. However, a strong genetic population structure was detected within An. arabiensis from the study area, which was correlated with polymorphisms in the Timeless gene (irrespective of the feeding phenotypes or geographical location). The cause of this structuring remains unknown, and further studies to investigate the potential mechanism and epidemiological implications are recommended. Although no association was found in this study, the role of genetics in determining malaria host seeking behaviour cannot be discounted. Other approaches such as transcriptomics and whole genome sequences are recommended in future studies.
In combination, results from this study give insights into the optimality of different sampling tools for reliable, ethically conducive monitoring of malaria vector behaviour. Furthermore, they provide baseline assessment of the contribution of some mosquito genetic and environmental factors to mosquito vector behaviour. It is hoped that the most promising sampling tools developed here can be improved and integrated into malaria vector surveillance programmes to obtain reliable information on vector behaviour and how vectors respond to environmental change and wide-scale use of malaria control measures.


Abstract Drastic changes have occurred in Mongolia's grazing land management over the last two decades, but their effects on rangelands are ambiguous. Temporal trends in Mongolia's rangeland condition have not been well documented relative to the effects of long-term management changes. This study examined changes in grazing land use and rangeland biomass associated with the transition from the socialist collective to the current management systems in the Tsahiriin tal area of northern Mongolia. Grazing lands in Tsahiriin tal that were formerly managed by the socialist collective are now used by numerous nomadic households with their privately owned herds, although the lands remain publicly owned. Grazing pressure has more than tripled and herd distribution has changed from a few spatially clustered large herds of sheep to numerous smaller herds of multiple species. Landsat image–derived normalized-difference vegetation index estimates suggest that rangeland biomass significantly decreased (P < 0.001) from the collective to the postcollective periods. The observed decrease was significantly correlated with changes in the grazing management system and increased stocking density (P < 0.001), even when potential climate-induced changes were considered. Furthermore, field- and Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre imagery–based rangeland assessments in 2007 and 2008 indicate that current rangeland biomass is low. Spatial pattern analyses show that the low biomass is uniform throughout the study site. The observed decrease in rangeland biomass might be further accelerated if current grazing land use continues with no formal rangeland management institution or organized, well-structured efforts by the local herding households.


This letter presents a new type of compact ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter (BPF) based on interference techniques. The structure is formed by a short-ended coupled line coupler connected in parallel to a transmission line. The transmission and reflection zeros of the filter can be controlled through the analytical equations and rules given. To validate the suggested filter scheme, the design, fabrication and measurement of a microstrip UWB BPF is presented.


Abstract Background: Since 2008, Australia has embarked on major healthcare reforms extending across all states and territories. Only limited evidence linking national healthcare reforms to improvement in public hospital performance exists. This evidence gap is even more pronounced in the case of remote hospital performance. This article describes a protocol retrospectively assessing a remote hospital programme to implement emergency department performance indicators, in the context of national reforms, over a period of 7 years (2008–2014). Challenges to implementing these reforms are explored. Method: Assessing the complex scenario of reform implementation requires an in-depth analysis, offered by a Realist Evaluation framework. Within this framework, a case study design is adopted to enable descriptive analysis. Interviews with key hospital stakeholders were followed by a literature review to identify a programme theory. The programme theory was articulated in the form of a preliminary context-mechanism-outcome configuration (CMOC). This theory will underlie further data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Both Realist Evaluation and case study allow flexibility in a choice of methods; both quantitative and qualitative methods will be incorporated. The thematic analysis will be employed to identify causal relationships and linkages in collected data. Discussion: Assembled data will be used to develop final CMOC patterns. The final CMOC will help in understanding the theory and mechanisms in use in the hospital.


Automatic wood recognition has not yet been well established mainly due to lack of research in this area and the difficulty in obtaining the wood database. In this paper, an automatic wood recognition system based on image processing, feature extraction and artificial neural networks was designed. The proto-type PC-based wood recognition system is capable of classifying 30 different tropical Malaysian woods, according to their species based on the macroscopic wood anatomy. Image processing is carried out using our newly developed in-house image processing library referred to as "Visual System Development Platform". The textural wood features are extracted using a co-occurrence matrix approach, known as grey-level co-occurrence matrix. A multi-layered neural network based on the popular back-propagation algorithm is trained to learn the wood samples for the classification purposes. The system can provide wood identification within seconds, eliminating the need for laborious human recognition. The results obtained show a high rate of recognition accuracy, proving that the techniques used are suitable to be implemented for commercial purposes.


We report the case of a 31-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus who was found to have oral hairy leukoplakia (OHL). She was on immunosuppressive therapy but was human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative. OHL has been previously reported in HIV-negative patients who were immunosuppressed for other reasons, such as solid organ or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, hematologic malignancies, or systemic diseases. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of OHL in an HIV-negative patient reported in the otolaryngology literature. It adds to the growing list of cases of OHL in HIV-negative patients and serves as a reminder to physicians to include OHL in the differential diagnosis for oral cavity lesions in all immunosuppressed patients. The article also summarizes the current state of knowledge about the pathogenesis of OHL, its relation to the Epstein-Barr virus, and the treatment options.


An analysis of the overvoltage protection requirements for a series capacitor bank on a high-voltage distribution system (16/27.6 kV) is presented. The problems encountered in providing the required degree of protection are illustrated with an actual case study of an installation implemented by Ontario Hydro. The overvoltage protection scheme, an essential component of the series capacitor bank installation, was reliable and effective in two years of service that saw no capacitor failures. The scheme is based on readily available, off-the-shelf equipment and can be easily adapted to any installation with similar operating requirements. The ring gap, which is the only custom-made component of the system, is simple and could be fabricated by most utilities' machine shops. >


We investigate the relationship between violence and economic risk preferences in Afghanistan combining: (i) a two-part experimental procedure identifying risk preferences, violations of Expected Utility, and specific preferences for certainty; (ii) controlled recollection of fear based on established methods from psychology; and (iii) administrative violence data from precisely geocoded military records. We document a specific preference for certainty in violation of Expected Utility. The preference for certainty, which we term a Certainty Premium, is exacerbated by the combination of violent exposure and controlled fearful recollections. The results have implications for risk taking and are potentially actionable for policymakers and marketers.


The conversion of aryl triflates to the corresponding aniline derivatives was accomplished in moderate to good yield using a catalyst consisting of the combination of palladium acetate (2 mol %) and either BINAP or Tol-BINAP. In contrast to the corresponding palladium-catalyzed amination of aryl bromides and iodides, electronically neutral aryl triflates gave higher yields of arylamines than did electron deficient aryl triflates, presumably due to the increased rate of base-promoted triflate cleavage in electron deficient substrates.


A theoretical method is presented to enable prestack migration and velocity analysis of converted wave data. It is based on a new method of P-P prestack migration using equivalents offsets and common scatter point (CSP) gathers. Equivalent offsets for converted wave data are defined for all samples that prestack migrate to a common conversion point (CCP). Samples from all the input traces are added to the appropriate offsets in the CCP gathers. Velocity analysis may be performed on the CCP gather using conventional velocity analysis tools such as semblance analysis. Migration is completed by NMO and stacking of the CCP gather.


Adult female white‐footed mice, Peromyscus leucopus, were exposed to long (LP) or short (SP) photoperiods for 6 weeks (experiment I). Another group of animals was kept for 6 weeks in SP, then injected SC with 30 μg prolactin twice daily for 2, 3, 4, or 6 days (experiment II). Ovaries from the mice in both experiments were weighed and serially sectioned for light microscopic examination of regressing corpora lutea. In experiment I, it was observed that vessels supporting corpora lutea were dilated, and that their endothelium was either undergoing necrosis or it was missing. Pronounced changes of luteal capillaries led to rupture and intraluteal hemorrhage, thus opening the capillary bed. Regressing luteal cells became segregated and seemed to invade the vascular system passively. They were seen as luteal cell thrombi in medullary veins. This luteolytic course termed "rapid luteolysis" was most apparent in SP ovaries. It differed from "retarded luteolysis," which represents the well‐established luteolytic model of auto‐ and heterophagocytosis. In experiment II, there was a statistically significant decrease in ovarian weight 4 days after prolactin treatment in comparison with saline‐treated controls. At the light microscopic level, signs of both rapid and retarded luteolysis were present, but not intensified. It is concluded: (1) The concept of rapid luteolysis represents a reasonable working hypothesis. (2) Prolactin, though luteolytic at the macroscopic level, failed to produce evidence of increased rapid or retarded luteolysis at the light microscopic level.


The introduction of labor-saving technologies in agriculture can release workers who find occupation in the manufacturing sector. The traditional view is that this structural transformation process leads to economic growth. However, if workers leaving agriculture are unskilled, the labor reallocation process reinforces comparative advantage in the least skill-intensive manufacturing industries. We embed this mechanism in a multi-sector endogenous growth model where only skill-intensive manufacturing industries innovate and generate knowledge spillovers. In this setup, the increase in the relative size of the unskilled-labor intensive industries reduces the incentives to innovate and slows down growth. We test the predictions of the model in the context of a large and exogenous increase in agricultural productivity in Brazil. We use social security data to develop a new measure of the labor input in innovation which is representative at any level of spatial aggregation. We find that regions adopting the new agricultural technology experienced a reallocation of unskilled workers away from agriculture into the least R&D-intensive manufacturing industries. The expansion of low-R&D industries attracted workers away from innovative occupations in high-R&D industries, slowing down local aggregate manufacturing productivity growth.


Rarely as in the collection here can one encounter an essayist, novelist, historian, and political leader like the late C. L. R. James in the working throes of forming and then fomenting personal political theory. In Marxism for Our Times, editor Martin Glaberman has gathered the writings and theoretical discussions of this noted Caribbean writer. These pamphlets, mimeographs, letters, and lectures by James were nearly inaccessible until now. Within these works, James works to situate himself within the classical Marxist tradition while rejecting the Vanguard Party as unsuitable for our times. The writings in this collection begin in the 1940s, when Marxists were wrestling with acts that many deemed betrayals of the revolution, Stalin's pact with Hitler and the war in Europe. They end in the late sixties just before the dissolution of Facing Reality, the final form of the American Marxist organization founded on James's principles. For many years James, born in Trinidad and Tobago, was leader of the Trotskyists in the United States. He continued his work even after his exile from America. Of great value to scholars of Marxism are the papers in which James examines Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky and applies their theories to the class conflicts he was witnessing at mid-century and to changes he foresaw in the future. James argues for the rejection of historical principles and theories and urges Marxists to adapt themselves to changes occurring in capitalism and the working class. Glaberman worked alongside James but sometimes disagreed with him in the movement James founded. They were close associates for 45 years. With Marxism for Our Times Glaberman not only has preserved and made available the political theories of a noted writer but he also has created a window on a turbulent period of optimism and failure, a failure Glaberman calls, ""rich in meanings and lessons for anyone interested in a democratic, revolutionary Marxism."" C. L. R. James is the author of the novel Minty Alley and The Black Jacobins, the classic history of the Haitian Revolution, and many other works. Martin Glaberman is a professor emeritus at Wayne State University in Detroit. He joined the socialist movement at age thirteen and worked for twenty years in the auto industry and as an active union member.


Purpose The aim of this study was to analyze socioeconomic burdens and other difficulties that multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) patients in cities are facing, to identify major obstacles and which groups of patients are most affected. Methods Face-to-face and phone-call interviews were conducted in early 2018 to follow-up with patients newly diagnosed with MDR-TB in 2017 in three tuberculosis hospitals in three financially affluent Chinese cities. Demographic data and information on their medical care, insurance coverage, and medical expenses were collected and analyzed. Results A total of 144 newly diagnosed MDR-TB cases were reviewed during the study period, excluding 38 who were lost to follow-up and 29 patients who refused to participate, 77 patients were enrolled in this study. A total of 61 (79%) of these patients were hospitalized after MDR-TB diagnosis with an average hospital stay of 14 days, of them 57 (74%) were sputum positive on diagnosis. The proportion of patients who failed community care were 48% married, 56% in white collar employment and 43% in temp jobs/unemployed. In terms of insurance coverage, the proportion of patients who failed community care were 23% with no insurance and/or New Rural Co-operative Medical Care Scheme (NRCMS) and 45% with Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI)/Urban Residents Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) and commercial insurance. Difficulties patients encountered were, financial pressure (33%), psychological stress (26%), adverse drug reactions (23%), repulsive reaction to injections (17%). Fourty-eight percent of the patients spent over ¥2000 (USD300) per month on TB treatment. Conclusion Despite insurance coverage, financial hardship remains the number one difficulty MDR-TB patients encountered in relatively financially affluent cities. Among them, the married working class were found to be the most financially sensitive group and have the highest tendency to fail community care. It is of utmost urgency to enhance the current medical policy to improve treatment adherence.


Background Current jump-landing protocols have identified impairments in dynamic stability in recreational individuals, but have not elicited differences in high-level athletes. Objective To develop a new jump-landing protocol to identify differences in dynamic stability in high-level athletes. Design Case-control study. Setting Movement Analysis Lab. Participants 61 Division-I collegiate athletes (32 females, 29 males; age = 19.9 ± 1.2 years; height = 76.6 ± 9.5 cm; body mass = 74.1 ± 0.8 kg) were separated into healthy, coper, and unstable groups based on the Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool and their ankle injury history. Interventions Two jumping tasks from the forward and lateral directions were executed barefooted onto the force plate. For the forward jump, participants took two preparatory steps, jumped to 50% of their maximum vertical jump, and landed single-legged on the force plate. For the lateral jump, participants took two side-shuffle steps and jumped to 50% of their maximum vertical jump, again landing single-legged on the force plate. All participants were instructed to stabilise as quickly as possible and remain motionless for 5 s. Three trials were collected for each jump in a randomised order. Main outcome measurements ROC curves were utilised to compare the accuracy of this jump landing protocol to differentiate time-to-stability (TTS) measures among groups. Results Asymptotic significance were detected between the healthy and unstable groups (forward: p = 0.001, AUC: 0.800; lateral: p = 0.011, AUC: 0.739), as well as the coper and unstable groups (forward: p = 0.013, AUC: 0.732; lateral: p = 0.015, AUC: 0.728). The healthy and coper groups had similar TTS scores (forward: p = 0.328, AUC: 0.407; lateral: p = 0.907, AUC: 0.489). Conclusions This jump-landing protocol accurately detects differences in TTS among the healthy, coper, and unstable groups of high-level athletes. Previous jump-landing protocols identified poor stability measures in the unstable group of recreational individuals, but not of high-level athletes. Perhaps, this new jump-landing protocol better taxes the sensorimotor system of high-level athletes, giving clinicians the ability to identify those at risk of injury and implement interventions to reduce these risks.


The flow-through porous bodies/structure is one of the more advanced research in the area of energy dissipation in coastal and civil engineering fields. The experiments on the determination of drag coefficient of screens with varying porosities and for the range of flow velocities lead to explore damping ratio in a typical fluid-structure interaction problem. An experimental study has been carried out to assess the drag coefficient of the porous screens as suggested by Keulegan, G. H (1968) [3]. Six different screens with porosities of 4.4%, 6.8%, 9.2% 15%, 20% and 25% are considered. In the experiments, water with a known head from one tank is allowed to flow through a pipe equipped with porous screens into the other tank. Based on the experimental observation, the correlation between Reynolds number and drag coefficient is obtained for all porous screens. The effect of damping nature (damping ratio) of the screen for a particular range of Reynolds number has been explored. As the Reynolds number increases, the drag coefficient decreases with increasing the porosity of the screen. Further, it is understood that the value of the damping ratio decreases with an increasing relative head (H/L).


ABSTRACT In December 2010, significant parts of Swedish integration policy were changed. Through the 'establishment reform', a centralization was implemented in which the national level overtook the responsibility of municipalities for the establishment of newly arrived immigrants. In today's system, the responsibility is shared between several authorities, the municipalities, and publicly financed private actors. Recent governmental reports have described the current situation as being characterized by coordination problems and shortcomings in accountability. This policy creates an institutional landscape that spans both vertical and horizontal dimensions, reflecting several levels of the public administration and actors that originate from several sectors. The purpose of this article is to explore the governance of Swedish integration policy, with a theoretical focus derived from the ideal types of hierarchy, market, and network. We examine one Swedish region in which parts of the establishment reform were applied as a pilot project before being applied to the rest of Sweden. The theoretically driven results are unexpected in that they reveal traits of governance steering but also of top-down perspectives and restrictions for involved actors in a way that counteracts theoretical logics.


In The Comparative Method, Ragin (1987) outlined a procedure of Boolean causal reasoning operating on pure coincidence data that has since become widely known as qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) among social scientists. QCA—including its recent forms as presented in Ragin (2000, 2008)—is designed to analyze causal structures featuring no more than one effect and a possibly complex configuration of mutually independent direct causes of that effect. This article presents a procedure of causal reasoning that operates on the same type of empirical data as QCA and that implements Boolean techniques related to the ones resorted to by QCA. Yet in contrast to QCA, the procedure introduced here successfully identifies structures involving both multiple effects and mutually dependent causes. In this sense, this article generalizes QCA.


In studying primary health care (PHC) systems in developing countries, a quasihierarchical relationship between health centers and village clinics is identified; it is based not only on an organizational attachment of one or more village clinics to every health center, but also on the daily presence of a health-center-based physician at each clinic. A unique zero-one integer programming model is developed and applied to a PHC system in Jordan. The PHC coverage problem is explicitly addressed in the model; its objective is to enhance both the accessibility to PHC services and the availability of physician-provided services.


The genus Cymothoa Fabricius, 1793 is revised for Australian waters. Cymothoa hermani Hadfield, Bruce & Smit, 2011, previously known from Tanzania on the host Selar crumenophthalmus (Bloch, 1793) is new to Australian waters. Cymothoa carangi Avdeev, 1979; Cymothoa epimerica Avdeev, 1979; Cymothoa parupenei Avdeev, 1979; Cymothoa propria Avdeev, 1979; Cymothoa rotunda Avdeev, 1979 and Cymothoa pulchrum Lanchester, 1902 are redescribed. Cymothoa curta Schioedte & Meinert, 1884, first described from the host Anableps anableps (Linnaeus, 1758); and Cymothoa plebeia Schioedte & Meinert, 1884, first described from Cape Verde; are redescribed and excluded from the Australian fauna. Cymothoa limbata Schioedte & Meinert, 1884 is placed into junior synonymy with Cymothoa eremita (Brünnich, 1783). A key to the Australian species of Cymothoa is presented.


Neural ordinary differential equations (NODEs) -- parametrizations of differential equations using neural networks -- have shown tremendous promise in learning models of unknown continuous-time dynamical systems from data. However, every forward evaluation of a NODE requires numerical integration of the neural network used to capture the system dynamics, making their training prohibitively expensive. Existing works rely on off-the-shelf adaptive step-size numerical integration schemes, which often require an excessive number of evaluations of the underlying dynamics network to obtain sufficient accuracy for training. By contrast, we accelerate the evaluation and the training of NODEs by proposing a data-driven approach to their numerical integration. The proposed Taylor-Lagrange NODEs (TL-NODEs) use a fixed-order Taylor expansion for numerical integration, while also learning to estimate the expansion's approximation error. As a result, the proposed approach achieves the same accuracy as adaptive step-size schemes while employing only low-order Taylor expansions, thus greatly reducing the computational cost necessary to integrate the NODE. A suite of numerical experiments, including modeling dynamical systems, image classification, and density estimation, demonstrate that TL-NODEs can be trained more than an order of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art approaches, without any loss in performance.


Arbitration clauses have become a pervasive feature of modern life. The expanding scope of arbitration has become a cause for alarm amongst consumer and worker advocates, who see it as a judicial roll back of hard-won consumer and worker rights. Justice Antonin Scalia played a key role in the trend by which arbitration has largely displaced the civil justice system for ordinary Americans. Between 2006 and 2016, Justice Scalia authored six important Supreme Court decisions interpreting the FAA – no other Justice came close. Scalia's singular contributions to arbitration law are implicated in three consolidated cases that are currently before the Supreme Court, and which pose the question of the impact of the FAA on workers' rights to engage in collective activity to improve their working conditions. This article traces the Justice Scalia's contributions to arbitration jurisprudence and considers the implications of the edifice he has created by these decisions.


The outcomes of modern technology have turned real-world interaction into a virtual community, then into a cloud one. These giant leaps aided by the excitement created by the possibilities inherent in learning through handheld technologies made using mobile devices in English language teaching (ELT) indispensable. This paper is aimed to deeply overview available handheld technologies and their features that can enable teachers in their mission. It investigates the synergy of a group of mobile devices of smartphones, tablets, iPods, iPads, E-readers, and classroom response systems, among others. These devices have been effective in everyday activities, and are expected to enrich ELT, especially in communities where there is a lack of community of practice (CoP) on the target language. To this aim, this paper was cored around reviewing the potential handheld technologies have in language classrooms. The main data were obtained from the rich body of literature, shedding more light on their properties in creating interactive communication in and out of classrooms. The findings revealed that handheld technologies can be successfully integrated into English language teaching and learning. Pedagogically, teachers are encouraged to exploit mobile devices into their classroom practices after closely testing their specifications, and scanning their advantages and shortcomings.


This article reviews the effects of hands-on, inquiry based learning on the mathematics achievement of English language learners (ELLs). There were eighteen third grade participants of Mexican descent in this study. Their English language proficiency ability ranged from a level two to six. The study began with data collection from three weeks of regular instruction before doing three weeks of hands-on, inquiry based mathematics instruction. Both data periods began and ended with a pretest and posttest assessment to determine the achievement, measured by points of growth, during that specific type of instruction. The researcher found inquiry-based instruction did not improve mathematics achievement of ELLs; however, it would be of interest to study the impact of inquiry-based instruction in the regular education classroom over an extended period of time.


Abstract We present a cytogenetic survey of the basal bufonid genus Melanophryniscus that covered 14 of the 25 species currently recognized, representing the three phenetic species groups: M. moreirae, M. stelzneri, and M. tumifrons. All species presented a diploid chromosome complement constituted by 11 bi-armed chromosome pairs (2n  =  2x  =  22; FN  =  44). Some remarkable differences were observed between species groups: chromosome pair 4 was metacentric in species of the M. tumifrons group (also with a distinctive C-positive block) but submetacentric in the M. stelzneri group and M. sanmartini (M. moreirae group); pair 5 was submetacentric in M. sanmartini and metacentric in the rest. Chromosome secondary constrictions and silver-stained nucleolar organizer regions were located either in pair 5, 7, or 8 in the M. tumifrons group, M. sanmartini and M. krauczuki (M. stelzneri group), and M. stelzneri group, respectively; and pair 7 was relatively larger in M. sanmartini and M. krauczuki. Studied cytogenetic characters support the M. tumifrons group and suggest a close relationship between M. krauczuki and M. sanmartini. These results call for a reassessment of species relations within Melanophryniscus under an inclusive phylogenetic study.


A metal/air/metal (MAM) plasmonic grating waveguide (PGW) consisting of two parallel silver slabs with periodic corrugations on their inner boundaries is developed to slow down the group velocity of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) excited at near-infrared frequencies. For a Gaussian pulse excitation with the full width at half maxim (FWHM) of 222 fs and the center wavelength of 1.58 μm, the group velocity of 0.034c and the group velocity dispersion (GVD) of 0.8 ps/mm/nm can be achieved in finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations with pulse excitation. Furthermore, a chirped PGW with varying groove depth is also demonstrated as a way to trap light by adopting continuous excitation.


The objective of the present study was to explore the experiences of New Zealand non-relative foster carers fostering children with attachment difficulties (indicative of disorders of nonattachment). This objective was achieved using a detailed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al., 2009). Analysis revealed five themes evident in carer accounts: expectations versus reality; satisfactions and strains of fostering children with attachment difficulties; attachment relationships and the benefits of information; the impact of others on the caring experience; and negative expectations and future concerns. Overall, these themes suggest that fostering children with attachment difficulties is a complex and challenging experience which significantly impacts carers and their families. While lack of public understanding and public judgement compound the difficulty of the experience, receiving information about fostering and attachment difficulties appears to alleviate it. The five identified themes and their relation to the existing literature are explored in detail in this thesis. Implications for social policy and practice are discussed, and potential future research directions are outlined.


Understanding factors driving vaccine hesitancy is crucial to vaccination success. We surveyed adults (N=2510) from February to March 2021 across five sites (Australia=502, Germany=516, Hong Kong=445, UK=512, USA=535) using a cross-sectional design and stratified quota sampling for age, sex, and education. We assessed willingness to take a vaccine and a comprehensive set of putative predictors. Predictive power was analysed with regression analyses and machine learning algorithms. Only 57.4% of the participants indicated that they would definitely or probably get vaccinated. A parsimonious machine-learning model could identify vaccine hesitancy with high accuracy (i.e. 83% sensitivity and 82% specificity) using 10 variables only. The most relevant predictors were vaccination conspiracy beliefs, paranoid concerns related to the pandemic, COVID anxiety, high perceived risk of infection, low perceived social rank, lower age, and female gender. Campaigns seeking to increase vaccine uptake need to take mistrust as the main driver of vaccine hesitancy into account.


Automation technology is widely implemented in process control domains due to its benefits of improving efficiency and enhancing control. However, use of automation also introduces an often complex intermediary between the human and the controlled domain, which can obscure from the operator how system functioning is achieved. The difficulty for operators to perceive and understand what the automatic system is doing has a potentially negative impact on overall system performance, since the human operator perform important functions in the work system related to both safety and production.
In this thesis it is argued that there are few approaches that address the problem of specifically, and each existing approach might individually not cover the entire problem scope in full detail. Further, current methodologies seem to have difficulties in reaching applications apart from narrow human factors engineering practices.
With this background in mind, the research work presented in this thesis has focused on how human-automation related challenges can be addressed to improve preconditions for operators in understanding automatic system functioning. Creating the appropriate preconditions in control environments is a multidisciplinary design challenge striving for safe and efficient work systems. The purpose of this thesis was to aid human factors engineering practitioners in industry in dealing with this challenge.
To fulfil the purpose, an existing theoretical model was adapted and used to describe human-automation challenges in general. This led to a theoretical unification of human-automation related challenges and a way to describe challenges systematically. The unified format enables description and analysis of automated human-machine systems in order to identify representational gaps and matches in the work system. The theoretical model was then used as a basis for developing a method named the "System Representation Matrix". The System Representation Matrix enables description and analysis of the dynamic domain, the control system, the control system user interface and the necessary operator knowledge, in a unified representation.
Conclusions from testing and evaluating the method are that the System Representation Matrix can aid creating an overview of automated human-machine systems. The overview has potential as an aid for reasoning about matters of system functioning and design. In practice, the matrix could provide support for design decisions, help define necessary operator knowledge and become a tool to aid human factors engineering in multidisciplinary teams. This has the potential to lead to improved aid for human factors engineers when dealing with human-automation challenges in industrial practice.


Of Freud's forays into aesthetics, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) is not the first text that comes to a critic's mind. Despite its notable status in the Freudian oeuvre—one that is as much a result of Lacan's treatment as it is of the text's famous difficulty— Beyond the Pleasure Principle is rarely invoked as a text that exemplifies Freud's most important contributions to aesthetics. One perhaps thinks instead of The Interpretation of Dreams , which Georges Didi-Huberman clamorously declares to have "smashed the box of representation" (2005, p. 44) or Freud's essay on the uncanny and its masterful reading of Hoffmann's "The Sand-Man," which would be suitable, if it were not for Freud's dispiriting announcement there that aesthetics is not a native branch of psychoanalytic investigation. "It is only rarely," writes Freud, "that a psychoanalyst feels impelled to investigate the subject of aesthetics even when aesthetics is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty, but the theory of the qualities of feeling. He works in other planes of mental life and has little to do with those subdued emotional activities which, inhibited in their aims and dependent upon a multitude of concurrent factors, usually furnish the material for the study of aesthetics"


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Simulation-based medical education (SBME) is used to teach residents. However, few studies have evaluated its clinical impact. The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of an SBME session on pediatric interns' clinical procedural success. METHODS: This randomized trial was conducted at 10 academic medical centers. Interns were surveyed on infant lumbar puncture (ILP) and child intravenous line placement (CIV) knowledge and watched audiovisual expert modeling of both procedures. Participants were randomized to SBME mastery learning for ILP or CIV and for 6 succeeding months reported clinical performance for both procedures. ILP success was defined as obtaining a sample on the first attempt with <1000 red blood cells per high-power field or fluid described as clear. CIV success was defined as placement of a functioning catheter on the first try. Each group served as the control group for the procedure for which they did not receive the intervention. RESULTS: Two-hundred interns participated (104 in the ILP group and 96 in the CIV group). Together, they reported 409 procedures. ILP success rates were 34% (31 of 91) for interns who received ILP mastery learning and 34% (25 of 73) for controls (difference: 0.2% [95% confidence interval: –0.1 to 0.1]). The CIV success rate was 54% (62 of 115) for interns who received CIV mastery learning compared with 50% (58 of 115) for controls (difference: 3% [95% confidence interval: –10 to 17]). CONCLUSIONS: Participation in a single SBME mastery learning session was insufficient to affect pediatric interns' subsequent procedural success.


Mental health is an integral part of health, and a condition that affects the physical, mental, and  social  development  of  the  individual  optimally.  Mental  disorder  is  disturbances  in:  cognitive, volition, emotion (affective), and actions (psychomotor). Mental disorder is a collection of abnormal circumstances, whether physically related, or mentally. It is divided into two groups, namely: mental disorder  (neurosis)  and  mental  illness  (psychosis).  Mental  disorder  is  caused  by  some  of  the  above causes affected simultaneously or coincidence occurs. The purpose of this study was to increase the role of family and society in the treatment of mental disorder patients which was consequently could reduce the number of mental disorders patients This research used obsevational design with descriptive analy- sis. The subjects were family members who treat mental disorder patients as much as 16 respondents. The data collection was done in October 2012. The family role data grouped into appropriate and inappro- priate  category.  The  research  found  that  11  people  (68.75%)  in  the  category  of  inappropriate,  and appropriate by 5 people (31.25%), with average family role of 63.19%. The higher of inappropriate category was because 9 respondents (56.25%) in the age of elderly (> 50 years). This condition caused a decrease in the ability to perform daily activities, including health treatment. There were 4 patients who have been treated for 7-14 years, so the family feels accustomed to the condition of the patient. There were 8 people (50%) in productive age treated the patients, so it could not be done continuously. Based on these conditions, there should be efforts to increase knowledge and willingness of the patients and families, in caring for patients with mental disorders. The examples of such activities were to consult with the nearest health employees, and report to the health worker if there is a risky condition immedi- ately.


Self-protection refers to the ability for a system to detect illegal behaviors and to fight-back intrusions with counter-measures. This article presents the design, the implementation, and the evaluation of a self-protected system which targets clustered distributed applications. Our approach is based on the structural knowledge of the cluster and of the distributed applications. This knowledge allows to detect known and unknown attacks if an illegal communication channel is used. The current prototype is a self-protected JEE infrastructure (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) with firewall-based intrusion detection. Our prototype induces low-performance penalty for applications.


Orthorhombic anisotropic model inversion is extra challenging because of the multiple-parameter nature of the inversion problem. The high number of parameters required to describe the medium exerts considerable trade-off as well as additional non-linearity to a full-waveform inversion (FWI) application. Choosing a suitable set of parameters to describe the model and designing an effective inversion strategy can help in mitigating this problem. Using the Born approximation which is the central ingredient of the FWI update process, we derive radiation patterns for the acoustic orthorhombic parametrization. The analysis of the radiation patterns leads us to introduce a new set of parameters for a new orthorhombic parametrization. The new parameters are dimensionless and represent a measure of deviation between the vertical planes in orthorhombic anisotropy. The main feature, of any parametrization based on these new parameters, is the azimuthal independency of the modelled data with respect to the vertical transversely isotropic (VTI) parameters, which allows us to propose practical inversion strategies based on our experience with the VTI parameters inversion.


Background
Lung cancer screening with annual low-dose computed tomography is relatively new for long-term smokers in the USA supported by a US Preventive Services Task Force Grade B recommendation. As screening programs are more widely implemented nationally and providers engage patients about lung cancer screening, it is critical to understand behaviour among high-risk smokers who opt out to improve shared decision-making processes for lung cancer screening.

Objective
The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons for screening-eligible patients' decisions to opt out of screening after receiving a provider recommendation.

Methods
Semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews were performed with 18 participants who met lung cancer screening criteria for age, smoking and pack-year history in Washington State from November 2015 to January 2016. Two researchers with cancer screening and qualitative methodology expertise conducted data analysis using thematic content analytic procedures from audio-recorded interviews.

Results
Five primary themes emerged for reasons of opting out of lung cancer screening: (i) Knowledge Avoidance; (ii) Perceived Low Value; (iii) False-Positive Worry; (iv) Practical Barriers; and (v) Patient Misunderstanding.

Conclusion
The participants in our study provided insight into why some patients make the decision to opt out of low-dose computed tomography screening, which provides knowledge that can inform intervention development to enhance shared decision-making processes between long-term smokers and their providers and decrease decisional conflict about screening.


Introduction This randomized controlled trial investigated community-clinical intervention strategies for a Mexican American population who had not demonstrated control of their diabetes. We tested a control program (Salud y Vida 1.0) supporting diabetes management versus an enhanced version (Salud y Vida 2.0) for reductions in HbA1c at 12 months. Research design and methods Adults with uncontrolled diabetes (n=353) were enrolled if they had an HbA1c≥9.0% during a program or doctor's visit between 6 and 36 months of their receipt of SyV 1.0 services, were patients at one of two clinics in local counties, and had an HbA1c≥8.0% at SyV 2.0 baseline enrollment. The control and intervention arms were coordinated by community health workers and the intervention arm included the control program enhanced with medication therapy management; behavioral health services; peer-led support groups; and additional community-based lifestyle programs also open to the family. Results At 12 months, both study arms improved HbA1c (mean, (CI), Control (−0.47 (-0.74 to –0.20)) and intervention (−0.48 (-0.76 to –0.19)). The intervention group maintained HbA1c levels after month 6, whereas control group HbA1c levels slightly increased (adjusted mean from 9.83% at month 6%–9.90% at month 12). Also, HbA1c was examined by level of participant engagement. The high engagement group showed a decreasing trend over the study period, while control and lower engagement groups failed to maintain HbA1c levels at month 12. Conclusions Improved HbA1c was found among a population that had not demonstrated diabetes management prior; however, mean HbA1c values were above clinical guideline recommendations. The randomized control trial findings provide additional evidence that extended time and intervention supports may be needed for populations experiencing inequities in social determinants of health. Trial registration number NCT04035395.


We formulate a pseudofermion functional renormalization group (PFFRG) scheme to address frustrated quantum magnetism in three dimensions. In a scenario where many numerical approaches fail due to sign problem or small system size, three-dimensional (3D) PFFRG allows for a quantitative investigation of the quantum spin problem and its observables. We illustrate 3D PFFRG for the simple cubic ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{3}$ quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet, and benchmark it against other approaches, if available.


Nectar yields (standing crops) in flowers within an individual plant are often highly variable. This variability may be a by-product of the foraging activity of insect pollinators. Alternatively, plants may be selected to produce highly variable rewards to reduce consecutive visitation by risk-averse pollinators, thus diminishing within-plant pollen transfer. This study evaluated the roles of pollinator control vs. plant control over nectar variability in the bee-pollinated shrub Rosmarinus officinalis L. We sampled nectar production, yield and pollinator visits in three shrubs of one population over 17 days during one blooming season. Nectar production rates were highly variable (CV=1.48), and increased after rainy days. Nectar yields were even more variable (CV=2.16), and decreased with increasing temperatures. Pollinator visit rates decreased with variability in nectar yields, increased with flower number per shrub, and were unaffected by variability in nectar production rates. Repeated sampling of marked flowers revealed no correlation between their nectar yields and production rates. These findings support the role of reward variance in reducing pollinator visits, but suggest that plants are not in complete control of this variability. Rather, plant-generated variability can be modified by intensive foraging activity of pollinators. Such pollinator control over nectar variability is likely to reduce the selective advantage of plant-generated reward variation. Plant-controlled variability may provide evolutionary advantage when pollinator activity is insufficient to generate reward variation.


Most hematopoietic malignancies are comprised of cells that are functionally heterogeneous with only a subset being responsible for tumor maintenance. These cancer stem cells are so named because they possess qualities reminiscent of normal tissue stem cells including self-renewal, prolonged survival, and the ability to give rise to cells with more differentiated characteristics. Effort is now focused on identifying cancer stem cells in various hematopoietic malignancies, and defining the cells of origin such that the stepwise accumulation of genetic/epigenetic events necessary for cancer stem cell development can be delineated. A detailed understanding of these processes could lead to development of therapeutics that more effectively treat hematopoietic malignancies and potentially other cancers.


The objective of this research was to develop a database to store results of laboratory tests of crude oil and this will lead to improve the quality of Petroleum products and to reduce operating cost in the same time. Statistical process control give many tools including the seven quality tools which can be used to determine if the manufacturing process within control limits of crude oil specification and to detect any problem. Using Microsoft Access 2007 program offers many possibilities such as developing database, using statistical tools, building form, query, generating reports, importing and exporting data to statistical program such as Microsoft Excel 2007. Therefore the development of a database with Microsoft Access 2007 will provide electronic data store and using statistical control tools and this will leads to diagnosis problems in production process and improve the quality of petroleum products.


A multifunctional composite as a potential carrier was successfully synthesized for synergistic therapy with an antitumor drug through a self-assembly route, which comprises a magnetic substrate with phytic acid surface functionality and bonding with Zn ions. The nanomaterials retained a spherical structure. The magnetization value of the nanomaterials was measured to be 44.6 emu g−1; moreover, the carriers maintained stability and safety on normal tissue cells. The influence of different initial drug concentrations on drug loading was investigated. The drug release test showed that the carriers display sustained drug release behavior, which can be tuned by adjusting the pH. In particular, synergistic therapeutic efficiency was measured via MG63 tumor cells as a model cellular system. The bare nanocarriers show selective cytotoxicity towards tumor cells over normal cells, and the DOX-loaded nanocarriers exhibit a significant synergistic effect to kill tumor cells. The multifunctional nanocarriers, therefore, reveal promising potential in cancer therapy.


Spatial variation of tropical forest tree height is a key indicator of ecological processes associated with forest growth and carbon dynamics. Here we examine the macroscale variations of tree height of humid tropical forests across three continents and quantify the climate and edaphic controls on these variations. Forest tree heights are systematically sampled across global humid tropical forests with more than 2.5 million measurements from Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) satellite observations (2004–2008). We used top canopy height (TCH) of GLAS footprints to grid the statistical mean and variance and the 90 percentile height of samples at 0.5 degrees to capture the regional variability of average and large trees globally. We used the spatial regression method (spatial eigenvector mapping-SEVM) to evaluate the contributions of climate, soil and topography in explaining and predicting the regional variations of forest height. Statistical models suggest that climate, soil, topography, and spatial contextual information together can explain more than 60% of the observed forest height variation, while climate and soil jointly explain 30% of the height variations. Soil basics, including physical compositions such as clay and sand contents, chemical properties such as PH values and cation-exchange capacity, as well as biological variables such as the depth of organic matter, all present independent but statistically significant relationships to forest height across three continents. We found significant relations between the precipitation and tree height with shorter trees on the average in areas of higher annual water stress, and large trees occurring in areas with low stress and higher annual precipitation but with significant differences across the continents. Our results confirm other landscape and regional studies by showing that soil fertility, topography and climate may jointly control a significant variation of forest height and influencing patterns of aboveground biomass stocks and dynamics. Other factors such as biotic and disturbance regimes, not included in this study, may have less influence on regional variations but strongly mediate landscape and small-scale forest structure and dynamics.


The 1997–1998 El Nino generated large floods throughout southern Peru, especially in inland locations along Rio Moquegua. Using remote sensing, hydraulic modeling, field surveying, and stratigraphic analyses, we estimate the magnitude and frequency of this flood and determine a late Holocene flood history for main- stem and tributary sections. Modeling indicates a peak discharge of 450 m3/s for the 1998 flood, with an estimated recurrence interval between 50 and 100 yr. Flood deposits for two large events, dated to A.D. 690 and A.D. 1300, respectively, exist in a small tributary system. Tiwanaku site abandonment (ca. A.D. 1000) predates the younger flood, indicating that stratigraphically recognizable El Nino–driven floods were not a causal mechanism for abandonment. Although possessing three flood units, main-stem alluvium is considerably younger (<320 14C yr B.P.) than tributary alluvium, evidencing the major channel widening and lateral reworking of the main stem.


This paper investigates whether and how strongly the share of households owning their homes in a community affects residential property taxation by local governments. Homeowners bear the full property tax burden irrespective of local market conditions, and the tax is more salient to them. "Home owner communities" may hence oppose high property taxes in local elections in order to protect their housing wealth. Using granular spatial data from a complete housing inventory in the 2011 German Census and war-related housing damages as a source of exogenous variation in local homeownership, we provide empirical evidence confirming that otherwise identical jurisdictions choose significantly lower property tax multipliers when the share of homeowners in their population is higher. This result appears to be independent of local housing market conditions, which suggests tax salience as the key mechanism for this effect. We find strong positive spatial dependence in tax multipliers, indicative of property tax mimicking by local governments.


The structure and properties of in situ Cu-Nb composites have been studied by the methods of TEM and SEM, X-ray analysis and mechanical testing. The evolution of Nb filaments structure at drawing and the effect of annealing and doping with Zr on the composites structure and texture have been investigated. Sharp fibre texture with <110>Nb develops in the ribbon-shaped Nb filaments, while the Cu matrix possesses a two-component fibre texture, <111>Cu and <100>Cu, appreciably affected by annealing. Annealing results in softening due to Nb filaments coagulation. In Zr doped composites two types of ZrO2 particles are observed, dispersed and coarse ones. The former result in the dispersion strengthening, while the latter may cause embrittlement.


The polarization switch of a free-electron laser (FEL) is of great importance to the user scientific community. In this paper, we investigate the generation of controllable polarization FEL from two well-known approaches for Dalian coherent light source, i.e., crossed planar undulator and elliptical permanent undulator. In order to perform a fair comparative study, a one-dimensional time-dependent FEL code has been developed, in which the imperfection effects of an elliptical permanent undulator are taken into account. Comprehensive simulation results indicate that the residual beam energy chirp and the intrinsic FEL gain may contribute to the degradation of the polarization performance for the crossed planar undulator. The elliptical permanent undulator is not very sensitive to the undulator errors and beam imperfections. Meanwhile, with proper configurations of the main planar undulators and additional elliptical permanent undulator section, circular polarized FEL with pulse energy exceeding 100 μJ could be achieved at Dalian coherent light source.


The third industrial revolution is often thought to be caused by the emergence of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. There is an evolving digital ecosystem that in several ways parallels the early development of digital music formats for the consumer market. At the same time there are social developments that build on the possibilities of digital and internet technology. To some, these changes in society evoke anxiety. In business, right holders fear the damage 3D printing technology will cause to their interests. Should they confront or adapt and what is the business case for a company accepting widespread use of 3D printing technology? And what is the socially responsible thing to do? The third industrial revolution is an assembly of socio-technical developments, the societal developments characterized by a trend towards lateral power structures and distributed control. Who should be trusted to coordinate these changes? Is this related to business ethics?


The discovery of functionally biased and physiologically beneficial ligands directed toward G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) has provided the impetus to design dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) targeted molecules that may be therapeutically advantageous for the treatment of certain neuropsychiatric or basal ganglia related disorders. Here we describe the synthesis of a novel series of D2R agonists linking the D2R unbiased agonist sumanirole with privileged secondary molecular fragments. The resulting ligands demonstrate improved D2R affinity and selectivity over sumanirole. Extensive in vitro functional studies and bias factor analysis led to the identification of a novel class of highly potent Go-protein biased full D2R agonists with more than 10-fold and 1000-fold bias selectivity toward activation of specific G-protein subtypes and β-arrestin, respectively. Intracellular electrophysiological recordings from midbrain dopamine neurons demonstrated that Go-protein selective agonists can elicit prolonged ligand-induced GIRK activity via D2Rs, which may be beneficial in the treatment of dyskinesias associated with dopamine system dysfunction.


Atrial fibrillation is the commonest clinical arrhythmia and a leading cause of hospital admission, morbidity and mortality. New digital health technologies are now allowing patients and the general population to identify heart rhythm abnor-malities before any encounter with a medical professional. This chapter will include an overview of the prevalence of atrial fibrillation and explore the current recommendations on methods for arrhythmia screening. We discuss different risk factors as well as physiological and structural markers for atrial fibrillation onset. We explore in detail the application of novel digital health technologies such as wearables, watches and mobile devices which may have an impact on screening detection rates. The article concludes with a discussion about how to manage patients with screen detected atrial fibrillation.


There are certain factors within and outside organisations that can influence organisational performance. The presence or absence of those factors impacts organisations' ability to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. As a risk-prone business sector, construction organisations need to identify those determinants that could ensure their superior performance. To date, global studies have identified many determinants that govern the performance of construction organisations. However, few of these are known in New Zealand, and their weightings could be useful in forming business strategies. Therefore, this paper measures the significance of identified determinants of construction organisational performance. A total of 100 professionals participated in a questionnaire survey administered using a snowball sampling technique. The Relative Importance Index approach was used to rank the determinants according to their importance to organisational performance. Five main determinants were significant and ranked highly, with more than 80% relative importance index scores. These determinants are resources and capabilities, competitive strategies, organisational characteristics, environmental factors, and customers relationship management. This finding provides a useful benchmark for future research on the significance of some determinants that could explain the performance differentials experienced in the construction domain in New Zealand


This article reports on a policy forum sponsored by the New Zealand Treasury, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Victoria University of Wellington on New Zealand's macroeconomic imbalances. Chief among these imbalances is New Zealand's large stock of net foreign liabilities, but there are also recurrent concerns about high domestic interest rates, the high exchange rate, and about New Zealand's relatively poor growth performance. The forum highlighted that both private and public sectors contribute to imbalances, and canvassed a wide array of policies that might help reduce the vulnerabilities that these imbalances entail. Such policies include directly improving the government's net saving, and using policies to influence private sector saving and investment behaviour.


Dynamic reconfigurations are a powerful approach for the adaption of component-based or service-oriented software systems at runtime. Important issues in this area are the problems of state transfer and state consistency, i.e., to determine the system state after a reconfiguration and to ensure that it is valid. To deal with these problems, we introduce distributed port automata in this paper. Distributed port automata combine structural and behavioral system properties and therefore allow to reason about dynamic reconfigurations. In our approach, we use an automata-based model for describing the behavior of the primitive building blocks in a system, and a graph-based model for describing its structure in terms of a network. We demonstrate how to derive the system semantics of a distributed port automaton and show that it is compositional. We consider an encoding of
the coordination language Reo and show a new result on compositionality of flattening for distributed graphs.


Structural hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements have become popular in New Zealand in recent times as heavy traffic volumes have increased and early failures of granular pavements have become more common, especially in urban areas where road maintenance causes major traffic disruption. Elastic modulus values are important inputs for the structural HMA pavement design process; however, there is generally a lack of data in New Zealand regarding appropriate elastic modulus values for typical HMA mixes. The primary objective of this project was to address the issue of characterising the elastic modulus parameter for HMA materials. The project involved performing flexural modulus and indirect tensile tests on specimens of HMA typically used in New Zealand. The results were compared with published presumptive values and the results of analyses using the Shell Bands software. The report interprets the elastic modulus results with respect to a number of material and test variables. The fatigue properties of the test specimens were also examined. (a)


Synopsis Using underwater television, eleven recurrent bottom facies have been identified and mapped over an area of about 250 km2. Bare rock areas are rare: Turritella-rich fine sands with trails, and crustacean-burrowed muds widespread. Coarse sands, fining northwards from megaripple fields in the Sound of Islay and the Passage of Oronsay are dominantly of biogenic origin. The kelp Laminaria saccharina was seen rooted in gravelly parts of the megaripple field in the former area (one of strong tidal currents but reduced wave action) where the calcareous alga Lithothamnium is an important contributor. Barnacles and molluscs dominate in the latter region, which is more exposed to Atlantic swell. Extensive spreads of Modiolus seem to rest on a tough clay surface, possibly of eroded late-Glacial material which also probably underlies Tarbert Bank, since it crops out along its eastern margin. The rippled sand body located on the Bank could represent residual out-wash. Facies analysis by combined underwater television and grab/dredge/box coring is optimal for shelf waters of intermediate depth (10–100 m): it reveals particularly well vagile epifauna, normally missed by conventional grabbing. In addition, it permits sediment/faunal samples to be studied in a truer perspective. Differentiation of facies by television scores over bottom sampling in higher energy, coarser sediments; but in lower energy muds and fine sands of the level bottom, where infauna dominate, biofacies analysis by faunal clustering and resin impregnation of internal structures will probably achieve greater refinement


Abstract We present an approach to extracting arguments from social media, exemplified by a case study on a large corpus of Twitter messages collected under the #Brexit hashtag during the run-up to the referendum in 2016. Our method is based on constructing dedicated corpus queries that capture predefined argumentation patterns following standard Walton-style argumentation schemes. Query matches are transformed directly into logical patterns, i. e. formulae with placeholders in a general form of modal logic. We prioritize precision over recall, exploiting the fact that the sheer size of the corpus still delivers substantial numbers of matches for all patterns, and with the goal of eventually gaining an overview of widely-used arguments and argumentation schemes. We evaluate our approach in terms of recall on a manually annotated gold standard of 1000 randomly selected tweets for three selected high-frequency patterns. We also estimate precision by manual inspection of query matches in the entire corpus. Both evaluations are accompanied by an analysis of inter-annotator agreement between three independent judges.


We present preliminary results of our \hst Pa$\alpha$ survey of the Galactic Center (\gc), which maps the central 0.65$\times$0.25 degrees around Sgr A*. This survey provides us with a more complete inventory of massive stars within the \gc, compared to previous observations. We find 157 Pa$\alpha$ emitting sources, which are evolved massive stars. Half of them are located outside of three young massive star clusters near Sgr A*. The loosely spatial distribution of these field sources suggests that they are within less massive star clusters/groups, compared to the three massive ones. Our Pa$\alpha$ mosaic not only resolves previously well-known large-scale filaments into fine structures, but also reveals many new extended objects, such as bow shocks and H II regions. In particular, we find two regions with large-scale Pa$\alpha$ diffuse emission and tens of Pa$\alpha$ emitting sources in the negative Galactic longitude suggesting recent star formation activities, which were not known previously. Furthermore, in our survey, we detect $\sim$0.6 million stars, most of which are red giants or AGB stars. Comparisons of the magnitude distribution in 1.90 $\mu$m and those from the stellar evolutionary tracks with different star formation histories suggest an episode of star formation process about 350 Myr ago in the \gc .


Hospitality is a well-identified biblical theme; the consensus among most modern Christian authors is that it is both demonstrated by the deity and expected of humanity, throughout both Old and New Testaments. Often, however, such discussions rely on an assumed transparency of the nature and definition of hospitality, and on the assumption that the biblical attitude to the subject is univocal. However, the biblical witness is not unambiguous, but demonstrates tensions reflecting both the complex nature of hospitality, and the development of the theme through the Bible. In recent years the ambiguous nature of hospitality has been argued in theoretical terms by the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, and its complexities of praxis by post-colonial critics. This paper sets out to bring these modern critical voices into dialogue with the biblical texts, and it will be shown that when read with a sensitivity to the paradoxes enunciated by these contemporary theorists, the biblical understanding of the hospitality theme is more complex than it at first appears. It will be argued that a more subtle understanding of the developing and complex biblical view of hospitality will aid the development of a more robust Christian ethic, especially in the light of the contemporary challenge of migration.


A property that has been contaminated by harmful pollutants is difficult to manage and market for all but the expert brownfield redeveloper. This articles tracks the real-life mismanagement of such a property. For theyy inexperienced, an environmentally damaged property is a time-consuming distraction exacerbated by unrealistic expectations of value.


Environmental filtering and limiting similarity mechanisms can simultaneously structure community assemblages. However, how they shape the functional and phylogenetic structure of root neighborhoods remains unclear, hindering the understanding of below-ground community assembly processes and diversity maintenance. In a 50-ha plot in a subtropical forest, China, we randomly sampled > 2700 root clusters from 625 soil samples. Focusing on ten root functional traits measured on 76 woody species, we examined the functional and phylogenetic structure of root neighborhoods and linked their distributions with environmental cues. Functional overdispersion was pervasive among individual root traits (50% of the traits) and accentuated when different traits were combined. Functional clustering (20% of the traits) seemed to be associated with a soil nutrient gradient with thick roots dominating fertile areas whereas thin roots dominated infertile soils. Nevertheless, such traits were also sorted along other environmental cues, showing multidimensional adaptive trait syndromes. Species relatedness was also an important factor defining root neighborhoods, resulting in significant phylogenetic overdispersion. These results suggest that limiting similarity may drive niche differentiation of coexisting species to reduce competition, and that alternative root strategies could be crucial in promoting root neighborhood resources use and species coexistence.


Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is a potent foodborne pathogen and categorized as a class B type of biological warfare agent. In this research work, SEB is detected by various sensitive analytical methods such as enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), quantum dots-based fluorescence linked immunosorbent assay (QDs-FLISA) and square-wave voltammetry (SWV). The obtained results were compared in terms of sensitivity, ease of experimentation and analysis time. For the QD-based detection, fluorescent lead sulfide (PbS) QDs were prepared by a bottom-up approach and characterized by various techniques. Highly specific antibodies against SEB were conjugated with the prepared PbS QDs and were used as revealing antibodies. For the electrochemical detection of SEB, rabbit anti-SEB polyclonal antibodies (primary antibodies) were immobilized on screen-printed electrodes (SPEs) followed by the addition of various concentrations of SEB antigen. These electrodes were further incubated with revealing antibodies. Finally, 1 M HCl solution was added to the SPE to dissolve the PbS QDs which were captured in a sandwiched immunoassay, and resulting Pb2+ ions were determined by the SWV method using a glassy-carbon electrode. The obtained peak current is proportional to the amount of Pb2+ ions which indirectly depends on the SEB concentration. Linearity was observed in the concentration range of 1 ng mL−1 to 1 μg mL−1 of SEB antigen. The limit of detection was found to be 0.01 ng mL−1 for SEB. The results reveal that electrochemical SWV sensing is much easier, faster and provides high sensitivity as compared to the other methods. It is found that the detection limits achieved for sandwich ELISA and QDs-FLISA were 0.24 ng mL−1 and 0.03 ng mL−1 respectively. In addition, the developed SWV method can be implemented for the on-site detection of SEB particularly for civil and defense applications where security is of prime importance.


This article aims to assess the effectiveness of the Security Council's anti-terror measures against the background of the Member States' practices of implementation. This survey is based primarily on the national reports submitted by states, pursuant to the relevant SC resolutions. Other issues, such as the legitimacy of the SC's actions and the encroachment of anti-terror measures on fundamental human rights, are also broached in so far as they may have an impact on the effectiveness of the implementation process. Finally, the article attempts to evaluate, primarily from the perspective of legal interpretation, how to reconcile the predominant security concerns underlying anti-terror measures with the cohesion of the international legal system.


This paper is concerned with a computational linguistics analysis of Role and Reference Grammar [RRG] (cf. Van Valin and LaPolla 1997; Van Valin (2005) and introduces research work in progress aiming to analyze the computability of RRG. The concept of computational adequacy is introduced as an important external principle from a philosophy of science perspective to sharpen the scientific principles of the area of functional computational linguistics. In addition, a pseudo-code-based meta-language is developed in order to semi-formalize the linking algorithm from semantics to syntax. This paper will show that RRG in its current fashion is not executable on an abstract machine model called Random Access Machine and is therefore not computationally adequate. It is highlighted that the semantics to syntax linking algorithm as proposed in Van Valin (2005) is in fact too coarsely grained to account for the variable undergoer linking in English three-place predicates. Also, the concept of intelligent software agents is introduced in order to account for the functional linguistic approach used in RRG. It will be shown that it is possible to account for variable undergoer linking in three-place predicates using constructional schemas as developed in Nolan (2011). Based on the development of typed feature structures of thematic relations it is possible to show that semantic macroroles as developed in Van Valin (2005) are epiphenomenal. They are an unnecessary concept set on top of thematic relations, which is in conflict with the principle of economy as discussed in Van Valin and LaPolla (1997). It is shown that thematic relations are stored in inheritance networks in the mental lexicon and that they interact with constructional schemas for transfer verbs as they are developed in this paper. The concept of discourse representation structures is also of crucial importance in this paper. It will be shown that variable undergoer linking in English is based on information structure considerations. In order to develop a computationally adequate version of RRG, a revised version of the semantics to syntax linking algorithm is developed.


The importance of contemporary television broadcasting for the shaping and development of national cultures and identities is increasingly evident. Television as the privileged medium for the dissemination of information and for mass entertainment has irreversibly altered the manner in which nations perceive themselves and each other. This volume explores the multiple and complex ways in which audiovisual developments in two important European states have impacted on the life styles and attitudes of the population at large and its governing elites. This is the first study that is devoted to the highly significant roles played by France and Britain in the formulation of European audiovisual policy and that provides a truly comparative analysis of the contemporary audiovisual scene in the two countries. It consists of four complementary sections: an overview of the audiovisual landscapes in Britain and France; an analysis of television programming; an account of the new cable and satellite media, and an assessment of European audiovisual integration. Overall, this volume offers a constructive contribution to the continuing debate on national and European broadcasting.


1. Human skin fibroblasts internalize homologous sulphated proteoglycans by adsorptive endocytosis. Endocytosis rate is half maximal when the concentration of the proteoglycans is 0.1 nM. At saturation, a single fibroblast may endocytose up to 8 X 10(6) proteoglycan molecules/h. 2. The kinetics of prote;glycan binding to the cell surface suggest the presence of 6 X 10(5) high-affinity binding sites per cell. The bulk of sulphated proteoglycans associates to low-affinity binding sites on the cell surface. 3. Glycosaminoglycans and other anionic macromolecules inhibit endocytosis of sulphated proteoglycans non-competitively. The lack of interaction of glycosaminoglycans with the cell-surface receptors for sulphated proteoglycans suggests that the protein core of proteoglycans is essential for binding to the cell surface. 4. The effects of trypsin, cell density, serum concentration and medium pH on endocytosis and degradation of endocytosed sulphated proteoglycans is described. 5. A comparison of the number of the high-affinity binding sites and the number of molecules endocytosed with respect to time suggests a recycling of the proteoglycan receptors between the cell surface and the endocytotic vesicles and/or the lysosomes.


Body Story , Channel 4, Thursdays 900 pm

It's a pity that Channel 4's medical series Body Story has appeared so soon after The Human Body , the BBC's venture into similar territory. The irresistible temptation to make comparisons leaves Channel 4's offering outgunned—visually, technologically, and financially. While Auntie could afford to hire Ennobled of Hammersmith and cart him to all sorts of exotic locations—from the top of an Egyptian pyramid to the bottom of a swimming pool—the producers of Body Story had to make do with actors playing such parts as football-loving construction workers and motorcycle couriers who are would-be pop singers.

It might have been better if Wall to Wall Television, the production company which made Body Story , had chosen a different title. Using the word "body" again invites those unfair comparisons and casts a shadow over what might otherwise have been seen as a modest but rather good series. Each of the six programmes sets the biology that it is describing in the context of a simple dramatised story: …


Abstract A series of investigations was carried out at ICARDA during April–June 2004 and May–June 2005 to investigate the use of the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana to control Eurygaster integriceps and to determine aspects of the insect's biology that could be relevant to control with the fungus. Application in 2004 of an oil-based formulation of B. bassiana showed distribution of the spray decreasing from the top of the wheat to the bottom, although the proportion of tillers with coverage at the base was still 80%. Seventy percent of Sunn Pest had received direct hits, with the highest amount on the dorsal surface, followed by the ventral surface, then the legs and antennae. Mortality of field-treated, then laboratory-maintained insects, ranged from 47.6% for insects exposed only to the B. bassiana spray, 74.2% for unsprayed insects exposed to treated wheat and 86.4% for insects receiving direct spray and being exposed to treated wheat. Some field results demonstrated mortality. Mortality assessments following the 2005 treatments were conducted solely in the field, there was no apparent effect upon Sunn Pest numbers. The majority of studies on Sunn Pest biology were carried out on untreated insects outside the trial plots. Different assessment methods resulted in varying estimates of adults and juveniles in the field. The numbers of Sunn Pest found and the proportion of these at the top of the wheat crop, declined after early morning and increased again in the early evening, suggesting sheltering deeper in the crop or in the soil during the middle part of the day. Mobility and location of marked insects was followed in micro-plots and by mark and recapture studies, demonstrating a range of activities, from movement around the crop for a number of metres, including contact with numerous tillers to almost total immobility; Sunn Pest generally avoided movement on the soil. The potential for Sunn Pest control with a mycoinsecticide and how Sunn Pest behaviour is relevant to a mycoinsecticide application are discussed.


As a part of a composite study of Galveston Bay, a bay-estuarine environment, an interdisciplinary research program was conducted by several principal investigators of the University of Texas School of Engineering and the Marine Science Institute at Port Aransas. The purpose of this effort was to determine the water quality of relatively stable salinity/temperature areas representing five general locations in the Galveston Bay system. This endpoint was to be determined by analysis of the water during an annual series of samples by bioassay with several species of indigenous living organisms, through the analysis of BOD toxicity indicated during the previous Galveston Bay Study, an evaluation of the nursery ground, nutrient, nitrogen and primary productivity values, a study of bottom fauna and comparison with other data parameters of the total bay study that may be pertinent to the evaluation of water quality to the biological regime.


Social learning plays an important role in models of productivity dispersion and long-run growth. In economies with a continuum of producers and unbounded productivity distributions, social learning can sometimes leave long-run growth rates completely indeterminate. This paper modifies a model in which potential entrants attempt to imitate randomly selected incumbent firms by introducing an upper bound on how much entrants can learn from incumbents. When this upper bound is taken to infinity, a unique long-run growth rate emerges, even though the economy without upper bound has an unbounded continuum of balanced growth rates.


Objective. To determine whether women with both polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have an increased risk of obstetric complications compared with women with GDM alone. Methods. A retrospective cohort study of maternal/fetal outcomes in women with GDM and PCOS was compared with women with GDM alone. Outcomes were compared using Fisher's exact test for categorical variables and t-test for continuous variables. Logistic regression models allowed for the calculation of odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for each outcome, adjusted for confounding. Results. One hundred seventy one women were included in the study. Significantly more women with both GDM and PCOS had pregnancy-induced hypertension/preeclampsia (15.9% vs. 3.9%, p = 0.019, OR = 4.62, 95% CI = 1.38–15.41). Multiple logistic regression revealed that this increase persisted after controlling for body mass index (p = 0.028, OR = 4.43, 95% CI = 1.17–16.72) and parity (p = 0.050, OR = 3.45, 95% CI = 1.00–11.92). Women with GDM and PCOS tended to have more preterm deliveries (25.0% vs. 11.8%, p = 0.063). More infants of women with GDM and PCOS required phototherapy treatment for hyperbilirubinemia (25.0% vs. 7.9%, p = 0.0066, OR = 3.90, 95% CI = 1.52–9.98). Logistic regression revealed that this association persisted after controlling for preterm delivery (OR = 3.18, 95% CI = 1.14–8.82, p = 0.026). Conclusions. Mothers with both disorders should be monitored more carefully and counseled regarding their increased risk of both maternal and fetal complications.


In the criminal court (Arrondissements rechtbank, sector strafrecht) of Amsterdam the assignment of magistrates (judges, officers, etc) to sessions needed to handle the cases presented, has become a problem last years mainly caused by the increase of so called mega-sessions. One complicating factor is that there are specialisations amongst the magistrates for sessions at different levels. Another one is that for some (severe) cases a team of three magistrates or judges are required (MK). The assignment takes a period of 4 weeks at a time in which each week up to 100 magistrates and 150 sessions have to be scheduled.
The objective of this research is to develop an optimal decision support system for personnel [1] to work in teams with different functions, organised in different groups. With such a system, a scheduler could make assignments in a shorter time period, more reliable and at least with the same quality. In order to reach for an optimal mix of support and user friendliness against minimal construction time/costs, we used EXCEL (with Visual Basic) for the administration-input-report data representation orientated parts and FORTRAN for the combinatorial assignment parts. CPLEX was used to obtain optimal solutions.
In general the problem described here can be characterized as a problem with a multiple conflicting objective function under overdetermined requirements with both qualitative and quantitative data [2]. The overall optimal assignment approach followed in this applied research is based on three main steps after the input of the relevant data, which is quite a problem in itself. Firstly, a so-called Availability Matrix is developed, which indicates which personnel can be assigned to which tasks, on an individual basis. In former presentations at PATAT conferences [3] the whole administrative system was explained in order to arrive at relevant, robust and reliable data. Database management is crucial here. Pre-processing and reduction rules were applied which reduced the solution space considerably without deleteting possible assignments. Next, in order to take into account the team assignments and the working conditions [4], a Combination Matrix is constructed indicating which tasks in the week the personnel can be assigned to. This assignment is still individually based. Finally, the Overall Schedule for the teams is constructed, giving a minimal difference between the total available working hours and the assigned ones: the objective function. The approach is demonstrated with a (small!) example in Tables 1..4, see Appendix. The general approach used is to generate a number of possible alternatives and pick the optimal one. In order to arrive always at a solution within a restricted time period we used a crash approach, a Greedy algorithm, a version of the Marriage Problem and an heuristic based on the Branch-And-Bound principle with integer linear programming [5]. The paradox here is that approaches easy to apply give in general solutions far from the optimal one. The more complex the approach the better the solution possibilities will be against a more time consuming character. Another question which is dealt with is the use of commercial available Integer-Linear-Programming packages in parts of the approach.
The optimization part is still in a development stage, but a lot of experiments were executed and the results are promising. The administration part is already in use for some years.


The MONEE framework endows collective adaptive robotic systems with the ability to combine environment- and taskdriven selection pressures: it enables distributed online algorithms for learning behaviours that ensure both survival and accomplishment of user-defined tasks. This paper explores the trade-off that must be reached between these two (possibly contradictory) requirements, in the case where a foraging task is defined by the user. In particular, we study the impact of enforcing specialisation (i.e. the collective must acquire two mutually exclusive foraging skills) as well as the mechanism for tuning the level of specialisation in an on-line fashion. Results show that the actual behaviour of the collective system can be guided on request during the course of evolution in order to achieve a particular distribution of specialisations, albeit within a certain range of values.