Existing approaches for learning to control a robot arm rely on supervised methods where correct behavior is explicitly given. It is diicult to learn to avoid obstacles using such methods, however, because examples of obstacle avoidance behavior are hard to generate. This paper presents an alternative approach that evolves neural network controllers through genetic algorithms. No input/output examples are necessary, since neuro-evolution learns from a single performance measurement over the entire task of grasping an object. The approach is tested in a simulation of the OSCAR-6 robot arm which receives both visual and sensory input. Neural networks evolved to eeectively avoid obstacles at various locations to reach random target locations.


The possible source of die edge cracking for Flip Chip Ceramic Ball Grid Array (FC-CBGA) package due to thermal cycling have been investigated in this study. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) models were used to analyze the effect of underfill fillet geometry on interfacial stresses between die edge and the underfill fillet. The input parameters of FC-CBGA from industry was used for simulation and the properties of commercial underfill were extracted by using Thermal Mechanical Analyzer (TMA) and Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA). Die stress distribution for different fillet height were generated to depict variation of stress due thermal loading. The variation of tensile stress due different fillet height and width were discussed for parameters optimization.


Embryos and oocytes were first successfully cryopreserved more than 30 years ago, when Whittingham et al.1 and Wilmut 2 separately described that mouse embryos could be frozen and stored at -196 °C and, a few years later, Parkening et al. 3 reported the birth of live offspring resulting from in vitro fertilization (IVF) of cryopreserved oocytes. Since then, the use of cryopreservation techniques has rapidly spread to become an essential component in the practice of human and animal assisted reproduction and in the conservation of animal genetic resources. Currently, there are two main methods used to cryopreserve oocytes and embryos: slow freezing and vitrification. A wide variety of approaches have been used to try to improve both techniques and millions of animals and thousands of children have been born from cryopreserved embryos. However, important shortcomings associated to cryopreservation still have to be overcome, since ice-crystal formation, solution effects and osmotic shock seem to cause several cryoinjuries in post-thawed oocytes and embryos. Slow freezing with programmable freezers has the advantage of using low concentrations of cryoprotectants, which are usually associated with chemical toxicity and osmotic shock, but their ability to avoid ice-crystal formation at low concentrations is limited. Slow freezing also induces supercooling effects that must be avoided using manual or automatic seeding 4. In the vitrification process, high concentrations of cryoprotectants inhibit the formation of ice-crystals and lead to the formation of a glasslike vitrified state in which water is solidified, but not expanded. However, due to the toxicity of cyroprotectants at the concentrations used, oocytes/embryos can only be exposed to the cryoprotectant solution for a very short period of time and in a minimum volume solution, before submerging the samples directly in liquid nitrogen 5. In the last decade, vitrification has become more popular because it is a very quick method in which no expensive equipment (programmable freezer) is required. However, slow freezing continues to be the most widely used method for oocyte/embryo cryopreservation. In this video-article we show, step-by-step, how to collect and slowly freeze hamster oocytes with high post-thaw survival rates. The same procedure can also be applied to successfully freeze and thaw mouse embryos at different stages of preimplantation development.


With the rising support for stakeholder capitalism and at the urging of its advocates, companies have been increasingly using environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance metrics for CEO compensation. This Article provides a conceptual and empirical analysis of this trend, and exposes its fundamental flaws and limitations. The use of ESG-based compensation, we show, has at best a questionable promise and poses significant perils. Based partly on an empirical analysis of the use of ESG compensation metrics in S&P 100 companies, we identify two structural problems. First, ESG metrics commonly attempt to tie CEO pay to limited dimensions of the welfare of a limited subset of stakeholders. Therefore, even if these pay arrangements were to provide a meaningful incentive to improve the given dimensions, the economics of multitasking indicates that the use of these metrics could well ultimately hurt, not serve, aggregate stakeholder welfare. Second, the push for ESG metrics overlooks and exacerbates the agency problem of executive pay, which both scholars and corporate governance rules have paid close attention. To ensure that they are designed to provide effective incentives rather than serve the interests of executives, pay arrangements need to be subject to effective scrutiny by outsiders. However, our empirical analysis shows that in almost all cases in which S&P 100 companies use ESG metrics, it is difficult if not impossible for outside observers to assess whether this use provides valuable incentives or rather merely lines CEO's pockets with performance-insensitive pay. The current use of ESG metrics, we conclude, likely serves the interests of executives, not of stakeholders. Expansion of ESG metrics should not be supported even by those who care deeply about stakeholder welfare.


A UV Rayleigh-Mie scattering lidar system at 355 nm has been upgraded for more-accurate temperature profiling of the troposphere by use of a new multicavity Fabry-Perot etalon (MCFPE) filter. The MCFPE filter, which was designed to improve the stability and operational characteristics of the lidar system, has three filter bandpass functions and separates one Mie scattering and two Rayleigh scattering signals from the lidar return signal and simultaneously acts as a laser frequency discriminator to lock the laser frequency. Moreover, a high-resolution grating is employed to block signal interference from Raman scattering and the solar background. A practical lidar system, which features strong system stabilization and high measurement accuracy, has been built, and the performance of the lidar system has been verified by comparison of temperature profiling between the lidar and a radiosonde. Good agreement between the two instrument measurements was obtained in terms of lapse rate and inversion layer height. Statistical temperature errors of less than 1 K up to a height of 3 km are obtainable with 5 min observation time for daytime measurements.


BACKGROUND
HIV associated atypical cutaneous lymphoproliferative disorder (ACLD) is a rare condition characterized by a pruritic, often generalized, eruption of patches and plaques or erythroderma clinically simulating mycosis fungoides (MF) or Sézary syndrome. A polyclonal CD8+ T-cell infiltrate on biopsy can help differentiate ACLD from MF or Sézary syndrome, but the clinical and histopathologic appearance must also be considered. Accurate diagnosis is imperative because HAART therapy has been reported to improve this condition in some patients.

OBSERVATION
We report a case of HIV associated ACLD, with an atypical presentation, initially consisting of diffuse papules, some with a dusky targetoid center. Two weeks after starting antiviral therapy the papules flattened, evolving to xerotic, hyperpigmented macules.

CONCLUSION
The working-theory of a reactive etiology for this condition might explain the evolution in appearance following initiation of HAART. The presence of papules with a dusky targetoid center suggests that this condition should be considered in the differential diagnosis with syphilis or atypical erythema multiforme in HIV patients.


Porous polymers with hydrophilicity and oleophobicity are promising for removing water from various oil-water mixtures (including emulsions), but the preparation of such polymers is usually complicated and time-consuming. Herein, a novel stragey, in situ polymerization and foaming, has been developed to fabricate hydrophilic-oleophobic porous polymers in a facile manner within seconds. The porous polymers from pentaerythritol tetra(3-mercaptopropionate) and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate showed hydrophilicity and underwater oleophobicity, enabling the removal of water from oil-water mixtures and surfactant-stabilized, water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions, with a high efficiency of 99.9% and excellent reusability, without obvious deterioation after 10 cycles. With incorporatin of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorooctyl methacrylate, the resulting porous polymers showed hydrophilicity and oleophobicty in air, providing an additional function of antioil-fouling ability both in dry state and in the process of oil-water separation. Moreover, both the two types of the porous polymers showed robust compression, without fracture and changes in wetting property after cycles of compression at 70% strain and high fatigue-resistant elasticity, without obvious plastic deformation after 1000 compression-release cycles. The facile and rapid preparation, hydrophiclity-oleophobicity, and robustness in compression and elasticity enabled the porous polymers to be good candidates for removing water from various oil-water mixtures.


Regardless of the huge body of literature on the short-run performance of initial public
offerings (IPOs), the anomaly remains unsolved and there are still less explored areas, mainly
due to a lack of data availability and methodology restrictions. This thesis aims to provide a
better understanding of IPO valuation and initial returns with an economic approach, which is
new to the focus of current literature on firm- and issuing-characteristics. Specifically, this
thesis introduces three new macroeconomic determinants in an IPO valuation, including the
country-level financial integration, regional economic openness and geographic
business/investment location of real assets, by focusing on the cross-country and real estate
IPOs.
Due to the already mentioned restrictions on data and methodology, the analysis of this
thesis is carried out on three studies, each with a unique and different dataset. The results show
that a country's financial integration reduces IPO initial returns, along with the country-level
institutional settings. Alongside this direct effect, the results also suggest a moderation effect
where financial integration weakens the impact of country institutions on IPO underpricing.
Furthermore, in the second study, urban economic openness at a regional (or city) level within
a country is found to reduce IPO initial returns. We use the laboratory of real estate IPOs in
China, where we observe high underpricing and cross-sectional variation in openness between
regions. As this impact is transmitted through the geographic location of a company's
underlying real assets, the final study shows how this geographic factor matters for U.S. Real
Estate Investment Trust (REIT) IPOs. The findings reveal a negative relationship between the
geographic diversification of the underlying properties and IPO initial returns. Overall, this
thesis highlights the importance of the macroeconomic conditions surrounding the issuing
company to its IPO valuation


Multilingual semantic linguistic resource is critical for many applications in Natural Language Processing (NLP). While, building large-scale lexico-semantic resources manually from scratch is extremely expensive, which promoted the applications of automatic extraction or merger algorithms. These algorithms did benefit us in creation of large-scale resources, but introduced many kinds of errors as the side effect. For example, Chinese WordNet follows the WordNet structure and is generated via several algorithms. This automatic generation of resources introduces many kinds of errors such as wrong translation, typos and false mapping between multilingual terms. The quality of a linguistic resource influences the performance of the further applications direct- ly, which means the quality of a linguistic resource should be the higher the better. Thus, finding errors is inevitable. However, till now, there is not any efficient method to find errors from a large-scale and multi- lingual resource. Validating manually by experts could be a solution, but it is very expensive, where the obstacles come from not only the large-scale dataset, but also multilingual. Even though crowdsourcing is a method for solving large-scale and tedious task, it is still costly. By thinking in this scenario, we plan to find an effective method that can help us finding errors in low cost.
We use games as our solution and adopt Universal Knowledge Core (UKC) with respect to Chinese language as our case study. UKC is a multi-layered multilingual lexico-semantic resource where a common lexical element from a different language is mapped to a formal concept. In this dissertation, we present a non-immersive game named Concept Challenge Game to find the errors that exist in English-Chinese lexico-semantic resource. In this game, people will face challenges in English synsets and have to choose the most appropriate option from the listed Chinese synsets. The players are unaware when finding errors in the lexico-semantic resource. Our evaluation shows that people are spending a significant amount of time playing and able to find differ- ent erroneous mappings. Moreover, we further extended our game to Italian version, the result is promising as well, indicating that our game has the ability to figure out errors in multilingual linguistic resources.


This article deals with state obligations under the UN Torture Convention, specifically the criminal prosecution of individuals for torture and complicity in torture incidental to 'extraordinary renditions', by focusing on Italy's obligations arising from the abduction of Mr Abu Omar. After addressing what 'extraordinary renditions' are and the wider context in which they occurred, the article considers the obligation to criminalize complicity in torture and its implementation in Italy. It then analyzes the ongoing Italian criminal proceedings concerning the abduction of Mr Abu Omar and concludes that they are not an adequate implementation of Italy's obligation to prosecute complicity in torture under the Convention for a variety of reasons. In particular, it addresses the issue of 'state secrecy' which emerged during the proceedings and was decided upon by the Constitutional Court, and argues that it cannot be used to avoid international obligations under the Convention.


Accurate knowledge of the boundary conditions is essential when modeling the Direct-Chill (DC) casting process. Determining the surface heat flux in the secondary cooling zone, where the greater part of the heat removal takes place, is therefore of critical importance. Boiling water heat transfer phenomena are quantified with boiling curves which express the heat flux density as a function of the surface temperature. Compilations of boiling curves for the DC casting of aluminum alloys present a good agreement at low surface temperatures but a very poor agreement at higher surface temperatures, in the transition boiling and film boiling modes. Secondary cooling was simulated by spraying instrumented samples with jets of cooling water. Quenching tests were conducted first with a stationary sample, and then with a sample moving at a constant "casting speed" in order to better simulate the DC casting process. The ejection of the water film in quenching tests with a stationary sample and the relative motion between the sample and the water jets both lead to an Advanced Cooling Front (ACF) effect, in which cooling occurs through axial conduction within the sample rather than through boiling water heat transfer at the surface. The heat flux density and surface temperature were evaluated using the measured thermal history data in conjunction with a two-dimensional inverse heat conduction (IHC) model. The IHC model developed at the University of British Columbia was able to take into account the advanced cooling front effect. The effect of various parameters (initial sample temperature, casting speed, water flow rate) on the rate of heat removal in the film boiling and transition boiling regimes was investigated.


This short term research was concerned with an Agromyzid parasite –Phytomyza ilicis, Curt, which attacks young unthickened leaves of Jlex aquifolium, causing the formation of brown yellow blotches or mines on the leaf surface. Few papers related to P. ilicis have been published, and no recorded work has been given for the North East area of England, despite the fact that the holly leaf miner /holly tree association provides a useful system for the study of plant-insect relationships. Aims of the investigation were to determine whether differences in levels of infestation existed between trees of varying age and sex within the same area. Variation in infestation with height and aspect was investigated, together with egg mortality, later mortality factors by bird-attack and different species of parasites was also examined. The life-cycle of P. ilicis and its parasites was recorded from the mature larval - adult stages. Adult Sphegigaster flavicornis were recorded from suction-traps only. The study was carried out within Hollingside Wood, Durham city G.R. NZ.276 405. Sixteen holly bushes were examined on the basis of their isolation or proximaty to other holly bushes, position with respect to other vegetation, height and diameter, degree of healthiness based on the number of leaves per twig, sex and position with respect to gradient within the main wood. Six suction-traps were set up within a group of three adjacent trees at varying height Intervals within the University field-station. The size of bushes examined varied between 1.7-9.6 metres. Problems with sampling are discussed, and it was decided to sample between 325-4300 leaves depending on the size of, the tree, The ideal sample size was 800-1000 leases, leaves v/ere examined for the presence of eggs, the number of eggs per leaf, the position along the midrib, the number of mines per leaf and their position on the leaf. Each mine was examined for bird attack, and for the presence of both larval and pupal parasites. Leaf-sections were obtained from each tree for leaves of the 1977 season, to determine whether cuticle thickness, influenced the level of infestation between trees. Cuticle thickness was found to be unimportant in determining whether a leaf was mined or not, however cuticle thickness ultimately is important since adult P. ilicis can only attack young leaves where the cuticle is undeveloped. A variation in the time of emergence for adult P. ilicis was observed when compared with accounts given by Miall and Taylor (1907), Downes (1931), although the general pattern of the life-cycle was similar. No significant difference in the level of infestation was observed between trees, although total mine and egg number varied significantly. Spatial distribution did not appear to influence the density of mines, and no significant difference in population density with regard to position within Hollingside Wood was found. Aspect and height influenced both total mine and egg number. Egg mortality was observed to vary between trees but differences were not significant. Egg density was observed to influence the viability of eggs within the leaf, but; the relationship was density-independent by the larval parasite, C. gemma, and by an undetermined mortality factor influencing survival in the early stages of development. The pupal parasites observed were C, syma and S. flavicornis


Given a 4-tuple of Boolean variables (a, b, c, d), logical proportions are modeled by a pair of equivalences relating similarity indicators (a Λ b and ā Λ ƃ), or dissimilarity indicators (a Λ ƃ and ā Λ b) pertaining to the pair (a, b), to the ones associated with the pair (c, d). Logical proportions are homogeneous when they are based on equivalences between indicators of the same kind. There are only 4 such homogeneous proportions, which respectively express that i) "a differs from b as c differs from d" (and "b differs from a as d differs from c"), ii) "a differs from b as d differs from c" (and "b differs from a as c differs from d"), iii) "what a and b have in common c and d have it also", iv) "what a and b have in common neither c nor d have it". We prove that each of these proportions is the unique Boolean formula (up to equivalence) that satisfies groups of remarkable properties including a stability property w.r.t. a specific permutation of the terms of the proportion. The first one (i) is shown to be the only one to satisfy the standard postulates of an analogical proportion. The paper also studies how two analogical proportions can be combined into a new one. We then examine how homogeneous proportions can be used for diverse prediction tasks. We particularly focus on the completion of analogical-like series, and on missing value abduction problems. Finally, the paper compares our approach with other existing works on qualitative prediction based on ideas of betweenness, or of matrix abduction.


Myocardial contractility is controlled by intracellular Ca2+ cycling with the contribution of sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of altered SR function in defective regulation of intracellular Ca2+ levels in rats with metabolic syndrome (MetS) induced by a 16-week high-sucrose drinking-water diet. Electric-field stimulated transient intracellular Ca2+ changes in MetS cardiomyocytes exhibited significantly reduced amplitude (∼30%) and prolonged time courses (2-fold), as well as depressed SR Ca2+ loading (∼55%) with increased basal Ca2+ level. Consistent with these data, altered ryanodine receptor (RyR2) function and SERCA2a activity were found in MetS cardiomyocytes through Ca2+ spark measurements and caffeine application assay in a state in which sodium calcium exchanger was inhibited. Furthermore, tetracaine application assay results and hyperphosphorylated level of RyR2 also support the "leaky RyR2" hypothesis. Moreover, altered phosphorylation levels of phospholamban (PLN) support the depressed SERCA2a-activity thesis and these alterations in the phosphorylation of Ca2+-handling proteins are correlated with altered protein kinase and phosphatase activity in MetS cardiomyocytes. In conclusion, MetS-rat heart exhibits altered Ca2+ signaling largely due to altered SR function via changes in RyR2 and SERCA2a activity. These results point to RyR2 and SERCA2a as potential pharmacological targets for restoring intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis and, thereby, combatting dysfunction in MetS-rat heart.


Cryptosporidium hominis, an anthropologically transferred species in the Cryptosporidium genus, represents many clinical studies in several countries. Its growth in the recent decade is primarily owing to epidemiologic studies. This parasite has complicated life cycles that require differentiation through a variety of phases of development and passage across two or more hosts throughout their lifetimes. As they move from host to host and environment to environment, pathogenic organisms are continually exposed to unexpected changes in the circumstances under which they develop. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are targets of the host immune response; they are involved in the progression of diseases and play a significant part in this process. It has been discovered that the immunodominant immunogenic antigens in parasite infections HSPs. In this study, we have generated a multi-epitope vaccine against Cryptosporidium hominis (C. hominis) by using heat shock proteins. The epitopes that were selected had a substantial binding affinity for the B- and T-cell reference set of alleles, a high antigenicity score, a nature that was not allergic, a high solubility, non-toxicity and good binders. The epitopes were incorporated into a chimeric vaccine by using appropriate linkers. In order to increase the immunogenicity of the connected epitopes and effectively activate both innate and adaptive immunity, an adjuvant was attached to the epitopes. We have also analyzed the physiochemical characteristics of the vaccine which were satisfactory and then lead to the development of a 3D model. In addition, the binding confirmation of the vaccine to the TLR-4 innate immune receptor was also determined using molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The results of this simulation show that the vaccine has a strong binding affinity for TLR4, which indicates that the vaccine is highly effective. In general, the vaccine that has been described here has a good potential for inducing protective and targeted immunogenicity, however, this hypothesis is contingent upon more experimental testing.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.


Pursuant to existing problem backgaround, can be formulated that : as for problems to be studied by that is : Process learn to teach technique picture which still not yet adequate and according to, especially in the case of media and method teach so that require to be improved again, less it is learn room becoused minimized the more or less 40% from previous size measure. This matter cause the lack of draught, facility in teaching to become to decrease so that the condition of becoming less condusif, less balmy and less the existence of caused by calmness the increasing of noise in class or draw studio and addition two theory class room beside picture studio. While method which is used development is: Method delivers a lecture and instructional, method deliver a lecture amd demonstrate, methods deliver a lecture and discussion, method deliver a lecture and simulation (playing role), taxonomy of is target instructional, psikomotor taxonomy.


Abstract Appearances in cyberspace are deceptive and problematic. Deception in the cyber domain poses an immensely difficult challenge for states to differentiate between espionage activities in cyberspace and cyber attacks. The inability to distinguish between cyber activities places US cyber infrastructure in a perilous position and increases the possibility of a disproportionate or inadequate response to cyber incidents. This paper uses case analysis to examine the characteristics associated with the tools and decisions related to cyber espionage and cyber attacks to develop a framework for distinction leveraging epidemiological models for combating disease.


Objective:
 The role of eggs in cardiovascular disease risk remains uncertain. Studies implicate a metabolite of choline , trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). We tested the association between egg consumption and CVD risk factors over 20 years of follow-up.

 Methods:
 Study participants were from the CARDIA Study, a multicenter cohort of black and white Americans established in 1985/86 (baseline n=5,115; ages 18-30). Egg consumption was calculated from reported intake on a diet history at baseline and years 7 and 20 of follow-up. Eggs were categorized as: ≤1.0, 1.1-3.5, 3.6-6.9, and ≥7 per week. CVD risk factors were assessed at each exam, including blood pressure, lipids, and insulin resistance (defined by homeostatic model assessment, HOMA-IR). Multivariable-adjusted fixed effects (within-subject) regression models quantified prospective associations between time-varying egg consumption and CVD risk factors.

 Results:
 In the regression (Table), 7+ eggs per week was negatively associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure and >3.5 eggs per week was positively associated with HDL-C. Total cholesterol and LDL-C were positively associated with low-to-moderate consumption, but not with higher consumption.

 Conclusion:
 At higher levels of intake, eggs were negatively associated with blood pressure and positively associated with HDL-C; at low-to-moderate levels, eggs were positively associated with total cholesterol and LDL-C. P


Designing Art Exhibitions in an Educational Virtual World Demonstrating the multiple features of the Cerulean Gallery in Second Life, this research report showcases several exemplar exhibits created by students, artists, and museums. Located in The Educational Media Center, a Second Life teaching and social space, the Cerulean Gallery exhibits functioned as case studies that tested its effectiveness as an alternative venue for exhibition and aesthetic discourse in virtual worlds, and to reveal the learning preferences of Net Generation learners. This report is an examination of three recent major exhibits held at the Center: Places of the Heart, an intergenerational theme show, Wish You Were Here, a collaboration with Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Center in the Western Isles, UK, The Anime Show, a high school art club in Philadelphia, and a photography exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 2011 International Journal of Art and Design Conference The Centrality of Art, Design and the Performing Arts to Education June Julian, Ed.D. Julian Crooks, MA Designing Art Exhibitions in an Educational Virtual World Imagine a layering of art exhibition experiences with each successive layer gaining technological power, and partially revealing characteristics of the one below. As the thesis advisor for Julian Glynn Crooks, a recent graduate in the Educational Media concentration in the Department of Art + Design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, a process of accretion of visual worlds in a three part palimpsest relationship is surprisingly observed in her research project. Although every successive experiential pass seemed to overlay the level beneath, each one contributes synergistically and unmistakably to the whole. Having adopted the Levels of Discourse in Aesthetic Inquiry as an appropriate visual model to aid in understanding this phenomenon, it became readily apparent that the primary source, the first layer of reference, can only be the studio art experience itself. (Ecker & Kaelin, 1972) Here students imagine, design, and manipulate media to develop a creative product. June Julian & Julian Crooks 2 Next, the art exhibition naturally evolves as the second layer in the stack, overlaying the studio work with its own realities and functioning as its phenomenological critique. Even if hung in an Internet gallery, the work has traditional gallery presence with the viewers' gaze directed from outside of the exhibition space. Ultimately, the art works become a player in a new composition, the exhibition design experience itself. Yet, as the preceding studio and exhibition experiences are overwritten with the possibility of increasing technological advances, the process gains strength. As sub strata, still solidly in place, the preceding levels shine through and form the foundation for the next third layer, student exhibitions in virtual worlds. Functioning as a meta critique of earlier practice, those exhibits hosted in educational virtual worlds are informed and energized by their two part foundation below. Julian Glynn Crooks' research project provides important data on how designing exhibitions in the virtual world of Second Life can effectively address student driven learning and Net generation Learning Preferences. (Crooks, 2011) Central to this effort, the Cerulean Gallery in the Educational Media Center in Second Life continues to provide an excellent showcase for designing art exhibitions in an educational virtual world. By examining the multiple features of the Cerulean Gallery and by viewing several exemplar exhibits by students, artists, and museums hosted there, the characteristics of this most recent virtual layer of the visual model become more evident. Those exhibits themselves function as case studies which examine the effectiveness of the Educational Media Center in Second Life as an alternative venue for exhibition and aesthetic discourse in virtual worlds and to address the learning preferences of Net Generation learners and the needs of artists and curators for accessible exhibition space. June Julian & Julian Crooks 3 Located on a beautiful virtual tropical beach, The Educational Media Center features multiple modalities for teaching, learning and exhibiting art work. Four major exhibits held at the Center in the past two years: Places of the Heart, an intergenerational theme show, Wish You Were Here, a collaboration with Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Center in the Western Isles, UK, The Anime Show, a high school art club in Philadelphia, and the most recent exhibit, The Photographs of Lady Clementina Hawarden on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. A List of Works and Press Releases are available in the virtual space for visitors to pick up and read at their leisure. There is a large flat screen TV in the gallery that documents the opening receptions and the adjacent Power Point screen has been used for group critiques of the shows. In extending the traditional idea of exhibition venues, other available resources in the Cerulean Gallery include a lending library with downloadable professional literature, a computer station, indoor and seaside conference facilities, a building platform, a playable piano, snack bar and swimming pool. The Net Generation is the cohort born between the years 1984 and 2004. Digital technologies have significantly influenced this group, shaping many of their behaviors, attitudes and learning preferences. From a review of contemporary literature on the topic, six areas have been identified in which the Net Generation is distinct with respect to the following learning preferences: Social Connectivity, Identity Play, Participatory Creativity, Attention Issues, Visual Preference, and Inductive Approach. As part of the digital qualitative research design, these six areas have been embedded as observation benchmarks in three exhibitions in the Cerulean Gallery. (Crooks, 2011) June Julian & Julian Crooks 4 Figure 1. The Ed Media Center in Second Life The Educational Media Center in Second Life serves several purposes in addition to providing an exhibition space and virtual meeting area. It also provides the opportunity for pre-service art educators in the Art + Design Department to explore the potential of virtual worlds for their own educational projects. Additionally, it provides a professional development resource for art educators interested in using the Second Life platform to enhance the learning experience of their own Net Generation students. (Crooks, 2011) In contrast to 2-D Web exhibitions, the Cerulean Gallery creates a sense of presence as well as offering opportunities to display art, to share aesthetic experience, to collaborate with others, and to connect over geographic distance. Additionally, the art works are scaled to their actual size, both in proportion to other pieces and to the figures of the avatar visitors. The textures of the pieces are photorealistic, allowing the viewers to see June Julian & Julian Crooks 5 the work as it appears in real life when they zoom in. Each piece is labeled with information about the artist and the work. Viewers can virtually move through the gallery, pick up an artist statement, stop and look at pieces, sit upon gallery furniture and discuss the works In this virtual space, they can share the work with others who, though geographically distant, appear to occupy the same virtual room, looking at the same art, at the same time. (Crooks, 2011) Wish You Were Here was the first exhibit to be held in the Cerulean Gallery. It grew out of a physical visit to the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Center in North Uist, Western Isles, UK. Demonstrating all three levels of the palimpsest model, the collaboration involved actual student art done by Scottish students and by graduate Art + Design Education students at the University of the Arts. Figure 2. The Cerulean Gallery in Second Life June Julian & Julian Crooks 6 The project's next iterative layer was an Internet exhibit of the digitized images, which also included text comments generated over time from both student groups. In an interesting backwards twist, actual digital prints from the Internet show were exhibited in the President's gallery at the University of the Arts. For the third stage, the Wish You Were Here exhibit was hung in the Cerulean Gallery in Second Life for several months duration, where it was visited by numerous student groups, as well as by art and design education faculty from various universities. Audience response did testify to the power of the original actual art work to communicate diverse and sensitive senses of place even through the 3-D Web interface of Second Life. As the first show in the Cerulean Gallery, there were indeed technical skills to learn and hurdles to overcome. For example, each piece needed to be properly scaled. In the case of the University President's show, the physical constraints of the actual exhibition space dictated that the original size of each piece be modified in the digital print. Some of the pieces were very large, some quite small, but the reproductions were all the same size in that show. In the virtual world these limitations were absent. It was possible to assure that each piece could be the same size, relative to an avatar, as its original would be to a person. It seemed important to maintain this integrity for a true experience of copresence. Interactive signs were created that, when touched, would deliver a press release about the show and a list of works. (Crooks, 2011) As a meta critque of Wish You Were Here, the second exhibit, Places of the Heart, overwrote both the physical and Blog iterations of that initial event, as it was designed exclusively for the virtual space of the Cerulean Gallery. A call for participation was posted on the International Art Education Association (InAEA) website and instructions were given on participation logistics. As a point of departure for


Introduction: Thalassemia is a hereditary anemia usually treated with regular blood transfusions, which can result in elevated levels of total iron in the body. As soon as the capacity of iron-regulating proteins (e.g., ferritin, transferrin) are used up, free plasma iron increases generating reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to oxidative stress. Hence, blood transfusions should be accompanied by iron-chelating therapy, e.g., deferiprone (DFP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of mangiferin (M) and an aqueous leaf extract of Mangifera foetida L (EMF) as alternative iron-chelating antioxidants in an animal model.
Methods: Thirty male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 5 equal groups: normal control, iron overload (IO), IO+DFP, IO+M, and IO+EMF. Iron overload was induced by intraperitoneal iron dextran injection with a total dose of 90 mg/mouse (15 mg Fe/mouse every 3-4 days for 3 weeks) followed by oral administration of DFP 462.5 mg/kg, mangiferin 75 mg/kg, or EMF 2.930 g/kg for 7 days.
Results: Body weight (BW) increased in all groups during the 4 weeks of experiment, except for the IO group. As expected, DFP decreased significantly the total plasma iron and increased iron excretion via urine in iron-overloaded rats (positive control), mangiferin and EMF had similar – although slightly smaller – effects than DFP. The antioxidant activity of M and EMF were stronger compared to DFP as determined by plasma superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity.
Conclusion: Mangiferin and EMF have iron-chelating and antioxidant effects and might be used for the treatment of iron overload in the body.


The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the Hybrid-Maize software (www.hybridmaize.unl.edu, verified 28 Feb. 2006), with emphasis on its practical applications based on our own experience and feedback from users. The Hybrid-Maize model is a computer program that simulates the growth and yield of a corn crop (Zea mays L.) under nonlimiting or water-limited (rainfed or irrigated) conditions. The scientific formulations of the model and its test and validation was published elsewhere. The model can be used to (i) assess the overall site yield potential and its variability based on historical weather data, (ii) evaluate changes in attainable yield using different combinations of planting date, hybrid maturity, and plant density, (iii) analyze yield in relation to silking and maturity in a specific year, (iv) assess soil moisture status and explore options for irrigation management, and (v) conduct in-season simulations to evaluate current crop status and predict final yield at maturity as a range of yield outcome probabilities based on historical climate data for the remainder of the growing season. Three examples are provided to demonstrate practical uses of the model. The software has a user-friendly graphic interface, and includes complete documentation of model formulations, validation, user manual, and context-sensitive help system. Settings of all internal parameters are transparent and modifiable by the user. Limitations of the software for practical uses, especially with regard to water stress and plant population, are also discussed.


Recent developments in targeted genome editing accelerated genetic research and opened new potentials to improve the crops for better yields and quality. Genome editing techniques like Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN) and Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs) have been accustomed to target any gene of interest. However, these systems have some drawbacks as they are very expensive and time consuming with labor-intensive protein construction protocol. A new era of genome editing technology has a user-friendly tool which is termed as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR associated protein9 (Cas9), is an RNA based genome editing system involving a simple and cost-effective design of constructs. CRISPR/Cas9 system has been successfully applied in diverse crops for various genome editing approaches. In this review, we highlight the application of the CRISPR/Cas9 system in cereal crops including rice, wheat, maize, and sorghum to improve these crops for better yield and quality. Since cereal crops supply a major source of food to world populations, their improvement using recent genome editing tools like CRISPR/Cas9 is timely and crucial. The genome editing of cereal crops using the CRISPR/Cas9 system would help to overcome the adverse effects of agriculture and may aid in conserving food security in developing countries.


Abstract Knowledge of pre-colonial Middle Eastern populations has been limited by the lack of data. The 1848 and 1868 Egyptian censuses provide two snapshots of the Egyptian population in its early attempts to make the transition into a modern society. These censuses are perhaps the earliest in the Middle East and among the earliest in any non-Western country to include individual-level information on all segments of the population, including females, children, and slaves, on a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic variables. This article describes the digitization of two nationally representative samples of the 1848 and 1868 censuses from the original manuscripts at the National Archives of Egypt. It then introduces an application of the samples in Egyptian economic history.


Recent works have investigated whether smallpox stunted growth. The answer is important for disentangling the factors driving changing heights. This article outlines the disease and its history in Britain. It then introduces a new source for the study of smallpox: prisoner records. These offer rich descriptions of individuals, including a pockmarked complexion. While pockmarks were not clearly associated with stunting in Ireland or in most of England, the connection did exist in London. In the metropolis, smallpox acted as a proxy for the worst urban disamenities, being most prevalent in the poorest, most overcrowded parts of the city.


In this sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention study, we compared the efficacy of the Well Woman Program (WWP), a nurse practitioner-directed, culturally specific, intensive intervention, to minimal intervention (MI), brief lecture, and referral to usual care, in a community-based randomized controlled trial. African American women having past STIs and residing in high-risk communities were randomly assigned to the two groups. STI outcome was measured at baseline and three later points. A random effects logistic longitudinal regression model showed that, at baseline, approximately 75% of participants tested positive for an STI, predominantly trichomoniasis. At month 15, the estimated probability of a WWP participant having an STI was 20% less than an MI participant. Better STI outcomes were due to the intensive individualized intervention.


Abstract Achieving high accuracy and precision in stellar parameter and chemical composition determinations is challenging in massive star spectroscopy. On one hand, the target selection for an unbiased sample build-up is complicated by several types of peculiarities that can occur in individual objects. On the other hand, composite spectra are often not recognized as such even at medium-high spectral resolution and typical signal-to-noise ratios, despite multiplicity among massive stars is widespread. In particular, surveys that produce large amounts of automatically reduced data are prone to oversight of details that turn hazardous for the analysis with techniques that have been developed for a set of standard assumptions applicable to a spectrum of a single star. Much larger systematic errors than anticipated may therefore result because of the unrecognized true nature of the investigated objects, or much smaller sample sizes of objects for the analysis than initially planned, if recognized. More factors to be taken care of are the multiple steps from the choice of instrument over the details of the data reduction chain to the choice of modelling code, input data, analysis technique and the selection of the spectral lines to be analyzed. Only when avoiding all the possible pitfalls, a precise and accurate characterization of the stars in terms of fundamental parameters and chemical fingerprints can be achieved that form the basis for further investigations regarding e.g. stellar structure and evolution or the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The scope of the present work is to provide the massive star and also other astrophysical communities with criteria to evaluate the quality of spectroscopic investigations of massive stars before interpreting them in a broader context. The discussion is guided by our experiences made in the course of over a decade of studies of massive star spectroscopy ranging from the simplest single objects to multiple systems.


This article offers a retrospective on the Rehnquist Court. It argues that the Rehnquist Court has been pursuing a coherent jurisprudence that invigorates decentralization and private ordering of the kind Alexis De Tocqueville celebrated in Democracy in America as being the essence of the social order generated by our original Constitution. In four disparate areas - federalism, freedom of association, the religion clauses, and the balance of power between juries and judges - the Court is helping sustain a civil order that bubbles up from below - from localities or from citizens voluntarily gathered together or randomly selected. While I draw on the Court's entire jurisprudence to make these points, I single out seven cases from last term as illustrative. This article is the first to seek to do for the Rehnquist Court what John Hart Ely did for the Warren Court in Democracy and Distrust - ground the full range of its jurisprudence in a coherent theory of governance. Political theories, such as public choice, have shown that the disproportionate influence of special interest groups and the inattention of the general citizenry can prevent centralized democracy from measuring majority will and producing good social norms. In contrast, civil society engages the citizen and restrains special interests through competition, whether the competition is among different states or among different associations. The Court's new jurisprudence, therefore, is designed to protect the autonomy of decentralized "discovery machines" for social norms, like mediating institutions and local government, in order to supplement the norms generated by national democracy.


A theoretical framework is developed for understanding the transient growth and propagation characteristics of thermodynamically coupled, meridional mode-like structures in the tropics. The model consists of a Gill-Matsuno type steady atmosphere under the longwave approximation coupled via a wind-evaporation-sea surface temperature (WES) feedback to a "slab" ocean model. When projected onto basis functions for the atmosphere the system simplifies to a non-normal set of equations that describes the evolution of individual sea surface temperature (SST) modes, with clean separation between symmetric and anti-symmetric modes. The following major findings result from analysis of the system: (i) a transient growth process exists whereby specific SST modes propagate toward lower order modes at the expense of the higher-order modes; (ii) the same dynamical mechanisms govern the evolution of symmetric and anti-symmetric SST modes except for the lowest-order wave number, where for symmetric structures the atmospheric Kelvin wave plays a critically different role in enhancing decay; and (iii) the WES feedback is positive for all modes (with a maximum for the most equatorially confined antisymmetric structure) except for the most equatorially confined symmetric mode where the Kelvin wave generates a negative WES feedback. Taken together, these findings explain why equatorially anti-symmetric "dipole"-like structures may dominate thermodynamically coupled ocean / atmosphere variability in the tropics. The role of non-normality as well as the role of realistic mean states in meridional mode variability are discussed.


Private alternatives to the public provision of welfare state services and benefits have expanded in almost all OECD countries over the past decades. In this paper, we study how this change affects patterns of public support for the welfare state and, in the long term, the political sustainability of solidaristic social policies. Our core argument is that the availability of private alternatives undermines support for public provision of social insurance policies, in particular among the middle and upper-income classes, whose political support is crucial for the political viability of the universalist welfare state regime. We test our theoretical claim empirically with survey data from the ISSP Role of Government module for 20 OECD countries.


Scientific computing workloads at HPC facilities have been shifting from traditional numerical simulations to AI/ML applications for training and inference while processing and producing ever-increasing amounts of scientific data. To address the growing need for increased storage capacity, lower access latency, and higher bandwidth, emerging technologies such as non-volatile memory are integrated into supercomputer I/O subsystems. With these emerging trends, we need a better understanding of the multilayer supercomputer I/O systems and ways to use these subsystems efficiently. In this work, we study the I/O access patterns and performance characteristics of two representative supercomputer I/O subsystems. Through an extensive analysis of year-long I/O logs on each system, we report new observations in I/O reads and writes, unbalanced use of storage system layers, and new trends in user behaviors at the HPC I/O middleware stack.


Through his interpretation of one important Upanishad, an ancient wisdom text, Eknath Easwaran shows how the timeless Indian tradition offers guidance on how to live today. Lyrical, dramatic, and inspiring, the Katha Upanishad presents the core ideas of Indian mysticism in a mythic story all can relate to -- the adventure of a young hero, Nachiketa, who passes into the kingdom of Death in search of immortality. The King of Death tests his resolve, but the teenager stands firm, demanding answers to the age-old questions, "What is the purpose of life? What happens to me when I die?" Death emerges as the perfect spiritual guide -- direct, uncompromising, and challenging. Easwaran's approach to the Katha is both practical and universal. He explains key Sanskrit terms like karma and prana, illustrating them through everyday anecdotes and entertaining analogies while placing Indian spirituality into the broader context of world mysticism.


The "myth of Judith Shakespeare," or the belief that women in the early modern period did not write, persists even in today's scholarship and in anthologies that, if they do include early modern female authors, regard these women as anomalies. Lady Mary Wroth, author of an entire sonnet sequence, a play, and a complete prose romance, is one example of a woman writer who, despite her considerable literary output, has nevertheless been labeled by some scholars as a silent female author of the private realm, creatively stifled by her culture, and afraid of publication. I argue instead that Wroth should be considered a public author who actively participated within her literary community and circulated her texts among others. To make this claim, I evaluate her sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus through the lens of her miscarriage trope, a highly unusual poetic figuration in the early modern period when miscarriages were scarcely mentioned in literature. By analyzing Wroth's miscarriage trope, we may observe a number of rhetorical and thematic similarities between Wroth's poetry and other works from the Sidney literary circle, of which Wroth was a member. As both a product of and a departure from the literature of her contemporaries, Wroth's miscarriage trope demonstrates her public dialogue with others. Secondly, the miscarriage trope reveals that Wroth is indebted to the seventeenth-century elegy genre and especially maternal child loss poetry. Wroth's borrowing from the elegiac genre also attests to her interaction with her community and most importantly allows her to prepare her manuscript for circulation using many of the same rhetorical strategies as mothers writing about the deaths of their children. If Wroth can be read in such a way that at least partially erodes the perception of her as a private author, then it seems likely that other female writers of the early modern period might have desired publication as well. This thesis encourages a more nuanced approach to other seventeenth-century female authors and their texts that is not constrained by an antiquated view of literary history in the early modern period.


Abstract Onshore exploration success during the first half of the 20th century led to petroleum production from many, relatively small oil and gas accumulations in areas like the East Midlands, North Yorkshire and Midland Valley of Scotland. Despite this, the notion that exploration of the United Kingdom's continental shelf (UKCS) might lead to the country having self-sufficiency in oil and gas production would have been viewed as extremely fanciful as recently as the late 1950s. Yet as we pass into the new century, only thirty-five years on from the drilling of the first offshore well, that is exactly the position Britain finds itself in. By 2001, around three million barrels of oil equivalent were being produced each day from 239 fields. The producing fields have a wide geographical distribution, occur in a number of discrete sedimentary basins and contain a wide spectrum of reservoirs that were originally deposited in diverse sedimentary and stratigraphic units ranging from Devonian to Eocene in age. Although carbonates are represented, the main producing horizons have primarily proved to be siliciclastic in nature and were deposited in environments ranging from aeolian and fluviatile continental red beds, coastal plain, nearshore beach and shelfal settings all the way through to deep-marine, submarine fan sediments. This chapter attempts to place each of the main producing fields into their proper stratigraphic, tectonic and sedimentological context in order to demonstrate how a wide variety of factors have successfully combined to produce each of the prospective petroleum play fairways and hence, make the UKCS such a prolific and important petroleum province.


The effect of various micro isosceles-trapezoid grooves on improvement of tribological performance is discussed. It is accomplished through the CFD-approach where the momentum and continuity equations are solved separately, one of low Reynolds turbulence models-Abid index and SIMPLE algorithm in theory of Control Volume Method are adopted. For different width and depth of micro isosceles-trapezoid grooves, the load supporting capacity of oil-film are compared. The results show that the widths has more influence than the depths on hydrodynamic lubrication, and relative parameters change monotonously with the depth of micro-groove. The effect of texturing arc-grooves on improvement of tribological properties is conspicuous if w1 = 40μm, w2 = 10μm and hp = 10μm for micro isosceles-trapezoid grooves.


This literature study aims to build and construct conception more strongly based on empirical studies that have been conducted so that it can describe how the effects of budgeting participation in improving managerial performance. In this study the author uses a literature study approach based on empirical studies or studies in several International journals relating to budgetary participation with performance. The review of this article can be concluded that budgetary participation can provide a positive role in managerial performance. But budget participation is not the only factor that can improve managerial performance but budget participation can be moderated or mediated with other variables such as psychological capital, Job relevant Information, knowledge and competencies, leadership style, motivation, and others.


In the era of diminishing power from US dollar and increasing competition among world currencies, Bitcoin, as a completely new concept as a medium of exchange, has received increasing attentions over the world. Nowadays, Bitcoin also becomes an investment vehicle, which carries attractive opportunities but also significant risks for the investment community. In this paper, we have compared the empirical performance of a newly-developed heavy-tailed distribution, the normal reciprocal inverse Gaussian (NRIG), with the most popular heavy-tailed distribution, the Student's t distribution, under the GARCH framework in fitting the daily Bitcoin exchange rate returns. Our results indicate the heavy-tailed distribution has better performance in capture the daily Bitcoin exchange rate returns dynamics than the standard normal distribution. Our results also show the older fashioned Student's t distribution still performs better than the new heavy-tailed distribution.


At a biogenomics meeting in Washington, D.C., last week, researchers publicly unveiled the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP). The audacious goal of the still-unfunded effort is to decipher the genomes of every species, starting with the 1.5 million named eukaryotes—the group of organisms that includes all plants, animals, and single-celled organisms such as amoebas. Researchers drew parallels to the Human Genome Project, which also began as an ambitious, controversial, and technically daunting proposal. The EBP would focus on the natural world, providing a better understanding of biodiversity by first sequencing in great detail the DNA of a member of each eukaryotic family (about 9000 in all) and eventually generating coarser genomes for the other eukaryotes. Although many biologists are excited about these goals, they point out that significant challenges lie ahead, including funding, sample collection, and broadening international participation.


Four ruminally and duodenally cannulated crossbred beef steers (397+/-55 kg initial BW) were used in a 4 x 4 Latin square to evaluate the effects of increasing level of field pea supplementation on intake, digestion, microbial efficiency, ruminal fermentation, and in situ disappearance in steers fed moderate-quality (8.0% CP, DM basis) grass hay. Basal diets, offered ad libitum twice daily, consisted of chopped (15.2-cm screen) grass hay. Supplements were 0, 0.81, 1.62, and 2.43 kg (DM basis) per steer daily of rolled field pea (23.4% CP, DM basis) offered in equal proportions twice daily. Steers were adapted to diets on d 1 to 9; on d 10 to 14, DMI were measured. Field pea and grass hay were incubated in situ, beginning on d 10, for 0, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 36, 48, 72, and 96 h. Ruminal fluid was collected and pH recorded at -2, 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 h after feeding on d 13. Duodenal samples were taken for three consecutive days beginning on d 10 in a manner that allowed for a collection to take place every other hour over a 24-h period. Linear, quadratic, and cubic contrasts were used to evaluate the effects of increasing field pea level. Total DMI and OMI increased quadratically (P = 0.09), whereas forage DMI decreased quadratically (P = 0.09) with increasing field pea supplementation. There was a cubic effect (P < 0.001) for ruminal pH. Ruminal (P = 0.02) and apparent total-tract (P = 0.09) NDF disappearance decreased linearly with increasing field pea supplementation. Total ruminal VFA concentrations responded cubically (P = 0.008). Bacterial N flow (P = 0.002) and true ruminal N disappearance (P = 0.003) increased linearly, and apparent total-tract N disappearance increased quadratically (P = 0.09) with increasing field pea supplementation. No treatment effects were observed for ruminal DM fill (P = 0.82), true ruminal OM disappearance (P = 0.38), apparent intestinal OM digestion (P = 0.50), ruminal ADF disappearance (P = 0.17), apparent total-tract ADF disappearance (P = 0.35), or in situ DM disappearance of forage (P = 0.33). Because of effects on forage intake and ruminal pH, field peas seem to act like cereal grain supplements when used as supplements for forage-based diets. Supplementing field peas seems to effectively increase OM and N intakes of moderate-quality grass hay diets.


The corrosion behavior of the Fe60Co8Zr10Mo5W2B15 bulk amorphous alloy in 2 mol·L-1 HCl solution was investigated using full immersion test. The results indicated that the Fe60Co8Zr10Mo5W2B15 bulk amorphous alloy was at the passivation condition in the 2 mol·L-1 HCl solution, which had the strong anticorrosive ability. X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) spectrum of the composition and structural feature of the test sample surface film after passivation indicated finally, that the passivation of the bulk amorphous alloy is primary due to the oxide compounds such as ZrO2 and so on formed on the bulk amorphous alloy surface in the HCl solution.


Chemical and electrocoagulation are widely used coagulation methods employed in water and wastewater treatment. Both coagulation processes are effective in removing a wide range of impurities which include dissolved organic matter in form of chemical and biological oxygen demand, pathogens, oils, and colloidal particles as well as heavy metals. The present review has revealed that the mode of action of both coagulation methods is based on charge neutralization and floc formation. The effectiveness of both coagulation techniques depend on factors such as pH, coagulation dose, coagulant type, current density, applied voltage, water and wastewater type, type of electrode, as well as size and number of electrodes. The commonly used chemical coagulants are inorganic coagulants based on aluminum and iron salts. However, there have been considerable successes in the development of pre-hydrolyzed inorganic coagulants which have the added advantage over traditional inorganic coagulants in that they function well over a wide range of pH and water temperatures. Electrocoagulation has been proposed as an alternative method to chemical coagulation because it is environmental friendly and cheap to operate. Nonetheless, most researchers are of the opinion that there are still some uncertainties regarding the understanding of its optimal performance and design mechanism.


This paper discusses the effect of high level multi-tone acoustic excitation on the acoustic properties of perforates. It is based on a large experimental study of the nonlinear properties of these types of samples without mean grazing or bias flow. Compared to previously published results the present investigation concentrates on the effect of multiple harmonics. It is known from previous studies that high level acoustic excitation at one frequency will change the acoustic impedance of perforates at other frequencies, thereby changing the boundary condition seen by the acoustic waves. This effect could be used to change the impedance boundary conditions and for instance increase the absorption. It could obviously also pose a problem for the correct modelling of sound transmission through ducts lined with such impedance surfaces. Experimental results are compared to a quasi-stationary model. The effect of the combination of frequency components and phase in the excitation signal is studied.


This paper investigates the execution behaviors of parallel sorting algorithms on an experimental multiprocessor (KuPP) and compares with predicted performance under LogP and BSP (Bulk Synchronous Parallel) models. Since the communication overhead is considered a primary candidate for improvement, a few schemes are devised and experimented on KuPP to reduce the time spent in communication, thus to enhance the overall performance. The authors believe the ideas can be adopted in other high-performance parallel computers.


Abstract The Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone (IAESZ) in the Central and the Eastern Pontides comprises a stack of thrust sheets of mainly Late Cretaceous-Early Cenozoic age that are restored as: (1) a subduction-accretion complex; (2) a continental-margin magmatic arc, plus an associated forearc basin; (3) a back-arc basin and its mainly sedimentary fill. Northward thrusting affected all of the Late Cretaceous units during latest Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) time. This was followed by regional southward thrusting to form the present thrust stack during Mid-Eocene time. Alternative tectonic models are considered in the light of sedimentary, igneous geochemical and structural evidence, and global comparisons. We infer that the Northern Neotethys was subducted northwards beneath the Eurasian active margin during the Late Cretaceous. Subduction was associated with the genesis of a magmatic arc and a related forearc basin. The subduction zone retreated oceanwards, associated with the opening of a back-arc basin along the Eurasian margin, floored by oceanic crust and overlain by mixed terrigenous and volcaniclastic deep-marine sediments. Ophiolite genesis in a continental margin back-arc setting is suggested by the presence of screens of basement-type metamorphic rocks within an ophiolite-related sheeted dyke complex in the Eastern Pontides. During the latest Cretaceous closure of the inferred back-arc basin resulted in northward emplacement of ophiolitic and related units onto the Eurasian margin, as well exposed in the Central Pontides. In addition, accretionary mélange, volcanic arc, forearc and ophiolitic units were emplaced southwards onto the Tauride continent, represented by the Munzur platform in the Eastern Pontides, also during latest Cretaceous time. This incipient ('soft') collision was followed by widespread Paleocene-Early Eocene deposition of Nummulitic shelf carbonates and coarse clastic sediments on deformed and emplaced accretionary mélange, arc and ophiolitic units. Final closure ('hard collision') of the Northern Neotethys occurred during the Mid-Eocene, resulting in large-scale southward imbrication, together with northward backthrusting in some areas. Suture tightening and Plio-Quaternary strike-slip ensued.


Organismal development, homeostasis, and pathology are rooted in inherently probabilistic events. From gene expression to cellular differentiation, rates and likelihoods shape the form and function of biology. Processes ranging from growth to cancer homeostasis to reprogramming of stem cells all require transitions between distinct phenotypic states, and these occur at defined rates. Therefore, measuring the fidelity and dynamics with which such transitions occur is central to understanding natural biological phenomena and is critical for therapeutic interventions. While these processes may produce robust population-level behaviors, decisions are made by individual cells. In certain circumstances, these minuscule computing units effectively roll dice to determine their fate. And while the 'omics' era has provided vast amounts of data on what these populations are doing en masse, the behaviors of the underlying units of these processes get washed out in averages. Therefore, in order to understand the behavior of a sample of cells, it is critical to reveal how its underlying components, or mixture of cells in distinct states, each contribute to the overall phenotype. As such, we must first define what states exist in the population, determine what controls the stability of these states, and measure in high dimensionality the dynamics with which these cells transition between states. To address a specific example of this general problem, we investigate the heterogeneity and dynamics of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). While a number of reports have identified particular genes in ES cells that switch between 'high' and 'low' metastable expression states in culture, it remains unclear how levels of many of these regulators combine to form states in transcriptional space. Using a method called single molecule mRNA fluorescent in situ hybridization (smFISH), we quantitatively measure and fit distributions of core pluripotency regulators in single cells, identifying a wide range of variabilities between genes, but each explained by a simple model of bursty transcription. From this data, we also observed that strongly bimodal genes appear to be co-expressed, effectively limiting the occupancy of transcriptional space to two primary states across genes studied here. However, these states also appear punctuated by the conditional expression of the most highly variable genes, potentially defining smaller substates of pluripotency. Having defined the transcriptional states, we next asked what might control their stability or persistence. Surprisingly, we found that DNA methylation, a mark normally associated with irreversible developmental progression, was itself differentially regulated between these two primary states. Furthermore, both acute or chronic inhibition of DNA methyltransferase activity led to reduced heterogeneity among the population, suggesting that metastability can be modulated by this strong epigenetic mark. Finally, because understanding the dynamics of state transitions is fundamental to a variety of biological problems, we sought to develop a high-throughput method for the identification of cellular trajectories without the need for cell-line engineering. We achieved this by combining cell-lineage information gathered from time-lapse microscopy with endpoint smFISH for measurements of final expression states. Applying a simple mathematical framework to these lineage-tree associated expression states enables the inference of dynamic transitions. We apply our novel approach in order to infer temporal sequences of events, quantitative switching rates, and network topology among a set of ESC states. Taken together, we identify distinct expression states in ES cells, gain fundamental insight into how a strong epigenetic modifier enforces the stability of these states, and develop and apply a new method for the identification of cellular trajectories using scalable in situ readouts of cellular state.


Neurofeedback of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to acquire selective control over activation in circumscribed brain areas, potentially inducing behavioral changes, depending on the functional role of the targeted cortical sites. In the present study, we used fMRI‐neurofeedback to train subjects to enhance regional activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) to influence speech processing and to modulate language‐related performance. Seven subjects underwent real‐time fMRI‐neurofeedback training and succeeded in achieving voluntary regulation of their right Brodmann's area (BA) 45. To examine short‐term behavioral impact, two linguistic tasks were carried out immediately before and after the training. A significant improvement of accuracy was observed for the identification of emotional prosodic intonations but not for syntactic processing. This evidence supports a role for the right IFG in the processing of emotional information and evaluation of affective salience. The present study confirms the efficacy of fMRI‐biofeedback for noninvasive self‐regulation of circumscribed brain activity. Hum Brain Mapp 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Multiple-antenna systems, also known as multiple-input multiple-output radio, can improve the capacity and reliability of radio communication. However, the multiple RF chains associated with multiple antennas are costly in terms of size, power, and hardware. Antenna selection is a low-cost low-complexity alternative to capture many of the advantages of MIMO systems. This article reviews classic results on selection diversity, followed by a discussion of antenna selection algorithms at the transmit and receive sides. Extensions of classical results to antenna subset selection are presented. Finally, several open problems in this area are pointed out.


Background The collaboration established in 2007 between the Oncology Pharmacy of the University Hospital of Ancona and the Loccioni Group was aimed at implementing, validating and integrating the robotised system for the chemotherapic drugs compounding in the day-to-day pharmacy activity. Currently the Oncology Pharmacy is almost totally automated (95%) and Loccioni has its clinical site for the continuous engineering. During this 4-year period, the constant implementation gave rise to three generations of robot with the final version ApotecaChemo released late in 2009. The authors had the chance to experience all three generations and to validate the tough work done to increase efficiency, ergonomics and user-friendliness. Purpose The objective of this work is to analyse the performance of the third generation robot and to compare it with the previous ones. Materials and methods Data were obtained from the robot database. An other advantage of automation is related to the data mining. Every step is measured and traced, providing a huge amount of information helpful for both performance statistics and process re-organisation. In this case, The authors compared production rate and the preparation time of specific drugs in standard protocols along the years. Results The average preparation time of a fluorouracil bag of a CMF protocol halved from 303 to 156 s with the 3rd generation robot. Similar trend is recorded for a methotrexate bag (CMF) and an epirubicin bag (FEC), whose preparation time passed from 276 to 127 s and from 565 to 253 s respectively. The improvement is even more significant for other drugs like gemcitabine, which is about 80%. Conclusions This technology has developed rapidly reaching high production rate. Nowadays, ApotecaChemo performances are comparable to those of the manual activity, with the added values of a quali-quantitative certification of each preparation compounded.


Whilst paid informal work has been conceptualized as a form of paid employment imbued with solely economic motivations, this article critically argues that such a market‐oriented reading fails to take into account alternative explanations for the existence of informal work practices. Using evidence from 50 interviews conducted within a Pakistani urban community in a northern UK city, this article, uses a mixed‐embeddedness perspective to highlight the importance of predominantly socially and culturally driven motives in the decision to engage in informal work. The findings highlight that participation in informal work, whilst a product of marginalization due to certain institutional and structural factors, is also driven by a range of non‐monetary motives—a result of certain socially embedded work relations between ethnic minority workers and their employers. It is this social embeddedness of the employer–employee relationship in the Pakistani ethnic minority community that explains the continuation of informal work practices in the face of prevailing laws and regulations. The findings add weight to the understanding of informal work as being about more than just economics and constraints, offering these ethnic minority workers opportunities, even status, and giving them agency in an otherwise disempowered situation.


Distributed systems like cloud-based services are ever more popular. Assessing the reliability of distributed systems is highly non-trivial. Particularly, the order of executions among distributed components adds a dimension of non-determinism, which invalidates existing reliability assessment methods based on Markov chains. Probabilistic model checking based on models like Markov decision processes is designed to deal with scenarios involving both probabilistic behavior (e.g., reliabilities of system components) and non-determinism. However, its application is currently limited by state space explosion, which makes reliability assessment of distributed system particularly difficult. In this work, we improve the probabilistic model checking through a method of abstraction and reduction, which controls the communications among system components and actively reduces the size of each component. We prove the soundness and completeness of the proposed approach. Through an implementation in a software toolkit and evaluations with several systems, we show that our approach often reduces the size of the state space by several orders of magnitude, while still producing sound and accurate assessment.


Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782–1852) yearned to promote and foster the harmonious and holistic development of young children through a combination of outdoor activities, songs and games. His Mother Songs, with games and exercises for mothers and their infants, aimed to encourage the use of senses, limbs and body to increase body awareness and promote mental activity. This article reports on a qualitative interpretive study into the role of a Singing Medicine project in a children's hospital where children on all wards are invited to participate in singing games and activities. An aim was to understand how the application of Froebelian principles can help us to understand and conceptualise children's rights and well-being in restricted environments such as a Children's Hospital. Methods included semi-structured interviews with a range of health and education professionals who support children in a children's hospital in England. In contrast to previous largely quantitative studies relating to the transferable benefits of arts in health projects, the findings from this study suggest that participants value the human connectedness imbued by a Singing Medicine project to children, families and health professionals. Wider benefits for children's holistic development and empowerment to make choices through participation in singing games were also raised.


Gravitational tides are widely understood to strip and destroy galactic substructures. In the course of a galaxy merger, however, transient totally compressive tides may develop and prevent star-forming regions from dissolving after they condensed to form clusters of stars. We study the statistics of such compressive modes in an N-body model of the galaxy merger NGC 4038/39 (the Antennae) and show that ≃15 per cent of the disc material undergoes compressive tides at pericentre. The spatial distribution of observed young clusters in the overlap and nuclear regions of the Antennae matches surprisingly well the location of compressive tides obtained from simulation data. Furthermore, the statistics of time intervals spent by individual particles embedded in a compressive tide yields a log-normal distribution of characteristic time τ∼ 10 Myr, comparable to star cluster formation time-scales. We argue that this generic process is operative in galaxy mergers at all redshifts and possibly enhances the formation of star clusters. We show with a model calculation that this process will prevent the dissolution of a star cluster during the formation phase, even for a star formation efficiency e as low as ∼10 per cent. The transient nature of compressive tides implies that clusters may dissolve rapidly once the tidal field switches to the usual disruptive mode. (Less)


De Fynne Nursery, a black-owned agribusiness, has cemented a unique position in South Africa's indigenous plants industry against all odds. With an undying passion for the horticulture industry, Jacky Goliath and Elton Jefthas, De Fynne's cofounders, continue to live the dream that began in their backyard. Today, they sit in their new 22-hectare farm and muse over strategic decisions as they navigate the challenges of doing business in an emerging economy. This case study focuses on opportunities and challenges for De Fynne as it pushes into its next growth phase by looking at the changing competitive landscape, the balance between marketing existing products and innovating new products, and ways to become operationally efficient and profitable in both its nursery and the farm.


My dissertation examines the sociocultural underpinnings of name-giving by speakers of Semitic languages, focusing on the component of the onomasticon derived from animal names. The study deals with three language groups: (1) Akkadian, (2) Northwest Semitic (i.e., Amorite, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Phoenician), and (3) Arabic (classical and modern sources). The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows:
(1) The occurrence of animal names in every corpus points to a common Semitic background imbued with metaphoric, affective, and apotropaic aspects. There is, however, no evidence for totemism.
(2) Whereas names of herbivorous animals (wild and domestic) are found in every language examined, names of venomous animals, predators, and raptors are much more attested in West Semitic, especially Arabic, than in Akkadian, and this is apparently related to the symbolic nature of names within the social ideology of a society.
(3) The survival of animal names in modern Arabic practices, specifically among nomads, points to an adherence to 'pre-Islamic' naming methods vis-a-vis normative Islamic views.
These findings contribute to the discussion about naming in general and in the context of Semitic linguistic in particular.


This paper presents a tool for surface loading stress analysis that was developed in-house by TransCanada (TCPL). This tool utilizes fundamentals of the surface loading assessment method developed by Kiefner & Associates Inc. (KAI) for Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), but incorporated many advanced functionalities to improve the accuracy, efficiency and transparency of the analysis. The new functions of the tool include the batch analysis, multiple angle analysis, generic/site-specific loading analysis, graphical display of stress distributions for refined assessment, user-defined impact factor and automated reporting for documentation of surface loading calculations. This tool also incorporated the improved numerical algorithm for longitudinal global bending stress considering the actual live load pressure distribution over a certain length of pipeline.
 The accuracy of the developed tool was validated by comparing it to the KAI tool. The improved algorithm for longitudinal global bending stress calculation reduces the conservatism of the longitudinal global bending stress compared to the original simplified method but does not sacrifice safety, which has been demonstrated by comparison with the experimental results. The new functionalities improved the business efficiency and maintains safety and regulatory compliance.


The blade vibration level of an aerodynamically unstable rotor is a quantity of crucial importance to correctly estimate the blade fatigue life. This amplitude is the result of the balance between the energy pumped into the blades by the gas flow, and the nonlinear dissipation at the blade-disk contact interfaces. In a tuned configuration, the blade displacements can be described as a travelling wave consisting of one fundamental nodal diameter and frequency and its higher harmonics, and the problem can be reduced to the computation of a time periodic solution in just one sector. This simplification is no longer valid for a mistuned bladed disk. The resulting nonlinear vibration of the mistuned system is a combination of several travelling waves with different number of nodal diameters, coupled through mistuning. In this case, the complete bladed disk has to be considered, which requires an extremely high computational cost, and, for this reason, reduced order models (ROM) are required to analyze this situation. In this work, we use a 3 DOF/sector mass-spring system to describe the nonlinear friction saturation of the flutter vibration amplitude of a realistic mistuned bladed disk. The convergence of the solution of the mass-spring system is still quite slow because of the presence of many unstable modes with very similar growth rates. In order to speed-up the simulations a simpler asymptotic ROM is derived from the mass-spring model, which allows for much faster integration times. The simulations of the asymptotic ROM are compared with the measurements obtained in the European project FUTURE, where an aerodynamically unstable LPT rotor was tested with different intentional mistuning patterns.


Objectives: To characterise the efficiency of the cardiopulmonary baroreflex system in the early phase of heart failure and its relation to limitation of physical activity. Design: Forearm blood flow (venous occlusion plethysmography), vascular resistance, and central venous pressure (CVP), estimated from an antecubital vein, were measured in the supine position at baseline and 15 minutes after application of lower body negative pressure at −7 and −14 mm Hg (receptor downloading) or leg raising (receptor loading). Subjects: Heart failure patients without limitation (NYHA class I; n  =  18) or with slight limitation of physical activity (NYHA class II; n  =  13), and 11 healthy controls. Results: The efficiency of the cardiopulmonary baroreflex function, expressed by the slope of the relation between CVP changes and the corresponding changes of calculated forearm vascular resistance (gain), was reduced both in NYHA class I patients (mean (SD) −1.99 (0.83) v −2.78 (0.66) in controls; p < 0.05) and NYHA class II patients (−1.29 (0.5); p<0.001 v controls). However, change in peripheral vascular resistance during preload increase was similar in controls (−3.3 (0.9) units) and in NYHA class I patients (−3.3 (2.1) units; NS v controls), and was significantly reduced only in NYHA class II patients (−1.6 (1.3) units, p < 0.03 v controls). The gain in the cardiopulmonary reflex was related to the distance walked during the six minute corridor test. Conclusions: A reduced tonic efficacy of the cardiopulmonary reflex system is already detectable in the early phase of heart failure, the impairment in acute response to preload increase being detectable only in symptomatic patients.


Website: https://www6.inra.fr/wheatamix The present document details how the Wheatamix consortium, inspired by ecological experiments exploring relationships between plant biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (e.g. the Jena experiment Weisser et al. 2017), selected bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) lines, phenotyped them across a range of functional traits and used this information to set up an experimental design able to unravel the effects of variety number and of the functional diversity and identity within variety mixtures for evaluating the impact of intraspecific crop diversity on a range of ecosystem services. Wheat line selection The Wheatamix project investigates the potential benefits of variety mixtures in the Paris basin wheat supply chain, and therefore focuses on varieties and lines adapted to the local climate. A consensus list of 57 wheat lines (Table 1) was thus settled on these grounds and to meet the expectations of agronomists, geneticists, phytopathologists and ecophysiologists of the group. This list is composed of i) 32 elite bread wheat varieties registered in the French catalogue, selected for their high yields under conventional farming, ii) 5 modern varieties bred for organic farming (OF), iii) 10 landraces resulting from farmers' mass-selection, cultivated in France in the early 1900es, and iv) 11 lines from an INRA-MAGIC multiparental and highly recombinant population (Thepot et al., 2015), adapted to Northern France. Due to the heterogeneity of information available for each variety and line, various criteria were used for this selection. The 32 elite bread wheat varieties were chosen on the basis of their wide use in the Paris Basin, and to ensure representativeness of the diversity for earliness, disease resistance or bread-making quality, using the available information in the variety


Deep models are designed to operate on huge volumes of high dimensional data such as images. In order to reduce the volume of data these models must process, we propose a set-based two-stage end-to-end neural subsampling model that is jointly optimized with an arbitrary downstream task network (e.g. classifier). In the first stage, we efficiently subsample candidate elements using conditionally independent Bernoulli random variables by capturing coarse grained global information using set encoding functions, followed by conditionally dependent autoregressive subsampling of the candidate elements using Categorical random variables by modeling pair-wise interactions using set attention networks in the second stage. We apply our method to feature and instance selection and show that it outperforms the relevant baselines under low subsampling rates on a variety of tasks including image classification, image reconstruction, function reconstruction and few-shot classification. Additionally, for nonparametric models such as Neural Processes that require to leverage the whole training data at inference time, we show that our method en-hances the scalability of these models.


Whole vine (K(plant)) and individual root (K(root)) hydraulic conductances were measured in kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis Planch. var. chinensis 'Hort16A') vines to observe hydraulic responses following partial root system excision. Heat dissipation and compensation heat pulse techniques were used to measure sap flow in trunks and individual roots, respectively. Sap flux and measurements of xylem pressure potential (Ψ) were used to calculate K(plant) and K(root) in vines with zero and ∼80% of roots severed. Whole vine transpiration (E), Ψ and K(plant) were significantly reduced within 24 h of root pruning, and did not recover within 6 weeks. Sap flux in intact roots increased within 24 h of root pruning, driven by an increase in the pressure gradient between the soil and canopy and without any change in root hydraulic conductance. Photosynthesis (A) and stomatal conductance (g(s)) were reduced, without significant effects on leaf internal CO(2) concentration (c(i)). Shoot growth rates were maintained; fruit growth and dry matter content were increased following pruning. The woody roots of kiwifruit did not demonstrate a rapid dynamic response to root system damage as has been observed previously in monocot seedlings. Increased sap flux in intact roots with no change in K(root) and only a moderate decline in shoot A suggests that under normal growing conditions root hydraulic conductance greatly exceeds requirements for adequate shoot hydration.


Making Aigle in Switzerland as a case to assess earthquake damage to entire urban building, by studying the history of architecture and city planning of entire urban, we found that entire urban can be divided into two urban areas. One area is upstream urban of railway station, which was mainly developed around old urban, and the other area is lower urban of railway station, which was mainly developed after 1950s. Developing stages of the two areas are different. In each urban area, a study area is selected and balanced construction units of each building in the study area are calculated. Based on this, earthquake damage to entire urban building is calculated with European Macrosesmic Scale 1998 (EMS-98). To advance precision of assessment, in this article, relationship between type of structure of building and construction date is established first, which makes it easy to precisely determine type of structure of building according to construction date of building. It advances precision of earthquake damage assessment to building. There are 7900 residents in Aigle, the period of earthquake, whose seismic intensity is Grade VII, is 500 years. If earthquake, whose seismic intensity is Grade VII, occurs, it is possible that about 236 persons will injury badly or die and total property loss may be 117,720,000 Suisse Franc.


Objectives & Background We aimed to determine the cost-effectiveness of pre-hospital CPAP compared with standard care for adults presenting to the emergency services with acute respiratory failure. Methods An economic model was developed to explore the costs and health outcomes when pre-hospital CPAP provided by paramedics and standard care (in-hospital non-invasive ventilation (NIV)) were applied to a hypothetical cohort with acute respiratory failure. The model assigned each patient a probability of intubation or death depending upon their characteristics and whether they had pre-hospital CPAP or standard care. The patients that survived accrued lifetime quality-adjusted life year (QALYs) and health care costs according to their age and sex. Costs were accrued through costs of intervention and hospital treatment costs, which depended on patient outcomes. Results Pre-hospital CPAP was more effective than standard care but was also more expensive, with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of £20,514/QALY and a 49.5% probability of being cost-effective at the £20,000/QALY threshold. The probability of pre-hospital CPAP being cost-effective at the £20,000/QALY threshold depended on the incidence of eligible patients, and varied from 35.4% when a low estimate of incidence was used to 91.3% with a high estimate. If a typical ambulance service treated 175 appropriate patients per year it could save around 11 lives while incurring £241,250 additional costs, whereas if a typical ambulance service treated 2000 appropriate patients per year it could save 124 lives while incurring £876,480 additional costs. Variation in the incidence of eligible patients also had a marked impact on the expected value of sample information for a future randomised trial. Conclusion The cost-effectiveness of pre-hospital CPAP is uncertain and current evidence is insufficient to support widespread implementation. The immediate research priority is to estimate the incidence of patients eligible for pre-hospital CPAP. This appears to be the key determinant of the cost-effectiveness of a future trial and of pre-hospital CPAP itself. Model structure