Abstract Weed emergence models require biological parameters such as base temperature for germination, determination of which is costly and time-consuming. Transferability of these parameters across different populations may therefore represent one of the main constraints for the development and practical use of emergence models at a large scale. A collaborative project was undertaken to assess the interpopulation variability of base temperature for germination in different European populations of velvetleaf and jimsonweed and evaluate possible applicative consequences in terms of weed control. Seeds were collected in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and each population was then sown in every country, obtaining nine seed batches named as experimental lots. Base temperature for germination was estimated for each experimental lot to calculate lot-specific accumulation of growing degree days (GDD) under three dissimilar climatic scenarios. Threshold date (TD50) was calculated as the date when GDD accumulation of a given experimental lot surpassed the values corresponding to 50% of cumulative field emergence of seedlings. GDD accumulation and TD50 were then used as indicators to identify differences among experimental lots within each climatic scenario. No significant differences were detected among base temperatures estimated for velvetleaf experimental lots or among their patterns of accumulation of GDD and TD50 values within climatic scenarios. Each value of base temperature determined for a single experimental lot could therefore be adopted to model germination for all the lots regardless of the population of origin or cultivation site. In contrast, the population of origin affected the base temperature for jimsonweed, with significantly higher values for experimental lots of the Portuguese population. From an applicative perspective, differences among patterns of accumulation of GDD and TD50 of several experimental lots within each climatic scenario suggest the need to use population-specific values as base temperature for germination and emergence modeling of jimsonweed. Nomenclature: Jimsonweed, Datura stramonium L. DATST; velvetleaf, Abutilon theophrasti Medik. ABUTH.


This is the first comprehensive survey of crafts worldwide. The techniques used in a particular craft, from backstrap weaving and papercutting to metal casting and wood carving, as well as their history, are explained and illustrated, highlighting an incredible and dazzling diversity of styles. The book is organized geographically with six sections spanning the world, with each section subdivided into nearly 90 crafts altogether. Complete with over 500 illustrations, a glossary, bibliography, information on museums and an index, this survey is an essential document for anyone concerned with art, craft and decorative objects.


The authors have considered numerous factors resulting in the development of noninfectious bronchial asthma. A conclusion has been made of a necessity of successive ruling out of all known allergic exposures. A special program of etiological diagnosis of noninfectious bronchial asthma is proposed with great emphasis on the diagnosis of food allergy in bronchial asthma. Experiments on the detection of food hypersensitivity mediating immunological mechanisms open up opportunities for the development and use of panels of food allergens in order to shorten and simplify a process of patients' examination for diagnosis of food allergy in bronchial asthma.


The purpose of this thesis to explore the theoretical similarities between Peirce and Vygotsky with respect to the process of concept formation. It is acknowledged that these two thinkers are seldom associated with each other in relation to the learning process. Peirce is seen as one of the founders of modern semiotics, but he is rarely linked with the activity of concept formation itself. Vygotsky, whilst associated with the latter, is not interpreted as a semiotician – even though he sometimes uses the terminology of signs. It will be argued in the course of this thesis, however, that their views are closer to each other than is commonly recognised and that this convergence derives from the influence of Hegel. In the case of Peirce, Hegel is often viewed in negative terms – as a philosophical legacy that Peirce is reacting against. It will be argued that this interpretation overlooks the deeper impact of Hegelian thought in terms of how Peirce constructs his semiotics. Indeed, an Hegelian interpretation of concept formation helps reframe Peirce's account of the 'mediating' sign, the notion of the 'determined' sign, and the role of the 'object' in his triadic structure. Moreover, the reference point of Hegel creates an opportunity to re-evaluate Peirce's icon, index and symbol. Hegel's influence on Vygotsky is more frequently acknowledged, but seldom pursued in detail by commentators who often draw Vygotsky into a more social account of meaning construction. Full recognition of Hegel's influence on Vygotsky, however, has the effect of reframing his notion of 'mediation', and making his account of concept formation less focused on the social dimension than is commonly recognised. The overall effect of these arguments is to reposition Vygotsky's 'natural history of the sign' in a framework that parallels Peirce's own account of sign formation. There remain, of course, important differences in the approaches of Peirce and Vygotsky, and these will be highlighted in the course of the discussion. But the broader perspective outlined below suggests that there should be greater recognition of their philosophical similarities.


Apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a Caspase recruitment domain (ASC) belongs to a large family of proteins that contain a Pyrin, AIM, ASC, and death domain-like (PAAD) domain (also known as PYRIN, DAPIN, Pyk). Recent data have suggested that ASC functions as an adaptor protein linking various PAAD-family proteins to pathways involved in nuclear factor (NF)-κB and pro-Caspase-1 activation. We present evidence here that the role of ASC in modulating NF-κB activation pathways is much broader than previously suspected, as it can either inhibit or activate NF-κB, depending on cellular context. While coexpression of ASC with certain PAAD-family proteins such as Pyrin and Cryopyrin increases NF-κB activity, ASC has an inhibitory influence on NF-κB activation by various proinflammatory stimuli, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α, interleukin 1β, and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Elevations in ASC protein levels or of the PAAD domain of ASC suppressed activation of IκB kinases in cells exposed to pro-inflammatory stimuli. Conversely, reducing endogenous levels of ASC using siRNA enhanced TNF- and LPS-induced degradation of the IKK substrate, IκBα. Our findings suggest that ASC modulates diverse NF-κB induction pathways by acting upon the IKK complex, implying a broad role for this and similar proteins containing PAAD domains in regulation of inflammatory responses.


Interview with Jack Hill, former employee of the Texas Textile Mill, as part of the Texas Textile Mill Oral History Project. The interview includes Hill's personal experiences about his childhood, working at Wilson's Grocery Store and Cole's Groceries, enlisting in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and serving in the China-Burma-India Theater. Hill also discusses his family's experience in the Great Depression, his lay-off due to new child labor laws, the tornado of 1948, and his career in retail sales.


Local anaesthesia through infiltration is daily practiced in dentistry. Infiltration anaesthesia is effective in gums, mucosa and teeth, in the upper jaw and in the front part of the lower jaw. An amount of 0.3-0.5 ml of anaesthetics including vasoconstrictor is sufficient for 1-2 hours. The method is safe; only few contra-indications are known. Infiltration anaesthesia seldom leads to complications. Intravascular injection cannot entirely be excluded. Therefore slow injection and subsequent observation of the patient's reactions are required.


Introduction Acral melanoma (AM) has a poor prognosis since it is easily metastatic and resistant to chemo and immunotherapy. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is an enzyme that plays a role in the carcinogenesis process. The increased expression of COX-2 has an impact on increasing levels of Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cell (MDSC), which is a key regulator of immune. The increase in MDSC produces Transforming Growth Factor β1 (TGF-β1), which will suppress Natural Killer (NK) cells and Dendritic Cells (DC) function so that tumor cells are spared from the immune systems and are easier to invade surrounding tissues. Purpose This study aimed to determine the role of COX-2 and TGF-β1 on the depth of invasion on AM. Materials and Methods This study was a cross-sectional observational study on 40 paraffin blocks of AM cases during 2014–2019 in the Department of Pathology Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Hasan Sadikin General Hospital, Bandung. The depth of invasion of all samples was measured by dotSlide imaging software and the immunohistochemical staining of COX-2 and TGF-β1 was performed. The association between COX-2 and TGF-β1 expression and AM depth of invasion were analyzed using Mann Whitney. Results The result showed a significant association between COX-2 and TGF-β1 expression and depth of invasion on AM. COX-2 expression had a significant association with TGF-β1 expression (0.0001). Through multivariate analysis, it was found that COX-2 had the greatest association with the depth of invasion (p=0.0001). Conclusion The findings showed that increasing expression of COX-2 in AM is associated with the depth of invasion by increasing TGF-β1 and it might play important roles during the invasion process of AM.


After completion of 65 years of independence, our country has witnessed remarkable progress in the health status of its population. However, over the past few decades, there has been major transitions in the country that have serious impact on health. Changes have been seen in economic development, nutritional status, fertility and mortality rates and consequently, the disease profile has changed considerabely. Though there have been substantial acievements in controlling communicable diseases, still they contribute significantly to disease burden of the country. Decline in morbidity and mortality from communicable diseases have been accompanied by a gradual shift to, and accelerated rise in the prevalence of, chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cancers, mental health disorders and injuries1. Researchers and policy makers around the world have been increasingly recognizing NCDs (Non communicable diseases) as a health and developmental emergency. NCDs are the leading cause of death in the South-East Asia Region, killing 7.9 million annually (55% of the total deaths in the Region). NCD deaths in region are expected to increase by 21% over the next decade.


Background: There is currently an incomplete understanding of adverse events related to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments. Much of the published literature is based either on a limited number of ECT providers or reports not representative of modern ECT practice. Methods: We searched the Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for Patient Safety database for reports of adverse events related to ECT. The type and the cause of the events were determined and aggregated. The number of ECT treatments given in the VA was used to develop estimated rates of mortality associated with ECT. Results: There were no deaths associated with ECT reported in any VA hospital between 1999 and 2010. Based on the number of treatments given, we estimate the mortality rate associated with ECT as less than 1 death per 73,440 treatments. The most common reported adverse events related to ECT were injury to the mouth (including dental and tongue injury) and problems related to paralysis. Conclusions: Based on this VA data, ECT may be safer than is widely reported. The reported adverse events were generally rare and typically minor in severity. Simple steps may possibly result in further enhancements to ECT safety.


This paper studies category-level object pose estimation based on a single monocular image. Recent advances in pose-aware generative models have paved the way for addressing this challenging task using analysis-by-synthesis. The idea is to sequentially update a set of latent variables, e.g., pose, shape, and appearance, of the generative model until the generated image best agrees with the observation. However, convergence and efficiency are two challenges of this inference procedure. In this paper, we take a deeper look at the inference of analysis-by-synthesis from the perspective of visual navigation, and investigate what is a good navigation policy for this specific task. We evaluate three different strategies, including gradient descent, reinforcement learning and imitation learning, via thorough comparisons in terms of convergence, robustness and efficiency. Moreover, we show that a simple hybrid approach leads to an effective and efficient solution. We further compare these strategies to state-of-the-art methods, and demonstrate superior performance on synthetic and real-world datasets leveraging off-the-shelf pose-aware generative models.


This paper presents a validation assessment method to measure the discrepancies between the model predictions and experimental observations under both aleatory and epistemic uncertainty. The model inputs considered in the paper are sparse point data or interval data, which leads to uncertain parameters for the distribution of the model inputs. A likelihood based method is used to represent the stochastic model inputs and it yields a single probability distribution which integrates the aleatory and epistemic uncertainty of model inputs. This representation of model inputs provides an advantage in computation efficiency for the conventional double loop sampling requirement in uncertainty propagation is collapsed into a single loop sampling. An area based validation metric is extended to compare the probabilistic model predictions obtained from uncertainty propagation with the empirical distribution function of the experimental observations, it reflects an objective quantification of the entire discrepancies between predictions and observations. The confidence interval for the validation metric, which just depends on the amount of experimental observations and confidence level is also developed. A numerical example is used to illustrate the proposed method.


Sybil attacks, in which a large number of adversary-controlled nodes join a network, are a concern for many peer-to-peer database systems, necessitating expensive countermeasures such as proof-of-work. However, there is a category of database applications that are, by design, immune to Sybil attacks because they can tolerate arbitrary numbers of Byzantine-faulty nodes. In this paper, we characterize this category of applications using a consistency model we call Byzantine Eventual Consistency (BEC). We introduce an algorithm that guarantees BEC based on Byzantine causal broadcast, prove its correctness, and demonstrate near-optimal performance in a prototype implementation.


Film deposition is an enabling technology for integration of novel functional materials into real-world practical applications. We report both the anodic and cathodic electrochemical film deposition of UiO-66, a prototype of highly stable, zirconium-based metal–organic frameworks, using zirconium foil as the only metal source. The fundamentally different film formation mechanisms at the cathode and anode result in a significantly different coating adhesion strength, mainly due to the formation of an oxide film serving as a bridging layer at the anode. The patterned deposition capability of the electrochemical method enables the straightforward integration of UiO-66 as a sorbent film in a miniaturized sorbent trap for online analytical sampling and concentration of dilute volatile organic compounds.


The phylogenetic development of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has presumably involved processes of self-organization with evolutionary selective pressure to optimize specific functions of the organism and the coordination of these functions. Our knowledge of the functional organization of the ANS is incomplete. However, at many different levels of function, nonlinear dynamics have been shown to provide a relevant description of operation of the system. We introduce some of the fundamentals of nonlinear coordination, including approaches based on chaos theory, synergetics, and general nonlinear dynamics. The term "autonomic nervous system" is valid for the basal functional unit, which includes essential neurophysiological mechanisms of cardiovascular control that are approximately independent of voluntary influences. The conclusion is that the cardiovascular autonomic control system is more appropriately investigated by multivariate than by univariate data analysis. A physiological organism can be considered as a highly complex dissipative structure; numerous widespread internal and external conditions lead to the small behavioral band of being alive. Subsystems of this structure can be modeled as dissipative dynamical systems. Deterministic chaos is a mathematical phenomenon in which a deterministic process produces a unpredictable output. Deterministic chaos is somewhat regular in that it is deterministic and somewhat irregular in that it is unpredictable. One of the distinctive features of the ANS is that its fluctuations are also somewhat regular and somewhat irregular. This duality may indicate that it may be useful to characterize ANS fluctuations in terms of concepts from chaos theory.


The oil shale based energy sector of the Republic of Estonia is related to huge waste flows about 5 million tons of waste ash is landfilled annually by circulating in the system tens of millions of cubic meters of transportation water saturated with different salts. Due to the distinctiveness of oil shale, the waste ash is characterized by heterogeneous and complicated mineral composition. Ash contains, depending on combustion technology (currently both pulverized firing and circulated fluidized bed combustion are used), 10–20% of free lime as the most active compound. Contacting free lime with water leads to elevated pH values (pH>13) and makes landfilling of this ash by hydraulic transportation highly problematic. It has been shown that the negative environmental impact of high alkalinity of these flows could be equilibrated by using CO2 from flue gases as a neutralizing agent. At the same time the emission of CO2 is diminished. Laboratory batch tests showed that by treating ash – water suspension with CO2-containing flue gases, the most of the free CaO can be reduced to an acceptable level. Some aspects of processes deceleration during wet carbonization of ash have been elaborated. Part of the free CaO present is not accessible due to low porosity and the formation of reaction products on the surface of ash particles. Also, lowering the pH of carbonized ash suspension influences the composition of the liquid phase by increasing leaching of some of the ash components. The behaviour of CaSO4 as one of the dominant Ca-compounds in ash has been elaborated.


Cryoablation of prostate cancer is an FDA approved clinical procedure, which involves repetitive rapid cooling of a lesion to lethal temperatures of -40°C and below. The major drawback of the technique is the insufficient control over the fast thermal processes that may result in severe complications (impotence, incontinence, perforation of the rectal wall) and morbidity. The developed optoacoustic imaging technique provides non-invasive real-time temperature mapping of tissue adjacent to prostate and enables more efficient control over the procedure, which is necessary to reduce side effects and accelerate the physician's learning curve. In these studies we successfully demonstrated real-time transrectal optoacoustic imaging during prostate cryoablation in live canine model focused on optoacoustic thermography of the rectal wall within the depth of 1cm. Our method utilized previously discovered universal thermal dependence of the normalized optoacoustic response of blood. Nanosecond-pulse radiation of Ti-Sapphire laser tuned to the isosbestic point of hemoglobin (802±3 nm) was delivered via fiberoptic illuminators assembled on both sides of the linear array of the 128-channel transrectal ultrasound probe. Temperature readouts at discrete locations inside and nearby prostate were also performed using standard transperineal needle sensors. The effect of homeostasis on optoacoustic imaging in live tissue was examined during cooling and shown to be significant only within the range of ±1.5°C in respect to the body temperature. Accuracy of in vivo optoacoustic temperature measurements was determined as ±2°C for the range of temperature from +35 to -15°C, which is more than sufficient for tracking the essential isotherms in the course of clinical procedures.


Apolipoprotein (apo) B48 is synthesized by mammalian small intestine as a result of post-transcriptional RNA editing. This process is mediated by an enzyme complex containing a catalytic subunit, apobec-1, which is homologous to other cytidine deaminases, particularly in a domain (H/C)-(A/V)-E-(X)24-30-P-C-(X)2-C which coordinates zinc. apobec-1, expressed as a glutathione S-transferase fusion protein, demonstrates both apoB RNA editing and cytidine deaminase activity. His61, Cys93, and Cys96, the putative zinc-coordinating residues, were mutated to Arg, Ser, and Ser, respectively, with loss of RNA editing activity and either great reduction or abolition of cytidine deaminase activity. Mutation of the catalytically active Glu63 residue to Gln and Pro92 to Leu abolished both cytidine deaminase and RNA editing activity. The conservative His61 → Cys mutation, which should coordinate zinc, retained both editing and cytidine deaminase activity. Thus, zinc binding is required for both apoB RNA editing and cytidine deaminase activity. Mutation of the first four leucines within the heptad repeat of the leucine-rich region (LRR) of apobec-1 resulted in reduced RNA editing but preservation of wild-type cytidine deaminase activity. GST/APOBEC-1 was also demonstrated to cross-link to apoB RNA. Mutation of His61 → Arg abolished RNA binding, while the Glu63 → Gln and Cys96 → Ser mutant proteins showed wild-type levels of RNA binding. The remaining mutants had reduced levels of activity. Overexpression of wild-type apobec-1 in McA 7777 cells resulted in a 5-6-fold increase in editing of endogenous apoB. Transfection of the His61 → Cys, LRR, and Cys93 → Ser mutants increased endogenous editing 2-3-fold, while Glu63 → Gln and His61 → Arg mutants acted as dominant negatives, reducing endogenous editing. These data suggest that apobec-1 has distinct functional domains which modulate activity in the context of the apoB mRNA editing enzyme.


Multicore chips are becoming mainstream, but programming them is difficult because the prevalent thread-based programming model is error-prone and does not scale well. To address this problem, we designed XJava, an extension of Java that permits the direct expression of producer/consumer, pipeline, master/slave, and data parallelism. The central concept of the extension is the task, a parallel activity similar to a filter in Unix. Tasks can be combined with new operators to create arbitrary nestings of parallel activities. Preliminary experience with XJava and its compiler suggests that the extensions lead to code savings and reduce the potential for synchronization defects, while preserving the advantages of object-orientation and type-safety. The proposed extensions provide intuitive "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" parallelism. They also enable other software tools, such as auto-tuning and accurate static analysis for race detection.


This paper analyses the changes we have made in teaching agile methodologies, practices, and principles in four courses in order to address a specific dilemma: students need to apply agile methods in order to learn them, but when complementing our courses with applied content, we face the problem that students perceive the learning and application of agile methods as less important than delivering a finished product at the end of the course. This causes students to not apply theoretical process knowledge and therefore to not develop necessary skills associated with working with defined processes in the industry. Concretely, we report on our experience with teaching Scrum with Lego, removing formal grading requirements on the delivered product, emphasising process application in post-mortem reports, and organisational changes to support the process during supervision. These changes are analysed in the context of student satisfaction, teacher observations, and achievements of learning outcomes. We also provide an overview of the lessons learnt to help guide the design of courses on agile methodologies.


A cross-sectional design was used to examine age-related differences in suicidal thinking and reasons for living among younger (n = 82; M age = 21) and older (n = 82; M age = 68) adults. Volunteers anonymously completed the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation and the Reasons for Living Inventory. Findings indicated that older adults do not manifest suicidal ideation differently than younger adults. However, there does appear to be some age-related differences in reasons for not committing suicide. Compared to the younger group, the older group reported moral objections and child-related concerns as stronger reasons for not committing suicide. An implication is that the identification of specific reasons that deter individuals from committing suicide may be clinically useful and provide some assistance in suicide prevention efforts.


INTEGRATING EMERGING WRITERS INTO THE POST-REMEDIAL COLLEGE: A CONSIDERATION OF ACCELERATED LEARNING PROGRAMS Meridith Anne Leo For nearly thirty years the field of composition studies has struggled to address the needs of at-risk students who attend the two-year community college. While some states have opted to eliminate "remediation" programs, others have developed unique approaches to working with students who need support in order to succeed in college level courses. Out of the necessity for alterations to traditional "developmental" writing courses and programs, the Accelerated Learning Program model came into existence. In 2007 at the Community College of Baltimore County Dr. Peter Adams and his colleagues set out a plan to redefine the field of traditional "developmental" writing by creating an accelerated learning model that incorporated the concepts of mainstream education alongside a co-requisite course pairing. In order to create the best opportunity for at-risk students to succeed, Dr. Adams and his colleagues linked a traditional developmental course with a standard freshman composition credit-bearing course. While the original Accelerated Learning Program model has changed over time its basic tenets and mission are the same; it is designed to help at-risk students succeed through their writing course sequence in order to persist through their educational goals. Furthermore, ALPs also attempt to reverse the negative labeling practices that at times brand students and emotionally impact their relationship to their literacy practices. This dissertation chronicles the history of "remediation" while discussing the issues that labeling can have on students' academic lives. By reviewing a variety of approaches to traditional "developmental" writing and examining my own literacy narrative history, I work toward defining the problems surrounding traditional approaches to "remediation" at the two-year college. Based on my experiences as a "developmental" student who becomes a teacher of "developmental" students, I began to realize how inefficient the approaches to "remediation" were at my institution. After learning about the Accelerated Learning Program, I became focused on implementing one at Suffolk County Community College, and this dissertation discusses that process. Additionally, given the negative labeling practices, I argue that instead of calling students "basic," "developmental," or "remedial," the field should pivot toward using terms that empower at-risk student writers.


"Wisdom of crowds" refers to the phenomenon that the average opinion of a group of individuals on a given question can be very close to the true answer. It requires a large group diversity of opinions, but the collective error, the difference between the average opinion and the true value, has to be small. We consider a stochastic opinion dynamics where individuals can change their opinion based on the opinions of others (social influence $\alpha$), but to some degree also stick to their initial opinion (individual conviction $\beta$). We then derive analytic expressions for the dynamics of the collective error and the group diversity. We analyze their long-term behavior to determine the impact of the two parameters $(\alpha,\beta)$ and the initial opinion distribution on the wisdom of crowds. This allows us to quantify the ambiguous role of social influence: only if the initial collective error is large, it helps to improve the wisdom of crowds, but in most cases it deteriorates the outcome. In these cases, individual conviction still improves the wisdom of crowds because it mitigates the impact of social influence.


Efficient organic electronic devices are fabricated from both small molecules and disperse polymers, but materials with characteristics in between remain largely unexplored. Here, we present a gram-scale synthesis for a series of discrete n-type oligomers comprising alternating naphthalene diimide (NDI) and bithiophene (T2). Using C-H activation, discrete oligomers of type T2-(NDI-T2)n (n ≤ 7) and persistence lengths up to ∼10 nm are made. The absence of protection/deprotection reactions and the mechanistic nature of Pd-catalyzed C-H activation allow one to produce symmetrically terminated species almost exclusively, which is key to the fast preparation, high yields, and the general success of the reaction pathway. The reaction scope includes different thiophene-based monomers, end-capping to yield NDI-(T2-NDI)n (n ≤ 8), and branching at T2 units by nonselective C-H activation under certain conditions. We show how the optical, electronic, thermal, and structural properties depend on oligomer length along with a comparison to the disperse, polymeric analogue PNDIT2. From theory and experiments, we find that the molecular energy levels are not affected by chain length resulting from the strong donor-acceptor system. Absorption maxima saturate for n = 4 in vacuum and for n = 8 in solution. Linear oligomers T2-(NDI-T2)n are highly crystalline with large melting enthalpies up to 33 J/g; NDI-terminated oligomers show reduced crystallinity, stronger supercooling, and more phase transitions. Branched oligomers and those with bulky thiophene comonomers are amorphous. Large oligomers exhibit similar packing characteristics compared to PNDIT2, making these oligomers ideal models to study length-structure-function relationships at constant energy levels.


Baseband processing is an important and computationally heavy part of modern mobile cellular systems. These systems use specialized hardware that has many digital signal processing cores and hardware accelerators. The algorithms that run on these systems are complexand needs to take advantage of this hardware. Developing software for these systems requires domain knowledge about baseband processing and low level programming on parallel real time systems. This thesis investigates if the programming language Julia can be used to implement algorithms for baseband processing in mobile telephony base stations. If it is possible to use a scientific language like Julia to directly implement programs for the special hardware in the base stations it can reduce lead times and costs.In this thesis a uplink receiver is implemented in Julia. This implementation is written usinga domain specific language. This makes it possible to specify a number of transformations that use the metaprogramming capabilities in Julia to transform the uplink receiver such that it is better suited to execute on the hardware described above. This is achieved by transforming the program such that it consists of functions that either can be executed on single digital signal processing cores or hardware accelerators.It is concluded that Julia seems suited for prototyping baseband processing algorithms. Using metaprogramming to transform a baseband processing algorithm to be better suited for baseband processing hardware is also a feasible approach.


We introduce the model of Stochastic Revision Games where a finite set of players control a state variable and receive payoffs as a function of the state at a terminal deadline. There is a Poisson clock which dictates when players are called to choose of revise their actions. This paper studies the existence of Markov perfect equilibria in those games. We give an existence proof assuming some form of correlation.


Killer Ig-like receptors (KIR) aid in the regulation of natural killer (NK) cell activity. In this study, the effect of the interaction between the two domain stimulatory KIR (KIR2DS) and their adapter, DAP12, was investigated beyond the previously defined signaling function. Flow cytometry analysis showed enhanced KIR2DS surface expression on NKL cells when co-transfected with DAP12. Conversely, KIR2DS4 surface expression on primary cells was decreased when the cells were treated with DAP12 specific siRNA. Treatment of the KIR2DS and DAP12 transfected cells with either cycloheximide or Brefeldin A repressed KIR2DS surface expression revealing a role for DAP12 in trafficking newly synthesized KIR to the cell surface. Immunoprecipitation of DAP12 revealed an interaction of DAP12 with an immature isoform of KIR2DS indicating the interaction likely initiates within the endoplasmic reticulum. An internalization assay demonstrated a significant impact of DAP12 on KIR2DS surface stability. Confocal microscopy showed internalized KIR2DS molecules are recruited to lysosomal compartments independent of DAP12 expression. Our results suggest in vivo conditions that adversely affect DAP12 expression will indirectly reduce surface expression and stability of KIR2DS. These effects could significantly impact ligand recognition and strength of signaling through KIR2DS molecules.


Abstract Students pursuing their civil engineering degree usually learn the theory part in class but may struggle to relate theory to practice if the instructor has no industry experience. Engineering graduates can benefit more when civil engineering courses are taught by instructors that have both academic and practical experience. An instructor with industry experience can motivate students, enable them to relate what was learned in the class with the real world, and allow them to start developing their own engineering judgment, which is essential for the successful practice of civil engineering. The paper discusses the importance of practical experience in civil engineering education, problems facing practical teaching, and successful practices in practical teaching.


patients, and were only detected in GT1b, being mainly represented by C316N with 38.5 per cent (10/26) of GT1b infected patients. The combined NS5A RASs (Q30HþY93H), causing high level resistance to all NS5A inhibitors, were detected at baseline in one HIV/HCV GT1a co-infected patient who later failed a treatment with SOFþ LDV for 12 weeks. Finally, an isolated Y93H mutation was also detected at baseline in a GT1b mono0infected patient experiencing recurrence. Overall 38.3 per cent (31/81) of all GT1 HCV infected patients presented NS5 RASs at baseline, in which 58.1 per cent (18/31) were co-infected with HIV/HCV whereas only 38.7 per cent (12/31) of HCV monoinfected patients showed baseline RASs. Moreover, 27.3 per cent (15/55) of GT1a infected patients presented NS5 RASs at baseline, whereas patients infected with GT1b showed the highest prevalence of natural RASs, namely 61.5 per cent (16/26). These data support the usefulness of resistance testing prior to treatment initiation, thus preventing relapses associated to the presence of baseline RASs, as a statistical significant association was found between treatment failure and the presence of major NS5 RASs, namely Y93C/H (P1⁄4 0.04). However, this reduced sampling can constitute a limiting factor since it may underestimate the statistical analysis, and lead to relatively higher RASs rates when comparing to other previous studies.


Composite manufacturing processes usually proceed from preimpregnated preforms that are consolidated by simultaneously applying heat and pressure, so as to ensure a perfect contact compulsory for making molecular diffusion possible. However, in practice, the contact is rarely perfect. This results in a rough interface where air could remain entrapped, thus affecting the effective thermal conductivity. Moreover, the interfacial melted polymer is squeezed flowing in the rough gap created by the fibers located on the prepreg surfaces. Because of the typical dimensions of a composite prepreg, with thickness orders of magnitude smaller than its other in‐plane dimensions, and its surface roughness having a characteristic size orders of magnitude smaller than the prepreg thickness, high‐fidelity numerical simulations for elucidating the impact of surface and interface roughness remain today, despite the impressive advances in computational availabilities, unattainable. This work aims at elucidating roughness impact on heat conduction and the effective viscosity of the interfacial polymer squeeze flow by using an advanced numerical strategy able to reach resolutions never attained until now, a sort of numerical microscope able to attain the scale of the smallest geometrical detail.


The Anti-synchronization of chaotic systems with uncertainty by sliding mode control is studied. Using the principle of poles assignment method, the switching function is designed to guarantee Anti-synchronization of slide mode with nonlinearity terms. Using exponent hitting condition of sliding mode, a robust anti-synchronization controller is proposed. In contrast to the previous works, sliding mode of this controller is free from the influence of disturbance, and the system has both better robustness and quick tracking. Therefore the computation is simple and the conservation is smaller. Finally, Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.


Background Metabolites of ethylene glycol (EG) can cross-react in L-lactate assays, leading to falsely elevated serum lactate levels in case of EG intoxication. In this study, we evaluated the effects of EG and its metabolites on routinely used lactate measuring methods. Methods Serum aliquots were spiked with either L-lactate, EG or one of its metabolites (all 12.5 mmol/L): glyoxal, glycolate, glyoxylic acid or oxalate. An unspiked sample (L-lactate 2.6 mmol/L) served as a control. L-Lactate levels in these samples were measured in 31 national hospitals on 20 different analysers from nine manufacturers. Results The L-lactate concentrations in the control sample and in the samples spiked with L-lactate, EG, glyoxal and oxalate provided correct results by all routinely used methods. However, the glycolate and glyoxylic acid spiked samples resulted in falsely elevated L-lactate concentration with all blood gas methods and with the majority of general chemistry methods using L-lactate oxidase. Conclusion The EG metabolites glycolate and glyoxylic acid were shown to falsely elevate L-lactate results with most of the currently used methods due to cross-reactivity with the oxidase enzyme. Falsely elevated L-lactate results can lead to misdiagnosis and inappropriate management of patients with EG intoxication.


Begomoviruses are whitefly-transmitted single-stranded DNA viruses of great economic importance in the tropics and subtropics. Several begomovirus species have been reported in tomatoes in Brazil, but only a few predominate in the field, for unknown reasons. In this study begomovirus-infected tomato samples were collected in Vicosa, State of Minas Gerais, in Nov/2009 and Dec/2010. Viral genomes were amplified, cloned and sequenced. A total of 36 DNA-A components were obtained. Sequence comparisons indicated the presence of a single begomovirus, Tomato severe rugose virus (ToSRV), with pairwise identities between isolates ranging from 97.3 to 100%. Subdivision tests indicated the existence of a single population. The analysis of variability descriptors indicated that the ToSRV population has a genetic variability similar to other begomovirus populations described in Brazil infecting tomato. Neutrality tests suggested the occurrence of purifying selection acting upon the population. Recombination analysis identified recombination events with begomoviruses from the weed species Sida micrantha. The wide distribution of ToSRV in the field and the detection of recombination indicate that continuous monitoring of viral populations in the field will be required to enable an efficient resistance-based control strategy for begomoviruses.


Major surgical procedures in Jehovah's Witnesses are complicated by their refusal to accept blood transfusion. This problem is accentuated in Jehovah's Witnesses with major gastrointestinal bleeding. The authors present two cases of successful surgical management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in Jehovah's Witnesses who had bleeding esophageal varices. A short "skin to skin" time and minimal blood loss were important factors in the successful outcome. Treatment of these patients without blood transfusion suggests that less blood might be needed in more routine surgical procedures.


Because there is no commonly accepted view of what makes for good writing, automated essay scoring (AES) ideally should be able to accommodate different theoretical positions, certainly at the level of state standards but also perhaps among teachers at the classroom level. This paper presents a practical approach and an interactive computer program for judgment-based customization.

This approach is based on the AES system, e-rater®. Through this new approach, a user can gain easy accessibility to system components, flexibility in adjusting scoring parameters, and procedures for making scoring adjustments that can be based on only a few benchmark essays. The interactive prototype program that implements this approach allows the user to customize e-rater and watch the effect on benchmark essay scores as well as on score distributions for a reference testing program of the user's choice. The paper presents results for the use of this approach in customizing e-rater to the standards of different assessments.


This paper proposes a run-time monitor and bandwidth assignment scheme for delay-sensitive traffic in ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) network. The traffic monitor function is thought to be indispensable to support the QoS (quality of services) of the accepted calls and carry out the network resource management efficiently at the same time. The proposed scheme monitors user data cells by its counter which is driven by system clocks and makes a report on the monitor results to the upper plane such as control plane or network management plane. This feature makes it possible to do the run-time bandwidth assignment and can moderately reduce the size of cell buffers which is inevitable to observe input cell rates in existing traffic controls. Furthermore, any processing delays resulting from usage parameter controls can also be eliminated. The proposed scheme is conformed to efficiently manage the calls and reliably improve the overall system performances without a drop in QoS by computer simulations.


This paper deals with the notion of virtual memory in Bergson's philosophy,
 with special regard to the question of the independence of memory and the
 complex intertwining of spiritual recollections with perception. Attention is
 devoted to the Bergsonian analysis of the actualization of virtual contents.
 The author also confronts the Bergsonian notion of unconscious with that of
 Freud's. It seems that the notion of virtual memory is relevant not only from
 a psychological or an epistemological perspective, but it has also some
 consequences with regard to practical philosophy. An excursus is devoted to
 the Deleuzien interpretation of virtuality. At the end of the paper the
 author discusses the immanent tensions within the Bergsonian concept of
 virtual memory from the aspect of temporal verticality, the impossible
 localization of virtuality and freedom.


This study was designed to assess and compare the awareness, approach, and practices of dengue positive and dengue negative patients regarding dengue fever in a tertiary care hospital of Lahore district, Pakistan from April to May 2012. A total of 250 samples (125 dengue positive and 125 dengue negative) were collected and tested for Dengue IgM and IgG antibodies test by ELISA technique. Pretested questionnaire was used for data collection after the informed consent of the patients. Out of 250 study participants, 78% stated fever as major symptom of dengue virus, 70% had knowledge about the vector, 76% had idea about mosquitoes breeding sites and 80% considered dengue a treatable disease. For 50%, the main source of information about dengue was their TV/Radio. Regarding preventive practices, out of 80% who stored water at home, 52% used to cover their water containers, 64% used to wear protective clothing and 22% used mosquito repellents. Overall, 32% were satisfied from Governmental efforts against the spread of dengue fever. The study indicated that the community was quite familiar with Dengue, but there were some confusion about vaccination and water storage for domestic use.


Lately, interest has focussed on the environmental presence of phenolic organochlorines with endocrine disrupting potential, including pentachlorophenol (PCP) and phenolic PCBmetabolites, and human exposure to these compounds. The present study,aims at determining ten congeners of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), three major hydroxylated PCB metabolites (4OH-CB107, 4OH-CB146, 4OH-CB187), and pentachlorophenol (PCP) in serum from 30 pregnant and breast-feeding women from Uppsala County, Sweden. The studied PCB congeners included both dioxin-like mono-ortho PCBs (CB105, CB118, CB156 and CB167) and di-ortho PCBs with no reported dioxin-like activity (CB138, CB153, and CB180). Results showed that the median levels of ∑PCB decreased from 226 ng/g serum lipid in early pregnancy to 150 ng/g serum lipid in late pregnancy. This pattern of decreasing PCB levels during pregnancy was also evident when looking at the single PCB congeners. The clear decrease in levels of these substances during pregnancy show that it is important to sample blood from pregnant women within a short period of time during pregnancy in order to avoid variation in PCB levels due to sampling timing within a study. Moreover, it is important to know the timing of sample collection when comparing different studies reporting serum/plasma concentrations of PCB in pregnant women. Among the three hydroxylated PCB metabolites analysed in this study, concentrations did not vary significantly during pregnancy. 4OH-CB187 showed highest levels in serum of the three with median concentration of 0.2 ng/g serum. Metabolites 4OH-CB146 and 4OH-CB187 were correlated to its parent compounds whilst 4OH-CB107 was not. This might indicate another source of exposure of 4OH-CB107, which is unknown today. The metabolite 4OH-CB107 significantly increased in serum from late pregnancy (week 31-36) to three weeks after delivery, whereas the levels of the other two metabolites did not change significantly during this time. PCP showed the highest median serum concentrations of the compounds analysed on wet weigh basis, up to 3 ng/g serum in early pregnancy. Serum levels of PCP did not change significantly during pregnancy and showed no correlation between early and late pregnancy. However, a significant increase was observed from late pregnancy to three weeks after delivery. This study shows that PCB and several phenol compounds, of which PCP is dominating, are found in the blood of pregnant and lactating Swedish women, and that the levels in some cases may change during the studied period If the levels of the analysed compounds in pregnant women may pose a health risk to the fetus has still to be determined. Borttaget: the Borttaget: in phenolic compounds Borttaget: , and their presence in our environment and man has increased


Objective Major system change can be stressful for staff involved and can result in 'subtractive change' – that is, when a part of the work environment is removed or ceases to exist. Little is known about the response to loss of activity resulting from such changes. Our aim was to understand perceptions of loss in response to centralization of cancer services in England, where 12 sites offering specialist surgery were reduced to four, and to understand the impact of leadership and management on enabling or hampering coping strategies associated with that loss. Methods We analysed 115 interviews with clinical, nursing and managerial staff from oesophago-gastric, prostate/bladder and renal cancer services in London and West Essex. In addition, we used 134 hours of observational data and analysis from over 100 documents to contextualize and to interpret the interview data. We performed a thematic analysis drawing on stress-coping theory and organizational change. Results Staff perceived that, during centralization, sites were devalued as the sites lost surgical activity, skills and experienced teams. Staff members believed that there were long-term implications for this loss, such as in retaining high-calibre staff, attracting trainees and maintaining autonomy. Emotional repercussions for staff included perceived loss of status and motivation. To mitigate these losses, leaders in the centralization process put in place some instrumental measures, such as joint contracting, surgical skill development opportunities and trainee rotation. However, these measures were undermined by patchy implementation and negative impacts on some individuals (e.g. increased workload or travel time). Relatively little emotional support was perceived to be offered. Leaders sometimes characterized adverse emotional reactions to the centralization as resistance, to be overcome through persuasion and appeals to the success of the new system. Conclusions Large-scale reorganizations are likely to provoke a high degree of emotion and perceptions of loss. Resources to foster coping and resilience should be made available to all organizations within the system as they go through major change.


This paper describes, for the first time, the relative permittivity extraction of cells in their culture medium submitted to different stimuli by using a microwave biosensor, specifically developed to analyze single cells. The sensitive part of the device is constituted by a 5 μm coplanar gap, over which the cell is blocked by a mechanical trap. It allows to obtain the capacitive and conductive contrasts of a cell. Electromagnetic simulations where the cell (sphere) permittivity is tuned permit to define fitted calibration curves linking capacitive and conductive contrasts to the real and imaginary parts of the relative permittivity. Measurements are performed on various cells (in their culture medium) after different environmental stimuli in order to induce various biological stresses altering the cell state. Results show that this non-invasive technique, including the developed proper de-embedding post-process, provides the intrinsic dielectric image of single biological cells, which then reveals their biological state.


www.biosciencemag.org Registration and Poster Submissions Open for 2009 AIBS Annual Meeting The 2009 AIBS annual meeting, "Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply," will be held 18–19 May at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The program chair is 2009 AIBS President May R. Berenbaum, of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Registration, poster submission forms, and the preliminary program are online at www.aibs.org/ annual-meeting/annual_meeting_2009. The meeting will bring together plenary speakers, panelists, and discussion groups from the basic and applied life sciences to examine food sustainability, supply, and security. The two-day program is geared toward the science-policy interface for an audience of scientists, educators, students, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, members of Congress, and the media. The rest of the meeting's program will be rounded out by, among other events, a contributed poster session, AIBS awards, a teachers' workshop organized by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study and the National Association of Biology Teachers, and a workshop led by the AIBS Public Policy Office focusing on Communicating Science: A Primer for Working with the Media, an AIBS publication. As a special event, Robert Pennock, of Michigan State University, will give a lecture at 7:00 p.m. on 18 May at the National Academies' Keck Center, in Washington, DC. Pennock, recipient of the 2009 AIBS Outstanding Service Award, will give the lecture "Reason Enough for Scientific Researches: Darwin and the Scientific Virtues." The evening will also include a reception and an after-hours tour of the Koshland Science Center at 6:30 p.m. (The $35 fee for the reception includes return bus transportation from the meeting hotel and after-hours access to the Koshland Science Museum.) The meeting is taking place during the "Year of Science 2009," a year of activities aimed at engaging the general public in the nature and value of the scientific enterprise. Year of Science 2009, which is co-organized by AIBS and the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science, involves more than 500 organizations. Recordings of the plenary lectures from the meeting will be available online for free viewing in the AIBS Media Library (www.aibs.org/media-library) about two months after the meeting. The meeting's confirmed speakers and the topics of their presentations are listed below:


We have investigated the field around the radio-quiet γ-ray pulsar, PSR J2021+4026, with a ∼140 ks XMM-Newton observation and ∼56 ks archival Chandra data. Through analyzing the pulsed spectrum, we show that the X-ray pulsation is purely thermal in nature, which suggests that the pulsation originated from a hot polar cap with T ∼ 3 × 106 K on the surface of a rotating neutron star. On the other hand, the power-law (PL) component that dominates the pulsar emission in the hard band is originated from off-pulse phases, which possibly comes from a pulsar wind nebula. In re-analyzing the Chandra data, we have confirmed the presence of a bow-shock nebula that extends from the pulsar to the west by ∼10 arcsec. The orientation of this nebular feature suggests that the pulsar is probably moving eastward, which is consistent with the speculated proper motion by extrapolating from the nominal geometrical center of the supernova remnant (SNR) G78.2+2.1 to the current pulsar position. For G78.2+2.1, our deep XMM-Newton observation also enables a study of the central region and part of the southeastern region with superior photon statistics. The column absorption derived for the SNR is comparable to that for PSR J2021+4026, which supports their association. The remnant emission in both of the examined regions is in a non-equilibrium ionization state. Also, the elapsed time of both regions after shock-heating is apparently shorter than the Sedov age of G78.2+2.1. This might suggest that the reverse shock has reached the center not long ago. Apart from PSR J2021+4026 and G78.2+2.1, we have also serendipitously detected an X-ray flash-like event, XMM J202154.7+402855, from this XMM-Newton observation.


Introduction
Recently, in pine forests of many regions, the outbreak of bark beetles, particularly Ips sexdentatus (B?rner, 1776) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) have been registered. Prevention of outbreaks and decrease of the negative consequences for forest can be achieved by the use of fertilizers, insecticides, and entomophages. Thanasimus formicarius (Linnaeus 1758) (Coleoptera: Cleridae) is a predator of many coleopterous species.
The aim of the research was to evaluate the first results of the release of Th. formicarius into the foci of bark beetles.
Materials and Methods
The study was carried out in the foci of bark beetles in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernigiv regions. The larvae of Th. formicarius were reared in the State Specialized Forest Protection Enterprise 'Kharkivlisozahyst'. After that, they were moved to the forest and released. The experiment was carried out with five variants of application the fertilizer and predator, one variant of predator release without fertilizer, one variant of the fertilizer 'Iaros' treatment without predator release, and one variant without any treatment. The control plots were of three types: K-1 – release of predator larvae without applying a fertilizer; K-2 – treatment with fertilizer without the release of predator; K-3 – without treatment with fertilizer and without the release of predator. The change in the health condition of trees and bark beetles' survival were the criteria for evaluating the treatment effectiveness.
Results and Conclusions
The efficiency of different combinations of treatment with fertilizer and the release of the predator, evaluated by the change of the health condition of viable trees, was from 14.7 to 28.3%. According to the 2020 assessment, the density of larval galleries of the bark beetle decreased in all plots compared to 2018. The more rapid collapse of bark beetle outbreak as compared to the control was registered for the plots with predator release. The release of the predator along with the use of mineral fertilizer by spraying the crowns provided a more significant improvement in the stand health condition and a decrease in the viability of the bark beetle populations than the only predator release.


The term "sequential Monte Carlo methods" or, equivalently, "particle filters," refers to a general class of iterative algorithms that performs Monte Carlo approximations of a given sequence of distributions of interest (πt ). We establish in this paper a central limit theorem for the Monte Carlo estimates produced by these computational methods. This result holds under minimal assumptions on the distributions πt , and applies in a general framework which encompasses most of the sequential Monte Carlo methods that have been considered in the literature, including the resample-move algorithm of Gilks and Berzuini [ J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B Stat. Methodol. 63 (2001) 127–146] and the residual resampling scheme. The corresponding asymptotic variances provide a convenient measurement of t he precision of a given particle filter. We study, in particular, in some typical examples of Bayesian applications, whether and at which rate these asymptotic variances diverge in time, in order to assess the long term reliability of the considered algorithm.


Maple syrup disease is secondary to a deficiency of deshydrogenase complex of a cetoacid of branched-chain. This disease has a recessive autosomic inheritance, with an incidence of 1/200,000 newborns, without differences between male and female. Due to clinical presentation and biochemical response to tiamin, these patients can be classified in five clinical entities: classic, intermediate, intermittent, positive response to tiamin and deficiency of dihydrolipoyl deshydrogenase (E3). In these patients, an increase of seric branched-chain aminoacids is detected, it could be detected by (chromatography) during neonatal period. Valine, isoleucine, and aloisoleucine are increased in serum, orine, and cephaloraquideum liquid by ionic changed chromatography, chromatography of high resolution or high voltage electrophoresis. Patients have two phases in this disease (acute phase and maintaining phase). Objectives in acute phase are based in three topics: to eliminate toxic metabolites, nutritional support and to get anabolism. Utilization of hemodialysis/peritoneal dialysis/blood exchange is one of the first treatments. Dietetic support is the second treatment, with a minimum energy intake and controlling blood levels of aminoacids. Modified dietetic formulas is a main device to treat these patients.


In economic models of energy and climate policy, endogenous technological change is generally introduced as the result of either investment in research-and-development or of learning-by-doing. In this paper, we analyze alternative ways of modeling learning-by-doing in the renewable energy sector in a top-down CGE model. Conventionally, learning-by-doing effects in the renewable energy sector are allocated to the production of renewable based electricity. We build on the observation that learning-by-doing also takes place in sectors that deliver capital goods to the renewable electricity sector, in particular in the production of machinery and equipment for renewable energy technologies. We therefore implement learning-by-doing alternatively in the renewable energy equipment industry and in renewable electricity production and show why it matters to differentiate between these two approaches. The main differences originate from effects on international trade, since the output of the machinery and equipment sector is intensively traded on international markets unlike renewable electricity.


Evidence suggests that people with learning disabilities have greater healthcare needs than the general population and that these needs are often unmet. A literature search was conducted to identify factors influencing general hospital care for people with a learning disability. Electronic databases, general internet searches and references from the initial search were used to identify relevant studies published between January 1990 and December 2010. Fourteen studies were identified that matched the inclusion criteria. Recurrent themes included the effect of being in hospital on the individual with a learning disability, attitude and knowledge of staff, the hospital environment, role of carers and recommendations for improvement. A critical appraisal tool was used to assess the quality of the selected literature. Despite limitations, all the studies contributed to the evidence base. Although much has been written about general hospital care for people with a learning disability, credible research in this area is lacking. The areas of good practice identified from the available literature need to be evaluated and disseminated so that all people with a learning disability can receive the best possible health care.


Involving stakeholders in requirements elicitation is a cornerstone of successful requirements engineering (RE). With the recent technological advances, the number of stakeholders of a system has significantly increased. Major stakeholders, end-users in particular, are increasingly difficult to reach, because they may be globally distributed and outside organizational reach, i.e., they are no members of the organizations that are involved in the development of a system. Online elicitation platforms allow to elicit requirements collaboratively from a large number of distributed stakeholders. However, such platforms are not sufficient for motivating stakeholders outside organizational reach to contribute voluntarily. Gamification is a potential means for creating and sustaining such motivation. However, there is little research on stakeholder engagement with gamification so far. Current approaches particularly do not consider that stakeholders learn during elicitation and that their motivational factors also change. In this paper, we address this gap with a motivation concept that is inspired by the theories of experiential learning and need satisfaction. Our contribution is threefold. First, we suggest how to characterize these stakeholders despite not knowing who they are. Second, we show the role of experiential learning and need satisfaction with respect to gamification in the context of requirements elicitation. Third, we present a three-dimensional concept of how to motivate these stakeholders towards requirements elicitation over the whole period of requirements elicitation.


AIM
This study aims to assess the diagnostic role of F-FDG PET/computed tomography in primary staging and restaging of testicular cancer in comparison with contrast-enhanced diagnostic thoracic-abdominopelvic computed tomography.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
Thirty-two consecutive male patients with testicular carcinoma (median age: 29, min-max: 17-65) who were referred to the nuclear medicine department for F-FDG PET/computed tomography were retrospectively included in the study. Patients were evaluated based on the F-FDG PET/computed tomography indications and germ cell tumor subtypes.

RESULTS
On patient-based analysis, overall sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of 18F-FDG PET/computed tomography were 71%, 100%, 100%, 30% and 75%. On lesion-based analysis, for evaluation of lymph node metastasis they were 76%, 100%, 100%, 57% and 81%, and for detection of distant metastasis 85%, 100%, 100%, 90% and 93%, respectively. Median SUVmax for seminomas were calculated as 14.2 and for nonseminomas 7.8 (P = 0.62) Mean time to progression and overall survival were calculated as 76.6 ± 10.7 and 111 ± 7.5 months, respectively. Mean overall survival and time to progression for PET-positive and negative groups was not found significant (P = 0.69 and P = 0.81). The only significant factor in predict overall survival was the presence of distant organ metastases in PET/computed tomography (124.6 ± 5.2 vs. 78.7 ± 14.0 months, P = 0.02).

CONCLUSION
In this single-center experience with a limited number of patients, F-FDG PET/computed tomography appears to have a value of staging and restaging for both seminomatous and non-seminomatous GCTs.


Obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS) are serious complications of vaginal birth with a reported average worldwide incidence of 4%-6%. They are a recognised major risk factor for anal incontinence resulting in concern amongst women who sustain such injuries when considering the most suitable mode of birth in a subsequent pregnancy.

This thesis contains three studies; a systematic review and meta-analysis of the published literature exploring the impact of a subsequent birth and it's mode on bowel function and/or QoL for women with previous OASIS, a follow-up study on the long-term effects of OASIS on bowel function and QoL and finally a prospective cohort study of women with previous OASIS to assess the impact of subsequent birth and its mode on change in bowel function.

The work in this thesis demonstrated an increase in incidence of bowel symptoms in women with previous OASIS over time and that short-term bowel symptoms were significantly associated with bowel symptoms and QoL. This thesis also showed that the mode of subsequent birth was not significantly associated with bowel symptoms or QoL and for women with previous OASIS who have normal bowel function and no anal sphincter disruption a subsequent vaginal birth is a suitable option.


The monitoring of migratory fish is essential to evaluate the state of the fish population in freshwater and follow its evolution. During spawning in rivers, some species of alosa produce a characteristic splash sound, called "bull", that enables to perceive their presence. Stakeholders involved in the rehabilitation of freshwater ecosystems rely on staff to aurally count the bulls during spring nights and then estimate the alosa population in different sites. In order to reduce the human costs and expand the scope of study, we propose a deep learning approach for audio event detection from recordings made from the river banks. Two different models of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), namely AlexNet and VGG-16, have been tested. Encouraging results enable us to aim for a semi-automatized and production oriented implementation.


An advanced electromagnetic accelerator, called railgun, has been assembled and tuned in order to perform high energy impact test on layered structures. Different types of layered composite materials have been manufactured and characterized in terms of energy absorbing capability upon impact of metallic bullets fired at high velocity. The composite materials under testing are manufactured by integrating several layers of Kevlar fabric and carbon fiber ply within a polymeric matrix reinforced by carbon nanotubes at 1% of weight percentage. The experimental results show that the railgun-device is a good candidate to perform impact testing of materials in the space debris energy range, and that carbon nanotubes may enhance, when suitably coupled to the composite's matrix, the excellent antiballistic properties of the Kevlar fabrics.


Abstract Light echoes can be used to detect and characterize disks around flaring stars. Such disks are thought to be a hallmark of planet formation but are very difficult to detect by ordinary means. Dwarf emission-line M stars experience flares with luminosities comparable to their quiescent photospheres on time scales of minutes, less than the light travel time across a disk many astronomical units in extent; they are thus ideal candidates for such a search. Bromley (1992, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 104, 1049-1053) calculated that the detection of Jupiter-sized companions using light echoes requires photometric accuracies better than 1 part in 10 6 . However, a disk consisting of grains or small bodies will scatter a much larger fraction of the light than a planet of similar mass. I estimate the light echo amplitudes from plausible geometries of circumstellar material and present simulated light curves. The light echo amplitudes are typically 1% of the flare and I conclude that such events will be detected best in cases where the flare is eclipsed by the star. An examination of the time scales associated with internal processes in a protoplanetary disks around dM stars indicates that any primordial disks may become undetectable in 10 4 years and will have completely disappeared by 10 8 years, the estimated age of dMe stars in the solar neighborhood. However, searches for light echoes might constrain the amount of material continuing to fall into these young stellar systems in the form of comet-like objects.


Looking back to the development of inverters using SiC switches, it appears that SiC devices do not behave like their silicon counterparts. Their ability to operate at high temperature makes them attractive. Developing drivers suitable for 200 °C operation is not straightforward. In a perspective of high integration and large power density, it is wise to consider a monolithic integration of the driver parts for the sake of reliability. Silicon is not suitable for high ambient temperature; silicon-oninsulator offers better performances and presents industrial perspectives. The paper focuses on a SiC BJT driver: it processes logical orders from outside, drives adequately the BJT to turn it either on or off, monitors the turn-off and turn-on state of the device, and acts accordingly to prevent failure. SiC BJT imposes specific performances different from the well known ones of SiC JFET or MOSFET. The paper addresses a preliminary analysis of a SOI driver, anticipating the behavior of SiC-BJT and the change in behavior at high temperature. A discret driver has been designed and fabricated. Elementary functional blocks have been validated, and a BJT converter successfully operated at high temperature with high efficiency ( = 88%).


The study investigates the nature and the effect of fiscal and monetary policy interactions on major macroeconomic variables in a small open economy of Nigeria between 1981 and 2018. The paper employs the generalized method of moment as technique of analysis due to its potential to address the endogeneity issues among the explanatory variables. Findings from the study reveals that interest rate and government expenditure have significant effect on output and inflation. Also, the study finds that fiscal and monetary policy interact as strategic substitutes in Nigeria. This implies that when one policy authority pursues a contractionary measure, the other policymaker counteracts the action using an expansionary policy. It is also revealed that the effect of fiscal and monetary policy interactions on output and inflation is negative and significant. This implies that the two policies perform better when combined in achieving price stability and sustained output growth in the country. Based on the findings, there is a need for macroeconomic policy coordination in Nigeria to optimise the macroeconomic objectives of the country. The study investigated the nature and the effect of fiscal and monetary policy interactions on output and inflation in a small open economy of Nigeria on quarterly data between 1981 and 2018.


A guide to all aspects of Business, including Business Administration, Marketing, International Business, Entrepreneurship, Finance, and Company/Industry Data and Statistics.


This paper proposes a novel robust path-following strategy for autonomous road vehicles based on type-2 fuzzy PID neural network (PIDT2FNN) method coupled to an Extended Kalman Filter-based Fuzzy Neural Network (EKFNN) observer. Uncertain Gaussian membership functions (MFs) are employed to self-adjust the universe of discourse for MFs using the adaptation mechanism derived from Lyapunov stability theory and Barbalat's lemma. External disturbances are significant in autonomous vehicles by changing the driving condition. Furthermore, parametric uncertainties related to the physical limits of tires and the change of the vehicle mass may significantly affect the desired performance of autonomous vehicles. The robustness of the proposed controller against the parametric uncertainties and external disturbances is compared with one active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) algorithm, and a linear-quadratic tracking (LQT) method. The obtained results in terms of the maximum error and root mean square error (RMSE), demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm to reach the minimized path-tracking error.


MPEG audio coding under the name MP3 has become one of the most popular standards for digital audio broadcasting and videos. High compression ratios offered by MP3 codecs in various stand alone players and hand held devices over the last few years has increased its popularity immensely. Internet users, music lovers who would like to download highly compressed digital audio files at near CD quality are the most benefited. Psychoacoustic model, Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT) and Huffman coding play a vital role in achieving such magnificent compression ratios. In this thesis, a thorough knowledge of MP3 decoder is obtained by going through the ISO standard and then some of the decoder blocks have been implemented for deeper understanding.


Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a severe complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation, with a substantial impact on the quality of life and survival, still lacking with regard to an optimal therapeutic strategy. Corticosteroids are considered the standard of care for first-line treatment of chronic GVHD, but only a minority of the patients responds to them durably. Management of steroid-refractory chronic GVHD is not well defined. This review surveys novel treatment strategies, such as therapies that expand regulatory T cells, target B cells or target the processes implicated in fibrosis that may allow more effective control of chronic GVHD in the future. Most therapies are based solely on phase II trials or on retrospective analyses with a wide range of overall responses. Large, well-designed prospective studies are eagerly needed to establish better treatments, as well as valid biomarkers to identify the likelihood of the response to a drug in advance.


Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex inflammatory disease known to aggregate within families, implicating the crucial role of shared genetic and/or environmental factors in its etiology. Despite the many advances from genome-wide association studies, family history is an easily obtained aggregate of an individual's complete genetic risk, and is accepted to be important in clinical diagnosis. Objectives Our study is aimed to explore how much of the RA familial risk can be explained by established genetic and environmental risk factors; and to find out whether identified genetic markers enough to explain the burden of familial risk. Methods We used data from two Swedish population registers and the Epidemiological Investigation of Rheumatoid Arthritis (EIRA) project. First degree relatives (FDRs) of the index person (EIRA cases and controls) were identified through the Swedish Multi-Generation register. The index individual was considered "exposed" to familial risk if any FDRs had a RA diagnosis from the Swedish Patient Register. Analysis was run divided by ACPA status in cases and by RF status in relatives. Established genetic risk factors (45 SNPs according to GWAS catalog and the shared epitope) were selected. Environmental risk factors (smoking, drinking, BMI, socio-economic status, silica exposure, fish consumption) were determined based on previous publications. Due to missingness for individual risk factors, the complete case analysis was followed by Multiple Imputation. All analysis was adjusted for age, gender and residential area. Results In general, 11.9% of ACPA positive cases had RA affected FDRs, a higher proportion than the 6.5% in ACPA negative cases and 3.5% in controls. We found a stronger aggregation pattern in ACPA/RF positive RA (OR=4.09) than ACPA/RF negative RA (OR=2.30); while the ORs for cross-phenotype familial risk was 3.18 in ACPA positive cases/RF negative relatives, and 1.62 in ACPA negative cases/RF positive relatives. Further, we found that established non-genetic risk factors do not visibly explain anything of the familial risk, while SE and the identified 45 SNPs only explain a small proportion for ACPA positive RA (ACPA+ cases/RF+ relatives: ORCrude=4.09, ORadjust for SE=3.85, OR adjust for 45SNPs=3.66, OR adjust for both=3.55; ACPA+ cases/RF- relatives: ORCrude=3.18, ORadjust for SE=2.45, ORadjust for 45 SNPs=2.29, ORadjust for both=2.07) but not for ACPA negative RA. Conclusions We found that established genetic and environmental risk factor do not explain much of the familial aggregation of RA, suggesting that most heritability remain to be elucidated. It is likely that a large amount of additional loci with individually extremely small magnitude remain to be identified. In particular for ACPA negative RA, it seems that we have only found factors for a very minor (or no) part of the familial aggregation. This suggests a need for studies focusing specifically on ACPA negative RA, trying to find genetic risk factors or identify disease subtypes with a stronger familial risk. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.2252


High availability is driven by two types of factors: customer site factors such as the frequency of software and hardware upgrades, and system factors such as failure and repair rates, most often associated with mathematical models of reliability and availability. In this paper we describe several tools to assess the effects of these factors on the availability of high availability transaction processing (HATP) systems and make the expected level of performance more understandable to customers who purchase such systems, sales people who sell them, and managers who must make decisions based on the system availability. We employ a survey methodology to identify the key customer site factors that drive availability; we illustrate an accurate but greatly simplified technique for modeling system availability based on the internal system factors; and we apply statistical design of experiments and control chart methodologies to better understand the variability inherent in the system performance.


The advances in wireless communication, microelectronics, digital electronics, and highly integrated electronics and the increasing need for more efficient controlled electric systems make the development of monitoring and supervisory control tools the object of study of many researchers. This paper proposes a digital system for energy usage evaluation, condition monitoring, diagnosis, and supervisory control for electric systems applying wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with dynamic power management (DPM). The system is based on two hardware topologies responsible for signal acquisition, processing, and transmission: intelligent sensor modules (ISMs) and remote data acquisition units (RDAUs). The gateway function of the wired network is carried out by remote servers (RSs) based on the Soekris architecture, which is responsible for receiving the data collected and transmitting it to the supervisory controller (SC). To extend the WSN lifetime, sensor nodes implement a DPM protocol. The basic characteristics of the presented system are the following: 1) easy implementation; 2) low-cost implementation; 3) easy implementation of redundant routines (security); 4) portability/versatility; and 5) extended network lifetime.


Food security is recognized as a basic human right and in the 'Sustainable Development Summit' of 2015, achieving 'Zero Hunger'by 2030 has been set as one of the 17 sustainable development goals. The incidence of hunger is very much region or context-specific. India remains at 'serious' category in Global Hunger Index Severity Scale, 2017. Food accessibility being the most important pillar of food security, in this paper we attempt to assess the incidence, depth and severity of food inaccessibility at the household level in three villages of the district of Birbhum, West Bengal. The study, based on primary data covering 257 households, also intends to examine food accessibility of the households classified by their primary source of income. We have taken monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) on food as the indicator of food accessibility. The MPCE on food as per the minimum food basket set by the Planning Commission in 2014 and the mean MPCE on food for rural West Bengal as determined by the NSSO in 2011 are considered as two threshold levels. The study reveals the alarming reality that a significant percentage of households with zero operational land and marginal farmers do not have food accessibility. An inquiry into the sources of income of the households reveals that there exists (i) a negative relation between wage income and food accessibility, (ii) an inverse relation between income generated from farm activity and food accessibility and (iii) a positive relation between income from regular service, trade, business and food accessibility.


Objective: To identify clinical, sociodemographic, and treatment-related factors associated with early virological response in HIV-infected adults starting antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Brazil in 2014–2015. Methods: Data from 4 information systems from the Brazilian AIDS Program were combined to create a historical cohort. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to assess the likelihood of not achieving viral load suppression (VLS), defined as having either a viral load (VL) count >200 copies per milliliter or an aids-related death recorded within 180 ± 90 days after treatment initiation. Results: Among 76,950 individuals, 64.8% were men; median age, CD4+, and VL counts were 34 years, 378 cells per micro liter, and 38,131 copies per milliliter, respectively, and 85.2% achieved VLS. In the multivariate analysis, some factors which increased the odds of non-VLS were as follows: lower CD4+ and higher VL counts, younger age, heterosexual or injection drug use groups (relative to men who have sex with men), lower educational level, black/brown race, higher pill burden, and higher dosing frequency. Regimens containing boosted protease inhibitors were similar to those containing nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and superior to those containing unboosted protease inhibitors (all P values <0.001). No difference was observed between patients with CD4+ counts 350–499 and 500+ cells per micro liter. Conclusions: Our findings support the decision made in Brazil in 2013 to recommend immediate initiation of ART regardless of clinical stage or CD4+. Several factors were found to be associated with poorer virologic outcomes and should be addressed to maximize ART adherence and success rates.


Pulmonary Function Testing: A Practical Approach, Third Edition covers the most commonly performed pulmonary function tests in an engaging and easily accessible format. This comprehensive resource is ideal for respiratory care students and is also a valuable reference for practitioners. The most commonly performed exercise tests are separated into individual chapters to allow a full overview of each test. Pulmonary Function Testing: A Practical Approach, Third Edition contains updated material including the latest guidelines and recommendations. The Third Edition also includes new expanded chapters covering Maximal Inspiratory Testing, Expiratory Pressures Testing, Pediatrics, Blood Gases, and Reference Values. This text is an ideal guide for both classroom learning and application in the clinical setting. Each chapter reviews a particular pulmonary function test or common group of tests and includes: * Relevant Physiology * Pertinent Background Information * Technical Factors * Relevant Instrumentation * Respiratory Calculations * Patient Cases * Self-assessment Questions * References Instructor Resources include an Instructor's Manual, PowerPoint Presentations, TestBank, and an Image Bank.


SUMMARY Amid global economic uncertainty and tumbling world oil prices, Indonesia's economy faces pressure on its external balance and a continued growth slowdown. The government of President Joko Widodo (widely known as Jokowi) has set an agenda of reform, including simpler, faster investment licensing, historic cuts to fuel subsidies to generate fiscal savings, and increased spending on infrastructure. On the political side, Jokowi has had to deal with several political issues coming not only from parties in opposition but also from parties supporting his government, including during the formation of the new cabinet. We examine the consequences so far of the government's policy initiatives and of the policymaking process. While some initiatives have been implemented with success, some seem to have been launched without enough preparation, consultation, or empirical evidence, and many have been poorly communicated. Although inflation accelerated after the November fuel-price rise, efforts have been made to contain inflationary expectations and to mitigate the effects on poverty through social-assistance programs. The government took steps to cushion the impending impacts of higher fuel prices on vulnerable households by giving cash handouts of Rp 200,000 per month to 15.5 million disadvantaged families who receive the lowest level of welfare, and by promoting publicly funded education and health care. The partial removal of gasoline subsidies and the introduction of a fixed-subsidy policy for diesel in the revised 2015 budget reduce uncertainty about the fiscal position, although increases in government spending in infrastructure development were announced at the same time. The revised budget for 2015 increases spending on infrastructure development by 63% from the 2014 budget, mostly on projects to improve connectivity on land and at sea—such as the development of toll roads, railways, and ports—and to increase the performance of the agricultural sector. However, the recent drop in international oil prices forced the government to increase its target for tax revenue by 30% on last year's target, raising concerns about the effect of falling oil prices on the economy. Trade and investment policy reform is important in unlocking Indonesia's growth potential and improving the country's current external balance. Jokowi's administration, however, has been sending mixed signals about its position towards more open policies. The country has yet to recommence several trade negotiations that were postponed in 2014 and is still struggling to meet its commitments under the ASEAN Economic Community. Although improvement in investment procedures and licensing is currently underway, Indonesia needs to adopt a more positive attitude if it is to attract more investment.


Neurofibromatosis is a systemic disease that often produces striking disfigurement. Orbital manifestations are common and include sphenoid dysplasia with or without infiltration of the periorbital soft tissues. The resultant deficiency of the posterolateral orbital wall may lead to protrusion of the temporal lobe into the orbit, displacement of the globe, and pulsatile exophthalmos. Treatment at our unit has consisted of transcranial orbital reconstruction with bone grafts and periorbital soft-tissue correction. Observation of complete bone graft resorption in one patient prompted an assessment of the Australian Craniofacial Unit's experience with particular attention paid to the stability of operative correction. Of 36 patients with head and neck neurofibromatosis treated during the period from 1981 to 1995, 14 patients underwent transcranial correction of orbital deformities secondary to sphenoid dysplasia. The treatment and outcomes of this transcranial group are reviewed. The most notable finding was that of recurrent globe pulsation in four patients following initial resolution. Computed tomography scans have documented partial to complete bone graft resorption in three of these patients. Titanium mesh is now being utilized to provide a more durable reconstruction.


Background: The transition zone between cheek superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS) and malar SMAS is difficult to raise because of proximity of zygomatic nerve branches. The authors attempted to clarify the three-dimensional anatomy of the retaining ligaments in relation to nerve branches in this area. Methods: Facial dissection was performed on 22 cadaver hemifaces. The zygomatic and masseteric retaining ligaments and the zygomatic and buccal facial branches in the area of dissection were identified. Ninety-five percent confidence regions for the locations of the zygomaticus major origin and the main zygomatic retaining ligament and upper masseteric retaining ligament were created. Results: The distribution, density, and size of the retaining ligaments varied. The main zygomatic and upper masseteric retaining ligaments were located at a mean distance of 44.91 ± 9.72 mm and 46.35 ± 8.34 mm from the tragus. An upper zygomatic branch passed between the main zygomatic and the upper masseteric retaining ligaments and was always located deep (4.07 ± 1.29 mm) in the sub-SMAS plane of dissection and passed deep under the upper third of the zygomaticus major muscle. An inferior zygomatic branch passed inferior to the upper masseteric retaining ligament or penetrated its inferior margin (54 percent of cases) and was located more superficially (1.41 ± 0.95 mm), becoming visible just distal to the ligament. Conclusions: Despite anatomical variation, the main zygomatic and upper masseteric retaining ligaments create a safe passage in between, through which a zygomatic facial branch passes deep. The area of danger is immediately inferomedial to the upper masseteric retaining ligament, where a zygomatic branch becomes superficial and vulnerable.


This article discusses the role of form and substance in the modern law of contract both generally and with specific reference to the law of damages for breach of contract and, in particular, the decisions of the UK Supreme Court in Swynson Ltd v Lowick Rose LLP [2017] UKSC 32 and Fulton Shipping Inc of Panama v Globalia Business Travel SAU (The New Flamenco) [2017] UKSC 43. Although it was probably true to say when Atiyah and Summers wrote in Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law over 30 years ago that 'the English law of contractual damages continues to be treated by judges and writers as governed by highly formal rules', it would be wrong to describe the reasoning employed by judges in modern times when explaining, refining and applying these rules as highly formal. Particularly in appellate decisions, judicial reasoning is usually an amalgam of what the authors would describe as formal and substantive considerations. Indeed, the formal reason for supporting a decision may be preferred precisely because it provides the just or most convenient solution to the dispute, as in Swynson v Lowick Rose. In that case the Supreme Court overturned the decision of the majority of the Court of Appeal that denial of the damages claimed 'would be a triumph of form over substance', preferring the view of the dissenting judge who said that 'the form here is the substance'. And, while the decision in The New Flamenco appears at first sight to rest on formal, arguably formalistic, reasoning, a closer reading reveals that substantive considerations influenced the outcome of the appeal.


This paper discusses the theological discourses of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism on the Chinese terms for God and their influence upon the term question in Korea. The term question in China is important to Korea, not only because the former became the linguistic and theological background of the latter in Sino-centric East Asian culture, and because all Chinese terms were imported to Korea and had competed with Korean Protestant terms, but also because theologies and discourses developed in China were used in the controversy in Korea. The paper discusses four groups: Roman Catholics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (the Shangdi-Tianzhu Camp and the Tianzhu Camp), British and American Protestants (the Shangdi Camp and the Shen Camp), British Anglicans (the Tianzhu Camp), and Scottish Presbyterians (the Shangdi-Hananim Camp) in the nineteenth century.


N-Haloamides and -imides are standard halogenating agents and have been used in radical as well as electrophilic halogenation reactions. Despite their many applications, there are only few reports of chiral derivatives of the most common of these reagents such as N-halosuccinimides. Herein, we report the synthesis of new chiral N-halogenated amides and imide derivatives, which are easily accessible from inexpensive starting materials of the chiral pool. These new chiral halogenating agents were then applied as stoichiometric reagents in haloetherification reactions and as mechanistic probes in organocatalytic halocyclization reactions.


Allometric scaling theory has previously been used to estimate the functional relationship between two biological variables. In addition to parameter estimation, deviations from the general scaling relationship can be used to create hypotheses. Here, I explore deviations from the allometric scaling pattern for plant and floral size within the genus Collinsia on three levels: among species, within species, and among populations of a single species. Collinsia species are self-compatible annual herbaceous plants that have been shown to vary in floral size, autonomous fruit production, and estimated mating system. I quantified the amount of variation in characteristics related to plant mating systems: floral size and autonomous fruit production in a pollinator-free environment and used variation and scaling deviations to generate expectations about environmental selection pressures. I found that the scaling relationships differed on each of the three levels and that deviation from the general floral size-plant size relationship is common within this genus. The among-species regression explained only 20% of the variation in floral size, and species- and population-level regressions explained even less. The four species for which I obtained controlled environment estimates of vegetative and floral trait in this study differed significantly in autonomous fruit production, floral size, and plant size, while populations of C. heterophylla differed in floral and plant characteristics, but not autonomous fruit production. In addition, variation in plant size characteristics was 50-66% greater than variation in floral size characteristics suggesting selection to reduce variation in floral size and flexibility in plant size. Autonomous fruit production was correlated with floral size in C. tinctoria, with floral number in C. verna, and uncorrelated in C. heterophylla suggesting that the ability to self-fertilize varies among species. Using a comparative method and investigating factors correlated with plant mating system, such as floral traits, across a group of closely related species provides new insights into factors affecting their variation.


Differential categories provide an axiomatization of the basics of differentiation and categorical models of differential linear logic. As differentiation is an important tool throughout quantum mechanics and quantum information, it makes sense to study applications of the theory of differential categories to categorical quantum foundations. In categorical quantum foundations, compact closed categories (and therefore traced symmetric monoidal categories) are one of the main objects of study, in particular the category of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces FHilb. In this paper, we will explain why the only differential category structure on FHilb is the trivial one. This follows from a sort of in-compatibility between the trace of FHilb and possible differential category structure. That said, there are interesting non-trivial examples of traced/compact closed differential categories, which we also discuss.
The goal of this paper is to introduce differential categories to the broader categorical quantum foundation community and hopefully open the door to further work in combining these two fields. While the main result of this paper may seem somewhat "negative" in achieving this goal, we discuss interesting potential applications of differential categories to categorical quantum foundations.