Waveform decomposition is a common step for exploitation of full-waveform lidar data. Much effort has been focused on designing algorithms based on the assumption that the returned waveforms follow a Gaussian mixture model where each component is a Gaussian. However, many real examples show that the waveform components can be neither Gaussian nor symmetric even when the emitted signal is Gaussian or symmetric. This paper proposes a nonparametric mixture model to represent lidar waveforms without any constraints on the shape of the waveform components. A fuzzy mean-shift algorithm is then developed to decompose the waveforms. This approach has the following properties: 1) It does not assume that the waveforms follow any parametric or functional distributions; 2) the waveform decomposition is treated as a fuzzy data clustering problem and the number of components is determined during the time of decomposition; and 3) neither peak selection nor noise floor filtering prior to the decomposition is needed. Experiments are conducted on a dataset collected over a dense forest area where significant skewed waveforms are demonstrated. As the result of the waveform decomposition, a highly dense point cloud is generated, followed by a subsequent filtering step to create a fine digital elevation model. Compared with the conventional expectation-maximization method, the fuzzy mean-shift approach yielded practically comparable and similar results. However, it is about three times faster and tends to lead to slightly fewer artifacts in the resultant digital elevation model.


Background To extend the range of injectable preparations in a centralised intravenous admixture service (CIVAS). Purpose To investigate the long term stability of morphine in 0.9% NaCl infusion polyolefin bags (PB) and polypropylene syringes (PS) after storage at 5±3°C, and to evaluate the influence of initial freezing and microwave thawing on this stability. Materials and methods Ten PB and five PS containing 100 ml of 1 mg/ml of morphine solution in 0.9% NaCl were prepared under aseptic conditions. Five PB were frozen at -20°C for 90 days before storage. Immediately after the preparation and after thawing, 2 ml of each bag were withdrawn for the initial concentration measurements. All PB and PS bags were then refrigerated at 5± 3°C for 58 days during which the morphine concentrations were measured periodically by high performance liquid chromatography using a reversed phase column, naloxone as internal standard, a mobile phase consisting of 5% acetonitrile and 95% of KH2PO4 buffer (pH 3.50), and detection with diode array detector at 254 nm. Visual and microscopic observations, spectrophotometric and pH measurements were also performed. Solutions were considered stable if the concentration remains superior to 90% of the initial concentration by regression analysis. The degradation products peaks were not quantitatively significant and were resolved from the native drug. Results PB and PS solutions were stable when stored at 5± 3°C during these 58 days. No colour change or precipitation in the solutions was observed. The physical stability was confirmed by microscopic and spectrophotometric inspection. There was no significant change in pH during storage. Freezing and microwave thawing didn't influence the infusion stability. Conclusions Morphine infusions may be prepared in advance by CIVAS, frozen in PB and microwave thawed before storage under refrigeration until 58 days either in polyolefin bags or polypropylene syringes. Such treatment could improve safety and management.


This book is designed to teach beginners how to program in Java. Beyond teaching the basics of Java, it focuses on how to use state-of-the-art techniques to solve real-world problems. Readers will gain expertise by following a progression of practical examples that lead the reader through three distinct phases. Phase 1 explains how to read Java code. The reader watches code execute in the Eclipse debugger and learns to predict the behavior that various Java constructs cause. Phase 2 introduces JUnit tests to practice writing code using the primary Java constructs. Phase 3 progresses to real-world problem solving using test-driven development (TDD). Written with a friendly tone, this book covers the normal introductory programming material with a unique approach. Concepts are presented in a progressively detailed format. Readers will quickly be able to understand complete basic Java programs. Later, as they learn more complex details, they will re-visit coding topics, applying the more advanced concepts to building new, more advanced programs. Each chapter contains a lab that not only reinforces the material, but also develops the readers ability to think independently and use development tools in the same way that developers working in the software industry use them.


This article analyzes the multiple considerations facing a corporate sponsor making decisions about its defined benefit pension plan. First, the authors examine why so many plans have closed and/or shifted to more conservative asset-liability allocations. Second, they discuss the challenging balancing act for underfunded plans when making their asset class allocation, duration-matching, and contribution choices, as well as the risks and costs associated with each choice.


Relay nodes (RNs) have been recently introduced as a cost-effective solution to achieve ubiquitous high data rates in cellular networks. By providing a two-hop link between evolved nodeB (eNB) and user equipment (UE), RNs can improve the UE's signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and throughput. A typical relay-based cellular network is comprised of macro UEs (MUEs) that are served directly by eNB and relay UEs (RUEs) that are served via RNs. The performance of the entire network is degraded if the interference between RNs and MUEs is not carefully managed. In this paper, we propose a radio resource management scheme that effectively exploits the advantages of RNs without causing severe interference to MUEs, which yields a better overall network and cell-edge user throughput. To improve channel quality of MUEs located nearby RNs, the proposed scheme determines a specific set of subchannels to be used by each RN. Second, the proposed scheme assigns subchannels to UEs and RNs considering channel quality, average UE data rate, and the number of required subchannels at RNs. For resource allocation, we formulate a binary integer linear programming (BILP) problem and propose a novel heuristic algorithm to reduce its computational complexity. Our simulation results show that the heuristic algorithm achieves similar performance with the BILP. In addition, we discuss a detailed procedure for control signal exchange and data transmission and analyze the lower bound of SINR gain of MUEs obtained from the proposed scheme. It has been shown that the proposed scheme improves the overall network throughput and the cell-edge user throughput compared with existing schemes.


In low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), limited resources, suboptimal risk stratification, and disproportionate patient‐to‐infrastructure ratio result in low survival of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A high incidence of relapse, inherent to the biology, renders management arduous. The challenge of treating AML in LMICs is of balancing the intensity of myelosuppressive chemotherapy, which appears necessary for cure, with available supportive care, which influences treatment‐related mortality. The recommendations outlined in this paper are based on published evidence and expert opinion. The principle of this adapted protocol is to tailor treatment to available resources, reduce preventable toxic death, and direct limited resources toward those children who are most likely to be cured.


Our experience exemplifies the varied clinical presentations of patients with MEN IIb. This syndrome may be familial or sporadic, and clinical stigmata may be identifiable in infancy, particularly the characteristic facies and the appearance of ganglioneuromas. First-degree relatives of affected propositi and individuals with other stigmata of the syndrome should be screened carefully and repeatedly for both medullary thyroid carcinoma and pheochromocytoma. The availability of sensitive screening tests may permit detection of C-cell hyperplasia of the thyroid and adrenal medullary hyperplasia before the development of malignancy or hemodynamic consequences of pheochromocytoma. Early detection of these thyroid and adrenal disorders will permit early surgical intervention.


Ambient air pollution with flour dust (FD) and microorganisms, including microscopic fungi, was studied; the single concentrations of FD under emission plumes were 0.12-0.17 mg/m3; the total content of mould, field, and storage fungi was 700 +/- 30, 671 +/- 19, and 29 +/- 3, respectively. The maximum allowable concentrations for FD were ascertained; the equal ones were the maximum single concentration of 1.0; the daily average concentration was 0.4 mg/m3; hazard class IV; the limiting hazard index was their resorptive activity.


As temperatures increase, there is growing evidence that species across much of the tree of life are getting smaller. These climate change-driven size reductions are often interpreted as a temporal analogue of the observation that individuals within a species tend to be smaller in the warmer parts of the species' range. For ectotherms, there has been a broad effort to understand the role of developmental plasticity in temperature–size relationships, but in endotherms, this mechanism has received relatively little attention in favour of selection-based explanations. We review the evidence for a role of developmental plasticity in warming-driven size reductions in birds and highlight insulin-like growth factors as a potential mechanism underlying plastic responses to temperature in endotherms. We find that, as with ectotherms, changes in temperature during development can result in shifts in body size in birds, with size reductions associated with warmer temperatures being the most frequent association. This suggests developmental plasticity may be an important, but largely overlooked, mechanism underlying warming-driven size reductions in endotherms. Plasticity and natural selection have very different constraining forces, thus understanding the mechanism linking temperature and body size in endotherms has broad implications for predicting future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.


Originally published in a single volume in 1972, this book looks at the causes and courses of World War II. This new edition has been revised and extended and is now divided into two companion books. Volume 1, revised by its original author, Peter Calvocoressi, and containing the new introduction to both volumes, deals with the war in the West. Volume 2, revised by John Pritchard in place of the late Guy Wint, covers the greater East Asia and Pacific conflict. This edition takes account of the flood of official archives and personal memoirs that have been made public over the past 15 years. These have necessitated a review, to some extent a reassessment, of the policies of appeasement in Europe in the Thirties and of the direction and motives of Japanese policies in the same feverish decade.


Analysis of KECCAK Tree Hashing on GPU Architectures Jason Michael Lowden Supervising Professor: Dr. Marcin Łukowiak In an effort to provide security and data integrity, hashing algorithms have been designed to consume an input of any length to produce a fixed length output. KECCAK was selected by NIST to become the next Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA-3) after nearly five years of competition. In addition to providing a sequential operating mode, there is also a tree mode that allows large input messages to be hashed in parallel. This thesis focuses on the exploration and analysis of the KECCAK tree hashing mode on a GPU platform. Based on the implementation, there are core features of the GPU that could be used to accelerate the time it takes to complete a hash due to the massively parallel architecture of the device. In addition to analyzing the speed of the algorithm, the underlying hardware is profiled to identify the bottlenecks that limited the speed. The results of this work show that tree hashing can hash data at rates of up to 3 GB/s for the fixed size tree mode. On a 3.40 GHz CPU, this is the equivalent of 1.03 cycles per byte, more than six times faster than a sequential implementation for a very large input. For the variable size tree mode, the throughput was 500 MB/s. Based on the performance analysis, modification of the input rate of the KECCAK sponge resulted in a negligible change to the overall speed. As a result of the hardware profiling, the register and L1 cache usage in the GPU was a major bottleneck to the overall throughput. In a simulated GPU environment, it was shown that increasing the L1 cache by 25 percent could increase the throughput by up to 30 percent for a small tree and 15 percent for a tree that will achieve the greatest throughput on a real GPU. When this modification is combined with an increase of the L2 cache, performance can be improved by up to 20 percent.


Lung or heart–lung transplantation is a viable option for diverse end-stage pulmonary parenchymal or pulmonary vascular disorders. However, mortality associated with lung transplant (LT) is appreciable, with 3 and 5 year survival rates of (cid:1) 60 and 50%, respectively. Thus LT is reserved for patients with life-threatening disease refractory to medical therapy. Four diagnoses (i.e., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; cystic fibrosis; a -1-antitrypsin deficiency emphysema) account for (cid:1) 80% of LT recipients; diverse interstitial and pulmonary vascular disorders account for the remaining cases. Given the potential morbidity and mortality associated with LT, the decision to refer patients for LT is difficult. Which patients are acceptable candidates for LT? What are the projected benefits of LT? What criteria should be used to estimate mortality with medical therapy alone? Given the uncertainty of waiting time, when should patients be listed for LT? Identifying appropriate candidates for LT and determining when to list for LT is determined by a risk analysis of the likelihood of mortality during the projected waiting period versus the likely mortality following LT. In this review, we discuss the major diseases treated with LT and the appropriate criteria for LT.


Background: Minimizing the time to achieve complete suppression of HIV replication, is critical in pregnancy to decrease the risk of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT). Integrase inhibitors(INSTIs) are characterized by a rapid drop in viral load (VL) and a good transplacental penetration. Our objective was to determine the effectiveness of INSTIs in MTCT and present the experience in the Madrid Cohort of HIV infected mothers-infant pairs.

Methods: Paired cohorts, multicentric and observational study, that includes retrospectively the cohort of pregnant women exposed to INSTIs during pregnancy and their infants (Cohort A) from 2000 to 2017, and another cohort of mothers without INSTIs treatment and their children matched by year of birth +/- one year (Cohort B). Maternal demographic, clinical and analytical characteristics were recorded. The follow-up of children was included.

Results: 67 pregnant women exposed to INSTIs from Madrid cohort (n:1423) and their children were identified. Another group of 67 pregnant women without INSTI treatment were selected. Both groups were similar in maternal age, ethnicity and route of transmission. The percentage of pregnant women with detectable VL at the first trimester was statistically higher (p<0.01) in cohort A (46.7%) than in B (6.7%). There were no statistically significant differences in the percentage of low birthweight and preterm newborn. There were no cases of MTCT, nor differences in congenital birth defects.

Conclusions: Regimens that include INSTIs in pregnancy are increasingly being used. They seem to have comparable safety and effectiveness to other families, and appear useful in MTCT prevention even in high-risk situations.


Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is a specification for next-generation solid-state disks (SSDs). Benefited from the massive internal parallelism and the high-speed PCIe bus, NVMe SSDs achieve extremely high data transfer rates, and they are an ideal solution of shared storage in virtualization environments. Providing virtual machines with Service Level Objective (SLO) compliance on NVMe SSDs is a challenging task, because garbage collection activities inside of NVMe SSDs globally affect the I/O performance of all virtual machines. In this study, we introduce a novel approach, called parallelism reservation, which is inspired by the rich internal parallelism of NVMe SSDs. The degree of parallelism stands for how many flash chips are concurrently active. Our basic idea is to reserve sufficient degrees of parallelism for read, write, and garbage collection operations, making sure that an NVMe SSD delivers stable read and write throughput and reclaims free space at a constant rate. The stable read and write throughput are proportionally distributed among virtual machines for SLO compliance. Our experimental results show that our parallelism reservation approach delivered satisfiable throughput and highly predictable response to virtual machines.


Abstract Human capital has been long an exceedingly important concept in migration research. Over time there have been attempts to provide more nuanced, and less economistic interpretations of human capital. Based on outputs from the EU Horizon 2020 project YMOBILITY (2015–2018) and two additional papers, this Special Issue seeks to advance this agenda further by addressing the complexities of the mobility of human capital. Migration problematises human capital assumptions due to challenges in transferring human capital across national borders. In this introductory paper we propose rethinking the human capital of migrants in a three-fold way. Firstly, we question the interpretation of skills and competences beyond the conventional divide of 'higher-skilled' and 'lower-skilled' through the concept of a 'knowledgeable migrant'. Secondly, we probe deeper into an understanding of the transferability of skills in relation to 'location', exploring the possibilities and constraints to the transfer of human capital in different spatial contexts. Thirdly, we theorise human capital in terms of new temporalities of migration and the role these play in skill acquisition. We illustrate our novel theoretical thinking with selected empirical data, both quantitative and qualitative, on youth mobility in Europe.


Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) problems can have a unique objective or be multi-objective. In this paper, we are interested in MDO problems having at least two conflicting objectives. This characteristic ensures the existence of a set of compromise solutions called Pareto front. We treat those MDO problems like Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) problems. Actual MOO methods suffer from certain limitations, especially the necessity for their users to adjust various parameters. These adjustments can be challenging, requiering both disciplinary and optimization knowledge. We propose the use of the Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems technology in order to automatize the Pareto front obtention. ParetOMAS (Pareto Optimization Multi-Agent System) is designed to scan Pareto fronts efficiently, autonomously or interactively. Evaluations on several academic and industrial test cases are provided to validate our approach.


Even as India's privatisation programme gathers steam, there is a perception, reflected in the pronouncements of ministers as well as in writings in the popular press, that the benefits of privatisation can be taken as axiomatic. There is little in the literature on privatisation that lends support to such dogma. The theoretical literature, while pointing to the benefits or private ownership, also underlines the conditions under which such benefits an be realised. These conditions cannot be presumed to operate everywhere. The empirical evidence is also shrouded in ambiguities, whether we look at the experience in the developed world or in developing countries. This paper surveys the literature on privatisation and highlights the conceptual issues underlying privatisation as well as the evidence from privatisation experiments in different parts of the world.


A Fabry-Perot self-collimation interferometer (FPSI) constructed in a two-dimensional photonic crystal (2D PhC) by liquid crystal infiltration has been proposed and demonstrated theoretically. The resonant cavity of FPSI is infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal (LC) 5CB with ordinary and extraordinary refractive indices 1.522 and 1.706, respectively. The transmission spectrum of the FPSI has been investigated with the 2D finite-difference time-domain method. Calculation results show that resonant transmission peaks have nearly equal frequency spacing 0.0090c/a. When the effective refractive index neff of the liquid crystal is increased from 1.522 to 1.706, the peaks shift to the lower frequencies over 0.0071c/a while the peak spacing is almost kept unchanged. Thus this FPSI by LC infiltration can work as a tunable attenuator or an optical switch. For the central operating wavelength around 1.55m, its dimensions are only about tens of microns. Thus this device may be applied to photonic integrated circuits.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to describe the programme planning, intervention, and evaluation of the instructional treatment of autistic children. Using the naturalistic qualitative approach, data were collected by interviews, observations, and document analyses. Data were validated by way of the triangulation technique, checking with department friends through discussions and by way of in-depth observation. The data collected were reduced and analysed to yield the research findings. The findings are as follows. The autism treatment programme was carried out through many steps of planning, performance, and evaluation. Autism is an integral part of children who have a special need and special education with service modelling according to their interests, needs, and abilities. Autism is a trouble and tardiness in cognitive, communication, social interaction, and habits. Autism needs a treatment programme that is the same with their education process and everything is given wholly and individually so that they can improve their abilities. Suggestions were given that autism programme be made more effective, the headmaster increase the number of teachers, and cooperation be maximalized between the school and parents.


We present an efficient Neural Neighborhood Search (N2S) approach for pickup and delivery problems (PDPs). In specific, we design a powerful Synthesis Attention that allows the vanilla self-attention to synthesize various types of features regarding a route solution. We also exploit two customized decoders that automatically learn to perform removal and reinsertion of a pickup-delivery node pair to tackle the precedence constraint. Additionally, a diversity enhancement scheme is leveraged to further ameliorate the performance. Our N2S is generic, and extensive experiments on two canonical PDP variants show that it can produce state-of-the-art results among existing neural methods. Moreover, it even outstrips the well-known LKH3 solver on the more constrained PDP variant. Our implementation for N2S is available online.


One vital responsibility of all law enforcement officers lies in their obligation to defend themselves and those around them in the event of a violent threat. The best tool available to them to perform this duty is their sidearm and their skill in using it. To evaluate the efficiency of this tool use, seventy-one police officers participated in a field study examining the relationship between workload and shooting performance. Use of linear regression analysis produced evidence linking higher reported workload on the mental subscale of the NASA-TLX while completing a shooting task to poorer shooting performance when controlling for marksmanship skill. This finding is discussed in the context of previous work in the areas of workload and attentional allocation.


Compared to hand-crafted ones, learning a 3D point signature has attracted increasing attention in the research community to better address challenging issues such as deformation and structural variation in 3D objects. PointNet is a pioneering work in introducing learning 3D point signature directly by consuming raw point cloud as input and applying convolution on each one of these points. Ground-breaking as it is, PointNet has limited capability in capturing local structure when learning visual features from each individual point. Recent variants of PointNet improved the quality of 3D point signature learning by taking neighbourhood information into account, but typically do so through hard-coded mechanisms (e.g. manually setting 'k' for k-Nearest Neighbour search, radius 'r' for Ball Query, etc). In this paper, we developed a novel point signature learning approach by considering pairwise interaction between every two individual points that moves beyond hard-coded neighbourhood exploitation, which further improves the quality of 3D point signature learning by encouraging the model to be aware of both neighbourhood information and global context. Specifically, we first introduce a novel pairwise reference tensor (PRT) in the original input point space to represent the influence of every two individual points that have on each other. Then, by passing the pairwise reference tensor through a multi-layer perceptron (MLP), we obtain a high-dimensional attention tensor that encodes pairwise relationships in high dimensional space that acts as an attention mechanism. Next we further fuse learned point features with the attention weights to obtain global visual features. Our proposed method has demonstrated superior performance on various 3D visual recognition tasks (e.g. object classification, part segmentation and scene semantic segmentation).


In this paper, we discuss the design and calculation methods of elliptical-shaped corrugated steel culvert pipe (ECSCP) used in highway construction. With many advantages such as lightweight, environment friendly, cost-effective, rapid construction, etc., corrugated steel culvert pipe (CSCP) have been widely used in highway construction acting as the alternative of RC culvert in China in recent years. The ECSCP in this paper is a kind of culvert which is fabricated to an elliptical shape with several pieces of corrugated steel plates which are jointed by high strength bolts. This study is conducted on the basis of the ECSCP used in the construction of Shanghai North Outer Ring Line Highway in China. 3D FEM analysis is performed considering several parameters such as modulus of elasticity of the surrounding backfill soil, length of major and minor axis of elliptical-shaped section, eccentricity of vehicles. Some design methods are proposed in this paper, and they will be useful guidelines for safe design of ECSCP.


This short article introduces the concept of political vulnerability for social media researchers. How are traditional notions of harm challenged by research subjects in politically vulnerable communities? Through a selection of case studies, we explore some of the trade-offs, challenges, and questions raised by research that seeks be robust and transparent while also preserving anonymity and privacy, especially in high-stakes, politically fraught contexts.


A dual-wavelength single-longitudinal-mode erbium-doped fiber ring laser, comprising an inverse-Gaussian apodized fiber Bragg grating (IGAFBG) with two passbands and a saturable absorber, is proposed. The wavelength spacing between the two lasing lines can be continuously tuned by changing the wavelength spacing of the two passbands of the IGAFBG, which can be realized by adding a tunable linear chirp in the grating using a cantilever. By heterodyning the two lasing lines at a photodetector, a microwave signal with a tunable frequency is achieved.


The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation


Fluid-inclusion studies of radiometrically dated (U/Pb, Th/Pb) calcite samples document the presence of hydrothermal fluids at ca. 251, 137, 67, and probably 39 Ma within the Tri-State Zn-Pb mining district of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Fluid inclusions indicate minimum temperatures and equivalent salinities ranging from highs of 122 °C and 24 wt% NaCl ca. 251 Ma to lows of 52 °C and 0 wt% NaCl ca. 39 Ma. The two earliest calcites contain primary petroleum inclusions, but these are absent in samples younger than ca. 137 Ma. When combined with information on metal-rich shales, paleomagnetism, and modern groundwater flow, our results are most readily explained by periodic influxes of hydrothermal fluids of diverse compositions for >200 m.y. and sporadic migration of hydrocarbons for at least 100 m.y. in the southern Midcontinent.


for liver transplantation continues to increase, policy makers have grappled with alternative strategies for optimal organ allocation. An ideal allocation system should incorporate accurate measures of the severity of liver disease in order to evaluate the risk of disease progression and death. The current allocation system is based on the Child–Turcotte– Pugh (CTP) system. Although the CTP system is useful in clinical decision making as a measure of liver disease severity, it has a number of limitations in determining organ allocation priority; for example, the small number of scores available in the CTP system limits its discriminant ability. Consequently, emphasis is given to waiting time in determining priority among candidates with the same score. A new system, referred to as the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD), has been developed, validated, and proposed to be used in determining organ allocation priority for liver transplantation, essentially replacing the CTP system. The model is based on three variables, including the serum concentrations of total bilirubin and creatinine and the international normalization ratio of prothrombin time. A considerable amount of data have been generated to indicate that MELD is a reliable measure of shortto medium-term mortality risk in patients with end-stage liver disease. These data demonstrate that the MELD scale is consistent with the criteria proposed by the Institute of Medicine for the disease severity index to determine organ allocation priorities. Curr Opin Organ Transplant


We describe a general strategy to analyze sequence data and introduce SQ-Ados, a bundle of Stata programs implementing the proposed strategy. The programs include several tools for describing and visualizing sequences as well as a Mata library to perform optimal matching using the Needleman–Wunsch algorithm. With these programs Stata becomes the first statistical package to offer a complete set of tools for sequence analysis.


Author(s): Sedenberg, Elaine M | Advisor(s): Mulligan, Deirdre; Chuang, John | Abstract: In a world instrumented with smart sensors and digital platforms, some of our most intimate and information-rich data are being collected and curated by private companies. The opportunities and risks derived from potential knowledge carried within these data streams are undeniable, and the clustering of data within the private sector is challenging traditional data infrastructures and sites of research. The role of private industry in research and development (RaD) has traditionally been limited—especially for earlier stage research—given the high risk, long time horizons, and uncertain returns on investment. However, the information economy has changed the way Silicon Valley and other technology firms operate their business models, which has vast implications for how they respectively innovate. Information drives competitive advantage, and builds upon the emergence of technical infrastructure for collecting, storing, and analyzing data at scale. Basic research and fundamental inquiry are becoming important innovation priorities for private firms as they tailor algorithms and customize services, and these changes have vast implications for individual privacy and research ethics. This information-intensive innovation does not simply introduce a new source of inquiry, but a shift in the possibilities and boundaries that enable market edge. This shift challenges prior models of innovation and reconsiders the role of the private firm within the research ecosystem—specifically in regards to Vannevar Bush's Linear Model of Innovation and Donald Stokes' Quadrant Model of Scientific Research. This change builds upon prior Silicon Valley innovation models outlined by AnnaLee Saxenian and Henry Chesbrough, but features additional key changes within industry RaD that are fundamentally reshaping the role of the firm within the broader ecosystem. No longer can industry be cast as a place only equipped to grapple exclusively with narrowly applied or developmental research and fully separated or agnostic from users, customers, and citizens. Within this information and data abundant moment, the research and innovation ecosystem is at an inflection point that could alter decades of embedded beliefs and assumptions on who should conduct research and ask fundamental questions, not to mention who should govern and grant access to research data. This dissertation studies how the rise of data science infrastructure is changing the role of the private firm in the RaD ecosystem. This research works to understand how and under what conditions private sector firms are synthesizing user data (e.g., those picked up by sensors) internally and/or shared externally for research purposes. This dissertation specifically looks at applications of biosensed data for the purposes of social, behavioral, health, or public health research applications. Qualitative and mixed methods are used to research, document, and examine practices within the lens of existing research and innovation theoretical models. Historical frameworks are used to ground and place contemporary practices within broader context. This research presents three illustrative cases on firms that exemplify different aspects of strategies to adapt to the competitive pressures of information-intensive innovation. The firms include the Lioness smart vibrator, Kinsa smart thermometer, and Basis smart watch. This research establishes findings about how firms are working within the data and RaD landscape, and how new pressures are influencing emerging practices and strategies. Findings outline the changing definitional boundaries of research within the private firm, and evolving practices relating to knowledge sharing and research activities within the firms. This analysis also points to two key emerging challenges firms are coping with, including how to grapple with research ethics and the rise of secrecy practices that may impede collaboration and research strategies implicit with information-intensive innovation. Research is occurring at many levels within firms, breaking free of any traditional laboratory structure. Collaborations and data sharing with academics for mutually beneficial research partnerships are taking new, largely unstructured forms to meet rising demand and interest. There is fresh demand for new kinds of collaboration models derived from data sharing needs, and exploration into ways of leveraging research practices and incorporating academic research curiosity across firms. This dissertation concludes by summarizing the importance of reconsidering the role of the firm within the broader RaD ecosystem and broader policy considerations. Programs to help structure and incentivize private/academic research collaborations should be considered, and private firms should consider their internal protocols and strategies in light of this changing landscape.


The water distribution network (WDN) sectorisation problem is characterised by structural and hydraulic requirements that make existing graph partitioning techniques inadequate to find a good solution. Specifically, sector isolation and direct access to at least one source for each sector are not addressed. This study proposes a method to address structural requirements of water network sectorisation with minimum negative impact on the hydraulic requirements. This paper first elaborates the sectorisation problem and discusses the requirements of water network sectorisation. Then, it proposes a novel method, called WDN-Partition, which applies a new heuristic structural graph partitioning algorithm, combined with a many-objective optimisation procedure, to find near-optimal arrangements of nodes into sectors. The criteria of optimisation and their priorities can be specified for each case. The outcome of the method is a set of non-dominated sectorisation solutions, ranked lexicographically based on their values for the chosen criteria and their priorities, from which the final decision can be made by the domain experts. WDN-Partition has been implemented and integrated with a hydraulic network simulator. The simulation-based evaluation results demonstrate that WDN-Partition generally achieves its design objectives to partition a water network into isolated sectors with a minimal negative impact on the hydraulic performance criteria of the network.


Job satisfaction means the positive feeling or attitude that employees have towards their job, which acts as a motivation to work. It is a combination of emotion, belief, feeling, sentiment, and other allied behavioral tendencies. This study is focused on analyzing the job satisfaction of banking employees on the basis of the working environment, cooperation among employees, training and promotion and salaries. Employees of Nepalese commercial banks were selected using a convenience sampling method for the study. A total of 112 respondents were selected to sample the employees of banks located in Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur. The descriptive, as well as analytical research designs were used to analyze and draw a conclusion about the job satisfaction of bank employees. The self-structured questionnaire has been used. The major influencing factors for job satisfaction were salary, followed by training and promotion, working environment, and cooperation among them.


The investigation into the relationship between Greek and Babylonian systems of learning has overwhelmingly focused on determining the elements that the former borrowed from the latter, while the fundamental questions relating to the process of transmission of these elements are still largely ignored. This thesis, therefore, offers a preliminary theoretical framework within which the movement of ideas should be analysed. The framework is based on the understanding that all ideas from one culture, when they are to enter another thought and belief system, must be 'translated' into the concepts and terminology prevalent in their new context. An approach is developed which exploits the concept of 'cultural translation' as put forward within various modern disciplines. The thesis examines how the 'translatability' of the material from the perspective of the receiving culture influences its inclusion into the new 'home repertoire' and determines the changes it undergoes as part of this process. A number of case studies in astronomy, astrology and mathematics are presented to help explain what parts of 'Chaldean knowledge' were utilised by Greek and Hellenistic scholars, how these were interpreted according to the existing Greek intellectual network into which the new material was inserted and how it was influenced by the 'cultural grid', a construct reflecting patterns of expectation about a foreign culture.


This paper examines the existence of long-run relationships between East Asian economic integration and tourism exports for nine selected ASEAN States for the period 1996-2007. I employ tourist arrivals data as a proxy for tourism exports and trade ratios as a proxy for the economic integration. Using Johansen's Fisher panel cointegration test, the findings show that tourist arrivals and trade ratios are cointegrated in seven out of nine Southeast Asia countries. This suggests that East Asia economic integration can be one of the important factors that influence international tourism demand to ASEAN States in the long-run. However, for Laos and Thailand, the tourist arrivals and trade ratios are not cointegrated.


We systematically reviewed studies to estimate the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among those previously infected with SARS-CoV-2. For this systematic review, we searched scientific publications on PubMed and MedRxiv, a pre-print server, through August 18, 2021. Eligible studies were retrieved on August 18, 2021. The following search term was used on PubMed: ((("Cohort Studies"[Majr]) AND ("COVID-19"[Mesh] OR "SARS-CoV-2"[Mesh])) OR "Reinfection"[Majr]) OR "Reinfection"[Mesh]. The following search term was used on MedRxiv: "Cohort Studies" AND "COVID-19" OR "SARS-CoV-2" AND "Reinfection". The search terms were broad to encompass all applicable studies. There were no restrictions on the date of publication. Studies that did not describe cohorts with estimates of the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among those with previous infection were excluded. Studies that included vaccinated participants were either excluded or limited to sub-groups of non-vaccinated individuals. To identify relevant studies with appropriate control groups, we developed the following criteria for studies to be included in the systematic analysis: (1) baseline polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, (2) a uninfected comparison group, (3) longitudinal follow-up, (4) a cohort of human participants, i.e. not a case report or case series, and (5) outcome determined by PCR. The review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. We assessed for selection, information, and analysis bias, per PRISMA guidelines. We identified 1,392 reports. Of those, 10 studies were eligible for our systematic review. The weighted average risk reduction against reinfection was 90.4% with a standard deviation of 7.7% (p-value: <0.01). Protection against SARS-CoV-2 reinfection was observed for up to 10 months. Studies had potential information, selection, and analysis biases. The protective effect of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on re-infection is high and similar to the protective effect of vaccination. More research is needed to characterize the duration of protection and the impact of different SARS-CoV-2 variants.


X-ray absorption near edge structures (XANES) of vanadium and titanium complexes were investigated with time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). In particular, observed characteristic K-edge features in the presence of chloride ligands were assigned. Although TDDFT includes a large systematic error attributed to the 1s core energy levels of transition metals, pre-edge spectral shapes could be reproduced by a simple energy shift in the calculated excitation energies. The doublet peak in the pre-edge region was assigned to dipole-allowed transitions from 1s to 3d + 4p hybridized orbitals, while a characteristic shoulder peak in the chloride complex was assigned to excitations of chloride 4p orbitals. A similar but weak absorption band was computed for the methyl complex as excitation to C-H σ* orbitals. However, because these excitations were highly dependent on the direction of the C-H bonds, the shoulder peak was not experimentally observed because of methyl free rotation. Hence, the intensity of the shoulder peak was proportional to the number of chloride ligands unless other ligands contribute to this energy region and, therefore, could be used to detect the presence or absence of chloride ligands in unknown compounds, such as reaction intermediates.


Suppose you are competing in an online sealed bid auction for some goods. How do you know the auction result can be trusted? The auction site could be performing actions that support its own commercial interests by blocking certain bidders or even reporting incorrect winning prices. This problem is magnified when the auctioneer is an unknown party and the auctions are for high value items. The incentive for the auctioneer to cheat can be high as they could stand to make a significant profit by inflating winning prices or by being paid by a certain bidder to announce them the winner. Verification of auction results provides confidence in the auction result by making it computationally infeasible for an auction participant to cheat and not get caught. This thesis examines the construction of verifiable privacy preserving combinatorial auction protocols. Two verifiable privacy preserving combinatorial auction protocols are produced by extending existing auction protocols.


Background: Treatment options for adolescents with obesity are limited. Yet, therapies previously reserved for adults, such as medications and bariatric surgery, are increasingly available to adolescents in tertiary obesity treatment settings. We aimed to identify the factors associated with selecting an advanced obesity treatment (diets, medications, and surgery) beyond lifestyle therapy among adolescents presenting to a tertiary, pediatric weight management program. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of adolescents (N = 220) who participated in a longitudinal, observational case-control study within a pediatric weight management program. The exposures were potential individual and clinical factors, including sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities. The outcome was treatment selection, dichotomized into lifestyle vs. advanced treatment. We modeled associations between these factors and treatment selection using logistic regression, controlling for confounding variables (age, race/ethnicity, sex, and insurance). Results: The study population included a majority of non-Hispanic Black (50.5%) and Hispanic/Latino (19.5%) adolescents, of whom 25.5% selected advanced treatment. Adolescents were more likely to choose an advanced treatment option if they had a greater BMI [odds ratio (OR) 1.09, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.04-1.15], lived further from the clinic (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00-1.05), and had an elevated glycohemoglobin level (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.24-4.92). Conclusions: A significant fraction of adolescents seeking obesity treatment in a specialized care setting chose new and emerging obesity treatments, particularly those at high risk of developing diabetes. These findings can inform patient-clinician obesity treatment discussions in specialty care settings. Clinical Trial Registration number: NCT03139877.


Physical inactivity is expanding across all ages in the United States. Research has documented a deficiency in health-related fitness knowledge (HRFK) among elementary- through college-aged students. The need for a credible and reliable resource that provides research-based information regarding the importance of HRFK is significant. The purpose of this article was to examine the relationship between HRFK, physical activity (PA), and physical fitness (PF). This issue is particularly important for physical educators because of the growing concerns over rising obesity and declining levels of PA across the country. HRFK research to this point has indicated three important findings: (1) HRFK is low among elementary-aged students through college-aged students; (2) HRFK has successfully predicted PA and PF levels, though research is limited; and (3) educational interventions such as conceptual physical education (CPE) center on fitness knowledge, and their application has indicated a longitudinal increase in PA and PF levels.. This comprehensive review of literature is designed for the use of physical educators considering the adoption of health-related fitness education initiatives with the intent of improving long-term PA and PF.


OBJECTIVES
This study evaluated the usefulness of powered toothbrushes in elderly individuals for removing supragingival plaque and improving gingival health and comparing this to the use of regular manual toothbrushes.

METHODS
Fourteen persons aged 68-85 years having moderate gingivitis were included in the study. A crossover clinical trial consisting of two phases of three months' duration each was carried out. All the participants were given an oral prophylaxis, following which they were instructed to use the manual toothbrush for three months. Again, for the same subjects, an oral prophylaxis was given and they were asked to use the powered toothbrush for the next three months. Plaque Index and Gingival Index scores were recorded one, two, and three months after the use of each toothbrush. Oral hygiene instruction was reinforced only at baseline.

RESULTS
The powered toothbrush was more effective than a regular manual toothbrush in removing plaque and controlling gingivitis.

CONCLUSION
The powered toothbrush may prove to be a good alternative to the manual toothbrush for this segment of the population, as it does not require any special dexterity to use.


A novel room-temperature multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser is demonstrated. Stable multiwavelength lasing at room temperature is realized by incorporating a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based phase modulator in the laser cavity. The SOA is biased below the transparent point with a sinusoidal signal applied to achieve phase modulation, to suppress the homogenous line broadening of the EDF. Stable multiwavelength lasing with wavelengths up to 26 and wavelength spacing as small as 0.19 nm is demonstrated at room temperature.


The protein product of c-met proto-oncogene, Met, is a tyrosine kinase receptor for the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). Met receptor is expressed in normal human bronchial epithelium. In comparison, its expression in squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) of the lung is markedly decreased in a great majority of cases. To understand further the role of Met receptor overexpression in non-small-cell lung carcinoma, we forced-expressed the full-length met cDNA in the NCI-H1264 (H1264) lung carcinoma cell line with low constitutive expression of this receptor. In vitro studies demonstrated that increased Met expression in H1264 cells resulted in strong inhibition of their ability to form soft agar colonies and in marked suppression of tumorigenicity in the subcutaneous tissue of immune-deficient mice. This is despite inconsistent alteration in the proliferation rate on plastic surfaces. Tumor cells explanted from occasional xenograft tumors formed by the Met-overexpressing H1264 cells also demonstrated marked down-regulation of the receptor protein levels as compared to the transplanted cells. The results suggest that constitutive overexpression of Met receptor may negatively regulate the malignancy of certain human lung cancer cells.


One constant challenge in biotechnological applications such as biosensors or biofuel cells is the immobilization of the bio-entity on respective surfaces. Beside widely used covalent binding, entrapment in polymers, or cross linking, protein or DNA grafting via supramolecular host–guest systems or metal–organic coordination, called affinity interactions, became a powerful alternative. One clear advantage of this principle is the facilitated formation of the biocomposite since the biological unit can be immobilized via self-assembly just by incubation of a surface, modified with a corresponding counterpart, in the biomolecule, bearing the other counterpart, containing the solution. The most important affinity systems to immobilize bioreceptor units onto transducer surfaces are summarized. Original examples of this immobilization strategy are not only used for biosensing applications but also for other biotechnological fields like biofuel cells.


In November 2008, Oxford Archaeology North carried out a programme of archaeological evaluation across an area off Lower Viaduct Estate, Carlisle, Cumbria (centred on NGR NY 3995 5560). The evaluation was commissioned by Kier Scotland, acting on behalf of Tesco UK Ltd, and was intended to establish the presence or absence of any buried remains prior to a proposed supermarket development (planning application ref: 1/05/1333) as a condition of the planning permission, in accordance with a brief devised by Cumbria County Council's Historic Environment Service (CCCHES). However, information generated by geotechnical site investigation work, including borehole data, and underground utility mapping survey results, indicated areas of contamination and made ground, and showed numerous live services crossing the site. Based on this information the CCCHES brief was revised verbally from a minimum 5% sample evaluation to a targeted programme of trenching based on the results of an impact assessment (OA North 2008), and taking into account the details of the proposed construction. The evaluation comprised the excavation of four trenches each measuring 20-21m long and 1.6m wide, although Trench 3 was extended at its southern end to 5m wide. The trenches targeted those areas that were least likely to be contaminated, close to boreholes 11, 12, 13 and 15, within the footprint of the supermarket foodstore.
The proposed development site was identified as being in an area of high archaeological potential due to its proximity to the Roman fort and vicus, and lying just outside the medieval town walls. It was occupied more recently by nineteenth century buildings, such as a railway goods station and a grain shed. By the late twentieth century these buildings had been removed and replaced with a car showroom, council offices, recently demolished, and a public car park.


BACKGROUND
 Anatomy is considered to be one of the keystones of undergraduate medical education. However, recently, there has been drastic reduction, both in gross anatomy teaching hours and its context. Additionally, a decrease in the number of trained anatomists and an increase in the costs associated with procuring human cadavers have been noted, causing a diminution of cadaveric dissections in anatomy education.

 OBJECTIVE
 To address these challenges, there is an ardent need for a pedagogical framework such that anatomy education can be disseminated through active learning principles, within a fixed time frame, using a small team of anatomists and a small number of cadaveric specimens (for live on-site sessions) as well as collaborative learning principles. The latter is particularly important when anatomy education is delivered through distance learning, as is the case currently during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 METHODS
 Here, we have blueprinted a pedagogical framework blending the instructional design models of Gagne's 9 events of instruction with Peyton's 4-step approach. The framework's applicability was validated through the delivery of anatomical concepts, using an exemplar from the structure-function course Head and Neck during the normal and COVID-19–mandated lockdown periods, employing the archetype of Frey syndrome. Preliminary evaluation of the framework was pursued using student feedback and end-of-course feedback responses. The efficiency of the framework in knowledge transfer was also appraised.

 RESULTS
 The blueprinted instructional plan designed to implement the pedagogical framework was successfully executed in the dissemination of anatomy education, employing a limited number of cadaveric specimens (during normal times) and a social media application (SMA)–integrated "interactome" strategy (during the COVID-19 lockdown). Students' response to the framework was positive. However, reluctance was expressed by a majority of the faculty in adopting the framework for anatomy education. To address this aspect, a strategy has been designed using Mento's 12-step change management model. The long-term benefits for any medical school to adopt the blended pedagogical framework have also been explicated by applying Bourdieu's Theory of Practice. Additionally, through the design of an SMA interactome model, the framework's applicability to the delivery of anatomy education and content during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was realized.

 CONCLUSIONS
 In conclusion, the study effectively tackles some of the contemporary key challenges associated with the delivery of anatomy content in medical education during normal and unprecedented times.


This article offers a framework to understand how endogeneity arises and how to control for it with instrumental variables to estimate causal relations with observational data. It builds on the state-of-the-art research in applied and theoretical econometrics to highlight the importance of endogeneity and review the methods that can be used to address it with instrumental variables.The article also discusses when the Heckman two-step procedure can be used, as well as the tests, methods and assumptions that researchers should check when using instrumental variables.To ease implementation of the instrumental variables techniques, the author offers the STATA commands of the exposed tests and methods. Further, an empirical example is provided along with the utilized STATA codes. In the end, this article serves as a`toolkit' allowing scholars not only to understand whether endogeneity is present in their empirical setting, but also to assess the empirical validity of their work when using instrumental variables.


Background The benefits on clinical practice of a clinical decision support system (CDSS) are predominantly determined by the quality of the clinical rules used in this system. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the performance and potential benefits on quality of care of these rules. Methods A clinical rule assisting physicians in selecting the appropriate dosage according to renal function of frequently prescribed antimicrobials was developed. In 2004, 1788 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for more than 12 h were included in this retrospective study. The actual number of dosage adjustments without the support of the CDSS was compared with the theoretical number of dosage adjustments determined by the clinical rule in patients with moderate (creatinine clearance (Clcreat) 10–50 ml/min) and severe (Clcreat <10 ml/min) renal dysfunction. If dosage adjustment was omitted, the duration of excessive anti-infective dosing and extra drug costs involved was determined. Results Dosage adjustment of antimicrobials was omitted in 163 patients (86%) with moderate renal failure and 13 patients (54%) with severe renal failure. Excessive exposure was most frequently detected in patients receiving fluconazole and ciprofloxacin (median duration of 6 days). In our ICU alone, more than €16 000 ($19 000) can be saved annually by adjusting the dosage according to renal function of frequently prescribed antimicrobials. Conclusions Despite intensive monitoring of patients in the ICU, dosage adjustment of antimicrobials is often omitted. Implementing this clinical rule has the potential to contribute to a significant improvement in medication safety and is expected to generate substantial savings.


This paper presents a critical review of various analysis about the underlying cause(s) of deforestation and under what mechanisms deforestation takes place. All these analyses are categorized into four groups, i.e. Neo-Malthusian, government-failure, microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches. Certain forms of deforestation, as long as they bring net development benefits and satisfy both social cost-benefit analysis and economic efficiency criteria, are generally economically desirable. Nonetheless economic criteria alone cannot provide decision-makers basis for deciding whether a deforestation project is desirable. Biophysical and political criteria need to be taken into account simultaneously.


Aims Juvenile-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (JSLE) is a severe multi-system inflammatory disease with very varied presentation and disease course. The Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) group proposed revised classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLICC-2012 criteria). This study aimed to compare these criteria with the widely used American College of Rheumatology classification criteria (ACR-1997 criteria) in a national cohort of JSLE patients and evaluate how classification criteria that individual patients meet evolved over time. Methods Data from patients in the UK JSLE Cohort Study with a senior clinician diagnosis of probable, evolving or definite JSLE was reviewed and patients were classified using both criteria within one year of diagnosis and at latest follow-up (following a minimum twelve month follow-up period). Sensitivity of each classification criteria was compared using McNemar's test. Results 226 patients were included. The SLICC-2012 was more sensitive than ACR-1997 at diagnosis (92.9% vs 84.1% p < 0.0001) and after follow-up (100% vs 92.0% p < 0.0001). Figure 1 provides an overview of our results. Of those patients meeting the SLICC-2012 criteria and not the ACR-1997 criteria 59% of patients at diagnosis and 61% of patients at follow-up scored more than one additional point on the SLICC-2012. In particular, the inclusion of hypocomplementaemia on SLICC-2012 facilitated classification of more patients using these criteria.Abstract G260 Figure 1 Summary of classification criteria met by patients at diagnosis and at follow-up Conclusion The SLICC-2012 was better able to classify patients with JSLE than the ACR-1997 and did so at an earlier stage in their disease course. SLICC-2012 should be considered for classification of JSLE patients for the purpose of observational studies and clinical trial eligibility. It may also be useful in daily practice to corroborate clinician diagnosis of JSLE.


We develop a general equilibrium theory of the capital structures of banks and firms. The liquidity services of bank deposits make deposits a "cheaper" source of funding than equity. Banks pass on part of this funding advantage in the form of lower interest rates to firms that borrow from them. Firms and banks choose their capital structures to balance the benefits of debt financing against the risk of costly default. An increase in the equity of a firm makes its debt less risky and that in turn reduces the risk of the banks who lend to the firm. Hence there is some substitutability between firm and bank equity. We find that firms have a comparative advantage in providing a buffer against systemic shocks, whereas banks have a comparative advantage in providing a buffer against idiosyncratic shocks.


Fusobacterium nucleatum is involved in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC) through innate immune cell modulation. However, the receptors of the interaction between F. nucleatum ssp. and immune cells remain largely undetermined. Here, we showed that F. nucleatum ssp. animalis interacts with Siglecs (sialic acid–binding immunoglobulin-like lectins) expressed on innate immune cells with highest binding to Siglec-7. Binding to Siglec-7 was also observed using F. nucleatum-derived outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS). F. nucleatum and its derived OMVs or LPS induced a pro-inflammatory profile in human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) and a tumour associated profile in human monocyte-derived macrophages (moMϕs). Siglec-7 silencing in moDCs or CRISPR-cas9 Siglec-7-depletion of U-937 macrophage cells altered F. nucleatum induced cytokine but not marker expression. The molecular interaction between Siglec-7 and the LPS O-antigen purified from F. nucleatum ssp. animalis was further characterised by saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR spectroscopy, revealing novel ligands for Siglec-7. Together, these data support a new role for Siglec-7 in mediating immune modulation by F. nucleatum strains and their OMVs through recognition of LPS on the bacterial cell surface. This opens a new dimension in our understanding of how F. nucleatum promotes CRC progression through the generation of a pro-inflammatory environment and provides a molecular lead for the development of novel cancer therapeutic approaches targeting F. nucleatum-Siglec-7 interaction.


Accessing integrated databases leads to the performance of searching and matching of data. Data can be redundant and found with different business contexts in different integrated databases. Usually, accessing data from integrated databases is accomplished by using each databasepsilas own catalogue or metadata schema. A generic strategy is adopted to consolidate distinct catalogue schemas of federated databases to access information seamlessly. This strategy involves matching of structure objects and data values across federated databases in a grid environment. In this paper, the concept of grid services is introduced to manage the importance of data search and matching within an OGSA-DAI (open grid services architecture - data access integration) environment.


We explore spatial control of the formation of core-satellite nanoassemblies on glass substrates. UV irradiation leads to the photooxidative desorption of thiol linkers from gold nanoparticles deposited on the substrates, thereby prohibiting further assembly in the irradiated region. The distribution of assemblies and monomers yields a pattern with stark contrasts in colour and Raman enhancement. Our findings can be utilised in the fabrication of microfluidic SERS sensors, colour displays, photonic devices, and metamaterials.


This paper proposes a circuit topology of a single-stage three-phase current-source photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected inverter with high voltage transmission ratio (VTR). Also, an improved zone sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation (SPWM) control strategy and an active-clamped subcircuit that can suppress the energy storage switch's turn-off voltage spike are introduced. The circuit topology, control strategy, steady principle characteristics, and high-frequency switching process are analyzed profoundly, as well as the VTR's expression and design criterion of the center-tapped energy storage inductor. The improved zone SPWM control strategy consists of two control loops, namely, the outer loop of input dc voltage of PV cells with the maximum power point tracking and the inner loop of the energy storage inductor current. The experimental results of a 3-kW 96VDC/380V50Hz3ϕAC prototype have shown that this kind of a three-phase inverter has the excellent performances such as single-stage power conversion, high VTR and power density, and high conversion efficiency. Nonetheless, it has small energy storage inductor and output CL  filter, low output current total harmonic distortion, and flexible voltage configuration of the PV cells. This study provides an effective design method for single-stage three-phase inverting with high VTR.


ABSTRACT Black (W)hole is an immersive art installation created collaboratively by artists and scientists utilizing data visualization of an extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) and the sonification of its emitted gravitational waves in an experiential work of "artscience" and science education. The sensory-rich environment of the installation engages mind and body, expanding and enriching the participant's capacity to imagine and wonder about the beauty and meaning of this highly abstract astronomical object, the black hole. The work investigates both historical and current gravitational wave astronomy, illustrating our 21st-century understanding of the cosmos.


Orientation: Female academics in higher-education institutions face numerous challenges in the continuously changing landscape of South African higher education. Mergers, increasing job demands, ever-increasing class sizes and role conflict inherent in the female role contribute extensively to the manifestation of stress and burnout in this population group.
Research purpose: This research was conducted from a salutogenic paradigm, seeking to find ways of avoiding the negative consequences of burnout and contributing towards the positive experience of work engagement for the female academic. The research also explored the effect of the individual academic's sense of coherence (SOC) on her experience of burnout and work engagement.
Research design, approach and method: The research was quantitative in nature. A psychometric instrument was sent to all the permanently employed female academics at Unisa and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), measuring their levels of burnout, work engagement and SOC. The completed questionnaires were statistically analysed. Main findings: The findings included average levels of burnout, with definite signs that the experience of burnout is on the increase. The cynicism sub-dimension of burnout showed increased levels, work engagement scores were just above average and SOC scores were low.
Practical / managerial implications: This article offers a psychological interpretation of the variables in the target group. The article contributes towards the body of research studies conducted from a positive psychological paradigm and, specifically, on the female gender.
Contribution / value-add: The main recommendations are that university management needs to take cognisance of the alarming symptoms of burnout present in the population under discussion. Strategies are recommended to address these and to nurture work engagement.


Naures Atto identifies in this historical anthropological analysis the present-day identity discourses among Assyrian/Syriac elites in the European diaspora. The most heated discussion during the last four decades among Assyrians/Syriacs has been what the 'correct name' of their people should be in Western languages. Hostages in the Homeland, Orphans in the Diaspora aims to develop a deeper understanding of this 'name debate'. The emigration of Assyrians/Syriacs from the Middle East and their settlement in Western countries dislocated their former identity discourses, which have since then entered into a transformation process and have been subsequently re-defined in relation to the new context. In this context, the 'name' of their people has become the core element in their new identity discourses, displacing previous nodal points such as religion and language. The redefined identity discourses have also been explained as attempts to find a remedy for the Hostages' and Orphans' Dilemma experienced among Assyrians/Syriacs, an expression of their search and struggle for recognition and existence.


This article is aimed at designing positioning system using visible light communication technology by incorporating three different diversity schemes, namely, transmit diversity (TD), receive diversity (RD), and angle diversity. For the TD, multiple transmitters with single receiver (MISO) is used to obtain the target location using frequency division multiplexing (FDM) and variable phase approach. To deploy RD, the proposed system comprises multiple receivers and single transmitter (SIMO). Only one transmitter's absolute coordinates are required to obtain the location coordinates of optical receivers. FDM and time division multiplexing access schemes have been utilized to transmit the unique signals by light‐emitting diodes (LEDs). To implement angle diversity, orientation of transmitter and receiver is considered for positioning purposes. Under this environment, there is no constraint for the LEDs to be installed on ceiling; they can be at any point within the room or at different heights. The information regarding spherical coordinates (representing the orientation) of LEDs (single or multiple) is used to determine the coordinates or the orientation of receiver having multiple or single photodiodes, respectively. Under multiple orientations, this system is analyzed with both scenarios, that is, MISO and SIMO.


In modern neuro-oncology and onco-hematology, intraventricular injection of chemotherapeutic agents (most typically, methotrexate) is an inevitable part of many protocols for treating patients with malignant tumors of the CNS, neuroleukemia, CNS lymphomas and some other disorders. A ventricular catheter system (also known as the Ommaya reservoir) is used to provide repeated injection of chemotherapeutic agents to cerebral ventricles. The use of modern neuronavigation systems allows one to place Ommaya reservoir in patients with narrow and slit-like ventricles. Material and methods. During the period between March 2012 and October 2013, 27 patients underwent stereotactic placement of the Ommaya reservoir using a Cart II optical neuronavigation system (Stryker) at the Dmitry Rogachev Federal Scientific and Clinical Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology. The patients for stereotactic placement of a ventricular catheter were selected on a subjective basis (small ventricular size was the criterion for selection). In one patient, the surgery for placement of the Ommaya reservoir was combined with stereotactic biopsy. Results. In all patients, a ventricular catheter was placed in the anterior horn of the lateral ventricle on the first try; no intraoperative complications were observed. Conclusions. Frameless navigation is an illustrative, mobile, and multifunctional method. The same device can be used to perform brain, transsphenoidal, ENT, and spine surgeries, as well as orthopedic interventions. Today, neuronavigation systems are used in neurosurgical operating rooms and make it possible to avoid using stereotactic frames in most cases.


Abstract Antarctica is one of the most suitable locations for the bioprospecting of psychrotrophic fungi, which play a key role in the nutrient cycle and organic material mineralization in cold environments. These actions mainly take place via the production of several cold-active extracellular enzymes. The aim of this study was to investigate the diversity of filamentous fungi from King George Island (25 De Mayo Island), Antarctica and their ability to produce extracellular hydrolytic enzymes at low temperatures. A total of 51 fungal isolates were obtained from 31 samples. Twelve genera were identified, with seven among the Ascomycota (Cadophora, Helotiales, Monographella, Oidodendron, Penicillium, Phialocephala, Phialophora, Phoma and Pseudogymnoascus), one Basidiomycota (Irpex) and two Mucoromycota (Mortierella and Mucor). Monographella lycopodina and Mucor zonatus, not previously reported in Antarctica, were identified. Nine isolates could not be identified to genus level and may represent novel species. Most of the studied fungi were psychrotrophic (76.5%). Nevertheless, only five isolates were able to grow at 35°C, 15°C being the optimal growth temperature for 65% of the fungal isolates. Results from enzyme production at low temperature revealed that the Antarctic environment contains metabolically diverse fungi, which represent potential tools for biotechnological applications in cold regions.


Is moving from place to place equivalent to pressing a lever or pecking a key? This dissertation addressed this question by comparing natural travel (moving from place to place) with artificial travel requirements (to press on a lever). In two experiments foraging was modeled with operant behavior. Rats "searched" for food by pressing on the left lever. The patch provided a maximum of 1, 2, or 8 pellets. When the patch provided 1 pellet, rats captured the first prey with a.10 probability. The probability dropped to zero after one pellet. When the patch provided 2 or 8 pellets rats captured the first prey with a 1.0 probability. Each prey delivered on the left lever caused this probability to decrease to 0 in steps of.5 or.125 simulating patch depletion. Lever-press on the right lever reset the probability on the left lever to.10 or 1.0. To model artificial travel different resetprobabilities were scheduled on the right lever. The experimental situation was modified to model natural travel. Rats had to run 520 cm to travel back and forth between left and right levers. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that as the number of available prey in the patch increased the giving-up time increased. Experiment 1 showed that natural travel produced longer residence and giving-up times than the artificial travel conditions. Experiment 2 revealed that by pressing on retractable levers, rats made shorter residence and giving-up times than by pressing on standard levers. Sometimes, but not in systematic way, natural travel produced longer residence and giving-up times than by responding to the reset-probabilities. The natural travel with obstacles produced the longest residence and giving-up times. The natural travel with obstacles had more of an effect on residence and giving-up times than any other travel requirement. The residence and giving-up times obtained in Experiments 1 and 2 are in accordance with predictions derived from McNair's (1982) model. As the travel requirement increased the residence and giving-up time increased. This is predicted because the average rate of capture decreased as travel time increased.


Despite all the advances brought by LALR parsing method by DeRemer in the late 60's, conflicts reported by LALR parser generators are still removed in an old fashion and primitive manner, based on analysis of a huge amount of textual and low-level data stored on a single log file. For the purpose of minimizing the effort and time consumed in LALR conflict removal, which is definitely a laborious task, a methodology is proposed, along with the set of operations necessary to its realization. We also present a tool and the ideas behind it to support the methodology, plus its plugin facility, which permits the interpretation of virtually any syntax specification, regardless of the specification language used.


In this article, the author considers the British development of the seaside Pierrot troupe, arguing that its construction is consistent with the notion of invented tradition, and the associated concerns with identity and nationality. Tracing the history of the character from its origins as Pedrolino in the commedia dell'arte, the article considers the traditional and novel elements of the British form. This also allows a brief account of the origin and aesthetics of the British tradition. Reflecting on the synthesis of the archaic and contemporary dimensions of the form, the author proposes that the new structure constructed an ambivalent class of character. The composition of both troupes and audiences was drawn from across the range of social strata. Through its collectivity and its treatment of contemporary social themes, it is argued the British Pierrot troupe approached and negotiated questions of a cultural and national identity in the late-Victorian period.
Dave Calvert is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, UK. His research
interests include street theatre, Applied Theatre and learning disabled
performance. He is also a member of The Pierrotters, the last remaining seaside
Pierrot troupe.


Current trends in HPC (high performance computing) suggest that clusters will soon consist with hundreds, if not thousands, processors and the size of current scientific problems becomes much larger than before. Many researchers have predicted that the communication among these processors has dominated the execution time of the scientific parallel applications. Users will need well understanding on communication patterns among scientific parallel applications and their similarities so that users benefit not only from cost saving on constructing the running environment for these applications but also from obtaining better performance. In this paper, we address the communication pattern matching, and focus on point-to-point communication, which is primarily utilized (over 90% all MPI (message passing interface) calls) in most MPI codes and has much more impact on the communication performance than collective communication does. In this work, our contribution is that we propose a new approach MPACP (matching of parallel application communication patterns) to automate the analysis of the similarity between two parallel applications and provide a reliable report which will help users or developers understand the similarity among communication patterns of parallel applications. Furthermore, experimental results demonstrate the effective performance of our scheme in terms of the automatic matching of parallel application communication patterns.


Power systems with increasing shares of wind and solar power generation have higher capital and lower operational costs than traditional technologies. This increases the importance of the cost of finance for total system cost. We quantify how renewable policy design can influence cost of finance by addressing regulatory risk and facilitating hedging. We use interview data on wind power financing costs from the EU and model how long-term contracts signed between project developers and energy suppliers impact financing costs in the context of green certificate schemes. Be- tween the policy regimes, the cost of renewable energy deployment differ by 30%.


To understand how diverse mutualisms coevolve and how species adapt to complex environments, a description of the underlying genetic basis of the traits involved must be provided. For example, in diverse coevolving mutualisms, such as the interaction of host plants with a suite of symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi, a key question is whether host plants can coevolve independently with multiple species of symbionts, which depends on whether those interactions are governed independently by separate genes or pleiotropically by shared genes. To provide insight into this question, we employed an association mapping approach in a clonally replicated field experiment of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) to identify genetic components of host traits governing ectomycorrhizal (EM) symbioses (mycorrhizal traits). The relative abundances of different EM fungi as well as the total number of root tips per cm root colonized by EM fungi were analyzed as separate mycorrhizal traits of loblolly pine. Single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within candidate genes of loblolly pine were associated with loblolly pine mycorrhizal traits, mapped to the loblolly pine genome, and their putative protein function obtained when available. The results support the hypothesis that ectomycorrhiza formation is governed by host genes of large effect that apparently have independent influences on host interactions with different symbiont species.


Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is responsible for a large proportion of death and disability worldwide. However, a substantial portion of the increasing global impact of CVD is attributable to economic, social, and cultural changes that have led to increases in risk factors for CVD. These changes are most pronounced in the countries comprising the developing world. Because the majority of the world′s population lives in the developing world, the increasing rate of CVD in these countries is the driving force behind the continuing dramatic worldwide increase in CVD. Objective: This study was aimed at determining the frequency and pattern of cardiovascular disorders in the medical wards as well as the emergency and intensive care units of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu, Southeast Nigeria. Methods: A retrospective study of consecutive adult patients with diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders admitted into the medical wards and/or the emergency/intensive care units of UNTH Enugu between January 2000 and January 2007 was carried out using the ward admission and discharge registers. Results: A total of 6,162 patients (males 3,385 (54.93%); female 2,777 (45.07%)) were admitted over the period covered by the study. Out of these; 1,261 (20.46%) patients were found to have cardiovascular disorder. Prevalence of cardiovascular disorders was found to be higher among the female patients than among the males: 693 (24.95%) and 568 (16.78%) years, respectively. The ages ranged between 18 and 92 years with a mean ± standard deviation (SD) of 55.13 ± 15.37. The pattern of CVD observed in this study were hypertension and its complications (86.36%), rheumatic heart disease (4.52%), dilated cardiomyopathy (3.09%), and alcoholic heart muscle disease (0.95%). Conclusion: CVDs were major causes of morbidity in the environment of study. Early detection, improved outpatient care, as well as inclusion of appropriate secondary prevention programs in patient′s management especially at the community level is recommended in order to reduce complications and the need for hospital admissions.


Lawyers engaged in adoption work often call it "happy law," and consider adoption – finding a child for yearning parents, finding parents for a needy child – an unmitigated good. That attitude can mask the fact that all adoption begins with loss. One family loses a child so that another family can gain one. A lawyer's assurance that she is engaged in positive work can lead to ethical blind spots that ignore the complexities of adoption practice. And while the touchstone of adoption is the best interests of the child, the primacy in legal ethics of the interests of the client, who is rarely the child, skews that focus. This article discusses ethical issues relevant to adoption attorneys, centering on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct most applicable to adoption practice, as well as the lessons from behavioral ethics that inform the ethical blind spots common in the practice. Rules relating to competency and confidentiality, conflicts of interest and dual representation, and the lawyer's role as counselor are particularly germane. Since legal ethics can be both descriptive and normative, this article addresses both what the ethical requirements of professional responsibility are, and what they should be in adoption practice. This article sketches the contours of ethical lawyering in adoption in order to shine light on the ethical blind spots adoption attorneys should avoid, and to suggest some solutions from behavioral ethics to eradicate blind spots.


Metre‐scale cycles are a common feature in Precambrian and Phanerozoic shallow water carbonate successions, and astronomically forced changes in sea‐level (Milankovitch cycles) may have been an important driver controlling their deposition. Nevertheless, the degree to which potentially low amplitude astronomically paced sea‐level oscillations may have controlled carbonate accumulation in deep time is unclear. In this study, a stochastic model of carbonate accumulation demonstrates how metre‐scale exposure‐bound sequences can be generated under conditions of random sea‐level change. These sequences have characteristic durations close to Milankovitch cycles, despite the absence of any astronomical control on their formation. Metre‐scale sequences with sub‐Milankovitch (millennial‐scale) durations can also be generated by the model, potentially shedding light on the origin of sub‐Milankovitch sequences such as those recorded on the Middle Triassic Latemar platform of Northern Italy. Sensitivity tests demonstrate how shallow water carbonates may be very sensitive to weak (i.e. low amplitude) astronomically forced sea‐level oscillations. Notably, strong statistical evidence (P < 0·01) for astronomical cycles can be preserved in modelled successions even when astronomical forcing contributes <1% of the sea‐level variance on million year timescales. Taken together, metre‐scale cycles with Milankovitch‐scale durations in ancient carbonate successions may reveal very little about the amplitude, or even the existence, of astronomical forcing as a sea‐level driver.


The 2005 Gambling Act in Britain requires all gambling operators to satisfy responsibility codes as a condition of licence, such as signage on electronic machines, and in the venues in which they are located, encouraging responsible gambling and signposting help available. This observational study found that eighteen months prior to the implementation of the Act, only 4.1% of the 1351 electronic machines located in Glasgow City Centre displayed signs promoting responsible gambling and signposting the national Gamcare helpline. One month after the introduction of the Act, which stipulated that all machines must display such signage, this was only evident on 65% of machines. Other responsible gambling signage (posters, signs, leaflets, brochures) was not highly visible in either phase. These findings highlight two important points; first, most sectors of the gambling industry are not embracing the new social responsibility codes (or indeed even adhering to them); and, second, if licensing conditions are not made explicit, as is the case in Britain, the gambling industry can dictate what is meant by 'responsible' and so define what measures are sufficient to meet this criteria.


Purpose of review The purpose is to review recent advances in molecular imaging of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), discuss unresolved issues, and review how these advances are affecting clinical management. Recent findings Molecular imaging of NETs underwent a number of important changes in the last few years, leading to some controversies, unresolved issues, and significant changes in clinical management. The most recent changes are reviewed in this article. Particularly important is the rapid replacement in somatostatin receptor scintigraphy of 111In-diethylenetriamine penta-acetic acid-single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (CT) by 68Ga-fluorodopa(F-D)PA), 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid (DOTA)-peptide-PET/CT imaging, which is now approved in many countries including the USA. Numerous studies in many different types of NETs demonstrate the greater sensitivity of 68Ga-DOTA-peptide PET/CT, its high specificity, and its impact on management. Other important developments in somatostatin receptor scintigraphy/molecular imaging include demonstrating the prognostic value of both 68Ga-DOTA-peptide PET/CT and 18F-fluoro-deoxyglucose PET/CT; how their use can be complementary; comparing the sensitivities and usefulness of 68Ga-DOTA-peptide PET/CT and 18F-FDOPA PET/CT; introducing new linkers and radiolabeled ligands such as 64Cu-DOTA-peptides with a long half-life, enhancing utility; and the introduction of somatostatin receptor antagonists which show enhanced uptake by NETs. In addition, novel ligands which interact with other receptors (GLP-1, bombesin, cholecystokinin, gastric inhibitory polpeptide, integrin, chemokines) are described, which show promise in the imaging of both NETs and other tumors. Summary Molecular imaging is now required for all aspects of the management of patients with NETs. Its results are essential not only for the proper diagnostic management of the patient, but also for assessing whether the patient is a candidate for peptide receptor radionuclide therapy with 177Lu and also for providing prognostic value.


A design for a 20-ton capacity buoy was developed to feed fish in up to four submerged cages at an exposed site south of the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire. The buoy was designed to contain all the equipment necessary to accomplish the feed dispensing tasks as well as have the strength and stability to remain on location in a variety of sea states. New feed handling and distribution systems were developed and tested. To evaluate seakeeping response a Froude scaled physical model was constructed and tested at the Ocean Engineering wave/tow tank at the University of New Hampshire. Construction of the buoy in New Brunswick near the Bay of Fundy is nearing completion, and deployment is scheduled for the summer of 2007.


ABSTRACT This article examines the conditions of possibility for protest that are shaped when we open our browsers and are immediately tracked by Facebook. It points to the significance of tracking in the making of contemporary personhood showing how the relationship between property and personhood is being currently reconfigured as Facebook experiments with ways to accrue maximum profit. It outlines in detail the different ways by which Facebook operates financially, arguing that it is better understood as a powerful advertising oligopoly that lubricates the circulation of capital rather than just as a social network. By charting the movement from the liberal 'possessive individual', to the neo-liberal 'subject of value' into the present disaggregated 'dividual', it reveals inherent contradictions as Facebook builds its financializing and monetizing capacity. We show how the contemporary neo-liberal imperative to perform and authorize one's value in public is more likely to produce a curated persona rather than the 'authentic' self-demanded by Facebook, making accurate dividuation more difficult to achieve. We draw on our research project funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), UK, on the relationship between values and value, which uses custom-built software to track Facebook's tracking. Our research revealed how Facebook drew clear distinctions between high net worth users and the remainder, making the protesting bourgeois 'subject of value' much more likely to be subject to expropriation. We ask: what does it mean if the communicative networks for protest are just another opportunity for profit making and lubricating financialization?


Background: Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) Sox2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT) has been reported to be upregulated in various types of cancers, including non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the biological role and underlying mechanism of SOX2OT activity in NSCLC remain largely unknown. This study aims to investigate the function and possible molecular mechanisms of SOX2OT in NSCLC. Materials and methods: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to detect SOX2OT expression, and cellular proliferation, migration, and invasion were measured using cell counting kit-8, wound healing, and Transwell invasion assays, respectively. Western blotting was used to determine protein expression. Starbase 2.0 and luciferase reporter assay were utilized to identify the molecular target of SOX2OT. Results: Here, we discovered that SOX2OT was markedly upregulated in NSCLC tissues and cell lines. Knockdown of SOX2OT inhibited the proliferation, migration, invasion, and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) process in NSCLC cells. Moreover, we explored the regulatory mechanism of SOX2OT and found that SOX2OT directly bound microRNA 132 (miR-132) in NSCLC cells. Importantly, miR-132 inhibition partially reversed the SOX2OT knockdown-mediated inhibitory effect on cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT process. We also found that SOX2OT could regulate zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 2 (a target of miR-132) expression, which played crucial roles in tumor cell proliferation and invasion. Conclusion: These findings indicated that SOX2OT was a noncoding oncogene that exerted important regulatory functions in NSCLC via sponging miR-132 and might represent a novel strategy for overcoming this disease.


The performance of mobile multi-robot systems dramatically depends on the mutual awareness of individual robots, particularly the positions of other robots. GPS and motion capture cameras are commonly used to acquire and ultimately communicate positions of robots. Such sensing schemes depend on infrastructure and restrict the capabilities of a multi-robot system, e.g., the robots cannot operate in both indoor and outdoor environments. Conversely, peer-to-peer localization algorithms can be used to free the robots from such infrastructures. In such systems, robots use on-board sensing to infer the positions of nearby robots. In this approach, it is essential to have a model of the motion of other robots. We introduce a flocking localization scheme that takes into account motion behavior exhibited by the other robots. The proposed scheme depends only on the robots' on-board sensors and computational capabilities and yields a more accurate localization solution than the peer-to-peer localization algorithms that do not take into account the flocking behavior. We verify the performance of our scheme in simulations and demonstrate experiments on two unmanned aerial vehicles.