Realizing on-demand media streaming in a peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion is more challenging than in the case of live media streaming, since only peers with close-by media play progresses may help each other in obtaining the media content. The situation is further complicated if we wish to pursue low aggregated link cost in the transmission. In this paper, we present a new algorithmic perspective toward on-demand P2P streaming protocol design. While previous approaches employ streaming trees or passive neighbor reconciliation for media content distribution, we instead coordinate the streaming session as an auction where each peer participates locally by bidding for and selling media flows encoded with network coding. We show that this auction approach is promising in achieving low-cost on-demand streaming in a scalable fashion. It is amenable to asynchronous, distributed, and lightweight implementations, and is flexible to provide support for random-seek and pause functionalities. Through extensive simulation studies, we verify the effectiveness and performance of the proposed auction approach, focusing on the optimality in overall streaming cost, the convergence speed, and the communication overhead.


We propose adaptive brush stroke generation for source images, using reference data. Colors used are formed by actual palette colors from artists. To create the palette, we have referred mostly to colors used in Van Gogh's works and determined the color of brush strokes by transferring it to the most similar one, through comparing colors used in source images and the palette colors. Also, by referring to the edge orientation of source images, we have applied a brush stroke orientation that surrounds the edges. The sizes were determined depending on the different sizes of the objects from wide to narrow brushes. Finally, we applied spline curve shapes. The brush strokes created in such method, were applied separately according to its segmented images, and composed after rendering.


Ranolazine (RAN) is known to exert both anti-ischemic and antidiabetic actions. Thus, this study has explored the hypothesis that RAN would have greater effect on the recovery of cardiac function in diabetic mellitus (DM) rat hearts following myocardial infarction (MI). Myocardial infarction was induced in nondiabetic (MI, n = 14) and diabetic (streptozotocin induced; DM-MI, n = 13) Wistar rats by permanent ligation of the left coronary artery. Cardiac function was evaluated using echocardiography (left ventricular ejection fraction %) and in isolated heart preparations by measuring left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), and the positive and negative first derivative of LVDP (±dp/dt). Ranolazine (20 mg/kg, ip once a day) was administered 24 hours after surgical procedure for 4 weeks to nondiabetic (MI + RAN, n = 17) and diabetic rats (DM-MI + RAN, n = 15). The RAN improved the recovery of function in both the nondiabetic and the diabetic postinfarcted hearts but this effect was greater and achieved statistical significance only in the diabetic group. The RAN resulted in increased levels of phosphorylated protein kinase B (Akt) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR, a component of Akt signaling) in both nondiabetic and diabetic infarcted hearts without changes in the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs; p38 MAPK, c-Jun N-terminal kinase, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase). In addition, in diabetic hearts, RAN resulted in a significant increase in the ratio of sarcoplasmic Ca2+-ATPase/phospholamban (a target of Akt signaling, 2.0-fold increase) and increased levels of phosphorylated calcium-regulated adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK; 2.0-fold increase). In diabetic animals, RAN increased insulin and lowered glucose levels in serum. In conclusion, the beneficial effect of RAN on the recovery of cardiac function after MI was greater in DM rats. This response was associated with activation of Akt/mTOR and AMPK. These findings provide a plausible explanation for the results of the Type 2 Diabetes Evaluation of Ranolazine in Subjects With Chronic Stable Angina (TERISA) trial, which showed a greater antianginal effect of RAN in patients with coronary artery disease and diabetes.


There is a growing interest in health economics in developing countries. In this paper, some of the economic literature concerning schistosomiasis is reviewed and a set of economic questions is derived which could form the basis of a broad research agenda for tropical diseases. The major criterion used to identify research issues is that they should be of practical value to control programs.


A new probabilistic failure criterion was developed for the design of high-temperature ceramic-to-metal joints. The essential feature of the theory is the inclusion of the energy dissipated during plastic deformation of the adjacent braze layer in the joint. A large number of bimaterial interface fracture simulations were performed for different crack positions and orientations near the bimaterial interface to determine the effect on stresses in the ceramic near the interface. The effective stress values were then ported to a probabilistic failure analysis code, which permitted simple inclusion of the new failure criterion. Brazed joints were made and failure tested in torsion to verify the failure criterion. Results show that the new failure criterion more closely approximates the failure of the ceramic-to-metal joints over the entire range of ultimate loads, and is a significant improvement in the failures criteria previously used for this type of joint design. Aspects of the failure criterion, material systems, residual stresses, mechanical behavior, and strength predictions will be presented.


Many research activities have focused on the problem of task scheduling in heterogeneous systems from the computational point of view. However, an ideal scheduling strategy would also take into account the communication requirements of the applications and the communication bandwidth available in the network. One of the major problems to be solved in the development of this scheduling strategy is precisely the measurement of the communication requirements for each application. We propose a clustering-based method to characterize the communications between processes generated by message-passing applications. This technique provides a model consisting of several partitions of the processes generated by the application. Also, we propose a criterion to measure the quality of the obtained partitions. This approach can be used when a given application is repeatedly executed with different input data. Results show that the proposed method can provide a partition with the highest ratio between the intracluster and the intercluster required communication bandwidth. This partition can be used to map groups of processes to processors in the heterogeneous system.


The authors analyze the returns of nine emerging markets for the period from 1976 through 1997. They find that although currency movements (primarily depreciation) have a dramatic impact on individual country returns, they have a much reduced impact on real returns and insignificant impact on the returns of a diversified portfolio. In addition, the authors demonstrate the importance of rebalancing and its effect on both the risk and return of an emerging market portfolio.


Studying the environments of 0.4 < z < 1.2 ultraviolet (UV)-selected galaxies, as examples of extreme star-forming galaxies (with star formation rates (SFRs) in the range of 3–30 M☉ yr−1), we explore the relationship between high rates of star formation, host halo mass, and pair fractions. We study the large- and small-scale environments of local ultraviolet luminous galaxies (UVLGs) by measuring angular correlation functions. We cross-correlate these systems with other galaxy samples: a volume-limited sample (ALL), a blue luminous galaxy sample, and a luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample. We determine the UVLG comoving correlation length to be r0 = 4.8+11.6−2.4 h−1 Mpc at 〈z〉 = 1.0, which is unable to constrain the halo mass for this sample. However, we find that UVLGs form close (separation <30 kpc) pairs with the ALL sample, but do not frequently form pairs with LRGs. A rare subset of UVLGs, those with the highest FUV surface brightnesses, are believed to be local analogs of high-redshift Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) and are called Lyman break analogs (LBAs). LBGs and LBAs share similar characteristics (i.e., color, size, surface brightness, specific SFRs, metallicities, and dust content). Recent Hubble Space Telescope images of z ∼ 0.2 LBAs show disturbed morphologies, signs of mergers and interactions. UVLGs may be influenced by interactions with other galaxies and we discuss this result in terms of other high star-forming, merging systems.


Background Ca2+-activated K+ channels have been implicated in cancer cell growth, metastasis, and tumor angiogenesis. Here we hypothesized that high mRNA and protein expression of the intermediate-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel, KCa3.1, is a molecular marker of clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) and metastatic potential and survival. Methodology/Principal Findings We analyzed channel expression by qRT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and patch-clamp in ccRCC and benign oncocytoma specimens, in primary ccRCC and oncocytoma cell lines, as well as in two ccRCC cell lines (Caki-1 and Caki-2). CcRCC specimens contained 12-fold higher mRNA levels of KCa3.1 than oncocytoma specimens. The large-conductance channel, KCa1.1, was 3-fold more highly expressed in ccRCC than in oncocytoma. KCa3.1 mRNA expression in ccRCC was 2-fold higher than in the healthy cortex of the same kidney. Disease specific survival trended towards reduction in the subgroup of high-KCa3.1-expressing tumors (p<0.08 vs. low-KCa3.1-expressing tumors). Progression-free survival (time to metastasis/recurrence) was reduced significantly in the subgroup of high-KCa3.1-expressing tumors (p<0.02, vs. low-KCa3.1-expressing tumors). Immunohistochemistry revealed high protein expression of KCa3.1 in tumor vessels of ccRCC and oncocytoma and in a subset of ccRCC cells. Oncocytoma cells were devoid of KCa3.1 protein. In a primary ccRCC cell line and Caki-1/2-ccRCC cells, we found KCa3.1-protein as well as TRAM-34-sensitive KCa3.1-currents in a subset of cells. Furthermore, Caki-1/2-ccRCC cells displayed functional Paxilline-sensitive KCa1.1 currents. Neither KCa3.1 nor KCa1.1 were found in a primary oncocytoma cell line. Yet KCa-blockers, like TRAM-34 (KCa3.1) and Paxilline (KCa1.1), had no appreciable effects on Caki-1 proliferation in-vitro. Conclusions/Significance Our study demonstrated expression of KCa3.1 in ccRCC but not in benign oncocytoma. Moreover, high KCa3.1-mRNA expression levels were indicative of low disease specific survival of ccRCC patients, short progression-free survival, and a high metastatic potential. Therefore, KCa3.1 is of prognostic value in ccRCC.


The affinity of a monoclonal antibody for its tumor-associated antigen is one of several parameters governing In vivo monoclonal antibody distribution. However, there is a lack of apparent correlation between the affinity of a bivalent monoclonal antibody measured using equilib rium binding experiments and its in vivo delivery. Furthermore, differ ences in the reported affinity for identical antibody/antigen pairs are quite common in the literature. In this paper, both of these discrepancies are addressed in terms of variation in avidity due to bivalent interaction. The enhancement of avidity afforded by bivalent attachment is ad dressed theoretically by extending the model of Crothers and Metzger (Immunochemistry, 9:341-357,1972). Theoretical assessment of Lineweaver-Burk, Scatchard, Steward-Petty, Langmuir, fluorescence recov ery after photobleaching, and Sips models demonstrates quantitatively that the measured affinity using equilibrium binding experiments may vary over four orders of magnitude with similar variation in experimen tal cellular antigen density. Further, the measured affinity is a function of the experimental protocol. Predictions of avidity enhancement were confirmed experimentally using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching. These experiments measured the equilibrium binding con stant and concentration of binding sites for an immunoglobulin G mon oclonal antibody and its l-'(ab) fragment directed against the rabbit VX2 carcinoma cell line. Bivalent binding data agree quantitatively with those predicted by the bivalent model with no adjustable parameters. It is concluded that bivalent equilibrium binding constants are useful only in antibody screening, where experimental conditions are identical for all series. They must be used with caution in predicting in vivo antibody distribution, and it is recommended that the intrinsic, monovalent af finity be measured in tandem with any bivalent antibody study as a standard reference.


Convolution is a fundamental operation in many applications, such as computer vision, natural language processing, image processing, etc. Recent successes of convolutional neural networks in various deep learning applications put even higher demand on fast convolution. The high computation throughput and memory bandwidth of graphics processing units (GPUs) make GPUs a natural choice for accelerating convolution operations. However, maximally exploiting the available memory bandwidth of GPUs for convolution is a challenging task. This paper introduces a general model to address the mismatch between the memory bank width of GPUs and computation data width of threads. Based on this model, we develop two convolution kernels, one for the general case and the other for a special case with one input channel. By carefully optimizing memory access patterns and computation patterns, we design a communication-optimized kernel for the special case and a communication-reduced kernel for the general case. Experimental data based on implementations on Kepler GPUs show that our kernels achieve 5.16× and 35.5% average performance improvement over the latest cuDNN library, for the special case and the general case, respectively.


Wearable intelligent systems that recognize the daily activities of humans have significantly contributed to many useful applications. However, in practical wearable applications, the target individuals may have different demands in terms of sensor wearing. Sensors may return different information depending on their placement, which to some extent determines the quality of a recognition system. Obtaining the optimal sensor positions with the highest recognition accuracy plays a significant role in activity recognition design. To contribute to a flexible and user-friendly wearable sensor layout, this paper designed a multistage and multiswarm discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm to explore the best sensor combinations and accuracy trends corresponding to different requirements of sensor numbers. The proposed optimization scheme is applied to investigate the influences that different numbers and placements of wearable accelerometers have on an activity recognition system. Furthermore, to address the issue of user preference regarding the sensor position, a relevant sensor layout can also be designed based on the demands and physical condition of the subject. The proposed method can determine the best sensor position (combinations) with lower computational cost for various activity recognition systems.


The length of the already completed period of compulsory military service (CMS) played an unofficial but exceptionally important role in the everyday practice of CMS soldiers conscripted into the army for two years (730 days). The decreasing time remaining until their return to civilian life (the "number") significantly strengthened the real position of a CMS soldier within the military community, a part of which he was. Alongside the official hierarchy, an unofficial hierarchy (an old-sweats' system) was being created which recycled dangerous discrepancies (old sweats vs. rookies) and marked the everyday life of military units, especially in terms of inter-personal relations.


The literature currently lacks a psychometrically valid and reliable assessment tool that adequately measures the fat talk construct. This research aimed to use qualitative data gathered from young adult women to guide development of a fat talk measure. In Study 1, 14 individuals participated in fat talk themed focus groups or individual interviews. In Study 2, 257 participants completed questionnaires measuring fat talk and theoretically related (e.g., body image) and unrelated (e.g., 'academic talk') constructs. In a preliminary analysis, the newly-developed Fat Talk Questionnaire was found to be reliable and valid. In future research, the Fat Talk Questionnaire should be refined to further improve its psychometric properties.


Abstract The partitioning of Sr, Ba and Rb between alkali feldspar and melt has been determined at 0.1 GPa water vapour pressure, mainly on one Na-rich series and one K-rich series within the system nepheline-kalsilite-quartz. Experiments were also carried out with small amounts of the anorthite molecule or peralkaline components (Na,K metasilicates). The compositions of the alkali feldspars and coexisting quenched glasses were determined by electron microprobe analysis. Except for some peralkaline compositions, the crystal/liquid partition coefficients for Sr and Ba are always >1; the crystal/liquid partition coefficient for Rb is always <1. For sodic alkali feldspars DSr > DBa and for potassic feldspars DSr < DBa. Partition coefficients for Sr and Ba increase: (1) with decreasing temperature; (2) with increasing Or content of feldspar; (3) with increasing silica-undersaturation of the melt; (4) with decreasing peralkalinity. The variation in the value of DRb is less clear, but it is higher for K-rich feldspars. Multiple linear regression equations are fitted to correlate In(D) with independent compositional and physical variables. Where rock/groundmass major-element data are available for felsic natural rocks, equations are recommended for obtaining reliable alkali feldspar partition coefficients for modelling fractional crystallization processes. The structural properties of silicate melts and crystal chemical relations are used to rationalize trends in partition coefficients.


Introduction Research into spelling difficulties following a stroke has focused on several different approaches, but one of the most successful and widely reported is that of using a therapy programme that allows a person with aphasia to releam a limited vocabulary of spellings. This study aims to investigate the viability of this type of spelling therapy with a subject whose spelling impairments were more profound than the participants involved in previously reported case studies of a similar nature (Beeson 1999, Beeson et al 2000, 2002). The subject involved in the current study, SK, also had concomitant non linguistic impairments that exacerbated his access to therapy. Method A partial replication of Beeson's (1999) Anagram and Copy Treatment and Copy and Recall Treatment was used to recreate a treatment programme that was tailored to the specific difficulties shown by SK and was also more realistic for therapists within the NHS to duplicate. Results SK was able to releam a very small vocabulary of spellings that suggested an item- specific treatment effect. However, closer analysis of the subject's responses to all tested items implied generalisation on a graphemic level to untreated items - for example an improved ability to correctly write the first letters of untreated words and identify the correct position of letters within an anagram. Discussion The strengthening of graphemic representations, even following a relatively short treatment period, provided positive evidence that spelling therapy can be an effective intervention for even the most severely affected patients. These findings also emphasise the importance of looking in-depth at spelling changes pre-and post-therapy in order to ascertain the true level of improvement, since whole word releaming does not have to be the only marker of success, especially with patients who have profound dysgraphia.


An iron-binding protein causes degradation of proteins involved in the iron deficiency response. Iron uptake and metabolism are tightly regulated in both plants and animals. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), BRUTUS (BTS), which contains three hemerythrin (HHE) domains and a Really Interesting New Gene (RING) domain, interacts with basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors that are capable of forming heterodimers with POPEYE (PYE), a positive regulator of the iron deficiency response. BTS has been shown to have E3 ligase capacity and to play a role in root growth, rhizosphere acidification, and iron reductase activity in response to iron deprivation. To further characterize the function of this protein, we examined the expression pattern of recombinant ProBTS::β-GLUCURONIDASE and found that it is expressed in developing embryos and other reproductive tissues, corresponding with its apparent role in reproductive growth and development. Our findings also indicate that the interactions between BTS and PYE-like (PYEL) basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors occur within the nucleus and are dependent on the presence of the RING domain. We provide evidence that BTS facilitates 26S proteasome-mediated degradation of PYEL proteins in the absence of iron. We also determined that, upon binding iron at the HHE domains, BTS is destabilized and that this destabilization relies on specific residues within the HHE domains. This study reveals an important and unique mechanism for plant iron homeostasis whereby an E3 ubiquitin ligase may posttranslationally control components of the transcriptional regulatory network involved in the iron deficiency response.


The article reconsiders the significance of atomization in Stalinist society and reassesses the phenomenon of imposture as a constituent part of the system's functioning. In historiography, impostors have been regarded as subverters who perfectly mastered Bolshevik language and behavioral codes to take advantage of the revolutionary chaos and the system's dysfunctions: thus they revealed the regime's incapacity to establish totalitarian control. This view overlooks that parallel to its campaigns for transparency and unambiguity the Stalinist regime systematically pushed large segments of the population into double-dealing, i.e. into hiding central aspects of their (past) lives. The impact of such dissimulation is explored on the basis of an unedited personal diary written by a former Menshevik converted to Bolshevism who silenced his former political allegiance and committed to paper his sufferings from loneliness and political guilt. His diary served him to "leave a trace" and to "find consolation" in "conversations with himself". It is a liminal document that perfectly illustrates Arendt's distinction between solitude as a domain of dialogical thinking and loneliness as a state of readiness to succumb to purely deductive logical (or totalitarian) thinking, a distinction that is developed with the aid of the multiple-personality-model as proposed in ego-states-psychology.


Introduction The relationship between rotator cuff tendon structure and pain symptoms is imperfect and icompletely understood.2 The inability to gather tendon-matched and age-matched control tissue from live donors has been a significant limiting factor in many previous studies.1 The aim of this study was to determine whether there were neurohistological differences between painful and pain-free rotator cuff tendons. Methods Supraspinatus tendon specimens were obtained by ultrasound guided biopsy from 9 patients with painful rotator cuff tendinopathy (RCT) resistant to conservative management (painful group) and 9 pain-free patients at over 6 years following subacromial decompression (SAD) (pain-free group). Pain symptoms were measured using the validated Oxford Shoulder Score (OSS). Structural tendon integrity was assessed ultrasonographically. Basic histological staining and immunohistochemistry was performed. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to test for differences between groups. Results The groups were similar in terms of age, sex and structural tendon abnormality. The painful group consisted of 7 males and 2 females, the pain-free group of 6 males and 3 females. The mean age of the painful group was 51 years and that of the pain-free group was 52 years. The median OSS in the painful group was 32 (range 23 to 36) and this was significantly lower (p = 0.0002) than the median OSS in the pain-free group (all 48). There were two partial thickness tears in both groups and no full thickness tears. There were no significant differences between groups in terms of cellularity, vascularity, proliferation and hypoxia inducible-factor 1α expression. The leucocyte count (% of CD45 positive cells) and macrophage count (% of CD206 positive cells) were increased in the painful group versus pain-free (p = 0.038 and 0.0004 respectively). The expression of metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 (mGluR7) was reduced in the painful group versus pain-free (p = 0.002), while the expression of the Kainate 1 receptor was increase in the painful group (p = 0.003). PGP 9.5 (a nerve marker) and Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) expression were increased in the painful group versus pain-free (p = 0.008 and 0.007 respectively). There were no significant differences in glutamate, the inotropic glutamate receptor (NMDAR1) and the metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR1 and 2) between groups. Discussion This study has shown that specific characteristics of tendon neurohistology are associated with the presence of shoulder pain. This provides strong evidence that the rotator cuff tendon is of key importance in the symptomatology of RCT. The mechanism behind these tendon differences is unclear. These findings are novel and improve our understanding of pain in RCT, and may help provide novel therapeutic targets. References 1 Dean BJ, Franklin SL, et al. A systematic review of the histological and molecular changes in rotator cuff disease. Bone Joint Res. 2012;1(7):158–166 2 Yamaguchi K, D. K. et al. The demographic and morphological features of rotator cuff disease. A comparison of asymptomatic and symptomatic shoulders. JBJS (Am). 2006;88(8):1699–1704


A multi-stage low-noise amplifier (LNA) with LC-tank load to extend the bandwidth is designed for ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless receiver. The design consists of three LC-tank cascode amplifier and one output buffer and is implemented in 0.18um RF CMOS process. The trade off on noise figure and chip area in low-noise amplifier design is discussed. The two LNA (LC and Res) gives 14.5 dB gain; 7.2 GHz and 7.0 GHz 3 dB bandwidth (3.1-10.3 GHz and 3.1- 10.1 GHz) while consuming 22.8 mW and 23.8 mW through a 1.5 V supply. Over the 3.1 GHz - 10.3 GHz and 3.1 GHz- 10.1 GHz frequency band, a minimum noise figure of 2.6 dB and 6.3 dB and input return loss lower than -8.8 dB and - 6.8 dB have been achieved.


USE OF KNOWLEDGE SYNTHESIS AND TRANSLATION METHODOLOGIES AS THE BASIS OF AN EVIDENCE INFORMED EVALUATION OF MYCOBACTERIUM AVIUM SSP. PARATUBERCULOSIS Lisa A. Waddell Advisors: University of Guelph, 2016 Dr. Scott A McEwen Dr. Andrijana Rajić A mixed methods approach was undertaken to develop an evidence-informed evaluation of the public health implications of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis. An assessment of the methodological quality of 132 literature reviews published 2000-2006 on zoonotic public health issues showed a considerable need for improvement. A scoping study on sources and routes of human exposure to M. paratuberculosis summarized 255 publications that reported prevalence or concentration of M. paratuberculosis in various sources of human exposure. Significant risk factors for developing Crohn's disease in humans included consumption of processed meats and cheese, but not direct contact with ruminants, membership in suspected high risk occupations, milk consumption or water source. Systematic review meta-analysis on the zoonotic potential of M. paratuberculosis summarized 128 papers that examined associations with Crohn's disease, human immunodeficiency virus infection, sarcoidosis, diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis and Hashimoto's thyroiditis. There were consistent, significant positive associations with Crohn's disease, diabetes mellitus type 1 and multiple sclerosis. A web-based survey showed that M. paratuberculosis topic specialists considered the agent likely to be a risk to human health (44.8%) and a moderate public health issue (40.1%). Topic specialists largely agreed (68.4%) that further enhancement of on-farm programs is most appropriate and further involvement by government (92%) is unnessecary given the current state of evidence. Finally, a risk profile for M. paratuberculosis was undertaken to summarize the information assembled in preceding chapters relevant to a public health evaluation of M. paratuberculosis. The evidence for the zoonotic potential of this agent is weak, but consistent across published studies, and topic specialists agree that M. paratuberculosis should be considered a moderate public health issue. However, the evidence is not yet sufficient to warrant specific risk management efforts. The existence of critical knowledge gaps and resultant uncertainties helps to explain why researchers interpret the available research differently and sometimes provide conflicting opinions and advice. While many critical knowledge gaps remain, this potential public health issue cannot be ignored and research advances and mitigation activities should continue to be monitored and periodically evaluated to re-affirm the appropriate level of action is being taken.


This article examines the co-creation of narrative self in dementia care and the therapist's expertise in the process. Applying Bakhtin's theory of dialogue as the analytical framework, videotaped data were collected through interviews with an experienced occupational therapist as well as direct observation of his care sessions with two women with Alzheimer's disease in a Japanese nursing home, before they were qualitatively analysed. The result indicated that the therapist created three kinds of voices: the voice of the person's self, the voices of the actual others, and the voices of the imagined others towards the person. The women actively responded to the voices, jointly created possible and positive selves, and were able to achieve therapeutic activities. As a polyphonic author, the therapist intentionally produced the voices for therapeutic engagement thereby giving appropriate meaning to the therapy, building relationships with others, and expressing the persons' hope for the therapy, for others, and for themselves.


The color rendering index (CRI) of a white organic-light emitting device (WOLED) employing standard red + green + blue emitters is typically limited by the deep valley between the red and the green emission peaks. To address this issue without increasing device complexity, we synthesized a yellowish-green iridium emitter, iridium(III) bis(2-phenylpyridine)(2-(benzo[d]oxazol-2-yl)phenol) (Ir(ppy)2bop), for replacing the standard green emitter. By combining emissions from Ir(ppy)2bop with those from a blue fluorescent emitter and a red phosphor, a high performance fluorescent/phosphorescent (F/P) WOLED has been fabricated. The device gives white emission with a maximum efficiency of 55.2 cd A−1 (49.6 lm W−1) and an EQE value of 20% without any light extraction technologies. It is noteworthy that the color rendering index (CRI) of the white OLED reaches up to 89. Considering both the efficiency and the CRI, these results are among the best-reported white OLEDs.


Reports a discovery that has never been reported before on the global performance of Tskagi-Sugeno (TS) type fuzzy logic controller (FLC) with random rule output function parameters. We found that under certain cell resolutions, the chance that the performance of a random controller is comparable with that of a man made controller is very high. A cell state space based TS type FLC automatic parameter optimization algorithm named incremental best estimate directed search (IBEDS) is presented with a detailed analysis of its capability of designing a FLC totally without any expert knowledge. Initially, IBEDS was suggested to start with an initial training set sampled from the control surface of a FLC with poor performance. Then another random FLC is trained in an iterative procedure by a least mean square (LMS) algorithm. In each iteration, the global and local performance of the trained FLC is evaluated, the training set is then updated based on the evaluation. The initial value of the training set may need expert knowledge. However, with the discovery on random FLCs, IBEDS is found to be able to bootstrap with an empty training set, and still reach an optimal solution within a reasonable number of iterations. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is analyzed in detail with 2D and 4D inverted pendulums. It is shown that with IBEDS, a totally blind FLC design without any expert knowledge can be done efficiently.


Cognitive interpreted the intellectual potential consisting of stages of knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. Cognitive means issues involving the ability to develop rational skills (reason). This study aims to determine the improvement of cognitive development of children in recognizing the form after applied method of playing Mobile Robot in kindergarten. This type of research is a classroom action research conducted in two cycles. Population in the sampling amounted to 20 children. Research data on cognitive development in recognizing form and creativity collected by observation method. The data of the research were analyzed by using descriptive statistic analysis method and quantitative descriptive analysis method. The results of data analysis show that there is an increase in cognitive development in recognizing the form and creativity after the application of the method of playing Mobile Robot One way to increase creativity in children in kindergarten is by playing mobile robot therapy. Mobile robot media is an activity to control and regulate the movement of the robot that involves and requires coordination between the eyes, hands, and concentration. It is necessary to approach and use mobile robot in the effectiveness of cognitive improvement in children. Mobile robot as a medium that becomes a play therapy device with mobile robot capability that can move and move from one place to another by following the pattern of lines that have been designed. The main purpose of this research is to design creativity according to the level of complexity of mobile robot use for children. In addition to the use of mobile robot as a medium of play therapy there is also analysis in research using Pre experimental design. Data collection to assess cognitive in children, collected data were analyzed by descriptive analysis and Rank Wilcoxon test.


A capacitively coupled plasma driven at a frequency of 81.36 MHz from the VHF-band is investigated by means of optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and multipole resonance probe (MRP). The discharge is operated with hydrogen, yielding an electropositive discharge, as well as oxygen, yielding an electronegative discharge, and mixtures of both. Pressure is varied from p=5 ?> Pa to p=25 ?> Pa. Homogeneity of the discharge is investigated by CCD camera recordings as well as spatially resolved multipole resonance probe measurements. The results indicate the presence of electromagnetic edge effects as well as standing wave effects. Furthermore, a largely homogeneous discharge can be achieved with hydrogen as process gas at a pressure of p=5 ?>–10 Pa. With increasing pressure as well as with increasing oxygen content, the discharge appears less homogeneously. The transition from an electropositive to an electronegative discharge leads to a change in electron heating mechanisms, with pronounced local maxima of electron density at the sheath edges. A comparison of OES and MRP results reveal a significant difference in electron density, which can be explained by a non-Maxwellian distribution function of electrons.


There is a great deal of interest in whether and how Alaska's precipitation is changing but little agreement in the existing peer‐reviewed literature. To provide insight on this question, we have selected three commonly used 0.5° resolution gridded precipitation products that have long‐term monthly data coverage (Climatic Research Unit TS3.10.1, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre Full Data Reanalysis version 5, and University of Delaware version 2.01) and evaluated their homogeneity and trends with multiple methods over two periods, 1950–2008 and 1980–2008. All three data sets displayed common broadscale features of Alaska's precipitation climatology, but there were substantial differences between them in terms of average precipitation amount and interannual variability. Temporal inhomogeneity was a significant concern over Alaska in gridded precipitation products, as it was in the state's coastal weather stations. Although underlying station inhomogeneities were inherited to some extent by all of the gridded data sets, differences in data set construction contributed to dissimilarities in inhomogeneity, as well. There were contrasts in trends between the two time periods, and some minor discrepancies occurred as a function of the trend detection method, but the main disparities stemmed from choice of data set. Indeed, there were large areas where these data sets disagreed on both the sign and significance of precipitation trends. Until further analysis can resolve these differences, researchers using gridded precipitation data or evaluating studies based on such data should interpret results with extreme caution.


This paper focuses on the development of an online high-precision probabilistic localization approach for the miniature underwater robots equipped with limited computational capacities and low-cost sensing devices. The localization system takes Monte Carlo localization (MCL) as the main framework and utilizes the onboard camera and low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) for information acquisition to provide a decimeter-level precision with 5-Hz refreshing rate in a small space with several artificial landmarks. Specifically, a novel underwater image processing algorithm is introduced to improve the underwater image quality; two key parameters, including a distance factor and an angle factor, are finally calculated to serve as the criteria to MCL. Meanwhile, the accurate orientation and rough odometry of the robot are acquired by onboard IMU. Moreover, a Kalman filter is adopted to filter the key information extracted from the sensors' data processing. In principle, when visual and inertial cues are both obtained, visual information with higher reliability has the priority to be used in the algorithm, which finally results in rapid convergence to the real pose of the robot. A series of relevant experiments are systematically conducted on the robotic fish, which prove that the online localization algorithm herein is highly accurate, robust, and practical for the miniature underwater robots with limited computational resources.


Those accustomed to Charles Bukowski's usual rant will find less of the offensive, misogynistic, bar-brawling alcoholism than usual here; but that doesn't mean it is entirely absent. A novel about the filming of the 1985 film Barfly, which starred Mickey Rourke in the days when he swaggered with a slanted, smart-aleck smile and hadn't yet undergone the transformation to boxing from which he recently returned (for The Wrestler, another fine performance) and Faye Dunaway. Bukowski, as he does in other works of "fiction," barely bothers concealing the inspiration behind his characters. Again he is Henry Chinaski, beaten down by the stupidities of human nature, but never beaten out of the game. The pseudonyms he chooses for others are sometimes merely slight changes of real names and usually the brief description gives the game away; hence we get characterisations of Sean Penn and Madonna, Norman Mailer, Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch and Isobella Rossellini, and Helmut Newton amongst others. But whereas sleaze and shame are constitutional trademarks for Bukowski, you will not find the kind of kiss and tell gossip you might otherwise find when such fiction takes cover under false names. Bukowski simply wants to tell his story the way it is to him, the "bum that made good" as the media of the time made him out to be, or the scratch in the mud at the edge of madness writer who actually lived in Hollywood – the mean streets of East Hollywood, not the manicured sets of more upwardly mobile neighbourhoods, naturally – and wrote about the things he loved and hated, or just could stomach, amidst the foul reservoir of (self)deceit and hypocrisy he saw in the human race in general and in aspirational America in particular.


In this thesis, I discuss how three poets with a connection to Wales, Gwyneth Lewis (born 1959), Pascale Petit (born 1953) and Deryn Rees-Jones (born 1968), develop their poetic practice beyond ordinary notions of home and belonging. Drawing on Wendy Wheeler's New Modernity? Change in Science, Literature and Politics, this project is described as a poetics of 'ecology,' using the broader meaning of the term, which refers not only to the study of plants and animals, but also to institutions and people in relation to their sense of place. I argue that Lewis, Petit and Rees-Jones promote an awareness of ecology or interconnectedness and they achieve this project by going beyond personal or individual concerns in a kind of poetic exile. This poetic exile entails the rejection of a 'whole' and 'bounded' selfhood and the acceptance of otherness or difference in one's own identity means that the boundaries between the self and other disintegrate or blur. I proceed in the general introduction to the thesis to consider the problems of modernity as described by Wheeler and I use her model to identify the melancholy modernity of R.S. Thomas; Dylan Thomas' poetic mourning; and the preoccupation with maternity in Gillian Clarke's poetry. Wheeler suggests that such phases emerge from anxiety about lost teleologies or insecurity of the ontological self, and ecology is the acceptance that human beings are never hermetically sealed, secure units. In the body of the thesis, I explore how Lewis, Petit and Rees-Jones exile themselves from ordinary selfhood to discover ecology with others. The chapter devoted to Le,vis discusses her commitment to decreation, a project that unravels the dominance of the centre over the margin through poems praising angels of the minor, the diminutive and the bathetic. The next chapter considers Petit's exile to Latin America and I argue that by interrogating the strangeness in other cultures, she forces Westem culture to recognise its own strangeness unravelling the clear distinction between 'civilised' and 'barbaric' cultures. Rees-Jones similarly focuses on the strangeness of the human self in her representation of liminal, marginal subjects, such as the clone passing for human. I conclude that the angel, Latin America and the clone are all poetic tropes by which these poets dissolve the oppositional binary of self versus other.


The Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond plays important roles in emerging quantum technologies. Currently available methods to fabricate the NV center often involve complex processes such as N implantation. By contrast, in a diamond-like compound C3BN, creating a boron (B) vacancy immediately leads to an NV center analog. We use the strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) semilocal density functional - this functional leads to nearly the same zero-phonon line (ZPL) energy as the experiment and as obtained from the more time-consuming hybrid density functional calculations - to explore the potential of this NV center analog as a novel spin qubit for applications in quantum information processing. We show that the NV center analog in C3BN possesses many similar properties to the NV center in diamond including a wide band gap, weak spin-orbit coupling, an energetically stable negatively charged state, a highly localized spin density, a paramagnetic triplet ground state, and strong hyperfine interactions, which are the properties that make the NV center in diamond stand out as a suitable quantum bit (qubit). We predict the NV center analog in C3BN to exhibit two ZPL energies that correspond to longer wavelengths close to the ideal telecommunication band for quantum communications. C3BN studied here represents only one example of A3XY (A: group IV element; X/Y: group III/V elements) compounds. We expect many other compounds of this family to have similar NV center analogs with a wide range of ZPL energies and functional properties, promising to be new hosts of qubits for quantum technology applications. Furthermore, A3XY compounds often contain group IV elements such as silicon and germanium, so they are compatible with the sophisticated semiconductor processing techniques. Our work opens up ample opportunities towards scalable qubit host materials and novel quantum devices.


The increasing presence of low intensity uniform magnetic fields in different environments such as factories, industries, hospitals, in transport and electrical devices and medical application has become so important. Therefore, conducting an investigation on the effects of magnetic fields on properties and revenues of human body's different tissues, especially nerve tissue, seems necessary from protection and medical application viewpoint. In this respect, the present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of low intensity uniform magnetic fields on nerve signals' electrical conduction velocity. In this study, 0.5mT magnetic field was exposed on neuromuscular junction of abductor polices brevies muscle and median peripheral motor nerve. The latency and nerve electrical conduction velocity in left wrist of 30 healthy men, before and after exposure to the magnetic field was measured by stimulating and recording device (Cadwell 5200 A). The results indicated that magnetic field causes decrease in nerve signals electrical conduction velocity due to increase of neuromuscular neurotransmitters revenues, latency or increase of muscular fibers signal transmission latency (P<0.05). Increase in latency and decrease of electrical conduction velocity in neuromuscular junction may be due to the Lorants force effect of magnetic field on neuro transmitters (such as acetylcholine) or increasing neuromuscular space distance. Also, the increase of muscle fibers signals transmission latency may be due to Ca 2+ concentration or fibers excitability level changes.


Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy (RMCT) is paving the way for the most innovative and promising medical breakthroughs of the 21st century. Indeed, its curative potential is immense and builds on the already proven benefits of stem cell transplantation. Successful and broad clinical implementation of RMCT, as well as reaping of its full social and economic benefits, is contingent on the resolution of a range of issues. The CellCAN network, a not-for-profit corporation, was created to tackle these challenges, gathering the key forces of the numerous Canadian organizations involved in basic research, assay development, manufacturing, clinical research, clinical trials, legal and ethical regulations, and policies, all working to move RMCT forward. CellCAN creates a national enterprise by bringing together a community of renowned researchers, industries, clinicians, funders and regulators, and aligning it with cell-handling facilities involved in processing cell products and other products for cell therapy clinical trials to ensure capacity and know-how for stem cell research and efficient execution of cell therapy clinical trials. CellCAN is uniquely positioned to accelerate the implementation of RMCT in Canada and disseminate novel developments and findings, thus significantly contributing to the world's knowledge in cellular therapeutics. As such, the CellCAN model could also serve as a useful benchmark to accelerate RMCT implementation in other countries.


To study the influence of PINFORMED1 (PIN1)-mediated auxin transport during embryogenesis and endosperm development in monocots, the expression pattern of the three identified ZmPIN1 genes was determined at the transcript level. Localization of the corresponding proteins was also analyzed during maize (Zea mays) kernel development. An anti-indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) monoclonal antibody was used to visualize IAA distribution and correlate the direction of auxin active transport, mediated by ZmPIN1 proteins, with the actual amount of auxin present in maize kernels at different developmental stages. ZmPIN1 genes are expressed in the endosperm soon after double fertilization occurs; however, unlike other tissues, the ZmPIN1 proteins were never polarly localized in the plasma membrane of endosperm cells. ZmPIN1 transcripts and proteins also colocalize in developing embryos, and the ZmPIN1 proteins are polarly localized in the embryo cell plasma membrane from the first developmental stages, indicating the existence of ZmPIN1-mediated auxin fluxes. Auxin distribution visualization indicates that the aleurone, the basal endosperm transfer layer, and the embryo-surrounding region accumulate free auxin, which also has a maximum in the kernel maternal chalaza. During embryogenesis, polar auxin transport always correlates with the differentiation of embryo tissues and the definition of the embryo organs. On the basis of these reports and of the observations on tissue differentiation and IAA distribution in defective endosperm-B18 mutant and in N-1-naphthylphthalamic acid-treated kernels, a model for ZmPIN1-mediated transport of auxin and the related auxin fluxes during maize kernel development is proposed. Common features between this model and the model previously proposed for Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) are discussed.


Within the realm of drug discovery, high-throughput experimentation techniques enable the rapid optimization of reactions and expedited generation of drug compound libraries for biological and pharmacokinetic evaluation.  Herein we report the development of a segmented flow mass spectrometry-based platform to enable the rapid exploration of photoredox reactions for early-stage drug discovery.  Specifically, microwell plate-based photochemical reaction screens were reformatted to segmented flow format to enable delivery to nanoelectrospray ionization-mass spectrometry analysis. This approach was demonstrated for the late-stage modification of complex drug scaffolds, as well as the subsequent structure-activity relationship evaluation of synthesized analogs. This technology is anticipated to expand the robust capabilities of photoredox catalysis in drug discovery by enabling high-throughput library diversification.


PURPOSE Multiple myeloma (MM) is a genetically heterogeneous malignancy characterized by variable treatment responses. Although numerous drugs have been approved in recent years, the ability to predict treatment response and tailor individual therapy is limited by the absence of robust predictive biomarkers. The goal of this clinical trial was to use ex vivo, high-throughput screening (HTS) of 170 compounds to predict response among patients with relapsed or refractory MM and inform the next treatment decisions. Additionally, we integrated HTS with multi-omic analysis to uncover novel associations between in vitro drug sensitivity and gene expression and mutation profiles. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-five patients with relapsed or refractory MM underwent a screening bone marrow or soft tissue biopsy. Sixteen patients were found to have sufficient plasma cells for HTS. Targeted next-generation sequencing was performed on plasma cell-free DNA from all patients who underwent HTS. RNA and whole-exome sequencing of bone marrow plasma cells were performed on eight and seven patients, respectively. RESULTS Results of HTS testing were made available to treating physicians within a median of 5 days from the biopsy. An actionable treatment result was identified in all 16 patients examined. Among the 13 patients who received assay-guided therapy, 92% achieved stable disease or better. The expression of 105 genes and mutations in 12 genes correlated with in vitro cytotoxicity. CONCLUSION In patients with relapsed or refractory MM, we demonstrate the feasibility of ex vivo drug sensitivity testing on isolated plasma cells from patient bone marrow biopsies or extramedullary plasmacytomas to inform the next line of therapy.


EVOLUTION
Nematode worms are an abundant and diverse group of organisms that inhabit a wide range of ecosystems, and Caenorhabditis elegans is used widely as model system. Nevertheless, the evolutionary relationships of nematodes to other animal groups have remained controversial. Earlier analyses based on morphology and developmental patterns placed nematodes at a distance from animal groups with true body cavities (coeloms), but more recent analyses of ribosomal gene sequences instead implied closer links to arthropods—a coelomate group—and led to the proposal of a superphylum of molting animals or Ecdysozoa. Blair et al. compared sequences of more than 100 nuclear proteins, and their analyses support the traditional model of nematode phylogenetic relationships, placing arthropods closer to vertebrates than to nematodes, and nematodes distant from both. — AMS

BMC Evol. Biol. 2 , 7 (2002).


The utilization of individual regions and the possibility of a differentiated use of settlements depend, on the one hand, to a great extent on their accessibility. On the other hand, the settlement-specific characters of a given society and economy condition the transport and communication system. The present study concentrate on the first aspect of the above mentioned interaction. First we seek answers to questions concerning the role of different transportation—communication technologies (together with other infrastructural conditions) in the historical transformation of the internal structures of cities and towns. Then we outline the new possibilities provided by new information—communication technique in the conscious restructuring of urban space, creating the 'information city'. The extensive use of telematic opens up a new age in the transformation of urban structure, namely: worlcing places move into homes. In the information society the historically established spatial relations of working and dwelling places change strikingly. Qualitative demands for homes and dwelling environment become stronger, and at the same time city centres partly have loose their central—administrative functions. Residential districts obtain a mixed function. They are working and dwelling place at the same time. In the establishment of new working places the role of physical distance and accessibility has been declining. At the same time other factors like amenities of dwelling environment and conditions of leisure activities play more and more important role. Suburbanisation process is accelerating and city functions are restructuring. Service and cultural functions of cities are becoming decisive. In the most developed countries the information sector is viewed as conscious means of settlement development. New information technologies can play important role in restructuring declining regions, through establishing 'communication cities' or telematic ports (Kawasaki, Osaka , Yokohama and London's dockyards). The revival of towns in peripheric, underdeveloped regions can be achieved be means of new information technologies which connect them to world-scale information networks.


Phylogeographic analyses based on the sole use of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecule reveal only a small part of the evolutionary history of a species or a set of related species. In this study, we have combined the application of slow‐ and fast‐evolving nuclear markers (proteins and microsatellites, respectively) together with the analysis of two‐gene genealogies to further understand the history of the Iberian endemic Schreiber's green lizard, Lacerta schreiberi, a species for which a well established phylogeographical scenario is available. In sharp contrast with the observation of four divergent and almost allopatric mtDNA clades, our nuclear data revealed how two groups of populations diverged, persisted and began to admix along the mountains of the Iberian Central System. In addition, the combination of mtDNA and nuclear data showed how the core area of the species distribution responded to ice ages, first by relatively old processes of population expansion to the south followed by episodes of contraction that are at the origin of present‐day isolates, and more recently by a postglacial expansion to the Iberian Northwest where new habitats were made available after climatic amelioration. Taken together with recently published results for a variety of other organisms, our results suggest that complex processes of fragmentation, expansion and admixture can only be properly addressed through the use of several and complementary types of molecular markers. Finally, we also suggest that southern European refugia are both hotspots and melting pots of genetic diversity.


The common failures in the electronic devices e.g. Metal Oxide
Semiconductor(MOS), and T type Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (TMOS) are due to
Electrostatic Discharge(ESD) and Electrical Overseers(EOS). A review is carried out giving an account of various types of failures and failure analysis
philosophies. investigation. methodology developed here, Seremban, between Gate to Source(BVGSS) Stress Test, Parametric Abnormality Test (PA T) to induce failure. It h as been observed that the 2N7002LTl lMOS device does not fail within 45 volts of positively as well as
negatively biased voltage condition when applied to the gate and source of the device,
during BVGSS Stress Test. On the other hand the Voltage Susceptibility Test has
given a limiting voltage of 110 volts, for the device to fail. The failure of the devices
have been studied using the failure analysis philosophy developed here and it is
observed that the failure is due to thinning of the gate oxide layer. The detailed
scanning electron microscope (SEM) study has been carried out to comment on the
additional mechanics of failure. The amount thinning of the gate oxide layer in the
various regions of the device has been found to be in the range of 800 to 950
Angstroms.


Organic solar cells (OSCs) based on a small molecule donor (SD) and a polymer acceptor (PA) exhibit low power conversion efficiency (PCE) due to the limited number of small molecule donor–polymer acceptor combinations. In this work, we employ a polymer acceptor based on the double B ← N bridged bipyridyl (BNBP) unit to develop SD/PA-type OSCs. With poly[(N,N′-bis(2-hexyldecyl)-diamine-bis(difluoro-borane)-2,2-bipyridine)-alt-(2,5-thiophene)] (P-BNBP-T) as the acceptor and 7,7′-(4,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-silolo[3,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl)bis(6-fluoro-4-(5′-hexyl-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole) (p-DTS(FBTTh2)2) as the donor, the OSC device shows a high open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.08 V and a PCE of 3.50%. The VOC is ca. 0.3 V greater than that of other OSCs based on p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 due to the larger offset between the HOMO energy level of p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 and the higher-lying LUMO energy level of P-BNBP-T. The PCE of p-DTS(FBTTh2)2/P-BNBP-T is higher than that of any other OSCs based on the p-DTS(FBTTh2)2/polymer acceptor blend reported so far. These results indicate that the BNBP-based polymer acceptors are promising for high-performance SD/PA-type OSCs. While the as-cast p-DTS(FBTTh2)2/P-BNBP-T blend film exhibits low molecular packing order and large-size phase separation, processing with solvent additive 1,8-diiodoctane (DIO) leads to continuous networks with small crystalline grains of p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 in the blend film. The resulting OSC device exhibits the best photovoltaic performance because of the improved exciton dissociation efficiency and charge transport ability.


This paper analyzes a model of economy–environment coevolution in which economic activities induce the genetic evolution of a biological species. This model is applied to the problem of pesticide resistance management. Just as in Munro ( Environ Resour Econ , 9:429–449, 1997), we consider three main types of interactions: (1) a large pest population reduces economic revenues, (2) economic activities select for resistant genes and (3) the spread of resistant genes affects the size of the pest population. The model differs from Munro in that it includes evolutionary modeling of economic strategies. Economic agents are assumed to be boundedly rational, i.e they cannot compute the optimal level of pesticide use that minimizes resistance among pests. Economic evolution represents the change in the distribution of pesticide strategies in the population of economic agents and is modeled by a replicator dynamics equation. The interactions between economic evolution of pesticide strategies, pest population dynamics and genetic evolution of resistance of pests are studied in a system of three differential equations. We explore the dynamics and stability properties of the system using numerical simulations.


This paper provides a socio-historical analysis of conflict between Fulbe
pastoralists and farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The discussion examines various structural factors that have fostered conditions conducive to conflict generation and intensification, including international development projects, demographic changes, and environmental degradation. Our analysis highlights changes in production systems and land tenure regimes
as central to the aggravation of farmer-herder goal incompatibility and intercommunal strife. Many of these changes are the deliberate results of interventions and legislation that were based on Western models and intended to increase production outputs and market integration. Effective conflict mitigation will require the abandonment of top-down, directive
policymaking in favour of a more supportive engagement that strives to draw on and build up local resources and capacities. African Journal on Conflict Resolution Vol. 8 (1) 2008: pp. 77-104


Cloud Computing is the fundamental change happening in the field of Information Technology. It is a representation of a movement towards the intensive, large scale specialization. On the other hand, it brings about not only convenience and efficiency problems, but also great challenges in the field of data security and privacy protection. Currently, security has been regarded as one of the greatest problems in the development of Cloud Computing. This paper describes the great requirements in Cloud Computing, security key technology, standard and regulation etc., and provides a Cloud Computing security framework. This paper argues that the changes in the above aspects will result in a technical revolution in the field of information security.


COVID-19 emerged as a worldwide pandemic early in 2020, and at this writing has caused over 170 million cases and 3.7 million deaths worldwide, and almost 600,000 deaths in the United States. The rapid development of several safe and highly efficacious vaccines stands as one of the most extraordinary achievements in modern medicine, but the identification and administration of efficacious therapeutics to treat patients suffering from COVID-19 has been far less successful. A major factor limiting progress in the development of effective treatments has been a lack of suitable preclinical models for the disease, currently reliant upon various animal models and in vitro culture of immortalized cell lines. Here we report the first successful demonstration of SARS-CoV-2 infection and viral replication in a human primary cell-based organ-on-chip, leveraging a recently developed tissue culture platform known as PREDICT96. This successful demonstration of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human primary airway epithelial cells derived from a living donor represents a powerful new pathway for disease modeling and an avenue for screening therapeutic candidates in a high throughput platform.


A large lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) has been observed in a Cu2O/Si heterojunction structure when its surface is illuminated by a laser. Moreover, with external bias voltage, the maximal LPE sensitivity can reach up to 1114 mV/mm, which is almost 10 times larger compared with its initial non-biased value of 113 mV/mm. We ascribe this phenomenon mainly to the effect of the increased photo-generated holes caused by the bias. Giant output voltage and high sensitivity suggest the potential of Cu2O nano-films could be used in a wide variety of applications for position-sensitive photodetectors.


This study provides a conceptual framework how organizations may adopt evidence-based interventions at scale, and how institutions may evaluate the costs and benefits of such interventions. Building on a new conceptual model developed by the Open University UK (OU), we will analyse three case-studies of evidence-based interventions. By working with 90+ large-scale modules for a period of two years across the five faculties and disciplines within the OU, Analytics4Action provides a bottom-up-approach for working together with key stakeholders within their respective contexts. Using principles of embedded case-study approaches by Yin [1], by comparing the learning behavior, satisfaction and performance of 11079 learners the findings indicated that each of the three learning designs led to satisfied students and average to good student retention. In the second part we highlighted that the three module teams made in-presentation interventions based upon real-time analytics, whereby initial user data indicated VLE behaviour in line with expectations. In 2-5 years, we hope that a rich, robust evidence-base will be presented to show how learning analytics can help teachers to make informed, timely and successful interventions that will help learners to achieve their learning outcomes.


The purpose of this study is to analyze the state-of-the-art daylighting design among LEED(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) multi-family housing cases and to explore the feasibilities for their applications in domestic housing design. Occupants in multi-family houses are reported to consume more electricity power than those in single houses. That may imply the problems of daylighting design in domestic housing design for multi-family houses have better insulation system and less windows and outside walls than single houses. Therefore two systems, daylight delivery system and daylight control system, are scrutinized for daylighting design with LEED cases. The findings show when windows as a daylight delivery system are combined with overhangs, fins, louvers, fenestration materials, speciality fenestration, or interior controls as a daylight control system, the outcome goes with more energy savings and better facade design. Beside those, lightshelves as a daylight delivery system seem to have potentials in domestic multi-family houses with deep plans and less outside walls. Daylighting designs in domestic multi-family houses need to pursue available options more to achieve the integration of energy and aesthetics values.


Abstract We combine field, petrological, geochemical and experimental observations to evaluate the timescales of compaction-driven and shear-assisted melt extraction and ascent in the Himalaya. The results show that melt migration via compaction and channelling is inescapable and operates on timescales of less than 1 million years and possibly as short as 0.1 million years. Field and petrological data show that such a fast and efficient melt transfer results from a combination of favourable factors, including: (1) low but constant melt viscosity (104.5 Pa s) during extraction and ascent; (2) grain size coarsening of the source rocks in response to prolonged heating prior to melting; and (3) high source fertility and thus high melt fraction, owing to elevated modal amounts of muscovite in leucogranite sources. All three factors dramatically increase source permeability. Calculations show that shear-assisted melt extraction had a time interval recurrence in the range 10 000–100 000 years (10–100 ka), leading to sill thicknesses of 1–30 m. Yet melts falling at the low end of the viscosity range when coupled to high shear velocities may lead to veins several hundred metres thick. The deepest structural levels (e.g. central Zanskar Range) show that in-situ melts formed where pure shear compaction was greatest and where simple shear was also operative. Magma extracted from migmatite leucosomes was injected along planes of weakness parallel to the ductile shear fabric, probably by some form of hydraulic fracturing crack propagation mechanism. Large High Himalayan leucogranite (HHL) bodies (e.g. c. 5 km thick sills at Manaslu, Makalu and northern Bhutan) may thus represent inflated laccoliths assembled via dykes that tapped a 100–300 m melt layer produced by compaction of the Greater Himalayan Series (GHS). Thermal simulations show that such melt layers may have incubation times of several million years. Although transport time for magmas associated with the HHL is short, the time for assembly may take several million years for the largest HHL, as geochronological data indicate (up to 5 million years for Manaslu, Shisha Pangma). Transport of leucogranite melt from mid-crustal levels towards the surface was concomitant with active low-angle normal faulting along the South Tibetan Detachment (STD) normal fault, a structure that effectively formed the lid to the extrusion of a partially molten layer of mid-crustal rocks (channel flow). Rapid cooling of the granites emplaced at the top of the GHS implies rapid extrusion and lateral flow of GHS rocks beneath the STD during the period c. 20–17 Ma. Weakening of the crust by partial melting is thus likely to be pulsatory in time, and future thermomechanical models should incorporate such aspects to model tectonic evolution of hot orogens.


The objective of this article is to provide an in‐depth study of France's performance in the new international wine market that began to take shape from the middle of the nineteenth century. We analyse the main determinants of its success in exporting ordinary and high‐quality wine using a gravity model for both types of wine. The article shows how France lost foreign markets in the ordinary wine sector, due to difficulties in maintaining its exports, which resulted from the decrease in production caused by the phylloxera plague and increasing competition from growing numbers of producers who were more efficient at producing these types of wines. However, in the high‐quality wine market, French exporters enjoyed considerable success, increasing their exports thanks to their efforts to offer a product that was highly valued abroad and the use of modern marketing and sales techniques. The exports benefited from the fall in transport costs and French colonial expansion. However, exports of both products were severely affected by a series of major events, including the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Prohibition in the US, and the Great Depression. This case study of the wine market shows that the collapse of the first globalization was not the same for all products.


Ultrasonographic evaluation, as a routine component of antenatal care, has significantly contributed to in utero assessment of pregnancy status. The detection of fetal abnormalities by ultrasound, however, has raised clinical questions and created parental dilemmas concerning the outcomes of such pregnancies. A relatively frequent anomaly observed on routine ultrasonographic examination is the posterior nuchal cystic hygroma. Most cases of cystic hygromas are associated with chromosomal abnormalities. Only 2 to 3% survival rate is reported when fetal cystic hygromas are diagnosed in utero. This information should be helpful when counseling patients whose pregnancies involve fetuses with this anomaly. We report a case of nuchal cystic hygroma diagnosed in the second trimester of pregnancy with the aid of an ultrasonographic morphological analysis. Parents requested termination of pregnancy.


were examined, mostly at the age of 41 to 8~ years, in an attempt to explore the present and the likely future needs of all the thalidomide-damaged children in Scotland. Not all were authentic 'thalidomide' cases, and this report illustrates once again how the performance and needs of such children are determined by the anatomy of and reactions to their defects, rather than by their ultimate cause. This thoughtful report's applications are much wider than its title. The findings are encouraging on the whole and the authors suggest that too many, rather than too few, children may be in special schools for the physically handicapped (nearly a quarter of the total). They stress the frequency of multiple defects, and the need for assessment covering many areas-physical, intellectual, emotional, educational and social-in every case. Their own assessment is weakest in the first and last of those areas, but quite full in the remainder. G. A. NELIGAN


The piezoelectric thickness-shear-mode (TSM) acoustic wave sensing device was fabricated by coating with a calixarene derivative on the surface of gold electrode of quartz crystal, then connecting with a transistor-transistor-logic (TTL) oscillator, a frequency counter and a computer. Among four coating materials, the compound of calixarene I was the most efficient active material for adsorption of carbinol molecule based on a host-guest recognition mechanism. In comparison with gas chromatography (GC) method, the calixarene based TSM device can be used for on-line determination of the poisonous carbinol vapor in the range of 0 ~ 3000 ppm around our living environment with good selectivity, reproducibility and high stability. The detection limit can be evaluated to be 1.41 ppm.


Stress and fatigue caused by work require daily recovery periods to offset future deleterious consequences to mental and physical health. The aim, therefore, of the current study was to gain insight into recovery processes during a normal week. The main hypotheses were that more time spent on work and work-related activities will have a negative impact on recovery, while more time spent on specific leisure activities would have a beneficial impact on recovery. Using diaries, 46 respondents (average age of 35) provided daily measures of fatigue, sleep, and time spent on recovery activities over 7 days. Recovery activities included time spent on activities that were social, physical, and work-related. Results indicated that whilst low effort and social activities are nonbeneficial to recovery, physical activities significantly predict recovery (i.e., the former increase fatigue whilst the latter decrease fatigue). Sleep quality also emerges as a significant predictor of recovery. The weekend respite appears important to recovery; however, the effect seems already to wane on Sunday evening in anticipation of the Monday workload. The article provides insights into leisure activities and the experience of fatigue.


A Hydrographic section was occupied at a nominal latitude of 24.5°N in the Atlantic Ocean during January - February 2010 on Cruise 346 of RRS Discovery. The primary objective of this cruise was to measure ocean physical, chemical and biological parameters in order to establish regional budgets of heat, freshwater and carbon, and to infer decadal variability.

A total of 135 CTD/LADCP stations were sampled, with two additional bottle blank stations. In addition to temperature, salinity and oxygen profiles from the sensors on the CTD package, water samples from a 24 x 20 litre rosette were analysed for salinity, dissolved oxygen and inorganic nutrients at each station. Water samples were collected from strategically selected stations and analysed onboard ship for SF6, CFCs, DIC, alkalinity, and filtering. In addition, samples were collected from the ships'underway system to calibrate and compliment the data continually collected by the TSG (thermosalinograph). Full depth velocity measurements were made at every station by LADCP (Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) mounted on the frame of the rosette. Throughout the cruise, velocity data in the upper few hundred metres of the water column were collected by the ship's VMADCP (Vessel Mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) transducers (75Hz and 150Hz) mounted on the hull. Meteorological variables were monitored using the onboard surface water and meteorological sampling system (SURFMET). Bathymetric data was collected using the EA600 echo sounder, which is attached to the hull. However, whilst steaming it was found that switching over to the fish instrument produced a cleaner dataset.

This report describes the methods used to acquire and process the data on board the ship during cruise D346.


Sandstone injectites ranging from 1 km in outcrop length intrude the Cretaceous Mowry Formation in the vicinity of Sheep Mountain anticline (Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA). These injectites were sourced from the Peay Sandstone Member of the overlying Cretaceous Frontier Formation and represent a significant possible fluid pathway through impermeable shales. Sand injection occurred along dikes and sills, interacting with bedding discontinuities and preexisting joints in the Mowry Formation during the early folding of Sheep Mountain anticline. We argue that, in contrast to the passive sweeping of sediments into fissures characteristic of Neptunian dike formation, downward intrusion of the Peay sand was forceful and made possible by a highly stratified horizontal stress field resulting from the deposition, burial, and lithification history of the rock units in the area. The internal structure of the injectites is dominated by two sets of mutually offsetting deformation bands. The deformation bands have shear and compaction components, exhibiting significant porosity loss, as well as cataclasis and minor pressure solution. After formation of the deformation bands, subsequent faulting was localized along the margins of deformation bands, evidenced in the field by slickensided surfaces. A detailed kinematic analysis of slickenline lineations yields shortening and extension axes consistent with deformation band formation during early Laramide–oriented shortening, and continuing through the folding of Sheep Mountain anticline. Beyond the formation and deformation of these sandstone injectites, this study highlights the importance of mechanical stratigraphy in the containment of hydraulic fractures.


Freshly harvested heads of 'cruiser' or 'Paragon' broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. Italica group) were heated by immersing in water at 42,45,48,50, or 52C. Immersion times were decreased as treatment temperatures were increased and ranged from 20 to 40 minutes at 42C to 1 to 3 minutes at 52C. Control heads, dipped in 25C water for 0, 10, or 40 minutes, began to turn yellow after 3 days storage at 20C and 80% to 90% relative humidity. Immersion in 42C water delayed yellowing by 1 or 2 days ; immersion in 45,48, 50, or 52C prevented yellowing for ≤7 days. Water loss of broccoli during storage at 20C increased by ≤1% per day by some hot-water treatments. Immersion in hot water decreased the incidence of decay during storage at 20C. Immersion in 50 or 52C water for 2 minutes was most effective in controlling decay development. Broccoli immersed in 52C water for 3 minutes had a distinct off-odor. Control and treated broccoli held at 0C for 8 days following hot-water dips were similar in quality. Yellowing of heat-treated broccoli was inhibited when broccoli was warmed to 20C following storage at OC. Hot-water treatments also delayed senescence at 20C when broccoli was treated following 3 weeks of storage at 0C. Immersion of broccoli in 50C water for 2 minutes was the most effective treatment for reducing yellowing and decay while not inducing off-odors or accelerating weight loss.


The null geodesic equations in the Alcubierre warp drive space-time are numerically integrated to determine light propagation and angular deflection of photons originating from infinity that collide with the warp drive distortion. We find that for a distant observer in a co-moving reference frame alongside the warp drive distortion, light rays colliding with the warp drive would have resulting angular deflections that changes for different values of the impact parameter and warp velocity. Meanwhile, images that propagate through the warp drive distortion would experience gravitational lensing that would invert a radial area of the image from the center outward as seen by an observer following the said warp drive. This lensing effect is caused by the negative energy density matter that supports the warp drive space-time.


Participation of the Army in the Revindication-Polonisation Campaign Conducted in the Eastern and Southern Counties of the Voivodeship of Lublin in 1937–1939 The revindication-Polonisation campaign carried out in the regions of Chelm and Southern Podlasie was a fragment of the national policy pursued by the Polish state while dealing with the Ukrainian national minority in the second half of the 1930s. An essential part of the programme's construction and implementation was played by the armed forces. The fundamental target of the policy in question involved improving the security of the Polish state in the conditions of a growing external threat and the rise of irredentist attitudes among the Ukrainians. Foremost undertakings included the marginalisation or total elimination of problems produced by the political activity of the Ukrainian minority in the eastern and southern counties of the voivodeship of Lublin. According to the premises formulated by the Army the line of the river Bug was to delineate the western boundary of the impact of the Ukrainian minority in Poland, which, as a consequence, denoted the need to Polonise the above-mentioned counties, mixed both as regards creed and nationality. The ensuing operations aimed at radically restricting the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the titular region by assuming a priori that it propagated Ukrainian national tendencies. The campaign conducted by the administrative authorities and the 2nd Corps District Command consisted of liquidating Russian Orthodox parishes unrecognised by the Polish authorities together with all associated sacral objects, ensuring the Polish population and converts to Roman Catholicism a privileged position in economic and social domains, and expanding Polish cultural institutions. The revindication-conversion campaign intent on a total Polonisation of this part of the region of Lublin ultimately yielded reverse effects and confirmed a conviction about links with other Ukrainian lands. The Ukrainian minority now collectively awaited an outbreak of a war that would put an end to the existence of the abhorred Polish state.


Background and Aims: Associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy may increase the possibility of radical resection in the case of liver malignancy. Concerns have been raised about the high morbidity and mortality associated with the procedure, particularly when applied for diagnoses other than colorectal liver metastases. The aim of this study was to analyze the initial experience with associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy in cases of non-colorectal liver metastases and primary hepatobiliary malignancies in Scandinavia. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of all associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy procedures performed at two Swedish university hospitals for non-colorectal liver metastases and primary hepatobiliary malignancies was performed. The primary focus was on the safety of the procedure. Results and Conclusion: Ten patients were included: four had hepatocellular cancer, three had intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, one had a Klatskin tumor, one had ocular melanoma metastasis, and one had a metastasis from a Wilms' tumor. All patients completed both operations, and the highest grade of complication (according to the Clavien-Dindo classification) was 3A, which was observed in one patient. No 90-day mortality was observed. Radical resection (R0) was achieved in nine patients, while the resection was R2 in one patient. The low morbidity and mortality observed in this cohort compared with those of earlier reports on associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy for diagnoses other than colorectal liver metastases may be related to the selection of patients with limited comorbidity. In addition, procedures other than associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy had been avoided in most of the patients. In conclusion, associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy can be applied to primary hepatobiliary malignancies and non-colorectal liver metastases with acceptable rates of morbidity and mortality.


The dissertation contains three research papers which examined the following issues in breast cancer survivors (a) the primary methodological issue among the studies addressing the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM),which has been to establish criteria for a meaningful definition of a CAM user, (b) the impact on breast cancer prognosis for those women who used CAM therapies as an alternative to undergoing conventional systemic treatments, which have been recommended to them and (c) the use of dietary supplements, which is the most commonly used form of CAM and potentially the most likely to interfere with cancer treatment. All three papers were secondary data analyses, using the dataset from the WHEL study, which assessed 3088 women at study enrollment. During the follow-up period, 2562 WHEL study participants completed a structured telephone interview that measured CAM use, including the modality, the purpose for the use, and the frequency. The CAM and dietary supplement use data were the focus of these research papers. The study findings have shown that (a) there are important distinctions to be made among the different classes of CAM users, (b) complementary and alternative therapies should not be used in place of standard treatment for breast cancer patients and (c) dietary supplements may improve overall micronutrient intakes but were not associated with all-cause mortality among this cohort of breast cancer survivors


Abstract In these regenerative times prompted by the Anthropocene, Aboriginal voices are situated to draw on ancient wisdom for local learning and to share information across the globe as ecological imperative for planetary wellbeing. In this paper, postqualitative research foregrounds the sentient nature of life as ancestral power and brings the vitality of co-becoming as our places into active engagement. It enables coloniality to surface and reveals how it sits in our places and lives, in plain sight but unnoticed because of its so-called common sense. Postqualitative research relates with ancient knowledges in foregrounding Country's animacy and presence, revealing the essence of time as non-linear, cyclical and perpetual. In this way, we are places, weather and climate, not separate. Postqualitative research also relates with ancient knowledge in illustrating Country as agentic and time as multiple, free of constraint and directly involved in our everyday. Country is active witness in the lives of Aboriginal peoples, here always. This is a strong basis for decolonisation. We all have a responsibility to listen, to help create a new direction for the future in the present time.


The diet of nestling Straw—necked Ibis near Capel, Western Australia was determined by examining the gizzard contents of 18 moribund birds aged approximately four to seven weeks old which were collected at the nest. We identified a total of 1240 invertebrate prey recovered from 19 prey taxa1 The number of prey in each taxon, the volume of stomach contents they represented and the proportion of birds feeding on each taxon were recorded and used to calculate an Index of Relative Importance for each prey taxon. The top five ranking prey for nestlings 4—5 weeks old were lepidopteran larvae, two species of scafab beetles, a carabid beetle and an unknown terrestrial crustacean. Nestlings 5—6 weeks old ranked a scarab beetle highest, followed by a carabid beetle, unidentified pupae1 another scarab beetle and an unidentified beetle. Nestlings 6—7 weeks old ranked lepidopteran Larvae highest, followed by snails, two species of scarab beetle and a carabid beetle. Overall the nestling diet was similar to that reported for adult Straw-necked Ibis in other studies. There was no evidence that the nestlings had died because of poor nutrition.


Recently, very deep networks, with as many as hundreds of layers, have shown great success in image classification tasks. One key component that has enabled such deep models is the use of "skip connections", including either residual or highway connections, to alleviate the vanishing and exploding gradient problems. While these connections have been explored for speech, they have mainly been explored for feed-forward networks. Since recurrent structures, such as LSTMs, have produced state-of-the-art results on many of our Voice Search tasks, the goal of this work is to thoroughly investigate different approaches to adding depth to recurrent structures. Specifically, we experiment with novel Highway-LSTM models with bottlenecks skip connections and show that a 10 layer model can outperform a state-of-the-art 5 layer LSTM model with the same number of parameters by 2% relative WER. In addition, we experiment with Recurrent Highway layers and find these to be on par with Highway-LSTM models, when given sufficient depth.


A guide to finding economic, political and social information about countries. Includes resources for country profiles, articles about countries, sources of economic data and country rankings.


In the drive towards a sustainable bio-economy, a growing interest in the development of composite materials using renewable raw material resources such as flax fibre reinforced polylactic acid (PLA), known as a flax-tape composite (FTC), has been observed. Flax/PLA is one of the cornerstones for the sustainable economic growth of natural fibre composites, while the use of hydrocarbon fossil resources and synthetic fibres such as glass and carbon have caused severe environmental impacts along their entire life cycles. In this study, the manufacturing process for the production of flax tape and triaxial glass fibre were evaluated through life cycle assessment (LCA) gate-to-gate, based on an input-output model, to estimate the energy demand and environmental impacts. The quality of the natural hybrid composite produced and cost-effectiveness of their LCA were dependent on their roving processing speeds; temperature applied to the flax tape and triaxial glass fabrics during processing. This was optimised to be 4 m/min at a temperature of 170 oC. In contrast, normal triaxial glass fibre production took a slower speed of 1 m/min using a roving glass fibre laminating machine. The results showed that when the flax and PLA were commingled to produce a new composite material in the form of a flax tape, the energy consumption was 0.25 MJ/kg, lower than 0.8 MJ/kg of glass fibre fabric composites. Flax tape and glass fibre fabric composites have a carbon footprint equivalent to 0.036 kg CO2 and 0.11kg CO2, respectively, under the same manufacturing conditions. These are within the technical requirements in the composites industry. The manufacturing process adopted to transform flax/PLA into a similar tape composite was considerably quicker than that of woven glass fibre composite tape. Importantly, this work explored a relationship between the blending process and energy consumption of the flax tape composite in comparison to glass fibre composite, using a standard LCA analytical methodology. The outcomes support an alternative option for replacement of some conventional composite materials and technique for the automotive industry.


Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam's Minor Compendium may be the earliest known handbook of Islamic law. Remarkably compact and comprehensive, it challenges depictions of the pre-classical period as a time of unsystematic legal scholarship, consisting of only "organic" texts and student notebooks. In this article, I argue for an early date for this text, based on analysis of the manuscript witnesses. I then compare the Minor Compendium with several contemporary texts to highlight its unique characteristics; in the process I discover, and seek to explain, several discrepancies in the descriptions of this text that are found in the biographical dictionaries. In my reading, the Minor Compendium is part of a nascent Mālikī tradition and demonstrates a close affinity to Mālik's Muwatta' . Yet it is also a highly creative and independent work, and its method of making legal arguments is quite different than that found in the Muwatta' and other early legal texts.


This paper is to introduce an article published in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2003. In this research, a fracture mechanics model is developed to illustrate the importance of time-dependence for brittle fractured rock. In particular a model is developed for the time-dependent degradation of rock joint cohesion. Degradation of joint cohesion is modeled as the time-dependent breaking of intact patches or rock bridges along the joint surface. A fracture mechanics model is developed utilizing subcritical crack growth, which results in a closed-form solution for joint cohesion as a function of time. As an example, a rock block containing rock bridges subjected to plane sliding is analyzed. The cohesion is found to continually decrease, at first slowly and then more rapidly. At a particular value of time the cohesion reduces to value that results in slope instability. A second example is given where variations in some of the material parameters are assumed. A probabilistic slope analysis is conducted, and the probability of failure as a function of time is predicted. The probability of failure is found to increase with time, from an initial value of 5% to a value at 100 years of over 40%. These examples show the importance of being able to predict the time-dependent behavior of a rock mass containing discontinuities, even for relatively short -term rock structures.


BACKGROUND
Studies in vitro showed that eucalyptus extracts possess antibacterial activity against cariogenic and periodontopathic bacteria; however, the clinical effects with respect to periodontal health in humans remain unproven. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of chewing gum containing eucalyptus extract on periodontal health in a double-masked, randomized, controlled trial.

METHODS
Healthy humans with gingivitis but not deep periodontal pockets were randomly assigned to the following groups: high-concentration group (n=32): use of 0.6% eucalyptus extract chewing gum for 12 weeks (90 mg/day); low-concentration group (n=32): use of 0.4% eucalyptus extract chewing gum for 12 weeks (60 mg/day); and placebo group (n=33): use of chewing gum without eucalyptus extract for 12 weeks. Plaque accumulation (PLA), gingival index (GI), bleeding on probing (BOP), periodontal probing depth (PD), and clinical attachment level (CAL) were measured at weeks 0, 4, 8, 12, and 14. Significance was analyzed with repeated-measures two-way analysis of variance followed by the Games-Howell pairwise comparison test.

RESULTS
The interaction between the effects of eucalyptus extract chewing gum and the intake period was statistically significant for PLA, GI, BOP, and PD but not for CAL. The low- and high-concentration groups exhibited statistically significant (P <0.05) improvements compared to the placebo group for PLA, GI, BOP, and PD.

CONCLUSIONS
Eucalyptus extract chewing gum had a significant effect on PLA, GI, BOP, and PD. The use of eucalyptus extract chewing gum may promote periodontal health.


Customers' Efforts to Use Arbitration to Challenge AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Fail* Federal district courts around the country have blocked AT&T Mobility LLC customers from pursuing arbitration…


Objective: Substance use among incarcerated people is prevalent in prisons worldwide. Little is known, however, about the factors associated with substance use during incarceration. Of special interest is the role of childhood abuse and social support on prison-based substance use, as these variables have been found to influence the use of alcohol and drugs in the community. Method: We used a random sample of 943 male inmates in southeast Spain to estimate the prevalence and pattern of substance use during the past 3 months of incarceration. Using logit modeling techniques, we assessed the relationship between substance use in prison and measures of childhood abuse, social support, and resiliency. Results: Childhood trauma experiences were most prevalent among mono- and poly-substance-use groups and were strongly associated with prison-based substance use. Social support and resiliency were highest among substance nonusers and served a protective role: Higher levels of external or internal support reduced the likelihood of prison-based substance use. Conclusions: Findings point to the need for additional training for social workers and correctional personnel in understanding patterns of prison-based substance use.