This study examined Emirati children's drawing in relation to self and identity through the interaction of social context. Qualitative methodology was used. The researchers and/or research assistants individually worked with each student who participated in this study in a semi-structured interview setting. "Constructive" interactions were built into the relationship between the research assistants and the students. The sample of this study comprised students enrolled in one of the kindergarten classes in the city of Al Ain in United Arab Emirates. The class of 25 students was selected randomly from all the kindergartens. The data were analyzed using a phenomenological procedure. Based on the framework provided by the questions and results of the interviews, the findings were categorized into groups. When sorting the data, the researchers first examined the similarities among the participants' drawings and responses, and then analyzed the differences in general. This study pointed out evidence from within the illustrations and the drawings of children that would aid approaches for understanding children's drawing in relation to self and identity through the interaction of social context depending on the form, content, and social context.


Evaluations of auditors' professional judgments by persons outside of audit teams (e.g., PCAOB inspections, AICPA peer reviews, audit firms' internal quality reviews) are a pervasive means of helping ensure audit quality. We examine how three important psychological factors jointly influence evaluators' assessments, moderating whether bias and unwarranted inconsistency occur for evaluations of identical, plainly acceptable audit work. We test our theory in an abstract experiment in which we manipulate whether or not the judgments evaluated by participants happen to differ from the judgments they made during an earlier stage of the experiment. We also manipulate the punitiveness of the evaluation approach and measure evaluators' disposition for wise thinking. Consistent with psychology theory, evaluators exhibit myside bias in that they less favorably assess judgments that differ from their own, relative to the control participants who also provide evaluations for those same judgments. On a more encouraging note, high wise thinkers exhibit less myside bias than low wise thinkers under a more punitive, inspection approach and, unlike low wise thinkers, logically recognize that judgments differing from their own simultaneously can be less reasonable than their own but still of sufficient quality to pass an inspection. Regulatory bodies and audit firms should be interested in these results, as bias and inconsistency for identical, acceptable audit judgments reduce the capacity of these evaluations to advance the public interest by ensuring audit quality.


Often the purpose of personal health and well-being systems is to change users' behaviour. Many theoretical frameworks have been developed to support the design and evaluation of these persuasive systems for behaviour change, but their design remains challenging. No systematic way yet exists by which to put the information into practice and build in persuasiveness effectively. The aim of this study is to investigate how the Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model can be utilised so as to support the development of personal health and well-being systems. To do this, the study discusses and analyses related research and also integrates the PSD model into the development of two health-related behaviour change support systems. In Case 1, the purpose of using the PSD model was to identify new persuasive functionality within a fall risk assessment and fall prevention system. In Case 2, the purpose of using the PSD model was to identify new persuasive functionality and new service concepts within an existing smartphone application for mental wellbeing. The study shows that the PSD model has been used in the development of BCSSs to describe the overall process, analyse the persuasion context and design system qualities. It has also been applied in the evaluation of the existing systems by providing heuristics for expert evaluations and systematic ways to analyse user experience data. The study also reveals that the PSD model can be successfully applied during the user requirements analysis and concept design phases to identify new potential persuasive functionalities. In both Case 1 and 2, this resulted in having more variety in persuasive functionalities compared to those in the initial user requirements or existing application. The PSD model provides support for designing and evaluating BCSSs, but some future directions of development of the model can be recognised.


Abstract Enterprise budgets and sensitivity analyses were used to compare the profitability and risks of the production of channel‐blue hybrid catfish eggs to that of channel catfish. Partial budgeting technique was used to determine whether it would be feasible to change from egg to fry production. Average cost of production of hybrid eggs was $49.43/kg ($22.47/pound), compared to $23.34/kg ($10.61/pound) for channel catfish. The net returns to land and management from producing 256 kg (563 pounds) of hybrid eggs were $8,202.20 compared to $7,308.64 for 231 kg (508 pounds) of channel catfish eggs. Sensitivity analyses indicate, that the price and spawning rate, have large effects on hybrid egg profitability. A 30 per cent decrease in price of hybrid eggs reduced net returns of egg production by 74.6 per cent When spawning rate decreased by 40 per cent, net returns from hybrid egg production were reduced by 82.9 per cent. Risk analyses showed that hybrid egg production had a greater probability of negative returns than the channel catfish egg. Partial budgeting techniques showed a net income of $4,943.95 if a hybrid egg producer changed from producing 64kg of eggs to 774,000 fry.


Learning with few labeled tabular samples is often an essential requirement for industrial machine learning applications as varieties of tabular data suffer from high annotation costs or have difficulties in collecting new samples for novel tasks. Despite the utter importance, such a problem is quite under-explored in the field of tabular learning, and existing few-shot learning schemes from other domains are not straightforward to apply, mainly due to the heterogeneous characteristics of tabular data. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective framework for few-shot semi-supervised tabular learning, coined Self-generated Tasks from UNlabeled Tables (STUNT). Our key idea is to self-generate diverse few-shot tasks by treating randomly chosen columns as a target label. We then employ a meta-learning scheme to learn generalizable knowledge with the constructed tasks. Moreover, we introduce an unsupervised validation scheme for hyperparameter search (and early stopping) by generating a pseudo-validation set using STUNT from unlabeled data. Our experimental results demonstrate that our simple framework brings significant performance gain under various tabular few-shot learning benchmarks, compared to prior semi- and self-supervised baselines. Code is available at https://github.com/jaehyun513/STUNT.


The motivation for this work is based on a desire for finding light weight alternatives to high strength steel as the material to use for armouring in military vehicles. With the use of high strength steel, an increase in the level of armouring has a significant impact on the vehicle weight, affecting for example the manoeuvrability and top speed negatively, which ultimately affects the safety of the personal in the vehicle. Strong and light materials, such as fibre reinforced composites, could therefore act as substitutes for the high strength steel, and minimize the impact on the vehicle weight or actually reduce the weight. Before such materials can be brought into use, their performance against blast loading need to be evaluated. This can be done through the use of small scale blast testing. The overall objectives of this thesis have therefore been to establish and validate an experimental facility, usable for performing small scale blast test on laminate and sandwich panels, and to set-up a numerical framework for modelling the test panel response when impacted by a blast load. The test set-up was designed such that the panel response could be measured by use of high-speed DIC (Digital Image Correlation). A test series, using Eglas/Epoxy laminates and sandwich panels, with Eglas/Epoxy skins and foam core, was conducted, to evaluate the functionality of the designed test set-up, and to gain insight into the response of the panels, when impacted by a blast load. The test set-up proved functional and provided consistent data of the panel response. The tests reviled that the sandwich panels did not provide a decrease in panel deflection compared with the monolithic laminates, which was expected due to their higher flexural rigidity. This was found to be because membrane effects became the controlling parameter for the panel deflection, activated by the large deflection of the panels relative to their thicknesses. The tests on the sandwich panels showed that no compression of the core had taken place, an effect that was thought could be utilized for absorbing energy from the blast pressure, but which had to be rejected. A comparison between E-glas/Epoxy and S-glas/Phenol laminates, with a quarto-axial (QA) and plain weave (PW) fibre layup respectively, showed that the S-glas/Phenol system could, as a minimum, withstand the load from an explosive charge 50% larger than the E-glas/Epoxy laminate could, without rupturing, indicating that the PW layup has attractive properties for absorbing energy from a blast load. To model the blast tests the numerical solver ls-dyna was used. The blast load was modelled using two approaches; (i) with ∗load_blast_enhanced model in ls-dyna, which applies a pressure distribution on a selected surfaces and has been based on experimental pressure measurement data, and (ii) with a designed 3 step numerical load model, where the blast pressure and FSI (Fluid Structure Interaction) between the pressure wave and modelled panel is modelled numerically. The tested laminates and sandwich panels was modelled using material models available in ls-dyna. Comparison between modelled and tested panel response from a 25g charge detonated 100mm from the panel surface, showed the modelled panel response to be 19% lower than the test data. This difference could be argued to originate from test set-up uncertainties, but also due to inconsistencies between model and test pressure. It was attempted to design a test set-up to measure the blast pressure, but the variation in the measured pressure data was too large to be used for comparison with the modelled pressure. In a future work this set-up should be improved such that the modelled pressure can be validated. For tests performed with a 250g charge load comparisons with model data showed poor agreement. This was found to be due to improper design of the modelled laminate panels, where the layer interface delamination was not represented physically, but was taken into consideration through failure parameters in the used laminate model. To improve the observed behaviour the layer interface should be modelled, by using a cohesive zone approach, based on fracture resistance data for the layer interfaces. By comparing model and test data for the blast testing performed on the sandwich panels, it was found that in the models the foam core was compressed, a behaviour opposite what was identified from the test results. The models showed that the foam was compressed with a strain rate, several orders of magnitude larger than the strain rate used in the material testing performed to obtain data for describing the strain rate sensitivity of the foam. Extrapolating the rate behaviour to such large strain rate might therefore not be valid, and the material testing should be extended to include tests at higher strain rates. Other reasons for the inconsistency are believed to be due to improper representation of the laminate interfaces and the skin core interface.


Author(s): Kellman, Steven G.; Lvovich, Natasha | Abstract: Note from the guest editors:Translingual Literature is literature written in a language not native to the author, in two languages, or in a mix of languages. This bibliography is the very first attempt to create and publish such an academic tool for researchers of multilingualism, second-language acquisition, comparative literature, and other fields. Given the scope of languages and literatures involved, certain limitations had to be set. This bibliography, which cannot presume to be exhaustive, contains only books written and published IN ENGLISH; documentation of the vast body of translingual writing in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Persian, Urdu, and other languages awaits another day. The bibliography is comprised of three categories: 1) Fiction; 2) Non-fiction (memoirs and essays); 3) Interdisciplinary Scholarship Related to Translingual Literature.It is a testimony to the vitality of the field, to the prolific ongoing contributions of fiction, nonfiction, and scholarship in translingual literature, that the bibliography is destined to be incomplete even before it is published. As a true 21st-century effort, this bibliography was "crowd-sourced," i.e. gathered thanks to the contributions of the community of translingual literature scholars and edited by L2 Journal guest editors, Natasha Lvovich and Steven G. Kellman.


Study Design. A systematic critical literature review. Objectives. To determine whether occult pathoanatomical lesions in the cervical spine of road traffic fatalities exist and if they can be identified using optimal autopsy techniques. Summary of Background Data. Previous investigations have examined pathoanatomical conditions of the cervical spine of road traffic fatalities. However, different methods of investigation have been used, and results of studies are conflicting. Hence, potential pathoanatomical conditions in fatalities and survivors remain a controversial issue. Methods. Articles were retrieved searching the MEDLINE, Mantis, and Cochrane libraries. Studies examining the cervical spine of road traffic fatalities at autopsy were included and evaluated according to a set of quality criteria. For in-depth review, only studies using surface cryoplaning microtomy autopsy technique and a control group were included. Results. Twenty-seven articles of which three fulfilled the quality criteria were reviewed. In these studies, subtle pathoanatomical lesions were found in the cervical intervertebral discs, cartilaginous endplates, and the articular surfaces and capsules of the zygapophysial joints. The lesions were found exclusively in the traumatized patients and in none of the patients in the control group. Conclusions. Occult pathoanatomical lesions in the cervical intervertebral disc and zygapophysial joints after fatal road traffic trauma may exist. Present imaging methods, especially conventional radiography, do not visualize these subtle lesions; hence, underreporting of pathoanatomical lesions during standard autopsy is probably common. These findings may have clinical relevance in the management of road traffic trauma survivors with potentially similar pathoanatomy.


The recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa has prompted concern over the risk that foreign travelers may carry the virus to the United States -a concern that has grown since an infected Liberian national who traveled to the United States infected two nurses who cared for him at a Dallas hospital. On Monday, October 21, the Department of Homeland Security announced new screening procedures at U.S. ports of entry for travelers from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa. Several Members of Congress have gone further and suggested a blanket ban on the admission into the United States of foreign nationals who reside in or have recently traveled to Ebola-stricken countries – a suggestion that the Obama Administration has thus far opposed. Although it has never been used for such purposes, section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) seems to confer the President with authority to bar foreign travelers from Ebolastricken countries from entering the United States, if he deems such a restriction necessary to protect U.S. interests, regardless of whether there is a reason to believe that a particular traveler is infected with the Ebola virus.


In 2013 the state of California launched a cap-and-trade program with a groundbreaking protocol for improved forest management (IFM), providing a framework to monetize carbon sequestration in managed forests. Through in-depth interviews and document review, this research examines California's IFM program development as a case study in stakeholder-engaged ecosystem commodification. We consider how diverse, vested-interest actors contested rival program design options by using the familiar narratives of ecological modernization, green governmentality, and civic environmentalism. The results reveal the benefits and complexities of delegating methodological design to stakeholders who seek direct participation in the market, and highlight the challenges of balancing multiple program objectives, including environmental benefits, legitimacy and market reception, and landowner participation potential. This research provides a unique window into the complex process of forest-offset program design and offers broader lessons for ecosystem markets currently being designed and implemented globally.


Reactions to soy have been reported in a proportion of patients with IgE-mediated cow's milk allergy (CMA). In this work, we analyzed if Gly m Bd 28K/P28, one of the major soybean allergens, is a cross-reactive allergen with cow milk proteins (CMP). We showed that P28 was recognized by IgE sera from CMA patients and activated human peripheral basophils degranulation. Moreover, IgE sera of mice exclusively sensitized to CMP recognized P28. Splenocytes from sensitized animals secreted IL-5 and IL-13 when incubated with CMP or soy proteins, but only IL-13 when treated with P28. In addition, a skin test was strongly positive for CMP and weakly positive for P28. Remarkably, milk-sensitized mice showed hypersensitivity symptoms following sublingual challenge with P28 or CMP. With the use of bioinformatics' tools seven putative cross-reactive epitopes were identified. In conclusion, using in vitro and in vivo tests we demonstrated that P28 is a novel cross-reactive allergen with CMP.


Objective—Weight gain is associated with infiltration of fat by macrophages, suggesting that they are an important source of inflammation in obese adipose tissue. Here we developed an in vitro coculture system composed of adipocytes and macrophages and examined the molecular mechanism whereby these cells communicate. Methods and Results—Coculture of differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes and macrophage cell line RAW264 results in the marked upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and the downregulation of the antiinflammatory cytokine adiponectin. Such inflammatory changes are induced by the coculture without direct contact, suggesting the role of soluble factors. A neutralizing antibody to TNF-α, which occurs mostly in macrophages, inhibits the inflammatory changes in 3T3-L1, suggesting that TNF-α is a major macrophage-derived mediator of inflammation in adipocytes. Conversely, free fatty acids (FFAs) may be important adipocyte-derived mediators of inflammation in macrophages, because the production of TNF-α in RAW264 is markedly increased by palmitate, a major FFA released from 3T3-L1. The inflammatory changes in the coculture are augmented by use of either hypertrophied 3T3-L1 or adipose stromal vascular fraction obtained from obese ob/ob mice. Conclusions—We postulate that a paracrine loop involving FFAs and TNF-α between adipocytes and macrophages establishes a vicious cycle that aggravates inflammatory changes in the adipose tissue.


A la carte. This is a feast for the eyes. Until restaurants became commonplace in the late 1800s, printed menus for meals were rare commodities reserved for special occasions. As restaurants proliferated, the menu became more than just a culinary listing. The design of the menu became an integral part of eating out and as such menus became a marketing tool and a favored keepsake. "Menu Design" is an omnibus showcasing the best examples of this graphic art. With nearly a thousand examples, illustrated in vibrant color, this deluxe volume not only showcases this extraordinary collection of paper ephemera but serves as a history of restaurants and eating out in America. In addition to the menu covers many menu interiors are featured providing a epicurean tour and insight to more than a hundred years of dining out. Various photographs of restaurants round out this compendium that will appeal to anyone who enjoys the joy of eating out and its graphic and gastronomic history.


Abstract Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, predominantly affecting women of childbearing age. Therefore, issues of conception, pregnancy, and delivery are of significant importance to patients and treating physicians. We discuss immunologic and clinical effects of pregnancy on the course of MS including both immunosuppression on a local level and a heightened state of immunocompetence on a global level. Clinical outcomes of the Pregnancy in Multiple Sclerosis trials are reported. We analyze and update the available data on safety and efficacy of immunomodulating MS treatments and symptomatic treatments for pregnant and lactating women, and address specific issues of MS management at the time of pregnancy. We review the data related to estrogen-based MS therapies currently or previously in trials. Pregnancy does not appear to be associated with adverse outcomes in MS patients. Some evidence suggests possible beneficial effects, although clear prospective data of sufficient length and quality are limited. Long-term relapse rates or disability progression do not seem to be affected by pregnancy in MS patients. The use of immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory agents in pregnancy is not routinely advisable but could be considered under special circumstances.


Noise reduction is a prerequisite step prior to information extraction that attempts from remote sensing images. Reducing Noise in remote sensing Image is an image restoration problem to recover a original image from the corrupted Images. This problem is intractable unless one can make assumptions about the actual structure of the perfect image. Various Noise removing filters make various assumptions depending on the type of image and the goals of the restoration. In this paper Kalman filter is used for gray scale images which is contaminated by Noise. Remote sensing images are affected by different types of Noise like Gaussian Noise, Speckle Noise and impulse Noise. These Noises are introduced in the Remote Sensing image during acquisition or transmission process. In this paper wiener filter and kalman filter is used for reducing the Noise rate, when compare to some other filters. In this the Proposed kalman filter gives better results when compared to Wiener filter.


This study presents the results of an investigation into the size and composition of vocabulary and early sentence formation in two groups of young bilingual children, one acquiring Italian as a majority language and the other acquiring it as a heritage language. The results show high variability in the relationship between input and vocabulary size and composition in children between the ages of 24 and 29 months, while this relationship becomes more stable in children between the ages of 30 and 37 months. The results also show that the majority of children have a larger vocabulary and produce more complex sentences in the majority language, input received in each language does not systematically correlate with vocabulary size or with production of complex grammatical structures. The results shed light on some characteristics of early simultaneous bilingual language development. Implications for practice are discussed.


This study evaluated the bioindication and phytoremediation capacity of the aquatic macrophyte Sagittaria montevidensis by using it to assess the bioconcentration and translocation of heavy metals. A simple sampling was conducted at four sites in the region of Pelotas, southern Brazil, where plants, water and sediments were collected. The plants were subjected to nitric-perchloric acid digestion and the sediments underwent pseudo-total acid digestion. The determination of the elements Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn in the extracts was performed by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Physicochemical tests were also carried out on water samples, including pH, electrical conductivity, chlorides, alkalinity, hardness and organic matter, and in sediment samples, moisture and organic matter content. The macrophyte study indicated a Bioconcentration Factor (BCF) and a Translocation Factor (TF), especially for Ni. The results showed that the aquatic macrophyte species S. montevidensis has a phytoextraction capacity, mainly for Ni, and potentially for bioindication of Cu, Ni and Zn.


Sophie-Grace Chappell develops a picture of what philosophical ethics can be like, once set aside from the idealising and reductive pressures of conventional moral theory. Her question is 'How are we to know what to do?', and the answer she defends is 'By developing our moral imaginations'. The series of studies presented in Knowing What To Do contribute to the case that the moral imagination is a key part of human excellence or virtue by showing that it plays a wide variety of roles in our practical and evaluative lives. There is no short-cut or formulaic way of knowing what to do; but the longer and more painstaking approach is more rewarding anyway. This approach involves developing our repertoire of natural human capacities for imagination, open deliberation, and contemplative attention to the world, the people, and the reality of value around us.


The intratesticular arteries pursued a coiled course and arborized in the testicular parenchyma. The centripetal arteries converged on the mediastinum and formed clusters of spirally coiled, vessels before turning centrifugally. The testicular parenchyma was drained mainly through the centrifugal veins and partly through the central vein. The concentration of the capsular veins was comparatively more towards the epididymal border than on the free border. These capsular veins pursued a straight course towards the caputal extremity of the testis where they divided and anastomosed many a times to form the pampiniform plexus of veins. The coiling of the intratesticular arteries, theie clustering at the mediastinum testis and the presence of juxtaposed parenchymal veins seem to have some role in the hemodynamic and thermoregulatory mechanism of the buffalo testis.


Electoral manipulation is committed both during hotly contested elections as well as quite predictable ones. Comparative scholarship has sought to understand this variation, acknowledging that electoral manipulation can serve an informational as well as an instrumental role, but has not distinguished when, if ever, electoral manipulation is more likely to serve one role over another. This paper examines these issues, asking if and how strategies of manipulation differ depending on the conditions of the election. Using a newly developed measure of contestation and original data on elections from ten post-Soviet states, this paper quantitatively analyzes the types of strategies used depending on election-level factors. The results reveal that incumbents are likely to select some, but not all, types of manipulation depending on contestation of the election, the level of incumbent dominance, and the type of election being held. This paper concludes that while electoral manipulation can be used for instrumental and informational purposes, they are likely to be pursued in different elections, and that this depends on the conditions of the elections.


Abstract. Soil constraints are a major limitation to grain production on waterlogging-prone sodic soils in the medium-rainfall zone of southern Australia, and several options have been proposed to overcome these constraints. A field experiment commenced in 1999 to compare the effectiveness of different management strategies, including improved crop nutrition, soil amelioration by using gypsum with or without deep ripping, applying organic matter, using raised beds or delayed sowing on improving the growth and grain yields of four consecutive crops including wheat (Triticum aestivum) in 1999 and 2002, barley (Hordeum vulgare) in 2000, and faba beans (Vicia faba) in 2001. Improving crop nutrition alone generally did not significantly improve grain yields, whereas adding ameliorants such as composted pig bedding–litter or deep ripping + gypsum produced grain yield increases in all crops by up to 48% compared with the control. Similar increases in grain yields were produced when crops were grown on raised beds, even in seasons when growing-season rainfall was well below average. Greatest yield increases were recorded when both raised beds and ameliorants were used (up to 2 t/ha, or 63%). Spring-sown crops consistently produced lower grain yields than the (autumn-sown) control. For the three cereal crops (two wheat and one barley), increases in grain yields resulting from soil amelioration generally were not associated with increased harvest index or kernel size but were associated with greater tiller number and number of grains per m2. For the pulse crop, faba beans, yield increases were associated with greater dry matter production and increased number of grains per m2. All management strategies significantly increased crop nitrogen (N) uptake, although this did not necessarily translate to increased grain protein because of a dilution effect in the highest yielding treatments. Increases in grain yield coincided with improved root growth throughout the profile (up to 140 cm depth). All physical amelioration treatments either reduced the degree of temporary waterlogging, as indicated by shallow piezometers, or improved soil structure, as indicated by reduced cone penetrometer resistance, compared with the control. Reduction in soil exchangeable sodium percentage on this highly sodic clay soil, measured within the first season after implementation, was less clear-cut. Increases in grain yield, however, appeared related to improved N supply rather than greater water use. Large increases in grain yields across a range of seasonal conditions appear possible on these soil types in medium-rainfall environments provided both soil structure and nutrition are improved.


The theory of random utility maximization (RUM) defines the probability of an alternative being chosen as the probability of its utility being perceived as higher than those of all the other competing alternatives in the choice set (Marschak 1960). According to this theory, consumers perceive the utility of an alternative not as a constant but as a probability distribution. Over the last two decades, there have been an increasing number of studies on the effect of utility variance on choice probability. The common result of the previous studies is that as the utility variance increases, the effect of the mean value of the utility (the deterministic component of the utility) on choice probability is reduced. This study provides a theoretical investigation on the effect of utility variance on choice probability without any assumptions on the specific forms of probability distributions. This study suggests that without assumptions of the probability distribution functions, firms cannot apply the marketing strategy of maximizing choice probability (or market share), but can only adopt the strategy of maximizing the minimum or maximum value of the expected choice probability. This study applies the Chebyshef inequality and shows how the changes in utility variances affect the maximum of minimum of choice probabilities and provides managerial implications.


The permanent ideological impact of the propaganda narratives of powerful political entities on the international community is perceived as one of the most important challenges of the 21st century. The international agenda is full of controversial interpretations, produced by powerful international political actors. As a result, the international media agenda is getting like the battlespace for the struggle of interpretations, where the ruthless kind of "frame-games" between the strongest global agenda-setting political entities takes place. The information field is open for all countries, including the small states, where political parties are not strong enough to have their propaganda to resist the ideological pressure from outside. Due to this, the societies of these countries are still easily influenced by the narratives of global political actors creating a suitable psychological environment for internal conflicts in societies. We consider Georgia among these states. Therefore, our research aimed to study the relevance of the actual values of local (Georgian) political actors with the ideologies declared by them. In this regard, our primary objective was to understand the specifics of strategic communication of local political actors, then, to compare their narratives with the rhetoric of international actors, and finally, to determine the strength of local society's resistance to these narratives. We hope that in this way we can assess the long-term impact of global actors' propaganda communication could have on a small country. Since our research can be perceived as a component of research on the impact of foreign propaganda on small countries in general, we think that the indicators we have selected shall be valid for similar studies in other countries. Therefore, we hope that the results of our research will be interesting for other academic studies, e.g. for different fields of social and political sciences, as well as international relations and communication studies. The research is based on the traditional theoretical basis of political communication agenda setting and framing theories, and game theory – to measure the weight of different political actors' propaganda, which is permanently penetrating small countries.


This book will consider the question of when is it fair to hold young people criminally responsible and to subject young people to the rigours of the criminal youth justice system. The book will examine whether young people should be treated as responsible moral and legal agents and will argue that the current English youth justice system has developed in a way that runs the risk of children and young people being prosecuted for crimes they are too immature to fully understand.

The law, as a system of rules that guides and governs human interaction, is premised on the view that humans can understand and follow rules. The law's concept of a person is a practical, reasoning, rule-following being who understands the difference between right and wrong. Therefore when a criminal court convicts the defendant of an offence, it is because he is responsible for his conduct. Effective criminal law requires that citizens understand that certain conduct is prohibited, the nature of their conduct and the consequences for doing what the law prohibits (Morse, 1997). Thus criminal liability "should be imposed only on persons who are sufficiently aware of what they are doing, and of the consequences it may have, that they can fairly be said to have chosen the behaviour and its consequences" (Ashworth, 2003: 158). Hart (1968) similarly emphasises the principle that punishment should be restricted to those who have voluntarily broken the law and stresses that criminal liability is founded upon "… the simple idea that unless a man has the capacity and a fair opportunity or chance to adjust his behaviour to the law its penalties ought not to be applied to him". There is thus an expectation that for an individual to be convicted of a crime he must be a moral agent, as conviction represents a moral criticism (Arenella, 1992; Strawson, 1974; Kadish, 1987). Judgements about whether particular conduct is blameworthy must operate within the framework of substantive moral values.

Adults are presumed to be mature and to have developed their decision-making capacities and thus are held accountable for their behaviour. Under the normal rules of criminal law, an adult's transgression is deemed less blameworthy than typical offenders if their decision-making capacities are impaired, for example by mental illness which is attributable to a condition falling within the M'Nagthen rules (Simester at el, 2010: 796). Currently in England and Wales the defence of infancy excuses all children below 10 years of age from criminal liability as such children are considered morally irresponsible and lacking blameworthiness. The current law thus assumes all children are sufficiently mature at 10 years of age to accept criminal responsibility for their behaviour. Although children between 10 and 18 years may understand the difference between right and wrong from a young age, they do not yet possess the emotional maturity to control their impulsivity and appreciate the consequences of their actions. Children and young people are less mature than adults in terms of the judgment factors of responsibility, perspective and sensation-seeking and thus experience difficulties in weighing and comparing consequences when making decisions and contemplating the meaning of long-range consequences that will be realized 5-10 years in the future (Modecki, 2008, Woolard, 2002). These cognitive difficulties also have implications for young peoples' ability to be competent defendants in adversarial atmospheres (Woolard, 2002).

Legal theorists have not systematically applied themselves to questions such as, if young people lack the capacity to make a meaningful choice and to control their impulses, should they be held criminally culpable for their behaviour? In what ways is the immaturity of young offenders relevant to their blameworthiness? Should youth offending behaviour be proscribed by criminal law? The book seeks to address these questions by exploring international and historical evidence on how societies regulate criminal behaviour by young people and undertaking a careful examination of the developmental capacities and processes that are relevant to young people's criminal choices. The book will examine the following questions:
• Why do we attribute criminal responsibility to children and young people?
• What is the function of the criminal law/criminal justice system and how does it apply to young people?
• Are young people fully responsible moral and legal agents?
• In what way is immaturity relevant to blameworthiness?
I will critically analyse the implications of these questions for policy-making in England and Wales and conclude by proposing changes to the present law.

Young children are certainly moral objects, in that the stance we take towards them is moral, hence, they do need an exemption from liability (Horder, 1996). Their culpability depends crucially on their powers of moral reasoning and judgement, and of self-control. How far are young people capable of grasping the wrongfulness of their conduct in question, and of controlling their own conduct in the light of their moral understanding (Zimring, 2000)? In England and Wales children and young people defined in law as criminally responsible have historically, and presently, been addressed by the criminal justice system and the criminal law in ways which are largely similar to how adults are treated. Yet the expansion of the concept of childhood in our culture, such that the child has been defined as a person under 18 years of age in the Children Act 1989 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the extension of young people's transition to adulthood requires fundamental changes in the way the criminal law addresses young people. A more synthesised and integrated approach is needed to the way in which under 18s are dealt with by the police, the courts and the youth justice system, an approach which is clearly distinct from that for dealing with adults. My argument throughout this book is that the youth justice response needs to be reconceptualised in a context where one of the central objectives of institutions regulating children and young people's behaviour is to support the interests and welfare of those children, unlike traditional criminal law which focusses upon providing redress, and retribution, against harm to others via punishment. Braithwaite and Pettit (1990: 45) talk of the need to posit a 'satiable' goal for criminal law, which motivates 'respect for uncontroversial limits' on the law's powers, and does 'not make voracious demands' that threaten those limits. Zimring (1998: 479) suggests that the law should make substantial efforts to punish youth violence without eliminating an offender's chances to grow into adulthood in near-normal circumstances. If institutions addressing children and young people had a different conception of the implication of responsibility for children, from the implications of responsibility for adults, and were oriented towards the welfare of all children including victims and offenders, these objectives could be realised and could encourage changes in the cultural perceptions of young people who break the law.

This book aims to provide a systematic analysis of how we think about young people who offend and the criminal laws used to respond to them. To answer this question we need a positive account of the aims and functions of the youth justice system.


In this paper, an inspection system has been presented that uses Laser-Ultrasound (LU) technique for Nondestructive testing (NDT) of metallic structures with specific interest in Oil & Gas sector. While the developed system is the first one of its kind in the Middle-Eastern region, the nature of signals are quite unique as well and traditional signal processing runs into a lot of algorithmic complications with them. A new approach has been developed for this setup in order to efficiently enhance signal to noise ratio for the underlying signals so that any subsequent classification/intelligent-detection system can be based on the outcomes of this algorithm. Multiform Tiltable Exponential Distribution (MTED) kernel, which is a generalization of 2nd order Cohen's class functions in Time-Frequency Representation (TFR) space, has been used in this work to isolate the essential frequency components with temporal and frequency based masking filters. By using this technique, we were able to isolate many significant defects buried in heavy noise and correlating signals. This enables the identification of the defect wavelets as well as their locations can be identified from the ambiguous and contaminating signals that are inherently produced as a result of laser ultrasound inspection.


This paper describes how structural bond pricing models can be estimated using a Simulated Maximum Likelihood procedure developed by Durbin and Koopman (1997). The approach has the advantage that price dated on any traded claim (such as bonds, equity, and credit default swaps), as well as information about the balance sheet (e.g. accounting data) can be used in the estimation, improving efficiency. Monte Carlo evidence as well as a small application to real data indicates that this approach is superior to both traditional estimation methods and recently proposed versions of Maximum Likelihood Estimation (Ericsson, Reneby 2002)


The activity of beta-lactamases from Citrobacter diversus ULA-27 on ceftriaxone, a widely recognized third-generation cephalosporin, has been examined and compared to the activity of various other beta-lactamases from different sources. Ceftriaxone (Roche S.p.A. Milan) was found to be resistant to hydrolysis by beta-lactamases from Enterobacter cloacae and Bacillus cereus, but susceptible to beta-lactamases from Mycobacterium fortuitum strain Cow 18 and, mostly, to beta-lactamases from various strains of Citrobacter diversus. Derivatives with substituents in the 3-position of ceftriaxone, namely cefotaxime (Roussel Maestretti S.p.A., Milan) and ceftizoxime (Farmitalia Carlo Erba, Milan), were much less susceptible to hydrolysis by C. diversus ULA-27 enzymes (22 and 6% of ceftriaxone hydrolysis, respectively), the hydrolysis rate being paralleled by differences in MIC values. Ceftriaxone inhibited the activity of E. cloacae beta-lactamases toward cefazolin as substrate, but the inhibition was totally abolished by preincubation of ceftriaxone with the enzyme before addition of the substrate. Overall, the data point to a relevance of C. diversus ULA-27 beta-lactamases in the mechanism of resistance of this strain to the various third-generation cephalosporins.


Objectives: In maternal diabetes the placenta is large with abnormal vascular development and increased villous volume. A prospective, longitudinal observational study of 3D power Doppler vascular indices was performed to investigate differences in-vivo in placental vascularity between women with and without diabetes. Methods: 28 normal women and 20 with pre-gestational diabetes, were recruited. Each subject had 3 scans between 12 and 20 weeks gestation using a Voluson 730 Expert scanner. The VOCAL tool within 4D View (GE Medical Systems) was used to outline the placenta in the A plane using the 9◦ rotation step. To compensate for depth attenuation the 3D vascular indices were standardised against the FI at the centre of a nearby vessel. Results: Subjects were matched for age, BMI and parity. Mean FI.fmbv was 52.07 (± 6.0), 50.48 (± 5.1) and 53.83 (± 4.6) at 12, 16 and 20 weeks respectively. ANOVA demonstrated a significant difference across gestation for the FI.fmbv [F(1.86, 83.82) = 6.37; P = 0.003] and between groups (P = 0.001). There was no difference across gestation or between groups (VI.fmbv, P = 0.29; VFI.fmbv P = 0.48) for the other two standardised 3D vascular indices. The FI.fmbv was significantly higher in subjects with microalbuminuria but not related to retinopathy, hypertension, diabetes type or duration. Conclusions: Standardised placental FI (FI.fmbv) is increased in women with diabetes between 12 and 20 weeks gestation. Structural changes in the large and apparently vascular placenta are therefore accompanied by altered function, with increased signal intensity but not markers of vessel numbers demonstrable in-vivo.


We report a process for the realization of polyimide films with custom-designed microporosity based on the heat-induced depolymerization of polyimide-embedded polypropylene carbonate microstructures. The foam-like microstructures are up to 40 µm thick and incorporate air cavities with a width ranging from 20 to 200 µm, a length up to 5 mm and a height of 20 µm. We model the mechanical stress–strain properties of the microcavities using both analytical and numerical methods. The simulation data are in good agreement with the results of nanoindentation and microcompression experiments, which show the reduction of the effective Young's modulus from 5.77 ± 0.06 GPa for bulk polyimide to 2.51 ± 0.03 GPa for a foam-like layer.


Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the elastic properties of alkylthiol-functionalized gold supracrystals. The predicted Young's and shear moduli are around 1 GPa and 100 MPa, respectively. We show that, with increasing NC size, the Young's modulus decreases while the shear modulus essentially remains invariant; with increasing ligand length, the Young's modulus increases but the shear modulus decreases. Moreover, significant increase in the Young's modulus is seen when the polycrystalline NCs are replaced by single-crystal ones of the same size. All these are in reasonable agreement with available experiments. We attribute the mechanisms to the interaction between capping ligands as well as its variations caused by the change in ligand length and NC geometry. The results may deepen our understanding of elastic properties of the supracrystals and their influential factors.


Want employees that go the extra mile?

 Love them or hate them, employee engagement surveys are here to stay. As manager, you're expected to digest the data and come up with a plan for improving the numbers. But it's not just busy work. Raising engagement scores matters because engagement matters. An enthusiastic workforce translates into higher productivity and profitability with less turnover and absenteeism. Fully committed workers will give their all every day — and it's your job to make that happen.

 Forget company picnics or employee-of-the-month awards. For real results, read Raise Your Team's Employee Engagement Score. In this practical, research-based playbook, retention expert Richard Finnegan reveals how to:

 Build trust with your team

 Implement stay interviews

 Develop an employee value proposition

 Leverage company engagement programs

 Hire employees who self-motivate

 Apply smarter, better metrics

 Measure progress and forecast future engagement

 And more

 By following Finnegan's techniques, you'll send those engagement scores through the roof . . . and it won't cost your company a dime.


Fire is a major driver in many ecosystems. Yet, little is known about how different ground-living arthropods survive fire. Using three sampling methods, and time-since-fire (last fire event: 3 months, 1 year, and 7 years), we investigate how ground-living arthropod diversity responds to fire, and how species richness, diversity, abundance, and composition of the four dominant taxa: ants, beetles, cockroaches and mites, respond. We did this in the naturally fire-prone Mediterranean-type scrubland vegetation (fynbos) of the Cape Floristic Region. Surprisingly, overall species richness and diversity was the same for all time-since-fire categories. However, when each dominant taxon was analysed separately, effect of fire on species richness and abundance varied among taxa. This emphasizes that many taxa must be investigated to really understand fire-driven events. We also highlight the importance of using different diversity measures, as fire did not influence species richness and abundance of particular taxa, while it affected others, overall greatly affecting assemblages of all taxa. Rockiness affected species richness, abundance and composition of a few taxa. We found that all time-since-fire categories supported distinctive assemblages. Some indicator species occurred across all time-since-fire categories, while others were restricted to a single time-since-fire category, showing that there is a wide range of responses to fire between taxa. Details of local landscape structure, abiotic and biotic, and frequency and intensity of fire add complexity to the fire-arthropod interaction. Overall, we show that the relationship between fire and arthropods is phylogenetically constrained, having been honed by many millennia of fire events, and highly complex. Present-day species manifest a variety of adaptations for surviving the great natural selective force of fire.


Actual circumstances of administrative autopsies which proved connections between medical implication and death had not been very clear in the past. Therefore, using the records of administrative autopsies performed from 2003 to 2005 at Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, this study looked into the cases in which a certain level of connection between medical implication and death was proved or suspected. This study dealt with 877 cases. The largest age group among the male was the one between 65 and 74, and the number of female cases increased as the age increased. The percentage of the studied cases among all the administrative autopsy cases has become larger after 2004. As regarding medical departments for implication, "internal medicine" had the largest number of the cases, and "unknown", "psychiatry", and "emergency" followed in order. 30 percent were being hospitalized during the final medical consultations, and the percentage went up to just over 60 when the deaths during and on the day after the final consultations were added to the figure. Regarding the causes of death, the great majority was natural death, and the other causes were 'unknown', 'fall', and 'asphyxia'. Also, about 80 percent of the natural deaths were caused by circulatory, gastroenteric and respiratory diseases. Contradictions between clinical and forensic diagnoses were found in approximately 10 percent of the cases. In any case, medical examiners are to diagnose the causes of deaths by autopsy, not to evaluate the quality and safety of medical treatment. But if the quality and safety of medical treatment could be improved through the diagnoses of administrative autopsy, the medical examiner system would function practically as a part of administration for health and welfare. However, as it handles not only deaths by medical treatment but also all the other types of unnatural deaths, the system can also deal with other social problems, for which the correct causes of death must be diagnosed initially. It is socially very unhealthy to focus only on death associated with medical implication, as other types of unnatural death could be seen as relatively less important. Therefore, it is considered that the medical examiner system is effective for investigation of a variety of unnatural death as well as cases associated with medical implication.


Mental probability logic (MPL) has been proposed as a competence theory of human inference. MPL interprets indicative conditionals as conditional events. While recent probabilistic approaches assume an uncertain relation between the premises and the conclusion, the consequence relation remains deductive in MPL. The underlying rationality framework of MPL is coherence based probability logic. I discuss cases in which the psychological predictions of MPL on human reasoning about conditionals diverge from psychological predictions based on traditional approaches to probability in the context of zero antecedent probabilities. Specifically, I reconstruct a paradox of the material conditional in purely probabilistic terms. Moreover, I report a new experiment on a generalised version of the probabilistic truth table task, which investigates the interpretation of conditionals under incomplete probabilistic knowledge. The data show that—during the course of the experiment—most people shift their interpretation and converge on the conditional event interpretation of conditionals. Finally, I illustrate how the data of this experiment and of experiments on a paradox of the material conditional confirm the psychological predictions of MPL.


Peanut is one of the most important oil crops in the world. To accelerate the marker-assisted selection programmes of peanut, a transcriptome library of peanut gynophores at three different growth stages was constructed and sequenced using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000. Totally, 72 527 unigenes were assembled and mined for EST SSRs. A total of 5058 SSRs were obtained by using the SSR finding programme, which represented an average density of one SSR per 5.65 kb. Four thousand four hundred and forty-two unigenes that contained one or more SSRs were identified. The most abundant SSRs in peanut are trinucleotides (55.1%) SSRs and followed by dinucleotides (33.2%). AG/CT (25.8%) repeats were the most abundant and followed by AAG/CTT (19.9%). Primers for 200 SSRs were designed for PCR amplification and for analysis of polymorphism in 22 peanut cultivars. Polymorphism could be detected by 17 SSRs among these cultivars. The newly developed SSR markers from peanut gynophore transcriptome sequencing will be an additional source of markers to the peanut community.


A description is provided of work performed as part of the fruit logistics infrastructure project commissioned by the South African Deciduous Fruit Producers' Trust and coordinated by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, as described in Van Dyk FE & Maspero E, 2004, An analysis of the South African fruit logistics infrastructure, ORiON, 20(1), pp. 55–72. After a brief introduction to the problem, two models (a single-commodity graph theoretic model and a multi-commodity mathematical programming model) are derived for determining the maximal weekly flow or throughput of fresh fruit through the South African national export infrastructure. These models are solved for two extreme seasonal export scenarios and the solutions show that no export infrastructure expansion is required in the near future — observed bottlenecks are not fundamental to the infrastructure and its capacities, but are rather due to sub-optimal management and utilisation of the existing infrastructure.


Foreword 1 Preface 5 PART ONE NON-TRADITIONAL FINANCIAL RESEARCH Chapter 1 11 The sense of analytical computational finance 1 Introduction 2 Derivative financial instruments and the need for analytics 3 Rocket scientists and non-traditional financial research 4 Analytical finance with high-frequency financial data 5 Thomas Edison: inventor and model for rocket scientists 6 Theory and practice in financial engineering 7 Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and their theories 8 Blind beliefs are the tombstone of physics and of finance 9 Notes and references Chapter 2 35 Leading-edge techniques in prognosis and trading 1 Introduction 2 Why classical technical analysis is not enough 3 Predictive technology and evolutionary modelling solutions 4 Non-traditional financial research and differences in time horizons 5 Benefits to be provided through a cross-disciplinary approach 6 Is there a correlation between mathematics and reality? 7 The use of leading-edge techniques in prognostication by Chemical Banking 8 What should be done by a good predictive model? 9 Using models for training and trading 10 Pitfalls with prognostication: an example with gold and derivatives 11 Notes and references Chapter 3 57 Fair value, marking-to-model, implied volatility and realtime simulation 1 Introduction 2 The difference between marking-to-market and marking-to-model 3 Developing and using models in connection to fair value 4 Discovering gems of beauty and merit in financial analysis 5 Gaining advantages from more advanced use of the Black-Scholes model 6 Mapping the market into the computer 7 Continuous time, stochastic and implied volatility 8 Using diffusion equations in estimating volatility 9 The role of realtime simulation in finance 10 Notes and references Chapter 4 81 Applying chaos theory in financial transactions 1 Introduction 2 Challenges posed by chaotic systems 3 Sensitivity dependence on initial conditions and the edge of chaos 4 The art of interpreting complex, chaotic patterns 5 Prognosis, entropy and data encoding 6 What can be done about noisy patterns? 7 Forex markets, chaos theory and information asymmetry 8 Deterministic chaos and strange attractors 9 Why do we need complexity theory? 10 Notes and references PART TWO LOGARITHMS AND STATISTICS Chapter 5 107 Logarithmic distributions, black boxes, Laplace transforms and Fourier series 1 Introduction 2 Appreciating the geometric aspects of Napierian logarithms 3 Notions underpinning the logarithmic spiral 4 Logarithmic functions, complex numbers, lognormal distribution, statistical moments 5 Three metrics for change of logarithmic price at time t 6 Understanding the practical use of black boxes in interpreting time series 7 Volatility ratio and the direction of volatility changes 8 Laplace transformations and Fourier analysis 9 Fourier series and fast Fourier transform 10 Notes and references Chapter 6 135 Statistical design, leptokyrtotic distributions, confidence intervals and test of hypothesis 1 Introduction 2 Studying skewness and kyrtosis of a distribution 3 Leptokyrtosis, allokyrtosis and prognostication 4 Types of errors, producer's risk a, and consumer's risk b 5 Sampling plans and operating characteristics curves 6 Boundary conditions, limits and confidence levels 7 Hypotheses, test of significance and t-test 8 An introduction to the variance ratio test 9 Maximum likelihood, square-root rule and boxplots 10 Statistical design, Weiner's process and transition probabilities 11 Using the Weiner process for risk-factor calculations 12 Applying the notion of confidence intervals to risk factors and tolerance limits 13 Notes and references Chapter 7 165 Parameter-driven statistical design, parametric statistics and non-parametric statistics 1 Introduction 2 A parametric and a non-parametric methodology 3 The connection between para metric statistics and parameter-driven modelling 4 Benefits to be obtained from a parameter-driven design 5 A parameter-driven model in currency exchange 6 Sample size and the use of non-parametric statistics 7 Non-parametric runs and sign tests 8 Understanding how to do sign tests and runs tests 9 A brief applications example with the sign test 10 Mean square successive differences and von Neumann's algorithm 11 The importance of distribution-free methods and Chebyshev's inequality 12 Notes and references PART THREE NON-LINEAR MATHEMATICS Chapter 8 191 Understanding and applying non-linear models 1 Introduction 2 What distinguishes linear from non-linear systems? 3 Characteristic solution, particular solution, steady state and instability 4 Oscillatory outputs and unintentional non-linearities 5 Challenges presented by slow and fast non-linearities 6 The method of describing function analysis 7 Determining the variation of the describing function and its rationale 8 Studying non-linearities through plane-phase analysis 9 Exploiting the potential of a phase portrait 10 Notes and references Chapter 9 215 Feedback control systems, root locus, the Nyquist criterion and auto-oscillations 1 Introduction 2 Open-loop and closed-loop systems 3 Statistical design theory, mean square error and discontinuities 4 Transient response and locus of a system 5 Stability criteria 6 The Nyquist solution 7 The system transfer function 8 Reconsidering the definition of stability 9 Forced oscillations of non-linear systems 10 An introduction to harmonic functions and auto-oscillations 11 The special case of solitons 12 Notes and references Chapter 10 239 Brownian motion, Mandelbrot's fractals and currency exchange applications 1 Introduction 2 The concept of an underlying Brownian motion 3 Brownian motion and the drift parameter 4 Fractal geometry and fractal trajectories 5 Capitalizing on fractal prices and the market inefficiency they represent 6 Intraday fractal structures and the drift exponent 7 What can we learn from the study of bid/ask prices? 8 Studies based on the absolute value of price changes 9 Market stress, seasonal and microseasonal results 10 Psychological time, activity variables and directional change 11 Notes and references PART FOUR HIGH-FREQUENCY DATA AND RISK CONTROL Chapter 11 265 Weibull distribution and the risk-management algorithm 1 Introduction 2 Why high-frequency data is important to risk management 3 Reliability, dynamic boundary conditions and safety margins 4 The risk from big derivatives contracts with counterparties 5 Poisson distribution, expected failures and the survival equation 6 Implementing the Weibull distribution in reliability and risk management 7 Rules which apply to the management of reliability and of financial exposure 8 Exponential Weibull distribution and the Chorafas algorithm 9 Rethinking and restructuring the concept of risk management 10 Capitalizing on the use of the addition theorem of the Poisson distribution 11 Placing emphasis on analytics, experimentation and levels of confidence 12 Notes and references Chapter 12 295 Intraday information, micro-seasonality and high- frequency financial data 1 Introduction 2 Intraday financial transactions and expected analytical results 3 The financial markets are a 24-hour realtime system 4 Exploring time series in ways never before available 5 When financial instruments are traded around the clock, realtime is the only solution 6 Derivatives, high-frequency data and risk management 7 Exploiting information flows in the securities and in foreign exchange 8 Derivative financial instruments and the characteristics of trades 9 A non-traditional viewpoint regarding non-events 10 Capitalizing on the concept of ergodicity 11 Understanding microseasonality and its role in world-wide transaction volume 12 Notes and references Chapter 13 319 Heteroschedasticity, autocorrelation, autoregression and the Arch family of models 1 Introduction 2 High-frequency financial data and heteroschedasticity 3 Sampling space, the effects of sampling procedures on heteroschedasticity and devolatilization 4 Independent, identically distributed random variables and stochastic volatility 5 Serial dependence, autocorrelation and dynamic strategies 6 Implementing the mean square error algorithm and measuring the autocorrelation 7 Autocorrelation as qualitative measure of the regularity of the function, and convolution integral 8 Capitalizing on correlation, covariance and lagged correlation 9 What is needed for a careful study of autoregression? 10 Autoregressive conditional heteroschedasticity: the Arch and Garch models 11 Taking another look at conditional autoregression, Arch, Garch and Harch 12 Autoregressive conditional duration and the Weibull distribution 13 Notes and references


n 86-year-old man presented with acute severe neck pain, restricted neck movement and fever. AThe white cell count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein were all elevated. After excluding an infective aetiology, review of computed tomography images of the cervical spine (Figure) showed calcification of the transverse ligament of the atlas with crown-like density around the odontoid process. This was consistent with a diagnosis of crowned dens syndrome, an uncommon manifestation of calcium pyrophosphate dehydrate deposition disease. The patient's symptoms were self-limiting over 1 week without the use of anti-inflammatories or corticosteroids.n


Introduction During the initial COVID-19 pandemic peak, Stamford Hospital implemented a home oxygen program (HOP) to create a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary outpatient initiative without sacrificing a safe discharge. Primary care physicians monitored program participants, whose only indication for remaining admitted was an oxygen requirement. We retrospectively examined participant co-morbidities and outcomes, including death and readmission rates to evaluate HOP safety. Methods A retrospective analysis of program participants discharged between April 2020-Janurary 2021 was performed. Variables included demographics, oxygen requirement, days enrolled in the HOP, and major comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes (DM), hypertension (HTN), obesity, chronic kidney disease, malignancies and underlying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Results Among the 138 HOP participants, ages ranged from 23 to 96 (Mean 65.5), with 47.1% female and 52.9% male. The most represented ethnicity included White (48.6%), Hispanic (29.7%), and Black (15.2%). Patients' average time in the HOP was 19 days, requiring an average of 1.7 L/min of home oxygen. Thirteen patients (9.4%) were readmitted to the hospital with 2.9% secondary to worsening COVID-19 hypoxia, but no deaths occurred at home. A significant relationship was found between age and highest home oxygen need. Patients with COPD, HTN, and DM had significantly higher oxygen requirements (P-value <0.05). Conclusion Increasing age, underlying COPD, HTN, and DM were associated with higher oxygen requirements in participants. Given limited availability of hospital beds, and no occurrences of death at home, Stamford Hospital HOP safely helped provide care for sicker patients and enhanced resource allocation.


We all read with the knowledge, or at least the memory, of what we have already read. And even the novels we read are imbued with their predecessors to such an extent that reading a novel means in effect reading its predecessors as well. Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum echoes earlier novels in the realist tradition, showing that such novels are written with other novels in mind. As Barthes put it, "there is no first reading." According to Barthes, the common view that there is some pristine first reading of a book is as fictional as other popular cultural myths. The idea of a first, or single, reading is a pretence fostered by "the commercial and ideological habits of our society." Every reading, even a so-called "first reading" is to some extent conditioned by other reading. Using Edward Said's Beginnings, I look at how this is to some extent also true of critics of realist fiction, who echo and complicate each other's readings.


Elimination of foreign pathogens requires detection of the presence of such microorganisms somewhere in the body. This task relies on specialized cells, among which specific lymphocytes permanently circulate throughout the body searching for signals indicative of the presence of invasive microorganisms. In contrast to B lymphocytes, T lymphocytes are unable to recognize bacteria or viruses in their native form. The structure of their antigen receptor only allows them to bind to small peptidic fragments that have to be stably presented by specific molecules at the surface of specific cells. These professional "antigen presenting cells" capture antigens and alert the immune system by expressing at their surface molecular complexes formed by their own major histocompatibility molecules (MHC) and fragments of the infectious agent. Extracellular microorganisms are captured by phagocytosis and digested into small peptides in the endosomal compartment of antigen presenting cells. The peptides able to bind to MHC class II molecules are transported to the cell surface. These antigen-MHC complexes are recognized by antigen specific CD4+ T lymphocytes, thus leading to the enhancement of antibody formation and of inflammatory responses which eliminate extracellular bacterial. In contrast, viruses or bacteria able to survive within the cytoplasm of the antigen presenting cells are digested by a specific multicatalytic enzymatic complex (the proteasome). The antigenic peptides released into the cytosol will be transported into the endoplasmic reticulum by an active peptide pump. The peptides able to bind to the groove of MHC class I molecules are transported to the cell surface. Their recognition by specific cytotoxic CD8+ lymphocytes leads to the destruction of the cells identified as infected. Thus, the mechanisms of antigen processing and presentation are able to generate a wide variety of antigenic fragments. Depending on the initial extra- or intracellular localization of the microorganism, some antigenic peptides will appear on the surface of antigen presenting cells on either MHC class I or class II molecules which are specifically recognized by either CD4+ or CD8+ lymphocytes. Only the antigenic peptides that are generated by this process and able to bind to MHC molecules of antigen presenting cells will be recognized by circulating lymphocytes and thus induce antigen specific immune response. Their identification therefore forms the basis of the defense mechanisms against infectious diseases and of novel immunization strategies.


The Capacitance diaphragm gauge (CDG) is one of the most important vacuum gauges in low and middle vacuum ranges. The difference of temperature between the sensor head and the vacuum chamber gives a non-linear sensitivity of the gauge depending on the pressure due to thermal transpiration effect. Change in the sensitivity of about 4% between molecular flow regime and viscous flow regime is significant for metrological use of the gauge. In this study, by using a DSMC method, pressure distribution in the connecting tube of the gauge was obtained under the pressure range from molecular flow regime to viscous flow regime with taking account of temperature distribution along the connecting tube. It was in good agreement with the pressure dependence of sensitivity obtained by static expansion system experimentally. Furthermore, influence of gas-surface interaction on the thermal transpiration was also discussed.


The problem of weighted sum-rate maximization for hybrid architecture in millimeter wave communications with dynamic time division duplexing is considered. We propose an over the air pilot- aided direct beamforming estimation technique for the considered problem, by exploiting the channel reciprocity. Proper selection of analog precoder/combiner not only suppresses large part of interference, but also ensures that less coordination is required for digital precoder/combiner design. We design analog precoder/combiner for each data stream in such a way that its signal strength is maximized; this strategy also minimizes large part of inter-stream interference that may arise due to the main lobe of analog beamformer. Then we design digital beamformer such that inter-stream interference is further mitigated, maximizing the overall weighted sum-rate of the network.


We propose the use of a 4-pole high temperature superconducting (HTS) transmitting filter in which the line width of resonator 2 has been expanded with narrow slits. We designed a Chebyshev BPF using the Sonnet EM software and calculated the current density distribution of each resonator. The power-handling capability of the HTS filter with narrow slits (number of slits: 14, Gap: 0.04 mm) was expected to improve by approximately 4.0 dB from an electromagnetic simulation. To clarify the effect of the narrow slits, we fabricated an HTS filter in which only the line width of resonator 2 was expanded and one using the narrow slits, and measured the frequency response and power handling capability. The fabricated filters showed band-pass characteristics, and the power-handling capabilities were up to 9.8 dB compared with the case where only the line width of resonator 2 was expanded.


Concussions occur in youth football with lower frequency than observed at higher levels of play, though the effect of repetitive subconcussive head impacts resulting from participation in youth football is unknown at this point. One measure shown to be affected by concussions is athlete postural control. The objective of this study was to compare performance on the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) and a force plate protocol at two time points within a cohort of healthy youth football players and healthy non-contact youth track or baseball athletes. In absence of a clinically-diagnosed concussion, the hypothesis was tested that a season of youth football would affect measures of static postural control and stability. Between time points, there were no significant differences observed between either BESS scores or force plate metrics. Between athlete groups, there were no significant differences observed for either the BESS or the force plate protocol. Particularly for pediatric males, postural control is still developing and current assessments may not be sensitive enough to detect changes. Continued research is necessary to determine what postural control testing may be most viable for use within an active, pediatric population.


The primary goal of my PhD was to provide a mechanistic understanding of observed effects of nitrate chimeras, a novel class of drugs developed by Dr. Gregory Thatcher for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). An example of this class, GT-1061, has received FDA approval for clinical trials. With support from the NIA, we refined and redesigned novel compounds from the drug class, with preliminary data showing promise in both culture and animal models of AD. This project deepened the understanding of the observed effects of methiazole-based nitrate chimeras by investigating mechanisms of action in culture, tissue and animal models of AD and determined the effect of nitrate chimeras on classic AD pathophysiology. This work also supported the entry of two optimized novel compounds into clinical trials and identified novel mechanisms of action of potential utility in the AD drug development field.


Gingival recession is a common clinical finding that entails an aesthetic problem, causes hypersensitivity and hinders effective dental plaque control. In the case of implants, recession causes aesthetic problems and its progression does not seem to be so frequent (1). Periodontal plastic surgery procedures are indicated in these cases. These techniques must be adapted to treat peri-implant areas (1). While the literature presents different treatment approaches, connective tissue grafts have become the gold standard as they provide a higher rate of success and predictability.


Worker selection is very crucial for crowd-sensing to ensure high data quality. Existing approaches have two limitations. First, they only take specific factors into account for their motivating application scenarios, but do not provide general models in support of crowd-sensing at large. Second, they select workers only in terms of the requirements defined by the task creator without considering other worker-required factors. To overcome abovementioned limitations, this paper proposes a novel worker selection framework for crowd sensing. Compared to existing work, it mainly has following two characteristics. (1) Multi-scenario. Instead of defining specific factors, we propose a core ontology model to semantically express general factors, based on which task creators can build their own task-specific models efficiently. (2) Multi-view. We propose a two-phase process to select workers by considering factors both from the task creator and worker. We evaluate the effectiveness of the worker selection process by using a questionnaire-generated dataset. Results show that our approach outperforms the baseline method.


ABSTRACT Deep-ocean regions beyond the reach of sunlight contain an estimated 615 Pg of dissolved organic matter (DOM), much of which persists for thousands of years. It is thought that bacteria oxidize DOM until it is too dilute or refractory to support microbial activity. We analyzed five single-amplified genomes (SAGs) from the abundant SAR202 clade of dark-ocean bacterioplankton and found they encode multiple families of paralogous enzymes involved in carbon catabolism, including several families of oxidative enzymes that we hypothesize participate in the degradation of cyclic alkanes. The five partial genomes encoded 152 flavin mononucleotide/F420-dependent monooxygenases (FMNOs), many of which are predicted to be type II Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases (BVMOs) that catalyze oxygen insertion into semilabile alicyclic alkanes. The large number of oxidative enzymes, as well as other families of enzymes that appear to play complementary roles in catabolic pathways, suggests that SAR202 might catalyze final steps in the biological oxidation of relatively recalcitrant organic compounds to refractory compounds that persist. IMPORTANCE Carbon in the ocean is massively sequestered in a complex mixture of biologically refractory molecules that accumulate as the chemical end member of biological oxidation and diagenetic change. However, few details are known about the biochemical machinery of carbon sequestration in the deep ocean. Reconstruction of the metabolism of a deep-ocean microbial clade, SAR202, led to postulation of new biochemical pathways that may be the penultimate stages of DOM oxidation to refractory forms that persist. These pathways are tied to a proliferation of oxidative enzymes. This research illuminates dark-ocean biochemistry that is broadly consequential for reconstructing the global carbon cycle. Carbon in the ocean is massively sequestered in a complex mixture of biologically refractory molecules that accumulate as the chemical end member of biological oxidation and diagenetic change. However, few details are known about the biochemical machinery of carbon sequestration in the deep ocean. Reconstruction of the metabolism of a deep-ocean microbial clade, SAR202, led to postulation of new biochemical pathways that may be the penultimate stages of DOM oxidation to refractory forms that persist. These pathways are tied to a proliferation of oxidative enzymes. This research illuminates dark-ocean biochemistry that is broadly consequential for reconstructing the global carbon cycle.


The initial glycosylation of MPC 11 gamma 2b heavy chains occurs quantitatively in vivo when the nascent heavy chains reach a size of approximately 38 000 daltons. Nonglycosylated, completed MPC 11 heavy chains cannot be glycosylated in these cells. Other classes of mouse heavy chains (i.e., mu, alpha, and gamma 1) also appear to be glycosylated as nascent chains; nonglycosylated, completed heavy chains cannot be glycosylated by the cell in any of these cases. In contrast, variant MPC 11 cells synthesizing a heavy chain with a carboxy-terminal deletion appear to glycosylate some heavy chains prior to chain completion and some heavy chains after chain completion and release from the polysomes. Similar to the variant MPC 11 cells, MOPC 46B cells (which synthesize a kappa light chain containing an oligosaccharide attached to an asparagine located 28 residues from the amino terminus) glycosylate the majority of light chains after prior to chain completion but also some light chains after chain completion and release from the polysomes. In addition, it appears that, although completed MOPC 46B light chains can be glycosylated if they are present in a monomeric form, they cannot be glycosylated if they are present in a covalent dimeric form.


Enormous absence of knowledge regarding dust explosion involving Engineered Nanomaterials (ENMs) has led to the exploration on investigating the Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) of selected ranges of sizes for aluminum nanopowders. Nano- structure owned by alumina definitely contributes to changes in its chemical as well as physical composition. Thus, testing on MIE determination was conducted on three different particle sizes of aluminum nanopowders; A1-100nm, Al-70nm, Al-40nm.The main aim of the project is to determine the relationship of the particle diameter with their respective MIE. The overall experimental procedure take place using 1.2L Hartmann tube explosion system based on ASTM E2019. Two different dust concentrations were tested (250 g/m3 and 500 g/m3) and the results showed that Al-40 nm have the lowest MIE values of less than 5 mJ for both concentrations. For Al-70nm, the MIE value at concentration equals to 250g/m3 is between 10 mJ and 33 mJ, whereas the MIE is less than 10 mJ at concentration equals to 500 g/m3. This contradicts with Al-100nm in which the MIE is between 100 mJ and 200 mJ (c=250 g/m3) and between 33 mJ and 51 mJ (c=500 g/m3). In overall, as particle size decreasing, the MIE is significantly decreasing at respective concentrations.


[Partial depolymerization of myocardial DNA was found to ensue within the first hours after termination of stress exposure. The depolymerization was accompanied by DNA synthesis repair manifesting both in in-vivo and in-vitro experiments. With time the repair of DNA synthesis decreased while its polymerism got recovered. The data obtained provide evidence in favour of the relationship between the stress-induced free radical activation and damage and subsequent DNA synthesis repair.


Since the concept of Cognitive Radio (CR) was first introduced, it has been considered as a key technology of future wireless devices to better utilize radio spectrum. A number of CR-MAC protocols have been studied for Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), but most state-of-the-art frequencyhopping based protocols focus mainly on channel mobility and spectrum resource allocation. They lack integration of other essential features such as time synchronization and cooperative spectrum sensing, which are practically crucial, into a full-blown CR-MAC protocol. In this paper, we propose MSHCS-MAC: a mac protocol for Multi-hop CRNs based on Slow Hopping and Cooperative Sensing approach which is the cutting edge frequency hopping scheme. The contributions of MSHCS-MAC are threefold: (1) Support of multi-hop communication without dedicated control channel and multiple transceivers, (2) Integration of essential CR-MAC features such as bootstrapping, multi-channel operation, cooperative spectrum sensing and time synchronization, (3) Practical implementation and evaluation on commercial devices. The evaluation results show that MSHCS-MAC provides reasonable performance in the experimental testbed with supporting multihop communication and essential CR-MAC features.


Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a fifth of common malignancies, with an annual diagnosis of 750,000 new cases. It is the third cause of cancer deaths worldwide. The cirrhotic liver is a leading cause of HCC with the annual conversion rate to HCC in the range of 2–6 %. The underlying liver cirrhosis limits certain treatment modalities that potentially further aggravates liver dysfunction. Over the past decade, there were substantial improvements in the HCC resection techniques that has resulted in the reduction of operative mortality. This allowed doing major hepatectomy in cirrhotic patients who are suitable for liver transplantation but lacking availability of cadaveric or living donors. Also, patients who have multi-focal HCC underlying cirrhosis which render them unsuitable for liver transplantation due to its extension beyond Milan criteria.
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the benefits and selection criteria of HCC surgical resection within child–Turcotte–Pugh score (CTP) A and B liver cirrhosis to achieve the best surgical outcomes.
Methods: We performed a literature search within English written trials using PubMed and MEDLINE reviews databases from 1986 to 2017. One hundred fifty studies are included in this review evaluating various parameters including HCC and compensated cirrhosis prevalence, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, and diagnostic methods. Furthermore, we have compared oncological hepatic resection with other modalities like transarterial chemoembolization, liver transplantation, embolization of the portal vein, laparoscopic hepatic resection, and ALPPS technique. Principles of surgical hepatectomy and postoperative complications are also presented in this review.
Conclusion: This review has demonstrated that hepatic cirrhosis complicated by portal hypertension is not an absolute contraindication for HCC resection. Furthermore, elective surgery must not be directed exclusively to CTP A cirrhosis but it can be applied to highly selected patients who had suffered from advanced hepatic cirrhosis. If multifocal HCC underlying hepatic cirrhosis was unsuitable for liver transplantation, hepatectomy can be carried out to increase the tumor cure chances, prevent it's recurrences, and lead to significant survival rate improvement. The degree of cirrhosis significantly affects the decision of primary hepatic carcinoma treatment and it's prognosis. The interdisciplinary assessment of liver function by surgeons, hepatologists, anesthesiologists, and specialists of critical care are essential for maximum critical stabilization of the patients.
Keywords: Child-Turcotte-Pugh score; hepatocellular carcinoma; hepatectomy; liver cirrhosis; portal hypertension


In order to generalize the indications for drainage of the abdominal cavity the authors have systematized and subdivided them into one-type groups depending on the aims, (medical, prophylactic) and tasks, which on their opinion can allow the surgeons to better realize the reasons of using this method of treatment and to critically assess it. An analysis of clinical material was made in order to find out the frequency and localization of intraabdominal abscesses and to assess the measures taken for their prevention. It was found that in spite of the abdominal cavity drainage after 1568 operations on emergency indications, abscesses developed in 43 patients. An analysis of the investigation has shown that the causes, frequency and localization of postoperative abscesses are not predictable, prophylactic measures have low efficiency due to using passive glove-tube drainage and to too frequent using this not safe method without special need.


Descartes held the doctrine that the eternal truths are freely created by God. He seems to have thought that a proper understanding of God's freedom entails such a doctrine concerning the eternal truths. In this paper, I examine Descartes' account of divine freedom. I argue that Descartes' statements about indifference, namely that indifference is the lowest grade of freedom and that indifference is the essence of God's freedom are not incompatible. I also show how Descartes arrived at his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths by consideration of the nature of God's freedom.


A number of propagation phenomena which cause variability in the noise testing of vehicles using standard procedures have been isolated and studied. Included are the effects of interference produced by reflection from various ground surfaces, the effects of refrac tion caused by wind and temperature gradients in the atmosphere, changes in sound level due to the wake of the vehicle, and the effects of normal atmospheric turbulence. SAE/SP-80/456/S02.50 Copyright © 1980 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.


Abstract. Due to lack of regional data constraints, all global ocean tide models are not accuracy enough in offshore areas around China, also the displacements predicted by different models are not consistency. The ocean tide loading effects have become a major source of error in the high precision GPS positioning. It is important for high precision GPS applications to build an appropriate regional ocean tide model. We first process the four offshore GPS tracking station's observation data which located in Guangdong province of China by using PPP aproach to get the time series. Then use the spectral inversion method to acquire eigenvalues of the Ocean Tidal Loading. We get the estimated value of not only ~12hour period tide wave (M2, S2, N2, K2) but also ~24hour period tide wave (O1, K1, P1, Q1) which has not been got in presious studies. The contrast test shows that GPS estimation value of M2, K1 is consistent with the result of five famous glocal ocean load tide models, but S2, N2, K2, O1, P1, Q1 is obviously larger.


Body condition scores (BCS) measure a cow's fat reserves and is important for management and research. Manual BCS assessment is subjective, time-consuming, and requires trained personnel. The BodyMat F (BMF, Ingenera SA, Cureglia, Switzerland) is an automated body condition scoring system using a 3D sensor to estimate BCS. This study assesses the BMF. One hundred and three Holstein Friesian cows were assessed by the BMF and two assessors throughout a lactation. The BMF output is in the 0–5 scale commonly used in France. We develop and report the first equation to convert these scores to the 1–5 scale used by the assessors in Ireland in this study ((0–5 scale × 0.38) + 1.67 → 1–5 scale). Inter-assessor agreement as measured by Lin's concordance of correlation was 0.67. BMF agreement with the mean of the two assessors was the same as between assessors (0.67). However, agreement was lower for extreme values, particularly in over-conditioned cows where the BMF underestimated BCS relative to the mean of the two human observers. The BMF outperformed human assessors in terms of reproducibility and thus is likely to be especially useful in research contexts. This is the second independent validation of a commercially marketed body condition scoring system as far as the authors are aware. Comparing the results here with the published evaluation of the other system, we conclude that the BMF performed as well or better.


Beneficial ownership transparency has become one of the leading tools to tackle illicit financial flows related to tax evasion, money laundering, corruption and terrorism finance. It involves identifying the "beneficial owners", who are the individuals (natural persons) who ultimately own or control legal vehicles such as companies, partnerships, trusts or foundations that operate in the economy by opening bank accounts, holding real estate, or providing goods and services. Without beneficial ownership transparency, criminals are able to engage in illegal activities by hiding behind legal vehicles or nominees. Beneficial ownership transparency reveals who is behind an entity. This report, based on the Financial Secrecy Index, describes the state of play of both legal and beneficial ownership registration in more than 112 jurisdictions for four types of legal vehicles (companies, partnerships, trusts and private foundations). It describes the registration level in each country, and it also weighs the risks based on the number of registered vehicles. For example, if both country A and country B offer secretive companies, but one million companies have been created in country A while none have been created in country B, then the risk posed by country A is much worse in practice than that of country B.


Summary 1. Understanding the extent to which plant genotype influences community composition has important conservation and management value. Here, we add a new layer to current research by testing whether genotypes of plant symbionts influence plant community composition. 2. Tall fescue grass Lolium arundinaceum is planted worldwide for forage, turf, and soil stabilization, has invaded native communities, and commonly hosts the foliar endophytic fungus, Neotyphodium coenophialum. We quantified vegetation development over a 6-year period in replicated field plots of the two most commonly introduced genotypes of the endophyte (KY-31, AR-542) in two tall fescue cultivars (Georgia-5, Jesup). The KY-31 endophyte produces ergot alkaloids toxic to mammalian herbivores, while AR-542 lacks ergots. We expected that the KY-31 endophyte would promote tall fescue dominance by altering mammalian herbivory, that endophyte-free plots would support the highest plant diversity, and that AR-542 endophyte would show intermediate effects. 3. Plots with the KY-31 endophyte supported 10% fewer plant species than endophyte-free or AR-542 plots. KY-31 also reduced graminoids and forbs more strongly than AR-542, with the greatest response in Georgia-5. Endophyte genotype did not significantly alter the prevalence of tall fescue; however, absence of the endophyte reduced the biomass of Georgia-5. 4. Both plant and endophyte genetic identity influenced the persistence of endophyte symbiosis. In Georgia-5, the frequency of AR-542 declined more through time than did KY-31; these effects were reversed in Jesup. 5. Endophyte presence reduced herbivory by mammals (voles), but endophyte genotype had no effect, suggesting that voles were not driving endophyte genotype-mediated changes in plant composition, and that other compounds besides ergot alkaloids influenced vole feeding. 6. Synthesis and applications. When endophyte-symbiotic plants are desired, the AR-542 endophyte in the Georgia-5 background would achieve higher native plant diversity and reduce tall fescue invasion of nearby areas. Conversely, Jesup is recommended for increased tall fescue persistence, as both biomass and reproduction exceeded Georgia-5. In summary, our results demonstrate that, like plant genotype, symbiont genotype can also alter vegetation dynamics and plant composition and should be considered when managing for conservation, restoration, forage, turf, re-vegetation or soil stabilization.


The Census Interaction Data Service (CIDS) is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK to provide access for social science researchers and students to the detailed migration and journey-to-work statistics that are collected by the national statistical agencies. These interaction data sets are known collectively as the Special Migration Statistics (SMS) and the Special Workplace Statistics (SWS). This paper outlines how problems of user access to these data have been tackled through the development of a web-based system known as WICID (Web-based Interface to Census Interaction Data). The paper illustrates various interface features including some of the query building facilities that enable users to extract counts of flows of particular groups of individuals between selected origin and destination areas. New tools are outlined for assisting area selection using digital maps of census geographies, for planning output and for adding value to the data through analysis. Mapping of flows of migrants between London boroughs and the rest of the UK demonstrates the value of the data. The paper begins with a summary of the data sets that are contained within the system and an outline of the system architecture.


Foundry-compatible materials and processing approaches serve as the foundations for advanced, active implantable microsystems that can dissolve in biofluids into biocompatible reaction products, with broad potential applications in biomedicine. The results reported here include in vitro studies of the dissolution kinetics and nanoscale bioresorption behaviors of device-grade thin films of Si, SiN x, SiO2, and W in the presence of dynamic cell cultures via atomic force microscopy and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. In situ investigations of cell-extracellular mechanotransduction induced by cellular traction provide insights into the cytotoxicity of these same materials and of microcomponents formed with them using foundry-compatible processes, indicating potential cytotoxicity elicited by W at concentrations greater than 6 mM. The findings are of central relevance to the biocompatibility of modern Si-based electronics technologies as active, bioresorbable microsystems that interface with living tissues.