Robust perception relies on both bottom-up and top-down signals. Bottom-up signals consist of what's directly observed through sensation. Top-down signals consist of beliefs and expectations based on past experience and short-term memory, such as how the phrase `peanut butter and~...' will be completed. The optimal combination of bottom-up and top-down information remains an open question, but the manner of combination must be dynamic and both context and task dependent. To effectively utilize the wealth of potential top-down information available, and to prevent the cacophony of intermixed signals in a bidirectional architecture, mechanisms are needed to restrict information flow. We explore deep recurrent neural net architectures in which bottom-up and top-down signals are dynamically combined using attention. Modularity of the architecture further restricts the sharing and communication of information. Together, attention and modularity direct information flow, which leads to reliable performance improvements in perceptual and language tasks, and in particular improves robustness to distractions and noisy data. We demonstrate on a variety of benchmarks in language modeling, sequential image classification, video prediction and reinforcement learning that the \emph{bidirectional} information flow can improve results over strong baselines.


This report is designed to highlight the impact of policy drivers on the freight logistics
supply chain. This section will define the term policy drivers and outline the different
types of impacts the can have upon the logistics supply chain. In Section Two a list of
policy drivers is presented, along with associated policy levers. An attempt to assess
what impact each policy lever has on the logistics supply chain is made in Section
Three and in Section Four a number of policies levers are selected to take forward as
possible scenarios to be evaluated in the University of Leeds cost modelling work.
Policy drivers are defined as broad aims, targets or statements that are considered to
be desirable by the various bodies of government or non-government organisations in
satisfying their overall goals such as "maximising social welfare", "staying in power"
etc... The types of policy drivers vary by organisation and may be complimentary or
contradictory. They may also change over time as new doctrine is implemented or
new research findings put into practise. In the Government's, 'Transport 2010 - The
10 Year Plan' (DFT, 2000) the policy drivers are outlined under the heading 'Vision'
and are presented below,
· Fully integrated public transport information, booking and ticketing systems;
· Safer and more secure transport accessible to all; and,
· A transport system that makes less impact on the environment.
Policy levers are the policy instruments used to attain policy drivers and can be used
to achieve more than one Both policy drivers and policy levers can be categorised
under two headings as outlined below,
a) Fiscal Drivers; and,
b) Physical & Regulatory Drivers
The implementation of these policies leads to both direct and indirect outcomes that
will make some contribution to achieving the policy drivers set out by the
government. The policy levers will impact upon the freight industry in a positive,
negative or neutral manner and for the purposes of the next section three definitions
have been formulated which have been related to the impact of policy levers on costs
and externalities. In Section Four a broader range of impacts are discussed for the
policy levers that have been selected as possible scenarios.
A Positive Impact - Any outcome that,
1) Lowers operating cost without increasing externalities, and/or;
2) Lowers externalities without increasing costs.
A Neutral lmpact – Any outcome that,
1) Maintains defacto operating costs without changing externalities, and/or;
2) Maintains defacto externalities with out changing operating costs.
A Negative Impact – Any outcome that,
5
1) Increases operating costs, and/or;
2) Increases externalities.
Making a judgement as to whether any one policy is beneficial or not is difficult in the
absence of any data and will differ depending upon who you are. The judgements
that will be made in this paper will apply to the freight logistics industry only and the
externalities they produce. It is stressed that they are not exact. The next section will
outline in more detail some of the possible policy drivers that either currently apply to
or could be applied to the freight logistics industry. The likely policy levers that
could arise from the policy drivers are then discussed along with the possible
transport outcomes and their impacts


In this paper we describe a multi-camera traffic monitoring system relying on the concept of probability fusion maps (PFM) to detect vehicles in a traffic scene. In the PFM, traffic images from multiple cameras are inverse-mapped and registered onto a common reference frame, combining the multiple camera information to reduce the impact of occlusions. The perspective projection is, generally, non-invertible, although imposing the constraint that the image points be co-planar allows inversion. However, in a traffic scene, the co-planarity of image points is not strictly true, so the PFM are subject to distortions. We present a new approach to reducing these distortions by projecting the camera images onto planes at different offsets from the road plane. These PFM are combined to generate a multi-level (ML) PFM. We show that the distortions in the various projection planes offset and the ML PFM thus improves vehicle detection in the presence of occlusions.


Background: Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) induces aromatase expression in adipose tissue, leading to increased estrogen production that may promote the development and progression of breast cancer. However, few studies have simultaneously investigated systemic levels of PGE2 and estrogen in relation to postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Methods: Here, we determined urinary estrogen metabolites (EM) using mass spectrometry in a case–cohort study (295 incident breast cancer cases and 294 subcohort members), and using linear regression estimated the effect of urinary levels of a major PGE2 metabolite (PGE-M) on EMs. HRs for the risk of developing breast cancer in relation to PGE-M and EMs were compared between Cox regression models with and without mutual adjustment. Results: PGE-M was a significant predictor of estrone (E1), but not estradiol (E2) levels in multivariable analysis. Elevated E2 levels were associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer [HRQ5vs.Q1, 1.54; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01–2.35], and this association remained unchanged after adjustment for PGE-M (HRQ5vs.Q1, 1.52; 95% CI, 0.99–2.33). Similarly, elevated levels of PGE-M were associated with increased risk of developing breast cancer (HRQ4vs.Q1, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.01–4.29), and this association was only nominally changed after consideration of E1 or E2 levels. Conclusions: Urinary levels of PGE-M and estrogens were independently associated with future risk of developing breast cancer among these postmenopausal women. Impact: Increased breast cancer risk associated with PGE-M might not be fully explained by the estrogens–breast cancer association alone but also by additional effects related to inflammation. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(3); 383–8. ©2016 AACR.


The agent-based model presented here simulates demographic change and economic activity on the Logone floodplain in Cameroon at the level of individual households. Under default conditions, the model demonstrates how the changing relationship between household livelihood, family size, and wealth can explain floodplain-wide economic trends since 1980. Critical decisions about household spending are based on a rational-choice model that links income, investment, and the household head's marriage prospects. Additionally, household members give birth, leave the household, and die in accordance with known demographic and survey data from the floodplain.

The model also simulates the economic impact of the extremist group Boko Haram on the Logone floodplain. Since 2014, Boko Haram has expanded from northeast Nigeria into the Far North region of Cameroon, threatening the security of Cameroonian and provoking a military response. While the direct threat of Boko Haram attacks remains low on the Logone floodplain, residents face new social and economic pressures related to the disruption of the northeast Nigerian economy and increased military activity in the region. This model was used to conduct in-silico experiments about the magnitude of these pressures on floodplain residents; identify which groups are most vulnerable to the current crisis; and determine whether the short-term disruption facilitated by Boko Haram could precipitate long-term changes to social and economic trends on the floodplain.


OBJECTIVE
To integrate findings from previous cephalometric studies comparing the craniofacial complex of unaffected parents with cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) children to controls with no history of the disease.

DESIGN
Meta-analysis of case-control cephalometric data.

INCLUSION CRITERIA
Studies were selected if the unaffected parents of children with CL/P were included and were not combined with parents of children with isolated CP; quantitative data were obtained through cephalometry; the cephalometric variables used were not unique to a study; a case-control design was used; and the means and standard deviations for all variables were reported or could be calculated for both the experimental and the control group.

OUTCOME MEASURE
Using raw data obtained from nine studies, mean weighted effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for 28 cephalometric variables (mothers and fathers combined) or 18 variables (mothers and fathers separately). Heterogeneity statistics for the effect sizes were also calculated.

RESULTS
In general, unaffected parents of children with CL/P possessed significantly wider interorbital, nasal cavity and upper facial dimensions, narrower cranial vaults, longer cranial bases, longer and more protrusive mandibles, shorter upper faces and longer lower faces compared with controls. Increased width of the nasal cavity was the most robust finding. Significant effect size heterogeneity was observed in roughly half of the variables examined.

CONCLUSION
Unaffected parents of children with CL/P are characterized by a suite of consistent, yet subtle, craniofacial differences, which could indicate an underlying genetic liability.


Over the past decade the concern about toxic metals in freshwater has increased. Environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act have forced industries that produce metal containing wastewater to treat their wastewater prior to discharge. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of a novel method for the minimization of heavy metals in the wastewater from the mining industry. A very promising electrochemical treatment technique that does not require chemical additions is electrocoagulation (EC) and sulphide precipitation. The present study has been done for the recovery of gold and silver contained in pregnant solution from the cyanidation process using the electrocoagulation technology with iron electrodes; that is a developed alternative technology for the Merril-Crowe process. The average gold and silver content in pregnant solution was 4.27 and 283 ppm respectively and the recoveries were 92% for gold and 95% for silver, with optimum operating parameters of pH 10, residence time of 20 minutes and addition of sodium chloride of 4 gr/L. The results of precipitation process show that the elimination of lead, zinc, cooper and iron ions from the barren solution was successful, with optimum operating parameters of pH 3 and residence time of 15 minutes, and the recoveries were 99% of these ions. Finally the characterization of the solid products of gold and silver formed during the EC process with Scanning Electronic Microscope was performed. Results suggest that magnetite particles and amorphous iron oxyhydroxides (lepidocrocite) were present.


The spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria and financial burden of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) further the need for treatments to address pathogenic contamination and expedite healing. This retrospective study was a chart review of a series of 92 patients who underwent 100 total knee arthroplasties performed by the same surgeon and treated with a novel microcurrent-generating antimicrobial dressing (MCD). Mean hospital length of stay was 2.3±0.9 days, while the mean length of treatment with MCD was 8.3±1.2 days. No major complications, PJI or major infectious complications were reported, with two readmissions (2%) within 30 days of surgery. Knee Society Score function showed statistically significant improvements post-operatively, with a mean six-month score of 75.0±20.3 and mean change from baseline of 36.3±21.1 (P<0.0001). These results support previous findings that use of the MCD may result in improved outcomes as an element in postoperative wound management.


This study examined the hypothesis that gender differences in psychological distress are mediated by job and family role conditions. Previous research has failed to directly test such mediational hypotheses but rather has inferred effects of role conditions from simple role-occupancy variables. The sample consisted of full-time employed married respondents including 161 women with full-time employed spouses, 142 men with nonemployed spouses, and 126 men with full-time employed spouses. Although the sample reported low psychological symptomatology overall, the women in dual-earner families reported more psychological symptomatology than did either group of men. Hierarchical regression equations indicated that work and family conditions fully attenuated this gender differential. Women in dual-earner families also reported less job enrichment, less time at work, and more household labor inequity than did either group of men. They also reported more childcare difficulty than did men with nonemployed spouses. Work-family interference predicted psychological symptomatology and partially accounted for its relationship with some job and family conditions. We discuss processes through which gender affects psychological distress.


We have developed a new method for the identification of signal peptides and their cleavage sites based on neural networks trained on separate sets of prokaryotic and eukaryotic sequences. The method performs significantly better than previous prediction schemes, and can easily be applied to genome-wide data sets. Discrimination between cleaved signal peptides and uncleaved N-terminal signal-anchor sequences is also possible, though with lower precision. Predictions can be made on a publicly available WWW server: http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/SignalP/.


We measure the efficiency of regional innovation systems (RIS) in Germany by means of a knowledge production function. This function relates private sector Research and Development (R&D) in a region to the number of inventions that have been registered by residents of that region. Two approaches are followed. First, it is assumed that differences in the productivity of private sector R&D between regions affect the slope of the KPF, which represents the marginal productivity of R&D input. The second approach assesses regional differences within the framework of a stochastic frontier knowledge production function. This approach mainly reveals differences with regard to the intercept of the knowledge production function and, therefore, with regard to the average productivity. We compare the results of both approaches and discuss a number of critical issues such as the properties of the distribution of efficiencies, the appropriate size of RIS, and how to deal with the issue of spatial autocorrelation.


Intact rabbit immunoglobulin G molecules (IgGs) and their papain or pepsin fragments were radio-iodinated and injected into HeLa cells. Whole IgGs, Fab2, and Fc fragments were degraded with half-lives of 60- 90 h, whereas half-lives of Fab fragments were 110 h. These results indicate that proteolytic cleavage in the hinge region of the IgG molecule is not the rate-limiting step in its intracellular degradation. The hingeless human myeloma protein, Mcg, was degraded at the same rate as bulk human IgG, providing further evidence that the proteolytically susceptible hinge region is not important for intracellular degradation of IgG molecules. SDS acrylamide gel analysis of injected rabbit IgG molecules revealed that heavy and light chains were degraded at the same rate. Injected rabbit IgGs and rabbit IgG fragments were also examined on isoelectric focusing gels. Fab, Fab2, and Fc fragments were degraded without any correlation with respect to isoelectric point. Positively charged rabbit IgGs disappeared more rapidly than their negative counterparts, contrary to the trend reported for normal intracellular proteins. The isoelectric points of two mouse monoclonal antibodies were essentially unchanged after injection into HeLa cells, suggesting that the altered isoelectric profile observed for intact rabbit IgG resulted from degradation and not protein modification. The intracellular distributions of IgG fragments and intact rabbit IgG molecules were determined by autoradiography of thin sections through injected cells. Intact IgG molecules were excluded from HeLa nuclei whereas both Fab and Fc fragments readily entered them. Thus, for some proteins, entry into the nuclear compartment is determined primarily by size.


Eight currently underused therapeutic regimens are reviewed on the basis of their potential to have a major impact on morbidity and mortality in adults. The criteria for the selection of these regimens included their safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, the availability of substantial data to support their efficacy, and the existence of evidence that the regimens are underused in clinical practice. The eight regimens that meet these criteria are prophylactic aspirin therapy, estrogen replacement therapy, nicotine substitutes as adjunctive therapy in smoking cessation, beta-blocker therapy following myocardial infarction, anti-inflammatory agents in the treatment of asthma, antidepressant drugs as therapy for mild depression, increased fiber intake and regular exercise.


The work contained in this thesis was concerned with rebreathing methods of measuring lung volume. In particular, one novel rebreathing technique which uses oxygen as the indicator gas was assessed. This technique appeared methodologically simple and readily applicable in a clinical environment. In essence, it relied on a graphical extrapolation of the time related changes in oxygen concentration to allow for oxygen uptake. This technique has been tested using a mass spectrometer which enabled nitrogen and argon as well as oxygen to be simultaneously used as indicator gases. Although the lung volumes as measured by the different indicator gases should have been the same, these were found to be different. These discrepancies were related to the concentration of the indicator gas which existed in the bag and lung prior to rebreathing. A hypothesis explaining these inconsistancies was formulated. This was based on an initial but non-sustained output of carbon dioxide into the bag-plus-lung system. A numerical model of idealised rebreathing showed that the hypothesis was sufficient to explain the discrepancies observed. A correction procedure was devised which performed successfully in the model. This correction was incorporated into an on-line computing procedure for calculating real lung volume. When tested in normal subjects this gave consistent results for lung volume, irrespective of indicator gas employed. The corrected lung volumes were unaffected by the initial gas compositions in the bag and lung, and were also independent of non-sustained gas exchange, whether this was due to carbon dioxide and/or nitrous oxide. This technique could, therefore, be use under anaesthetic conditions, since the uptake or output of nitrous oxide no longer upsets the calculation of lung volume. The use of more than one indicator gas, within the same manoeuvre, was shown to provide a valuable indication of the presence of errors in the system. When this approach was applied to more conventional rebreathing techniques of lung volume measurement, it also highlighted the presence of inaccuracies.


Full Description: The National Church Life Survey (NCLS) is a project of NCLS Research. The primary aim of the NCLS is to provide information to Christian congregations and parishes about the health or vitality of their local church. However, it also covers a range of other research areas. The NCLS has collected data from several thousand congregations/parishes, hundreds of thousands of church attenders and thousands of local church leaders from approximately 20 Christian denominations across Australia every five years since 1991, coinciding with Australian Census of Population and Housing years. This dataset is derived from the 2011 NCLS. It is a sample of 5,000 respondents from the 2011 Main Attender Survey Types AP (Protestant) and AC (Catholic). The variables cover the following areas: demographics, religiosity, church attendance background, denominational affiliation (Catholic, Mainstream Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Pentecostal and Other Protestant), participation in the attender's church, experience and evaluation of the attender's church, personal leadership strengths, civic participation, and acts of service. The dataset is available as a SPSS file accompanied by a codebook in PDF. NCLS Research is a cooperative research venture of Anglicare (Diocese of Sydney), Uniting Church Synod of NSW and ACT (Uniting Mission and Education), the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Australian Catholic University.


This thesis uses the idea of lifting (or embedding) a nonlinear controlled dynamical system into an infinite-dimensional space of measures where this system is equivalently described by a linear equation. This equation and problems involving it are subsequently approximated using well-known moment-sum-of-squares hierarchies. First, we address the problems of region of attraction, reachable set and maximum controlled invariant set computation, where we provide a characterization of these sets as an infinite-dimensional linear program in the cone of nonnegative measures and we describe a hierarchy of finite-dimensional semidefinite-programming (SDP) hierarchies providing a converging sequence of outer approximations to these sets. Next, we treat the problem of optimal feedback controller design under state and input constraints. We provide a hierarchy of SDPs yielding an asymptotically optimal sequence of rational feedback controllers. In addition, we describe hierarchies of SDPs yielding approximations to the value function attained by any given rational controller, from below and from above, as well as a hierarchy of SDPs providing approximations from below to the optimal value function, hence obtaining performance certificates for the designed controllers as well as for any given rational controller. Finally, we describe a method to verify properties of a closed loop interconnection of a nonlinear dynamical system and an optimization-based controller (e.g., a model predictive controller) for deterministic and stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems. Properties such as global stability, the $\ell_2$ gain or performance with respect to a given infinite-horizon cost function can be certified. The methods presented are easy to implement using freely available software packages and are documented by a number of numerical examples.


During nervous system development, combinatorial codes of regulators act to specify different neuronal subclasses. However, within any given subclass, there exists a further refinement, apparent in Drosophila and C. elegans at single-cell resolution. The mechanisms that act to specify final and unique neuronal cell fates are still unclear. In the Drosophila embryo, one well-studied motoneuron subclass, the intersegmental motor nerve (ISN), consists of seven unique motoneurons. Specification of the ISN subclass is dependent upon both even-skipped (eve) and the zfh1 zinc-finger homeobox gene. We find that ISN motoneurons also express the GATA transcription factor Grain, and grn mutants display motor axon pathfinding defects. Although these three regulators are expressed by all ISN motoneurons, these genes act in an eve→grn→zfh1 genetic cascade unique to one of the ISN motoneurons, the aCC. Our results demonstrate that the specification of a unique neuron, within a given subclass, can be governed by a unique regulatory cascade of subclass determinants.


regression model with individual P-SCCAI questions. Results: Significantly higher work productivity impairment scores, lower reported quality of life (QoL), and higher worries/concerns at V1 and V5 were observed in patients with active disease (PSCCAI 35) vs inactive disease (P-SCCAI , 5) (Figure a,b). A strong correlation (0.70–0.89) was found between the SIBDQ and the P-SCCAI and PHQ-9 (Figure c). WPAI presenteeism, total activity impairment and total work productivity impairment were moderately correlated (0.40–0.69) with P-SCCAI and PHQ-9 (Figure c). At V1, a significant positive association of disease severity and nocturnal bowel urgency was observed with WPAI presenteeism, absenteeism, and total activity impairment. At V1 and V5, lower patient-assessed PHQ-9 scores were significantly associated with female gender, no bowel urgency, and no joint pain. Conclusion: These observational data in patients with UC suggest strong correlations between some PRO measures and patient-reported disease activity. Nocturnal bowel urgency was a key driver of total work productivity impairment, suggesting it is an important PRO to monitor when assessing overall patient QoL.


The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) promotes plant water conservation by decreasing the apertures of stomatal pores in the epidermis through which water loss occurs. We found thatArabidopsis thaliana plants harboring transferred DNA insertional mutations in the sole prototypical heterotrimeric GTP-binding (G) protein α subunit gene, GPA1, lack both ABA inhibition of guard cell inward K+ channels and pH-independent ABA activation of anion channels. Stomatal opening ingpa1 plants is insensitive to inhibition by ABA, and the rate of water loss from gpa1 mutants is greater than that from wild-type plants. Manipulation of G protein status in guard cells may provide a mechanism for controlling plant water balance.


We demonstrate the application of a new and ultrafast terahertz (THz) time-domain spectrometer for the nondestructive evaluation of targets that are optically opaque and are composed of several subunits. Thanks to the single-shot capability and the kilohertz acquisition rate of the spectrometer, objects can be analyzed during free fall. The integrity of the objects and their structural subunits as packaging material can be verified by the large amount of information available from THz time-domain spectroscopy. The time of flight, overall absorption, and spectrally resolved absorption can be used to reconstruct the 2-D image along the vertical axis of movement and the depth of the objects.


Grain boundary engineering has been applied to different materials in order to increase properties particularly sensitive to intergranular phenomena. This work analyses the micromechanisms that allow the control of the amount of special boundaries which respect coincidence site lattice theory. α-brass, a lead alloy, Inconel 625 and Inconel 600 were submitted to different thermomechanical treatments and were analyzed via electron backscatter diffraction in order to characterize their grain boundaries. The occurrence of thin twins in some crystal directions during the deformation step seems to determine the results obtained as well as strain induced boundary migration.


The Discrete Element Method (DEM) has emerged as a solution to predicting load capacities of masonry structures. As one of many numerical methods and computational solutions being applied to evaluate masonry structures, further research on DEM tools and methodologies is essential for further advancement. Computational Modeling of Masonry Structures Using the Discrete Element Method explores the latest digital solutions for the analysis and modeling of brick, stone, concrete, granite, limestone, and glass block structures. Focusing on critical research on mathematical and computational methods for masonry analysis, this publication is a pivotal reference source for scholars, engineers, consultants, and graduate-level engineering students.


ABSTRACT

Rotating drum chambers are simple and effective devices for retaining particles in the airborne state for prolonged periods. Many studies, including inhalation toxicology, environmental fate, and survivability of airborne pathogens, can benefit from using them. Particle size is the major factor governing aerosol suspension, yet reliable experimental data on the optimal rotation rate as a function of particle size are limited. Therefore, this study aims to experimentally characterize a rotating drum and to optimize the rotation rate for the bioaerosol size spectrum. Moreover, the sampling methodology for evaluating the performance of a rotating drum is investigated. Charge-neutralized potassium sodium tartrate (PST) particles generated by an ultrasonic atomizer are used as surrogates of bioaerosols to characterize the performance of the rotating drum. The aerosol number concentrations and size distributions in the rotating drum are both continuously and intermittently measured by an aerodynamic particle sizer (APS) in real time. Then, the decay constants of the aerosol number concentrations as functions of particle size, elapsed time, and rotation rate are calculated. The experimental results reveal that the rotation of the drum chamber greatly enhances particle suspension and the rotation rate can be optimized to prolong the suspension for an extended period. With the current drum geometry, the optimal rotation rate varies from 2 to 7 rpm for the particle size range of 1 to 7 µm and is proportional to the particle size. At the optimal rotation rate (2–4 rpm) for 1-µm particles, 5% of them can remain suspended for over 24 hours. However, this rate must be adjusted for large particles in order to maximize the period of suspension.


Mapping stable-isotope isolines in both modern and ancient evaporative carbonate formations demonstrates that regional variations of δ 18 O values exist. In the case of the Messinian Central Sicilian Basin, an ancient evaporite basin, the distribution pattern of the δ 18 O isolines can be related to the paleogeometry and paleohydrology of the basin. Isolines of equal δ 13 C values also show large regional variations possibly reflecting the domination of different bacterial processes (oxidation, sulfate reduction, or methanogenesis) in different regions. The potential application for stable-isotope mapping in evaporative carbonate formations deposited in both marine and lacustrine environments lies in its ability to predict the location of depositional centers in ancient evaporite basins.


In the wake of Global Finance Crisis (GFC), the world economy felt an immediate adjustment of the risk - the risk premia on interbank borrowing and corporate bonds increased. Amid crisis, the emerging market economies were thought to be cloistered from the immediate contagion. But, lower export demand from developed countries, higher commodity prices and current account imbalances led to an economic slowdown. It is understood that any instability can drive to problematic adjustments in some emerging market economies (EMEs)-China, India, Indonesia and Latin America, with a possibility of spillover effects in a globalized world and massive capital shuffling in the highly connected financial market. This paper inquires and explains the consequences of increased country risk premia in the emerging economies- proxy to loss of confidence in emerging market economies. The paper results are simulated in multi-country-multi-sector G-Cubed model 108V. The study attempts to answer the question: what happens to the emerging economies and the rest of the world if there is a permanent increase in the country risk premia in emerging markets by 200 basis points relative to the baseline. The simulation results suggest that a permanent upward revision of risk has large real consequences for both emerging and developed economies. Outflow of capital from the emerging market triggers disinvestment by firms. Household slash consumption and increase savings which further accelerates the disinvestment process, and emerging economies contract. Nevertheless, higher net exports fostered by exchange rate depreciation improve trade and current account balance in emerging economies, which partially offsets the contraction of domestic demand. Overall the simulation envisions that open trade and mobility of capital is imperative for stabilizing the economies, and without unrestricted capital mobility, effects on the real economy would magnify.


This paper studies the damage behavior and interlaminar shear properties of hybrid composite laminates subjected to bending at cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenic short beam shear tests were performed on hybrid laminates combining woven glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites with polyimide films, and microscopic observations of the specimens were made after the tests. A progressive damage analysis was also conducted to simulate the initiation and growth of damage in the specimens and to determine the interlaminar shear strength based on the maximum shear stress in the failure region. The predicted load-deflection curve and damage pattern show good agreement with the test results, and the numerically determined interlaminar shear strength is higher than the apparent interlaminar shear strength.


Purpose To report a case of congenital phakomatous choristoma (PC) of the eyelid, a rare tumor of lenticular anlage in the subcutaneous tissue and dermis. Case A boy had a mass in the right lower eyelid near the inner canthus at birth. At age 10 months, the tumor was excised. Results The tumor cells showed intense immunoreactivity positive for S-100 protein, vimentin, and periodic acid-Schiff. Keratin markers, epithelial membrane antigen, glial fibrillary acidic protein, muscle specific actin, and epithelial membrane antigen were negative. The histopathologic features were consistent with those of a PC. Conclusions This histopathologic and immunoreactivity study supports the proposal that PC is a rare entity of lenticular anlage origin. Only 18 such cases have been described previously.


Many social outcomes are reached by means of competitions between opposing actors. While the positive effects of competition are beyond dispute, this paper contends that competitive situations also trigger a particular psychological mindset that can distort contestants' judgment and lead to suboptimal courses of action. The paper presents a theoretical framework that consists of a myside bias, by which people adopt a self-serving view of the competition, evaluate themselves favorably, and evaluate their counterpart unfavorably. The framework also proposes the construct of otherside bias, by which people impute to their counterparts distortions that are similar, but opposite, to their own. The combined effect of these biases is to fuel conflict-promoting behavior. Next, the paper presents two experiments designed to test this framework. Using minimalistic experimental treatments, we find that participants assigned to adversarial roles display the myside and otherside biases.

The primary objective of this paper is to offer a comprehensive account of the psychological mindset evoked by competitive situations. We integrate findings established across a variety of research fields into a unifying theoretical framework and demonstrate their joint impact on this important domain of human judgment and behavior. Second, we propose that coherence-based reasoning serves as the cognitive backbone of the framework, in that the array of judgments are intricately interconnected and organized in a coherence maximizing representational structure both within and between the myside and otherside biases. Third, we discuss the framework's implications for a variety of legal domains, including negotiations, litigation, expert testimony, and police investigations.


The complexity of the world oil market has increased dramatically in recent years and new approaches are needed to understand, model, and forecast oil prices today. In addition to the commencement of the financialization era in oil markets, there have been structural changes in the global oil market. Financial instruments are communicating information about future conditions much more rapidly than in the past. Prices from long and short duration contracts have started moving more together. Sudden supply and demand adjustments, such as the financial crisis of 2008-2009, faster Chinese economic growth, the Libyan uprising, the Iranian Nuclear standstill or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, change expectations and current prices. Although volatility appears greater, financialization makes price discovery more robust. Most empirical economic studies suggest that fundamental values shaped expectations over 2004-2008, although financial bubbles may have emerged just prior to and during the summer of 2008. With increased price volatility, major exporters are considering ways and means to achieve more price stability to improve long-term production and consumption decisions. Managing excess capacity has historically been an important method for keeping world crude oil prices stable during periods of sharp demand or supply shifts. Building and maintaining excess capacity in current markets allow greater price stability when Asian economic growth suddenly accelerates or during periods of supply uncertainty in major producing regions. OPEC can contribute to price stability more easily when members agree on the best use of oil production capacity.Important structural changes have emerged in the global oil market after major price increases. Partially motivated by government policies major improvements in energy and oil efficiencies occurred after the oil price increases of the early and the late 70s such as the improved vehicle fuel efficiency, building codes, power grids and systems etc. On the supply side, seismic imaging and horizontal drilling as well as favorable tax regimes expanded production capacity in countries outside OPEC. After the oil price increases of 2004-2008, investments in oil sands, deep water, biofuels and other non-conventional sources accelerated. Recent improvements in shale gas production could well be transferred to oil-producing activities, resulting in expanded oil supplies in areas recently considered prohibitively expensive. The search for alternative transportation fuels continues with expanded research into compressed natural gas, biofuels, diesel made from natural gas, and electric vehicles.Still some aspects of the world oil market are not well understood. Despite numerous attempts to model the behavior of OPEC or its members, there exists no credible, verifiable theory about the behavior of the 50 years old organization. OPEC has not consistently acted like a monolithic cartel, constraining supplies to raise prices. Empirical evidence suggests that members sometimes coordinate supply responses and at other times compete with each other. Supply-restraint strategies include slower capacity expansions as well as curtailed production from existing capacity. Regional political considerations and broader economic goals (beyond oil) are influential factors in a country's oil decisions. Furthermore, the economies of OPEC members as well as their financial needs have changed dramatically from 1970s and 1980s. This review represents a broad review of economic research and literature related to the structure and functioning of the world oil market. The theories and models of oil demand and supply reviewed here, although imperfect in many respects, offer a clear and well-defined perspective on the forces that are shaping the markets for crude oil and refined products. Much work remains to be done if we are to achieve a more complete understanding of these forces and the trends that lie ahead. The contents that follow represent an assessment of how far we have come and where we are headed. Of course, the entire world shares a vital interest in the many benefits that flow from an efficient, well-functioning oil market. It is intended and hoped, therefore, that the discussion in this review will find a broader audience.


We run a novel field experiment to link managers of African manufacturing firms. The experiment features exogenous link formation, exogenous seeding of information and exogenous assignment to treatment and placebo. We study the impact of the experiment on firm business practices outside of the lab. We find that the experiment successfully created new variation in social networks. We find some limited evidence of diffusion of management practices, particularly in terms of firm formalisation and innovation. Such diffusion appears to be a combination of diffusion of innovation and simple imitation.


During the past 10 years, the Paleozoic Urals mountain belt has been the subject of internationally based, deep seismic, and ancillary geologic studies aimed at improving our knowledge of the lithospheric evolution of the orogenic belt, in general, and its prominent crustal root, in particular. In view of its wide-ranging mineral endowment, especially for gold, this work also provides important keys to help clarify relationships between collisional tectonic processes and gold mineralization. Following an outline of current ideas on the tectonic evolution of the Urals, we present an overview of the distribution of the majority of known gold deposits. This information, together with the available isotopic and geologic age data of associated alteration assemblages, is compared to available geochronological data for various magmatic and deformation episodes. Spatial and temporal relationships suggest that hydrothermal mineralizing processes and the geodynamic evolution of the orogen are linked. In an attempt to analyze the deep structural framework of the orogen, down to the mantle, we have also examined a number of subcontinental- and regional-scale continuous geophysical datasets.

The Urals have been subdivided traditionally into a series of north-south–striking tectonic zones but more recently into three principal tectono-magmatic sectors, which comprise a Suture sector along the Main Uralian fault zone and two sectors with tectonically imbricated island-arc, transitional (viewed as active continental margin), and continental zones. Gold deposits are found in all tectono-magmatic sectors of the orogen. Minor gold occurs in Siluro-Devonian volcanic-hosted massive sulfide deposits, magnetite(-copper) skarns, and porphyry copper deposits. In a number of cases, younger structures (shear zones, faults, and their intersections) have controlled the deposition of higher gold grades. In the Urals, this has led to the concept of progressive concentration of gold during later tectonic overprinting, and the understanding that regional deformation and hydrothermal fluid-rock interaction in the Late Carboniferous to Early Triassic upgraded gold contents of earlier deposits. During the Late Carboniferous to Early Triassic, gold-bearing quartz vein lodes, which effectively encompass the majority of the larger gold deposits in the Urals, were also formed in structural-chemical traps. Some deposits, such as Mindyak that is hosted by tectonic melanges along the Main Uralian fault zone, are clearly typical late-orogenic lode gold deposits. Others occur within and along the margins of early to middle Carboniferous older granite and, although local orthomagmatic relationships have been described, most recent observations now favor a strong structural control on the lodes and no direct genetic association with granite intrusion. In the two largest gold deposits, Kochkar and Berezovskoe, gold mineralization was controlled by structural and combined structural-chemical traps in dilational jogs in both shear and contact zones. Locally, gold mineralization has been shown to occur during a change from orthogonal to transpressional compression.

The inferred ages of the lode gold deposits suggest they are mostly coeval with the generally undeformed Permian-Early Triassic younger granites. However, a spatial relationship with gold mineralization has not been observed. The younger granites were formed in an extensional regime following Ural-wide magma generation, caused by a thermal flux attributed to underplating of the crust by mantle-derived mafic magmas. The widespread distribution of this late thermal event, during changes in stress regime, and the involvement of magma-generating mantle processes suggest regional delamination in the lithosphere and concomitant upwelling of the asthenosphere. These processes may have largely occurred prior to the formation of the prominent crustal root of the Urals, which formed during subsequent transpressional convergence. Another, Triassic, Ural-wide phase of hydrothermal alteration has been recognized, but associated gold deposits have been documented in only two cases. We tentatively attribute this phase to destabilization of the lithosphere of the wider Altaids, reflected by the formation of the West Siberian and Central Asian basins, east of the Urals, during the Mesozoic.

The integrated analysis of magnetic, Bouguer gravity, heat flow, and crustal thickness data suggests that a major indenter of the East European craton is responsible for a singular, transcrustal, sidewall ramp in the subsurface of the middle Urals. This ramp may extend into the mantle and formed the principal conduit zone for mineralizing fluids. The world-class Kochkar and Berezovskoe gold deposits are adjacent to this proposed conduit.


IL-15 and its receptor α (IL-15Rα) are co-expressed on antigen-presenting cells, allowing transpresentation of IL-15 to immune cells bearing IL-2RβγC and stimulation of effector immune responses. We reported previously that the high-affinity interactions between an IL-15 superagonist (IL-15N72D) and the extracellular IL-15Rα sushi domain (IL-15RαSu) could be exploited to create a functional scaffold for the design of multivalent disease-targeted complexes. The IL-15N72D·IL-15RαSuFc complex, also known as ALT-803, is a multimeric complex constructed by fusing IL-15N72D·IL-15RαSu to the Fc domain of IgG1. ALT-803 is an IL-15 superagonist complex that has been developed as a potent antitumor immunotherapeutic agent and is in clinical trials. Here we describe the creation of a novel fusion molecule, 2B8T2M, using the ALT-803 scaffold fused to four single chains of the tumor-targeting monoclonal antibody rituximab. This molecule displays trispecific binding activity through its recognition of the CD20 molecule on tumor cells, stimulation via IL-2RβγC displayed on immune effector cells, and binding to Fcγ receptors on natural killer cells and macrophages. 2B8T2M activates natural killer cells to enhance antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, mediates complement-dependent cytotoxicity, and induces apoptosis of B-lymphoma cells. Compared with rituximab, 2B8T2M exhibits significantly stronger antitumor activity in a xenograft SCID mouse model and depletes B cells in cynomolgus monkeys more efficiently. Thus, ALT-803 can be modified as a functional scaffold for creating multispecific, targeted IL-15-based immunotherapeutic agents and may serve as a novel platform to improve the antitumor activity and clinical efficacy of therapeutic antibodies.


This simple case enables students to examine a supply chain coordination problem in the context of a two-level supply chain with a retailer and a supplier. The case examines a retailer's decision about its optimal order quantity from his supplier and the difference between this decentralized decision and the coordinated decision achieved when the retailer and the supplier are part of the same company. The case then asks students to find the optimal supply chain contracts that will coordinate the supply chain. This case can be used to teach the newsvendor model and supply chain coordination and contracts in courses focusing on supply chain management or in operations management courses that include a supply chain module. It can be used together with "Note on Optimal Ordering Strategies and Supply Chain Coordination" (UVA-OM-1371).


To download this paper, please click  here . This case note considers the Assenagon judgment, which reviewed the position of exit consent solicitations in English law. Exit consent solicitation is a restructuring technique utilised in cases where a company in financial distress seeks to reorganise its debts, more specifically its bonds. In order to avoid the strenuous process of insolvency, such bond issuers put forward an exchange offer, which permits the swap of distressed bonds for newly issued ones. The exchange offer is then coupled with an exit consent, which makes it a condition of the exchange that the bondholders firstly agree to an amendment of the original terms of the defaulting bonds. Such a move allows the issuer to reorganise its financial affairs in order to keep the company afloat. Briggs J did not see the purpose of exit consents positively. He held in Assenagon that such an exchange offer coupled with exit consents was invalid by virtue of the 'abuse principle' as the majority, at the invitation of the issuer, took part in 'coercing' the minority to swap their bonds. This case note outlines the key elements of Briggs J's ruling and discusses the future of exit consents post-Assenagon.


Bid validity proof and verification is an efficiency bottleneck and privacy drawback in homomorphic e-auction. The existing bid validity proof technique is inefficient and only achieves honest-verifier zero knowledge (ZK). In this study, an efficient proof and verification technique is proposed to guarantee bid validity in homomorphic e-auction. The new proof technique is mainly based on hash function operations and only needs a very small number of costly public key cryptographic operations. Moreover, it can handle untrusted verifiers and achieve perfect ZK. As a result, efficiency and privacy of homomorphic e-auction applications are significantly improved. To the best of authors' knowledge, it proof technique is the first to handle untrusted verifiers in e-auction applications.


Recalcitrant infections of bone and soft tissue compose an entity that is likely to be encountered by general orthopaedic surgeons and specialists alike. Treatment strategies may vary but often include some combination of long-term antibiotic administration for suppression or surgical debridement to obtain local source control. Inspired by an unexpected finding in the operating room, Dahners and Bos became the first authors to describe the concept of fluorescence-guided resections of osteomyelitis in 2002. In their study, the authors preoperatively administered tetracycline to patients and subsequently achieved an intraoperative view of viable versus dead (nonviable) bone by eliciting fluorescence with a Wood's lamp. Since the time of this ground-breaking introduction to fluorescence-guided resections, modern science has afforded clinicians with a better understanding of the mechanism of bone fluorescence. It is now known that a component of fluorescence is achieved via the chelation of tetracycline molecules within the inorganic mineral matrix of bone. Additionally, a second facet exists in which natural fluorescence is exhibited in the absence of tetracyclines due to fluorophores (tryptophan, tyrosine, phenylalanine) contained within collagen. Moreover, a Wood's lamp or a generic blacklight is capable of serving as an appropriate excitation source for both the tetracycline and the collagen components contributing to the overall fluorescence. Whether an orthopaedic surgeon who is treating chronic osteomyelitis or a maxillofacial surgeon who is treating osteonecrosis of the jaw, from whom most of the fluorescence-guided resection literature has developed, one of the common themes is adequate resection of nonviable infected bone. However, the literature and personal experience of the senior author suggest that identifying living, viable bone can be challenging. Debridement to bleeding bone, despite being an easy and often-utilized method to assess bone viability, may not correlate with a bone's metabolic state as judged by its fluorescent intensity. However, the quantity of healthy osteocytes in a sample has been demonstrated to correlate with visible fluorescence as well as osteomyelitis or necrosis. Thus, green fluorescence (and occasionally other hues) can be used to demarcate viable bone. Fluorescence intensity has even been noted anecdotally to increase as nonviable bone is debrided. Given the compelling evidence for fluorescence-guided resection, the senior author has begun preoperatively to administer doxycycline to her patients prior to debridement of chronic osteomyelitis. The primary goal of this manuscript was to further describe this technique and revive a classic "trick" that has not been described in the orthopaedic literature since 2002. Informed consent was obtained from all patients before surgery. This technique description in a small case series was exempt from institutional review board approval.


&NA; Date Presented 3/31/2017 This study examined the link between being a caretaker of a dog and depression levels in clients with cancer. An exploratory design was used to determine a correlation between two variables: depression and dogs. Dog caretaking could be a cost‐effective method for preventive and integrated cancer treatment. Primary Author and Speaker: Melissa Ricciardelli Additional Authors and Speakers: Kristy Henner, Kelly McDade


Turbo codes have been found to achieve very low error rates at signal-to-noise ratios less than 1 dB above the Shannon bound. A drawback of turbo coding is that its superior performance is achieved at the cost of interleaving and iterative decoding, and this can translate to significant delay. In this paper we investigate complexity-performance trade-offs for turbo codes suitable for ITM-2000 systems through examination of parameters including the interleaver type and size, number of decoding iterations, polynomials for the constituent codes, and trellis termination techniques. We show that these parameters cannot be selected in isolation.


[T]here is something missing in black America, and symptoms of the illness are in its music. (Nelson George, Death of Rhythm and Blues xii). We are no longer post-soul. We are something else. For now, I leave that new definition to you (Nelson George, Post-Soul Nation 230) In a period lasting about 20 years from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, author and music producer Nelson George published a series of books that examine African American cultural identity, popular music, and social change. This compelling series of books includes Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound (1985); The Death of Rhythm and Blues (1988); Buppies, B-Boys, Baps, and Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture (1992); Hip Hop America (1999); and Post-Soul Nation (2003). (1) These texts examine company histories, stylistics, and noteworthy recordings among several recent genres of black popular music, with a special interest in business models, artist/producer collaborations, and other practices and innovations that have made particular genres, artists, and companies succeed and fail. The texts also probe how black music styles have influenced music consumers and public culture during an era beginning with the rise of rhythm and blues and ending with the globalization of hip hop as a musical lingua franca among world youth. More specifically, George's texts hypothesize ways that black popular music produces a collective black cultural identity by responding to social conditions and justice-seeking movements among African Americans. Collectively, the texts raise a number of questions regarding popular music, identity politics, and social change going forward into the twenty-first century: can the multidisciplinary discourse known as postmodernism be used to point the way from traditional identity politics and racial essentialism to more rigorous and scientifically sound understandings of race, popular music, and cultural change? What assumptions and methods are most useful for examining the relationship between African American cultural identities and black popular music? In future decades, should one expect that black popular music will serve as a leading force toward progressive social change, as it appeared to do during the periods when jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and soul music emerged? Working from George's texts and a postmodernist/new historicist lens, my essay examines "post-soul" culture within a wider postmodernist critique of black cultural essentialism. Like George, I am interested in how popular music responds to and represents the collective cultural experiences of African Americans, and I am especially interested in the representational qualities of hip hop and blues music in the postmodern moment. I find hip hop to be an exciting subject of study because it is currently practiced widely with significant stylistic variety and a high degree of consumer and critical interest; hip hop is widely presumed, in fact, to be the musical style with the most current relevance to everyday African American life. Blues, on the other hand, is widely thought to be anachronistic as black cultural expression--once a genre engaging strong consumer and critical interest, now a subject of greater interest to committed aficionados and musicologists than ordinary music consumers or even cultural critics such as George. I do join George, though, in wondering what it means for the vitality of African American cultural expression and critical discourse to leave behind the traditions and institutions that produced classic rhythm and blues, soul, and blues, with shifting identity politics and declining black consumer interest in the blues being of heightened interest in my own critical reading of post-soul culture. Indeed, I am glad to engage with George and others in an effort to identify where and how black popular music has brought critical insights on race, culture, and politics to a wider public--and where and how black popular music has had a less constructive role. …


Considering issues regarding energy saving would further complicate the design of Automatic Train Regulation (ATR) for metro. This paper presents a metro traffic model which accounts for energy consumption. Thereby, Dual Heuristic dynamic Programming (DHP) technique is employed to find an optimal ATR design with energy saving. Simulation tests of the ATR design are conducted with field data. Results show that designing the ATR with energy saving by using DHP method would be feasible and tractable. In addition, traffic regulation with better energy efficiency is attainable with the ATR design through coasting and dwell time control.


The future of video as an aid to policing is very much tied up with the need to have a well considered, but flexible management policy which recognises and addresses current problems but is sufficiently adaptable to cope with any future developments both in numerical and technical complexity. This is why it is now inappropriate to refer to video as a separate entity of visual recording. It is simply one of a number of systems for which we must use the term "imaging" in order to embrace them all. There is one on-going development in this field that is constant, it is that of "systems integration" of imaging mediums: video; still photography; computers; thermal; infra red etc. Whilst individually important, collectively they provide many different dimensions to the way we see and interpret an image and in turn what evidence is obtainable from it. This a very important issue in the judicial process because it is the end product which each of us is striving for. Put simply-is an image saying what you think it is.


Abstract. A workflow is devised in this paper by which vehicle speeds are estimated semi-automatically via fixed DSLR camera. Deep learning algorithm YOLOv2 was used for vehicle detection, while Simple Online Realtime Tracking (SORT) algorithm enabled for tracking of vehicles. Perspective projection and scale factor were dealt with by remotely mapping corresponding image and real-world coordinates through a homography. The ensuing transformation of camera footage to British National Grid Coordinate System, allowed for the derivation of real-world distances on the planar road surface, and subsequent simultaneous vehicle speed estimations. As monitoring took place in a heavily urbanised environment, where vehicles frequently change speed, estimations were determined consecutively between frames. Speed estimations were validated against a reference dataset containing precise trajectories from a GNSS and IMU equipped vehicle platform. Estimations achieved an average root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error of 0.625 m/s and 20.922 % respectively. The robustness of the method was tested in a real-world context and environmental conditions.


Current thyroid function tests give the clinician powerful tools for the accurate assessment of thyroid status in the majority of patients encountered. There are, however, a small number of clinical situations in which there appear to be inconsistencies in the interrelationship of the thyroid function tests and/or in which they are apparently inappropriate to the clinical status of the patient. In most instances, there is a rational explanation for these observed alterations. The application of this information should allow clinicians to further refine their diagnostic accuracy and thereby enable them to proceed with an appropriate therapeutic or management program.


Flavonoids occurring in many edible fruits and vegetables, typified by fisetin and quercetin, have been suggested to prevent malignancies, including those of the prostate. Only a handful of flavonoids have thus far been subjected to exhaustive pharmacological investigation, and it is unknown whether analogues exist with pharmacological properties superior to those of flavonoids studied to date. We identified TMFol as a potent inhibitor of growth of TRAMP C2, LNCaP, and PC-3 prostate cancer cells, with IC50 values of 1.3-5µM. For comparison, the respective IC50 values for fisetin and quercetin are 8-10 fold higher. Studies in mice hint at the possibility that TMFol may be useful as prostate cancer chemopreventive agent, because TMFol levels in prostate tissue after single oral administration of 240 mg/kg reached 18 nmol/g, and steady state levels after dietary intake (0.2%) were 5 nmol/g These concentrations are consistent with those eliciting growth inhibition in prostate cells in vitro. Mechanistic studies have shown TMFol to arrest cells in the G2M phase of the cell cycle and induce apoptosis. In addition, TMFol inhibited androgen receptor signalling. When nude mice bearing the TRAMP C2 cell xenograft were exposed to TMFol (0.2% in the diet) tumor volume at termination of the experiment was significantly reduced by 41% in comparison to control (p Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(12 Suppl):A104.


As well known, the weld line defect in injection molding process results detrimental to mechanical properties and surface quality. However, the electrical conductivity of the injection molded part is influenced as well. In this study, in order to reveal the mechanism of the weld line affecting the electrical conductivity of injection molding parts, the conductive polymer composites with various carbon nanofibers filling contents were compounded. Those composites were formed as the tensile samples with and without weld line defects by injection molding process. According to the electrical resistance measurements for the samples, it can be found that at relative low filling content of 10wt%, the weld line contributes to increase the electrical conductivity of the injection molding parts due to its effect on nanofibers' orientation. However, when the filling content is higher than 20wt%, this effect is not significant any more.


Capita Property and Infrastructure commissioned Oxford Archaeology (OA) North to undertake an archaeological watching brief, during groundworks associated with the
construction of an office building, on land to the west of Riverway, Stafford, Staffordshire (NGR SJ 92921 23016). The watching brief was requested as a condition of the planning
permission agreed as a result of consultation between Capita Property and Infrastructure and Staffordshire County Council (SCC), and was based on previous archaeological investigations conducted in close proximity to the development site.
The watching brief showed that the area comprised a series of made ground deposits overlying natural river gravels, the later resulting from a series of flooding events associated
with the River Sow. These in turn overlie a natural boulder clay.
Two twentieth-century walls were recorded in the north-west section of the current watching brief area. These were surrounded by demolition rubble deriving from a former building that occupied the site. Unfortunately, due to the width, depth, and instability of many of the trenches, they were not accessible and, as a result, no environmental samples were recovered. No further features or deposits of archaeological interest were encountered during the Watching Brief


We propose a nonlinear kernel version of recently introduced basic thresholding classifier (BTC) for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. BTC is a sparsity-based linear classifier, which utilizes inner product for similarity measure based on the fact that the hyperspectral data are linearly separable in the feature space. In practice, the pixels of different classes of a given HSI are not always distinct and may overlap. This is known as the inseparability problem, which reduces the performance of a linear classifier. In order to solve this problem in the feature space, we propose the kernel BTC (KBTC) algorithm that achieves promising performance by utilizing well-known "kernel trick." To increase the classification accuracy further, we present spatial-spectral KBTC that incorporates spatial information using weighted least squares filter with a guidance image. Furthermore, we apply  $L_{0}$  smoothing technique on the guidance image, which provides additional improvements. Experimental results on publicly available HSI data sets showed that the proposal and its spatial extension yield better classification results as compared with linear similarity-based BTC, nonlinear kernel-based support vector machines, kernel orthogonal matching pursuit, recently proposed logistic regression via splitting and augmented Lagrangian, and their spatial extensions.


Abstract Cross-sectional imaging studies or catheter angiogram are the imaging modalities of choice to evaluate bypass patency after extra- to intracranial (EC-IC) bypass surgery. Although providing accurate results, these imaging modalities are time-consuming and/or present radiation risk for the patient. Ultrasound imaging is a fast and widely available imaging modality, but is limited in this setting due to the non-sonolucent autologous bone flap covering the bypass after surgery. The recently FDA approved clear polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cranioplasty implant overcomes this limitation by its sonolucent characteristic, but has not yet been used in the setting of EC-IC bypass surgery. Here, the authors describe for the first time the feasibility of an elective sonolucent cranioplasty to monitor flow and patency of an EC-IC bypass in real time using ultrasound. This moyamoya patient underwent a direct superficial temporal artery to middle cerebral artery (STA-MCA) bypass, after which a PMMA implant was used to close the craniotomy defect, instead of reimplanting the autologous bone flap. Immediate postoperative bedside transcranioplasty ultrasound confirmed bypass patency and allowed for quantitative flow measurements as well as for exclusion of postoperative hemorrhage. Postoperative CTA and catheter angiogram confirmed patency of the bypass without complications. This report shows for the first time that this technique is feasible and permits bedside transcranioplasty ultrasound assessment of bypass flow in real time, confirmed with angiography. This technique may permit easy comparison of baseline findings with follow up assessments and facilitate less invasive monitoring of bypass patency.


This study examines incentives for input use under tournament contracts. We analyze implications of contract design for nitrate-based environmental externalities generated by agricultural producers. Outcomes are compared from contracts awarded by tournament to those from fixed-payment contracts. Our findings show contract insecurity can distort input use. The model developed in this analysis is applied to a region of the U.S. where tournament-based production is prevalent and groundwater contamination is a problem. We find contract insecurity increases nitrogen use by about 12%, resulting in a 17% increase in nitrate leaching. Implications for contract modification to reduce environmental externalities while maintaining contract incentives are discussed.


A d-dimensional RCA(1) process is a generalization of the d-dimensional AR(1) process, such that the coefficients {M-t; t =1, 2, ...} are i.i.d. random matrices. In the case d =1, under a nondegeneracy condition, Goldie and Mailer gave necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence in distribution of an RCA(1) process, and for the almost sure convergence of a closely related sum of random variables called a perpetuity. We here prove that under the condition parallel to Pi(n)(t=1) M-t parallel to -greater than(a.s.) 0 as n -greater than infinity, most of the results of Goldie and Mailer can be extended to the case d greater than 1. If this condition does not hold, some of their results cannot be extended.


Although the public health announcements state that "every cigarette is doing you damage", many smokers believe that the amount of damage depends on the colour of the cigarette packet. Researchers used data from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey, which polled more than 8000 smokers from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The study found that 20% of smokers incorrectly believed that "some cigarette brands could be less harmful than others". Compared with smokers from other countries, Australian smokers were more likely to believe that their own brand of cigarette "might be a little less harmful than others", with 47% of Australian smokers agreeing with this statement. Smokers of silver, gold, purple or blue brands were much more likely to agree with this statement than those who smoked red or black brands. Researchers said that the study shows that smokers believe certain colours are associated with lower harm, highlighting the importance of plain packaging, as proposed in Australia.


One of the main goals of computer vision is video understanding, where objects in the video are detected, tracked, and their behavior is analyzed. In this dissertation, several key problems in video understanding are addressed, focusing on video surveillance applications.
Moving target detection and tracking is one of the most fundamental tasks in visual surveillance. A new moving target detection method is proposed where the temporal variance is used as a measure for characterizing object motion. Our method is experimentally shown to produce high detection rates while keeping low false positive rates.
In tracking multiple objects, it is essential to correctly associate targets and measurements. We describe an efficient multi-object tracking approach that maintains multiple hypotheses over time regarding the association of targets and measurements. The data association problem is solved by a combinatorial optimization technique which finds the most likely association allowing track initiation, termination, merge, and split. Experimental results show that our method tracks through varying degrees of interactions among the targets with high success rate.
Recognizing complex high-level events requires an explicit model of the structure of the events. Our approach uses attribute grammar for representing such event, which formally specifies the syntax of the symbols and the conditions on the attributes. Events are recognized using an extension of the Earley parser that handles attributes and concurrent event threads. Various examples of recognizing specific events of interest and detecting abnormal events are demonstrated using real data.
Unsupervised methods for learning human activities have been largely based on clustering trajectories from a given scene. However, conventional clustering algorithms are not suitable for scenes that have many outlier trajectories. We describe a method for finding only salient groups of trajectories, using the probability of trajectories accidentally forming a group as the measure of significance of the group. The grouping algorithm finds groups that maximizes significance, while automatically determining the threshold for significance. We validate our approach on real data and analyze its performance using simulated data.


After centuries of carrying the African American community on their backs and acting as unwavering pillars in their communities, today African American males are not the strength they once were. Analysis of the African American male using Cognitive Theory will attempt to explain the African American male's behavior by analyzing his thought process. By using the Cognitive Theory, this paper hypothesizes a correlation between the past of the African American male and his current thought process, and how his behavior is advancing the deterioration of not only himself, but the African American community as a whole. Analyzing statistics and literature, a triangulative methodology is used. Data were collected through observation, document analysis, and by using such sources as books, scholarly journals, Internet sources, and experts on the subject. After substantial analysis, findings suggest that there is a direct correlation between the past plights of the African American male and the effects on his current thought process. This in turn affects the behavior he currently exhibits, which results in the deterioration of the African American community as a whole.


Vitamin D deficiency in children can have adverse health consequences, such as growth failure and rickets. In 2008,the American Academy of Pediatrics increased its recommended daily intake of vitamin D in infants, children, and adolescents to 400 IU. Infants who are breastfed and children and adolescents who consume less than 1 L of vitamin D-fortified milk per day will likely need supplementation to reach 400 IU of vitamin D per day. This recommendation is based on expert opinion and recent clinical trials measuring biomarkers of vitamin D status. It is also based on the precedent of preventing and treating rickets with 400 IU of vitamin D. In addition to dietary sources, exposure to ultraviolet B sunlight provides children and adults with additional vitamin D. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping infants out of direct sunlight, decreased sunlight exposure may increase children's risk of vitamin D deficiency. No randomized controlled trials assessing patient-oriented outcomes have been performed on universal vitamin D supplementation. However, vitamin D may reduce the risk of certain infections and chronic diseases. Physicians should help parents choose the appropriate vitamin D supplement for their child.


The objects of this study are fluid inclusions in sphalerite crystals or selected parts of them from two Central Rhodopean deposits: Shumachevski Dol – Gyudyurska (Madan District) and Kenan Dere (Laki District). A set of data for temperature of homogenization and total salinity are presented. The locations of coupled data in coordinates Th vs total salinity reveal that the Kenan Dere sphalerite has been deposited from solutions of higher temperature (280–374 °C) and lower salinity (2–5 wt.% NaCl-eqv.). Conversely, the Shumachevski Dol and Gyudyurska sphalerites show lower Th = 200–230 °C and somewhat higher salinity (S = 6–12 wt.% NaCl-eqv.). Furthermore, it is likely that both late Kenan Dere and Gyudyurska sphalerites were deposited at 30–50 °C lower temperatures than the earlier ones. Additionally, Decrepitation Inductively-Coupled-Plasma Atomic-Emission-Spectrometry was applied to determine the cations in the inclusion solute. The vacuum decrepitation was also used for liberating the volatiles (H2O, CO2) and analysing them by mass spectrometry. On that account, more detailed preliminary studies of the process of decrepitation were performed. However, the Zn-concentration in sphalerite-hosted fluid inclusions cannot be evaluated and the results from syngenetic quartz offer the only possibility for obtaining information about ore-element content. On the basis of a compilation of both present and previously published data, it can be concluded that the hydrothermal fluid under the Central Rhodope Dome was constituted in situ as a closed system at a depth of ~1 km, under nearly lithostatic pressure (~200 bars), T ≥ 350 °C, and NaCl-dominated salt content ~10%. Under these conditions, a solution with a pH of ~4.0–4.5 contains ore elements (Fe, Zn, Pb) as soluble chlorido-complexes; for Zn, the total concentration may reach 1 wt.%. Sulphide-S compound under these conditions is H2S. The sphalerite deposition follows a reverse path of the chemical reactions. The elevation of the hydrothermal fluid along the extensional dislocations results in boiling (i.e., separation of CO2) and cooling. The temperature decrease destabilizes the chlorido-complexes and leads to an increase in the Zn2+ activity. On the other hand, CO2 loss enhances pH, and thus dissociates H2S, yielding HS- and S2- ions, needed for sphalerite deposition.


This paper investigates the relationship between schooling and conflict in Pakistan using an identity‐construction lens. Drawing on data from curriculum documents, student responses to classroom activities, and single‐sex student focus groups, it explores how students in four state primary schools in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan, use curricula and school experiences to make sense of themselves as Pakistani. The findings suggest that the complex nexus of education, religion, and national identity tends to construct 'essentialist' collective identities—a single identity as a naturalized defining feature of the collective self. To promote national unity across the diverse ethnic groups comprising Pakistan, the national curriculum uses religion (Islam) as the key boundary between the Muslim Pakistani 'self' and the antagonist non‐Muslim 'other'. Ironically, this emphasis creates social polarization and the normalization of militaristic and violent identities, with serious implications for social cohesion, tolerance for internal and external diversity, and gender relations.


Nowhere has the relationship between state and church been more volatile in recent decades than in Latin America. This book explains why Catholic leaders in some countries came to oppose dictatorial rule and, equally important, why many did not. Using historical and statistical evidence from 12 countries, Gill for the first time uncovers the causal connection between religious competition and the rise of progressive Catholicism. In places where evangelical Protestantism and "spiritist" sects made inroads among poor Catholics, Church leaders championed the rights of the poor and turned against authoritarian regimes to retain parishioners. Where competition was minimal, bishops maintained good relations with military rulers. Applying economic reasoning to an entirely new setting, the book offers a theory of religious competition that dramatically revises our understanding of church-state relations.


ABSTRACT In parallel with the spread of English as an international language of communication, English Medium Instruction (EMI) has rapidly gained importance in Turkish tertiary education but also brought some controversy among students and academics. It is important to clarify the prevailing situation in order to enhance the quality of instruction. Descriptive in essence, the present study examines the results of a survey about EMI courses in the context of a technical university conducted in 2018 to understand students' attitudes towards EMI courses, the challenges they face and the suggestions they make for improvement. Although there are some positive aspects of EMI, such as getting ready for work life where English has become prevalent and the presence of a large number of resources and articles in English, there are also some possible challenges, such as linguistic challenges inherent in students' language learning history, some lecturers having limited English proficiency and ineffective courses. Although it is deemed prestigious to offer EMI courses, some changes are necessary. Taking students' views into consideration, some suggestions are providing intensive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses to help students cross the linguistic barrier and equipping lecturers with the necessary skills before appointing them to EMI courses.


ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) only infects humans and chimpanzees, while GB virus B (GBV-B), another hepatotropic hepacivirus, infects small New World primates (tamarins and marmosets). In an effort to develop an immunocompetent small primate model for HCV infection to study HCV pathogenesis and vaccine approaches, we investigated the HCV life cycle step(s) that may be restricted in small primate hepatocytes. First, we found that replication-competent, genome-length chimeric HCV RNAs encoding GBV-B structural proteins in place of equivalent HCV sequences designed to allow entry into simian hepatocytes failed to induce viremia in tamarins following intrahepatic inoculation, nor did they lead to progeny virus in permissive, transfected human Huh7.5 hepatoma cells upon serial passage. This likely reflected the disruption of interactions between distantly related structural and nonstructural proteins that are essential for virion production, whereas such cross talk could be restored in similarly designed HCV intergenotypic recombinants via adaptive mutations in NS3 protease or helicase domains. Next, HCV entry into small primate hepatocytes was examined directly using HCV-pseudotyped retroviral particles (HCV-pp). HCV-pp efficiently infected tamarin hepatic cell lines and primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures through the use of the simian CD81 ortholog as a coreceptor, indicating that HCV entry is not restricted in small New World primate hepatocytes. Furthermore, we observed genomic replication and modest virus secretion following infection of primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures with a highly cell culture-adapted HCV strain. Thus, HCV can successfully complete its life cycle in primary simian hepatocytes, suggesting the possibility of adapting some HCV strains to small primate hosts. IMPORTANCE Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an important human pathogen that infects over 150 million individuals worldwide and leads to chronic liver disease. The lack of a small animal model for this infection impedes the development of a preventive vaccine and pathogenesis studies. In seeking to establish a small primate model for HCV, we first attempted to generate recombinants between HCV and GB virus B (GBV-B), a hepacivirus that infects small New World primates (tamarins and marmosets). This approach revealed that the genetic distance between these hepaciviruses likely prevented virus morphogenesis. We next showed that HCV pseudoparticles were able to infect tamarin or marmoset hepatocytes efficiently, demonstrating that there was no restriction in HCV entry into these simian cells. Furthermore, we found that a highly cell culture-adapted HCV strain was able to achieve a complete viral cycle in primary marmoset hepatocyte cultures, providing a promising basis for further HCV adaptation to small primate hosts.


The purpose of this study was to examine the physical demands of a high school American football scrimmage. Male high school football players (N = 25) participated in a spring scrimmage. Global positioning system data and game film were recorded throughout the entirety of the scrimmage to determine the total distance covered, the distance covered in different velocity bands, the number of accelerations and decelerations performed, and the work-to-rest ratio of the scrimmage. The athletes were divided into two groups: linemen (L) (N = 7) vs. non-linemen (NL) (N = 8) for statistical analysis, and independent T-tests with Holm's sequential Bonferroni adjustment were used to determine differences in movement characteristics between the L and NL groups. Average play duration was 5.7 ± 2.1s, while the rest interval was 33.4 ± 13.6 s between plays, for an overall exercise-to-rest ratio of 1:5.9. Total distance, standing and walking distance, running distance, striding distance, sprinting distance, and total high-speed running distance covered by NL was greater than L (statistically significant at p ≤ 0.05). Distances traveled in each velocity band by position by play are also included to provide context of our findings. Data from the present study add to the pool of support for the use of position-specific training in preparing high school football players for competition.


The global services industry shows steady growth and a very dynamic path
characterized by unprecedented fast movements towards higher value services, constant changes in business as well as in service delivery models, and an increasing number of emerging outsourcing locations. In this context, the skills demand not only increases in amount and quality, but also constantly changes. This has led many countries to develop finishing school programs as an effective tool to face this challenge and take advantage of this growing industry that seems to have room for many players, aiming at bridging the gap between formal education and industry requirements. In this paper, we review this phenomenon and summarize its best practices.


Introduction
 Primary or secondary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma is a rare and aggressive disease. Prior database analyses have enriched our knowledge of the epidemiology, clinical presentation and prognosis for these patients, although data regarding treatment patterns and long-term survival data is lacking. Ours is the first study investigating epidemiology, clinical characteristics, treatment patterns and potential prognostic factors using the Texas Cancer Registry (TCR). This is a statewide database, population-based registry that serves as the foundation for measuring the cancer burden in Texas and it is one of largest cancer registries in the United States1.
 Methods
 We used the TCR database to retrospectively identify patients diagnosed with CNS lymphoma from 1997 to 2017. Data collected included age, race, histology (diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, T-cell lymphoma), location and outcomes (alive/dead). Treatment (chemotherapy, radiation therapy or both) data was collected from 2004 to 2017. Differences in patient-level characteristics between cohorts were compared using a chi-square test and Fisher's exact test as appropriate. Survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank tests were used to compare survival distributions. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant for all analysis.
 Results
 There were 1134 patients with CNS lymphoma identified between 1995 and 2017. Most of them were diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) (97.4%); only 22 patients had T cell lymphoma. The most common locations were brain (73.9%), unspecified (14.1%) and spinal cord (6.7%). Almost 50% of all patients were over 65 years old; male to female ratio was 1.23. Patients were frequently reported to be Caucasian (62.7%) followed by Hispanic (27.0%) and African-american (6.9%). The median follow-up time was 11 months.
 Treatment data was available for 485 patients. They either received chemotherapy (58.1%), radiation (9.7%) or both (12.8%). Survival was better for patients receiving chemotherapy and radiation than radiation alone (HR 1.8, p=0.02) or no treatment (HR 3.3, p < 0.0001). There was no statistically significant difference when compared with chemotherapy alone (HR 1.4, p= 0.0931) (Figure 1).
 Overall survival (OS) for patients with DLBCL at 5-years was 27.4 % (95% CI: 24.7%, 30.1%) and 42.0% for T-cell (95% CI: 23.9%, 59.0%). Five-year disease specific survival (DSS) was similar at 39.2% (95% CI: 35.9%, 42.5%) for DLBCL and 51.8% for T-cell lymphoma (95% CI: 30.3%, 69.5%). There was no statistically significant difference between these two cohorts for OS (p = 0.5063) and DSS (p=0.2819). Age over 65 years was associated with poor survival (32 months vs 6 months, p<0.0001). Spinal cord involvement was associated with a better prognosis than other nervous system, cerebellum, or brain (34 months vs 21 months vs 9 months vs 10 months, p < 0.0001) (Figure 2).
 Conclusion
 CNS lymphoma is a rare lymphoma presentation. Most of them are DLBCL and commonly found in patients older than 65 years old. Spinal cord disease alone was associated with a better prognosis and age over 65 years old was associated with a worse outcome. Treatment with chemotherapy (either with radiation or alone) is associated with better outcomes.
 1. Cancer incidence data have been provided by the Texas Cancer Registry, Cancer Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, Texas Department of State Health Services, 1100 West 49th Street, Austin, TX 78756, https://www.dshs.texas.gov/tcr/.

 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This article reports on the perceptions and expectations of pre-service teachers (PSTs) on the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) taught as part of a teacher preparation course. The research was conducted across core units in first and fourth years of an undergraduate education degree in an Australian university. The researchers used a mixed method study. Online survey data from 208 students were analysed, using descriptive statistics for quantitative data and thematic analysis for open-ended responses. Results indicate that PSTs' understandings of EI included awareness and management of emotions in oneself and others. They perceived EI as highly important to teachers in various aspects of teaching such as classroom management, student well-being and classroom pedagogy. Additionally, first year students stated that they expected to learn about EI in their teacher education program, however fourth year students expressed that they had not learnt about EI during their course.


Some people believe that making the morally right decision makes people feel good. However, until now, there has been no empirical evidence in support of this belief. In a representative two-wave longitudinal study of 995 15-year-old adolescents followed for 3 years (until the age of 18) in Switzerland, adolescents were asked about their decisions and emotions following hypothetical dilemmas involving moral obligations versus self-interest. Adolescents predominantly made moral decisions and reported feeling good following these decisions. With age, participants reported more positive emotions following moral decisions. A small number of adolescents made selfish decisions and reported feeling good following these decisions.


ABSTRACT Methylmercury (MeHg) production was compared among nine cultured methanogenic archaea that contain hgcAB, a gene pair that codes for mercury (Hg) methylation. The methanogens tested produced MeHg at inherently different rates, even when normalized to growth rate and Hg availability. Eight of the nine tested were capable of MeHg production greater than that of spent- and uninoculated-medium controls during batch culture growth. Methanococcoides methylutens, an hgcAB+ strain with a fused gene pair, was unable to produce more MeHg than controls. Maximal conversion of Hg to MeHg through a full batch culture growth cycle for each species (except M. methylutens) ranged from 2 to >50% of the added Hg(II) or between 0.2 and 17 pmol of MeHg/mg of protein. Three of the species produced >10% MeHg. The ability to produce MeHg was confirmed in several hgcAB+ methanogens that had not previously been tested (Methanocella paludicola SANAE, Methanocorpusculum bavaricum, Methanofollis liminatans GKZPZ, and Methanosphaerula palustris E1-9c). Maximal methylation was observed at low sulfide concentrations (<100 μM) and in the presence of 0.5 to 5 mM cysteine. For M. hollandica, the addition of up to 5 mM cysteine enhanced MeHg production and cell growth in a concentration-dependent manner. As observed for bacterial Hg methylators, sulfide inhibited MeHg production. An initial evaluation of sulfide and thiol impacts on bioavailability showed methanogens responding to Hg complexation in the same way as do Deltaproteobacteria. The mercury methylation rates of several methanogens rival those of the better-studied Hg-methylating sulfate- and iron-reducing Deltaproteobacteria. IMPORTANCE Archaea, specifically methanogenic organisms, play a role in mercury methylation in nature, but their global importance to MeHg production and the subsequent risk to ecosystems are not known. Methanogenesis has been linked to Hg methylation in several natural habitats where methylmercury production incurs risk to people and ecosystems, including rice paddies and permafrost. In this study, we confirm that most methanogens carrying the hgcAB gene pair are capable of Hg methylation. We found that methylation rates vary inherently among hgcAB+ methanogens but that several species are capable of MeHg production at rates that rival those of the better-know Hg-methylating sulfate- and iron-reducing bacteria. Methanogens may need to be considered equally with sulfate and iron reducers in evaluations of MeHg production in nature. IMPORTANCE Archaea, specifically methanogenic organisms, play a role in mercury methylation in nature, but their global importance to MeHg production and the subsequent risk to ecosystems are not known. Methanogenesis has been linked to Hg methylation in several natural habitats where methylmercury production incurs risk to people and ecosystems, including rice paddies and permafrost. In this study, we confirm that most methanogens carrying the hgcAB gene pair are capable of Hg methylation. We found that methylation rates vary inherently among hgcAB+ methanogens but that several species are capable of MeHg production at rates that rival those of the better-know Hg-methylating sulfate- and iron-reducing bacteria. Methanogens may need to be considered equally with sulfate and iron reducers in evaluations of MeHg production in nature.