OBJECTIVE: Although migraine is common, there are very few treatment options. Recently, lasmiditan, a specific 5-HT1F agonist, has gained approval as abortive therapy for migraine. This meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis (TSA) was performed to analyze efficacy and tolerability of lasmiditan therapy for episodic migraine. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Phase II and Phase III double-blinded placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating lasmiditan for episodic migraine were searched for from electronic databases. The risk of bias was estimated, data were extracted, and relative risk (RR) were calculated for efficacy and safety outcomes with a fixed/random effect model. Forest plots and funnel plots were created. TSA graph was plotted. Therapeutic gain with lasmiditan was calculated. RESULTS: Six high-quality RCTs were included with 7122 patients. Compared to placebo, lasmiditan demonstrated a significant proportion of migraineurs reporting freedom from headache, most bothersome symptom, headache response, no disability, global impression "very much/much better" 2 h posttreatment and sustained pain freedom at 24 and 48 h with 50, 100, 200, and 400 mg doses (RR range = 1.26–2.50). 39.3% of patients in the lasmiditan group (RR = 2.43) reported one or more treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE). Dizziness, somnolence, paresthesia, fatigue, nausea, vertigo, hypoesthesia, asthenia, muscular weakness, lethargy, and malaise had a high incidence (RR range = 3.16–12.77). Most TEAEs were mild to moderate. No vasoconstriction-related TEAE was reported. CONCLUSION: Lasmiditan demonstrated efficacy as abortive therapy for episodic migraine with central nervous system-related side effects.


Background The Chinese Great Famine caused widespread starvation in 1959–1961. Its long-term association with depressive symptoms has not been studied. Aims To estimate the burden of depressive symptoms and the association of famine exposure with depressive symptoms. Method The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study is a nationwide representative survey of 17 708 Chinese adults aged ≥45. Propensity score matching and modified Poisson regression were used to evaluate the association between self-reported famine exposure in early life and depressive symptoms among the overall participants. Such associations were also assessed by developmental stage using modified Poisson regression and logistic regression. Results The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 26.2% (95% CI 25.1–27.3%) in 2011. As defined by loss of family members because of starvation, 11.6% (95% CI 10.1–13.1%) of this population experienced severe famine. When compared with participants who did not experience starvation, those who had experienced severe famine during fetal, mid-childhood, young-teenage and early-adulthood stages had 1.87 (95% CI 1.36–2.55), 1.54 (95% CI 1.23–1.94), 1.47 (95% CI 1.09–2.00) and 1.77 (95% CI 1.42–2.21) times higher odds of having depressive symptoms in late adulthood, respectively. The first two trimesters of pregnancy were a critical time window during the fetal stage when severe famine had a stronger association with depressive symptoms. Famine during infant, toddler, preschool or teenage stages was not associated with depressive symptoms. Overall, famine contributed to 13.6% of the depressive symptom burden in this population. Conclusions The Chinese Great Famine contributed substantially to the burden of depressive symptoms in China. Declaration of interest None.


According to the Chinese Structure Code and engineering experience, the factors affecting the reliability of structures are properly qualified as input parameters; this paper mainly researches the application of neural networks in the reliability evaluation of structures. Comparisons are made between the traditional methods of reliability evaluation of established structures and the method put forward in this paper. It is found that the method put forward in this paper is practicable, reliable and effective. Meanwhile, the weaknesses of the traditional reliability evaluation of structures, that is, long period of evaluation, huge and tedious calculation and arbitral judgments, are avoided with the introduction of the new method in this paper.


Pottery art in Iran reached its apex during the Seljuk and Kharazmshahi eras. In these two periods, artists produced high-quality wares,with Minai decorations which were considered as masterpieces of Islamic art from an aesthetical point of view. These wares were decorated with motifs existing in manuscripts illustrated by artists from Baghdad and Seljuk miniature painting schools portraying epic stories in the Shahnameh or love stories in Nezami's Khamse. Although very noticeable, influences on Minai wares from miniature works of Baghdad and Seljuk schools have received little attention by researchers. This led researchers to investigate the similarities of motifs remained from Baghdad and Seljuk schools in works such as Varagha and Golshah, Kalileh-and-Dimna and Hariri Maghamat to recognise their influences on the motifs of Mina wares. The main purpose of this paper is to study and explore the impact of Baghdad and Seljuk miniature painting schools on Minai wares and evaluate their respective influences on Minai wares. The methodological approach applied in this study includes historical-comparative analysis as well as researches in libraries and museums resources. Illustrated manuscripts belonging to Baghdad and Seljuk schools were identified, their similarities and differences were singled out and finally their influences on Minai wares were evaluated.


The stability properties of matrix-valued Riccati diffusions are investigated. The matrix-valued Riccati diffusion processes considered in this work are of interest in their own right, as a rather prototypical model of a matrix-valued quadratic stochastic process. In addition, this class of stochastic models arise in signal processing and data assimilation, and more particularly in ensemble Kalman-Bucy filtering theory. In this context, the Riccati diffusion represents the flow of the sample covariance matrices associated with McKean-Vlasov-type interacting Kalman-Bucy filters. Under rather natural observability and controllability conditions, we derive time-uniform moment and fluctuation estimates and exponential contraction inequalities. Our approach combines spectral theory with nonlinear semigroup methods and stochastic matrix calculus. The analysis developed here applies to filtering problems with unstable signals. This analysis seem to be the first of its kind for this class of matrix-valued stochastic differential equation.


Application of classic liver-directed gene replacement strategies is limited in genetic diseases characterized by liver injury due to hepatocyte proliferation resulting in decline of therapeutic transgene expression and potential genotoxic risk. Wilson disease (WD) is a life-threating autosomal disorder of copper homeostasis caused by pathogenic variants in copper transporter ATP7B and characterized by toxic copper accumulation, resulting in severe liver and brain diseases. Genome editing holds promise for the treatment of WD, nevertheless to rescue copper homeostasis ATP7B function must be restored in at least 25% of the hepatocytes, which surpasses by far genome editing correction rates. We applied a liver-directed nuclease-free genome editing approach, based on adeno-associated viral vector (AAV) -mediated targeted integration of a promoterless mini-ATP7B cDNA into the Alb locus. Administration of AAV-Alb-mini-ATP7B in two WD mouse models resulted in extensive liver repopulation by genome edited hepatocytes holding a proliferative advantage over non-edited ones, and ameliorated liver injury and copper metabolism. Furthermore, combination of genome editing with a copper chelator currently used for WD treatment, achieved greater disease improvement compared to chelation therapy alone. Nuclease-free genome editing provided therapeutic efficacy and may represent a safer and longer lasting alternative to classic gene replacement strategies for WD.


ABSTRACT The major capsular polysaccharide of Cryptococcus neoformans, glucuronoxylomannan (GXM), is recognized by Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2), TLR4, and CD14. In these studies, mice deficient in CD14, TLR2, TLR4, and the TLR-associated adaptor protein, MyD88, were utilized to investigate the contribution of TLRs and CD14 to in vivo host defenses against C. neoformans. MyD88−/− mice had significantly reduced survival compared with wild-type C57BL/6 mice after intranasal (i.n.) and intravenous (i.v.) infection with live C. neoformans. CD14−/− mice had reduced survival when infected i.v., while TLR2−/− mice died significantly earlier after i.n. infection. Mortality was similar comparing TLR4 mutant C3H/HeJ mice and control C3H/HeOuJ mice following i.v. or i.n. challenge with C. neoformans. The course of pulmonary cryptococcosis was studied in more detail in the CD14−/−, TLR2−/−, and MyD88−/− mice. MyD88−/− mice infected i.n. had higher numbers of CFU in the lungs as well as higher GXM levels in the sera and lungs 7 days after infection than wild-type mice did. Surprisingly, there were no major differences in the levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-10, IL-12p70, or gamma interferon in the lungs of C. neoformans-infected knockout mice compared with wild-type mice. Histopathologic analysis of the lungs on day 7 postinfection revealed minimal inflammation in all mouse groups. These studies demonstrate a major role for MyD88 and relatively minor roles for CD14 and TLR2 in the response to cryptococcal infection, with the decreased survival of MyD88−/− mice correlating with increased numbers of lung CFU and serum and lung GXM levels.


Abstract Ammonium citrate solutions were tested to determine possible damage on marble using two concentrations, four different values of pH and several variations in application. As pH dropped from values of 10 to 7, marble chips immersed in the solutions showed increasing dissolution of calcite, and polished marble tiles to which solutions had been applied showed increasing loss of gloss and brightness. The least damage to marble tiles was produced when solutions were covered during application, and single cleanings were found to be less damaging than multiple cleanings of the same total application time. Comparison with other cleaning agents – ammonium thioglycolate and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) – showed that ammonium citrate solutions could be as mild as thioglycolate when used in some conditions, such as high pH and low concentration. In contrast, ammonium citrate solutions could harm the stone significantly when used in other conditions, such as pH 7 or high airflow. In these cases, the damage was nearly as much as a 2% solution of EDTA at pH 10. This study emphasizes the need to develop new cleaning products, research which can only go hand in hand with a better understanding of the various interactions taking place between cleaning agent, substrate and environment.


The US Tax Code allows defendants to treat punitive damages as an ordinary and necessary business expense, thereby reducing their taxable income. Legal scholars posit that jurors are unaware that punitive damages are tax-deductible. Consequently, they claim that there is an under-punishment problem because defendants are penalized at lower damages amounts than they would be if jurors were instructed about tax-deductibility. We conduct an experiment to test this claim. We provide mock jurors with information about tax-deductibility as well as information about the defendant's (historical) effective tax rate (ETR) to provide some context to jurors to adjust their awards, if they choose to. We find that jurors who are explicitly instructed that punitive damages are tax-deductible award higher damages, but only when the defendant's ETR is low. When the defendant's ETR is high, instructing jurors about tax-deductibility does not result in significantly higher punitive damages awards. This result is surprising because defendants with a high ETR are likely to benefit more from tax-deductibility compared to defendants with a low ETR. Our results suggests that jurors evaluate tax-deductibility jointly with other elements of a defendant's tax situation when that information is provided. Therefore, jury instructions about tax-deductibility of punitive damages should carefully consider the implications of providing additional information about the defendant's tax situation. Our result should be of interest to regulators and scholars in law, accounting, and public policy.


Introduction: The establishment of the Mining Software Repositories (MSR) Data Showcase conference track has encouraged researchers to provide more data sets as a basis for further empirical studies. Objectives: Examine the usage of the data papers published in the MSR proceedings in terms of use frequency, users, and use purpose. Methods: Data track papers were collected from the MSR Data Showcase and through the manual inspection of older MSR proceedings. The use of data papers was established through citation searching followed by reading the studies that have cited them. Data papers were then clustered based on their content, whereas their citations were classified according to the knowledge areas of the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. Results: We found that 65% of the data papers have been used in other studies, with a long-tail distribution in the number of citations. MSR data papers are cited less than other MSR papers. A considerable number of the citations stem from the teams that authored the data papers. Publications providing repository data and metadata are the most frequent data papers and the most often cited ones. Mobile application data papers are the least common ones, but the second most frequently cited. Conclusion: Data papers have provided the foundation for a significant number of studies, but there is room for improvement in their utilization. This can be done by setting a higher bar for their publication, by encouraging their use, and by providing incentives for the enrichment of existing data collections.


This article analyses Vietnam's 1944–5 great famine, which, even beyond its sheer scale of a million deaths, is historically important as instrumental in the August 1945 Viet Minh and communist revolution. It is argued that typhoons which struck coastal areas resulted in a shortfall of available food and were the proximate cause of famine. The Japanese in occupation of Vietnam, the American government directing attacks on the transport system, or the country's French colonial administration could have acted to limit, or even reverse, the famine. However, under the pressure of war, no government or institution opted for an effective famine alleviation strategy. That was also true of Asia's other great Second World War famines in Bengal, Henan, and Java, which paralleled Vietnam's both in causation and in feasible avoidance strategies. In Vietnam, differences in endowments and entitlements largely explain who died in the famine.


Throughout recorded history the great seaside centers of culture and commerce have relied upon safe harbors and the stability of their shores for survival. Today's coastline is of economical, social, cultural, and environmental value to communities and to nations. However, shorelines are dynamic and ephemeral places where erosion trends tend to dominate. Development along the shore places the desires of man (to have a safe and stable home) in direct opposition to the natural trends of nature (to erode, transport, and deposit coastal lands). Human reaction to coastal erosion and flooding problems range from hardening the shore to continually replacing the lost material to limiting or stopping future development. Whatever management and engineering steps are taken should be determined as the result of a well-informed and logical process. Coastal management strategy, including the decision to incorporate shore protection works, should be based upon a clear understanding of the problem, site conditions, and socio-economic expectations. Although the discussion presented here is applicable to all coastal settings; the full integration of geologic insights, engineering technology, and human anticipations is particularly critical in addressing the problems of the rapidly eroding and flood-prone shores of Louisiana. There are no "silver bullets" for solving coastal flooding and erosion problems. Every human action in the coastal zone has the potential to cause both an enhancing and an adverse reaction. However, when properly evaluated and ration ally considered, there are effective means for minimizing coastal flood and erosion damages. This paper explores the philosophy and issues associated with developing management and engineering responses to coastal erosion and flooding problems.


Various haptic feedback techniques have been explored to enable users to interact with their virtual surroundings using their hands. However, investigation on interactions with virtual objects slipping against the skin using skin-slip haptic feedback is still at its early stages. Prior skin-slip virtual reality (VR) haptic display implementations involved bulky actuation mechanisms and were not suitable for multi-finger and bimanual interactions. As a solution to this limitation, we present SpinOcchietto, a wearable skin-slip haptic feedback device using spinning discs for rendering the width and movement of virtual objects gripped between the fingertips. SpinOcchietto was developed to miniaturize and simplify SpinOcchio[1], a 6-DoF handheld skin-slip haptic display. With its smaller, lighter, and wearable form factor, SpinOcchietto enables users with a wide range of hand sizes to interact with virtual objects with their thumb and index fingers while freeing the rest of the hand. Users can perceive the speed of virtual objects slipping against the fingertips and can use varying grip strengths to grab and release the objects. Three demo applications were developed to showcase the different types of virtual object interactions enabled by the prototype.


Using the autocorrelation method, LPC error signals were computed as differences between the original waves and the predicted waves at each time instant. Analyses of synthesized and human vowel sounds show that the shapes and spectral contents of the instantaneous error signals are almost identical with those of the voice source for synthesized vowel sounds, and that the instants of glottal closure are well defined as maximally negative peaks in the error signals for both kinds of vowel sounds. Time integration of error signals was also performed. For male voices the shapes of integrated and instantaneous error signals are found to be very similar with those of EGG and differentiated EGG signals, respectively. This result supports the possibility that open and closed phases of the vocal folds within each glottal cycle can be determined from such LPC error signals. It was also found that automatic detection of valleys (or peaks) in the integrated error signal may be a robust pitch estimation method for voiced speech segments including synthetic diplophonic sounds. These and other results suggest that these simple LPC error analyses may provide significant information about the voice source.


A finite-element model to simulate surface electromyography (EMG) in a realistic human upper arm is presented. The model is used to explore the effect of limb geometry on surface-detected muscle fiber action potentials. The model was based on magnetic resonance images of the subject's upper arm and includes both resistive and capacitive material properties. To validate the model geometry, experimental and simulated potentials were compared at different electrode sites during the application of a subthreshold sinusoidal current source to the skin surface. Of the material properties examined, the closest approximation to the experimental data yielded a mean root-mean-square (rms) error of the normalized surface potential of 18% or 27%, depending on the site of the applied source. Surface-detected action potentials simulated using the realistic volume conductor model and an idealized cylindrical model based on the same limb geometry were then compared. Variation in the simulated limb geometry had a considerable effect on action potential shape. However, the rate of decay of the action potential amplitude with increasing distance from the fiber was similar in both models. Inclusion of capacitive material properties resulted in temporal low-pass filtering of the surface action potentials. This effect was most pronounced in the end-effect components of action potentials detected at locations far from the active fiber. It is concluded that accurate modeling of the limb geometry, asymmetry, tissue capacitance and fiber curvature is important when the specific action potential shapes are of interest. However, if the objective is to examine more qualitative features of the surface EMG signal, then an idealized volume conductor model with appropriate tissue thicknesses provides a close approximation.


The social sciences are predominantly seen by their practitioners as critical endeavours, which should inform criticism of harmful institutions, beliefs and practices. Accordingly, political attacks on the social sciences are often interpreted as revealing an unwillingness to accept criticism and an acquiescence with the status quo. But this dominant view of the political implications of social scientific knowledge misses the fact that people can also be outraged by what they see as its apologetic potential, namely that it provides excuses or justifications for people doing bad things, preventing them from being rightfully blamed and punished. This introduction to the special issue sketches the long history of debates about the exculpatory and justificatory consequences of social science and lays the foundations for a theory of social scientific apologia by examining three main aspects: what social and cognitive processes motivate this type of accusation, how social theorists respond to it and whether different contexts of circulation of ideas affect how these controversies unfold.


An interactive public site-specific telepresent installation for Staro Rīga from November 15th to 18th 2014, designed for site-specific impromptu performance and user interaction.  Staro Rīga, was a festival of light taking place during the Latvain independence celebrations and as part of the European City of Culture 2014 programme of events. This work celebrated the history of cinema, with key moments recreated as sets with references to cinematic genres, containing converged scenes and sets from the history of cinema including George Meliers "La Lune", Eisensteins "Battleship Potemkin", Casablanca and "Vertigo". The installation took live oblique camera shots from above the screens of two separate audience groups in Riga, both located on large 40m2 blue ground sheets, which then combined them on screen via a chroma-key video switcher in a single composited image. As the merged audiences started to explore this collaborative, shared telepresent space they discovered the ground beneath them, as it appeared on screen as a digital backdrop, locating them in a variety of environments. Through these playful environments the audience participants were offered the opportunity to direct and change the outcomes of this installation through an open system of interaction. These unique transitory outcomes relied entirely on the roles and performances the public participants brought to these urban screens and the experiences they chose to live out. Contextualized by their urban and commercial environments and recontextualized by a diverse array of interactive backdrops, our aim was to allow these public audiences the opportunity and agency to reclaim these urban screens.


Abstract Emergent leadership was examined in 12 discussion groups in 4 fourth-grade classrooms. Children's leadership moves were coded from transcripts of 10 free-flowing, open-format discussions of each of the 12 groups. The transcripts encompassed 26,000 turns for speaking, including 22,000 child turns of which 1,700 were judged to serve one of five leadership functions: Turn Management, Argument Development, Planning and Organizing, Topic Control, and Acknowledgment. Comparison of the number and kind of leadership moves made by the children showed that 1 primary child leader emerged in 6 out of the 12 groups and that, in all but 1 of the remaining groups, leadership was shared among several children. Even in groups with a dominant leader, leadership functions were widely distributed among group members. A three-level generalized hierarchical linear model, with multiple discussions nested within students and students nested within groups, showed that the frequency of leadership moves increased with the progression of the discussions, suggesting that the emerging leaders were learning how to lead. Girls who received stratagem instruction, and who were frequently nominated by their peers as having good ideas and seldom nominated as being too quiet, exhibited more leadership than other children.


We give a detailed study of the traveling wave solutions of (l = 2) Kaup-Boussinesq type of coupled KdV equations. Depending upon the zeros of a fourth degree polynomial, we have cases where there exist no nontrivial real solutions, cases where asymptotically decaying to a constant solitary wave solutions, and cases where there are periodic solutions. All such possible solutions are given explicitly in the form of Jacobi elliptic functions. Graphs of some exact solutions in solitary wave and periodic shapes are exhibited. Extension of our study to the cases l = 3 and l = 4 are also mentioned.


This special issue of Space Communications contains nine papers derived from a study, 'Global satellite communications technology and systems', sponsored by NASA and the NSF. The purpose of this study was to compare the position of the US in commercial satellite communications technology, research, development and markets with that of the rest of the world. It included visits to over 65 satellite manufacturers, service providers and R&D Institutes located in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. These papers include overviews and country by country material on R&D activities, technology status, markets and trends from this study. The conclusions of this panel indicate that the US continues to have a strong presence in this large and rapidly growing global industry but that European and Asian entities are making significant investments in their manufacturing and R&D activities and are becoming major participants in this satellite communications industry. The migration of US aerospace corporations from being primarily manufacturers of spacecraft to being primarily satellite service providers could serve to undercut necessary longer term R&D to develop new technologies.


Jaundice is a highly prevalent disease in Arunachal Pradesh and adjoining states of India which is generally treated by local traditional healers belonging to 26 communities of the state. As per records published in different adjoining states over 105 plants are used for the cure of jau ndice. Most of them are also available in Arunachal Pradesh and are also use by local traditional healers. The papers represents the plants used for the cure and management of jaundice by local traditional healers of 26 major communities of Arunachal Pradesh as well as the plants used for the same practice in ot her adjoini ng parts of the Country which are distributed or cultivated in Arunachal Pradesh.


After the initial discovery by MaCay and colleagues, which showed that reduced food intake extended the lifespan in rats, many aging researchers used calorie restriction (CR) as an experimental paradigm to seek the underlying mechanisms of aging and anti-aging actions of CR. Among those many researchers, one of the most intensive and systematical studies was carried out by Dr. Edward Masoro and his colleagues. Dr. Masoro's approach with a strict animal maintenance protocol in a barrier facility along with using a defined semisynthetic diet allowed him to yield a large amount of data and very important information for the advancement of current aging research to areas such as reduced GH/IGF-1 actions, suppression of mTOR signaling, reduced senescent cell accumulation, enhanced insulin sensitivity and signaling, and others (Sirt1 and hormesis), etc. The interventions of a single mechanism/pathway have demonstrated an exciting and promising outcome for the translational aspect to humans. However, CR is still considered the most effective intervention of aging. The mammalian aging process seems to be far more complex than our initial prediction, and the anti-aging effects shown by CR require synergistic alterations of multiple mechanisms/pathways. Therefore, it may be time for us to get back and re-visit Dr. Masoro's legacy by further examining the complexity of mechanisms of aging and the effects of CR. These further experiments are necessary to validate the successful implementation of CR to human aging (including lifespan, healthspan, and various age-related diseases) because of its diversity of genetic backgrounds, dietary compositions, lifestyle, and other factors that are different from the experimental animals in well-defined laboratory conditions. Keywords: Calorie restriction, fischer 344 rats, aging


In a city environment, wind direction is often not predictable and is easily re-directed in different ways by all kinds of obstacles. Consequently, large size wind turbines do not work effectively, not to mention the requirement for planning permission often needed for their installation. In an attempt to overcome these problems, this paper proposes the design of vertical-axis micro turbines with a maximum diameter of 30cm, which generate electric power for low voltage DC loads. The paper looks at the design, simulation and construction of a combination of Savonius-type, H-type and Darrieustype blade turbines. A variety of mechanical and electrical aspects of the turbine design are studied in detail to enhance the electrical output efficiency of the turbines. The results indicate that the most efficient turbine makes use of a combination of different blade designs, resulting in a power coefficient of 42% and an average total efficiency of about 32%. Additionally, the turbine has a high electric power output, a good self-starting characteristic, and low starting and cut-in wind speeds of 2.25m/s and 2.75m/s respectively. It also benefits from a simple mechanical structure and can therefore be produced cheaply.


Quail child has a tremendous potential to continue further descent because quails have almost all the potential that can be exploited by humans, either for consumption or economic. Children quail superior quality can be produced from superior quality parent, so the parent quail quality must be considered. Additional food in the form of powder turmeric supplements can increase the phytoestrogen which stimulates the liver to produce vitellogenin as the  material forming the yolk. Egg yolk is a source of nutrients for the development of quail embryos. This study aimed to analyze the differences in the quality of the parent male quail chicks were given supplements of turmeric powder to the testis weight, testis size, number of spermatogonia and spermatids amount contained in the seminiferous tubules. The study design used was completely randomized design (CRD) that is 3 treatments and 5 replications. By using quail male child as much as 15 tails as test animals, divided into three groups, namely K0: F1 generation of the female quail are not given turmeric powder supplement, K1: F1 generation of the female quail turmeric powder supplemented with a dose of 54 mg/tail/day and K2: kuturunan F1 of the parent quail turmeric powder supplemented with a dose of 108 mg/tail/day. The variables measured were testis weight, testis size, number of spermatogonia and spermatids number. Data were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by a further test Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at the 95% significance level. The results showed that the quality of parent child quail turmeric powder supplemented with a dose of 108 mg/tail/day for better views of the process of spermatogenesis. Keywords: C h ild  quail ( C o turnix  coturnix  japonica .  L), Turmeric,  Testis,  spermatogonia, spermatids .


We observed using the in-plane moire method the propagation of plastic strain in a uniform tension specimen made of HSLA 80 steel loaded quasi-statically. The steel shows a localized, heterogeneous type of transition from elastic to plastic deformation. Plastic strain generally initiates at one end of the specimen and gradually propagates toward the other end. The magnitude of plastic strain, once initiated and propagation begun, is about seven times the elastic strain. An interface band of the order of a few millimeters separates the elastic and plastic zones. Since it is a nonuniform deformation, local strain measurement methods such as strain gage, clip gage, etc. are not suitable to characterize the mechanical properties of this material.


Purpose
This study aims to explain the driving forces behind the development of accounting regulatory institutions in post-colonial Libya.

Design/methodology/approach
The historical method is used to interpret relevant documentary evidence in the development of accounting in Libya vis-à-vis developments in the country's post-colonial political-economic history.

Findings
The development of accounting regulation in Libya is traced to post-colonial political-economic history that occurred independent of the country's colonial past. The immediate aftermath of colonialism (1951-1968) showed that Western accounting practices used by Western businesses operating in Libya were imbued by pro-Western ideology. Basic legislative requirements for accounting and auditing emerged during this period through legislation. Two distinct epochs surfaced during Muammar Gaddafi's rule: initially, the state advocated a centrally planned economy, but in the 1980s, an ideological shift occurred, which opened the Libyan economy to the global market. The first epoch saw the formation of accounting regulatory agencies consistent with the state-centred organisation of society, and the second epoch engendered the development of accounting standards consistent with the developments in market-centred societies during the era of globalisation.

Originality/value
The study offers unique historical evidence on the development of accounting regulation in a developing country independent of its colonial history. The study enhances our understanding of how the interplay between the political economy and the ideological basis of the state determines the historical path of accounting as a basis for predicting the possible future direction of accounting development.


: In summary, while performance appraisal has always been present in health care, it is taking on a new dimension. Evaluative criteria based on personality traits are being replaced by quantifiable, specific, job-related factors. Performance appraisal in many organizations is no longer an abstract, generalized concept, but is predicated on specific, predetermined corporate or institutional goals for which the CEO is held directly responsible and accountable. In other words, the activities at the lowest level in the organization have direct impact on the highest levels. While pay-for-performance is still more common at the management level, an increasing number of institutions are applying the concept across the board. It is imperative that first-line supervisors understand how their own performance is appraised and their compensation determined before trying to explain a new concept to their subordinates. Even more important, the first- and second-line supervisors should have direct input into the development of new pay programs for their subordinates.


It has been predicted that electric vehicles will play a crucial role in incorporating a large renewable component in the energy sector. If electric vehicles are integrated in a naive way, they may exacerbate issues related to peak demand and transmission capacity limits while not reducing polluting emissions. Optimizing the charging of electric vehicles is paramount for their successful integration. This paper presents a model to describe the driving patterns of electric vehicles in order to provide primary input information to any mathematical programming model for optimal charging. Specifically, an inhomogeneous Markov model that captures the diurnal variation in the use of a vehicle is presented. The model is defined by the time-varying probabilities of starting and ending a trip, and is justified due to the uncertainty associated with the use of the vehicle. The model is fitted to data collected from the actual utilization of a vehicle. Inhomogeneous Markov models imply a large number of parameters. The number of parameters in the proposed model is reduced using B-splines.


The pharmacokinetics of cephamandol administered intramuscularly in single doses of 5 or 20 mg/kg and intravenously in a single dose of 5 mg/kg was studied on rabbits. When the antibiotic was administered intramuscularly, a one-compartment model was used for determination of the parameters of the antibiotic pharmacokinetics in the blood serum, while on intravenous administration of the antibiotic a two-compartment model was used. It was found that the rate of cephamandol elimination after intramuscular administration did not depend on the drug dose. The antibiotic half-life was 34-37 minutes. The apparent volume of the antibiotic distribution after intramuscular administration was 0.31-0.71 ml/g. After intravenous injection of cephamandol the apparent volume of its distribution in the central compartment was 0.27 ml/g. The stationary and kinetic volumes of the antibiotic distribution were 0.36 and 0.46 ml/g, respectively. The average values of the antibiotic elimination constant, the constant of the antibiotic passage from the central compartment to the peripheral one and vice versa were 0.0446, 0.0193 and 0.0546 min-1, respectively. After intravenous injection the rate of cephamandol elimination from the rabbit blood was higher: the antibiotic half-life after intravenous injection was 26.1 min.


The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician, a novel by Zimbabwean diasporic writer Tendai Huchu, adds to a growing body of global immigrant fiction. Huchu's novel concerning Zimbabwean émigrés in the United Kingdom displays a heightened spatial consciousness that self-reflexively complicates the spatial tropes and trends of much migrant literature. The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician generates an unrelenting dialectic in which the national home, both for migrants and citizens, is often unhomely, while host spaces yield to various forms of place-making and belonging. City space, in this case the city of Edinburgh, is shown through the unique mobilities of the three protagonists to produce different senses of identity. However, the forms of identity that emerge ultimately succumb to the spatial implosion represented by the death (in contained spaces) of two of the principal characters, whose city perambulations are thus brought to a halt. The reader discovers, furthermore, that the third character is not the cartographer of his re-orienting mental map of the host city, but that his itinerary has been directed all along by a sinister Zimbabwean expatriate, to whom the third character, fooled by this regime spy's buffoonery, condescends, and patronizes at his peril.


In this study, we focused on the effect of alloying elements (Fe, Mo, and Al) on the consolidation and mechanical properties of Ti compacts. The elemental blended powders is manufactured by spark plasma sintering. The effects of amount of alloying elements and sintering temperature on the relative density and tensile properties of Ti compacts were investigated. The addition of β-stabilizing elements (Fe and Mo) was found significantly improve the densification of Ti compacts, where the sintered density ratio of Ti-5 wt.% Mo specimen was higher than 99.9 %, and Ti-5 wt.% Fe specimen was higher than 99.0 %. On the other hand, addition of Al as α-stabilizing element showed the sintered density rate of Ti-5 wt.% Al specimen was higher than 99.9 %. The tensile property for sintered Ti-5 wt.% Mo specimens had the highest elongation of 16 %. It will be discussed the microstructures and tensile property of the compacts.


Principal focus becoming priority in development is the effort reach to repair of society way of thinking and economics which not limited to, just elite faction, but by totally and flatten until coat society coat under. Development a kind of this usually is manifestly realized in activity give completely of material life like food, clothes, health, education and improve society security
pursuant to reality, social. This matter later;then make important matter role of countryside head, so that its role is needed to reach the target of development, specially development of medium countryside infrastructure or countryside as according to program and planning of development countryside. At governance of countryside, Head Countryside as countryside chief have very important role in determining development in its area. Case that happened in Countryside of Bakalan District Bululawang is existing countryside physical medium, like there damage road;street between orchard + 400 m, source of water having problem and place take care of less supporting and some other problem in the case of countryside physical medium. This problems
related to society participation in development of countryside, what it is of course require role of
countryside head in moving society participation.
This research is conducted by using approach qualitative with descriptive method. Technique of data collecting conducted by through: Observation and interview and also documentation. After done by inspection validity, data analysed by presentation of data at one blow analysed and the conclusion withdrawal.
From result of obtained data: (1). That role of Head Countryside in moving society participation to development of countryside including network between society element in order to construction of Countryside of Bakalan, is by conducting approachs of government of or countryside of Head Countryside through in each;every hamlet. Besides also with is same activity between Government of Countryside and society in development ( APDI). Beside that in providing prasarana construction countryside role of countryside only as activator while self-supporting pure fund of society, entangling RT /RW in self-supporting and development of countryside medium. Is therefore needed by development institute of countryside by maximizing activity of kasun each;every hamlet and also optimalisasi role of RT /RW in development of countryside. (2) Resistance faced by Head Countryside in moving society participation to development among others is awareness of society in development still less. This matter look at demand of existence construction which not make balance to with availibility of fund supporting, until make constraint to development of countryside medium. Besides lack of role LPMD to play
tricks on development and society. Awareness of society in construction countryside seen from the aspect of LPMD. Society still depended to government of countryside. This matter is caused by SDM in Countryside of Bakalan this still lower, because resident majority is farmworker.
Besides also the problem of financing which still unclear so that development of countryside oftentimes delay. (3) Effort which is to Lead Countryside to overcome resistance exist in Countryside of Bakalan District Bululawang that is with development medium giving facility with fund which have been provided. Besides also society facility in knowledges of information through activity forum of deliberation countryside. Like conducted byopen Forum of hamlet or orchard to be woke up and attended by Head Countryside, Kasun, and also RT /RW and elite figure for the watching of working team. In society facility in knowledges of information through activity forum of deliberation this countryside usually pass program of PNPM. Other Effort is mapping of participation, where participation storey;level in development which many
is Orchard of Bakalan Karajan because owning resident at most. In the case of graving dock and usage Source Fund Development of Countryside during the time many its source like taken away from by PNPM, Governmental of Countryside, From on duty irrigating and is Self-Supporting of society.


BACKGROUND
Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) is a major enzyme that is responsible for the detoxification of reactive oxygen species in the mitochondria. Mitochondrial DNA damage may contribute to carcinogenesis as an important risk factor. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between prostate cancer and MnSOD Ala-9Val polymorphism in Turkish men with prostate cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fifty patients with prostate cancer and 50 healthy controls were included in this study. Gene polymorphism was determined using a PCR-RFLP method.

RESULTS
The Ala/Ala genotype and the Ala allele were found at statistically higher frequencies in patients with prostate cancer as compared to controls (p < 0.05). The patients suffering from prostate cancer were divided into two groups according to Gleason score: aggressive prostate cancer and non-aggressive prostate cancer. It was observed that carrying the Ala/Ala genotype or the Ala allele resulted in an insignificant increase in the frequency of aggressive prostate cancer compared to nonaggressive prostate cancer. It was concluded that MnSOD Ala allele might be the cause of prostate cancer risk among alcohol users.

CONCLUSION
The results of our study of Turkish prostate cancer patients suggest that mutation of the MnSOD gene may be an important risk factor for prostate cancer.


Various reports show that special economic zones (SEZ) have become a prime catalyst for regional development in developing countries such as China and the ASEAN countries. The SEZ can be defined as a specific geographical region with economic laws that are more liberal than a country's typical economic laws. Many SEZs have characteristics of bonded zones, export processing zone (EPZ) or free trade zones and provide special incentives, including tax exemption or reduction to investors. The purpose of the paper is to enumerate the candidates for SEZ in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV countries) according to four types: "metropolitan areas," "ports and harbors," "border areas" and "junctions or intersections." The first two types are based on the experience of forerunning ASEAN countries and the latter two are based on the economic corridors of the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Program. The paper concludes by identifying locations for the questionnaire and flowchart approach-based surveys, and presenting country-specific strategies.


The regularizing functional approach is widely used in many estimation problems. In practice, the solution is defined as one minimum point of a suitable functional, the main part of which accounts for the underlying physical model, whereas the regularizing part represents some prior information about the unknowns. In the Bayesian interpretation, one has a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimator in which the main and regularizing parts are represented, respectively, by likelihood and prior distributions. When either the prior or likelihood is a Laplace distribution and the other is a Gaussian distribution, one is led to consider functionals that include both absolute and square norms. The authors present a characterization of the minimum points of such functionals, together with a descent-type algorithm for numerical computations. The results of Monte-Carlo simulations are also reported. >


The H.E.S.S. experiment entered its phase II with the addition of a new, large telescope named CT 5 that was added to the centre of the existing array of four smaller telescopes. The new telescope is able to detect fainter air showers due to its larger mirror area, thereby lowering the energy threshold of the array from a few hundred GeV down to O(50 GeV). Due to the power-law decrease of typical g-ray and cosmic-ray spectra of astrophysical sources a majority of detected air showers are of low energies, thus being detected by CT 5 only, which motivates the need for a reconstruction algorithm based on information from CT 5 alone. By exploiting such monoscopic events the H.E.S.S. experiment in phase II becomes sensitive in an energy range not covered by H.E.S.S. I and in which the Fermi LAT runs out of statistics. Furthermore the chance of detecting transient phenomena like g-ray bursts is increased significantly due to the large effective area of CT 5 at low energies. In this contribution a newly developed reconstruction algorithm for monoscopic events based on neural networks is presented. This algorithm uses multilayer perceptrons to reconstruct the direction and energy of the particle initiating the air shower and also to discriminate between gamma rays and hadrons. The performance of this algorithm is evaluated and compared to other existing reconstruction algorithms. Furthermore results of first applications of the algorithm to measured data are shown.


Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) aquaculture is an important industry from the global down to local markets. In Tasmania, the industry faces a serious health risk in the form of amoebic gill disease (AGD). The disease attributes 14 to 20% of production costs through control measures and mortalities. The warmer summer months result in proliferation of AGD suggesting that the 1.3 to 3˚C temperature increases predicted by the end of the century could detrimentally impact the Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry. This thesis investigates current and future temperature scenarios on chronic and acute thermal tolerance of aquaculture-relevant species and disease status. Specifically, the focus is on respiratory physiology under potentially stressful environmental conditions.
The production of triploids can be advantageous to the aquaculture industry due to their inherent sterility allowing them to reach market size without the stress of maturation. In addition, triploids present a unique experimental model to investigate physiological processes due to their altered genome (e.g. larger but fewer cells). Despite observations of reduced thermal tolerance in triploids compared to their diploid counterparts, negligible differences in metabolism or thermal tolerance were found between ploidies in Chapter 2. Diploid and triploid Atlantic salmon were acclimated to three temperatures (10, 14, and 18°C) at which their metabolic rates (resting and maximum) and acute thermal tolerance was determined. The experiment was conducted over 9 weeks with measurements occurring at weeks 0 (mass), 3 (mass and metabolic rates), 7 (mass and metabolic rates), and 9 (mass, metabolic rates, and critical thermal maximum [CTmax]). While mass, specific growth rate (SGR), and resting metabolic rate (ṀO2rest) were significantly different in the beginning weeks of the experiment, all three converged by week 7 of the experiment. Maximum metabolic rate (ṀO2max), and aerobic scope (ṀO2max- ṀO2rest) remained stable across acclimation temperatures, measuring time points and ploidy. Furthermore, CTmax was found to be independent of ploidy. This study suggests that triploidy does not inhibit thermal tolerance in juvenile Atlantic salmon, so therefore diploids were utilized in subsequent chapters.
Amoebic gill disease attaches solely to the gills and causes proliferation of the gill epithelium resulting in fusion of the secondary lamellae. This potentially reduces the functional surface area for oxygen uptake. Furthermore, the disease could have adverse effects on the host during periods of poor environmental conditions such as elevated temperatures or hypoxia.
Across two chapters, the thermal tolerance and metabolism of AGD-infected diploid Atlantic salmon was investigated. Severely infected Atlantic salmon had impaired acute thermal tolerance as evidenced by a decreased CTmax temperature in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, naive and AGD-infected Atlantic salmon were acclimated to 15 and 19°C and ṀO2rest, ṀO2max, aerobic scope, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), and hypoxia tolerance (Pcrit) were assessed. Increasing infection level was positively correlated with ṀO2rest at both acclimation temperatures while ṀO2max remained stable. The increase in ṀO2rest without a concurrent increase in ṀO2max caused aerobic scope to decrease with increasing infection level. Furthermore, evidence was found for impaired hypoxia tolerance. These findings suggest that heatwaves and periods of hypoxia could be detrimental to AGD-infected salmon.
This thesis demonstrates that future climate change scenarios could have an impact on the Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry. It concludes that the effects of AGD on Atlantic salmon impairs acute thermal tolerance which could be detrimental with the projected increase in prevalence of heatwaves with climate change. However, given the chance for acclimation (i.e. an increase in average temperatures), infected salmon at higher temperatures (e.g. 19°C) could cope as well as those at lower acclimation temperatures (15°C).


We motivate and offer a formal definition of validation as it applies to information fusion systems. Common definitions of validation compare the actual state of the world with that derived by the fusion process. This definition conflates properties of the fusion system with properties of systems that intervene between the world and the fusion system. We propose an alternative definition where validation of an information fusion system references a standard fusion device, such as recognized human experts. We illustrate the approach by describing the validation process implemented in RAID, a program conducted by DARPA and focused on information fusion in adversarial, deceptive environments.


The United States became a great power in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and a superpower during World War II without quite knowing it. Few Americans fully appreciate the fact today. How many people know that in recent years we have had 250,000 troops in 700 bases around the world? Consider our recent history of military operations in the Caribbean, East Asia, the Far East, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Balkans. In "America Rising", David Felix attempts to explain how and why America became a superpower by examining the political and economic factors that have driven its ascendence and their relationship throughout history.Felix begins with the dawn of America, showing how America amassed wealth and political power from the start through wars, assertions of economic might, and the creation of a cultural and philosophical base. The nation began with a political order, derived from our British origins, which enabled our pragmatic culture to take advantage of the vast wealth of a near-virgin continent. Political and economic freedom were paired, authority yielding to both freedoms. Our farmers and businessmen were dreamers, manufacturing realities out of those dreams. Felix's account then makes a point of neoclassical economics as an anvil on which to hammer out a sharper sense of the content of our existence.This book, which demonstrates the author's zest for historical analysis and great story-telling ability, points to the central fact of a rising America - the intensely energizing interaction between polity and economy. The United States is the greatest power in world history, but the rise of another great power, China, is beginning to be increasingly apparent. One trusts that, drawing upon its deep resources, America will remember its history and traditions and continue as a superpower.


The Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud is one of the most endemic economic crimes within the European Union. Its most disruptive form, the Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) scam represents a real threat for the further economic and fiscal integration of the Union. The aim of this paper is to explain the mechanisms and to assess the magnitude of the MTIC fraud based on macroeconomic data. A macroeconomic model using panel regression is developed in order to link the amount of VAT collected across the member countries to their respective trade gaps. Using this model the VAT gap is identified based on the difference between the theoretical VAT and the observed amounts. The results emphasize that the MTIC fraud alone accounts for almost 94 B€ in 2014 across the 28 Union members representing 0.67 % of Union's GDP.


Background: Family members can be affected by a relative's substance misuse, but service provision is limited. A brief intervention in primary care has been shown to be effective. The application of such an intervention in other settings requires investigation. Aims: To assess the feasibility of the development and implementation of a brief intervention for family members of substance misusers, within Specialist Drug and Alcohol Services. Method: A before and after mixed methodology design. Findings: Thirteen staff, from seven teams across one Mental Health NHS Trust area, worked with twenty family members. It was shown that it was feasible to: adapt the intervention for use within a specialist setting; recruit and train specialist service staff to deliver the intervention; have these staff recruit and work with family members; and for this intervention to be seen by both staff and family members as a positive and useful addition to service delivery. However, although feasible, there are still difficulties in integrating this work into routine clinical practice. Conclusions: It is feasible, and beneficial, for specialist drug and alcohol services to deliver a brief intervention to family members. However, organizational and commissioning issues mean that routine delivery of such an intervention may not yet be possible, until full recognition is given to the view that addiction problems are best dealt with in a more holistic way that takes into account the family context within which most people live.


The study investigated the basic problems confronting the growth of non-farm household-based enterprises among male and female rural entrepreneurs in Osun state, Nigeria and examined the potential prospects of these enterprises to the development of rural economy. Snow ball sampling procedure was employed to select 100 male and 100 female entrepreneurs for the study from four LGAs of the state. Data were described with frequency counts, percentages, means and standard deviation while ANOVA was used for inferential purpose. The results show that 55% and 59% of male and female respectively engaged in processing of agricultural produce. The mean ages for male and female entrepreneurs were 44.47 and 45.92 years respectively; the mean household sizes were 6 and 5 persons while the mean monthly net income was N16, 878 and N17,638 for male and female respectively. Identified constraints included shortage of capital (mean=2.36; 2.53), inadequate managerial skill (mean=1.67; 1.83), increasing demand for imported goods (mean=1.62; 1.50) while potential prospects include; serving as income source during agricultural off seasons (mean=4.67; 4.78), employment generation (mean=4.67; 4.78) and poverty alleviation (mean=4.40; 4.34) for male and female respectively. ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference in the constraints faced by male and female entrepreneurs and no significant difference in the prospects of the enterprises among male and female respondents. Based on the findings, the study concluded that despite the fact that these enterprises were faced with multiple challenges, they hold great prospects for economic transformation of both male and female entrepreneurs. Opportunities for the growth of these enterprises exist in employing strategies like strong linkage of the entrepreneurs to financial institutions, low interest rate, public reorientation for indigenous products, provision of adequate infrastructural facilities and entrepreneurial education for skill acquisition. It therefore recommended a holistic intervention of all relevant institutions including finance, education and the government to assist these small business owners to scale up their operation from the subsistence level, thereby enhancing rural entrepreneurship development.


Transport is a key factor for economic growth. It has enabled both the economic scale of production and an increase in competition. No one can question this role of transportation. There is, however, a back-side to the coin: the environmental challenge. Present trends show that transportation is not compatible with sustainable development. The need to internalise the external effects from trans-portation has been well documented during the last decade, i.e. the traditional 'command and control' approach should be supplemented, where appropriate, by economic and fiscal measures. This is the philosophy of Swedish transport policy since 1988, which states that traffic user-charges for road- and rail traffic should include explicit charges for the external effects of traffic accidents, air pollution, climate change, and noise.

The total social costs for road- and rail transportation, in the form of traffic accidents, air pollution, and noise, amounted to 4.2% of GNP in 1995. The external costs for 1995 amount to 8.9 billion SEK for road traffic and 0.3 billion SEK for rail traffic. The total transportation for road traffic is, however, higher than for the railway. Accordingly, for traffic in its entirety the external effects in relation to the traffic work are nearly 6 times higher for road traffic than for railway traffic.

The thesis analyses existing taxes and user-charges in order to internalize the external effects in transportation. One of the conclusions is that diesel-driven road vehicles pay considerably less of their socio-economic costs in comparison to petrol-driven vehicles. Also, the difference between the external costs for different diesel vehicles is much too great for one to be able to apply a uniform fuel charge. Only a user-charge system based on variable vehicle-related charges (such as the earlier kilometer tax) can attain an appropriate internalization of the external effects. In general, the conclusion is that fuel taxes are too blunt as steering instruments. The optimal fuel taxes and train-kilometer taxes, etc. vary with a factor of up to ten and more between different vehicles and modes of traffic, so that they correspond to the external costs with a low degree of preciseness.

Even if sufficient knowledge exists about the costs and evaluations of external effects in transportation, there is an inertia in the process of implementing necessary measures to cope with the external effects of transportation. It is difficult to gain broad acceptance about the necessity for increasing fuel taxes, for example. In order to overcome the barriers and roadblocks impeding the pursuit of sustainable transportation, it is necessary to consider the following three claims on externality charges: they must be explicit, which means that current petrol taxes must be substituted for traffic accident charges, air pollution charges, etc; they must be distinguished from taxes, which implies, for example, that a reduction of speed limits is coupled to a reduction of petrol price through a reduced traffic accident charge; they must be generally adopted, which means that the charges are not only implemented for externalities in transportation but applied to all other sectors.


Planning electricity supply is important because power demand continues to increase while there is a concomitant desire to increase reliance on renewable sources. Extant research pays particular attention to highly variable, low-carbon energy sources such as wind and small-scale hydroelectric power. Models generally employ only a simple load levelling technique, ensuring that generation meets demand in every period. The current research considers the power transmission system as well as load levelling. A network model is developed to simulate the integration of highly variable non-dispatchable power into an electrical grid that relies on traditional generation sources, while remaining within the network's operating constraints. The model minimizes a quadratic cost function over two periods of 336 hours, with periods representing low (summer) and high (winter) demand, subject to various linear constraints. The model is numerically solved using Matlab and GAMS software environments. Results indicate that, even for a grid heavily dependent on hydroelectricity, the addition of wind power can create difficulties, with system costs increasing with wind penetration, sometimes significantly.


We have performed a high mass and force resolution simulation of an idealized galaxy forming from dissipational collapse of gas embedded in a spherical dark matter halo. The simulation includes star formation and effects of stellar feedback. In our simulation a stellar disk forms with a surface density profile consisting of an inner exponential breaking to a steeper outer exponential. The break forms early on and persists throughout the evolution, moving outward as more gas is able to cool and add mass to the disk. The parameters of the break are in excellent agreement with observations. The break corresponds to a rapid drop in the star formation rate associated with a drop in the cooled gas surface density, but the outer exponential is populated by stars that were scattered outward on nearly circular orbits from the inner disk by spiral arms. The resulting profile and its associated break are therefore a consequence of the interplay between a radial star formation cutoff and redistribution of stellar mass by secular processes. A consequence of such evolution is a sharp change in the radial mean stellar age profile at the break radius.


This article uses the question of whether or not supervisors attend client interviews with their students as a lens through which to explore other questions about supervision theory, clinical pedagogy and professional responsibility. This examination and analysis appears to set up dichotomies about how students learn best and how clients are served best. The article attempts to deconstruct these dichotomies by proposing a different way to think about these issues. Grounded in theories about adult learning, critical reflection, and role assumption and modeling, the article concludes that the decision about whether to attend client interviews can be one that the supervisor makes on a case-by-case, student-by-student basis, and that the decision might be made in collaboration with the student. Engaging in this kind of inquiry would require supervisors to revisit often and critically their roles as teachers and lawyers, and the needs of their individual students and clients. Moreover, by involving their students in this process, the clinicians model that reflection for them, hopefully teaching not only the skill of client-centered interviewing, but also the skill of self-evaluation and critical reflection. The article is based on empirical and theoretical research that reveals and describes complex spectra of supervision style and professional role. Discussion about these spectra and how they inform our pedagogy provides a rich forum to challenge ourselves as critically reflective clinical teachers.


Neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, are responsible for mediating a wide array of neurologic functions, from memory to motivation. From measurements using fast scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV), one of the main tools used to detect synaptic efflux of neurochemicals in vivo, principal component regression (PCR), has been commonly used to predict the identity and concentrations of neurotransmitters. However, the sensitivity and discrimination performance of PCR have room for improvement, especially for analyzing mixtures of similar oxidizable neurochemicals. Deep learning may be able to address these challenges. To date, there have been a few studies to apply machine learning to FSCV, but no attempt to apply deep learning to neurotransmitter mixture discrimination and no comparative study have been performed between PCR and deep learning methods to demonstrate which is more accurate for FSCV analysis so far. In this study, we compared the neurochemical identification and concentration estimation performance of PCR and deep learning in an analysis of FSCV recordings of catecholamine and indolamine neurotransmitters. Both analysis methods were tested on in vitro FSCV data with a single or mixture of neurotransmitters at the desired concentration. In addition, the estimation performance of PCR and deep learning was compared in incorporation with in vivo experiments to evaluate the practical usage. Pharmacological tests were also conducted to see whether deep learning would track the increased amount of catecholamine levels in the brain. Using conventional FSCV, we used five electrodes and recorded in vitro background-subtracted cyclic voltammograms from four neurotransmitters, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, with five concentrations of each substance, as well as various mixtures of the four analytes. The results showed that the identification accuracy errors were reduced 5-20% by using deep learning compared to using PCR for mixture analysis, and the two methods were comparable for single analyte analysis. The applied deep-learning-based method demonstrated not only higher identification accuracy but also better discrimination performance than PCR for mixtures of neurochemicals and even for in vivo testing. Therefore, we suggest that deep learning should be chosen as a more reliable tool to analyze FSCV data compared to conventional PCR methods although further work is still needed on developing complete validation procedures prior to widespread use.


A simple strategy for configurational assignments of alpha-amino acids has been developed by comparison of the proton NMR chemical shift values of the alpha hydrogens of N-phthaloyl protected alpha-amino acids in the presence of (R)-CSA 1 and (S)-CSA 1, respectively. Highly resolved NMR spectra can be obtained directly on the mixed solution of the chiral solvating agents with N-phthaloyl protected alpha-amino acids in NMR tubes, giving well distinguishable proton signals without interference which dramatically improve the accuracy of assignment and hasten the assigning procedure. The strategy is widely applicable for varied natural and non-natural amino acids.


Rama Beyond Price, a dramatized remake of the Ramayana, is one of the most challenging pieces of Sanskrit poetry to read. Because of its elegant style, learned allusions, and often striking imagery, the poem has been a favorite among pundits. The well-known epic story of Rama's exploits is presented as a series of political intrigues and battles, and contrasted with lyrical passages of various kinds: on love and war, pride and honor, gods and demons, rites and myths, regions and cities of ancient India. This is the first English translation of the only surviving work by Murari, a brahmin court poet, who lived some time between the eighth and tenth century CE, perhaps in Orissa or in neighboring South India. Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org


The interaction of 12 antisense nucleosides with phenylalanine (Phe), and the effect of pH and salts on the strength of interaction was studied by charge-transfer reversed-phase thin-layer chromatography. Phe significantly decreased the lipophilicity of nucleosides. This effect may be due to the interaction between the more hydrophilic Phe and the more lipophilic nucleosides, resulting in charge-transfer complexes of moderate lipophilicity. The relative strength of interaction was the weakest in acidic and the strongest in alkaline environment. This finding indicates the partially or entirely hydrophilic character of the interaction. Salts influenced to a lesser extent the interaction, their effect depended both on the concentration and on the type of cation. The relatively low impact of salts on the strength of interaction suggests that other than hydrophilic forces are involved in the Phe - antisense nucleoside interaction.


A great amount of intellectual energy has been spent in recent years on attempts to remodel exemptions to exclusive rights, and as specifically discussed in this chapter, exceptions to the reproduction right, in efforts to prevent overprotection and preserve the so-called delicate copyright balance. The analysis in this chapter and the limited force of its own proposal concerning the question of fixation lead to the conclusion that an exclusive right tailored around the concept of fixation of message signals cannot continue to be one of the most basic building blocks of copyright law.It shall be posited that and explained why the reproduction right belongs to past chapters in copyright law's evolution; it has grown evidently unsuitable to lead the copyright system into the digital future. This is because the notion of fixation is structurally inimical to contemporary modes and methods of providing and gaining access to digital information. Fixation, in other words, is the "yesterday" of copyright law. Modern-day legislatures will sooner or later have to tackle the problem of finding alternative concepts around which the apparatus of exclusivity is tailored.


In all application fields for hot rolled strip products for direct processing, e.g. construction and engineering but also crane and truck industry, there is a strong customers demand for grades with increased strength levels and well balanced formability. At voestalpine Stahl GmbH these requirements were met with the development of the high strength microalloyed steel grade ALFORM700M and the ultra high strength steel grade ALFORM900M with a minimum yield strength (YS) of 700 MPa and 900 MPa, respectively. In the present paper investigations on the steel grades ALFORM700M and ALFORM900M are introduced. To explain the evolution of the obtained complex microstructures consisting of bainitic ferrite, bainite and martensite alloy design and industrial production process is discussed on the base of dilatometric experiments and TEM investigations. The formation of precipitates is studied by using a numerical model, chemical methods and mechanical testing after heat treatment. Mechanical and mechanic-technological properties of the two steel grades are compared. Furthermore, some processing aspects as weldability an bending behaviour are highlighted. Finally, some typical applications for this high and ultra high strength steel grades are presented.


This thesis investigates the modelling and forecasting of multivariate volatility and dependence in financial time series. The first paper proposes a new model for forecasting changes in the term structure (TS) of interest rates. Using the level, slope and curvature factors of the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model, we build a time-varying copula model for the factor dynamics allowing for departure from the normality assumption typically adopted in TS models. To induce relative immunity to structural breaks, we model and forecast the factor changes and not the factor levels. Using US Treasury yields for the period 1986:3-2010:12, our in-sample analysis indicates model stability and we show statistically significant gains due to allowing for a time-varying dependence structure which permits joint extreme factor movements. Our out-of-sample analysis indicates the model's superior ability to forecast the conditional mean in terms of root mean square error reductions and directional forecast accuracy. The forecast gains are stronger during the recent financial crisis. We also conduct out-of-sample model evaluation based on conditional density forecasts. The second paper introduces a new class of multivariate volatility models that utilizes high-frequency data. We discuss the models' dynamics and highlight their differences from multivariate GARCH models. We also discuss their covariance targeting specification and provide closed-form formulas for multi-step forecasts. Estimation and inference strategies are outlined. Empirical results suggest that the HEAVY model outperforms the multivariate GARCH model out-of-sample, with the gains being particularly significant at short forecast horizons. Forecast gains are obtained for both forecast variances and correlations. The third paper introduces a new class of multivariate volatility models which is easy to estimate using covariance targeting. The key idea is to rotate the returns and then fit them using a BEKK model for the conditional covariance with the identity matrix as the covariance target. The extension to DCC type models is given, enriching this class. We focus primarily on diagonal BEKK and DCC models, and a related parameterisation which imposes common persistence on all elements of the conditional covariance matrix. Inference for these models is computationally attractive, and the asymptotics is standard. The techniques are illustrated using recent data on the SP 500 ETF and some DJIA stocks, including comparisons to the related orthogonal GARCH models.


How can the incapacity defence in contract law coexist with the concept of universal legal capacity advanced by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)? In the absence of clear guidance from the CRPD on the link between legal capacity and mental capacity, and given the silence of this Convention on the concept of contractual capacity, this article stresses the need to redefine contractual capacity in a manner that responds not only to economic interests (eg upholding the security of transactions) but also to social interests (including the protection of values such as dignity). The discussion insists that incapacity and disability must never be conceptually equated and calls for a definition of contractual incapacity that moves beyond the medical condition of individuals (whether this is known by or apparent to the other contracting party) and which considers the circumstances of the transaction. These arguments are explored in the context of English contract law, focusing on the question of contractual validity when a party lacked the mental capacity to understand the transaction and the other party was unaware of the incapacity and acted in good faith.


This study focused on examining the implementation of labour laws in employees leave management in Tanzania, evidence from Pangani District Council in Tanga region. The researcher adopted a case study design and employed three data collection methods, namely interviews, questionnaires and documentary review. A total of 80 respondents were covered during data collection. Data analysis was done based on content analysis with the help of excel data sheets. The findings provided generally that most employees who have worked for at least a year at Pangani District Council have been granted one or more types of leaves. Only a few employees (about 11%) have never been granted any leave and most of them are the newly employed ones. Sometimes, there are employees who do not see the need of applying for the leaves for their own reasons. The findings of the study revealed that annual leave is predominant as many respondents seemed to exercise their rights on this leave. Maternity leave comes next to annual leave, followed by paternity leave as well as sick leave. In relation to paternity leave, the findings implied that male employees are not aware of their rights associated to paternity leave. Likewise, the leaves without pay are rarely exercised. Moreover, the findings revealed that some employees are granted other types of leaves such as study leave and holiday leave

Based on the findings, this study recommends that the employer (Pangani District Council) needs to raise awareness of the leaves entitlement to all employees so as to enable them to exercise their rights fairly and equally. The efforts to orient employees on their leaves' rights should be made from the first day when the newly recruited employees report for placement at the Council. If possible, the leaves entitlement should be written into the employment contracts.


We propose a method of reducing the switching noise in the substrate of an integrated circuit. The main idea is to design the digital circuits to obtain a periodic supply current with the same period as the clock. This property locates the frequency components of the switching noise above the clock frequency. Differential return-to-zero signaling is used to reduce the data-dependency of the current. Circuits are implemented in symmetrical precharged DCVS logic with internally asynchronous D registers. A chip was fabricated in a standard 130-nm CMOS technology holding two versions of a pipelined 16-bit adder. First version employed the proposed method, and second version used conventional static CMOS logic circuits and TSPC registers. The respective device counts are 1190 and 684, and maximal operating frequencies 450 and 375 MHz. Frequency domain measurements were performed at the substrate node with on-chip generated sinusoidal and pseudo-random data at a clock frequency of 300 MHz. The sinusoidal case resulted in the largest frequency components, where an 8.5 dB/Hz decrease in maximal power is measured for the proposed circuitry at a cost of three times larger power consumption.


Traditional video compression technologies have been developed over decades in pursuit of higher coding efficiency. Efficient temporal information representation plays a key role in video coding. Thus, in this paper, we propose to exploit the temporal correlation using both first-order optical flow and second-order flow prediction. We suggest an one-stage learning approach to encapsulate flow as quantized features from consecutive frames which is then entropy coded with adaptive contexts conditioned on joint spatial-temporal priors to exploit second-order correlations. Joint priors are embedded in autoregressive spatial neighbors, co-located hyper elements and temporal neighbors using ConvLSTM recurrently. We evaluate our approach for the low-delay scenario with High-Efficiency Video Coding (H.265/HEVC), H.264/AVC and another learned video compression method, following the common test settings. Our work offers the state-of-the-art performance, with consistent gains across all popular test sequences.


While psychological approaches to emotion start with experience or physiology,
conversation analysis (often abbreviated to CA) starts with emotion as a public
and communicable object. (us with crying, the initial focus is not on how it feels
and how it is related to grief or loss but on how crying appears in human conduct and
the elements that make it recognizable. How crying unfolds in interaction, and how
it is responded to, becomes the focus for study. Analysis in this chapter will therefore
highlight the profoundly public nature of such matters, how they can be recognized
and normatively organized.


The use of mobile devices and Location-based Systems (LBS) enables technicians and practitioners to rethink learning, teaching and assessment strategies. The "Effective assessment in digital age" report claimed that technology has to be used to create authentic assessment (JISC, 2010). This authentic means that learners should be able to demonstrate and practice their skills like in real life tasks. Mobile phones integrate features such as cameras, Internet connection, GPS, etc. Several researchers study the effect of using these features to support situated learning activities. With the population of smartphones, approximately 10 years ago, the authors in this field showed special interest in understanding how to support principles of self-motivation and engagement during an exploratory learning experience by supporting students in their interaction with the space and with other players (Sharples et al, 2002; Facer et al., 2004). In particular, some authors studied how to use wireless communication and context awareness to assess/learn in situ the knowledge of students about local information (Huang et al 2009; Hwang & Chang, 2011, Santos et al, 2011). Nova, Girardin, & Dillenbourg (2005) performed an experiment where groups of students had to use Tablet PCs finding a virtual object in a campus by collaborating with team mates. As an experimental condition they studied the effect of using (or not) context-aware mechanisms with different groups. The groups without context-aware mechanisms had better communication with their partners than the groups that had the awareness. Their conclusion was: "location is not enough", space and location-awareness are important data that can be provided during learning in situ experiences but the information cannot be limited to a simple broadcast of people's positions. Previous studies have been mainly focused on understanding the learning benefits and behaviour of students when interacting with real locations/objects & peers by using mobile devices. But in this context two questions arise: • Are the current m-learning in situ solutions designed in a way that allows authors and learners to understand how to exploit the interaction possibilities (not only with physical objects/locations but also with their peers) in terms of learning benefits? • Which contextual and technological factors have to be considered when m-learning in situ activities are designed to support and promote the development of higher order skills? Holland et al (2000) claim that the organization of cognitive systems is extended to cover the interactions between people and with the resources and materials of the environment. The authors propose that cognitive processes are distributed amongst (1) other persons, (2) coordinated between internal and external structures and (3) distributed in time. For this reason I claim that in order to enhance cognitive processes, m-learning solutions have to provide guidance and scaffolding mechanisms (e.g. hints, awareness) based on the interaction possibilities. These mechanisms have to facilitate the design and enactment of the m-learning in situ activity, to enhance the process of decision-making and meaning making when interacting with contextual learning resources. The European Network of Excellence in TEL, STELLAR (2011) published a report titled "Education in the wild: contextual and location-based mobile learning in action" this report claims that a reconceptualization of educational theories have to be done in order to develop an approach for the present and future of learning designs (Cook, 2010). Cook proposes the term: Augmented Contexts for Development (ACD) where students have to use mobile phones to interact with each other and interact with the physical environment with the goal of creating their own ACD. In the line of understanding better how to improve the design of contextual m-learning in situ environments, Santos et al, (2013) study in real scenarios the factors that have to be considered when designing, virtually or in situ, mlearning situated activities. The results lead to a set of implications (in design, enactment and monitoring) for the development of mlearning systems. The main aim of this idea is to discuss how as technicians our role should be to design/implement tools that maximize the interaction possibilities of learning physical contexts. This idea claims that the interaction possibilities of mobile devices and their corresponding features (e.g. gps, camera, accelerometer..) can be studied and captuded as learning scaffolding mechanisms and included in authoring tools to guide users (e.g. teachers, learners) to understand how to create contextual learning in situ resources and activities. Our view is that mobile devices have the potential to develop new types of learning resources integrated within real locations (and physical objects) in ways that stimulate and motivate students and support their meaning making. My interest deals on researching a new approach for learning in situ activities, enhancing their design, creation, implementation and execution in order to support users through the different phases of these activities. M-learning tools should have to allow users to understand how to create personalized contextual learning content to potentiate their explorative and creativity skills, being more aligned with the current learning objectives of the educational curriculums. References Cook, J. (2010). Mobile phones as mediating tools within augmented contexts for development, in E. Brown (Ed) Education in the wild: contextual and location-based mobile learning in action. A report from the STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series. Facer, K., Joiner, R., Stanton, D., Reid, J., Hull, R., & Kirk, D. (2004). Savannah:Mobile gaming and learning? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 20(6), 399-409. Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., and Kirsh, D. (2000). Distributed cognition: toward a new foundation for humancomputer interaction research. ACM Transactions on ComputerHuman Interaction (TOCHI), 7(2):174–196. Huang, Y. M., Lin, Y. T., & Cheng, S. C. (2009). Effectiveness of a mobile plant learning system in a science curriculum in taiwanese elementary education. Computers & Education, 54(1), 47-58. Hwang, G., & Chang, H. (2011). A formative assessment-based mobile learning approach to improving the learning attitudes and achievements of students. Computers & Education, 56, 1023-1031. JISC. (2010). Effective assessment in a digital age. Bristol, UK: Retrieved Feb, 2012, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/digiassess Nova, N., Girardin, F., & Dillenbourg, P. (2005). 'Location is not enough!': An empirical study of locationawareness in mobile collaboration. Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education (WMTE '05), Tokushima, Japan. pp. 21-28. Santos, P., Hernández-Leo, D., & Blat, J. (2013). To be or not to be in situ outdoors, and other implications for design and implementation, in geolocated mobile learning. Pervasive and Mobile Computing. Santos, P., Pérez-Sanagustín, M., Hernández-Leo, D., & Blat, J. (2011). QuesTInSitu: From tests to routes for assessment in situ activities. Computers & Education, 57(4), 2517-2534. Sharples, M., Corlett, D., & Westmancott, O. (2002). The design and implementation of a mobile learning resource. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 6(3), 220-234.


This paper will propose an innovative model of the conceptualization of color, demonstrated by the syntaxico-semantic description of the chromatic adjectives and their special behavior in gradation, especially in combination with the adverb tres [very]. Generally considered as a quality of an object, the color is not treated in language in the same way as other qualities are. Syntactic properties show that an ambivalent referent between texture and quality can be associated to the words of color. Comparing chromatic to typical adjectives of quality, many linguists have remarked that the combination [chromatic adjectives  +  tres ] is singular. The three most relevant studies (Milner, Whittaker, Noailly) hypothesize a change of category of the adjectives (from classifier to non-classifier) which is denied by Kleiber, who claims that the problem is not linguistic but referential: colors are not gradable referents. None of these explanations are satisfying. Drawing upon a description of the syntactic properties of this combination – reflecting the type of referent possessing the color (homogenous or not) and kind of color (natural or not) – our hypothesis proves that colors are gradable but not always in the same way as qualities, because color can also lead to a quantitative interpretation. This singularity depends on the bidimensionality of the referent, causing two possible interpretations.


Background:
 The burden of young ischemic stroke has increased over the years. However, outcomes of young patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) remain unknown. Over the last decade, with increasing utilization rate of iv tpa, our objective was to evaluate trends in survival and discharge outcomes of young AIS patients in the United States.

 Methods:
 Data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for the years 2001 through 2009 were reviewed. Hospitalizations with a discharge diagnosis of an acute ischemic stroke (ICD-9 codes: 433.01, 433.11, 433.21, 433.31, 433.81, 433.91, 424.01, 434.11, 434.91 and 436) were included. Nationwide estimates of deaths and discharge destination were calculated for each year within the young AIS subset. The Cochrane Armitage test was used to assess trend across the years

 Results:
 From 2001 through 2009, there were an estimated 4,917,217 admissions for acute ischemic stroke. Out of that, 204,703 (4.16%) were young patients with AIS. Thrombolysis in young ischemic stroke increased from 354 (1.84% of young AIS) in 2001 to 1237 (4.97%) in 2009 (p<0.0001). There was a progressive decrease in mortality in young AIS patients, from 6.81% in 2001 to 5.43% in 2009 (trend p= 0.027). Discharge to home or home with home health did not show any significant change (trend p= 0.52). Discharge to rehabilitation facilities showed significant increase over the years, 3.42% in 2002 to 12.7% in 2009 (trend p <0.0001). Discharge to other facilities other than rehabilitation showed significant decrease over the years, 29.1% in 2001 to 17.8% in 2009 (trend p<0.0001). Rate of intracranial hemorrhage, 2.70% in 2001 to 2.69% in 2009, did not show any significant change despite increasing use of iv tpa (trend p=0.39).

 Conclusion:
 Over the last decade, deaths from AIS among young patients have decreased. The increase in rehabilitation placement and decrease in nursing home discharges suggest improving neurologic outcomes. Modern treatments such as stroke units, thrombolysis, and mechanical thrombectomy may be responsible for the reductions in mortality and morbidity.


Surface meltwater generated on ice shelves fringing the Antarctic Ice Sheet can drive ice-shelf collapse, leading to ice sheet mass loss and contributing to global sea level rise. A quantitative assessment of supraglacial lake evolution is required to understand the influence of Antarctic surface meltwater on ice-sheet and ice-shelf stability. Cloud computing platforms have made the required remote sensing analysis computationally trivial, yet a careful evaluation of image processing techniques for pan-Antarctic lake mapping has yet to be performed. This work paves the way for automating lake identification at a continental scale throughout the satellite observational record via a thorough methodological analysis. We deploy a suite of different trained supervised classifiers to map and quantify supraglacial lake areas from multispectral Landsat-8 scenes, using training data generated via manual interpretation of the results from k-means clustering. Best results are obtained using training datasets that comprise spectrally diverse unsupervised clusters from multiple regions and that include rock and cloud shadow classes. We successfully apply our trained supervised classifiers across two ice shelves with different supraglacial lake characteristics above a threshold sun elevation of 20°, achieving classification accuracies of over 90% when compared to manually generated validation datasets. The application of our trained classifiers produces a seasonal pattern of lake evolution. Cloud shadowed areas hinder large-scale application of our classifiers, as in previous work. Our results show that caution is required before deploying 'off the shelf' algorithms for lake mapping in Antarctica, and suggest that careful scrutiny of training data and desired output classes is essential for accurate results. Our supervised classification technique provides an alternative and independent method of lake identification to inform the development of a continent-wide supraglacial lake mapping product.