The section 125 of the German Social Statute Book No. III (unemployment insurance) determines the conditions for an unemployed insured person who is unable to work due to a disease. Ascertainment of the existence of the medical conditions governed by section 125 is not only a task for the physicians of the unemployment insurance, it is also a task for the doctors of the pension insurance and of the health insurance. Hence it is very important that all medical experts of social insurances are in consensus in view of these medical requirements. In this paper the medical conditions for section 125 are described: The disease must be so serious that the unemployed insured person will be unable to return to work within the next six months. The inability to work will be continuous. In this case the unemployment insurance continues to pay unemployment benefit in spite of the inability to work until the pension insurance body agrees to pay a pension.


The article deals with calculation of oxygen consumption in the lungs by means of breathing gas mixture analysis and in parallel — in the systemic circulation by reverse Fick method; 32 paired measurements were performed in 8 patients after cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. The mean pulmonary oxygen consumption was higher than the same value calculated by the reverse Fick principle — 148.4±39.9 mlmin -1m -2 and 120±35.1 mlmin -1m -2, respectively, the mean difference between two methods was 28.4±18.4 ml min -1m -2. However, in two observations the interrelation was inversed. While analyzing physiological and methodological reasons for these differences, the authors concluded that, despite both methods can be used in monitoring systemic oxygen transport in the critically ill, they are not interchangeable, and valuable additional data could be derived from fast changes in lungs oxygen uptake.


This paper focuses on dehazing nighttime images. Most existing dehazing methods use models that are formulated to describe haze in daytime. Daytime models assume a single uniform light color attributed to a light source not directly visible in the scene. Nighttime scenes, however, commonly include visible lights sources with varying colors. These light sources also often introduce noticeable amounts of glow that is not present in daytime haze. To address these effects, we introduce a new nighttime haze model that accounts for the varying light sources and their glow. Our model is a linear combination of three terms: the direct transmission, airlight and glow. The glow term represents light from the light sources that is scattered around before reaching the camera. Based on the model, we propose a framework that first reduces the effect of the glow in the image, resulting in a nighttime image that consists of direct transmission and airlight only. We then compute a spatially varying atmospheric light map that encodes light colors locally. This atmospheric map is used to predict the transmission, which we use to obtain our nighttime scene reflection image. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our nighttime haze model and correction method on a number of examples and compare our results with existing daytime and nighttime dehazing methods' results.


ABSTRACT Apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites, the most frequently formed DNA lesions in the genome, inhibit transcription and block replication. The primary enzyme that repairs AP sites in mammalian cells is the AP endonuclease (APE1), which functions through the base excision repair (BER) pathway. Although the mechanism by which APE1 repairs AP sites in vitro has been extensively investigated, it is largely unknown how APE1 repairs AP sites in cells. Here, we show that APE1 is acetylated (AcAPE1) after binding to the AP sites in chromatin and that AcAPE1 is exclusively present on chromatin throughout the cell cycle. Positive charges of acetylable lysine residues in the N-terminal domain of APE1 are essential for chromatin association. Acetylation-mediated neutralization of the positive charges of the lysine residues in the N-terminal domain of APE1 induces a conformational change; this in turn enhances the AP endonuclease activity of APE1. In the absence of APE1 acetylation, cells accumulated AP sites in the genome and showed higher sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents. Thus, mammalian cells, unlike Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Escherichia coli cells, require acetylation of APE1 for the efficient repair of AP sites and base damage in the genome. Our study reveals that APE1 acetylation is an integral part of the BER pathway for maintaining genomic integrity.


In the present work, an elemental powder mixture of Al60Fe20Ti15Ni5 (at.%) was mechanically alloyed in a high-energy ball mill. The phase transformations occurring in the material during milling were studied with the use of X-ray diffraction. The results obtained show that an amorphous phase was formed during performed mechanical alloying process. Thermal behaviour of the milling product was examined by differential scanning calorimetry. It was found that amorphous phase crystallised above 540 °C when a heating rate of 40 °C/min was applied. On the basis of X-ray diffraction results, crystallisation product was identified as a cubic phase with the lattice parameter a0 = 11.856 Å, isomorphic with the 2 (Al2FeTi, fcc structure D8a) phase. The mean crystallite size of the crystallised 2 phase was 19 nm.


Four mutant strains of Neurospora crassa, due to repeated mutation within the same short chromosome region, required arginine as a nutrient and failed to respond to citrulline. These strains accumulated argininosuccinic acid in the mycelium when grown on a medium supplemented with arginine. When the medium also contained citrulline this accumulation of argininosuccinic acid was enhanced, and citrulline also accumulated in the mycelium. Citrulline depressed the growth of the mutants a t a concentration at which i t had no effect on growth of the wild type. Cell-free extracts of the wild type contained an argininosuccinase which catalysed the reversible splitting of argininosuccinic acid to arginine and fumaric acid. A procedure is described for the approximately fivefold purification of the enzyme. The pI3 optimum for the synthesis of argininosuccinic acid from arginine and fumaric acid was close to pH 7.0. Neither cell-free extracts nor partially purified preparations from the four mutants showed any trace of argininosuccinase activity ; 1-2 yo, and 0.2 %, of normal wild-type activity should have been detectable in crude cell-free extracts and purified preparations, respectively. Neither the argininosuccinase activity of crude wild-type extracts, nor that of the partially purified preparations was appreciably altered by the addition of corresponding preparations from one of the mutants. A mixture of wild-type and mutant mycelium extracted together yielded the amount of activity to be expected on the assumption that the mutant mycelium was neither contributing to, nor decreasing, the yield. Arginase and fumarase activities were similar in the wild type and one of the mutants.


In this paper, we present a novel asynchronous multithreaded algorithm for the maximum network flow problem. The algorithm is based on the classical push-relabel algorithm, which is essentially sequential and requires intensive and costly lock usages to parallelize it. The novelty of the algorithm is in the removal of lock and barrier usages, thereby enabling a much more efficient multithreaded implementation. The newly designed push and relabel operations are executed completely asynchronously and each individual process/thread independently decides when to terminate itself. We further propose an asynchronous global relabeling heuristic to speed up the algorithm. We prove that our algorithm finds a maximum flow with O(|V|2||-E|) operations, where |V| is the number of vertices and |E| is the number of edges in the graph. We also prove the correctness of the relabeling heuristic. Extensive experiments show that our algorithm exhibits better scalability and faster execution speed than the lock-based parallel push-relabel algorithm.


This paper presents an overview of a mobile communications device that implements a key management policy and hardware encryption for data-centric security. Examples of applications for this device include portable medical record systems, inventory tracking systems, communication devices, and portable gaming systems. Security for these devices typically takes one of three forms: 1) a password or code, 2) a key or token lock, 3) a biometric user authentication system. These security measures are intended to protect the device against unauthorized access, but do not generally protect the device against threats to its intellectual property. Even if a password is required to use a device, it is still possible to duplicate the device, leaving out the authorization control. This paper presents a secure user interface that not only controls device access, but also allows for user-based device hardware customization while protecting against reverse engineering.


We study the link between the profitability of momentum strategies and firm size, drawing on an extensive dataset covering 23 stock markets across the globe. We first present evidence of an "extreme" size premium in a large number of countries. These size premia, however, are most likely not realizable due to low stock market depth. We also show that international momentum profitability declines sharply with market capitalization. Momentum premiums are also considerably diminished by trading costs, when taking into account the actual portfolio turnover incurred when implementing this strategy. In contrast to strategies based on size, we find that momentum premia especially for medium-sized stocks still remain economically and statistically significant in most equity markets worldwide after adjusting for transaction costs.


The present paper critically examines how aid dependent low-income countries have approached the process of public expenditure management reform during the 1990s. It begins with an overview of broader public sector reform initiatives in LDCs which provide the backdrop against which expenditure management reform has taken place. It then assesses progress in six key areas of reform: the role and structure of the State; attempts to improve agency performance; the introduction of resource and expenditure planning tools; measures to improve the governance of public expenditure; the development of new aid management instruments; and finally, recent experiences in improving the poverty reduction impact of public expenditure. It concludes with an assessment of the likely success of these initiatives and the priorities for future interventions.


The effect of the size of hybrid metal-composite joint on its nominal strength, experimentally demonstrated in the preceding paper (part I), is modeled mathematically. Fracture initiation from a reentrant corner at the interface of a metallic bar and a fiber composite laminate sheet is analyzed. The fracture process zone (or cohesive zone) at the corner is approximated as an equivalent sharp crack according to the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). The asymptotic singular stress and displacement fields surrounding the corner tip and the tip of an interface crack emanating from the corner tip are calculated by means of complex potentials. The singularity exponents of both fields are generally complex. Since the real part of the stress singularity exponent for the corner tip is not -1/2, as required for finiteness of the energy flux into the tip, the interface crack propagation criterion is based on the singular field of the interface crack considered to be embedded in a more remote singular near-tip field of the corner from which, in turn, the boundaries are remote. The large-size asymptotic size effect on the nominal strength of the hybrid joint is derived from the LEFM considering the interface crack length to be much smaller than the structure size. The deviation from LEFM due to finiteness of the interface crack length, along with the small-size asymptotic condition of quasiplastic strength, allows an approximate general size effect law for hybrid joints to be derived via asymptotic matching. This law fits closely the experimental results reported in the preceding paper. Numerical validation according to the cohesive crack model is relegated to a forthcoming paper.


The purpose of this paper is to employ a case study of the Omeka content management system to demonstrate how the adoption and implementation of a metadata standard (in this case, Dublin Core) can result in contrasting rhetorical arguments regarding metadata utility, quality, and reliability. In the Omeka example, the author illustrate a conceptual disconnect in how two metadata stakeholders – standards creators and standards users – operationalize metadata quality. For standards creators such as the Dublin Core community, metadata quality involves implementing a standard properly, according to established usage principles; in contrast, for standards users like Omeka, metadata quality involves mere adoption of the standard, with little consideration of proper usage and accompanying principles.,The paper uses an approach based on rhetorical criticism. The paper aims to establish whether Omeka's given ends (the position that Omeka claims to take regarding Dublin Core) align with Omeka's guiding ends (Omeka's actual argument regarding Dublin Core). To make this assessment, the paper examines both textual evidence (what Omeka says) and material-discursive evidence (what Omeka does).,The evidence shows that, while Omeka appears to argue that adopting the Dublin Core is an integral part of Omeka's mission, the platform's lack of support for Dublin Core implementation makes an opposing argument. Ultimately, Omeka argues that the appearance of adopting a standard is more important than its careful implementation.,This study contributes to our understanding of how metadata standards are understood and used in practice. The misalignment between Omeka's position and the goals of the Dublin Core community suggests that Omeka, and some portion of its users, do not value metadata interoperability and aggregation in the same way that the Dublin Core community does. This indicates that, although certain values regarding standards adoption may be pervasive in the metadata community, these values are not equally shared amongst all stakeholders in a digital library ecosystem. The way that standards creators (Dublin Core) understand what it means to "adopt a standard" is different from the way that standards users (Omeka) understand what it means to "adopt a standard."


We explore what institutional entrepreneurs do to propagate new organizational forms. Our findings are derived from a longitudinal study of the `Euroregion', an organizational form used by local authorities situated close to European borders for co-ordinating policies across borders. We find that the institutional entrepreneurs behind the Euroregion engaged in several types of institution-building projects, with a changing focus over time. While the initial emphasis was on interactional projects, this was followed by a focus on technical projects and finally cultural projects. The skills that the institutional entrepreneurs deployed changed accordingly. While in a first phase, predominantly political skills were used, later, analytical skills and finally cultural skills were added. Furthermore, the institutional entrepreneurs propagated the organizational form by switching their institution-building projects between different fields. We interpret these findings by outlining a process theory of institutional entrepreneurship that conceptualizes the institutional entrepreneur in light of its development as an innovating organization.


In a low-speed compressor test rig at Kyushu University, multiple short length-scale stall cells appeared under a mild stall condition and turned into a long length-scale cell under a deep stall condition. Then, for the two types of stall cell, the pressure distribution on the casing wall and the velocity distributions upstream and downstream of the rotor have been measured by high-response pressure transducers and a slanted hot-wire, respectively. The time-dependent ensemble-averages of these distributions have been obtained phase-locked to both the rotor and the stall cell rotation using a double phase-locked averaging technique developed by the authors. The structures of the two stall cells are compared: The short length-scale stall cell is characterized by a concentrated vortex spanning from the casing wall ahead of the rotor to the blade suction surface. In the long length-scale stall cell, the separation vortices go upstream irregularly when blade separation develops in the front half of the cell, and re-enter the rotor on the hub side in the rear half of it. The unsteady aerodynamic force and torsional moment acting on the blade tip section have been evaluated from the time-dependent ensemble-averages of the casing wall pressure distribution. The force fluctuation due to the short length-scale cells is somewhat smaller than that for the long length-scale cell. The blade suffers two peaks of the force during a period of the short length-scale cells passing through it. The moment fluctuation for the short length-scale cells is considerably larger than that for the long length-scale cell.


Purpose - Much empirical evidence is in conflict with the expectations of the service-profit chain which suggests that increases in customer satisfaction will increase customer loyalty and earn additional profits from customers. Management focus on the achievement of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and associated investment, might, therefore, be misguided, if they believe that the available empirical evidence supports a link between these variables and firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to help firms understand the value of their intangible assets – most notably the important role played by customers in increasing a firm's value. Design/methodology/approach - On the basis of survey-based research carried out in the Taiwanese credit card market, this paper generates a structural equation model facilitating the measurement and evaluation of the relative efficiencies of customer-related strategies. Findings - The findings help managers to understand the relationship between customer-related strategies (customer acquisition, retention, and add-on selling) and their impact on customer measures and ultimately firm performance. Customer lifetime value is shown to be the most important indicator of financial performance and the firm's shareholder value; the customer loyalty measure is shown to have no impact on shareholder value, and to be negatively related to the implementation of an acquisition strategy. Research limitations/implications - The paper is conducted within the Taiwanese credit card market, and the findings may not be generalisable to other locations or to other markets. Practical implications - These empirical findings suggest that marketing strategy has a central role in the formulation of financial policy, since such strategies can be shown to have an impact on the financial value of the business. Originality/value - The paper provides further evidence linking customers with firm value, which will be important for management decision making and resource use.


Castleman's disease (angiofollicular hyperplasia of the lymphatic nodes) can exceptionally appear as a retroperitoneal mass of difficult differential diagnosis relative to other malignant retroperitoneal masses. Because of its rarity, one case report of a retroperitoneal mass with histologic study corresponding to Castleman's disease is contributed. A revision of the different histologic varieties of Castleman's disease, specific treatment and prognosis is included.


Year 8 novel study of Runner by Robert Newton collection of resources to assist with study.

This was our chance at something better and I would not let it slip for anyone.p.46
To what extent do our choices or actions define the people we become.


ABSTRACT Introduction: laparoscopic Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (LRYGB) has been a revolutionary intervention for weight loss with reduction of up to 60-70% of excess body weight. However, these outcomes are not as well validated at the extremes of age, where the safety of the intervention still has some caveats. The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy and safety of primary LRYGB among different age groups. Methods: the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP) database was queried for patients who underwent primary LRYGB from January 2014 to December 2017 at a single institution. Four groups were created and compared by dividing our sample by age quartiles. The primary outcome was percent excess weight loss (%EWL) at 1 year. Additional operative outcomes and complications were also compared across groups. Results: a total of 1013 patients underwent non-revisional LRYGB during the study period. Mean %EWL at one year was 55%. When compared between quartiles, there was a statistically significant difference in %EWL: 1st 62%, 2nd 57%, 3rd 54% and 4th 47% (p=0.010). The differences in the secondary outcomes between age groups did not demonstrate statistical significance. Conclusions: though patients in the fourth age quartile (range) did not demonstrate a statistically significant increase in adverse outcomes, they did lose less weight compared to other cohorts. The %EWL at one year after RYGB varied by age in our cohort. Goals after bariatric surgery should be individualized as weight loss is less robust with aging.


This article provides a comparative overview of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Angola, and the European Union (EU). EIA "systemic measure" and "foundation measure" criteria are used to evaluate and compare the performance of each system. In contrast to the EU, EIA must be carried out by registered experts in the African countries. In Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa public consultation is mandatory during scoping. In Kenya and Tanzania the EIA study should contain measures to prevent health hazards, to ensure employee safety, and for emergency management. EIA system monitoring is required in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and in the EU, but not in South Africa and Angola. Financial issues, insufficient qualified personnel, and an increasing number of EIA applications undermine the capacity of competent authorities to adequately monitor these EIA systems. Consequently, training programmes increase effectiveness of EIA implementation is a common request. The African countries reviewed here have adopted EIA and integrated EIA systems into public policy despite the constraints they face. As they continue to gain experience in EIA and to revise their EIA systems, they are moving towards a more flexible system with greater public involvement and robust arrangements and practices.


The music-performing body fulfills an essential role in the creation of new instrumental compositions. However, its presence is rarely the primary concern of compositional thinking. With most musical experimentation, the music-making body keeps a self-evident function as a transparent medium for musical ideas, but also as a limitation on the potential for musical exploitation. Recent artistic and theoretical developments invite a rethink of the compositional potential of the music-performing body. Focus on the music-making body and the physicality of the music experience has intensified in recent decades. A body paradigm is becoming audible and visible in the work of a generation of young composers, as well as in musicological research. The micro-temporality of physical gesture and instrumental timbre have become key points of interest. In the micro-temporal space, physical presence is unveiled as a very direct interactive ability of the performer or improviser but also as a 'bodily thinking' of the composing body. Based on recent scientific insights and both historical and recent music examples, the author develops a concept of 'intercorporeality' that sheds new light on the relationship between music performers, composers and music consumers.


We applied an erbrium-doped fiber amplifier characterization method previously reported for 1480-nm pumped amplifiers to a 980-nm amplifier, obtaining absorption and emission coefficients, as well as the dopant concentration in fiber. Gain and fluorescence (amplified spontaneous emission) simulations performed from the obtained features agree well with experimental results. Nevertheless, at certain high-gain circumstances, disagreements appear in the form of spectral hole burning, which can present high magnitudes and whose nature is discussed.


Space missions for Earth Observation are called upon to carry a growing number of instruments in their payload, whose performances are increasing. Future space systems are therefore intended to generate huge amounts of data and a key challenge in coming years will therefore lie in the ability to transmit that significant quantity of data to ground. Thus very high data rate Payload Telemetry (PLTM) systems will be required to face the demand of the future Earth Exploration Satellite Systems and reliability is one of the major concern of such systems. An attractive approach associated with the concept of predictive modeling consists in analyzing the impact of components malfunctioning on the optical link performances taking into account the network requirements and experimental degradation laws. Reliability estimation is traditionally based on life-testing and a basic approach is to use Telcordia requirements (468GR) for optical telecommunication applications. However, due to the various interactions between components, operating lifetime of a system cannot be taken as the lifetime of the less reliable component. In this paper, an original methodology is proposed to estimate reliability of an optical communication system by using a dedicated system simulator for predictive modeling and design for reliability. At first, we present frameworks of point-to-point optical communication systems for space applications where high data rate (or frequency bandwidth), lower cost or mass saving are needed. Optoelectronics devices used in these systems can be similar to those found in terrestrial optical network. Particularly we report simulation results of transmission performances after introduction of DFB Laser diode parameters variations versus time extrapolated from accelerated tests based on terrestrial or submarine telecommunications qualification standards. Simulations are performed to investigate and predict the consequence of degradations of the Laser diode (acting as a frequency carrier) on system performances (eye diagram, quality factor and BER). The studied link consists in 4×2.5 Gbits/s WDM channels with direct modulation and equally spaced (0,8 nm) around the 1550 nm central wavelength. Results clearly show that variation of fundamental parameters such as bias current or central wavelength induces a penalization of dynamic performances of the complete WDM link. In addition different degradation kinetics of aged Laser diodes from a same batch have been implemented to build the final distribution of Q-factor and BER values after 25 years. When considering long optical distance, fiber attenuation, EDFA noise, dispersion, PMD, ... penalize network performances that can be compensated using Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding. Three methods have been investigated in the case of On-Off Keying (OOK) transmission over an unipolar optical channel corrupted by Gaussian noise. Such system simulations highlight the impact of component parameter degradations on the whole network performances allowing to optimize various time and cost consuming sensitivity analyses at the early stage of the system development. Thus the validity of failure criteria in relation with mission profiles can be evaluated representing a significant part of the general PDfR effort in particular for aerospace applications.


We take a closer look at how investment horizon affects risk taking, often referred to as the time-diversification controversy. We use data on individuals' choices in the Swedish pension system. Theoretically, if returns are serially uncorrelated, investors do not have human capital, and investors have constant relative risk aversion then investment horizon should not influence asset allocation. This theory causes some academics to explain the positive correlation between investment horizon and risk exposure by generational differences in human capital, not the investment horizon per se. Our empirical analysis shows that portfolio risk significantly declines with age in a statistical context. This behavior is still evident after controlling for alternative explanations related to human capital and difficult to reject in an economic context.


We describe how a woman's age at menopause and whether she experiences natural or surgical menopause depends on her social and biological experiences from prenatal through adult life. We contrast evidence from Western industrialized nations and developing countries. Menopause occurs because of the depletion of the follicular reserve or as a result of surgery. Among the most robust risk factors for age at natural menopause are those that influence follicular pool development and decline, including birth outcomes, early life development and socioeconomic status, smoking, and parity. Relationships with indicators of reproductive health from earlier in life, adult weight, and adult socioeconomic status have less robust relationships with age at and type of menopause. Hysterectomy is related to socioeconomic status across the life course, parity, and weight in mid to later adulthood. While studies from Western industrialized countries are more numerous, studies from developing countries suggest differences in socioeconomic status and early life development for both age at menopause and type of menopause. We close by providing suggestions for how future research may further the understanding of the interaction of social and biological contributors to age at and type of menopause.


For some 20 years at the beginning of the century J M Barrie enjoyed enormous commercial success with a wide variety of plays, but he is best known for Peter Pan . It retains its popularity today, both in the original and in adaptations. As well as being the author of the greatest of all children's plays Barrie also wrote sophisticated social comedy and political satire, much of it now newly topical. The Admirable Crichton and What Every Woman Knows are shrewd and entertaining contributions to the politics of class and gender, while Mary Rose is one of the best ghost stories written for the stage. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner, of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are supplemented with a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation. This book is intended for students of modern drama, children's theatre, Scottish literature.


Tensor decomposition methods are effective tools for modelling multidimensional array data (i.e., tensors). Among them, nonparametric Bayesian models, such as Infinite Tucker Decomposition (InfTucker), are more powerful than multilinear factorization approaches, including Tucker and PARAFAC, and usually achieve better predictive performance. However, they are difficult to handle massive data due to a prohibitively high training cost. To address this limitation, we propose Distributed infinite Tucker (DinTucker), a new hierarchical Bayesian model that enables local learning of InfTucker on subarrays and global information integration from local results. We further develop a distributed stochastic gradient descent algorithm, coupled with variational inference for model estimation. In addition, the connection between DinTucker and InfTucker is revealed in terms of model evidence. Experiments demonstrate that DinTucker maintains the predictive accuracy of InfTucker and is scalable on massive data: On multidimensional arrays with billions of elements from two real-world applications, DinTucker achieves significantly higher prediction accuracy with less training time, compared with the state-of-the-art large-scale tensor decomposition method, GigaTensor.


This thesis discusses the dynamic web service selection in the semantic context with QoS constraints. The goal of this work is to investigate the mechanism of automated QoS-based semantic web service selection. Semantic Web Service (SWS) aims to achieve the automation of web service tasks, such as service discover, selection, composition and invocation. The task of semantic web service selection is further investigated through this thesis. An architecture is proposed to achieve this task by considering QoS parameters. The QoS parameters are classified into dynamic and static attributes in the architecture. The dynamic attributes are evaluated and measured as an overall value by applying utility functions. This overall value can be modeled in the semantic context for the purpose of service selection. Furthermore, the architecture directly models the static QoS attributes in the semantic context for service selection. Finally, an open SWS challenge scenario named hardware purchasing is used in several experiments in order to evaluate the proposed architecture.


The Internet and HIV biomedical technologies are considered as significant technological advances underpinning "barebacking", or condom-less anal sex among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM). Online chatrooms, discussion boards, and geosocial networking applications ("apps") are regarded as having facilitated new opportunities to meet and connect with other barebackers. Virtual spaces enabled the proliferation of online discourses specific to barebacking, such as "bugchasing" and "giftgiving" to refer to the intentional spreading of HIV. While previous research focus on the metaphors used by bugchasers and giftgivers online, such studies lack analyses of other barebacking practices and identities beyond intentional seroconversion. This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining the affordances of a barebacking online community I call "Pigpen" in offering space for MSM to discuss various topics apart from intentional seroconversion: in particular, the emergence of "sex pigging". Analyzing online forum discussions, I argue that Pigpen opens possibilities for reimagining sex pigging desires, identities, and practices that are intertwined and constituted by HIV prevention discourses and biomedical technologies. While sex pigging is associated with sexual excess, I demonstrate that limitless sex is practiced in a variety of ways: ranging from the eroticization of HIV and other STIs, to avoiding transmission by adapting some harm reduction strategies. Some sex pigs reappropriate the association of pigs with revulsion and taboo by reframing sexual excess as pleasurable and productive of feelings of freedom. By contrast, other sex pigs renegotiate risk and safety by incorporating risk minimization, giving rise to the possibility of "safer sex pigs". Thus, sex pigging desires, identities, and practices are more complex than previously thought because they do not neatly fall into the category of irrationality and irresponsibility.


Throughout history species has gone extinct due to anthropogenic activities. During the last century efforts have been done to reintroduce species back into the wild. Zoos that originally were created as amusement parks for people have today a new purpose; to keep and breed species in captivity for later reintroductions in the wild. However a relaxed environment such as a zoo leads to a general fitness decline of up to 40% per generation in captivity. The probability of a successful reintroduction of a species that has been bred in a zoo will be lower the longer time it has been kept in captivity. The reintroduction of a captive bred species can also cause secondary extinctions and other negative effects on the food-web. Both changes in the community caused by the loss of a species and changes in the species itself caused by captivity can be expected to affect the outcome of a reintroduction attempt. Using a modeling approach I here investigate how the reintroduction of a captive bred species (at three different trophic levels; basal, intermediate and top predator species) affects a food-web and what risks there are in reintroducing it. A Lokta-Volterra model with type II functional response is used. I investigate three scenarios: the reintroduction of a species with 0% change in its attributes, 40% change in its attributes and 75% change in its attributes. It was found that the most important factor for reintroduction success when reintroducing a species is whether it is a producer species (basal species) or a consumer species (intermediate and top predator species). The producer species were most sensitive to the changes in their attributes, whilst consumer species were more sensitive to change in the food-web (Euclidian distance). The producer species were found to cause most secondary extinctions in all scenarios, hence indicating that it is a bottom-up controlled food-web. The present study suggests that the success of a reintroduction attempt is affected both by the degree of changes in the food web caused by the initial loss of the species and the degree of change in the species itself caused by captivity.


ABSTRACT Objective: Porphyromonas gulae, a major periodontal pathogen in animals, possesses fimbriae that have been classified into three genotypes (A, B, C) based on the diversity of fimA genes encoding fimbrillin protein (FimA). P. gulae strains with type C fimbriae were previously shown to be more virulent than other types. In this study, we further examined the host toxicity mediated by P. gulae fimbriae by constructing recombinant FimA (rFimA) expression vectors for each genotype and raised antibodies to the purified proteins. Methods and Results: All larvae died within 204 h following infection with P. gulae type C at the low-dose infection, whereas type A and B did not. Among fimA types, the survival rates of the larvae injected with rFimA type C were remarkably decreased, while the survival rates of the larvae injected with rFimA type A and type B were greater than 50%. Clindamycin treatment inhibited the growth of type C strains in a dose-dependent manner, resulting in an increased rate of silkworm survival. Finally, type C rFimA-specific antiserum prolonged the survival of silkworm larvae stimulated by infection with P. gulae type C strain or injection of rFimA type C protein. Conclusion: These results suggested that type C fimbriae have high potential for enhancement of bacterial pathogenesis, and that both clindamycin and anti-type C rFimA-specific antibodies are potent inhibitors of type C fimbriae-induced toxicity. This is the first report to establish a silkworm infection model using P. gulae for toxicity assessment.


Isophthalonitrile(IPN) used in this study contains two cyano groups(-CN) attached to the m-benzene ring. The IPN wastewater is degraded by biological method of high efficiently coupling microorganism. The choice of carrier is the key factor of immobilized biological technology. Two immobilization methods, adsorption with ceramic as the carrier,embedding with Sodium Alginate(SA) and Polyvinyl Alcohol –Sodium Alginate(PVA-SA) as the carrier, the research is conducted into the degradation effects. Results showed that IPN biodegradation by adsorption method had the best effect degrading. The IPN degradation rate kept stable and was over 96%. Additionally, in order to demonstrate purification of the IPN wastewater. The laboratory-scale experiment was carried out in a biological aerated filter (BAF) that was filled with ceramic filler. Results also showed that the BAF reactor removed the IPN and the rate was over 95%.


Although biological soil crusts (biocrusts) occur globally in arid and semi-arid environments, most of our knowledge of biocrust cover and ecology is from a relatively small number of locations worldwide. Some plant communities are known to have high cover of biocrusts, but the abundance of biocrusts is largely undocumented in most plant communities. Using a data driven approach, we identified 16 plant communities based on plant cover from the Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring Strategy data from the Bureau of Land Management (AIM, 5,200 plots). We found that abundance of lichens and mosses varies among communities, but that both components of biocrusts are present in all plant communities. Biocrusts are indicators of two of these communities: one that is defined by high cover of mosses and basin big sagebrush and one that is defined by high cover of lichens and shadscale saltbush. Using non-parametric multiplicative regression, we evaluated a suite of abiotic and disturbance variables to assess the degree to which climate and soils are associated with the abundance of lichens and mosses at the regional scale. At the regional scale, soil depth and maximum vapor pressure deficit were found to be strongly associated with the abundance of lichens and January minimum temperature dictated the abundance of mosses. At the scale of plant communities, community specific metrics of soils and climate were better able to explain the abundance of biocrusts. Our demonstration of the presence of biocrusts across the western US suggests that studies on ecosystem function could include these organisms because they are present in all plant communities, maintain arguably stronger associations with climatic variation, are directly associated with soils, and contribute to ecosystem functions that are not solely maintained by vascular plants.


Urbanization in the Chesapeake Bay watershed is having dramatic impacts on the streams and rivers that feed the Bay. Increasing imperviousness has led to higher peak flows and lower base flows. The movement of pollutants and other materials to receiving waters has increased and stream water temperatures have risen. These changes alter the structure and functioning of rivers, streams, and associated riparian corridors and result in changes in ecosystem services. We define a hydrologic disturbance index that indicates varying degrees of disturbance on a reach-by-reach basis, dependent on the aggregate amount of urbanization upstream of each reach. For current conditions this index is more variable than for future conditions, because current land use in the study watershed is more variable, containing mixtures of urban, agricultural, and forested land. In contrast, future land use is projected to be more uniformly urban, leading to a less variable but greater overall degree of hydrologic disturbance. Two effects of urbanization on fish are explored through ecological modeling: effects of streambed disturbance on food availability and effects of stream temperature on spawning. We tabulate food availability as a function of bed-mobility for 30 different fish species. We show that additional stress occurs with additional urbanization of the watershed. We show that the urban-related increase in stream temperatures may cause several warm-water species to actually gain opportunities to spawn in some cases. However, combining food availability and spawning day availability into a single index reveals highly stressful conditions for all fish species under the fully developed scenario.


This paper mainly studies the basic concept of baseband transmission of digital signal and the transmission process of digital signal baseband transmission and how to design digital baseband transmission system with MATLAB software simulation. This paper fi rst introduces the theoretical basis of this subject, including digital communication, the composition of digital baseband transmission system and digital baseband signal transmission process. Then the paper introduced the characteristics of digital baseband transmission system, including digital PAM signal power density and common line pattern, and by comparing choosing the fi nal bipolar zero return code. Then we introduced the MATLAB simulation software. The conditions of the best reception of the digital baseband signal are described and how the waveform of the baseband signal is observed by an oscilloscope. Finally, according to the basic steps of simulation process, the simulation process of digital baseband transmission system is realized by MATLAB simulation tool, and the system is analyzed.


A new interactive simulator for Quantum Computation has been developed for simulation of the universal set of quantum gates and for construction of new gates of up to 3 qubits. The simulator also automatically generates an equivalent quantum circuit for any arbitrary unitary transformation on a qubit. Available quantum computer simulators attempt to emulate the various physical realisations of quantum computation, simulate existing quantum algorithms or are aimed at facilitating the development of new algorithms. However, because of the level of advancement and complexity of quantum computation algorithms, these simulators tend to be quite complex, at least from a novice's point of view. As a result of this, beginners are often at a loss when trying to interact with them. The simulator here proposed therefore is aimed at bridging the gap somewhat, making quantum computer simulation more accessible to novices in the field. Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics Vol. 10 2006: pp. 433-446


The use of computer animation in the study and understanding of sound propagation is demonstrated. Several brief audio/video demonstrations are given to illustrate the spatial‐temporal features of sound propagation in complicated environments. Each demonstration is preceded by a summary of the theoretical aspects of the particular propagation problem, followed by the audio/video illustration of the situation. It is shown that sound animation can be a powerful training tool in understanding sound propagation, and for optimizing performance of underwater and seismic sound systems.


A detailed chemistry-based CFD model was developed to simulate the diesel spray combustion and emission process. A reaction mechanism of n-heptane is coupled with a reduced NOx mechanism to simulate diesel fuel oxidation and NOx formation. The soot emission process is simulated by a phenomenological soot model that uses a competing formation and oxidation rate formulation. The model is applied to predict the diesel spray lift-off length and its sooting tendency under high temperature and pressure conditions with good agreement with experiments of Sandia. Various nozzle diameters and chamber conditions were investigated. The model successfully predicts that the sooting tendency is reduced as the nozzle diameter is reduced and/or the initial chamber gas temperature is decreased, as observed by the experiments. The model is also applied to simulate diesel engine combustion under PCCI-like conditions. Trends of heat release rate, NOx and soot emissions with respect to EGR levels and start-of-injection timings are also well predicted. Both experiments and models reveal that soot emissions peak when the start of injection occurs close to TDC. The model indicates that low soot emission at early SOI is due to better oxidation while low soot emission at late SOI is due to less formation. Since NOx emissions decrease monotonically with injection retardation, a late injection scheme can be utilized for simultaneous soot and NOx reduction for the engine conditions investigated in this study.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


. Today, mobile advertising is considered as the most effective medium to convey promotional messages to customers because of the excessive usage of mobile phones and tablets all around the world. However, this ecosystem has severely been affected by fraudulent activities due to a large sum of money circulated in the advertising industry. The term ad fraud is referred to as any kind of fraudulent activities that are executed by fraudulent users either a human or an automated script. The combat between researchers and fraudulent users never ends because more smarter strategies are being used by the fraudsters to bypass the significant number of detection and prevention solutions. The Real Time Mobile Ad Investigator-RTMAI is proposed as a software solution to address this problem where a novel supervised learning algorithm based on the hidden Markov model along with a rule engine have been proposed to classify fraudulent impressions in real time. Furthermore, RTMAI proposed a solution to address the class imbalance problem which is generic to most of the classification datasets. The experimental results show the significance of the proposed approach to classify the fraud or non-fraud clicks/events, impressions and even user sessions more confidently in real time.


A Case of Paragonimus Miyazaki with Pleuritis and Meningoencephalitis Meiji Itakura, Toshihide Shinozaki and Masato Shingyouji Department of Internal Medicine, Kimitsu Central Hospital, 1010 Sakurai, Kisarazu, Chiba, Japan A 35-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with fever and headache. Chest X-ray revealed right pleural effusion. Lab tests revealed increase of eosinophils in his serum and pleural effusion. After admission he complained of doplopia and neck stiffness. Lumber puncture revealed eosinophilia in the cerbrospinal fluid. Brain CT and MRI showed characteristic images of meningoencephalitis. The patient had eaten raw Potamon dehaani and the case was diagnosed as paragonimus miyazaki after administration of intradermal reaction and Ouchterony's double diffusion test. The patient was successfully treated with praziqantel. It revealed that the pleural effusion and brain edema disappeared chest X-ray and brain MRI. This case can be considered as a characteristic example of Paragonimus Miyazaki with pleuritis and meningoencephalitis.


The characteristics and the mechanism of ferrite transformation in alloy steels which contain a carbide-forming element have attracted considerable attention for past decades. Since it is reported that the nucleation and growth of ferrite in Fe-C base alloys is accelerated by high magnetic field, the influence of a magnetic field of 12 Tesla on ferrite transformation was studied in a Fe-C- Mo alloy. Whereas a significant amount of expedition was observed at lower temperatures, the principal features of ferrite transformation, namely, a marked retardation of transformation at intermediate temperatures and premature cessation of transformation before it reaches the final equilibrium amount below the bay temperature were essentially retained. In contrast, the influence of magnetic field was much less at higher temperatures. These results are discussed in terms of the influence of magnetic field on the phase equilibrium and coupled-solute drag effects on the migration a/g phase boundary.


The rise of reassurance policing in the UK, informed by ideas drawn from a Signal Crimes Perspective, replaced a narrow focus on controlling crime with a broader emphasis on communicating security. This paper provides a sympathetic critique of dominant assumptions implied in this policy shift concerning the reassurance function of policing. Important in these theoretically informed policy debates is the idea that the police and their partners, through symbolic communications, can influence the extent to which individuals perceive that order and security exist within urban spaces. The paper draws on research findings to illustrate the contrasting ways visible signifiers of crime and formal controls are received and interpreted by diverse audiences. It challenges assumptions about the impact of criminal activities upon perceptions of safety and contributes insights into the unintended effects of formal controls that have implications for our understanding of local social order.


Abstract A new species of Poecilia from the Atlantic slopes of Honduras is described and assigned to the subgenus Mollienesia. Poecilia hondurensis, new species, differs from all congeners in the combination of having tricuspid teeth on the inner of both jaws and lacking a prominent spine or hook on the gonopodium. Eleven geographically close congeners are treated in some detail, and a key is provided to identify all species occurring south of Mexico.


Sweden today is a quite multicultural country with people from all over the world. A large part of the population is descended from the Middle East, from where culture and religion can be foreign to us Swedes. Due to lack of knowledge regarding these religions stereotypical images can easily arise which can lead to fear or even hatred for the alien religion or the people belonging to the foreign religion. This paper aims to investigate how Swedish school books of the subject religion depict the phenomena of Islam phobia and anti-Semitism in their work over the past 40 years. This paper also intends to examine the similarities and differences in the depiction. My main question of this paper is "How is anti-Semitism and Islam phobia depicted in the school books?" Method used for this study is a content analysis. Content analysis is a form of text analysis that is used to describe characteristics of the messages embedded in texts. The terms anti-Semitism and Islam phobia origin portrayed both as consequences of historical reference that led to negative attitude against the specific religion and this, in turn, can lead to racism and discrimination.


PURPOSE
Analytic CT image reconstruction is a computationally demanding task. Currently, the even more demanding iterative reconstruction algorithms find their way into clinical routine because their image quality is superior to analytic image reconstruction. The authors thoroughly analyze a so far unconsidered but valuable tool of tomorrow's reconstruction hardware (CPU and GPU) that allows implementing the forward projection and backprojection steps, which are the computationally most demanding parts of any reconstruction algorithm, much more efficiently.

METHODS
Instead of the standard 32 bit floating-point values (float), a recently standardized floating-point value with 16 bit (half) is adopted for data representation in image domain and in rawdata domain. The reduction in the total data amount reduces the traffic on the memory bus, which is the bottleneck of today's high-performance algorithms, by 50%. In CT simulations and CT measurements, float reconstructions (gold standard) and half reconstructions are visually compared via difference images and by quantitative image quality evaluation. This is done for analytical reconstruction (filtered backprojection) and iterative reconstruction (ordered subset SART).

RESULTS
The magnitude of quantization noise, which is caused by a reduction in the data precision of both rawdata and image data during image reconstruction, is negligible. This is clearly shown for filtered backprojection and iterative ordered subset SART reconstruction. In filtered backprojection, the implementation of the backprojection should be optimized for low data precision if the image data are represented in half format. In ordered subset SART image reconstruction, no adaptations are necessary and the convergence speed remains unchanged.

CONCLUSIONS
Half precision floating-point values allow to speed up CT image reconstruction without compromising image quality.


Although there is a substantial growth in the Additive Manufacturing (AM) market commensurate with the demand for products produced by AM methods, there is a shortage of skilled designers in the workforce that can apply AM effectively to meet this demand. This is due to the innate complications with cost and infrastructure for high-barrier-to-entry AM processes such as powder bed fusion when attempting to educate designers about these processes through in-person learning. To meet the demands for a skilled AM workforce while also accounting for the limited access to the range of AM processes, it is important to explore other mediums of AM education such as computer-aided instruction (CAI) which can increase access to hands-on learning experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of CAI in AM process education and focus on its effects on knowledge gain and cognitive load. Our findings show that when designers are educated about material extrusion and powder bed fusion through CAI, the knowledge gain for powder bed fusion is significantly different than knowledge gain for material extrusion, with no significant difference in cognitive load between these two AM processes. These findings imply that there is potential in virtual mediums to improve a designer's process-centric knowledge for the full range of AM processes including those that are usually inaccessible. We take these findings to begin developing recommendations and guidelines for the use of virtual mediums in AM education and future research that investigates implications for virtual AM education.


We hypothesized that the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system in depressed patients is related to oral glucose tolerance. In 70 moderately depressed inpatients, we measured morning saliva cortisol for 6 days and assessed oral glucose tolerance. We found glucose concentrations to be positively associated with mean morning cortisol concentrations (F3,236 = 2.86, p < 0.05). Also, the ISI, a measure of insulin receptor sensitivity, was negatively associated with mean morning cortisol concentrations (r = –0.25, p < 0.04). These findings support the hypothesis that hypercortisolemia may lead to disturbed glucose utilization in depressed patients.


There are two different approaches to the mobile robot navigation problem including that of robot soccer: deliberative and reactive. In the deliberative approach, a detailed geometric model of the world is used to create a plan that accomplishes the task. This approach suffers from high computational requirements and lacks of robustness in the face of the worldpsilas uncertainty. The reactive approach overcomes the disadvantages of the deliberative approach, but the design that could obtain a desired behavior is difficult. The work reported in this paper overcomes this difficulty by adapting a new navigation method, the limit-cycle navigation method. The defects of the potential field method are also presented. In the proposed method, with the information on the relative position of obstacles, target and robot, the obstacle that affects the robotpsilas path is identified. Then, direction of turn, counter-clockwise or clockwise is decided using the radius of the virtual obstacle. Real experiments ascertain the merits of the proposed method.


This paper presents a summary of the research and test program performed by the society of automotive engineers, australasia (sae-a) to develop and demonstrate truck fuel consumption test procedures, to evaluate commercially available devices claimed to save fuel, and to develop and demonstrate a non proprietary computer simulation model for truck performance and fuel consumption. This project has been supported financially by the national energy research, development and demonstration program of the Australian department of resources and energy, and by contributions of time, talent and materials by a wide variety of vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, trucking companies, and academic institutions. The paper presents salient features of the test procedures, results of tests conducted, and model simulations. It also describes the plans to use the simulation model to aid customers at point of sale to select appropriate trucks (a). SAE paper no 871234. (TRRL)


This thesis aims to examine the links between Noh theatre and Japanese Buddhism. There will be a chronological exploration of the notable periods in Japanese history leading up to the Kamakura and Muromachi period, when Noh theatre was established. Each chapter, representing a new era, will discuss religious and cultural developments. This thesis will examine the impacts of China on Japanese culture, in terms of religion and performance styles. Each chapter will address developments in the field of theatre and performance and establish cultural connections between religion and performance; most specifically, Buddhism and Noh. Textual Analysis and Critical Realism have been employed as methodologies to establish a base subject knowledge and to build a critically established speculative arc that forms the connections of the structure.


This research contributes to current academic thinking by highlighting new perspective to studying the IS Project Escalation phenomenon through the application of Agency Theory. This theory views the customer as the (principal) who needs an IS product, and the IS developer as the (agent) who creates this IS product. According to this viewpoint, examining current IS project escalation literature suggests the majority of previous studies implicitly adopted the assumption that the customer (principal) is entirely capable of identifying the requirements of the proposed IS product, and a project is prone to escalate because of the attitude of the IS developer (agent). This presents a gap in the literature in that the impact of the customer (principal) not been explicitly explored.
As such, one critical aim of this research is to investigate IS project escalation by employing an extension of Agency Theory. This extended theory assumes that the customer (principal) suffers challenges of incompetence when it comes to the transfer of knowledge (i.e. requirements) to the IS developer (agent). This leads to a situation of information asymmetry on the principal's side because of incomplete knowledge transfer. In turn, this situation develops and leads to IS project escalation. Another aim of this research is to investigate the process of requirement elicitation (RE) in IS development practice. This is to identify the role of the incorporated knowledge artefacts within this activity, in terms of how the project manager and developers effectively create and utilise these objects. Thus, this is in order to provide a possible solution with respect to the challenge of incomplete knowledge transfer.

To achieve that, this research employed a qualitative methodology and collected data in two stages in Saudi Arabia by using semi-structured interviews. In this respect, in the first stage, a number interviews with 30 IS project manager form five different IS development organisations is conducted. In the second stage, a number of interviews with 10 customers form different organisations is conducted.

The findings in general acknowledged and complemented a number of previous studies' results through the employed perspective of the extended Agency Theory in this research. Considering the identified gap, the empirical evidence supported the assumption of this research, and provided a new explanation for IS project escalation which highlighted the role of the customer (principal) this time. In addition, an influence diagram (i.e. Project Escalation Framework), which clarifies the relationship between the reasons behind incomplete knowledge transfer and IS project escalation, is developed. Also, the empirical evidence identifies a number of incorporated and relevant knowledge artefacts throughout the process of requirement elicitation (RE), namely Initial Request, Features, Process Diagrams, Prototypes, and Requirements. In this respect, the discussion categorised the different roles these artefacts can act out, in terms of being boundary object, epistemic objects, and activity objects. Additionally, a process diagram (i.e. Knowledge Transfer Framework), which clarifies the knowledge process in five main steps during RE phase, is developed.

Analysing a number of IS development cases in a various contexts demonstrated multiple practical applications of the Project Escalation Framework with respect to managing issues building up to and leading to several project outcomes (i.e. success, failure, and escalation). Additionally, this analysis presented the artefacts in the Knowledge Transfer Framework as critical linchpins of an otherwise fragmented process when it comes to eliciting customer requirements. These artefacts have much broader implications that go beyond acting as just a procedure to elicit customer requirements. The 'inclusion' or 'omission' of these artefacts contributes to project success or failure respectively. Consequently, this understanding will result in improvement of IS development investigations, rather than exclusively enhance RE processes between principals and agents.

Furthermore, the findings provided a number of highlighted things to be aware of and useful hints which reflect professional experience from real life applications. Thus, considering learning from such rich experience in terms of employing the advantages and avoiding the drawbacks would positively reflect on IS development practice. This includes managing and dealing with challenges of IS development projects, particularly project escalation, in addition to improving RE process and enhancing the process of receiving customer requirements and ideas.


This thesis relates Hans Reichenbach's philosophy of science both to his historical context and to his interest in the physical world. The thesis begins with a review of his life, and notes the most significant influences on him. His early ambition to become an engineer stimulated in him an active interest in understanding physical things, and his enjoyment in disseminating what he knew entailed that he maintained a keen interest in contemporary ideas. By the age of twenty he had turned to philosophy to enhance his appreciation of science, and was influenced by Kant and the neo-Kantian interpretation through Ernst Cassirer. His subsequent work is concerned with providing philosophical explication of the major innovations of twentieth century science, and particularly of the implications of Einstein's Theories of Relativity and of Quantum Mechanics. The thesis proceeds by summarising Kant's and Cassirer's writings on the philosophy of science before examining Einstein's theories. Subsequent chapters analyse Reichenbach's most significant publications in chronological order, namely The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920), The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928), Experience and Prediction (1938),Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (1944), and The Direction of Time (1956). The chapter on Quantum Mechanics is introduced with a summary of the scientific concepts introduced prior to Reichenbach's writing about them. Although he demonstrates the shortcomings of Kant's philosophical justification, the objective Reichenbach set himself throughout his work was to identify the principles that regulate our empirical knowledge. Despite his close friendship with Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick, he differentiated his Empiricism from Logical Positivism, and he refused to accept that Conventionalism could offer a satisfactory analysis of knowledge of the objective world. The final chapter summarises the impact of his writing and his major contribution to philosophy.


Due to the large number of learning objects (LOs) freely available in the public web-based domain, and the desire of many learners to access such learning materials or LOs on their mobile phones/devices, there is a strong motivation to be able to convert web-based LOs into mobile LOs for reuse on different mobile technologies. We are very interested in the teaching and learning of computing and, more specifically, the Java programming language. Therefore, we conducted an online investigation where we searched and collected information relating to those university computing departments in the English-speaking world offering computing LOs for educational purposes, in order to gather all Java LOs written in the English-language from the public domain. A large number and diverse set of Java LOs was revealed which can be reused for effective educational purposes in web-based environments. Additionally, we examined how web-based LOs can be deployed on different mobile technologies for effective mobile learning.


Background Today approximately one pregnancy out of five ends with a miscarriage. The women who suffered miscarriages experienced a lot of mixed feelings. The nurse plays an important role for the affected women with regards to information and support. This study focuses to describe women's actual experiences after at least one miscarriage, in order to make the nurses able to understand their feelings and reaction after a miscarriage.Aim The aim of the study was to describe women's experiences of miscarriage before 22nd week.Method A literature-based study based on analysis of ten qualitative articles was performedResults The result are presented in three theme "A ruined world", "Anger of the own body" and "Unfulfilled expectations of the healthcare professionals".Conclusion Many women became depressed after having been through a miscarriage. They felt a mix of emotions and they blamed themselves for what happened. The women need better support and information from the healthcare professionals. By supporting the women and giving them customized information, the nurses create a safer environment, which they need in the difficult situation they find themselves in after the miscarriage. In order to do this nurses need more knowledge about women's experiences of miscarriage to be able to understand their needs and to be able to support them in the best way possible.


In disaster situations, relief work can be enhanced and facilitated by acquiring and processing distributed information. However, the communication and computation infrastructures might be impaired or inaccessible in emergency response scenarios. Consequently, approaches for coordination, and resource utilization are still challenging. To this end, we proposed the concept of an adaptive task-oriented message template (ATMT), that bundles the control information and the payload data, required to process and extract information, into a single message. Thus, an ATMT enables distributed in-network processing of complex tasks, allows to leverage the idle resources of mobile devices of the first responders. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of the ATMT concept in an example of face detection, which can be used to offer Person Finder similar services in an emergency ad hoc network. We utilize Google Nearby peerto-peer networking API, standard and available on Androidbased devices, to realize the handover of an ATMT message between mobile devices. This successful integration underpins the prospective adoption of the ATMT concept.


This article explores the discourses surrounding the act of writing Section 10 Bilingual education in the new Finnish national core curriculum, which will be implemented in 2016. This section will set the parameters for programs that integrate language and content learning, where a minimum of two languages are used for instruction in content subjects. The main research questions discussed in this article are how and why certain discourses are expressed, or left unexpressed, in the final draft version of the curriculum. The data for qualitative analysis consists of participatory observations and minutes of meetings in the working group assembled for writing the draft.


Reflecting recent enforcement policy activism of US states, this paper examines federal-state overlap of illegal immigration policy in a spatial context. Keeping the US-Mexico context in mind, we assume that labor from a source nation enters a host nation through bordering states. Once in the host, illegal immigrants may stay in the state of entry or move to another state. The host nation's federal government and/or the state governments choose border and internal enforcement policies, and also provide local goods. As a benchmark, we define the completely centralized solution as the case where the federal government chooses all the policies, while the state governments are passive. At higher levels of decentralization (i.e., as states take more responsibility in deciding some of the policies), the overlap of federal and state policies is associated with both vertical and horizontal externalities. Among other results, we find that if inter-state mobility is costless, internal enforcement is overprovided, and border enforcement and local goods are under-provided under decentralization, leading to relatively high levels of illegal immigration. While inter-state migration costs moderate such overprovision/under-provision, extreme levels of inter-state immobility may lead to too little illegal immigration, and an overprovision of local goods.


Chemical shifts of the 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of the six trimethoxyamphetamines were predicted from results previously found for the monomethoxyamphetamines and dimethoxyamphetamines. The spectra were then determined and the signals assigned by an internally consistent analysis in comparison with the predicted shifts. Data from the spectra and details of their interpretation are presented. The agreement between found and predicted chemical shifts is excellent. The information is valuable for the structural authentication of reference materials. Differences in the chemical shifts of the methoxyl signals are related to conformational effects. The ortho and para shielding parameters discerned can be used to predict the spectra and thus identify unknowns in the absence of reference material.


When predictive models are deployed in the real world, the confidence of a given prediction is often used as a signal of how much it should be trusted. It is therefore critical to identify instances for which the model is highly confident yet incorrect, i.e. the unknown unknowns. We describe a hybrid approach to identifying unknown unknowns that combines the previous crowdsourcing and algorithmic strategies, and addresses some of their weaknesses. In particular, we propose learning a set of interpretable decision rules to approximate how the model makes high confidence predictions. We devise a crowdsourcing task in which workers are presented with a rule, and challenged to generate an instance that "contradicts" it. A bandit algorithm is used to select the most promising rules to present to workers. Our method is evaluated by conducting a user study on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Experimental results on three datasets indicate that our approach discovers unknown unknowns more efficiently than the state-of-the-art.


We consider the realization of universal quantum computation through braiding of Majorana fermions supplemented by unprotected preparation of noisy ancillae. It has been shown by Bravyi (2006 Phys. Rev. A 73 042313) that under the assumption of perfect braiding operations, universal quantum computation is possible if the noise rate on a particular four-fermion ancilla is below 40%. We show that beyond a noise rate of 89% on this ancilla the quantum computation can be efficiently simulated classically: we explicitly show that the noisy ancilla is a convex mixture of Gaussian fermionic states in this region, while for noise rates below 53% we prove that the state is not a mixture of Gaussian states. These results are obtained by generalizing concepts in entanglement theory to the setting of Gaussian states and their convex mixtures. In particular, we develop a complete set of criteria, namely the existence of a Gaussian-symmetric extension, which determine whether a state is a convex mixture of Gaussian states.


Did first century Mediterranean readers of the Fourth Gospel have comparable literary examples to inform their comprehension of Moses as a character? In addressing this question, Harstine's study falls into two parts. The first is an analysis of the character Moses as utilized in the text of the Fourth Gospel. The second is an examination of other Hellenistic narrative texts, in which the character of Homer is also considered, as another important legendary figure with whom the readers of the Fourth Gospel would have been familiar.


Osteogenic cultures of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are predominately derived from three‐dimensional cell spheroids called embryoid bodies (EBs). An alternative method that has been attempted and merits further attention avoids EBs through the immediate separation of ESC colonies into single cells. However, this method has not been well characterized and the effect of omitting the EB step is unknown. Herein, we report that culturing human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) without the EB stage leads to a sevenfold greater number of osteogenic cells and to spontaneous bone nodule formation after 10–12 days. In contrast, when hESCs were differentiated as EBs for 5 days followed by plating of single cells, bone nodules formed after 4 weeks only in the presence of dexamethasone. Furthermore, regardless of the inclusion of EBs, bone matrix formed, including cement line matrix and mineralized collagen, which displayed apatitic mineral (PO4) with calcium‐to‐phosphorous ratios similar to those of hydroxyapatite and human bone. Together these results demonstrate that culturing hESCs without an EB step can be used to derive large quantities of functional osteogenic cells for bone tissue engineering.


Ecological studies often require studying the common structure of a pair of data tables. Co-inertia analysis is a multivariate method for coupling two tables. It is often neglected by ecologists who prefer the widely used methods of redundancy analysis and canonical correspondence analysis. We present the co-inertia criterion for measuring the adequacy between two data sets. Co-inertia analysis is based on this criterion as are canonical correspondence analysis or canonical correlation analysis, but the latter two have additional constraints. Co-inertia analysis is very flexible and allows many possibilities for coupling. Co-inertia analysis is suitable for quantitative and/or qualitative or fuzzy environmental variables. Moreover, various weighting of sites and various transformations and/or centering of species data are available for this method. Hence, more ecological considerations can be taken into account in the statistical procedures. Moreover, the principle of this method is very general and can be easily extended to the case of distance matrices or to the case of more than two tables. Simulated ecological data are used to compare the co-inertia approach with other available methods.


We have investigated the effect of turnip crinkle virus (TCV) infection on mitochondrial structure and function in turnips ( Brassica rapa cultivar "Just Right"). TCV infection resulted in plants with small, mottled leaves with severely crinkled edges, and in a 46% reduction in storage root mass. TCV infection resulted in specific vesicular-ization of mitochondrial outer membranes where TCV replication is thought to occur, with no apparent affect on other cellular membrane systems. Immunoblot analysis of mitochondrial proteins from storage roots indicated that the TCV p28 protein, which is essential for viral replication, was associated with mitochondria and that mitochondrial heat shock protein 70 and cpn60 levels increased upon TCV infection. Isolation of mitochondrial outer membranes further showed TCV p28 protein enrichment in the outer membrane as compared with total mitochondrial proteins or total cellular proteins. Analysis of mitochondrial electron transport chain activities indicated that TCV infection resulted in a 54% decrease in exogenous NADH-dependent oxygen uptake and a 8% decrease in succi-nate-dependent oxygen uptake. Together these results indicate that TCV infection induces a stress response in mitochondria and a reduction in the ability of mitochondria to supply adenosine 5'-triphosphate to the cell.


BACKGROUND
Visual impairment (VI) and determinants of poor cardiovascular health are very common in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, we do not know whether these determinants are associated with VI among older adults in this region. This study aimed at investigating the association between the determinants of poor cardiovascular health and near VI among older adults living in Congo.

METHODS
Participants were Congolese adults aged 65 or older included in Epidemiology of Dementia in Central Africa-Follow-up population-based cohort. Near VI was defined as visual acuity less than 20/40 measured at 30 cm. Associations between determinants of poor cardiovascular health collected at baseline and near visual acuity measured at first follow-up were investigated using multivariable logistic regression models.

RESULTS
Among the 549 participants included, 378 (68.8%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 64.9%-72.7%]) had near VI. Of the determinants of poor cardiovascular health explored, we found that having high body mass index of at least 25 kg/m2 (odds ratio [OR] = 2.15; 95% CI: 1.25-3.68), diabetes (OR = 2.12; 95% CI: 1.06-4.25) and hypertension (OR = 1.65; 95% CI: 1.02-2.64) were independently associated with near VI.

CONCLUSIONS
Several determinants of poor cardiovascular health were associated with near VI in this population. This study suggests that promoting good cardiovascular health could represent a target for VI prevention among older adults.


The rapid flow model (equivalent to the distributed delayed Muskingum model) is an attractive linear flood routing model meeting the conflicting demands of physical significance and simplicity. After having relaxed the assumption of negligible lateral inflow, made in former studies, the impulse response of the above model with lateral inflow is derived in the analytical (series) form. The cumulants of the impulse response of the model are developed. Although the results presented were obtained for the spatially uniform distribution of lateral inflow, it is possible to solve it also for non-uniform lateral inflows, at the cost of additional algebra.


Francisella tularensis is a highly infectious pathogen that infects animals and humans to cause the disease tularemia. The primary targets of this bacterium are macrophages, in which it replicates in the cytoplasm after escaping the initial phagosomal compartment. The ability to replicate within macrophages relies on the tightly regulated expression of a series of genes. One of the most commonly used means of coordinating the regulation of multiple genes in bacteria consists of the association of dedicated alternative sigma factors with the core of the RNA polymerase (RNAP). In silico analysis of the F. tularensis LVS genome led us to identify, in addition to the genes encoding the RNAP core (comprising the alpha1, alpha2, beta, beta' and omega subunits), one gene (designated rpoD) encoding the major sigma factor sigma(70), and a unique gene (FTL_0851) encoding a putative alternative sigma factor homologue of the sigma(32) heat-shock family (designated rpoH). Hence, F. tularensis represents one of the minority of bacterial species that possess only one or no alternative sigma factor in addition to the main factor sigma(70). In the present work, we show that FTL_0851 encodes a genuine sigma(32) factor. Transcriptomic analyses of the F. tularensis LVS heat-stress response allowed the identification of a series of orthologues of known heat-shock genes (including those for Hsp40, GroEL, GroES, DnaK, DnaJ, GrpE, ClpB and ClpP) and a number of genes implicated in Francisella virulence. A bioinformatic analysis was used to identify genes preceded by a putative sigma(32)-binding site, revealing both similarities to and differences from RpoH-mediated gene expression in Escherichia coli. Our results suggest that RpoH is an essential protein of F. tularensis, and positively regulates a subset of genes involved in the heat-shock response.


Two-thirds of patients with dermatitis herpetiformis have been found to have a flat or convoluted mucosa but no special association has been found in the other dermatoses studied with structural alterations in the small bowel mucosa. The frequency distribution of the predominant and individual small intestinal mucosal features is the same in the patients in the present series with eczema, psoriasis, and rosacea as in the local control population. A predominantly convoluted mucosa has been found in the upper small intestine in 8% of these patients and in 8% of subjects without a rash. The presence of convolutions in patients with these dermatoses is merely a reflection of the incidence in the normal population of Newcastle upon Tyne. Different findings in the same skin disease in different parts of the country are explicable on the basis of variations in the normal mucosa between one geographical region and another. The increased incidence of a convoluted mucosa in the north east of England requires further study to determine whether it is indicative of an increased incidence of the coeliac syndrome in the region, or whether it results from a minor population difference or a local peculiarity of diet.


Abstract : Empirical criteria are presented for selection of uniaxial tensile failure origins that will yield valid fracture toughness estimations. Using these criteria, estimations of fracture toughness based on fractography of an AIN, two SiCs, a AIN-SiC solid solution and a particulate composite, and a TiB2 were performed. Comparison of the fracture toughness values estimated from fractography with fracture toughness measured by the single-edge precracked beam (SEPB) method will be shown. Close agreement is observed between estimates made from fractographic analysis and measurements made on specimens with large artificially induced flaws if the fracture toughness is 4 MPa square root of m or below. For materials in which the SEPB fracture toughness is greater than about 4.8 MPa square root of m, estimates by fractographic analysis significantly underestimate the SEPB fracture toughness. In attempting to rationalize this discrepancy, the importance of rigorously applying the empirical criteria was reemphasized.


Diet-related chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease have attracted a lot of attention. Food retail outlets play a significant role in affecting consumers' diet-related health and nutrition by the foods they sell and prices they charge. This study assessed the relative importance of different food retail outlets, identified the socio-demographic profiles of consumers associated with shopping in each retail format, and then illustrated how the food retail outlet choices might affect consumers' diet and nutrition, using the surveyed data set collected in 2011 from three big cities in Ghana (Accra, Tamale, and Takoradi).


In Rhetoric, Irony, and Law in the Formation of Canadian Civil Culture, Michael Dorland and Maurice Charland examine how, over the roughly 400-year period since the encounter of First Peoples with Europeans in North America, rhetorical or discursive fields took form in politics and constitution-making, in the formation of a public sphere, and in education and language. The study looks at how these fields changed over time within the French regime, the British regime, and in Canada since 1867, and how they converged through trial and error into a Canadian civil culture. The authors establish a triangulation of fields of discourse formed by law (as a technical discourse system), rhetoric (as a public discourse system), and irony (as a means of accessing the public realm as the key pillars upon which a civil culture in Canada took form) in order to scrutinize the process of creating a civil culture. By presenting case studies ranging from the legal implications of the transition from French to English law to the continued importance of the Louis Riel case and trial, the authors provide detailed analyses of how communication practices form a common institutional culture. As scholars of communication and rhetoric, Dorland and Charland have written a challenging examination of the history of Canadian governance and the central role played by legal and other discourses in the formation of civil culture.


Quantitative habitat suitability models (HSMs) are frequently used to inform the conservation and management of lotic organisms, often in the context of instream flow management. Correlative statistical models relating hydraulic variables to habitat preferences (habitat suitability curves based on use:availability ratios) are the most common form of HSM, but face significant criticism on the grounds that habitat preference may not reflect the fitness consequences of habitat use. Consequently, there has been a drive to develop mechanistic approaches that link habitat to direct correlates of fitness. Bioenergetic foraging models relating hydraulic conditions to energy balance are particularly well‐developed for drift‐feeding fishes (e.g. salmonids) and show promise as a more mechanistic approach to modelling suitability. However, these models are rarely validated empirically or quantitatively compared with correlative HSMs. We addressed these gaps by comparing the ability of a bioenergetics‐based HSM and two correlative HSMs (a traditional suitability index and a resource selection function) to predict density and growth of stream salmonids (juvenile steelhead, Oncorhynchus mykiss, and coastal cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarki). Suitability estimates differed between the approaches, with both correlative models predicting higher suitability relative to the bioenergetic model at shallow depths and low to intermediate velocities, but lower suitability as depth increased. The bioenergetic model explained over 90% of variation in trout growth, compared to c. 50% for the correlative model. The bioenergetic model was also better at predicting fish density; however, the improvement was less striking and a high proportion of variation remained unexplained by either method. Differences in suitability estimates between approaches probably reflect biotic interactions (e.g. territorial displacement or predation risk) that decouple realised habitat use from energetics‐based estimates of habitat quality. Results highlight fundamental differences between correlative HSMs, based on observed habitat use, and mechanistic HSMs, based on the physiology and behaviour of the focal taxa. They also suggest that mechanistic bioenergetics‐based models provide more rigorous estimates of habitat suitability for drift‐feeding stream fishes. The bioenergetics approach is readily accessible to instream flow practitioners because model predictions are expressed in terms of traditional habitat suitability curves.


Soil moisture is the key variable in the hydrological cycle. In the Volta Basin, West Africa, where rainfed agriculture forms the main source of income for the majority of the population; productivity relies on available soil moisture or green water. Progress will depend on good management of green water, and will be strongly based on monitoring results. Data scarcity in the Volta Basin emphasizes the necessity for remotely sensed soil moisture estimates that allow for more stable monitoring techniques. New soil moisture satellites such as SMOS and MetOp provide improved technical means for soil moisture monitoring. In preparation for these new sensors, historical ERS Scatterometer data over the Volta Basin provided by the Global Soil Moisture Archive have been analysed. The basin area is subject to a natural 1000 km long moisture gradient from the southern tropical rain forest to the northern Sahelian grass savanna. The soil moisture fields generated from ERS Scatterometer data reflect the spatial and temporal climatic patterns well. Our study investigated a weak but consistent anomaly between the backscatter measurements acquired during morning and evening overpasses. Maps generated from the difference between morning and evening overpass data reveal spatial and seasonal patterns that differ from the moisture gradient driven by the local climatology. The observed diurnal differences are in some regions, in particular in the central and forested savanna areas of the Volta basin, in the order of 1 dB, or even somewhat higher. In addition the detected patterns shift temporally in accordance with the transition from wet to dry seasons. Regional and seasonal deviations from the natural moisture gradient are identified and possible explanations examined. It appears that water stress causes diurnal changes in forest canopy water content resulting in somewhat lower backscatter during evening than during the morning acquisitions, but other explanations such as azimuthal effects cannot yet be excluded.


This article outlines the initial draft of a PhD project which investigates refurbishment or rehabilitation projects in two German cities. The study focuses on obstacles, restraints and deficits as well as factors of success, which can be identified during the execution of the refurbishments. Moreover the study examines the process of the refurbishment itself, the general conditions under which the refurbishments are being executed as well as the implementation of sustainability criteria. First the article gives a short summary of the theoretical considerations of the study. In this respect it shortly outlines the global conditions of urban development and conducting challenges for cities in the 21st century, guiding principles of a sustainable urban development as well as goals of sustainable refurbishments. Finally the article shortly describes the case studies and presents the initial results of the empirical work.


Context: The vermiform appendix is an abdominal organ performing the immunological function. Histological characteristics of this organ show its specialized immunological function. Vermiform appendix is involved in different disease processes such as appendicitis, carcinoma and diverticulitis. Appendicitis is the most important clinical condition. An appropriate anatomical knowledge about vermiform appendix is important for surgeons, pathologists and other physicians for proper diagnosis and management of appendicitis and carcinoma. Study design: Descriptive type of study. Place and period of the study : Department of Anatomy, Sir Salimullah Medical College, Dhaka from January 2006 to June 2007. Materials: Sixty (60) human postmortem vermiform appendix, age ranging from 0 to 65 years. Samples were collected from unclaimed dead bodies within 24 hours of death from the morgue of Sir Salimullah Medical College and Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka. Method: The samples were divided into five (5) different age groups. Result: Diameter of lymphoid follicles reduced with the advancing age and showed negative correlation with age which was highly significant (P<0.001). Key words : Lymphoid follicle; vermiform appendix. DOI: 10.3329/bja.v8i1.6100 Bangladesh Journal of Anatomy January 2010, Vol. 8 No. 1 pp. 5-9


We model competition between content distributors (platforms) for content providers, and show that whether or not content is exclusive or "multihomes" depends crucially on whether or not content providers maintain control over their own pricing to consumers: if content providers sell their content outright and relinquish control, they will tend to be exclusive; on the other hand, if content providers maintain control and only "affiliate" with platforms, then multihoming is sustainable in equilibrium. We show that the outcome under affiliation depends on the tradeoff between platform rent extraction (which increases in exclusivity) and content rent extraction (which increases in multihoming), and demonstrate that the propensity for exclusivity can be increasing, decreasing, or even nonmonotonic in content quality. Finally, if a content provider internalizes the effect of its own price on platform demand, we prove that a platform that already has exclusive access to content may prefer to relinquish control over content pricing to the content provider in order to reduce price competition at the platform level.


A blast was engineered close to a tunnel in a deep-level mine with the purpose of studying the wave interaction with the tunnel. Numerical modelling of seismic wave propagation was used in both the forward planning and the back-analysis of this experiment. This paper presents the forward analysis. A likely model for a propagating blast was investigated and developed. This model predicts the influence of the velocity of detonation of the blast and the rise-time of the blast on the radiation pattern, and hence on the expected positions of maximum velocity at the tunnel surface. An attempt was made to quantify the parameters of the blast model, using waveform data from two other blast experiments. The blast model caused particle velocities which were an order of magnitude lower than these measured velocities. Large values for blast pressure were required to match the amplitudes of the recorded velocities. An alternative i?½effectivei?½ source with a similar mechanism but increased diameter was proposed to account for the higher velocities. It was established that distant velocities scale with the square of the borehole diameter. A calibration blast at the experimental site was also modelled. Agreement in the waveforms was not sufficient for conclusive statements to be made about the validity of the source model. However, the modelled waveforms show an encouraging correspondence with some measured waveforms. This gave confidence that the model could be used to examine wave propagation around the tunnel, and allowed a scaled source to be developed for forward analysis of the main experiment.


This paper investigates alternative global constraints that can be introduced in a constraint solver over discrete crystal lattices. The objective is to enhance the efficiency of lattice solvers in dealing with the construction of approximate solutions of the protein structure determination problem. The paper discusses various alternatives and provides preliminary results concerning the computational properties of the different global constraints.