Using our previously described Haydée semipackaging cell line (F. L. Cosset, C. Legras, Y. Chebloune, P. Savatier, P. Thoraval, J. L. Thomas, J. Samarut, V. M. Nigon, and G. Verdier, J. Virol. 64:1070-1078, 1990) which produces avian leukosis virus gag and pol proteins, we have constructed packaging cells with subgroups B, C, and E envelope specificities. This allows us to produce helper-free avian leukosis virus particles carrying the lacZ reporter gene and the A, B, C, or E subgroup specificities. Titers of the recombinant lacZ virus are shown to be dependent upon the type of the env subgroup and the target avian cell.


This paper reviews American Indian demography and the political and economic conditions on Indian reservations. After collapsing during the 19th century, the American Indian population grew gradually during the early 20th century, approaching 2 million in 1990. American Indians are heavily concentrated in the West, northern Midwest, and Oklahoma; about half live on or near reservations. The Indian population comprises over 300 tribes and is extremely diverse, but social and economic disadvantages are a common denominator. High school dropout rates are alarmingly high, as are poverty and unemployment rates. The current economic circumstances of American Indians in many ways reflect a long history of federal efforts to exterminate, subordinate, or assimilate them. These efforts are reflected in five eras of federal-Indian relaticns: removal, allotment, the Indian New Deal, termination and relocation, and self-determination. Today, many tribes have assumed substantial control over education, human services, and natural resources on their reservations. Economic development and eventual financial independence are being pursued as an alternative to uncertain federal aid. Many reservations have substantial resources in agricultural land, timber, water, and minerals. The 24 tribal colleges are playing a key role in human resource development. Economic development strategies include tribal businesses, attracting outside industries, entrepreneurship, legal gambling, and taking advantage of treaty


Part I: Nature of Stuttering 1 What Is Stuttering? 2 Who and How Many Stutter? 3 When and How Does Stuttering Begin? How Does It Develop? 4 Where Does Stuttering End? What are its Advanced Characteristics? Part II: Explanations of Stuttering 5 Why Do People Stutter? Evaluating Theories and Models 6 Is Stuttering Psychological? Theories and Investigations 7 Is Stuttering Biological? Theories and Investigations Part III: Clinical Management of Stuttering 8 Assessment of Adults and School-Age Children 9 Assessment of Preschool-Age Children 10 Stuttering Therapy Overview: Issues and Directions 11 Therapy for Adults: Focus on Emotional Reactions 12 Therapy for Adults: Focus on Stuttering and Fluency 13 Therapy for School-Age Children 14 Therapy for Preschool-Age Children 15 Other Fluency Disorders Cultural and Bilingual Issues


The innate cellular and molecular components required to mediate effective vaccination against weak tumor-associated antigens remain unclear. In this study, we used polymeric cancer vaccines incorporating different classes of adjuvants to induce tumor protection, to identify dendritic cell (DC) subsets and cytokines critical to this efficacy. Three-dimensional, porous polymer matrices loaded with tumor lysates and presenting distinct combinations of granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and various Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists affected 70% to 90% prophylactic tumor protection in B16-F10 melanoma models. In aggressive, therapeutic B16 models, the vaccine systems incorporating GM-CSF in combination with P(I:C) or CpG-ODN induced the complete regression of solid tumors (≤40 mm(2)), resulting in 33% long-term survival. Regression analysis revealed that the numbers of vaccine-resident CD8(+) DCs, plasmacytoid DCs (pDC), along with local interleukin (IL)-12, and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) concentrations correlated strongly to vaccine efficacy regardless of adjuvant type. Furthermore, vaccine studies in Batf3(-/-) mice revealed that CD8(+) DCs are required to affect tumor protection, as vaccines in these mice were deficient in cytotoxic T lymphocytes priming and IL-12 induction in comparison with wild-type. These studies broadly demonstrate that three-dimensional polymeric vaccines provide a potent platform for prophylactic and therapeutic protection, and can be used as a tool to identify critical components of a desired immune response. Specifically, these results suggest that CD8(+) DCs, pDCs, IL-12, and G-CSF play important roles in priming effective antitumor responses with these vaccines.


It is investigated the approximation in defense and security in South America. The hypothesis tested considers that these countries just tend an approximation whereby the costs are less linked to a changing in their individual policies. In this way, they propose just a superficial consensus rather than incorporate joint policies. Therefore, the analysis focuses on the confidence measures in relation to the military expenditures adopted since the SADC foundation, as well as the military forces functions to verify if – in that instance – the measures served to empower the convergences in defense, and – in the case of these – if, in the face of the highlighted common defense problems, the attributions have converged.


This paper is the result of the study of language use in the Sunday Nation, a newspaper of the Nation Media Group, Nairobi, Kenya. Specifically, the paper was out to discover whether the Sunday Nation had a definable register, style, focusing on the level of language formality, and whether the newspaper had indigenized English. Fifty-three articles, including editorials and personal columns, from of the Sunday Nation were analysed. The articles, covering the period February to October 2003, were downloaded from the internet web page of the Media Nation Group. The study revealed that stock expressions, epithets, cliches, and special use of words, did indeed make up the register of the newspaper. It also revealed that the use of informal language permeated through editorials and personal columns. Informal words were not limited to any one category and the distribution between nouns, verbs and adjectives was found to be almost equal. Informal words occurred less frequently in the adverb category, at least in the data analysed. Indigenization of English was clearly manifested in the text studied.


Portraits taken with direct flash look harsh and unflattering because the light source comes from a small set of angles very close to the camera. Advanced photographers address this problem by using bounce flash, a technique where the flash is directed towards other surfaces in the room, creating a larger, virtual light source that can be cast from different directions to provide better shading variation for 3D modeling. However, finding the right direction to point a bounce flash towards requires skill and careful consideration of the available surfaces and subject configuration. Inspired by the impact of automation for exposure, focus and flash metering, we automate control of the flash direction for bounce illumination. We first identify criteria for evaluating flash directions, based on established photography literature, and relate these criteria to the color and geometry of a scene. We augment a camera with servomotors to rotate the flash head, and additional sensors (a fisheye and 3D sensors) to gather information about potential bounce surfaces. We present a simple numerical optimization criterion that finds directions for the flash that consistently yield compelling illumination and demonstrate the effectiveness of our various criteria in common photographic configurations. Thesis Supervisor: Fr6do Durand Title: Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science


Sampling models for geostatistical data are usually based on Gaussian processes. However, real data often display non-Gaussian features, such as heavy tails. In this article we propose a more flexible class of sampling models. We start from the spatial linear model that has a spatial trend plus a stationary Gaussian error process. We extend the sampling model to non-Gaussianity by including a scale parameter at each location. We make sure that we obtain a valid stochastic process. The scale parameters are spatially correlated to ensure that the process is mean square continuous. We derive expressions for the moments and the kurtosis of the process. This more general stochastic process allows us to accommodate and identify observations that would be outliers under a Gaussian sampling process. For the spatial correlation structure, we adopt the flexible Matèrn class with unknown smoothness parameter. Furthermore, a nugget effect is included in the model. Bayesian inference (posterior and predictive) is performed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The choice of the prior distribution is discussed and its importance assessed in a sensitivity analysis. We also examine identifiability of the parameters. Our methods are illustrated with two datasets.


Although monkeypox virus (MPXV) studies in wild rodents and non-human primates have generated important knowledge regarding MPXV pathogenesis and inferences about disease transmission, it might be easier to dissect the importance of virulence factors and correlates of protection to MPXV in an inbred mouse model. Herein, we compared the two clades of MPXV via two routes of infection in the BALB/c and C57BL/6 inbred mice strains. Our studies show that similar to previous animal studies, the Congo Basin strain of MPXV was more virulent than West African MPXV in both mouse strains as evidenced by clinical signs. Although animals did not develop lesions as seen in human MPX infections, localized signs were apparent with the foot pad route of inoculation, primarily in the form of edema at the site of inoculation; while the Congo Basin intranasal route of infection led to generalized symptoms, primarily weight loss. We have determined that future studies with MPXV and laboratory mice would be very beneficial in understanding the pathogenesis of MPXV, in particular if used in in vivo imaging studies. Although this mouse model may not suffice as a model of human MPX disease, with an appropriate inbred mouse model, we can unravel many unknown aspects of MPX pathogenesis, including virulence factors, disease progression in rodent hosts, and viral shedding from infected animals. In addition, such a model can be utilized to test antivirals and the next generation of orthopoxvirus vaccines for their ability to alter the course of disease.


Summary Prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), prostate‐specific antigen (PSA; or γ‐seminoprotein), and β‐microseminoprotein (β‐MSP; PSP94 or β‐inhibin) are the three predominant proteins secreted by the normal human prostate gland. In the epithelium of normal and hyperplastic prostatic acini and ducts PAP, PSA and β‐MSP have an identical immunohistochemical localization. Highly differentiated (grade I) carcinomas contain an almost equal number of PAP‐, PSA‐ and β‐MSP‐immunoreactive cells; the incidence of these cells is lower and they display a greater staining variability in the moderately and poorly (grade II‐III) differentiated tumours. Especially in poorly differentiated tumours PSA seems to be a more sensitive immunohistochemical marker than PAP or prostatic carcinomas. Moreover, the use of PAP as a marker for prostatic carcinomas is complicated by the reported structural similarities between the prostatic secreted acid phosphatase and lysosomal acid phosphatase occurring in all tissues. The use of β‐MSP as a marker for prostatic carcinomas may be limited by indications of non‐prostatic production of this protein.


The status signaling hypothesis (SSH) was devised primarily to explain the adaptive significance of avian ornamental coloration during the nonbreeding season. It proposes that conspicuous male plumage serves as an honest signal of social status within a population of birds. However, to date this hypothesis has been well tested and supported for only one type of plumage coloration, melanin-based coloration. Carotenoid-based pigmentation is known to positively reveal male health and condition during molt in a variety of species, but it is poorly understood whether this ornament type can also function as a status signal during the winter. We tested the SSH in male house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) by manipulating the carotenoid-based plumage brightness of first-year males and then pairing unfamiliar birds of differing coloration in a series of dominance trials in captivity. Manipulated plumage color was unrelated to win/loss outcome in these trials. Similarly, the natural pigmentation of males was a poor predictor of winter dominance; as in other studies with this species, we found only a weak tendency for naturally drab males to dominate naturally bright males. These results suggest that carotenoid-based coloration is not a reliable indicator of social status in male house finches during the nonbreeding season. In fact, carotenoid-based coloration may function only in mate choice in this species, and it may be retained throughout the year either because time constraints preclude a second plumage molt or because it aids in pair formation that begins in late winter.


Background Fibrous dysplasia of bone (FD) is an uncommon skeletal disorder, caused by missense mutations of the GNAS1 gene and is characterized by the development of fibro-osseous lesions that replace normal bone. FD can present with a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations, including the development of hypophosphatemic osteomalacia which is due to the production of the phosphaturic hormone fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23) by the dysplastic bone tissue. Nevertheless, the prevalence of this clinical complication is not well known. Objectives To analyse the serum levels of FGF-23 in patients with FD and determine their relationship with the extension and activity of the disease, as well as with serum phosphate levels. Methods Twelve patients (7F:5M) with FD with a mean age of 50.67±16.4 years (24–79) were included. The clinical reports of the patients were reviewed, with special attention to the extension and activity of the disease, number and location of the affected bones, clinical complications and treatments received. Serum FGF-23 values were recorded in all subjects (determined by Immunotopics, CA, USA [measuring FGF23 C- terminal], normal value <130 RU/ml), as well as serum phosphate and calcium values, bone turnover markers and their evolution with treatment. Results Serum levels of FGF-23 were increased (>130 RU/ml) in 6/12 patients (50%). In patients with and without high FGF-23 levels the number of affected bones (2.2±2 vs. 1.9±1, respectively) and the skeletal locations of FD were similar as was the age in both groups of patients (48.2±14 vs. 53.2±19 years). In addition, FD disease activity and extension were similar in the two groups as were the bone turnover marker values (FAO, PINP and CTx). Strikingly, differences between serum phosphate values were not observed between the two groups (FGF23 >130: 3.9±0.9 mg/dl vs. FGF23 <130: 3.5±0.6 mg/dl). Indeed, none of the patients with high FGF-23 levels had low serum phosphate values. Following bisphosphonate (zoledronate) treatment, there were no significant changes in FGF-23 values. Nevertheless, an increase of 123% was found in one patient receiving denosumab, although hypophosphatemia was not associated. Conclusions Patients with FD frequently present elevated FGF-23 values with no effects on serum phosphate levels, thereby suggesting the presence of an alteration in processing this protein in the dysplastic bone tissue in this disease. The role of denosumab treatment in FD and its repercussion on FGF-23 levels need further study. Disclosure of Interest None declared


The deinstitutionalization of chronic mental health patients and the simultaneous growth of community mental health structures were elected as central objectives of interventions, based on the concept of psychosocial rehabilitation. The main axes of this ef fort were maximization of the individual's potential and minimization of the long-term hospitalizations' negative consequences. The individualized approach via the application of an individual therapeutic program and the simultaneous evaluation of patients' needs and course during their stay in community residential home structures of psychiatric care constitute the basic condition for the achievement of therapeutic goals of rehabilitation, guarantee of the quality of services provided and continuity of care. The article is completed with the quotation of thoughts and proposals in connection with current approaches concerning the sector of social psychiatry, which everybody has to take into careful consideration in order to do the individual therapeutic program more effective being a powerful tool that helps therapists to draw satisfaction and pleasure from their work and helps patients to become active members of a democratic society.


Whilst some field studies have suggested that management control systems can be used simultaneously to make organisations more efficient and more flexible, the contingency literature has found it difficult to address this issue in the absence of a clear and comprehensive typology for analyzing more processual uses of management control systems. This paper distinguishes between enabling and coercive (Adler and Borys 1996) uses of management control systems. Coercive use refers to the stereotypical top down control approach that emphasises centralisation and pre-planning. By contrast, enabling use seeks to put employees in a position to deal directly with the inevitable contingencies in their work. The design principles that underlie the enabling use of management control systems are repair, internal transparency, global transparency, and flexibility. Through a detailed analysis of a single case field study carried out over a two-year period, we illustrate how management pursued the objectives of efficiency and flexibility by using management control systems in enabling ways. We suggest that the four design principles of enabling use can facilitate field studies of management control systems, but that they can also be used to define an enabling typology for contingency researchers to analyze the ways in which organizations simultaneously pursue efficiency and flexibility through their management control systems.


Deviation from linearity of the equilibrium folding free energy (ΔG) of proteins along the reaction coordinate is scarcely known. Optical spectroscopic observables and NMR-measured average molecular dimensional property of lysozyme with urea at pH 5 reveal that ΔG rolls over from linearity under mild to strongly native-like conditions. The urea dependence of ΔG is graphed in the 0-7 M range of the denaturant by employing a series of guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl)-induced equilibrium unfolding transitions, each in the presence of a fixed level of urea. The observed linear dependence of ΔG on urea under denaturing conditions begins to deviate as moderately native-like conditions are approached and eventually rolls over under strongly native-like conditions. This is atypical of the upward curvature in the ΔG vs denaturant plot predicted by the denaturant binding model. On increasing the denaturant concentration from 0 to 5 M, the hydrodynamic radius of lysozyme shrinks by ∼2 Å. We suggest subdenaturing levels of urea affect the population distribution among multiple near-native isoenergetic conformational states so as to promote them sequentially with increments of the denaturant. We use a multiple-state sequential model to show that the keel over of ΔG occurs due to these near-native alternative states in the native ensemble used for defining the unfolding equilibrium constant (KU), which we assume to vary linearly with urea. The results and the model appear to indicate a rugged flat bottom in the free energy landscape wherein population distribution of native-like states is modulated by urea-affected interstate motions.


Physically based differentiable rendering has recently evolved into a powerful tool for solving inverse problems involving light. Methods in this area perform a differentiable simulation of the physical process of light transport and scattering to estimate partial derivatives relating scene parameters to pixels in the rendered image. Together with gradient-based optimization, such algorithms have interesting applications in diverse disciplines, e.g., to improve the reconstruction of 3D scenes, while accounting for interreflection and transparency, or to design meta-materials with specified optical properties. The most versatile differentiable rendering algorithms rely on reverse-mode differentiation to compute all requested derivatives at once, enabling optimization of scene descriptions with millions of free parameters. However, a severe limitation of the reverse-mode approach is that it requires a detailed transcript of the computation that is subsequently replayed to back-propagate derivatives to the scene parameters. The transcript of typical renderings is extremely large, exceeding the available system memory by many orders of magnitude, hence current methods are limited to simple scenes rendered at low resolutions and sample counts. We introduce radiative backpropagation, a fundamentally different approach to differentiable rendering that does not require a transcript, greatly improving its scalability and efficiency. Our main insight is that reverse-mode propagation through a rendering algorithm can be interpreted as the solution of a continuous transport problem involving the partial derivative of radiance with respect to the optimization objective. This quantity is "emitted" by sensors, "scattered" by the scene, and eventually "received" by objects with differentiable parameters. Differentiable rendering then decomposes into two separate primal and adjoint simulation steps that scale to complex scenes rendered at high resolutions. We also investigated biased variants of this algorithm and find that they considerably improve both runtime and convergence speed. We showcase an efficient GPU implementation of radiative backpropagation and compare its performance and the quality of its gradients to prior work.


This paper presents a detailed study of large grains carried out by transmission electron microscopy in two WC-Co alloys, one W rich and the other C rich. In the W rich alloy, some large grains are found in contact with the η phase while no connection of the large grains with graphite particles can be pointed out in the C rich alloy. The C content greatly influences the morphology of large grains: they are flatter in the C rich alloy with smoother interfaces. Whatever the C content, they contain few dislocations compared to matrix grains except in a small area where a dense network is often present. One or even several small WC grains with a small angle misorientation or with a Σ=2 coincidence relationship are often found inside the large grains. They have likely been engulfed during the growth of the large grains owing to the low boundary energy.


In China, CRF01_AE and CRF07_BC are the most circulating strains of HIV-1, more and more second-generation recombinant forms have been isolated around the two strains. The same situation happened in Beijing in recent years. In our study, we have isolated a new second-generation recombinant form of HIV-1 from a male patient who was infected by homosexual behavior. Polygenetic analysis revealed that the sequence includes five CRF01_AE fragments and four CRF07_BC fragments. CRF01_AE is the skeleton of the recombinant which was inserted with four CRF07_BC fragments. The emergency of such second-generation recombinant forms manifests the diversity of the HIV-1 epidemic. Consequently, further investigation of molecular epidemiology is needed to track the genetic evolution of HIV-1.


The detection of leaf area in plants is a very important parameter to evaluate growth rates. Nowadays, this analysis is performed manually through a process of counting, cutting and weighing leaf that involves long periods of time, providing subjective results and with low repeatability. The purpose of this research was to develop a computational tool (leaf detector box) to detect leaf area through image processing techniques. The methodology implemented based on application of image processing techniques to segment leaves. Later, morphological operations were apply to eliminate objects that were not part of leaf. Finally, the leaf area was identified through a conversion of pixel to squared centimeter. The validation results showed a determination coefficient greater than 0.97 for four species of plants analyzed with regard to manual analysis by a technical expert. In addition, it validated in a set of 40 leaves precision of algorithm implemented carrying on three measurements for each one at different positions. The results showed a variance of 0.00024 for orange tree leaves, 0.007 for lemon tree leaves, 0.008 for almond tree leaves and 0.001 for mango tree leaves, indicating precision of algorithm providing similar results when it was applied in different opportunities to one leaf. Therefore, the tool becomes a reliable technological support in process of detection leaf area allowing reducing long periods of time and subjectivity in process. Likewise, the repeatability in results were increased.

 Key words: Leaf area, growth rates, computational tool, image processing, morphological operations, coefficient of determination.


We consider the 2D Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice, as a model for a single layer graphene sheet in the presence of screened Coulomb interactions. At half filling and weak enough coupling, we compute the free energy, the ground state energy and we construct the correlation functions up to zero temperature in terms of convergent series; analiticity is proved by making use of constructive fermionic renormalization group methods. We show that the interaction produces a modification of the Fermi velocity and of the wave function renormalization without changing the asymptotic infrared properties of the model with respect to the unperturbed non-interacting case; this rules out the possibility of superconducting or magnetic instabilities in the ground state. We also prove that the correlations verify a Ward Identity similar to the one for massless Dirac fermions, up to asymptotically negligible corrections and a renormalization of the charge velocity.


Current advances in Earth-sensing technologies, physically-based modeling, and computational processing, offer the promise of a major revolution in hydrologic forecasting—with profound implications for the management of water resources and protection from related disasters. However, access to the necessary capabilities for managing information from heterogeneous sources, and for its deployment in robust-enough modeling engines, remains the province of large governmental agencies. Moreover, even within this type of centralized operations, success is still challenged by the sheer computational complexity associated with overcoming uncertainty in the estimation of parameters and initial conditions in large-scale or high-resolution models.

In this dissertation we seek to facilitate the access to hydrometeorological data products from various U.S. agencies and to advanced watershed modeling tools through the implementation of a lightweight GIS-based software package. Accessible data products currently include gauge, radar, and satellite precipitation; stream discharge; distributed soil moisture and snow cover; and multi-resolution weather forecasts. Additionally, we introduce a suite of open-source methods aimed at the efficient parameterization and initialization of complex geophysical models in contexts of high uncertainty, scarce information, and limited computational resources. The developed products in this suite include: 1) model calibration based on state of the art ensemble evolutionary Pareto optimization, 2) automatic parameter estimation boosted through the incorporation of expert criteria, 3) data assimilation that hybridizes particle smoothing and variational strategies, 4) model state compression by means of optimized clustering, 5) high-dimensional stochastic approximation of watershed conditions through a novel lightweight Gaussian graphical model, and 6) simultaneous estimation of model parameters and states for hydrologic forecasting applications.

Each of these methods was tested using established distributed physically-based hydrologic modeling engines (VIC and the DHSVM) that were applied to watersheds in the U.S. of different sizes—from a small highly-instrumented catchment in Pennsylvania, to the basin of the Blue River in Oklahoma. A series of experiments was able to demonstrate statistically-significant improvements in the predictive accuracy of the proposed methods in contrast with traditional approaches. Taken together, these accessible and efficient tools can therefore be integrated within various model-based workflows for complex operational applications in water resources and beyond.


Musical improvisation is one of the most complex forms of creative behavior, which offers a realistic task paradigm for the investigation of real-time creativity. Despite previous studies on the topics of musical improvisation, brain activations, and creativity, the main questions about the neural mechanisms for musical improvisation in efforts to unlocking the mystery of human creativity remain unanswered. What are the brain regions that are activated during the improvised performances of music? How do these brain areas coordinate activity among themselves and others during such performances? Whether and how does the brain connectivity structure encapsulate such creative skills? In attempts to contribute to answering these questions, this dissertation examines the brain activity dynamics during musical improvisation, explores white matter fiber architecture in advanced jazz improvisers using functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. A group of advanced jazz musicians underwent functional and structural magnetic resonance brain imaging. While the functional MRI (fMRI) of their brains were collected, these expert improvisers performed vocalization and imagery improvisation and pre-learned melody tasks. The activation and connectivity analysis of the fMRI data showed that musical improvisation is characterized by higher brain activity with less functional connectivity compared to pre-learned melody in the brain network consisting of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), supplementary motor area (SMA), lateral premotor cortex (lPMC), Cerebellum (Cb) and Broca's Area (BCA). SMA received a dominant causal information flow from dlPFC during improvisation and prelearned melody tasks. The deterministic fiber tractography analysis also revealed that the underlying white matter structure and fiber pathways in advanced jazz improvisers were enhanced in advanced jazz improvisers compared to the control group of nonmusicians, specifically the dlPFC SMA network. These results point to the notion that an expert's performance under realtime constraints is an internally directed behavior controlled primarily by a specific brain network, that has enhanced task-supportive structural connectivity. Overall, these findings suggest that a creative act of an expert is functionally controlled by a specific cortical network as in any internally directed attention and is encapsulated by the long-timescale brain structural network changes in support of the related cognitive underpinnings. INDEX WORDS: Brain Activity, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Diffusion Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DW-MRI), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD), Functional Connectivity (FC), Granger Causality (GC), Fiber Tractography, Deterministic Fiber Tracking, Fractional Anisotropy (FA), Quantitative Anisotropy (QA) BRAIN FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL NETWORKS UNDERPINNING MUSICAL CREATIVITY


Buckwheat (BF) and millet (MF) are recommended as healthy foods due to their unique chemical composition and health benefits. This study investigated the thermal and rheological properties of BF-WF (wheat flour) and MF-WF flour blends at various ratios (0:100 to 100:0). Increasing BF or MF concentration led to higher cold paste viscosity and setback viscosity of pasting properties gel adhesiveness, storage modulus (G') and loss modulus (G″) of dynamic oscillatory rheology, and yield stress (σ0 ) of flow curve of WF. BF and MF addition decreased peak viscosity and breakdown of pasting, gel hardness, swelling volume, and consistency coefficient (K) of flow curve of WF. Thermal properties of the blends appeared additive of that of individual flour. Nonadditive effects were observed for some property changes in the mixtures, and indicated interactions between flour components. This may provide a physicochemical basis for using BF and MF in formulating novel healthy products.


Nijkamp affirms the Utopians' claim of an open and flexible future, where development could imply surprising steps towards something better. Castells questions admonishingly whether planning approaches are changeable in a world that has already changed. Following Davidoff's indications of making urban life beautiful, exciting and creative, planners encounter "surprising steps" within the planning approaches of compact cities, new urbanism, new ruralism, smart growth, green urbanism, and so on. In responding to Castells' "multidimensional change in the spatial dimension", the imagination of planners is intercepted, angling them towards a multifunctional planning advent. This article reasons that a combination of the new urbanism, green urbanism and new ruralism may be a beneficial response to multifunctionality, especially as megatrends emphasise the need to abandon the pursuit of a predictable single future or outcome. It questions whether the reciprocal use of these planning approaches may induce multifunctional rural landscapes. The uniqueness of the inherently rural South African landscape also necessitates a rural emphasis in this article, questioning whether the reciprocal use of the three planning approaches in the recently planned rural village of Verkykerskop, acclaimed by the Charter for New Urbanism in 2012, generated multifunctional rural land use. Keywords : Green urbanism, multifunctionality, new ruralism, new urbanism, rural landscapes, urban design


Mesoscale variability of currents in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) can affect oceanic heat advection and air-sea heat exchanges, which can influence climate extremes over North America. This study is aimed at understanding the influence of the oceanic mesoscale variability on the lower atmosphere and air-sea heat exchanges. The study contrasts global climate model (GCM) with 0.1° ocean resolution (high resolution; HR) with its low-resolution counterpart (1° ocean resolution with the same 0.5° atmosphere resolution; LR). The LR simulation is relevant to current generation of GCMs that are still unable to resolve the oceanic mesoscale. Similar to observations, HR exhibits positive correlation between sea surface temperature (SST) and surface turbulent heat flux anomalies, while LR has negative correlation. For HR, we decompose lateral advective heat fluxes in the upper ocean into mean (slowly varying) and mesoscale-eddy (fast fluctuations) components. We find that the eddy flux divergence/convergence dominates the lateral advection and correlates well with the SST anomalies and air-sea latent heat exchanges. This result suggests that oceanic mesoscale advection supports warm SST anomalies that in turn feed surface heat flux. We identify anticyclonic warm-core circulation patterns (associated Loop Current and rings) which have an average diameter of ~350 km. These warm anomalies are sustained by eddy heat flux convergence at submonthly time scales and have an identifiable imprint on surface turbulent heat flux, atmospheric circulation, and convective precipitation in the northwest portion of an averaged anticyclone.


Risk bounds for Classification and Regression Trees (CART, Breiman et. al. 1984) classifiers are obtained under a margin condition in the binary supervised classification framework. These risk bounds are obtained conditionally on the construction of the maximal deep binary tree and permit to prove that the linear penalty used in the CART pruning algorithm is valid under a margin condition. It is also shown that, conditionally on the construction of the maximal tree, the final selection by test sample does not alter dramatically the estimation accuracy of the Bayes classifier. In the two-class classification framework, the risk bounds that are proved, obtained by using penalized model selection, validate the CART algorithm which is used in many data mining applications such as Biology, Medicine or Image Coding.


Over the past decades, fly Drosophila melanogaster has being used as a premier model organism to study molecular and genetic bases of circadian rhythms. Here the authors propose a multicellular heterogeneous model for which the network of Drosophila circadian oscillators consists of two groups, the self-sustained lateral neurons (LNs) communicating to each other and the damped dorsal neurons (DNs) receiving neurotransmitters only from the LNs without interaction within this group. By simulating different experimental conditions, the authors find that the proposed model, except for being capable of reproducing some known experimental results well, also can predict some interesting phenomena: 1) The DNs need neuronal projections from the LNs to be rhythmic and to synchronize; 2) the effect of communication on mean amplitude and mean period of two oscillatory groups is different; 3) communication delay can facilitate the network synchronization of the LNs; and 4) only the LNs lose rhythmicity under constant light conditions. These results reveal the mechanism of an integrated pacemaker that would govern behavioral and physiological rhythmicity of the model organism.


A Feynman-Kac type formula of relativistic Schr¨odinger operators with unbounded vector potential and spin 1 / 2 is given in terms of a three-component process con-sisting of Brownian motion, a Poisson process and a subordinator. This formula is obtained for unbounded magnetic fields and magnetic fields with zeros. From this formula an energy comparison inequality is derived. Spatial decay of bound states is established separately for growing and decaying potentials by using martingale methods.


Abstract. Heavy ice jams during spring floods are common on rivers in the northern European Russia. Climate changes of the last decades have caused significant changes in the ice regime of rivers. Continuous freezing periods, followed by sludge ice jams and late freezing at high water levels, occur with increasing frequency. Winter break-ups have become more frequent. The most recent catastrophic flood in the area under study took place in the spring of 2013. The probability of floods and ice jamming is evaluated; the duration and depth of inundation at various water levels are calculated with an assessment of the accompanying economic losses in the Northern Russia.


• Nitrogen (N) availability is known to influence ectomycorrhizal fungal components, such as fungal community composition, biomass of root tips and production of mycelia, but effects have never been demonstrated within the same forest. • We measured concurrently the abundance of ectomycorrhizal root tips and the production of external mycelia, and explored the changes in the ectomycorrhizal community composition, across a stand-scale N deposition gradient (from 27 to 43 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) at the edge of a spruce forest. The N status was affected along the gradient as shown by a range of N availability indices. • Ectomycorrhizal root tip abundance and mycelial production decreased five and 10-fold, respectively, with increasing N deposition. In addition, the ectomycorrhizal fungal community changed and the species richness decreased. The changes were correlated with the measured indices of N status, in particular N deposition and N leaching. • The relationship between the altered ectomycorrhizal community, root tip abundance and mycelial production is discussed in the context of the N parameters. We suggest that increased N deposition to forests will cause large changes in ectomycorrhizal fungal community structure and functioning, which, in turn, may result in reduced N uptake by roots and fungi, and increased losses of N by leaching.


ABSTRACT The results of experimental studies of thermal decomposition processes of mixed fuels based on 2B and 3B brow coals with addition of dispersed wood were conducted. Ratio of wood biomass (pine sawdust) varied from 10% to 50%. It was established that wood displaces the combustion process of mixed fuels in the region of low temperatures (relative to homogeneous coal). It was also determined that the presence of biomass leads to a significant reduction (up to 60% for coal/wood ratio of 50/50%) of the concentration of sulfur and nitrogen oxides in the gaseous products of 3B coal combustion. It also leads to changes in the content of these anthropogenic oxides in combustion products of fuel based on 2B coal (up to 40%). It was established by the results of technical analysis of the initial components and the group of researched mixed fuels that the yield of solid combustion products of the latter does not correspond to the numerical value of the ash content obtained as a result of calculations under the assumption that there is no mutual influence of combustion products of coal and wood on each other. A hypothesis was formulated on the mechanism of nitrogen and sulfur oxides suppression during combustion of such mixed fuels due to the effect of charcoal formed in low-temperature stages of thermal decomposition of wood in the absence of oxygen, which adsorbs a significant part of the sulfur and nitrogen compounds during combustion stage of the initial fuel.


Several passive cooling design techniques are known for reducing solar heat gain through building envelope in summer season. These include the use of phase change materials (PCM), which has received an increased attention over the last years, and the strategy of increasing the above-sheathing ventilation (ASV) in ventilated roofs. However, few studies combine both technologies to maximise the building resilience in hot season. The effect of including a PCM layer into a ventilated roof is numerically analysed here in two different configurations: firstly, laid on the roof deck (PCM1 case) and, secondly, suspended in the middle of the ASV channel (PCM2 case). A computational fluid dynamics model was implemented to simulate airflow and heat transfer around and through the building envelope, under 3 days of extreme hot conditions in summer with high temperatures and low wind speed. Results showed slight differences in terms of mean temperatures at the different roof layers, although temperature fluctuations at deck in the PCM1 case were smaller than half of those estimated for the benchmark case. However, PCM2 configuration achieved a daily reduction of about 10 Wh/m2 (18%) in building energy load with respect to the benchmark case, whilst PCM1 got only 4% due to the lower ventilation at night time. Therefore, a suspended PCM layer in the ASV channel would be a better measure in terms of energy performance than laid on the deck surface, although this last option significantly decreases thermal stress of the insulation layer.


The Pharmaceutical Industry in India is one of the largest and most advanced among the developing countries. The industry now produces bulk drugs belonging to all major therapeutic groups. India's pharmaceutical industry stands third in terms of volume in the world. Its rank is 14th in terms of value. According to the reports prepared by Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and IMS Health India, the Indian pharmaceutical market reached US$ 10.04 billion in size in July 2010. The Indian Pharma Industry is expected to grow annually at around 8 to 9 percent. The Indian pharmaceutical industry also needs to take advantage of the recent advances in biotechnology and information technology. The future of the industry will be determined by how well it markets its products to several regions and distributes risks, its forward and backward integration capabilities, its R&D, its consolidation through mergers and acquisitions, co-marketing and licensing agreements. According to a research done by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) the Indian pharmaceutical industry is expected to reach $20 billion by 2015, making it one of the world's top 10 pharmaceuticals markets. No doubt that the growth story of every sector or industry in any country is the reflection of investments done – both domestic as well as foreign. Hence, it is inevitable to have a look over the investment pattern in the pharmaceutical industry in India to study its growth story.


IMPORTANCE
Neocollagenesis can be achieved using a dermal rolling needle device, thereby reducing the appearance of acne scars.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the efficacy of a needling device for treatment of acne scars.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
We performed a single-center, rater-blinded, balanced (1:1), split-face, placebo-controlled, parallel-group randomized clinical trial at an urban academic institution. The study took place from November 30, 2009, through July 27, 2010. Twenty healthy adults (age range, 20-65 years) with acne scars on both sides of the face were enrolled. Fifteen individuals completed the study, and no enrolled participants were withdrawn for adverse effects.

INTERVENTIONS
For each participant, one side of the face was randomized for needling. Three needling treatments were performed at 2-week intervals.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Two blinded dermatologists separately rated participants' acne scars based on standard digital photographs obtained at baseline and at the 3-month and 6-month follow-up visits on the quantitative global scarring grading system.

RESULTS
Mean scar scores were significantly lower in the treatment group compared with baseline at 6 months (mean difference, 3.4; 95% CI, 0.2-6.5; P = .03) and nominally but not significantly lower compared with baseline at 3 months (mean difference, 2.4; 95% CI, -0.01 to 4.8; P = .052). In the control group, mean scar scores did not vary significantly from baseline at 3 months (mean difference, 1.0; 95% CI, -1.4 to 3.4; P = .96) and at 6 months (mean difference, 0.4; 95% CI, -2.3 to 3.5; P > .99). The needling procedure was not particularly painful, with a mean pain rating of 1.08 of 10. Participants perceived a 41% mean improvement in overall scar appearance on the treated side. No adverse events were reported.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
After 3 needling treatments, there was improvement in the appearance of acne scars over time compared with the control group, with minimal pain reported.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00974870.


Abstract Objective: To investigate the effects of raloxifene on the insulin sensitivity and lipid profile in insulin-sensitive and insulin-resistant postmenopausal women. Study design: This placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study involved 64 postmenopausal women aged between 45 and 55 years. All subjects were screened with the insulin resistance homeostasis model assessment (IR-HOMA) and those patients in the lowest quartile (n = 16) were assigned as insulin sensitive and those in the highest quartile as insulin resistant (n = 16). Patients in both groups received either raloxifene hydrochloride (60 mg/day) or a placebo for a period of 12 weeks. Insulin sensitivity, the serum lipid profile and anthropometric measurements were established before and after therapy. Results: Women with the highest IR-HOMA scores were associated with a significantly higher weight, body mass index, waist and waist-to-hip ratio (p < 0.05). Raloxifene significantly reduced the IR-HOMA scores from 5.76 ± 2.91 to 1.93 ± 0.96 (p = 0.02) and modified the lipid profile in insulin-resistant patients when compared with the placebo group and those patients receiving raloxifene in the insulin-sensitive group. Conclusion: Raloxifene reduced insulin resistance and modified the lipid profile in insulin-resistant postmenopausal women.


Summary
Increasingly, type 2 diabetes mellitus is being linked to metabolic abnormalities within the liver and pancreas, associated with fat deposition and oxidative stress. Cocoa and chocolate have been seen to improve oxidative stress and enhance insulin sensitivity. Recent in vitro and animal model studies have begun to investigate the potential of cocoa and cocoa extracts in modulating fatty liver and pancreatic function. Evidence from these studies has highlighted a number of mechanisms, which facilitate insulin secretion and enhanced survival in pancreatic beta cells. Whilst in liver, improved effect of insulin was observed with some improvements in fatty infiltration. However, what was seen as a common effect was an increase in endogenous antioxidant capability. The potential of cocoa products in the management of fatty liver and supporting pancreatic function in humans is likely to be limited by their macronutrient and energy profile or palatability, unless taken as cocoa extract supplements.


The objective of this article is to examine the impact of growth in different production sectors on the distribution of income across ethnic groups in Malaysia. A multiplier decomposition technique for a socio-economic system, represented by a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), is used to analyze the impacts. Results show that growth in all production sectors tends to increase inter-ethnic income inequality, in particular for households in rural areas. Income inequality can be explained by differences in the payments per employed household across production sectors.


IZA DP No. 14208 MARCH 2021 Collective Bargaining Rights, Policing, and Civilian Deaths* Do collective bargaining rights for law enforcement result in more civilian deaths at the hands of the police? Using an event-study design, we find that the introduction of duty to bargain requirements with police unions has led to a significant increase in non-white civilian deaths at the hands of police during the late twentieth century. We find no impact on various crime rate measures and suggestive evidence of a decline in police employment, consistent with increasing compensation. Our results indicate that the adoption of collective bargaining rights for law enforcement can explain approximately 10 percent of the total non-white civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement between 1959 and 1988. This effect is robust to a contiguous county approach, accounting for heterogeneity in treatment timing, and numerous other specifications. While the relationship between police unions and violence against civilians is not clear ex-ante, our results show that the popular notion that police unions exacerbate police violence is empirically grounded. JEL Classification: J15, K42, J45, J58, N3


Authenticating a user in the right way is essential to IT systems, where the risks are becoming more and more complex. Especially in the mobile world, banking applications are among the most delicate systems requiring strict rules and regulations. Existing approaches often require point-of-entry authentication accompanied by a one-time password as a second-factor authentication. However, this requires active participation of the user and there is continuous authentication during a session. In this paper, we investigate whether it is possible to continuously authenticate users via behavioral biometrics with a certain performance on a mobile banking application. A currently used mobile banking application in Turkey is chosen as the case, and we developed a continuous authentication scheme, named DAKOTA, on top of this application. The DAKOTA system records data from the touch screen and the motion sensors on the phone to monitor and model the user's behavioral patterns. Forty-five participants completed the predefined banking transactions. This data is used to train seven different classification algorithms. The results reveal that binary-SVM with RBF kernel reaches the lowest error scores, 3.5% equal error rate (EER). Using the end-to-end DAKOTA system, we investigate the performance in real-time, both in terms of authentication accuracy and resource usage. We show that it does not bring extra overhead in terms of power and memory usage compared to the original banking application and we can achieve a 90% true positive recognition rate, on average.


Providing large-scale true video-on-demand (VoD) service is a challenging problem over the Internet. Some characteristics of the Internet, such as packet switching, best effort mechanism, make it difficult to provide VoD services with enough Quality of Service (QoS) assurance. In this paper, we propose a VoD service model that uses a content delivery network approach on backbone and a peer-to-peer (p2p) approach on access over the China's high performance broadband information network (named 3Tnet). We discuss the feasibility of our approach and evaluate the performance by using simulation. The results show that our proposed service model can support true VoD service on the 3Tnet in a scalable way.


Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star υ Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around υ Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (~2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13°. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19°. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.


Among the great diversity of atmospheric circulation patterns observed throughout the solar system, polar vortices stand out as a nearly ubiquitous planetary‐scale phenomenon. In recent years, there have been significant advances in the observation of planetary polar vortices, culminating in the fascinating discovery of Jupiter's polar vortex clusters during the Juno mission. Alongside these observational advances has been a major effort to understand polar vortex dynamics using theory, idealized and comprehensive numerical models, and laboratory experiments. Here, we review our current knowledge of planetary polar vortices, highlighting both the diversity of their structures, as well as fundamental dynamical similarities. We propose a new convention of vortex classification, which adequately captures all those observed in our solar system, and demonstrates the key role of polar vortices in the global circulation, transport, and climate of all planets. We discuss where knowledge gaps remain, and the observational, experimental, and theoretical advances needed to address them. In particular, as the diversity of both solar system and exoplanetary data increases exponentially, there is now a unique opportunity to unify our understanding of polar vortices under a single dynamical framework.


Recent observations of the gamma-ray source HAWC J2227+610 by Tibet AS+MD and LHAASO confirm the special interest of this source as a galactic PeVatron candidate in the northern hemisphere. HAWC J2227+610 emits Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-rays up to 500 TeV, from a region coincident with molecular clouds and significantly displaced from the nearby pulsar J2229+6114. Even if this morphology favours an hadronic origin, both leptonic or hadronic models can describe the current VHE gamma-ray emission. The morphology of the source is not well constrained by the present measurements and a better characterisation would greatly help the understanding of the underlying particle acceleration mechanisms. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the future most sensitive Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope and, thanks to its unprecedented angular resolution, could contribute to better constrain the nature of this source. The present work investigates the potentiality of CTA to study the morphology and the spectrum of HAWC J2227+610. For this aim, the source is simulated assuming the hadronic model proposed by the Tibet AS+MD collaboration, recently fitted on multi-wavelength data, and two spatial templates associated to the source nearby molecular clouds. Different CTA layouts and observation times are considered. A 3D map based analysis shows that CTA is able to significantly detect the extension of the source and to attribute higher detection significance to the simulated molecular cloud template compared to the alternative one. CTA data does not allow to disentangle the hadronic and the leptonic emission models. However, it permits to correctly reproduce the simulated parent proton spectrum characterized by a $\sim$ 500 TeV cutoff.


The studies summarized herein were conducted during 2009–2014 to investigate the utility of the Knox Group and St. Peter Sandstone deeply buried geologic strata for underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), a practice called CO2 sequestration (CCS). In the subsurface of the midwestern United States, the Knox and associated strata extend continuously over an area approaching 500,000 sq. km, about three times as large as the State of Illinois. Although parts of this region are underlain by the deeper Mt. Simon Sandstone, which has been proven by other Department of Energy-funded research as a resource for CCS, the Knox strata may be an additional CCS resource for some parts of the Midwest and may be the sole geologic storage (GS) resource for other parts. One group of studies assembles, analyzes, and presents regional-scale and point-scale geologic information that bears on the suitability of the geologic formations of the Knox for a CCS project. New geologic and geo-engineering information was developed through a small-scale test of CO2 injection into a part of the Knox, conducted in western Kentucky. These studies and tests establish the expectation that, at least in some locations, geologic formations within the Knox will (a) accept a commercial-scale flow rate more » of CO2 injected through a drilled well; (b) hold a commercial-scale mass of CO2 (at least 30 million tons) that is injected over decades; and (c) seal the injected CO2 within the injection formations for hundreds to thousands of years. In CCS literature, these three key CCS-related attributes are called injectivity, capacity, and containment. The regional-scale studies show that reservoir and seal properties adequate for commercial-scale CCS in a Knox reservoir are likely to extend generally throughout the Illinois and Michigan Basins. Information distinguishing less prospective subregions from more prospective fairways is included in this report. Another group of studies report the results of reservoir flow simulations that estimate the progress and outcomes of hypothetical CCS projects carried out within the Knox (particularly within the Potosi Dolomite subunit, which, in places, is highly permeable) and within the overlying St. Peter Sandstone. In these studies, the regional-scale information and a limited amount of detailed data from specific boreholes is used as the basis for modeling the CO2 injection process (dynamic modeling). The simulation studies were conducted progressively, with each successive study designed to refine the conclusions of the preceding one or to answer additional questions. The simulation studies conclude that at Decatur, Illinois or a geologically similar site, the Potosi Dolomite reservoir may provide adequate injectivity and capacity for commercial-scale injection through a single injection well. This conclusion depends on inferences from seismic-data attributes that certain highly permeable horizons observed in the wells represent laterally persistent, porous vuggy zones that are vertically more common than initially evident from wellbore data. Lateral persistence of vuggy zones is supported by isotopic evidence that the conditions that caused vug development (near-surface processes) were of regional rather than local scale. Other studies address aspects of executing and managing a CCS project that targets a Knox reservoir. These studies cover well drilling, public interactions, representation of datasets and conclusions using geographic information system (GIS) platforms, and risk management. « less


ABSTRACT The rise of the BJP in national and state politics is often associated with a representation skewed toward traditional elite groups and the marginalisation of groups associated with other parties, such as minorities and various dominant OBC groups. This article examines the transformation of the sociological composition of the Lok Sabha over time and seeks to assess its elitist character, by providing descriptive statistics on five socio-demographic and economic variables: caste, religion, gender, dynasticism, wealth and occupation. Data suggests that political representation in India has by and large always been skewed toward the elites, but the composition of these elites has changed over time. For instance, the recent surge in the representation of the upper caste in the Lok Sabha pre-dates the rise of the BJP in 2014, and the marginalisation of minorities and women is a long-standing phenomenon. Since 2014 however, the BJP has contributed to enhancing a particular form of elite – those rooted in local and regional business networks.


Unmanned aerial vehicles allow rapidly deploying a multihop communication backbone in challenging environments with applications in public safety, search and rescue missions, crowd surveillance, and disaster area monitoring. Due to environmental obstructions in the above scenarios or intentional jamming, the communication links between peer unmanned aerial vehicless are susceptible to outages. This necessitates resiliency measures to be closely integrated into the network design. To address the needs of efficient and robust end-to-end data relaying, we propose an aerial network management protocol built on top of an SDN architecture. Unique to our design, each unmanned aerial vehicle becomes an SDN switch that performs under directives sent by a centralized controller. Using a novel 3D spatial coverage-related metric, the controller calculates diverse multiple paths among unmanned aerial vehicles so that isolated and localized failures do not interrupt the overall network performance. The controller issues directives to the unmanned aerial vehicle switches through flow entries in Openflow v1.5 protocol for immediate and effective switching to the best available path. Results reveal that the proposed multi-path routing algorithm reduces the average end-to-end outage rate by 18 percent while increasing the average endto- end delay by 12 percent when compared to the traditional multi-path routing algorithms.


ABSTRACT In 1996, Guatemala's Peace Accords were signed, concluding 36 years of war and genocide. However, persisting violence, including violences against women (VAW) and criminalisation of human rights defenders protesting inequalities provoked by postwar extractivism, threatens the democracy promised through formal peace. Specifically, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) play key roles in these struggles, which this paper explores. Drawing on ten months of qualitative fieldwork in Maya Q'eqchi' communities in the Northern Transversal Strip (FTN) region, I ask: what roles do WHRDs play in resolving VAW and in challenging gendered and environmental injustices? Secondly, what political and collective strategies are drawn on by WHRDs; what challenges do they face; and what movements and processes do they engage in, to envision a better future? This paper foregrounds the intersections of municipal political spaces and a constellation of postwar women's rights legal frameworks, including a 2008 Law on Femicide criminalising all forms of VAW as central to WHRDs' mobilisations. I explore how locally elected members of consejos de mujeres (women's councils) and municipal oficinas de la mujer (women's offices) offer important spaces for WHRDs to organise collectively. I also highlight connections between WHRDs' struggles against VAW, extractivism, and environmental devastation in the FTN. Simultaneously, I identify several 'roadblocks' to WHRDs' engagement in these spaces and the dangers and criminalisation they face. Ultimately, such 'roadblocks' contribute to a vernacularisation of women's rights in the FTN, which instrumentalises and empowers the language of rights for WHRDs' struggles.


Talk delivered at the 1st Workshop on CRIS, CERIF and Institutional Repositories, Module 1: "The intersection of data models and metadata concerning IR and CRIS".-- 34 slides


Arthur D. Little and the Leipzig Graduate School of Management recently undertook a cross-industry benchmarking study to identify the key levers to achieving marketing and sales excellence. Over the last 2 years companies have focused on cutting costs/downsizing and fueling idle production capacity, often entailing price reductions or extended payment terms. Now, with the first signs of an economic recovery (with Asia as growth driver), executives need to 'gear up' to be able to take advantage of the increasing opportunities now presented, albeit at significantly reduced pre-crisis levels. The study finds that the engineering, manufacturing, and high-tech sectors have huge untapped potential for improving their performance across all categories that contribute to excellence in marketing and sales.


Solar energy in Jordan is recognized high amongst in the world. The solar energy cultivation needs to be magnified by optimizing the angle of inclination of solar cells. The angle of inclination in this work is not fixed but variable throughout the year, and consequently the angle is optimized for seasons. In this research, the optimized angles for seasons in Jordan are obtained as: 60? for Winter (November to February), 30? for Spring (March and April), 10? for Summer (May to August), and 30? for Fall (September and October). The optimized cultivated energy throughout all seasons in the year equals about 2490 kWh/m2. The residential customer consumption of electricity is 2475 kWh/customer per year. Therefore, according to Jordan, if the sun energy is converted efficiently to electricity, it will be worthy to apply for residential building for which each customer should have some area of solar cells to overcome the needs of energy. In addition, with some wise management of electricity in the daylight period, fossil fuel consumption will be minimized. Hence, combining solar energy concept in the design of building is an important step in sustainable development of green energy.


Morphological and Molecular based Characterization of different Thermo-sensitive Genetic Male Sterile (TGMS) lines in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Pardeep Kumar*, Nautiyal MK, Pankaj.
The present investigation was carried out at the Norman E. Borlaug Crop Research Center of Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand (India) during 2013 and 2014. The eighteen TGMS lines were characterized based on molecular and morphological data. Result on morphological and molecular characterization of TGMS lines showed that, not a single line was observed good for all the traits, different lines good for different traits. Among the eighteen TGMS lines ten lines viz, TGMS-2, TGMS-3, TGMS-4, TGMS-5, TGMS-7, TGMS-8, TGMS-10, TGMS-11, TGMS-14 and TGMS-15 showed complete sterility at average temperature 28.53 to 28.92°C. Based on the molecular genetic diversity data indicated that total of 47 alleles were amplified using sixteen SSR markers in the present study of eighteen TGMS lines all were found polymorphic except for one marker. The range of alleles was 2 - 5, while the average number of alleles per primer was 2.93 and thirteen rare alleles found in different lines. The polymorphic information content (PIC) for these sixteen SSR markers ranged from 0.1780 to 0.3750 with mean value 0.2543. The range of Jaccard's similarity coefficient was found to vary from 0.46 (TGMS-7 and TGMS-16) to 0.97 (TGMS-11 and TGMS-12). The UPGMA based dendogram constructed using Jaccard's similarity coefficient of SSR marker data divided eighteen lines into three clusters. Association study between the banding pattern of different markers and spikeletes fertility/sterility of TGMS lines showed that four lines out of eighteen were fertile. These fertile lines separated to other sterile lines by three markers with unique bands. TGMS-6 and TGMS- 9 showed 200bp specific band by RM 324 marker, TGMS-1 and TGMS-18 showed 180bp and 200bp unique bands and in TGMS-1 also showed 180bp unique band with RM 254 marker, it indicated that the unique bands 180bp and 200bp generated by different markers in different lines responsible for fertility. This molecular diversity analysis may be useful for identification of TGMS lines or may be used for marker assisted selection (MAS) for two line hybrid development.


A new survey by the American Hospital Association finds ambulatory care professionals earning higher pay raises than they did three years ago. Among the factors in ambulatory care professionals' raises: the sizes of the budgets for which they are responsible, their job titles and their academic training.


Microparticles released by fat-laden hepatocytes stimulate angiogenesis and contribute to the progression of fatty liver disease. This Podcast features an interview with Ariel Feldstein, senior author of a Research Article that appears in the 8 October 2013 issue of Science Signaling on a mechanism by which fat-loaded liver cells contribute to the progression of fatty liver disease. Hepatic steatosis is the process by which fats accumulate in large vacuoles inside liver cells and may result from alcoholism, metabolic disorders, or obesity. Hepatic steatosis may progress to steatohepatitis, which is commonly referred to as fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease is characterized not only by the presence of lipid droplets in liver cells but also by inflammation and scarring of the liver and neovascularization in the liver. Povero et al. report that fat-laden liver cells release microparticles that stimulate angiogenesis, thus contributing to the neovascularization that accompanies the progression of hepatic steatosis to full-blown fatty liver disease.


The present study provides an empirical test of international relations image theory and extends the theory by emphasizing that individuals' social identity and social dominance motives contribute to such images. One hundred forty-five Lebanese participants completed a survey that assessed their perceptions of U.S.-Lebanese relations, the images they have of the United States, their social identities, and their social dominance orientations. Participants were more likely to hold the barbarian image of the United States than the enemy, imperialist, or ally images. Participants also tended to perceive the United States as having relatively superior power, inferior cultural status, and goals that are incompatible with those of Lebanon. Consistent with image theory predictions, this constellation of structural perceptions was associated with stronger endorsement of the barbarian image. Furthermore, participants were more likely to endorse the barbarian image of the United States the more they identified with Arabs and Palestinians, the less they identified with Christians and the Western world, and the lower their social dominance orientation. Results highlight the importance of considering both structural characteristics and individual motives underlying international images and demonstrate the need for scholars to move beyond the enemy image of nations when describing international relations.


Over recent years James Dunkerley has established a reputation as one of the most thoughtful and eloquent writers on Latin America. In his latest book he investigates the high incidence of political suicide in the subcontinent. A sensitive and revealing essay details a number of case studies: the still disputed death of Chilean President Salvador Allende during Pinochet's storming of the Moneda Palace in 1973; the case of the Salvadorean guerrilla leader Salvador Cayetano Carpio who shot himself in the heart in April 1983; the death of Brazilian President Getulio Vargas, who declared in April 1954 that he would only leave the presidential palace dead - and a few days later did so; Bolivian President German Busch, who died at his own hand aged thirty-five in 1939; and the dramatic end of Eduardo Chibas, founder of the Cuban People's Party, who shot himself live on Havana radio in 1951. in the pieces which follow, Dunkerley employs his customary acuity to range over the implications of the Sandinista defeat in Nicaragua, the plight of El Salvador, the modern history of Bolivia, the experience of postwar Guatemala and, in a coruscating broadside, the politics of the Peruvian novelist and the presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa.


Retaining rings in a generator are used to constrain the centrifugal force of the field winding end turns. A conventional retaining ring may cause a high pressure drop at the stator-rotor gap entrance and thus result in a large windage loss. The present work relates to the design of a retaining ring with a spline profile near its inboard end to thereby improve the axial cooling flow fluidity and enhance generator cooling efficiency. By altering the outer profile of the retaining ring, it has been found that approximately 30–60% of the pressure drop across the stator-rotor gap entrance can be reduced. As a result, the overall generator efficiency may increase about 0.005–0.01%.Copyright © 2002 by ASME


Power relations are a major concern in participatory design (PD). We explore how power relations are played out in a commercial collaborative design project that has not been influenced by PD techniques or interests. The case reconfirms many of the underlying principles of PD in handling power. At the same time, our Foucault-inspired analysis of the contextual dynamics and hidden power structures in user practices suggests certain extensions and improvements to the analysis of power relationships in PD projects.


Water extracted from fluid inclusions in quartz from shallow epithermal ore deposits often has a hydrogen isotope composition (delta D) different from that of water extracted from inclusions in associated minerals. This difference is usually attributed to the involvement of primary fluids from multiple sources. Isotopic and homogenization and freezing temperature determinations on fluid inclusions from contemporaneous quartz and sphalerite from the epithermal, silver and base metal orebodies of the OH vein, Creede district, Colorado, suggest an alternative explanation. In near-surface deposits, differences between delta D (sub H 2 O) of inclusion fluids in ore minerals and quartz may result, instead, from contamination during extraction of the fluids contained in primary inclusions by shallow ground water trapped in pseudosecondary inclusions in quartz.Quartz from the OH vein contains two principal petrographically distinct populations of fluid inclusions: primary and pseudosecondary. The primary inclusions have salinities ranging from 5 to 10 equiv wt percent NaCl, and the salinities of pseudosecondary inclusions cluster between 0 and 1 percent. Primary inclusions in quartz from one locality have a measured delta D (sub H 2 O) value of -69 per mil, while pseudosecondary inclusions at the same locality have a delta D (sub H 2 O) value of -102 per mil. Both salinity and isotopic values for primary inclusions in quartz are similar to those for primary inclusions in contemporaneous sphalerite. Homogenization temperatures for primary and pseudosecondary inclusions in quartz range from 191 degrees to 280 degrees C and from 199 degrees to 278 degrees C, respectively. The delta D (sub H 2 O) value measured on fluid inclusions from bulk crystals ranges between -97 and -85 per mil and represents a mixture of fluids from both primary and pseudosecondary inclusions.We interpret the data to indicate that one or more episodes of abrupt incursion of cooler, overlying ground water into the ore zone caused thermal cracking of the quartz crystals during the time interval of mineralization. Subsequent healing of the fractures trapped heated, low-salinity ground water in pseudosecondary inclusions. The abrupt incursions of overlying ground water are speculated to have resulted from either collapse of a transient vapor-dominated region of the ore zone, or catastrophic venting of the system through hydrothermal eruption(s).The unusually high contrast between the salinities of the ore-depositing fluids and the ground water overlying the ore zone allowed recognition of this phenomenon at Creede. It is likely, however, that Creede is not unique. Similar phenomena may be common in shallow ore zones where rapid fluctuation of an interface between a deep, high-temperature thermal plume and an overlying, cooler ground water may be expected to occur. Careful study of the origins of fluid inclusions, particularly in quartz, is essential to characterize the primary ore fluids and to assess the role of ground water in the hydrology of shallow ore deposits.


: Six pediatric patients with Niemann-Pick disease are reported. They have been studied at Hepatology Unit HI "La Paz" (Madrid) in the period of time between 1975-1988. They are one case of type A, one case of type B and four cases of type C. This group of pediatric patients serve us to make a revision of the disease attending to clinical and biochemical classification aspects, diagnosis and treatment. We insist on two aspects: 1) greater importance of enzymatic diagnose for the "Niemann-Pick complex", in view of the overlapping of clinical symptoms, 2) bone-marrow transplantation as therapeutic alternative and its indications.


Maliciously-overwritten function pointers in C programs often lead to arbitrary code execution. In principle, forward CFI schemes mitigate this problem by restricting indirect function calls to valid call targets only. However, existing forward CFI schemes either depend on specific hardware capabilities, or are too permissive (weakening security guarantees) or too strict (breaking compatibility). We present TyPro, a Clang-based forward CFI scheme based on type propagation. TyPro uses static analysis to follow function pointer types through C programs, and can determine the possible target functions for indirect calls at compile time with high precision. TyPro does not underestimate possible targets and does not break real-world programs, including those relying on dynamically-loaded code. TyPro has no runtime overhead on average and does not depend on architecture or special hardware features.


The students who are taught Greek as a second or foreigner language are in many cases expected to face two educational processes simultaneously. They have to learn the language as well as all the school subjects taught in this language: history, geography, religion, physics etc Compared to their schoolmates, who are functioning in the familiar environment of their mother language, these students should make double the effort and work twice as hard in order to keep pace with the rest of the class. A lot of different pedagogic approaches have been applied over the years in order to facilitate the learning of a second language in the elementary schools around the world. The experts in the field of education support that the teachers should find suitable motives in order to mobilise their students' potentials so that their academic objectives are achieved. Based on the reality that the children today are surrounded by numerous high technology media and that the fashionable computer games can be particularly addictive, the teachers can borrow from the industry of entertainment and create pleasant and effective conditions of teaching. In the attractive environment of the "virtual class" and with the suitable "mind tool" accessible to the students, so much the learning of a second language as well as the learning of the subjects taught in this language can be promoted successfully. Moreover, the Greek school teachers that travel in many different countries in order to teach the Greek language to the children of immigrants, can surely benefit from such educational software and facilitate their mission by participating in the "school-twinning" networks of the world. After briefly reviewing the psychological theories of language learning and acquisition, we will discuss the possibilities and weaknesses of using certain technical systems in the classroom for the conquest of a second language. Our main hypothesis is that the learning and the usage of the Greek language presupposes real activities in a Greek linguistic environment and that the systems of technology and information have the possibility of creating such an environment that will strengthen the learning. The presentation will try to address the issues generated above.


This paper tried to discuss response of local government facing governance era. Governance is intended to introduce a variety of residents' participating systems to revive the citizen's society and strengthen the foundation for that purpose, thus seeking the paradigm for decentralized operation of the nation. As widely accepted, governance has many meanings connected with controling method of interdependence activity. However bureaucracy do not make decisions as one-side and vertical like past but is form of public decisions that stakeholder in policy. Firstly, we reviewed the terms of governance and policy issues and policies on governance. And also survey on actual performer associated with governance in Gumi. Next, proposals of the development of policy in governance, role of local government are made in terms of construction of governance.


The effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatments has been widely demonstrated and confirmed by many studies in recent decades. The research focused on the factors of change influencing the positive outcomes of a psychotherapy, putting those that are crucial in cases of failure into the background. The dimensions of this phenomenon are relevant as well as the side effects of the psychotherapeutic interventions that reach the same percentages of the pharmacotherapeutic treatments. The study of the variables involved in failure cases therefore seems important to prevent or moderate the negative effects of treatments with a negative outcome. Impasse and deadlock situations, which may result in an early interruption of psychotherapy, are often complex and involve situational, relational, and personal factors at different levels and with different weight. A research was conducted, with a mixed approach, aimed at exploring the situational factors involved in dropout cases. In addition, the evaluation of the psychotherapist's emotional responses related to patients who terminated psychotherapy prematurely was investigated. The study was attended by a sample of 29 psychologists, experienced psychotherapists from different frameworks. Recent or salient cases of a hesitated psychotherapy with an early interruption were examined. For the first objective, a structured interview (Impasse Interview) was used, while the second one was reached by the administration of the TRQ (Therapist Response Questionnaire). The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed through a textual analysis software and five salient thematic clusters were identified. These were then assimilated to different areas of meaning: severity of the diagnosis, procedural aspects and lack of understanding of the stall in progress. Two other important themes emerged: the critical aspects concerning relational dynamics and a focus on maternal theme. Overall these five thematic areas seem to play an important and specific role compared to dropout cases. Finally, statistical analysis on emotional responses have highlighted some values above the average in these four countertransference factors: Helpless/Inadequate, Parental/Protective, Positive/Satisfied, and Overwhelmed/Disorganized. It is hypothesized that particular emotional responses of the psychotherapist may be prognostic with respect to the outcome of psychotherapy.


In the light of the exciting recent developments in the detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the breath of cystic fibrosis patients by measuring exhaled HCN, an in vitro study has been conducted to identify and quantify the volatile compounds emitted into the gas phase by other respiratory pathogens. Selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) was used to investigate clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP), and Haemophilus influenzae (HI). Six volatile compounds, mainly alcohols, ketones and aldehydes, were found to be elevated in the headspace of SA cultures and eight were elevated in the SP cultures. It is clear from the mass spectra that a number of other compounds were present at low levels that, as yet, cannot be identified by SIFT-MS alone. Only indole and ethanol were somewhat elevated in the headspace of some of the HI cultures. Principal component analyses (PCA) indicated that the SA cultures clearly separated into two distinct groups in terms of their volatile compound emissions. This may relate to genetic or phenotypic differences. It is postulated that the very efficient production of ethanol and acetaldehyde by SA and SP may provide indicators of airways infection by these bacteria if the levels of these compounds are elevated in exhaled breath above those levels expected due to their normal endogenously produced levels. Plans are in place to check this postulate by breath analysis studies involving patients with pulmonary infections with these organisms.


A novel immunosensor based on porous silicon (PSi) for antigen detection was reported in this paper. The antigen (SpaA) and the specificity of the antibodies are employed as the target and the probe in our laboratory, respectively. The immunosensor structure was prepared using bioconjungation. After the antigen-antibody reaction, the red shift of the reflection spectrum of the immunosensor increases in proportion to the concentration of SpaA. The sensitivity of this immunosensor is 41nm/ µg•ml-1 and the detection limit is 2.44×102pg•ml-1, they are better compared with our previous work by using this method. Controlled experiments were also presented with non-immune antibody and the results show that this immunosensor possesses high specificity.


Fixed costs play a crucial role in current models of foreign direct investment (FDI), yet they are almost entirely ignored in empirical treatments of FDI. We fill this gap by using a 1989–2001 panel of FDI flows into Iceland to examine the determinants of fixed costs for multinational firms and how these influence aggregate patterns of investment. Our additions to research in the field include usage of several natural-resource variables, and the analysis of data on initial entry of FDI into a developed country. We use the Heckman two-step procedure, which allows us to account for fixed costs and their impact on estimation. Taken together, we find that the standard OLS approach to the data incorrectly links the quantity of FDI to source-country variables while in fact most of their role is in determining whether FDI takes place at all.


Abstract The creation of Intreo as a one-stop shop for jobseekers in Ireland occurred during the financial and sovereign debt crisis period of 2010–16. The organisational merger was the product of an extensive programme of successful administrative reorganisation and service integration that deserves attention. This article begins with an overview of the policy to merge insurance-based unemployment benefit, discretionary social welfare payments and labour market activation measures, as well as the various political and institutional rationales that led to this development. Drawing on the special issue framework concerning how the interaction of ideology, institutions and interests comes into play during policy change, we consider the contextual factors that facilitated the rapid implementation of the programme and its overall successful execution. Whilst focusing on the success, we also critically point out the inhibitors in the implementation chain, some of which predated the crisis, as well as problems during the implementation process, such as delays in the national rollout and back-office supports. We identify the main contributing factors for successful implementation of a one-stop shop for activation and unemployment services as (a) a high problem pressure, (b) a small and agile implementation team, (c) changing labour relations (e.g. binding arbitration, weakened unions) and (d) a modern communication strategy.


Research in political ecology and agrarian political economy has shown how commodity frontiers are constituted through the appropriation and transformation of nature. This work identifies two broad processes of socio-metabolism associated with commodity frontiers: the spatial extension of nature appropriation, via expanding territorial claims to the control and use of natural resources and associated acts of dispossession (commodity-widening); and the intensification of appropriation at existing sites, through socio-technical innovation and the growing capitalisation of production (commodity-deepening). While sympathetic, we have reservations about reducing frontier metabolism to either one or the other of these processes. We argue for more grounded examinations of how non-human nature is actively reconstituted at commodity frontiers, attuned to the diverse and specific ways in which socio-ecological processes are harnessed to dynamics of accumulation. To achieve this, we compare strategies of appropriation in three sectors often associated with the commodity frontier: gold mining, tree plantations and intensive aquaculture. In doing so, we bring research on capitalism as an ecological regime into conversation with work on the industrial dynamics of 'nature-facing' sectors. By harnessing the analytical categories of time, space and form adopted by research on industrial dynamics, we (i) show how strategies of commodity-widening and commodity-deepening are shaped in significant ways by the biophysical characteristics of these sectors; and (ii) identify a third strategy, beyond commodity-widening and commodity-deepening, that involves the active reconstitution of socio-ecological systems – we term this 'commodity-transformation'.


Digital filtering is an integral part of many digital signal processing algorithms. Digital filters are characterized as either recursive [infinite impulse response (IIR)] or non-recursive [finite impulse response (FIR)] filters. IIR filters require a lower order for the same set of specifications compared to FIR filters, while FIR filters provide a linear phase property. However, IIR filters, if not designed properly, tend to be unstable and use coefficients that are difficult to implement. This application report describes the design of a certain type of IIR digital filter with excellent stability properties, known as a Lattice Wave Digital Filter (LWDF), given a set of analog filter specifications. An elementary knowledge of filters is sufficient to understand the design of LWDF as discussed in this report. The complete design of the basic filters (lowpass, high-pass, and band-pass) is given with examples. The code provided in this application report implements these LWDFs on the MSP430TM CPU. Project collateral discussed in this application report can be downloaded from the following URL: www.ti.com/lit/SLAA331.


Introduction Rabies is a fatal disease with a 91% mortality rate in the United States. Current treatment of rabies consists of post-exposure prophylaxis treatment involving a complicated vaccination regimen. Studies conducted in other countries have found that patients do not complete their rabies vaccination treatment due to forgetting about their treatment, lack of time for visits, and the financial burden of treatment. However, little is known about why patients do not complete the rabies series in the US. The objective of this study was to determine the reasons why patients in the US do not complete rabies treatment. Methods We performed a retrospective study to evaluate rabies post-exposure prophylaxis completion in the emergency department of an academic suburban hospital between June 2014– July 2017. Further review was performed for patients who received inadequate vaccination to determine the cause of treatment incompletion. We conducted additional follow-up by phone survey for those patients who did not complete their rabies treatment but had no explanation for discontinuation available in the medical chart review. Results Results indicated 198 patients received rabies post-exposure treatment during the inclusion period. Of these, 145 patients completed the rabies vaccination regimen. Reasons for treatment incompletion were found for 29 patients, and 24 patients were lost to follow-up. Of the 29 patients for which discontinuation was assessed, 23 patients (79.3%) stopped treatment due to appropriate reasons – either the animal involved tested negative for the rabies virus or the patient had prior rabies treatment and only required two booster shots. Reasons for not completing the series when medically indicated included the patient deciding to not return for treatment, lack of awareness of the full vaccination regimen, and the patient declining initiation of rabies vaccination. Conclusion Most patients in the US discontinue their rabies vaccination treatment for appropriate reasons; however, there is a proportion of patients who discontinue rabies vaccination when further treatment is medically indicated. This subset of patients is particularly at risk of rabies-related mortality, and additional measures need to be taken to ensure increased treatment compliance.


"Art promotion in New Europe: towards cultural integration. Cases o£ Poland and the Czech Republic" examines the situation in the cultural sector o£ these countries in the post 1989 era. A comparison o£ Poland and the Czech Republic highlights the wide scope of the problems in improving the standards of contemporary art promotion and cultural exchanges in each country. The study provides information on the background already gained from professional experience within the informal institutions and by Individuals whose contacts built the initial ground for international cooperation in both Poland and the Czech Republic. The administrative as well as the artistic problems are discussed. The separate but very important issue of the commercial side of the effective international art promotion is also analyzed. Commercial contacts and the difficulties in building an art market in both countries, are studied with regard to problems in the international art dealing during the recession. Much of the evidence is drawn from Interviews with Western and Eastern artists, dealers and arts organizers. This thesis also looks at the changing cultural policy within the European Union and at new potentials for successful international cooperation with the individual member-to-be countries, and their formal and informal institutions. An assessment of art promotion is explored with particular reference to the latest actions of the Council of Europe and the Commission of the European Communities. New ways of cultural collaboration are also examined, based on the rising importance of the "regions" as administrative units within the European Union and their role in International and national arts programmes. The idea of cooperating regions is also used in this context as a direct way for non-member states to become natural part of the cultural exchanges, exploiting the geographical and historical ties. Assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of contemporary art promotion in the new Europe is based on evidence gathered from both administrators and artists whose work has been affected by the changes since 1989. The thesis provides a diagnosis of the situation and gathers opinions of the professionals seeking improvements to facilitate a full cultural dialogue on an international basis. Introduction page l -ii


Abstract This paper investigates whether the services of the Federal Reserve System improved the efficiency of the system in the United States for collecting checks relative to the efficiency of the system used by banks just prior to the formation of the Federal Reserve. There are two types of evidence that the Fed's services improved efficiency. First, the Reserve Banks quickly became major processors of interregional checks, even though banks could have continued to use the prior payments arrangements. The timing of the growth in Reserve Bank collection services was not consistent with the view that banks simply took advantage of a subsidy provided by the Fed. The share of checks collected by the Reserve Banks increased rapidly during the period when the Fed charged banks fees to cover their collection expenses. Second, declines in the ratios of cash to total assets of banks can be attributed to the development of the Fed's check-collection services.