K nearest neighbor (kNN) queries, which retrieve the k nearest sensor data items associated with a location (location-dependent sensor data) from the location of the query issuer, are useful for location-based services in mobile environments. Here, we focus on the kNN query processing in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Key challenges in designing system protocols for the MANETs include low-overhead adaptability to network topology changes due to node mobility, and query processing that achieves high accuracy of the query result without a centralized server. In this paper, we propose the filling area (FA) method to efficiently process kNN queries in the MANETs. The FA method achieves low overhead in query processing by reducing a search area. In the FA method, data items remain at nodes near the locations with which the items are associated, and nodes cache data items whose locations are near their own so that the query issuer retrieves kNNs from nearby nodes. Through extensive simulations, we verify that our proposed approach achieves low overhead and high accuracy of the query result.


Abstract In judicial terms, a victim refers to any person who has suffered injury arising from an action or omission of an action that constitutes an offence, and the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. A review of Spanish judicial judgements underscored that the lack of evidence of psychological injury in cases of intimate-partner violence (IPV) accounted for approximately 40% of acquittals. Thus, the Spanish standard of proof for the forensic evaluation of psychological injury i.e., the MMPI-2 and the unstructured interview were assessed in order to determine if they met the statutory requirement for the assessment of psychological injury and the differential diagnosis of feigning. The results of the comparison of 51 women victims of IPV with firm convictions against their aggressors, and 54 women mock victims of IPV showed that the F, K, Fb, Fp and Ds scales, and the F-K index discriminated significantly and with medium and large effect sizes, between adjudicated and mock victims. However, the results did not provide a valid decision criterion for forensic settings i.e., false negatives (identifying feigner as honest protocols) were not classified correctly. In conclusion, the standard forensic procedure for the evaluation of psychological injury in cases of IPV did not constitute valid proof for judges who acquitted defendants on the grounds of not proven due to the lack of evidence of psychological injury.


With rapid development of search engine users, the auto bidding for search engine keywords is stealthily rising and such kind of service is now essentially being conducted on the majority of existing search engines. For merchants, users and even the search engine service suppliers, auto bidding is of many advantages, which is also thought it has brought forth serious phenomenon of bad faith in terms of such kind of similar search websites, leading to a crisis of confidence. This text is intended to give it a full analysis on the various problems of bad faith resulted from the auto bidding for search engine keywords. And it is in consideration of the huge controlling forcing and social influence of the search engines, there lies a great need in strengthening the closer government supervision. While guaranteeing a healthy and orderly development of search engine, our purpose is to render back an honest and clean searching environment of internet information to the public.


Many timber producing countries generate more than 2 million m3 of sawdust annually. In developing countries, sawdust is often disposed of by open dumping, open burning, or dumping in landfills. This poses huge environmental challenges related to air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and destruction of plant and aquatic life. Findings from this review article reveal that sawdust can be used to make sawdust construction composites with good modulus of elasticity, water absorption and strength characteristics that satisfy international specifications. These composites include particleboards, sawdust concrete blocks or bricks and sawdust concrete. The article concludes that partially replacing 5% to 17% of sand with sawdust, or replacing cement with sawdust ash in proportions of 5% to 15% in concrete mixes can produce structural concrete with compressive strengths greater than 20 MPa. Partially replacing 10% to 30% of sand used in the manufacture blocks and bricks with sawdust can also produce sawdust bricks and blocks with compressive strengths greater than 3 MPa. Sawdust composites are also attractive for their low thermal conductivity, high sound absorption and good sound insulation characteristics. These findings indicate that increased utilisation of sawdust composites in construction will mitigate against potential sawdust environmental pollution, conserve energy and reduce disposal costs.


An instrument has been designed and developed to measure the smoothness behavior of finished cotton fabrics. The instrument is based on pendulum principle. The weight (hang on string) comprises a frictionless wheel movable along arc shaped platform. The platform acts as a sample holder. When the weight is subjected to push, it swings back and forth in the platform. The amplitude of the swing reduces due to friction of the fabric. The amplitude is inversely proportional to the friction or roughness of the fabric. Various types of finished cotton fabrics are tested on the developed instrument. The results are compared with Kawabata system to verify the working of instrument. These results are also compared with the bending length and crease recovery behavior of the particular fabric sample. It is found that the lesser the bending length the more will be the smoothness. If the crease recovery angle is high, the fabric will be smoother. One way analysis of variance has been applied to find out effect of different processes on fabric surface smoothness property.


This report maps existing and emerging carbon pricing initiatives around the world. It does not provide a quantitative, transaction-based analysis of the international carbon market since current market conditions invalidate any attempt to undertake such an analysis. The development of national and subnational carbon pricing initiatives in an increasing number of countries calls for a different focus. The uncertainty surrounding the existing carbon markets in the last years has prevented valuable resources to be channeled to low-carbon investments, particularly from the private sector. Following the economic downturn and slow economic recovery in major economies, industrial output plummeted and the demand for carbon assets used for compliance fell. With limited support, prices reached historical lows. At the same time, several national and sub-national carbon pricing initiatives are emerging. It is not surprising that several of these new carbon pricing initiatives also include design features to prevent similar developments in the future, including mechanisms to stabilize the carbon price.


Methods: Main indications for tru-cut biopsy were: a) signs of primary optimally inoperability on ultrasound or CT in 104, b) suspicious recurrence of malignant tumor in 27, c) suspicious duplicity (i.e. known extragenital malignancy and abdomino-pelvic tumor at the time of biopsy) in 31, and d) atypical morphology indicating non-gynecologic pelvic mass in 28 patients. Biopsy was performed using Fast-gun bioptic system with 18G/25cm needle. No anesthesia was needed for vaginal biopsy, local anesthesia by infiltration of abdominal wall with trimecain was used for transabdominal biopsy. Results: Together 195 biopsies were performed (5 re-biopsies in 5 patients). An adequate sample for histological evaluation was obtained in 178 of 190 (93,7%) cases, corresponding to 183 (93,9%) biopsies. Only six patients with inadequate tru-cut biopsy underwent laparotomy or laparoscopy for the assessment of histological diagnosis. In 85 patients with adequate samples from tru-cut biopsy, an interval debulking surgery or primary surgery was performed in further management, and final histology report was not in agreement with the result from tru-cut biopsy in only two cases (2,35%). There were two complications (1,05%) in the whole group requiring laparotomy and laparoscopy; one hemoperitoneum in a patient with moderate thrombocytopenia and one bleeding from the biopsy site visible on ultrasound during the procedure. Conclusions: Our experience indicates that the ultrasound guided tru-cut biopsy is an efficient, minimally invasive, accurate and extremely safe diagnostic method in the management of either advanced, recurrent or atypical abdomino-pelvic tumors, where unnecessary laparotomy or laparoscopy can be avoided.


Abstract Precious metal epithermal, sedimentary-rock-hosted prospects constitute a new class of ore deposits recently described in the Tertiary Eastern Rhodopes of southeastern Bulgaria. The Stremtsi prospect investigated in this contribution is located in a distal location with respect to the main cluster of sedimentary-rock-hosted Ada Tepe and Rosino gold prospects of the Eastern Rhodopes. The Stremtsi prospect is hosted by a Priabonian clastic sedimentary rock sequence, overlying metamorphic rocks of the Central Rhodopean dome. The eastern part of the Stremtsi prospect contains high gold grades, and is characterized by a strongly silicified zone, including adularia and silicified dolomite blades, diagnostic for boiling conditions during ore formation in such low-sulphidation epithermal systems. The western part of the Stremtsi prospect consists of a barite, sphalerite and galena mineralization, associated with silicification, and illite and carbonate alteration. Both parts are underlain by subvertical quartz-carbonate-pyrite veins. Primary and secondary fluid inclusions, respectively, in dolomite and barite yield homogenization temperatures ranging between 90 and 247 °C. The salinity of primary inclusions in dolomite falls between 1.9 and 5.1 wt% NaCl equivalent, whereas the one of secondary fluid inclusions in barite ranges between 0.0 and 3.1 wt% NaCl equivalent. The variable homogenization temperatures reflect post-entrapment re-equilibration of the fluid inclusions, whereas the salinities were preserved and the inclusions in dolomite are interpreted in terms of dilution of a saline fluid in the western part of the Stremtsi prospect. The sulphur isotope compositions of sulphides from Stremtsi range mainly between −4 and +4‰. They are not diagnostic and can be attributed to magmatic, metamorphic, and sedimentary sources. They overlap with the main compositional range of sulphides from other sedimentary-rock-hosted epithermal systems and reveal the existence of hydrothermal fluids with common characteristics during ore formation throughout the Eastern Rhodopes. In addition, at Stremtsi, negative δ34S values between −42.6‰ and −8.8‰ combined with framboidal pyrite and elevated δ34S values of +7.0‰ to +19.5‰ support locally derived sulphur generated, respectively, by bacterial and thermochemical sulphate reduction. Modelling of O, C, and Sr isotope data of dolomite support the above described ore-forming processes. A positive correlation between δ18O (+12.7‰ to +19.7‰ V-SMOW) and δ13C (−2.8‰ to +1.5‰ V-PDB) values for dolomite from the eastern, silicified and gold-enriched zone of the Stremtsi prospect is satisfactorily modelled by boiling between 140 and 180 °C of a deeply circulating fluid characterized by δ18O and δ13C values of +5.5‰ V-SMOW and −1.5‰ V-PDB, respectively, and radiogenic strontium leached from the metamorphic basement rocks or its clastic counterparts in the Priabonian host rocks. By contrast, negative correlations of δ18O values (+13.4‰ to +23.3‰ V-SMOW) with δ13C values (−0.6‰ to −3.9‰ V-PDB) and 87Sr/86Sr ratios of dolomite from the western, barite and base metal-rich zone are adequately modelled by a shallow, low temperature (70 °C), intra-formational fluid recharged by meteoric water, which interacted with organic matter, that is, coal layers, and carbonate rocks from the Priabonian host sequence, mixing with a deep, moderate temperature (190 °C), 87Sr-enriched fluid characterized by δ18O and δ13C values of +5.5‰ V-SMOW and −1.5‰ V-PDB, respectively. Disequilibrium conditions revealed by sulphur isotope thermometry of two galena-barite pairs yielding discrepant temperatures of 190 and 306 °C are consistent with fluid mixing. A plateau age of 37.57±0.31 Ma obtained by 40Ar/39Ar dating of adularia from Stremtsi is interpreted as a maximum age because of the saddle-shaped age spectrum. Combined with 40Ar/39Ar age data from previous studies, it reveals that the sedimentary-rock-hosted epithermal prospects constitute an independent, regional and older ore-forming hydrothermal system, distinct from the younger volcanic-rock-hosted epithermal deposits of the Bulgarian and Greek Eastern Rhodopes.


Concrete is extensively used as one of the main
construction materials in the maritime environment. At
least 15% (by value) of these works includes concrete
in various forms (sea walls and wave walls, concrete
armour units, caissons, etc.). Despite the long history
of capital investment in concrete maritime structures,
it is generally recognised that there was a gap in
structured guidance documents available with regard
to the use of concrete in maritime structures. There
remains a need to address unsolved challenges and
to provide engineers with up-to-date guidance.

KEY CHALLENGES FOR MARITIME CONCRETE

The key challenges associated to the use of concrete
in the maritime environment will be addressed are
being addressed, in particular:
- Designing for target performance of concrete
elements.
- Ensuring durable concrete material providing
appropriate performance during the service life of the
structure
- Providing strength to concrete, without using
conventional reinforcing steel
- Designing with mass concrete
- Mitigation of chloride-related corrosion of reinforcing
steel
- Delivering concrete resistant to attrition
- Extent to which non-reinforced concrete armour units
may be used to structurally respond to hydraulic loads
- Appropriate testing of concrete for the maritime
environment – in particular long term resistance to
attrition, resilience to impacts, resistance to chloride
attack, including laboratory testing and pilots
- Repairing of maritime concrete structures


Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBs) is an autoimmune disease that interchangeability of functions immune cells so the immune cells do not work properly. In people with GBs, immune cells destroy healthy cells, thereby reducing the growth rate of healthy cells. One of the causes of GBs is Zika virus infections. GBs in Indonesia has been around since 1859, but this incident is still rarely identified because the symptoms of leg pain and rheumatism have been complained about by many people with various causes. The epidemiological mathematical model for GBs has been modified, with a focus on cell-to-cell interactions, to study the behavior of the GBs transmission by involving healthy cells, infected cells, and immune cells. The mathematical model has considered the role of immune cells in every healthy cell interaction so it can inhibit the interaction of infected cells with healthy cells. The model created is a system of non-linear differential equations with saturated incidence rates. The mathematical model obtained will be analyzed using a dynamical analysis. The stability analysis around the equilibrium point is studied by analyzing the eigenvalues of the Jacobian matrix at the equilibrium point. In the end, the numerical simulation is analyzed to ensure the analytical result. Then the conclusion from the analysis results is described as a solution to the problem.


The knowledge that humans hold about a problem often extends far beyond a set of training data and output labels. While the success of deep learning mostly relies on supervised training, important properties cannot be inferred efficiently from end-to-end annotations alone, for example causal relations or domain-specific invariances. We present a general technique to supplement supervised training with prior knowledge expressed as relations between training instances. We illustrate the method on the task of visual question answering to exploit various auxiliary annotations, including relations of equivalence and of logical entailment between questions. Existing methods to use these annotations, including auxiliary losses and data augmentation, cannot guarantee the strict inclusion of these relations into the model since they require a careful balancing against the end-to-end objective. Our method uses these relations to shape the embedding space of the model, and treats them as strict constraints on its learned representations. In the context of VQA, this approach brings significant improvements in accuracy and robustness, in particular over the common practice of incorporating the constraints as a soft regularizer. We also show that incorporating this type of prior knowledge with our method brings consistent improvements, independently from the amount of supervised data used. It demonstrates the value of an additional training signal that is otherwise difficult to extract from end-to-end annotations alone.


out of doors with digital tools and electronic music and creating musically rich experiences is made possible by the increased availability of ever smaller and more powerful mobile computers. Composing music for and in a landscape instead of for a closed architectural space offers new perspectives but also raises questions about interaction and composition of electronic music. The work we present here was commissioned by a festival and ran on a daily basis over a period of three months. A GPS-enabled embedded Linux system is assembled to serve as a location-aware sound platform. Several challenges have to be overcome both technically and artistically to achieve a seamless experience and provide a simple device to be handed to the public. By building this interactive experience, which relies as much on the user's willingness to explore the invisible sonic landscape as on the ability to deploy the technology, a number of new avenues for exploring electronic music and interactivity in location-based media open up. New ways of composing music for and in a landscape and for creating audience interaction are explored.


This paper analyses forest fires in the perspective of dynamical systems. Forest fires exhibit complex correlations in size, space and time, revealing features often present in complex systems, such as the absence of a characteristic length-scale, or the emergence of long range correlations and persistent memory. This study addresses a public domain forest fires catalogue, containing information of events for Portugal, during the period from 1980 up to 2012. The data is analysed in an annual basis, modelling the occurrences as sequences of Dirac impulses with amplitude proportional to the burnt area. First, we consider mutual information to correlate annual patterns. We use visualization trees, generated by hierarchical clustering algorithms, in order to compare and to extract relationships among the data. Second, we adopt the Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) visualization tool. MDS generates maps where each object corresponds to a point. Objects that are perceived to be similar to each other are placed on the map forming clusters. The results are analysed in order to extract relationships among the data and to identify forest fire patterns.


In this study, we present a computational model of Parkinson's disease (PD) that includes different biological interactions that leads to neural cell death with the use of biochemical systems theory. The model incorporates a set of important pathways in PD including dopaminergic pathway, mitochondrial pathway and P53 — DNA damage pathway. Modeling signaling pathways and simulations were performed using biochemical systems theory. Initial concentrations have been taken from experimental data in literature and were used to model the changes. Results generated by dopaminergic diseased pathway show 45% decrease in dopamine, compared to normal condition. In addition, the activity of MOMP, Caspase 9 and Apoptosome expression in diseased condition within mitochondrial pathway model have been observed in the results. The expression levels of BAX and MOMP were reconstructed and simulations suggest oligomerization of BAK leads to the elevation of MOMP. An increase in oxidative stress and apoptosis level also has been observed in the PD condition, compared to the control allowing comparisons between normal and diseased conditions with these mathematical models.


The responses of single lumbar dorsal horn neurons to noxious radiant heat stimuli (50 degrees C, 10 sec) applied to glabrous footpad skin were recorded in cats anesthetized with sodium pentobarbital and 70% N2O. Responses were markedly reduced during electrical stimulation (100- msec trains at 100 Hz, 3/sec, up to 400 microA) at sites in the medial diencephalic periventricular gray (PVG), preoptic area, and basal forebrain. A role for serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) was investigated by determining whether descending inhibition from these areas could be affected by (1) acute systemic administration of the 5- HT antagonist methysergide, or (2) depletion of central 5-HT levels by pretreatment with the 5-HT synthesis inhibitor p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA; 500 mg/kg, i.p.). Inhibition produced by stimulation at these sites was reduced or abolished in 22 cases following administration of methysergide (0.2 to 1 mg/kg) to non-pretreated cats. In the PCPA- pretreated cats, stimulation in preoptic or basal forebrain areas inhibited the responses of 26 units to noxious skin heating to varying degrees; PVG stimulation inhibited the responses of 14 of 26 units, while the remainder were unaffected. The mean current threshold for inhibition produced by PVG or preoptic/basal forebrain stimulation was significantly higher, while mean inhibition at 200 microA was significantly lower, in units from PCPA-pretreated cats compared to those from non-pretreated cats. The results indicate that 5-HT may be involved in the mediation of spinal inhibition produced by medial diencephalic and basal forebrain stimulation.


Examination by light and electron microscopy of human myocardium from necropsies and biopsy specimens has revealed evidence that mitochondria can be transformed into granules of lipofuscin. This pigment has been shown to arise from peroxidative destruction of polyunsaturated lipid membranes. A high rate of lipofuscin formation is indicated by the occurrence of brown atrophy of the heart in relatively young persons who died of conditions that were associated with inanition. Such lipofuscin formation suggests the importance of dietary antioxidants in preventing peroxidative damage to mitochondria. A by-product of lipid peroxidation, malonaldehyde, can react with nuclear DNA, blocking template activity. Nuclear damage of this kind could reduce the capacity for protein synthesis and limit mitochondrial and contractile protein replacement. Such a limitation would contribute to heart failure during stress. Peroxidative damage to the myocardium is cumulative and irreversible.


The dramatic growth of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in cellular networks brings the challenge of satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of a large number of M2M devices with limited radio resources. In this paper, we propose an optimization framework for the semi-persistent scheduling of M2M transmissions based on the exploitation of their periodicity with the goal of reducing the overhead of the signaling required for connection initiation and scheduling. The goal of the optimization problem is to minimize the number of frequency bands used by the M2M devices to allow fair resource allocation of newly joining M2M and human-to-human communications. The constraints of the problem are delay and periodicity requirements of the M2M devices. We first prove that the optimization problem is NP-hard and then propose a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm employing a fixed priority assignment according to the QoS characteristics of the devices. We show that this heuristic algorithm provides an asymptotic approximation ratio of 2.33 to the optimal solution for the case where the delay tolerances of the devices are equal to their periods. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs better than the existing algorithms in terms of frequency band usage and schedulability.


We have recently demonstrated that the use of a tourniquet to locate the vein prior to blood sampling may affect red blood cell (RBC) deformability and aggregation, even if the tourniquet is quickly removed after insertion of the needle into the vein. However, in clinical practice, the tourniquet is usually kept in place until blood sampling is completed. The present study tested the effects of tourniquet application during the blood sampling period on RBC deformability and aggregation. We compared blood samples obtained at 5, 30, 60 and 90 seconds following the tourniquet application; a control blood sample was obtained without applying a tourniquet. RBC deformability was slightly increased at 5 seconds (7.6% mean, 1-5 Pa) and at 60 seconds (5.9% mean, 1-30 Pa) but not at 30 or 90 seconds, with the increase inversely related to shear stress. The RBC aggregation index was slightly but significantly decreased at 5, 30 and 60 seconds, with no changes observed for either amplitude or half-time of aggregation. These very modest yet significant effects of tourniquet application on hemorheological parameters may not be meaningful in terms of pathophysiology, but may become important in data interpretation or for specific subjects.


Earthquakes rarely occur at extremely shallow depths, for example, less than 2 km. Even for induced earthquakes that are typically shallower than tectonic events, only very small ones have been reported in such depths. The ML 4.9 earthquake (Mw 4.3) that struck the Rongxian County, Sichuan, China on 25 February 2019 was an extremely shallow event. Seismological and geodetic data constrained the mainshock depth at ∼1  km with a thrust-faulting mechanism, consistent with the Molin fault orienting northwest. Two foreshocks with magnitudes larger than 4 occurred on an unmapped fault striking northeast, right next to an injection well where hydraulic fracturing (HF) was conducted. The focal depths of the two foreshocks were at ∼2.7  km, coinciding with the depth of HF. Coulomb failure stresses of the two foreshocks on the Molin fault was ∼3  kPa, smaller than typical static triggering threshold (10 kPa), and thus their triggering effects were mild. As the fault was hydraulically sealed from HF, we suggested that the ML 4.9 earthquake was possibly triggered by nearby HF activities through poroelastic stress transfer. Such findings held significant implications for shale gas development by considering seismic hazard associated with shallow faults.


The purpose of the researcher was to investigate job satisfaction in correctional officers. The sample consisted of 122 correctional officers employed in both rural and urban prison locations for the State of Kansas, Department of Corrections. The 12 independent variables researched were age, gender, salary, level of formal education, marital status, race, years employed as a correctional officer, designated rank, location of prison, relationship with co-workers, freedom from stress, and relationship with supervisors. The dependent variables were the scores of the 13 sub-scales form the Campbell Organizational Survey. The 13 dependent variables were the Work Itself, Working Conditions, Freedom from Stress, Co-Workers, Supervision, Top Leadership, Pay, Benefits, Job Security, Promotional Opportunities, Feedback and Communications, Organizational Planning, and Support of Innovation. Four null composite hypotheses were tested at the .05 level employing a three-way analysis of variance. A total of 339 comparisons were made. Of the 339 comparisons, 156 were main effects and 183 were interactions. Of the 156 main effects, 19 were statistically significant at the .05 level. Of the 183 interactions, 8 were statistically significant at the .05 level.


We examine the surges of five glaciers in the Pakistan Karakoram using satellite remote sensing to investigate the dynamic nature of surges in this region and how they may be affected by climate. Surface velocity maps derived by feature‐tracking quantify the surge development spatially in relation to the terminus position, and temporally with reference to seasonal weather. We find that the season of surge initiation varies, that each surge develops gradually over several years, and that maximum velocities are recorded within the lowermost 10 km of the glacier. Measured peak surge velocities are between one and two orders of magnitude greater than during quiescence. We also note that two of the glaciers are of a type not previously reported to surge. The evidence points towards recent Karakoram surges being controlled by thermal rather than hydrological conditions, coinciding with high‐altitude warming from long‐term precipitation and accumulation patterns.


We investigated the modulation responses and optoelectronic properties of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) grown on free-standing (0001) GaN. These LEDs have a larger modulation bandwidth than those grown on sapphire at a higher current density, and a maximum of −3 dB modulation bandwidth of 510 MHz was achieved, which is 1.7 times larger compared to LEDs grown on sapphire. In addition, due to the lower substrate temperature, there may be an increase in the indium that is incorporated into the active region as well as the point defects of the LEDs grown on GaN, which will influence the optoelectronic properties.


Ramp metering is a dynamic traffic control measure that has proven to be very effective. There are several methods to determine appropriate ramp metering signals for a given traffic situation. In this paper, a framework consisting of model predictive control (MPC) for ramp metering, combined with extended Kalman filter-based (EKF) traffic state estimation is presented. Based on traffic measurements at a limited number of locations, the EKF is able to provide the MPC ramp metering controller with estimations of the traffic states in the motorway segments of the motorway stretch under control. By using the same traffic flow model in the EKF as in the MPC prediction model, some important model parameters of the MPC prediction model can be estimated and be fed directly to the MPC controller. This functionality enables the MPC prediction model to track changes in the traffic system (e.g. due to weather conditions, incidents, etc.). The presented EKF-MPC controller for ramp metering is simulated for a case study on the E17 motorway Ghent-Antwerp in Belgium


A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a collection of sensor nodes, spatially deployed in an ad hoc fashion, which performs distributed sensing tasks in a collaborative manner, without relying on any underlying infrastructure support. WSNs have usually been treated as passive networks, where sensors measure some physical phenomena periodically, or detect some events, and then send the data thus generated to the sink. Another kind of application is emerging, both in the context of a stand-alone WSN and of distributed WSNs, for the Internet of Things (IoT) where, instead of serving only as passive, information gathering mechanisms, sensors can actively process and respond to user queries to report the sensed data on demand. Irrespective of the query types, query processing tasks in WSNs pose several technical challenges, such as (i) selecting the appropriate sensors, within a stand- alone WSN or the appropriate WSNs among the distributed WSNs in the IoT, which satisfy the query specifications; (ii) providing the query response within the user-specified delay bound; (iii) ensuring higher query response accuracy; and (iv) determining the query execution plan dynamically to satisfy the QoS requirements on either delay or accuracy, or a combined specification of both delay and accuracy. This thesis aims to address these issues by developing a hierarchical data model for representing the sensor data of a stand-alone WSN at sensor, fusion node and sink levels. In the case of an aggregate query, the model can be used to select the appropriate sensors which satisfy the query specifications. In the case of an approximate query, the model can provide the approximate query response directly from the model. In both instances, the data model enables retrieving the query response with higher accuracy and less data transmission. To execute a query in delay sensitive applications, a delay aware spanning tree is designed, which provides a routing path for query dissemination to the target sensors as well as collecting a response from them. The tree is constructed based on the query load of the sensors so that the sensors with a higher query load can be reached quickly thus causing less delay in retrieving the query response. Moreover, to support the query execution according to the QoS requirements on delay and accuracy, the hierarchical data model is applied on the delay aware spanning tree to generate a QoS aware sensor model. The model organises sensor data hierarchically, with different levels of accuracy, on different hop distances of the tree. It creates the provision to collect the query response from any hop distance of the tree to satisfy the query-specified delay and accuracy bound. Then, the formulations are extended for the distributed WSNs in the context of the IoT. In doing so, a distributed WSNs information model is maintained in the web server which gathers the data models and the spatial properties of the WSNs from their associated QoS aware sensor models. The information model exploits the overlapping information among the participating WSNs and facilitates selecting the appropriate WSNs it is necessary to visit according to the query specifications. Moreover, based on the QoS requirements of the query, the information model determines the cost effective query execution plan, with the help of the QoS aware sensor models of the respective WSNs. Extensive analytical and simulation analyses confirm the efficacy of the proposed new strategies compared with notable work in this area.


The 1997 Kyoto Protocol deferred negotiations on emissions from aviation to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Also within this specialised body, agreement on how to deal with emissions from aviation has been difficult to reach. Frustrated by the lack of progress, the European Union (EU) decided to act unilaterally to reduce emission from aviation, by including aviation within its Emission Trading System (ETS). Initially, the EU set out to include in the ETS emissions from all major aircraft flying to or from European airports, even when these fly over the high seas or foreign territory. Many States, however, viewed the EU's initiative as a unilateral act in violation of their sovereignty. The EU has since suspended the application of the ETS to foreign aircraft. Even so, this incident raises important questions concerning the legality of unilateral acts under international law. This note considers when and how a State or a regional organisation may legitimately take unilateral measures to protect the environment. The note will not consider the legality of including foreign aircraft within the ETS, which has been dealt with elsewhere. Instead, it will focus on the legality and importance of unilateral acts for the development of international law.


Epitopes that are conserved among SARS-like coronaviruses are attractive targets for design of cross-reactive vaccines and therapeutics. CR3022 is a SARS-CoV neutralizing antibody to a highly conserved epitope on the receptor binding domain (RBD) on the spike protein that can cross-react with SARS-CoV-2, but with lower affinity. Using x-ray crystallography, mutagenesis, and binding experiments, we illustrate that of four amino acid differences in the CR3022 epitope between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, a single mutation P384A fully determines the affinity difference. CR3022 does not neutralize SARS-CoV-2, but the increased affinity to SARS-CoV-2 P384A mutant now enables neutralization with a similar potency to SARS-CoV. We further investigated CR3022 interaction with the SARS-CoV spike protein by negative-stain EM and cryo-EM. Three CR3022 Fabs bind per trimer with the RBD observed in different up-conformations due to considerable flexibility of the RBD. In one of these conformations, quaternary interactions are made by CR3022 to the N-terminal domain (NTD) of an adjacent subunit. Overall, this study provides insights into antigenic variation and potential for cross-neutralizing epitopes on SARS-like viruses.


ABSTRACT This paper assesses the relevance of mortgage-led consumption for the assemblage of home. Drawing on qualitative research completed in the UK, we show how the materials and meanings of owner-occupation are constituted by, and experienced through, the accumulation and deployment of secured debt. This is enabled by a particular financial regime, in which the proceeds of equity borrowing are freed for discretionary expenditure. Homes and their contents thus acquire the status of "debted objects", and these form an interface between the financial and familial values comprising residential space. By attending to these mortgage-enabled purchases, we expose and evaluate the myriad ways in which equity borrowings animate the assemblage of home, adding value to property, linking domestic space with distant geographies and inspiring the art of dwelling.


ABSTRACT The Carnian sandstones of the Southern Alps are fluviodeltaic and lagoonal clastic wedges derived from volcanic source rocks changing with time from mesosilicic to persilicic lavas and pyroclastics. Two-thirds of the variance in detrital modes reflect this petrologic evolution of the source. The effect of sedimentary processes is never strong enough to obscure the fundamental relationship of sandstone composition to provenance, but it accounts for most short-term variability in quartz/feldspar and feldspar/ volcanic rock fragment ratios. Plagioclase and quartz grains are concentrated, respectively, in the very fine to fine fractions and in medium-grained sandstones. The quartz/feldspar ratio (Q/F) thus decreases through delta-plain upward-fining sequences, from channel-lag sediments ( /F = 1/3) to overbank sands (Q/F = 1/8). The sedimentary control on the composition of fluviodeltaic sands results from the coupling of mechanical effects in high-gradient headwater streams and hydraulic sorting in low-gradient depositional environments. Assuming that the effectiveness of mineralogical segregation in different grain-size fractions during transport depends primarily on paleorelief, a decrease in altitude during Carnian times is inferred within the Triassic volcanic source, which lay south of the sedimentary depocenter. Reworking by weak traction currents in lagoonal settings has further increased the textural maturity and the mineralogical stability of the sands. Volcanic rock fragments were reduced by selective destruction in marine environments, but the Q/F ratio was no affected, and a common value of 1/6 characterizes all lagoonal strata.


This study was aimed to evaluate the microflora isolated from the intestines of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), freshwater catfish (Clarias batrachus), snakehead (Ophicephalus striatus), snakeskin gourami (Trichogaster pectoralis), climbing perch (Anabas testudineus), and river catfish (Pangasius pangasius) for their potential probiotic development. Isolates were initially screened for their inhibitory effect against one of the most common fish pathogens, Edwardsiella tarda. Positive antagonists were subsequently tested for hemolytic activity, antibiotic susceptibility, and production of bacteriocin-like inhibitory substances (BLISs). Our results revealed 55 of the 405 isolates tested showed inhibitory effects towards the pathogen. Forty isolates were γ-hemolytic bacteria. Only 7 isolates were nonresistant to tested antibiotics. They were identified as Lactococcus lactis based on 16S rRNA characterization. Our BLIS data suggest that L. lactis subsp. lactis CF4MRS at the cell density of 106 cfu/mL could be effectively used to control E. tarda.


We present a method for estimating large camera motions, including combinations of large rotations and displacements. We know that translation estimates are improved as the displacements between two camera positions increase. However, there is little work on motion estimation methods targeted at large motions since it is difficult to find correspondences between two planar perspective images under large motions. We can overcome the correspondence problem with omnidirectional cameras, which obtain a hemisphere or cylinder projection of the environment. We first develop a new motion estimation method for smooth omnidirectional camera motions. Our method incrementally improves estimates from incomplete information provided by a single feature correspondence, using an Implicit Extended Kalman Filter (IEKF). This general motion estimation method produces stable estimates from smooth camera motions, but it is not directly applicable to estimating large motions. We adapt the motion estimation method to large motions by using a novel Recursive Rotation Factorization (RRF) that removes the image motions due to rotation. Simulation results show that the RRF large motion estimates are accurate and robust.


The updating of classification maps, as new image acquisitions are obtained, raises the problem of ground-truth information (training samples) updating. In this context, semisupervised multitemporal classification represents an interesting though still not well consolidated approach to tackle this issue. In this letter, we propose a novel methodological solution based on this approach. Its underlying idea is to update the ground-truth information through an automatic estimation process, which exploits archived ground-truth information as well as basic indications from the user about allowed/forbidden class transitions from an acquisition date to another. This updating problem is formulated by means of the support vector machine classification approach and a constrained multiobjective optimization genetic algorithm. Experimental results on a multitemporal data set consisting of two multisensor (Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper and European Remote Sensing satellite synthetic aperture radar) images are reported and discussed.


It has been claimed that focused hot cylindrical upwelling plumes cause many of the surface volcanic hotspots on Earth. It has also been argued that they must originate from thermal boundary layers. In this paper, we present spherical simulations of mantle circulation at close to Earth-like vigor with significant internal heating. These show, in addition to thermal boundary layer plumes, a new class of plumes that are not rooted in thermal boundary layers. These plumes develop as instabilities from the edge of bowls of hot mantle, which are produced by cold downwelling material deforming hot sheets of mantle. The resulting bowl and plume structure can look a bit like the "splash� of a water droplet. These splash plumes might provide an explanation for some hotspots that are not underlain by thermal boundary layer–sourced plumes and not initiated by large igneous provinces. We suggest that in Earth's mantle, lithospheric instabilities or small pieces of subducting slab could play the role of the model downwelling material in initiating splash plumes. Splash plumes would have implications for interpreting ocean-island basalt geochemistry, plume fixity, excess plume temperature, and estimating core heat flux. Improved seismic imaging will ultimately test this hypothesis.


Functionality driven materials design for crystalline symmetry enabled quantum phases such as Dirac semimetals often faces the challenge of stabilizing a crystal structure with targeted functionality. Here, we propose an iso-symmetry isovalent cation substitution approach for stabilizing a honeycomb (P63/mmc) lattice analogous to Na3Bi that was predicted as the first Dirac semimetal with conical linear band dispersion at the Fermi level protected by high-order rotational symmetry. Such isovalent substitution on the inequivalent cation sites in dynamically unstable Na3Bi (P63/mmc) maintains the crystalline symmetry and reduces the strain energy, leading to the prediction of three dynamically stable compounds K2NaBi, Rb2NaBi and Rb2KBi that are also thermodynamically stable against disproportionation into the competing phases. Electronic structure analysis reveals that the predicted ternaries have Dirac cones mainly consisting of Bi-6p and metal s states at the Fermi level, with interesting hidden spin textures. Our study suggests a rational approach for designing functional materials, and could stimulate future predictions of new stable materials based on inequivalent-site isovalent-cation substitution.


We have measured the unpolarized and polarized emission spectra of 4I9/2→4I15/2 (810 nm) and 4S3/2→4I13/2 (860 nm) electronic transitions of Er3+ in LiNbO3 crystal under different incident directions and polarization states of excitation beam. From the measured emission spectra, the emission and absorption cross-section spectra were calculated based upon McCumber theory. It is found that Er3+ electronic transition shows interesting excitation beam direction effect in polarization dependence, spectral shape, and cross-section value. Both transitions are highly π-polarized as the excitation beam was aligned perpendicular to the optical axis of crystal while being highly σ-polarized as the excitation beam was oriented parallel to the optical axis of crystal. The spectral shape in the case of the perpendicular excitation is very different from that in the case of parallel excitation. The cross-section value in the perpendicular excitation case is at least 1.5 times larger than that in the parallel excitation case. These excitation direction effects are independent of the polarization state of excitation light, and are attributed to the selective Er3+ site excitation. In addition, the Er3+ 860 nm emission lifetime was measured to be 27 ± 5 μs and the quantum efficiency of the emission is 2.5%.


Bayesian methods have been adopted by anthropologists for their utility in resolving complex questions about human history based on genetic data. The main advantages of Bayesian methods include simple model comparison, presenting results as a summary of probability distributions, and the explicit inclusion of prior information into analyses. In the fijield of anthropological genetics, for example, implementing Bayesian skyline plots and approximate Bayesian computation is becoming ubiquitous as means to analyze genetic data for the purpose of demographic or historic inference. Correspondingly, there is a critical need for better understanding of the underlying assumptions, proper applications, and limitations of these two methods by the larger anthropological community. Here we review Bayesian skyline plots and approximate Bayesian computation as applied to human demography and provide examples of the application of these methods to anthropological research questions. We also review the two core components of Bayesian demographic analysis: the coalescent and Bayesian inference. Our goal is to describe their basic mechanics in an attempt to demystify them


Mass murder, the killing of three people in a timely and locally narrowly defined space, is a rare event with extensive consequences on society. In many cases, mass murders end with the offender's suicide. We identified 49 cases of mass murder in Switzerland that had occurred between the years 1972 and 2015. We were granted access to official files of 33 cases. The aim of our study was to identify distinct risk factors for mass murderers who had committed suicide after the crime (MMS) and those who had not (MM) by analyzing differences in sociodemographic, psychological, and criminological features. We identified 16 MMS and 17 MM. The majority of MMS was familicides. Their motive was mainly a perverted sense of loyalty, as opposed to that of MM revenge. The aggression of MMS would mostly be instrumental, the one of MM also reactive. Threats were highly prevalent in both groups, with a higher rate of specific threats in MMS and more generalized threats in MM. They did not differ in the prevalence of mental disorders or rate of prior suicidal ideation. Both type of offenders mainly used firearms. Military weapons were of no importance, contrary to their role with suicide in Switzerland. Mass murder in Switzerland is an extremely rare event that makes the drawing of general conclusions somewhat difficult and the establishing of new laws futile. Our conclusion that the aggression of MMS is premeditated, however, could be helpful with the assessment of future putative offenders.


There have been significant technological and technical advances in radiotherapy over the last 20 years. This paper presents the pertinent advances and examines their application in contemporary breast cancer (BC) radiotherapy, particularly for reducing the long-term toxicity, using intensity-modulated radiation therapy, image-guided radiation therapy, and management of breathing motion. These modern technologies and techniques enable precise delivery of a highly conformal radiation dose distribution to the target volume in real-time, to optimise tumour control, and minimise treatment toxicity. They have been used for the treatment of BC in selected centres around the world. Although there is insufficient high-level evidence to support their routine application in BC at present, implementation of these technologies has been shown to be feasible, and could result in clinically meaningful long-term benefits for selected patients with BC.


A micro‐photoluminescence study of individual InAs/GaAs quantum dots is presented. It is demonstrated that by varying the strength of an applied magnetic field and/or the temperature, the charge state of a quantum dot can be tuned. The charge tuning mechanism is shown to be due to the modification of the electron and hole transport in the wetting layer plane prior to their capture into the quantum dot.


ABSTRACT The life cycle of adenoviruses is divided by convention into early and late phases, separated by the onset of viral genome replication. Early events include virus adsorption, transport of the genome into the nucleus, and the expression of early genes. After the onset of viral DNA replication, transcription of the major late transcription unit (MLTU) and thereby synthesis of late proteins is induced. These steps are controlled by an orchestra of regulatory processes and require import of the genome and numerous viral proteins into the nucleus, as well as active transport of viral transcripts and proteins from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. The latter is achieved by exploiting the shuttling functions of cellular transport receptors, which normally stimulate the nuclear export of cellular mRNA and protein cargos. A set of adenoviral early and late proteins contains a leucine-rich nuclear export signal of the HIV-1 Rev type, known to be recognized by the cellular export receptor CRM1. However, a role for CRM1-dependent export in supporting adenoviral replication has not been established. To address this issue in detail, we investigated the impact of two different CRM1 inhibitors on several steps of the adenoviral life cycle. Inhibition of CRM1 led to a reduction in viral early and late gene expression, viral genome replication, and progeny virus production. For the first time, our findings indicate that CRM1-dependent shuttling is required for the efficient export of adenoviral early mRNA.


A 75-year-old woman with rheumatoid arthritis, treated with long-term prednisone, and genital herpes simplex virus 2 presented with a 1-week history of a painful, pruritic rash on the left buttock. She denied any recent trauma to the area or any new skin exposures. She denied experiencing fevers, lymphadenopathy, and other constitutional symptoms. Of note, she had recently tapered her prednisone dose from 10 mg to 5 mg, with subsequent flare of her rheumatoid arthritis, after which she started pregabalin for pain 3 days before her eruption. Following rash onset, she had also started valacyclovir for 1 week, without benefit. She was not receiving other treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or anti–tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti–TNF-α) therapies. Physical examination revealed warm, indurated, and well-circumscribed erythematous plaques, with subtle vesicles and collarettes of scale, on the left buttock (Figure). Edema, erythema, and pain of the left wrist joint were also noted. The remainder of the physical examination was unremarkable.


The signalling cascade of rods and cones use different but related protein components. Rods and cones, emerged in the common ancestor of vertebrates around 500 million years ago around when two whole genome duplications took place, named 1R and 2R. These generated a large number of additional genes that could evolve new or more specialised functions. A third event, 3R, occurred in the ancestor of teleost fish. This thesis describes extensive phylogenetic and comparative synteny analyses of the opsins, transducin and phosphodiesterase (PDE6) of this cascade by including data from a wide selection of vertebrates. The expression of the zebrafish genes was also investigated. The results show that genes for these proteins duplicated in 1R and 2R as well as some in 3R.Expression analyses of the zebrafish genes revealed additional specialisations for the 3R gene duplicates. The transducin beta subunit genes, gnb1a and gnb1b, show co-localisation in rods but are expressed at different levels. Gnb3a and gnb3b show different expression in the adult retina with low expression of gnb3a and expression of gnb3b in cones of the dorso-medial retina. The transducin gamma subunit genes gngt2a and gngt2b are expressed in the ventral and dorso-medial retina respectively. The both of PDE6 gamma subunit genes, pde6ga and pde6gb are both expressed in rods but pde6ga shows rhythmic changes of expression with low daytime levels. Pde6ha and pde6hb are expressed in cones however pde6ha show high daytime expression. All investigated transducin and PDE6 subunit genes, but gnb1b, were also expressed in the adult pineal complex or at some point during development.These results provide compelling evidence that the 1R and 2R genome duplications facilitated the evolution of rods and cones by generating gene duplicates that could evolve distinct expression and function. This supports existence of colour vision before the origin of vertebrates, elaboration of this in the early vertebrate ancestor, along with origin of the black-and-white dim-light vision of rods. Furthermore, the different expression patterns observed in the zebrafish retina for teleost 3R duplicates demonstrate multiple additional specialisations.


Neuroblastoma is a common solid tumor in children and its tumorigenicity is enhanced by the expression of survival pathways such as Akt and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3). Sorafenib is a multi- kinase inhibitor that also inhibits STAT3 signaling and induces apoptosis. In this study, we will examine the efficacy of sorafenib on a human neuroblastoma cell line (SK-N-AS) and also investigate its possible mechanisms. After cells reached 50-60% confluence, they were treated with various concentrations of sorafenib (0, 0.1, 1, 5, 10 and 20 µM) for different periods of time. The cell viability and apoptosis were determined by MTS colorimetric assay and TUNEL, respectively. Phosphorylation of Akt1/2/3 (p-Akt1/2/3), extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (p-ERK1/2), STAT3 (p-STAT3), and AMP-activated protein kinase alpha subunit (p-AMPKα) were determined with Western blot. The re- sults indicate that as early as 2 hours post-treatment, cell viability was significantly decreased at 10 µM concentra- tion. In 24 hours or longer treatment groups, sorafenib at 5 µM and above significantly decreased cell viability. TUNEL assay showed a significant increased of apoptosis in 5 and 20 µM treatment groups 24 hours after treatment. West- ern blots showed a decrease of p-ERK1/2, p-Akt1/2/3, p-STAT3, and p-AMPKα expression levels in various sorafenib treatment groups. Our results indicate that sorafenib significantly decreased cell viability and increased apoptosis in human neuroblastoma cell line in association with down-regulation of p-ERK1/2, p-Akt, p-STAT3 survival pathways. These data suggested potential clinical application of sorafenib in the treatment of neuroblastoma.


The normal intestinal microflora plays pivotal roles in aiding with digestion, stimulating the immune system, and providing protection from enteric pathogens. Despite the importance of these organisms, they are often an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire during antibiotic treatments intended to target and eliminate invading infectious agents. The collateral damage of antibiotic therapy is a reduction in the population of beneficial bacteria as well as an increased risk for more severe infections, including Clostridium difficile. Additionally, the unpleasant condition termed antibiotic-associated diarrhea is an unfortunate consequence of such treatments. In an attempt to alleviate the intestinal distress, individuals are turning to probiotic supplements, which consist of non-pathogenic bacteria purported to provide various health benefits, such as digestive regularity, prevention of disease, and replenishment of the natural microbiota of the human intestinal tract. However, if the bacterial strains present in the physician-recommended probiotic supplements are overly sensitive to antibiotics, then they would fail to reestablish the intestinal microflora during the course of treatment. The purpose of this project was to test the hypothesis that bacterial strains contained within probiotics are resistant to a variety of common antibiotics. Antibiotic susceptibility was assessed for several over-the-counter probiotic supplements via the Kirby-Bauer Disk Diffusion method on medium specific for lactobacilli propagation. After measuring the zones of inhibition, the probiotics were surprisingly sensitive to two-thirds of the antibiotics tested, with the observed growth inhibition greatly exceeding predetermined standards for susceptibility. These results suggest that concomitantly taking probiotic supplements during a course of antibiotics is likely futile for replenishing the intestinal microbiota. We intend to expand the study to include additional antibiotics and supplements of varying formulations in an attempt to gain insight into which strains may exhibit the least sensitivity and be the most effective for recolonization of the gastrointestinal tract.


We consider the estimation of large covariance and precision matrices from high-dimensional sub-Gaussian or heavier-tailed observations with slowly decaying temporal dependence. The temporal dependence is allowed to be long-range so with longer memory than those considered in the current literature. We show that several commonly used methods for independent observations can be applied to the temporally dependent data. In particular, the rates of convergence are obtained for the generalized thresholding estimation of covariance and correlation matrices, and for the constrained 1 minimization and the 1 penalized likelihood estimation of precision matrix. Properties of sparsistency and sign-consistency are also established. A gapblock cross-validation method is proposed for the tuning parameter selection, which performs well in simulations. As a motivating example, we study the brain functional connectivity using resting-state fMRI time series data with long-range temporal dependence.


The era between the Supreme Court's (1875) Minor decision and the (1920) Anthony Amendment was marked by productive uncertainty about women's citizenship status: they were citizens without the right to vote. This essay suggests that a handful of women seized upon the World's Columbian Exposition to promote economic citizenship as an alternative for women. They promoted women's economic participation in the fair's dominant discourses of science and religion, and they rendered it a practice of citizenship in the language of republicanism and liberalism.


Human L-ficolin is a soluble protein of the innate immune system able to sense pathogens through its fibrinogen (FBG) recognition domains and to trigger activation of the lectin complement pathway through associated serine proteases. L-Ficolin has been previously shown to recognize pneumococcal clinical isolates, but its ligands and especially its molecular specificity remain to be identified. Using solid-phase binding assays, serum and recombinant L-ficolins were shown to interact with serotype 2 pneumococcal strain D39 and its unencapsulated R6 derivative. Incubation of both strains with serum triggered complement activation, as measured by C4b and C3b deposition, which was decreased by using ficolin-depleted serum. Recombinant L-ficolin and its FBG-like recognition domain bound to isolated pneumococcal cell wall extracts, whereas binding to cell walls depleted of teichoic acid (TA) was decreased. Both proteins were also shown to interact with two synthetic TA compounds, each comprising part structures of the complete lipoteichoic acid molecule with two PCho residues. Competition studies and direct interaction measurements by surface plasmon resonance identified PCho as a novel L-ficolin ligand. Structural analysis of complexes of the FBG domain of L-ficolin and PCho revealed that the phosphate moiety interacts with amino acids previously shown to define an acetyl binding site. Consequently, binding of L-ficolin to immobilized acetylated BSA was inhibited by PCho and synthetic TA. Binding of serum L-ficolin to immobilized synthetic TA and PCho-conjugated BSA triggered activation of the lectin complement pathway, thus further supporting the hypothesis of L-ficolin involvement in host antipneumococcal defense.


The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Ecosystems is a powerful tool for classifying threatened ecosystems, informing ecosystem management, and assessing the risk of ecosystem collapse (that is, the endpoint of ecosystem degradation). These risk assessments require explicit definitions of ecosystem collapse, which are currently challenging to implement. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, we systematically review evidence for ecosystem collapses reported in two contrasting biomes – marine pelagic ecosystems and terrestrial forests. Most studies define states of ecosystem collapse quantitatively, but few studies adequately describe initial ecosystem states or ecological transitions leading to collapse. On the basis of our review, we offer four recommendations for defining ecosystem collapse in risk assessments: (1) qualitatively defining initial and collapsed states, (2) describing collapse and recovery transitions, (3) identifying and selecting indicators of collapse, and (4) setting quantitative collapse thresholds.


The methods applied for yield increases per unit animal are also progressing rapidly, along with the rapid progress of agricultural and animal production in parallel with the rapidly developing population and the food demand. The increase in animal products increases the environmental impacts per unit of animal product. With the increase in animal wastes in recent years, greenhouse gas emissions have increased even more, thus negatively affecting the environment and animal health. In order to prevent this negative effect, sustainable methods and strategic measures related to animal feeding and care are important in order to reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases. Methane, which is the second most important greenhouse gas, is found in large amounts in the atmosphere as a molecule, the accumulation of this gas in the atmosphere more than CO₂ increases the interest in this subject. Different practices related to the nutrition of ruminant animals (use of feed additives, feeding strategies) in order to optimize rumen conditions and increase productivity per unit animal is a developing area. Sharing this information with animal breeders will also benefit the environment, and therefore human and animal health, in terms of reducing both methane and nitrogen emissions. In ruminant animals, it can cause a loss of 2-12% of the gross energy taken with the feed so that the methane gas can be removed from the body. There are many studies on feeding to reduce nitrogen losses in faeces and urine, which cause methane emissions for ruminants, and many of these studies still do not reach a permanent conclusion. The reduction in enteric CH₄ emissions to be made must be tailored to the specific needs of farmers and livestock, and to be cost-effective. In our study, it is aimed to compile animal feeding strategies and reduction of methane emissions under different conditions.


For the last decades the majority of developed countries have been witnessing state role strengthening with national product distribution, which manifested itself in a marked increase in public expense financing. Therefore, public institutions came to putting forward new requirements for the effectiveness of the decisions implemented by the government authorities and for the consequences of the regulatory actions taken in various economic sectors. In this context many countries were forced to revise operational principles and mechanisms of one of the most significant constituent elements of government - the system of public finance, with the government efficiently carrying out its economic functions being a key issue in reforming the system. The article "Finance of Law-based State" dwells on the role of public finance in a contemporary law-based state. The authors consider the institution of state as a subject for grasping the operational logic of public finance. Regarding the conception of a state, the new institutional theory turns back to J. J. Rousseau's theory of social contract, provided for people to give up some rights to a government. The article draws a comparison between "market failures" and "government failures" in the light of the present-day public finance updating issues, aimed at transition to a result oriented budgeting. The public finance updating results in reducing negative consequences of both economic "failures" (market and government) with permanent control from public and state institutions. The authors give a thorough analysis of the French budget system reform model with the Constitutional Bylaw on Budget Acts as a key element. It should be noted that the government bodies' performance objectives in the reform being implemented are viewed from the perspective of a citizen, taxpayer and consumer of the state services. The state budget is expected to become a document open to public scrutiny as a result of reform efforts. This will make it possible to estimate accurately the amount of finance being allocated by the government to any area and to correlate it with the achieved results. It is essential that not only executive bodies, but parliament and financial institutions participated at the initial stage of reform implementation.


Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization (DRO) aims to find robust and generalizable solutions by hedging against data perturbations in Wasserstein distance. Despite its recent empirical success in operations research and machine learning, existing performance guarantees for generic loss functions are either overly conservative due to the curse of dimensionality, or plausible only in large sample asymptotics. In this paper, we develop a non-asymptotic framework for analyzing the out-of-sample performance for Wasserstein robust learning and the generalization bound for its related Lipschitz and gradient regularization problems. To the best of our knowledge, this gives the first finite-sample guarantee for generic Wasserstein DRO problems without suffering from the curse of dimensionality. Our results highlight that Wasserstein DRO, with a properly chosen radius, balances between the empirical mean of the loss and the variation of the loss, measured by the Lipschitz norm or the gradient norm of the loss. Our analysis is based on two novel methodological developments that are of independent interest: 1) a new concentration inequality controlling the decay rate of large deviation probabilities by the variation of the loss and, 2) a localized Rademacher complexity theory based on the variation of the loss.


Abstract In overdense plasma for which the plasma frequency exceeds the cyclotron frequency, X-mode, near-perpendicular cyclotron emission does not propagate to the outboard plasma edge. However, under these conditions it remains possible for electron Bernstein waves (EBWs) to transmit emitted radiation from central plasma to the plasma exterior via a mode conversion to electromagnetic waves near the plasma edge. GENRAY is an all-frequencies, three-dimensional ray-tracing code and also calculates EBW emission (EBWE) from thermal or nonthermal relativistic distributions. The numerical methods are based on the earlier HORACE circular plasma code (R.W. Harvey et al., Proc. 7th Joint Workshop and International Atomic Energy Agency Technical Committee Meeting on Electron Cyclotron Emission and Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating, Hefei, China, 1989), generalized to noncircular plasmas and to electromagnetic EBWs, including a parallel refractive index greater than 1. Emission and absorption are calculated on an array of points along EBW rays emanating from the antenna, and the radiation transport equation is backsolved along the EBW rays to the antenna. Hot plasma dispersion is used along with a relativistic calculation of the thermal or nonthermal emission and absorption. This paper describes the calculation and reports new results for nonthermal EBWE. Along with detailed numerical analysis, EBWE can be used to measure both thermal and nonthermal properties of the electron distribution function.


On August 30, 2017, a plea was entered in the case of case of State of Washington v. Wong, Wash. Super. Ct., No. 16-1-00179-0, and as a result the first electronic monitoring agreement of sales transactions in the US (the "Monitoring Agreement") was legislatively imposed on a retail business.
The Monitoring Agreement was negotiated between the State of Washington Department of Revenue (the "WA DOR") and the taxpayer over a period of several months and is comprised of two parts: the basic agreement, which covered the obligations and rights of the parties, and an appendix, which defines the scope of sales information to be monitored, and the technological means by which that information is gathered, secured from manipulation, and transmitted electronically to the DOR.
This paper focuses upon the technology requirements in this first-of-its-kind electronic monitoring agreement between a revenue authority and a taxpayer in the US. The basic agreement, which not only delineates the specific obligations of the taxpayer to provide the WA DOR with real time access to retail sales information, but also sets out various protections for the taxpayer, such as limitations on possible allegations of breach, rights to cure, and administrative adjudication of material disputes, all designed to protect the taxpayers right to continue in business, will be discussed in a separate follow-up article.
The problem this agreement seeks to address is sales suppression at the point of sale (POS). Not traditional sales suppression, or skimming with double tills, but sophisticated technology-assisted skimming. The specific targets are programs known as Zappers and Phantomware, which are used with POS systems or electronic cash registers (ECRs) to manipulate sales figures. Once installed, an electronic monitoring system will solve other types of suppression, like internal theft, open till, misuse of legitimate functions such as training mode, or voided transactions, but those frauds are not its immediate target.


Background Stroke and Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) are the main cause of premature deaths globally. Over a third of stroke deaths occur in developing countries, including Turkey. There is substantial potential to reduce stroke mortality burden, particularly by improving diet and health behaviours at the population level. Our aim is to estimate the potential impact of improving diet and reducing smoking prevalence on future CVD and stroke deaths in Turkey up to 2022. Methods We developed a Markov model for the Turkish population over 35 years old. The model follows the stroke free population in 2012 over a time horizon of 10 years. Key model inputs were obtained from Turkish sources (population and mortality data, incidence estimated using DISMOD and case fatality rates from hospital based stroke registry). Effect sizes for changes in nutrients and smoking on mortality were obtained from the literature. We simulated three scenarios: S1, baseline scenario; S2, a conservative scenario simulating a daily reduction in dietary salt by 1 g, trans-fat by 0.5%, and saturated fat by 1%, a 5% decrease in smoking prevalence in the population and increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake by 1 portion/day; S3, simulating a daily reduction in dietary salt by 3 g, trans-fat by 1%, saturated fat by 3%, a 10% decrease in smoking prevalence and increasing F&V intake by 2 portions/day. Uncertainty was explored using a probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Results We forecast that approximately 655,177 (range 524,142 to 786,212) deaths may occur between 2012 and 2022 (S1). The conservative changes (S2) in food policy could result in approximately 58,000 fewer CVD deaths (30,786–119,990) in 10 years. This would represent an 11% reduction in total CVD and stroke deaths in 2022. Feasible changes (S3) might prevent some 113,000 (62,580–326,700) fewer CVD deaths. This could result in approximately a 17% reduction in total CVD and stroke deaths in 2022. Approximately 32%, 29%, 11% and 6% of that figure could be attributed to a decreased consumption of trans-fat, dietary salt, saturated fats and fall in smoking prevalence and 22% could be attributed to increased F&V consumption. Conclusion Substantial burden of CVD and stroke deaths in Turkey can be prevented by using feasible and evidence-based food policies: increasing portions of F/V and reducing excess consumption of trans-fat, saturated fat, dietary salt and decreasing smoking prevalence. Substantial reductions in stroke burden can be gained in a decade.


Blood mononuclear cells consist of T cells and monocyte derived cells. Beside immunity, the blood mononuclear cells belong to the complex tissue control system (TCS), where they exhibit morphostatic function by stimulating proliferation of tissue stem cells followed by cellular differentiation, that is stopped after attaining the proper functional stage, which differs among various tissue types. Therefore, the term immune and morphostatic system (IMS) should be implied. The TCS-mediated morphostasis also consists of vascular pericytes controlled by autonomic innervation, which is regulating the quantity of distinct tissues in vivo. Lack of proper differentiation of tissue cells by TCS causes either tissue underdevelopment, e.g., muscular dystrophy, or degenerative functional failures, e.g., type 1 diabetes and age-associated diseases. With the gradual IMS regression after 35 years of age the gonadal infertility develops, followed by a growing incidence of age-associated diseases and cancers. Without restoring an altered TCS function in a degenerative disease, the implantation of tissue-specific stem cells alone by regenerative medicine can not be successful. Transfused young blood could temporarily restore fertility to enable parenthood. The young blood could also temporarily alleviate aging diseases, and this can be extended by substances inducing IMS regeneration, like the honey bee propolis. The local and/or systemic use of honey bee propolis stopped hair and teeth loss, regressed varicose veins, improved altered hearing, and lowered high blood pressure and sugar levels. Complete regression of stage IV ovarian cancer with liver metastases after a simple elaborated immunotherapy is also reported.


"The Bell Curve", "The Moral Animal", "The Selfish Gene" - these and a host of other books and articles have made a seemingly overwhelming case that our genes determine our behaviour. Now, a leading evolutionary biologist shows why most of those claims of genetic destiny cannot be true, and explains how the aguments often stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution itself. "You can't change human nature", the saying goes. But you can, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich shows us in "Human Natures", and in fact, evolution is the story of those changing natures. He makes a case that "human nature" is not a single, unitary entity, but is as diverse as humanity itself, and that changes in culture and other environmental variations play as much of a role in human evolution as genetic changes. We simply don't have enough genes to specify behaviour at the level that is often asserted. Never has knowledge of our evolutionary past been more important to our future. Developing intelligent strategies for antibiotic use, pest control, biodiversity protection - even for establishing more equitable social arrangements - all depend on understanding evolution and how it works. A hallmark of "Human Natures" is the author's ability to convey that understanding in the course of presenting a history of our species. Using personal anecdote, and example, Ehrlich guides us through the thicket of controversies over what science can and cannot say about the influence of our evolutionary past on everything from race to religion, from sexual orientation to economic development.


Promoter methylation is one of the main epigenetic mechanisms that leads to the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes during carcinogenesis. Due to the reversible nature of DNA methylation, many studies have been performed to correct theses epigenetic defects by inhibiting DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs). In this case novel therapeutics especially siRNA oligonucleotides have been used to specifically knock down the DNMTs at mRNA level. Also many studies have focused on transcriptional gene silencing in mammalian cells via siRNA mediated promoter methylation. The present study was designed to assess the role of siRNA mediated promoter methylation in DNMT3B knockdown and alteration of promoter methylation of Cadherin-1 (CDH1), Glutathione S-Transferase Pi 1(GSTP1), and DNMT3B genes in MDA-MB-453 cell line. MDA-MB-453 cells were transfected with siDNMT targeting DNMT3B promoter and harvested at 24 and 48 h post transfection to monitor gene silencing and promoter methylation respectively. DNMT3B expression was monitored by quantitative RT-PCR method. Promoter methylation was quantitatively evaluated using differential high resolution melting analysis. A non-significant 20% reduction in DNMT3B mRNA level was shown only after first transfection with siDNMT, which was not reproducible. Promoter methylation levels of DNMT3B, CDH1, and GSTP1 were detected at about 15%, 70% and 10% respectively, in the MDA-MB-453 cell line, with no significant change after transfection. Our results indicated that siDNMT sequence were not able to affect promoter methylation and silencing of DNMT3B in MDA-MB-453 cells. However, quantitation of methylation confirmed a hypermethylated phenotype at CDH1 and GSTP1 promoters as well as a differential methylation pattern at DNMT3B promoter in breast cancer.


Background Medication related problems (MRPs) are an unintended event caused by a drug and result in undesirable health outcome. MRPs could require a patient to visit the emergency department (ED). Unfortunately, many of these visits lead to hospital admissions depending on the severity of the presented cases. Internationally, many studies have addressed the incidence, preventability and causes of MRPs leading to hospitalisation. However, few studies have looked into the relation of the occurrence of MRPs with patient factors, hospital setting and the healthcare system that regulates each country. Purpose To investigate the frequency of MRPs that lead patients in Saudi Arabia (SA) to visit the ED. The study examined the severity and factors contributing to medication related emergency visits leading to hospital admission (MREA) at a tertiary care hospital in SA. Material and methods A retrospective observational study was conducted over a 6 month period. All medical record numbers listed in the quality records for patients admitted through the ED and reviewed by a pharmacist for medication reconciliation were examined retrospectively for possible MRPs causing admission. Results Of 2199 emergency admissions over the period October 2015–March 2016, a sample of 698 patients was reviewed. 92 (13%) were MREA. Adverse drug reactions were the primary cause of admission (47%), as well as compliance (14%), drug prescribing (30%) and drug dosing (9%). The majority of cases were of moderate severity (83%). Most medications involved in emergency admission were antihypertensive, chemotherapy, anticoagulant and antidiabetic agents. Conclusion There was insignificant difference in the incidence of MREA in a tertiary care hospital in SA compared with other tertiary care hospitals nationally and internationally. For the purpose of reducing the incidence of MRPs, it is recommended to involve pharmacists in emergency and ambulatory care settings to counsel and educate patients, and to support healthcare providers in making best medication related decision. It is also recommended to motivate physicians to apply patient centred strategies during prescribing. References and/or acknowledgements Dr Baker Sadeq and Dr Abdilahi Mohamed. http://www.cdc.gov/index.htm. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21938851. Korpi CT. Assessing the preventability of emergency hospital admissions. Am J Med 1988;84:1094. doi:10.1016/0002-9343(88)90329-4 http://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/ No conflict of interest


Seabirds exhibit a range of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) that includes both male-biased (males > females) and female-biased SSD (males < females). Here we use phylogenetic comparative methods to test the selective processes that may influence their SSD. Using phylogenetically independent contrasts we show that the sizes of males and females are scaled isometrically in seabirds. We also test three functional hypotheses of SSD: sexual selection, fecundity selection and differential niche-utilisation. First, we found support for the sexual selection hypothesis, even though seabirds are socially monogamous and, as a consequence one might expect sexual selection to be weak. We show that SSD is correlated with an aspect of sexual selection, the agility of male displays, since in species that exhibit aerial displays the males are smaller (relative to the female) than in species in which the males display on the ground. Second, our results are not consistent with the fecundity selection hypothesis, since contrary to the predicted trend, female seabirds lay larger eggs in male-biased species than in female-biased ones. Finally, our results are not consistent with a previous study of the differential niche-utilisation hypothesis, since we found no relationship between SSD and ocean primary productivity in the breeding areas. Taken together, we suggest that seabird SSD is most consistent with the sexual selection hypothesis via the agility of male displays. Nevertheless, further data and tests are required to establish whether different resource utilisation by males and females may also select for SSD.


The number of living donor kidney transplants reported to the OPTN/UNOS Registry more than doubled during the decade from 1992-2002, from 2,535 to 6,236, with the largest increases in transplants from offspring to their parents and from spouses and other genetically unrelated donors. Despite the rise in more HLA-incompatible living donors, 5-year graft survival rates among recipients transplanted between 1998-2002 were 78.5% and 77.5% for spouse and other unrelated donor grafts, respectively, and were comparable to that for one-haplotype-matched sibling transplants (80.7%). The number of deceased donor kidneys transplanted has remained static at less than 7,000 per year including about 850 (12%) from expanded criteria donors. The 5-year graft survival rate for ECD kidneys was 52.2% compared with 69.9% for standard criteria donor kidneys transplanted between 1998-2002. More than 1,000 patients aged 70-75 were transplanted during this period with 5-year graft survival rates of 50% or less when they received a deceased donor kidney. Nearly 40% of graft losses in this older group were due to death with a functioning graft, however, 25% reportedly died when their graft failed, suggesting a high rate of problems among older recipients. Early acute rejection episodes reduced both short- (10%+ at one year) and long-term (20-30% reduction in graft half-life) survival among first transplant recipients. However, when the serum creatinine level at discharge was <2.5 mg/dl, the early rejection had little if any effect on short- or long-term outcome. Time on dialysis before transplantation was an important determinant of first graft survival, with 5-year graft survival differences of about 10% comparing those transplanted within the first year with those who were on dialysis 4 or more years, regardless of the type of donor kidney. More than 60% of living donor kidney recipients were transplanted within 2 years of starting dialysis, compared with fewer than 20% of those who received a deceased donor kidney. Efforts to reduce cold ischemia times for ECD kidneys have been modestly successful, even before implementation of the new allocation system in November 2002. The percentage of ECD kidneys transplanted within 12 hours increased from 18% in 2001 to 25% in 2003 and the percentage with more than 24 hours of cold ischemia fell from 28% in 2001 to 20% in 2003. Prolonged ischemia of 42 hours was associated with a 5% lower 4-year survival rate of ECD kidneys compared with those transplanted within 12 hours.


Agents compete for the same resources and are only aware of their direct neighbors in a network. We propose a new equilibrium concept, referred to as peer-consistent equilibrium (PCE). In a PCE, each agent chooses an effort level that maximizes her subjective perceived utility and the effort levels of all individuals in the network need to be consistent. We develop an algorithm that breaks the network into communities. We use this decomposition to completely characterize peer-consistent equilibria by identifying which sets of agents can be active in equilibrium. An agent is active if she either belongs to a strong community or if few agents are aware of her existence. We show that there is a unique stable PCE. We provide a microfoundation of eigenvector centrality, since, in any stable PCE, agents' effort levels are proportional to their eigenvector centrality in the network.


A picture naming task, the Boston Naming Test, originally developed for spoken language, has been adapted to Italian Sign Language in order to assess the vocabulary of Italian deaf signing children. Thirty deaf and thirty hearing children and adolescents (aged 6–14 years) participated in the study. In the deaf signing group, half of the children attended a bilingual school. Results show no significant differences between deaf and hearing participants in the number of correct responses provided, but do show interesting differences in the lexical accuracy observed for individual items and in error types reported for sign and speech. In the deaf group, children attending a bilingual school performed significantly better than those who did not attend a bilingual programme.


Laser-assisted protein adsorption by photobleaching (LAPAP) is a versatile tool to nanopattern proteins on the micrometer scale. Sub-micron patterning is, however, difficult due to diffraction. We show that, similar to stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, a depleting beam can effectively suppress LAPAP and hence is apt to locally control LAPAP in order to write sub-diffractional lines of proteins. Specifically, we attach biotinylated Atto 390 to glass substrates and incubate with Alexa 555 labeled streptavidin. The Alexa 555 is subsequently imaged with STED nanoscopy. The method is currently limited by diffusion of the biotinylated Atto 390 molecules.


BACKGROUND
Mandibular hypoplasia is a hallmark of Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS), and its severity accounts for significant functional morbidity. The purpose of this study is to develop a mandibular classification scheme.

METHODS
A classification scheme was designed based on three-dimensional computed tomography (3D-CT) scans to assess 3 characteristic features: degree of condylar hypoplasia, mandibular plane angle (condylion-gonion-menton), and degree of retrognathia (sella-nasion-B point angle). Each category was graded from I to IV and a composite mandible classification was determined by the median value among the 3 component grades.

RESULTS
Twenty patients with TCS, aged 1 month to 20 years, with at least one 3D-CT prior to mandibular surgery were studied. Overall, 33 3D-CTs were evaluated and ordered from least to most severe phenotype with 10 (30%) Grade 1 (least severe), 14 (42%) Grade 2, 7 (21%) Grade 3, and 2 (7%) Grade 4 (most severe). Seven patients had at least 2 longitudinal scans encompassing an average 5.7 (range 5-11) years of growth. Despite increasing age, mandibular classification (both components and composite) remained stable in those patients over time (P = 0.2182).

CONCLUSION
The authors present a classification scheme for the TCS mandible based on degree of condylar hypoplasia, mandibular plane angle (Co-Go-Me angle), and retrognathia (SNB angle). While there is a natural progression of the mandibular morphology with age, patients followed longitudinally demonstrate consistency in their classification. Further work is needed to determine the classification scheme's validity, generalizability, and overall utility.


Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) was first identified as a key component of the rennin-angiotensin system, as its main role is to process angiotensin I to angiotensin II and degrade bradykinin. Human ACE maps to chromosome 17q23 spans 21Kb, includes 26 exons and 25 introns. In humans, ID, DD, and II  polymorphism is located in intron 16 of the angiotensin gene. The purpose of this study is to investigate the frequency of ACE gene insertion/deletion (I/D)  polymorphism genotype in systemic lupus  erythematosus (SLE) patients and to study the correlation between I/D polymorphism of the ACE gene and clinical  manifestations of SLE. Sixty one (61) controls and 61 SLE patients were recruited from Punjab-Pakistan. Sixty one SLE patients and 61 control subjects were  studied for ACE I/D  polymorphism by using Triple primer method with nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The frequency of DD, ID and II genotypes was 54, 3 and 4% in SLE patients' and 23, 32 and 6% in healthy controls, respectively. The frequency of DD allele in SLE patients with lupus nephritis is 100%, Sjogren's syndrome 100%, Raynaud's phenomenon 88.88%, and with rheumatoid arthritis it is 78.94%. The frequency of ID allele in SLE patients with Raynaud's  phenomenon is 5.55%, and with rheumatoid arthritis it is 10.52%. The frequency of II allele in SLE patients with Raynaud's phenomenon 5.55%, rheumatoid  arthritis is 10.52% but the important thing to note is that the frequency of II allele in SLE patients with vasculitis is 100%. This study was undertaken to determine whether DD, ID and II polymorphisms of Intron16 of the ACE gene is associated with SLE and whether the results support such an association. It can be concluded that lupus nephritis, Sjogren's syndrome, Raynaud's phenomenon, rheumatoid arthritis and vasculitis, which are common among Pakistani SLE patients, are  related diseases and ACE gene is involved in lupus  susceptibility. Key words : Systemic lupus erythematosus, angiotensin converting enzyme I/D polymorphism,  Sjogren's syndrome, Raynaud's phenomenon, rheumatoid  arthritis, vasculitis.


Medieval Italian city-states with access to the sea, most notably the Venetian and Genoese, were in need of safe 'stopovers' that would allow their inhabitants to travel to distant places across the territories in which they conducted commerce. As the most important 'stopover' and centre of consumption, Constantinople became a point of attraction for Italian merchant colonies, particularly after the eleventh century. Among these, the most powerful one with the largest settlement was the Venetian colony. Following a decree dated 1082 (Chrysoboullos) that granted them certain privileges, the Venetians settled across the southern shores of the Golden Horn. In terms of administration, it appears that, until the Latin period (1204–1261), no formal officers were appointed to the Venetian Merchant Colony. 'The bailo' was first instituted in Constantinople only after the treaty of 18 June 1265. The mention of a house owned by the bailo dates as late as 1277. Documents on the residence of the bailo remain silent until the early fifteenth century. It is unclear if the palace of the bailo mentioned in fifteenth-century documents and the house allocated to the bailo in 1277 are the same building. Despite the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Venetians, albeit with interruptions, continued to live on the historic peninsula. However, it is no longer possible to speak of a Venetian settlement similar to the one that had existed in Byzantine times. Per the agreement signed on 16 August 1454, the Venetians were granted a house and a church that 'once' belonged to Anconitans. The possible location and architectural features of the residences of the bailo, which have left behind no archaeological data, are discussed here through written sources including Ottoman documents.


This paper elaborates on a factor that plays a role in receptive multilingualism, namely the influence of a second language (L2). We investigated whether knowledge of German can help Dutch people to decode written Danish words when they do not know any Danish. We instructed 32 participants with Dutch as a native language (L1) and different levels of proficiency in German as an L2 to translate 42 written Danish words into Dutch. The results showed that participants with a higher level of German performed better on this translation task. Furthermore, our data provides evidence for the existence of a 'foreign language mode', i.e. the knowledge of German as an L2 seems to take over from the knowledge of the L1 if the participants' proficiency in German is high.


Rotating panels are widely applied by national statistical institutes, for example, to produce official statistics about the labour force. Estimation procedures are generally based on traditional design-based procedures known from classical sampling theory. A major drawback of this class of estimators is that small sample sizes result in large standard errors and that they are not robust for measurement bias. Two examples showing the effects of measurement bias are rotation group bias in rotating panels, and systematic differences in the outcome of a survey due to a major redesign of the underlying process. In this paper we apply a multivariate structural time series model to the Dutch Labour Force Survey to produce model-based figures about the monthly labour force. The model reduces the standard errors of the estimates by taking advantage of sample information collected in previous periods, accounts for rotation group bias and autocorrelation induced by the rotating panel, and models discontinuities due to a survey redesign. Additionally, we discuss the use of correlated auxiliary series in the model to further improve the accuracy of the model estimates. The method is applied by Statistics Netherlands to produce accurate official monthly statistics about the labour force that are consistent over time, despite a redesign of the survey process.


Diversification has been associated with organization growth. This study sought to determine factors influencing diversification strategies at HACO Industries. A case study research design was employed to achieve this objective. Primary data was collected through an interview guide. A face-to-face interview was conducted with the finance manager at HACO Industries. Secondary data from catalogues and other publications were also used. A content analysis method was used to analyze this information. The study revealed that market environment, partnerships, alliances and joint ventures are among the factors that have determined diversification strategies at HACO Industries. The leadership led by its chairperson has also played an integral part in determining the diversification strategies. The study revealed that the firm's investment in information systems, sales distribution, marketing and talent development have also shaped diversification strategies. Diversification made HACO Industries one o f the leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm in Eastern Africa. It was observed that diversification is a capital-intensive affair and may be a challenge to resource constrained firms. The study concluded that factors influencing diversification strategies at HACO Industries could be classified into three categories namely: firm factors, product factors and market factors. The study recommended that HACO Industries should evaluate the factors influencing its diversification strategies in order to make informed choices in the future. Further research should focus on the ranking of important elements of firm factors, product factors and market factors that affect diversification strategies.


Cognition of colour blind people differs significantly from colour normal observers especially in their colour identification and discrimination. Dichromats lacking one of the three cone photoreceptor types identify less colours and have a general confusion determining colour terms. Our research was aimed to reveal several aspects of their colour cognition with newly developed methodologies and diagnostic equipment. Among other features the results indicate that although their colour vision is altered, their colour identification is aided by non-chromatic cues.