The nonlinear interactions between gratings generated during multibeam photorefractive recording with one reference and N object beams have been investigated theoretically. It is shown that nonlinear cross talk between gratings, which is well known in three-beam recording, persists and even increases for the practical relevant case in which the number of object beams N is large. The magnitude of the cross talk depends on the particular grating, and it is significant for a range of intensities commonly used in many multibeam applications. Finally, it is shown that for large N(N>5) the nonlinear interactions strongly suppress most gratings, whereas specific gratings can be selectively amplified.


Software inspections improve software quality by the analysis of software artifacts, detecting their defects for removal before these artifacts are delivered to the following software life cycle activities. Some knowledge regarding software inspections have been acquired by empirical studies. However, we found no indication that computational support for the whole software inspection process using appropriately such knowledge is available. This paper describes a computational framework whose requirements set was derived from knowledge acquired by empirical studies to support software inspections. To evaluate the feasibility of such framework, two studies have been accomplished: one case study, which has shown the feasibility of using the framework to support inspections, and an experimental study that evaluated the supported software inspection planning activity. Preliminary results of this experimental study suggested that unexperienced subjects are able to plan inspections with higher defect detection effectiveness, and in less time, when using this computational framework.


The rise of social media has given insurers a potent investigative weapon: forensic analysis of a claimant's social media footprint. Evidence is increasingly acquired from a public social media space in which a claimant inhabits with a degree of expected privacy, and connected friends and contacts within social networks are increasingly investigated to identify networks and potential co-conspirators. Ethical issues abound where investigators 'friend' a claimant or a member of their network to acquire evidence.

The gathering of this evidence trail often arises in dealing with the private law civil litigation claims process, initiated by the third party claimant. The private law regulation of the acquisition, deployment and purpose of this evidence differs from the conventional public regulatory and enforcement context, but shares some objectives, and engages issues of data sharing with law enforcement agencies. A recent trend has seen insurers increasingly ask civil courts in compensation litigation to visit sanctions, including imprisonment and fines, for civil contempt of court established against litigants proved to be dishonest using social media evidence, contrasted with their 'statements of truth'.

What tensions exist between private and public law processes here? How well does the civil litigation process cope with this phenomenon? Will aspects of the Jackson reforms affect behaviours? Do these investigation techniques sit well with domestic professional regulation and ethical behaviours? How do other jurisdictions deal with the issues? This paper aims to explore some of these topical issues.


The radiogenic isotope systematics of clay minerals are complex because of the intimate mixture of minerals from different origins such as detrital and authigenic sources. An important aspect of dating clays is the primary sample preparation and disintegration method. In the present study, a sample of weakly deformed Opalinus claystone from the Mont Terri underground site (Switzerland) was investigated after disintegration by three different methods. The Opalinus Clay was sedimented in the late Toarcian and early Aalenian and reached maximum temperatures of ~85°C during burial in the Cretaceous. The present study reports data from a comprehensive investigation comparing the effects of disintegration by: (1) disc milling; (2) repeated freezing and thawing; and (3) high-voltage discharges. K-Ar age values of the finest clay (<0.1 µm) released by the different disintegration methods are indistinguishable, indicating that the high-voltage liberation method does not influence grains as small as 100 nm. The K-Ar age values of particle-size separates decreased with decreasing particle size. The age values of the 2–6 µm separates correspond to the Carboniferous Period, which reflects the dominance of Paleozoic detritus in that size range. The age values of the smallest separates (<0.1 µm), on average 213 ± 4 Ma, exceed the numerical age of the formation (~177−172 Ma), which show predominance of detrital grains over authigenic grains even in the finest illite. In summary, isotope geochronology data suggest that the high-voltage method can be applied reliably for disintegrating claystones.


In "Toward an Augustinian Liberalism," Paul Weithman argues that modern liberal institutions should be concerned with the political vice of pride as a threat to the neutral, legitimate use of public power that liberalism demands. By directing our attention to pride, Weithman attempts to provide an incentive to and foundation for an Augustinian liberalism that can counteract this threat. While Weithman is right to point to the centrality of pride in understanding the modern liberal tradition, an investigation of the early modern reflections on pride in politics reveals a deeper tension between Augustine and modern liberalism than Weithman's analysis acknowledges. This essay discusses this tension by focusing on Hobbes's account of pride and equality in the commonwealth, asking whether Hobbes can be understood as a thinker in the Augustinian political tradition. In order to provide a background on pride as a political vice, this essay contrasts Aristotelian magnanimity with Augustinian humility. Finally, Aquinas's attempt to reintroduce magnanimity into the Augustinian political tradition is considered as a more consistent development of Augustine's thought, thereby revealing more pointedly the tension between Augustine and modern liberalism. By way of conclusion, the possibility of deflating this tension is briefly addressed by considering Jean Bethke Elshtain's discussion of an Augustinian liberalism that does not rely upon a "secular" conception of human nature.


The Achilles Tendon (AT) is described as the largest and strongest tendon in the human body. As for any other organs in the human body, the AT is associated with some medical problems that include Achilles rupture and Achilles tendonitis. AT rupture affects about 1 in 5,000 people worldwide. Additionally, AT is seen in about 10 percent of the patients involved in sports activities. Today, ultrasound imaging plays a crucial role in medical imaging technologies. It is portable, non-invasive, free of radiation risks, relatively inexpensive and capable of taking real-time images. There is a lack of research that looks into the early detection and diagnosis of AT abnormalities from ultrasound images. This motivated the researcher to build a complete system which enables one to crop, denoise, enhance, extract the important features and classify AT ultrasound images. The proposed application focuses on developing an automated system platform. Generally, systems for analysing ultrasound images involve four stages, pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction and classification. To produce the best results for classifying the AT, SRAD, CLAHE, GLCM, GLRLM, KPCA algorithms have been used. This was followed by the use of different standard and ensemble classifiers trained and tested using the dataset samples and reduced features to categorize the AT images into normal or abnormal. Various classifiers have been adopted in this research to improve the classification accuracy. To build an image decisional system, a 57 AT ultrasound images has been collected. These images were used in three different approaches where the Region of Interest (ROI) position and size are located differently. To avoid the imbalanced misleading metrics, different evaluation metrics have been adapted to compare different classifiers and evaluate the whole classification accuracy. The classification outcomes are evaluated using different metrics in order to estimate the decisional system performance. A high accuracy of 83% was achieved during the classification process. Most of the ensemble classifies worked better than the standard classifiers in all the three ROI approaches. The research aim was achieved and accomplished by building an image processing decisional system for the AT ultrasound images. This system can distinguish between normal and abnormal AT ultrasound images. In this decisional system, AT images were improved and enhanced to achieve a high accuracy of classification without any user intervention.


PREMISE
Outcrossing species depend on pollen from conspecific individuals that may not be exposed to the same abiotic conditions as maternal plants. Additionally, many flowers receive heterospecific pollen, which can also influence seed production. Studies aimed to understand how abiotic conditions influence seed production tend to focus on maternal conditions and leave unexplored the effect of abiotic conditions experienced by pollen donors. We tested how water availability to pollen donors, both conspecific and heterospecific, influenced the seed production of recipient plants exposed to different water availability regimes.

METHODS
In a greenhouse setting we manipulated the water availability (low- or high-water treatment) to potted recipient plants (Phacelia parryi), to conspecific pollen donors, and to heterospecific pollen donors (Brassica nigra). We hand pollinated recipient plants with different pollen mixes that represented all combinations of conspecific pollen mixed with heterospecific pollen. From these hand pollinations we determined the amount of pollen that was transferred, pollen volume, pollen shape, and seed production.

RESULTS
Higher water availability to conspecific pollen donors led to higher seed production. Under low water availability to heterospecific pollen donors, seed production was unaffected by recipient or conspecific pollen donor treatment. Under high water availability to heterospecific pollen donors, seed production was highest when conspecific pollen donors and pollen recipients also received the high-water treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Environmental conditions of pollen donors can influence the seed production of maternal plants. These results illustrate potential impacts of environmental heterogeneity on post-pollination events that lead to seed production and thus impact a pollinator's contribution to plant fitness.


Fountain codes are a robust solution for data multicasting to a large number of receivers which experience variable channel conditions and different packet loss rates. However, the standard fountain code design becomes inefficient if all receivers have access to some side information correlated with the source information. We focus our attention on the cases where the correlation of the source and side information can be modelled by a binary erasure channel (BEC) or by a binary input additive white Gaussian noise channel (BIAWGNC). We analyse the performance of fountain codes in data multicasting with side information for these cases, derive bounds on their performance and provide a fast and robust linear programming optimization framework for code parameters. We demonstrate that systematic Raptor code design can be employed as a possible solution to the problem at the cost of higher encoding/decoding complexity, as it reduces the side information scenario to a channel coding problem. However, our results also indicate that a simpler solution, non-systematic LT and Raptor codes, can be designed to perform close to the information theoretic bounds.


Post-operative deep vein thrombosis is regarded as rare among Africans, even though there are no known specific factors existing in the African population which either increase or decrease the incidence of deep vein thrombosis in the surgical patient. But by using human fibrinogen labeled with radioactive iodine (125I), despite its limitations in detecting thrombi proximal to the femoral veins, we were able to demonstrate those which were still at the subclinical stage of the disease process apart from overt cases of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Whereas, miniheparinization and treatment with Dextran 70 may be better, accepted methods of prophylaxis in the immediate post-operative days, in 38 consecutive post-operative cases stud ied, we were able to show the benefits of dihydroergotamine mesylate in the prevention of deep vein thrombosis among Nigerians. It was also shown that since DVT may occur in the femoral segments without a concomitant involvement of the calf veins, assertions based only on data obtained from clinical examinations of the calf for evidence of DVT are bound to be understatements of the true incidence.


Background: Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease
triggered by specific subgingival bacteria. Evidence suggests
that diabetes mellitus (DM) may modulate periodontal tissue
destruction, e.g. by reducing the polymorphonuclear leukocyte
functions, including chemotaxis, adherence and phagocytosis.
CXCR2 is a specific receptor for the interleukin-8 (IL-8) that
is chemoattractant for neutrophils with an important role in
the regulation of inflammatory response. Material and Methods:
We analyzed CXCR2 +785C/T (rs2230054), +1208C/T (rs1126579) and
+1440A/G (rs1126580) polymorphisms in patients with chronic
periodontitis (CP) or CP with type 2 DM (T2DM+CP) and healthy
controls and determined their associations with risk of
diseases and occurrence of periodontal pathogens. Totally, 575
subjects (170 controls, 325 patients with CP and 80 subjects
with T2DM+CP) were genotyped using methods based on polymerase
chain reaction (PCR). Bacterial colonization (A.
actinomycetemcomitans, P. gingivalis, P. intermedia, T.
forsythia, T. denticola, P. micros, F. nucleatum) was
investigated by a DNA-microarray kit. Results: Although no
differences in the allele/genotype frequencies between controls
and patients with CP or T2DM+CP were found, TCA haplotype
significantly increased the risk of T2DM+CP (P<0.05, OR=2.21,
95%CI:1.11-4.40 vs. controls and P<0.05, OR=1.52,
95%CI:1.08-2.16 vs. CP alone). A. actinomycetemcomitans
occurred significantly more frequently in men patients with CP
positive for T allele of CXCR2 +1208C/T variant (61.8% vs.
38.6%, P<0.05; OR=2.57, 95%CI=1.14-5.79) or positive for C
allele of CXCR2 +785C/T polymorphism (61.8% vs. 40.9%, P<0.05;
OR=2.33, 95%CI=1.04-5.25). Conclusion: Our findings
demonstrated that CXCR2 gene variability may be one of the risk
factors for T2DM+CP.


Productivity is a key performance measure, consisting of the ratio of outputs produced to the inputs used in producing them. Since at least the 1980s, public management scholars have analysed the determinants of productivity among public sector organisations, mirroring the approach undertaken by economists in the private sector since at least the 1950s (Solow 1957). However, most of the public management empirical works have focused on specific decentralised areas such as police departments, post offices, etc., where the records of multiple local producers can be compared (See Garricano and Heaton 2007; Lehr and Lichtenberg 1998; Mukhopadhyay et al., 1997). Few empirical analyses focus on central government public bodies, which are unique and cannot be compared with any equivalent bodies. Over-time comparisons of performance are possible here; however, historically there has been a lack of reliable yearly data to construct consistent productivity ratios over time.