The Low of Long-Range Effective Contraception Method participant (MKEJ) especially Intra Uterine Devices (IUD) or which moreknowledgeable with the term of Intra Uterine Device of In Womb still become the problem in Indonesia. Some factors becoming its cause,that is age of when becoming participant KB, experience with the previous contraception, amount of child had the, disease history, history of family disease, and menstrual history. Research conducted in District of Beji of Sub-Province Pasuruan aim to analysed the relation of some factors in Intra Uterine Devices using, and also to know amount of new participant of KB and responsdent characteristic. This Research type is analytic with the approach case-control. This Research population is Fertile Age Couple of new participant KB and still noted to become the new participant KB at December 2004 in District Beji.The sample amount determined by using technique 1 1 was 120 responsdent which 60 responsdents were using IUD contrapception and 60 responsdents using another contraseption besided IUD. Data obtained with the interview use the kuesioner and analysed statistically with the test regresi logistics. Result of test regresi logistics of showed that history of responsdent disease (p = 0.025) relate to the usage of contraception IUD, while variable old age the responsdent of when using contraception (p = 0.856), experience with the previous contraception (p = 0.305), amount of child had the (p = 0.666), menstrual history (p = 0.755), history of family disease (p = 0.277) do not relate to the usage IUD. Referring to this research result is expected to be need the existence of improvement KIE(communications, Information, and Education) and motivate the usage IUD through the approach to elite figure to increase positive attitudeof society to contraception IUD, and also improve the knowledge and motivate the society to hence contraception IUD


Human–robot collaboration (HRC) is a promising solution for expanding the use of robotic systems in unstructured environments and complex processes in various industries. In this paper, a novel variable admittance control (VAC) with virtual stiffness guidance (VSG) is proposed to improve the performance of HRC. The proposed VAC prevents unnecessary changes of the damping parameter by classifying the human intentions in the low-velocity region, which results in smooth movement. Additionally, the VAC with VSG makes the robot actively assist an operator using a virtual spring. Under the proposed VSG scheme, the equilibrium position of the virtual spring can be adjusted by the operator during a task. The proposed control strategies are implemented in a four-degree-of-freedom hydraulic manipulator referred to as HydCobot. Two experimental tasks for evaluating the accuracy, effort, and elapsed time are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results indicate that the proposed methods effectively enhance the performance of HRC.


Aluminium - lithium alloys are specialist alloys used exclusively by the aerospace industry. They have properties that are favourable to the production of modern military aircraft. The addition of approximately 2.5 percent lithium to aluminium increases the strength characteristics of the new alloys by 10 percent. The same addition has the added advantage of decreasing the density of the resulting alloy by a similar percentage. The disadvantages associated with this alloy are primarily price and castability. The addition of 2.5 weight percent lithium to aluminium results in a price increase of 100% explaining the aerospace exclusivity. The processability of the alloys is restricted to ingot casting and wrought treatment but for complex components precision casting is required. Casting the alloys into sand and investment moulds creates a metal - mould reaction, the consequences of which are intolerable in the production of military hardware. The primary object of this project was to investigate and characterise the reactions occurring between the newly poured metal and surface of the mould and to propose a method of counteracting the metal - mould reaction. The constituents of standard sand and investment moulds were pyrolised with lithium metal in order to simplify the complex in-mould reaction and the products were studied by the solid state techniques of powder X-Ray diffraction and magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The results of this study showed that the order of reaction was: Organic reagents> > Silicate reagents> Non silicate reagents Alphaset and Betaset were the two organic binders used to prepare the sand moulds throughout this project. Studies were carried out to characterise these resins in order to determine the factors involved in their reaction with lithium. Analysis revealed that during the curing process the phenolic hydroxide groups are not reacted out and that a redox reaction takes place between these hydroxides and the lithium in the molten alloys. Casting experiments carried out to assess the protection afforded by various hydroxide protecting agents showed that modern effective, protecting chemicals such as bis-trimethyl silyl acetamide and hexamethyldisilazane did not inhibit the metal - mould reaction to a sufficiently high standard and that tri-methylchlorosilane was consistently the best performer. Tri-methyl chlorosilane has a simple functionalizing mechanism compared to other hydroxide protecting reagents and this factor is responsible for its superior inhibiting qualities. Comparative studies of 6Li and 7Li N.M.R. spectra (M.A.S. and `off angle') establish that, for solid state (and even solution) analytical purposes 6Li is the preferred nucleus. 6Li M.A.S.N.M.R. spectra were obtained for thermally treated laponite clay. At temperatures below 800oC both dehydrated and rehydrated samples were considered. The data are consistent with mobility of lithium ions from the trioctahedral clay sites at 600oC. The superior resolution achievable in 6Li M.A.S.N.M.R. is demonstrated in the analysis of a microwave prepared lithium exchanged clay where 6Li spectroscopy revelaed two lithium sites in comparison to 7Li M.A.S.N.M.R. which gave only a single lithium resonance.


How much of the planet should we leave for other forms of life? This is a question humanity must now grapple with. The global human population is 7.6 billion and anticipated to increase to around 10 billion by the middle of the century. Consumption is also projected to increase, with demands for food and water more than doubling by 2050. Simply put, there is finite space and energy on the planet, and we must decide how much of it we're willing to share. This question requires deep consideration as it will determine the fate of millions of species and the health and well-being of future generations.


One Of The Helpful Approaches Of A Christian Apologist In The Present Anti-Christian Climate Is An Apologetic That Presses The Unbeliever To Admit That Their Views Lack Hope And Lead To Despair. Though Many Unbelievers Deny The Despair And Prefer To Deceive Themselves, One Influential Author Views Self-deception As Fundamental To The Human Condition And Non-culpable. However, Christians Must Expose Self- Deception As Evil—a Product And Species Of Sin—seek To Root It Out Of Themselves, And Lead Others To The Hope Of Dealing With Life Truthfully. This Essay Helps Christian Apologists By Utilizing The Analysis Of Self- Deception By Greg Bahnsen And Shows That The Older Accounts Of Blaise Pascal And Soren Kierkegaard Accord Well With Bahnsen's Approach. KEYWORDS: Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, Greg Bahnsen, Self-deception, Apologetic Of Despair, Presuppositional Apologetic, Sin, History Of Apologetic, Apologetic Method


It has long been hypothesized that conditioning mechanisms play major roles in addiction. Specifically, the associations between rewarding properties of drugs of abuse and the drug context can contribute to future use and facilitate the transition from initial drug use into drug dependency. On the other hand, the self-medication hypothesis of drug abuse suggests that negative consequences of drug withdrawal result in relapse to drug use as an attempt to alleviate the negative symptoms. In this review, we explored these hypotheses and the involvement of the hippocampus in the development and maintenance of addiction to widely abused drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, nicotine, alcohol, opiates, and cannabis. Studies suggest that initial exposure to stimulants (i.e., cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamine) and alcohol may enhance hippocampal function and, therefore, the formation of augmented drug-context associations that contribute to the development of addiction. In line with the self-medication hypothesis, withdrawal from stimulants, ethanol, and cannabis results in hippocampus-dependent learning and memory deficits, which suggest that an attempt to alleviate these deficits may contribute to relapse to drug use and maintenance of addiction. Interestingly, opiate withdrawal leads to enhancement of hippocampus-dependent learning and memory. Given that a conditioned aversion to drug context develops during opiate withdrawal, the cognitive enhancement in this case may result in the formation of an augmented association between withdrawal-induced aversion and withdrawal context. Therefore, individuals with opiate addiction may return to opiate use to avoid aversive symptoms triggered by the withdrawal context. Overall, the systematic examination of the role of the hippocampus in drug addiction may help to formulate a better understanding of addiction and underlying neural substrates.


Giant axonal neuropathy in two siblings was reported. The fact that two cases are found in the same family supports this disorder is genetically determined and recessively inherited. These two cases, similar to the cases reported in literature, had chronic peripheral neuropathy and CNS symptoms, and also petit mal absence and mental retardation in elder sister (case 1) and precocious puberty in younger sister (case 2). Sural nerve biopsies in both cases disclosed axonal swellings or giant axons filled with aggregated neurofilaments, and that aggregated intermediate-sized filaments were found within cytoplasm of Schwann cells, endothelial cells of intra and extra-neurial capillaries and of extra-neurial arterioles, perineurial cells and endoneurial fibroblasts. Skin biopsies in both cases disclosed that aggregated intermediate-sized filaments were also found within cytoplasm of fibroblasts, Langerhans' cells, melanocytes and endothelial cells of capillaries, lymphatic vessels and arterioles. The diagnosis of giant axonal neuropathy can be made only by the findings in skin biopsy.


ZigBee is an emerging wireless technology for low-power, low data rate and short range communications between wireless nodes, which is showing a promising future. This research provides an overview of 802.15.4 and ZigBee standard. A test bench was created to evaluate the performance of ZigBee network for electricity meters applications. The results from the test show that ZigBee supports a large network size, a range of 75m within line of sight, a fairly large effective data rate that is enough for metering traffic and very low power consumption devices. These characteristics are very suitable for electricity meters applications where cost and power consumption is the major concern.


ABSTRACT This study discovered considerable differences of levels of protection provided by Chinese courts to foreign nationals in labour disputes. In general, courts in Beijing and Guangzhou extended significantly better legal protection to foreign employees than courts in Shanghai. Both groups, foreign employees with and without a valid work permit, do not receive the same level of labour rights protection as Chinese nationals. The legislative framework that governs employment relations between local employers and foreign employees is still based on the assumption that foreign employees do not need comprehensive statutory protections of labour rights. International law that aims at protecting migrant workers acknowledges the equal treatment of nationals and non-nationals with regard to the protection against unjustified dismissal as a minimum standard. The Chinese legislator should consider bringing the current legislation in conformity with international standards.


We seek to understand why immigrants encounter labor market integration difficulties and thus propose a model that combines ethnic and occupational rankings to predict which candidates employers will favor for particular occupations (a matching hierarchies model). In a Swiss survey experiment, we found that employers' evaluations of non-natives follow sociocultural distance perceptions and that a non-native background is a disadvantage mainly in high-skilled occupations. In low-skilled occupations, having an immigrant background is less detrimental. In elucidating disadvantage patterns, we conclude that it is important to consider contextual factors (occupational hierarchies) that may change the nature of nationality-based discrimination.


Yeast adhesion to and biofilm formation on surfaces is present in many different environments. In food industry, biofilms may be a source of contaminations, causing food spoilage and reducing quality of products. Candida and Pichia are two common yeast genera involved in the spoilage of some food products. The aim of this study is to assess the potential of Candida and Pichia species to adhere to two types of wooden surfaces (smooth and rough), one of the materials typical for the food processing industry, and investigate the influence of surface roughness of wood on the degree of yeast adhesion. The adhesion of the cells to the wooden surfaces was determined by rinsing them from the surface, followed by methylene blue staining, and quantification after imaging under microscope by automatic counting of viable cells. The results showed that all Candida and Pichia strains were able to adhere to the wooden surfaces in a species- and strain-dependent manner. On the other hand, our data indicated that adhesion by these yeasts was not significantly affected by the roughness of the wood surfaces.


Gamification, defined as the application of game design principles in non-gaming contexts, is a powerful tool for making systems lastingly attractive by exhausting rewards as soon as specific conditions are met. In the context of online or real world shops, customers are sometimes rewarded for their loyalty via additional offers or services. These offers often incentivize users to consume additional services and goods. However, most of the time they are limited to a single or a small set of vendors, which raises the question of how customers can be motivated to use services of different domains and service providers. Furthermore, the lack of standardization and increasingly stringent data protection rules aggravate the exchange of business related data with other systems. This paper introduces two patterns. First, a way for increasing joint-marketing purposes is elaborated focusing on a buying behavior based rewarding approach. Second, an overlay for existing client-server systems is described whose purpose is to anonymize and share services in form of digital tokens across different service providers, their systems, and users. In summary, said patterns establish the context for incentivizing the usage of cross domain services.


Abstract: In this chapter, the 2D, color Doppler and four dimensional (4D) features of major right heart abnormalities are described. In particular, the echocardiographic views on which the various lesions are present are reported. The diagnostic role of 4D echocardiography in allowing a spatial demonstration of the defects with the possibility of getting new views into the heart is outlined. Videos of major diagnostic features are also provided, to facilitate the understanding of the text.


There is growing evidence that the classical notion of adversarial robustness originally introduced for images has been adopted as a de facto standard by a large part of the NLP research community.
 We show that this notion is problematic in the context of NLP as it considers a narrow spectrum of linguistic phenomena. In this paper, we argue for semantic robustness, which is better aligned with the human concept of linguistic fidelity. We characterize semantic robustness in terms of biases that it is expected to induce in a model. We study semantic robustness of a range of vanilla and robustly trained architectures using a template-based generative test bed. We complement the analysis with empirical evidence that, despite being harder to implement, semantic robustness can improve performance %gives guarantees for on complex linguistic phenomena where models robust in the classical sense fail.


Generative adversarial networks (GANs) are effective in generating realistic images but the training is often unstable. There are existing efforts that model the training dynamics of GANs in the parameter space but the analysis cannot directly motivate practically effective stabilizing methods. To this end, we present a conceptually novel perspective from control theory to directly model the dynamics of GANs in the function space and provide simple yet effective methods to stabilize GANs' training. We first analyze the training dynamic of a prototypical Dirac GAN and adopt the widely-used closed-loop control (CLC) to improve its stability. We then extend CLC to stabilize the training dynamic of normal GANs, where CLC is implemented as a squared $L2$ regularizer on the output of the discriminator. Empirical results show that our method can effectively stabilize the training and obtain state-of-the-art performance on data generation tasks.


Omaloplia (Acarina) spireae spireae (Pallas, 1773) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) was first detected as a pest of sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) in Oltu, Erzurum province, in the summer of 2007. Adult O. s. spireae appeared toward the middle of July, fed on H. rhamnoides for approximately 3 weeks, and then disappeared at the end of the first week of August. They fed on the upper surface of the leaves and consumed epidermis and parenchyma tissue, mostly by making longitudinal holes of various shapes and lengths. In some instances the whole leaf lamina was eaten, leaving only the midrib. In time, the damaged leaves dried, turning first to gray, and then to a brownish color.


This thesis analyses the temporal logic that informs the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, a highly influential narrative for understanding how developments in technology affect the body in western nation-states from the late nineteenth century to the present. The thesis reads this shift as a history of touch and bodily mobility. First, I study the techniques of factory management known as Taylorism, which provided the basis for the Fordist socioeconomic system. Taylorized Fordism, I show, made working bodies touch technological objects in order to time, represent, and control bodily movements. However, I argue that Taylorized Fordist techniques organize bodies into a space of tactility, which is not the same as invoking Fordism as a predictable system of domination. Second, I discuss socio-historical accounts that outline the reasons for Fordism's eventual failure and replacement, all of which emphasize bodily flexibility as the quality that determines a post-Fordist time. I consider the fate of Taylorism in Fordism's ostensible demise, by explicating the subtlety with which Taylorism is superseded by the more flexible practice of ergonomics. Third, I conduct a philosophical analysis of what it means for bodies to be affected by post-Fordist changes in technological objects, most prominently the transition towards digital media. I refute the notion of a post-Fordist digital age, by arguing that Taylorized Fordism can be interpreted as a model of digital bodily function that persists uncomfortably in the present. The thesis concludes by arguing for the significance of touching tactile technological objectsand tactile technological bodies making contact with one another in ways that produce stasis, rigidity, and hardness Fordist qualities that are unfairly subordinated in a post-Fordist temporal frame. I call these relations 'queer Fordism', whereby a technological body's activity is not contemporaneous with a presumed Fordist-to-post-Fordist continuum.


The conventional error diffusion (CED) method adopted in digital display devices is simply modified from Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion method, which will degrade image quality by introducing nonlinear distortion (worm artifacts), linear distortion (sharpening), noise and the loss of image details. To overcome the shortcomings of the CED method, this paper proposes 3-dimensional (3D) error diffusion method based on edge detection. The proposed method diffuses quantization errors to the neighbor pixels of current frame and the neighbor pixel of the next frame. And the weights of error filters are dynamically adjusted based on the results of edge detection in each pixel's processing, which makes the weights coincide with the local edge feathers of input image. Simulation and experimental results show that the 3D error diffusion method can reduce worm artifacts and improve reproduction precision of image details.


To date, sepsis is still one of the most important causes of death due to the difficulties concerning the achievement of a correct diagnosis. As well as in a clinical context, also in a medico-legal setting the diagnosis of sepsis can reveal challenging due to the unspecificity of the signs detected during autopsies, especially when no ante-mortem clinical data, laboratory, and cultural results are available. Thus, a systematic review of literature was performed to provide an overview of the main available and updated forensic tools for the post-mortem diagnosis of sepsis. Moreover, the aim of this review was to evaluate whether a marker or a combination of markers exist, specific enough to allow a correct and definite post-mortem diagnosis. The review was conducted searching in PubMed and Scopus databases, and using variable combinations of the keywords "post mortem sepsis diagnosis", "macroscopic signs", "morphology", "histology", "immunohistochemical markers", "biochemical markers", and "forensic microbiology". The article selection was carried out following specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 44 works was identified, providing data on morphological aspects of the organs examined, histological findings, immunohistochemical and biochemical markers, and cultural assays. The review findings suggested that the post-mortem diagnosis of sepsis can be achieved by a combination of data obtained from macroscopic and microscopic analysis and microbial investigations, associated with the increased levels of at least two of three biochemical and/or immunohistochemical markers evaluated simultaneously on blood samples.


Computer and videogames has increased rapidly over the past few decades and today a majority of the Swedish population enjoys them on a daily basis. When there are many users, it becomes important how the media chooses to portray the medium because it can affect how the society judges and looks at computer- and videogames.The purpose of this essay is to look at how the portrayal of computer- and videogames has changed in Swedish Newspapers during the period 1994-2014. How the player is being portrayed is also relevant. The method was the discourse analysis founded by Laclau andMouffe and the material was chosen from the two biggest newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. Theories that were used in the analysis were mainly framing, cultural studies, moral panics and theories based on gender.The result shows that there has been different kinds of portrayals of computer- and videogames from the beginning, though it was mostly negative in 1994 and 2004. When games are talked about in negative contexts the main focus is the health of children and that the games power can take players into another world. The portrayal was a lot more positive in 2014 with a focus on the beneficial parts of the games as a culture. The player was from the beginning portrayed as the stereotypic male. In 2014 women is portrayed as players, though is experiencing harassments because of their gender.


follow up, and the procedure does not necessarily work in normal haemodynamic conditions. Selective fetocide can be considered in selected complications of monochorionic (MC) multiplet pregnancies. When there is impending in utero fetal death (IUFD) of one twin, the procedure rescues the remainder of the pregnancy and there is not an ethical dilemma. In other situations, such as rare discordant chromosomal, but much more common structural or acquired anomalies, there is not by necessity an immediate, even not remote elevated risk for IUFD of the anomalous fetus. In such situations of non-lethal severe structural anomalies or chromosomal defects, the predictable poor quality of life for the abnormal twin may not be acceptable to the parents. Instead of termination of the entire pregnancy, selective feticide may be a more valuable option, given approval of the ethics committee and if no legal constraints apply. We have recently made an argument for elective fetocide later in gestation, to avoid the risks of early iPPROM and its consequences, as it was the only determinant for poor long term outcome of the co-twin. This may however not be an option in all institutions. Today an increasing number of procedures is however being done once an (early) diagnosis is made, without the co-twin strictly being at risk for IUFD. Twin Reversed Arterial Perfusion sequence is increasingly diagnosed early in pregnancy, but it is today impossible to predict early on which cases will develop heart failure, polyhydramnios or IUFD. When ex utero therapy is not yet an option, selective fetocide may protect the co-twin, but in the absence of a clear cut proof of a critical 'point of no return' (i.e. with near certainty that IUFD will follow and prior to adverse effects on the other fetus), one must accept the potential risks related to the fetocide procedure. This may lead to unnecessary treatment of a number of cases and therefore the natural history of this condition needs to be defined urgently. Currently, it is not possible to determine which is the optimal method and what is the ideal time point for selective feticide in MC pregnancies. Situations will differ largely and therefore the surgeon should ideally be familiar with several techniques in order to tailor therapy to the individual requirements of each case.


Over recent years, a variety of different methods have been employed in sport to measure coping among athletes. A large volume of research has used traditional methods such as questionnaires and interviews. However, more recently researchers have adapted different techniques from the mainstream psychology literature such as concept maps, diaries, think aloud protocols. One method that has not been used in sport, but has potential is Ecological Momentary Assessment. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the various methods used to assess coping, illustrate how each method can be used, and discuss its strengths and limitations.


The development of Italy's national library network (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale, SBN) consisted of three phases: 1) definition of the objectives and fundamental guidelines of the cooperation model, of the related methodological apparatus, of the architectural choices, of the management procedures, and of the organisational aspects; the initial nuclei of the two national libraries and the central database (Indice) were implemented in this initial phase and the political and institutional relations established and formalised; 2) consolidation of the project's infrastructure components, i.e., the organisational components (protocols and agreements between partners), the technological components (acquisition of IT resources) and the methodological components, which were refined as cooperation developed; in the same phase the network was expanded, with a robust central system; 3) management and growth of the national system with the aim of ensuring an "open" network as regards use, technologies, cooperation strategy and service expansion. In 1997, a private company studied the evolution of the SBN network. The study reports consists of the following five parts: 1) Analysis of the present situation; 2) Efficiency of the present solutions; 3) Definition of problems and needs; 4) Outline project for the technical and organisational solution; 5) Final considerations. The first two parts analyse the present situation of the SBN, more specifically, the efficiency of the present situations at the various levels and identification of the critical nodes, and also examine the problems and needs of the various categories of users. The next two parts illustrate the draft macroproject for the proposed technical and organisational evolution while the final part analyses specific aspects such as organisational impact, relative realisation risks, some reference elements for a cost/benefit analysis and indications regarding the monitoring criteria for projects under way or to be implemented in the future.


It is well known that an important task of the artificial intelligence is to make a computer simulate a human being in dealing with certainty and uncertainty in information. Logic gives a technique for laying the foundations of this task. Information processing dealing with certain information is based on the classical logic. Nonclassical logic including many-valued logic and fuzzy logic takes the advantage of the classical logic to handle information with various facets of uncertainty, such as fuzziness and randomness. Therefore, nonclassical logic has become a formal and useful tool for computer science to deal with fuzzy information and uncertain information.

For investigation of several properties, such logics have been represented as algebras, that is, sets with one, two, or more algebraic operations satisfying some conditions inspired by these logics. This inspiration is illustrated by the similarities between the names. We have BCK-algebras and a BCK positive logic, BCI-algebras and a BCI positive logic, and BL-algebras and a basic logic.

In many cases, the connection between such algebras and their corresponding logics is much stronger. In this case, one can give a translation procedure which translates all well-formed formulas and all theorems of a given logic L into terms and theorems of the corresponding algebras. In some cases, one can give also an inverse translation. In this case, we say that the given logic and class of such algebras are isomorphic. Nevertheless, the study of algebras motivated by logics is interesting and very useful also in the case when these structures are not isomorphic.

An important class of algebras inspired by logic is BL-algebras introduced by Hajek in order to provide an algebraic proof of the completeness theorem of Basic Logic. A classical example of a BL-algebra is the interval [0,1] endowed with the structure induced by a continuous t-norm. Other important examples of BL-algebras are MV-algebras introduced earlier as a model of some infinitely valued Łukasiewicz logic. All these algebras are also strongly connected with residuated lattices. Hence, the filter theory plays an important role in the study of these algebras. From logic point of view, various filters correspond to various sets of provable formulae in the respective logic.

Below we present several papers on filters in various algebras. In one of these papers, it is proved that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the set of all vague filters and all vague congruence of a lattice implication algebra. In another, the relations among fuzzy t-filters on residuated lattices are described. Another paper is devoted to the filter topology on lattice implication algebras. In further articles is characterized the relationship between the main types of fuzzy filters in BE-algebras and EQ-algebras. The role of ideals and soft sets in BL-algebras is described in another two papers.

In papers on pseudo-weak-R0 algebras, the most simplified axioms system is presented and it is proved that pseudo-weak-R0 algebras are categorically isomorphic to pseudo-IMTL algebras. Pseudo-R0 algebras are categorically isomorphic to pseudo-NM algebras.

Several presented papers are devoted to the possible applications of algebras inspired by logic and fuzzy sets. For example, a robust fuzzy logic controller is proposed for stabilization and disturbance rejection in nonlinear control systems of a particular type. The dynamic feedback controller is designed as a combination of a control law that compensates for nonlinear terms in a control system and a dynamic fuzzy logic controller that addresses unknown model uncertainties and an unmeasured disturbance. A mathematical derivation is used to prove that the controller is able to achieve asymptotic stability by processing state measurements. Properties of some hesitant triangular fuzzy aggregation operators based on Bonferroni means also are discussed. In one paper, the method of a construction of a ranking of the physical matches is proposed. This method is based on the fuzzy clustering analysis.

Decisions are often made by many decision experts having preference of risks. In view of the grey situation group decision-making problems, a grey situation group decision-making method on the basis of prospect theory is shown. The method takes the positive and negative ideal situation distance as reference points, defines positive and negative prospect value function, and introduces decision experts' risk preference into grey situation decision-making to make the final decision more in line with decision experts' psychological behavior. One possibility of determination of the weight of each decision expert sets up comprehensive prospect value matrix for decision experts' evaluation, and finally determination of the optimal situation is presented.

Jianming Zhan

Bijan Davvaz

Wieslaw A. Dudek

Young Bae Jun

Hee Sik Kim


Drs MW BEcRErr (Accident and Emergency Department, Central Middlesex Hospital, London NWI0 7NS) and D J SHAwE (Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow) write: We were interested in the study of Dr G A Oswald and colleagues (11 October, 917) showing the association in non-diabetic patients between hyperglycaemia after myocardial infarction and eventual mortality. However, little information is given about the mode ofdeath, and it would be useful to see an analysis comparing the results in those who died of intractable cardiac failure and those who suffered "cardiac arrest" without previously developing severe failure. Plasma catecholaiine values are greatly raised in patients who have suffered a myocardial infarct and have then suffered a cardiac arrest shortly after the blood sample was taken,' and itwould be of interest to know to what extent a raised blood glucose concentration was found to be a predictor of cardiac arrest. Those caring for a patient with acute myocardial infarction have to judge the risk ofsudden cardiac arrest when deciding whether to keep a patient at home or whether to use a scarce coronary care bed. A blood glucose estimation can be available in a few minutes, and it would be most useful if the risk of sudden ventricular fibrillation associated with hyperglycaemia could be more accurately measured.


Software Engineering progresses as improvements are made in languages and methodologies. Significant advances have been made through the use of Object- Oriented Programming, exploiting the effective support available in C++. Further evolution of OOP involving the use of design patterns and aspects requires additional language support. Increased flexibility in the declaration of objects is proposed in the form of the FOG (Flexible Object Generator) language, which is a superset of C++ implemented by a translator to C++. FOG generalises C++ syntax and supports compile-time meta-programming and reflection. The syntax generalisations provide the freedom for programmers to organise code to suit programming concerns and eliminate the need for duplication between interfaces and implementations. Further generalisations define composition policies for repeated declarations so that classes, arrays, enumerations and functions may all be extended. These composition policies support the weaving necessary for re-useable implementation of design patterns and for Aspect Oriented Programming. A declarative form of meta-programming is supported by derivation rules, which specify how a declaration specified in a base class is to be reinterpreted in derived classes. Automated generation of derived functionality is important for a number of design patterns. More general meta-programming is provided by elevating most run-time concepts to the meta-level, allowing conditional and iterated manipulation of declarations at compile-time. Compile-time execution enables subsequent run-time code to be optimised to suit application requirements. The use of meta-variables and meta-functions together with a well-disciplined lexical context for meta-programming and meta-level execution provide a complete replacement for the traditional C preprocessor functionality, satisfying Stroustrup's goal of making Cpp redundant [Stroustrup97]. The new functionality is integrated with the language, fits within an Object-Oriented framework and provides adequate support for modern Software Engineering practices. The C++ grammar is known to pose a significant parsing challenge and to require context dependent type and template knowledge. This creates considerable difficulties when meta-programming occurs in unresolved contexts. A new approach to parsing C++ has therefore been developed that defers the use of type and template information. This approach leads to a simpler grammar implementation. An extended form of regular expression is presented and used to predict known ambiguities and then show that this simpler grammar covers the C++ grammar.


A simple microwave heating system was designed for firing phosphor samples. An 800W magnetron operating at 2.45 GHz was used. The system is capable of reaching 1200oC in less than three minutes with the help of SiC succeptor. The synthesis technique prior to the microwave heating is described. The results indicate that the samples start to crystallize after 5 minutes. The X-Ray diffraction (XRD) data indicates that the sample is polycrystalline and acquires the host structure. The Photoluminescence (PL) and Photoluminescence Excitation (PLE) spectra for the powder phosphor prepared show similar results as those prepared using the conventional method. The Y2O3 powder samples doped with Eu show strong red emission at 630nm, the Tb doped samples show a strong green emission at 550nm and Tm doped samples shows blue emission at 460nm. The Scanning Electron microscope (SEM) picture taken show that the crystal size of the microwave irradiated samples was smaller in comparison to those prepared using the conventional method. This may be due to shorter heating time. These results indicate that the microwave heating technique is a reliable, fast and suitable technique to produce these powder phosphors. The characteristics of the phosphors are as good as those prepared using the conventional heating technique.


As interest in buyer-supplier relationships increased, research on preferred customership started. Where customers selected their suppliers in the past, suppliers now select their customers. Although the benefits, antecedents and history development of a preferred customer status have been addressed in literature, they have not much been addressed in practice. A case study at Accell Nederland BV was used to address these elements in the bicycle industry. Accell is a preferred customer to the suppliers interviewed, who all stated that the relationship could not, be improved, or only by increasing business. The case study showed that there are substantial differences between a Dutch and a Chinese supplier in all three aspects, which might be due to cultural differences, which is another field of research. The most surprising finding is that in this case, still most agreements are based on words, which indicates a high amount of trust. The two major streams on history development seem to contradict, however in this case they complement each other. Single events lead to a start of business, where the relationship emerges over time. Operational benefits were barely found, where literature expects it to be one of the major streams of benefits. However, most other benefits, such as discounts, better service and quality, and innovation are present. Also benefits not addressed by literature, such as advertisements and sponsoring were found. The case showed that the antecedents found in literature hold. Customer attraction and supplier satisfaction are indeed important antecedents to the preferred customer status of Accell. Nevertheless, it was also said that Accell is an attractive customer because of the preferred customer status.


As self-driving technology advances, relevant ethical frameworks must be developed to guide the engineering profession. This paper provides a deeper understanding of the ethical issues associated with self-driving vehicles. It reviews the relevant literature which makes it clear that there are several key ethical issues which must inform the development of a code of ethics specific to this field. These can be grouped into the four key principles: responsibility, safety, transparency and sustainability. The proposed code of ethics is then applied to a specific case study to evaluate it. The case study introduced is that of self-driving cars as rental cars with specific reference to the New Zealand context. This case study provides a complex real-world situation for the proposed code to be evaluated with. Applying the code of ethics to this case study indicates that the proposed code of ethics offers a relevant ethical framework to guide the engineering profession in self-driving vehicles.


The current study aims to assess the sensitivity and specifi city of magnetic resonance imaging by reference to arthroscopy in the preoperative diagnosis of knee pathologies. In this retrospective study, pre-operative knee magnetic resonance imaging reports of 70 patients were reviewed by a blinded musculoskeletal radiologist and compared with the respective arthroscopic fi ndings recorded in the operative notes. Pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a sensitivity level of 92.7% and 61.3% and specifi city level of 33.3% and 53.9% in detecting pathologies of the medial and lateral menisci, respectively. With respect to the cases of complete anterior cruciate ligament tear, sensitivity was 76.7% with 92.5% specifi city. On the other hand, magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated 100% sensitivity and 90.7% specifi city in the diagnosis of posterior cruciate ligament partial tear. Relatively better sensitivity in detecting cruciate ligaments pathology and better specifi city in detecting menisci pathology was reported using magnetic resonance imaging. Almost 25% of complete anterior cruciate ligament injuries may remain undetected in preoperative magnetic resonance imaging reports, while they represent the most prevalent knee injury. Magnetic resonance imaging should be used with caution in knee pathology and arthroscopy continues to be the gold standard.


This paper presents a novel model design of a torque converter clutch. Present market in automotive industry prefers automatic transmission which is not as efficient in terms of fuel as manual transmission. The loss in efficiency is due to the Impeller connected to the engine rotates with greater angular velocity than the Turbine, connected to the Transaxle at high vehicle speeds. To counter this problem a clutch mechanism has been designed to connect the engine to the automatic transaxle, which reduces engine speed for a cruising vehicle speeds and helps in improving fuel efficiency and reduce losses. We develop the clutch operation pattern to be fed into an ECU which will help control the mechanism. Index terms Torque converter, Simulink, clutch, Friction


Abstract By using a simple physical model of the baroclinic convective planetary boundary layer, the similarity functions of the geostrophic drag law are expressed as sums of a barotropic part, dependent only on the stability and boundary layer height parameters, and a baroclinicity dependent part. The latter are predicted to he sinusoidal functions of the angle between surface wind and geostrophic shear, their amplitudes being proportional to the normalized magnitude of geostrophic shear. These drag laws are confirmed by the results of a more sophisticated higher-order closure model, which also predict the magnitude of actual wind shears in the bulk of the mixed layer remaining much smaller than the magnitude of imposed geostrophic shear. The results are shown to be supported by some observations from the recent Wangara and ATFX experiments. The surface cross-isobar angle is predicted to increase toward the equator, a trend well confirmed by observations, but in obvious conflict with the drag laws propos...


Proprioceptive effects (PE) on directional hearing, i.e., sound image shifts relatively to the sound source, produced by changes in head position, were studied in their dependence on head movement type in two groups of listeners. The first group included subjects in whom horizontal head deviation to the right or to the left, performed on instruction before the presentation of clicks, caused sound image displacement of 10-15 degrees. When the same sounds were made signals of movement direction, i.e., of pointing with the head at the sound source, PE became fully inhibited in all subjects. The second group included listeners in whom PE was either absent or only very small; substitution of passive head deviations for active turns resulted (in 63 percent of cases) in PEs which presumably had been previously inhibited. Thus identical muscle activities play different roles in auditory spatial perception depending on the type of movement and on the significance of the acoustic signal for the motor act.


Multivariate dimension reduction schemes could be very useful in limiting the number of random statistical variables needed to represent distributed wind power spatial diversity in transmission integration studies. In this paper, principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to the covariance matrix of distributed wind power data from existing Irish wind farms, with the eigenvector/eigenvalue analysis generating a lower number of uncorrelated alternative variables. It is shown that though uncorrelated, these wind components may not necessarily be statistically independent however. A sample application of PCA combined with multivariate probability discretization is also outlined in detail. In that case study, the capability of PCA to reduce the number and prioritize the order of the alternative statistical variables is key to potential wind power production costing simulation efficiency gains, when compared to exhaustive multiyear time series load flow investigations.


Calibration ensures that probabilistic forecasts meaningfully capture uncertainty by requiring that predicted probabilities align with empirical frequencies. However, many existing calibration methods are specialized for post-hoc recalibration, which can worsen the sharpness of forecasts. Drawing on the insight that calibration can be viewed as a distribution matching task, we introduce kernel-based calibration metrics that unify and generalize popular forms of calibration for both classification and regression. These metrics admit differentiable sample estimates, making it easy to incorporate a calibration objective into empirical risk minimization. Furthermore, we provide intuitive mechanisms to tailor calibration metrics to a decision task, and enforce accurate loss estimation and no regret decisions. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates that employing these metrics as regularizers enhances calibration, sharpness, and decision-making across a range of regression and classification tasks, outperforming methods relying solely on post-hoc recalibration.


The surgical relief of complex multilevel left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction remains a challenging surgical problem. We present a new operation which combines the concepts of aortoventriculoplasty, extended aortic root replacement, and the use of a pulmonary autograft. Sixteen patients underwent this operation: 11 patients after previous attempts to relieve diffuse subvavalvular stenosis and 5 patients who presented excessive gradients over a previous aortic valve prosthesis. All patients except one survived the operation. One patient developed massive right ventricular infarction and underwent transplantation after 5 days. Another patient developed complete heart block and transient tricuspid regurgiation after a septal infarction. One patient remained in congestive heart failure and died suddenly after 17 months. All other patients are in NYHA class I after a mean follow-up of 23 +/- 12 months. One patient developed progressive dilatation of the neo-aortic root and underwent reoperation after 4 years. All other patients showed laminar flow in the LVOT and excellent function of the autograft and homograft valve at follow-up. This operation offers a more durable or even a definitive solution in the management of these complex left ventricular outflow tract obstructions.


Multiscale stochastic volatility models have been developed as an efficient way to capture the principal effects on derivative pricing and portfolio optimization of randomly varying volatility. The recent book by Fouque et al. (Multiscale Stochastic Volatility for Equity, Interest-Rate and Credit Derivatives, 2011) analyzes models in which the volatility of the underlying is driven by two diffusions – one fast mean-reverting and one slowly varying – and provides a first order approximation for European option prices and for the implied volatility surface, which is calibrated to market data. Here, we present the full second order asymptotics, which are considerably more complicated due to a terminal layer near the option expiration time. We find that to second order, the implied volatility approximation depends quadratically on log-moneyness, capturing the convexity of the implied volatility curve seen in data. We introduce a new probabilistic approach to the terminal layer analysis needed for the derivation of the second order singular perturbation term, and calibrate to S&P 500 options data.


The present work explores the hostile tendencies elicited by romantic rejection in the increasingly common context of online dating. To empirically investigate this issue, we created an ad hoc online dating platform in which fictitious online dating partners romantically rejected heterosexual male and female participants. Results revealed that male-but not female-participants who were rejected by desired dating partners displayed increased hostility. This pattern of findings was consistent across different measures, which considered both aggressive tendencies against the rejecting partners and hostile attitudes against the opposite gender. Further, increased feelings of anger explained the relationship between online romantic rejection and increased male hostility. Our work and its findings have both theoretical and methodological implications for the understanding of interpersonal processes in online interactions and the growing body of literature on online dating.


Forty-seven patients, who underwent surgery over a 34-year period by the wrapping or coating of ruptured intracranial aneurysms, have been retrospectively evaluated. The following materials were used in the surgical procedures: muscle with gelatin sponge (7 cases), gauze (2 cases), oxidized cellulose with Biobond (28 cases), Histoacryl with gauze or fascia (10 cases). The patients were monitored for up to 37 years (mean, 13.7 +/- 8.2 yr). One or more subsequent bleedings occurred in eight patients (17%). Three patients had additional bleeding and died in the early postoperative phase (within 1 mo after surgery). In five patients, the subsequent bleeding occurred between 1 and 15 years postoperatively, with two fatalities. One patient experienced two recurrences. Therefore, the mortality rate for postoperative bleedings was 10.6% (five patients) in the whole series, and the incidence of early (within 1 mo after surgery) fatal bleedings was 6.4%. After the first month from the initial hemorrhage, the global risk of subsequent bleeding was 0.93%/yr. Among the nine patients whose aneurysms were wrapped with muscle, gelatin sponge, or gauze, four additional bleedings occurred, whereas four relapses were observed among the 38 cases treated by employing bioadhesive agents (P < 0.04; Fisher's exact test). The rate of further bleeding was higher (25%) in patients undergoing surgery in the premicrosurgical era compared with that (8.7%) recorded in patients treated by microsurgery (difference statistically not significant).


During the past decennia, soil conservation practices (SCPs) have been developed in order to maintain or restore soil health which is essential to the resilience of the farm. However, the adoption rate in practice is rather low. Amongst other reasons, these practices might lack onfarm compatibility, or farmers may lack confidence in the proposed measures. To increase the adoption rate of SCPs, capturing farmers' opinions, given their specific farming context, can aid future strategies to get the SCPs implemented. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify and compare different barriers and drivers towards the adoption of SCPs across 25 major farm type agri-environmental zone combinations in 8 European countries. To unravel farmer's motivation and ability to implement a certain SCP, we applied a sequential mixed method approach based on the theory of planned behavior, a socio-psychological framework to predict human behavior. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with farmers reveal a first indication of possible barriers and drivers. These serve as the basis for a broad quantitative survey in each of the 25 major farm type zones, all characterized by their own soil, climate, regulatory and socio-economic context. Due to this context, the selected SCPs in the questionnaire differ among the major farm type zones, although with cover crops and reduced and/or non-inversion tillage, two wide-spread practices, were included across nearly all farm type zones. An EU-wide comparison between different regions allows us to better relate differences in barriers, motivators and farmers' intention to differences in bio-physical, economic, institutional, social and regulatory conditions. To obtain a correct interpretation and clarification of the most striking results, we organize regional focus groups with experts and farmers. The results will offer valuable insights to advice EU policy, extension and scientific research. They will be able to take into account the specific context of


UV-C, H2O2/UV-C, Fenton and photo-Fenton treatment of a nonylphenol polyethoxylate (NP-10) were comparatively studied, primarily focusing on the acute toxicity of degradation products. Formic, acetic and oxalic acids were all identified as the degradation products of NP-10; however, the sole common carboxylic acid was found to be formic acid for the studied treatment processes. The percent relative inhibition towards Vibrio fischeri increased from 9% to 33% and 24% after 120 min-UV-C and H2O2/UV-C treatment, respectively. Complete NP-10 and 70% of its total organic carbon (TOC) content was removed by the photo-Fenton process, which ensured the fastest removal rates and lowest inhibitory effect (8% after 120 min treatment). The acute toxicity pattern being observed during H2O2/UV-C and photo-Fenton treatment positively correlated with temporal evolution of the identified carboxylic acids, whereas unidentified oxidation products were the most likely origin of the acute toxicity in UV-C photolysis.


Immobilized terrilytin and a splenocyte factor excretion induced by this enzyme were studied with respect to their action on development of antigen-specific immune suppression. It was shown that the factor excreted by splenocytes of rats treated with injections of the immobilized enzyme was an active stimulator of humoral immune response. The action of the substance excreted by the splenocytes was evident under conditions of both usual antigen stimulation and suppressor cell activation induced by hyperimmunization. The factor of the supernatant fluid of the splenocytes from the animals treated with immobilized terrilytin was a more active immunostimulator than the drug inducing its production.


Crystallization morphology of an aromatic thermotropic liquid crystalline polyimide was studied by means of polarized light microscopy. The polyimide was synthesized from 1, 2, 4, 5-benzenetetracarboxylic dianhydride (PMDA) and 1, 3-bis[4'(4′ aminophenoxy) cumyl] benzene (BACB), which exhibited three exothermic peaks at onset temperatures of 292, 279, and 250°C in the DSC cooling curve. The results of polarized light microscopy revealed that the polyimide quenched from 350°C in air exhibited fine structure, frozen liquid crystalline texture. The liquid crystalline texture disappeared when the sample was heated to 298°C. However, the polymer melt still exhibited, to some degrees, birefringence until the temperature reached 340°C, where the polyimide was in the truly isotropic state. Isothermal crystallization experiments were carried out at both the isotropic temperature range and the non-isotropic temperature range. Two types of negative spherulites with lamellar structure and positive needle-like crystals formed from the isotropic melt have been observed. Interestingly, with a further decrease of the crystallization temperature to the liquid crystalline state temperature, the whole field was covered by the liquid crystalline texture. However, if the sample was kept at 286°C for a long time, and then reheated to 305°C to melt the liquid crystalline phase, negative spherulites with loose structures formed from the liquid crystalline state could be observed. Surprisingly, if the sample was kept at 305°C for a period of time, further crystallization could be observed using the spherulites formed at 286°C as nuclei. Composite spherulites were developed if the low-high temperature crystallization process was repeated.


This study conducts a practical application of shipboard operation human reliability analysis (SOHRA) to a crankshaft overhauling operation of a general cargo ship at dry-docking period. The SOHRA approach includes error producing condition (EPC) and general task type (GTT) parameters to consistently calculate the human error probability (HEP) values of operation steps. In this case, a comprehensive overhauling of main engine was planned at shipyard since the ship has experienced a catastrophic failure. An onboard survey to ship engine room is conducted to monitor the operational conditions. The targeted operation, involves disassembly, maintenance, and reassembly stages, is monitored based on 39 sub-tasks. According to the initial findings, immediate recovery actions are suggested to eliminate critical safety issues in a timely manner. Moreover, an extended discussion through long-term safety recommendations are also provided. The results revealed from case study illustrates that HEP values in maintenance operations are sensitive to ship operating conditions. The proposed approach is found very useful by company executives to support ship technical superintendents in critical operation monitoring. The further study is considered to develop mobile application of SOHRA specific to maintenance operations onboard ships.


Endometrial carcinoma is the most common female
 genital tract cancer in the developed countries. It is
 classified as Type I and II endometrial cancer.
 Understanding of the pathogenesis of each type plays a
 pivotal role in identifying their precursors. The histological subtype, grade and stage guide the treatment strategies
 and portend the prognosis in endometrial carcinoma.
 Hysterectomy is regarded curative in early stage disease.
 By contrast, uterine serous carcinoma is the most
 aggressive histologic subtype associated with a low 5-year
 overall survival rate. Substantial rise in uterine corpus
 carcinoma parallels with the increase in obesity and
 diabetes. As they share similar etiologies, measures can
 be adopted to tackle the modifiable risk factors. No
 screening consensus is available for low or average risk
populations.


The side effects of opiates are an important area of study as detriments to activities of daily living and to quality of life might outweigh detriments caused by untreated pain. Furthermore there has been relatively little research into the cognitive effects of opiates. This thesis aims to explore the effects of morphine and oxycodone on memory. Part one of the thesis comprises a literature review of the cognitive effects of opiates. It presents an overview of the current levels of understanding as well as highlighting the clinical importance of furthering our understanding. It also briefly raises the question of how gender may interact with the drug effects. Part 2 comprises the empirical paper. It reports a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind study comparing the effects of 10 mg morphine, 5 mg oxycodone and placebo on 18 healthy volunteers. The findings were that these doses did not produce significant impairments in most cognitive measures, and there was no retrograde memory impairment as was seen in a previous similar study involving cancer patients. It found some subtle drug effects on working memory, episodic memory and subjective experiences. More importantly, it revealed some subtle interactions of gender and weight with drug implying that the current practice of prescribing doses of oral opiates that are not determined by weight and gender may be inappropriate. Part 3 comprises a critical appraisal of the research. It includes a description of my personal experience during the research process as well as exploring further issues of validity within the study.


The authors used a fully interactive PC-based STISIM driving simulator to compare dual-phase Changeable Message Signs (CMSs) and static CMSs. The participants were 120 licensed drivers from three age groups: 18-24, 32-47, and 55-65 years of age. They drove eleven miles on a simulated six-lane highway towards an airport, knowing which airline to look for. Airline information was provided on two separate CMSs located 500 ft (152.4 m) apart on the highway in one condition, or on a single dual-phase CMS in the other condition. The participants took the correct exit on 89.6% of the drives (215 of 240). There were no statistically significant differences between the number of participants who failed to take the correct exit in the dual-phase and the static CMS conditions. On the approach to the CMSs displaying airline information, there were significant differences in average speed between the three age groups—younger drivers drove faster than middle age and older drivers. However, average speeds were not different in the dual-phase and static CMS conditions. Some individuals reduced speed on approaching the CMSs—suggesting similar reductions could occur in real world driving in free flow conditions. There were no differences in the number or magnitude of the speed reductions for the dual-phase and static CMS conditions. In this experiment, displaying airline information on a single dual-phase CMS was as effective in influencing driving behavior as displaying the same airline information on two static CMSs.


CANMAT – or the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments – is a federally incorporated academically based not-for-profit research organization with representation from multiple Canadian universities. The ultimate goal of CANMAT is to improve the quality of life of persons suffering from mood and anxiety disorders, through conduct of innovative research projects and registries, development of evidence based and best practice educational programs and guideline/policy development. V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1


Tom Maechtle passed away at home in Ocala, FL, on 25 December 2016 after a brief struggle with pancreatic cancer. A fascination with hawks and falcons in his early teen years led Tom to a rich life as an accomplished falconer, raptor biologist, recognized authority on tundra peregrines (Falco peregrinus tundrius) and author. Owner of a successful environmental consulting business and Director of a not-for-profit research organization, Tom was also a spokesperson for the natural world, a falcon breeder, a renowned falcon hood maker, and a devoted husband and father. Born on 8 December 1958, in Geneva, IL, Tom's early interest in falconry and birds of prey quickly became a passion that raged within him until his passing. His boyhood home in Geneva allowed him access (with the help of his mother driving him until he was older) to some of North America's more respected falconry practitioners (including Jack Oar and Jim Weaver), who helped him learn and excel at falconry. It was soon apparent that Tom would excel at falconry and other undertakings with uncommon ability. Traveling west after high school graduation with friend and hawking partner Sam Lindberg, they crossed the Bighorn Mountains to the area east of Cody, WY, and met other falconers on a western tour. Tom would later come to call Sheridan, WY, his permanent home base for much of his career. He and Sam soon gravitated naturally to the Peregrine Fund's hawk barns in Ithaca, NY, volunteering as hack-site attendants for peregrine release sites along the Mississippi River. They honed their rappelling skills on local rock faces, and Tom later specialized in fostering captive-raised young into unproductive eyries. In 1981, Tom was elated at being invited by Bill Mattox to participate in the Greenland Peregrine Falcon Survey. During the ensuing 18 summers, he would prove to be an essential asset. Fearless, tireless, knowledgeable, skilled, and dependable, he was a constant upon whom everyone relied to assure the work was completed successfully and safely. Greenland became a second home and place of refuge for Tom; he was truly in his element on the tundra, lakes, and cliff faces. Tom was a founding member and later Director of the not-for profit environmental research and education organization Earthspan (along with peregrine-research colleagues including Mattox, Seegar, Yates, Fuller, and Whitney). He participated in or oversaw many of its projects on peregrines and other species, and was a cooperator in its principals' development and miniaturization of satellite-received telemetry for birds. Tom became an expert at the incorporation of these technologies into field studies and the physical deployment of devices in most of his subsequent research. He directed Earthspan's Padre Island (TX) Peregrine Falcon Survey for two decades, and carried out fieldwork in Mexico on wintering tundra peregrines. Tom conducted peregrine projects with Earthspan colleagues in Arctic Russia and Alaska. He joined Bud Anderson of the Falcon Research Group for several years of South American studies, including work in Peru, Argentina, and Chile. They captured and blood-sampled peregrines, and Tom was instrumental in the deployment of telemetry devices in Bud's Southern Cross Peregrine Project. Tom Maechtle's efforts resulted in the banding and blood-sampling of thousands of peregrines, the remote tracking of dozens of others, the critical insights gained through these initiatives, and the numerous scientific publications he authored or coauthored. At home in Sheridan, he created Bighorn Environmental Consultants; its success was attributable to his talents and the fact that everyone who ever knew Tom liked and respected him. His gentle, patient nature and sense of humor were legend, as was his ribald and profane side in informal settings. He mentored dozens of young biologists, just as he had always done in Greenland and with Earthspan. Tom sat on conservation


Many people consider a summer's day pleasant: warm and bright. The sun's ultraviolet rays do not contribute to the pleasure, and are biologically mainly harmful. As UV radiation does not penetrate any deeper than our skin, this organ has to be particularly well adapted to the UV exposure. The skin exploits the UV radiation for the synthesis of vitamin D3. Our day-to-day exposure suffices for this beneficial UV effect. Excessive exposure, as in sunbathing, only contributes to the adverse effects, like sunburn and suppression of cellular immunity in the short term, and 'photoaging' and skin cancer in the long term. The UVB radiation in sunlight is mainly responsible for these harmful effects, the UVA radiation to a far lesser extent (10-20% contribution). The UVA radiation from modern tanning equipment does not differ from that in sunlight, but UVA radiation does not lead to vitamin D3 production; it rather degrades vitamin D3 and a tan offers insufficient protection against the UVB radiation in full sunlight.


A systematic study of the terminating states in A~50 mass region using the self-consistent Skyrme-Hartree-Fock model is presented. The objective is to use the intrinsic simplicity of the terminating states to constrain certain parameters of the local nuclear energy functional. In particular, the work focuses on the spin fields and the spin-orbit term and constrain the appropriate Landau parameters and the strength of the spin-orbit potential.


This paper examines transmitter optimization for wirelessly powering a small implant embedded in tissue. The wireless link between the transmitter and receiver is first modeled as a two-port network and an expression for the power transfer efficiency derived. For a given small receiver in a multilayer tissue model, the transmitter is abstracted as a sheet of magnetic current density for which the optimal distribution is analytically found. The optimal transmitter is compared to the point and uniform source across a range of frequencies. At higher frequencies, the optimal current distribution is shown to induce fields that exhibit focusing. The effects of constructive and destructive interference substantially improves the power transfer efficiency and reinforces operation in the low GHz-range. The optimal transmitter establishes an upper bound on the power transfer efficiency for a given implant and provides insight on the design of the optimal transmit antenna.


Smoking affects almost all body systems, leading to many diseases and ill health of smokers and non-smokers through secondhand smoke (SHS). Few studies proposed an association between SHS exposure and pediatric dental diseases, like dental caries and poorer gingival attachment of teeth and supporting structures. But by so far, an underlying association between SHS and oral health of children has not been completely assessed. Hence, this review will emphasize susceptibility of children to SHS effects, mechanism of action of SHS on oral health, effect of SHS on oral health, and prevention of SHS exposure to children.


The production and subsequent emission of volatile compounds is one of the numerous ways by which microbial plankton participate in the cycling of elements and influence the Earth's climate. Dimethylsulfide (DMS), produced by enzymatic decomposition of the algal intracellular compound dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), is the more abundant organic volatile in the upper ocean. Its global emission amounts ca. 28 Tg S per year, and represents the main biogenic source of sulfur to the troposphere and about 30% of the total S emission (anthropogenic, biogenic and volcanic). Atmospheric oxidation of DMS contributes to atmospheric acidity, and is believed to promote the formation and growth of aerosols. Furthermore, DMSderived sulfate aerosols have been suggested to cool the climate by reducing the amount of shortwave solar radiation reaching the Earth's
surface through two mechanisms: by scattering solar radiation and, more important, by acting as cloud condensation nuclei, thus making clouds brighter and longerlived.
The `CLAW' hypothesis postulates that, if oceanic DMS emission was in turn stimulated by solar radiation, a regulatory feedback mechanism could operate between marine plankton and the radiative budget over the oceans. However, the relationship between DMS emission and solar radiation is not straightforward, since a number of biochemical and photochemical transformations come into action from the moment DMSP is synthesized by phytoplankton until DMS is emitted. These transformations are intimately linked to the physical environment, the ecological setting and the microbial interactions, rendering the picture of dimethylated sulfur cycling a lot more complicated. Surprisingly, though, the seasonal cycle of seawater
DMS concentration seems to follow that of solar radiation in the majority of oceanic regions, regardless their productivity regimes.
The premise of this thesis is that, to understand this emerging pattern, we need to understand what regulates the DMS production and consumption processes and their balance (that is, DMS budgets). To this end, we have studied the response of biotic and abiotic DMS cycling to solar radiation by means of incubation experiments. At another level, we have studied the response of ecosystem DMS budgets to different radiation climates. Since the depth of the upper mixed layer regulates the amount and spectral composition of the `light' seen by the cells and molecules, our studies have been backed by a careful characterization of underwater radiation fields and vertical mixing dynamics.
Our results show that solar radiation has a stimulating effect on gross DMS production. Moreover, the stimulation is more effective at shorter and more energetic wavelengths in the ultraviolet (UV) region. Direct DMS production and/or increased DMSP release by UVstressed phytoplankton is the most plausible explanation for this observation, leaving a secondary role for DMS production mechanisms related to bacterial metabolism and microzooplankton grazing. At the ecosystem level, we have shown that vertical mixingmediated solar exposure regulates whether DMS is preferentially oxidized by bacteria or by photochemical reactions. The outcome of this competition between DMS sinks is that total DMS loss rate constants vary little across oceanic biomes. As a result, the seasonal and also the shortterm variability in DMS concentrations respond mainly to gross DMS production. The stress
response occurs at different temporal scales: seasonally, through the succession of microbial communities towards stronger DMSP producers and higher DMS yields in summer stratified waters; and across daynight cycles, where shortterm radiative stress modulates DMSP to DMS conversion yields. By means of a literature metaanalysis, we have improved the current understanding of the different DMS(P) cycling regimes and their links with the ecological geography of the sea.


This paper reports methodological aspects and response rates of a survey with the main objective of describing the drug utilization profile of retirees of the Institute of National Social Security of Brazil, 60 years of age or older, in three simple random samples: Brazil (countrywide), Belo Horizonte municipality, and Rio de Janeiro municipality. This cross-sectional study employed two approaches: mail (self-report questionnaires) and home interviews (questionnaires completed by interviewers). This strategy allowed evaluation of response agreement between the mail and home interview approaches. In the national sample of 3,000 individuals, 1,025 only responded to the self-report questionnaire. Despite this the low response rate, there was reasonable resemblance between respondents and non-respondents, suggesting that this sample is representative of the target population. In Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro the initial samples of 800 individuals were replicated for both approaches, mail and home interview. The response rates to the mail surveys were 46.8% and 34.4% in Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, respectively. The response rates to the home interviews were 80.3% and 70.7% in Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, respectively, after unavoidable attrition.


An important class of multimedia applications involve real-time distributed collaboration or distributed control. This paper examines some of the issues in network support for this class of applications and presents Collaborative Load-Balanced Routing (CLBR), a new technique for routing and call establishment of distributed collaborative and control multimedia applications. CLBR substantially reduces the overhead of communication establishment in the network between two-party distributed multimedia applications. This is achieved through an adaptive load-balancing and single source single pass approach to routing and call establishment. A large scale simulation study comparing CLBR to other types of uni-cast routing shows that this speed up can be achieved without any corresponding decrease in the networks ability to support new communication requests.


This is the first version of Deliverable 1.3 "Concept descriptions of user interfaces and human-robot interaction", and it will be updated after each development sprint (at M13, M18; and M24). Deliverable introduces tangible ideas for user interfaces and human-technology interaction in BIMprove project. At a beginning, the main meanings of the concepts of 'human-robot interaction,' 'usability' and 'user experience' are introduced. Secondly, the general-level BIMprove user interface concept and BIM user interface categories are introduced. Thirdly, deliverable provides a more detailed description of two user interface categories (BIM@SiteOffice and BIM@Construction). Finally, conclusions are made about the work done from the perspective of this deliverable.


Over the past 20 years, a considerable body of research by applied linguists, educationalists, and child psychologists has established the developmental significance of storytelling and imaginary play during early childhood. This book foregrounds the power of children's own stories and their dictation and dramatisation in the early years classroom. It provides empirical evidence that storytelling and story acting, a pedagogic approach pioneered by Vivian Gussin Paley (1990), affords rich opportunities to foster learning within a play-based and language rich curriculum. Narrative and imaginary play are widely recognised as valuable strategies for the development of spoken language and literacy within early years and elementary classrooms. Nonetheless in accountability cultures, where early years educators are pressured by the 'drive to literacy' and policy expectations regarding contested concepts such as 'reading readiness' (Whitebread and Bingham, 2012), practitioners often find it hard to make space for children's own stories. Drawing on studies in the USA and the UK, this edited collection illustrates and explores the multiple dimensions of Paley's storytelling and story-acting approach and shows how these interrelated practices enhance language and literacy learning, and contribute to an inclusive classroom culture that embraces young children's diverse interests and learning needs.


With the development of computer technology, the requirement of the methods to verify the authenticity, the validity, and the integrity of information is becoming much bigger. For this purpose, many methods have been generated, such as digital signature, digital watermarking, steganography, and so on. Digital signature is a hot topic in cryptography and it plays a very important role in many fields. A normal digital signature allows a signer to generate a signature of the message with his secret key and the generated signature can be verified by anyone with the signer's public key. Chameleon signature is a non-interactive signature based on the well-established hash-and-sign paradigm, in which the receiver cannot convince the third party of the identity of the signer. Designated-verifier signature is a very useful tool for protecting the privacy of the valid verifier. Motivated by above statements, we construct a new chameleon hash scheme and construct a new DVICPS scheme. Our chameleon hash scheme satisfies all the properties of the normal chameleon hash function. In our hash function the owner of a public key does not need to retrieve the associated secret key. We prove that our new chameleon hash scheme satisfies all the attributes defined in [1] and our chameleon hash scheme is secure assuming Weak Computational Diffie-Hellman (WCDH) assumption is difficult. And we show our chameleon hash scheme is secure based on the difficulty of solving WCDHP assumption. Moreover, we use the proposed chameleon hash function to design a designated-verifier ID-based chameleon proxy signature (DVICPS) scheme. Furthermore, we analyze the security of our DVICPS scheme and prove that our DVICPS scheme is secure in the random oracle model. In our signature scheme, only the receiver who owns the corresponding secret key can verify the validity of the signature which efficiently protects the benefit of the verifier. We also prove that our signature scheme is secure in random oracle model. The success probability of forging our DVICPS scheme is equivalent to solving Computational Diffie-Hellman Problem (CDHP). Thus, our DVICPS scheme is secure and efficient.


The present study was conducted to determine the phenological changes in the content of main flavonoids, namely amentoflavone, hyperoside, isoquercitrin, quercitrin, quercetin, avicularin, rutin, (+)-catechin, and (-)-epicatechin in different tissues of Hypericum pruinatum, a promising medicinal herb of the Turkish flora. The wild-growing and greenhouse-grown plants were harvested at vegetative, floral budding, full flowering, fresh fruiting, and mature fruiting stages and dissected into stem, leaf, and reproductive tissues, which were dried separately and subsequently assayed for flavonoid contents by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Chemical contents in whole plants increased during plant phenology and were similar quantitatively for both wild and greenhouse-grown plants. Depending on development stages, reproductive parts produced higher amounts of rutin, quercetin, (+)-catechin, (-)-epicatectin, and amentoflavone; however, leaves accumulated the highest level of hyperoside, isoquercitrin, quercitrin, and avicularin. The present results indicated a close relationship between flavonoid content in plant parts and phenological development of plants. It is suggested that the raw plant should be harvested during flowering for medicinal purposes.


A clear understanding of flow and heat transfer at pore-scale level in microporous media is a topic of concern in microcooling/heating systems. In this work, a multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is employed to study flow and heat transfer of gas in microporous media. Curved boundaries are treated using an effective boundary condition, which is formed by combining nonequilibrium extrapolation with counterextrapolation methods. The method also incorporates velocity slip and temperature jump on gas–solid interface. A two-dimensional (2D) porous domain composed of microcylinders, is considered from a representative element volume (REV) for the simulation. Porosity of the domain is variated by altering diameter of microcylinders. Nusselt number is calculated by varying Knudsen number (0.0–0.1), Reynolds number (5–50) and porosity (0.4–0.8). Based on the obtained numerical predictions, a new Nusselt number correlation is proposed for the first time in this work which can accurately predict the heat transfer for slip gas flow in confined porous media.


ABSTRACT Prosody is a central part of human speech, with prosodic modulations of the signal expressing important communicative functions. Yet, the exact mechanisms of how listeners map prosodic aspects of the speech signal onto speaker-intended discourse functions are only poorly understood. Here we present three perception experiments that test the mapping between the prosodic form of a heard utterance and possible information structural categories (here: focus and givenness) determined by a discourse context. Results suggest varying degrees of accuracy dependent on the specific information structure categories that are presented to the listener in the experiment (the target and the competitor). Moreover, listeners are sometimes biased towards or against certain discourse contexts. These biases are compatible with the idea that listeners infer speaker intentions based not only on bottom-up processing of acoustic cues but also on probabilistic knowledge about how likely prosodic forms co-occur with specific discourse contexts.


: Case histories of 147 patients with new-onset destructive pulmonary tuberculosis (PT) (infiltrative, disseminated, fibrocavernous) with the pathogen of the disease showing multidrug resistance (MDR) were analyzed, by evaluating the efficiency of treatment involving sputum abacillation after termination of the inpatient stage of treatment. A control group included 220 patients with PT of the similar lesion and clinical forms, who preserved drug resistance (DR) to antibacterial agents. Most patients with MDR disseminated destructive PT are young people aged 36.6 +/- 1.6 years, this disease-associated disabled individuals (65.3%), alcoholics (48.3%), opium addicts (11.5%), ex-prisoners (26.5%), single, homeless; more frequently suffer from gastrointestinal (40%) and chronic nonspecific lung (24.5%) diseases. The course of MDR PT is significantly more commonly complicated by the development of respiratory failure (48.9%) and hemoptysis (6.1%) (in DR PT 19.1 and 2.3%, respectively). In terms of negative smear tests and the results of sputum cultures, the abacillation rates were 70.1 and 67.3%, respectively (in DR PT, these were 88.18 and 86.34%, p = 0.01). A negative reaction of sputum occurred in 42.1% of patients at 2-3 months of treatment while its culture did in 46.2% at 4-5 months. In the control group wherein drug sensitivity of M. tuberculosis was preserved, sputum abacillation occurred in the larger proportion of the patients within the first 2 months (in 68.6 and 56.3% of cases with sputum smear and culture, respectively). The efficiency of inpatient therapy is greatly affected by short-term treatment caused by voluntary withdrawal and irregular uses of antituberculous drugs, mainly due to alcoholization.


An optimal wind power curtailment strategy considering operation capacity credit is proposed in this paper to minimize the uncertain wind power curtailment and minimize the system operation cost. The relevant definitions in capacity credit assessment are applied in the power system operation situation. Based on operation capacity credit prediction, the optimal operation control strategy is defined and implemented for hourly system operation and control. Multi-agent system based control structure is adopted to coordinate the diverse system components to work together and realize the system wide targets of the proposed strategy. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.


In the late twentieth century, the only cost-effective opportunity for waste removal cost at least several thousand dollars, but nowadays, a lot of improvement has occurred. The biomass and waste generation problems attracted concerned authorities to identify and provide environmentally friendly sustainable solutions that possess environmental and economic benefits. The present study emphasises the valorisation of biomass and waste produced by domestic and industrial sectors. Therefore, substantial research is ongoing to replace the traditional treatment methods that potentially acquire less detrimental effects. Synthetic biology can be a unique platform that invites all the relevant characters for designing and assembling an efficient program that could be useful to handle the increasing threat for human beings. In the future, these engineered methods will not only revolutionise our lives but practically lead us to get cheaper biofuels, producing bioenergy, pharmaceutics, and various biochemicals. The bioaugmentation approach concomitant with microbial fuel cells (MFC) is an example that is used to produce electricity from municipal waste, which is directly associated with the loading of waste. Beyond the traditional opportunities, herein, we have spotlighted the new advances in pertinent technology closely related to production and reduction approaches. Various integrated modern techniques and aspects related to the industrial sector are also discussed with suitable examples, including green energy and other industrially relevant products. However, many problems persist in present-day technology that requires essential efforts to handle thoroughly because significant valorisation of biomass and waste involves integrated methods for timely detection, classification, and separation. We reviewed and proposed the anticipated dispensation methods to overcome the growing stream of biomass and waste at a distinct and organisational scale.


A fully parallel and completely analog implementation of a shunting neural network is described. Such a network provides an artificial version of the biological cell connection structure and function commonly found in the more peripheral layers of a sensory organ, such as in the retina of an eye. This implementation is easily integrated with photodetector arrays and can be used to achieve many of the powerful signal processing properties normally associated with biological sensory systems. By using the circuit characteristics of a field-effect transistor biased into the voltage-variable conductance range, the implementation achieves an extremely high packing density with only one transistor per unilateral interconnection path. Dynamic range compression, edge enhancement, and preferential directional sensitivity are discussed in relation to the implementation constraints.<<ETX>>


High performance biosensors are urgently needed from medical diagnosis, to food safety/security, to the war on bio-terrorist. Recently, magnetostrictive microcantilever (MSMC) and magnetostrictive particle (MSP) have been developed as high performance biosensor platform. Both MSMC and MSP are wireless sensors and exhibit advantages over current acoustic wave biosensor platforms. Theoretical analysis and experimental results indicate that micro/nano scale MSMC and MSP have ultra-high sensitivities. However, in real detection, there is a challenge faces all micro/nano scale sensors because of their small size. That is, a long time is required for the tiny sensors to react with the target species. Due to the magnetic and wireless nature, MSP provides a unique way to bring the nanosensors to target species. The fabrication of bar-like MSPs in nanoscale is reported. Amorphous Fe-B alloy was selected as target magnetostrictive materials for fabrication. The properties of these nanobars were determined. The morphology and magnetic properties of the nanobars were characterized. The results ware analyzed and the size effect on the microstructure and properties is discussed.


Modern cloud computing workloads are becoming day by day more demanding, in terms of computational resources, as they feature multiple complex components, utilize heterogeneous hardware, and require tremendous amounts of memory. Such attributes of the emerging workloads disrupt the traditional design of cloud infrastructures, which are bound to decisions at the design time of the infrastructure, and mandate the dynamic composability of the next-generation cloud infrastructures.Scaling beyond the physical boundaries of the server trays, and minimizing over-provisioning of the nodes by disaggregating computational resources, such as CPUs, memory, etc., is a timely research problem. However, the prior line of research focuses on either NVM technologies or other disk-related approaches that try to relax the resource pressure induced by over-provisioning.In this work, we design, implement, and evaluate all necessary changes in the system software stack to support the dynamic allocation of disaggregated memory, depending on the needs of the workloads at hand. As a result, we can transparently increase the available memory of a system and achieve on average 57% better performance, compared to Swap, the de-facto mechanism used today for over-provisioning. Furthermore, we present a memory balancing policy that autonomously migrates memory pages across local and disaggregated memory. Our experimental results show that, even with a limited amount of local memory, memory balancing improves the performance by 41% on average, compared with using only disaggregated memory.


As technology advancement progresses throughout the years in this modern age, every technology has its part to play in that the world is moving towards a brighter future. GPS (Global Positioning System) has diverse application in current globalized world, its application has pervasive benefits not only to navigation and positioning, it is pivotal in industries like logistics, shipping, financial services and agriculture. Since the decision to shut down the Selectivity Availability (SA) by former U.S. President, Bill Clinton, ionospheric effect is now the primary concern of error contributing factors in GPS. Ionospheric scintillation induces rapid fluctuations in the phase and the amplitude of received Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals. These rapid fluctuations or scintillation potentially introduce cycle slips, degrade range measurements, and if severe enough lead to loss of lock in phase and code. Global Ionospheric Scintillation Model (GISM) was used to compute amplitude scintillation parameter for each GPS satellite visible from Melaka, Malaysia (Latitude 2 14' N, Longitude 102 16' E) as its location has strong equatorial scintillation behavior. The output data from GISM was then used to calculate the positioning error where it is depends on the Dilution of Precision (DOP) and User Equivalent Range Error (UERE). There are two schemes that were used. First, the positioning error was calculated for all the visible satellites with better DOP but worse UERE due to scintillation event. Secondly, the positioning error was calculated for those satellites that have amplitude scintillation index, S4 < 0.7 which leads to worse DOP with better UERE. Comparison of results from the both schemes was then made.


Cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) is thought to be the rate-limiting enzyme in the arachidonic acid/eicosanoid cascade. The ability of various agonists to increase steady-state cPLA2 mRNA levels has previously been reported. The current study delineates the contributions of transcriptional and post-transcriptional processes to the regulation of cPLA2 gene expression in response to a variety of agonists in cultured rat glomerular mesangial cells. Epidermal growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor, serum and phorbol myristate acetate all increase the half-life of cPLA2 mRNA transcripts, indicating a role for post-transcriptional modulation of gene expression. The presence of three ATTTA motifs in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of the rat cPLA2 cDNA is ascertained. Heterologous expression of chimeric constructs with different 3'UTRs ligated into the 3' end of the luciferase coding region reveals that the presence of the cPLA2 3'UTR results in reduced luciferase activity compared with constructs without the cPLA2 3'UTR. Furthermore, the luciferase activity in the constructs with the cPLA2 3'UTR is increased in response to the same agonists which stabilize endogenous cPLA2 mRNA. A negligible effect of these agonists on transcriptional control of cPLA2 is evident using promoter-reporter constructs expressed in transient and stable transfectants. Taken together, these results indicate predominant post-transcriptional regulation of cPLA2 mRNA levels.


This dissertation explores the importance of representations of sound in the African American literary tradition. Beginning with Frederick Douglass's descriptions of the slave songs and working through depictions of jazz in the early moments of the Civil Rights movement, I show that the aural dimension of African American culture has mediated black writers' engagement with written public discourse. Looking at such diverse works as slave narratives, essays, music books, serial fiction, autobiography, and the novel, this project demonstrates that the tension between aurality and the printed word motivates much of the political work that African American literary texts accomplish. By excavating the various strategies that black writers use to resolve this tension I argue that sound, especially music, functions in African American literature to allow black writers to engage in intertextual discourses that utilize aurality to speak across temporal and stylistic boundaries that have previously limited our critical inquiries. While critics have afforded substantial attention to African American musical culture and its influence on black writing most notably Houston A. Baker's work on the "Blues Matrix" and Alexander G. Weheliye's notion of "Sonic Afro-Modernity" this criticism has focused on specific musical forms as structuring agents that exert a direct influence upon black literature. My dissertation not only expands the site of critical inquiry to include non-musical sound, but also focuses on the ways that black writers foreground aurality as more than a means of accessing black musical traditions, but also to create an inter-textual connection to a black literary tradition as well. My dissertation shows that the African American aural tradition, and the inherent problems that accompany any attempt to represent it in writing, has provided black writers a common