While key-value (KV) cache, such as memcached, dedicates a large volume of expensive memory to holding performance-critical data, it is important to improve memory efficiency, or to reduce cache miss ratio without adding more memory. As we find that optimizing replacement algorithms is of limited effect for this purpose, a promising approach is to use a compact data organization and data compression to increase effective cache size. However, this approach has the risk of degrading the cache's performance due to additional computation cost. A common perception is that a high-performance KV cache is not compatible with use of data compacting techniques. In this paper, we show that, by leveraging highly skewed data access pattern common in real-world KV cache workloads, we can both reduce miss ratio through improved memory efficiency and maintain high performance for a KV cache. Specifically, we design and implement a KV cache system, named zExpander, which dynamically partitions the cache into two sub-caches. One serves frequently accessed data for high performance, and the other compacts data and metadata for high memory efficiency to reduce misses. Experiments show that zExpander can increase memcached's effective cache size by up to 2x and reduce miss ratio by up to 46%. When integrated with a cache of a higher performance, its advantages remain. For example, with 24 threads on a YCSB workload zExpander can achieve throughput of 32 million RPS with 36% of its cache misses removed.


The National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Early Melanoma brought together experts in dermatology, pathology, epidemiology, public education, surveillance techniques, and potential new technologies, as well as other health care professionals and the public, to address (a) the clinical and histological characteristics of early melanoma; (b) the appropriate diagnosis, management, and follow-up of patients with early melanoma; (c) the role of dysplastic nevi and their significance; and (d) the role of education and screening in preventing melanoma morbidity and mortality. Following 2 days of presentations by experts and discussion by the audience, a consensus panel weighted the evidence and prepared a consensus statement. The panel agreed (a) that melanoma in situ is a distinct entity that can be treated effectively by surgery with 0.5-cm margins and that thin, invasive melanoma < 1 mm thick has the potential for long-term survival in < 90% of patients after surgical excision with a 1-cm margin; (b) that elective lymph node dissections and extensive staging evaluations should not be recommended in early melanoma; (c) that patients with early melanoma are at low risk for relapse but may be at high risk for development of subsequent melanomas and therefore should be followed closely; (d) that some family members of patients with melanoma are at increased risk for melanoma and therefore should be enrolled in surveillance programs; and (e) that education and screening programs have the potential to decrease morbidity and mortality from melanoma. The full text of the consensus panel's statement follows.


We sought to define growth parameters of normal fetal heart structures throughout gestation from our database of 2246 normal comprehensive fetal echocardiograms (FECHO). Methods In a retrospective cross sectional study, we evaluated the FECHO results of 2246 normal fetuses. Fetuses had been studied for reasons of family history of congenital heart disease or possible exposure to teratogenic medications, advanced maternal age without karyotyping, suspected abnormalities or difficulty in obtaining complete heart views. None of this group had structural or functional heart disease or arrhythmias. All measurements were performed on a Voluson 730 by one sonographer between 2006 and 2008. Standard cardiovascular diameter measurements were performed on frozen magnified, high resolution images. Valves were measured in long axis at the annulus during diastole with 2 leafets in the image. Systolic and diastolic ventricular measurements were made by follow-the-line methods. These included: ductus venosus size (DV), aorta annulus size (AoV), pulmonary valve annulus size (PV), tricuspid annulus size (TV), mitral annulus size (MV), superior vena cava (SVC) and inferior vena cava (IVC) at the diaphragm sizes, as well as the M-mode measurements including interventricular septum at diastole (IVSD), left ventricular posterior wall dimension at diastole (LVPWD), interventricular septum at systole (IVSS), left ventricular posterior wall dimension at systole (LVPWS) across gestation. Results


Following the global financial crisis, in 2009 the world's major economies (G20) quickly agreed on stricter rules for financial markets. Heads of government tasked the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) with developing a new framework for the capitalisation and liquidity of globally active financial institutions and the agreement (Basel III) was signed in December 2010. A crucial area that was left to be finalized later were final rules on the use of banks' internal risk models. While it has been the US government's intention to restrict risk models the EU made it clear that it would not agree to additional rules leading to increased regulatory capital requirements. After a long stalemate in the negotiations, chances now seem to increase for an agreement in fall 2017 between European and US representatives in the Basel Committee. The Trump administration might be willing to meet the EU halfway and grant Europe's ailing banks greater freedom in calculating risk. But the price could be high: the US wants more leeway in national interpretations of the Basel framework. The European Commission, which will have to give its agreement in Basel, needs to be aware of the risks this poses to the stability of its own banking market.


Background: Across the European Union costs for the treatment of oral disease is expected to rise to €93 Billion by 2020 and be higher than those for stroke and dementia combined. A significant proportion of these costs will relate to the provision of care for older people. Dental caries severity and experience is now a major public health issue in older people and periodontal disease disproportionately affects older adults. Poor oral health impacts on older people's quality of life, their self-esteem, general health and diet. Oral health care service provision for older people is often unavailable or poor, as is the standard of knowledge amongst formal and informal carers. The aim of this discussion paper is to explore some of the approaches that could be taken to improve the level of co-production in the design of healthcare services for older people. Main text: People's emotional and practical response to challenges in health and well-being and the responsiveness of systems to their needs is crucial to improve the quality of service provision. This is a particularly important aspect of care for older people as felt, expressed and normative needs may be fundamentally different and vary as they become increasingly dependent. Co-production shifts the design process away from the traditional 'top-down' medical model, where needs assessments are undertaken by someone external to a community and strategies are devised that encourage these communities to become passive recipients of services. Instead, an inductive paradigm of partnership working and shared leadership is actively encouraged to set priorities and ultimately helps improve the translational gap between research, health policy and health-service provision. Discussion: The four methodological approaches discussed in this paper (Priority Setting Partnerships, Discrete Choice Experiments, Core Outcome Sets and Experience Based Co-Design) represent an approach that seeks to better engage with older people and ensure an inductive, co-produced process to the research and design of healthcare services of the future. These methods facilitate partnerships between researchers, healthcare professionals and patients to produce more responsive and appropriate public services for older people.


Background Sociocultural theories state that learning results from people participating in contexts where social interaction is facilitated. There is a need to create such facilitated pedagogical spaces where participants can share their ways of knowing and doing. The aim of this exploratory study was to introduce pedagogical space for sociocultural interaction using 'Identity Text'. Methods Identity Texts are sociocultural artifacts produced by participants, which can be written, spoken, visual, musical, or multimodal. In 2013, participants of an international medical education fellowship program were asked to create their own Identity Texts to promote discussion about participants' cultural backgrounds. Thematic analysis was used to make the analysis relevant to studying the pedagogical utility of the intervention. Result The Identity Text intervention created two spaces: a 'reflective space', which helped participants reflect on sensitive topics such as institutional environments, roles in interdisciplinary teams, and gender discrimination, and a 'narrative space', which allowed participants to tell powerful stories that provided cultural insights and challenged cultural hegemony; they described the conscious and subconscious transformation in identity that evolved secondary to struggles with local power dynamics and social demands involving the impact of family, peers, and country of origin. Conclusion While the impact of providing pedagogical space using Identity Text on cognitive engagement and enhanced learning requires further research, the findings of this study suggest that it is a useful pedagogical strategy to support cross-cultural education.


Algorithmic machine teaching studies the interaction between a teacher and a learner where the teacher selects labeled examples aiming at teaching a target hypothesis. In a quest to lower teaching complexity and to achieve more natural teacher-learner interactions, several teaching models and complexity measures have been proposed for both the batch settings (e.g., worst-case, recursive, preference-based, and non-clashing models) as well as the sequential settings (e.g., local preference-based model). To better understand the connections between these different batch and sequential models, we develop a novel framework which captures the teaching process via preference functions $\Sigma$. In our framework, each function $\sigma \in \Sigma$ induces a teacher-learner pair with teaching complexity as $\TD(\sigma)$. We show that the above-mentioned teaching models are equivalent to specific types/families of preference functions in our framework. This equivalence, in turn, allows us to study the differences between two important teaching models, namely $\sigma$ functions inducing the strongest batch (i.e., non-clashing) model and $\sigma$ functions inducing a weak sequential (i.e., local preference-based) model. Finally, we identify preference functions inducing a novel family of sequential models with teaching complexity linear in the VC dimension of the hypothesis class: this is in contrast to the best known complexity result for the batch models which is quadratic in the VC dimension.


Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a common business practice has only recently established a foothold in developing countries. This is evidenced by a lack of literature in the area of CSR among these countries. In Malaysia, for instance, only a third of large businesses can be considered CSR active. The purpose of this paper is to determine if there is a link between CSR performance and financial performance among these large businesses. We compare the monthly average returns of a portfolio of CSR active companies (based on disclosure) against a portfolio of inactive CSR companies as well as against the market, represented by the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Index (KLSE-CI). Both risk unadjusted and risk adjusted returns were utilized in this study. In either case, we do not find strong statistical evidence to show that our CSR portfolio outperforms the market; neither does it beat the non-CSR portfolio. Nevertheless, based on the results obtained by similar studies in the US, UK and Australia, there is reason to believe that CSR active companies may outperform their counterparts when consumers, employees and other stakeholders increase the value they place on socially responsible activities of a firm. Our findings also imply that international investors looking for socially responsible companies in developing companies to invest in need not incur significant opportunity costs when carrying out their investment strategies. Given that developing countries like Malaysia feature strongly in international investment portfolios like the Morgan Stanley International Composite Index (MSCI), socially responsible investors could extend their portfolios internationally without compromising their rate of returns.


Abstract We investigated local people's perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward conservation planning and management in Chitral Gol National Park in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. A literature review was undertaken to unravel the historic drivers behind the formation of this protected area. Key informant interviews and questionnaire surveys were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of current governance approaches adopted by the park management authorities. Community-based questionnaire surveys and key-informant interviews focused on local communities' knowledge and awareness of the objectives of the park, people's role in decision-making, social characteristics, and resource use structures. The information from these surveys was evaluated within the context of good governance and sustainability of park management. Results show a lack of awareness and a low level of participation in protected area management, but a high degree of willingness in the communities to participate in conservation activities. An analysis of the survey data suggests that the park authorities enforce strict protection measures within the park, but this approach lacks a strong vision of sustainability. The surveys reveal that the local people have a very strong sense of belonging to the place and are willing to contribute to the protection of the PA. A large majority of the respondents rely on electronic media as their main source of information, which could potentially form the best medium for conservation campaigning in the region. With these findings in mind, we propose changes to the current governance model for effective and sustainable management of the park in the future.


Discrete Time Dynamic Traffic Assignment Models with Lane Reversals for Evacuation Planning by Yeh-Ern Poh Master of Science in Industrial Engineering West Virginia University Qipeng P. Zheng, Ph.D., Chair In an event of a natural or man-made disaster, an evacuation is likely to be called for to move residents away from potentially hazardous areas. Road congestion and traffic stalling is a common occurrence as residents evacuate towns and cities for safe refuges. Lane reversal, or contra-flow, is a remedy to increase outbound flow capacities from disaster areas which in turn will reduce evacuation time of evacuees during emergency situations. This thesis presents a discrete-time traffic assignment system with lane reversals which incorporates multiple sources and multiple destinations to predict optimal traffic flow at various times throughout the entire planning horizon. With the realization of lane reversals, naturally the threat of potential head-on collisions emerges. To avoid the occurrence of such situations, a collision prevention constraint is introduced to limit directional flow on lanes based on departure time. This model belongs to the class of dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) problems. Initially the model was formulated as a discrete-time system optimum dynamic traffic assignment (DTA-SO) problem, which is a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem. Through various proven theorems, a linearized upper bound was derived that is able to approximate the original problem with very high precision. The result is an upper bound mixed integer linear programming problem (DTA-UB). The discrete-time DTA model is suitable for evacuation planning because the model is able to take care of dynamic demands, and temporal flow assignment. Also, simultaneous route and departure is assumed and an appropriate travel time function is used to approximate the minimum and maximum travel time on an arc. This thesis discusses the different attributes that relates to Dynamic Traffic Assignment. DTA model properties and formulation methodology are also expounded upon. A model analysis that breaks down each output into individual entities is provided to further understand the computational results of small networks. A no reversal DTA-UB model (NRDTA-UB) is formulated and its computational results are compared to DTAUB. Through the extensive computational results, DTA-UB is proven to obtain much better results than NRDTA-UB despite having longer solving time. This is a step toward realizing the supremacy of having lane reversals in a real-life evacuation scenario.


France's antidoping agency has uncovered "a surprising therapeutic arsenal," including two drugs that are not yet licensed, after scrutinising bins in the wake of the 2009 Tour de France.

Michel Rieu, the scientific adviser of the French Agency Against Doping (Agence Francaise de Lutte Contre le Dopage), said at a press conference on 7 October, "These are incongruous products in a milieu where people are supposed to be in good health."

Professor Rieu said that this "surprising therapeutic arsenal" had been reported to the World Anti-Doping Agency in July.

The agency said it suspected that some cyclists were using blood transfusions and two unlicensed substances.

Pierre Bordry, head of …


As a microanalytical technique, electron energy-loss (EEL) spectroscopy performed within a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) represents an outstanding method. The technique has led to remarkable success in spectroscopic chemical analysis. However, the question remains of whether the EEL signal of individual dopant atoms within a substrate can be detected, with simultaneous atomic-scale imaging of the microstructural surround. In the present contribution, results are presented of ultra-high spatially resolved EEL spectroscopy of ion implanted multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), performed within a Cs-corrected dedicated STEM. Quantifiable EEL signals with an absence of oversampling, suggest single implanted atoms were detected at certain locations.


: A case of uterine torsion in a mare with colic is described in which an early diagnosis was made and the torsion successfully reduced through a standing laparotomy with survival of both the mare and the foal. This case is used to stress the importance of thorough examination of all pregnant mares with colic in order to differentiate uterine torsion from other causes of abdominal pain, thereby avoiding delay in surgical correction and reducing the risk of fetal and/or maternal death. The advantages of the standing laparotomy are presented in support of this method of treatment of torsion of the gravid uterus.


Objective Ovarian cancer is a common gynecological cancer, and parity is negatively associated with the incidence of this disease. This negative association is hypothesized to be due in part to shifting the balance of estrogen and progesterone toward more progesterone and reduced ovulation during pregnancy. However, studies suggested that parity is also associated with estrogen-independent gynecological cancers suggesting balance of hormones may not be the only protective factor. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play an important role in cell-to-cell communication in physiological and pathological conditions. During pregnancy, large amounts of EVs are extruded from the placenta, and they seem to be involved in the remarkable adaptation of a woman's body to normal pregnancy. We hypothesized that EVs extruded from the placenta play a role in this protective effect. Methods Placental EVs were collected from first-trimester placentae, and cancer cell EVs were isolated from ovarian cancer cells. The EVs were exposed to ovarian cancer cells for 48 hours. The proliferation of cancer cells and the cell cycle were measured. In addition, phagocytosis of deported placental EVs by cancer cells was also measured. Results The proliferation of cancer cells was significantly reduced by treatment with placental EVs (P = 0.001, analysis of variance), but not EVs from monocytes (P = 0.195), compared with untreated cancer cells. Furthermore, placental EVs also prevented the proliferation of cancer cells induced by cancer cell–derived EVs (P = 0.001). This inhibition of proliferation of ovarian cancer cells was partially due to phagocytosis of placental EVs by cancer cells. Phagocytosis of placental EVs delayed progression through the cell cycle. Calreticulin, a phagocytic "eat me" signal carried by placental EVs significantly inhibited ovarian cancer growth (P = 0.001). Conclusions Our data demonstrated that EVs extruded from the placenta prevented ovarian cancer cell growth by a mechanism that involved delaying progression of the cell cycle after phagocytosis of the EVs.


A comparison of wideband High-Impedance Surfaces (HIS) for The design of a compact low-profile high-gain UHF antenna is presented. In order to design the optimal HIS plane for the Digital Television (DTV) operating band, the separation between HIS layers is investigated in an effort to produce a low-profile and lightweight structure, and obtain a practical antenna. Low-density and low-cost substrates are employed in the design: rigid PVC for the antenna, and foamed PVC for the artificial ground plane. The final design consists of a microstrip-fed monopole placed over the proposed HIS. The artificial surface reflects effectively an in-phase field over a bandwidth of about 56%, and achieves around 10.25 dBi of peak gain (7 dB of increment with respect to the simple monopole). The overall structure is very compact (total height is 0.098λ). This paper describes the design procedure of the proposed antenna and shows simulated results.


Sensor Webs are heterogeneous collections of sensor devices that collect information and interact with the environment. They consist of wireless sensor networks that are ensembles of small, smart, and cheap sensing and computing devices that permeate the environment as well as high-bandwidth rich sensors such as satellite imaging systems, meteorological stations, air quality stations, and security cameras. Emergency response, homeland security, and many other applications have a very real need to interconnect such diverse networks and access information in real-time. While Internet protocols and Web standards provide well-developed mechanisms for accessing this information, linking such mechanisms with resource-constrained sensor networks is very challenging because of the volatility of the communication links. This paper presents a service-oriented programming model for sensor networks which permits discovery and access of Web services. Sensor network applications are realized as graphs of modular and autonomous services with well-defined interfaces that allow them to be described, published, discovered, and invoked over the network providing a convenient way for integrating services from heterogeneous sensor systems. Our approach provides dynamic discovery, composition, and binding of services based on an efficient localized constraint satisfaction algorithm that can be used for developing ambient-aware applications that adapt to changes in the environment. A tracking application that employs many inexpensive sensor nodes, as well as a Web service, is used to illustrate the approach. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of ambient-aware applications that interconnect wireless sensor networks and Web services.


Preface to the Second Edition. Introduction: Brief Historical Review and Main Definitions: What Robots Are. Definition of Levels or Kinds of Robots. Manipulators. Structure of Automatic Industrial Systems. Nonindustrial Representatives of the Robot Family. Relationship between the Level of Robot 'Intelligence' and the Product. References. Concepts and Layouts: Processing Layout. How Does One Find the Concept of an Automatic Manufacturing Process?. How to Determine the Productivity of a Manufacturing Process. The Kinematic Layout. Rapid Prototyping. Dynamic Analysis of Drives: Mechanically Driven Bodies. Electromagnetic Drive. Electric Drives. Hydraulic Drive. Pneumodrive. Brakes. Drive with a Variable Moment of Inertia. Kinematics and Control of Automatic Machines: Position Function. Camshafts. Master Controller, Amplifiers. Dynamic Accuracy. Damping of Harmful Vibrations. Automatic Vibration Damping. Electrically Controlled Vibration Dampers. Feedback Sensors: Linear and Angular Displacement Sensors. Speed and Flow-Rate Sensors. Force Sensors. Temperature Sensors. Item Presence Sensors. Transporting Devices: General Considerations. Linear Transportation. Rotational Transportation. Vibrational Transportation. Feeding and Orientation Devices: Introduction. Feeding of Liquid and Granular Materials. Feeding of Strips, Rods, Wires, Ribbons, Etc. Feeding of Oriented Parts from Magazines. Feeding of Parts from Bins. General Discussion of Orientation of Parts. Passive Orientation. Active Orientation. Logical Orientation. Orientation by Nonmechanical Means. Functional Systems and Mechanisms: General Concepts. Automatic Assembling. Special Means of Assembly. Inspection Systems. Miscellaneous Mechanisms. Manipulators: Introduction. Dynamics of Manipulators. Kinematics of Manipulators. Grippers. Guides. Mobile and Walking Robots. Solutions to the Exercises. Recommended Readings. List of Main Symbols. Index.


We demonstrate an approach to examining the metamorphic history of subducting oceanic crust that can complement records of subduction zone chemical cycling derived from studies of igneous rocks produced at volcanic arcs. By merging methods utilizing garnet zoning to establish prograde reaction histories with in situ high‐resolution trace element geochemistry, and application to coesite‐bearing mafic eclogites representing subduction to depths beneath arcs, we are able to directly identify geochemical manifestations of reactions contributing to element mobility in the subducting slab that are only inferred in studies of volcanic arcs or theoretical metamorphic models. Specifically, we identify a prograde metamorphic reaction, based solely on the zoning of geochemistry and mineral inclusions within garnet, and infer that these features are a record of the breakdown of coexisting clinozoisite + titanite and probable liberation of trace element–laden fluid from the rock during prograde metamorphism. We are then able to assign a specific depth interval for the reaction through calculation of the P‐T dependence of the reaction for these eclogites and comparison with a published P‐T trajectory. Because of the robust preservation of records of petrologic and geochemical processes by garnet, this methodology is particularly suited for study of ultrahigh‐pressure (UHP) eclogites, in which severe retrograde alteration (generally related to exhumation) commonly obscures prograde history.


Failure of electromagnetic launch (EML) solid armatures can be caused by various mechanisms, but a critical performance limit is due to arcing at the rail/armature contact surface above the transition velocity. A previous theoretical transition model based on velocity skin effect and current wave (VSE/CW) phenomena is reviewed and further data of the changing current distribution at the contact surface is derived as the vaporization current wave moves forward until the arcing transition occurs. This VSE/CW model predicts experimental transition velocities with reasonable accuracy over a wide range of parameters (bore size from 15 to 90 mm). To achieve the required contact pressure distribution with the optimum contact region geometry, monolithic armatures are considered to be necessary, which is consistent with the highest transition velocities being achieved with such aluminum alloy armatures. Possible improvements in the performance of solid armatures are evaluated for monolithic armatures with copper rails by optimizing armature geometry, dimensions, contact pressure distribution, and the use of resistive contact region materials. An increase of >40% in transition velocity to >2.5 km/s is predicted above reported experimental results.


Objectives: The objective of the study was to investigate the importance of audit quality in Mauritius and the factors affecting audit quality in Mauritius, from the perception of accounting professionals in Mauritius. Methodology: For the purpose of this study, a survey was carried out among accounting professionals in Mauritius. Based on existing literature, the questionnaire was designed and a five point-likert scale was used. The target population was accountants, auditors and stock brokers who were used as a proxy for investors. A stratified random sampling approach was used for the purpose of this study. A sample size of 200 accounting professionals was out of the 200 questionnaires administered, 188 were collected, of which 8 were discarded because they were not properly filled. Statistical analysis techniques for example; Factor Analysis, Descriptive Statistics, Independent Samples T-test and One-Way-ANOVA were used for the purpose of analysis. Findings: Majority of respondents have shown agreement with the importance of audit quality for its multiple beneficial contributions to successful corporate performance, and good governance in general. In addition the impacting factors on audit quality, by Turley and Willekens [1], regarding audit fees, firm size, tenure, reputation, financial statements-restatements, industry expertise, independence, non-audit services, and audit rotation, have been perceived as essential for achieving audit quality in Mauritius. The study reveals that female are more agreeable than male that audit quality enhances firm performance. The study also reveals that female are more agreeable than male that Long auditor tenure leads to high audit quality and that financial restatements of faulty statements negatively impact audit quality. Scope for Future Research: The study has investigated the audit quality from the perspectives of accounting professionals. Further study can include the perception of different users of accounting information such as shareholders, potentials investors, creditors, customers, employees amongst others to have a better evaluation of audit quality in Mauritius.


Facial Expression Recognition is an active area of research in computer vision with a wide range of applications. Several approaches have been developed to solve this problem for different benchmark datasets. However, Facial Expression Recognition in the wild remains an area where much work is still needed to serve real-world applications. To this end, in this paper we present a novel approach towards facial expression recognition. We fuse rich deep features with domain knowledge through encoding discriminant facial patches. We conduct experiments on two of the most popular benchmark datasets; CK and TFE. Moreover, we present a novel dataset that, unlike its precedents, consists of natural - not acted - expression images. Experimental results show that our approach achieves state-of-the-art results over standard benchmarks and our own dataset.


Author(s): Patterson, Jesse Christopher | Advisor(s): Thorner, Jeremy W | Abstract: Multiple mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) enable eukaryotic cells to evoke an appropriate response when presented with a particular stimulus. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, MAPK Hog1 is activated by osmosensors in the high-osmolarity glycerol (HOG) pathway during hyperosmotic stress, MAPK Fus3 is activated by pheromone-binding receptors in the mating pathway, and MAPK Kss1 is activated by mucins in the filamentous growth (FG) pathway during nutrient limitation. These pathways provide an excellent model for studying mechanisms and principles of signal transduction in a genetically and biochemically tractable organism because these conserved pathways have served countless species in their struggle to adapt to change throughout evolution.Upon hyperosmotic shock, yeast cells accumulate intracellular glycerol to balance the osmotic gradient. It had been accepted that Hog1 elevates glycerol production by inducing the transcription of enzymes necessary for glycerol synthesis. Using global microarray analysis, I found that Hog1-dependent transcription is not necessary for hyperosmotic shock survival. Instead, Hog1 increases glycerol production by directly regulating metabolism and work presented in this thesis describes progress made towards understanding how this control is exerted.The HOG, mating and FG pathways share common upstream activators, including Ste50 (adapter protein), Ste20 [p21-activated protein kinase (PAK)], Ste11 [MAPK kinase kinase (MAPKKK)] and Cdc42 [guanosine tri-phosphatase (GTPase)]. Activation of Ste11 within the HOG pathway does not result in Ste11-mediated activation of the mating or FG pathways. Tellingly, if Hog1 function is absent, hyperosmotic stress does result in Ste11-mediated activation of these other MAPK pathways, a situation called crosstalk. Therefore, a mechanism of Hog1-enforced crosstalk prevention exists. Using single-cell analysis of both HOG and mating pathway activation, I found that crosstalk is prevented by insulation of the HOG pathway from other MAPK pathways, over-turning a previously established erroneous model of cross-inhibition. Through a genetic selection, I found that Rga1 [a Cdc42 GTPase-activating protein (GAP)] is required for HOG pathway insulation, that Rga1 is a substrate of Hog1, that it contributes to negative feedback regulation of the HOG pathway, and that Rga1 presumably helps prevent crosstalk by limiting the extent and duration of Cdc42 activation.


Hurricane Sandy was a major event with major implications for how sociologists think about the relationship between climate change and crisis in urban areas. The storm's impact on New York provides a valuable case for considering how to study the impacts of climate change on large, densely settled cities with vulnerable hard infrastructure and highly complex social conditions that produce differentiated experiences across many different communities. This working paper considers data at several levels of analysis with the aim of assessing neighborhood inequalities in the impacts of such extreme weather. Drawn from the authors' ongoing research project on unequal vulnerability to climate change in New York after Sandy, the paper presents findings from data in three thematic areas: impacts on transportation and other vital systems; the performance of select public services, including subsidized housing and the police; and local, grassroots responses to the disaster. Across all of these factors we focus on neighborhood-level variations in storm impact and recovery. We also highlight differences between official reports on the storm's impact and response and the accounts of community groups, activist organizations, and individuals. In doing so, we invite discussion about the most effective approaches and conceptual frameworks for the urgently important project of connecting a sociology of climate change to the study of the social experience of extreme events in major cities.


The present research examined how implicit racial associations and explicit racial attitudes of Whites relate to behaviors and impressions in interracial interactions. Specifically, the authors examined how response latency and self-report measures predicted bias and perceptions of bias in verbal and nonverbal behavior exhibited by Whites while they interacted with a Black partner. As predicted, Whites' self-reported racial attitudes significantly predicted bias in their verbal behavior to Black relative to White confederates. Furthermore, these explicit attitudes predicted how much friendlier Whites felt that they behaved toward White than Black partners. In contrast, the response latency measure significantly predicted Whites' nonverbal friendliness and the extent to which the confederates and observers perceived bias in the participants' friendliness.


Abstract A lifelong friendship began in 1852 between Archibald Geikie (1835–1924) and Matthew Forster Heddle (1828–97), the most eminent Scottish mineralogist of his day. This paper follows the two men from their birth, through their education and early employment, to their first meeting in Edinburgh. It then traces the progress of their complementary, but different, careers and recounts shared events in their professional and personal lives. It describes how the astute Geikie supported the clever but unworldly Heddle through his difficulties at the University of St Andrews and helped him achieve scientific recognition. It concludes by comparing and contrasting their personalities and approach to science and defining the nature of their enduring friendship.


Introducao: Longitudinality is an essential attribute of Primary Health Care. Because it enables the creation of link between the health professional and the user: through a personal relationship over time. Thus, improving the doctor-patient relationship, the health professional sees the patient as his own, and the patient sees on your doctor is an authority to take care of your health. Objetivos: The aim of this study is to assess how longitudinality in the health service, in view of medical unit of primary care, positively influencing patients to trust the diagnosis and treatment as well as follow the recommendations passed. Metodologia ou Descricao da Experiencia: We interviewed some of the patients of the Primary Care Unit of Sao Judas Tadeu - Goiania, Goias - about the care offered in it for two months (October 2013 to November 2013). We were looking to find the vision of patients about the quality of medical care received and the level of confidence that these patients were regarding the physician which were ascribed. And compare the bond between doctor if patients with the time of service in the unit that the doctor had. Resultados: We found out in the interviews that the health service was considered increasingly better with the passing of time. We also found that physicians who had more time of service at the Primary Care Unit generated the same confidence that older doctors - who were found to be more resolutive and knowledgeable doctors of medical science by the interviewees. While younger physicians who had less time working in the unit were cited as unsafe doctors in relation to medical knowledge and were therefore less reliable - which has led many patients to avoid consultations with them, seeking assistance in various pier and did not follow the treatment prescribed for them. Conclusao ou Hipoteses: We conclude that longitudinality in health care is a key factor for attention to be effective. Once it creates conditions to create bond and consequent trust between doctors and patients, making the most efficient attention. Once the patient follows the medical guidelines, hospitalizations and overall healthcare costs are also reduced.


We propose a novel approach to assess whether banks' financial conditions, as reflected by bank-level information, matter for the transmission of monetary policy, while reconciling the micro and macro levels of analysis. We include factors summarizing large sets of individual bank balance sheet ratios in a standard factor-augmented vector autoregression model (FAVAR) of the French economy. We first find that factors extracted from banks' liquidity and leverage ratios predict macroeconomic fluctuations. This suggests a potential scope for macroprudential policies aimed at dampening the procyclical effects of adjustments in banks' balance sheets structure. However, we also find that fluctuations in bank ratio factors are largely irrelevant for the transmission of monetary shocks. Thus, there is little point monitoring the information contained in bank balance sheets, above the information already contained in credit aggregates, as far as monetary policy transmission is concerned.


A systematic investigation of the reductive ring-expansion reaction of cyclic ketoximes fused to aromatic rings with diisobutylaluminum hydride (DIBALH) is described. This reaction regioselectively afforded a variety of five- to eight-membered bicyclic heterocycles or tricyclic heterocycles containing nitrogen neighboring an aromatic ring, including indoline, 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexahydrobenz[b]azocine, 3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazine, 2,3,4,5-tetrahydrobenzo[b][1,4]thiazepine, 1,2,3,4,5,6-hexahydroazepino[3,2-b]indole, 2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-benzothieno[2,3-b]azepine, 2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-benzothieno[3,2-b]azepine, 5,6-dihydrophenanthridine, and 5,6,11,12-tetrahydrodibenz[b, f]azocine. The reaction mechanism leading to the rearrangement was investigated on the basis of the restricted Becke three-parameter plus Lee-Yang-Parr (B3LYP) density functional theory (DFT) with the 6-31G (d) basis set. It was found that the reaction proceeds through a three-centered transition state via a stepwise mechanism because the potential energy curve along the intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) had two maxima (saddle points; TS1 and TS2) and the partial phenonium cation intermediate C. In addition to cyclic ketoximes fused to aromatic rings, the reactions of various cyclic and acyclic ketoximes were examined to investigate preference of migrating group. It was found that the more electron-rich group migrated preferentially to give the corresponding secondary amines.


Gradient Boosting Classification (GBC) models are well known to machine learning and artificial intelligence. Having the ability to predict user performance is imperative to the outcomes and purpose of an intelligent tutoring system. The Center for the Study of Adult Literacy (CSAL) intelligent tutoring system aims to improve reading comprehension in low-literacy adult learners. A GBC was applied to preliminary data gathered from high-literacy adult readers (N =1800 observations). Our model was shown high accuracy in predicting users' correct/incorrect responses to our multiple choice items. Specifically, users' reaction times and order of question presentation are important features of the model to consider. Less important features are difficulty of the item and the users reading ability. Our next steps are to apply GBC to high-literacy college students, followed by low-literacy readers, as a test set. Our eventual goal is to predict correctness prior to scoring.


What explains the gender gap in political engagement and economic policy preferences? Many scholars point to material resources, while others credit cultural determinants. We identify and test an important link between these factors: cultural lineage norms that structure entitlements to resources. Studying the relationship between culture and resources is challenging in societies where both disadvantage women. We analyze a unique setting: northeast India, where matrilineal tribes live alongside patrilineal communities. Patriarchal cultures and political institutions are shared, but lineage norms are distinct: patrilineal groups distribute inherited wealth through men, while matrilineal tribes do so via women. We conduct survey and behavioral experiments with representative samples of both communities, alongside extensive qualitative research, and find that the gender gap reverses across patrilineal and matrilineal groups. Our results indicate that lineage norms—which determine who gets to make decisions about wealth and how—are key determinants of the political economy gender gap.


(Read Nov. 20th, 1913)

c.f. Nautilus latus de Koninck 1878, Ann. Mus. d'hist. Nat. de la Belgique. Tom. II.; Pt. I., p. 110, Pl XXIV, Figs. 3, a, b, c.

The specimen on which this species is founded was obtained from a small quarry on the east of the lane leading from Thorpe to Tissington, Derbyshire. The horizon of the quarry is that of the Upper Dibunophyllum zone, and the fauna is rich in the characteristic brachiopods of the zone.

The specimen (Plate I) consists of three, whorls and is entirely camerate and no indication of the body chamber is preserved. It has been impossible to completely expose the neanic and nephionic stages.

Specific Characters.—Shell of moderate size, involute, expanding gradually. Inner whorls well exposed. Umbilicus large and open, its outer margin angular and tuberculate, its sides only slightly convex. The greatest transverse thickness of each whorl is from outer margin to outer margin; whorls at least 4. The peripheral margin of the whorl is broad and almost flat, near the margin it may be very slightly depressed before it is raised into the keel-like margin, which is tuberculate, the tubercles being separated from each other by about three camerae, and having the extent of almost one camara.

The camerae are numerous, about 28 in the last remaining whorl of the specimen. The septa are concave on the sides and pointing forward at the peripheral margin, but on the periphery only slightly concave. The siphuncle is centra.

Test, thin, ...


Using a comparative genomics approach, a copper resistance gene cluster has been identified in multiple archaeal genomes. The cop cluster is predicted to encode a metallochaperone (CopM), a P-type copper-exporting ATPase (CopA) and a novel, archaea-specific transcriptional regulator (CopT) which might control the expression of the cop genes. Sequence analysis revealed that CopT has an N-terminal DNA-binding helix-turn-helix domain and a C-terminal TRASH domain; TRASH is a novel domain which has recently been proposed to be uniquely involved in metal-binding in sensors, transporters and trafficking proteins in prokaryotes. The present study describes the molecular characterization of the cop gene cluster in the thermoacidophilic crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus. The polycistronic copMA transcript was found to accumulate in response to growth-inhibiting copper concentrations, whereas copT transcript abundance appeared to be constitutive. DNA-binding assays revealed that CopT binds to the copMA promoter at multiple sites, both upstream and downstream of the predicted TATA-BRE site. Copper was found to specifically modulate the affinity of DNA binding by CopT. This study describes a copper-responsive operon in archaea, a new family of archaeal DNA-binding proteins, and supports the idea that this domain plays a prominent role in the archaeal copper response. A model is proposed for copper-responsive transcriptional regulation of the copMA gene cluster.


Paul Sermon exhibits Telematic Dreaming at the Nabi Art Centre in Seoul for the Borderless Reality Exhibition. Telematic Dreaming turns a bed into the support of high-resolution images that might show a partner, intimately alive although being thousand kilometers away. The light-intense projection of the other results in a remarkable suggestion which turns the touch of the projected body into an intimate action. Sermon aims at expanding the senses of the user, while it is obvious that the other cannot really be touched but that only swift, decisive, possibly tenderly reactive movements can experience the suggestion of touch—a moment of contemplation, as many users observed. The synaesthetical, sensual impression lets the hand and the eye fuse, and it is this effect that characterizes this work.


Location discovery is a fundamental building block for many mobile applications. Yet dedicated infrastructure for determining node locations is expensive, energy-consuming, and simply unavailable under certain deployment scenarios. This paper presents an accurate, cheap and scalable protocol for location discovery. Called Zoom, this protocol operates by setting up and solving a system of geographic constraints based on connectivity information from the underlying communication network. Zoom achieves high accuracy by aggressively extracting constraints from the link layer, by propagating this information across multiple network hops and by explicitly tracking the set of possible locations for any given node instead of a single position estimate. Physical experiments with motes show that a large number (98%) of the nodes in a network can determine their positions based on a small number (30%) of landmark nodes with high accuracy (median error less than 30% of transmission range).


Urban drainage has developed from an engineering discipline, concerned principally with public health and safety outcomes, into a multifaceted vision linking drainage with environmental and wider social and economic imperatives to deliver multifunctional outcomes. UK attention is too often focused on surface water as 'a problem', despite international progress and initiatives showing that an 'opportunity-centred' approach needs to be taken. Sustainable drainage systems, or 'Suds', can, when they are part of an integrated approach to water management, cost-effectively provide many benefits beyond management of water quality and quantity. New tools are available that can design Suds for maximum value to society but this requires greater collaboration across disciplines to seize all of the opportunities available. This paper introduces those tools and a roadmap for their use, including guidance, design objectives and criteria for maximising benefits. These new supporting tools and guidance can help to provide a business case for greater use of Suds in future.


Language Modeling (LM) has been successfully applied to Information Retrieval (IR). However, most of the existing LM approaches only rely on term occurrences in documents, queries and document collections. In traditional unigram based models, terms (or words) are usually considered to be independent. In some recent studies, dependence models have been proposed to incorporate term relationships into LM, so that links can be created between words in the same sentence, and term relationships (e.g. synonymy) can be used to expand the document model. In this study, we further extend this family of dependence models in the following two ways: (1) Term relationships are used to expand query model instead of document model, so that query expansion process can be naturally implemented; (2) We exploit more sophisticated inferential relationships extracted with Information Flow (IF). Information flow relationships are not simply pairwise term relationships as those used in previous studies, but are between a set of terms and another term. They allow for context-dependent query expansion. Our experiments conducted on TREC collections show that we can obtain large and significant improvements with our approach. This study shows that LM is an appropriate framework to implement effective query expansion.


Early experiences tend to influence internalizing and externalizing behavior. Children experiencing harsh, noncontingent discipline often understand relationships as unpredictable and filled with conflict. They take this understanding into interactions with other children, behave aggressively, and are rejected by peers, reaffirming their hostile view and increasing the likelihood of aggression. Social rejection has also been found to be associated with internalizing behavior, with rejected boys being higher internalizers than rejected girls. Because boys' relationships are more of group form and girls more of dyadic form, whether reciprocated friendships moderate group rejection was examined. Aggressive and depressive children tend to attribute hostile intent in negative situations, with depressives feeling assertive behavior would result in negative outcomes, and aggressives feeling the opposite. Therefore, locus of control was examined. Because children with hostile attributional bias have emotional difficulty, emotional intelligence was also examined. Although harsh, noncontingent discipline has been associated with aggression, examined here was whether corporal punishment in the absence of more severe punishment increases aggression. Emotional intelligence of children experiencing harsh discipline was also examined, as was whether emotional intelligence mediates the effect of parenting on problem behavior. Sixth-grade students (N = 252) in New Hampshire were tested. Peer rejection, but not friendship, was associated with internalizing. Friended females scored lower in externalizing than nonfriended females and friended males. Children with internal locus of control were less aggressive and depressed. Emotional intelligence was negatively associated with hostile attributional bias, and uniquely predictived externalizing, but not internalizing scores. Parental warmth was not predictive of emotional intelligence over and above parental control. Although no difference in emotional intelligence was found between authoritative and authoritarian parenting, differences were found between both and neglectful parenting. Children experiencing less parental control had external locus of control and higher internalizing scores. External locus of control was associated with internalizing scores. Corporal punishment uniquely predicted externalizing scores but harsh discipline was not associated with emotional intelligence. Structural equation modeling indicated that emotional intelligence mediated the effect of parenting quality on problem behavior. Reciprocated friendships did not moderate the effect of peer rejection on problem behavior.


Abstract Background "Functional" [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-fPET) is a new approach for measuring glucose uptake in the human brain. The goal of FDG-fPET is to maintain a constant plasma supply of radioactive FDG in order to track, with high temporal resolution, the dynamic uptake of glucose during neuronal activity that occurs in response to a task or at rest. FDG-fPET has most often been applied in simultaneous BOLD-fMRI/FDG-fPET (blood oxygenation level–dependent functional MRI fluorodeoxyglucose functional positron emission tomography) imaging. BOLD-fMRI/FDG-fPET provides the capability to image the 2 primary sources of energetic dynamics in the brain, the cerebrovascular haemodynamic response and cerebral glucose uptake. Findings In this Data Note, we describe an open access dataset, Monash DaCRA fPET-fMRI, which contrasts 3 radiotracer administration protocols for FDG-fPET: bolus, constant infusion, and hybrid bolus/infusion. Participants (n = 5 in each group) were randomly assigned to each radiotracer administration protocol and underwent simultaneous BOLD-fMRI/FDG-fPET scanning while viewing a flickering checkerboard. The bolus group received the full FDG dose in a standard bolus administration, the infusion group received the full FDG dose as a slow infusion over the duration of the scan, and the bolus-infusion group received 50% of the FDG dose as bolus and 50% as constant infusion. We validate the dataset by contrasting plasma radioactivity, grey matter mean uptake, and task-related activity in the visual cortex. Conclusions The Monash DaCRA fPET-fMRI dataset provides significant reuse value for researchers interested in the comparison of signal dynamics in fPET, and its relationship with fMRI task-evoked activity.


We present high resolution angle resolved photoemission data of the bilayer superconductor Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta) (Bi2212) showing a clear doubling of the near E(F) bands. This splitting approaches zero along the (0,0)-->(pi,pi) nodal line and is not observed in single layer Bi(2)Sr(2)CuO(6+delta) (Bi2201), indicating that the splitting is due to the long sought after bilayer splitting effect. The splitting has a magnitude of approximately 75 meV near the middle of the zone, extrapolating to about 110 meV near the (pi,0) point. The existence of these two bands also helps to clear up the recent controversy concerning the topology of the Fermi surface.


This paper studies chaos synchronization-based data transmission scheme in multiple sink wireless sensor networks. In the proposed scheme, each wireless sensor node has a simple chaotic oscillator. The oscillators generate impulsive signals with chaotic interspike intervals, and are impulsively coupled by the signals via wireless communication. Each wireless sensor node transmits and receives sensor information only in the timing of the couplings. The proposed scheme can exhibit various synchronization and quasi-synchronization of chaos, and can effectively gather sensor information with low energy consumption. Also, the proposed scheme can flexibly adapt various wireless sensor networks not only with a single sink node but also with multiple sink nodes. We evaluate the proposed scheme using computer simulations. Through simulation experiments, we show effectiveness of the proposed scheme and discuss its development potential.


Background
Over the years, frozen elephant trunk (FET) has become the treatment of choice for multisegmental thoracic aortic disease. This multicenter study presents the evolution of FET results using the E-vita Open hybrid graft with respect to institutional experience and time.

Methods
The data of International E-vita Open registry were studied according to the institutional experience of the participating centers (high- versus low-volume centers) and according to the evolution of FET treatment during time (1st period, 2005-2011 versus 2nd period, 2012-2018). Overall, 1,165 patients were enrolled in the study with a wide variety of multisegmental thoracic aortic pathologies and aortic emergencies. Participating centers determined their own surgical protocol.

Results
The overall 30-day mortality was 12%. Short- and long-term survival were higher in high- versus low-volume centers (P=0.048 and P=0.013, respectively). In the 2nd time period, cerebral complications were reduced significantly (P=0.015). Incidence of permanent spinal cord-related symptoms was reduced to 3% in the 2nd time period, but did not reach statistical significance. Hypothermic circulatory arrest time (P<0.001) and incidence of postoperative temporary renal replacement therapy (P=0.008) were significantly reduced in the 2nd time period. Ten-year survival and freedom from aortic-related death rates were 46.6% and 85.7%, respectively, for the entire group. The freedom from distal aortic re-interventions for a new or progressive residual aortic disease was 76.0%.

Conclusions
Evolution of FET arch repair techniques with the E-vita Open graft and increasing institutional experience were associated with improved results. Progression of residual aortic disease makes close follow-up with aortic imaging mandatory in such patients.


Introduction: This study focuses on eliciting the leadership styles used in the decisionmaking process against various organizational levels across different organizational types and the influence of the position, age, experience, department, education under differing situations among the employed people of UAE. Initially, the authors believed that participant's traits such as age, education would have the major impact rather than position-based experience, industry, and different situations on the leadership styles expressed. However, a deeper analysis and study of the data gathered from various organizations, the results were surprisingly different.
Aim: The analysis of the study revealed how the participant's position, qualifications, experienced and industry affected the leadership styles. Some very interesting questions and situations have been attempted to understand the leadership style in this report based on a standard leadership style survey. This paper aims to report the findings of an empirical study exploring the relationship between three prominent models of leadership styles using the independent variables. Further, a Neural Network analysis methods and identify the most prominent influencer of the choice probability of leadership style. The independent variable which relates to the demographic and work-related includes factor such as age, gender, level of education, industry type, levels of management, total work experience, experience in the organization.
Methodology: The study is an empirical study based on leadership questionnaire survey using multivariate analysis followed by neural network estimation on the data collected from employees across various levels of management in the UAE. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed and administered as a means of objective assessment of the leadership style of various managers across the UAE followed by the categorizing of scores to identify prominent/explicit styles and dormant styles that were then analyzed based on modeling.
Findings: The results reveal that the spectrum of three leadership styles containing basic characteristics, such as the type of branches, the age, and educational level are inter-related with communication, commitment, satisfaction, and effectiveness. The authors conclude that the unique setting and context found in the public sector-very much defined by the UAE Constitution-leads to subtle, but very real and noteworthy differences. The current literature around the world show that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector based on the various analyses. However, our research analyses gives a different picture for the UAE. The results shows that in the UAE the public sector is more effective and efficient than the private sector because of the leadership styles followed in this sector.
Research Limitations/Implications: Limitations include the self-report methodology that measures perceptual data with a series of questionnaire items. The survey responses that were Academy of Strategic Management Journal Volume 17, Issue 6, 2018 2 1939-6104-17-6-285 complete for analysis were more skewed towards the public sector as the other sectors did not respond well.
Originality/Value: The paper is original research that identifies the characteristics of an organization linked to selected demographic (personal and professional) variables of all level of managers on their managerial style in the UAE.


The upgrade of the ATLAS tracking detector for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider at CERN requires the development of novel radiation hard silicon sensor technologies.
The MALTA Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor prototypes have been developed with the 180 nm TowerJazz CMOS imaging technology. This combines the engineering of high-resistivity sub- strates with on-chip high-voltage biasing to achieve a large depleted active sensor volumes, to meet the radiation hardness requirements of the outer barrel layers of the ATLAS ITK Pixel de- tector (1.5× 1015 1 MeV neq/cm2 and 80 MRad TID). MALTA combines low noise (ENC < 20 e−) and low power operation (1 uW / pixel) with a fast signal response (25 ns bunch crossing) in small pixel size (36.4 × 36.4 μm2), and a small collection electrode (3 μm), with a novel high- speed asynchronous read out architecture to cope with the high hit rates expected at HL-LHC. The latest developments, embedded in so-called Mini-MALTA chip, address the issues observed in previous designs to meet the desired radiation hardness requirements. This contribution will summarize the design and recent improvements of this technology, together with the measure- ments of analog and digital performance, as obtained in test beams and lab and radioactive source tests.


The paper is concerned with the tourism industry's increased demand for better educated and/or trained manpower and the general requirements of higher levels of know‐how on account of secular changes in the demand for higher quality tourism products, technological changes and a more competitive global environment. After discussing the general patterns of skill and know‐how acquisition in tourism in the context of today's labour markets and tourism schooling/training systems the paper speculates on possible causes for know‐how deficits assumed to be particularly prevalent in alpine tourism (section II and III). Following this section IV reports on qualification and know‐how deficits on the basis of a self‐assessment survey carried out among 144 tourism enterprises comprising the typical tourism value chain of alpine tourism. Conclusions are drawn up in V.


Using subjective testing, we study the effect of the network parameters, delay and packet loss ratio, on the QoE of cloud gaming. We studied three different games, selected based on genre, popularity, content complexity and pace, and tested them in a controlled network environment, using a novel emulator to create realistic lognormal delay distributions instead of relying on a static mean delay, as used previously; we also used Parsec as a good representative of the state of the art. We captured user ratings on an ordinal Absolute Category Rating scale for three quality dimensions: Video QoE, Game-Playability QoE, and Overall QoE. We show that Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) for the game with the highest levels of content complexity and pace are most severely affected by network impairments. We also show that the QoE of interactive cloud applications rely more on the game playability than the video quality of the game. Unlike earlier studies, the differences in MOS are validated using the distributions of the underlying dimensions. A Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test showed that the distributions of Video QoE and Game Playability QoE are not significantly different.


Transient algebra is a multi-valued algebra for hazard detection in gate circuits. Sequences of alternating 0's and 1's, called transients, represent signal values, and gates are modeled by extensions of boolean functions to transients. Formulas for computing the output transient of a gate from the input transients are known for not, and, or and xor gates and their complements, but, in general, even the problem of deciding whether the length of the output transient exceeds a given bound is NP-complete. We propose a method of evaluating extensions of general boolean functions. We study a class of functions for which, instead of evaluating the extensions on a given set of transients, it is possible to get the same values by using transients derived from the given ones, but having length at most 3. We prove that all functions of three variables, as well as certain other functions, have this property, and can be efficiently evaluated.


This chapter examines traditional theories in global politics. Although much of the explicit theorizing about international politics did not begin until the twentieth century, both liberalism and realism have drawn on long-standing ideas in the history of political thought to address basic problems of international order. So too has the English School which, while encompassing aspects of both liberalism and realism, has focused much more attention on the social character of international or global relations, elaborating in particular the notion of international society and its normative underpinnings. While most theorizing has been carried out largely, but not exclusively, on the basis of Western philosophical ideas, a new Chinese school of moral realism draws from ancient Chinese thought. Ultimately, both liberalism and realism have been modified over the years with competing strands developing within them, so neither can be taken as a single body of theory.


The Verbiverse: Creating a Verb Space with Comparative Methods of Distributional Semantics By Austin James Blodgett Computational semantics as a field includes many of the unsolved problems of Natural Language Processing. The need for innovation in this field has motivated much research in developing word and language models that better represent meaning and various concepts within semantics. This thesis is concerned specifically with measuring verb similarity and verb clustering, a task within this field. The goal is to develop representations of verbs that can accurately and viably be used to judge semantic similarity between verbs and to group verbs into classes that reflect their relatedness in meaning. Verb clustering – a task of distributing verbs into semantically related classes has in previous research been shown to have applications in multiple tasks in Natural Language Processing including word sense disambiguation. This thesis will present and compare several methods of automatic acquisition of verb similarity, with a goal of allowing future applications of these methods in NLP tasks and to promote discoveries in how the mechanisms modeled by these methods relate to linguistics. This paper presents several methods from verb clustering based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation – a probabilistic graphical model commonly used for topic modelling. We model verbs as collections of contextual features derived from latent classes. LDA, which is designed as a model for Bayesian inference of latent thematic categories, fits well to model verb classes based on linguistic context. We demonstrate Recursive LDA, a procedure of executing LDA iteratively to produce a hierarchical structure of classes. We test several linguistic features from syntax and lexical arguments of verbs with interest in identifying how informative each feature is. We evaluate all of our experiments against human judgments of similarity providing a novel method for evaluating semantic similarity metrics of word models. We test all of our data on a list of 3,000 most common English verbs. We test our method against Word2Vec, a popular and recently developed word model using skip-gram feature vectors refined by deep learning. The results in this thesis will show that given the right features, our method of using LDA with linguistic features outperforms Word2Vec's data-driven statistical approach when weighed against human judgements. The Verbiverse: Creating a Verb Space with Comparative Methods of Distributional Semantics


This Discussion Paper arises from a concern that the current contributions of anthropology in the Australian native title arena are often unnecessarily confined to the production of expert reports and other materials, in accordance with legal briefs and criteria established under native title law. It argues for a broadening of the focus of anthropological work in the native title arena from roles as independent experts, to include a 'mirror image' of that concerned with the proof of native title. In addition to constructing legally-driven expert accounts of the present in terms of the traditions of the past as is required to prove native title, this 'mirror image' anthropology would be explicitly concerned with contemporary processes such as Aboriginal engagement with the wider society, development, and transformation as well as with cultural continuities. The paper provides conceptual tools for this broader anthropological focus, including the practical significance of the concept of the 'intercultural' in challenging essentialised constructions of Aboriginal traditions, laws, and customs in the native title arena. This broader practice would challenge anthropologists' own constructions of the nature of their contributions in the native title arena, and the representations and expectations of them by others. It would involve anthropologists working in multidisciplinary teams; in collaboration with Aboriginal people, developing institutions and strategies to transform Aboriginal people's social, economic and political circumstances. The paper addresses two contexts of such a native title anthropology—the development of native title agreements, and the management of native title related decision-making and dispute management among Aboriginal people.


Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA) is a non-invasive imaging technique that has been increasingly used to image the retinal vasculature at capillary level resolution. However, automated segmentation of retinal vessels in OCTA has been under-studied due to various challenges such as low capillary visibility and high vessel complexity, despite its significance in understanding many vision-related diseases. In addition, there is no publicly available OCTA dataset with manually graded vessels for training and validation of segmentation algorithms. To address these issues, for the first time in the field of retinal image analysis we construct a dedicated Retinal OCTA SEgmentation dataset (ROSE), which consists of 229 OCTA images with vessel annotations at either centerline-level or pixel level. This dataset with the source code has been released for public access to assist researchers in the community in undertaking research in related topics. Secondly, we introduce a novel split-based coarse-to-fine vessel segmentation network for OCTA images (OCTA-Net), with the ability to detect thick and thin vessels separately. In the OCTA-Net, a split-based coarse segmentation module is first utilized to produce a preliminary confidence map of vessels, and a split-based refined segmentation module is then used to optimize the shape/contour of the retinal microvasculature. We perform a thorough evaluation of the state-of-the-art vessel segmentation models and our OCTA-Net on the constructed ROSE dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that our OCTA-Net yields better vessel segmentation performance in OCTA than both traditional and other deep learning methods. In addition, we provide a fractal dimension analysis on the segmented microvasculature, and the statistical analysis demonstrates significant differences between the healthy control and Alzheimer's Disease group. This consolidates that the analysis of retinal microvasculature may offer a new scheme to study various neurodegenerative diseases.


In Japanese project for disposal of high-level radioactive waste, the self-sealing capability of bentonite buffer material, which results from the swelling deformation to fill the gaps between waste container and wall of disposal pit, must be retained thousands of years. However, because of the effect of high pressures, occurrence of cementation and property changes of the buffer material are a concern. Few studies had examined cementation effects because of the difficulties for simulating long-term alteration process experimentally. In this paper, swelling properties of consolidated buffer are regarded as similar as those of naturally consolidated bentonite ore. Therefore, three kinds of bentonite ores were used for experiments to elucidate influences of cementation on self-sealing capabilities. Undisturbed and reconstituted specimens were prepared to assess their swelling pressures after filling a preset gap in a swelling pressure apparatus. Results show that for Japanese ores, the swelling pressure of undisturbed specimens is about half that of reconstituted specimens. For American and Chinese ores, the difference of swelling pressure is greater when the preset gap is smaller. Results imply that effects of cementation on self-sealing capability are smaller when swelling deformation is allowed.


The 20th century has seen unprecedented growth of the human population on this planet. While at the beginning of the century the Earth had an estimated 1.6 billion inhabitants, this number grew to 6.1 billion by the end of the century, and further significant growth is a near certainty. This paper tries to summarize what factors lie behind this extraordinary expansion of the human population and what population growth we can expect for the future. It discusses the concept of demographic transition and the preconditions for a lasting secular fertility decline. Recent fertility declines in all parts of the world now make it likely that human population growth will come to an end over the course of this century, but in parts of the developing world significant population growth is still to be expected over the coming decades. The slowing of population growth through declining birth rates, together with still increasing life expectancy, will result in a strong ageing of population age structure. Finally, this paper presents a global level systematic analysis of the relationship between population density on the one hand, and growth and fertility rates on the other. This analysis indicates that in addition to the well-studied social and economic determinants, population density also presents a significant factor for the levels and trends of human birth rates.


The author of this piece examines the complex ethical considerations inherent in literary representations of trauma. The act of discussing atrocities and the trauma that they cause has faced criticism due to the psychological pain that victims often feel when exposed to such material. However, the author claims that literary works that give voice to atrocities such as rape, genocide, and torture are intended for a very different target audience: those who have not endured these experiences themselves. In effect, this piece argues that the textual representation of trauma is necessary because it creates in its readers a feeling of discomfort that mimics the response of firsthand victims. Through this approach - which is defined in literary criticism as "crossing the line" - the author addresses aspects of the topic such as the victim's memory, the role of the witness, and the limits of representation. The body of the piece explores through close-reading how Art Spiegelman's  Maus , J.M. Coetzee's  Disgrace  and  Waiting for the Barbarians,  Ernest Hemingway's short story "Like Water for Elephants,"and the Immortal Technique song "Dance with the Devil" achieve this balance of ethicality and discomfort in portraying incidents believed by some to be "unspeakable."


Heart rate variability, the change in the time intervals between adjacent heartbeats, is an emergent property of interdependent regulatory systems that operates on different time scales to adapt to environmental and psychological challenges. This article briefly reviews neural regulation of the heart and offers some new perspectives on mechanisms underlying the very low frequency rhythm of heart rate variability. Interpretation of heart rate variability rhythms in the context of health risk and physiological and psychological self-regulatory capacity assessment is discussed. The cardiovascular regulatory centers in the spinal cord and medulla integrate inputs from higher brain centers with afferent cardiovascular system inputs to adjust heart rate and blood pressure via sympathetic and parasympathetic efferent pathways. We also discuss the intrinsic cardiac nervous system and the heart-brain connection pathways, through which afferent information can influence activity in the subcortical, frontocortical, and motor cortex areas. In addition, the use of realtime HRV feedback to increase self-regulatory capacity is reviewed. We conclude that the heart's rhythms are characterized by both complexity and stability over longer time scales that reflect both physiological and psychological functional status of these internal self-regulatory systems.


The special crane used by ship in this paper is a multi-joints and folding robot arm's work system. Because it needs to work in a variety of sea conditions and being affected by waves and so on, the high demands of the trajectory control should be required. For this kind of complex control system, a system which is analyzed and simulated by the combination of ADAMS (Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems) modeling based on a virtual prototype and MATLAB control is built and designed. The composition and implementation of the system are presented in the paper. The fuzzy cerebella model articulation controller (FCMAC) was used to tracking control and dynamic simulation research was done for this system. The results showed the superiority of this method which made kinematics and dynamics modeling analysis on ship-borne special crane based on the ADAMS. The simulation results of controller showed FCMAC had good tracking effect. The research method has intuitive, efficient and convenient features, provide better thought for similar studies of complex mechanical system.


A cross-sectional study of 404 Tibetan children (212 males, 192 females) aged 6 to 16 years was conducted in the Bouda region of Kathmandu, Nepal in April, 1992. Examination procedures included retinoscopy (1% cyclopentolate HCI), keratometry A-scan ultrasonography, and video ophthalmophakometry. The mean refractive error was +1.11 D (SD: 0.56 D) at age 6 years decreasing to +0.63 D (SD: 0.34 D) at age 16 years with a prevalence of myopia in this group of 3.9%. Most children examined had low refractive errors, with 95.5% having errors in the range —0.50 to + 1.50 D. Crystalline lens power decreased by 2.59 D, with an associated increase in its anterior radius of curvature of 1.98 mm and 0.49 mm in its posterior radius of curvature over the age range studied. Vitreous chamber depth increased by 0.69 mm, but no significant changes were recorded in anterior chamber depth, lens thickness, or corneal curvature. We conclude that the balance between the decrease in crystalline lens power and the increase in vitreous length is the major factor in maintaining the tendency to emmetropia in these children.


This doctoral thesis deals with the feature based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) problem. SLAM as defined in this thesis is the process of concurrently building up a map of the environment and using this map to obtain improved estimates of the location of the robot. In feature based SLAM, the robot relies on its ability to extract useful navigation information from the data returned by its sensors. The robot typically starts at an unknown location without priori knowledge of feature locations. From relative observations of features and relative pose measurements, estimates of entire robot trajectory and feature locations can be derived. Thus, the solution to SLAM problem enables an autonomous vehicle navigates in a unknown environment autonomously. The advantage of eliminating the need for artificial infrastructures or a priori topological knowledge of the environment makes SLAM problem one of the hot research topics in the robotics literature. Solution to the SLAM problem would be of inestimable value in a range of applications such as exploration, surveillance, transportation, mining etc. The critical problems for feature based SLAM implementations are as follows: 1) Because SLAM problems are high dimensional, nonlinear and non-convex, when solving SLAM problems, robust optimization techniques are required. 2) When the environment is complex and unstructured, appropriate parametrization method is required to represent environments with minimum information loss. 3) As robot navigates in the environment, the information acquired by the onboard sensor increases. It is essential to develop computationally tractable SLAM algorithms especially for general curve features. This thesis presents the following contributions to feature based SLAM. First, a convex optimization based approach for point feature SLAM problems is developed. Using the proposed method, a unique solution can be obtained without any initial state estimates. It will be shown that, the unique SDP solution obtained from the proposed method is very close to the true solution to the SLAM problem. Second, a general curve feature based SLAM formulation is presented. Instead of scattered points, in this formulation, the environment is represented by a number of continuous curves. Using the new formulation, all the available information from the sensor is utilized in the optimization process. Third, method for converting curve feature to point feature is presented. Using the conversion method, the curve feature SLAM problem can be transferred to point feature SLAM problem and can be solved by the convex optimization based approach.


NK cells are innate lymphocytes with important roles in the defense against intracellular pathogens and in cancer immu-nosurveillance. They have the capacity to recognize and kill target cells through a limited set of surface receptors and through the release of cytotoxic granules containing perfo-rin and granzymes. NK cell development occurs mainly in the BM. After commitment to the NK cell lineage, NK cells undergo a maturation program (Huntington et al., 2007b).


The nitrogen-to-ammonia conversion is one of the most important and challenging processes in chemistry. We have employed spin-polarized density functional theory to propose Fe-doped monolayer phosphorene (Fe–P) as a new catalyst for the N2 reduction reaction at room temperature. Our results show that single-atom Fe is the active site, cooperating with P to activate the inert N–N triple bond and reduce N2 to NH3via three reliable pathways. Our findings provide a new avenue for single atom catalytic nitrogen fixation under ambient conditions.


Dame Eileen Younghusband died in a car accident on a lecture tour in the in the USA at a point when preparations had commenced for her 80 th Birthday celebrations. Her working life had spanned a significant era in the history of the development of social work and education for the profession in the UK and more widely; and she herself had made a major contribution to these developments. She differs from earlier pioneering figures presented in these historical portraits in representing ???the next generation??? of significant women in the history of social work. Nevertheless, she was a pioneer in the sense of initiating radical changes as described later in this portrait. The task of presenting a rounded picture of the life of Eileen Younghusband has been aided not only by written records, including texts and reports bearing her name, but also by the existence of a few recordings of her later presentations and the written and verbal recollections of many people. These include former colleagues, students and friends - people who knew her in one or more of her many roles as teacher; organiser; committee member; chair; or president. While these various individual sources present a partial picture and give rise to contradictory information, in combination they help us form a clearer picture of the life and contribution of this eminent woman. While not a ???founding mother???, Eileen Younghusband led or contributed to radical changes in social work education and organisation in the UK in the post-second world war period. Her influence was also felt more widely through her European and international activities, and particularly through her role in the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). To social workers trained in the UK in the second half of the 20 th century her name was associated with major government reports and with the establishment of the National Institute of Social Work in London. It was there that, until summer 2002 [ 2 ] , some of the archives relating to her life and work were stored and her portrait made her face familiar to generations of social workers engaged in post qualifying training and research. To social workers throughout the world she has been commemorated in the biennial Eileen Younghusband Memorial Lectures (inaugurated 1984) when a current social work educator is invited to speak at the IASSW Congress on a topic of relevance to international social work.


Author(s): Pegan, Jonathan Dusan | Advisor(s): Khine, Michelle | Abstract: Despite many advances in mobile communications and data science remote, continuous health monitoring remains a challenge due to a dearth of appropriate wearable sensors. These sensors must bend and stretch along with the human body while maintaining consistent performance. As most standard electronics component are made of rigid, brittle materials, there is an inherent mechanical mismatch that limits the usefulness of current sensor technology for wearable health monitoring. This work introduces pre-stressed thermoplastic shape memory polymers as a fabrication tool to produce complex, hierarchically wrinkled thin films for use as wearable sensing electrodes and wearable strain sensors. Additionally, a series of scalable, polymer compatible micromachining techniques are discussed for fabricating these sensors.Hierarchical wrinkled structures significantly enhance the surface area (g600%) as compared to planar thin films. Integrated with a flexible polymer carrier, wrinkled electrodes can provide increased efficiency with low sample volumes for electrochemical sensing on human skin. This enables potential application of bioanalyte detection in human sweat.Out of plane wrinkling in thin films can also serve as a strain relief. By transferring wrinkled metal thin films into an elastic carrier, highly elastic strain sensors can be fabricated and used to detect and monitor human motion. These sensors show very high gauge factors (as high as 42) over a wide dynamic range (g150%). Worn on the chest, these sensors can monitor breath rate and approximate lung volume based on chest wall displacement as is demonstrated in this work.Finally, future work with possibility of incorporating a water soluble sacrificial layer are discussed. The addition of hydrophilic polymers as a lift off layer increases flexibility and ease of transferring wrinkled thin films. Importantly water-based processing would convert the current solvent-base lift off process to a more green manufacturing process.


The clearance type of bearings, where the sphere radius is smaller than that of the seat, provides a great divergence in results compared with the fitted type. The study deals with the surface roughness and the predominant centripetal inertia terms due to the shaft rotation. The solutions are presented for the un-recessed clearance type of bearings, hemispherical and partial hemispherical seats, with capillary tube and orifice restrictors. On the basis of the stochastic theory, Reynolds equation is developed. Unlike the solution of Dowson and Taylor for this type of bearings, the well known Sommerfeld substitution of journal bearings hasn't been used in this study. Expressions for the pressure distribution, load carrying capacity, volume flow rate, frictional torque, friction factor, power losses and stiffness factor are obtained. The research studies the combined effects of the centripetal inertia and the surface roughness on the bearing performance. An optimum design based on the minimum power losses, minimum flow rate and the optimal restrictor dimensions is theoretically examined. The conventional four cases of this type of bearings, dependant on the eccentricity ratio in the previous studies, have been reduced to three cases only. In addition, a unified solution for this type is developed. Finally, a general solution for the hydrostatic thrust spherical bearing is obtained where it could be applied to the, un-recessed hemispherical and partial hemispherical, clearance and fitted types of bearings.Copyright © 2006 by ASME


The seasonal variations of caulerpenyne (CYN) levels, secondary metabolite of Caulerpa genus, were investigated in the fronds and stolons of Caulerpa taxifolia var. distichophylla recently present at three stations in the Gulf of İskenderun, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, including its relationships with various physicochemical parameters of the sea water. The CYN levels were highest in the spring, and decreased in autumn. Also, the CYN contents in the fronds were statistically higher than the stolons (p<0.05). The highest seasonal mean CYN content was determined in the fronds as 0.82±0.3 ‰ wet weight during summer season. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the CYN levels among sampling stations (p<0.05). It was also determined that the CYN levels had positive correlations with temperature and oPO4-P concentrations.


In this letter we consider the question of designing insulator/metal thermovoltaic structures with periodically corrugated interfaces that give optimal performance based on the metric of useful power density. Using a Monte Carlo approach in a robust, rapid, and high-accuracy numerical simulation strategy, we have identified such interface shapes. We searched among the class of sinusoids and found that a flat-interface configuration could be significantly improved in transverse magnetic polarization. More specifically, we found that (i.) the performance improves with increasing corrugation amplitude (ii.) up to a maximum, (iii.) the shape of the corrugation is largely irrelevant, and (iv.) the period of the corrugation should be chosen in connection to the bandgap energy of the photovoltaic cell. For the latter we provide a simple expression as a starting point for practitioners interested in fabricating such structures.


A critical issue in optical chaos-based communications is the possibility to identify the parameters of the chaotic emitter and, hence, to break the security. In this paper, we study theoretically the identification of a chaotic emitter that consists of a semiconductor laser with an optical feedback. The identification of a critical security parameter, the external-cavity round-trip time (the time delay in the laser dynamics), is performed using both the auto-correlation function and delayed mutual information methods applied to the chaotic time-series. The influence on the time-delay identification of the experimentally tunable parameters, i.e., the feedback rate, the pumping current, and the time-delay value, is carefully studied. We show that difficult time-delay-identification scenarios strongly depend on the time-scales of the system dynamics as it undergoes a route to chaos, in particular on how close the relaxation oscillation period is from the external-cavity round-trip time.


Abstract Purpose: To study the audiological, rehabilitative and cognitive outcomes of cochlear implantation in patients with Fabry disease (FD). Method: This is a retrospective case study. Two adults with progressive hearing loss were followed up for over 3 years. Results: The patients had progressive hearing loss from the first decade of life. Preoperative evaluations indicated delays in speech perception and cognitive skills due to hearing loss. There was a significant increase in hearing thresholds and speech perception in both patients after the cochlear implantation. The cognitive skills and memory skills of the patient who started using the cochlear implant later in life continued to lag. Conclusion: In FD, hearing loss should be closely monitored and appropriate interventions should be selected early. Two patients from the same family showed the strong impact of early intervention on speech perception and cognitive skills. The study aimed to emphasize the necessity of speech perception and cognitive skills assessment during the follow-up of patients with FD.


Deep drawing process, although deceptively simple, involves a complex interplay between material properties, die geometry, process variables and also friction (lubrication) conditions. Numerical and stochastic modeling and simulation of this process means defining the correlation among the variables of the process in order to improve the existing processes. Using the Box-Wilson¢s multi factorial experimental design the stochastic, numerical and experimental investigations on the thinwalled tinplate rings (material: TS 260, TS 275, TH 415, TH 435, TH 520 according to the European Standard EN 10202) were performed. The FEM analysis applying ABAQUS Explicit code as well as stochastic analysis have been used in order to predict the influences of wall thickness and lubrication on reducing drawing force and estimate its influence on process consumed energy. The accuracy of the numerical and stochastic results is confirmed through the comparison with the experimental results.


Background Drug tenders and shortages result in drug changes. International studies found that drug changes can adversely affect patient safety and the working procedures of healthcare professionals.1,2 The challenges of drug changes in Danish public hospitals have not previously been studied. Purpose To identify barriers and facilitators for implementing drug changes due to drug tenders and shortages in Danish public hospitals. Material and methods Six focus group interviews were conducted at three hospitals in different regions of the country. At each hospital two focus group interviews were conducted, one including physicians and nurses and one including pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, respectively. The focus groups consisted of three to four participants. A semi-structured interview guide was applied and the interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and categorised thematically through content analysis. Results Barriers Identified included: frequent changes of labelling, packages and drug names. Furthermore, implementing drug changes requires extra resources and finance. Technologies such as computerised physician order entry and barcode scanning systems were perceived as potential facilitators, but also as barriers in cases where the quality and implementation of the systems were not adequate. Facilitators included: hospital pharmacy services and lower drug prices. Furthermore recommendations on generic prescription, optimisation of the tendering process and support for drug identification during drug shortages were proposed. Conclusion This study identified different barriers and facilitators for implementing drug changes. The barriers and facilitators included specific features related to drugs, health care technology as well as to financial and organisational aspects. Future studies should focus on removal of barriers and development and implementation of appropriate facilitators which may indeed improve patient safety and the working procedures of healthcare professionals during drug changes. References Hakonsen H, et al. Adv Ther 2010;27:118–26 Fox ER, Tyler LS. Am J Health Syst Pharm 2003;60:245–53 No conflict of interest.


Oilseed rape (Brasoica napia, cola variety 'Westar') plants were grown in greenhouse conditions and shoots were harvested during the final stages of shoot elatio.Leaves and ture pods were removed and the rewmin ng stem tsue was exracted and puified. The extract was chronatographed on sequential, step-eluted silica gel parit and reverse-phae Cl, HPLC columns, and gibberelin (GA)-like substances were detected using the 'Tan-ginbozu' dwarf rice mirodrop assay. Puri- fied frctions showing GA-like activity were analyzed by capiUary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-selected ion mon- itoring (GC-SIM). Gibberellins A,, A3, and iso-A3 were identified by full spectrum GC-MS with GA, being the most abundant GA in the stem tissue. Gibberellins A,g and A2e were identified by GC-SIM and are logical precursors of the GA,.