This book is a critical and reflective synthesis of existing literature on education and training intended to prepare the young for a changing labour market and on accountability in education and training. It stimulates thought on ways of addressing the problems involved in the organisation of education in industrial and developing countries. Its discussion of European training focuses on questions of the UK educational system which differ from those considered in the European debate on education but which have had a broad impact outside Europe. The examples and cases considered in the book were taken from the educational systems of Iran and Finland with a view to illustrating forms of youth education developed in distinct cultural contexts. Additionally, the book reviews the evidence for the economic impact of education and training in the past 30 years and uses published research to draw a number of lessons. Its general conclusion is that liberal education and technical and vocational education and training, pursuing different but not mutually exclusive objectives, generate human and social capital to serve the needs of the world of work.


This thesis, consisting of an introduction and four papers, aims to increase the understanding of collaborations in research and innovation networks. It does so by examining several factors that can influence the collaborations observed.
Collaboration is important in research, development and innovation processes, because it allows for transfer of knowledge not available in the market (Ahuja, 2000b), and because it is hard for a single actor to have all the necessary knowledge in a complex innovation processes in- house (Breschi et al., 2009). Collaboration with universities, suppliers or customers, can make firms more innovative (Laursen & Salter, 2014). When collaboration is successful, it " is greater than the sum of its parts" (Katz & Martin, 1997, p. 15). In line with this, the number of collaborations have increased in industry, between researchers and across different disciplines over the last decades. Policy makers and research councils also support and try to strengthen collaborations between different types of actors, with for example research funding schemes that require collaboration.
Collaboration also involves transactions costs. To reduce transaction cost, actors often choose to collaborate with actors that are similar or proximate to themselves (Boschma, 2005; Powell et al., 2005). Actors also mutually influence each other's behavior and decisions (Borgatti et al., 2009). This makes it useful to study collaborations from a social network perspective, which views networks as the context of action (Burt, 2004).
In my thesis, I ask three overall questions: (1) Who in the network do actors collaborate with? (2) What makes actors collaborate? (3) How does public policy for collaboration influence networks? My thesis answers these questions by studying collaborations in one innovation network and two research networks. Using interview data I am able to study collaboration in the innovation network (Papers I and II) more in detail. Using register data, I am able to capture larger collaboration networks for the two research networks (Papers III and IV).
In all my papers, I use social network analysis. In Papers II, III, and IV, I use additional econometric models. Papers I and II study collaboration in the subsea industry in Rogaland, Norway. Paper III examines the participation of organizations in Norwegian regions in the EU FP's green restructuring programmes. Paper IV studies the network of all collaborations in Research Council of Norway funded projects.
I focus on six dimensions that influence the collaboration in the networks observed: (1) The knowledge base of the organization and cognitive proximity between organizations. (2) Where the organization is located and geographical proximity between organizations. (3) Actors being proximate on other dimensions. (4) Actors sharing information and knowledge through other channels. (5) Influence from central actors. (6) Time.
Overall, the findings from my thesis shows that, organizations are more likely to collaborate with other organizations that are proximate to them. Organizations are more likely to collaborate with actors that are cognitively proximate, i.e. in oil related industries in paper I. The effect of cognitive proximity is also positive and with an increasing positive effect over the years in Paper IV.
In the subsea industry, in Papers I and II, firms collaborates to a large extent with geographically proximate actors. In Paper IV I find that the effect of geographical proximity on the likelihood of collaboration is positive and increasing over time. In Paper III, we find regional differences when it comes to who participates in the EU FP's green restructuring programmes.
Paper IV finds that social proximity measured as previous collaboration has a strong positive effect on the likelihood of collaboration. Paper II examines the association between three different networks among actors: collaboration, recruitment and monitoring. We find that these three networks are highly associated, suggesting that an actor that recruits or monitors another actor is also more likely to collaborate with this actor.
In all the observed networks, some actors collaborate with many other actors, while others only collaborate with a few. In Paper IV, I find that being a central actor early in the network is highly correlated with being a central actor later on. In Paper III, we find that in a region of important industry actors, these industry actors are most central in the region. In region with strong research establishments, the research establishments are the central actors.
In networks funded by public funding agencies, such as through the Research Council of Norway (RCN) with a clear aim of stimulating collaboration between broad groups of actors, I find that geographical, cognitive and social proximities are important factors for the likelihood of collaboration. Geographical and cognitive proximity even have an increasing positive effect over time. In addition to this, the finding in Paper III shows that in regions with strong research establishments firms have low and decreasing participation in programmes focusing on green restructuring. This is a field where firms' participation is important to do necessary restructuring. The strong influence from proximity dimensions suggests that policy makers must be aware of the risk of path dependency and potential lock-in. My papers also show that in all the networks observed, there is extensive collaboration. The publicly funded networks include a variety of different actors, and the RCN networks increase every year in the number


Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) expression profile signature for survival assessment in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) are largely inconsistent due to distinct detecting approaches and small sample size. Systematic and integrative investigation of RNA-Seq based data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) herein was performed to determine candidate lncRNAs for prognosis evaluation of LUSC. A total of 60483 genes, including 7589 lncRNAs were assessed in a cohort including 478 LUSC cases with follow-up data. Firstly, 4225 differentially expressed lncRNAs were obtained via R packages. Next, univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression revealed that 41 lncRNAs were closely related to the survival of LUSC. Finally, lncRNA based prognosis index (PI) could predict overall survival of LUSC with high accuracy (AUC = 0.652, CI: 0.598, 0.705), PI = expCYP4F26P*βCYP4F26P+expRP11-108M12.3*βRP11-108M12.3+expRP11-38M8.1*βRP11-38M8.1+expRP11-54H7.4*βRP11-54H7.4+expZNF503-AS1*βZNF503-AS1. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the five-lncRNA signature could act as an independent prognostic indicator for LUSC (HR = 2.068, p < 0.001 with univariate analysis, HR = 1.928, p = 0.038 with multivariate). Besides, we constructed a weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) of key lncRNA RP11-54H7.4 according to the p-value of related genes' weight. This study provides a RNA-Seq based prognostic signature with five lncRNAs for further clinical application to LUSC patients.


We describe a new synchronous and distributed medium access control (MAC) protocol for multihop wireless networks that provides bandwidth guarantees to unicast connections. Our MAC protocol is based on a slotted time division multiple access (TDMA) architecture, with a multi-mini-slotted signaling phase scheduling data transmissions over slots in the following data phase. Resolving contentions at the beginning of a frame allows for effective utilization of bandwidth. Our protocol essentially combines the benefits of TDMA architecture with the distributed reservation mechanism of IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol, thereby performing well even at high loads. We implement a two-way handshake before each data slot to avoid deadlocks, a phenomena that plagues 802.11. Through theoretical analysis, we derive the system throughput achieved by our MAC protocol. We implemented our MAC protocol into ns-2 simulator, and demonstrate its vast superiority to IEEE 802.11 and a synchronous MAC protocol CATA through extensive simulations.


Introduction:Studies suggest that up to 56% of node-negative patients have tumor deposits in their lymph nodes that are missed by routine pathologic examination. However, few studies differentiate between isolated tumor cells and micrometastases using reproducible criteria, and their prognostic significance has not been established. Methods:We identified 119 patients who had undergone surgical resection for esophageal cancer between 1997 and 2007, and who were classified as node-negative. Relevant paraffin blocks were identified, and 3 additional levels, each 250 &mgr;m apart, were cut of all lymph nodes. Isolated tumor cells and micrometastases were defined according to size criteria but additional data and characteristics were recorded. Two slides were made at each level (1 for hematoxylin and eosin, 1 for immunohistochemistry). Results were correlated with survival. Results:One patient was found to have a metastasis (>2 mm), 8 patients (7%) had micrometastases, and 22 patients (18%) had isolated tumor cells. The 5-year survival rates were 60% for patients who remained node-negative, 33% for patients with isolated tumor cells, 40% for patients with micrometastases, and 0 for the patient with a metastasis (P = 0.02). A significant difference was found between node-negative patients versus patients whose lymph nodes contained isolated tumor cells (P = 0.014). Most tumor deposits (71%) were identified on the first additional section. Conclusions:Our results suggest that isolated tumor cells are as important as micrometastases in determining survival in patients with esophageal cancer. This has important implications in the retrieval and pathologic analysis of lymph nodes.


This paper uses the Management and Employee Questionnaires from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to consider whether the performance of workplaces which offer a range of family-friendly policies are superior to that of workplaces without such practices. It is found that in almost all cases where there is a significant relationship between the use of a family-friendly practice and workplace performance, this relationship is positive. In addition, it appears that workplaces which offer an extensive range of family-friendly policies are much more likely to have above-average performance than those with no such practices. The paper moves on to consider whether employers offering policies which enable employees with families to maintain a full-time presence in the workplace e.g. a workplace nursery, have better performance than those which offer policies which result in reduced-visibility e.g. working from home, part-time work. The evidence from WERS98 suggests that this is indeed the case.


A report summarizing the results of an international workshop on determination of color of streptomycetes is presented. The results suggest that the color systems which seem most practically appealing and effective to specialists on actinomycetes are those embracing a limited number of color names and groups. The broad groupings allow placement of isolates into reasonably well-defined categories based on color of aerial mycelium. Attempts to expand such systems (more color groups) lead to difficulties. It is common knowledge that many, if not all, of the individual groups would in these broad systems contain strains that differ in many other respects, e.g., spore-wall ornamentation, color of vegetative (substratal) mycelium, morphology of chains of spores, and numerous physiological criteria. Also, cultures of intermediate color can be found, which makes placement difficult. As it now stands, color as a criterion for characterization of streptomycetes and streptoverticillia is in questionable status. Although much useful color information can be obtained by an individual, the application of this information to that in the literature or its use in communication with other individuals leaves much to be desired. More objective methods of color determination are needed. At present, the most effective method that could be used internationally is the color-wheel system of Tresner and Backus. Furthermore, the significance of color in speciation of these organisms is an open question. Obviously, more critical work on the color problem is needed.


This paper is a situational report of the present position of Risawe's Chieftaincy palace; one of the chiefs' palaces in Ilesa town, Nigeria, an extant building of the 21st century. This paper identifies the paramount place of culture and traditions as the basis of Yoruba architectural plan, design and construction. It examines the importance and functions of the courtyard style of traditional Yoruba architecture in socio-cultural and religious context. The significance of the chieftaincy palaces in general is also discussed. The paper therefore, focuses on the ancient Yoruba architectural creativity and functionality. The effects of modernization are also mentioned. Data for the paper were collected through field work, oral interviews and published literature. The paper concludes that traditional architecture should be maintained, preserved and sustained as legacy for the generation to come


Supreme Court citations are rarely the subject of rigorous analysis. This Article presents an empirical examination of Supreme Court opinion citation practices since World War II, with a focus on the era from the Warren Court through the end of the Rehnquist Court. After theoretically analyzing the role of citations in judicial opinions and their significance, we explain how they may be used as a test of stare decisis and the Court's projection of power and legitimation of its authority. We measure both the raw number of citations in majority opinions and the significance of the cases cited (using a calculation of their network centrality at the time of the decision). Various factors significantly influence citation frequency and choice, including the type of case. After controlling for these factors, we consider the relative citation practices of the Justices of the Court since the 1950s. This method allows us to find that political legitimation of decisions is a key determinant of citations, but that legal factors also matter. We also explore the citation practices of individual Justices. Our findings are consistent with the conventional wisdom in some instances, but serve to dispel other common beliefs. For example, we find that Justices Black and Douglas showed relatively little devotion to precedents but the Warren Court more generally was concerned about stare decisis. In the recent era, Justice Souter stands out for his citation practices. Finally, we examine the implications, on future citation use,


The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect and the hetero-junction structure play crucial roles in enhancing the photocatalytic performances of catalysts for the water-splitting reaction. In this study, a series of double perovskites LaFe1−xNixO3 was synthesized. LaFe1−xNixO3 particles were then decorated with sea urchin-like Au nanoparticles (NPs) with the average size of approximately 109.83 ± 8.48 nm via electrophoresis. The d-spacing became narrow and the absorption spectra occurred the redshift phenomenon more when doping increasing Ni mole concentrations for the raw LaFe1−xNixO3 samples. From XPS analysis, the Ni atoms were inserted into the lattice of the matrix, resulting in the defect of the oxygen vacancy, and NiO and Fe2O3 were formed. This hybrid structure was the ideal electrode for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. The photonic extinction of the Au-coated LaFe1−xNixO3 was less than 2.1 eV (narrow band gap), and the particles absorbed more light in the visible region. According to the Mott–Schottky plots, all the LaFe1−xNixO3 samples were the n-type semiconductors. Moreover, all the band gaps of the Au-coated LaFe1−xNixO3 samples were higher than 1.23 eV (H+/H2). Then, the hot electrons from the Au NPs were injected via the SPR effect, the coupling effect between LaFe1−xNixO3 and Au NPs, and the more active sites from Au NPs into the conduction band of the semiconductor, improving the hydrogen efficiency. The H2 efficiency of the Au-coated LaFe1−xNixO3 measured in ethanol was approximately ten times larger than the that of Au-coated LaFe1−xNixO3 measured in 1-butanol at any testing temperature because ohmic and kinetic losses occurred in the latter solvent. Thus, the activation energies of ethanol at any testing temperature were smaller. The maximum real H2 production was up to 43,800 μmol g−1 h−1 in ethanol. The redox reactions among metal ions, OH*, and oxides were consecutively proceeded under visible light illumination.


This thesis addresses the critically poor efficacy of existing strategies to treat lung disease. A new device is developed using electrospray technology to deliver molecules into respiratory tissues via a bronchoscope. Novel diagnostic and therapeutic interventions are now possible by delivering appropriate molecules to target sites. The impact of this thesis is to facilitate earlier diagnosis of lung disease and enable local delivery of therapeutics to the lungs. Delivering molecules into the lung and airway tissues is challenging. The methodology is to design and implement an electrospray device for delivery of molecules to the respiratory tissues and to analyse its performance relative to existing delivery methodologies.

A critical analysis of current electrospray methodologies of introducing molecules into tissues is presented. An electrospray device was fabricated for bronchoscopic clinical use based on a set of working parameters deduced from a rig and trailled in a large animal model.

Molecules including DNA, siRNA, proteins, chemotherapeutics and marker dyes were delivered to tissues. The device's performance was analysed for consistency, targeted delivery, safety and efficacy. DNA and siRNA were delivered to human epithelial cell lines with up to 90% transfection. Proteins were delivered. Cisplatin, a chemotherapeutic, was delivered to cancer cells in a controllled experiment and killed >90% the cancer cells targeted. Methylene blue, the basis of an early stage cancer diagnostic test, was delivered to pigs, in vivo, using the device.

It is concluded that an electrospray device will have a role in lung cancer diagnosis and therapy. The research outputs will ultimately be applicable to other disease types and to a wide range of therapeutic and diagnostic molecules.


In the virtual and widely distributed network, the process of handover sensitive data from the distributor to the trusted third parties always occurs regularly in this modern world. It needs to safeguard the security and durability of service based on the demand of users. The idea of modifying the data itself to detect the leakage is not a new approach. Generally, the sensitive data are leaked by the agents, and the specific agent is responsible for the leaked data should always be detected at an early stage. Thus, the detection of data from the distributor to agents is mandatory. This project presents a data leakage detection system using various allocation strategies and which assess the likelihood that the leaked data came from one or more agents. For secure transactions, allowing only authorized users to access sensitive data through access control policies shall prevent data leakage by


MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that affect gene expression. They are essential in normal physiological processes and have been implicated in carcinogenesis. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second leading cause of cancer death globally, with the risk factor aflatoxin (AFB1) estimated to play a causal role in up to 28% of all HCC cases. In this study, we analyzed circulating miRNAs in a quantitative rat cancer model that were previously found to be associated with AFB1 exposure in liver. Sera were examined from 3 groups of animals: rats dosed with AFB1 (200 µg) for 28 consecutive days receiving vehicle only or AFB1 plus the chemopreventive agent CDDO-Im (30 µmol), and controls (Johnson et al., CaPR, 2014). Small RNAs were isolated from these serum samples at the end of the dosing period and analyzed by RT-qPCR. Quantitative PCR results at the end of the carcinogenic 28-day dosing regimen revealed notable increased expression of miR-34a-5p and miR-181c-3p (13 fold and 170 fold, respectively) in the AFB1 treated samples compared to controls. This expression was reduced in animals that received complete protection from developing HCC by concurrent intervention with CDDO-Im. Additionally, miR-122-5p displayed increased expression (5 fold) and miR-541-5p was downregulated (0.08 fold) in the sera of AFB1-treated animals. Overall, the data suggest that serum expression of miR-34a-5p and 181c-3p during liver cancer initiation could give insight into increased risk of developing HCC. Supported by T32ES007141-31A1 and CA197222. Citation Format: Merricka C. Livingstone, Bill D. Roebuck, Natalie M. Johnson, Thomas W. Kensler, John D. Groopman. Elevated levels of circulating miR-34a-5p and miR-181c-3p during cancer initiation by aflatoxin B1 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4448. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4448


Many years ago when I was jumping through a hoop of psychology tests devised by the army, I had to say immediately what came into my mind when, one after another, words were flashed upon a screen. Whether or not the word, 'Museum' came up I do not recall, but it would have been interesting to know the results if it had. What do you think of at the sight of the word 'Museum'? In 1931 the Government's Board of Education published a pamphlet called 'Memorandum on the Possibility of Increased Co - operation Between Public Museums and Public Education Institutions'. The pamphlet in its final paragraph stated: 'It may be suggested, in conclusion, that the word 'museum' is perhaps in part responsible for the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. Does it not suggest a depressing decaying institution, the last resting place of travellers' mementos and of fossils which have undeservedly survived from ages long ago? The existing prejudice is deeply rooted in the touch soil of our language and in the popular mind, but it would most surely be overcome if a generation of children were given systematic opportunities of enjoying the treasures of modern museums'.


Most ad hoc mobile devices today operate on batteries. Hence, power consumption becomes an important issue. To maximize the lifetime of ad hoc mobile networks, the power consumption rate of each node must be evenly distributed, and the overall transmission power for each connection request must be minimized. These two objectives cannot be satisfied simultaneously by employing routing algorithms proposed in previous work. We present a new power-aware routing protocol to satisfy these two constraints simultaneously; we also compare the performance of different types of power-related routing algorithms via simulation. Simulation results confirm the need to strike a balance in attaining service availability performance of the whole network vs. the lifetime of ad hoc mobile devices.


Observing gamma rays using ground-based atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes provides one of the only probes of heavy weakly interacting dark matter. A canonical target is the thermal wino, for which the strongest limits come from searches for photon lines from annihilations in the Galactic Center. Irreducible finite energy resolution effects motivate refining the prediction for a wino signal beyond the photon line approximation; recently, modern effective field theory techniques have been utilized to obtain a precise calculation of the full photon energy spectrum from wino annihilation. In this paper, we investigate the implications for a realistic mock H.E.S.S.-like line search. We emphasize the impact of including the non-trivial spectral shape, and we carefully treat the region of interest, presenting results for choices between 1° and 4° from the Galactic Center. Projected limits for wino masses from 1–70 TeV are interpreted as a constraint on the wino annihilation rate, or alternatively as the minimum core size required such that the wino is not excluded. If there is a thermal wino, H.E.S.S. will be able to probe cores of several kpc, which would begin to cause tension between this dark matter candidate and astrophysical observations/simulations.


Ultra narrow bandgap III-V semiconductor nanomaterials provide a unique platform for realizing advanced nanoelectronics, thermoelectrics, infrared photodetection, and quantum transport physics. In this work we employ molecular beam epitaxy to synthesize novel nanosheet-like InSb nanostructures exhibiting superior electronic performance. Through careful morphological and crystallographic characterization we show how this unique geometry is the result of a single twinning event in an otherwise pure zinc blende structure. Four-terminal electrical measurements performed in both the Hall and van der Pauw configurations reveal a room temperature electron mobility greater than 12,000 cm(2)·V(-1)·s(-1). Quantized conductance in a quantum point contact processed with a split-gate configuration is also demonstrated. We thus introduce InSb "nanosails" as a versatile and convenient platform for realizing new device and physics experiments with a strong interplay between electronic and spin degrees of freedom.


Bactrocera latifrons (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae) infests fruits and vegetables of a number of different plant species, with host plants primarily found in the plant families Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae. Although B. latifrons is of primarily Asian distribution (e.g., Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, China [Fujian, Yunnan, Hong Kong, Hainan], Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Brunei), its range has expanded through introductions into Hawaii, Okinawa, Tanzania, and Kenya, and poses a threat of introduction into other countries where it does not presently occur. As with other tephritid fruit fly species, establishment of B. latifrons can have significant economic consequences, including damage and loss of food production, as well as requirements for implementation of costly quarantine treatments to permit export of commodities susceptible to infestation by B. latifrons. In order to avoid these adverse economic consequences, one needs to prevent the entry, establishment and spread of B. latifrons into a new habitat. To successfully achieve this, an accurate knowledge of the fly's host plants is essential. Cognizant of this need, we prepared, and present here, a worldwide list of host plants for B. latifrons, with annotations on reported laboratory and field infestation data. Overall, a total of 59 plant species from 14 plant families are identified as hosts of B. latifrons, based on reported field infestation data.


The objectives of this study were: (1) to investigate career counseling provision and its pattern. (2) To develop a model of career counseling center for preparing students into the world of work by using Enneagram personality theory to observe the evaluation process of Thai students' characteristics. (3) To formulate the model of career counseling for students in Thai higher education institutes by integrating Thai value and Enneagram personality theory in order to establish research personality measures for individual student. Samples are four-year-university students from the universities that provided all nine educational groups categorized by UNESCO entitled International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). Comprehensive universities selected for the study were Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, Kasetsart University, Naresuan University, Chiang Mai University, Khon Kaen University, and Prince of Songkla University. 527 respondents participated in the survey. Multivariate tools from SPSS for Windows were used for statistical analysis. The model of career counseling center was developed and confirmed by a committee of experts using the connoisseurship model. Four out of nine personality types -Epicure, Mediator, Trooper, and Giver- from Enneagram personality theory are mostly found among Thai students. The model of career counseling center was thus developed in accordance with the demands of current student personality as well as objectives in accordance to the university service provision policy under the operation of student affairs division. The preparations of location, facility, and structural design of management, service provision process, and student counseling procedure were developed in accordance to help support the student readiness in entering into the world of work. The recommendation for successful career counseling center was restricted its scope of work in programs of study and career counseling. Special emphasis was to be placed upon student personality types in tailored made counseling program oriented to future careers, following six procedures of one-stop counseling service: to investigate student personality type, test of student personality type, check the vacancy job position on database, study on the characteristic of the perspective job, attend the training program, and apply to the job. The counseling service should be based on each student personality type that influences his / her future profession and follow the six procedures of one-stop counseling service.


This study analyzes the age distribution of upward mobility in a large corporation, examining changes in the age-promotion relationship for different levels in the organizational hierarchly, for different kinds of employess, and across time periods of increasing and creasing organizational growth. Analyzing the corporation's complete personnel records over three times periods, this paper test a precipitous-decline hypothesis derived from the organizational careers literature, an exponential-decline hypothesis derived from the Markov literature on career mobility, and an increase-decrease hipothesis derived from the economic literature on life-cycle earnings patterns. Analysis finds partial support for each hypothesis for different groups of employees. It also finds remarkable stability in these patterns across periods, particularly for the most and least favored groups; the changes which do occur tend to "spillover" to specific stadby age-education groups. The age-promotion curves and the spillover patterns are explained in terms of a new efficiency-motivation model of organizational mobility. Finally, analysis indicates that these age effects seem to persist after controlling for years of service. The implications of these findings for organizational selection systems and for career and life-cycle phenomena are considered.


Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can generate electricity simultaneously with wastewater treatment. For MFCs to be considered a cost-effective treatment technology, they should quickly re-establish a stable electroactive microbial community in the case of system failure. In order to shorten startup times, temporal studies of anodic biofilm development are required, however, frequent sampling can reduce the functionality of the system due to electroactive biomass loss; therefore, on-line monitoring of the microbial community without interfering with the system's stability is essential. Although all anodic biofilms were composed of Desulfuromonadaceae, MFCs differed in startup times. Generally, a Desulfuromonadaceae-dominated biofilm was associated with faster startup MFCs. A positive PCR product of a specific 16S rRNA gene PCR primer set for detecting the acetate-oxidizing, Eticyclidine (PCE)-dechlorinating Desulfuromonas group was associated with efficient MFCs in our samples. Therefore, this observation could serve as a biomarker for monitoring the formation of an efficient anodic biofilm. Additionally, we successfully enriched an electroactive consortium from an active anode, also resulting in a positive amplification of the specific primer set. Direct application of this enrichment to a clean MFC anode showed a substantial reduction of startup times from 18 to 3 days.


Collisions between ions and clusters are an efficient tool to prepare clusters in high charge states. We discuss recent results on the mechanisms and the degree of ionisation which can be obtained in close and in peripheral collisions with projectiles in low and high charge states. Furthermore, the energy which is transferred in the collision as well as the energy sharing between the electronic system and the vibrational modes are considered. Recent experiments have shown, that multi-ionisation of clusters by highly charged ions is possible without essential heating; the energy transfer can be as low as 2 eV for a five-fold ionisation.


Modelling sward nutritional value (NV) is of particular importance to understand the interactions between grasslands, livestock production, environment and climate-related impacts. Variables describing nutritive value vary significantly between ruminant production systems, but two types are commonly used: 1) variables related to cell wall content, digestibility and energy, and 2) variables related to protein content.This study reviews and compares alternative modelling approaches simulating forage NV. It is intended to: 1) provide model users essential information for a fit-purpose use of grassland models; 2) give model builders feedback helpful in improving the models; 3) promote the development of state-of-the-art model assessment. The focus is on approaches applicable for European grasslands, as implemented in the grassland models; BASGRA, CATIMO, IFSM, MCPy, ModVege, PaSim, QUAL, SPACSYS, and STICS. These models cover swards cut for silage or hay, grazed swards, monocultures and mixtures, permanent grasslands and leys kept for less than five years.Six out of nine models use neutral detergent fibre (NDF) to describe content of structural carbohydrates. Digestibility of harvested dry matter (DM) is estimated as a function of NDF content and NDF digestibility in five models. Two of the models use an alternative approach that consists in estimating organic matter digestibility or in-vitro true digestibility of DM directly. Three of the models include variables to describe net energy content of DM whereas one model use metabolizable energy. To estimate protein value of harvested DM seven approaches use crude protein concentration calculated as a function of plant nitrogen concentration and one models uses digestible intestinal protein content.


The aim of this research was analysis of hemodynamic efficacy and pumping function of the heart under conditions of various physiologic cardiostimulation regimens at rest and exercise. A total of 112 patients were examined and implanted this or that pacemaker. The mean age was 36.8 +/- 1.4 years, there were 52 male and 60 female patients. The results indicate that the most effective were the physiologic regimens, particularly those permitting an adequate increase of the pumping function at the expense of stimulation rate increment in response to exercise. When these regimens were used physical activity increased from 50 to 75% as a result of minute volume increase by 1.5-2.2 times. These results recommend a wider use of pacemakers with an automatically changing stimulation frequencies in response to exercise.


The most important land and water issues facing North America and the world – including land-use patterns, water management, biodiversity protection, and climate adaptation – require innovative governance arrangements. Most of these issues need to be addressed at several scales simultaneously, ranging from local to global. They require action at the scale of large landscapes given that the geographic scope of the issues often transcends the legal and geographic reach of existing jurisdictions and institutions. No single entity has the authority to address these types of cross-boundary issues, resulting in gaps in governance and a corresponding need to create formal and informal ways work more effectively across administrative boundaries, land ownerships, and political jurisdictions. In response to this challenge, numerous models of "network governance" are emerging. These approaches vary in terms of purpose, spatial scale, composition, organization, and complexity. This article explains what network governance is, why it is emerging, how it compares to other models of natural resource governance, and the different ways in which it develops and evolves.


We sought to verify earlier reports of increased platelet reactivity in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) during perioperative heparin administration, and to test the hypothesis of platelet hypersensitivity to heparin in these patients. Before and after incubation of platelet rich plasma with unfractionated (UH), low molecular weight heparin (LMWH), and a low molecular weight heparinoid, real-time quantitative assessment of platelet function was performed by stagnation point flow adhesio-aggregometry (SPAA) in 21 patients with PAD and 14 healthy volunteers. With SPAA the occurrence of spontaneous aggregation is pathological. In the 15 patients requiring operation, platelet function and count were measured at regular intervals. To detect heparin dependent antibodies, the heparin induced platelet activation assay (HIPA) was performed preoperatively and after 10 days of heparin therapy. Mean baseline platelet adhesion in patients was double that observed in controls (p < 0.001). Spontaneous aggregation was seen in 9 (43%) patients and no controls (p < 0.001). In controls heparinoid reduced, whereas UH and LMWH slightly increased adhesion. Spontaneous aggregation was observed once with UH. Platelets from patients showed significantly enhanced adhesiveness and aggregability (p < 0.05) with UH and LMWH when compared to controls. Effects with the heparinoid were less pronounced and nonsignificant. In patients requiring operation, postoperative increases in platelet function and reductions in count were significant (p < 0.001). Ten (67%) experienced a fall in platelet count of > 50%. Preoperatively the HIPA assay showed no evidence of antibodies, whereas after heparin administration antibodies were verified in 4 (32%) patients and could not be ruled out in 6 (40%). Three developed postoperative thrombosis, in one case fatal. A hypersensitive in vitro and in vivo platelet response to heparin was verified in patients with PAD and a large number developed the immunological type of heparin-associated thrombocytopenia. Our findings suggest that a thrombin antagonist which does not interact with platelets may give the best perioperative protection in these patients.


In the past years, the use of educational robots has steadily increased, in particular due to the ongoing digitalization of modern societies and the new skills that professions require. It has been argued that educational robotics activities have the potential to promote the acquisition of such skills and may increase pupils' interest in STEM disciplines. Despite these results, only few studies have examined the pupils' perspective regarding the pedagogical value of educational robotics in formal education. Therefore, in this study with 91 pupils aged between 13 and 15 years, we aimed at investigating how pupils perceive educational robotics as a tool to improve their creativity, collaboration, computer science and computational thinking skills and to foster their interest in STEM disciplines. Over a period of one semester, the pupils worked with the robot Thymio II and evaluated their experience through a questionnaire. The results showed that boys and girls have different perceptions on which competences they could enhance: while boys affirmed more often than girls, that they could improve their computer science and computational thinking skills, the opposite was found for collaboration and creativity. Moreover, the results illustrated that educational robotics activities could increase the interest in coding, computer science and engineering, however, this was predominantly observed in boys.


In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, defects in bud formation activate a morphogenesis checkpoint pathway that delays progression of the cell cycle through G2. Marquitz et al. tested yeast carrying individual mutations or deletions in all known genes involved in bud formation for defective activation of the morphogenesis checkpoint. Only bem1 and bem2 showed progression through the cell cycle and the formation of binucleate cells in the presence of the actin-disrupting agent Latrunculin-B. The bem1 mutants had multinucleated cells even in the absence of Latrunculin-B and thus were not a candidate for a checkpoint defect. Bem2p is a Rho and Cdc42 guanosine triphosphatase-activating protein (GAP). However, point mutations in Bem2p that compromised GAP activity did not exhibit defective checkpoint signaling. The checkpoint signaling activity appeared to be independent of the GAP activity and was localized to a hydrophobic stretch in the NH2-terminus of the protein. Progression through G2 requires the dephosphorylation of the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28, and the balance of phosphorylated Cdc28 is maintained through the actions of the kinase Swe1p (which inhibits progression) and the phosphatase Mih1p (which stimulates progression). In the bem2 mutant cells the kinase Swe1p was stabilized and the Mpk1p kinase, which is thought to decrease the activity of the stimulating phosphatase Mih1p, was activated upon exposure to Latrunculin-B. Deletion of MIH did partially rescue the checkpoint defect in the bem2 mutants, suggesting that Mih1p may be involved in the Bem2p pathway. Finally, the levels of phosphorylated Cdc28p were elevated in bem2p mutant yeast and did not increase in response to Latrunculin-B, and thus the cells appeared unable to shift the balance of phosphorylated and unphosphorylated Cdc28p in response to disruption of the bud formation. A. R. Marquitz, J. C. Harrison, I. Bose, T. R. Zyla, J. N. McMillan, D. J. Lew, The Rho-GAP Bem2p plays a GAP-independent role in the morphogenesis checkpoint. EMBO J. 21, 4012-4025 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The selection of parameters plays a vital role in the multi-attribute decision-making process. In some situations, it is observed that the nature of parameters is ambiguous and a multi-decisive opinion is necessary for managing such parametric uncertainty. In the literature, there is no suitable model that can cope with such situations. This study was purposed to develop a novel context called the fuzzy parameterized fuzzy hypersoft expert set (FPFHSE-set), which is capable of managing the uncertain nature of parameters and the multi-decisive opinion of experts collectively in one model. In this way, the proposed model may be described as the generalization of the existing model fuzzy parameterized fuzzy soft expert set (FPFSE-set). Theoretic, axiomatic and algorithmic approaches have been employed for the characterization of the basic notions of the FPFHSE-set. In order to handle multi-attribute decision-making, two algorithms are proposed and then validated by applying them to some real-world scenarios in the FPFHSE-set environment. The merits and superiority of the new algorithms are presented by comparing them with some existing fuzzy decision-making models. According to the proposed FPFHSE-set-based decision-making approaches, the experts have more freedom in specifying their preferences and thoughts according to their expertise, and they can process new types of data. Therefore, this paper presents a state-of-the-art improvement that provides a holistic view to understand and handle the multi-attribute decision-making issues focused on the objective of classifying alternatives according to multiple attributes by multiple experts.


In this paper, we propose a word confidence measure based on phone durations depending on large contexts. The measure is based on the expected duration of each recognized phone in a word. In the approach here proposed the duration of each phone is in principle context-dependent, and the measure is a function of the distance between the observed and expected phone duration distributions within a word. Our experiments show that, since the "duration confidence" does not make use of any acoustic information, its Equal Error Rate (EER) in terms of False Accept and False Rejection rates is not as good as the one obtained by using the more informed acoustic confidence measure. However, combining the two measures by a simple linear interpolation, the system EER improves by 6% to 10% relative on an isolated word recognition task in several languages.


Though cultural explanations as determinants of economic outcomes have mainly been ignored by researchers, national culture has been proven to have a direct and identifiable impact on the level of entrepreneurial behavior. Politically, Laos remains one the few communist countries in the world, but it too is transitioning to a market economy. In spite of being rich in natural resources, this small, landlocked nation remains a less developed country (LDC) and the poorest member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Lao culture embraces collectivism and the traditional values of Theravada Buddhism, a belief system which inherently functions against the fostering of entrepreneurial spirit. Removing impediments to entrepreneurship is a key challenge for the government. Using Laos as a case in point, this paper assesses the influence culture has on entrepreneurship and explores initiatives and measures that can be used to strengthen inherent cultural values that stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit, encourage risk-taking, and in turn promote economic development. Research paper Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Culture; Laos; ASEAN; Economic Development Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Bhasin, B., & Ng, L. K. (2019). Socio Cultural Impediments to Entrepreneurship: Implications for the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics , 7 (1), 64–91


In the present paper we carry on a systematic study of 3-quasi-Sasakian manifolds. In particular we prove that the three Reeb vector fields generate an involutive distribution determining a canonical totally geodesic and Riemannian foliation. Locally, the leaves of this foliation turn out to be Lie groups: either the orthogonal group or an abelian one. We show that 3-quasi-Sasakian manifolds have a well-defined rank, obtaining a rank-based classification. Furthermore, we prove a splitting theorem for these manifolds assuming the integrability of one of the almost product structures. Finally, we show that the vertical distribution is a minimum of the corrected energy. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 53C15, 53C25, 53C26.


The precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) flocculation kinetics and floc structures induced by cationic tapioca starch were recorded by the Malvern Mastersizer 2000 (Malvern Instruments Inc, Malvern, UK). Of particular interest, a population balance model for PCC flocculation was employed to extract the flocculation constants, namely collision efficiency, magnitude of energy dissipation rate and restructuring rate. The model made an attempt to take aggregation, breakage and flocs restructuring into account simultaneously to describe the PCC flocculation by aggregation and breakage mechanism. Through a response surface methodology (RSM) involving a central composite design, the effects of temperature, polymer dosage, ionic strength, and shear rate on flocculation parameters were investigated in this paper.


The spinal fluid activities of aspartate aminotransferase (AAT), alkaline phosphatase (AP), and gamma-gluthamyl transferase were studied in 32 patients with cerebral gliomas to clarify the diagnostic role of these enzymes. There were different changes in their activities in groups of patients with low-differential and differential gliomas. Its was ascertained that higher AAT activity was due to the fact that blood had entered spinal fluid; increased AP activity may be regarded to be an indicator of higher permeability of the blood-brain barrier.


Wake flow measurements and multi-colored oil flow visualizations were performed in a 2D linear stator compressor cascade for tandem configurations. Two sets of tandem vanes with different load split (LS) are compared to a set of conventional single vane reference blades. The measurements were performed at a Mach number of 0.6 and a Reynolds number of 900.000. During the experiments the tangential displacement (percent pitch PP) is varied from 85% to 95% for the tandem blade configurations. The results of the oil flow visualization in addition with wake flow measurements show how the secondary flow structures develop and change with varying tangential displacement.


The p120cas gene encodes a protein tyrosine kinase substrate that associates with the cell-cell adhesion protein complex containing E-cadherin and its cytoplasmic cofactors alpha-catenin, beta-catenin, and plakoglobin. Like other components of the cadherin/catenin complex, defects in p120cas may contribute to cell malignancy. We have determined the chromosomal location of the p120cas gene in human and mouse using fluorescence in situ hybridization and interspecific backcross analysis, respectively. The human p120cas gene (CTNND) is localized immediately adjacent to the centromere on the long arm of chromosome 11 in band 11q11. The murine p120cas gene (Catns) was assigned to the middle of chromosome 2. Neither locus is currently known to be associated with disease or malignancy.


Retail food environments are gaining national and international attention as important determinants of population dietary intake. Communities across Canada are beginning to discuss and implement programs and policies to create supportive retail food environments. Three considerations should drive the selection of food environment assessment methods: relevance (What is the problem, and how is it related to dietary outcomes?); resources (What human, time and financial resources are required to undertake an assessment?); and response (How will policy-makers find meaning out of and act on the information gained through the food environment assessment?). Ultimately, food environment assessments should be conducted in the context of stakeholder buy-in and multi-sectoral partnerships, since food environment solutions require multi-sectoral action. Partnerships between public health actors and the food and beverage industry can be challenging, especially when mandates are not aligned. Clarifying the motivations, expectations and roles of all stakeholders takes time but is important if the impact of food environment research, policy and practice is to be maximized. The articles contained in this special supplementary issue describe ongoing food environments research across Canada and fill some of the important gaps in the current body of Canadian food environments literature.


This article examines the phenomenon of Chinese realism, as well as the prerequisites and factors that influenced the processes of reception in modern Chinese art. At the beginning of the 20th century, under the influence of Western academic realism and the artistic system of social realism, a new direction and artistic method was formed — realism, which became mainstream in the art of China of the mid-20th century. According to its aesthetic and ideological motifs, Chinese realism is an object of social realism reception, which was determined by cultural and historical factors, and the development of political, economic and cultural ties with the USSR. Studying the realistic painting, which reflects the atmosphere of the era, the worldview, and the dialogue of cultures, is relevant for both Chinese and Russian contemporary art studies. The article examines the role of realism in the development of Chinese art culture of the 20th century, including its socio-political components, as well as the dynamics of artistic and expressive means and the iconographic system in the context of the historical and cultural situation. In the 1980s and 1990s, as a result of the liberalization of economic and political life, the artistic consciousness formed new concepts of realistic painting — neorealism and cynical realism, associated with a critical rethinking of the historical heritage. The neorealism and cynical realism, which would significantly enrich realistic painting with new forms and content, adopted Western postmodern concepts of pop art, and debunked, in a grotesque and satirical form, the political stereotypes of the past. The analysis of realistic painting of the 1990s demonstrates how the transformation of past painting canons reflects the desire of society to free itself from the pressure of totalitarian ideology and to rethink the value orientations of the previous era. The novelty of this study lies in the fact that it applies a systematic and holistic approach to the analysis of realism in Chinese painting, reveals the diversity of its forms and directions, and gives ground for the specifics of its evolution in the context of the artistic culture of the 20th century China. There are almost no comprehensive studies of this issue in modern art history, so this work is an attempt to create a scientific approach to the study of this artistic phenomenon and the formation of ideas about how the artistic consciousness of an entire epoch was changing.


The Ti/PbO2 electrode doped with Pr2O3 was prepared by the electrodeposition method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses indicated the crystal particles size of Ti/PbO2/Pr2O3 electrode was diminished due to the incorporation of Pr2O3 into the film of PbO2. The scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) revealed that Ti/PbO2/Pr2O3 electrode had smaller particles and larger active surface. The measurement of cyclic voltammograms (CV) revealed Ti/PbO2/Pr2O3 electrode had a better electrochemical properties comparing to Ti/PbO2 electrode. The bulk electrolysis demonstrated that the Ti/PbO2/Pr2O3 electrode presented excellent electrocatalytic performance for degradation methylene blue.


Cation exchange has been investigated in a wide range of nanocrystals of varying composition, size, and shape. Complete and fully reversible exchange occurs, and the rates of the reactions are much faster than in bulk cation exchange processes. A critical size has been identified below which the shapes of complex nanocrystals evolve toward the equilibrium shape with lowest energy during the exchange reaction. Above the critical size, the anion sublattice remains intact and the basic shapes of the initial nanocrystals are retained throughout the cation exchange. The size-dependent shape change can also be used to infer features of the microscopic mechanism.


Geographic variation in the acoustic repertoire has been described for several marine and terrestrial organisms and can be used for the identification of different populations and to allocate individuals to certain populations. Passive acoustic monitoring can be utilized to derive a baseline understanding of the distribution of
Antarctic pinnipeds in difficult accessible habitats like the Southern Ocean where harsh weather conditions and limited light availability complicate data collection.
Leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) and Ross seals (Ommatophoca rossii) produce underwater sounds during summer in the Southern Ocean. For both species, geographic differences in vocal behavior occur between distant (> 1000 km) locations, but have not been explored over smaller spatial scales. Information on spatial patterns in animal vocal divergence can be used to gain insight in dispersal patterns and the factors that drive geographic variation. Here it is explored if and how vocal behavior of leopard and Ross seals differs over a regional scale (< 1000 km) in the Southern Ocean.
The vocal repertoire compositions of leopard and Ross seals were compared between two offshore (68°S 0°E, 66°S 27°W) and one coastal (70°S 8°W) location. The examined records comprised acoustic data from March 2008 to December 2010 and from December 2010 to January 2013
Parameters that were compared between recordings were timing of local vocal activity, repertoire composition and a set of standard acoustic parameters of the various call types, such as duration and frequency of greatest amplitude.
Leopard seals were vocally active between October and January, Ross seals from mid-December until January at all recording locations. At all sites, the leopard seal vocal repertoires had equal compositions, consisting of 8 call types, comparably larger than the repertoires recorded elsewhere. Furthermore a new 'Medium double trill' subtype with around 1000 Hz was firstly described here in comparison to the already known 'Medium double trill' of about 2000 Hz. Call characteristics of leopard seal calls differed mainly between the coastal and offshore areas. An evidence for differences of leopard seal call characteristics in relation to distance is described. It is concluded that young leopard seals leave their original breeding group and join other breeding groups when they become sexual mature, maintaining geographic variations in vocalizations and genetic exchange at the same time.
The Ross seal vocal repertoire consisted of 5 call types at all recording locations and did not significantly differ in composition between all locations. The start of high Ross seal vocal activity was temporal consistent over several years and at different locations, suggesting a universal (e.g. cosmic) cue as trigger. Ross seals were observed to have a 2° broader breeding range than previously assumed. It is suggested that Ross seals are able to adapt their call characteristics to specific features of their habitats (e.g. noise).


Electrical engineers rely on analytical models to design industrial induction motors for different customer driven applications. These models are fundamental and do not naturally consider additional core losses due to stamping or welding or the impact of being inverter-fed. To overcome the resulting gap between analytic results and measurement data, these equivalent circuit models are traditionally adapted by correction factors. This paper presents a methodology allowing to parameterize such an analytical model basing on inverter-fed load and no-load measurements carried out for several frequencies. The obtained results show a fair agreement over a wide range of operation points which is acceptable for daily business applications.


Recent advances in long‐term bone marrow (BM) culture techniques have allowed investigators to dissect cellular components responsible for lympho‐hematopoiesis. Consequently, a number of "stromal" cell clones have been developed which are capable of supporting B lineage lymphocyte growth and proliferation in vitro by direct cell‐cell interactions and the release of cytokines. While much work has focused on the support function of these cells, questions remain regarding their own differentiation potential. We have examined adipo‐genesis in the cloned BM stromal cell, BMS2. The presence of hydrocortisone, methylisobutylxanthine, or 30% fetal calf serum each accelerated adipocyte differentiation. This process was accompanied by the accumulation of triglycerides and cholesterol esters along with the induction of adipocyte‐specific enzymes. Likewise, the steady‐state level of mRNA transcripts increased for genes related to lipid metabolism. However, the pattern of mRNA expression in BMS2 adipocytes differed from that of a well‐established, pre‐adipocyte cell line, 3T3‐L1, with respect to the following genes: glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase, CAAT/enhancer binding protein and angiotensinogen. Adipocyte BMS2 cells retailed the ability to support stromal cell‐dependent B lineage lymphocytes in methylcellulose assays. The adipocytes continued to express macrophagecolony‐stimulating factor mRNA constitutively and interleukin 6 mRNA in an inducible manner, similar to the BMS2 pre‐adipocytes. Together, these data document a close developmental relationship between a specialized fibroblasts and adipocytes in the BM and suggest that adipocyte stromal cells may play an active role in lympho‐hematopoiesis.


Independent regulatory authorities (IRAs) today have considerable competences. They can regulate and supervise the behaviour of market and societal parties, and set prices for goods and services. They can enforce regulations through fines and 'naming and shaming'. Thirdly, they have quasi-judicial functions. Yet IRAs are independent in their decisions from both the elected political sphere and sectoral interests. This makes the question whom, or what, these authorities represent a salient one. Yet this question is not often discussed in the literature. In the literature on IRAs, three approaches towards the independent bodies can be distinguished, that either stress their 'inherent' legitimacy based on the quality of their decisions, emphasize their 'derived' democratic legitimacy from elected institutions, or argue their legitimacy derives from their relations with a variety of actors. Commonly, however, IRAs are considered 'unrepresentative' because of their unelected status. In this thesis, it is argued that IRAs should nevertheless be considered non-electoral representative claimants. Viewing IRAs as such yields positive and normative benefits, that may be employed in the further study of these agencies, including in the three outlined approaches. To make this argument, four IRAs in the Netherlands – the telecommunications regulator OPTA, energy regulator NMa Energy Chamber, financial supervisor AFM, and healthcare regulator NZa – are studied from the perspective of the theorization of representative claims by Michael Saward (2010). Representation in this framework is considered a rhetorical and discursive process, consisting of claims to act or speak for others and the simultaneous construction of constituencies in these claims. Representative claims may have electoral and non-electoral resources: they can be made by politicians, interest groups, government organizations, ombudsmen and individuals alike. Likewise, representative claims can be received and accepted or rejected by the targeted constituency on the basis of a variety of criteria. Judgments regarding the democratic legitimacy of representative claims should be relayed to this constituency. Employing the representative claim approach, it is argued that the four IRAs in the Netherlands have been claimed by the Dutch law-making body to independently represent economic and non-economic 'public' interests in marketized and liberalized domains. Likewise, the four IRAs themselves in their public self-presentation increasingly claim to represent consumer interests in their activities. On the board level, governors are claimed to be independent experts standing for public and consumer interests, although an exploration of the professional backgrounds of board members reveals they often have backgrounds in the bureaucracy or the regulated sector, and never in the consumer movement. Lastly, on the work-floor level, employees of IRAs interact with representatives of sectoral interests in consultation procedures, in which various representative claim-making strategies are employed. Far from unrepresentative, IRAs should therefore be considered representative claimants – and facilitators of representative claims – in their own right. Independent market regulation involves the construction and reception of representative claims just as much as the traditional electoral sphere. Further study of IRAs and their interaction with sectoral interests should take the representative claim-making character of these independent bodies into account. Lastly, in order to strengthen their democratic legitimacy, IRAs should make their decisions transparent to the consumer public, while consumer organizations should be empowered to represent their constituency inside IRA consultation procedures.


Based on the difference between the orientation of the interstellar BISM and the solar magnetic fields, there was an expectation that the magnetic field direction would rotate dramatically across the heliopause (HP). However, the Voyager 1 spacecraft measured very little rotation across the HP. Previously, we showed that the BISM twists as it approaches the HP and acquires a strong T component (east–west). Here, we establish that reconnection in the eastern flank of the heliosphere is responsible for the twist. On the eastern flank the solar magnetic field has twisted into the positive N direction and reconnects with the southward pointing component of the BISM. Reconnection drives a rotational discontinuity (RD) that twists the BISM into the −T direction and propagates upstream in the interstellar medium toward the nose. The consequence is that the N component of BISM is reduced in a finite width band upstream of the HP. Voyager 1 currently measures angles ( ) close to solar values. We present MHD simulations to support this scenario, suppressing reconnection in the nose region while allowing it in the flanks, consistent with recent ideas about reconnection suppression from diamagnetic drifts. The jump in plasma β (the plasma to magnetic pressure) across the nose of HP is much greater than in the flanks because the heliosheath β is greater there than in the flanks. Large-scale reconnection is therefore suppressed in the nose but not at the flanks. Simulation data suggest that BISM will return to its pristine value 10–15 au past the HP.


Background: A sural artery flap is a fasciocutaneous one based on the reverse blood flow and the anastomosis between the superficial sural artery and the perforators of peroneal artery. This flap is used in order to reconstruct the soft tissue defects of the distal leg, ankle and heel and also to cover the vessels, tendons and bones. It is possible to cover the defects in size 10*12 cm with this flap, classically; as well, the design of the flap is being done by the limited shapes such as L and T-shaped. The purpose of this article is to introduce the new design of this flap to creating the most level of consistency with the shape of the defect. Method: The patient was a twelve year old girl who faced a large defect and the separation of the soft tissue of the heel and ankle of the right foot by an accident with a motorcycle about three weeks prior to her referral as her medial malleolus and Achilles tendon were exposed. Then, after the first reconstruction in the orthopedically services, she faced severe necrosis of tissue and exposition of the heel's bone and Achilles tendon. There was not a clear sensory disorder in her fingers and the movement of her ankle and toes were intact. During the first surgical operation, debridement of the necrotic tissue was occurred and preparation of the fields for the pediculate flap was done. Then bandage, dressing and splint–making were completed. The second operational surgery was done for designing a flap and during this operation, the sural flap was designed in a boot – shaped way due to the impossibility of covering the defect using the classic method and the obvious need for longer pedicle. In the end, the basis of flap was cut during the third operational surgery and the final reconstruction of the damage was done. Moreover, the soft tissue defect of the donor flap was reconstructed by the cutaneous graft from the medial surface of the thigh of the same foot. Then, the patient was followed for three months. Findings: The final result of designing the sural flap in a boot – shaped way for this area of lower limbs was remarkable because there were no side effects such as venous congestion, superficial necrosis and the bleeding from the flap's edge and finally, the patient could properly walk. The effects of removing the flap in the donor site and the sensory disorder resulted from removing the flap were trivial and negligible and also, the patient returned to her daily life in almost no time. Conclusion: A boot-shaped sural flap is one of the best choices for covering the defects of soft tissue of the heel and ankle. In the classic term, it is formed in a rectangular or oval shape but this flap was a versatile flap and can be designed in other shapes for increasing the efficiency of the flap and decreasing the side effects in terms of the shape and size of the defects.


Do interval-class vector-based measures of similarity among pitch- class sets, such as Robert Morris9s similarity index, predict how listeners relate sets? In a series of experiments listeners were asked to judge differences between pitch- class sets. The results did not argue convincingly for the similarity index as the primary determinant in the perception of similarity. They suggested, however, that an underlying pattern might show the relationships among set classes along a number of dimensions. In an experiment involving comparison of the twelve trichords, multidimensional scaling techniques were used to model the data. The dimensions of these models can be interpreted in terms of intervals, although none of the interpretations involve total interval content or correspond to the similarity index. The results suggest two conclusions. First, the perception of similarity among pitch-class sets is tied to context and manner of presentation. Second, theoretically plausible measures of similarity may not be immediately perceivable and may require considerable training to be heard.


to leave nothing unsaid. If he can get over this, and the initial shock of phrases such as "situationallzing", "intentionality", "movement development for belonging" and "program foundation experience offerings", he wlll find much valuable information and a challenge to deeper study. Each chapter ends with suggestions for group study and lists for further reading. The authors regard their book as a progress report, and they invite comments from others working in the field of human movement.


A twin-engine light aircraft crashed at night on the third ILS approach. Runway Visual Range was 300 m. All four occupants were killed. The owner, aged 61, one of the two crew members, occupied the left-hand seat and was found to have an old, extensive antero-lateral infarct and severe coronary artery disease. There was no evidence of recent pathological change. A large number of drugs was found in the personal effects of the owner, including Allopurinol, Indomethacin, and Flurazepam. Subsequent investigation revealed that the owner had his PPL withdrawn 12 months prior to the accident on account of myocardial infarction. The problem of pilot control and the significance of cardiovascular disease as a possible cause for the accident are discussed. Language: en


3587 Background: The management of breast cancer has been significantly advanced by the identification of specific protein profiles, to which specific therapies can be directed. Currently used technologies do not allow for the simultaneous quantification of multiple protein biomarkers on individual breast cancer sections.. We have developed an assay, by conjugating antibodies to semiconductor, multicolor nanoparticles, which allows the quantification of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2/neu on single breast cancer sections, and correlates well with Western blotting and immunohistochemistry (IHC). We have now expanded this assay to allow the detection and quantification of 5 breast cancer-related proteins in single sections of breast cancers and breast cancer cell lines. Methods: We directly conjugated multicolored QDs (525nm, 565nm, 605nm, 655nm, 705nm) to primary antibodies (QD-Abs) for ER, PR, HER2/neu, mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) and EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) respectively, and stained paraffin embedded sections of breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7, BT474, MDA-231) and human breast tumors. . Results: The use of QD-Abs allowed the detection of all 5 proteins simultaneously on single sections of breast cancer cell lines and breast tumors. Using hyper-spectral imaging and wavelength-resolved spectroscopy, we quantified the expression of each protein, detected using QD-Abs. Our results correlated well with standard methods of detection, including Western blotting. Conclusions: The use of QD-Abs allows the visualization and quantification of 5 clinically important biomarkers simultaneously in single breast cancer sections. The use of multiplex QDs offers the possibility of quantifying many more proteins in single tumor sections, allowing determination of an individual cancer's proteome. These results raise new possibilities for nano technology applications in molecular pathology and clinical oncology, particularly in linking multiplexed cancer biomarkers with clinical outcome, and allowing the possibility of individualized therapy.


We contribute to the empirical literature on the relationship between corporate taxes and investment. We exploit the introduction of the so-called ACE corporate tax reform in Belgium that came into effect in January 2006 to evaluate this relationship in a quasiexperimental setting based on firm-level accounting data. To identify the causal effect of the reform on capital spending of Belgian corporations, we focus on the indirect effect of taxes on investment via their impact on free cash-flow. We use the systematic variation of the cash-flow sensitivity of investment between small and medium versus large firms to form treatment and control groups for difference-in-differences (DiD) estimations. Our benchmark results provide highly significant and robust estimates that correspond to an increase in investment activity by small and medium-sized firms of about 3 percent in response to the ACE reform. We substantiate the robustness of our results by means of triple differences estimations (DDD) that use a matched sample of French companies as an additional dimension of contrast.


Oxytocin (OT) and arginine‐vasopressin (AVP) are involved in the regulation of complex social behaviors across a wide range of taxa. Despite this, little is known about the neuroanatomy of the OT and AVP systems in most non‐human primates, and less in humans. The effects of OT and AVP on social behavior, including aggression, mating, and parental behavior, may be mediated primarily by the extensive connections of OT‐ and AVP‐producing neurons located in the hypothalamus with the basal forebrain and amygdala, as well as with the hypothalamus itself. However, OT and AVP also influence social cognition, including effects on social recognition, cooperation, communication, and in‐group altruism, which suggests connectivity with cortical structures. While OT and AVP V1a receptors have been demonstrated in the cortex of rodents and primates, and intranasal administration of OT and AVP has been shown to modulate cortical activity, there is to date little evidence that OT‐and AVP‐containing neurons project into the cortex. Here, we demonstrate the existence of OT‐ and AVP‐containing fibers in cortical regions relevant to social cognition using immunohistochemistry in humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus macaques. OT‐immunoreactive fibers were found in the straight gyrus of the orbitofrontal cortex as well as the anterior cingulate gyrus in human and chimpanzee brains, while no OT‐immunoreactive fibers were found in macaque cortex. AVP‐immunoreactive fibers were observed in the anterior cingulate gyrus in all species, as well as in the insular cortex in humans, and in a more restricted distribution in chimpanzees. This is the first report of OT and AVP fibers in the cortex in human and non‐human primates. Our findings provide a potential mechanism by which OT and AVP might exert effects on brain regions far from their production site in the hypothalamus, as well as potential species differences in the behavioral functions of these target regions.


ABSTRACT In this study, we examined American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Head Start directors' perceptions of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and critically examined those perceptions to provide insight into the cultural appropriateness of the CLASS in the AI/AN Head Start context. Based on qualitative data from 76 AI/AN Head Start administrators, our findings provide evidence that there are advantages and limitations in using the CLASS in AI/AN Head Start programs. While two of the three broad constructs measured by the CLASS fit well with the experiences of AI/AN early childhood education programs, our data provide evidence of cultural misalignment in the CLASS trainings, some of the CLASS behavioral markers, and the Instructional Support domain. Based upon our findings, we suggest further work be conducted to understand how to modify the instrument or create a new instrument to be better aligned with AI/AN Head Start classroom experiences.


Subsurface simulations use computational models to predict the flow of fluids (e.g., oil, water, gas) through porous media. These simulations are pivotal in industrial applications such as petroleum production, where fast and accurate models are needed for high-stake decision making, for example, for well placement optimization and field development planning. Classical finite difference numerical simulators require massive computational resources to model large-scale real-world reservoirs. Alternatively, streamline simulators and data-driven surrogate models are computationally more efficient by relying on approximate physics models, however they are insufficient to model complex reservoir dynamics at scale. Here we introduce Hybrid Graph Network Simulator (HGNS), which is a data-driven surrogate model for learning reservoir simulations of 3D subsurface fluid flows. To model complex reservoir dynamics at both local and global scale, HGNS consists of a subsurface graph neural network (SGNN) to model the evolution of fluid flows, and a 3D-U-Net to model the evolution of pressure. HGNS is able to scale to grids with millions of cells per time step, two orders of magnitude higher than previous surrogate models, and can accurately predict the fluid flow for tens of time steps (years into the future). Using an industry-standard subsurface flow dataset (SPE-10) with 1.1 million cells, we demonstrate that HGNS is able to reduce the inference time up to 18 times compared to standard subsurface simulators, and that it outperforms other learning-based models by reducing long-term prediction errors by up to 21%.


Background According to an annual joint report from Japan Automobile Federation and National Police Agency, Japan, about 40 percent (40%) of children under age 6 do not properly use car seats in 2015. Reasons of not using it include parents' emotional opinions such as "I feel sad when a baby resisted staying in a car seat and cried" or "It will be safe if a fellow passenger can tightly hold a baby" and parent's misunderstandings such as "the death rate is not different whether or not a baby is in a car seat" or "It is not absolutely necessary to use a car seat if we do not go a long way." The purpose of this study was to reveal predisposing factors for using a car seat, and by taking them into account, we developed an effective education tool for parents. Methods We conducted two online surveys from parents aged between 20 and 49 who drove a car with a child at least once a week. The survey respondents were recruited nationwide. The first survey was conducted in November 2013 to find the frequency of car seat use, the type of actions parents usually take when a child resisted staying in a car seat, and the effectiveness of crash test video in increasing parental perceptions of injury severity and self-efficacy. Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were used to determine its effectiveness. The second online survey was conducted in February 2014 to find out a specific period of time for a child not to resist staying in a car seat. Based on the results from these two surveys, we developed an animated video and evaluated its effectiveness. Results One thousand eight people participated in the first survey. When asked the frequency the respondent's child uses a car seat, 69% said "all the time" and 5% said "rarely use". About 30% reported that they let their child out of a car seat when the child resisted staying. Over 30% said that there are some times when their child sat in a car seat without using safety belts. Finally, we found that crash test videos were effective in increasing parent's perceived severity of injury and self-efficacy. In the second survey, 1002 parents took the survey, and we found that the older the age of children were, the less their frequency of using a car seat. Especially, 25% of the respondents whose child were over 4 said that the frequency of car seat use was less than half. Conclusion Based on the results from these surveys, we developed an animated video that showed you the consequences of car crash on a child when not using a car seat properly.


Because of its many advantages, the minimally invasive surgery (MIS) becomes more and more important as a medical technique. During MIS, the operation area has to be flushed with a rinsing fluid for a suitable expansion and to maintain visibility. This is done with the help of a special medical device called double roller pump (DRP). By controlling the pump's speed for the inflow and outflow of fluid, the pressure in the area is changed respectively. It is possible to design a controller for a stable pressure by using directly measured pressure in the surgical area. However, in case of a real operation, the pressure in the part of body cannot be measured directly because of the safety of the patient. Therefore, this paper presents a solution to reconstruct the pressure in the operation area by using the available sensor data at the double roller pump for the application of a knee arthroscopy, as an example of MIS. A Luenberger observer and a Kalman filter were implemented on simulation as well as on a real-life simulator. The estimated results illustrate that the Kalman filter works better than the Luenberger in terms of fast-tracking and noise cancelling.


Background and Aims

The use of minerality as a wine descriptor has increased in the last few years. Minerality always suggests high quality and evokes a link between wine and the soil. The sensory meaning of minerality, however, is not yet clearly understood. The present study was designed to understand how wine experts conceptualise minerality and to explore whether they can judge wine minerality in a consensual way.

Methods and Results

Experts carried out an orthonasal free sorting task on 16 Chardonnay wines. Afterwards, they rated their mineral character according to two conditions: orthonasally and on the palate while wearing a nose-clip. The experts also answered a questionnaire in which they defined minerality. A trained panel independently performed a sensory description of the samples. The wine experts showed strong disagreement in their minerality judgements under both conditions. Three groups of experts emerged for each condition. Each group considered as mineral wines with quite different sensory characteristics which prevents any generalisation concerning the sensory meaning of minerality. Surprisingly, definitions of minerality by the experts showed some commonality despite the use of idiosyncratic terms.

Conclusions

Minerality is an ill-defined sensory concept, despite the apparent consistency emerging from verbal definitions by the experts.

Significance of the Study

Minerality is nowadays a popular term in wine marketing. Some attempts to understand its chemical origin have been made; however, this study has shown that a sensory definition of minerality should first be developed.


This paper studies and analyzes fundamental trade-offs between positioning resolution, tracking bandwidth and robustness to modeling uncertainties in two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) control designs for nanopositioning systems. The analysis of these systems is done in optimal control setting with various architectural constraints imposed on the 2DOF framework. In terms of these trade-offs, our analysis shows that the primary role of feedback is providing robustness to the closed-loop device whereas the feedforward component is mainly effective in overcoming fundamental algebraic constraints that limit the feedback-only designs. This paper presents (1) an optimal prefilter model matching design for a system with an existing feedback controller and (2) a simultaneous feedforward and feedback control design in an optimal H∞ mixed sensitivity framework. The experimental results on applying these controllers show a significant improvement, as high as 330% increase in bandwidth for similar robustness and resolution level over optimal feedback-only designs. Other performance objectives are similarly improved.We demonstrate that the 2DOF freedom design achieves performance specifications that are analytically impossible for the feedback-only design.


We present a region-based active contour detection algorithm for objects that exhibit relatively homogeneous photometric characteristics (e.g. smooth color or gray levels), embedded in complex background clutter. Current methods either frame this problem in Bayesian classification terms, where precious modeling resources are expended representing the complex background away from decision boundaries, or use heuristics to limit the search to local regions around the object of interest. We propose an adaptive lookout region, whose size depends on the statistics of the data, that are estimated along with the boundary during the detection process. The result is a "curious snake" that explores the outside of the decision boundary only locally to the extent necessary to achieve a good tradeoff between missed detections and narrowest "lookout" region, drawing inspiration from the literature of minimum-latency set-point change detection and robust statistics. This development makes fully automatic detection in complex backgrounds a realistic possibility for active contours, allowing us to exploit their powerful geometric modeling capabilities compared with other approaches used for segmentation of cluttered scenes. To this end, we introduce an automatic initialization method tailored to our model that overcomes one of the primary obstacles in using active contours for fully automatic object detection.


injured by bacterial toxins that any further addition to the blood of a foreign substance such as sulpha drugs (or perhaps even penicillin) might destroy them altogether-hence agranulocytosis. I think vitamin C ought always to be given in large doses with the sulpha drugs and with penicillin, since " it is believed that patients with various infections, including rheumatism. require large amounts of vitamin C if normal levels are to be maintained in the blood" (Savill's System of Cliniical Medicine, twelfth edition, p. 1102, London, 1944). Vitamin A might also be beneficial. Intravenous hydrolysates might be beneficial if there is muchi prostration. Vitamin C should sf possible be given in the form of fresli tomato or orange juice. These patients should have most careful nursing-their feeble appetites tempted by chicken tea, meat essences. wine jelly, etc., with cream.-I am etc.,


Abstract The pathway involving Bre1-dependent monoubiquitination of histone H2B lysine 123, which leads to Dot1-dependent methylation of histone H3 lysine 79 (H3K79me2), has been implicated in survival after exposure to ionizing radiation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We found that depletion of mammalian homologs of Bre1 compromises the response to ionizing radiation, leading to increased radiosensitivity and a G2/M checkpoint defect. The deficiency in Bre1a/b function was also associated with increased sensitivity to crosslinking drugs and defective formation of Rad51 foci in mouse cells, suggesting a defect in homologous recombinational repair analogous to that seen in Saccharomyces. In budding yeast, H3K79me2 is important for the recruitment of the checkpoint signaling protein Rad9 to sites of double-strand breaks (DSBs). However, in mammalian cells, 53BP1 (the Rad9 ortholog) in addition to H3K79me2 recognizes a different residue, H4K20me2, and some studies argue that it is H4K20me2 and not H3K79me2 that is the preferred target for 53BP1. We show here that depletion of Bre1b specifically reduced dimethylation of H3K79 without affecting dimethylation of H4K20. Thus our data suggest that the observed defects in the radiation response of Bre1a/b-deficient cells are associated with reduced H3K79me2 and not with H4K20me2.


Future boundaries of skeletal muscle segments are determined in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM). Within the PSM, future somitic cells undergo significant changes in both morphology and position. How such large-scale cellular changes are coordinated and the effect on the future border formation is unknown. We find that cellular rearrangements differ between cell populations within the PSM. In contrast to lateral somitic cells, which display less organized rearrangement, the adaxial cell layer undergoes significant tissue shearing with dorsal and ventral cells sliding posteriorly. This shear is generated by orientated intercalations of dorsally and ventrally located adaxial cells, which induces a chevron-like pattern. We find Shh signaling is required for the tissue shear and morphogenesis of adaxial cells. In particular, we observe Shh-dependent polarized recruitment of non-muscle myosin IIA drives apical constrictions, and thus the intercalations and shear. This reveals a novel role for Shh in regulating cell mechanics in the PSM.


School-based management is an educational management concept that provides autonomy for a school in organizing the continuity of education according to the needs of the school context. By applying a case study, this study was conducted to reveal the implementation of school-based management, along with its supporting and inhibiting factors, at SMP Negeri 1 Rejang Lebong, Curup, Bengkulu. All potential parties at school that could provide the expected data were involved purposively as the subjects. Data garnered from them were solicited using interviews and observations, which were then triangulated and analyzed using an interactive model. The interactive model worked in four components, namely data collection, data condensation, data presentation, and drawing a conclusion. The findings showed that SMP Negeri 1 had implemented school-based management functions properly, including planning, organizing, implementing and supervising the aspects of human resource management, student management, facilities and infrastructure management, financial management, curriculum and learning management, and management of school and community relations. Supporting factors for the implementation of school-based management included the participation of committees, parents, community at school, complete teaching staff, facilities and infrastructure. Meanwhile, the inhibiting factor was that some students still did not obey the school rules.


Recent reports from our laboratory have challenged the concept that sepsis selectively damages or interferes with mitochondrial function. To address the lingering skepticism that mitochondrial assays in surviving animals might not detect this "injury," we injected rats with a lethal dose of Escherichia coli endotoxin and compared hepatic, cardiac, and skeletal muscle mitochondrial function in these animals with that of control rats. Mitochondrial function was serially determined during a four-hour postmortem period by measuring the respiratory control ratio, the adenosine diphosphate-oxygen ratio, and protein levels. Hepatic mitochondria ceased to function within 30 minutes of the time of death. Cardiac and skeletal muscle mitochondria functioned normally up to four hours after death in both septic and control animals. Mitochondria from septic animals had a significantly higher respiratory control ratio than those from control rats. Thus, sepsis appears to enhance rather than damage mitochondrial function up to four hours after death.


It is increasingly easy to automatically swap faces in images and video or morph two faces into one using generative adversarial networks (GANs). The high quality of the resulted deep-morph raises the question of how vulnerable the current face recognition systems are to such fake images and videos. It also calls for automated ways to detect these GAN-generated faces. In this paper, we present the publicly available dataset of the Deepfake videos with faces morphed with a GAN-based algorithm. To generate these videos, we used open source software based on GANs, and we emphasize that training and blending parameters can significantly impact the quality of the resulted videos. We show that the state of the art face recognition systems based on VGG and Facenet neural networks are vulnerable to the deep morph videos, with 85.62 and 95.00 false acceptance rates, respectively, which means methods for detecting these videos are necessary. We consider several baseline approaches for detecting deep morphs and find that the method based on visual quality metrics (often used in presentation attack detection domain) leads to the best performance with 8.97 equal error rate. Our experiments demonstrate that GAN-generated deep morph videos are challenging for both face recognition systems and existing detection methods, and the further development of deep morphing technologies will make it even more so.


Growth is explained mathematically by models that have parameters with biological interpretations. This study was conducted to compare five non-linear growth models (Gompertz, Brody, Logistics, Von Bertalanffy and Negative exponential) in order to describe growth in the three genotypes (normal feather, naked neck and frizzle feather) of the dual purpose FUNAAB Alpha chickens (n=332). Doesn't Use Derivative iterative method of nonlinear procedure in SAS was used to estimate the model parameters. Computational difficultly, goodness of fit and residuals of the five models were also evaluated. Negative exponential model predicted the highest mature weight for the three genotypes while Logistics model predicted the highest coefficient of intensity of growth. The fitting of the five models presented no computational difficulty for normal feather chickens while Logistics failed to converge for male, naked neck and frizzle feather chickens. Based on goodness of fit (coefficient of determination, Bayesian information criterion, mean square error and residuals), Gompertz model was observed to have the best fit for normal feather and naked neck chickens while Brody model have the best fit for frizzle feather chickens and Von Bertalanffy for male chickens. From subjective approach (comparison of observed and predicted body weights),  Logistics and Negative exponential models fitted well for normal feather than other models while Negative exponential model was the fittest among the models for naked neck and frizzle feather chickens and Gompertz for female chickens. It can be concluded that choice of appropriate model in description of growth depends on genotype and sex of dual purpose FUNAAB Alpha chickens.


A new mechanical scanner design for a high-speed atomic force microscope (AFM) is presented and discussed in terms of modeling and control. The positioning range of this scanner is 13 mum in the X- and Y-directions and 4.3 mum in the vertical direction. The lowest resonance frequency of this scanner is above 22 kHz. This paper is focused on the vertical direction of the scanner, being the crucial axis of motion with the highest precision and bandwidth requirements for gentle imaging with the AFM. A second- and a fourth-order mathematical model of the scanner are derived that allow new insights into important design parameters. Proportional-integral (Pl)-feedback control of the high-speed scanner is discussed and the performance of the new AFM is demonstrated by imaging a calibration grating and a biological sample at 8 frames/s.


The RPG-7 infantry rocket constitutes a significant threat for the vehicle protection's design. The evaluation of statistical armour, integrated on vehicles to defeat these rockets, is long and complex. The challenge is to explore all configurations of impact with the minimum of test. This paper proposes an experimental approach to estimate the protection probability offer by a kind of statistical systems. The methodology is based on the shortcircuit observation during grenade/protection interaction with specific instrumented trials and an associated statistical processing. It allows getting details on physical phenomenon leading to dysfunction and also estimating its occurrence.


A new TE-TM mode splitter with an asymmetric Y-junction structure fabricated by diffusing different materials into Y-cut lithium niobate is presented. Randomly polarized light launched into a titanium indiffused waveguide is split into TE and TM modes by two different single-polarization waveguides. The ordinary-polarized waveguide is made by nickel indiffusion and the extraordinary-polarized waveguide by magnesium-oxide induced lithium outdiffusion. The measured extinction ratios are greater than 20 dB for both TE and TM modes. The devices operate over a wide wavelength range and have a large fabrication tolerance.<<ETX>>