Subduction margins, as in the case of south-central Chile, are active seismotectonic environments and locus of the world largest earthquakes. In this thesis, two segments of the south-central Chilean subduction margin are studied: (A) the southernmost portion, at the termination of the Nazca-South America convergence (~46oS), and (B) the segment located between 34o-38oS, where the Mw 8.8 Maule Earthquake took place in 2010.
Analysis of data from a local seismic network deployed in 2004-2005 in area A, indicates low levels of background seismicity with magnitudes ranging 0-3.4 Ml. The seismicity corresponds to shallow crustal events, mostly occurring within the upper 10 km. A third of the seismicity is associated to volcanic activity present in the area, while scarce seismicity is associated with a large strike-slip fault, the Liquine-Ofqui Fault System (LOFS), that intersects the region along the arc in a N-S-trend.
In 2007, this region was affected by a seismic sequence with a peak of activity associated with a Mw 6.2 earthquake in April that year. A local seismic network was deployed after this main event in order to study its sequence of aftershocks, which provided a unique opportunity to characterise seismotectonically this area that usually lacks intermediate magnitude seismicity, including the calculation of a new local velocity model, accurate aftershock locations and computation of focal mechanisms. The results show P-wave velocities of ~5 km/s for the upper 5 km in accordance with the geology of the area, and low S-wave velocities for the upper 3 km of crust due to rock fracturing and the presence of fluids. An average Vp/Vs ratio of 1.76 was calculated for the region. The alignment of most of the aftershocks within the LOFS plus obtained focal mechanisms, indicate that this sequence had tectonic origin related to the re-activation of the LOFS. Further, a maximum seismogenic depth of about 15 km was determined for the entire region.
Regarding area B, affected by a large megathrust earthquake in 2010, the study of moment tensor solutions for the sequence of aftershocks provided new insight into the distribution of postseismic activity relative to co-seismic slip and the release of seismic afterslip. Thrust aftershocks dominate the postseismic activity, but also normal faulting was detected in the outer-rise area and in the overriding plate near the coastline. The largest seismically released afterslip is located between the two main patches of co-seismic slip. Large aftershocks (M>4) occur along the megathrust interface, in zones of intermediate co-seismic slip associated to stress introduced on dislocation tips with high co-seismic slip contrast. On the other hand, smaller events (M<4) tend to occur in areas of large co-seismic slip, and might indicate a more diffuse distribution within the damage zone of the megathrust plane. It is likely that these smaller events are associated to secondary processes (fluid release, re-activation of secondary structures).
Although belonging to the same subduction margin, the seismotectonics and earthquake patterns of the two areas investigated here show different underlying tectonic regimes. For the northern area, locus of the 2010 Mw 8.8 Chile earthquake, inter-plate thrust seismicity is dominant both in term of quantity of events and moment release. Conversely, the southern area presents only shallow intra-plate crustal seismicity mainly occurring in the arc, where Quaternary volcanism and the LOFS are present.


A new spectral colour prediction model for a fluorescent ink printed on paper is presented. It is based on our previous work on transparent support 4 and on a new mathematical formalism which generalizes the Kubelka-Munk theory. The printed paper is modelized by means of three matrices: an interface correction matrix, a matrix exponential modelizing the layer which contains the fluorescent ink, and a reflection matrix caracterising the substrate. The interface correction matrix allows to take multiple reflections into account by operating the Saunderson correction. These matrices are related to physical properties of ink and paper which must be measured: the transmittance spectra, the quantum yields, the absorption bands and the emission spectra of the fluorescent inks, and the reflection properties of the paper. Our new model can predict the reflection spectra of uniform samples for different ink concentrations and under different illuminants. It is applied successfully to predict the spectra of real samples with an average prediction improvement of about in comparison with Beer's law.


This chapter presents the concepts of integrity and trust in the context of the assessment of spatial data quality. It describes approaches that can be used to assess the internal and external quality of geolocated information produced by mobile objects. The first step, a bottom‐up approach, suggests assessing the integrity of information based on the database structure. The second step, a top‐down approach, suggests assessing the trust that should be given to information based on the measures that can be applied to a dataset. Taking the example of geolocation data, in particular, in the context of maritime navigation, the chapter demonstrates how these concepts and methods may be used to define the integrity and trust of the data produced by a vessel monitoring system. Characterizing the integrity and trust of geographic information makes it possible to provide better information about the uncertainty of the data used in decision‐making processes in maritime safety.


Marigolds took place from the unstable and easy to entertain flowers of garden, with amazing properties ornamental and medical. In purpose of identification if seeds weight was correlated and influenced the germinal capacity, it had been study 16 of local population of Calendula officinalis L. From diffrent localities of Hunedoara district. It were analysed different categorie of seeds: big, medium and small. Local populations supposed for testing in laboratory conditions had germination over 50%. Germination might be minimum of 70-85% to can seeding in the field and to assure the necessar number of plant for arising. The immediately practical utility of the results investigation asserted very much the proposed theme work. In Romania relatively realised a few investigations concerning the correlation existance between seeds weight of Calendula crops and its germinal capacity. Being a success the ones mentioned, it was assessed to make some complex investigations for teoretical argumentation and methods advancement used in some correlations identification between germinal capacity of marigolds seeds and its weight, which constituted an actual matter for our country concerning the development of raw material quality, because that medical plant was one of those plants used in cosmetical production, natural medicines, pharmaceutic preparations, etc.Taking in view the diversity of matter, the observations, collected data in the field and laboratory, the paper had both big complexity degree and one of big visibility, the investigations being centered towards resolving some matters with small degree of knowledge and of presence in speciality literature of Calendula species and also with a great importance for pharmaceutic and cosmetical industry. Results conffirmed some data from speciality literature, thank to that one it existed a strong correlation between seeds weight and germinal capacity. The present paper belongs to a big work which had like study "Resistance testing of some species of Calendula officinalis L. to Thysanoptera pest attack through different methods/techniques of analysis concerning the improvement of raw material quality", that represented the theme of postdoctoral-dissertation.


Background : Heart Rate Variability (HRV) describes the variations of both  instantaneous heart rate and R-R intervals in an electrocardiogram. Low HRV is considered to be a non-invasive measurement of autonomic inactivity and propensity lethal arrhythmias. Methodology: This was a retrospective study of patients with Low HRV over a 2 year period seen at the Jos University Teaching Hospital from January 2013 to December 2015. Result: Subjects with low HRV were older (51 vs 42, p=<0.05) years with low mean heart rate p=<0.05, compared to those with normal HRV. They all had severe features of cardiac dysfunction. Females with low HRV had decreased frequency of premature atrial contraction (PACs) (52% vs 78%). Only 5 (28%) cases out of 18 retrievable cases were still attending the out- patient department 6 months after the test. Conclusions: Low HRV is common among patients who had Holter monitoring in our centre and was associated with poor patient outcome. The few incidence of atrial ectopics among females with low HRV suggests poor sympathetic autonomic function. Keywords : Holter, retrospective, low heart rate, variability, Jos


The purpose of this work is to investigate syngas composition (of constituents H2, CO, and CO2) and compression ratio (CR) effects on the combustion and emissions characteristics of a syngas-fueled homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine, which operates in very lean air–fuel mixture conditions for power plant usage. Investigations were conducted using ansys forte cfd package at low (3 bar indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP)) and medium (5 bar IMEP) loads, and the calculated results were compared with the Aceves et al.'s multi-zone HCCI model, using the same chemical kinetics set (Gas Research Institute (GRI)-Mech3.0). All calculations were carried out at maximum brake torque (MBT) conditions by sweeping the air–fuel mixture temperature at intake valve closing (IVC) (TIVC).This study found out that the H2 consumption rate is slightly high in a low-temperature range in the early period of combustion while the CO consumption rate is high in a high-temperature range in the later period of combustion. The results reveal that the change of H2 /CO ratio and inert gas volume fraction according to fuel composition affects combustion, but the TIVC is the dominant factor affecting combustion phasing at MBT conditions. For each fuel and load condition, the TIVC was significantly reduced with the increase of CR (17.1–22.3) to get MBT conditions, which causes to retard combustion phasing and lowers in-cylinder peak temperature. The oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions reduced with increasing the CR due to the lowering of the in-cylinder peak temperature.


Bipolar disorder affects 1.6% of the population. The majority of the burden of illness for people with bipolar disorder is due to depression. Suicide rates for people with bipolar disorder are 15 times higher than in the general population, and the majority of these deaths occur during depressive episodes. More effective prevention of such depressive episodes is important. Lamotrigine is an anticonvulsant and a mood stabiliser that is more effective at preventing depressive relapses than most other mood stabilising drugs. Its use for this purpose has been recommended by English language treatment guidelines since 2002. Lamotrigine is approved for use in the prophylaxis of depression in bipolar disorder and for epilepsy. PHARMAC subsidises its use in treatment-resistant epilepsy (subject to a 'special authority' application) but not in bipolar disorder. The New Zealand Mental Health Strategy and the imminent New Zealand Suicide Strategy identify reducing suicide as a key goal. Among other initiatives, this requires effective treatment of bipolar depression, yet a treatment likely to support this is not currently subsidised.


This paper presents a novel approach for pattern extraction and anomaly detection in mari- time vessel traffic, based on the theory of potential fields. Potential fields are used to rep- resent and model normal, i.e. correct, behaviour in maritime transportation, observed in historical vessel tracks. The recorded paths of each maritime vessel generate potentials based on metrics such as geographical location, course, velocity, and type of vessel, resulting in a potential-based model of maritime traffic patterns. A prototype system STRAND, developed for this study, computes and displays distinctive traffic patterns as potential fields on a geographic representation of the sea. The system builds a model of normal behaviour, by collating and smoothing historical vessel tracks. The resulting visual presentation exposes distinct patterns of normal behaviour inherent in the recorded maritime traffic data. Based on the created model of normality, the system can then perform anomaly detection on current real-world maritime traffic data. Anomalies are detected as conflicts between vessel's potential in live data, and the local history-based potential field. The resulting detection performance is tested on AIS maritime tracking data from the Baltic region, and varies depending on the type of potential. The potential field based approach contributes to maritime situational awareness and enables automatic detection. The results show that anomalous behaviours in maritime traffic can be detected using this method, with varying performance, necessitating further study.


Genetic algorithm is introduced in the study of network authority values of BP neural network, and a GA-NN algorithm is established. Based on this genetic algorithm-neural network method, a predictive model for fatigue performances of the pre-corroded aluminum alloys under a varied corrosion environmental spectrum was developed by means of training from the testing dada. At the same time, a fuzzy-neural network method is established for the same purpose. The results indicate that genetic algorithm-neural network and fuzzy-neural network can both be employed to predict the underlying fatigue performances of the pre-corroded aluminum alloy precisely.


In this study, we analyze for the first time newly available engagement data covering millions of web links shared on Facebook to describe how and by which categories of U.S. users different types of news are seen and shared on the platform. We focus on articles from low-credibility news publishers, credible news sources, purveyors of clickbait, and news specifically about politics, which we identify through a combination of curated lists and supervised classifiers. Our results support recent findings that more fake news is shared by older users and conservatives and that both viewing and sharing patterns suggest a preference for ideologically congenial misinformation. We also find that fake news articles related to politics are more popular among older Americans than other types, while the youngest users share relatively more articles with clickbait headlines. Across the platform, however, articles from credible news sources are shared over 5 times more often and viewed over 7 times more often than articles from low-credibility sources. These findings offer important context for researchers studying the spread and consumption of information — including misinformation — on social media.


With Melbourne hosting the 2019 World Congress of Intensive Care, it is timely to reflect on the nature of the speciality and consider its role within health care. The intensive care unit (ICU) can be a daunting place. For patients, families and even nonintensive care clinicians, the complex and technically advanced environment can feel intimidating. The ICU represents a microcosm of the broader acute health care system, where the challenges of patientcentred care, treatment, communication and resource management are encountered in a more impactful setting. The reach of intensive care is wide; current estimates from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Centre for Outcome and Resource Evaluation suggest that Australians and New Zealanders have a 50% lifetime chance of requiring admission to an ICU.1 Intensive care interacts with every other element of acute care, serving the needs of patients, specialist units, hospitals and broader society. In its more recent history, intensive care has evolved to encompass more than just a single geographic location; it is an organised system of care that ensures delivery of timely and expert treatment to critically ill patients, increasingly extending this capability beyond the walls of the ICU itself and into many other settings.


Kundalini Yoga classes in the United States have offered a holistic yoga practice with particular emphasis on chant (mantra) since the late 1960s. The use of the voice assumes a central position in Kundalini Yoga as various forms of mantra, sound intentionally uttered to alter ones state of consciousness, are incorporated in every class. The ways in which mantra is used in Kundalini Yoga presents epistemological questions concerning the ways sound shapes participants' experiences of the yoga class itself, of their own bodies, and more broadly of their own mind-body states of being. Is it possible to discover what it means for Kundalini Yoga participants to add to a soundscape with their own voices? How important is each element of a Kundalini Yoga soundscape to the participants (i.e. breathing, mantra, background music), and how might they think and talk about Kundalini soundscapes? An ethnographic case study within a weekly Kundalini Yoga class in Pittsburgh demonstrates the way its soundscapes can shape participants' sensory experiences by simultaneously restricting their fields of vision and redefining what it means to "listen." Building on theoretical approaches drawn from phenomenology, this study explores kinesthetic experience by suggesting that the ways in which the sense of one's physical state is intertwined with hearing in Kundalini Yoga (physio-sonic experience) enables practitioners to access a deeper level of emotional and physical consciousness which is activated and mediated by sound. Through a repositioning of the body as the center of ethnomusicological fieldwork, this thesis analyzes physio-sonic experiences of Kundalini Yoga activities, illuminating ways to listen and engage with sound that join awareness of mind and body. Such experiences have lead regular participants to conceive of Kundalini Yoga practice not only as a way to balance and refine their whole body-mind, but even in some cases to conceive of the practice as a model for how to approach life outside of the yoga studio.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the burden and social support perceived by elderly caregivers of elderly people.

METHOD
Cross-sectional study using a standardized questionnaire for elderly caregivers of elderly people.

RESULTS
In the population of elderly caregivers of elderly people, the prevalent type of care is by couples (84.1 %), and the percentages of men and women correspond to 40.2 % and 59.8 %, respectively. The 53.3 % of caregivers have burden, of which a 31.8 % present an intense burden, and a 21.5 % a slight burden. Regarding to perceived social support of elderly caregivers, it is normal in a 81.3 % of cases, compared to a 18.7 % who reflecting a low perceived social support. Finally, there is correlation between Duke social support questionnaire and Zarit scale caregiver burden.

CONCLUSION
Elderly caregivers of elderly people who have higher levels of burden have lower perceived social support.


Harvest of near infrared (NIR) radiation in photovoltaic devices is highly desirable as it is recognized as a potential pathway to break the Shockley–Queisser limit of solar conversion efficiency. Here, (Y2O3:Yb–Er)/Bi2S3 composite films with photoactive current generation under NIR light excitation were fabricated by electro-deposition and a simple successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method. The composite films consist of homogeneous crystalline particles of Y2O3 with a lamellar morphology covered by Bi2S3 nanoparticles. Upon excitation by a 980 nm laser, the Y2O3:Yb–Er layer in the composite film converts NIR photons into visible emissions through upconversion, which is absorbed by the covered Bi2S3 nanoparticles and leads to the generation of photoelectrons. With the use of a standard electrochemical cell where the composite film serves as the photoanode, we demonstrate robust photocurrent generation in aqueous solution. This study suggests a promising strategy for the harvesting of NIR radiation in solar cells, photocatalysts, and infrared photo-detectors.


Research Aims To explore the Sikh population's experience of caring for a dying relative at home and develop an understanding of their experiences. Background /literature review Hill & Penso, (1995) reported under-use of specialist palliative care services by minority ethnic groups with minimal improvement noted in present day (Gunaratnam, 2007, DoH, 2008). Often, end-of-life needs are unfulfilled ( Worth et al, 2009, DoH, 2010, DoH, 2011). Locally, Sikhs account for 12.8% of the population although only 1% of referrals to local hospice are Sikh. Method A qualitative study, facilitating interviews in Punjabi and English, using interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyse the transcribed data. Results/Discussion Five super-ordinate themes identified: Factors leading to the caring role; Emotional effects of caring on the carer Impact of caring on the wider family Influence of the health care services Religious and cultural influence Lack of support from health care professionals emerged as an overriding theme An overwhelming sense of duty pervaded each family sustaining them to cope. The option of their relative being nursed in care home/hospice was unlikely as participants reported fears that care could only be received if it was paid for. Culture and religion played an important role in the caring role. Conclusions GPs and hospices need to take a major role in identifying patients with non-malignant disease to ensure referral to other services. Access to equipment is uncoordinated. Financial concerns over care are apparent in this population. Sikh carers need to be educated and supported to continue to support their relatives. Applications to hospice practice Allows equity of care to patients dying of non-malignant disease. Improves bereavement support for this population. Engagement with community may need to extend to outreach clinics to raise awarenss within this population. Extends education on end-of-life issues to this minority ethnic group.


The purpose of this investigation was to determine a possible association between disc displacement and temporomandibular disorders (TMD). Fifty-six Brazilian asymptomatic volunteers (25 males and 31 females) and 181 symptomatic TMD patients (112 females and 69 males) participated. Volunteers did not have temporomandibular joint pain, limited jaw opening, joint sounds, or previous TMD treatment. Bilateral temporomandibular joint magnetic resonance imaging scans were obtained from all subjects. Joints were classified as normal or having disc displacement. Asymptomatic volunteers had 28 (25%) joints with disc displacement; 10 (18%) had unilateral and 9 (16%) had bilateral disc displacement. Of the TMD patients, 25 (13.8%) had bilateral symptomatic but normal joints. Fifty-one (28.2%) had unilateral and 105 (58%) had bilateral disc displacement. Odds ratios (12.2 [95% confidence interval = 6.1 to 24.4, P = .001]) suggest a strong association between disc displacement and TMD. This study suggests that disc displacement is relatively common (34%) in asymptomatic volunteers and is highly associated with patients (86%) with TMD.


Abstract The sorption behavior of raw and treated flax fibers was investigated. This paper presents the effect of conventional pretreatment processes (alkaline, acid) in comparison to environmentally friendly enzymatic processes on the sorption ability of flax fibers. Weight-loss, moisture sorption, water retention value and contact angle were determined in order to interpret the pretreatment results. In addition, the influence of the process on the fibers' mechanical properties was studied. The ecological parameters of the treatment wastewaters were analyzed.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of a finger guard developed to prevent sharp injuries in nursing students.
Methods: This study was an equivalent control group posttest design. Seventy nursing students were randomly allocated to either the experimental group (n=35) or the control group (n=35). The finger guard was used whileopening the glass ampoule in the experimental group. The outcome variables such as sharp injuries, anxiety and user satisfaction were measured.
Results: Sharp injuries were 0 in the experimental group and 2 in the control group (p=.160). Anxiety in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group (p<.001). User satisfaction was 4.33 score in the range from 1 to 5, the highest item was the weight (4.63), followed by effectiveness (4.51).
Conclusion: Using a protective device while opening the glass ampoule was observed to be effective in reducing anxiety among the nursing students, and exhibited protection of skin.


Non-destructive techniques (NDT) by impact response using Kiwifirm device and colour communicator using Chromameter against intrusive method using Steven QTS 25-texture meter were used to evaluate the ripeness of sapodilla fruit var.
Subang. Kiwifirm score correlated well with the Steven QTS 25-texture analyser, whereas colour communicator did not detect any significant changes during ripening of the fruit. Kiwifirm value of 2.7, which is equivalent to 1750 g
hardness, gave an indication of suitable stage for the fruit to be consumed. The value below 1.5 indicated that the fruit was overriped. Non-destructive technique using Kiwifirm device is also able to predict the storage life and the internal quality of sapodilla. Sapodilla fruit with the Kiwifirm score of below 6.0 at harvest was more acceptable by the sensory panellist. Fruits with a score of 6.1 to 7.0 could be stored for a longer period; however, the quality was not so good compared to those fruits having Kiwifirm score of below 6.0 at harvest. Fruits having Kiwifirm score of below 4.5 ripened within 1-3 days after harvest, thus were not suitable for storage. No significant difference was observed in the colour notation system (L*, a* and b*) with fruit ripeness. Kiwifirm device was found to be useful in detecting the stage of maturity of sapodilla fruit, predicting the quality and also the period at which the sapodilla fruit ripens. The power line (Y=O.02x3.6026), which was derived from the relationship of score resultant from the impact response of Kiwifrrm device and days taken for the fruit to ripen, can be used as a chart to predict and separate the fruit according to the predicted storage duration. Thus the technique can be used
to group the fruits into either storage-marketing and utilization purposes, or only suitable group for certain markets. This strategy can be used to promote sapodilla
fruits for distant market or export purposes. Postharvest losses, which occurred during storage and transportation, can be minimized.


Objective: To assess the clinicohaematological presentation and outcome of patients with antibodies to high frequency antigen(HFA) in our setup.Study Design: Cross sectional study.
Place and Duration of Study: Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion, Rawalpindi, from Jan 2016 to Jan 2018.
Methodology: We diagnosed 29 cases of uncommon red cell antibodies including antibodies to HFA, in a span of two years (2016-2018). Information regarding patient's age, diagnosis, transfusion history, incompatible cross match and history of pregnancy was obtained. Venous blood sample of 3ml was taken in EDTA for grouping, red cell phenotyping and Direct AntiGlobulin Test (DAT) and 5 ml venous blood was taken for Indirect Antiglobulin Test (IAT), antibody screening and identification. Tube method was used for forward and reverse blood grouping, DAT and IAT. Column Agglutination Technique (CAT) was used for antibody screening, identification and red cell phenotyping.
Results: Out of a total of 29 cases, 24 (83%) were of anti H antibody (Bombay blood group). Rest of 5 (17%) included one each of anti Rh 17, anti Rh 29 (Rh null), anti P1Pk, anti-ENA/WRB and anti P antibodies. Anti H Lectin (Ulexeuropaeus) was used for confirmation of H antigen absence, while rest of antibodies were confirmed by IBGRL Bristol, UK.
Conclusion: The sources of antigen negative blood are family members, rare donor registry, autologous donations and frozen blood banks. Finding compatible blood for patients with an antibody to HFA may be a challenge.


Summary
1.Environmental managers have the difficult task of ensuring species persistence despite considerable uncertainty about their response to management. Spatially-explicit population models provide one solution for simulating the dynamics of species and evaluating alternative management regimes.

2.We used a Bayesian model to investigate wetland occupancy dynamics of the endangered growling grass frog Litoria raniformis at a wastewater treatment plant in southern Victoria, Australia. We coupled prior information from earlier research on this species with our survey data to quantify the effects of patch-scale variables and connectivity on the probabilities of occupancy, population extinction and colonisation. Hydroperiods of 13 sites were experimentally enhanced to bolster occupancy rates by L. raniformis. We used simulations to assess the extent to which the enhanced hydroperiod regime improved the viability of the focal metapopulation.

3.Occupancy rate increased by 15% among the enhanced sites in 2013–2014, whereas the rate of occupancy among unenhanced sites fell by 11% in that year. Forward simulation using the dynamic occupancy model suggested that the minimum occupancy rate across the metapopulation would be 18% higher if the enhanced hydroperiod regime was retained over the next 20 years.

4.Mean posterior effects of patch-scale variables and connectivity on the occupancy dynamics of L. raniformis were consistent with the prior effect in all cases, with only small changes to the size of these effects. There was no clear effect of water chemistry on occupancy dynamics.

5.Synthesis and applications. This work suggests that managing the hydroperiod of constructed wetlands can be an effective tool for the conservation of amphibians, and demonstrates the utility of spatially-explicit models for assessing metapopulation viability. We encourage managers to experimentally test the efficacy of manipulating patch-scale variables to improve occupancy rates within amphibian metapopulations.

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An essential step toward the development of an intelligent substation is to provide self-diagnosing capability at the equipment level. Transformers, circuit breakers and other substation equipment should be enabled to detect their potential failures and make life expectancy prediction without human interference. This paper focuses on the development of an online equipment diagnostics using artificial intelligence and a nonlinear observer to prevent catastrophic failures in substation equipment, thus providing preventive maintenance. Key elements of the system are a nonlinear observer, system identifier, and fault detector that use a uniquely designed neuro-fuzzy inference engine. Experimental results from application of this system to a distribution transformer are presented.


Generative models of natural images have progressed towards high fidelity samples by the strong leveraging of scale. We attempt to carry this success to the field of video modeling by showing that large Generative Adversarial Networks trained on the complex Kinetics-600 dataset are able to produce video samples of substantially higher complexity and fidelity than previous work. Our proposed model, Dual Video Discriminator GAN (DVD-GAN), scales to longer and higher resolution videos by leveraging a computationally efficient decomposition of its discriminator. We evaluate on the related tasks of video synthesis and video prediction, and achieve new state-of-the-art Fréchet Inception Distance for prediction for Kinetics600, as well as state-of-the-art Inception Score for synthesis on the UCF-101 dataset, alongside establishing a strong baseline for synthesis on Kinetics-600.


In the ever-evolving telecommunication industry, technological improvements alone are not able to keep up with the significant growth of mobile broadband traffic. As such, new research on communications networks is necessary to keep up with rising demand.Convergence of Broadband, Broadcast, and Cellular Network Technologies addresses the problems of broadband, broadcast, and cellular coexistence, including the increasing number of advanced mobile users and their bandwidth demands. This book will serve as a link between academia and industry, serving students, researchers, and industry professionals.


Adaptive fuzzy neural network system(AFNNS) is employed for adaptive noise cancellation using multi-sensory signal recordings of the same noise source. The method based on AFNNS not only achieves the H_2 optimal recontruction but also possesses a desired robust against the effect of uncertainties and incomplete information in (signal) processing. Simulation result shows that the design method can not only obtain simplicity of implementation but also achieve better reconstruction perfomance than the method based on the averaging method.


The growing population of big cities has led to certain issues, such as overloaded car parks. Ubiquitous systems can help to increase the capacity through an efficient usage of existing parking slots. In this case, cars are recognized during the entrance phases in order to guide them automatically to a proper slot for space-saving reasons. Prior to this step, it is necessary to determine the size of vehicles. In this work, we analyze different methods for vehicle classification and size measurement using the existing hardware of car parks. Computer vision techniques are applied for extracting information out of video streams of existing security cameras. For streams with lower resolution, a method is introduced figuring out width and height of a car with the help of reference objects. For streams with a higher resolution, a second approach is applied using face recognition algorithms and a training database in order to classify car types. Our evaluation of a real-life scenario at a major German airport showed a small error deviation of just a few centimeters for the fist method. For the type classification approach, an applicable accuracy of over 80 percent with up to 100 percent in certain cases have been achieved. Given these results, the performed methods show high potentials for a suitable determination of vehicles based on installed security cameras.


Old and present mental health systems tend to emphasize mental health service users as passive recipients of psychiatric care, which suppresses the idea that people who experience serious mental illness are able to comprehend their own sickness and recovery and therefore engage psychiatric experts about their care. This dissertation seriously interrogates the ways in which those who experience serious mental illness become agential, resist some of the control mechanisms, relationships of power, and infantilizing rituals found within the Canadian mental health system, and survive abject circumstances. Drawing on my own autoethnographic experiences with psychosis and psychiatric hospitalization, as well as 10 interviews with mental health service users, I argue that narrative approaches to inquiry and a post-anarchist praxis can reveal and liberate our agential capacities to recover and live through madness that otherwise become less known through biomedical approaches to mental health research. I identify some of the porous boundaries between the livable and unlivable forms of madness, and explore the complex relationships between service users and their caregivers whose penultimate goal is to help us live a manageable life. I conclude by discussing the contributions of this dissertation and reflect on some of the practical needs of the current mental health system.


In this paper, we explore and compare how older and younger couple house- holds use adjustments in the wife's labor supply to mitigate the e?ects of negative shocks to the husband's employment status. Using di?erence-in-di?erences match- ing methods, we document a substantial added worker e?ect for younger house- holds. However, the wives of older men do not increase employment in response to their husbands' negative employment shocks. Instead, in older households, fe- male unemployment increases. These results are consistent with older women being constrained by the labor market in the extent to which they can adjust their labor supply to mitigate the e?ects of spousal employment shocks. Our ?ndings suggest that spousal labor supply is not an e?ective intra-household insurance device for older households.


In this critically acclaimed work, for which she was awarded the Prix de L'Assemblee Nationale in 1994, sociologist Dominique Schnapper offers a learned and concise antidote to contemporary assaults on the nation. Schnapper's arguments on behalf of the modern nation represent at once a learned history of the national ideal, a powerful rejoinder to its contemporary critics, and a masterful essay in the sociological tradition of Ernest Renan, Alexis de Tocqueville, Emile Durkheim, and Raymond Aron. If Schnapper asserts, the fate of liberal democracy is coterminous with that of the national ideal, then the nation's fate--and the answer to this question--must be of pressing interest to us all. Reflecting deeply on both the nation's past and future, Schnapper places her hopes in what she terms "the community of citizens." No mere exercise in sociological abstraction, Schnapper's case for the nation also entails a practical political objective. In a time of radical difference, the national ideal may be the last, great social unifier. This book deserves a place alongside the works of Elie Kedourie, Ernest Gellner, Anthony Smith, and other classics in the study of nationalism and nationality. This work will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and political scientists alike.


A clonal human glioma cell line, U-343 MGa 31L, which expresses the A-type but not the B-type receptor for platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), was used in a functional study of the A-type receptor. PDGF-AA induced, in a dose- and time-dependent manner, phosphorylation on tyrosine residues of the receptor in metabolically labelled cells. The optimal dose was around 30 ng/ml; at 100 ng/ml, phosphorylation was maximal at 15 min and had almost returned to the control level after 60 min. The phosphorylation on tyrosine residues of the PDGF A-type receptor was stimulated by PDGF-AA, PDGF-AB and PDGF-BB; these isoforms also stimulated [3H]thymidine incorporation into U-343 MGa 31L cells. In addition, activation of the A-type PDGF receptor induced transmodulation of the epidermal growth factor receptor.


This review briefly summarizes the geographical distribution and clinical impact of melioidosis, especially in the tropics. Burkholderia pseudomallei (a gram-negative bacterium) is the major causative agent for melioidosis, which is prevalent in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Northern Australia. Melioidosis patients are increasingly being recognized in other parts of the world. The bacteria are intrinsically resistant to many antimicrobial agents, but prolonged treatment, especially with combinations of antibiotics, may be effective. Despite therapy, the overall case fatality rate of septicemia in melioidosis remains significantly high. Intracellular survival of the bacteria within macrophages may progress to chronic infections, and about 10% of patients suffer relapses. In the coming decades, melioidosis will increasingly afflict travelers throughout many global regions. Clinicians managing travelers returning from the subtropics or tropics with severe pneumonia or septicemia should consider acute melioidosis as a differential diagnosis. Patients with open skin wounds, diabetes, or chronic renal disease are at higher risk for melioidosis and should avoid direct contact with soil and standing water in endemic regions. Furthermore, there are fears that B. pseudomallei may be used as a biological weapon. Technological advancements in molecular diagnostics and antibiotic therapy are improving the disease outcomes in endemic areas throughout Asia. Research and development efforts on vaccine candidates against melioidosis are ongoing.


This article provides new evidence on the supply of private rental dwellings affordable for low income households in Australia in 1996 and 2001 and on shortages or surpluses of affordable dwellings in each period. The results indicate a decline in the supply of low rent dwellings between 1996 and 2001 and a resultant shortage of dwellings affordable for low income households in 2001. However, the size of the low rent supply is only the first affordability hurdle for low income households because much of the low rent stock was occupied by higher income households. Employed higher income young families compete with low income older single persons for access to the low rent stock. Once stock utilisation is taken into account, the shortage of dwellings affordable and available for low income households is increased. Moreover, an apparent surplus of dwellings affordable for low to moderate income households is converted to a significant shortage. The article concludes by raising concerns about the shift to policies that rely on the private rental market to provide affordable rental housing.


This dissertation presents a software toolkit for remotely eavesdropping video monitors using a Software Defined Radio (SDR) receiver. It exploits compromising emanations from cables carrying video signals. Raster video is usually transmitted one line of pixels at a time, encoded as a varying current. This generates an electromagnetic wave that can be picked up by an SDR receiver. The software maps the received field strength of a pixel to a gray-scale shade in real-time. This forms a false colour estimate of the original video signal. The toolkit uses unmodified off-the-shelf hardware which lowers the costs and increases mobility compared to existing solutions. It allows for additional post-processing which improves the signal-to-noise ratio. The attacker does not need to have prior knowledge about the target video display. All parameters such as resolution and refresh rate are estimated with the aid of the software. The software consists of a library written in C, a collection of plug-ins for various Software Define Radio (SDR) front-ends and a Java based Graphical User Interface (GUI). It is a multi-platform application, with all native libraries pre-compiled and packed into a single Java jar file.


Microwave analog signal-processing filters have been realized in the form of coupled niobium striplines on silicon dielectric substrates. Device responses with ± 2-dB amplitude accuracy and 9°-rms phase error have been achieved in amplitude-weighted filters with 37.5 ns of dispersion and 2.3-GHz bandwidths. Relative side-lobe levels of -26 dB and less are currently obtained. The achievable dispersion for stripline circuits on a single pair of 5-cm-diameter, 125-μm-thick wafers is limited to about 40 ns by the electro-magnetic coupling between neighboring lines. To achieve greater dispersion two approaches are under development: (1) Stripline circuits are being fabricated on multiple wafer pairs which are physically stacked and electrically concatenated to produce dispersive delay lines with 4-GHz bandwidth and 75-ns dispersion time. Phenolic resin is used as an adhesive to ensure the mechanical integrity of the stacked structure. (2) A technique to fabricate dense stripline circuits on very thin (15-μm) single-crystal silicon superstrates supported by thicker substrates has been demonstrated and preliminary results will be described. A chirp-transform system capable of real-time spectral analysis has been constructed using a pair of the superconductive delay-line filters. A resolution of 43 MHz over an unprecedented 2400-MHz bandwidth with amplitude uniformity of ±1 dB and side-lobe levels of -18 dB was demonstrated.


Autonomous and intelligent recognition of printed or handwritten text image is one of the key features to achieve situational awareness. A neuromorphic model based intelligent text recognition (ITR) system has been developed in our previous work, which recognizes texts based on word level and sentence level context represented by statistical information of characters and words. While quite effective, sometimes the existing ITR system still generates results that are grammatically incorrect because it ignores semantic and syntactic properties of sentences. In this work, we improve the accuracy of the existing ITR system by incorporating parts-of-speech tagging into the text recognition procedure. Our experimental results show that the tag-assisted text recognition improves sentence level success rate by 33% in average.


This paper examines the nexus between cost efficiency and economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa region. We apply a causality analysis between cost efficiency and financial deepening using the Generalized Methods of Moments and our findings show a significant and positive causality and reverse relationship between financial deepening and banking productivity. We introduce a set of control variables associated with the long run growth and find an interesting interaction with banking productivity and financial deepening suggesting that efforts should be focusing on the investments' efficiency and the increase of regulation to spur a more stable financial system and foster financial deepening in the future. Our show


Evoked potentials were recorded from the oculomotor nucleus in decerebrate cats following electrical stimulation of individual muscle branches of the oculomotor nerve. These potentials were usually triphasic but other more complex potentials were evoked depending on the positions of the recording electrode. Equipotential contour maps of the evoked electrical fields were plotted at different time intervals following the stimulation of the individual nerve branches. These maps provided a dynamic picture of the electrical field changes in the nucleus. Potentials evoked from individual extraocular muscles predominated in different regions of the nucleus. Potentials from the inferior rectus muscle predominated in the rostral homolateral part of the nucleus, from the medial rectus in the middle part of the nucleus, and from the inferior oblique in the most caudal part of the nucleus. Maximum evoked potentials from the superior rectus were obtained in the contralateral caudal part of the nucleus, but many potentials were also recorded from the homolateral middle and caudal parts. It, therefore, appeared reasonable to assume that the superior rectus muscle was bilaterally innervated. This assumption toas further supported by retrograde degeneration studies in the oculomotor nucleus.


: The use of pure protein mono- and polymers for human nutrition was studied in a 45-day experiment in which 12 test subjects took part. The first group of 6 persons were given casein (14.8 g nitrogen per day) and the second group--an equivalent mixture made of crystalline L-amino acids. The first group showed no abnormalities in the physiological and biochemical functions. The second group exhibited marked changes in the body: weight losses, negative nitrogen balance, increase of the ammonia concentration in the urine and exhaled air. It appears that amino acid mixtures can be included into the human nutrition only after extensive studies.


Background— Emerging evidence in obesity and diabetes mellitus demonstrates that excessive myocardial fatty acid uptake and oxidation contribute to cardiac dysfunction. Transgenic mice with cardiac-specific overexpression of the fatty acid–activated nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α (myosin heavy chain [MHC]-PPARα mice) exhibit phenotypic features of the diabetic heart, which are rescued by deletion of CD36, a fatty acid transporter, despite persistent activation of PPARα gene targets involved in fatty acid oxidation. Methods and Results— To further define the source of fatty acid that leads to cardiomyopathy associated with lipid excess, we crossed MHC-PPARα mice with mice deficient for cardiac lipoprotein lipase (hsLpLko). MHC-PPARα/hsLpLko mice exhibit improved cardiac function and reduced myocardial triglyceride content compared with MHC-PPARα mice. Surprisingly, in contrast to MHC-PPARα/CD36ko mice, the activity of the cardiac PPARα gene regulatory pathway is normalized in MHC-PPARα/hsLpLko mice, suggesting that PPARα ligand activity exists in the lipoprotein particle. Indeed, LpL mediated hydrolysis of very-low-density lipoprotein activated PPARα in cardiac myocytes in culture. The rescue of cardiac function in both models was associated with improved mitochondrial ultrastructure and reactivation of transcriptional regulators of mitochondrial function. Conclusions— MHC-PPARα mouse hearts acquire excess lipoprotein-derived lipids. LpL deficiency rescues myocyte triglyceride accumulation, mitochondrial gene regulatory derangements, and contractile function in MHC-PPARα mice. Finally, LpL serves as a source of activating ligand for PPARα in the cardiomyocyte.


As late globalization, multiculturalism, migrations, multiple identities and complex networks have redefined the ethnomusicological borders, a branch of researchers have consequently refocused their insterests towards the musical practices that minority subcultures experience in the context of large Western urban areas. The afrofuturistic cultural aesthetic — a literary sort of panafricanism from a political-technological-distopical perspective —, with its references to the afrodiasporic question, its reflections on the overwhelming role of information technologies on symbol production and its fabled imagery, captured the attention of anthropological observers. Nonetheless, despite some afrofuturism-related artists (such as Sun Ra or the Detroit techno pioneers) happen to have features that go far beyond a generalised journalistic interest, every kind of music conceived in the Western industrialised world inevitably connotes itself as popular music. Even when preserving symbolic codes coming from non-Western traditions, such sorts of musical languages need the support of a cultural-sociological perspective to be wholly acknowledged.


Limits of information transfer over a discrete time uncorrelated Rayleigh fading MIMO channel is considered, where neither the transmitter nor the receiver has the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) except the fading statistics. We show the capacity supremum with the receive antenna number at any SNR using Lagrange optimisation. Furthermore, we show the asymptotic capacity when the input power is large, and compare with the existing capacity results when the receiver is equipped with large number of antennas


Risk of COVID-19 infection in Wuhan has been estimated using imported case counts of international travelers, often under the assumption that all cases in travelers are ascertained. Recent work indicates variation among countries in detection capacity for imported cases. Singapore has historically had very strong epidemiological surveillance and contact-tracing capacity and has shown in the COVID-19 epidemic evidence of a high sensitivity of case detection. We therefore used a Bayesian modeling approach to estimate the relative imported case detection capacity for other countries compared to that of Singapore.We estimate that the global ability to detect imported cases is 38% (95% HPDI 22% - 64%) of Singapores capacity. Equivalently, an estimate of 2.8 (95% HPDI 1.5 - 4.4) times the current number of imported cases, could have been detected, if all countries had had the same detection capacity as Singapore. Using the second component of the Global Health Security index to stratify likely case-detection capacities, we found that the ability to detect imported cases relative to Singapore among high surveillance locations is 40% (95% HPDI 22% - 67%), among intermediate surveillance locations it is 37% (95% HPDI 18% - 68%), and among low surveillance locations it is 11% (95% HPDI 0% - 42%). Using a simple mathematical model, we further find that treating all travelers as if they were residents (rather than accounting for the brief stay of some of these travelers in Wuhan) can modestly contribute to underestimation of prevalence as well. We conclude that estimates of case counts in Wuhan based on assumptions of perfect detection in travelers may be underestimated by several fold, and severity correspondingly overestimated by several fold. Undetected cases are likely in countries around the world, with greater risk in countries of low detection capacity and high connectivity to the epicenter of the outbreak.


Industrial low alloy TRIP sheet steels contain blocky and lath-shaped retained austenite. In the present study, transformation behaviour of blocky and lath-shaped retained austenite during straining was investigated to clarify its effect on mechanical properties. Two types of TRIP steels containing almost the same amount but the different morphology of retained austenite were used. A steel containing large amount of lath-shaped retained austenite exhibits superior ductility, and sustains high work-hardenability in a high strain region. On the contrast, a steel containing large amount of blocky retained austenite exhibits low ductility.  The work-hardenability increased steeply to the maximum at a low strain region, and then reduced in a high strain region. The stability of the blocky austenite has been found to be poor with respected to martensite transformation. The lath-shaped retained austenite remains until a high strain region whereas the blocky retained austenite transformed into martensite in a low strain region. Carbon content was higher in the lath-shaped retained austenite than in the blocky retained austenite. Stability of retained austenite is, however, inexplicable only by the carbon content, and would be affected by the different morphology and the resulting restraint conditions.


Abstract Objective: This report examines mental health recovery in a population neglected in the literature – formerly homeless adults with serious mental illness and co-occurring substance abuse. The term 'complex recovery' is used to examine the onset and impact of various types of adversity over the life course. Method: Burawoy's extended case method was conducted on in-depth interviews with 74 formerly homeless adults living in housing programs in New York City. Data included verbatim transcripts, interviewer feedback forms, and case summaries. Results: Seven themes emerged: the longstanding influence of poverty, childhood hardship, social support and network depletion, substance abuse and recovery, unequal impact of gender differences, experiences of incarceration and fragmented service system. Structural as well as individual factors were found to comprise complex recovery. Conclusions: Complex recovery, which situates mental health recovery amidst homelessness and other forms of adversity, has implications for policies and practices designed to assist this vulnerable population.


The ubiquitous computing community has focused considerable attention on enabling resource-poor mobile computers such as cell-phones and handhelds to execute demanding applications such as speech recognition and virtual desktops. One proposed solution, cyber foraging, uses remote computers located at wireless hotspots to execute application services on behalf of mobile computers. In this paper, we explore how portable storage can improve the performance of a cyber foraging infrastructure. Our approach uses portable storage to store snapshots of service state along with logs that are used for deterministic replay. We show that this approach reduces the time to instantiate new services at wireless hotspots by up to 85% when used with the Slingshot cyber foraging infrastructure.


Remittances are an important source of external funding. They have a positive impact, both at the microeconomic level, like for the welfare of the household, and at the macroeconomic level, like in the growth of the domestic economy. Remittances are current transfers in cash or in other forms or money received by resident households from non-resident households.
The purpose of this paper is to discover the impact of remittances on the welfare of the household in the Prizren region. For this reason, an online questionnaire with 160 participants was conducted by selecting the non-random sampling method. According to the results obtained, remittances play an important role in the households of the Prizren region because most of these remittances are used for food consumption, education and clothing. At the end of hypothesis testing it is found that there is an important relationship between the residence and the frequency of receiving remittances, and people living in both, urban and rural areas receive remittance in different frequencies. However, no significant relationship has been found between the gender and frequency of receiving remittances. The research mainly has a descriptive nature of the effect of remittances on households.


The Killard Point moraine formed when Late Pleistocene ice grounded on the isostatically depressed coastal lowlands of County Down, Northern Ireland, at a time of relatively high sea level. The moraine consists of three major lithologic associations which prograded for about 1 km from the ice-grounding zone into a glaciomarine environment. At the base of the succession a diamicton association is characterized by massive and stratified diamictons that are mainly debris flows. It contains a minor ice-rafted debris component. The overlying sand association was deposited from sediment-gravity flows of low to intermediate viscosity. The gravel association was deposited by high-density sediment-gravity flows. Massive mud beds or drapes occur throughout the sequence and are related to low-density turbidity or contour currents. Sequences of this type are more common in the geological record than the literature suggests and are often explained in terms of terrestrial-based deglacial models. This calls for a sedimentological reappraisal of many "glacigenic" deposits which accumulated in areas subject to deep isostatic depression during the Late Pleistocene.


Due to the variations of viewpoint, pose, and illumination, a given individual may appear considerably different across different camera views. Tracking individuals across camera networks with no overlapping fields is still a challenging problem. Previous works mainly focus on feature representation and metric learning individually which tend to have a suboptimal solution. To address this issue, in this work, we propose a novel framework to do the feature representation learning and metric learning jointly. Different from previous works, we represent the pairs of pedestrian images as new resized input and use linear Support Vector Machine to replace softmax activation function for similarity learning. Particularly, dropout and data augmentation techniques are also employed in this model to prevent the network from overfitting. Extensive experiments on two publically available datasets VIPeR and CUHK01 demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach.


The purpose of this study is to identify effectiveness implementation of performance-based budgeting system and performance achievements. The concept of budgeting is based on the logic models that find the relationship between inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes also customer oriented (external perspective) . This study uses literature study and compare with other studied. From this studied, the results then compared with the provisions and the purpose of performance achievement. The result shows that the performance-based budgeting system can applied and support in achieving the vision and mission as well as the effect on performance. But the performance measurement only on budget absorption. Moreover there are inconsistencies when use performance indicators.


This is a friendship game NetLogo game model. A friendship game is a kind of network game: a game theory model on a network. A game starts with a model of a network of turtles. Each turtle considers as its friends every other turtle that is linked directly on the network. Each turtle decides what strategy to play, x or y, based on the choices made by its friends. How the friends influence the choice depends on whether the game is one of strategic substitutes or strategic complements.

A strategic substitute is something that, if one of its friends is already doing it, a turtle has no reason to also do it. For example, if a turtle gets a pickup truck, all its friends can borrow it, so they have no need to buy one, too.

A strategic complement is something that, if a majority of its friends are doing it, a turtle will also do it. For example, if the majority of a turtles friends are using NetLogo, then the turtle has an incentive to also use NetLogo.

This project is based on friendhip game models introduced by PJ Lamberson in a presentation in the Agent-based Computation Economics sessions of the Eastern Economics Association conference in February 2011.


Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) complicating the course of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is one of the most challenging diagnostic and treatment dilemmas in critical care medicine. The VAP incidence rate ranges from 37 to 60% in ARDS patients, significantly greater than for other causes of respiratory failure. Although the normal risk factors for VAP are the same in ARDS patients, multiple aspects of the underlying disease and its management increase the risk compared with non-ARDS patients. Multiple mimics of the clinical symptoms and signs make the clinical diagnosis of VAP very nonspecific in the setting of ARDS. The multilobar but predominantly lower lobe pattern of pneumonia in ARDS makes use of quantitative cultures of lower respiratory secretions (sampled by various techniques) very accurate to confirm the presence of pneumonia. VAP in ARDS patients is usually late-onset and therefore caused by highly antibiotic-resistant microorganisms. Somewhat surprisingly, the mortality of ARDS patients with VAP is not significantly greater than that of ARDS patients without VAP, although subsequent duration of mechanical ventilation is consistently prolonged in patients with VAP.


This paper presents an experimental investigation on the effect of incinerator bottom ash (IBA) fineness and the cooled process of molten IBA on fresh mortar properties and compressive strength of hardened mortars. IBA with two finenesses, an original IBA, and a pulverizing incinerator bottom ash (PIBA) powder, with maximum particle size of 4.75 and 0.074 mm respectively were used to partially replace sand and Portland cement at 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% by weight. The pozzolanic activity characteristics of powder were obtained from melting the above PIBA in an electric-furnace at 1450 °C for 1 h. and chilled by quenching in water (WIBA) and air (AIBA). Results indicate that incinerator bottom ash caused a reduction in compressive strength, unit weight, and flowability values when used as a replacement for sand and cement. However, IBA can be processed by melting to regain reactive pozzolanic activity, which may be used to partially replace cement.


In evaluating tax reform in the developing countries, one first needs to determine what is the unique role of the tax system in each particular country. One of the key reasons for undertaking tax reforms in Kenya was to address issues of inequality and to create a sustainable tax system that could generate adequate revenue to finance public expenditures. In this respect, the tax modernization programme introduced in the country was to achieve a tax system that was sustainable in the face of changing conditions domestically and internationally. Policy was shifted towards greater reliance on indirect taxes as opposed to direct taxes. Consumption taxes were seen to be more favourable to investments and hence growth. Trade taxes, instead of being used for protection or revenue-maximization purposes, were viewed more as instruments to foster export-led industrialization. Trade taxes were therefore used to create a competitive exports sector rather than protect the import-competing manufacturing sector, as had been done in the past. This study examines the reform efforts of the country, and reviews the strengths and weakness of the tax system as it has evolved over the past decades.


In view of the 'divergence dilemma' between the aspirations of Islamic economics and the commercially oriented nature of Islamic finance, this research explores the prospect of incorporating social responsibility dimension in the practice of Islamic investment, in line with the normative goals of Islamic economics. The significance of the study is further emphasised in the face of the rapidly growing Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) movement, which uses various social, ethical, and environmental issues in investment to promote socially responsible behaviours among corporations. The conceptual discussion and empirical analysis of the study aims to explore and examine four important areas relevant to the research: the Islamic perspective of social responsibility and its normative foundations; the investment strategies that can be used to address social responsibility dimension; the investors' perspective on the importance of social responsibility dimension and its various issues; and the investors' level of commitment to incorporate these criteria into actual investment.
In the light of the SRI experience, the conceptual discussion focuses on delineating the Islamic perspective of social responsibility, resulting in a unified behavioural framework of social responsibility issues and commitment. The theoretical model is based on the ethical values embedded in the Shari'ah and its underlying objectives (Maqasid al-Shari'ah), the precepts of justice ('adl) and beneficence (ihsan), and the notion of ultimate happiness (falah). The discussion further evaluates the present practices of Islamic investment in relation to social responsibility dimension and explores the potential of applying various SRI strategies in the Islamic investment sector.
The empirical component of the study aims to explore and examine the perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of the investors of Islamic funds in Malaysia in relation to the prospect of incorporating social responsibility dimension and its various issues in investment. Overall, social responsibility dimension is recognised by the respondents as part of an essential component in Shari'ah based investments. Nevertheless, there seemed to be a hierarchy in the component they perceived as important, with social responsibility dimension came third in the list after the fiqh injunction and economic dimensions. Additionally, the examination on the perceived importance of various social responsibility issues revealed that the underlying factor that influenced this perception is shaped by the nature of the criteria, particularly the distinction between harm prevention and the promotion of good, and the differentiation between internal business practice and external stakeholders. The study also found encouraging results on the willingness of the respondents to incorporate social responsibility criteria in their actual investment.
The findings suggest that important factors influencing investors' perceptions and commitment to incorporate social responsibility dimension in Islamic investment include participation in individually oriented behaviour, socio-demographic variables such as ethnicity, religion, age, income, education, types of occupation and organisation, as well as the level of SRI awareness. Additionally, while individual's investment decision is shown to be highly influenced by normative consideration, favourable financial expectation remains a strong driving factor in all of the behaviours examined; obedient, altruistic and sacrificial behaviours. In view of the prominent influence of financial motive in the decisions of individuals, the interpretive discussion explores the potential of a strategic framework of social responsibility as a complement to the normative foundations in creating additional incentive and enabling environment towards goal realisation in an Islamic economy.


This article derives a measure of inflation compensation from the yields of a Treasury inflation-indexed security and a portfolio of STRIPS that has similar liquidity and duration as the indexed security. This measure can be used as a proxy for inflation expectations if the inflation risk premium is small. Calculations suggest that the rate of inflation expected over the next ten years fell from just under 3% in mid-1997 to just under 13/4% by early 1999, before returning to about 21/2% by the beginning of 2000. This variation is more extensive than would have been expected from a simple model of inflation dynamics or from a survey measure of long-run inflation expectations.


The conventional wisdom is that backprop nets with excess hidden units generalize poorly. We show that nets with excess capacity generalize well when trained with backprop and early stopping. Experiments suggest two reasons for this: 1) Overfitting can vary significantly in different regions of the model. Excess capacity allows better fit to regions of high non-linearity, and backprop often avoids overfitting the regions of low non-linearity. 2) Regardless of size, nets learn task subcomponents in similar sequence. Big nets pass through stages similar to those learned by smaller nets. Early stopping can stop training the large net when it generalizes comparably to a smaller net. We also show that conjugate gradient can yield worse generalization because it overfits regions of low non-linearity when learning to fit regions of high non-linearity.


Trial design This study was a multicenter, Prospective Randomized Open-label Blinded-Endpoint (PROBE) clinical trial, parallel-group study conducted in Indonesia (three sites). Methods The aim of this study was to compare the effectivity and efficiency of modified tarsorrhaphy (MT) and gold weight implant (GWI) techniques in the surgical treatment of paralytic lagophthalmos in patients with leprosy. The study sample consisted of 23 eyes, with 11 eyes in the MT group and the remaining 12 eyes in the GWI group—the control group. Results The central eyelid margin distance (lagophthalmos distance) decreased when gentle pressure was applied in the MT (3.09 mm to 0.43 mm) and GWI groups (3.21 mm to 0.83 mm) at postoperative year 1. The Ocular Surface Disease Index score, the tear break-up time, and the Schirmer test without and with anesthesia in the MT and GWI groups showed a p-value of > 0.05. Epitheliopathy improvement occurred in 54.55% of the MT group and 58.33% of the GWI group. Corneal sensitivity change in the inferior quadrant of the MT group (50.00 to 51.30 mm) and in the GWI group (49.61 to 52.93 mm) resulted in a p > 0.05. Postoperative complications occurred in 15% of patients in the GWI group. In addition, the surgery duration of both techniques was similar. Furthermore, the surgery cost in the MT and GWI groups yielded a p < 0.05. Conclusion The MT technique is as effective as the GWI technique but more efficient than the GWI technique as a surgical treatment for paralytic lagophthalmos in patients with leprosy. Clinical trial registration [www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT0494 4498].


Hypocotyl and cotyledon explants excised from 5–7 days old in vitro grown seedlings of sesame were inoculated for callus induction and direct regeneration on MS medium supplemented with different concentrations(1-4mg/l) and combinations of auxins viz., NAA, 2, 4-D, 2, 4, 5-T, IAA and IBA. Hypocotyl and cotyledon explants were found suitable for induction of callus on MS medium supplemented with NAA at 2.0mg/l. Hypocotyl was found to be a better explant for the induction of maximum callus. Cytokinins like BAP, Kn and TDZ were used for regeneration from callus. Regeneration from callus was not obtained on any of the cytokinins supplemented media. Direct regeneration from hypocotyl (40%) explant was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 1.0 mg/l Kn compared to other cytokinins. The plant-lets were subsequently rooted on MS medium supplemented with IBA (3.0 mg/l).


the end of the report. We would like to thank the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, its Director, Dr. Fawwaz al-Khraysheh, and his staff for their continued efforts and support on behalf of all those who are committed to understanding and preserving the cultural heritage of Jordan. Publication of this year's "Archaeology in Jordan" newsletter was once again made possible in part by contributions from the Jordan Society and the American Center of Oriental Research.


A ribosomal protein component was impaired during autolysis of 40S subunits, obtained from polysomes of autolysed muscles using KCL-puromycine method. These 40S subunits exhibited higher buoyant density as compared with controls. For the direct analysis the ribosomal proteins were extracted from 40S subunits by 66% acetic acid containing 0.01 M MgCl2 and fractionated using one- and two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The data obtained suggest that some proteins were hydrolyzed by proteolytic enzymes during autolysis: assumption of dissociation into the subunits of 6 of the ribosomal proteins during autolysis does not account for the phenomena observed.


Psychiatric disorders are often reflected in physical symptoms. However, nearly all physical illnesses are accompanied by mental symptoms. Also, it is generally argued that mental function disorders and stress underlie the etiology of physical illnesses. Although modern science has defined in details all the functions of the body including the brain, some areas are not fully understood yet. Philosophical answers may shed light into those dark areas while trying to understand the entity and human.


Based on the author's research, this article suggests that incorporating national defense factors into the teaching of college P.E. courses is beneficial to raise college students' awareness of the importance of national defense, can help lay a solid foundation for the building of national defense reserve force and refine and standardize college students' social behavior as well. It also advances utilizing drills of parade and procession march in order to reinforce and reap the good results from military trainings, improve and enrich the trainings through physical exercises, sports games and extracurricular competitions in which the concept of national defense education should be included and emphasized. In the process of cultural development regarding P.E. systems, a few pieces of advice are offered here to introduce and integrate elements of national defense education.


In recent years there has been renewed interest in the development of novel grain classification methods that could complement traditional empirical tests. A speckle pattern occurs when a laser beam illuminates an optically rough surface that flickers when the object is active and is called biospeckle. In this work, we use laser biospeckle to classify maize (Zea mays L.) kernel hardness. A series of grains of three types of maize were cut and illuminated by a laser. A series of images were then registered, stored, and processed. These were compared with results obtained by floating test. The laser speckle technique was effective in discriminating the grains based on the presence of floury or vitreous endosperm and could be considered a feasible alternative to traditional floating methods. The results indicate that this methodology can distinguish floury and vitreous grains. Moreover, the assay showed higher discrimination capability than traditional tests. It could be potentially useful for maize classification and to increase the efficiency of processing dry milling corn.


One of the ways of controlling for the influence of social expectations on the answers given by survey respondents is to use a social desirability scale together with the main questions. The social desirability scale, which was included in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) international comparative study for this purpose, was used on a Russian-language sample of teachers without cross-cultural adaptation. In addition, this tool was based on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, whose psychometric characteristics have only been evaluated so far within the framework of classical test theory with mixed results. In order to fill the gap in our understanding of the validity of the TALIS social desirability scale within the framework of item response theory, we analyzed the data obtained from a representative sample of Russian teachers. The results showed that the scale had acceptable reliability, significant unidimensionality, and, at the same time, a number of serious problems with its functionality. We propose measures to improve the quality of the psychometric properties of the scale on the basis of the obtained results, including simulated data. We draw fundamental conclusions about the structure of the social desirability construct.


The purpose of the article is to analyze the linkage of psychological contracts and with organizational citizenship behavior. To test hypothesis, data collected from 221 employees in Uttarakhand. Confirmatory factors analysis using SPSS software was carried out to identify factors related to psychological contract and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) of employees. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted for analyzing the interrelatedness of psychological contract dimensions with Organizational citizenship behavior. Study indicates that psychological contract is related to organizational citizenship behavior of the employee. Our finding statistically confirms that different components of psychological contract are having influence on organizational citizenship behavior. The result is also uniform with the several other researches on psychological contract and its relationship with OCB. The research provides valuable insights for managers to understand the employee's psychology towards various dimension of psychological contract and how much these factors affect in strengthening the organizational citizenship behaviour of employees.


New species may arise via hybridization and without a change in ploidy. This process, termed homoploid hybrid speciation, is theoretically difficult because it requires the development of reproductive barriers in sympatry or parapatry. Theory suggests that isolation may arise through rapid karyotypic evolution and/or ecological divergence of hybrid neospecies. Here, we investigate the role of karyotypic change in homoploid hybrid speciation by generating detailed genetic linkage maps for three hybrid sunflower species, Helianthus anomalus, H. deserticola, and H. paradoxus, and comparing these maps to those previously generated for the parental species, H. annuus and H. petiolaris. We also conduct a quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis of pollen fertility in a BC2 population between the parental species and assess levels of pollen and seed fertility in all cross-combinations of the hybrid and parental species. The three hybrid species are massively divergent from their parental species in karyotype; gene order differences were observed for between 9 and 11 linkage groups (of 17 total), depending on the comparison. About one-third of the karyoypic differences arose through the sorting of chromosomal rearrangements that differentiate the parental species, but the remainder appear to have arisen de novo (six breakages/six fusions in H. anomalus, four breakages/three fusions in H. deserticola, and five breakages/five fusions in H. paradoxus). QTL analyses indicate that the karyotypic differences contribute to reproductive isolation. Nine of 11 pollen viability QTL occur on rearranged chromosomes and all but one map close to a rearrangement breakpoint. Finally, pollen and seed fertility estimates for F1's between the hybrid and parental species fall below 11%, which is sufficient for evolutionary independence of the hybrid neospecies.


The early childhood period is considered to be the most important developmental phase throughout an individual's lifespan. The potential benefits from supporting early childhood development (ECD) play a vital role in building human capital, breaking the cycle of poverty, promoting economic productivity, and eliminating social disparities and inequities, not only for the duration of childhood, but throughout life. If the window of opportunity presented by the early years is missed, it becomes increasingly difficult to prevent the intergenerational transmission of disadvantages. Evidence from both developed and developing countries suggests that an additional dollar invested in high quality preschool programs will yield a return of anywhere between $6 and $17. This study aims to cover one of the most disadvantaged groups, Romani children, in the Eastern European Countries (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia), and analyze the status of ECD indicators defined by UNICEF. The indicators we will produce are as follows: attendance to early childhood education, support for learning, father's support for learning, mother's support for learning, availability of children's book, availability of playthings, early childhood development index (ECDI). The data will be from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) that were conducted in those countries in the period of 2011-2014. We conducted not only a comparative analyses in descriptive manner, but at the same time conducted a multivariate analysis with logistic regression technique in order to understand whether the children in different socio-economic groups are on track in early childhood development process. The descriptive analyses put forward that mean ECDI score for Romani children in all countries is approximately 83 percent of the children of major ethnic groups. In line with the desriptive analyses, the multivariate analyses show that Romani children are obviously in disadvantaged position compared with other children in early childhood development process. Introduction The Council of Europe provides an "average estimate" of Roma in Europe of 11,166,500, with upper estimates of over 16,000,000. For countries under examination in this paper, the estimated number of Roma population is given in Table 1 (Council of Europe, 2010). Table 1 and Figure 1 reveals that the share of Romani population in the Eastern European Countries varies between 1 to 10 percent. According to average estimate, the total Romani population reaches to 906,000 which consists of 5.3 percent of all countries. Furthermore, more than one third of this population is under 15 as a result of higher fertility rate among Romani population (Council of Europe, 2010).


"When you're married well people suppose you want to do it and I don't and I never have really. It must be like shagging a bag of potatoes really and I can't even see what he gets out of it". Here Karen, a 53 year old mental health service user, talks about her emotional and bodily indifference to vaginal penetration in terms of sexual relations with her husband. From a prima facie perspective, we are presented with the dominant cultural discourses of heterosexual marital rights and one woman's lack of sexual desire, or frigidity. Nevertheless, Karen's narratives are more complex than this and weave between the self-regulation of outward appearance to avoid the familial 'gaze' of certain behaviours imbued within her diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and the submissive, ritualised bodily performance of allowing unwanted sexual intercourse to occur. Compliancy within the hegemonic parameters of sexuality and appearance however afford Karen to seek her own ways of achieving sexual satisfaction namely, in her secret acts of self-harming. In this way, her vagina functions as an apparatus to both stabilise her physical and emotional position of well-being as well as mediating her subversive hidden pleasures.


Since July 2013, the EU and the United States have been negotiating a preferential trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). We use a multicountry, multi-industry Ricardian trade model with national and international inputoutput linkages to quantify its potential economic consequences. We structurally estimate the model's unobserved parameters and the effect of existing preferential trade agreements on trade cost. With those estimates in hand, we simulate the trade, value added, and welfare effects of the TTIP, assuming that the agreement would eliminate all transatlantic tariffs and reduce non-tariff barriers as other deep PTAs have done in the past. We find a long-run increase of real income of .4% for the EU, by .5% for the United States, and by -.02% for the rest of the world relative to the status quo. However, there is substantial heterogeneity across the 140 geographical entities that we investigate. Gross value of EU-US trade is predicted to increase by 50%, but the content of EU and US value added would decrease, signalling a deepening of the transatlantic production network. Moreover, we quantify trade diversion effects on third countries and find that those are less severe for value added trade than for gross trade. This highlights the importance of global value chains in understanding the effects of the TTIP on outsiders and the global economy.


This study estimates the determinants of having employment-based private health insurance (EPHI) based on data from a survey of the Danish workforce conducted in 2009. The study contributes to the literature by exploring the role of satisfaction with the tax-financed health care system as a potential determinant of EPHI ownership and by taking into account that some employees receive EPHI free of charge, while others pay the premium out of their pre-tax income and thus make an actual choice. The results indicate that the probability of having EPHI is positively affected by private sector employment, size of the workplace, whether the workplace has a health scheme, income, being employed as a white-collar worker, and age until the age of 49, while the presence of subordinates, gender, education level, membership of 'denmark' and living in the capital region are not significantly associated with EPHI coverage. As expected, the characteristics related to the workplace are by far the quantitatively most important determinants. The association between EPHI and self-assessed health is found to be quadratic such that individuals in good self-assessed health are more likely to be covered by EPHI than those in excellent and fair, poor or very poor self-assessed health, respectively. Finally, the probability of having EPHI is found to be negatively related to the level of satisfaction with the tax-financed health care system. The findings of the study are not affected notably by distinguishing empirically between employees who receive EPHI free of charge and those who pay the premium out of their pre-tax income. Link to  Appendix


Lamivudine combined with Hepatitis B immune globulin (HBIg) prevents post liver transplant (LT) HBV recurrence. The study was designed to assess the impact of lamivudine on hepatitis B antibody (anti‐HBs) and dosage requirements of intravenous 5% HBIg (Nabi‐HB®) in the first 36 weeks post LT. Adults undergoing LT for chronic HBV received lamivudine prior to or at LT, and IV HBIg 20,000 IU on day of LT, 10,000 on days 1‐7, weeks 4 and 8, and 5,000 every 4 weeks thereafter. Replicative status based on serum HBV DNA (> 5 pg/mL = replicator (R) or ≤ 5 pg/mL = nonreplicator (N) was determined at initiation of lamivudine (R or N) and within 2 weeks of LT (r or n), resulting in 3 groups: Nn, Rn, and Rr. Between December 1999 and May 2001, 30 patients (10 Nn, 13 Rn, 6 Rr, and 1 unknown), mean age of 52 years underwent LT. HBsAg neutralization was achieved with anti‐HBs > 300 IU/L during week 1 and > 200 IU/L during weeks 2‐12. All but one patient were HBsAg‐negative on last follow‐up. Pre‐LT suppression of HBV replication resulted in similar dose requirements and pK in the Rn and Nn groups within 1 week after LT. Comparatively, the Rr group had greater HBIg requirements during weeks 1‐12 due to greater anti‐HBs clearance and shortened t1/2 during the entire 36‐week follow‐up. In conclusion, this study provides a rationale for the use of lower HBIg doses in HBV patients with suppressed replication undergoing LT. Liver Transpl 12:124–133, 2006. © 2005 AASLD.


An FPGA switch box is said to be hyper-universal if it is detailed-routable for any set of multipin nets specifying a routing requirement over the switch box. Comparing with the known "universal switch modules", where only 2-pin nets are considered, the hyper-universal switch box model is more general and powerful. This paper studies the generic problem and proposes a systematic designing methodology for hyper-universal (k, W)-switch boxes, where k is the number of sides and W is the number of terminals on each side. We formulate this hyper-universal (k, W)-switch box design problem as a k-parfite graph design problem and propose an efficient reduction design technique. Applying this technique, we can design hyper-universal (k, W)-switch boxes with low O(W) switches for any fixed k. For illustration, we provide optimum hyper-universal (2, W) and (3, W)-switch boxes and a hyper-universal (4, W)-switch box with switch number quite close to the lower bound 6W, which is used in a well-known commercial design without hyper-universal routability. We also conclude that the proposed reduction method can yield an efficient detailed routing algorithm for any given routing requirement as well.


Resveratrol (3,4',5-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene; RV), an ingredient of wine, exhibits a broad spectrum of antiproliferative effects against human cancer cells. In order to enhance these effects, we modified the molecule by introducing additional methoxyl and hydroxyl groups. The resulting novel RV analogs, M5 (3,4',5-trimethoxy-trans-stilbene), M5A (3,3',4,5'-tetramethoxy-trans-stilbene) and M8 (3,3',4,4',5,5'-hexahydroxy-trans-stilbene) were investigated in HT29 human colon cancer cells. Cytotoxicity was evaluated by clonogenic assays and the induction of apoptosis was determined using a specific Hoechst/propidium iodide double staining method. Cell cycle distribution was evaluated by FACS. The influence of M8 on the concentration of deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs), the products of ribonucleotide reductase (RR), was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. M5 and M5A caused a dose-dependent induction of apoptosis and led to remarkable changes of the cell cycle distribution. After treatment with M5, growth arrest occurred mainly in the G2-M phase, whereas incubation with M5A resulted in arrest in the G0-G1 phase of the cell cycle. Incubation of HT29 cells with M8 produced a significant imbalance of intracellular dNTP pools, being synonymous with the inhibition of RR activity. The dATP pools were abolished, whereas the dCTP and dTTP pools increased. Due to these promising results, the investigated RV analogs deserve further preclinical and in vivo testing.


Abstract. We analyzed observations of the solar activities and the solar wind parameters associated with large geomagnetic storms near the maximum of solar cycle 23. This analysis showed that strong southward interplanetary magnetic fields (IMFs), formed through interaction between an interplanetary disturbance, and background solar wind or between interplanetary disturbances are an important factor in the occurrence of intense geomagnetic storms. Based on our analysis, we seek to improve our understanding of the physical processes in which large negative B z 's are created which will lead to improving predictions of space weather. Key words. Interplanetary physics (Flare and stream dynamics; Interplanetary magnetic fields; Interplanetary shocks)


Social work space is emerging as a major avenue for sharing knowledge and the creation of social capital. Social space and physical space needs to be in balance. Virtual space must also be included in this mix. The physical work environment can support the new sense of place and space in the knowledge work. This paper discusses how to use tangible assets to make intangible social space perform better. In this paper the problem is approached by analysing the balance between physical, social and virtual space. The method used is based on "type" analysis, which uses the structure of a four‐quadrant model based on twin axis for the knowledge production circle. The focus is on the space needed in different phases of creating knowledge. The results of the pilot test show that work environments tend to support explicit knowledge sharing but fail to support tacit knowledge exchange.


Plants exhibit complex responses to changes in environmental conditions such as radiant heat flux, water quality, airborne pollutants, soil contents. We seek to utilize the natural chemical and electrophysiological response of plants to develop novel plant-based sensor networks. Our present work focuses on plant responses to high-energy radiation – with the goal of monitoring natural plant responses for use as benchmarks for detection and dosimetry. For our study, we selected a plants cactus, Arabidopsis, Dwarf mango (pine), Euymus and Azela. We demonstrated that the ratio of Chlorophyll a to Chlorophyll b of the leaves has changed due to the exposure gradually come back to the normal stage after the radiation die. We used blue laser-induced blue fluorescence-emission spectra to characterize the pigment status of the trees. Upon blue laser excitation (400 nm) leaves show a fluorescence emission in the red spectral region between 650 and 800nm (chlorophyll fluorescence with maxima near 690nm and 735 nm). Sample tree subjects were placed at a distance of 1m from NIST-certified 241AmBe neutron source (30 mCi), capable of producing a neutron field of about 13 mrem/h. This corresponds to an actual absorbed dose of ~ 1 mrad/h. Our results shows that all plants are sensitive to nuclear radiation and some take longer time to recover and take less. We can use their characteristics to do differential detection and extract nuclear activity information out of measurement results avoid false alarms produced environmental changes. Certainly the ultimate verification can be obtained from genetic information, which only need to be done when we have seen noticeable changes on plant optical spectra, mechanical strength and electrical characteristics.


Ribosomal proteins are highly conserved, many universally so among organisms. All ribosomal proteins are structural parts of the same molecular machine, the ribosome. However, when ribosomal proteins are mutated individually, they often lead to distinct and intriguing phenotypes, including specific human pathologies. This review is an attempt to collect and analyse all the reported phenotypes of each ribosomal protein mutant in several eukaryotes (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, Danio rerio, Mus musculus, Homo sapiens). These phenotypes were processed with unbiased computational approaches to reveal associations between different phenotypes and the contributions of individual ribosomal protein genes. An overview of gene expression changes in ribosomal protein mutants, with emphasis on ribosome profiling studies, is also presented. The available data point to patterns that may account for most of the observed phenotypes. The information presented here may also inform future studies about the molecular basis of the phenotypes that arise from mutations in ribosomal proteins.


In 1982, Kuntz et al. published an article with the title "A Geometric Approach to Macromolecule-Ligand Interactions", where they described a method "to explore geometrically feasible alignment of ligands and receptors of known structure". Since then, small molecule docking has been employed as a fast way to estimate the binding pose of a given compound within a specific target protein and also to predict binding affinity. Remarkably, the first docking method suggested by Kuntz and colleagues aimed to predict binding poses but very little was specified about binding affinity. This raises the question as to whether docking is the right tool to estimate binding affinity. The short answer is no, and this has been concluded in several comprehensive analyses. However, in this opinion paper we discuss several critical aspects that need to be reconsidered before a reliable binding affinity prediction through docking is realistic. These are not the only issues that need to be considered, but they are perhaps the most critical ones. We also consider that in spite of the huge efforts to enhance scoring functions, the accuracy of binding affinity predictions is perhaps only as good as it was 10–20 years ago. There are several underlying reasons for this poor performance and these are analyzed. In particular, we focus on the role of the solvent (water), the poor description of H-bonding and the lack of the systems' true dynamics. We hope to provide readers with potential insights and tools to overcome the challenging issues related to binding affinity prediction via docking.