Every bit matters in the hardware design of quantized neural networks. However, extremely-low-bit representation usually causes large accuracy drop. Thus, how to train extremely-low-bit neural networks with high accuracy is of central importance. Most existing network quantization approaches learn transformations (low-bit weights) as well as encodings (low-bit activations) simultaneously. This tight coupling makes the optimization problem difficult, and thus prevents the network from learning optimal representations. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective Two-Step Quantization (TSQ) framework, by decomposing the network quantization problem into two steps: code learning and transformation function learning based on the learned codes. For the first step, we propose the sparse quantization method for code learning. The second step can be formulated as a non-linear least square regression problem with low-bit constraints, which can be solved efficiently in an iterative manner. Extensive experiments on CIFAR-10 and ILSVRC-12 datasets demonstrate that the proposed TSQ is effective and outperforms the state-of-the-art by a large margin. Especially, for 2-bit activation and ternary weight quantization of AlexNet, the accuracy of our TSQ drops only about 0.5 points compared with the full-precision counterpart, outperforming current state-of-the-art by more than 5 points.


This paper addresses delay test for SOC devices with high frequency clock domains. A logic design for on-chip high-speed clock generation, implemented to avoid expensive test equipment, is described in detail. Techniques for on-chip clock generation, meant to reduce test vector count and to increase test quality, are discussed. ATPG results for the proposed techniques are given.


The brain is the most complex organ in the human body and is responsible for controlling all of the body's functions. The brain consists of nerve cells, which interact with the rest of the body through the spinal cord and nervous system. In the early years of life more than 1 million new neural connections form every second (Harvard, 2009). This overabundance of neural connections are repeatedly pruned and refined, creating space for developing new pathways and strengthening the ones that are used (use it or lose it). Brain development begins before birth and continues into adulthood and the interactions between genes and experiences are what shape the developing brain. However, it is the initial building blocks within the brain that provide the foundations for future learning, thinking and reasoning, social and emotional behaviour and health. Adolescence is now recognised as a critical period in brain development and an opportunity for new learning. Subsequently, research evidences that the brain is not fully mature until mid-20s and that psychosocial and cognitive development continues up to age 25 and possibly even beyond. For this reason, child and youth justice rationale and functions should extend to the young adult age group because of their psychosocial immaturity. Developmental changes in the brain occur sequentially and progressively from the back of the brain (cerebellum), with the frontal lobe (particularly frontal cortex) being the last to develop. The frontal lobe is where the executive functioning (working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control) takes place, hence why those executive functions are slowest to fully mature. This is central to understanding the time it takes for children and young people to shift more consistently away from those emotive-driven responses to more rational and considered judgements, which are the mark of adult thinking.


ABSTRACT This paper addresses vulnerability of revenue to external shocks using export composition to capture economic structure and differentiating countries according to income levels, resource endowments and political regimes. This gives a richer characterisation than previous studies. Lower income countries are vulnerable to shocks, especially in terms of trade (associated with the greatest revenue loss): democratic regimes seem to be less vulnerable to revenue losses due to shocks than non-democracies whereas revenue in resource rich countries is more vulnerable to shocks (except natural disasters) than non-resource rich countries. We find a negative relationship between manufacturing exports and revenue in lower income countries.


A rapid method for the microscale extraction of lipopolysaccharides (endotoxins, LPSs) from rough-type Gram-negative bacteria was developed using thin-layer chromatography (TLC) combined with improved conditions for LPS analysis by mass spectrometry. TLC of intact bacteria on silica gel plates in an appropriate solvent selectively extracted and separated their LPS components. The bands of molecular species were scraped from the plates after nondestructive visualization, directly mixed with matrix, and analyzed by laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Lipids A and Re-type LPSs were analyzed after transfer to a membrane. Adding citric acid to the matrix gave greatly improved mass spectra. The system allows characterization of bacterial LPS at the microscale level and is equally well applicable to heterogeneous LPS and lipid A preparations (Escherichia coli lipid A and Bordetella lipopolysaccharides were used). The technique provides a rapid determination of the heterogeneity of unmodified preparations and the determination of the molecular weight of each separated component.


Abstract Conclusion: Bullae of type 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1) knockout (KO) mice showed low levels of inflammation against nontypable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) at the early stage of otitis media (OM). However, PAI-1 KO mice fail to terminate inflammation, which may significantly contribute to the development of tympanosclerosis in PAI-1 KO mice. Objective: To investigate the role of PAI-1 in the pathogenesis of OM and subsequent tympanosclerosis. Methods: OM was induced with NTHi in PAI-1 KO and background control C57BL/6 mice. mRNA expression of PAI-1, tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) was measured in the bullae of C57BL/6 mice. mRNA expression of interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP-2), tPA, and uPA in PAI-1 KO and C57BL/6 mice was compared. Histological changes produced by OM were compared at 1, 3, and 7 days after NTHi inoculation. Results: NTHi up-regulated the expression of PAI-1 and tPA in the bullae of C57BL/6 mice, but not uPA. mRNA expression of IL-1β, TNFα, and MIP-2 was low in PAI-1 KO mice at early time points, but significantly higher at the later stage of OM. Similarly to the gene expression results, histological changes associated with OM were less at days 1 and 3 in PAI-1 KO mice. However, unlike the gradual resolution of OM pathologies in C57BL/6 mice, PAI-1 KO mice showed significant pathological changes of tympanosclerosis.


Scale model testing of wave energy converters (WEC) in wave flumes and basins is essential for full scale development. One of the parameters commonly measured is the response amplitude operator (RAO), which represents the response of the WEC to wave excitation.  These are typically measured at discrete frequencies using regular waves.  This approach can be slow, depending on the fidelity and frequency resolution.  An alternative is to use a broadband wave source, however reflections from walls can significantly contaminate the frequency response measurement. In this paper, a rapid method for measuring the RAO is presented using a chirp signal to generate waves in the frequency range of interest to measure the transfer function, and a temporal gating technique (commonly used in experimental acoustics and RF engineering) to remove reflections.  The technique will be demonstrated on numerical data, as well as two scale experiments.


An artificial neural network approach is presented to predict whether a power delivery network setup violates the target impedance. Random decoupling capacitor distributions are evaluated. It is shown that a prediction accuracy close to 90% can be achieved by choosing the right preprocessing method for the input data. The applicability towards variations of port location, target impedance and port termination is shown.


OBJECTIVE
Bicultural stress (i.e., challenge arising from navigating 2 cultural contexts) has significant consequences for Latino youth's health, but researchers have yet to examine the implications of bicultural stress for adolescents' sleep. The goals of this study were to examine whether individual and day-to-day (within-person) differences in bicultural stress were associated with Latino adolescents' sleep onset latency (i.e., time to fall asleep), sleep midpoint (i.e., sleep schedule), sleep duration (i.e., time asleep), and subjective sleep quality.

METHOD
Participants were 209 Latino late adolescents (Mage = 18.10 years; 64.4% female) attending over 90 different high schools who completed 7 daily diary surveys while wearing actigraph wristwatches (N = 1,320 daily observations). Participants also reported sleep problems in a standard survey. Statistical interactions were tested to assess moderation by gender and coethnic school composition.

RESULTS
On average, more bicultural stressors across the week were associated with lower average sleep duration and more sleep problems for male (compared to female) adolescents and youth attending schools with higher (compared to lower) Latino student enrollment. Regarding day-to-day differences, more daily bicultural stressors than usual predicted longer sleep onset latency that night for male adolescents, earlier sleep midpoint that night, and less sleep duration that night for youth attending higher Latino-enrollment schools.

CONCLUSIONS
Latino adolescents' everyday experiences of bicultural stress relate to differences in sleep duration, timing, and quality, with important variation by gender and school context. Results advance existing theory regarding social position factors that differentiate the health implications of bicultural stress for Latino youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).


Awareness of green solutions to powered flight is a new trend taking the Aerospace Industry by storm. One particular application that shows high promise is that of photovoltaics on small UAV-type aircraft to help extend flight time. The purpose of this report is to document both research and experimentation performed on a small RC aircraft in order to better understand the electrical requirements of such a device. Using that research, speculation on how it can be used to design a mobile Aerial Deployable Autonomous Solar Powered Glider will be performed. Technologies such as CIGS solar cells and Lithium Polymer batteries showed potential as light-weight, high-efficiency sources of power and energy for our system. A theoretical power output of 66.7 W could be produced if the entire .356 m 2 surface of the RC aircraft was covered in CIGS solar cells. As far as experimentation is concerned, it was found that a modest system current of 550 mA and voltage 5.4 V were required to run the RC aircraft servos and receiver at max conditions, using a set of four Ni-Cd batteries. At this current, the glider can last one hour (with margin) using 600mAh Li-Po batteries at that critical 550 mA current. A system power rating of 2.97 W was identified in the RC aircraft, compared to the 39.15 W generated by the solar panels experimented on separately. This led research to focus on the charging requirements as a driver for design rather than the power consumption of the servos. Further research showed that an average voltage of 12V is used for charging most hand-held devices. Ultimately, design created an aircraft that would operate at 14.8V (the voltage of four combined Li-Po batteries in series), being charged by CIGS solar cells.


The aim of this research is to understand how the values and beliefs of science teachers reveal in the classes where STEM activities are applied. For this purpose, a researcher and two science teachers applied STEM activities developed by the researcher for 14 weeks in science applications classes. The science teachers and the researcher work in socio-economically different districts of Ankara, Turkey. In this study, one of the qualitative research methods, self-study design was used. Self-study is a research design that contributes to the teacher's understanding of himself/herself, questioning own practice and professional development by becoming a researcher. Data sources are the life stories of the researcher and the participating teachers, in-class video recordings and post-lesson diaries. The obtained data were analyzed by narrative and content analysis. It was understood from their life stories that environmental and socio-cultural factors were effective in science teachers' choosing their profession. It was seen that there were internal and external factors affecting the values and beliefs of science teachers. As a result, it was seen that the researcher improved himself in terms of classroom management in the classes where STEM activities were applied, and that there was a close relation between values and beliefs and their practices.


Since the beginning of the industrial age, people have been leaving a significant footprint on the Earth's environment. Currently, the environment has become a notable issue all over the world. Many countries, institutions, and people, in general, have taken steps toward slowing down the effect we are leaving on Earth. In this research paper, we are researching national trends of sustainability and a specific institution, Bryant University, overtime Bryant University has developed many integrated methods of sustainability. Various methods of sustainability are explored throughout the text. Bryant's sustainability efforts can be reviewed and monitored, with methods such as Life-Cycle Assessments, Food and Waste Management strategies, composting, and through the exploration of sustainability practices at other institutions. With a campus-like Bryant playing a large sustainable role, in turn, it can create more jobs that focus on environmentally safe-production and consumption. These opportunities show a possible change in the way humans have been leaving their footprint on Earth.


ABSTRACT Real-time medical image processing through nonlinear optical Fourier filtering and transient Fourier holography is demonstrated using bio-organic polymer films of Bacteriorhodopsin (bR). In nonlinear Fourier filtering, the photo-controlled light modulation characteristics of bR films are exploited for early detection of microcalcifications in analog (screen film) as well as digital mammograms. bR films are well known for light modulation between the two states: the initial stable B state with broad absorption band with maximum at 570 nm and the relatively long lived M state with absorption maximum at 412 nm. The spatial frequency information carried by a blue probe beam is selectively manipulated in the bR film by changing the position and intensity of a yellow control beam. In transient Fourier holography, photoisomerizative gratings are recorded and reconstructed in bR films. The laser output from an Ar–Kr ion is expanded and split into two beams. One of them, the object beam is Fourier transformed by a lens on to the bR film placed at the Fourier plane. The second beam (reference beam) overlaps the Fourier transform of the object beam on the bR film thereby recordi00000000ng a Fourier hologram. When the object beam is blocked, the reference beam performs the reconstruction of the recorded Fourier hologram. The filtered spectrum is inverse Fourier transformed on to the CCD camera. The image processing is based on the fact that the desired spatial frequency band is recorded with optimum diffraction efficiency and matching the reference beam intensity to their intensity in the Fourier spectrum. A novel feature of the technique is the ability to transient display selected spatial frequencies in the reconstructing process which enables the radiologist to study the features of interest in time scale. Both the techniques are applied to filter out low spatial frequencies corresponding to soft dense breast tissue and display only high spatial frequencies corresponding to microcalcifications in clinical screen film mammograms. The results offer useful information to radiologists for early detection of breast cancer.


The electron–hole bilayer tunnel (EHBTFET) has been proposed as a density of states (DOS) switch capable of achieving a subthreshold slope lower than 60mV/decade at room temperature; however, one of the main challenges is the control of the lateral band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) leakage in the OFF state. In this work, we show that by using oppositely doped underlap regions; the unwanted penetration of the wavefunction into the underlap region at low gate biases is prevented; thereby drastically reducing the lateral BTBT leakage without any penalty on the ON current. The method is verified using a full-quantum 2D Schrödinger–Poisson solver under the effective mass approximation. For a channel thickness of 10 nm, an In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As ?> EHBTFET with counterdoping can exhibit an ON-current up to 20 &mgr; A / &mgr; m ?> and an average subthreshold swing (SS) of about 30 mV/dec. Compared to previous lateral leakage suppression solutions, the proposed method can be fabricated using template-assisted selective epitaxy.


To maintain a power reserve to contribute to the primary frequency control with a variable speed wind generator, a fuzzy logic based multivariable control strategy is proposed in this paper. The main result of this paper is to shown that it is possible to create a regular reserve whatever the wind speed without any wind speed measurement. The performance of the proposed primary frequency control strategies are shown with the help of simulations by considering a wind farm including three wind generators.


The methylcholanthrene-induced sarcoma contains several types of glycosaminoglycans, hyaluronic acid being the major component. Furthermore it contains all sulphated glycosaminoglycans present in the skin: chondroitin-4-sulphate, chondroitin-6-sulphate, keratan sulphate, dermatan sulphate, heparan sulphate and heparin. It was found that the amount of all glycosaminoglycans distinctly increased during tumour growth. At the same time the amount of collagen significantly decreased. It is suggested that some of the GAGs participate in the creation of a storage depot for biologically active molecules (growth factors, enzymes) which are thereby stabilized and protected. Hydrolytic degradation of some GAGs may result in the release of some cytokines which may stimulate or inhibit the tumour growth. The changes in the quantities of various glycosaminoglycans during the tumour growth may be responsible for a dual-phase growth of this tumour.


Essential Ocean Variable Inorganic Carbon observations collected from instruments at sea are typically processed by individual PIs before submitting to data centres and other data archives. Often this work is done on an ad-hoc basis using unpublished, self-built software, and published in unique formats. This conflicts with the Interoperability and Reusability aspects of the FAIR data principles: such data requires significant reformatting efforts by data centres and/or end users, and reproducibility is impossible without a full record of the processing performed and QC decisions made by PIs. The manual nature of this process implies additional workload for PIs who need to submit their data to multiple archives/data product. There is a clear need to standardise the data workflow from measurement to publication using common, open source, and documented tools whose algorithms are fully accessible and all processing is recorded for full transparency.

The Ocean Thematic Centre of the European Research Infrastructure ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) is developing QuinCe, a browser-based tool for uploading, processing, automatic and manual quality control, and publication of data from underway pCO₂ systems on ships and moorings. Data can be uploaded directly from instruments in any text format, where it is standardised and processed using algorithms approved by the scientific community. Automatic QC algorithms can detect many obvious data errors; afterwards PIs can perform full quality control of the data following Standard Operating Procedures and best practises. All records of QC decisions, with enforced explanatory notes, are recorded by the software to enable full traceability and reproducibility. The final QCed dataset can be downloaded by the PI, and is sent to the ICOS Carbon Portal and SOCAT project for publication. The ICOS Carbon Portal integrates marine data with ICOS data from the ecosystem and atmosphere on a regional scale and data is integrated via SOCAT in the annual Global Carbon Budgets of the Global Carbon Project where it informs policy/decision makers, the scientific community and the general public.

For platforms with operational data flows, the data is transmitted directly from ship to shore, QuinCe processes, quality controls and publishes Near Real Time data to the ICOS Carbon Portal and to Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Services In Situ TAC as soon as it is received with no human intervention, greatly reducing the time from measurement to data availability.

Full metadata records for instruments are kept and maintained at the ICOS Carbon Portal, utilising existing standardised vocabularies and version control to maintain a complete history. The correct metadata for any given dataset is available at any time, and can be converted to any required format, allowing compliance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14.3.1 methodology ‘average marine acidity (pH) measured at agreed suite of representative sampling stations’ and ICOS data relevant to SDG 14.3 is distributed to IOC UNESCO’s IODE. While much of this work is currently performed manually, international efforts are underway to develop fully automated systems and these will be integrated as they become available.


To support automated service composition, adaptation and verification, there should be a formal model for web service behavior description. For the sake of accurately representing web service behavior, inspired by workflow nets and consume-produce-read nets, we propose a novel formal model for web service behavior description, which can not only describe the control flow, but also the data flow as well as the communication flow of the web service accurately. The model regards tokens, data and messages as control resources, data resources and communication resources and adopts completely different store-and-fetch strategies for each kind of resources respectively.


The banality of objects and platitude of imagery is more insistent than ever. Nuance, in its subtlety, has the power to set something apart in the realm of infinitely reproduced/reproducible art and image-based objects that philosopher Jean Baudrillard previously classified as "only concentrated effects, miniaturized and immediately available." [1] With the advent of the Internet, there has been a distinct state change. In its wake visual artists are able to rupture the causes and effects of contribution within any small sphere of network intervention, specifically "when the internet is less a novelty and more of a banality." [2] Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication , trans. Bernard and Caroline Schutze, (New York: Semiotext, 1988), 18–29. Gene McHugh, Post Internet (Brescia, Italy: LINK Editions,2011).


BACKGROUND
Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been considered a disease of Caucasian men, recent data show mortality rising faster among women and African-Americans. Some have suggested these groups are more susceptible to tobacco smoke. We examined this issue in our own population of COPD patients.

METHODS
Beginning in March 2003 we prospectively developed a COPD research database to facilitate recruitment for clinical trials. Enrollees are recruited from clinics and paid advertising and their demographics, medical/smoking histories, and spirometric data are recorded. We examined the smoking histories and pulmonary function of enrollees over 45, with 20 pack-years of smoking, FEV(1)/FVC (forced expiratory volume forced vital capacity) <0.70, and a race-adjusted post-bronchodilator FEV(1)<80%. The primary outcome was the loss of lung function per pack-year smoked, or Susceptibility Index (SI), calculated using the formula: (% predicted FEV(1)-100)/pack-years.

RESULTS
A total of 585 patients enrolled during the study period and 330 met our inclusion criteria. Caucasians were older than African-Americans (63 vs. 58, P=0.0003) and had more pack-years of smoking (57 vs. 43, P=0.0003). There were no differences in lung function or bronchodilator reversibility among the racial or gender subgroups. Caucasians had less loss of lung function per pack-year smoked than African-Americans (SI=-1.02% vs. -1.34%, P=0.007) and men less than women (SI=-0.98% vs. -1.21%, P=0.001). Caucasian males appeared relatively protected from tobacco smoke (SI=-0.93%), while African-American women appeared most susceptible (SI=-1.42%).

CONCLUSIONS
There are important differences in racial and gender susceptibility to tobacco smoke among patients with COPD. African-American females appear to be at highest risk and may benefit most from smoking cessation.


Structural Biology
A small fraction of proteins have an unusual conformation in which the backbone forms a knot. An example is a bacterial enzyme, TrmD, that transfers a methyl group from S -adenosyl methionine (AdoMet) to a guanine nucleotide that is conserved in many transfer RNAs (tRNAs). This methyl transfer ensures accurate protein synthesis. Christian et al. combine structural, mutagenesis, and computational studies to examine the role of the protein knot in catalysis. They show that the knot binds the AdoMet in a bent conformation oriented for methyl transfer. Despite its constrained topology, the knot undergoes complex dynamics that couple AdoMet binding to tRNA binding and facilitate catalysis.

![Figure][1]

Knotted proteins such as TrmD can undergo complex internal movements.

CREDIT: CHRISTIAN ET AL. , NATURE STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (29 AUGUST 2016) ©NATURE

Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 10.1038/nsmb.3282 (2016).

 [1]: pending:yes


This paper presents a novel sensor that delivers, in combination with a thermocouple calibration curve, higher-time derivatives of temperature. This paper provides motivation for developing such a sensor, presents the salient and poignant features of the initial design and processes required for arriving at the sensor while incurring minimal component delay times (lag time), and displays preliminary predictions using an experimental thermocouple drop facility that allows for comparison with an analytic model. The presented results are highly encouraging for stability, accuracy and repeatability.


We propose a novel generative adversarial network (GAN) for the task of unsupervised learning of 3D representations from natural images. Most generative models rely on 2D kernels to generate images and make few assumptions about the 3D world. These models therefore tend to create blurry images or artefacts in tasks that require a strong 3D understanding, such as novel-view synthesis. HoloGAN instead learns a 3D representation of the world, and to render this representation in a realistic manner. Unlike other GANs, HoloGAN provides explicit control over the pose of generated objects through rigid-body transformations of the learnt 3D features. Our experiments show that using explicit 3D features enables HoloGAN to disentangle 3D pose and identity, which is further decomposed into shape and appearance, while still being able to generate images with similar or higher visual quality than other generative models. HoloGAN can be trained end-to-end from unlabelled 2D images only. Particularly, we do not require pose labels, 3D shapes, or multiple views of the same objects. This shows that HoloGAN is the first generative model that learns 3D representations from natural images in an entirely unsupervised manner.


The diagnostic testing of insulation systems provides data that can be used to quantify the condition of high-voltage electrical equipment such as tap changers, circuit breakers, regulators and transformers. Using recently developed algorithms, condition codes for these types of equipment are generated using laboratory and field data. These codes are used to determine when maintenance is necessary and to establish priorities for maintenance. This paper describes how these condition codes are applied within condition-based maintenance programs. Case studies are included that illustrate the reliability and the fiscal impact of the protocols.


We describe a method for learning higher-level vector representations of interactions between molecular features and biology. We named the representations as the reason vectors. In contrast to the high-dimensional chemical fingerprints, reason vectors are much simpler with only about 5 dimensions. They allow abstract reasoning for bioactivity of chemicals or absence thereof, uncover causal factors in interactions between chemical features and generalize beyond specific chemical classes or bioactivity. These qualities enable us to perform powerful similarity searches that are vague and conceptual in nature. The methodology can handle novel combinations of features in query molecules and can evaluate chemical classes that are entirely absent in training data. The method consists of similarity-based near neighbor search on a reference database of biologically tested chemicals by a series of substructures obtained from stepwise reconstruction of the test molecule. A data-driven continuous representation of molecular fragments was used for molecular similarity computations. The technique was inspired by the ability of humans to learn and generalize complex concepts by interacting with the physical world. We also show that activity prediction of chemicals using the abstract reason vectors is very easy and straightforward, as compared to modeling in the raw chemistry space, and can be applied to both binary and continuous activity outcomes. Except for utilizing an unsupervised training to construct continuous molecular fingerprints, the methodology is devoid of gradient optimization or statistical fitting.


Adaptive support-weight algorithm can generate high quality disparity map for stereo matching. But due to the complexity, it requires large internal memory size and bandwidth to meet the real-time constraint. In this paper, we first analyze the requirements of this algorithm from the hardware perspective. Then we propose our Support-Weight Window Reuse (SWWR) technique which can shorten computation time by the number of disparities, and Left-Right Cost Reuse (LRCR) to achieve bandwidth reduction by more than half. The comparison states that our proposed flow can generate much better disparity results, and meets the real-time constraint with relatively low memory cost and bandwidth.


: A study was made of the effect of different radiation doses on the brain enzymes degrading enkephalins. Enkephalin aminopeptidase activity decreased during the first 60 min following irradiation with a dose of 774 X 10(-4) C/kg and increased after a dose of 3096 X X 10(-4) C/kg; enkephalinase A exhibited opposite changes. 48 hr after irradiation, enkephalin aminopeptidase activity exceeded the normal level, and no significant changes occurred in encephaliase A activity irrespective of the radiation dose.


Understanding information and gaining insights about information usually means interacting with the displayed information. Utilizing the new capabilities of smart meeting rooms, visual outputs of different information representation applications are presented according to the user's needs. In this paper we present smart interaction management. This interaction approach enables the users to interact with all displayed views, utilizing the novel capabilities of these environments while still being able to interact with applications in a conventional manner using local devices. We further show two use cases demonstrating typical applications of our approach in such multi-display environments: (1) to modify the arrangement and layout of views and (2) to interact with the displayed information within a view.


The aim of the present study was to evaluate the anaesthetic effect during oocyte aspiration of a paracervical block (PCB) in combination with either electro-acupuncture (EA) or intravenous alfentanil. In all, 150 women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer were randomized to receive either EA plus PCB or alfentanil plus PCB. Visual analogue scales (VAS) were used to evaluate subjective experiences during oocyte aspiration, and IVF outcome parameters were recorded. No differences in pain directly related to oocyte aspiration, adequacy of anaesthesia during oocyte aspiration, abdominal pain, or degree of nausea were found between the two groups in the VAS ratings. Before oocyte aspiration, the level of stress was significantly higher in the EA group than in the alfentanil group (P < 0.05), and the EA group experienced discomfort for a significantly longer period during oocyte aspiration (P < 0. 01). Compared with the alfentanil group, the EA group had a significantly higher implantation rate (P < 0.05), pregnancy rate (P < 0.05), and take home baby rate (P < 0.05) per embryo transfer. In conclusion, EA has been shown to be as good an anaesthetic method as alfentanil during oocyte aspiration, and we suggest that EA may be a good alternative to conventional anaesthesia during oocyte aspiration.


In this paper we present a method to obtain the three-dimensional (3-D) solution of the Laplace equation in closed form suitable for semiconductor detector design, The method applies to planar geometry cases (microstrip detectors, pixel detectors, drift detectors, etc.) with possible mixed boundary conditions on the surfaces of the wafer. The solution inside the detector volume is expressed by a series of elementary functions, The method requires lower CPU time and memory than methods based on 3-D discretization, in particular for the study of 3-D carrier trajectories inside the volume of semiconductor detectors and for inter-electrode capacitance calculations.


ABSTRACT This paper is a case study on how an industry association wrote a new principle on innovation and succeeded in introducing this principle into a number of European Union (EU) texts. The paper maps out how vested interests secured adoption of this (controversial) principle with an eye to influence future policy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an industry association has successfully tried to introduce a new principle into the EU's legal order. We try to assess what implications this could have on the EU's existing legal order, with a particular emphasis on the impact this could have on the precautionary principle. The paper begins by examining both the political and the legal backdrop to the EU's innovation agenda. We conclude by suggesting that a qualified innovation principle that balances reasonable risk-taking with a degree of responsibility could be an interesting new tool for the EU to guide its innovation policies.


SUMMAr Y. Reconstruction of the middle third of the leg is a challenging procedure. The tibialis anterior muscle flap can be useful in reconstruction of the middle third of the leg with exposed tibia. The aim of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of tibialis anterior pivoted muscle flap for reconstruction of the middle third of the leg with functional preservation. This study, performed in the Plastic, Reconstructive and Burn Unit, Menoufiya University Hospital, Egypt, included 16 patients (13 males and 3 females) during the period February 2007/May 2010: seven post-burn and nine post-traumatic patients with post-burn middle-third leg defects with exposed tibia. Their ages ranged from 14 to 67 years. A function-sparing lateral split tibialis anterior pivoted muscle flap was used in all the patients. Follow-up ranged from six months to two years. Partial flap loss occurred in one patient (6.25%), there was no post-operative haematoma or infection, and only one case of wound dehiscence (6.25%), managed by secondary suture. No donor site morbidity or any significant functional impairment was observed, and the subjective aesthetic results were satisfactory. Lateral split tibialis anterior pivoted muscle flap is a useful, simple technique, allowing rapid, durable and reliable coverage of middle-third leg defects without significant impairment of function and without sacrificing major nerves or vessels in the foot, and without any donor site morbidity.


The lamellate boletes found in the Cooloola Sand-mass, Queensland are described and discussed in the light of earlier Australian records of paxilloid fungi. Nine species of Paxillus are discussed, two in Tapinella , which is maintained as a separate entity, and 11 are assigned to Phylloporus . Of the last, eight are new records to Australia and two are new species. Three appendices cover various aspects of studies on Australian boletes which have come to light since the publication of this series, including notes on the host-range of the parasitic hyphomycete Sepedonium .


In this study, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) has been applied to a large dataset describing the profile losses of low-pressure turbine (LPT) cascades, thus allowing (i) the identification of the most influencing parameters that affect the loss generation; (ii) the identification of the minimum number of requested conditions useful to educate a model with a reduced number of data. The dataset is constituted by the total pressure loss coefficient distributions in the pitchwise direction. The experiments have been conducted varying the flow Reynolds number, the reduced frequency, and the flow coefficient. Two cascades are considered: the first for tuning the procedure and identifying the number of really requested tests, and the second for the verification of the proposed model. They are characterized by the same axial chord but different pitch-to-chord ratio and different flow angles, hence two Zweifel numbers. The POD mode distributions indicate the spatial region where losses occur, the POD eigenvectors provide how such losses vary for different design conditions and the POD eigenvalues provide the rank of the approximation. Since the POD space shows an optimal basis describing the overall process with a low-rank representation (LRR), a smooth kernel is educated by means of least-squares method (LSM) on the POD eigenvectors. Particularly, only a subset of data (equal to the rank of the problem) has been used to generate the POD modes and related coefficients. Thanks to the LRR of the problem in the POD space, predictors are low-order polynomials of the independent variables (Re, f+, and ϕ). It will be shown that the smooth kernel adequately estimates the loss distribution in points that do not participate to the education. In addition, keeping the same steps for the education of the kernel on another cascade, loss distribution and magnitude are still well captured. Thus, the analysis show that the rank of the problem is much lower than the tested conditions, and consequently, a reduced number of tests are really necessary. This could be useful to reduce the number of hi-fidelity simulations or detailed experiments in the future, thus further contributing to optimize LPT blades.


A scenario of the Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis is analyzed within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model which is consistent with a stau-neutralino coannihilation scenario to explain the relic abundance of dark matter. We find that we can account for the possible descrepancy of the abundance of $\mathrm{^{7}Li}$ between the observation and the prediction of the Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis by taking the mass of the neutralino as $300 \mathrm{GeV}$ and the mass difference between the stau and the neutralino as $(100 -- 120) MeV$. We can therefore simultaneously explain the abundance of the dark matter and that of $\mathrm{^{7}Li}$ by these values of parameters. The lifetime of staus in this scenario is predicted to be $O(100 -- 1000) sec$.


In this study, effects of thermal pretreatment on tomato seed germination and the plant development in drought stress conditions were studied. Morphological, physiological and biochemical changes during the growth of tomato seedling were analyzed. Germination of tomato seeds was divided into three stages: water uptake, water saturation, and germination. Our experiments showed that mannitol at the concentration of 35 g/L induced drought stress. In drough stress condition, germination rate and radicle length were significantly decreased to approximately 50 %; and the thermal pretreatment (45°C) of seeds at the end of water saturation for 120 minutes helped in improving germination rate, the radicle differentiation, hypocotyl length and leaf numbers. Recovery effects of thermal pretreatment on seed germination and plant growth under drough stress coincided with the increase in respiratory rate, total sugar, protein, proline contents, and especially the content of IAA. In addition, our thermal pretreatment could also help to increase the number of flowers of studied plants.


Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the most important direct epilepsy-related cause of death. Patients with refractory epilepsy are at especially high risk of SUDEP. SUDEP occurs predominantly at night and unwitnessed, and can best be regarded as a fatal tonic-clonic seizure. While its pathophysiology is incompletely understood, SUDEP is most probably triggered by a number of predisposing and precipitating factors, including seizure-induced respiratory depression and cardiac arrhythmia. Achieving seizure freedom is the best way to prevent SUDEP. Nocturnal supervision may be another alternative preventive strategy, but this requires further research


ABSTRACT Rocks on Nias Island, Indonesia can be divided into two tectonostratigraphic units: (1) highly deformed late Oligocene-early Miocene trench deposits (tectonic melange); and (2) Miocene-Pliocene trench slope deposits. Modal point counts of 24 representative samples of sandstones, half from the melange, and half from the slope strata, reveal that they are rich in quartz and sedimentary/metasedimentary lithic fragments. Melange and slope sandstone points are closely clustered on the QFL diagram, however several other differences serve to distinguish them petrographically. Trench slope sandstones contain significant amounts of K-feldspar, polycrystalline quartz, glauconite, and carbonate grains and cement, and the lithic fragment population averages Lv21 Lm 3 Ls26. Melange sandstones contain only small amounts of polycrystalline quartz, insignificant amounts of K-feldspar and glauconite, are cemented by phyllosilicate minerals rather than calcite, and the lithic population averages Lv37 Lm17 Ls46. Similar differences may characterize trench/trench slope deposits elsewhere. The quartzose nature of the Nias sediments indicates that they were derived from the west coast of Sumatra, where early Tertiary quartz-rich sediments and Paleozoic/Mesozoic metamorphic and plutonic rocks are exposed. Nias sandstones have much lower contents of volcanic lithic grains than do most other arc-derived sandstones. This may in part be due to the nonvolcanic source terrane on the west coast of Sumatra, and may also be due to volcanic inactivity in the late Oligocene and paleodrainage away from the trench.


My thesis is focused on the relationally dynamic values of empathy, social and gender justice, outrage, responsibility, love for and faith in humanity and dignity. The originality lies in their use as explanatory principles in my explanation of my educational influence in my own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations that affect my practice as a development professional. My other original contribution to knowledge is to relate the threefold nature of Living Theory methodology – a self-reflexive action-led research, a way of life, and a social movement - with my practice in International Development, which provides an example of how limitations in this sector might be overcome. My self-reflexive research conceptualizes International Development as a global responsibility. It offers instances of how to work with others at micro (community) level, meso (organizational) level and shows my developing understanding of my potential systemic influence at a political (macro) level. By drawing insights mainly from self-study and narrative enquiry methodologies, my living-theory of International Development is presented as an alternative to the neoliberal approach and rests on the idea that Development means having a chance to contribute to a good change (Chambers, 1997, p.1743). My stories derive from the experiences of my own life and that of the people I work with. I use the South African concept of Ubuntu and its transformative growth into I~we~us relationships. Whilst exploring commonalities between Living Theory and International Development, I show they can reinforce each other and combine in the practical realization of a commitment to a fairer world. A generative form of development emerges that includes a gendered epistemology. I discuss how my own pursuit of gender justice has improved the quality of my work as a female development economist and practitioner, living in a capitalistic era.


This paper focuses on inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) for autonomous robot navigation using semantic observations. The objective is to infer a cost function that explains demonstrated behavior while relying only on the expert's observations and state-control trajectory. We develop a map encoder, which infers semantic class probabilities from the observation sequence, and a cost encoder, defined as deep neural network over the semantic features. Since the expert cost is not directly observable, the representation parameters can only be optimized by differentiating the error between demonstrated controls and a control policy computed from the cost estimate. The error is optimized using a closed-form subgradient computed only over a subset of promising states via a motion planning algorithm. We show that our approach learns to follow traffic rules in the autonomous driving CARLA simulator by relying on semantic observations of cars, sidewalks and road lanes.


Indonesia needs to set up its best effort to prepare for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) implementation in
2015. This paper attempts to fill the gaps in the current literature by exploring the readiness and preparation for AEC
implementation in automotive and garment industry in Indonesia through literature review and survey. The survey
explores the degree of awareness of the companies in both industries regarding the potential benefits and loss of
AEC. The paper's contributions are twofold. First, it reveals the fact that some industry players in Indonesia are not
yet prepared for the AEC. The automotive companies are mostly small non-authorized workshops that appear to
have no understanding of AEC and the potential benefits and loss of AEC, and they see no potential for supply chain
redesign. The garment industry appears to be more aware of the potential benefits and loss of AEC and have started
preparing for the implementation. The second contribution is to the government of Indonesia. Both industries
emphasize the needs for the government to identify the potential scenarios and conditions in order to help them
prepare for the implementation of AEC. This is something that the government must really focus on to succeed in
the AEC era.


Post-war industrialized housing between 1955 and 1985 in Belgrade and its special form of integrated prefabrication has been analyzed with a strong interest in transformation capacity of industrialized building model (IBM) on different technical levels. Research field is massive housing up to 23 floors, 400 dwellings per building and different housing layouts—to be evaluated for potential retrofitting at the dwelling level. IBM for massive housing built with IMS construction technology represents an integration of systems' components into hierarchy assemblies by simple joints. IMS Building Technology by IMS Institute is the system for high-rise structures with prefabricated elements of the skeleton. In order to assess the current situation regarding the selection and implementation of energy savings measures and the role of industrialized technology in supporting the rehabilitation of post-war housing in Belgrade—building configuration model and IMS construction technology has been analyzed, providing in-depth information on the way building components and systems are put together into IBM. In which way retrofit may be approached? IBM is represented with graph model (GM) diagram to describe a number of value-added processes according to independent systems/components and flexible connections. This paper highlights the technological aspects of "open" prefabrication industry and building with the systems that should be assessed in the future retrofitting of massive housing based on industrialization and energy efficiency. The paper proposes an IBM that provides concrete description of massive housing buildings, the requirements for information to be provided to approving refurbishment processes. The research also addresses both: challenges as well as opportunities for advancing Building Information Modeling (BIM) standards in off-site re-construction of massive housing with new "infill" industry.


Author(s): Twumasi-Boateng, Kwame | Advisor(s): Shapira, Michael | Abstract: Animals have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to perceive stress or even anticipate it before it has caused damage. Ideally, stress responses are controlled to ensure that they are specific and not excessive lest they cause collateral damage to the host. Here I describe my work in Caenorhabditis elegans examining the initiation and consequences of stress responses. In chapters 2 and 3, I examine the mechanisms of initiation of C.elegans immune responses to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, focusing on pathogen recognition. In chapters 4 and 5 I describe a project that was initiated within the realm of host-pathogen interactions, but evolved to focus on age as a context determining the outcome of both biotic and abiotic stress responses. Despite extensive knowledge of conserved signaling pathways in the C.elegans immune response, a question that has remained elusive is whether C.elegans can directly recognize pathogens, or if alternatively, they detect cellular damage caused by infection. I have shown that the immune response to P. aeruginosa can be dissociated from colonization and that potential damage from secreted molecules cannot induce a marker of the early immune response; in contrast, a non-pathogenic Pseudomonad can. This suggests that the response can be initiated at least in part by structural features of the bacteria. Furthermore, I have identified a family of genes in C.elegans encoding LysM domain proteins which are known to participate in recognition of microbial envelope components. Genetic and functional analyses suggest a potential role for family members in pathogen recognition in C. elegans. In the second half of this dissertation, I show that while the C.elegans JNK homolog KGB-1 is stress-protective during development, its activation in adults compromises stress resistance as well as general lifespan. I go on to show that this phenomenon is mediated in part by KGB-1's age-dependent antagonistic modulation of the conserved FOXO transcription factor, DAF-16. Genome-wide analysis of the KGB-1 transcriptome revealed that KGB-1 regulates several genes in an age-specific manner, and pointed to another conserved transcription factor, FOS-1 as a mediator of KGB-1's effects. Interestingly, the phenomenon of the same protein having opposite effects dependent on age is reminiscent of the Antagonistic Pleiotropy theory for the evolution of aging. Our results shed light on molecular mechanisms underlying this long-standing theory.


The mechanics of the human body are becoming increasingly static. In the past, our economic milieu relied on human energy, but in today's workplace, we are predominantly inactive. We have engineered human activity out of our physical environments and created a dependence on mechanisms to move us. Consequently, these rapid changes in the environments we inhabit have resulted in a rapid increase in chronic diseases due to inactivity. Growing evidence suggests that today's chronic illnesses are a product of our modern lifestyle, and our lifestyle is a product of the spatial environments we inhabit. With this in mind, our spatial environment can be the cause and the solution to our sedentary modern condition - by radicalizing its shape it can re-shape the lives of its inhabitants. This thesis examines how human movement can be choreographed into the spatial design of the contemporary workplace environment in order to facilitate healthy lifestyles and sustainable future societies.


Adult rat chromaffin cells in vitro show a large proliferative response to NGF, followed by neuronal differentiation. Infection of replicating chromaffin cells with a retrovirus carrying the Escherichia coli beta- galactosidase (beta-gal) gene demonstrates beta-gal expression in cells that continue to multiply, that differentiate into neurons, and that become static. The effects of NGF on proliferation and differentiation are abolished by the protein kinase inhibitors K252a and staurosporine, and by cholera toxin, an activator of adenylate cyclase. They are diminished, but not abolished, by high concentrations of dexamethasone. Both cholera toxin alone and phorbol myristate acetate (PMA), an activator of protein kinase C, elicit small and inconsistent mitogenic responses. The responses to PMA cannot be shown to be additive with the effects of NGF. NGF is a known mitogen and neuritogen for chromaffin cells from neonatal rats, but has not previously been believed to affect similarly chromaffin cells from adults. The present findings suggest that portions of NGF signaling pathways might continue to be involved in regulating proliferation of adult rat chromaffin cells in vivo, and might be constitutively activated in PC12 cells and other adrenal medullary tumors. They further suggest that rat chromaffin cells might be propagated in vitro to obtain large numbers of sympathetic neurons expressing normal or exogenous genes.


This one-group experimental study was carried out to investigate the relationship between isometric strength of quadriceps femoris muscle group and physical characteristics of subjects namely: age; weight; and height. Prediction equations were also derived for quadriceps isometric strength from these physical characteristics. Fifty volunteer, right-legged healthy normal male subjects participated in the study. They were aged between 19 and 27 years. The subjects had no previous history of neuromuscular and skeletal injuries to the lower limbs. Their ages, height and weight were measured in years, centimeters and kilograms, respectively. Quadriceps isometric strength was measured using an adapted cable tensiometer (ACT) and recorded in kilogramforce (kgf). Pearson's product correlation co-efficient (r) was used to study the relationship between quadriceps strength and each of age, height and weight. Linear and multiple regression analyses were also carried out. The result showed a high and positive Pearson's moment correlation coefficient (r) between quadriceps isometric strength and each of weight and height. A positive but low correlation (r) was also found between age and quadriceps isometric strength. Prediction equations were also derived from the linear and regression analyses. The study concluded that there was linear relationship between the physical characteristics and quadriceps isometric strength. It was recommended that the prediction equation be employed to estimate quadriceps strength while setting muscle strengthening goals in the clinics during medical rehabilitation for patients within the age range used in this study.


This article looks at the educational plight of urban low income children and explores the opportunities for success that small urban high schools provide. It then distills commonalities among successful small schools to demonstrate three central points: 1) that small is essential but not sufficient; 2) that small schools offer an opportunity for urban school districts to help improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students by providing a fertile environment where individualized instruction, more class time, better-trained teachers, and a curriculum that prepares students psychologically and emotionally, as well as intellectually can help them overcome the adverse effects of poverty; and 3) that law students can benefit from supporting educational reform by partnering with small schools in urban communities.


Aviation and aerospace structural components made of composite laminates due to their internal structure and manufacturing methods often contain a number of inter‐ and intra‐component defects which size, dispersion and interaction alter significantly the critical compression strain level [1]. The current study investigates the effect of the cracks interaction and crack faces contact interaction on the critical strain in laminar transversally isotropic material (cross‐ply) compressed in a static manner along interlaminar defects. The frictionless Hertzian contact and the shear and extensional mode of stability loss are considered for the interacting crack faces. The statement of the problem is based on the most accurate approach, the model of piecewise‐homogenous medium and the 3‐D stability theory [2]. The moment of stability loss in the microstructure of material is treated as the onset of the fracture process. The complex non‐classical fracture mechanics problem is solved utilizing the finite elements analysis. The results are obtained for the typical dispositions of cracks. It was found that the crack faces contact interaction alter significantly the critical strain level of the composite. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


The improvement in fluorescence properties of 2′-deoxyuridine was brought about by the introduction of (hetero)aromatic moieties at the C–5 position of uridine directly or via alkenyl/phenyl/styryl linkers to create a library of biologically useful fluorescent nucleosides. The synthesis of these extended nucleoside analogues was carried out using Suzuki–Miyaura and Heck alkenylation reactions. A comparison of their photophysical properties allowed the identification of nucleosides 1g and 1h that exhibit the highest quantum yields in an aqueous solution. Studies on the binding interaction of the most promising fluorescent analogues, 1g and 1h, with serum albumin proteins showed excellent selectivity towards BSA protein over α-amylase. Docking studies were also performed to predict the specific binding site of the nucleosides to BSA.


The Bungo Channel is a channel connecting the Seto Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The hydrographic condition in the Bungo Channel has been suggested to be strongly influenced by the intrusion of oceanic water from the Pacific Ocean. In this study, we focus on the spatial and temporal variations of the nutrients in the Bungo channel. We used field data of three nutrient elements (nitrate, phosphate and silicate), water temperature and salinity collected by the Ehime Research Institute of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries from 1991 to 2005 with an interval of one month. The nutrient concentrations were highest over the continental shelf slope in the southern area of the Bungo Channel during all seasons, and the interannual variations were also highest in the same area. In summer, water mass with relatively high concentration of nutrients was widely spread in the bottom layer of the channel. The nutrient concentrations in the middle and bottom layers in summer also showed large interannual variations. The large interannual variations of nutrient concentration from the shelf slope to the bottom layer of the channel are likely also associated with the bottom intrusion of oceanic water into the channel.


: Treatment results of 986 patients with perforative gastroduodenal ulcers were analyzed. The sequence of surgeon's acts was diagnostically effective in 99.5%. 776 (78.7%) of patients presented with duodenal ulcer; 210 (21.3%) had gastric ulcer. Ulcer closure was performed in 934 (94.7%) cases; gastric resection was made in 52 (5.3%) cases. Postoperative lethality rate was 4.3%. Tissue destruction proved to be partly connected with the level of the connective tissue metabolites in blood. The balance of factors of aggression and defense (Helicobacter invasion, level of mucus formation, mucosal leucocytal infiltration, acid level in stomach and level of necrosis factor in blood) was registered in long-term follow-up in dependence of the operation performed. Ulcer perforation recurrence was registered in 18.8% of simple closure cases and in 3.8% of patients after gastric resection.


Textbooks on financial management have emphasized the shortcomings of the payback criterion for decades. However, empirical evidence suggests that in actual capital budgeting procedures the payback method is used quite regularly. Mostly, it is implemented supplementary to net present value or internal rate of return, but small companies tend to rely on payback times as single criterion. A convincing theoretical foundation for the observed use of the payback criterion is lacking. Consequently, our goal is to provide such an explanation for the payback criterion's popularity. We demonstrate from a decision theoretical perspective how relying on payback times simplifies investment decisions in modern organizations. Gathering information from different management levels and ensuring the utilization of individual skills requires a multi-stage capital budgeting process. Accordingly, we consider fundamental organizational features of this process with respect to their impact on the payback method's use. For this purpose, we built upon almost stochastic dominance (ASD) as modeling device. Firstly, we show that applying his concept allows to include the risk preferences of all relevant decision makers into the analysis. Secondly, we illustrate that the criteria derived from this model help conveying these preferences to those who do the preparatory work preceding the final decision. To some extent, these new criteria are generalizations of payback times. This finding provides a potential explanation for the payback's persisting prominence.


Abstract. End-Ordovician extinctions had a profound effect on shallow-water benthic communities, including the Crinoidea. Further, recovery after the extinctions resulted in a macroevolutionary turnover in crinoid faunas. Anticosti Island is the most complete Ordovician-Silurian boundary section recording shallow-water habitats. Both new taxa and changes in Anticosti Island stratigraphic nomenclature are addressed herein. New taxa include Becsciecrinus groulxi n. sp., Bucucrinus isotaloi n. sp., Jovacrinus clarki n. sp., Plicodendrocrinus petryki n. sp., Plicodendrocrinus martini n. sp., Thalamocrinus daoustae n. sp., and Lateranicrinus saintlaurenti n. gen. n. sp. The status of Xenocrinus rubus as a boundary-crossing taxon is confirmed, range extensions of several taxa are documented, and the distribution of crinoids with the revised stratigraphic nomenclature is documented.


In October Term 1985, I met two extraordinary men who changed my life: Harry Blackmun (for whom I clerked) and Bill Stuntz (who was clerking for Justice Powell in the chambers next door). They were connected by the combination of a passion for justice, a profound impact on the law, a deep religious faith accompanied (probably not coincidentally) by an almost disquieting humility, and a rare gift for friendship and celebrating others' good fortune. And now yet another connection: the Harvard Law Review has given me a chance to celebrate each of them. (1) There's one more tie, hardly surprising in two men so interested in American history, statistics, and rules: they were great baseball fans. With Bill, it wasn't just the games: the short walk over to the University of Virginia's field (where we once saw a triple play and, much to Bill's dismay, always heard the ping of the metal bats) or the long lazy drives to Lynchburg for Carolina League matchups (where we marked Bill's birthday with a night in the emergency room after our colleague John Harrison was hit by a line drive); it was the conversations. As with criminal procedure and criminal law. Bill had an encyclopedic knowledge. I still remember the afternoon a group of us tried to come up with the career home runs leader for each letter of the alphabet. Back then, it was Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks ... Carl Yastrzemski, Gus Zernial. (2) Only Bill knew--indeed, had heard of--Zernial. That was a more innocent time, and of course the effervescent Banks has been passed by the sullen Barry Bonds. Several years ago, when Bill's back pain had flared up, I sent him a sympathetic email. I asked whether he remembered Bill James's power/speed number, which is calculated by multiplying a player's stolen bases by his home runs, doubling the product, and dividing it by the sum of stolen bases plus home runs. (3) The number measures excellence and balance across several dimensions. It's the generalized formula for things like the 30/30 club--which sounds more interesting than it is--whose most significant repeat players were the Bondses, father and son. I suggested to Bill that he had to be near the top of the law professor virtue/suffering number. Bill replied with his characteristic good humor mixed with an edge: "I'm thrilled," he wrote, "to be mentioned in the vicinity of Barry Bonds, though I would have thought the main thing we have in common is Schedule II controlled substances." (4) But there are other baseball players with whom Bill had far more in common. At the Festschrift Harvard Taw School held for Bill last spring, I surveyed the field, dismissing various possibilities--Sandy Koufax (strong religious principles but the wrong Testament); Mark Teixeira (also a notable Annapolis native, but a Yankee); and Mark Belanger (dark, skinny, and lacking discernible musculature, but famous for being defensive, which Bill never was). Perhaps, though, I dismissed Cal Ripken too quickly. Ripken remade what it meant to be a shortstop. His arm was so strong that he could set up deeper in the field, which enabled him to make more plays. But precisely because he played so deep, he made it look easy: people sometimes didn't appreciate Ripken's fielding because he never had to dive to get to the ball. The same was true of Bill. He had one of the best arms in the legal academy. Those of us who came to constitutional criminal procedure or the political economy of criminal law after Bill may not recognize how much he remade the field, writing things that--once he said them--seemed self-evident, but that only a man with his gifts could have perceived at first. …


Over 170 million people are infected with the hepatitis C virus worldwide, resulting in a large disease burden and significant mortality. Hepatitis C virus is rarely cleared in the acute phase of the infection and most patients become chronically infected; a proportion of these patients develop progressive liver disease and fibrosis. The outcome of infection depends on the immune responses of both the innate and cognate immune systems, and these in turn are orchestrated by networks of cytokines and chemokines. There is evidence that a vigorous type 1 immune response to viral proteins is required for viral elimination, and the recruitment of such effector cells to the liver is dependent on the local activity of specific inducible chemokines. Multiple factors determine the ability of the hepatitis C virus to survive host immune responses, including an ability to alter the cytokine profile secreted by T cells and to cause resistance to the effects of antiviral cytokines such as interferon. In the present review, we briefly cover the important advances made in this area over the past 12 months.


Estimating substitution frequencies at sites that influence (Ka) and do not influence (Ks) the amino acid sequence is important for understanding the dynamics of molecular sequence evolution and the selective pressures that have shaped genetic variation. The aim of this work was to gain a deeper understanding of the driving forces of substitution frequency variation in human pathogens. Rickettsia prowazekii, the causative agent of epidemic typhus and Helicobacter pylori, which has been implicated in gastric diseases were used as model systems. A specific focus was on the evolution of orphan genes in Rickettsia. Additionally, adaptive sequence evolution and factors influencing protein evolutionary rates in H. pylori were studied.The comparative sequence analyses of orphan genes using Typhus Group (TG) and Spotted Fever Group (SFG) Rickettsia, indicate that orphan genes in the SFG correspond to pseudogenes in the TG and that pseudogenes in the SFG correspond to extensively degraded gene remnants in the TG. The analysis also showed that ancestral gene sequences could be reconstructed from extant gene remnants of closely related species. The studies of split genes in R. conorii indicate that many of the small fragmented ORFs are probably pseudogenes. Analysis of the H. pylori carbamoyl phosphate synthetase provided an opportunity to understand natural selection acting on a protein undergoing adaptive evolution. Factors such as network properties, protein-protein interactions, gene essentiality and chromosomal position on protein evolutionary rates in H. pylori were studied, of which antigenicity and gene location were identified as the strongest factors. In conclusion, high Ka/Ks ratios in human pathogens may reflect either adaptive sequence evolution or gene deterioration. Distinguishing between the two is an important task in molecular evolution and also of great relevance for medical microbiology and functional genomics research.


One potential contributing factor to the commonly observed home advantage in competitive sport is that officials may be biased in favour of the home team as a result of pressure from spectators. The present study examined officiating behaviour and home advantage, defined as home teams winning over 50% of decided games in English Club Cricket, a sport virtually devoid of spectator influence. Records of game outcomes, as well as dismissals requiring a decision by the umpire, were analysed. The relative frequency of umpiring decisions did not favour either home or away teams. However, a home advantage was found, with the home teams winning 57.1% of decided games (n =1,449) Considered together, the results suggest that in sports with little or no spectator influence teams may win more often at home for reasons other than biased umpiring decisions, such as familiarity with their home ground or a visiting team's fatigue following travel.


We have proposed a label recognition integrated-optic circuits for photonic label switching using self-routing of the label pulses. Binary phase shift keying (BPSK) format is considered as the label. An identifying bit is placed ahead of the address bits in the label. The label recognition system consists of a tree-structure connection of asymmetric X-junction couplers. The system uses self-routing propagation of the identification bit controlled by the address bits. Asymmetric X-junction couplers have a feature of small dependence on wavelength. However, the wavelength dependence of optical circuits consisting of multiple asymmetric X-junction couplers depends strongly on its architecture. In this paper, we propose a wavelength insensitive architecture of the recognition circuit. The wavelength independence in the improved circuit is confirmed using finite-difference beam propagation method (FD-BPM). We numerically demonstrate that our proposed system can recognize all the binary-code labels in wavelength range of 1500-1600 nm with crosstalk less than -25 dB and -15 dB for label length three and four, respectively.


Donald Colflesh9s sterling silver and ebony "Circa 70" line, designed in 1958 for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, was conceived and produced during the height of the space race. It was one of the first luxury, Space Age–styled lines for the home to hit the market. Many Space Age products mirrored the styling of satellites, spacecraft, orbit patterns, or astronaut helmets, but none as gracefully as these. This article places the "Circa 70" line, principally its anchor tea and coffee service, in historical context and discusses the psychology of futurism and Space Age utopia that developed after war time and the "look" that grew out of the fervor for the future—a "look" that extended from candy and toys to housewares, luxury goods, and architecture.


In risk group of development of nosocomial infections related to medical care provision, prevailed weakened patients after various surgical interferences and cauterization. The nosocomial infections related to medical care provision develop up to 20% of patients of surgical profile (infections of soft tissues - 9.5%, intra-abdominal infections - 22% and infections of urinary tracts - 4.8%). The Gram-negative bacilli Enerobacteriaceae and Gram-negative nonfermenters.


This dissertation focuses on heavy tail analysis. The most important classes of heavy tail distributions are the class of regularly varying distribution functions and the class of subexponential distributions. The class of smoothly varying functions, i.e. functions with continuous derivatives being regularly varying at infinity, is a subclass of regularly varying functions. Under an assumption of smooth variation on the step size distribution we obtain higher order expansions for the tail distribution of the global maximum of random walk with negative drift, and under mild regularity conditions that of randomly stopped sums of subexponential random variables with smoothly varying hazard function. Tail index is the key parameter for distributions with regularly varying tail. We study the asymptotic properties of Hill's estimator, one of the commonly used tail index estimators, for shot noise sequences and first-order bifurcating autoregressive processes. Index words: Heavy tail analysis, Regularly varying, Subexponential distribution, Tail expansion, Random walk, Wiener-Hopf, Hill's estimator, Shot noise processes, Bifurcating autoregressive processes Applications of Smoothly Varying Functions and Tail Index Estimation


A 60-year-old man presented with a six-month history of episodes of a "knotlike feeling" in the epigastrium associated with flushing, ill-defined chest pains, and shortness of breath. The episodes lasted several hours and were not associated with exertion. None of the episodes occurred during meals, but some were associated with lying down after meals. Sublingual nitroglycerin gave some relief. There was no heartburn or dysphagia. Previous evaluation at another institution had included a resting electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, Holter monitoring, a thallium stress test, coronary angiography, barium swallow, an oral cholecystogram, and upper gastrointestinal tract endoscopy, all of which were normal. The results of physical examination were normal except for obesity. Results of esophageal manometry were grossly abnormal. There were contraction abnormalities in the distal body with waves of increased amplitude and duration and repetitive waves but no triple-peaked waves (Figure). Acid infusion did not induce chest pain. William F. Stenson,


Immune dysfunction and abnormal immune response may be associated with certain mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The early evidence for this link was based on the increased incidence of ASD in children with a history of maternal infection during pregnancy. Observational studies show increased prevalence of immune-related disorders—ranging from atopy, food allergy, viral infections, asthma, primary immunodeficiency, to autoimmune disorders—in individuals with ASD and their families. Evidence of neuroglial activation and focal brain inflammation in individuals with ASD implies that the central nervous system immunity may also be atypical in some individuals with ASD. Also, both peripheral and central inflammatory responses are suggested to be associated with ASD-related behavioral symptoms. Atypical immune responses may be evident in specific ASD subgroups, such as those with significant gastrointestinal symptoms. The present review aimed to evaluate current literature of potential interventions that target inflammatory pathways for individuals with ASD and to summarize whether these interventions were associated with improvement in autism symptoms and adaptation. We found that the current literature on the efficacy of anti-inflammatory interventions in ASD is still limited and large-scale randomized controlled trials are needed to provide robust evidence. We concluded that the role of immune-mediated mechanisms in the emergence of ASD or related challenges may be specific to subsets of individuals (e.g. those with concurrent immunological disorders, developmental regression, or high irritability). These subsets of individuals of ASD might be more likely to benefit from interventions that target immune-mediated mechanisms and with whom next-stage immune-mediated clinical trials could be conducted.


Based on the study of stable water isotopes of several firn cores, snow pits and fresh snow samples from coastal Dronning Maud Land (DML) and the surroundings of the Neumayer Station, East Antarctica (Figure 1), a clear correlation between air temperature and stable water isotope composition has been demonstrated for this region (Fernandoy and others, 2010). This even allows extending the meteorological record of the Neumayer Station into the past. Consequently, stable climatic conditions for at least the last 50 years and beyond in this area are concluded. Nevertheless, an important seasonal variability is observed. From the time series analysis, different but marked patterns arise the stable isotope data. Time series are compared to some major climate forcing mechanisms (CFM) such as: El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and Solar activity (sunspot numbers), showing that the local climate variability cannot be easily explained. Only weak correlations are found between the isotope data and CFM, being significant (at p-level 0.05) between δ18O (δD) and ENSO. Furthermore, a correlation of the secondary parameter deuterium excess (d excess = δD - 8*δ18O) and SAM is significant, but weak.


Hong Kong's currency is pegged to the US dollar in a currency board arrangement. In autumn 2003, the Hong Kong dollar appreciated from close to 7.80 per US dollar to 7.70, as investors feared that the currency board would be abandoned. In the wake of this appreciation, the monetary authorities revamped the one-sided currency board mechanism into a symmetric two-sided system with a narrow exchange rate band. This paper reviews the characteristics of the new currency board arrangement and embeds a theoretical soft edge target zone model typifying many intermediate regimes, to explain the notable achievement of speculative peace and credibility since May 2005.


This paper describes the structural optimization technique with FEM topography optimization technology, the design shape of engine components have been optimized based on the sensitivity analysis, and the purpose is to minimize the vibration of engine block. The process of structural optimization display that the vibration on FEM models of engine block as boundary conditions for subsequent topography optimization were used to be an output from dynamic response analysis, and the loads exerted on the FEM models are acquired from the multibody dynamics system, and topography optimization is performed to detect the effective design parameters of engine block shape to structural strength, to reduce the vibration velocity intensity. This paper presents today's computer design capabilities in the simulation of the dynamic and vibration behaviour of engine and focuses on the relative merits of modification and full-scale structural optimization of engine, together with the creation of new low-vibration designs. The results verify the analysis, assessment and vibration optimization of the engine.


Does who we know impact how strongly we believe? The claim seems reasonable, but research linking social network composition to political beliefs has produced conflicting results. We argue that methodological differences in measuring close ties can explain these inconsistencies and that work on the sacred umbrella provides a useful framework for moving forward. The sacred umbrella argues that when people close to you share your religious beliefs, you are shielded from doubt and uncertainty; perhaps the same mechanism also operates for political views. Using General Social Survey data, we find that religious or political discussion network heterogeneity predicts the strength of beliefs associated with one's religion or political party, respectively. A religiously or politically homogenous network appears to strengthen certain values associated with the belief system.


Data quality validation plays an important role in ensuring the proper behaviour of productive machine learning (ML) applications and services. Observing a lack of existing solutions for quality control in medium-sized production systems, we developed DuckDQ: A lightweight and efficient Python library for data quality validation, that seamlessly integrates with scikit-learn ML pipelines and does not require a distributed computing environment or ML platform infrastructure, while outperforming existing solutions by a factor 3 to 40 in terms of runtime. We introduce the notion of data quality assertions, which can stop a pipeline when quality constraints of the input data or the model's output are not met. Furthermore, we employ stateful metric computations, which greatly enhance the possibilities for post hoc failure analysis and drift detection, even when the serving data is not around anymore.


Simulating frictional contact is a challenging computational task and there exist a variety of techniques to do so. One such technique, the staggered projections algorithm, requires the solution of two convex quadratic program (QP) subproblems at each iteration. We introduce a method, SCHURPA, which employs a primal-dual active-set strategy to efficiently solve these QPs based on a Schurcomplement method. A single factorization of the initial saddle point system and a smaller dense Schur-complement is maintained to solve subsequent saddle point systems. Exploiting the parallelizability and warm-starting capabilities of the active-set method as well as the problem structure of the QPs yields a novel approach to the problem of frictional contact. Numerical results of a parallel GPU implementation using NVIDIA's CUDA applied to a physical simulator of highly deformable bodies are presented.


Losing a species from a community can cause further extinctions, a process also known as coextinction. The risk of being extirpated with an interaction partner is commonly inferred from a species' host-breadth, derived from observing interactions between species. But observational data suffers from imperfect detection, making coextinction estimates highly unreliable. To address this issue and to account for data uncertainty, we fit a hierarchical N-mixture model to individual-level interaction data from a mutualistic network. We predict (1) with how many interaction partners each species interacts (to indicate their coextinction risk) and (2) how completely the community was sampled. We fit the model to simulated interactions to investigate how variation in sampling effort, interaction probability, and animal abundances influence model accuracy and apply it to an empirical dataset of flowering plants and their insect visitors. The model performed well in predicting the number of interaction partners for scenarios with high abundances, but indicated high parameter uncertainty for networks with many rare species. Yet, model predictions were generally closer to the true value than the observations. Our mutualistic plant-insect community most closely resembled the scenario of high interaction rates with low abundances. Median estimates of interaction partners were frequently much higher than the empirical data indicate, but uncertainty was high. Our analysis suggested that we only detected 14-59% of the flower-visiting insect species, indicating that our study design, which is common for pollinator studies, was inadequate to detect many species. Imperfect detection strongly affects the inferences from observed interaction networks and hence, host specificity, specialisation estimates and network metrics from observational data may be highly misleading for assessing a species' coextinction risks. Our study shows how models can help to estimate coextinction risk, but also indicates the need for better data (i.e., intensified sampling and individual-level observations) to reduce uncertainty.


Summary
Examination of chloroplasts from chinese cabbage leaves infected with turnip yellow mosaic virus (TYMV), using freeze-fracture techniques revealed, that the small peripheral vesicles induced by infection were present in clusters near the surface of the chloroplast, often being arranged in arrays that approximate to hexagonal. The small peripheral vesicles were flask shaped with their necks pointing to the chloroplast surface. The structure of the necks, which were only about 15 to 22 nm in diam., suggested but did not prove that they were open to the cytoplasmic space.
The inner membrane of the peripheral vesicles is distinguished from other chloroplast membranes in showing no particles on either the A or the B fracture faces.
In the regions where the peripheral vesicles were clustered, the number and kind of particles seen on the chloroplast membrane faces were changed compared with healthy chloroplasts or the non-vesicle bearing areas of chloroplasts from infected cells. In particular, the B face of the outer chloroplast membrane in the vesicle-bearing regions had a reduced number of particles 10 nm in diam., but in addition to these contained large numbers of particles about 5 nm in diam.
In the chloroplasts of both healthy and infected tissue we frequently observed protuberances of the stroma corresponding to the mobile phase of chloroplasts postulated from light microscopic observations.


Intent upon harmonizing doctrines of their predecessors, some Neoplatonic commentators are faced with a problem of resolving doctrinal discrepancies so as to restore the συµφωνία in the history of philosophy. This article considers a particular example of this attempt ats harmonization: how Simplicius reconciles Aristotle's Categories with the Neopythagorean doctrine of the Pseudo-Archytas. The chronological inversion introduced by the counterfeiter produces remarkable effects on the late Platonic doctrine about general terms, to the extent that a commentator such as Simplicius works to reduce the dissonance between Archytas' and Aristotle's words.This paper has three aims: to restore the general grid that Simplicius uses for reading and commenting on Archytas through Aristotle; to identify the exegetical strategies aimed at a doctrinal reconciliation; to consider a specific case, provided by the doctrine of weight, which engenders a new physical theory by Simplicius.


With the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the educational community has the opportunity to ensure that underserved populations, such as students of color and poor students, receive the necessary educational support to achieve academic success. Relevant data from the Education Trust (1999, 2003, 2006) suggest a growing achievement gap between the academic performance of students of color and that of their White counterparts. This gap has led many educational communities to implement various strategies to close the achievement gap for these underserved populations. Family involvement has long been heralded as a key component for academic success and has moved to the forefront as educational communities explore ways to involve families in the educational experiences of their children (Gonzalez, 2002; Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, & Holbein, 2005; Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2007). This article reviews how academic enrichment programs, as part of the educational community, promote and support parental engagement to encourage academic success for all students.


We investigated interactions between ethanol and active cation transport mediated by Na,K-ATPase in rat brain synaptoneurosomes. Conditions that increased internal sodium also increased sensitivity of transport to ethanol, whereas low-sodium medium had the opposite effect. Ethanol also blocked the stimulation of ouabain-sensitive transport, glucose uptake and hyperpolarization associated with sodium influx. Low calcium decreased, while the calcium ionophore A23187 increased, sensitivity to ethanol. Inhibition of mitochondrial respiration or incubation under anaerobic conditions increased sensitivity of transport to inhibition by ethanol, but did not prevent the effect of A23187. Consistent with increased sensitivity to ethanol by cell calcium, ethanol potentiated the inhibition of transport by A23187. Although transport under basal conditions does not appear very sensitive to ethanol, these data suggest that sensitivity to ethanol may be increased under conditions associated with increased neural activity, and that ethanol may reduce the transport response to electrical activity.


Unikernel specializes a minimalistic LibOS and a target application into a standalone single-purpose virtual machine (VM) running on a hypervisor, which is referred to as (virtual) appliance. Compared to traditional VMs, Unikernel appliances have smaller memory footprint and lower overhead while guaranteeing the same level of isolation. On the downside, Unikernel strips off the process abstraction from its monolithic appliance and thus sacrifices flexibility, efficiency, and applicability. This paper examines whether there is a balance embracing the best of both Unikernel appliances (strong isolation) and processes (high flexibility/efficiency). We present KylinX, a dynamic library operating system for simplified and efficient cloud virtualization by providing the pVM (process-like VM) abstraction. A pVM takes the hypervisor as an OS and the Unikernel appliance as a process allowing both page-level and library-level dynamic mapping. At the page level, KylinX supports pVM fork plus a set of API for inter-pVM communication (IpC). At the library level, KylinX supports shared libraries to be linked to a Unikernel appliance at runtime. KylinX enforces mapping restrictions against potential threats. KylinX can fork a pVM in about 1.3 ms and link a library to a running pVM in a few ms, both comparable to process fork on Linux (about 1 ms). Latencies of KylinX IpCs are also comparable to that of UNIX IPCs.


Resources play vital role in construction projects. The performance of construction industry depends chiefly on how best the resources are managed. Optimization play pivotal role in resource management, but task is highly haphazard and chaotic under the influence of complexities and vastness. Management always looks for optimum utility of resources available with them. Hence, the project management has got important place especially in resource allocation and smooth functioning with allocated budget. To achieve these goals and to exercise enhance optimization certain tools are used for resource allocation optimally. Implementation of construction project needs a proper planning and scheduling is of vital importance for the project to be executed and run smoothly. A best schedule has to be prepared in such a way that meets the primary objectives of the total project. Those essential destinations are to make a quality venture, finished on time, inside spending plan, and in a sheltered workplace.


Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is a leading cause of intentional and unintentional poisoning worldwide, associated with mortality and severe morbidity. Some survivors of CO poisoning develop, after a lucid interval, a potentially permanent encephalopathy in the form of cognitive impairment and movement disorders, such as Parkinsonism. One of the most frequent neuroimaging findings is a cerebral white matter damage, but so far its precise cause and specific therapy are still debated. We here report the case of a 33-year-old woman with severe carbon monoxide poisoning who, after a period of lucid interval, presented symptoms of declining motor and cognitive functions. She was treated with 40 sessions of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). The therapeutic use of oxygen at supraphysiological pressures might either increase systemic oxidative stress or cause an overproduction of oxygen free radicals as drawbacks. Concurrent use of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory drugs may prevent the side effects of oxygen therapy at supraphysiological pressure due to oxidative stress. For this reason, the patient was also treated with high-dose N-Acetylcysteine and glucocorticoids. Here, we describe the longitudinal monitoring of patient's cognitive abilities and leukoencephalopathy associated with her positive clinical outcome.


Nucleotide sequencing of the vaccinia virus Sail F DNA fragment identified an open reading frame of 552 amino acids encoding a protein of 63.3 kDa. The deduced amino acid sequence shares 30% identity with S. pombe and S. cerevisiae DNA ligases with homology strongest near the carboxy terminus and around the lysine residue required for ligase-adenylate formation. Prokaryotic DNA ligases are poorly related to the vaccinia sequence. The initiation codon of the ORF forms part of a late transcriptional initiation sequence TAAATG and is preceded by two overlapping early transcriptional termination signals, TTTTTTTAT. Nonetheless, RNA mapping showed that the ligase gene is transcribed early during infection and the 5' end of the mRNA maps to the TAAATG motif. The possible roles of a DNA ligase in vaccinia virus DNA replication and recombination are discussed.


ABSTRACT Adsorption on clay minerals greatly affects the reliability of trace elements as environment indicators for ancient shales. Numerous experiments have shown that adsorption and fixation depend on many factors related to the clay minerals in the shales, to the specific trace elements involved, and to numerous characteristics of the depositional environment. It follows that no simple relationship can exist between an element's concentration in shales and a single environmental parameter such as paleosalinity. At the present time no trace element can be considered an ideal indicator; boron seems one of the best but it has only limited value. Further experiments on clay sorption combined with analyses of recent sediments may locate trace elements whose sorption is affected chiefly by a sin le environmental parameter and which possess other necessary qualifications for environment indices. These elements should provide criteria for determining major variations in an environmental parameter, but they can probably never be used to detect minor variations.


A highly selective and sensitive method for the simultaneous analysis of several plant hormones and their metabolites is described. The method combines high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with positive and negative electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) to quantify a broad range of chemically and structurally diverse compounds. The addition of deuterium-labeled analogs for these compounds prior to sample extraction permits accurate quantification by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). Endogenous levels of abscisic acid (ABA), abscisic acid glucose ester (ABA-GE), 7'-hydroxy-abscisic acid (7'-OH-ABA), phaseic acid (PA), dihydrophaseic acid (DPA), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), indole-3-aspartate (IAAsp), zeatin (Z), zeatin riboside (ZR), isopentenyladenine (2iP), isopentenyladenosine (IPA), and gibberellins (GA)1, GA3, GA4, and GA7 were determined simultaneously in a single run. Detection limits ranged from 0.682 fmol for Z to 1.53 pmol for ABA. The method was applied to the analysis of plant hormones and hormonal metabolites associated with seed dormancy and germination in lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Grand Rapids), using extracts from only 50 to 100 mg DW of seed. Thermodormancy was induced by incubating seeds at 33 degrees C instead of 23 degrees C. Germinating seeds transiently accumulated high levels of ABA-GE. In contrast, thermodormant seeds transiently accumulated high levels of DPA after 7 days at 33 degrees C. GA1 and GA3 were detected during germination, and levels of GA1 increased during early post-germinative growth. After several days of incubation, thermodormant seeds exhibited a striking transient accumulation of IAA, which did not occur in seeds germinating at 23 degrees C. We conclude that hormone metabolism in thermodormant seeds is surprisingly active and is significantly different from that of germinating seeds.