Causal inference methods that control for text-based confounders are becoming increasingly important in the social sciences and other disciplines where text is readily available. However, these methods rely on a critical assumption that there is no treatment leakage: that is, the text only contains information about the confounder and no information about treatment assignment. When this assumption does not hold, methods that control for text to adjust for confounders face the problem of post-treatment (collider) bias. However, the assumption that there is no treatment leakage may be unrealistic in real-world situations involving text, as human language is rich and flexible. Language appearing in a public policy document or health records may refer to the future and the past simultaneously, and thereby reveal information about the treatment assignment.In this article, we define the treatment-leakage problem, and discuss the identification as well as the estimation challenges it raises. Second, we delineate the conditions under which leakage can be addressed by removing the treatment-related signal from the text in a pre-processing step we define as text distillation. Lastly, using simulation, we show how treatment leakage introduces a bias in estimates of the average treatment effect (ATE) and how text distillation can mitigate this bias.


Verbascum sinuatum (V. sinuatum) is a plant belonging to the Scrophulariaceae family that has been used as an ingredient in traditional medicine infusions for the treatment of many diseases. The aerial part of this plant is a source of bioactive compounds, especially polyphenols and iridoids. Moreover, antioxidant activity studies have shown that V. sinuatum phenolic and flavonoid composition is higher than those in other plants of the same genus. V. sinuatum bioactive compound composition could vary according to the harvesting location, growing conditions of the plants, sample preparation methods, type and concentration of the extraction solvent, and the extraction methods. The obtention of these compounds can be achieved by different extraction techniques, most commonly, maceration, heat assisted extraction, and infusion. Nevertheless, since conventional extraction techniques have several drawbacks such as long times of extraction or use of large amounts of solvents, the use of green extraction techniques is suggested, without affecting the efficiency of the extraction. Moreover, V. sinuatum bioactive compounds have several biological activities, such as antioxidant, anticancer, cardiovascular, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, and neuroprotective activities, that may be increased by encapsulation. Since the bioactive compounds extracted from V. sinuatum present good potential as functional food ingredients and in the development of drugs or cosmetics, this review gives an approach of the possible incorporation of these compounds in the food and pharmacological industries.


Fictional narratives and stories have persisted throughout human history. However, perhaps due to a bias that stories offered nothing more than entertainment for the reader or perhaps that they are not useful outside of the realm of academia, the research within science academia has been lacking in literature on why these narratives have endured. Unfortunately, due to the lack of conversation across disciplines, particularly those of science and literature, this subject has not been thoroughly investigated through an interdisciplinary lens. Within this paper, the goal is to analyze the benefits of fictional narratives through biological, evolutionary, and neuropsychological perspectives. Research has been cross-referenced across primary and secondary sources varying from peer-reviewed scientific journals to psychological experiments. The following findings from the sources were corroborative with the original thesis that narrative goes beyond being a method of entertainment or only a thing of merit within English scholarship. Rather, stories are found to be crucial for developing empathy and Theory of Mind through the use of mirror neurons within the brain. This unique ability to build empathy allowed stories to spread within human society since it decreased the risk of free riders—those who take advantage of a society without equal contribution—and increased social bonds within the communities. In addition to these advantages, narratives provide ways to transfer information and experience that may be critical for survival. Altogether, stories are far more important to human survival and success as a species than previously considered.


Biomedical Signals and Systems is meant to accompany a one-semester undergraduate signals and systems course. It may also serve as a quick-start for graduate students or faculty interested in how signals and systems techniques can be applied to living systems. The biological nature of the examples allows for systems thinking to be applied to electrical, mechanical, fluid, chemical, thermal and even optical systems. Each chapter focuses on a topic from classic signals and systems theory: System block diagrams, mathematical models, transforms, stability, feedback, system response, control, time and frequency analysis and filters. Embedded within each chapter are examples from the biological world, ranging from medical devices to cell and molecular biology. While the focus of the book is on the theory of analog signals and systems, many chapters also introduce the corresponding topics in the digital realm. Although some derivations appear, the focus is on the concepts and how to apply them. Throughout the text, systems vocabulary is introduced which will allow the reader to read more advanced literature and communicate with scientist and engineers. Homework and Matlab simulation exercises are presented at the end of each chapter and challenge readers to not only perform calculations and simulations but also to recognize the real-world signals and systems around them. Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Introduction / System Types / System Models / Laplace Transform / Block Diagrams / Stability / Feedback / System Response / Control / Time Domain Analysis / Frequency Domain Analysis / Filters / Author's Biography


Abstract This article examines the driving factors that account for patterns of linkages to broader economic, labor, environmental, and security issues in U.S. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Rather than only emphasizing trade benefits or security considerations as in much recent work on FTAs, this analysis provides a richer empirical picture by focusing on the full universe of U.S. FTAs. It conceptually differentiates among different issues that might be linked to FTAs and categorizes different patterns of U.S. FTAs based on the key issues that drove negotiations. The article then examines these negotiations from a theoretical standpoint, focusing on three elements. First, it examines the degree to which linkages in the U.S. domestic policymaking process are top-down or bottom-up. Second, it considers linkages types in terms of the underlying basis for issue connections – either power or knowledge. Third, it more briefly examines the bargaining process. The conceptual and theoretical analysis is buttressed through an examination of various illustrative cases of U.S. FTA negotiations to demonstrate the utility of this approach to illuminate the variety of 'linkage packages' that have driven U.S. FTAs. We conclude with the broader implications of linkages politics in FTAs.


The impacts of membrane degradation due to chlorine attack on the rejection of inorganic salts and trace organic contaminants by nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes were investigated in this study. The rejection of trace contaminants was examined at environmentally relevant concentrations. Changes in the membrane surface morphology were observed as a result of chlorine exposure. A small increase in rejection was consistently observed with all four membranes selected in this study after being exposed to a low concentration of hypochlorite (100 ppm). In contrast, a higher concentration of hypochlorite (i.e., 2000 ppm) could be detrimental to the membrane separation capacity. Membranes with severe chlorine impact showed a considerable decrease in rejection over filtration time, possibly due to rearrangement of the polyamide chains under the influence of chlorine degradation and filtration pressure. The reported results indicate that loose NF membranes are more sensitive to chlorine exposure than RO membranes. The impact of hypochlorite exposure (both positive and negative) on rejection is dependent on the strength of the hypochlorite solution and is more significant for the neutral carbamazepine compound than the negatively charged sulfamethoxazole. Disciplines Engineering | Science and Technology Studies Publication Details Simon, A. & Nghiem, L. D. (2014). Effects of hypochlorite exposure on morphology and trace organic contaminant rejection by NF/RO membranes. Membrane Water Treatment, 5 (4), 235-250. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/eispapers/3108


The purpose of this study was to investigate burn injuries resulting from frontal automobile crashes and to determine the effects of frontal airbags on the incidence of burn injuries. The study included 25,464 individual cases from the National Automotive Sampling System database files for the years 1993 to 2000. Occupants were at a significantly higher risk to sustain a burn injury when exposed to an airbag deployment (1.54%) compared with those who received a burn injury when not exposed to an airbag deployment (0.02%; P = 0.02). In contrast to previous publications, this study found that 1.53% of front seat occupants exposed to an airbag deployment sustained an airbag-induced burn injury. The vast majority of airbag-induced burn injuries were minor (98.7%); however, in cases with no airbag deployment, the burns were often much more serious, including fatal burns (29.6%). Occupant weight, height, sex, seatbelt use, and seat position were all found not to be significant in predicting the risk of airbag induced burn injury, whereas age and crash velocity were found to be significant.


The new type of pipeline-cleaning robot discussed in this paper is developed to clean pipelines within the diameter range 200mm-250mm, which is propelled by using screw locomotion. With the help of CATIA, the modeling & simulation software, the simulation model of the robot and its vibration analysis has been obtained. From the analysis, dynamic characteristics of pipeline robot vary with the output parameters of control module and the structures of robot joints. Stimulated vibration has very little influences on the whole machine. The stability and reliability of the robot have been proven. According to the experimental study of principle prototype and dynamic simulation study of the virtual prototype, dynamic characteristics can be improved by optimizing the structures of robot and the related output parameters of control module, which contributes to the improvement of its motion stability. Therefore, it is believed that the robot has great value in practical use.


Dynamic observations for 4 weeks were made on left ventricular function and oxygen free radical (OFR) in 43 patients first suffering from acute myocardial infarction and hospitalized in Coronary Care Unit with an attack less than 36 hours. The results showed that the Astragalus membranaceus (AM) could strengthen the left ventricular function and had an effect of anti-OFR. After administration of AM, the ratio of pre-ejection period/left ventricular ejection time (PEP/LVET) was decreased, the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity of red blood cell was increased, and the lipid peroxidation (LPO) content of plasma was reduced. There was a significant difference between the AM group and the control group in the parameters above-mentioned. The study demonstrated that the PEP/LVET ratio was closely correlated with the SOD and LPO. It suggested that the anti-OFR effect of AM was one of the mechanisms of its cardiotonic action.


We present a probabilistic method for fusion of images produced by multiple sensors. The approach is based on an image formation model in which the sensor images are noisy, locally linear functions of an underlying, true scene. A Bayesian framework then provides for maximum likelihood or maximum a posteriori estimates of the true scene from the sensor images. Maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of the image formation model involve (local) second order image statistics, and thus are related to local principal component analysis. We demonstrate the efficacy of the method on images from visible-band and infrared sensors.


Abstract Objective: To investigate the dietary pattern and nutritional status of adolescent girls attending schools in Dhaka city and to examine the association with various social factors. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Girls high schools in Dhaka city. Subjects: A total of 384 girls, aged from 10 to 16 years, who were students of classes VI to IX of 12 girls high schools in Dhaka city were selected by systematic random sampling. Nutrient intake was assessed using the 24-h recall method and the usual pattern of food intake was examined using a 7-day food frequency questionnaire. Results: The prevalence of undernutrition among the participants assessed as stunting was 10% overall with younger girls being less stunted (2%) than older girls (16%), whereas 16% were thin with relatively more of the younger girls (21%) being thin than of the older girls (12%). Based on the usual pattern of food intake, a substantial proportion of the girls did not consume eggs (26%), milk (35%) or dark green leafy vegetables (20%). By comparison, larger proportions consumed meat (50%) and fish (65%) at least four times a week. For the intake of energy and protein, only 9 and 17% of the girls, respectively, met the recommended daily allowance (RDA). For nearly 77% of the girls, the intake of fat was less than the recommendation. Intakes less than the RDA were found for iron (77% of the girls), calcium (79%), vitamin A (62%), vitamin C (67%), and riboflavin (96%). Based on the food consumption data, cereals were the major source of energy (57%), thiamin (67%), niacin (63%) and iron (37%). Animal sources supplied 50% of dietary protein. Cooking fats were the principal source of fat (67%) in the diet. Milk was the major contributor for riboflavin and preformed vitamin A (retinol). Leafy vegetables and fruits were the main sources of provitamin A (carotenes). The girls from families with less educated parents were more likely to be thin and short for their age. Those girls from families with lower incomes and less educated parents had a dietary pattern which tended to be poor with regard to egg, milk, meat and fruit, with lower intakes of protein, fat and riboflavin. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the diets of these girls tended to be inadequate both for macronutrients and micronutrients, with significant health implications. There was also a relationship between the family income and the education of the parents with the nutritional status of the girls.


This study departs from the writer's interest in efforts for conflict transformation in Maluku where religious diversity has been used as an instrument to escalate the conflict between people in Maluku. In efforts for conflict transformation in Maluku, the local music functions as a way of reviving the collective memory of the Maluku people about their cultural identity as orang basudara, an identity that was formed within the cultural institution of the community, such as in the cultural ritual pela-gandong that has been practised since ancient times, as well as in the life practices of orang basudara in their daily social encounters. The collective memory of the cultural identity of the Maluku community as orang basudara encourages the transformation of situations and relationships of conflict into situations and relationships in their life as orang basudara, which means they should always protect one another, help one another, and make peace with one another to end any conflict. Therefore, the goal of this research is to present an academic explanation which shows that music has the potential to communicate the collective memory of the Maluku people in connection with their cultural identity so that it can contribute to the scenario of conflict transformation in the community. Keywords— religious conflict, transformation, collective memory, local music


Efficient and effective algorithms for multichip module (MCM) system partitioning under timing and capacity constraints are proposed. Advantage is taken of the small number of chip slots (compared to the large number of circuit modules) and the problem formulation is transformed into an integer programming problem. An approach called Constraints Decoupling, which decomposes the original dual-constraint problem into two independent single-constraint problems, which are much easier to solve is proposed. Experimental results are encouraging and all timing and capacity violations in the initial designs can be eliminated.<<ETX>>


Columbia University Libraries was one of my top five choices to visit for dissertation research, rather than later in my career when I am hopefully scouring smaller libraries that own only a handful of English histories each. Thanks to the combination of libraries available to visit under the grant—Burke and Butler RBML were my aims—I could see twenty-six printed books, two manuscript books, and three commonplace books, and be able to re-check the eight I had found during the four-week NEH seminar I attended in NYC in June/July 2013: Thomas Lanquet and Thomas Cooper, Cooper's Chronicle (1565); John Stow, Abridgement of the English Chronicle (1618); John Stow, Summarie (1598); two copies of John Stow, Annales (1615); two Plimpton manuscripts of The Brut Chronicle; and the three histories at Burke. The NEH seminar was foundational for exposing me to a variety of resources available on the East coast, but it went by too quickly and was spread across too many locations to see much in detail. Being able to focus entirely on Columbia for a month was exactly what I needed to add many more examples to my research on reader marks within English printed chronicles from 1480-1642, with particular focus for the dissertation on reader marks on queens.


We present results from a new seismic data set that show evidence for crustal-scale shortening structures beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Southern Appalachians. The data come from six broadband seismic stations deployed on a transect across the Piedmont and Blue Ridge of western North Carolina. The observed structures appear as both a Moho hole and doubled Moho in receiver function CCP (Common Conversion Point) stacks oriented roughly perpendicular to the trend of the Appalachian orogen. We interpret these features as evidence for tectonic wedging and associated delamination and underthrusting of Laurentian lithosphere beneath a crustal indenter. The Moho hole and underlying deeper Moho correspond closely to a significant regional Bouguer gravity anomaly low, which we interpret as being due to overthickened, normal-density crustal material. Beneath the indenter, we observe a double Moho, which may correspond to the partial eclogitization of the underthrust material. This would be consistent with the sharp increase in the observed gravity above this feature. In addition to these crustal structures, we see evidence for a mantle lithospheric discontinuity at 90–100 km depth. This increase in velocity with depth is spatially limited and may dip slightly to the west, though more data are needed to verify this result. We interpret this anomaly to be a fossil slab accreted onto Laurentian lithosphere. If the westward dip is accurate, this slab may be a remnant of a west-vergent subduction zone that was active during the accretion of Carolinia.


Our initial goal was to model the source characteristics of aspiration more accurately. The term is used inconsistently in the literature, but there is general agreement that aspiration is produced by turbulence noise generated in the vicinity of the glottis. Thus, in order to model aspiration, we must refine its concept, and in particular define its relation to other kinds of noise produced near the glottis, such as breathiness and hoarseness. For instance, do similar aeroacoustic processes operate transiently during a plosive release and steadily during a breathy vowel? In unvoiced fricatives, localized sources produce well-defined spectral troughs. We have therefore developed a series of analysis methods that generate spectra for transient and voice-and-noise-excited sounds. These methods include pitch-synchronous decomposition into harmonic and anharmonic components (based on a hoarseness metric of Muta et al., 1988), short-time spectra, ensemble averaging, and short-time harmonics-to-noise ratios (Jackson and Shadle, 1998). These have been applied to a corpus of repeated nonsense words consisting of aspirated stops in three vowel contexts and voiced and unvoiced fricatives, spoken in four voice qualities, thus providing multiple examples of mixed-source and transient-source speech sounds. Ensemble-averaged spectra derived throughout a stop release show evidence of a highly-localized noise source becoming more distributed. Variations by place are also apparent, complementing and extending previous work (Stevens and Blumstein, 1978; Stevens, 1993). The coordination of glottal and supraglottal articulation, described and modelled for aspiration by Scully and Mair (1995), is in a sense reversed for voiced fricatives. Use of the decomposition algorithm on voiced fricatives revealed greater complexity than expected: the anharmonic component appears sometimes to be modulated by the harmonic component, sometimes to be independent of it, and tends to change from one case to the other in the course of the fricative. In sum, we have made some progress in describing not only spectral but time-varying properties of an aspiration model, and in so doing, have improved our descriptions of other mixed-source, time-varying speech sounds.


This paper compares the drivers and barriers to urban wastewater treatment in India and Brazil. The analysis of various different cities focuses on energy efficiency and reuse of treated wastewater. Drawing on 60 semi-structured interviews in Brazil and 20 semi-structured interviews in India, the paper finds that the wastewater systems in both countries are still largely in a situation of lock-in, although innovative initiatives that focus on more resource-footprint, lifecycle-oriented approaches exist in some niche sectors. A combination of specific institutional changes and external triggers has the potential to break the lock-in. Pricing, mandatory regulations and standard setting present helpful instruments to advance institutional change, while a high number of stakeholders, vested interests and economic benefits of the status quo block it. Urbanization and land and water scarcity have been identified as external triggers for shifts in the dominant mindsets towards more sustainable solutions in both countries. For governance of the water–energy–food nexus, this paper finds that using less abstract concepts and language will increase the acceptance of the idea among local stakeholders. Additionally, cross-sectoral integration needs to be tailor-made and well-timed; immediate, full integration is not always the best option.


The aim of this study is to evaluate Primary Institutions Science Curriculum implemented in 2004-2005 and revised in 2013 education year. The dimensions of the curriculum, which are needs assessment, aim, content, learning-teaching process and assessment process, will be evaluated in terms of principles of curriculum design. The data of research has been collected with "Curriculum Evaluation Analysis Form", prepared by researchers. In this study, document analysis has been used to demonstrate the features of elementary 4th grade science curriculum in terms of the elements of education program. The reliability of analysis form has been found .73. According to the results obtained from study, regional disparities have been ignored in the process of determining needs assessment. In addition to this, determining the objectives of the curriculum beforehand doesn't match the basics of approach it relied on. However, content, learning-teaching process and assessment process dimensions of curriculum have been prepared according to the basics of curriculum design.


Hydroxyapatite powders were prepared via mechanochemical synthesis method. The starting reagents for HAP powders were vibration ball milled for 2 h and then calcined at 800°C for 1 h. X-ray diffraction patterns and IR spectrum shown that pure crystalline apatite powder (HAP) was obtained. The as-synthesized powders were gelcasted and then sintered at 1200°C for 2 h. It was observed from SEM micrographs that the prepared green body has uniform microstructure. The bending strength of the dried green body was as high as 18 MPa that is enough to be machined into required form before sintering. The sintered ceramics has a density of 2.5 g/cm3 and a flexural strength of 72 MPa with a homogenous microstructure.


The activity of 118 neurones of the primary visual cortex (17th field) was studied in unanesthetized cats, immobilized with d-tubocurarine, in a state of calm wakefulness and in strained attention, alarm. The strained attention was elicited by an air-puff directed to the corner of the closed eye, not used for the photic stimulation. Considerable rearrangments of the receptive field of neurones (94%) were observed in the state of strained attention. In the majority of the studied cortical cells (75%) during 10-30 minutes the excitatory centres of their receptive fields became narrower while their inhibitory periphery widened; in the cells with the inhibitory centres of the receptive fields they were larger in 80% of the cases. It is shown that with dark, mesopic and scotopic adaptation the major characteristics of the changes in the receptive fields remain unaltered. It is assumed that these effects have a behavioural value for the organism, because the created rise in the level of alertness is accompanied by a sharpening of the receptive fields, i.e. by a greater ability to a fine analysis and recognition of visual images.


This paper reconsiders the familiar case of photometric stereo under the assumption of Lambertian surface reflectance and three distant point sources of illumination. Here, it is assumed that the directions to and the relative strengths of the three light sources are not known {\it a priori}. Rather, estimation of these parameters becomes part of the problem formulation. \nEach light source is represented by a 3-D vector that points in the direction of the light source and has magnitude proportional to the strength of the light source. Thus, nine parameters are required to characterize the three light sources. It is shown that, regardless of object shape, triples of measured intensity values are constrained to lie on a quadratic surface having six degrees of freedom. Estimation of the six parameters of the quadratic surface allows the determination of the nine parameters of the light sources up to an unknown rotation. \nThis is sufficient to determine object shape, although attitude with respect to the world-based or the camera-based coordinate system can not be simultaneously recovered without additional information.


This report presents the recommendations of a task force appointed to examine ways to improve the coordination, effectiveness, and quality of education experiences for migrant children and their families. After tracing the history and background of the migrant education program, the report discusses the current conditions and future expectations of migrant education in concert with the six national education goals. The expectations for migrant education are: (1) migrant students should enter the first grade fully prepared to learn and schools should be fully prepared to help them; (2) between 1992 and 2002, the number of migrant students graduating from high school should increase annually by 10 percent; (3) migrant students should complete the elementary grades with critical skills in learning and complete the middle school grades and enter high school with specified abilities; (4) migrant students should be provided stimulating learning experiences in science, math, and technology education, and every state department of education should have successful strategies for providing such schooling; (5) migrant students should achieve an academic level for postsecondary education, employment, or both, upon graduating from high school, and out-of-school migrant youth and adults should be provided basic literacy education; (6) migrant students should attend schools that are free of drug and alcohol, where students are healthy and safe. The report discusses specific issues and opportunities for action related to meeting the six national education goals and migrant education expectations. (LP) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. ***********************************************************************


We present SketchiMo, a novel approach for the expressive editing of articulated character motion. SketchiMo solves for the motion given a set of projective constraints that relate the sketch inputs to the unknown 3D poses. We introduce the concept of sketch space, a contextual geometric representation of sketch targets---motion properties that are editable via sketch input---that enhances, right on the viewport, different aspects of the motion. The combination of the proposed sketch targets and space allows for seamless editing of a wide range of properties, from simple joint trajectories to local parent-child spatiotemporal relationships and more abstract properties such as coordinated motions. This is made possible by interpreting the user's input through a new sketch-based optimization engine in a uniform way. In addition, our view-dependent sketch space also serves the purpose of disambiguating the user inputs by visualizing their range of effect and transparently defining the necessary constraints to set the temporal boundaries for the optimization.


The purposes of this report are (1) to document the present inequalities in public school spending and local tax burdens and to identify the principal reasons for existing disparities; and (2) to review and evaluate proposals for reform of the currently inadequate public school finance systems. Previous studies, current State and Federal aid programs, and data on New England's property tax base, school t2tx rates, and expenditure per pupil are examined and analyzed. The following proposals for financial reform are discussed: more equalizing State aid, consolidation of small districts, broader property tax bases, State assumption of public school costs, and Federal block grants. The study strongly recommends reform of State systems to break the dependence of local school spending and tax effort on local wealth. A description of data and sources, calculation procedures for analysis of hypothetical equalizing State aid systems, and a list of selected references are included. (Author/LIR) / I . J


Hardware Trojan Horses and active fault attacks are a threat to the safety and security of electronic systems. By such manipulations, an attacker can extract sensitive information or disturb the functionality of a device. Therefore, several protections against malicious inclusions have been devised in recent years. A prominent technique to detect abnormal behavior in the field is run-time verification. It relies on dedicated monitoring circuits and on verification rules generated from a set of temporal properties. An important question when dealing with such protections is the effectiveness of the protection against unknown attacks. In this paper, we present a methodology based on automatic generation of monitoring and formal verification techniques that can be used to validate and analyze the quality of a set of temporal properties when used as protection against generic attackers of variable strengths.


The SwissFEL project, under commissioning at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), will produce FEL radiation for soft and hard X-rays with pulse durations ranging from a few to several tens of femtoseconds. A collaboration between DESY, PSI and CERN has been established with the aim of developing and building an advanced X-Band transverse deflection structure (TDS) with the new feature of providing variable polarization of the deflecting force. As this innovative CERN design requires very high manufacturing precision to guarantee highest azimuthal symmetry of the structure to avoid the deterioration of the polarization of the streaking field, the high-precision tuning-free assembly procedures developed at PSI for the SwissFEL C-band accelerating structures will be used for the manufacturing. Such a TDS will be installed downstream of the undulators of the soft X-ray beamline of SwissFEL and thanks to the variable polarization of the TDS it will be possible to perform a complete characterization of the 6D phase space. We summarize in this work the status of the project and its main technical parameters.


In this work, a time modulated RF driven DBD-like atmospheric pressure plasma jet in Ar + 2%O2, operating at a time averaged power of 6.5 W is investigated. Spatially resolved ozone densities and gas temperatures are obtained by UV absorption and Rayleigh scattering, respectively. Significant gas heating in the core of the plasma up to 700 K is found and at the position of this increased gas temperature a depletion of the ozone density is found. The production and destruction reactions of O3 in the jet effluent as a function of the distance from the nozzle are obtained from a zero-dimensional chemical kinetics model in plug flow mode which considers relevant air chemistry due to air entrainment in the jet fluent. A comparison of the measurements and the models show that the depletion of O3 in the core of the plasma is mainly caused by an enhanced destruction of O3 due to a large atomic oxygen density.


Background/Objectives: The study is aimed at justifying and applying modern economic tools capable of providing favorable conditions for diamond and jewelry manufacturers to be competitive in the world market. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Different methods of analysis have been used in the study: Horizontal (time) and vertical (structural) analysis to determine the structure of the research subject and the effect of each element of the system; trend analysis to determine the main tendency of factors dynamics; comparative analysis of aggregated and averaged indicators on separate elements of the considered sector; factor analysis to assess the impact of individual causes on the performance indicator. Findings: The article presents the results of studying the implementation of the working potential of the diamond cutting and jewelry production in the territory of the free port of Vladivostok on Russky Island. Ground has been given to competitive advantages of creating a diamond cluster project as a resident of the Free Port of Vladivostok, the main risks that could affect the development of the proposed project have been assessed taking into account regional characteristics and the current state of development of the world diamond market and the Russian diamond industry. The model of cooperation with foreign investors has been described and the advantages for manufacturers within the cluster interaction have been shown. The predictive assessment of key financial indicators of the investment project has been made and the synergetic effect of production in the revenue from sales has been calculated. The conceptual suggestions regarding the formation of the cluster infrastructure have been given. Applications/Improvements: Use of cluster coordination strategy mechanisms and other key planning documents will ensure an effective interaction of participants of strategy events implementation.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of alkaline solution marinades on the characteristics of pork subjected to post-mortem pH decrease in pig muscle. The pH of carcasses was measured in a commercial slaughterhouse (n = 526), 45 min after slaughtering (pH45) and, then, the carcasses were divided into the groups with pH45 5.7. Ten samples of the longissimus dorsi muscles of each group were collected and distributed in an entirely randomized design, in a 2x4 factorial arrangement, with two conditions (pH45 5.7), and four marinade solutions: TC, no marinade; TM1, sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride; TM2, sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium chloride; TM3, sodium bicarbonate, sodium tripolyphosphate and sodium chloride. There was no interaction between pH45 of the meat and the marinade treatments. Meat with pH45<5.7 showed higher values for lightness, and for purge loss (PL), exudate loss (EL), cooking loss (CL) and shear force (SF). Marinating increased the pH, reduced the lightness, EL, CL and SF, and improved tenderness, juiciness and flavor of meat. Marinades with solutions containing chloride, bicarbonate, and sodium tripolyphosphate are effective in the improvement of pork quality, making physical characteristics of marinated meat similar to those of fresh pork, as a consequence of accelerated postmortem glycolysis.


German co-determination law regarding large companies mandates that employees elect half of the members of the
Supervisory Board. However, only employees working in Germany are involved in this process, whilst those outside
Germany are not. On November 3, 2015, the European Court of Justice received a request from the Appeals Court
Berlin for a preliminary ruling in the Erzberger-case, whether this system complies with EU law, specifically the
provisions prohibiting discrimination on grounds of nationality (Art. 18 TFEU) and/or restrictions concerning the free
movement of employees (Art. 45 TFEU). On July 18, 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that the current German
co-determination system does not violate EU law. In this article, we critically analyse this decision. Furthermore, we
explore what the consequences and the options for the German legislator would have been if the ECJ had found that
the German system does violate EU law.


Hyperthyroidism is one of the most common endocrinology disorders. Treatment can be either pharmacological, surgical or using radioactive iodine. In Europe methimazole is the antithyroid drug of choice because it can be administered in a single daily dose and has a lower risk of adverse reactions. Around 5% of patients taking thionamides can present any of their side effects, which are usually mild. Liver toxicity due to thionamides is very rare, and severe due to propylthiouracil. We present a clinical case of a cholestatic jaundice and acute toxic hepatitis due to methimazole and a cross-reaction with propylthiouracil. Based on this case a review is presented.


This article explains how some youth gain insights into educational processes of social reproduction by participating in a pedagogy of transformational resistance. These insights lead to resistances that have the potential to transform young people's subjectivities while allowing them to envision ways of learning to counteract oppressive and reproductive schooling. The pedagogy of transformational resistance derives from a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program implemented in Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). The YPAR program was called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP), and its primary function was to engage youth in critical inquiries that address negative social and economic conditions in their schools and communities. The article begins with a brief lineage of critical youth studies (CYS), and its attendant academic focus on social reproduction and resistance. The contemporary moment within CYS centers around YPAR, where formal pedagogical practices cultivate young people's critical insights/consciousness and resistances.


Trend of miniaturization of products and consequently its components nowadays can be evident in almost every production field. To accomplish requirements imposed by miniaturization micromachining proved to be a satisfied manufacturing technique. Herein the term micromachining refers to mechanical micro cutting techniques where material is removed by geometrically determined cutting edges. The aim of this review article is to summarize existing knowledge and highlight current challenges, restrictions and advantages in the field of micromachining.


A series of three-dimensional flume experiments on the transgressive growth of deltas, conducted with constant rate of relative sea-level rise ( A ), constant sediment discharge ( S ), and constant upstream water discharge ( Q ), reveals an inbuilt geomorphic process that inevitably forms discrete steps on the abandoned subaqueous deltaic slope. The stepped topography and its process of formation are here referred to as autostep(s) and autostepping, respectively. The stepped topography is caused by the lateral migration of delta- front lobes that inevitably shift landward but fail to cover lobes of older cycles. The autostepping arises from the principle of autoretreat combined with autocyclic lateral shifting of the feeder system. Discrete changes of A , S , A / S , or Q / S are not required to explain the origin of episodic backstepping in an overall transgressive regime. Allocyclic changes in A and S , as commonly invoked in the sequence stratigraphy literature, are not an alternative to autostepping, but would only enhance or reduce the inbuilt process of autostepping in river-dominated delta systems.


The move to using portals to distribute medical information is supported by Australian Governments and government agencies. The recent success of 'telemedicine' is promising for patients and governments alike as it could provide quality care and convenience for patients and reduces the burden on the health budget for governments. The Australian Government is taking a proactive role in developing medical portals to encourage the general use of the web for the dissemination of medical information (NHIMAC, 2000). Government portals such as HealthInsite (Australian) and BetterHealth (Australian Victorian Government) encourage users to access the sites (NHIMAC, 2000). . Despite the support by governments, usability tests examining portal effectiveness indicate that many portals are not effective for users. This paper presents the results of usability testing conducted on current Australian medical portals and discusses the portals' effectiveness from the users' perspective. The paper also discusses current technology that could improve medical portals' effectiveness thereby better serving the needs of the health consumer.


We study the problem of minimum-number full-view area coverage in camera sensor networks, i.e., how to select the minimum number of camera sensors to guarantee the full-view coverage of a given region. Full-view area coverage is challenging because the full-view coverage of a 2-D continuous domain has to be considered. To tackle this challenge, we first study the intrinsic geometric relationship between the full-view area coverage and the full-view point coverage and prove that the full-view area coverage can be guaranteed, as long as a selected full-view ensuring set of points is full-view covered. This leads to a significant dimension reduction for the full-view area coverage problem. Next, we prove that the minimum-number full-view point coverage is NP-hard and propose two approximation algorithms to solve it from two different perspectives, respectively: 1) By introducing a full-view coverage ratio function, we quantify the "contribution" of each camera sensor to the full-view coverage through which we transform the full-view point coverage into a submodular set cover problem and propose a greedy algorithm (GA); and 2) by studying the geometric relationship between the full-view coverage and the traditional coverage, we propose a set-cover-based algorithm (SCA). We analyze the performance of these two approximation algorithms and characterize their approximation ratios. Furthermore, we devise two distributed algorithms that obtain the same approximation ratios as GA and SCA, respectively. Finally, we provide extensive simulation results to validate our analysis.


As managing director of the London Underground in the 1920s and the first chief executive of London Transport, Frank Pick (1878-1941), had more influence on the look of twentieth century London than any other individual. Frank Pick's London offers a unique overview of Pick's passionate belief in the social and civic value of applied art and design and its impact on London. Frank Pick's London explores an extraordinary contribution to the everyday experience of modern London. Pick commissioned now familiar publicity posters from the likes of Paul Nash, Edward Bawden, Graham Sutherland and Edward McKnight Kauffer, iconic upholstery fabrics by Marion Dorn and architecture by Charles Holden for the extension of the Piccadilly line. Pick's awareness of urban design is still with us today and can be traced through to the architecture of the Jubilee Line, the Crossrail project and Thomas Heatherwick's new bus for London.


The stability of the circadian rhythm for mammals depends on the levels of serotonin and melatonin, neurohormones that signal for lightness and darkness, respectively. Disruption in the stability of neurohormones has been shown to be a critical factor in psychopathological disorders in humans. For example, altering levels of melatonin in utero through administration of melatonin or the melatonin receptor antagonist, luzindole, has been shown to cause changes in developmental growth and adult behavior in the male rat. Analysis of relative adult hippocampal gene expression with RT-PCR revealed differences in ARNTL expression that suggested abnormality in clock gene expression of the rats that were prenatally exposed to altered levels of melatonin. Differences in the degree of plasticity as suggested by previous behavior testing did not result in differences in gene expression for GABA receptors or NMDA receptors. Morevoer, growth associated protein 43, GAP-43, a protein that is necessary for neuronal growth cones as well as long term learning has been found to be critical for axon and presynaptic terminal formation and retention in other studies, but hippocampal gene expression in our study showed no significant alteration after exposure to various maternal melatonin levels. However, ARNTL is a key regulatory component of clock genes and the circadian cycle so that alterations in the expression of thi critical gene may lead to critical changes in neuronal growth and plasticity. Our data support the conclusion that the manipulation of maternal melatonin levels alters the brain development and the circadian cycles that may lead to physiological and behavioral abnormalities in adult offspring.


The late-time spectra of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are powerful probes of the underlying physics of their explosions. We investigate the late-time optical and near-infrared spectra of seven SNe Ia obtained at the VLT with XShooter at > 200 d after explosion. At these epochs, the inner Fe-rich ejecta can be studied. We use a line-fitting analysis to determine the relative line fluxes, velocity shifts, and line widths of prominent features contributing to the spectra ([Fe II], [Ni II], and [Co III]). By focusing on [Fe II] and [Ni II] emission lines in the ~7000-7500 A region of the spectrum, we find that the ratio of stable [Ni II] to mainly radioactively produced [Fe II] for most SNe Ia in the sample is consistent with Chandrasekharmass delayed-detonation explosion models, as well as sub-Chandrasekhar mass explosions that have metallicity values above solar. The mean measured Ni/Fe abundance of our sample is consistent with the solar value. The more highly ionized [Co III] emission lines are found to be more centrally located in the ejecta and have broader lines than the [Fe II] and [Ni II] features. Our analysis also strengthens previous results that SNe Ia with higher Si II velocities at maximum light preferentially display blueshifted [Fe II] 7155 A lines at late times. Our combined results lead us to speculate that the majority of normal SN Ia explosions produce ejecta distributions that deviate significantly from spherical symmetry.


Shah Alam has exhibited flourishing cul-de-sac courtyard neighbourhoods, which has stirred debatable interests. The objective of this paper is to continue the discourse in measurable analysis of sub-classifications. The paper assembles physical data with key characteristics that make-up the physical construct of a cul-de-sac courtyard by administering measurements, observations and checklists. The sub-classification processes led to preliminary key factors such as density, size, design forms and user implications. 18 cul-de-sac courtyards in Shah were catalogued and inventoried, elucidating its syntax. The database introduced potential in longitudinal research of the socio-spatial micro-neighbourhood unit, towards pragmatic applications in emergent design practices.
Keywords: Cul-de-sac syntax; cul-de-sac courtyards; micro-communities; design practices.
eISSN 2514-751X © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/aje-bs.v3i10.320


Third generation LIGO detectors will be limited by thermal noise at a low frequency band where gravitational wave signals are expected to exist. A large contribution to thermal noise is caused by internal friction of the mirror and suspension elements. In order to meet the quantum mechanical sensitivity limits of the detector, it will be necessary to further push down the contribution of thermal noise. Future detectors will require new materials with extremely high mechanical quality. Silicon at cryogenic temperatures shows the promise to provide the required mechanical quality due to its vanishing expansion coefficient at 120 K. The fluctuation dissipation theorem links thermal noise to mechanical dissipation which, in turn, motivates us to study the quality factor of silicon cantilevers. An experiment is designed to measure the mechanical quality of silicon flexures at cryogenic temperatures. Utilizing a ring-down method in vacuum, we determine the quality factor of a silicon cantilever at room temperatures. Q-factors of up to 2.84 • 10 5 were measured. Further experiments should be performed at cryogenic temperatures with etched samples to determine how the quality factor is impacted. In addition, an introduction to LIGO and the respective sources of noise is presented. 2 Figure 1: A picture of the LIGO Livingston site with the two perpendicular arms that extend for 4 kilometers.


A simulation program combined with experiment for hot water supply system using PV/T collector combined with Single Basin solar still is introduced in this paper. PV/T collector is known as a thermal - electrical co-generation device. Besides the ability to generate electricity, it also generates heat to heat water, serving water distillation at night. This combination not only helps to increase the electrical capacity of the solar cells, but also helps to increase the total distillation output of the day and night for the Single Basin solar still. Based on the energy balance equations at the components of the PV/T collector, the hot water tank and the components of the Single Basin solar still, a simulation program is set up using the MATLAB programming language with the Simulink tool. The simulation results are verified experimentally with high accuracy from 4.24% to 7.11%. The article demonstrates that the electrical capacity of solar cells increased by 8.6%, the average electrical efficiency and average energy efficiency of PV/T collector reached 15.1% and 36.2%, respectively. Besides, the distilled water output in one day increased by an average of 38.2% compared to the traditional Single Basin water distillation equipment. The simulation program in this study can be applied in different weather conditions, saving time and money for the implementation of projects combining PV/T collector and Single Basin solar still for arid localities and remote islands.


Chickens were inoculated with serotype 3 Pasteurella multocida cells or purified lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and their serologic responses to LPS and heat-stable antigens of 16 serotypes were compared. Chickens inoculated with cells or LPS had antibodies against LPS as determined by indirect hemagglutination tests; titers were highest 2-4 weeks after the initial inoculation. Sera from chickens inoculated with cells reacted with unheated and heated cell antigen in a tube-agglutination test. Sera from chickens inoculated with LPS reacted only with heated cell antigen in the tube-agglutination test. Nonspecific reactions with heat-stable antigens of other serotypes occurred in the gel-diffusion-precipitin test with sera from chickens inoculated with cells but not with sera from chickens inoculated with LPS. Antisera prepared against LPS could be used for serotyping field isolates of P. multocida.


The number of students and resource usage keep increasing each semester, education providers need to adopt cloud technology. To adopt cloud technology in education, the education provider needs to decide which cloud provider best suites. The attractiveness of cloud computing, which is the capability to run large applications on powerful, scalable hardware without needing to actually own or maintain this hardware is very important to education providers. This paper compared the three cloud providers' performance and decides which of them is the best for education. This paper compares the three giant cloud providers performance; Google, Windows Azure and Amazon Web Service. This paper used benchmarking tools to analyse factors to consider when testing for cloud performance. Different configurations of cloud instances were made on each cloud platform, keeping some factors at constant and varying a constant. The paper also reviews different learning methods in education and the best cloud provider's service that will be advantageous to each learning method KeywordsCloud Service Providers, Google, Windows Azure, Amazon Web Services, Cloud Technology.


Many organizations, especially in emerging economies, trace their origins to restructured state enterprises, and this study explores the implications of such origins for organizational adaptation to changing environmental conditions. We compare the activity choices and survival chances of spin-offs from restructured state enterprises with those of de novo organizations. We argue that prior shared experience of spin-offs' managers and employees facilitates the redeployment of routines developed in parent state enterprises. This should predispose spin-offs to pursue familiar activities, but this choice is not completely predetermined, and its survival implications depend on the environmental conditions. Our empirical findings suggest that spin-offs from restructured state enterprises are less likely to engage in new activities than de novo organizations. However, those restructuring spin-offs that do engage in new activities before the regulatory regime shift significantly improve their survival chances after the shift. Moreover, we find that the detrimental effect of the regulatory regime shift and the beneficial effect of engaging in new activities are stronger for spin-offs from restructured state enterprises than for de novo organizations.


A case is described of a uterine rupture resulting from a car accident occurring in a woman who was wearing a seat belt as generally recommended. The rupture was initially not recognised and only became apparent after attempts to induce labor which led to expulsion of the fetus into the abdominal cavity.


In order to substantiate new approaches to maintain the quality of life of elderly patients with cardiac pathology, the current study is made to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of technology, based on the principles of adaptive medicine, the method of interval hypoxic-hyperoxic training (IHHT). It was proved the use of IHHT technology in elderly people with HIBS in the prescribed regime leads to a substantial increase in the subjective perception of the quality of life, their psycho-emotional status, the number of attacks of angina pectoris, which was accompanied by an increase in the level of physical working capacity, exercise tolerance, normalization of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. Treatments by interval hypoxic-hyperoxic training are well tolerated, do not cause side effects; when developing optimal individualized regimens' principles IHHT can be used in the complex rehabilitation of elderly patients with cardiac and co-morbid pathology.


This paper describes the Natural Language Processing (NLP) component of an e-mail monitoring product called Assentor®. Assentor monitors electronic correspondence for brokerage firms. It uses pattern-matching-based information extraction technology to find and quarantine e-mail messages that indicate, among others, customer complaints, insider trading, stock hyping, hard-pressure sales tactics, and firm preservation issues such as jokes and obscenities. This paper presents a quantitative evaluation of applying pattern matching vs. keyword-based searching to e-mail monitoring. Our evaluation shows that pattern matching performs significantly better than keyword-based searching both in terms of recall (false negatives) and precision (false positives).


This paper deals with the procedure of calculating the vibration of a claw-pole generator. The stimulating forces of magnetic origin are calculated for several speeds. For the calculation of the displacements, the total generator system (stator plates with windings and housing) is taken into account. The displacement magnitude of the housing surface mainly causes the audible noise. The procedure makes it possible to ascertain the vibratory condition of an electrical machine just by means of the design and material data. Some results of stator vibration are presented and compared with measurements.


Three major water masses from the Oyashio, Kuroshio, and Tsugaru Warm Current merge in the Northwestern Pacific, resulting in highly variable and complicated oceanographic conditions. In this study, we report preliminary results of our 2017 summer field campaign focusing on mixing processes at the front between the Oyashio and the Tsugaru Warm Current (O-T) by using the R/V Wakataka-maru (692t equipped with a shipboard 38 kHz ADCP, a turbulence profiler with a nitrate sensor attached, and Underway-CTD system) and Slocum G2 Glider (equipped with a turbulence sensor, ADCP, CTD and bio-optical sensors). We conducted zigzag surveys with the both platforms crossing the O-T front from the merging area: off the Cape Erimo to the downstream: off Sanriku. The observed hydrographic data indicate multiple intrusions at different layers across the O-T front. We will discuss the mixing processes with the observed turbulence data to reveal the detailed and continuous degenerative processes, which can exchange water properties (heat, salt, nutrients and etc.) between the two water masses.


Background Exercise-based interventions have consistently been associated with a reduction in injury rates in sports such as football. Although the injury burden in rugby union ('rugby') is high, such interventions have not been evaluated in rugby. Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of the BokSmart Safe Six on (i) the injury risk profile and burden in junior rugby players in South Africa, and (ii) the injury prevention behavioural determinants of the coaches of these players. Design A pragmatic cluster-randomised controlled trial, with no blinding of groups. Setting Male youth rugby players from two geographically-separated locations in South Africa over the 2017 rugby playing season. Patients (or Participants) Youth rugby players (14–16 year old) (n=160 players in the intervention group; n=160 in the control group) will be recruited from the Western Cape Schools Premier Division. This sample size provides sufficient power to detect meaningful differences. Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) The teams will be randomly allocated to groups that either: (i) have the BokSmart Safe Six coach-delivered exercise intervention in their warm-up (experimental group), or (ii) continue with their usual warm-up (control group). Injury risk profiles will be assessed on all players through musculoskeletal screening performed at the beginning, middle and end of the trial. Epidemiological measurements include injury surveillance at all matches and training sessions, and exposure to the various warm-up exercises (including BokSmart Safe Six exercises). Behavioural determinants of coaches will be assessed before and after the intervention through standardised theory of planned behaviour questionnaires and focus groups. Main Outcome Measurements Comparison in injury risk profiles and burden of injury between the intervention and control groups. Changes in the behavioural determinants of coaches.


Increasing physical activity may help teens reduce or quit smoking, according to a study funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers randomized 233 teens from 19 West Virginia high schools to receive a brief smoking cessation intervention, the Not-On-Tobacco (N-O-T) teen cessation program, or N-O-T plus a physical activity intervention. The researchers previously published results from the study that suggested those in the N-O-T plus physical activity group were more likely to quit smoking. But the new results suggest that teens in all groups who increased their physical activity levels were more likely than those who did not increase their activity levels to reduce or quit smoking. In fact, all 3 groups of teens increased their physical activity, and there was no significant difference in activity levels between groups.


We apply two distinct nonlinear techniques, kur- tosis and phase coherence index, to analyze the modulus of interplanetary magnetic field data |B| measured by Cluster and ACE spacecraft from 1 to 3 February 2002. High de- gree of phase synchronization is found across a wide range of time scales, from 1 s to 10 4 s, in the magnetic field fluctua- tions, both in the shocked solar wind upstream of Earth's bow shock and in the unshocked ambient solar wind at the L1 La- grangian point. This is the first direct measurement of phase coherence in the ambient solar wind turbulence. We show that phase synchronization related to nonlinear multiscale in- teractions is the origin of the departure from Gaussianity in the intermittent magnetic field turbulence. In particular, we demonstrate that at small scales near the spectral break the intermittency level of Cluster is lower than ACE, which may be a signature of the reflected ions from the shock.


The difficulties encountered in the evaluation of a fungicidal agent were well discussed recently by Goldman and his co-workers.1These authors pointed out that it is not possible to observe and control outpatients critically and frequently enough and that yet, if studies are carried out on hospital patients, the rest in bed creates artificial conditions "not similar to actual conditions under which the infection is usually acquired or aggravated or treated." This study is based exclusively on outpatients. We felt that it was easier to surmount the shortcomings of control of such patients than to account for the beneficial effect of rest in bed, the extent of which is an unpredictable factor, making all conclusions uncertain. In contrast to the studies made by Goldman and his associates, in this study only patients proved to have a fungous infection by scraping and/or culture were included. It is our firm conviction


From the Publisher:
This book describes the technical architecture and components that can be integrated in order to provide a comprehensive and robust infrastructure on which to build successful e-Business. It is essential reading for technical and functional team leaders and strategists, who analyse the options, limitations and possibilities for new technology and place them alongside the business requirements. Whyte intends to broaden the knowledge of specialists in computing, telecommunications, internet and electronic business. He also introduces the underlying business and technical principals of e business and how they interrelate to the undergraduates and postgraduate level at technical business units. · Covers relevant and ever increasingly important issues such as security and business data processing. · Bridges the gap between the fundamentals and the broader business models of e-business · Detailed coverage of the functional architectures and technology · Includes the technologies and techniques of on-line customer service, support and maintenance The combination of both strategic and technical information in this text make it a valuable reference resource for telecommunication managers, e-business project leaders and final year and postgraduate students in computer science, electrical engineering and telecommunication courses and technical business units.


In their day-to-day lives, people naturally understand and operate in a three dimensional world. Curiously, though, they only sense 2D projections of it. The seemingly e ortless act of inferring 3D from 2D observations is the result of complex mechanisms that are still quite far from being resolved. For many years, this task has been considered the primary role of visual processing. Pioneers in the elds of arti cial intelligence and computer vision set out to recover a 3D representation of visible scenes which could then be used to recognize objects and reason about the world. However, the general problem of recovering 3D from 2D imagery and the many steps involved 1 require a signi cant understanding of how the mind works, from issues of learning to intelligent behavior. Thus, the eld is plagued by several of the same hurdles that have occupied AI researchers for many years. A tractable and more theoretically well-posed problem is the speci c computation of 3D geometry from2D geometry or Structure-fromMotion (SfM).


OBJECTIVE
To report a case of proximal occlusion of 2 major cerebral vessels associated with moyamoya network circulation that manifested by spontaneous intraventricular hemorrhage.

DESIGN
Case report.

PATIENT AND RESULTS
A 36-year-old Syrian man presented with symptoms of sudden-onset headache, neck stiffness, and confusion. The computed tomography scan of his brain showed intraventricular bleeding, and the subsequent 4 vessel angiographies revealed occlusion of the left middle and anterior cerebral arteries with moyamoya appearance in the terminal branches. The coagulation profile showed the presence of heterozygous factor V Leiden mutation. The patient was treated conservatively until resolution of his blood clot, and later he was started on oral anticoagulation.

CONCLUSION
Factor V Leiden mutation may cause large cerebral vessel occlusion with moyamoya syndrome in adults.


Abstract. The Saigon River system is one of the largest resources contributing water supply for domestic and industrial fields in the Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong Province where the drought issue is occurring at downstream area in recent years [1]. To manage the water resources in Saigon Basin effectively, the groundwater and river interaction parameter needs to be assessed systematically. However, in the past researches, the parameters seem to be less described with full understandings. In this study, a groundwater modeling of the main stream of Saigon River was applied to analyze groundwater and river interaction parameter along the river. The interaction layer was defined as a combined layer by materials of riverbed and materials of aquitard or aquifer. The values of conductance, through groundwater model calibration by piezometric heads during 2000 to 2007 at three cross-sections in Saigon River, were used to estimate the interaction parameter (KiM) at correlative cross-section. A function of interaction parameter with ratio of wetted length (Rw) was developed to estimate interaction parameter at each crosssection along Saigon River. When river cross-sections has no penetration to the aquifer and the materials of interaction layer consists of materials of riverbed and aquitard, the value of interactions is equal to 0.0003 d-1. In the other hand, the value will be reach to 0.254 d-1 when river cross-section has fully penetration to the aquifer. The interaction parameter function developed was applied to investigate the flow in and out between river and aquifer in the study area. In the upper part of Saigon River, river gained water from inflow of groundwater through riverbed (river gain) and lost water to groundwater (river loss) by outflow through the riverbed in the lower part during 2000 to 2007 and the river recharge to the first aquifer supplies to the second aquifer to supplement the aquifer storage discharged from the pumping.


Abstract In this paper we explore simulated responses of electromagnetic (EM) signals relative to in situ field surveys and quantify the effects that different values of conductivity in sea ice have on the EM fields. We compute EM responses of ice types with a three-dimensional (3-D) finite-volume discretization of Maxwell's equations and present 2-D sliced visualizations of their associated EM fields at discrete frequencies. Several interesting observations result: First, since the simulator computes the fields everywhere, each gridcell acts as a receiver within the model volume, and captures the complete, coupled interactions between air, snow, sea ice and sea water as a function of their conductivity; second, visualizations demonstrate how 1-D approximations near deformed ice features are violated. But the most important new finding is that changes in conductivity affect EM field response by modifying the magnitude and spatial patterns (i.e. footprint size and shape) of current density and magnetic fields. These effects are demonstrated through a visual feature we define as 'null lines'. Null line shape is affected by changes in conductivity near material boundaries as well as transmitter location. Our results encourage the use of null lines as a planning tool for better ground-truth field measurements near deformed ice types.


The aim of the article is to answer two research questions concerning the influence of organizational factors and shape of project portfolio on the content and scope, as well as on the stakeholders engagement in project planning. The research strategy included a questionnaire-based method. The respondents were representatives of the chosen companies located in Poland, from varied types of industries. The key research finding is that most frequently addressed areas of project planning are those of the iron-triangle of project constraints. There is still lack of understanding for communication, risk and quality planning in projects, which is consonant with recent studies of maturity in project management areas. There are significant differences between industries in terms of areas of project planning. Power engineering seems to be more mature in terms of more frequent practices of planning the project schedule, resources and risk. The research showed a number of significant correlations between components of project planning and both organizational and project portfolio factors, which justifies the statement that those factors can be seen as determinants of project planning practices.


Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide that is used globally to combat the spread of weeds among crops. Not all countries around the world have been using the herbicide. For example, island countries such as Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis do not use the herbicide on their crops. However, St. Kitts and Nevis imports food and other agricultural products from around the world, leading to the hypothesis that glyphosate is contaminating the soil through those imported products. The aim of this research project was to determine if glyphosate is present in the island country of St. Kitts and Nevis. A field test that will provide a rapid yes/no indication of the presence of glyphosate in sand samples on the islands and in food samples entering St. Kitts and Nevis was developed. Various models of contamination were studied, and a model experiment was set up one simulate possible contamination scenario. A model experiment was conducted simulating rainwater washing glyphosate from food scraps into the surrounding area. Tomatoes were chosen to simulate the food scraps and were tested for glyphosate contamination. After conducting the model experiment, the sand underneath the food scraps as well as the water runoff were tested for glyphosate. From the experiment, a glyphosate concentration of 322.7 ppm was calculated in the internal tomato. Also from the raindrop model experiment, 51.9 ppm glyphosate was detected in the sand samples and 17.0 ppm glyphosate was detected in the collected runoff water. Therefore, since glyphosate was recovered in both areas tested in the raindrop experiment, it proves that glyphosate can be introduced into the environment through imported foods contaminated with glyphosate. test soil vivo degradation


The aim of the present study was to compare the severity of asthma in children and adults living in the same home environments. In winter 1991 and 1992, we studied two large random samples of children living in two different regions; and, three months later, we conducted a study of adults who lived with enrolled children. A total of 805 children and 814 adults attended in Lismore, and 850 children and 711 adults in Wagga Wagga. Questionnaires were used to measure symptom history, histamine inhalation challenge to measure airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and skin-prick tests to measure allergy. There was a higher prevalence of asthma in children than in adults: recent wheeze was 1.5 times higher; asthma medication use was 1.5 times higher; diagnosed asthma was 1.6 times higher; and AHR was two times higher. Current asthma (AHR and recent wheeze) was 9.5-11.3% in children and 5.4-5.6% in adults. These differences were statistically significant. In both regions, airway responsiveness was more severe in children who were sensitized to common allergens than in similarly sensitized adults. These results suggests that airways can develop protective mechanisms with age, or that recent environmental changes in factors such as allergen levels, diet or treatment practices have led to immunological changes and to increased airway responsiveness in this generation of children.


To investigate the maternal plane of nutrition and role of Se yeast on muscle Se concentration, plasma glutathione peroxidase (Gsh-Px) activity, and colostrum Se concentration in mares and their foals, 28 Quarter Horse mares (465 to 612 kg of BW, and 6 to 19 yr of age) were used in a study with a randomized complete block design. Mares were blocked by expected foaling date and randomly assigned to dietary treatments within blocks. Dietary treatments were arranged as a 2 x 2 factorial with 2 planes of nutrition, pasture or pasture + grain mix (fed at 0.75% of BW on an as-fed basis) and 2 concentrations of Se yeast supplementation (0 or 0.3 mg/kg of DMI), resulting in 4 treatments: pasture, pasture + grain mix, pasture + grain mix + Se, or pasture + Se. Mares fed diets of pasture and pasture + Se received approximately 100% of the calculated NRC (2007) DE requirements, whereas mares fed diets of pasture + grain mix and pasture + grain mix + Se received 120%. Selenium supplementation began 110 d before the estimated foaling date and treatments were terminated at parturition. Blood and muscle (biopsy) samples were collected on d 0 and then every 14 or 28 d, respectively, thereafter until parturition. Additionally, BW, BCS, and rump fat (RF) were recorded every 14 d. At parturition, colostrum, foal plasma, and foal muscle samples were collected and sampling continued every 14 d for plasma and every 28 d for muscle until d 56. Mare BW, BCS, and RF were affected by plane of nutrition (P <or= 0.02), but not by Se supplementation. Mares fed the grain mix had greater (P < 0.05) BW, BCS, and RF measurements throughout the experiment. Mare plasma, muscle, and colostrum Se concentrations were greater (P < 0.01) in mares fed Se. Mares fed the grain mix had greater plasma Se (P = 0.02) than mares on pasture alone. Mare and foal plasma Gsh-Px concentrations were not affected by treatment. Foal plasma and muscle Se concentrations were greater when dams were fed the supplemental grain mix (P = 0.04 and 0.02, respectively) and supplemental Se (P < 0.001). Results indicated that maternal plane of nutrition and Se supplementation affected mare and foal plasma, muscle, and colostrum Se concentrations, but not Gsh-Px activity.


BACKGROUND
Chronic ethanol abuse results in deleterious behavioral responses such as tolerance, dependence, reinforcement, sensitization, and craving. The objective of this research was to identify transcripts that are differentially regulated in ethanol-treated cortical neurons compared with controls by using a pathway-focused complementary DNA microarray.

METHODS
Cortical neurons were isolated from postconception day 14 C57BL/6 mouse fetuses and cultured according to a standard protocol. The cortical neuronal cells were treated with 100 mM ethanol for five consecutive days with a change of media every day. A homeostatic pathway-focused microarray consisting of 638 sequence-verified genes was used to measure transcripts differentially regulated in four ethanol-treated cortical neuron samples and four control samples. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to verify the mRNA expression levels of genes of interest detected from the microarray experiments.

RESULTS
We identified 56 down-regulated and 10 up-regulated genes in ethanol-treated cortical neurons relative to untreated controls at a 5% false-discovery rate. The expression of many genes involved in ubiquitin-proteasome and protein synthesis was decreased by ethanol, including ubiquitin B, ubiquitin-like 3, ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E3A, 20S proteasome alpha- and beta-subunits, and members of the ribosomal proteins. Furthermore, the mRNA expression of heat shock proteins, myristoylated alanine-rich protein kinase C substrate, phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10, and FK506 binding protein rapamycin-associated protein (FKBP) (mTOR) was also decreased in ethanol-treated cortical neurons. Quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis of genes involved in the ubiquitin-proteasome cascade revealed a down-regulation of these genes, thereby corroborating our microarray results.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that chronic ethanol treatment of cortical neurons resulted in decreased mRNA expression of genes involving the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and ribosomal proteins together with mTOR expression leading to disruption of protein degradation mechanism and impairment of protein synthesis machinery.


While the reported incidence of heroin use in the UK has reduced, related hospital admissions and associated mortality have continued to increase. Prompt access to treatment (opiate replacement therapy (ORT) and counselling support) have been shown to reduce risk and offer clients the optimal route to recovery. The Specialist Drug and Alcohol Recovery Service (Osprey House) within National Health Service Highland had lengthy delays from referral to commencing ORT (median wait 56 days), which this project aimed to reduce. A rapid process improvement workshop (RPIW) was undertaken to redesign the patient pathway from referral to recovery. The RPIW consisted of three phases: phase I, planning and preparation (12 weeks before the workshop week); phase II, the workshop week; and phase III, the follow-up. Metrics included the lead time from referral to initiating ORT and other process measures at baseline, and then repeated at 30, 60, 90 and 180 days, respectively. Additionally, data were routinely collected on the percentage of clients treated within 3 weeks, as was weekly data on the new process of screening clients within 1 day of referral. Multiple lean tools and techniques, including Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles, were used to test and implement new ways of working. Results at 180 days found the median time from referral to initiating ORT improved from a baseline of 56 to 21 days (63% improvement), room usage improved from 49% to 65% (32% increase) and standard work improved from level 1 to level 3. Increases in the number of clients treated within 3 weeks were demonstrated. Other metrics remained static or reported fluctuations too inconsistent to claim improvement at this point. By applying the Lean principles of removing waste and increasing value, we have redesigned our service, reducing the length of time clients with drug problems wait from referral to commencing ORT.


Our research goal is to investigate the FTTX (Fiber-to-the Home/Premises/Curb) passive optical network (PON) for the deployment of BISAN (Broadband Internet Subscriber Access Network) to exploit the opportunities of optical fiber enabled technologies as well as of passive switching equipment. Indeed, the deployment of FTTX PON is the most
OPEX-friendly scenario, because it allows for completely passive access networks through minimizing the number of active components in the network. Previously, most FTTX PON
architectures are designed based on the principle of either time division multiplexing (TDM) technology or wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. We focus on designing the best possible architectures of FTTX PON, specifically hybrid PONs, which embraces both TDM and WDM technology. A hybrid PON architecture is very efficient as it is not limited to any specific PON technology, rather it is flexible enough to deploy TDM/WDM technology depending on the type (i.e unicast/multicast) and amount of traffic demand of the end-users. The advantages of a hybrid PON are of two folds: (i) it can offer increased data rate to each user by employing WDM technology, (ii) it can provide flexible bandwidth utilization by employing TDM technology.
In this thesis, we concentrate on determining the optimized covering of a geographical area by a set of cost-effective hybrid PONs. We also focus on the greenfield deployment of a
single hybrid PON. It should be worthy to mention that while investigating the deployment of hybrid PONs, the research community around the world considers the specifications of either the physical layer or the optical layer. But an efficient planning for PON deployment
should take into account the constraints of the physical and optical layers in order that both layers can work together harmoniously. We concentrate our research on the network dimensioning and the selection as well as the placement of the switching equipment in hybrid PONs with the intention of considering the constraints of both physical and optical layers.
We determine the layout of an optimized PON architecture while provisioning wavelengths in a hybrid PON. We also propose to select the switching equipment depending on the type (unicast/multicast) of traffic demand. Finally, we determine the best set of hybrid PONs along with their cascading architecture, type and location of their switching equipment while satisfying the network design constraints such as the number of output ports of the
switching equipment and maximum allowed signal power loss experienced at each end user's premises.
In this thesis, we propose two novel schemes for the greenfield deployment of a single hybrid PON. The first scheme consists of two phases in which a heuristic algorithm and a novel column generation (CG) based integer linear programming (ILP) optimization model are proposed in the 1st and 2nd phase respectively. In the second scheme, a novel integrated CG based ILP cross layer optimization model is proposed for the designing of a single hybrid
PON.
We also propose two novel schemes to deal with the greenfield deployment of multiple hybrid PONs in a given geographical area. These two schemes determine the best set of cost-effective hybrid PONs in order to serve all the end users in a given neighborhood.
The first scheme executes in four phases in which two heuristic algorithms, a CG based ILP model and an ILP optimization model are proposed in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th phase respectively. In the second scheme, an ILP model as well as a CG based ILP model, another ILP model as well as another CG based ILP model, a CG based ILP model and an ILP optimization model are proposed during four consecutive phases.
Our proposed scheme can optimize the design of a set of hybrid PONs covering a given geographic area as well as the selection of the best cascading architecture 1/2/mixedstage)
for each selected PON. It minimizes the overall network deployment cost based on the location of the OLT and the ONUs while granting all traffic demands. The scheme
emphasizes on the optimum placement of equipment in a hybrid PON infrastructure due to the critical dependency between the network performances and a proper deployment of
its equipment, which, in turn depends on the locations of the users. It is a quite powerful scheme as it can handle data instances with up to several thousands ONUs. On the basis of the computational results, the proposed scheme leads to an efficient automated tool for network design, planning, and performance evaluation which can be beneficial for the network designers.


We studied the natural history as well as the conservation status of the first-known population of Polygala balansae in Europe (Granada, SE Spain). In the study area, we located only one population occupying a small patch of 1920 m2, between 120 and 160 m a.s.l., with 246 mature individuals. The species is classified as Critically Endangered (CR), under the following criteria: severely fragmented, inferred continuous decline, small population size, and continuing decline inferred from the number mature individuals. The main threats over the population are: spreading subtropical tree-crops and encroachment of human settlements for tourist purposes, plus natural causes (drought, wild or human-mediated fire, limited dispersal, poor recruitment/ reproduction/regeneration, high juvenile mortality, low densities and restricted range). Finally, passive and active conservation measures are proposed in order to guarantee the survival of the species.


Applications of density functional theory (DFT) calculations to organic chemistry are shown, beginning with geometry optimization and the calculation of vibrational frequencies, infrared (IR) intensities, and thermodynamic properties. The isotropic chemical shielding values and anisotropies relevant to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can be calculated using gauge-invariant atomic orbitals (GIAOs); the calculation of spin-spin couplings is possible but time-consuming. For free radicals, hyperfine couplings and g tensors pertaining to EPR can be obtained. Regarding UV/vis spectra, wavelengths and oscillator strengths can be calculated by using a time-dependent Hamiltonian. In addition to gas-phase acidities, approximate pKa values can be obtained, provided that solvation is taken into account. Several sets of substituent parameters have been calculated: Hammett σ and σ parameters and inductive and mesomeric effects. Regarding reaction mechanisms, geometries and energies of intermediates and transition structures have been calculated for pericyclic reactions, nucleophilic aliphatic substitutions, electrophilic aromatic substitutions, additions, and eliminations.


Abstract Climate change has traditionally played a secondary role in the literature behind eustasy and tectonics, with eustasy regarded as the main controlling factor in development of sedimentary sequences. Here, we emphasize the role of the interaction of climate-modulated sediment supply and sea-level change, particularly its potential impact on sequence development. We discuss a case history from the lower–middle Pleistocene of the highly subsiding Valle di Manche shelf area (Crotone Basin, Calabria, southern Italy), where a stack of cyclothems spanning from late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 22 to full MIS 18 preserves a full record of eustatic cycles, glacials included. Tectonics certainly played a critical role in the creation of local accommodation, ultimately controlling the preservation of an almost complete sedimentary record. However, its role as a factor controlling the sediment flux on Milankovian scale can be ruled out. Direct comparisons between data concerning δ18O, pollen, and physical stratigraphy demonstrate that climate-induced changes in sediment load caused significant deviations from the predicted timing and magnitude of the responses to sea-level changes in the traditional sequence model. A phase lag occurred in the timing of systems tracts, leading to a significant delay of one-quarter of a sea-level cycle. Specifically, climate-driven sediment discharge during sea-level rise triggered progradation of shelf-margin wedges, which should thus be considered lowstand in their architecture and "transgressive" in their timing. This was generated by a shift toward drier conditions, leading to extensive deforestation and consequent lowering of the threshold for slope erosion and mass-wasting processes in the source area. Due to the reduced extent of the transfer zone, sedimentary signals were conveyed rapidly from source to sink with little apparent attenuation, suggesting that the Milankovitch-scale climate changes can lead to rapid source-to-sink responses on tectonically active margins fed by high-gradient, short-headed streams. The studied case history demonstrates that the impact of Milankovitch-scale climatic forcing on sediment supply in an icehouse world can be more supluential than sediment redistribution due to corresponding sea-level fluctuations. These findings emphasize that a reconstruction of the timing of systems-tract development with respect to sea-level changes based on a sequence-stratigraphic approach may be misleading, whenever independent chronological and climatic constraints are not available.


When someone open bank account at PT. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk, which called as consumer, he was given an offer if he was prepared to open ATM card as supporting transaction activity in ATM machine (Self Help Cash Platform). ATM card which given to consumer have various function, among other as means to puling cash, balance information, and as means to make purchasing transaction or paying a claim through the available ATM.
The research has aimed to analyze the Consumer Protection toward a bank, especially the consumer from PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk that experience a complaint on the system using electronic that is making transaction through ATM. Since being effective the Indonesia Bank Regulation, Number :7/7/PBI/2005 on complaint settlement from consumer that continued by Central Office of Bank Rakyat Indonesia with issuing letter from BRI Bank Director number : B.534-OPS/POP/09/2005 date September 9th 2005 about Instruction on implementation of consumer complaint settlement and being related to Law Number 8, 1999 on the Consumer Protection of State Sheet of RI 1999 Number 42.
Using Normative Law research found that in practice the settlement of its consumer complaint was still too long being settled, can not fulfill what expected from being effective the Indonesia Bank Regulation on Complaint Settlement from its consumer. It is expected that Indonesia Bank did not underestimate the complaint from its consumer, so that the consumer felt the problem they complained was responded quickly and being settled efficient and effectively, so it's created the consumer confidence to ban and the consumer more felt dependent on the bank.
The result has purposed to analysis performed by PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia on settling its consumer complaint, procedures that can be taken to settle the complaint, and found that the consumer did not take various effort in the available law choice since of the various constraints encountered, that is, the consumer which were not understood toward Indonesia Bank Regulation, its expensive to propose the indictment as civil case, or no courage to propose the indictment in civil case since has negative opinion to the existing law upholder apparatus.


A tunable filter that can be integrated into an all-in-fibre Raman probe for remote in vivo measurements has been demonstrated. By exploiting the photonic bandgap effect in a filled solid-core photonic crystal fibre, researchers from Denmark have created a Rayleigh-rejection filter that can be tuned to operate at different wavelengths by simply heating the filling material.Anna Chiara Brunetti from the Department of Photonics Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), who carried out the experimental work, said:"This work is part of a PhD project aiming at the development of an all-in-fibre Raman probe for real-time monitoring of yeast fermentation processes. The device will be integrated in a bioreactor currently under development at the department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, DTU. In general though, this device is suitable for all applications where a compact, tunable, low-loss and easy to operate probe is required, including lab-on-a-chip Raman devices."


Programmable metallization cell (PMC) memory is based on the electrochemical control of nanoscale quantities of metal in thin films of solid electrolyte. We investigate the nature of thin films formed by the photo-dissolution of Ag into Ge-Se-Te glasses for use in programmable metallization cell devices. Glassy alloys of a-Ge25Se75-xTex(x = 0, 25) are prepared by well known melt-quenching technique. Thin films of a-Ge25Se75-xTex(x = 0, 25) glassy alloys are evaporated by vacuum evaporation technique at ~10-6 torr on glass substrate at room temperature. Optical properties in this study concerns photo-diffusion of Ag on Ag-doped Ge-Se-Te electrolytes. With these promising properties, the composition a-Ge25Se75-xTex(x = 0, 25) is recommended as a potential candidate for PMC-RAM.


A factor secreted by astrocytes is identified that controls the barrier characteristics of central nervous system microvascular endothelial cells. Endothelial cells lining the microvasculature of the vertebrate central nervous system (CNS) help to form a protective physical barrier that maintains neural homeostasis in the brain. This blood-brain barrier (BBB) blocks uncontrolled transcellular passage of molecules across the microvasculature and also inhibits paracellular diffusion of solutes by a network of intercellular junctional complexes that tightly connect the endothelial cells. However, to meet the high metabolic needs of the CNS tissue, efficient transport of nutrients from the blood into the CNS and rapid efflux of toxic metabolites out of the CNS is ensured by the expression of unique receptors and transporters unique to these endothelial cells. On page 1727 of this issue, Alvarez et al. (1) report that CNS astrocytes secrete the glycoprotein Sonic hedgehog (Shh) to induce and maintain the BBB and also to limit access of the immune system to the CNS during mammalian embryogenesis and adulthood (2).


Access to housing is a crucial issue worldwide. It is still under discussion whether collaborative economy is enhancing or, on the contrary, constraining access. In this context, the concept of 'collaborative housing' (collaborative economy applied to the funding, access and organisation of housing) arises to address a range of situations that might potentially help people to access housing, such as co-housing or the so-called 'intermediate tenures'. Disintermediation through blockchain technology, and the resultant effect of a reduction in the transaction costs of access to housing, is one of those trends regarding collaborative housing. Accordingly, the adaptation of the disintermediation mechanism to the real estate conveyance and land registry, as in many other sectors of the collaborative economy, is timely. This can be achieved by exploring the potential of this mechanism in enhancing traditional methods of this sector through possible technological solutions. This paper presents a preliminary discussion on the different types of collaborative housing and the potentials of the blockchain technology to facilitate access to housing in relation to real estate conveyancing and registration.