SUMMARY The photodynamic effect of polycyclic hydrocarbons was studied in Neurospora crassa and tissue culture cells of the Chinese hamster. The polycyclic hydrocarbons were dissolved in dimethylformamide and added to the treatment solution or medium. Other solvents, such as dimethyl sulfoxide and bovine serum, quenched the photodynamic effect of 3,4-benzpyrene and could not be used. Conidia from a dikaryon of Neurospora were used in the experiments. The carcinogenic activity of the poly cyclic hydrocarbons was expressed by Iball's index. The polycyclic hydrocarbons with the most potent carcino genic activity, with some exceptions, were also the com pounds with the highest photodynamic effect on the Neurospora conidia and on cells from the Chinese ham ster cultures. By plating the conidia on different me dium, it was possible to distinguish between nuclear and cytoplasmic inactivation. The results from Neurospora indicated that the inactivation was either cytoplasmic or multihit in the nuclei.


The goal of this work is to detect new spoken terms defined by users. While most previous works address Keyword Spotting (KWS) as a closed-set classification problem, this limits their transferability to unseen terms. The ability to define custom keywords has advantages in terms of user experience.In this paper, we propose a metric learning-based training strategy for user-defined keyword spotting. In particular, we make the following contributions: (1) we construct a large-scale keyword dataset with an existing speech corpus and propose a filtering method to remove data that degrade model training; (2) we propose a metric learning-based two-stage training strategy, and demonstrate that the proposed method improves the performance on the user-defined keyword spotting task by enriching their representations; (3) to facilitate the fair comparison in the user-defined KWS field, we propose unified evaluation protocol and metrics.Our proposed system does not require an incremental training on the user-defined keywords, and outperforms previous works by a significant margin on the Google Speech Commands dataset using the proposed as well as the existing metrics.


A restriction-site analysis of chloroplast DNA from 44 species, representing 19 genera and all six subfamilies of the Crassulaceae was conducted using 12 restriction endonucleases. A total of 969 variable sites was detected, 608 of which were phylogenetically informative and used in parsimony analysis. Estimated values of nucleotide sequence divergence were used to construct a distance tree by the neighbor-joining method. Maximum sequence divergence in the family was ~7%. Different tree inference methods yielded only moderately different topologies. The amount of support for the monophyletic groups obtained in the Wagner parsimony analysis was evaluated by bootstrap and decay analysis. There is very strong support for a basal division of the family, which separates the monophyletic subfamily Crassuloideae from all other taxa. Four of the six traditionally recognized subfamilies are indicated to be polyphyletic. These include the Cotyledonoideae, Sempervivoideae, Sedoideae, and Echeverioideae. The Kalanchoideae and the genera Cotyledon and Adromischus exhibit low levels of cpDNA sequence divergence relative to one another, suggesting a relatively recent radiation. The genera Sedum and Rosularia are indicated to be polyphyletic. Sedum comprises sister taxa of most of the other genera of the family.


the unknown correspondences of measurements and targets, referred to as data association, is one of the main challenges of multi-target tracking. Each new measurement received could be the continuation of some previously detected target, the first detection of a new target or a false alarm. Tracking 3D cuboids, is particularly difficult due to the high amount of data, which can include erroneous or noisy information coming from sensors, that can lead to false measurements, detections from an unknown number of objects which may not be consistent over frames or varying object properties like dimension and orientation. In the self-driving car context, the target tracking module holds an important role due to the fact that the ego vehicle has to make predictions regarding the position and velocity of the surrounding objects in the next time epoch, plan for actions and make the correct decisions. To tackle the above mentioned problems and other issues coming from the self-driving car processing pipeline we propose three original contributions: 1) designing a novel affinity measurement function to associate measurements and targets using multiple types of features coming from LIDAR and camera, 2) a context aware descriptor for 3D objects that improves the data association process, 3) a framework that includes a module for tracking dimensions and orientation of objects. The implemented solution runs in real time and experiments that were performed on real world urban scenarios prove that the presented method is effective and robust even in a highly dynamic environment.


The dynamic and complex nature of care provision predisposes healthcare workers to stress, including physical, emotional, or psychological fatigue due to individual, interpersonal, or organizational factors. We conducted a convergent mixed-methods study with maternity providers to understand their sources of stress and coping mechanisms they adopt. Data were collected in Migori County in western Kenya utilizing quantitative surveys with n=101 maternity providers and in-depth interviews with a subset of n=31 providers. We conducted descriptive analyses for the quantitative data. For qualitative data, we conducted thematic analysis, where codes were deductively developed from interview guides, iteratively refined based on emergent data, and applied by a team of five researchers using Dedoose software. Code queries were then analysed to identify themes and organized using the socioecological (SE) framework. Providers reported stress due to high workloads (61%); lack of supplies (37%), poor salary (32%), attitudes of colleagues and superiors (25%), attitudes of patients (21%), and adverse outcomes (16%). Themes from the qualitative analysis mirrored the quantitative analysis with more detailed information on the factors contributing to each and how these sources of stress affect providers and patient outcomes. Coping mechanisms adopted by providers are captured under three themes: addressing stress by oneself, reaching out to others, and seeking help from a higher power. Findings underscore the need to address organizational, interpersonal, and individual level stressors. Strategies are needed to support staff retention, provide adequate resources and incentives for providers, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Interventions should support and leverage the positive coping mechanisms identified.


Hydrogenation of GaAs1−xNx and GaP1−xNx epilayers grown on GaAs(001) and GaP(001) surfaces, respectively, is known to passivate the electronic activity of nitrogen through the formation of specific nitrogen-hydrogen complexes. The same epilayers also undergo a strain reversal from tensile (as grown) to compressive (fully hydrogenated). The authors show that the extent of strain reversal is determined exclusively by the nitrogen concentration. By performing in situ high resolution x-ray diffraction measurements during annealing and photoluminescence studies, the authors demonstrate that the lattice properties of fully hydrogenated GaAs1−xNx are ruled by a H complex, which is different and less stable than that responsible for electronic passivation of nitrogen in GaAs1−xNx.


Sobey, Christopher G., Donald D. Heistad, and Frank M. Faraci. Potassium channels mediate dilatation of cerebral arterioles in response to arachidonate. Am. J. Physiol. 275 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 44): H1606–H1612, 1998.—We tested the hypothesis that cerebral vasodilatation in response to arachidonate is dependent on activation of cyclooxygenase and cytochrome P-450 pathways and formation of endogenous reactive oxygen species and is mediated by activation of potassium channels. The diameter of cerebral arterioles was measured using cranial windows in anesthetized rats. Under control conditions [baseline diameter 5 45 6 1 μm (mean 6 SE)], arachidonate (1–100 μM) and papaverine (10–50 μM) produced concentration-dependent vasodilatation. Cerebral vasodilator responses to arachidonate, but not papaverine, were abolished during topical application of indomethacin (10 μM, an inhibitor of cyclooxygenase) or catalase (100 U/ml, which inactivates hydrogen peroxide). In contrast, clotrimazole (10 μM) and 17-ODYA (20 μM), inhibitors of cytochrome P-450 activity, had no effect on dilator responses of cerebral arterioles to arachidonate. Superoxide dismutase (SOD, 100 U/ml) had no effect on vasodilator responses to papaverine or lower concentrations of arachidonate, whereas dilator responses to 100 μM arachidonate were inhibited modestly (by 22%) by SOD. Similarly, deferoxamine (1 mM) partly inhibited dilator responses to 10 and 100 μM arachidonate (by ,30% at each concentration). Tetraethylammonium ion (1 mM) or iberiotoxin (50 nM), inhibitors of calcium-activated potassium channels, markedly inhibited vasodilatation in response to arachidonate (by 70–90%) but not papaverine. These findings suggest that dilatation of cerebral arterioles in response to arachidonate is mediated largely by endogenously formed reactive oxygen species, which are generated from cyclooxygenase activity, and activation of calciumactivated potassium channels. Thus activation of potassium channels appears to be a major mechanism of cerebral vasodilatation in response to reactive oxygen species produced endogenously.


Recently, deep neural networks have shown great success on 3D point cloud classification tasks, which simultaneously raises the concern of adversarial attacks that cause severe damage to real-world applications. Moreover, defending against adversarial examples in point cloud data is extremely difficult due to the emergence of various attack strategies. In this work, with the insight of the fact that the adversarial examples in this task still preserve the same semantic and structural information as the original input, we design a novel defense framework for improving the robustness of existing classification models, which consists of two main modules: the attention-based pooling and the dynamic contrastive learning. In addition, we also develop an algorithm to theoretically certify the robustness of the proposed framework. Extensive empirical results on two datasets and three classification models show the robustness of our approach against various attacks, e.g., the averaged attack success rate of PointNet decreases from 70.2% to 2.7% on the ModelNet40 dataset under 9 common attacks.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have damaging effect on cell metabolism and function via various DNA and protein modifications. Cells have evolved many mechanisms to reduce such ROS-induced damage, for instance the base excision repair (BER) pathway. This research emphases the effect of the common Ser326Cys polymorphism in the OGG 1 gene, which is an important part of BER to remove mutagenic 8-oxo deoxyguanosine from genomic DNA. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of Ser326Cys polymorphism of OGG 1 relating it to many forms of cancer and various degenerative diseases due to variant OGG 1 been reported being repair deficient. In the current study, we report the novel application of bimolecular
fluorescence complementation (BiFC) to study OGG 1 protein complex formation in the native cellular environment and report accumulation of Cys326-0GG 1 protein complexes as assessed by confocal microscopy. We observed fluorescence both in and around the nucleus of cells expressing Cys326-0GG 1 specifically under conditions of cellular oxidative stress, with increased ROS levels and depletion of GSH following treatment with both buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) and hydrogen peroxide. Furthermore, loss of BiFC fluorescence was seen when cells were treated with thiol reducing agents providing evidence of the role a disulfide bond. In summary, we report for the first time formation of Cys326 OGG 1 complexes in the native cellular environment particularly under conditions of oxidative stress. This finding could
explain the reduced repair capability of Cys3260GG 1 under oxidative stress environment.


Modern distributed computing frameworks and domain-specific languages provide a convenient and robust way to structure large distributed applications and deploy them on either data center or edge computing environments. The current systems suffer however from the need for a complex underlay of services to allow them to run effectively on existing Internet protocols. These services include centralized schedulers, DNS-based name translation, stateful load balancers, and heavy-weight transport protocols. In contrast, ICN-oriented remote invocation methodologies provide an attractive match for current distributed programming languages by supporting both functional programming and stateful objects such as Actors. In this paper we design a computation graph representation for distributed programs, realize it using Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) as the underlying data structures, and employ RICE (Remote Method Invocation for ICN) as the execution environment. We show using NDNSim simulations that it provides attractive benefits in simplicity, performance, and failure resilience.


The authors have carried out an extensive characterization of the Martian mixed layer formed under convective conditions. The values of the mixed layer height, convective velocity scale, convective temperature scale, mean temperature standard deviation, mean horizontal and vertical velocity standard deviations, and mean turbulent viscous dissipation rate have been obtained during the strongest convective hours for the mixed layer. In addition, the existing database of the surface layer has been improved by recalculating some parameters (e.g., Monin–Obukhov length, friction velocity, or scale temperature) that had already been obtained in previous papers by other means and also by calculating new ones, such as the standard deviation of the vertical wind speed velocity, the turbulent viscous dissipation rate, and eddy transfer coefficients for momentum and heat. The Earth counterparts of all these magnitudes are also shown. In this paper, a comprehensive database concerning the whole convective planetary boundary layer on Mars is displayed, and a detailed terrestrial comparison is established.
The inputs of this work are hourly in situ temperature, hourly in situ horizontal wind speed, and hourly simulated ground temperature for specific selected Sols of the Viking and Pathfinder landers. These data correspond to typical low and midlatitude northern summertime conditions, with weak prevailing winds. To handle this set of data, surface layer and mixed layer similarity theory have been used at the strongest convective hours. In addition, the inclusion of a parameterization of a molecular sublayer and prescribed values of the surface roughness has been considered.


Ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) elements were studied by directly bombarding them with hypervelocity silver particles. The mass and velocity of these hypervelocity silver particles ranged from 1to80pg and 2to6km∕s, respectively. This report examines the pulsed signals observed immediately after collision. The first cycle of the pulse is discussed because the information on impact is presumably recorded on the wave form. The experimental data were analyzed using the wave form that was generated immediately after collision. Consequently, the following conclusions were made: (1) the sensitivity of the element is independent of the thickness of element, (2) the pulse height is proportional to the particle momentum over the measured range, and (3) the wave form is not explicitly related to the velocity of the particles at the time of collision. The potential of a single PZT element acts as a real-time detector for hypervelocity microparticles is discussed.


This work was focused on studying cyclic hydrocarbons behaviour during pyrolysis using the laboratory pyrolysis gas chromatography. Cyclopentane, cyclohexane, cyclopentene, cyclohexene, decaline and several mono-, di-and tri- substituted cyclohexanes were selected for this study to allow watching the cracking selectivity in relation to the size of cycle, the number and length of substituents on the ring, the present of double bond and the number of cycles in the hydrocarbon molecule. The behaviour of tested compounds was studied on the basis of laboratory experiments carried out under lower temperature (640-750 °C) and short residence time to enable observation of primary cracking reactions. Measured selectivities were compared with the theoretical assumptions about different reaction mechanisms probabilities based on bond dissociation energies.


VALIDATION OF NEUTRINO ENERGY ESTIMATION USING ELECTRON SCATTERING DATA Mariana Khachatryan Old Dominion University, 2019 Director: Dr. Lawrence Weinstein To study neutrino oscillations, the knowledge of the initial neutrino energy is required. This energy cannot be determined directly because neutrino beams have a broad energy distribution. Instead, the initial energy for each event is estimated from the final state particles of a neutrino-nucleus interaction using two main approaches. It can be determined either from the total energy of all the final state particles or, if the neutrino scatters quasielastically from a bound nucleon, then the initial energy can be calculated approximately using the scattered angle and energy of the outgoing charged lepton. This requires a detailed understanding of neutrino-nucleus interaction cross section for various interaction channels, for different atomic nuclei, and for a wide range of neutrino energies. None of these energy reconstruction techniques have been tested experimentally using beams of known energy. We exploited the similarity of electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus interactions, and applied the methods of neutrino energy estimation to Jefferson Lab CLAS electron scattering data for 1.1, 2.2 and 4.4 GeV electrons incident on He, He, C and Fe targets. We show that the energy reconstruction from the scattered electron plus proton provides a better description of the beam energy than the energy reconstruction from the scattered electron alone, however only 16 − 55% of events reconstruct to within 5% of the beam energy. The energy reconstruction works better for lighter nuclei and lower energies. The tails in the reconstructed energy distributions, corresponding to low (compared to the beam energy) reconstructed energy values, are almost identical for the two reconstruction methods and the consistency between the results from two reconstruction methods does not imply accuracy. We show that energy reconstruction is improved by restricting the transverse momentum of the scattered electron plus proton to be smaller than the nuclear Fermi momentum. We have also compared the results from data to GENIE neutrino event generator results running in electron scattering mode, using the most up to date version. We show that GENIE fails to fully describe the data. We also looked at the potential effects of incorrect energy reconstruction for the proposed DUNE experiment, by generating events with GENIE but reconstructing them using our data. The difference is far greater than the needed DUNE precision.


Summary Muscle activity patterns (motor patterns) of the jaw musculature of all vertebrates studied to date (primarily fishes and amniotes) vary considerably when they feed on different types of prey. Previous data on buccal pressure patterns suggested that feeding in the aquatic salamander, Ambystoma mexicanum (Shaw), is highly stereotyped. This hypothesis was tested by quantifying the motor pattern used during feeding on two prey types: earthworms and guppies. Twenty-nine variables were measured from the activity pattern of six cranial muscles in the feeding mechanism of Ambystoma mexicanum. These variables included the area under the electromyogTam of each muscle, relative muscle onset times, and the amplitudes and durations of muscle bursts. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses demonstrate that the feeding motor pattern of Ambystoma mexicanum is stereotyped and does not change with prey type, in contrast to motor patterns of other vertebrates studied to date. Individual salamanders use significantly different motor patterns from one another during feeding, but do not alter their motor pattern during feeding on different prey.


Nd and Sr isotope compositions of nephelinites, carbonatites, and phonolites from Shombole, a Pliocene volcano in East Africa, show that the phonolites cannot be derived by simple fractional crystallization of nephelinite magma. For a given initial {sup 87}Sr/{sup 86}Sr ratio, {sup 143}Nd/{sup 144}Nd is lower in most phonolites than in the nephelinites and carbonatites. Interaction between nephelinitic magma and lower-crustal granulites can account for these differences. The similar ranges in isotopic composition of the carbonatites and nephelinites are consistent with repeated melting events involving heterogeneous mantle. The carbonatites could have formed by immiscibility with nephelinite magma or by direct partial melting of the same mantle source(s) as the nephelinites.


1. The phosphate requirement, i.e. the concentration of inorganic orthophosphate that just ceases to be limiting for growth, of Escherichia coli N.C.T.C. 5928 was determined for growth in ammonium-salts media containing glucose or acetate as the carbon and energy source, and compared with that of six other strains of E. coli. 2. The phosphate requirement for E. coli N.C.T.C. 5928 growing on acetate was about ten times that for growth on glucose, but this difference was not observed with any of the other strains. 3. After about 40 generations' growth on acetate with phosphate limitation in a chemostat, the phosphate requirement of the cells gradually decreased until it was equivalent to that of the glucose-grown organism; a single passage through glucose batch culture sufficed to restore the original high phosphate requirement, indicating a permeability phenomenon. 4. The lipid content of E. coli N.C.T.C. 5928 grown on glucose or acetate was measured isotopically by fractionation of cells grown on inorganic [(32)P]orthophosphate and gravimetrically after extraction from the cells by three different methods; change of carbon source from glucose to acetate did not affect the lipid content, which remained constant at 8-9% of the bacterial dry weight.


In this case, the author examines how religious attitudes can be linked to discrimination and provides recommendations on how to combat racism in organizations. The text reveals how religious attitudes related to racism can impact organizational attitudes and corporate practices. A case study from AT&T illustrates the actions leaders can take to foster diversity and inclusiveness in organizations. AT&T's strategies incorporate education, planning, dialogue, communication, and evaluation. This case includes ideas for implementing the steps and building employee engagement.


Cognitive risk factors for the recurrence of depression Self-associations, cognitive reactivity and attentional bias This dissertation focuses on three factors, possibly contributing to the recurrrent nature of major depressive disorder; negative self-associations, cognitive reactivity and attentional bias. Negative self-associations (measured on implicit as well as on explicit level) showed a positive relation between the number of depressive episodes and the duration of depressive symptoms. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that negative self-associations are strengthened by longer activation of negative self-associations during depressive episodes. Remitted participants with more depressive episodes in their history reported significant higher cognitive reactivity (CR) than participants with a single or none depressive episode in their history. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that higher CR makes participants more vulnerable for recurrence into a next depressive episode and seems less relevant for the development of a single depressive episode. Findings from a first study do not support the idea that attentional bias (AB) towards negative or away from positive stimuli is of critical importance for depressive participants. Possibly the relative high AB for negative information in the group remitted participants can be involved as a risk factor for recurrence. A higher chance on recurrence turned out neither to be associated with AB towards negative stimuli nor for positive stimuli. Thus, these findings do not support the hypothesis that AB towards negative or away from positive stimuli plays a role of importance in the process of recurrence into a next depressive episode.


While rigid or pinned assumptions are adopted for steel frames in traditional modeling via finite element method, the actual behavior of the connections is usually neither. Semi-rigid joints enable connections to be modeled as partially restrained, which improves the quality of the model. To identify the connection stiffness and update the FE model, a newly-developed cross modal strain energy (CMSE) method is extended to incorporate the connection stiffness estimation. To illustrate the capability of the proposed parameter estimation and model updating algorithm, a four-story frame structure is demonstrated in the numerical studies. Several cases including Semi-rigid joint(s) on single connection and on multi-connections, are investigated. Numerical results indicate that an excellent updating is achievable and the connection stiffness can be estimated by CMSE method.


We examine conditions for which positional preferences for voluntary contribution to a public good can be welfare enhancing in a one-shot public good game, where individuals may also enjoy a return from their contribution ranking. We show that positional preferences are welfare-increasing only under certain conditions. We find that when agents' positional preferences are homogeneous, they overinvest in the public good compared to equilibrium with no positional preferences, resulting in a zero-sum positional race with a higher public good provision. When agents have heterogeneous positional preferences, the overall impact on social welfare is positive when endowments are homogeneous.


Vocalization plays an important role in the
communication of anurans. In this study, the advertisement calls of male Fejervarya multistriata obtained in
Lishui, Zhejiang, China during the breeding season were recorded. Their note
number (NN), note duration (ND), note interval (NI), call duration (CD), pitch
(PIT), call intensity (CIT) and dominant frequency (DF) were analyzed. The
calls of F. multistriata are composed
of one to 38 notes, and calls composed of fewer than ten notes have the highest
frequency. Male frogs produced calls ranging from 1201 Hz to 3357 Hz with two DFs
(1412.49 Hz and 2953.89 Hz). By comparing the differences among individual
calls, it was found that the within-individual coefficients of variation (CVW)
and among-individual coefficients of variation (CVA) for NN, NI, CD,
PIT and DF were more than 10%, whereas that of CIT was less than 5%. The CVA/CVW
ratios showed that ND is important for sexual selection, whereas NN, NI CD, PIT,
CIT, and DF are important for individual recognition. Phylogenetic generalized
least squares analysis showed that phylogenetic signals affect DF vs. snout–vent length (SVL) and CD of anurans
in China, and accounting for phylogenetic signals, DF was negatively correlated
with SVL. DF was found to be higher in anurans that breed in flowing water than
in those that breed in stagnant water, after eliminating the effects of phylogeny
and SVL. Therefore, we concluded that phylogenetic effects, SVL, and the water type of breeding habitats have a combined
impact on the advertisement calls in anurans.


We demonstrate an optical transmitter based on dynamic optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) which is capable of creating high-bandwidth (THz) data waveforms in any modulation format using the parallel synthesis of multiple coherent spectral slices. As an initial demonstration, the transmitter uses only 5.5 GHz of electrical bandwidth and two 10-GHz-wide spectral slices to create 100-ns duration, 20-GHz optical waveforms in various modulation formats including differential phase-shift keying (DPSK), quaternary phase-shift keying (QPSK), and eight phase-shift keying (8PSK) with only changes in software. The experimentally generated waveforms showed clear eye openings and separated constellation points when measured using a real-time digital coherent receiver. Bit-error-rate (BER) performance analysis resulted in a BER < 9.8 × 10(-6) for DPSK and QPSK waveforms. Additionally, we experimentally demonstrate three-slice, 4-ns long waveforms that highlight the bandwidth scalable nature of the optical transmitter. The various generated waveforms show that the key transmitter properties (i.e., packet length, modulation format, data rate, and modulation filter shape) are software definable, and that the optical transmitter is capable of acting as a flexible bandwidth transmitter.


We present the modeling, control and planning for multiple magnetic mobile microrobots actuated on a planar array of coils that generates local magnetic fields. The system is capable of actuating multiple microrobots independently. Such systems have a future in micromanufacturing and biomedical applications. The coils are modeled extensively to understand the forces generated by various coil combinations of the array, and solutions for different actuation force directions are discovered. The path planning problem is formulated as a Markov decision process that solves a policy to reach a goal from any location in the workspace. The presence of multiple robots in the workspace can interfere with their motion. Hence, the coil models are used concurrently with models of interaction force between multiple magnetic robots to plan efficient paths to reach a goal in the workspace in the presence of other robots.


This dissertation examines the influence of the Distin Family brass ensemble on the developing brass band movement in nineteenth-century Britain. As well as drawing critically on previous research - e.g., Herbert (1991), Myers (1991), Newsome (1998), Jones (1995), Taylor (1979), Russell (1997) and Scott (1970) - the thesis re-examines and re-interprets the significance of the Distins in the light of new empirical and archival research carried out as part of this project. The focus of the research is on the significance of the Distins' contribution to the following important aspects of the historical development of brass bands: brass performance practice, repertory, publishing, contesting, and the technical and technological development of instrument design and manufacturing. The claim is made that the importance of the Distins lies in the extent of their artistic ambitions, their capacity for genuine innovation, and their tireless business acumen and entrepreneurship. Throughout the nineteenth century the brass band movement emerged as part of the larger processes of social, cultural and political change, and the rapid progress of industrialization. These changes manifested themselves also in the brass band world, most significantly through the introduction of valved instruments (particularly the saxhorn), the rise of mass production and new markets, and the gradual increase in leisure time and a relative improvement in social conditions. This dissertation argues that what distinguished the Distins in this historical context was their capacity to recognise opportunities, both artistic and commercial, and through their entrepreneurship to play the leading role in the establishment of the brass band movement in its modern form.
The discovery of new material in the course of the research for this project challenges established views, ideas and conceptions of the evolution of brass bands and their repertory. Particularly relevant in showing the importance of the Distins to brass bands are the documented newspaper and magazine reports from an estimated 10,000 performances during their concert tours around the world, many of which are referred to and included in this study. It was therefore also in part due to their fame as performers that the Distins were able to wield such influence, as a result of which thousands of brass bands sprang up throughout Britain in the nineteenth century. Against the claim (Rose, 1895) that 'Adolphe Sax was the inventor of the brass band', the evidence presented by this dissertation shows that the Distin contribution (in spite of its sometimes dubious appropriation of the ideas of others, including Sax) was ultimately the more significant. While each separate strand of the Distins' entrepreneurial activity and their seminal influence on early brass band development is shown to be crucial, it is the combination of these strands which is used to make the case that without the Distins, the brass band as a medium would not have become established.


Objectives Children born preterm are at higher risk for special educational needs and poor academic attainment compared with term-born peers, yet education professionals receive limited training and have poor knowledge of preterm birth. We have developed an interactive e-learning resource and evaluated its efficacy in improving teachers' knowledge of preterm birth and their confidence in supporting the learning of children born preterm. Setting Eight primary, infant or junior schools in England. Participants 61 teachers of children aged 4–11 years, of which 55 (90%) were female. Intervention Interactive e-learning resource designed to improve education professionals' knowledge of long-term outcomes following preterm birth and strategies that can be used to support children's learning (www.pretermbirth.info). In a repeated measures design, participants were given up to 30 days access to the e-learning resource, before and after which they completed the Preterm Birth Knowledge Scale (PB-KS; scores 0–33; higher scores indicate greater knowledge) to assess knowledge of outcomes of prematurity. Four Likert scale items were used to assess confidence in supporting children's learning and 10 items were used to evaluate the utility of the resource. PB-KS scores and responses on confidence item were compared pre-resource and post-resource use. Results PB-KS scores significantly increased after accessing the e-learning resource (median (95% CI): pre-resource 13 (11 to 14); post-resource 29 (28 to 30)), equating to a 2.6 SD increase in PB-KS scores. Teachers' confidence in supporting children born preterm was also significantly improved after using the resource. The utility of the resource was evaluated positively by participants with 97% reporting that they would recommend its use to others. Conclusions The e-learning resource substantially improved teachers' knowledge of preterm birth and their confidence in supporting preterm children in the classroom. Use of this resource may represent a key advance in improving educational outcomes for children born preterm.


To determine the prevalence, clinical signs and course of drug-induced Parkinsonism (DIP) in a general neurology practice, as well as to study the changing pattern of drugs implicated. Retrospective study of DIP patients seen between January 1981 and December 1993. Of the 306 cases of parkinsonism seen, 56.8% were induced or aggravated by drugs. This side effects is more frequent in women and often occurs in old age. The drugs implicated most often were cinnarizine, sulpiride and flupentixol. Forty-two patients took 2 drugs simultaneously, whereas 6 took 3. The number of DIP seen increased after 1986 and then remained stable through 1993. Between 1981 and 1988, the drug most often implicated was cinnarizine, though its relative impact decreased in later years. The most frequently seen form of presentation was rigidakinetic syndrome. Neither drug nor age influenced clinical presentation. Parkinsonism disappeared completely within a mean of 5 months in 142 (82%) patients. Twenty-eight (16%) developed Parkinson's disease. Six of them were symptom-free for 12 to 72 months (mean 40 months), whereas 22 never experienced relief from parkinsonism. Sixteen suffered tardive dyskinesia, a complication that was not associated with the use of any particular drug. More than half of the cases of parkinsonism seen in a neurology practice are drug induced or aggravated, generally by psychotropic drugs. The frequency has held steady for the past 6 years. The drugs implicated change as knowledge of their inducement of parkinsonism becomes known. The clinical picture is usually reversible.


Digital Teaching Platforms (DTPs) are aimed to support personalization of classroom education to help optimize the learning process. A trend for research and development exists regarding methods to analyze multimodal data, aiming to infer how students interact with delivered content and understanding student behavior, academic performance, and the way teachers react to student engagement. Existing DTPs can deliver several types of insights, some of which teachers can use to adjust learning activities in real-time. These technologies require a computing infrastructure capable of collecting and analyzing large volumes of data, and, for this, cloud computing is an ideal candidate solution. Nonetheless, preliminary field tests with DTPs demonstrate that applying fully remote services is prohibitive in scenarios with limited bandwidth and a constrained communication infrastructure. Therefore, we propose an architecture for DTPs and an algorithm to promote the adjustable balance between local and federated cloud resources. The solution works by deciding where tasks should be executed, based on resource availability and the quality of insights they may provide to teachers during learning sessions. In this work, we detail the system architecture, describe a proof-of-concept, and discuss the viability of the proposed approach for practical scenarios.


Element influencing economics is energy resource. Fossil energy is depleting. Thus, modern men find ways for alternative energy. However, price of fossil energy is fluctuating in the global market i.e. dependent on supply production. Eventually, prices of a commodity are influenced by price of energy. In the Philippines, the first basic commodity affected is the price of rice. Unfortunately, Filipinos live essentially on rice as staple food. Commercially, this too affected the quality of food served by small scale restaurant operators. The study was a descriptive survey assessing the reaction of small scale restaurant operators and customers on the impact of price hike of commercial rice to the quality of food served from restaurant establishments. The findings show the impact of price hike of commercial rice to the quality of food served by small scale restaurants as to taste, aroma, texture, color and quantity was moderate; the satisfaction level of customers of small scale restaurants was moderate; the impact of price-hike of rice moderately affected owner-operators of small scale restaurants in terms of operating cost, number of customers, monthly gross sales and net profit; and the correlation between price hike of rice and quality of food served was very significant. Keywords - Economics, price hike, commercial Rice, quality of food served, small scale restaurant operators, Philippines


Near-field microwave nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques have shown great potential for disbond detection in multi-layer dielectric composite structures. The high detection capability associated with these techniques stems from the fact that near-field microwave signals are sensitive to minute variations in the dielectric properties and geometry of the medium in which they propagate. In the past, the sensitivity of the near-field microwave NDE techniques to the presence and properties of disbonds in multi-layer dielectric composites has been investigated extensively. However, a quantitative disbond thickness estimation method has yet to be introduced. In this paper, we propose a maximum-likelihood (ML) disbond thickness evaluation method utilizing multiple independent measurements obtained at different frequencies. We also introduce a statistical lower limit on the thickness resolution based on the mean squared error (MSE) in thickness estimation and a given confidence interval. The effectiveness of the proposed ML method is also verified by comparing simulation results with actual measurements.


Although a wide variety of approaches identify vulnerabilities in Android apps, none attempt to determine exploitability of those vulnerabilities. Exploitability can aid in reducing false positives of vulnerability analysis, and can help engineers triage bugs. Specifically, one of the main attack vectors of Android apps is their inter-component communication interface, where apps may receive messages called Intents. In this paper, we provide the first approach for automatically generating exploits for Android apps, called LetterBomb, relying on a combined path-sensitive symbolic execution-based static analysis, and the use of software instrumentation and test oracles. We run LetterBomb on 10,000 Android apps from Google Play, where we identify 181 exploits from 835 vulnerable apps. Compared to a state-of-the-art detection approach for three ICC-based vulnerabilities, LetterBomb obtains 33%-60% more vulnerabilities at a 6.66 to 7 times faster speed.


CuAlO2, CuAl1-хMgхO2, CuCrO2, CuCr1-хMgхO2 and CuAl0.5Cr0.5O2 thin films were deposited on quartz substrates by sol-gel processing using spin coating technique. The elemental compositions, synthesis mechanisms, optical transmittance and resistivity of prepared films were studied. CuAl0.5Cr0.5O2 films had the best characteristics under lower temperature of synthesis. Optical transmittance of CuAl0.5Cr0.5O2 reached 70 % in visible region. The resistivity of CuAl0.5Cr0.5O2 was 0,4 kΩ·cm and was stable with time. Thus, CuAl0.5Cr0.5O2 films may have potential applications for transparent optoelectronics as p-conductivity transparent oxides.


The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and potential technology gap between French and Hungarian dairy farms during 2001-2006, using Data Envelopment Analysis under each country's respective frontier and under a common frontier (metafrontier). Results indicate that French farms have a more optimal scale of production than Hungarian farms, but Hungarian farms make better use of the technology. They also have a more productive technology than French farms. The latter finding is obtained under the assumption of a hypothetical common frontier. Although French and Hungarian farmers do not have access to the same technologies and the metafrontier is still hypothetical, our paper adds to the thin literature that compares two countries in terms of performance.


Even before the myth of Prometheus, fire played a crucial ecological role around the world. Numerous plant communities depend on fire to generate species diversity in both time and space. Without fire such ecosystems would become sterile monocultures. Recent efforts to prohibit fire in fire dependent communities have contributed to more intense and more damaging fires. For these reasons, foresters, ecologists, land managers, geographers, and environmental scientists are interested in the behavior and ecological effects of fires. This book will be the first to focus on the chemistry and physics of fire as it relates to the ways in which fire behaves and the impacts it has on ecosystem function. Leading international contributors have been recruited by the editors to prepare a didactic text/reference that will appeal to both advanced students and practicing professionals.


In this study, a chemomechanical method was performed to extract nanofibers from rice straw. This procedure included swelling, acid hydrolysis, alkali treatment, bleaching, and sonication. X-ray diffractometer was employed to investigate the effect of acid hydrolysis conditions and other chemical treatments on the chemical structure of the extracted cellulose fibers. It was concluded that by increasing the acid concentration and hydrolysis time, the crystallinity of the extracted fibers was increased. The optimum acid hydrolysis conditions were found to be 2M and 2 h for the acid concentration and hydrolysis time, respectively. The chemical compositions of fibers including cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and silica were determined by different examinations. It was noticed that almost all the silica content of fibers was solubilized in the swelling step. Moreover, the achieved results showed that the cellulose content of the alkali treated fibers was increased around 71% compared to the raw materials. ATR-FTIR was applied out to compare the chemical structure of untreated and bleached fibers. The dimensions and morphology of the chemically and mechanically extracted nanofibers were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The results of the image analyzer showed that almost 50% of fibers have a diameter within a range of 70–90 nm and length of several micrometers. The thermal gravimetric analyses were performed on the untreated and bleached fibers. It was demonstrated that the degradation temperature was increased around 19% for the purified fibers compared to raw materials. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40063.


Ceilometers are simple, relatively inexpensive vertically pointing lidars usually operating at
wavelengths of 905-910 nm or 1064 nm that can function reliably unattended for long periods
and, as the name suggests, have mainly been used for detecting cloud base at airports where
they are valuable for air safety issues. In addition to detecting the large backscattered return
from cloud base, they can provide vertical profiles of backscatter from both clouds and aerosols
every 5-30 seconds with a range resolution of 10-20 m.
This thesis presents a simple and robust method for calibrating ceilometers that has been tested
in an operational environment. The method relies on using the integrated backscatter (B) from
liquid clouds that totally extinguish the ceilometer signal; B is inversely proportional to the
lidar ratio (S) of the backscatter to the extinction for cloud droplets. It is shown that for accurate
calibration, care must be taken to exclude any profiles having targets with different values of
S, such as drizzle drops and aerosol particles, profiles that do not totally extinguish the
ceilometer signal, profiles with low cloud bases that saturate the receiver, and any profiles
where the window transmission or the lidar pulse energy is low. A range dependent multiple
scattering correction that depends on the ceilometer optics is applied to the attenuated
backscatter profiles. A simple correction for water vapour attenuation for ceilometers
operating at around 910 nm wavelength is applied to the signal using the vapour profiles from
a forecast analysis. The consistency of profiles observed by a pair of co-located ceilometers in
the UK Met Office network operating at around 910 nm and 1064 nm provides independent
validation of the calibration technique. Secondly, an ice cloud forward model is used to predict attenuated backscatter, using profiles
of ice water content (IWC) from the Met Office's numerical weather prediction model, the
UKV. A second moment approximation for particle area and mass is assumed, so that IWC
becomes proportional to extinction. The lidar ratio for ice cloud is then used to calculate
backscatter from the model derived extinction. The lidar ratio is calculated using ceilometer
observations of thick attenuating ice cloud. Comparisons between the UKV derived attenuated
backscatter and the attenuated backscatter observed by a ceilometer suggest that the UKV IWC
is systematically too small in magnitude and too high in height.


We present a novel approach to non-rigid objects contour tracking in this paper based on a supervised level set model (SLSM). In contrast to most existing trackers that use bounding box to specify the tracked target, the proposed method extracts the accurate contours of the target as tracking output, which achieves better description of the non-rigid objects while reduces background pollution to the target model. Moreover, conventional level set models only emphasize the regional intensity consistency and consider no priors. Differently, the curve evolution of the proposed SLSM is object-oriented and supervised by the specific knowledge of the targets we want to track. Therefore, the SLSM can ensure a more accurate convergence to the exact targets in tracking applications. In particular, we firstly construct the appearance model for the target in an online boosting manner due to its strong discriminative power between the object and the background. Then, the learnt target model is incorporated to model the probabilities of the level set contour by a Bayesian manner, leading the curve converge to the candidate region with maximum likelihood of being the target. Finally, the accurate target region qualifies the samples fed to the boosting procedure as well as the target model prepared for the next time step. We firstly describe the proposed mechanism of two-phase SLSM for single target tracking, then give its generalized multi-phase version for dealing with multi-target tracking cases. Positive decrease rate is used to adjust the learning pace over time, enabling tracking to continue under partial and total occlusion. Experimental results on a number of challenging sequences validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Index Terms— Object tracking, level sets, curve evolution, boosting, appearance modeling.


Gallic acid (GA) is well known for its antioxidant and hepatoprotective activity, though its effectiveness is restricted due to rapid metabolism and elimination. To overcome these problems, gallic acid–phospholipid complex was prepared and the effect of phospholipid complexation was investigated on carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced oxidative damage in rat liver. The complex significantly reduced the hepatic marker enzymes in rat serum and restored the antioxidant enzyme levels with respect to CCl4-induced group (P < 0.05 and P < 0.01). Also, the complex improved the pharmacokinetics of GA by increasing the relative bioavailability and elimination half-life. The study therefore suggests that phospholipid complexation has enhanced the therapeutic efficacy of GA which may be due to its improved absorption and increased bioavailability in rat serum.


The distribution of arabinosylcytosine (ara-C) and its metabolites has been measured in the liver, small intestine, spleen, and kidney of mice inoculated ip 5-6 days earlier with L1210 leukemia cells. Two major metabolites were found in the tissues--the nucleotides and the deaminated inactive product, arabinosyluracil (ara-U). The decay curve of ara-C in most of these tissues was curvilinear; the ara-C half-lives estimated from the terminal phases were 8. 11, 12, and 12 hr for spleen, kidney, intestine, and liver tissues, respectively. The ara-C half-life was not correlated with the deoxycytidine deaminase activity in the tissues. However, the deaminase activity in vitro correlated well with the amount of ara-U present in vivo. Similar analyses were made for L1210 leukemic cells and ascites fluid. A high nucleotide level was found in the cells and a significant amount of nucleotides was also identifiable in the ascites fluid. The activities of deoxycytidine kinase, but not of deoxycytidine deaminase, in host tissues of mice inoculated with L1210 leukemic cells sensitive to ara-C were greater than in those of normal mice. The phosphorylating activities in vitro correlated with the amount of nucleotide present in vivo in mice bearing L1210 leukemic cells. However, the infiltration of leukemic cells containing high kinase activities into the host tissues accounted for most, if not all, of the nucleotide level in these tissues. This is further evidenced by the fact that inoculating mice with L1210 leukemic cells resistant to ara-C did not alter the kinase activity or nucleotide levels of the host tissues; these resistant cells contain negligible amounts of ara-C phosphorylating activities.


This paper proposes a novel calculation method to derive self and mutual components of each segment in multiport inductors. In the proposed method, a set of S-parameters of the multiport inductor is mathematically decomposed into several matrices, which express self and mutual effects of each segment in the inductor. Due to this mathematics-based method, the multiport inductor can be characterized without numerical extractions. In this paper, a small-area distributed amplifier (DA) utilizing five-port inductors is also demonstrated as an application of the proposed analysis method. In the experimental results using a 0.18-mum CMOS process, the three-stage DA utilizing two five-port inductors to replace eight two-port inductors shows that the multiport inductor can successfully reduce layout area.


I show in a setting of a buyer and seller with the same preferences trading two related assets so as to share volatility risk that illiquidity and virtually all impediments to trade cannot be priced in the absence of excess short-selling costs. This is because the buyer values the asset at the low Bid-price and seller at the high Ask-price. When market clears, the buyer and seller order-flows cancel out leaving the midpoint price independent of the "tax wedge". Using this admittedly "stylized" model and very modest CARA and CRRA risk preferences, I generate Mehra and Prescott's (1985) equity premium of about 8% and negligible yield on T-bills, together with the observed turnovers of both T-Bills and equity securities, to show that market volatility is systematically priced. Moreover, only in the presence of non-binding but higher short-selling costs that steepen the supply response to adverse demand shocks, can illiquidity be priced and a number of other anomalies explained. I reconcile my findings with Amihud and Mendelson's (1986) treatment of the buyer by adding in the seller's perspective which provides the necessary theoretical underpinnings to explain the asymmetric empirical findings of Brennan, Chordia, Subrahmanyam, and Tong (2012), Brennan, Huh, and Subrahmanyam (2013, 2015) and several others.


Income tax art. 21 is a witholding income tax law based on any kind of income, received by a person. Income tax art. 21 is regulated in detail by Director General of Taxes Decree (Keputusan Direktur Jenderal Pajak) No.KEP-281/PJ/1998 dated 28 December 1998. This paper will compare how 'tax income art 21 allowance' or tax income art 21 paid by the employee/employer can influence the employee (take home pay), the employer (income statement) and the government (state income).


Living income is trending. More and more food and agriculture companies are adopting living income commitments, and others should follow suit. But it's a complex topic in practice. Effective interventions go beyond the farm to address the inequality of market power and risks that farmers experience. Oxfam presents eight essential issues companies confront on living income, with recommendations for ensuring interventions benefit farmers. Recommendations focus on: approaching living income as a human right, changing the way companies do business, leveling the playing field, and engaging and enabling others. Living Income: From Right to Reality is the first in a new Oxfam series called "Briefings for Business on Inequality in Food Value Chains". In each briefing Oxfam sets out key considerations, provides examples of company policy/practice, and offers recommendations for what companies can do to address inequality in a way that will drive real impact.


During his lifetime, Christopher W. Brooks (1948–2014) established himself as the foremost historian of law in early modern English society. He was the leading exponent of a history of early modern England that transcended the boundaries of social, political and legal history, and which placed law and lawyers centre stage. This chapter brings a critical, but friendly, eye to Brooks's work, focusing on how Brooks created a distinctive vision of law in history, and on the strengths and weaknesses of that vision. I examine the influences that shaped his work (including Lawrence Stone, Wilfrid Prest, Sir John Baker, E.P. Thompson, Jurgen Habermas and Robert W. Gordon), locating his scholarship within several contemporary contexts, including social, intellectual and legal history, and socio-legal and critical legal studies. I then critically assess the claims, topics, factors, methods and theories that Brooks emphasised. I argue, for example, that Brooks's tended to de-emphasise the relationship between law, power, domination, exclusion, structure, totality and society, and the way in which the legal system can be routinely manipulated to serve those privileged by property and position, problematizing the nature and extent of popular belief in the rule of law; and that this reflected and was sustained by his limited engagement with the new histories of crime, punishment and policing. I also argue that Brooks exaggerated the range and depth of law-consciousness and law's legitimacy, and marginalized 'alternative' discourses. I suggest that until we know how individuals such as defendants judged their engagement with the law, claims about law-mindedness and legitimacy are best kept modest and circumspect; and that there is a need for greater discussion of the complex and diverse definitions of law-mindedness, law-consciousness, legitimacy, constitutive ideology, negotiation and other key concepts explicitly and implicitly employed in such research, and the possible locations of their empirical referents. I also problematize Brooks's thesis that legal culture was less important after c.1700 than in the period c. 1560–1700. However, none of my critique challenges the importance of Brooks's scholarship. I conclude that Brooks's achievement was to systematically integrate law, politics and society, and legal, social and political history, and to demonstrate the considerable increase in historical knowledge that is likely to ensue from this fusion. He demonstrated that law and lawyers warranted at least the same attention as that traditionally lavished on religion and clerics. This essay builds on and extends my article, "Promoting Dialogue Between History and Socio-legal Studies: The Contribution of Christopher W. Brooks and the 'Legal Turn' in Early Modern English History," (2017) 44 Journal of Law and Society issue S1, pp. S37- S60.


A new series of Election Analyses is now available from the LSE's Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). The series will discuss the research evidence on some of the key policy battlegrounds of the 2010 General Election, including macroeconomic policy, immigration, health, education, crime, poverty and inequality, labour market policy, regional policy, energy and the environment, financial regulation and bankers' bonuses, and foreign aid. The UK's rate of unemployment has just hit 8% and the number of people unemployed has risen to 2.5 million. According to researchers John van Reenen and Barbara Petrongolo at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), while these figures are bad, they are not as bad as might be expected given the large fall in output in the current recession, the worst decline of any other post-war recession.


The Museum of Copying was an exhibition conceived and executed by FAT Architecture for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. It explored ideas of the copy as a way of establishing common ground between diverse publics over time. This represented a significant moment into themes that have been present in FAT's work for the past 15 years. Its primary research questions were: Can copying be a creative technique in architecture? What potential does the figural section hold for architecture? How have photocopying, digital media and computer aided manufacture extended the repertoire of creative replication in architecture? Research methods included collaborative and curatorial work in conversation with the other contributors to the Museum: San Rocco and Ines Weizman. The museum challenged the idea of the copy as inauthentic pastiche and proposed ways of understanding and using it in more productive ways. FATs contribution, 'Villa Rotunda Redux' is a prefabricated replica of Palladio's Villa Rotunda. This was designed by extraction and translation of essential information from the original Villa Rotunda into three dimensional material form using new fabrication techniques. It comprises two abstracted quarters of the Villa Rotunda, one a polystyrene mould, the other a foam cast. These were arranged diagonally across from one another, displaying not only the properties of the original, but also the process of their fabrication. This produced an iteration of the Villa Rotunda that was at once recognizable, yet utterly transformed and original. The project was seen by the 178,000 visitors who attended the biennale. It has also been widely reviewed in the popular and architectural press, including Phaidon, dezeen, Architects Journal, designboom, ArchDaily, Architectural Review, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times. On the basis of this project, FAT Architecture have been selected, to curate the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale with Crimson Architectural Historians and Owen Hatherley.


The focus of the current study was on the market potential for grass-fed beef in the Appalachian region, given that these products embody observed, experiential, nutritional, and process attributes that may appeal to a large consumer base. An in-store variant of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschack experimental auction mechanism was employed in the region to determine consumer preferences and willingness to pay. A majority of respondents preferred the grass-fed product over conventional grain-fed samples and were willing to pay a price premium to obtain it. Preferences for grass-fed were rooted largely in the associated superior nutritional content and core observed attributes.


Type-reduction algorithms are very important for type-2 fuzzy sets and systems. The earliest one, and also the most popular one, is the Karnik-Mendel Algorithm, which is iterative and computationally intensive. In the last a few years researchers have proposed several other more efficient type-reduction algorithms. In this paper we also propose a new algorithm which improves over the latest results. Experiments show that it is the most efficient one to use in practice. Particularly, when the number of elements in type-reduction is smaller than 100, which is true in most practical type-reduction computations, our proposed algorithm can save over 50% computational cost over the Karnik-Mendel Algorithms. We also give the Matlab implementation of our most efficient algorithm in the Appendix. It includes preprocessing steps to eliminate numerical problems, and also improved testing criteria to prevent possible infinite loops. This program will be very helpful in promoting the popularity of type-2 fuzzy sets and systems.


This paper describes an on-die leakage current sensor in 1.2V, 90nm CMOS technology for accurately measuring process variation. Results based on measured leakage data show (i) higher signal-to-noise ratio and (ii) reduced sensitivity to supply and P/N skew variations compared to prior designs, while the proposed sensor only requires a single bias generator even for multi-bit resolution sensing. A 6-channel leakage current monitor testchip fabricated in 90nm dual-Vt CMOS is also described.


Live logging and posterity logging are the two basic applications for video databases. The former aims at providing effective annotation of video in quasi-real time and supports extraction of meaningful clips from the live stream; the latter provides annotation for later reuse of video material and is the prerequisite for retrieval by content from video digital libraries. Both require that information is adequately structured with interchange format and that annotation is performed, to a great extent, automatically. The video information structure must encompass both low-intermediate level video organization and event relationships that define specific highlights and situations. Analysis of the visual data of the video stream permits hints to be extracted, events identified and highlights detected. All of this must be supported by a-priori knowledge of the subject and effective reasoning engines capable of capturing the inherent semantics of the visual events.


Analytical and Molecular Mechanics methods have been used to study the deformation mechanisms acting at the molecular level in the auxetic polymorph of crystalline silica (a-cristobalite). The analytical models indicate that a-cristobalite deforms by concurrent tetrahedral dilation and cooperative rotation when stretched along the x3 axis, and that a second phase is predicted to exist for this loading scenario, having a geometry similar to that of 'idealised' b-cristobalite. This is supported by preliminary Molecular Mechanics simulations, which also indicate that the cooperative rotation predicted for loading along x3 is not sufficient to describe the deformation mechanism for loading along x1. A negative hydrostatic pressure offset is observed to lead to a change in the sign of the predicted Poisson's ratio from positive to negative, leading to improved agreement of the Molecular Mechanics model with experiment.


Several sugar structures have been reported to be necessary for haemopoiesis. We analysed the haematological phenotypes of transgenic mice expressing beta-1,4 N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase III (GnT-III), which forms bisecting N-acetylglucosamine on asparagine-linked oligosaccharides. In the transgenic mice, the GnT-III activity was elevated in bone marrow, spleen and peripheral blood and in isolated mononuclear cells from these tissues, whereas no activity was found in these tissues of wild-type mice. Stromal cells after long-term cultures of transgenic-derived bone marrow and spleen cells also showed elevated GnT-III activity, compared with an undetectable activity in wild-type stromal cells. As judged by HPLC analysis, lectin blotting and lectin cytotoxicity assay, bisecting GlcNAc residues were increased on both blood cells and stromal cells from bone marrow and spleen in transgenic mice. The transgenic mice displayed spleen atrophy, hypocellular bone marrow and pancytopenia. Bone marrow cells and spleen cells from transgenic mice produced fewer haemopoietic colonies. After lethal irradiation followed by bone marrow transplantation, transgenic recipient mice showed pancytopenia compared with wild-type recipient mice. Bone marrow cells from transgenic donors gave haematological reconstitution at the same level as wild-type donor cells. In addition, non-adherent cell production was decreased in long-term bone marrow cell cultures of transgenic mice. Collectively these results indicate that the stroma-supported haemopoiesis is compromised in transgenic mice expressing GnT-III, providing the first demonstration that the N-glycans have some significant roles in stroma-dependent haemopoiesis.


Correlation effects in the fluctuation of the number of particles in the process of energy branching by sequential impact ionizations are studied using an exactly soluble model of random parking on a line. The Fano factor F calculated in an uncorrelated final-state "shot-glass" model does not give an accurate answer even with the exact gap-distribution statistics. Allowing for the nearest-neighbor correlation effects gives a correction to F that brings F very close to its exact value. We discuss the implications of our results for energy resolution of semiconductor gamma detectors, where the value of F is of the essence. We argue that F is controlled by correlations in the cascade energy branching process and hence the widely used final-state model estimates are not reliable--especially in the practically relevant cases when the energy branching is terminated by competition between impact ionization and phonon emission.


ABSTRACT To determine whether heterogeneity exists in the organization or redundancy of the rRNA cistrons of inbred populations of Drosophila melanogaster , we have derived a number of sublines from the strains Oregon R and Canton S. These two strains were chosen because our previous studies have demonstrated a difference in the competence of these strains to exhibit a "compensatory response" of the rDNA. In each subline, the X chromosomes are descended from a single maternal X , that is, each line is homozygous for a particular nucleolus organizer (NO). These derivative lines have been characterized in terms of rDNA content and organization, using quantitative liquid hybridizations and Southern blot analyses, respectively. Our studies reveal that both of the highly inbred parent populations contained a heterogeneous array of X chromosomal rDNA contents. Once isogenized, the rDNA redundancy of a given X chromosomal NO can be shown to remain stable for at least 20 generations in culture. We detect no restriction pattern heterogeneity among X chromosomes isolated from a given strain, despite relatively large differences in their rDNA contents. This leads us to suggest that there is no significant clustering of intervening sequence-bearing ( ivs + ) genes within the rDNA loci of chromosomes from the populations examined. Furthermore, we conclude that apparent alterations in rDNA redundancy known as the compensatory response are not related to the heterogeneity of rDNA content within a population.


Achieving cancer diagnosis and treatment simultaneously, multifunctional nanomaterials lead the trend in the development of nanomedicine. Manganese-based compounds have been well developed as excellent magnetic resonance (MR) imaging contrast agents, while they have not been demonstrated as photothermal agents (PTAs) due to their unsatisfactory near-infrared photoabsorption. Herein, we report a hydrophilic flower-like K2Mn4O8 superstructure self-assembled by ultrathin nanosheets that can work simultaneously as a PTA and an ultrasensitive T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (T1-MRI) enhancing agent. These K2Mn4O8 nanoflowers are efficient vehicles transforming 808 nm laser energy into thermal energy and then leading to the effective ablation of cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, with a high longitudinal relaxivity (r1) of 4.6 mM−1 s−1, they also act as quite impressive T1-MRI enhancing agents. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments confirmed their great biocompatibility, low toxicity and high photothermal conversion capability. This is the first application of K2Mn4O8 as a PTA and would hopefully promote other Mn-based theranostics.


Abstract The cultural heritage of Brazil built with natural stone is expressive and shows a great variety of rock types. The main differences between rock types are found when a comparison is made between the buildings located in the coastal zone and those located inland. In historical cities located on the coast, European limestones were widely used. Within the Brazilian interior, especially in the current State of Minas Gerais, a large number of historic buildings can be noticed. In this State, despite the large volumes of granites and gneisses and other less common rock types such as gabbros, basalts and sandstones, steatite and different types of schist, beside quartzites, were the rock types most commonly used in the construction of those 18th- and 19th-century buildings. This paper focuses on the extent and quality based on the use of steatites and schists in historic buildings in Brazil, which is part of a research project in progress. Assembled data justifies the inclusion of these rocks in the database on the rocks of world cultural heritage. The advancement of these studies may contribute to the maintenance and preservation of this heritage and the appropriate new uses of these rocks, as well as to propose some of them as Global Heritage Stone Resource for their international recognition.


Aim: The purposes of this study is to identify the incidence of uterine adenosarcomas in Lower Normandy. In addition, we sought the clinical, morphological, and immunohistochemical features of this uncommon mixed mesenchymal tumors.  Patients and methods: 13 cases of uterine adenosarcomas were retrieved the last 23 years from the charts of the Francois Baclesse Cancer Center and thanks to the data obtained from the cancer registries of the department of Manche and Calvados in Lower Normandy (France). All cases were reviewed by the authors.  Results: 13 cases were observed beginning with the first case reported in our geographic area in 1989. Follow-up was available in 11 cases, only one young patient died, but from another non related previous carcinoma. All other patients are actually alive with no evidence of disease with a median follow-up of 10 years, only one patient with short follow-up shows a very ominous local evolution with a massive intraabdominal evolution in the context of an heterologous adenosarcoma with a rhabdomyosarcomatous component.


The hydraulic and structural design of control structures have failed in many years due to lack of geodetic and reliable hydrologic analysis of rainfall and discharge data in some catchments. Hydrologists are often faced with the task of using a limited number of quantitative observations, together with a conceptual understanding of the operation of processes involved in the movement of water through the hydrological cycle, to estimate the occurrence of water at various locations. This is usually done with the assistance of hydrological models which not only have to consider the precipitation and runoff at a certain point, but also other variables such as topography, vegetation cover, rooting characteristics, etc. The Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) relationship is a mathematical relationship between the rainfall intensity, the duration and the return period. This relationship is determined through statistical analysis of samples of records at proper meteorological stations. This are typically performed based on specified design storms derived from the rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) estimates and an assumed temporal distribution of rainfall. Use of inappropriate data or design storms could lead to malfunctions of the infrastructure systems: over-estimation may result in costly over design, or under-estimation may be associated to risk of human safety.The hydrologic design of flood storage structures is done by computing the discharge rate for 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 years return period, which indicate that the heaviest rain occurred once in either 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 years period respectively as the case may be. The development of IDF curve is of paramount importance in the determination of design discharge. This paper analysed rainfall data from four different gauged rainfall stations that are homogenous and applied to ArcView GIS model to generate regional rainfall intensity (RRI) map using the "inverse distance weighting method" for the interpolation of the stations values.


We study propagation of short laser pulses in a Bose-Einstein condensate taking into account dispersive effects under the conditions for electromagnetically induced transparency. We calculate dispersion coefficients using typical experimental parameters of slow-light schemes in condensates. By numerically propagating the laser pulse, and referring to theoretical estimations, we determine the conditions for which dispersion starts to introduce distortions on the pulse shape.


Geological models for the effects of clay diagenesis on shale/mudstone properties are under evaluation for their use in predicting the distribution of hydrocarbon occurrences, and risk of biodegradation. Traditional clay petrology studies show that the onset of reactions, often described as smectite to illite diagenesis, begins at 60° to 80°C in sedimentary sequences. Petrophysical models based on the precipitation of diagenetic clay within shale pore systems indicate rapid and severe permeability reduction at the onset of this reaction. Evaluation of global petroleum systems in a variety of basin settings, including the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, indicate an exponential increase in probability of formation fluid overpressure and hydrocarbon occurrences at and above these temperatures, along with concurrent reduction in the risk of biodegradation of reservoired petroleum. The mechanism by which these risks are controlled in both cases can be related to clay diagenetic induced permeability reduction, which when combined with diagenetic porosity reduction models and geological factors restricting lateral drainage, increases the probability of vertical hydrocarbon migration via hydrofracturing of low-permeability shale units to create new petroleum systems/plays. The industry fails to appreciate the exponential increase in exploration risks as a function of reservoir temperature and often drills beyond the optimal entrapment zone of 60° to 120°C, with corresponding reductions in efficiency. Hydrocarbons which migrate to shallower depths and lower temperatures show an increased risk of biodegradation. The proposed migration mechanism is consistent with the distribution of global conventional oil resources at the basin scale. Geologically, however, spill-fill/lateral migration, mainly in foreland basin settings, has resulted in extensive heavy oil/tar sands deposits, which eluded entrapment at optimal conditions for recovery.


Basically, writing is not easy. Writing needs preparation of developing skills, reading extensively, cultivating habits conductively, and paying close attention to
language. In fact, many learners have difficulties in writing activity. Thus, the learners have to use certain strategies to improve their comprehension in writing. Learning strategies is the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to comprehend, learn, retain new information and regulate their efforts to make learning easier, faster, enjoyable, and more transferable to new situation.
The purpose of this study is to know kinds of learning strategies in essay writing subject used by students and the most dominant strategy used in essay writing subject.
This study used descriptive quantitative research design because it is based on the data collection and analysis of numerical data. In collecting the data, the writer used
Likert scale. The population of this study was sixth semester students of English Department at University of Muhammadiyah Malang that consist of four classes: class A,
class B, class C, and class D. The total number of the population was 214 students. The sample of this study consists of 35 students which is class C selected as the sample by using cluster random sampling.
Based on the result of the analysis, the score of students was 105.33 for semantic strategy. The second strategy was affective strategy, the score of students was 103.66 for
this strategy. Meanwhile, metacognitive strategy was the third strategy with score of the students was 100. The fourth strategy was memory strategy with score 94.75, followed by social strategy with score of the students was 94.66. The lowest strategy used by the students was cognitive strategy with score 88.75.
Finally, it is found out the sixth semester students of English Department of University of Muhammadiyah Malang used various strategies to support their learning in
essay writing subject. The most dominant strategy used was semantic strategy. Almost all of the students realized the importance of learning strategy to improve their learning
proficiency. They employ learning strategies that is appropriate with them.


OBJECTIVES
To compare (1) pullout properties between 3.5 mm cortical and locking screws, and (2) mechanical properties and gap displacements between the 3.5 mm broad limited-contact dynamic compression plate (LC-DCP), broad dynamic compression plate (DCP), and narrow locking compression plate (LCP), during axial loading of plate-stabilized diaphyseal fragments with an interfragmentary gap.

STUDY DESIGN
In vitro mechanical testing of implanted polyurethane foam (PUF) hollow cylinders that simulated compact or osteopenic diaphyseal bone.

SAMPLE POPULATION
(1) Five cortical and locking screws and (2) 4 PUF-plate constructs for each plate type; using high- and low-density (0.8 and 0.32 g/cm(3)) cylinders.

METHODS
(1) Screws were completely extracted at 5 mm/min. (2) Plated constructs were axially compressed at 300 N/s for 10 cycles from 5 to 355 N to determine gap displacement during physiologic loading, followed by single cycle increasing load to failure.

RESULTS
Pullout properties were not different between screw types. All plate constructs had yield loads over 3 times trotting loads. Gap closure occurred with LC-DCP and DCP constructs, but not LCP constructs. LCP construct properties were most similar to LC-DCP and DCP construct properties in the low-density model.

CONCLUSION
All plate systems sustained physiologic limb loads. Only LCP constructs maintained some gap integrity, although LC-DCP and DCP screws were placed in neutral position.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The LCP system is more likely than LC-DCP and DCP systems, with neutrally positioned screws, to maintain a planned interfragmentary gap, although gap strains range from 0% to 15% across the 2 mm gap during a trot load.


When hydraulic pressure was added on the feed side of the membrane in the otherwise conventional pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) process, the production rate of the salinity gradient energy could be significantly increased by manipulating the hydraulic pressures on both sides of the membrane. With hydraulic pressure added on the feed side of the membrane, much higher water flux could be obtained than that under the osmotic pressure of the same value. The osmotic pressure of the draw solution, instead of drawing water through the membrane, was mainly reserved to increase the hydraulic pressure of the permeate. In this way, orders of magnitude higher power density than that in the conventional PRO can be obtained with the same salinity gradient. At the optimal conditions, it was demonstrated that the energy production rates that were much higher than the economical breakeven point could be obtained from the pair of seawater and freshwater with the currently available semipermeable membranes.


Background: Although social support for patients with chronic illnesses buffers the detrimental impacts of stress, if it is not provided appropriately, it can be a source of stress. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Contextual Illness Support Scale (K-CISS) for patients with rheumatoid disease. Methods: A cross-sectional survey containing measures on social support, depression, anxiety, and quality of life was conducted with patients with rheumatoid disease (N=323). Results: The construct validity was supported by the results of the exploratory structural equation modeling, confirming the original two-factor model (positive and problematic support) and significant correlations between these two factors and health-related variables (i.e., depression, anxiety, and quality of life). The concurrent validity was supported by the significant positive correlation between positive and social support that was measured by the Korean version of the DUKE-UNC functional social support questionnaire. The internal consistency of the K-CISS was satisfactory, with Cronbach's α values of .96 and .72 for the subscales. Conclusions: These results suggest that K-CISS is a reliable and valid measure of two aspects of social support.


Enterprise risk management (ERM) concept received much attention from businesses and industries in Malaysia, in practice Bursa Malaysiaintroduced new guideline on voluntary risk disclosure practice in annual report which also known as 2013 Bursa Malaysia Guideline (effective on 1January 2013). However, overall development and practical application of 2013 Bursa Malaysia guideline has been rather limited studies especiallyin banking area. Apparently, scholarly research activities in this particular area of interest are totally lacking hence lead to the essential need of thisempirical study. In line with that statement, this paper aims to investigate the significant mean difference of ERM adoption among Malaysian BankingInstitutions before and after a new guideline is in effect were based on voluntary disclosure practices in the annual report using common termsas a proxy for ERM adoption, and also investigate its effect onto banking performance. Content analysis was performed on the annual reports of 102banking institutions; in addition return on Assets (ROA), return on Equity (ROE) and Non-Performing Loan (NPL) were used to determine the effectof ERM adoption towards banking performance. All in all, the findings show that the overall level of ERM disclosures among Malaysian bankinginstitutions have improved significantly after and before the cut-off date the 2013 Bursa Malaysia Guideline is in effect. In conjunction, the findingsalso reveal that ERM disclosure is positively influenced the Return on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) in banking institutions whereas ERMdisclosure do not influenced on Non-Performing Loan (NPL).
Keywords: Content analysis, disclosure, keyword search, enterprise risk management, banking, performance


Consider the following goals: 1. All children in America will start school ready to learn. 2. The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. 3. American students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency in subject matter, including English, math, science, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well so they will be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy. 4. U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement. 5. Every adult American will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. 6. Every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. A person reading this list could be excused for thinking it applied to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation that is having such an impact on present day American education. The concentration on English literacy and improved academic achievement in science, math, history and geography is consistent with this legislation, as is the emphasis on demonstrated competency in different grades. In fact, the list predates NCLB by more than a decade: It was contained in the National Education Goals 2000 legislation passed during the administration of the first President Bush and continued throughout the 1990s by President Clinton. Similar to NCLB, it was a bipartisan effort. Every year for 10 years a National Education Goals Report was published by the National Education Goals Panel. By the year 2000 the goals clearly had not been met and the project died with a whimper. As might be expected, it is seldom discussed and I have never seen a treatment of the causes of its failure. Obviously goals that contain wording such as "All children in America. . . ." "Every adult American. . . ." and "Every school in America. . . ." may be ambitious and laudable but clearly are unattainable. The only major criticism of the goals came from the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who suggested that they were similar to the old Soviet Five Year Plans; everyone knew they were unattainable but pretended to take them seriously. At one point, after looking at data for the states, Moynihan facetiously suggested that the best way to improve academic achievement would be to move all states closer to Canada. Throughout the decade north central states and the northeastern states of New England consistently showed the highest achievement. According to the 1999 National Education Goals Report, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, and Montana were tops in fourth and eighth grade reading. Minnesota, Connecticut, Maine, and Wisconsin were leaders in both fourth and eighth grade math. For eighth grade science (no data were reported for fourth grade) Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Minnesota were the leaders, with Connecticut and Iowa close behind. In writing achievement, only Connecticut had more than 40% of eighth graders scoring at or above the proficient level. It is interesting in passing to note that nobody ever seriously suggested looking at what these states were doing right. The only thing they have in common is location in the northern part of the country; they are not similar in their ethnic/racial make up and in some of the states (Maine, Montana, North Dakota), family income is not high. Also there are other northern states that do not demonstrate high achievement. Despite its failure to meet unrealistic targets, the Goals 2000 effort had some positive impact. It drew attention to the need for improved instruction and accountability, especially in terms of measurable outcomes. …


Available systems for evaluation of degree of unsaturation of thyroxine-binding globulin are hampered at the bound-free separation step. In current assays, inorganic sorbants or ion-exchange resins are used to separate free 125I-labeled triiodothyronine from that bound to thyroxine-binding globulin. The techniques are laborious, time consuming, and not readily adaptable to total automation. In the assay we describe, triiodothyronine antibody, immobilized on the walls of polypropylene test tubes, is used as the bound-free separating agent in the evaluation of degree of unsaturation of thyroxine-binding globulin. The assay is simplified to four steps; washing, centrifugation, and use of columns are eliminated; and the procedure is readily automatable with existing pipetting equipment. Correlation with existing methods is excellent.


Abstract Contextual similarity between targets and competitors, whether semantic or phonological, often leads to behavioral interference in language production. It has been assumed that resolving such interference relies on control processes similar to those involved in tasks such as Stroop. This article tests this assumption by comparing the electrophysiological signatures of interference resulting from a contextual similarity versus a Stroop-like manipulation. In blocks containing two items, participants repeatedly named pictures that were semantically related, phonologically related, or unrelated (contextual similarity manipulation). In straight blocks, the pictures were named by their canonical names. In reverse blocks, participants had to reverse the names (Stroop-like manipulation). Both manipulations led to behavioral interference, but with different electrophysiological profiles. Whole-scalp stimulus-locked and response-locked analyses of semantic and phonological similarity pointed to a system with global modularity with some degree of cascading and interactivity, whereas the effect of phase reversal was sustained and of the opposite polarity. More strikingly, a representational similarity analysis showed a biphasic pattern for Stroop-like reversal, with earlier higher similarity scores for the reverse phase flipping into lower scores ~500 msec poststimulus onset. In contrast, contextual similarity induced higher similarity scores up to articulation. Finally, response-locked mediofrontal components indexing performance monitoring differed between manipulations. Correct response negativity's amplitude was lower in the phonological blocks, whereas a pre-correct response negativity component had higher amplitude in reverse versus straight blocks. These results argue against the involvement of Stroop-like control mechanisms in resolving interference from contextual similarity in language production.


William Gass coined the term "metafiction" in 1970 to get a handle on then-recent and innovative fictions by Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, and Vladimir Nabokov, among others. In the critical context of the early 21st century, however, the term should be understood to name any fiction exhibiting a concern with the process, philosophy, and consequences of fiction-making. The history of metafiction is longer than that of the English-language novel. Metafictions dating from the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st typically concern themselves with the situation of discourse: they portray their characters awash in language that is potent because its origins and effects are myriad. Such metafictions ask how, why, and from where literary or narrative discourse stages its arrival on the page. In contrast, the major innovations of postmodernist, mid-20th-century metafictions are rightly characterized by Brian McHale as "ontological"; they urgently question the nature of reality as their language transports authors, narrators, readers, and characters among the different existential frames of history and fiction, past and present, and textual and corporeal reality. As a result of this difference, there is a gap between metafictional practice of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the work of metafiction's most influential critics: Gass, Robert Scholes, Linda Hutcheon, and Patricia Waugh, all of whom studied the varieties of metafiction in the 1970s and 1980s.
 As contemporary metafictions attend to the situation of discourse, they dramatize how pieces of language move—not just across pages, but across plots, cultures, and philosophies. Various motives drive this contemporary interest in dramatizing how language moves and touches, including the influence of Deconstruction in the American academy. Deconstruction, like Marxist and psychoanalytic criticism, writes drama into the very making of meaning.
 Contemporary ideas and materials—from Twitter narratives to viral memes to massively multiplayer online role-playing games—have mobilized discourse in new ways and transformed many of the philosophical puzzles of mid-20th-century metafiction into aspects of lived reality. Contemporary metafiction, consequently, puts metafictional devices and concerns into a new relationship with representation (mimesis). The world has caught up with metafiction, if it ever really lagged behind, and new forms of metafiction are being developed now to activate metafiction's older questions anew.


THE African Study Centre at the University of Leyden was originally a branch of the Afrika Instituut in Rotterdam, which was mainly concerned with economic and commercial questions. The centre at Leyden has now developed into a centre for linguistic and sociological studies, available to students of the University. Lecturerships in African Linguistics, Ethnology, and Sociology have been founded.


Title of thesis: SCALABLE, COMPOSABLE OPERATORS FOR DEFECT DESIGN AND ANALYSIS Rose Weisburgh, Master of Science, 2016 Thesis directed by: Professor Peter W Chung Department of Mechanical Engineering It is well understood that defects adversely affect the electro-mechanical properties of materials. Ideally, defect compositions of raw materials used in devices could be measured, but present technology in the field of atomic defect detection is either destructive in nature, or is unable to determine the precise atomic composition of materials. In the adjacent field of damage detection in large-scale truss networks, algorithms based on spectral measurements have successfully been employed to locate damaged members. Already similar principles have been applied to material lattices experimentally by using Raman Spectroscopy to qualitatively approximate defect densities within materials. However, the applications have largely been limited to surface defects or two-dimensional materials, and the host lattices and defect types are primarily studied anecdotally. This thesis details a numerical method for determining the precise phonon or vibration spectra of material lattices with defects, as it was originally presented in [1]. The dynamical matrices of lattices containing defects are calculated by introducing defects systematically into the dynamical matrices of pristine, defect-free lattices using linear operators. Each operation modifies or removes an individual bond or interaction. Complex defect configurations can be composed through reiterative application of the operators. The proposed methods may be applied to systems containing any interaction type or bond order, including space trusses and atomic lattices. The method is demonstrated by numerically determining the convergence rate of phonon properties in the dilute limit of a single point vacancy. Then the same methodology is applied to two-dimensional atomic lattices with central forces, two-dimension truss networks with distributed mass, as well as three-dimensional atomic lattices with non-linear many body potentials. In each example, the defect structure and properties are shown to alter the spectral properties of the materials. SCALABLE, COMPOSABLE OPERATORS FOR DEFECT DESIGN AND ANALYSIS


Detecting the activities and predicting the tendencies of large groups of targets in wide battlefields are critical inputs to formulating sound military decisions. Modern airborne radar sensors can provide wide-area surveillance coverage of battlefield ground activities. When obscured by terrain or other factors, some objects may only be detectable at intervals, generating intermittent radar data and creating difficulties for tracking groups over time. We present an algorithm, termed CoreTracking, which dynamically groups individual targets into clusters and tracks the clusters over time. Most traditional clustering techniques are static-object-oriented. We propose a "core member" concept to support dynamic-object-oriented clustering and to mitigate the effects of data intermittence. Observing the movement of the core cluster members, we can track the clusters across frames and predict their future movements. The performance and results of applying the CoreTracking algorithm to CASTFOREM data sets is also presented.