The WSIS + 10 (ten years after the World Summit on The Information Society) environment culminating in a December 2015 meeting at the United Nations in New York provides an opportunity for a longitudinal view of international organizations in internet governance over the last tumultuous decade. This paper reports on findings from an ongoing three-year study of select international organizations (such as the UNESCO, the OECD and the Council of Europe) acting in the internet governance policy spaces.
Originally convened by the United Nation's system in 2003 and 2005 and convened again in December 2015 by the same system, the ten years period result of the regulatory-related configurations emerging from the initial WSIS meetings shows major transformations in both the actual policy spaces and the type of collaborations and conflicts.
This paper uses document analysis, interview data, and participant observation as methods in tracking and analyzing these trajectories of change (including at the level of an international organization itself). At the same time, it tracks and analyzes emergent collaborations and conflicts among other actors (nation-states, civil society, the private sector, academe and the technical community) interacting in international organization-related contexts. Building on previous in-depth research on individual actors and specific issues at stake, this paper pays particular attention to data gathered from Fall 2015 meetings both of the preparatory processes for the United Nations Meeting and at the tenth IGF (Internet Governance Forum), with a view to assessing 10 years of multistakeholder governance in the Internet field.


One of the fastest growing areas in surface mount is in power electronics applications such as motor control and power supplies. These applications which have been traditionally through-hole have discovered the advantages of surface mount. The increased availability of surface mount power semiconductors, new substrates and other components has many of the newer power designs converting to surface mount technology. This paper shows trends in discrete power packaging and then addresses some of the concerns that arise when using packages such as the SOT-223, DPAK, D/sup 2/PAK, D/sup 3/PAK, and SOIC packages. Details of these packages are discussed as well as thermal capabilities and mounting techniques as they relate to power electronics.<<ETX>>


Over the past decade, it has been discovered that disparate aspects of morphology – often of distantly related groups of organisms – are regulated by the same genetic regulatory mechanisms. Those discoveries provide a new perspective on morphological evolutionary change. A conceptual framework for exploring these research findings is termed 'deep homology'. A comparative framework for morphological relations of homology is provided that distinguishes analogy, homoplasy, plesiomorphy and synapomorphy. Four examples – three from plants and one from animals – demonstrate that homologous developmental mechanisms can regulate a range of morphological relations including analogy, homoplasy and examples of uncertain homology. Deep homology is part of a much wider range of phenomena in which biological (genes, regulatory mechanisms, morphological traits) and phylogenetic levels of homology can both be disassociated. Therefore, to understand homology, precise, comparative, independent statements of both biological and phylogenetic levels of homology are necessary.


Metapolypodium Ching, a monotypic genus endemic to Asia mainland (SW China and its neighboring regions), is still in dispute as to its systematic position. In this paper, the phylogenetic relationships of this genus was examined based on the chloroplast DNA sequences of rbcL gene and rps4-trnS region. The rbcL genes and rps4-trnS region of M. manmeiense (Christ) Ching and its closely related species were sequenced. The combined relative sequences downloaded from the GenBank, consisting of three data sets―rbcL genes, rps4-trnS region including rps4 and rps4-trnS intergenetic spacer, and the combined matrix―were used to assess relationships among them with the neighbor-joining (NJ), maximum-parsimony (MP) and Bayesian inference (BI) analyses. The phylogenetic trees based on individual sequence data and the combined data are topologically similar and reveal that M. manmeiense forms a clade with the members of Polypodiodes and Polypodiastrum, which is not related to any member of Polypodium. The trees also strongly support the close relationship between M. manmeiense and Polypodiodes microrhizoma (C. B. Clarke ex Baker) Ching. We should agree with Ching's opinion, recognizing Polypodium L. emend. Ching, Metapolypodium Ching, Polypodiodes Ching, Polypodiastrum Ching and Schellolepis J. Sm. as independent taxa according to the results of the present study. It is reasonable to transfer Polypodiodes microrhizoma to Metapolypodium.


Compressed modernity is a civilizational condition in which economic, political, social and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect to both time and space, and in which the dynamic coexistence of mutually disparate historical and social elements leads to the construction and reconstruction of a highly complex and fluid social system. During what Beck considers the second modern stage of humanity, every society reflexively internalizes cosmopolitanized risks. Societies (or their civilizational conditions) are thereby being internalized into each other, making compressed modernity a universal feature of contemporary societies. This paper theoretically discusses compressed modernity as nationally ramified from reflexive cosmopolitization, and, then, comparatively illustrates varying instances of compressed modernity in advanced capitalist societies, un(der)developed capitalist societies, and system transition societies. In lieu of a conclusion, I point out the declining status of national societies as the dominant unit of (compressed) modernity and the interactive acceleration of compressed modernity among different levels of human life ranging from individuals to the global community.


This title is the third title in the Qualitative Research Methods series. Emerging Forms: - Offers examples of some of the ways that researchers in the business disciplines can begin to use data collection and representation approaches that are more commonly found in other disciplines such as sociology, ethnography and the fine arts; - Offers the beginnings of the development of data collection and representation approaches that will challenge and perhaps redefine what constitutes knowledge in the business disciplines; -Traces the evolution of ways of representing qualitative data and articulates some of the reasons for the emerging challenges to traditional approaches; - Provides examples of alternative approaches to representation using various types of text and form. These examples include comments from the authors on why they chose their approach and what they see as its strengths and weaknesses.- Debates some of the issues these emerging approaches raise, such as how is qualitative research to be judged? what is rigour? and who is an author?


High-resolution records of bulk carbonate carbon isotopes have been generated for the Upper Coniacian to Lower Campanian interval of the sections at Seaford Head (southern England) and Bottaccione (central Italy). An unambiguous stratigraphic correlation is presented for the base and top of the Santonian between the Boreal and Tethyan realms. Orbital forcing of carbon and oxygen isotopes at Seaford Head points to the Boreal Santonian spanning five 405 kyr cycles (Sa1 to Sa5). Correlation of the Seaford Head time scale to that of the Niobrara Formation (Western Interior Basin) permits anchoring these records to the La2011 astronomical solution at the Santonian-Campanian (Sa/Ca) boundary, which has been recently dated to 84.19 ± 0.38 Ma. Among the five tuning options examined, option 2 places the Sa/Ca at the 84.2 Ma 405 kyr insolation minimum and appears as the most likely. This solution indicates that minima of the 405 kyr filtered output of the resistivity in the Niobrara Formation correlate to 405 kyr insolation minima in the astronomical solution and to maxima in the filtered δ13C of Seaford Head. We suggest that variance in δ13C is driven by climate forcing of the proportions of CaCO3 versus organic carbon burial on land and in oceanic basins. The astronomical calibration generates a 200 kyr mismatch of the Coniacian-Santonian boundary age between the Boreal Realm in Europe and the Western Interior, due either to diachronism of the lowest occurrence of the inoceramid Cladoceramus undulatoplicatus between the two regions or to remaining uncertainties of radiometric dating and cyclostratigraphic records.


Prograded barrier systems record shoreline behaviour and palaeoenvironmental information. The Guichen Bay Holocene embayment fill succession in South Australia has been subject to several prominent studies; however, several important unanswered questions remained regarding the timing of the older ridge sets at this site. Additional Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating indicates that progradation commenced in the southeastern corner of the plain ~7300 years ago and was rapid between ~5800 and ~5000 years ago. To augment this record, three OSL dating transects were constructed at nearby Rivoli Bay in the north, central and south. Rapid progradation occurred in the south and then north of the Rivoli plain until ~5000 years ago. Steady progradation occurred in the centre of the plain between ~5000 years ago and present. Rapid shoreline progradation at Guichen and Rivoli Bays before ~5000 years ago was due to the input of sediment from the erosion of Robe and Woakwine Ranges and the inner continental shelf as sea levels rose to present. Raised beach strata imaged with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) at Rivoli Bay suggest a sea-level highstand of +2 m above present ~3500 years ago, steadily falling and reaching the present ~1000 years ago. This concurs with evidence from Guichen Bay and may have promoted shoreline progradation. Sediment infilling of Guichen and Rivoli Bays and the fall in sea level restricted the marine corridor between the Woakwine and Robe Ranges to a narrow channel by ~4000 and ~2000 years in the north and south, respectively. Holocene shoreline behaviour was influenced by changing sediment supply and shoreline reorientation with changing wave refraction patterns.


Background: The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the different dysphagia screening and evaluation tools, and to identify their measurement properties in adults with neuromuscular diseases (NMDs). Methods: A systematic review was performed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search strategy was conducted across three databases (PubMed, CINAHL and ScienceDirect). Measurement properties of each tools and the Quality Index, developed by Downs and Black, were considered for the different investigated studies. Results: The search strategy produced 2221 articles. After removal of duplicates and full-text analysis, 19 studies were included. Most of the publications focused on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; n = 10) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD; n = 4). A total of 12 tools, listed as instrumental and noninstrumental examinations, were retrieved. A total of five of them used videofluoroscopic swallow study (VFSS). Measurement properties of the tools are not completely described in detail in many studies. The neuromuscular disease swallowing status scale, a noninstrumental tool, is the only one that assessed all measurement properties in ALS patients. The median score reported for the Quality Index was 16. Conclusions: This systematic review identified 12 different tools for the screening and evaluation of dysphagia in adults with NMD. Majority of the studies presented VFSS as a valid and reliable examination to assess dysphagia in ALS and DMD. Other tools were mainly evaluated in ALS patients, but further studies are needed to complete their measurement properties. In other NMDs, no firm conclusion can be made because of insufficient data and heterogeneity of NMDs.


We have shown previously that fibrin(ogen) binding potentiates the capacity of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) to stimulate endothelial cell (EC) proliferation. We have now investigated the receptor requirement for EC proliferation by fibrinogen-bound FGF-2. ECs were cultured with 25 ng/mL FGF-2 with or without 10 microg/mL fibrinogen, and proliferation was measured as (3)H-thymidine incorporation. Proliferation was increased 2.4 +/- 0.5-fold over medium alone with FGF-2 and increased significantly more to 4.0 +/- 0.7-fold with fibrinogen and FGF-2 (P < .005). Addition of 7E3 or LM609, antibodies to alpha(v)beta(3), inhibited EC proliferation with fibrinogen-bound FGF-2 by 80% +/- 8% (P < .001) or 67% +/- 14% (P < .002), respectively, to levels significantly less than that observed with FGF-2 alone (P < .001). Neither LM609 nor 7E3 exhibited any inhibition of activity with FGF-2 alone. Peptide GRGDS caused dose-dependent inhibition of proliferation by fibrinogen-bound FGF-2 of 31% +/- 8%, 45% +/- 9%, and 68% +/- 11% at 0.25, 0.5, and 1 mM, respectively. Coimmunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence studies demonstrated a direct specific association between alpha(v)beta(3) and FGF receptor 1 (FGFR1) in ECs and fibroblasts when exposed to both FGF-2 and fibrinogen but not with vitronectin. We conclude that fibrinogen binding of FGF-2 enhances EC proliferation through the coordinated effects of colocalized alpha(v)beta(3) and FGFR1.


Air traffic service providers are increasingly embracing electronic alternatives to the traditional paper flight progress strip (FPS). However, most development of such electronic systems, and of decision support tools (DSTs) in general, has centered on radar-based en route or terminal-area facilities, rather than the airport air traffic control tower. Based on an analysis of the unique human factors requirements of the control tower environment, a prototype portable electronic FPS has been designed that also serves as an interface to a DST for departure operations. The portable electronic FPS has been implemented using a system of networked, handheld computers as prototype hardware. A study has been conducted to evaluate the usability of the portable electronic FPS. The study consisted of a human-in-the-loop experiment that simulated the tasks an air traffic controller performs at a major airport. Three issues were explored: the importance of FPS portability, the appropriateness of departure sequence DST advisories distributed onto each portable electronic FPS, and the advantages of interaction mechanisms enabled by an electronic interface. Test subjects used multiple versions of the portable electronic FPS as well as a current-day paper FPS. Quantitative measures of departure sequencing efficiency and traffic monitoring ability were recorded for each test subject, as well as subjective FPS preference rankings. This paper reviews the final design and prototype implementation of the portable electronic FPS, presents the design and results of the usability study, and suggests future research that should be pursued in order to create an operationally deployable portable electronic FPS system.


Quantitative analysis of fossil shell assemblage was carried out in Shinjima Island located in the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay, South Kyushu, to confirm the change of mollusks' habitat conditions. In addition, stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios of carbonate fossil shells were also measured to clarify the water-mass conditions of the Kagoshima Bay during the past 11,000 years. Both the fossil shell community and carbon isotopic ratios clearly indicate that the water-masses in the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay were influenced strongly by the pelagic water, which replaced the fresh water mass initially present in the paleo-caldera lake. Thus, the pelagic water mass increased progressively, and became the maximum during the period between 6,000-2,300 yrs BP when the shell bed (Moeshima Shell Bed) was formed. The analysis of fossil shell assemblage and shell size distribution, however, indicates that the Neopycnodonte cochlear, the dominant species in the Moeshima Shell Bed, did not reproduce in the bay, but supplied as the planktonic larvae from the pelagic water mass. After that, it started that the influence of pelagic water-mass became to be weak at 2,300 yrs BP, when the supply of the larvae was stopped. As a result, the dominant pelagic species disappeared from the innermost part of the Kagoshima Bay, and consequently the shell community was replaced by the assemblage comprised of the inner bay species. Such a change in mollusks community appears to be depended on the time-series variation of the Kuroshio Current influence.


Deep learning has revolutionized many fields in recent years by replacing expert-designed, handcrafted features with learned representations. Gear health monitoring is a field where expert-designed features are heavily used for predictive modeling. This paper investigates how unsupervised deep learning can be applied to gear health monitoring to make predictions on low frequency scales using high frequency data given small, sparsely labeled data sets. Deep convolutional autoencoders are trained and used to generate learned features. The learned features are compared with relevant handcrafted features via their performance in training machine learning models to predict discrete gear fatigue states. The learned features performed poorly against the handcrafted features, however models trained on feature sets tended to outperform those exclusively trained on handcrafted features. The top performing model was a multi-layer perceptron trained on both feature sets that leveraged the ability of the condition indicators to represent healthy and failure states and the ability of the learned features to represent the intermediate worn state. This work demonstrates that unsupervised deep learning techniques can be used to bolster the performance of handcrafted features in small, sparsely labeled data sets in gear health monitoring.


On November 11, 2017, MUI (Indonesian Council of Ulama), DMI (Indonesian Mosque Council) have launched the national program named eco masjid. Eco masjid is a program of sustainable mosque through efforts to preserve the environment and natural resources oriented to on aspects of idarah (management), imarah (prosperity activities), and ri'ayah (maintenance and facilities) which dominantly related to its building. In Indonesia, sustainable building principles are widely promoted by GBCI (Green Building Council Indonesia) and have been applied to various types of buildings. However, it has been realized that the study on the implementation of sustainable principle in the mosque is very rare. The research was carried out qualitatively by using direct observation on the pilot mosque to capture all implemented sustainable building principle. Based on the questionnaire to 44 participants which reflected 44 DKM (Dewan Kemakmuran Masjid), the result came up that applying water efficient faucet, using the LED lamp and sticker posting are the most achievable sustainable practices in the existing mosques. The authors suggest to all related bodies to determine the standard on how to assess the implementation of eco Masjid program


The availability and scale of user generated data in online systems raises tremendous challenges and opportunities to analytic study of human activities. Effective modeling of online human activities is not only fundamental to the understanding of human behavior, but also important to the online industry. This thesis focuses on developing models and algorithms to predict human activities in online systems and to improve the algorithmic design of personalized/socialized systems (e.g., recommendation, advertising, Web search systems). We are particularly interested in three types of online user activities, i.e., decision making, social interactions and user-generated contents. Centered around these activities, the thesis focuses on three challenging topics:
1. Behavior prediction, i.e., predicting users' online decisions. We present Collaborative-Competitive Filtering, a novel game-theoretic framework for predicting users' online decision making behavior and leverage the knowledge to optimize the design of online systems (e.g., recommendation systems) in respect of certain strategic goals (e.g., sales revenue, consumption diversity).
2. Social contagion, i.e., modeling the interplay between social interactions and individual behavior of decision making. We establish the joint Friendship-Interest Propagation model and the Behavior-Relation Interplay model, a series of statistical approaches to characterize the behavior of individual user's decision making, the interactions among socially connected users, and the interplay between these two activities. These techniques are demonstrated by applications to social behavior targeting.
3. Content mining, i.e., understanding user generated contents. We propose the Topic-Adapted Latent Dirichlet Allocation (τLDA) model, a probabilistic model for identifying a user's hidden cognitive aspects (e.g., knowledgability) from the texts created by the user. The model is successfully applied to address the challenge of "language gap" in medical information retrieval.
Keywords: Predictive models, online human activities, user-generated data, behavior prediction, social ties, collaborative competitive filtering, social contagion, behavior-relation interplay, content mining, user cognitive aspects, language gap


Does the transmission of economic policies and structural shocks vary with the state of the economy? We answer this question using a strategy based on quantile regressions, which account for both endogeneous regressors and state-dependent parameters. An application to U.S. real activity and interest rate reveals pervasive asymmetries in the propagation mechanism of economic disturbances across good and bad times. During periods in which real activity is above its conditional average, the estimates of the degree of forward-lookingness and interest rate semi-elasticity are significantly larger (in absolute value) than the estimates associated with below-average periods. Results are robust to alternative estimation strategies to model state-dependent parameters.


Diameter is being increasingly included in the work of other standards
organizations and has become a key protocol in many architectures. O
maintaining hard-state and soft-state during failover and in the event
of delayed refresh messages respectively. Often there is a need to
query for information on active sessions for backup or synchronization
purposes. ne of the uses of Diameter includes setting and


This thesis constitutes the first analysis of the development of the French education system and the emergence of the French 'college' in relation to Gilles Deleuze's assertion that, in the post-war period, the disciplinary societies described by Michel Foucault have entered into crisis and that a new 'control society' is emerging. The first chapter of the thesis establishes the theoretical framework to be applied, elucidating the connections between Foucault's concepts of power and 'dispositif' and Deleuze's concepts of desire and 'agencement', before considering how historical change emerges through the intensification of strategies of power. The rest of the chapter outlines the abstract traits of discipline and then control and considers how these strategies of power might be actualised in the institution of the school. The second chapter applies this framework to the development of the education system established under the Third Republic, which is found to consist of three separate disciplinary 'dispositifs' of education that actualise distinct logics of education. The third chapter traces the intensification of strategies of power responding to the logics of the three institutions identified in the previous chapter and the transformations of the education system that this provokes before showing the emergence of the 'college' from the confluence of these intensified logics, which establishes it as an institution of control traversed by a modulation of disciplinary logics. The 'college' is then also shown to develop governance structures that promote modulation as the local negotiation of the institution. The thesis argues that the emergence of the 'college' marks the beginning of a shift from discipline to control in the French education system.


Abstract. While global hydrological models (GHMs) are very useful in exploring water resources and interactions between the Earth and human systems, their use often requires numerous model inputs, complex model calibration, and high computation costs. To overcome these challenges, we construct an efficient open-source and ready-to-use hydrological emulator (HE) that can mimic complex GHMs at a range of spatial scales (e.g., basin, region, globe). More specifically, we construct both a lumped and a distributed scheme of the HE based on the monthly abcd model to explore the tradeoff between computational cost and model fidelity. Model predictability and computational efficiency are evaluated in simulating global runoff from 1971 to 2010 with both the lumped and distributed schemes. The results are compared against the runoff product from the widely used Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. Our evaluation indicates that the lumped and distributed schemes present comparable results regarding annual total quantity, spatial pattern, and temporal variation of the major water fluxes (e.g., total runoff, evapotranspiration) across the global 235 basins (e.g., correlation coefficient r between the annual total runoff from either of these two schemes and the VIC is  > 0.96), except for several cold (e.g., Arctic, interior Tibet), dry (e.g., North Africa) and mountainous (e.g., Argentina) regions. Compared against the monthly total runoff product from the VIC (aggregated from daily runoff), the global mean Kling–Gupta efficiencies are 0.75 and 0.79 for the lumped and distributed schemes, respectively, with the distributed scheme better capturing spatial heterogeneity. Notably, the computation efficiency of the lumped scheme is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the distributed one and 7 orders more efficient than the VIC model. A case study of uncertainty analysis for the world's 16 basins with top annual streamflow is conducted using 100 000 model simulations, and it demonstrates the lumped scheme's extraordinary advantage in computational efficiency. Our results suggest that the revised lumped abcd model can serve as an efficient and reasonable HE for complex GHMs and is suitable for broad practical use, and the distributed scheme is also an efficient alternative if spatial heterogeneity is of more interest.


Monthly depositions of anthropogenic radionuclides, which directly reflect atmospheric processes including emission from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP), are an important probe to re-construct FDNPP accident sequence. Japanese radioactivity survey network monitored monthly 90Sr deposition after the FDNPP accident. The highest monthly 90Sr deposition (470 ± 17 Bq m-2) was observed in March 2011 at Futaba near the FDNPP site, which is the same order of magnitude as that due to global fallout observed in 1963. The higher 90Sr deposition in March 2011 occurred in the Kanto and inland of the Tohoku areas. The monthly 90Sr deposition decreased with time, as did 137Cs. Atmospheric effect of the FDNPP-derived 90Sr continued more than 1 year. 90Sr/137Cs activity ratios in March 2011, which were in the range from 0.99 ×10-4 to 3 ×10-4, showed no large spatial variation. This result allowed us to estimate total atmospheric emission of 90Sr from the FDNPP accident from the total atmospheric release of 137Cs. The total release amount of 90Sr at an early stage of the accident was calculated to be 2.7 – 3.6 TBq.


On October 22, 2004, President George W. Bush enacted a repatriation tax holiday under the American Jobs Creation Act. It allowed companies incorporated in the U.S. to repatriate foreign earnings at a reduced effective tax rate of 5.25 percent, instead of the usual 35 percent tax rate. In this thesis, we analyze how the level of foreign cash holdings relative to company size affect the company returns during the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004? To answer our research question we conduct two event studies. The first event study is the introduction date of the American Jobs Creation Act on June 4, 2004, whilst the second, October 22, 2004, is the date the act was enacted into law. We use hand collected permanently reinvested earnings data as a proxy for foreign cash holdings and investigate how different levels of permanently reinvested earnings affect cumulative abnormal returns during the two events. We study S&P 500 companies as many of these companies repatriated foreign earnings during the repatriation tax holiday. Intuitively, we expected that companies with a higher level of foreign cash holdings relative to size would outperform companies with a lower level of foreign cash holdings. However, based on our results, we cannot conclude that the level of foreign cash holdings had an effect on the cumulative abnormal returns. We believe that there are mainly two reasons for these results. First, it could be that different levels of permanently reinvested earnings, our proxy, should affect the cumulative abnormal returns, but that this is not captured in our model. Second, it could simply be that different levels of permanently reinvested earnings do not affect cumulative abnormal returns as investors prioritize other measures when evaluating the effects of the repatriation tax holiday on companies.


The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in the sudden shift from on-campus class to remote learning using different ways, but mainly through the use of the internet to deliver instruction and submit the requirements. While the news is full of statistics about the COVID-19 cases, recoveries, and deaths, not much has been written about the plight of students during the pandemic. This study looked into the lived experiences of the five education students enrolled in Batangas State University learning on their own at home during the time of the Luzonwide lockdown in the Philippines. This phenomenological research utilized voice calls (Messenger) in getting data from the participants. In analyzing the data, the researchers identified the frequent words or phrases, categorized the responses, then identified the themes. Four themes emerged from the interviews: students partook in asynchronous learning for grades; remote education during a pandemic affords students' stress and anxiety; students prefer in-face classes over distance learning; and they have insufficient technology. The study concluded with the understanding that the sudden implementation of distance learning, the student-participants view this mode of learning as a means to comply and to cope with the set standards given the available measures and resources. The student-participants are able to experience the truly independent and individual manner of learning. Participants need to adjust to the new mode of learning, for they are still in the traditional face to face mode of delivery of learning and education and Resources and means to connect are the major concerns of students especially those in the remote areas both the region and nearby provinces.


Across the nation, farmers, farmworkers and their families experience an increased risk of death, illness and disability. A major concern is to determine how medical education and the medical profession can realize their potential to benefit the agricultural community. This exploratory study was completed to identify factors that might predict interest in practice of agricultural medicine among primary care physicians. Two hundred seventy-eight Alabama primary care physicians, almost equally distributed as urban and rural, completed a questionnaire that surveyed interest in agromedicine practice, experience regarding 13 agromedicine topics, and other physician characteristics. Through a logistic regression model, interest in agromedicine practice was predicted by a high proportion of practice experience in smaller communities, agromedicine experience through personal hobby or avocation, and through professional literature. These three significant variables correctly predicted a moderate to high level of interest in agromedicine practice in 65% of the physicians in the study. If these results hold up with confirmatory study, the authors recommend that targeted efforts to produce physicians for agricultural medicine should prepare physicians whose backgrounds are rural and whose interests include agricultural and family medicine, thus predicting location and practice relevant to the needs of the agricultural community.


This paper describes work in progress regarding personalized heart monitoring using smart phones. Our research combines ubiquitous computing with mobile health technology. We use wireless sensors and smart phones to monitor the wellbeing of high risk cardiac patients. The smart phone analyses in real-time the ECG data and determines whether the person needs external help. Depending on the situation the smart phone can automatically alert pre assigned caregivers or call the ambulance. It is also used to give advice (e.g. exercise more) or to reassure the patient based on the sensors and environmental data.


Economic growth in the Latin America and the Caribbean region has picked up considerably during the past decade or so. This growth has been aided by widespread (earlier and more recent) investments in power generation, transmission, and distribution that increased the provision of electricity services to households, commerce, and industry. This report evaluates a number of critical issues for the power sector in the region in the coming two decades. These include the expected rates of increase in the demand for electricity, the required supply of new generating capacity, the technology and fuel mix of that generating capacity, and the carbon dioxide emissions of the sector. One of the key contributions of this study is the aggregation of individual country plans to the regional and sub regional levels, using a consistent set of data and a common methodology. The report also assesses the important roles of hydropower and natural gas, the way other clean and low-carbon resources can be expanded, the potential and benefits of greater electricity trade, and the role of energy efficiency. By considering the region as a whole, the report highlights the role that individual countries will play in shaping the region's aggregate power sector.


What is the relationship between democracy and hegemony in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks? Salvadori and Galli della Loggia argue that hegemony is best understood as a theory of dictatorship and is therefore incompatible with democracy. Vacca argues that hegemony is inconceivable in the absence of democracy. I bridge these divergent readings by making two arguments. First, hegemony is a form of rationalized intellectual and moral leadership, and therefore depends on liberal democratic institutions. Second, hegemony is established through revolution. Gramsci thus paradoxically combines a deep appreciation for liberal democracy with a basically Leninist conception of politics. Hegemony and Democracy in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks


Recently, support vector machine (SVM) has been shown to be a good classifier; however, its large computational requirement prohibited its use in real time video processing applications. In this paper, a model is proposed that enables use of SVM in video applications. The proposed model allows selected image scales (of interest) to be encoded and classified more accurately by complex classifier such as SVM, whilst other image scales of less significance to be encoded and classified by simpler encoder/classifier. Experiment with video object encoding shows that the performance of the proposed model is comparable with other models, however with reduced computational requirements.


The influence of S. aureus and S. epidermitidis metabolites on the adhesive reactions in the system "C. albicans-buccal epitheliocytes" was studied. The study revealed that the treatment of C. albicans with S. aureus supernatants inhibited the adhesion of C. albicans to epitheliocytes, the degree of the inhibiting action of S. aureus supernatants in the system depending on their strain specificity. S. epidermitidis supernatants produced no adhesive effect. The irreversible decrease of the adhesive activity of C. albicans under the action of bacterial metabolites was, seemingly, the consequence of transformation of the receptor apparatus of C. albicans. At the same time S. aureus supernatants produced no essential influence on the adhesive potential and viability of buccal epitheliocytes.


The main objective of this study was to develop resistance against cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV) using a novel strategy based on RNAi. Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) is associated with several distinct geminivirus of the genus Begomovirus, which are able to replicate and spread in susceptible host plants including cotton when inoculated with DNA satellite called DNA beta. DNA beta is a novel single stranded DNA satellite of approximately 1350 nucleotides in length that has been isolated from infected cotton plants is found to be essential for induction of the characteristic symptoms in cotton. DNA I² is biologically functional, being required for amplification of DNA A to high levels and for the efficient systemic spread of infection throughout susceptible cotton plant. Two strategies (transient assay and stable transformation) were used to block beta molecule through RNAi technology. The I² Cl-C2 genes encoded by CLCuV/DNA I² (U89) were targeted in transient assay and I² Cl CLCuV/DNA I² (U77-4) for stable transformation to developed resistance against CLCuD. Since I² Cl protein is a virulence determinant that suppresses RNA silencing and hypersensitive response (HR), the targeting of this gene is likely to protect plants against virus infection. Results confirmed that DNA beta encodes a virulent factor that suppresses host defense responses. The Cl-C2 region was cloned in RNAi vector (pFGC5941 dsRNA) and vector containing the same in the sense or antisense and both orientations in the same vector were also developed. For stable transformation beta Cl along with promoter region was cloned in plant expression vector pBin61 for producing dsRNA through double promoter (one side of Cl gene is 35S promoter and other side is I² promoter). These constructs were transformed in A. tumefaciens strain LBA 4404. The RNAi vector containing Cl-C2 region of DNA I² was then transiently expressed in N. bethamiana in combinations of infectious clones {DNA A (PK3) + DNA I² and DNA A (H12) + DNA I² }. The Cl region of DNA I² was then transformed in N. tabacum through Agrobacterium mediated leaf disc transformation. The presence of transgene was confirmed through PCR and southern hybridization in transgenic plants. Evaluation of transgenic plants through whitefly inoculation and infectious clones showed the complete blockage of I² replication and developed resistance against CLCuV. Results showed that RNA mediated silencing of a virulence gene derived from a DNA satellite can interfere with virus infection in a sequence-specific manner. Our results support the view that RNAi can be successfully used to control plant DNA viruses


We address the problem of allocating a single divisible good to a number of agents. The agents have concave valuation functions parameterized by a scalar type. The agents report only the type. The goal is to find allocatively efficient, strategy proof, nearly budget balanced mechanisms within the Groves class. Near budget balance is attained by returning as much of the received payments as rebates to agents. Two performance criteria are of interest: the maximum ratio of budget surplus to efficient surplus, and the expected budget surplus, within the class of linear rebate functions. The goal is to minimize them. Assuming that the valuation functions are known, we show that both problems reduce to convex optimization problems, where the convex constraint sets are characterized by a continuum of half-plane constraints parameterized by the vector of reported types. We then propose a randomized relaxation of these problems by sampling constraints. The relaxed problem is a linear programming problem (LP). We then identify the number of samples needed for "near-feasibility" of the relaxed constraint set. Under some conditions on the valuation function, we show that value of the approximate LP is close to the optimal value. Simulation results show significant improvements of our proposed method over the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism without rebates. In the special case of indivisible goods, the mechanisms in this paper fall back to those proposed by Moulin, by Guo and Conitzer, and by Gujar and Narahari, without any need for randomization. Extension of the proposed mechanisms to situations when the valuation functions are not known to the central planner are also discussed.


Problems of rehabilitative correction of defect conditions associated with schizophrenia that had occurred in early childhood remain little studied. After the disease attacks the schizophrenic children usually develop severe defect conditions. With no rehabilitation provided to such children, the defect gravity increases due to super-addition of secondary retardation of mental development. The characteristic features of defect conditions were investigated on a material of the follow-up of 75 persons who had suffered schizophrenic attacks of varying structure at the age under 3 years. A complex of measures for their rehabilitation has been elaborated.


Within the framework of the internal evaluation of the National Technical University of Athens, as specified by the standards of the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Certification Authority in Higher Education, the members of the Library of the National Technical University of Athens were asked to provide information on the publishing activity of the members of its Academic Staff. After consulting with the Management and the Quality Assurance Unit of the National Technical University of Athens, it was agreed to implement a bibliometric analysis of the publications - mainly in international scientific journals - of its academic staff. In particular, it was suggested to use scientific publications - up to and including 2016 - for each active member of the academic staff. The information that had to be collected was the following: the number of publications, the number of references and the h-index.


Fathers with type I diabetes transmit diabetes to their offspring 2–3 times more frequently than mothers with type I diabetes. This phenomenon has provoked both genetic and nongenetic hypotheses, but the mechanism remains obscure. We find that mothers who develop diabetes before age 8 transmit diabetes at the same rate as diabetic fathers, and that the sex difference in diabetes transmission is explained by a decreased transmission rate in mothers who acquired diabetes after age 8. We constructed a data base containing 2156 nondiabetic and diabetic offspring of parents with type I diabetes. Families were selected from our main data base, which contains demographic information and diabetes autoantibody test results on >8000 first-degree relatives of patients with type I diabetes and diabetic probands. Identification of offspring was made through diabetic parents who had participated in our autoantibody screening program at the Joslin Diabetes Center between 1983 and 1990. Questionnaires were sent to all other family members to determine the number of diabetic and nondiabetic offspring in each family. The 20-yr life-table risk of diabetes in offspring of diabetic fathers and mothers is 8.9 ± 1.0 and 3.4 ± 0.6%, respectively. For mothers acquiring diabetes before or after age 8, the risk of diabetes in offspring is 13.9 ± 4.4 and 2.4 ± 0.6% at 20 yr of age, respectively. Furthermore, we find that duration of diabetes in mothers before pregnancy has no effect on the risk of diabetes in their offspring. The increased transmission rate of diabetes in diabetic fathers is explained by a decreased transmission rate of diabetes in mothers who acquire diabetes after age 8. Because women acquiring diabetes after age 8 transmit less diabetes to their offspring, we propose that adrenarchy may have an apparent protective effect on diabetes transmission. We speculate that mothers who acquire diabetes after age 8 are more susceptible to this disorder (similar to susceptibility to other organ-specific autoimmune diseases) and may possess and transmit fewer genetic susceptibility determinants to their offspring.


A majority of scholars consider Egypt's urban development a product of the neo-liberal political economy facilitated by the country's central government. In this article, we want to shift our attention towards the public and its demand for housing. We describe the urban everyday experiences of a population within a country in which a visual culture established via public media creates an urban imagination that does not reflect the lived social, spatial, and economic reality of the majority of the population. Exploration of the general public's attitudes towards media narratives that focus their advertisement campaigns on high class residential projects launched this investigation. The argument that follows is based on empirical studies within the Greater Cairo Region (GCR). In this setting, a puzzling trend from our collected data guides our central research question: Why aren't ads for luxury housing—a market segment clearly beyond the reach of most Egyptians—condemned by those who cannot afford it? To tackle this phenomenon, we shed light on how the pre—and post-marital demand for housing among young couples and their families influence the market, and particularly, the market for upscale and luxury housing in Cairo. The research consists of four phases, including (1) field interviews with Uber and Careem drivers, (2) an online survey targeting inhabitants across varying urban and social segments of the GCR, (3) the first author's personal story, which posits that marriage culture acts as a key driver for real estate narratives, and (4) a visual analysis of a real estate advertisement. To conclude, the article discusses how far a hegemonic visual culture that caters to socio-economic links between class, marriage, and real estate engages the support of a large part of the population, which in turn, co-produces a spatially unjust urban development scheme that works against their own interests.


In this paper we study isolation as a form of punishment. Although an isolated violator is punished as it can not benefit from the interactions with other agents, compliant agents may also suffer from not engaging with the violators. In this paper we analyze such problems. Certain modifications of multi agent systems are needed to solve this problem. These modifications are aimed to make the violator redundant so that it can be ignored and hence isolated. Deciding on these modifications is NP-complete and approximation algorithms exist.


How many species are there on Earth and to what groups do these species belong? These fundamental questions span systematics, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Yet, recent estimates of overall global biodiversity have ranged wildly, from the low millions to the trillions. Insects are a pivotal group for these estimates. Insects make up roughly half of currently described extant species (across all groups), with ~1 million described species. Insect diversity is also crucial because many other taxa have species that may be unique to each insect host species, including bacteria, apicomplexan protists, microsporidian fungi, nematodes, and mites. Several projections of total insect diversity (described and undescribed) have converged on ~6 million species. However, these projections have not incorporated the morphologically cryptic species revealed by molecular data. Here, we estimate the extent of cryptic insect diversity. We perform a systematic review of studies that used explicit species-delimitation methods with multi-locus data. We estimate that each morphology-based insect species contains (on average) 3.1 cryptic species. We then use these estimates to project the overall number of species on Earth and their distribution among major groups. Our estimates suggest that overall global biodiversity may range from 563 million to 2.2 billion species. [Biodiversity; cryptic species; insects; species delimitation; species richness].


Abstract—The reinforcement and repair of concrete structures by bonding composite materials have become relatively common operations. Different types of composite materials can be used: carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) as well as functionally graded material (FGM). The development of analytical and numerical models describing the mechanical behavior of structures in civil engineering reinforced by composite materials is necessary. These models will enable engineers to select, design, and size adequate reinforcements for the various types of damaged structures. This study focuses on the free vibration behavior of orthotropic laminated composite plates using a refined shear deformation theory. In these models, the distribution of transverse shear stresses is considered as parabolic satisfying the zero-shear stress condition on the top and bottom surfaces of the plates without using shear correction factors. In this analysis, the equation of motion for simply supported thick laminated rectangular plates is obtained by using the Hamilton's principle. The accuracy of the developed model is demonstrated by comparing our results with solutions derived from other higher order models and with data found in the literature. Besides, a finite-element analysis is used to calculate the natural frequencies of laminated composite plates and is compared with those obtained by the analytical approach.


Known as the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), the US Forest Service is planning a large-scale restoration of ponderosa pine forests in the Verde River watershed in central Arizona. This paper uses a reduced-form econometric regression model with 1969-2010 time-series data to estimate the economic benefits of the increased water yield due to planned forest restoration of the first phase of 4FRI. We split data sample into 1969-1989 and 1990-2010 time periods, and conclude that during the second time period, water use is statistically and economically significant. This is consistent with the reality that the Verde River watershed has been in drought since the early 1990s. Our central finding is that, if water use increases by 1%, the farm income will increase by 1.33%. If a 5-10% increase in water yield caused by the first phase of the 4FRI is all used by agriculture, agricultural income will increase by 6.65-13.3% annually.


The network-on-chip (NoC) architecture provides the integrated solution for system-on-chip (SoC) design. The buffer architecture and sizes, however, dominate the performance of NoC and influence on the design of arbiters in the switch fabrics. The 2-level FIFO architecture is proposed. It simplifies the design of the arbitration algorithm and gets better performance than other buffer architectures without increasing the buffer sizes. The concept of the shared memory mechanism and multiple accesses for the buffers are developed. The FIFO architecture is implemented and simulated with TSMC 0.13mum network-on-chip by HSPICE and Verilog. The operation frequency of the 2-level FIFO reaches 400MHz


The increasing share of decentralized intermittent renewable energy reinforces the necessity of balancing local production and consumption. Decentralized energy systems, powered by renewable energy technologies and incorporating storage and conversion technologies, are promising options to cope with this challenge. Many studies have evaluated their potential contributions, but an overview of the status‐quo in both academia and practice is missing. The extant literature lacks a comprehensive review of the scientific knowledge on decentralized energy systems, partially attributed to the lack of common terminology. Additionally, it remains unclear what kind of systems are already implemented today worldwide as they have not yet been thoroughly analyzed and described. However, pilot projects provide valuable insights into future applications and operational aspects. To fill these gaps, an extensive review of the current state of literature and practice is conducted. To do so, 64 publications and 56 projects were analyzed and an overview is provided using four criteria: terminology, scope/motivation, application, and technical configuration. These criteria facilitate the understanding of decentralized energy systems needed to spur their development and diffusion. Further advancements of research and practice are discussed. For example, technological learning hinges on a common terminology and on an identification of optimal technical configurations per application. There are both avenues for future research.


This paper considers the advantages of a critical legal pluralist analysis of the English case R (on the application of Begum) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2007] 1 AC 100. The case concerns whether a state school's decision to exclude a pupil (Shabina Begum) for wearing an Islamic veil (a jilbab, which is a long coat-like garment which covers the whole body except the hands and face) infringed her right to manifest her religion and her right to an education protected under Articles 9 and 2 (of the First Protocol) of the European Convention of Human Rights 1950. The various court decisions of the case determine that both Articles 9 and 2 cannot be relied upon for claims related to the accommodation of religious dress in state schools. Compared with doctrinal legal scholarship and traditional legal pluralist analyses of the case, both criticised for essentialising normative orders and communities, a critical legal pluralist analysis provides the advantage of focusing on the subjective beliefs of a legal subject. Undertaking a critical legal pluralist approach as a legal methodology, rather than more traditional legal analyses, exposes and defeats various assumptions which surround the practice of veiling.


ABSTRACT Albanerpetontidae form an enigmatic extinct group of lissamphibians, ranging from the early Bathonian to the early Pleistocene. The Upper Jurassic outcrops of Portugal yield a large collection of material, suitable for addressing the intraspecific variation in and diagnostic potential of the characteristic fused frontals. We revise 58 specimens from the Guimarota beds of the Kimmeridgian Alcobaça Formation and describe 62 new frontal bones from the Kimmeridgian – Tithonian Lourinhã Formation. Smaller specimens exhibit a vermicular dorsal ornamentation, while it is polygonal in larger specimens and other albanerpetontids. Compared to small specimens, larger specimens display: (1) larger ventrolateral crests extending posteriorly after the parietal margin; (2) a relatively shorter internasal process; (3) a frontal width across posterior edges relatively smaller; and (4) a ventromedian crest less pronounced. Morphometric analyses suggest a single species with different ontogenetic stages. Specimens are attributed to aff. Celtedens sp., based on a bell-shaped outline with a curved orbital margin (although variable in Portuguese specimens), and a flabellate, bulbous-shaped internasal process. The species is more similar to C. megacephalus than C. ibericus, but its phylogenetic position comprises an unresolved trichotomy. Our results show that intraspecific variation and homoplasy render the fused frontal non-diagnostic below the generic level.


The first general meeting of the Academy of Pediatrics was held in Atlantic City in 1931. A year previously a meeting had been held in Detroit, at which time officers were elected and a constitution was adopted. The meeting at Atlantic City was a report of committees appointed the year before. This was followed by a business meeting. During this session Dr. Henry Gerstenberger, newly appointed head of the Committee on Hospitals, made a formal recommendation from his group. One of the first acts of the Academy, he stated, should be an evaluation of the current methods of teaching pediatrics in medical schools. The recommendation was also that an analysis should be made of the care of children in hospitals and other children9s institutions. Such a survey should be repeated periodically. Dr. Gerstenberger emphasized his suggestion by stating that only projects of this nature could justify a new pediatric society. He and his committee felt strongly that this new organization should not be just scientific and social, for other pediatric societies fulfilled that need. It should have as a goal the greater welfare of all children. This point also was the theme of the presidential address of Dr. Isaac Abt at this same meeting. The suggestion of a Child Care Survey was referred to the Committee on Child Health Relations and to the Committee to Cooperate with Governmental and Non-medical Agencies. No continuing program ever followed this suggestion. Events described here show that it was a task no new organization could successfully have undertaken. In 1935, four years later, Dr. Clifford G. Grulee, Secretary of the Academy, submitted what might be called a modification of the suggestion made by Dr. Gerstenberger.


We analyzed 1338 deep-sea sediment samples from 19 Deep Sea Drilling Project/Ocean Drilling Program sites covering a large portion of the Indian Ocean, and constructed a new and comprehensive data set of their bulk chemical compositions, including rare-earth, major, and trace elements. The bulk-sediment rare-earth and yttrium (REY) composition of the REY-enriched samples, characterized by relatively small negative Ce anomalies, almost no Y anomalies, and enrichment in heavy rare-earth elements, can be interpreted as the superposition of the REY compositions of apatite and hydrogenous Fe-Mn oxides. Although the hydrothermal component is a key factor in the formation of REY-rich mud in the Pacific Ocean, it is less important in the Indian Ocean, probably because there is less hydrothermal input of Fe-oxyhydroxides from seafloor hydrothermal vents there. The relationships among Fe 2 O 3 , MnO, P 2 O 5 , Co, and total REY contents suggest that a primary factor controlling REY enrichment in deep-sea sediments is the sedimentation rate. A low sedimentation rate allows both fish debris apatite and hydrogenous Fe-Mn (oxyhydr)oxides to accumulate in the surface sediments. On the basis of these results, we identified two potential areas in the Indian Ocean where REY-rich mud may be present in surface sediments: the south-southeastern Wharton Basin and the southern Central Indian Ocean Basin. The resource potential of the latter area might be particularly high if the distributions of REY-rich mud and Fe-Mn nodule fields broadly overlap.


The lithospheric structure across the Møre Margin has been studied by integrating regional elevation, gravity, geoid and heat-flow data together with available seismic and geological data. Our results show that the Moho depth varies from 42 km beneath the Caledonides to 20–15 km beneath the basin and to 13–16 km in the oceanic domain. The lithosphere thins in a step-like manner from 160 km inland to 60–80 km in the oceanic domain. A comparison with the Vøring Margin reveals that both margins have similar crustal and lithospheric structures. Major dissimilarities are: (1) the volume of underplating beneath the ocean–continent boundary; (2) the lithospheric thickness beneath the Caledonian Front; (3) the lithospheric thickness beneath the distal parts of the margins. The heat transfer across the Vøring Transform Margin, the secular variation of lithospheric thickness with age, and the jump of the Aegir spreading ridge are responsible for these differences.


Background Approximately 70 million people in the United States have hypertension. Although antihypertensive therapy can reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with hypertension, often patients do not take their medication as prescribed. Objective The goal of this study was to better understand issues affecting the acceptability and usability of mobile health technology (mHealth) to improve medication adherence for elderly African American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander patients with hypertension. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 gatekeeper-stakeholders using targeted open-ended questions. Interviews were deidentified, transcribed, organized, and coded manually by two independent coders. Analysis of patient interviews used largely a deductive approach because the targeted open-ended interview questions were designed to explore issues specific to the design and acceptability of a mHealth intervention for seniors. Results A number of similar themes regarding elements of a successful intervention emerged from our two groups of African American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander gatekeeper-stakeholders. First was the need to teach participants both about the importance of adherence to antihypertensive medications. Second, was the use of mobile phones for messaging and patients need to be able to access ongoing technical support. Third, messaging needs to be short and simple, but personalized, and to come from someone the participant trusts and with whom they have a connection. There were some differences between groups. For instance, there was a strong sentiment among the African American group that the church be involved and that the intervention begin with group workshops, whereas the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander group seemed to believe that the teaching could occur on a one-to-one basis with the health care provider. Conclusions Information from our gatekeeper-stakeholder (key informant) interviews suggests that the design of a mHealth intervention to improve adherence to antihypertensives among the elderly could be very similar for African Americans and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The main difference might be in the way in which the program is initiated (possibly through church-based workshops for African Americans and by individual providers for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders). Another difference might be who sends the messages with African Americans wanting someone outside the health care system, but Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders preferring a provider.


The Raft of the Medusa is an iconic, history-style painting of a then contemporary shipwreck (French frigate Méduse, June 17, 1816) that paradoxically helped realise the truth of the actual event despite widespread news coverage. Here, the Neoclassicism of the Enlightenment gives way to the passion filled realism of Romanticism. Classical pyramidal composition is no longer accompanied by an ideal beauty but by dark turbulence and the cruel reality of the ever-present scramble for life over piled-up corpses. Géricault's violent visual portrayal was a triumph of feeling that infused the debate regarding the shipwreck with a visceral aesthetic that dramatically widened the lens of truth through which society saw itself. Historically, post-Napoleonic France was "adrift" at the time and "the whole of society was aboard the Medusa": from the incompetent captain to the corrupt system that had appointed him; from the lifeboats reserved for the wealthy to the poor souls left behind to fend for themselves; from the disaster of the shipwreck to the nightmare of animal brutality and cannibalism on the raft (with few survivors left to tell the tale). The painting stands as a synthetic view of human life abandoned to its fate and as such fascinated and upset the public, divided critics and generated much debate.


This article traces the debates occurring in the music industry where blockchain technology surged as an ideal solution for long-standing disagreements over distribution, publishing, licensing, sales, streaming, and listening. The projections (in conferences, media, opinion pieces, and academic reports) started as techno-utopian, but over time the discourse shifted from "radical" to "incorporative" goals. The technological dreams were scaled back as the scope of social challenges to technological solutions became clearer. Borrowing from Clive Barnett's theory of convening publics, we argue that the role of the blockchain in this environment was not necessarily as a technological solution, but rather as a "convening" force that brought disparate actors together. Nonetheless, we still have to ask, who is invited to convene, and who is left out?


Among the most numerous and most beautiful surviving art works from the Mycenaean period are the objects of carved ivory. Such pieces are decorated with typically Mycenaean motifs such as rosettes, helmeted warriors, spirals, and sea-shells; objects take the form of combs, mirror-handles, toilette-boxes and statuettes. The majority of these surviving ivories, however, are carved silhouettes and panels which were very likely used as inlays and moldings for wooden furniture; the furniture itself has largely disappeared, as the climate and environment of Greece hinder the preservation of wooden objects. We are left with only a glimpse in extant wall painting and minor arts of the expensive objects which ivory and other precious materials adorned. Ivory dated to the Mycenaean period has been found in a worked and unworked state at many sites on the Greek mainland. This ivory yields important information concerning Mycenaean trade contacts, and testifies to the wealth and social organization of these palatial centers. From the material remains alone, we can draw only a few conclusions about the uses and working of ivory in the Mycenaean period, and about the role of ivory craftsmen in the palatial economy. However, the Linear B texts found at the palaces at Pylos, Knossos, Mycenae and Tiryns offer valuable and unbiased information concerning the industries in which ivory was used and the way in which it was viewed by the administration. The 2 tablets describe furniture decorated with carved ivory and other precious materials, and give inventories of the weapons and chariots which it decorated. Technical terms in the texts correspond to the methods of carving and inlay deduced from extant ivories, and we discover the Mycenaean names for the varied patterns incised on the pieces. It is also possible to discern scribal 'book-keeping' methods: that is, how Mycenaean accountants kept track of this valuable material. In this paper I shall analyze the references to the term for ivory in the Linear B texts and the contexts in which the term appears. At the same time I shall study the archaeological evidence for ivory-working, in order to form larger conclusions concerning the craft of ivory-carving in the Mycenaean period.


To investigate the mechanical degradation of the shear properties of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminates in bridge decks under hygrothermal aging effects, short-beam shear tests were performed following the ASTM test standard (ASTM D790-10A). Based on the coupled hygro-mechanical finite element (FE) analysis method, an inverse parameter identification approach based on short-beam shear tests was developed and then employed to determine the environment-dependent interlaminar shear modulus of GFRP laminates. Subsequently, the shear strength and modulus of dry (0% Mt/M∞), moisture unsaturated (30% Mt/M∞ and 50% Mt/M∞), and moisture saturated (100% Mt/M∞) specimens at test temperatures of both 20 °C and 40 °C were compared. One cycle of the moisture absorption–desorption process was also investigated to address how the moisture-induced residual damage degrades the shear properties of GFRP laminates. The results revealed that the shear strength and modulus of moisture-saturated GFRP laminates decreased significantly, and the elevated testing temperature (40 °C) aggravated moisture-induced mechanical degradation. Moreover, an unrecoverable loss of shear properties for the GFRP laminates enduring one cycle of the moisture absorption–desorption process was evident.


Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is grown commercially in temperatures that vary greatly during the season. The purpose of this study was to develop potential, growth and developmental rates of cotton leaves and internodes as a function of temperature in a temperature-limiting environment. That information may be used with growth duration and appropriate stress factors to develop a crop canopy development model. Plants were grown in sunlit plant growth chambers in five temperatures, 20/12 degrees C to 40/32 degrees C (day/night), at ambient (350 microliter L-1 CO2) and twice ambient carbon dioxide levels in well-watered and fertilized conditions. Plants were monitored daily for leaf unfolding dates, areas of leaves, and lengths of internodes at leaf unfolding, and growth of leaves and internodes. Durations of leaf and internode expansion were also determined. Leaf unfolding interval rates of troth mainstem and fruiting branches increased as temperature increased; the rate of mainstem leaf unfolding interval increased more than the rate of branch leaf unfolding. Irrespective of sizes, leaves, and internodes fit a single relationship of relative expansion rates and age for each temperature condition. Enriching CO2 to twice the ambient level did not change these relationships. Increasing temperature increased maximum growth rate, decreased the decay in the rate of expansion due to age, and reduced growth duration of both leaves and internodes. Internodes typically took less time than leaves to elongate at all temperatures. Leaf area and internode length at leaf unfolding increased as temperature increased to 27 to 30 degrees C, then decreased at higher temperatures.


This paper reviews the NTIRE challenge on image colorization (estimating color information from the corresponding gray image) with focus on proposed solutions and results. It is the first challenge of its kind. The challenge had 2 tracks. Track 1 takes a single gray image as input. In Track 2, in addition to the gray input image, some color seeds (randomly samples from the latent color image) are also provided for guiding the colorization process. The operators were learnable through provided pairs of gray and color training images. The tracks had 188 registered participants, and 8 teams competed in the final testing phase.


Following the second session of the forum, a question and answer session was facilitated by Paul Willis. The presentations covered by this plenary session were: John Woinarski (Charles Darwin University) - Killing Peter to save Paul: when is it appropriate to cull native species to benefit other native species?Ricky Spencer (Western Sydney University) - What 'impact' will the killing of two million cats by 2020 have on feral cat populations?Rod Kavanagh (Australian Wildlife Conservancy) - Conservation fencing: little cost but significant benefits for threatened native species.Libby Robin (Australian National University) - Eradicating the ugly.George R Wilson and Melanie Edwards (Australian Wildlife Services) - Professional kangaroo population control leads to better animal welfare, conservation outcomes and avoids waste. (Paper included post forum.)


Larger percentages of wind power penetration translate into more demanding requirements from the grid codes; for example voltage support at the point of connection has been introduced recently by several grid codes from around the world, making it important to analyze this control when applied to wind power plants. This paper proposes two different VAr reserve control strategies for a wind power plant. The amount of dynamic VAr available most of the operation time, makes the wind power plant (WPP) a good candidate to include a VAr reserve management system. Two different ways of implementing a VAr management system are proposed and analyzed. Such a reactive power reserve may be provided by the wind power plant since the amount of reactive power installed for most active power working points exceeds the demand required by the grid operator. Basically, this overrated reactive power capacity is a consequence of sizing wind turbine facilities for maximum active power level. The reactive power losses, due to active power transportation inside the plant (normally two transformers), and P-Q wind turbine characteristics define the P-Q reserve chart. By utilizing the intrinsic overrated reactive power capacity, additional devices, such as for example SVCs and STATCOMs, can be avoided in other locations of the grid.


The levels of trace elements and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in fly ash generated by coal combustion have received considerable attention in recent years, due to their potential environmental impact. Sixteen high priority PAHs and 14 trace elements in coal fly ash were measured. The particle sizes of fly ash showed a bimodal distribution, and most ash particles were within a range of 20–25 µm in diameter. The fly ash exhibited high contents of CaO and SO3, which was influenced by the desulfidation treatment of limestone. The Be, Cu, Ni, V, Se, Mo and Cd contents increased significantly with decreasing particle sizes of fly ash, while those of Zn and Pb showed no obvious trends. PAHs with three- and four-rings were the dominate species in all the fly ash. The amount low molecular weight PAHs with two-, three- and four- rings was inversely correlated with the particle sizes of the fly ash.


This paper present Acoustic Emission (AE) generated during fatigue mechanism of API5LX70 steel which was widely use as gas pipeline materials. Fully reverse (R=-1) constant amplitude fatigue test were done with four different stress amplitudes which were 437.5MPa, 406.25Mpa, 390.6MPa and 359.4MPa respectively. An observation from those tests shows that AE Count gives a significant value during cyclic softening and bauschinger effect. Crack initiation indicated by rapid increase of AE count values at positive peak stress and followed by high AE count values around zero stress which indicate crack closure phenomena. Among all four tests, it was show that AE activity from fatigue test with amplitude of 359.4MPa can be significantly divided into 3 region which correspond to crack incubation stage, microplastic and slip plane formation stage and crack initiation and propagation stage. Further analysis was done by separating AE signals from those 3 regions into 6 different groups. Ten AE signatures from each group were selected to calculate AE RMS and AE kurtosis. Analyses on AE RMS which correspond to overall energy of the signal were useful to indicate the microplastic and slip plane formation stage and crack initiation and propagation stage while AE kurtosis was useful in indicating crack stage including initiation, propagation and closure stage.


Differences in probe-tip-to-line geometry and substrate permittivity between measurement and calibration wafers decrease the measurement accuracy. This is especially the case when measurements are performed on lossy silicon substrates. Two novel general techniques are presented which characterise the discontinuities near the probe tip, based on the measurement of two lines with different lengths. The equivalent elements representing the discontinuity are extracted at each frequency point, together with the propagation constant and the characteristic impedance of the line. The results obtained are superior to previous methods with a reduced number of measurements. The validity of the method is demonstrated by measurements of CPW lines on low and high resistivity silicon and on GaAs.


During egg laying, female birds face a trade-off between self-maintenance and investment into current reproduction. Providing eggs with resources is energetically demanding, since in most species females lay one egg per day. However, the costs of egg laying not only relate to energetic requirements, but also depend on the availability of specific resources that are vital for egg production and embryonic development. One of these compounds are carotenoids, pigments with antioxidant properties and immuno-stimulatory functions, which are crucial during embryonic development. In this study, we explore how carotenoid availability alleviates this trade-off and facilitates egg laying in the blue tit. Blue tit females lay one egg per day and have the largest clutch size of all European passerines. We performed a lutein supplementation experiment, and measured potential consequences for egg laying capacity and egg quality. We found that lutein-supplemented females had less laying interruptions and thus completed their clutch faster than control females. No effects of treatment were found on the onset of egg laying or clutch size. Experimentally enhanced carotenoid availability did not elevate yolk carotenoid levels or egg mass, but negatively affected eggshell thickness. Our results provide hence evidence on the limiting role of carotenoids during egg laying, However, the benefits of laying faster following lutein supplementation were counterbalanced by a lower accumulation of calcium in the eggshell. Thus, even though single components may constrain egg laying, it is the combined availability of a range of different resources which ultimately determines egg quality and thus embryonic development.


Promoting Health Enhancing Physical Activity (HEPA) behavior is an important undertaking in Germany as well as in China. In order to create successful interventions in different nations, knowledge about the relevant psychosocial correlates that may encourage successful progression through the behavior change process is necessary. Therefore, the relationships of selected psychosocial correlates of physical activity with stages of change were examined in a German-Chinese sample. In total, 2071 adults (865 Germans, 1206 Chinese) completed a questionnaire. The theoretical framework used was the FIT-model, which consists of the following stages of change: not considering, considering, preparing, exploring, fluctuating and maintaining. All data were analyzed with a two-way ANOVA. Significant main effects for the stages of change on all psychosocial correlates were found. Significant interactions between stages and nations emerged for all correlates except for social support, although these results revealed small effect sizes. To progress within the stages of inactivity, interventions should focus on outcome expectations, barriers, social support and affective attitudes. The successful initiation of physical activity depends on considerations of barriers, maintenance self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation and affective attitudes. These same correlates plus social support are relevant for long-term adherence to physical activity. In Germany, perceived barriers and emotional aspects of physical activity appear to be important for initiating and maintaining regular physical activity. Furthermore, for long-term adherence to physical activity, Germans—in contrast to Chinese adults—may not necessarily benefit from social support; however they could benefit from learning how to strengthen their physical activity outcome expectations.


Homelessness is a major problem that affects every continent on the globe, with estimates of up 100 million people worldwide who are homeless at any given time. Of concern, homeless women may be placed at higher risk for certain stressors, such as assault or rape, and for conditions that may lead to immunosuppression, such as malnutrition and a lack of medical attention for different infections, untreated cancers, and exposure to immunocompromising diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Equally important, women in particular, when displaced, are less likely to seek medical attention for the diagnosis and treatment of their infections. This lack of medical attention can lead to further immunosuppression and even death. In this article, our goal is to focus on the problem of infectious diseases in homeless persons, highlighting those issues unique to homeless women. New policies need to be addressed to decrease homelessness and to improve the lives of homeless individuals, in particular women.


An idealised Pangean configuration is integrated in a coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation model to investigate the form of the ocean circulation and its impacts on the large scale climate system. A vigorous, hemispherically symmetric overturning is found, driven by deep water formation at high latitudes. Whilst the peak mass transport is around 100 Sv, a low vertical temperature gradient in the ocean means that the maximum heat transport is only 1.2 PW. The geographical change in the coupled model is found to produce a global average warming of 2°C, despite an increase in global surface albedo. This occurs through changes in the atmospheric water vapour and cloud distributions. There is also reduction in the equator‐pole temperature gradient, largely attributable to the same causes, avoiding the paradox of low meridional temperature gradients without increased polar heat transport.


The aim of my research is to assess intended and unintended consequences of public subsidies to non-profit institutions, particularly focusing on the performing arts. In recent years, one of the main objectives of public subsidies has been to curb prices, in order to encourage widespread attendance by removing a barrier for groups traditionally excluded from live performances. But do lower prices encourage attendance. Are people who normally do not participate in art events, such as those from disadvantaged socio-economic groups, prevented from doing so by high prices. And do the public subsidies necessary to lower prices have unintended consequences that might work against the objective of broader attendance - for instance, by 'crowding-out' private donations and thereby reducing overall support to performing arts institutions. In my thesis I address these questions using data from the United Kingdom and the United States. In the first empirical component I explore to what extent admission prices influence the demand for live performances of wealthy, middle-class and deprived individuals. In the second part I assess to what extent public subsidies are correlated with attendance analysing the 2002 American Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. While the results of the price elasticity of the demand for performing arts study highlight a significant inverse correlation between attendance and prices, the analysis of the impact of public subsidies on attendance indicates that the former do not significantly influence the latter. Possible unintended consequences of government subsidies might prevent them from achieving their objective. I test the hypothesis that public subsidies displace private donations determining the apparent inconsistency between the findings that prices affect attendance and public subsidies do not. While public subsidies do not appear to be effective in stimulating attendance, results indicate that participation in art education is highly correlated with attendance. In the last part of the thesis I identify possible alternatives policy makers have to the use of public subsidies and concentrate on the provision of art education in public schools.


The study of cell lineages through heritable genetic lineage tracing is well established in experimental animals, particularly mice. While such techniques are not feasible in humans, we have taken advantage of the fact that the mitochondrial genome is highly prone to nonpathogenic mutations and such mutations can be used as clonal markers to identify stem cell derived clonal populations in human tissue sections. A mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation can spread by a stochastic process through the several copies of the circular genome in a single mitochondrion, and then through the many mitochondria in a single cell, a process called 'genetic drift.' This process takes many years and so is likely to occur only in stem cells, but once established, the fate of stem cell progeny can be followed. A cell having at least 80% of its mtDNA genomes bearing the mutation results in a demonstrable deficiency in mtDNA‐encoded cytochrome c oxidase (CCO), optimally detected in frozen tissue sections by dual‐color histochemistry, whereby CCO activity stains brown and CCO deficiency is highlighted by subsequent succinate dehydrogenase activity, staining the CCO‐deficient areas blue. Cells with CCO deficiency can be laser captured and subsequent mtDNA sequencing can ascertain the nature of the mutation. If all cells in a CCO‐deficient area have an identical mutation, then a clonal population has been identified; the chances of the same mutation initially arising in separate cells are highly improbable. The technique lends itself to the study of both normal epithelia and can answer several questions in tumor biology. WIREs Dev Biol 2016, 5:103–117. doi: 10.1002/wdev.203


The paper introduces the main character of the YanHua PCI-1721. It has a waveform output with a 10MHz most update rate ,and a function of auto calibration ,and a card ID and so on. It's the perfect choose in the application of fast concatenation simulation output or the real time waveform output . The correct mode of signal connection has been given. The method of the produce of virtual signal based on the PCI-1721 has been argumentation in the applications of some TACAN simulation. The simulation output implement by DMA (Direct Memory Access) with the used of PT_FAOWaveFormStar and DRV_FAOWaveFormStart.


This study employs a structural time-series method to model and estimate U.S. cotton exports and mill use. The results show that the stochastic process governing cotton export fluctuations is transitory, while the process pertaining to mill use has transitory, seasonal, and secular origins. The estimated structural relationships after accounting for the unobserved components indicate U.S. cotton exports respond directly to higher international price relative to domestic price of cotton, while mill use responds directly to U.S. textile output price and cotton-to-polyester price ratio. Exchange rate volatility and the U.S. Export Enhancement Program have no significant effect on cotton exports.


ABSTRACT Research has established that students often consider the delivery of instructor feedback to be a face-threatening event. To minimize the potential negative effects of feedback, verbal and nonverbal face-threat mitigation (FTM) strategies are utilized by instructors. Advances in digital feedback systems, like online documents and learning management platforms, allow instructors to add nonverbal elements, such as profile pictures or emojis, to this feedback. Two mixed-method studies were employed to investigate the role of these nonverbal cues in digital feedback. Study 1 (N = 236) employed a 2 by 2 experiment (presence or absence of FTM tactics by presence or absence of instructor picture), showing that FTM strategies have substantial positive impact on feedback and instructor perceptions, and that the inclusion of instructor pictures with this feedback has no effect. Study 2 (N = 218) utilized a 2 by 2 experimental design (presence or absence of FTM tactics by presence or absence of matched-valence emojis). Results confirm main effects of FTM techniques (mitigation strategies lead to positive effects), but the addition of emojis had no perceptible influence. Implications for technology-driven instructional feedback are discussed.


Changes in the bacterial community in soil-water suspensions during the enrichment period of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T degraders were examined using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of the 16S rRNA gene. The nucleotide sequences of almost all major bands at the degradation of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T corresponded to those of 2,4-D- and 2,4,5-T-degrading isolates, and successions of diverse 2,4-D- and 2,4,5-T-degrading bacterial communities were demonstrated in the DGGE profile. These results suggested that 2,4-D- and 2,4,5-T-degrading isolates were responsible for the degradation of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T in soil-water suspensions; however, one major band of a non-degrader was found in some cases. Therefore, to elucidate the relationship between the structures and functions of bacterial communities, the importance of a combined approach using both culture-dependent and -independent methods was demonstrated.


Epidemiologic studies suggest that the consumption of red wine may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. The cardioprotective effect of red wine has been attributed to the polyphenols present in red wine, particularly resveratrol (a stilbene, with estrogen-like activity), and the flavonoids, catechin, epicatechin, quercetin and phenolic acids such as gallic acid. At present, very little is known about the mechanisms by which red wine phenolic compounds benefit the cardiovascular system. Therefore, the aim of this study was to elucidate whether red wine polyphenolics reduce lipoprotein production and clearance by the liver. Cultured HepG2 cells were incubated in the presence of dealcoholized red wine, alcohol-containing red wine and atorvastatin for 24 h. The apolipoprotien B100 (apoB100) protein (marker of hepatic lipoproteins) was quantified on Western blots with an anti-apoB100 antibody and the enhanced chemiluminescence detection system. Apolipoprotein B100 levels in the cells and that secreted into the media were significantly reduced by 50% in liver cells incubated with alcoholstripped red wine compared with control cells. This effect of dealcoholized red wine on apoB100 production in HepG2 cells was similar to the effect of atorvastatin. Apo B100 production was significantly attenuated by 30% in cells incubated with alcoholized red wine, suggesting that the alcohol was masking the effect of red wine polyphenolics. Apo B100 production was significantly attenuated by 45% with the polyphenolic compounds resveratrol and quercertin. In addition, dealcoholized and alcoholized red wine and atorvastatin significantly increased 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase mRNA and LDL receptor binding activity relative to controls. Dealcoholized red wine also increased LDL receptor gene expression. Collectively, this study suggests that red wine polyphenolics regulate major pathways involved in lipoprotein metabolism. J. Nutr. 133:


The Changing Business of Journalism and Its Implications for Democracy. David A. L. Levy and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, eds. Oxford, UK: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2010. 89 pp. £12 pbk.Much of what is written today, especially in the United States, about the business of journalism focuses on one of two issues: the significant decline in both audiences and revenue for traditional journalism enterprises, especially newspapers, and the role of the Internet in precipitating or exacerbating these declines. This "crisis" is generally seen as a serious threat to the contribution that these organizations make to democratic societies-indeed, this perceived harm to democracy is the driver of much of this literature. Moreover, there is usually an implicit assumption that what is happening in the United States is also happening elsewhere or soon will.Enter now this slim new book published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, a volume that represents the collective effort of a dozen internationally known scholars, mainly European, and part of the Reuters Institute's continuing series. The book's stated purpose is to challenge the doom and gloom that dominates much of the current narrative by offering a systematic overview of what is happening in a diverse range of countries. And it very effectively accomplishes this goal.The book's global approach adds three important elements to the current discussion about the future of the journalism business. First, it emphasizes the need to isolate the role of cyclical factors in the current crisis-in particular, the impact of the current recession-from more fundamental ones. Second, it provides an approach to distinguishing between challenges that are the result of the Internet per se and those that stem from structural characteristics of the journalism industry in a given country. Finally, by taking a neutral approach to the Internet's impact on traditional news businesses and on the health of democracy, it provides a framework for considering a wide range of possible positive outcomes.The first three chapters of the book provide the conceptual and empirical foundation for the seven country studies that are the heart of this volume. This introductory section begins with the book's editors-both research fellows at the Reuters Institute- presenting a wide variety of statistics (on advertising and other news media revenues, profits, public funding, newspaper circulation, and Internet usage) to make the point that the current state of news media is very different across the seven countries.Then Robert Picard, the Reuters Institute research director, offers an excellent summary of the key factors underlying the current crisis in the news media. In doing so, he links two important points: (1) that "serious news" itself has never been profitable as a business and has always required some sort of subsidization and (2) that the decline in newspaper circulation is not the result of a decline in citizen demand for serious news (which in his view has always been limited) nor greater competition in producing it but rather an increase in competition for other types of news (sports, arts and entertainment, celebrity, travel, etc. …


This study proposes a new mixing process for producing commercially acceptable DSP mortar of high flowability, using commercial materials and water-bath curing at about 20°C. That is "three- speed mixing technics (TSMT)". The properties of mortars mixed by TSMT and conventional technics (CT) are compared. At a water-to-binder ratio of 0.2, the compressive strength of the TSMT mixed DSP mortars was about 41.2% higher than that of the CT mixed DSP mortars of the same composition, the workability was also increased. The increase reason was investigated by the wedge-splitting section and Environmental SEM (ESEM) images. Additionally, for TSMT, the influence of mix-design parameters such as cement grade, the water/binder (w/b) ratio, the silicon fume/cement (sf/c) ration and the superplasticizer/cement (sp/c) ratio were studied.


This paper relates the designing phase of a tablet mobile assisted language learning (t - MALL) environment targeting to increase the learners' engagement in the foreign language classroom through the inclusion of personalised and customised learning. Customising the students' access to learning material and support was expected to increase the students' exposure to the target language through personalized learning content and tools. The implementation of the t - MALL classroom sought to provide the students with a caring, supportive and learner - centred environment which could sustain their engagement during class activities. Therefore, in the designing phase, a critical review of the t - MALL literature was performed in order to compile existing theoretical and methodological concepts and recommendations pertaining to the integration of personal tablet computers in foreign language tertiary education. This article highlights the research gaps as well as the contributions from the critical review then explains the development of the action plan towards the implementation of tablet computers in the immersive language classroom .


This study reports the results of a 3-year follow-up assessment of children and adolescents diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (social phobia) and treated with Social Effectiveness Therapy for Children (SET-C), a comprehensive behavioral treatment program combining social skills training, peer generalization, and individualized exposure. Among 32 children initially treated with the protocol, 29 completed the follow-up assessment and were evaluated with a multidimensional assessment strategy, including self-report, parental report, clinician ratings, and behavioral assessment. Results indicated that the majority of posttreatment gains were maintained at 3-year follow-up, and 72% of treated children continued to be free of a social phobia diagnosis 3 years later. These findings support the long-term efficacy of SET-C for children and adolescents suffering from social phobia.


We evaluated the elastic properties of the compressive stress (CS) layer of chemically tempered glass by ultrasonic microspectroscopy (UMS) in a very high frequency (VHF) range. Two commercial aluminosilicate glass specimens were prepared, and one of them was chemically tempered. Changes in elastic properties in the CS layer with the residual stress introduced by the exchange of Na+ ions for larger K+ ions were estimated by precisely measuring the densities and longitudinal and shear velocities for both the tempered and nontempered specimens. Using a single-layer model for the surface layer, we observed drastic increases in bulk-wave velocities and significant decreases in attenuation coefficients. We determined that the average elastic properties, namely, the elastic constants c11 and c44, and the density of the surface layer, were 9.6 and 7.1, and 1.2% larger than those of the nontempered specimen, respectively. We also estimated the distributions of the elastic properties according to the complementary error function (CEF) for the distribution of K+ ion concentration. Furthermore, using a line-focus-beam (LFB) system, we measured the frequency characteristics of the velocity (VLSAW) of leaky surface acoustic waves (LSAWs) on a water-loaded surface of the tempered specimen and clarified that the distributions of the elastic properties did not follow the CEF. The LFB system can be used for analyzing/determining details of the surface properties and is a promising tool for evaluating and characterizing chemically tempered glass and tempering process conditions.