Land degradation and water availability in semi-arid regions are interdependent challenges for management that are influenced by climatic and anthropogenic changes. Erosion and high sediment loads in rivers cause reservoir siltation and decrease storage capacity, which pose risk on water security for citizens, agriculture, and industry. In regions where resources for management are limited, identifying spatial-temporal variability of sediment sources is crucial to decrease siltation. Despite widespread availability of rigorous methods, approaches simplifying spatial and temporal variability of erosion are often inappropriately applied to very data sparse semi-arid regions. In this work, we review existing approaches for mapping erosional hotspots, and provide an example of spatial-temporal mapping approach in two case study regions. The barriers limiting data availability and their effects on erosion mapping methods, their validation, and resulting prioritization of leverage management areas are discussed.


BACKGROUND
In patients with myeloproliferative neoplasia (MPN) the development of fibrosis and increased vessel density correlate with poor prognosis. The JAK2(V617F) mutation constitutively activates JAK2, which phosphorylates signal transducer activator of transcription (STAT), up-regulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which might be responsible for angiogenesis in MPN. Galectins are involved in the development of fibrosis and angiogenesis and might also be involved in activation of the JAK/STAT pathway in MPN.

METHODS
106 MPN patients, 36 essential thrombocythemia (ET), 25 polycythemia vera (PV) and 45 primary myelofibrosis (PMF), were analyzed for the expression pattern of galectin-1, galectin-3, pSTAT3, pSTAT5 and MVD by immunostaining of bone marrow biopsy sections followed by automated image analysis. The JAK2 mutational status was analysed through real time PCR in blood samples.

RESULTS
The expression of galectin-1 was significantly higher in all MPN patients compared to normal controls. Galectin-3 was expressed more in PV patients. MVD was significantly higher in all MPN patients and correlated with galectin-1 and pSTAT5 expression. pSTAT5 expression showed a trend of higher expression in patients carrying the JAK2(V617F) mutation as well as in PV patients. PMF patients and all JAK2(V617F) positive patients showed a significantly higher pSTAT3 expression compared to control and ET patients.

CONCLUSION
The findings suggest the involvement of galectin-1 in MPN development, regardless of the subtype. Furthermore involvement of galectin-3 in PV development, pSTAT5 in that of PV and JAK2(V617F) positive patients and angiogenesis, as well as pSTAT3 is involved in the pathogenesis of PMF.


The poor man had a wife. These two creatures were the poorest in the town. They under gone great task with struggle before they could cover their private worlds. They built their little hut with palm leaves and other leaves from the plants. Since God created man and woman, and the golden seed plus the golden garden, the poor man started to plant his golden seed. Due to the fertility of the soil, the woman was conceived and gave birth to a female child without helper, just like goat that delievers without approaching midwife. Because of the poverty that made them to stand on the boundary of living and nonliving, people looked them to be like the dirts on the ground. This serial is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol25/iss2/5


In the wake of a growing concern about both the unchecked rise of poverty and the local and global consequences of water scarcity, the relationships between water and poverty are the object of a sprawling literature. Indicators are presented as indispensable tools for informing and orienting policy-making, comparing situations and measuring performance. This paper first reviews different conceptions of water scarcity and shows the variety of associated causes. A brief look at the virtues and shortcomings of some of the indicators used in the development sector then serves to introduce a review of the major water-scarcity/poverty indicators found in the literature. The reasons for their popularity and vitality are critically examined, and the links between indicators and policy-making are discussed.


good, but which may at times be difficult for someone not familiar with Californian psychotherapy. Normally I find transcripts cumbersome to read, but less so here. The overall style of the book is variable: nicely dense and concentrated at times, then long-winded and abstract, and on other occasions chatty and boring. Some of the tables will be useful for teaching purposes. The book does not live up to its grandiose claims. It is useful reading, but not the most comprehensive and thoughtful book on countertransference available. I recommend it for libraries and training institutions.


By combining pseudorandom bead-based aptamer libraries with conjugation chemistry, we have created next-generation aptamers, X-aptamers (XAs). Several X-ligands can be added in a directed or random fashion to the aptamers to further enhance their binding affinities for the target proteins. Here we describe the addition of a drug (N-acetyl-2,3-dehydro-2-deoxyneuraminic acid), demonstrated to bind to CD44-HABD, to a complete monothioate backbone-substituted aptamer to increase its binding affinity for the target protein by up to 23-fold, while increasing the drug's level of binding 1-million fold.


Legal pluralism is a phenomenon defined differently by scholars researching European law and scholars researching issues concerning cultural and religious accommodation. Whereas European law scholars focus on possible theoretical tools for conflict resolution between intersecting European legal systems, scholars focusing on multiculturalism argue that cultural and religious legal pluralism conveys a dynamic relationship between official and unofficial law drawn out by migration and issues of accommodating a primarily Muslim diaspora in Europe. Yet, seemingly differently defined, these pluralisms have an equally important impact on the understanding of fundamental human rights in Europe. They both influence national law and shape the boundaries of rights, such as freedom of religion. Building upon established notions of legal pluralism, the paper provides a critical analysis of the application of human rights standards in European normative orders and argues that the rights of the religious 'other' are caught in an interplay of various types and forms of legal pluralism(s) in which issues of inclusion often remain secondary. It focuses upon the key example of women who wear a hijab (headscarf) or a jilbab (a long coat like garment which covers the body except the hands and face) and who were the central focus of European Court of Human Rights cases such as Dahab v Switzerland and Sęhin v Turkey, and of domestic cases, for example, R (on the application of Begum) v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School. The paper re-orders and re-constructs certain forms of legal pluralism and also focuses on the relationships between them.


Code compliance checking is an integral part of the building design process. Many research attempts have been made to automate code compliance checking as a secondary task to developing a design solution.But it is possible to represent the code requirements in a knowledge base to assist in the design process. In the present study, a buildingenvelope design knowledge base has been developed to model the performance based design approach. The National Building Code of Canada's design requirements and an ASHRAE standard specifications for building envelope are incorporated in a knowledge base. A frame-based knowledge representation technique is used to implement the semantic relationships among the design context attributes. Once the performance attributes are established in the design context, then design altematives can be generated. A database of standard construction types for walls, roofs and glazings is developed to contain the material properties data required to generate design alternatives. This paper presents the knowledge acquisition and representation of building code and performance standards information, and also briefly describe the design process implemented in a prototype system.


The present publication offers a suite of tools to support the effectiveness and viability of indigenous peoples and community conserved territories and areas (ICCAs) as governance structures for the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems. This toolkit presents a selection of practical resources, developed by numerous organisations, making them readily accessible to community-based organisations who manage ICCAs. In addition to being a valuable resource to practitioners, the toolkit provides a reminder that the achievement of the emerging post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) will need to be linked to a comprehensive valuation of ecosystem services, and be spearheaded by local civil society initiatives coming from the grassroots.


Abstract The chemical composition of spinel was determined for a suite of 19 diogenites (orthopyroxenites) thought to be from asteroid 4 Vesta. Previous studies (Fowler et al. 1994, 1995) of orthopyroxene demonstrated that these diogenites are linked genetically, perhaps through fractional crystallization, in one or more crustal intrusions. The present study focuses on spinel to see if it also retains some chemical signatures of an igneous history. The chemical compositions across spinel grains reveal flat concentration profiles, indicating major subsolidus exchange with orthopyroxene. Nevertheless, significant chemical differences exist among the average spinel compositions from individual diogenites in the suite. A chemical continuum exists from high-Cr, low-Al spinel in diogenite LAP 91900 (Cr2O3 60.7 wt%; Al2O3 6.1 wt%) to low-Cr, high-Al spinel in diogenite ALHA 77256 (Cr2O3 44.7 wt%; Al2O3 21.8 wt%), which may represent one or more fractionation series. In these trends, Al and Ti behave as incompatible elements whose abundances increase with crystallization. These systematics differ from those in spinel in terrestrial or lunar basaltic systems because of the extremely Al-depleted nature of the diogenite parental melts. In terrestrial and lunar basalts, the increase in Al concentration in spinel is interrupted when plagioclase crystallizes. In diogenite parental melts, plagioclase does not come onto the liquidus until the very end of spinel crystallization.


Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major public health problem that requires publicly available tools for rapid analysis. To identify acquired AMR genes in whole genome sequences, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has produced a high-quality, curated, AMR gene reference database consisting of up-to-date protein and gene nomenclature, a set of hidden Markov models (HMMs), and a curated protein family hierarchy. Currently, the Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance Reference Gene Database contains 4,579 antimicrobial resistance gene proteins and more than 560 HMMs. Here, we describe AMRFinder, a tool that uses this reference dataset to identify AMR genes. To assess the predictive ability of AMRFinder, we measured the consistency between predicted AMR genotypes from AMRFinder against resistance phenotypes of 6,242 isolates from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). This included 5,425 Salmonella enterica, 770 Campylobacter spp., and 47 Escherichia coli phenotypically tested against various antimicrobial agents. Of 87,679 susceptibility tests performed, 98.4% were consistent with predictions. To assess the accuracy of AMRFinder, we compared its gene symbol output with that of a 2017 version of ResFinder, another publicly available resistance gene database. Most gene calls were identical, but there were 1,229 gene symbol differences between them, with differences due to both algorithmic differences and database composition. AMRFinder missed 16 loci that Resfinder found, while Resfinder missed 1,147 loci AMRFinder identified. Two missing drug classes from the 2017 version of ResFinder contributed 81% of missed loci. Based on these results, AMRFinder appears to be a highly accurate AMR gene detection system. Importance Antimicrobial resistance is a major public health problem. Traditionally, antimicrobial resistance has been identified using phenotypic assays. With the advent of genome sequencing, we now can identify resistance genes and deduce if an isolate could be resistant to antibiotics. We describe a database of 4,579 acquired antimicrobial resistance genes, the largest publicly available, and a software tool to identify genes in bacterial genomes, AMRFinder. Unlike other tools, AMRFinder uses a gene hierarchy to prevent overpredicting what the correct gene call should be, enabling more accurate assessment. To assess these resources, we determined the resistance gene content of over 6,200 bacterial isolates from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System that have been assayed using traditional methods and that also have had their genomes sequenced. We also compared our gene assessments to those of a popularly used tool. We found that AMRFinder has a high overall consistency between genotypes and phenotypes.


Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder amongst women of reproductive age. Although PCOS is diagnosed exclusively based on reproductive criteria, it is also a metabolic disorder. Insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity, and dyslipidemia are more common in women with PCOS than in age-comparable women without PCOS. Many of the metabolic abnormalities that manifest in PCOS are worsened by the concurrent incidence of obesity. However, some of these metabolic perturbations occur even in lean women with PCOS and therefore are rightfully recognized as intrinsic to PCOS. The intrinsic factors that produce these metabolic disturbances are reviewed in this paper. The consequences of obesity and the other metabolic aberrations are also discussed. The metabolic perturbations in PCOS patients lead to chronic low-grade inflammation and to cardiovascular impairments that heighten the risk of having cardiovascular disease. Even though many studies have shown an elevation in surrogate biomarkers of cardiovascular disease in PCOS women, it is still not clear to what extent and magnitude the elevation precipitates more frequent and earlier events.


Abstract Digital transformation requires a digital mindset and new approaches to dealing with both decision risk and decision speed. Well-entrenched companies seem to hold all the assets needed to adapt and keep succeeding, but sometimes they don't seem to adequately react to a disruptive threat; instead, they show symptoms of innovation blindness. They might overestimate their digital skills or their learning occurs too slowly and resources are being wasted. Deep expertise that used to be an asset turns into a liability because companies are stuck in old mental models. A few things can be done proactively to avoid major pitfalls in the digitalization of a business. Facts that are taken for granted need to be challenged and checked against reality to identify strategic failure in time. Whenever somebody assumes that something is "surely" true, a company's alarm bells should go off. Moreover, top management needs to check if their digital projects not only scratch the surface but that they grasp the essence of what makes them successful: creating new added value, dramatically increasing speed and ease of use, reducing complexity, and lowering costs substantially. Also, a new approach to innovation, such as design thinking, encourages rapid prototyping and a fast-failure culture.


Powerful methods for interactive exploration and search from collections of free-form textual documents are needed to manage the ever-increasing flood of digital information. In this article we present a method, WEBSOM, for automatic organization of full-text document collections using the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm. The document collection is ordered onto a map in an unsupervised manner utilizing statistical information of short word contexts. The resulting ordered map where similar documents lie near each other thus presents a general view of the document space. With the aid of a suitable (WWW-based) interface, documents in interesting areas of the map can be browsed. The browsing can also be interactively extended to related topics, which appear in nearby areas on the map. Along with the method we present a case study of its use.


In this paper, analysis of a novel class of A/D converters based on asynchronous delta modulation (DM) is presented and a high level model is realized for the same. Using the high level model, analytical expressions are derived for the calculation of the inband signal-to-quantization noise ratio (SQNR) for the case of sinusoidal inputs and two-tone inputs. For the special case of sinusoidal inputs, an empirical formula is also derived for calculating the inband SQNR. The derived analytical and empirical expressions are verified using high level simulations and the simulation results are presented finally.


The recent advancements of multimedia signal processing techniques enable us to
conveniently edit/modify multimedia contents, which are usually available in the compressed
form for transmission and storage purposes. Among the compression standards,
JPEG for still image and H.264/AVC for video are the common formats that we handle
in our daily life. As the application of compressed image/video widens, practical
security tools for compressed image/video also become increasingly important. In that
regard, encryption is the process designed to transform a content into an unintelligible
form. Classical encryption approaches (e.g., DES, AES, RSA) handle the bitstream of a
compressed image/video directly, but this approach invalidates many features of the compressed
image/video, including hierarchical decoding and transcoding. In addition, the
computational time of conventional encryption is also high. To overcome the aforementioned
problems, the selective-encryption approach, which encrypts a subset of a compressed
content, has been pursued by many researchers. Although many were proven to
be robust against traditional cryptanalysis, the conventional selective-encryption methods
are vulnerable to non-traditional forms of attack called sketch attack. In this thesis, five
sketch attacks, i.e., four of them are based on DCT coefficients while another one exploits
the statistical features of a coding block, are proposed. Their performances are evaluated
and then compared. Furthermore, as a mean to evaluate the sketch image, an objective
evaluation metric called outline clearness assessment (OCA) is put forward. Moreover,
a selective encryption method for JPEG compressed image is put forward to address the
problem of bitstream size overhead while being robust against both the traditional and
non-traditional attacks. As an application, sketch attack is utilized as a feature extraction
process in H.264/AVC compressed video for text detection purpose. Finally, contributions
and limitations of this study are summarized, and future works are discussed.


Genomic libraries of S. lavendulae and S. subrutilus
were constructed in S. lividans using the technique of
shotgun cloning. S. lividans is a genetically well
characterised recipient for heterologous DNA, but plasmid
deletions or the entry of plasmids with small inserts
occurred during transformation of the DNA into
S. lividans This was not due to a straightforward
restriction-modif ication system as this possibility was
checkea using the KC301 phage. Several gene libraries
were produced, using high and low copy number plasmids,
and the resultant transformants screened.
The nature of deoxynojirimycin (DNJ) and its lack of
microbial activity prevented use of a bioassay. However,
the inhibition of cc-glucosidase by DNJ was exploited by
development of a quantitative assay system f or DNJ and
nojirimycin (NOJ). The assay could not only detect DNJ
and NOJ-producing clones, but could also assess the titre
of DNJ and NOJ in culture broths. The assay was used to
demonstrate differential production of DNJ and NOJ by
selected StreRtOIFYces strains of cluster 61 (the
S-lavendulae species group). The assay also confirmed
the effectiveness of using microtitre plates as an
effective screening procedure. The microtitre screening
programme generated further data and statistical
treatment of the results delimited the number of isolates
for further examination. No DNJ-producing colony was
detected and examination of the size of the DNA inserts
showed almost all were too small to contain the DNJ gene
cluster.
Additionally, blocked DNJ production mutants were
characterised by the feeding of NOJ, one of the mutants
successfully converted NOJ to DNJ.


In recent years, heterologous prime-boost vaccines have been demonstrated to be an effective strategy for generating protective immunity, consisting of both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses against a variety of pathogens including HIV-1. Previous reports of preclinical and clinical studies have shown the enhanced immunogenicity of viral vector or DNA vaccination followed by heterologous protein boost, compared to using either prime or boost components alone. With such approaches, the selection of an adjuvant for inclusion in the protein boost component is expected to impact the immunogenicity and safety of a vaccine. In this study, we examined in a mouse model the serum cytokine and chemokine profiles for several candidate adjuvants: QS-21, Al(OH) 3 , monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) and ISCOMATRIX™ adjuvant, in the context of a previously tested pentavalent HIV-1 Env DNA prime-protein boost formulation, DP6-001. Our data revealed that the candidate adjuvants in the context of the DP6-001 formulation are characterized by unique serum cytokine and chemokine profiles. Such information will provide valuable guidance in the selection of an adjuvant for future AIDS vaccine development, with the ultimate goal of enhancing immunogenicity while minimizing reactogenicity associated with the use of an adjuvant. More significantly, results reported here will add to the knowledge on how to include an adjuvant in the context of a heterologous prime-protein boost vaccination strategy in general.


This project proposes a new approach to interact with database systems through programming languages. A formal query language can be integrated within modern programming languages and the semi-structured queries can be evaluated using automatic transformation and query shipping. The focus of this project is on XML queries and Scala programming language. Particularly, this project optimizes the XML-based expressions of Scala using XQuery transformation and Shipping. In this work, Scala sequence comprehensions are extended to cover appropriately the whole functionalities of XQuery FLWOR expressions and XQuery sequence comparisons are introduced in Scala to facilitate query generation. This report presents a formalization of transformation rules between Scala and XQuery languages and describes an Scala implementation. Various use cases are provided to facilitate understanding and employing this newest Scala library.


Background Action research (AR) is an established research framework to introduce change in a community following a cyclical approach and involving stakeholders as coresearchers in the process. In recent years, it has also been used for eHealth development. However, little is known about the best practices and lessons learned from using AR for eHealth development. Objective This literature review aims to provide more knowledge on the best practices and lessons learned from eHealth AR studies. Additionally, an overview of the context in which AR eHealth studies take place is given. Methods A semisystematic review of 44 papers reporting on 40 different AR projects was conducted to identify the best practices and lessons learned in the research studies while accounting for the particular contextual setting and used AR approach. Results Recommendations include paying attention to the training of stakeholders' academic skills, as well as the various roles and tasks of action researchers. The studies also highlight the need for constant reflection and accessible dissemination suiting the target group. Conclusions This literature review identified room for improvements regarding communicating and specifying the particular AR definition and applied approach.


The folding process of the acylphosphatase from Sulfolobus solfataricus (Sso AcP) has been followed, starting from the fully unfolded state, using a variety of spectroscopic probes, including intrinsic fluorescence, circular dichroism, and ANS binding. The results indicate that an ensemble of partially folded or misfolded species form rapidly on the submillisecond time scale after initiation of folding. This conformational ensemble produces a pronounced downward curvature in the Chevron plot, appears to possess a content of secondary structure similar to that of the native state, as revealed by far-UV circular dichroism, and appears to have surface-exposed hydrophobic clusters, as indicated by the ability of this ensemble to bind to 8-anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid (ANS). Sso AcP folds from this conformational state with a rate constant of ca. 5 s(-1) at pH 5.5 and 37 degrees C. A minor slow exponential phase detected during folding (rate constant of 0.2 s(-1) under these conditions) is accelerated by cyclophilin A and is absent in a mutant of Sso AcP in which alanine replaces the proline residue at position 50. This indicates that for a lower fraction of Sso AcP molecules the folding process is rate-limited by the cis-trans isomerism of the peptide bond preceding Pro50. A comparative analysis with four other homologous proteins from the acylphosphatase superfamily shows that sequence hydrophobicity is an important determinant of the conformational stability of partially folded states that may accumulate during folding of a protein. A low net charge and a high propensity to form alpha-helical structure also emerge as possibly important determinants of the stability of partially folded states. A significant correlation is also observed between folding rate and hydrophobic content of the sequence within this superfamily, lending support to the idea that sequence hydrophobicity, in addition to relative contact order and conformational stability of the native state, is a key determinant of folding rate.


We examine the relationship between grandiose (GN) and vulnerable (VN) narcissism and their relative effects on external forecasting behavior. We also investigate how narcissists respond to a stronger/weaker forecast made by an industry competitor. Our participants are practicing professionals with accounting or corporate finance experience. We find evidence of a nonlinear relationship between GN and VN. At lower levels of GN, the relationship between the two is not statistically significant, but as GN increases they show a strong, positive correlation. High-GN narcissists exhibit relatively aggressive forecasting behavior, even when they are also high-VN, and are not particularly responsive to a strong competitor forecast. In contrast, low-GN/high-VN narcissists are more strategic, issuing more (less) aggressive forecasts when the competitor forecast is stronger (weaker). Our research contributes to the limited accounting research on VN and highlights the importance of considering both GN and VN on manager behavior.


The commercial availability of combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/positron emission tomography (PET) scanners for clinical use has increased demand for easily prepared agents which offer signal or contrast in both modalities. Herein we describe a new class of silica coated iron-oxide nanorods (NRs) coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) and/or a tetraazamacrocyclic chelator (DO3A). Studies of the coated NRs validate their composition and confirm their properties as in vivo T2 MRI contrast agents. Radiolabelling studies with the positron emitting radioisotope gallium-68 (t1/2 = 68 min) demonstrate that, in the presence of the silica coating, the macrocyclic chelator was not required for preparation of highly stable radiometal-NR constructs. In vivo PET-CT and MR imaging studies show the expected high liver uptake of gallium-68 radiolabelled nanorods with no significant release of gallium-68 metal ions, validating our innovation to provide a novel simple method for labelling of iron oxide NRs with a radiometal in the absence of a chelating unit that can be used for high sensitivity liver imaging.


Professional accounting standards have been applied to the public sector in Australia as part of the process of adopting accrual accounting. However, the reason given for their application to the public sector is questionable. The modes of operation of governments and of the business sector are very different, and accounting standards must be tailored to suit the specific information needs of each sector for the accounting systems to provide relevant information. The four Accounting Concepts Statements and the broad requirements of AAS 29 and AAS 31 are examined to show where changes are needed in the standards to make their information more relevant to the needs of the public sector. These changes would better enable accrual accounting information systems to assist in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector operations and the accountability of governments to parliament and citizens.


A decohesive model using a mixed damage scale and using the total fracture energy to simulate the fracture process of composite materials has been developed in this article. The model assumes a bilinear interfacial decohesion function and is incorporated into an interface finite element developed as a user subroutine in the commercial FEA package ABAQUS. In comparison with traditional numerical methods in fracture mechanics, this approach can automatically predict the failure load, crack path and the residual stiffness of bodies undergoing the fracture process. Applications given in this paper are simulation of a typical fracture test with a double cantilever beam (DCB) specimen; modelling a stiffened composite laminated panel under four-point bending and modelling a repaired composite sandwich panel under four-point bending. Good correlation was seen between modelling predictions and experimental results.


The work presented in this thesis is mainly involved in the design
and analysis of asynchronous parallel algorithms that can be run on MIMD
type parallel computers, in particular the NEPTUNE system at Loughborough
University.
Initially, different types of existing parallel computers including
the Data-Flow computers and VLSI technology are described from both the
hardware and implementation points of view. Basic ideas of programming
such computers are also outlined. Also, the main characteristics of the
NEPTUNE MIMD-system are presented together with the principles of
synchronisation, the resource demands and the overhead costs of the
parallel control structures. Such information is measured frequently
in the performance analysis of the algorithms presented in this thesis
in order to exploit the potentiality of the NEPTUNE system and parallel
computers in general. The Speed-up and Efficiency factors are calculated
and the optimum number of processors and processes is suggested in most
of the algorithms presented...


In this paper, we formulate multi-channel assignment in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) as an optimization problem and show it is NP-hard. We then propose a distributed Game Based Channel Assignment algorithm (GBCA) to solve the problem. GBCA takes into account both the network topology information and transmission routing information. We prove that there exists at least one Nash Equilibrium in the channel assignment game. Furthermore, we analyze the sub-optimality of Nash Equilibrium and the convergence of the Best Response in the game. Simulation results are given to demonstrate that GBCA can reduce interference significantly and achieve satisfactory network performance in terms of delivery ratio, throughput, channel access delay and energy consumption.


Massive spinning particles, if present during inflation, lead to a distinctive bispectrum of primordial perturbations, the shape and amplitude of which depend on the masses and spins of the extra particles. This signal, in turn, leaves an imprint in the statistical distribution of galaxies; in particular, as a non-vanishing galaxy bispectrum, which can be used to probe the masses and spins of these particles. In this paper, we present for the first time a new theoretical template for the bispectrum generated by massive spinning particles, valid for a general triangle configuration. We then proceed to perform a Fisher-matrix forecast to assess the potential of two next-generation spectroscopic galaxy surveys, EUCLID and DESI, to constrain the primordial non-Gaussianity sourced by these extra particles. We model the galaxy bispectrum using tree-level perturbation theory, accounting for redshift-space distortions and the Alcock-Paczynski effect, and forecast constraints on the primordial non-Gaussianity parameters marginalizing over all relevant biases and cosmological parameters. Our results suggest that these surveys would potentially be sensitive to any primordial non-Gaussianity with an amplitude larger than fNL≈ 1, for massive particles with spins 2, 3, and 4. Interestingly, if non-Gaussianities are present at that level, these surveys will be able to infer the masses of these spinning particles to within tens of percent. If detected, this would provide a very clear window into the particle content of our Universe during inflation.


Traditional education and training has paid scant attention to the psychology of learning. Despite detailed research into motivation, distribution and reinforcement, most current methods of delivery still rely on a supply-led, lecture and classroom-based model that flies in the face of the theory. With e-learning we have a chance to reflect on this gap between theory and practice. E-learning, in the sense of web-based learning, is a new discipline but the psychology of learning has a much longer pedigree. This paper relates some common myths about e-learning back to some major themes in the psychology of learning. Is e-learning faster and more effective? Many people get the wrong learning at the wrong time. Can e-learning help with prerequisite knowledge? Should the learning be massed or distributed, i.e. all at once or little and often? There are also the issues of motivation and cognitive engagement. How can e-learning motivate learners or how can we motivate learners into using this new medium? What type of cognitive engagement is necessary for learning? Traditional 'sheep-dip' methods of learning are poor on reinforcement. Can e-learning help reinforce learning?


Market mechanisms for controlling pollution and other environmental problems, once considered experimental, have recently become favored tools for regulation, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the last several years, a $64 billion global market for carbon dioxide permits and offsets has emerged out of international dealmaking on climate change. The carbon market has become a force to be reckoned with in international trade, and created many stakeholders with vested interests in the design of the market and its governing regulations. Driven by the international finance community and clamor from the general public for action on global warming, U.S. legislators are under increasing pressure to adopt similar measures. And as action by the U.S. seems more likely, industries that would likely be targeted by climate change legislation are becoming less obstructionist, increasingly seeking influence over the direction of regulation rather than attempting to block it altogether. Given current trends in business, finance and politics, it is likely that in the near future, the U.S. will adopt carbon pricing as a means to decrease carbon emissions and attempt to halt the progress of climate change. However, with so many stakeholders in the debate, designing the market will be a contentious and highly politicized process. Because of both scientific uncertainty and political factors, there is great potential for market failures, from miscounted emissions to perverse incentives to social inequity. This thesis examines some of the market designs that have been proposed, along with reasons why the carbon market is likely to fail to live up to its greatest promise. Thesis Supervisor: Thomas Levenson Title: Associate Professor of Science Writing "Economic science is chiefly valuable, neither as an intellectual gymnastics nor even as a means of winning truth for its own sake, but as a handmaid of ethics and a servant of


Abstract. Observations along the southwestern Atlantic WOCE A17 line made during the Dutch GEOTRACES-NL programme (2010–2011) were compared with historical data from 1994 to quantify the changes in the anthropogenic component of the total pool of dissolved inorganic carbon (ΔCant). Application of the extended multi-linear regression (eMLR) method shows that the ΔCant from 1994 to 2011 has largely remained confined to the upper 1000 dbar. The greatest changes occur in the upper 200 dbar in the Subantarctic Zone (SAZ), where a maximum increase of 37 μmol kg−1 is found. South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) experienced the highest rate of increase in Cant, at 0.99 ± 0.14 μmol kg−1 yr−1, resulting in a maximum rate of decrease in pH of 0.0016 yr−1. The highest rates of acidification relative to ΔCant, however, were found in Subantarctic Mode Water (SAMW) and Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW). The low buffering capacity of SAMW and AAIW combined with their relatively high rates of Cant, increase of 0.53 ± 0.11 and 0.36 ± 0.06 μmol kg−1 yr−1, respectively, has lead to rapid acidification in the SAZ, and will continue to do so whilst simultaneously reducing the chemical buffering capacity of this significant CO2 sink.


That knowledge is factive, that is, that knowledge that p requires that p, has for a long time typically been treated as a truism. Recently, however, some authors have raised doubts about and arguments against this claim. In a recent paper in this journal, Michael Shaffer presents new arguments against the denial of the factivity of knowledge. This article discusses one of Shaffer's objections: the one from "inconsistency and explosion." I discuss two potential replies to Shaffer's problem: dialetheism plus paraconsistency and epistemic pluralism. This is not to be understood so much as a criticism of Shaffer's view but rather as a request to develop his very promising objection from inconsistency and explosion further.


There is a need for a greater understanding of the reasons for control in work settings with innovative working behavior. The paper explores the reasons for control in IT departments by using inductive method and a multiple case study design in seven large companies. The investigation of the sources of control needs involved 45 interviews with CIOs/IT managers and their immediate subordinate managers. We find that managers with explicit trusting stance use control mechanisms in problematic situations, when there are complex tasks and under the influence of organizational complexity. For them, control is viewed as a means to provide an overview of results. On the other hand, managers with less inclination toward trust see control as an inevitable part of their management function; control is triggered by their personal traits. This has important implications for the reconciliation of organizational learning


Abstract. The River Thames and 15 of its major tributaries have been
monitored at weekly intervals since March 2009. Monitored
determinands include major nutrient fractions, anions, cations,
metals, pH, alkalinity, and chlorophyll a and are linked to mean daily
river flows at each site. This catchment-wide biogeochemical monitoring
platform captures changes in the water quality of the Thames basin during a
period of rapid change, related to increasing pressures (due to a rapidly
growing human population, increasing water demand and climate change) and
improvements in sewage treatment processes and agricultural practices. The
platform provides the research community with a valuable data and modelling
resource for furthering our understanding of pollution sources and dynamics,
as well as interactions between water quality and aquatic ecology. Combining
Thames Initiative data with previous (non-continuous) monitoring data sets
from many common study sites, dating back to 1997, has shown that there have
been major reductions in phosphorus concentrations at most sites, occurring
at low river flow, and these are principally due to reduced loadings from
sewage treatment works (STWs). This ongoing monitoring programme will provide
the vital underpinning environmental data required to best manage this vital
drinking water resource, which is key for the sustainability of the city of
London and the wider UK economy. The Thames Initiative data set is freely
available from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology's (CEH) Environmental
Information Data Centre at
https://doi.org/10.5285/e4c300b1-8bc3-4df2-b23a-e72e67eef2fd.


Hebrew and Arabic are related but mutually incomprehensible languages with complex morphology and scarce parallel corpora. Machine translation between the two languages is therefore interesting and challenging. We discuss similarities and differences between Hebrew and Arabic, the benefits and challenges that they induce, respectively, and their implications for machine translation. We highlight the shortcomings of using English as a pivot language and advocate a direct, transfer-based and linguistically-informed (but still statistical, and hence scalable) approach. We report preliminary results of such a system that we are currently developing.


Have you heard the news? On 17 April 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally declared carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) and five other heat-trapping gases as pollutants that endanger public health and welfare. This important milestone sets in motion a process that will lead to the regulation of the gases for the first time in the U.S. As a result, we can expect that CO2 capture and storage in the subsurface and monitoring are going to be of major importance in the future. Our industry has already made significant progress with CO2 monitoring, and in this issue of TLE, we have three technical papers that give a good overview of ongoing work.


The vascular responses attending major insulin hypoglycemic reactions in man have been reviewed by Kalinowsky and Hoch, Bellak, and others, but the special role of the capillary and other small vessels has received little attention. The importance of this role is implied in the investigations made on the influence of insulin in coma-provoking doses in regard to brain metabolism, the literature on which has been reviewed by Himwich, and since the capillary system is the final common path by which energy is transferred between blood elements and tissue cells. This paper is concerned with the acute responses of the minute vasculature of two nondiabetic human subjects receiving massive doses of insulin five times weekly, over a three-month period. The more chronic vascular effects of this sequential experience of hypoglycemia are reported elsewhere.


We aim here at analyzing the fundamental properties of positive semidefinite Schrodinger operators on networks. We show that such operators correspond to perturbations of the combinatorial Laplacian through 0-order terms that can be totally negative on a proper subset of the network. In addition, we prove that these discrete operators have analogous properties to the ones of elliptic second order operators on Riemannian manifolds, namely the monotonicity, the minimum principle, the variational treatment of Dirichlet problems and the condenser principle. Unlike the continuous case, a discrete Schrodinger operator can be interpreted as an integral operator and therefore a discrete Potential Theory with respect to its associated kernel can be built. We prove that the Schrodinger kernel satisfies enough principles to assure the existence of equilibrium measures for any proper subset. These measures are used to obtain systematic expressions of the Green and Poisson kernels associated with Dirichlet problems.


The key question is what are the guidelines for leaning and development of logistics companies in Thailand for competitive advantages? And the main objective is to examine the guidelines for leaning and development of logistics companies in Thailand for competitive advantages.There are three theoretical contributions which are (1) strategic competitive advantages, (2) balanced scorecard, and (3) knowledge management. This research used the questionnaire mailing, the surveys completed and returned of 84 respondents. The key informants were the managing directors or managers of each logistics companies in Thailand which registered as members of the Thai International Freight Forwarders Association (TIFFA). This empirical research explains concepts associated with how a logistics companies achieve and fulfill their goals and maintain their sustained competitive advantage with greater learning and growth perspective of the companies in a turbulent business environment. The nature of strategic competitive advantages for future research also suggested at the latter.


A method that permits a direct nonlinear extraction of two FET parameters, the drain current generator, and the gate source capacitor from large-signal waveform measurements, is presented. For demonstration, the high-frequency characteristics of the nonlinear drain current generator for a GaAs MESFET and a MODFET are extracted. Significant differences between the DC and RF characteristics, are observed and interpreted.<<ETX>>


Abstract The authors compared the first phalanx of the second wing finger of 33 European diurnal raptors. The importance of studying this bone lies in the fact that, although it has diagnosable characteristics, it was practically neglected by osteologists and paleontologists. Thus, fossil materials can be identified through them, as well as those from owl pellets. The comparison was made possible by the comparative avian skeleton collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. In a preliminary investigation we examined the morphological diversity of the first phalanx of the second wing finger among the different species. We used principal component (PC) analyses on measurements. The PC described the curvature of the anterior surface of the bone and the relative size of the distal and proximal epiphyses. The principal component analysis showed slightly overlapping in shape between the taxons but the accipitriform and falconiform birds diverged in the morphospace. The attributes and geometry of the first phalanx of the second wing finger reflects more on taxonomic background than flying behaviour. The avian wing is a complex and highly modulable structure, therefore, probably body mass and size affect flying performance than the other morphological features of this bone. The text is supplemented by 6 figures and one size table.


A new search strategy for the detection of the elusive dark matter (DM) axion is proposed. The idea is based on streaming DM axions, whose flux might get temporally enormously enhanced due to gravitational lensing. This can happen if the Sun or some planet (including the Moon) is found along the direction of a DM stream propagating towards the Earth location. The experimental requirements to the axion haloscope are a wide-band performance combined with a fast axion rest mass scanning mode, which are feasible. Once both conditions have been implemented in a haloscope, the axion search can continue parasitically almost as before. Interestingly, some new DM axion detectors are operating wide-band by default. In order not to miss the actually unpredictable timing of a potential short duration signal, a network of co-ordinated axion antennae is required, preferentially distributed world-wide. The reasoning presented here for the axions applies to some degree also to any other DM candidates like the WIMPs.


Continuous-wave Time-of-flight (TOF) range imaging has become a commercially viable technology with many applications in computer vision and graphics. However, the depth images obtained from TOF cameras contain scene dependent errors due to multipath interference (MPI). Specifically, MPI occurs when multiple optical reflections return to a single spatial location on the imaging sensor. Many prior approaches to rectifying MPI rely on sparsity in optical reflections, which is an extreme simplification. In this paper, we correct MPI by combining the standard measurements from a TOF camera with information from direct and global light transport. We report results on both simulated experiments and physical experiments (using the Kinect sensor). Our results, evaluated against ground truth, demonstrate a quantitative improvement in depth accuracy.


In real-world NoSQL deployments, users have to trade off CPU, memory, I/O bandwidth and storage space to achieve the required performance and efficiency goals. Data compression is a vital component to improve storage space efficiency, but reading compressed data increases response time. Therefore, compressed data stores rely heavily on using the memory as a cache to speed up read operations. However, as large DRAM capacity is expensive, NoSQL databases have become costly to deploy and hard to scale. In our work, we present a persistent caching mechanism for Apache Cassandra on a high-throughput, low-latency FPGA-based NVMe Flash accelerator (CAPI-Flash), replacing Cassandra's in-memory cache. Because flash is dramatically less expensive per byte than DRAM, our caching mechanism provides Apache Cassandra with access to a large caching layer at lower cost. The experimental results show that for read-intensive workloads, our caching layer provides up to 85% improved throughput and also reduces CPU usage by 25% compared to default Cassandra.


Over the last decade, screens have had a significant impact on the early stages of litigation. Empirical evidence has helped shape complaints, motions to dismiss, court decisions, and agency investigations on collusion and manipulation matters. Yet to date they have played almost no role in corporate antitrust compliance programs. Why might this have been the case? Arguably the primary reason is that authorities did not, until very recently, offer meaningful consideration to corporations' compliance programs when violations were found. Specifically with respect to screens, corporations were unwilling to spend any money to implement them, whether because they did not believe screens could be effective or whether it was just part of a general unwillingness to invest in compliance tools.
We have long expected that the high penalties for cartels, the expansion of leniency programs, and the increased use of screening methods by competition authorities and private litigants would motivate corporations to enhance their antitrust compliance programs and incorporate screens as part of such improvements. Leniency is extended to the first to report a violation, so it naturally follows that it would be advantageous to be the first to detect violations. Antitrust compliance programs should play very important roles in detection and self-reporting, and also in deterrence, and screens should have had a major role within such programs, but to date this has not been the case.
However, we expect this is about to change. The U.S. Department of Justice's ("DOJ") recent change in policy towards compliance programs is likely to encourage meaningful investments in this area. The DOJ now offers formal incentives for "effective" compliance programs, directing prosecutors to evaluate in-place compliance programs as part of every corporate charge recommendation. Furthermore, throughout its evaluation, the Antitrust Division explicitly considers whether screens and statistical analyses are elements of the corporation's antitrust compliance program.


Field laboratories interested in using the MinION often need the internet to perform sample analysis. Thus, the lack of internet connectivity in resource-limited or remote locations renders downstream analysis problematic, resulting in a lack of sample identification in the field. Due to this dependency, field samples are generally transported back to the lab for analysis where internet availability for downstream analysis is available. These logistics problems and the time lost in sample characterization and identification, pose a significant problem for field scientists. To address this limitation, we have developed a stand-alone data analysis packet using open source tools developed by the Nanopore community that does not depend on internet availability. Like Oxford Nanopore Technologies' (ONT) cloud-based What's In My Pot (WIMP) software, we developed the offline MinION Detection Software (MINDS) based on the Centrifuge classification engine for rapid species identification. Several online bioinformatics applications have been developed surrounding ONT's framework for analysis of long reads. We have developed and evaluated an offline real time classification application pipeline using open source tools developed by the Nanopore community that does not depend on internet availability. Our application has been tested on ATCC's 20 strain even mix whole cell (ATCC MSA-2002) sample. Using the Rapid Sequencing Kit (SQK-RAD004), we were able to identify all 20 organisms at species level. The analysis was performed in 15 min using a Dell Precision 7720 laptop. Our offline downstream bioinformatics application provides a cost-effective option as well as quick turn-around time when analyzing samples in the field, thus enabling researchers to fully utilize ONT's MinION portability, ease-of-use, and identification capability in remote locations.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore changes in ocular surface and tear function parameters in chronic hepatitis C at different stages of hepatic fibrosis. Methods: Fifty-four patients with biopsy-proven chronic hepatitis C and 54 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects without systemic hepatitis C infection were examined with the Ocular Surface Disease Index questionnaire, Schirmer with and without anesthesia, tear film breakup time, and scoring of ocular surface Lissamine green staining using modified Oxford and van Bijsterveld scoring systems and corneal fluorescein staining. Results: Patients with chronic hepatitis C scored significantly worse than the control subjects on all parameters: modified Oxford scores of Lissamine green staining (5.5/3.0; P <0.001), Oxford and van Bijsterveld scores (4.0/2.0; P <0.001), and corneal fluorescein staining (1.5/0.0; P = 0.001). The chronic hepatitis C group also had higher Ocular Surface Disease Index scores than the control subjects (22.3/13.7; P = 0.001). Schirmer with and without anesthesia and tear film breakup time scores were found to be lower in patients with chronic hepatitis C (P <0.001). Moreover, patients with advanced stages of hepatic fibrosis (stages 4-6) had significantly lower values of tear film breakup time and worse Ocular Surface Disease Index scores and ocular surface vital dye staining than those with initial stages of hepatic fibrosis (stages 0-3). Conclusion: Patients with chronic hepatitis C, especially those with advanced stages of hepatic fibrosis, were more likely to exhibit severe ocular surface damage and signs of dry eye.


One of the factors that could cause job stress is job characteristics of job without variation (monotonic) or varied work. Based on previous research that the characteristics of a job in a cigarette factory jobs monotonic as in cigarette rollers, this is based on working as cigarette rollers is a job that repetitive movements and always faced with similar tasks or no variation every day, allowing the emergence of boredom or burnout that continues on job stress. Viewing the phenomenon described above, researchers interested in conducting research on "Differences of Employees' Work Stress and Employee Who Worked monotonic non-monotonic".
The purpose of this research is to know the difference between job stress and employees who work monotonic employees working non-monotonic. Subjects were employees of PT. Trisakti Purwosari Makmur as many as 100 people including 50 people from the employees who work monotonic and 50 people from the employees who work non-monotonic. The research subject is taken by using a quota sampling technique is an engineering sample by basing ourselves on the amount that has been determined, the researchers only contact subjects who meet the requirements of the population, regardless of where it comes from. Data collection method is to use job stress scale. Test the validity of the items using the product moment and for reliability using alpha cronbarch. Data analysis technique used is the t-test (different test) obtained t = 2.058 and P = 0.042 at significant level 5%. From the results of these calculations, the working hypothesis in this study can be accepted, thus we can conclude that there are significant differences between employees who work with employees working monotonic non-monotonic. Employees who work monotonic have a higher job stress with job stress average 111.78 compared to employees who work non-monotonic with the average job stress 106.06. Therefore, the need to be considered again for other factors that affect employee stress so that employees can work harder and relaxed with her work.


For the past two decades wavelet transform has been a promising tool in image processing. Here a novel method for Gaussian noise removal in images is proposed by estimating the signal variance from noisy environment. As wavelet coefficients are correlated with each other the size of the window considered for estimating variance becomes a critical factor. Previously Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) methods were used with fixed windows. Here instead of fixed window, arbitrary shaped windows are used. Testing the similarity of variance with an adaptive threshold generates these windows. For this arbitrary window a modified maximum a posteriori estimate for signal variance is proposed. Finally the denoised coefficients were estimated through LMMSE estimate. The simulation results show improvement performance over the state of art wavelet denoising procedures in PSNR measures with good visual quality.


Author(s): Abendroth, John | Advisor(s): Weiss, Paul S | Abstract: Recent observations of spin-dependent and enantioselective interactions between electrons and chiral biomolecules (e.g., DNA, -helical peptides, and proteins) at room temperature have inspired studies to elucidate the roles of spin and chirality in biology and in charge transfer at metal-molecule interfaces. Electrons of a certain spin orientation are transmitted through chiral molecules more easily in one direction vs the other, a phenomenon described as the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect.However, identifying the preferred spin-velocity relationship for electrons confined to move along helical potentials has proven to be difficult, with conflicting experimental results regarding preferred polarization orientation. Thus, to elucidate the preferred spin polarization direction in DNA-mediated charge transport, I applied our group's expertise in molecular self-assembly, large-scale molecular patterning, and data processing and analysis from information-rich images, to investigate the effect via fluorescence microscopy. Fluorescent perylenediimide derivatives were precisely incorporated within hydrophobic pockets in double-stranded DNA helices. The DNA/dye complexes were subsequently patterned on ferromagnetic substrates that could be magnetized parallel or antiparallel to the nominally vertically aligned DNA strands. There are two relaxation pathways following photoexcitation. The dye molecules either fluoresce, or when well-coupled to the DNA, display competitive quenching due to charge transfer to the underlying ferromagnetic surface. Because charge injection into ferromagnetic materials is spin dependent, a dependence of the fluorescence intensity on substrate magnetization direction is indicative of spin filtering; lower fluorescence intensities in this system correspond to higher degrees of charge quenching and transfer from the dye to the substrate. My results suggest that electron helicity, or spin projection along the helical axis of DNA, is preferentially aligned parallel to its velocity direction within this charge transport regime.Yet, while I and others have demonstrated that chiral molecules can polarize transmitted electrons, unifying mechanisms that account for the magnitude of spin polarization, and that can predict the strength of the relativistic effects due to helix-induced spin-orbit coupling, remain elusive. Development of accurate models has been impeded, in part, by the lack of quantitative, experimental analyses on the relative energy barriers to spin-dependent scattering of electrons within chiral electrostatic fields with precise orientation control.To tackle this challenge, I developed experiments to test spin selectivity in a second charge transport regime: photoelectron transmission through adsorbed chiral molecule assemblies. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy was used to measure the ionization energy and work function of these systems, and therefore the spin-selective energy barriers to photoemission from chiral molecule films. I hypothesize that photoelectrons emitted by ionization of chiral molecular films using unpolarized ultraviolet radiation leave behind spin-polarized holes. Underlying ferromagnetic substrates provide a source of replenishing spin-polarized electrons, thus, effective ionization energies depend on substrate magnetization orientation. I measured significant differences in the ionization energies and work function values of ferromagnetic substrates coated with chiral films of ca. 100 and 80 meV, respectively, that depended on substrate magnetization orientation, relative saturation of the substrate magnetization, and molecular handedness. Having shown that the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect is subtle in the context of charge-transport through self-assembled monolayers of chiral molecules, I internalized the necessity of repeated measurements, unbiased statistical analysis of large data sets, and careful design of control experiments. Continuing these practices, my measurements have enabled the unprecedented determination of the relative spin-dependent energy barriers to transmission through chiral molecules, which will be critical in the development and evolution of theoretical models necessary for foundational understanding of this phenomenon.Moving forward, elucidating the mechanistic contributions to spin filtering from the adsorbed chiral species, underlying ferromagnetic materials, and metal-molecule interfaces will enable us to critically assess the practicality of chiral organic materials for spintronics applications. Devices that utilize stable organic layers may facilitate the design, development, and implementation of next-generation electronic device architectures that exploit spin injection and detection at metal/semiconductor, chiral-molecule interfaces for information storage, memory technology, sensors, optics, and energy-efficient electronics.


Software implementation projects struggle with the delicate balance of low cost, on-time delivery and quality. The methodologies and processes used to create and maintain a quality software system are expensive to deploy and result in long development cycle-time. However, without their deployment into the software implementation life-cycle, a software system will be undependable, unsuccessful. The purpose of this research is to identify a succinct set of software implementation success criteria and assess the key independent constructs, activities, carried out to ensure a successful implementation project. The research will assess the success of a software implementation project as the dependent construct of interest and use the software process model (methodology) as the independent construct. This field research involved three phases: (1) criteria development, (2) data collection, and (3) testing of hypotheses and discriminant analysis. The first phase resulted in the development of the measurement instruments for the independent and dependent constructs. The measurement instrument for the independent construct was representative of the criteria from highly regarded software implementation process models and methodologies, e.g., ISO9000, Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM). The dependent construct was developed from the categories and criteria from the Delone and McLean (1992) MIS List of Success Measures. The data collection and assessment phase employed a field survey research strategy to 80 companies involved in internal software implementation. Both successful and unsuccessful software implementation projects (identified by the Delone/McLean model) participated. Results from 165 projects were collected, 28 unsuccessful and 137 successful. The third phase used ANOVA to test the first 11 hypotheses and employed discriminant analysis for the 12th hypothesis to identify the "best set" of variables, criteria, that discriminate between successful and unsuccessful software implementation projects. Twelve discriminating variables out of 67 were identified and supported as significant discriminators between successful and unsuccessful projects. Three of the 11 constructs were found not to be significant investments for the successful projects.


Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a crucial molecule of energy production and signal transduction processes that have been linked to ovarian cancer development. Notably, emerging evidence has led to considerable interest in the role of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) in the initiation and progression of ovarian cancer. However, dynamic crosstalk between NAD and DNMT1 is poorly understood. Here, we show that DNMT1 levels are upregulated, along with increased NAD levels in non-BRCA1-mutated ovarian cancer cells. In contrast, DNMT1 levels are not affected by increasing NAD levels in BRCA1-mutated ovarian cancer cells. Mechanistically, BRCA1 inactivitymediated loss of H3K9ac enrichment around the core promoter inhibits DNMT1 transcription. Consistent with this, BRCA1 levels correlate with DNMT1 levels (R = 0.534, P < 0.001) in human ovarian cancer specimens. Therefore, these results highlight a novel regulatory effect of NAD on DNMT1, and further correlate the physiological properties of NAD metabolism with DNMT1-mediated biological processes. All of this may improve our understanding of the basic molecular mechanism underlying NADand DNMT1-related ovarian cancer progression.


In this paper, a surface multi-pad stimulation electrode with selective characteristics was designed, it was safe to use and easy to mount. Then a wearable and distributed multi-pad functional electrical stimulation (FES) prototype combined with sensing, communication and smart technology was designed, which can achieve a fast, intelligent optimization to determine stimulation electrode sites and comfortable stimulation. In addition, in order to improve the application and convenience of FES in the rehabilitation at clinical and home-setting, an Android application (APP) based on smart phone was designed for running an algorithm of searching optimal stimulation site. The prototype has been validated by performing selective stimulation on one healthy subject, and showed that the FES system can automatically determine the stimulation site.


Dr. James W. Fleshman is the Helen Buchanan and Stanley Joseph Seeger Endowed Professor and Chairman—Department of Surgery, Baylor University Medical Center, and Chief of Surgery at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. James was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and received an MD degree from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO. His general surgery training, which included a year of research, was conducted at The Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO. He then performed a fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. In 1987, he joined the colorectal staff at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, and eventually became professor and section head of the division of colon and rectal surgery. In 2012, he moved to Dallas, TX, to assume his current position.

Dr. Fleshman is a major force in colorectal research. In addition to being honored with the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeon's Young Researcher's Award in 1992, he served as the President of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons Research Foundation. He has been involved in most of the major multicenter colorectal trials including the COST (Clinical Outcomes of Surgical Therapy) trial and remains an active researcher.

Dr. Fleshman is a member of and held leadership positions in multiple national surgical and colorectal societies. He has served as the president of the ASCRS (American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons) and the American Board of Colorectal Surgery, and is a senior member of the American Board of Surgery.

Dr. Fleshman has served on the Editorial Board of Diseases of the Colon and Rectum and Annals of Surgery as well as eight other journals. He has had a long interest in cancer and has published over 161 peer-reviewed articles, 34 non–peer-reviewed articles, and 60 book chapters on this and other colorectal subjects. He has edited four textbooks, including the first edition of the ASCRS Textbook of Colon and Rectal Surgery.

Dr. Fleshman maintains a very busy clinical practice in which the management of rectal cancer plays a major role. He educates medical students and surgical and colorectal residents on a daily basis.

James and his wife, Linda, live in Dallas, Texas. When not working, Jim enjoys golf, reading, and spending time with his family, especially his four grandchildren.

In summary, Dr. Fleshman is one of the major leaders and academic surgeons in colorectal surgery. It is an honor to know him and consider him a friend.

Dr. Warren E. Lichliter is the Chief of the Department of Colon and Rectal Surgery and Colorectal Surgery Residency Director at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. Warren was born in Murphysbort, Illinois and did his undergraduate training at the University of Tennessee. He attended medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. His general surgery residency and colorectal surgery training was performed at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. Following his colorectal surgery training, Dr. Lichliter joined the staff at the Baylor University and progressed to the positions listed above.

Dr. Lichliter educates medical students and general surgery and colorectal residents on a daily basis and mentors trainees and junior faculty as well as conducting research. His publications include nine peer reviewed articles and he has made multiple presentations at regional and national forums.

Dr. Lichliter is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS). He has served on several important committees and as President of the North Texas Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He is also Board Certified in General Surgery and Colon and Rectal Surgery and is listed in Best Doctors in America Warren has four children and lives with his wife in Dallas, Texas.

On behalf of the readers and staff of Clinics of Colon and Rectal Surgery, I thank Dr. Fleshman and Lichliter for serving as Guest Editors and for providing us with a comprehensive update and state-of-the-art review of rectal cancer management.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to adopt the principles of labour economics, behavioural economics and social influence to identify constraints and enablers that influence people's choices in relation to the labour market decisions. Design/methodology/approach - A sequential empirical methodology has been adopted, where data from the British Household Panel Survey (2009) has been collected to explain various statuses of labour market activity, with a focus on workless-ness, across the categories of unemployment, being a student, disability, retirement and being a carer – differentiating for gender and age. The paper develops and substantiates the hypothesis theoretically and gives some indications using a multi-disciplinary approach. Findings - The authors found that labour market opportunities, choices and achievements are affected by the interrelations and interactions of an individual's demographic and psychological characteristics (such as age, gender, heuristics, perceptions, beliefs, attitude's goals and ambitions) along with external factors (such as geographical, socio- cultural and economic conditions). Originality/value - This study makes a unique contribution to labour economics as the authors abandon the traditional welfare approach and use a more general framework of capabilities and refined functioning to interpret how different types of constraints – ranging from socio-economic conditions and environmental background to specific features of individual processes of choices and decision making – affect preferences and functioning's. The study also identifies how "under-employment" complements the use of BE/social influence in explaining labour market inactivity, and highlights how the findings of this study have important implications for policy.


New practice guidelines for the diagnosis and management of diabetes mellitus published by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) reflect stringent goals for blood glucose control. Although the rationale is sound, such goals are difficult, if not impossible, to attain. It is proposed that focusing on the goals rather than one's attempts to approach the goals can lead to failure. This article examines the need to help patients focus on attempting to approach rather than on meeting the goals set forth by the ADA.


Background: High mortality rate of pigs peaked in 2020 due to the re-emergence of a deadly African swine fever virus (ASFV) which has led to transcontinental outbreaks in Europe, reportedly from 2014 to 2019, and in Asia and the Pacific from 2018–2020. Given the huge socioeconomic consequences of the disease, vaccines that will prime the immunity of swine against this pathogen is a dire necessity. Methods: In silico identification and characterization of highly conserved cytotoxic T-cell (CD8+) epitopes derived from one of its structural proteins, pp220, were analyzed. Protein sequences of pp220 were retrieved and clustered to obtain highly conserved sequences. Cross-reactive epitopes were filtered out, and the remaining epitopes were docked with swine leukocyte antigen-1*0401 (SLA-1*0401). Furthermore, the epitope stability was determined by comparing binding energy, dissociation constant, and eigenvalues of the epitopes with the values of positive control, influenza-epitope complex. Results: This study showed that 20 highly conserved epitopes promiscuously bind to two or more SLAs and 9 of which epitopes (ALDLSLIGF, QIYKTLLEY, FLNKSTQAY, IADAINQEF, IINPSITEY, AINTFMYYY, SLYPTQFDY, RSNPGSFYW, and RLDRKHILM) that were validated exhibit potential immunogenicity based on the acceptable binding energy, dissociation constant, and eigenvalues. Conclusion: This study has identified epitopes that show high conservancy, reducing the chance of epitope immune evasion. It is anticipated that the identified epitopes must be further evaluated as a potential immunotherapeutic agent in developing an epitope-based vaccine against ASFV.


Aim: Immune responsive 12/15 lipoxygenase (12/15LOX)-orchestrate biosynthesis of essential inflammation-resolution mediators during acute inflammatory response in post-myocardial infarction (MI). Lack of 12/15LOX dampens proinflammatory mediator 12-(S)-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (12-(S)-HETE), improves post-MI survival, through the biosynthesis of endogenous mediators epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs; cypoxins) to resolve post-MI inflammation. However, the mechanism that amplifies cypoxins-directed cardiac repair in acute heart failure (AHF) and chronic HF (CHF) remains of interest in MI-directed renal inflammation. Therefore, we determined the role of EETs in macrophage-specific receptor activation in facilitating cardiac repair in 12/15LOX deficient mice experiencing HF. Methods and Results: Risk-free young adult (8 -12 week-old) male C57BL/6J wild-type mice (WT; n = 43) and 12/15LOX-/- mice (n = 31) were subjected to permanent coronary artery ligation and monitored at day (d)1, d5 (as acute HF), and d28 to d56 (8 weeks; chronic HF) post-surgery maintaining no-MI mice that served as d0 naïve controls. Left ventricle (LV) infarcted area of 12/15LOX-/- mice displayed an increase in expression of prostanoid receptor EP4 along with monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 CCL2 in AHF and CHF. The transcriptome analysis of isolated leukocytes (macrophages/neutrophils) from infarcted LV revealed a higher expression of EP4 on reparative macrophages expressing MRC-1 in 12/15LOX-/- mice. Deletion of 12/15LOX differentially modulated the miRNA levels, downregulating miR-23a-3p (~20 fold; p < 0.05) and upregulating miR-125a-5p (~160 fold; p < 0.05) in AHF which promoted polarization of the macrophages towards reparative phenotype. Furthermore, 12/15LOX deletion markedly attenuated renal inflammation with reduced levels of NGAL and KIM-1 and apoptotic markers in the kidney during CHF. Conclusion: In risk-free mice during physiological cardiac repair, absence of 12/15LOX promoted reparative macrophages with marked activation of EP4 signaling thereby improving post-MI survival and limiting renal inflammation in acute and advanced HF. The future studies are warranted to advance the role of EETs in macrophage receptor biology.


Relationships between drought and fire danger indices are examined to 1) incorporate fire risk information into the National Integrated Drought Information System California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System and 2) provide a baseline analysis for application of drought indices into a fire risk management framework. We analyzed four drought indices that incorporate precipitation and evaporative demand (E0) and three fire indices that reflect fuel moisture and potential fire intensity. Seasonally averaged fire danger indices were most strongly correlated to multi-scalar drought indices that use E0 (the Evaporative Demand Drought Index [EDDI] and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index [SPEI]) at approximately annual time scales that reflect buildup of antecedent drought conditions. Results indicate that EDDI and SPEI can inform seasonal fire potential outlooks at the beginning of summer. An E0 decomposition case study of conditions prior to the Tubbs Fire in Northern California indicate high E0 (97th percentile) driven predominantly by low humidity signaled increased fire potential several days before the start of the fire. Initial use of EDDI by fire management groups during summer and fall 2018 highlights several value-added applications, including seasonal fire potential outlooks, funding fire severity level requests, and assessing set-up conditions prior to large, explosive fire cases.


Apart from the rich spectral information provided by multispectral or hypersepctral sensors, the spatial information has been paid more and more attention in remote sensing classification, especially for high spatial resolution images. Pixel-wise spatial features can be generated by applying Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) locally to describe an image's texture properties. Morphological filtering provides spatial structure enhancement and watershed processing aims at contextual boundary identification. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of these spatial treatments are investigated. A combined procedure is developed to maximize spatial information extraction. Texture feature selection is emphasized for class separability enhancement. Morphological filtering is introduced as a preprocessing for watershed segmentation in order to reduce false alarm on contextual boundaries. Super pixels are formed for the objects defined from the watershed segmentation. The experimental results show that the combined spatial treatment is effective and, by integrating it with spectral information, an object oriented classification map can be obtained with significantly reduced 'salt and pepper' noise.


Since 1963 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has pro- vided the world with a credible and effective call to action for preventing species extinction. How- ever, the criteria for assigning categories of threat (e.g. 'critically endangered,' 'endangered,' 'vulner- able'), particularly the 'decline criteria' (Criteria A), often exaggerate the real risks of extinction and are thus not accurate. This is exemplified here by hawksbill turtles Eretmochelys imbricata, but the problem is more widespread. There is an expectation by scientists that these accuracy problems will be rectified, yet this is by no means a minor adjustment for the Red List to make, because the Red List itself operates under significant constraints. The Red List is expected to meet the requirements of sci- entists and advocates, to be consistent with historical precedents, to pursue new directions at the bio- diversity level, to meet the often conflicting views and values of diverse IUCN members, and still has to weather the stormy politics of conservation. Proposed changes to listing procedures would need to be scientifically justified, politically acceptable and as benign as possible to ongoing processes, such as biodiversity monitoring. The decline criteria are perhaps the most problematic, and these are examined in more detail here. A fundamental weakness is that they respond more to the challenge of reinstating historical abundance than to avoiding global extinction per se. This could potentially be overcome by using the current decline criteria to make an objective first stage determination based solely on decline (e.g. 'critically declined'), thereby overcoming almost all scientific objections con- cerning accuracy. A second-stage assessment could then examine the significance of that decline, in terms of allocating species to the existing extinction risk categories or retaining them as critically declined. There is an increasing conservation and humanitarian expectation that the IUCN, through the Red List, will become more involved with species that are critically declined but well-buffered against global extinction. To use global extinction as the gatekeeper to the IUCN's involvement in conservation issues today is difficult to justify.


As technology continues to increase the various formats in which medical images are created, transmitted, and analyzed, it has become more necessary to restrict the different ways in which this data is stored and formatted between the conflicting modalities. There is a significant increase in the use of medical images in clinical medicine, disease research, and education. While the literature lists several successful systems for contentbased image retrieval and image management methods, they have been unable to make significant inroads in routine medical informatics. This paper presents a new approach to image retrieval based on color, texture, and shape by using pyramid structure wavelet. The major advantage of such an approach is that little human intervention is required. However, most of these systems only allow a user to query using a complete image with multiple regions and are unable to retrieve similar looking images based on a single region. Experimental results of the query system on different test image databases are given. This paper introduces a comparative study between color, texture, shape and the pyramid structure wavelet technique and generates the receiving operating characteristic curve (ROC) to assess the results. The area under the curve when use color is 0.58, when use shape is 0.68, when use texture 0.74 and when use the wavelet technique is 0.8.


ABSTRACT Treatments for canine lymphoma often fail, because tumor cells acquire multidrug resistance (MDR). MDR can develop through several mechanisms, among which the overexpression of drug transporters in tumor cells is a well-studied mechanism. ATP-binding cassette sub-family G member 2 (ABCG2) belongs to the ABC-transporters, that are representative drug efflux pumps associated with MDR in human tumor cells. However, the regulation of ABCG2 gene expression in canine tumors is not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to reveal the regulatory mechanism of ABCG2 gene expression in 4 canine lymphoid tumor cell lines, GL-1, CLBL-1, UL-1 and Ema. Treatment with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA), the protein kinase C (PKC) activator, stimulated MAPK/ERK pathway in GL-1, UL-1 and Ema cells and JNK pathway in UL-1 and Ema cells. When GL-1 and UL-1 cells were treated with PMA and the MAPK/ERK kinase inhibitor U0126, ABCG2 gene expression levels were elevated above those in untreated cells. Similarly, ABCG2 gene expression increased above control levels in UL-1 and Ema cells treated with PMA and the JNK inhibitor SP600125. However, ABCG2 gene expression was unaffected by U0126 exposure in CLBL-1 cells, in which activation of MAPK/ERK pathway was observed in non-treated cells. These results suggested that MAPK/ERK and JNK pathways downregulate ABCG2 gene expression, which is upregulated by unidentified but possibly PKC-dependent pathways, in several types of canine lymphoid tumor cells.


Cardiac surgeons have long appreciated that coronary artery bypass grafting may differ in its success for men and women. Early studies reported that coronary artery bypass grafting was associated with a higher early mortality in women, although long-term survival was similar in both sexes. A consistent finding was that women were more symptomatic, with a greater number of adverse risk factors at time of surgery, although they had less coronary disease and better cardiac function. Recent studies suggest that their disadvantageous clinical profile remains, but that they are now burdened with increased coronary disease and poorer cardiac function. There is increasing evidence that women are underreferred for coronary angiography, although it would appear that once investigated, they receive appropriate referral for coronary artery bypass grafting. These findings are not universal, and there are significant differences in clinical practice between institutions.


Abstract Quasicrystals (QC) are usually complex metal alloys with atypical structures. Due to their physical, mechanical and surface properties, quasicrystals have been widely studied. Although methods to manufacture quasicrystalline materials are well known, much effort has been expended in obtaining suitable quasicrystalline materials for use in industry. As quasicrystalline materials are very brittle, they are usually used in powder form as a reinforcement for additives in composites as well as in coating technology. In this work, Al–Cu–Fe quasicrystalline powder was used as a reinforcement in epoxy resin and the influence of the quasicrystal particles incorporation on the adhesive properties of the epoxy was investigated. Single lap joints (SLJ) adhesion tests were performed in order to assess the shear mode bond strength. Results show that the effect of QC reinforcement is not linear with respect to the adherence of the composites.


In vivo joint stiffness estimation during time-varying conditions remains an open challenge. Multiple communities, e.g. system identification and biomechanics, have tackled the problem from different perspectives and using different methods, each of which entailing advantages and limitations, often complementary. System identification formulations provide data-driven estimates of stiffness at the joint level, while biomechanics often relies on musculoskeletal models to estimate stiffness at multiple levels, i.e. joint, muscle, and tendon. Collaboration across these two scientific communities seems to be a logical step toward a reliable multi-level understanding of joint stiffness. However, differences at the theoretical, computational, and experimental levels have limited inter-community interaction. In this article we present a roadmap to achieve a unified framework for the estimation of time-varying stiffness in the composite human neuromusculoskeletal system during movement. We present our perspective on future developments to obtain data-driven system identification and musculoskeletal models that are compatible at the theoretical, computational, and experimental levels. Moreover, we propose a novel combined closed-loop paradigm, in which reference estimates of joint stiffness via system identification are decomposed into underlying muscle and tendon contribution via high-density-electromyography-driven musculoskeletal modeling. We highlight the need for aligning experimental requirements to be able to compare both joint stiffness formulations. Unifying both biomechanics' and system identification's formulations is a necessary step for truly generalizing stiffness estimation across individuals, movement conditions, training and impairment levels. From an application point of view, this is central for enabling patient-specific neurorehabilitation therapies, as well as biomimetic control of assistive robotic technologies. The roadmap we propose could serve as an inspiration for future collaborations across broadly different scientific communities to truly understand joint stiffness bio- and neuromechanics. Video Abstract: Unifying system identification and biomechanical formulations for the estimation of muscle, tendon and joint stiffness during human movement


Faceted search as a method for exploratory search is a search interface technique for Boolean retrieval that provides a good compromise between the wish to guide the user and the need to give freedom to the user. Both, guidance and freedom are needed in order to enable him (or her) to accomplish his search goal as quickly and efficiently as possible. The search goal can be both, to retrieve a target image (lookup search) or to get an overview of a collection as the basis for accomplishing complex search tasks (exploratory search). VisualFlamenco is about bringing content-based image retrieval and faceted search together. While there is some preexisting work towards faceted search based on automatically extracted metadata, the base innovation of our work is to visualize the meaning of facets and let the user pick visualized facets directly. The main point is this research is to give the user the right expectations about what the system can achieve. We see this as a step towards dependable multimedia search, search interfaces that do not promise more than they can achieve. A mismatch of expectations and possibilities has been denoted by some as one of the main problems in current research about multimedia search. Within this paper we present a visual faceted search tool that seeks to provide dependable image search. We describe its base idea, the features used, as well as user experiments done using the system.


Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the structured but flexible psychosocial interventions that could be applied to patients with cancer. In many studies the positive effects of cognitive behavioral therapy in reducing psychological morbidity and improving the quality of life of cancer patients have been shown. In this article, the contents and techniques of adapted cognitive behavioral therapy for patients with cancer and its effectiveness in commonly seen psychiatric disorders have been reviewed. The aim of this article is to contribute positively to physicians and nurses in Turkey for early detection of psychological distress and referral to the therapist that would clearly increase the quality of life of cancer patients.


The zeolites constitute a group of minerals of much interest from geological, mineralogical and technological points of view. Structurally, they are tectosilicates with an 'open' framework containing channels and cavities which accommodate cations and water molecules. Generally, these cations are exchangeable and the water molecules can be removed or replaced reversibly without disrupting the framework. Because of the widespread occurrence of zeolites in various environments, they offer a fruitful field of investigation to geologists and this has led to the recognition of the so-called zeolite facies. Technologically, no mineral group is as versatile in its application possibilities as the zeolites. This is due to their high physical stability and specific sorptive properties. For this reason, zeolites are synthesized on a large scale and then appropriately named molecular sieves. In recent years large and relatively pure deposits of useful zeolites have been discovered. Since these can be made available at relatively low cost, the interest in natural zeolites is rapidly reviving. For many applications, zeolites have to be activated by heating. This involves dehydration of the minerals and consequently often causes drastic, but usually reversible, changes in the structure and unit-cell dimensions. Hence, the thermal properties of zeolites have been studied for many years. A brief review of this work is given in chapter 2. Because of the unsystematic approach in which inadequate techniques were often employed, the results have frequently been both inaccurate and controversial. In chapter 3, the dehydration process which is a composite reaction, is analysed. Zeolite dehydration appears to occur according to one or more of three basic types. Type 1 is a discrete reaction over a relatively short temperature range accompanied by a sharp peak in the DTA curve and a marked crystallographic transformation. Type 2 consists of a sequence of small dehydration steps resulting in a broad, often somewhat irregular DTA peak accompanied by small stepwise lattice adaptations. With type 3, dehydration occurs gradually without any apparent break, also resulting in a broad and smooth DTA peak. The lattice may either adapt gradually or remain virtually unaltered. Water vapour pressure strongly influences the reaction temperature and the dehydration process appears to occur so rapidly that equilibrium is instantly reached. The dehydration-rehydration hysteresis effect occurring in several zeolites, is not caused by possible non-equilibrium conditions of the dehydration reaction but by the lattice transformation. The so-called 'loosely held' water, denoted in chemical analyses as H 2 O-, appeared to be adsorbed internally in the structure instead of on the external surface. In chapter 4 a systematic thermal investigation of the zeolites belonging to the natrolite group, using dynamic methods of thermal analysis, is given. Upon heating and dehydration all members of this group react by a contraction of the lattice along the a and b axes and often an expansion along the c axis, in accordance with the general fibrous structure. Natrolite shows the highest thermal stability of the group and has a low (α) and a high (β) metaphase. Its isotypes mesolite and scolecite show a mutually resembling thermal behaviour which is very different from that of natrolite. The isotypes thomsonite and gonnardite also show a mutual resemblance with certain aspects of both natrolite and mesolite/scolecite. The relationship of edingtonite with the other members was not reflected by its thermal behaviour. X-ray data of all meta-phases were collected. With the aid of the DTA inhibited diffusion method pressure-temperature relations of zeolite dehydration reactions have been studied in chapter 5. The Clausius-Clapeyron equation appeared to be applicable and facilitated calculation of thermodynamic parameters of the reactions. For 18 zeolites more than 50 values for the heat of hydration have been calculated of which only a few had to be rejected because of non-equilibrium experimental conditions. From the reaction entropy change, values for the entropy of water in zeolites were calculated. These indicated that at least three types of water can be present in zeolites: 1. crystal water or low-entropy water with a standard entropy of 30-47 J/mole/deg (7 -11 cal/mole/deg); 2. zeolitic water or high-entropy water with a standard entropy in the range of 58-72 J/mole/deg (14 -17 cal/mole/deg); 3. so-called 'loosely bound' water with a high standard entropy of 58-63 J/mole/deg (14-15 cal/mole/deg). Low entropy appears to be associated with water molecules occupying 'fixed positions' in the structure whereas high entropy is associated with molecules possessing a higher degree of disorder because they are not coordinated in fixed positions.


For every oriented surface of finite type, we construct a functorial Khovanov homology for links in a thickening of the surface, which takes values in a categorification of the corresponding gl(2) skein module. The latter is a mild refinement of the Kauffman bracket skein algebra, and its categorification is constructed using a category of gl(2) foams that admits an interesting non-negative grading. We expect that the natural algebra structure on the gl(2) skein module can be categorified by a tensor product that makes the surface link homology functor monoidal. We construct a candidate bifunctor on the target category and conjecture that it extends to a monoidal structure. This would give rise to a canonical basis of the associated gl(2) skein algebra and verify an analogue of a positivity conjecture of Fock--Goncharov and Thurston. We provide evidence towards the monoidality conjecture by checking several instances of a categorified Frohman-Gelca formula for the skein algebra of the torus. Finally, we recover a variant of the Asaeda--Przytycki--Sikora surface link homologies and prove that surface embeddings give rise to spectral sequences between them.