Abstract. Water column data of carbon and carbon-relevant parameters have been collected and merged into a new database called CARINA (CARbon IN the Atlantic). In order to provide a consistent data set, all data have been examined for systematic biases and adjusted if necessary (secondary quality control (QC)). The CARINA data set is divided into three regions: the Arctic/Nordic Seas, the Atlantic region and the Southern Ocean. Here we present the CFC data for the Atlantic region, including the chlorofluorocarbons CFC-11, CFC-12 and CFC-113 as well as carbon tetrachloride (CCl4). The methods applied for the secondary quality control, a crossover analyses, the investigation of CFC ratios in the ocean and the CFC surface saturation are presented. Based on the results, the CFC data of some cruises are adjusted by a certain factor or given a "poor'' quality flag.


Recent studies have shown that changes in epigenetic regulation, such as DNA methylation and histone acetylation, are associated with silencing of the estrogen receptor _ (ER) gene in ER-negative human breast cancer cells. Treatment of these cells with the general DNMT inhibitor, 5-aza-2'deoxycytidine, led to reactivation of functional ER protein. This study addresses the hypothesis that specific inhibition of the maintenance DNA methyltransferase, DNMT1, by antisense oligonucleotides (DNMT1 ASO) is sufficient to re-express the ER gene in ER-negative human breast cancer cell lines. MDA-MB-231 and Hs578t cells were transfected with 100 nM and 150 nM DNMT1 ASO respectively for three consecutive days and evidence of DNMT1 down-regulation and functional ER re-expression was sought. Significant growth reduction was observed within 48 hr and persisted after 96 hr. DNMT1 expression was blocked after exposure to DNMT1 ASO as detected by RT-PCR, Western blot and enzymatic assay whereas a mutant DNMT1 ASO had little effect. This was associated with enhanced ER mRNA and protein expression and restoration of estrogen responsiveness in MDA-MB-231 cells as demonstrated by the ability of the induced ER protein to elicit ERE-regulated reporter activity from a luciferase reporter construct. Methylation specific PCR showed that the ER CpG island was minimally demethylated, suggesting that other epigenetic events, introduced by specific DNMT1 inhibition, might also be involved in ER re-expression. Our results suggest that specific inhibition of DNMT1 expression alone is sufficient to re-express ERa in human breast cancer cell lines.


Internet of Things (IoT) has provided a promising opportunity to build powerful industrial systems and applications by leveraging the growing and wireless, mobile, and sensor devices. A wide range of industrial IoT applications have been developed and deployed in recent years. In an effort to understand the development of IoT in industries, key enabling technologies, major IoT applications in industries, and identifies research Trends and challenges.


Passage of North America over the Yellowstone hotspot has had a profound infl uence on the topography of the northern Rocky Mountains region. One of the most prominent hotspot-related topographic features is the Yellowstone crescent of high terrain, which consists of two elevated shoulders bounding the eastern Snake River Plain and converging at a topographic swell centered on the Yellowstone region. We have applied single-grain (U-Th)/He dating to apatites (AHe) collected from the Pioneer-Boulder Mountains on the northern arm of the Yel- lowstone crescent of high terrain to constrain the timing, rates, and spatial distribution of exhumation. These data provide constraints on the timing and processes responsible for uplift related to passage of the hotspot. The Pioneer-Boulder Mountains represent a topographic and structural culmination defi ned by elevation and by the geometry of preserved strata of the Eocene Challis volcanic province. AHe ages indicate that ≥2–3 km of exhumation has occurred in the core of the Pioneer-Boulder Mountains culmination, where no Challis volcanics are preserved, since ca. 11 Ma. Challis volcanics are extensively preserved and Eocene topographic highs are locally preserved to the north and south of the Pioneer-Boulder Mountains, indicating minimal erosion in those areas. Age-elevation relationships suggest an exhumation rate of ~0.3 mm/yr between ca. 11 and 8 Ma for the culmination core; this relatively rapid interval of exhumation followed a period of >30 m.y. during which little to no regional-scale exhumation occurred. Spatial patterns of both exhumation and topography indicate that faulting was not the primary control on uplift and exhumation of the culmination. Instead, NNW-trending normal faults are superimposed on the culmination, with the AHe ages from the footwall of the Copper Creek fault indicating that faulting began at or after ca. 10–9 Ma. Regional exhumation at 11–8 Ma was synchronous with silicic eruptions from the ca. 10.3 Ma Picabo volcanic fi eld located immediately to the south and with S tilting of the southern fl ank of the Pioneer-Boulder Mountains culmination, which was likely the result of loading of the eastern Snake River Plain by midcrustal mafi c intrusions. This synchroneity suggests a causal relationship between hotspot processes and exhu- mation through potential contributions of fl exure and mantle dynamics to uplift, as well as changes in drainage networks and base level


Deposits of the Warchha Sandstone in the Salt Range, Pakistan are characterised by a range of fluvial facies and architectural elements that together preserve a record of both the proximal and distal parts of a meandering river system that drained the northern margin of Gondwanaland. Several fining-upward cycles are recognised and completely preserved cycles can be divided in to three parts; a lower part composed of an erosive base with gravel- and coarse sand-grade trough cross-bedded facies, a middle part composed of planar cross-bedded, ripple cross-laminated and horizontally laminated sandstone facies, and an upper part composed predominantly of horizontally laminated and massive mudstone facies. Nine architectural elements are recognised within these cycles and these record the presence of channels, downstream and laterally accreting barforms, laminated sand sheets, crevasse splays, levees, over-bank floodplain units and shallow lakes. A broad range of sedimentary structures is recognised, including different forms of bedding, cross bedding, ripple marks and stratification, channels, flute casts, load casts, desiccation cracks, rain prints, conein- cone structures, a variety of concretions and bioturbation. The occurrence and abundance of these structures varies in a systematic manner throughout the vertical thickness of the succession. Cross bedding is the most prominent and consistent sedimentary structure, including various trough and planar varieties. The clasts are mainly of plutonic and low-grade metamorphic origin, with an additional minor sedimentary component. Textural properties of the sandstone are fine- to coarse-grained, poorly to moderately sorted, sub-angular to sub-rounded and with generally loose packing. Based on modal analyses, the sandstone is dominantly a sub-arkose to arkose. Detrital constituents of this formation are mainly composed of monocrystalline quartz, feldspars (more K-feldspar than plagioclase) and various types of lithic clasts. XRD and SEM studies indicate that kaolinite is the dominant clay mineral. Detailed palaeocurrent analysis reveals a broad unimodal palaeocurrent pattern within each cycle but significant changes in local migration direction between each vertically stacked cycle, supporting the notion of a high-sinuosity system with an overall dominant flow direction to the north-northwest. Petrographic analysis indicates the provenance of the Warchha Sandstone to have been the Aravalli Range to the southeast and the Malani Range to the south of the Salt Range, suggesting northward transport across a broad alluvial plain towards the margin of the Tethys Ocean in the north.


The functions of intensity, thresholds of reactions, thresholds of inhibitory effects and differential sensitivity to intensity of local light stimulation of central and different peripheral regions of receptive fields of 96 units in the 17th field of visual cortex were investigated in immobilized and nonanesthetized cats in dark adaptation. Receptive fields of cells had wide threshold and superthreshold reliefs (3-30 degrees). Some of them had V-shape reliefs, while others--reliefs with alternating zones of high and low excitability. As a rule, sensitivity of excitatory and inhibitory inputs was maximal in the centre of the receptive field. In the investigated population of cells the inhibitory inputs were more standard in sensitivity and on the average of lower excitability. The threshold relief of the receptive fields was markedly narrowed under light adaptation mainly due to a decrease in the peripheral inputs sensitivity. The number of low-threshold units, the differential brightness sensitivity and sensitivity of the inhibitory system increased in the visual cortex as compared to the lateral geniculate and retinal units. The mechanisms of receptive field formation in the visual cortex and their plasticity depending on the adaptation level, the role of excitatory and inhibitory inputs in these effects and behavioral significance of the obtained data are discussed.


Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial pathogen associated with high morbidity and mortality in humans. Whereas infections with strains of Acinetobacter species have been reported in various situations, the importance of A baumannii as a nosocomial pathogen in veterinary hospitals has not been studied so far. In this retrospective case series, we describe 17 dogs and 2 cats from which A baumannii had been isolated during a 2 1/2-year period. In 7 dogs, A baumannii induced systemic signs of illness, whereas 12 animals showed signs of local infection. In all animals with systemic infection, and in 2 with localized infection, A baumannii contributed to the death of the animal or contributed to euthanasia; the remaining 8 dogs and both cats recovered. Molecular typing of the isolates with restriction polymorphisms of ribosomal DNA provided evidence of nosocomial spread of this pathogen and for the presence of several strains of A baumannii in the hospital environment.


Stereo visual odometry and dense scene reconstruction depend critically on accurate calibration of the extrinsic (relative) stereo camera poses. We present an algorithm for continuous, online stereo extrinsic re-calibration operating only on sparse stereo correspondences on a per-frame basis. We obtain the 5 degree of freedom extrinsic pose for each frame, with a fixed baseline, making it possible to model time-dependent variations. The initial extrinsic estimates are found by minimizing epipolar errors, and are refined via a Kalman Filter (KF). Observation covariances are derived from the Cramer-Rao lower bound of the solution uncertainty. The algorithm operates at frame rate with unoptimized Matlab code with over 1000 correspondences per frame. We validate its performance using a variety of real stereo datasets and simulations.


Internships provide professional preparation for aspiring sport management professionals, because they allow for professional and personal growth, as well as for being exposed to a professional work environment. Unfortunately, part of the exposure to a professional work environment also means being subjected to its negative aspects, which include sexual harassment. The purpose of this study was to examine the sexual harassment experiences of female students in a sport management internship setting. Nearly 66% of the respondents had experienced some type of sexual harassment while completing an internship. Internship satisfaction was lower for those who had experienced sexual harassment, but experiencing sexual harassment had no impact on their intent to enter the sport management profession. Sport management educators, as well as internship supervisors, must work together to create a safe and professional environment for female students.


ABSTRACT This paper explores the potential role of metaphor as a signal and determinant of distress in first-person accounts of voice-hearing by people with schizophrenia diagnoses. The degree of distress experienced by voice-hearers depends, amongst other factors, on voice-hearers' perceptions of the "power" of the voices, and on the extent to which the voices can control or be controlled by the person. Metaphors are well known to both reflect and reinforce particular ways of making sense of subjective and sensitive experiences, including in terms of attributions of agency, power and control. Metaphors were systematically identified and analysed in semi-structured interviews with 10 voice-hearers with diagnoses of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Divergent uses of metaphors framed the experience of voice-hearing in distinctive ways and were found to have different implications for perceptions of mutual power and control between voice-hearer and voices. Participants who used metaphors in which they are in disempowered positions tended to report higher level of distress, while participants who used metaphors in ways that constructed them as empowered tended to report lower levels of distress. It is argued that metaphor analysis can be usefully added to well-established approaches to both understanding and addressing distress in voice-hearers.


Common types of hearing impairment are caused mainly by a loss of nearly instantaneous compressive amplification in the inner ear. Therefore, it seems plausible that the loss might be compensated by fast frequency-dependent compression in the hearing aid. We simulated impaired listeners' auditory analysis of hearing-aid processed speech in noise using a functional auditory model. Using hidden Markov signal models, we estimated the mutual information between the phonetic structure of clean speech and the neural output from the auditory model, with fast and slow versions of hearing-aid compression. The long-term speech spectrum of amplified sound was identical in both systems, as specified individually by the widely accepted NAL prescription for the gain frequency response. The calculation showed clearly better speech-to-auditory information transmission with slow quasi-linear amplification than with fast hearing-aid compression, for speech in speech-shaped noise at signal-to-noise ratios ranging from -10 to +20 dB.


Research in social venturing entrepreneurship promoted by Professor Gert Van Dijk is gaining ground. The concept of social venturing entrepreneurship is not new. It is rooted in entrepreneurship as described by classical authors like Von Mises, Kirzner, Schumpter Knight and social reformer like Raiffeisen. It is anchored in new institutional and behav ioral economics and exit strategy theory. A social venturing entrepreneur is a creator of effective social change in the context of economic, social and political conditions. Social venturing entrepreneur masters the skills of networking and lobbying. A social ventur- ing entrepreneur is recognized by the social venturing and co-operative entrepreneurship business model they employ to execute their teleology. Social venturing entrepreneurship has advantages above conventional entrepreneurship as it has reintroduced the concept as entrepreneurship as a calling. They aim to empower the stakeholders for whom they setup the social venture and exit when the stakeholders are able to self-manage the enterprise. This chapter explains the commonly used concepts, ontologies, the social venturing entre- preneur's social venturing and co-operative business model, the economic theories and conceptual framework and practical application from appreciative inquiry point of view.


This paper describes lessons learned from developing the most recent Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian (LVK2018) from various online sources. Most of the new corpora are created from data obtained from various text holders, which requires cooperation agreements with each of the text holders. Reaching these cooperation agreements is a difficult and time consuming task and may not be necessary if the resource to be created is not of hundred millions of size. Although there are many different resources available on the Internet today for a particular language, finding viable online resources to create a balanced corpus is still a challenging task. Developing a balanced corpus from various online sources does not require agreements with text holders, but it presents many more technical challenges, including text extraction, cleaning and validation.


Subregional Growth Poles in the Competition for Development Factors This article presents the findings of a two-year research project1. The main aim of the project was to analyse the role and growth possibilities of subregional centres in Poland, taking into account polarisation processes and a knowledge-based economy. The cities chosen for their degree of competitiveness and growth possibilities were those of over 40000 inhabitants, not situated in close proximity to capitals of Polish regions. Apart from that questionnaires were sent by post to all previously identified subregional growth poles and municipalities of their surroundings. Moreover, ten subregional growth poles were chosen to be analysed as case studies. Six fragmentary hypotheses were verified in the research: historical hypothesis, metropolitan hypothesis, hypothesis of internal resources, networking hypothesis, hypothesis of strong surroundings, administrative-political hypothesis.


The presented work is aimed at determining thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity and heat capacity of insulating sleeves used in Polish metallurgical/foundry practice. On basis of the theory elaborated in [1] the mean values of thermophysical properties for temperatures range of about 150-1000 oC were obtained. The results obtained during the examinations presented in the paper can be helpful when formulating boundary conditions during the computer aided simulation of the processes of heat and mass transfer in the system: casting (ingot) – mould riser (ingot head) – ambient, which uses the investigated insulating sleeves [2, 3]. The method of determining thermal properties can be also used for other foundry materials, e.g. sands or cores.


Fibrillary protein aggregates rich in beta-sheet structure have been implicated in the pathology of several neurodegenerative diseases. In this work, we investigate the formation of fibrils by performing discontinuous molecular dynamics simulations on systems containing 12 to 96 model Ac-KA(14)K-NH(2) peptides using our newly developed off-lattice, implicit-solvent, intermediate-resolution model, PRIME. We find that, at a low concentration, random-coil peptides assemble into alpha-helices at low temperatures. At intermediate concentrations, random-coil peptides assemble into alpha-helices at low temperatures and large beta-sheet structures at high temperatures. At high concentrations, the system forms beta-sheets over a wide range of temperatures. These assemble into fibrils above a critical temperature which decreases with concentration and exceeds the isolated peptide's folding temperature. At very high temperatures and all concentrations, the system is in a random-coil state. All of these results are in good qualitative agreement with those by Blondelle and co-workers on Ac-KA(14)K-NH(2) peptides. The fibrils observed in our simulations mimic the structural characteristics observed in experiments in terms of the number of sheets formed, the values of the intra- and intersheet separations, and the parallel peptide arrangement within each beta-sheet. Finally, we find that when the strength of the hydrophobic interaction between nonpolar side chains is high compared to the strength of hydrogen bonding, amorphous aggregates, rather than fibrillar aggregates, are formed.


This paper reports how the CFL learners at Ulster University (UU), in Northern Ireland, who at the end of Year One before moving on to Year 2, had experienced demotivation and a sense that their CFL was becoming even more challenging and 'more and more complicated and difficult' to deal with, have been encouraged to sustain or regain or enhance confidence. It was due to the unique situation that the students in the BA honours in Applied Languages and Translation at the beginning of Year 2, are normally allowed to drop one of the three modern languages which they are required to take in their first year, and choose any of the two remaining languages. There was some anxiety that failure at Chinese would affect the overall result of their degree, some CFL learners choose to give up and take another language, which meant their CFL learning stopped at the first year beginner level. Therefore, it was a real challenge to sustain and enhance the CFL learners' interest, motivation and confidence. To that end, a series of learning strategies have been developed, which are all put under the category of 'Holistic Learning strategies' in this paper, to promote learners' understanding that learning a language which is very different from their mother tongue can add further dimensions to their thought patterns, and give herself or himself an edge in employment. Of all the strategies applied, benefitting from the unique nature of rich Chinese language, linguistically and philosophically, a two-pronged holistic teaching strategy (using Chinese sayings) of 以不变应万变 (yǐ bu bian ying wan bian) coping with shifting events by sticking to a fundamental principle and also 以万变应不变 (yǐ wan bian ying bu bian) applying changing methods to deal in the unchanged fundamental principles, because as another goes, 万变不离其宗 (wan bian bu li qi zōng), indicating that things remain essentially the same despite all apparent changes, leading to 大道至简 (da dao zhi jiǎn), indicating that the nature of the universe can bethe simplest, or the most profound takes the simplest form,was applied with CFL learners from diverse cultural backgrounds in Northern Ireland and appeared to be most effective and desirable to learners. Overall, the practical strategies applied in this study have proved a positive encouragement to the CFL learners, resulting in sustaining their interest, motivation, confidence; enhancing their knowledge practice and enriching their learning experience.


Why do people engage in entrepreneurship and commit large parts of their personal wealth to their business, despite comparably low returns and high risk? This paper connects several streams of literature to shed some light on this puzzle and suggests possible future research avenues. Key insights from the literature are that entrepreneurs may operate in imperfect financial markets and that entrepreneurs are less risk-averse than the rest of the population. A focus of this paper is, therefore, on the role of heterogeneous risk attitudes in entrepreneurial decisions, specifically portfolio choice and the entry and exit decisions. Nonpecuniary benefits of entrepreneurship, such as being independent in the workplace, also contribute to an explanation of entrepreneurial behavior.


This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows:

To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of the various types of D-dimer test in the diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the lower limb in symptomatic outpatients with a clinical prediction rule score. Patients' clinical prediction rule scores will be used to assess D-dimer test accuracy in different risk groups.

To investigate the following as potential sources of heterogeneity: age, sex, cancer, previous venous thromboembolism (VTE), prolonged immobilisation, anticoagulant treatment, time lapse between onset of symptoms and testing, and type of reference standard. However, we recognise that all of these listed items, except type of reference standard, are patient-specific rather than study-specific, and so study reports may lack the necessary level of detail to enable an informative analysis.


Human pigmentation characteristics play an important role in the effects of sun exposure, skin cancer induction and disease outcomes. Several of the genes most important for this diversity are involved in the regulation and distribution of melanin pigmentation or enzymes involved in melanogenesis itself within the melanocyte cell present in the skin, hair and eyes. The single nucleotide polymorphisms and extended haplotypes within or surrounding these genes have been identified as risk factors for skin cancer, in particular, melanoma. These same polymorphisms have been under selective pressure leading towards lighter pigmentation in Europeans in the last 5,000-20,000 years that have driven the increase in frequency in modern populations. Although pigmentation is a polygenic trait, due to interactive and quantitative gene effects, strong phenotypic associations are readily apparent for these major genes. However, predictive value and utility are increased when considering gene polymorphism interactions. In melanoma, an increased penetrance is found in cases when pigmentation gene risk alleles such as MC1R variants are coincident with mutation of higher-risk melanoma genes including CDKN2A, CDK4 and MITF E318K, demonstrating an interface between the pathways for pigmentation, naevogenesis and melanoma. The clinical phenotypes associated with germline changes in pigmentation and naevogenic genes must be understood by clinicians, and will be of increasing relevance to dermatologists, as genomics is incorporated into the delivery of personalised medicine.


Abstract According to the literature, the Adana Basin, at the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Basin in southern Turkey, records the Pliocene stage with shallow-marine to fluvial deposits. Our micropalaeontological analysis of samples from the Adana Basin reveal Late Lago–Mare biofacies with Paratethyan ostracod assemblages pertaining to the Loxocorniculina djafarovi zone. Grey clays rich in planktonic foraminifera lie above the Lago–Mare deposits. Within the grey clays, the continuous occurrence of the calcareous nannofossil Reticulofenestra zancleana and the base of the Reticulofenestra pseudoumbilicus paracme points to an Early Zanclean age (5.332–5.199 Ma). Both ostracod and benthic foraminifera indicate epibathyal and bathyal environments. 87Sr/86Sr measurements on planktonic and benthic foraminifera fall below the mean global ocean value for the Early Zanclean, indicating potentially insufficient mixing of low 87Sr/86Sr Mediterranean brackish 'Lago–Mare' water with the global ocean in the earliest Pliocene. We utilize the ages and palaeodepths of the marine sediments together with their modern elevations to determine uplift rates of the Adana Basin of 0.06 to 0.13 mm a−1 since 5.2–5.3 Ma (total uplift of 350–650 m) from surface data, and 0.02–0.13 mm a−1 since c. 1.8 Ma (total uplift of 30–230 m) from subsurface data. Supplementary material: Microphotographs of foraminifers, ostracods, and calcareous nannofossils, plots of the calcareous nannofossil frequencies, occurrence of foraminifers and ostracods in the study sections, results of Sr isotopic analysis, and a complete list of fossils are available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18535.


According to the paragraph 11.1 of ASTM E112, the sum of all the grains included completely within the known circle or rectangle area plus one half the number of the grains intersected by the circumference of the area gives the number of equivalent whole grains. It can be expressed as N=Nc+0.5Np. However it is demonstrated in this paper that there is a bias of one grain introduced by using this procedure and the formula should be changed to N=Nc+0.5Np–1. Two methods have been used in this paper to prove this conclusion. The first one is stereometric method and the second one is a handcalculation using a quadrille ruled paper and a transparence film with a circle on it. The circle of the film is randomly placed on top of the squares of the quadrille ruled paper to count the number of squares within the circle area. A computer program has been developed to allow different size of circles to be used and also to makes it possible to repeat these experiments as many times as needed.


In this case report, we report the absence of the fourth tendon of flexor digitorium superficialis (FDS) to the little finger with a concurrent anomalous muscular belly of flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) in the palm. The FDS originated from the medial epicondyle, divided into three tendons for the index, middle and ring fingers with the little finger devoid of any attachment. The FDP exhibited a muscular belly which passed deep to the flexor retinaculum (FR) and continued for another 4 cm thereby dividing into four slips for the index, middle, ring and little fingers. The presence of the muscular belly of the FDP lead us to think whether it was an adhesion between the tendons of the FDP, so we proceeded to histological analysis. The tissue was processed and stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin. Abundant longitudinal muscle fibers with peripherally situated nuclei confirmed it to be a skeletal muscle. Absence of the tendon of FDS to little finger may influence the flexion movement in the middle and proximal interphalangeal joints. Presence of anomalous muscle belly of FDP in the palm may mimic any soft tissue tumour, compress neurovascular structures or even pose difficulty while performing tendon transplant surgeries.


ABSTRACT: Do you know what choices you would make if faced with an ethical dilemma? This fact-based case includes situations and issues that a real citizen considered when faced with the knowledge that his employer may have been overbilling the state of North Carolina for health care. Professionals, especially those in accounting and finance positions, are likely to face serious dilemmas in the course of their careers. These situations may require them to choose between honoring a confidentiality clause in an employment contract and acting according to ethical and professional values. This case provides facts gathered from an actual case in which an individual faced this particular challenge. By working through the case, students should develop an appreciation of the pressures and personal ethical challenges they are likely to face in the workplace. By engaging in discussion and role-play, students will be more likely to recognize these issues when they occur, and will have already developed critical thin...


Designing the provocation is a powerful strategy to jump from denouncing to generating actions and behaviors of a critical and speculative nature in design students. This article presents the discursive character of critical design function through three guidelines for provocation design: intellectual risk, generative challenge, and embodied futures, based on the philosophical concept of experience as an act of knowledge. Those are discussed on three classroom experiences in clothing design, architecture, and industrial design in Medellín, Colombia, showing possibilities and challenges for critical and speculative design schooling as well as bringing teachers and students closer to new ways of interacting with social problems in the context of Latin America.


Seismic tomography is a technique for illuminating the physical dynamics of the Earth by seismic waves generated by earthquakes or explosions. In both industry and academia, the seismic exploration does not yet have the capability of imaging seismic tomography in real-time and with high resolution. There are two reasons. First, at present raw seismic data are typically recorded on sensor nodes locally then are manually collected to central observatories for post processing, and this process may take months to complete. Second, high resolution tomography requires a large and dense sensor network, the real-time data retrieval from a network of large-amount wireless seismic nodes to a central server is virtually impossible due to the sheer data amount and resource limitations. This limits our ability to understand earthquake zone or volcano dynamics. To obtain the seismic tomography in real-time and high resolution, a new design of sensor network system for raw seismic data processing and distributed tomography computation is demanded. Based on these requirements, three research aspects are addressed in this work. First, a distributed multi-resolution evolving tomography computation algorithm is proposed to compute tomography in the network, while avoiding costly data collections and centralized computations. Second, InsightTomo, an end-to-end sensor network emula-tion platform, is designed to emulate the entire process from data recording to tomography image result delivery. Third, a sensor network testbed is presented to verify the related methods and design in real world. The design of the platform consists of hardware, sensing and data processing components. iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Georgia State University. This dissertation is also dedicated to my parents Tingli Shi and Cuizhen Zhang, for their lasting love, sacrifice and support. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


What motivates companies to invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Analysing CSR in the global sportswear industry, this paper advances the hypothesis that the campaigning activities of human rights activists pushed industry leaders Nike and adidas to incorporate labour norms in their business (sourcing) practices. Drawing on the spiral model of human rights norm internalization, the paper's findings suggest that the efforts of leading sportswear companies to address poor labour standards in their supply chains can no longer be explained by mere strategic behaviour induced by external pressure, but are increasingly the result of norm guided behaviour. In the case of adidas and to a lesser extent with regard to Nike evidence points to a prescriptive status in which the dominant mode of action shifts from the logic of consequences to the logic of appropriateness.


In the recent paper (Casselman, 2001) I described how a number of ideas due to Fokko du Cloux and myself could be incorporated into a reasonably efficient program to carry out multiplication in arbitrary Coxeter groups. At the end of that paper I discussed how this algorithm could be used to build the reflection table of minimal roots, which could in turn form the basis of a much more efficient multiplication algorithm. In this paper, following a suggestion of Bob Howlett, I explain how results due to Brigitte Brink can be used to construct the minimal root reflection table directly and more efficiently.


Our world is getting smaller all the time. Connectivity and accessibility in space have improved to an unprecedented degree compared to past centuries, thanks to the enhanced design and effective implementation of transport infrastructure networks and increasingly also as a result of advance cyber infrastructure networks. Our connected and accessible world has indeed become «a small world». Technological innovation has become a buzzword in the past decades. The design, implementation and adoption of digital technology, in particular, have prompted entirely new forms of spatial interaction and communication, with a significant and unprecedented impact on transport, trade, tourism, migration, and social contact networks. In today's increasingly innovation-driven society, almost every activity, action, task, communication, interaction, movement and decision is supported by new technological artifacts and inventions. This paper introduces the notion of «super-proximity» to highlight the force field of physical and virtual infrastructures at various geographical scale and time levels, and to sketch the spatial-economic implications of this universal megatrend towards zero distance-frictions. The paper will be concluded with some prospective observations on the future spatial implications of the e-society and their analysis.


Nowadays, photovoltaic (PV) systems are widely used because of environmental concerns, electrical energy demand, cost of electricity generation, minimum service cost and support of governments on renewable energy conversion systems. The main drawback of PV systems is energy conversion efficiency. The two parameters that PV system output power depends on are solar radiation and temperature. Therefore, charge controllers are utilized to increase system efficiency. In this study, performance of 320 W solar panel groups which are controlled by two different charge controllers are investigated. The influence of charge controllers on system performance is presented with the analysis of obtained data. Experimental study is realized on a stand-alone energy system that is located in Davutpasa Campus of Yildiz Technical University.


As threats to coastal and ocean systems grow in scale and complexity, the calls for new approaches to research and management grow in volume. The Modeling and Decision Support Working Group (MDSWG) of the CRTR Program has developed two participatory gaming tools that address the need for integrative approaches to coral reef management. SimReef is a regional model and role-play game aimed at policy makers and industry representatives. It simulates coastal development trajectories and trade-offs between environmental, social and economic concerns. ReefGame is a local-level model and board game that helps local people and reef managers explore interactions between livelihoods, reefs and fi sheries. We have used these tools successfully in participatory workshops in the Philippines and Mexico. These experiences demonstrate that using games with stakeholders can be a powerful way to educate and in volve the public in coral reef management. (Resume d'auteur)


The alder leaf beetle (Agelastica alni L., Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) is one of the sources of damage to hazelnut and alder trees throughout the world. Chemical substances have been utilized to control this pest. In the present study, in order to find a more effective and safe biological control agent against A. alni, we investigated the bacterial flora of the alder leaf beetles that were collected from the vicinity of Trabzon, Turkey, during 2000–2002, and tested them for insecticidal activities on it. It was determined that the number of total bacteria is 9.8 × 104 ± 0.121 bacteria/larva and 1.31 × 105 ± 0.310 bacteria/adult. Based on morphological, physiological and biochemical tests, bacterial flora were identified as Enterobacter agglomerans (Aa1), Listeria sp. (Aa2), Pseudomonas chlororaphis (Aa3) and Pseudomonas fluorescens (Aa4). The highest insecticidal effect determined on both the larvae and adults of A. alni were 70% and 56% with Aa4 within seven days, respectively. The insecticidal activities of the other isolates (Aa1, Aa2 and Aa3) were determined as 65%, 48% and 37% on the larvae, and 50%, 34% and 30% on the adults of A. alni, respectively.


The Scythe Statistical Library is an open source C++ library for statistical computation. It includes a suite of matrix manipulation functions, a suite of pseudo-random number generators, and a suite of numerical optimization routines. Programs written using Scythe are generally much faster than those written in commonly used interpreted languages, such as R and proglang{MATLAB}; and can be compiled on any system with the GNU GCC compiler (and perhaps with other C++ compilers). One of the primary design goals of the Scythe developers has been ease of use for non-expert C++ programmers. Ease of use is provided through three primary mechanisms: (1) operator and function over-loading, (2) numerous pre-fabricated utility functions, and (3) clear documentation and example programs. Additionally, Scythe is quite flexible and entirely extensible because the source code is available to all users under the GNU General Public License.


INTRODUCTION: ANARCHISM IN THE EARLY PROLETARIAN LITERATURE OF JAPAN Works of literature explicitly influenced by socialism began to appear in Japan during the first decade of the twentieth century. Notable examples include Kinoshita Naoe's Hi no hashira (The Pillar of Fire), which opposed Japan's involvement in the Russo-Japanese War and presented a Christian socialism strongly influenced by Tolstoy, and Shirayanagi Shuko's Ekifu nikki (Diary of a Train Station Worker), which was a melodramatic yet skillfully realistic portrayal of a member of the laboring class. However, it was not until the next decade that socialist, or what later carne to be called "proletarian," literature grew to the level of a genuine movement. This essay will examine a number of fictional works written by social activists between the Great Treason Trial of 1910-1911 and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in order to demonstrate the strongly anarchist character of the socialist-progressive movement of the time. This anarchist character was embodied, above all, in the works and acts of Osugi Sakae, whose dramatic life and death have overshadowed his important literary and theoretical writings. Osugi (1) was a scathing critic of then-current attempts to create a socialist literature for the masses and argued passionately for letting the "people" or masses take control of literature. Arahata Kanson and Miyajima Sukeo, his sometime comrades, attempted to utilize these principles in fictional works combining autobiographical, naturalist, and romantic elements. These works have come to be known as among the most successful pieces of "early proletarian" fiction. What has yet to be widely recognized, though, is that in their vitalistic nihilism, individualism, emphasis on "direct action," and rejection of hierarchy and authority, they were fundamentally anarchist in orientation. Historians of the proletarian literary movement of the 1920s have tended to dismiss such works as undeveloped predecessors to that movement. I will show, to the contrary, that they were richly developed and constructively engaged in the anarchist-socialist discourse of the time. SOCIALIST LITERARY ACTIVITY AND THE STRUGGLE WITH CENSORSHIP DURING THE "WINTER YEARS" The 1911 execution of Kotoku Shusui and eleven other socialists and anarchists following the Great Treason Trial was followed by an ordinance banning the sale and distribution of all socialist writings, ushering in the so-called winter years ("fuyu no jidai") of Japanese socialism. While the lives of socialists were not usually directly threatened--although violence by right-wing gangs or police was a real possibility--publication and public gatherings became so restricted that there was little leeway for any kind of activism. Accounts of the lives of socialist activists during this period invariably describe the presence of plainclothes police trailing them and the possibility of being picked up for questioning at any time--not that this was a new practice. Ironically, the winter years turned out to be splendid ones for the production of socialist literature, and anarchist ideas were central to this flourishing. Osugi, who had escaped prosecution thanks to already being in jail when Kotoku and the others were arrested, was one of the most important figures in this movement. This essay will often, out of necessity, refer to the socialist or labor movement rather than to the anarchist movement. This is because anarchist ideas in Japan were generally adapted and discussed within the context of the socialist movement, including the socialist literary movement. Until the early 1920s, there was no artistic or otherwise separate anarchist movement, nor had anarchism and communism emerged as mutually antagonistic ideologies. Even in the writings of Osugi--viewed by himself and others as Japan's representative anarchist--the word "anarchism" appears surprisingly infrequently. However, I will argue that socialist literature following 1911 derived much of its character from anarchistic ideas, because the concepts current at the time about the political purpose of literature were themselves anarchistic. …


Caldera collapse at Glencoe, Scotland, was incremental and involved complex movements of numerous fault blocks before formation of the ring fault for which the volcano is renowned. Intracaldera depocenters had the form of grabens or half grabens, locally with downsag and bounding monoclinal flexures, and these changed form and location for each of the five major ignimbrite eruptions that represent the early volcanic history. This piecemeal caldera collapse is in contrast to previous interpretations, in which all subsidence was thought to have involved a coherent crustal block moving on the ring fault. Collapse and magmatic plumbing were profoundly influenced by preexisting tectonic faults trending northwest and northeast. A dominant northwest-trending graben controlled the general location and form of major caldera depocenters and repeatedly channeled a major river through Glencoe. The main graben was transected orthogonally by two cross grabens. Each of the first three caldera eruption cycles involved initial phreatomagmatic explosivity, which built tuff cones, followed by magmatic fountaining that produced lava-like silicic ignimbrites. The three lava-like ignimbrites total more than 300 m thick. Two later eruptions produced eutaxitic silicic ignimbrites, together more than 300 m thick, and contemporaneous progressive downsag was associated with the formation of extensional fractures (crevasses) hundreds of meters deep. Sills up to 100 m thick of mingled andesite and rhyolite between the intracaldera ignimbrites were accommodated by increments of subsidence. Unconformities and sedimentary layers within the stratigraphic succession record fluvial erosion and abrupt switches to alluvial and/or lacustrine deposition between each ignimbrite eruption. The changes in drainage and sedimentation, and the development of coarse debris-avalanche breccias, reflect tectonic faulting during the periods between major eruptions. The duration of the period including the five caldera-forming eruptions was probably ∼0.5 m.y., and the magnitude of the tectonic faulting that occurred prior to and during the caldera developments (>0.5 km/m.y. normal displacement) is similar to that of the most actively subsiding sedimentary basins. Glencoe shows that the piecemeal nature of calderas may be plainly evident only in deeply dissected systems, which, with knowledge that caldera volcanoes commonly overlie faults, suggests that piecemeal calderas may be more common than previously recognized. The research also shows that the emplacement of granites (s.l.) was episodic rather than synchronous throughout the magmatic province, and it suggests that numerous plutons in the province, e.g., in Donegal, Ireland, may have formed at sites of central volcanoes that are no longer preserved.


Employment relationships in the United States were historically governed by the common law doctrine of employment at will. Under this rule, parties to an employment relationship could, in the absence of an explicit contract, unilaterally terminate the match at any time, for any reason, and without penalty. In recent decades. numerous state courts have recognized "exceptions" to employment at will that limit the circumstances of worker dismissal. Using a panel of state labor market aggregates from 1965 to 1994, this article examines the effect of these exceptions on U.S. labor markets. These exceptions are seen to have no effect on aggregate employment nor unemployment. However, temporary employment is observed to increase by a statistically significant 15% following the adoption of an exception. The implied contract exception, in particular, appears to be responsible for this increase. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.


ABSTRACT This article raises the question about whether or not our social services programs are taking new directions or whether there is much ado about nothing. Demographic data and their social implications are presented as background for the discussion. While rhetoric may have changed, the general impression is that we are walking in an Heraclitian stream in which there is both sameness and change.


Objective: The objective of the study was to study the cytotoxic effects of effects of different fractions of Kydia calycina using various human cancer cell cultures, in vitro by MTT assay, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and caspase-3 activities. Materials and Methods: Human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cells, human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells and human neuroblastoma (IMR-32) cells were maintained in a 5% CO2 incubator at 37°C. Different concentrations of fractions of K. calycina such as toluene fraction (KT), ethyl acetate fraction (KE), butanone fraction (KB), and aqueous fraction (KAq) in serum-free culture medium were freshly prepared and used for cytotoxic activity by MTT assay, ROS generation and apoptotic effect by caspase-3 activity. Results: Among the four fractions, the KE and KB fractions have revealed that greater percentage inhibition in all types of cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner by MTT assay. The IC50 values of KE fraction were found to be 38.35, 40.47, and 36.83 μg/mL against HeLa, MCF-7, and IMR-32, respectively. The apoptotic activity was evaluated through ROS generation and caspase-3 activities of KE and KB. The results showed that both fractions have significantly increased the ROS production and caspase-3 levels in all the cell cultures in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusions: The present investigation has shown that the KE and KB fractions of K. calycina displayed significant cytotoxic activity against all three cancer cells by decreased cell viability, increased generation of ROS and caspase-3 activities.


BACKGROUND
Treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) with activated vitamin D analogues is associated with better survival in patients receiving dialysis. It is unclear whether such a benefit is present in patients with predialysis chronic kidney disease (CKD).

METHODS
We examined the association of oral calcitriol treatment with mortality and the incidence of dialysis in 520 male US veterans (mean [SD] age, 69.8 [10.3] years; 23.5% black) with CKD stages 3 to 5 and not yet receiving dialysis (mean [SD] estimated glomerular filtration rate, 30.8 [11.3]). Associations were examined by the Kaplan-Meier method and in Poisson regression models with adjustment for age, race, comorbidities, smoking, blood pressure, body mass index, use of phosphate binders, estimated glomerular filtration rate, proteinuria, white blood cell count, percentage of lymphocytes, and levels of parathyroid hormone, calcium, phosphorus, albumin, bicarbonate, and hemoglobin.

RESULTS
Two hundred fifty-eight of 520 subjects received treatment with calcitriol, 0.25 to 0.5 microg/d, for a median duration of 2.1 years (range, 0.06-6.0 years). The incidence rate ratios for mortality and combined death and dialysis initiation were significantly lower in treated vs untreated patients (P < .001 for both in the fully adjusted models). Treatment with calcitriol was associated with a trend toward a lower incidence of dialysis. These results were consistent across different subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS
Treatment with the activated vitamin D analogue calcitriol appears to be associated with significantly greater survival in patients with CKD not yet receiving dialysis. Randomized clinical trials are required to verify the causality of these associations and to examine whether similar associations are seen with different activated vitamin D analogues.


My purpose in this paper is to reassert the traditional view that Athenian women of the classical period regularly had an association with phratries (and incidentally to clarify the nature of that association). As part (though not an essential part) of my argument I adduce an overlooked piece of evidence, a much discussed passage from the Donatus commentary on Terence; for this I provide a new interpretation. There is some evidence that Athenian women were introduced to their fathers phrateres at birth, or to their husbands' phrateres at marriage, or both. The speaker of Isaeus 3 repeatedly asserts (73, 75, 76, 79) that a certain Pyrrhus would have presented his daughter to his phrateres if she had been legitimate (which he denies). A scholium on Aristophanes, Acharnians 146 (= Suda s.v. Apatouria) may refer to such a practice. Euxitheus calls as witnesses of his mother's citizenship phrateres for whom his father celebrated the wedding feast, the gamelia, on her behalf (Dem. 57.43, 69, Isaeus 3.79); celebration of the gamelia is regarded as proof of the legitimacy of the speaker's mother at Isaeus 8.19. Neither Demosthenes nor Isaeus says that women were formally registered among the phrateres or even present at the feast; but notices in the lexicographers do connect the gamelia with registration among or introduction to the phrateres (Harpocration s.v. gamelia, Suda s.v. gamelia, Etym. Magn. 220.50 s.v. gamelia, Pollux 8.107, Anec. Bekk. 228.5, Schol. Dem. 57.43). Many scholars have accepted these passages as evidence for normal practice at Athens in the classical period.


Iron sulphate and polyaluminum chloride are commonly used in water restoration to eliminate cyanobacteria bloom and improve water quality. Nevertheless, the influence of coagulants on water organisms remains insufficiently studied. The study involves the analysis of phosphate coagulants' impact on calcium and magnesium concentrations in the Chara hispida community. The experiments were carried out in field mesocosms. Both coagulants were applied once in three different doses: 50.0, 100.0, and 200.0 cm3·m-3. The application of coagulants caused a decrease of pH and calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate dissolution. Although the changes were proportional to the coagulant concentrations, the aluminum coagulant triggered more considerable disturbances. The highest dose of iron sulphate caused the precipitation of hardly soluble calcium sulphate and the elimination of part of calcium from biological circulation. The concentrations of magnesium in water increased only at pH <4.5 following the application of the highest dose of polyaluminum chloride. Shifts in the Ca-Mg equilibrium, which result in the disturbance of biogenic calcification, may affect charophyte metabolism and lead to the elimination of charophyte communities. Therefore, inactivation treatments using acidic coagulants in lakes with charophyte communities ought to be preceded by preliminary studies in order to determine the least harmful dosage for the ecosystem.


Electrodes, assigned as GC/Pt-C and GC/Pt-Ru-C, were formed by deposition of Ptbased catalysts (47.5 wt % Pt + high surface area carbon) and (54 wt. % Pt-Ru alloy + high surface area carbon) on glassy carbon (GC) discs. X-ray diffraction measurements were used for the determination of the average crystallite size and phase composition of both catalysts. Crystallite size for Pt-C catalyst was 2.9 nm for Pt-fcc. In the diffraction pattern of the Pt-Ru-C catalyst two phases, e.g. Pt-Ru-fcc and Ru-hcp were refined using the Rietveld method. Crystallite sizes were 3.9 nm for Pt-Ru-fcc and 2.8 nm for Ru-hcp. STM observations of the surface of GC/Pt-C and GC/Pt-Ru-C electrodes revealed the presence of metal particles of the size in the range 2-6 nm and Pt-C or Pt- Ru-C agglomerates in the range of several tenth of nm. The thickness of the Nafion covering layer determined by AFM is ca. 100 nm. A simplified scheme of the investigated electrodes was created.


The article dwells on Russian system of educational engineering training in the field of smart systems with a view to its innovative component through the example of National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU). The article highlights that the development of innovations has two significant components (technological-economic and social-humanistic). It is proved that only with equal combination of these two components in innovations it is possible to obtain maximum innovative development effect for economy of any country. It is concluded that the system of educational engineering training in TPU is misbalanced in terms of innovative development due to considerable technological-economic component dominance over social-humanistic one. The authors propose possible ways to overcome this misbalance of innovative development in the system of engineering education of TPU upgrading event block on staff and students motivational competences improvement.


—Water Monitor Lizards (Varanus salvator spp.), though listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are among the most heavily exploited reptiles in the world. In northern India, for instance, at its western most occurrences, several tribal communities hunt Water Monitor Lizards for leather and meat, which is often considered as a delicacy. In addition, the reptiles are also being chased as pests and the populations are affected by the loss and fragmentation of their natural habitats, which usually include aquatic environments such as marshlands, coasts, and rivers. Unlike the general situation in most of its wide distribution range, the village of Chak Manik, located in West Bengal, India, supports a relatively large population of Water Monitor Lizards, which can be rarely seen in the nearby areas. This case study explores the effects of traditional beliefs in the village, which are responsible for the maintenance of such a relatively large population of Water Monitor Lizards. At the same time, these beliefs positively affect the conservation of the habitat for the lizards, with a diverse accompanying flora and fauna. The special circumstances and the mutual benefits for both the villagers and the monitor lizards are discussed in the paper.


In the standard neoclassical model consumers use all the available information and the demand for goods depends exclusively on preferences and prices whereas other spurious information do not play any role. In the market for books, we investigate if – in contrast to the standard model – the death of a writer has an impact on demand for his/her books, that is, we ask if consumers are affected by factors such as emotions and limited attention, as highlighted in behavioral economics. We use bestseller lists at week level for about 30 years (1975-2005) and through a Regression Discontinuity Design we evaluate the impact of a writer's death on the probability of entering in the bestseller list in the period immediately following his/her death. Controlling for age, gender, literary prizes, publishers' relevance and time dummies we find that a writer's death increases the probability of being in the bestseller list of more than 100%. Using a non-parametric RD approach we find very similar results. A number of robustness checks – changing the time window around the death, the estimation method, the outcome variable, the sample used – confirm our findings. In the attempt to investigate which mechanism drives consumers' decisions, we find a much greater impact for writers dying at an early age, for more famous writers and when the news is covered more extensively, suggesting that emotions and media attention are the main drivers of the impact.


Microspore-derived (MD) embryos of Brassica napus L. cv Reston were used to test the effects of (+)-abscisic acid ([(+)-ABA]) and its metabolites, 8[prime]-hydroxyabscisic acid (8[prime]-OH ABA) and (-)-phaseic acid (PA), on the accumulation of very long-chain monounsaturated fatty acids (VLCMFAs) and induction of genes encoding a 19-kD oleosin protein and a [delta]15 desaturase during embryogenesis. Developing early to mid-cotyledonary MD embryos at 16 to 19 d in culture were treated with 10 [mu]M hormone/metabolite for 4 d. At various times during incubation, embryos and medium were analyzed to determine levels of hormone/metabolite, VLCMFAs, and oleosin or [delta]15 desaturase transcripts. The VLCMFAs, 20:1 and 22:1, primarily in triacylglycerols, increased by 200% after 72 h in the presence of (+)-ABA and 8[prime]-OH ABA relative to the control. In contrast, treatment with PA for 72 h had little effect (20% increase) on the level of VLCMFAs. The first 24 to 72 h of (+)-ABA treatment were critical in the induction of VLCMFA biosynthesis, with 8[prime]-OH ABA lagging slightly behind (+)-ABA in promoting this response. The accumulation of VLCMFAs was positively correlated with an increase in elongase activity. (+)-ABA and its 8[prime]-OH ABA metabolite induced the accumulation of a 19-kD oleosin transcript within 2 to 4 h in culture. In addition, both (+)-ABA and 8[prime]-OH ABA induced the same level of [delta]15 desaturase transcript by 8 h. PA had no effect on the induction of either oleosin or [delta]15 desaturase transcripts. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the biological activity of 8[prime]-OH ABA and of stimulatory effects of (+)-ABA and 8[prime]-OH ABA on lipid and oleosin biosynthesis.


Purpose
In the framework of contingency theory, this paper aims to study the contextual variables that influence the variety of the contents of a performance measurement system, specifically the use of non-financial indicators in Moroccan public institutions and enterprises (MPIE).

Design/methodology/approach
Aiming to study the factors which influence the use of financial and non-financial indicators within MPIEs, the authors attempted to identify all performance indicators used by the MPIEs in the sample. They selected 23 MPIEs with an industrial and commercial character and analyzed their reports for the period from 2010 to 2015. To evaluate the variety of performance indicators within these organizations, they used the multi-dimensional definition of performance recommended by Kaplan and Norton (1998) and used linear regressions to explain their relationship with the contextual variables.

Findings
Three hypotheses were developed regarding these contingency factors, predicting a positive relationship between the age, the size and the competitive environment of the organization, on one hand, and the use of non-financial indicators on the other hand. Following the study of MPIEs, the authors found that these organizations normally use financial indicators. However, the use of non-financial indicators is influenced by the age of the organization alone.

Originality/value
The scientific contribution of this paper is twofold: first, the authors seek to fill the gap in studies of performance measurement systems for MPIEs; second, they wish to enrich the scientific literature for underdeveloped countries which suffer from lack of data. Its managerial contribution is also dual: first, the authors aim to provide managers of MPIEs with a clearer understanding of non-financial measures that fully address the different management needs of their organizations; second, they encourage the government control using non-financial aspects alongside financial aspects.


The Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture faces a future of increasing complexity and risk, pressing financial issues, and the inescapable possibility of loss of human life. These issues are perhaps most acute for wildland fire management, the highest risk activity in which the Forest Service engages. Risk management (RM) has long been put forth as an appropriate approach for addressing fire, and agency-wide adoption of RM principles and practices will be critical to bring about necessary change and improve future decisions. To facilitate more comprehensive adoption of formal RM frameworks, we designed this report as an introduction to RM. We repackaged and repurposed information from the extant RM literature to help readers develop a sound, science-based understanding of RM concepts. A primary intent of the report is to bring coherence and consistency to a topic that the Forest Service and the fire community have been discussing for years. We outline what adoption of RM would look like in practice, and recommend next steps as the Forest Service continues on its RM journey. Ultimately, we hope fostering an improved understanding of RM will lead to higher probabilities of achieving desired outcomes and conditions.


Three new species of the family Pyrgodesmidae Silvestri, 1896 from the Udzungwa Mountains are described: Cryptocorypha geminiramus sp. nov., Cryptocorypha cactifer sp. nov., and Cryptocorypha exovo sp. nov. Several additional, unidentifiable pyrgodesmids from the Udzungwa Mountains are recorded. Elythesmus enghoffi Hoffman, 1978 (Cryptodesmidae Karsch, 1880), is recorded from the East Usambara (type locality), West Usambara, Uluguru, Nguru (Kanga) and Udzungwa Mountains, and its variation in size and body ring numbers is analyzed. The surface sculpture of pro- and metazonites is discussed.


An excavation damage zone (EDZ) can be defined as a rock zone where the rock properties and conditions have been changed due to the processes related to an excavation. This zone affects the behavior of rock mass surrounding the construction that reduces the stability and safety factor and increase probability of failure of the structure. This paper presents an approach to build a model for the identification and classification of the EDZ. The Support vector machine (SVM) is a new machine learning method based on statistical learning theory, which can solve the classification problem with small sampling, non-linearity and high dimension. However, the practicability of the SVM is influenced by the difficulty of selecting appropriate SVM parameters. In this study, the proposed hybrid Harmony search (HS) with the SVM was applied for identification and classification of damaged zone, in which HS was used to determine the optimized free parameters of the SVM. For identification and classification of the EDZ, based upon the modulus of the deformation modulus and using the hybrid of HS with the SVM a model for the identification and classification of the EDZ was built. To illustrate the capability of the HS-SVM model defined, field data from a test gallery of the Gotvand dam, Iran were used. The results obtained indicate that the HS-SVM model can be used successfully for identification and classification of damaged zone around underground spaces.


Local knowledge coproduction must be rewarded Research models are evolving in response to the need for on-the-ground knowledge of climate change impacts on communities. Partnership between researcher and practitioner is vital for adaptive policy efforts (1). Transdisciplinary research teams present new opportunities by involving academics and local stakeholders, who actively conceive, enact, and apply research on adaptation and mitigation actions (2, 3). In transdisciplinary research, stakeholders are also researchers. But if we want to engage stakeholders in climate research, then we cannot simply pay lip service to the idea while treating them as participants for extractive research.


The SC-FDMA (single-carrier frequency division multiple access) is the access scheme that has been adopted by 3GPP (3rd generation partnership project) for the LTE (long term evolution) uplink. The SC-FDMA is an attractive alternative to OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access) especially on the uplink owing to its low peak-to-average power ratio. This fact increases the power efficiency and reduces the cost of the power amplifiers at the mobile terminals. The use of SC-FDMA on the uplink implies that for highly loaded cells the base station allocates a single subcarrier to each user. This results in the limitation of the achievable rate on the uplink. In this work, we propose a coalition game between mobile terminals that allows them to improve their performance by sharing their subcarriers without creating any interference to each other. The proposed scheme allows a fair use of the subcarriers and leads to a significant capacity gain for each user. The cooperation between the nodes is modelled using coalitional game theory. In this game, each coalition tries to maximize its utility in terms of rate. In the absence of cooperation cost, it can be shown that the grand coalition is sum-rate optimal and stable, i.e., the mobile terminals have no incentive to leave the grand coalition.


Abstract:This article explores how contemplative writing pedagogy that integrates the practice of mindfulness, or moment-to-moment attention, into writing instruction can help students consciously and adeptly deploy their attention and construct a more responsible ethos. Mindful writers develop awareness of their own and others' materiality and become more reflective digital citizens.


PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine composite flour and bread consumption, and to analyse economic efficiency by comparing Kazakhstan and Turkey.Design/methodology/approachThe material of the study was analysed through cross-section, χ2 and T-test, data collected from the online questionnaires of 269 families from Kazakhstan (131 families) and Turkey (138 families). The families were classified into four categories on the basis of their income level and into three categories on the basis of their education level and age level.FindingsAccording to the study results, Kazakhstan and Turkey families consume different types of flours and breads; the consumption of composite flour per capita has been 2 kg/month, but the bread consumption per capita has been 2 pieces/day. A χ2 analysis has shown that country, family size, age, sex, income and occupation had a significant effect on flour and bread consumption. It was detected that the price of composite flour products and bread is related to the income of a family. According to the survey data, in Kazakhstan and Turkey, the average monthly income of the families have been calculated as $675, and the average income per person have been calculated as $170. Families purchase of composite flour products and bread has been $6. There is an increase amount of flour and bread consumption (p<0.010) in the low-income level, but in families with high-income level, there is a decrease amount of consumption. The price of flour products and bread is associated with the income of a family; these products have seen as reasonable and practical products. The income level and age level affect the consumption of flour and bread. Although the education level and occupation of consumers are varied, flour and bread have been preferred by every age group of consumers as a conventional food, whether it is a healthy food or not. New trend of consumption healthy products as a composite flour and bread influences on consumers purchase.Originality/valueFlour and bread constitute the main and strategically important food product worldwide. The food security of a country depends on the state of the grain economy and the broad availability of the population. Grain production is the largest branch of agricultural production, and it has an important economic and social significance. The flour and bread were the main economic and political problem thousands of years ago.


Fall armyworm (FAW) (Spodoptera frugiperda) is a polyphagous crop pest native to America and later reported in West Africa in 2016. The larval stage is the most devastating in nature affecting the production of 353 species of crops with 70 percent yield loss in the overall economy. The pests are found to thrive in the temperature above 10 degree Celsius and the wings of moths are deformed above 30 degree Celsius. The cultural method are most effective method which contribute 56 percent of the pest management where push and pull method control 82.6 percent larvae per plant. Seed powder of Azadirachta indica, was found to control 70 percent larval mortality in lab whereas Nicotiana tobacum and Lippia javanica controlled the larvae by 66 percent in contact toxicity. Metarhizium anisopliae, a bio-control agent control the egg and neonate larvae by 87 percent and 96.5 percent. Chloropyrifos mixed with saw dust controls 20 percent of the pest and spinosad has effect with 90 percent larval mortality. An agro-advisory at large scale can play an indispensable role to minimize the incidence of the fall armyworm and help smallholder farmers to take the precautions on time reducing the possible crop loss. Integrated pest management is best for the management strategy of the fall armyworm.


The growth of research in the field of exercise oncology has resulted in a large evidence base for the role of physical activity in preventing and managing cancer outcomes. Nonetheless, there remain many unanswered questions across the multidisciplinary field. This study aimed to determine the priority research questions within exercise oncology using a systematic consensus method. Forty-seven exercise oncology experts engaged in the five-step process of the Nominal Group Technique to generate a list of research questions in small groups and rank the 10 most important. One hundred questions resulted from the process and fifteen received total scores (sum of ranks) of at least 50 from a maximum score of 470. The highest ranked question (score of 125) related to the identification of functional markers of recovery. The next five questions concerned minimum exercise parameters, health professional education, translation of behavioural interventions, effects of exercise on the tumour microenvironment and development of in vitro models to study the impact of exercise on cancer cell growth and metastasis. The study has demonstrated the importance of future research across all disciplinary areas of exercise oncology and identified the priority questions to which resources might be directed.


In Asia, and across the "global South", volunteerism has grown enormously in the last two decades. Hundreds of thousands of people now undertake work on development projects in poorer areas of the global South, and volunteerism has become a key way in which cross‐cultural encounters form relations of development between poor and rich countries and between marginal and empowered subjects. Reflecting this growth, geographical discussions of volunteerism have expanded over the past decade. While initial work lauded the benefits and positive potentials of international volunteerism, more recent work and popular media have increasingly questioned such views and suggested that, instead, international volunteerism has the propensity to replicate colonial relationships, and benefits are heavily skewed towards volunteers. These criticisms themselves bear witness to deeper structural and ideological concerns principally centred around the pervasive neoliberalisation of international volunteering and volunteer tourism. Yet, despite its critics, international volunteering remains one of the most common and easily accessible ways in which (any)one can "care for" or "do their part" to address social and economic injustices in the global South. This themed section extends critical discussions of volunteerism in Asia‐Pacific by questioning its developmental effects – including effects that are material, relational and discursive. Through the six papers in this themed section, and insights gained from fieldwork in Singapore, Japan, Cambodia and India, we consider the impacts of international volunteerism; the infrastructure and organisations promoting volunteerism; the subjective positionalities of volunteers; and how marginal populations experience volunteerism.


Abstract In built environments the combustibility of wood is a great concern, which limits the use of wood as a building material due to legislation. The reaction-to-fire properties of wood can be altered with the use of fire-retardant chemicals, and most of the commonly used fire retardants already have a long history of use. However, only limited information is available on the impact of different fire retardants on the adhesion properties of wood. Additionally, comparative studies between chemicals from different groups of fire retardants is scarce. The objective of this study was to investigate and compare the effects of two commonly used fire retardants, sodium silicate (SS) and diammonium phosphate (DAP), on veneer properties, the focus being especially on thermal behavior and adhesion. Thermal properties and combustibility were studied using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), flame test and calorimetry. Glue bond strength was analyzed with an automated bonding evaluation system (ABES) and the leaching of chemicals was determined according to EN84. Additionally, the surface characteristics of modified veneers were imaged with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results revealed notable differences in the thermal properties of SS and DAP, with DAP having better fire-retardant performance in all thermal testing. SS also affected thermal properties and combustibility of modified veneers, but the effect was only moderate compared to DAP. Neither SS or DAP had any significant resistance against leaching but ABES testing showed a notable increase in the glue bond strength of DAP modified veneers.


We contribute to the literature on undesirable-output technology modeling by first discussing the limits of the recently proposed by-production approach of Murty et al. (2012) (hereafter we will refer to these authors as MRL) and second by proposing some possible extensions. We identify two theoretical limits and two practical drawbacks when using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with this approach. Theoretically, MRL's by-production model is based on estimating two sub-technologies, one representing good outputs and the other one representing undesirable outputs. However, MRL assume independence of the sub-frontiers. In our paper, by contrast, we discuss the importance and implications of considering that all production processes are interconnected and should not be considered separately. Among the three extensions proposed, we argue that the introduction of some dependence constraints that link the two sub-technologies considered in this framework is very powerful. The two by-production approaches, MRL's and ours, are discussed under the restrictive assumption of fixed levels of inputs and under the flexible case of free choice of polluting input quantities. An application to a sample of 112 countries reveals that MRL model gives higher inefficiency scores compared to our extension with dependence constraints.


This article examines the transformation of the European Economic Community's (EEC) regional policy paradigms from the early 1970s, when negotiations for the creation of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) began, until the approval of the Single European Act. The article identifies this period as the beginning of a deep transition from demand-side "interventionist" and "neo-mercantilist" models — typical of certain regional policies used up to that time by member states (primarily by Italy) — towards more openly neoliberal models. My analysis of the harsh conflicts within the Regional Policy Committee (the national technocracies' representative body in charge of managing the ERDF) and between the committee and the European Commission demonstrate that this outcome was not at all taken for granted. It was determined, above all, by the overload of objectives of EEC regional policy in a context of scarce resources, and by the progressive lack of trust in the role of public intervention.


Human clinical trial of gene therapy with nonviral vectors demands large amounts of pharmaceutical‐grade plasmid DNA. Since standard molecular biology methods cannot be used for this purpose, there is a need for the development of processing methodologies for the large‐scale production and purification of plasmids. This work describes several studies that were undertaken during the development of process flow‐sheets for the downstream processing of supercoiled plasmids. Anion‐exchange HPLC was used as a routine technique for monitoring plasmid purity in process streams. The use of RNase or high temperatures during alkaline lysis was proved unnecessary. Instead, RNA could be completely removed by performing sequentially clarification with a chaotropic salt, concentration with PEG, and ion‐exchange and size‐exclusion chromatography. Also, clarification of streams by precipitation was independent of the chaotropic salt used. Furthermore, by proceeding directly from cell lysis to chromatography it was possible to obtain plasmid with purity/quality identical to that of the one obtained when clarification and concentration were included in the process. This strategy has the advantage of increasing the overall process yield to 38%. The plasmid thus purified was depleted of RNA, chromosomal DNA, and proteins. Additionally, no animal‐derived enzymes, alcohols, or toxic solvents were used, rendering validation potentially easier. The results described in this report also indicate that downstream processing times and costs can be considerably reduced without affecting plasmid purity.


Distributed full-graph training of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) over large graphs is bandwidth-demanding and time-consuming. Frequent exchanges of node features, embeddings and embedding gradients (all referred to as messages) across devices bring significant communication overhead for nodes with remote neighbors on other devices (marginal nodes) and unnecessary waiting time for nodes without remote neighbors (central nodes) in the training graph. This paper proposes an efficient GNN training system, AdaQP, to expedite distributed full-graph GNN training. We stochastically quantize messages transferred across devices to lower-precision integers for communication traffic reduction and advocate communication-computation parallelization between marginal nodes and central nodes. We provide theoretical analysis to prove fast training convergence (at the rate of O(T^{-1}) with T being the total number of training epochs) and design an adaptive quantization bit-width assignment scheme for each message based on the analysis, targeting a good trade-off between training convergence and efficiency. Extensive experiments on mainstream graph datasets show that AdaQP substantially improves distributed full-graph training's throughput (up to 3.01 X) with negligible accuracy drop (at most 0.30%) or even accuracy improvement (up to 0.19%) in most cases, showing significant advantages over the state-of-the-art works.


ions. They inveighed against equating particular practices or institutions that have superficial similarities, yet actually work in profoundly different ways. Sartori's taxonomical metaphor, with its injunction against comparing across genera, may have seemed like a prudent corrective to problematic scholarly trends in 1970, yet appears too confining for today's world. (It Qualitative and Multi-Method Research | 33 Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2018, Vol. 16, No. 1 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2562173 would seem odd to the modern biologists who compare DNA, evolutionary patterns, and more across kingdoms, let alone across lower taxonomic ranks.) His skepticism that any category might travel effectively from "the West" to "Africa or South-East Asia," now seems antiquated. Both Sartori and LaPalombara questioned whether political "participation" could happen in communist regimes, yet certain forms of participation, including grassroots protests, are frequent in today's China. While Sartori objected to using the term "mobilization" in democracies, today it is well-accepted that individuals do not always engage in democratic political action purely on their own initiative, but rather are driven to act by friends, organizations, inspiring leaders, and so forth. One can simultaneously note this and also bear in mind a vital distinction in kind between this and the type of ruling party orchestration that, in autocracies, compels people to cast ballots in sham elections and the like. The key point here is that we can investigate related phenomena across contrasting political systems, without losing sight of nuances, frictions, and the possibility that they have radically different meanings. Indeed, assessing conceptual fit with care and attention to context is a significant purpose and contribution of comparative work. It is by doing so that we guard against thoughtlessly and misleadingly assimilating unlike things, a danger that Sartori was right to warn against. Making the case for some degree of comparability across highly dissimilar systems is a crucial part of an investigator's task in such research. A general approach is to argue that an area of politics exists that follows its own distinct rules and patterns, perhaps somewhat isolated from other aspects of the political system, or at least not wholly reducible to it. Zhang, for example, does this in her analysis of the politics of urban preservation, examining how different kinds of governmental fragmentation in Beijing, Chicago, and Paris dictate which historical buildings are protected and which are bulldozed (2013). Another example is Thomas J. Christensen's Useful Adversaries, which remarkably compares the United States and China from 1947–1958. He argues that in both countries, leaders stoked low-level conflicts in order to rally the public for long-term security strategies, and that such frictions can spiral into unwanted wars, such as the Korean War (1996). By their nature, comparisons among highly dissimilar political systems practically require the researcher to confront deep conceptual issues—and qualitative research has an important role to play in so doing. If, as Gary Goertz writes, "a concept involves a theoretical and empirical analysis of the object or phenomenon referred to by the word," it is natural that those working at and around conceptual boundaries will carry out much analytical work (2006, 4). Often the posing of the comparison itself requires or stimulates such efforts in at least two different forms. Framing the Comparison and Evaluating Fit In designing a cross-national comparative project, the researcher identifies what is to be compared. He or she establishes a universe of relevant cases. Much methodological advice addresses the question of how to select cases once that universe has been defined, but the prior step may be more a matter of creative perceptiveness than of following rules and prescriptions. In Zhang's book, for example, the mere juxtaposition of Beijing with, say, Chicago is itself a startling and intellectually disruptive act for readers accustomed to thinking of these places in completely different theoretical contexts. Particularly when considering widely varying political systems, these "scope" decisions may require substantial research and can be consequential contributions in themselves. As with framing processes more generally, these decisions create an "interpretive schemata that simplifies and condenses the 'world out there' by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions" (Snow and Benford 1992, 137). Having done this, the researcher scrutinizes the crucial attributes that include certain cases in a common set and exclude others. These characteristics, on which so much hinges, require ongoing evaluation in relation to the purpose and justification for the comparison. Concept Development Comparison across dissimilar systems often provides opportunities for conceptual innovation and development even as it poses risks of "stretching." Wide-reaching comparisons can, of course, draw on existing conceptual definitions, but I argue that they are relatively more likely to create opportunities for new departures. This need not, and should not, take the form of haphazardly extending concepts to places where they do not fit. Rather, it can mean defining or discovering categories of empirical phenomena that differ from what is already known and accepted—whether or not they are so novel as to constitute "unidentified political objects" (Jourde 2009, 201). These might be tangible, such as a particular type of organizational structure, or intangible, such as a kind of dynamic within a social movement. Tsai's comparison of "cosmopolitan capitalism" in localities in India 34 | Problems and Possibilities of Comparison Across Regime Types and China, for instance, extends the usually domesticcentered concept of state-society relations to encompass transnational migrants and diasporic communities. Such possibilities for innovation should be recognized as an important part of what cross-system comparison accomplishes. (The reader will note a kinship with the "casing" process discussed by Soss in this symposium, and to Htun and Jensenius's points on conceptual development.) Innovations through framing and concept development are separate things and need not co-occur in the same project, yet the two are related to one another. As we shift focus away from the familiar and towards less-similar cases, our attention is drawn to conceptual aspects of the cases that went unnoticed or seemed unimportant in other perspectives. ("Unlike the other cases, Indonesia never had A and instead had B, yet it is similar to the others in terms of C, and I wonder if that operates through the same mechanism ..."). At the same time, spotlighting different features of the concepts may catalyze efforts to find related, heretofore unexamined, cases that share those features. ("I wonder if Malaysia has something like that ..."). Comparing Ultra-local State-sponsored Organizations in China and Taiwan Taiwan's period of authoritarian rule under the Nationalist Party (KMT) from 1945 to the early 1990s was akin in various ways to authoritarian China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A number of most-similar systems studies have compared the two.2 Since Taiwan's democratization, however, the two have diverged politically. Even as the opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait retain cultural, social, and linguistic commonalities, present-day comparisons now present special challenges, as well as opportunities. A project of mine that examined state-society interactions at the very most local level of cities in China and Taiwan illustrates the kind of work entailed in navigating such challenges and opportunities. I sought to explain ways in which citizens looked upon and interacted with government-structured neighborhood organizations, which bring state power and authority into the ultra-local sphere of residential communities. I compared specific institutions in (mainly) the capitals, Beijing and Taipei. In the former, my subject was the official neighborhood organizations, known as Residents' 2 I review such comparisons in "China–Taiwan Comparisons: Still Promising Though Not 'Ideal'," Harvard Workshop on Chinese Politics, February 23, 2018, http://cnpoliticsworkinggroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Ben-Read_China-Taiwan-Comparisons.pdf 3 In China and Taiwan alike, these organizations also have rural counterparts. 4 One article compares Shanghai's RCs to Los Angeles's neighborhood councils. This results in some astute observations, but mainly a catalog of structural contrasts (Chen, Cooper, and Sun 2009). Committees (RCs; jumin weiyuanhui), that the Chinese state has maintained since the early 1950s. In the latter, it was the state-sponsored neighborhood offices (li bangongchu) that date to the KMT's arrival in the mid-1940s. What was the basis for comparing these? They have a number of things in common. Both are part of a nationwide network that covers all urban space.3 While organizational details vary somewhat by locality, they are mandated in national law and correspond to a unified template. A neighborhood has no choice whether or not to have such an office. In both countries, they handle a very wide range of responsibilities. They serve as what might be called all-purpose contact points for state agencies at the community level, for instance helping the welfare bureaucracy to determine households' eligibility for assistance programs by drawing on their local knowledge of residents' circumstances. They also field a seemingly endless variety of queries and demands from their constituents. The similarly statist structure in which they are embedded facilitates the comparison. Comparisons to more liberal settings are harder.4 Taiwan's institutions certainly had significant differences from


Domestic violence generates long-term effects on offenders, victims, and other household members. Insight into triggers of family violence can inform policy and improve services aimed at reducing abusive behavior. We investigate potential domestic violence triggers by analyzing unexpected losses in National Basketball Association games. The literature identifies increasing in-home violence after unexpected losses in the National Football League. Combining information on referee accuracy and fatigue, we develop a unique identification strategy to explore the impact of human error on family violence following unexpected losses. Results indicate that as referees are more accurate (more rested) in unexpected losses, family violence decreases, suggesting that the ability to place blame for a loss on referees increases the likelihood of violent outbursts. Further investigation shows that these results concentrate in games where referees are less rested and betting markets were less certain of the game outcome.


It is possible to associate a highly constrained subset of relative 6 DoF poses between two 3D shapes, as long as the local surface orientation, the normal vector, is available at every surface point. Local shape features can be used to find putative point correspondences between the models due to their ability to handle noisy and incomplete data. However, this correspondence set is usually contaminated by outliers in practical scenarios, which has led to many past contributions based on robust detectors such as the Hough transform or RANSAC. The key insight of our work is that a single correspondence between oriented points on the two models is constrained to cast votes in a 1 DoF rotational subgroup of the full group of poses, SE(3). Kernel density estimation allows combining the set of votes efficiently to determine a full 6 DoF candidate pose between the models. This modal pose with the highest density is stable under challenging conditions, such as noise, clutter, and occlusions, and provides the output estimate of our method. We first analyze the robustness of our method in relation to noise and show that it handles high outlier rates much better than RANSAC for the task of 6 DoF pose estimation. We then apply our method to four state of the art data sets for 3D object recognition that contain occluded and cluttered scenes. Our method achieves perfect recall on two LIDAR data sets and outperforms competing methods on two RGB-D data sets, thus setting a new standard for general 3D object recognition using point cloud data.


We present the results of an empirical study of several constraint satisfaction search algorithms and heuristics. Using a random problem generator that allows us to create instances with given characteristics, we show how the relative performance of various search methods varies with the number of variables, the tightness of the constraints, and the sparseness of the constraint graph. A version of backjumping using a dynamic variable ordering heuristic is shown to be extremely effective on a wide range of problems. We conducted our experiments with problem instances drawn from the 50% satisfiable range.


Breast cancer (BC) is the most common form of carcinoma and a primary cause of morbidity and mortality globally. Oxidative stress represents as an important factor in carcinogenesis and may play a role in initiation and progression of tumors. Oxidative stress–induced NO• damage to DNA includes a multitude of lesions, many of which are mutagenic and have multiple roles in cancer and aging. It is caused by an unfavorable balance between reactive oxygen species/reactive nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) and antioxidant defenses. ROS/RNS are generated during normal cellular metabolism, as a result of the influence of various environmental factors, as well as during pathological processes. Nitric oxide (NO•) is a ubiquitous, short-lived free radical produced from L-arginine by nitric oxide synthases (NOSs), and isoforms of NOS exist, depending on the site of origin: endothelial (eNOS), neuronal (nNOS), mitochondrial (mtNOS), and inducible (iNOS). eNOS is responsible for the endothelial synthesis of NO• and has shown to modulate cancer-related events such as inflammation, angiogenesis, apoptosis, cell cycle, invasion, and metastasis. Genetic studies also showed that eNOS gene polymorphisms are associated with the development of breast cancer. Therefore, selective targeting of eNOS may prove a potential strategy for prevention and treatment of breast cancer.


Radio nodes can obtain illegal security gains by performing attacks, and they are motivated to do so if the illegal gains are larger than the resulting costs. Most existing direct reciprocity-based works assume constant interaction among players, which does not always hold in large-scale networks. In this paper, we propose a security system that applies the indirect reciprocity principle to combat attacks in wireless networks. Because network access is highly desirable for most nodes, including potential attackers, our system punishes attackers by stopping their network services. With a properly designed social norm and reputation updating process, the aim is to incur a cost due to the loss of network access to exceed the illegal security gain. Thus rational nodes are motivated to abandon adversary behavior for their own interests. We derive the optimal strategy and the corresponding stationary reputation distribution, and evaluate the stability condition of the optimal strategy using the evolutionarily stable strategy concept. This security system is robust against collusion attacks and can significantly reduce the attacker population for a wide range of attacks when the stability condition is satisfied. Simulation results show that the proposed system significantly outperforms the existing direct reciprocity-based systems, especially in the large-scale networks with terminal mobility. This technique can be extended to many wireless networks, including cognitive radio networks, to improve their security performance.