Effective collaboration between student peers is not spontaneous. A system that can measure collaboration in real-time may be useful, as it could alert an instructor to pairs that need help in collaborating effectively. We tested whether superficial measures of speech and user interface actions would suffice for measuring collaboration. Pairs of students solved complex math problems while data were collected in the form of verbal interaction and user action logs from the students' tablets. We distinguished four classifications of interactivity: collaboration, cooperation, high asymmetric contribution and low asymmetric contribution. Human coders used richer data (several video streams) to choose one of these codes for each episode. Thousands of features were extracted computationally from the log and audio data. Machine learning was used to induce a detector that also assigned a code to each episode as a function of these features. Detectors for combinations of codes were induced as well. The best detector's overall accuracy was 96 percent (kappa = 0.92) compared to human coding. This high level of agreement suggests that superficial features of speech and log data do suffice for measuring collaboration. However, these results should be viewed as preliminary because the particular task may have made it relatively easy to distinguish collaboration from cooperation.


In Paulshoek, Namaqualand, three research projects focusing on medicinal plants were developed concurrently. The projects were based in the disciplines of anthropology, botany and chemistry. In this paper, we explore how these projects related to one another and describe the conversations that occurred in the process of searching for transdisciplinary knowledge. The projects ostensibly shared a common object of knowledge, but it was through working together that the medicinal plants constituted us as a community of scholars. As our insight into our respective disciplinary relationships with the plants grew, so did our understanding of the limitations of our respective disciplinary positions. The process made possible a 'reimagination' of both the object of study and our relationships to it and to one another. The research project, conceptualised in 2009, engaged current debates on indigenous knowledge and its historical erasures, and offered an approach that has potential to produce new knowledges while respecting the integrity of the disciplines. This approach requires a non-competitive attitude to research and one that acknowledges the contributions that can be made by multiple approaches.


A research report submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology
in the Faculty of Humanities at the
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, August 2017


ABSTRACT The acoustic properties of natural fiber-reinforced composites should be identified before using these materials in various engineering applications including sound and vibration isolation. This study investigates the effects of sample thickness and fiber/resin ratio on the acoustic performance of jute and luffa fiber-reinforced biocomposites. For this purpose, jute and luffa composite samples with different thicknesses and fiber/epoxy ratios are manufactured and their sound absorption coefficients (SACs) and transmission losses (TLs) are determined using impedance tube method. Thickness-dependent tendencies of the SACs and TLs of jute and luffa composites for low-, medium-, and high-frequency ranges are identified. The effect of fiber/epoxy ratio on the acoustic properties of jute and luffa composites as a function of frequency are determined. Furthermore, the SACs and TLs of some natural fiber-based samples with different thicknesses are predicted using mathematical models and the theoretical and experimental results are compared and evaluated.


AIM. The primary goal of this study was to experimentally investigate to what extent the proximity, framing and source type of a crisis message influence emotions, trust, willingness to forgive and purchase intentions of consumers towards an organization. In addition, it was studied if and to what extent emotions, trust and the willingness to forgive mediate the effects of the manipulations on purchase intention. The proximity consumers have to a crisis is a fixed factor that can't be influenced. Until now it has not been addressed what effects the difference in proximity to a crisis situation has. This study focuses on the importance of taking proximity into account during crisis communication.
METHOD. This study was conducted by using a 2 (CEO as source versus the company as a whole as source) x 2 (emotional crisis framing versus rational crisis framing) x 2 (high versus low crisis proximity) between-respondents, scenario-based experimental design. Results were gathered by presenting participants one out of eight fictional articles and a survey afterwards. In the survey the level of trust, forgiveness and purchase intention of the participants was measured. A total of 288 participants from The Netherlands participated in this research.
RESULTS. The findings of this study show a significant effect of framing (emotional vs. rational) on the amount of sympathy of participants. Additionally, the results revealed anger among the participants, which could not be reduced by certain strategies used in crisis communication. The source type of the message and proximity to the crisis showed no significant effects on the dependent variables measured in this study.
CONCLUSION. The emotionally framed crisis response message resulted in more sympathy towards the organization among participants than the rationally framed message. Furthermore it was found that difference in proximity to the crisis and source type did not influence trust in the organization, the emotions that were felt and the purchase intentions participants have in this study.


Video super-resolution (VSR) approaches tend to have more components than the image counterparts as they need to exploit the additional temporal dimension. Complex designs are not uncommon. In this study, we wish to untangle the knots and reconsider some most essential components for VSR guided by four basic functionalities, i.e., Propagation, Alignment, Aggregation, and Upsampling. By reusing some existing components added with minimal redesigns, we show a succinct pipeline, BasicVSR, that achieves appealing improvements in terms of speed and restoration quality in comparison to many state-of-the-art algorithms. We conduct systematic analysis to explain how such gain can be obtained and discuss the pitfalls. We further show the extensibility of BasicVSR by presenting an information-refill mechanism and a coupled propagation scheme to facilitate information aggregation. The BasicVSR and its extension, IconVSR, can serve as strong baselines for future VSR approaches.


In the 1991 film Mediterraneo, a group of Italian soldiers are stranded on a Greek island during World War II. With the island's native male population engaged in war duty elsewhere, a Greek Orthodox priest invites one of the Italians to restore the fading murals of the local church. When the job is complete, a slow pan across the church walls reveals that where the faces of Greek saints and historical figures once appeared, the likenesses of the Italian artist and his military buddies now stare out at the congregation. Within the film, this defacement-or perhaps "refacement"-of the church iconography is presented as a comic moment. Yet, for Greeks, this scene has a certain resonance, a historical parallel that may drain the filmic moment of its humor. The refacement of the church is not only reminiscent of actual damage done to historically significant architectural monuments but of Greece's larger, contested relationship to its own history. To Americans, a people prone to defining themselves primarily according to their modernity and assumed superpower status, rather than in terms borrowed from their relatively short history, the Greek dilemma may be perplexing. This article attempts to provide a window into Greece's unique cultural situation while exemplifying the growing need to understand the political implications of national culture and internationally circulated images, such as those offered through cinema. A significant part of Greece's history as a civilization is physically rooted in land east of the Aegean Sea, land now claimed by Turkey. Through the course of various hostilities and territorial disputes between the two nations, Turkey has often attempted to erase Greece's historical ties to the monuments and relics that stand on these eastern lands. For instance, when Greek Orthodox churches on Turkish land have not been destroyed, Turks have systematically chipped off portions of the frescoes, leaving white plaster in place of the faces of Greek religious figures.1 The effacement of history, whether on Greece's eastern or western front, takes on significance in light of current literature suggesting that nations should be viewed as "imagined communities" and national identity as process, as a construction that is constantly in flux and readjusted to meet certain political and economic needs (Anderson 6). Historical narratives presumably shape Greece's own vision of itself but also inflect the idyllic touristic vision of Greece cultivated by various nations and the image of Greece as a historical mirror that has propelled a long line of Westerners into Greek territory. These images sometimes overlap and complement one another, while at other times they collide with each other and with the constructed historical narratives of other nations. For instance, for most of the Western world, ancient Greece is a simple matter of shared heritage-a golden moment in Europe's collective past that provides a convenient historical justification for the constructs of "Europe" and "Western." In fact, various Western nations' interests in preserving Greece's classical treasures have often overshadowed Greece's own relationship to its past. For Hellenes, the supposed descendants of the long-lost race and of ancient Greeks, the legacy of classical Greece serves a complex function. Greece's insistence on continuity between its ancient ancestors and its modern citizens warrants the nation's membership in the European clique at the same time that it provides a means of defining cultural specificity apart from the rest of Europe. More important, this tie to the classical past has served as a raison d'etre for the nation-state, dating back to its use as the theoretical justification for breaking free from Ottoman rule. Today, links with the past continue to take on political implications, thus carrying struggles over national identity into the realm of semantics, symbols, and artifacts. …


The use of assisted-reproduction technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) is increasing, particularly in dairy cattle. The question of consequences in later life has not yet been directly addressed by studies on large animal populations. Studies on rodents and early data from humans and cattle suggest that in vitro manipulation of gametes and embryos could result in long-term alteration of metabolism, growth, and fertility. Our goal was to better describe these presumed consequences in the population of dairy cows produced by IVF in Québec (Canada) and to compare them to animals conceived by artificial insemination (AI) or multiple ovulation embryo transfer (MOET). To do so, we leveraged a large phenotypic database (2.5 million animals and 4.5 million lactations) from milk records in Québec aggregated by Lactanet (Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada) and spanning 2012 to 2019. We identified 304,163, 12,993, and 732 cows conceived by AI, MOET, and IVF, respectively, for a total of 317,888 Holstein animals from which we retrieved information for 576,448, 24,192, and 1,299 lactations (total = 601,939), respectively. Genetic energy-corrected milk yield (GECM) and Lifetime Performance Index (LPI) of the parents of cows were used to normalize for genetic potential across animals. When compared with the general Holstein population, MOET and IVF cows outperformed AI cows. However, when comparing those same MOET and IVF cows with only herdmates and accounting for their higher GECM in the models, we found no statistical difference between the conception methods for milk production across the first 3 lactations. We also found that the rate of Lifetime Performance Index improvement of the IVF population during the 2012 to 2019 period was less than the rate observed in the AI population. Fertility analysis revealed that MOET and IVF cows also scored 1 point lower than their parents on the daughter fertility index and had a longer interval from first service to conception, with an average of 35.52 d compared with 32.45 for MOET and 31.87 for AI animals. These results highlight the challenges of elite genetic improvement while attesting to the progress the industry has made in minimizing epigenetic disturbance during embryo production. Nonetheless, additional work is required to ensure that IVF animals can maintain their performance and fertility potential.


A review of carbohydrates in metabolism is presented. The recent rash of books on diet and weight reduction implicate carbohydrates as the root cause of obesity and abnormal metabolism, but they actually play a positive role in normal metabolism. They are involved in energy metabolism, water balance and a host of other functions in the body. Used with intelligence and not with indulgence, they will continue to be good sources of calories, contributing to total nutritional health and well-being.


Cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication using liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) has increasingly become the focus of research in recent years. With this cooling strategy it is possible to cool and lubricate the cutting zone individually by regulating the oil and liquid CO2 flow. The oil used has a significant influence on the process stability and performance. The aim of this study is to identify the influence of 15 different base oils from renewable sources on a milling process of X2CrNiMo17-12-2 with cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication. For this purpose, a non additivated sunflower, coconut and rapeseed oil and additional bio-based oils, such as synthetic ester and fatty alcohol, will be tested and compared to a conventional mineral oil regarding wear, process forces and productivity. In addition, the impact of the bio-based oils on rough turning of X2CrNiMo17-12-2 and finishing turning of 100Cr6 with cryogenic minimum quantity lubrication is evaluated and compared to the milling performance. The results have been analyzed in comparison to conventional emulsion flood cooling and recommendations have been given for the future development of sustainable lubricants to be applied with cryogenic cooling strategy.


Protein synthesis and degradation rates were measured in incubated soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles 4, 8, and 16 hours following cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) in rats. No significant differences in protein synthesis between septic and control rats were found. The proteolytic rate in SOL muscle was increased by 36% eight hours after CLP and by 42% 16 hours after CLP. In EDL muscle, protein breakdown was not significantly increased until 16 hours after CLP, at which time it was 53% above the control value. The plasma amino acid pattern became increasingly deranged during the course of the study, and at 16 hours almost all individual amino acid levels were significantly different in septic rats compared with control rats. There was a significant positive correlation between plasma concentrations of phenylalanine, histidine, and ornithine and the proteolytic rate in EDL and SOL muscles, with the best correlation being found between phenylalanine concentration and proteolytic rate in SOL muscle. These results suggest that muscle wasting during sepsis is caused by increased protein breakdown, not by decreased protein synthesis, and that accelerated muscle proteolysis is an early phenomenon in sepsis.


AIMS
WHO grade III meningiomas are malignant neoplasms for which new and more targeted treatment strategies are urgently needed. Although clinical trials investigating anti-angiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) targeted therapies are currently recruiting, knowledge about the expression of VEGF and VEGF receptors remains to be determined.

METHODS
We investigated the expression of VEGF and its receptors VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 in 32 WHO grade III meningioma samples by immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, we performed in-situ hybridisation for VEGF.

RESULTS
We found low VEGF expression in tumor and endothelial cells. Highest VEGF expression levels were seen in peri-necrotic tumor cells potentially suffering from hypoxia. VEGFR1 and 2 were virtually absent on tumor cells, although endothelial cells displayed significantly higher levels reaching stronger expression for VEGFR2 than VEGFR1.

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings showing constant expression levels of VEGFR2 in endothelial cells serve as a first indication that the use of small tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as Sunitinib directly targeting the VEGF-receptors might be worth testing, also in the clinical context in cases of therapy-refractory meningiomas. Further investigations are needed to study the response to drugs targeting the VEGF pathway in relation to the expression profile of VEGF and its receptors in high grade meningiomas.


"No visitors allowed," says the sign on Bear's door, though it's apparently a superfluous warning, since he never has visitors anyway—not until the mouse, "small and gray and bright-eyed," turns up at his house. No matter how Bear tries to exclude the mouse, the wee rodent gets in, leading to Bear's thundering denunciations and the mouse's apologetic excuses. When the persistent mouse finally convinces Bear to share tea, however, the bruin discovers that company is a pleasant thing to have. The well-built story supports its gentle whimsy effectively, and the comic grandiosity of Bear's fulminations ("This is impossible! Intolerable! Insufferable!") provides a humorous counterpart to the mouse's polite yet stealthy persistence. Denton, deftly imbuing her watercolor illustrations with expression and character as well as tidy charm, makes her scenes softly inviting with pastel tones and warm brown edging lines as well as old-fashioned interior detail that makes Bear's house seem a place anyone might wish to infiltrate. The two adversaries are notable visual personalities, Bear gifted with a balletic lightness of foot and tendency toward dramatic poses, the mouse with a studied nonchalance in his sideways glances. With its vitality, friendliness, and individuality, this is a standout in the "unlikely friends" genre. DS


Globalization means free movement of capital goods, technology, ideas and people. It is the process of integrating various economies of the world without creating any hindrances. In this era of globalization it is necessary to create an environment in which human race can sustain itself on this planet Earth with its various aspects like energy, environment, education, technological back up and governing policies. Education therefore becomes an important aspect for the human race to sustain itself in the global environment. Education is the foundation for a vibrant democracy, growth of productivity and generation of income and employment opportunities. Education in India today is provided by both the conventional mode ie., in schools and colleges and through the distance mode. The provision of distance education is a major breakthrough in the development of human capital. Distance education is therefore an important means by which the human race would be able to sustain itself in this global environment. Distance Education is a generic term that includes the range of teaching, learning strategies variously described as home study or independent study. It is a highly welcome step in the direction of taking education to the door of those willing to acquire higher education but unable to do so owing to lack of resources or paucity of time. In India distance education opportunities at the University level have increased enormously. Many new developments and modern trends due to globalization are putting new pressures on the conventional education system, forcing many institutions to review and amend their existing policies and procedures. The enrollment rates in various Distance Education institutes have improved over the years. But to achieve the goal of one hundred percent literacy the nation should aim at establishment of more number of Distance Education centres and make it known and affordable to the rural masses. In this context the present paper attempts to trace the development of Distance Education in India., to enumerate the objectives of Distance Education, to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Distance Education, to ascertain the choice of the sample group between conventional and Distance Education mode, to determine the factors influencing the choice of the mode and to suggest policy measures to improve the quality of Distance Education.


Genotype × environment interactions (GEI) and quantitative trait loci × environment interactions (QEI) are known to influence the expression of agronomic performance traits in wheat. The aim of this study was to provide biological and environmental explanations for large GEI and QEI known to affect the expression of genes on chromosome 3A of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Agronomic performance and molecular marker data available for a population of chromosome 3A recombinant inbred chromosome lines (RICLs-3A) in seven environments was used along with environmental covariate data to construct individual factorial regressions to explain GEI and QEI. Precipitation and temperature before anthesis had the greatest influence on agronomic performance traits for the RICLs-3A, and explained a sizeable portion of the total GEI for those traits. Individual molecular marker × environmental covariate interactions explained a large portion of the total marker × environment interactions for several agronomic traits. Seventy-six percent of the QEI for a major grain yield quantitative trait locus (QTL) was explained by the effect of temperature during preanthesis growth on dissimilar QTL genotype differentials across testing environments. Environmental covariates provided a strong basis for explaining QEI using marker × environmental covariate interactions.


Predicate abstraction is a technique for creating abstract models of software that are amenable to model checking algorithms. We show how polymorphism, a well-known concept in programming languages and program analysis, can be incorporated in a predicate abstraction algorithm for C programs. The use of polymorphism in predicates, via the introduction of symbolic names for values, allows us to model the effect of a procedure independent of its calling contexts. Therefore, we can safely and precisely abstract a procedure once and then reuse this abstraction across multiple calls and multiple applications containing the procedure. Polymorphism also enables us to handle programs that need to be analyzed in an open environment, for all possible callers. We have proved that our algorithm is sound and have implemented it in the C2BP tool as part of the SLAM software model checking toolkit.


Background The extracellular nuclease from Alteromonas espejiana, BAL 31 catalyzes the degradation of single-stranded and linear duplex DNA to 5′-mononucleotides, cleaves negatively supercoiled DNA to the linear duplex form, and cleaves duplex DNA in response to the presence of apurinic sites. Principal Findings In this work we demonstrate that BAL 31 activity is affected by the presence of guanine in single-stranded DNA oligomers. Specifically, nuclease activity is shown to be affected by guanine's presence in minimal homopolymeric tracts in the middle of short oligomer substrates and also by its presence at the 3′ end of ten and twenty base oligomers. G•C rich regions in dsDNA are known to cause a decrease in the enzyme's nuclease activity which has been attributed to the increased thermal stability of these regions, thus making it more difficult to unwind the strands required for enzyme access. Our results indicate that an additional phenomenon could be wholly or partly responsible for the loss of activity in these G•C rich regions. Thus the presence of a guanine tract per se impairs the enzyme's functionality, possibly due to the tract's bulky nature and preventing efficient progression through the active site. Conclusions This study has revealed that the general purpose BAL 31 nuclease commonly used in molecular genetics exhibits a hithertofore non-characterized degree of substrate specificity with respect to single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) oligomers. Specifically, BAL 31 nuclease activity was found to be affected by the presence of guanine in ssDNA oligomers.


Purpose: This paper studied whether boredom at home due to social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic may motivate individuals to engage in online leisure crafting, thereby contributing to their thriving at home and career self-management This paper aims to examine whether individuals' growth need strength influences the impact of home boredom on online leisure crafting Design/methodology/approach: This paper performed a two-wave longitudinal study involving a group of employees from the hospitality industry (N = 340) in Mainland China This paper evaluated home boredom, online leisure crafting and growth need strength at Time 1 and thriving at home and career self-management two months later at Time 2 Findings: The respondents' experience of home boredom had a time-lagged effect on their thriving at home and career self-management via online leisure crafting Additionally, their growth need strength amplified the positive impact of home boredom on online leisure crafting Practical implications: Hospitality managers can motivate employees to engage in crafting online leisure activities at home when they experience home boredom during the outbreak of COVID-19, which may further allow them to experience thriving at home and engage in career self-management Additionally, managers can develop managerial interventions to improve the growth need strength of employees with low growth needs, which may, in turn, render these employees less likely to tolerate home boredom, thereby increasing the positive impact of home boredom on their online leisure crafting Originality/value: This paper offer insights for the boredom literature regarding how individuals' home boredom caused by social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to their thriving at home through online leisure crafting This paper also provides insights for the leisure crafting literature regarding the role of online leisure crafting in individuals' thriving at home This paper reveals the role of growth need strength in the impact of home boredom on thriving at home through online leisure crafting © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited


Using smartphone geographical positioning systems (GPS) data for Japan, we show that travel within urban areas frequently occurs along trip chains, involving multiple stops as part of a single journey. Motivated by these empirical findings, we develop a tractable theoretical model of travel itineraries, in which agents choose a set and sequence of locations to visit each day. To overcome the resulting high-dimensionality of the choice set, we develop an approach based on importance sampling. We show that trip chains introduce consumption externalities across locations. We show that these consumption externalities are central to explaining the collapse in foot traffic in downtown areas following the shift to remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic.


This thesis investigatedthe implications of socio-economic transformation for social protection among the old people in Tanzania. It argues that old people had been neglected in terms of social and income security despite the National Ageing Policy (2003) as well as the National Social Security Policy (2003) stipulating that every citizen has the right to be protected against social and economic distress. Methodological triangulation was used to collect information, in particular the study used the survey interviews, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and documentary reviews. The results show that respondents offered different explanations on the existing values and norms that guide the provision of social protection among old people within the study area. It was further evident that, the changes in the value system had affected social protection provision among old people within the study area. Among the effects are insecure, disrespected, isolated and poor living conditions. The study has established that the existing policies that related to catering and providing for old people remained largely unknown to the majority of the respondents interviewed neither were they aware of their entitlements and rights stipulated by these policies. This study further, contextualizes the influence of economic transformation on the social protection of the old people, whose effects include loss of income, working even in old age, increased vulnerability, poverty among old people and a sense of abandonment. Thus, the study concludes that comprehensive social policy for the old people is of crucial importance to engender the sustainability of their livelihood in contemporary society.


Background: The optimal frequency of delivering a pulmonary rehabilitation program (PR) is not yet a well established issue. It is still unclear whether repeated PR at established intervals will result in effective maintenance or further improvement in the patient's health status. Objectives: To investigate whether more frequently repeated PR in patients with COPD (1) leads to similar short and long-term physiological gains, and (2) decreases the burden due to hospitalization. Methods: Thirty-five disabled COPD patients (FEV1 below 50% predicted, MRC score 3) in a stable state were studied in a randomized controlled trial. After completing an initial inpatient PR program, they were randomly assigned to either group 1 (performing a second and a third PR after 6 and 12 months) or group 2 (performing only a second PR after 12 months). Results: Lung functions, exercise capacity (by means of a timed walk test – 6MWT), peak-effort dyspnea (D) and leg fatigue (F), and health-related quality of life by means of SGRQ were assessed prior to (T1, T3, T5) and after (T2, T4, T6) each PR program: the same measures were taken on an outpatient basis at T3 in group 2. The number of hospital admissions (HA) and days spent in the hospital (DH) were also recorded over the year. The two groups did not differ in any parameter at baseline. 6MWD, D, F and SGRQ improved to the same level (p = 0.05) after each PR in both groups. However, the baseline level of D, F and SGRQ symptoms and impact scores progressively improved over time in group 1 but not in group 2. After 12 months, a larger amount of patients in Group 1, as compared to Group 2, reported H10 DH/year (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: In severe and disabled COPD, a more frequently repeated inpatient PR may lead to some additional physiological and clinical benefits over 1 year.


Abstract This paper investigates the effect of foreign aid on governance in order to extend the debate on foreign aid and to verify common positions from Moyo's 'Dead Aid', Collier's 'Bottom Billion' and Eubank's 'Somaliland'. The empirical evidence is based on updated data from 52 African countries for the period 1996–2010. An endogeneity robust instrumental variable Two-Stage-Least Squares empirical strategy is employed. The findings reveal that development assistance deteriorates economic (regulation quality and government effectiveness) and institutional (corruption-control and rule of law) governance, but has an insignificant effect on political (political stability, voice and accountability) governance. While, these findings are broadly in accordance with Moyo and Collier on weak governance, they neither confirm the Eubank position on political governance nor the Asongu stance on the aid-corruption nexus in a debate with Okada and Samreth. The use of foreign aid as an instrument to influence the election and replacement of political leaders in Africa may have insignificant results. It is time to solve the second tragedy of foreign aid and that economists and policy makers start rethinking the models and theories on which foreign aid is used to influence economic, institutional and political governance in recipient countries.


Driving is a high-risk adventure which many enjoy on a daily basis. The driving task is highly complex, ever-changing, and one which requires continuous attention and rapid decision making. It is a task that is not without risk, where the cost to reach the desired destination can be too great – your life could be at stake. Driving is not without incidents. Rear-end collision is a common problem in the Swedish traffic environment, with over 100 police-reported individual incidents per year. The amount of rear-end collisions can be hypothetically reduced by introducing new technology in the driver's vehicle, technology which attempts to improve the driver's safety driving. This technology is called Advanced Driver Assistance Systems – ADAS.In this study two ADAS were evaluated in a driving simulator study: An Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) which operates on both hazardous and non-hazardous events, and a Collision Warning System (CWS) which operates solely on non-hazardous events. Both of these ADAS function to guard against risky driving and are based on the assumption that drivers will not act in such a manner that they would willingly reduce the effectiveness of the system.A within-subjects simulation study was conducted where participants drove under three conditions: 1) with an adaptive cruise controller, 2) a frontal rear-end collision warning system ADAS, and 3) unaided, in order to investigate differences between the three driving conditions. Particular focus was on whether the two ADAS improved driving safety. The study results indicate that driving enhanced by the two ADAS made the participating drivers drive less safely.


Abstract

Author: Sara Moll
Title: An analysis of five members and one staff member's views on a Fountain House, through the term empowerment
[En analys av fem medlemmars och en handledares synsatt pa ett Fontanhus, utifran begreppet empowerment]
Supervisor: Anders Ostnas

The aim of this study was to gather views of five members and of one staff member, on a Fountain House and describe and analyze these views through an aspect of the term empowerment. The two main questions are thus: Is there something with a Fountain House, through five members and one staff member's views on its agency, which strengthens empowerment for the interviewed members? Is there something with a Fountain House, through five members and one staff member's views on its agency, which weakens empowerment for the interviewed members? This study was based on six semi structured interviews. The sample consisted of five adults whom were members and had or have contact with the psychiatric care and one adult who is a staff member. The results showed that some of the interviewed members found that they were helped through the fellowship that the Fountain House offered. The results also showed, that members and staff members learned from each other, the Fountain House provided opportunities for the members to participate in different ways in the agency and that the Fountain House is admitting and supporting when a member doesn´t work and/or feel down. Furthermore, the results of this study showed that a member sometimes was given a hard time to express oneself during meetings at the Fountain House and that some members were mostly quiet during these meetings. The results also showed that two members experienced unsecure relations with others at the Fountain House. The conclusions of this study are that there are within a Fountain House, factors that strengthen empowerment for the interviewed members and other factors that weaken empowerment for some of the interviewed members. Another conclusion of this study is that there is a factor that can hinder a strengthening of empowerment for one of the interviewed members.


Many real-life problems can be formulated as numerical optimization of certain objective functions. However, often an objective function possesses numerous local optima, which could trap an algorithm from moving toward the desired global solution. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have emerged to enable global optimization; however, at the present stage, EAs are basically limited to solving small-scale problems due to the constraint of computational efficiency. To improve the search efficiency, this paper presents a stochastic genetic algorithm (StGA). A novel stochastic coding strategy is employed so that the search space is dynamically divided into regions using a stochastic method and explored region-by-region. In each region, a number of children are produced through random sampling, and the best child is chosen to represent the region. The variance values are decreased if at least one of five generated children results in improved fitness, otherwise, the variance values are increased. Experiments on 20 test functions of diverse complexities show that the StGA is able to find the near-optimal solution in all cases. Compared with several other algorithms, StGA achieves not only an improved accuracy, but also a considerable reduction of the computational effort. On average, the computational cost required by StGA is about one order less than the other algorithms. The StGA is also shown to be able to solve large-scale problems.


Since their creation in 1991, charter schools have been controversial within the educational community. As charter school laws lie in the realm of state legislation, there is wide variation in the requirements for charter school application and how accountability is measured. National studies comparing standardized student achievement test scores from charter schools with traditional public schools have mixed reviews, with the strongest schools identified within large, urban districts such as Boston, Washington, DC, and Houston. This qualitative study explored non-urban charter schools that utilized experiential learning as their curricular foundation. The purpose of this multi-case study was to examine two charter schools located in different states on the east coast of the United States. The research investigated (a) best practices utilized in their operation, (b) how they defined student success, and (c) what organizational structures existed to support the model. The findings from this research regarding best practices included founding the school on a strong set of principles, or mission, to provide a focus and shared beliefs that provide purpose to the organization, interdisciplinary, collaboration, and flexibility. The findings from this research regarding measuring student success reveal that using multiple data points, focusing on character development, and encouraging self-reflection as successful practices of these schools. Focusing on recruitment of teachers, support through professional development and mentoring, and cultivating community emerged from the study as three best practices of organizational structures to support non-urban charter school utilizing the experiential learning model.


The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently issued an exposure draft (ED) of a standard that would change the way organizations account for their employees' post-retirement healthcare benefits. According to the ED, organizations would have to switch from cash accounting to accrual accounting for post-retirement benefits as well as record their retiree healthcare liabilities on their balance sheets by 1992.


Wildayana, E. and M. E. Armanto, 2018. Dynamics of landuse changes and general perception of farmers on South Sumatra wetlands. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 24 (2): 180–188 The research aimed to gain some insight into the use of wetlands, approaches and wetland management of what has been experienced for four decades since the wetlands were reclaimed. This study used intensive fi eld surveys with quantitative and qualitative approaches. The research resulted that the greatest wetland transformation was done through transmigration schemes, where public infrastructure has been built to wetlands reclamation for agricultural purposes in a broad sense. Not all wetlands are suitable for food crops, if they are not suitable for food crops and are still cultivated for food crops, then wetland degradation and farming costs will be very high. Agricultural constraints faced by farmers are more of physical constraints, namely water management, soil acidity, Al and Fe toxicity, pest and diseases, thick peats, and soil subsidence. Almost all constraints decreased rice yields of around 20-85% and income of farmers in the range of 30-100%.


Deep cerebellar nuclei neurons receive both inhibitory (GABAergic) synaptic currents from Purkinje cells (within the cerebellar cortex) and excitatory (glutamatergic) synaptic currents from mossy fibers. Those two deep cerebellar nucleus inputs are thought to be also adaptive, embedding interesting properties in the framework of accurate movements. We show that distributed spike-timing-dependent plasticity mechanisms (STDP) located at different cerebellar sites (parallel fibers to Purkinje cells, mossy fibers to deep cerebellar nucleus cells, and Purkinje cells to deep cerebellar nucleus cells) in close-loop simulations provide an explanation for the complex learning properties of the cerebellum in motor learning. Concretely, we propose a new mechanistic cerebellar spiking model. In this new model, deep cerebellar nuclei embed a dual functionality: deep cerebellar nuclei acting as a gain adaptation mechanism and as a facilitator for the slow memory consolidation at mossy fibers to deep cerebellar nucleus synapses. Equipping the cerebellum with excitatory (e-STDP) and inhibitory (i-STDP) mechanisms at deep cerebellar nuclei afferents allows the accommodation of synaptic memories that were formed at parallel fibers to Purkinje cells synapses and then transferred to mossy fibers to deep cerebellar nucleus synapses. These adaptive mechanisms also contribute to modulate the deep-cerebellar-nucleus-output firing rate (output gain modulation toward optimizing its working range).


We analyzed trends in prescribing and overdose deaths related to propoxyphene (e.g., Darvon) before and after a 1978-80 informational campaign carried out by the US Food and Drug Administration and the drug's manufacturer through mailed warnings, face-to-face education of prescribers, press releases, and labeling changes. The goals included a reduction in propoxyphene use with alcohol or other CNS depressants, reduced prescribing of refills, and cessation of prescribing for patients at risk of abuse and misuse (suicide). We conducted time-series analyses of nationwide propoxyphene use data 1974-83 and analyzed data on drug overdose death rates covering a combined population of about 83 million. Segmented regression methods were used to determine if the informational program was associated with changes in trends of prescribing or overdose deaths. Comparison drug series were analyzed to control for other secular trends in prescribing. Nationwide propoxyphene use during the warnings continued a pre-existing decline of about 8 per cent per year, but this decline halted after the warnings. The no-refill recommendation had no impact on refill rates. The risk of overdose death per propoxyphene prescription filled has remained about constant since 1979. Sharper declines in misuse of such drugs will require stronger, more sustained regulatory or educational measures.


The objective of this paper is to proceed, by investigating the statistics of simulated measurements based on a large dataset of radiosonde profiles, to assess the feasibility of active systems providing water vapor profile information based on Earth-satellite multifrequency differential attenuation measurements made in the 18-22-GHz range. Recently, in fact, we pointed out the potential and the advantages of such measurements, showing in particular how a spectral sensitivity parameter could be exploited to provide the total water vapor content and further information about the shape of its vertical profile. In this work, we present an in-depth statistical analysis of the relationship between the spectral sensitivity parameter and the water vapor content at different tropospheric layers. Furthermore, we discuss the performance of a simple amplitude modulation transmit-receive system that could be adopted to provide the sensitivity measurements. It is shown that a dual-frequency system can directly provide with good accuracy the columnar water vapor content separately from the content of the 3-9 km atmospheric layer.


Much research on paid care work focuses on this work as care. An equally important issue is its characteristic as paid work. This paper focuses on the characteristics of jobs in Australian aged care facilities, using data from a comprehensive 2003 national survey of direct care workers in Australian aged care facilities. It shows that, on a range of characteristics including pay, aged care jobs compare quite well with other jobs held by Australians who have similar characteristics to aged care workers. Aged care jobs are certainly not unequivocally 'bad' jobs. Yet turnover rates amongst these workers are quite high. The paper shows that workers' expectations about remaining in the aged care sector depend largely on their experience of work, particularly their job satisfaction. Job satisfaction, in turn, is affected most by their experience of the work of caring. As in most workplaces, the ability to use their skills without hindrance is important. But care work offers distinctive rewards not captured by notions of professional identity and commitment. The paper concludes by suggesting that a focus on these distinctive rewards will be important in fully understanding paid care work as paid work.


In communities that largely depend on the extraction of natural resources, attitudes towards conservation and development may seem at odds or particularly rigid. With an unprecedented wealth of natural capital, a growing mining sector, strong oil and gas industry, and a politically conservative population, Alaska serves as a case study to measure such attitudes. This research was motivated by a lack of primary ecosystem service valuation studies in Alaska that could be used to assess the public's perceived value of ecosystem services in order to guide future land use decisions and incentivize land use decisions that minimize negative externalities. A choice experiment was conducted with 224 households in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the fastest growing region in Alaska and one of the fastest growing regions in the U.S. Rapid development with few restrictions has led to changes for local ecosystems particularly important to salmon, negative effects on access related to recreation and tourism, and caused conversion of valuable farmland. Study results show that attitudes and values vary regarding future land use and economic development efforts. On average, policy action to improve conditions for local salmon stocks are most valuable to local residents followed by protecting farm and ranch lands as well as public access to recreation sites. Conversely, residents show negative preferences towards rapid population growth and developing local mining, oil and gas, and timber resources but support developing a professional and technical services sector. The quantified welfare changes related to different development scenarios show that focusing on conserving valuable ecosystem services is in the public's best interest.


Cultural context plays an important role in the way employees combine work and home duties. Insights in the role of cultural context are highly relevant for setting up effective interventions and policies to reduce negative work home interface and improve health and well-being of individuals. Data for the studies in this thesis were collected in Malta, Serbia and The Netherlands. Besides work and home characteristics, such as work demands and family situation, cultural context plays an important role. The role of culture is impacting the negotiation of combining work and home demands, and this negotiation is intertwined with the cultural norms and expectations, gender and age. Different aspects appear to be relevant in different cultures. For example, colleague support is important in the Netherlands, and in other contexts it is not. Convergence of policies at EU level will not contribute to better work-home interface. A culturally sensitive approach in policies and interventions is called for.


In order to verify the interannual variability of the above-ground biomass of herbaceous vegetation simulated by the ISBA-A-gs land surface model, within the SURFEX modelling platform, French agricultural statistics for C3 crops and grasslands were compared with the simulations for the 1994–2008 period. While excellent correlations are obtained for grasslands, representing the interannual variability of crops is more difficult. It is shown that, the Maximum Available soil Water Capacity (MaxAWC) has a large influence on the correlation between the model and the agricultural statistics. In particular, high values of MaxAWC tend to reduce the impact of the climate interannual variability on the simulated biomass. Also, high values of MaxAWC allow the simulation of a negative trend in biomass production, in relation to a marked warming trend, of about 0.12 Kyr −1 on average, affecting the daily maximum air temperature during the growing period (April–June). This trend is particularly acute in Northern France. The estimates of MaxAWC for C3 crops and grasslands, currently used in SURFEX, are about 129 mm and do not vary much. Therefore, more accurate grid-cell values of this parameter are needed.


Based on the basic components of the porous Metal Rubber (MR) materials, all kinds of heat transfer modes were analyzed. Wire helix was considered as the micro-element of Metal Rubber by analyzing the characteristics of processing components of Metal Rubber. According to the acoustoelectric analogy method, the heat transfer model of MR was established on the basis of arrangement of wire helix and Fourier Law. The formula of thermal conductivity coefficient was derived. And the LFA 427 instrument was used to obtain thermal conductivity characteristics of MR experimentally. The results showed that the model had certain application. This model was valuable for the analysis of the thermal properties and the design of Metal Rubber. It provided theoretical support for the further engineering application of Metal Rubber in the field of heat insulation.


Local tissue acidosis frequently occurs in airway inflammatory and ischemic conditions. The effect of physiological/pathophysiological-relevant low pH (7.05.5) on isolated rat vagal pulmonary sensory neurons was investigated using whole-cell perforated patch-clamp recordings. In voltage-clamp recordings, vagal pulmonary sensory neurons exhibited distinct pH sensitivities and different phenotypes of inward current in responding to acidic challenge. The current evoked by lowering the pH of extracellular solution to 7.0 consisted of only a transient, rapidly inactivating component with small amplitude. The amplitude of this transient current increased when the proton concentration was elevated. In addition, a slow, sustained inward current began to emerge when pH was reduced to below 6.5. The I-V curve indicated that the transient component of acid-evoked current was carried predominantly by Na +. This transient component was dose-dependently inhibited by amiloride, a common blocker of acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs), whereas the sustained component was significantly attenuated by capsazepine, a selective antagonist of transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor subtype-1 (TRPV1). The two components of acid-evoked current also displayed distinct recovery kinetics from desensitization. Furthermore, in current-clamp recordings, transient extracellular acidification depolarized the membrane potential and generated action potentials in these isolated neurons. In summary, our results have demonstrated that low pH can stimulate rat vagal pulmonary sensory neurons through the activation of both ASICs and TRPV1. The relative roles of these two current species depend on the range of pH and vary between neurons.


Ontology bases are sets of binary fact types called lexons. This paper discusses LexoVis, a lexon visualization tool that addresses the inherent size and scale of ontology bases. LexoVis facilitates the analysis of lexons by taking a well-ordered approach and provides overview and detail by employing the graphical fisheye view. Furthermore, different ordering and clustering heuristics incorporated in LexoVis offer insights into ontology bases not explicit in text-based representations.


Background— Because of the rarity of this condition, information on pregnancy-associated spontaneous coronary artery dissection is limited. We reviewed a large number of contemporary pregnancy-associated spontaneous coronary artery dissection cases in an attempt to define the clinical characteristics and provide management recommendations. Methods and Results— A literature search for cases of pregnancy-associated spontaneous coronary artery dissection reported between 2000 and 2015 included 120 cases; 75% presented with ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction, and 80% had anterior myocardial infarction. Left anterior descending coronary artery was involved in 72% of cases, left main segment in 36%, and 40% had multivessel spontaneous coronary artery dissection. Ejection fraction was reduced to <40% in 44% of cases. Percutaneous coronary intervention was successful in only 50% of cases. Coronary artery bypass surgery was performed in 44 cases because of complex anatomy, hemodynamic instability, or failed percutaneous coronary intervention. Maternal complications included cardiogenic shock (24%), mechanical support (28%), urgent percutaneous coronary intervention (28%), urgent coronary artery bypass surgery (27.5%), maternal mortality (4%), and fetal mortality (2.5%). During follow-up for 305±111 days, there was a high incidence of symptoms because of persistent or new spontaneous coronary artery dissections, and 5 women needed heart transplantation or ventricular assist device implantation. Conclusions— Pregnancy-associated spontaneous coronary artery dissection is commonly associated with left anterior descending, left main, and multivessel involvement, which leads to a high incidence of reduced ejection fraction, and life-threatening maternal and fetal complications. Percutaneous coronary intervention is associated with low success rate and high likelihood of complications, and coronary artery bypass surgery is often required. Recurrent ischemic events because of persistent or new spontaneous coronary artery dissection are common during long-term follow-up.


Titanium alloys are extensively applied in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and chemical industries owing to their excellent performance combining high strength-to-density ratio, good corrosion resistance, and high strength at elevated temperature. Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si (TC11) alloys are used to replace the most common Ti-6Al-4V in some important applications such as some parts in aerospace engine. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the machinability of TC11 alloys in the finish hard turning conditions. The paper presents the machinability results of TC11 alloys compared with Ti-6Al-4V, and analyzes the variables such as cutting force, surface integrity, and tool wear mechanism in the experiments.


Since the extent of medication noncompliance in schizophrenic patients ranges between 50 and 60%, evaluation of factors that are associated with noncompliance has become an important issue. 197 schizophrenic patients have been interviewed with regard to numerous issues: Form and type of medication; information about side effects; attitude of patients towards illness and medication. Our data suggest that information about benefits and side effects, as well as the attitude of patients towards illness and medication play an important role in the adherence to the treatment regimen.


A Jill Soloway TV series for Amazon Prime, adapted from the lauded feminist novel by Chris Kraus. I LOVE DICK is set in a colourful academic community in Marfa, Texas. It tells the story of a struggling married couple, Chris and Sylvere, and their obsession with a charismatic professor named Dick. I LOVE DICK charts the unraveling of a marriage, the awakening of an artist and the deification of a reluctant messiah. (Starring: Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Hahn, Griffin Dunne).

Writer and director Logan Kibens served as a consulting producer on set, curating the homages that appear in brief and tantalizing clips throughout the show, offering a truncated survey of feminist film history.

"It starts as a response to Kevin Bacon's statement in the pilot that women can't work from outside their oppression," Kibens told HuffPost. "He challenges Chris and says women can't be good artists. That moment felt to me like a calling of the ancestors. We're ready to go into battle and address this question."

The film clips that appear are thematically linked to what's happening in the show at the times they emerge, highlighting the real-life artists whose work came before.

"I was responding to the scripts as they were coming in," Kibens said. "It was like a really hard crossword puzzle. Every piece had to relate to one of the main characters and what she was going through while keeping in mind the theme of the show. Taken together, the clips offer a short history of women in film."

Taken from films that date between 1964 and 2012, the clips are culled from film, dance, pornography, and video and performance art. They feature iconic feminist artists like Marina Abramovic and Carolee Schneemann and contemporary luminaries like Petra Cortright. The clips loudly reject Dick's hypothesis that women don't make good films, showing that women have long been making work that is provocative, sensual and rigorous, even if men have chosen to look the other way.

In an interview with HuffPost, Jill Soloway explained her desire to remix the recipe of a television show, departing from the tired blueprint of storytelling from a male perspective. "We can do anything with TV we want to," Soloway said, "including using it as a crucible to show off the work of all these women who have never been known or seen."

Incorporating a loosely connected network of female voices, Soloway and Kibens disrupt the tradition of the singular male storyteller. Instead of even relying on Kraus' lone voice to tell the story, Soloway invites the spirits of her collaborators and influences into the fold, creating a collaborative collage that refuses to converge at a single point.

"I'm trying to experiment with what we can do with TV," Soloway said, "using sampling, almost like hip-hop, to bring these other voices in to tell this story."

Artist/flimaker's work included in the series include: Sally Potter, Jane Campion, Chantal Akerman, Cheryl Donegan, Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramovic, Annie Sprinkle, SMITH/STEWART, Maya Deren.

A clip of our video piece 'Mouth to Mouth' (1995) is used in episode 7: Described by Tate London, as a short, black-and-white video depicting a repeated action enacted by the artists, during which Smith and Stewart share the same breath.
Kibens: "This is a perfect way to visualize the tentative intimacy between a married couple. It's probably the longest clip featured in the show. It also doesn't have music. The artists didn't want us to use any score. With this piece I feel like we were really asking: can we push it this far?"


Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are increasing in incidence and are major causes of maternal morbidity and mortality both in the United States and worldwide. An understanding of these diseases is essential for the practicing nephrologist, as preexisting kidney disease is an important risk factor. In addition, the development of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy has important implications for long-term risk of kidney disease and cardiovascular disease. The definition and diagnostic criteria has changed in recent years as our understanding of the disease entity has progressed. Currently, proteinuria is no longer a necessary diagnostic feature of preeclampsia. Preeclampsia and gestational hypertension may develop through multiple different mechanisms. Current research suggests contributions of both placental factors and maternal factors contribute to the disease and represent different phenotypic presentations of preeclampsia.


gesia has not been shown to be associated with increased perinatal mortality or morbidity, but the consequences of forceps delivery should not be dismissed too readily, as O'Driscoll and his colleagues have shown.5 Safemanagementoflabour with increased availability and use of epidurals calls for a very high standard of obstetric and midwifery care, not just an increased number of consultant sessions in obstetric anaesthesia.


Killing animals is common practice, yet it is not normal. The end of animal life is related to many societal and ethical questions and concerns. Questions such as how long should we continue to treat an animal before killing it? But also the question whether it could be legitimate to kill individual animals for the welfare of the herd or future generations. The ongoing public and academic discussions on these, and on other well-known questions like those related to the killing of animals for food or scientific purposes, show that there is no one standard evaluation of animal life. This book is an edited volume that enables the reader to get grip on that plurality of views with regard to animals. I helps to deal with the many questions related to the end of animal life. The chapters show how the plurality of views on killing animals is related to moral presuppositions by providing a clear overview on the ethical views on end of life decisions. Furthermore, the book contains a number of applied studies of the ethical questions related to killing animals in various practices including wildlife management, fishing and fish farming, animal experimentation and livestock farming. These chapters can help veterinarians, scientists, policy makers and many other professionals working with animals to easily get a good overview of the issues at stake and contribute to responsible decisions with regard to the end of animal life.


This paper is the eighth in a series dealing with reference procedures for the measurement of catalytic activity concentrations of enzymes at 37 degrees C and the certification of reference preparations. Other parts deal with: Part 1. The concept of reference procedures for the measurement of catalytic activity concentrations of enzymes; Part 2. Reference procedure for the measurement of catalytic concentration of creatine kinase; Part 3. Reference procedure for the measurement of catalytic concentration of lactate dehydrogenase; Part 4. Reference procedure for the measurement of catalytic concentration of alanine aminotransferase Part 5. Reference procedure for the measurement of catalytic concentration of aspartate aminotransferase Part 6. Reference procedure for the measurement of catalytic concentration of gamma-glutamyltransferase; Part 7. Certification of four reference materials for the determination of enzymatic activity of gamma-glutamyltransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, alanine aminotransferase and creatine kinase at 37 degrees C. The procedure described here is deduced from the previously described 30 degrees C IFCC reference method. Differences are tabulated and commented on.


We consider requirements for cyber-physical systems represented in constrained natural language. We present novel automated techniques for aiding in the development of these requirements so that they are consistent and can withstand perceived failures. We show how cyber-physical systems' requirements can be modeled using the event calculus (EC), a formalism used in AI for representing actions and change. We also show how answer set programming (ASP) and its query-driven implementation s(CASP) can be used to directly realize the event calculus model of the requirements. This event calculus model can be used to automatically validate the requirements. Since ASP is an expressive knowledge representation language, it can also be used to represent contextual knowledge about cyber-physical systems, which, in turn, can be used to find gaps in their requirements specifications. We illustrate our approach through an altitude alerting system from the avionics domain.


Although physicians are often expected to be gatekeepers to health insurance benefits such as paid sick leave, research indicates a substantial reluctance to reject patient requests for sickness certificates. We show that private information on the patient's part creates a conflict between the healer and gatekeeper roles: if a patient reports subjective symptoms indicating a need for sick leave, the physician is unable to tell if the patient is truly sick or a shirker. We show that even if most physicians prefer to be good gatekeepers, all of them may trust their patients in Nash equilibrium. These ideas are illustrated using results from focus group interviews with Norwegian primary care physicians.


Consider the following forest-fire model where trees are located on sites of $\mathbb{Z}$. A site can be vacant or be occupied by a tree. Each vacant site becomes occupied at rate $1$, independently of the other sites. Each site is hit by lightning with rate $\lambda$, which burns down the occupied cluster of that site instantaneously. As $\lambda \downarrow 0$ this process is believed to display self-organised critical behaviour. This paper is mainly concerned with the cluster size distribution in steady-state. Drossel, Clar and Schwabl (1993) claimed that the cluster size distribution has a certain power law behaviour which holds for cluster sizes that are not too large compared to some explicit cluster size $s_{max}$. The latter can be written in terms of $\lambda$ approximately as $s_{max}\ln(s_{max}) = 1/ \lambda$. However, Van den Berg and Jarai (2005) showed that this claim is not correct for cluster sizes of order $s_{max}$, which left the question for which cluster sizes the power law behaviour does hold. Our main result is a rigorous proof of the power law behaviour up to cluster sizes of the order $s_{max}^{1/3}$. Further, it proves the existence of a stationary translation invariant distribution, which was always assumed but never shown rigorously in the literature.


As the main road that will connect the capital city like Kuala Lumpur and Klang, Selangor, this federal highway become the busiest highway in Klang valley during rush hour from or to Kuala Lumpur. This research is to study the relationship of the factor influencing consumer satisfaction towards federal highway in Selangor. It is also want to prove whether all of the aspect is have a strong relationship with the consumer or less. The factors that related to this research are service and facilities, toll price, road condition and safety and convenience aspect. There are 100 respondent of the people that frequently use this federal highway answered the 30 question prepared by the researcher. The data collected is analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 18. The finding of the study showed that the factor gives total impact to the consumer in federal highway is their service and facilities management which this factor consist of all other factors and it related to the main product of the highway. Among demographic details which are found to be related to highway consumer towards federal highway are service and facilities (average mean 3.12% and Pearson Correlation 0.439),toll price (2.87 average mean and 0.393 Pearson Correlation), safety and convenience aspect (2.90 of average mean and 0.295 for Pearson Correlation) and road condition (average mean 3.23 and Pearson Correlation 0.465). The result of this factor is all of this independent variable has a relationship with the dependent variable but the relationship is weak. Discussion on findings, conclusion and limitations of study are also included in the report.


The resurgence and transformation of Poland's Jewish communal institutions and religious life in the last twenty years has inspired debate concerning the criteria for being and becoming Jewish. The voices in that discussion come not only from different generations, but also from different geographies of Jewish life. Drawing on fieldwork in a contemporary Jewish congregation in Poland, this article discusses ethics in the context of different rationalities of affinity. Poland's "Jewish revival" confronted values and affects grounded in intergenerational experiences of the post-Holocaust era with categories of belonging and religious conversion enabled by new laws, transnational programs of education and socialization, and the impact of religious leaders from abroad. The apparent incommensurability of these standpoints, and the taxing attempts at their reconciliation, invite us to reconceptualize the notion of moral tradition.


The method of Riccati equation is extended for constructing travelling wave solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations. It is applied to solve the Karamoto–Sivashinsky equation and then its more new explicit solutions have been obtained. From the results given in this paper, one can see the computer algebra plays an important role in this procedure.


Abstract We have analyzed small-scale fluctuations in microphysical, dynamical and thermodynamical parameters measured in two warm cumulus clouds during the Cooperative Convective Precipitation Experiment (CCOPE) project (1981) in light of predictions of several recent models. The measurements show the existence at all levels throughout the sampling period of two statistically distinct kinds of cloudy regions, termed "variable" and "steady," often separated by transition zones of less than ten meters. There is some evidence for microphysical variability induced by local fluctuations in thermodynamic and dynamic parameters; however, the predominant variations are of a nature consistent with laboratory evidence suggesting that mixing is dominated by large structures. Entrainment appears to occur largely near cloud top but the data presented here do not permit identification of a mechanism for transport of the entrained air throughout the cloud.


For mining and civil engineering projects rock slope stability is an essential part of safety and financial considerations. While large-scale stability can be simulated using rock mass properties, at smaller scale local variations in rock properties become significant and failure purely along discontinuities is possible. Plane failures, wedging and rockfall are common occurrences at this scale. These are often prevented by bolting or shotcrete support. For temporary slopes such support measures can be costly, and an ability to simulate possible failures along discontinuity planes becomes useful for evaluation of support necessity. Conventional methods for evaluating rock mass properties require making assumptions for scale effect in upscaling for an effective slope scale. The scale effect is generally considered to be negative, while some studies show positive or no scale effect. Deriving parameters to elaborately represent mechanical properties of rock mass in a scale of a mining project would require conducting a large scale in-situ test. Representativeness of one test for a large region of interest is questionable. Photogrammetric recording of rock joint surfaces aims to automate the obtaining of rock joint roughness without the need for manual sampling and costly laboratory experiments. Measurements carried out manually using a profilometer are compared to results obtained with photogrammetry without human interaction. The results are compared to tilt table tests to obtain a ratio between the natural roughness to profiled roughness. This ratio may be interpreted as a measure of how well the joint surfaces match. The photogrammetric JRC values may be used to predict the strength of rock joints under low stress conditions, where dilatation is not prevented. Finally discussion is given concerning the applicability of the method and the need for future research.


In software-defined networks (SDNs), the network controller first formulates abstract network-wide policies, and then implements them in the forwarding tables of network switches. However, fast SDN tables often cannot scale beyond a few hundred entries. This is because they typically include wildcards, and therefore are implemented using either expensive and power-hungry TCAMs, or complex and slow data structures. This paper presents the Palette distribution framework for decomposing large SDN tables into small ones and then distributing them across the network, while preserving the overall SDN policy semantics. Palette helps balance the sizes of the tables across the network, as well as reduce the total number of entries by sharing resources among different connections. It copes with two NP-hard optimization problems: Decomposing a large SDN table into equivalent subtables, and distributing the subtables such that each connection traverses each type of subtable at least once. To implement the Palette distribution framework, we introduce graph-theoretical formulations and algorithms, and show that they achieve close-to-optimal results in practice.


A resistive superconducting fault-current limiter (SFCL) has been developed using round magnesium diboride (MgB2) wire. The SFCL coil was wound using an interleaved coil arrangement to minimize the total coil inductance. The SFCL coil demonstrated reliable and repeatable current-limiting properties during testing. However, the wire temperature of the SFCL coil increases quickly during quench tests, and several minutes are required for temperature recovery after the fault is cleared. The SFCL coil therefore was fully integrated with a vacuum interrupter to quickly remove the SFCL coil from the circuit once a fault occurred. This allowed the SFCL coil to recover quickly while a bypass resistor acted as the current limiting resistance. A fast-acting actuator and its control circuit were designed and built to provide automatic control for the operation of the vacuum interrupter. The SFCL with the prototype vacuum interrupter was successfully tested. The energy dissipated in the SFCL coil was significantly reduced by integrating the vacuum interrupter. The fault tests with different potential fault currents also proved that the operation of the vacuum interrupter is independent of the fault current level. This prototype demonstrated the potential of a cost-effective and compact integrated SFCL and vacuum interrupter for power system applications.


In any other circumstance, it might make sense to define the extent of the terrain (Data Science) first, and then locate and describe the landmarks (Principles). But this data revolution we are experiencing defies a cadastral survey. Areas are continually being annexed into Data Science. For example, biometrics was traditionally statistics for agriculture in all its forms but now, in Data Science, it means the study of characteristics that can be used to identify an individual. Examples of non‐intrusive measurements include height, weight, fingerprints, retina scan, voice, photograph/video (facial landmarks and facial expressions) and gait. A multivariate analysis of such data would be a complex project for a statistician, but a software engineer might appear to have no trouble with it at all. In any applied‐statistics project, the statistician worries about uncertainty and quantifies it by modelling data as realisations generated from a probability space. Another approach to uncertainty quantification is to find similar data sets, and then use the variability of results between these data sets to capture the uncertainty. Both approaches allow 'error bars' to be put on estimates obtained from the original data set, although the interpretations are different. A third approach, that concentrates on giving a single answer and gives up on uncertainty quantification, could be considered as Data Engineering, although it has staked a claim in the Data Science terrain. This article presents a few (actually nine) statistical principles for data scientists that have helped me, and continue to help me, when I work on complex interdisciplinary projects.


The ep and e−p scattering data recorded at HERA during the recent years offer the possibility to study electroweak effects in ep interactions apparent at high momentum transfers, Q, and to reveal information on the proton parton densities at large values of the Bjorken scaling variable x. From the neutral current cross section measurements, H1 and ZEUS extract the generalized structure function xF3, which can be related to the valence quark content of the proton. Individual quark densities are extracted by a global fit to the H1 neutral and charged current ep and e−p data. The new results show the sensitivity of high Q ep data to the structure of the proton and indicate what to expect from a 1 fb data sample to be taken by H1 and ZEUS until 2006 at the upgraded HERA collider. Future perspectives concerning the investigation of electroweak effects and their utilization to extract the parton content of the proton are shortly discussed.


Data envelopment analysis is used when it is difficult to measure the relative effectiveness of organizational decision-making units due to a large number of similar inputs and outputs. Firstly, data envelopment analysis was discussed in this study. In this context, relative activities of 10 companies have been operating in fisheries sector for last nine years (2009-2017) which entered the Fortune 500 in Turkey and have sufficient data were measured using financial inputs and outputs. Relative effectiveness scores were obtained by examining the financial inputs and outputs of the companies that are in the Fortune 500 and operating in fisheries sector. In the second part of study, to reveal the technical efficiency and the ineffective ones resulting from the scale, DEA models including the input-oriented CCR (Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes) and BCC (Banker, Charnes, and Cooper) model were established and the above mentioned procedures were repeated. Finally, it was investigated whether an investment system based on DEA could be established or not. DEA Frontier and DEA Solver software, one of the special software of DEA, was used for the solution of models using in data envelopment analysis. As a result of the study, the average efficacy percentage was found to be 88% for CCR and 93% for BCC. For the data obtained during 2009-2017, six companies were found to be active according to the CCR model, while seven companies were found to be effective according to the BCC model. Also, the targets were determined to activate the inactive companies.


Recent advances in modular DNA assembly techniques have enabled synthetic biologists to test significantly more of the available "design space" represented by "devices" created as combinations of individual genetic components. However, manual assembly of such large numbers of devices is time-intensive, error-prone, and costly. The increasing sophistication and scale of synthetic biology research necessitates an efficient, reproducible way to accommodate large-scale, complex, and high throughput device construction. Here, a DNA assembly protocol using the Type-IIS restriction endonuclease based Modular Cloning (MoClo) technique is automated on two liquid-handling robotic platforms. Automated liquid-handling robots require careful, often times tedious optimization of pipetting parameters for liquids of different viscosities (e.g. enzymes, DNA, water, buffers), as well as explicit programming to ensure correct aspiration and dispensing of DNA parts and reagents. This makes manual script writing for complex assemblies just as problematic as manual DNA assembly, and necessitates a software tool that can automate script generation. To this end, we have developed a web-based software tool, http://mocloassembly.com, for generating combinatorial DNA device libraries from basic DNA parts uploaded as Genbank files. We provide access to the tool, and an export file from our liquid handler software which includes optimized liquid classes, labware parameters, and deck layout. All DNA parts used are available through Addgene, and their digital maps can be accessed via the Boston University BDC ICE Registry. Together, these elements provide a foundation for other organizations to automate modular cloning experiments and similar protocols. The automated DNA assembly workflow presented here enables the repeatable, automated, high-throughput production of DNA devices, and reduces the risk of human error arising from repetitive manual pipetting. Sequencing data show the automated DNA assembly reactions generated from this workflow are ~95% correct and require as little as 4% as much hands-on time, compared to manual reaction preparation.


WHEN the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training of Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, Chicago, was dedicated in 1951, a wide variety of topics was discussed. This composite of contributions from many disciplines emphasized the absence rather than the presence of a long-awaited synthesis of many efforts into what has been called behavioral science. Indeed, only a few years later the first issue of theArchives of General Psychiatryappeared, with the editors' hopes that publication of investigations from many contributory sciences might develop a science of psychiatry or a unified theory of human behavior. 1 In 1966 the 15th anniversary of the Institute was celebrated at a scientific meeting in Chicago devoted to the subject of "New Directions in Research on Normal Behavior." The ten speakers were distinguished scientists from various fields—some who had spoken at the original


In recent years, governance has become perhaps the dominant heuristic through which the structuring and exercise of political power is made sense of in political science and its subfields. Only rarely, however, do scholars pause to interrogate either the meaning of the term or the epistemological purposes for which it is deployed. In that context, this article reflects on the state of political science research on governance in Aotearoa New Zealand. It reviews the international literature on governance and proposes a framework for categorising the relevant New Zealand scholarship. The characteristics of that literature are assessed, and the article concludes with a critical appraisal of the possibilities and potential pitfalls for research on governance in Aotearoa New Zealand.


Blastocerus dichotomus, the marsh deer, is the largest Brazilian Cervidae species. The species is endangered because of hunting and loss of its natural habitat, i.e., flood plain areas, because of hydroelectric power station construction and agricultural land expansion. In the present study, we tested 38 microsatellite loci from four Cervidae species: Odocoileus virginianus (7), Rangifer tarandus (17), Capreolus capreolus (7), and Mazama bororo (7). Eleven loci showed clear amplification, opening a new perspective for the generation of fundamental population genetic data for devising conservation strategies for B. dichotomus.


Andrei, Arion, and Will arrived at ACRC around 3:00pm to obtain fault detection data from Thor. Three tests were conducted in which artificial faults were injected into one of the ailerons, and into the roll rate signal during a roll angle tracking pattern. After these three tests, there was time and batteries for one more test, so a new waypoint tracking pattern was successfully tested. All flight ops ran smoothly. Software used for this flight was trunk/Software/FlightCode rev 907 Each of the three fault detection tests consisted of six different fault cases, each being repeated 3 times. The first two cases were unfaulted scenarios to compare to. The next four cases inject an aileron fault 7 seconds after autopilot (A/P) is engaged, and a -80 deg/sec roll rate impulse fault 12 seconds after A/P is engaged. The third case aileron fault is a ramp of 5 degrees for 13 seconds. Case four is a 13 second, 10 degree right aileron fault. Case five is a 5 deg impulse fault on the right aileron, and case six is a 10 deg impulse fault on the right aileron. During each case, a roll angle tracking pattern was conducted using a different baseline controller for each flight. Thor flight 70 used the same control architecture as the standard baseline controller, but with reduced controller gains to test a slower response design,baseline_control_slower. The other software modules used for each fault detection flight were fault_onerate, fault_onesurf, phi_pattern_cmd, and EKF_15state.


The pursuit of high response rates to minimise the threat of nonresponse bias continues to dominate decisions about resource allocation in survey research. Yet a growing body of research has begun to question this practice. In this study, we use previously unavailable data from a new sampling frame based on population registers to assess the value of different methods designed to increase response rates on the European Social Survey in Switzerland. Using sampling data provides information about both respondents and nonrespondents, making it possible to examine how changes in response rates resulting from the use of different fieldwork methods relate to changes in the composition and representativeness of the responding sample. We compute an R-indicator to assess representativity with respect to the sampling register variables, and find little improvement in the sample composition as response rates increase. We then examine the impact of response rate increases on the risk of nonresponse bias based on Maximal Absolute Bias (MAB), and coefficients of variation between subgroup response rates, alongside the associated costs of different types of fieldwork effort. The results show that increases in response rate help to reduce MAB, while only small but important improvements to sample representativity are gained by varying the type of effort. These findings lend further support to research that has called into question the value of extensive investment in procedures aimed at reaching response rate targets and the need for more tailored fieldwork strategies aimed both at reducing survey costs and minimising the risk of bias.


Introduction The colorectal cancer (CRC) microbiome is niche specific and individualised. Several putative driver organisms enriched on CRCs have been identified from human studies, but few data exist which properly account for important clinical variables in CRC. In this study, we used a meta-taxonomic approach to demonstrate how the CRC microbiome varies with disease stage, histological markers of prognosis and host molecular phenotypes. Method A prospective study was performed on patients undergoing colonoscopy and elective surgery for CRC at three hospitals in UK and Czech Republic. Tissue was sampled from tumours, adenomas, adjacent normal mucosa and mucosa from healthy colon controls. The V1-2 regions of the 16S rRNA gene were sequenced (Illumina MiSeq); data were processed in Mothur and analysed in Stamp and R. Species assignment was performed with NCBI BLAST for microbial genomes. False discovery rate p value correction accounted for multiple testing. Histological analysis and tumour molecular phenotyping were performed according to Royal College of Pathology guidelines. Results One hundred and ninety six patients were recruited: 158 CRC patients, 24 adenoma patients and 14 normal colon controls (median age 70; range 35–90). Tumours were staged as 6 T0, 4 T1, 23 T2, 97 T3, 27 T4; 99 N0, 40 N1, 27 N2; 6 M1. No significant differences were seen in diversity or taxonomy between the UK and Czech cohorts. Adenoma and healthy colon control samples were taxonomically indistinct. However, CRCs were characterised by reduced Shannon diversity (p<0.01), with enrichment of organisms including Bacteroides fragilis,Fusobacterium nucleatum and under-representation of Bacteroides vulgatus,Bacteroides uniformisandFaecalibacterium prausnitzii (all q<0.01). Furthermore, we found a significant progressive reduction in the expression of Bacteroides vulgatus with advancing T stage and a corresponding increase in Fusobacterium nucleatum expression (figure). Additionaly, samples from patients with T4 tumours and cancers expressing histological and molecular markers of poor prognosis were characterised by enrichment of certain low abundance oral pathobionts: Parvimonas micra,Porphyromonas gingivalis and Prevotella spp. Conclusion This large prospective analysis demonstrates that the CRC microbiome is stage-specific and appears to evolve with disease progression. We conclude that oral pathobionts which colonise advanced stage disease relate to markers of tumour prognosis, raising the possibility that they may be directly influencing tumour invasion. Disclosure of Interest None Declared Abstract OC-061 Figure 1 Progressive change in relative abundance of Bacteroides Vulgatus (left) and Fusobacterium Nucleatum (right) against T stage (A: Adenoma).


Background Hormonally active environmental agents have been measured among U.S. children using exposure biomarkers in urine. However, little is known about their variation by race, age, sex, and geography, and no data exist for newly developed biomarkers. Objective Our goal was to characterize relevant, prevalent exposures for a study of female pubertal development. Methods In a pilot study among 90 girls from New York City, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, and northern California, we measured 25 urinary analytes representing 22 separate agents from three chemical families: phytoestrogens, phthalates, and phenols. Exposures occur chiefly from the diet and from household or personal care products. Results Participants represented four racial/ethnic groups (Asian, black, Hispanic, white), with mean age of 7.77 years. Most analytes were detectable in > 94% of samples. The highest median concentrations for individual analytes in each family were for enterolactone (298 μg/L), monoethylphthalate (MEP; 83.2 μg/L), and benzophenone-3 (BP3; 14.7 μg/L). Few or no data have been reported previously for four metabolites: mono(2-ethyl-5-carboxypentyl) phthalate, triclosan, bisphenol A (BPA), and BP3; these were detected in 67–100% of samples with medians of 1.8–53.2 μg/L. After multivariate adjustment, two analytes, enterolactone and BPA, were higher among girls with body mass index < 85th reference percentile than those at or above the 85th percentile. Three phthalate metabolites differed by race/ethnicity [MEP, mono(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, and mono-3-carboxypropylphthalate]. Conclusions A wide spectrum of hormonally active exposure biomarkers were detectable and variable among young girls, with high maximal concentrations (> 1,000 μg/L) found for several analytes. They varied by characteristics that may be relevant to development.


Experimental results are presented for a coaxial-flow-stabilized, ac, 12- to 22-cps (12- to 22-Hz) electric arc. The arc is maintained along the centerline of an argon jet. Coflowing streams of either helium or nitrogen surround the central argon jet. The arc is stabilized by the flow field of the two gases. General characteristics of arc behavior are described for various operating conditions. Arc voltage-current curves are shown. Arc length is varied from 1 to 12 inches (2.54 to 30.5 cm). Photographs of the arc at maximum intensity are shown.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Financial limitations in low-income populations, those at highest risk for poor health outcomes, may preclude adherence to recommended dietary guidelines. We examine the financial burden of shopping for foods to meet national dietary recommendations in a supermarket compared to eating primarily in a fast-food restaurant.

METHODS
Using a single-parent, low-income model, we obtained whole food costs (healthy) from local supermarkets and from fast-food outlets (convenient). Using cost per calorie as a metric for comparison, we used estimated single-parent, low-income living expenses to determine the relative costs of meeting national dietary guidelines.

RESULTS
Average food costs for healthy and convenience diets accounted for 18% and 37% of income, respectively. Dairy products and vegetables accounted for the largest cost percentages of diet costs (36% and 28%, respectively). The cost per calorie of a convenience diet was 24% higher than the healthy diet. Both models resulted in net financial loss over the course of a year for a single-parent, low-income family.

CONCLUSIONS
Food costs represent a significant proportion of annual income. Diets based heavily on foods from convenient sources are less healthy and more expensive than a well-planned menu from budget foods available from large supermarket chains.


The current policy of removing drill music videos from social media platforms such as YouTube remains controversial because it risks conflating the co-occurrence of drill rap and violence with a causal chain of the two. Empirically, we revisit the question of whether there is evidence to support the conjecture that drill music and gang violence are linked. We provide new empirical insights suggesting that: i) drill music lyrics have not become more negative over time if anything they have become more positive; ii) individual drill artists have similar sentiment trajectories to other artists in the drill genre, and iii) there is no meaningful relationship between drill music and real-life violence when compared to three kinds of police-recorded violent crime data in London. We suggest ideas for new work that can help build a much-needed evidence base around the problem.


We here present The Online Protein Processing Resource (TOPPR; http://iomics.ugent.be/toppr/), an online database that contains thousands of published proteolytically processed sites in human and mouse proteins. These cleavage events were identified with COmbinded FRActional DIagonal Chromatography proteomics technologies, and the resulting database is provided with full data provenance. Indeed, TOPPR provides an interactive visual display of the actual fragmentation mass spectrum that led to each identification of a reported processed site, complete with fragment ion annotations and search engine scores. Apart from warehousing and disseminating these data in an intuitive manner, TOPPR also provides an online analysis platform, including methods to analyze protease specificity and substrate-centric analyses. Concretely, TOPPR supports three ways to retrieve data: (i) the retrieval of all substrates for one or more cellular stimuli or assays; (ii) a substrate search by UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot accession number, entry name or description; and (iii) a motif search that retrieves substrates matching a user-defined protease specificity profile. The analysis of the substrates is supported through the presence of a variety of annotations, including predicted secondary structure, known domains and experimentally obtained 3D structure where available. Across substrates, substrate orthologs and conserved sequence stretches can also be shown, with iceLogo visualization provided for the latter.


Discretized representations of deformable objects, based upon simple dynamic point-mass systems, rely upon the propagation of forces between neighbouring elements to produce a global change in the shape of the surface. Attempting to make such a surface rigid produces stiff equations that are costly to evaluate with any numerical stability. This paper introduces a new multilevel approach for controlling the response of a deformable object to external forces. The user specifies the amount of flexibility or stiffness of the surface by controlling how the applied forces propagate through the levels of a multi-resolution representation of the object. A wide range of surface behaviour is possible, and rigid motion is attained without resort to special numerical methods. This technique is applied to the displacement constraints method of Gascuel and Gascuel (1992) to provide explicit graduated control of the response of a deformable object to imposed forces.<<ETX>>