Cognitive radio requires a system that is capable of quickly sensing
the spectrum for available frequencies. In order for such a system to
work a spectrum analyzer is required. The spectrum analyzer must be
capable of detecting strong and weak signals simultaneously. This re-
quires a high linearity in combination with low noise. A design for a
spectrum analyzer was proposed in [1]. The spectrum analyzer increases
linearity by attenuating the received signal. However, attenuating the
signal reduces the SNR. Cross-correlation is used to reduce the noise in
the digital domain.
The requirements of the ADC in the spectrum analyzer are di�erent
from a typical situation. The linearity requirement is an SFDR of at least
70dB, and in order to measure a wide spectrum at once, the bandwidth
requirement is 20MHz. The input voltage swing is low as result of atten-
uation. The quantization error can be reduced by cross-correlation. By
reducing the resolution to 1 bit, the calculations during cross-correlation
can be reduced, as multiplications become single gate operations.
In order to reduce the resolution of the ADC, oversampling is re-
quired. A well known oversampling architecture is the sigma delta, which
makes use of noise shaping to push noise outside the band of interest. It
was found that an oversampling rate of at least 12 times is required in
order to meet system requirements. A higher order loop �lter reduces
the amount of noise in the band of interest, but instability introduces
distortion components, making a �rst order architecture the preferable
choice. In order to achieve a high bandwidth, a continuous time con-
verter is the preferred choice. However, the required bandwidth is hard
to achieve. In current literature only implementations that reach only
halve the required bandwidth or lower are found. Another issue with
sigma delta converters are idle tones. It was found that these tones can
mostly be reduced by dithering, at the cost of additional noise. Because
of a limited bandwidth and occurrence of tones and distortion, the sigma
delta architecture is found to be less suited for a spectral analyzer.
Nyquist converters require dithering in order to reduce non-linearities
as result of quantization. When adding white noise to the input, a reso-
lution of at least 7 bit is required in order to achieve the system require-
ments for the spectrum analyzer. Several architectures are considered.
Flash requires ampli�cation of the input signal. Pipelined and successive
approximation register converters do not required high voltage swings
on the input. Pipelined converters require ampli�cation in each stage,
consuming both power and reducing the linearity. High speed SAR ar-
chitectures are possible in current CMOS technology, and have both a
very high e�ciency and have su�cient linearity when the components
are correctly dimensioned.
A SAR ADC implementation is proposed, based on an existing de-
sign. By adjusting capacitors and transistor sizes the requirements for
the SA are met. Linearity issues in the original design are resolved by a
lower input voltage swing. The �nal solution achieves the required 70dB
SFDR. The bandwidth requirement of 20MHz can be achieved by re-
designing the control logic. The DAC, sample and hold and comparator are already capable of reaching the required speed.


The unreasonable effectiveness of quantum computing is founded on coherent quantum superposition or entanglement which allows a large number of calculations to be performed simultaneously. This coherence is lost as a quantum system interacts with its environment. In the present paper the problem of finding quantum-error-correcting codes is transformed into one of finding additive codes over the field GF(4) which are self-orthogonal with respect to a certain trace inner product. Many new codes and new bounds are presented, as well as a table of upper and lower bounds on such codes of length up to 30 qubits.


Contractions in the geographic distributions of the American marten ( Martes americana ) and fi sher ( M. pennanti ) in eastern North America south of the St. Lawrence River between Colonial times (ca. 1650–1800) and the fi sher's recent range expansion (ca. 1930–present) are well documented, but causal factors in these range contractions have only partially been studied. Traditional explanations for range contractions by both species are forest clearing and unregulated trapping; little consideration has been given to alternative explanations. It has been hypothesized that deep snow limits the distribution of fi shers, and that high fi sher populations limit the distribution of martens. I assessed the potential contributions of these factors to observed range contractions for these species by evaluating expected patterns of change in their historical distributions since Colonial times. Using published data on the distribution of martens and fi shers in eastern North America, including early and contemporary fur-harvest records ( n = 60,702), I found that broad-scale changes in their geographic distributions in eastern North America were consistent with 3 of those expectations, and partially so with a 4th. I recognize that retrospective analyses cannot establish the relative importance of land clearing, unregulated trapping, and changing climatic conditions on observed range contractions; nevertheless, when historical data from eastern North America are viewed in the context of long-term climate warming and the results of recent ecological studies, they suggest that traditional arguments may only partially explain historical range contractions for both species. This study further suggests that under a warming climate, northern range boundaries for the fi sher will expand, and southern range boundaries for the American marten will continue to contract. 3050-1186-3pass-004-r06.indd 58 9/5/2012 2:45:08 PM This document may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without permission in writing from Cornell University Press Distribution Changes in Eastern North America 59


The geopolitical history of India's Northeast replicates the history of the struggle of the ethnic communities living along what is often referred to as a "troubled periphery." The fictionalised stories produced in this region, therefore, often betray the wounds inflicted on people living in this contested territory. As such, the history of this place and the story of its people lose their distinctions, allowing ethnographic study and the fluidity of personal narrative to converge and inform each other. Malsawmi Jacob's Zorami (2018) encapsulates this history of strife and contestation through emphasizing a double significance in the eponymous character symbolising both land and women's bodies in a conflict zone. While women very often become the target of state forces during conflict as seen in Zorami, this article aims to read the defilement of women's bodies by an invasive power as a war strategy to discipline communities and territories. Drawing from Susan Brownmiller's idea of rape as an attack on the body politics and Foucault's idea of disciplining the body and soul, this article conflates war with rape to argue that both these invasive weapons are symbolic of patriarchy on one hand, and the victim's body as a site of conquest on the other hand. Like the history of a territory is written and rewritten by successive conquering forces, the stories of atrocities on women also undergo a similar process. The article further underscores that the victim's body is denied agency as it goes through a process of erasure, where written records or memory of the perpetration exist only in the lived memory of the victim. For the contesting powers, however, such perpetration is only a matter of defeat or conquest, thereby precluding the physical traumatic experience. Taking a New Historicist approach, this article will substantiate its arguments by referring to archival materials, non-fictional works, and other historical sources available on Zorami.


Degradation of fossil fuels due to increasing world population, industrialization and urbanization give rise to develop highly efficient and compact thermal systems. Out of many renewable energy resources, solar energy is one of the conspicuous source of energy which can only supplying the increasing demand of energy. The absorption cycle has recently attracted much research attention because of the possibility of using waste thermal energy or renewable energies as the power source, thus reducing the demand for electricity supply. Policies need to established for more and more usage and applications of solar energy.


The main objective in this thesis is to investigate experimentally nonlinear dynamical behaviors of an external-cavity semiconductor laser (ECSL) when it is subjected to time- delayed optical feedback with various operating parameters. Systematic information concerning the dynamical regimes and the bifurcations between them will be introduced by bifurcation diagrams (BDs). With the help of BDs, we provide a global picture of the dynamical system and enables systematic investigations of the rich variety of dynamical behaviors observed in ECSLs. While obtaining several experimental BDs, we find that there are intermittent phenomena between dynamical regimes. When an ECSL is operated at low injection current slightly above threshold, we can observe intermittency between stationary operation and low frequency fluctuations. We find that some of those fluctuations in intermittency lead to extremely high pulsations. In addition, we investigate multistate intermittency, and intermittency between period-doubled dynamics and fully developed coherence collapse when the ECSL is operated at higher injection current. We investigate statistically characteristics of these intermittencies and compare with other types of intermittency observed in different dynamical systems. However, when ECSLs exhibit the continuous wave operation without interrupted by intermittent or irregular dynamics, we suggest a simple and compact ECSL application that is possible to detect displacement of the remote target with a few tens-of-nanometers resolution.


The processes that control climate in the tropics are poorly understood. We applied compound-specific hydrogen isotopes (δD) and the TEX86 (tetraether index of 86 carbon atoms) temperature proxy to sediment cores from Lake Tanganyika to independently reconstruct precipitation and temperature variations during the past 60,000 years. Tanganyika temperatures follow Northern Hemisphere insolation and indicate that warming in tropical southeast Africa during the last glacial termination began to increase ∼3000 years before atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. δD data show that this region experienced abrupt changes in hydrology coeval with orbital and millennial-scale events recorded in Northern Hemisphere monsoonal climate records. This implies that precipitation in tropical southeast Africa is more strongly controlled by changes in Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures and the winter Indian monsoon than by migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.


Pediculus capitis, or human head lice, infests people worldwide, although it is most often seen in school-aged children. The aim of this study was to estimate the incidence and the epidemiological factors related to Pediculus capitis infestation among the selected population. Materials and methods: A study conducted from January to March 2010 of 318 females and 282 males up to 13 years of age found a prevalence rate for Pediculus capitis infestation of 53 (16.8%) in the North Gaza Governorate. The study involved 600 children and used multistage, systematic random sampling. Results: Male children had a lower rate of infestation (1.7%) than females (15.1%). Children aged 8-9 years were the most frequently affected and there was a significant relationship found between head lice infestation and sex, age, family size, hair length, parents' education, bathing facilities in the home, and frequency of hair-washing; these factors indicate that head lice infestation depends on socioeconomic status and hygienic practices in the home of the family. The severity of infestation was also studied in terms of several different variables. Associated clinical manifestations included impetigo (9.8%), alopecia (5%), fever (3.1%), and scalp pruritus (10.3%). Conclusion: It is concluded that pediculosis constitutes a health problem among children in the North Gaza Governorate.


To improve re-use of time/frequency slots in a cellular radio system, it is desirable for the average interference levels seen by all users to be made approximately equal. We provide constructions based on orthogonal latin squares that guarantee different sets of users to interfere in successive slots. We illustrate how this may be combined with convolutional coding to provide large performance improvement with low delay in a slow hopped system.


The current dissertation contributes a comprehensive picture of the emergence and development of L2 Spanish past-time expression in a classroom setting (i.e., a large database corresponding to eight different proficiency levels from 1st semester to 7th/8th semester and a control group of near-native-speaker and native-speaker instructors). Such a comprehensive view was reached by the consideration of a plethora of past forms and the adoption of the most popular research traditions in the study of TA morphology: the concept-oriented, form-oriented, and the variationist research frameworks. According to the concept-oriented approach, our results showed that language complexity (i.e., embedding or syntactization) increased simultaneously with proficiency level, as did a number of non-morphological devices such as infinitive forms and verbal omission. The form-oriented approach in this dissertation yielded results that confirmed previous research: the present preceded the preterit as a default form, the preterit emerged as a default past form in the 1st semester prior to the imperfect, and both forms emerged and developed in combination with their prototypical meanings of perfectivity and imperfectivity, respectively. The other past forms (i.e., imperfect-progressive, preterit progressive, and the perfect) emerged after the preterit and imperfect but were minimally used even at higher levels, including the instructors' group, confirming their status as peripheral gram types (Dahl, 1985). An analysis of formal accuracy indicated that both the present indicative and the preterit followed a U-shaped curve of development, with the 3rd and 4th semester levels exhibiting the highest rates of inaccurate well-formedness (e.g., overregularization, paradigm overgeneralization, etc.), whereas the imperfect showed a decreasing trend toward fewer formal errors. Lastly, the results pertaining to the variationist approach indicated that acquisition of past morphology is driven by multiple factors (i.e., lexical aspect, discourse grounding, adverbial modification, aspectual meaning, temporal reference, text type, and frequency), which have an increasing effect with increasing proficiency. Specifically, the results of mixed-effects binomial logistic regressions showed that as the learners' verbal systems reorganized and restructured, past form usage rates became more native-like and past forms were increasingly predicted by a larger number of significant factors.


The paper addresses the complex task of initializing an on-line simulation to a current system state collected from an operating physical system. The paper begins by discussing the complications that arise when the system model employed by the controller and the planner are not the same. The benefits of using the same model for control and planning are then outlined. The paper then discusses a new simulation paradigm that models controller interactions and provides a single model that is capable of supporting planning and control functions. Next, issues arising from performing a distributed simulation of the distributed control architecture that is being employed to manage the system are addressed. The definition of the state for the distributed system is then discussed and the collection of the real-time state information from the elements of this distributed system is outlined. Finally, the procedure for initializing the distributed on-line simulation from the collected real-time state information is given.


A model of concessional bargaining among farmers explains the success (or lack thereof) of cooperative institutions in rural farm settings in the developing regions. Concessional bargaining in day-to-day interactions generates goodwill, which helps smoothen future dealings amongst farmers as well as with outside agents. In particular, we model the existence of goodwill amongst farmers as enhancing their ability to collectively bargain with an outside dealer that buys their farm produce. Results suggest that when dealing with each other, farmers offer higher concessions when the risk of loss or reversal in bargaining power is high; however, the level of concession is also influenced by the degree of reciprocity and parameters that affect bargaining surplus. Findings provide further insights over the success of cooperative institutions in rural farm settings where inter-farmer goodwill dynamics determines the cooperative's bargaining outcomes. Specifically, when farmers generously reciprocate each other's goodwill gestures, it leads to better outcomes through increasing their cooperative reservation price. In contrast, when the degree of reciprocity is lower, or when the risk of bargaining power switching is higher, farmers extract more surplus from other farmers, and this also lowers the cooperative's bargaining outcomes and makes the cooperative arrangement unviable in the long term.


This research was conducted to prepare landslide susceptibility zonation (LSZ) map for the Dez-e-Ouliabasin using logistic regression model. For this purpose, at first, the most important factors affecting land sliding including slope, aspect, elevation, precipitation, the distance from road, the distance from fault, the distance from drainage, land use, and lithology were determined. Then, thelandslide inventory mapwas preparedby using field digital checks, GPS and satellite images. In the next step, the landslide susceptibility zonation mapwas preparedby usinglogistic regression method. According to the obtained coefficients for LSZ maps, the most important factor in the study area was elevation layer. The Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) index value was calculated (0.92), which indicates a very high level and suggests thatthe observed mass movements have a strong relationship with the logistic regression model.


Anatomy is one of the most fundamental sciences related to medical science. Specialized vocabularies related to this science is often made by using the vocabularies available in Greek and Latin languages. Interestingly, many of these vocabularies have the same roots with the vocabularies in Persian language. The current Persian language is a continuation of the Middle Persian language, which is the continuation of Old Persian language itself, and the Old Persian along with the other Iranian Languages and ancient languages of India and the ancient European languages, all of which are rooted in the more ancient language called Indo-European languages. In the present research, seventeen fundamental words and their roots have been investigated, which we can see their association with the Persian language. The words used in this Research include the root of the names of body members such as the head, brain, eye, mouth, etc.; as the vocabularies used for composing specialized vocabularies, which will be considered here.


We directly monitor exciton propagation in freestanding and SiO2-supported WS2 monolayers through spatially- and time-resolved micro-photoluminescence under ambient conditions. We find highly nonlinear behavior with characteristic, qualitative changes in the spatial profiles of the exciton emission and an effective diffusion coefficient increasing from 0.3 cm2/s to more than 30 cm2/s, depending on the injected exciton density. Solving the diffusion equation while accounting for Auger recombination allows us to identify and quantitatively understand the main origin of the increase in the observed diffusion coefficient. At elevated excitation densities, the initial Gaussian distribution of the excitons evolves into long-lived halo shapes with micrometer-scale diameter, indicating additional memory effects in the exciton dynamics.


Despite an exercise electrocardiogram (ECG) positive for ischemia by established criteria, many patients referred for coronary angiography to evaluate chest pain are found to have angiographically normal coronary arteries (NCA). Exercise ECG were analyzed from 27 patients with chest pain and angiographically NCA and 28 patients with chest pain and coronary artery disease (CAD) using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. We derived the following logistic model for the logit probability of CAD: 3 + SEX x 4 - METs x 0.7 + STDV5 x 0.8, where SEX = 0 for female and SEX = 1 for male, METs = maximal estimated work load (metabolic equivalents) and STDV5 = horizontal or downsloping ST depression (mm) in V5. A logit probability > or = 0 identified CAD with a sensitivity of 79% and a specificity of 89%. The model correctly identified 28/36 (78%) patients with CAD, and 7/10 (70%) patients with NCA (correct diagnosis 76%; p < 0.02) in a separate random group of 46 unselected patients with positive exercise tests undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography.


In the perception of an audiovisual scenario and context our ears are informed by our eyes, just as our eyes can be redirected by our ears. Perception becomes the grounds on which film artists manipulate sonic/visual relationships to create meaning beyond the surface of the narrative. As tools and techniques of electroacoustic sound become more available, timbre plays an increasing role across all segments of our sonic culture-especially in film. As a result, the irresistible synchretic weld between sound and image (Chion) has reached a sophistication exploited by a growing number of filmmakers. Diegetic attack/release transients initiate morphological development into an ever-increasing abstraction of sonic material. Diegetic sound is abstracted into non-diegetic usage and vise-versa: the line between diagetic/non-diegetic disintegrates. Abstract diegesis and abstracted non-diegesis bound a continuum on which sound opens up deeper potentialities in the expression of film. The resultant perceptual vacuum, filled by a this growing language of electroacoustics in film will be discussed with examples from the film repertoire.


This paper presents a novel design concept for spintronic nanoelectronics that emphasizes a seamless integration of spin-based memory and logic circuits. The building blocks are magneto-logic gates [1] based on a hybrid graphene/ferromagnet material system. We use network search engines as a technology demonstration vehicle and present a spin-based circuit design with smaller area, faster speed, and lower energy consumption than the stateof-the-art CMOS counterparts. This design can also be applied in applications such as data compression [2]–[5], coding [6] and image recognition [7], [8]. In the proposed scheme, over 100 spin-based logic operations are carried out before any need for a spin-charge conversion. Consequently, supporting CMOS electronics requires little power consumption. The spintronic-CMOS integrated system can be implemented on a single 3-D chip. These nonvolatile logic circuits hold potential for a paradigm shift in computing applications.


The article is devoted to an in-depth study of the modern factors and trends of the world trade. It provides an overview of the economic literature and development of theoretical frameworks of global trade factors. Three main factors are identified in the article, namely: (1) globalization, (2) computer revolution and ICT-technologies, and (3) China's opening to the world. The tendencies of the international trade in the past three decades are analyzed. The main trends of world economy and trade are discussed. There is particular emphasis on the world trade reduction causes in 2015 and 2016. Special attention is paid to the changes in the US and China bilateral trade. GDP growth slowed down in both the U.S. and China during three years of their trade war. Nevertheless, despite this relative decline the United States and China remain the world's largest importers and exporters of goods and services and the main trading partners. USA accounts for 8.8 percent of global goods exports in 2018 (second place after China with 13.1 percent) and 13.5 percent of global imports (first place; China is 11.0 percent). The author's conclusion is as follow: the proportion between the world trade and global GDP that has been established by now should be considered as normal and optimal in terms of the global reproduction system's functioning.


The endogenous human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene is repressed in somatic cells. To study the mechanisms of its repression, we developed a strategy of retrovirus-directed Cre recombinase-mediated BAC targeting, or RMBT, to generate single-copy integrations of BAC at pre-engineered chromosomal sites. This technique involved retroviral transduction of acceptor loci, containing an HSV thymidine kinase marker, and subsequent integration of BAC constructs into the acceptor sites, utilizing the loxP and lox511 sites present in the vector backbones. The BAC reporter, with a Renilla luciferase cassette inserted downstream of the hTERT promoter, was retrofitted with a puromycin marker. Through puromycin selection and ganciclovir counter-selection, a targeting efficiency of over 50% was achieved. We demonstrated that the activity and chromatin structures of the hTERT promoter in chromosomally integrated BAC reporter recapitulated its endogenous counterpart of the host cells. Therefore, we have established a genetically amendable platform to study chromatin and epigenetic regulation of the hTERT gene. The highly efficient and versatile RMBT technique has general applicability for studying largely unexplored chromatin-dependent mechanisms of promoter regulation of various genes.


In the story Top of the Table, Cat and Tiger are disappointed when their football match might be called off. When they begin to argue, Ant comes up with a micro-way for them to be able to resolve their differences. In Power Racers, Max, Cat, Ant and Tiger go head to head with a racing car game found in Tiger's garage. Tiger challenges Max's leadership in I'm the Leader!, but he soon realizes that being a leader is not as easy as a job as he thinks...especially when Cat gets into trouble. Find out about games played through the ages, from ancient Egypt to virtual reality, in the non-fiction book Game On!. Then read about some amazing record breakers, including snake bathing and worm charming, in An A-Z of Record Breakers. Each book comes with notes for parents that highlight ambitious words or concepts in the books, prompt questions and suggest a range of follow-up activities. The Head to Head Guided Reading Notes provide step-by-step guided reading support for each book in the Head to Head cluster, together with guidance about comprehension, assessment for learning and vocabulary enrichment. Hands-on follow-up activities, plenty of writing opportunities and cross-curricular links are also provided for each book.


Random approximations for a deterministic optimization problem occur in many situations. Unknown parameters or probability distributions in real-life decision problems are replaced with estimates; more and more solution algorithms use random steps. Moreover, many estimation procedures in statistics are random optimization problems, which can be supplemented with a deterministic limit problem.
Confidence sets for solution sets and level sets of a deterministic decision problems can be derived on the base of suitable uniform concentration-of-measure results for sequences of random functions. In the present paper approximations with kernel density estimators are considered and concentration-of-measure results for these estimators are provided. The results are employed to derive confience sets for modes and high density regions of probability distributions. Furthermore, applications in stochastic programming are investigated. It is shown how the assertions can be utilized to derive uniform concentration-of-measure results for chance constraints and functions which are expectations.


Generic linkage is used to compute a prime ideal such that the radical of the initial ideal of the prime ideal is equal to the radical of a given codimension two monomial ideal that has a Cohen-Macaulay quotient ring.


Gliomas with mutant p53 occurring in 30% of glioma patients exhibit therapeutic resistance and poor outcomes. In this study, we identify a novel mechanism through which mutant p53 drives cancer cell survival and malignant growth. We documented overexpression of the zinc finger protein ZDHHC5 in glioma compared with normal brain tissue and that this event tightly correlated with p53 mutations. Mechanistic investigations revealed that mutant p53 transcriptionally upregulated ZDHHC5 along with the nuclear transcription factor NF-Y. These events contributed to the development of glioma by promoting the self-renewal capacity and tumorigenicity of glioma stem-like cells, by altering the palmitoylation and phosphorylation status of the tumor suppressor EZH2. Taken together, our work highlighted ZDHHC5 as a candidate therapeutic target for management of p53-mutated gliomas. Cancer Res; 77(18); 4998–5010. 2017 AACR.


Medicaid expansion undertaken through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is already producing major changes in insurance coverage and access to care, but its potential impacts on the labor market are also important policy considerations. Economic theory suggests that receipt of Medicaid might benefit workers who would no longer be tied to specific jobs to receive health insurance (known as job lock), giving them more flexibility in their choice of employment, or might encourage low-income workers to reduce their hours or stop working if they no longer need employment-based insurance. Evidence on labor changes after previous Medicaid expansions is mixed. To view the impact of the ACA on current labor market participation, we analyzed labor-market participation among adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, comparing Medicaid expansion and nonexpansion states and Medicaid-eligible and -ineligible groups, for the pre-ACA period (2005-13) and the first fifteen months of the expansion (January 2014-March 2015). Medicaid expansion did not result in significant changes in employment, job switching, or full- versus part-time status. While we cannot exclude the possibility of small changes in these outcomes, our findings rule out the large change found in one influential pre-ACA study; furthermore, they suggest that the Medicaid expansion has had limited impact on labor-market outcomes thus far.


Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a common swine pathogen but also poses a threat to human health in causing meningitis and severe cases of streptococcal toxic shock-like syndrome (STSLS). Therefore, it is crucial to understand how S. suis interacts with the host immune system during bacteremia. As S. suis has the ability to introduce d-alanine into its lipoteichoic acids (LTAs), we investigated the working hypothesis that cell wall modification by LTA d-alanylation influences the interaction of S. suis with porcine blood immune cells. We created an isogenic mutant of S. suis strain 10 by in-frame deletion of the d-alanine d-alanyl carrier ligase (DltA). d-alanylation of LTAs was associated with reduced phagocytosis of S. suis by porcine granulocytes, reduced deposition of complement factor C3 on the bacterial surface, increased hydrophobicity of streptococci, and increased resistance to cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs). At the same time, survival of S. suis was not significantly increased by LTA d-alanylation in whole blood of conventional piglets with specific IgG. However, we found a distinct cytokine pattern as IL-1β but not tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels were significantly reduced in blood infected with the ΔdltA mutant. In contrast to TNF-α, activation and secretion of IL-1β are inflammasome-dependent, suggesting a possible influence of LTA d-alanylation on inflammasome regulation. Especially in the absence of specific antibodies, the association of S. suis with porcine monocytes was reduced by d-alanylation of its LTAs. This dltA-dependent phenotype was also observed with a non-encapsulated dltA double mutant indicating that it is independent of capsular polysaccharides. High antibody levels caused high levels of S. suis—monocyte—association followed by inflammatory cell death and strong production of both IL-1β and TNF-α, while the influence of LTA d-alanylation of the streptococci became less visible. In summary, the results of this study expand previous findings on d-alanylation of LTAs in S. suis and suggest that this pathogen specifically modulates association with blood leukocytes through this modification of its surface.


The superconducting spoke cavity has been proposed to accelerate the proton in the low energy section of high power proton linac for an Accelerator Driven Sub-critical System (ADS). Considering that the High Order Modes (HOMs) in the superconducting cavity have far reaching influence on power dissipation and beam stability, the analysis of HOMs of the spoke cavity is needed. In this paper, we put emphasis on the analysis of HOMs of the spoke cavity and the HOMs coupler design.


One of the many issues currently confronting the Church of England
is the role of music in worship. It is not a new debate, but has been
brought into sharper focus in recent years in the wake of liturgical
change.
After examining the fundamental issues of the debate, the author
considers them in the context of the present day. Other current
matters of concern will also be discussed. The effects of liturgical
change are then considered.
The discussion is then widened to include:
- a review of current hymnals and psalters;
- a survey of the courses and qualifications in church music
available in Great Britain;
- three case studies demonstrating the problems that can arise
when clergy and church musicians are in conflict;
- a review of surveys in church music undertaken since 1950.
The main work comprises a detailed survey by questionnaire to the
priest-in-charge and organist at almost half the churches in a large
diocese (that of Oxford). This yields an overall picture of:
- respondents' personal backgrounds and general attitudes;
- respondents' perceptions, both objective and subjective, of the
situation at their church, and of each other.
From these varied strands are drawn certain conclusions for
improving clergy-organist relationships, and suggestions for further
research in the subject.


Hedgers and a risk-neutral informed trader choose between a broker who takes a position in the asset (a capital broker) and a broker who does not (a discount broker). The capital broker exploits order flow information to mimic informed trades and offset hedgers' trades, reducing informed profits and hedgers' utility. But the capital broker has a larger capacity to execute hedgers' orders, increasing market depth. In equilibrium, hedgers choose the broker with the lowest price per unit of utility while the informed trader chooses the broker with the lowest price per unit of the informed order flow. However, the chosen broker may not be the one with whom market depth and net order flow are higher. ; We relate traders' broker choice to market structure and show that the capital broker benefits customers relatively more in developed securities--i.e., markets where there are many hedgers with low levels of risk aversion and endowment risk, where the information precision is high and the asset volatility is low. The discount broker benefits customers relatively more in volatile markets where there are few hedgers with high levels of risk aversion and endowment volatility, and where information is imprecise. We derive testable predictions from our model and successfully explain up to 70 percent of the daily variation in the number of discount brokers and capital brokers (or, dual traders in futures markets).


In this paper, we present a new design method of allpass digital filters with equiripple group delay response. This method is based on solving a least squares solution iteratively. At each iteration, the desired group delay response is transformed so as to have equiripple error. By this method, an equiripple solution is obtained very quickly with less computational complexity.


Resistance to phosphine in insect pests of stored grain is a serious problem and there is a world-wide need for the development of sustainable resistance management strategies. Here we introduce results from a new mathematical model of resistance development that includes all life stages, rates of oviposition, natural mortality and mortality under fumigation in relation to resistant genotype. The example we discuss is phosphine resistance in the lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica where resistance is known to be controlled by two major genes that are close to recessive in expression, so that resistance is not fully expressed unless both resistant genes are present and homozygous. An example of a scenario where this model could be used concerns the repeat application of phosphine in a situation where control of all life stages has not been achieved. We determined a critical interval within which a second fumigation must occur to stop a rapidly recovering population of resistant genotypes. Such scenarios can be readily investigated using this approach to provide the grain industry with resistance management options and strategies. Keywords : Rhyzopertha dominica , Population dynamics, Stored wheat, Phosphine fumigant, Low concentration


Bottom-line mentality (BLM) describes a one-dimensional frame of mind revolving around bottom-line pursuits, which pervades most organizations today. But how does working with high BLM supervisors affect employees' functioning both at work and at home? Guided by this question, we draw on social information processing theory and insights from the person–environment fit literature for a nuanced understanding of the effects of supervisor BLM. Using data from two field studies conducted in China (340 employees) and the United States (174 employees), we find that supervisor BLM increases employee perceptions of a competitive climate that ultimately increases employee thriving at work and insomnia outside work. We further find that employee trait competitiveness moderated the indirect relationship (via perceived competitive climate) between supervisor BLM and thriving at work but not for insomnia; employees high (versus low) in trait competitiveness were found to thrive at work under the competitive climate stimulated by high BLM supervisors. Taken together, our findings highlight the need for organizational leaders to be cautious of being too narrowly focused on bottom-line outcomes and aware of the wider implications of BLM on different domains of their employees' lives.


In recent years, porous bioactive glass micro/nanospheres (PBGSs) have emerged as attractive biomaterials in various biomedical applications where such engineered particles provide suitable functions, from tissue engineering to drug delivery. The design and synthesis of PBGSs with controllable particle size and pore structure are critical for such applications. PBGSs have been successfully synthesized using melt-quenching and sol-gel based methods. The morphology of PBGSs is controllable by tuning the processing parameters and precursor characteristics during the synthesis. In this comprehensive review on PBGSs, we first overview the synthesis approaches for PBGSs, including both melt-quenching and sol-gel based strategies. Sol-gel processing is the primary technology used to produce PBGSs, allowing for control over the chemical compositions and pore structure of particles. Particularly, the influence of pore-forming templates on the morphology of PBGSs is highlighted. Recent progress in the sol-gel synthesis of PBGSs with sophisticated pore structures (e.g., hollow mesoporous, dendritic fibrous mesoporous) is also covered. The challenges regarding the control of particle morphology, including the influence of metal ion precursors and pore expansion, are discussed in detail. We also highlight the recent achievements of PBGSs in a number of biomedical applications, including bone tissue regeneration, wound healing, therapeutic agent delivery, bioimaging, and cancer therapy. Finally, we conclude with our perspectives on the directions of future research based on identified challenges and potential new developments and applications of PBGSs.


The traditional workflow in a high performance computing (HPC) simulation is to prepare the application's input, run the simulation, and visualize the simulation results in a post-processing step. By performing these steps simultaneously, significant development and testing time can be saved. Computational steering provides the capability to direct or re-direct the progress of an HPC application at run-time by modifying application-defined control parameters using a steering client application. In this paper, we discuss a computational steering framework for the Blue Gene/Q system that provides an innovative solution and an easy-to-use platform, which allows user(s) to connect to and interact with running application(s) in real-time from native desktop steering applications and/or mobile devices. This framework uses RealityGrid as the underlying steering library and adds several enhancements to the library to enable steering support for the Blue Gene systems. The Blue Gene supercomputer presents special challenges for remote access because the compute nodes reside on private networks. This paper discusses an implemented solution for remote steering of simulation applications running on a high performance computer system and describes the implementation challenges.


Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are regarded as among the most innovative information technology products developed over the past two decades. Thus, they have become the backbone of management information systems in the organizations that have implemented them. The difficulties associated with their high failure rate, however, have been the subject of extensive studies. To expand on this knowledge, this study has two research objectives: to examine the relationship between corporate governance structures and implementation results and to investigate whether implementation outcomes vary by country. This study focuses on the project steering committee's involvement, internal auditors' participation, and the change management plan implementation. The results demonstrate that steering committee involvement is a primary factor that influenced the success of ERP implementation; and that institutional factors in country of deployment are important determinants of ERP project outcome.


Semen cryopreservation is an import toll for reproductive management of fish species, which increasingly it is applied in the commercial production of fish. Cryopreservation need of the cryoprotectors agents (CPAs) that may be a complication factor in DNA extraction that can affect the quality of isolated DNA. Genomic DNA constitutes the total genetic information of an organism and it is used for a many finalities, such as to determine gene structure or to detect the presence or absence of genes of interest. However, simple questions to be analyzed become slow to be answered due to troubles in the execution of basic techniques like DNA isolation. This article describes a protocol for the isolation of genomic DNA from fresh and cryopreserved semen.


(P, x) vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) data for the (O 2 + C 3 H 8 ) binary system were measured using a "static-analytic" method coupled to a gas chromatograph analysis at temperatures of (110.22, 120.13, 130.58, and 139.95) K. Parameters of a proposed thermodynamic profile were adjusted on the basis of experimental VLE data determined in this work, allowing a complete isothermal phase diagram for this hazardous system to be obtained. The vapor-liquid-liquid equilibrium (VLLE) thermodynamic behavior was predicted by modeling and then confirmed by visual observations. On the basis of this work, solubility values of propane in liquid oxygen can be deduced for both the propane-lean and propane-rich liquid phases at temperatures above the melting temperature of pure propane. The device allowing these data to be measured for such a hazardous mixture is also presented, as are the accuracies of the measurements.


PURPOSE
To determine whether (a) expressive grammar intervention facilitated social and emergent literacy outcomes better than no intervention and (b) expressive grammar gains and/or initial expressive grammar level predicted social and emergent literacy outcomes.

METHOD
This investigation was a follow-up to a recently published study exploring the impact of grammatical language intervention on expressive grammar outcomes for preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Twenty-two 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers received ten 20-minute intervention sessions addressing primary deficits in grammatical morphology. Participants' social and emergent literacy skills were not targeted. Twelve children awaiting intervention, chosen from the same selection pool as intervention participants, served as controls. Blind assessments of social and emergent literacy outcomes were completed at preintervention, immediately postintervention, and 3 months postintervention.

RESULTS
Only intervention participants experienced significant gains in social and emergent literacy outcomes and maintained these gains for 3 months postintervention. Expressive grammar gains was the only single significant predictor of these outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS
Expressive grammar intervention was associated with broad impacts on social and emergent literacy outcomes that were maintained beyond the intervention period. Gains in expressive grammar predicted these outcomes. Social and emergent literacy skills were positively affected for preschoolers with SLI during a grammatical language intervention program.


Virtual reality interfaces can immerse users into virtual environments from an impressive array of application fields, including entertainment, education, design, and navigation. However, history teaches us that no matter how rich the content is from these applications, it remains out of reach for users without a physical way to interact with it. Multimodal interfaces give users a way to interact with the virtual environment (VE) using more than one complementary modality. Masterpiece (which is short for multimodal authoring tool with similar technologies from European research utilizing a physical interface in an enhanced collaborative environment) is a platform for a multimodal natural interface. We integrated Masterpiece into a new authoring tool for designers and engineers that uses 3D search capabilities to access original database content, supporting natural human-computer interaction


The algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) scheme for the polarization propagator provides a series of ab initio methods for the calculation of excited states based on perturbation theory. In recent years, the second‐order ADC(2) scheme has attracted attention in the computational chemistry community because of its reliable accuracy and reasonable computational effort in the calculation of predominantly singly excited states. Owing to their size‐consistency, ADC methods are suited for the investigation of large molecules. In addition, their Hermitian structure and the availability of the intermediate state representation (ISR) allow for straightforward computation of excited‐state properties. Recently, an efficient implementation of ADC(3) has been reported, and its high accuracy for typical valence excited states of organic chromophores has been demonstrated. In this review, the origin of ADC‐based excited‐state methods in propagator theory is described, and an intuitive route for the derivation of algebraic expressions via the ISR is outlined and comparison to other excited‐state methods is made. Existing computer codes and implemented ADC variants are reviewed, but most importantly the accuracy and limits of different ADC schemes are critically examined. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2015, 5:82–95. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1206


Wellbore instability in the Zubair oil field is the main problem in drilling operations. This instability of the wellbore causes several problems including poor hole cleaning, tight hole, stuck pipe, lost circulation, bad cementing, and well kick or blowout that lead to an increase in the nonproductive time. This article aims to set up an appropriate drilling plan that mitigates these instability issues for further well drilling. Field data from six wells (logs, drilling and geological reports as well as offset well tests) were used to build a one-dimensional mechanical earth modeling for each well. The constructed model of selected wells was combined to construct the three-dimensional mechanical earth modeling, which can enable the distribution of all estimated geomechanical parameters along the field of interest. The results revealed that the strip slip and normal faults are the common fault regimes in Zubair oil field located in carbonate rocks and clastic rocks, respectively. The Mogi-Coulomb failure criterion is conservative in determining the minimum and maximum mud weight, and it agrees with the determination of real failure from the image/and caliper logs. The best direction to drill the deviated and horizontal wells was towards the minimum horizontal stress with 140o azimuth from the north. The recommended ranges of mud weight along the sections of 12.25" and 8.5" of the highly deviated and horizontal wells were (between 1.46 and 1.58 gm/cm3) without any expected wellbore instability problems. Based on the outcomes of 3D model, it is expected that the wellbore instability issues are most likely to occur in the domes of; Shauiba and Hamma and in formations; Tanuma, Khasib and Nahr-Umr. In contrast the less wellbore instability problems are expected to expose in Rafidya dome. The study presents an appropriate mud window that can be used to design to minimize the wellbore stability problems when new wells will be drilled in Zubair oil field.


The application of sociological theories in clinical practice introduces a broader dimension to the existing therapeutic approaches available to the mental health practitioner. Rather than deal with a presenting problem or dysfunction by focusing solely on the presenting symptoms, or delving exclusively into a client's internal psyche, applying social theory in a clinical manner adds the element of interpersonal relationships and the connection of the client with his or her social world. This article will describe a therapeutic approach to treating clients and couples in an unconsummated relationship who present with a specific sexual dysfunction or problem that is commonly addressed with sex counseling or sex therapy. Drawing upon sociological micro theories of exchange and symbolic interactionism, this approach combines classic medical, cognitive and behavioral interventions with a process of discovery that leads to an understanding of the social context out of which the problems emerged and are maintained.


BACKGROUND
High-dose chemotherapy in combination with peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation is widely used in the treatment of several malignancies. The use of high-dose chemotherapy can be complicated by the occurrence of severe and sometimes life threatening toxicity. A wide interpatient variability in toxicity is encountered, which may be caused by variability in the pharmacokinetics of the agents. The aim of this study was to establish the pharmacokinetics of cyclophosphamide, thiotepa, carboplatin and all relevant metabolites in a widely used high-dose combination and to study possible relationships between the pharmacokinetics and toxicity.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Blood samples were collected from patients treated with modifications of the CTCb regimen consisting of cyclophosphamide (1000-1500 mg/m2/day), carboplatin (265-400 mg/m2/day) and thiotepa (80-120 mg/m2/day) as short infusions for four consecutive days. Thiotepa and its main metabolite tepa, ultrafilterable carboplatin, cyclophosphamide and its activated metabolites 4-hydroxycyclophosphamide and phosphoramide mustard were determined. Pharmacokinetics were assessed with the use of population pharmacokinetic analyses. Relationship between the area under the concentration-time curves (AUCs) of these compounds and toxicity were tested.

RESULTS
A total of 46 patients (83 courses of chemotherapy) was included. Relationships were identified between elevation of transaminases and the thiotepa and tepa AUC, mucositis and the tepa AUC and ototoxicity and the carboplatin AUC. A strong trend between the 4-hydroxycyclophosphamide AUC and veno-occlusive disease was found.

CONCLUSIONS
The complex pharmacokinetics of the different agents and their metabolites have been established and several relationships between the pharmacokinetics and toxicity were identified. These findings may form the basis for further treatment optimisation and dose-individualisation in this high-dose chemotherapy combination.


This paper presents a nonlinear controller for hovering flight and landing control on a moving platform for a Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) by exploiting the measurement of the average optical flow. The VTOL vehicle is assumed to be equipped with a minimum sensor suite (a camera and an IMU), manoeuvring over a textured flat target plane. Two different tasks are considered in this paper: the first one concerns the stability of hovering flight and the second one concerns regulation of automatic vertical landing on a moving platform using the divergent optical flow as feedback information. Simulation and experimental results performed on a quad-rotor UAV demonstrate the performance of the proposed control strategy.


Permafrost is a subsurface phenomenon and cannot be directly observed by means of remote sensing. However, surface processes, straightly related to the dynamics of permafrost, can be detected by satellites. SAR interferometry (InSAR) is a useful tool to detect vertical surface displacements linked to ground thawing and freezing. One of the main obstacles for InSAR technique is the loss of coherence (or interferometric correlation) which is defined as the complex cross-correlation coefficient of the SAR image pair and reflects the presence or absence of the changes in radar backscatter properties of the surface. Such changes can be caused by snow cover, vegetation growth, rapid land movements like thaw slumps and landslides, or soil moisture changes. Image pairs with little correlation (correlation coefficient close to zero) cannot be used for a displacement analysis, but, if interpreted correctly, the weak correlation is evidence for surface changes.
Based on a unique TerraSAR-X dataset at the study site the coherence maps of the central Lena River Delta were created with a spatial resolution of up to 3 m. The high temporal resolution of the dataset allows to detect changes of the land surface on different time scales ranging from 11 days to months. The spatial and temporal variability of the coherence is investigated together with an existing land surface classifications and meteorological data.
In addition, different target regions in the central Lena River Delta are equipped with manual and automatic ground truth stations for measuring close-to-surface changes such as thaw subsidence, surface soil moisture, and surface temperature.
This project is performed in cooperation with the German Space Agency (DLR).


Background Suturing is an integral part of medical training but exposure can be limited. Objectives Quality assessment of the effectiveness of 2nd year medical student suture workshop. Medical students underwent a training workshop during their clerkship introduction. A questionnaire was then created to assess the perceived usefulness of such a workshop Methods The members of the 2012 med 2 class were surveyed following completion of the suture workshop. The suture workshop consisted of both didactic as well as practical sessions. The surveys contained multiple choice and open ended questions. Results The surveys had a 90% response rate. Over 75% of clerks who attended the workshop had some prior suture experience. All of the clinical clerks reported the workshop to be useful. 84% of clerks described their level of comfort in suturing prior to the workshop as less than fair. Approximately 38% of clerks thought the didactic session was useful. 86% of clerks found the practice suture boards used during the workshop to be very useful. . All clerks found the practical portion of the workshop useful. Following the workshop more than 91% of clerks described their comfort level, with any type of suturing, as greater than fair. 100% of clerks stated they would like a refresher workshop. Conclusions Medical students determine a subjective improvement in suture skills following suture workshops. Clinical clerks appear to prefer a practical approach to suture instruction as compared with didactic sessions.


In Ethiopia women traditionally enjoy little independent decision making on most individual and family issues including the option to choose whether to give birth in a health facility or seek the assistance of a trained provider. Harmful traditional practices including female genital cutting early marriage and childbearing gender-based violence forced marriage wife inheritance and a high value for large families all impose huge negative impacts on womens Reproductive Health (RH). Today Ethiopia has the second largest population in sub-Sahara Africa and the average woman bears 5.4 children placing an insupportable burden on families communities and a country facing chronic food shortages and environmental degradation. High maternal and infant mortality rates are inevitable results. Since 2003 the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has leveraged its support to ongoing RH and Family Planning (FP) Pathfinder projects funded by USAID. Two such projects have focused specifically on the empowerment of women and girls in Ethiopia improving the social religious and economic climate for females to be able to shake off damaging Harmful Traditional Practices (HTPs) and begin assuming responsibility for and control of their reproductive lives. Focusing in the regions of Tigray Amhara Oromia and SNNRP where we have worked for many years Pathfinder has challenged traditions through trainings workshops public meetings dramas and long hours of collaboration with national regional and community leaders as well as financial contributions in the form of scholarships to keep girls in school. The beliefs and behaviors of community and religious leaders husbands and wives adolescent girls and boys have been examined and challenged in a spirit of understanding and respect for peoples traditions as well as a comparable respect for the power of knowledge to bring about changes in ideas and behavior. (excerpt)


A viscoelastic model is developed to describe the mechanical response of fiber-reinforced elastomeric composites at large deformation. A continuum approach is used to model the macroscopic mechanical behavior of elastomeric materials reinforced with unidirectional fibers, in which the resin and fibers are regarded as a single homogenized anisotropic material. The anisotropic viscoelastic constitutive model is developed considering transient reversible network theory. An efficient computational algorithm based on micromechanical modeling is proposed to relate the material parameters of constitutive model to the mechanical properties of composite constituents at finite strain. The microstructure is identified by a representative volume element (RVE) and it is subjected to large deformation with considering the conformity of opposite boundaries. The material parameters of the viscoelastic constitutive law are determined based on the response of heterogeneous microstructure which is examined under different loading conditions.


Last year's major climatic changes are observed as much in the Greek area as in the wider global one, with severe effects to peoples' activities, their work and their welfare. The extremely heavy rainfalls after long dry periods and the unusual temperature variation in short periods of time are phenomena that appear more and more frequently. At the same time, a large number of landslides are recorded as much in the national as in the provincial road networks of the country, especially after the activity of the aforesaid phenomena. That is because the water, as the main factor, is occupying the empty spaces affecting the stabilization of a mass. In this paper we manage to determine firstly the existence of the unusual level and frequency of precipitation and temperature variation during November and December of 2002 and 2003 using climatic data for the area from previous years. Then, from a number of landslides which occurred in a provincial road in Drama, in Northern Greece, we examine under which circumstances this activity took place, also taking into account the technical standards of the road, the geomorphology and the vegetation of the area. Finally, we aim to define the potential correlation between the climatic phenomena and the landslides and the level of importance of each analyzed variable.


We provide the first ever characterization of the primary modes of ionospheric Hall and Pedersen conductance variability as empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs). These are derived from six satellite years of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) particle data acquired during the rise of solar cycles 22 and 24. The 60 million DMSP spectra were each processed through the Global Airlglow Model. Ours is the first large‐scale analysis of ionospheric conductances completely free of assumption of the incident electron energy spectra. We show that the mean patterns and first four EOFs capture ∼50.1 and 52.9% of the total Pedersen and Hall conductance variabilities, respectively. The mean patterns and first EOFs are consistent with typical diffuse auroral oval structures and quiet time strengthening/weakening of the mean pattern. The second and third EOFs show major disturbance features of magnetosphere‐ionosphere (MI) interactions: geomagnetically induced auroral zone expansion in EOF2 and the auroral substorm current wedge in EOF3. The fourth EOFs suggest diminished conductance associated with ionospheric substorm recovery mode. We identify the most important modes of ionospheric conductance variability. Our results will allow improved modeling of the background error covariance needed for ionospheric assimilative procedures and improved understanding of MI coupling processes.


The increasing significance of international trade and diplomatic relations has created a new definition to the role and development of state economy through embassies. States are recognizing the growing importance of commercial and economic diplomatic activities.
In the changing role of diplomacy from a traditional approach to a significant rising of other influential international and domestic actors, the paper analyses new and modern tools of investment promotion and the role of embassies. In addition, we question the role of embassies as state negotiation and promotion agencies, as well as what are the procedures to bolstering economic diplomacy. The current researches are focused on the perspective of historical development and the increasing need for economic diplomacy in the encroaching globalization era. At the end, the paper concentrates on a specific example of the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Republic of Turkey as an analyses of the role of embassies and diplomats.
The paper reaches a conclusion that the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Republic of Turkey is not in line with theories of the role of embassies in terms of economic diplomacy. In addition, there is a significant lack of qualified personal, the lack of cooperation with the MFA and a general difficult legal and political situation in BiH with issues concerning internal sovereignty, thus discrediting FDI and limiting the government influence and authority.
Key Words: Economic diplomacy, globalization, embassy, investment;


PURPOSE
To assess the ability of [(18)F]FDG-PET, CT/MRI and serum tumor marker (TM) for the early prediction of response in patients with metastatic germ cell tumors (GCT) undergoing salvage high-dose chemotherapy (HD-CTX).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Before commencement of HD-CTX, 19 patients with metastases from GCT were evaluated with [(18)F]FDG-PET, CT or MRI and TM after 2-3 cycles of induction chemotherapy and the results compared with those of the baseline examinations. PET was analyzed visually and quantitatively by calculating the standard uptake value (SUV). CT or MRI was evaluated for changes in tumor size (progressive disease/stable disease PD/SD = viable lesion; partial remission/complete remission PR/CR = nonviable lesion), density or signal intensity, homogeneity and contrast enhancement. For the prognosis, the worse case, i.e., the most vital lesion detected in a patient, was considered. The reference standard was the result of the histology after resection of any residual masses (N = 10) and/or the clinical-radiological follow-up for at least 6 months after completion of the treatment (N = 9).

RESULTS
Six of nineteen patients (32 %) remained progression-free for over 6 months following treatment, whereas 13 (68 %) progressed. The outcome of HD-CTX was correctly predicted by PET, CT and TM in 89 %, 67 % and 88 %, respectively. In 5 of 6 patients with successful HD-CTX, PET was negative (mean SUV = 1.8), with CT or MRI showing a partial regression of the tumor in 4 of 5 patients. Of the 13 patients not cured by HD-CTX, the PET data were positive in all (mean SUV = 2.7), and the CT/MRI results were true positive (PD or SD) in 8 and false negative (PR) in 5 patients. The combined assessment of CT and TM corrected 3 false negative prognoses and 1 false positive CT prognosis. Two patients with unfavorable outcome despite a favorable response by CT and TM criteria were exclusively identified by PET. The resultant sensitivities and specificities for the prediction of therapy response are as follows: PET 100% and 67%; CT/MRI 62% and 80%; TM 83% and 100%; CT+TM 85% and 83%.

CONCLUSION
FDG-PET has a high prognostic value for predicting the response to chemotherapy in patients with metastatic GCT early in the course of treatment and may improve patient selection for subsequent HD-CTX protocols. Especially in patients with response to induction chemotherapy according to CT or TM evaluation, PET offers additional information to detect patients with an overall unfavorable outcome.


This thesis presents a fully automated technique for procedure-modular verification of control flow temporal safety properties. Procedure-modular verification is a natural instantiation of modular verification where modularity is achieved at the level of procedures. Here it is used for the verification of software systems in the presence of code evolution, multiple method implementations (as arising from software product lines), or even unknown method implementations (as in mobile code for open platforms). The technique is built on top of a previously developed modular verification framework based on maximal model construction. In the framework, program data is abstracted away completely to achieve algorithmic verification. This restricts the class of properties that can be verified. The technique is supported by a fully automated tool called ProMoVer which is described and evaluated on a number of real-life case studies. ProMoVer is quipped with a number of features, such as automatic specification extraction, to facilitate easy usage. Moreover, it provides a proof storage and reuse mechanism for efficiency. An application area which can significantly benefit from modular verification is software product line (SPL) design. In SPL engineering, products are generated from a set of well-defined commonalities and variabilities. The products of an SPL can be described by means of a hierarchical variability model specifying the commonalities and variabilities between the individual products. The number of products generated from a hierarchical model is exponential in the size of the hierarchical model. Therefore, scalable and efficient verification for SPL is only possible by exploiting modular verification techniques. In this thesis, we propose a hierarchical variability model for modeling product families. Then the modular verification technique and ProMoVer are adapted for the SPLs described with this hierarchical model. A natural extension of the modular verification technique is to include program data in a conservative fashion, by encoding data from a finite domain through control. By this, a wider class of properties can be supported. As a first step towards including program data, Boolean values are added to the program model, specification languages, maximal model construction and modular verification principles.


BACKGROUND/AIM
In some parts of the world, revascularization may not be the most feasible treatment option for necrotic immature teeth. Therefore, apexification remains the most widely utilized treatment option for these cases. This study aimed to evaluate the fracture resistance of weakened bovine tooth roots treated with various irrigant solutions as well as long-term application of calcium hydroxide intracanal medication (ICM).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
One hundred seventy bovine teeth were randomly divided into three experimental groups (n = 50) and two control groups (n = 10). Group SS was irrigated with physiologic solution; group CHX was treated with 2% chlorhexidine gel and group NaOCl was irrigated with 1% sodium hypochlorite. After instrumentation, root canals were dressed with calcium hydroxide and evaluated at different periods (15, 60, 90, 180, and 360 days). The specimens were loaded at a 45° angle to measure fracture resistance through the use of an EMIC test machine.

RESULTS
A decrease in fracture resistance was observed during the time of ICM dressing. The highest values of fracture resistance were observed in group SS with 15 days of ICM, not differing from the control group. Irrigation with NaOCl associated with ICM for 15 days presented the lowest fracture resistance; however, a statistically significant difference was not observed when compared with SS and CHX in the same time period. In longer periods of exposure to ICM (180 and 360 days), root canals irrigated with NaOCl and CHX showed significantly lower fracture resistance than SS (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
Apexification with periodic changes of calcium hydroxide medicament leads to weakness of the teeth independent of the irrigation solution used.


Mechanical property evaluation of micrometer-sized structures is necessary to help design reliable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. Most material properties are known to exhibit dependence on specimen size and such properties of microscale structures are not well characterized. This paper describes techniques developed for tensile testing of materials used in MEMS. Epi-polycrystalline silicon is currently the most widely used material, and its tensile strength has been measured as 1.52GPa. We have developed an axial testing machine for testing microscale specimen using electro-magnetic actuator. The field magnet and the moving coil taken from an audio-speaker were utilized as the components of the actuator. Structure of specimen was designed and manufactured for easy handling and alignment. In addition to the static tensile tests, new techniques and procedures for measuring strength are described.


Maryland's test for a finding of legal insanity (not criminally responsible [NCR]) allows a defendant to be found legally insane due to either a lack of appreciation of wrongfulness (cognitive impairment [CI]) or lack of ability to refrain from illegal behavior (volitional impairment [VI]). During a four-year period, 1,446 defendants underwent in-depth (post screening) evaluations for the NCR plea at Maryland state hospitals. Of the 416 defendants assessed as NCR by the hospitals' court-appointed evaluators, 44 (11%) were assessed as NCR due to VI alone. Diagnostically, the VI and CI groups were similar. Criminal charges were also similar, but the VI group was more likely to have been charged with murder. Many of the forensic evaluators concluded that the VI group was unable to refrain from illegal conduct based on considering a number of factors, including psychiatric symptoms and the defendant's behavior as related to the offense. Some evaluators' reports offered an opinion, but did not adequately explain what data they used to arrive at their conclusion. This paper examines the history of and rationale for a volitional test of insanity and how it is assessed by forensic evaluators.


We present results that show it is possible to build a competitive, greatly simplified, large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system with whole words as acoustic units. We model the output vocabulary of about 100,000 words directly using deep bi-directional LSTM RNNs with CTC loss. The model is trained on 125,000 hours of semi-supervised acoustic training data, which enables us to alleviate the data sparsity problem for word models. We show that the CTC word models work very well as an end-to-end all-neural speech recognition model without the use of traditional context-dependent sub-word phone units that require a pronunciation lexicon, and without any language model removing the need to decode. We demonstrate that the CTC word models perform better than a strong, more complex, state-of-the-art baseline with sub-word units.


Our theory of cultural-institutional persistence and innovation is based on uncoordinated updating of individual social norms and contracts, so that both culture and institutions co-evolve. We explain why Pareto-dominated cultural-institutional configurations may persist over long periods and how transitions nonetheless occur. In our model the exercise of elite power plays no role in either persistence or innovation, and transitions occur endogenously. This is unlike models in which elites impose inferior institutions or cultures as a self-interested distributional strategy. We show that persistence will be greater the more inferior is the Pareto-dominated configuration and the more rational and individualistic is the population.


The extensor digitorum muscle of the hand originates from the common extensor origin i.e., from the lateral epicondyle of the humerus and ends in four tendons, one for each digit except for the thumb. This paper reports a case, in which the tendon of the extensor digitorum ended as four tendons to the index, middle, ring and little fingers, but displayed variations in the number of tendons to each finger. Two tendons of extensor digitorum were observed in the ring and the little finger. Such an arrangement of the tendons of the extensor digitorum may have clinical importance. The presence of multiple tendons may also alter the kinematics around the site of attachment to the phalanx. Knowledge of abnormal and normal anatomy of the extensor tendons, may be helpful while performing graft and tendon transfer operations.


In this paper, we consider the chemostat system with n ≥ 1 species, one limiting substrate, and mutations between species. Our objective is to globally stabilize the corresponding dynamical system around a desired equilibrium point. Doing so, we introduce auxostat feedback controls which are controllers allowing the regulation of the substrate concentration. We prove that such feedback controls globally stabilize the resulting closed-loop system near the desired equilibrium point. This result is obtained by combining the theory of asymptotically autonomous systems and an explicit computation of solutions to the limit system. The performance of such controllers is illustrated on an optimal control problem of Lagrange type which consists in maximizing the production of species over a given time period w.r.t. the dilution rate chosen as control variable.


PURPOSE
This phase III, double-blind, randomized, multicenter study evaluated the efficacy, pharmacodynamics, and safety of the oral aromatase inactivator exemestane (EXE) versus megestrol acetate (MA) in postmenopausal women with progressive advanced breast cancer who experienced failure of tamoxifen.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A total of 769 patients were randomized to EXE 25 mg/d (n = 366) or MA (n = 403) 40 mg four times daily. Tumor response, duration of tumor control, tumor-related signs and symptoms (TRSS), quality of life (QOL), survival, and tolerability were evaluated.

RESULTS
Overall objective response (OR) rates were higher in patients treated with EXE than in those treated with MA (15.0% v 12.4%); a similar trend was noted in patients with visceral metastases (13.5% v 10.5%). Median survival time was significantly longer with EXE (median not reached) than with MA (123.4 weeks; P =.039), as were the median duration of overall success (OR or stable disease > or = 24 weeks; 60.1 v 49.1 weeks; P =.025), time to tumor progression (20.3 v 16.6 weeks; P =.037), and time to treatment failure (16.3 v 15.7 weeks; P =.042). Compared with MA, there were similar or greater improvements in pain, TRSS, and QOL with EXE. Both drugs were well tolerated. Grade 3 or 4 weight changes were more common with MA (17.1% v 7.6%; P =.001).

CONCLUSION
EXE prolongs survival time, time to tumor progression, and time to treatment failure compared with MA and offers a well-tolerated treatment option for postmenopausal women with progressive advanced breast cancer who experienced failure of tamoxifen.


The purpose of the study was to investigate performance on anticipation reaction time and classical reaction time as a function of practice. In the anticipation reaction time condition, the foreperiod was held constant, while in the classical reaction time condition the foreperiod was varied. Three visual stimulus durations of 154 milliseconds, 204 milliseconds and 254 milliseconds respectively were used. The hypotheses investigated were: (1) there is no significant difference between frequencies tallied within each stimulus duration for the two reaction time tasks; (2) there is no significant difference in performance between the two reaction time tasks; (3) there is no significant difference in performance with variation in the length of stimulus duration, and (3) there is no significant difference between performance of different days. The sub-problems were: (1) to identify interaction between days, tasks and stimulus duration, and (2) to identify learning curves for the two tasks. Twelve male subjects with a mean age of nineteen years, enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, participated in the study. The experiment was conducted for four consecutive days. Each day 150 reaction times were recorded for each subject. This total of 150 trials was composed of three blocks of twenty-five trials for each task within each stimulus duration. After each trial, immediate visual feedback was given when reaction was either equal to, or shorter than the stimulus duration.


We investigate the properties of optically passive spirals and dusty red galaxies in the A901/2 cluster complex at redshift ∼0.17 using rest-frame near-ultraviolet–optical spectral energy distributions, 24-μm infrared data and Hubble Space Telescope morphologies from the STAGES data set. The cluster sample is based on COMBO-17 redshifts with an rms precision of σcz ≈ 2000 km s −1 . We find that 'dusty red galaxies' and 'optically passive spirals' in A901/2 are largely the same phenomenon, and that they form stars at a substantial rate, which is only four times lower than that in blue spirals at fixed mass. This star formation is more obscured than in blue galaxies and its optical signatures are weak. They appear predominantly in the stellar mass range of log M∗/M� = [10, 11] where they constitute over half of the star-forming galaxies in the cluster; they are thus a vital ingredient for understanding the overall picture of star formation quenching in clusters. We find that the mean specific star formation rate (SFR) of star-forming galaxies in the cluster is clearly lower than in the field, in contrast to the specific SFR properties of blue galaxies alone, which appear similar in cluster and field. Such a rich red spiral population is best explained if quenching is a slow process and morphological transformation is delayed even more. At log M∗/M� < 10, such galaxies are rare, suggesting that their quenching is fast and accompanied by morphological change. We note that edge-on


When editing images it is often desirable to apply a filter with a spatially varying strength. With the usual selection tools like gradient, lasso, brush, or quick selection tools, creating masks containing such spatially varying strength values is time-consuming and cumbersome. We present an interactive filtering approach which allows to process photos selectively without the intermediate step of creating a mask containing strength values. In using this approach, the user only needs to place reference points (called control points) on the image and to adjust the spatial influence and filter strength for each control point. The filter is then applied selectively to the image, with strength values interpolated for each pixel between control points. The interpolation is based on a mixture of distances in space, luminance, and color; it is therefore a low-level operation. Since the main goal of the approach is to make selective image editing intuitive, easy, and playful, emphasis is put on the user interface: We describe the process of developing an existing mouse-driven user interface into a touch-driven one. Many question needed to be answered anew, such as how to present a slider widget on a touchscreen. Several variants are discussed and compared.


Vindesine, etoposide (VePesid), and prednisolone (VEP) have been evaluated as a second-line combination regimen in 20 patients with grade II non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) who relapsed during or after first-line intensive therapy. The overall response rate was 40% (20% complete, of 9 to 13+ months' duration, and 20% partial, of 1.5 to 5 months' duration). The main toxicities were alopecia and myelosuppression (with two nonfatal cases of septicemia); nausea, vomiting, neurotoxicity, and skin and mucosal problems were relatively uncommon. VEP appears to be an active second-line regimen with acceptable toxicity in relapsed high-grade NHL patients.


Fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer significant performance advantages over rotary-wing UAVs in terms of speed, endurance, and efficiency. However, these vehicles have traditionally been severely limited with regards to maneuverability. In this paper, we present a nonlinear control approach for enabling aerobatic fixed-wing UAVs to maneuver in constrained spaces. Our approach utilizes full-state direct trajectory optimization and a minimalistic, but representative, nonlinear aircraft model to plan aggressive fixed-wing trajectories in real-time at 5 Hz across high angles-of-attack. Randomized motion planning is used to avoid local minima and local-linear feedback is used to compensate for model inaccuracies between updates. We demonstrate our method in hardware and show that both local-linear feedback and re-planning are necessary for successful navigation of a complex environment in the presence of model uncertainty.


QUAD stream cipher uses multivariate polynomial systems. It has provable
 security based on the computational hardness assumption. More specifically,
 the security of QUAD depends on hardness of solving non-linear multivariate
 systems over a finite field, and it is known as an NP-complete problem.
 However, QUAD is slower than other stream ciphers, and an efficient
 implementation, which has a reduced computational cost, is required. In this
 paper, we propose an efficient implementation of computing multivariate
 polynomial systems for multivariate cryptography on GPU and evaluate
 efficiency of the proposal. GPU is considered to be a commodity parallel
 arithmetic unit. Moreover, we give an evaluation of our proposal. Our
 proposal parallelizes an algorithm of multivariate cryptography, and makes it
 efficient by optimizing the algorithm with GPU.


This paper focuses on the contribution literacy, linguistic, curriculum and pedagogic theories make to realising declarative knowledge (Wittgenstein, 1967) outcomes for middle years visual arts students in one multi-age Australian classroom. Understandings of literacy as visual arts content and process, as articulated in the Queensland School Curriculum Council (QSCC, 2005) Years 1 to 10 Syllabus, are analysed in terms of the above mentioned theories.. This analysis reveals four significant tensions: an absence of linguistic knowledge for the construction of declarative knowledge written texts; the assumption that subject English provides the skills base for the production of visual arts declarative knowledge written texts; slippage between the proposed curriculum orientation and teaching position for achieving high quality declarative knowledge outcomes; and, a lack of specificity for the form of metaphor to be used in visual arts education. The paper presents classroom data from one middle years teacher, Mr Brandt Ember (pseudonym), who takes up multiple curriculum orientations and teaching positions to facilitate high quality declarative knowledge outcomes. He commences the lesson by drawing on the students' life worlds, and then moves into the role of expert so as to provide arts-specific content and linguistic instruction before the students complete their written descriptions. The findings contribute to the worldwide debates surrounding teaching and learning practices for developing visual arts declarative knowledge outcomes by re-issuing the call for syllabus planners to make the links between a content area and its literacy demands explicit and for teachers to reclaim spaces for subject specific literacy instruction.


Based on exhaustive diachronic corpus data, this paper determines the relative chronology in which the size nouns heap(s) and lot(s) have developed quantifier uses within NP of NP-syntagms, as in heaps / a lot of people. Using a constructional approach, it is claimed that size nouns occur in three distinct constructions or form–meaning pairings identified on the basis of systematic syntactic, semantico-pragmatic and collocational features. I argue that in order to establish which size noun was first to develop a quantifier use, we have to analyse diachronic data sets in terms of three constructions, viz. lexical head, partitive and quantifier constructions. In doing so, I will argue against the claim that heap developed its quantifier use first, around 1300, while lot developed one only around 1800. I will show that heap and lot(s) appear in an early partitive construction, c1300 and c1200, respectively, in which they are head nouns and have a collective sense. The quantifier construction in which heap(s) and lot(s) have modifier status and assess quantity similar to canonical quantifier many/much appears around the same time for both, viz. c1780.


We applied social network analysis (SNA) to Tweets mentioning cannabis or opioid-related terms to publicly available COVID-19 related Tweets collected from Jan 21st to May 3rd, 2020 (n= 2,558,474 Tweets). We randomly extracted 16,154 Tweets mentioning cannabis and 4,670 Tweets mentioning opioids from the COVID-19 Tweet corpora for our analysis. The cannabis related Tweets created by 6,144 users were disseminated to 280,042,783 users and retweeted 11 times the number of original messages while opioid-related Tweets created by 3,412 users were disseminated to smaller number of users. The opioids Twitter network showed more cohesive online group activities and a cleaner online environment with less disinformation. The cannabis Twitter network showed a less desirable online environment with more disinformation (false information to mislead the public) and stakeholders lacking strong science knowledge. Application of SNA to Tweets provides insights for future online-based drug abuse research during the outbreak.


OBJECTIVE Diabetes elevates cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk more markedly in women than in men. Because the high risk of CVD among women with type 2 diabetes (DM2) may be partly due to increased ovarian androgen production, we investigated whether a history of bilateral salpingo oophorectomy (BSO) is inversely associated with CVD mortality among women with DM2. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Data were obtained from 7,977 women (a random subset of 564 had measurements of sex-steroid hormones) enrolled in the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF), a community-based, multicenter study that monitored women aged ≥65 years for a mean of 15.1 years. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs were calculated using Cox proportional hazards regression. RESULTS The average age at baseline was 71.5 years, with 6.3% and 18% of participants reporting a history of diabetes or BSO, respectively. In the subset of the SOF cohort with sex-steroid hormone measurements, those with DM2 had 43.6% significantly higher levels of free testosterone that were partly explained by age and adiposity, whereas total and free testosterone levels were lower in women with BSO than in those with intact ovaries. CVD mortality was elevated in women with DM2 without BSO (HR 1.95, 95% CI 1.62–2.35) as well as in women with DM2 and BSO (HR 2.56, 95% CI 1.79–3.65; P = 0.190 for interaction). Overall, BSO was not associated with CVD mortality (HR 1.05, 95% CI 0.89–1.23). CONCLUSIONS The association of diabetes with CVD was not reduced by BSO, suggesting that ovarian hyperandrogenemia may not be a primary mechanism to explain the high risk for CVD among women with DM2.


Bacillus subtitles JA isolated by our laboratory produced a large amount of antifungal substances, which had strong inhibitory activity against various plant pathogenic fungi, such as Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium graminearum and so on. Ion beam implantation as a new mutagenic methods was applied in our studay. After B. subtitles JA was implanted by N+ ions, a strain designated as B. subtitles JA-026 was screened and obtained, which had a higher ability to produce those antifungal substances. A series of experiments indicated that the antifungal substances were thermostable and partially sensitive to proteinases K and tryproteinase. When the fermentating broth was fractionated with ammonium sulphate of a final saturation of 70%, the precipitate-enhanced inhibitory activity while the supernatant lost this activity. It appeared that the antifungal substances were likely to be protein.


The spectral and charged characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in municipal sewage secondary effluent influenced by heavy metal ions were studied by three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy, ultraviolet spectrometry, etc. As the Cu(II) concentration increased, the fluorescence intensity of the DOM's fluorescence peak reduced. When the Cu(II) concentration was 100 μmol/L, the fluorescence intensity of the humic-like acid in the DOM reduced by 19.5%-27.6%. However, there was no obvious change in the fluorescence intensity when Cd(II) was added. According to the modified Stern-Volmer equation, the conditional stability constant lgK and the proportion of the fluorescent functional groups of the DOM binding with Cu(II) were 2.19-2.69 and 16%-48%, respectively. The UV253/UV203 value changed little with the additional dosage of metal ions below 10 μmol/L, which increased as the concentration of Cu(II) or Pb(II) increased from 10-100 μmol/L. As the metal concentrations increase, the absolute values of the Zeta potential and the particle sizes of the DOM basically increased. The results showed that Cu(II) had the strongest binding ability to the groups that emitted fluorescence in the secondary effluent DOM compared to Pb(II) and Cd(II).


The research in this dissertation investigates the consistency of juror decision models when evaluating incriminating and exonerating evidence. Many stochastic and psychological models indicate that an interaction between a person's prior beliefs and their evaluation of the evidence contribute to their verdict decision. However, less is known regarding how this interaction occurs for different forms of evidence. In particular, a pervasive assumption is that jurors use the same or similar models to evaluate exonerating and incriminating evidence. The data from this dissertation indicates that this may not be the case. Participants adjust estimates of probability of guilt in a Bayesian inference problem more when case specific evidence is incriminating versus exonerating. Further, their response patterns and reported and observed measures of the type and variety of information they are using to produce probability of guilt estimates indicate that they engage in a process of mental estimation more often than they report that they do. The findings indicate that jurors may potentially use different decision models to evaluate different forms of evidence. Further, the framing of the search for culpability provides a plausible explanation for differences in the decision models that are used. Specifically, a juror's selection criteria and perceived importance of a given piece of evidence will vary depending on its relevance to their decision task. Thus, asking jurors to estimate likelihoods of guilt may lead to their underutilization of evidence implying innocence.


In order to make biometric systems faster and more user-friendly, lower-quality images must be accepted. A major hurdle in this task is accurate segmentation of the boundaries of the iris in these images. Quite commonly, circle-fitting is used to approximate the boundaries of the inner (pupil) and outer (limbic) boundaries of the iris, but this assumption does not hold for off-axis or otherwise non-circular boundaries. In this paper we present a novel, foundational method for elliptical segmentation of off-axis iris images. This method uses active contours with constrained flow to achieve a simplified form of shape prior active contours. This is done by calculating a region-based contour evolution and projecting it upon a properly chosen set of vectors to confine it to a class of shapes. In this case, that class of shapes is ellipses. This serves to regularize the contour, simplifying the curve evolution and preventing the development of irregularities that present challenges in iris segmentation. The proposed method is tested using images from the UBIRIS v.1 and CASIA-IrisV3 image data sets, with both near-ideal and off-axis images. Additional testing has been performed using the WVU Off Axis/Angle Iris Dataset, Release 1. By avoiding many of the assumptions commonly used in iris segmentation methods, the proposed method is able to accurately fit elliptical boundaries to off-axis images.


Bayes sequential decision problems are an extensive problem class with wide application. They involve taking actions in sequence in a system which has characteristics which are unknown or only partially known. These characteristics can be learnt over time as a result of our actions. Therefore we are faced with a trade-off between choosing actions that give desirable short term outcomes (exploitation) and actions that yield useful information about the system which can be used to improve longer term outcomes (exploration). Gittins indices provide an optimal method for a small but important subclass of these problems. Unfortunately the optimality of index methods does not hold generally and Gittins indices can be impractical to calculate for many problems. This has motivated the search for easy-to-calculate heuristics with general application. One such non-index method is the knowledge gradient heuristic. A thorough investigation of the method is made which identifies crucial weaknesses. Index and non-index variants are developed which avoid these weaknesses. The problem of choosing multiple website elements to present to user is an important problem relevant to many major web-based businesses. A Bayesian multi-armed bandit model is developed which captures the interactions between elements and the dual uncertainties of both user preferences and element quality. The problem has many challenging features but solution methods are proposed that are both easy to implement and which can be adapted to particular applications. Finally, easy-to-use software to calculate Gittins indices for Bernoulli and normal rewards has been developed as part of this thesis and has been made publicly available. The methodology used is presented together with a study of accuracy and speed.