Today our understanding of "genes" has reached such a level of sophistication and depth that we are no longer studying and altering genes in test tubes but in their native context in human cells. Way back in 1864, in a Moravian Monastery, a priest named "Gregor Johan Mendel" discovered "gene", though he was not aware of what he had discovered. The word gene was coined a decade later. Later DNA was identified as "gene" the source of genetic information when scientists showed keen interest in deciphering the morphological, structural and functional aspects of genetic material i.e. DNA. In the seventies, two technologies gene sequencing and gene cloning allowed scientists to manipulate genes. Millions of copies of gene hybrid were produced in the test tubes, the hybrids were then inserted into the host cells producing novel gene. In the beginning of this century man was able to read his genomes. The draft sequence of human genome was published in 2001. New tools and techniques were developed to manipulate DNA with more precision and accuracy. Some of them are briefly described in this paper. Scientists are in a cross road, whether they should carry on the program of gene manipulation there by destabilizing the genetic equilibrium which was stabilized in millions of year


The phase-conjugate reflectivity produced by degenerate four-wave mixing in a Kerr medium in the Bragg scattering regime is shown to be unstable when the intensity of the external pump beams is greater than a threshold value that can be predicted analytically. Below this threshold, a single branch of the reflectivity curve is stable, eliminating any possibility for bistability. A numerical simulation indicates that the unstable regime is characterized by fast oscillations with a period related to the transit time in the nonlinear medium. A finite relaxation time of the nonlinearity eliminates the high-frequency oscillations but can increase the amplitude of the low-frequency components. The insertion of a phase-conjugate mirror into an optical cavity leads to an instability whose threshold can be evaluated analytically. The temporal evolution of the field intensity in the cavity is shown to change from a stable regime to periodic oscillations and then to quasi-periodic oscillations as the pump intensity is increased.


Renewable energy generation, vehicle electrification, and smart grids rely critically on energy storage devices for enhancement of operations, reliability, and efficiency. Battery systems consist of many battery cells, which have different characteristics even when they are new, and change with time and operating conditions due to a variety of factors such as aging, operational conditions, and chemical property variations. Their effective management requires high fidelity models. This paper aims to develop identification algorithms that capture individualized characteristics of each battery cell and produce updated models in real time. It is shown that typical battery models may not be identifiable, unique battery model features require modified input/output expressions, and standard least-squares methods will encounter identification bias. This paper devises modified model structures and identification algorithms to resolve these issues. System identifiability, algorithm convergence, identification bias, and bias correction mechanisms are rigorously established. A typical battery model structure is used to illustrate utilities of the methods.


Xylella fastidiosa Wells et al., a gram-negative and xylem limited bacterium, causes significative economic on several crops, such as the leaf scorch in coffee. It is transmitted by xylem feeding insects and four sharpshooters species have been reported as vectors of X. fastidiosa in coffee. The objective of this study was to determine the natural infectivity of X. fastidiosa in five species of sharpshooters from coffee trees: Acrogonia citrina Marucci & Cavichioli, Bucephalogonia xanthophis (Berg), Dilobopterus costalimai Young, Oncometopia facialis (Signoret) and Sonesimia grossa (Signoret). Samples were collected from coffee plantations in five counties of the North and Northwest regions of the State of Parana, Brazil, from October 1998 through November 2001. A total of 806 samples containing three to five insects were examined for the presence of X. fastidiosa by using PCR and nested PCR tests. X. fastidiosa was present in samples of all five species of sharpshooters collected in the two coffee regions. The average level of natural infectivity potential was 30.4%. However, this natural infectivity ranged from 2.2% for O. facialis to 68.8% for A. citrina. Sharpshooters collected in the spring tended to have lower natural infectivity of X. fastidiosa as compared to those collected in other seasons. The results obtained showed the high potential of dissemination of X. fastidiosa by different insect vectors in coffee trees in Parana.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the conflict management styles among the group of management and professional officers in Department of General Director of Lands and Mines, Putrajaya, Malaysia. The focus of this research was on the differences of each variable for demographic factors and the relationship between personality dimension and conflict management styles. Out of 122 questionnaires distributed, a total of 104 questionnaires were returned and valid to process. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 18.0. The finding showed that there was significant differences in demographic factors of age, highest educational level, marital status, years of service in government sector, and grade in current post in the ways of conflict management styles, however in term of gender, race and the number of customers that has to be entertained a day, the result showed that there was no significant differences impact. The Pearson Correlation was applied to investigate a correlation between independent variables of personality dimension and dependent variables of conflict management styles. The research proved that there was highly significant relationship in the perception of majority respondents for personality dimension and conflict management styles with r value of .535**. The result indicates that majority of respondents held an Extrovert personality (mean 3.70), Conscientiousness (mean 3.68), and Openness to Experience (mean 3.67),whereas for Agreebleness (mean 3.23) and Neuroticism (mean 3.20). Generally, the personality dimensions have a positive relationship with
the conflict management styles but only Neuroticism personality represents a strong relationship with negative. The findings also showed that the most preferred conflict
management styles that has been practices in this group of respondents was Compromise (mean 3.98), followed by Collaboration (mean 3.73), Accommodate (mean 3.66), Avoidance (mean 3.61) and Competition (mean 3.33).


We describe a conceptual approach which provides a unified view of various entropy-like functionals on the class of semimetric spaces, endowed with a bounded measure. The entropy E considered in the author's previous articles is modified so as to assume finite values for a fairly wide class of spaces which fail to be totally bounded.


The language in advertisement commonly contains some words persuade for reader interested to buy a product which called as rhetoric style. If you spend the time to watch the advertisement, most of them almost certainly contains of beauty product advertisement care products for women. And in the advertisement so many the language rhetoric style for make people buy the product. Based the phenomenon above the researcher is attracted to conduct research on the use of rhetoric style in the slogan of beauty product advertisement.
 This research uses rhetoric approach which sees those advertisement languages that is rhetoric style for mentioned the research questions. The researcher uses some instruments like questionnaires and documentation analysis. The data collection using such instrument are slogan advertisements containing word, phrases, or sentences from the readers' opinion. The data are then analyzed and interpreted analytically.

The findings of the research, firstly, go to of rhetoric style. There are twelve kinds of rhetoric style in the slogan beauty product advertisement namely personification, climax, assonance, repetition, mesodiplosis, erotizes, anaphora, aliteratisi, epistrofa, homonym, metaphor, and rhetorica quetion style. secondly, the findings come to the opinion given by respondent to the rhetoric style of beauty product advertisement on television. It is Responts about beauty product advertisement on television.
 The conclusions of this research are the readers; the rhetoric style in most used in beauty product advertisement is climax. Climax sequences are mind each time increasing importance of previous ideas.

 The public response to the use of language in advertisement beauty products on television. People found the language beauty product advertisement beauty products and persuade, as if beauty is owned models because the model use of beauty product advertisements. It is much influenced people to buy products that are advertised to have skin like the model in the advertisement.

 There are two points the researcher would suggest to be considered by the Program of English Letter and its student or by the reader in general. First, to the Program, it is suggested to provide more linguistic which elaborates the research methodology in slogan beauty product. Second, to the student or the reader in general, it is suggested to dig more through about slogan beauty product. There are many rhetoric style in the product advertisement on television, and this paper may be become information about how to study rhetoric style.


Breeding cows grazing seasonally dry rangelands usually lose substantial live weight (LW) during the dry season, when in late pregnancy. An experiment investigated the effects of feeding a N-based supplement to cows in late pregnancy on voluntary intake, total live weight (T-LW), body condition score (CS) and estimated body net energy content (Body-NE), as well as carry-over effects during lactation. In Phase A for 139 days from mid-pregnancy, mature Bos indicus cross breeders [initially 438 kg T-LW and 5.7 CS units (9-point scale)] were fed in pens on low quality tropical grass hay alone (Control) or with a N supplement (Supplemented). Most (17/22) of the cows calved during this interval. Voluntary hay intake averaged 6.74 g DM/kg T-LW/d in Control cows, and was increased by 35% (P<0.001) when supplement was fed. As a result, feeding supplement reduced loss in conceptus-free live weight (CF-LW) by 30% (from 1.11 kg/d to 0.78 kg/d; P<0.001) and in Body-NE by 20% (from 26.6 to 21.2 MJ NE/d; P = 0.007). Control cows mobilized 24% of maternal LW and 32% of body energy when fed low quality hay during late pregnancy, and these losses were substantially reduced when a N-based supplement was fed. During Phase B, when the lactating cows with their calves grazed a high quality rainy season grass-Stylosanthes pasture, the previously supplemented cows produced more milk (P = 0.065) and their calves grew faster (P = 0.077) in early lactation than Control cows. In addition, during early lactation Control cows exhibited compensatory LW gain relative to the Supplemented cows (0.80 vs. 0.43 kg/d, respectively; P<0.001) and there was no discernable weight difference between the groups by 205 days of lactation. In conclusion the losses in LW and body energy reserves by late pregnant cows fed low quality tropical grass hay were substantially reduced by a N supplement, but the differences were not maintained when the cows subsequently grazed high quality pasture.


Orientations distribution between grains of two high grade pipeline steels were investigated by electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD). Then the percentage of low-angle grain boundaries was studied qualitatively to analyze the effect of low-angle grain boundaries on the yield-strength ratio of high grade pipeline steels. From the mode of coordinate deformation and the ability to resist deformation by the grain boundaries, the results show that when the effective grain size are almost the same, the pipeline steel which has the smaller percentage of low-angle grain boundaries, the larger difference between the yield strength and tensile strength, which makes the yield-strength ratio of pipeline steel lower.


E-commerce has increased rapidly during the last years and this has impacted everyone involved in the value chain, all the way from the manufacturer to the consumer. The delivery of the products bought online is an important part of the purchase and a large proportion of the volume is handled via collection-and-delivery-points. Collection-and-delivery-points is a system where companies act as an agent for postal services to deliver parcels and mail to consumers. The rapid parcel volume increase has caused the collection-and-delivery-point service to become a larger part of the business even though it only is a supplementary service. This has in turn led to stores questioning and evaluating if this supplementary service is something they should provide over other activities. The purpose of the study is to understand what it implies to have supplementary services as a part of the value proposition for grocery store owners. The aim of the study is to discuss and establish what value collection-and-delivery points bring to both the store owners and the customers. Furthermore, the aim is to generalize the insights to supplementary services in the retail industry. This is accomplished through interviews with store owners and a survey to 3500 customers. The result shows that the main reasons to why stores are collection-and-delivery-point agents are the increased traffic they get and the additional customer value it provides. The store owners are forced to rely on gut-feelings rather than facts as a support in the decision to provide collection-and-delivery point service or not. From a customer perspective, the customers do not prioritize the consumer values such as to do several errands at the same time. However, the customers are satisfied with the collection-and-delivery-points as a service and appreciate it more than several other alternative services that could be offered in the same area of the store. The survey also found that the lack of collection-and-delivery-point is a reason for customer to change their main store. The conclusion that could be drawn regarding supplementary services in the retail industry is that in context of the Business Model Canvas there are challenges in every aspect of the business model when a company adds a supplementary service to their value proposition.


This study focuses on the improvement in the understanding of airborne noise transmission
phenomenon in buildings, at low frequencies, under conditions of different architectural
configurations. The effects of low-frequency noise have been of a particular concern because many
kinds of structures have been inefficient in attenuating low-frequency noise, compared to other
frequency components. Likewise the Sound Reduction Index is normally measured under diffuse field
conditions and these calculations show that, at low frequencies, this is not the case. An acousticstructural
coupled room-plate-room model, which allows variations in room size and shape, and
partition properties to be considered, has been formulated and solved. Results of a parametric study
show the effect of several configurations for a flexible partition (different geometric size and position
in the common wall) and connected rooms (size and absorbing walls) on the Sound Reduction Index
by averaging over 1/3 octave bands. Finally, a general discussion, based on the findings of the results
obtained, is presented.


Robust knowledge consists of both conceptual and procedural knowledge. In order to address both types of knowledge, offering students opportunities to explore target concepts in an exploratory learning environment (ELE) is insufficient. Instead, we need to combine exploratory learning environments, to support students acquisition of conceptual knowledge, with more structured learning environments that allow students to practice problem-solving procedures step-by-step, to support students' acquisition of procedural knowledge. However, how best to combine both kinds of learning environments and thus both types of learning activities is an open question. We have developed a pedagogical intervention model that selects and sequences learning activities, exploratory learning activities and structured practice activities, that are appropriate for the individual learner. Technically, our intervention model is implemented as a rule-based system in a learning platform about fractions. The model's decisionmaking process relies on the detection of each individual student's level of challenge (i.e. whether they were under-, appropriately or over-challenged by the previous learning activity). Thus, our model adapts flexibly to each individual student's needs and provides them with a unique sequence of learning activities. Our formative evaluation trials suggest that single components of the intervention model, such as the ELE, mostly achieve their aims. The interplay between the different components of the intervention model (i.e. the outcomes of sequencing and selecting exploratory and structured practice activities) is currently being evaluated.


This paper deals with a new capacitive resonator design presenting a movable electrode to enhance resonator performances. Mechanisms and coventor finite element method (FEM) simulations to design such component are detailed. Firstly we compared FEM simulations with RF measurements on a 67.35 MHz clamped-clamped (CC) flexural beam resonator with a fixed electrode to validate simulations. Then, simulations predict more than 80% of motional resistance decrease, which implies output signal enhancement, by the use of the movable electrode design. This component could be realized using silicon on nothing (SoN) process.


A novel kind of SC (superconducting) solenoid coil is designed to satisfy the homogeneity requirement of the magnetic field. In this paper, we first calculate the current density distribution of the solenoid coil section through the linear programming method. Then a traditional solenoid and a nonrectangular section solenoid are designed to produce a central field up to 7 T with a homogeneity to the greatest extent. After comparision of the two solenoid coils designed in magnet field quality, fabrication cost and other aspects, the new design of the nonrectangular section of a solenoid coil can be realized through improving the techniques of framework fabrication and winding. Finally, the outlook and error analysis of this kind of SC magnet coil are also discussed briefly.


Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder for which only symptomatic treatments of limited effectiveness are available. Preventing early misfolding steps and thereby aggregation of the polyglutamine (polyQ)-containing protein huntingtin (htt) in neurons of patients may represent an attractive therapeutic strategy to postpone the onset and progression of HD. Here, we demonstrate that the green tea polyphenol ( 2 )-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) potently inhibits the aggregation of mutant htt exon 1 protein in a dose-dependent manner. Dot-blot assays and atomic force microscopy studies revealed that EGCG modulates misfolding and oligomerization of mutant htt exon 1 protein in vitro , indicating that it interferes with very early events in the aggregation process. Also, EGCG significantly reduced polyQ-mediated htt protein aggregation and cytotoxicity in an yeast model of HD. When EGCG was fed to transgenic HD flies overexpressing a pathogenic htt exon 1 protein, photoreceptor degeneration and motor function improved. These results indicate that modulators of htt exon 1 misfolding and oligomerization like EGCG are likely to reduce polyQ-mediated toxicity in vivo . Our studies may provide the basis for the development of a novel pharmacotherapy for HD and related polyQ disorders.


: This paper outlines a philosophical model of a deviant sense of personal justification. The model originates in German Idealism, and presents an attitude which occurs when dominators find a way of feeling justified in their domination, because the very action of wilfully imposing it constitutes a form of personal worthiness making them superior to those who fail to resist them. Having judged themselves superior, they then take themselves to deserve the status and benefits they have appropriated. The paper draws out and describes the attitude's 'logic' and its various dimensions, and argues that despite its unreasonable claims and paradoxical character, it is nonetheless plausible that real people should exhibit it. The paper goes on to claim that its presence and operation has an important role to play in explaining human rights abuses, and offers an interpretation of the atrocities of Nazism to illustrate this. It thereby aims both to further vindicate the general model and analysis, and to provide an additional perspective on these events.


Land rights and environmental issues have long been the cause of fiercely intense and heated disputes between the Canadian government and Aboriginal communities in British Columbia. This thesis focuses on the representation of land loss and environmental issues in British Columbia through the work of contemporary Cowichan Coast Salish and Okanagan artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and Kwakwaka'wakw artists Marianne Nicolson and Sonny Assu. The objective is to bring a fresh perspective to understanding the politicized artistic practice of these three artists by considering their work as a form of environmental activism. I examine the relationships between the three artists while contextualizing their work within twentieth-century developments in Northwest Coast art. This research is informed by first hand interviews with the artists themselves conducted in January 2016, as well as the work of scholars Gerald Vizenor, Philip J. Deloria and James Clifford among others.


– In this paper I seek common ground between the memoirs of Péter Nádas, a prominent figure in contemporary Hungarian literature, and certain writings of Miklós Mészöly, an important author of twentieth-century Hungarian prose. I show that both authors disrupt the classical chronology of narrative. The temporal structure of Nádas's memoir is determined by the attempt to identify the narrator's first memory, whereas in Mészöly's works the present tense is valorised and the narrative's final goal is rejected. In their depiction of war, they can be seen as complementary works. Mészöly writes from the point of view of a soldier who has been to the front, while Nádas writes from the point of view of a civilian. In this parallel reading, both the soldier and the civilian appear as victims of war.


Detecting anomalies from high-dimensional multivariate temporal data is challenging, because of the non-linear, complex relationships between signals. Recently, deep learning methods based on autoencoders have been shown to capture these relationships and accurately discern between normal and abnormal patterns of behavior, even in fully unsupervised scenarios. However, validating the anomalies detected is difficult without additional explanations. In this paper, we extend SHAP -- a unified framework for providing additive explanations, previously applied for supervised models -- with influence weighting, in order to explain anomalies detected from multivariate time series with a GRU-based autoencoder. Namely, we extract the signals that contribute most to an anomaly and those that counteract it. We evaluate our approach on two use cases and show that we can generate insightful explanations for both single and multiple anomalies.


What are the fundamental driving forces of macroeconomic fluctuations? In particular, why do people spend more time working in booms and less in recessions? These are basic questions of macroeconomics. Recent thinking has emphasized technology shifts, preference shifts, and changes in government purchases as likely driving forces. It is useful to distinguish atemporal and intertemporal effects of the driving forces. Under standard assumptions, the technology shift has no effect through atemporal channels because income and substitution effects exactly offset. A straightforward decomposition of movements of employment attributes most of them to the atemporal effects of preference shifts.


Community Economic Development (CED) scholars posit that creating worker cooperatives, businesses owned and managed by their workers, is a progressive approach to CED that has the potential to go beyond job creation and spur grassroots political activism. Yet many workers' rights organizations and workers' rights advocates, especially those serving low-wage immigrant workers, struggle with how to connect worker cooperatives to broader efforts for change. This Article argues that forming a worker cooperative that acts as a change agent requires more than simply structuring the business as a worker cooperative. Cooperative corporation laws and cooperative principles set a floor — typically, one person, one vote — but that floor alone does not guarantee political activism or broader economic, political or social change; collective organization does not inherently lead to collective action. Worker cooperatives face challenges in connecting to broader movements and serving as more than job-creation vehicles. These challenges include the inherent tension between a co-op's identity as a business and that of a values-oriented association of people, the limited scale of cooperatives, the resources required to start and maintain them and member priorities and retention. Creating worker co-ops as progressive institutions requires surmounting these challenges and actively prioritizing broader aims when incubating, recruiting for, structuring, governing and operating cooperatives.


'Liquid lens' technologies promise significant advancements in machine vision and optical communications systems. Adaptations for machine vision, human vision correction, and optical communications are used to exemplify the versatile nature of this technology. Utilization of liquid lens elements allows the cost effective implementation of optical velocity measurement.


What can philosophy bring to the reading of Beckett? Combining intertextual analysis with a 'schizoanalytic genealogy' derived from the authors of L'Anti-Œdipe, Garin Dowd's Abstract Machines: Samuel Beckett and Philosophy after Deleuze and Guattari offers an innovative response to this much debated question. The author focuses on zones of encounter and thresholds of engagement between Beckett's writing and a range of philosophers (among them Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant) and philosophical concepts. Beckett's writing impacts in a variety of ways on Deleuze and Guattari's thought, and, in particular, resonates with Deleuze's contributions to the history of philosophy (in books such as Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque), and his 'critical and clinical' approach to literature. Furthermore, the books co-written with Guattari, concerned as they are with the 'molecularization' of the discipline of philosophy in the name of 'thinking otherwise', reveal themselves in a new light when explored in conjunction with Beckett's œuvre. With its arresting perspectives on a wide range of Beckett's works, Abstract Machines will appeal to academics and postgraduate students interested in the philosophical aspects of his writing. Its engagement with alternative contributions to the question of Beckett and philosophy, including that of Alain Badiou, renders it a timely and provocative intervention in contemporary debates on the relationship between literature and philosophy, both within the field of Beckett studies and beyond.


Predicting the quality of transmission (QoT) of a lightpath prior to its deployment is a step of capital importance for an optimized design of optical networks. Due to the continuous advances in optical transmission, the number of design parameters available to system engineers (e.g., modulation formats, baud rate, code rate, etc.) is growing dramatically, thus significantly increasing the alternative scenarios for lightpath deployment. As of today, existing (pre-deployment) estimation techniques for light-path QoT belong to two categories: "exact" analytical models estimating physical-layer impairments, which provide accurate results but incur heavy computational requirements, and margined formulas, which are computationally faster but typically introduce high link margins that lead to underutilization of network resources. In this paper, we explore a third option, i.e., machine learning (ML), as ML techniques have already been successfully applied for optimization and performance prediction of complex systems where analytical models are hard to derive and/ or numerical procedures impose high computational burden. We investigate a ML classifier that predicts whether the bit error rate of unestablished lightpaths meets the required system threshold based on traffic volume, desired route, and modulation format. The classifier is trained and tested on synthetic data and its performance is assessed over different network topologies and for various combinations of classification features. Results in terms of classifier accuracy are promising and motivate further investigation over real field data.


Optical images are invariably degraded by glare light and it has been known for many years that a substantial amount of glare can arise from multiple reflections. In fact, by far the principal source of glare from a polished, uncoated refracting surface is the reflection. The existence of these unwanted reflections led to the development of antireflecting coatings which have been very successful in suppressing the reflections, but such coatings nearly always introduce scatter. In making such coatings it is the usual practice to introduce plane-parallel witness pieces into the coating chamber and then to measure their reflectance, which is assumed to be typical of the reflectance of the batch. Investigations at Sira and elsewhere have shown that it is also important to control the scatter as this can have a considerable effect on the glare. However, many manufacturers state they are "not called upon" to measure scatter and specifications for antireflection coatings frequently make no mention of scatter. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest methods of testing coated optical components and witness pieces so as to produce readings which are closely related to the resulting glare in the image plane. Thus the relative importance of scatter and residual reflectance can be determined and coatings on components with curved surfaces can be assessed independently of the coating contractor, possibly after a period of use. Although this paper is mainly concerned with scatter and reflectance it is also relevant to discuss the assessment of localised defects such as digs and scratches. The assessment of such defects is usually undertaken by the manufacturer's optical inspectors. As inspectors get more skilled in detecting scratches, they also become more critical and it is known that many components are rejected for defects which can have no possible effect upon the performance. Much effort has been expended in recent years in producing graded standard defects with which to assess component faults by making visual comparisons but, in the opinion of this investigator, a functional test is much to be preferred.


This starting point for this project was the question of how to understand the epistemic status of mathematized imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and confocal microscopy. These sorts of instruments play an increasingly important role in virtually all areas of biology and medicine. Some of these technologies have been widely celebrated as having revolutionized various fields of studies while others have been the target of substantial criticism. Thus, it is essential that we be able to assess these sorts of technologies as methods of producing evidence. They differ from one another in many respects, but one feature they all have in common is the use of multiple layers of statistical and mathematical processing that are essential to data production. This feature alone means that they do not fit neatly into any standard empiricist account of evidence. Yet this failure to be accommodated by philosophical accounts of good evidence does not indicate a general inadequacy on their part since, by many measures, they very often produce very high quality evidence. In order to understand how they can do so, we must look more closely at old philosophical questions concerning the role of experience and observation in acquiring knowledge about the external world. Doing so leads us to a new, grounded version of empiricism.After distinguishing between a weaker and a stronger, anthropomorphic version of empiricism, I argue that most contemporary accounts of observation are what I call benchmark strategies that, implicitly or explicitly, rely on the stronger version according to which human sense experience holds a place of unique privilege. They attempt to extend the bounds of observation - and the epistemic privilege accorded to it - by establishing some type of relevant similarity to the benchmark of human perception. These accounts fail because they are unable to establish an epistemically motivated account of what relevant similarity consists of. The last best chance for any benchmark approach, and, indeed, for anthropomorphic empiricism, is to supplement a benchmark strategy with a grounding strategy. Toward this end, I examine the Grounded Benchmark Criterion which defines relevant similarity to human perception to be defined in terms of the reliability-making features of human perception. This account, too, must fail due to our inability to specify these features given the current state of understanding of the human visual system. However, this failure reveals that it is reliability alone that is epistemically relevant, not any other sort of similarity to human perception.Current accounts of reliability suffer from a number of difficulties, so I develop a novel account of reliability that is based on the concept of granularity. My account of reliability in terms of a granularity match both provides the means to refine the weaker version of empiricism and allows us to establish when and why imaging technologies are reliable. Finally, I use this account of granularity is examining the importance of the fact that the output of imaging technologies usually is images.


ABSTRACT Climate change and associated increases in water temperatures may impact physiological performance in ectotherms and exacerbate endangered species declines. We used an integrative approach to assess the impact of elevated water temperature on two fishes of immediate conservation concern in a large estuary system, the threatened longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) and endangered delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus). Abundances have reached record lows in California, USA, and these populations are at imminent risk of extirpation. California is currently impacted by a severe drought, resulting in high water temperatures, conditions that will become more common as a result of climate change. We exposed fish to environmentally relevant temperatures (14°C and 20°C) and used RNA sequencing to examine the transcriptome-wide responses to elevated water temperature in both species. Consistent with having a lower temperature tolerance, longfin smelt exhibited a pronounced cellular stress response, with an upregulation of heat shock proteins, after exposure to 20°C that was not observed in delta smelt. We detected an increase in metabolic rate in delta smelt at 20°C and increased expression of genes involved in metabolic processes and protein synthesis, patterns not observed in longfin smelt. Through examination of responses across multiple levels of biological organization, and by linking these responses to habitat distributions in the wild, we demonstrate that longfin smelt may be more susceptible than delta smelt to increases in temperatures, and they have little room to tolerate future warming in California. Understanding the species-specific physiological responses of sensitive species to environmental stressors is crucial for conservation efforts and managing aquatic systems globally. Highlighted Article: An integrative approach to assess the impact of elevated water temperature on fishes of immediate conservation concern highlights the vulnerability of longfin smelt relative to delta smelt.


Prior approaches to line segment detection typically involve perceptual grouping in the image domain or global accumulation in the Hough domain. Here we propose a probabilistic algorithm that merges the advantages of both approaches. In a first stage lines are detected using a global probabilistic Hough approach. In the second stage each detected line is analyzed in the image domain to localize the line segments that generated the peak in the Hough map. By limiting search to a line, the distribution of segments over the sequence of points on the line can be modeled as a Markov chain, and a probabilistically optimal labelling can be computed exactly using a standard dynamic programming algorithm, in linear time. The Markov assumption also leads to an intuitive ranking method that uses the local marginal posterior probabilities to estimate the expected number of correctly labelled points on a segment. To assess the resulting Markov Chain Marginal Line Segment Detector (MCMLSD) we develop and apply a novel quantitative evaluation methodology that controls for under-and over-segmentation. Evaluation on the YorkUrbanDB dataset shows that the proposed MCMLSD method outperforms the state-of-the-art by a substantial margin.


The paper uses a range of primary-source empirical evidence to address the question: 'why is it to hard to value intangible assets?' The setting is venture capital investment in high technology companies. While the investors are risk specialists and financial experts, the entrepreneurs are more knowledgeable about product innovation. Thus the context lends itself to analysis within a principal-agent framework, in which information asymmetry may give rise to adverse selection, pre-contract, and moral hazard, post-contract. We examine how the investor might attenuate such problems and attach a value to such high-tech investments in what are often merely intangible assets, through expert due diligence, monitoring and control. Qualitative evidence is used to qualify the more clear cut picture provided by a principal-agent approach to a more mixed picture in which the 'art and science' of investment appraisal are utilised by both parties alike


The purpose of the case study was substantiation of a differential intensive care in abdominal sepsis with respect to its clinical-and-pathogenetic variations. Retro- and prospective clinical-and-biochemical parameters were investigated in 60 patients with disseminated peritonitis and abdominal sepsis. The patients were shared between 3 groups with respect to their clinical-and-laboratory findings. Clinical-and-pathogenetic types were defined for the clinical course of abdominal sepsis (AS). It was found as necessary to add enteral detoxication to the combined intensive care scheme in type 1 AS. A single-stage intravenous perftoran infusion plus enteral detoxication are required in type 2 AS. And in type 3 AS, the therapeutic scheme should be expanded through intravenous infusion of perftoran with subsequent enteral detoxication.


Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the chemical composition of essential oil through GC-MS and look for new antibacterial drug agents from T. foenum graecum. Methods: Bacterial strains Sarcina lutea IFO 3232, Bacillus subtilis IFO 3026, Xanthomonas campestris IAM 1671, Escherichia coli IFO 3007, Klebsiella pneumoniae ATTC 10031, Proteus vulgaris MTCC 321 and Pseudomonas denitrificans KACC 32026 were used to measure the antibacterial activity by disc diffusion assay and therefore the chemical composition of essential oil through GC-MS. Results: GC–MS analysis of the essential oil from T. foenum graecum revealed the presence of fourteen different compounds of that Decane, 5, 6-bis (2, 2 dimethylpropylidene), (E,Z)-(19.58%); Hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester (18.81%); 5, 10-Diethoxy-2, 3, 7, 8-tetrahydro-1H,6H-dipyrrolo[1, 2-a;1', 2'-d] pyrazine (5.81%) and Octadecanoic acid, methyl ester (3.28%) were the major compounds and therefore the minor compounds were Oxiraneoctanoic acid, 3-octyl, methyl ester; Hexadecanoic acid, ethyl ester; 6-Octadecenoic acid; Cis-Calamenene; 2-Pentadecanone, 6, 10, 14-trimethyl; 1, 2, 3, 4 Tetrahydroisoquinolin6-ol-1-carboxylic acid and Murolan-3, 9(11)-diene-10-peroxy. Essential oil (300 µg/disk) of T. foenum-graecum displayed antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis IFO 3026, Sarcina lutea IFO 3232, Xanthomonas campestris IAM 1671, Proteus vulgaris MTCC 321 and Pseudomonas denitrificans KACC 32026 with their respective zones of inhibition of 6.5 ± 0 to 8 ± 1.7 mm and the essential oil (150 µl/disk) displayed far greater potential antibacterial activity compare to those extracts against all experimental bacteria with their respective zones of inhibition of 8 ± 0 to 15 ± 0.7 mm. Conclusion: This experiment showed a great potential of antibacterial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria. The results of this study counsel that T. foenum-graecum might have potential use as antibacterial agents.


This article defines the intermediate level between personal agency and global issues of injustice as a complex system of mediating collectives, the agency of which must be addressed specifically in organizational and ontological but also in ethical and political terms. We target three domains of global injustice: economic, environmental, and gender-related, following the threads of briefly stated cases in these domains. Our conclusion suggests recommendations for dealing more realistically and more efficiently with global injustice that obstinately thrives from somewhere deep into the structures of the contemporary world. Our recommendations will bear on (a) individual responsibility in a collective, (b) virtuous direct and indirect action, (c) awareness of and communication with interdependent collectives, (d) optimal communication within every collective, (e) readiness for joint-action as an authentic group-agent.


This report presents the results of the first of two phases of research aimed at gaining a better understanding of what lies behind the so-called 'Glasgow Effect', a term increasingly used in recent years to describe the poor health status of Glasgow over and above that attributable to the city's high levels of socio-economic deprivation.

This study had two complementary objectives:

To establish whether there is evidence of a 'Glasgow Effect', even when Glasgow is compared to its two most similar and comparable UK cities, and when based on a more robust and spatially sensitive measure of deprivation that has previously been available to researchers.
To develop data that facilitate the identification of comparable small areas within the three cities as a focus for a second, qualitative, piece of research: specifically, to identify communities in Glasgow which experience significantly different health outcomes comapred to similarly deprived communities in Liverpool and Manchester.


The 'Romé' variety is considered an Andalusian (southern region in Spain) autochthonous black grape cultivar. However, several white and black grapevine accessions are known by this name, according to Vitis International Variety Catalogue. The aim of the present work was to clarify the identity of the 'Romé' and 'Rome Tinto' as black grapevine cultivar. Eight accessions known as 'Romé' and two as 'Rome Tinto' were analyzed using 30 OIV descriptors and 22 SSR loci. The morphologic and genetic analysis showed that all accessions studied presented the same genotype and phenotype and grouped with South Spanish cultivars. This study helps to clarify the confusion over the identity of 'Romé' grapevine cultivar, and provides a solid basis to develop a germplasm collection to protect grapevine diversity and to recover cultivars that may be in danger of extinction.


Though we live in a time when memory seems to be losing its hold on communities, memory remains central to personal, communal, and national identities. And although popular and public discourses from speeches to films invite a shared sense of the past, official sites of memory such as memorials, museums, and battlefields embody unique rhetorical principles. "Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials" is a sustained and rigorous consideration of the intersections of memory, place, and rhetoric. From the mnemonic systems inscribed upon ancient architecture to the roadside accident memorials that line America's highways, memory and place have always been deeply interconnected. This book investigates the intersections of memory and place through nine original essays written by leading memory studies scholars from the fields of rhetoric, media studies, organizational communication, history, performance studies, and English. The essays address, among other subjects, the rhetorical strategies of those vying for competing visions of a 9/11 memorial at New York City's Ground Zero; rhetorics of resistance embedded in the plans for an expansion of the National Civil Rights Museum; representations of nuclear energy--both as power source and weapon--in Cold War and post-Cold War museums; and tours and tourism as acts of performance. By focusing on "official" places of memory, the collection causes readers to reflect on how nations and local communities remember history and on how some voices and views are legitimated and others are minimized or erased.


This paper studies the problem of optimal investment in incomplete markets, robust with respect to stopping times. We work on a Brownian motion framework and the stopping times are adapted to the Brownian filtration. Robustness can only be achieved for logartihmic utility, otherwise a cashflow should be added to the investor s wealth. The cashflow can be decomposed into the sum of an increasing and a decreasing process. The last one can be viewed as consumption. The first one is an insurance premium the agent has to pay.


The St. Elias Mountain region has occupied an important place in the study of the Quaternary because it presents a relatively accessible non-polar icefield and an array of environments from tundra to boreal forest. Paleoenvironmental studies in southwestern Yukon have documented the broad-scale climatic changes of the past 20 000 years, although few studies exist with well-dated sequences at high temporal resolution. Picea glauca arrived across the entire region around 10 000 years ago; however, the details regarding its migration pathways are not well known. Available records indicate few major changes in the composition of the boreal forest vegetation since that time. A slightly more intense fire regime in the early to mid Holocene has been suggested, but this conclusion is based on only a few studies. Variations in the tree line during the Holocene have been examined, but these studies also lack details. There is no evidence for more extensive grasslands in the area during the Holocene. Paleolimnological studies indicate that changes in populations of aquatic organisms have occurred in response to either Holocene climates or watershed variability.


The top-down guidance of visual attention is one of the main factors allowing humans to effectively process vast amounts of incoming visual information. Nevertheless we still lack a full understanding of the visual, semantic, and memory processes governing visual attention. In this paper, we present a computational model of visual search capable of predicting the most likely positions of target objects. The model does not require a separate training phase, but learns likely target positions in an incremental fashion based on a memory of previous fixations. We evaluate the model on two search tasks and show that it outperforms saliency alone and comes close to the maximal performance of the Contextual Guidance Model (CGM; Torralba, Oliva, Castelhano, & Henderson, 2006; Ehinger, Hidalgo-Sotelo, Torralba, & Oliva, 2009), even though our model does not perform scene recognition or compute global image statistics. The search performance of our model can be further improved by combining it with the CGM.


Goldsmiths is delighted to provide the setting for the International art therapy conference "˜Finding your voice, making your mark' and takes great pleasure that we have attracted conference delegates from all over the UK and internationally. The conference is hosted and organized by the new department of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies (STaCS), of which art therapy is a part. The core values which inform the work of STaCS reflect the spirit and values of this conference: a shared commitment to social justice; the encouragement of diversity through participation and empowerment; developing critical and reflective practices; engagement with education, health and social services in the public, private and voluntary sector; and a commitment to reaching out to local, national and international communities. In welcoming you all to Goldsmiths, I would like to highlight three ways in which these shared values inform the relationship between STaCS and the aims of this conference.


Surprise Adequacy (SA) is one of the emerging and most promising adequacy criteria for Deep Learning (DL) testing. As an adequacy criterion, it has been used to assess the strength of DL test suites. In addition, it has also been used to find inputs to a Deep Neural Network (DNN) which were not sufficiently represented in the training data, or to select samples for DNN retraining. However, computation of the SA metric for a test suite can be prohibitively expensive, as it involves a quadratic number of distance calculations. Hence, we developed and released a performance-optimized, but functionally equivalent, implementation of SA, reducing the evaluation time by up to 97%. We also propose refined variants of the SA computation algorithm, aiming to further increase the evaluation speed. We then performed an empirical study on MNIST, focused on the out-of-distribution detection capabilities of SA, which allowed us to reproduce parts of the results presented when SA was first released. The experiments show that our refined variants are substantially faster than plain SA, while producing comparable outcomes. Our experimental results exposed also an overlooked issue of SA: it can be highly sensitive to the non-determinism associated with the DNN training procedure.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about dissemination strategies for Lean thinking throughout multiple healthcare organisations.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH
The Ostergötland county council, Sweden (CCO) was chosen as a case study for an healthcare Lean-thinking dissemination strategies. Document analysis and interviews were used and results were compared with similar strategies employed by staff at the National Health Service Institute for Innovation (NHSI) and improvement in Great Britain and the Odense University Hospital in Denmark.

FINDINGS
The Lean improvement programme was introduced to tackle challenges such as an ageing society, rising care expectations and budgetary and economic constraints. It was designed as a long-term programme to create added value for patients and employee involvement. The dissemination strategy was: forming clear visions and objectives; piloting; training potential adopters; and formal dissemination. The CCO strategy was focused primarily on managers and was not meant to involve all staff until the implementation stage. Staff at the NHSI attempted to address nurses needs during dissemination, which questioned whether the CCO managers' dissemination strategy is sustainable.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
This paper inspires healthcare managers and decision makers who aim to disseminate Lean production in their organisations.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE
There are many case studies describing Lean implementation in single healthcare organisations, but little is known about effective dissemination and implementation strategies in large healthcare systems. The authors, therefore, suggest activities for developing and implementing dissemination strategies in multiple healthcare organisations.


The paper wants to describe and to show an integrated system made up of an artificial agent for the management of the natural language, with a basical knowledge written in the AIML language (ChatBot), with a PABX (Private Automatic Branch eXchange) software for the VoIP phone management and a server's controlling daemon. This system has been conceived like a support for the management of Web sections and in particular of Web-learning (w-learning) platforms. The purpose is that of watching the platform's activity everytime, to be able to "warn" immediately the teaching team in case of direct necessity with the learning community's users concerning the supplying of the learning contents and to warn the technical area in case of failures in the server system that contains the w-learning platform. The three components that complete the system have a specific operative aim: the artificial agent takes directly the role of front end on the w-learning platform, interacting in the natural language with the users of the learning community and in case of necessity it activates the PABX to send a direct short message (SMS) to the teaching team, containing the problem's object asked from the user to the agent; the controlling daemon watches the server activities where the platform is installed, checking the efficiency of the services that are important for the correct operation of the w-learning (Web server, streaming server, mail server, etc...) system; in case of failures it makes use of the PABX too to forward a direct calling, depending on the kind of problem, to the person specialized in the system's operative maintenance; in other words, the PABX manages the VoIP connection, solving the requirements of the others' monitoring system's components, forwarding the callings efficiently in accordance with the defined and planned policy. In this way, this kind of system guarantees the monitoring operation everytime, both on the teaching activity and on the right w-learning platform's technical operation.


Results of epidemiological investigations point out that environmental factors have an influence on the development of at least 80% of cancer diseases. The cancer mortality rates in Austria are analyzed with regard to this point. Austrian mortality trends of the most common malignancies are similar to those of other western industrialized countries. The relationship between cancer risk and the size of the Austrian communities is shown. As opposed to other common cancer sites, cancer of the stomach is most common in small communities with mainly an agricultural population. Etiological hypotheses about the origin of stomach cancer are discussed with regard to its epidemiological findings as well as the dietary habits of the population.


One of the remarkable achievements of nanotechnology is the ability to achieve nanometric surface finishes in single-point diamond turning of high-precision components for complex optical surfaces. A better understanding of the surface generation mechanisms is of prime importance for the development for the prediction of the surface roughness. This paper presents a study of mechanisms of nano-surface generation in single-point diamond turning of various types of materials.


Aspect-oriented systems provide pointcut languages in order to specify selection criteria for join points which in turn will be adapted. However, a closer look into current pointcut languages reveals that there are large differences among them. Consequently different aspect-oriented system permit to specify different selection criteria. This also means that it is in general hard to state whether a certain aspect-oriented system is adequate for a given problem without detailed system knowledge. This paper analyzes and classifies pointcut language constructs based on the objects they reason on. Based on this analysis, we propose three conceptual classes of pointcut constructs. These classes represent an abstract framework for pointcut languages allowing to better understand and compare existing approaches. They also describe a design space for potential new language constructs.


There is an agreement that the existence of social conventions is relevant for the individual economic behavior, but it still is necessary to explain both, the origin of conventions and the process of formation of conventions. In this paper we adopt the path-depended interaction, decentralized evolutionary process approach to address conventions and their formation. We suggest a population-based simulation model of bounded-rational individuals with incomplete information that, with some degree, interact imitating the behavior observed from other individuals of the population. The model uses decentralized interactions strategies in which unanimity and majority emerge. We also suggest an interaction strategy based on probabilistic. sets. The use of probabilistic sets introduces heterogeneity and improve individual rationality, turning model much more realistic. The model has been used to investigate the emergence theory of money and the technological standard choice theory. The results show that the model faithfully captures the essence of the behaviors expected in these scenarios.


The aim of this paper was to investigate the fluid dynamic behavior of the automotive closed type water pump with balance hole in order to evaluate and justify its overall hydraulic performance and, in particular to analyze the effects of the balance hole on the reduction of hydraulic flow force of it. The analysis has been peformed by applying the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, Fluent, to the solution of the 3-D turbulent flow fields of automotive closed type water pump. The reliability of the employed analysis was demonstrated by the comparison between numerical result and experimental data. Although, hydraulic head of the closed type water pump with 3㎜ diameter of balance hole decreased by 1.1%, axial flow force was effectively reduced by 13.3%, comparison of it with no hole at design point.


Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are multifactorial events that may be influenced by morphometric parameters. Associations between primary ACL injuries or graft ruptures and both femoral and tibial bony risk factors have been well described in the literature. Purpose: To determine values of femoral and tibial bony morphology that have been associated with ACL injuries in a reference population. Further, to define interindividual variations according to participant demographics and to identify the proportion of participants presenting at least 1 morphological ACL injury risk factor. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Computed tomography scans of 382 healthy participants were examined. The following bony ACL risk factors were analyzed: notch width index (NWI), lateral femoral condylar index (LFCI), medial posterior plateau tibial angle (MPPTA), and lateral posterior plateau tibial angle (LPPTA). The proportion of this healthy population presenting with at least 1 pathological ACL injury risk factor was determined. A multivariable logistic regression model was constructed to determine the influence of demographic characteristics. Results: According to published thresholds for ACL bony risk factors, 12% of the examined knees exhibited an intercondylar notch width <18.9 mm, 25% had NWI <0.292, 62% exhibited LFCI <0.67, 54% had MPPTA <83.6°, and 15% had LPPTA <81.6°. Only 14.4% of participants exhibited no ACL bony risk factors, whereas 84.5% had between 2 and 4 bony risk factors and 1.1% had all bony risk factors. The multivariate analysis demonstrated that only the intercondylar notch width (P < .0001) was an independent predictor according to both sex and ethnicity; the LFCI (P = .012) and MMPTA (P = .02) were independent predictors according to ethnicity. Conclusion: The precise definition of bony anatomic risk factors for ACL injury remains unclear. Based on published thresholds, 15% to 62% of this reference population would have been considered as being at risk. Large cohort analyses are required to confirm the validity of previously described morphological risk factors and to define which participants may be at risk of primary ACL injury and reinjury after surgical reconstruction.


The aging behavior of sintered Al composites with various ceramic contents was investigated. 2xxx series blended powder was used as the starting powder. Ceramic contents were 0 wt.% and 5 wt.%. The blended powders were compacted at 250 MPa. The sintering process was performed at 620oC for 60 min in a N2 atmosphere. After sintering, each part was solution-treated at 518oC for 60 min and aged at 180oC. The Rockwell hardness value at the peak aging time increased with increased ceramic contents. However, the peak aging time at maximum hardness was reduced with increased ceramic contents. The changes in aging behavior may have been caused by the acceleration of diffusion due to the strain induced by differences in the thermal expansion coefficients of the matrix and the ceramic phases.


Debates about the future of UK-EU relations have paid little attention to the European Parliament. There have been no studies comparable to those that have looked into how member states view the renegotiation or might respond to a Brexit. Media reports indicate that the European Commission taskforce handling the UK renegotiation has even looked into ways of avoiding the Parliament becoming involved. Questions persist, however, as to whether the Parliament can be ignored. If Britain votes to leave then the EU Treaty's withdrawal clause guarantees the Parliament a say in the final deal. To find out the views of the European Parliament BrexitVote is running a series – compiled by Tim Oliver – in which MEPs from across the Parliament set out what they think of the UK-EU renegotiation, the idea of Brexit and – most importantly – what role they think the Parliament will play. In this, the second part of the series, we hear from MEPs in the European People's Party (EPP).


Memorials to the lives and deeds of men are carved in stone and cast in bronze. These are permanent reminders of those who have rendered service valued by their fellow men. There is a different sort of monument with an endurance of another kind. Its greatness does not lie in its finished perfection as an imposing testimonial merely of what has been accomplished, but it has a functional greatness in that while it commemorates it also vitally links past achievement with future opportunity. Not only does it stand as a fixed record, but it likewise submits to changing needs and permits of adaptation to altering demands. Such are the memorials that perpetuate the life and work of Emil Kraepelin. At once there comes to mind the most conspicuous of these, in its essential character representing consecration and continuous adaptation to the evolution of psychiatric knowledge and practice: the German Institute


What basic visual structures underlie human face detection and how can we extract such structures directly from the amplitude of neural responses elicited by face processing? Here, we address these issues by investigating an extension of noise‐based image classification to BOLD responses recorded in high‐level visual areas. First, we assess the applicability of this classification method to such data and, second, we explore its results in connection with the neural processing of faces. To this end, we construct luminance templates from white noise fields based on the response of face‐selective areas in the human ventral cortex. Using behaviorally and neurally‐derived classification images, our results reveal a family of simple but robust image structures subserving face representation and detection. Thus, we confirm the role played by classical face selective regions in face detection and we help clarify the representational basis of this perceptual function. From a theory standpoint, our findings support the idea of simple but highly diagnostic neurally‐coded features for face detection. At the same time, from a methodological perspective, our work demonstrates the ability of noise‐based image classification in conjunction with fMRI to help uncover the structure of high‐level perceptual representations. Hum Brain Mapp 34:3101–3115, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Household trip data is of crucial importance for managing present transportation infrastructure as well as to plan and design future facilities. It also provides basis for designing new policies, implemented under Transportation Demand Management, and assessing their effectiveness. With passage of time, methods used for household trip data collection have evolved, starting from the conventional face-to-face interviews or paperand-pencil interviews, moving on to mail-back surveys and internet-based surveys, before finally reaching to the recent approach of passive data gathering. Recording travel data automatically will require the use of modern technology present in the form of various sensors, and employing intelligent algorithms to infer the required information from these sensors' data. These sensors can be integrated into a purpose-built device or more recently can be present in smartphones. The current study provides a comprehensive review of the research done in the field of travel mode detection from data passively collected with the help of various devices. The review starts from Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers and moves to cover purpose-built wearable devices containing additional sensors and finally ending with the most modern approach of incorporating smartphones. The summary tables presented in this study are of great value to the researchers trying to get insight of this research field.


In [1], UDP is proposed to address the limitation of LPP for the clustering and classification tasks. In this communication, we show that the basic ideas of UDP and LPP are identical. In particular, UDP is just a simplified version of LPP on the assumption that the local density is uniform.


Recent historical and sociological work has used the notion of the inscription device to account for European sciences9 long-range powers. Such devices are supposed to generate traces of encounters and observations, which can then be mobilized and combined elsewhere along complex networks of travel and information transfer. Europeans9 voyages in the South Seas have often been used to illuminate this process. This paper examines an episode of 1792 when a British astronomer was invited to tattoo a Marquesan chief by the chief himself. The episode suggests intriguingly symmetrical relations between acts of inscribing, writing, and tattooing and analyzes the ways inscriptions worked in such encounters. Assumptions about European authority and indigenous difference can thus be reexamined.


Clinical guidelines are a very hot topic. Many guidelines are being published, but many concerns about guidelines still exist. Guidelines may be able to increase the quality of health care while eliminating unnecessary or inappropriate care. Critics wonder if the process will instead lead to poorer care and a waste of time and effort. Although guidelines are targeted on providers of care, those with other roles will use guidelines for optimizing patient care and outcomes, assuring quality, cutting costs and tracking liability and risk management. Examination of guidelines and their impact suggest that the process and product are imperfect and that the impact is difficult to measure. The chiropractic profession will continue in its guideline efforts. The direct effects of guidelines will be on certain aspects of doctor knowledge, attitude, belief and behavior. The indirect effects will be largely attitudinal in nature at first but will eventually lead to action. The profession will embrace the need to (a) develop a more comprehensive and useful research database and (b) to develop sophisticated means for obtaining profession-wide consensus on fundamental clinical issues.


Probabilistic forecasts, which communicate forecast uncertainties, enable users to make better weather-based decisions. Using precipitation and numerous instability indices from the deterministic model HARMONIE–AROME (HA; a nonhydrostatic numerical weather prediction model) as potential predictors, we generate summer areal probabilistic maximum hourly precipitation forecasts across 11 regions of the Netherlands. We compare the skill of three statistical postprocessing methods: an extended logistic regression (ELR), a zero-adjusted gamma distribution (ZAGA), and a machine learning-based method, quantile regression forests (QRF). Forecast skill for low and moderate precipitation thresholds increases with the inclusion of extra predictors, in addition to HA precipitation. HA precipitation is the most important predictor at all lead times in ELR and QRF, while in ZAGA, the most important predictor for the location parameter shifts over lead times from HA precipitation to indices of atmospheric instability. All three methods improve upon a climatological forecast for low and moderate precipitation thresholds. ZAGA and QRF are generally the most skillful methods at moderate thresholds. QRF tends to be the most skillful method at higher thresholds, particularly during the afternoon period. Forecasts are reliable at low and moderate thresholds but tend to be overconfident at higher thresholds. QRF and ZAGA have more potential economic value than the deterministic forecast, with value remaining at high thresholds. A maximum local hourly precipitation threshold of 30 mm h−1 (a criterion in the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute's code yellow warning for severe thunderstorms) is skillfully forecast by QRF in the afternoon period at short lead times.


This article presents the emergent objects research project Hoverflies – an investigation into hyper-physical interfaces where we explore how the traditional idea of 'user' might be supplanted by the notion of the 'participant-performer'. The concepts of play, composition and embodiment were central to the consideration of design by thinking through performance knowledge. Play frames as articulated and categorised by Huizinga and Caillois together with Deleuze's notion of the objectile were critical to the research process. Here, we discuss the design of technological and playful objects and offer a ludic response to the erasure of 'play' or 'looseness' in both technological systems and in the design process itself. The article describes the iterative performance of metaplay in the use of play as process. We ask how a designed outcome can induce play for participants and how play can be embraced within an open system of design.


Medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTEC) play an important and unique role in central tolerance, expressing tissue-restricted Ags (TRA) which delete thymocytes autoreactive to peripheral organs. Since deficiencies in this cell type or activity can lead to devastating autoimmune diseases, it is important to understand the factors which regulate mTEC differentiation and function. Lymphotoxin (LT) ligands and the LTβR have been recently shown to be important regulators of mTEC biology; however, the precise role of this pathway in the thymus is not clear. In this study, we have investigated the impact of this signaling pathway in greater detail, focusing not only on mTEC but also on other thymic stromal cell subsets. LTβR expression was found in all TEC subsets, but the highest levels were detected in MTS-15+ thymic fibroblasts. Rather than directing the expression of the autoimmune regulator Aire in mTEC, we found LTβR signals were important for TRA expression in a distinct population of mTEC characterized by low levels of MHC class II (mTEClow), as well as maintenance of MTS-15+ fibroblasts. In addition, thymic stromal cell subsets from LT-deficient mice exhibit defects in chemokine production similar to that found in peripheral lymphoid organs of Lta−/− and Ltbr−/− mice. Thus, we propose a broader role for LTα1β2-LTβR signaling in the maintenance of the thymic microenvironments, specifically by regulating TRA and chemokine expression in mTEClow for efficient induction of central tolerance.


We study the physics of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI) of an isolated turbulent region in dilute polymer solutions and Newtonian fluids. We designed an experimental setup of a turbulent patch growing in water/dilute polymer solutions, without mean shear and far from the walls. The observations from the experiments are complemented and expanded by simulations performed using a localised homogeneous forcing to generate the turbulent front and the Finitely Extensible Elastic model with the Peterlin closure model for the polymer stress. The comparison, which shows that when Newtonian and viscoelastic TNTIs are fed by the same energy they behave in similar manner both in the experiments and in the simulations, permits to extend the applicability, on a qualitative basis, of single relaxation time polymer models also to turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces. From the detailed analysis offered by the numerical results, the alterations in the dynamics between strain and vorticity help understanding the mechanics of the polymer action on the TNTI without mean shear. The reduced vorticity stretching and increased vorticity compression terms are found to be due to the modified degrees of alignment between vorticity, polymer conformation tensor, and rate-of-strain tensor eigenvectors observed especially near the interface. These alignments at the smallest scales of the non-Newtonian turbulent flow lead to a reduced production of enstrophy and consequently to a reduced entrainment, which in this problem are seen as reduced advancement of a turbulent region.


Synopsis This work examined the feasibility of gold extraction from a pyrite flotation concentrate sample using an ionic liquid and water mixture as solvent, thiourea complexing agent, and iron(III) sulphate oxidant. A design of experiment (DOE) methodology was used to optimize the process parameters. The purpose of the investigation was to determine how feasible it would be to replace the traditional cyanide extraction process by using an alternative approach, and compare the yield that could be obtained with a less environmentally damaging and hazardous combination of chemicals. Test parameters such as ionic liquid concentration, pulp density, time, and temperature were varied using two imidazolium-based ionic liquids: 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulphate [Bmim + HSO 4– ] and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethansulphonate [Bmim + CF 3 SO 3– ]. The effects on gold extraction were assessed and screened using a half fractional factorial design (2 5-1 ) approach. The ionic liquid concentration, pulp density, and temperature had a statistically significant effect on gold extraction, while the type of ionic liquid and extraction time did not affect the gold extraction as much within the operating range investigated. A high gold extraction was obtained at low ionic liquid concentration, low pulp density, and high temperature. A central composite design in conjunction with response surface methodology were used to create an optimization design with the statistically significant parameters in an attempt to establish the optimal gold extraction conditions. It was found that the optimum concentration of ionic liquid [Bmim + HSO 4– ] in the aqueous solution was 15% (v/v), pulp density was 15% (w/v), and the temperature 60°C, with a gold extraction of 35.7% under these conditions. This, sadly, was only about half of the yield achieved with the cyanide process. In order to compete with the traditional approach, a way will have to be found to completely destroy the pyrite component in the material, in which a substantial portion of the gold was locked up. This work, and similar studies reported in the literature, indicates that cyanide technology for gold recovery will remain the process of choice in the gold industry for the immediate future.


Introduction The continuing fall in coronary heart disease mortality rates is widely celebrated. However, the impact of public policies and treatments is poorly quantified and hardly ever by socioeconomic group. Methods Using a previously validated epidemiological model we estimated the contribution of risk factor changes and evidence-based treatments to reduce CHD mortality in adults aged over 25 years between 2000 and 2007 in England, both overall and by deprivation quintiles. Results CHD mortality rates fell by 35% (219 to 142 deaths per 100 000), resulting in 38 070 fewer deaths in 2007 compared with 2000. Decreases in major cardiovascular risk factors were generally modest accounting for −37% of the total decrease in CHD mortality overall. This ranged from −50% in the most deprived quintile to −30% in the most affluent. The biggest contribution came from a fall in systolic blood pressure (−33%). Other gains were modest: total plasma cholesterol (−6%), smoking (−4%) and inactivity (−2%). Furthermore, these benefits were negated by increases in BMI and diabetes (+11%). Treatments accounted for approximately half the mortality decline across all social groups. The largest contributors were medical therapies in community settings for lipid reduction (−14%), chronic angina (−13%) and secondary prevention (−11%). Conclusions Much of the fall in CHD mortality in England between 2000 and 2007 was attributable to medical therapies, evenly distributed across social groups. This was unexpected, and probably reflects frustratingly small recent decreases in major cardiovascular risk factors, compounded by continuing rises in obesity and diabetes.


ABSTRACT Research Findings Effects on children's school readiness were evaluated for 2 interventions focused on improving teacher–student interactions (coursework, coaching) implemented sequentially across 2 years. Teachers from public prekindergarten programs in 10 locations were assigned randomly to treatment or control conditions in each year. Children's language behavior was observed during the coaching year: Coaching and the course each had positive impacts on children's multiword language behavior. Treatment impacts on directly assessed literacy, language, and self-regulation skills were evaluated within an intent-to-treat framework for children taught by the participating teachers in the coaching and postcoaching years. Children demonstrated higher levels of inhibitory control in direct assessments when their teacher had received coaching the prior year. Teachers who received both coursework and coaching reported in the postcoaching year that children in their classrooms demonstrated greater levels of behavioral control. Treatment effects did not differ as a consequence of child, classroom, or program characteristics, and there were no significant effects on directly assessed literacy or language skills. Practice or Policy: Results suggest modest benefits for children's language behavior and self-regulation for intervention(s) that improve the quality of teacher–child interaction.


New phylogenies were recently proposed by White and Harris, who recognized 7 genera and 16 species of fossil and extant suids from sub-Saharan Africa. This scheme is regarded here as oversimplified and an alternative is suggested, in which 9 genera and 21 species are recognized. The taxonomic and phylogenetic differences do not have any significant effect on the stratigraphic interpretations offered by White and Harris.


Modern lightweight structures containing hybrid materials allow an improvement of the weight-specific properties. In this regard, the great potential of FRP-Al (fibre reinforced plastic - aluminium) structures is far from being exhausted. As an alternative to bulky riveted joints the development of integral joint concepts with good corrosion resistance has currently a high priority for aerospace industry. The DFG researcher group 'Schwarz-Silber' (FOR 1224) at the University of Bremen set itself the goal to explore and develop interface structures for advanced FRP-Al compounds. Considering textile, welding and casting techniques, novel joint concepts will be designed, dimensioned and produced within five interdisciplinary projects. Experimental and numerical investigations support the validation and enhancements of the developed solutions. Regarding the joint concept combining textile and welding techniques, basic investigations were done. This concept envisages the coupling of FRP with Al sheets by using Ti wire loops at the materials interface. It is intended to join the wire loops by textile techniques on the FRP side and on the Al side by laser beam welding. The results showed a correlation between the microstructure and the fracture behaviour of the Ti-FRP joint under static loading. Based on these results, first design principles for advanced FRP-Al compounds with Ti interface structures are derived.


This paper demonstrates a novel approach to investigating the problem of public opposition to community mental health facilities. With the move towards community care, organizations setting up mental health facilities have encountered public opposition. It has been argued that this is due, in part, to the attitudes held by the public towards mentally ill people. A knowledge and understanding of attitudes towards this client group therefore has the potential to be of practical use to policy makers and practitioners who have a responsibility to consult on, and implement, community care for mentally ill people. The survey approaches and hypothetical situations used in previous British studies of community attitudes towards mentally ill people have, however, failed to take account of the rhetorical richness and complexity of the attitudes likely to be expressed in real-life community care contexts. By contrast, the study reported in this paper used a discourse analytic approach to explore the views expressed about mentally ill people in a 'hot situation'. Specifically, people's views were explored in the contexts of the arguments they used to challenge or advocate a supported accommodation project for mentally ill people in their community. This paper examines some of these arguments and discusses the theoretical implications for traditional approaches to attitude research. In conclusion, the potential practical utility of the findings is considered. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Long-term success rate of implants inserted in atrophic maxilla is ensured through sufficient bone volume in edentulous sites. Reconstructive surgery is necessary before implant placement to regenerate bone defects caused by atrophy, dental trauma, extractions or periodontal disease. Success rate of implants is related to the correct position and angulation of implants in residual crest, so that height and thickness of bone augmentation can allow predictable results. The most popular surgical procedures to obtain bone augmentation are: bone grafts, guided bone regeneration, maxillary sinus floor elevation, and bone osteogenesis distraction. Bone graft is the gold standard technique to achieve bone augmentation of edentulous crests and to obtain appropriate bone volume and morphology. Guided bone regeneration is a surgical technique that uses barrier membranes to promote osteoblast cells proliferation and exclude other cells such as epithelium and connective tissue cells. Guided bone regeneration is often combined with bone grafting procedures. Sinus floor elevation procedures are elective treatments when there is insufficient bone height for implant insertion in maxilla. Sinus floor elevation for implant insertion in maxilla in conjunction with autologous bone was described with long-term follow-up. Bone osteogenesis distraction is the process of bone generation between two bone segments in response to tensile stress. The aim of this short review is to analyze the different methods of increasing bone in atrophic maxilla: bone grafts, guided bone regeneration, maxillary sinus floor elevation, and bone osteogenesis distraction.


The class of ligands represented by [CpCo(P(O)(OR)2)3] , L , were first synthesized by W. Kläui in 1977. These ligands have been found to coordinate to a variety of low and high oxidation state metals through the use of its three P=O oxygen atoms as donors. The ligands act as mono-anionic six electron donors which make them similar to the more widely known cyclopentadienyl ligands, (C5H5-xRx) , but have electronic properties like those of fluoride or oxide. Also, it has been found that the coordination chemistry of L resembles the unsubstituted tris(pryrazolyl)hydroborato six electron ligand, (RB(pz)3) . All three of these ligands can be modified by changing the substituent R. The Kläui ligand offers a good opportunity to synthesize a chiral derivative. In the process to obtain the chiral version, (cyclopentadienyl)tris(biphenylphosphito-P)cobaltate(1-), 18, was synthesized from 2,2'-biphenol. This was characterized through NMR, mass spectroscopy, and XPS. Next, a racemic version, (cyclopentadienyl)tris(biphenylphosphito-P)cobaltate(1-), 17, was synthesized from (±)1,1'-bi-2-naphthol. A one-pot synthesis for the rac-binaphthyl phosphite derivative was developed with an increased yield from the previously published synthesis. The racemic version of the ligand was characterized by NMR and mass spectroscopy. The chiral version has not yet been synthesized, however, by following the developed procedure for the non-chiral version, the ligand could be synthesized from optically active 1,1'-bi-2-naphthol.


Learning to use, make, and modify tools is key to our species' success. Researchers have hypothesized that play with objects may have a foundational role in the ontogeny of tool use and, over evolutionary timescales, in cumulative technological innovation. Yet, there are few systematic studies investigating children's interactions with objects outside the post-industrialized West. Here, we survey the ethnohistorical record to uncover cross-cultural trends regarding hunter-gatherer children's use of objects during play and instrumental activities. Our dataset, consisting of 434 observations of children's toys and tools from 54 hunter-gatherer societies, reveals several salient trends: Most objects in our dataset are used in play. Children readily manufacture their own toys, such as dolls and shelters. Most of the objects that children interact with are constructed from multiple materials. Most of the objects in our dataset are full-sized or miniature versions of adult tools, reflecting learning for adult roles. Children also engage with objects related to child culture, primarily during play. Taken together, our findings show that hunter-gatherer children grow up playing, making, and learning with objects.


(TBD) context using particle filters. These filters require the computation of the likelihood of the complex measurement given the target states. This likelihood depends on the complex amplitudes of the targets. When the complex amplitude fluctuates over time, time coherence of the target cannot be taken into account. However, for the single target case, spatial coherence of this amplitude can be taken into account to improve the filter performance, by marginalizing the likelihood of the complex measurement over the amplitude parameter. The marginalization depends on the fluctuation law considered. We consider in this article Swerling 0 and Swerling 1 fluctuation models. We show that for the Swerling 1 model the likelihood of the complex measurement can be obtained analytically in the multi-target case. For the Swerling 0 model no closed form can be obtained in the general multi-target setting. Therefore we resort to some approximations to solve the problem. Finally, we demonstrate with Monte-Carlo simulations the gain of this method both in detection and in estimation compared to the classic method that works with the square modulus of the complex signal.


Controlled motion at the nanoscale is an emerging avenue for low powered electronics. The necessity for precision at the nanoscale makes organic chemistry an exciting addition to electronics, as organic synthesis is based upon the design and creation of nanoscale and sub-nanoscale structures. We have recently demonstrated the role of organic materials in the development of a nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switch that operates by electromechanical modulation of tunneling current through a switching gap defined by a few nanometer-thick organic molecular layer sandwiched between conductive contacts [1]. In this device, the molecular layer not only facilitates controlled formation of nanoscale switching gaps, but also avoids direct contact of the electrodes to minimize surface adhesion and provides force control at the nanoscale to prevent device failure due to stiction. Recent work has focused on the compression of the molecular layer by an applied electrostatic force between the two electrodes to reduce the tunneling gap. However, we envision next generation devices can contain advanced materials, which undergo electrochemically stimulated shape changes to modulate the tunneling distance and current. In order to achieve large current on-off ratios, the molecules must be capable of producing significant changes in dimension or shape upon electrical stimuli. Herein, we report a few examples of electromechanically actuating molecules.


Higher plants induce chemical reactions in the rhizosphere, facilitating metal uptake by roots. Fractionation of the isotopes in nutrients such as calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc produces a stable isotope composition in the plants that generally differs from that of the growth medium. Isotope fractionation also occurs during transport of the metals within most plants, but its extent depends on plant species and on the metal, in particular, on the metal's redox state and what ligand it is bound to. The metal stable isotope variations observed in plants create an isotope signature of life at the Earth's surface, contributing substantially to our understanding of metal cycling processes in the environment and in individual organisms.


Unsaturated chain structure of natural rubber makes it a poor defense against thermo-oxidative aging. Synthetic antioxidants are commonly used in rubber compound recipes to prevent/retard aging of the rubber material during its service life. However, synthetic antioxidants cause some negative effects on human and environmental health; they tend to be replaced by natural alternatives. In this study, the short- and long-term antioxidant effects of henna and its basic active components, lawsone and gallic acid, have been investigated individually for natural rubber cured with semi-efficient sulfur vulcanization system. The composition of henna was determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were performed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to highlight structural changes on aged vulcanizates. The authors attempted to correlate the suggested aging mechanism with rheological, mechanical, and morphological properties. Results showed that both lawsone and gallic acid were impressively successful regarding their anti-oxidation activity. In addition, henna, which contains a sufficient amount of lawsone and gallic acid, has been suggested as a competitive natural alternative to the common synthetic stabilization system for natural rubber, considering its sustainable commercial abundancy.


Iin this magnificent second edition, Drs. Frederick Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison bring their unique contribution to mental health science into the 21st century. In collaboration with a team of other leading scientists, a collaboration designed to preserve the unified voice of the two authors, they exhaustively review the biological and genetic literature that has dominated the field in recent years and incorporate cutting-edge research conducted since publication of the first edition. They also update their surveys of psychological and epidemiological evidence, as well as that pertaining to diagnostic issues, course, and outcome, and they offer practical guidelines for differential diagnosis and clinical management. The medical treatment of manic and depressive episodes is described, strategies for preventing future episodes are given in detail, and psychotherapeutic issues common in this illness are considered. Special emphasis is given to fostering compliance with medication regimens and treating patients who abuse drugs and alcohol or who pose a risk of suicide. This book, unique in the way that it retains the distinct perspective of its authors while assuring the maximum in-depth coverage of a vastly expanded base of scientific knowledge, will be a valuable and necessary addition to the libraries of psychiatrists and other physicians, psychologists, clinical social workers, neuroscientists, pharmacologists, and the patients and families who live with manic-depressive illness.


The case of a 35 years-old man, with chronic proximal muscle atrophy in which at the muscle biopsy tubular aggregates were found by histochemistry procedures is reported. The tubular aggregates stained positive with the modified Gomori trichrome, haematoxylin-eosin, DPNH-diaphorase, non specific esterases, phosphorylase, P.A.S., oil red O and lactate dehydrogenase. They did not show in the routine and acid pre-incubated ATPase, acid and alkaline phosphatases and succinate dehydrogenase. Only found in type II fibers. A brief discussion about the pathogenesis and function of the tubular aggregates is made. The authors believe that the tubular aggregates in this case are secondary to prolonged use of phenobarbital and diphenylhydantoin, associated with the basic denervation process and alcohol abuse.


Abstract In modelling mass and heat transfer steps in metallurgical processes, it is important to have knowledge of the physical properties of slags, the most important among these being the surface and interfacial tensions, thermal diffusivities, optical properties and viscosities. A critical review is presented of work reported in the past two decades relating to the following properties of slag systems: (i) surface/interfacial tensions and related interfacial phenomena; (ii) thermal diffusivities and thermal conductivities; (iii) velocities and coefficients of absorption of ultrasonic waves; (iv) optical properties. A perspective for further work is also provided.


The diagnosis of a hiatal hernia, a gastric volvulus or its attendant complications, can be easily missed because evaluation of acute abdominal pain can be difficult, particularly in resource-limited settings. Diagnosis of a gastric volvulus is even harder in the pediatric population because its peak occurrence is in the fifth decade. Hiatal hernia (and gastric volvulus) can be found incidentally in chest radiographs that are requested routinely or in suspected pulmonary pathology. The gold standard diagnostic tool for a gastric volvulus is a barium swallow. The optimal treatment method is open laparotomy with detorsion, and prevention of recurrence with anterior gastropexy. We present a case of an 8-year-old girl who had a diagnosis of hiatal/paraesophageal hernia with a gastric volvulus complicated by ischemia, necrosis, perforation and collapse of the left lung. A complete history and a thorough evaluation of the sick-looking patient are paramount in diagnosing life-threatening conditions like gastric volvulus. Keywords: Gastric volvulus, Complications, Paraesophageal hernia, Borchardt's triad


Generative adversarial networks (GANs) provide a way to learn deep representations without extensively annotated training data. They achieve this by deriving backpropagation signals through a competitive process involving a pair of networks. The representations that can be learned by GANs may be used in a variety of applications, including image synthesis, semantic image editing, style transfer, image superresolution, and classification. The aim of this review article is to provide an overview of GANs for the signal processing community, drawing on familiar analogies and concepts where possible. In addition to identifying different methods for training and constructing GANs, we also point to remaining challenges in their theory and application.


In communist countries censorship offices were the final link in the entire process of control of a given literary text before its publication. The Polish Central Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Performances of the ideological and political control of the manuscripts submitted. The [formulation of the] publication schedule and monitoring its implementation was done by institutions answerable to the Ministry of Culture and Art. In the GDR right from the start attempts were made to concentrate the two forms of control in one institution, which ultimately took place in 1963 after the establishment of the Central Board of Publishing Houses and Book Trade (Hauptverwaltung Verlage und Buchhandel). This institution held logistical and economic control of publishing houses, supervising from day one the publication schedules and monitoring the books prepared for issue as to their ideological and political content. It also made the final decision as to whether given books can come out and on what conditions, or whether their publication should be prevented.