In the Microsoft case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) applied Post-Chicago theories of strategic behavior to anecdotal evidence of Microsoft's behavior and obtained a judgment against specific conduct. This paper takes a critical look at the theories of the case and the industry facts to determine if any anticompetitive concerns could be justified. After setting the foundation with a discussion of software standards and an overview of the computer industry, we apply our nine-step formulation of the DOJ's monopoly maintenance model first to Microsoft's alleged attempt to control the world of Java and then to the browser wars. Regarding the Java case, one could claim Microsoft designed a plan to exclude middleware technologies from the market, but no real evidence suggested Microsoft was able to leverage its position into middleware. In contrast, regarding the browser case, the facts could possibly be interpreted to suggest at Microsoft had leveraged its position from operating systems into browsers, but such a move would not have excluded operating system competition. At best, the DOJ proved half of two different cases. Neither case survives a close review. Other monopolization theories are also discussed and rejected. The presentation concludes with a brief overview of a simple monopolization count through which Microsoft may have maintained their operating system monopoly through exclusionary conduct directed toward the Linux operating system.


The purpose of this paper was to identify and address the higher education leadership challenges in facilitating culturally sensitive leadership behaviors and attitudes following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The 9/11 attacks set a global precedent of cultural stereotyping of minorities in professional and academic domains. It is imperative that educational and organizational leaders identify marginalization and cultural stereotypes in their professional contexts to mitigate the negative effects impacting students and colleagues in learning and work performance. The findings in this paper have been extracted from the author's dissertation research study. Four key components of effective leadership practice and behavior were identified to assist and enable leaders to perform intuitively and responsibly. This paper also challenges current leadership practices in Higher Education that do not factor in culturally insensitive misappropriations to rise up to the challenge of becoming self-aware and leading from an empathetic and intuitive mode of conduct. (Based on author's dissertion research study)


This study proposes to incorporate magnetic nonlinearity into the linear magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) absorber, aiming at further broadening its operating bandwidth under each constant current. The test results under different amplitudes show that the absorber performs nonlinearity and its effective frequency bandwidth will be enlarged when it works on nonlinear mode. Then the adaptability for the linear case and the nonlinear case were both verified and evaluated. Afterwards, the absorption effectiveness of this nonlinear MRE absorber on vibration control was experimentally carried out. The vibration absorption evaluation also demonstrates that the nonlinear working mode absorber has larger effective bandwidth. And finally a short-time Fourier transform was used to control the nonlinear MRE absorber to track the excitation frequency variation. The test result demonstrates that the hybrid MRE absorber can also tune its stiffness to trace the excitation frequency and performs better than passive absorbers.


This study offers a critical analysis of international short-term volunteer work, also known as "voluntourism", in designated "poor countries", the global south, by university students from relatively "rich countries", the global north. Using literature reviews, participant observation, and interviews with student volunteers, the motivations for volunteering its consequences on global health are understood from a student volunteer perspective. Based on this understanding, the involvement of participating organizations and the effects on the communities involved are evaluated. From this report, I intend to expand the conversation on "voluntourism", specifically in the medical field and offer suggestions to consider for future student volunteers and organizations alike. Although well intentioned, the basic structure for medical volunteering at an untrained, undergraduate level perpetuates an unrealistic and ill-informed view of public health care for underserved populations. This involvement can further damage the social structure of local and international health care. Disciplines Anthropology This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_seniortheses/170 THE COST OF VOLUNTEERING: CONSEQUENCES OF VOLUNTOURISM By Megan Smith In Anthropology Submitted to the Department of Anthropology University of Pennsylvania Thesis Advisor: Dr. Frances K. Barg 2015


An adult male Mabuya, recently collected from Lanyu Island, Taiwan, was identified as Mabuya cumingi, a species hitherto known only from Luzon Island of the Philippines, on the basis of small body size (56.6mm in snout-vent length), embossed dorsal head scales, five scales beneath toe I, and the presence of a dark middorsal stripe. Occurrence of this species on Lanyu Island was also confirmed by additional sighting records. Mabuya cumingi is regarded as a fourth reptile species representing a dispersal to this island from the Philippines.


A cross-sectional study was carried out from April to July/2012 to estimate the prevalence of brucellosis in sheep and to investigate potential risk factors associated with the disease in North Kordofan state. A total of 318 serum samples were collected from sheep. 2.5% (8/318; 95% CI from 0.78 to 4.22) and 22.0% (70/318; 95% CI from 17.5 to 26.6) prevalences were parallel estimated by Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT) and Serum Agglutination Test (STA). All the RBPT and SAT positive serum samples were serially tested by a Competitive Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). The investigated potential individual risk factors included: localities, breeds, age groups, body condition, sexes and parity while herd size, mixed herd, housing, feeding and drinking equipments, having aborter animals in the herd, disposal of the foetal membranes after abortion, practicing milking hygiene and presence of insects and dogs in the herd were the management risk factors. Univariate analysis using chi- square, with a confidence interval of 95% at a p-value of ≤0.05 was employed to identify potential risk factors associated with RBPT- and SAT-positivity statuses for brucellosis infection in sheep. With exception of age (Chi 2 = 5.69, p-value = 0.017) in SAT-positive status, none of the other individual or management risk factors had an effect on the occurrence of brucellosis in sheep in North Kordofan State, neither for RBPT- nor for SAT-seropositive statuses. Multivariate analysis using logistic regression was not used because all risk factors had no effect on the spreading of the disease in the univariate analysis using chi square at p-value of ≤0.05. It is concluded that brucellosis in sheep is probably not a significant public health problem in North Kordofan State. However, more studies investigating potential risk factors that could enhance the spread and transmission of brucellosis in sheep in the Sudan are recommended, besides, eradication plans should take place when still the disease is at this low prevalence as the needed effort and cost to manage the disease would be small.


Ross provides a broad survey of pictures and texts concerning saints, from the Early Christian through the late Gothic period. Both Western and Byzantine material is included. Beginning with the earliest pictures of and stories about saints, the book traces the evolution of hagiographic imagery primarily in manuscript contexts. Because of its cross-disciplinary nature, it will be of interest to audiences interested in Early Christian, Byzantine, and Western medieval culture: religion, society, politics, and art. No other book to date is organized similarly in providing detailed descriptions for the identification of medieval manuscripts with hagiographic texts and illustrations.


The hypothesis that subordinate ingratiation and subordinate gender will interact to influence LMX quality, such that ingratiation will have a stronger positive impact on LMX relationships for female subordinates than those for male subordinates was tested with a sample of employees (N=164) working in a large organization in Eastern India. Evidence in support of the hypothesis was found. The implications of this result have been discussed.


Objectives: To estimate the incidence of adverse events in medical and surgical activity in public and private hospitals, and to assess the clinical situation of patients and the active errors. Design: Prospective assessment of adverse events by external senior nursing and doctor investigators with ward staff. Setting: Random three-stage stratified cluster sampling of stays or fractions of stay in a 7-day observation period for each ward. Participants: 8754 patients observed in 292 wards in 71 hospitals, over 35 234 hospitalisation days. Main outcome measures: Number of adverse events in relation to number of days of hospitalisation. Results: The incidence density of adverse events was 6.6 per 1000 days of hospitalisation (95% CI 5.7 to 7.5), of which 35% were preventable. Invasive procedures were the source of half the adverse events, of which 20% were preventable. Adverse events related to the psychological sphere and pain were mostly considered as preventable. Ward staff found it difficult to assess the role of care management in the occurrence of adverse events: 41% of adverse events were expected because of the disease itself, and could have occurred in the absence of the related medical management. Conclusion: At the national level in France, every year 120 000–190 000 adverse events during hospitalisation can be considered as preventable. Areas such as perioperative period and geriatric units should receive closer attention. As adverse events occurred more commonly in vulnerable patients, who are not specifically targeted by clinical guidance, practising evidence-based medicine is not likely to prevent all cases. Therefore clinical risk management should prioritise empowerment of local staff, provision of favourable conditions within the organisation, and staff training based on simple tools appropriate for ward-level identification and analysis of adverse events.


This thesis deals with the stability analysis of linear discrete-time premium-reserve (P-R) systems in a stochastic framework. Such systems are characterised by a mixture of the premium pricing process and the medium- and long- term stability in the accumulated reserve (surplus) policy, and they play a key role in the modern actuarial literature. Although the mathematical and practical analysis of P-R systems is well studied and motivated, their stability properties have not been studied thoughtfully and they are restricted in a deterministic framework.

In Engineering, during the last three decades, many useful techniques are developed in linear robust control theory. This thesis is the first attempt to use some useful tools from linear robust control theory in order to analyze the stability of these classical insurance systems.

Analytically, in this thesis, P-R systems are first formulated with structural properties such that time-varying delays, random disturbance and parameter uncertainties. Then as an extension of the previous literature, the results of stabilization and the robust H-infinity control of P-R systems are modelled in stochastic framework. Meanwhile, the risky investment impact on the P-R system stability condition is shown. In this approach, the potential effects from changes in insurer's investment strategy is discussed. Next we develop regime switching P-R systems to describe the abrupt structural changes in the economic fundamentals as well as the periodic switches in the parameters. The results for the regime switching P-R system are illustrated by means of two different approaches: markovian and arbitrary regime switching systems. Finally, we show how robust guaranteed cost control could be implemented to solve an optimal insurance problem.

In each chapter, Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) sufficient conditions are derived to solve the proposed sub-problems and numerical examples are given to illustrate the applicability of the theoretical findings.


The weight initialization and the activation function of deep neural networks have a crucial impact on the performance of the training procedure. An inappropriate selection can lead to the loss of information of the input during forward propagation and the exponential vanishing/exploding of gradients during back-propagation. Understanding the theoretical properties of untrained random networks is key to identifying which deep networks may be trained successfully as recently demonstrated by Samuel et al (2017) who showed that for deep feedforward neural networks only a specific choice of hyperparameters known as the `Edge of Chaos' can lead to good performance. While the work by Samuel et al (2017) discuss trainability issues, we focus here on training acceleration and overall performance. We give a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the Edge of Chaos and show that we can indeed tune the initialization parameters and the activation function in order to accelerate the training and improve the performance.


Abstract. The quality and condition of a road surface is of great importance for convenience and safety of driving. So the investigations of the behaviour of road materials in laboratory conditions and monitoring of existing roads are widely fulfilled for controlling a geometric parameters and detecting defects in the road surface. Photogrammetry as accurate non-contact measuring method provides powerful means for solving different tasks in road surface reconstruction and analysis. The range of dimensions concerned in road surface analysis can have great variation from tenths of millimetre to hundreds meters and more. So a set of techniques is needed to meet all requirements of road parameters estimation. Two photogrammetric techniques for road surface analysis are presented: for accurate measuring of road pavement and for road surface reconstruction based on imagery obtained from unmanned aerial vehicle. The first technique uses photogrammetric system based on structured light for fast and accurate surface 3D reconstruction and it allows analysing the characteristics of road texture and monitoring the pavement behaviour. The second technique provides dense 3D model road suitable for road macro parameters estimation.


Reliable and efficient operation of membrane bioreactors (MBR) for centralized municipal wastewater treatment strongly depends on a good monitoring of the membrane permeability, a value often used to quantify the transmissibility (i.e. the inverse of the flow resistance) of the membrane. By directly or indirectly evaluating this parameter the operator normally plans on the necessity and effectivity of maintenance activities. To allow the operator monitoring the membrane performance closely, the present paper proposes a method for online permeability based on the measurements of permeate flow, transmembrane pressure and water temperature. The theoretical background of the method is discussed and a data set of 250 days of continuous pilot operation of a municipal MBR equipped with three different standard membrane modules is used for testing. The method is numerically simple enough to allow being implemented on any programmable logical controller.


This paper describes an S-band wideband high efficiency power amplifier based on the Nanjing Electron Device Institute's GaAs pHEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuit(MMIC) technology. To realize high efficiency, the two stage power amplifier is designed with a driver ratio of 1:8. The low-pass filter/high-pass filter combined matching circuit is applied to the amplifier to reduce the chip size, as well as to realize the optimum impedances over a wide bandwidth for high efficiency at each stage. Biased at class AB under a drain supply voltage of 5 V, the amplifier delivers 33-34 dBm saturated output power across the frequency range of 1.8 to 3 GHz with associated power-added efficiency of 35%-45% and very flat power gain of 25-26 dB in CW mode. The size of this MMIC is very compact with 2.7×2.75 mm 2 .


Nature's blueprint provides the fundamental principles for expanding the use of abundant metals in catalysis; however, mimicking both the structure and function of copper enzymes simultaneously in one artificial system for selective C-H bond oxidation faces marked challenges. Herein, we report a new approach to the assembly of artificial monooxygenases utilizing a binuclear Cu2S2Cl2 cluster to duplicate the identical structure and catalysis of the CuA enzyme. The designed monooxygenase Cu-Cl-bpyc facilitates well-defined redox potential that initially activated O2 via photoinduced electron transfer, and generated an active chlorine radical via a ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT) process from the consecutive excitation of the in situ formed copper(II) center. The chlorine radical abstracts a hydrogen atom selectively from C(sp3)-H bonds to generate the radical intermediate; meanwhile, the O2•- species interacted with the mimic to form mixed-valence species, giving the desired oxidization products with inherent product selectivity of copper monooxygenases and recovering the catalyst directly. This enzymatic protocol exhibits excellent recyclability, good functional group tolerance, and broad substrate scope, including some biological and pharmacologically relevant targets. Mechanistic studies indicate that the C-H bond cleavage was the rate-determining step and the cuprous interactions were essential to stabilize the active oxygen species. The well-defined structural characters and the fine-modified catalytic properties open a new avenue to develop robust artificial enzymes with uniform and precise active sites and high catalytic performances.


Study Design. Prospective clinical study. Objective. To test whether elastic stabilization with the Dynesys system (Zimmer Spine, Minneapolis, MN) provides enough stability to prevent further progression of spondylolisthesis as well as instability after decompression for spinal stenosis with degenerative spondylolisthesis. Summary of Background Data. In spinal stenosis with degenerative spondylolisthesis, decompression and fusion is widely recommended. However, patients have donor site pain. In 1994, a dynamic transpedicular system (Dynesys) was introduced to the market, stating that stabilization is possible without bone grafting. Methods. A total of 26 patients (mean age 71 years) with lumbar spinal stenosis and degenerative spondylolisthesis underwent interlaminar decompression and dynamic stabilization with the Dynesys system. Minimum follow-up was 2 years. Operative data, clinical outcome, and plain and flexion/extension radiographs were obtained and compared to preoperative and postoperative data. Results. Mean leg pain decreased significantly (P < 0.01), and mean walking distance improved significantly to more than 1000 m (P < 0.01). There were 5 patients (21%) who still had some claudication. A total of 21 patients (87.5%) would undergo the same procedure again. Radiographically, no significant progression of spondylolisthesis could be detected. The implant failure rate was 17%, and none of them were clinically symptomatic. Conclusions. In elderly patients with spinal stenosis with degenerative spondylolisthesis, dynamic stabilization with the Dynesys system in addition to decompression leads to similar clinical results as seen in established protocols using decompression and fusion with pedicle screws. It maintains enough stability to prevent further progression of spondylolisthesis or instability. With the Dynesys system, no bone grafting is necessary, therefore, donor site morbidity can be avoided.


When calcium homeostasis fails, as occurs in anoxia and other energy-deprived states, cell viability is threatened. This is probably because such states are accompanied either by an uncontrolled influx of calcium (Ca) through the plasma membrane, or by massive release of Ca from intracellular binding/sequestration sites. The review herein provides a brief overview of our current state of knowledge on Ca-related cell damage. Various aspects of the latter as well as of cellular Ca homeostasis are discussed, such as loss of Ca homeostasis and cell death, Ca-unrelated cell damage, Ca and neuronal vulnerability to ischemia, the neurotoxicity of excitatory amino acids, Ca and excitotoxic cell death in vitro, routes of entry of Ca, spreading depression and ionic changes, and the importance of Ca in the pathogenesis of ischemic neuronal damage.


We present a new parallel sorting algorithm that uses a fixed-size sorter iteratively to sort inputs of arbitrary size. A parallel sorting architecture based on this algorithm is proposed. This architecture consists of three components, linear arrays that support constant-time operations, a multilevel sorting network, and a termination detection tree, all operating concurrently in systolic processing fashion. The structure of this sorting architecture is simple and regular, highly suitable for VLSI realization. Theoretical analysis and experimental data indicate that the performance of this architecture is likely to be excellent in practice.


The purpose of this study was to examine how preservice teachers, from a funds of knowledge perspective, in a community-based early childhood teacher preparation programme learned about the language and (bi)literacy development of young English emergent bilinguals. Through a series of in-depth home observations their early childhood education (ECE) coursework preservice teachers reflected on young children's literacy learning and family literacy practices. We followed case studies of six participating preservice teachers who were placed with families with children enrolled in preschool programmes as part of their field experience. A research team composed of two university professors and two graduate students gathered a variety of data during one academic year. Data sources include field notes, video and audio recordings and children's emergent literacy samples from six family home interactions by the preservice teachers with their assigned case study families. During these family home visits, preservice teachers conducted observations and documented their respective case study child's language development and the family's literacy practices. The focus of the analysis entailed an ongoing examination of how preservice teachers' reflections and the home family literacy interactions helped deepen their understanding of funds of knowledge and cultural practices. We found that their extensive and consistent experiences, interacting with the families for one academic year, allowed them to reflect on how their views of those interactions had evolved. In all cases, the preservice teachers we interviewed commented on how they appreciated having the opportunity to interact with the children, their parents and family in various nonschool-related contexts. For these preservice teachers, there was gradual, uneven and continuous learning about funds of knowledge that challenged the ways and possibilities of embracing this perspective as part of their professional experience.


Flow structure and integral performances for a six-stage high pressure compressor (HPC) are found based on 3D viscous through-flow computation within RANS aided by the modified S.K. Godunov's implicit scheme, "3D-IMP-MULTI" software developed at CIAM. To increase the surge margin a decision was made to modify (R1) operates on the left branch of the characteristic line in the mode with a detached shock. To increase the surge margin a decision was made to modify R1, R3, R4 and R6 of HPC on the basis of 3D inverse problem solution by "3D-INVERSE.EXBL" software developed at CIAM. Results of HPC computations with the modified R1, R3, R4 and R6 showed an increase in the surge margin by 14.0%. Comparison of numerical and experimental data for individual stages and for the whole modified HPC are to be presented for verification of the numerical method of HPC performance computation and redesign.


The medical profession will face many challenges in the new millenium. As medicine looks forward to advances in molecular genetics and the prospect of unprecedented understanding of the causes and cures of human disease, clinicians, scientists, and bioethicists may benefit from reflection on the origins of the medical ethos and its relevance to postmodern medicine. Past distortions of the medical ethos, such as Nazism and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, as well as more recent experience with the ethical challenges of employer-based, market-driven managed care, provide important lessons as medicine contemplates the future. Racial and ethnic disparities in health status and access to care serve as reminders that the racial doctrines that fostered the horrors of the Holocaust and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study have not been removed completely from contemporary thinking. Inequalities in health status based on race and ethnicity, as well as socioeconomic status, attest to the inescapable reality of racism in America. When viewed against a background of historical distortions and disregard for the traditional tenets of the medical ethos, persistent racial and ethnic disparities in health and the prospect of genetic engineering raise the specter of discrimination because of genotype, a postmodern version of "racist medicine" or of a "new eugenics". There is a need to balance medicine's devotion to the well-being of the patient and the primacy of the patient-physician relationship against the need to meet the health care needs of society. The challenge facing the medical profession in the new millennium is to establish an equilibrium between the responsibility to ensure quality health care for the individual patient while effecting societal changes to achieve "health for all".


Binary systems composed of liquid-like Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs) and the secondary fluid (i.e., water) were prepared, and their thermal stabilities, densities, viscosities, and CO2 absorption capacities were investigated. Recent work has suggested NOHMs as an alternative CO2 capture media with interesting chemical and physical tunability. Anhydrous CO2 capture solvents often degrade when they are exposed to water, while flue gas generally contains about 8–16% water. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of water on the NOHMs' properties relevant to CO2 capture as well as the chemical and thermal stabilities of H2O-loaded NOHMs. It was found that water acted as an antisolvent of NOHMs, and therefore, caused a decreased CO2 capture capacity. On the other hand, the results indicated that while water did not affect the NOHMs' thermal stability, it significantly helped lowering their density and viscosity. In order to investigate the effect of intermolecular interactions among two fluids on the density and viscosity, the excess volumes and viscosity deviations were calculated and correlated with Redlich–Kister equations. The trends revealed the existence of strong intermolecular interactions between water molecules and the poly(ethlyne glycol) component of NOHMs, which may have caused the drastic decrease in the NOHMs' viscosity with the addition of water. 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


The goal of this chapter is to explicate the common ground and shared pursuits of lexical typology and morphology. Bringing those to the fore is beneficial to the scholarship of both disciplines and will allow their methodologies to be combined in more fruitful ways. In fact, such explication also opens up a whole new domain of study. This overview article focuses on a set of important research questions common to both lexical typology and morphology. Specifically, it considers vocabulary structure in human languages, cross-linguistic research on morphological analysis and word formation, and finally inventories of very complex lexical items. After a critical examination of the pertinent literature, some directions for future research are suggested. Some of them include working out methodologies for more systematic exploration of vocabulary structure and further scrutiny of how languages package and distribute semantic material among linguistic units. Finally, more effort is to be devoted to the study of vocabularies where basic concepts are encoded by complex lexical items.


Educational professionals need assessments that yield psychometrically sound scores to assess students' behavioral and emotional functioning in order to guide data-driven decision-making processes. Rating scales have been found to be effective and economical, and often multiple informant perspectives can be obtained. The agreement between multiple informants is often studied with deficit-based behavioral assessment tools; however, agreement is less well studied with strength-based behavioral assessments. In addition, when assessment instruments are translated for a new culture, the psychometric properties of assessment scores needs to be reexamined. The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal consistency and the cross-informant agreement of the Lithuanian-translated Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale to determine the initial basic psychometrics of the scores using a sample of 334 Lithuanian students. The results indicate that teacher ratings are acceptably reliable for use in research and practical settings such as schools; however, student ratings are less reliable and we caution against the use of their ratings in school-related decision-making processes. Agreement between teachers and students was moderate and higher than agreement found for deficit-based behavioral measures. Both internal consistency and cross-informant agreement was found to be similar across students both at risk and not at risk of behavioral or learning difficulties.


This paper describes a Matlab (or Octave) based software package for the estimation of dynamic systems. It has been developed primarily as a vehicle for profiling novel approaches relative to existing methods within a common software framework in order to streamline comparisons. Key features of the toolbox include simplicity of use (particularly via automated entry of unspecified values), the support of a wide range of scalar and multivariable model structures which include certain nonlinear classes such as bilinear and Hammerstein–Wiener, the ability to handle both time and frequency domain data, the hand optimisation of certain key routines compiled against ATLAS libraries for optimum speed, the use of non-standard optimisation methods based on adaptive subspace gradient search and the Expectation-Maximisation method, and the fact that the toolbox is freely available for non-commercial use.


This paper provides a new multidisciplinary approach to model long-term planning of electricity generation. The aim of this approach is to improve several aspects of system-dynamics based models in the literature in terms of companiespsila differentiation in imperfect markets. To do this, system dynamics is combined with credit risk theory and game theory. Particularly, this paper presents in detail the part of the model which focuses on companiespsila differentiation when calculating the expected profitability of possible new investments. This approach can be used as a tool to analyse long-term dynamics of electricity markets and the way the new generation capacity enters into these markets under different hypothesis of companiespsila strategies and regulatory policies. A case study based in the Spanish market to show the potential of this approach is presented.


Space Station is an international joint development project sponsored by the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. The Canadian designed special purpose dexterous manipulator (SPDM) is scheduled to maintain the Space Station and perform the on orbit replaceable unit (ORU) removal/insertion tasks. Johnson Space Center (JSC) of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been assigned as the lead center to integrate all Space Station sub-systems and to perform the ground testing of Space Station ORUs for robotic compatibilities. The Track Task robotic testing facility for ORUs was established for this purpose. The facility consists of a pair of hydraulic manipulators, special end-effectors and tools, video sub-system, multiprocessors controller, and the display and control workstation. This paper discusses the design and implementation of this facility.<<ETX>>


Abstract Reviewing and comparing the economic histories of Europe and Latin America we can observe that the universality of social security systems and the concurrent development of labor market institutions allowed Europe to reduce social inequality, while this has not been possible in Latin America. Pension systems in Latin America face some of the same problems that Europe's social security systems have faced before but with more difficult financing conditions. This document focuses on the lessons that Latin American countries may draw from the experience of Europe as well as on how reforms undertaken by the majority of countries of the region show different paths (to be taken) on how to place social security on an economic sustainable path. The paper is organized as follows: chapter two provides the idea that even though the OECD countries succeeded in transferring growing prosperity to the elderly, but at the same time design and taxes rules were working in the wrong direction to financial sustainability, OECD countries needed to reengineer their pay-as-you-go systems. Chapter three focuses on the fact that Latin American countries have the prerequisites for productivity growth in the coming quarter century, trough growth of human capital and labor force growth. The challenge for the Latin American countries will be to bring the entire population into this growth process, and include them within the institutions of the formal economy, and pension systems that transfer individual resources over the life cycle. In chapter four we discuss about the measures taken by countries in Europe to deal with concerns about financial sustainability and fairness, we suggest some important insights for Latin America, and how adverse demographic change and cost-push effects of generous systems have been the driving forces behind OECD reforms during the 1990's. Chapter five gives a brief description about the National Defined Contribution PAYGO system. Chapter six shows the explanation of what lies behind the path taken in Europe to introduce financial account systems. Financing the transition to financial account systems, the chapter says that in countries where coverage is low the future cost of the guarantee could be substantial, implying an increase in the tax rate on future workers. Where financial account systems have been introduced, younger generations have traded rights in the PAYGO scheme for rights in the financial account scheme. What European countries that have introduced financial account schemes have done is to mix these with PAYGO, diversifying participant risk between economic and financial rates of return. Chapter seven is emphatic to show that one of the strengths of post-war OECD systems has been the poverty reduction impact, and can be attributed to the high coverage level, a special provision for women and added safety net factors. Chapter eight enumerates the differences between the Latin America and European reforms. With goals often been the same, they have been moving away from redistributive Defined Benefit systems toward contribution-related-systems, and the chapter also provides the lessons the region has taken from the European process. Chapter nine summarizes our findings and concludes the paper.


Particle size and shape are key factors influencing the properties of particulate and agglomerated materials, and having an impact on a quality as well as utilization of a final product. In case of plant biomass particle morphology is greatly irregular. Large errors at most determinations of biomass particle sizes are caused by simplification on a single parameter of size, assuming particle sphericity or circularity. Thus, the aim of a present research was to determine the particle size in a complex way. Pine sawdust as an experimental material and typical biofuel feedstock was ground by a hammer mill to a fraction size of 12 mm. The dimensional features of such ground sawdust particles were identified for all particles individually via photo-optical analysis, a method based on a digital image processing that is sensitive to irregular particles' shapes. The particles were described mainly by variables of length, max width, equivalent diameter, max and min feret diameter, sphericity, roundness, circularity together with length/width ratio and aspect ratio. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics, i.e. by arithmetic means, medians, minimum and maximum values, variance and standard deviation. The obtained results may contribute to a better knowledge of material properties needed for designing an optimal technology for the production of quality biofuels.


A conserved structural motif in the envelope proteins of several viruses consists of an N-terminal, alphahelical, trimerization domain and a C-terminal region that refolds during fusion to bind the N-helix trimer. Interaction between the N and C regions is believed to pull viral and target membranes together in a crucial step during membrane fusion. For several viruses with type I fusion proteins, C regions pack as alpha-helices in the grooves between N-helix monomers, and exogenously added Nand C-region peptides block fusion by inhibiting the formation of the six-helix bundle. For other viruses, including influenza virus and murine leukemia virus (MLV), there is no evidence for comparably extended C-region alpha-helices, although a short, non-alpha-helical interaction structure has been reported for influenza virus. We tested candidate N-helix and C-region peptides from MLV for their ability to inhibit cell fusion but found no inhibitory activity. In contrast, intracellular expression of the MLV N-helix inhibited fusion by efficiently blocking proteolytic processing and intracellular transport of the envelope protein. The results highlight another mechanism by which the N-helix peptides can inhibit fusion.


A general methodology for holistic sustainability assessment of measures in integrated water management based on principal component analysis (PCA) was developed. Application on data from three cases demonstrated that PCA could be used to rank alternatives, assess differences between groups of alternatives and the main properties responsible for this, and account for the impacts of measures on different dimensions of sustainability. The results demonstrated the general applicability of the method. For all cases a combination of measures/options yielded the most sustainable solution. The absence of a single clearly most optimal solution highlights the need for a transparent and systematic analysis, which can be obtained with the presented methodology.


In this thesis, ion transport through nanoporous graphene membrane has been studied. Graphene is completely impermeable in its pristine state. To make it permeable, nanopores are created by heavy ion beam bombardment. To give robustness to the membrane, PET support is used. The pore size in the PET support layer is bigger compared to graphene pores so that there is no influence of PET layer on the ion transport through graphene. The ion transport is initiated by creating a concentration gradient across the membrane. The membrane being selective to cations, a potential is generated across the membrane. We measure this potential by varying the concentrations of both the reservoirs and keeping the same ratio between them. The membrane potential is scaled to the theoretical Nernst potential (potential for 100% selective membrane). The scaled membrane potential versus concentration plot shows two distinct Donnan and diffusion dominated regimes which is described by a modified version of Teorell-Meyer-Sievers (TMS) theory. Our ion transport study for bivalent cations shows that the scaled membrane potential for bivalent cations are lower compared to the monovalent case. This is due to ions getting adsorbed on to the surface which we have experimentally verified. We have also conducted bi-ionic potential measurements which quantifies the affinity of different ions towards the membrane. We have found that the ions having the similar affinity towards the membrane have overlapping Donnan plateaus and the ions having different affinity towards the membrane have different Donnan plateaus. The membrane potential is also measured by varying pH to understand the nature of the surface charge in graphene. We have found that with decrease in pH, the membrane potential decreases and reverses its sign at the lowest pH. Streaming current measurements shows similar trend with zeta potential data at varied pH. Finally, we have done numerical simulation to describe our experimental results obtained from membrane potential measurements. The dependence of membrane potential on the surface/zeta potential, pore radius and stern layer thickness have been studied.


We report on the physical characteristics of horizonthally-grown Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (h-al-SWNT) arrays and their potential use as transparent and conducting alignment layer for liquid crystals display devices. Microscopy (SEM and AFM), spectroscopic (Raman) and electrical investigations demonstrate the strong anisotropy of h-al-SWNT arrays. Optical measurements show that h-al-SWNTs are efficient alignment layers for Liquid Crystal (LC) molecules allowing the fabrication of optical wave plates. Interactions between h-al-SWNT arrays and LC molecules are also investigated evidencing the weak azimuthal anchoring energy at the interface, which, in turn, leads to LC devices with a high pretilt angle. The electro-optical reponses of h-al-SWNT/LC cells demonstrate that h-al-SWNT arrays are efficient nanostructured electrodes with potential use for the combined replacement of Indium Tin Oxyde and polymeric alignment layers in conventional displays.


In this paper, the idea of using cable differentials in the architecture of planar cable-driven parallel robots is introduced. Cable differentials are a type of mechanisms with several outputs driven by a single input. Using them in cable parallel manipulators can decrease their cost and control complexity. However, due to their kinematic constrains, cable differentials cannot be arbitrarily used in the design of these manipulators. Thus, a synthesis method is proposed to tackle this issue. First, the general requirements and characteristics of differentially driven planar cable mechanisms are reviewed. Then, the advantages of using these differentials instead of typically actuated cables are shown through a comparison between differentially actuated planar cable robots and fully actuated ones. The results reveal that with the same number of actuators, using differentials may lead to larger workspaces and improved kinetostatic properties. Subsequently, the systematic synthesis of differentially driven planar cable mechanisms is presented. For this, a method to find the different arrangements of q cables in a differential is proposed. Then, valid arrangements with 2, 3, and 4 cables are investigated. Finally, several differential actuation schemes are considered and all possible differentials with q=2, 3, and 4 cables are found.


Banks in the modern day society, almost everywhere, play a multifarious role, which includes unifying and intermediary roles between the fund-supplying and fund-demanding sides of the society, executing savings and investment functions. Considering the requirements for protection of the rights and interests of innumerable depositors, establishment of stability and confidence in financial markets along with requirements for economic development, banks are expected to ethically pursue their operations in compliance with the principles of integrity, impartiality, reliability, transparency, social responsibility and controlling money laundering. The objective of this paper is to examine ethical dilemmas in the Nigerian banking sector. The aim is to assess the level of unethicality of some Nigerian banking practices and the extent to which they affect the banking ethical climate. Data was collected from primary source through questionnaire and analysed using Kendall coefficient of concordance. The study found that unethical behaviours are prevalent in the Nigerian banking sector, however, the level at which and the extent to which they affect Nigerian banking climate vary. The study recommended that all stakeholders in the banking industry, namely the licensing authorities, shareholders, sponsors/directors, top management, the regulators, and the government, should be up and doing for ethical dilemmas in the Nigerian banking sector to be managed.


s:This paper deals with the best condition of extracting pigment fro m the skin of pitaya,the extractive stability,and the influences of various additives to the stability of extractive.


According to the principle of muscular hydrostats, a flexible biomimetic octopus arm is put forward firstly. The method of vector control for the flexible biomimetic octopus arm is presented and analysed in detail. Based on the combination of ARM (advanced RISC microprocessor) and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arry), a control system for the flexibie biomiometic octopus arm is discussed, and the functions of every components is analysed. To verify the feasibility and reliability of the method of vector control, experimets are carried out. The experimemtal results demonstrate that this method applied in the control of the biomimetic octopus arm has a good performance.


Pre-existing diabetes mellitus (Types 1 and 2) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are the most common medical complications in pregnancy. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the lifestyle habits of pregnant women with pre-existing diabetes mellitus (PDM) and GDM. A comparativedescriptive study on diabetes self-management during pregnancy was carried out using pre-validated self-administrated questionnaire. A total of 99 women with PDM and GDM participated in the study. The questionnaire provided information about patient demographics, obstetric history, diabetes history, self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG), dietary habits and physical activity. The two groups of pregnant women did not differ significantly with regard to demographic and obstetric characteristics. Only 26.8% of the women in GDM group adhered to strict SMBG and were tested daily (compared with 83.7% in PDM group, p<0.001). There were significant differences regarding dietary habits-91.1% of the women in GDM group reported eating healthy balanced meals compared with 62.2% in PDM group, p=0.001. Physical activity habits were similar between both groups. This study confirms the importance of self-care and healthy lifestyle habits during pregnancy. Every pregnant woman with PDM or GDM should obtain appropriate diabetes self-management education and support.


Larval settlement rates, genetic structure, and gene flow of broadcast-spawning (Acropora tenuis) and planula-brooding (Stylophora pistillata) corals (Scleractinia) were compared within a 500 km range in the Ryukyu Archipelago. We conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate planula settlement rates, and a broad sampling survey to determine genetic variation in both species in the Archipelago. In the laboratory experiment, the planulae of S. pistillata settled a few hours after release, while those of A. tenuis started to settle at least 4 d after the release of gametes. The survival rates and competency periods of larvae were higher and longer for A. tenuis than for S. pistillata. These results suggest that broader dispersal is more likely for A. tenuis than for S. pistillata. In the population genetic analysis, we measured local (2 stations in a region) and regional (Okinawa, Kerama and Yaeyama) patterns of genetic variation with allozyme electrophoresis. We also inferred the levels of gene flow in the 2 species. In the study area, gene flow (N e m) and genetic distance (D) were, respectively, higher and smaller for the spawner A. tenuis (N e m = 3.5 to 16.4, D = 0.028 to 0.187) than for the brooder S. pistillata (N e m = 0.9 to 1.5, D = 0.026 to 0.309). Therefore, the planulae settlement rates were well in agreement with gene flow. In addition, for both species, N e m between the Okinawa and Kerama regions (30 to 150 km apart; N e m = 9.4 to 22.5 in A. tenuis and 1.4 to 3.3 in S. pistillata) was higher than that between the Okinawa-Kerama and Yaeyama regions (up to 500 km apart; N e m = 3.1 to 9.4 in A. tenuis and 0.5 to 1.4 in S. pistillata). The results suggest that coral populations in the Kerama Island are a major source of the coral planulae needed for the recovery of both brooding and spawning coral communities around the Okinawa Islands, after the mass-bleaching event in 1998.


Urban wetlands play a significant role in the sustainable development of the urban eco-environment. However, accelerated urbanization has caused rapid changes in urban wetland landscape patterns, which may seriously affect their functions. Based on land-use maps, TM images, and field data from the Wuhan wetlands, the spatiotemporal evolution and wetland landscape pattern were quantitatively analyzed, with reference to landscape ecology indices of diversity, fragmentation, dominance, shape, and dimension. The results showed that: (1) the natural wetland area decreased: lake wetlands and marsh wetlands decreased by 18.71% and 50.3% from 1987 to 2005, respectively; (2) artificial wetland area increased by 47.75% in Wuhan over the same period; (3) the lake wetland area of Wuhan declined due to the conversion of large lakes to smaller ones; (4) the value of the diversity index (H), evenness index (E), and fragmentation index (F) decreased, while the value of the dominance index (D) increased from 1987 to 2005; (5) the landscape shape index (LSI) and fractal dimension (FD) of the river wetlands, lake wetlands, bottomland wetlands, and marsh wetlands decreased, while the LSI and FD of the reservoir and pond wetlands increased from 1987 to 2005; and (6) natural, societal, and economic, as well as human, activities are major factors for the structural changes in the Wuhan wetland landscape, as revealed by canonical correlation analysis. Results suggest that the ecological environment of urban wetlands should be protected to maximize the services of urban wetland ecosystems in Wuhan, China.


SUMMARY Tropical dry forests may be among the world's most threatened ecosystems, but few studies have objectively quantified their status and threats. This study analysed Venezuelan dry forests at multiple scales, assessing status, present threats and the policy context shaping their future. Historical and current dry forest cover at both national and local scales were contrasted, and a set of quantitative risk assessment criteria applied. While dry forests were vulnerable nationally, in northern-central locations they were endangered. Clearing for cattle ranching and for intensive and subsistence agriculture were the principal factors driving dry forest loss at the national scale, while at a local level, urbanization and fire seemed to be the primary threats. The analysis emphasized the separation of risk assessment from the very different task of establishing conservation priorities; high risk areas may not necessarily be the highest priority for investment, and policy makers may become explicitly aware of the spatial scale at which their policies are implemented, as well as how these policies may affect or be affected by the status of ecosystems beyond their area of influence. The main challenge to future dry forest conservation is a paucity of explicit policies for management and use. However, scientifically-based management can support positive dry forest policies in many ways, including identifying locations and protocols for ecological restoration, maintaining seed banks, quantifying baseline conditions, and monitoring genetic diversity and other indicators.


This project proposes the use of the sensory features of modern mobile phones that were previously unavailable for the wide consumer public, such as the accelerometers and the multi-touch surfaces, as an input for a musical tangible tabletop. The development of a mobile application operating simultaneously with the reactable is carried out based on a conventional wireless connection. The application is a formant voice synthesizer controlled by both the mobile device and the reactable. The proposed system seeks to give an additional degree of freedom in the musical experience and expression with this instrument and tries to take advantage of the advancing mobile technology to extend the control of the reactable and provide alternative ways of musical interaction.


In mature B cells the nuclear factor NF-kappa B which binds within the kappa enhancer is constitutively present in the nucleus. However, the lambda light chain producing myeloma J558L has been found to lack constitutively functional NF-kappa B. Deoxycholate released functional NF-kappa B from cytoplasmic extracts and functional NF-kappa B was present in J558L following cycloheximide but not phorbol ester treatment. J558L was also unable to respond to phorbol ester stimulation with synthesis of mRNA from the early response gene TIS11. J558L differs from S107, another myeloma which was found to be deficient in the synthesis of NF-kappa B but not in the activation of TIS11. Somatic cell hybrids were used to further define the defect in J558L; hybrids were made with the myelomas S107 and S194 and the pre-B cell line 70Z/3. In general, complementation of the defect in J558L was observed; however there was not a direct correlation between the levels of TIS11 mRNA and NF-kappa B expression in the somatic cell hybrids, suggesting that the pathways of activation of these genes, while possibly sharing common elements, are not identical. The defect in J558L was surprising given that it has frequently been used for the expression of transfected light chain genes.


In this article we argue that existing survey instruments used to examine public attitudes to global poverty are not fit for purpose. Surveys need to be redesigned to successfully support the threefold purpose of development education and public engagement. The core of our critique is that existing measures suffer from poor measurement validity, and fail to control for knowledge-levels or perceptions of aid effectiveness, both of which are thought to limit support. Researchers also lack understanding of the factors that motivate support for development aid in the first place. We conclude by making recommendations for future surveys of public attitudes and suggest that building support for development may require speaking to many publics as opposed the public.


Access to affordable, secure and safe housing is increasingly challenging in many European cities including Dublin and London, met with substantial academic critique and housing activism. This paper contributes to these critical voices with a paper analyzing a case study of the post-Olympics mixed-tenure East Village in London, UK. The paper examines how social tenants' experiences are shaped by new forms of neoliberalism embedded into social housing provision. Drawing on allocations policy documents and qualitative interviews with residents, the paper explores housing providers' management strategies to argue that the East Village case suggests a shift in social housing provision away from patterns of residualisation, as the beneficiaries are more self-reliant tenants rather than those most in housing need. By situating residents' experiences within wider political discourses of neoliberalism and welfare austerity, this paper explores how far East Village is a special case or indicative of broader trends in UK or European social housing provision. It is argued that the housing provider's financial responsibilisation and contractual strategies aim to construct tenants with enhanced consumer identities, which works to shift risks from landlord to tenants in the wider context that housing providers themselves face increased financial risks. This paper makes a unique contribution as there is limited research on East Village from the perspective of residents' lived experiences. The paper will be of interest to scholars on housing, mixed communities, regeneration and Post-Olympics developments.


Instantaneous spectral properties of seismic data — center frequency, root-mean-square frequency, bandwidth — often are extracted from time-frequency spectra to describe frequency-dependent rock properties. These attributes are derived using definitions from probability theory. A time-frequency spectrum can be obtained from approaches such as short-time Fourier transform (STFT) or time-frequency continuous-wavelet transform (TFCWT). TFCWT does not require preselecting a time window, which is essential in STFT. The TFCWT method converts a scalogram (i.e., time-scale map) obtained from the continuous-wavelet transform (CWT) into a time-frequency map. However, our method includes mathematical formulas that compute the instantaneous spectral attributes from the scalogram (similar to those computed from the TFCWT), avoiding conversion into a time-frequency spectrum. Computation does not require a predefined window length because it is based on the CWT. This technique optimally decomposes a multiscale signal. F...


Background: Depression and anxiety are indicators of mental health and quality of life. Studies found a high prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders among specific populations, such as medical students, residents and fellows. However, postgraduate students unarguably suffer from many private and career life stressors. Unfortunately, research about the prevalence of depression and anxiety among postgraduate students are greatly lacking.Methods: A cross-sectional online survey; a self-questionnaire divided into five sections. Socio-demographic characteristics, the Patient Health Questionnaire for Depression (PHQ9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 item (GAD7), insomnia and suicide.Results: The number of participants was 1,005, The prevalence of depression and GAD that warrant treatments are 27.4% and 23.6%, respectively. Most of the participants who screened positive for depression and GAD were not aware of having these disorders. Females were at a higher risk of depression (OR: 1.5, 95% CL: 1.10 to 2.15) and GAD (OR:1.49, 95% CL 1.07 to 2.07). Insomnia is associated significantly with depression (P<0.001) and GAD (P<0.001). Depression increases the risk for active suicide thoughts (OR= 7.453) (P<0.001). Conclusion: We have identified a higher prevalence of depression and GAD among postgraduate students compared with the general population. However, they appear to be underrepresented in mental health literature, so further research is necessary. The limitations of this study were centered on the nature of cross-sectional studies, causal relationships cannot be identified.


We investigate the surface deformations of buoyant-thermocapillary convection in a rectangular cavity due to gravity and temperature gradient between the two sidewalls. The cavity is 52 mm×42 mm in horizontal cross section, the thickness of liquid layer h is changed from 2.5 mm to 6.5 mm. Surface deformations of h = 3.5 mm and 6.0 mm are discussed and compared. Temperature difference is increased gradually, and the flow in the liquid layer will change from stable convection to unstable convection. Two kinds of optical diagnostic system with image processor are developed for study of the kinetics of buoyant-thermocapillary convection, they give out the information of liquid free surface. The quantitative results are calculated by Fourier transform and correlation analysis, respectively. With the increasing temperature gradient, surface deformations calculated are more declining. It is interesting phenomenon that the inclining directions of the convections in thin and thick liquid layers are different. For a thin layer, the convection is mainly controlled by thermocapillary effect. However, for a thick layer, the convection is mainly controlled by buoyancy effect. The surface deformation theoretically analysed is consistent with our experimental results. The present experiment proves that surface deformation is related to temperature gradient and thickness of the liquid layer. In other words, surface deformation lies on capillary convection and buoyancy convection.


Pollution is the most predominate cause that is effecting every living and nonliving organisms on earth. While the main reason behind this is man activities for his existence, comforts and needs. Due to these a wide range of pollutants are being evaluated daily in to the atmosphere, in order to prevent pollution and to study the effect of those, several theory's and strategies are evolved which can give use virtual results according to the date given with predefine conditions and limitations which are included in them. By using these models we can know the minimum effluent concentration that can be discharge into atmosphere and we can able to take the preventive measure. Abundantly used models are Box Model, Gaussian Model, Eulerian Model, Lagrangian Model, CFD Model and Dense Gas Model. Every model is briefly described and discussed its own postulates and drawback which are being discussed here, while they can't predict the environmental impacts accurately.


This thesis investigates whether children's understanding of both mental and non-mental representations can be accounted for by the same underlying competence in representational understanding. This research question stems from a long-standing dispute between domain-specificity and domain-generality in understanding mental representations. In Chapter 1,1 highlight the importance of using false representations to assess representational understanding, and discuss a fundamental problem inherent in previously devised false non-mental representation tasks in comparison to false mental representation tasks. I also outline the confounding of other cognitive skills such as language and executive function during the assessment of representational understanding. This motivates the subsequent empirical work for this thesis which includes (1) the development of novel measures for assessing children's understanding of non-mental representations and (2) the investigation of the equivalence between children's understanding of mental and non-mental representations. Evidence for this equivalence was shown by a transfer of training between a new false non-mental representation task and an existing false mental representation task presented in Chapter 2. With the use of another novel false non- mental representation task which minimises and eliminates the confounding factors of language and cognitive inhibition, the two experiments in Chapter 3 further indicated that the equivalence between false non-mental and false mental representation tasks could not be explained by these confounding factors. Chapter 4 extended the research from typical to atypical development, namely Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as individuals with ASD are known to be specifically impaired in processing social and mental information. Intriguingly, the findings in Chapter 3 were shown to be generalised to children with ASD. Finally, the consistent findings of the five experiments reported in this thesis are discussed in relation to the theoretical accounts and neurological basis of typical and atypical cognitive development.


Abstract Lichens in the Arctic play important ecological roles. They also face the threats of increasing fire and shrub and tree expansion, exacerbated or caused by climate change. These forces may lead to changes not only in lichen community composition but also in the abundance, diversity and distribution of lichen functional traits. We sought to connect landscape-scale patterns of lichen community composition and traits to environmental gradients to both monitor lichen communities and clarify community-trait-environment relationships. We measured lichens throughout one of the largest and most remote U.S. National Parks within the Arctic. We then analyzed lichen community composition and species richness within ecologically informative lichen trait groups along environmental and vascular vegetation gradients. Macrolichen species richness in 0.4 ha plots averaged 41 species with a total landscape level observed gamma diversity of 262 macrolichen species. Jackknife estimators placed the landscape level macrolichen diversity at 307 to 331 species. A gradient from low-elevation forests to high elevation rocky areas was the dominant ecological gradient as expressed by the lichen community, representing 68% of the variation in species composition. Low-elevation forests hosted more epiphytic lichens characteristic of boreal forests, whereas high-elevation lichen communities were characterized by saxicolous lichens, varying between siliceous, basic or mafic rock types. Along this gradient, species reproducing vegetatively and lichens with filamentous growth form were more frequent in forests while the diversity of traits was highest in alpine habitats. Simple cladoniiform, as opposed to erectly branched fruticose lichens in the genus Cladonia, were the only functional group associated with tussock tundra. Vegetation types differed significantly in lichen species composition and richness and trait richness; characteristic suites of lichen species and traits are associated with the particular vegetation types in the Arctic. We also extended the range of Fuscopannaria abscondita reported new to North America and Zahlbrucknerella calcarea new to Alaska.


The training of professionals in the field of healthcare for the aged is one of the priorities of the national policy for the aged in Brazil due to the accelerated aging of the population. The Núcleo de Atenção ao Idoso (NAI), a unit of the Open University of the Third Age/UERJ (UNATI/UERJ) develops an educational program in this field, based on practical care delivery with emphasis to inter-disciplinarity and teamwork. The program includes different training levels and modalities: Residency, Specialization, Professional Practice and Graduation. The program includes an introductory course in gerontology and geriatrics common to all areas, and specific theoretical-practical qualification coordinated by the professional staff from the respective areas. The practical activities occur in different sceneries: long term care institutions, health promotion educational settings, outpatient facilities and the university hospital. Interdisciplinary thinking and acting is a continuous exercise, and the team should be open to innovative strategies. The experience is a contribution to the increasing social demand for qualified professionals committed with the principles of the Unified Health System and integrated health care.


Surface adatom modifiers that act as promoters or poisons on transition metal catalysts can have a large influence on adsorption kinetics along with their influence on adsorption energetics. Accounting for this effect requires recognition of the role of a new kind of intrinsic precursor — the modifier precursor state. A mathematical description of the adsorption kinetics of molecules on chemically modified or bimetallic surfaces incorporating this state has been derived based on Kisliuk's statistical model [P. Kisliuk, J. Phys. Chem. Solids 3, 95 (1957)]. The resulting equation can be used to explain satisfactorily data on CO adsorption kinetics on chemically modified (Cl‐, P‐, S‐, H‐, O‐, and K‐precovered) Pt(111) surfaces. This concept should have broad implications for many systems in heterogeneous catalysis, such as bimetallic and alloy surfaces and coadsorbed layers, and for the multicomponent surfaces that are involved in materials growth and processing.


The Tasmanian devil is threatened with extinction by devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a unique infectious cancer in which the tumour cells themselves, which derive from a single long-dead host devil, are the infective agent and the tumour is an infectious parasitic cell line. Transmission is thought to occur via direct inoculation of tumour cells when susceptible and infected individuals bite each other or by fomitic transfer of tumour cells. The nature of transmission and the extent to which biting behaviour and devil ecology is associated with infection risk remains unclear. Until our recent study in north-west Tasmania showed reduced population and individual impacts, DFTD had caused massive population declines in all populations monitored. In this paper, we investigate seasonal patterns of injuries resulting from bites between individuals, DFTD infection status and tumour location in two populations to determine whether the number of bites predicts the acquisition of DFTD and to explore the possibility that the reduced impacts of DFTD in north-west Tasmania are attributed to reduced bite rates. Devils with fewer bites were more likely to develop DFTD and primary tumours occurred predominantly inside the oral cavity. These results are not consistent with transmission occurring from the biter to the bitten animal but suggest that dominant individuals delivering bites, possibly by biting the tumours of other devils, are at higher risk of acquiring infection than submissive individuals receiving bites. Bite rates, which were higher during autumn and winter, did not differ between sites, suggesting that the reduced population impacts in north-west Tasmania cannot be explained by lower bite rates. Our study emphasizes the importance of longitudinal studies of individually marked animals for understanding the ecology and transmission dynamics of infectious diseases and parasites in wild populations.


This guide offers you some questions to ask yourself before you decide a web site has the information you need. How to make a citation for a website


ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between functional capacity, muscle function, and daily step count in postmenopausal women. MethodsFifty-seven postmenopausal women aged 50 to 70 years were recruited. Body composition (body weight, body mass index, fat mass, and skeletal muscle mass), energetic metabolism (maximal oxygen consumption, total energy expenditure, daily step count), and functional capacity (muscle strength, muscle quality, chair stand, balance and alternate step tests) were measured. Women were divided into three groups (sedentary [n = 19], <7,500 steps; moderately active [n = 20], 7,500-10,000 steps; active [n = 18], >10,000 steps). ResultsA higher number of steps per day was associated with higher maximal oxygen consumption (mL/min per kg; P = 0.001) and total energy expenditure (P = 0.004) as well as lower body weight (P = 0.035) and fat mass (P = 0.048). Surprisingly, no differences for skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength, muscle quality, and functional capacity were observed between the groups, although this could have been because of the small sample size. ConclusionsA daily amount of 10,000 steps seems to be associated with better body composition and higher cardiovascular functions. However, neither functional capacity nor muscle functions seem to be related to the daily amount of steps in postmenopausal women. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm our preliminary results because cross-sectional study designs do not permit the understanding of temporal relations.


This study reports the results of MRI analysis of the spinal cord in 83 patients with myelomeningocele. 63 patients had a "tethered cord" or a "suspected tethered cord". In 14 cases we found a "hydro-/syringomyelia". In only 2 cases there were no pathological findings. The influence especially of the "tethered cord" and the "hydro-/syringomyelia" on the development of deformities of the locomotor apparatus is discussed. Concerning this problem the experience reported in the literature is not sufficient enough to make final statements. However, in cases of deterioration of the neurological status in patients with myelomeningocele the influence of intraspinal anomalies should be considered giving rise to further diagnostic examinations.


We theoretically study misallocation of labor in a heterogeneous-firm model with imperfectly directed search. Some workers can direct their search, while others are uninformed about the location of wage offers ex ante and are assigned to job openings randomly. The main result is that too many workers apply to high-productivity firms, relative to the social optimum. This occurs because too many firms take advantage of their market power, attracting only random searchers. Because it is the low-productivity firms that do so, this induces all the directed searchers to concentrate at the high-productivity firms, a ''flight-to-quality'' phenomenon. Improvements in information have ambiguous effects on worker allocation, wages, and worker utility. A minimum wage can increase employment and welfare by reallocating workers across firms. With an endogenous entry choice, policy design meets with a tradeoff in balancing the misallocation inefficiency and a standard entry externality.


Stat proteins are SH2 domain-containing transcription factors that are activated by various cytokines and growth factors. In a previous work, we have identified Stat 5B as a substrate of the insulin receptor based on yeast two-hybrid and mammalian cell transfection studies. In the present study, we have approached the biological relevance of the interaction between the insulin receptor and the transcription factor Stat 5B. Firstly, we show that both insulin and insulin-like growth factor I lead to tyrosine phosphorylation of Stat 5B, and this promotes binding of the transcription factor to the beta-casein promoter containing a Stat 5 binding site. Further, we demonstrate that insulin stimulates the transcriptional activity of Stat 5B. Activation of Stat 5B by insulin appears to be Jak2-independent, whereas Jak2 is required for GH-induced Stat 5B activation. Hence the pathway by which Stat 5B is activated by insulin is different from that used by GH. In addition, by using Jak1- and Tyk2-deficient cells we exclude the involvement of both Jak1 and Tyk2 in Stat 5B activation by insulin. Taken together, our results strengthen the notion that insulin receptor can directly activate Stat 5B. More importantly, we have identified a Stat 5 binding site in the human hepatic glucokinase promoter, and we show that insulin leads to a Stat 5B-dependent increase in transcription of a reporter gene carrying this promoter. These observations favor the idea that Stat 5B plays a role in mediating the expression of the glucokinase gene induced by insulin. As a whole, our results provide evidence for the occurrence of a newly identified circuit in insulin signaling in which the cell surface receptor is directly linked to nuclear events through a transcription factor. Further, we have revealed an insulin target gene whose expression is, at least in part, dependent on Stat 5B activation and/or binding.


The disease pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has triggered significant changes in the medical decision-making process relating to critically ill patients. Admissions to intensive care units have suddenly increased, but many of these patients do not present with clinical manifestations related to the viral infection but rather exacerbation of preexisting diseases. In this context, we must prevent intuitive decision-making and insecurity from leading us to exhaust the available critical-care beds before they are truly necessary, while still recognizing the importance of rapid decision-making in emergency situations. One of the best ways to achieve this goal may be by practicing metacognition and establishing ways for regular feedback to be provided to professionals engaged in inherently rapid decision-making processes.


In this paper, we propose a new methodology to effectively reduce defect-related yield loss. We introduce a monitor system, in which defect data collected during the wafer processing is directly correlated to wafer test data. The amount of computed data is reasonable, it allows sample rates which are only limited by the inspection tool capacities. However, this new methodology provides accurate results on each individual wafer which is inspected inline. This enables detailed split lot analysis in real time and provides a defect related yield detractor pareto based on volume data.


The liability regime of executive and non-executive directors in companies constitutes a necessary corollary to control issues within a company. It is based on the determination of specific duties, it establishes the limits of management behaviour and it provides stakeholders and third parties dealing with the company with legislative protection against management misconduct. In that respect, directors' liability is an important and effective compliance and risk-allocation mechanism. The European Commission has not, to date, considered directors' liability issues in a comprehensive way. It is the purpose of this study to provide the relevant information in a comprehensive manner, in order to support to European Commission to consider its future policy in this area. To this end, the analysis spans from national laws and case law to corporate practice in respect of companies' directors duties in all 27 EU Member States and Croatia.1 The overarching goal is to provide for a better understanding of certain important drivers of directors' behaviour. This study shows the extent to which the content and extent of duties and the corresponding liabilities, as well as the understanding of the persons to whom they are owed, fluctuate over the life of a company, i.e. during the "normal" phase of operation, and in the so called "twilight zone", i.e. shortly before insolvency. The study is mainly a stocktaking one. However, its comparative analysis also identifies similarities and differences between national regimes and identifies relevant cross-border implications.


This study investigated the facilitating effect of models, realia and charts on
students' attitude in teaching the concept of heat energy in Nigerian senior secondary school Physics. A total of 183 senior secondary two (SS2) Physics students constituted the sample. This study adopted quasi-experimental design in 4 co-educational secondary schools in Ife South Local Government Area of Osun State, Nigeria. Physics Attitude Scale (PAS) was used to collect the data and the coefficient of internal consistency for PAS was 0.85 using Cronbach alpha. The data collected were analyzed using Analysis of
Covariance. The results showed that models were the most effective in facilitating students' attitude towards leaning Physics. This was then followed by realia while charts were found to be the least effective in facilitating students' attitude towards Physics learning. The results also showed an insignificant gender difference in the attitude of students towards
Physics when taught with models, realia and charts. The results also indicated that the facilitating effect of instructional materials on students' attitude towards Physics is not the same at all levels of gender. It is recommended that charts should be used together with models/realia materials for the main lesson, revision and reference purposes. Keywords : Attitude, Heat Energy, Realia, Models, Charts. African Research Review Vol. 2 (2) 2008 pp. 56-68


Background and aims: Immunotherapy with anti-CD20-specific antibodies (e.g. rituximab), has become the standard of care for B cell lymphoproliferative disorders and many autoimmune diseases. Despite previously demonstrated role for B cells in bone metabolism, the effect of anti-CD20-mediated B cell depletion on bone mass in human patients has not been thoroughly studied. For example, in rheumatological patients the effect of rituximab on bone mass yielded conflicting results, while in lymphoma patients it has not yet been described. Here, we describe the effect of treatment with anti-CD20-specific antibodies on bone mass in a cohort of patients with follicular lymphoma and propose a plausible mechanism using murine model.
 Methods: To assess the effect of rituximab on bone mass in lymphoma patients, we retrospectively studied the bone mass in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) during the maintenance phase of chemoimunotherapy, i.e. when rituximab is administered as monotherapy. FL patients on no maintenance (historical controls) or patients with marginal zone lymphoma were include as a control group. Cross-sectional X-ray imaging (CT/PET-CT), performed at the completion of the induction phase and 6-12 months thereafter, were used to serially assess bone density. Wild-type female C57BL/6J mice and mouse anti-mouse CD20 antibody (Genentech) were used for the animal experimental system. Murine bone structure was assessed by the microCT method. Immunophenotyping of the bone marrow (BM), spleen and peripheral blood cells was performed. ELISA and "real-time" quantitative PCR were used to measure the levels of key mediators of bone remodeling, e.g. RANKL, OPG and TNFα. Standard osteoclastogenic assay was used to assesses the osteoclastogenic potential of BM cells.
 Results: Rituximab treatment prevented the decline in bone mass observed in patients who did not receive active maintenance therapy, both in the lumbar spine (-2.6% vs -8%) and femoral head (-0.5% vs -5.1%) (n=12 patients in each group, p<0.05 for the comparisons in the control group, calculated by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test). Anti-CD20-mediated B cell depletion in mice led to a significant increase in bone mass as reflected by: 7.7% increase in bone mineral density (whole femur) and ~5% increase in cortical as well as trabecular tissue mineral density (n=17-21 mice in each group, p<0.05). Mechanistically, treating mice with anti-CD20 antibodies significantly decreased the osteoclastogenic signals, including RANKL and TNFα, along with a substantial downregulation of RANK (the RANKL receptor). This correlated with nearly a 50% reduction in osteoclastogenic potential of BM cells derived from B-cell-depleted animals (p<0.05). The decline in the RANKL output was observed both at the bone level (≈25% relative reduction in the mRNA levels), as measured in the whole bone and BM cells, as well as in the serum (18% relative reduction) of the anti-CD20-treated mice as compared to diluent-treated controls (p<0.05 for all comparisons). No significant changes in the OPG levels were noted.
 Conclusions: While many lymphoma patients may suffer from bone loss due to advanced age and glucocorticoid administration, our data suggest additional favorable effect of anti-CD20 treatment in bone preservation. Importantly, our murine studies indicate that B cell depletion has a direct effect on bone remodeling, primarily by reducing the osteoclastogenic signals, thus potentially diminishing bone resorption. This novel unrecognized effect should be taken into consideration when maintenance treatment is considered.
 MM and DN contributed equally to this work.
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 No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


The NASA microgravity materials program is dedicated to conducting microgravity experiments and related modeling efforts that will help us understand the processes associated with the formation of materials. This knowledge will help improve ground based industrial production of such materials. The currently funded investigations include research on the distribution of dopants and formation of defects in semiconductors, transitions between columnar and dendritic grain morphology, coarsening of phase boundaries, competition between thermally and kinetically favored phases, and the formation of glassy vs. crystalline material. NASA microgravity materials science investigators are selected for funding either through a proposal in response to a NASA Research Announcement or by participation in a team proposing to a foreign agency research announcement. In the latter case, a US investigator participating in a successful proposal to a foreign agency can then apply to NASA for funding of an unsolicited proposal. The program relies on cooperation with other aerospace partners from around the world. The ISS facilities used for these investigations are provided primarily by partnering with foreign agencies and in most cases the US investigators are working as a part of a larger team studying a specific area of materials science. The following facilities are to be utilized for the initial investigations. The ESA provided Low Gradient Facility and the Solidification and Quench Inserts to the Materials Research Rack/Materials Science Laboratory are to be used primarily for creating bulk samples that are directionally solidified or quenched from a high temperature melt. The CNES provided DECLIC facility is used to observe morphological development in transparent materials. The ESA provided Electro-Magnetic Levitator (EML) is designed to levitate, melt and then cool samples in order to study nucleation behavior. The facility provides conditions in which nucleation of the solid is not triggered from the wall and in which fluid flows in the sample can be controlled and manipulated. These conditions allow scientists ideal conditions for understanding the relative amounts and distribution of different phases that form in the solid. Finally, the Coarsening of Solid Liquid Melts hardware allows quenching of low temperature samples in the Microgravity Science Glovebox.


As electronic government is increasing its momentum internationally, there is a growing need for the systematic management of the newly defined and constantly transforming services. eGovernment interoperability frameworks usually cater for the technical standards of eGovernment systems interconnection, but do not address service composition and use by citizens, businesses or other administrations. An interoperability registry is a system devoted to the formal description, composition and publishing of traditional or electronic services, together with the relevant document and process descriptions in an integrated schema. Through such a repository, the discovery of services by users or systems can be automated, resulting in an important tool for managing eGovernment transformation towards achieving interoperability. The paper goes beyond the methodology and tools used for developing such a system for the Greek government, to population with services and documents, application and extraction of useful conclusions for electronic government transformation at global level.


In the past 2 years, a multidisciplinary team of students of the University of Twente has been designing and building the SolUTra, a solar powered racing car. The SolUTra participated in the 2005 World Solar Challenge, a 3000 km race, solely for cars powered by solar energy, through the outback of Australia. Such a project not only provides the obvious mechanical and electric challenges to a Solar Team, it also involves finding a way to efficiently use all available energy, while trying to be the first at the finish line.
This report treats the design of a strategy development program (PALLAS), which is to be used to determine an optimal racing strategy for the SolUTra solar car during the race. The report also provides an overview of the proceedings of the race in Australia and the use of PALLAS during the race. PALLAS proved to be of great value, as it discovered erroneous car tunings in time, was able to develop optimal racing strategies and to determine the consequences of strategic decisions. However, PALLAS suffers from model inaccuracies due to lack of testing and inaccurate measurement equipment, which decreases the reliability of the developed strategies. The inaccuracy of the measurement equipment also decreases the ability to monitor and check the strategy that is maintained. For the next solar race, it is recommended to emphasize on car parameter identification as well as obtaining good measurement equipment.


Multidecadal-scale changes in atmospheric temperature have been measured by both radiosondes and the satellite-borne microwave sounding unit (MSU). Both measurement systems exhibit substantial time varying biases that need to removed to the extent possible from the raw data before they can be used to assess climate trends. A number of methods have been developed for each measurement system, leading to the creation of several homogenized datasets. In this work, we evaluate the agreement between homogenized MSU and radiosonde datasets on multi-year (predominantly 5-year) time scales and find that MSU datasets are often more similar to each other than to radiosonde datasets and vice versa. Furthermore, on these times scales the differences between MSU datasets are often not larger than published internal uncertainty estimates for the RSS product alone and therefore may not be statistically significant when the internal uncertainty in each dataset is taken into account. Given the data limitations it is concluded that using radiosondes to validate multidecadal-scale trends in MSU data, or vice versa, or trying to use such metrics alone to pick a 'winner' is an ill-conditioned approach and has limited utility without one or more of additional independent measurements, methodological, or physical analysis.


Service oriented computing (SOC) represents a new generation of web architecture. Central to SOC is the notion of services, which are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published, located, and invoked across the Internet. The services represent capability, which can be anything from simple operations to complicated business processes. This new architecture offers great potential for e-commerce applications, where software agents can automatically find and select the services that best serve a consumer's interests. Many techniques have been proposed for discovery and selection of services, most of which have been constructed without a formal Quality of Service (QoS) model or much regard to understanding the needs of consumers. This thesis aims to provide QoS support for the entire SOC life cycle, namely: (i) extend current approaches to service discovery that allow service providers to advertise their services in a format that supports quality specifications, and allows service consumers to request services by stating required quality levels, (ii) support matchmaking between advertised and requested services based on functional as well as quality requirements, (iii) perform QoS assessment to support consumers in service selection. Many techniques exists for performing QoS assessment, most of which are based on collecting quality ratings from the users of a service. This thesis argues that collecting quality ratings alone from the users is not sufficient for deriving a reliable and accurate quality measure for a service. This is because different users often have different expectations and judgements on the quality of a service and their ratings tend to be closely related to these expectations, i.e., how their expectations are met. The thesis proposes a new model for QoS assessment, based on user expectations that collects expectations as well as ratings from the users of a service, then calculates the QoS using only the ratings which were judged on similar expectations.


Epidemiology is a discipline that includes the study of all those conditions which influence the health of a community. It helps to describe the pattern of disease as a method of figuring out the potential preventive and controlling measures. The fundamental principal of epidemiology is that; a disease is sudden event. Every individual in a population has a specific set of characteristics and the exposure that determines his/her potentiality and susceptibility to a disease. It can be possible that firstly the non-pathogenic version of virus transmitted to an animal host such as pangolin and further directly to human or via any other intermediate like cat, Himalayan civets and dogs. After being transmitted to human, it could have evolved the pathogenic state. The aim of an epidemiological study is to analyses and avoid the potential outbreaks of any disease further. For occurrence of a disease, all three factors: agent-host-environment, play a crucial role. Previously, the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were also categorized under zoonotic disease. The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV is from the same genera coronavirus. This virus is transmitted from human to human, affects the respiratory system. The newly emerged 2019-nCoV is fatal and life-threatening in comparison to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. The agent 2019-nCoV, host-human (susceptible human & infected human) and the favorable environmental condition allowed for occurrence of COVID-19. The viruses are transmitting between human through direct or indirect contact with infected patient.


- The identification of cadavers of unknown persons is important from a humanitarian point of view but also for legal reasons and in connection with insurance. - Various identification techniques are available today, suchas fingerprinting, DNA profiling and the comparison of dental structures. - Not all methods of identification are equally useful in practice and the ultimate identification is often made possible only by a combination of several techniques. Sometimes, the identification procedure cannot be completed successfully because one has no idea whatsoever who it might be and there is therefore no material available for comparison. - In the Netherlands, identification is in principle a task of the police. In case of a mass disaster in the Netherlands, or abroad when Dutch citizens are involved, a special Disaster Identification Team is activated, consisting mainly of police officers supplemented by external experts. Major disasters in which such a team has been involved in the past are the air crash in Faro (Portugal) in I992 (56 victims), the air crash in Eindhoven in I996 (32 victims) and the explosion of the fireworks plant in Enschede in 2000 (2I victims).


The Amazon's reputation and ability to draw tourists is strongly associated with the natural environment and with tourist's ability to sight and interact with iconic animals. In Brazil, four cases of aggregations of wild boto (Amazon River dolphin; Inia geoffrensis), becoming conditioned to human contact through food provisioning are occurring in Amazonas State, Central Amazon, where tourists can feed, touch and swim with the botos. The feeding of wild dolphins imposes significant risks, both for the dolphins and for the tourists, and these dangers are evident at Novo Airao City, which is the longest established of the four mentioned cases. There are few rules imposed, inadequate infrastructure and no specialized employee training or surveillance. Competitive, aggressive interactions between dolphins, pushing, ramming and biting are common and a number of dangerous interactions between the dolphins and tourists have been observed. It is evident that the establishment of this tourist-dolphin interaction is facilitated by the deliberate feeding of the dolphins and that this activity has become financially lucrative for local people. Despite bringing benefits to the region, the growth of this 'botos feeding tourism' activity in the Amazon is currently poorly managed and there is a high risk of injury or fatality if interactions continue to develop without improved and careful management.


A flexible pseudo-SoC which integrates electrostaticMEMS and its driver CMOS-LSI for mobile electronics device applications has been developed. From the experiments, the pseudo-SoC process has succeeded to form a fine-pitch on-chip global layer on the MEMS and CMOS-LSI embedded in the epoxy resin and to realize total thickness of 100µm. This paper reports the pseudo-SoC that overcomes the limitation of system integration and provides the complementary advantages of SiP and SoC within the results of a highly-integrated flexible pseudo-SoC incorporating electrostatic MEMS and its driver CMOS-LSI for mobile electronics applications.