Fibre-optic sensors have advantages over existing electrical sensors in many strain and stress monitoring applications. However, bare optical fibres are fragile and packaging techniques must be developed before these sensors can be used more widely. One such method is the Smart Patch, in which the fibre Bragg grating is encapsulated between plies of glass-reinforced epoxy where rugged cables are anchored. This forms a flat flexible patch in which the fibre is protected from mechanical and environmental damage. However, it is important that the mechanical strength of the patch is not achieved at the expense of good strain transfer characteristics. To confirm this, fibre Bragg gratings with acrylate and polyimide coatings were embedded in a glass-epoxy patch that was bonded to an aluminium tensile specimen. An electrical strain gauge was also bonded to the specimen to provide a strain reference. Tests were carried out at different loading rates and at temperatures from -30°C to +80°C. There was good agreement between the fibre-optic sensors and the electrical strain gauge demonstrating that the patch performed in a practically identical manner to the conventional gauges. A second experiment on a representative part of ship structure demonstrated the versatility of the patch.


We report on a study that empirically tested a model that integrates the relationships among important determinants and outcomes of residents' satisfaction with community services. Our model of satisfaction with community services is highly complex. In order to facilitate reader comprehension, we presented the model in five stages. Stage 1 shows the most proximal determinants and outcomes of satisfaction with community services--satisfaction with community conditions (predictor of satisfaction with community services) and community satisfaction (determined by both satisfaction with community conditions and services). Stage 2 adds another outcome to the model, namely community commitment. The model shows that community satisfaction leads to community commitment. Stage 3 adds two additional variables--confidence in local institutions and power in influencing local institutions--to further account for variation in satisfaction with community services, community satisfaction, and community commitment. Stage 4 focuses on factors added to the model to help explain the drivers underlying satisfaction with community conditions. These drivers include satisfaction with neighborhood conditions, neighborhood satisfaction, and housing satisfaction. Finally, Stage 5 adds satisfaction with life domains such as financial life, social life, family life, and work life to help account for additional variation in the model's key constructs. We tested our model using a survey study in a community in the State of Michigan. The results were mostly supportive of the theoretical model.


Research has shown that after observing a sequence of object-related actions, young children sometimes imitate the goal-directed aspects of the actions only, but other times faithfully imitate all aspects of the actions. In this study we explore whether this mixture of goal-directed and faithful imitation is based in part on individual differences between children. Forty-eight 2-year-old children (mean age = 26 months) completed a series of imitation tasks. Results revealed stable individual differences in children's imitation—measurements of their imitative behavior correlated both within and between different types of imitation tasks. We further used Principle Component Analyses to cluster these correlated measurements into two factors, and the two factors aligned well with the concepts of goal-directed and faithful imitation.


Contents of a floppy disk in the Walker Papers. Though the disk contains many files, only one (a file named "edwiwalk.stm") appears to have been created by Walker. A disk image of the floppy disk, and an access copy of the Walker-created file (originally created in WordPerfect 5.1) is included here.


Executive Summary
Background
There is little data on sexual well-being of young people from BME in Scotland. The purpose of this systematic review of the literature covering sexual health interventions with young people from BME communities was to collate the 'best evidence of effectiveness' in the field and make recommendations for further practice. To do this, evidence was sought about such interventions in any industrialised country. Limited research has previously been conducted in this area and a broad definition of both sexual health and ethnic minorities was taken in order
to maximise the number of studies that could be included in the review.
Methods
We searched a wide range of (electronic) data bases for studies aimed at young people from BME communities which included an sexual health-type intervention, an valuation, a control of comparison group, clearly defined outcomes and which were published in the English language. In addition we searched for sexual health studies of (a) parents and carers of young people in the BME communities; (b) professionals working with young BME people; and (c) access to sexual health services for young BME people.

Results
Our systematic review found 52 relevant papers (from nearly 5,000) reporting interventions in this area, but only one was based in the UK. The majority of studies were based in the US and involved interventions aimed at African Americans or Hispanics. Interventions were
divided into nine categories according to targeted outcomes and/or group: (1) general sexual health and behaviour; (2) pregnancy avoidance; (3) Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and HIV; (4) Sex and Relationship Education for young people from BME communities; (5) BME parents and carers; (6) professionals who work with young BME people; (7) access to sexual health services for BME youths; (8) peer education; and (9) BME communities targeted in order to improve sexual health in BME youths.
The most common method used in included studies was a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), employed in just over half of the interventions.

Key messages
This review provides an overview of the interventions and identifies some common characteristics of effective interventions. Interventions with clearly defined aims and
outcomes were more likely to demonstrate effectiveness. Skills-based programmes were more effective than information-based interventions. Having a theoretical basis seemed to contribute to the intervention's effectiveness.
Interventions aimed at improving sexual health in young people from BME communities have not been studied very well in the UK. There is a pressing need for good quality research to aid the development of intervention programmes to address this. Future research concentrating on demonstrating the effectiveness of different interventions will be vital in developing policies.
The studies providing better quality research evidence are all US-based, their findings may or may not be transferable to a Scottish setting. Using the findings from such US-base studies in a Scottish context requires additional research to make the Scottish intervention culturally appropriate.
It is important to note that the absence of evidence does not mean that there is evidence of the intervention is not being successful, often in this field it means that the relevant interventions have not been evaluated in an appropriate way that allows the effectiveness to be assessed.


The PID control parameters are very important to performance of hydraulic servo control system and how to find rapidly the optimum values of PID control parameters is very difficult problem. According to the search mechanism of differential evolution algorithm, differential evolution algorithm for tuning PID parameters was proposed. The algorithm program DEPID1.0 was developed. Based on Matlab/simulink software and taking the IATE standards of optimization design as objective function, the proposed method was applied for the optimization of the three parameters of PID controller of electric-hydraulic servo system of 6-DOF parallel platform. Simulation results show that the proposed parameter optimum method is an effective tuning strategy and has good performance.


This article describes the experience of nutrition support practitioners, specifically dietitians, providing care to combat casualties. It provides a brief overview of dietitians' induction into armed service but focuses primarily on their role in providing nutrition support during the most recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current system of combat casualty care is discussed with specific emphasis on providing early and adequate nutrition support to U.S. combat casualties from injury, care in theater combat support hospitals (CSHs)/expeditionary medical support (EMEDs), and en route care during critical care air transport (CCAT) up to arrival at treatment facilities in the United States. The article also examines practices and challenges faced in the CSHs/EMEDs providing nutrition support to non-U.S. or coalition patients. Over the past decade in armed conflicts, dietitians, physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals have risen to challenges, have implemented systems, and continue working to optimize treatment across the spectrum of combat casualty care.


CONTEXT
Metabolic disturbances, in particular, insulin resistance (IR) and dyslipidemia, are common in women suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Evidence is accumulating that vitamin D status may contribute to the development of metabolic disturbances in PCOS.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to carry out a systematic review addressing the association between vitamin D status, vitamin D receptor polymorphisms, and/or polymorphisms related to vitamin D metabolism and metabolic disturbances in women with PCOS.

DESIGN AND METHODS
A systematic search of electronic databases was carried out up to January 2013 for observational studies and clinical trials in women suffering from PCOS with outcome measures that were related to vitamin D status. We conducted univariate and multivariate regression analyses of the weighted means to gain insights into the association between vitamin D, BMI, and IR based on existing literature.

RESULTS
We found 29 eligible trials with inconsistency in their results. One well-designed randomized controlled trial has been carried out until now. Univariate regression analyses of the weighted means revealed vitamin D to be a significant and independent predictor of IR in both PCOS and control women. The significance disappeared after adjustment for BMI in PCOS women.

CONCLUSIONS
Current evidence suggests an inverse association between vitamin D status and metabolic disturbances in PCOS. Owing to the heterogeneity of the studies, it is hard to draw a definite conclusion. The causal relationship between vitamin D status and metabolic disturbances in PCOS remains to be determined in well-designed placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials.


Adolescent world as one of the themes that often lifted to the mass media, because adolescent world is a world full of lifestyle trends. Some films industries that orients itself to the teenage audience, many featuring the culture of hedonism. Preview cultural hedonism inherent in the film with segments young people are basically backed by the lifestyle of the teenagers who are very close with youth lifestyle itself, where they always look well behave to their self identity, and orientation on the principle of pleasure in life world freedoms contained in the teen world. The formulation of the problem is How hedonic cultural meaning is represented in the film work of the Supreme Sentausa GARAGE. The aim of this research is to understand the cultural meaning of hedonic contained in the film work of the Supreme Sentausa GARAGE. Hedonism was born in the industrial society which much of the lifestyle and behavior consumptive. In hedonist culture, many backed by an industry development many produce benda-benda
consumptive who can portray a person by person other. While the film is formed by the narrative techniques, which are also grouped by kemungkinan-kemungkinan
techniques that can enhance the value of reality on film. Movies is a complex language that complies with the rules
particular, which is determined by a diversity of signs
which bermacam-macam (Montage, position, music, sound, character figures, etc).
Semiotic analysis is structured so that the analysis will
allows terbacanya values or belief system that is used as a reference for construct meaning. Semiotics itself is more likely that efforts demolition practices and ideologies in the text of his own films provide a space for exploring more deeply. Methodology of research conducted by researchers using the approach of the analysis method
based on Pierce's semiotic semiotic concept that takes into account elements that mark, the index, icons, symbols and semiotics, Barthes, where a sign denotation and connotation are interpreted without put aside the myth that there is, to get a picture or a common understanding relatively comprehensive and covers the problems under study. The study was qualitative interpretive research. With the focus of research is, the meaning of cultural hedonists which is considered representative. The scope of this research is presented film GARAGE in the form of audio-visual, with a total duration of 120 minutes. Primary data in this study
GARAGE that is documented in the form of films in VCD (Video Compact Disc), then VCD is played using a VCD player and observed according to the analysis used, then shot and a scene representing the culture of hedonism would be cut by
using Xing MPEG Player. While the secondary data obtained from books, web (Internet), articles, and other written materials to support the completeness of research data.
Hedonist culture in Garage movie itself contained in the form of self appreciate in music, either playing music or enjoying a dish of the music itself, then activities visit record stores and cafes as well as how to look and interaction between adolescents. Activities are considered to represent the culture of hedonism as the only activity
for inner satisfaction only and is generally used as an "escape" from problems at hand. From the above analysis the researchers concluded hedonist culture has become a needs and activities or action also contains elements of prestige,
because the more often teens do those things, then the teen has been considered "slang" or has represented the identity of himself. With so teens will be more bergaulnya easily accepted by the surroundings.


Focusing on the period 1894 to 1995 and drawing on both written and oral sources, this article explores the origin, ethnic identity and settlement of the Nubians since their advent in Uganda. Ugandan Nubians abandoned some aspects of their former African traditional customs and adopted new ones borrowed from the Arabic culture, constituting a unique and distinct ethnic group. Using a historical research design and adopting a qualitative approach, the article articulates the fluidity and formation of the Nubian ethnic identity on one hand, and the strategies that the Nubians have used to define and sustain themselves as a distinct ethnic group in Uganda. The article therefore suggests that the question of the Nubian identity in Uganda, through tracing their origin, ethnic identity and settlement since their advent, goes beyond the primordial understanding of ethnicity that tags ancestral location or settlement pattern, language, family history to a particular group claiming itself ethnic.

 Key words: Ethnicity, Nubians, Nubis, origin, identity, settlement.


The ligand containing the 4-amino-1-benzyl piperidine group, N, N′-(4-amino-1-benzyl piperidine)-glyoxime, (LH2) (1) was prepared from 4-amino-1-benzyl piperidine with anti-dichloroglyoxime at − 15 °C in absolute Tetrahydrofuran (THF). In the trinuclear [Pd(L)2Ru2(phen)4](ClO4)2 (4) and [Pd(L)2Ru2(bpy)4](ClO4)2 (5) metal complexes, the PdII ion centered into the main oxime core by the coordination of the imino groups while the two RuII ions coordinated dianionic oxygen donors of the oxime groups and linked to the ligands of 1,10-phenanthroline and 2,2′-bipyridine. The mono and trinuclear metal complexes were characterized by elemental analyses, FT-IR, UV–vis, 1H and 13C-NMR spectra, magnetic susceptibility measurements, molar conductivity, cyclic voltammetry, mass spectra, X-ray powder techniques and their morphology by SEM measurements. The cyclic voltammetric results show that the cathodic peak (Epc) potential of (3) shifts towards more positive values compared with that of (2) as a result of the BPh2+-bridged complex formation. The Suzuki–Miyaura reaction was used to investigate their activity as catalyst either prepared in-situ or from well-defined complexes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Objectives: The aim of this study is to determine the indications of primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) at a tertiary hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Methods: The electronic medical records system (Phoenix) of the hospital was searched for all registered patients who had undergone THA between 2001 and 2015. The research team reviewed patients' files, X-rays and collected data, including patients aged at the time of surgery, procedure year, site, and presurgical diagnosis. Results: A total of 107 patients had undergone THA during the study. Gender-specific prevalence was 50.5% in females and 49.5% in males; the average age of the patients was 52 years. Of the 107 patients, only 15% had bilateral surgery, and 46.7% of the 85% who had unilateral THA had surgery on the left side. The main indication of surgery included primary hip osteoarthritis (OA) (43.9%), avascular necrosis (25.2%), posttraumatic arthritis (22.4%), developmental dislocation of the hip (5.6%), hip ankylosis (1.9%), and postinfection arthritis (0.9%). Conclusions: The rate of THA at our institution increased through between 2001 and 2015; approximately, 66.4% of surgeries were performed during the last 7 years. OA was the most common indication of surgery during the study.


This paper investigates the association between the Remuneration Committee (RC) on firm performance. The research uses a data span of 63 financial institutions for a period of 12 years. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Random Effects (RE) regression estimations are used. The ascertained empirical results indicate that the establishment of remuneration committee by the board is positively correlated to its performance, as measured by its Return on Assets (ROA), and is also statistically significant on the Market Value (MV) of the firm. Subsequent tests conducted show that presence of an RC had a positive and statistically significant correlation during the pre/post global financial crisis on the ROA of the firm. The MV measure during the pre-crisis indicates a positive and statistically significant impact, but only positive during the post-crisis. The findings are robust across econometric models that control for different types of endogeneity. The outcome indicates that the establishment of an RC by the board assisted in achieving a positive impact on the profitability of UK financial institutions.


Attrition in longitudinal studies is a major threat to the representativeness of the data and the generalizability of the findings. Typical approaches to address systematic nonresponse are either expensive and unsatisfactory (e.g., oversampling) or rely on the unrealistic assumption of data missing at random (e.g., multiple imputation). Thus, models that effectively predict who most likely drops out in subsequent occasions might offer the opportunity to take countermeasures (e.g., incentives). With the current study, we introduce a longitudinal model validation approach and examine whether attrition in two nationally representative longitudinal panel studies can be predicted accurately. We compare the performance of a basic logistic regression model with a more flexible, data-driven machine learning algorithm—gradient boosting machines. Our results show almost no difference in accuracies for both modeling approaches, which contradicts claims of similar studies on survey attrition. Prediction models could not be generalized across surveys and were less accurate when tested at a later survey wave. We discuss the implications of these findings for survey retention, the use of complex machine learning algorithms, and give some recommendations to deal with study attrition.


Wislan is a language for describing computer hardware at the gate and functional levels of abstraction. After converting a WISLAN description to a gate table data structure, users interactively apply local transformations to that network to transform the gate network to a technology, meet technology limits, and optimize the network. A number of extensions to WISLAN and new, less-local transforms are reported. The transforms are made efficient via operations on array representations of switching functions. Conversion between gate table and array data structures is also efficient.


Medical imaging and visualization made possible the appearance of new technologies and applications aiming to help practicing medical crew. A very special branch of these applications is intended for the operative surgery field. Combining technologies like medical imaging and finite element analysis, we can test theoretical operations and help surgeons to find suitable interventions in concrete medical situations, before even one cut is made. In this paper we present a special surgical intervention for human femur lengthening. Our aim is to analyze the perspectives of this new technique by the help of finite element analysis. Some of our related works and future plans are presented as well.


We report the discovery by the WASP transit survey of a giant planet in a close orbit (0.0295 +/- 0.0009 AU) around a moderately bright (V = 11.6, K = 10) G9 dwarf (0.89 +/- 0.08 M(circle dot), 0.84 +/- 0.03 R(circle dot)) in the Southern constellation Eridanus. Thanks to high-precision follow-up photometry and spectroscopy obtained by the telescopes TRAPPIST and Euler, the mass and size of this planet, WASP-50 b, are well constrained to 1.47 +/- 0.09 M(Jup) and 1.15 +/- 0.05 R(Jup), respectively. The transit ephemeris is 2 455 558.6120 (+/- 0.0002) + N x 1.955096 (+/- 0.000005) HJD(UTC). The size of the planet is consistent with basic models of irradiated giant planets. The chromospheric activity (log R'(HK) = -4.67) and rotational period (P(rot) = 16.3 +/- 0.5 days) of the host star suggest an age of 0.8 +/- 0.4 Gy that is discrepant with a stellar-evolution estimate based on the measured stellar parameters (p(*) = 1.48 +/- 0.10 rho(circle dot), T(eff) = 5400 +/- 100 K, [Fe/H] = -0.12 +/- 0.08) which favors an age of 7 +/- 3.5 Gy. This discrepancy could be explained by the tidal and magnetic influence of the planet on the star, in good agreement with the observations that stars hosting hot Jupiters tend to show faster rotation and magnetic activity. We measure a stellar inclination of 84(-31)(+6) deg, disfavoring a high stellar obliquity. Thanks to its large irradiation and the relatively small size of its host star, WASP-50 b is a good target for occultation spectrophotometry, making it able to constrain the relationship between hot Jupiters' atmospheric thermal profiles and the chromospheric activity of their host stars.


There is an explicit relationship between knowledge generation, transmission (dissemination and diffusion), knowledge acquisition, and utilization. In order to disseminate and diffuse information for health promotion and disease prevention, there is an assumption that we just need to change the behaviours of people. This paper challenges this notion and suggests that the thinking behind the behaviours (cognition) also needs to be addressed for successful acquisition and utilization of information. Studies focusing on cognition or thought processes and how sociocultural factors influence or interact with cognitive factors is a high priority area of research. This area of research becomes more important if we include technology in the health care delivery system.


The transformation of Kenyan higher education, though notable from the late
1980s, still grapples with several inhibitions. One of these, the rigidity of
admission policies within an equally regimented financing framework, was the
focus of this study. The major purpose was to explore perceptions of
stakeholders on the viability of vouchers in higher education in Kenya, while the
I
problem of investigation was: how do student characteristics (applicatioi [or
change of programmes, institutional affiliation and gender) affect their support for
vouchers in higher education?
This task was accomplished by administering questionnaires to 1,221
students in three public universities: Nairobi, Kenyatta and Egerton and
interviews with 21 respondents from: the Ministry of Education, Commission [or
Higher Education, Higher Education Loans Board, Joint Admissions Board and
Informed Specialists in private and public sector.
Findings demonstrate an overall high rate of support for educational
vouchers (81% among students and 85% for non-student respondents). This
support is not dependent on the success or failure to transfer from one
institution/programme to another (X2=5.081, df=2, P >0.05) and neither is it
affected by gender (Variance = 0.000596 [SD = 0.0244], phi/Cramer's V and C =
0.065, ns) but is positively influenced by institutional affiliation and location, with
students in the fringe, rural locations registering higher level of support [or
vouchers than those in the more urban settings (X2 =66.879, p<0.05). Principal reasons for supporting vouchers conjugate on enabling students join institutions
and programmes of choice, while the prime reason for opposition is the likely
I
congestion consequent on students scramming to the popular institutions and
programmes. Most respondents opine that a voucher design should be weighted
by study area and socio-economic background and gender, while others vouch for
a uniform model. On this basis, a hybrid, discriminant model is proposed for
adoption, in tandem with legal and institutional reforms, rigorous means testing
and, a differentiated unit cost structure.
Noting that reform and innovation are inescapable if higher education
institutions are to adequately confront the emer¥ent (and extant) challenges of the
21st century, the study recommends adoption of vouchers as one of the possible
stimuli to reform. Efforts should also be made to equalize opportunity of access
to higher education as the current system exhibits congenital inequities. Targeted
vouchers could facilitate reconfigurations in the funding regime to realize this
goal. Other measures relate to enacting a strong regulatory body to oversee the
provision of higher education in an increasingly liberalizing landscape,
I" incorporating private sector players in higher education management than has
hitherto been the case, and crucially, studying the implementation of the infomlal
sector voucher training programme as it provides vital lessons for replication in
education.


In recent years, edge finishing with filamentary brushes has received much attention within the applied research and manufacturing engineering communities. This interest may be attributed, in part, to the ease with which brushing tools can be introduced into an automated machining environment. That is, such tools exert relatively small machining forces, remove material incrementally, and minimize the risk of generating abrupt, unstable forces that can lead to tool/workpart damage during the finishing operation. Although brushes have been successfully used in automated finishing applications, much uncertainty remains regarding the proper use of brushes for removal of edge burrs. Consequently, the implementation of automated brush deburring operations is often accompanied by costly trial-and-error experimentation, and in many cases, is met with only marginal success.
 This paper is concerned with the development of a force-control model for edge deburring with filamentary brushes. The model is based upon experimentally obtained "master curves"; that is, material removal data that corresponds to the actual machining performance of the brush/workpart system during the incremental burr removal process. Such master curves are generated by machining specially prepared edge projections having a geometry similar to flash that is produced along the edges of cast components. This information is used in conjunction with the on-line brush machining force to compute the brush feed rate that ensures complete removal of the edge burr. Example problems are reported for two cases, namely, the removal of edge flash having (i) unknown, constant height, and (ii) unknown variable height. The results indicate that the present force-control model provides straight forward approach for computing brush feed rates that lead to complete removal of edge burrs, and suggests that implementation can be carried out without the use of sophisticated sensing apparatus or complex control strategies.


The thermal resistance of the attachment between a die and its carrier contributes strongly to the total temperature rise in an electronic system. The die attach resistance often differs substantially from the value predicted using the bulk thermal conductivity of the attachment material because of partial voiding and delamination. These defects can be introduced during the attachment process or during subsequent exposure to humidity or temperature fluctuations. This manuscript develops a technique for precisely measuring the spatially-averaged die-attach thermal resistance and for mapping spatial variations of the resistance in the plane of the die. The spatially-averaged resistance measurements use transient electrical heating and thermometry at frequencies up to 1 kHz to achieve a value of the uncertainty near 10/sup -6/ m/sup 2/K/W, which is a substantial improvement over existing steady-state methods. Spatial variations are captured using scanning laser-reflectance thermometry and a deconvolution method detailed here. The data in this manuscript show the impact of the adhesive material, the adhesive thickness, and the attachment pressure on the thermal resistance, as well as the spatial variation of the resistance resulting from incomplete contact.


In Europe, the range of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) has expanded since the mid-twentieth century, but little is known about how it interacts with other sympatric carnivores. Among European countries, Bulgaria has the largest population of golden jackals and jackal numbers have increased around two-fold during the past two decades, particularly in lowland habitats. Larger canids often competitively exclude, or even kill, smaller sympatric ones, especially when guild dynamics are in flux due to population re-establishment. We therefore investigate whether trophic niche segregation occurs between golden jackals and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in central Bulgaria, where both species are sympatric. Because jackals are more abundant in lowland than in upland Bulgaria, we further investigate whether habitat elevation affects the strength of trophic competition. From the analysis of stomach contents of both species, collected from lowland and upland areas during hunting seasons between 1997 and 2009, we found no significant food niche overlap, and no effect of elevation on trophic interactions. In lowland habitat, golden jackals mainly scavenged carcasses of domestic animals, whereas in upland habitat they consumed mostly carcasses of wild ungulates. In contrast, red foxes predominantly and consistently predated rodents in both habitats. This suggests that trophic segregation facilitates the coexistence of these canids under these prevailing population conditions. Nevertheless, we stress that as golden jackals colonize Eastern Europe, impacts on red foxes, and consequences for ecological communities, should be monitored carefully, especially in regions with less carrion available to support jackals.


The crystallisation behaviour of Vitreloy 105 during different thermo-mechanical exposure conditions has been studied in a Gleeble 3500 thermo-mechanical simulator (TMS). Strains up to 0.1 applied at rates of 0.001 – 0.01 s-1 in the supercooled liquid region (SLR) from 420 – 435 °C resulted in no change in the crystallisation kinetics compared with purely thermal exposure for the same times and temperatures. Separate deformation studies on the amorphous bulk metallic glass confirmed that the deformation conditions used corresponded to Newtonian flow conditions. It remains to be confirmed whether the lack of influence of permanent deformation persists for deformation at higher strain rates in the non-Newtonian regime.


Abstract. Two-dimensional avalanche simulation software operating in three-dimensional terrain is widely used for hazard zoning and engineering to predict runout distances and impact pressures of snow avalanche events. Mountain forests are an effective biological protection measure against avalanches; however, the protective capacity of forests to decelerate or even to stop avalanches that start within forested areas or directly above the treeline is seldom considered in this context. In particular, runout distances of small- to medium-scale avalanches are strongly influenced by the structural conditions of forests in the avalanche path. We present an evaluation and operationalization of a novel detrainment function implemented in the avalanche simulation software RAMMS for avalanche simulation in forested terrain. The new approach accounts for the effect of forests in the avalanche path by detraining mass, which leads to a deceleration and runout shortening of avalanches. The relationship is parameterized by the detrainment coefficient K [kg m−1 s−2] accounting for differing forest characteristics. We varied K when simulating 40 well-documented small- to medium-scale avalanches, which were released in and ran through forests of the Swiss Alps. Analyzing and comparing observed and simulated runout distances statistically revealed values for K suitable to simulate the combined influence of four forest characteristics on avalanche runout: forest type, crown closure, vertical structure and surface cover, for example, values for K were higher for dense spruce and mixed spruce-beech forests compared to open larch forests at the upper treeline. Considering forest structural conditions within avalanche simulations will improve current applications for avalanche simulation tools in mountain forest and natural hazard management.


Aluminum dross is presented as a potential material to form AlON using thermite reaction. The commercial MgAl powder, active carbon, and titania were prepared to make a chemical furnace (self-propagation combustion). The preheating temperature of 300 is enough to intitate ignition of the mixture as fuel and oxidizer. The addition of Y2O3 (1wt. %) is effective to enhance solid solution products between Al2O3 and AlN in the Aluminum dross. The level of contamination like an alkali metal oxide in the Aluminum dross was reduced highly by the heat from chemical furnace.


It was the divine, aloof, condescending quality in the old great ones of Poe, Gaboriau, Wilkie Collins and Sherlock Holmes that made their adventures so glamorously irresistible. A writer of detective stories might have a style as brilliant as Poe's, as consummately competent as Collins's, as pompously absurd as Doyle's – it did not matter: what mattered was whether he gave us a detective whom we could worship.(1)


The South African Plateau (SAP) forms a large - scale topographic anomaly (×1000 km)
which rises from sea level to up to 3000 m elevation. Tomographic models suggest that the
high elevated southern African topography is the expression of a surface upwelling caused by
flows in the underlying mantle. However, documenting the surface uplift due to mantle flows
is a major challenge in geology. Here we link onshore landforms (planation surfaces, incised
valleys) of the SAP to offshore sediment accumulation along the Atlantic margin (from 18°S to
38°S), using numerous seismic reflexion profiles, well data and outcrops. We attempt to relate
source and sink analysis in order to solve some first order issues relative to the timing of the
exhumation and the growth of the Southern African Plateau.
Offshore, we calculate the solid sediment volumes history of the margin for the last 131
Ma (i.e. late Hauterivian – today) based on Guillocheau et al. [1] approach. Volumes and accumulation
rates were higher during the Upper Cretaceous (335 ×103 km3 at 51.5 ×103 km3/Ma
from 100 to 93.5 Ma, 790 ×103 km3 at 63 ×103 km3/Ma from 93.5 to 81 Ma, and 395 ×103 km3 at
26.3 ×103 km3/Ma from 81 to 66 Ma). Volumes and accumulation rates were lower for the Lower
Cretaceous (73 ×103 km3 at 4 ×103 km3/Ma from 131 to 113 Ma, and 16 ×103 km3 at 12.2 ×103
km3/Ma from 113 to 100 Ma) and the Cenozoic (67 ×103 km3 at 1.6 ×103 km3/Ma from 66 to 30
Ma, and 92 ×103 km3 at 6.5 ×103 km3/Ma from 30 to 11 Ma, and 35 ×103 km3 at 32 ×103 km3/Ma).
Onshore, four generations of landforms were recognised and dated by geometrical relationships
with volcanism and sediments. The successive growth of these landforms are related
to uplifts (Guillocheau et al. [2]).
• > 80 Ma: two generations of planation surfaces (at least). The oldest one forms the
highest reliefs of the study area, which are preserved as remnant plateaus (Etchplains). Its age
is not known. The younger, form a large - scale pediplain that could be related to the increase
of the sedimentary flux occurring during the Upper Cretaceous (i.e. 100 to 81 Ma), driven by a
regional uplift.
• 80 - 75 to 70 - 65 Ma: large scale pediplain called the Bushmanland Surface. It can
be related to a strike flexure of the margin (i.e. seaward tilting) recognised offshore from 23°S
to 36°S. Most of the present-day relief was probably created by that time. This is supported by
the decrease of the sedimentary flux which suggests a reorganisation of the interior drainage
pattern.
• 35 - 25 to 15 - 12 Ma: degradation by river incision of the Bushmanland Surface in
response to a continental scale uplift (?) and/or change of the climate conditions.
These results suggest that the Southern African plateau (SAP) results from a two phases
uplift history: (1) a widespread tilting of the margin during late Cretaceous, (2) continental scale
deformations during the Oligocene. Most of the relief is inherited from the Upper Cretaceous
References:
[1] Guillocheau et al. (2012) Basin Res., 24(1), 3-30
[2] Guillocheau et al. (2016) accepted Gondwana Res.


Although new drug delivery systems have been intensely developed in the past decade, no significant increase in the efficiency of drug delivery by nanostructure carriers has been achieved. The reasons are the lack of information about acute toxicity, the influence of the submicron size of the carrier and difficulties with the study of biodistribution in vivo. Here we propose, for the first time in vivo, new nanocomposite submicron carriers made of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and tannic acid (TA) and containing magnetite nanoparticles with sufficient content for navigation in a magnetic field gradient on mice. We examined the efficacy of these submicron carriers as a delivery vehicle in combination with magnetite nanoparticles which were systemically administered intravenously. In addition, the systemic toxicity of this carrier for intravenous administration was explicitly studied. The results showed that (BSA/TA) carriers in the given doses were hemocompatible and didn't cause any adverse effect on the respiratory system, kidney or liver functions. A combination of gradient-magnetic-field controllable biodistribution of submicron carriers with fluorescence tomography/MRI imaging in vivo provides a new opportunity to improve drug delivery efficiency.


High affinity IgG autoantibodies (ABs) against oxLDLs and lag-phase of serum oxidation were tested in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Fifty one (37 M/14 F) patients with CHD defined as Q-wave myocardial infarction and/or stenosis of more than 50% and 51 (34 M/17 F) healthy blood donors as controls participated in this study. LDLs were isolated by gradient ultracentrifugation and oxidized with CuSO4. The modified LDLs (oxLDLs) or native LDLs (nLDLs) were used as antigens in an enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) to detect IgG ABs in both groups. The serum was oxidized by CuSO4 and the oxidation was monitored spectrophotometrically at lambda = 234 nm to follow the formation of conjugated diens. The lag-phase (in minutes) is the interval between the addition of CuSO4 to the serum and the beginning of extensive oxidation (increasing absorbance at 234 nm). The concentrations of total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, apo-A and apo-B were measured as well. The mean level of ABs against oxLDLs (expressed as optical density units) was 0.590 +/- 0.330 in CHD-patients vs 0.244 +/- 0.200 in controls (p < 0.001). The lag-phase in minutes was 47.00 +/- 27.19 in CHD-patients and 80.23 +/- 26.30 in controls (p < 0.001). A negative correlation between ABs levels and lag-phase was established in CHD-patients (r = -0.69, p < 0.001) and controls (r = -0.62, p < 0.001). A poor correlation was established between ABs levels or lag-phase, on one hand, and other measured parameters. In conclusion, the lag-phase of serum oxidation by Cu2+ could be informative for LDL susceptibility to modification and the extent of consequent humoral immune response.


During the last years there have been some developments in the internet which might support the product development process. Some ideas at the beginning of the millennium have shown that web based systems can raise the efficiency, but the possibilities are nowadays much higher. While at that time representations have been only in a static state, they can now be handled much more user-friendly and get accepted like shown with Wikipedia or Facebook. Interesting further opportunities are given by Open Innovation, where problems are solved by a big amount of online users. This concept will show principal components of an integrated web based system, which supports the development methodological approach, reduces the workload to collect and enter redundant data, allows collaborative and partially asynchronous cooperation and will contribute to determine and map the knowledge and experience of the employees, what should lead to a higher ability to compete and gives a clear competitive advantage.


A novel method to access triazole-fused spiro-guanidine from the reaction of isothiocyanate tethered N-sulfonyl-1,2,3-triazoles and amine has been developed. The reactions proceeded through a two-component tandem reaction, including nucleophilic addition, base-assisted intramolecular (or intermolecular) nucleophilic substitution and subsequent intramolecular nucleophilic addition–elimination process. A wide range of protected oxindole skeletons and amines are well-tolerated.


Huge collections of data have been created in recent years. Cloud computing provides a way to enable massive amounts of data to work together as data-intensive services. Considering Big Data and the cloud together, which is a practical and economical way to deal with Big Data, will accelerate the availability and acceptability of analysis of the data. Providing an efficient mechanism for optimized data-intensive services will become critical to meet the expected growth in demand. Because the competition is an extremely important factor in the marketplace, the cost model for data-intensive service provision is the key to provide a sustainable service market. As data play the dominant role in execution of data-intensive service composition, the cost and access response time of data sets influence the quality of the service that requires the data sets. In this paper, a data replica selection optimization algorithm based on an ant colony system is proposed. The performance of the data replica selection algorithm is evaluated by simulations. The background application of the work is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment, which involves large amounts of data being transferred, organized and stored. It is critical and challenging to be cost and time aware to manage the data and services in this intensive research environment.


A 20-year-old man presented with signs of thornapple intoxication: restlessness, disorientation, hallucinations, euphoria, and furthermore dry and red skin and symmetrical dilation of the pupils. Thornapple intoxication mimics atropine intoxication. Thorn apples (Datura stramonium) are seemingly becoming popular as a hallucinogenic drug. When the symptoms are mild gastric lavage leaving active charcoal in the stomach afterwards will suffice. In case of severe symptoms treatment with physostigmine is indicated.


The basic structural and functional unit of a living organism is a single cell. To understand the variability and to improve the biomedical requirement of a single cell, its analysis has become a key technique in biological and biomedical research. With a physical boundary of microchannels and microstructures, single cells are efficiently captured and analyzed, whereas electric forces sort and position single cells. Various microfluidic techniques have been exploited to manipulate single cells through hydrodynamic and electric forces. Digital microfluidics (DMF), the manipulation of individual droplets holding minute reagents and cells of interest by electric forces, has received more attention recently. Because of ease of fabrication, compactness and prospective automation, DMF has become a powerful approach for biological application. We review recent developments of various microfluidic chips for analysis of a single cell and for efficient genetic screening. In addition, perspectives to develop analysis of single cells based on DMF and emerging functionality with high throughput are discussed.


This book surveys the global politics of the environment through the prism of security studies. 'Environmental Security' has featured prominently in the discourse of academic International Relations and real world international relations since both of these arenas came to be shaken up in the aftermath of the Cold War in the 1990s. The apparent passing into history of a conflict which had completely dominated International Relations and international relations since the 1940s prompted a reappraisal of the politics of security and provided space for environmental issues to be given greater prominence on the international political agenda. 'Securitizing' the environment- that is treating issues such as pollution or resource depletion as threats meriting urgent and special political attention- has been advocated by many Political Ecologists and put into practise by some governments since the 1990s (and even as far back as the early 1970s when the Cold War appeared to be ending and environmental concerns had begun to globalize). Not everyone, though, is convinced of the merits of treating ecological concerns as matters of political emergency and environmental security remains highly contested. In addition environmental security is inconsistently interpreted by its advocates since 'security', in terms of its meaning and the means of achieving it, is viewed differently by different political actors and thinkers. As a consequence of this the academic literature on environmental security that has evolved over the past few decades has tended to polarize rather than synthesize into clearer thinking and few comprehensive and accessible texts have emerged to present issues that demonstrably do greatly affect and concern the general public.
This book hence seeks to provide some much needed clarity to thinking about environmental security by presenting the debate on the appropriateness and meaning of this concept in a systematic and accessible format. Towards this end two guiding questions underpin this survey of environmental politics from a security perspective. 1. What is the scale of threat posed by the issues of environmental change? 2. Is it appropriate to treat issues of environmental change as matters of security politics? The complexity and interconnectedness of environmental problems makes precisely determining the scale of their threat a very difficult, if not impossible, task but it is, nonetheless, important to do this. Elements of doubt and an occasional tendency to exaggerate the human impacts of environmental change can be exploited by vested interests unwilling to incur the short term costs of securing people and the planet in the long term. Scientific and public understanding of the costs of the pollution and depletion of the Earth's resources is, though, improving all the time and this volume seeks to present this across the range of environmental issues. In addition to these difficulties in quantifying the threat posed by environmental change are concerns over whether describing and treating issues such as climate change as matters of security is merited or helpful. Ontological questions on the meaning of security are invoked: whose security is at stake?; what does being secure entail?; who does the securing? For some- the traditionalists- environmental politics and security politics simply do not go together because security has come to be interpreted as synonymous with the military defence of the state. On the other side of the debate it is not accepted that security has to be about 'national' or military threats and the human impact of environmental change should be enough to merit the treatment of such issues as international political priorities. A middle course between these positions, put into practise by several governments, is to securitize environmental concerns on the grounds that they can have traditional national security consequences in an indirect sense by making conflict and instability in the world more likely.
This author allies himself with the second of these three camps- the human or critical security paradigm- but all three perspectives are presented in this volume


Objective In the paper, the HHT method is adopted to deal with the wrist pulse signals collected from patientbodies. Methods nonlinear and nonstationary series can be decomposed by using the empirical mode decompositionmethod (EMD) into a number of intrinsic mode function (IMF) components. These components are transformed into thoseexpressions called HH spectra which exhibit the amplitude-frequency-time distributions of the data, and then the marginalspectra are obtained by integrating the HH spectra with respect to time. This is a new and applicable time series analysismethod based on mode decomposition. Results A time series constructed from a set of standard cyclic functions isfirst treated with using the EMD method to verify the applicability and effectiveness. And then, two pulse signals, onefrom a healthy person and the other from a patient suffering from the coronary heart disease are decomposed and theirresults are discussed. Conclusion The HHT method has broad prospects in the biomedical engineering and bioinformaticsapplications.


In order to study and compare genetic damage induced by 10 kinds of man-made mineral fibers (JFM fibers) in cells, human lung epithelial cells (A549) were exposed to JFM fibers and chrysotile for 1 h, then single-cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) assay was used to detect DNA strand breaks, DNADNA interstrand crosslink and the ability of DNA to repair; The results showed that all 10 JFM fibers could induce DNA strand breaks, DNA-DNA interstrand crosslinks and inhibit the ability of DNA repair. When human embryo lung (HEL) cells were exposed to JFM fibers and chrysotile for 24 h respectively, the chromosomal aberration was analyzed and the results showed that chrysotile and most of JFM fibers at 5.0 pg/ml induced structural chromosomal aberration, but all of these effects were lower than that of chrysotile and were different among them, suggesting that 10 types of JFM fibers had genotoxicity with different degree in vitro, but all of them were lower than that of chrysotile .


We introduce a new representation for video which facilitates a number of common editing tasks. The representation has some of the power of a full reconstruction of 3D surface models from video, but is designed to be easy to recover from a priori unseen and uncalibrated footage. By modelling the image-formation process as a 2D-to-2D transformation from an object's texture map to the image, modulated by an object-space occlusion mask, we can recover a representation which we term the "unwrap mosaic". Many editing operations can be performed on the unwrap mosaic, and then re-composited into the original sequence, for example resizing objects, repainting textures, copying/cutting/pasting objects, and attaching effects layers to deforming objects.


Perhaps one of the most exciting recent developments in breast cancer research is the steadily increasing number of small screen detected lesions which are available for study. These samples will allow a number of questions of key importance to the development and progression of breast cancer to be answered. For example, the relationship between a variety of benign and premalignant lesions and frankly invasive breast carcinomas can be examined to determine the sequence of progression, if indeed such a sequence exists. Subtypes of screen detected lesions may be identified in which different genetic events have occurred, and the relationship between these genetic events and progression may be established. Such studies could identify groups of women for whom no further treatment is required or those for whom adjuvant therapy, radiotherapy or further surgery is indicated. A number of genetic alterations have now been identified that seem to be independent indicators of prognosis. Such alterations include overexpression of c-erbB2 and mutation of TP53. Although there is still some debate about the statistical significance of data from a number of different groups, it seems certain that the status of a number of genes will provide prognostic information to augment existing criteria. There is an urgent need for an examination of a large panel of breast tumours for a number of key genetic alterations and for a critical evaluation of all the changes to existing clinical variables such as clinical stage, grade, survival and relapse times and growth factor receptors. Molecular pathology is providing new and exciting insights into the pathogenesis of human breast cancer, and molecular events associated with inherited breast disease, early stages, progression and metastasis of breast cancer are now becoming better understood.


Obstruction of Upper Respiratory Tract (OURT) may developed a various symptoms on certain children, which during the development period might cause dentocraniofacial deviation, and furthermore low self esteem. The characteristic of patients with OURT are mouth breathing (MB), sleep with snoring loudly, and on certain children may occur Obstruction Sleep Apnea (OSA). The correlation between snoring and OSA with OURT. Across sectional design study was done with 285 OURT subjects. All subjects were divided into two groups, 9-12 years, and 12-15 years group. Data obtained from cephalometric analyses and questionnaire, and analysed with chi quadrate analyses. The results showed Fujioka ratio on OURT subjects experience apnea and snoring, both for two different age categories (age 9-11 years and 12-15 years) were approximately the same with subjects no experience (p>0.05). McNamara modification line on both age group showed no difference (p>0.05) between experience and no experience apnea during sleep, but there was a significant difference (p<0.05) on subjects experience snoring during sleep. There was no relation between Fujioka ratio and McNamara modification line with the apnea suffered by OURT subjects in the two age groups. There was no relation between snoring with Fujioka ratio in the two age groups. Meanwhile, there was a relation between McNamara modification line with snoring experienced by OURT subjects in age group 12-15 years. McNamara modification line on OURT subjects showed significant difference between snoring and no snoring during sleep, both in age category of 9-11 years and 12-15 years. There was a relation between McNamara modification line with snoring experienced by OURT subjects in age group 12-15 years. Clinical article (J Int Dent Med Res 2017; 10(2): pp. 284-291)


The proposed method for tumor screening ("Oncotest") is based on detecting substances (calcium-histone complexes) in the human blood which are markers of malignant neoplasia. Using "Oncotest" in a series of 5411 cases, we identified malignant tumors of various histogenesis (cancer, sarcoma) arising in different sites in 69 cases. "Oncotest" is especially important for early (pre-clinical) detection of malignant neoplasms during preventive population screenings.


(+)-JD1, a rationally designed ferrocene analogue of the BET bromodomain (BRD) probe molecule (+)-JQ1, has been synthesized and evaluated in biophysical, cell-based assays as well as in pharmacokinetic studies. It displays nanomolar activity against BRD isoforms, and its cocrystal structure was determined in complex with the first bromodomain of BRD4 and compared with that of (+)-JQ1, a known BRD4 small-molecule probe. At 1 μM concentration, (+)-JD1 was able to inhibit c-Myc, a key driver in cancer and an indirect target of BRD4.


Current approaches to listening are built on standard cognitive science, which considers the brain as the locus of all cognitive activity. This work aims to investigate listening as phenomena occurring within a brain, a body (embodiment), and an environment (situatedness). Drawing on insights from physiology, acoustics, and audiology, this essay presents listening as an interdependent brain-bodyenvironment construct grounded in dynamic systems theory. Coupling, self-organization, and attractors are the central characteristics of dynamic systems. This article reviews the first of these aspects in order to develop a fuller understanding of how embodied listening occurs. It introduces the mind-body problem before reviewing dynamic systems theory and exploring the notion of coupling in human hearing by way of current and original analogies drawn from engineering. It posits that the current use of the Watt governor device as an analogy for coupling is too simplistic to account for the coupling phenomena in the human ear. In light of this review of the physiological characteristics of the peripheral auditory system, coupling in hearing appears more variegated than originally thought and accounts for the diversity of perception among individuals, a cause for individual variance in how the mind emerges, which in turn affects academic performance. Understanding the constraints and affordances of the physical ear with regard to incoming sound supports the embodied listening paradigm.


Infant's dress of white cotton batiste with lace surrounds. Full length with short, puffed sleeves. High waist gathers at yoke. Yoke and sleeves trimmed in lace. Yoke is constructed of cut-out pieces and is embroidered in white vine and floral design. Hem has five rows of pin tucks above a 2-1/2" ruffle trimmed in satin-stitched dots along the bottom. Center back opening with two tiny mother-of-pearl buttons; third, top button is missing. Unlined.


Oral health condition may be a good predictor of cardiovascular health The mouth is full of bacteria, both good and evil, and the "bad" can enter the bloodstream and cause inflammation of the blood vessels, leading to cardiovascular diseases Studies have shown that tooth loss and inflamed gums (periodontitis) are markers of heart disease Another indicator is the color of the lips Lips are usually red, but may be bluish (cyanosis) in people with heart problems due to system failure and cardiovascular to supply oxygenated blood to tissues;blue lips are probably only caused by a temporary lack of oxygen and pass quite quickly Heart disease is complex and difficult when it affects adults, but in children the impact is much greater There are many types of heart disease that can affect children These include congenital heart defects, viral infections and even heart disease acquired due to other genetic conditions In some cases the symptoms are not obvious and its delays in diagnosis At other times, the symptoms are very clear and require medical consultation COVID-19 virus


The P300 event-related potential is a well-known pattern in the electroencephalogram (EEG). This kind of brain signal is used for many different brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, e.g., spellers, environmental controllers, web browsers, or for painting. In recent times, BCI systems are mature enough to leave the laboratories to be used by the end-users, namely severely disabled people. Therefore, new challenges arise and the systems should be implemented and evaluated according to user-centered design (USD) guidelines. We developed and implemented a new system that utilizes the P300 pattern to compose music. Our Brain Composing system consists of three parts: the EEG acquisition device, the P300-based BCI, and the music composing software. Seventeen musical participants and one professional composer performed a copy-spelling, a copy-composing, and a free-composing task with the system. According to the USD guidelines, we investigated the efficiency, the effectiveness and subjective criteria in terms of satisfaction, enjoyment, frustration, and attractiveness. The musical participants group achieved high average accuracies: 88.24% (copy-spelling), 88.58% (copy-composing), and 76.51% (free-composing). The professional composer achieved also high accuracies: 100% (copy-spelling), 93.62% (copy-composing), and 98.20% (free-composing). General results regarding the subjective criteria evaluation were that the participants enjoyed the usage of the Brain Composing system and were highly satisfied with the system. Showing very positive results with healthy people in this study, this was the first step towards a music composing system for severely disabled people.


To determine the effect of fire front width on surface fire spread rates, a series of simultaneously ignited experimental fires was carried out in a pine plantation. Fires were ignited in plots with widths ranging from 0.5 m to 10 m and were burned in low wind conditions. Flame lengths were small in all fires, ranging from 20 cm to 60 cm. Since pre-heating of the forest litter from flame radiation is assumed to be an important mechanism in the spread of low intensity, low wind surface fires, it then follows that the width of a flaming front should effect on the heating of the fuel to ignition temperatures. Total flame radiation was also measured at a point 50 cm ahead of the advancing flame front for a number of the fires. Experimental results indicate that a flame radiation measured ahead of the fire stays fairly constant once the flame width is between 2 and 5 m. Theoretical flame radiation calculations confirm this trend. Rates of spread between the 5 and 10 metre width fires also appear to be similar; this indicates that, for the type of fires studied, once flame width is greater than about 2 m, radiation from any extra width of fire front has little effect on spread rate.


This study was undertaken to identify the relationship between multiple intelligences with preferred science teaching and science process skills. The design of the study is a survey using three questionnaires reported in the literature: Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire, Preferred Science Teaching Questionnaire and Science Process Skills Questionnaire. The study selected 300 primary school students from five (5) primary schools in Penang, Malaysia. The findings showed a relationship between kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial and naturalistic intelligences with the preferred science teaching. In addition there was a correlation between kinesthetic and visual-spatial intelligences with science process skills, implying that multiple intelligences are related to science learning.


In this paper we propose an approach for observing real-world events through a distributed model providing dynamic data about the state of the world. Typical examples for real-world events are spatial events, i.e. events that occur when a user enters a certain spatial relationship with other users or his environment. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a uniform approach for observing real-world events that takes the issues related to the distribution of the model into account. The state of the world is only available with limited accuracy in both the value and time dimension, which is due to sensor inaccuracy and the properties of the distributed system. Therefore, it is not always possible to determine for certain, if an event has occurred. We propose to calculate the probability with which an event has occurred. The event is considered to have occurred when the calculated probability is above a threshold probability specified by the user. To realize this approach, we show which system parameters influence the observation, how update protocols provide the data to the observer model, on which the event is actually observed, and how the probability that an event has occurred can be calculated based on this model.


The New Zealand Superannuation Fund is being established as a means of smoothing out the impact on the rest of the Crown's finances of the transition that will take place over the next fifty years to a permanently higher proportion of the population being eligible for New Zealand Superannuation, the universal pension paid to New Zealanders over the age of 65. This paper discusses the financial issues surrounding the determination of the contributions that the Government would be required to make to the Fund over time in order to meet this objective. The calculation of the required contribution rate is derived as a function of future expected entitlement payments, future expected nominal GDP, future expected investment returns, and the Fund balance. Estimation issues are discussed and the implications of volatility in investment returns are examined. Some issues in assessing long-term expected returns are addressed in an appendix.


This paper examines the dynamics of quoted bid-ask spreads, price volatility and percentage trading volume for the most liquid interest rate futures trading on the Sydney Futures Exchange. Using data for both the overnight and intraday markets of the Sydney Futures Exchange, patterns contrast the existing theory and prior research. During the Intra-night trading session, volume and volatility patterns show low trading activities between 5:30 and 9:30; while spreads show high asymmetric information during this interval. During the Intra-day trading session, both volume and volatility exhibits a significant increase at the opening and around 2.30pm, followed a significant decrease towards the end of the day session; Spreads are low at the opening and tendentially increase throughout the day up until the close of the day. We find that percentage Volume traded is higher during the day session; although spread significantly increases towards the end of the day session, it is tighter than the overnight spread. A number of tests are carried out documenting that these patterns are consistent with the effects of contagion from overseas markets, US versus Australia daylight savings, and major macro-economics information releases.


We propose a algorithm to hiding association rules on data mining. We make a target data table without joining the multiple tables using the hiding association rules. Hiding association rules joined data table and all dimension tables, it is reduce support and confidence in multi relational data mining. Association analysis is a powerful and popular tool for discovering relationships hidden in large data sets. We can modify transaction data item sets.


Can robots perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, or potentially harm us? Even before these things truly happen, ethical and philosophical questions already arise. The reason is that we humans have a tendency to spontaneously attribute minds and "agency" to anything even remotely humanlike. Moreover, some people already say that robots should be our companions and have rights. Others say that robots should be slaves. This book tackles emerging ethical issues about human beings, robots, and agency head on. It explores the ethics of creating robots that are, or appear to be, decision-making agents. From military robots to self-driving cars to care robots or even sex robots equipped with artificial intelligence: how should we interpret the apparent agency of such robots? This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.


IN this issue of ANESTHESIOLOGY, Thille and an international group of coworkers recognized for their expertise in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) bring convincing evidence that positive end-expiratory pressure– induced alveolar recruitment does not differ between patients with pulmonary and extrapulmonary ARDS. The authors recommend that the origin of ARDS should not influence selecting the appropriate positive endexpiratory pressure level: The recruitability of the lungs seems similar in pneumonia, aspiration, inhalation injury, alveolar hemorrhage, pulmonary contusion and secondary lung injury resulting from sepsis, acute pancreatitis, multiple trauma, cardiopulmonary bypass, and massive transfusion. This multicenter study contradicts the classic and widespread belief that ARDS from primary pulmonary causes is less responsive to positive end-expiratory pressure, prone position, and recruitment maneuvers than ARDS from extrapulmonary causes and outlines some of the methodologic bias originally involved in generation of this belief. Initially, two studies suggested that lung recruitment obtained by increasing intrathoracic pressure resulting from prone positioning was substantially lower in patients with direct injury to the lung compared with patients with secondary lung injury. In both studies, recruitment was measured using the quasi–static compliance method, a method that entails a risk of underestimating alveolar recruitment and changes in respiratory mechanics, as pointed out by Thille et al. In the second study reporting different arterial oxygen response to prone positioning between primary and secondary ARDS, the difference in arterial oxygenation, although statistically significant, was of small magnitude and of questionable clinical significance. In addition, questions can be raised regarding the statistical analysis. A third study, performed in five patients with ARDS caused by severe pneumonia and five patients with extrapulmonary ARDS, reported that lung recruitment after three consecutive sighs was considerably less in the former than in the latter. The method for measuring lung recruitment, however, could be questioned: Endexpiratory lung volume was measured by the closedcircuit helium dilution method before and after sighs, and lung recruitment was computed as the sigh-induced change in end-expiratory lung volume, ignoring whether the increase in lung volume was related to (over)inflation of previously aerated lung or to lung recruitment. Another clinical study demonstrated different gas exchange response to nebulization of prostacyclin between primary and secondary ARDS. In six patients with severe pneumonia resulting from infection or aspiration, nebulized prostacyclin decreased arterial oxygenation without changing pulmonary arterial pressure. In contrast, in nine patients with lung injury resulting from extrapulmonary sepsis, necrotizing pancreatitis, or multiple trauma, it significantly improved arterial oxygenation and decreased mean pulmonary arterial pressure. Differences in gas exchange response, however, coincided with differences in lung morphology assessed by lung computed tomography. Primary ARDS had a diffuse loss of lung aeration, whereas secondary ARDS had a focal lung aeration predominating in the lower lobes and sparing the upper lobes. Differences in lung morphology rather than the cause of lung injury likely explain the difference found in gas exchange response because it has been clearly demonstrated that diffuse loss of lung aeration is not specific to pneumonia: Mild forms remain focally distributed, whereas severe forms affect lung tissue diffusely. After the initial report putting forward the idea that pulmonary and extrapulmonary ARDS behave differently in terms of alveolar recruitment and should require specific clinical management, many contradictory studies were published. Although a higher incidence of lung consolidation and focal loss of aeration is observed in secondary ARDS, differences in lung morphology (focal vs. diffuse loss of lung aeration) do not exactly coincide with the cause of lung injury. Several studies have reported that alveolar recruitment resulting from increases in positive end-expiratory pressure, recruitment maneuvers, and prone positioning were not influenced by the cause of lung injury at the early phase of ARDS. Interestingly, in all of these studies, lung recruitment was measured from static pressure–volume curves, and in their study, Thille et al. 1 elegantly demThis Editorial View accompanies the following article: Thille AW, Richard J-C, Maggiore SM, Ranieri VM, Brochard L: Alveolar recruitment in pulmonary and extrapulmonary acute respiratory distress syndrome: Comparison using pressure–volume curve or static compliance. ANESTHESIOLOGY 2007; 106:212–7.


An increasing number of composite cylinders are being used every year to store and transport compressed gases. These cylinders are very efficient, since a large quantity of gas can be transported at a relative low total weight compared to the traditional steel and aluminum cylinders. The most efficient composite cylinders are the cylinders that have plastic liners. The main applications are where the weight savings are important, such as cylinders for self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) used by firemen. In this paper, we describe an accident which occurred in France. A fireman was killed by the explosion of such a cylinder during use; the accident was attributed to the violent reaction of the oxygen (contained in the compressed air) with the plastic liner. In the paper, the ignition mechanisms are investigated and recommendations are provided to avoid any repetitions of such an accident.


Hot-electrons dominate the ultrafast (∼fs-ps) optical and electronic properties of metals and semiconductors [1–2] and they are exploited in a variety of applications including photovoltaics and photodetection. Here we perform power-dependent third harmonic generation (THG) measurements on gated single layer graphene (SLG) and we show that hot-electrons modulate significantly the power-law dependence of THG, inducing a large deviation from the expected cubic power-law. We use a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) SLG sample transferred on Fused Silica (FS) and gated by ionic liquid (IL), Fig.1(a). We excite the sample with the idler beam of an Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO, Coherent) at a photon energy of ħω0=0.69eV. The OPO is seeded by a mode-locked Ti:Sa laser (Coherent) with 150fs pulse duration and 80MHz repetition rate. The OPO idler spot-size is∼4.7μm and the pulse duration ∼300fs.


Accumulation of carotenoids varies greatly among animal species and is not fully characterized. Circulating carotenoid concentration data in captive wild animals are limited and may be useful for their management. Serum carotenoid concentrations and dietary intakes were surveyed and the extent of accumulation categorized for 76 species of captive wild animals at Brookfield Zoo. Blood samples were obtained opportunistically from 275 individual animals immobilized for a variety of reasons; serum was analyzed for alpha- and beta-carotene, lutein + zeaxanthin, lycopene, beta-cryptoxanthin and canthaxanthin. Total carotenoid content of diets was calculated from tables and chemical analyses of commonly consumed dietary components. Diets were categorized as low, moderate or high in carotenoid content as were total serum carotenoid concentrations. Animals were classified as unknown, high, moderate or low (non-) accumulators of dietary cartenoids. Nonaccumulators had total serum carotenoid concentrations of 0-101 nmol/L, whereas accumulators had concentrations that ranged widely, from 225 to 35,351 nmol/L. Primates were uniquely distinguished by the widest range of type and concentration of carotenoids in their sera. Most were classified as high to moderate accumulators. Felids had high accumulation of beta-carotene regardless of dietary intake, whereas a wide range of exotic birds accumulated only the xanthophylls, lutein + zeaxanthin, canthaxanthin or cryptoxanthin. The exotic ungulates, with the exception of the bovids, had negligible or nondetectable carotenoid serum concentrations despite moderate intakes. Bovids accumulated only beta-carotene despite moderately high lutein + zeaxanthin intakes. Wild captive species demonstrated a wide variety of carotenoid accumulation patterns, which could be exploited to answer remaining questions concerning carotenoid metabolism and function.


Glioblastoma (GBM) is composed of heterogeneous tumor cell populations, including those with stem cell properties, termed glioma stem cells (GSCs). GSCs are innately less radiation sensitive than the tumor bulk and are believed to drive GBM formation and recurrence after repeated irradiation. However, it is unclear how GSCs adapt to escape the toxicity of repeated irradiation used in clinical practice. To identify important mediators of adaptive radioresistance in GBM, we generated radioresistant human and mouse GSCs by exposing them to repeat cycles of irradiation. Surviving subpopulations acquired strong radioresistance in vivo, which was accompanied by a reduction in cell proliferation and an increase in cell-cell adhesion and N-cadherin expression. Increasing N-cadherin expression rendered parental GSCs radioresistant, reduced their proliferation, and increased their stemness and intercellular adhesive properties. Conversely, radioresistant GSCs lost their acquired phenotypes upon CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of N-cadherin. Mechanistically, elevated N-cadherin expression resulted in the accumulation of β-catenin at the cell surface, which suppressed Wnt/β-catenin proliferative signaling, reduced neural differentiation, and protected against apoptosis through Clusterin secretion. N-cadherin upregulation was induced by radiation-induced IGF1 secretion, and the radiation resistance phenotype could be reverted with picropodophyllin, a clinically applicable blood-brain-barrier permeable IGF1 receptor inhibitor, supporting clinical translation.


Open science, as a common good, opens possibilities for the development of nations, through innovations and collaborative constructions, which help to democratize knowledge. Advances in this area are still emerging, and the open science, cocreation of knowledge and open innovation triangle, is presented as an opportunity to generate an original contribution from research to open educational theory and practices. The study analyzed the articles that addressed this triangle, in order to identify the contexts and challenges that arise in open innovation and the cocreation of knowledge to promote open science. The method was a systematic literature review (SLR) of 168 articles published in open access format, from January 2014 to May 2017 in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. In the validation process, the York University criteria were used: inclusion and exclusion, relevance of the pertinent studies, evaluation of the quality / validity of included studies and description of data / basic studies. The findings showed that the mostwidely publicized contexts were in the United States and Brazil, in the business and academic sectors (closely followed by the social sector), and the challenges were open to innovation, opening and research. The research concludes that the context and practices of collaboration are substantial elements for innovation and open science.


This paper presents a robust current controller for a surface-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motor(SPMSM) by using a PI observer. The decoupling PI(proportional-integral) controller combined with an additional feed-forward compensation has been used for the current controller. The classical feed-forward compensation using velocity information and system parameters is not expected to achieve a robust performance against parameter uncertainties. This paper has adopted a PI observer for the feed-forward compensation to cope with parameter uncertainties without using velocity information. A simple PI observer has been designed to compensate the disturbances that represent velocity coupled terms and parameter uncertainties. Experimental results as well as computer simulations with 630W SPMSM confirm that the proposed approach can deal with the effects of the disturbance and improve the control performance.


Glaesserella parasuis (G. parasuis) has been one of the bacteria affecting the large-scale swine industry. Lack of an effective vaccine has limited control of the disease, which has an effect on prevalence. In order to improve the cross-protection of vaccines, development on subunit vaccines has become a hot spot. In this study, we firstly cloned the lpxC and gmhA genes from G. parasuis serotype 13 isolates, and expressed and purified their proteins. The results showed that LpxC and GmhA can stimulate mice to produce IgG antibodies. Through testing the cytokine levels of interleukin 4 (IL-4), IL-10 and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), it is found that recombinant GmhA, the mixed LpxC and GmhA can stimulate the body to produce Th1 and Th2 immune responses, while recombinant LpxC and inactivated bacteria can only produce Th2 immune responses. On the protection rate for mice, recombinant LpxC, GmhA and the mixture of LpxC and GmhA can provide 50%, 50% and 60% protection for lethal dose of G. parasuis infection, respectively. The partial protection achieved by the recombinant LpxC and GmhA supports their potential as novel vaccine candidate antigens against G. parasuis.


ABSTRACT This study investigates a question relevant to many investors: do the broad Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) return characteristics reflect those of the broad direct real estate markets. The paper makes several contributions to the literature in addition to using more recent data: (1) we use data for six countries (Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, the U.K., and the U.S.); (2) we estimate both country-specific and panel models to increase the reliability and generalizability of the analysis; (3) we estimate a structural vector autoregressive model to be able to better and more reliably interpret the various shocks in the system; and (4) we investigate the effects of global liquidity shocks, among other shocks. Our results indicate that over the mid to long horizon, broad REIT and direct returns have similar characteristics and are highly correlated at the panel level. Also, the two types of exposure to real estate exhibit similar reactions to economic shocks. Thus, the paper makes a case that investors do not necessarily need to worry much about compositional effects when aiming to track broad international direct market performance by investing in listed real estate.


: To date, 10 years after the first demonstration of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), prognostic significance in metastatic breast cancer using the US Food and Drug Adminis-tration–cleared system CellSearch ® , the potential utility of CTCs in early clinical development of drugs, their role as a surrogate marker of response to therapy, and their molecular analysis for patient stratification for targeted therapies are still major unsolved questions. Great expectations are pinned on the ongoing interventional trials aimed to demonstrate that CTCs might be of value for guiding treatment of patients and predicting cancer progression. To fill the gap between theory and practice with regard to the clinical utility of CTCs, a bridge is needed, taking into account innovative design for clinical trials, a revised definition of traditional CTCs, next-generation CTC technology, the potential clinical application of CTC analysis in non-validated settings of disease, and finally, expanding the number of patients enrolled in the studies. In this regard, the results of the first European pooled analysis definitely validated the independent prognostic value of CTC counting in metastatic breast cancer patients.


Welcome to Night Vale (2012–) is an intertextual podcast in the tradition of popular horror and weird tales. Listeners are meant to be part of a (fictional) community, listening to the radio in the small desert town of Night Vale in the Southwestern United States, although neither the state nor the exact time are specified. We follow the host of the program, Cecil Palmer, as he describes the town's community life, although the events presented in the show are far from normal. The first episode was published online June 15, 2012, with no marketing to accompany the event. Many had first heard about Welcome to Night Vale through fan art available via social media, including Tumblr, Soup.io, blog communities, Facebook groups, and deviantArt. Although the production is available in English only, it has a Polish fandom. We describe the difference in perception of this popular text based on differences in the cultural background and literary knowledge of the listeners. We also attend to fan practices such as fan art surrounding Welcome to Night Vale because their content correlates with the creator's culture of origin, as well as the issue of funding the free podcast among fans from different countries and different economies.


A biometrical study was conducted on some aspects of the reproductive system of 16 local breed Tom cats ( Felis catus domestica ) collected within Sokoto metropolis at different ages. The age of the cats was estimated from teeth eruption and wearing and grouped into groups A to E as A (3- 6 months), B(6 months - 1 year), C(1- 1½ year), D(1½ -2 years) and E(2-4 years) respectively. Age difference was the major consideration factor during this study. The mean live weight of the tom cats were 0.78 ± 0.02kg, 1.25 ± 0.0 7kg, 1.63 ± 0.06, 2.1± 0.06kg and 2.3 ± 0.08kg respectively. The percentage of the mean genitalia weight compared to the mean body weight in relation to their age showed a range of 0.5-1%. The mean weight, length and width of the testes were recorded with no significant difference between the right and left testis. The mean weight of the genitalia at an age of 3-6 months was 8.4±0.02g. The age at puberty of tom cats was about 6months and the weight of the genitalia drastically increased with advancement in age from 8.88±0.07g at 6months-1year to 11.71±0.05g at above 4 years of age. The mean length and width of the penis were also recorded; the weights of the prostate gland were recorded with special consideration of their ages. The bulbourethral glands were present but hardly distinguishable grossly from the urethra both in length, width and in weight. It was concluded that the age of puberty of our domestic tom cat in this area is 6months of age. It was recommended that a thorough investigation on the age related factor governing the development of anatomical features of the male reproductive tract of our domestic cat. The findings were discussed in the paper. Keywords : Age, Male, Biometry, Domestic Tom Cat, Reproduction, North-western Nigeria


The degree of gene flow within and among populations, i.e. genetic population connectivity, may closely track demographic population connectivity. Alternatively, the rate of gene flow may change relative to the rate of dispersal. In this study, we explored the relationship between genetic and demographic population connectivity using the Scandinavian brown bear as model species, due to its pronounced male dispersal and female philopatry. Thus, we expected that females would shape genetic structure locally, whereas males would act as genetic mediators among regions. To test this, we used eight validated microsatellite markers on 1531 individuals sampled noninvasively during country-wide genetic population monitoring in Sweden and Norway from 2006 to 2013. First, we determined sex-specific genetic structure and substructure across the study area. Second, we compared genetic differentiation, migration/gene flow patterns, and spatial autocorrelation results between the sexes both within and among genetic clusters and geographic regions. Our results indicated that demographic connectivity was not a reliable indicator of genetic connectivity. Among regions, we found no consistent difference in long-term gene flow and estimated current migration rates between males and females. Within regions/genetic clusters, only females consistently displayed significant positive spatial autocorrelation, indicating male-biased small-scale dispersal. In one cluster, however, males showed a dispersal pattern similar to females. The Scandinavian brown bear population has experienced substantial recovery over the last decades; however, our results did not show any changes in its large-scale population structure compared to previous studies, suggesting that an increase in population size and dispersal of individuals does not necessary lead to increased genetic connectivity. Thus, we conclude that both genetic and demographic connectivity should be estimated, so as not to make false assumptions about the reality of wildlife populations.


IntroductionRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most frequent cause of lower respiratory tract infections (RTIs), particularly bronchiolitis, in young children worldwide. In order to inform policymaking and regulatory decisions regarding novel RSV vaccines and therapeutics, the health and economic burden of RSV needs to be quantified in further detail.
Objectives and ApproachThis project is part of the REspiratory Syncytial virus Consortium in Europe (RESCEU), a collaborative IMI funded EU project assembling routinely collected health data from at least seven European countries to produce detailed estimates of RSV health and economic burden. This study links national data on hospital admissions, deaths, RSV laboratory testing, prescriptions, and maternal/perinatal data. Using this linked data we calculate rates of hospital admissions, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and deaths (a) potentially due to RSV, (b) likely due to RSV, and (c) confirmed due to RSV. We also investigate maternal and perinatal characteristics associated with RSV-related episodes.
ResultsRSV is a major cause of hospital admission in Scotland, particularly in children <6 months old. Around 2,000 admissions with a primary diagnosis of bronchiolitis occur in children <12 months old per year, on average, with approximately 75% of these estimated to be due to RSV.  Children with known clinical risk factors, such as prematurity or chronic conditions, are at increased risk of ICU admission and death due to RSV.  Results will be presented on the age- and risk-group specific hospitalisation, ICU admission and mortality rates for RSV-associated RTI in children <5 years old.  The maternal and perinatal characteristics (e.g. maternal smoking, type of delivery, breastfeeding status, birthweight, APGAR score (5 mins), mechanical ventilation, oxygen use) associated with RSV-related RTI hospital episodes will be presented.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThis is the first study to explore the national burden of RSV in Scotland. Our results demonstrate the benefits of using linked routinely collected data to explore the epidemiology and burden of infectious diseases and inform policymaking and regulatory decisions. Our methodology can be applied to other countries and pathogens.


The probability of sanctions' effectiveness increases not only due to their severity for the target country's economy but is also a function of adherence to their principles by enterprises from senders' countries. Sanctions avoidance and increasing investments in the target country (the observed behavior of many companies facing the European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia which were imposed in 2014) mitigate the impact of these restrictive measures. In this chapter we show (by analyzing adaptation strategies of EU enterprises affected by sanctions imposed on Russia by EU) how particular types of strategies affect the effectiveness of sanctions and what factors determine the choice of their respective behavior. We draw our conclusions from the online survey of more than 1,000 responses from British, French, German, Italian, and Polish enterprises. We find that while administrative burdens make conformance to sanctions more likely, market dependency and non-tangible assets in the target country induce strategies that challenge sanction policies. We conclude that the EU–Russian sanctions dispute incentivizes European companies to increase their engagement in Russia. These so-called defiance strategies diminish the real economic effect of the sanctions and generate a new equilibrium which outlasts the lifting of these restrictive measures and has negative long-term political implications.


Objective To report the effort of the European Reference Network for Rare and Complex CONnective tissue and musculoskeletal diseases NETwork working group on Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) and related disorders to assess current available clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) specifically addressed to EDS, in order to identify potential clinician and patient unmet needs. Methods Systematic literature search in PUBMED and EMBASE based on controlled terms (MeSH and Emtree) and keywords of the disease and publication type (CPGs). All the published articles were revised in order to identify existing CPGs on diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of EDS. Results Literature revision detected the absence of papers reporting good quality CPGs to optimise EDS patient care. The current evidence-based literature regarding clinical guidelines for the EDS was limited in size and quality, and there is insufficient research exploring the clinical features and interventions, and clinical decision-making are currently based on theoretical and limited research evidences. Conclusions Many clinician and patient unmet needs have been identified.


This article focuses the conceptions of gender and sexuality of the infant education teachers of the municipal schools net of the city of Canoas (Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil). We listed the contributions that set up our theoretical opinions. Afterwards we analyzed the focal group that was accomplished with 26 teachers, where we presented to the group images that deal about the theme and listened to their understandings. The results point out the necessity of including themes of gender and sexuality in the professional graduation formation and post graduation in the Pedagogy area.


Two cases of catamenial pneumothorax are described. This syndrome is characterized by recurring right-sided pneumothorax associated with menstruation. In one of our patients endometriosis of the diaphragm could be diagnosed in a biopsy, taken during thoracoscopy. Some clinical, etiologic and therapeutic implications are discussed.


Recent findings have revealed a crucial contribution of the adhesion molecule neuroligin-1 to the precise organization and regulation of intercellular synaptic connections within the central nervous system, and disruption of neuroligin-1 signaling in vivo fosters cognitive abnormalities. Despite considerable recent progress, several uncertainties remain regarding the exact synaptic function of neuroligin-1. Principle among these uncertainties is whether neuroligin-1 primarily promotes initiation of de novo synaptic connections or maturation of functional, pre-existent connections. To begin to address this, experiments must be devised that are capable of dissociating activity-dependent and -independent effects of neuroligin-1 signaling on pre- and postsynaptic compartments. An additional uncertainty is how and when synapses containing neuroligin-1 are specified as either excitatory or inhibitory. Elucidating these synapse specification cascades will prove crucial in defining the contribution of neuroligin-1 to overall network balances of excitation and inhibition that guide proper cognitive development. A final uncertainty is how alternate adhesion complexes may coordinate with neuroligin-1 to initiate or maintain synaptic connections. Differentiating redundant from complementary functions among adhesion systems will help reconcile unresolved discrepancies between in vitro and in vivo experiments and ultimately provide a clearer understanding of synapse formation and function in vivo. Herein I detail significant new findings clarifying each of these uncertainties. Utilizing a specific transfection protocol, I first demonstrate that neuroligin-1 is capable of robustly inducing presynaptic differentiation independent of proper postsynaptic development and synaptic activity. Second, employing both multi-molecular perturbations and a delimited biological model of the synapse, I show that the postsynaptic scaffolding molecule PSD95 specifically acts downstream of neuroligin-1-mediated synapse initiation. Third, the model synapse is again employed to differentiate between separate synaptic functions of neuroligin-1 and alternate adhesion molecule SynCAM1. Building from these distinct synaptic functions, I provide preliminary evidence that SynCAM1 matures inactive neuroligin-1-initiated synapses. Fourth, I present the first direct evidence that neuroligin-1 contributes to dendritic morphogenesis in mammalian neurons, consistent with recent findings within the Xenopus system. Collectively, these results evince a robust capacity of neuroligin-1 in initial stages of synaptogenesis and contribute to a new theory of neuroligin-1 function in both activity-dependent synapse initiation and activity-dependent synapse maturation.