The Perceptron algorithm, despite its simplicity, often performs well in online classification tasks. The Perceptron becomes especially effective when it is used in conjunction with kernel functions. However, a common difficulty encountered when implementing kernel-based online algorithms is the amount of memory required to store the online hypothesis, which may grow unboundedly as the algorithm progresses. Moreover, the running time of each online round grows linearly with the amount of memory used to store the hypothesis. In this paper, we present the Forgetron family of kernel-based online classification algorithms, which overcome this problem by restricting themselves to a predefined memory budget. We obtain different members of this family by modifying the kernel-based Perceptron in various ways. We also prove a unified mistake bound for all of the Forgetron algorithms. To our knowledge, this is the first online kernel-based learning paradigm which, on one hand, maintains a strict limit on the amount of memory it uses and, on the other hand, entertains a relative mistake bound. We conclude with experiments using real datasets, which underscore the merits of our approach.


The Granta Book of India brings together, for the first time, evocative, personal and informative pieces from previous editions of Granta, all on the experiences of Indian life, culture and politics. Including extracts from the highly successful Granta 57: India! The Golden Jubilee. Suketu Mehta on Mumbai Chitra Banerji: 'What Bengali widows cannot eat' Mark Tully on his childhood in Calcutta Ian Jack: 'Unsteady People' - on unexpected parallels between Bihar and Britain Urvashi Butalia on tracing her long-lost uncle a poem by Salman Rushdie about the fatwa Ramachandra Guha: What we think of America Nirad Chaudhuri writing on his 100th birthday Rory Stewart among the dervishes of Pakistan Pankaj Mishra on the making of jihadis in Pakistan PLUS: fiction by R K Narayan, Amit Chaudhuri and Nell Freudenberger


We present a strongly hyperbolic first-order formulation of the Einstein equations based on the conformal and covariant Z4 system (CCZ4) with constraint-violation damping, which we refer to as FO-CCZ4. As CCZ4, this formulation combines the advantages of a conformal and traceless formulation, with the suppression of constraint violations given by the damping terms, but being first order in time and space, it is particularly suited for a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) implementation. The strongly hyperbolic first-order formulation has been obtained by making careful use of first and second-order ordering constraints. A proof of strong hyperbolicity is given for a selected choice of gauges via an analytical computation of the entire eigenstructure of the FO-CCZ4 system. The resulting governing partial differential equations system is written in non-conservative form and requires the evolution of 58 unknowns. A key feature of our formulation is that the first-order CCZ4 system decouples into a set of pure ordinary differential equations and a reduced hyperbolic system of partial differential equations that contains only linearly degenerate fields. We implement FO-CCZ4 in a high-order path-conservative arbitrary-high-order-method-using-derivatives (ADER)-DG scheme with adaptive mesh refinement and local time-stepping, supplemented with a third-order ADER-WENO subcell finite-volume limiter in order to deal with singularities arising with black holes. We validate the correctness of the formulation through a series of standard tests in vacuum, performed in one, two and three spatial dimensions, and also present preliminary results on the evolution of binary black-hole systems. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first successful three-dimensional simulations of moving punctures carried out with high-order DG schemes using a first-order formulation of the Einstein equations.


This paper presents a new technique for the automatic model-based segmentation of 3-D objects from volumetric image data. The development closely follows the seminal work of Cootes et al. (1994) but presents various new solutions to come up with a true 3-D technique rather than a slice-by-slice 2-D processing. The segmentation system includes both the building of statistical models and the automatic segmentation of new image data sets via a restricted elastic deformation of models. Geometric models are derived front a sample set of image data which have been segmented by experts. The surfaces of these binary objects are converted into a parametric surface net which is normalized to get an invariant object-centered coordinate system. Surface descriptions are expanded into series of spherical harmonics which provide parametric representations of object shapes. Gray-level information is represented by 1-D profiles normal to the surface. The alignment is based on the well-accepted stereotactic coordinate system since the driving application is the segmentation of brain objects. Shape statistics are calculated from the parametric shape representations rather than from the spatial coordinates of sets of points. After initializing the mean shape in a new data set on the basis of the alignment coordinates, the model elastically deforms in accordance to displacement forces across the surface but is restricted only by shape deformation constraints. The technique has been applied to segment left and right hippocampal structures from a large series of 3-D magnetic resonance scans taken from a schizophrenia study.


Relative brain size (size of the brain once body size effects have been removed) has been calculated for 16 species of rodent from South Africa and is shown to vary with six species having a positive RBS (that is a brain larger than expected) and 10 a negative RBS. Arboreal species such as Paraxerus cepapi and Graphiurus murinus and omnivores (G. murinus) have relatively larger brains than do the fossoriai root eaters such as Cryptomys hottentotus and terrestrial follivores (Otomys irroratus). It is suggested that the relatively large brains can be linked to the complex behavioural patterns necessary for locomotion in three dimensions and for utilization of a food resource such as insects that is randomly distributed in time and space. The three sciuromorph rodents (Xerus inauris, Paraxerus cepapi and Pedetes capensis) have very different life styles but all have a positive RBS and it is suggested that a relatively large brain may be a characteristic of the suborder.


Chief Executive Officer (CEO) transition is a continuous process of change in leadership involving removal of existing CEO and replacement of new CEO. Ideally, CEO transition occurs based upon the CEO Succession Policy developed by the Board of Directors. The CEO succession plan and policy is important because it reduces the impact of a CEO's sudden removal on the firm. In recent time, there is an immense increase in CEO transition recorded among emerging economy, nonetheless, the issue has not been well addressed in the literature. Disclosure policy in Malaysia also views change of CEO as an important element that will have an impact on the firm value. To evaluate the CEO succession policy, this study investigates the effect of CEO transition announcement on the share price. This study adopts the event study method and employs two estimation models for expected return, which are Market Model (MM) and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). This study examines the simultaneous announcement, which indicates the adoption of succession policy, as well as the announcement of CEO appointment and CEO turnover. A total of 354 announcements of CEO transition from 170 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia, over the duration of ten years from 2007-2016 is observed. The result indicates that the firm's share price generally reacts towards all types of CEO transition announcement, with a stronger reaction significantly observed through the simultaneous announcement. Further robustness check with regression analysis confirms that when the CEO transition announcement is simultaneous, it creates more value to the firm. In other words, the CEO succession policy, where proper CEO transition takes place, eliminates the uncertainty and risk, hence, giving a positive impact on firm value. This finding also contributes to the signalling theory literature, where anticipated event induces a positive reaction from investors, as reflected in the firm share price


Metabolic alterations contribute to prostate cancer development and progression; however, the role of the central metabolic regulator AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) remains controversial. The androgen receptor (AR), a key driver of prostate cancer, regulates prostate cancer cell metabolism by driving the expression of a network of metabolic genes and activates AMPK through increasing the expression of one of its upstream kinases. To more clearly define the role of AMPK in prostate cancer, we performed expression profiling following pharmacologic activation of this kinase. We found that genes down-regulated upon AMPK activation were over-expressed in prostate cancer, consistent with a tumour suppressive function of AMPK. Strikingly, we identified the AR as one of the most significantly enriched transcription factors mediating gene expression changes downstream of AMPK signalling in prostate cancer cells. Activation of AMPK inhibited AR transcriptional activity and reduced androgen-dependent expression of known AR target genes. Conversely, knock-down of AMPK increased AR activity. Modulation of AR expression could not explain these effects. Instead, we observed that activation of AMPK reduced nuclear localisation of the AR. We thus propose the presence of a negative feedback loop in prostate cancer cells whereby AR activates AMPK and AMPK feeds back to limit AR-driven transcription.


Metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) is a process in which two or more metalorganic chemicals (for instance, trimethylgallium) or one or more metalorganic sources and one or more hydride sources (for instance, arsine, AsH3) are used to form the corresponding intermetallic crystalline solid solution. MOCVD materials technology is a vapor-phase growth process that is becoming widely used to study the basic physics of novel materials and to grow complex semiconductor device structures for new optoelectronic and photonic systems. The MOCVD process is described and some of the device applications and results that have been realized with it are reviewed, with particular emphasis on the III-V compound semiconductors.


We consider the problem of estimating the means of components in a noisy 2-Gaussian Mixture Model (2-GMM) without balanced weights, where the noise is of an arbitrary distribution. We present a robust algorithm to estimate the parameters, together with upper bounds on the numbers of samples required for the good estimates, where the bounds are parametrised by the dimension, ratio of the mixing coefficients, the separation of the two Gaussians in terms of Mahalanobis distance, and a condition number of the covariance matrix. In theory, this is the first sample-complexity result for Gaussian mixtures corrupted by adversarial noise. In practice, our algorithm outperforms the vanilla Expectation-Maximisation (EM) algorithm by orders of magnitude in terms of estimation error.


Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome is the most prevalent form of sleep disorder breathing characterized by persistent pauses of breathing during sleep time. The disorder is manifested by upper airway obstruction and excessive day time somnolence which directly affect the quality of life of the patients. Reports from previous studies revealed that occurrence rate of obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome is approx 13.7% among habitual snorers and 3.6% among non-habitual snorers which is equivalent to other major diseases and contributes to morbidity and mortality in developed as well as in developing countries, like India. The disorder is in association with metabolic syndrome and many serious cardiovascular conditions are stimuli of various inflammatory pathways in disease progression. The primary pathophysiologic abnormality in sleep disorder breathing is insulin resistance. Recurrent hypoxic function contributes to delay in hepatic function. The occurrence of oxidative stress with sleep disorder breathing also emerged as a public health issue. It has been reported that, severe obstructive sleep disorder patients have higher levels of plasma leptin than patients with mild and there occurs a positive correlation which is independent of age and BMI, between the plasma leptin levels and the severity of disease. Consequently hyperleptinemia may be considered a predictive marker of obstructive sleep disorder. The first line treatment of diagnosed obstructive sleep disorder syndrome includes nasal continuous positive airway pressure. Apart other treatments include surgical procedures, mandibular advancement splint and drugs which treat daytime somnolence. Recent study shows that oral intake of antioxidants not only reduces oxidative stress but also improves sleep disorder breathing and excessive day time somnolence. In this review, an exhaustive scan is done from past till up to date which are in concern of the morbidities along with their therapeutic measures associated with obstructive sleep disorder syndrome.


Wilderness protection in Antarctica has received attention at various previous Polar Law Symposia. Generally, these discussions and resulting publications have shown the tension between, on the one hand, the broad societal appreciation of wilderness in Antarctica, and, on the other hand, the limited attention for this concept in law and policy making in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM). Although there have been attempts to place wilderness protection higher on the agendas of the ATCM and the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP; an advisory body of the ATCM), no substantial progress on the topic has been made. Against this backdrop, Antje Neumann and Kees Bastmeijer will discuss the question to what extent various domestic legal tools (available under domestic legal systems) to protect the European Arctic wilderness might be of value for wilderness protection in Antarctica.


This evidence based practice paper describes a study about an immediate feedback system using Internet and students' own cell phones: Kahoot (getkahoot.com), also a comparison between implementing clickers and mobile participation systems is analyzed. Immediate feedback enhances students' learning. For students, it's a chance to go further by breaking misconceptions and changing learning routes. For teachers, it's a practical opportunity to feel the "temperature" of the classroom in order to decide to either review some concepts or move forward to another subject. There are many cases in literature about the use of clickers as an immediate feedback system. The clicker itself is neither a tool to directly teach concepts, nor it is meant to replace quality lesson preparation and planning. The clicker is a powerful tool to augment and enhance active learning in classroom, and most importantly, it is a mean to provide accurate situational awareness to the instructor. However, implementing this solution is usually expensive, since it costs about US$ 50 each one. Kahoot is an online classroom-response system that eliminates the need to give students handheld clickers. Through Kahoot, teachers create online quizzes or surveys and mirror the questions on a big screen or interactive whiteboard; it's also possible to embed videos. Students respond to the quiz items on any Internet-connected device, including their smartphones. During this session, participants take Kahoot quizzes as students. Participants may also create Kahoot quizzes as teachers, share their quizzes with other participants, and analyze quizzes results. It's worth to mention that the result of every quiz played over the platform can be saved for further analysis. When learners start playing, they need to enter a nickname, which allows students to stay anonymous, and their recorded scores are saved in their profile. This unique feature makes Kahoot an engaging platform. In order to present students and teachers perception about this new methodology, Kahoot system is presented in five different approaches: Introduction of a new concept or topic; Reinforcement of knowledge; Encouragement of reflection and peer-led discussion; Connection of classrooms and Challenge for learners to make their own Kahoot quizzes. Some of these purposes presented were studied in Physics I and Chemistry courses for freshman students and Physics II course for sophomore students in an Engineering School.


An epidural type catheter was placed in the pleural space under direct vision before the closure of the chest in 24 patients who underwent thoracotomy for various types of lung or aortic surgery. All patients received intrapleural injections of 20 ml of 0.5 per cent bupivacaine with or without epinephrine as initial pain therapy. Patients also received subsequent doses of a similar volume of 0.375 per cent bupivacaine with epinephrine 1:200,000 up to four times a day for a maximum duration of seven days. Good pain relief was achieved in patients who underwent lateral and posterior thoracotomies. No pain relief was achieved in patients who underwent anterior thoracotomy or in patients in whom there was excessive bleeding in the pleural space. Bupivacaine blood concentrations were measured in 11 patients following the initial dose of 20 ml of 0.5 per cent bupivacaine (with epinephrine 1:200,000 in five of the 11 patients). The mean peak plasma concentration of bupivacaine when used with epinephrine was 0.32 +/- 0.02 microgram.ml-1. The mean peak plasma concentrations of bupivacaine when used without epinephrine was 1.28 +/- 0.48 microgram.ml-1. Our present data show that intrapleural analgesia is useful in the management of postoperative pain in patients who undergo thoracotomy. Our data also show that there is a significant decrease in peak plasma concentrations of bupivacaine when epinephrine is added to the solution (P less than 0.05).


The surface density changes of the central region of the sites treated by using the CO2 laser-based non-evaporative damage mitigation for fused silica are investigated by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). The ATR-FTIR peak shifts of the treated sites of fused silica are monitored to determine the changes of the corresponding density. For the quenching treated sites, the surface density is increased by (0.24 ± 0.01)% compared with the initial density but the laser annealing by the exposure of a power ramp down after damage mitigation effectively suppresses the structural changes of treated sites, which could reduce the increase of the corresponding density to (0.08 ± 0.01)%. The results provide sufficient evidence that the laser annealing by a power ramp down after damage mitigation has a positive effect on the control of the structural change induced by CO2 laser-based damage mitigation.


Floating-point division is generally regarded as a low frequency, high latency operation in typical floating-point applications. However, the increasing emphasis on high performance graphics and the industry-wide usage of performance benchmarks, such as SPECmarks, forces processor designers to pay close attention to all aspects of floating-point computation. This paper presents the algorithms often utilized for floating-point division, and it also presents implementation alternatives available for designers. Using a system level study as a basis, it is shown how typical floating-point applications can guide the designer in making implementation decisions and trade-offs.


An encoding apparatus comprises a frame processor (105) which receives a multi channel audio signal comprising at least a first audio signal from a first microphone (101) and a second audio signal from a second microphone (103). An ITD processor (107) then determines an inter time difference between the first audio signal and the second audio signal and a set of delays (109, 111) generates a compensated multi channel audio signal from the multi channel audio signal by delaying at least one of the first and second audio signals in response to the inter time difference signal. A combiner (113) then generates a mono signal by combining channels of the compensated multi channel audio signal and a mono signal encoder (115) encodes the mono signal. The inter time difference may specifically be determined by an algorithm based on determining cross correlations between the first and second audio signals.


Although there were small areas of interest in advance care planning (ACP) and the ability to refuse treatment in Australia as early as 1987, the implementation of and research in, ACP began in 2002 with Australian Federal government and Victorian State government funding of the Respecting Patient Choices Program. This program has been established in many hospitals, health services and aged care homes throughout Australia and has been adapted successfully to local conditions and legislation. There is an increasing body of research to support ACP, including a randomised controlled trial published in the BMJ (BMJ 2010;340:c1345). With the growing public and political interest in ACP a number of new initiatives have been undertaken including: ▶ new supportive legislation in several states and territories ▶ a National government sponsored review of existing legislation with recommendations for achieving national uniformity ▶ recommendations in the Australian National Health & Hospitals Reform Commission Report that ACP should be available in all aged care homes. The holding of the Inaugural International ACP conference in Melbourne in April 2010 galvanised interest and support for ACP in Australia and raised awareness internationally, leading to the establishment of International Society of Advance Care Planning and End of Life Care -ACPEL Society with hundreds of members joining from around the world. The Society will be officially launched at a London conference.


LivingTV's flagship series, Most Haunted, has been haunting the satellite network since 2002. The set-up of the series is straightforward: a team of investigators, including a historian, a parapsychologist, and "spiritualist medium" Derek Acorah, "legend-trip," spending the night at some location within the United Kingdom that is reputed to be haunted, with the hopes of catching on video concrete proof of the existence of ghosts. However, unlike other reality television or true-life supernatural television shows, Most Haunted includes and addresses the audience less as a spectator and more as an active participant in the ghost hunt. Watching Most Haunted, we are directed not so much to accept or reject the evidence provided, as to engage in the debate over the evidence's veracity. Like legend-telling in its oral form, belief in or rejection of the truth-claims of the story are less central than the possibility of the narrative's truth—a position that invites debates about those truth-claims. This paper argues that Most Haunted, in its premise and structure, not only depicts or represents legend texts (here ghost stories), but engages the audience in the debates about the status of its truth-claims, thereby bringing this mass-mediated popular culture text closer to the folkloristic, legend-telling dynamic than other similar shows.


In a variety of applications, such as multi-agent systems and heterogeneous knowledge-based systems, there is the need to exchange uncertain information between distinct and independently developed software components. This requires that such components share a common uncertainty interchange format and poses, therefore, a serious and still poorly considered problem, in face of the variety of existing uncertainty theories and of related representation formalisms. In fact, while imposing that all components adopt the same uncertainty theory is often unrealistic and, more importantly, is against the very reasons that support modularization and distribution. Defining a common uncertainty interchange format, able to guarantee compatibility with the different existing approaches (and possibly also with future ones) is an open research problem. In this paper we discuss the basic issues that need to be dealt with for the definition of a sufficiently general uncertainty interchange format and formulate an initial proposal of generic belief representation based on fuzzy numbers.


This paper analyzes the behaviors of college students who use mobile phones SNS through a questionnaire survey among them, and pointed out that the mobile SNS tool is an important mode of transmission. The main purpose of the mobile SNS social behavior is to share information and to keep in touch with friends. This article presents that to understand the characteristics of mobile SNS social behavior helps us grasp the rights to speak, and promote the balanced development of mobile media and traditional media.


Imagine a strange and common experience—you reach for something concrete, immediately in front of you—only to find that the solid has evaporated. Accelerate towards a pool of water on the road, outline a column of light, cup your hand around smoke or fog. The reflection waits on the pavement before you, the column stands endlessly beside you. When you open your hand, it is empty. Only a residue, carbonate or cool, attests to the reality that was smoke or cloud. Thus we create a curious category of realities undeniable but impossible to grasp. Older now, but still determined, we continue to fill the category: it grows more sophisticated, stranger and more various with our experience. It is fed each time we try to capture, this time in words or memory, a scent, a face, a motion that defies definition. It is fed by all the realities language cannot describe and by all that is known in the way of an old routine, with familiar and fading certainty. It is fed by everything eminently sensible and constantly elusive. Power perhaps.


Significance Due to the lower luminosity of the young Sun, climate modelers struggle to explain why the climate on early Earth was not freezing cold. This "faint young Sun paradox" is in conflict with apparently hot Archean ocean temperatures (∼70 °C) that can be estimated from the 18O/16O stable isotope ratio of chemical sediments. We show that the later temperatures had been overestimated because the 18O/16O of seawater also changed over time due to intense carbonatization and silicification of the oceanic crust, which consumes heavy 18O. Because these processes require high fluxes of CO2, greenhouse warming by a CO2-rich atmosphere appears most feasible to explain all observations. The low 18O/16O stable isotope ratios (δ18O) of ancient chemical sediments imply ∼70 °C Archean oceans if the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater (sw) was similar to modern values. Models suggesting lower δ18Osw of Archean seawater due to intense continental weathering and/or low degrees of hydrothermal alteration are inconsistent with the triple oxygen isotope composition (Δ'17O) of Precambrian cherts. We show that high CO2 sequestration fluxes into the oceanic crust, associated with extensive silicification, lowered the δ18Osw of seawater on the early Earth without affecting the Δ'17O. Hence, the controversial long-term trend of increasing δ18O in chemical sediments over Earth's history partly reflects increasing δ18Osw due to decreasing atmospheric pCO2. We suggest that δ18Osw increased from about −5‰ at 3.2 Ga to a new steady-state value close to −2‰ at 2.6 Ga, coinciding with a profound drop in pCO2 that has been suggested for this time interval. Using the moderately low δ18Osw values, a warm but not hot climate can be inferred from the δ18O of the most pristine chemical sediments. Our results are most consistent with a model in which the "faint young Sun" was efficiently counterbalanced by a high-pCO2 greenhouse atmosphere before 3 Ga.


The analytic structure of solutions to the Klein-Gordon equation in a black hole background, as represented by monodromy data, is intimately related to black hole thermodynamics. It encodes the ''hidden conformal symmetry'' of a nonextremal black hole, and it explains why features of the inner event horizon appear in scattering data such as greybody factors. This indicates that hidden conformal symmetry is generic within a universality class of black holes.


This study examined the adoption of family planning measures among couples in New-Heaven, Enugu state. The sample consisted of hundred and fifty respondents randomly selected from ten streets in New Heaven. The methods used in the collection of data were questionnaires, interviews and direct observation. The secondary sources of data include; published and unpublished materials such as books, journals, news papers and workshops held in different parts of the world. In analyzing the data collected from the field, the Chi-square statistical method was used. Other forms of data analysis included the following; the use of simple percentages, tables and charts. From the analysis of data collected, it was discovered that distance to clinics significantly affects the adoption of family planning measures among couples in New Heaven, Enugu State, Nigeria. It was also observed that the standard of education, cultural background, age and occupation etc, affected respondents choice on the effective adoption of family planning techniques. These also affected the acceptance and rejection of birth control measures.


Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is caused by a bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato) and is transmitted to humans by the bite of ticks of the Ixodes genus. The authors describe a 16-year-old girl who presented with extraocular muscle palsies and had serology positive for Lyme disease. The muscle palsies resolved after antibiotic treatment with no residual limitation of ocular movements.


A novel configuration of dual-channel line optical tweezers with a 'Y' shape is constructed for sorting of particles within a microfluidic chip. When yeast cells with different size pass the intersection of the specially designed line optical tweezers, they are separated and transported to different channels due to a difference in the forces exerted by the line tweezers that depends on the size of the cells. The influences of some experimental conditions, such as laser power and flow velocity, on the sorting efficiency are discussed.


Arch bridges consist of some important components for structural behavior such as arches, sidewalls, filling materials and foundations. But, arches are the most important part for this type of bridges. For this reason, investigation of arch is come into prominence. In this paper, it is aimed to investigate the arch thickness effect on the structural behavior of masonry arch bridges. For this purpose, Goderni historical arch bridge which was located in Kulp town, Diyarbakir, Turkey and the bridge restoration process has still continued is selected as an application. The construction year of the bridge is not fully known, but the date is estimated to be the second half of the 19th century. The bridge has two arches with the 0.52 cm and 0.69 cm arch thickness, respectively. Finite element model of the bridge is constructed with ANSYS software to reflect the current situation using relievo drawings. Then the arch thickness is changed by increasing and decreasing respectively and finite element models are reconstructed. The structural responses of the bridge are obtained for all arch thickness under dead load and live load. Maximum displacements, maximum-minimum principal stresses and maximum-minimum elastic strains are given with detail using contours diagrams and compared with each other to determine the arch thickness effect. At the end of the study, it is seen that the maximum displacements, tensile stresses and strains have a decreasing trend, but compressive stress and strain have an increasing trend by the increasing of arch thickness.


Content of cyclic nucleotides was studied in primary culture of newborn rat heart cells after administration of the polyether-containing antibiotic omomycin (985-I, 16-diethyl indanomycin). Level of cGMP was increased within 10 min of the cells exposition with 4 micrograms/ml of the antibiotic, while the nucleotide content elevation was more significant in presence of 1-methyl-3-isobutyl xanthine (10(-4) M). When the exposition time was prolonged up to 20 min, content of cGMP returned to control values in absence of isobutyl xanthine and remained at the elevated level in presence of the drug. Content of cAMP was unaltered under these conditions. Omomycin may be used in experiments, where distinct increase of the cellular cGMP content is required.


The environments where medical records are explored for historical analysis of clinical scenes,  in general, have focus on integration of data that are,  essentially,  structured. However,  they  face  difficulties  to  handle  other types  of  information  present, e.g. on  anamnesis,  due to their  unstructured nature.  This  paper presents  an  environment  for  multifaceted  analysis  of medical  records allowing joint exploration of heterogeneous data. To do so, the  terms  found  on  several  unstructured  sources  are  associated  with categories of a faceted taxonomy. These facets are modeled as dimensions on a data mart and used as perspectives for data analysis.


This article focus on how teachers' experience the criterion-referenced grading system as a phenomenon and consists of one of three themes from a thesis titled Not yet passed: How teachers' experience a criterion-referenced grading system and what they say about its use in Swedish secondary schools.The empirical study was carried out as semi-structured audiotaped interviews with thirty qualified teachers, in the subjects English, Maths and Swedish, who all had experiences of assessing and grading according to the new grading system. Teachers in just these subjects are the only ones that have national tests as a support for grading their students.This theme has a phenomenographic approach. The results are described in four hierarchically arranged categories. The results show that the new criterion-referenced grading system in secondary schools in Sweden seems to function unsatisfactorily. Teachers seem not to have grasped the assumptions underlying the grading system. The change from grading based on quantitative aspects of knowledge to qualitative ones, was evidently too big a step. Instead teachers' assessments and gradings follow ingrained habits.


Two major online European journal indexes are examined to determine how useful they are in retrieving citations for materials of interest to historians. Three techniques were used: an examination of the top ten journals in history by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) impact factor, a comparison of the journal tides of possible historical interest in each database, and a comparison of results retrieved by keyword or subject in each database. IBZ appears to retrieve more articles of interest to historians; however, many relevant articles would only be retrieved by using FRANCIS. Neither database is comprehensive. Historians have available a variety of indexes for finding journal articles. This study focuses on two major European electronic indexes to journals: FRANCIS, produced by L'Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, available through the Research Libraries Group (RLG); and Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriftenliteratur (IBZ), available from Zeller Verlag in Germany. Both cover materials in a variety of languages often missed by indexes originating in the United States. IBZ has only recently become available through the Web. This study is intended to help librarians and researchers in evaluating the usefulness of these indexes for historical topics. The study analyzes the content of the two indexes. No attempt was made to analyze the search software. This study was conducted over a period of several months and within that time, the titles of journals coverage varied. FRANCIS is a multilingual (primarily French) and multidisciplinary database with its origins in the Bulletin Signaletique. It indexes international journals, books, conference proceedings, French dissertations, and research reports in the humanities. In 1999, it indexed 3,699 journals. Its strength is in the social sciences, the arts, and the humanities. The coverage begins with 1984. IBZ indexes more than fifty-six hundred journals beginning with 1987 but actually includes articles from earlier years. IBZ and its coverage of German language periodicals is very strong. It concentrates on indexing European periodicals. Citations can be found in Albanian, Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Frisian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, and Spanish. Historians have other indexes, such as Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, International Medieval Bibliography, Database of Classical Bibliography, and Index Islamicus. Each of these is limited to a time period or region. Neither FRANCIS nor IBZ is limited by time or place. Literature Review There are numerous studies analyzing the information needs and information seeking behaviors of historians. It has been noted by several authors that while primary source material is of paramount importance to historians, secondary literature is also key. There are far fewer studies analyzing the abstracting and information tools that historians might find helpful. Very few of these studies analyze these tools since they have become available on the Web and these studies have chiefly focused on Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Many of the criticisms or problems with the print or CD-ROM sources are obviated by the type of access that the Web versions provide. In the literature, the problems and issues addressed concern those of retrieval due to the quality of indexing terms; the incompleteness of coverage; the fact that several of the indexes focus on history while noting that history as a discipline is multidisciplinary; the paucity of coverage for European and especially German materials; and the short time span of online coverage. Jones, Chapman, and Woods report a study of the use of material by historians of English history. …


Science will...produce the data...but never the full meaning. For perceiving real significance, we shall need... most of all the brains of poets, (and) also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general. - Lewis Thomas


This paper explores how motivating an incumbent CEO to make investments that improve the effectiveness of the firm organization under his management interacts with the replacement policy of the board of directors. We characterize the optimal compensation package (including severance pay) under governance structures that differ in the power that the incumbent CEO has on the board of directors. We explain why yielding the incumbent CEO some control of the board (entrenchment) can be desirable and offer predictions on when this arrangement is optimal. We also examine the correlation between the elements of his compensation package and the structure of the board.


If a qualified investor has a choice between investing in a secretive fund and a transparent fund with the same investment objective, which should she choose? Prior work suggests that the secretive fund is better. Hedge fund managers generally use their discretion for the benefit of their investors (Agarwal, Daniel and Naik, 2009, Agarwal, Jiang, Tang and Yang, 2013). In this study we identify a subset of hedge funds managers, which appear to use their discretion to feign skill. Using a proprietary dataset obtained from a fund of funds, we document that hedge funds that are more secretive earn somewhat higher returns than their investment-objective-matched peers during up markets, consistent with earlier papers documenting skill-based performance, but significantly worse returns during down markets. This evidence suggests that at least part of the superior performance that secretive funds appear to generate is in fact compensation for loading on additional risk factor(s) as compared to their objective-matched peers.


Background The APTIMA HIV-1 Quant Assay is a fully automated quantitative assay being developed on the PANTHER system and based on real-time Transcription-Mediated Amplification technology. This assay is intended for monitoring HIV-1 viral load in plasma specimens using a 0.5 mL sample. Methods A cohort of 245 clinical specimens from University of Athens Medical School was tested using the COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0 (Roche Assay) and the APTIMA HIV-1 Quant Assay (APTIMA Assay). The specimens included subtypes A, B, C and G as well as circulating recombinant forms of HIV-1. Results Using a lower limit of quantitation for the APTIMA Assay of 30 copies/mL, 175 specimens gave results quantifiable for both assays. The correlation between the two assays was excellent (0.98), with a slope of 1.06 and an intercept of –0.13. Sixty-nine specimens gave results that were either detectable but not quantifiable or not detectable in at least one assay. Thirty were not detectable in both assays and 14 were detectable in both assays. The APTIMA Assay detected 13 specimens that were undetectable with the Roche Assay. There were 12 specimens that were detectable with the Roche Assay and undetectable with the APTIMA Assay. One specimen was above the upper limit of quantitation (10,000,000 copies/mL). Conclusion The APTIMA HIV-1 Quant Assay gave comparable viral load results when compared to the Roche COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0. The sensitivity of the APTIMA HIV-1 Quant Assay is similar to that of the Roche COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0.


Anesthesiological errors after clinical death during narcosis for strumectomy are considered. These errors were continuation of surgery after systole, inadequate management of the systemic arterial pressure and cerebral circulation after global ischemia, early switch-off of artificial ventilation of the lungs. All these steps led to prolonged coma, development of the apallic syndrome, and invalidism of the patient.


A taxonomic revision is made of the agaric genus Clitocybe (Fr.) Staude in Fennoscandia (i.e., Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of the northwest of the U.S.S.R.), the material comprising 3220 specimens. The delimitation of the genus mainly follows that of modern authors (e.g. SrNGER 1962), and in the discussion of some intergeneric differences attention is also drawn to some previously ignored ecological features. Agaricus nebularis [Batsch] Fries is acknowledged as the type species. Fairly comprehensive descriptions are given of the infrageneric diagnostic characters. Among the characters whose genetically controlled variation and diagnostic importance has often been ignored or undervalued by previous au~hors are : certain features of the pileus surface, the organization of the basal mycelium of the stipe, hygrophany, odour, the responses of some parts of the dried fruit body under ultra~violet light, the co1our of the spore deposit, several other spore characters, some of which are taken as the basis for a new system of spore shape classification, and pigmentation. Some characters are supposed to be original, and others derived. Several macrochemical reagents were tested, o.f which KOH proyed to be the most useful. Information on the cytology (e.g. the chromosome number) of one species is given. Some macroscopical, sporal, anatomical, ecological and other characters as well as certain responses to ultr~violet light are shown to be ± uniform throughout Clitocybe, and may thus be diagnostic of the genus. Considerable attention is paid to the habitat (substrate, forest site type , relation to lime content of ground, relation to human influence), f ruiting time, and geographical distribution of the species, which may be grouped in various, often clear-cut, categories with regard to each of these aspects. The largest numbers of species are found in the coniferous and mixed deciduous and coniferous, hemiboreal and southern boreal forests, the number of eastern taxa being considerable . Some species occur in alpine DryOJS heaths. Three species are recorded for the first time outside N. America, and two outside Asia. 3 subgenera, 16 sections, 2 subsections, 43 species, and 2 varieties are recognized, of which 1, 6 (in addition, 2 provisionally ), 2, 14, and 1, respectively, are described as new. 4 new combinations are introduced. Lectotypes or neotypes are proposed for several species. The author citations of some sectional and specific names are corrected . page Preface . .... .. ... . . ............. . . . 6


This article examines the risk–return performance of concentrated positions of hedge funds in large-cap and small-cap stocks. The research shows that small-cap stocks in which hedge funds have concentrated positions earn higher future returns than those that are not part of hedge funds' concentrated holdings. Also, stocks that are part of the concentrated positions of hedge funds display higher downside risks and relatively large downside returns during periods of market turmoil. The results presented indicate that hedge fund managers are skilled in making equity investments under different degrees of market efficiency. The authors' findings have two practical implications: (1) hedge funds that hold concentrated positions in small-cap stocks may outperform their peers and (2) investors may be able to improve the performance of their equity portfolios by monitoring hedge funds' positions in small-cap stocks. TOPICS: Portfolio theory, portfolio construction, equity portfolio management Key Findings • Stocks in which hedge funds have concentrated positions earn higher future returns and display higher downside risks than those that are not part of hedge funds' concentrated holdings. • The above-mentioned effects associated with hedge funds' concentrated positions are stronger for small-cap stocks than large-cap stocks. • Results imply that monitoring hedge funds' positions, especially in small-cap stocks, may improve the performance investors' equity portfolios.


Architects commonly attempt a depiction of organic forms when their works are inspired by nature, regardless of the building site. Nevertheless it is also possible to try matching structures with natural scenery, by applying a phenomenological approach in terms of spatial operations, regarding perceptions from nature through architectural aspects such as protection, views, and orientation. This method acknowledges a relationship between place and space, where intentions towards tangible facts then become design statements. Although spaces resulting from such a process may present an effective response to the environment, they can also offer further outcomes beyond the realm of form. The hypothesis is that, in addition to recognising a bond between architecture and nature, it is also plausible to associate such perceptions with the inner ambient of buildings, by analysing features such as daylight. The case study of a single-family house in a rainforest near Valdivia, Chilean Patagonia is presented, with the intention of addressing the above notions through a discussion of the actual effects of inhabiting a place by way of a series of insights, including a revision of diagrams and photographs that assist in understanding the implications of this design practice. In addition, figures based on post-occupancy behaviour and daylighting performance relate both architectural and environmental issues to a decision-making process motivated by the observation of nature. Keywords—Architecture, design statements, nature, perception.


The supply and demand of credit are not always well aligned and matched, as is reflected in the countercyclical excess reserve-to-deposit ratio and interest spread between the lending rate and the deposit rate. We develop a search-based theory of credit allocations to explain the cyclical fluctuations in both bank reserves and the interest spread. We show that search frictions in the credit market can not only naturally explain the countercyclical bank reserves and interest spread, but also generate endogenous business cycles driven primarily by the cyclical utilization rate of credit resources, as long conjectured by the Austrian school of the business cycle. In particular, we show that credit search can lead to endogenous local increasing returns to scale and variable capital utilization in a model with constant returns to scale production technology and matching functions, thus providing a micro-foundation for the indeterminacy literature of Benhabib and Farmer (1994) and Wen (1998).


The literature review initially introduces an evaluation of the literature concerning the fundamentals of sustainable supply chain management, the research related to the application of sustainable purchasing relevant to the manufacturing industries. The sustainable purchasing aims to extend corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues in the purchasing function, to include an environmental aspect of the sustainability, which otherwise would mainly focus on the social aspect. However, very few existing studies have considered the impact of sustainable procurement on improving performance outcome of the buying firm. Previous studies were conducted to focus on drivers that enhance the company's ability to work on social and environmental issues. Moreover, the majority of reviews have determined that environmental sustainability is more than a social issue. Thus, this is a conceptual model which proposes to study in detail on how the implementation of sustainable purchasing affect firm performance through purchasing performance (cost side) and competitive advantage (revenue side) from the perspective of developing countries. Keywords: Sustainable purchasing, Competitive advantage, Purchasing performance, Firm performance.


Critical class reflections on "Muddiest Points", i.e. the content students struggle to grasp most, provide formative feedback to an instructor who can strategize to adjust his/her teaching and pedagogy to address issues specific to a given class. In a Muddiest Point Reflection, an instructor solicits from students a brief, anonymous written comment about difficult concepts or other issues that arose during the class. It is also possible now to easily and efficiently collect and review Muddiest Point reflection responses via the web on the cyber-enabled Concept Warehouse web site http://cw.edudiv.org, which also has large sets of concept-based clicker questions (or ConcepTests) for core chemical engineering classes as well as a set of clicker questions for an introductory materials science class. The Muddiest Point method allows students to reflect on their own learning over a whole class and highlight difficulty with specific issues or concepts. Self-efficacy of students can also increase because a class can be designed so that new information is based on students' prior knowledge, in which they hopefully have confidence, and can potentially motivate them to better learn. The critical class reflections also provide a clear and easy way to track the attitudes, understanding, and learning approaches of the students in the class. Addressing learning issues as quickly as possible with rapid feedback is an important part of effective teaching and consists of first assessing and evaluating students' knowledge and understanding of a topic. Feedback directed toward learning goals which are valued by students has the potential to increase motivation and persistence in achieving the goals. The collective set of responses from a given class can be evaluated by an instructor and synthesized into feedback to be delivered to students in different ways. In this research project on more effective teaching in core materials classes, the research question here is, "What is the effect on student learning and attitude of differing modes of feedback from students' Muddiest Point reflections?" One method is to restructure the notes from a given class and place the set on Blackboard so the new notes respond to student issues raised in Muddiest Points. This can reinforce class learning, clarify muddy points, and potentially assist in solving homework problems. A second method is with Class Warm-ups, which consist of a slide or two for discussion at the beginning of the next class which can help clarify confusing or difficult-tograsp concepts. Another method is to create Muddiest Point YouTube tutorial screencasts, such as the ones at www.youtube.com/user/MaterialsConcepts, which can be viewed by students to help resolve difficult concepts and also assist in solving homework problems. Preliminary results here show possible impact on student achievement in terms of significant gains with test results much higher than trend lines for upper, median and lower quartiles (over seven semesters) on content for which a Muddiest Point YouTube Tutorial screencast had been created. A final supplemental approach is to incorporate Word Clouds in any of the feedback methods. This allows students to visually assess and share what their most significant issues may be, with the Muddiest Point frequency of a given word from an issue revealed by the size of its word in the Word Cloud. Results show continuous improvement for positive gains on student attitude, achievement and retention.


This study explored how Open and Distance eLearning (ODeL) system is enhancing employment creation and extreme poverty eradication in Zimbabwe. Poverty is a challenge in developing countries in the presence of unemployment and lack of education. This study aimed to put into perspective the strides made by ODeL institutions in Zimbabwe towards extreme poverty eradication through TVET in the education system. Data were collected from purposively selected 20 ODeL graduates including; entrepreneurs, street vendors, and individuals, formally and informally employed, by using interviews and observation, in this case study. The study employed thematic analysis for the narrative qualitative data. The study revealed that poverty can be reduced through skills empowerment to learners at all educational levels. Exposure to a bouquet of vocational subjects in technical-vocational institutions has enabled entrepreneurs to create employment, applying acquired skills. The major barriers to effective entrepreneurship and employment creation were the scarcity of resources and natural disasters. The study is also significant that educational planners and policy-makers may formulate policies that encourage school and college graduates to be innovative, self-reliant, and may guard against extreme poverty in their communities. It can be concluded that possession and application of vocational skills may create employment and eradicate extreme poverty. It is, therefore, recommended that TVET starts early in life for innovativeness and effective use of available resources. Further research could be carried out on the nature of programmes in learning institutions that empower learners with skills for employment creation, sustainable development, and extreme poverty eradication.


BACKGROUND
Psyllium-containing laxatives are used by 4 million Americans daily. Dietary supplements for the management of hypercholesterolemia and for prevention of colon cancer make up additional uses of this plant fiber.

OBJECTIVE
To assess a patient in an HMO practice with allergic cutaneous and respiratory findings associated with chronic psyllum ingestion and review information on psyllium hypersensitivity.

METHODS
Clinical and laboratory evaluation of the patient and literature review through MEDLINE.

RESULTS
Two years after initiating regular psyllium-containing laxative use a 40-year-old woman presented with a pruritic macular, papular, and urticarial rash involving the entire body including the palms, soles, and oropharynx sparing only the face. There was an associated sensation of chest and throat tightness and lip swelling. The signs and symptoms resolved upon discontinuance of the psyllium and recurred immediately after the patient initiated a challenge test. The total serum IgE was elevated and the modified RAST for psyllium-specific IgE was positive (Plantago ovata antigen).

CONCLUSIONS
The allergens in psyllium appear to be protein in nature and derived from the inner seed endospore and embryo rather than from the husk itself. The patient described herein was sensitized and challenged via ingestion.


Alzheimer's disease and other degenerative disorders--dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia, etc.--causing about 90% of dementias in advanced age, are a major health problem of increasing practical, scientific, and socio-economic importance. Despite considerable progress in genetic, clinical and basic neurosciences, the aetiology and molecular mechanisms of these disorders are still unknown and their early diagnosis, due to lack of specific biomarkers, is still unsatisfactory. The epidemiology, risk factors, clinical and morphological diagnostic criteria, probable pathogenic factors, and molecular genetics of the major types of degenerative dementias are reviewed. Their management involves several pharmacologic, non-pharmacologic and psychosocial options. Modification of the disease by reducing known and presumable risk factors, cognitive enhancement with cholinomimetic drugs, and reduction of behavioural abnormalities with psychotropic drugs, together with informed community and private management are currently achievable goals that will serve to delay the progression of disease. In the future, these options will hopefully be replaced by more effective management strategies in order to improve the quality of life of both, patients and caregivers.


There is an excess demand for university education in Turkey. Highly competitive university entrance examination which rations the available places at university programs is very central to the lives of young people. In order to increase the chances of success of their children in the university entrance examination parents spend large sums of money on private tutoring (dersane) of their children. In this study, we investigate the factors that determine participation in private tutoring and the effect of private tutoring on getting placed at a university program. We further examine the impact of private tutoring on the scores of the applicants in the university entrance examination. The results indicate that controlling for other factors those students who receive private tutoring perform better in the university entrance examination.


Abstract : Complexity of future manned space flight mission control can be significantly reduced by integrating GPS, the PTTI source, into telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C). Future telecommunications, space tracking electronic intelligence, metrology, navigation, and data acquisition will thereby be sewed, including: (1) On-board ephemeris determination, (2) Reduced synchronization time for time division muUiple access (TDMA) links, and (3) In-flight clock calibration, increasing on-board autonomy and reducing ground support costs. Manned space transportation through the first quarter of the 21st century will probably depend on a mix of vehicles, including the Advanced Manned Launch System (AMLS), the Personnel Launch System (PLS), and continued use of the Shuttle Fleet. Precise Ephemeris is important on-board for mission success, status monitoring, also for rendezvous and docking. Use of GPS can eliminate ground based tracking/processing, enhancing autonomy and reducing communications bandwidth. GPS time can simplify complicated functions used in bandwidth efficient time division multiple access (TDMA) communications, such as: (1) Precise and real-time synchronization of receive reference timing, (2) nansmit-timing and acquisition control, (3) Unique synchronization word (UW) detection, and (4) Elastic buffering. High clock accuracy provides increased signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio during acquisition, permitting narrower acquisition frequency and time windows. Spaceborne systems requirements to provide capabilities such as: (1) Refinement of the GEM-72 gravity model based on satellite tracking observations from ATS-6 to GEOS-3, (2) Relativistic clock experiments, (3) NASA crustal dynamics program for developing space geodetic techniques to study the earth's crust, its gravity field, and earthquake mechanisms, and (4) Multi-disciplinary space geodetic tracking for studying global climatic changes are also reviewed.


The POCKET project is building on the infrastructure provided by the Open University's OpenLearn open educational repository. POCKET, the Project on Open Content for Knowledge Exposition and Teaching, is led by the University of Derby and partnered by The Open University, the University of Exeter and the University of Bolton. The POCKET project is designed to leverage what has already been invested in OpenLearn and extend Open Educational Resource (OER) activity to other universities.
The workshop will involve the audience in considering how they would develop OERs in practice in their own institutions. The session will start with the theme of matching technology with the pedagogy of OERs, followed by each of the four institutions briefly discussing how they have developed and had to rethink the design of their materials into OERs. This will include a showcase of the resulting OERs. In the main part of the workshop the participants will be invited to consider which approach would suit their institution best and take part in activities designed to take them through the process.


National policymakers and trade negotiators lack a clear understanding on what non-tariff measures (NTMs) their exporters perceive as predominant impediments to trade. This paper therefore examines the stringency of NTMs, by NTM-type and partner country, from the perspective of Malaysian exporters. The information is compiled through a representative firm-level survey of 143 exporting companies, and interviews with firms of different size and sector in manufacturing. The key findings of the study are that NTMs, specifically technical measures, are perceived to be stringent and pose challenges to small-and medium firms, resource-based firms and firms with less exposure to international markets. The stringency of customs procedures and other formalities, more specifically, is found to be not just a concern when exporting to the advanced markets (US, EU and Japan), but is also singled out to be an issue in exporting to the ASEAN region. The disproportionate effects that NTMs pose on exporters suggest that specific assistance and focus be provided to the affected firms.


The first two pieces of work in this thesis look into the strategic decision of intergenerational educational investment and its implication to income inequality, skill distribution and income mobility. The contribution of my work is to incorporate matching frictions into the marriage market and analyze returns from strategic educational investments. The mechanism in the marriage market adopted follows the spirit of the competitive search model which interprets the 'mismatch' phenomenon as the result of coordination frictions in the matching process. The competitiveness and frictions in the family formation process create decreasing returns to high educational investment. The more parental households who choose high educational investment, the less is the return to high educational investment compared to the lower alternative. The fact that rich parental households suffer less from costly high educational investment puts the poor households at a disadvantage and the poor are more likely to be crowded out of the group that have incentives to choose high investment. The model predicts that given a certain parameter region, children of poor parents are more likely to become skilled if the fraction of rich parental households is not too large. In a multi-generational dynamic setting, it further implies the existence of a stationary household income distribution and income mobility rates. An increase in returns to education alone generates a larger stationary fraction of rich households and a larger upward income mobility rate. An increase in the cost of the high educational investment alone generates a smaller stationary fraction of rich households and a smaller upward income mobility rate. The third piece of work looks into the strategic interaction between passenger carriers over product quality and the location choice in a duopoly scheduled flight market. The model predicts that the two carriers prefer to be specialized in different flight quality (non-stop vs. one-stop) and adopt the same schedule when a higher quality difference makes the consumers less sensitive to the flight frequency. It contributes to literatures on the application of two-dimensional product differentiation in air-travel market analysis.


Both computational performances and energy efficiency are required for the development of any mobile or embedded information processing system. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the latest evolution of these systems, paving the way for advancements in ubiquitous computing. In a context in which a large amount of data is often analyzed and processed, it is mandatory to adapt node logic and processing capabilities with respect to the available energy resources. This paper investigates under which conditions a partially reconfigurable hardware accelerator can provide energy saving in complex processing tasks. The paper also presents a useful analysis of how the dynamic partial reconfiguration technique can be used to enable energy efficiency in a generic IoT node that exploits a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. Furthermore, this work introduces a hardware infrastructure and new energy metrics tailored for the energy efficiency evaluation of the dynamic partial reconfiguration process in embedded FPGA based devices. Exploiting the ability of reconfiguring circuit portions at runtime, the latest generation of FPGAs can be used to foster a better balance between energy consumption and performance. More specifically, the design methodology for the implemented digital signal processing application was adapted for the ZedBoard. To this aim, a case study of a video filtering system is proposed and analyzed by dynamically loading three different hardware filters from the management software running on a Linux-based device. With more details, the presented analytical framework allows for a direct comparison between the energy efficiency of a dynamic partially reconfigurable device and a static non-reconfigurable one. The estimated timing conditions that allow the dynamic partially reconfigurable process to achieve relevant energy efficiency with respect to the corresponding static architecture are also outlined.


We present SuperWASP observations of HAT-P-14b, a hot Jupiter discovered by Torres et al. The planet was found independently by the SuperWASP team and named WASP-27b after follow-up observations had secured the discovery, but prior to the publication by Torres et al. Our analysis of HAT-P-14/WASP-27 is in good agreement with the values found by Torres et al. and we provide additional evidence against astronomical false positives. Due to the brightness of the host star, Vmag = 10, HAT-P-14b is an attractive candidate for further characterization observations. The planet has a high impact parameter and the primary transit is close to grazing. This could readily reveal small deviations in the orbital parameters indicating the presence of a third body in the system, which may be causing the small but significant orbital eccentricity. Our results suggest that the planet may undergo a grazing secondary eclipse. However, even a non-detection would tightly constrain the system parameters.


Polyphagous predators have shown to be a viable solution for IPM programs in vegetable crops. In this paper advantages and disadvantages of using polyphagous predators are discussed. We also summarize existing experiences on the use of refuge plants to implement conservation programs. Recent experiences conducted by our group for the conservation of mirid and anthocorid bugs in tomato and lettuce Mediterranean crops are explained. The presence of refuge plants in the crop margins can increase the abundance of those polyphagous predators, advance their presence in the crop and facilitate their establishment, contributing to control crop pests, besides to be also beneficial to other neighbouring vegetable crops.


Reputation has been shown to provide an informal solution to the problem of cooperation in human societies. After reviewing models that connect reputations and cooperation, we address how reputation results from information exchange embedded in a social network that changes endogenously itself. Theoretical studies highlight that network topologies have different effects on the extent of cooperation, since they can foster or hinder the flow of reputational information. Subsequently, we review models and empirical studies that intend to grasp the coevolution of reputations, cooperation and social networks. We identify open questions in the literature concerning how networks affect the accuracy of reputations, the honesty of shared information and the spread of reputational information. Certain network topologies may facilitate biased beliefs and intergroup competition or in-group identity formation that could lead to high cooperation within but conflicts between different subgroups of a network. Our review covers theoretical, experimental and field studies across various disciplines that target these questions and could explain how the dynamics of interactions and reputations help or prevent the establishment and sustainability of cooperation in small- and large-scale societies. This article is part of the theme issue 'The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling'.


Planktic Foraminifera are an extremely abundant, important and successful group of marine protists. They are particularly useful in reconstructing past environments and for biostratigraphic dating. Despite their importance, the origin of the group is uncertain. Previous work has suggested that they evolved from a benthic ancestor during the Triassic or, perhaps, the Mid-Jurassic (?Bajocian), but a reason for their origination has remained unclear. Here, we present evidence from the Toarcian (early Jurassic) of NW Europe that the origin of the planktic Foraminifera may have been one of the results of the early Toarcian oceanic anoxic event. This event appears to have been associated with a massive dissociation of gas hydrates and other, perhaps related, water chemistry changes.


Words in Genesis. By Isaac Asimov. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962. 233 pages. $3.00. Isaac Asimov is a professor of biochemistry a t the Boston university School of Medicine. His informal, informative style of writing has made him a leading author of science books for young readers. In this book he retells the story of Genesis with particular emphasis on the derivation and history of the words that are associated with it. Here one can find a brief discussion of words such as God, firmament, Leviathan, Jehovah, man, Eden, Satan, cherubim, Canaan, Hebrew, priest, and angel. In addition to these, the author treats such non-biblical words as good-bye, bigot, gossip, Halloween, halibut, and Adam's apple. The book also contains miscellaneous information on the size of Noahr's ark, the characteristics of the Jordan River, statistical information on the Dead Sea, and similar subjects. A complete index of words and names increases the value of the book. This book would make an excellent addition to church libraries as recommended reading for high school students. While the information given here is necessarily brief it is generally reliable. Written with enthusiasm, reverence, and a lively sense of curiosity, this book will stimulate further interest in the study of the Bible. Page H. Kelley


In this thesis a system for automation and optimization of a PIPESIM production network model has been developed, building on a system that a previous master student made. The system uses Pipe-It, a program developed by Petrostreamz AS, and a combination of VBScript scripts and Excel VBA macros. By using these scripts and macros the Pipe-It system can interact with PIPESIM through Open Link, an application programming interface (API). The system can adjust ESP (electric submersible pump) and PCP (progressive cavity pump) speeds and turn wells on and off in the model, before running the simulation of the model in PIPESIM. After the simulation the system gets various results from different PIPESIM result files. Pipe-It automates the running of the different scripts and macros, and can thereby be used to optimize the PIPESIM model by adjusting pump speeds and turning wells on and off. The Pipe-It system also has different parts for comparison and analysis of results, and a small part for simple economic calculations. The system has an automated optimization setup as well, which can be used in this case to set up the optimization much quicker than by using the built-in Optimizer in Pipe-It. In addition the system can extract data and settings from some specifically formatted field reports, transfer those settings to the model, and compare field data with simulation results. A combined optimization including both continuous variables, pump speeds, and integer variables, turning wells on or off, has been tested in Pipe-It using a simplified PIPESIM model. The optimization did not manage to find the global maximum for total oil production, but in the best case it did manage to find the optimum combination of wells to turn on and off. In all cases the total oil production was improved compared to the initial starting point and was close to the global maximum. But the optimization required a long run time, ranging from around 14 hours to over 60 hours. A nearly identical model was also implemented in Excel and the combined optimization tested using the built-in Excel Solver. The Excel Solver was also not able to find the global maximum, and based on previous experience the results will usually be better when using Pipe-It with a PIPESIM model. A simplified case of only turning wells on and off with pump speeds constant was also tested, both in Excel and using Pipe-It. In this case both the Excel Solver and the Optimizer in Pipe-It was able to find the optimum combination for the wells. As the model tested was small and simplified, a larger and more realistic model is expected to take much longer time to optimize when changing pump speeds and turning wells on and off. Based on that and earlier experience, it is recommended to instead perform optimization with only pump speed being adjusted. Wells can then be turned off manually based on analysis of the optimization results and any field data and experience, before optimizing the model again if necessary. This could possibly find a global optimum, or atleast an improved solution, a lot faster, as optimization only involving adjustments to pump speeds will require less time.


A novel approach for extracting the gait signal from an electrocardiogram (ECG) and detecting the peak of gait signal as representation of step counter based on Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) has been designed, tested, and evaluated. We were designed the data acquisition device based on MSP430, integrated with accelerometer and ECG circuits for raw data acquisition and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for raw data transmission to PC. Two healthy subjects were participated in the treadmill test. The participants were asked to walk in four different speeds from 1.8 km/h to 4.5 km/h and run in five different speeds from 5.4 km/h to 9.0 km/h which the increasing of speed by 0.9 km/h. The accuracy has been evaluated based on the data from all participants that achieved accuracy of 96.67 % for walking. The results show that this approach is feasible to be used as step counter based on ECG and EEMD algorithm. KeywordsGait, ECG, Step counter, EEMD.


As a systemic inflammatory arthritis disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is complex and hereditary. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has evident advantages in treating complex diseases, and a variety of TCM formulas have been reported that have effective treatment on RA. Clinical and pharmacological studies showed that Ermiao Powder, which consists of Phellodendron amurense Rupr. (PAR) and Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) DC. (ALD), can be used in the treatment of RA. Currently, most studies focus on the anti-inflammatory mechanism of PAR and ALD and are less focused on their coordinated molecular mechanism. In this research, we established an integrative pharmacological strategy to explore the coordinated molecular mechanism of the two herbs of Ermiao Powder in treating RA. To explore the potential coordinated mechanism of PAR and ALD, we firstly developed a novel mathematical model to calculate the contribution score of 126 active components and 85 active components, which contributed 90% of the total contribution scores that were retained to construct the coordinated functional space. Then, the knapsack algorithm was applied to identify the core coordinated functional components from the 85 active components. Finally, we obtained the potential coordinated functional components group (CFCG) with 37 components, including wogonin, paeonol, ethyl caffeate, and magnoflorine. Also, functional enrichment analysis was performed on the targets of CFCG to explore the potential coordinated molecular mechanisms of PAR and ALD. The results indicated that the CFCG could treat RA by coordinated targeting to the genes involved in immunity and inflammation-related signal pathways, such as phosphatidylinositol 3‑kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway, tumor necrosis factor signaling pathway, and nuclear factor-kappa B signaling pathway. The docking and in vitro experiments were used to predict the affinity and validate the effect of CFCG and further confirm the reliability of our method. Our integrative pharmacological strategy, including CFCG identification and verification, can provide the methodological references for exploring the coordinated mechanism of TCM in treating complex diseases and contribute to improving our understanding of the coordinated mechanism.


of genetic alterations: 17p loss and KRAS mutations, 8q and 13q gain, and 18q loss and 20q gain, respectively. This suggests that specific combinations of a few abnormalities, rather than a mere accumulation of events are important for progression. are with the existence of multiple independent chromosomal instability pathways of colorectal cancer progression, which may possibly disrupt similar biological such as proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and invasion, in different manners. and the of these chromosomal alterations with higher grades of dysplasia and a higher risk of progression to colorectal cancer . In addition, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) for identifying DNA copy number changes of multiple individual genes on chromosome 20 was performed on flat and polypoid tumors. Both flat and polypoid colorectal tumors with 20q gain showed similar patterns of copy number ratios for the individual genes tested. We concluded that flat colorectal tumors resemble one of the distinct patterns of chromosomal changes found in polypoid colorectal tumors, and that this pattern could convey a more aggressive clinical behavior.


The coastal area of the Mahafaly Plateau in southwestern Madagascar is prone to droughts, as well as to other environmental risks, resulting in frequent crop failures, famines, and extreme poverty. Thus, the identification of potential complementary livelihood sources has been identified as a crucial step for the sustainable development of the region. In this contribution, we assess the potential of prickly pear seed oil production as an income alternative for local communities. The prickly pears are cacti in the genus Opuntia Mill. and they are highly abundant in the region, particularly as living fences on farmland. From the seeds of its fruit, high-priced seed oil can be extracted. To investigate its economic potential, we inventoried prickly pears in field hedgerows through vegetation inventories and estimated the amount of seed oil that could be produced per household based on field sampling and laboratory analysis. To assess the socioeconomic impact of a potential large-scale project of regional Opuntia seed oil production, we conducted interviews with 51 farming households on human Opuntia consumption, the utilization of its cladodes as fodder, and other livelihood functions. Five different prickly pears occur in the research region. We found that two out of these five species are highly important socioeconomically ( Opuntia monacantha and O. streptacantha ) and contribute >50% to total food intake during periods of food shortage. Likewise, these species are consumed as a key water source and used as livestock fodder. In contrast, the other three Opuntia species are barely eaten by local residents or by livestock ( O. dillenii , O. stricta and O. phaeacantha ). These species are more spiny, and their fruits are virtually inedible due to a much higher seed content. The combination of low nutritional value and high seed content suggests promising seed oil production potential for these types of Opuntia . To avoid competition between human nutrition and the commercialization of local Opuntia seeds, sourcing strategies should exclusively target the fruit of the two high seed  species. However, investments for oil mills, skilled staff, and adequate logistics would be needed to create local value from this underrated resource in the Mahafaly region.


In 1988, the United States recorded a current account deficit of about $135 billion. The consensus forecast seems to be for little change in the current account in the near term. In this paper, the implications of the U.S. current account deficit and of the consequent buildup in U.S. external debt are examined. The analytical framework for thinking about the U.S. current account is first surveyed, and the results from the empirical literature on the causes of the deficits in the 1980s are then reported. The sustainability of the U.S. external position is discussed next. It is concluded that, at some point, the U.S. trade deficit has to be closed, but that it is conceivable that the U.S. current account balance could remain substantially negative. How the trade gap might be closed is addressed in the final section of the paper.


While demands on video traffic above mobile webs have been souring, the wireless link capacity cannot retain up alongside the traffic demand. The gap amid the traffic demand and the link capacity, alongside alongside time-varying link conditions, aftermath in poor ability quality of video streaming above mobile webs such as long buffering period and intermittent disruptions. Leveraging the cloud computing knowledge, we counsel a new mobile video streaming framework, dubbed AMES-Cloud, that has two main parts: AMoV (adaptive mobile video streaming) and ESoV (efficient communal video sharing). AMoV and ESoV craft a confidential agent to furnish video streaming services effectually for every single mobile user. For a given user, AMoV lets her confidential agent adaptively adjust her streaming flow alongside a scalable video coding method established on the feedback of link quality. Likewise, ESoV monitors the communal web contact amid mobile users, and their confidential agents endeavor to prefetch video content in advance. We apply a prototype of the AMES-Cloud framework to clarify its performance. It is shown that the private


Drought stress causes forest dieback that is often explained by two interrelated mechanisms, namely hydraulic failure and carbon starvation. However, it is still unclear which functional and structural alterations, related to these mechanisms, predispose to dieback. Here we apply a multi-proxy approach for the characterization of tree structure (radial growth, wood anatomy) and functioning (δ13C, δ18O and non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs)) in tree rings before and after drought-induced dieback. We aim to discriminate which is the main mechanism and to assess which variables can act as early-warning proxies of drought-triggered damage. The study was tailored in southern Italy in two forests (i.e., San Paolo (SP) and Oriolo (OR)) where declining and non-declining trees of a ring-porous tree species (Quercus frainetto Ten.) showing anisohydric behavior coexist. Both stands showed growth decline in response to warm and dry spring conditions, although the onset of dieback was shifted between them (2002 in SP and 2009 in OR). Declining trees displayed a sharp growth drop after this onset with reductions of 49% and 44% at SP and OR sites, respectively. Further, contrary to what we expected, declining trees showed a lower intrinsic water-use efficiency compared with non-declining trees after the dieback onset (with reductions of 9.7% and 5.6% at sites SP and OR, respectively), due to enhanced water loss through transpiration, as indicated by the lower δ18O values. This was more noticeable at the most drought-affected SP stand. Sapwood NSCs did not differ between declining and non-declining trees, indicating no carbon starvation in affected trees. Thus, the characterized structural and functional alterations partially support the hydraulic failure mechanism of dieback. Finally, we show that growth data are reliable early-warning proxies of drought-triggered dieback.


ABSTRACT This article argues that restrictions on expression based on 'gross offensiveness' or similar public morality notions embedded in speech offences are not and cannot be politically neutral and be evenly applied to political speech, no matter who is the author. Such concepts draw on a majoritarian perspective purporting to be reflective of unified base values of the 'national community'. The article explores why such concepts of unacceptable speech are a poor fit for a deeply heterogeneous community, and all the more so on the internet, where those who engage in public discourse are even more numerous and more diverse in ethnic, cultural, political and social terms. Set against such a diverse speech landscape the prohibition of 'gross offensiveness', or what are considered the outer boundaries of acceptability, is repressive of minorities and of challenges to conventional opinions and existing power dynamics, and is liable to reinforce the very bigotry it seeks to relieve.


Robotic vision, the combination of robotics and computer vision, involves the application of computer algorithms to data acquired from sensors. The research community has developed a large body of such algorithms but for a newcomer to the field this can be quite daunting. For over 20 years the author has maintained two open-source MATLAB Toolboxes, one for robotics and one for vision. They provide implementations of many important algorithms and allow users to work with real problems, not just trivial examples. This book makes the fundamental algorithms of robotics, vision and control accessible to all. It weaves together theory, algorithms and examples in a narrative that covers robotics and computer vision separately and together. Using the latest versions of the Toolboxes the author shows how complex problems can be decomposed and solved using just a few simple lines of code. The topics covered are guided by real problems observed by the author over many years as a practitioner of both robotics and computer vision. It is written in an accessible but informative style, easy to read and absorb, and includes over 1000 MATLAB and Simulink examples and over 400 figures. The book is a real walk through the fundamentals of mobile robots, arm robots. then camera models, image processing, feature extraction and multi-view geometry and finally bringing it all together with an extensive discussion of visual servo systems. This second edition is completely revised, updated and extended with coverage of Lie groups, matrix exponentials and twists; inertial navigation; differential drive robots; lattice planners; pose-graph SLAM and map making; restructured material on arm-robot kinematics and dynamics; series-elastic actuators and operational-space control; Lab color spaces; light field cameras; structured light, bundle adjustment and visual odometry; and photometric visual servoing. An authoritative book, reaching across fields, thoughtfully conceived and brilliantly accomplished! OUSSAMA KHATIB, Stanford


Most graph-based anomaly detection work uses structural graph connectivity or node information for discovering anomalies in a graph. Approaches relying on solely node information for detecting anomalies do not exploit the structural information, and approaches relying on just the structural connectivity information do not exploit node label values, or attribute information. Little research has been done that uses both structural connectivity as well as node attributes for finding anomalies in data represented as a graph. In this work, we attempt to use both the node attribute information together with the structural connectivity in order to discover anomalies in graph. While existing approaches treat all the attribute values as discrete, when the attributes are numeric values, they lose their measure of similarity - or closeness of information. In this work, in order to preserve the closeness information, we consider the similarities in node values using not only single attributes, but also multiple attributes. In order to discover the similarity between the attribute values, we use discretization, distance-based similarity measures, and a k-means clustering approach. After discovering nodes with similar label values, we use revised labels together with structural properties for discovering anomalies in a graph. Our hypothesis is that if we use node label similarity information together with structural properties of the graph, we can detect anomalies which would be missed by approaches only relying on either structural connectivity or node attribute information.


Improving the effectiveness of conservation practice requires better use of evidence.

Since 2004, researchers from the Conservation Evidence group (University of Cambridge) have engaged with over 1100 named practitioners, policymakers, funders and other academics from across the world to identify needs and develop a range of principles, tools and resources to embed evidence in decision making. The goal of this engagement (the Conservation Evidence Programme) was to deliver improved conservation practice leading to benefits for nature and society. Together, we developed a theory of change with five key strategies for delivering change, alongside a freely available Evidence Toolkit to support decision makers in achieving that change.

The authors describe the toolkit, a collection of freely available tools and resources developed by the collaborative programme, and how co‐design, employing different levels of partner engagement, enabled its development.

Reflecting on our experiences highlighted a number of insights and recommendations, including the need to identify where deep engagement is a necessary condition for success; the importance of collective agreement of the roles of different partners; the need to consider how to facilitate uptake of new tools or practices, particularly where that requires changes to organisational practices or culture; and the importance of establishing processes/channels for ongoing engagement with stakeholders, with a willingness to be flexible and open to incorporating new suggestions and perspectives as needed.

The Conservation Evidence Programme has enabled practitioners, funders and policymakers to become part of a network of forward‐thinking organisations that is working collaboratively to help drive more effective conservation practice through improved evidence use.


The susceptibility of aerospace bolting alloys to stress-corrosion cracking has been of continuing interest especially since strength levels have by far exceeded 200000 psi, the threshold above which failures are much more common. The search for a stress corrosion resistant material has progressed through a number of alloys with strength levels up to 300 000 psi. All of the high-strength steel alloys exhibted a similar trend where time to failure decreases as strength level increases. However, different levels of immunity were observed for the different alloys. Martensitic stainless steels were found to be much more resistant to stress-corrosion cracking but were very sensitive to hydrogen embrittlement from plating or galvanic corrosion reactions. The use of a MIL-STD-1312 test procedure to evaluate coated or plated alloy steel bolts is sanctioned because of the short time to failure required, the reproducibility of results, and the duplication of service failures. The same is not true for the more resistant alloys where times to failure are in thousands of hours and results are scattered. A more aggressive test is warranted. Crevice corrosion and pitting at interfaces are the most common initiators of stress-corrosion cracking failures for high-strength fasteners. Since this is unavoidable with fastened joints, it behooves the consumer to realize all of the advantages and disadvantages of various materials so that he may select the best one for his needs.


In present market, there is no automatic detected device for register in medium and small single-sheet offset, and the registration precision usually adjusted by handwork that is time-consuming and imprecision. To solve this problem, an automatic detected device for register of single-sheet offset based on image processing is proposed. The device takes photos of registration markers through high precision CMOS camera controlled by single chip computer, and then detects transversal deviation, longitudinal deviation, and diagonal deviation of registration markers through Hough transform. Experiments indicate that transversal deviation precision and longitudinal deviation precision of this device is 0.01 millimeter, when this automatic detected device is applied.


With the introduction of laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the general surgery community was thrust into the new world of minimally invasive surgery. The marked benefits of laparoscopic cholecystectomy became apparent in a short period of time, driving the procedure to widespread use long before any clinical trials or studies were available to document the procedure's safety. Although there was early concern over the potential dangers of the laparoscopic approach, it took several years before there was enough data to verify this concern. The most significant of these potential dangers is injury to the bile ducts.


The atmospheric corrosion has been shown to be an electrochemical process, the atmospheric corrosion behavior of Q235 stell evaluated with ACM (Atmospheric corrosion monitor) electrochemical technique was investigated in the study. The experimental results showed that there existed a close relation between electrochemical data and climatic parameters was confirmed. Taking into consideration accuracy and sensitivity of electrochemical technique, the ISO-standardized time of wetness (TOW) seems to be too conservative. SO2 seems to be more aggressive than chloride on metal corrosion in the early stage of atmospheric corrosion but the complexion reverses in the final stage of atmospheric corrosion. The ratio of corrosion rate from integration of ACM current to corrosion rate from weight loss of test specimens, that is, cell factor is fairly constant at the same test site but varied greatly between test sites. Based on constant cell factors and close relation between electrochemical data and climatic parameters in all test sites, ACM electrochemical technique can evaluate and classify the short-term atmospheric corrosivity as a substitute for gravimetric method, and the verification shows that atmospheric corrosivity classifications according to integration of ACM current and especially to cell factor coincide with the specifications of ISO Standard.


This article discusses some practical strategies for designing and implementing a cross-cultural interprofessional study abroad course, including pre-departure preparation, facilitating small groups with local students, establishing a weekly theme, utilizing role-play and reflective assignments, and implementing meaningful evaluation strategies. These strategies were based on three years of experience and were found to effectively increase students' cultural competence and self-confidence, as evidenced by student evaluations and results from a focus group conducted one year after the course. Short term study abroad courses with appropriate pedagogical design are significant strategies for health profession programs in the face of growing diversity and globalization.


This book provides thought - provoking acumen and practical elucidations in relation to plantation management, with specific reference to precarious working conditions existing in oil palm plantations of Malaysia. Prof. Dileep, Prof. Azizi and Ms. Normala have given thrust to the practical approach in students learning and development process by incorporating real social and managerial issues with the due involvement of oil palm plantation management, government and non-governmental organizations. The book incorporate issues of oil palm plantations detailing precarious working conditions, unethical work climate, poor level psychological contract and ergonomics issues leading to workers premature departure from the oil palm plantations. The teaching notes added in the book, support the faculty members facilitate this case study in the class rooms and there be support the students in developing managerial decisionmaking and problem solving ability. A brief outline of this book through its case titles can be detailed as follows.