We show, for the first time, a reversal in net interface dipole polarity (initially n-type) for a metal gate stack by forming p-type interface dipoles after a 950degC anneal. This was achieved in both TaN/SiO2 and TaN/high-k gate stacks whereby terbium (Tb) and aluminum (Al)-based interlayers were used to form n-type and p-type dipoles, respectively. We also demonstrate the continuous tunability of TaN gate work function (Phim) by controlling the n-type and p-type interface dipole densities within the same metal gate stack. The dominant dipole that results in the metal gate stack hinges critically on the reactions of Al and Tb with SiO2 (or underlying SiO2 for high-k stacks) for Al-O-(Si) and Tb-O-Si bond formation, respectively. The manipulation of interface dipoles with opposing polarity could enable multiple Phim to be achieved using a single metal gate and a simple integration scheme.


Background: Brexpiprazole is a serotonin-dopamine activity modulator that acts as a partial agonist at 5-HT1A and dopamine D2 receptors, and an antagonist at 5-HT2A and noradrenaline alpha1B/2C receptors, all at similar potencies.The long-term safety and tolerability of adjunctive treatment with brexpiprazole were evaluated in patients with major depressive disorder and inadequate response to antidepressant treatments, based on pooled data from two open-label extension studies. Methods: These were open-label, 52and 26-week, flexibledose studies (study 1 [NCT01447576]: 0.25-3mg/day; study 2 [NCT01360866]: 0.5-3mg/day) with brexpiprazole. Study 1 enrolled de novo patients and patients completing one of the two phase II studies (NCT00797966; NCT01052077) while study 2 enrolled patients completing one of the two pivotal phase III studies (NCT01360645 [1];NCT01360632 [2]). Study 2 is still ongoing; data presented are based on a data-cut from 15-May-2015. Results: 2084 patients were enrolled (697 from study 1 and 1387 from study 2); 48.8% (1016/2084) completed 52 weeks of treatment. Mean brexpiprazole dose was 1.6 mg/day. 13.9% (291/2084) of the patients had a TEAE leading to withdrawal; most frequent AEs leading to withdrawal (>1%) were weight increased (3.6%) and depression (1.3%). The two most frequently reported AEs were weight increased (25.5%) and akathisia (10.0%); the AE profile was similar to that observed in the short-term lead-in studies with no indication of an increased incidence over time for any AEs. Mean weight gain was 2.9kg at week 26 (n=1259) and 3.2kg at week 52 (n=1015). 30.3% (629/2077)of patients had a weight increase that was ≥7% in body weight. There were small changes in other metabolic parameters. Conclusion: Long-term adjunctive treatment with brexpiprazole was safe and well tolerated. Although increases in body weight were observed over time for some patients, the low incidence of discontinuation among those patients suggests that the weight gain was not treatment-limiting for most patients.


In this paper a design of a fuzzy logic controller module for a loop controller is proposed. The limitations in implementing the fuzzy logic controller in a loop controller are the speed of a fuzzy logic controller, and the number of parameters to define a fuzzy logic controller. By analyzing a fuzzy logic controller program, a fuzzy logic controller is shown to be hard to be implemented in a loop controller because of the inference speed and the number of parameters. As a solution of the problem, a method using a fixed control table with mapping parameters is shown to be implementable to a loop controller. The fixed control table increases the inference speed and reduces the number of defining parameters, while the mapping parameters provides flexibility of the designed fuzzy logic controller. By implementation the proposed fuzzy logic controller is shown to meet the speed limitation.


A commercially available enzyme immunoassay for the diagnosis of giardiasis was evaluated in a clinical trial. The ProSpecT/Giardia diagnostic test (Alexon, Inc., Mountain View, Calif.) was compared with the standard ova and parasite (O&P) microscopic examination. Additionally, several widely used stool fixatives and a commonly used transport medium were assessed for compatibility with the immunoassay. A total of 325 stool specimens were collected and used to evaluate assay performance. Of those, 93 specimens were collected from symptomatic Giardia O&P-positive patients and 232 specimens were randomly collected from patients as part of a routine health screening procedure. All 93 Giardia O&P-positive stool specimens were strongly positive by visual and spectrophotometric examination using the immunoassay. Of the 232 randomly collected specimens, 16 were positive by O&P examination and immunoassay, 6 were negative by O&P examination but positive by immunoassay, and 1 was positive by O&P examination and negative by immunoassay. There was substantial supportive evidence that indicated that the six immunoassay-positive, O&P-negative specimens were true-positives. When these six specimens were accepted as true-positives, the immunoassay detected almost 30% more cases of Giardia infection than did O&P examination. Its sensitivity and specificity were 96 and 100%, respectively, while the sensitivity and specificity of O&P examination were 74 and 100%, respectively. The immunoassay also performed well on specimens treated with 10% neutral Formalin, sodium acetate-Formalin fixative, and Cary-Blair transport medium. However, the test was not compatible with polyvinyl alcohol-treated specimens. Overall, the ProSpecT/Giardia test was a sensitive, specific immunoassay which was easy to run and interpret. It offers a simple solution to traditional difficulties encountered in diagnosing Giardia infection.


Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) disposal has been a controversial issue in many countries over the past years. Issues such as the increasing public opposition in creating new landfills, stricter environmental regulations, as well as a change in the European Union directives for MSW management, have complicated further the decision of locating a MSW disposal facility. One of the ways of treating/disposing MSW is energy recovery, as waste is considered to contain a considerable amount of bio-waste, therefore being able to lead to renewable energy production. Especially if co-generation or tri-generation is performed, the overall efficiency can be very high. In this paper, a model is presented, aiming to support decision makers on issues relating to Municipal Solid Waste energy recovery. The idea of using more fuel sources, including MSW and agricultural residue biomass types that may exist in a rural area is explored. The model aims at optimising the system specifications, such as the capacity of the Waste-to-Energy co-generation facility, the capacity of the peak-load biomass boiler and the location of the energy conversion facility. Furthermore, it defines the quantities from each potential fuel source that should be used annually, in order to maximise the financial yields of the investment in the energy conversion facility. The results of a case study application at a rural area of Greece are presented, for energy tri-generation from mixed MSW and biomass fuel. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is performed on the effect of the most important parameters of the model on the optimum solution.


The objective of this research was first to find out the impact of environmental consciousness and environmental leadership on competitive advantage. Second, this study also need to prove green intellectual capital as an intervening variable. Third, which variable have most get influenced strongly or partially from Green intellectual capital as mediating for the relationship between environmental consciousness or environmental leadership on competitive advantage.

A set of questionnaires survey was distributed to a minimum senior staff, managers, assistant managers using Google forms as online survey. And hard-copy. We go through linked in at managers community. The total number of respondents can be used were 123 samples collected were analyzed by partial least square structural equation modeling approach (PLS SEM) using Smart-PLS 3 program. The results show that Environmental Consciousness has direct relationship to competitive advantage, but no relationship between Environmental Leadership to competitive advantage. Therefore, green intellectual capital is not a mediator of the relationship between environmental consciousness and competitive advantage. But, green intellectual capital is a full mediator of the relationship between environmental leadership and competitive advantage. Since all the dimensions of green intellectual capital have positive effect to competitive advantage.

The limitation of this research was Environmental consciousness instrument in this research only consider Environmental policy as external dimension Environmental policy and regulation are important to force people to follow the regulation. Instead there is another internal dimension of Environmental consciousness that should be used for further research. The practical implication for Environmental consciousness is not only considers policy and regulation, but there is a need to concern with knowledge, attitudes and behavior as internal dimension of Environmental Consciousness. In addition, Coordination between Government, professional bodies and business organization is very important to set strategy in increasing the environmental consciousness to keep up with the sustainable development for the future. Next, considers adding dimension of Green Intellectual Capital with innovation and technology process. The social implication is that government and higher education need to join together to educate society to change their insight for considering the environment. Business organization will also helping in funding this education program. The Originality of this research was the separation between external and internal dimension of environmental consciousness. Environmental Leadership is also as a novelty variable should be introduced as a driver for increasing Environmental consciousness for future research.


Physical phantoms are essential for the development, optimization, and clinical evaluation of x-ray systems. These phantoms are used for various tests such as quality assurance testing, system characterization, reconstruction evaluation, and dosimetry. They should ideally be capable of serving as ground truth for purposes such as virtual clinical trials. Currently, there is no anthropomorphic 3D physical phantom commercially available. We present our development of a new suite of physical breast phantoms based on real patient data. The phantoms were generated from the NURBS-based extended cardiac-torso (XCAT) breast phantoms, which were segmented from patient dedicated breast computed tomography data. High-resolution multi-material 3D printing technology was used to fabricate the physical models. Glandular tissue and skin were presented by the most radiographically dense photopolymer available to the printer, mimicking a 75% glandular tissue. Adipose tissue was presented by the least radiographically dense photopolymer, mimicking a 35% glandular tissue. The glandular equivalency was measured by comparing x-ray images of samples of the photopolymers available to the printer with those of breast tissue-equivalent materials. The mammographic projections and tomosynthesis reconstructed images of fabricated models showed great improvement over available phantoms, presenting a more realistic breast background.


Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) belongs to the Convolvulaceae family. It is originated from southern Central America and can be easily grown in the tropical climax. The sweet potato contains high nutritional values such as carbohydrate, protein, dietary fibre, amino acids, enzymes, minerals, and vitamins. The main component in sweet potato is starch, which can be used in many food applications. The main objective of this study is to propose some strategies in designing a sustainable starch production from sweet potato. This can be done with the consideration of efficient starch production steps as well as the production of its by-products in order to minimize the wastes as well as to maximize the net profitability. The implementation of the recommended strategies in this study will hopefully ensure sustainable and feasible production of starch from sweet potato which can benefit the farmers and producers of this crop.


Firms may seek contractual alternatives to vertical integration in order to achieve transactional economies or adjust for market imperfections. Blair and Kaserman have shown that under fixed-proportions production technology. Firms within bilateral and successive monopoly market structures can use formula price contracts to achieve results economically equivalent to integration. This paper examines whether formula price contracts are a viable alternative to forward integration for farmer cooperatives. Analysis of a three-stage vertical market structure indicates that the conditions under which a cooperative assembler can use a formula price contract are more restrictive than those for an investor-owned firm.


ABSTRACT Strength hierarchy assessment method is a capacity analysis procedure that can be used to identify the sequence of failures likely to occur within reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings under lateral actions such as earthquakes or wind loads. Previous publication on this method mainly focused on the application of this method to (a) the vulnerable RC beam-column joints without any joint shear reinforcement where principal tensile stresses were considered critical, (b) modern RC beam-column joints with joint shear reinforcement where extreme principal compression stresses were considered critical. In this paper, joint shear capacity representation for modern RC beam-column joints (with transverse reinforcements in the joint) is generalized to include both critical components: principal tensile and principal compression stresses. Using strength hierarchy assessment, the investigation showed that it is possible to express the joint shear capacity as an N-M interaction envelope analogous to the N-M interaction of columns. The resulting joint shear capacity N-M interaction concept is validated using a database of 22 external and 22 internal RC beam-column joint tests with joint shear reinforcement at their joint core which resulted in joint shear failure in their tests. Considering the importance of axial load levels on the expected performance of RC beam-column joints, the proposed concept can be used for the general assessment of the joint shear capacity or for beam-column joint modeling purposes, which can be practically used by the design engineers.


A 3D cellular neural network is applied to the restoration of noisy and blurry images. Contrary to similar solutions offered using a discrete-time Hopfield network, only eight cells are used for each pixel diminishing the network size. Moreover, the presented image restoration scheme does not have a convergence problem which is inherent in discrete-time Hopfield network solutions.


The fourth industrial revolution or industry 4.0 has become a trend topic nowadays, this standard-based strategy integrates Smart Factories, Cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things, and Internet of Service with the aim of extended the capacities of the manufacturing systems. Although several authors have presented the advantages of this approach, few papers refer to an architecture that allows the correct implementation of industry 4.0 applications using the guidelines of the reference architecture model (RAMI 4.0). In this way, this article exposes the essential characteristics that allow a manufacturing system to be retrofitting as a correct industry 4.0 application. Specifically, an intelligent manufacturing system under a holonic approach was developed and implemented using standards like FDI, AutomationML and OPC UA according to the RAMI 4.0


The telecom networks have undergone a massive transformation in last few decades from all-voice circuit-switched network to all-IP packet-switched network that is converging voice and data worlds. The evolution of the telecom networks have also driven the evolution of Service Delivery Platforms (SDP) from in-flexible single-box solution to a flexible, modular SOA governed SDP to cater the ever changing business needs of the Telcos. The fourth generation SDP is taking shape around cloud computing with an expectation to significantly reduce OPEX and CAPEX, and boost the revenue. But this is not happening because in the current scenario where SDPs are hosted on private cloud in Telcos' own premises prohibit sharing and reuse. So Telcos have started transitioning to a hosted model in which VAS applications are hosted in SDP vendor's premises in public cloud. Hosting telecom services in public cloud has its unique challenges, and one of the most important is to provide a multi-tenant telecom application to all Telcos, where each tenant sees an isolated view of the application with his own set of customized features. In this paper we have identified the factors that are stopping us from introducing true customized multi-tenancy in telecom apps and proposed a solution to this problem. We have presented a variant of cloud's SaaS layer called Telecom-SaaS (TSaaS) for telecom public cloud, which introduces a TSaaS-engine to drive the multi-tenancy for carrier grade telecom applications outside the actual business logic. New business models that can evolve around this new architecture are also identified. We have also highlighted the associated risks to watch out for.


Precise guidelines for dose modification of etoposide in patients with hepatic dysfunction have not been determined. Etoposide pharmacokinetics were determined in 17 patients. Nine patients had bilirubin less than or equal to 1 mg/dL and eight had bilirubin ranging from 1.9 to 23 mg/dL. Twelve patients received etoposide 100 mg/m2 days 1, 3, and 5, in combination with cisplatin 70 mg/m2 or iproplatin 225 mg/m2 on day 1. Five patients received only one dose of etoposide. Etoposide was measured using a published high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) method which also quantitates picro etoposide and its hydroxy acid. Systemic clearance, Vdss and t1/2 beta averaged (+/- SD) 21.4 (+/- 7.4) mL/min/m2, 10.7 (+/- 4.1) L/m2, and 8.1 (+/- 2.8) hours in the nine patients with bilirubin less than or equal to 1 mg/dL, and 22.4 (+/- 9.6) mL/min/m2, 13.6 (+/- 11.3) L/m2, and 8.4 (+/- 3.9) hours in the eight patients with bilirubin 1.9 to 23.0 mg/dL. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis of liver and renal function tests and other patient-specific variables identified creatinine clearance as the strongest predictor of etoposide systemic clearance (r2 = 40.8). Serum albumin was identified as the next strongest predictor, improving the r2 to 57.3%. Cumulative biliary excretion of unchanged etoposide and glucuronide or sulfate conjugates over 48 hours accounted for less than 3% of the dose in six patients studied. Toxicity occurred in patients with normal and abnormal bilirubin and was unrelated to etoposide clearance. Patients with total bilirubin 1.9 to 23 mg/dL, but creatinine clearance greater than 30 mL/min/m2 had etoposide clearance within the range for patients with normal liver function (16.8 to 35 mL/min/m2). Although these patients did not have reduced etoposide clearance, the major routes of etoposide non-renal elimination remain to be clearly defined. Additional patients should be evaluated to establish more precise guidelines for dosing etoposide in patients with abnormal liver function.


Objectives: The pollution of aquatic bodies by Naphthalene and antibiotics effluent from activities of many industry is a significant environmental challenge affecting the ecosystem. Batch process was used to remove Naphthalene (NT) and Amoxicillin (AMO) with activated carbon prepared of Salvadora persica as adsorbent (ACSP). Methods: Batch studies were performed to evaluate and optimize the effects of various parameters such as contact time, temperature of the solution, NT and AMO concentrations and adsorbent dosage. The adsorbent characteristics were determined using SEM and BET technique. Results: The surface areas of ACSP and SP were 289.4 and 51.27 m2/g, for the adsorbents respectively. The equilibrium of the adsorption process was attained at 75 min adsorbent. The interaction of NT and AMO ions onto ACSP was spontaneously endothermic and it agreed with pseudo-second-order equation. Conclusion: This attempt has shown the potential of modified clay as a suitable eco-friendly sorbent for removing NT and AMO.


Regulators have recently adopted Risk-Based Capital formula for the assessment of solvency. The project has developed a simple DFA model for the assessment of solvency for general insurance companies. The application of probability of ruin and EPD ratio approaches for setting risk-based capital standards as a measure of solvency. The analysis considers the stochastic nature of insurance risk, correlation between classes of insurance business, estimation of capital using the two approaches and comparison of capital at different levels of risk with the one calculated under the Kenyan solvency model.


PURPOSE
To assess the usefulness of thin-section expiratory computed tomography (CT), as compared with that of thin-section inspiratory CT, in detecting airway obstruction and air trapping in pediatric lung transplant recipients with bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thin-section CT scans were obtained at full inspiration and end expiration in 21 pediatric lung transplant recipients with proved BOS and in 41 transplant recipients with normal airways. True diagnosis was based on pulmonary function test results. Inspiration CT scans were scored for extent of decreased attenuation of the lung parenchyma; expiration CT scans were scored for extent of air trapping.

RESULTS
The sensitivity of inspiratory CT for enabling diagnosis of BOS was 71%; the specificity, 78%; the positive predictive value, 62%; and the negative predictive value, 84%. The sensitivity of expiratory CT for enabling diagnosis of BOS was 100%; the specificity, 71%; the positive predictive value, 64%; and the negative predictive value, 100%. Expiratory CT scores correlated more strongly (rho = 0.75, P <.01) with pulmonary function test-based scores than did inspiratory CT scores (rho = 0.48, P <.01). Nominal logistic regression analysis revealed that expiratory CT was a more powerful predictor of true diagnosis (P <.01) than was inspiratory CT (P =.10).

CONCLUSION
Expiratory CT is sensitive for depicting BOS-related airway abnormalities and may be more useful than inspiratory CT for diagnosis of small airway obstruction.


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Performance pay can motivate employees, but money is not the only motivation in the workplace. Altruism, which means that someone enjoys the well-being of someone else, can also provide a powerful motivation. The first part of this thesis studies theoretically how altruism between an employee and his superior affects the optimal use of monetary incentives. Among others, the analysis reveals how altruism influences the credibility of monetary incentive schemes, and how altruistic managers can be prevented from being lenient in evaluating employee performance. The second part of this thesis focuses on motivation stemming from the desire to conform to social norms. I develop a theoretical model in which it is assumed that norms for employees are affected by the example of superiors. The analysis sheds light on how superiors take the norm-setting aspect of their behavior into account, and derives implications for the optimal design of organizations.


Modal verbs (e.g.,"can","should", or"must") occur highly frequently in scientific articles. Decoding their function is not straightforward: they are often used for hedging, but they may also denote abilities and restrictions. Understanding their meaning is important for various NLP tasks such as writing assistance or accurate information extraction from scientific text. To foster research on the usage of modals in this genre, we introduce the MIST (Modals In Scientific Text) dataset, which contains 3737 modal instances in five scientific domains annotated for their semantic, pragmatic, or rhetorical function. We systematically evaluate a set of competitive neural architectures on MIST. Transfer experiments reveal that leveraging non-scientific data is of limited benefit for modeling the distinctions in MIST. Our corpus analysis provides evidence that scientific communities differ in their usage of modal verbs, yet, classifiers trained on scientific data generalize to some extent to unseen scientific domains.


Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) is an approach that has advanced research and applications in computer vision, fueling modern recognition systems and generative models. We believe that the main ingredient to the success of CLIP is its data and not the model architecture or pre-training objective. However, CLIP only provides very limited information about its data and how it has been collected, leading to works that aim to reproduce CLIP's data by filtering with its model parameters. In this work, we intend to reveal CLIP's data curation approach and in our pursuit of making it open to the community introduce Metadata-Curated Language-Image Pre-training (MetaCLIP). MetaCLIP takes a raw data pool and metadata (derived from CLIP's concepts) and yields a balanced subset over the metadata distribution. Our experimental study rigorously isolates the model and training settings, concentrating solely on data. MetaCLIP applied to CommonCrawl with 400M image-text data pairs outperforms CLIP's data on multiple standard benchmarks. In zero-shot ImageNet classification, MetaCLIP achieves 70.8% accuracy, surpassing CLIP's 68.3% on ViT-B models. Scaling to 1B data, while maintaining the same training budget, attains 72.4%. Our observations hold across various model sizes, exemplified by ViT-H achieving 80.5%, without any bells-and-whistles. Curation code and training data distribution on metadata is made available at https://github.com/facebookresearch/MetaCLIP.


Combination therapy of multiple drugs with different mechanisms can overcome drug resistance, improve safety and efficacy, and thus becomes a promising strategy in cancer treatment. However, the difference of physiochemical and pharmacokinetic properties of the combined drugs might lead to suboptimal uptake and biodistribution of two drugs at the tumor sites. Multifunctional nanocarriers merge as an ideal strategy to circumvent these limitations and improve the therapeutic effect of anticancer agents.

A dual-functional nanocarrier was first developed based on the PEG-conjugated S-trans, trans-farnesylthiosalicylic acid (FTS) for delivery of paclitaxel (PTX). FTS is a potent nontoxic RAS antagonist. To facilitate the release of FTS from the carrier and improve the drug loading capacity and formulation stability, both disulfide linkage and Fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl (Fmoc) group were incorporated to PEG5k-FTS2 to form a PEG5k-Fmoc-S-S-FTS2 micellar system. PTX-loaded PEG5k-Fmoc-S-S-FTS2 micelles exhibited a superior synergistic therapeutic effect in vitro and in vivo.

Despite the potent therapeutic effect, the drug content from PEG-conjugated prodrug nanocarriers is relatively low. In order to solve this problem, drug-based monomer was polymerized to increase the number of drug units in each polymer molecule. Here a PPMP-based prodrug copolymer micelle (POEG15-b-PPPMP7), in which each carrier molecule contains 7 units of PPMP, was developed. PPMP is a potent inhibitor of glucosylceramide synthase (GCS), the major catabolic enzyme of ceramide. Doxorubicin (DOX)/POEG-b-PPPMP micellar system exhibited significantly improved antitumor response in vitro and in vivo.

The polymeric prodrug-based carrier strategy was also applied to another drug, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), and developed a well-characterized POEG15-b-PSAHA12 nanocarrier. SAHA is a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACI) approved by FDA. In vivo delivery of DOX via POEG-b-PSAHA led to significant inhibition of 4T1.2 tumor growth.

However, not all targets have small molecule drugs. Better synergism would be achieved through the combination of small molecule drugs (for known targets) and gene therapeutics for "undruggable" targets. This inspired us to develop a creatine-based polymer (POEG-PCre) for the co-delivery of nucleic acids and chemodrugs. POEG-PCre carrier is effective in co-delivery of DOX and bioengineered miR-34a to tumor cells and specific accumulation to lung tissue for the treatment of breast cancer lung metastasis.


Graph is a common way to represent relationships among a set of objects in a variety of data analysis (cid:12)elds. We consider the case that the input data is not only a graph but also numerical features, each one of which corresponds to a node in the graph. In practice, the primary importance is often in understanding interactions on the graph nodes which effect on covariance structure of the numerical features. We propose a Gaussian based analysis which is a combination of graph constrained covariance matrix estimation and factor analysis (FA). We show that this approach, called graph FA, has desirable interpretability. In particular, we prove the connection between graph FA and a graph node clustering based on a perspective of kernel method . This connection indicates that graph FA is effective not only on the conventional noise-reduction explanation of the observation by FA but also on identifying important subgraphs. The experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.


Repeated acetaminophen (AP) administration modulates intestinal P-glycoprotein (P-gp) expression. Whether AP can modulate P-gp activity in a short-term fashion is unknown. We investigated the acute effect of AP on rat intestinal P-gp activity in vivo and in vitro. In everted intestinal sacs, AP inhibited serosal-mucosal transport of rhodamine 123 (R123), a prototypical P-gp substrate. R123 efflux plotted against R123 concentration adjusted well to a sigmoidal curve. Vmax decreased 50% in the presence of AP, with no modification in EC50, or slope, ruling out the possibility of inhibition to be competitive. Inhibition by AP was absent at 0°C, consistent with interference of the active transport of R123 by AP. Additionally, AP showed no effect on normal localization of P-gp at the apical membrane of the enterocyte and neither affected paracellular permeability. Consistent with absence of a competitive inhibition, two further strategies strongly suggested that AP is not a P-gp substrate. First, serosal-mucosal transport of AP was not affected by the classical P-gp inhibitors verapamil or Psc 833. Second, AP accumulation was not different between P-gp knock-down and wild-type HepG2 cells. In vivo intestinal absorption of digoxin, another substrate of P-gp, was assessed in the presence or absence of AP (100 μM). Portal digoxin concentration was increased by 214%, in average, by AP, as compared with digoxin alone. In conclusion, AP inhibited P-gp activity, increasing intestinal absorption of digoxin, a prototypical substrate. These results suggest that therapeutic efficacy of P-gp substrates can be altered if coadministered with AP.


A laminar flamelet description is derived for premixed laminar flames. The full set of 3D instationary combustion equations is decomposed in three parts: (1) a flow and mixing system without chemical reactions, described by the momentum, enthalpy and element conservation equations, (2) the G-equation for the flame motion and (3) a flamelet system describing the inner flame structure and the local mass burning rate. Local fields for the flame curvature and the flame stretch couple the flamelet system with the flow and flame motion. To derive an efficient model, the flamelet equations are analyzed in depth, using the Integral Analysis, first introduced by Chung and Law [4]. It appears that the flamelet respons is governed by algebraic equations describing the influence of flame stretch on the local mass burning rate, the enthalpy variation and element composition. Known expressions for the mass burning rate, found by Joulin, Clavin and Williams are recovered in some special cases. Furthermore, the validity of the expressions has been shown for weak and strong stretch by comparing the results with numerical results of lean stretched premixed methane/air flames, computed with skeletal chemistry. Finally, the theory is illustrated for the tip of a 2D stationary Bunsen flame.


Based on the damage field survey of the industrial building in Wenchuan earthquake, the typical building seismic damage characteristics of industrial structures were summarized and analyzed. According to the damage phenomenon, the following conclusions are derived: usually, the main structures of industrial buildings received serious damage, which roof system were distorted and collapse, bent-frame column were pressed and yielded, bracing system were tension broken or pressed and yielded; when the main structures of industrial building received minor damage, the non-structural member regular suffered relatively damage, include the end bays in the longitudinal direction, high gables, the cantilevered walls between two span with different height and the foundation. Then damage rules and reasons are summed up and damage characteristics and the corresponding design and retrofitting suggestion are proposed. At the end of the paper, it was indicated that seismic design of major structure and non-structural members of factory building must be fully complied with the Seismic Design Code, seismic assessment and seismic strengthening should be carried out at regular intervals for the existed industrial building, which served a long time and whose fortification level is unsatisfied with requirement.


This study was conducted to investigate allometry of head growth patterns in the grass snake (Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758)). Although male and female grass snakes differ in relative head size, their head growth patterns follow similar trajectories. The sexual differences are roughly constant during ontogeny. Most head dimensions grow with negative allometry or isometry with respect to the snout?vent length except head width, which grows with positive allometry in both sexes.


There is an important short chapter on prenatal infection, and though the author notes that infections generally are less likely to cause death than in former times, they are still very important because of moving populations and immigration. The whole book is very readable; it is clearly set out on good paper in good type. It is deceptively simple, but very concise and accurate. If one at times feels that a statement is a little dogmatic or bald, there is always the bibliography for further reading. The book is well indexed, the cross references are detailed and the bibliography is very good. There are welcome sections on behaviour problems, general procedures and drug therapy and dosage for children, and allergic disorders. The illustrations are well chosen, and many are in colour.


Abstract This paper proposed a new methodology to solve collision free path planning problem for industrial robot using genetic algorithms. The method poses an optimization problem that aims to minimize the significant points traveling distance of the robot. The behavior of more two operational parameters – the end effector traveling distance and computational time – are analyzed. This algorithm is able to obtain the solution for any industrial robot working in the complex environments, just it needs to choose a suitable significant points for that robot. An application example has been illustrated using robot Puma 560.


The mechanism of action of the hydrosmotic response of the isolated skin of the toad Bufo arenarum Hensel to angiotensin II was studied by means of an indirect pharmacological approach. Angiotensin II (2.10(-10) M), vasopressin (2.10(-13) M) and theophylline (10(-4) and 10(-3) M) in subliminal doses produced a significant increase on water permeability when added in different paired combinations. Angiotensin II (2.10(-7) M) and vasopressin (2.10(-8) M) in doses producing significant effects on water permeability increased the response to submaximal doses of epinephrine (10(-6) M) but not to higher doses (10(-5) M). Acid pH (6.4) and prostaglandin E1 (2.10(-7) M) reduced significantly the hydrosmotic response to angiotensin II, but in contrast with the toad bladder, the effect was not completely abolished. Present results support the view that the hydrosmotic effect of angiotensin II in toad skin is mediated by the adenylate cyclase - cyclic AMP system.


This article discusses the media through which I submitted work for a 'Praxis' project as part of my Masters degree in Contemporary Arts. This MA course engages students within a framework of 'practice as research' whereby more significance is placed upon the process of art creation as opposed to product. Although 'products' such as performances, films or writing for example will inevitably form due to the nature of a creative process, as students and artists, we are encouraged to document our journey with the aim of offering insight and illumination for the viewer into our artistic process. The term 'praxis' refers to a mode of research where the student engages with their work from two perspectives; from the inside, or subjective position of being the artist creating, and additionally from the outside, or objective position. When submitting work for assessment, we devise our own criteria outlining the way in which we would like tutors to assess our work, thus providing flexibility across the range of arts disciplines explored on the MA.


Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and lethal primary brain tumor despite maximal therapy. Recent studies suggest that GBMs contain highly tumorigenic, stem cell-like cells termed glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs). GSCs significantly contribute to tumor propagation and treatment resistance and thus are critical target for curative therapy in GBMs. These GSCs share a key characteristic of normal stem cells, such as unlimited self-renewal capacity. Maintenance of the stem cell status in normal stem cells is governed by the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2)-mediated transcriptional repression. Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is the only catalytically active component in PRC2, and it methylates a specific lysine residue of histone 3, resulting in the repressive chromatin structure. Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) regulates diverse cellular processes and is frequently activated during tumorigenesis. Components of PRC2 are highly expressed in various cancers including GBMs and STAT3 is required for GSCs maintenance. In this study, we investigated the functional interaction between these two oncogenic pathways regulating GSCs phenotype. We show that targeted pharmacologic disruption of EZH2 by the S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase inhibitor called 3-deazaneplanocin A (DZNep), or its specific downregulation by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) inhibits STAT3 activity. Furthermore, AKT-mediated EZH2 phosphorylation affects STAT3 activity through STAT3 methylation. We demonstrate that STAT3 bind to EZH2 promoter and inhibition of STAT3 activity by small molecule inhibitor decrease PRC2 protein expression. Targeting of EZH2 and STAT3 by combined treatment with DZNep and STAT3 inhibitor strongly impairs GSCs self-renewal in vitro and decreases markers of neural stem cell multipotency. In addition, shEZH2 transduction + STAT3 inhibitor treatment extend survival of SCID mice with intracranial GSCs than shEZH2 single transduced group. Together, these obtained results strongly suggest the presence of positive feedback activation loop between PRC2 and STAT3 signaling in GSCs and targeting of this activation loop may offer an attractive therapeutic strategy for GBM. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5215. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5215


Rn-222 and Rn-220 levels have been measured using passive detector technique by employing time integrated solid-state nuclear track detector-based dosemeters in various types of houses at 10 different locations in and around Bangalore Metropolitan, India. The measured geometric mean concentration values of Rn-222 and Rn-220 levels in 200 dwellings of different types of construction were found to be 32.2 +/- 1.6 and 21.4 +/- 1.0 Bq m(-3), respectively. The dose rate received by the population of Bangalore ranged between 0.2 and 3.5 mSv y(-1) an average and the geometric mean of 1.14 +/- 0.05 and 1.06 mSv y(-1), respectively. Overall, the result does not show much significant radiological risk for the inhabitants and the Rn-222 levels are well within the limits of global average concentration of 40 Bq m(-3). However, the Rn-220 levels observed were found to be higher than the global average of 10 Bq m(-3).


Purpose - Although several studies have been undertaken on sustainability within infrastructure projects, limited attention has paid to the drivers for, and the barriers to, the incorporation of sustainability in public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects through empirical study, particularly in Nigeria. Therefore, this study identified and examined the drivers that promote sustainability in Nigerian PPP infrastructure projects, and assessed the barriers to the full integration of sustainability practices into current Nigerian PPP infrastructure projects.

Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were collected using a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey was targeted on four different stakeholders' organizations. They were public sector authorities, concessionaires, consultants, and banks already undertaking PPP infrastructure projects in Lagos State, Nigeria. The obtained data were analysed using frequency, percentage, mean score, standard deviation, and the Kruskal-Wallis test.

Findings – The study identified 17 drivers that promote the incorporation of sustainability in PPP infrastructure projects. The analysis of the total ranking of the drivers in Nigeria revealed the top five ranked drivers to be: consideration of long-term performance; contractual arrangements; incentives for new market penetration; award criteria, and selection criteria, respectively. The study further identified 11 barriers to sustainability integration in PPP infrastructure projects and the top five ranked barriers in Nigeria are: comprehensive sustainability procurement guidelines; no enabling environment; education needs; uncertain economic environment, and a lack of clear government policy, respectively. The results of the Kruskal-Wallis test conducted on both the 17 identified drivers for, and the 11 barriers to, the incorporation of sustainability in Nigerian PPP infrastructure projects, revealed that there is no significant statistical difference in both rankings from the perceptions of the aforementioned four different respondents' groups.
Practical implications – The study provides empirical insights on the knowledge and awareness of drivers which could lead to a greater uptake in sustainability measures by the stakeholders in
Nigerian PPP projects; it also identified barriers to overcome.

Originality/value – The importance of the incorporation of sustainability in public procurement cannot be over-emphasized. It is anticipated that the study will be of great value to PPP stakeholders involved in sustainability decision-making processes when delivering sustainable PPP projects.


This paper aims to develop an accurate estimation technique for computing state of charge (SOC) of a lithium-ion battery using recurrent neural network algorithm. Nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) model is a well-known subclass of the recurrent neural network which has proven to be very effective and computationally rich for controlling dynamic system and predicting time series. However, the accuracy of recurrent NARX neural network depends on the amount of input and output order as well as a number of neurons in a hidden layer. Therefore, this study presents an improved recurrent NARX neural network based SOC estimation with particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for finding the best value of input delays, feedback delays and a number of neurons in a hidden layer. The proposed model uses three most significant factor such as current, voltage and temperature without considering battery model. The model robustness is checked at low temperature (0°C), medium temperature (25°C), and high temperature (45°C). The US06 drive cycle is selected for model training and testing. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is compared with the back-propagation neural network (BPNN) optimized by PSO based on the SOC error, root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) and average execution time (AET). The results prove that the proposed model has higher estimation speed and achieves higher accuracy in reducing RMSE and MAE by 53% and 50% than BPNN based PSO model at 25°C.


The present invention provides a method for keeping a file system in a consistent state and for creating read-only copies of a file system. Changes to the file system are tightly controlled. The file system progresses from one consistent state to another. The set of self-consistent blocks on disk that is rooted by the root inode is referred to as a consistency point. To implement consistency points, new data is written to unallocated blocks on disk. A new consistency point occurs when the fsinfo block (2440) is updated by writing a new root inode for the inode file (1210) into it. Thus, as long as the root inode is not updated, the state of the file system represented on disk does not change. The present invention also creates snapshots (Figure 22) that are read-only copies of the file system. A snapshot uses no disk space when it is initially created. It is designed so that many different snap shots can be created for the same file system. Unlike prior art file systems that create a clone by duplicating the entire inode file and all of the indirect blocks, the present invention duplicates only the inode that describes the inode file. A multi-bit free-block map file (1630) is used to prevent data from being overwritten on disk.


Since the release of the open-source Android operating system in 2009, considerable research has been carried out into various factors affecting the security and privacy of user data. As these devices become more widespread in usage, such as in vehicles with the announcement of Android Auto, the need for users to have control over the data available to applications is becoming important. A recurring theme from other works into this topic is that a more granular permissions model for Android applications would be beneficial, allowing users to understand which permissions their apps actually need, and to make decisions, rather than be forced to accept all of the requested permissions. A number of effective solutions have been presented, but these have required modifications be made to the core operating system, to enforce the existence of these new, optional permissions. We present an approach which permits an application developer to add optional permissions to their application, without any modifications being made to the underlying operating system. By not requiring rooting or other modifications to the device, this technique makes use of native Android functionality, and thus should remain operative between Android versions (which are increasingly difficult to gain root access on), unlike alternative techniques.


The forced mid-term resignations of nine U.S. Attorneys was an unprecedented event in American history. Nearly one year after the administration executed the removals, the House Judiciary Committee was still reviewing and publicizing emails, memoranda, and other documents in an effort to understand how the firings were effectuated. This Note examines many of those documents and concludes that the removals were likely carried out for partisan reasons. It then draws on the Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, and separation of powers principles to argue that Congress is constitutionally empowered to enact removal limitations for inferior officers such as U.S. Attorneys so long as those limitations do not impermissibly infringe on the president's Article II authority or result in congressional aggrandizement. Because of the partisan nature of the attorneys' removals, this Note argues that Congress should consider such legislation to limit the president's removal of U.S. Attorneys. In considering the constitutionality and efficacy of a potential statute, this Note examines three previous pieces of legislation on which such removal limitations could be modeled before proposing a fourth, hybrid statute that would emphasize the separation of powers values of balance and accountability in barring "partisan" removals of U.S. Attorneys. The Note concludes by claiming that the framework that the Supreme Court created in McDonnell Douglas v. Green can supply a useful analog to manage the fact-intensive probe into whether a removal was impermissibly "partisan" under the proposed statute or merely a typical, "political" removal, which any removal statute must likely allow to meet constitutional muster.


Brushing aside pretenders to the performance throne, Digital's Jim Keller demonstrated at last week's Microprocessor Forum why Alpha continues to be king. The company is pushing microarchitecture to new levels, introducing innovations in branch prediction, datapath design, and system interfaces as part of the forthcoming 21264. These features will not only propel the 21264 to unprecedented levels of performance, they will also set standards for future designs. Previous Alpha processors, while delivering leadership performance, have generally pushed hardest on the "speed" button while relying on simpler CPU cores than their competitors. This tradition goes back to the design of the original instruction set, which ruthlessly eliminated any instruction that might reduce clock speed. The 21264 does not disappoint on clock speed: at 500 MHz, it is faster than any other announced CMOS microprocessor and twice as fast as most. Yet the new chip adopts an aggressively out-of-order CPU core that exceeds the capabilities of current chips. The 21264 adds a high-bandwidth system interface that channels up to 5.3 Gbytes/s of cache data and 2.6 Gbytes/s of main-memory data into the processor, feeding its demanding CPU core. Digital's Dick Sites laid the groundwork for this interface through his research into performance bottlenecks (see 101004.PDF), summarized in his rallying cry, "It's the bandwidth, stupid!" While other processors do well on programs, including many of the SPEC95 benchmarks, that fit into large L2 caches, the 21264 will excel even on code that frequently accesses main memory. Which is not to say the 21264 does poorly on SPEC95: Keller projects scores in excess of 30 on SPECint95 and 50 on SPECfp95 (base). These scores more than double those of any existing microprocessor. One caveat: the chip has not yet taped out, and Digital projects system shipments no sooner than 4Q97. Even with more than a year to catch up, however, Digital's competitors have nothing on the books that will come close to the 21264's performance in that timeframe.


The objective of this article is to depict the early stages of the complex relationship between memories of repression and the stigmas generated by the accusatory categories associated with past practices and the disappearance of persons. The topic of analysis is not the notion of disappearance per se, nor the problems arising in its wake; rather, it is the ways in which the friends, relatives, and townspeople who experienced hardship and repression during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–83) have reconstructed their world. To this end, I observed the practices and listened to the narratives of relatives of the illegally detained and disappeared in the small town of Tumbaya, together with those of other local residents. Special attention is paid to the role played by a "memory broker" in order to shed light on the relationship between visibility and stigma, as well as on the social bonds linking the memory broker to the community. This study is based on material gathered in the course of observations, informal conversations, and interviews carried out in Tumbaya between July 2003 and July 2004. In English, extensive summary in Russian.


Introduction: Atopic dermatitis occurs due to multifactorial interactions such as genetic, environmental, impaired skin barrier function, immunological factors, infection and post-psychological stress. Th1 cells and some proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, IL-10 and others play a role in the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis, also IL-31. IL-31, including cytokines of the IL-6 family expressed mainly on CD4 T cells. Many researchers also associate stress with the occurrence of atopic dermatitis, stress will trigger the release of these cytokines from immune cells (e.g. IL-6, TNF α). The aim of the study is determine correlation between stress and increase in IL-31 level in person with atopic dermatitis Method: We designed a case-control study including 58 patient, range from 14-65 years old. Diagnosis of atopic dermatitis is established based on Hanifin and Rajka criteria, and the severity based on SCORAD. Venous blood was collected for IL-31 examination, stress index was measured by interview according to the Holmes-Rahe stress scale test method. Result: In this study, the stress index in atopic dermatitis was 102.26 + 11.71, and in control 61.35 + 19.87 there was a significant difference with p <0.005. IL-31 levels in atopic dermatitis were 274.44 + 95.35, higher than controls 129.44 + 85.45, significantly with p<0.005. The results of linear regression between stress index and severity of dermatitis (SCORAD), appeared to have a moderate positive correlation with r = 0.04. OR 4.56 (95% CI 2.78-11.56). Conclusions: From this study it can be concluded that stress increases IL-31 levels and positively correlates with the severity of atopic dermatitis.


Autotaxin (ATX) is a secreted glycoprotein that converts lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) to the bioactive phospholipid lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) and is the major enzyme generating circulating LPA. Inhibition of LPA signaling has profound antifibrotic effects in multiple organ systems, including lung, kidney, skin, and peritoneum. However, other LPA-generating pathways exist, and the role of ATX in localized tissue LPA production and fibrosis remains unclear and controversial. In this study, we describe the preclinical pharmacologic, pharmacokinetic, and pharmacodynamic properties of a novel small-molecule ATX inhibitor, PAT-505 [3-((6-chloro-2-cyclopropyl-1-(1-ethyl-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)-7-fluoro-1H-indol-3-yl) thio)-2-fluorobenzoic acid sodium salt]. PAT-505 is a potent, selective, noncompetitive inhibitor that displays significant inhibition of ATX activity in plasma and liver tissue after oral administration. When dosed therapeutically in a Stelic Mouse Animal Model of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), PAT-505 treatment resulted in a small but significant improvement in fibrosis with only minor improvements in hepatocellular ballooning and hepatic inflammation. In a choline-deficient, high-fat diet model of NASH, therapeutic treatment with PAT-505 robustly reduced liver fibrosis with no significant effect on steatosis, hepatocellular ballooning, or inflammation. These data demonstrate that inhibiting autotaxin is antifibrotic and may represent a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of multiple fibrotic liver diseases, including NASH.


Porosity is a fundamental variable used in the small strain theory of consolidation to measure the volume of the pore space in the volume of soil. It is defined as a ratio of the two variables, as opposed to volumetric strain, which measures the change in volume of soil only. Porosity increment represents both changes in the pore space and in the volume of the soil element. Such changes originate by stress changes and/or by environmental changes (temperature, moisture, or chemistry). Three different definitions of porosity are commonly adopted in the modeling of porous deformable materials, originated by the theories of Terzaghi, Biot, and Hassanizadeh. When changes in the pore volume and the volume of the material element are of the same order, the differences in definition of porosities may induce significant differences in values of their increments. Lagrangian, material, and spatial porosity increments are defined and compared. The continuity equation used in Terzaghi's model of consolidation is derived from multiphase mixture theory to show consistent and inconsistent uses of the porosity increments.


Information on succession in marine benthic primary producers in polar regions is very scarce, particularly with regard to effects of abiotic and biotic drivers of community structure. Primary succession begins with rapid colonizers, such as diatoms and ephemeral macroalgae, whereas slow, highly seasonal recruitment and growth are characteristic of annual or perennial seaweed species. Colonization of intertidal and subtidal assemblages on polar rocky shores is severely affected by physical disturbance and by seasonal changes in abiotic conditions. Biotic factors, such as grazing, can strongly affect colonization patterns and also alter competitive interactions among benthic algae. Ambient UV radiation affects the diversity of macroalgal communities during early and later stages of succession. In contrast, microalgal assemblages have high tolerance to UV stress. Climate warming could alter algal latitudinal distribution and favor invasion of polar regions by cold-temperate species. Reduced sea ice cover and retreating glaciers could expand colonization areas but alter light, salinity, sedimentation and disturbance processes. Although the key role of macroalgae in coastal systems and, to a much reduced extent, the importance of microphytobenthos have been documented for polar regions, information on the successional process is incomplete and will benefit from further ecological studies.


This paper consists of two distinct parts. The first one presents the "local" version of the result of Bai and Yin from [2]. This result gives an estimate from below for the probability that the smallest singular value of a random sign matrix is outside some interval. In particular, it gives a lower bound for the probability that an "almost square" matrix, that is, a (1 − δ)n × n matrix, has smallest singular value above ≈ δ. This is a "finite dimensional" version of the results of Bai and Yin [2], and in this "local" version it is much more useful for applications in Asymptotic Geometric Analysis problems, where quantitative estimates of deviations are needed. This is presented in Section 2. A more extensive presentation of this result will be given by the IVth named author in [14]. The second part of this paper consists of precisely such an application, partially supported by BSF grant 2002-006 supported by the National Science Foundation under agreement No. DMS-0111298 supported in part by the Israel Science Academy


It is very important to inspect color of printed texture in the textile process. Because a scanner is less sensitive to environmental light in view of color distinction, it is more effective than CCD camera in the color inspection. To distinguish the color of the printed texture, RGB color values obtained from a scanner must be transformed to the standard colorimetric system used in the textile industry. It is XYZ color system that is defined by CIE (Commission Internationale de lEclairage). The mapping from RGB to XYZ color values is not simple and the scanner has even a positional deviation of RGB colors. In this paper an automatic color inspection method using a general scanning machine is presented. We used a NN (neural network) model to map RGB to XYZ and compensate the positional error. In the real experiments, this inspection system shows to get very exact XYZ values from the traditional scanner regardless of the measuring position.


Electrical properties of some sandstone rocks (conductivity and dielectric constant) were investigated
as a function of frequency (100 Hz to 100 kHz). Such heterogeneous specimens contain semiconducting
constituents (silt and clay) and insulating constituents (sand, air, and carbonates). A theoretical
pseudo-random renormalisation group method was used to predict the electrical properties of such
random mixture. Four phases were used in the model to consider the detailed texture of the constituent
materials. The measured electrical properties (conductivity and dielectric constant) versus frequency
of these samples were analysed to predict the texture or connections of these four phases. From the
analysis, these four phases were suggested to be (1) carbonates, (2) sand coated with clay and coated
with air, (3) carbonates coated with clay and coated with air, and (4) pure sand. The forward problem
predicts the electrical properties versus frequency using the pseudo-random renormalisation group
method for certain concentrations of the constituent materials distributed among the random four
phases. The forward model is used to fit the measured response to obtain the expected concentrations
of rock constituents in the proposed four phases using a parameter search method (inverse problem).
The obtained accordance between the experimental and modelled characteristics in much of the frequency
band used suggests that the pseudo-random renormalisation group method with the supposed
four phases reasonably represents the main mineralogical composition of the rock.


Disability and Information Technology examines the extent to which regulatory frameworks for information and communication technologies (ICTs) safeguard the rights of persons with disabilities as citizenship rights. It adopts a comparative approach focused on four case studies: Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. It focuses on the tension between social and economic values in the regulation of ICTs and calls for a regulatory approach based on a framework of principles that reflects citizenship values. The analysis identifies challenges encountered in the jurisdictions examined and points toward the rights-based approach advanced by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a benchmark in protecting the rights of persons with disabilities to have equal access to information. The research draws on a wealth of resources, including legislation, cases, interviews, consultation documents and responses from organisations representing persons with disabilities.


Chapter I includes a description of the Chartist Movement and discusses the criteria found in John W. Bowers and Donovan J. Och's Rhetoric of Agitation and Control that were used to analyze the agitation and control groups of the movement. Chapter II describes the ideologies of both groups. Chapter III analyzes the rhetorical strategies of the agitation group: petition, solidification, promulgation, polarization, non-violent resistance, and confrontation-escalation, and the strategies of the control group: avoidance and suppression. Chapter IV concludes that Chartist agitators effectively used rhetorical strategies; however, the control strategy of suppression was stronger and brought about the demise of Chartism.


beta-1,4-Galactosyltransferase 1 (Gal-T1) transfers galactose (Gal) from UDP-Gal to N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), which constitutes its normal galactosyltransferase (Gal-T) activity. In the presence of alpha-lactalbumin (LA), it transfers Gal to Glc, which is its lactose synthase (LS) activity. It also transfers glucose (Glc) from UDP-Glc to GlcNAc, constituting the glucosyltransferase (Glc-T) activity, albeit at an efficiency of only 0.3-0.4% of Gal-T activity. In the present study, we show that LA increases this activity almost 30-fold. It also enhances the Glc-T activity toward various N-acyl substituted glucosamine acceptors. Steady state kinetic studies of Glc-T reaction show that the K(m) for the donor and acceptor substrates are high in the absence of LA. In the presence of LA, the K(m) for the acceptor substrate is reduced 30-fold, whereas for UDP-Glc it is reduced only 5-fold. In order to understand this property, we have determined the crystal structures of the Gal-T1.LA complex with UDP-Glc x Mn(2+) and with N-butanoyl-glucosamine (N-butanoyl-GlcN), a preferred sugar acceptor in the Glc-T activity. The crystal structures reveal that although the binding of UDP-Glc is quite similar to UDP-Gal, there are few significant differences observed in the hydrogen bonding interactions between UDP-Glc and Gal-T1. Based on the present kinetic and crystal structural studies, a possible explanation for the role of LA in the Glc-T activity has been proposed.


This research analyses the representation of African Caribbean communities in the mainstream Leeds press, the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post, throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The analysis focuses on coverage of selected events in each decade which were particularly relevant to the African Caribbean communities of Leeds. The discussion centres on the role of the mainstream local press in perpetuating stereotypes of these communities and the impact this was seen to have on the communities themselves. It goes on to consider representation of the same events through the alternative press where this is available (through the 1970s and 1980s) and analyses the different reporting strategies used in the alternative media and the likely impact of this alternative discourse. It argues that the mainstream press used several reporting strategies to represent the African Caribbean communities through binary stereotypes and projected notions of otherness, threat, criminality, docility and displaced them from the concept of British identity. The work has three overarching themes which summarise the representation in each decade; these are respectively, 'the alien wedge', 'the colony within and 'here to stay'. The thesis concludes that there were subtle differences in the reporting strategies throughout the decades in keeping with a trajectory of assimilation that started with a discourse of outright rejection of 'coloured' immigration in the 1960s; the analysis ends at 1989 with the identification of a new way of being British in 'black Britishness'.


The proliferation of the corporate form has resulted in a state of dependency by the economy on the companies operating within it. These companies require the free flow of capital for investment, growth, and avoidance of precipitate insolvency. For over a century, the floating charge has played a cardinal role in the provision of credit to companies in the UK. Over the same period, the charge has undergone several statutory interventions raising doubts as to the ability of financiers to rely on the charge as a basis for extending and securing credit. This thesis explores the impact of some of these changes on lending practices and insolvency outcomes. The changes examined primarily relate to the redistribution of floating charge assets in favour of other creditors in insolvency.

The thesis uses analytical and empirical research methods. There are six chapters in the thesis. Chapters 1 and 2 provide a commercial background to the study and identify the research question; they explore the impact of companies on the economy, and the importance of credit and security. Chapter 3 contains an empirical account of the impact that the treatment of the floating charge in insolvency has on lending practices and insolvency outcomes. Chapter 4 examines the interest conferred by a floating charge against current inroads into the rights of a floating chargee. Chapter 5 scrutinises the raison d'etre for redistributing floating charge assets. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis by providing analytical commentary on proposals regarding the future of the floating charge and factoring. This is followed by a Postscript which summarises the arguments and evidence contained in the thesis, and sets out a number of recommendations.

The thesis will show that the floating charge is still used in corporate finance transactions. Proposals to unify company security interests would not affect this. However there are noticeable alterations in lending practices, partly devised as a response to the treatment of the floating charge. These alterations sometimes have adverse effects on insolvency outcomes. Overall, it argues that the treatment of the floating charge lacks sound justification, and, in certain respects, fails in its objectives.


Rural micro-enterprises play a pivotal role in developing country agriculture as the major sources of inputs and ready markets for agricultural produce. This makes an understanding of their diversity and dynamism vital to issues of sustainable food security and poverty alleviation. This paper uses cluster analysis and a logit regression model to establish the factors underlying the heterogeneity of micro-enterprise firms with a view to unearth the reasons behind their inclination towards agro-dealership. Rural micro-enterprises were found to vary greatly due to size, firm life, capital intensity and their motives for entry into business. Capital intensity in tern determines firm size, willingness to expand and the firm's likelihood to stay in business. Larger firms with a long firm life and a high capital base were found to have a greater tendency to deal in agribusiness commodities as opposed to small firms with lower capital intensity and a short firm life. It was concluded that firm proclivity to agro dealership could be increased through increasing capital base and provision of incentives for voluntary entry into business.


Background Despite specific initiatives and identified needs, most neonatal drugs are still used off-label, with variable dosage administrations and schedules. In high risk preterm and term neonates, drug evaluation is challenging and randomized controlled trials (RCT) are difficult to conduct and even more is the use of a placebo, required in the absence of a reference validated drug to be used as comparator. Methods We analyzed the complete ClinicalTrials.gov registry 1) to describe neonatal RCT involving a placebo, 2) to report on the medical context and ethical aspects of placebo use. Results Placebo versus drug RCT (n = 146), either prevention trials (n = 57, 39%) or therapeutic interventions (n = 89, 61%), represent more than a third of neonatal trials registered in the National Institute of Health clinical trial database (USA) since 1999. They mainly concerned preterm infants, evaluating complications of prematurity. Most trials were conducted in the USA, were single centered, and funded by non-profit organizations. For the three top drug trials evaluating steroids (n = 13, 9.6%), erythropoietin (EPO, n = 10, 6.8%) and nitric oxide (NO, n = 9, 6.2%), the objectives of the trial and follow-up were analyzed in more details. Conclusion Although a matter of debate, the use of placebo should be promoted in neonates to evaluate a potential new treatment, in the absence of reference drug. Analysis of the trials evaluating steroids showed that long-term follow-up of exposed patients, although required by international guidelines, is frequently missing and should be planned to collect additional information and optimize drug evaluation in these high-risk patients.


On the basis of geomorphic mapping, we reconstruct the landscape evolution of the Convoy Range to Mackay Glacier area of the rifted margin of the Transantarctic Mountains and compare the land record with that obtained from offshore marine sedimentary rocks in the Ross Sea. Three landform assemblages reflect (1) fluvial planation and dissection, (2) local glaciation under temperate conditions, and (3) overriding by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Overall landscape evolution is typical of a passive continental margin. Contrasts in morphology between the Convoy Range and the adjacent Dry Valleys and Royal Society mountains reflect the varying location of the initial drainage divide in relationship to the rifted coast. In a wider synthesis we draw the following conclusions for the 260-km-long McMurdo sector of the Transantarctic Mountains. Denudation since rifting at ca. 55 Ma has removed a wedge 4–7 km thick at the coast, declining inland to ∼1 km. Most denudation occurred in the Eocene from planation and incision of river valleys near the coast. A subsequent pulse of denudation, most rapid at 34–31 Ma, and declining until ca. 17 Ma, coincided with further crustal extension and a change from cool temperate to polar climate. During the same interval, there was a progressive decrease in landscape modification by warm-based glaciers and/or rivers. Between 14.8 and 13.6 Ma the maximum overriding Antarctic ice sheet flowed northeastward across the mountains, leaving meltwater features crossing high-altitude saddles and areally scoured bedrock near the coast. Since 13.6 Ma, the landscape has seen little change under a hyperarid polar climate, either by local glaciers or subaerially. Fragile middle Miocene surficial deposits still survive. There has been tectonic stability since the middle Miocene.


Head-up display (HUD) systems have been used in recent car models to provide essential information to the drivers while keeping their eyes on the road. Virtual image HUD systems have been the preferred method, but they have the drawback of requiring a large volume of space in order to accommodate the relay optics that creates the virtual image. This is especially significant as the desired field of view increases. Direct projection HUD systems have been developed with a separate stand-alone microlens array (MLA)-based transparent screen on the dashboard, offering a compact solution. In this paper, we propose a direct projection HUD system based on a unique, windshield-embedded see-through screen that uses minimal space under the dashboard, offering an elegant and compact solution to the HUD problem. The screen is based on MLAs with varying surface normal angles such that the light from the projector is directed to the viewer's eyes from all positions across the field of view. Varying tilts provide an efficient relay and high brightness even with a low-lumen output projector. The calculated screen gain is about 69 and the eyebox area is about 30 cm×30 cm.


Businesses hold large quantities of cash reserves, which have average returns well below their investments in tangible capital. Businesses do this because these monetary assets provide services. One implication is that money services is a factor of production in capital theoretic valuation equilibrium models. Our aggregate production function is consistent with both the classical demand for money function relationship and with extended periods of near zero short-term nominal interest rates. In our model economy, there is a 100 percent reserve requirement on all demand deposits. Demand deposits are legal tender. We find (i) money services in the production function necessitates revisions in the national accounts; (ii) monetary and fiscal policy cannot be completely separated; (iii) for a given policy, equilibrium is either unique or does not exist; and (iv) Friedman?s monetary satiation is not optimal. We make quantitative comparisons between interest rate targeting regimes and between inflation rate targeting regimes. The best inflation rate target was 2 percent. {{p}} This paper is related to but fundamentally different from Staff Report 530: \\"Fiat Value in the Theory of Value.?


The complex interconnection among issues affecting rural—regional sustainability requires an equally complex program of research to ensure the attraction and retention of high-quality teachers for rural children. The educational effects of the construction of the rural within a deficit discourse are highlighted. A concept of rural social space is modelled, bringing together social, economic and environmental dimensions of (rural—regional) sustainability. This framework combines quantitative definitional processes with more situated definitions of rural space based on demographic and other social data, across both geographic and cultural formations. The implications of the model are examined in terms of its importance for teacher education.


The usage of multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) systems such as a MIMO radar allows the array elements to transmit different waveforms freely. This waveform diversity can lead to flexible transmit beampattern synthesis, which is useful in many applications such as radar/sonar and biomedical imaging. In the past literature most attention was paid to receive beampattern design due to the stringent constraints on waveforms in the transmit beampattern case. Recently progress has been made on MIMO transmit beampattern synthesis but mainly only for narrowband signals. In this paper we propose a new approach that can be used to efficiently synthesize MIMO waveforms in order to match a given wideband transmit beampattern, i.e. to match a transmit energy distribution in both space and frequency. The synthesized waveforms satisfy the unit-modulus or low peak-to-average power ratio (PAR) constraints that are highly desirable in practice. Several examples are provided to investigate the performance of the proposed approach.


The rapid and accurate identification of toxic chemicals is critical for saving lives in emergency situations. However, first-responder systems such as WISER typically require a large number of inputs before a chemical can be identified. To address this problem, we used networks to visualize and analyze the complex relationship between toxic chemicals and their symptoms. The results explain why current approaches require a large number of inputs and help to identify regularities related to the co-occurrence of symptoms. This understanding provides implications for the design of future first-responder systems, with the goal of rapidly identifying toxic chemicals in emergency situations.


Recent advances in large vision-language models have revolutionized the image classification paradigm. Despite showing impressive zero-shot capabilities, a pre-defined set of categories, a.k.a. the vocabulary, is assumed at test time for composing the textual prompts. However, such assumption can be impractical when the semantic context is unknown and evolving. We thus formalize a novel task, termed as Vocabulary-free Image Classification (VIC), where we aim to assign to an input image a class that resides in an unconstrained language-induced semantic space, without the prerequisite of a known vocabulary. VIC is a challenging task as the semantic space is extremely large, containing millions of concepts, with hard-to-discriminate fine-grained categories. In this work, we first empirically verify that representing this semantic space by means of an external vision-language database is the most effective way to obtain semantically relevant content for classifying the image. We then propose Category Search from External Databases (CaSED), a method that exploits a pre-trained vision-language model and an external vision-language database to address VIC in a training-free manner. CaSED first extracts a set of candidate categories from captions retrieved from the database based on their semantic similarity to the image, and then assigns to the image the best matching candidate category according to the same vision-language model. Experiments on benchmark datasets validate that CaSED outperforms other complex vision-language frameworks, while being efficient with much fewer parameters, paving the way for future research in this direction.


Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC

5-year survival for pancreatic cancer (PanCA) continuous to be lower than any other solid tumor due to late stage diagnosis combined with lack of effective therapeutic options. Therefore developing novel strategies possibly based on molecular targets is critical for successful management of PanCA. Recent studies from our laboratory show potential anti-pancreatic cancer activity for NexrutineR (Nx), a bark extract isolated from traditional Chinese medicine Phellodendron amurense. These studies also show that Nx reduces pancreatic fibrosis in preclinical animal model through targeting two critical oncogenic transcription factors including NF-κB and Stat3. Nonetheless, the precise molecular mechanism associated with the observed biological activity is unclear. We investigated whether Nx inhibits pancreatic cell proliferation and pancreatic fibrosis via reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated activation of autophagy. Our data show that Nx can induce autophagy at earlier time points (4h) but inhibit autophagy at later time points (24h) in human pancreatic cancer cell lines Capan-2 and BxPC-3 as evidenced by autophagosome formation, alteration in the expression and levels of various autophagy related genes. Interestingly Nx also induced apoptosis at 24h time point but not at 4h suggesting that autophagy precedes apoptosis. Further under these experimental conditions, treatment of pancreatic cancer cells with Nx enhanced intracellular production of ROS implicating a cross talk between Nx-induced ROS, autophagy and apoptosis. Overall, our findings divulge an important role for ROS/autophagy/apoptosis in Nx-mediated anti-pancreatic cancer effects. Supported by NCCAM (APK).

Citation Format: Gong Jingjing, Addanki P. Kumar. Therapeutic targeting cross talk between ROS/autophagy and apoptosis for pancreatic cancer by a herbal extract. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1660. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1660


Most recent 6D object pose estimation methods, including unsupervised ones, require many real training images. Unfortunately, for some applications, such as those in space or deep under water, acquiring real images, even unannotated, is virtually impossible. In this paper, we propose a method that can be trained solely on synthetic images, or optionally using a few additional real ones. Given a rough pose estimate obtained from a first network, it uses a second network to predict a dense 2D correspondence field between the image rendered using the rough pose and the real image and infers the required pose correction. This approach is much less sensitive to the domain shift between synthetic and real images than state-of-the-art methods. It performs on par with methods that require annotated real images for training when not using any, and outperforms them considerably when using as few as twenty real images.


The digitalization of urban space is reframing the city, providing new connective possibilities as well as new approaches to space and place. A significant part of this development is the mobile web, which allows people to access location-based information on their smartphones, real-time, as they traverse their environment. For de Souza e Silva (2006) the overlaying of space with such information produces what she refers to as 'hybrid space'. This hybrid space means the city is increasingly a fusion of both the digital and the physical. The various potentials of this fusion are presently being realized through smartphones and locative applications. More recently locative media, such as location-based social networks (LBSNs), have replaced text-message-based social networks, such as Dodgeball. A prime example of this is Foursquare, an LBSN that combines elements of social networking alongside components of pervasive play. Users can share their physical location with friends by 'checking-in', just as check-ins and combinations of check-ins are awarded points, badges and mayorships. The visualization of social connections through this LBSN, as well as the gamification of space and place, has the potential then to impact how people coordinate social interactions and approach the city. Based on an original qualitative study involving interviews with a number of Foursquare users, and while drawing on early understandings of play (Caillois, 2001; Huizinga, 1992) alongside Simmel's (1950) work on the metropolis, this paper explores Foursquare and its impact on space, place and social connections in two ways. Firstly it examines the various ways in which this LBSN is used to arrange social interactions, paying close attention to the new social opportunities this is enabling. Secondly it investigates the effect Foursquare and the reframing of play is having on spatial relationships and the mobility choices of users.


Climate change poses several severe threats to developing countries. In extreme cases entire states might become inhabitable. People living in these states need to resettle to other countries. If climate change resettlements become necessary Pacific Islanders do not want to become climate change refugees. To include environmental reasons in refugee conventions is not what Pacific Islanders want. They want to migrate in dignity, if migration becomes unavoidable.
Removing obstacles to the movement of people is increasingly considered a way of contributing to economic development through meeting identified labour shortages, transferring skills, and increasing remittances. Pacific Island countries greatly vary in their access to international migration opportunities for work purposes. Some have fairly open access to working opportunities abroad due to special bilateral agreements while people in other Pacific Island countries are more restricted in their mobility by the immigration policies of destination countries.
When the World Trade Organization (WTO) took up its work on January 1, 1995 a new era started for trade between Developed and Developing Countries. By signing the Marrakesh Agreement of the Uruguay Round of GATT a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was established for the first time and further substantiated in later negotiations under the WTO. The provision of GATS (Mode 4) allows temporary labour mobility for the purpose of service delivery. Also regional trade agreements and trade agreements between Pacific Island countries and the EU have potentials to include labour mobility, but have proven to be politically very sensitive.
In addition there are also temporary mobility scheme for unskilled labour. Australia and New Zealand have unilaterally introduced such schemes of seasonal migration of unskilled labour. At present up to 8,000 persons from (in order of importance) Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati can come to New Zealand for seasonal agricultural work. The Australian scheme allows people from Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and (since 2012) Timor Leste to enter Australia for seasonal unskilled employment mainly in the agricultural sector.
Such schemes and policies can play an important role to prepare people who need to leave their homes because of climate change. To be able to contribute to the economic advancement of destination countries is better than to become environmental or climate change refugees. It is now still much time to equip people with skills that enable them to positively contribute to the societies that are supposed to receive them. It is equally important that there is a Pacific Island identity that sees it natural to help out and welcome those who need support, who need new homes.


: In the experiment, it was established that the use of a synthetic thread of the noncapillary type with a small diameter, when microsurgical technique was employed, provided minimal damage, full-value adaptation of the membranes of the organs sutured, thus facilitating primary healing of anastomosis.


After sustained pressure from the United States and the United Nations, Nepal enacted the Narcotics Drugs (Control) Act of 1976, banning licensing of cannabis dealers and farmers, and declaring cultivation of cannabis unconstitutional. The United States has now legalized cannabis for recreational use in 15 states and two territories, while >40 countries have legalized cannabis for medical use. Nevertheless, Nepal still legally bans cannabis, which has symbolic cultural value as well as economic and medical benefits. Farmers would likely benefit from its legalization. Employment opportunities, tourism, and government revenue would increase. The trade deficit of the country can be reduced by exporting cannabis. The rising public support for the legalization of cannabis has resulted in the recent submission of a bill for its consideration in the Nepal parliament. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the status of cannabis in Nepal, including its history and potential positive impacts if it is made legal.


Motivated by recent work of Florian Pop, we study the connections between three notions of equivalence of function fields: isomorphism, elementary equivalence, and the condition that each of a pair of fields can be embedded in the other, which we call isogeny. Some of our results are purely geometric: we give an isogeny classification of Severi-Brauer varieties and of quadric surfaces. These results are applied to deduce new instances of "elementary equivalence implies isomorphism": for all genus zero curves over a number field, and for certain genus one curves over a number field, including some which are not elliptic curves.


Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the MacArthur Successful Aging Study, this paper examines associations between cognition and indices of health in 224 elderly African Americans 70 to 79 years of age at initial interview. The results indicated that greater average peak expiratory flow was predictive of better cognitive performance at the first interview. One longitudinal analysis showed that gender was the only significant predictor of change (change as a continuous variable) with women tending to slightly improve their cognitive performance over time. When change was treated as a dichotomous variable (e.g., a decline of 6 or more points), lower levels of average peak expiratory flow and education were predictive of decline, and positive self-ratings of current health and changes in health in the past year were important factors in the improvement of cognitive performance. The results indicate that, in addition to education, health is an important predictor of the status and course of cognitive functioning in older African Americans.


Background Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) complicate the interpretation of standard research ethics guidelines for several reasons. For one, the units of allocation, intervention, and observation often may differ within a single trial. In the absence of tailored and internationally accepted ethics guidelines for CRTs, researchers and research ethics committees have no common standard by which to judge ethically appropriate practices in CRTs. Moreover, lack of familiarity with and consideration of the unique features of the CRT design by research ethics committees may cause difficulties in the research ethics review process, and amplify problems such as variability in the requirements and decisions reached by different research ethics committees. Purpose We aimed to characterize research ethics review of CRTs, examine investigator experiences with the ethics review process, and assess the need for ethics guidelines for CRTs. Methods An electronic search strategy implemented in MEDLINE was used to identify and randomly sample 300 CRTs published in English language journals from 2000 to 2008. A web-based survey with closed- and open-ended questions was administered to corresponding authors in a series of six contacts. Results The survey response rate was 64%. Among 182 of 285 eligible respondents, 91% indicated that they had sought research ethics approval for the identified CRT, although only 70% respondents reported research ethics approval in the published article. Nearly one-third (31%) indicated that they have had to meet with ethics committees to explain aspects of their trials, nearly half (46%) experienced variability in the ethics review process in multijurisdictional trials, and 38% experienced negative impacts of the ethics review process on their trials, including delays in trial initiation (28%), increased costs (10%), compromised ability to recruit participants (16%), and compromised methodological quality (9%). Most respondents (74%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 67%–80%) agreed or strongly agreed that there is a need to develop ethics guidelines for CRTs, and (70%; 95% CI: 63%–77%) that ethics committees could be better informed about distinct ethical issues surrounding CRTs. Limitations Thirty-six percent of authors did not respond to the survey. Due to the absence of comparable results from a representative sample of authors of individually randomized trials, it is unclear to what extent the reported challenges result from the CRT design. Conclusions CRT investigators are experiencing challenges in the research ethics review of their trials, including excessive delays, variability in process and outcome, and imposed requirements that can have negative consequences for study conduct. Investigators identified a clear need for ethics guidelines for CRTs and education of research ethics committees about distinct ethical issues in CRTs.


We used retrogradely transported fluorescent tracers to study the development of projections from area 17 to area 18 in normal and monocularly deprived kittens. In newborn animals, cells in area 17 that were labeled from small, discrete injections in area 18 were concentrated around the retinotopically corresponding zone, but distributed with lower density over a very wide surrounding area. Hence, the total convergence and divergence of the projection were initially enormous, but they decreased dramatically, mainly during the first postnatal month, through elimination of the sparse, widespread distribution of projections. Injections of two different tracers close together in area 18 produced very few double-labeled cells in area 17 at any age, implying that most individual axons arborize over very small territories even at birth. In normal kittens the peak density of association cells in the upper layers, corrected for the overall expansion of the cortex, doubled over the first postnatal month and then declined gradually over the following several months, presumably because of continuing selection and elimination. As shown in previous work (Price and Blakemore, 1985a), area 17 to 18 cells in newborn kittens were distributed in two continuous bands in supragranular and infragranular layers. During normal maturation, elimination of projections results in the formation of distinct clusters; these lie preferentially in the upper layers above patches of ipsilateral eye input to layer 4 (Price et al., 1994). Monocular deprivation, which causes the terminal patches representing the deprived eye to become much smaller than normal, did not stop the normal decrease in overall convergence/divergence or the appearance of clusters of association cells, but the clusters were distinctly larger than normal in both hemispheres. Monocular deprivation also prevented the normal reduction in density of association cells within clusters after 1 month of age. Comparison with results from binocularly deprived animals, where clusters also form but association cell density is low, suggests that the size of clusters and the density of association cells retained depend on the overall level of cortical activity.


This dissertation targets to investigate the recent economic crisis and the consequences of this in the shipping industry.
In the beginning is attempted to investigate whether this crisis is associated with other prior equally important and strong crises. The characteristics and its structure are analyzed to identify the causes of the breaches. Then examined from the standpoint of shipping in order to identify the causes of it passed in the industry and the impact of the economic crisis that the whole industry, but in each market separately. Through analyzing the financial statements of some companies attempted an empirical approach to the treatment and responses to questionnaires were distributed to executives of industry ,leading research to important conclusions. Finally, attempts to approximate future conditions, potential opportunities and threats in the industry on the upcoming years.


Radar absorbing structures (RAS) can't only load bearing but also absorb electromagnetic wave energy by inducing dielectric loss and minimizing reflected electromagnetic waves. Therefore, the development of the RAS haves become important to reduce RCS of the object. These composites possess excellent specific stiffness and strength. The electromagnetic wave properties of RAS can be effectively tailored by controlling the content of the lossy materials. Radar absorbing structures composed of glass fibers, carbon fibers and epoxy resin filling with carbon nanotubes (CNTs), was designed and prepared. Permittivity of the composite was measured by using a network analyzer, HP8510B. The contents of composites were observed to be different from each composite. Reflection of electromagnetic waves energy of RAS was calculated by using the genetic algorithm, it was discovered that the composites can be applied to design an optional RAS composites filling with CNTs.