Obtaining linguistic annotation from novice crowdworkers is far from trivial. A case in point is the annotation of discourse relations, which is a complicated task. Recent methods have obtained promising results by extracting relation labels from either discourse connectives (DCs) or question-answer (QA) pairs that participants provide. The current contribution studies the effect of worker selection and training on the agreement on implicit relation labels between workers and gold labels, for both the DC and the QA method. In Study 1, workers were not specifically selected or trained, and the results show that there is much room for improvement. Study 2 shows that a combination of selection and training does lead to improved results, but the method is cost- and time-intensive. Study 3 shows that a selection-only approach is a viable alternative; it results in annotations of comparable quality compared to annotations from trained participants. The results generalized over both the DC and QA method and therefore indicate that a selection-only approach could also be effective for other crowdsourced discourse annotation tasks.


The accuracy of determining marginal bone height changes around osseointegrated implants depends on the validity of comparing serial films and the reliability of the measurements. X-ray beam orientation changes can alter the validity of serial films. A human dry mandible containing a Brånemark implant was irradiated +/- 12 degrees in the vertical plane at 1-degree intervals to the perpendicular to the long axis of the fixture. The thread width was recorded on both sides of each fixture image using a computer. Twenty-five randomized unclassified images were remeasured and the vertical angle of the x-ray beam was estimated from the previous measurements to test for validity of comparing images. The reliability of measurements with altered image magnification and penumbra were calculated. The reliability of 24 repeated thread width measurements was a SD of 0.01 mm. Of the 25 unknown beam angulations, 32 percent matched correctly, 20 percent +/- 1 degree, 16 percent +/- 2 degrees, or 68 percent < or = +/- 2 degrees. Alteration from a short to a long cone technique was estimated to produce magnification errors similar to the reliability SD of 0.01 mm. Similarly the penumbra varied from 0.057 mm to 0.032 mm with short to long cones using a 1.0-mm focal spot. With a 0.6-mm focal spot, the smallest penumbra of 0.19 mm was twice the measurement reliability. This method demonstrated x-ray beam angulation and validity for comparing serial films can be estimated for the extreme variations but not accurately for +9 to -6 degrees from a tangent to the fixture.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Present study deals with a brief review of the quality control tests for the eye preparations as per the different pharmacopoeias. The quality control tests for eye preparations are different in the different pharmacopoeias like IP, BP, and USP. Eye preparations are sterile liquid, semi-solid or solid preparations intended for administration upon the eyeball and/or to the conjunctiva, or for insertion in the conjunctival sac.It is necessary to know the quality requirements of the different pharmacopoeias for the eye preparations as it is required and important to guarantee the quality product and their supply in different markets of the world. The main aim of the study is to compare the quality control tests for eye preparations as per the IP, BP and USP. The formulations which are taken in to consideration are eye drops, eye ointments, powders for eye drops and eye lotions, semi-solid eye preparations, ophthalmic inserts and eye lotions (or) eye solutions. The types of tests/parameters, procedures and the pharmacopoeial limits/specifications for eye preparations were compared.The quality control tests for different eye preparations are more elaborately given in IP and BP in comparison to USP. The available tests and limits supplement each other and one pharmacopoeia gives more details on a specific test than the other. For eg: Powders for eye drops and eyelotions, semi-solid eye preparations, ophthalmic insertswere specifically given in BP.


In history, games have always been there and companion of children and youth. Today, ancient traditional and education games have been forgotten and replaced by destructive computer games. Card games are among the traditional tools that can be used for educational purposes. This article seeks to introduce the process of producing and innovative product called CARTIN and answers to the question regarding the key characteristics of the graphic values of educational card games. The aim of this research is to present a suitable graphical approach for the development of the cards by considering the graphic fundamentals and standardization with respect to wide space and its popularity in the community. The study is practical and conducted with a descriptive-analytical method. The data collection is through library and field survey. The appearance, new design, innovative graphic and packaging materials are significant. Using warm, happy, lively, transparent and bright colors along with appropriate logotypes will be beneficial in organizational identity. Suitable size for the card has been 9 by 5.7 cm and 250 grams glossy cardboard material with a UV cover.


Abstract Sickle cell disease is an inherited disorder of the blood, and characterized by vasoocclusive crises (VOC), risks for pneumococcal infections and organ toxicities, is associated with morbidity and premature mortality. India, with a population of 1.2 billion individuals, is estimated to be home to over 50.0% of the world's patients with sickle cell disease. The βS gene [β6(A3)Glu→Val; HBB: c.20A>T] has the highest prevalence in three socio-economically disadvantaged ethnic categories: the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Class (OBC) groups in India. The tradition of endogamy practiced by the ethnic groups in India provides the rationale for the screening of individual populations to better understand the distribution of the βS gene, guide counseling and awareness programs and aid development of public policy. We undertook a study to describe the prevalence of the βS gene in these ethnic groups in the district of Nagpur, Maharashtra in Central India. Through community screening and subsequent targeted screening of high risk individuals, 35,636 individuals were screened, of whom 5466 were found to have sickle cell trait and 1010 were identified with sickle cell disease. Community screening revealed a sickle cell trait prevalence of 13.0% in the SC, 12.0% in the ST and 3.4% in the OBC population. This study describes the prevalence of the βS gene within these groups in Central India determined by large scale community screening. This program has uncovered previously undiagnosed cases, provided detailed information to guide population-based disease counseling, prevention and comprehensive care programs.


Two adult patients with brainstem glioma were successfully treated surgically. A 37-year-old male had a dorsally exophytic pontine glioma developing from the fourth ventricular fundus, and another 27-year-old male an intrinsic nodular mesencephalic glioma. Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging clearly visualized the tumor margin in both cases, and showed the relationship between the tumor and brainstem structure accurately. The tumors were radically excised using intraoperative evoked potential monitoring, ultrasonic surgical aspirator, and microsurgical techniques. Surgery is indicated when the tumor margin in the brainstem and adjacent region is clear, and the approach is possible without affecting the functional prognosis.


The Crimean Mountains (CM) are regarded as part of the Alpine-Himalaya orogenic belt related to the collision of the Eurasian and African plates. Our research in the CM has allowed confirming the existence of at least two flysch formations of different ages: the Taurida Flysch Formation (Upper Triassic/Lower–? Middle Jurassic) and the Sudak Formation (uppermost Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous) in the western and eastern sectors of the CM, respectively. After the Middle Jurassic volcanism, the freshwater claystones with coal-bearing intercalations, as well as local alluvial fan conglomerates were deposited. Then, following the Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian marine transgression, three separated Tithonian/Berriasian carbonate platforms developed: Baydarska, Chatyr-Dag and Demerji/Karabi. At the turn of the Late Jurassic, the deep-water Sudak Basin (eastern sector of the CM) began to develop in the eastern periphery of the Demerji/Karabi carbonate platform. This basin, dominated by turbiditic deposition, was probably connected with the Great Caucasus sedimentary system. Finally, distal flysch sedimentation in the Sudak Basin was followed by debris-flow deposits, with huge blocks of Upper Jurassic limestones. These blocks were derived from destruction of the Karabi carbonate platform. During the Berriasian/Valanginian, the eastern sector of the CM began to subside. As a result, both carbonate platforms (western CM) and the debris flow fans of the Sudak Basin (eastern CM) were overlain by marly shales and/or distal turbidites. This type of deposition lasted until the Aptian/Albian. In the post-Albian period, the Alushta-Salgir tectonic zone was transformed into a SE-dipping thrust fault with at least 10 km amplitude of overthrusting.


System identification is the art of modelling of a process (physical, biological,
etc.) or to predict its behaviour or output when the environment condition
or parameter changes. One is modelling the input-output relationship of a system,
for example, linking temperature of a greenhouse (output) to the sunlight intensity
(input), power of a car engine (output) with fuel injection rate (input). In linear
systems, changing an input parameter will result in a proportional increase in the
system output. This is not the case in a nonlinear system. Linear system identification
has been extensively studied, more so than nonlinear system identification.
Since most systems are nonlinear to some extent, there is significant interest in this
topic as industrial processes become more and more complex.
In a linear dynamical system, knowing the impulse response function of a
system will allow one to predict the output given any input. For nonlinear systems
this is not the case. If advanced theory is not available, it is possible to approximate
a nonlinear system by a linear one. One tool is the Best Linear Approximation
(Bla), which is an impulse response function of a linear system that minimises the
output differences between its nonlinear counterparts for a given class of input. The
Bla is often the starting point for modelling a nonlinear system. There is extensive
literature on the Bla obtained from input signals with a Gaussian probability
density function (p.d.f.), but there has been very little for other kinds of inputs.
A Bla estimated from Gaussian inputs is useful in decoupling the linear dynamics
from the nonlinearity, and in initialisation of parameterised models. As Gaussian
inputs are not always practical to be introduced as excitations, it is important to
investigate the dependence of the Bla on the amplitude distribution in more detail.
This thesis studies the behaviour of the Bla with regards to other types of signals,
and in particular, binary sequences where a signal takes only two levels. Such an
input is valuable in many practical situations, for example where the input actuator
is a switch or a valve and hence can only be turned either on or off.
While it is known in the literature that the Bla depends on the amplitude
distribution of the input, as far as the author is aware, there is a lack of comprehensive
theoretical study on this topic. In this thesis, the Blas of discrete-time
time-invariant nonlinear systems are studied theoretically for white inputs with an arbitrary amplitude distribution, including Gaussian and binary sequences. In doing
so, the thesis offers answers to fundamental questions of interest to system engineers,
for example: 1) How the amplitude distribution of the input and the system
dynamics affect the Bla? 2) How does one quantify the difference between the
Bla obtained from a Gaussian input and that obtained from an arbitrary input?
3) Is the difference (if any) negligible? 4) What can be done in terms of experiment
design to minimise such difference?
To answer these questions, the theoretical expressions for the Bla have been
developed for both Wiener-Hammerstein (Wh) systems and the more general Volterra
systems. The theory for the Wh case has been verified by simulation and physical
experiments in Chapter 3 and Chapter 6 respectively. It is shown in Chapter 3
that the difference between the Gaussian and non-Gaussian Bla's depends on the
system memory as well as the higher order moments of the non-Gaussian input.
To quantify this difference, a measure called the Discrepancy Factor—a measure of
relative error, was developed. It has been shown that when the system memory is
short, the discrepancy can be as high as 44.4%, which is not negligible. This justifies
the need for a method to decrease such discrepancy. One method is to design a random
multilevel sequence for Gaussianity with respect to its higher order moments,
and this is discussed in Chapter 5.
When estimating the Bla even in the absence of environment and measurement
noise, the nonlinearity inevitably introduces nonlinear distortions—deviations
from the Bla specific to the realisation of input used. This also explains why more
than one realisation of input and averaging is required to obtain a good estimate of
the Bla. It is observed that with a specific class of pseudorandom binary sequence
(Prbs), called the maximum length binary sequence (Mlbs or the m-sequence), the
nonlinear distortions appear structured in the time domain. Chapter 4 illustrates
a simple and computationally inexpensive method to take advantage this structure
to obtain better estimates of the Bla—by replacing mean averaging by median
averaging.
Lastly, Chapters 7 and 8 document two independent benchmark studies separate
from the main theoretical work of the thesis. The benchmark in Chapter 7 is
concerned with the modelling of an electrical Wh system proposed in a special session
of the 15th International Federation of Automatic Control (Ifac) Symposium on
System Identification (Sysid) 2009 (Schoukens, Suykens & Ljung, 2009). Chapter 8
is concerned with the modelling of a 'hyperfast' Peltier cooling system first proposed
in the U.K. Automatic Control Council (Ukacc) International Conference
on Control, 2010 (Control 2010).


Porosity, as a manufacturing process-induced defect, highly affects the mechanical properties of cured composites. There are several contributing factors to the formation of porosity in composite structures, most notably entrapped air, bag leaks, and volatiles or off gassing. These sources highlight the multi-scale and multi-physics nature of the formation of porosity which make it such a challenging problem to solve. Understanding how these mechanisms contribute to the formation of porosity becomes a key tool in minimizing their negative effect. Experimental evidences show that local resin pressure history plays a major role in void growth during a cure cycle. Local reductions in resin pressure due to factors such as geometric features or cure shrinkage can lead to growth of existing voids and increase the likelihood of porosity becoming locked into the final part structure. Prediction of local resin pressure has been the focus of this approach to modeling the cure of composite structures. This study is focused on developing an efficient FE modeling framework to simulate the resin pressure and porosity (bubble) formation in a composite part. The case study presented here features a laminate with ply drop-off subjected to compaction pressure via a caul plate.


Case studies that examine how firms coordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information—information not equally available to all parties—are the focus of this volume. In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of coordination, but in the real world of incomplete information, some activities are better coordinated in other ways. Divided into three parts, this book addresses coordination within firms, at the borders of firms, and outside firms, providing a picture of the overall incidence and logic of economic coordination. The case studies—drawn from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the modern business enterprise was evolving, address such issues as the relationship between coordination mechanisms and production techniques, the logic of coordination in industrial districts, and the consequences of regulation for coordination. Continuing the work on information and organization presented in the influential Inside the Business Enterprise , this book provides material for business historians and economists who want to study the development of the dissemination of information and the coordination of economic activity within and between firms.


Effects of detergents such as cholate, deoxycholate and Triton X-100 were studied on N-and ring-hydroxylation of 2-acetamidofluorene by reconstituted and unresolved microsomal systems from livers of hamsters pretreated with 3-methylcholanthrene. Triton X-100 (2.5 mg/nmol of cytochrome P-448) inhibited N-and ring-hydroxylation by wholemicrosomal preparations by 40 and 90% respectively Deoxycholate at the same concentration inhibited both hydroxylations completely, whereas cholate inhibited N-and ring-hydroxylation by 40 and 50% respectively. In reconstitution studies, the presence of Triton X-100(0.5-1.0mg/nmol of cytochrome P-448) along with unsolubilized cytochrome P-448 fraction and solubilized reductase fraction increased N-hydroxylation to an appreciable extent compared with ring-hydroxylation. Both cholate and deoxycholate at 0.5-1.0 mg concentrations had a greater stimulatory effect on ring-than on N-hydroxylation activity in such a reconstituted system.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of the physical activity promotion program on physical function and quality of life in the elderly. Method: The research was designed with one single pre-post group. The study group of 295 elderlies were selected through the convenience sampling form in a senior citizen's center in Ulsan city. The subjects received the physical activity promotion program for 60 min three times a week for 3 months. To evaluation the effects of the physical activity promotion program, body mass index (BMI), physiological index, physical function (muscle endurance, agility, balance) and quality of life were measured at before and after the program. The data was analyzed through SPSS 10.0 program for descriptive statistics and paired t-test. Result: After performing the physical action promotion program for 3 months, the results were follows. 1) There were significantly increased in BMI (t=4.36, p=.000). 2) There were significantly decreased in diastolic pressure (t=.68, p=.009). 3) There were significantly improved in muscle endurance (t=6.50, p=.000), agility (t=4.74, p=.000) and Rt. leg balance (t=4.15, p=.000). 4) There were significantly improved in quality of life (t=7.28, p=.000). Conclusion: These findings showed that the physical activity promotion program was effective in improving physical function and quality of life in the elderly. Therefore, the physical activity promotion program could be applied as an effective nursing intervention program for the elderly to promote their health.


The current literature on pluralities is mainly concerned with definite plurals in existential contexts and the implicit assumption is that indefinite plurals are to be analyzed in the same way, as sums of individuals (Link 1983, Landman 2000) in the general case or as groups in more specific cases (see in particular collective readings). We will argue that although plural indefinites can be modeled as sums of individuals in those contexts in which they are either bound by existential closure or indirectly bound by an operator that quantifies over events, they cannot do so when they are directly bound by an adverbial quantifier; in the latter context, plural indefinites can only be represented as groups: binary quantifiers cannot denote a relation between two sets of sums, but only a relation between two sets of groups. This generalization will be shown to follow from an individuability constraint on quantification. Quantification requires individuability and, as argued by Landman (1989a,b) only groups, but not sums, are individuable entities. But one may still wonder whether the generic quantifier can access the members of sums, which are known to be accessible to distributive predication. To put it differently, one should explain why it is not possible to randomly fix a sum and to allow the generic adverb to quantify over its members. We will claim that it is impossible for generic sentences to restrict the generalization to a particular domain. Quantification over (groups of) individuals will be distinguished from quantification over events combined with the indirect binding of a variable supplied by an indefinite (plural). Such indirectly bound plural indefinites can be modeled as sums of individuals. The generic readings of French plural indefinites headed by des 'some' will provide us with the core testing ground. The analysis will shed new light on the generic readings of English bare plurals.


The use of pipelines is an important technique in contemporary hardware design, particularly at the level of register-transfer logic (RTL). Earlier formal analysis (e.g., 4]) using the ACL2 theorem prover showed cor-rectness of pipelined oating-point RTL. This paper extends that work by considering a notion of a conditional pipeline, essentially the result of sharing hardware among several distinct pipelines. We have employed a pipeline tool, written in ACL2 but completely unveriied, to nd a pipeline-related bug in an industrial hardware design, which has since been corrected. We then enhanced this tool to generate lemmas that we have used to prove properties of the corrected design. This paper presents a theoretical basis for this tool and describes its design and operation at an abstract level, showing how it ts into the correctness proof. This work may be viewed, from a high-level perspective, as encouragement for formal veriiers to prove properties of the actual RTL-level models, rather than stopping with their various abstractions.


: A case of multiple esophagogastric fistulas is reported along with the endoscopic and radiological findings. The literature is reviewed. There is only one other case report of multiple, isolated esophagogastric fistulas described by Mullen, et al (1975). In that individual the etiologic factor was previous esophageal surgery for stricture. In the patient reported here, the long history of reflux symptoms and endoscopic and biopsy findings strongly suggest a causal relationship. Fistula formation may be an additional complication of prolonged gastroesophageal reflux.


Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) is an essential cofactor of nitric oxide synthase (NOS), but its function is not fully understood. Specifically, it is unclear whether BH4 participates directly in electron transfer. We investigated the redox properties of BH4 and several other pteridines with cyclic voltammetry and Osteryoung square wave voltammetry. BH4 was oxidized at a potential of +0.27 V vs normal hydrogen electrode (NHE); the corresponding reductive signal after the reversal of the scan direction was very small. Instead, reduction occurred at a potential of -0.16 V vs NHE; there was no corresponding oxidative signal. These two transitions were interdependent, indicating that the reductive wave at -0.16 V represented the regeneration of BH4 from its product of oxidation at +0.27 V. Similar voltammograms were obtained with tetrahydroneopterin and 6,7-dimethyltetrahydropterin, both of which can substitute for BH4 in NOS catalysis. Completely different voltammograms were obtained with 7,8-dihydrobiopterin, sepiapterin, 2'-deoxysepiapterin, and autoxidized BH4. These 7,8-dihydropterins, which do not sustain NOS catalysis, were oxidized at much higher potentials (+0.82-1.04 V vs NHE), and appreciable reduction did not occur between +1.2 and -0.8 V, in line with the concept of a redox role for BH4 in NOS catalysis. However, the electrochemical properties of the potent pterin-site NOS inhibitor 4-amino-BH4 resembled those of BH4, whereas the active pterin cofactor 5-methyl-BH4 was not re-reduced after oxidation. We conclude that the 2-electron redox cycling of the pterin cofactor between BH4 and quinonoid dihydrobiopterin is not essential for NO synthesis. The data are consistent with 1-electron redox cycling between BH4 and the trihydrobiopterin radical BH3(*).


A new delay-insensitive data encoding scheme for global communication, level-encoded transition signaling (LETS), is introduced. LETS is a generalization of level-encoded dual rail (LEDR), an earlier non-return-to-zero encoding scheme where one of two wires changes value per data bit per transaction. In LETS, only one of N = 2n (1-of-N) wire changes value per n data bits per transaction. Compared to most common return-to-zero encoding schemes, LETS has potential power and throughput advantages, since fewer rails switch and no return-to-zero phase is required. Compared to existing nonreturn-to-zero schemes (i.e., LEDR), higher-dimension LETS codes have a potential power advantage, with significantly reduced switching activity per data bit.Two alternative 1-of-4 LETS codes are proposed, and efficient hardware for completion detection and conversion to return-to-zero protocols is introduced. Finally, a general theoretical framework is presented which characterizes the properties of arbitrary 1-of-N LETS codes, as well as a simple procedure to generate such codes.


Background Recent studies report a high prevalence of shoulder problems in senior team handball players but studies in adolescent players are lacking. Objective To measure the season prevalence of substantial shoulder problems (SSP) in elite adolescent handball players. Design Longitudinal cohort study with weekly online follow-ups. Setting Elite adolescent male and female handball players at handball-profiled high schools in Sweden. Participants 471 (54% females, mean age 16) were recruited from 10 of 15 national handball-profiled high schools. Assessment of Risk Factors The prevalence of SSP, stratified by age, was assessed through repeated online questionnaire data. Main Outcome Measurements Season prevalence of SSP during the previous handball season was measured during the pre-season (baseline), and was studied prospectively during the current season via weekly reports using the OSTRC Overuse Injury Questionnaire. SSP was defined as problems leading to moderate or severe reductions in handball participation or performance, or to time-loss. Results The weekly response rate was 86–96% and 83% of the players responded to at least 90% of the weekly reports. The previous season prevalence measured at baseline was 8% (95% CI 5–11%) among players in the 1st grade and 20% (95% CI (15–26%) in the 2nd and 3rd grades. During the prospective season, 22% (95% CI 17–27%) of players in the 1st grade reported having SSP, and 27% of players in the 2nd and 3rd grades. Of those with SSP at some point during the previous season, 67% (95% CI 54–77%) also reported SSP at least once during the prospective season. Conclusions The season prevalence of SSP is high among adolescent handball players and the prevalence increases when the players start high school. A majority of players with previous SSP also report subsequent SSP problems indicating that the pre-high school period is where prevention strategies preferably should be implemented.


Accurately predicting the binding affinity between drugs and proteins is an essential step for computational drug discovery. Since graph neural networks (GNNs) have demonstrated remarkable success in various graph-related tasks, GNNs have been considered as a promising tool to improve the binding affinity prediction in recent years. However, most of the existing GNN architectures can only encode the topological graph structure of drugs and proteins without considering the relative spatial information among their atoms. Whereas, different from other graph datasets such as social networks and commonsense knowledge graphs, the relative spatial position and chemical bonds among atoms have significant impacts on the binding affinity. To this end, in this paper, we propose a diStance-aware Molecule graph Attention Network (S-MAN) tailored to drug-target binding affinity prediction. As a dedicated solution, we first propose a position encoding mechanism to integrate the topological structure and spatial position information into the constructed pocket-ligand graph. Moreover, we propose a novel edge-node hierarchical attentive aggregation structure which has edge-level aggregation and node-level aggregation. The hierarchical attentive aggregation can capture spatial dependencies among atoms, as well as fuse the position-enhanced information with the capability of discriminating multiple spatial relations among atoms. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on two standard datasets to demonstrate the effectiveness of S-MAN.


Introduction: Borderline acetabular dysplasia is classically defined as a lateral center edge angle (LCEA) of 20-25 degrees. The optimal treatment strategy in this patient group remains controversial, with some patients having primarily hip instability-based symptoms, while others have primarily impingement-based symptoms (non-instability). The purpose of the current study was to define the 3D characteristics on low-dose CT that differentiate patients with instability symptoms from those without instability in the setting of borderline acetabular dysplasia. Methods: Seventy consecutive hips with borderline acetabular dysplasia undergoing surgical treatment were included in the current study. All patients underwent low-dose pelvic CT with femoral version assessment for preoperative planning. CT measurements included alpha angle and radial acetabular coverage (RAC) at standardized clockface positions (9:00-posterior to 3:00-anterior), central and cranial acetabular version. RAC was assessed in three sectors (anterior, superior, and posterior) and defined (relative to published normative data) as normal (-1 SD, +1 SD), undercoverage (<-1 SD), or overcoverage (>+1 SD). Statistical analysis was performed to compare the CT characteristics of the symptomatic instability and non-instability groups. Results: Of the 70 hips, 62.9% had the diagnosis of symptomatic instability, while 37.1% had no instability symptoms. Hips with instability (compared to non-instability) had significantly lower alpha angle (maximal difference at 1:00 - 47.0° vs. 59.4°), increased femoral version (22.3° vs. 15.3°), and decreased radial acetabular coverage (maximal difference at 1:00 – 59.9% vs. 62.2%) (all p<0.001). Multivariate analysis identified femoral version (OR 1.1, p=0.02), alpha angle at 1:00 (OR 0.91, p=0.02), and RAC at 1:00 (OR 0.46, p=0.003) as independent predictors of the presence of instability. The model combining these three factors had excellent predictive probability with a c-statistic 0.92. Conclusion: We found significant differences in the 3D hip morphology of the symptomatic instability and non-instability subgroups within the borderline dysplasia cohort. In the setting of borderline dysplasia, three-dimensional deformity characterization with low-dose CT allowed for differentiation of patients diagnosed with underlying instability vs. non-instability. Femoral version, alpha angle at 1:00, and radial acetabular coverage at 1:00 were identified as independent predictors of diagnosis in borderline acetabular dysplasia. Summary: This study attempts to define 3D CT characteristics to help distinguish between patients with impingement-based vs instability-based symptoms of borderline acetabular dysplasia.


X-ray-radiation-induced alterations to protein structures are still a severe problem in macromolecular crystallography. One way to avoid the influence of radiation damage is to reduce the X-ray dose absorbed by the crystal during data collection. However, here it is demonstrated using the example of the membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin (bR) that even a low dose of less than 0.06 MGy may induce structural alterations in proteins. This dose is about 500 times smaller than the experimental dose limit which should ideally not be exceeded per data set (i.e. 30 MGy) and 20 times smaller than previously detected specific radiation damage at the bR active site. To date, it is the lowest dose at which radiation modification of a protein structure has been described. Complementary use was made of high-resolution X-ray crystallography and online microspectrophotometry to quantitatively study low-dose X-ray-induced changes. It is shown that structural changes of the protein correlate with the spectroscopically observed formation of the so-called bR orange species. Evidence is provided for structural modifications taking place at the protein active site that should be taken into account in crystallographic studies which aim to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of bR function.


The contemporary popular or new religious landscape in Sweden — arenas with religious elements outside the established churches — is large and multifaceted. Religion is today expressed in different localities, like retreat centers, health centers and gyms, and can manifest as for example healing, mindfulness, seances, coaching and body therapies. The boundaries between religious and secular arenas are becoming increasingly blurred. The popular or new religiosity is firmly rooted in older traditions, but also expresses creative innovation as a result of globalization, secularism, individualism and the impact of psychological and therapeutic orientations. The book is based on a local study of contemporary popular or new religiosity in the area of Dalarna, Sweden. Religious expression always reflects its time. One of the book's purposes is to explore how religion is perceived in our time and how Christianity has shaped our view of what belongs to the "religion" and what is seen as "superstition". To understand religion it is necessary to study its practical everyday expressions.


Synoptic searches for the optical counterpart to a binary neutron star (BNS) or neutron star-black hole (NSBH) merger can pose significant challenges towards the discovery of kilonovae and performing multi-messenger science. In this work, we describe the advantage of a global multi-telescope network towards this end, with a particular focus on the key and complementary role the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) plays in multi-facility follow-up. We describe the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) Marshal, a common web application we built to ingest events, plan observations, search for transient candidates, and retrieve performance summary statistics for all of the telescopes in our network. Our infrastructure enabled us to conduct observations of two events during O3a, S190426c and S190510g. Furthermore, our analysis of deep DECam observations of S190814bv conducted by the DESGW team, and access to a variety of global follow-up facilities allowed us to place meaningful constraints on the parameters of the kilonova and the merging binary. We emphasize the importance of a global telescope network in conjunction with a power telescope like DECam in performing searches for the counterparts to gravitational-wave sources.


4 ABSTRACT: Fault diagnosis is an ongoing significant research field due to the constantly increasing need for maintain ability, reliability and safety of industrial plants. The pneumatic actuators are installed in harsh environment: high temperature, pressure, aggressive media and vibration, etc. This influenced the pneumatic actuator predicted life time. The failures in pneumatic actuator cause forces the installation shut down and may also determine the final quality of the product. A fuzzy logic based approach is implemented to detect the external faults such as Actuator vent blockage, Diaphragm leakage and in correct supply pressure. The fuzzy system is able to identify the actuator condition with high accuracy by monitoring five parameters. The parameter selection is based on the committee of DAMADICS (Development and Application of Methods for Actuator Diagnosis in Industrial Control Systems). The Fuzzy Inference Systems were implemented in real time using MATLAB and the results prove that the system can effectively classify all the types of external faults.


We are investigating the effectiveness of parallel weighted- least-square (WLS) state estimation solvers on shared-memory parallel computers. Shared-memory parallel architectures are rapidly becoming ubiquitous due to the advent of multi-core processors. In the current evaluation, we are using an LU-based solver as well as a conjugate gradient (CG)-based solver for a 1177-bus system. In lieu of a very wide multi-core system we evaluate the effectiveness of the solvers on an SGI Altix system on up to 32 processors. On this platform, as expected, the shared memory implementation (pthreads) of the LU solver was found to be more efficient than the MPI version. Our implementation of the CG solver scales and performs significantly better than the state-of-the-art implementation of the LU solver: with CG we can solve the problem 4.75 times faster than using LU. These findings indicate that CG algorithms should be quite effective on multicore processors


Background Campus violence is more and more focused in the global. It not only can result in kinds of injuries (eg, physical, mental, sexual) for individual, but also can lead to huge damages to family and society. Objectives To explore the incidence and risk factors of campus violence in Guangzhou. Methods Undergraduates in three key universities in Guangzhou were selected to complete the questionnaire by cluster sampling method in 2010. Logistic regression method was used. Results The incidence of campus violence was 69.9% in 2103 undergraduates. Male versus female was 75.6%, 63.8% (p<0.01). Perpetrator versus victim was 63.6%, 55.3%. Perpetrator and victim in male and female was 70.9%, 60.0% and 55.7%, 50.1%, respectively (p total<0.01). The severity of campus violence was psychological (68.0%), sexual (34.2%) and physical (16.5%). Male, arts, non-single children, lack of living expenses, playing computer games, playing tricks, loving violence programme, mother had gamble behaviour, father had indulgent education style, being bullied before high school, dissatisfaction with campus' environment, being badly treated by primary school teacher were the risk factors for perpetrator. Female, minority, non-single children, bad behaviour, family economic hardship, mother had gamble behaviour, father had indulgent education style, physical punishment was occasionally given by mother, being bullied before high school, high pressure during study, dissatisfaction with campus' environment, being badly treated by primary school teacher were the risk factors for victim. Significance/Contribution to the Field The campus violence in Guangzhou is serious, especially the psychological and sexual violence.


Ripples and impurity atoms are universally present in 2D materials, limiting carrier mobility, creating pseudo–magnetic fields, or affecting the electronic and magnetic properties. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) generally provides picometer-level precision in the determination of the location of atoms or atomic 'columns' in the in-image plane (xy plane). However, precise atomic positions in the z-direction as well as the presence of certain impurities are difficult to detect. Furthermore, images containing moiré patterns such as those in angle-mismatched bilayer graphene compound the problem by limiting the determination of atomic positions in the xy plane. Here, we introduce a reconstructive approach for the analysis of STEM images of twisted bilayers that combines the accessible xy coordinates of atomic positions in a STEM image with density-functional-theory calculations. The approach allows us to determine all three coordinates of all atomic positions in the bilayer and establishes the presence and identity of impurities. The deduced strain-induced rippling in a twisted bilayer graphene sample is consistent with the continuum model of elasticity. We also find that the moiré pattern induces undulations in the z direction that are approximately an order of magnitude smaller than the strain-induced rippling. A single substitutional impurity, identified as nitrogen, is detected. The present reconstructive approach can, therefore, distinguish between moiré and strain-induced effects and allows for the full reconstruction of 3D positions and atomic identities.


Folk wisdom suggests playing hard to get is an effective strategy in romantic attraction. However, prior research has yielded little support for this belief. This article seeks to reconcile these contrasting views by investigating how 2 hitherto unconsidered factors, (a) the asymmetry between wanting (motivational) and liking (affective) responses and (b) the degree of psychological commitment, can determine the efficacy of playing hard to get. We propose that person B playing hard to get with person A will simultaneously increase A's wanting but decrease A's liking of B. However, such a result will only occur if A is psychologically committed to pursuing further relations with B; otherwise, playing hard to get will decrease both wanting and liking. Two studies confirm these propositions. We discuss implications for interpersonal attraction and the interplay between emotion and motivation in determining preferences.


Lockheed Building 157 is one of the United States' largest experiments in contemporary daylighting. Built in 1983, the five story structure houses 3,000 employees and uses daylight for ambient illumination throughout its 56,000-m{sup 2} office interior. A continuously dimmable fluorescent lighting system supplements interior daylight under the control of open-loop ceiling-mounted photosensors. In 1985 Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) began a year-long program to measure lighting system performance in the building. Data from this study indicated that architectural features of the building performed admirably, admitting significant daylight to large areas of the open plan interior. Operational savings, however, were limited by inappropriate performance of the control system in many of the building's lighting circuits. LBL recently completed a follow-up investigation of the lighting systems in Building 157 addressing the interaction between daylight and the lighting control system with the goal of improving control system performance. We modified a 1,700-m{sup 2} test zone by relocating the photosensors, attenuating the photosensor control signal, changing the response pattern of the photosensors, and implementing a LBL-developed calibration procedure, Following these modifications, we installed four data-acquisition systems and collected detailed data describing illuminance and lighting power demand during two week periods in the summer, equinox, andmore » winter seasons. This paper presents a comparison of lighting system performance before and after the LBL modifications. Analysis of the data indicates our modifications were successful in maintaining interior illuminance at the target of 350 lux with minimal electric energy consumption. 10 refs., 9 figs.« less


In this paper, we present an attention mechanism scheme to improve the person re-identification task. Inspired by biology, we propose Self Attention Grid (SAG) to discover the most informative parts from a high-resolution image using its internal representation. In particular, given an input image, the proposed model is fed with two copies of the same image and consists of two branches. The upper branch processes the high-resolution image and learns high dimensional feature representation while the lower branch processes the low-resolution image and learns a filtering attention grid. We apply a max filter operation to non-overlapping sub-regions on the high feature representation before element-wise multiplied with the output of the second branch. The feature maps of the second branch are subsequently weighted to reflect the importance of each patch of the grid using a softmax operation. Our attention module helps the network to learn the most discriminative visual features of multiple image regions and is specifically optimized to attend feature representation at different levels. Extensive experiments on three large-scale datasets show that our self-attention mechanism significantly improves the baseline model and outperforms various state-of-art models by a large margin.


Highly substituted indenes have been prepared in good yields by the palladium-catalyzed carboannulation of diethyl 2-(2-(1-alkynyl)phenyl)malonate with aryl, benzylic, and alkenyl halides. The reaction conditions and the scope of the process were examined, and a possible mechanism is proposed.


K C M Y nnnn We report on a premature newborn girl delivered after 32 weeks of gestation by cesarean section after sparse limb movements, fetal tachycardia and late heart rate decelerations had suggested fetal distress. Following 1 day of mechanical ventilation, adequate pulmonary gas exchange was achieved by spontaneous breathing. Main symptoms were virtually complete absence of spontaneous movements, increased flexor tonus of the extremities, and hypotonia of the trunk. Inability to suck or swallow required nasogastric gavage feeding. There were no hypoglycemic episodes. Echocardiography revealed normal myocardial function. Creatine kinase was 237 U/l at 2 days of life, declining to normal values thereafter. Muscle biopsy revealed increased glycogen storage with subsarcolemmal glycogen deposits and low phosphorylase-a activity while total phosphorylase was normal after in vitro activation, suggestive of phosphorylase-b kinase deficiency. No mutation was detected in exon 1 of the myophosphorylase gene. No psychomotor development was observed, and the infant died of central apnea at 3 months of age.


China's urban transformation since 1978 is notable for both its scale and speed. Focusing on the dimension of speed, we propose the concept of the 'urban speed machine' to assess its role in shaping the politics and political economy of Chinese urbanization. We argue that in China speed must not be understood merely by means of measurable outcomes of change, but rather that speed is an essential and vital element embedded within China's specific processes and mechanisms driving urban growth. In this sense, speed is constantly at the forefront of local cadres' considerations, since moving fast to achieve urban growth is an expression of political imperatives and pervasive city‐based accumulation strategies. The Chinese urban speed machine, as we conceive it, mainly involves three state‐dominated institutional arenas: the Communist party's personnel review system, the planning mechanism and local finance. We also discuss regional variability vis‐a‐vis the nature of speed in urbanization and in the differing responses to problems of fast‐city growth in recent years. This article's core contributions are to clarify the paramount importance of speed in the political economy of urban growth and illuminate a relational understanding of the politics of speed in China's urban change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


We give an overview of multilingual speech synthesis using the IPOX system. The first part discusses work in progress for various languages: Tashlhit Berber, Urdu and Dutch. The second part discusses a multilingual phonological grammar, which can be adapted to a particular language by setting parameters and adding language-specific details.


Abstract

This study investigates the impacts of the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index, the NASDAQ Volatility Index (VXN), the spot prices of gold and silver, and the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) on the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). Specifically, the proposed arbitrage pricing theory (APT) model, programmed by Python, performs multi-factor regression analysis that analyzes the degree of impact measured by the beta coefficient of systematic risks on each factor. Our samples include daily transaction data from 2007 to 2018, divided into three periods to assess the VIX's impact for each sub-period. The three periods are entitled as the "Global Financial Crisis Period" (2007–2009), the "European Debt Crisis Period" (2010–2012), and the "Follow-up Period" (2013–2018). Empirical results show that the major factors are the S&P 500 index and the VXN, with the DXY being a minor factor. Moreover, both gold and silver spot prices have a significant impact on the VIX.

Keywords: VIX, Global financial crisis, European debt crisis, Systematic risk, Arbitrage pricing theory, Multi-factor regression model, Schwarz's inequality, Triangle inequality.


Using the Internet for electronic business has become an area of action for the Australian Government. Programs have focused on raising the awareness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to the opportunities offered by doing business on-line. Research into electronic business has reported adoption rates within particular industry sectors, but has not provided a theoretical framework for studying the process of diffusion of this dynamic interactive innovation, particularly in relation to explaining the levels of adoption and factors that affect the rate of adoption. The goal of this dissertation was to address this limitation by proposing a framework, and testing it with a series of integrated empirical studies into the diffusion of electronic business in Australian manufacturing SMEs. Specifically, it answered the following question: Is the model of innovation adoption relevant to doing business on-line? Rogers' (1995) diffusion of innovation theory has been applied to attempt to account for the multiple pathways to adoption and the various multi-way communication channels. The role of the Model of Internet Commerce Adoption (MICA) (Burgess & Cooper, 1998b) was also explored within the total diffusion process. A series of integrated studies was undertaken, using a triangular research methodology consisting of survey and case study interviews, to gather empirical data to apply to a theoretical study to test the research question. Business-to-business (B2B) dealings in R.Lawson in Abstract the manufacturing industry in Australia was the focus of the studies. The manufacturing industry has experienced productivity improvements in recent years, and the outlook is strong. SMEs was the unit of study as these organisations are ideally placed to gain a competitive advantage in global trade, and therefore make valuable use of electronic business. In addition, SMEs were less likely to have dedicated information technology (IT) staff, which allowed the research to concentrate on the SMEs and their experiences in the diffusion process. The initial and replication studies used the survey method and case study interviews with participating organisations in two equivalent manufacturing regions. A comparative study was undertaken to determine similarities and differences between the regions, and between small and medium organisations. Interviews were used to examine the role of national and regional industry associations as change agents in the diffusion process. Qualitative analysis of government initiatives provided a complete picture of what is available for manufacturing SMEs as a group in Australia. The findings from these studies was applied to the theoretical study, which tested the viability of existing models as evaluation tools for research into the dynamic interactive innovation of electronic business. The results of the empirical studies indicated that while most manufacturing SMEs in regional Australia use computers, with a majority using email, only a small percentage utilise the Internet for transaction processing. Major barriers to becoming involved in R.Lawson iv Abstract electronic business were identified as concern about security and privacy of transactions, cost of consultants, and lack of IT expertise of staff. Examination of planned staff IT training methods revealed that employing people with appropriate knowledge has been added to current methods such as on-the-job training. Results from the comparative study found that the regions are consistent and equivalent in their use of e-business strategies. Some differences were found between small and medium organisations indicating a number of issues that need to be addressed. This forms part of the recommendations outlined for industry associations, government and the education sector in relation to their role in the diffusion process. Results from the theoretical analysis, that applied the data from the empirical studies to Rogers' (1995) framework, demonstrated that extension and modification to the diffusion model is necessary to explain a dynamic interactive innovation within a global environment. Level of adoption is more appropriately measured with MICA (Burgess & Cooper, 1998b). Factors that affect adoption are more suitably defined by including additional elements such as barriers than inhibit involvement, and the management and coordination role necessary for the relevant change agents. The research encompassed in this dissertation strongly suggests that diffusion of a dynamic interactive innovation, such as electronic business, can be explained using this modified diffusion model. The limitation of this research is that the results cannot be generalised beyond members of the Australian Industry Group, the national industry


Study Design. Animal experimental study Objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of extracorporeal shock waves (ESWs) on endogenous neural stem cells (NSCs) proliferation after spinal cord injury (SCI). Summary of Background Data. Exogenous stem cell transplantation for SCI still has many limitations to be addressed such as ideal cell sources, timing of transplantation, and fate of the transplanted cells. Moreover, the efficacy is another issue owing to a peculiar pathologic condition in the chronic phase of SCI. Methods. Contusive SCI was made using 24 Sprague-Dawley rats, and ESWs were applied at post-injury 4 weeks in rats. Proliferation and differentiation of endogenous NSCs (DCX, Sox-2) and axonal sprouting (GAP-43 and MAP-2) were observed at 6 weeks after application of ESWs. Differentiation of the activated neural stem cells was also investigated by coexpression of neuronal/glial cell markers (GFAP, Neu N, and CC-1). Immunofluorescence staining and western blotting were performed for quantitative analysis, and these results were compared with those in the control group. For clinical assessment, the BBB locomotor rating scale was performed. Results. More proliferation of endogenous neural stem cells was noted in the experimental groups, and these activated cells were mainly founded in the ependymal layer of the central canal and the injured posterior horn. Differentiation into neuronal and glial cells was also noted in a limited number of cells. With respect to axonal regeneration, GAP-43 and MAP-2 expressions in the experimental groups were also significantly higher than those in the control group. During 6 weeks' clinical observation following ESWs application, functional improvement of the hindlimb was observed without clinical deterioration by trials. Conclusion. Collectively, these findings indicate that ESWs on the chronic phase of SCI induce activation of endogenous NSCs and consequent functional improvement. Level of Evidence: N/A


Initial failure of long links caused by fracturing and buckling occurs on the flange and web at the end of the link. Local damages are caused by the influence of the dominant bending moments compared to shear forces. The advantage of using long links includes allowing for larger openings in rooms, which makes it popular among architects. Efforts to prevent these specific failures are not covered in the rules and there are few researchers that examine improving the performance of long links. The focus of this study is to provide information on using supplemental double stiffeners at the ends of the link without changing the long link behavior. The behavior of long links is maintained by keeping the flange failures on the flange at the end of the link. The supplemental double stiffeners improve the performance of the long link by extending the inelastic zone and slowing the failure rate of the flange. This experimental study was carried out on four models of the long link consisting of a standard model and a model modified by the addition of supplemental double stiffeners at the flange. Long link models were modified with variable thickness and holes width on the supplemental double stiffeners. The results showed that the addition of the supplemental double stiffeners improved the performance of long links compared to the standard link that is in accordance with the requirements of AISC 341-10. The supplemental double stiffeners are an alternative to improved long link performance, making it more effective in the application of its use in steel construction.


BACKGROUND
Directly administered antiretroviral therapy (DAART) is one approach to improve treatment adherence among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected drug users.

METHODS
In this randomized, controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier, NCT00367172), the biological outcomes of a 6-month community intervention of DAART were compared with those of self-administered therapy among HIV-infected drug users. Patients randomized to receive DAART received supervised therapy 5 days per week from workers in a mobile health care van. The primary outcome, using an intention-to-treat approach, was the proportion of patients achieving either a reduction in HIV-1 RNA level of > or = 1.0 log10 copies/mL or an HIV-1 RNA level < or = 400 copies/mL at 6 months. Secondary outcomes included the mean change from baseline in HIV-1 RNA level and CD4+ T lymphocyte count.

RESULTS
Of the 141 patients who met the entry criteria, 88 were randomized to receive DAART, and 53 were randomized to receive self-administered therapy; 74 (84%) of 88 of the patients randomized to receive DAART accepted the intervention. Of the 74 patients who initiated DAART, 51 (69%) completed the full 6-month intervention. At the end of 6 months, a significantly greater proportion of the DAART group achieved the primary outcome (70.5% vs. 54.7; P=.02). Additionally, compared with patients receiving self-administered therapy, patients receiving DAART demonstrated a significantly greater mean reduction in HIV-1 RNA level (-1.16 log10 copies/mL vs. -0.29 log10 copies/mL; P=.03) and mean increase in CD4+ T lymphocyte count (+58.8 cells/microL vs. -24.0 cells/microL; P=.002).

CONCLUSIONS
This randomized, controlled trial was, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of DAART at improving 6-month virologic outcomes among drug users. These results suggest that DAART should be more widely available in HIV treatment programs that target drug users who have poor adherence to treatment.


Augmenting a neural network with memory that can grow without growing the number of trained parameters is a recent powerful concept with many exciting applications. In this paper, we establish their potential in online adapting a batch trained neural network to domain-relevant labeled data at deployment time. We present the design of Labeled Memory Network (LMN), a new memory augmented neural network (MANN) for fast online model adaptation. We highlight three key features of LMNs. First, LMNs treat memory as a second boosted stage following the trained network thereby allowing the memory and network to play complementary roles. Unlike all existing MANNs that write to memory at every cycle, LMNs provide better memory utilization by writing only labeled data with non-zero loss. Second, LMNs organize the memory with the discrete class label as the primary key unlike existing MANNs where key is a real vector derived from the input. This simple, yet surprisingly unexplored alternative organization, safeguards against catastrophic forgetting of rare labels that current LRU based MANNs are subject to. Finally, LMNs model the evolving expertise of memory and network using a RNN, to determine online their respective weights we evaluate online model adaptation strategies on five sequence prediction tasks, an image classification task, and two language modeling tasks. We show that LMNs are better than other MANNs designed for meta-learning. We also found them to be more accurate and faster than state-of-the-art methods of retuning model parameters for adapting to domain-specific labeled data.


The subject of the present paper is the problem of nonlinear selfexcited vibrations of a shallow shell of finite length. Nonlinear aerodynamics is applied, the influence of stationary flow on the nonstationary flow as also material damping is taken into account. Normal displacement of the shell is presented as a double series of eigenfunctions. To obtain the set of ordinary differential equations, Galerkin's ortogonalization method is applied. The set written in a non-dimensional form is solved numerically. Using a digital computer, the limit cycle under certain initial conditions is found. Variation of the displacements of the shell in time is also shown.


Construction accidents with heavy equipment and bad decision making can be based on poor knowledge of the site environment and in both cases may lead to work interruptions and costly delays. Supporting the construction environment with real-time generated threedimensional (3D) models can help preventing accidents as well as support management by modeling infrastructure assets in 3D. Such models can be integrated in the path planning of construction equipment operations for obstacle avoidance or in a 4D model that simulates construction processes. Detecting and guiding resources, such as personnel, machines and materials in and to the right place on time requires methods and technologies supplying information in real-time. This paper presents research in real-time 3D laser scanning and modeling using high range frame update rate scanning technology. Existing and emerging sensors and techniques in three-dimensional modeling are explained. The presented research successfully developed computational models and algorithms for the real-time detection, tracking, and threedimensional modeling of static and dynamic construction resources, such as workforce, machines, equipment, and materials based on a 3D video range camera. In particular, the proposed algorithm for rapidly modeling three-dimensional scenes is explained. Laboratory and outdoor field experiments that were conducted to validate the algorithm's performance and results are discussed.


In this paper we will not intend to derive improved poverty measures for the Americas. Our pretensions are much more modest. The purposes of the paper are to provide an inventory of available poverty estimates for the countries of the region derived from a variety of studies and data sources (albeit mainly household surveys), to establish the degree of comparability of these estimates over time and across countries and to systematize the differences in conceptualization and methods of measurement explaining why poverty estimates may diverge so much. This should also help to put into perspective the poverty estimates for the region as included in the IDB's Economic and Social Data Base (ESDB) and other sources compiling such data. In this effort, we limit ourselves to the "income approach" to poverty, that is the definition and measurement of poverty in terms of a lack of resources required to purchase a minimum bundle of essential goods. As explained in Part 1 of this paper, this is only one possible approach to poverty measurement, albeit perhaps the most commonly used one and also the one central to the Bank's criteria to determine which of its operations qualify as "poverty targeted".


Competently organized personnel management system helps to achieve the company business-objectives. The best result is achieved when using the training systems in the staff management. Among approaches to the corporate education management recently the distance (electronic) learning technology is becoming more relevant.
Large companies with extensive branch networks solve the problem of employee training in the classical way: they conduct internal classroom training or delegate specialists to seminars conducted by training organizations. However, these methods are not always effective for a number of reasons, including the cost of classroom training, a high degree of staff rotation in a number of sectors of the economy, the incompetence of third - party specialists in the specifics of a particular company. The best option for improving the personnel of the organization on the basis of its training is the introduction of the enterprise distance learning system.
To date, the practice of corporate education has not developed a unified approach to the use of the term "distance learning". Along with the concept of "distance learning" (DL), the concept of "electronic distance learning" (EDL) or " distance electronic learning" (DEL) is often used.
At the same time, in any of these cases we are talking about the practice of corporate training using information databases using information technology and telecommunications networks, involving indirect interaction of the subjects of the educational process.
This article discusses the following issues: implementation of the corporate learning management system based on the distance technologies, diagnostics of problems and identification of training needs, management of the staff professional development through the distance learning.
The conclusion is made that the properly structured process or training employees fits naturally into the personnel management system: if the system of personnel training is focused on development of those skills that enhance work efficiency, it directly or indirectly contributes to achievement of the company business-objectives and professional goals of employees


Surabaya rapidly developed to the east region which grew the formal/non-formal settlement in Pamurbaya. This area is dominated by fishpond that is converted into settlement area. This research aims to observe the dynamic change of fishpond which is already converted into settlement area in the east coast of Surabaya, during 2004-2017. This research applies landsat image 7 ETM+ and landsat 8 OLI with overlay method which is analyzed descriptively. During 2004-2017, the settlement area had been developing for 218,296 Ha or 88% and during the same years, the fishpond had been reducing for 531,639 Ha or 24%, this reduction can change into mangrove or settlement area. During 13 years, the change of fishpond into settlement area is 15%. The research area which experienced the change is the fishpond of Kejawan Putih (24%), Medokan Ayu area (17%), and Keputih area (16%).


This paper identifies two alternative forms of prudential regulation. The first set is formed by regulations that directly control financial aggregates, such as liquidity expansion and credit growth. An example is capital requirements as currently incorporated in internationally accepted standards; namely capital requirements with risk categories used in industrial countries. The second set, which can be identified as the "pricing-risk-right" approach, works by providing incentives to financial institutions to avoid excessive risk-taking activities. A key feature of this set of regulations is that they encourage financial institutions to internalize the costs associated with the particular risks of the environment where they operate. Regulations in this category include ex-ante risk-based provisioning rules and capital requirements that take into account the risk features particular to developing countries. This category also includes incentives for enhancing market discipline as a way to differentiate risk-taking behavior between financial institutions. The main finding of the paper is that the first set of regulations—the most commonly used in developing economies-- have had very limited usefulness in helping countries to contain the risks involved with more liberalized financial systems. The main reason for this disappointing result is that, by not taking into account the particular characteristics of financial markets in developing countries, these regulations cannot effectively control excessive risk taking by financial institutions. Moreover, the paper shows that, contrary to policy intentions, this set of prudential regulations can exacerbate rather than decrease financial sector fragility, especially in episodes of sudden reversal of capital flows. In contrast, the paper claims, the second set of prudential regulation can go a long way in helping developing countries achieving their goals. The paper advances suggestions for the sequencing of implementation of these regulations for different groups of countries.


Environmental justice and social movements scholarship demonstrates how not-in-my-backyard activism by more privileged communities leaves the disadvantaged with "locally unwanted land uses." Yet it overlooks instances of local support for risky industries. Our ethnographic case shows how a rural, white, mixed-income Pennsylvania community adopted a please-in-my-backyard stance toward shale gas extraction (fracking). Residents invited development on their land and supported it through quiet mobilization. While landowners prioritized benefits over risks, economics cannot fully explain their enthusiasm. Consistent with public opinion research, partisan identities and community obligations undergirded industry support even when personal benefits were limited. Devotion to self-reliance and property rights led residents to defend landowners' freedom to lease their land. Cynicism toward government precluded endorsing environmental regulation, and the perception of antifracking activists as "liberal" outsiders linked support for fracking with community solidarity. This case illustrates why communities may champion risky industries and complicates theories of nonmobilization.


The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) chloride channel inhabits the apical membrane of airway epithelia, where its function is essential for mucus hydration, mucociliary clearance, and airway defense. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), most often a consequence of cigarette smoke (CS) exposure, affects 15 million persons in the US. Clinically, COPD is characterized by many of the salient features of cystic fibrosis lung disease, where CFTR is either absent or reduced in function. CS is an acidic aerosol (pH 5.3 to 6.3) reported to contain over 4,000 constituents. Acute CS exposure has been reported to decrease airway transepithelial voltage in vivo and short-circuit current in vitro; however, the mechanistic basis of these effects is uncertain. The goal of the studies described here was to develop a bioassay to characterize the effects of aqueous CS preparations on the channel function of CFTR. We studied aqueous CS extract (CSE) prepared in our laboratory, as well as commercial cigarette smoke condensate (CSC) in Xenopus oocytes expressing human CFTR. Application of CSE at pH 5.3 produced a reversible, voltage-dependent inhibition of CFTR conductance. CSE neutralized to pH 7.3 produced less inhibition of CFTR conductance. Serial dilution of CSE revealed a dose-dependent effect at acidic and neutral pH. In contrast, CSC did not inhibit CFTR conductance in oocytes. We conclude that one or more components of CSE inhibits CFTR in a manner similar to diphenylamine-2-carboxylate, a negatively charged, open-channel blocker.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been linked with various regulatory functions and disorders, such as cancers and heart diseases. They therefore present an important target for detection technologies for future medical diagnostics. We report here a novel method for rapid and sensitive miRNA detection and quantitation using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor technology and a DNA*RNA antibody-based assay. The approach takes advantage of a novel high-performance portable SPR sensor instrument for spectroscopy of surface plasmons based on a special diffraction grating called a surface plasmon coupler and disperser (SPRCD). The surface of the grating is functionalized with thiolated DNA oligonucleotides which specifically capture miRNA from a liquid sample without amplification. Subsequently, an antibody that recognizes DNA*RNA hybrids is introduced to bind to the DNA*RNA complex and enhance sensor response to the captured miRNA. This approach allows detecting miRNA in less than 30 minutes at concentrations down to 2 pM with an absolute amount at high attomoles. The methodology is evaluated for analysis of miRNA from mouse liver tissues and is found to yield results which agree well with those provided by the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).


To define the spectrum of pilomyxoid morphology and to characterize the association between pilomyxoid astrocytoma (PMA) and pilocytic astrocytoma (PA), 84 cases of pediatric astrocytomas with pilomyxoid features were reviewed. Forty-two of these tumors had coexistent features of PMA and PA ("intermediate"). With the accumulation of more cytoplasm, fibrillar background, microcysts, and thickened blood vessels, these intermediate tumors were more PA-like and less like classic PMA. In the recurrent specimens, PMAs and intermediate tumors sometimes showed more prominent PA features. Both PMA and intermediate tumors involved sites outside the hypothalamus, optic chiasm, and the third ventricle. Both the existence of intermediate tumors and the finding that some PMAs and intermediate tumors mature into PA-like neoplasms over time, provided strong support for a biological relationship between PMA and PA. Additional evidence for a "maturational effect" was the finding that intermediate tumors occurred in patients with a median age of 36 months compared with the median age of 21 months for those with PMAs (P=0.017). Features that were often assumed to be poor prognostic indicators in gliomas, that is, necrosis, mitotic figures, and vascular proliferation, were not uncommon in typical PMAs and intermediate lesions. Further follow-up is needed to more accurately determine the prognosis of intermediate tumors.


The pastoral systems of Eastern Africa have been affected by the alternated incidence of recurrent drought and flood for the last decades, aggravating poverty and local conflicts. We have introduced an innovation to convert floods to productive use using water spreading weirs (WSW) as an entry point to capture and spread the torrential flood emerging in the neighboring highlands into rangelands and crop fields of low-lying pastoral systems in Afar, Ethiopia. The productivity and landscape feature have changed from an abandoned field to a productive landscape within 3 years of intervention. The flood patterns and sediment loads created at least four different crop management zones and productivity levels. Based on moisture and nutrient regimes, we developed land suitability maps for integrating crops and forages fitting to specific niches. The outcome was a fast recovery of landscapes, with 150% biomass yield increment, increased access to dry season feed and food. These positive outcomes could be attributed to the proper design of weirs, joint planning and execution between pastoralists, researchers and development agents, identification and availing best-fitting varieties for each management zone and developing simple GIS-based parcel level maps to guide development agents and pastoralists. The major 'agents' were community leaders ('Kedoh Abbobati') who keenly debated potential benefits and drawbacks of innovations, enforced customary rules and byelaw and suggested changes in approaches and choices of interventions. In general, an innovation system approach helped to create local confidence, attract attention of government institutions and helped local actors to identify investment areas, develop implementation strategies to increase productivity, define changes as it occurs and minimize conflicts between competing communities. However, the risk of de facto use of a plot of communal land translating into long-term occupation and ownership may be impacting a communal territory and social cohesion that was subject to other collective choice customary rules.


This article describes how a staff nurse changed the routine nature of her work on a mother/baby unit. Using patient education techniques and a newly acquired knowledge about newborn behavior enhanced how she completed the newborn bath demonstration for new parents. She applied her understanding of newborn reflexes, newborn states and state management, and consoling interventions to alter her practice and help parents explore the newborn together. This nurse's goal was to educate and simultaneously empower the parents to better read their baby's cues and respond to their baby. She recounts how this new interactive approach has benefitted the newborns and parents, and has enhanced her satisfaction with her everyday work.


Transmitter arrays play a critical role in ultra high field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), especially given the advantages made possible via parallel transmission (pTx) techniques. One of the challenges in design and construction of transmit arrays has traditionally been finding effective strategies for decoupling elements of the transmit array. Here, we present the design of the first self-decoupled, loop-based transmit array for human brain MRI at 10.5T /447MHz. We demonstrate, using full-wave electromagnetic simulations, effective decoupling of the transmit elements without requiring the conventional overlap or inductive decoupling techniques.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the modeling and generalizing processes of 3rd through 5th grade students while they are solving a non-routine additive word problem. The study utilized an experimental design with no control group. A total of 278 students from 7 different schools participated in the study. Students were asked a non routine word problem as a pretest. Then, they were given a semi structured worksheet based on modeling similar problems with small numbers. Finally, they were asked a non-routine problem similar to the one asked as the pretest. Results showed that the students had very low level of success on this type of problem. After the intervention, only the fifth graders made some improvement. Implications for mathematics teaching and learning are discussed.


Computer scientists are joining forces with molecular biologists and chemists to explore the potential for computation using information-carrying biological polymers such as nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). DNA computing is a subset of molecular computing. The key feature of DNA for computing is its information content. The self-assembly properties of DNA suggest an indirect application to computing. The concept of self-assembly, which biological systems have evolved to form such structures as viruses, flagella, and microtubules (which serve as structural and motile components of cells), can lead the way to using DNA as the basis of nanorobotics.


The ritual murder accusation has a long and clear history of anti-Judaic sentiment. This accusation was first made in England regarding the death of St William of Norwich in 1144. Yet it is unclear whether the lay community of Norwich actually experienced this cult in an anti-Judaic way: did they in fact associate St William with ritual murder and antagonistic feelings towards their Jewish neighbors? Evidence for his cult in the first 150 years is lacking. I believe, however, that by looking at available information on the cult alongside Jewish-Christian relations in the town, we can see that Christians in the lay community did not associate the cult with ritual murder, nor was it likely associated with strong anti-Judaic sentiment. This is especially clear when one examines the case of Odard, a Christian boy in Norwich who in 1230 was circumcised by Jews. Despite the physical, religiously-motivated nature of the crime, there were no accusations of ritual murder within Norwich. This missing accusation shows that the possibility of ritual murder—and the memory of St William—did not weigh heavily on the laity's mind. If they felt the real presence of St William's cult and the anti-Judaic sentiment associated with it, the Christian lay community of Norwich would associate ritual murder with Odard's case.


Abstract Background Worldwide, leprosy represents a significant cause of disability due to progressive neurological impairment. Screening for leprous neuropathy is performed with Semmes–Weinstein monofilament (SWM) or ballpoint pen testing (BPT), which results in underreporting of its prevalence. The Pressure-specified sensory device (PSSD; Sensory Management Services, LLC, Baltimore, MD) is a sensitive, noninvasive, portable, neurosensory instrument, which has not been field-tested for leprosy screening. Early identification of leprous neuropathy would permit early antibiotic treatment to prevent contagion and early microsurgical neurolysis. Methods A prospective, clinical diagnostic, cross-sectional study screened a consecutive sample of patients for leprous neuropathy in the leprosy-endemic province of Los Ríos, Ecuador. Patients meeting the World Health Organization criteria for leprosy and complaining of neuropathy symptoms were classified as leprous neuropathy patients. Patients without any signs of leprosy were used as normal controls. Bilateral ulnar nerve screening with the PSSD, SWM (0.07, 0.4, 2, 4, 10, and 300 g), and BPT was performed in all patients. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated and compared across tests. A total of 71 patients (142 nerves) were evaluated. Results Compared with the 10 g SWM and the BPT, the PSSD was found to have significantly higher sensitivity (78.3 vs. 0% with p < 0.001, for both) with comparable specificity (97.8 vs. 100% with p > 0.999, for both). Compared with the 0.07 g SWM (lightest filament in our series), the PSSD showed better sensitivity (78.3 vs. 65.2%, p = 0.514) and significantly higher specificity (97.8 vs. 51.1%, p < 0.001). Conclusions The PSSD provides superior diagnostic accuracy for detecting leprous neuropathy as compared with SWM and BPT.


Background Childhood poisonings are common, placing a substantial burden on health services. Education and provision of cupboard/drawer locks improves poison prevention practices but it is unclear if this reduces poisoning risk. This study quantifies associations between poison prevention practices and medically attended poisonings in 0–4 year olds. Methods Multicentre case-control study conducted at hospitals, minor injury units and family practices from four study centres in England between 2010 and 2013. Participants comprised 567 children presenting with unintentional poisoning occurring at home, and 2320 control participants matched on age, sex, date of event and study centre. Parents/caregivers provided data on safety practices, safety equipment use, home hazards and potential confounders, by means of self-completion questionnaires. Data were analysed using conditional logistic regression. Results Compared with controls, parents of poisoned children were significantly more likely not to store medicines out of reach (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 1.59; 95% CI: 1.21, 2.09; population attributable fraction (PAF) 15%), not to store medicines safely (locked or out of reach (AOR 1.83; 95% CI: 1.38, 2.42; PAF 16%) and not to have put all medicines (AOR 2.11; 95% CI: 1.54, 2.90; PAF 20%) or household products (AOR 1.79, 95% CI: 1.29, 2.48; PAF 11%) away immediately after use. Conclusions Not storing medicines out of reach or locked away and not putting medicines and household products away immediately after use increased the odds of secondary care attended poisonings in 0–4 year olds. If associations are causal, implementing each of these poison prevention practices could prevent between 11% and 20% of poisonings.


This chapter examines key themes in the criticism levelled at strategic studies. It begins with a discussion of the relationship between strategic studies and its critics in the 'Golden Age', a period that saw the rise to prominence of a new breed of strategic thinker, the 'civilian strategist'. These civilian strategists favoured the incorporation of game theory and systems analysis into the study of nuclear strategy and deterrence. After reviewing prominent critical appraisals of deterrence theory in the 1960s, the chapter explains how these critiques were subsequently addressed by strategic theorists. It then considers the emergence of a 'third wave' of strategists that engaged in a reconstructive critique of strategy before concluding with an analysis of recent critical approaches to strategic studies that have focused on its role in constructing a particular Western-centric vision of world order, the relationship between strategic theory and policymaking, and the language of strategic studies.


Although Poland is officially tuberculosis (TB) free, meaning that less than 0.1% of her cattle herd is TB-positive, the problem of bovine TB in Poland may be re-emerging: its presence has recently been confirmed in domestic and companion animals, wildlife such as the European bison, and even humans. The aim of this chapter was to review all reports of bovine TB in Poland described to date, with particular emphasis on molecular studies, and determine further research directions. These studies include a range of molecular methods for diagnosis, including genotyping, spoligotyping and MIRUVNTR; such methods successfully identifies a tuberculosis-positive European bison as the source of wild boar infection in the Bieszczady Mountains based on its spoligotype. This chapter argues that identified trains should be better archived, as such records would allow detailed epidemiological investigations and shed greater light on the activity of Mycobacterium spp. The current epidemiological situation in Poland highlights the need for further studies to determine epidemiological links and confirm possible routes of transmission based on whole genome sequencing; this need is accentuated by the zoonotic potential of such infections and the endangered species at risk.


: Hemocoagulation was studied in 116 patients with prostatic adenoma, stage II, before and 1, 4-7, 8-10 and 11-15 days after surgical intervention. Out of 77 patients exposed to routine adenomectomy, 55 persons were treated 12-14 days prior the surgery with therapeutic dosages of a vitamin A, E, C, P complex. After the operation they were given nicotinic acid in presence of the double load of vitamins A and E. Out of 39 persons exposed to urgent adenomectomy 19 patients were administered the double dosages of the same vitamins before the operation. The rest of the both groups were postsurgically given acetylsalicylic acid instead of vitamins. It was stated that the aforementioned vitamin therapy significantly decreased postsurgical blood coagulation disorders (in those who were prepared for the operation beforehand it happened before adenomectomy), improved the clinical course and outcomes of the postsurgical period. Presurgical investigations reveal an accelerated intravascular coagulation and mild manifestations of the DIC syndrome in patients with prostatic adenoma. After the operation the syndrome manifestations increase but rarely develop into stages II and III that are usually accompanied by consumption coagulopathy. To follow the syndrome progression one could use only 5 out of 13 tests defined by the authors: activated time of recalcification, prothrombin index, fibrinolytic activity, products of fibrin degradation and an ethanol test.


Objective: This paper aimed to characterize the resident exposure to acute general surgical conditions during a three-months rotation in a general surgical unit.
Setting: The Department of Surgery, University of Nairobi and Kenyatta National Referral and Teaching Hospital in Nairobi.
MethodS: Four residents (in their first to third post-basic science year) were evaluated during a 12-week General Surgery rotation. Details assessed included number and variety of admission diagnoses logged by each resident, number and nature of surgical operations performed independently by each
resident and with consultant support, and the resident involvement in the continuity of care. The experiences were compared across the residents.
Results: One hundred and forty five patients were admitted. The number of admissions per resident varied between 30 and 41. Fifty-eight patients had surgery. Operative experience
where the resident was the principal surgeon ranged from 11 cases to 23 cases per resident. A second resident assisted in 8 out of the fiftyeight cases operated on and consultant support
was infrequent.
Conclusion: The operative experience was variable for the general surgical residents. Exposure could be improved by a policy of resident assistance at emergency surgery. The
infrequent consultant support may invalidate formative assessment of resident competence.


Abstract Site-specific, collectively made textiles are particularly effective producers of histories that entwine place and people. More than simply a means to an end, the process of making together foregrounds the potential of textiles to transform and be transformed beyond their materiality. The material making process mirrors another kind of making process: that of a certain kind of social integration or a sense of being and belonging somewhere, however temporary and changeable these may be. Once completed, however, these material artifacts can provoke difficult questions concerning the responsibility for their storage and display, succumbing to a fate in semi-permanent storage and eventually relinquishing their material presence to a form of visual or textual representation. Although this is not the fate of all collectively made textile works, given the widespread practice of collective textile-making, it is inevitably the fate of some. Using the example of a collectively made hooked rug project that I coordinated and participated in 15 years ago, I will explore in this article the transformed status of collectively made textile artifacts through memories of making in order to open up new understandings of these types of site-specific collective textile-making projects as a different kind of creative practice: as a narrative performance of experiences of being together.


The interactive effects of different doses of dietary selenium [as selenomethionine; 1.8 μg g-1 (control), 10 μg g-1 and 40 μg g-1 diet] on the toxicity of dietary arsenic [as arsenite (As3+); 80 μg As per g diet] were investigated in rainbow trout over an exposure period of 30 days. Fish fed with As3+ alone showed an increased hepatic lipid peroxidation (LPO) and a concomitant decline in cellular redox potential (determined as GSH:GSSG) in the liver tissue relative to the control fish. Interestingly, fish fed with low (10 μg g-1) or high (40 μg g-1) concentration of dietary selenomethionine in combination with As3+ showed an even higher degree of hepatic LPO and a further decrease in GSH : GSSG molar ratio relative to the fish treated with As3+ alone. Our study also revealed that exposure to dietary selenomethionine (both at low and high levels) resulted in significantly higher levels of arsenic in target tissues (liver, kidney, and muscle) relative to fish treated with As3+ alone. Similarly, the synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence imaging analysis also suggested a dose-dependent increase in the co-localization of arsenic and selenium in the brain of fish co-treated with dietary As3+ and selenomethionine. These observations suggested that selenomethionine facilitated arsenic deposition in the brain and likely in other tissues, possibly via bio-complexation. Overall, our findings indicated that elevated dietary selenomethionine can increase the tissue-specific accumulation and toxicity of As3+ in fish during chronic dietary exposure.


Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of an active strategy to implement the validated Canadian C-Spine Rule into multiple emergency departments. Design Matched pair cluster randomised trial. Setting University and community emergency departments in Canada. Participants 11 824 alert and stable adults presenting with blunt trauma to the head or neck at one of 12 hospitals. Interventions Six hospitals were randomly allocated to the intervention and six to the control. At the intervention sites, active strategies were used to implement the Canadian C-Spine Rule, including education, policy, and real time reminders on radiology requisitions. No specific intervention was introduced to alter the behaviour of doctors requesting cervical spine imaging at the control sites. Main outcome measure Diagnostic imaging rate of the cervical spine during two 12 month before and after periods. Results Patients were balanced between control and intervention sites. From the before to the after periods, the intervention group showed a relative reduction in cervical spine imaging of 12.8% (95% confidence interval 9% to 16%; 61.7% v 53.3%; P=0.01) and the control group a relative increase of 12.5% (7% to 18%; 52.8% v 58.9%; P=0.03). These changes were significant when both groups were compared (P<0.001). No fractures were missed and no adverse outcomes occurred. Conclusions Implementation of the Canadian C-Spine Rule led to a significant decrease in imaging without injuries being missed or patient morbidity. Final imaging rates were much lower at intervention sites than at most US hospitals. Widespread implementation of this rule could lead to reduced healthcare costs and more efficient patient flow in busy emergency departments worldwide. Trial registration Clinical trials NCT00290875.


An abundance of research focuses on the collective performance and motivations of the TEAM in BIM coordination and execution. The team, however, consists of trade partners with different motivations and sophistication. Trade partners whose product is directly fabricated from 3D models, such as mechanical and steel contractors, are highly sophisticated in BIM. Their models tend to be accurate and vetted for constructability as their profitability depends on quick onsite assembly of prefabricated items. Trade partners whose work installation is not directly fabricated from 3D models tend to have less accurate models that are not vetted for constructability. Non-constructible elements included in BIM are waste as they do not bring value to the intermediate or end user. More perniciously, these models are a presentation of inaccurate information in a highly detailed form, leading to the perception of accuracy and the incorrect detailing of adjacent assemblies. This paper uses case studies of BIM implementation in the San Francisco Bay Area to analyze model accuracy and implementation by trade and identify best practices in team alignment. This analysis is used to propose a framework for enforcing model constructability based on the basic tenets the Last Planner SystemTM. Beyond project controls, this paper investigates natural alignment of trade interest in constructible models. Specifically, if a trade partner's profitability is increased through the use of model-based layout or increased off-site fabrication, the model will consequently be more accurate, benefiting the larger team. Therefore, this paper also discusses the advantages of intrinsic motivation to reduce variability of trade models between coordination and the field, and proposes methods to achieve this future state.


Market makers play an important role in providing liquidity to markets by continuously quoting prices at which they are willing to buy and sell, and managing inventory risk. In this paper, we build a multi-agent simulation of a dealer market and demonstrate that it can be used to understand the behavior of a reinforcement learning (RL) based market maker agent. We use the simulator to train an RL-based market maker agent with different competitive scenarios, reward formulations and market price trends (drifts). We show that the reinforcement learning agent is able to learn about its competitor's pricing policy; it also learns to manage inventory by smartly selecting asymmetric prices on the buy and sell sides (skewing), and maintaining a positive (or negative) inventory depending on whether the market price drift is positive (or negative). Finally, we propose and test reward formulations for creating risk averse RL-based market maker agents.


Abstract. Using nighttime observations from Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night band (DNB), the characteristics of artificial light sources are evaluated as functions of observation conditions and incremental improvements are documented on nighttime aerosol retrievals using VIIRS DNB data on a regional scale. We find that the standard deviation of instantaneous radiance for a given artificial light source is strongly dependent upon the satellite viewing angle, but is weakly dependent on lunar fraction and lunar angle. Retrieval of nighttime aerosol optical thickness (AOT) based on the novel use of these artificial light sources is demonstrated for three selected regions (United States, Middle East, and India) during 2015. Reasonable agreements are found between nighttime AOTs from VIIRS DNB and temporally adjacent daytime AOTs from AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) as well as from coincident nighttime AOT retrievals from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), indicating the potential of this method to begin filling critical gaps in diurnal AOT information at both regional and global scales. Issues related to cloud, snow, and ice contamination during the winter season, as well as data loss due to the misclassification of thick aerosol plumes as clouds, must be addressed to make the algorithm operationally robust.