SEBESTYEN L. v. GORKA is an International Research Fellow at the NATO Defense College. With a decisiveness uncommon in international politics, the Clinton administration publicly committed NATO to expand by "one or more" countries in the year of the alliance's fiftieth anniversary. The political momentum of that commitment so galvanized the machinery of the alliance that by the Madrid Summit of July 1997, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, after more than five years of lobbying, were finally invited to join the alliance. NATO, now coping with radical internal reforms spearheaded by its latest Secretary General and with its operational christening in the former Yugoslavia, has itself afforded little effort to the question of what happens after Madrid. The advocates of expansion are vindicated, but the eight other states that have applied for full alliance membership were disappointed at Madrid. What does fate hold for them? Given the best case scenario, the NATO expansion negotiations with the three states of the first stage of expansion--Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic--would proceed smoothly. These three states would do everything possible to meet NATO's demands and to further the success story that is the Euro-Atlantic area. The anointed three would then sign the Washington Treaty on the fiftieth anniversary of the alliance in 1999, as called for by President Clinton. In the intervening two years, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program would be radically enhanced to communicate clearly to the likes of Romania, Slovenia, and the Baltic states that they, too, are on the road to NATO membership. Moreover, the special relationship created with Russia by the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act would flourish as the two sides came together to discuss matters of mutual concern on the continent. This interaction would go a long way toward solidifying the "democratic experiment" of Russia, while aiding the further development of an independent and viable Ukraine. This depiction of the next few years in alliance affairs--the vision that can be inferred behind all the communiques and diplomatic declarations--may sound like a fantasy, but what has just been portrayed is the way things should develop as declared by the alliance. As all good diplomats know, the representation of reality is more important than reality itself. The current reality is not as favorable as some visionaries would have us believe. It includes such touchy and still unpredictable issues as Kaliningrad, Romania's relations with Moldova and Ukraine, Yeltsin's health, and the political vulnerability of the Baltic states. Whatever the eventual ramifications of the Madrid Summit, they will be many and varied. With its official decision to expand, NATO has irrevocably committed itself to a fundamental change of character. It has finally become the "open international organization" laid out in Article Ten of its founding charter, the Washington Treaty, in the sense of "open" defined under international law as the ability to expand given the consent of existing member states. It has underwritten this reality in a fashion denuded of the forced logic of previous expansions, which occurred under Cold War imperatives or by way of the back door. NATO has finally moved beyond collective defense as the exclusive motivation for expansion: the three, newly independent countries of the first stage of expansion were among the enemies from whom it was ultimately supposed to have protected itself. This momentous event of redefinition has, however, been presented in a rather different light. None of the 16 existing NATO states were at first prepared to define the standards for membership by which aspirants to NATO membership could measure themselves. Only when pressure from certain Central European quarters coincided with a need for the first Clinton administration to look decisive on foreign policy did the existing guidelines enshrined in the early PfP program emerge as the long-awaited objective scale of suitability. …


In the case of failure incidents involving important components, it is necessary to clarify the fracture mechanism by failure analysis. In the case of conventional steel materials, according to the individual fracture mode the fracture surfaces have unique fracture morphology corresponding to tensile, impact, creep and fatigue conditions. We can identify the mechanism of a fracture by observing its fracture surface, and this is known as the fractography. However regarding nickel-base superalloys, any differences in fracture morphology are unfortunately barely distinguishable, which makes it difficult to conduct fractography.In this paper, in order to characterize the damage behavior of IN738LC, the misorientation analysis within grains by using the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) method across almost all the whole range of specimens has been carried out. As a result, it was found that the cross section of fracture samples have unique distinguishable morphology corresponding to the individual fracture mode. Furthermore, the striations corresponding to the fatigue crack growth rate was found in the crack cross-sectional sample. It was considered that the EBSD striation observed on the cross section reveals the fatigue crack growth rate, as with striations found in the fatigue fracture surface such as conventional steel materials.On the case study of the actual (service and damaged) gas turbine blade, the EBSD analysis as the fractography revealed the mechanism of cracking and the fatigue crack growth rate. Thus, it is concluded that the misorientation analysis of damage materials allows the qualitative estimation of the fracture mode and the quantitative life assessment of the fatigue crack growth.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


This paper primarily focuses on the analysis on the heat exchange part's flow field of the jet plug-in hot blast furnace, and comprehensively considers the temperature field aiming at obtaining the velocity and pressure distribution of the air and flue gas in each part of the heat transfer. Heat exchange mainly takes advantage of thermal convection about high temperature flue gas of the hot blast furnace and air, the flow situation of which have the direct effects on the heat exchange result in the heat transfer. The authors implemented the numerical simulation on flow field of the jet plug-in hot blast stove in heat transfer by using the method of finite element analysis. The conclusion of this paper provides the basis for the further enhancement of the machine life and optimization of the structure design.


Background: Silencing mammalian genes by targeted DNA (cytosine-5) methylation of selected CG sites in the genome would be a powerful technique to analyze epigenomic information and to study the roles of DNA methylation in physiological and pathological states. A promising approach of targeted DNA methylation is based on the ability of split fragments of a monomeric DNA methyltransferase (C5-MTase) to associate and form active enzyme. A few C5-MTases of different specificities have been shown to possess the ability of fragment complementation, but a demonstration of this phenomenon for a C5-MTase, which has CG specificity and thus can be targeted to methylate any CG site, has been lacking. The purpose of this study was to test whether the CG-specific prokaryotic C5-MTase M.SssI shows the phenomenon of fragment complementation. Results: We show that truncated inactive N-terminal fragments of M.SssI can assemble with truncated inactive C-terminal fragments to form active enzyme in vivo when produced in the same E. coli cell. Overlapping and non-overlapping fragments as well as fragments containing short appended foreign sequences had complementation capacity. In optimal combinations C-terminal fragments started between conserved motif VIII and the predicted target recognizing domain of M.SssI. DNA methyltransferase activity in crude extracts of cells with the best complementing fragment pairs was~4 per cent of the activity of cells producing the full length enzyme. Fusions of two N-terminal and two C-terminal fragments to 21.6 kDa zinc finger domains only slightly reduced complementation ability of the fragments. Conclusions: The CG-specific DNA methyltransferase M.SssI shows the phenomenon of fragment complementation in vivo in E. coli. Fusion of the split fragments to six unit zinc finger domains does not substantially interfere with the formation of active enzyme. These observations and the large number of complementing fragment combinations representing a wide range of MTase activity offer the possibility to develop M.SssI into a programmable DNA methyltransferase of high specificity.


In order to study effects of lysozyme and nisin on fresh-keeping refrigerated fillets, fresh Ctenopharyngodon idellus were slaughtered and washed, then the Ctenopharyngodon idellus were divided into three treatment groups, and dipped in 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.075%, 0.1%, 0.125% lysozyme solution (group A) for 5min, 0.005%, 0.01%, 0.015%, 0.02%, 0.025% nisin solution (group B) for 5min, and Samples in the control treatment had no enzyme added to the water (group C, untreated) for 5min, then kept in 4°C after vacuum packaging. Sensory assessment, pH, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and total plate count were determinated to evaluate the fish quality. The result indicated that lysozyme and nisin solution could delay the spoilage of refrigerated fillets fish.


Adults aged 55+ years are most likely to be inactive, despite research suggesting that older adults experience multiple benefits when participating in physical activity and sport. Limited research focuses on long-term continuation of sport participation in this population, especially in "adapted sports" like walking football. This study explored the experiences of walking football maintenance in 55- to 75-year-old players. Semistructured interviews were conducted, with 17 older adults maintaining walking football play over 6 months. The inductive analysis revealed five higher-order themes representing maintenance influences and two higher-order themes relating to maintenance mechanisms (i.e., the conscious process by which players maintain). Influences when maintaining walking football included individual- and culture-level influences (e.g., perceived benefits of maintenance and ability acceptance). Maintenance mechanisms included cognitions and behaviors (e.g., scheduling sessions and redefining physical activity expectations). Findings highlight novel implications for policy and practice, which are important to consider when delivering walking football to older adults.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate glucose control using fast-acting insulin aspart (faster aspart) compared with insulin aspart (IAsp) delivered by the MiniMed Advanced Hybrid Closed-Loop (AHCL) system in adults with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In this randomized, open-label, crossover study, participants were assigned to receive faster aspart or IAsp in random order. Stages 1 and 2 comprised of 6 weeks in closed loop, preceded by 2 weeks in open loop. This was followed by stage 3, whereby participants changed directly back to the insulin formulation used in stage 1 for 1 week in closed loop. Participants chose their own meals except for two standardized meal tests, a missed meal bolus and late meal bolus. The primary outcome was the percentage of time sensor glucose values were from 70 to 180 mg/dL (time in range [TIR]). RESULTS Twenty-five adults (52% male) were recruited; the median (interquartile range) age was 48 (37, 57) years, and the median HbA1c was 7.0% (6.6, 7.2) (53 [49, 55] mmol/mol). Faster aspart demonstrated greater overall TIR compared with IAsp (82.3% [78.5, 83.7] vs. 79.6% [77.0, 83.4], respectively; mean difference 1.9% [0.5, 3.3]; P = 0.007). Four-hour postprandial glucose TIR was higher using faster aspart compared with IAsp for all meals combined (73.6% [69.4, 80.2] vs. 72.1% [64.5, 78.5], respectively; median difference 3.5% [1.0, 7.3]; P = 0.003). There was no ketoacidosis or severe hypoglycemia. CONCLUSIONS Faster aspart safely improved glucose control compared with IAsp in a group of adults with well-controlled type 1 diabetes using AHCL. The modest improvement was mainly related to mealtime glycemia. While the primary outcome demonstrated statistical significance, the clinical impact may be small, given an overall difference in TIR of 1.9%.


Objective: This article presents a new, comprehensive and less know surgical procedure in skin tumors treatment. Methods: The authors report their experience with "brow slide" flap in cutaneous reconstructions of 47 patients. They compared obtained results, with emphasis in the ease to performed this technique in comparison to others procedures described in literature. Thus, the 'brow slide" flap can be use in face and others areas that needs recons tructions. Conclusion: Based on the results, the authors recommend the routine use of this technique in the reconstructions of skin tumors. The advantages of this method include Zplasty scars almost of them located at the lines of expression and contour lines of the skin.


The author, an architect and town planner, graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Athens Technical University, specialized in town planning in Paris, and obtained his Ph. D in urban design at the Technical University of West Berlin. After a ten-year period of practicing architecture in Athens where he conducted several studies for the Greek Tourism Organization (hotels), the Archaeological Service of Greece (landscaping of excavation areas) and private clients, he has been working mainly in Germany (Berlin and Munich) as well as in Greece as an urban designer in a wide scope of activities, including teaching, research and a planning consultancy. His special interest focuses on urban conservation, planning and urban history. He has worked with the Freie Planungsgruppe Berlin and the Burckhard Planconsulť Basel.He has elaborated major planning development and preservation schemes for the Greek state (Chios Tourist Development, Mykonos-Delos Development Plan, Chania Old Town Preservation Scheme) and acted as an expert for UNESCO (1970, Iran) and the UNCHS (1982, Yugoslavia). As an advisor to the Greek Minister of Culture ( 1974- 1977) he coordinated the Greek participation in the U.N. Vancouver Conference on Human Settlements (1976) and in the European Architectural Heritage Year (1975). He has also acted as the liaison officer between the National Greek Committee and the UNESCO experts for the Acropolis conservation campaign. He has taught as a visiting professor in Berlin (1969-1970), Stuttgart (1981-1982) and Munich (1996-1997) and was for 10 years (1976-1985) Professor of Urban History at the Post-Graduate Center "Raymond Lemaire" for the Conservation of the Architectural and Urban Heritage in Bruges and Louvain/Belgium. He has elaborated major research studies on European planning history and planning issues of his native town Athens, and is considered an authority on the town planning history of modern Athens.


Execution time control is a technique that allows execution time budgets to be set and overruns to be handled dynamically to prevent deadline misses. This removes the need for the worst-case execution time (WCET) of tasks to be found by offline timing analysis – a problem that can be very hard to solve for modern computer architectures. Execution time control can also increase the processor utilization, as the WCET will often be much higher than the average execution time.This thesis describes how the GNU Ada Compiler and a bare-board Ravenscar run-time environment were ported to the Atmel AVR32 UC3 microcontroller series making the Ada programming language available on this architecture for the first time, and an implementation of Ada execution time control for this system that supports full execution time control for interrupt handling. Usage patterns for this brand new feature are demonstrated in Ada by extending the object-oriented real-time framework with execution time servers for interrupt handling, allowing the system to be protected against unexpected bursts of interrupts that could otherwise result in deadline misses. Separate execution time measurement for interrupt handling also improves the accuracy of measurement for tasks. As a direct result of the work presented in this thesis separate execution time measurement for interrupts will be included in the forthcoming ISO-standard for Ada 2012.While the implementation of execution time control is for the Ada programming language and the UC3 microcontroller series, the design and implementation should be portable to other architectures, and the principles of execution time control for interrupt handling applicable to other programming languages.Low run-time overhead is important for execution time control to be useful for real-time systems. Therefore a hardware Time Management Unit (TMU) was designed to reduce the overhead of execution time control. This design has been implemented for the UC3 and performance tests with the developed run-time environment shows that it gives a significant reduction of overhead. The memory-mapped design of the TMU also allows it to be implemented on other architectures.


Seasonal distinctiveness in the microphysical and optical properties of columnar and near-surface (in the well mixed region) aerosols, associated with changes in the prevailing synoptic conditions, were delineated based on extensive (spread over 4 years) and collocated measurements at the tropical coastal location, Trivandrum ($8.55^0 N$; $76.97^0 E$, 3m a.m.s.l.), and the results were summarized in Part 1 of this two-part paper. In Part 2, we use these properties to develop empirical seasonal aerosol models, which represent the observed features fairly accurately, separately for winter monsoon season (WMS, December through March), intermonsoon season (IMS, April and May), summer monsoon season (SMS, June through September) and post monsoon season (PMS, October and November). The models indicate a significant transformation in the aerosol environment from an anthropogenic-dominance in WMS to a naturaldominance in SMS. The modeled aerosol properties are used for estimating the direct, short wave aerosol radiative forcing, under lear-sky conditions. Our estimates show large seasonal changes. Under clear sky conditions, the daily averaged short-wave TOA forcing changes from its highest values during WMS, to the lowest values in SMS; this seasonal change being brought-in mainly by the reduction in the abundance and the mass fraction (to the composite) of black carbon aerosols and of accumulation mode aerosols. The resulting atmospheric forcing varies from the highest, (47 to $53 Wm^{-2})$ in WMS to the lowest (22 to $26 Wm^{-2})$ in SMS.


The purpose of this study was to develop an Internet coping skills training program and to evaluate its feasibility and acceptability compared with an Internet education intervention for teenagers with type 1 diabetes. A multiphase mixed-methods design with focus groups, a randomized pilot study, and a program evaluation was used. Teenagers with type 1 diabetes, parents, and health professionals were included in the development and evaluative phases along with the research and information technology team. The pilot study included 12 teenagers with type 1 diabetes (mean [SD] age, 14.4 [.90] years; 58% female; mean [SD] duration of diabetes, 5.9 [3.0] years). Psychosocial data and HbA1c levels were collected at baseline and at 3 and 6 months. Results indicate that the development of a psychosocial Internet intervention was complex and required multiple iterations of development and evaluation. Results of this study also indicate the feasibility and acceptability of translating a group-based intervention for teenagers with type 1 diabetes to the Internet. Thus, this study demonstrates a systematic approach to Internet intervention development. Including teenagers with type 1 diabetes and a multidisciplinary professional team into the intervention design was critical to the success of this project.


This is a fresh assessment of the importance of portraiture in the image-making of monarchs from Richard II to the present day. This book covers a far wider timescale than any previous studies of the subject, and is the first to focus on royal portraiture from within the Royal Collection. Starting with the pattern-book-style royal portraits of the early kings, it covers works by Holbein, Van Dyck, Zoffany, Landseer and Freud, among many others. Each of the six chapters opens with a quotation, and is structured around specific key images which are discussed in particular detail. The final chapter investigates the new role of portraiture in the age of photography and global media coverage. The impact of the finished image within its specific intended location will be explored, alongside the use of portraits through the ages to promote the public (and private) face of the monarch. New groupings of major portraits are presented alongside little-known works to highlight the evolving role of royal portraiture, and its continuing significance today.


Human‐robot teams are likely to be used in a variety of situations wherever humans require the assistance of robotic systems. Obvious examples include healthcare and manufacturing, in which people need the assistance of machines to perform key tasks. It is essential for robots working in close proximity to people to be both safe and trustworthy. In this paper we examine formal verification of a high-level planner/scheduler for autonomous personal robotic assistants such as CareO-bot R . We describe how a model of Care-O-bot and its environment was developed using Brahms, a multiagent workflow language. Formal verification was then carried out by translating this to the input language of an existing model checker. Finally we present some formal verification results and describe how these could be complemented by simulation-based testing and realworld end-user validation in order to increase the practical and perceived safety and trustworthiness of robotic assistants.


Mixtures of Linear Regressions (MLR) is an important mixture model with many applications. In this model, each observation is generated from one of the several unknown linear regression components, where the identity of the generated component is also unknown. Previous works either assume strong assumptions on the data distribution or have high complexity. This paper proposes a fixed parameter tractable algorithm for the problem under general conditions, which achieves global convergence and the sample complexity scales nearly linearly in the dimension. In particular, different from previous works that require the data to be from the standard Gaussian, the algorithm allows the data from Gaussians with different covariances. When the conditional number of the covariances and the number of components are fixed, the algorithm has nearly optimal sample complexity $N = \tilde{O}(d)$ as well as nearly optimal computational complexity $\tilde{O}(Nd)$, where $d$ is the dimension of the data space. To the best of our knowledge, this approach provides the first such recovery guarantee for this general setting.


An evaluation is made of the imbibition potential of two different chalk facies from outcrops in England and Denmark. Both chalk facies have low permeability, moderate to high porosity, and comparable low insoluble residues (< 5%), but different texture, depositional origin and diagenetic history. Spontaneous imbibition experiments were carried out on plugs with low initial water saturation and North Sea dead oil. Distinctly different production rates and production plateaus were observed for the two chalk facies. Careful investigations of the rock framework and pore system of the sample material form the basis for a theoretical description of wettability alteration and possible imbibition processes in the two chalks. The theoretical descriptions are used to rationalize the results from the spontaneous imbibition experiments. The results suggest that by knowing lithology, depositional history and degree of diagenetic alteration a relative potential of spontaneous imbibition in different chalk facies may be elucidated.


Mining high utility itemsets from a transactional database refers to the discovery of itemsets with high utility like profits. Although a number of relevant approaches have been proposed in recent years, they incur the problem of producing a large number of candidate itemsets for high utility itemsets. Such a large number of candidate itemsets degrades the mining performance in terms of execution time and space requirement. The situation may become worse when the database contains lots of long transactions or long high utility itemsets. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm, namely UP-Growth (Utility Pattern Growth), for mining high utility itemsets with a set of techniques for pruning candidate itemsets. The information of high utility itemsets is maintained in a special data structure named UP-Tree (Utility Pattern Tree) such that the candidate itemsets can be generated efficiently with only two scans of the database. The performance of UP-Growth was evaluated in comparison with the state-of-the-art algorithms on different types of datasets. The experimental results show that UP-Growth not only reduces the number of candidates effectively but also outperforms other algorithms substantially in terms of execution time, especially when the database contains lots of long transactions.


Plasma contains many enzymes that are probably derived from damaged cells. These enzymes are cleared at characteristic rates. We showed previously that in rats the rapid clearance of alcohol dehydrogenase, lactate dehydrogenase M4 and the mitochondrial and cytosolic isoenzymes of malate dehydrogenase is largely due to endocytosis by macrophages in liver, spleen and bone marrow. We now demonstrate that uptake of each of the enzymes by these tissues is in general decreased by simultaneous injection of a high dose of one of the other dehydrogenases or a high dose of adenylate kinase or creatine kinase. A similar dose of colloidal albumin did not significantly decrease uptake of the four dehydrogenases. Nor was uptake of colloidal albumin, apo-peroxidase from horseradish or multilamellar liposomes influenced by a high dose of mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase. These results indicate that the four dehydrogenases and the two kinases are specifically endocytosed via the same receptor. We suggest that this receptor contains a group, possibly a nucleotide, with affinity for the nucleotide-binding sites of the enzymes.


We review active networks as an approach to the layered multicast congestion control protocols. This work involves the performance comparison of two multirate multicast congestion control protocols; Packet Pair Receiver-driven Layered Multicast (PLM) and Active Layered Multicast Adaptation (ALMA) protocols. ALMA is an active networks (AN) based protocol, which uses capsules (active packets) to perform bandwidth adaptation; whereas PLM is a representative of a classical layered multicast congestion control protocol. The aim of the work is to assess the AN-based layered multicast protocol by performing simulation on ns network simulator, as well as to reveal the advantages and drawbacks of the ALMA protocol, which focuses on the implication of the microeconomic theory to bandwidth adaptation. Some performance evaluation properties of congestion control protocols such as stability, efficiency, fairness, scalability, and feasibility are discussed. We conclude that ALMA's performance is comparable with PLM, but offers the use of active packets to implement the protocol. ALMA provides flexibility to manage the network using the price function. We find that ALMA has a fast convergence property and is relatively unfriendly towards TCP.


List of Figures and Tables vii Introduction ix CHAPTER ONE: In Whose Benefit? Explaining Regulatory Change in Global Politics by Walter Mattli and Ngaire Woods 1 CHAPTER TWO: The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and the Shadow of the State by Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal 44 CHAPTER THREE: Filling a Hole in Global Financial Governance? The Politics of Regulating Sovereign Debt Restructuring by Eric Helleiner 89 CHAPTER FOUR: From State Responsibility to Individual Criminal Accountability: A New Regulatory Model for Core Human Rights Violations by Kathryn Sikkink 121 CHAPTER FIVE: The Private Regulation of Global Corporate Conduct by David Vogel 151 CHAPTER SIX: Racing to the Top ... at Last: The Regulation of Safety in Shipping by Samuel Barrows 189 CHAPTER SEVEN: Regulatory Shift: The Rise of Judicial Liberalization at the WTO by Judith L. Goldstein and Richard H. Steinberg 211 CHAPTER EIGHT: Economic Integration and Global Governance: Why So Little Supranationalism? By Miles Kahler and David A. Lake 242 List of Contributors 277 Index 279


This study presents the geometrical optimization of a solar air heater. A reasonable working range of geometrical parameters: length 1–3 m, width 0.1–0.5 m, and height 0.005–0.05 m (or aspect ratio 1–20), is investigated as per general applications and installation constraints. The effect of these geometrical parameters on thermal (heat flux and outlet air temperature) and hydraulic (air velocity, mass flowrate, pressure loss and pumping power, and Bejan number) parameters are theoretically studied. Later, a numerical investigation is carried out with an optimum geometry of SAH-duct (length 2.44 mm and width 0.3 m), for aspect ratio 4–18 and Re 3000–15,000. An experimental study is also done to validate numerical results. The heat transfer and frictional loss do not show a significant change in the values for the aspect ratio 8–12.


The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is essential for proper neuronal function, homeostasis, and protection of the central nervous system (CNS) microenvironment from blood-borne pathogens and neurotoxins. The BBB is also an impediment for CNS penetration of drugs. In some neurologic conditions, such as epilepsy and brain tumors, overexpression of P-glycoprotein, an efflux transporter whose physiological function is to expel catabolites and xenobiotics from the CNS into the blood stream, has been reported. Recent studies reported that overexpression of P-glycoprotein and increase in its activity at the BBB drives a progressive resistance to CNS penetration and persistence of riluzole, the only drug approved thus far for treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), rapidly progressive and mostly fatal neurologic disease. This review will discuss the impact of transporter-mediated pharmacoresistance for ALS drug therapy and the potential therapeutic strategies to improve the outcome of ALS clinical trials and efficacy of current and future drug treatments.


Abstract BACKGROUND The isosteric heat of desorption is vital in evaluating the energy performance of food dryers. The isosteric heat of desorption was investigated for different cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) products prepared as flour or starch, with and without fermentation. An automated moisture sorption gravimetric analyser was used to measure the desorption isotherms over 10–90% relative humidity of the drying air at temperatures ranging from 25 to 65 °C. RESULTS Analysis of variance showed an imperceptible contribution of the preparation method in the measured desorption data. This finding also agreed with microscopical images, which revealed the lack of compelling structural differences among different products. A set of empirical sorption equations suggested by the ASAE standard was examined over the measured desorption isotherms. The standard error of estimation was found to be in the acceptable range of 2.36–3.71%. Furthermore, the fulfilment of the enthalpy‐entropy compensation theory was considered as an additional criterion in the thermodynamic results of different sorption equations, besides their fitting adequacy. The modified Chung–Pfost equation has proved to be the most suitable equation for cassava products, as it is capable of reflecting the temperature dependency of the isosteric heat of desorption. The net isosteric heat of desorption obtained was in the range of 540–1110 kJ kg−1 for 0.10 kg kg−1 dry‐basis moisture content and 52–108 kJ kg−1 for 0.25 kg kg−1 dry‐basis moisture content. CONCLUSION These findings are technologically relevant for optimising common drying technologies such as flash and flatbed dryers. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.


Significance We present a biophysical model of allosteric transcriptional regulation that directly links the location of a mutation within a repressor to the biophysical parameters that describe its behavior. We explore the phenotypic space of a repressor with mutations in either the inducer binding or DNA binding domains. Using the LacI repressor in Escherichia coli, we make sharp, falsifiable predictions and use this framework to generate a null hypothesis for how double mutants behave, given knowledge of the single mutants. Linking mutations to the parameters which govern the system allows for quantitative predictions of how the free energy of the system changes as a result, permitting coarse graining of high-dimensional data into a single-parameter description of the mutational consequences. Mutation is a critical mechanism by which evolution explores the functional landscape of proteins. Despite our ability to experimentally inflict mutations at will, it remains difficult to link sequence-level perturbations to systems-level responses. Here, we present a framework centered on measuring changes in the free energy of the system to link individual mutations in an allosteric transcriptional repressor to the parameters which govern its response. We find that the energetic effects of the mutations can be categorized into several classes which have characteristic curves as a function of the inducer concentration. We experimentally test these diagnostic predictions using the well-characterized LacI repressor of Escherichia coli, probing several mutations in the DNA binding and inducer binding domains. We find that the change in gene expression due to a point mutation can be captured by modifying only the model parameters that describe the respective domain of the wild-type protein. These parameters appear to be insulated, with mutations in the DNA binding domain altering only the DNA affinity and those in the inducer binding domain altering only the allosteric parameters. Changing these subsets of parameters tunes the free energy of the system in a way that is concordant with theoretical expectations. Finally, we show that the induction profiles and resulting free energies associated with pairwise double mutants can be predicted with quantitative accuracy given knowledge of the single mutants, providing an avenue for identifying and quantifying epistatic interactions.


This dissertation presents the case for a normative vision of the relationship between technical experts and other non-expert members of a democratic citizenry. This vision is grounded in two key insights that have emerged from the field of science and technology studies. First, is the "third wave" science studies movement that identifies problems of expertise as the "pressing intellectual problem of the age." Characterized by the problems of legitimacy and extension, Collins and Evans build the case for the extension of the category of expertise to include those who have the relevant experience but lack relevant accreditation. Alongside this extension of the category of expertise is the extension of those who participate in the framing of techno-scientific issues. This dissertation builds a case for the inclusion of all democratic citizens in the problem framing process. What we are left with from the current "third wave" literature is a multi-tiered prescription for the role of non-experts in public decision-making about science and technology. On the ground floor, when the issue is being framed there is a need to include non-expert stakeholders (in theory, any concerned democratic citizen). Once a framing of the problem has been constructed, there is a need to recognize a larger category of people who count as "expert." Together, these constitute the two most powerful prescriptive elements of expertise developed in the recent science studies literature. The dissertation then explores claims that it is specifically "deliberative" theories of democracy that are best suited to make sense out of this democratization of expertise. After presenting a typology of deliberative theories of democracy that clears up a serious problem of equivocation found in appeals to deliberative democracy in current STS literature, this dissertation argues that only a specific set of deliberative theories of democracy, "discursive" deliberative theories of democracy, are capable of fulfilling the role theories of deliberative democracy are assigned in current STS literature. The dissertation then goes on to suggest how these new insights into the democratization of expertise might affect future instantiations of technology assessment mechanisms (such as the Office of Technology Assessment) in the U.S.


Establishing catchment suspended sediment sources is fraught with difficulty. Data collection comprises indirect and direct approaches and an overview is provided. The indirect approach uses a range of techniques to measure or evaluate sediment mobilization. Yet, although recent technological advances in surveying, remote sensing and photogrammetry provide improved resolution of temporal and spatial patterns of catchment erosion, these procedures take no account of source-river connectivity and the uncertainties associated with sediment routing. It is therefore only possible to infer the provenance of suspended sediment loads on the exclusive basis of on-site erosion data for different portions of the upstream catchment unless supportive information on sediment delivery is readily available. In contrast, the direct approach attempts to link sediment sources and flux using alternative means and therefore avoids the need for complementary information. Sediment fingerprinting best represents the direct approach to sediment sourcing and there remains substantial scope for exploiting the potential of this technique. The spatial complexity of sediment mobilization and transfer at the catchment scale necessitates a distributed approach to modelling. Recent developments in computer power and programming techniques are proving useful in this respect, but assembling the input and validation data required by distributed models continues to pose problems and it is frequently difficult to apportion the relative contributions from individual sediment sources. General prospects for future developments are discussed.


Background Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-HS) have increased hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT)-3 receptors versus controls. 5HT-3 antagonists may therefore be efficacious in TLE-HS. However, rare case reports have described seizures in patients treated with 5HT-3 antagonists. We retrospectively investigated seizure episodes in patients with a seizure predisposition treated with ondansetron. Methods Inpatients admitted to the West Midlands regional neurosciences centre from 08/09/2015–31/01/2017 with an epilepsy diagnosis or prescribed ≥1 antiepileptic drug and treated with ondansetron for ≥4 days were included. Patient notes were reviewed to identify seizure episodes during ondansetron treatment. Results 50 patients were identified; 14 had epilepsy, 36 had other diagnoses predisposing to seizures. During ondansetron treatment, 21.4% epilepsy patients and 11.1% with other diagnoses experienced ≥1 seizure; all seizures were deemed unlikely to be ondansetron related. Patients with seizures had similar treatment duration versus patients without (median 8 vs 6 days) and a lower cumulative dose (median 56 vs 72 mg). Conclusion Three patients with epilepsy and four with other diagnoses experienced seizures during ondansetron treatment; none of the seizures were thought to be ondansetron related. A randomised controlled study is needed to assess the efficacy and safety of ondansetron in patients with epilepsy.


Kniest dysplasia is an autosomal-dominant chondrodysplastic condition characterized by disproportionate dwarfism, short trunk, small pelvis, kyphoscoliosis, short limbs, prominent joints, premature osteoarthritis, and craniofacial manifestations. The craniofacial abnormalities include tracheomalacia, midface hypoplasia, cleft palate, early onset myopia, retinal detachment, prominent eyes, and sensorineural hearing loss. Radiologic features include dumbbell-shaped femora, platyspondylia with anterior wedging of vertebral bodies, coronal clefts of thoracolumbar vertebral bodies, low broad ilia, and short tubular bones with broad metaphyses and deformed large epiphyses. This form of chondrodysplasia is associated with mutations in type II collagen splicing sequences. Mutations have been identified in the COL2A1 (type II collagen) gene between exons 12 and 24. Type II collagen is the predominant structural protein in cartilage, and mutations in this collagen account for the Kniest dysplasia phenotype. Histopathologic and ultrastructural features of epiphyseal plate cartilage have been described, but tracheal cartilage in an affected neonate has not been examined. The authors report the histopathologic and ultrastructural findings of anterior tracheal cartilage from a 35-day-old female with suspected chondrodysplasia who had tracheomalacia with airway obstruction. The tracheal cartilage was moderately cellular, but lacked cystic and myxoid changes in its matrix. The chondrocytes had abundant cytoplasmic PAS-positive inclusions. Some of these inclusions were diastase-resistant and were also highlighted on Alcian blue staining. Ultrastructural examination revealed chondrocytes with greatly dilated rough endoplasmic reticulum containing granular proteinaceous material. There were also frequent aggregates of typical glycogen. The defect in the COL2A1 gene is secondary to mutations, especially at splice junctions, and this markedly disrupts triple helix formation. The mutated type II procollagen results in intracellular retention within the chondrocytes, as abundant granular proteinaceous material within the dilated RER. A relationship is known to exist between the proportion of mutated to normal type II collagen in the matrix and the severity of the phenotype. With low levels of normal type II collagen, the phenotypic manifestations become more severe, such as in achondrogenesis type II. Both the quantity and quality of type II collagen modulates the phenotypic expression of type II collagenopathies.


The increasing demand for content-centric applications has motivated researchers to rethink and redesign the way information is stored and delivered on the Internet. Increasingly, network traffic consists of content dissemination to multiple recipients. However, the host-centric architecture of the Internet was designed for point-to-point communication between two fixed endpoints. As a result, there is a mismatch between the current Internet architecture and current data or content-centric applications, where users demand data, regardless of the source of the information, which in many cases is unknown to them.

Content-based networking has been proposed to address such demands with the advantage of increased efficiency, network load reduction, low latency, and energy efficiency. The publish/subscribe (pub/sub) communication paradigm is the most complex and mature example of such a network. Another example is Information Centric Networking (ICN), a global-scale version of pub/sub systems that aims at evolving the Internet from its host-based packet delivery to directly retrieving information by name. Both approaches completely decouple senders (or publishers) and receivers (or subscribers) being very suitable for content-distribution applications or event-driven applications such as instant news delivery, stock quote dissemination, and pervasive computing. To enable this capability, at the core of pub/sub systems are distributed routers or brokers that forward information based on its content. The basic operation that brokers need to perform is to match incoming messages or publications against registered interests or subscriptions.

Though a lot of research has focused on increasing the networking efficiency, security has been only marginally addressed. We believe there are several reasons for this. First of all, security solutions designed for point-to-point communication such as symmetric-key encryption do not scale up to pub/sub systems or ICN applications, mainly because publishers and subscribers are decoupled and it is infeasible for them to establish or to maintain contact and therefore to exchange keying material. In this thesis we analyse several such emerging applications like Smart Energy Systems, Smart Cities and eHealth applications that require greater decoupling of publishers and subscribers, and possible full decoupling.

Second, in large applications that run over public networks and span several administrative domains, brokers cannot be trusted with the content of exchanged messages. Therefore, what pub/sub systems need are solutions that allow brokers to match the content of publications against subscriptions without learning anything about their content. This task is made even more difficult when subscriptions are complex, representing conjunctions and disjunctions of both numeric and non-numeric inequalities. The solutions we surveyed were unable to provide publication and subscription confidentiality, while at the same time supporting complex subscription filters and keeping key management scalable.

Another challenge for publish/subscribe systems is enforcing fine-grained access control policies on the content of publications. Access control policies are usually enforced by a trusted third party or by the owner holding the data. However, such solutions are not possible for pub/sub systems. When brokers are not trusted, even the policies themselves should remain private as they can reveal sensitive information about the data.

In this thesis we address these challenges and design a novel security solution for pub/sub systems when brokers are not trusted such that: (i) it provides confidentiality of publications and subscriptions, (ii) it does not require publishers and subscribers to share keys, (iii) it allows subscribers to express complex subscription filters in the form of general Boolean expressions of predicates, and (iv) it allows enforcing fine-grained access control policies on the data. We provide a security analysis of the scheme.

%We further consider active attackers that corrupt messages or try to disrupt the network by replaying old legitimate messages, or that the publishers and subscribers themselves could misbehave, and provide solutions for data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation.

Furthermore, to secure data caching and replication in the network, a key requirement for ICN systems and recently also of pub/sub systems that extended brokers with database functionality, we show how our solution can be transformed in an encrypted search solution able to index publications at the broker side and allow subscribers to make encrypted queries. This is the first full-fledged multi-user encrypted search scheme that allows complex queries. We analyse the inference exposure of our index using different threat models.

To allow our encrypted routing solution to scale up to large applications or performance constrained applications that require real-time delivery of messages, we also discuss subscription indexing and the inference exposure of the index.

Finally, we implement our solution as a set of middleware-agnostic libraries and deploy them on two popular content-based networking implementations: a pub/sub system called PADRES, and an ICN called CCNx. Performance analysis shows that our solution is scalable.


In this paper, polypyrrole films doped with phosphomolybdic acid was prepared by bulk electrolysis with coulometry in the ScCO2/Water emulsion system. The films were characterized by Raman and cyclic voltammetry methods. The polypyrrole structure was detected by Raman spectrum. And a stable oxidation-reduction behavior with three groups of peaks attributed to the phosphomolybdic acid doped in polypyrrole was established in the cyclic voltammetry curves. Moreover, the peak current was much better than that of the films prepared in conventional systems under constant pressure without the existence of ScCO2.


The role of inosine triphosphatase (ITPase) in adverse drug reactions associated with thiopurine therapy is still under heavy debate. Surprisingly, little is known about the way thiopurines are handled by ITPase. We studied the effect of ITPA polymorphisms on the handling of inosine triphosphate (ITP) and thioinosine triphosphate (TITP) to gain more insight into this phenomenon. Human erythrocyte ITPase activity was measured by incubation with ITP using established protocols, and the generated inosine monophosphate (IMP) was measured using ion-pair RP-HPLC. Molecular analysis of the ITPA gene was performed to establish the genotype. Kinetic parameters were established for the two common polymorphisms for both ITP and TITP as substrates using the above mentioned protocol. Both ITP and TITP are substrates for ITPase and their enzyme activities are comparable. Substrate binding is not altered in the different ITPA polymorphisms. It is shown that the velocity of pyrophosphohydrolysis is compromised when the c.94C > A polymorphism is present, both in the heterozygous and in the homozygous state. TITP is handled by ITPase in a similar way as for ITP, which implies that TITP will accumulate in the erythrocytes of patients with an ITPase deficiency, resulting in adverse drug reactions (ADRs) on thiopurine therapy. In carriers of ITPA polymorphisms, the matter is more complex and the development of ADR may depend on additional epigenetic factors rather than on the accumulation of thiopurinenucleotides.


Together with a set of not commonly reported ones, the most widely known stylized facts of high frequency Nominal Exchange Rates in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru with respect to the US Dollar are studied and interpreted to the light of recent literature in this paper. Among many other results, findings include (i) the tails of ordinary and absolute returns distributions follow inverse power laws, a family of widely occurring empirical regularities which seem to arise from Central Limit Theorem assumption violations and which may be interpreted through the "universality principle"; (ii) the smooth sinusoidal long-run trend and short-term noise dynamics of our nominal exchange rates are dominated by a ragged short to long-term non-symmetric cyclic component in Chile, Colombia and Brazil, while the opposite happens in the remaining two countries; and (iii) time domain component correlation between countries suggest the existence of common factors explaining these rates that may be related to carry trade and time-varying risk related to the appetite for risk of international investors.


Osteoclast formation is controlled by stromal cells/osteoblasts expressing macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (M‐CSF) and receptor activator of NF‐κB ligand (RANKL), crucial for osteoclast progenitor cell proliferation, survival and differentiation, and osteoprotegerin (OPG) that inhibits the interaction between RANKL and its receptor RANK. Recent data have strongly indicated that the nervous system plays an important role in bone biology. In the present study, the effects of the neuropeptide vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), present in peptidergic skeletal nerve fibers, on the expression of RANKL, OPG, and M‐CSF in osteoblasts and stromal cells have been investigated. VIP and pituitary adenylate cyclase‐activating polypeptide 38 (PACAP‐38), but not secretin, stimulated rankl mRNA expression in mouse calvarial osteoblasts. In contrast, VIP inhibited the mRNA expressions of opg and m‐csf, effects shared by PACAP‐38, but not by secretin. VIP did not affect rankl, opg, or m‐csf mRNA expression in mouse bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs). The effects by VIP on the mRNA expression of rankl, opg, and m‐csf were all potentiated by the cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase inhibitor rolipram. In addition, VIP robustly enhanced the phosphorylation of ERK and the stimulatory effect by VIP on rankl mRNA was inhibited by the MEK1/2 inhibitor PD98059. These observations demonstrate that activation of VPAC2 receptors in osteoblasts enhances the RANKL/OPG ratio by mechanisms mediated by cyclic AMP and ERK pathways suggesting an important role for VIP in bone remodeling. J. Cell. Biochem. 112: 3732–3741, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The lossless inductor current sensing method is well-known and is frequently applied in the measurement of output current in DC-DC converters due to its low cost and simplicity. This technique uses a low-pass filter that is matched to the inductance (L) and winding resistance to compensate for induced voltages due to the inductor. However, the waveform fidelity above the corner frequency of the inductor is generally poor due to large production tolerances and thermal drift. In this letter, we propose the use of a coupled sense winding, which increases the corner frequency of the sensing circuit by more than two orders of magnitude. We show, as an example, that for a 3.85 muH inductor the corner frequency of the measurement circuit can be increased from 36 Hz using the conventional approach to 5.8 kHz using the coupled sense winding method. Above the new corner frequency, a low-pass filter is still required but may now be constructed using a smaller capacitor and with improved high-frequency response.


The Oklahoma Marriage Initiative (OMI) is the first large scale program in the country to promote marriage. One of the main audiences for marriage promotion is low-income families. This study provides the historical context and background of how the OMI has been implemented. In particular, this study examines the implementation of the OM! To TANF recipients. This study provides the background of the OMI and raises some issues related to its implementation. These issues include how the goals of the program are defined, lack of caseworker reinforcement, and the need to address other issues related to poverty that impedes the development of healthy relationships.


A review presents analysis of data on involving the oxygen active forms and products of lipid peroxidation resulted from oxidative stress in carcinogenesis at all its levels and during the treatment of cancer patients. Role of various classes of antioxidants in decrease of damaging effect of oxidative stress on DNA structure, state of plasmatic membrane and extracellular matrix as well as the prevention of development and progression of neoplasm is shown. The authors consider that use of antioxidants is well grounded during cytoreductive therapy in patients with various malignancies.


The reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) embedding of distributions offers a general and flexible framework for testing problems in arbitrary domains and has attracted considerable amount of attention in recent years. To gain insights into their operating characteristics, we study here the statistical performance of such approaches within a minimax framework. Focusing on the case of goodness-of-fit tests, our analyses show that a vanilla version of the kernel-embedding based test could be suboptimal, and suggest a simple remedy by moderating the embedding. We prove that the moderated approach provides optimal tests for a wide range of deviations from the null and can also be made adaptive over a large collection of interpolation spaces. Numerical experiments are presented to further demonstrate the merits of our approach.


This report presents the results of a survey into the current use of ancient woodland indicator species lists in the UK. The idea of using species particularly vascular plants as indicators of ancient woodlands can be dated back to the 1970s and the work of Peterken. Since then a wide number of lists of Ancient Woodland Indicators (AWIs)have been produced, some based on expert opinions, some utilising field surveys, others adapted from existing lists. Recently developed lists, e.g. the lists for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been based on either robust reviews of existing lists, and/or expert opinion and/or field surveys and statistical analysis. Concerns however have been expressed regarding the use of lists and these concerns appear to be supported by the uncritical use of indicator species in recent planning inquiries, e.g. not recognising that indicators are indicators and considering them to be the key value of a woodland. A survey was undertaken of relevant individuals working in biological record centres, local authorities and key agencies across the UK. The survey sought to identify what lists of Ancient Woodland Indicators are currently in use, where possible to determine the methods used in developing these lists. The survey also sought to assess the awareness of ancient woodland indicator lists and review the ways in which these were used. A total of 419 questionnaires were sent out; a response rate of 11% was obtained. Follow up phone conversations were held with key individuals involved in developing ancient woodland indicator lists. Responses were received from all counties excluding: Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. In addition, the Lancashire respondent stated there was no AWI list for Lancashire. The key findings of the survey were: • There is a wide variety of lists of Ancient Woodland Indicators lists available covering most of the UK. • Most individuals using indicator lists are unaware of the methods used to produce the lists and therefore of their robustness. Some key stakeholders are unaware of the existence of indicator lists in their area. • Attitudes to ancient woodland indicator lists are variable, as is their use. • Few lists use species thresholds or weightings in determining whether a site is ancient, several lists are currently under review. • There are over 200 species listed on the various Ancient Woodland Indicators lists, few species are common to more than a quarter of the lists.


The distribution function and power deposition during ICRH in a tokamak plasma are analysed. The importance of self-consistent calculations and the formation of non-standard drift orbits are addressed. It is found that for high power ICRH, the presence of non-standard orbits are crucial for describing the distribution function. For a standard minority heating scenario with the ion cyclotron resonance located at the high field side, the absorption of the wave power is shifted to the low field side (LFS) because of the orbit topology and the evolving wave field profile. The high energy tail of the distribution function of the resonating ions is found to be dominated by ions in passing orbits, of which some reside completely on the LFS of the tokamak.


: Dietary nutritional analysis, an important component of nutritional assessment, has been greatly advanced by computers. Computers save time and money and allow more analyses to be performed. A Nutrient Data Bank is being developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and others. Computers calculate many useful statistical relationships and can interact with users to perform interviews. New uses include field surveys and dental and medical practice with dietitians who are Consulting Nutritionists. Possible home computer uses are suggested.


A new analog adaptive filter for deconvolving distorted signals is described in this paper. The filter uses a storage correlator which implements a clipped version of the least mean squared (LMS) algorithm and uses a special iterative technique to achieve fast convergence. The new filter has a potential bandwidth of 100 MHz and would eventually handle pulsed signals of 10-µs width. For signals with time-bandwidth products of less than 100, the adaptation time is less than 1 ms, which allows operation in real time for most applications, including resolution of radar signals in a cluttered environment, removal of echoes from television signals, deconvolution of distorted signals in nondestructive evaluation, and also in telephony. The filter is particularly suited for radar and communications, as it processes signals directly in the VHF range. Two experiments related to ghost suppression of a pulse and to the field of NDE are described in this paper. The results are in good agreement with computer simulations and show a ghost suppression of 15 dB for the first example and a sidelobe suppression of 8 dB for a transducer signal. The adaptation time is less than 450 µs.


Ruxolitinib is the front-line non-palliative treatment for myelofibrosis (MF). However, a significant number of patients lose or present suboptimal response, are resistant or have unacceptable toxicity. In an attempt to improve response and avoid the adverse effects of this drug, we evaluated the combination of 17 drugs with ruxolitinib in ex vivo models of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from MF patients and cell lines. We found that the combination ruxolitinib and nilotinib had a synergistic effect against MF cells (ΔEC50 nilotinib, −21.6%). Moreover, the addition of prednisone to combined ruxolitinib/nilotinib improved the synergistic effect in all MF samples studied. We evaluated the molecular mechanisms of combined ruxolitinib/nilotinib/prednisone and observed inhibition of JAK/STAT (STAT5, 69.2+11.8% inhibition) and MAPK (ERK, 29.4+4.5% inhibition) signaling pathways. Furthermore, we found that the triple therapy combination inhibited collagen protein and COL1A1 gene expression in human bone marrow mesenchymal cells. Taken together, we provide evidence that combined ruxolitinib/nilotinib/prednisone is a potential therapy for MF, possibly through the anti-fibrotic effect of nilotinib, the immunomodulatory effect of ruxolitinib and prednisone, and the anti-proliferative effect of ruxolitinib. This combination will be further investigated in a phase Ib/II clinical trial in MF.


Abstract The advantage of using terrestrial isopods in toxicity studies is that a battery of parameters can be tested at different levels of biological complexity. Feeding parameters for example link organism level response to potential ecological consequences but a problem with using feeding parameters in toxicity tests with terrestrial isopods is their high variability. The aim of our study was to set benchmark values for feeding parameters for isopod Porcellio scaber (Isopoda, Crustacea) in laboratory-controlled experiments. In the work presented here, the daily feeding rate of the central 50% of the control population of Porcellio scaber and a correlation between feeding rate and isopod weight were set. Values outside these ranges need additional evaluation to increase the relevance of test outcomes. We suggest using benchmark values for feeding parameters as well as the coefficient of variation (a) to identify animals with altered feeding parameters with respect to controls, and (b) to assess the data quality in each experiment.


In response to some chemotherapeutic agents such as anthracyclines and oxaliplatin, cancer cells undergo immunogenic apoptosis, meaning that their corpses are engulfed by dendritic cells and that tumor cell antigens are presented to tumor-specific CD8+ T cells, which then control residual tumor cells. One of the peculiarities of immunogenic apoptosis is the early cell surface exposure of calreticulin (CRT), a protein that usually resides in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). When elicited by anthracyclines or oxaliplatin, the CRT exposure pathway is activated by pre-apoptotic ER stress and the phosphorylation of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF2α by the kinase PERK, followed by caspase-8-mediated proteolysis of the ER-sessile protein BAP31, activation of the pro-apoptotic proteins Bax and Bak, anterograde transport of CRT from the ER to the Golgi apparatus and exocytosis of CRT-containing vesicles, finally resulting in CRT translocation onto the plasma membrane surface. Interruption of this complex pathway abolishes CRT exposure, annihilates the immunogenicity of apoptosis, and reduces the immune response elicited by anticancer chemotherapies. We speculate that human cancers that are incapable of activating the CRT exposure pathway are refractory to the immune-mediated component of anticancer therapies. Clin Cancer Res; 16(12); 3100–4. ©2010 AACR.


There has been growing interest in using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in the fields of image forensics and steganalysis, and some promising results have been reported recently. These works mainly focus on the architectural design of CNNs, usually, a single CNN model is trained and then tested in experiments. It is known that, neural networks, including CNNs, are suitable to form ensembles. From this perspective, in this paper, we employ CNNs as base learners and test several different ensemble strategies. In our study, at first, a recently proposed CNN architecture is adopted to build a group of CNNs, each of them is trained on a random subsample of the training dataset. The output probabilities, or some intermediate feature representations, of each CNN, are then extracted from the original data and pooled together to form new features ready for the second level of classification. To make best use of the trained CNN models, we manage to partially recover the lost information due to spatial subsampling in the pooling layers when forming feature vectors. Performance of the ensemble methods are evaluated on BOSSbase by detecting S-UNIWARD at 0.4 bpp embedding rate. Results have indicated that both the recovery of the lost information, and learning from intermediate representation in CNNs instead of output probabilities, have led to performance improvement.


The construction site was used several times: in a first phase, in the republican era of Roman domination it hosted, probably, a temple whose height could reach 25 meters. In a second phase, during the Roman Empire, it was used as a burial area.; then around IV-V century AD a first Christian Basilica made of a naved building with an apse was built there, at the center of a large monastery. Subsequently in a third phase in VI century AD a Byzantine Martyrium, with a Greek cross-shaped plan, was built: the central part of it, supporting a dome is still standing. Finally after 1089 the church was given to Marsilian monks who deeply renovated it and changed its shape converting the plan to a Latin cross. A macroscopic material analysis shows the presence of various rocks, whose use appears to be inhomogeneous during all construction phases. Sedimentary rocks (limestones, sandstones, calcarenites etc belonging to local geological formations) are generally used for masonry structures. Marbles, mostly coming from abroad and previously used in Roman buildings have been adopted for architectural elements (columns, capitals, and so on). At a lower extent there are masonry blocks in Oligo-Miocenic volcanic rocks and seldom stone materials which are not originally from Sardinia. Both mineralogical and petrographic tests (e.g. XRF, XRD) and the most important physical properties (porosity, density, water absorption coefficients, compressive, flexural and tensile strength, etc.) show that many of the more representative samples of rock materials (like limestones, calcarenits) are often highly decayed, with a corresponding reduction of their mechanical strength. A structural analysis is particularly useful for helping in clarifying the historical evolution of the building, checking reconstruction hypotheses and assessing the true residual strength of the more important parts. As an example, a FEM analysis of the Byzantine domed part is going to be presented in a forthcoming paper.


PbTe based semiconductors are characterized by a narrow energy gap and can be used for IR detectors, light emission diodes, lasers and thermoelectric devices. The objective of the present work was to study the effect of oxidation on the properties of n- and p-type PbTe samples prepared by powder metallurgy (bulk materials) and physical vapor deposition (thin films with thickness ∼1 μm). The samples were characterized by SEM, AES and XRD. The Hall effect and electrical conductivity of PbTe samples have been examined over the 80 – 300 K temperature range. The experimental results are accounted for in the framework of a model that is based on: 1- the fast diffusion of oxygen along grain boundaries (GB); 2 - oxygen absorption that generates acceptor states at GB (short time annealing) and the growth of PbTe oxides on GB with properties corresponding to wide band semiconductor (lengthy annealing); 3 - the creation of potential barriers on GB due to oxidation with a thermally activated dependence of the conductivity.


The WTO and other Bretton Woods institutions are widely seen as facilitators of the process of economic globalisation, a process which has been underway for many centuries but which has accelerated since World War II. The role of the WTO, and other organizations, in this process is currently generating considerable social conflict. This article outlines the views of pressure groups from more developed countries about the role of the WTO in economic globalisation paying particular attention to concerns about labour and environmental standards. The views of trade union and labour bodies, of business organizations, farmers and environmentalists, principally from higher income countries, are presented. To some extent, labour bodies, environmentalists and trade-protected farmers appear to have formed a political alliance. In considering the views of developing countries, particular attention is given to the 'official' position of India in relation to the WTO. India opposes the introduction of labour and environmental standards into the WTO agenda and now appears to hold a position akin to that of many business organizations, except that it deplores economic globalisation as an inescapable evil. India is being wooed by administrators of Bretton Woods bodies to take a more prominent role in their agendas. But it is doubtful, if the views of the Indian Minister of Commerce are any indication, whether India will able to provide effective political leadership to developing countries because increasingly it has the appearance of the being handmaiden of Western capitalist interests supportive of a narrow traditional forms of economic rationalism. It is possible that China may be able to provide that leadership after it joins WTO but this will depend on its development and support for an appropriate global social philosophy which might be anchored on the notion of sustainable development. But given that China itself is undergoing considerable variation in its social and economic philosophy, the future leadership role of China for the developing world is unclear.


Abstract What follows is a personal reflection on the challenges that may face the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation in the next 10 years, and is based on two conference presentations and the debate at those conferences. The suggestion is that the character of the members of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in its second decade is different from that of the founding board, and is more pragmatic than crusading. It is mooted that the board will need to address second-order issues of the organisation and policy, and that Europe will try to take a more influential role. The article observes that existing issues of funding, complexity and differential reporting may become more urgent and will need to be addressed for the organisation to continue to evolve.


The ammonium bisulfate (ABS) widely exists at air preheater. The ABS may deposit and foul at the heating elements of air preheater because of the chemical reaction between SO3 at flue gas side and ammonia slip from SCR excess injection. The heat transfer equation between flue gas side and air side is constructed and simplified using physical and mathematical models accordingly. The finite difference method is applied to solve numerically by means of iterative computation. Based on the NH3 and SO3 concentration data from the real time data in the actual operation and the discrete calculation of the temperature field, the Radian number (Ra) is used to evaluate the possibility of ABS fouling and the developing trend of heating elements at the air preheater. A 1000MW ultra supercritical boiler is selected as example. The ABS deposit area is simulated under different working conditions 100%BMCR, 75% BMCR and 50% BMCR. The possible ABS deposition and fouling is analyzed for operators to evaluate the risk of cold-end and hot-end heating elements plate at air preheater. As the working load decreases lower than 50%BMCR, the deposition and fouling position could extend to the hot-end area of heating elements at air preheater.


: The authors developed a simple and efficient method--the iodination of the single-stranded DNA catalyzed by thallium chloride in vitro. The 125I-labelled DNA has a specific activity higher than 10(8) cpm/micrograms DNA. This reaction does not involve any enzyme. The optimal conditions of the iodinating reaction, including the high temperature, low pH and the concentrations of DNA and iodine, are described. 125I-labelled DNA inserted with the fragment of EBV-DNA are used to detect EBV-DNA by blot and spot and in situ hybridization.


ABSTRACT Background: Primary care practitioners (PCPs) have a vital role in patient weight management. This study investigates knowledge, attitudes and practice of UK PCPs regarding patient weight management. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire assessed PCP perceived knowledge, self-reported practice, attitudes towards overweight/obesity and actual knowledge regarding overweight and obesity management. Practitioners from NE Scotland were invited to participate. Results: Participants comprised 107 PCPs. Most participants viewed management of overweight and obesity as core to their roles and 75% reported discussing weight with overweight/obese patients. Management techniques included discussion and advice provision. Behavioural change techniques (BCTs) were reported infrequently, despite perceptions that patients lacked motivation to lose weight. A quarter of participants reported a lack of training and a third reported inadequate skills to manage overweight/obese patients. Mean percent correct for knowledge questions was approximately 53%. Barriers to patient weight management included lack of specialists for referral and limited time. Conclusions: This study confirmed a primary care role in managing weight in overweight/obese patients. Our finding that most participants reported discussing weight with their overweight or obese patients is unsupported by previously published research, however, a more comprehensive sample of practitioners is required to scrutinize this disparity. Incongruence exists between practitioners' perceptions of difficulties associated with patient weight loss and the tools they use to address them. Inclusion of training in BCT, the provision of weight care specialists, or referral on to commercial weight loss organizations may provide more effective pathways for PCPs to assist weight loss for overweight/obese patients in primary care.


This thesis sets out to develop a model of entrepreneurial action that takes its point of departure in entrepreneurs´experiences of risk-taking, opportunity identification and the role of self. By focusing on what entrepreneurs experience as relevant aspects of their life worlds the goal is to attain a better understanding of the drivers and motivations of venture creation and development. Action has traditionally been defined as doing something with a degree of intentionality or awareness, as opposed to mere thinking or mechanical behavior. This opens up for a number of alternative interpretations of entrepreneurial action, which is also reflected in the existing literature in the field of entrepreneurship. After a brief stocktaking of influential economic perspectives, this literature is reviewed under three broad headings, viz. behavioral, cognitive and discursive approaches to entrepreneurial action. These approaches in different ways increase our understanding, but also fail to capture important aspects of entrepreneurial action as a contextually embedded process while retaining the entrepreneur as a reflexive and strategically thinking subject. To complement existing research the appended studies use phenomenological methods to explore the entrepreneurial life world. The general ambition is to examine how entrepreneurs experience and conceptualize their actions, including how key phenomena are conceptualized and enacted as part of the venture creation and development process. This is specifically addressed in four appended studies that investigate risk (study I and IV), opportunity (study III) and the role of self (study II) among technology entrepreneurs. The argument is that these themes cover key aspects of the entrepreneurial life world and therefore provide a good starting point for analyzing entrepreneurial action writ large. Based on the individual studies, the discussion section outlines the contours of a general model of entrepreneurial action that centers around the questions: Who am I?, What do I see?, What do I do?, and What are the effects? By taking the experiences of the acting entrepreneur as the point of departure, it is also possible to re-examine many questions and assumptions in the study of entrepreneurship. Theoretically the salience of individual experiences suggests a new understanding of who the entrepreneur is. It also indicates that personal and often conflicting perceptions of risks and opportunities, regardless of their realism, constitute important drivers of entrepreneurial action. Practically the results may allow entrepreneurs, managers, educators, venture capitalists and others to take more informed actions. For entrepreneurs the results may increase awareness of their own role, problematize risks and opportunities, and also suggest new and creative ways for developing the venture. More specifically the results can be used as an analytical template in the evaluation of, e.g. financial and technological risks. The thesis also contributes methodologically by demonstrating how phenomenological methodologies may advance understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial action.


Biochemical reaction networks are often modelled using discrete-state, continuous-time Markov chains. System statistics of these Markov chains usually cannot be calculated analytically and therefore estimates must be generated via simulation techniques. There is a well documented class of simulation techniques known as exact stochastic simulation algorithms, an example of which is Gillespie's direct method. These algorithms often come with high computational costs, therefore approximate stochastic simulation algorithms such as the tau-leap method are used. However, in order to minimise the bias in the estimates generated using them, a relatively small value of tau is needed, rendering the computational costs comparable to Gillespie's direct method.
The multi-level Monte Carlo method (Anderson and Higham, Multiscale Model. Simul. 10:146-179, 2012) provides a reduction in computational costs whilst minimising or even eliminating the bias in the estimates of system statistics. This is achieved by first crudely approximating required statistics with many sample paths of low accuracy. Then correction terms are added until a required level of accuracy is reached. Recent literature has primarily focussed on implementing the multi-level method efficiently to estimate a single system statistic. However, it is clearly also of interest to be able to approximate entire probability distributions of species counts. We present two novel methods that combine known techniques for distribution reconstruction with the multi-level method. We demonstrate the potential of our methods using a number of examples.


Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the "interviewing imagination" can and should be.


We investigated visible and UV light response of OTFTs based on the solution processable poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) semiconducting polymer. The transistors show a photoresponse in channel current under white and UV light illumination. Stabilization time after illumination and recovery time after turning off the light sources are also studied. A transport analysis based on a modified drift-diffusion model is presented.


We study the statistical properties of geodesics, i.e. paths of minimal length, in large random planar quadrangulations. We extend Schaeffer's well-labeled tree bijection to the case of quadrangulations with a marked geodesic, leading to the notion of 'spine trees', amenable to a direct enumeration. We obtain the generating functions for quadrangulations with a marked geodesic of fixed length, as well as with a set of 'confluent geodesics', i.e. a collection of non-intersecting minimal paths connecting two given points. In the limit of quadrangulations with a large area n, we find in particular an average number 3 × 2i of geodesics between two fixed points at distance i ≫ 1 from each other. We show that, for generic endpoints, two confluent geodesics remain close to each other and have an extensive number of contacts. This property fails for a few 'exceptional' endpoints which can be linked by truly distinct geodesics. Results are presented both in the case of finite length i and in the scaling limit i ∝ n1/4. In particular, we give the scaling distribution of the exceptional points.


This chapter reflects on refugee protection laws and practices in the political region of Central Asia, which includes five post-Soviet States. Four of them—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—are parties to the Refugee Convention and its Protocol and have been at the crossroads of massive refugee movements since the 1990s. The fifth State, Uzbekistan, is not a party to either instrument. The chapter undertakes a comparative analysis of local legislation, refugee status determination procedures, and jurisprudence in asylum cases between 2010 and 2017, and draws on findings from fieldwork in Central Asian States in 2016–17. It advances two main arguments. The first argument is that refugee protection in the region is highly politicized and aligned with the self-interests of the States. The second argument is that, despite the lack of full compliance with refugee law in the region, over the past two decades, the ratification of the Refugee Convention and international pressure in landmark refugee cases and other efforts has led to noticeable improvements in refugee protection, and a reduction in refoulement in three States which care about their political image internationally (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan).


Momentum strategies tend to provide low returns during market crashes, and they crash themselves when the market rebounds after significant crashes. This is reflected by positive downside market betas and negative upside market betas of zero-cost momentum portfolios. Such asymmetry in upside and downside risks is unfavorable for investors and requires a risk premium. It arises mechanically because of momentum portfolio rebalancing based on trailing asset performance. The asymmetry in upside and downside risks is a robust unifying feature of momentum portfolios in various geographical and asset markets. The momentum premium can be rationalized within a standard asset-pricing framework, where upside and downside risks are priced differently.


This paper describes tests of precision GPS time transfer using geodetic-quality TurboRogue receivers. The GPS data are processed with the GIPSY-OASIS II software, which simultaneously estimates the GPS satellite orbits and clocks, receiver locations and clock offsets, as well as other parameters such as Earth orientation. This GPS solution technique, which emphasizes high accuracy GPS orbit determination and observable modeling, has been shown to enable sub-1 ns time transfer at global distance scales. GPS-based monitoring of clock performance has been carried out for several years through JPL's high precision GPS global network processing. The paper discusses measurements of variations in relative clock offsets down to a level of a few tens of picoseconds. GPS-based clock frequency measurements are also presented.


This paper attempts to investigate experimentally the influence of base conditions on the mobility of a stratum on a rigid base. The results are compared with the theoretical results as presented by the author in a previous publication. It is shown that the obtained measurement results reasonably agree with the theory and that the base conditions of stratum on a rigid base do have a significant influence on the force mobility, particularly at resonance.


Consulting takes multiple forms, either as a professional service or as an advisory service to help clients to improve organizational performance. The consultants provide these services on an entire gamut of areas ranging from operations, financial services, IT to marketing. The scope of the objectives includes guiding companies to achieve specific targets in terms of improving revenue, improving productivity or providing a strategy for the future. The consulting industry can be traced to the big four accounting firms and is now worth $300 billion with boutique firms also making their space felt among the big ones. Business Schools have an opportunity to build a critical mass of students with expertise to take a holistic approach to solve organizational issues. The curriculum content of business schools is to groom a consultant's focus, primarily on techniques engaging the client in identifying the needs and in building relationships. The students are also trained on consensus building, the analytical approach and the techniques to pitch solutions to the client. The objective of the curriculum is to build soft skill competency to complement their domain skill sets and to make them job-ready. The major source of talent pool for consulting firms is the top business schools. A number of institutions have made some breakthroughs in the curriculum, thus serving the need of the industry better, in particular the Harvard Business School with its case based study methodology. In this paper, we would be looking at some of the latest initiatives that have been adopted to bridge the gap between what is the need of the industry and what is available. A lot of these initiatives involve a joint collaboration between the industry and the schools to better prepare the students for a career in consulting which we predict will be the way forward. Keywords:  Innovative Curriculum, Management Education, Consulting These initiatives will also make the business school students proponents of new ideas which can be used to bridge the need-gap issue. The main differentiator of this methodology will be the fact that students will get a peek into how businesses work at the grass-roots level and also gain insights into the nuances of where businesses can be advised. This would, in turn, pave the way to engage other stakeholders as well. Thus a virtuous circle would be set up wherein businesses tap business school students to find innovative solutions to their problems, who in turn tap into their knowledge shared across geographies, propose solutions and benefit every stakeholder involved in the business, thus making the model self-sustainable in the long run. Moreover, the students get introduced to various sectors and their business models, widening their knowledge base which can be used by those wishing to set up their own entrepreneurial ventures.


One hundred and eighteen subjects living at various distances from the carrier rocket fall places underwent cytomorphological studies of the upper airways (rhinocytogram) and buccal epithelium. The findings indicate that the dwellers of the settlements of Ulytausky District have chronic hypertrophic rhinitis since the nasal mucosa and the buccal epithelium are the first and most important biological barrier on the way of adverse and technogenic factors to come into the organism. Technogenic pollutants have cumulative activities, causing granulated mast cells to accumulate; then they actively secrete biologically active substances, by impairing the epithelial responsiveness in both the upper airways and the buccal epithelium.


Background/introduction Award of a certificate of completion of training is dependent on registrars attaining 44 competences described in the 2010 Genitourinary Medicine Higher Specialty Training curriculum. Aim(s)/objectives This study evaluates clinical opportunities of a 4-year modular training programme in a large teaching hospital to determine: Whether opportunity cost of training to service delivery is justifiable. Competences that are inadequately addressed by direct clinical opportunities alone. Methods Curriculum competences-based evaluation was undertaken with local faculty and trainees quantitatively assessing the 'usefulness' of the modular programme to meet each curriculum competence. A Quality-Cost Justification matrix determined whether opportunity costs to service provision could be justified for individual clinical opportunities. This considered whether the opportunity is a mandatory curriculum requirement as well as the quality of training determined by triangulating quantitative 'usefulness' ratings of the faculty with qualitative findings of the trainee survey. Results While 100% (n = 6) of registrars were either satisfied or very satisfied with existing clinical opportunities, these were only sufficiently useful for attaining 23/44 competences. Additional formalised training by way of an academic programme, opportunities to design teaching programmes and research and management experience were required to meet 10/20 GUM, 5/18 HIV, 6/6 management competences. For all sexual health and 2/6 HIV clinical opportunities, the high quality of training justified the opportunity cost to service provision. Discussion/conclusion The curriculum competences-based approach to training evaluation offers a focused and objective approach to resolve conflict of training and service provision. Furthermore, it highlights and supports formalisation of non-clinical training opportunities.


The article offers an interpretivist analysis of China's coexistence approach to developing the Responsibility to Protect norm concerning atrocity crimes against civilians. The English school's concept of great power legitimacy through coexistence is a central characteristic of its international society description of the international realm. The article uses an interpretivist approach to show how China's coexistence foreign policy tradition was challenged by the liberal internationalist agenda of a Responsibility to Protect norm on atrocity crimes against civilians. The emergence of an alternative Chinese Responsibility to Protect concept coupling a state-centric and a people-centric approach with its focus on political and economic capacity-building of existing domestic institutions allowed China to position itself as a legitimate lifeline of liberal international institutions. The article shows how an illiberal state can become a prominent upholder of central institutions of the post-World War II liberal international order.


The effect of rate of decline of kidney function on risk for death is not well understood. Using the Department of Veterans Affairs national databases, we retrospectively studied a cohort of 4171 patients who had rheumatoid arthritis and early stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD; estimated GFR 45 to 60 ml/min) and followed them longitudinally to characterize predictors of disease progression and the effect of rate of kidney function decline on mortality. After a median of 2.6 years, 1604 (38%) maintained stable kidney function; 426 (10%), 1147 (28%), and 994 (24%) experienced mild, moderate, and severe progression of CKD, respectively (defined as estimated GFR decline of 0 to 1, 1 to 4, and >4 ml/min per yr). Peripheral artery disease predicted moderate progression of CKD progression. Black race, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and peripheral artery disease predicted severe progression of CKD. After a median of 5.7 years, patients with severe progression had a significantly increased risk for mortality (hazard ratio 1.54; 95% confidence interval 1.30 to 1.82) compared with those with mild progression; patients with moderate progression exhibited a similar trend (hazard ratio 1.10; 95% confidence interval 0.98 to 1.30). Our results demonstrate an independent and graded association between the rate of kidney function decline and mortality. Incorporating the rate of decline into the definition of CKD may transform a static definition into a dynamic one that more accurately describes the potential consequences of the disease for an individual.


The abrupt millennial-scale changes associated with the Younger Dryas (YD) event ("chronozone") near the dawn of the Holocene are at least hemispheric, if not global, in extent. Evidence for the YD cold excursion is abundant in Europe but fairly meager in central North America. We are engaged in an investigation of high-resolution environmental changes in mid-North America over several millennia (about 10,000 to 14,000 BP) during the Late Glacial–Early Holocene transition, including the YD interval. Several sites containing logs or stumps have been identified and we are in the process of initial sampling or re-sampling them for this project. Here, we report on a site in central Illinois containing a deposit of logs initially thought to be of YD age preserved in alluvial sands. The assemblage of wood represents hardwood (angiosperm) trees, and the ring-width characteristics are favorable to developing formal tree-ring chronologies. However, 4 new radiocarbon dates indicate deposition of wood may have taken place over at least 8000 14C yr (6000–14,000 BP). This complicates the effort to develop a single floating chronology of several hundred years at this site, but it may provide wood from a restricted region over a long period of time from which to develop a sequence of floating chronologies, the timing of deposition and preservation of which could be related to paleoclimatic events and conditions.


The study delved into the factors the influence students' learning progress in the implementation of the science spiral progression curriculum in selected public junior high schools in the Division of Pasig City, Philippines, covering the school year 2017 – 2018. The study used the quantitative approach to research, particularly the descriptive research methodology. The specific descriptive research designs utilized were the correlational and normative surveys. The contextual analysis technique was likewise used. Data were statistically tested with the use of frequency distribution formula, percentage formula, and percentage weighted mean The study concluded that the perspectives of the science teachers in executing the science spiral progression curriculum vary from school to school. The study also found out that several factors influence the students' learning progress and that majority of the Grade 10 students for the School Year 2017 – 2018 of the Division of Pasig City Philippines have "fairly satisfactory" performance.


In recent concept development and research effort on Unmanned Arial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) and urban on demand mobility (ODM), electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) operations for cargo delivery and passenger transportation need to constantly check if their mission can be successfully completed given the current battery power supply. This onboard or ground-based mission evaluation algorithm is necessary because (1) eVTOL aircraft run on limited battery power; and (2) eVTOL aircraft are usually light weighted so they are subject to wind uncertainties in low-altitude airspace. In this work, the plan is to create an equivalent circuit model (ECM) that best represents the battery pack of a UAS, and then use flight testing to validate the accuracy of that model. Additionally, the ECM will be used to predict the UAS's ability to complete a specific flight plan successfully. The expected significance of this research is to provide an online framework to constantly monitor and predict battery behavior for mission assessment, which is critical for low-altitude eVTOL operations.