Main Theme: This abstract provides a brief overview of Enterprise Risk Management and the StrategyRiskFocused Organization. Due to technological advances, internet usage and a multitude of other changing aspects in the business environment, companies more than ever need to update their method of handling numerous risks. An enterprise risk management (ERM) model with eight components was put in place by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) in the third quarter of 2004. This new approach to managing risks provides a framework for companies to drastically improve the execution of budgeting, planning and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). COSO considers risk management everyone's responsibility. Typically risks are grouped within the following areas—strategic, operational, financial, and hazard. When stakeholder value is sacrificed, it's normally a result of not identifying or poorly managing one of the risk categories mentioned above. The internal environment of a business essentially sets the stage for ERM. Many of the decisions made regarding the amount of acceptable risk are determined by executive management and the board of directors. Also, the ethical principles of the company are a factor in risk acceptance and usually mirror the values of top management. Understanding objectives at every level in a business is crucial. ERM emphasizes this importance and helps companies relay objectives for all daytoday tasks so individuals can relate no matter what position they hold. Risk identification and assessment are an essential part of the ERM framework. Being able to identify risks with a number of methods is important and all employees should be involved. The assessment can be an empirical validation or a consensus judgment may be used to prepare risk maps. The actions for the identified risks are determined and will vary depending on an organization's tolerance for risks. To manage the response to risks, control activities are used in the ERM process. Also, communication is essential with risk management to ensure support by executive directors and the board of directors. In order to keep the process in check, businesses implement monitoring that may ultimately provide a link to increased profit margins. Abstract prepared by: ERM Initiative Faculty and Ginger Howell


: Light and electron microscopy were employed to study the histogenesis of the skeletogenous tissue during stable distraction osteosynthesis according to G. A. Ilizarov. Osteosynthesis proceeded on the basis of the invariably existing fibrillar connective tissue growth plate situated in the medium part of the distraction regenerate. Osteogenesis was continuously accompanied by angiogenesis. Preservation of the connective tissue plate is accounted for by the stimulating influence of distraction on fibrillogenesis. The authors suggest the common character of the histogenesis of the vascular and bone tissues in the connective tissue blastema of the interfragmental distraction regenerate.


There is increasing theoretical and empirical evidence, from the Apollo era and after, of volatiles deep in the lunar interior, in the crust and deeper, both hydrogen-rich and otherwise. This comes in the form of fire fountain samples from Apollo 15 and Apollo 17, of hydrated minerals excavated by impacts which reach the base of the lunar crust e.g., crater Bullialdus, of hydration of apatite and other minerals, as well as predictions of a water-concentrated layer along with the KREEP material at the base of the lunar crust. We discuss how the presence of these volatiles might be directly explored. In particular water vapor molecules percolating to the surface through lunar regolith might be expected to stick and freeze into the regolith, at depths of several meters depending on the regolith temperature profile, porosity and particle size distribution, quantities that are not well known beyond two meters depth. To explore these depths in the regolith we use and propose several modes of penetrating radar. We will present results using the SELENE/Kaguya's Lunar Sounding RADAR (LSR) to probe the bulk volatile dielectric and loss structure properties of the regolith in various locations, both within permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) and without, and within neutron suppression regions (NSRs) as traced by epithermal neutrons and without. We also propose installation of ground penetrating RADAR (GPR) on a roving lunar platform that should be able to probe between 0.2 and 1.6 GHz, which will provide a probe of the entire depth of the lunar regolith as well as a high-resolution (about 4 cm FWHM) probe of the upper meter or two of the lunar soil, where other probes of volatiles such as epithermal neutron absorption or drilling might be employed. We discuss predictions for what kinds of volatile density profiles might be distinguished in this way, and whether these will be detected from orbit as NSRs, whether these must be restricted to PSRs, and how these might appear in LSR measurements.


Dense matrix multiply (MM) serves as one of the most heavily used kernels in deep learning applications. To cope with the high computation demands of these applications, heterogeneous architectures featuring both FPGA and dedicated ASIC accelerators have emerged as promising platforms. For example, the AMD/Xilinx Versal ACAP architecture combines general-purpose CPU cores and programmable logic (PL) with AI Engine processors (AIE) optimized for AI/ML. An array of 400 AI Engine processors executing at 1 GHz can theoretically provide up to 6.4 TFLOPs performance for 32-bit floating-point (fp32) data. However, machine learning models often contain both large and small MM operations. While large MM operations can be parallelized efficiently across many cores, small MM operations typically cannot. In our investigation, we observe that executing some small MM layers from the BERT natural language processing model on a large, monolithic MM accelerator in Versal ACAP achieved less than 5% of the theoretical peak performance. Therefore, one key question arises: How can we design accelerators to fully use the abundant computation resources under limited communication bandwidth for end-to-end applications with multiple MM layers of diverse sizes? We identify the biggest system throughput bottleneck resulting from the mismatch of massive computation resources of one monolithic accelerator and the various MM layers of small sizes in the application. To resolve this problem, we propose the CHARM framework to compose multiple diverse MM accelerator architectures working concurrently towards different layers within one application. CHARM includes analytical models which guide design space exploration to determine accelerator partitions and layer scheduling. To facilitate the system designs, CHARM automatically generates code, enabling thorough onboard design verification. We deploy the CHARM framework for four different deep learning applications, including BERT, ViT, NCF, MLP, on the AMD/Xilinx Versal ACAP VCK190 evaluation board. Our experiments show that we achieve 1.46 TFLOPs, 1.61 TFLOPs, 1.74 TFLOPs, and 2.94 TFLOPs inference throughput for BERT, ViT, NCF, MLP, respectively, which obtain 5.40x, 32.51x, 1.00x and 1.00x throughput gains compared to one monolithic accelerator.


This paper assesses the aspect of market neutrality for a pairs trading strategy built on cointegration. This was conducted by evaluating the strategy?s performance during a negative market environment, 2007-06-01 to 2008-12-30, and a positive market environment, 2013-05-31 to 2014-12-30, for the stocks listed in the OMXS30 index. The results indicate market neutrality and that profitability of pairs trading is higher in prolonged periods of turbulence.


Thymotropic hormone was given subcutaneously in a dose of 100 mg twice a week for 3 months to 10 women with verified chronic cytomegalovirus infection. After termination of the treatment, in 8 women the virus excretion was decreased and this was accompanied with some improvement in immunological parameters: increased activity of natural killers, enhanced interferon-producing activity of lymphocytes, higher theophylline-resistant lymphocytes, and lower theophylline-sensitive T-cells. The above results confirm the association between the activity of cytomegalovirus infection and the state of immunity and allow thymotropic hormone to be recommended for treatment of other groups of patients with cytomegalovirus infection.


ASTRONOMYThe Japanese Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics has picked up feeble high-energy x-rays from six old, nearby galaxies--the distress signals of supermassive black holes starving to death. Or so say American and British astronomers who presented their results last week at the meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in Charleston, South Carolina. The results suggest that the giant black holes powering quasars, brilliant galaxylike objects in the early universe, did not shut down completely as their food supply--interstellar gas--dwindled.


We have cloned, sequenced and expressed the spike (S) gene of canine coronavirus (CCV; strain K378). Its deduced amino acid sequence has revealed features in common with other coronavirus S proteins: a stretch of hydrophobic amino acids at the amino terminus (the putative signal sequence), another hydrophobic region at the carboxy terminus (the membrane anchor), heptad repeats preceding the anchor, and a cysteine-rich region located just downstream from it. Like other representatives of the same antigenic cluster (CCV-Insavc-1 strain, feline infectious peritonitis and enteric coronaviruses, porcine transmissible gastroenteritis and respiratory coronaviruses, and the human coronavirus HCV 229E), the CCV S polypeptide lacks a proteolytic cleavage site present in many other coronavirus S proteins. Pairwise comparisons of the S amino acid sequences within the antigenic cluster demonstrated that the two CCV strains (K378 and Insavc-1) are 93.3% identical, about as similar to each other as they are to the two feline coronaviruses. The porcine sequences are clearly more divergent mainly due to the large differences in the amino-terminal (residues 1 to 300) domains of the proteins; when only the carboxy-terminal parts (residues 301 and on) are considered the homologies between the canine, feline and porcine S polypeptides are generally quite high, with identities ranging from 90.8% to 96.8% . The human coronavirus is less related to the other members of the antigenic group. A phylogenetic tree constructed on the basis of the S sequences showed that the two CCVs are evolutionarily more related to the feline than to the porcine viruses. Expression of the CCV S gene using the vaccinia virus T7 RNA polymerase system yielded a protein of the expected M(r) (approximately 200K) which could be immunoprecipitated with an anti-feline infectious peritonitis virus polyclonal serum and which was indistinguishable from the S protein synthesized in CCV-infected cells.


The human body occupies a central place in Rukeyser's poetry. Her characters' physical experiences inspire their search for an artistic form and a holistic vision that reconciles the corporeal and conceptual aspects of their life. My thesis deals with Rukeyser's reconciliation of disparate aspects of existence through the image of the human body and the practical experiences she underwent in her personal life and incorporated in her poetry. I discuss her poetry of the 1940s, where a tension is observed between the artist's personal life and her art, which she attempts to resolve by adopting an artistic form that accommodates her quotidian experiences. I study, mainly through her poetry of the 1950s, Rukeyser's poetic technique in the light of her organicist poetics and the combination of tendencies to coercion and suggestiveness distinguishing her style. I examine her portrayal of the suffering body in her poetry of the 1960s and 1970s. By means of their physical experiences, the ill, her despised and the imprisoned protagonists undergo a process of development whereby they perceive the different aspects of their identity and attempt to broaden perspectives on their situation by reconciling them.
I argue that Rukeyser's engagement with physical encounters and with the poem as an inclusive, organic body enables her to reconcile disparate elements in her poetry, such as her personal life and her art, her individual existence and the public world, as well as the distinct aspects of her characters' identity. Her vatic outlook, which integrates distinct aspects of experience, is consistent with Merleau-Ponty's idea of human perception as characterised by the two interdependent positions of immanence and transcendence. Rukeyser's poetry depicts her physical engagement with quotidian events of her life as a factor of artistic inspiration. These situations constitute shared human experiences that enable her to imagine the links binding her to other people and the world at large. The poet's personal experiences inspire her search for an artistic form that accommodates them. Her perception of the concrete aspect
of her individual existence gains significance when it is linked to social and political issues. Both the private and public are thus seen as interconnected, and they affect the existence of each other while retaining their distinctness.


The function of ezrin, a member of the ezrin-radixin-moesin (ERM) protein family, is to regulate the cell membrane architecture within the context of fundamental biological processes by linking the membrane and the actin cytoskeleton. In the inactive state, ezrin is conformationally masked by self-association of N- and C-terminal domains. Ezrin activation is thought to rely on a conformational change induced by binding to L-α-phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) and followed by phosphorylation of a conserved threonine (T) residue, thus rendering the binding site for filamentous actin (F-actin) accessible. However, the contribution of the individual activation factor is still controversially discussed. Moreover, several lines of evidence indicate that PIP2 binding might be sufficient to establish a stable interaction between ezrin and F-actin. In the first part of this work, different strategies for the preparation of PIP2-containing solid-supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are presented overcoming often encountered spreading issues owing to the multiple negative charges of PIP2. Reflectometric interference spectroscopy (RIfS) and fluorescence microscopy were employed to verify the SLB formation. With regard to reliable formation of SLBs containing high PIP2 fractions and subsequent ezrin binding to control the accessibility of PIP2, only spreading at pH 4.8 gave satisfactory results, whereas calcium ions or increased ionic strength revealed to be not suitable. Solid-supported hybrid membranes, prepared by spreading of PIP2-containing vesicles on hydrophobically functionalized substrates, were characterized by comparably high lateral PIP2 mobility in fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) experiments using a fluorescent PIP2 analogue as tracer. Binding of ezrin to PIP2 effectively reduced its diffusion, implicating that ezrin is able to maintain PIP2 clusters within a cellular context. The main part of this thesis is dedicated to investigating to what extent PIP2 and phosphorylation contribute to ezrin activation regarding on the one hand a possible height change of ezrin aggregates on SLBs due to the conformational change and on the other hand the strength of its interaction with F-actin. The influence of phosphorylation was assessed by using three ezrin variants, namely ezrin wildtype, ezrin T567A (nonphosphorylatable), and ezrin T567D (pseudophosphorylated). The influence of PIP2 on the activation was addressed by using two different ezrin immobilization strategies, either nickel nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA-Ni)- or PIP2-mediated. Only the combination of PIP2 binding and phosphorylation led to a significantly lower protein height level on the SLB as determined by RIfS and atomic force microscopy imaging. By colloidal probe microscopy (CPM), it was found that PIP2 is sufficient to significantly enhance the interaction between ezrin and F-actin in terms of increased surface adhesion energies, whereas phosphorylation contributes to a minor extent. Notably, the adhesion forces remained almost unchanged. From these findings, we inferred that ezrin activation generates rather many weak than few strong bonds between ezrin and F-actin, forming a stable multivalent interaction.


Lifetime-limited optical excitation lines of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect centers in diamond have been observed at liquid helium temperature. They display unprecedented spectral stability over many seconds and excitation cycles. Spectral tuning of the spin-selective optical resonances was performed via the application of an external electric field (i.e., the Stark shift). A rich variety of Stark shifts were observed including linear as well as quadratic components. The ability to tune the excitation lines of single NV centers has potential applications in quantum information processing.


This paper estimates the political and economic effects of the 19th century disenfranchisement of black citizens in the U.S. South. Using adjacent county-pairs that straddle state boundaries, I examine the effect of voting restrictions on political competition, public goods, and factor markets. I find that poll taxes and literacy tests each lowered overall electoral turnout by 8-22% and increased the Democratic vote share in elections by 1-7%. Employing newly collected data on schooling inputs, I show that disenfranchisement reduced the teacher-child ratio in black schools by 10-23%, with no significant effects on white teacher-child ratios. I develop a model of suffrage restriction and redistribution in a 2-factor economy with migration and agricultural production to generate sufficient statistics for welfare analysis of the incidence of black disenfranchisement. Consistent with the model, disenfranchised counties experienced a 3.5% increase in farm values per acre, despite a 4% fall in the black population. The estimated factor market responses suggest that black labor bore a collective loss from disenfranchisement equivalent to at least 15% of annual income, with landowners experiencing a 12% gain.


The corruption of compressed video bitstreams during their transmission over error-prone communication channels leads to degradation in the visual quality at the decoder. In order to effectively conceal the corrupted video data an exact error detection scheme is of utmost importance. In this paper, we present a new error detection scheme for the H.264/AVC using the RD optimized motion vector constraints to improve the error detection rate. The simulation results show that the detection rate of the proposed algorithm is about 86%, although the proposed scheme brings about a small amount of bitrate increment and causes a slight decrement in the PSNR during the encoding.


During normal early pregnancy, a particular immune environment in the decidua and the expression of non-classical HLA-G and HLA-E molecules on the invading trophoblast are assumed to be essential for the tolerance of the fetus. To assess whether HLA-G and HLA-E influence the cytokine production of their putative target cells [large granular lymphocytes (LGL)], we analysed the concentrations of tumour necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), interferon (IFN)-gamma, interleukin (IL)-10, IL-13 and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in supernatants of isolated first trimester LGL co-cultured with HLA-G or HLA-E transfected K-562 leukaemia cells lacking the classical HLA class I and II molecules. In comparison with that observed with untransfected K-562 cells, co-culture of LGL with HLA-G-expressing cells significantly reduced the concentration of all cytokines investigated (TNF-alpha, IL-10 and GM-CSF, P < 0.01; IFN-gamma and IL-13, P < 0.05). In contrast, co-culture of LGL with HLA-E-expressing cells significantly (P < 0.01) decreased only IL-10 production, although a strong tendency towards reduced IL-13 levels was also observed. In the co-culture system presented, membrane-bound HLA-G and, to a lesser extent, HLA-E expression affected cytokine release by decidual LGL in a manner not consistent with the Th1/Th2 paradigm. In conclusion, our data are indicative of a general immune-suppressive effect of HLA-G on LGL activity.


We study coordination of assembly systems with random supplier yields and random customer demand. We propose four contracts which are combinations of well-known contracts in the literature and show that the contracts can coordinate the chain under forced compliance. Our contracts have less payment schemes than the existing contracts given for coordination of assembly systems in the literature. We show that arbitrary profit allocation between the levels of the supply chain (the manufacturer or the suppliers) is possible. We also provide sufficient conditions which enable arbitrary profit allocation among the suppliers and illustrate the profit allocation with numerical examples.


A study by Ihssen, Linden and Shapiro (2010) increased visual short-term memory (VSTM) performance by either repeating an 8-item array, or presenting it across two 4-item sequential displays. These increases were suggested to occur due to decreases in overall inter-stimulus competition, enabled in a top-down and bottom-up manner respectively (Ihssen, Linden, Miller & Shapiro, 2015). These studies add to growing evidence that reducing competition in visual cortex may improve VSTM performance (see Shapiro & Miller, 2011).
This thesis sought to further investigate the effects of competition on VSTM, through manipulation of both bottom-up and top-down elements of inter-stimulus competition. Bottom-up competition was manipulated by varying properties of to-be-remembered sequential stimulus displays; more specifically by presenting either a similar number of items in each display or several more items in one display than the other. Reducing overall inter-stimulus competition using this manipulation elicited increased VSTM performance. Further experiments considered the ability of participants to use top-down cues to manipulate VSTM contents. The novel cueing paradigm used in Chapter 5 revealed specific impairments in inhibiting the encoding of new stimuli at short notice, whilst holding items in VSTM. In contrast, VSTM could be easily updated when participants were required to remove old items and encode new ones in their place. The effect of ageing on the top-down and bottom-up aspects of Ihssen et al.'s findings was also investigated, to determine whether the multiple stimulus display presentation may help to compensate for VSTM decreases seen in older adults (e.g., Jost, Bryck, Vogel & Mayr, 2011).
In addition, the ERP experiments reported in Chapter 3 manipulated low-level competition by varying inter-stimulus proximity. Significantly, evidence of competition was found in the initial feedforward V1 response, using a novel method developed to assess competition throughout visual cortex by measuring early visual ERP components. This method has future potential for assessing competition present in visual cortex, and the contribution of feedforward and feedback processes at different time points to perceptual and cognitive processes.


Abstract The present paper is concerned with the determination of the frequency equation and sensitivity of the eigenfrequencies of a fixed–free longitudinally vibrating rod carrying a tip mass to which a spring–mass system is attached in-span. First, the exact frequency equation is established, and then an approximate formula is given for the fundamental frequency, based on Dunkerley's procedure. Moreover, using the normal mode method, a second approximate but very accurate frequency equation is established with the help of which a sensitivity formula is derived later. Frequency equations of some simpler systems are also obtained from the general expressions by using limiting processes. These novel equations can be very useful for a design engineer who is interested in the eigencharacteristics of similar systems, and their sensitivity.


In this paper was studied soil pollution with heavy metals (copper, chrome, manganese, lead, zinc, cadmium, nickel) caused by the municipal waste from landfill. The level of soil pollution depends on rain regime which usually brings in soil the air pollutants but in the same time washes as the soil determining the pollutants transport through the emissary. Mean value of the collected samples in four different points situated close to the landfill, were represented in the graphs and related to Maximum Admissible Concentration values. There were ascertained leads, zinc, nickel, cadmium, cation concentrations bigger than admissible values.


Abstract InSb films grown directly on GaAs(100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy have been examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). High-quality epitaxial InSb layers were deposited despite the 14-6% lattice mismatch between film and substrate. Almost all the misfit strain was accommodated by a square array of (a/2){011} edge-type misfit dislocations, spaced on average 29 A apart. A model for the formation of these dislocation arrays is presented. Pure edge-type dislocations are favoured over 60°-type dislocation arrays because they are more efficient at relieving misfit strain and consequently allow more coherent interface area to form. Several types of growth defect, namely Sb inclusions, microtwins and dislocation tangles, were observed in the InSb layers. Various methods for reducing the overall defect density are discussed. Finally, results on the extent of electron beam damage of InSb layers occurring during TEM observation are presented.


Background and Purpose: The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to identify whether variables from the baseline examination or physical therapy interventions received could predict clinical outcomes for people with cervical radiculopathy. Subjects and Methods: A total of 96 consecutive patients referred for physical therapy for cervical radiculopathy were the sources of data for this study. All subjects underwent a standardized examination and completed the Neck Disability Index (NDI), the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS), and the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) at baseline and at discharge. The subjects were treated according to the discretion of the individual therapists. At the time of discharge, the subjects completed the Global Rating of Change as well. Subjects surpassing the minimal clinically important change for all 4 outcome tools were categorized as achieving short-term success. Individual variables from the examination and interventions provided were tested for univariate relationships with outcomes. Variables with a significance level of less than .10 were retained as potential predictor variables and were entered into a stepwise logistic regression model to determine the most accurate set of variables for predicting outcomes. Results: The pretest probability for the likelihood of short-term (28-day follow-up) success was 53%. A 4-variable model optimally identified subjects who were most likely to achieve success with physical therapy interventions (age of <54 years; dominant arm is not affected; looking down does not worsen symptoms; and multimodal treatment including manual therapy, cervical traction, and deep neck flexor muscle strengthening for at least 50% of visits). When 3 of these 4 variables were present, the positive likelihood ratio (+LR) was 5.2 (95% confidence interval [CI]=2.4, 11.3), and the posttest probability of success was 85%. When all 4 variables were present, the +LR was 8.3 (95% CI=1.9, 63.9), and the posttest probability of success was 90%. Discussion and Conclusion: These results suggest that a subset of predictor variables can accurately identify which people with cervical radiculopathy are likely to experience short-term successful outcomes. The study design did not allow for the identification of a cause-and-effect relationship, but it appears that intermittent cervical traction, manual therapy, and deep neck flexor muscle strengthening may be beneficial in the management of cervical radiculopathy. Future research is needed to substantiate these findings.


The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glove, is one of the pests of cotton crop and its relation with the host seem to depend on the amount of nitrogen available to the plant. The biology of A. gossypii using different cotton nitrogen fertility regimes was studied under greenhouse conditions, in Dourados, MS. A completely randomized design with nine replications in a factorial scheme (2x4x2)+1 was used. Two nitrogen sources (sulphate of ammonium and urea), four doses of nitrogen (50, 100, 150 and 200 kg ha-1), two different times of nitrogen application and one additional treatment without nitrogen were taken as factors. The nymphal phases, the pre-reproductive, reproductive and pos-reproductive periods, longevity, the life cycle and fecundity of the cotton aphid were evaluated. The doses of nitrogen influenced the cotton aphid biology in both sources and times of application, favoring its development and fecundity.


Biomechanical models are widely used in rehabilitation, posture prediction studies, and for injury risk assessment (Gatton, Pearcy, and Pettet 2011). With ride comfort becoming important to vehicle manufacturers, there's a demand for a universal, quantitative ride comfort metric (Da Silva 2002). Mechanical inputs from the ride to the passenger body could cause discomfort (ISO 1997) and the dominant discomfort-causing motions lie in the body's sagittal plane (longitudinal plane dividing a symmetrical body into left and right sections) (Kozawa, Sugimoto, and Suzuki 1986). This paper develops a biomechanical model of the sagittal spine using bond graphs. The model is computationally cost-effective as it employs fewer degrees of freedom than available models (Bazrgari, Shirazi-Adl, and Arjmand 2007; Amiri, Naserkhaki, and Parnianpour 2019) and is capable of estimating internal loads and displacements with sufficient accuracy. The model could be used for spinal load assessments and ride comfort studies in vehicle dynamics.


Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) has achieved state-of-the-art performances on a wide range of tasks. Its outstanding performance is guaranteed by the long-term memory ability which matches the sequential data perfectly and the gating structure controlling the information flow. However, LSTMs are prone to be memory-bandwidth limited in realistic applications and need an unbearable period of training and inference time as the model size is ever-increasing. To tackle this problem, various efficient model compression methods have been proposed. Most of them need a big and expensive pre-trained model which is a nightmare for resource-limited devices where the memory budget is strictly limited. To remedy this situation, in this paper, we incorporate the Sparse Evolutionary Training (SET) procedure into LSTM, proposing a novel model dubbed SET-LSTM. Rather than starting with a fully-connected architecture, SET-LSTM has a sparse topology and dramatically fewer parameters in both phases, training and inference. Considering the specific architecture of LSTMs, we replace the LSTM cells and embedding layers with sparse structures and further on, use an evolutionary strategy to adapt the sparse connectivity to the data. Additionally, we find that SET-LSTM can provide many different good combinations of sparse connectivity to substitute the overparameterized optimization problem of dense neural networks. Evaluated on four sentiment analysis classification datasets, the results demonstrate that our proposed model is able to achieve usually better performance than its fully connected counterpart while having less than 4% of its parameters.


The North Dakota State University, USA, capstone course was developed as a unique model in response to the effort of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology, USA, to streamline and improve design instruction in the curriculum and has steadily evolved to keep pace with the ever-changing technology and the expectations of the profession and the society we serve. A capstone design course by definition should be a design experience for students in the final year before graduation integrating all major design concepts they have learned up until then in the program. Carefully chosen real world projects with design content in all sub-disciplines of civil engineering are assigned in this team-taught course. Faculty and practicing professionals make presentations on design process; project management; leadership in an engineering environment; and public policy; global perspectives in engineering; and professional career and licensure. Practicing professionals also critique the final student presentations. Students work in teams with number of faculty serving as technical consultants, and a faculty mentor for each team to provide non-technical guidance and direction. The course requires students to demonstrate mastery of the curriculum and to work with others in a team environment. Course assessment includes evaluation of the final design, presentations, written technical reports, project design schedule, a project design journal, and reaction papers.


Challenging the widely accepted premise that the 1948 war was a war of Jewish self-defense, the author demonstrates that the 1947 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) partition resolution was fundamentally a green light for the Yishuv9s fully mobilized paramilitary organizations (supported by the resources of the World Zionist Organization) to effect the long-planned establishment of a Jewish state by force of arms. He further argues that as a national movement, Zionism was inherently conquest-oriented from the moment of its birth in Basel in 1897 and that it most closely resembles——in the alchemy of its religious and secular motivation and its insatiable land hunger, irredentism, and indifference to the fate of the "natives"——the Iberian Reconquista of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of how to cache a set of media files with optimal streaming rates, under HTTP adaptive bit rate streaming over wireless networks. The design objective is to achieve the optimal expected QoE under a limited storage budget, which is measured by the logarithmic relation between the required bit rate and the actual streaming bit rate. We formulate the content cache management of streaming files as a constrained optimization problem. Lagrange multiplier method is employed, and we obtain the numerical solution of the optimal streaming files. Particularly, we characterize the properties of the solution, and find there is a fundamental phase change in the optimal solution as the number of cached files grows. Moreover, the simulation results indicate that with the increase of cache size, more copies of different bit rate should be cached for a better QoE. Our comprehensive investigation reveals insightful guidelines to provide HTTP ABR streaming services over wireless networks.


The vasculature in the spleen and peripheral lymph nodes (pLNs) is considerably different, which affects both homing of lymphocytes and antigenic access to these peripheral lymphoid organs. In this paper, we demonstrate that in mice lacking the homeodomain transcription factor Nkx2-3, the spleen develops a pLN-like mRNA expression signature, coupled with the appearance of high endothelial venules (HEVs) that mediate L-selectin–dependent homing of lymphocytes into the mutant spleen. These ectopic HEV-like vessels undergo postnatal maturation and progressively replace MAdCAM-1 by pLN addressin together with the display of CCL21 arrest chemokine in a process that is reminiscent of HEV formation in pLNs. Similarly to pLNs, development of HEV-like vessels in the Nkx2-3–deficient spleen depends on lymphotoxin-β receptor-mediated signaling. The replacement of splenic vessels with a pLN-patterned vasculature impairs the recirculation of adoptively transferred lymphocytes and reduces the uptake of blood-borne pathogens. The Nkx2-3 mutation in BALB/c background causes a particularly disturbed splenic architecture, characterized by the near complete lack of the red pulp, without affecting lymph nodes. Thus, our observations reveal that the organ-specific patterning of splenic vasculature is critically regulated by Nkx2-3, thereby profoundly affecting the lymphocyte homing mechanism and blood filtering capacity of the spleen in a tissue-specific manner.


Test facilities for the wind turbine performance monitoring and mechanical load measurements are installed in Vestas 100 ㎾ wind turbine in Wollyong test site, Jeju island The monitoring system consists of Garrad-Hassan T-MON system, telemetry system for blade load measurement, various sensors such as anemometer, wind vane, strain gauge, power meter, and etc. The experimental procedure for the measurement of wind turbine loads, such as edgewise(lead-lag) bending moment, flapwise bending moment, and tower base bending moment, has been established. Strain gauges are on-site calibrated against load cell prior to monitoring the wind turbine loads. Using the established monitoring system, the wind turbine is remotely monitored. From the measured load data, the load analysis has been performed to obtain the load power spectral density and the fatigue load spectra of the wind turbine.


With rising demand of surgical interventions post-lockdown due to Corona Virus Infectious Disease (COVID)-19, surgeons all over the country have restarted their surgical practice To increase caution and safety, seven scenarios in which surgeons in a Tertiary Care Centre in North India encountered COVID-19 patients during lockdown are being highlighted in the present case series The main aim was to encourage prompt recognition and isolation of positive patients along with establishment of a clear institutional protocol for surgical practice to keep our system resilient and useful for the population we serve Clinical and radiological records of eleven patients admitted from 22 3 2020 to 31 5 2020 (period of lockdown) in a tertiary care hospital in India were studied separately and concluded consensually by two surgeons and seven unique scenarios in which a surgeon may encounter a COVID-19 patient were identified First was the COVID-19 positive patient with concurrent symptomatic surgical pathology, 2nd was COVID-19 positive patient incidentally diagnosed with additional surgical pathology and third was a solely surgical patient mimicking COVID-19 positive symptomatology Fourth was a COVID-19 negative surgical patient acquiring nosocomial COVID-19 infection, fifth was COVID-19 positive surgical patient with false negative COVID-19 test report, sixth was COVID-19 suspected by intraoperative unusual intestinal findings and then, getting postoperative COVID-19 test positive for the patient and last was COVID-19 patients requiring elective surgical procedures


This paper provides an algorithm for computing singularity-free paths on closed-chain manipulators. Given two nonsingular configurations of the manipulator, the method attempts to connect them through a path that maintains a minimum clearance with respect to the singularity locus at all points, which guarantees the controllability of the manipulator everywhere along the path. The method can be applied to nonredundant manipulators of general architecture, and it is resolution complete. It always returns a path whenever one exists at a given resolution or determines path nonexistence otherwise. The strategy relies on defining a smooth manifold that maintains a one-to-one correspondence with the singularity-free C-space of the manipulator, and on using a higher dimensional continuation technique to explore this manifold systematically from one configuration, until the second configuration is found. If desired, the method can also be used to compute an exhaustive atlas of the whole singularity-free component reachable from a given configuration, which is useful to rapidly resolve subsequent planning queries within such component, or to visualize the singularity-free workspace of any of the manipulator coordinates. Examples are included that demonstrate the performance of the method on illustrative situations.


Oral cancer is a foremost problem in India where it ranks among the top three types of cancer in the country and is considered an epidemic in recent centuries. Oral cancer is the second most common group of malignancies in males and ranks in the fourth position in females in India. Oral cancers are usually preceded by clinically evident potentially malignant disorders, which can be recognized through oral screening. Early diagnosis and proper management can avert the cancerous potential of the lesion. Although oral cancer rates are alarming, existing situation of dentist in India is devastating. A number of credentials are available in medical literature highlighting the oral cancer rates and problems of dentists in India, but still not much critical steps are taken by the government to improve both situations. Moreover, the oral cavity can reflect and unravel many of the human body's internal ambiguity; in developing country like India, most people do not tend to set the same significance on dental health as they do on their medical health.


Due to the urbanization, lots of people are living in cities. It is very convenient to live in the cities for the people but at the same time, the highly populated city has several environmental problems. During delivery process of large amount of municipal waste generated from the cities, the automobile emission and traffic jam have been occurred. The waste collection in the cities has been mainly done by using labour force and delivery truck. This is the conventional waste collection up to now. Recently, new technologies like automated waste collection system and capsule transportation have been introduced. Conventional waste collection mainly relied on the labour force and truck delivery does not need to invest a lot of money for the start-up. However, it requires to pay the operational cost both for the labour force and the truck delivery. On the contrary to this conventional waste collection, the automated waste collection and capsule transportation require high initial investment cost. However, the automated waste collection and capsule transportation can reduce significantly the pollutants emission, traffic jam by the waste trucks and actual waste collection cost per ton. In dealing with the waste collection in the cities, new waste collection technologies could be properly combined with the conventional waste collection for the effective municipal waste treatment.


Abstract Objective: To evaluate outcomes among pregnancies with cerclage as compared to cerclage and adjunctive progesterone. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed from 1 October 2011–30 June 2015 including women with a singleton gestation with vaginal cerclage. Exclusion criteria included multiple gestations, simultaneous 17-alpha hydroxyprogesterone caproate (17-OHPC) and vaginal progesterone (vag-p) use, and patients lost to follow-up. Primary outcome was prevention of preterm birth less than 35 (PTB <35) weeks gestational age (GA). Results: One hundred thirty-six patients met inclusion criteria; 73 women had cerclage only, 53 had cerclage and 17-OHPC, 10 had cerclage and vag-p. GA at cerclage placement was similar across groups (p = 0.068). There was a difference in prevention of PTB <35 weeks GA among groups (p = 0.035) with a trend toward earlier delivery among patients with cerclage and vag-p. Rates of PTB <35 weeks in the cerclage (29%) and cerclage and 17-OHPC groups (34%) were similar (p = 0.533). The odds ratio for risk of PTB <35 weeks among women with cerclage and vag-p as compared to all other patients was 5.21 (95%CI: 1.3–21.2). Conclusion: The combination of cerclage with intramuscular progesterone resulted in similar PTB prevention as compared to cerclage alone. There may be an association between cerclage, vaginal progesterone and higher rates of PTB which may be attributed to characteristics of the group rather than the therapies studied.


A one-dimensional land surface model has been developed to estimate water and energy fluxes between the atmosphere and ground surfaces. The model includes three submodels; vegetation, snow cover, and soil. In order to adapt the model to intensely cold regions, the snow cover submodel can consider depth hoar by means of effective temperature gradient. This submodel can calculate profiles of snow temperature, density, and liquid water content using meteorological data inputs; the model structure is simple having snow layers with the same thickness. The ratio of fallen snow amount to rain amount is given as a function of wet-bulb temperature. The model has been applied to a GAME-Siberia site in the Central Yakutia, Russia. Since we do not have complete data sets in midwinter, the model has been validated through whole winter simulations at several routine stations first. Snow depth and snow-cover period are simulated reasonably. Next, fluxes have been estimated using 1998 data at the GAME plain taiga site, compared with the observed fluxes. Diurnal and seasonal changes of fluxes are simulated reasonably. The calculated snow cover disappearance date is earlier than the observed day.


This thesis is divided into two parts; the first part describes and analyzes all the nec¬essary for the subject theory whereas the second part presents a specific system model, its simulation and finally the desirable results. The theoretical section opens with an introduction to wireless, cooperative and satellite communications, building step by step the knowledge needed for the most important part which is the performance evaluation through simulation. The purpose of the present thesis is to analyze the usage of terrestrial relays in MIMO multi-beam satellite systems implementing techniques such as amplify and forward (AF). The system model consists of the source node, multi-relay nodes and the destination node, all equipped with multiple antennas. We focus more on standard linear detection methods including the zero-forcing (ZF) technique and the minimum mean square error (MMSE) technique. The results show that the performance of the linear detection methods is worse than that of other nonlinear receiver techniques but sometimes are preferable because of their low complexity of hardware implementation. However, the results can be improved without increasing the complexity significantly us¬ing an ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) method. By the simulations we observe how BER is behaving firstly with the four linear detection ZF, MMSE,SIC- MMSE and SIC-ZF for the cases "With Beam Gain Matrix" and "Without Beam Gain Matrix", secondly with the increase of amplification factor and lastly with different kinds of modulation. Also, we reach the conclusion of which is the best position for the users in each beam in order to maximize the gain. Finally, the calculated average capacity is presented when increasing the number of relays.


Background: Health care costs have increased faster than Consumer Price Index leading to patients weighing their options of medical treatment and services. One such service, genetic counseling, has grown 20% annually, in part due to the increased demand of genetic testing. Oncology care is one need for testing because 5-15% of all cancer diagnoses in the United States are inherited. Due to the fact that the Affordable Care Act does not cover all genetic counseling testing needs, and ethnic minorities are less likely to seek testing due to insurance coverage and costs, an increased effort is needed to reach high risk individuals in medically underserved population. Methods: Health care providers in the oncology health practicing in the state of California were reached through Listservs and asked to fill out a survey provided through Qualtrics. The survey included practitioner demographics, patient demographics, and an assessment of needs of oncology patients. The univariate analyses and bivariate analyses were completed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. Results: Twenty-six individual responses were analyzed and plotted. No statistically significant findings emerged when analyzing the type of insurance a patient had versus patient barriers to access, nor when analyzing the patient barriers to access by practice size. Participants who work with medically underserved populations were more likely to cite health insurance and immigrant status as barriers to adherence. Conclusion: Barriers exist for the medically underserved population. Due to study limitations including small sample size, volunteer bias and instrumentation bias, further research is needed CANCER G.C. AND TESTING FOR UNDERINSURED PATIENTS v for a state wide initiative to promote genetics in an underserved population to address discrepancies in medical care.


All stereoisomers of lariciresinol were synthesized to examine the effect of stereochemistry on plant growth. Configuration of benzylic 7-positions was constructed through S(N)1 or S(N)2 intramolecular etherification. 8- and 8'-position configurations were established from the starting material except for all cis stereoisomers, the 8-position configurations of which were achieved by employing stereoselective hydroboration. (-)-Lariciresinol and its 7S,8S,8'R stereoisomer inhibited the root growth of Italian ryegrass to 51-55% relative to the negative control, whereas other stereoisomers had less effect. These results demonstrate that the stereochemistry of lignans is one of the important factors influencing their inhibitory activity.


One hundred and eighty-three species of benthic Foraminifera were identified in a study of sediment substrates and tubeworm surfaces in (a) the Green Canyon, Garden Banks and Mississippi Canyon (245–1081 m) and (b) the Alaminos, Farnella and De Soto Canyons (1848–2918 m), Gulf of Mexico; the samples were obtained from submersibles in both seep and non-seep (control) areas. None of the species is endemic to seeps, but 20 species were previously unknown in the Gulf of Mexico. The imprint of water depth on foraminiferal assemblages is clearly detectable, because the species are recruited from the surrounding non-seep habitats. The two high-level surface-sample groups (clusters) recognized by numerical data analysis are distinguishable based on the bathymetric location of the sample sites. The shallower-water group contains all samples (seep and non-seep) from depths of 245–1081 m; the deeper-water (deepest-bathyal and abyssal) group contains all samples from 1848–2918 m. Foraminiferal species of wide-ranging morphologic and taxonomic affinities are able to maintain sizeable populations at sites of hydrocarbon seepage; the high bacterial productivity at the seeps could be a major factor in the sustenance of these populations. The most conspicuous dominants at seep-influenced substrates (bacterial mats) in the shallower cluster are endobenthic species, especially species of Bolivina , which are possibly facultative anaerobes. The pattern is not as clear in the deepest-bathyal and abyssal group, because some epibenthic species (e.g., Nuttallides decorata ) are present among the dominants. In the shallower areas, the diversity (species richness) of both calcareous and agglutinated Foraminifera is higher in non-seep than in seep substrates. This distinction too is not clear in the deepest-bathyal and abyssal areas. Post-mortem mixing of species from different microhabitats could have elevated the diversity at some sites. Twelve sessile, epibenthic Foraminifera have been found to colonize surfaces of vestimentiferan tubeworms (and possibly other elevated microhabitats) at the seeps, centimeters to decimeters above the sediment-water interface. These attachment points are sufficiently above locations of gas escape in the seafloor to provide the species with an oxic microhabitat with little or no H2S.


There is a clear contrast between the social, economic, environmental, and political importance of groundwater and the attention international law has paid to this resource. Groundwater represents about 97 per cent of the fresh water resources available, excluding the resources locked in polar ice. More than one-half of the world's population is dependent on it for its basic needs. Accelerated population growth in the latter half of the twentieth century has coincided with improvements in pumping technology and has led to a greater and greater use of, and reliance upon, this resource, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. In consequence, over the last fifty years, groundwater resources and the social, economic, and environmental systems dependent on them have come under threat from over-abstraction and pollution. International law has only rarely taken account of groundwater. While surface water has been dealt with in numerous international agreements and other instruments, groundwater is either nominally included in the scope of these instruments, primarily if it is ''related'' to surface waters or part of a ''system of surface and groundwater'' (see the United Nations Conventionon the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (Watercourses Convention) or the 2000 Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses in the Southern African Development Community (SADC Protocol)), or intentionally or unintentionally left out. Few treaties and other legal instruments exclusively address groundwater or contain groundwater-specific provisions. Hence, two gaps can be ascertained: an overall lack of addressing groundwater in international law (a formal gap) and a lack of groundwater-adequate rules in cases where groundwater has been addressed (a material gap). These need to be closed. An analysis of recent binding and non-binding legal instruments reveals some indications of emerging rules of groundwater management. In addition, the International Law Commission (ILC) is currently considering the topic Shared Natural Resources, comprising oil, gas, and transboundary groundwaters. Its special rapporteur for the topic, Chusei Yamada, presented a first set of draft articles on transboundary groundwaters in May 2004, which might contribute to closing the gaps by leading to a new legal instrument. The objective of this article is to analyze the limitations of the existing legal regime and to discuss and assess some emerging principles of groundwater management. The first part will contain a concise introduction to the specific characteristics of groundwater and the most common reversible and irreversible problems faced in its management. Second, against this backdrop of facts, an overview of the current legal regime and its shortcomings will be presented. Groundwater as the subject matter of the Watercourses Convention, of bilateral and multilateral treaty law as well as of non-binding instruments will be examined. Third, some emerging legal tendencies will be discussed, which might indicate the way for more groundwater-adequate legal regulation.Finally, the already-mentioned activities of the ILC will be outlined.


From its founding in the late 1800s through the 1950s, Brownsville, a section of eastern Brooklyn, was a white, predominantly Jewish, working-class neighbourhood. The famous New York district nurtured the aspirations of thousands of upwardly mobile Americans while the infamous gangsters of Murder, Incorporated controlled its streets. But during the 1960s, Brownsville was stigmatized as a black and Latino ghetto, a neighbourhood with one of the city's highest crime rates. Home to the largest concentration of public housing units in the city, Brownsville came to be viewed as emblematic of urban decline. And yet, at the same time, the neighbourhood still supported a wide variety of grass-roots movements for social change. The story of these two different, but in many ways similar, Brownsvilles is compellingly told in this new work. Focusing on the interaction of Brownsville residents with New York's political and institutional elites, Wendell Pritchett shows how the profound economic and social changes of post-World War II America affected the area. He covers a number of pivotal episodes in Brownsville's history as well: the rise and fall of interracial organizations, the struggles to deal with deteriorating housing, and the battles over local schools that culminated in the famous 1968 Teachers Strike. Far from just a cautionary tale of failed policies and institutional neglect, the story of Brownsville's transformation, he finds, is one of mutual struggle and frustrated cooperation among whites, blacks and Latinos. Ultimately, "Brownsville, Brooklyn" reminds us how working-class neighbourhoods have played, and continue to play, a central role in American history. It is a story that needs to be read by all those concerned with the many challenges facing America's cities today.


BACKGROUND
Higher urine albumin-creatinine ratio (ACR) is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, an association that is stronger than that between spot urine albumin on its own and CVD. Urine creatinine excretion is correlated with muscle mass, and low muscle mass also is associated with CVD. Whether low urine creatinine concentration in the denominator of the ACR contributes to the association of ACR with CVD is uncertain.

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective cohort study.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
6,770 community-living individuals without CVD.

PREDICTORS
Spot urine albumin concentration, the reciprocal of the urine creatinine concentration (1/UCr), and ACR.

OUTCOME
Incident CVD events.

RESULTS
During a mean of 7.1 years of follow-up, 281 CVD events occurred. Geometric mean values for spot urine creatinine concentration, urine albumin concentration, and ACR were 95 ± 2 (SD) mg/dL, 0.7 ± 3.7 mg/dL, and 7.0 ± 3.1 mg/g. Urine creatinine concentration was lower in older, female, and low-weight individuals. Adjusted HRs per 2-fold higher increment in each urinary measure with CVD events were similar (1/UCr: 1.07 [95% CI, 0.94-1.22]; urine albumin concentration: 1.08 [95% CI, 1.01-1.14]; and ACR: 1.11 [95% CI, 1.04-1.18]). ACR ≥10 mg/g was associated more strongly with CVD events in individuals with low weight (HR for lowest vs highest tertile: 4.34 vs 1.97; P for interaction = 0.006). Low weight also modified the association of urine albumin concentration with CVD (P for interaction = 0.06), but 1/UCr did not (P for interaction = 0.9).

LIMITATIONS
We lacked 24-hour urine data.

CONCLUSIONS
Although ACR is associated more strongly with CVD events in persons with low body weight, this association is not driven by differences in spot urine creatinine concentration. Overall, the associations of ACR with CVD events appear to be driven primarily by urine albumin concentration and less by urine creatinine concentration.


There has been much recent scholarship on the nature of neo-liberalism. What follows develops these connections by examining early neo-liberal and management thought. The article explores the foundations of neo-liberal and management theory to argue they share fundamental features – namely active intervention, prioritising competition and the necessity of elite leadership. The purpose of all three is to reshape subjectivity and social relations. This exploration argues both projects share similar origins and that the objective of neo-liberalism, wherein subjectivity and social relations are changed along competitive lines, lies at the heart of the management programme.


We propose a novel framework which combines the input-conditioned filter generation module and a decoder based network to incorporate contextual information present in images into Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). In contrast to traditional CNNs, we do not employ the same set of learned convolution filters for all input image instances. And our proposed decoder network serves the purpose of reducing the transformation present in the input image by learning to construct a representative image of the input image class. Our proposed joint supervision of input-aware framework when combined with techniques inspired by Multi-instance learning and max-pooling, results in a transformation-invariant neural network. We investigated the performance of our proposed framework on three MNIST variations, which covers both rotation and scaling variance, and achieved 0.98% error on MNIST-rot-12k, 1.12% error on Half-rotated MNIST and 0.68% error on Scaling MNIST, which is significantly better than the state-of-the-art results. Our proposed model also showcased consistent improvement on the CIFAR dataset. We make use of visualization to further prove the effectiveness of our input-aware convolution filters. Our proposed convolution filter generation framework can also serve as a plugin for any CNN based architecture and enhance its modeling capacity.


Research finds that historic racial violence helps predict spatial distributions of contemporary outcomes, including homicide. These findings underscore the continued need to historicize modern race relations, yet intervening processes linking past violence with present events remain unclear. This study examines these intermediary mechanisms by reducing the century-long time-lapse common to legacy of racial violence research. We use mid-century measures of violent opposition to the Civil Rights Movement to bridge the historical gap between lynchings and later homicide, thus clarifying the dynamic and contingent nature of the legacy of racial violence. Structural equation models indicate that incidents of anti-civil rights enforcement and contemporary homicides are more likely to occur in areas with pronounced histories of lynching. Civil rights era assaults mediate the relationship between lynchings and contemporary homicide generally, but not White-on-Black homicide, signaling a need for further research documenting events of mid-century racial violence and clarifying these and other sources of historical transmission. Implications for future research and public policy are considered.


The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) Evaluation, Quality and Improvement (EQuIP 4)1 standards provide a useful clinical and corporate framework for the analysis of quality projects by both health and disability services. Two ACHS EQuIP 4 clinical standards were used to compare quality projects conducted by community-based and on-site rehabilitation and disability services, as generated by a commercial database. Reliable information is a major asset for healthcare organisations, and the use of the ACHS clinical standards to interpret quality project data can overcome a lack of conceptual framework to interpret data. Key differences in the types of quality projects entered in the database by the rehabilitation and disability services may be attributed to the rehabilitation services' relationship with the client (patient), which is time-limited according to the clients' rehabilitation progress, while in comparison, disability services provide life-long support.


The object of study is the exchange of knowledge between agents of the private sector and its implications for innovation, social welfare and economic policy. The exchange of knowledge is of great importance, in particular with respect to innovative activity. New Growth Theory for instance relies on knowledge externalities to provide the micro-foundations for their central notion of external scale economies, and Geographical Economics uses the concept of local knowledge spillovers (LKS) to explain the phenomenon of geographical clustering of economic activity. Nonetheless, as many studies in these fields point out, the exact mechanisms through which such knowledge externalities work are not well understood.
In this work it is argued that the key to understanding these phenomena lies in the special characteristics of knowledge as a factor of production. From this starting point, a new methodology is developed to capture these special characteristics and a formal model of knowledge trading is built. This is then applied to topical issues in economic theory. The results turn out to be highly instructive for policy design to foster growth and social welfare and offer a meaningful alternative to existing approaches in the literature. In summary, therefore, this work is a contribution towards a better theoretical understanding of the micro-foundations of and the forces at work in knowledge economics.
The argument is structured into nine chapters. In chapter 2, the analysis turns to the properties of knowledge and knowledge exchanges in economic activity. Here a definition of knowledge is provided and its special characteristics and their implications are identified. This provides a conceptual framework for the rest of the argument and introduces a system of definitions and terminology in an area which has suffered from a lack of consistency in the use of terms. Chapter 3 turns to the analysis of knowledge transfers between agents. In the first part of chapter 3 the concept of LKS is defined and its importance for the theory of geographical clustering as well as for New Growth Theory is discussed. Secondly, the theoretical and empirical literature on LKS is surveyed. Finally, chapter 3 offers a new fundamental critique of the concept of LKS. In order to justify the regional boundedness of LKS, its proponents emphasise the tacit nature of knowledge that spills. By definition, however, the transfer of tacit knowledge requires the personal participation of the sender, which gives the latter a degree of control over its transfer and makes the knowledge in question excludable. While being sufficient to prevent the spillover of knowledge, excludability does not ensure its tradability in a market. For this it is required that the sender can control the diffusion process of knowledge after having shared it with other agents. Hence, the discussion in this chapter leads to the insight that the two parameters that determine the tradability of knowledge are its excludability for the sender and the latter´s ability to control the knowledge diffusion process.
Based on the considerations in chapters 2 and 3, the argument builds a new approach to modelling knowledge in economic activity. For this purpose, in chapter 4 a new methodology is developed to capture the special characteristics of knowledge. Building on this, chapter 5 develops a general model of knowledge production and trading.
Chapters 6 and 7 then go on to develop extensions and applications of the model. Chapter 6 explores M&A activity as an alternative to knowledge trading. Chapter 7 presents an extension of the model to imperfect information and an application to the phenomenon of geographical clustering.
In chapter 8 the analysis turns to the welfare implications of different types of market mediated knowledge exchanges. Excludability and control over the diffusion process of knowledge are identified as the relevant targets for policy-makers. Finally, the analysis of the determinants of the policy targets yields a set of implications for policy design for national and regional policy makers.
To conclude, chapter 9 summarises and interprets the main results and outlines a research agenda based on the findings of this work.


Objective: In an effort to promote the health and developmental outcomes of children born into poverty, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conceptualized and designed the Legacy for Children™ (Legacy) public health prevention model. This article examines the impact of Legacy on children's cognitive and language development (intelligence quotient [IQ], achievement, language skills, and early reading skills) using both standardized assessments and parent-reported indictors through third grade. Methods: Data were collected from 2001 to 2014 from 541 mother-child dyads who were recruited into the 2 concurrent randomized controlled trials of Legacy in Miami and Los Angels. Cognitive and/or language outcomes of children were assessed annually from age 2 to 5 years as well as during a follow-up visit in the third grade. Results: Children experiencing Legacy at the Los Angeles site had significantly higher IQ and achievement scores at 2 and 6 years postintervention, equivalent to approximately one-third of an SD (4 IQ points). IQ results persisted over time, and the difference between intervention and comparison groups on achievement scores widened. There were no significant differences in cognitive outcomes in the Miami sample. There were no significant differences in language outcomes for either site. Conclusion: Legacy shows evidence of effectiveness as an intervention to prevent cognitive delays among children living in poverty. The mixed findings across sites may not only reflect the impact of heterogeneous risk profiles noted by other intervention research programs but also warrant additional study.


An active bracing system has been designed, fabricated, and installed in a full-scale dedicated test structure for structural response control under seismic loads. This report presents (i) a description ofthe constructed system, (ii) design specifications forthe control system along with simulation studies for the design earthquake, and (iii) observed performance of the system under three actual earthquakes and other artificial loadings. Detailed design and analysis of the active system are carried out with respect to hardware development, control force constraints, and power and energy requirements. It is shown that a full-scale efficient active structural control system can be developed within limits of current technology. Simulation results provide information on performance bounds that can be expected of active systems in structural control under seismic loads and under constraints imposed by practical considerations. Installation details of the system in the building structure are presented along with the selections for fail-safe shutdown operations in case of malfunctions. Also presented are the procedures for proper maintenance and self testing which ensure continuous control with minimal resources. The observed performance under artificial loadings and actual ground motions is compared with the estimated analytical response. It is shown that the performance of the active bracing system is predictable by simple analytical procedures and efficient within the design limitations.


Background: Data on biopsy-proven renal disease in the elderly is extremely rare in Kurdistan-Iraq, since there are no studies being conducted. This will be the first attempt to analyze patients ≥ 60 years) in the region.

Objective: To evaluate the histo-pathological spectrum of renal disease in elderly patients.

Materials and Methods: Records of all elderly patients ≥ 60 years) who had undergone renal biopsy in the (Shorsh General Hospital) during 7 year period, between January 2010 and December 2016 were collected and retrospectively analysed.

Results: In total, 1914 patients underwent renal biopsy during this period of which 135 cases were elderly. Their mean age was (67.2 ± 6.3 years), they were predominantly males 68.1% and 31.9% were females. The most frequent clinical presentations prior to renal biopsy or indications were; proteinuria, renal impairment and hypertension. Majority of the biopsies showed some form of Glomerular diseases (82.3%) either Primary glomerular disease (51.9%) or Secondary glomerular disease (30.4%) followed by Miscellaneous (9.6%) and Tubulo-intersitial nephropathies (6.7%). The most common primary glomerular disease was Focal-segmental glomerulosclerosis (40.0%) followed by Membranous nephropathy (25.7%), Crescentic glomerulonephritis (12.9%). Among the Secondary glomerular disease, Hypertensive nephrosclerosis formed the commonest diagnosis (68.3%), followed by Amyloidosis (24.4%) and Diabetic nephropathy (4.9%).

Conclusion: In conclusion, this study demonstrates that Primary glomerular disease is the most prevalent with Focalsegmental glomerulosclerosis, Membranous nephropathy and Crescentic glomerulonephritis being the most frequent diagnosis. Among the Secondary glomerular disease Hypertensive nephrosclerosis was the commonest followed by Amyloidosis and Diabetic nephropathy? Renal biopsy in very elderly cases is a valuable diagnostic way that could be offered in clinical settings with maximal potential benefit.


The use of reflected ultrasound in the diagnosis of pulmonary disease has been limited due to the strong reflection and high absorption of acoustic energy by alveoli containing air. Our study reports the ultrasonic characteristics of normal and diseased pulmonary surface. Two measurements, the coefficient of pulmonary reflection and the tissue frequency signature, were studied with specially calibrated instuments. The coefficient of pulmonary reflection in 23 normal subjects was - 19.6 +/- 0.1 dB at 5.5 MHz. In ten patients with documented pulmonary emboli, the coefficient of pulmonary reflection was -47.4 +/- 0.1 dB, significantly less than normal (P less than 0.1). The tissue frequency signature in 18 normal subjects was specular at higher and nonspecular at lower frequencies, with a typical dip at 5.2 MHz. In patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the tissue frequency signature was flat, and the typical dip was absent. In patients with pulmonary emboli, the characteristic shape of the tissue frequency signature was preserved, but there was a generalized loss of magnitude of the reflection. Thus, our preliminary data indicate that reflected ultrasound provides a noninvasive method for differentiating normal from diseased pulmonary surfaces.


Objective: Our aim was to characterize the ultrasonographic features of patients with calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate (CPPD) deposition disease, and compare X-ray and ultrasound in evaluating CPPD deposition disease. Methods: In this retrospective study, all 71 patients between 2004 and 2007 with CPPD deposition disease proved by microscopic synovial fluid analysis were enrolled. We collected and analyzed 38 patients of those, on whom both conventional X-ray and high-resolution ultrasound had been carried out. Results: All patients were elderly (i.e.>65y/o) and mostly coexisted with osteoarthritis. The involvement of knee joint was the most common site. Popliteal cyst was detected in 9 of 71 patients. Synovial fluid analysis of 38 patients with CPPD deposition disease revealed that the average total white cell count was 25592.1±16697.8/mm^3, with significant neutrophil predominance. There was significant evidence that ultrasound was more reliable than X-ray in the diagnosis of CPPD deposition disease (p=0.002). Besides, there were no patients with CPPD deposition disease in whom X-rays suggested CPPD deposition disease, but for whom ultrasound results were negative. Conclusion: We found that bright stippled foci in the synovial fluid or around the articular region, the thin hyperechoic band parallel to the surface of the hyaline cartilage, and the calcification of fibrocartilage seen on ultrasound could represent CPPD deposits. Our data showed that ultrasound is a useful and important tool in the diagnostic investigation of patients with CPPD deposition disease.


Background Chemoresistance is a major obstacle to improving the survival rate of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Forkhead box protein C2 (FOXC2), a member of the forkhead box (Fox) transcription factor family, is reported to be an important regulator of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and plays a key role in tumor progression. However, little is known about the effects of FOXC2 on oxaliplatin (OXA) resistance in CRC. Methods OXA-resistant cells were generated from HCT116 cells. CCK-8, colony formation, flow cytometry and Transwell assays were used to compare the characteristics of OXA-resistant HCT116/OXA cells and the corresponding parental HCT116 cells. The expression of FOXC2 was confirmed by qRT-PCR and Western blotting in HCT116/OXA and HCT116 cells. Gain- and loss-of-function assays were performed to evaluate the effects of FOXC2 on OXA sensitivity and EMT in HCT116/OXA and HCT116 cells both in vitro and in vivo, and the possible molecular mechanisms were investigated. Results The relative expression of FOXC2 was significantly increased in HCT116/OXA cells compared with the parental HCT116 cells. Upregulation of FOXC2 in HCT116 cells reduced OXA sensitivity and promoted EMT. However, knockdown of FOXC2 in HCT116/OXA cells markedly increased the in vitro and in vivo sensitivity of HCT116/OXA cells to OXA by regulating EMT progression. Furthermore, FOXC2 activated MAPK/ERK signaling, and blockade of ERK attenuated FOXC2-induced EMT and FOXC2-enhanced OXA resistance. Conclusion FOXC2 induced EMT to promote oxaliplatin resistance by activating the MAPK/ERK signaling pathway. FOXC2 may be a potential therapeutic target for overcoming OXA resistance in human CRC.


The training of public service interpreters is a very complex endeavour that must balance pedagogical considerations and market requirements. This paper considers the interrelationship between academic programmes, qualifications, curriculum design and standards in the field of public service interpreting (PSI) in connection with the perceived status of the profession and the desirability of regulated monitoring practices, whilst not losing sight of the constraints imposed by socio-economic circumstances. The desirability of conducting extensive empirical research into the needs of public service agencies and PSI providers alike, as well as into the profile of interpreters, is also emphasised, in an attempt to match training provision and community needs in a multicultural, multilingual context. It can be concluded that a coherent, integrated approach to training, practice and quality assurance will result in an enhanced status of the PSI profession, which can only be beneficial to society at large.


Language is a powerful instrument for extracting relational information from stimuli. In a label extension task common labels invite comparison processes that help children focus on the more subtle relational similarity and away from the readily available perceptual similarity of the stimuli. The current experiment aims to explore whether non-linguistic representations of category membership are sufficient to invite such abstractions of relational information. Preschool children were asked to extend a category to either a relational or an object match. When given the opportunity to compare two instances of the category, and provided with a nonlinguistic cue children extended the category to the relational match. These results further extend the benefit of comparison in learning, and suggest that language labels are not the only cue children can use in category formation.


Levels of health and poor oral hygiene is a problem that often occurs to blind children. Lack of knowledge and awareness of blind children and the parent's role in maintaining oral health is one of the reasons. Quality self care and home care with dental care approach applicable to blind children to change their behavior in maintaining oral health. Measurement of the success rate of this program is to compare the results of the examination OHI-S (Oral Hygiene Index-Simplified) beginning, follow-up, and ending. There is a higher improvement of students with OHIS in good categories 13% at the beginning examination, 50% at follow-up examination, and 75% at the end of the examination.


Little research exists on the concept of depersonalization in non-clinical and organizational settings. Since its origin, the concept has been mainly studied as a 'disorder' in clinical population. It was described as a state in which an individual experiences feelings, thoughts, memories, or bodily sensations as not belonging to oneself. Gradually, researchers from non-clinical domains also borrowed the concept. In organizational context, depersonalization is studied as a reaction to stress, wherein, individuals limit their involvement with others and distance themselves psychologically. This article reviews the available literature on depersonalization and provides an understanding of the concept in the organizational context. This paper presents origin of the concept, definitional issues, and a conceptual model showing antecedents and consequences of depersonalization. It is expected that this paper will encourage further research in the domain and provide pointers to practising managers who generally face problems relating to depersonalization.


Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid was analysed from 21 patients with breast cancer, stage T1N0M0, who had undergone tumour resection and post-operative local irradiation (accumulated dose 56 Gy). The lavage was performed two months after radiotherapy, in the anterior part of the lingula (left side) or of the right middle lobe (right side), depending on which side had been exposed to radiation. The patients had significantly increased concentrations of fibronectin (FN) (p less than 0.001), hyaluronan (HA) (p less than 0.01) and albumin (p less than 0.05) in BAL fluid compared with the healthy controls (n = 19). However, when the patients were separated, according to smoking history, it was obvious that the inflammatory reaction occurred entirely in the nonsmoking patient group (n = 10), whilst no difference could be found between the smoking patients (n = 11) and the controls. In the nonsmoking patient group, there was a sevenfold increase in BAL concentrations of FN and a threefold increase in HA. Moreover, four patients had detectable levels of procollagen III peptide in BAL, all were nonsmokers. The smoking habits of the controls had no influence on the BAL measurements. These findings indicate that smoking interferes with the radiation-induced early inflammatory connective tissue reaction of the lung. Finally, the results justify further investigation of interaction of smoking with cancer treatment, both from the view of therapy effectiveness and reduction of adverse effects.


In order to explore the filtration performance of woven filter cloth to provide a design basis for filter cloth, the relationship of water permeability of filter cloth and fabric structural parameters is analyzed and studied by measuring the mass of water through the filter cloth within a specified time. The results show that water permeability rate of filter cloth decreases with the increase of fabric tightness, and the two assume the exponential function relationship. The relationship between yarn twist and water permeability rate assumes the linear positive correlation. The increase of yarn twist makes water permeability rate of filter cloth increase. The effect of textile weave on water permeability of filter cloth is that the water permeability rate of plain weave is the smallest and that of twill weave is the biggest.


In this paper, we describe how socioeconomic background and political leaning are related to how U.S. residents look for information on COVID-19. Using representative survey data from 2,280 U.S. internet users, collected in fall 2020, we examine how factors, such as age, gender, race, income, education, political leaning, and internet skills are related to how many different types of sources and what types of sources respondents use to find information on COVID-19. Moreover, we describe how many checking actions individuals use to verify information, and how all of these factors are related to knowledge about COVID-19. Results show that men, those with higher education, higher incomes, and higher self-perceived internet ability, and those who are younger used more types of information sources. Similar patterns emerged for checking actions. When we examined different types of sources (mainstream media, conservative sources, medical sources, and TV sources), three patterns emerged: 1) respondents who have more resources used more types of sources; 2) demographic factors made less difference for conservative media consumers; and 3) conservative media were the only type of source used less by younger age groups than older age groups. Finally, availability of resources and types of information sources were related to differences in factual knowledge. Respondents who had fewer resources, those who used conservative news media, and those who engaged in more checking actions got fewer answers right. This difference could lead to information divides and associated knowledge gaps in the United States regarding the coronavirus pandemic.


This article highlights an evolving assignment given in BSW and MSW Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE) courses. The community assessment assignment provides students with the opportunity to become immersed in small towns and rural areas and discover strengths and needs through observation, analysis of census data, interviews with key informants, and giving back. Components of the assignment are discussed as well as keys to success for facilitating the assignment. Common themes discovered across these communities are integrated throughout.


Burn wound infection (BWls) result from the colonization of burn wounds by micro organisms which cause inflammatory host reactions that lead to a delay in burn wound healing. It is estimated that 70% of Burn wound infections are bacterial and 75% of all deaths within the first five days post-burn are linked to BWls. Prevalence studies done worldwide though varying in their findings have come to a similar conclusion that BWI is a leading problem world over and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. A 72.5% prevalence of BWI was reported in an Iranian burns hospital, 31 % in Malawi and 15-34% in different Nigerian regions. This was a hospital based cross sectional study whose aim was to identify the micro organisms associated with causation of BWls and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns. It was conducted among 81 inpatients with burns admitted at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) burns unit and burns ward for four weeks from June to July 2013. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed. Prior approval was sought from ethical review committee before commencing the study. Quantitative data was collected using a provider initiated standard questionnaire where a total of 81 wound swabs specimens were obtained using purposive sampling method and immediately transported to the microbiology laboratory for culture and sensitivity tests. For the qualitative data, in-depth interviews were conducted using convenient sampling method among 3 doctors and 10 nurses all working within the burns unit and ward using an interview guide. Their opinions and experiences in the prevention of BWIs were explored until saturation levels were reached. Qualitative data was analysed manually according to emerging themes while quantitative data was analyzed using Stata ® version 12.0 xv In the present study, there was a high prevalence of bacterial BWls (86%). The isolates among the subjects were mainly gram negative (60%) of which 44.4% had staphylococcus aureus and 32.1 % had pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated. The isolates were highly multi drug resistant to the commonly used antibiotics at both the bums unit and bums ward. Staphylococcus aureus had above 60% resistance levels to all but two antibiotics; Teicoplanin (0%) and Levofloxacin (31 %). Days post bum was the only independent predictor of antibiotic sensitivity and predicted sensitivity to Levofloxacin. The odds of sensitivity to Levofloxacin reduced by 2% (OR = 0.98, P<0.05) for each additional day post bum. All care givers interviewed were unanimous that the prevalence of bum wound infections was high among bum patients. Overcrowding, understaffing, poor infection control practices and inadequate equipment and appropriate supplies were some of the factors identified to be associated with the causation of bum wound infections. None of the nurses working at bums unit and ward was formally trained on bums management. Aggressive infection prevention measures should be instituted urgently to limit the emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant pathogens. Regular wound cultures and periodical analysis of resident organisms and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns should be done in keeping with best practices of other modem bum treatment centres worldwide. Long term goals include fast tracking the construction of the proposed bums centre at KNH. The hospital should train nurses working at bums unit and ward on bums management just like it does for those working at the other specialized units at the hospital. The central government should build capacity at the lower level four and five government hospitals to facilitate effective bums management which will help in decongesting KNH.


Author(s): Chan, Julia | Abstract: From the Supremes to the Jackson Five, Motown launched the careers of some of the biggest names in music history. While artists such as Diana Ross and Michael Jackson went on to become household names, most people have never heard of a little-known but important girl group called the Velvelettes. Their story has never been told in-depth on camera—until now.Comprised of two sisters, two cousins, and one of their best friends, the Velvelettes got their name from their rich, distinctive harmony that sounded "smooth as velvet." The group was formed in 1961 on the campus of Western Michigan University to enter a talent show. After the Velvelettes won the grand prize of $25, a student in the audience recommended the group try out for his uncle's record company in Detroit. The student happened to be Berry Gordy's nephew, and after a chance encounter at Hitsville, U.S.A., the ladies were quickly signed to the Motown family.In their few years at the label, the group released a handful of mildly successful singles such as "Needle in a Haystack" and "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin.'" Even with their talent and work ethic, the Velvelettes found commercial success elusive. A pivotal moment in the group's history was their decision to pass on "Where Did Our Love Go?" The song went to another Motown group, shot up the charts to number-one, and launched the Supremes on the path to superstardom. Meanwhile, the Velvelettes, facing enormous pressure from their families, disbanded before they could get a full album released.The Velvelettes have been left out of much of Motown history, but the legendary record company probably wouldn't have succeeded without the group. At one point, sales from "Needle in a Haystack" kept the label afloat, supplying Berry Gordy with enough cash to stave off bankruptcy. This happened before the Supremes hit it big, and had it not been for the Velvelettes, the Supremes and countless other artists wouldn't exist, or at least how we know them today.The Velvelettes reunited in the mid-1980s and have been performing across the world ever since. Although Motown never released a Velvelettes album on vinyl, Universal released several compilation CDs of the Velvelettes' music in the late 1990s. 2012 marks their fiftieth anniversary of the Velvelettes being signed to Motown, and today they are the only Motown group still performing with original members.


P oliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus belonging to the Picornaviridae family. In 1894, first outbreak of polio in epidemic form in the U.S, occurs in Vermont, with 132 cases. 1908, Kari Landsteiner and Erwin Popper identify a virus as the cause of polio by transmitting the disease to a monkey. Polio virus is an enterovirus, types 1,2 and 3 cause disease, although type 2 has been eradicated as a wild type virus. Polio is highly contagious virus that can result in spinal cord and brainstem paralysis. It most commonly affects children under 5 years old. 1 in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis and among those paralysed , 5 to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized . Cases due to wild poliovirus have decreased by over 99% since 1988 from an estimated 350000 cases then to 33 reported cases in 2018. As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. Failure to eradicate polio from these last remaining strongholds could result in as many as 200000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world-(WHO).Awarness about proper immunization and at right time should be emphasized so that it can be completely eradicated and this public health issues of disability could be eradicated especially among adolescents for establish lifelong immunity and healthy wellbeing.


One of the challenges facing governments and the international oil industry that wish to cooperate in exploiting petroleum resources is the availability of a fiscal or contractual system that is attractive to the oil companies, but one that also adequately protects national interests. Both the host government and the investing oil company have their own concerns to consider, and it is essential that a balance exists between the competing interests. For the host government, the best way to achieve such a balance is to tailor contractual terms to outcomes based on economic modeling. Economic models constructed to represent various exploration and production scenarios reveal outcomes that could be expected under envisioned contractual terms. Depending on the results, the contractual terms can then be modified or tailored to give what is considered to be equitable economic returns for the state and the investor, based on international norms. Other concerns, e.g., promoting exploration and development of small reserves, can also be addressed in economic modeling. Likewise, a contractor interested in bidding for upstream opportunities should run economic models of its own to judge the attractiveness of the contract. If the fiscal terms were conceived judiciously, a deal becomes likely.


In this arts based autoethnographic work I was a researcher and a teacher and an artist who was becoming academic. I co-curated an exhibition of art in early childhood education connecting with the Cizek method of Child Art. As part of the approach to the research I then made art, travelled through parts of Europe visiting galleries and museums, and experienced children's art in a museum at the holding/concentration camp at Terezin, also referred to as Thereseinstadt, Czech Republic. Knowing was evident in the processes that became ways of making meaning as I gathered items, collected information, took photographs, stuck and stitched these together as art, together with poetic writing and photo/writing. In this research I involved myself in arts-based practice as I inquired into early childhood art pedagogy; thinking about what teaching with art does. Questioning 'what can I do?' and 'how might I teach?' opened the research up to new ways of knowing (and wondering) about opportunities and potentialities in using art for early childhood education. I also found ways that fragments of lives, materials and becomings might be gathered, evoked, and documented using art. My knowing was in the making as artist/researcher/teacher as well as with materials in embodied encounters through a/r/tographic living inquiry that was personal work. Three influences on the analysis are evident in the art works that supported the discussion: a mosaic on a case, a quilted calico bag and an album. These are presented and discussed in relation to teaching children and knowing in the making with art. The idea of 'becoming' is accessed through artist and teacher and researcher perspectives and the thesis argues for new possibilities in becoming-artist/academic while in pedagogical relationships with young children.


Summary form only given. Note onsets mark the beginning of attack transients, short areas of a note containing rapid changes of the signal spectral content. Detecting onsets is not trivial, especially when analysing complex mixtures. Applications for note onset detection systems include time stretching, audio coding and synthesis. An alternative to standard energy-based onset detection is proposed by using phase information. It is suggested that by observing the frame-by-frame distribution of differential angles, the precise moment when onsets occur can be detected with accuracy. Statistical measures are used to build the detection function. The system is tested and tuned on a database of complex recordings.


Abstract. Reliability of terrestrial ecosystem models highly depends on the quantity and quality of the data that have been used to calibrate the models. Nowadays, in situ observations of carbon fluxes are abundant. However, the knowledge of how much data (data length) and which subset of the time series data (data period) should be used to effectively calibrate the model is still lacking. In this study we use the AmeriFlux carbon flux data to parameterize the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) using an adjoint based data assimilation technique for five different ecosystem types including deciduous broadleaf forest, coniferous forest, grassland, shrubland and boreal forest. We hypothesize that calibration data covering various climate conditions for the ecosystems (e.g. drought and wet; high and low air temperature) can reduce the uncertainty of the model parameter space. Here parameterization is conducted to explore the impact of both data length and data period on the uncertainty reduction of the posterior model parameters and the quantification of site and regional carbon dynamics. We find that: (1) the model is better constrained when it uses two-year data comparing to using one-year data. Further, two-year data is long enough in calibrating TEM's carbon dynamics, since using three-year data could only marginally improve the model performance at our study sites; (2) the model is better constrained with the data that have a higher "climate variability" than that with a lower one. The climate variability is used to measure the overall possibility of the ecosystem to experience various climate conditions including drought and extreme air temperatures and radiation; (3) the US regional simulations indicate that the effect of calibration data length on carbon dynamics is amplified at regional and temporal scales, leading to large discrepancies among different parameterization experiments, especially in July and August. This study shall help the eddy flux observation community in conducting field observations. The study shall also benefit the ecosystem modeling community in using multiple-year data to improve model parameterization and predictability.