: Dominant scholarly publishing models, reliant on expensive paywalls, remain preferential throughout higher education's landscape. This essay engages paywall publishing from a feminist communicative perspective by asking, how can publishing extend or prohibit feminist movements? Or, as Nancy Fraser (2013) asks, "which modes of feminist theorizing should be incorporated into the new political imaginaries now being invented by new generations" (2)? With these questions in mind, we integrate feminist epistemologies into publishing practices to argue that open access is integral to the feminist movement. The argument unfolds in three parts: first, we conduct a feminist criticism of paywall publishing by arguing that status quo practices constitute a dominant public based on onto-epistemological foundations of exclusion that systematically subordinate potentially liberatory knowledge. Second, we consider open access as a feminist re-tooling that creates new political imaginaries. In this section, we place open access in conversation with bell hooks's conception of literacy and Fraser's counterpublic theory. We conclude by considering how to live feminist lives with these criticisms and re-toolings in mind.


We present a method to reconstruct a dense spatiotemporal depth map of a non-rigidly deformable object directly from a video sequence. The estimation of depth is performed locally on spatio-temporal patches of the video, and then the full depth video of the entire shape is recovered by combining them together. Since the geometric complexity of a local spatiotemporal patch of a deforming non-rigid object is often simple enough to be faithfully represented with a parametric model, we artificially generate a database of small deforming rectangular meshes rendered with different material properties and light conditions, along with their corresponding depth videos, and use such data to train a convolutional neural network. We tested our method on both synthetic and Kinect data and experimentally observed that the reconstruction error is significantly lower than the one obtained using conventional non-rigid structure from motion approaches.


In recent years, police violence has amassed notable international attention from the public, practitioners, and academics alike. This paper explores experiences and perceptions of police violence in Canada, documenting the impacts of direct and vicarious experiences of police violence on inner-city residents. The study employed semi-structured interviews with 45 community members across three Toronto inner-city neighbourhoods. Using a general interview prompt guide, participants were asked a range of questions about their experiences with and perceptions of police, and particularly, of police violence in their community. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, thematically coded, and analyzed. All participants reported direct and/or vicarious experiences of police violence, and most described experiencing long-standing, and continual fear that police contact would result in harm to them. Further, participants described a variety of serious and negative outcomes associated with experiencing and/or witnessing police violence. Police violence in Canada is a public health issue that requires an integrated public health policy approach to address the negative outcomes associated with direct and vicarious police violence exposure.


In this paper we proposed a new method for Brain Tumor classification using Probabilistic neural network with contourlet transformation. The conventional methods like Computerized Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Images are based on human inspection for tumor classification and detection. These methods are inefficient and are also non reproducible for large amount of data. Also, those methods includes noise due to operator performance which creates serious inaccuracies in tumor classification. Neural Networks shows good results in medical diagnosis which is combined here with contourlet transform . Decision making is based on two steps (i) Image reduction and Feature extraction using contourlet transform (ii) Classification using probabilistic Neural Network(PNN). Performance evaluation on various brain tumor images shows fast and better recognition rate and also low computational requirements, when compared to pre vious classifiers.


This thesis explores two teachers' perspectives and practice through making explicit the various discourses they operated in. By exploring these discourses, teachers may be able to understand the ways they conceptualise curriculum and consider how their own practices in the classroom are informed by and reflect particular beliefs. It is hoped that through this process opportunities exist to explore new ways of working that ultimately benefit children in classrooms. The purpose of this study is to investigate how change, loss and grief as a relatively new learning context in Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1999) is conceptualized and implemented in the classroom. The perspectives and practice of two primary school teachers were used in a case study design to explore how this particular aspect of health education is implemented. The process of teaching and learning is extremely complex and exploring it brought many challenges. The various discourses that seemed to guide, shape and determine the case study teachers' classroom practice are examined. The dominant discourse of the teacher as an 'expert' was pervasive and was illustrated in many of the teachers ideas, beliefs and practices. This discourse seemed to work implicitly to influence the way that these teachers conceptualized change, loss and grief and how they then implemented this topic in the classroom. The implications of this study highlight the crucial role of specific and focused professional development in enabling teachers to recognize and critique their own practice within their existing teaching and learning belief systems. Through this process, teachers may be able to explore new teaching pedagogy that could challenge the existing and dominant discourses that operate in the classroom. The study raises questions about the effectiveness of existing professional development programmes in changing classroom practice and suggests some specific strategies that may more effectively close the gap between theory and practice.


Cardiomyopathies are an important cause of heart disease in the elderly. Clinical presentations and natural history of the cardiomyopathies in older and younger patients may show some differences. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is common and changes in left ventricular structure by aging often create diffi culties in differentiating pathologic states from physiologic. The prognosis for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is more favorable in the elderly than in younger patients. Dilated cardiomyopathy is also common and elderly patients have a worse prognosis than younger patients with this disease. The medical management of dilated cardiomyopathy is often more diffi cult in the elderly, Restrictive cardiomyopathy with diastolic dysfunction is increasingly recognized as a cause of congestive heart failure in elderly patients. Non-compaction of the ventricular myocardium is a rare disorder. Although most cases are detected in infancy, late clinical onset has been reported in some cases at an age >70 years in the literature. In this review, clinical features of primary cardiomyopathies in the elderly are summarized.


In this paper, a novel decision based adaptive median filter to remove blotches, scratches, streaks, stripes and random valued impulse noise in images is presented. The proposed method is a two stage algorithm. In the first stage the noise candidates are detected using rank ordered absolute difference (ROAD) value. In the second stage the replacement is done by median of uncorrupted pixels in the filtering window. The filtering window is varied adaptively based on the number of uncorrupted pixels in the window. The visual and quantitative results show the proposed filter outperforms many of the standard filters in terms of different artifact removal with edge preservation.


Stress in animal is a condition of nonspesific discomfort which cause of non-specific immune defects,failure of reproduction, and decreased of meat carcass until the death of  animals. To determine stress ofcattle,  it will be invented stress detector using a non-invasive method based on the spectroscopy FourierTransform Infrared (FTIR). Basically,  FTIR will detect component in compound of cathecolamine andcortisol as ketone (= O) and methyl (= CH 3). Furthermore, each group of components will be detected indifferent of absorbant and wavelength. The results showed that average level of cortisol in female beefcattle durimg resting eriod was 38,48±21,53 ng/dL, on time of slaughtering were 116,88±112,59 ng/dL. Forbull, which were resting  20,42±9,25 ng/dL; when animal was slaughtered level of cortisol was  67,61±41,62ng/dL. Using FTIR, it was showed that compound of metil was absorbed well. Animals with udder stresscondition have been recorded on the wave lenght of 2777-3456 nm. It has been concluded level of cortisolon cattle which were resting is significantly different from animal which were slaughtering P(< 0.05),where cortisol would increase drastically. Using Calibration of FTIR indicated resting animals only havefewer value of absorbance than animals which slaughtered.  FTIR is a very prospect method for makingstress indicator.


To understand the roles of secretory peptides in developmental signaling, we have studied Drosophila mutant for the gene peptidylglycine alpha-hydroxylating monooxygenase (PHM). PHM is the rate-limiting enzyme for C-terminal alpha-amidation, a specific and necessary modification of secretory peptides. In insects, more than 90% of known or predicted neuropeptides are amidated. PHM mutants lack PHM protein and enzyme activity; most null animals die as late embryos with few morphological defects. Natural and synthetic PHM hypomorphs revealed phenotypes that resembled those of animals with mutations in genes of the ecdysone-inducible regulatory circuit. Animals bearing a strong hypomorphic allele contain no detectable PHM enzymatic activity or protein; approximately 50% hatch and initially display normal behavior, then die as young larvae, often while attempting to molt. PHM mutants were rescued with daily induction of a PHM transgene and complete rescue was seen with induction limited to the first 4 days after egg-laying. The rescued mutant adults produced progeny which survived to various stages up through metamorphosis (synthetic hypomorphs) and displayed prepupal and pupal phenotypes resembling those of ecdysone-response gene mutations. Examination of neuropeptide biosynthesis in PHM mutants revealed specific disruptions: Amidated peptides were largely absent in strong hypomorphs, but peptide precursors, a nonamidated neuropeptide, nonpeptide transmitters, and other peptide biosynthetic enzymes were readily detected. Mutant adults that were produced by a minimal rescue schedule had lowered PHM enzyme levels and reproducibly altered patterns of amidated neuropeptides in the CNS. These deficits were partially reversed within 24 h by a single PHM induction in the adult stage. These genetic results support the hypothesis that secretory peptide signaling is critical for transitions between developmental stages, without strongly affecting morphogenetic events within a stage. Further, they show that PHM is required for peptide alpha-amidating activity throughout the life of Drosophila. Finally, they define novel methods to study neural and endocrine peptide biosynthesis and functions in vivo.


Our paper proposes a model predictive controller as a single-task formulation that simultaneously optimizes wheel and torso motions. This online joint velocity and ground reaction force optimization integrates a kinodynamic model of a wheeled quadrupedal robot. It defines the single rigid body dynamics along with the robot's kinematics while treating the wheels as moving ground contacts. With this approach, we can accurately capture the robot's rolling constraint and dynamics, enabling automatic discovery of hybrid maneuvers without needless motion heuristics. The formulation's generality through the simultaneous optimization over the robot's whole-body variables allows for a single set of parameters and makes online gait sequence adaptation possible. Aperiodic gait sequences are automatically found through kinematic leg utilities without the need for predefined contact and lift-off timings, reducing the cost of transport by up to 85 %. Our experiments demonstrate dynamic motions on a quadrupedal robot with non-steerable wheels in challenging indoor and outdoor environments. The paper's findings contribute to evaluating a decomposed, i.e., sequential optimization of wheel and torso motion, and single-task motion planner with a novel quantity, the prediction error, which describes how well a receding horizon planner can predict the robot's future state. To this end, we report an improvement of up to 71 % using our proposed single-task approach, making fast locomotion feasible and revealing wheeled-legged robots' full potential.


One of the main concerns associated with the development and use of regional CGE models is the determination of key parameter values, particularly substitution and other price elasticities. A common problem is the lack of appropriate regional data for econometric estimation. Consequently, it is important to identify key parameters that are likely to be important in determining quantitative results and then to prioritize these for estimation where appropriate data are available. In this paper, the focus is on the estimation of the regional trade (import) substitution parameters, which tend to be important in analysis for regional economies (given their openness to trade). Here, commodity import elasticities for the Illinois economy are estimated and tested in a single region CGE model of the Illinois economy. In our econometric estimation, we apply a model that takes account of market size and distance in estimating the substitutability between commodities produced in Illinois and other US states.


From Chechnya in Russia to Kashmir in India to the Basque region in Spain, secessionist movements remain a serious threat to international security. Despite the importance of this issue, the causes that bring about external military intervention in a secessionist war have not, until now, been adequately addressed. In this book, Dos Santos identifies the conditions that make international military intervention in a secessionist war more or less likely. South Asia, being fraught with secessionist movements-Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Punjab-provides an ideal laboratory for the examination of this compelling issue. Dos Santos argues that a shift in the balance of power between a secessionist group and its central government will lead to a preventive war on the secessionists by the central government. In turn, a preventive war of this nature may lead to an alliance between the secessionist group and an external power. The stronger the alliance, the greater the chances of an international military intervention. Understanding the conditions under which secessionist movements expand, become secessionist wars, and invite international military intervention on behalf of the secessionists has strong policy implications. It can go a long way toward guiding policymakers who may want to mitigate or avoid these conditions in their states. Dos Santos views both states and secessionist groups as primary actors, and she examines both the distribution of power among states and the balance of power between central government and groups within states.


The effect of spontaneous spin polarization in quantum point contacts (QPCs) is investigated by self-consistent modelling within the Kohn-Sham local spin-density formalism. The existence of the spin-polarized state of the QPC channel in the low-density regime is shown to change the value and the shape of the effective potential barrier for up- and down-spin electrons. We suggest that this effect can be relevant to the explanation of the anomalous 0.7-structure in the QPC conductance and may assist spin injection in potential spintronic devices.


There are numerous studies that were able to find C. pneumoniae infections as a contributing factor in atherosclerosis pathogenesis. Positive serology for C. pneumoniae was found in most studies in patients with atherosclerosis (IgG, IgA, IgM). Most studies were able to correlate an elevated IgA antibody titer rather than the IgG titer to the risk for atherosclerosis. C. pneumoniae and its components (DNA, antigens) were detected in atherosclerotic plaques using immunohistochemistry, PCR, electron microscopy and cell cultures. C. pneumoniae has been located in endothelium, smooth muscle cells and macrophages of arterial wall with atherosclerosis but not in normal arteries. Cellular models have shown that C. pneumoniae is able to replicate in endothelium, macrophages and smooth muscle cells. A high C. pneumoniae antibody titer was found to correlate with high level of LDL and triglycerides and low level of HDL. C. pneumoniae infection increases platelet adhesion and adhesion molecules at the surface of endothelium. C. pneumoniae could be a cofactor for atherosclerosis combined with high level of lipids as shown in an animal model but not alone. Strong cellular and humoral immunity have been found in men with atherosclerosis and positive C. pneumoniae titers. This organism could be found in diverse arteries with atherosclerosis. One particular C. pneumoniae strain (AR 39) appears to be more frequently involved in atherosclerosis. Antibiotic treatment with azithromycin appears to be protective against atherosclerosis complications. However, there is as yet no conclusive evidence that C. pneumoniae causes atherosclerosis, but most likely it may enhance this process. Two large randomized clinical trials are currently underway evaluating azithromycin treatment in patients with atherosclerosis which will hopefully give us answers about the role of antibiotic treatment.


Archie is the risk-taker of his penguin colony, whether climbing Mount Nosebleed, tobogganing through Craggy Pass, or, in his latest venture, attempting to fly via mechanical means to Iceberg Nine to partake in a fish fry. His flight attempts (a giant slingshot, Flap-O-MaticTM wings, and a rocket) are valiant efforts but each ultimately fails, and another penguin guesses what Archie is trying to hide: he is "afraid of the water and the strange creatures who lurk in the briny deep." When his last flight trial lands him directly in the sea, Archie must confront his fears head on, but fortunately, the creatures he dreaded quickly and kindly surround him with helpful advice and encouragement to help him swim. While the ease with which Archie conquers his fears is more convenient than realistic, the consolation and support offered by the ocean dwellers is still satisfying. The text, presented entirely in speech bubbles, is snappy and straightforward with entertaining vocabulary ("Zounds!") interspersed into the narrative. The humor is underscored by Rash's high-contrast, slightly cartoonish digital illustrations in which big-beaked Archie, amusingly differentiated from the other penguins by his red safety helmet, intrepidly hurtles through the air and barrel-rolls under the sea. Kids who get a kick out of the penguins from Madagascar movies will find Archie's stunts particularly diverting. JH


The impact of climate change on the soil microbiome potentially alters the biogeochemical cycle of terrestrial ecosystems. In semi‐arid environments, water availability is a major constraint on biogeochemical cycles due to the combination of high summer temperatures and low rainfall. Here, we explored how 10 years of irrigation of a water‐limited pine forest in the central European Alps altered the soil microbiome and associated ecosystem functioning. A decade of irrigation stimulated tree growth, resulting in higher crown cover, larger yearly increments of tree biomass, increased litter fall and greater root biomass. Greater amounts of plant‐derived inputs associated with increased primary production in the irrigated forest stands stimulated soil microbial activity coupled with pronounced shifts in the microbiome from largely oligotrophic to more copiotrophic lifestyles. Microbial groups benefitting from increased resource availabilities (litter, rhizodeposits) thrived under irrigation, leading to enhanced soil organic matter mineralization and carbon respired from irrigated soils. This unique long‐term study provides new insights into the impact of precipitation changes on the soil microbiome and associated ecosystem functioning in a water‐limited pine forest ecosystem and improves our understanding of the persistency of long‐term soil carbon stocks in a changing climate.


Abstract This study examined sleep patterns and sleep problems in relation to smoking and alcohol use in Chinese adolescents. A questionnaire survey of 2090 adolescent students was conducted in Lijin County, Shandong, China. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. After adjustment for demographics and internalizing and externalizing problems, poor sleep quality was associated with increased risk of smoking (odds ratio [OR], 2.59; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24–5.40), alcohol use (OR, 2.65; 95% CI, 2.81–3.89), and getting drunk (OR, 2.81; 95% CI, 1.72–4.57); sleeping 7 hours (OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.20–2.43) and sleeping 6 hours or less per night on weekdays (OR, 1.97; 95% CI, 1.25–3.10) were significantly associated with increased risk for alcohol use, and sleeping 6 hours or less per night on weekends (OR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.18–3.70) were significantly associated with increased risk for getting drunk; and hypnotic medication use was significantly associated with ever smoking (OR, 1.80; 95% CI, 1.08–2.99). These findings highlight the potential role of sleep intervention in the prevention of adolescent substance use.


This paper examines the microclimatic conditions and the feeling of thermal comfort in two different open spaces in the town of Drama, through constant record of the environmental parameters of temperature and relative humidity for a time period from 12/7 to 17/9/2006. Aim of the paper was to study the bioclimatic conditions of an open space, which was an urban park with vegetation and water, compared to an empty open central square space. Data analysis has proved that the average temperature was 2oC lower in the park area. The improved temperature was noted in everyday basis, while during the warmer days the difference in temperature is bigger. During the 24-hours the biggest differences were observed during afternoon and evening hours. The relative humidity was about 4% higher in the park area and contributed to temperature decrease, since temperature and relative humidity follow opposite course during the 24-hours. Thom's Discomfort Index was also calculated and show that was lower at the park area in everyday basis and during the 24-hours, while the study of the rates shows that in most of the summer days and most of the day hours thermal comfort was ensured in this area. The Actual Sensation Vote (ASV) as for different sun conditions in the two areas was furthermore calculated and shows an improvement in thermal comfort at the park area in the order of 10 to 20%. Temperature starts to fall in the park area faster than in the central place and thermal comfort was more quickly achieved. The discomfort was expanded neither in the afternoon nor in the first evening hours, as it happens in the empty square. The aim of the essay is finally proved: vegetation and water contribute to the improvement of the bioclimatic conditions in the open spaces of the town.


T cell activation and function are critically regulated by positive and negative costimulatory molecules. Aberrant expression and function of costimulatory molecules have been associated with persistent activation of self-reactive T cells in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, initial analysis of costimulatory molecules led to the unexpected observation that, in addition to CD80, several negative regulators (e.g., CTLA-4, programmed death-1 (PD-1), and PD ligand-1) were overexpressed in synovial T cells and macrophages derived from RA patients as opposed to controls. The expression of CD80 and PD ligand-1 on monocytes could be induced in vitro by IFN-γ and TNF-α that were produced abundantly in RA-derived synovial fluid (SF). Furthermore, the soluble form of negative costimulatory molecules occurred at high concentrations in sera and SF of RA patients and correlated with titers of rheumatoid factor in RA patients. In particular, the levels of soluble PD-1 were found to correlate significantly with those of TNF-α in SF derived from RA patients. Detailed characterization of soluble PD-1 revealed that it corresponded to an alternative splice variant (PD-1Δex3) and could functionally block the regulatory effect of membrane-bound PD-1 on T cell activation. Our data indicate a novel pathogenic pathway in which overexpression of negative costimulatory molecules to restrict synovial inflammation in RA is overruled by the excessive production of soluble costimulatory molecules.


Copyright © 2017 by Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives: Dental caries and periodontitis are major oral bacterial infections associated with dental plaque. Infection and inflammation play a role in carcinogenesis, and a significant link has been found between some highly prevalent oral and dental diseases and some types of cancer. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between cancer and oral health among Korean adults. Methods: Data from the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used to analyze the incidence of cancer according to oral health. Demographic and socioeconomic statuses and oral behavior of the participants was analyzed using complex chi-square tests. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between a high DMFT index and cancer by calculating the 95% confidence intervals. Results: In total, 6,450 case-control subjects were included. Significant difference was observed in the DMFT index, but not in periodontal diseases, between the cases and controls. The odds ratio for cancer was 1.80 (95% confidence interval: 1.18 to 2.73) in the high-risk group. However, no significant difference was observed after adjusting for age, education level, and income. Conclusions: The results provide potential evidence of a significant association between cancer and oral disease.


This study applies digital analysis methods of topographic data derived from digital elevation models (DEMs) and Landsat remotely sensed spectral data using GIS tools to evaluate the quality and limitations of the morphometric parameters (terrain attributes: TAs). This aims to check its suitability for digital soil mapping (DSM) and survey in urban areas at the target scale 1:50,000. This scale represents the standard scale level for compiling soil inventories within all German states. The study is conducted on an urban area of 112.68 km2 in the southwest part of the state of Berlin in Germany. These relief units are the basis for determining the soil mapping units at the scale of 1:50,000. The generated preliminary soil map was compared to soil maps made using traditional soil survey methods. For the mainly natural soils, the equivalence area is 94.91%, and for the anthropogenic soils, the equivalence area is 95.34%. The proposed methodology is adequate for preliminary mapping of soil units based on the digital derivation of TAs. Landsat scenes are spatially explicit, physical representations of environmental covariates on the land surface. The free DEM-ASTER in combination with Landsat OLI images is found to be the appropriate model to represent the terrain surface and derive the TAs for environmental modeling and fitting of derivation the relief units and their topography features. However, the 30 m spatial resolution and the fairly coarse spectral resolution of DEMs and Landsat images limit their utility for digital soil mapping at this scale in urban areas with little topographic variation.


Skeletal evidence of violence in the American Southwest is well known and both healed and peri-mortem trauma has been reported at many sites, including high rates of cranial injury supporting evidence of warfare. The present study examines the peri-mortem skeletal injuries in three young males from Pot Creek Pueblo (AD 1260-1320) located in the Taos Valley. Of the individuals analyzed from the Taos Valley, peri-mortem trauma only occurred in these three males, although healed ante-mortem injuries were present in several other individuals. CT scans of the skulls provided an additional method of analysis of the injuries and data necessary to differentiate peri-mortem trauma from post-mortem damage in one case. The pattern of perimortem blunt force and chopping force trauma to the skulls and post-cranial remains suggests hand-to hand combat occurred and these individuals died from chopping trauma to the skull, potentially from warfare related activities. Additionally, comparisons of the trauma patterns to rock art dating to the period suggests the type of weapon depicted may have been utilized to inflict the trauma to the skulls.


Modified nanosilica-filled polypropylene composites were manufactured by in situ reactive processing. The key issue lies that amine functional groups of silica nanoparticles reacted with glycidyl methacrylate grafted ethylene/n-octene copolymer (EOC-g-GMA) in order to improve nanofiller dispersion and increase compatibility between silica and PP matrix. Taking the advantages of rubber-type grafted polymer (ethylene/n-octene copolymer) and reactive compatibilization with NH2-SiO2, a synergetic toughening effect was observed for the PP composites. Just very low concentrations of silica nanoparticles (2 wt %) and EOC-g-GMA (4 or 6 wt %) were sufficient to increase significantly notched impact strength and elongation at break of PP. On the contrary, tensile strength of the composites is slightly decreased. Improved dispersion of silica and increased compatibility between silica and PP matrix were observed in the presence of EOC-g-GMA. The crystalline features of PP have not been influenced greatly by addition of both modified silica and compatibilizer. However, the spherulite size of PP dramatically decreased in all composites. The thermal stability of the composites was significantly better compared to PP. Improved stiffness due to increased both storage and loss moduli indicating very good interfacial adhesion was observed.


A small-scale functional analysis screen has revealed several new phenotypes associated with a large deletion of GDH3, one of two Sacchammyces cerewisiae genes known to encode NADP-linked glutamate dehydrogenase. Diploids heterozygous for the deletion are able to sporulate in rich media, while haploid deletants produce dark, wrinkled colonies containing pseudohyphal cells. The haploid cells rapidly lose viability upon starvation.


The obvious overlap and similarity between praise and flattery makes it difficult sometimes for readers or hearers in general to distinguish between these two acts when facing them. Despite this, little attention has been paid to the overlap between praise and flattery in general and the effect of social variables (power and distance) in particular. The current paper will examine these two acts, praise and flattery as speech acts (that are affected by the truth conditions) in Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It will further present a comprehensive study of the lexical, structural and pragmatic issues involved in praise and flattery.  Besides, the present study will examine the relationship between social variables (power and distance) and these two acts. Generally speaking, the obvious overlap between praise and flattery remains a challenge for scholars since many of them till recently use the two acts interchangeably . Therefore, the researcher must assure the fact that praise should be kept distinct from flattery. To attain the objective of the study, the researchers adopt Recanati model of truth conditional pragmatics TCP developed in (2010).


Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) markers were developed through data mining of 3,803 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) previously published. A total of 144 di- to penta-type SSRs were identified and they were screened for polymorphism between two turnip cultivars, 'Tsuda' and 'Yurugi Akamaru'. Out of 90 EST-SSRs for which polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers were designed, 85 could be successfully amplified, 13 showed polymorphism and eight were regarded as valid markers based on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in the F 2 population developed from a cross between the two cultivars. Additionally, 1551 SSR markers reported in public database were also subjected to polymorphism survey. Among these SSR markers, 66 showed polymorphism between the two cultivars, while 28 showed HWE with Ho in a range of 0.4 to 0.6. A linkage map was constructed using these eight EST-SST markers and 28 published SSR markers in the F 2 population. Key words: EST-SSR, linkage map, polymorphism, single sequence repeats, turnip.


through, but makes a use volume for all those conc diagnosis and treatment of Ic although the reader unfortun find out why manipulation v The book is well printed o with numerous tables and d many in some chapters, in rr should, however, certainly library shelves of all academi ful reference trades (mainly in terms of back comerned in the plaints), pre-employment exclusion of w back pain, men with radiographic evidence of Lately will not disc degeneration and an account of vorks. various industrial surveys carried out by in good paper Lawrence, Duthie, Anderson and others. liagrams; too In summary, it is essential reading for iy opinion. It anyone about to embark on rheumatic be on the research, whether clinical or epidemioic centres. logical, and an excellent account of all the field surveys carried out by the A. ZINOVIEFF Arthritis and Rheumatism Council's Units, though the world literature is also well covered. However, it is an expensive Rheumatism in Populations. By J. S. Lawrence. (Pp. 572; illustrated; £22.) William Heinemann Medical Books Limited: London. 1977.


In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion on the potential for a shift away from modernistic or technocratic approaches to decision-making on risk towards more open, inclusive and deliberative approaches. This paper adopts an approach which analyses not the social but the private costs and benefits of such a transition, and the influence that various institutional factors such as the presence of trust amongst stakeholders can have on these. With these factors in mind, the paper considers the reasons why some organisations have taken the first step in this transition by exploring the potential of what the paper terms more communicative approaches to environmental risk management. It then goes on to evaluate the early experiences with such approaches. The analysis finds that at the organisational level the pros and cons of opening up and engaging are quite finely balanced. For the organisations surveyed, the nature of their activities, the significance of formative events and the failure of more traditional forms of risk communication impelled them to experiment with new approaches to risk communication. Such experiments had mixed effects - in some contexts they enhanced the legitimacy of the organisations and built trust amongst stakeholders, whilst in others they did the opposite. The paper concludes by suggesting that in the long run a broader opening up of decision-making processes may result in what might be termed a reverse Phyrric victory: in some cases battles will be lost, but in the long run the war will be won.


This study is intended to demonstrate how the image of the US soldier is presented and changes in Hollywood war films from 2010 until the present day, specifically the ones dealing with the conflicts in the Middle East. Previous academic studies have looked at these films, focusing on American soldier and the character's role within the war genre, and concluded that the Iraq War film proved to be critically and financially a failure. This study looks at Iraq War films after 2010 in order to find whether this trend continues into the next decade and whether the genre shows any signs of evolution. Through the character of the US soldier, their politics, motivations and role within the conflicts in the Middle East, it aims to find out, whether the genre is developing towards originality and realism or toward the evasion of harsh facts and headed towards myth. To achieve these aims the primary materials that will be used are feature films, chosen by their main subject and their use of war genre conventions; the secondary sources, used to back up conclusions, range from soldier's autobiographies to cinema studies. Both types of sources are used to present a complete picture of the films discussed, put them in social and historical context and through analysis of mise-en-scene, dialogue, imagery, and themes this study wants to show that the image of the US soldier fighting in the Middle East reflects real anxieties present among the population. The final conclusion of this paper provides very interesting insights on the current films about the Middle Eastern conflicts and signs that the genre has begun to change.


The amount of 'big' data generated in clinical oncology, whether from molecular, imaging, pharmacological or biological origin, brings novel challenges. To mine efficiently this source of information, mathematical models able to produce predictive algorithms and simulations are required, with applications for diagnosis, prognosis, drug development or prediction of the response to therapy. Such mathematical and computational constructs can be subdivided into two broad classes: biologically agnostic, statistical models using artificial intelligence techniques, and physiologically-based, mechanistic models. In this review, recent advances in the applications of such methods in clinical oncology are outlined. These include machine learning applied to big data (omics, imaging or electronic health records), pharmacometrics, quantitative systems pharmacology, tumor size kinetics, and metastasis modeling. Focus is set on studies with high potential of clinical translation, as well as applied to cancer immunotherapy. Perspectives are given in terms of combinations of the two approaches: 'mechanistic learning'.


Abstract. Simulations of acoustic wave propagation, including both the forward and the backward propagations of the wave (also known as full-wave simulations), are increasingly utilized in ultrasound imaging due to their ability to more accurately model important acoustic phenomena. Realistic anatomic models, particularly those of the abdominal wall, are needed to take full advantage of the capabilities of these simulation tools. We describe a method for converting fat–water-separated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) volumes to anatomical models for ultrasound simulations. These acoustic models are used to map acoustic imaging parameters, such as speed of sound and density, to grid points in an ultrasound simulation. The tissues of these models are segmented from the MRI volumes into five primary classes of tissue in the human abdominal wall (skin, fat, muscle, connective tissue, and nontissue). This segmentation is achieved using an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM), on a multiscale feature representation of the MRI volumes. We describe an automated method for utilizing FCM weights to produce a model that achieves ∼90  %   agreement with manual segmentation. Two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) full-wave nonlinear ultrasound simulations are conducted, demonstrating the utility of realistic 3-D abdominal wall models over previously available 2-D abdominal wall models.


TP53 is tumour suppressor gene located on chromosome region 17p13. It codes protein p53 that is responsible for cell growth regulation through inhibition of the cell cycle or promotion of apoptosis. Stress caused by DNA damage, different aberrant growth signals from the environment and expression of various oncogenes influence p53 expression and activation in both normal and cancer cells. Tumours with different cell of origin, tumours developed in different localisations and the ones present in different stages of progression often harbour p53 aberration. In chronic lymphocytic leukaemia TP53 mutation and deletion have an impact on therapy response and overall response. In myeloid neoplasms p53 can be involved in disease development mechanism, but in aberrant form it can also contribute to the progression of otherwise favourable form of the disease. It's most known role is the one in colorectal carcinoma where it represents final step of malignant neoplasm development – transition from adenoma to carcinoma. This article gives a review of p53 function in normal and neoplastic cells with special emphasis on its usefulness as a tumour marker.


In heterogeneous catalysis the reactions occur on the surface of a catalyst. To understand the reaction pathways, a detailed understanding on an atomic level is critical. However, the gas atmosphere surrounding the surface dictates the interaction between the surface and the gas. At low pressures this is often neglected, but as the community turns to higher pressures it becomes important to consider gas related effects. We have used laser diagnostics to characterize the gas distributions during catalysis and thereby been able to deduce information that would otherwise lay hidden. Several of our recent results are summarized and highlighted and simultaneous measurements of the surface structure using synchrotron based methods and the gas phase using laser diagnostics is discussed.


Clothing is regarded as an efficient tool for sun protection. Recently, we have learnt that the transmission of UV radiation (UVR) differs substantially between clothing materials. The protection afforded by a light-coloured cotton shirt is equivalent to a sun protection factor of approximately 10 [1]. UV protection by clothing depends on a large variety of factors, such as type of fibre, colour or moisture content [2]. In summer 1997, the Swiss Cancer League started to focus on these facts during the yearly sun protection campaign. A special education campaign under the title 'How sunproof are your clothes?' was initiated to gain public interest in 1997 and 1998. This campaign was also run by the health departments of 9 cities in the German federal state of Lower Saxony in summer 1998 and attracted significant attention in the media. During these campaigns the UV transmission of 1,604 items of clothing worn by passers-by was determined in 30 cities in Switzerland and 9 cities in Germany using a Labsphere® Transmittance Analyser UV-1000F (provided by Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Basel, Switzerland). With this portable instrument, a fabric is illuminated by a xenon flash inside an integrating sphere. The emission spectrum of the light source includes UVB and UVA and ranges from 250 to 450 nm. The fraction of light passing through the sample in a parallel beam is analysed spectrally by a diode array. Ultraviolet protection factors (UPF) were determined according to the Australian/New Zealand Standard as weighted UVR transmittance of Melbourne sunlight [3, 4]. Figure 1 summarises the results by demonstrating the erythemally weighted UVR transmission in percent of the garments tested. These garments were mainly made of cotton, about 90% in Switzerland and 80% in Germany. Over 25% of the items did not fulfil the protective properties advocated by the Australian/New Zealand Standard (UPF <15). About one quarter each can be classified as providing 'good protection' (UPF 15–25), 'very good protection' (UPF 25–40) and 'excellent protection' (UPF >40) according to this standard. The data obtained during the three campaigns are comparable to measurements in Australia in 1994 [5]. The results clearly show that a quarter of summer garments do not provide sufficient UV protection since fabrics with UPFs below 15 can easily let through UV doses higher than the minimal erythemal dose (MED) during outdoor activities around noon. For example, a UVR intensity of 0.5 W/m2 over 3 h will result in a dose higher than 1 MED for skin type II (damage threshold 0.25 kJ/m2). This irradiation intensity can be achieved in Germany during June/July or in the South of Spain and New York City from April through September, in Florida from February until November and in Townsville (Australia) all year round. This excess exposure to UV light due to insufficient protection by clothing might contribute to the skin cancer epidemic [6, 7] and


The increasing popularity of HTTP adaptive video streaming services has dramatically increased bandwidth requirements on operator networks, which attempt to shape their traffic through Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). However, Google and certain content providers have started to encrypt their video services. As a result, operators often encounter difficulties in shaping their encrypted video traffic via DPI. This highlights the need for new traffic classification methods for encrypted HTTP adaptive video streaming to enable smart traffic shaping. These new methods will have to effectively estimate the quality representation layer and playout buffer. We present a new method and show for the first time that video quality representation classification for (YouTube) encrypted HTTP adaptive streaming is possible. We analyze the performance of this classification method with Safari over HTTPS. Based on a large number of offline and online traffic classification experiments, we demonstrate that it can independently classify, in real time, every video segment into one of the quality representation layers with 96.13% average accuracy.


Description Despite many claims, the sector is not on track The oil and gas (O&G) industry faces an existential threat from the transition to a low-carbon economy. Companies are increasingly responding by setting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets, which are presented as being compatible with this transition. Many stakeholders, including investors that own O&G companies, want to understand how ambitious these targets are. In this paper, we present a forward-looking method of estimating the life-cycle carbon emissions intensity of O&G producers based on their public disclosures, and we use it to compare companies' targets with international climate goals. The sector is not on track. Recent trends in emissions intensity have been mostly flat. Nearly half the companies we assess have yet to set emissions targets or provide sufficient clarity on them. Of those that have set targets, most are either too shallow or too narrow. Two companies have set targets that would bring their GHG intensity below international climate goals by mid-century.


This article discusses whether comparable traits exist between the academising processes that have taken place within Norwegian folk music and popular music/jazz. A major similarity shared by the said types of music is the concern voiced against education in the field, because there often is a focus on what is rights or wrongs in education. One of the differences is that, when it comes to jazz, pop, rock education, all were established within already existing art music institutions, with the particular challenges this entails. As regards folk music part, this is the case only at one of the three Norwegian institutions offering folk music education on a large scale and at a high level. The remaining two were established as quite new independent academies, as a result of local and individual initiatives. The article also considers whether educational frames and a focus on what is "right or wrong" in instruction can contribute to the creation of great art within the folk music genre.


The second parallel absolute measurements have been carried out successfully from 29 March to 1 April 2021 and will be included in the revised manuscript for the SG's drift estimation. The question regarding the high correlation between SG residuals and SWE is justified. This was also a bit surprising for us at the beginning. However, the large SWE quantities of up to 2000 mm dominate the hydrological mass variations in this area by far. So the general good agreement between the SG residuals and the SWE from a single but quite representative hydro-meteorological station is initially positive. In addition, in Figure 9 and as stated in the paragraph from line 381, SG residuals and SWE show highly significant differences of 250 nm/s2 range which leaves a lot of room for analysis on the variability of the snowpack but also on liquid contributors. Finally, the SG residuals show a lot more short-term variations than the SWE especially during and after snow events indicating plenty of more information included. The note on the relation of SWE-corrected SG residuals and spring discharge at the Partnach spring is fair and a figure would be desirable. Unfortunately, the massive snow masses (and corresponding discharge) at the end of winter 2018/2019 have damaged the sensors at the Partnach spring gauge station and this is why there is a lack of data for our relevant SG period. So this can only be part of upcoming analysis. The more detailed issues are also helpful and will be considered in the revision of the manuscript.


SUMMARY Hepatitis C is a global health problem and in the UK seroprevalence studies have mainly concentrated on specific high-risk groups. The aim of this study was to determine changes in the prevalence of antibody to hepatitis C virus in England using residual specimens collected between 1986 and 2000 reflecting the general population. A cross-sectional study design using a convenience collection of serum specimens from adult patients submitted to laboratories in the years 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2000 from a total of 19 laboratories around England were investigated. The main outcome was to determine anti-HCV prevalence and the average incidence occurring between 1986 and 2000 and factors associated with infection. Multivariable analysis of results from all years showed there was a significant difference in prevalence between males and females (P<0·001), birth cohort (P<0·001) and by health region (P<0·001). An average of 0·72% (95% CI 0–1·65%) of those susceptible to HCV born between 1950 and 1970 were estimated to have acquired the infection between 1986 and 2000. Analysis of this convenience serum collection suggests that HCV prevalence is low in the general population, and is associated with period of birth, gender and health region. There was evidence to support a low incidence of HCV infection in those born between 1950 and 1970 over the period 1986–2000 which, at the population level, equated to a substantial burden of infection (~106 000 persons). Continued surveillance and prevention targeted at injecting drug users are essential for the control of hepatitis C in the UK.


In 1995–96, the Strathspey Field Group (Texaco, Shell Esso, and Oryx) acquired and processed the first vertical-cable seismic survey in the North Sea. Strathspey is a tilled, eroded fault block, and production is from the Brent and Statfjord reservoirs. The eastern flank of Strathspey is marked by low-angle foolwall degradation complexes in both reservoirs. Historically, these features have been very difficult to image seismically, both on Strathspey and on neighbouring fields. Vertical-cable seismic, with its uniform distribution of azimuths and its economical 3D pre-stack depth migration, was judged to have the best potential to image these features. The survey was acquired in six swaths in the summers of 1995 and 1996. Processing of the pre-stack depth-migrated data volume was completed in October of 1996. The dataset shows remarkable improvement over the previous 3D dataset (vintage 1985). and compares favourably with the Brent Field dataset which was acquired immediately to the north of Strathspey in 1995. Improved data quality has allowed a more confident interpretation of the low-angle fault scarp features, as well as a more detailed structural model of both reservoirs, In addition, the superior data resulted in an improved assessment of the remaining exploration potential in the Strathspey area. The information gained from the interpretation of the vertical-cable seismic data has given the field partners more confidence in siting wells and in the reservoir simulation models.


Efficient visibility queries are key in many interactive rendering techniques, such as occlusion culling, level of detail determination, and perceptual rendering. The occlusion query mechanism natively supported by GPUs is carried out for batches of rendered geometry. In this paper, we present two novel ways of determining visibility by intelligently querying summed area tables and computing a variant of item buffers. This enables visibility queries of finer granularity, e.g., for sub-regions of objects and for instances created within a single draw call. Our method determines the visibility of a large number of objects simultaneously which can be used in geometry shaders to cull triangles, or to control the level of detail in geometry and pixel shaders under certain rendering scenarios. We demonstrate the benefits of our method with two different real-time rendering techniques.


BACKGROUND
 Web-based outpatient portals help patients engage in the management of their health by allowing them to access their medical information, schedule appointments, track their medications, and communicate with their physicians and care team members. Initial studies have shown that portal adoption positively affects health outcomes; however, early studies typically relied on survey data. Using data from health portal applications, we conducted systematic assessments of patients' use of an outpatient portal to examine how patients engage with the tool.

 OBJECTIVE
 This study aimed to document the functionality of an outpatient portal in the context of outpatient care by mining portal usage data and to provide insights into how patients use this tool.

 METHODS
 Using audit log files from the outpatient portal associated with the electronic health record system implemented at a large multihospital academic medical center, we investigated the behavioral traces of a study population of 2607 patients who used the portal between July 2015 and February 2019. Patient portal use was defined as having an active account and having accessed any portal function more than once during the study time frame.

 RESULTS
 Through our analysis of audit log file data of the number and type of user interactions, we developed a taxonomy of functions and actions and computed analytic metrics, including frequency and comprehensiveness of use. We additionally documented the computational steps required to diagnose artifactual data and arrive at valid usage metrics. Of the 2607 patients in our sample, 2511 were active users of the patients portal where the median number of sessions was 94 (IQR 207). Function use was comprehensive at the patient level, while each session was instead limited to the use of one specific function. Only 17.45% (78,787/451,762) of the sessions were linked to activities involving more than one portal function.

 CONCLUSIONS
 In discussing the full methodological choices made in our analysis, we hope to promote the replicability of our study at other institutions and contribute to the establishment of best practices that can facilitate the adoption of behavioral metrics that enable the measurement of patient engagement based on the outpatient portal use.


The variations of the crystal structures and thermoelectric properties of the Ru1-xRexSiy chimney-ladder phases were studied as a function of the Re concentration. A series of chimney-ladder phases with a compositional formula of Ru1-xRexSi1.539+0.178x are formed in a wide compositional range, 0.14 ≤ x ≤ 0.76. The composition of the chimney-ladder phase is systematically deviated from the idealized composition satisfying the valence electron concentration rule: VEC=14. Measurements of thermoelectric properties reveal that the chimney-ladder phases exhibit n-type semiconducting behavior at low Re concentrations and p-type semiconducting behavior at high Re concentrations, which are well consistent with the prediction based on the deviation of the composition of the chimney-ladder phase from the idealized composition.


This guide is to help faculty and staff navigate the standard AUM Library procedures in requesting e-reserves or traditional reserves


: Echocardiography was made in 330 patients with ischemic stroke. Group 1 consisted of 72(21.8%) patients with hemodynamic stroke, the rest 258(78.2%) patients (group 2) had other pathogenetic subtypes of stroke. Chronic cardiac pathology was represented by postinfarction cardiosclerosis (38.9 and 17.8% for groups 1 and 2, respectively, p 0.05). Stroke volume of the left ventricle (LV), cardiac output and ejection fraction of the LV were significantly less than in group 2 and in control group but within normal range. The number of group 1 patients having local LV dyskinesia and transitory painless myocardial ischemia was significantly higher than in group 2 (p < 0.001). Painless ischemia correlated with local dyskinesia of the LV (p < 0.02). As transitory myocardial ischemia may deteriorate LV contractility and provoke excessive fall of blood pressure, local LV dyskinesia caused by postinfarction changes seems to be a principal and stable echocardiographic sign of developing hemodynamic stroke.


The organic acid concentration in apple (Malus ×domestica) juice is a major component of hard cider flavor. The goal of this study was to determine if the malic acid markers, Ma1 and Q8, could classify the titratable acidity concentration in cider apple accessions from the United States Department of Agriculture Malus germplasm collection into descriptive classifications. Our results indicate that for diploid genotypes, the Ma1 marker alone and the Ma1 and Q8 markers analyzed together could be used to predict cider apple acidity (P < 0.0001). Alone, the Ma1 marker categorized acidity into low (<2.4 g⋅L−1), medium (2.4–5.8 g⋅L−1), and high (>5.8 g⋅L−1) groups. The combination of Ma1 and Q8 markers provided more specificity, which would be useful for plant breeding applications. This work also identified a significant difference (P = 0.0132) in acidity associated with ploidy. On average, the triploids accessions had 0.33 g⋅L−1 higher titratable acidity than the diploid accessions. Based on the results of this work, we propose a genetics-based classification system for cider apples with the acidity component defined by the Ma1 and Q8 markers.


A large part of the losses that limit the maximum theoretical efficiency of solar cells to 30% can be contributed to the spectral mismatch: low energy photons are not absorbed and the energy is lost, while the energy of high energy photons is only partly used while the rest is converted into heat. Lanthanide ions have the potential to reduce the spectral mismatch losses. This can be achieved via downconversion, where one high energy photon is 'cut' to obtain two low energy photons, or upconversion, where two low energy photons are 'added' to obtain one photon with a higher energy. Theoretical models show that the Shockley-Queisser limit for the efficiency of a single junction solar cell can be raised from 30% to 40% (using downconversion) or even 50% (using upconversion). The unique and rich energy levels structure of lanthanides make efficient up- and downconversion possible through energy transfer processes between lanthanide ions. The Yb3+ ion serves as an ideal acceptor in lanthanide ion couples for downconversion of one visible to two NIR photons: it has a single excited state, just above the bandgap of crystalline Si, the material that dominates the solar cell market. Examination of the energy level diagrams of the lanthanides (the Dieke diagram) shows that (Er3+, Yb3+), (Nd3+, Yb3+), (Ho3+, Yb3+) and (Pr3+, Yb3+) are potential couples for efficient downconversion via resonant two-step energy transfer. (Tm3+, Yb3+) and (Tb3+, Yb3+) are potential couples for downconversion via cooperative or accretive transfer mechanisms. With some of the lanthanide ion couples mentioned visible to NIR conversion effiencies of over 100% have been achieved. The choice of host material has a large influence on the efficiency of downconversion, both by influencing the distribution of the lanthanide ions, as well as by the maximum phonon energy of the lattice. The (Pr3+, Yb3+) downconversion couple has a visible to NIR conversion efficiency up to 140% when doped into SrF2, while in YF3 the efficiency is well below 100%. For the (Er3+, Yb3+) and (Nd3+, Yb3+) couples downconversion is hampered by fast multi-phonon relaxation in host materials where the phonon energy is to high. However, efficient downconversion takes place in CsCdBr3 doped with (Nd3+, Yb3+). The observation of efficient downconversion forms the basis for the development of downconversion materials based on the combinations of host lattice/lanthanide ion couple identified in this work.


We applied Deep Q-Network with a Convolutional Neural Network function approximator, which takes stock chart images as input for making global stock market predictions. Our model not only yields profit in the stock market of the country whose data was used for training our model but also generally yields profit in global stock markets. We trained our model only on US stock market data and tested it on the stock market data of 31 different countries over 12 years. The portfolios constructed based on our model's output generally yield about 0.1 to 1.0 percent return per transaction prior to transaction costs in the stock markets of 31 countries. The results show that some patterns in stock chart images indicate the same stock price movements across global stock markets. Moreover, the results show that future stock prices can be predicted even if the model is trained and tested on data from different countries. The model can be trained on the data of relatively large and liquid markets (e.g., US) and tested on the data of small markets. The results demonstrate that artificial intelligence based stock price forecasting models can be used in relatively small markets (emerging countries) even though small markets do not have a sufficient amount of data for training.


The assessment of toxic effects at biologically and ecologically relevant scales is an important issue in ecosystem protection. Mathematical models exist to predict effects of pollutant on population dynamics from individually data. Nevertheless there are only a few datasets and models that account for adaptive phenomena which may appear in a stressed population. The selection pressure exerted by a pollutant is known to amplify the phenomenon of natural selection. It is thus essential to understand and quantify the adaptive dynamics governing populations under stress in order to assess ecological risk. Regarding this background, we adapted a bioenergetic model to study adaptive phenomena in Caenorhabditis elegans population dynamic exposed to a heavy radiotoxic metal (uranium). The Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) (Kooijman, 2010) bioenergetic approach highlights the distribution of energy fluxes between processes such as growth, reproduction, maturation and maintenance. It is a relevant basis to understand and model the links between assimilation disruptions, growth and reproduction fluctuations in organisms exposed to anthropogenic stress (e.g. pollutant, global change) and to assess potential consequences on population over many generations. We therefore studied the responses of C. elegans exposed to six experimental concentration of uranium over several generations. The individual traits followed were growth curve, egg laying curve, survival until end of egg laying. We showed that uranium impacted C. elegans growth curve and egg laying over several generations, with, consequently, adverse effects on the population dynamic and variations on DEB parameters. Nevertheless, results also tend to show an evolutionary response throughout the generations.


Avalanche transistor is a ideal device which can provide quick response and high peak power simultaneously, and this device is cheap. A pulse generator based on avalanche transistor is designed in this paper; this generator can generate transient current pulse. This generator can be easily triggered, what is more, the performance of this generator is stable and it has a well-behaved load capacity. Therefore, this generator is suitable for using as the magneto-optical switch in the all-optical communication network. Future work will focus on further shorten the duration and rising time of the pulse.


In regular culture conditions with leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), the majority of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) are maintained in a self-renewal stage; very few mESCs have differentiated morphology. When LIF is withdrawn, mESCs tend to differentiate; this differentiation process can be enhanced by the introduction of exogenous fibroblast growth factor (FGF). Here, we show that even in the presence of exogenous FGF1, mESCs can maintain self-renewal and expression of pluripotency markers in the presence of LIF. To elucidate the mechanism in which LIF dominates over the FGF1, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (Erk1/2) signaling of mESCs cultured in a medium containing FGF1 or LIF/FGF1 was examined. The results demonstrate that Erk1/2 was activated by FGF1 in the absence of LIF; however, the FGF1-induced Erk1/2 phosphorylation was suppressed when LIF was introduced. Moreover, FGF1-Erk1/2 downregulation was inhibited by a signal transducer and activator of the transcription 3 (Stat3) inhibitor WP1066, suggesting that LIF-induced Stat3 activation plays an important role in the FGF1-Erk1/2 inhibition in mESCs. We further demonstrate that the binding affinity of phospho-Erk1/2 and Sprouty2 was increased via Stat3 activation. Binding of phospho-Erk1/2 and Sprouty2 blocks the activation of Erk1/2 signaling, thus inhibiting the downstream differentiation process in mESCs. Our findings demonstrate, for the first time, that LIF-induced Stat3 phosphorylation plays an important role in promoting the binding of phospho-Erk1/2 and Sprouty2, and thus inhibiting FGF-induced differentiation.


Drug development against viral or microbial targets is often compounded by the existence of naturally occurring polymorphisms or drug resistant mutations. In the case of Plasmodium falciparum, the etiological agent of malaria, four related and essential proteases, plasmepsin I, II, and IV and the histo-aspartyl protease (HAP), have been identified in the food vacuole of the parasite. Since all of these enzymes are involved in the hemoglobin degradation of infected victims, the simultaneous inhibition of the four enzymes can be expected to lead to a faster starvation of the parasite and to delay the onset of drug resistance, since four enzymes will need to mutate in a concerted fashion. This study describes the design of an adaptive inhibitor intended to inhibit the entire plasmepsin family. Adaptive inhibitors bind with extremely high affinity to a primary target within the family and maintain significant affinity against the remaining members. This objective is accomplished by engineering the strongest and most specific interactions of the inhibitor against conserved regions of the binding site and by accommodating target variations by means of flexible asymmetric functional groups. Using this approach, we have designed an inhibitor with subnanomolar affinity (0.5 nM) against the primary target, plasmepsin II, and with no loss or a very small loss of affinity against plasmepsin IV, I, and HAP (K(i) ratios of 0.4, 7.1, and 17.7, respectively). The core of the inhibitor is defined by an allophenylnorstatine scaffold. Adaptability is provided by an asymmetric amino indanol functional group facing one of the key variable regions in the binding site. Adaptive inhibitors, which display high affinity against several variations of a primary target, are expected to play an important role in the chemotherapy of infectious diseases.


Book synopsis: Sexuality and Gender at Home is the first book to explore the meanings and experiences of home through the framework of sexuality. Looking at a broad spectrum of sexuality, gender and domesticity, it examines the many ways in which home is constructed, performed and experienced in relation to sexuality and gender. Considering identity issues such as age, class, ethnicity and gender, the authors problematize intimacy and question conventional ways of thinking about allegedly 'private' home space.

Comprehensive introductions to each of the book's three sections – on Intimacy and Home, Queering Home, Beyond Home – provide a coherent overview of the existing literature as well as additional historical and cultural context. Fourteen chapters present ground-breaking research and insights into sexuality, gender and home across culture, time and space. Written by academics from a range of subject disciplines, chapters are based on research covering countries including Australia, France, Sweden, the UK, the USA, Guyana, Israel, and Singapore.

This highly original text is the ideal starting point for anyone wishing to get to grips with the emerging field of sexuality, gender and home and will particularly appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, architecture, gender studies, sociology, and human geography.


If optical routers are to become reality, we will need several new optical technologies, one of which is to build sufficiently large optical buffers. Building optical buffers for routers is daunting: Today's electronic routers often hold millions of packets, which is well beyond the capabilities of optical technology. In this paper, we argue that two new results offer a solution. First, we show that the size of buffers in backbone routers can be made very small-just about 20 packets per linecard-at the expense of a small loss in throughput. Second, we show that integrated delay line optical buffers can store a few dozen packets on a photonic chip. With the combination of these two results, we conclude that future Internet routers could use optical buffers.


This paper uses Hope Olson's concept of "the power to name" to explore the terminological practices of the LGBTQ community in the Cariri region of Brazil in the years between 2006 and 2013. LGBTQ communities can seize back the "power to name," traditionally exerted by a heteronormative society upon marginalized groups, by organizing their cultural and practical knowledge from https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2017-8-586 Generiert durch IP '184.108.40.206', am 22.03.2019, 19:57:34. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. Knowl. Org. 44(2017)No.8 D. G. Campbell, J. A. Ch. Guimarães, F. A. Pinho, D. Martínez-Ávila, F. A. Nascimento. The Terminological Polyhedron ... 587 within and by exercising the power to name themselves and their specific domains and cultural practices. The study showed that knowledge organization—the act of defining entities and categories and assigning specific names to them—is a gesture of self-empowerment on many different levels. The "power of self-naming" in this LGBTQ community is a polyhedron in which some facets are frequent, such as the power to empower or affirm an identity. On the one hand, the names and categories break through gender, geographical and temporal specificity to embrace terms, names, and idioms drawn from a range of different countries, traditions, languages, and time periods. On the other hand, these names and categories work to reinforce and affirm the geographical and cultural specificity of the Cariri region itself, embedding its pride and self-affirmation within the varied languages and heteronormative history of Portuguese colonization in that region. In selecting terms and categories to name, organize, and celebrate their identities, the LGBTQ people of Cariri have taken the power to name: not as information intermediaries striving for objectivity and neutrality but as committed members of a marginalized but vital community. Received: 23 October 2017; Accepted 25 October 2017


We investigate why employee-friendly firms often benefit from lower costs of debt financing. We theorize that banks use employee treatment as a screen to assess firms' trustworthiness, which encompasses not only confidence in firms' ability to perform well but also the belief that they will act with good intent towards their creditors. We integrate screening theory and stakeholder theory to explain the—oftentimes unintended—consequences that firms' actions towards employees have on their relationships with other stakeholders. An analysis of U.S. firms between 2003 and 2010 shows that favorable employee treatment reduces the cost of bank loans, and this relationship is stronger when banks cannot infer firms' intent from their relations with stakeholders other than employees. A policy capturing study provides further support that employee treatment serves as a screen for intent. We discuss the implications of our stakeholder–screening perspective as a novel way to understand the second-order, unintended effects of a focal stakeholder relationship on firms' relations with other stakeholders.


In mobile computing research area, it is highly desirable to understand the characteristics of user movement so that the user friendly location aware services could be rendered effectively. Location based social networks (LBSNs) have flourished recently and are of great potential for movement behavior exploration and data-driven application design. While there have been some efforts on user check-in movement behavior in LBSNs, they lack comprehensive analysis of social influence on them. To this end, the social-spatial influence and social-temporal influence are analyzed synthetically in this paper based on the related information exposed in LBSNs. The check-in movement behaviors of users are found to be affected by their social friendships both from spatial and temporal dimensions. Furthermore, a probabilistic model of user mobile behavior is proposed, incorporating the comprehensive social influence model with extent personal preference model. The experimental results validate that our proposed model can improve prediction accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art social historical model considering temporal information (SHM+T), which mainly studies the temporal cyclic patterns and uses them to model user mobility, while being with affordable complexity.


Interlanguage pragmatics has attracted considerable attention in recent years. One strand of interlanguage pragmatics research includes studies comparing the effectiveness of implicit versus explicit teaching on the development of pragmatics. Many studies, although inconclusively, have shown the superior effect of explicit teaching of pragmatics, but few have focused on finding ways to improve the implicit teaching of pragmatics. The present study attempted to unfold the effect of collaborative dialogue on the quality of implicit teaching of request (head act and preparator).  To this end, 28 participants (19 to 33 years old, intermediate) majoring in English (freshman and junior) were divided into two groups. The experimental group (n=14) had the opportunity to complete the tasks collaboratively and the control group (n=14) were not provided with any specific pragmatic instruction. The instructional procedure included four successive sessions of teaching request in situations where the sociological parameters were systematically varied. For the purpose of data collection, the classes were audio-recorded and a pretest-posttest design for discourse completion task (DCT) was adopted. For the purpose of data analysis, target request head acts and preparators were scored and also the audio recordings of classes were transcribed and the process of learning during treatment was checked in detail. The findings indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in producing target preparators and head acts. And evidence of noticing the pragmatic forms namely noticing unnoticed forms, noticing the gap, and negotiation of form was observed during the collaborative task. This study suggests that teachers may need to provide learners with the opportunities for collaborative tasks along with input enhancement tasks in order to improve the pragmatic knowledge of the learners.


The goal of this research is to enhance the capabilities of transport vehicles so that they can carry delicate objects without extensive packaging. The proposed approach, as first described by Graf and Dillmann (1997), is to add a robotic device (e.g., a parallel manipulator) on top of the vehicle, the motion of which compensates for certain forces and moments. This approach is called active acceleration compensation. This paper discusses performance measures for the effectiveness of acceleration compensation and a new motion planning scheme, the augmented pendulum algorithm, that is particularly effective. The basic idea is to emulate the motion of a free-swinging pendulum to minimize lateral forces acting on the objects.


Adoption of messaging communication and voice assistants has grown rapidly in the last years. This creates a demand for tools that speed up prototyping of feature-rich dialogue systems. An open-source library DeepPavlov is tailored for development of conversational agents. The library prioritises efficiency, modularity, and extensibility with the goal to make it easier to develop dialogue systems from scratch and with limited data available. It supports modular as well as end-to-end approaches to implementation of conversational agents. Conversational agent consists of skills and every skill can be decomposed into components. Components are usually models which solve typical NLP tasks such as intent classification, named entity recognition or pre-trained word vectors. Sequence-to-sequence chit-chat skill, question answering skill or task-oriented skill can be assembled from components provided in the library.


We investigated the mediating role of school connectedness in the relationship between stressful life experience and online gaming addiction among elementary school children. In addition, we investigated whether this mediation process is moderated by gratitude. Participants were 579 upper elementary school students in China, who completed a survey regarding stressful life experience, school connectedness, gratitude, and online gaming addiction. Results showed that school connectedness partially mediated the relationship between stressful life experience and online gaming addiction. Moreover, this indirect association was moderated by gratitude, with a stronger indirect effect observed for children with low gratitude and a weaker indirect effect observed for those with high gratitude. Empirical implications of the findings, limitations in the study, and future directions for related research are discussed.


Wide wave-cut terraces along the southern California coast are apparently in accord with the present stand of the sea and therefore must have been cut within the last few thousand years. Photographic comparisons, however, indicate that the erosion of rocky coasts has been negligible in the past 50 years even where the rocks are relatively soft shales. Narrow projecting points, stacks, and sea arches have suffered some erosion, but the straighter sections of rock cliffs look untouched. On the other hand, photographs and measurements indicate a retreat of unconsolidated formations on the open coast of as much as a foot per year. The erosion of unconsolidated materials near the Scripps Institution is going on at a decreasing rate judging from a comparison of three sets of measurements spaced over the past 28 years.


Na,K-ATPase is a membrane transporter critically important for skeletal muscle function. Mdx and Bla/J mice are the experimental models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and dysferlinopathy. The molecular mechanism behind myodystrophy is of therapeutic importance; however, the detailed role of Na,K-ATPase in these dysfunctions has not previously been addressed. This study examines the function of the α1 and α2 Na,K-ATPase isozymes in diaphragm and soleus muscles from mdx and Bla/J mice compared to control С57Bl/6 mice. Conventional electrophysiology, quantitative PCR and Western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation as well as confocal microscopy with cytochemistry were used. In diaphragm muscle fibers from mdx and Bla/J mice plasma membrane was depolarized due to specific loss of the α2 Na,K-ATPase electrogenic activity, which was more pronounced in the junctional (motor endplate) region; the a2 Na,K-ATPase abundance decrease and membrane cholesterol re-distribution were observed throughout the sarcolemma. However, the α2 Na,K-ATPase protein content as well as mRNA expression were specifically and significantly reduced only in mdx mice. FXYD1 (an auxiliary subunit, which modulates Na,K-ATPase activity) abundance and its association with the α2 Na,K-ATPase were decreased in both mouse models of myodystrophy, presumably as response to impaired functioning of the enzyme. Soleus muscles from mdx and Bla/J mice demonstrated difference in the pattern of the α2 Na,K-ATPase and cholesterol abnormalities compared to diaphragm muscles. Our findings indicate that these distinct mouse models of myodystrophy are characterized by α2 Na,K-ATPase and membrane cholesterol impairments, which can be a result of adaptive skeletal muscle remodeling under chronic motor dysfunction.


... a celebratory piece for the bestowal of ethnic status upon Irish Travellers by the Irish Government. Acknowledgements: An acknowledgement must be given to all at SAHJ for celebrating this momentous occasion with a special issue on minorities and indigenous people, which allows us to mark the official recognition of Irish Travellers as an ethnic group in Ireland.


A large literature examines government fiscal interactions in federations. However, the empirical evidence is scattered and inconclusive, especially with respect to the size of interactions, as well as the institutional and economic determinants underpinning them. This paper uses meta-regression analysis to quantify the size of these inter-jurisdictional fiscal interactions and to explain the heterogeneity in empirical estimates. First, we find significantly stronger interactions among municipalities and nations than among intermediate levels of government. Second, tax interactions are, in general, stronger than expenditure interactions, and horizontal tax interactions appear to be stronger than vertical interactions. Third, both tax competition and yardstick competition are supported by the data, though the former appears to produce stronger interactions. Fourth, capital controls, voter turnout and the design of decentralization all shape fiscal interactions; political competition and fiscal decentralization both increase horizontal tax competition and they decrease vertical tax competition. Finally, much of the variation between estimates can be explained by country heterogeneity, differences in econometric specification and estimation strategies.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the role of the lateral-arm free flap in reconstruction of head and neck defects following ablative oncologic surgery and to discuss the anatomy of this flap as well as indications for its use.

DESIGN
A prospective study of all patients undergoing a lateral-arm free flap was performed. Up to 3 years of follow-up was obtained.

SETTING
Tertiary referral centre.

METHOD
A total of 12 lateral-arm free flaps were utilized to reconstruct defects ranging in size from 4 x 7 to 10 x 7 cm. Maximum width of the flap was 7 cm. A mean area of 55 cm2 was harvested.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Flap survival, morbidity, speech intelligibility, and oral function and intake were assessed.

RESULTS
The vascular pedicle was reliable with vessel diameters of 1.5 mm, and length of 6 to 7 cm. All flaps survived, and minimal donor site morbidity was encountered. Nine patients maintained good speech with adequate intelligibility while 10 patients maintained adequate oral intake.

CONCLUSIONS
Functional results can be obtained with the lateral-arm free flap. A consistent pedicle of good length and size was found. It is our flap of choice in older, thinner individuals when the width of the donor site is less than 7 cm, which allows for primary closure.


In this paper, it is researched the cooperated R&D problem in new petrochemical product development for petrochemical enterprise. Based on game theory, a cooperated R&D game theory is established. Given the payoff matrix and the strategy set of this model, and it is analyzed the game process of the two players and the dominant strategy. For the reasons of high development costs, great failure loss, individual limited rationality and lack mutual trust, this dominant strategy cannot be achieved in practice. This paper also provides us a pattern for analyze the cooperated R&D between enterprises and institute.


We establish an equivalence between the `2-regularized solution path for a convex loss function, and the solution of an ordinary differentiable equation (ODE). Importantly, this equivalence reveals that the solution path can be viewed as the flow of a hybrid of gradient descent and Newton method applying to the empirical loss, which is similar to a widely used optimization technique called trust region method. This provides an interesting algorithmic view of `2 regularization, and is in contrast to the conventional view that the `2 regularization solution path is similar to the gradient flow of the empirical loss. New path-following algorithms based on homotopy methods and numerical ODE solvers are proposed to numerically approximate the solution path. In particular, we consider respectively Newton method and gradient descent method as the basis algorithm for the homotopy method, and establish their approximation error rates over the solution path. Importantly, our theory suggests novel schemes to choose grid points that guarantee an arbitrarily small suboptimality for the solution path. In terms of computational cost, we prove that in order to achieve an -suboptimality for the entire solution path, the number of Newton steps required for the Newton method is O( −1/2), while the number of gradient steps required for the gradient descent method is O ( −1 ln( −1) ) . Finally, we use `2-regularized logistic regression as an illustrating example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed path-following algorithms.


This paper presents a new robotic device whose main objective is to increase the flexibility of current systems used to carry out inspection and manipulation of spent nuclear fuel inside dry storage unit cells. Instead of using a rigid kinematic chain, the proposed device is based on the idea of a capsule that can be deployed inside a cell with the appropriate tool by means of a conventional crane and cable. The device is equipped with extendable actuators that immobilize the whole system inside the cell by pushing against the walls. This provides a stable platform for those tools that have to execute precision tasks. The system also comprises an industrial tool changer that allows the deployment of the required tool for each specific task. A first prototype of the device and a tool to retrieve spent nuclear fuel were built, and the results of the initial experiments are reported at the end of this paper.


Problem statement: Embankment failure and riverbank erosion are common problem in
Bangladesh. Almost every year earthen embankments and riverbanks are facing problems like erosion,
breaching or retirements. Among many reasons the major causes are considered due to the use of
geotechnically unstable materials, improper method of construction, seepage and sliding. In this study the
problem is considered geotechnical point of view where the geotechnical properties of failed Jamuna river
embankment material and Padma riverbank material were investigated. Moreover, stability analysis
technique of embankment has been reviewed through a case study of Manu river embankement.
Approach: Sample materials were collected during field investigation and tested at laboratory according to
Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS). Limit equilibrium stability analysis and steady state seepage analysis
was conducted for Manu river embankment to review the existing design procedure of embankment.
Results: Study results reveal that the soil of Jamuna river embankment is not well graded sand and the
permeability is found minimum of 1.29×10-5 cm sec−1 (at w = 24%) which increases rapidly in submerge condition. The maximum strength is found 51.8 kN m−2 which is not preferable as embankment material. Moreover, the slope is not well protected that makes the embankment vulnerable to erosion. In contrast, the soil of Padma riverbank contains mostly sand with 25% clay content. Both permeability and strength of bank material decrease rapidly with the increase of water content. Nevertheless, tension crack and toe erosion also accelerate the mass failure mechanism of riverbank. From case study the Factor of Safety (FS) is found overestimated of about 22-24% in stability analysis of embankment in usual practice. Conclusion: Embankment soil needs to be improved geotechnically to minimize mass failure. Geo-bags, cement composites with reinforcement could be used for slope protection. To obtain reliable factor of safety seepage analysis is recommended in designing stable embankment.


Reduction of nitrate by zero-valent iron is a highly exergonic reaction that has long been known to occur. Use of scrap iron filings (SIF) as the PRB (Permeable Reactive Barrier) material can be used to recycle certain by-products, and identify cheaper replacements for expensive conventional PRB materials, especially pure metallic iron. The feasibility of reductive denitrification of nitrate by SIF was studied by batch experiments. Operational parameters such as pH value, SIF dosage and initial concentration of nitrate were investigated. The removal efficiency of nitrate reached 80% under the conditions of pH of 2.5, nitrate initial concentration of 45 mg/L and SIF dosage of 100 g/L within 4 h. Results indicated that nitrate removal is inversely related to pH. Low pH value condition favors for the nitrate transformation. Different from the results of others who studied nitrate reduction using iron powder, we found that there was a lag time before nitrate reduction occurs, even at low pH. Finally, the possible mechanism of nitrate reduction by Fe0 is discussed.


Mobile application development is currently an important component of CS/IS education. Because of the rapid rate of change in the mobile application field, there are many websites that provide instructional material in tutorial format, but it is difficult to find a textbook that includes mobile application programming assignments and exercises. This paper presents two assignments, one as a web app implemented in HTML and JavaScript and one as an Android app implemented in Java using Android Studio, for an introductory level course in mobile application development. Both assignments implement the same game: a digital representation of the wooden peg game in which 15 pegs are arranged in a wooden triangle. When playing the game, one initial peg is removed from the board. Subsequent moves are made by jumping a peg over a second peg and removing the second peg. The ultimate goal is to remove all but one peg. The web app version of the game is assigned to students first, after other introductory html/JavaScript assignments have been completed. The html/JavaScript version can be used as an example of multi-platform development using PhoneGap or other multiplatform development environments. The Android app version of the game is assigned after other introductory Android applications have been completed.


Three broadband stations were deployed on Bromo volcano, Indonesia, from September to December 1995. The analysis of the seismograms shows that the signals produced by the volcanic sources cover the frequency range from at least 25 Hz down to periods of several minutes and underlines, therefore, the importance of broadband recordings. Frequency analysis reveals that the signal can be divided into four domains. In the traditional frequency range of volcanic tremor (1-10 Hz) sharp transitions between two distinct values of the tremor amplitude can be observed. Additional tremor signal including frequencies from 10 to 20 Hz could be found during late November and early December. Throughout the whole experiment signals with periods of some hundred seconds were observed which are interpreted as ground tilts. For these long-period signals a particle motion analysis was performed in order to estimate the source location. Depth and radius can be estimated when the source is modeled as a sudden pressure change in a sphere. The fourth frequency range lies between 0.1 and 1 Hz and is dominated by two spectral peaks which are due to marine microseism. The phase velocity and the direction of wave propagation of these signals could be determined using the tripartite-method.


Immunoglobulin loci are rich in germline polymorphisms and identification of novel polymorphic variants can be facilitated by germline inference of B cell receptor repertoires. Germline gene inference is complicated by somatic hypermutations, errors arising from PCR amplification, and DNA sequencing as well as from the varying length of reference alleles. Inference of light chain genes is even more challenging than inference of heavy chain genes due to large gene duplication events on the kappa locus as well as absence of D genes in the rearranged light chain transcripts. Here, we analyzed the light chain cDNA sequences from naïve BCR repertoires of a Norwegian cohort of 100 individuals. We optimized light chain allele inference by tweaking parameters within TIgGER functions, extending the germline reference sequences, and establishing mismatch frequency patterns at polymorphic positions to filter out false positive candidates. As a result, we identified 48 previously unreported variants of light chain variable genes. Altogether, we selected 14 candidates for novel light chain polymorphisms for validation and successfully validated 11 by Sanger sequencing. Additional clustering of light chain 5'UTR, L-PART1 and L-PART2 revealed partial intron retention in alternative splice variants in 11 kappa and 9 lambda V alleles. The alternatively spliced transcripts were only observed in genes with low expression levels, suggesting a possible role in expression regulation. Our results provide novel insight into germline variation in human light chain immunoglobulin loci.


In this article we describe an algorithm for robot localization using visual landmarks. This algorithm determines both the correspondence between observed landmarks (in this case vertical edges in the environment) and a pre-loaded map, and the location of the robot from those correspondences. The primary advantages of this algorithm are its use of a single geometric tolerance to describe observation error, its ability to recognize ambiguous sets of correspondences, its ability to compute bounds on the error in localization, and fast execution. The current version of the algorithm has been implemented and tested on a mobile robot system. In several hundred trials the algorithm has never failed, and computes location accurate to within a centimeter in less than half a second.


The United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW) collects nationwide occurrence data on contaminants in drinking water using the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulations (UCMRs). The unregulated contaminants, which are potential candidates for future regulation, may be selected from the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List (CCL), or may be emerging contaminants, with the potential for inclusion on future CCLs. In October 2009, OGWDW published the third Drinking Water CCL (CCL 3). Not all of the chemicals on CCL 3 are included in existing analytical methods with sufficient sensitivity and specificity for UCMR monitoring. Some of the chemicals that require method development research fall into the category known as semi-volatile organic chemicals (SVOCs). Currently, EPA Method 525.2 is used to measure SVOCs for both drinking water compliance and UCMR monitoring. The method utilizes C-18 solid-phase extraction (SPE) for contaminant isolation and concentration, followed by full scan gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) detection. A group of 27 contaminants from CCL 3, a list of chemicals from EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC), as well as other emerging compounds of interest, were evaluated for inclusion into a new revision of the method, EPA Method 525.3. Method improvements include: (1) utilizing a polymeric-based SPE sorbent for greater retention across sample pH range, (2) enhanced method sensitivity using GC-MS with selected ion monitoring (SIM), (3) safer and more user-friendly sample preservatives, and (4) sample preparation techniques that help overcome matrix-induced chromatographic response enhancement. To be used for nationwide monitoring, the new method must be rugged across a range of drinking water sources, sensitive and highly specific to minimize false positives. It must also be cost effective and simple enough for commercial lab settings. Accuracy and precision data using full scan GC-MS mode are presented for 125 contaminants. Multi-laboratory data obtained in selected ion mode (SIM) are presented for a subset of priority analytes. Lowest Concentration Minimum Reporting Limits (LCMRLs) of priority analytes obtained from four separate laboratories ranged from 0.0006 to 0.28 μg L−1, with an average LCMRL of 0.035 μg L−1 and median LCMRL of 0.011 μg L−1, under SIM conditions.