Magnetic reconnection plays a crucial role in violent energy conversion occurring in the environments of high electrical conductivity, such as the solar atmosphere, magnetosphere, and fusion devices. We focus on the morphological features of the process in two different environments, the solar atmosphere and the geomagnetic tail. In addition to indirect evidence that indicates reconnection in progress or having just taken place, such as auroral manifestations in the magnetosphere and the flare loop system in the solar atmosphere, more direct evidence of reconnection in the solar and terrestrial environments is being collected. Such evidence includes the reconnection inflow near the reconnecting current sheet and the outflow along the sheet characterized by a sequence of plasmoids. Both turbulent and unsteady Petschek-type reconnection processes could account for the observations. We also discuss other relevant observational consequences of both mechanisms in these two settings. While on face value, these are two completely different physical environments, there emerge many commonalities, for example, an Alfven speed of the same order of magnitude, a key parameter determining the reconnection rate. This comparative study is meant as a contribution to current efforts aimed at isolating similarities in processes occurring in very different contexts in the heliosphere and even in the universe.


Abstract As the world enters a new normal period following the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global outbreak, the propensity toward the exclusion of the vulnerable group of children with disabilities is a current issue that must be given attention. This issue paper describes the collective actions to usher children with disabilities in the new normal post-COVID-19 period in the Philippines. These actions focus on assistive technologies to augment information and communication, critical services to sustain medical and developmental needs, adaptive learning methods to continue education, and other social services to improve access and mobility. Set within a single national context, this issue paper provides a view as regards the shared initiatives to improve the conditions of children with disabilities in a developing country amid the pandemic.


The money market has traditionally been defined as the market for marketable short-term securities. It has deep historical roots. Today, it is not an illuminating definition. The genesis of interest rates, which is the quintessence of monetary policy implementation, does not originate in market for marketable short-term securities. It is found in the non-marketable interbank debt market, and spreads out from there. Therefore, the logical starting point in defining the money market is that it embraces all short-term lending and borrowing, direct and indirect via the financial intermediaries. In addition, money creation, that is, new bank lending and its corollary bank deposit creation, is firmly in the province on the money market. Given these, we offer an alternative definition of the money market.


CONTEXT
Resistance to conventional antiestrogens is a major cause of treatment failure and, ultimately, death in breast cancer.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study was to identify small-molecule estrogen receptor (ER)-α antagonists that work differently from tamoxifen and other selective estrogen receptor modulators.

DESIGN
Based on in silico screening of a pharmacophore database using a computed model of the BRCA1-ER-α complex (with ER-α liganded to 17β-estradiol), we identified a candidate group of small-molecule compounds predicted to bind to a BRCA1-binding interface separate from the ligand-binding pocket and the coactivator binding site of ER-α. Among 40 candidate compounds, six inhibited estradiol-stimulated ER-α activity by at least 50% in breast carcinoma cells, with IC50 values ranging between 3 and 50 μM. These ER-α inhibitory compounds were further studied by molecular and cell biological techniques.

RESULTS
The compounds strongly inhibited ER-α activity at concentrations that yielded little or no nonspecific toxicity, but they produced only a modest inhibition of progesterone receptor activity. Importantly, the compounds blocked proliferation and inhibited ER-α activity about equally well in antiestrogen-sensitive and antiestrogen-resistant breast cancer cells. Representative compounds disrupted the interaction of BRCA1 and ER-α in the cultured cells and blocked the interaction of ER-α with the estrogen response element. However, the compounds had no effect on the total cellular ER-α levels.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that we have identified a new class of ER-α antagonists that work differently from conventional antiestrogens (eg, tamoxifen and fulvestrant).


We study the impact of signal jamming attacks against the communication based train control (CBTC) systems and develop the countermeasures to limit the attacks' impact. CBTC supports the train operation automation and moving-block signaling, which improves the transport efficiency. We consider an attacker jamming the wireless communication between the trains or the train to wayside access point, which can disable CBTC and the corresponding benefits. In contrast to prior work studying jamming only at the physical or link layer, we study the real impact of such attacks on end users, namely train journey time and passenger congestion. Our analysis employs a detailed model of leaky medium-based communication system (leaky waveguide or leaky feeder/coaxial cable) popularly used in CBTC systems. To counteract the jamming attacks, we develop a mitigation approach based on frequency hopping spread spectrum taking into account domain-specific structure of the leaky-medium CBTC systems. Specifically, compared with existing implementations of FHSS, we apply FHSS not only between the transmitter-receiver pair but also at the track-side repeaters. To demonstrate the feasibility of implementing this technology in CBTC systems, we develop a FHSS repeater prototype using software-defined radios on both leaky-medium and open-air (free-wave) channels. We perform extensive simulations driven by realistic running profiles of trains and real-world passenger data to provide insights into the jamming attack's impact and the effectiveness of the proposed countermeasure.


The development of conduct disorder is linked to an interaction of various factors. Although some children will manifest with symptoms such as aggression, rebellion and emotional problems before the age of ten, conduct disorder occurs mostly from ten years and above. The purpose of this study was to establish some of the distressful events children with conduct disorder may have experienced. The study focused on identifying the association between exposure to distressful situations such as domestic violence, child abuse, death of a parent and the risks of developing conduct disorder. A total of 167 respondents aged between 13 and 17 years from Kabete and Wamumu rehabilitation schools in Kenya participated in this crosssectional study. A self-administered questionnaire and Child Behavior Checklist Youth Self Report for ages (11-18) (2001) were administered. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20.0 (2011). The prevalence of conduct disorder was 36.4%, while 71.9% of the respondents were found to have had witnessed violence within their neighborhood. Additionally, 68.9% of the respondents found people in their neighborhood hostile to them, 62.9% felt neglected by their parents or caregivers, and 58.1% had their parents abuse alcohol. Furthermore, 54.5% of the respondents reported that their parents or caregivers punished them with beatings, while 53.9% had been emotionally abused by their parents or caregivers. Out of the distressful events variables investigated for association with conduct disorder, parents or caregivers fighting with weapons and witnessing parents or caregivers fight physically at home had a strong link. Moreover, respondents whose parents or caregivers abused alcohol or who were neglected had higher risks of developing conduct disorder. These findings show that the prevalence of conduct disorder was high among juvenile delinquents and that the occurrence of the disorder was associated with distressful events experienced. This calls for interventions aimed at training parents on effective parenting skills, providing a safe home environment and appropriate treatment for juveniles with conduct disorder. African Journal of Clinical Psychology Copyright 2018 by Daystar University, 44400, 00100 ISSN: 978-9966-936-05-9: 2018 Vol. 01, Issue 02 School of Human & Social Sciences


Groundbreaking language-vision architectures like CLIP and DALL-E proved the utility of training on large amounts of noisy image-text data, without relying on expensive accurate labels used in standard vision unimodal supervised learning. The resulting models showed capabilities of strong text-guided image generation and transfer to downstream tasks, while performing remarkably at zero-shot classification with noteworthy out-of-distribution robustness. Since then, large-scale language-vision models like ALIGN, BASIC, GLIDE, Flamingo and Imagen made further improvements. Studying the training and capabilities of such models requires datasets containing billions of image-text pairs. Until now, no datasets of this size have been made openly available for the broader research community. To address this problem and democratize research on large-scale multi-modal models, we present LAION-5B - a dataset consisting of 5.85 billion CLIP-filtered image-text pairs, of which 2.32B contain English language. We show successful replication and fine-tuning of foundational models like CLIP, GLIDE and Stable Diffusion using the dataset, and discuss further experiments enabled with an openly available dataset of this scale. Additionally we provide several nearest neighbor indices, an improved web-interface for dataset exploration and subset generation, and detection scores for watermark, NSFW, and toxic content detection. Announcement page https://laion.ai/laion-5b-a-new-era-of-open-large-scale-multi-modal-datasets/


When there is a mismatch between the target identity and the driver identity, face reenactment suffers severe degradation in the quality of the result, especially in a few-shot setting. The identity preservation problem, where the model loses the detailed information of the target leading to a defective output, is the most common failure mode. The problem has several potential sources such as the identity of the driver leaking due to the identity mismatch, or dealing with unseen large poses. To overcome such problems, we introduce components that address the mentioned problem: image attention block, target feature alignment, and landmark transformer. Through attending and warping the relevant features, the proposed architecture, called MarioNETte, produces high-quality reenactments of unseen identities in a few-shot setting. In addition, the landmark transformer dramatically alleviates the identity preservation problem by isolating the expression geometry through landmark disentanglement. Comprehensive experiments are performed to verify that the proposed framework can generate highly realistic faces, outperforming all other baselines, even under a significant mismatch of facial characteristics between the target and the driver.


The possibility of strange stars mixed with dark energy to be one of candidates for dark energy stars is the main issue of the present study. Our investigation shows that quark matter is acting as dark energy after a certain yet unknown critical condition inside the quark stars. Our proposed model reveals that strange stars mixed with dark energy feature not only a physically acceptable stable model but also mimic characteristics of dark energy stars. The plausible connections are shown through the mass-radius relation as well as the entropy and temperature. We particularly note that a two-fluid distribution is the major reason for the anisotropic nature of the spherical stellar system.


The session gave students overview about several important aspects related to Information Literacy Skills, such as how to define the need when facing with different assignments which is crucial for them as new student. Other topics being introduced were information sources, using library's e resources, evaluating source, and academic integrity.


In computational social choice, we are concerned with the development of methods for joint decision making. A central problem in this field is the winner determination problem, which aims at identifying the most preferred alternative(s). With the rise of modern e-business platforms, processing of huge amounts of preference data has become an issue. In this work, we apply the MapReduce framework - which has been specifically designed for dealing with big data - to various versions of the winner determination problem. We obtain efficient and highly parallel algorithms and provide a theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation.


Isotropic and directional Compton profiles are calculated for 14 electron diatomic molecules, N2, CO, and BF, using the DV-Xα method. In order to investigate the effect of chemical bonding for Compton profiles, parallel and perpendicular directional Compton profiles to the molecules are calculated and compared with the results from Hartree-Fock and configuration interaction methods. The DV-Xα method could describe the more detailed character of covalent bonding than that of ionic bonding.


This paper presents a new technique, which we call depth-preserving reflection mapping, to render mirror-like reflections on planar surfaces in constant time. It is a hybrid solution which combines geometry-based rendering and imagebased rendering into a two-pass mirror reflection rendering approach. The technique extends the traditional reflection mapping to preserve depth per texel and uses forward warping to approximate the mirror-like reflections on planar surfaces. For clarity, to distinguish these texels from the ones of traditional reflection mapping, we call them zexels.


SUMMARY OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the changes experienced by the amount of PSA in patients diagnosed with BPH undergoing retropubic adenomectomy (with vesico-capsule plasty) in the short and long term, and the relationships between weight and /or prostate volume calculated preoperatively, volumes and histology of the surgical tissue and residual tissue remaining immediate and on the long term.

METHODS
A consecutive series of 70 cases of BPH surgery and followed up beyond 5 years with preoperative PSA and transrectal ultrasound, histology of the piece, postoperative transrectal ultrasound, PSA annually until the fifth year and ultrasound. Within this group, residual prostate histology was obtained in 30 patients between 12 and 36 months after adenomectomy.

RESULTS
In accordance to our own confirmed studies, the ATH (transcervical hemostatic adenomectomy) removes by enucleation 76% of the entire volume reported by preoperative ultrasound, including capsule. In our cases, PSA has dropped 83% at one year after surgery compared with the preoperative value, and in most cases that have already reached 5 years of follow-up, this percentage remains with little variation. Having being established a strong relationship between PSA and glandular volume, we must evaluate the need for new cut-off values giving more value to the PSA density in relation to the volume of residual prostate, attempting to improve early diagnosis of carcinoma in these particular cases, in which will be useful a new protocol design.

CONCLUSIONS
PSA decline, histology of the prostate after adenomectomy and the morphometric changes after surgery and at mid-term, advise a more accurate value of PSA in patients who underwent open surgery, in order to detect a carcinoma in the residual prostate gland.


The enhancement of mortality associated with cardiovascular and specifically ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been observed in the southern California Central Valley since at least 1990, and it continues to be a major source of mortality. While there is a strong statistical association of IHD with wintertime PM2.5 mass, the causal agents are uncertain. Medical studies identify some potential causal agents, such as very fine and ultrafine metals, but they have not been fully characterized in most Central Valley regions. To provide improved information on specific and potentially causal agents, a five site aerosol sampling transect was conducted from Redding to Bakersfield during a 17-day period of strong stagnation, January 5–22, 2009. Mass and elemental components were measured every 3 h in eight particle size modes, ranging from 10 to 0.09 μm, while the ultrafine particles (<0.09 μm) were collected on Teflon filters. Ancillary studies were performed including direct upwind–downwind profiles across a heavily traveled secondary street near a stoplight. Very fine and ultrafine iron, nickel, copper, and zinc were identified as vehicular, with the most probable sources being brake drums and pads and the lubrication oil additive zinc thiophosphate. High correlations, many with r 2 > 0.9, were found between these vehicular metals and IHD mortality, enhanced by the meteorology, terrain, and traffic patterns of the southern Central Valley. The braking systems of cars and trucks must now be considered along with direct exhaust emissions in estimating the health impacts from traffic.


In this work, protein-imprinted polymers (PIPs) synthesized by introducing assistant recognition polymer chains (ARPCs) could be used as artificial antibodies in a similar manner to study protein-protein interactions by immunoprecipitation by using biological antibodies. Bacterially expressed BiP was used as template. The ARPCs could enhance the recognition specificity of the PIPs for template protein significantly. It was confirmed that FK506-binding protein (FKBP23) could bind to immunoglobulin-binding protein (BiP) in the ER regulated by concentration of Ca 2+ using artificial antibodies of PIP. The concentration of Ca 2+ at which the interactions between BiP and FKBP23 were disrupted was in accordance with results obtained by using biological antibodies. Therefore, this new type of PIP provides a feasible alternative to biological antibodies in biochemical research.


Invariant subspaces of structured matrices are sometimes better conditioned with respect to structured perturbations than with respect to general perturbations. Sometimes they are not. This paper proposes an appropriate condition number $c_{\S}$, for invariant subspaces subject to structured perturbations. Several examples compare $c_{\S}$ with the unstructured condition number. The examples include block cyclic, Hamiltonian, and orthogonal matrices. This approach extends naturally to structured generalized eigenvalue problems such as palindromic matrix pencils.


This paper proposes ResTv2, a simpler, faster, and stronger multi-scale vision Transformer for visual recognition. ResTv2 simplifies the EMSA structure in ResTv1 (i.e., eliminating the multi-head interaction part) and employs an upsample operation to reconstruct the lost medium- and high-frequency information caused by the downsampling operation. In addition, we explore different techniques for better apply ResTv2 backbones to downstream tasks. We found that although combining EMSAv2 and window attention can greatly reduce the theoretical matrix multiply FLOPs, it may significantly decrease the computation density, thus causing lower actual speed. We comprehensively validate ResTv2 on ImageNet classification, COCO detection, and ADE20K semantic segmentation. Experimental results show that the proposed ResTv2 can outperform the recently state-of-the-art backbones by a large margin, demonstrating the potential of ResTv2 as solid backbones. The code and models will be made publicly available at \url{https://github.com/wofmanaf/ResT}


The goal of the present study was to examine the efficacy of learning a text structure strategy (TSS) for improving reading comprehension and recall for second language (L2) learners, as well as to test for transfer of the strategy to the native language (L1). University L2 learners of English completed a five-session course on using the TSS to improve recall and comprehension of expository texts. All instructions and materials were in English, the L2. As part of learning the structure strategy, participants practiced identifying key words that signal the structure of text being read (called 'signal words'). At no point were these signal words ever translated into Spanish (L1) for the participants. At pre-test and post-test participants read and recalled two texts, one in Spanish and the other in English, while underlining areas of text that they deemed important. After completing strategy instruction, participants made significant gains in their ability to recall information from text in both English and Spanish, despite the fact that all instructions and practice were in English only. Analyses of underlining revealed an overall decrease in use of underlining at post-test for both English and Spanish texts, coupled with an increased tendency to underline signal words in both texts. Together the increases in recall and detection of signal words across languages indicate automatic transfer of the strategy across the learners' two languages.


The paper attempts to assess the extent of fi nancial exclusion of the rural population in Poland. One of the most basic measures of fi nancial exclusion is percentage of adult residents lacking a bank account. This and other measures verifying the population's use of fundamental banking services and the statistical data on development of banking infrastructure in the territorial context were then employed to conduct an assessment of the extent and causes of fi nancial exclusion with a particular emphasis on the rural areas. The fi ndings show that, like in many other countries, the extent of provision of fi nancial services among the rural population is more limited compared to the urban population. The fi nancial exclusion, has much deeper roots going beyond the geographical factors. The real causes of the fi nancial exclusion lie not only in access to banking services but also in their price, the population's income, as well as being strongly aff ected by information and behaviour.


This article provides evidence about the quality of retrospective childhood health histories given to respondents in the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Even though information on early life health events is critical, there is legitimate skepticism about the ability of older respondents to remember specific health problems that they had during childhood. The evidence presented in this article suggests that this view is too negative. Respondents appear to remember salient childhood events about themselves, such as the illnesses they had during childhood, quite well. Moreover, these physical and psychological childhood health events are important correlates of adult health during middle age.


Numerous studies have examined the interactions between travel behavior and neighborhood design. However, little thought is given specifically to gender differences. Although sex is considered a possible independent variable in most multivariate statistical analyses, few studies focus primarily on travel behavior by gender as it is influenced by neighborhood design. Even fewer studies have examined the differences in travel behavior among women by neighborhood type. Naturally, women are not a homogeneous group and are characterized by a variety of preferences, needs, perceptions, and behaviors. This study uses a survey of residents of eight neighborhoods in Northern California. The survey collected data on their travel behavior as well as both their preferences for and their perceptions of neighborhood characteristics. The main questions that this study addresses are as follows: Are there gender differences in travel behavior? If so, what are the causes and the effects? Are there differences among women by neighborhood type, life cycle stage, presence of children, and so forth? The findings point to some significant differences for and among women, particularly not only by both the social and the infrastructure aspects of safety but also by neighborhood type (suburban versus traditional neighborhood) and the presence of children.


Introduction Nepalese society is divided across hierarchical strata of gender, ethnicity and economic class, with women, ascribed "lower caste" and poor people placed at the bottom of society. Since 2007, the ministry of health and population removed user fees in primary health services in an attempt to increase use of the services, particularly among underserved population. Methods Records of 1850 health services users were selected randomly from peripheral facilities—district hospital, primary healthcare centre, and 4 (of 8) health posts—of Jumla—a rural mountain district. Proportions of health services use by privileged and underprivileged ethnicities, men and women, and rich and poor people; before and after user fee removal, were calculated. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among health services users, management staff, and representatives of donors and NGOs working in the district. Results After fee removal, use of health services by women, underprivileged ethnicities, and poor people increased by 2.4%, 6.8% and 9.2% respectively. However, users and providers had conflicting opinions over the delivery of free health services. There was no evidence to establish the role of health system related confounders, however, it was suspected that ongoing process of state democratisation may have influenced the observed changes. Conclusion Removal of user fees and subsequent increase in health services use by marginalised people as compared to their privileged counterparts is encouraging. However, some impediments still remain, which can be overcome by improving the delivery system with a focus on smoothening user-provider interactions.


We focus on the preparation of hybrid polymer/zinc oxide (ZnO) solar cells, in which the metal oxide consists of ZnO columnar structures grown perpendicularly on a flat, dense "backing" layer, as a means to provide a direct and ordered path for photogenerated electrons to the collecting electrode. We used scanning electron microscopy, absorption spectroscopy and photovoltaic device measurements to study the morphology and device performance of the prepared structures. Different solution chemical routes were investigated for the synthesis of the inorganic device components, i.e. the ZnO columnar structures and the "backing" layers, which act as a seed-growth layer for the ZnO rods. The growth of the ZnO rods was dependent on the morphological and structural characteristics of the seed layer and moreover, the seed layer itself was also affected by the synthetic conditions for ZnO rod growth. Different polymers (high hole-mobility MEH-PPV based polymer and P3HT) were compared in these structures and power conversion efficiencies of 0.15 and 0.20% were achieved under 1 Sun illumination, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the optoelectronic properties of the polymers.


Microwaves (MWs) are promising technologies for energy-efficient biorefineries which reduce our dependence on petroleum. Here we present evidence for the first time of important interactions between MW and starch, a major biomass from massive global food wastes, which can be observed under both hydrolytic and pyrolytic conditions. Starch is transformed into disordered fractions at elevated temperatures, in which the functional groups gained higher degree of freedom serving as MW radiators to facilitate thermochemical depolymerization. In addition, starch retains water molecules in the hydrogen bonding network during gelatinization, which enables frictional heat generation via dipolar polarization of the bound water. This provokes the MW superheating of starch gel that is superior to pure water with declining dielectric loss in high-temperature region (>140 °C). As a result of self-improved dielectric heating, MW-assisted hydrolysis consumes 47% less energy to achieve similar total product yields from the starch depolymerization compared to conventional conductive heating. The findings improve our understanding of how MW participates in multi-phasic heterogenous systems and propose a starch-initiated superheating mechanism, which are important to help us maximize the advantageous effects of MW in biorefineries of complex biomass feedstocks.


DRAMATIC ADVANCES IN THE MANAGEMENT of erectile dysfunction have occurred over the past decade. Oral therapy with vasoactive agents has emerged as first-line treatment and has transformed both the manner in which the public views erectile dysfunction and the way health care providers deliver care. Whereas an extensive investigation was previously common in the management of erectile dysfunction, recent treatment guidelines promote a more minimalist, goal-oriented approach. In this article, we review the physiology of erection, and the pathophysiology, diagnosis and clinical management of erectile dysfunction. We also present the existing evidence for the efficacy of 3 phosphodiesterase inhibitors, the most widely used class of agents for erectile dysfunction.


Cassava production and productivity in Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa are ravaged by cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), causing yield losses of up to 100% when susceptible varieties are grown. Efforts to develop CBSD-resistant clones are underway. However, the methods for screening CBSD resistance currently vary between breeders and pathologists, with the limited empirical data to support their choices. In this study, we used the empirical CBSD foliar and root necrosis data from two breeding populations, termed cycle zero (C0) and cycle one (C1), to assess and compare the effectiveness of the CBSD screening methods of breeders vs. pathologists. On the one hand, the estimates of broad-sense heritability (H2) for the CBSD root necrosis assessment of breeder ranged from 0.15 to 0.87, while for the assessment method of pathologists, H2 varied from 0.00 to 0.71 in C0 clones. On the other hand, the marker-based heritability estimates (h2) for C0 ranged from 0.00 to 0.70 for the assessment method of breeders and from 0.00 to 0.63 for the assessment method of pathologists. For cycle one (C1) population, where both foliar and root necrosis data were analyzed for clones assessed at clonal evaluation trials (CETs) and advanced yield trials (AYTs), H2 varied from 0.10 to 0.59 for the assessment method of breeders, while the H2 values ranged from 0.09 to 0.35 for the CBSD computation method of pathologists. In general, higher correlations were recorded for foliar severity from the assessment method of breeders (r = 0.4, p ≤ 0.01 for CBSD3s and r = 0.37, p ≤ 0.01 for CBSD6s) in C1 clones evaluated at both clonal and advanced breeding stages than from the approach of pathologists. Ranking of top 10 C1 clones by their indexed best linear unbiased predictors (BLUPs) for CBSD foliar and root necrosis showed four overlapping clones between clonal and advanced selection stages for the method of breeders; meanwhile, only a clone featured in both clonal and advanced selection stages from the CBSD assessment method of pathologists. Overall, the CBSD assessment method of breeders was more effective than the assessment method of pathologists, and thus, it justifies its continued use in CBSD resistance breeding.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial assessed efficacy and safety of ospemifene 60 mg QD in 631 postmenopausal women (age 40-80) with moderate to severe vaginal dryness as the most bothersome symptom (MBS) of VVA due to menopause. The primary aim was validation of vulvar photography as an objective measure of vulvar health. The secondary aim was to compare Vulvar Imaging Assessment Scale (VIAS) data from photographs to visual study measures assessed by investigators at each site, including Vaginal Health Index (VHI), and Vulvar Health Index (VuHI). METHODS: Photographs from sites were sent to a central monitoring system, uploaded to a dedicated website and accessed by three expert reviewers who independently assessed vulvar blinded images using a calibrated standardized monitor. Photographs were graded (none/mild/moderate/severe 0-3, cannot evaluate) for 9 criteria: labia majora loss, labia minora loss, clitoris size, urethral glans prominence, introital stenosis, introital pallor, introital erythema, introital moisture, mucosal inflammation. VHI evaluated vaginal fluid secretion, overall elasticity, pH, condition of epithelial mucosa, moisture as normal/mild/moderate/severe. VuHI rated vulvar appearance of labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, introitus appearance/elasticity, color, discomfort, pain as normal/mild/moderate/severe. RESULTS: 316 ospemifene and 315 placebo subjects were randomized. VIAS, range 0-27, was graded at baseline (ospemifene, 13.8; placebo, 14.1) and week 12, lower values showing better vulvovaginal health. The difference between treatment groups in least square (LS) mean change from baseline was -1.0 (p = 0.0118) at week 12, representing a greater decrease in the ospemifene group relative to placebo. VHI, range 5-25, was graded at baseline (13.0 in both groups) and week 12, higher values being better vaginal health. The difference between groups in LS mean change from baseline was week 4: 2.5, week 8: 2.9, week 12: 2.8 (all p < 0.0001), with greater increases in the ospemifene group. VuHI, range 0-21, was graded at baseline and week 12, with lower values indicating better vulvar health. The mean VuHI total score at baseline (ospemifene, 7.6; placebo, 7.7) was similar in both groups. The difference between groups in LS mean change from baseline was -0.8 (p = 0.0002) at week 4 and -1.1 to -1.2 at weeks 8 and 12 (both p < 0.0001), a statistically significant decrease in the ospemifene group compared to placebo. CONCLUSIONS: Evaluation of vulvar health from photograph images to assess MBS of menopausal women should be considered for future trials. Source of Funding: Duchesnay, Inc.


This paper derives the spinning reserve pricing policy implied by the reliability differentiated pricing model and illustrates the importance of such a pricing policy. The purchase of additional spinning reserve capacity at the prices derived leads to benefits for the customers, through reduced real and reactive power prices and improved reliability of the power system, and for the power system as a whole, through reduced societal costs and less investment in system reinforcements. The magnitudes and behavior of the optimal prices for real and reactive spinning reserve are illustrated in two case studies. One case study determines reliability differentiated prices of real and reactive power for a sample four-area power system with and without spinning reserve purchase and the optimal purchase prices for both real and reactive power spinning reserve capacities. The results of this case study show that when reliability differentiated pricing is extended to both real and reactive power reserve it leads to benefits for customers and the power system as a whole. A second case study examines the locational dependence of optimal prices for real and reactive reserves on the operating status of equipment in the 24-bus IEEE Reliability Test System. It is concluded that even small amounts of reliable reserve capacity purchase from neighboring electric utilities can improve the reliability of the power system and lower expected real and reactive power prices leading to gains in social welfare. >


As many as 97 patients with myocardial lesions: congestive and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (CMP), postmyocarditis CMP (PM CMP), myocarditis (MC), alcoholic heart injury (AHI), coronary heart disease (CHD), vegetodysovarian myocardiodystrophy were examined by means of a complex of the virological tests (for Coxsackie B, Epstein-Barr and hepatitis B viruses) and immunoassays (for antibodies to different components of the myocardium, leukocyte migration inhibition test, antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity test, measurements of T and B lymphocytes and their subpopulations, and so forth). Virus infection was shown to be of a role for the onset of acute MC (usually reversible) and congestive CMP. At the same time the autoimmune mechanisms of the lesions were conclusively ascertained in MC associated with heart failure and in PM CMP. In patients with congestive CMP and AHI coupled with heart failure, antibodies to nerve fibers of the myocardium could be demonstrated in the presence of T-lymphocyte deficiency and high titers of antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus. This does not allow excluding myocardial denervation leading to refractory heart failure. Some immunological parameters made use of in the study provide an opportunity of an objective evaluation of the effect glucocorticoid treatment produces on patients suffering from MC and PM CMP.


This paper asks how people can be assisted in learning from practice, as a basis for informing future action, when configuring information technology (IT) in organizations. It discusses the use of Alexanderian Patterns as a means of aiding such learning. Three patterns are presented that have been derived from a longitudinal empirical study that has focused on practices surrounding IT configuration. The paper goes on to argue that Alexanderian Patterns offer a valuable means of learning from past experience. It is argued that learning from experience is an important dimension of deciding "what needs to be done" in configuring IT with organizational context. The three patterns outlined are described in some detail, and the implications of each discussed. Although it is argued that patterns, per se, provide a valuable tool for learning from experience, some potential dangers in seeking to codify experience with a patterns approach are also discussed.


This article reflects on the way in which the new initiatives to regulate powerful online platforms in the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany challenge well-established fundamentals of modern antitrust and thereby reshape the future of competition law. It shows that the new platform regulations set in motion a profound transformation of modern antitrust law that operates along four parameters. First, the new platform regulations unsettle the long-standing baseline assumption that the maximization of consumer welfare constitutes competition law's core mission. Second, the new instruments repudiate the orthodox understanding of error costs that advocates under-enforcement as the optimal standard of intervention in innovation-driven markets. Third, by relying primarily on rule-like presumptions as legal commands to regulate digital competition, the new platform regulations reverse the trend toward an increasingly inductive mode of analysis that characterized modern antitrust under the "more economic" or "effects-based" approach. Fourth, the new platform regulations also fundamentally diverge from a purely probabilistic standard of proof which requires the showing that impugned conduct is more likely than not to cause anticompetitive harm. The reconfiguration of modern antitrust along these four vectors, the article concludes, foreshadows a new, more inclusive model of innovation and growth in digital markets.


The OTC derivatives market is increasingly the policy focus of lawmakers in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The objective and details of reaching the goals of transparency and regulatory reform continue to prove elusive, however, and the various legislative efforts to date leave many questions unanswered and conceivably conflict with one another. It will be important that the political need to provide a timely response to concerns about transparency and counterparty credit risk be balanced against the need to face head-on the complications that will necessarily be involved in the responsible redesign of a complex and global OTC derivatives market. This article examines proposed legislative and regulatory developments as well as OTC derivatives industry efforts that are likewise afoot, along with associated issues including proposed central clearing requirements; the definition of a standardized derivative; possible margin and capital requirements; reporting, record-keeping, and business conduct standards; preventing manipulation, fraud, and other market abuses; the respective regulatory authorities of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); and other regulatory issues particular to credit default swaps.


Both before and after the financial crisis, the marketing and sale of financial products has given rise to serious concerns about the mis-selling of certain financial investments to customers. In many cases, this has led to important numbers of lawsuits filed against firms providing the investment services. In the paper we provide a simple agency model of financial advice -broadly understoodwhere potential clients receive a signal about the matching of the product with the investor's preferences, and at the same time receive advice about which product to buy. Even good financial products may generate losses, and this will lead to litigation aggrieved investors. Courts do not directly observe the honesty and fairness of the advice, but only an evidentiary signal. We explore the optimal court policy in order to provide incentives to advisors to procure honest financial advice, and show how it depends on the accuracy of the market signal that investors receive, which in turn depends on the sophistication of the client and the overall amount and quality of information on financial products that advisors provide outside specific (implicit or explicit) advice. The analysis sheds lights on the structure of legal duties for investment services firm under the MiFID II scheme that has entered into force in Europe in January 2018.


Abstract Language competences are still a powerful gatekeeper for many students in science learning. Popular approaches to integrating language and subject learning have attempted to make science learning more accessible to all students; however, empirical evidence for the effects of novel teaching approaches is still scarce. The Disaggregate-Instruction-Approach (DIA), which 'disaggregates' concept from scientific language learning, offers great potential to address an increasingly diverse population of students in science subjects and beyond. In this paper, we will present a comparative study with 228 public school students who either participated in a teaching intervention aligned with the DIA or designed in accordance with principles of language- and subject-integrated Scaffolding. The findings indicate that learners in both conditions reach substantial learning gains. However, students who received the DIA exhibit very similar learning growth scores regardless of their language proficiency whereas control group students reach a higher learning growth depending on their language competences.


This paper first presents a summary of work completed during 2009-2010 developing software for semi- automated transcription of lecture audio recordings. Results of previous trials involving student correction of machine generated draft transcripts are presented in brief. The body of this paper focuses on current development work undertaken in the first year of a two year project funded by UWE: including alterations to support annotation of - and hyper-linking between - transcripts, improvements made to the indexing and search system, along with the machine transcription workflow, and restructuring of prototype code into a more modular system in preparation for integration with the Virtual Learning Environment at UWE.
Also included is a description of a trial involving collaborative student submission of ~1050 URLs accompanied by related keywords that complemented, corrected or in some way augmented lecture content of two separate modules. It is anticipated that this activity will positively affect assessment results; unfortunately the final examination results are not available at the time of writing but a full evaluation will be presented at the HEA-ICS conference in August 2011.
Future plans for the next iteration of the project include augmenting the transcription system to support subtitling of video recordings of lectures and potential solutions to current problems associated with scalability within our institution and dissemination to other institutions.


The essays presented here for submission for the degree of PhD by publication were published between 1998 and 2006 and (with one exception) consist of sole-authored studies in cultural history focused on the development of tourist culture in the period 1800-1914. Cultural history as a field of academic study is a rich area for interdisciplinary research and these case studies draw on a wide range of disciplines — anthropology, cultural geography, the history of medicine, visual culture, media and literature for theoretical and methodological support. Together, they constitute a coherent examination of the material and cultural factors influencing the development and expansion of tourist culture across the European continent and an exploration of its role in the formation of the social and cultural identities of people and places in the period 1800-1914, in different contexts and from different perspectives. The essays fall into two main groups. The first focuses on material and cultural factors influencing the growth of tourism in central Europe: its relationship to the development of urban culture and nationalism in the region and to the discourses and practices relating to health and leisure that supported the spa trade. A particular concern is the contribution of a developing tourist culture to the formation of cultural identities within the Habsburg Monarchy in an era of growing nationalism. For the state, tourism represented an opportunity to counteract its growing weakness by capitalising on the imperial image (a key element in touristic images of Vienna), to bolster the image of the Monarchy abroad and attract valuable foreign currency. At the same time the growth of tourism contributed to that weakness by reinforcing perceptions of cultural distinctiveness in areas influenced by growing national and regional self-consciousness. The second group of essays focuses on the production of tourists and the creation of a market for different types of tourism through an examination of the discourses influencing tourist motivations and behaviours, the experience and performance of place and the broader question of how and why tourists were attracted to particular places. A theme running through both sets of essays is that of the way that the spread of tourist culture, geographically and socially, contributed to the formation of cultural identities as particular social groups incorporated tourist practices into their lifestyles, and the places they visited acquired distinctive tourist images. Key factors in this process were the media and cultural industries responsible for the production and dissemination of travel-related forms of literature and visual culture. These industries helped to shape tourism as an economic and social institution by influencing the way in which particular places were produced for tourists and the manner in which they were perceived, experienced and performed as, for example, in case of the relationship between the British and different parts of continental Europe.


Based on full wave Mie scattering theory for the case of an impenetrable/conducting sphere, we propose a technique which employs metamaterials and plasmonic structures to design cloaks. After showing how the total scattering cross section of a given dielectric or conducting object may be drastically reduced by surrounding with a suitable designed plasmonic material or metamaterial, we underline the main inherent limitations of this technique, compared with other metamaterial cloaking methods. The concepts that we present remain valid also when multiple particles are considered and they may be extended to multi-frequency operation, presence of ground planes or reflectors, larger objects and realistic loss and dispersion.


Despite our understanding of the importance of external technology sourcing, we know little about what leads firms to become more open to sourcing external technologies. To elucidate this question, we draw upon the behavioral theory of the firm, and propose that sourcing external technologies is sensitive to how managers evaluate organizational performance relative to aspirations. We develop several propositions linking whether a firm is in "harsh times" — i.e. performing below its aspiration level — or in "slack times" — i.e. performing above its aspiration level — to both the intensity and the direction of its search for external technologies. This paper not only sheds light into how performance affects a firm's search for external technologies, but also reveals important boundary conditions that influence how a firm manages its broader set of R&D activities.


: Mersilene (polyester fiber) is stronger and less elastic than nylon suture material. In contrast to nylon, Mersilene does not appear to be susceptible to biodegradation in the long term. After a follow-up period of 6 months, the regression of surgically induced astigmatism following extracapsular cataract extraction and lens implantation with a conventional 150 degree corneoscleral incision was in the same range with nylon monofilament 10-0 and Mersilene 10-0. With nylon single sutures (14 patients) there was a reduction from 3.5 and with Mersilene (12 patients) from 3.9 to 0.9 diopters.


The dynamic speckle is a non-destructive optical technique that has been used as a tool for the characterization of the biological activity and several studies are conducted to obtain for more information about the correspondence of the observed phenomena and their expressions in the interference images. Analysis in the frequency domain has been considered as powerful alternative, and although there are works using Fourier transform in the frequency analysis of the biospeckle signals, the majority presents the wavelet transform as tool for spectral analysis. In turn, there are still doubts if the Fourier transform is not enough for the analysis of the biospeckle, which would enable the reduction of processing time since an operation is computationally simpler. In this context, the present study aims to compare the constituents' parts of the speckle signal according to Fourier and wavelet transforms for numerical analysis. The comparative analysis based on the absolute values of the differences technique (AVD) was carried out for performance evaluation of the Fourier and wavelet transforms, in which the speckle signals were decomposed spectrally and subsequently reconstructed with the elimination of specific frequency bands. Results showed that the wavelet transform allowed more information about signals constituents of the dynamic speckle, emphasizing its use instead of the Fourier transform, which in turn was restricted the situations in which the only interest is to know the spectral content of the data.


In this paper, we propose to solve a regularized distributionally robust learning problem in the decentralized setting, taking into account the data distribution shift. By adding a Kullback-Liebler regularization function to the robust min-max optimization problem, the learning problem can be reduced to a modified robust minimization problem and solved efficiently. Leveraging the newly formulated optimization problem, we propose a robust version of Decentralized Stochastic Gradient Descent (DSGD), coined Distributionally Robust Decentralized Stochastic Gradient Descent (DR-DSGD). Under some mild assumptions and provided that the regularization parameter is larger than one, we theoretically prove that DR-DSGD achieves a convergence rate of $\mathcal{O}\left(1/\sqrt{KT} + K/T\right)$, where $K$ is the number of devices and $T$ is the number of iterations. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can improve the worst distribution test accuracy by up to $10\%$. Moreover, DR-DSGD is more communication-efficient than DSGD since it requires fewer communication rounds (up to $20$ times less) to achieve the same worst distribution test accuracy target. Furthermore, the conducted experiments reveal that DR-DSGD results in a fairer performance across devices in terms of test accuracy.


Exercise physiologists are interested in metabolic myopathies because they demonstrate how knocking out a component of a specific biochemical pathway can alter cellular metabolism. McArdle's disease (myophosphorylase deficiency) has often been studied in exercise physiology to demonstrate the influence of removing the major anaerobic energy supply to skeletal muscle. Studies of patients with McArdle's disease have shown the increased reliance on blood-borne fuels, the importance of glycogen to maximal aerobic capacity, and the use of nutritional strategies to bypass metabolic defects. Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency is the most common metabolic enzyme deficiency in human skeletal muscle. It is usually compensated for endogenously and does not have a major influence on high-energy power output. Nutritional interventions such as carbohydrate loading and carbohydrate supplementation during exercise are essential components of therapy for patients with fatty acid oxidation defects. Cases of mitochondrial myopathies illustrate the importance of peripheral oxygen extraction for maximal aerobic capacity and show how both exercise and nutritional interventions can partially compensate for these mutations. In summary, metabolic myopathies provide important insights into regulatory and nutritional aspects of the major biochemical pathways of intermediary metabolism in human skeletal muscle.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in corneal topography, cycloplegic refraction, and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) after ptosis correction surgery in patients with congenital ptosis. Methods: Our study represents a prospective observational study conducted on 27 eyes of 21 patients with congenital ptosis. All patients underwent complete ophthalmological evaluation, cycloplegic refraction, and baseline Orbscan prior to ptosis surgery. At 6 months postoperative review, the cycloplegic refraction and Orbscan were repeated to evaluate the changes in these parameters. The main outcome measures in our study were Steepest K, Inferior-Superior Asymmetry (I-S Asymmetry), cycloplegic refraction and BCVA. Results: A significant decrease in Steepest K postoperatively (P < 0.001) was noted. Superior K and Inferior K also decreased, but the decrease in Inferior K was statistically significant (P = 0.044). However, change in I-S Asymmetry was not significant. Variation in BCVA, and cycloplegic sphere and cylinder was minimal. Sim K astigmatism, Surface Regularity Index, I-S Asymmetry and Central Corneal Thickness did not show significant variation. Conclusion: Ptotic eyelid constantly presses on the cornea causing significant changes in corneal contour and surface remodeling. This pressure when relieved, results in significant flattening and regression of anterior corneal surface to its near normal anatomy. This further resulted in improvement of corneal surface irregularity and symmetry.


Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) are an increasingly popular method to assess mastery or nonmastery of a set of fine-grained abilities in educational or psychological assessments. Several inference techniques are available to quantify the uncertainty of model parameter estimates, to compare different versions of CDMs, or to check model assumptions. However, they require a precise estimation of the standard errors (or the entire covariance matrix) of the model parameter estimates. In this article, it is shown analytically that the currently widely used form of calculation leads to underestimated standard errors because it only includes the item parameters but omits the parameters for the ability distribution. In a simulation study, we demonstrate that including those parameters in the computation of the covariance matrix consistently improves the quality of the standard errors. The practical importance of this finding is discussed and illustrated using a real data example.


The purpose of this thesis is to develop a toolkit to visualize bag calculations for teaching. We take full advantage of interaction techniques in Computer Science to achieve it, which could lead to a modern and impressive way for teaching. In this thesis, the developed toolkit is going to show the bag calculations and corresponding animations interactively and aesthetically which make new learners easier to acquire the concept of multiset.


Domestic violence is a national concern that affects women of all ages and ethnicities,
 as well as women with disabilities. Although there is literature focusing on attitudes
 about domestic violence toward women, the literature review provided no studies that
 investigated attitudes about domestic violence toward women in relation to domestic
 violence knowledge, counselor competency, and counselor comfort level. Statistics reveal
 the increasing number of women who are in abusive relationships and the mental and
 health effects of domestic violence abuse. This study explored Rehabilitation Counseling master's students' attitudes and beliefs
 about domestic violence toward women. The participants were 113 Rehabilitation
 Counseling master's students enrolled in Rehabilitation Counseling master's programs in
 30 universities in different geographical regions of the United States. The study
 consisted of a demographic questionnaire and five research instruments: the Attitudes
 Toward Women Scale, the Domestic Violence Blame Scale, the Perceived Counselor Comfort
 Scale, the Domestic Violence Knowledge Test, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability
 Scale. The results of the three hierarchical regression analyses are provided. First, there was
 significance based on domestic violence knowledge and race/ethnicity, and domestic
 violence and age: (a) Participants who identified as African American scored lower in
 domestic violence knowledge, and (b) participants in the age group 25 to 30 years scored
 lower in domestic violence knowledge. Second, there was no significant relationship
 between the criterion variables and perceived comfort. Third, there was a significant
 relationship between the criterion variables (domestic violence training and previous
 history of domestic violence) and competency level. Participants who indicated having
 training in domestic violence had a higher the level of competency than participants who
 indicated having no training in domestic violence. Participants who indicated having a
 previous history of domestic violence had a higher level of competency than participants
 who indicated not having a previous history of domestic violence. Implications for counselors, educators, and future research are discussed.


The interactions between DNA and a number of different cationic surfactants, differing in headgroup polarity, were investigated by electric conductivity measurements and fluorescence microscopy. It was observed that, the critical association concentration (cac), characterizing the onset of surfactant binding to DNA, does not vary significantly with the architecture of the headgroup. However, comparing with the critical micelle concentration (cmc) in the absence of DNA, it can be inferred that the micelles of a surfactant with a simple quaternary ammonium headgroup are much more stabilized by the presence of DNA than those of surfactants with hydroxylated head-groups. In line with previous studies of polymer-surfactant association, the cac does not vary significantly with either the DNA concentration or its chain length. On the other hand, a novel observation is that the cac is much lower when DNA is denaturated and in the single-stranded conformation, than for the double-helix DNA. This is contrary to expectation for a simple electrostatically driven association. Thus previous studies of polyelectrolyte-surfactant systems have shown that the cac decreases strongly with increasing linear charge density of the polyion. Since double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) has twice as large linear charge density as single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), the stronger binding in the latter case indicates an important role of nonelectrostatic effects. Both a higher flexibility of ssDNA and a higher hydrophobicity due to the exposed bases are found to play a role, with the hydrophobic interaction argued to be more important. The significance of hydrophobic DNA-surfactant interaction is in line with other observations. The significance of nonelectrostatic effects is also indicated in significant differences in cac between different surfactants for ssDNA but not for dsDNA. For lower concentrations of DNA, the conductivity measurements presented an "anomalous" feature, i.e., a second inflection point for surfactant concentrations below the cac; this feature was not displayed at higher concentrations of DNA. The effect is attributed to the presence of a mixture of ss- and dsDNA molecules. Thus the stability of dsDNA is dependent on a certain ion atmosphere; at lower ion concentrations the electrostatic repulsions between the DNA strands become too strong compared to the attractive interactions, and there is a dissociation into the individual strands. Fluorescence microscopy studies, performed at much lower DNA concentrations, demonstrated a transformation of dsDNA from an extended "coil" state to a compact "globule" condition, with a broad concentration region of coexistence of coils and globules. The onset of DNA compaction coincides roughly with the cac values obtained from conductivity measurements. This is in line with the observed independence of cac on the DNA concentration, together with the assumption that the onset of binding corresponds to an initiation of DNA compaction. No major changes in either the onset of compaction or complete compaction were observed as the surfactant headgroup was made more polar.


It is shown that the image chain has important effects upon the quality of feature extraction. Exact analytic ROC results are given for the case where arbitrary multivariate normal imagery is passed to a Bayesian feature detector designed for multivariate normal imagery with a diagonal covariance matrix. Plots are provided to allow direct visual inspection of many of the more readly apparent effects. Also shown is an analytic tradeoff that says doubling background contrast is equal to halving sensor to scene distance or sensor noise. It is also shown that the results provide a lower bound to the ROC of a Bayesian feature detector designed for arbitrary multivariate normal distributions.


In the past thirty years the president has been increasingly reluctant to use his constitutional power to pardon, although the demand for pardon has also increased, to restore rights and shorten sentences. The primary reason is that the process for the administration of the power has lost its vigor, its integrity, and its sense of purpose. The attorney general, steward of the power since the Civil War, has allowed a parochial institutional agenda to inform pardon recommendations instead of broadly defined presidential policy goals. The three most recent presidents have been willing to live with a dysfunctional pardon process, evidently because they did not regard pardoning as a duty of office and perceived its risks to outweigh its rewards. Without a plan for using the power, and without a reliable system for executing it, pardoning has become a dangerous activity for any president, and a useless vestigial appendage of the presidency. The failure of the pardon process during the 1990s explains why President Clinton's final days in office were marred by pardon-related scandal, a fate only narrowly averted by his successor, George W. Bush. It appears that President Obama believes he can avoid scandal by not pardoning at all, or by making only token use of the power.State pardon procedures suggest ways that presidential pardoning could be restored to a useful place in the federal justice system. While states follow a variety of different administrative models, most have procedures that are more transparent, accountable, and authoritative than the federal process. Some states mandate consultation with elected or appointed boards, some require pre-pardon publication of applications or intended executive action, and some require public hearings and consultation with responsible justice officials. In thirty-two of the forty-four states where the governor is responsible for pardoning, the state constitution requires an annual report to the legislature on pardon grants for that year. Experience in the states that have a sound administrative structure suggests that even if a reliable process does not guarantee vigorous pardoning, it at least discourages the sort of irresponsible use (or disuse) of the power that has become the norm in the federal system.Three reforms could reinvigorate the federal pardon process and restore its moral force. First, the process should be guided by clear standards that are applied consistently, and grants should be reasoned and defensible. Second, the process must be administered by individuals who are independent and authoritative, who have the confidence of the president, and who are given the necessary resources to carry out the president's pardoning agenda. Third, the process must be accessible and responsive to people of all walks of life, and take into account the likelihood that many deserving pardon applicants will not have skilled counsel or well-connected supporters to advocate on their behalf.


Online learning has become mainstream in many institutions of higher education. Most institutions add an online component to their education so as to enhance their students' learning. It is important therefore to find out what the students think about the impact of this reform on their learning. This paper reports on an investigation that was done among University of Botswana students to find out their perception about the impact of WebCT on their learning and whether they thought it was worth the resources invested in it. Students in the study reported that WebCT greatly improved their learning in that it easily made available course material that they would otherwise struggle to get through searching the library or laboriously writing extensive notes in class. Students also reported that WebCT enabled them to participate in online discussions that greatly contribute to their course understanding. However, students cited lack of computer access on campus as the biggest obstacle that hinders them from fully benefiting from WebCT. Students in the study called for a wider use of WebCT in the university so that more students can benefit from it but also go through the struggle of gaining computer access to do WebCT related material


© 2014 MAA Printed in Greece. All rights reserved. Cyber-archaeology represents the marriage of archaeology, computer science, engineering, and the natural sciences with the aim of taking advantage of constantly evolving technologies for digital data capture, curation, analyses and dissemination. Digital data collection tools are perhaps the most rapidly changing arenas of development in cyber-archaeology and are becoming affordable tools for every archaeologist. In this paper, we examine two users' approaches to produce point cloud models of archaeological sites using structure from motion (SfM) photography. The experiment took place at the Fountain of Peirene in ancient Corinth, Greece. Their implementation of the technology and their results are compared to highlight the very important role the photo-shooting session can play in the final outcome of the SfM reconstruction. We correlate the users' approaches to the applied algorithms' robust features and known limitations to provide a technical explanation of how archaeologists can significantly improve their success in SfM. As new algorithms and software emerge making SfM a common tool in archaeological documentation the methodology presented in this paper will enable archaeologists to meet the high demand for digital documentation on a global scale.


Abstract Given the current call for interdisciplinarity, we reflect on pragmatic methodological implementations of collaborative research – by drawing on empirical evidence from two large-scale cross-disciplinary research projects and by theoretically framing them in trilingual contexts (German, French, and English). These are two major innovations compared to the existing body of literature in this domain. Our empirical analysis shows that multi-, inter- or trans-disciplinary collaboration is an oscillating process along a spectrum of cross-disciplinarity – spanning additive, converging and synthesizing work patterns, i.e. multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinarity. Such an umbrella-term avoids the common amalgamation of 'interdisciplinarity' as the overarching category (cross-disciplinarity of whatever form) and one of the relevant subcategories (the specific work form that a research team chooses). Concretely, if the majority of methods are developed through communal negotiation processes, then a truly interdisciplinary analysis of research results can only be guaranteed through recursive self-reflexive loops. Initial research questions may still be additive and interactions can oscillate during the project process between addition und tentative convergence. We label this process situative interdisciplinarity. Multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity are thus subsumed as a processual entity: flexible, possibly hybrid subforms of cross-disciplinarity. It needs constant reactivation, framing, timing and mediation by project managers. The major challenge lies in the collaborative transfer of concepts, theories, methods and research subjects. This transfer requires translation, explication and transposition of the various disciplinary 'languages' and can only be converged in an open-minded, team-oriented and reflexive work environment.


HIV/AIDS has long been at the forefront of the development of gene- and cell-based therapies. Although conventional gene therapy approaches typically involve the addition of anti-HIV genes to cells using semirandomly integrating viral vectors, newer genome editing technologies based on engineered nucleases are now allowing more precise genetic manipulations. The possible outcomes of genome editing include gene disruption, which has been most notably applied to the CCR5 coreceptor gene, or the introduction of small mutations or larger whole gene cassette insertions at a targeted locus. Disruption of CCR5 using zinc finger nucleases was the first-in-human application of genome editing and remains the most clinically advanced platform, with 7 completed or ongoing clinical trials in T cells and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs). Here we review the laboratory and clinical findings of CCR5 editing in T cells and HSPCs for HIV therapy and summarize other promising genome editing approaches for future clinical development. In particular, recent advances in the delivery of genome editing reagents and the demonstration of highly efficient homology-directed editing in both T cells and HSPCs are expected to spur the development of even more sophisticated applications of this technology for HIV therapy.


When the multi-disk clutch is in disengaged operation, friction plates and mating plates may not separate absolutely, in order to avoid the slipping friction and reduce the clutch's overheating, the lubricant pressure between the plates should distribute equably in design. Based on the fluid dynamic theory, the 3-D fluid models of oil way with different diameters of squirt hole are established, with which the fluid field at different velocities and temperatures of lubricant can be analyzed. The distribution of lubricant pressure in the clearance of plates influenced by the diameter of squirt hole, inlet velocity and lubricant temperature can be studied. The result of the study shows that the bigger the squirt hole, the smaller the inlet flow and the lower the temperature is, the more uniform the lubricant pressure distributes.


The brand awareness has turned into an important variable that impacts customer's perceptions of a brand. Achievement in brand management arises from understanding and overseeing brand image and loyalty correctly to create strong characteristics that will impact consumers when making on their decisions.This thesis concentrates on the importance of these dimensions (brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand image and consumer behavior) of customer built brand equity in light of consumer's perceptions of a brand. This is focused around the assumption that all these dimensions of customer based-brand image and loyalty will have impact on consumer's perceptions of brand. However, this study aims to discover which among these three dimensions (brand image, brand loyalty and consumer behavior) seem to have the slightest brand equity in restaurants and to find out whether customer based-brand equity differ between fast food with respect to each characteristic of brand awareness, brand image, consumer behaviorand brand loyalty. Brand awareness was treated with independently from different dimensions because of the difference in scale, and moreover media and sorts of media affecting on consumer behavior. An organized survey was constructed to provide answers to research question. In this study, one hundred and fifteen questionnaires, on facilities available in the society, and technology were distributed. The research studied four dimensions of consumer's based-brand equity specifically brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Among the three dimensions, brand loyalty seems to have the minimum brand equity rating by consumers than alternate dimensions. Although, the dimension seem to have impact on consumer perceptions of brand. This paper likewise provides a solution to brand awareness via media store sellers which may help the sellers to promote their products in light of consumer behavior.


To the Editor .–Standard needle holder jaws can be curved to an angle of approximately 30° to make a helpful instrument for the surgeon. This alteration facilitates the passage of the needle and suture through difficult angles in limited operative exposures. Increased speed of suturing, a more atraumatic technique, and less torque strain on the needle are achieved. The operative technique of using this needle holder is immediately learned and appreciated. The jaws of the needle holder provide superior needle holding ability, having as their contact surface laminated tungsten carbide or diamond jaw inserts. The angled jaws of the needle holder direct the needle and suture easily through tissue conforming to the 180° arc of the needle. Clinical experience has shown that this needle holder offers technical advantage in repair of the posterior inguinal wall, and in low intestinal anastomosis. The comparative difference to a standard needle holder is illustrated


OBJECTIVE
To assess the impact of calendar blister pack (CBP) use on glycemic and blood pressure control.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We conducted an 8-month randomized controlled double-blind study among diabetic patients with poor glucose control (HbA1c >9.0%) in an urban area of South Auckland, New Zealand, with a high proportion of Maori and Pacific Islands people. Subjects included 68 consecutive patients, of whom 50% were prescribed three or more medications per day

RESULTS
HbA1c was reduced by 0.95+/-0.22% in the CBP group and 0.15+/-0.25% in the control group (P = 0.026). Diastolic blood pressure decreased 5.8+/-1.5 mm Hg in the CBP group and increased 0.1+/-1.9 mm Hg in the control group (P = 0.0041). Systolic blood pressure did not change significantly

CONCLUSIONS
CBPs should be considered among diabetic patients with poor glycemic control receiving multiple medications.


Background: Resting heart rate is linked to risk of coronary artery disease, stroke, sudden death and noncardiovascular diseases. We conducted a meta-analysis to assess these associations in general populations and in populations of patients with hypertension or diabetes mellitus. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase and MEDLINE from inception to Mar. 5, 2016. We used a random-effects model to combine study-specific relative risks (RRs). We used restricted cubic splines to assess the dose–response relation. Results: We included 45 nonrandomized prospective cohort studies in the meta-analysis. The multivariable adjusted RR with an increment of 10 beats/min in resting heart rate was 1.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09–1.14) for coronary artery disease, 1.05 (95% CI 1.01–1.08) for stroke, 1.12 (95% CI 1.02–1.24) for sudden death, 1.16 (95% CI 1.12–1.21) for noncardiovascular diseases, 1.09 (95% CI 1.06–1.12) for all types of cancer and 1.25 (95% CI 1.17–1.34) for noncardiovascular diseases excluding cancer. All of these relations were linear. In an analysis by category of resting heart rate (< 60 [reference], 60–70, 70–80 and > 80 beats/min), the RRs were 0.99 (95% CI 0.93–1.04), 1.08 (95% CI 1.01–1.16) and 1.30 (95% CI 1.19–1.43), respectively, for coronary artery disease; 1.08 (95% CI 0.98–1.19), 1.11 (95% CI 0.98–1.25) and 1.08 (95% CI 0.93–1.25), respectively, for stroke; and 1.17 (95% CI 0.94–1.46), 1.31 (95% CI 1.12–1.54) and 1.57 (95% CI 1.39–1.77), respectively, for noncardiovascular diseases. After excluding studies involving patients with hypertension or diabetes, we obtained similar results for coronary artery disease, stroke and noncardiovascular diseases, but found no association with sudden death. Interpretation: Resting heart rate was an independent predictor of coronary artery disease, stroke, sudden death and noncardiovascular diseases over all of the studies combined. When the analysis included only studies concerning general populations, resting heart rate was not associated with sudden death.


Three-year old Tilia amerensis Rupr. was taken as study subject in a pot experiment. Chlorophyll content, REC, peroxidase activity, SOD activity, and other indices of Tilia amerensis Rupr. leaves were assayed. The experimental results show that Pb contaminated and destroyed the chloroplast structure of Tilia amerensis Rupr. leaves and impeded the synthesis of chlorophyll in the leaves. When Pb concentration was 10 mg•kg-1–100 mg•kg-1, REC of the Tilia extract was roughly equal to that of the control group, and Tilia amerensis Rupr. leaves were contaminated by Pb to a small degree. When Pb concentration reached a higher level, REC increased rapidly and Tilia amerensis Rupr. leaves were contaminated substantially. Low Pb concentration may lower the POD activity of the leaves. However, when Pb concentration was high, the POD activity elevated and Tilia amerensis Rupr. could exhibit various reactions to instinctively defend itself. The SOD activity of the Pb-contaminated Tilia amerensis Rupr. was slightly higher than that of the control group, and the ROS content remained low. The SOD enzyme system was undamaged.


Given the striking effects of the recent financial turmoil, and the importance of value and growth portfolios for both local and international portfolio allocation, we investigate the effects of systemic jumps on the optimal portfolio investment strategies across value and growth equity portfolios. We find that the cost of ignoring systemic jumps is not substantial, unless the portfolio is highly levered and the average size amplitude of the jump is large enough. From the optimal asset allocation point of view, it seems more important the effects of few but relatively large jumps than highly frequent but small jumps. Indeed, the period in which the value premium is higher coincides with a period of few, but large and positive average size jumps for value stocks, and negative and very large average size jumps for growth stocks.


AbstractProton therapy has the physical advantage of a Bragg peak that can provide a better dose distribution than conventional x-ray therapy. However, radiation exposure of normal tissues cannot be ignored because it is likely to increase the risk of secondary cancer. Evaluating secondary neutrons generated by the interaction of the proton beam with the treatment beam-line structure is necessary; thus, performing the optimization of radiation protection in proton therapy is required. In this research, the organ dose and energy spectrum were calculated from secondary neutrons using Monte Carlo simulations. The Monte Carlo code known as the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) was used to simulate the transport proton and its interaction with the treatment beam-line structure that modeled the double scattering body of the treatment nozzle at the National Cancer Center Hospital East. The doses of the organs in a hybrid computational phantom simulating a 5‐y-old boy were calculated. In general, secondary neutron doses were found to decrease with increasing distance to the treatment field. Secondary neutron energy spectra were characterized by incident neutrons with three energy peaks: 1×10−7, 1, and 100 MeV. A block collimator and a patient collimator contributed significantly to organ doses. In particular, the secondary neutrons from the patient collimator were 30 times higher than those from the first scatter. These results suggested that proactive protection will be required in the design of the treatment beam-line structures and that organ doses from secondary neutrons may be able to be reduced.


Survival of pathogenic fungi inside human hosts depends on evasion from the host immune system and adaptation to the host environment. Among different insults that Paracoccidioides brasiliensis has to handle are reactive oxygen and nitrogen species produced by the human host cells, and by its own metabolism. Knowing how the parasite deals with reactive species is important to understand how it establishes infection and survives within humans. The initiative to describe the P. brasiliensis transcriptome fostered new approaches to study oxidative stress response in this organism. By examining genes related to oxidative stress response, one can evaluate the parasite's ability to face this condition and infer about possible ways to overcome this ability. We report the results of a search of the P. brasiliensis assembled expressed sequence tag database for homologous sequences involved in oxidative stress response. We described several genes coding proteins involved in antioxidant defense, for example, catalase and superoxide dismutase isoenzymes, peroxiredoxin, cytochrome c peroxidase, glutathione synthesis enzymes, thioredoxin, and the transcription factors Yap1 and Skn7. The transcriptome analysis of P. brasiliensis reveals a pathogen that has many resources to combat reactive species. Besides characterizing the antioxidant defense system in P. brasiliensis, we also compared the ways in which different fungi respond to oxidative damage, and we identified the basic features of this response.


Progesterone has been shown to be neuroprotective in a number of central nervous system injury models, including cerebral ischaemia. There is still a lack of understanding behind progesterone's neuropotective properties, and the purpose of this project is to clarify some of these issues.
Osmotic mini-pump infusion was hypothesised to more effective in delivering progesterone to the target organ of the brain, when compared to a bolus intraperitoneal injection. Progesterone pharmacokinetic profiles were compared between different dosing regimes. Intraperitoneal progesterone injection had a short half-life in both plasma and brain, while osmotic mini-pumps delivered higher concentrations of progesterone in plasma and particularly in brain, over a longer period, which supports the hypothesis.

It was hypothesised that progesterone will reduce NO production and cell death in in vitro. Progesterone reduced nitric oxide production after challenging microglia with LPS, which supports our hypothesis and the nuclear progesterone receptor was found not to have a major role in nitric oxide attenuation. Neither of the microglial cell lines, BV-2 and HAPI cells produced elevations in NO formation in ischaemic conditions. The in vitro oxygen and glucose deprived model of ischaemia, reduced viability in both microglial and neuronal cells. Also, high pharmacological concentrations of progesterone exacerbated ischaemic injury, which does not support the hypothesis of progesterone in reducing cell death.

Progesterone administration, via osmotic mini-pump infusion, was hypothesised to have a better outcome compared to vehicle treatment. After the onset of experimental stroke, progesterone delivery via osmotic mini-pump with loading dose was found to be beneficial in terms of neurological deficit score in adult male mice, which supports the hypothesis. Also, we hypothesise that co-morbidity can affect the efficacy of progesterone treatment in outcomes. Aged animals have an increased sensitivity to experimentally induce stroke and did not display, in the outcomes measured, any benefit from progesterone treatment. NOD/ShiLtJ mice had severe symptoms, resulting in high mortality after surgery and are not recommended as a model of diabetes for experimental stroke. Hypertensive BPH/2 mice are a potential hypertensive model and had better functional outcomes after treatment with intraperitoneally administered progesterone, compared to non-treated hypertensive animals in our small preliminary study. This supports our hypothesis that co-morbidity can affect the efficacy of progesterone treatment in outcomes.

The gold-standard for assessing intervention effects across studies within and between subgroups is to use meta-analysis based on individual animal data. We hypothesise meta-analysis would reveal progesterone to reduce lesion volume, but also discover other effects in different subgroups of animals. Progesterone significantly reduced lesion volume, it also appeared to increase the incidence of death following experimental stroke. Furthermore, this negative effect appears to be particularly apparent in young ovariectomised female animals. These findings support the hypothesis that progesterone reduces lesion volume and progesterone having other effects in different subgroups.

This investigation has clarified some issues and expanded our understanding on the neuroprotective properties of progesterone. However, these findings indicate further investigation is still required before progesterone can be considered for use in clinical trials as a neuroprotectant in stroke.


Hepatology is considered a cognitive specialty, but it will not be surprising if a subgroup of future hepatologists (''invasive hepatologists'') performed a variety of advanced endoscopic, laparoscopic, vascular or ablative procedures just like interventional gastroenterologists, interventional radiologists or minimally invasive surgeons. The increase in the prevalence of liver diseases including hepatocellular carcinoma, and effective treatment of end-stage liver disease with liver transplantation has expanded the subspecialty of hepatology into a major specialty. Therefore, it is only natural that some of the trainees in hepatology, familiar with invasive procedures just like their counterparts in gastroenterology, may become subspecialized in invasive aspects of this specialty, traditionally performed by interventional endoscopists, radiologists and surgeons. Moreover, there will be major developments in the management of the complications of liver disease. Endoscopic screening with esophageal capsule endoscopy and, to a lesser extent, ultrathin upper gastrointestinal endoscopy may replace conventional endoscopy. In addition to standard treatments for esophageal varices, removable esophageal stents with expansile pressure may be utilized in refractory variceal hemorrhage. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts may be performed by hepatologists. Advances in argon plasma coagulation, cryotherapy and photodynamic therapy may result in novel treatment options for portal hypertensive gastropathy. Single-fiber cholangioscopy will allow for directed endoscopic screening for cholangiocarcinoma and primary sclerosing cholangitis in high-risk individuals. Minilaparoscopy will allow a macroscopic assessment of the liver surface as well as the ability to target specific regions for histopathology, and treatment including radiofrequency ablation of liver cancer. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) may provide the potential to directly measure portal vein pressure and this may have a future role in titration and optimization of pharmacological therapy of portal hypertension. EUS and fine needle aspiration may be used for staging hepatocellular and bile duct cancer. Finally, natural orifice transluminal surgery and endoscopic ultrasound-guided angiography may allow for targeted therapies traditionally outside the realm of the hepatologists.


: On the basis of experimental results an immunological method of acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment by means of specific immunity regulation was designed. The administration of antibodies (immunoglobulins) with prednisolone to patients induced 100% remissions in a comparatively short time. None of the patients treated with immunoprednisolone therapy had neuroleukemia. The immunological findings indicate that the therapeutic effect depends on the "deblocking" action of the applied immune preparation.


Optical spin injection in InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) structures under cryogenic temperature has been investigated in this work using continuous-wave optical orientation spectroscopy. Circularly polarized luminescence from trions in the QDs was used as a measure for the degree of spin polarization of the carriers in the QD ground states. The efficiency of spin conservation of the carriers during the injection process into the QDs and also the influence of the nuclear spins in the QDs were studied both under zero and external magnetic field. It was shown in zero magnetic field that the spin states were less conserved during the injection process for correlated excitons and hot free carriers. While under the external magnetic field, measurements were done in Faraday configuration. Confined electron motion yielding the quantized Landau levels in the InGaAs wetting layer (WL) and lifting of the Landau level spin degeneracy was observed. Also possible spin thermalization in the InGaAs WL during spin injection process was found. Finally, the quench of hyperfine induced spin relaxation by dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in the QDs was discovered and believed to be a stronger effect under weak/zero magnetic field.


In this paper, we estimate two small, forward-looking, macroeconomic models for the US and Germany and we compare the implied optimal monetary policy rules. Both models have a standard structure: an I-S curve, a Phillips curve, a short term interest-rate rule and a long term interest rate determined by the Expectations Hypothesis. They are intended to fit the data while allowing for some forward-looking behavior. They are estimated from 1968 to 1998, using the full-information maximum-likelihood procedure, so that forward-looking expectations are fully model-consistent. In order to evaluate monetary policy, we compute optimal policy frontiers and we perform some simulations of the model. German optimal monetary policy is found to require a more persistent and slightly stronger response to inflation and output than the US optimal policy.


A complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor-compatible fabrication technique for ultrathin silicon chips of arbitrary shape is reported. It combines deep reactive ion etching and wafer grinding to define the in-plane geometry and thickness of the chips, respectively. Neural probes with shaft lengths up to 12 mm and thicknesses down to 25 μm were fabricated.


Exotic, mysterious, elusive, Japan's geisha have fascinated and allured westerners from Puccini to Madonna, from Picasso to Arthur Golden. But just who are the geisha? This work delves into their lives and history, with detailed coverage of their rigorous training, their sumptuous costumes and the fantastically intricate world of tradition in which the geisha live and work. Geisha bureaucrats and ribald male geisha are just some of the unexpected denizens of this often misunderstood world in which nothing (including the vexed question of prostitution) is quite what it seems. The book details the minute gradations of geisha rank, clothing and makeup, and the subtle changes of geisha appearance through the round of seasonal events. From wigs to clogs, it catalogues the array of specialist equipment geisha need to perform their demanding jobs. It explores the network of dance schools, teahouses, temples and offices that form the "world of flowers and willows". A dense network of traditional crafts and occupations supports this world, with calligraphers, dyers and sake warmers among the many occupations serving in the hanamachi of "flower towns" as geisha districts are known. The geisha craft itself draws on an array of ultra-aesthetic traditional Japanese arts such as dance, tea ceremony, traditional music and games. Above all, the geisha world preserves a unique sensibility of leisure, unlike any other. This book explains how this complex dreamworld evolved, how it fits into the ever-changing scenery of modern Japan and how it is changing in order to survive there.


The inherent variability and lack of standardization of in vivo assays to determine the metabolizable energy (ME) of DDGS has led to inconsistent values and limited its potential to use in broiler diets. Therefore, two experiments were conducted to characterize the content of nitrogen-corrected ME (MEn) in 11 DDGS sources obtained from various ethanol plants using a regression-based broiler assay and to attempt to develop equations to predict MEn based on its chemical composition. In experiment 1, the objectives were to determine the influence of inclusion level and feed intake on the resulting ME and MEn values of a single DDGS source when fed to broilers at multiple dietary inclusion levels. The ME and MEn values of DDGS determined by difference decreased as its dietary concentration increased. Pair-feeding the 30% DDGS diet to the 60% DDGS diet intake reduced the ME and MEn values of DDGS, indicating there was an effect of feed intake on the ME value of DDGS. Additionally, the MEn of DDGS was determined by two regression-based methods. First, the DDGS associated caloric intake was regressed against the amount of DDGS intake to generate linear regression equations with slopes corresponding to the MEn value of DDGS. Secondly, the dietary MEn was regressed against the DDGS inclusion level, and extrapolation of the regression line to 100% DDGS was used to estimate its ME value. Both regression methods yielded similar ME and MEn values of DDGS. Experiment 2 determined the MEn of 11 DDGS samples obtained from different biorefinery locations operated by a single ethanol producer and related these values with chemical composition and physical properties of the DDGS samples. Analyses of DDGS included gross energy, CP, Lys to CP ratio (Lys:CP), ether extract, DM, starch, total dietary fiber (TDF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), color scores, and particle size. On a DM basis, MEn of the 11 DDGS sources ranged from 2,284 to 3,088 kcal/kg with a CV of 7%. Hemicellulose was the only component found to be correlated with the MEn of DDGS. As a result, the lack of correlations between DDGS composition and its MEn precluded development of prediction equations. Overall, these results indicate that the MEn of DDGS estimated in MEn assays is influenced by its inclusion level in the test diet and partly due to effects on feed intake While the narrow variability in the chemical composition of the DDGS sources did not allow for the development of prediction equations, these results provide good insight into the energy utilization and uniformity of these sources for poultry feed formulations.


Useful in the theoretical and empirical analysis of nonlinear time series data, semiparametric methods have received extensive attention in the economics and statistics communities over the past twenty years. Recent studies show that semiparametric methods and models may be applied to solve dimensionality reduction problems arising from using fully nonparametric models and methods. Answering the call for an up-to-date overview of the latest developments in the field, "Nonlinear Time Series: Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods" focuses on various semiparametric methods in model estimation, specification testing, and selection of time series data.After a brief introduction, this book examines semiparametric estimation and specification methods and then applies these approaches to a class of nonlinear continuous-time models with real-world data. It also assesses some newly proposed semiparametric estimation procedures for time series data with long-range dependence. Even though this book only deals with climatological and financial data, the estimation and specifications methods discussed can be applied to models with real-world data in many disciplines. This resource covers key methods in time series analysis and provides the necessary theoretical details. The latest applied finance and financial econometrics results and applications presented in this book enable researchers and graduate students to keep abreast of developments in the field.


Combilog is a compositional relational programming language that allows writing relational logic programs by functionally composing relational predicates. Higraphs, a diagram formalism is consulted to simplify some of the textual complexity of compositional relational programming to achieve a visual system that can represent these declarative meta-programs, with the final intention to design an intuitive and visually assisted complete development practice. As a proof of concept, an implementation of a two-way parser/visualizer is presented.