Object of study: Motivation is an essential concept for manifold domains. Whenever a person is confronted with an inconvenient, but necessary task, a stimulation of the person's inherent motives can ensure its successful performance. As communication is one of the most intuitive ways to create a motivating stimulation, its effect should be noticeable in everyday human-human interaction, but also in more specific domains such as training, teaching or nursing care.
So far, the motivational patterns in speech have not been studied intensively. Research progress exists on the rhetoric structure of convincing speeches [1] and on the phonetic expression of related concepts such as charisma [2], persuasion [3] and volition [4], but it is so far unclear if and how these results can be extended to the expression of motivation likewise.

Methodology: The present study provides a comprehensive acoustic phonetic analysis of motivational speech. We collected, annotated and processed 50 minutes of speech data representing less and more successful degrees of motivation. Based on these, we identified and analyzed a set of phonetic features potentially relevant for motivational impact. The data consists of the audio extracted from 6 motivational YouTube videos, each presented by a different female speaker aged between 16 and 30 years. The aim of these videos is to motivate their audience to engage in sports and to be on a healthy diet. While presenters' age and gender, video topic and structure as well as upload date are fairly constant, the videos differ in their online ratings. We used online ratings as an indicator to differentiate between more and less successful motivation. This leaves us with 3 videos of less successful (15 minutes), and 3 videos of more successful motivation (35 minutes). The data were force-aligned both on a phone and syllable level, and corrected manually. Interpausal units are used as a measure of utterance segmentation. We hypothesized that the following phonetic features differ significantly between less and more successful levels of motivation, and analyzed them within interpausal units using Praat scripts:
• Pitch: mean, median, range (log Hertz) and coefficient of variation
• Intensity: mean, median, range (dB) and coefficient of variation
• Speaking rate (syllables/second)

Results and conclusions: A comparison of the parameter distributions of two speakers with different levels of motivation indicates that highly motivational speech is faster, but less variable in terms of tempo. Also, highly motivational speech seems to be characterized by a higher pitch median, a higher pitch range and a more variable pitch in terms of coefficient of variation. Regarding intensity, we observe an overall louder articulation and a less variable pattern for intensity range, which is also supported by findings from the coefficient of variation. In sum, motivational speech appears to behave similarly to charismatic speech, but somewhat more balanced, i.e. more homogeneous, in terms of tempo and intensity variation. We plan to augment this characterization by investigating and comparing the prosodic patterns of individual speakers.

References:
[1] Heracleous, L., & Klaering, L. A. (2014). Charismatic leadership and rhetorical competence: An analysis of Steve Jobs's rhetoric. Group & Organization Management, 39(2), 131-161.
[2] Niebuhr, O., Vose, J., & Brem, A. (2016). What makes a charismatic speaker? A computer-based acoustic-prosodic analysis of Steve Jobs tone of voice. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 366-382
[3] Redecker, B. (2006). Persuasion und Prosodie: Untersuchung zur Perzeption emotionaler Sprechweisen am Beispiel einer Parfumwerbung (Doctoral dissertation).
[4] Skutella, L. V., Sussenbach, L., Pitsch, K., & Wagner, P. (2014). The prosody of motivation. First results from an indoor cycling scenario. Elektronische Sprachsignalverarbeitung 2014, 71ff..


Plants are master regulators of rhizosphere ecology, secreting a complex mixture of compounds into the soil, collectively termed plant root exudate. Root exudate composition is highly dynamic and functional, mediating interactions between plants and a wide range of beneficial / harmful soil organisms. Exudate composition is under selective pressure to diversify in response to pathogen perception, whilst maintaining interactions with beneficial organisms. However, crop domestication has exerted significant and unintended changes to crop root exudate composition, and we know very little about genotype - phenotype linkages that pertain to root exudates and rhizosphere interactions. Better understanding could enable the modulation of root exudate composition for crop improvement by promoting positive, and impeding negative, interactions. Root expressed transporters modulate exudate composition and could be manipulated towards the rational design of beneficial root exudate profiles. Using Virus Induced Gene silencing (VIGS), we demonstrate that knockdown of two root-expressed ABC transporter genes in tomato cv. Moneymaker, ABC-G33 and ABC-C6, alters the composition of semi-volatile compounds in collected root exudates. Root exudate chemotaxis assays demonstrate that knockdown of each transporter gene triggers the repulsion of economically relevant Meloidogyne and Globodera spp. plant parasitic nematodes, which are attracted to control treatment root exudates. Knockdown of ABC-C6 inhibits egg hatching of Meloidogyne and Globodera spp., relative to controls. Knockdown of ABC-G33 has no impact on egg hatching of Meloidogyne spp. but has a substantial inhibitory impact on egg hatching of G. pallida. ABC-C6 knockdown has no impact on the attraction of the plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens, or the plant growth promoting Bacillus subtilis, relative to controls. Silencing ABC-G33 induces a statistically significant reduction in attraction of B. subtilis, with no impact on attraction of A. tumefaciens. ABC-C6 represents a promising target for breeding or biotechnology intervention strategies as gene knockdown (−64.9%) leads to the repulsion of economically important plant parasites and retains attraction of the beneficial rhizobacterium B. subtilis. This study exposes the link between ABC transporters, root exudate composition, and ex planta interactions with agriculturally and economically relevant rhizosphere organisms, paving the way for an entirely new approach to rhizosphere engineering and crop protection.


In this work, two types of nano-structured TiO2 layers were obtained by two different methods.
First, during an exploratory study, a set of nano-columnar TiO2 films and niobium doped TiO2 films was obtained on stainless steel, by a RF reactive sputtering technique. The argon gas is ionized by a high negative voltage applied to the TiO2 target (cathode), and a plasma is created between the cathode and the substrate (anode). Positively charged ions (Ar+) are accelerated toward the TiO2 target (a co-target Nb is placed beside the TiO2 cathode for Nb doping) and their impact sputters atoms off the target. These atoms travel across the chamber and a fraction of them land on stainless steel, resulting in a film TiO2 and Nb-doped film TiO2. With adjusting the RF power applied on the co – target, different concentrations of Nb in the TiO2 film could be controlled. The results of EIS (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) mainly showed the presence of a barrier layer (junction metal/semiconductor or metal/oxide/semiconductor) between the TiO2 layer and the stainless steel in the absence and presence of niobium. The carrier density is estimated at almost 1018 cm-3.
In the second part of this thesis, two types of TiO2 nano-tubular arrays with nanotubes (NT) aligned perpendicular to the titanium substrate were obtained by anodization of a titanium foil, in two different solutions containing fluoride ions. The NT obtained in a tetrabutylammonium / formamide solution (named: TiO2-NT(TB)) are rough, while the second solution, ethylene glycol , allows to synthesize smoother and denser tubes (named: TiO2-NT(EG)).
All the nanotubular arrays were characterized by EIS and showed in the high frequency range a contribution related to the presence of surface states, and a contribution at low frequencies related to the capacity of the space charge layer. In the dark, in the Na2SO4 solution with neutral pH, the EIS study of TiO2-NT (TB) anatase showed that these two contributions vary with the applied potential. The capacity of surface states varied exponentially in a wide range of potential, but in addition the presence of a localized energy state in the gap could be evidenced. This localized state is the signature of the adsorption of molecular water. After UV exposure during 3h, and back to the dark, the quasi irreversible disappearance of the localized energy states is related to photo-induced adsorbed water dissociation at some sites on the surface of NT. Furthermore, the increase by a factor 112 of the capacity of the space charge layer was observed after UV exposure. This increase can be explained by the photo activation of the surface of NT, which was inactive before UV exposure. This activation is related to the dissociation of adsorbed molecular water and the insertion of hydrogen into the walls of NT.
A geometric model considering the variation of the band bending taking place inside the wall of NT is proposed to replace the classical Mott-Schottky relation, which is only valid for a plate condensator. This model allows understanding the variation of the space charge layer as a function of the applied potential. With this new model, a carrier density of about 1018 cm-3 et 1020 cm-3 respectively before and after UV illumination were determined, confirming that the photo-induced activation of the wall of NT is linked to the phenomenon of doping due to hydrogen insertion.
In the case of TiO2 –NT(EG), the contribution of adsorption of molecular water was not observed. The spectrum of EIS before and after UV exposure did not show a significant change and the capacities of space charge layer after illumination only increased by a factor 8. The simulation with the model shows that the carrier density is about 1020cm-3 before and after illumination. In other words, these tubes of TiO2 –NT(EG), are already activated before illumination and the photo-induced effects are less important compared to the TiO2 –NT(TB) array.
For a better identification of the chemical nature of the surface state in the case of rough tubes of TiO2 –NT(TB), EIS measurements were performed in the same manner, but in acidic (pH=3.5) and basic (pH=12.5) media, in order to compare the behaviour to that observed in the neutral Na2SO4 solution.
In the alkaline electrolyte, the band bending varies only slightly with the applied potential, reflecting a shift of band edge and the filling/emptying of the surface states during polarization. Moreover, the exponential distribution of capacities of surface states is more spread out (850 meV) in alkaline solution than in the neutral solution (257meV), showing clearly the particular role of the OH groups at the surface of the tubes.
In the acidic electrolyte, a phenomenon of diffusion –insertion of protons should be taken into account for interpreting the spectra of EIS. H atoms play the role of electron donors able to increase the carrier density in the wall of the tubes. The comparison between the behaviours in the 3 media clearly associates the surface states to hydroxyl groups.
In the last part of this thesis, experiments were performed on TiO2 –NT(TB) in a NaOH electrolyte, using Intensity Modulated Photocurrent Spectroscopy (IMPS), and the results are discussed in comparison with a thin compact film deposed on a titanium foil par PVD.


Covid-19 has been declared a pandemic by the world health organization in march 2020. the pandemic has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths globally. In curtailing the pandemic, countries and organizations have responded by implementing MCO measures such as the quarantine of suspected victims and communities, social distancing, and all forms of lockdowns. Furthermore, the sudden MCO measures imposed globally presented individuals, organizations and countries with many major challenges they weren't prepared for. While this have forced many businesses, events, conventions and organizations to halt activities, many are able to continue their daily activities virtually, using the cloud IT systems. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine how the structural factors of work overload and social pressure influences employee's cognitive strain and their interaction with the Shadow Cloud IT systems during the MCO period. This research follows the quantitative approach design. The respondents are employees and online survey method was used in collecting data. SPSS and PLS-SEM applications were used in the data analysis. The result shows that work overload and social pressure have a direct significant relationship with employee's Shadow Cloud IT usage while only work overload had a direct relationship with cognitive strain. The result also shows that cognitive strain is significantly related with shadow Cloud IT usage during the covid-19 pandemic global lockdown. Organizations presently are at the risk of information systems security breaches and exposure of organization data, as a result of employees increased interactions with Shadow Cloud IT.


This paper assumes a smart grid framework where the driving patterns for electric vehicles are known, time variations in electricity prices are communicated to householders, and data on voltage variation throughout the distribution system are available. Based on this information, an aggregator with access to this data can be employed to minimise electric vehicles charging costs to the owner whilst maintaining acceptable distribution system voltages. In this study, electric vehicle charging is assumed to take place only in the home. A single-phase Low Voltage (LV) distribution network is investigated where the local electric vehicles penetration level is assumed to be 100%. Electric vehicle use patterns have been extracted from the UK Time of Use Survey data with a 10-min resolution and the domestic base load is generated from an existing public domain model. Apart from the so-called real time price signal, which is derived from the electricity system wholesale price, the cost of battery degradation is also considered in the optimal scheduling of electric vehicles charging. A simple and effective heuristic method is proposed to minimise the electric vehicles' charging cost whilst satisfying the requirement of state of charge for the electric vehicles' battery. A simulation in OpenDSS over a period of 24 h has been implemented, taking care of the network constraints for voltage level at the customer connection points. The optimisation results are compared with those obtained using dynamic optimal power flow.


We present a cache-oblivious ray reordering method for ray tracing. Many global illumination methods such as path tracing and photon mapping use ray tracing and generate lots of rays to simulate various realistic visual effects. However, these rays tend to be very incoherent and show lower cache utilizations during ray tracing of models. In order to address this problem and improve the ray coherence, we propose a novel Hit Point Heuristic (HPH) to compute a coherent ordering of rays. The HPH uses the hit points between rays and the scene as a ray reordering measure. We reorder rays by using a space-filling curve based on their hit points. Since a hit point of a ray is available only after performing the ray intersection test with the scene, we compute an approximate hit point for the ray by performing an intersection test between the ray and simplified representations of the original models. Our method is a highly modular approach, since our reordering method is decoupled from other components of common ray tracing systems. We apply our method to photon mapping and path tracing and achieve more than an order of magnitude performance improvement for massive models that cannot fit into main memory, compared to rendering without reordering rays. Also, our method shows a performance improvement even for ray tracing small models that can fit into main memory. This performance improvement for small and massive models is caused by reducing cache misses occurring between different memory levels including the L1/L2 caches, main memory, and disk. This result demonstrates the cache-oblivious nature of our method, which works for various kinds of cache parameters. Because of the cache-obliviousness and the high modularity, our method can be widely applied to many existing ray tracing systems and show performance improvements with various models and machines that have different cache parameters.


The research reported on in this paper was conducted as part of a larger project. That project is on-going and is focused on ascertaining if irradiation of processed meats would be effective and economical. It involved the examination, through modeling, of the irradiation of one of many currently produced ready-to-eat (RTE) convenience-oriented, value-added pork products, sliced boneless ham. The results and findings reported in this paper represent the initial estimates of the cost and potential profitability or economic viability of irradiation of processed meats. The results and findings in this paper should be considered preliminary with extension and verification to be reported in a later paper by the authors. The objective of the portion of that project reported on in this paper was to conduct cost analysis of alternative irradiation methods and to ascertain the cost of each of those methods. Three scenarios were considered for cost analysis. The first scenario was the installation of an X-ray irradiator at an existing meat processing plant. The second scenario was the installation of a Cobalt-60 irradiator at an existing meat processing plant. The third scenario assumed that the meat processor contracted for irradiation services from an off-site company providing such service to a number of clients. For purposes of this study it was assumed that irradiation of sliced boneless ham would result in either a $.06/pound reduction in costs from processor to consumer, a $.06/pound increase in willingness to pay [price] or an equivalent combination of reduced costs and increased price. Total cost per pound for the irradiation process applied to sliced boneless ham ranged from $0.008, at the 200 million pound annual throughput rate using Cobalt-60 irradiation, to $0.069 at the 50 million pound annual throughput rate when contracting with an off-site company.


Protecting the location privacy is still one of the main challenges in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks(VANETs). Although, standardization bodies such as IEEE and ETSI have adopted the pseudonymous scheme as a solution to this problem, an efficient pseudonym changing and management is still an open issue. In this paper, we propose a complete and efficient pseudonym management and changing scheme based on Vehicular Location Privacy Zone (VLPZ). We define VLPZ as a roadside infrastructure designed to pseudonyms management and changing. This scheme considers that the vehicular geographic area is partitioned as a grid, where each cell contains one or many VLPZs. The location privacy protection level provided by the scheme depends on the VLPZ capacity and the number of vehicles that are inside it at the same time. For this reason, we also propose a reputation mechanism to stimulate vehicles to enter to the VLPZ, and finally evaluate the performances of the proposed scheme using Veins Framework based on OMNet++ network simulator and SUMO mobility. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.


Evidence is presented which suggest that the 1971 San Fernando earthquake may have been a double event that occurred on two separate, subparallel thrust faults. It is postulated that the initial event took place at depth on the Sierra Madre fault zone which runs along the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Rupture is postulated to have occurred from a depth of about 15 km to a depth of about 3 km. A second event is thought to have initiated about 4 sec later on another steeply dipping thrust fault which is located about 4 km south of the Sierra Madre fault zone. The surface trace of this fault coincides with the San Fernando fault zone which was the principal fault associated with surface rupture. It is postulated that rupture propagated from a depth of 8 km to the free surface. The moments of the first and second events are approximately 0.7 × 10^(26) dyne-cm and 1.0 × 10^(26) dyne-cm, respectively. This model is found to explain the combined data sets of strong ground motions, teleseismic P and S waveforms, and static offsets better than previous models, which consist of either a single fault plane or a plane having a dip angle which shallows with decreasing depth. Nevertheless, many features of the observed motions remain unexplained, and considerable uncertainty still exists regarding the faulting history of the San Fernando earthquake.


Enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAEC) is an emerging cause of acute and persistent diarrhea worldwide. EAEC infections are associated with intestinal inflammation and growth impairment in infected children, even in the absence of diarrhea. We previously reported that prototype EAEC strains rapidly induce IL-8 production by Caco-2 intestinal epithelial cells, and that this effect is mediated by a soluble, heat-stable factor released by these bacteria in culture. We herein report the cloning, sequencing, and expression of this biologically active IL-8-releasing factor from EAEC, and its identification as a flagellin that is unique among known expressed proteins. Flagella purified from EAEC 042 and several other EAEC isolates potently release IL-8 from Caco-2 cells; an engineered aflagellar mutant of 042 does not release IL-8. Finally, cloned EAEC flagellin expressed in nonpathogenic E. coli as a polyhistidine-tagged fusion protein maintains its proinflammatory activity. These findings demonstrate a major new means by which EAEC may cause intestinal inflammation, persistent diarrhea, and growth impairment that characterize human infection with these organisms. Furthermore, they open new approaches for diagnosis and vaccine development. This novel pathogenic mechanism of EAEC extends an emerging paradigm of bacterial flagella as inflammatory stimuli.


In recent years, 2.5D packaging has quickly turned from a buzzword into an Advanced Packaging reality. Not dissimilar to the Multi-Chip-Modules (MCMs) of the past, 2.5D packages utilizing high density interposers with favorable electrical characteristics can be a cost efficient and high performance alternative to significantly more complex 3D or SOC integration schemes. Dictated by the trend towards ever thinner, smaller and higher integrated and more capable devices, high density interposer technology is required to enable 2.5D packages. Patterning of these kinds of substrates, regardless if manufactured on silicon, glass or other suitable materials requires relatively advanced lithography systems. Simple contact or proximity exposure is no longer up to the task. This paper specifically lists the various patterning / lithography challenges which are being encountered when manufacturing high density 2.5D interposers. Typical backend lithography requirements regarding minimum resolution, overlay, maximum sidewall angle capability in relatively thick resist and depth of focus are established and discussed. In addition, the application-specific lithography challenges such as a large exposure field size, IR backside alignment capability for TSV (Through-Silicon-Via) or TSG (Through-Glass-Via) definitions and warped wafer or substrate handling are being reviewed and characterized. As with all back-end processes, interposer manufacturing must be extremely cost efficient and high yielding. A middle ground between costly front-end processes and more robust, faster and lower cost back-end processes has to be found. This paper also discusses potential cost reduction via economy of scale. A lithography cost analysis for glass interposer manufacturing on large panels is being offered.


Pure nickel powder was low pressure plasma sprayed onto a steel substrate held at different temperatures during spraying. The as-sprayed coatings consist of columnar grains whose axes are nearly perpendicular to the lamellae composing the coatings. As the coating temperature becomes higher, the length of the columnar grains increases and is longer than the thickness of the lamellae, indicating the growth of the grains across the lamellar interfaces during spraying. On the other hand, the coatings that were heat treated after spraying consist of coarse equiaxed grains. The coatings that experienced high temperatures during spraying or the heat treated coatings have large porosity and contain large globular pores. The hardness, apparent density and the tensile strength of the coating itself were the highest for the coating prepared at a low temperature and became low on heat treatment. The thermal conductivity in the direction perpendicular to the coating was the largest for the coating that consisted of long columnar grains.


This paper is an introduction to fuzzy set theory. It tries to explain the emergence of fuzzy set from a historical perspective and scan the basic definitions in the field that are required for proper understanding of the generally abstract notion of fuzzy sets. Furthermore, the paper explained the extension of fuzzy sets to fuzzy logic theory and provides counterparts of various set-theoretic notions such as equality, union, intersection and complementation in fuzzy set theory. It observed that some properties of classical logic are contradicted in fuzzy logic. The basic mathematical framework of fuzzy set theory is explicated and the most important current applications of fuzzy logic are highlighted. The use of Fuzzy logic in control engineering is illustrated using fuzzy washing machine. Keywords— Fuzzy Inference, Fuzzy Operators, Fuzzy Logic Control, Load.


Luminosity determination within the ALICE experiment is based on the measurement, in van der Meer scans, of the cross sections for visible processes involving one or more detectors (visible cross sections). In 2015 and 2018, the Large Hadron Collider provided Pb–Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √ s NN = 5 . 02 TeV. Two visible cross sections, associated with particle detection in the Zero Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) and in the V0 detector, were measured in a van der Meer scan. This article describes the experimental set-up and the analysis procedure, and presents the measurement results. The analysis involves a comprehensive study of beam-related effects and an improved fitting procedure, compared to previous ALICE studies, for the extraction of the visible cross section. The resulting uncertainty of both the ZDC-based and the V0-based luminosity measurement for the full sample is 2.5%. The inelastic cross section for hadronic interactions in Pb–Pb collisions at √ s NN = 5 . 02 TeV, obtained by efficiency correction of the V0-based visible cross section, was measured to be 7.67 ± 0.25 b, in agreement with predictions using the Glauber model.


Despite the economic importance of the U.S. stock market, there is strikingly little evidence of its impact on elections. Using county-level variation in stock market participation, we document a causal impact of market returns on election outcomes. High-participation counties are more likely to vote for the incumbent party when the market has performed well relative to low-participation counties. The effect is weaker in Republican-leaning counties and more politically active counties, and comes mostly through the intensive margin rather than affecting turnout. Our findings provide evidence of a novel channel through which stock market fluctuations could be transmitted into the real economy.


In the past 20 years, we had seen 6 patients of carcinoma arising from scar, accounting for 0.78% (6/765) of all inpatients with scars and 17% (6/35) of all skin carcinoma patients. The causes were thermal burn, radiation burn and trauma. In 2 cases of radiation burn, one was irradiated for the treatment of hairy legs with 60Co. The carcinoma was diagnosed 6 years after irradiation, and he died of bone sarcoma 12 years after irradiation. In a patient, X-ray irradiation was given for keratosis of the palm, and scar carcinoma of palm developed 22 years after radiation. Scar carcinoma is a highly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma in most of the cases. Because of scar fibrosis and thrombosis of blood vessel and lymphatic vessel, the growth of scar carcinoma is slow. The metastasis is restricted. If the carcinoma can be diagnosed and treated early, the prognosis is favorable. The principle of operation is wide excision of the lesion. In some cases amputation is a safe but radical surgery.


Since 1954, renal transplantation from one identical twin to another has been reported in 25 cases, 1,6-9,12,15,18,22 of which 18 have been done by Murray and his associates 15 in Boston. Inasmuch as such twins develop from the same fertilized ovum, their tissues are genetically identical and consequently mutually acceptable for homografting. 5,13 The problems encountered with tissue transplantation under these circumstances are essentially technical and concern details of procurement, transfer, and revascularization of the kidney. The present report is of a renal transplantation performed in March, 1962. The kidney was donated by a healthy 27-year-old man to his identical twin brother who suffered from terminal glomerulonephritis. In caring for these patients, some variations were evolved from the operative methods previously standardized by Murray, Merrill, and Harrison, 13,18 involving not only the removal but the preservation and reimplantation of the kidney. In addition, a syndrome of postoperative microscopic hematuria occurred


Drill cuttings are generally used in open pits and quarries as the most common stemming material, since these are most readily available at blast sites. The plaster stemming method has been found to be better than the drill cuttings stemming method, due to increased confinement inside the hole and better utilization of blast explosive energy in the rock. The main advantage of the new stemming method is the reduction in the cost of blasting. At a limestone quarry, blasting costs per unit volume of rock were reduced by 7%. This is obtained by increasing burden and spacing distances. In addition, better fragmentation was obtained by using the plaster stemming method. Blast trials showed that plaster stemming produced finer material than the conventional methods. In the same blast tests, +20 cm size fragments reduced to 42.6% of the total, compared to 48.7% in the conventional method of drill cuttings stemming.


The thin skull rule for delineating the scope of a defendant's liability for a negligent act stipulates that a defendant must take his victim as he finds her. If the victim suffers an unusual level of harm from a wrongful act as a result of a pre-existing vulnerability, the defendant must nonetheless compensate the victim for the full extent of the harm. Yet what if hte plaintiff's claimed vulnerability arises from religious behaviour? This paper scrutinizes whether and how Canadian courts might treat a religiously motivated action as a thin skull. After an inquiry into the origins and the function of the thin skull rule and an examination of how courts treat religious liberty, I draw on common law and civilian jurisprudence and doctrine for an analysis of what the rule intends to protect and the degree to which its goals in the private law overlap with public law safeguards for fundamental freedoms. In light of our existing conception of the functions of civil liability, as well as courts' guidance on how best to judicially respect key freedoms, I conclude that the most logical way to deal with potential religious thin skulls would be through recourse to a balancing exercise akin to the framework established in section 9.1 of the Quebec Charter and used by the Supreme Court in Amselem. An individualized approach, rather than a blanket acceptance or rejection of religious action as a thin skull, will best serve the aims of both civil liability rules and public law principles.


This dissertation examines how indigenous Mapuche children's illnesses are defined in Mapuche ethnomedicine and Chilean primary care medicine. Based on 11 months of fieldwork in the Araucania Region of Chile, the study documents the illness account genres of pelotun pronouncements and presenting concerns, which drive the respective diagnostic processes of these two medical systems. The study draws on a data corpus that includes videorecordings of 32 pediatric acute care appointments with general practice physicians and 45 consultations with Mapuche healers. It combines ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to explore how indigenous families and the medical practitioners with whom they seek care negotiate the rights and responsibilities that are associated with representing children's illness trajectories for the purposes of diagnosis. The study asks what stands to be gained and what is at stake in the representation of illness experience and the cultural construction of clinical realities. To address this question, the study adopts a linguistic anthropological view of genre that sees generic conventions as flexible and successful performances as social achievements. In light of this perspective, the study identifies the orienting frameworks, role expectations, and normative features of pelotun pronouncements and presenting concerns in the context of their performance. Analytic attention is given to the process of selection of a primary teller to establish what is ailing a patient, the generic regimentation of tellership rights, the evidentiary grounds on which accounts are based, and the ways participants hold each other accountable for the accounts they produce. Illustrative cases of both felicitous and problematic accounts demonstrate the range of semiotic resources that characterize each genre and show how participants orient to, legitimize, enforce, and challenge generic norms. The close analysis of these medical discursive genres is contextualized by discussions concerning the contemporary situation of ethnic discrimination and unequal medical plurality that exists in southern Chile.


Study objective: To examine the role of specialist outreach in supporting primary health care and overcoming the barriers to health care faced by the indigenous population in remote areas of Australia, and to examine issues affecting its sustainability. Design: A process evaluation of a specialist outreach service, using health service utilisation data and interviews with health professionals and patients. Setting: The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory, where Darwin is the capital city and the major base for hospital and specialist services. In the rural and remote areas outside Darwin there are many small, predominantly indigenous communities, which are greatly disadvantaged by a severe burden of disease and limited access to medical care. Participants: Seventeen remote health practitioners, five specialists undertaking outreach, five regional health administrators, and three patients from remote communities. Main results: The barriers faced by many remote indigenous people in accessing specialist and hospital care are substantial. Outreach delivery of specialist services has overcome some of the barriers relating to distance, communication, and cultural inappropriateness of services and has enabled an over fourfold increase in the number of consultations with people from remote communities. Key issues affecting sustainability include: an adequate specialist base; an unmet demand from primary care; integration with, accountability to and capacity building for a multidisciplinary framework centred in primary care; good communication; visits that are regular and predictable; funding and coordination that recognises responsibilities to both hospitals and the primary care sector; and regular evaluation. Conclusions: In a setting where there is a disadvantaged population with inadequate access to medical care, specialist outreach from a regional centre can provide a more equitable means of service delivery than hospital based services alone. A sustainable outreach service that is organised appropriately, responsive to local community needs, and has an adequate regional specialist base can effectively integrate with and support primary health care processes. Poorly planned and conducted outreach, however, can draw resources away and detract from primary health care.


A 42-year-old woman was admitted to our department in October of 2014 due to abdominal pain that had begun 2 weeks earlier. On admission she did not present crucial abnormalities upon physical examination , other than a longitudinal scar in the anterior abdominal wall. Abdominal ultrasonography showed a peripancreatic tumor with signs of blood flow inside (Figure 1 A). According to the patient's medical history , three hospitalizations had occurred on other wards due to: severe acute pancreatitis (August of 2012); a pancreatic pseudocyst that required drainage under endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) control (October of 2013); and a tumor of the pancreatic head (50 × 53 × 51 mm on abdominal computed tomography (CT)) and diabetes mellitus (September of 2014). During the last hospitalization the patient was referred to the Surgical Department because of the obscure character of the tumor of the pancreatic head and a family history of pancreatic cancer in order to perform the pancrea-to-duodenectomy. However, during the laparotomy the surgeons changed the primary plan and biopsies were taken only from the tumor. The results of the biopsies showed inflammatory and fibroid tissue in the pancre-atic lesion (September 2014). In our department, the initial suspicion of a vascu-lar pancreatic lesion was confirmed using computed tomography angiography (angio-CT), which described: pseudoaneurysm of the gastroduodenal artery, 50 × 40 mm in size (Figures 1 B–D), gastric fundus varices, liver steatosis with perfusion disturbances, and a dilated Wirsung duct. The female patient thus qualified for endovascular embolization. However, the procedure failed due to a problem with the catheterization of the vessel supplying the pseudoaneurysm. The patient was discharged without further complications. A second intervention was postponed due to radiation and the unchanged diameter of the pseudoaneurysm compared to September 2014. In November 2014, the patient was admitted due to signs of hemorrhage into the digestive tract with an obscure bleeding source, but without he-modynamic instability or significant decline in hemo-globin blood concentration. A second embolization of the gastroduodenal artery with coils placed distally and proximally to the canal supplying the lesion (to avoid ret-rograde filling) was performed with success. Control an-giography (Figure 1 E) and ultrasonography (Figure 1 F) performed 2 months after discharge did not detect any residual pseudoaneurysm. Visceral artery aneurysms are divided into true or pseudoaneurysms [1]. Moreover, pseudoaneurysms are classified according to: the type of artery from which they originated, communication with the gastrointes-tinal tract, and potential exposure …


Since about thirty years, no relapsing fever due to Borrelia duttoni is recorded from Madagascar. A survey was conducted in the formerly endemic area, between Soalala and Majunga, in order to collect data on possible cases and to look if the vector, Ornithodoros moubata is still present. No mention of the disease was recorded; all Ornithodoros seem to have completely disappeared in the area, without any clear reason. However, a few O. moubata specimens were recorded from piggeries in Mahasolo, 150 km west of Tananarive, outside the endemic area.


Canadian researchers are actively engaged in the development of novel cast, wrought and composite materials that are based on Mg. An overview is provided of Canadian research projects for new applications of Mg alloys that are targeted to the growing needs of the automotive sector. The research work described is funded primarily through two federal programs: the Canadian Lightweight Materials Research Initiative, and the Materials and Manufacturing Theme of the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence. It includes work on mechanical and corrosion performance of high-pressure die castings, gravity and low pressure castings using permanent and sand molds, sheet Mg development and magnesium matrix composites. The metallurgical research facilities at the CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory are featured.


In this paper, we present a novel approach to enhance hierarchical phrase-based machine translation systems with linguistically motivated syntactic features. Rather than directly using treebank categories as in previous studies, we learn a set of linguistically-guided latent syntactic categories automatically from a source-side parsed, word-aligned parallel corpus, based on the hierarchical structure among phrase pairs as well as the syntactic structure of the source side. In our model, each X nonterminal in a SCFG rule is decorated with a real-valued feature vector computed based on its distribution of latent syntactic categories. These feature vectors are utilized at decoding time to measure the similarity between the syntactic analysis of the source side and the syntax of the SCFG rules that are applied to derive translations. Our approach maintains the advantages of hierarchical phrase-based translation systems while at the same time naturally incorporates soft syntactic constraints.


Abstract The Science and Engineering Research Council recognized the need for a soft clay test bed site in Britain. The agreed specification was for a site of at least five hectares of normally consolidated material with a plasticity index greater than 20% and a thickness greater than 10 m. The paper describes the philosophy behind the selection process and details the feasibility studies undertaken at Brean and Newport on the Severn Estuary, Swale on the Thames Estuary and Bothkennar on the Forth Estuary. As a result of these investigations the Bothkennar site was chosen. The consistency of the Carse Clay deposits in the Forth Estuary is shown to be related to the similar rates of eustatic and isostatic rise in that area between about 8500 and 6500 years BP. The southeast corner of the site has more silt-rich/laminated material, believed to be related to a meander infill. The site level is slightly lower than the immediate hinterland, suggesting the effects of isostatic uplift have been compounded by flood tide erosion, which it is believed has removed the upper part of the original Carse Clay deposits.


Extant populations growing in regions that were refugia during the last glacial period are expected to show higher genetic diversity than populations that moved from these refugia into new areas in higher latitudes. Such new populations likely faced harsher climatic conditions, being established with reduced population size and experiencing the effects of genetic bottlenecks. In this study we employed data from nuclear SSR markers for detecting molecular signatures of genetic bottlenecks, and germination experiments to evaluate reduction of populations' fitness in natural populations of Luehea divaricata Mart. et Zucc., growing in the southern range of the species distribution (around 30°S latitude). Signatures of genetic bottlenecks and reduction of populations' fitness were observed in all populations. Lower levels of observed heterozygosity are correlated with populations' fitness, decreasing germination capacity and increasing the proportion of anomalous germinated plantlets. Promoting the connection among populations is proposed as a key strategy towards conservation of L. divaricata genetic resources in its southernmost distribution range. The offspring from crosses among populations would significantly increase the observed heterozygosity and fitness of multiple populations.


Convincing evidence that activated macrophages play a critical role in control of mycobacterial diseases has been clearly established from animal and in-vitro studies. Macrophages produce a variety of molecules upon appropriate stimulation, which act in concert towards eventual killing of bacteria. People with SUb-optimal macrophage activation are more susceptible to infection with intracellular pathogens. My project aims to answer two questions relating to genetic regulation of macrophage activation in tuberculosis: do macrophage genes regulate microbial-induced responses and do macrophage genes influence susceptibility to tuberculosis? A whole blood assay was used to investigate IFN-y responsiveness in healthy individuals and those who develop tuberculosis in The Gambia. Cytokine responses to lipopolysaccaride (LPS), Lipoarabinomanan (LAM) and the enhancing effect of IFN-y on these stimulants were measured. LPS induced IL-l 0 levels was higher in recovered TB cases than in controls (p=0.02). LPS and LAM induced cytokines were highly correlated (p<0.0001) similarly, levels of IL-1β and TNF were highly correlated (P<0.0001). Ten new polymorphisms were detected by sequencing specific regions within the promoter of IFNG and IFNGR1 genes. One, a double deletion of TT in the promoter of IFNGR1, abolishes a GAS binding site at position -470 and another, a C/T transition, is close to a putative NF-kappa β binding site at position -56 in the IFNGR1 gene (positions are relative to the transcription start site). These along with published polymorphisms at some macrophage candidate gene loci were genotyped. Comparisons were made to determine whether different alleles at candidate gene loci influence macrophage cytokine responses. TNFA-863, LTA Nco1 lL1RN and NRAMP1 (469+14) polymorphisms were shown to influence macrophage cytokine levels significantly. TNFA-863 was associated with LPS induced TNF (P< 0.05), LTA was associated with LAM and LPS induced TNF and IL- β levels (p< 0.01). NRAMP1 (469+14) was associated with LAM induced 1L-10 (P< 0.01) and IL1RN was associated with LAM and LPS induced IL-10 (P<0.05).
 Alleles 1 (G) of TNFA-308, 2 (A) of TNFA-238, 1 (T) of IL1B-511 and 2 (ddel/T) of IFNGR1 were significantly associated with TB in the panel of samples studied. For the microsatellite markers, allele 5 of IL9 (TG)n repeat in intron 4 and allele 3 of the Z DNA promoter polymorphism NRAMP1, were significantly associated with TB.
 NRAMP1 INT4 variant was significantly associated with both TB and LAM induced IL-10 secretion.


Critics of anti-social behaviour policy (ASB) introduced by New Labour Government
since 1997 argue that it is overly punitive, and criminalises what is often sub-criminal or
nuisance behaviour. Further criticism is that policy implementation through formal
channels has led to the public increasingly relying on formal agencies in the
governance of ASB, and becoming less willing to play an active role. The catalyst for
my research was two Community Safety Teams aim to reverse this trend.
I have developed an innovative approach in the form of a booklet (Let s Talk) based on
the under-researched Imagined Intergroup Contact model associated with the
Intergroup Contact Theory which underpins Intergenerational Practice. My thesis
centres on the piloting of the booklet in two regions in England, and the proposition that
 Intergenerational approaches can be a useful way of understanding and addressing
tensions associated with perceived anti-social behaviour by young people .
Drawing broadly on a social constructionist paradigm (Burr, 1995), and using an
inductive case study approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via
various research tools. The sample included local residents, representatives of
community organisations and the Community Safety Teams (CST). Data were coded
and analysed using NVivo and SPSS. Theoretical data analysis was underpinned by
the Integrated Threat Theory and the Social Cognitive Theory. Compared with other
theories associated with Intergenerational Practice, the Integrated Threat Theory gave
a more comprehensive explanation for intergenerational tensions. SCT gave new
insights into the concept of agency in relation to the governance of ASB.
My research identified anti-social behaviour that the CSTs felt did not warrant formal
intervention, and the booklet received enthusiastic support from all parties consulted as
an alternative, community-based approach. Reasons for a few individuals not wanting
to adopt the booklet approach were identified; these included personal factors and
social dynamics. My findings provided important knowledge for the future development
and use of the booklet.
This thesis makes a significant contribution to knowledge. Firstly, it extends the
theoretical explanation of intergenerational tensions, and adds insights into the concept
of governance and the theoretical underpinnings of Intergenerational Practice.
Secondly, it advances implications for practice in relation to fully exploring social
dynamics other than intergenerational issues, taking account of potential multigenerational
factors, and being aware that preparatory activities to strengthen selfefficacy
may be required.


Image Fakery Detection Based on Singular Value Decomposition. The growing of image processing technology nowadays make it easier for user to modify and fake the images. Image fakery is a process to manipulate part or whole areas of image either in it content or context with the help of digital image processing techniques. Image fakery is barely unrecognizable because the fake image is looking so natural. Yet by using the numerical computation technique it is able to detect the evidence of fake image. This research is successfully applied the singular value decomposition method to detect image fakery. The image preprocessing algorithm prior to the detection process yields two vectors orthogonal to the singular value vector which are important to detect fake image. The result of experiment to images in several conditions successfully detects the fake images with threshold value 0.2. Singular value decomposition-based detection of image fakery can be used to investigate fake image modified from original image accurately.


Abstract The paper presents Josefina Niggli (1910–83), an American mid-twentieth-century writer who was born and grew up in Mexico, and her novel Mexican Village (1945). A connoisseur of Mexican culture and tradition, and at the same time conscious of the stereotypical perceptions of Mexico in the United States, Niggli saw it as her literary goal to "reveal" the "true" Mexico as she remembered it to her American readers. Somewhat forgotten for several decades, Niggli, preoccupied with issues of marginalization, hybridization, and ambiguity, is now becoming of interest to literary critics as a forerunner of Chicano/a literature. In her novel Mexican Village, set in the times of the Mexican Revolution, she creates a prototypical bicultural and bilingual Chicano protagonist, who becomes witness to the rise of Mexico's modern national identity.


The most important task of modern education is the formation of a highly developed personality capable of effectively assimilating knowledge, making non-standard decisions and thinking creatively. Modernization of the content of education, renewal of teaching methods and means are the basis of new pedagogical searches. The study of the problem of interdisciplinarity is important for the development of scientific, theoretical foundations of pedagogy, as well as for the practical activities of teachers. Interdisciplinarity will be able to provide a unified methodological basis for the subject system as a whole by highlighting systematizing scientific ideas that facilitate learning in all subjects. Interdisciplinary approaches are in line with the pressing problems of modern education. Since academic subjects are built in the logic of specific sciences, and all of them to one degree or another are related to each other, it becomes necessary to establish interdisciplinarity. Thus, the main purpose of the article is to determine the basic features of the interdisciplinarity of modern pedagogy. The research was carried out using the following theoretical methods: systems analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison, classification, generalization and systematization, idealization and abstraction.


The main aim of this paper is to define weak spots in the Far Eastern federal district's development in comparison with other federal districts in the Russian Federation based on a statistical and economic analysis, and shape general conclusions on possible improvement of the economic development of the region. Socio-economic disparities between regions are an important issue in many countries. Both state legislation's and governmental institutions' goal is to reduce or eliminate imbalance between regions by implementing regional development plans, creating funds and policies in order to ensure security, stability and prosperity. Regional economic growth and development encompasses multiple disciplines, including geography and planning, regional science, entrepreneurship, technology policy and economics. Bearing different regional development terms put forward by scientists and international organisations it can be pointed out that regional development policy has evolved over the last 50 years from simpler massive investment into infrastructure development to an understanding of region's unique features in order to uncover full potential of the region's competitive advantages by certain plans and policies. Understanding the region's socio-economic, geographical and cultural features is key for elicitation of regional competitive advantages and development policy proposition. Moreover, policy effectiveness assessment backed by a detailed analysis is crucial for new regional development policy proposition. It must be taken into account that despite significant investment projects, aid for growth and regional development some of the largest federal districts by area, in Russia, still fall behind other homeland regions in manufacturing, mining and quarrying, electricity, gas and water: the economic sectors that comprise a powerhouse of the national economy. The underdevelopment some of the largest federal districts of the Russian Federation, regional administrative management inefficiencies and failure to use development funds and programs to their full potential present severe development obstacles and socio economic threats in the future. Policy makers must assess the effectiveness of federal investments, financial aid, foreign investments and overall investment climate and identify major areas of improvement. Moreover, policy makers should work towards improvement of the existing regional strategy or develop a new regional development initiative that includes possible solutions for problematic issues. A new economic development initiative that provides funding for large scale manufacturing deployment projects that encourage economic growth and substitute imported machinery, equipment and vehicles in Far Eastern federal district must be development and implemented.


Aim: The purpose of this study was to make an electromyographic comparison of the action potentials of the upper and lower segments of the orbicularis oris muscle, bilaterally, in youngsters with Class II, Division 1 malocclusion and youngsters with normal occlusion in order to verify whether or not there is a difference between the two groups with regard to the electromyographic activity that occurs. methods: The sample consisted of 50 girls, in the age-range from 8 to 10 years, with no previous orthodontic treatment, divided into two groups: 25 with Class II, Division 1 malocclusion and 25 with normal occlusion. Electromyographic signals of the orbicularis oris muscle were acquired using Ag/AgCl surface electrodes. Muscle activity was recorded in the resting position, in the isometric contraction and in the isotonic contraction and the Root Mean Square (RMS) values of each movement were determined. The data collected were submitted to statistical analyses of variance and Tukey test (α=0.05). Results: The results showed that there was a difference in electromyographic activity between the young girls with Class II, Division 1 malocclusion and those with normal occlusion. Muscle activity was higher in the girls with malocclusion than in those with normal occlusion. conclusion: This suggests lower competence of the orbicularis oris muscle in the girls with Class II, Division 1 malocclusion.


INTRODUCTION
Paediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) carries a relatively higher mortality and morbidity than adult MS. Paediatric MS symptoms and paraclinical findings at the first demyelinating event have never before been characterised in a Danish setting. The aim of this study was to compare symptoms and paraclinical findings at the first demyelinating event in paediatric MS with those of an adult MS population.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
A total of 18 subjects with onset of MS relapse before 16 years of age were retrospectively included in the study. Case records were reviewed for symptoms at disease onset, cerebrospinal fluid findings, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and evoked potentials at the first demyelinating event. These data were compared with similar nationwide data from adults in Denmark.

RESULTS
The median age was 14 (range 10-15) years at the first demyelinating event and the mean time to MS diagnosis was 1.7 years. The majority of children had sensory symptoms (47%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 23-72%) or optic neuritis (35%; CI: 14-62%) as their presenting symptoms. These results did not differ from the findings in adult MS subjects. Pleocytosis was present in 93% (CI: 66-100%) of paediatric MS subjects, 77% (CI: 46-95%) had an elevated IgG index and 85% (CI: 55-98%) had oligoclonal bands in the cerebrospinal fluid. MRI showed characteristic white matter lesions in all children (CI: 80-100%).

CONCLUSION
MS symptoms at the first demyelinating event and diagnostic delay in paediatric MS subjects do not differ significantly from those seen in an adult MS population.

FUNDING
not relevant.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
not relevant.


In an organization, thinks is creative is something necessary for growth and development of the organization. The idea emerges if someone to have ability to think is creative and innovative to situation or renewal problem that need to change and caused by new idea constantly is needed to digs potency, new ideas is progress wheel determining success and determinant for development of the organization. While stress is working, is feeling to depress in consequence of menacing area demand. Stress job is one of enabling factor gives impact to degradation of ability thinks creative. This research done at station employee ATV because employee working in this area required ability to create and finds creative ideas to interesting of beholder that more interests to displaying presented by ATV. Besides employee is working for station ATV is public servant
candidate so that number of employees limited by the Government of Town "Batu" that as according to budget, so that there are still employee who is having two having two different expertise's. In this research applied research planning of non-experiment. Research is done in station ATV Batu, population in this research is station employee ATV Batu while data gotten out of 42 employees. This research done applies program SPSS 1200 by using analysis technique product moment. Instrument of Data collecting applies scale. Instrument consisted of two scale types, namely scale stress job and scale thinks creative. Scale stress job covers duty demand, physical demand, demand the role and demand interpersonal. Result of this research indicates that there is negative influence and significant between stress job to thinking creative of employee ATV BATU, where value (r = 0,737, Sig = 0,001 < 0050). Stress job has effective influence thought creative of employee ATV counted 54,3%, while the rest 46,7% explained by other factor of which is not checked in this research.


Electricity consumption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has grown at an annual rate of about 7% as a result of population and economic growth. The consumption of the residential sector accounts for over 50% of the total energy generation. Moreover, the energy consumption of air-conditioning (AC) systems has become 70% of residential buildings' total electricity consumption in the summer months, leading to a high peak electricity demand. This study investigates solutions that will tackle the problem of high energy demand associated with KSA's air-conditioning needs in residential buildings. To reduce the AC energy consumption in the residential sector, we propose the use of smart control in the thermostat settings. Smart control can be utilized by (i) scheduling and advance control of the operation of AC systems and (ii) remotely setting the thermostats appropriately by the utilities. In this study, we model typical residential buildings and, crucially, occupancy behavior based on behavioral data obtained through a survey. The potential impacts in terms of achievable electricity savings of different AC operation modes for residential houses of Riyadh city are presented. The results from our computer simulations show that the solutions intended to reduce energy consumption effectively, particularly in the advance mode of operation, resulted in a 30% to 40% increase in total annual energy savings.


The paper reports the effects of alpha and beta-adrenergic substances on the cardiac rhythm and electrical activity of the brain under the hypoxic conditions. beta-adrenergic substances were shown to have a stronger influence on these parameters as compared with alpha-adrenergic. The neoepinephrine effects were pronounced before "lifting", while the propranolol effects increased "at the altitude". Neopinephrine was found to have a stimulating effect on the cerebral cortex under the conditions of hypoxia.


The formation of programmed DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs) at the beginning of meiotic prophase marks the initiation of meiotic recombination. Meiotic DSB formation is catalyzed by SPO11 and their repair takes place on meiotic chromosome axes. The evolutionarily conserved MEI4 protein is required for meiotic DSB formation and is localized on chromosome axes. Here, we show that HORMAD1, one of the meiotic chromosome axis components, is required for MEI4 localization. Importantly, the quantitative correlation between the level of axis‐associated MEI4 and DSB formation suggests that axis‐associated MEI4 could be a limiting factor for DSB formation. We also show that MEI1, REC8 and RAD21L are important for proper MEI4 localization. These findings on MEI4 dynamics during meiotic prophase suggest that the association of MEI4 to chromosome axes is required for DSB formation, and that the loss of this association upon DSB repair could contribute to turning off meiotic DSB formation.


We consider the problem of simultaneous reduction of acoustic echo, reverberation and noise. In real scenarios, these distortion sources may occur simultaneously and reducing them implies combining the corresponding distortion-specific filters. As these filters interact with each other, they must be jointly optimized. We propose to model the target and residual signals after linear echo cancellation and dereverberation using a multichannel Gaussian modeling framework and to jointly represent their spectra by means of a neural network. We develop an iterative block-coordinate ascent algorithm to update all the filters. We evaluate our system on real recordings of acoustic echo, reverberation and noise acquired with a smart speaker in various situations. The proposed approach outperforms in terms of overall distortion a cascade of the individual approaches and a joint reduction approach which does not rely on a spectral model of the target and residual signals.


The goal of a Question Paraphrase Retrieval (QPR) system is to retrieve equivalent questions that result in the same answer as the original question. Such a system can be used to understand and answer rare and noisy reformulations of common questions by mapping them to a set of canonical forms. This has large-scale applications for community Question Answering (cQA) and open-domain spoken language question answering systems. In this paper we describe a new QPR system implemented as a Neural Information Retrieval (NIR) system consisting of a neural network sentence encoder and an approximate k-Nearest Neighbour index for efficient vector retrieval. We also describe our mechanism to generate an annotated dataset for question paraphrase retrieval experiments automatically from question-answer logs via distant supervision. We show that the standard loss function in NIR, triplet loss, does not perform well with noisy labels. We propose smoothed deep metric loss (SDML) and with our experiments on two QPR datasets we show that it significantly outperforms triplet loss in the noisy label setting.


Registering images from different modalities is an active area of research in computer aided medical interventions. Several registration algorithms have been developed, many of which achieve high accuracy. However, these results are dependent on many factors, including the quality of the extracted features or segmentations being registered as well as the initial alignment. Although several methods have been developed towards improving segmentation algorithms and automating the segmentation process, few automatic initialization algorithms have been explored. In many cases, the initial alignment from which a registration is initiated is performed manually, which interferes with the clinical workflow. Our aim is to use scene classification in endoscopic procedures to achieve coarse alignment of the endoscope and a preoperative image of the anatomy. In this paper, we show using simulated scenes that a neural network can predict the region of anatomy (with respect to a preoperative image) that the endoscope is located in by observing a single endoscopic video frame. With limited training and without any hyperparameter tuning, our method achieves an accuracy of 76.53 (+/-1.19)%. There are several avenues for improvement, making this a promising direction of research. Code is available at this https URL.


Of all developments surrounding hypermedia, none has been as hotly or frequently debated as the conjunction of fiction and digital technology. J. Yellowlees Douglas considers the implications of this union. She looks at the new light that interactive narratives may shed on theories of reading and interpretation and the possibilities for hypertext novels, World Wide Web-based short stories, and cinematic, interactive narratives on CD-ROM. She confronts questions that are at the center of the current debate: Does an interactive story demand too much from readers? Does the concept of readerly choice destroy the integrity of an author's vision? Does interactivity turn reading fiction from "play" into "work"--too much work? Will hypertext fiction overtake the novel as a form of art or entertainment? And what might future interactive books look like?The book examines criticism on interactive fiction from both proponents and skeptics and examines similarities and differences between print and hypertext fiction. It looks closely at critically acclaimed interactive works, including Stuart Moulthrop's "Victory Garden" and Michael Joyce's "Afternoon: A Story" that illuminate how these hypertext narratives "work." While she sees this as a still-evolving technology and medium, the author identifies possible developments for the future of storytelling from outstanding examples of Web-based fiction and CD-ROM narratives, possibilities that will enable narratives to both portray the world with greater realism an to transcend the boundaries of novels and films, character and plot alike.Written to be accessible to a wide range of readers, this lively and accessibly-written volume will appeal to those interested in technology and cyberculture, as well as to readers familiar with literary criticism and modern fiction.J. Yellowlees Douglas is the Director of the William and Grace Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication, University of Florida. She is the author of numerous articles and essays on the subject of hypertext and interactive literature.


To the Editor: We would like to retract the article entitled "Gene Expression Signatures, Clinicopathological Features, and Individualized Therapy in Breast Cancer," which was published in the April 2, 2008, issue of JAMA. A component of this article reported the use of chemotherapy sensitivity predictions based on an approach described by Potti et al in Nature Medicine in 2006. The Nature Medicine article was recently retracted due to an inability to reproduce the results with the chemotherapy signatures. Because a significant component of this JAMA article was based on the use of chemotherapy signatures reported in the Nature Medicine paper, we have decided to retract the JAMA article. We apologize for any negative impact on scientific research or clinical care caused by the publication of our article in JAMA.


The insulation level of 10 kV power distribution line is low, which is vulnerable to the direct lightning and induction lightning. Lightning is one of the important reasons for the accident of distribution network. In order to re- duce lightning accidents and improve the power supply reliability of distribution network, it's important in theoretic and engineering to run the simulation and real-model experiment of induction lightning overvoltage on the distribution line, which is able to get real lightning data to provide a basis for the simulation of lightning overvoltage. In this paper, the basic idea of the simulation experiment is introduced first. Then, a rational experiment plan is designed according to our aim. Finally, the result of our experiment and simulation is compared, which can confirm the validity of the experiment.


Pakistan is a country with great mountains and valleys consists of a lust variety of plants but this diversity is under threat by human-related events. Murree Hills are considered as one of the multi-floristic place in Pakistan, known for its beauty and tourism. Over the past few years, there has been a drastic change in the vegetation of Murree forest, indicating a loss in biodiversity. We investigated plant species on the basis of their presence/frequency level in the forest and compare these indices to the previous work. Our study recorded 22 new immigrant plant species (including trees, shrubs, and grasses) and 78 plant species that were present in previous findings are now absent from these forests. The number of absent species is greater than the number of immigrated species, indicating biodiversity loss. There are 37 species which are very close to extinction due to human interference. The goal of this article is to explain the extent of this loss, which is important for the implementation of conservation measures to rescue biodiversity in the Murree forest. Key word: Biodiversity, threatened species, deforestation, anthropogenic activities.


A new conceptual framework to define and differentiate among diverse forms of employee ownership is developed. Two central rights associated with ownership, return and control rights, are identified. Their impact on individual motivation, individual performance, organizational structural variables and organizational performance is evaluated. We show how, over certain ranges of combinations of control and return rights, the relationship between alternative ownership arrangements and organizational performance may be nonlinear. The implications for the introduction of employee ownership and the evaluation of empirical work are considered.


Research has revealed that physical activity and a healthy lifestyle are inter alia considered as crucial factors in maintaining optimal health. These relationships are however influenced by age and sex. Women are often constrained in their ability to reach optimum levels of physical activity participation and healthy lifestyle. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of physical activity participation and lifestyle with the constraints experienced by a selected group of women. The respondents in this study included 440 South African Caucasian women, aged 30-65 years ( x = 42.98 ± 9.34) that were randomly selected in an urbanised community. Data were collected by using questionnaires reporting demographic information as well as physical activity participation, lifestyle and constraints to participation. From the descriptive data, it is clear that the most frequently reported individual constraints are those associated with the ambivalent role of women in their daily life. Physical activity and lifestyle showed individual significant relationships with the total constraints to participation of women. Using one-way analysis of variance it became clear that when constraints for participation decrease, the lifestyle of women became significantly (p £ 0.05) better. A multiple regression analysis indicated that lack of opportunities, work and school responsibilities, insufficient money, lack of friends to participate with, family responsibilities, feelings of guilt, poor health and lack of time, contribute significantly (p £ 0.05) to total constraints regarding participation. Key words: Female, physical activity, lifestyle, leisure constraints.


In order to investigate alterations in brain morphology and a possible temporal pattern of neuroanatomical abnormalities in the gray matter (GM), white matter (WM) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of young patients with Down syndrome (DS), high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was performed on 21 children and adolescents with this chromosomal aberration and 27 age-matched participants as controls. In comparison with control subjects, children and adolescents with DS showed not only an overall smaller whole-brain volume, but also volume reductions of the GM in the cerebellum, frontal lobes, frontal region of the limbic lobe, parahippocampal gyri and hippocampi and of the WM in the cerebellum, frontal and parietal lobes, sub-lobar regions and brainstem. By contrast, volume preservation was observed in the GM of the parietal lobes, temporal lobe and sub-lobar regions and in the WM of the temporal lobe and temporal regions of the limbic lobe. A lower volume of CSF was also detected in the frontal lobes. This study is the first to use the high-resolution MRI VBM method to describe a whole-brain pattern of abnormalities in young DS patients falling within such a narrow age range and it provides new information on the neuroanatomically specific regional changes that occur during development in these patients.


Here, we revisit the issue of slip distributions modeled as spatially random fields. For each earthquake in the U.S. Geological Survey's database of finite‐fault models (M 7–9), we measure the parameters of a best‐fitting von Karman autocorrelation function. We explore the source scaling properties of the correlation lengths and the Hurst exponent. We find that the behavior previously observed for more moderate events generally still holds at higher magnitudes and larger source dimensions. However, we find slightly larger correlation lengths and a lower mean Hurst exponent. The most important effect of these differences is that using our preferred parameters to generate stochastic slip models will lead to slightly larger asperities and more small‐scale structure in between them. We also define a new scaling relationship for the standard deviation of slip necessary for a full description of a spatially random field. Here, we also explore the patterns of where hypocenters are located within a fault. We find that strongly unilateral ruptures are comparatively rare and propose several probability density functions that can be used to randomly assign hypocentral positions when creating stochastic sources. When compared to simply randomly assigning the hypocenter anywhere on the fault, this leads to overall shorter duration sources.


Abstract When prey encounter predators, they use different cues to indicate how to respond to minimize the predation risk. How such proximate cues in the environment correspond to the ultimate behaviour of the prey are important for understanding the outcome of predator–prey interactions. The precision of the anti-predator response of juvenile perch,Perca fluviatilis, and roach,Rutilus rutilus, when subjected to predation by piscivorous perch and pike,Esox lucius, and to different types of structure was tested in a wading pool experiment. The predation risk was varied between two habitats (one open water and one structured) by confining the predators to one of the two habitats. The prey were free to choose between habitats. Both perch and pike attacked both prey species but they were only successful in capturing roach. Roach swam faster than juvenile perch in the presence of perch, whereas juvenile perch swam faster than roach in the presence of pike. Juvenile perch inspected the predators more and showed a more flexible inspection behaviour than did roach. Juvenile perch decreased the number of switches between habitats and stayed in the predator-free part of the pool in the presence of perch. In contrast, roach increased their habitat switch frequency in the presence of perch and stayed in the vegetation structure even when there were perch there. Both prey species preferred to stay in the vegetation structure when pike were there. Juvenile perch used both the vegetation and pipe structure as refuges whereas roach used only the vegetation structure as a refuge. The results suggest that juvenile perch use a different cue when assessing predation risk and display a more flexible behaviour compared with roach which simply move into vegetation under the threat of predation irrespective of predator location.


In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) performance for the speech and data traffic is evaluated by results of the reverse link simulation of CDMA-based IMT-2000. Simulations in the reverse link are achieved for indoor, pedestrian, and vehicular environments, which are provided by ITU-R. Also, in these simulations, the fast power control of 1.6 kHz rate is applied. The amplitude and phase of the fading signal are estimated by using the 5-tap FIR filter, and the soft-decision Viterbi and Reed-Solomon (RS) decoding are applied. Simulation results provide the optimum ratio of pilot power to traffic power, the BER performance according to the number of fingers, and performance comparison between convolutional code and concatenated code at 10/sup -6/ BER in 5 MHz system.


Family-centred care is a ubiquitous term in paediatric health facilities. It means that an admitted child can never be treated as a single individual patient and that the family is the unit of care, as the parents and family are central to the child's wellbeing, especially during traumatic experiences. There is no rigorous evidence that familycentred care works, but qualitative research is drawing out some grave concerns with how it is implemented. Part of the problem is that there are many descriptions of familycentred care, but few definitions and some of its component parts may be in place in some health services without the whole model being in place. This causes confusion amongst health professionals and parents and children and makes it impossible to test in a randomised controlled trial. Visit any children's health facility anywhere rich countries, poor ones; tertiary paediatric facilities, community child health services, institutions for children with disabilities and one will find that they say they practise family-centred care. It may be in mission statements, clinical practice guidelines, leaflets for parents, signs on walls, policy documents in other words, everywhere. "Family-centred care" sounds good; it sounds like something to which every health institution which cares for children should definitely use and sounds like a wonderful and ideal way to care for children who need healthcare. After all, every child has a family and every family is affected when a child is ill. There is a wealth of literature about family-centred care, far too much to include here, or even in a single systematic review. Much research has been conducted on it, while many have tried to test it and its application in healthcare. It has been approached from many angles the children's, the parents', the nurses', the doctors', the allied health professionals' and from health service managers' perceptions. Sociologists have had a go, as have historians, philosophers, anthropologists, just about everyone. But what is it? And what does it mean for those on the receiving end, the families? Does it matter? Does it make a difference? Can we test it? Is there an alternative? In this paper I attempt to answer these questions and consider another model that of child-centered care.


Can "twisted" light beams enhance optical communication systems? A conventional propagating free-space laser beam typically has an approximately flat phase front and exhibits an intensity profile that decreases as a function of the radial distance from the beam center. However, in the 1990s, it was shown that propagating light waves can contain an interesting property known as orbital angular momentum (OAM) (1). OAM implies that the light wave's phase front is twisting along the direction of propagation. This twisting of the phase front into a corkscrew shape results in a doughnut-like ring intensity profile (2). It was then demonstrated that a given optical beam with OAM can be encoded with data (3–5). Moreover, a radiowave field trial showed that a free-space radio data link can use OAM for transmission (6). Recent work has demonstrated a 2.56 terabits per second (Tbit/s) free-space optical data transfer using OAM (7).


NMRsolution structures are reported for two mutants (K16E, K16F) of the soluble amyloid beta peptide Abeta(1-28). The structural effects of these mutations of a positively charged residue to anionic and hydrophobic residues at the alpha-secretase cleavage site (Lys16-Leu17) were examined in the membrane-simulating solvent aqueous SDS micelles. Overall the three-dimensional structures were similar to that for the native Abeta(1-28) sequence in that they contained an unstructured N-terminus and a helical C-terminus. These structural elements are similar to those seen in the corresponding regions of full-length Abeta peptides Abeta(1-40) and Abeta(1-42), showing that the shorter peptides are valid model systems. The K16E mutation, which might be expected to stabilize the macrodipole of the helix, slightly increased the helix length (residues 13-24) relative to the K16F mutation, which shortened the helix to between residues 16 and 24. The observed sequence-dependent control over conformation in this region provides an insight into possible conformational switching roles of mutations in the amyloid precursor protein from which Abeta peptides are derived. In addition, if conformational transitions from helix to random coil to sheet precede aggregation of Abeta peptides in vivo, as they do in vitro, the conformation-inducing effects of mutations at Lys16 may also influence aggregation and fibril formation.


Background & Aim: There are several point mutations in hemoglobin(Hb) genes which can cause hemoglobinopathy. Since the mutant Hbs do not have any obvious electrical charge, globin chain separation is helpful for the diagnosis of unknown Hbs. Therefore, the present study was carried out to detect alpha or beta chain variants by cation exchange chromatography. Material and Method: In this descriptive study, 20 samples having abnormal Hb were selected. Complete blood cell count(CBC), HbA2 and HbF percentages were determined by routine methods, and cellulose acetate and citrate agar electrophoresis were performed on all the samples. For HbS confirmation, solubility test was performed and globin chains were separated by carboxymethyl cellulose(CMC) chromatography in the presence of 8 M urea. SPSS version 14 was used for statistical analysis. Results: According to the obtained results, all of the samples had an abnormal band on cellulose acetate and citrate agar electrophoresis. CMC chromatography revealed that three patients had abnormal beta chains, 15 had abnormal alpha chains, and 2 remaining samples had abnormal alpha and beta chains. Conclusion: Mutant alpha and beta chains can be detected by CMC chromatography and globin chain separation is a helpful guideline for the selection of an appropriate gene for DNA sequencing. Moreover, this method is useful to screen the cases for hemoglobinopathies and beta thalassemia coexistance, which can sometimes lead to severe clinical manifestations.


The mechanisms of diplopia occurrence involve the impairment of factors related to optical anatomy, neurological pathways, muscle contraction and position and volume of the orbital content. Although ophthalmologists encounter double vision most often in their practice, this sign is at the crossroad with other medical specialties, such as neurology, maxillofacial surgery and ENT. The purpose of the present review is to systematize the existing information and to enhance the understanding of diplopia-related facts, from the perspective of maxillofacial surgery. Aspects related to clinical examination and imaging are discussed together with an overview of the main causes of diplopia in the context of head and neck disorders. Key factors that should alert the surgeon as to the possible presence of severe conditions, or for emergency surgery, are underlined.


Little is known about how customer satisfaction was formed among users of logistics service in collectivist society particularly in Malaysia. Numbers of a study conducted in western countries which identified the elements contributing to satisfaction, the difference of cultural background between individualistic country and the collectivist country may suggest variations on how collectivist society value the element of logistics service and how they derive maximum satisfaction. In National Culture study conducted by Hofstede (2010) indicates that there is a difference of character/ preferences/ sensitivities between the individualistic and collectivist society. Therefore the objectives of the study are to investigate on what makes the users of logistics service satisfied among the collectivist society. Qualitative research was deployed. Preliminary data collection were conducted, five companies were interviewed for preliminary studies. Three companies are logistics providers, and two is logistics users. Preliminary results show that there are new elements which are not mentioned in any Logistics Service Quality previous works and 3PL reports that they need to know more about what makes their customer satisfied, which became the primary motivation to delve further into the study. The next step is the collection of primary data. Primary data were collected by using face to face interviews using semi-structured questions. Nine (9) logistics service providers and 14 logistics service users (manufacturers) were interviewed. Data were transcribed and analysed by identifying the theme and patterns with the aim to understand the present and emerging theories. The findings show that in achieving customer satisfaction in the Malaysia context, new construct includes the condition of transport and container, consistency of service, cost reduction activities. An existing construct which is order release quantities and order discrepancy handling do not appear to be irrelevant. Subcomponents of the quality of key contact personnel appear to be significant is responsiveness, attentiveness and systematic work. The emerging elements provide the critical insights on the elements which lead to satisfaction in the context of Malaysian logistics service users. Finally is the cultural values which moderate the satisfaction of users include personal relationship, dialects and respect. Rather than the organisation's performance-related factors, the results revealed that, within the Malaysian national culture context, there is the influence of the cultural element towards customer satisfaction.


ABSTRACT Since 2015, Al-Shabaab and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) have been locked in a violent, protracted stalemate. There is little momentum to pursue a political settlement, with Al-Shabaab rejecting any overtures of dialogue. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from peace and conflict literature and key interviews with clan elders and Al-Shabaab defectors, this article explores two interconnected themes. First, Al-Shabaab's dynamic attitudes towards dialogue since the group's establishment; and second, how clan elders play diverse peace-seeking roles, negotiating between Al-Shabaab and FGS at the microlevel. The article highlights two important findings. First, Al-Shabaab was initially inclined toward dialogue but, following the death and defection of senior members, increasingly adopted an anti-negotiation stance. Second, whilst Al-Shabaab is obstinately refusing any dialogue on the macrolevel, at the microlevel, the group indirectly negotiates with the FGS and other actors using clan elders as interlocutors and facilitators. Finally, the article explores the idea that, instead of relying on foreign third-party mediators to resolve Somalia's protracted stalemate at the macrolevel, clan elders, as credible insider-partial mediators possessing locally sourced legitimacy and perceived integrity, have the capacity to help overcome the stalemate between Al-Shabaab and the FGS.


Anti-EGFR efficacy in patients with microsatellite instability (MSI) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) according to sporadic versus familial origin is unknown. We retrospectively analyzed 128 patients with MSI mCRC treated with first-line chemotherapy ± anti-EGFR. Among them, 61 and 67 patients were respectively categorized as familial and sporadic based on mismatch repair protein immunostaining, BRAF mutational status and MLH1 promoter methylation status. We observed that addition of anti-EGFR to chemotherapy was associated with a statistically significant improvement of progression-free survival (PFS) for familial (median: 5.0 versus 10.2 months; HR = 0.47; 95% CI, 0.23-0.94; P=.03) but not for sporadic (median: 4.4 versus 5.4 months; HR = 0.80; 95% CI, 0.39-1.60; P=.52) MSI mCRC patients. In multivariate analysis, the survival benefit of adding anti-EGFR to chemotherapy remained statistically significant for familial MSI cases (P=.04). These findings deserve to be confirmed in a prospective study and could help decision-making in MSI mCRC without access or resistant to immunotherapy.


There is controversy between Putnam and Olson concerning the role of group. Putnam argued that small group makes a contribution to economic growth whereas Olson asserted that small group hampers the economic growth through rent-seeking behavior. Since the end of the 1990s in Japan, there has been a remarkable rise in the rate of enactment of public information-disclosure ordinances by local governments. This paper uses the panel data of Japan to compare the effects of Putnam-type horizontally structured groups and Olson-type vertically structured groups on government information disclosures. The Arellano-Bond type dynamic panel model is employed to control for unobserved fixed effects and endogeneity bias. The major findings are as follows: (1) the Putnam-type group has a positive influence on information disclosure; (2) the Olson-type group has a detrimental effect on information disclosure. These support not only Putnam hypothesis but also Olson Hypothesis. The characteristics of groups should be considered carefully when the influence of group is examined.


Purpose Presently there is interest today in designing improved titanium surfaces capable of high bioactivity in order to promote strong anchorage of the bone surrounding implants while at the same time discouraging bioadhesion. Poly(ethylene glycol)-modified (PEG) alkane phosphate and OH-terminated alkane phosphates have been demonstrated to be spontaneously adsorbed onto titanium oxide surfaces and produce surfaces with different protein resistance in relation to the PEG surface density. This study aims to evaluate caries-associated Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) adhesion and osteoblast proliferation while varying the PEG surface density of titanium surfaces. Methods Bacterial adhesion was quantified by fluorescence microscopy and SAOS-2 human osteoblast proliferation was evaluated up to 7 days of culture in vitro. Metabolic activity of osteoblasts was measured by MTT test and the secretion of extracellular matrix proteins (osteopontin, osteocalcin and type I collagen) in culture medium was determined by immunoenzymatic assays. Results As the PEG surface density increased, the bacterial adhesion considerably decreased when compared to uncoated titanium surfaces. The monomolecular coatings proved to be capable of supporting osteoblast proliferation with the greatest levels of metabolic activity at the highest PEG surface concentrations. Conclusions These results are extremely promising for potential clinical application in implant uses where both reduction of bacteria adhesion and stimulation of bone formation are highly desirable.


The motivation to understand intermolecular interactions on a fundamental level encourages natural scientists for more than 120 years. In 1894, Emil Fischer developed the key-lock principle to describe the binding process between an enzyme and a corresponding substrate. As simple and understandable this picture is in general, as complicated and complex is the understanding of it on a molecular level.
Countless examples exist that demonstrate the importance of this key-lock principle, from the interaction between neurotransmitter and receptor or the antigen recognition to the interaction of carbohydrates on the cell surface. All of these examples have in common that large biomolecular systems are involved, built up by long chains of amino acids, monosaccharides or nucleotides. The folding of these chains into a three-dimensional structure, for example in enzymes, often reveals an active site, where the interaction takes place. At the active site only a few molecules might be involved in the so called molecular recognition process. In this work, model systems of biologically relevant molecules and complexes are studied, modeling the active side of a biological system.
For a fundamental understanding of recognition processes in nature it is important to study the interplay between different intermolecular forces, like hydrogen bonding or dispersion interaction. Additionally, it is also essential to gain information about the conformational flexibility of the molecule itself, which allows for structural changes during the recognition process. This can be referred to the induced rst picture, an extension of the key-lock principle, postulated by Daniel E. Koshland in 1958, whereby the substrate induces a structural change in the enzyme upon binding, to first into the active site.
High-resolution microwave spectroscopy is perfectly suited to study conformational flexibility and intermolecular interactions of biologically relevant molecules. The exceptional accuracy of the obtained spectroscopic constants allows for precise structure determination of gas-phase molecules from only the experimental data. Furthermore, even subtle changes of the structure can be identified in the rotational spectrum, since the spectrum is like a fingerprint of the molecule. The recently developed broadband technique, used in this study, allows for measuring a broad part of the microwave spectrum in a very time efficient way. Different conformers, isomers or complexes can all be studied in one spectrum.
In the framework of this thesis a broadband microwave spectrometer with an implemented laser ablation source was built up and put into operation. A precise structure determination was achieved for the odorant molecule cinnamaldehyde, which is the main component of cinnamon oil. Furthermore, the widespread drug ibuprofen was studied, which is a highly flexible molecule. Interesting insight into the structural properties, like the preferred orientation of the substitutions of its aromatic ring, could be obtained.
Additionally, the interplay of different intermolecular forces was studied on two different complexes. The aggregation of the small sugar glycolaldehyde and the interaction in the diphenylether methanol complex gave information about the competition and cooperativity of hydrogen bonding and dispersion interactions. The second complex is the start of a series of studies of similar complex systems with an increasing size of the alcohol, where it is expected that the dominance of dispersion will be increase.