This thesis examines various methods for estimating the spatial distribution of solar radiation, and in particular its diffuse and direct components in mountainous regions. The study area is the Province of Bolzano (Italy). The motivation behind this work is that radiation components are an essential input for a series of applications, such as modeling various natural processes, assessing the effect of atmospheric pollutants on Earth's climate, and planning technological applications converting solar energy into electric power. The main mechanisms that should be considered when estimating solar radiation are: absorption and scattering by clouds and aerosols, and shading, reflections and sky obstructions by terrain. Ground-based measurements capture all these effects, but are unevenly distributed and poorly available in the Italian Alps. Consequently they are inadequate for assessing spatially distributed incoming radiation through interpolation. Furthermore conventional weather stations generally do not measure radiation components. As an alternative, decomposition methods can be applied for splitting global irradiance into the direct and diffuse components. In this study a logistic function was developed from the data measured at three alpine sites in Italy and Switzerland. The validation of this model gave MAB = 51 Wm^-2, and MBD = -17 Wm^-2 for the hourly averages of diffuse radiation.
In addition, artificial intelligence methods, such as artificial neural networks (ANN), can be applied for reproducing the functional relationship between radiation components and meteorological and geometrical factors. Here a multilayer perceptron ANN model was implemented which derives diffuse irradiance from global irradiance and other predictors. Results show good accuracy (MAB in [32,43] Wm^-2, and MBD in [-7,-25] Wm^-2) suggesting that ANN are an interesting tool for decomposing solar radiation into direct and diffuse, and they can reach low error and high generality. On the other hand, radiative transfer models (RTM) can describe accurately the effect of aerosols and clouds. Indeed in this study the RTM libRadtran was exploited for calculating vertical profiles of direct aerosol radiative forcing, atmospheric absorption and heating rate from measurements of black carbon, aerosol number size distribution and chemical composition. This allowed to model the effect of aerosols on radiation and climate. However, despite their flexibility in including as much information as available on the atmosphere, RTM are computationally expensive, thus their operational application requires optimization strategies.
Algorithms based on satellite data can overcome these limitations. They exploit RTM-based look up tables for modeling clear-sky radiation, and derive the radiative effect of clouds from remote observations of reflected radiation. However results strongly depend on the spatial resolution of satellite data and on the accuracy of the external input. In this thesis the algorithm HelioMont, developed by MeteoSwiss, was validated at three alpine locations. This algorithm exploits high temporal resolution METEOSAT satellite data (1 km at nadir). Results indicate that the algorithm is able to provide monthly climatologies of both global irradiance and its components over complex terrain with an error of 10 Wm^-2. However the estimation of the diffuse and direct components of irradiance on daily and hourly time scale is associated with an error exceeding 50 Wm^-2, especially under clear-sky conditions. This problem is attributable to the low spatial and temporal resolution of aerosol distribution in the atmosphere used in the clear-sky scheme. To quantify the potential improvement, daily averages of accurate aerosol and water vapor data were exploited at the AERONET stations of Bolzano and Davos. Clear-sky radiation was simulated by the RTM libRadtran, and low values of bias were found between RTM simulations and ground measurements. This confirmed that HelioMont performance would benefit from more accurate local-scale aerosol boundary conditions. In summary, the analysis of different methods demonstrates that algorithms based on geostationary satellite data are a suitable tool for reproducing both the temporal and the spatial variability of surface radiation at regional scale. However better performances are achievable with a more detailed characterization of the local-scale clear-sky atmospheric conditions. In contrast, for plot scale applications, either the logistic function or ANN can be used for retrieving solar radiation components.


The understanding of how materials fail is still today a fundamental research problem for scientist and engineers. The main concern is the assessment of the necessary conditions to propagate a crack that will eventually lead to failure. Nevertheless, this kind of analysis tends to be more complicated, when a prior history in the material is taken into consideration and it will be extremely important to recognize all the factors involved in this process. In this work, a numerical simulation of the introduction of residual stresses, which change the crack initiation conditions, in a modified compact tensile specimen to change the condition of crack initiation is presented. Four numerical analyses were carried out; an initial evaluation was performed in a specimen without a crack and it was used for the estimation of a residual stress field produced by an overload; three more cases were simulated and a crack was introduced in each specimen (1 mm, 5 mm and 10 mm, respectively). The overload was then applied to set up a residual stress field into the component; furthermore, in each case the crack compliance method (CCM) was applied to measure the induced residual stress field. By performing this numerical simulation, the accuracy of the crack compliance method can be evaluated. On the other hand, elastic-plastic finite element analysis was utilized for the residual stress estimation. The numerical analysis was based on the mechanical properties of a biocompatible material (AISI 316L). The obtained results provided significant data about diverse factors, like; the manner in which a residual stress field could modify the crack initiation conditions, the convenient set up for induction of a beneficial residual stresses field, as well as useful information that can be applied for the experimental implementation of this research.


Coherence is not able to evaluate the strength of the link between two interacting signals in a specific causal direction, as it merges both the feedback and the feedforward arms of the closed loop describing the relationships between them. We propose a method to evaluate the degree of linear dependency between two variables at each frequency without losing causality. It is based on the definition of two causal coherence functions. The approach is tested on the heart period and systolic arterial pressure beat-to-beat series recorded in seven heart-transplant recipients less than 14 months after the transplantation. In healthy subjects, these variables interact in a closed loop, but in heart-transplant recipients, the neural feedback path (from arterial pressure to heart period) is cut due to the surgical procedure, while the mechanical path (from heart period to arterial pressure) is preserved. The significance of the coupling is assessed by means of a surrogate data approach.


Decision-making is an essential aspect of farming. The decisions farmers make affect their overall yield and, ultimately, impact their livelihoods. Understanding the different factors impacting farmer decision-making can provide insight for extension providers to improve the quality of service. In Haiti, the vast majority of farms are smallholder farms averaging less than 1.5 hectares (Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Rural Development [MARNDR], 2010). The purpose of this study was to determine the decision-making practices of small-scale farmers in Northern Haiti related to crop production. The following research objectives guided the study: (a) identify the factors associated with crop selection, and (b) identify reasons farmers engage in specific practices for crop production. Results from this study found that small-scale farmers in the North Department reported using the following factors to determine crop selection: financial security, familial traditions, concern for family, and availability of financial resources. When determining practices for crop production, farmers relied on the following drivers: financial limitations and previous learning experiences. Recommendations include increasing the availability of resources to the farmers in this region in order to create a solid foundation for behavior adoption and increased farmer capabilities.


The Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence is widely used in state-of-the-art Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) to approximate the posterior distribution of weights. However, the KL divergence is unbounded and asymmetric, which may lead to instabilities during optimization or may yield poor generalizations. To overcome these limitations, we examine the Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence that is bounded, symmetric, and more general. Towards this, we propose two novel loss functions for BNNs. The first loss function uses the geometric JS divergence (JS-G) that is symmetric, unbounded, and offers an analytical expression for Gaussian priors. The second loss function uses the generalized JS divergence (JS-A) that is symmetric and bounded. We show that the conventional KL divergence-based loss function is a special case of the two loss functions presented in this work. To evaluate the divergence part of the loss we use analytical expressions for JS-G and use Monte Carlo methods for JS-A. We provide algorithms to optimize the loss function using both these methods. The proposed loss functions offer additional parameters that can be tuned to control the degree of regularisation. The regularization performance of the JS divergences is analyzed to demonstrate their superiority over the state-of-the-art. Further, we derive the conditions for better regularization by the proposed JS-G divergence-based loss function than the KL divergence-based loss function. Bayesian convolutional neural networks (BCNN) based on the proposed JS divergences perform better than the state-of-the-art BCNN, which is shown for the classification of the CIFAR data set having various degrees of noise and a histopathology data set having a high bias.


An actinomycete with blue substrate mycelium was isolated from a soil sample in Cape Town, South Africa, and designated strain PK-Blue(T). The colour of the substrate mycelium was not sensitive to changes in pH. The organism produced hairy spores in Spirales-type spore chains. Chemical taxonomy indicated that it belonged to the genus Streptomyces. Strain PK-Blue(T) produced no diffusible pigments other than melanin, grew at 45 degrees C, did not degrade adenine and exhibited no antibacterial activity against Enterococcus faecium, Escherichia coli or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Analysis of its 16S rRNA gene sequence and the results of physiological tests showed that strain PK-Blue(T) (= DSM 41797(T) = ATCC BAA-411(T)) represents the type strain of a novel species of Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces speibonae sp. nov. is proposed.


Approaches to landscape and urban change analysis are still far away from being fully automatic or operational. For this reason, the concept of Geovisual Analytics is proposed, combining computational and visual/manual processing steps. This contribution concentrates on the latter part with the overall goal of improving its usability. For this purpose, a classification of tasks is created, which often occur in the context of change analysis. This serves as the basis for the assignment of suitable map types to change processing results. Beyond this, it is pointed out that in many cases an appropriate pre-processing of data is imperative to preserve or enhance certain spatial relationships or characteristics for visualization. This is demonstrated using the example of data classification prior to choropleth mapping. Methods are described which allow the preservation of local extreme values, large value differences between adjacent polygons, clusters, and hot/cold spots. Finally, discussing future research and developments, it will be stressed that the importance of visual methods in the context of big data change analysis will continue to increase, which is due to the particular ability of maps to generalize and reduce complex data to a minimum.


Caughley's contributions to single-species population ecology are here discussed in the light of some of the ideas and studies his work elicited, with particular reference to influences on my own work and that of my collaborators. Major themes are the manner and extent of population regulation; the alternate perspectives on population regulation that are obtained by density-dependence analyses and mechanistic analyses in terms of food availability and other causal factors; and ways in which mechanistic analyses can be elaborated to characterise a species' ecological niche and relate it to the species' geographic range.


We present a case study of an omega band cur- rent system from 11 May 1998 using data from the Imaging Riometer for Ionospheric Studies (IRIS) in Finland. For the first time, images of a substorm-related omega band in cos- mic noise absorption are shown. The substorm in question was one of a string that occurred on that day; inspection of geostationary satellite data indicates that this was a sawtooth event. Using a previously established statistical relationship, the IRIS data is used to provide maps of Hall conductance and compared with previous estimates utilising both HF and VHF coherent-scatter radars. Discrepancies are discussed with reference to precipitation spectrum and the geometry of the experimental set-up. The imaging riometer data provides a higher spatial resolution than the combined magnetometer- radar pairing for determining the Hall conductance and can also be used to identify the extent of the precipitation in the absence of optical data.


Vertebrates cannot synthesize carotenoid pigments de novo, so to produce carotenoid-based coloration they must ingest carotenoids. Most songbirds that deposit red carotenoids in feathers, bills, eyes, or skin ingest only yellow or orange dietary pigments, which they oxidize to red pigments via a ketolation reaction. It has been hypothesized that carotenoid ketolation occurs in the liver of vertebrates, but this hypothesis remains to be confirmed. To better understand the role of hepatocytes in the production of ketolated carotenoids in songbirds, we measured the carotenoid content of subcellular components of hepatocytes from wild male house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) that were molting red, ketocarotenoid-containing feathers (e.g., 3-hydroxy-echinenone). We homogenized freshly collected livers of house finches and isolated subcellular fractions, including mitochondria. We found the highest concentration of ketocarotenoids in the mitochondrial fraction. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that carotenoid pigments are oxidized on or within hepatic mitochondria, esterified, and then transported to the Golgi apparatus for secretory processing.


Higher manganese silicides (HMS) are promising thermoelectric materials owing to the abundance of the constituent elements in the earth crust, environmental friendliness and good chemical stability at high temperatures. However, the metallic MnSi layers with a lateral size as large as ∼50 μm are formed in the melt-grown HMS samples. These large MnSi layers are characterized with relatively high electrical and thermal conductivities and low Seebeck coefficient, which can degrade the thermoelectric performance of the melt-grown samples. Here, we report the synthesis and thermoelectric properties of Re-substituted HMS with relatively small-size MnSi platelets via melt-quenching, followed by ball-milling, and consolidated by spark plasma sintering. As compared to the samples prepared by either solid-state reaction or mechanical alloying, the reduced lateral size of MnSi in the quenched sample leads to an increased carrier concentration without a reduction in the carrier mobility according to our electrical transport measurements. As a result, the thermoelectric power factor is increased to 1.9 ± 0.2 × 10−3 W m−1 K−2 at 860 K, which is about 20% higher than that of the sample prepared by solid-state reaction. In addition, the lattice thermal conductivity of the quenched sample remains nearly the same as the samples prepared by two other synthesis methods. Therefore, a figure-of-merit ZT of 0.64 ± 0.08 at 823 K is obtained for the quenched sample, compared to 0.57 ± 0.07 and 0.26 ± 0.03 obtained from the two other samples prepared by different methods.


Radial velocity surveys for extrasolar planets generally require substantial amounts of large telescope time in order to monitor a sufficient number of stars. Two of the aspects which can limit such surveys are the single-object capabilities of the spectrograph, and an inefficient observing strategy for a given observing window. In addition, the detection rate of extrasolar planets using the radial velocity method has thus far been relatively linear with time. With the development of various multi-object Doppler survey instruments, there is growing potential to dramatically increase the detection rate using the Doppler method. Several of these instruments have already begun usage in large-scale surveys for extrasolar planets, such as Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph (FLAMES) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Keck Exoplanet Tracker (ET) on the Sloan 2.5-m wide-field telescope. In order to plan an effective observing strategy for such a program, one must examine the expected results based on a given observing window and target selection. We present simulations of the expected results from a generic multi-object survey based on calculated noise models and sensitivity for the instrument and the known distribution of exoplanetary system parameters. We have developed code for automatically sifting and fitting the planet candidates produced by the survey to allow for fast follow-up observations to be conducted. The techniques presented here may be applied to a wide range of multi-object planet surveys.


Siting a linear facility such as a highway or a pipeline often requires a preliminary study in which one or several corridors are identified. Here we construct corridors as a collection of adjacent polygons specifying a 'path' from origin s to destination t. Formally, we make use of a graph, called the connectivity graph, in which vertices correspond to polygons and edges to adjacent polygons. Within this formal representation, a corridor corresponds to an s to t path in the connectivity graph. The corridors are evaluated on two criteria: (1) a quantitative criterion measuring the length of the corridor, and (2) a qualitative criterion measuring the quality of the corridor with respect to the suitability of crossing its component polygons. We first introduce a three-phase approach based on a coupling between a geographical information system (GIS) and multicriteria evaluation and devoted to handling biobjective corridor siting problems. Then, the proposed approach is validated through an example of a real-world application.


This paper presents a corpus study of right dislocation (RD) in Catalan and discusses crosslinguistic differences of information packaging between English and Catalan. The Catalan corpus consists of 93 RDs which have been coded according to three parameters: (1) the point where the entity in the right-dislocated constituent had appeared in the discourse, (2) consequences of eliminating the right-dislocated constituent and (3) consequences of restoring the canonical order. I argue that RD in Catalan is a means to structure information in a coherent way by displacing old information from the main clause. Three main types of RDs can be found: (1) RDs which activate an entity which was no longer accessible in the discourse and make it highly salient, while still marking its discourse-old status; (2) RDs which make explicit an implicit, never textually mentioned, referent and places it in a discourse-old information position. (3) RDs referring to entities mentioned in the previous sentence. Such RDs convey an additional meaning, some 'emotional content', having to do with the expression of opposition or emphasis. In order to analyse crosslinguistic differences, an English text and its Catalan translation have been used. The Catalan translation contained 42 instances of RD, while the English text contained none, which shows that the two languages use different strategies to encode information packaging. The Catalan translation uses RDs mostly in cases in which the English original repeats the same phrase in two consecutive utterances and in utterances which convey contrast or opposition.


The experiment dealt with stereological and histochemical study on the submicroscopic structure of adrenal cortex after phosphorus burn within 15 days. The main findings were as follows: (1). The increased dense lysosome-like bodies in the adrenal cortical cells after burn were not all lysosomes, and it was conjectured they were hormone carrier-protein which might come from the Golgi complex; (2). The ZR cells developed better and had more abundant organelles and higher enzymic activity than other zonal cells. These differences were more obvious after burn. We speculated that ZR was not a degenerated zone, but an important functional area of synthesis and secretion of steroid hormone; (3) Different cellular functional conditions in adrenal cortex were related to the secretory rhythm of the cells.


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Defects induced by electron irradiation in Te-doped liquid-encapsulated Czochralski–grown GaSb were studied by the positron lifetime spectroscopy. The lifetime measurements under room temperature indicated there were VGa-related defects with a characteristic lifetime of 298 ps in the heavily Te-doped as-grown GaSb samples. The average lifetime increased with the increase of irradiation dose in lightly Te-doped GaSb,but the behavior was opposite in the heavily Te-doped samples. It should be due to the shift of Fermi level in heavily Te-doped GaSb and the occurrence of gallium vacancies in different charge states. In the temperature dependence measurements carried out on heavily Te-doped samples, we observed positron shallow trap, and this shallow trap should be attributed to positrons forming hyrogenlike Rydberg states with GaSb antisite defects.


We present Decentralized Distributed Proximal Policy Optimization (DD-PPO), a method for distributed reinforcement learning in resource-intensive simulated environments. DD-PPO is distributed (uses multiple machines), decentralized (lacks a centralized server), and synchronous (no computation is ever 'stale'), making it conceptually simple and easy to implement. In our experiments on training virtual robots to navigate in Habitat-Sim (Savva et al., 2019), DD-PPO exhibits near-linear scaling – achieving a speedup of 107x on 128 GPUs over a serial implementation. We leverage this scaling to train an agent for 2.5 Billion steps of experience (the equivalent of 80 years of human experience) – over 6 months of GPU-time training in under 3 days of wall-clock time with 64 GPUs. This massive-scale training not only sets the state of art on Habitat Autonomous Navigation Challenge 2019, but essentially 'solves' the task – near-perfect autonomous navigation in an unseen environment without access to a map, directly from an RGB-D camera and a GPS+Compass sensor. Fortuitously, error vs computation exhibits a power-law-like distribution; thus, 90% of peak performance is obtained relatively early (at 100 million steps) and relatively cheaply (under 1 day with 8 GPUs). Finally, we show that the scene understanding and navigation policies learned can be transferred to other navigation tasks – the analog of 'ImageNet pre-training + task-specific fine-tuning' for embodied AI. Our model outperforms ImageNet pre-trained CNNs on these transfer tasks and can serve as a universal resource (all models + code will be publicly available).


Quaternary Triangular Mesh (QTM) is a spherical subdivision scheme for encoding vector geodata across a planet as recursive triangular subdivisions of an octahedron. This model of location and its hierarchical coordinate system evolved from experiments with a hierarchical raster data structure for encoding terrain relief named DEPTH, for Delta Encoded Polynomial Terrain Hierarchy. This 2D pyramid-type structure encoded attributes (surface elevations) explicitly and locations (grid cell indices) implicitly. The paper describes how DEPTH evolved into QTM through a global discrete data grid called Geodesic Elevation Model (GEM), which more resembled QTM than a raster model. It used DEPTH to encode surface elevations in a forest of geodesic triangular quadtrees instead of in a planar rectangular quadtree. All three models were designed to make limitations of data accuracy and scale explicit. DEPTH and GEM capture elevations as ranges of values that decrease as the structure densifies, and perform limited interpolation. QTM captures vector data by encoding spherical 2D locations to the extent that their positional accuracy, certainty, or precision warrant, but did not use DEPTH. The paper is also a memoir that summarizes the thinking that went into these data models and explores how properties and deficiencies of one led to the other. It does not present any breakthroughs or new applications. Rather, it documents inventions that influenced subsequent developments of discrete global grids, and might still do so.


"In the first presentation (Blame the Bot: Anthropomorphism and Anger in Customer-Chatbot Interactions), Cammy Crolic, Felipe Thomaz, Rhonda Hadi, and Andrew Stephen present four studies, including an analysis of a large real-world dataset from an international telecommunications company and three experiments that show when customers enter into a chatbot-led service interaction in an angry emotional state, chatbot anthropomorphism has a negative effect on customer satisfaction, overall firm evaluation, and subsequent purchase intentions. The effect is driven by expectancy violations of chatbot efficacy. Thus, it is important to consider the chatbot use context, particularly in problematic or complaint-driven customer service interactions. The second talk by Jana Holthöwer and Jenny van Doorn (This robot doesn't judge me: Service robots and the choice of embarrassing products) studies whether the negative feelings towards a robot can be attenuated in situations where the human is the source of social discomfort. In three studies, they show that consumers are more accepting of a robotic service provider when acquiring embarrassing products because they feel less judged by a robot than by a human, particularly when the robot is machine-like rather than anthropomorphic. The third paper (The Rise of Virtual Influencers: Better than Humans?), co-authored by Marina Leban, Antonia Erz, and Michael Haenlein, looks into differences in the effectiveness of human social media influencers versus virtual influencers, thereby advancing recent research on influencer marketing by considering the role of artificial intelligence in this area. More specifically, we measure human and virtual social media influencers in terms of size (micro-, meso-and macro-influencers), type of social media platform (Instagram, TikTok), and source credibility traits (attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness). In the final paper, Donna Hoffmann and Tom Novak (Object-Centric Metaphor as a Mechanism for Understanding AI), propose using object-centric metaphors as a way to understand AI they go beyond human-centric interpretations. They argue that anthropomorphism undermines AI's impact on consumers and its larger role in the socio-material world. This is because anthropomorphizing AI's capacities obscures its underlying mechanisms and leads to consumer misunderstandings about its potential and threats. Using object-centric interpretations could render AI more transparent to consumers, lead to better calibrated understandings of AI's capacities, and more enabling experiences."


The success of deep learning has been widely recognized in many machine learning tasks during the last decades, ranging from image classification and speech recognition to natural language understanding. As an extension of deep learning, Graph neural networks (GNNs) are designed to solve the non-Euclidean problems on graph-structured data which can hardly be handled by general deep learning techniques. Existing GNNs under various mechanisms, such as random walk, PageRank, graph convolution, and heat diffusion, are designed for different types of graphs and problems, which makes it difficult to compare them directly. Previous GNN surveys focus on categorizing current models into independent groups, lacking analysis regarding their internal connection. This paper proposes a unified framework and provides a novel perspective that can widely fit existing GNNs into our framework methodologically. Specifically, we survey and categorize existing GNN models into the spatial and spectral domains, and reveal connections among subcategories in each domain. Further analysis establishes a strong link across the spatial and spectral domains.


Background: Sleep facilitates the consolidation of fear extinction memory. Disrupted sleep has been proposed as a vulnerability factor for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Moreover, nightmares and insomnia are hallmark symptoms of PTSD, possibly interfering with fear extinction and compromising recovery. A perpetual circle may develop when sleep increases the risk for PTSD, and PTSD leads to an increase of sleep disturbances. To date, therapeutic options for alleviating sleep disturbances in PTSD are limited. Methods: We conducted two studies to examine the relationship between sleep and post-traumatic symptoms; 1. in 453 Dutch service members the impact of pre-deployment insomnia symptoms and nightmares on the development of PTSD symptoms at 6 months was assessed, 2. veterans with PTSD (n=13), veterans without PTSD (n=17) and healthy controls (n=15) slept in a sleep laboratory with an IV catheter out of which blood was sampled from 2200h to 0800h. Plasma levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), cortisol and growth hormone (GH) were determined in conjunction with polysomnographic registrations, subjective sleep parameters and a declarative memory task before sleep. Memory consolidation was assessed the next morning. Also the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and PTSD symptoms was examined. In addition to these studies, we systematically reviewed the literature on treatment options for sleep disturbances, and we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) (n=14) comparing prazosin and placebo. Results: Pre-deployment nightmares predicted PTSD symptoms at 6 months post-deployment, however insomnia symptoms did not. Furthermore, a correlation between the apnea index and PTSD severity was observed, while OSAS was not more prevalent in patients with PTSD. We observed a significant increase in awakenings during sleep in PTSD, which were positively correlated with ACTH levels, and negatively correlated with GH secretion, and the subjective perception of sleep depth. Also, heart rate (HR) was significantly increased in PTSD patients. Interestingly, plasma levels of GH during the night were significantly decreased in PTSD. Furthermore, GH secretion and awakenings were independent predictors for delayed recall, which was lower in PTSD. Only a few RCTs have been published. They show promising results for olanzapine, and the 1-adrenoceptor antagonist prazosin. In our RCT prazosin was not associated with improvement of subjective and objective sleep parameters. However due to small sample sizes, the power to detect treatment-related differences was limited. Conclusions: Disturbed sleep due to nightmares increases the risk for PTSD. PTSD in turn leads to increased sleep fragmentation, decreased GH secretion and frequent nightmares, which may again compromise fear extinction, synaptic plasticity and recovery. This suggests that disturbed sleep is a precipitating and perpetuating factor in PTSD symptomatology, creating a perpetual circle. Both the activity of the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) may be involved in disturbed sleep in patients with PTSD. RCTs indicate that inhibiting noradrenergic activity with prazosin during sleep has a positive effect on nightmare complaints, while polysomnographic measures of sleep do not seem to be affected.


End-of-track collisions at passenger terminals have raised safety concerns because of their potentially severe consequences such as infrastructure and rolling stock damage, service disruption, and even casualties. As introduced in the previous study sponsored by the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration, the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems at passenger terminal stations could potentially prevent end-of-track collisions. As the second phase of that project, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the proposed concept of operation via quantitatively identifying the safety benefits, incremental costs, and operational impacts associated with PTC enforcement on terminating tracks. The benefit-cost analysis indicates that the safety benefits may exceed the incremental costs over a 20-year period under specified circumstances and assumptions. In addition, the preliminary results disclose that the operational impact in PTC enforcement should be negligible, except for the rare occurrence of wayside interface unit (WIU) failure or radio failure in the Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS)-type PTC system that would result in a stop well short of the targeted point and potentially delay both onboard passengers and inbound/outbound trains. Both benefit-cost analysis and operational impact assessment methodologies are implemented in a decision tool that can be customized for different terminals with heterogeneous infrastructure and operational characteristics and be adapted to other transportation modes.


In order to overcome the loss in blocking artifacts due to block-based prediction, transformation, and quantization, a de-blocking filtering method is necessary to maximize coding performance and consequently improve image quality. This paper describes a programmable VC-1 de-blocking filter architecture with capabilities to support different standards. The architecture has been modeled, simulated and implemented in RTL. Results show a threefold performance improvement as compared to solutions where filtering algorithms are otherwise not hardwired. Results also point to parallelism based on existing data flow and show that real-time requirements can be met.


Organic and inorganic-metal oxide thin film transistors can be solution-processed,
providing large area, low cost and low processing temperature leading to strong industrial
and research interest. The nanoscale properties of each material system have been
investigated using scanning probe techniques.
Pentacene is a model small molecule organic semiconductor but it is an air sensitive
material and insoluble. However, its derivative 6,13-bis(triisopropyl-silylethynyl)
pentacene (TIPS-PEN) is amenable to solution processing. The motivation to study TIPSPEN
is not to chase performance figures only but to investigate how the solution
deposited film topography can be controlled by varying the solvent composition and the
insulating polymer binder concentration. We report the effect of anisole / decane binary
solvent mixture and the subsequent addition of low percentage weight of (atactic
amorphous polystyrene) aPS on the surface morphology of TIPS-PEN thin films. It was
found that addition of up to 20 wt% decane has little impact on micro-scale crystal
morphology but has a significant influence on the growth mode, mean grain size and
terrace roughness. The effect of the TIPS-PEN / aPS blend ratio up to 20 wt% of aPS in
drop-cast thin film was similarly investigated on untreated SiO2 and on poly(4-vinylphenol)
( PVP) interlayers. It is found that addition of aPS has a vital effect on macroscopic crystal
properties such as surface coverage, unity of orientation, long range order, and average
field effect mobility. It also changes the surface morphology and layer ordering on the
nano-scale. Mobility values obtained from PVP treated surface were higher than those
from SiO2 surface by five times, which was consistent with preferred TIPS-PEN crystal
growth on hydrophobic surface PVP of low surface energy.
Indium oxide (In2O3) is an n-type (electron transport), optical transparent with wide bandgap
values between 3.5 and 4 eV, and high performance semiconductor. Spin coating was used to prepare indium oxide thin film transistors (TFT) of two different thicknesses of
the device channel.
As the thickness of the In2O3 active layer is increased, the device mobility increases, the
threshold voltage is shifted in the negative direction, off-drain current is increased, and
on-drain current is less pronounced. A systematic study was carried out to investigate the
transistor stability under bias stress.
Applying a positive gate bias stress to indium oxide transparent TFTs was found to induce
a parallel shifts of threshold voltage in positive direction without changing the device
mobility or the subthreshold gate voltage swing.
Scanning Kelvin Probe Microscopy (SKPM) was used to study the surface potential
distribution of operating devices under a range of drain and gate biases. The potential
profiles showed evidence of metal contact diffusion into the channel region which
appeared as a flatting of the profile close to the drain electrode. The experimental data
was confirmed and complemented with simulation results for contact material diffusion
into the In2O3 channel.

A new method of performing Electrostatic Force Microscopy (EFM) was developed and
applied to the In2O3 TFT. The tip bias was modulated and the resulting phase difference
between the cantilever response and the applied bias was recorded. The measurements
were affected by a time delay, likely to be caused by capacitive charging of the
semiconductor beneath the tip. The effects of the time delay were corrected by the use of
an inverse filter in the analysis software developed. This new version of the EFM-phase
method was applied to the operating biased In2O3 TFTs and the results compared with
those obtained with SKPM.


This paper combines experimental evidence at the mesoscopic and microscopic levels of the physical slip underlying plastic deformation in an aluminium polycrystal in the evaluation of crystal plasticity models. At the mesoscopic level, lattice rotations of individual bulk grains during deformation have been measured using high-energy synchrotron radation (3DXRD). At the microscopic level, deformation induced dislocation structures have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy. The performance of two different versions of the Taylor model taking different approaches to the ambiguity problem is evaluated.


Wha t does b r e a s t f e ed ing have to do w i th i n t e l l i g ence l a t e r i n l i f e , and how cou ld you pos s ib l y t e l l i f be ing br ea s t f ed makes a pe r son mor e i n t e l l i g en t ? You can't g i ve some bab i e s b r e a s t m i l k , s e e how they tu rn ou t , and then go back and no t g i ve them b rea s t m i l k and see wha t happens then . Does Breastfeeding Make Babies Smar ter Later In Life?


There is evidence in Steinbeck's works of anti-intellectualism which is expressed by a somewhat maudlin handling of human emotions,and by a doggedly persistent attack on various intellectual types. This attitude is further revealed in Steinbeck's personal life by his abstention from any literary coteries or universities and his adamant refusal to discuss his life and works or offer his considerable talent to any institution of higher learning.


StR,-General practitioners and laboratory workers may be interested in the Torbay Health District's courier service. The sevice, introduced in Mach of this year, came into being as the combined result of mulftidisciplinary management and is therefore an example of a project, originally suggested by a pathoogist and a general practitioner in 1973, coming to fruition successfully and satisdactorily during the N.H.S. reorganizaton. The Torbay Health District serves a population of approximately 210 000 in a compartively extensive area of south Devon, including coastal areas and the southern part of Dartmoor. Tihe district includes 16 hospitals, nine health centres, nine clinics, two convalescent homes, and 112 general practitioners organized into 48 collection and delivery points. Thirty per cent of this laboratory's work load comes from general practitioners and a further 20%, from small hospitals in the district. Prior to the introduction of the specimen collection and mail delivery service specimens were transported to the laboTatory by a variety of routes, including public transport, commnunity nurses, general practitioners, and paitients; taxis and a laboratory blood transfusion van were also used. In all, an expensive and unsatisfactory method. The economics of individual deliveries of pathology specimens plus the cost of postage were therefore worth investigation. A working party was set up and, in collaboration with the South-western Region work study department, we were able to suggest that, with two vans and tvo drivers, over a period of five years the scheme would show a small saving. It is interesting to note that, even with a 41p postage rate, this District was spending £64 a week on postage and the Exeter Family Practitioners Committee a further £24. Of this sum, £42 a week was accounted for by pathology reports. Now two vans make twice-daily deliveries of maiil and collect specimens, and the result is a highly efficient service which is costing less than the conventional methods.-I am, etc., I. J. Y. COOK Member, Working Party Department of Pathology, Torbay Hospital, Torquay


Western leaders portray the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a league of democratic nations as well as a security alliance. Although the organization tolerated illiberal members during the Cold War, it would be more than a little embarrassing to have an outright autocracy emerge in NATO's ranks today. Yet worrisome manifestations of authoritarianism and intolerance have surfaced in several members. Two NATO countries, Hungary and Turkey, have engaged in repeated autocratic behavior reminiscent of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia. Such developments provide yet another reason why US policymakers should reconsider America's continuing role as NATO's leader.


Bacterial secondary metabolites have been studied for decades for their usefulness as drugs, such as antibiotics. However, the identification of new structures has been decelerating, in part due to rediscovery of known compounds. Meanwhile, multi-resistant pathogens continue to emerge, urging the need for new antibiotics. It is unclear how much chemical diversity exists in Nature and whether discovery efforts should be focused on established antibiotic producers or rather on understudied taxa. Here, we surveyed around 170,000 bacterial genomes as well as several thousands of Metagenome Assembled Genomes (MAGs) for their diversity in Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs) known to encode the biosynthetic machinery for producing secondary metabolites. We used two distinct algorithms to provide a global overview of the biosynthetic diversity present in the sequenced part of the bacterial kingdom. Our results indicate that only 3% of genomic potential for natural products has been experimentally discovered. We connect the emergence of most biosynthetic diversity in evolutionary history close to the taxonomic rank of genus. Despite enormous differences in potential among taxa, we identify Streptomyces as by far the most biosynthetically diverse based on currently available data. Simultaneously, our analysis highlights multiple promising high-producing taxas that have thus far escaped investigation.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: With recent advances in secondary prevention management, stroke recurrence rates may have changed substantially. We aim to estimate risks and trends of stroke recurrence over the past 2 decades in a population-based cohort of patients with stroke. METHODS: Patients with a first-ever stroke between 1995 and 2018 in South London, United Kingdom (n=6052) were collected and analyzed. Rates of recurrent stroke with 95% CIs were stratified by 5-year period of index stroke and etiologic TOAST (Trial of ORG 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment) subtype. Cumulative incidences were estimated and multivariate Cox models applied to examine associations of recurrence and recurrence-free survival. RESULTS: The rate of stroke recurrence at 5 years reduced from 18% (95% CI, 15%–21%) in those who had their stroke in 1995 to 1999 to 12% (10%–15%) in 2000 to 2005, and no improvement since. Recurrence-free survival has improved (35%, 1995–1999; 67%, 2010–2015). Risk of recurrence or death is lowest for small-vessel occlusion strokes and other ischemic causes (36% and 27% at 5 years, respectively). For cardioembolic and hemorrhagic index strokes around half of first recurrences are of the same type (54% and 51%, respectively). Over the whole study period a 54% increased risk of recurrence was observed among those who had atrial fibrillation before the index stroke (hazard ratio, 1.54 [1.09–2.17]). CONCLUSIONS: The rate of recurrence reduced until mid-2000s but has not changed over the last decade. The majority of cardioembolic or hemorrhagic strokes that have a recurrence are stroke of the same type indicating that the implementation of effective preventive strategies is still suboptimal in these stroke subtypes.


Gaussian beams are often used for the insonifying field in scattering problems from interfaces. They have the advantage of restricting the grazing angle content of the incident field while localizing the scattering region on the interface. However a disadvantage is that the beams spread significantly. For oblique incidence, the width of the beam can vary significantly over the region of interaction on the interface and the scattering problem defined in these terms has an inherent propagation component. Analytical work has been carried out for the propagation of Gaussian beams in homogeneous and heterogeneous media [for example, Cerveny et al., Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc. 70, 109–128 (1982)]. For a given propagation distance there is an optimal initial beamwidth that will minimize the width of the beam along the whole path. Consequently for a given angle of incidence and a given incident amplitude threshold, there will be a minimum surface scattering area. Optimum beamwidths can be defined and these should...


Advancements in three dimensional (3D) technologies are rapidly increasing. Three Dimensional Television (3DTV) aims at creating 3D experience for the home user. Moreover, multiview autostereoscopic displays provide a depth impression without the requirement for any special glasses and can be viewed from multiple locations. One of the key issues in the 3DTV processing chain is the content generation from the available input data format video plus depth and multiview video plus depth. This data allows for the possibility of producing virtual views using depth-image-based rendering. Although depth-image-based rendering is an efficient method, it is known for appearance of artifacts such as cracks, corona and empty regions in rendered images. While several approaches have tackled the problem, reducing the artifacts in rendered images is still an active field of research. Two problems are addressed in this thesis in order to achieve a better 3D video quality in the context of view rendering: firstly, how to improve the quality of rendered views using a direct approach (i.e. without applying specific processing steps for each artifact), and secondly, how to fill the large missing areas in a visually plausible manner using neighbouring details from around the missing regions. Thisthesis introduces a new depth-image-based rendering and depth-based texture inpainting in order to address these two problems. The first problem is solved by an edge-aided rendering method that relies on the principles of forward warping and one dimensional interpolation. The other problem is addressed by using the depth-included curvature inpainting method that uses appropriate depth level texture details around disocclusions. The proposed edge-aided rendering method and depth-included curvature inpainting methods are evaluated and compared with the state-of-the-art methods. The results show an increase in the objective quality and the visual gain over reference methods. The quality gain is encouraging as the edge-aided rendering method omits the specific processing steps to remove the rendering artifacts. Moreover, the results show that large disocclusions can be effectively filled using the depth-included curvature inpainting approach. Overall, the proposed approaches improve the content generation for 3DTV and additionally, for free view point television.


Efficient separation and extraction of photo-induced carriers are crucial aspects of efficient semiconductor photocatalytic systems employed for photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) technology. In this study, a Pt-loaded KSr2Nb5O15 composite, as a novel photocatalyst, is reported for gaseous ethylene photo-oxidation, performing excellent PCO activity. Tungsten bronze-type KSr2Nb5O15 (KSNO) with surface oxygen vacancies is prepared by a facile and low-cost molten salt synthesis method at 1200 °C for 6 h and a possible morphology evolution process was proposed. Pt was loaded on KSNO through a facile photodeposition method. The strong metal–support interaction (SMSI) between the Pt nanoparticles and the oxygen-deficient KSNO support is beneficial for superior photocatalytic efficiency and stability toward ethylene photo-oxidation. What's more, the structure and charge transfer path in the synthesized photocatalysts were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution electron microscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR).


Linking Lab and Pharmacy:
Clinical Decision Support to Manage Inpatient Hyperkalemia

Shengsheng Yu, PhD
Department of Pharmacy Administration
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, Illinois (2012)

Dissertation Chairperson: Bruce Lambert, PhD

This study was conducted to evaluate clinicians' responses to the presence of hyperkalemia before and after implementing laboratory-pharmacy decision support in an inpatient setting. A synchronous and a real-time asynchronous CDS rules were implemented at University of Illinois Hospital (UIH) in June 2003. In May 2010, another once-daily asynchronous drug-laboratory alert report was implemented to detect any missed safety signals.

On average, the clinicians' compliance with the synchronous alerts was 88.31% for [K+]↔ACE/ARB and 69.46% for [K+]↔K-sup. As the indirect effect of the asynchronous CDS alerts, the alert rate of the real-time asynchronous CDS for [K+]↔K-sup dropped significantly after CDS implementation (28.8% vs. 30.4%, p = 0.005). The change in alert rate was not significantly for [K+]↔ACE/ARB (12.1% vs. 12.5%, p = 0.752). The segmented regression analysis indicated that, after controlling for all the covariates, the asynchronous alerts had limited influence on accelerating clinicians' action for both [K+]↔ACE/ARB and [K+]↔K-sup. Nevertheless, the asynchronous alert had a lasting effect on reducing patient time to normal [K+] for K-sup users. Such benefit was not observed for ACE/ARB users.

No significant decrease in the action time to K-sup cancellation was observed immediately after the implementation of once daily report in May 2010. But there was a gradually descending trend given the significant coefficient estimate for the difference in the slope and the negative slope for the post-intervention period. For the action time to K-sup cancellation or repeating [K+], the segmented regression estimates did not confirm the ascending trend for the pre-intervention period, but did ascertain the impact of once daily report in gradually reducing time to either cancel the K-sup order or repeat [K+].

In sum, clinicians complied with synchronous CDS alerts in managing hyperkalemia in inpatient settings. The real-time asynchronous alert failed to demonstrate its effect in accelerating clinicians' action, but had potential effect in improving patient outcomes for K-sup users. The once daily report was effective in detecting potentially hazardous situations that had not been corrected after real-time asynchronous alert. But its impact on changing clinicians' practice behavior and improving patient outcomes was difficult to establish given the rare alert rate.


We present a generalized 4×4 matrix formalism for the description of light propagation in birefringent stratified media. In contrast to previous work, our algorithm is capable of treating arbitrarily anisotropic or isotropic, absorbing or non-absorbing materials and is free of discontinuous solutions. We calculate the reflection and transmission coefficients and derive equations for the electric field distribution for any number of layers. The algorithm is easily comprehensible and can be straightforwardly implemented in a computer program. To demonstrate the capabilities of the approach, we calculate the reflectivities, electric field distributions, and dispersion curves for surface phonon polaritons excited in the Otto geometry for selected model systems, where we observe several distinct phenomena ranging from critical coupling to mode splitting, and surface phonon polaritons in hyperbolic media.


This research investigates a new technique for unsupervised learning of nonlinear control problems. The approach is applied both to Michie and Chambers BOXES algorithm and to Barto, Sutton and Anderson's extension, the ASE/ACE system, and has significantly improved the convergence rate of stochastically based learning automata.

Recurrence learning is a new nonlinear reward-penalty algorithm. It exploits information found during learning trials to reinforce decisions resulting in the recurrence of nonfailing states. Recurrence learning applies positive reinforcement during the exploration of the search space, whereas in the BOXES or ASE algorithms, only negative weight reinforcement is applied, and then only on failure. Simulation results show that the added information from recurrence learning increases the learning rate.

Our empirical results show that recurrence learning is faster than both basic failure driven learning and failure prediction methods. Although recurrence learning has only been tested in failure driven experiments, there are goal directed learning applications where detection of recurring oscillations may provide useful information that reduces the learning time by applying negative, instead of positive reinforcement.

Detection of cycles provides a heuristic to improve the balance between evidence gathering and goal directed search.


Product differentiation involves creating a product that is perceived unique thus making it more attractive to a particular target market as compared to others. Different MFIs which encompass a wide range of these financial services vary in legal structure, mission, and operations. MFIs offer these financial services to clients who do not have access to mainstream banks or other formal financial service providers. Due to change in business environment where the marketplace is increasingly competitive and the rate of innovation is rising, together with the pressure of the emergence of global knowledge-based economy, it has dawned on MFIs that product differentiation strategies is their key asset . The study sought to determine how Deposit Taking Microfmance institutions in Kenya could achieve sustainable competitive advantage through product differentiation strategies. This research adopted a survey design where the population of interest was all the six registered Deposit Taking Microfinance institutions in Kenya. The study carried out a census of six registered Deposit Taking Microfinance institutions Kenya. A questionnaire was used as primary data collection instrument which was divided into two parts. The data was then summarized, coded and tabulated. Descriptive statistics means and standard deviation were used to analyze the data. Data presentation was done by the use of pie charts, bar charts and graphs, percentages and frequency tables for easy of understanding and interpretations. The study concluded that Deposit Taking Microfinance institutions in Kenya offer different products to the market including loan facilities, training, voluntary savings, fund transfer services, insurance services and effective delivery systems such as ATMs. Deposit Taking Microfinance Institutions therefore differentiate its products through offering services such as loans, savings, money transfers, insurance services, and other financial services to low-income earners in both rural and urban areas. The study concluded that product differentiation strategies had been effective in Deposit Taking Microfinance institutions to a very great extent as it had enabled them to achieve competitive advantages as it had allowed the MFIs to target specific populations in the market, offer financial services fast and speedily, improve performance, and improve financial quality, responsiveness, availability and ease of integration.


Epilepsy is a significant and commonplace neurological disability in the pediatric population. Data from increasingly larger and more representative studies have brought about noteworthy changes in our understanding of the prognosis of epilepsy in the pediatric age-group. Prevalence rates for epilepsy in both the developing and the developed world are surprisingly similar despite distinct differences in incidence and large treatment gaps in the developing world; this strongly points towards the possibility of spontaneous remission, at least in some patients. Prognosis after an isolated first seizure is generally quite favorable, but worsens with recurring seizures, remote symptomatic etiology, and the presence of abnormalities on EEG. Presently available antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are at best seizure suppressant in their action and have not been shown to be antiepileptic in the sense that they alter the long-term prognosis of the epilepsy for the better. Epilepsy syndromes can be considered to belong to distinct groups on the basis of their prognosis. Some have an excellent outcome in terms of seizure freedom and neurological development; yet others have a grim prognosis with respect to these variables. Factors that impact on the prognosis of treated epilepsy are being understood and include the specific etiology, age of onset of epilepsy, and EEG findings. Epileptics, especially those with remote symptomatic seizures and refractory epilepsy, suffer higher mortality as compared to the general population. While the outcomes in terms of seizure freedom in patients with epilepsy appear favorable, disturbing data on psychosocial morbidity are coming to light and are reflected in the lower rates of higher education, employment, marriage, and fertility among epileptics.


Palm vein authentication is a new and latest biometric method utilizing the vein patterns inside one's palm for personal identity verification. Palm patterns are different for each person and as they are hidden underneath the skin's surface, forgery is extremely difficult. Infrared light is used to capture an image of a palm that shows the vein patterns, which have various widths and brightness that change temporally as a result of fluctuations in the amount of blood in the vein, depending on temperature, physical conditions, etc. To robustly extract the precise details of the depicted veins, we developed a method of anisotropic technique in crosssectional profiles of a vein image. This method can extract the centre lines of the veins consistently without being affected by the fluctuations in vein width and brightness, so its pattern matching is highly accurate. This paper discusses the origins, feature extraction, technology, and applications of palm vein authentication. The proposed system include: 1) Infrared palm images capture; 2) Detection of Region of Interest; 3) Palm vein extraction by Anisotropic filtering; 4) Matching. The experimental results demonstrate that the recognition rate using palm vein is good.


Intermediate band (IB) solar cells aim to exploit in solar cells the energy of below bandgap energy photons. They are based in a material that, in addition to the conventional conduction and valence bands, has an electronic band (named intermediate band) located inside the bandgap and separated from the conduction and valence band by a null density of states. The theoretical limiting efficiency of these cells (63.2 % at maximum concentration) is equivalent to a triple junction solar cell but requiring a single material instead. Several approaches are being followed worldwide to take to practice this concept that can be divided into two categories: quantum dots and bulk materials. This paper reviews the main experimental results obtained under both approaches.


Phospholipids (PL) of five species of marine macroalgae (two species of Rhodophyta (Laurencia popillose, Galaxoura cylindriea); one specie of Chlorophyta (Ulva fasciata), and two species of Phaeophyta (Dilophys fasciola, Taonia atomaria) collected from the Red and Mediterranean seas, respectively were extracted, purified on silicic acid column chromatography, and identified by liquid chromatography LC/ MS/MS. Macroalgal phospholipids content varied from 3.18 to 8.80 % of the total lipid; the maximum phospholipids content was recorded in G. cylindriea (8.80%) followed by L. papillose (8.7%) and U. fasciata (8.18%). Phosphorus contents of algal phospholipids were varied from 0.11 to 0.86%. All algal phospholipids have a high concentration of plamitic acid (C16:0) which is ranged from 27.28 to 53.95% while, a high level of C20:3 (46.67%) and C18:2 (27.11%) were observed in D. fasciola phospholipids. The main structure of algal phospholipids fraction was identified as phosphatidyl serine, phosphatidic acid, Lysophosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanol amine and phosphatidyl glycerol. The Phospholipids of U. fasciata and L. popillose was found to inhibit antiviral activity of simplex virus type 1. All algal phospholipids possessed a high anticancer activity in vitro against breast and liver human cancer cells with IC50 values ranging from 0.47 to 3.15 μg/ml. Phospholipids of U. fasciata exhibited a remarkable activity against E. coli and B. subtili with MIC values ranging from 40 μg/ml, while T. atomaria showed the most potential selective activity with MIC of 80 μg/ml against A. niger and C. albicans.


In Ephemera (Ephemeroptera), Dictyopterygella and Isoperla (Plecoptera), Periplaneta and Blaberus (Dictyoptera), Forficula (Dermaptera), and Dytiscus (Coleoptera) there is a pair of stretch receptors on each side in the dorsal region of most abdominal segments. Each receptor consists of a connective-tissue strand to which is attached a single sensory neuron. One member of each pair is approximately longitudinal and the other approximately vertical in orientation.

In Sialis (Neuroptera-Megaloptera) the longitudinal receptor consists of a musclefibre and a neuron; the vertical receptor consists of a neuron with one or two long processes. Connective-tissue fibres are absent from both receptors.

In Limnophilus and Phryganea (Trichoptera) there is a longitudinal receptor only. It consists of a muscle-fibre to which is attached a tube of connective tissue containing the dendrites of the sensory neuron. The caddis receptor resembles closely the lepidopteran receptor.

No abdominal stretch receptors could be found in Rhodnius or Nepa (Hemiptera-Heteroptera), and in Schistocerca and Locusta (Orthoptera) no vertical receptors could be found.


The effects of structural breaks in dynamic panels are more complicated than in time series models as the bias can be either negative or positive. This paper focuses on the effects of mean shifts in otherwise stationary processes within an instrumental variable panel estimation framework. We show the sources of the bias and a Monte Carlo analysis calibrated on United States bank lending data demonstrates the size of the bias for a range of auto-regressive parameters. We also propose additional moment conditions that can be used to reduce the biases caused by shifts in the mean of the data.


Extending recent theoretical contributions on sources of inflation inertia, we argue that monetary policy uncertainty helps determine the sluggish adjustment of expectations to nominal disturbances. Estimating a model in which rational individuals learn over time about shifts in US monetary policy and the Phillips curve, we find strong evidence that this link exists. These results question the standard approach for evaluating monetary rules by assuming unchanged private sector responses, help clarify the role of monetary stability in reducing output variability in the US and elsewhere, and tell a subtle and dynamic story of the interaction between monetary policy and the supply-side of the economy.


Encouraged by the effectiveness of encoding temporal dynamics within the frequency domain, recent human motion prediction systems prefer to first convert the motion representation from the original pose space into the frequency space. In this paper, we introduce two closer looks at effective frequency representation learning for robust motion prediction and summarize them as: decompose more and aggregate better. Motivated by these two insights, we develop two powerful units that factorize the frequency representation learning task with a novel decomposition-aggregation two-stage strategy: (1) frequency decomposition unit unweaves multi-view frequency representations from an input body motion by embedding its frequency features into multiple spaces; (2) feature aggregation unit deploys a series of intra-space and inter-space feature aggregation layers to collect comprehensive frequency representations from these spaces for robust human motion prediction. As evaluated on large-scale datasets, we develop a strong baseline model for the human motion prediction task that outperforms state-of-the-art methods by large margins: 8%∼12% on Human3.6M, 3%∼7% on CMU MoCap, and 7%∼10% on 3DPW.


Major depressive disorder (MDD) is debilitating mental disorder that is increasing in prevalence. Many theories have tried to explain the aetiology of depression including the classic monoamine deficiency hypothesis and the newer neurogenic hypothesis. The finding that selective serotonin transporter inhibitors (SSRIs) work by increasing extracellular serotonin levels in the brain and have antidepressant effects has formed the basis of the most widely accepted theory of depression, the monoamine hypothesis. However, a genetic reduction in human and animal serotonin reuptake transporters, which also increases extracellular serotonin, is associated with depressive symptomology. This paradox is not explained by the monoamine hypothesis. The key difference between these two scenarios is that genetically induced increases in serotonin occur from development onward, while SSRIs increase serotonin only in adulthood. Furthermore, SSRIs typically take several weeks to confer a therapeutic effect. This finding has led to the hypothesis that, rather than acute monoamine-increasing effects, it is the downstream effects of such increases on neurogenesis and neural plasticity which confer antidepressant effects. To further elucidate the neurobiology of depression, this study sought to examine the effects of genetically increasing serotonin on early postnatal neurogenesis in a serotonin knockout rat model using BrdU immunohistochemistry. We examined both the offspring and maternal genotype effects. We found that SERT-/- offspring had the highest levels of neurogenesis compared with SERT+/- and SERT+/+ at postnatal day 7. In addition we found a maternal genotype effect with SERT+/+ offspring born and reared by SERT+/- mothers having lower neurogenesis compared to SERT+/+ offspring from SERT+/+ mothers. The potential effects of maternal caregiving, neuroplasticity in altered mood and stress responses and the role of 5-HT receptors are discussed.


Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent antigen-presenting cells and are capable of activating naive T cells. Gene transfer of tumor antigen and cytokine genes into DCs could be an important strategy for immunotherapeutic applications. Dendritic cells derived from peripheral blood monocytes do not divide and are therefore poor candidates for gene transfer by Moloney murine leukemia virus (Mo-MuLV)-based retroviral vectors. Lentiviral vectors are emerging as a powerful tool for gene delivery into dividing and nondividing cells. A three-plasmid expression system pseudotyped with the envelope from vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-G) was used to generate lentiviral vector particles expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). Peripheral blood monocyte-derived DCs were cultured in the presence of GM-CSF and IL-4 and transduced with lentiviral or Mo-MuLV-based vectors expressing EGFP. FACS analysis of lentiviral vector-transduced DCs derived either from normal healthy volunteers or from melanoma patients demonstrated transduction efficiency ranging from 70 to 90% compared with 2-8% using Mo-MuLV-based vectors pseudotyped with VSV-G. Comparison of lentiviral vectors expressing EGFP driven by CMV or human PGK promoters showed similar levels of transgene expression. Lentiviral vector preparations produced in the absence of HIV accessory proteins transduced DCs at efficiencies equal to vectors produced with accessory proteins. Alu-HIV-1 LTR PCR demonstrated the genomic integration of the lentiviral vector in the transduced DCs. Transduced cells showed characteristic dendritic cell phenotype and strong allostimulatory capacity and maintained the ability to respond to activation signals such as CD40 ligand and lipopolysaccharide. These results provide evidence that lentiviral vectors are efficient tools for gene transfer and expression in monocyte-derived DCs that could be useful for immunotherapeutic applications.


The experience of the locally-created
 credit, and savings institution in Fandene, Senegal, is
 shared in this note. Its structure grew essentially out of
 local responses to the problems of drought, and diminished
 farm fertility throughout central Senegal, and, it is the
 product of historical interactions: the largely Christian
 community shares resources with the neighboring valley, and
 river beds of Islamic communities of different ethnic
 groups. The "Association des Jeunes de Fandene"
 (AJF), or the Fandene Young People's Association, was
 created in 1972, concentrating initially in sponsoring
 cultural events, which lead to educated young people to
 constitute a group of "modern" peasantry. This
 effort later evolved into initiatives to diversify the local
 economy, and improve the natural resource base. But these
 efforts were hampered by inadequate access to credit, and
 resources to implement development. The AJF looked at
 resolving the bottleneck of credit, and eventually created
 local savings and loan committees, to support economic
 innovations. Most impressive were the institution-building
 results, sharing governance of their activities, and
 resources, where both women, and men's branches
 exercise equal weight. Moreover, marketing arrangements have
 been developed with other peasant federations, and,
 technical teams created, to support emerging needs in nearby
 poor neighborhoods.


The objective of this study was to identify the levels of Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN) and its relation to the reproductive efficiency and serum progesterone concentration in lactating Holstein Friesian dairy cattle. Data were obtained by stratified random sampling from population to get 18 dairy cows, which divided into three groups. The first, second, and third groups each with milk yield of less than 17, between 17-21, and over 21 liters/day, and with calving interval of less than 365, between 365-450 and more than 450 days. Blood was collected from the coccygeal vein at the time of insemination (D0), 7 day (D+7) and 22 days (D+22) after insemination. BUN and progesterone concentration were measured. Data analysis showed no significant difference (P>0.05) on the observed parameters. Data regrouping based on BUN concentration showed that the mean of services per conception (S/C) was lower and conception rate (CR) was higher (P 18 mg/dL. The mean of progesterone concentration at D+22 was higher (P 18 and BUN<18 mg/dL. This study concluded that high BUN concentration affect the reproductive efficiency of dairy cows by decreasing CR and increasing progesterone serum concentration


A high prevalence of depression is found in people with coeliac disease (CD). People with CD who are depressed are less likely to manage their illness effectively, which may lead to complications. Identification of variables associated with depression in people with CD may facilitate early detection and intervention. Participants were 749 members (125 males, 622 females) of the Queensland Coeliac Society (aged 18–88 years), recruited via a mailout. Participants completed the Modified Zung Self‐Rating Depression Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Perceived Consequences Subscale (from the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire). Stress (p = .001) and comorbid medical illness (p = .01) were significantly associated with depression in CD. The current study made an original contribution to the body of literature by identifying stress and comorbid medical illness as predictors of depression in CD.


There is a penchant on today's college campuses for sacrificing hard questions at the altar of political correctness. The university's repudiation of the Socratic method and preoccupation with genderless pronouns, microaggressions, and safe spaces is not benign. The university should be a sacred place where no question, regardless of its potential to offend, is deemed off-limits.


The prevalence of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections is on the rise globally; by 2050 multidrug resistant bacterial infections are expected to kill more than 10 million people globally, overtaking cancer and other leading illnesses. To combat this, we looked at how Acinetobacter baumannii, a notorious drug-resistant bacterial pathogen, uses antibacterial effector proteins delivered by the type VI secretion system to kill competitor bacteria in a shared environment. This work increased our knowledge of the arsenal of weapons that A. baumannii uses to kill other hospital-dwelling bacteria, which has the potential to lead to the development of novel antimicrobial strategies.


Investors frequently encounter the trade-off between cost and tracking. We all know the importance of remaining fully invested during security selection, manager transition, or asset class rebalance. There is not always an available investment vehicle to ensure accurate exposure to our desired allocation. Until recently, most investors were dependent on futures contracts or swaps to accomplish this goal. The breadth of available exchange-traded funds has offered a solution. In this article, the author outlines three scenarios where exchange- traded funds may be considered as an alternative to futures. Each scenario is effectively equitizing cash but for different reasons and with different desired outcomes.


Introduction: Preoperative cataract assessment may involve multiple biometric instruments and it is important that clinicians are aware of the accuracy, limitations, and interchangeability of keratometry measurements conducted on these instruments.
Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to determine the agreement of keratometry magnitude and axis measurements obtained using three commonly used clinical keratometers.
Design of the study: Prospective, comparative study.
Materials and methods: One-hundred eyes of 100 prospectively enrolled patients listed for cataract phacoemulsification were recruited. Preoperative keratometry magnitude and axis measurements were obtained using the Galilei-G2 Dual Scheimpflug Analyzer (Ziemer Ophthalmic Systems AG, Port, Switzerland), IOLMaster 500, and Takagi ARKM-200 autokeratometer (Takagi Seiko Co., Ltd, Nagano-ken, Japan). Inter-device agreement in corneal spherical equivalent, corneal cylinder vectors, and corneal cylinder magnitude was assessed using the Bland-Altman method.
Results: One participant was excluded because of incomplete data. The Galilei-G2 reported the lowest mean keratometry (43.96 ± 1.71 D) and the IOLMaster reported the highest (43.99 ± 1.65 D). A single statistically significant difference occurred in the corneal cylinder vector analysis between the IOLMaster 500 and the three-instrument pooled mean (mean difference = -0.238 D, P = 0.04). No other statistically significant differences were observed for any instrument for any measured parameter. Excluding the vector difference analysis (range = -0.175 – -0.238 D), mean differences between individual instruments and the three-instrument pooled mean did not exceed 0.025 D (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: The Galilei-G2, IOLMaster 500 (Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Oberkochen, Germany), and Takagi ARKM-200 autokeratometer produce accurate keratometry and axis measurements that are comparable between instruments. The instruments could be used interchangeably in clinical practice in scenarios where accurate examinations cannot be obtained using one of the instruments.


Prior research examining relationship repair after infidelity scenarios tends to focus primarily on heterosexual relationships, and often does not take into consideration the nuance between emotional and sexual infidelity, which, according to evolutionary psychology theories, tends to be salient to individuals based on their reproductive challenges. This research intended to rectify that dearth, hypothesizing that non-heterosexual participants would be more likely to repair a relationship where a partner has committed sexual infidelity than they would be to repair a relationship where a partner has committed an emotional infidelity. As well, based on prior research, there were expectations for sex differences in the likelihood of repairing a relationship after infidelity by a partner for participants in committed relationships, with female participants likely to repair emotional infidelity and male participants likely to repair sexual infidelity. In a survey of volunteers online, likelihood of repair for relationships after sexual or emotional infidelity was related to the sexual orientation of participants. Homosexual/other individuals were equally likely to repair their relationship after an emotional or sexual infidelity was committed by a partner and were more likely to repair a relationship after a partner committed a sexual infidelity than heterosexual individuals were. A qualitative question component obtained more information about the participants' logic behind their reconciliation choices, and these results along with the quantitative results are discussed and interpreted using themes from earlier


Although a U.N. Biosphere Preserve and famous for the magestlc Niagara Falls, the southern Niagara Escarpment is a cuesta landscape where landplannlng must balance the competlng needs of industry, urbanization, agriculture, tourism, outdoor recreatlon, and nature conservation. To support construction of these major transportation and power geoengineering projects, and industrial/urban development, both the Escarpment dolostone (historically used for hydraulic cernent and building stone; now, crushed-stone aggregate) and Quaternary kame deposits (sand and gravel) have experienced major  corrent reserves will be deploted shortly. Three of the abandoned dolostone quarries are now municipal landfills; one of whi9ch has leakage problems. Outslde the urban centre, recent rural landuse of the southern Niagara Escarpment has changed significantly to take advantage of the unique physical geology;from forest and tender-fruit agriculture, to extensive areas of vinifera vineyards and smaller areas of conservation and parks. this had lead to increased human use of the Biosphere.


In the same year (1941b) and also in 1942 (a) I gave reasons for believing that the anuria of " crush injury " is, like the anuria of cholera, due to anoxia. In the first of these two articles I wrote: " It would therefore appear that, in so-called ' crush injury,' the renal failure and associated histological changes in the tubules are caused solely by oxygen want (as suggested by Sir L. Hill), the epithelial cells of the convoluted tubules 'being even more sensitive to want of oxygen than the endothelium of the blood capiilaries itself."


MG SPROUTS was developed as a "project-in-a-box" program, a self-contained educational programming tool for Extension agents working with master gardener Extension volunteers (MGEVs). The program design incorporates programmatic materials and project management materials and follows best management practices for volunteer management. MG SPROUTS was tested in four Georgia counties in spring 2015. Agents, program coordinators, and MGEVs provided postproject evaluation via an online survey. Both agents/coordinators and MGEVs who used the MG SPROUTS materials during the pilot study reported a satisfactory experience. The project-in-a-box approach to educational programming enables agents to provide a meaningful and satisfactory experience for MGEVs during educational program delivery.


Perinatal loss is a common experience in contemporary society. While one in four pregnancies may result in a miscarriage, support for bereaved parents is still lacking. This thesis presents a group therapy approach to support the bereavement of miscarriage. The thesis will begin by describing the prevalence of perinatal loss and the impact of this experience on women and their families. This will lead into a review of the existing literature, exploring the link between miscarriage and psychological distress, in addition to theories of grief, therapeutic approaches, and the role of various factors in supporting and/or impairing the bereavement process. This thesis will explore the research related to miscarriage, while also considering the research related to ambiguous loss, disenfranchised grief and group therapy for marginalized populations. The thesis will highlight the connections between these constructs to develop a group therapy approach to support perinatal grief. This approach will include ten skills and/or techniques which may be incorporated within a group. The method of delivery will also be considered; including, frequency, duration, and guidelines for participation. The thesis will conclude by addressing strengths and limitations, in addition to providing suggestions for future research and implementation.


Summary: The diffusion rate of nisin through agar at pH 7·0 is increased by the addition of a non-ionic surface active agent to the medium. A linear relationship exists between log units nisin/ml. and inhibition zone depth over the range 100-5000 units/ml. By using seeded agar in small glass tubes and delaying growth of the test organism for 24 hr., a convenient form of assay is available for dealing with large numbers of samples.


This article analyses the intellectual, religious, national and moral processes through which a democratic society has had to confront in its day-to-day routines under the ever-present threat of terror. It discusses the effects of the terror over the character of Israeli society and the critical debates in its system of education. As far as it can be ascertained through the observations in this study, the general publics' attitude could be defined as a mildly moral realistic one: people think that terror and violence have objective foundations but certainly embody some subjective human conventions and beliefs. Is it possible in a democratic society to aspire to peace during a long period of war and terror, and how should moral education be taught in accordance with critical and reflective principles in such circumstances? What are the intellectual and spiritual options to explain the existence of terror in Israeli society, a daily fact of life that compels an entire society to carry on with their day-to-day routines under the ever-present threat of terror?


Ethnic identity as a sense of belonging based on our ancestry, cultural heritage, values, and traditions helps us to find our place in our homeland. But what if a person migrates to another country for purpose of getting a job or education? Do people living in their homeland and those who study or work abroad have differences in their ethnic identity? These questions became the basis of our investigation. The study`s purpose was to investigate the ethnic identity of Greeks in their homeland and Russia in order to find out how ethnic identity is determined by such factors as country (homeland or foreign country), occupation (work or study) and sex (male or female). We used the following questionnaires: The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) by Jean S. Phinney, The Positive and Uncertain Ethnic Identity Measure by A.N. Tatarko and N.M. Lebedeva, The Twenty Statements Test by Manfred Kuhn & Thomas McPartland adapted by T.V. Rumyantseva. We conducted Mann-Whitney U-test and multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicate the following. There are differences between Greeks living in their homeland and in Russia. Namely, those living in Russia surpass in affective component of ethnic identity, positive and uncertain ethnic identity. They have more answers reflecting their Greek nationality. Greeks living in Greece have a higher level of ethnic identity search. These differences were corroborated among both men and women. Among students, we found out the same differences except for positive ethnic identity. The Greeks working in Greece showed higher uncertain ethnic identity than those working in Russia. There are differences in ethnic identity between Greeks who work or study. Those who work have higher results in ethnic identity and ethnic identity search among all groups. Working women also have higher results in positive and uncertain ethnic identity. Greeks working in Greece also surpass Greeks studying in the homeland in a number of answers reflecting their religion and in uncertain ethnic identity and concede in positive ethnic identity. Among those living in Russia, students have higher results in uncertain ethnic identity and lower in positive ethnic identity. As for the differences among men and women, Greek women have a more positive ethnic identity and men – uncertain ethnic identity. The same results we got among those who live in the homeland. But there were found no differences between Greek men and women living in Russia. Working men have higher results in ethnic identity search and lower positive ethnic identity in comparison to working women. Male students have higher results in uncertain ethnic identity and affective components of ethnic identity. As for the multivariate analysis of variance, it showed us the following. The factor sex determines ethnic identity, ethnic identity search, positive and uncertain ethnic identity. The factor country (homeland or Russia) determines affective component and ethnic identity search, positive and uncertain ethnic identity. The factor employment (work or study) determines ethnic identity search and positive ethnic identity.


High-pressure metapelites with the assemblage kyanite-staurolite-garnet ′ chloritoid-biotite-muscovite-plagioclase-quartz and crosscutting gneiss veins were studied in the Sopron Mountains near Obrennberg (Hungary, Eastern Alps). Different garnet generations were investigated by textural analysis and study of garnet zoning from different textural domains from both the micaschist and the gneiss veins. Thermobarometry of subsequent garnet generations and the surrounding mineral assemblage was used to reconstruct the Alpine P-T path of the metamorphic rocks during the Alpine orogenesis. Peak pressure conditions (1390-1470 MPa) are recorded by high-Si phengites (Si = 7.03 a.p.f.u.) and temperatures by white mica-garnet-albite-quartz assemblage at about 550-600 °C. This is in good agreement with the peak pressures obtained from the massive orthogneisses of the area. Gneiss veins crosscutting the micaschist show slightly lower peak pressures between 1230 and 1280 MPa at similar temperatures (575-590 °C). Subsequent garnet generations and associated mineral assemblages show decreasing pressure with slightly decreasing temperature. Textural observations, white mica chemistry and comparison of garnet zoning trends provided additional evidence on the formation of leucophyllites during retrograde metamorphism.


This study examines the relationships between meteorology and atmospheric deposition chemistry on the basis of 4 years of monitoring in an area of Calabria (Piano Limina) under the National Integrated Programme for the Control of Forest Ecosystems. The location of the area and its low anthropogenic impact meant that phenomena of locally originating alkaline dust deposition could be distinguished from those originating long distances away. The analysis performed on the whole dataset revealed the interaction between temperature, solar radiation and ionic concentrations; the effects of the atmospheric transport of compounds, with lower concentrations during calm conditions; and a marked increase of calcium, alkalinity and pH with winds from W-SW, owing to the transport of alkaline dust from North Africa, in agreement with thematic maps on the synoptic scale. The possible influence of two volcanic events deriving from Stromboli and Etna is discussed. After elimination of the Saharan dust and volcanic events, a multivariate analysis showed the effects of compounds deriving from anthropogenic activities. Sulphate, nitrate and ammonium were closely correlated with NW winds; air masses from this direction come from the continental land mass and the sea, crossing the Calabrian plain before being deposited as precipitation on the Apennine chain. The component from NW also includes a high marine contribution, with maximum values of chloride and sodium.


This article is based on brief recent revision of the scientific
literature about the care with the skin of the newborn. The text
deals with the anatomo-physiology aspects of the skin culminating with the specific care of the skin of newborn in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Considering the highest risk of the pre-term newborn to acquire infections, a special nursing care is proposed regarding the skin function as a protective barrier of the organism.


It is appropriate to analyze count data in ecology, such as species richness, using Poisson models. However, there has been limited work on incorporating spatial autocorrelation in Poisson models. The objective of this study was to use three spatial Poisson modeling techniques to investigate the relationships between bird species richness and patterns of climate and land cover diversity in New York State. The three spatial Poisson models included auto-Poisson (AP), generalized linear mixed Poisson (GLMP), and geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR). The results from the three models were compared with a global nonspatial Poisson (GP) model. Moran's I correlograms and local estimates of Moran's I were used to evaluate the global and local spatial autocorrelations of model residuals and spatially assess model performance. We found that the spatial Poisson models produced better model predictions for bird species richness, significantly reduced spatial autocorrelation in model residuals, and generated more desirable spatial distributions for model residuals than the GP model. Overall, we found that the GWPR models were more effective in reducing spatial autocorrelation of model residuals and incorporating spatial heterogeneity at different spatial scales than the AP and GLMP models. We conclude that the analysis of count data (e.g., species richness) can be effectively modeled using spatial Poisson models but that the coefficients of environmental predictors may shift as a result of which method is used. FOR. SCI. 58(1):61–74.


Based on the school curriculum ("KTSP"), the students of "SMP/MTs" class seven should be taught two monologue text types, descriptive and procedure texts. Thus, in order to be relevant with the curriculum, the textbooks should present those two text types.
This research has two purposes; the first is to know the monologue text types found in the textbook entitled joyful English Book 1 for SMP class VII published by "CV. Aneka Ilmu". The second is to know how each of the monologue text in that textbook structured including its social function, generic structures, and grammatical features.
I collect the data sources by reading the textbook. Then, I take all the texts from each unit. There are eleven texts in the textbook as the data sources. The approach applied in this study is qualitative. First, I identify the structures of each monologue text. Then I classify the type of the text based on its structures. The next step is analyzing the text in terms of its grammatical features. Finally I analyze and compute the result.
As the result, I found eight descriptive texts, two narrative texts, and one report text. The first dominant is descriptive text. The second dominant is narrative text. And the least dominant is report text. Thus, the choices of monologue text types in the analyzed textbook does not fulfilled the suggestion of procedure that should be taught in the first grade of junior high school as stated by the school curriculum.
Based on the result, I suggest that the English teachers have to consider when choosing a textbook to teach which should fulfilled the requirements as stated by the school curriculum.


As community concerns about global energy consumption grow, the power consumption of the Internet is becoming an issue of increasing importance. In this paper, we present a network-based model of power consumption in optical IP networks and use this model to estimate the energy consumption of the Internet. The model includes the core, metro and edge, access and video distribution networks, and takes into account energy consumption in switching and transmission equipment. We include a number of access technologies, including digital subscriber line with ADSL2+, fiber to the home using passive optical networks, fiber to the node combined with very high-speed digital subscriber line and point-to-point optical systems. In addition to estimating the power consumption of today's Internet, we make predictions of power consumption in a future higher capacity Internet using estimates of improvements in efficiency in coming generations of network equipment. We estimate that the Internet currently consumes about 0.4% of electricity consumption in broadband-enabled countries. While the energy efficiency of network equipment will improve, and savings can be made by employing optical bypass and multicast, the power consumption of the Internet could approach 1% of electricity consumption as access rates increase. The energy consumption per bit of data on the Internet is around 75\bm muJ at low access rates and decreases to around 2-4 \bm muJ at an access rate of 100 Mb/s.


While there is general consensus about the basic features of ethical research, the explosion of information from technology, genetics and clinical research, and the desire to accelerate the translation of preliminary findings into clinical research and practice have created space for conflicts between the aims of research, medical ethics and human rights. Research ethics committees (RECs) play a crucial role. In 2004, a short standardized questionnaire was sent to 110 Italian oncologists. The questionnaire explored aspects of the interaction between oncologists and RECs, including reports on personal experience with RECs, and the oncologists' opinions and level of satisfaction with important functions of RECs, such as bureaucratic, ethics, scientific, and educational and training aspects. The findings are compared with those from the previous surveys. Eighty-three out of the 91 oncologists returned the questionnaire. Responders were working in 67 hospitals (60 RECs). The level of satisfaction with REC activities was high for ethical and scientific aspects (87 and 80% were satisfied or very satisfied, respectively); somewhat lower for bureaucratic and secretarial aspects (61%); and much lower for educational and formation activities (33%). Comparison with other surveys does not show any important difference. The main findings of this survey are the stable figures concerning oncologists' opinions and the low ratings given to education and training aspects. This latter finding clearly identifies the need for educational activities, and the possibility of using this approach to foster interactions between RECs and researchers.