Computationally intensive applications such as sound synthesis, animation, scientific computation, can take advantage of table-lookup interpolation to reduce computation and execution time. When designing table-lookup interpolation, application writers face various choices such as table size and interpolation mechanism (linear, quadratic, etc). The better the interpolation, the more intensive the computation, and as a result, often computationally least expensive mechanism is chosen, compromising quality for performance. In our project, we characterize the performance a particular kind of streaming application: sound synthesis oscillator. We determine the existing performance bottlenecks in this application, and investigate the effectiveness of using Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE) instruction set in this application. We demonstrate that the SSE-enhanced code can deliver performance improvement when ratio of computation to memory operations is favorable. In particular, in case of quadratic interpolation, we show a 27% performance increase as compared to the best alternative version that does not use SSE. Further, we demonstrate that the additional penalty of using quadratic interpolation is reduced to 11% as compared to linear interpolation, when using SSE. This compares favorably to 50% penalty in case when SSE is not used. This provides a much more favorable trade-off in the application design space. Introduction Table-lookup interpolation is an old but still important technique in many computation-intensive programs like sound synthesis [Roads], key-frame animation [Burtnyk+], and scientific computations [Ueberhuber]. The technique is especially effective in replacing the computation of expressions where there is limited range of input values and such expressions are costly to evaluate directly. The most common usage of table-lookup interpolation is to restore the curve of the continuous signal from limited amount of sampled data. However, there are a lot of factors can affect the performance of this straightforward method. As normally it is impossible to restore the exact signal, table-lookup interpolation introduces the error which results in noise. Error can be reduced by increasing the table size and/or by increasing the quality of the interpolation. But both of these also affect the signal computation cost. In addition, general purpose processors like Pentium series are not particularly good at either random access to main memory or interpolation, but these operations are at the core of tablelookup interpolation.


We report separate domain formation in cosputtered Ge2Sb2Te5–SiOx mixed layer, with SiOx amount less than 10mol%. As-prepared Ge2Sb2Te5–SiOx layer exhibits amorphous phase with separate domains smaller than 20nm. The separation maintains after thermal annealing, which results in crystallization into fcc phase. The crystallization activation energies of Ge2Sb2Te5–SiOx are obtained as 4.99 and 6.44eV for mixed layers containing 5.3 and 8.4mol% SiOx, respectively. Those are larger than 2.75eV of pure Ge2Sb2Te5. Furthermore, the mixed layer exhibits sublimation at increased temperature. These are interpreted as formation of Ge2Sb2Te5-rich domains separated from each other by SiOx-rich domains.


Metal dispersion has a striking influence on the activity and selectivity of Rh/SiO2 for high pressure CO hydrogenation. Decreasing dispersion, turnover frequency of CO conversion does not change significantly with dispersion up to 0.5 but increases abruptly at dispersion of 0.45. CH3OH is produced selectively at high dispersion. C2-oxygenated compounds are produced favorably for dispersion of 0.25–0.45. CH4 formation increases monotonously with decrease of dispersion.


The growing demand for electricity in emerging markets and developing economies such as India is causing loading and congestion problems on distribution networks, particularly in urban locations. Electric utilities in these regions face unique constraints regarding raising capital required to upgrade their congested networks. Battery storage has emerged as a non-wire alternative to feeder-level upgrades. This article presents a valuation framework by optimally sizing and placing battery storage on the distribution network. We evaluate the value of storage using a real options analysis through a Markov Chain Monte Carlo to identify the least-cost network upgrade strategy, given demand growth uncertainty. When applied to urban distribution network feeders typical of those found in congested cities in India, the approach highlights the economic value of network investment deferrals by making use of battery storage. We find that storage costs below 261 USD/kWh justify investments in distribution level storage and storage as a non-wire alternative only makes sense on moderately loaded feeders where storage charging is still feasible without violating network thermal capacity limits.


Understanding the consumer-brand relationship in the IT market from the "emotional" or "love" perspective requires an urgent research effort to fully comprehend IT consumers beyond brand loyalty. This study introduces and attempts to empirically validate the concept and measurement of "Lovemarks," which capture the emotional relationship between consumers and IT brands, especially smartphone brands. Having a second-order confirmatory factor analysis for three different smartphone brands, this study extracted 18 final items with six constructs of mysteriousness, sensuality, intimacy, performance, trust, and reputation. The results indicate that the Lovemarks are psychometrically valid and reliably measure the emotional interaction of consumers and IT brands beyondbrand loyalty.


Design of the inhibitors of the pathogenic protein aggregation, associated with the neural cell damage, is of great importance for the therapy of the neurodegenerative diseases. In this work redox interactions of methylene blue as a potential drug against Alzheimer's disease with its potential target – cysteine of the active cite of Tau proteins, have been studied in vitro, in order to establish the molecular mechanism of methylene blue biological action. First, a single product of direct oxidation of cysteine by methylene blue, viz. cystine, possessing a disulfide bridge between two cysteine molecules, has been detected by mass spectrometry. Such modification of cysteine residues was suggested to affect secondary structure of Tau-proteins, hampering amyloid fibril formation. Notably, we failed to detect any oxygen-containing products of cysteine oxidation. Finally, reduction of methylene blue in the above reaction resulted in the formation of its leuco form, which could be also considered as a potential drug in the therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.


ABSTRACT We explored the role of urokinase and tissue-type plasminogen activators (uPA and tPA), as well as the uPA receptor (uPAR; CD87) in mouse severe malaria (SM), using genetically deficient (−/−) mice. The mortality resulting from Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection was delayed in uPA−/− and uPAR−/−mice but was similar to that of the wild type (+/+) in tPA−/− mice. Parasitemia levels were similar in uPA−/−, uPAR−/−, and +/+ mice. Production of tumor necrosis factor, as judged from the plasma level and the mRNA levels in brain and lung, was markedly increased by infection in both +/+ and uPAR−/− mice. Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, as evidenced by the leakage of Evans Blue, was similar in +/+ and uPAR−/− mice. SM was associated with a profound thrombocytopenia, which was attenuated in uPA−/− and uPAR−/− mice. Administration of aprotinin, a plasmin antagonist, also delayed mortality and attenuated thrombocytopenia. Platelet trapping in cerebral venules or alveolar capillaries was evident in +/+ mice but absent in uPAR−/− mice. In contrast, macrophage sequestration in cerebral venules or alveolar capillaries was evident in both +/+ and uPAR−/− mice. Polymorphonuclear leukocyte sequestration in alveolar capillaries was similar in +/+ and uPAR−/− mice. These results demonstrate that the uPAR deficiency attenuates the severity of SM, probably by its important role in platelet kinetics and trapping. These results therefore suggest that platelet sequestration contributes to the pathogenesis of SM.


The present neuromarketing study aims to predict how consumers evaluate brand extension from their brain activity. Brand extension refers to the use of well-established brand name to new goods or service. In our experiment, participants evaluated whether a given brand extension sample was acceptable during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Brand extension samples included parent beverage brand name and extended goods name from beverage or household appliance categories. We pre-processed 3-D fMRI image data and extracted 2-D feature images based on a preliminary study. To overcome the limited number of fMRI samples, we conducted image augmentation for the training dataset. A deep neural network model with the convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture was used to classify fMRI images in response to visual presentation of each brand extension sample into one of the two classes: acceptable vs. non-acceptable. The train classifier was tested using 10-fold cross validation. Our model estimated the evaluation of brand extension with high accuracy (90.4%). This result indicates that one can predict how a consumer evaluates a new brand extension proposal only by their brain activity.


To the present day, the Beenakker-Mazur (BM) method is the most comprehensive statistical physics approach to the calculation of short-time transport properties of colloidal suspensions. A revised version of the BM method with an improved treatment of hydrodynamic interactions is presented and evaluated regarding the rotational short-time self-diffusion coefficient, D, of suspensions of charged particles interacting by a hard-sphere plus screened Coulomb (Yukawa) pair potential. To assess the accuracy of the method, elaborate simulations of D have been performed, covering a broad range of interaction parameters and particle concentrations. The revised BM method is compared in addition with results by a simplifying pairwise additivity (PA) method in which the hydrodynamic interactions are treated on a two-body level. The static pair correlation functions required as input to both theoretical methods are calculated using the Rogers-Young integral equation scheme. While the revised BM method reproduces the general trends of the simulation results, it systematically and significantly underestimates the rotational diffusion coefficient. The PA method agrees well with the simulation data at lower volume fractions, but at higher concentrations D is likewise underestimated. For a fixed value of the pair potential at mean particle distance comparable to the thermal energy, D increases strongly with increasing Yukawa potential screening parameter.


To solve the inter-node bandwidth bottleneck in parallel computing systems, we propose a wavelength-routing inter-node interconnect "Optical Hub". The physical topology of Optical Hub is star network, which leads to advantages in term of its throughput, size, energy consumption and life-time cost. The logical topology is full-mesh network, which leads to advantages in term of its latency and reliability. We introduced multi-path routings, which expand the effective bandwidth with the full-mesh topology such as Optical Hub, by replacing conventional MPI functions with our wrapper functions. We simulated execution time of parallel benchmarks on the parallel computing system with Optical Hub using parallel computing simulator SimGrid. As a result, we have confirmed that the parallel computing system with Optical Hub can achieve higher performance and lower energy consumption than conventional ones. We also examined the scalability of Optical Hub and showed that recursive hierarchical configurations of Optical Hub can save cable count drastically in case of large number of nodes against Dragonfly networks.


In this study, children with strabismus, as a group, had significantly more academic and nonacademic difficulties than did children without strabismus. However, since not all the children with strabismus had academic difficulties, other factors that are associated with strabismus, such as headache, eyestrain, perceptual difficulties, and frustration, may affect learning in some children with strabismus.


Chinese function words play an important role in Chinese semantic understanding and grammatical analysis. But formalizing the Chinese function word usages for the natural language processing is a big challenge. In recent years, the authors have devoted themselves to constructing a trinity Chinese Function word usage Knowledge Base (CFKB). In this paper, the authors give a general review of its development, including the Chinese function word usage dictionary, Chinese function word usage rule base, and Chinese function word usage corpus. In addition, the authors discussed the potential applications on their knowledge base.


Antireflux surgery (ARS) was performed on 45 renal units during 1991-96. Pre-operative renal length measurements were available in 20 renal units and 23 renal units were evaluated for renal length postoperatively. Preand post-ARS renal length measurements were available in 15 renal units. Renal length measurements were made by real time B mode ultrasonography. The post-ARS renal growth was accelerated in 69.5% units, normal in 13% units and impaired in 17.3% units. Accelerated renal growth occurred mainly in the first year after ARS but continued up to 2 years. Pre-existing renal scars, hypertension, poor renal function and post-operative urinary tract infection did not affect post-ARS renal growth. Failure of ARS resulted in renal growth retardation.


PURPOSE: To quantize gray-level pixels by combining halftoning with spread error diffusion. CONSTITUTION: Multiple-bit image signals I(n, l) are received by means of an image buffer 100. A filter 102 corrects the image scale or tone reproducing curve of the image signals I(n, l) and line buffers 104, 106, and 108 store the signals I(n, l). Then signal adders 110, 112, and 114 generate signals I(n, l)+e(C) by adding error term signals e(C) from an error register 120 to the signals in a weighting way. The outputs I(n, l)+e(C) of the adders 110, 112, and 114 are connected to a corrected image signal accumulator 122 and, at the same time, to an halftoning processor 124. The processor 124 generates output printer signals B(n, l) from the corrected image signals I(n, l)+e(C) and forms the bit map of an image which is reproduced by means of a printer. COPYRIGHT: (C)1994,JPO


The modern requirement for analyzing and interpreting ever-larger volumes of seismic data to identify prospective hydrocarbon prospects within stringent time deadlines represents an ongoing challenge in petroleum exploration. To provide a computer-based aid in addressing this challenge, we have developed a "big data" platform to facilitate the work of geophysicists in interpreting and analyzing large volumes of seismic data with scalable performance. We have constructed this platform on a modern distributed-memory infrastructure, providing a customized seismic analytics software development toolkit, and a Web-based graphical workflow interface along with a remote 3D visualization capability. These support the management of seismic data volumes, attributes processing, seismic analytics model development, workflow execution, and 3D volume visualization on a scalable, distributed computing platform. Early experiences show that computationally demanding deep learning methods such as convolutional neural netwo...


The article is devoted to the study of the influence of State-legal traditions on the inheritance rights of women. Highlights the major stages, which analyses the main trends of formation of the inheritance rights of women, as the Foundation of their civil status


Discusses issues of interaction, enablement, social justice, flexibility, overload, and industrialisation in legal education and practical legal training, with reference to flexible, online and distance education and "digital literacy".


mentally, but recovered, the epidemic did not abate until the arrival of the cold weather. During the whole of this dreadful period Colonel Bayly carried out his duties as a field officer of the garrison, visiting guards and hospitals, though the latter were regarded as veritable death traps., At length, at the age o( 50, he retired, after thirty-four years' service with the 12th Regiment, to enjoy a well-earned rest, in the evening of his life. His diary, recording as it qoes on every page tales of endurance and (levotion to duty, is a wonderful illustration of the spirit which has per-·p meated the British Army, and has enabled it to 'accomplish tasks which at first sight have appeared beyond the power of men.


DEMO (Design Engineering Methodology for Organization) has its foundation in Enterprise Ontology and provides a generic platform for business process modeling. REA (Resource-Event-Agent) ontology that originates from accountancy systems provides a domain specific platform for value modeling business processes. Both modeling frameworks have their irreplaceable position in business process modeling. The paper contemplates different aspects of both ontologies and analyzes possible way for collaboration between these modeling frameworks.


Accretion‐powered X‐ray pulsars are among the most luminous X‐ray sources in the Galaxy. However, despite decades of theoretical and observational work since their discovery, no satisfactory model for the formation of the observed X‐ray spectra has emerged. In this paper, we report on a self‐consistent calculation of the spectrum emerging from a pulsar accretion column that includes an explicit treatment of the bulk and thermal Comptonization occurring in the radiation‐dominated shocks that form in the accretion flows. Using a rigorous eigenfunction expansion method, we obtain a closed‐form expression for the Green's function describing the upscattering of monochromatic radiation injected into the column. The Green's function is convolved with bremsstrahlung, cyclotron, and blackbody source terms to calculate the emergent photon spectrum. We show that energization of photons in the shock naturally produces an X‐ray spectrum with a relatively flat continuum and a high‐energy exponential cutoff. Finally, we...


The invention belongs to the field of fluid treatment in a semiconductor treatment system and particularly relates to a fluid bubble removal apparatus in the semiconductor treatment system and a bubble removal method thereof. The fluid bubble removal apparatus includes a liquid container, a liquid pump, a three-way joint, a first controller, a second controller, a first on-off valve, a second on-off valve, a nozzle, a waste liquid recycle barrel and a liquid pump controller. The three-way joint is communicated with the liquid pump and the first on-off valve and the second on-off valve through pipelines. The liquid container is communicated with the liquid pump through pipelines and is used for providing liquid to the bubble removal apparatus. The waste liquid recycle barrel is communicated with the first on-off valve through the pipelines and recycles liquid flown out from the first on-off valve. The nozzle is communicated with the second on-off valve through the pipelines so that liquid flown out from the second on-off valve enters the nozzle. In the method, the switches of the on-off valves and operation of the liquid pump are controlled by the controllers to remove the bubbles in the fluid. The invention can achieve bubble removal of fluid in micro flow rate, ensures stable flow rate of the fluid at an outlet, is simple in added apparatuses and is convenient to control.


Background: Although excellent log-term
results have been reported with cemented
tibial fi xation, means to improve the longevity
of total knee replacements continue to be
of interest to clinicians. Based on good results
obtained for hip prostheses, one of the possible
choices is the use of cementless fi xation
with improved eff ectiveness of osseointegration.
Tibial components made of trabecular
metal introduced recently have off ered
greatly increased bone ingrowth and good
functional characteristics due to their porous
structure and physical-chemical properties
similar to those of bone. Monoblock design
prevents the back-side wear.
Methods: We have implanted 434 total knee
replacements with tibial components made
of trabecular tantal (Trabecular Metal Monobloc,
Nexgen Legacy). Patient demographic
data were analysed and revision cases were
described.
Results: Aft er a mean follow-up of 28
months fi ve components were revised: three
for infection, one for instability and one for
rigidity.
Conclusions: Cementless knee prosthesis
made of trabecular tantalum has the advantage
of shorter operation time and avoidance of possible adverse eff ects of cement as well
as its deterioration and delamination. With
increasing follow-up period we expect longterm
advantages in terms of improved direct
osseointegration. Disadvantages are the relatively high price of the prosthesis and the
possibility of a potentially higher incidence
of infection due to the lack of antibiotics
from the cement.


Depression remains a highly prevalent disorder in the general population with significant personal and socioeconomic implications. Several European studies estimated the 6-month prevalence of depression to be -17% for depressive disorders as a whole and 6.9% for major depression. Recently, the World Health Organization World Mental Health Survey Consortium estimated the 12-month prevalence of mood disorders in Europe to range from 3.6% in Germany to 9.1% in Ukraine compared with 9.6% in the United States. However, depression still remains under-diagnosed and, consequently, under-treated. When adequately treated, up to half of all patients do not respond adequately to first-line monotherapy and 60% to 70% of depressed patients fail to reach complete remission despite rapid development in the therapeutic armamentarium of mood disorders since the late 1980s. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), reboxetine (a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), and newer dual action antidepressants, such as venlafaxine, mirtazapine, and milnacipran, have been proposed as replacements to the older tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). Although they are safer and better tolerated, they have not significantly altered the rate of improvement in depressive symptoms. In the past, nonresponse and resistance in depression, which incorporates more than a third of depressed patients, had not received much attention. This has resulted in unsystematic research and uncontrolled clinical trials, which in turn have led to a degree of confusion. However, recent research has provided substantial progress on more fundamental aspects of nonresponse in depression. These aspects mainly include methodological considerations and predictive factors of response to antidepressants. The key parameters characterizing and defining treatment-resistant depression (TRD) include basic criteria used to specify diagnosis, treatment adequacy, response to treatment, and several previous trials. Diagnostic issues include the need for accurate diagnosis, different treatment modalities according to the different depressive disorders (eg, psychotic, metabolic, chronic), and comorbidity with other psychiatric or personality disorders. Treatment adequacy is to be considered in terms of dosage, duration, and compliance. Standardization of these criteria is essential. Unfortunately, a lack of consensus on most items persists. Assessment of treatment response raises the problem of evaluating remission and the minimal duration of remission required. Previous failed trials remain a controversial subject referring to the type (different classes, including electroconvulsive therapy [ECT]) and number of adequate antidepressant trials required for considering resistance. Such a foundation is essential and will hopefully lead to more systematic research in clinical trials for evaluating specific strategies and new drugs. Interpretation of research findings and their translation to clinical applications are only possible through comparison of results obtained with consistency in the definitions used. Response or resistance to acute treatment and relapse or maintenance after recovery also indicate that some patients will present different degrees of resistance to therapeutic strategies or agents in the different phases of their treatment history. This observation should be taken into consideration and may be useful to differentiate acute versus long-term resistance. The difficulties of defining therapy resistance are clearly different considering clinical and research perspectives. Research objectives mainly include validation of the concept, suggesting operational criteria for identification of predictive factors, biological investigations, or drug trials. In the clinical perspective, defining therapy resistance is more focused on recognition, diagnosis, and treatment alternatives. This month's issue of CNS Spectrums presents articles on multiple aspects of treatment resistance, from therapeutic options to diagnostic diversity. Michael E. Thase, MD, has, for many years, contributed to clarifying the role of the different therapeutic approaches in refractory depression. In his review, a simple five-stage system for categorizing TRD is described and the evidence pertaining to the major strategies is summarized. Based upon the weight of this evidence, an attempt is also made to provide treatment algorithms for TRD patients. This approach represents a helpful tool for the clinician regarding the most commonly used strategies in difficult-totreat patients. An initial strategy consists of switching within a class of antidepressants. The evidence level for SSRIs with a response of 50% to 60% to a second SSRI is considered B, whereas switching between TCAs has not been found to be a useful strategy.


Since it is well accepted that understanding distance learners' learning needs and trends makes a good beginning of providing learning support service, the author makes a questionnaire survey among distance learners of Guangdong Radio TV University, which carries valuable information on the advantages and problems of the learning support service of that university. The author, therefore, puts forward his ideas on improving the construction of the learning support service system in distance education.


In this study, some quality elements of the Horoz Karası grape variety were investigated. For this purpose, cluster, berry, total soluble solids (TSS), titration acidity, pH level, berry color, total phenol, and antioxidant activity were determined in sample clusters of the Horoz Karası grape variety taken from the producer vineyards in Kahramanmaraş. In the Horoz Karası grape cultivar, total soluble solids (TSS) level was recorded between 16.6-25.35%, titratable acidity between 0.189-0.517, pH level 3.62 and 3.94. In Horoz Karası grape samples, L*, which expresses brightness, was determined between 25.64 and 29.97, a* value between 0.32-1.33, b* value between -0.91 and -0.23. Chroma value was recorded between 0.43-1.85 and CIRG (Color Index of Red Grapes) values were between 7.02 and 8.25. Hue angle was recorded between -40.88 - (-33.31) values in CIE (Commission Internationale de L'éclairage) color coordinate. According to the Hue angle values, the color of the berry of the Horoz Karası variety was recorded as purple.


The Multilevel Modular Converter (MMC) has been established as a preferred topology in the field of Voltage Sourced Converter for High Voltage DC (HVDC) transmission. Traditionally, supplementary equipment, for example, a Dynamic Braking System (DBS), is employed to temporarily dissipate the dc power transmitted from the OffshoreWind Parks (OWP) if the onshore grid is unable to absorb the totality of the generated power by the OWP. Such a reduction in power transfer requirement may be due to a fault in the converter station or in the attached ac network. The DBS circuitry requires considerable space and is costly. Due to the limited energy storage capacity embedded within the HVDC system, active power balancing is only possible in coordination with the connected power park modules. The need for control and compensation of converter energy within the valve submodules is paramount to guarantee the correct operation of the converter under normal or abnormal operating conditions. This paper shows two control methods of the offshore converter to provide fault-ride-through capability at the onshore ac grid without the need of a DBS. This is achieved by controlling the frequency and/or the ac voltage magnitude of the offshore ac grid. The concept has been validated by simulation results in PSCAD.


PurposeThe labour force is the cornerstone of the economy of Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Labour market growth seems to be vigorously increased by using labourers' capital to foster work-related employees' well-being, through enhancing their life satisfaction. This study examines whether linking social, human and financial capital are important for the labour force in Lao PDR and whether there is a positive relationship between occupational well-being and life satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested the hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Using a systematic sampling approach, the study employed structured interviews; data were collected from 1,037 members of the labour force, between 2017 and 2019.FindingsThe structural model indicated that linking social and human capital and occupational well-being were significantly positively related to life satisfaction. However, the present study found that financial capital was non-significantly related to life satisfaction. The substantive and practical implications of these findings are discussed.Originality/valueThis is the first research study to investigate the relationship between occupational well-being and life satisfaction using a Laotian sample.


1. Levels of breathlessness, fatigue, and anxiety are moderately correlated, supporting the notion of viewing these three symptoms as a cluster. 2. An intervention combining patient education and progressive muscle relaxation is effective for combating the breathlessness, fatigue, and anxiety symptom cluster over a 6-week period. 3. The combined intervention is also effective for improving patients' overall functional ability over a 6-week period. . Progressive muscle relaxation alone does not produce a significant effect on the symptom cluster and functional ability.


Abstract We extend the New Tamm-Dancoff method by introducing intermediate states. In this way we are able to treat with the Green's function method the effect of nearby levels in many-body systems. We formulate the η-and the ζ-function method with intermediate states. Aldready in first order, the ζ-function method yields a whole series of new approximations in addition to known theories such as the Hartree-Fock theory and the Hartree-Bogoliubov theory. As an example we study intensively "the Hartree-Fock theory with intermediate states". The ζ-function method which is based on the η-function method yields in first order in addition to RPA, quasi-particle RPA and other approximations "RPA with intermediate states". We apply the Hartree-Fock theory with intermediate states and RPA with intermediate states to the exactly solvable Lipkin model.


The maintenance of natural capital for ecosystem service provision is crucial to humankind. Natural capital is being exhausted at a rapid rate, manifest as loss of biodiversity, declining water quality and quantity, soil erosion and atmospheric changes leading to climate change. The investment required to ameliorate the rate and scale of degradation of natural capital exceeds available financial resources. A decision process comprised of evidence based planning and transparent decisions, coupled with prioritised investment, provides the greatest environmental benefits. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) are two decision analysis tools to inform investment planning and decision- making. The strength of these decision-analysis tools lies with their ability to integrate complex and disparate data and model outputs into a simple framework for ranking and prioritisation among a series of alternatives. However there are few integrative case studies at either catchment or individual site scales. The metrics used to quantify the natural capital and ecosystem services benefits provided by investments at the scale of identified hotspots are typically those deployed for regional and landscape analysis. However, site-scale metrics are important to consider when estimating the efficacy, and therefore priority, of investment because landscape scale metrics may not sufficiently represent the fine-scale variation inherent in complex ecosystems. This study applies AHP to quantify a series of weights within a MCDA framework to integrate numerous landscape-scale and site-scale metrics for the region managed by the Adelaide and Mt Lofty Ranges Natural Resource Management Board, South Australia. The landscape-scale metrics describe management priorities for various elements of natural capital, namely biodiversity, soil, water and the atmosphere. The site-scale metrics value the relevant assets that enhance natural capital and the threats to those assets. The metrics describe the health, integrity and value of aquatic habitat and terrestrial remnant vegetation at a site. AHP was used to derive weights in a workshop setting with stakeholders and field experts. The AHP was used to assess the relative importance of each metric against every other metric within the branch of a decision tree. Weights were derived using a 3-stage process: first the relative values of the landscape-scale metrics were quantified. Second, the process was repeated with the site-scale metrics. Finally, the importance of the landscape-scale metrics was weighed against the site-scale metrics. The result was a series of global weights describing the relative management priority of each regional- and site-scale factor. The decision model was applied to a dataset of sites under consideration by the Adelaide and Mt Lofty Ranges Natural Resource Management Board for funding for on-ground works that enhance natural capital for improved provision of ecosystem services. In this case the on-ground activity being funded is the improved management and protection of remnant vegetation. The model was used to calculate investment prioritisation for: i) landscape-scale hotspots; ii) fine-scale on-ground works, and iii) integration of the two scales. The inclusion of site metric in the decision model had a large bearing on the ranking of sites for investment, demonstrating the influence of site scale metrics in the decision process.


Wimax which represents world wide interoperability for microwave access is a major part of broad band wireless network having IEEE802.16 standard providing fixed and mobile platform for broadband internet access. The Wimax forum has adopted IEEE 802.16 OFDM PHY layer for the equipment manufacturer due to its robust performance in multipath environment. In this paper we investigate the simulation performance of IEEE 802.16 OFDM PHY layer. The Stanford University Interim (SUI) channel models are selected for the wireless channel in the simulation and we also investigate the estimation of channel at high frequencies with conventional Least Square (LS) and Minimum Mean Square (MMSE) estimation algorithms. Channel state information for OFDM systems based on pilot carrier is carried out through Matlab simulation. The performance of MIMO OFDM is evaluated on the basis of Bit Error Rate (BER) and Mean Square Error (MSE) level.


The use of network coding for large scale content distribution improves download time. This is demonstrated in this work by the use of network coded Electronic Health Record Storage System (EHR-SS). An architecture of 4-layer to build the EHR-SS is designed. The application integrates the data captured for the patient from three modules namely administrative data, medical records of consultation and reports of medical tests. The lower layer is the data capturing layer using RFID reader. The data is captured in the lower level from different nodes. The data is combined with some linear coefficients using linear network coding. At the lower level the data from different tags are combined and stored and at the level 2 coding combines the data from multiple readers and a corresponding encoding vector is generated. This network coding is done at the server node through small mat lab net-cod interface software. While accessing the stored data, the user data has the data type represented in the form of decoding vector. For storing and retrieval the primary key is the patient id. The results obtained were observed with a reduction of download time of about 12% for our case study set up.


With the wide application of optimization problems in engineering practice and scientific research, evolutionary algorithms have been gradually studied. Recently, the main solutions for multi-objective optimization problems include multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on Pareto dominance or decomposition, and hybrid algorithm. Ground on this, we propose the IGNSGA algorithm, which combines the NSGA-II algorithm based on the Pareto dominance relationship with the optimization mechanism of adaptive meshing after adding the dominant individual accumulation strategy. This way can increase the search pressure, improve the search efficiency, and guarantee the convergence and distribution of Pareto solution, which makes the algorithm have universal applicability.


We deal with two independent random walks with subexponential distributions of their increments. We study the tail distributional asymptotics for the sum of their partial maxima within random time intervals. Assuming the distributions of the lengths of these intervals to be relatively small, with respect to that of the increments of the random walks, we show that the sum of the maxima takes a large value mostly due a large value of a single summand (this is the so-called "principle of a single big jump").


The PV Fleet Data Initiative and other projects seek to develop algorithms for automated analysis of photovoltaic (PV) time series data. This analysis can be used to extract statistical information and other parameters from the data, such as degradation rates, soiling loss information, tracker performance, clipping or


Hyperspectral images (HSIs) has practical applications in many fields. In practical scenarios, machine learning often fails to handle changes between training (source) and testing (target) input distributions due to domain shifts. A big challenge in hyperspectral image classification is the small size of labeled data for classifier learning. We always face the situation that an HSI scene is not labeled all or with very limited number of labeled pixels, but we have sufficient labeled pixels in another HSI scene with similar land cover classes. In this paper, we propose a simple and effective method for domain adaptation called statistical fusion to minimize domain shifts by aligning the second-order and fourth-order statistics of source and target distributions. After two hyperspectral scenes are transformed into the similar property-space, any traditional HSI classification approaches can be used, and experimental results have validated the generalization of the proposed method.


We describe a sculpting system for designing free-form polygonal models using virtual sculpting tools and mesh refinement operations. Virtual tools are geometric objects with shapes described by superquadric equations. The user controls a virtual tool to sculpt a free-form polygonal model starting from a mesh. The vertices of the mesh respond to a tool in a semi-realistic manner, allowing the user to push, pull , and deform the mesh in a variety of ways. Mesh refinement operations allow the user to control refinement levels and create smooth objects. Interactive shadows and a virtual trackball considerably enhance the intuitive manipulation and sculpting of models . The strength of the system has been demonstrated by sculpting freeform surfaces such as a dog, a fish, a banana slug, and a dinosaur, all with widely varying levels of detail.


Genu osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease that often occurs in the elderly, the main symptoms felt by sufferers of this disease are morning stiffness, pain and limitations in daily activities. The diagnosis of OA is based on clinical symptoms and results from radiology, for the severity of geno osteoarthritis itself using the principles of Lawrence Kellgren Grading and the American College of Rheumatology Criteria. Cases of genu osteoarthritis can be given pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy, as physiotherapy in cases of genu osteoarthritis can be given therapy in the form of nonpharmacology one of which is theraband training. The purpose of this study was to determine the benefits of theraband training in reducing pain and increasing functional activity in genu osteoarthritis sufferers. The data collection method uses quasi experimental design with pretest and posttest with control group design. Data collected were tested for normality with Shapiro Wilk. Normal distribution, influence test using paired sample t-Test. Normally distributed data were tested for different effects using the independent sample test. Paired Sample t-Test results obtained p = 0.080 (p> 0.05) in the pain and functional activity of the control group. The treatment group was found to be p = 0.025 (p> 0.05) for pain and p = 0.047 (p> 0.05) for functional activity. The conclusions obtained from this study are as follows: (1) There is an effect of theraband training on pain reduction and increased functional activity in genu osteoarthritis sufferers. (2) There is no effect of providing hospital standard therapy on pain relief and increased functional activity.


Article No.: 012914078 DOI: 10.15580/GJAS.2014.1.012914078 There has been a decline in chicken production in most developing countries, yet poultry constitute an important pillar in HIV/AIDS alleviation and act as an income source plus food security in rural communities. The limited availability and high cost of stock feeds that have not increased concomitantly with producer prices are partly responsible for the decline. These limitations are especially important in rural communities because they are resource poor. Farmers therefore enlisted a priority research on alternative feed sources for poultry production since homegrown feeds available to the farmer can sometimes be limited. Maize and sorghum are usually the most abundant sources of grain available, which can supply adequate carbohydrate but not protein. Protein sources are expensive and hence unaffordable to the smallholder farmer. Small holder farmers have been using leaf meals as protein sources in order to alleviate feed limitations in poultry production. One such leaf meal is Moringa oleifera Lam (syns. Moringa pterygosperm, family Moringaceae). The uses of Moringa oleifera have attracted attention of researchers. Preliminary investigation showed that the plant has high biomass production. Its leaves are used as vegetables by humans in central Africa and have a good profile of amino acids that makes it a valuable source of livestock feed. Submitted: 29/01/2014 Accepted: 21/02/2014 Published: 11/03/2014


This article proposes an autonomous aerial exploration framework for traversable path finding of ground robots in unknown environments to achieve a fast response in search and rescue (SAR) missions. Different from existing works, our method provides a task-oriented active exploration strategy that makes the aerial robot fully autonomous during the exploration and does not require human intervention. To identify the candidate regions which ground robots can go through, a fast incremental traversability estimation algorithm is presented, which can evaluate the traversability of the region of interest (ROI) efficiently. Based on the traversability map, we propose a highly efficient frontier detection algorithm that can guarantee both reachability and safety of the extracted frontiers. To reduce the total response time of the whole robot system, a new cost function considering both the time costs of the aerial and ground robots is designed that aims to avoid back-and-forth motion behavior during aerial exploration. The performance of our approach is evaluated in both simulation and real-world experiments. The results show that the proposed method outperforms existing methods in terms of traversability estimation and frontier detection time (about one order of magnitude faster) as well as the response time (at least 13% shorter on average).


The outsourced manufacturing model has become more and more popular over the past years,and the manufacturing enterprise must reduce the lead time and cost in product developing in order to stand competitive in such an changing and dynamic market opportunity.It's necessary for the enterprise to make the use of manufacturing resources distributed around the word through computer networks.This paper proposes a Multi-Agent system based framework for manufacturing resource integration,in order to realize the efficient deployment and use of resource.The framework can be used as platform for enterprise integration and is also a new kind of networked application service provider.


Recent study about near-surface is proposed to overcome non-economic of underground railway and to reduce people`s complaints of ground elevated railway. In this report, precast modular structure system replacing temporary facilities is applied to ensure the construction ability and economic feasibility. To verify the performance of connection joint between permanent structural wall and upper slab, loading test is carried out. As a result of the test, wall replacing temporary structure to slab connection is possible to transfer bending moment. By 30% increase of bending resistant performance for connection joint using coupler, coupler connection joint is more advantageous to resist bending moment compared to channel connection.


The problem of habitat fragmentation is affecting the chances of survival of an increasing number of animal species. The Eurasian badger is a typical example of such a species. Plans and measures addressing the problem of habitat fragmentation have toprovide for ecological qualities both within natural areas and in connecting areas in between. A computer model has been developed for determining the effectiveness of such plans and measures regarding both elements for the badger. As a test the model was applied to three different scenarios that reflect different spatial developments in the future.


The lateral displacements developing in clay foundations under 21 different embankments during construction and consolidation have been analyzed. The development of a significant consolidation at the beginning of any embankment construction has been confirmed. As a result, lateral deformations initially develop in conformity to the theory of elasticity for a drained condition. Undrained shear distortions develop near the end of construction when the clay foundation has become partly or entirely normally consolidated. This sequence of drained and undrained response of the foundation governs both the magnitude and distribution with depth of the lateral displacements and is the main reason why previous displacement predictions based on undrained analysis have been unsuccessful. Delayed lateral deformations can be significant and develop linearly with the consolidation settlement, at least in the first years after the end of construction. The distribution of lateral deformations with depth is not modified dur...


This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 207011, "Healthy Caspian Experience Helps Boost Drilling Performance in Turkey's Onshore UGS Project," by Elchin Akbarli and Rufat Mammadbayli, SPE, SOCAR AQS. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

 In the complete paper, the authors describe an operator's underground gas storage (UGS) project. The intent of the paper is to demonstrate the execution methodology and technologies that the company used to deliver the work on time and under budget. The authors outline planning, design, and drilling and completion strategies used during the execution phase. The authors add that the company's experience in Caspian operations was of great benefit to the project.

 A plan was developed to expand a UGS facility in a salt cavern field. The main challenge of the project was the requirement to complete all wells within a short time frame with a limited budget while keeping the project economically feasible for the company without compromising safety and environmental protection.
 Geological risks and uncertainties required additional preliminary considerations, leading to a focus on the best methods available for the drilling and completion of 40 planned wells. A comprehensive cost analysis was performed to evaluate the approach. The operations were divided into three stages: tophole drilling, main drilling, and completion. Different types of rigs, with different capabilities depending upon the range of the work, were assigned for each phase. The plan involved three small truck-mounted mobile rigs to begin tophole drilling and run 30-in. conductor casings to isolate unconsolidated formations and freshwater zones. Then, six main rigs would be mobilized to perform the main stages of drilling; three completion rigs would finalize the project.
 The company's Caspian experience applied to several technical aspects of the project, from optimization of drilling activities to planning and execution. The project presented many technical challenges, including geological hazards, deviation control, and strict requirements of well integrity for a long period of time.

 A major decision point in the planning phase was to select different types of rigs to implement various drilling operations in a staged manner. Initially, 125-ton-capacity truck-mounted rigs began to drill 36-in. tophole sections and run 30-in. casings; then, the task was passed to main drilling rigs with installed 30-in. conductor casing. Top holes were drilled with three low-cost, low-capacity rigs to combat the high potential of lost-circulation problems that could be experienced with high-cost main drilling rigs. In the second stage, main drilling rigs with 225-ton and 300-ton capacity were involved for the next 26- and 17½-in. sections. In the third stage, low-capacity rigs were moved to the well locations to complete wells, either running the last leaching string of 10- and 7-in. casings or underreaming 12-in. to 17½-in. sections before running leaching strings.


The underground water resource plays an important role in promoting urban economic development,protecting city's character and people life.The research progress in decades of underground water resource in Jinan is first reviewed in this paper,including the path and source of spring water,spring area boundaries,water quality evolution,and planning and response and so on.The direction of future research recommendations is also descripted,including Jinan spring area underground history of the geological evolution,underground spring border,deep underground spring kinetics,underground karst system,underground spring area of three-dimensional geological model,spring area of the project in response to groundwater and theory,technology,and methods of protecting spring water in Jinan.


In recent years, the discovery and utilization of the millimeter-wave for the next generation of mobile communications have fuelled the demand to develop site specific and more accurate wireless channel models. Due to the dynamic and high interactive nature of the millimeter waves, accurate models which takes into consideration the effects of the interacting objects in the propagation environments are needed. This paper presents a development of a machine learning (ML) based prediction model for large scale channel parameter (LSCP) estimation by analyzing the interaction of the reflected multipath rays information with propagation environments. This is to capture the shape of the changing propagation environments more accurately. Utilizing the robustness of ML, a dynamic LSCP prediction model can be realized. The input parameters to the prediction model are transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) positional coordinates, and the reflected rays' information such as the delay, angle of arrival, angle of departure, elevation angle of arrival, elevation angle of departure, and power gain. The proposed model was implemented using Random Forests. Ray tracing (RT) simulation was performed to calculate the input dataset of the LSCPs, and also the input datasets of the reflected rays. Cross validation was utilized to validate the model.


In the field of pattern recognition from satellite images, the existing road extraction methods have been either too specialized or too time consuming. The challenge then has been to develop a general and close to real time road extraction method. This study falls in this perspective and aims at developing a close to real time semi-automatic system able to extract linear planimetric features (including roads). The major concern of this study is to combine the most efficient tools to deal with the road primitive extraction process in order to handle multi- resolution and multi-type raw images. Hence, this study brought along a new model fusion characterized by the combination of operator input points (in 2D or 3D), fuzzy image filtering, cubic natural splines and the A*algorithm. First, a cubic natural splines interpolation of the operator points is used to parameterize the A*algorithm. Cost function with the consequence to restrict the mining research area. Second, the heuristic function of the same algorithm is combined with the fuzzy filtering which proves to be a fast and efficient tool for selection of the primitive most promising points. The combination of the cost function and the heuristic function leads to a limited number of hypothetical paths, hence decreasing the computation time. Moreover, the combination of the A*algorithm and the splines leads to a new way to solve the perceptual grouping problems. Results related to the problem of feature discontinuity suggest new research perspectives in relation to noisy area (urban) as well as noisy data (radar images).


In this paper,natural anhydrite as the main raw material was activated by calcine alum,slag powder,and cement.Setting time,strength,water absorption,soften coefficient,and expansion rate of natural anhydrite after activation were investigated.And the volume over-expansion of the anhydrite was controlled by composite doping of activators.


This paper focuses on the study of higher learning institution workers (academician, professional and management group and supporting staff) levels of understanding about Islam as a way of life, the concepts of worship and their level of understanding on the attributes of work as worshiping ('Ibadat') Allah applies to their workplace. It is timely to study about this topic since not many study focuses on this important issue. Study on workers generally occurs in a more generic perspectives about their behavior and work place and work productivity. The study uses pragmatism research philosophy and in this study only quantitative data used which was collected through an online using google online questionaire tools of facilities. All muslim staff (1751) were invited to be involved in this study and around 179 useful questionnaires were used for further analyzed. It can be concluded that research findings show that the majority of respondents in this study admit or agree that Islam is a way of life. This means they are aware that the teachings and guidelines contained in Islam can be applied in their daily lives. Based on the findings of this study, clearly respondents have a positive perception of the concept of worship. They realize that worship is a major demand in their lives whether in the world or hereafter. They also realize that this concept of worship can be applied in all aspects of their life. They reject the worship only for things related to prayer, zakat and fasting only. The findings as a whole show that respondents follow all the principles set out to make their work in the category of worship to God. This is in line with the views given by Al-Qaradawy (2013) and the views of some other Islamic intellectuals. Implications and recommendations of the research findings were also discussed in this paper.


A peppery exchange of letters and editorials in the world9s top medical journals this week reveals that the editors of these elite publications disagree sharply about how to handle their authors9 conflicts of interest. On one side is Boston9s venerable
 New England Journal of Medicine , upholding a tough policy that requires full disclosure of authors9 financial interests and bans editorials by anyone with a financial stake in the subject being discussed. On the other side are
 Epidemiology of Newton, Massachusetts, and
 The Lancet of London, both of which argue that modest requirements for self-disclosure are adequate.


In the paper there is presented the argument for the situational paradigm of theory of language. In comparison to the nominativistic semantics it is argued in the paper that the propositional semantics is a better tool of explaining various speech acts in which the principle of compositionality is collapsed. In the paper there are also described referential mechanisms of metaphorical speech acts. In accordance with these mechanisms the metaphorical status of speech acts is determined by the collapse of Fregean referential compositionality of speech acts. In the paper there are constructed two notions of compositionality. First of them may be called classical Fregean concept of compositionality which establishes a semantic correlate of a complex speech act on a functional basis of semantic correlates of constituents of a complex speech act. According to the second notion of compositionality, correlates of constituents of a complex speech act are recursively deter-mined by a correlate of a complex speech act. Mataphorical speech acts possess such a property that correlates of their constituent expressions are determined in processes of de-coding by recursive compositionality functions. Maximal metaphors are speech acts in which recursive as well as Fregean compositionality collapse. In the paper it is argued that the traditional nominativistic semantics is not able to explain communicational functioning of metaphorical speech acts. That is why the conclusion of the paper resolves itself to the thesis that the situational semantic paradigm which should base on recursive notion of compositionality, is better than the nominativistic paradigm.


This work introduces novel approaches to accelerate the production of deterministic test patterns for VLSI devices. These methods reduce the number of backtracking while requiring little processing effort, therefore improving the PODEM algorithm. This is accomplished by assigning additional signal lines to the relevant signals, spotting errors earlier, and eliminating extra effort during test generation. These methods have been included into ATOM, a sophisticated ATPG device for combinational circuits. The test generation results for the benchmark circuits' ATOM as well as full scan versions showed how effective these strategies were at improving performance ATOM found all tested problems in a short period of time and proved that all overlapping faults were excessive with minimum backtracking


Background Epitope mapping of anti-Ro52 antibodies (abs) has been extensively studied in patients with Sjögren's syndrome (SjS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Comprehensive epitope mapping in systemic sclerosis (SSc) or malignant diseases (MD), also associated with anti-Ro52 abs, has not been performed. Objectives To fully characterise Ro52 epitopes in anti-Ro52 ab-positive SSc and MDs. Methods Testing was performed in sera from 95 anti-Ro52 positive patients with various autoimmune diseases (32 SSc, 20 SjS, 28 SLE) and 15 with malignant diseases (MD). Five recombinant Ro52 fragments [Ro52–1 (aa 1–127), Ro52–2 (aa 125–268), Ro52–3 (aa 268–475), Ro52–4 (aa 57–180, partly overlapping Ro52–1 and Ro52–2), and Ro52–5 (aa 181–320, partly overlapping Ro52–2 and Ro52–3)] were tested by line-immunoassay. Anti-Ro60 was tested by ELISA. Results Overall, reactivity to Ro52–1, Ro52–2, Ro52–3, Ro52–4 and Ro52–5 were present in 35.8%, 100%, 0%, 32.6%, 50.5%, respectively. Patients with SLE more frequently recognised Ro52–1, Ro52–4 and Ro52–5 than patients with SSc and malignant diseases. When epitope mapping was analysed in accordance to Ro60 reactivity, patients where subdivided in 50 Ro52pos/Ro60pos (13 patients with SSc, 14 with SjS, 18 with SLE and 5 patients with MD) and 45 Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (19 with SSc, 6 with SjS, 10 with SLE and 10 patients with MD) and the following findings were noted: Abs to Ro52–1 were present in 26/50 (52%) Ro52pos/Ro60pos compared to 8/45 (18%) Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (p<0.001); antibodies to Ro52–2 were present in all patients; antibodies to Ro52–3 was totally absent; antibodies to Ro52–4 were present in 23/50 (46%) Ro52pos/Ro60pos compared to 8/45 (18%) Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (p=0.003); antibodies to Ro52–5 were present in 33/50 (66%) Ro52pos/Ro60pos compared to 15/45 (33.3%) Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (p=0.001). Ro52 epitope recognition did not differ between Ro52pos/Ro60pos and Ro52pos/Ro60neg in patients with SLE, SjS and patients with MD. In SSc anti-Ro52–1 reactivity was present in 8/13 (62%) Ro52pos/Ro60pos compared to 0/19 (0%) Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (p<0.001); In SSc, anti-Ro52–5 reactivity was present in 9/13 (69.2%) Ro52pos/Ro60pos and 5/19 (26.3%) Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients (p=0.029). Ro52 epitope recognition in Ro52pos/Ro60pos patients did not differ amongst diseases. Conclusions Ro52–1 (aa 1–127) and Ro52–4, partially overlapping with Ro52–1, (aa 57–180) are dominant epitopes in Ro52pos/Ro60pos patients but not in Ro52pos/Ro60neg patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases, suggesting that amino acids 57–127 may contain an epitope specifically recognised by the Ro52pos/Ro60pos group. Whether Ro60 is responsible for the unmasking of Ro52 (aa57–127) neoepitope remains to be investigated. Disclosure of Interest A. Gkoutzourelas: None declared, C. Liaskos: None declared, V. Papadopoulos: None declared, M. Mytilinaiou: None declared, K. Christina: None declared, T. Scheper Employee of: EUROIMMUN, W. Meyer Employee of: EUROIMMUN, D. Bogdanos: None declared, C. Papandreou: None declared, L. Sakkas: None declared


Community residents are important stakeholders in tourism exploitation.The community participation is the tourism sustainable development important guarantee.This text Studies in our country tourism development the community participation present situation and the question From angles and so on participation pattern,participation content and benefit mechanism explore the regulation and control measure of participating in tourism development of the community.


Article info: Received: 26 Nov 2019 Accepted: 13 Mar 2020 Online Published: 01 Apr 2020 Research Paper: Impact of Turmeric Curcuma longa on the Body Weight and Liver Function of Japanese Quails Exposed to Dietary Aflatoxins * Corresponding author: Omid Karimi, PhD Address: Department of Animal Viral Diseases Research, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Karaj, Iran. E-mail: email@example.com


This project aims to assemble interpretative and analytical materials, cross- connections, comparisons, and theological insights in order to form a hermeneutic, holistic approach to performances of Messiaen's organ music. Thus, research and interpretation lead to the recording on a suitable instrument of performances, which in turn illustrate theological and interpretative issues. Rather than investigating complete cycles, the development of a carefully constructed programme of individual pieces, interlinked and selected from Messiaen's entire œuvre, will help us to draw out a sophisticated and consistent theological message, as well as comparing the use of different compositional techniques and recurring thematic resonances (both musical and Christian) throughout the composer's development.

This interpretative work builds upon the approach and conclusions expressed in my dissertation: 'In Search of Musique Chatoyante: Technique, Theology, and the Play of Harmonic Resonance in Olivier Messiaen's Vitrail Sonore'. By forming the connections on both musical and theological levels between pieces from different periods and cycles, we can reveal fresh perspectives on the performance of Messiaen's organ music. One aspect will be an understanding of Messiaen's non-modal harmony: as 'percee vers l'au-dela', it becomes a foundation for dazzlement, and a conduit to the divine. How do these 'accords speciaux' intersect with the theological subtext, and when identical chords are heard in different pieces, how does this intertextual play create new theological insight? Devising this programme in a framework exploring Messiaen's compositional growth yields more fruitful insights than exploring just a single work, thus establishing connections across boundaries of work, genre and period, and linking Messiaen's organ music to his wider output and to contemporary Catholic thought.


The paper addresses a velocity planning problem for autonomous vehicles. Appropriate bounds on velocities and accelerations have to be considered in order to avoid wheels skidding and actuators saturation. Planned profiles fulfill an assigned travelling time, while longitudinal jerk is minimized in order to increase the motion smoothness. In the paper it is shown that the velocity planning problem can be formulated as a nonlinear semi-infinite optimization to be solved in real time by means of an appositely devised algorithm characterized by a light computational burden.


The subject of this thesis is the brain drain phenomenon. This is an issue that has been extensively addressed by contemporary scholars (sociologists, economists, politicians, etc.) and mainly because it is related to the distribution and movements of the population among countries of the world.What is being considered to clarify the phenomenon is the causes of (past and modern), its consequences, its modern characteristics, as well as the search for successful policies that have been pursued to limit the issue internationally. At the same time, the parameters of the issue for Greece and the identification of the factors (in addition to the current economic crisis) that have raised the phenomenon are considered.
As it turns out, the economic crisis and the change in the characteristics of societies from 2007 onwards is not the only factor in the widening of the phenomenon. Policies and incentives to restrain the population of each country and the strengthening of research and technological achievements play a key role. Undoubtedly, Greece is a country of '' creation '' of high scientific potential. However, what is inadequate is ultimately to strengthen this potential and to create suitable jobs for its employment and development.


To achieve rapid automatic grinding of workpieces' inner-surface by industrial robot, a rapid translational detection strategy of workpieces' inner-surface and fuzzy force control algorithm of grinding are proposed in this paper. The rapid translational detection strategy introduces a way to establish an inner-surface's model quickly by recording key points of the axial section contour which reflects big curvature changes of the contour. The established model is feasible but imprecision. The force control algorithm is based on impedance model. To promote adaptability to the imprecision of the established inner-surface's model, a fuzzy adjusting strategy is introduced in the force control algorithm. By adopting an adjusting factor, which determined by force response and a fuzzy logic, the strategy can adjust the reference trajectory of impedance model in time. Taking advantage of proposed detection and force control method, grinding experiments shows that the contact normal force maintains approximately constant, the relative mean error is within 6.5%, and the material removal thickness of the inner-surface is approximately consistent. The proposed strategy's feasibility is verified.


Aiming at the problems of complicated operation and high professional in traditional UAV remote control system, proposes a gesture-based control system. The location data of the operator's body postures are collected by Kinect sensor. Through a Human Machine Interface, the operator's gestures are recognized and then converted into control commands for quadrotor UAV, which realizes the flight con-trol. Designs a completed gesture control system, the associated gesture recognition and control algorithm. Experimental result shows that the proposed method is intuitive, simple and effective.


There has been recent editorial emphasis on the long-standing observation that gastric malignancy in the United States has been on the steady decrease for the past 2½ decades and very probably longer (Fig 1).64During the years 1930 to 1955 the age-adjusted mortality rates have fallen approximately 23%.45,64From a clinical aspect the decline has become so striking, in fact, that a number of medical centers have recorded a drop in admissions for this disease in excess of 50% since 1952.64By way of contrast, death from carcinoma of all types has increased during the same interval, and, while the mortality rate from carcinoma of the stomach has fallen from 19.8 to 11.2 per 100,000 population, that from carcinoma of the colon and rectum has remained stable (Fig 2).45The trend has not been confined to the United States alone; comparably reduced death rates have been


The utility model relates to a connecting structure, which is used for a generating line union body of the medium voltage equipment. A tee coupling clamping plate and a cross joint clamping plate are respectively arranged in a tee coupling generating line union body and a cross joint generating line union body, the tee coupling generating line union body is spliced the cross joint generating line union body through a generating line, the tee coupling clamping plate and the cross joint clamping plate press out the generating line through the tee coupling generating line union body and the cross joint generating line union body, and then to tighten on the isolator of the equipment by a double-threaded screw; one end of the tee coupling clamping plate is formed as a claw-type molding, both ends of the cross joint clamping plate are formed as claw-type molding, the end of the claw are all raised bowtype, and a supporting block is arranged in the inner tee coupling clamping plate. The splicing between the medium voltage equipments is achieved by the generating line and the generating line union body, the tee coupling clamping plate and the cross joint clamping plate is pressed tightly on the generating line through the screw and is fixed on a metal contactor of the isolator of the equipment, the tee coupling clamping plate and the cross joint clamping plate is formed with the claw-type, the contact area with the generating line is enlarged by the claw-type clamping plate, and more current can pass in the permitted temperature rise range.


The fiction and the epic are closely connected;both Hegel and Bakhtin discussed the essence of fiction from this aspect.Two scholars' theory represents the two aspects of the relationship between fiction and epic:one is the history of fiction,the other the future;one is to carry on the epic,the other to betray.


The in vitro dissolution test is the most useful quality control test for pharmaceutical dosage forms such as tablets and capsules from the standpoint of bioavailability and physical consistency. Because bioavailability is largely dependent upon having the drug in dissolved state, for poorly soluble drugs the dissolution test can give an indication of poor bioavailability and reduced efficacy. In dissolution testing modern analytical techniques play an important part. This paper provides an overview of the analytical techniques used in dissolution testing and assesses their advantages and disadvantages.


Case teaching in the teaching of credit letter has obvious advantages in international trade course.We should master the methods of improving teaching effect in credit letter case teaching,focus on the analysis of the definition,contents and parties,operation flow and soft clauses.Meanwhile,the building of the trinity international trade practice teaching modes should also be taken into consideration.


The Cooperative Intersection Control (CIC) aims to automate a road intersection to achieve an efficient, safe and smooth flow of vehicles through the intersection. This objective is achieved using the virtual platooning concept. Virtual platooning allows to form platoons of vehicles traveling on different lanes of the intersection with different directional intentions. Existing intersection management approaches focus on the high-level scheduling of the crossing sequence and tend to ignore realistic vehicle dynamics aspects. In contrast, CIC considers both lowand high-levels of execution and automation. A preliminary version of CIC for a simple intersection was presented in [1]. Here, an approach for generic intersections is proposed.


In this study, the issue of power allocation in the statistical multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) radars is investigated to reduce the probability of interception. In MIMO radars, orthogonal waveforms are commonly used, in which waveforms are orthogonal frequency-diversity or phase-coded (PC) waveforms. Therefore, the low probability of intercept (LPI) optimisation problem is considered for different orthogonal signals separately. In the FD case, the LPI optimisation problem based on analysing signal processing applied to the conventional interceptor is formulated as a min–max problem. In the PC case, the problem is formulated as a sum power minimisation problem with non-convex and non-linear detection performance constraint. Some relaxations and innovations are applied to simplify the problem and to convert it to a convex-linear problem. In addition, by analysing the form of the proposed solution, the proposed algorithm is extended based on adaptive thresholding to improve the LPI performance as much as possible. Here, the original problem is solved by a standard log-barrier algorithm as a benchmark to verify the optimality of the proposed algorithms. Simulation results show that, the proposed algorithms guarantee not only the detection performances, but also the LPI performance is considerably better in comparison with traditional power allocation algorithms.


While exam-style questions are a fundamental educational tool serving a variety of purposes, manual construction of questions is a complex process that requires training, experience and resources. To reduce the expenses associated with the manual construction of questions and to satisfy the need for a continuous supply of new questions, automatic question generation (QG) techniques can be utilized. However, compared to automatic question answering (QA), QG is a more challenging task. In this work, we fine-tune a multilingual T5 (mT5) transformer in a multitask setting for QA, QG and answer extraction tasks using a Turkish QA dataset. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first academic work that attempts to perform automated text-to-text question generation from Turkish texts. Evaluation results show that the proposed multi-task setting achieves state-of-the-art Turkish question answering and question generation performance over TQuADv1, TQuADv2 datasets and XQuAD Turkish split. The source code and pre-trained models are available at this https URL.


Several studies have highlighted the marketplace and the employment difficulties related to the degrees in Sociology. Less attention has been devoted to examining the gender condition of female graduates in Sociology according to the expectation and motivation toward the Sociology degree and the professional and work paid position. The empirical evidence shows that in Italy women, despite having better university performances – both in terms of duration of studies and degree grades – not only find greater difficulties in "job placement", but, usually, have more modest job positions and receive lower salaries. This paper explores these topics, focusing on the degree in Sociology, via a secondary analysis of data drawn from the survey on Market, employment status and skills by graduates of the three-year courses (class of degrees 36 – Sociological sciences and L40 – Sociology). The authors aim to investigate both the dimension of perception regarding the training path, the acquired and required skills by the labor market, and some essential reference data on the employment status of the female sociologists. Findings confirm the underemployment of female graduates in Sociology; furthermore results underline as women, compared to men, perceive a lower evaluation of their acquired performance and, also, of the required competences in the labor market.


For doing the job of geographical condition survey of our province well,the government of Shanxi Province had published the announcement of〈The people's government of Shanxi Province about launching the first time geographical national conditions Survey〉,which had decided to make 1,070,000 square kilometers of Shuozhou as an experimental area to start the test survey of natural conditions of surface and human geographical features.This essay introduces the making processes of DOM in Shuozhou which were based on the software called"Pixel Factory",and gives some solutions to solve some problems which were met during the DOM production.It has some consulting values for DOM making methods which are based on satellite images as well.


A computerized test battery was used in a double‐blind design to assess the cognitive effects of a nutrient compound containing Ginkgo biloba in 24 normal adults. Ten tasks (perceptual, attention and short‐term memory) were presented in a standardized manner designed to maximize performance, with substantial pre‐test practice employed to minimize response variability. Subjects were given either placebo or Ginkgo biloba extract capsules to consume for 14 days, after which they performed all tasks twice. They then received the other condition, and after 14 days completed the final test session. Response time and error rate stabilized after pre‐test practice. A 'working memory capacity' paradigm demonstrated a reliable 50 ms response time decrease between the placebo and Ginkgo biloba testing, suggesting that Ginkgo biloba speeds short‐term working memory processing in normal adults. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


There are 29 cases of vesiculodeferentography (VDG) (1962-1975) presented. The very indication of VDG was the evaluation of azoospermia due to occlusion of the vas deferens, in addition to other urologic diseases. Especially from the andrologic point of view the various forms of occlusion-azoospermia are classified and analyzed. It is pointed out, that the rete testis region is not to be elucidated by VDG.


Undoubtedly, the optical fiber is one of the key technologies of switching which receive greater attention optical burst switching (OBS), allowing to improve the system's resources and manages information more efficiently than other types of switching like optical packet switching (OPS) and Optical Circuit Switch (OCS). However; as in all developing system, difficulties arise at the time of application, one of the main problems affecting these networks is congestion that occurs in the nodes of the same. It is for this reason, that it is necessary to implement mechanisms for control of containment that can avoid the congestion in the system. This article presents control of containment mechanisms analysis by wavelength change, deflection of route and fiber delay lines in a distributed network obs to improve the communications of the future.


Procedures for harvesting and processing sorgo (Sorglr 14 ttr
~wlgareP ers.) for s i rup production vary considerably throughout
the sorgo-sirup belt in the Southeastern United States.
Harvesting procedures include many local practices rang in^
from cutting with a knife to harvesting with a corn binder.
Many sirup producers follow the practice of both harvesting
and processing sorgo on the same day. The leaves may or may
not be left on the stalks during the entire process. Other producers
may store the cut stalks for several days before milling.
Some producers strip and then cut the stalks immediately.
Others strip and leave the stalks standing in the field for several
days before cutting. Many producers take the entire
plant to the mill for processing. Some farmers store the stalks
in piles, whereas others shock them.
Since the effects of various storage procedures on yield and
quality of sirup were not known, these studies were designed to
determine the best way to handle the sorgo stalks in order to
produce high yields of good-quality sirup. These investigations
were conducted a t Meridian, Miss., from 1947 through l!)58.


In computer-aided tolerance design (CAT), integrated design of dimensional and geometric tolerances is still one of the research hotspots. Polychromatic sets theory (PST) is a new mathematic tool, which is especially suitable for formal hierarchical structure models. Based on PST, in this article, a new hierarchical representation model for tolerance synthesis is presented to realise integrated design of dimensional and geometric tolerances. According to the inference relations between unified and individual colours of PST, the synthesis matrices of variational geometric constraints (VGC) are established in the VGC tier of the model, and the synthesis matrices of tolerance types are established in the tolerance type tier of the model. On this basis, the synthesis processes from the feature tier to the VGC tier and from the VGC tier to the tolerance type tier can be realised. VGCs, which are achieved by the synthesis matrices of VGCs, can be combined together to establish a well-constrained VGC network (VGCN). Tolerance types, which are achieved by the synthesis matrices of tolerance types, can be added to the well-constrained VGCN to construct a well-constrained tolerance network. An application example is given in the article to illustrate the synthesis steps.


This paper uses the theory and methodology of culture to explore the essence and realization logic of ideological and political education. This paper discusses the importance of ideological and political development of subject curriculum in liberal arts mathematics education and its educational thought strategy, and analyzes the functions of cultural education and scientific education in liberal arts mathematics general course. And Under the view of knowledge and teaching in the postmodern horizon, the paper analyzes the leading role of scientific and cultural value in the subject of liberal arts mathematics about the two aspects of teaching content and teaching means.


This paper introduces the modes that they have formed in line with the local actual and the basic experiences that they have obtained in the work of urban and rural construction land experiments in Rongcheng Shandong province Since 2009. The main mode are: the site integrated movement allocation, centralized resettlement at different communities, the combination of village by enterprises mode and merger of "hollow village" allocation. The basic experiences are as follows: maintaining the government's dominant position, having strong administration base, operating fairly and flexibly, safeguarding the people's livelihood needs, and coordinated use of policy. This paper proposes some measures for solving these problems such as a single source of funds, local financial pressure, institutional deficiencies, and ideological barriers of some farmers. The main measures are focused on: widely publicizing the importance of this work thus motivating the enthusiasms of all parties; remaining committed to planning first and working out high standards of village planning as soon as possible; respecting the collective land property rights and safeguarding peasants' land rights and interests..


Equations and data are presented for determination of armor thickness to provide a specified probability of no destructive impact by sporadic meteoroids during a space mission. Any preferred damage criterion may be used, in terms of powers of meteoroid mass and impact velocity, together with other constant parameters. Conditions in Earth orbit both near and far from Earth are treated. Corrections are made for photographic biases due to meteoroid velocity, mass, and spatial direction of true radiant. Frequency of destructive impacts is based on double integration of analytical expressions to find frequency of impacts with unacceptable combinations of mass and velocity. Weighting factors developed earlier were used to obtain a histogram of velocity and a revised influx rate for meteoroids relative to a gravity-free Earth, fully corrected for photographic biasing effects of meteoroid mass, real velocity relative to Earth's atmosphere, gravitational focusing, and direction in space of approach of meteor toward Earth. Similar results were derived for conditions near the real Earth. Bimodal log-normal equations were derived to match the histograms of velocity for both gravity-free Earth and real Earth conditions. A double integration yielded an equation for general use to determine the necessary magnitude of a damage criterion, such as armor thickness, for a desired probability of a successful mission from the meteoroid damage standpoint. The double integration involved the bimodal log-normal velocity distributions and a well confirmed equation for influx rate of meteoroids of various masses. As an example of the method of use of the equation for necessary magnitude of a damage criterion, use was of an expression for penetration by hypervelocity impact provided in a personal communication by Richard H. Fish and James L. of Ames Research However, reader, other criteria could readily be used in the same manner.


Bismuth-telluride-based alloys are currently the best commercially available thermoelectric materials for applications at room temperatures. Up to 150 micron thick layers of bismuth antimony telluride (Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3) were directly deposited onto nickel by either potenstiostatic or potentiodynamic electrodeposition. Cyclic voltammetry was employed to identify the optimal deposition potential. The films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-rays and X-ray diffraction. The p-type films were found to be well adherent, uniform and stoichiometric with a high power factor of 2.3 × 10−4 W m−1 K−2 at film growth rates of up to 40 μm h−1.


The optimum reaction conditions in solid-state polycondensation of poly (1, 4-butylene terephthalate) (PBT) were investigated in order to obtain high molecular weight PBT. It was found that the solid-state polycondensation of PBT proceeds at a temperature in the range of 185 to 200°C under reduced pressure. This is due to the fact that the activation energy of the polycondensation reaction is 29.5kcal/mol and considerably smaller than that of the thermal decomposition reaction of PBT, i.e., ca. 40kcal/mol. To accelerate the reaction rate, it is important to carry out the polycondensation reaction at low humidity using PBT having a low carboxyl end group content and a large specific surface area.


A cafe theme provides a great opportunity to feast on Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy in its varied forms, writes Holly Trundle.


Stress-strain data for Nugget sandstone (a quartz arenite with 4.1 percent porosity) over a variety of compressive stress states were examined by curve-fitting techniques. Purpose was to determine the existence and a form of a simple constitutive relation describing dilatant strain. The dilatant volume strain can be described by epsilon/sub v//sup e/ = a/sub 0/ + a/sub 1/ J/sub 2//sup /sup 1///sub 2// + b/sub 0/ exp (b/sub 1/J/sub 2//sup /sup 1///sub 2//), where epsilon/sub v//sup e/ is the difference between the measured volume strain and the hydrostatic volume strain at the same mean stress and the regression coefficients a/sub i/, b/sub i/ are functions of the first stress invariant. The increase in the dilatant strain with J/sub 2/, the second invariant of the stress deviator, is believed to be related to two mechanisms: (1) a ''differential crack closure,'' which involves the response of each crack with respect to orientation to the principal stresses, and (2) an exponentially divergent region due to the propagation of existing cracks. The boundary between nondilatant and dilatant behavior for a variety of loading paths is described fairly well by the curve in mean stress-shear stress space for uniaxial strain. The fracture surface is foundmore » to be independent of loading path. 8 fig.« less


This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Applied Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society 1School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK 2Institute of Global Food Security, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK 3School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, UK


This paper illustrates a novel visualization technique for the graphical exploration of large feature-rich brain imaging datasets. An interactive and dynamic OpenGL/Qt-built user interface has been designed for domain experts and students who are non-specialists in informatics, analytics, or data mining. Multi-dimensional scaling projects a full collection of cortical surface representations into three-dimensions, where surface location proximity is proportional to mutual information-based feature similarity. Users can also search over subject meta-data and navigate in the 3D space to group clusters to explore possible trends across data types. This enables users to easily and rapidly generate hypotheses relating cortical surface features and meta-data values. We showcase the usefulness of this novel neuroimaging data-mining approach with an application to data drawn from large-scale MRI archives.


ii To My Family iii Remember to always do what you love My Dad: Duane Looft iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Laura Frey Law for accepting me into her lab and letting me grow as a researcher under her guidance. I am proud of the work we have done and I am excited to continue my education and growth as a researcher under her guidance. I would also like to thank Nicole Grosland for guiding me through my decisions to continue my education at The University of Iowa. I would also like to thank for their help guiding me through this process and helping me set high goals for myself and being there to help me reach them. They have all been a pleasure to work with and I appreciate their insight and support more than I can express in writing. I would also like to thank my family for their unwavering support through this journey. I would not have been able to get to this stage without them and they keep me determined to achieve my goals. 3-3: Model coefficients for each time point by joint, where intensity (MVC) and duty cycle (DC) are values between 0 and 100 percent, %Decline=a*(DC) b *(MVC) 4-1: Errors between the empirical models and the predictive models and the percent of the predictive surface within the empirical 95% CI for each joint and at each discrete time point.. 2-1: Model predictions using optimal F and R parameter values (optimized intensities = circles, test intensities = triangles) by joint: A) ankle, B) trunk, C) elbow, D) knee, E) hand/grip, and F) shoulder relative to expected intensity-endurance time (ET) curves: modeled mean +/-95% prediction intervals (PI) reported by Frey Law and Avin, (2010). Note the change in ET scaling between panels. Insets highlight the higher task intensities. The ETs which fall outside of the 95% PI consistently occur only at the highest intensities (>75% – 85% maximum). 2-2: Example sensitivity analyses for F and R parameter values spanning the optimal ranges observed across joints: A) F varying from 0.002 to 0.016 in increments of 0.002, with R fixed to optimal value for elbow (0.00094) and B) R varying from 0.0002 to 0.0016 in increments of 0.0002, with F fixed to optimal value for elbow (0.00912). Note changes in F strongly influence the inflection point of the intensity-ET 3-1: 3D empirical shoulder …


A gainsharing OD intervention improved fundamental Job attitudes over five years of research for 202 manufacturing plant employees. Employee involvement in the gainsharing committees was significantly correlated with improvements in job satisfaction, organizational involvement, personal impact, influence, intrinsic satisfaction, and trust, The results supported the emphasis in gainsharing plans on employee involvement as the mechanism for generating results.


In this experiment,Straw bio-reactor technology was applied in the cucumber,watermelon,pepper and squash.Results showed that the effects were good and economic benefits was obvious,especially the technology could increase the soil temperature 1~3 ℃,in crease fruit production for 10% and promote fruit development,and could advance products listed 7~10 d earlier and improve soil condition.This technology is worth applying in the facilities agriculture.


The use of concentrically braced steel frames to satisfy lateral force requirements is a common design practice in regions of strong seismicity. They provide a very efficient means of fulfilling the dual objectives of earthquake resistant design, that is, damage control and collapse prevention. While tensile yielding and inelastic buckling of bracing elements provide the basic energy absorbing mechanism, there are inherent problems with member behavior under multiple cycles of inelastic deformations. Inelastic energy dissapation, however, may also be provided by friction resistance in slotted bolted connections, thus eliminating the need for inelastic member buckling. Limited laboratory tests indicate that this concept may be a viable alternative for use as a lateral force resisting system for both new construction and the seismic upgrading of existing structures.


In this paper, we measure and study the peer startup process in PPLive, a popular commercial P2P streaming system, and focus on a fundamental issue in this aspect: how a peer initializes its buffer when it joins a channel, i.e., initial offset placement of peers' buffers in the startup stage. We build a general model of peer startup process in chunk-based P2P streaming systems and present an initial offset placement scheme we inferred from the measurement results, i.e., proportional placement (PP) scheme. With FP scheme, the initial buffer offset is set to the offset of the reference neighbor peer plus an advance proportional to the reference neighbor peer's offset lag or buffer width. We evaluate the performance of PP scheme and find it is stable when the placement is based on offset lag, but will be unstable when it is based on buffer width if the chunk fetching strategy and neighbor peer selection mechanism are not properly designed. We finally report our detailed measurement results of the peer startup process and initial offset placement algorithms used in PPLive. Our models and measurement results could be useful for guiding the analysis and design of buffering protocols for a real P2P live streaming system.


The influence of adrenaline on the blood pressure of irradiated rats was studied. The effect was lower on the 3rd and 6th day after irradiation. (OTS)


A major complicating factor in water resources systems management is handling unknown inputs. Stochastic optimization provides a sound mathematical framework but requires that enough data exist to develop statistical input representations. In cases where data records are insufficient (e.g., extreme events) or atypical of future input realizations, stochastic methods are inadequate. This article presents a control approach where input variables are only expected to belong in certain sets. The objective is to determine sets of admissible control actions guaranteeing that the system will remain within desirable bounds. The solution is based on dynamic programming and derived for the case where all sets are convex polyhedra. A companion paper (Yao and Georgakakos, this issue) addresses specific applications and problems in relation to reservoir system management.