A second conjecture -that does not necessarily exclude the first -relates to the attitude toward social risks, that is the aversion to the risk of being cheated by others. There is evidence that people's risk aversion is generally higher toward social risks than toward risks of nature, that is towards risks of equally harmful events that depend on bad luck (Bohnet and Zeckhauser, 2004) . This phenomenon, known as betrayal aversion, seems to vary in intensity across societies (Bohnet et al., 2008) . Betrayal aversion can play a relevant role in the choice to cooperate in a Public Good Game, in a Trust Game, and other social dilemmas. To explain the gap in cooperation levels it would suffice to find that Southerners are more averse than Northerners to being cheated.

There is evidence that people's risk aversion is generally higher toward social risks than toward risks of nature, that is towards risks of equally harmful events that depend on bad luck.

This phenomenon, known as betrayal aversion, seems to vary in intensity across societies.


One is related to conditional cooperation. A conditional cooperator acts pro-socially not for sheer altruism, but as a reciprocal response to others' actions (Fischbacher et al., 2001) . A conditional cooperator, for instance, is willing to sweep his sidewalk or to sort garbage, only if he anticipates that most of his neighbors will do the same, but not otherwise. In a society of conditional cooperators there can be equilibria with high levels of cooperation, sustained by optimistic expectations, and with low or no cooperation, sustained by pessimistic expectations.

A conditional cooperator acts pro-socially not for sheer altruism, but as a reciprocal response to others' actions.


The sensitivity of an optical waveguide sensor relies on the amount of light in the medium to be sensed. Recently, the slot waveguide was proposed as a guiding structure capable of high sensitivity in biochemical sensing applications [20] . The waveguide has two strips of high-RI material separated by a slot and supports a single quasi-transverse electric (TE) mode highly confined in the low-index submicrometer gap between the two strips [21] , [22] . New chemically amplified electron-beam resists applied using electron-beam lithography makes it possible to create a single-mode waveguide with multiple slots to enhance the interaction between the light and the analyte. The work presented here theoretically and experimentally demonstrates that the increased number of slots and the strong electric field in the slots significantly increase the sensitivity of both homogeneous sensing and surface sensing.

Recently, the slot waveguide was proposed as a guiding structure capable of high sensitivity in biochemical sensing applications.

The waveguide has two strips of high-RI material separated by a slot and supports a single quasi-transverse electric (TE) mode highly confined in the low-index submicrometer gap between the two strips.


Because of the high cost associated with transportation of materials to space, spacecraft are necessarily designed to be as light weight as possible. This low weight requirement together with the large size of current spacecraft make there structure extremely flexible. Most of the application of space structures involve stringent requirement on pointing accuracy and shape/configuration. These requirements have to be met in presence of vibrations induced from various excitation sources such as meteoroid impacts, thermal shocks and attitude maneuvers [1] . Due to high flexibility these space structures possess low frequency vibration modes which together with low damping can result in large settling times. Since for low frequencies passive damping techniques become ineffective, active vibration control is usually sought for such applications [2] .

These requirements have to be met in presence of vibrations induced from various excitation sources such as meteoroid impacts, thermal shocks and attitude maneuvers.

Since for low frequencies passive damping techniques become ineffective, active vibration control is usually sought for such applications.


However, a major concern in application of active feedback control is phenomena of spillover -instability of closed-loop system caused by observation/excitation of un-modeled dynamics by sensors/actuators [3] . Since flexible structures are infinite order systems, the mathematical models used for designing controllers are essentially reduced order approximations of real plants. Hence, some dynamics is always left un-modeled and the selected control algorithm should have the capability to cope with these uncertainties. Moreover, due to paucity of available resources in space, the selection of actuators locations and design of control law should ensure optimal utilization of available resources.

However, a major concern in application of active feedback control is phenomena of spillover -instability of closed-loop system caused by observation/excitation of un-modeled dynamics by sensors/actuators.


A number of control techniques for active vibration control of flexible smart structures have been employed in the literature [4] . Although Positive Position Feedback (PPF) can avoid spillover under collocated actuator/sensor condition; design of controller for multimodal vibration reduction requires controlled modes to be well separated [5] . Optimal controller under given set of constraints can be obtained by using LQG (Linear Quadratic Gaussian). However, the controllers obtained are very sensitive to modeling errors and may compromise stability due to spillover [6] . On the other hand H∞ is an optimal control technique which can provide robustness to spillover by incorporating un-modeled dynamics as uncertainty at design level. Satisfaction of various constraints like actuator limits etc. and trade-off between performance and stability is also possible by using suitable weights. Moreover, controller design for MIMO systems and simultaneous suppression of multiple modes can be easily achieved through a unified and systematic procedure. Effective vibration control of piezoelectric smart structures using H∞ has been demonstrated in number of studies; however, the applications have been chiefly limited to constraint structures [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] . Moreover, vibration reduction is achieved for arbitrary excitation source without considering relative modal responses of controlled modes.

A number of control techniques for active vibration control of flexible smart structures have been employed in the literature.

Although Positive Position Feedback (PPF) can avoid spillover under collocated actuator/sensor condition; design of controller for multimodal vibration reduction requires controlled modes to be well separated.

However, the controllers obtained are very sensitive to modeling errors and may compromise stability due to spillover.

Effective vibration control of piezoelectric smart structures using H∞ has been demonstrated in number of studies; however, the applications have been chiefly limited to constraint structures.


DM or grain-yield production results from both P uptake and utilization efficiency, but the latter seems more important, especially under P-deficiency conditions. This accords well with our previous report that P-efficient wheat genotypes required a lower application rate of P fertilizer to obtain maximum yield and had lower critical P concentrations in shoots compared with the inefficient cultivars (Wang et al., 1999a) . This suggests that there is potential for introducing genotypes with high P-efficiency in agriculture to produce optimum yields with low inputs of P fertilizers. This could allow maintenance of adequate yields with economic savings and protection of the environment by minimizing the risk of non-point source pollution and eutrophication of rivers and lakes.

This accords well with our previous report that P-efficient wheat genotypes required a lower application rate of P fertilizer to obtain maximum yield and had lower critical P concentrations in shoots compared with the inefficient cultivars.


Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a staple food crop grown over a wide area from central to northern China where calcareous soils predominate (Wang et al., 1999b) . Many wheat cultivars have been produced in China, selected over a long historical period of cropping. Some of these varieties may be genetically adapted to local conditions, as some have been observed to grow better than others under similar conditions (unpublished data). Based on this hypothesis, 20 wheat genotypes were collected and grown on calcareous soil under the same experimental conditions (in the field and in the greenhouse) in an attempt to find P-efficient germplasm that could be used in wheat-breeding programs. This paper presents the results of the nationwide screening exercise and discusses the relative merits of various parameters that can be used to compare the P efficiency of the different wheat genotypes.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a staple food crop grown over a wide area from central to northern China where calcareous soils predominate.


The level of plant-available P in the soil is an important factor in screening for P-efficient wheat genotypes. No response will occur if available P is either too high or too low because an adequate P supply may mask the potential of an efficient genotype, and in contrast when P availability is too low, even efficient genotypes will not be able to express their genetic characteristics (Wang et al., 1999a) . However, according to our experience, a soil Olsen-P level of about 5-8 mg kg −1 is optimal for screening of P-efficient wheat genotypes in our highly calcareous soils, although some researchers have worked with much higher levels (P = 100 mg kg −1 ) in a P-stressed environment (Römer and Schenk, 1998; Stelling et al., 1996) . The calcareous soil in this study contained a relatively high amount of total P, but the bio-availability (e.g., the amount of extractable P) was relatively low (Table 1) .

No response will occur if available P is either too high or too low because an adequate P supply may mask the potential of an efficient genotype, and in contrast when P availability is too low, even efficient genotypes will not be able to express their genetic characteristics.

However, according to our experience, a soil Olsen-P level of about 5-8 mg kg −1 is optimal for screening of P-efficient wheat genotypes in our highly calcareous soils, although some researchers have worked with much higher levels (P = 100 mg kg −1 ) in a P-stressed environment.


Likewise, carbon in harvested products is determined by the amount of residues after round wood log processing in a sawmill. We found that, 61% of the total log carbon in Nepal and 36.3% of the total log carbon in Queensland has the potential to be locked up for another 46 years [40, 46] . Carbon stock in sawmill residues is considered to be the complete emissions due to the lack of exact data on the percentage of landfill and short-term uses of those residues. In this scenario, nearly 64% of the log carbon in Queensland and nearly 40% of the log carbon in Nepal will be emitted. However, discussions with sawmill owners and timber users reflect that such residues (mainly the chips and wood dust) are being used for gardens and vegetable farming as well as for animal husbandry.

We found that, 61% of the total log carbon in Nepal and 36.3% of the total log carbon in Queensland has the potential to be locked up for another 46 years.


Nowadays, body image (BI) is considered to be a construct composed of different dimensions. The perceptual dimension refers to how one sees oneself and describes one's body, while the affective dimension focuses on feelings and emotions that one feels about one's appearance. The cognitive dimension consists of the assessment of thoughts about body appearance and the behavioural dimension evaluates behaviours resulting from perceptions, thoughts and feelings about body appearance and function [1] .

The cognitive dimension consists of the assessment of thoughts about body appearance and the behavioural dimension evaluates behaviours resulting from perceptions, thoughts and feelings about body appearance and function.


Sensitivity analysis and error identification are necessary for the purpose of better kinematic characteristics of parallel manipulators. The kinematic parameters with higher sensitivity should be found and controlled strictly. Aiming at optimizing a class of 3-DOF parallel manipulators with parallelogram struts, Huang established a statistical sensitivity model and showed quantificationally the effect of geometrical errors on the pose of end effectors [5] . Based on the sensitivity analysis, Alici optimized the dynamic equilibrium of a planar parallel manipulator [6] . Pott gave the sensitivity model by a simplified force-based method and validated the algorithm by examples of both serial and fully parallel manipulators [7] . In order to study the relations between sensitivity and geometric parameters, Binaud compared the sensitivity of five planar parallel manipulators of different architectures [8] . Therefore, estimating sensitivity of kinematic parameters and studying the priority of kinematic parameters with higher sensitivity can effectively improve the calibration of manipulators.

Aiming at optimizing a class of 3-DOF parallel manipulators with parallelogram struts, Huang established a statistical sensitivity model and showed quantificationally the effect of geometrical errors on the pose of end effectors.

Based on the sensitivity analysis, Alici optimized the dynamic equilibrium of a planar parallel manipulator.

Pott gave the sensitivity model by a simplified force-based method and validated the algorithm by examples of both serial and fully parallel manipulators.

In order to study the relations between sensitivity and geometric parameters, Binaud compared the sensitivity of five planar parallel manipulators of different architectures.


Recently, multiphase machines have been recognized as an attractive choice for large variable speed drives due to their numerous advantages against their three-phase counterparts [1] . The stringent requirements of high power safety critical applications such as electric propulsion, tractions and the concept of more electric air craft pull the multiphase machine into focus [1, 2] . Firstly, with the additional degrees of freedom offered by multiphase windings, the total power is split across the phases, which allows for lower per-phase converter ratings, a highly preferable feature in medium voltage applications. With the extensive work introduced in the literature, many other promising features have been recognized, including higher torque density, improved torque quality, lower dc link ripple current, improved air gap flux distribution, lower machine losses, and improved overall efficiency [3, 4] .

Recently, multiphase machines have been recognized as an attractive choice for large variable speed drives due to their numerous advantages against their three-phase counterparts.

The stringent requirements of high power safety critical applications such as electric propulsion, tractions and the concept of more electric air craft pull the multiphase machine into focus.

With the extensive work introduced in the literature, many other promising features have been recognized, including higher torque density, improved torque quality, lower dc link ripple current, improved air gap flux distribution, lower machine losses, and improved overall efficiency.


Noisy speech enhancement has become a crucial part of the variable-rate speech coding and automatic speech recognition [1] . Recently, a number of efforts to improve the performance of speech enhancement by adopting soft decision estimation have been made since soft decision gain modification have better performances compared with earlier methods employing hard decisions in which each frame is classified into either speech or non-speech employing a voice activity detector (VAD) [2] . The most popular algorithms for the enhancement of noisy speech are based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) domain, it is assumed that the distributions of the clean speech and noise spectra are characterized by the complex Gaussian probability density function (pdf) [1, 2] . Recently, it has been reported that the DFT coefficients of clean and noise are better modeled by the Gamma and Laplacian pdf, respectively. Furthermore, complex Laplacian pdf was introduced for the purpose of VAD with the DFT coefficients of noisy speech under various noise environments.

Noisy speech enhancement has become a crucial part of the variable-rate speech coding and automatic speech recognition.

Recently, a number of efforts to improve the performance of speech enhancement by adopting soft decision estimation have been made since soft decision gain modification have better performances compared with earlier methods employing hard decisions in which each frame is classified into either speech or non-speech employing a voice activity detector (VAD).

The most popular algorithms for the enhancement of noisy speech are based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) domain, it is assumed that the distributions of the clean speech and noise spectra are characterized by the complex Gaussian probability density function (pdf).


Furthermore, on-rail and on-road tests of the vehicle are not always fit to thoroughly test each subsystem. These tests are likely to be done during a later phase, while it is not easy to change too much the configuration of a propulsion system. In order to optimize this configuration and to verify the strategies for control and management of energy sources in an early phase, tests at the subsystem level must be made before those at a vehicle level [2] . Therefore, the research into the hybrid electric vehicle with a DC traction drive has been carried out and the relevant test platform developed.

In order to optimize this configuration and to verify the strategies for control and management of energy sources in an early phase, tests at the subsystem level must be made before those at a vehicle level.


The ocean gave birth to many kinds of magical lives, and also contains various resources that are not fully developed. The exploration, development and utilization of deep sea resources need the high-tech marine equipment such as the advanced submersible operating systems, which can complete a variety of marine scientific research and operation missions in deeper, wider range and more complex environment. However, the ROV is one of the main tools for marine exploration and research [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] .

However, the ROV is one of the main tools for marine exploration and research.


In the research literature it is usually reported how the applied AIS data is organised for access, managing and updating and how it is possibly linked with other data types. Any such system can be called a database. Often geographic information system (GIS) software is used. More recently several authors have presented the development of integrated databases in a more technical sense, including selected applications of these databases [24] [25] [26] [27] . These often apply some established database or data warehouse software. This is an important issue to facilitate future research efforts, because, as outlined in Section 2, most research efforts utilize relatively small, purpose-built datasets for specific research purposes, which are usually not easily re-usable for other purposes. Furthermore, the existing literature on AIS database development only includes AIS data, whereas recent research efforts show the great research potential of linking this with other (marine) data, as outlined in Section 2. Although the integration of marine data is quite straightforward in itself, advanced database solutions like data warehouse could offer more flexibility by allowing incorporation of less structured data. This applies especially to maritime risk analyses that often involve a very large number of risk factors of different origin. The applicability of well-arranged AIS data to support maritime policy issues has been highlighted as well [28, 29] .

More recently several authors have presented the development of integrated databases in a more technical sense, including selected applications of these databases.

The applicability of well-arranged AIS data to support maritime policy issues has been highlighted as well.


In the Baltic Sea area, the seasonal presence of sea ice is a significant obstacle to ship navigation and has important implications for the navigational practices of maritime transportation in the area [30] . As in other sea areas, it is meaningful to develop an integrated AIS database, and especially to link this data with other data sources, including but not limited to data related to sea ice. In light of this, the objectives of this paper are two-fold. First, the development of an integrated, extendable, and searchable database linking AIS data with other marine-related data is presented, with a focus on winter navigation. The navigation has a systemic nature due to icebreaker assistance and being restricted to ice channels. Operations must be coordinated and unexpected events for an individual ship may propagate to affect the whole traffic situation. With integration it is understood that both the state of the ship and state of the marine environment around the ship are linked, which enables research on their interaction. Second, a number of analysis results of this integrated database are shown to demonstrate its applicability to support marine policy issues, with a focus on winter conditions. The remainder of this article is organised as follows. Section 2 provides background about the research use of AIS data, in particular its integration with other data sources, and the database in the context of Big Data. In Section 3, the integrated database is presented, with application examples shown in Section 4. A discussion is provided in Section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper.

In the Baltic Sea area, the seasonal presence of sea ice is a significant obstacle to ship navigation and has important implications for the navigational practices of maritime transportation in the area.

A discussion is provided in Section 5.

Section 6 concludes the paper.


M. quinquenervia is a serious weed in south Florida (Laroche and Ferriter, 1992) . Melaleuca invasion has transformed graminoid/herbaceous wetlands into closed-canopy swamp forests. These melaleuca swamp forests typically form dense monocultures characterized by a sparse understory. Intermediate stages in this transformation include savannahs with scattered, individual trees and mature dense melaleuca heads surrounded by relatively pristine marshes that contain moderate to low levels of melaleuca (O'Hare and Dalrymple, 1997) . The increased structural diversity asso-ciated with these melaleuca savannahs temporarily results in increased biodiversity, but diversity is drastically reduced during later stages of invasion after displacement of native vegetation (O'Hare and Dalrymple, 1997) .

M. quinquenervia is a serious weed in south Florida.

Intermediate stages in this transformation include savannahs with scattered, individual trees and mature dense melaleuca heads surrounded by relatively pristine marshes that contain moderate to low levels of melaleuca.

The increased structural diversity asso-ciated with these melaleuca savannahs temporarily results in increased biodiversity, but diversity is drastically reduced during later stages of invasion after displacement of native vegetation.


It is by now well accepted that the gauge/gravity duality can provide important information into the physics of strongly coupled systems where a perturbative analysis may not be effective [1] [2] [3] . The gauge/gravity duality in its approximate form maps a theory of classical gravity in AdS space to a strongly coupled conformal field theory, which lives at the boundary of the AdS space in a lower dimension. This mapping has been quite useful to understand and describe the physics of strongly coupled many body systems and there are indications that realistic predictions might be acquired from it. Two of the most important applications of the gauge/gravity duality that have received wide attention, and are a topic of this paper, are entanglement entropy and (the phase structure of) quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

It is by now well accepted that the gauge/gravity duality can provide important information into the physics of strongly coupled systems where a perturbative analysis may not be effective.


Another important application of the gauge/gravity duality is that it provides access to QCD at strong coupling [29] . Normally, the boundary field theory in the context of gauge/gravity duality is subject to conformal invariance. However, it is also well known that in order to describe realistic QCD from the gauge/gravity duality viewpoint, we need to break this conformal symmetry as the non-zero running of the coupling constant in real QCD generally breaks the conformal symmetry and via dimensional transmutation, a mass gap is formed. Several gravity models, rooted in string theory, that explicitly break the conformal symmetry have been constructed in the recent past and are commonly known as "top down" AdS/QCD models [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] .

Another important application of the gauge/gravity duality is that it provides access to QCD at strong coupling.

Several gravity models, rooted in string theory, that explicitly break the conformal symmetry have been constructed in the recent past and are commonly known as "top down" AdS/QCD models.


Previous studies show that the tail dependence coefficient may strongly depend on the choice of estimation technique [15] . In order to investigate this issue in more details, various nonparametric tail dependence estimators are implemented to the rainfall time series and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Different aspects and issues including the choice of extreme value threshold and variability of TDC estimators are addressed in this study. Furthermore, instead of using a fixed thresholds, application of a kernel plateau-finding algorithm in estimation of the TDC is discussed and the results of both approaches are compared with each other. To avoid possible confusion, we need to stress that the study presented here is not a climatological analysis. These results concern the problems of estimating the TDC based on limited data samples. It is specifically focused on the behavior of different nonparametric estimators of the TDC. The models implemented in this study include four different nonparametric models based on the empirical copula. Copulas are multivariate functions that can model the dependence structure of multiple variables regardless of their marginal distribution. In recent years, copulas have been implemented in numerous hydrologic applications [24, 8, 12, 2, 40, 5, 36, 3] .

Previous studies show that the tail dependence coefficient may strongly depend on the choice of estimation technique.

In recent years, copulas have been implemented in numerous hydrologic applications.


Each gene was first analyzed separately to ensure that gene trees were not in conflict (posterior probability greater than 0.95). This included selecting an evolutionary model for each gene using modelgenerator, with the model having the best Akaike information criterion score selected (Keane et al., 2006) . GTR + I + G was selected for COI, HKY + G was selected for EF-1α, GTR + G was selected for hyp, and TrN + G was selected for TMEDE6 (with HKY + G, which was the second-best model, used in programs in which TrN + G was not available). Gene trees were inferred using 40 million generation BEAST runs under the model selected by modelgenerator (Drummond & Rambaut, 2007) . Excluding the placement of specimens collected from American Kestrel (F. sparverius), for which the COI gene tree conflicted with gene trees from nuclear genes, trees inferred from individual genes did not include any wellsupported (posterior probability above 0.95) topological conflicts. Thus, gene sequences were concatenated for analysis. In the case of lice from American Kestrels, these formed a monophyletic clade when individual nuclear gene trees were inferred. This clade was well supported (posterior probability greater than 0.95) in EF-1α and TMEDE6 gene trees, whereas the hyp gene tree had a posterior probability of 0.85 for this arrangement. However, the mitochondrial COI gene tree conflicted strongly with the nuclear gene trees. The COI gene supported two distinct clades (each with a posterior probability of 1.0) containing American Kestrel lice; one was composed solely of lice from this host species, whereas the other also contained lice from falcons other than American Kestrel.

This included selecting an evolutionary model for each gene using modelgenerator, with the model having the best Akaike information criterion score selected.

Gene trees were inferred using 40 million generation BEAST runs under the model selected by modelgenerator.


As we have argued in the introduction, the problem of classifying a stream of social media data into events can be seen as an instance of stream data classification where the set of classes is constantly growing and evolving. Several supervised learning approaches have been developed to perform classification of the data items in a data stream. The main challenge addressed by the various approaches is the detection of concept drift, consisting essentially in the decision whether a new data point belongs to one of the patterns or classes seen so far or to a new class [11, 10, 19] . The new event detection problem can be seen as an instance of the outlier, anomaly or novelty detection problems [21, 22] . Different approaches have been proposed to solve this problem, among them i) unsupervised or clustering-based, ii) supervised or classification-based and iii) statistical approaches [8] .

The main challenge addressed by the various approaches is the detection of concept drift, consisting essentially in the decision whether a new data point belongs to one of the patterns or classes seen so far or to a new class.

The new event detection problem can be seen as an instance of the outlier, anomaly or novelty detection problems.

Different approaches have been proposed to solve this problem, among them i) unsupervised or clustering-based, ii) supervised or classification-based and iii) statistical approaches.


A wind speed series has notably random fluctuation and periodic variation properties [27] . The ANFIS model is good at nonlinear forecasting, while the seasonal auto-regression integrated moving average (SARIMA) model is good at periodic forecasting [28] . Modeling the nonlinear component of a wind speed series using ANFIS model will change the periodic component. Thus, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method is applied to decompose the original wind speed series into some periodic series and some nonlinear series. EEMD is easily understood, and the main idea of this method is to separate the nonlinear components and periodic components by using the Hilbert-Huang transform. Hence, in this paper, a hybrid method combining EEMD, ANFIS and SARIMA is proposed for the short-term wind speed forecasting. Numerical test results show the efficiency of the proposed method.

A wind speed series has notably random fluctuation and periodic variation properties.

The ANFIS model is good at nonlinear forecasting, while the seasonal auto-regression integrated moving average (SARIMA) model is good at periodic forecasting.


Because vehicle safety is becoming increasingly important in recent years, several electronic control systems have been actively developed to enhance the vehicle safety. Especially, the antilock brake system (ABS) plays an important role in the safety and stability of the vehicle. The ABS prevents the wheel locking during the braking by controlling the braking pressure supplied to the braking pad. In general, a commercial ABS consists of the solenoid valve, check valves, accumulator, and damper chamber. However, the solenoid valve has some problems such as complex operating mechanism and high price [1] . Moreover, the ABS controlled by the solenoid valve has pulsatory motion, because the solenoid can be operated in only on/off states. Consequently, it is desirable to introduce alternative means-of-actuation mechanisms to resolve these drawbacks. One of the new approaches to achieve the required characteristics for a valve system is to use smart materials such as electrorheological (ER) fluid, magnetorheological (MR) fluid, and piezoactuator.

However, the solenoid valve has some problems such as complex operating mechanism and high price.


To supplement the ANDICAM imaging photometry discussed in the next section, we synthesized additional restframe Bessell BV RI photometry from the SNIFS fluxcalibrated spectra. The synthetic photometry is shown alongside the imaging photometry in Table 2 and in Figures 6 and  7. The SMARTS photometry was processed using an automated pipeline based on IRAF (Tody 1993) . SMARTS images were bias-subtracted, overscan-subtracted, and flat-fielded using ccdproc.

The SMARTS photometry was processed using an automated pipeline based on IRAF.


Coxiella burnetii, an obligatory intracellular bacterium, is the causative agent of Q fever, a zoonotic disease with worldwide distribution. The clinical manifestations of acute Q fever appear as atypical pneumonia, systemic febrile illness or acute hepatitis. Roughly 50% of all infections with C. burnetii are asymptomatic [1] . Q fever is diagnosed by detection of antibodies against two antigenic variations of the C. burnetii lipopolysaccharide. IgM-and IgG-antibodies mainly directed against the truncated form of lipopolysaccharide, called Phase II (Ph2), appear in acute infection. In chronic Q fever, high levels of IgG antibodies directed against Phase I (Ph1), the complete lipopolysaccharide, are detectable. Isolation of C. burnetii from medical specimen is difficult as isolation is time-consuming and requires a biosafety level 3 laboratory. Thus, detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) became a useful additional tool in the past years [2, 3] .

Roughly 50% of all infections with C. burnetii are asymptomatic.

Thus, detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) became a useful additional tool in the past years.


The overall efficiency of DSSC depends largely on the semiconductor photoanode because of its role in dye uptake, charge collection and carrier transport) [7] . Semiconductors such as ZnO and SnO 2 were used as photoanode materials in DSSC. Among the various semiconductor materials, Titanium dioxide(TiO 2 ) is the most viable candidate for use in DSSC because of its superior qualities of large surface area for maximum dye loading and suitable bandgap [8] . However, TiO 2 nanoparticle-based photoanode has a random electron transport paths which hinders cell performance due to high electron-hole recombination along this paths [9] .

The overall efficiency of DSSC depends largely on the semiconductor photoanode because of its role in dye uptake, charge collection and carrier transport).

Among the various semiconductor materials, Titanium dioxide(TiO 2 ) is the most viable candidate for use in DSSC because of its superior qualities of large surface area for maximum dye loading and suitable bandgap.

However, TiO 2 nanoparticle-based photoanode has a random electron transport paths which hinders cell performance due to high electron-hole recombination along this paths.


Compared to the CS, the DBS had a better performance. This was not totally unexpected as gathered in the corresponding scientific literature: people with some kind of sense impairment often achieve better acuity through another sense (for example, touch) [31, 44] . Therefore, future studies on vibrotactile recognition can be carried out by focusing on the performance and the learning of unimpaired subjects. This is due to the fact that most DBS develop better touch sensitivity than unimpaired people; notwithstanding, it is convenient to ensure the validity of the vibrotactile analyses with unimpaired individuals. This will allow us to increase the population sample, make face-to-face tests, and minimize communication issues. However, the tests also need to be performed on DBS because we cannot disregard their feedback, as they are the potential users. They should also participate in the system development sequence [32] .

This was not totally unexpected as gathered in the corresponding scientific literature: people with some kind of sense impairment often achieve better acuity through another sense (for example, touch).

They should also participate in the system development sequence.


In order to represent a wide range of population, the CS were selected on a gender-balance basis and age interval from 18 to 58 years old. Older age was limited to avoid tactile sensitivity decrease that comes with age [24] . The CS are younger adults attending to mean age value, so a better sensitivity is expected from them. This makes the comparative test more challenging for the DBS. Figure 7 includes data from all the stimulation patterns, i.e., the ones that are applied to a single tactor and those that activate more than one. The wrong guess in multiple-finger stimulation is considered in Figure 7 as incorrect detection for all the stimulated fingers. The figure represents four disjoint events particularized to each finger: guess in the first attempt, guess in the second attempt, guess in the third attempt, and no-guess in any attempt. So the rates associated to each event sum 100%. The success rate for each of the three attempts shows that all fingers perform in a similar way. Subjects guess the finger nearly 70% of the times on the first attempt; a second attempt is required about 15% of the times; and a third attempt is required about 10% of the times. These numbers are consistent with the overall success rate that accounts for 97%. Notice that in these numbers a guess on the first attempt excludes other attempts. A guess on the second attempt excludes the third one. The statistical analysis reinforces the fingers' similar performance mentioned above (p = 0.999).

Older age was limited to avoid tactile sensitivity decrease that comes with age.


When the stimulation pattern set is expanded by increasing the keying frequencies, those frequencies that meet the timing constraints improve recognition. The experiments show a similar detection performance for both 1 Hz and 10 Hz and their combination. However, the increase in the keying frequency can introduce the skin effect. This effect integrates specific spatio-temporal stimuli, so spatial and temporal masking can be produced [20] . Thus, timing constraints should be met in order to achieve a balanced recognition performance among the keying frequencies as well as a high success rate.

This effect integrates specific spatio-temporal stimuli, so spatial and temporal masking can be produced.


The two keying frequencies chosen-1 Hz and 10 Hz-were used either isolated or combined. As explained previously, the chosen values present great vibrotactile acuity on the skin. Moreover, the 170 Hz burst stimulus contributes to the performance because of the high vibrotactile sensitivity of the fingers at that frequency [42] . Thus, the results should be consistent with these statements. Therefore, the one-way ANOVA test (factor: frequencies) reflects no significant difference in recognition both for the isolated keying frequencies-1 Hz and 10 Hz-and their combination (p = 0.730).

Moreover, the 170 Hz burst stimulus contributes to the performance because of the high vibrotactile sensitivity of the fingers at that frequency.


The reconfigurability of the operations, as it brings about the freedom in design, raises issues both in scheduling and in electrode control. For a given bioassay, different completion time and resource requirements can be achieved by changing the time and location schedule of the involved operations. Therefore, it has raised active design automation discussions in the past few years [10, 11, 18] . On the other hand, as the chip size grows, it becomes necessary to restructure the electrode control mechanism, or the unlimited number of control signals will be impossible to be implemented.

Therefore, it has raised active design automation discussions in the past few years.


Every business is based on knowledge, information technology, as well as innovation. Many businesses are struggling with existential concerns, and disregard the needs of their employees [1] . However, the interest in employees, their self-actualization, mutual expectations, and healthy labour relations are the preconditions for commitment, loyalty, and strong work ethic of employees and, thus, the success of the entire company [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] .

Many businesses are struggling with existential concerns, and disregard the needs of their employees.

However, the interest in employees, their self-actualization, mutual expectations, and healthy labour relations are the preconditions for commitment, loyalty, and strong work ethic of employees and, thus, the success of the entire company.


The function, which takes into account the behavior of the temperature field in the course of time, makes it possible to consider a distributed control object as a unified system of thermal fields. Let's consider the interaction of thermal fields in the rod of l length, and of the type of material, which is characterized by the a2 thermal conductance. Let us assume that the rod is negligibly thin, that is, we assume it to be one-dimensional [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] . Let us solve the problem of the control system synthesis, the stabilization of the temperature field. To do this, let us implement the Green's function in the Delphi language and write a program that simulates the behavior of the temperature field in the course of time. The program code that implements this task is as follows: ξ ∈ , а2=0.01. We obtain the following values of the temperature at different numbers of the heating points.

Let us assume that the rod is negligibly thin, that is, we assume it to be one-dimensional.


Prevalence of Type 2 DM in the USA is 12% for 45-64 year-olds, and 22% among those 65-74 years [6] . In our single-center study, 18.7% of incident ESRD patients were coded on the CMS2728 as having Type 2 DN as the primary cause of ESRD, substantially lower than the national percentage of >40%. However, even in this cohort, over 20% of patients appear to have been incorrectly assigned per KDOQI 2007 clinical criteria. Two were miscoded (one had Type 1 DM and one had biopsy-proven BK nephropathy in a renal allograft). Seven of the 10 who were not miscoded had other, more likely renal diagnoses (including Hepatitis C-associated GN, hypertension/renal vascular disease and polycystic kidney disease), and had ESRD 'with' diabetes rather than ESRD 'from' diabetes. Type 2 DM is so common that it is likely that some patients starting RRT are indicated as having ESRD secondary to DN merely because they have concurrent Type 2 DM, especially when the patient is not well known to the nephrologist completing the form, as is often the case in patients who begin chronic RRT concurrent with an acute hospitalization. Overassignment of Type 2 DM as the cause of CKD is suggested by several studies that identify patients with CKD and Type 2 DM who do not have significant proteinuria, one of the clinical diagnostic criteria for DN [7] [8] [9] . In a biopsy study of patients with Type 2 DM and CKD (eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m 2 ), normoalbuminuric patients were less likely to have typical glomerular changes of DN, but more likely to have arteriosclerosis and tubuleinterstitial fibrosis alone [10] . Normoalbuminuric patients without the glomerular changes of DN may have progressive CKD, but this may be due to hypertension, obesity and intrarenal vascular disease rather than DN nephropathy, and the diagnosis can only be clarified by biopsy [11, 12] . Biopsy series of patients with atypical DN presentations (with or without proteinuria) demonstrated that 35-60% had other causes of glomerular disease, and up to 1/3 had nondiabetic renal disease only, including acute tubular necrosis, hypertensive nephrosclerosis and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis [13, 14] . Two out of 34 patients (6%) with Type 2 DM with a typical clinical course and > 500 mg/24 h proteinuria (who would have met the KDOQI 2007 criteria for DN, and had been entered into a clinical trial) did not have DN on biopsy [15] . Thus, it is likely that some patients with ESRD associated with, but not caused by, Type 2 DM, are incorrectly assigned a diagnosis of DN.

Prevalence of Type 2 DM in the USA is 12% for 45-64 year-olds, and 22% among those 65-74 years.

Overassignment of Type 2 DM as the cause of CKD is suggested by several studies that identify patients with CKD and Type 2 DM who do not have significant proteinuria, one of the clinical diagnostic criteria for DN.

In a biopsy study of patients with Type 2 DM and CKD (eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m 2 ), normoalbuminuric patients were less likely to have typical glomerular changes of DN, but more likely to have arteriosclerosis and tubuleinterstitial fibrosis alone.

Normoalbuminuric patients without the glomerular changes of DN may have progressive CKD, but this may be due to hypertension, obesity and intrarenal vascular disease rather than DN nephropathy, and the diagnosis can only be clarified by biopsy.

Biopsy series of patients with atypical DN presentations (with or without proteinuria) demonstrated that 35-60% had other causes of glomerular disease, and up to 1/3 had nondiabetic renal disease only, including acute tubular necrosis, hypertensive nephrosclerosis and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis.

Two out of 34 patients (6%) with Type 2 DM with a typical clinical course and > 500 mg/24 h proteinuria (who would have met the KDOQI 2007 criteria for DN, and had been entered into a clinical trial) did not have DN on biopsy.


Attention in this paper is focussed on the effects of changing fire circumstances on indigenous biodiversity (i.e., in situ biodiversity), particularly in conservation reserves, but the fire-management responses to changing fire and fuel circumstances in reserves will be affected by the changing circumstances in the wider landscape, by the budgetary responses of governments and by community perspectives. Landscapes surrounding reserves may hold assets with sensitivities to fire or smoke regimes, yet species within the biodiversity asset are adapted to selected fire regimes. Needless to say, the situation is complex and involves many stakeholders [20] .

Needless to say, the situation is complex and involves many stakeholders.


There are a large number of possibilities for bettering the chances of successful biodiversity conservation. The underlying challenge is to maximise the number of people that are aware and concerned about fire and biodiversity issues, either as separate issues or joint. For fire matters, addressing the issues of unwanted ignitions, fire suppression and fuel management within the context of the social, environmental and economic assets of concern, not just operations, is essential [20] . While ecologists have learned a great deal about biodiversity and the environments that sustain them, this knowledge is far from complete, and the continuing change in our landscapes, climate and atmosphere amplify the need for practical systems of biodiversity assessment and adaptive management if society is to realise its goal of no species loss in a changing fire-prone environment.

For fire matters, addressing the issues of unwanted ignitions, fire suppression and fuel management within the context of the social, environmental and economic assets of concern, not just operations, is essential.


The information extraction task has proved to be difficult for a variety of domains (Riloff, 1995) . The extracted information can further be used for question answering, information retrieval and other applications. Depending on the final purpose, the extracted information can be of different type, e.g., temporal events, locations, etc. The information corresponding to locations and names, is referred to as the information about named entities. Hence, named entity recognition constitutes a subtask of the information extraction in general.

The information extraction task has proved to be difficult for a variety of domains.


Up until now much of the focus of research has been on the instrumentation associated with additive manufacturing and its control. Further research on the effect of material deposition strategies and the influence of alloy microstructure is needed in order to optimize the structural performance of EBM components [10] . Consequently we have investigated the sensitivity of the compressive performance to defects in EBM scaffold structures. This is coupled with an investigation of the effect of alloy condition on properties comparing "as-built" and homogenized Ti-6Al-4V microstructures achieved by heat treatments above and below the b-transus temperature. In addition an analytical approach has also been developed to compare results with expectations.

Further research on the effect of material deposition strategies and the influence of alloy microstructure is needed in order to optimize the structural performance of EBM components.


Recently many-body systems with non-local, power-law interactions gained considerable interest as the non-local coupling can give rise to quantum phases that do not exist for point-like interactions [1] . For example in one spatial dimension repulsive dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions of atoms can lead to a variety of crystalline ground state phases with less than unity filling in the presence of a commensurable periodic lattice [2, 3, 4, 5] . For very strong lattice confinements the filling fraction forms a so-called complete devils staircase as function of the chemical potential µ, i.e. every rational filling between 0 and 1 is stable for a finite interval of µ and these intervals form a dense staircase [6] . Power-law interactions arise e.g. for dipolar atoms or molecules [1] . A very interesting alternative approach are Rydberg gases for which there has been considerable experimental progress in the recent years [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] . While most previous experiments implemented schemes where Rydberg excitations were created by continuous near-resonant laser driving, alternative proposals have been put forward to use far-detuned light fields to admix a small component of a Rydberg state to the ground state of atoms [3, 14, 15] . The potential advantage of this "Rydberg-dressing" is that the interaction strength can be tuned to a certain extend and is reduced to an energy scale where the center-of-mass motion of atoms can become relevant. Furthermore continuous driving by a near-resonant laser does in general not conserve the number of Rydberg excitations, while in the case of Rydberg-dressing the number of atoms are to good approximation a conserved quantity. While the non-local repulsive interaction favors crystalline structures with non-unitary filling in lattice gases, hopping between lattice sites induced by tunnelling of the atoms can lead to a melting of the crystals [16, 17] .

Recently many-body systems with non-local, power-law interactions gained considerable interest as the non-local coupling can give rise to quantum phases that do not exist for point-like interactions.

For example in one spatial dimension repulsive dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions of atoms can lead to a variety of crystalline ground state phases with less than unity filling in the presence of a commensurable periodic lattice.

For very strong lattice confinements the filling fraction forms a so-called complete devils staircase as function of the chemical potential µ, i.e. every rational filling between 0 and 1 is stable for a finite interval of µ and these intervals form a dense staircase.

Power-law interactions arise e.g. for dipolar atoms or molecules.

A very interesting alternative approach are Rydberg gases for which there has been considerable experimental progress in the recent years.

While most previous experiments implemented schemes where Rydberg excitations were created by continuous near-resonant laser driving, alternative proposals have been put forward to use far-detuned light fields to admix a small component of a Rydberg state to the ground state of atoms.

While the non-local repulsive interaction favors crystalline structures with non-unitary filling in lattice gases, hopping between lattice sites induced by tunnelling of the atoms can lead to a melting of the crystals.


One of the major mechanisms for the diffusion of knowledge is the mobility of people. The geographic mobility of labor relocates human capital and its embodied knowledge and personal experiences (Döring and Schnellenbach, 2006) . The importance of this knowledge transfer is increasing. The global economy is creating an unprecedented demand for a diversified and open-minded workforce while highly-skilled workers are seeking opportunities to utilize their human capital abroad and increase their income and experience. For example, an estimated 900,000 highly-skilled professionals entered the US between 1990 and 2000. Moreover, temporary workers account for one-sixth of the total IT workforce in the US (OECD, 2002) . Such phenomena increase the rate of circulation of talent over space and across firms, leading to much greater diversity of the workforce than a few decades ago. Large, and often export-oriented, companies are seeking nowadays knowledge workers from all over the world (Saxenian, 2006; Page, 2007) . For example, international transferees of multinational firms transmit knowledge in the form of experience and work practices across borders. It is an important question for firms and for governments to ask whether there are productivity-enhancing impacts from growing diversity among employees within firms.

The geographic mobility of labor relocates human capital and its embodied knowledge and personal experiences.

Moreover, temporary workers account for one-sixth of the total IT workforce in the US.

Large, and often export-oriented, companies are seeking nowadays knowledge workers from all over the world.


The current study presents some limitations that need to be considered. Readings from an individual meteorological station can be hardly representative for a whole city or urban area, like Tokyo. All of the input parameters to the thermal indices as well as the indices themselves are modified significantly by the urban environment and show strong variation in short distances of few meters [28, 29] . However, the general background conditions and the temporal variation in day and year can be seen from the readings and for keeping the study simple only one station was used. This is intended to facilitate reproduction of the results prior to other events. If both, know-how, as well as input data is available, the results can be improved by considering the actual local conditions using a building-resolving urban climate model, e.g., the SkyHelios model [29] .

All of the input parameters to the thermal indices as well as the indices themselves are modified significantly by the urban environment and show strong variation in short distances of few meters.

If both, know-how, as well as input data is available, the results can be improved by considering the actual local conditions using a building-resolving urban climate model, e.g., the SkyHelios model.


Marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to environmental change and many are, at present, severely degraded [1] . The availability of good quality water is an indispensable feature for preserving biodiversity. In recent years, increase in human population and industrial activity have led to faster degradation of many coastal ecosystems. The discharge of urban, industrial, and agricultural wastes has added the quantum of various harmful chemicals to the water body considerably altering their inherent physicochemical characteristics [2] .

Marine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to environmental change and many are, at present, severely degraded.

The discharge of urban, industrial, and agricultural wastes has added the quantum of various harmful chemicals to the water body considerably altering their inherent physicochemical characteristics.


Current attempts to unify forces and interactions are mainly based on superstring or M-theory with 10 or 11 space-time dimensions, with the extra dimensions taking the form of a small compact manifold. Finding such a manifold consistent with low-energy particle physics and cosmology presents us with several hard problems. A given geometry has a number of size and shape parameters, or moduli, which become scalar fields in the effective 4-dimensional theory, with a potential generated in the first instance by the Ricci scalar of the compact space. If the internal space is positively curved the potential is negative, leading to anti de Sitter (AdS) solutions, which are disastrous in cosmological terms without extra ingredients such as D-branes to cancel the negative cosmological constant [1] .

If the internal space is positively curved the potential is negative, leading to anti de Sitter (AdS) solutions, which are disastrous in cosmological terms without extra ingredients such as D-branes to cancel the negative cosmological constant.


Traditionally, in investigations of flapping-based propulsion, the flappers are either towed at known speed through a water tank or, equivalently, placed in a freestream at a given speed in a water tunnel. Sensors are then used to measure the thrust force produced by the flapping model. Under such conditions, the speed of towing (or oncoming flow) and the actuating kinematics are completely decoupled. This is dissimilar to the realistic scenarios in biolocomotion. An alternative approach is to allow the flapping foil to self-propel [23] . When a steady cruising speed is reached, the thrust force and the drag force experienced by the self-propelled body are balanced. There are many interesting and unreported fluid dynamical phenomena that occur when flapping bodies are allowed to move by self-propulsion, rather than held fixed in a freestream.

An alternative approach is to allow the flapping foil to self-propel.


This study has provided descriptions of the selected ESL teachers' beliefs about pronunciation focused areas and evidence of actual pronunciation practices. It serves as a platform on reflections of the ESL pronunciation practices in schools as well as the professional training. These findings could be used to serve as an input to teachers' professional development program. By identifying the sources of teachers' beliefs and practices, we could facilitate the deconstruction of personal theories through conscious process of discussion, reflection and theoretical exploration (Fajardo, 2013) .

By identifying the sources of teachers' beliefs and practices, we could facilitate the deconstruction of personal theories through conscious process of discussion, reflection and theoretical exploration.


The United States is often described as an individualistic society par excellence (Hofstede, 1980; Spence, 1985) . As a group, Americans place a high value on personal success and uniqueness, and not surprisingly, the American English lexicon contains numerous terms denoting uniqueness and self-worth. Many of these terms are markers of the Positive Valence dimension of the Big Seven, which indicates that in self or other ascriptions of personality these terms cohere in an organized manner. Certainly, to describe oneself or others as Outstanding, Admirable or High ranking, requires the kind of cognitive selfother differentiations that are fostered by an individualistic value orientation.

The United States is often described as an individualistic society par excellence.


The accurate and efficient evaluation of the scattering from a large and complex object, such as an aircraft with the engine and coating, is of great interest in engineering. The finite element hybridized with the boundary integral equation method is approved to be a powerful numerical method for such complex problem simulation [1] . Meanwhile, the finite element method is very suitable to deal with the complex inhomogeneous materials, and the boundary integral equation is employed to truncate the computational region of the finite element method for the open region problem such as the scattering. Then, the matrices generated from the finite element method and the boundary integral equation are combined together and solved using an iterative solver such as the biconjugate gradient method (BiCG). This hybrid method is more accurate than the finite element method using the absorbing boundary condition (ABC), because the boundary integral equation is exact, and the truncation surface can be placed on the surface of the scatterer to reduce the whole computational domain.

The finite element hybridized with the boundary integral equation method is approved to be a powerful numerical method for such complex problem simulation.


Depending on the application, there are different goals for transducer design. For most acoustic wave generation applications, the transducer is required to oscillate in the 'piston' mode (ideal for generation of acoustic waves) [1] . In addition, the transducer must be designed to have a broadband or narrowband frequency response which defines the kind of acoustic wave pulse generated (short pulse or continuous wave, respectively). In the case of resonator design, the requirements include (1) an assurance of the specified mechanical resonance frequency, (2) an absence of 'spurious' resonances close to the working frequency and (3) a high quality factor (Q m ) including minimum energy dissipation in the material and in the attachments. The first requirement is critical since very small deviations in the resonance frequency may disable the electronic equipment. Regarding the second requirement, the number of unwanted resonances and their proximity to the working frequency determine the performance of the resonator in terms of its frequency † Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering of Polytechnic School at the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. E-mail address: ecnsilva@usp.br.

For most acoustic wave generation applications, the transducer is required to oscillate in the 'piston' mode (ideal for generation of acoustic waves).

E-mail address: ecnsilva@usp.br.


A promising way to the further optimization of computation is related to the ideas of paper [12] . By appropriate dynamical refinement of an involutive division in the course of computation, one can decrease the total number of nonmultiplicative prolongations to be checked. This may lead to a notable reduction of computing time.

A promising way to the further optimization of computation is related to the ideas of paper.


Algorithm MinimalInvolutiveBasis has been implemented in Reduce for Pommaret division. Computer experiments showed that thi algorithm is somewhat faster than our previous version of involutive algorithm also implemented in Reduce for Pommaret bases [1] . For a nonglobally defined division the difference in speed is to be much greater as algorithm MinimalInvolutiveBasis deals with fewer intermediate polynomials and avoids intermediate autoreductions [2] .

Computer experiments showed that thi algorithm is somewhat faster than our previous version of involutive algorithm also implemented in Reduce for Pommaret bases.

For a nonglobally defined division the difference in speed is to be much greater as algorithm MinimalInvolutiveBasis deals with fewer intermediate polynomials and avoids intermediate autoreductions.


The SHEAR study is the first large-scale randomized trial to examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of brief intervention for alcohol misuse for people attending sexual health clinics. We are testing a very brief approach to screening and intervention that is aimed at accurately identifying people who are drinking excessively and helping them reduce their drinking while minimizing any disruption to normal clinical practice. The use of a short (single-item) screening question may have other benefits. It has been argued that previous trials of brief intervention for excessive alcohol use may underestimate the impact of 'active' treatment because the process of assessing alcohol use may itself highlight this issue and prompt people to reflect on and consider reducing the amount they drink [44] . In the SHEAR study all material used to publicize and recruit participants refers to alcohol in the context of other lifestyle factors that affect health, such as smoking and diet. We believe that this approach better represents the absence of enquiry or information about alcohol that people currently receive in this and other medical settings, thus allowing us to examine the full impact associated with the brief intervention we are testing.

It has been argued that previous trials of brief intervention for excessive alcohol use may underestimate the impact of 'active' treatment because the process of assessing alcohol use may itself highlight this issue and prompt people to reflect on and consider reducing the amount they drink.


E-banking creates unprecedented opportunities for the banks in the manner they organise financial product development, delivery, and marketing via the Internet. The speed and scale of these challenges have rapidly increased with the pervasiveness of the Internet and the extension of information economy (Holland and Westwood, 2001) . The use of e-banking technologies such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Telebanking, home banking and internet banking in the delivery of banking products and services has increasingly become an essential aspect of contemporary banking systems (Mols, 1998) .

The speed and scale of these challenges have rapidly increased with the pervasiveness of the Internet and the extension of information economy.

The use of e-banking technologies such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Telebanking, home banking and internet banking in the delivery of banking products and services has increasingly become an essential aspect of contemporary banking systems.


Image ratios results more suitable for the PS problem due to the fact that photometric invariant equations are independent on several factors, among which the albedo [36] . This paper is organized by presenting the single lobe irradiance equation in Section 2. The mathematical derivation of the new unifying equation for the PS problem is provided in Section 3. The variational approach solving the PS problem with the new differential formulation is shown in Section 4, yielding the results shown in Section 5.

Image ratios results more suitable for the PS problem due to the fact that photometric invariant equations are independent on several factors, among which the albedo.


In this context, the application of cellulose nanocrystals (CN) as a nanosized reinforcement in polymer matrixes has attracted considerable attention in this field, since it offers a unique combination of desirable physical properties and environmental benefits [4, 5] . CN based nanocomposites generally exhibit significant improvements in thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties compared to the neat polymer or conventional composites [6] . CN are needleshaped cellulose particles with at least one dimension equal to or less than 100 nm and have a highly crystalline nature (almost defect-free crystallites) [7] .

In this context, the application of cellulose nanocrystals (CN) as a nanosized reinforcement in polymer matrixes has attracted considerable attention in this field, since it offers a unique combination of desirable physical properties and environmental benefits.

CN based nanocomposites generally exhibit significant improvements in thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties compared to the neat polymer or conventional composites.

CN are needleshaped cellulose particles with at least one dimension equal to or less than 100 nm and have a highly crystalline nature (almost defect-free crystallites).


Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is the largest synthetic watersoluble polymer produced in the world [17] . PVA is biodegradable under aerobic and anaerobic conditions [18] . PVA is widely used in the textile, adhesive, cosmetic, food, drug, paper, and packaging industries. The main functional uses of PVA include filtration, catalysis, membranes, optics, drug release, enzyme mobilization, and tissue engineering, among others [19] . PVA presents remarkable barrier properties against oils and fats, aromas and perfumes, and small molecules (nitrogen, oxygen, etc.). It is one of the few semicrystalline polymers soluble in water and has good interfacial characteristics and mechanical properties, due to being a hydroxylated polymer capable of forming both intra-and intermolecular hydrogen bonds [20] [21] [22] .

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) is the largest synthetic watersoluble polymer produced in the world.

PVA is biodegradable under aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

The main functional uses of PVA include filtration, catalysis, membranes, optics, drug release, enzyme mobilization, and tissue engineering, among others.

It is one of the few semicrystalline polymers soluble in water and has good interfacial characteristics and mechanical properties, due to being a hydroxylated polymer capable of forming both intra-and intermolecular hydrogen bonds.


The growing interest in environmentally friendly materials has motivated academic and industrial research in the development and use of biopolymers for applications in which synthetic polymers or mineral fillers have been traditionally used. Toward this end, several biopolymers have been modified to attempt to be competitive with petroleum based polymers with respect to performance and cost. One way to improve the properties of biopolymers and greatly enhance their commercial potential is to incorporate nanosized reinforcement into the polymer [1] [2] [3] .

One way to improve the properties of biopolymers and greatly enhance their commercial potential is to incorporate nanosized reinforcement into the polymer.


The main features that drive the development of CN as polymer reinforcement agents are their large specific surface area (estimated to be several hundreds of m 2 ⋅g −1 ), their very high modulus of elasticity (approximately 150 GPa), their large aspect ratio, and their ability to act as a significant reinforcement at low filler loading levels. Other attractive advantages of CN are their low density (about 1.566 g⋅cm −3 ), nonabrasive nature, nontoxic character, biocompatibility, and biodegradability. Additionally, CN come from renewable natural sources that are very abundant and therefore low in cost, so it is not necessary to synthesize them, and they allow the production of composite films with excellent visible light transmittance that can be easily modified chemically (their structure has a reactive surface of -OH side groups that facilitate grafting chemical species in order to achieve different surface properties) [3, 5, 7, 8] .

Additionally, CN come from renewable natural sources that are very abundant and therefore low in cost, so it is not necessary to synthesize them, and they allow the production of composite films with excellent visible light transmittance that can be easily modified chemically (their structure has a reactive surface of -OH side groups that facilitate grafting chemical species in order to achieve different surface properties).


The corncob is the central part of the ear of maize in which the grains are embedded and is a waste generated after the grains are removed. For every 100 kg of ears of maize, about 18 kg are from corncob [16] . Brazil produced about 58 million tons of maize in the 2010/11 crop. Based on these data, it is estimated that 10.4 million tons of corncobs were generated during this period. Corncob is mainly used for producing animal feed and fertilizer. Therefore, corncob is an agroindustrial waste available in huge quantities in Brazil, which deserves to be properly used in other applications [3] .

For every 100 kg of ears of maize, about 18 kg are from corncob.

Therefore, corncob is an agroindustrial waste available in huge quantities in Brazil, which deserves to be properly used in other applications.


In our previous work, the CNC 60 were characterized according to their crystallinity index, morphology, and thermal stability. As reported, CNC 60 presented a needle-shaped nature, high crystallinity (83.7%), good initial degradation temperature (236 ∘ C), average length ( ) of 210.8 ± 44.2 nm, diameter ( ) of 4.15±1.08 nm, and high aspect ratio ( / ) of 53.4 ± 15.8. The AFM image ( Figure 1 ) supports this evidence for the development of CN on the nanometric scale [3] .

The AFM image ( Figure 1 ) supports this evidence for the development of CN on the nanometric scale.


On the other hand, provided it is hygienically collected, animal blood is a valuable protein source [6] . Blood contains about 18% protein [7] . Blood proteins are of high biological value, a possible source for biotechnology products, and hence are of potential high *Address corresponding to this author at the Department of Biosystems Engineering, School of Agricultural Technology, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Larissa, Perifereiaki Larissis -Trikalon, 41110, Larissa, Greece; Tel: +302410684524; Fax: +302410613153; E-mail: petrotos@teilar.gr economic value [7, 4] . Proteins from blood could be used within the food industry, for example, as additives in dietetic or other products [8] . It is therefore necessary to consider the recovering of the proteins in the blood, both to minimize a sizable pollution hazard and to prevent the loss of a valuable protein source.

On the other hand, provided it is hygienically collected, animal blood is a valuable protein source.

Blood contains about 18% protein.

Blood proteins are of high biological value, a possible source for biotechnology products, and hence are of potential high *Address corresponding to this author at the Department of Biosystems Engineering, School of Agricultural Technology, Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Larissa, Perifereiaki Larissis -Trikalon, 41110, Larissa, Greece; Tel: +302410684524; Fax: +302410613153; E-mail: petrotos@teilar.gr economic value.

Proteins from blood could be used within the food industry, for example, as additives in dietetic or other products.


Unfortunately, the practice of providing mono-functional townhouse developments with little or no communal or intermediary spaces to accommodate recycling facilities still prevails in South Africa. Settlement planning and design guidelines should include tangible specifications for the provision of recycling facilities across different housing types that are simultaneously linked to economic instruments (EIs) as part of waste policy and legislation [4] . Though it may be assumed that recycling will necessarily increase if it is made easier, careful planning and design of settlements and housing, coupled with proper management and incentives for recycling, is actually necessary to sustain increased levels of recycling. This study highlighted that the provision of preferred recycling facilities does not necessarily require a major change in the current design of housing and residential complexes, just that the provision of facilities should be appropriate for the specific housing type and community concerned.

Settlement planning and design guidelines should include tangible specifications for the provision of recycling facilities across different housing types that are simultaneously linked to economic instruments (EIs) as part of waste policy and legislation.


Optical spectra of GTO films demonstrate the transmit-tance more than 95% from 400 to 700 nm (Fig. 1c) . The optical bandgap (E g ) of GTO films, calculated from the formula: (αhν) 2 =A(hν-E g ), where α is absorption coefficient, is around 3.87 eV. This value is larger than that of IGZO films (3.17-3.38 eV), indicating their excellent optical performance [23] . We do not observe the obvious red shift of bandgap after Ga incorporation which is consistent with a previous report [17] .

The optical bandgap (E g ) of GTO films, calculated from the formula: (αhν) 2 =A(hν-E g ), where α is absorption coefficient, is around 3.87 eV. This value is larger than that of IGZO films (3.17-3.38 eV), indicating their excellent optical performance.

We do not observe the obvious red shift of bandgap after Ga incorporation which is consistent with a previous report.


To our knowledge, there are almost no reports about the stability of solution processed SnO 2 based TFTs. The stabilities of TFTs are crucial to the application of display backplanes such as AMLCDs and AMOLEDs. Fig. 5a shows clockwise hysteresis characteristic of GTO6-TFT at V DS =1 and 10 V. The hysteresis voltage shift is about 9.2 V at V DS =100 nA. Positive bias stress (PBS) and negative bias stress (NBS) tests were carried out at bias voltages of +20 V and −20 V for 1,200 s ( Fig. 5b and 5c ). In the PBS test, the V th positively shifts by~6.6 V which is larger than that of sputtered GTO-TFTs under the same stress time [19] . We can observe a slightly decreased SS with the extension of time because more interface states are filled during PBS process [38] . On the other hand, it is reported that the electric field applied in the channel layer can result in the adsorption of O 2 (acceptor) and desorption of adsorbed H 2 O (donor) which can reduce electrons in the channel layer [39] . Both mechanisms can contribute to the positive V th shift. Besides, the V th negatively shifts by~6.4 V under NBS after the device is stressed 1,200 s, which can be explained by the H 2 O adsorption mechanism [40] . In this case, the mechanism can be expressed by H 2 O+h + =H 2 O + where h + and H 2 O + are holes in the channel layer and water molecules positively charged on the back surface of channel layer. Although GTO-TFTs have been fabricated by solution process on SiO 2 substrates successfully, they are confronted with many challenges such as low mobility, high SS and instability, making them insufficient to be put into practice. In order to improve the a-GTO-TFT performance, SiO 2 was replaced by Al 2 O 3 thin film as the dielectric layer. XRD pattern of Al 2 O 3 thin film exhibits its amorphous state (Fig. 6a) . The RMS roughness of 0.16 nm in the area of 5×5 μm 2 can be derived from the AFM image of Al 2 O 3 thin film. The leakage property of Al 2 O 3 thin film with the thickness of~30 nm is shown in Fig. 6b . It can be obtained that the breakdown field strength of 4.4 MV cm −1 ensures the reliability of Al 2 O 3 dielectric.

In the PBS test, the V th positively shifts by~6.6 V which is larger than that of sputtered GTO-TFTs under the same stress time.

We can observe a slightly decreased SS with the extension of time because more interface states are filled during PBS process.

On the other hand, it is reported that the electric field applied in the channel layer can result in the adsorption of O 2 (acceptor) and desorption of adsorbed H 2 O (donor) which can reduce electrons in the channel layer.

Besides, the V th negatively shifts by~6.4 V under NBS after the device is stressed 1,200 s, which can be explained by the H 2 O adsorption mechanism.


Modern statistical parsers require treebanks to train their parameters, but their performance declines when one parses genres more distant from the training data's domain. Furthermore, the treebanks required to train said parsers are expensive and difficult to produce. Naturally, one of the goals of statistical parsing is to produce a broad-coverage parser which is relatively insensitive to textual domain. But the lack of corpora has led to a situation where much of the current work on parsing is performed on a single domain using training data from that domain -the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) section of the Penn Treebank (Marcus et al., 1993) . Given the aforementioned costs, it is unlikely that many significant treebanks will be created for new genres. Thus, parser adaptation attempts to leverage existing labeled data from one domain and create a parser capable of parsing a different domain.

But the lack of corpora has led to a situation where much of the current work on parsing is performed on a single domain using training data from that domain -the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) section of the Penn Treebank.


A similar approach to semi-supervised learning is active learning. This approach uses supervised learning for the initial classification. However, when the classifier is less confident in labelling the human annotator is required [5, 6] . Since human interaction is undesirable the Active learning is inappropriate.

However, when the classifier is less confident in labelling the human annotator is required.


Other studies into power motivation have found effects sizes ranging from d = .34 to d = .60 and have classified these as medium (Schuh et al., 2014) . These are consistent with this study's findings for Power (d = .41). Overall, this study's findings of effects sizes which are mostly in excess of .20 compare favourably with other studies of psychological gender differences (Hyde & Plant, 1995) .

Other studies into power motivation have found effects sizes ranging from d = .34 to d = .60 and have classified these as medium.

Overall, this study's findings of effects sizes which are mostly in excess of .20 compare favourably with other studies of psychological gender differences.


One of the strengths of our cohort study is that the study population is a community-living sample. The patients enrolled provide a representative range of the socio-economic characteristics of COPD patients in Japan, registered at a general clinical practice, a university hospital or a related facility. Coincidentally, other COPD cohort studies conducted in different Japanese locality investigated participants with a similar average age [24, 25] . Indeed, COPD patients in Japan are typically elderly, and there might be a "healthy survivor effect" in their late seventies and beyond. We speculate that these olderaged COPD cohorts contain a higher proportion of people who, for whatever reasons, did not experience such serious or life-threatening comorbid problems as their younger peers. We have no reason to believe that the pattern seen in these COPD patients is a particularly Japanese phenomenon.

Coincidentally, other COPD cohort studies conducted in different Japanese locality investigated participants with a similar average age.


First, most authors have conceived CSR image on a limited basis, defining it as the perception of only ethical or philanthropic corporate responsibilities. As a result, a large number of studies can be found that have proposed to gather customers' CSR image through one-dimensional measurement scales (Lichtenstein et al. 2004; Podnar and Golob 2007; Marín and Ruiz 2007) . Nevertheless, it is well known that customers, at the time of forming an image of the business, use all the information available of its features and activities. So, corporate relationships with other stakeholders beyond society are underrepresented in one-dimensional scales.

As a result, a large number of studies can be found that have proposed to gather customers' CSR image through one-dimensional measurement scales.


Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that CSR does not mean the same thing in every industry as it does not mean the same for all stakeholders (Decker 2004) . Thus, multidimensional scales, which are generally intended to be applicable to any context, are not appropriate as decision tools for managers. As CSR conceptualization differs in diverse industries, more specific tools are needed to measure customers' perceptions regarding this concept.

Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that CSR does not mean the same thing in every industry as it does not mean the same for all stakeholders.


Heat Integration is one important option for increasing energy efficiency in heat-intensive industrial plants such as chemical process plants and oil refineries [1] . Several approaches can be used for identifying energy efficiency options through Heat Integration [2] . The methods can generally be divided into approaches based on thermodynamics and physical insights and approaches based on mathematical programming. Methods combining these approaches have also been developed. Pinch analysis, which is based on thermodynamics and physical insights, is one of the most widely used techniques for Heat Integration.

Heat Integration is one important option for increasing energy efficiency in heat-intensive industrial plants such as chemical process plants and oil refineries.

Several approaches can be used for identifying energy efficiency options through Heat Integration.


Furthermore, since process conditions constantly change with ambient conditions, raw material mixes and product demand, the steam consumption/production is not constant. In the steam system, all components are connected at the different levels and are strongly dependent on each other [17] . This means that the operation of other steam system components, like steam boilers and steam turbines, must be adjusted according to the variations in steam consumption/production caused by the process variations. In addition to variations within the industrial plants, variations in fuel and electricity prices also affect the optimal operation of the steam system components [18] . The large number of interdependencies and variations makes the system complicated and make it difficult to analyse the energy consequences of Heat Integration projects without including modelling of the steam system in the analysis. Every Heat Integration retrofit that implies a modification to the steam balances leads to a requirement for a complex decision on the best operational response for the overall steam system [19] .

In the steam system, all components are connected at the different levels and are strongly dependent on each other.

In addition to variations within the industrial plants, variations in fuel and electricity prices also affect the optimal operation of the steam system components.

Every Heat Integration retrofit that implies a modification to the steam balances leads to a requirement for a complex decision on the best operational response for the overall steam system.


In summary, we conclude that some variation of the ALT phenotype exists in pedGBM with respect to the degree to which typical ALT features are present. Another main observation from our characterization of the pedGBM cell lines refers to the aberrant pattern of H3.3 serine 31 phosphorylation, which was previously linked to the presence of ALT [31] . We show here that this modification is not a direct ALT marker but in the cell lines tested here rather is associated with the loss of ATRX. The mechanism by which this leads to an extended mitotic H3.3S31p signal is unknown. One model would be that loss of ATRX results in an increase of stalled replication forks and accumulation of single-stranded DNA. This in turn could trigger an RPA-and ATR-mediated activation of CHK1, which was implied in establishing the H3.3S31p mark [31, 73] .

Another main observation from our characterization of the pedGBM cell lines refers to the aberrant pattern of H3.3 serine 31 phosphorylation, which was previously linked to the presence of ALT.

This in turn could trigger an RPA-and ATR-mediated activation of CHK1, which was implied in establishing the H3.3S31p mark.


The security of the visual data collected through a communication network becomes a very important aspect to proof the authenticity and the origin of the transmitted data. The digital processing methods are so available and easy to use that it makes the falsification and the hacking so easy [1] . It is therefore necessary to incorporate in the capture systems and the control stations techniques that secure data against all kinds of malicious manipulations. The first techniques used to solve this problem are based on cryptography [8] . Using correctly the video must respect several constraints such as: the generation of a minimum volume of additional data, the malicious attacks detection, the tolerance against involuntary attacks (compression, changing format, etc. ..), the attacks location on the images constituting the video stream and the data recovery after attacks. Unfortunately, the used cryptographic techniques do not satisfy the constraints mentioned above [2, 3] . The generated data are so much and the introduced security is very limited to the verification of the data integrity rather than the visual content.

The digital processing methods are so available and easy to use that it makes the falsification and the hacking so easy.

The first techniques used to solve this problem are based on cryptography.

Unfortunately, the used cryptographic techniques do not satisfy the constraints mentioned above.


In general, even if the data samples after the filtering process emerge separated by the same spatial step they had before being processed, this spatial step does not represent the effective resolution of the filtered profile. The primary aim of this paper is to study the problem of the effective resolution (ERes) estimation for lidar products using a different approach with respect to those already presented in the literature (Godin at al., 1999; Beyerle and McDermid, 1999; Shcherbakov, 2007; Trickl, 2010; Leblanc et al., 2012; Pornsawad et al., 2012) . A parametric study of several smoothing filters is performed, and the results provide recommendations on the optimization of lidar signal processing.

The primary aim of this paper is to study the problem of the effective resolution (ERes) estimation for lidar products using a different approach with respect to those already presented in the literature.


Furthermore, unregulated fishing is not an issue restricted to the A5 signing nations nor is it unique to the central Arctic Ocean. The Declaration builds on previous regional experiences in overfishing, population crashes as well as effective management and practices, such as the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Barents Sea [7] [8] [9] . The context and nature of the Declaration is also tied to the projected climatic conditions of the Arctic Ocean, the likelihood of the existence of a valuable fishing population in the central Arctic Ocean, uncertainty and paucity of existing scientific data, the dynamics of the broader Arctic ecosystem and the political context and dialogue of both Arctic coastal (A5), and circum-Arctic states (A8), as well as international stakeholders, as discussed further below. A comprehensive review of the political issues at stake, the interests and incentives of the A5 with regard to future management of living resources in the area, as well as of other influential actors such as NGOs can be found in Wegge, 2015 [10] .

The Declaration builds on previous regional experiences in overfishing, population crashes as well as effective management and practices, such as the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in the Barents Sea.

A comprehensive review of the political issues at stake, the interests and incentives of the A5 with regard to future management of living resources in the area, as well as of other influential actors such as NGOs can be found in Wegge, 2015.


Methionine, an essential amino acid was first isolated by Mueller [1] . High levels of methionine can be found in nuts, meat and some other plant foods. However, in humans and animals, this amino acid cannot be produced and is therefore an important nutrient additive in their feeding. The impact of L-methionine on animal nutrition and the consequences of its absence as a nutritive feed additive have been investigated. It was observed for poultry that the stability of shells decreases just as the milk production in cow does [2] .

Methionine, an essential amino acid was first isolated by Mueller.

It was observed for poultry that the stability of shells decreases just as the milk production in cow does.


We can notice that the logistic regression performed in this study showed results equivalent to those described in recent literature [8, 14] . We used both medical and non-medical predictive factors of transplant registration. As mentioned in section 0.1, non-medical factors might not be relevant for clinical practice; however our main objective is to discuss the efficiency of a new computational K-NN and not to meet concrete decisionmaking applications. Age in this kind of application field is, with no surprise, one of the most relevant clinical factors. As it could be expected, it showed a very high weight level compared to other factors. This fact might limit the results of the study. Nevertheless, since we need to design a decision-making process that performs automatically, we decided to keep the factor age within the discriminating factors in LR and K-NN algorithms.

We can notice that the logistic regression performed in this study showed results equivalent to those described in recent literature.


Steel-reinforced two-way flat slabs are popular structural systems that can simplify and accelerate on-site operations and facilitate flexible partitioning of space [10] . The two-way flat slabs are particularly efficient for constructing parking structures. Additionally, computing the slab's resistance of shear stresses at supporting columns is a major concern in the design procedure of this structure [11] . Notably, the slab-supporting column connections have been shown to be vulnerable to high shear stresses and this might bring about brittle and sudden punching shear failures [10] . Especially when the steel reinforcements get corroded due to moisture and other hostile factors in the operational environment, punching shear failures may occur at these slab-column connections. Accordingly, these may lead to progressive collapse of the whole structure [12] .

Steel-reinforced two-way flat slabs are popular structural systems that can simplify and accelerate on-site operations and facilitate flexible partitioning of space.

Additionally, computing the slab's resistance of shear stresses at supporting columns is a major concern in the design procedure of this structure.

Notably, the slab-supporting column connections have been shown to be vulnerable to high shear stresses and this might bring about brittle and sudden punching shear failures.

Accordingly, these may lead to progressive collapse of the whole structure.


However, in S 2 ×R, H 2 ×R and Sol Thurston geometries there are no result concerning the angle sums of translation or geodesic triangles. Therefore, it is interesting to study similar question in the above three geometries. Now, we are interested in translation triangles in Sol space [16, 20] .

Now, we are interested in translation triangles in Sol space.


We found no relationship between urbanization (measured as percent impervious surface at 1,500 m) and d 13 C (Fig. 1B) , which indicates human food sources did not make up a significant proportion of urban honey bee diets. In our mixed model, urbanization (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 0.31, P ¼ 0.58) and the interaction between urbanization and management regime (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 0.046, P ¼ 0.83) had no significant effect on d 13 C. Instead, managed colonies showed higher d 13 C levels than feral colonies in all habitats (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 12.96, P ¼ 0.0011), which is consistent with findings that beekeeper kept colonies have increased d 13 C as a result of supplemental sugar feeding (Anderson et al. 2014) . Managed bees had greater variation in d 13 C than feral colonies (Fig. 1B) , which suggests some beekeepers provide more supplemental sugars to their bees than others. Overall, the increase in d 13 C for managed colonies was 1.25& compared with feral colonies (See Supplemental data), which was still relatively small compared with the increase in d 13 C found in ants (2.72&) and kit foxes (2.40&) that consume human foods in urban habitats (Newsome et al. 2010; Penick, Savage, and Dunn 2015) .

In our mixed model, urbanization (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 0.31, P ¼ 0.58) and the interaction between urbanization and management regime (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 0.046, P ¼ 0.83) had no significant effect on d 13 C. Instead, managed colonies showed higher d 13 C levels than feral colonies in all habitats (df ¼ 1, F ratio ¼ 12.96, P ¼ 0.0011), which is consistent with findings that beekeeper kept colonies have increased d 13 C as a result of supplemental sugar feeding.

Overall, the increase in d 13 C for managed colonies was 1.25& compared with feral colonies (See Supplemental data), which was still relatively small compared with the increase in d 13 C found in ants (2.72&) and kit foxes (2.40&) that consume human foods in urban habitats.


Another popular and demanding nutritious food is cultured milk or yogurt. It is a fermented food with preserve nutrient value in the milk with a characteristic fresh taste derived from the action of bacteria on all or part of the lactose to produce several organic acids (Tamine and Robinson 2004) . If produces from untreated or contaminated milk samples, yogurt can pose some health hazard and are labile to contamination.

It is a fermented food with preserve nutrient value in the milk with a characteristic fresh taste derived from the action of bacteria on all or part of the lactose to produce several organic acids.


However, the drawbacks of such sources are their TCO which is still expensive, especially for small wind turbine systems. Moreover to assure the service continuity and to protect the battery against deep discharges (subsequently extend the battery bank life), such systems require an additional dynamic source of energy or an optimal wind system design [8, 9] ). Recently, several researches based on global optimization techniques have been focused on the design of optimal system configurations which meet the load demand for given climatic data [10] [11] [12] .

Moreover to assure the service continuity and to protect the battery against deep discharges (subsequently extend the battery bank life), such systems require an additional dynamic source of energy or an optimal wind system design).

Recently, several researches based on global optimization techniques have been focused on the design of optimal system configurations which meet the load demand for given climatic data.