174,465 research outputs found
The Bloody Millennium: Internal Conflict in South Asia
No full textThis paper documents the short-term and long-term trends in internal conflict in South Asian countries, using multiple data sources. I find that incidents of terrorism have been rising across South Asia over the past decade, and this increase has been concentrated in economically lagging regions in the post-2001 period. This is in contrast to both the historical patterns of conflict, and the evolution of other types of violence. Analyzing the role of economic, geographic and demographic factors, I find that poorer areas have significantly higher levels of conflict intensity. The paper reviews the various approaches taken by governments to deal with conflict, contrasting security-based approaches with political accommodation and economic approaches. Finally, the paper reviews the potential role of regional cooperation in mitigating conflict.
Essays in corporate financing
No full textThesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1989.Includes bibliographical references.by Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder.Ph.D
Paradeontacylix megalaspium Lakshmi, 2007, n. sp.
No full textParadeontacylix megalaspium n. sp. (Figs 1-4) Type-host: Megalaspis cordyla (Linnaeus) (Carangidae), torpedo scad. Type-locality: Visakhapatnam coast, Bay of Bengal (17 ° 44 ′N, 83 ° 23 ′E). Site: Gill blood vessels. Prevalence of infection: A total of 110 M. cordyla ranging in fork length from 118-280 mm were examined during March, 2006 -January, 2007. Infection with the blood fluke was rare and confined to the months March-May. Only 8 fish ranging in fork length from 192-280 mm showed the infection, each infected fish carried 1-4 flukes. Altogether 18 flukes were collected. The prevalence of infection was 1.6 % and the intensity was 2.2. Material deposited: Holotype- Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta, India No W 8878 Paratype- NHM, London No. 2007.5. 16.1 Etymology: The species is named after the generic name of the host, Megalaspis. Description : Based on 10 specimens. Body long, slender, worm-like, with parallel sides, pointed anterior and posterior ends, protruding anteriorly as a knob, 1,920–3,520 long 96–192 wide, approximately 20 times longer than wide (Fig. 1). Tegument thin, transparent, armed with spines arranged in regular rows along ventrolateral margins, number of rows on each side ranges from 400–450, each row with 4–6 spines in anterior and posterior regions; 8–10 spines in rest of body; spines needle-like (Fig. 2). Spines near posterior region of body not enlarged, similar in size and shape to rest of body spines (Fig. 3). Mouth subterminal, esophagus long, sinuous, 302–576 long, narrow anteriorly, somewhat distended posteriorly, surrounded by gland cells, dividing into ceca at approximately one sixth of body length from anterior end. Ceca H-shaped, anterior branches of ceca short, posterior ones long, narrow, extending to level of ovary. Cecal lumen often contains red blood cells and some yellowish pigment material. Nerve commissure conspicuous, at a distance of 80-184 from anterior end. Testis follicular, follicles small, approximately 70–86 in number, arranged in two irregular rows in intercecal region between cecal bifurcation and ovarian zone. Follicles disrupted in some specimens and testis appears as single irregular mass. Testicular field 995–1552 long, 72–80 wide, occupies ~ 50 percent of total body length. Vas deferens originates from testis, crosses ovary, proceeds posteriorly towards left as a sinuous tube, continues as seminal vesicle enclosed in cirrus sac (Fig. 4). Prostatic cells absent. Cirrus short, thick-walled. Male genital pore submedian on dorsal side, at a distance of 312–384 from posterior end of body. Ovary post-testicular, appears as large irregular mass composed of 2 lobes contiguous with one another, 140–240 long, 112–160 wide, postovarian space 528–680, approximately one fifth of body length. Oviduct originates from posterior border of ovary as narrow duct, joins vitelline duct to form ootype, surrounded by small, diffuse, inconspicuous Mehlis’ gland. Seminal receptacle, Laurer’s canal absent. Uterus originates from ootype, first descends, turns back, proceeds anteriorly, describes few coils posterior to ovary, then finally opens out through submedian female genital pore, a little anterior to male genital pore. Eggs small, oval, 20–24 long, 12 wide, eggshell thin, membranous, transparent. Vitelline follicles small, numerous, occupy most of area between nerve commissure and ovary, form two thick lateral zones, intrude into testicular zone. Vitelline duct narrow, runs parallel to oviduct. Excretory vesicle not observed. Discussion. The characters of the genus, including the H-shaped ceca, follicular testis, presence of separate male and female genital pores and postovarian distribution of uterus, fit into the generic diagnosis of Paradeontacylix McIntosh, 1934 as given by Smith (2002). Six species are known in the genus: P. sanguinicoloides McIntosh, 1934 from Seriola lalandi; P. odhneri (Layman, 1930) from the puffer Takifugu porphyreus (= Spheroides borealis); P. sinensis Liu, 1997 from T. oblongus (= Fugu oblongus); P. godfreyi Hutson & Whittington, 2006 from Seriola lalandi; P. grandispinus Ogawa and Egusa, 1986, and P. kampachi Ogawa and Egusa, 1986 both from farmed Seriola purpurascens. Hutson & Whittington (2006) compared the morphological characters of the four species of the genus recorded from Seriola spp. Two species, P. odhneri and P. s i n e n s i s, were recorded from puffer fishes, but do not show any specialized features attributed to occurrence in different taxa of hosts. The present species, also from a carangid fish, can be distinguished from all these six species by possessing the following combination of characters: long slender worm-like body with 400–450 rows of marginal tegumental spines, each with 8–10 spines along major part of body; the absence of enlarged posterior tegumental spines; and presence of 70 to 86 testis follicles, occupying 50 % of body area. Two other species P. k a m p a c h i from Japan (Ogawa & Egusa 1986) and Spain (Montero et al. 2003) and P. s i n e n s i s from China (Liu 1997) also do not possess enlarged spines at posterior region. Paradeontacylix megalaspium n. sp. closely resembles P. k a m p a c h i but differs from it in the long slender body, more anteriorly placed and irregularly shaped ovary, in the lesser number of rows of spines (510–590 in P. kampachi) and in the extent of testis (50 % of body area in P. megalaspium n. sp. as against 29– 32 % in P. kampachi). Paradeontacylix sinensis has fewer testis follicles (29–32) that occupy a greater proportion of body length (~ 69 %). Paradeontacylix godfreyi, P. sanguinicoloides and P. grandispinus possess enlarged integumental spines at posterior end. Paradeontacylix godfreyi further differs in having more transverse rows of marginal tegumental spines (690–890), more number of testis follicles (99) but occupying a lesser percent of body area (18–25 %). P. sanguinicoloides has 60 testis follicles occupying 41 % of body and 580–654 rows of spines (McIntosh 1934). Paradeontacylix grandispinus is very different in that it has a spatulate body and a lesser number of testis follicles (19–32), occupying only 27–38 % proportion of body (Ogawa & Egusa 1986). Further, it possesses a receptaculum seminis formed by the dilatation of oviduct which is lacking in P. megalaspium n. sp. Paradeontacylix odhneri is only briefly described but is distinct from P. meg alaspium n. sp. in the more posteriorly placed ovary which lies at one ninth of body length from posterior end (Layman 1930). The description of this species does not provide details of the arrangement of tegumental spines and the number of testis follicles. Hence a detailed comparison with this species can not be made. Paradeontacylix megalaspium n. sp. exhibited narrow specificity to Megalaspis cordyla. None of the species of carangids occurring at Visakhapatnam coast examined by us (e.g. Carangoides malabaricus, C. ferdau, Selar crumenopthalmus, Chorinemus tol) along with the samples of M. cordyla, showed infection with the fluke. Acknowledgment. The financial assistance provided by Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, under the AICOPTAX program is gratefully acknowledged. FIGURES: Paradeontacylix megalaspium n. sp. from Megalaspis cordyla. 1. Holotype, entire specimen, ventral view; 2. Rows of body spines; 3. Posterior region of body, enlarged view to show arrangement of body spines; 4. Enlarged view of posterior part, showing terminal genitaliaPublished as part of Lakshmi, Triveni, 2007, Paradeontacylix megalaspium n. sp. (Digenea: Sanguinicolidae) from the carangid fish, Megalaspis cordyla of Bay of Bengal, pp. 65-68 in Zootaxa 1512 on pages 65-67, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17727
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Ecocritical Concerns in Lakshmi Kannan’s Short Stories “Muniyakka,” “Nandanvan,” and “Because”
No full textThe relationship between nature and mankind has been inextricable since time immemorial. Writers down the ages in almost all cultures of the world have presented nature in its splendour and beauty. Hence it becomes important to study how literature represents the essential human relationship with nature and also the role of nature as a nurturer. This paper attempts to examine how nature and environment appear as tropes in three short stories of Lakshmi Kannan namely “Muniyakka,” “Nandanvan,” and “Because.” These stories have been translated from Tamil into English by the author herself. The paper aims to highlight the ecocritical vein that runs through these selected short stories in the light of the theory of ecocriticism. Ecocriticism is an interdisciplinary study that aims at analysing texts that illustrate environmental concerns and it examines the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. The paper further argues that the relationship between nature and mankind is one of reciprocity
A Hierarchical Control Plane Framework for Integrated SDN-SFC Management in Multi-tenant Cloud Datacenters
No full textCloud data centers represent one of the most complex and dynamic environments in terms of
network management. The multitude of hosted applications in such centers share the same
fabric and yet demand easy and fast service deployment and management of independent logical
networks. Applications, often belonging to di erent tenants, have di erent needs in terms
of performance, isolation, security, and tra c optimization based on which incoming and outgoing
tra c is serviced. Traditionally, cloud service providers satisfy these requirements by
means of purpose-built specialized hardware equipment providing network services called middleboxes.
End-to-end delivery of services is realized by physically connecting the middleboxes
in the required sequence called Service Function Chains (SFC), and steering tra c through
them. However, the lack of extensibility and scalability of these closed systems hinders dynamic
provisioning of services and leads to network ossi cation. With the emergence of Network
Function Virtualization (NFV) where the service functions were implemented in software, and
Software-De ned Networking (SDN) which enabled programmatic con guration of networks,
the provisioning of di erentiated services was made easier.
However, current SDN implementations have certain shortcomings with respect to SFC
management. Most SDN control plane implementations handle the forwarding rule generation
based on the L2/L3 layer's information. Also, SDN extensions for SFCs have exploited the
central entity of control only to generate forwarding rules to stitch the service functions (SFs)
to form SFCs. In cloud networks where application service requirements change dynamically,
autonomous management of SFC is essential. This can be achieved only if the controller's view
expands beyond the forwarding devices to include the SFs and SFCs.
In the rst part of this work, we motivate the need for a central control plane that can
handle SFC management along with packet forwarding. Current research mostly focuses on
using the SDN controller solely to generate and install forwarding rules into the data plane to
realize SFCs. SDN controllers deal with only the L2/L3 layers of the network stack. However,
SFs often involve higher L4-L7 layer functionality. To e ectively manage the SFs through a
centralized point of control, the controller must be able to understand the semantics of the
higher layers. This means the controller must be aware of the functionality provided by the
SFs and be capable of interpreting state information of SFs which involve the higher layer
meta-data. This work highlights the need for a cooperative SDN-SFC control plane. We
try to understand the challenges involved in realizing such a control plane by implementing
an integrated controller based on POX which handles both tra c routing as well as SFC
management. Among the challenges, the issue of controller scalability was visible. The impact
of this integration on the scalability of the controller is captured by measuring the incoming
tra c at the controller. The controller is evaluated over a simulated data center scale network.
We present results showing an increase in load at the controller end. Also, results showing an
increase in workload at the controller with an increase in the number of SFs in the network are
presented. A workload characterization at the controller is experimentally derived to analyze
the correlation of controller workload with the variability in SFC related components.
In the second part of this work, we try to address the controller scalability issue by redesigning
the controller. We propose a hierarchical integrated controller capable of absorbing
the increased workload. The controller includes multiple instances of controllers arranged in
a two-level hierarchy. The controller separates the control plane functionality across the two
tiers and also across the controllers within the same tier such that only control messages required
for building the network global view are handled by the higher tiers while those that
handle tenant level information are managed by the lower layer instances. This framework organically
supports multi-tenancy by providing the required tenant isolation through dedicated
sub-controller instances. The controller also allows intelligent reuse of SFs and SFCs across
tenants with consideration to the tenant isolation requirements. The hierarchical structure of
the controller o ers the ability to adapt to expanding network sizes by absorbing the control
state more e ciently at each tier. We evaluate our framework by comparing the load at the
proposed controller, with that of centralized and distributed implementations of the integrated
controller. We quantify and compare the packet loss metrics and the
ow setup latencies of the
di erent controllers by subjecting them to the same infrastructure and application deployment
setup on a simulated network. Results show that the workload at each controller instance of
the proposed controller is lower than its centralized and distributed counter-parts. Also, the
percentage packet loss of the proposed controller is reduced by 20% and 10% in comparison
to the centralized and distributed controllers. The observed
ow setup latencies also indicate
that the proposed hierarchical architecture performs better than the other two controller architectures
in large multi-tenant networks. Finally, we characterize the workload at the proposed
controller architecture and compare it with the characterization derived from the centralized
controller
Mitomycin C in highly myopic eyes - Author reply
No full textOphthalmology. 2005 Feb;112(2):208-18; discussion 219.
Mitomycin C modulation of corneal wound healing after photorefractive keratectomy in highly myopic eyes.
Gambato C, Ghirlando A, Moretto E, Busato F, Midena E.
SourceRefractive Surgery Service and Antimetabolite Therapy Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Abstract
PURPOSE: To evaluate the role of topical mitomycin C in corneal wound healing (CWH) after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) in highly myopic eyes.
DESIGN: Prospective, double-masked, randomized clinical trial.
PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-two eyes of 36 patients affected by high (>7 diopters) myopia.
METHODS: In each patient, one eye was randomly assigned to PRK with intraoperative topical 0.02% mitomycin C application, and the fellow eye was treated with a placebo. Postoperatively, mitomycin C-treated eyes received artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months), whereas the fellow eye was treated with fluorometholone sodium 2% and artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), contrast sensitivity, manifest refraction, and biomicroscopy. Contrast sensitivity was determined using the Pelli-Robson chart. Corneal confocal microscopy documented CWH.
RESULTS: Mean follow-up was 18 months (range, 12-36). No side effects or toxic effects were documented. At 12-month follow-up examination, UCVAs (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) were 0.4+/-0.48 and 0.5+/-0.53 (P = .03) in mitomycin C-treated eyes and corticosteroid-treated eyes, respectively. At 1 year, corneal haze developed in 20% of corticosteroid-treated eyes, versus 0% of mitomycin C-treated eyes. At 12, 24, and 36 months, corneal confocal microscopy showed activated keratocytes and extracellular matrix significantly more evident in untreated eyes (Ps = 0.004, 0.024, and 0.046, respectively).
CONCLUSION: Topical intraoperative application of 0.02% mitomycin C can reduce haze formation in highly myopic eyes undergoing PRK.
Comment in
Ophthalmology. 2006 Feb;113(2):357; author reply 357-8
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
A Multi-Language Comparison of Influences on Author Verification using Character N-Grams
No full textWe create a new multi-language corpus for author verification based on Wikipedia talkpages, and evaluate the influence that differences in topic and time have on character n-gram author profiles. Topic alignment between two texts is found to increase author verification precision, and an authors writing style is found to change over time, but not more significantly after 3 years than after 1 year.Information ArchitectureWISElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
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