Hydraulic fracturing is a well-established technology of generating highly conductive flow path inside the rock by injecting massive amount of fracturing fluid and proppant with sufficient pressure to break the formation apart. But as the concern for environment and health effects of hydraulic fracturing becomes intense, many efforts are made to replace the conventional fracturing fluid with more environment-friendly materials. The degradable biopolymer is one of the novel materials that is injected in the form of solid pellets containing proppant, degrades in the presence of water to form a viscous gel fluid, leaving no gel residue or harmful material. This work develops a methodology and computer program to determine the best candidate wells for the field test of degradable biopolymer as fracturing fluid. The unique properties of degradable biopolymer is captured in the selection of decision criteria such as bottomhole temperature and treatment volume as well as traditional hydraulic fracturing candidate well selection criteria such as formation permeability, productivity index.

This data set contains estimated left-right candidate coordinates necessary to replicate the analysis in Ansolabehere, Snyder, and Stewart, "Candidate Positioning in U.S. House Elections," American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 136-159. See the article for details. The data fields are state (postal code), district, name, party (1=dem, 2=rep), location, imputed location.

La polyarthrite rhumatoïde (PR) et la maladie coronaire (MC) sont deux maladies touchant l'adulte comportant une susceptibilité génétique et partageant plusieurs chapitres physiopathologiques. Nous avons recherché des gènes de susceptibilité à la PR en employant une approche gène-candidat dans des loci suggerés par les données d'études de criblage du genome. Nous avons mis au point une étude originale (Genescaf) d'approche des gènes impliqués dans la MC. / Rhumatoid arthritis (RA) and coronary artery disease (CAD) are two adult diseases involving some genetic susceptibility genes and sharing many physiopathogenic chapters. We tried to find some RA susceptibility genes by a candidate-gene approach located in linked loci. We performed an original study (Genescaf) to approach some CAD susceptibility genes.

Opportunistic Routing (OR) is an effective and enhanced routing scheme for wireless multihop environment. OR is an approach that selects a certain number of best forwarders (candidates) at each hop by taking the advantage of the broadcast nature of the wireless medium to reach the destination. When a set of candidates receive the packet, they coordinate with each other to figure out which one has to forward the packet toward the destination. Most of the research in this area has been done in mesh networks where nodes do not have mobility. In this survey, we propose a new OR protocol for mobile ad hoc scenarios called as Enhanced Mobility-based Opportunistic Routing (EMOR) protocol. To deal with the node mobility, we have proposed a new metric which considers the following: geographical position of the candidates; the link delivery probability to reach them; the number of neighboring nodes of candidates; and the predicted position of nodes using the motion vector of the nodes. We have compared EMOR with five other well-known routing protocols in terms of delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and expected number of transmissions from source to the destination. Our simulation results show that proposed protocol improves delivery ratio and number of expected transmission in terms of different type of mobility models.

This dissertation examines the experiences of clergy who have run for elected office. Previous research has examined the political behavior of clergy and why those in other professions have run for office. This dissertation is the first study of clergy who have run for office. I find that most of the interviewees view service in elective office as a civic duty rather than as an opportunity to create a polity that reflects their personal religious convictions. I collected data on 217 clergy who ran for office from 1980 to 2016 and interviewed 17 individuals sampled from that population. Interviews were semi-structured to allow a form of grounded theory approach. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed utilizing qualitative, interpretive methods of researcher memos, continual reflection, and notations on the transcriptions that identified salient themes associated with this group of candidates. First, many subjects described their religious careers as a choice and not a “calling” from God and even more viewed their run for office as a choice. Second, while some clergy were raised in households that involved political discussions, most respondents personal interest in politics was the main motivation to run for office. Third, subjects displayed diverse opinions regarding the ongoing debate in the Untied States regarding the appropriate relationship between church and state. I conclude the dissertation with a discussion of its contribution to the academic literature on religion and politics and candidate emergence.

This thesis studies women politicians’ journey along the path from candidates to elected representatives in party list proportional representation (PR list) systems. While past literature provides sufficient evidence that more women are elected in proportional electoral systems than in majority / plurality systems, there is limited research explaining the differences in women’s representation across varying types of PR list systems. This thesis aims to fill that gap, by focusing primarily on the election of women across preferential (open and ordered list systems) and non-preferential (closed list systems) PR list voting systems. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of previous research, which has relied on aggregate level data only, this research investigates the election of women at the individual candidate level. Such an approach allows the present thesis to consider, next to traditional aggregate level predictors, how party gatekeepers and the news media may either support or hinder women in progressing from candidates to elected representatives. Since the focus is set on the 2009 European Parliament elections, this thesis investigates the process of electing women cross-nationally. The results show that female candidates have a higher likelihood of being elected in non-preferential closed list voting systems than in preferential ordered list voting systems. The results suggest that this is the case because, first, party gatekeepers in ordered list systems place women in less viable electoral list positions than party gatekeepers in closed list systems; second, media cover female candidates less in ordered list systems compared to closed list systems; and finally, female candidates in ordered list systems fail to make up their less competitive starting position with preference votes because preference votes in ordered list systems do not significantly alter the initial party list rankings.

Bipolar disorder and recurrent major depression are complex psychiatric illnesses with a substantial, yet unknown genetic component. Genetic studies have identified linkage of bipolar disorder and recurrent major depression with markers on chromosome 4p15-p16 in a large Scottish family and three smaller families. To focus the search for genetic factors for susceptibility to illness two approaches were adopted: a chromosome 4p15-p16 candidate gene study and a whole-genome linkage scan. In the first instance, phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase type-II beta (PI4K2B) was selected as a candidate gene. Analysis of haplotypes in the four linked families identified two regions, both of which were shared by three families. PI4K2B lies within one of these regions. PI4K2B is also a worthy functional candidate as it is a member of the phosphatidylinositol pathway, which is targeted by lithium for therapeutic effect in bipolar disorder. Expression studies at the allele-specific mRNA and protein level were performed in lymphoblastoid cell lines from the large Scottish family. There was no evidence for expression differences between affected and non-affected family members. However, a case-control association study showed preliminary evidence for association of schizophrenia but not bipolar disorder, with tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms from the PI4K2B genomic region. Second, the linkage evidence for bipolar disorder and recurrent major depression in the large Scottish family was re-examined. This was important because additional family members had been recruited and advances in technology made it feasible to cover all chromosome regions more densely than had been possible ten years ago. Stringent genotyping and pedigree error checks were performed to ensure an optimised dataset for analysis. Furthermore, the large family was divided in an informative manner for ease of analysis using both parametric and non-parametric methods, supplemented by haplotype analysis. Genome-wide significant evidence for linkage was observed on chromosome 4p15- p16 and genome-wide suggestive evidence was observed on chromosomes 8p21 and 1p36. The analysis clearly supports the evidence for a susceptibility locus of bipolar disorder and recurrent major depression on chromosome 4p15-p16, while identifying other genetic loci that may confer risk to psychiatric illness.

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All policies, initiatives and ideas of accession countries are directed towards the European Union. With the safe development and enlargement, European Union is the world's center of peace and stability. For Montenegro, as a small open economy in the Western Balkans, which tends to become part of a unique political, economic and cultural market, entrance into the EU is a strategic goal from independence gained in 2006. Within the framework of the process of European integration, Montenegro unifies all resources that are still significantly underdeveloped thus creating better options for their absorption and further development. In accordance with the previous, the key issues that are analyzed in this paper are the following: In what way and at what "speed" is Montenegro working on the process of EU integration? With what kind of problems and challenges Montenegro is facing? What methods in the context of European integration Montenegro is using? To what extent are the solutions optimal and relevant for Montenegro? Key words: integration, candidate, negotiation, accession, Montenegro, European Union