The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of colloidal natural organic matter (NOM) on the disinfection by-products (DBPs) formation potentials and membrane organic fouling. From various analyses of a NOM-fouled ultrafiltration membrane surface, large amounts of colloidal NOM were found in the analyzed foulants. From FTIR spectra and pyrolysis analyses, colloidal NOMs were found to include amino sugars and polysaccharides, as indicated by N-acetyl groups in the FTIR spectra and from pyrolysis GC-mass analyses. Colloidal NOMs have two problematic aspects for membrane applications, which may induce bio-fouling due to their low biostabilities, and relatively high DBPs reactivities. The amino sugars and polysaccharides can be utilized by heterotrophic bacteria, and are identified as colloidal NOM with high fractions of biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (approximately 39%), so, their removal is expected to involve some form of biological pre-treatment process. Colloidal NOM also exhibit relatively high formation potentials of DBPs, especially haloacetic acids.


The floods of November 20th 2009 destroyed or damaged four of the five bridges across the River Derwent at Workington, severing road and pedestrian access. Papcastle Bridge near Cockermouth, the closest road river crossing which involved a long detour, became a bottleneck with long delays for traffic in both directions. Many agencies worked hard to improve the situation and within ten days a temporary station had been built and a free train shuttle service instigated to make use of the remaining bridge. The army erected a footbridge in early December and provision was made for a shuttle bus between settlements on the north of the river, the new station and the footbridge. Thus, between December and April, there was an unusual situation with car journeys between the north and south of the area necessitating a long detour with considerable delays, while the half-hourly train service was free to use and pedestrian access was relatively easy.

Cumbria County Council commissioned the Institute of Transport and Tourism of University of Central Lancashire to research the impact this had made on people's travel. A household survey gave data on 435 people's travel patterns for typical weeks in October 2009, before the floods, March 2010 while road access was difficult and May 2010 once the temporary road bridge had been opened. The survey found that the number of trips for all purposes had reduced in March and although it had risen again in May, it had not reached the previous levels. Leisure and social trips were the most reduced, partly because of the extra time needed for other travel. Shopping trips reduced and often changed destination and work trips showed most propensity for mode change. Although respondents' car trips fell by nearly a half, the majority of trips were still made by car. Train travel increased by over 500% and although it dropped in May there were still more trips made by train in May than in October.

The consequences of the new travel situation ranged from enjoying the physical exercise and sociability of walking across the temporary foot bridge to feelings of isolation, worry about elderly relations on the other side of the river and, for some, the loss of a job or earnings and severe stress. Household duties could be re-allocated to accommodate different schedules and longer travel times.

Most respondents recognised the efforts made by Cumbria County Council and other agencies, although officers themselves worried about the impact of the emergency on other aspects of their responsibilities.

Interviews with key stakeholders demonstrated how it was not just travellers adjusting to a new geography around Workington. Several employers redeployed staff so they could work on the side of the river where they lived to avoid a long commute. Services were provided in the north of the area: supermarket, mobile bank, doctors' surgeries, while other public services (Police, Fire and Ambulance Services) re-aligned their administrative boundaries or practices to adjust to the new situation.

The findings suggest there is an ability to change travel patterns when circumstances change, but there remains a high car dependence, even when the alternatives are cheaper and more convenient.


A new approach to photo detection using pixel Hybrid Photon Detectors (pixel-HPD's) has been adopted for the LHCb-RICH detector. These devices use a hybrid pixel detector inside an evacuated photo tube providing high-precision, low noise detection of Cherenkov radiation. The approach takes advantage of modern CMOS technology offering many advantages over more traditional techniques. These advantages include extremely high sensitivity, low noise and fast readout. A major technological challenge was the encapsulation of a hybrid pixel detector inside a photo detector tube. The fabrication of the HPD tube involves packaging of the pixel detector assembly onto a ceramic carrier to form the photo-anode and the subsequent bake out of the pixel anode under vacuum. Both processes involve high temperatures. A fine pitch solder bump-bonding technique, which is compatible with the manufacture of hybrid photo detectors, has been developed. The technology and the tests used for qualifying the new process for pixel-HPD production are described. More than 40 pixel detector assemblies have been produced with almost all showing <1% of missing pixels. A number of assemblies were baked out using temperature cycles identical to those used for pixel-HPD manufacture. None of the assemblies demonstrated any degradation. SEM photos clearly indicate the reliability of the process. 10 pixel-HPD tubes have been produced using this new bump-bonding process and those behave according to expectations. The pixel-HPD is the first of a new generation of photo detector tubes suitable for RICH and other visible photon sensing applications


The use of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) or best management practice is becoming increasingly common. However, rather than adopting the preferred 'treatment train' implementation, many developments opt for end-of-pipe control ponds. This paper discusses the use of SUDS in series to form treatment trains and compares their potential performance and effectiveness with end-of-pipe solutions. Land-use, site and catchment characteristics have been used alongside up-to-date guidance, Infoworks CS and MUSIC to determine whole-life-costs, land-take, water quality and quantity for different SuDS combinations. The results presented show that the use of a treatment train allows approaches differing from the traditional use of single SuDS, either source or 'end-of-pipe', to be proposed to treat and attenuate runoff. The outcome is a more flexible solution where the footprint allocated to SUDS, costs and water quality can be managed differently to fully meet stakeholder objectives.


Researchers that investigate the media's coverage of health have historically relied on keyword searches to retrieve relevant health news coverage, and manual content analysis methods to categorize and score health news text. These methods are problematic. Manual content analysis methods are labor intensive, time consuming, and inherently subjective because they rely on human coders to review, score, and annotate content. Retrieving relevant health news coverage using keywords can be challenging because manually defining an optimal keyword query, especially for complex health topics and media analysis concepts, can be very difficult, and the optimal query may vary based on when the news was published, the type of news published, and the target audience of the news coverage.
This dissertation research investigated computational methods that can assist health news investigators by facilitating these tasks. The first step was to identify the research methods currently used by investigators, and the research questions and health topics researchers tend to investigate. To capture this information an extensive literature review of health news analyses was performed. No literature review of this type and scope could be found in the research literature. This review confirmed that researchers overwhelmingly rely on manual content analysis methods to analyze the text of health news coverage, and on the use of keyword searching to identify relevant health news articles.
To investigate the use of computational methods for facilitating these tasks, classifiers that categorize health news on relevance to the topic of obesity, and on their news framing were developed and evaluated. The obesity news classifier developed for this dissertation outperformed alternative methods, including searching based on keyword appearance. Classifying on the framing of health news proved to be a more difficult task. The news framing classifiers performed well, but the results suggest that the underlying features of health news coverage that contribute to the framing of health news are a richer and more useful source of framing information rather than binary news framing classifications.
The third step in this dissertation was to use the findings of the literature review and the classifier studies to design the SalientHealthNews system. The purpose of SalientHealthNews is to facilitate the use of computational and data mining techniques for health news investigation, hypothesis testing, and hypothesis generation. To illustrate the use of SalientHealthNews' features and algorithms, it was used to generate preliminary data for a study investigating how framing features vary in health and obesity news coverage that discusses populations with health disparities.
This research contributes to the study of the media's coverage of health by providing a detailed description of how health news is studied and what health news topics are investigated, then by demonstrating that certain tasks performed in health news analyses can be facilitated by computational methods, and lastly by describing the design of a system that will facilitate the use of computational and data mining techniques for the study of health news. These contributions should further the study of health news by expanding the methods available to health news analysis researchers. This will lead to researchers being better equipped to accurately and consistently evaluate the media's coverage of health. Knowledge of the quality of health news coverage should in turn lead to better informed health journalists, healthcare providers, and healthcare consumers, ultimately improving individual and public health.


Although adenosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cAMP) is a small diffusible second messenger, its activity is localized through the actions of scaffolds such as A kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs), which interact with protein kinase A (PKA), the major downstream effector of cAMP, and other proteins involved in cAMP signaling. Zhang et al. report the development through protein engineering of a reversible A-kinase reporter protein, AKAR2. This reporter was then used to show that chronic insulin treatment of 3T3-L1 adipocytes led to a delay in the PKA response to the β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) agonist isoproteronol. This was surprising given that chronic insulin exposure leads to the production of higher concentrations of cAMP in response to β-AR stimulation than those observed in cells not treated with insulin. Activation of the downstream endogenous PKA target CREB (cAMP response element-binding protein) was also delayed. Chronic insulin treatment did not inhibit phosphorylation of AKAR2 by stimuli that bypassed the β-AR, which suggested that PKA was not globally inhibited. Insulin treatment decreased the interaction between β-AR and the regulatory subunit of PKA in response to subsequent exposure to isoproteronol, which suggested that insulin altered the AKAP function, which led to desensitization of the β-AR response. Injection of a peptide that blocked the interaction between AKAP and the regulatory subunit of PKA also blocked activation of the AKAR2 reporter by isoproteronol. These results provide evidence for another mechanism of cross talk between signaling pathways, through disruption of the scaffolding protein functions. J. Zhang, C. J. Hupfeld, S. S. Taylor, J. M. Olefsky, R. Y. Tsien, Insulin disrupts β-adrenergic signalling to protein kinase A in adipocytes. Nature 437, 569-573 (2005). [Online Journal]


Internal concentrations link external exposure to the potential effect, as they reflect what the organisms actually take up and experience physiologically. In this study, we investigated whether frequently detected risk-driving substances in water were found in the exposed organisms and if they are classified the same based on the whole body internal concentrations. Field gammarids were collected upstream and downstream of ten wastewater treatment plants in mixed land use catchments. The sampling was conducted in autumn and winter, during low flow conditions when diffuse agricultural input was reduced. The field study was complemented with laboratory and flume experiments to determine the bioaccumulation potentials of selected substances. For 32 substances, apparent bioaccumulation factors in gammarids were determined for the first time. With a sensitive multiresidue method based on online-solid phase extraction followed by liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry, we detected 63 (semi-) polar organic substances in the field gammarids, showing higher concentrations downstream than upstream. Interestingly, neonicotinoids, which are particularly toxic toward invertebrates, were frequently detected and were further determined as major contributors to the toxic pressure based on the toxic unit approach integrating internal concentration and toxic potency. The total toxic pressure based on internal concentrations was substantially higher compared to when external concentrations were used. Thus, internal concentrations may add more value to the current environmental risk assessment that is typically based solely on external exposure.


Comprehensive thermophysical analyses of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) provide important information about their physical properties, including visible albedo, diameter, composition, and thermal inertia. These details are integral to defining asteroid taxonomy and understanding how these objects interact with the solar system. Since infrared (IR) asteroid observations are not widely available, thermophysical modeling techniques have become valuable in simulating properties of different asteroid types. Several basic models that assume a spherical asteroid shape have been used extensively within the research community. As part of a program focused on developing a simulation of space-based IR sensors for asteroid search, the Near-Earth Asteroid Model (NEATM) developed by Harris, A. in 1998, was selected. This review provides a full derivation of the formulae behind NEATM, including the spectral flux density equation, consideration of the solar phase angle, and the geometry of the asteroid, Earth, and Sun system. It describes how to implement the model in software and explores the use of an ellipsoidal asteroid shape. It also applies the model to several asteroids observed by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) and compares the performance of the model to the observations.


When using eye movements to determine the state of a car driver it is important that the eye tracker is robust, unobtrusive, inexpensive and fully automatic. The objectives of this study are to compare the performance of a one-camera system with a three-camera system and to investigate if the accuracy and availability of the one-camera system is sufficient to monitor driver state. Data from 53 subjects were evaluated and the results indicate that there is not much difference between a single-camera system and a multi-camera system as long as the driver is looking straight ahead. However, with more peripheral gaze directions, the larger coverage that is provided by the additional cameras works in favour of the multi-camera system.


There is a worldwide trend toward defined contribution saving plans and growing interest in privatized Social Security plans. In both environments, individuals are given some responsibility to make their own asset-allocation decisions, raising concerns about how well they do at this task. This paper investigates one aspect of the task, namely diversification. We show that some investors follow the "1/n strategy": they divide their contributions evenly across the funds offered in the plan. Consistent with this naive notion of diversification, we find that the proportion invested in stocks depends strongly on the proportion of stock funds in the plan.


This work aims to analyze in detail the changes in income per capita, income concentration, illiteracy and unemployment rates, considering the censitary area (metropolitan region, self representative and non-self representative municipalities), the censitary situation (urban and  rural), the country's region, gender and race during the period from 2003 to 2009. The research used the microdata of the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD/IBGE), applied in calculations of mean and concentration indexes. The results obtained showed a significant improvement in most of the variables analyzed. However, the regional and social differentiations are still observable, demanding a greater development in distributive public policies. Key-words: Development, Social Indicators, Regional Differentiations.


Abstract The aim of the study was to evaluate the main cutting force for two species of tropical Mozambican wood and to develop predictive models. Cutting these hardwoods is difficult. Determination of cutting parameters is required to optimize cutting processes, machines and tools in the cutting operations. This determination would enable the forestry and wood sector to achieve higher financial results. Samples of a lesser-known wood species Pseudolachnostylis maprounaefolia (ntholo) and a well-known wood species Swartzia madagascariensis (ironwood) were machined in a test apparatus. A standard single saw tooth mounted on a piezoelectric load cell was used to evaluate the main cutting force. Data were captured using an A/D converter integrated with National Instruments LabVIEW software. The measured signals were recorded at a sampling frequency of 25 kHz. The experimental set-up used response surface methodology for developing predictive models. The experimental clearly determined the relationship between the main cutting force and edge radius, wood density, rake angle, chip thickness, moisture content (MC) and cutting direction (CD). Among the studied variables, chip thickness and CD had the highest effect on the main cutting force level while wood density, MC and rake angle had the lowest effect.


The tsunami deposits of the valley of Agaete (Perez-Torrado et al., 2006), north-western Gran Canaria, attributed to the Guimar flank collapse in Tenerife, have been revisited and new data are presented here. Besides the occurrences reported by Perez-Torrado et al. (2006) a new outcrop was found and named "La Ruina" (at 28o 05' 47,41" N; 15o 41' 52,04" W; 71 m asl). The above-mentioned authors suggested the possibility that more than one marine conglomerate deposit could be present in the outcrops of "Llanos de Turman" and "Berrazales". At "La Gasolinera" and "La Aldea 1" the conglomerates are formed by a single layer representing one depositional event; at "La Aldea 2", the conglomerates are composed of two layers directly contacting with each other, but evidence of a time hiatus between them was not found. Although the hypothesis of stacking of two depositional units within the same episode versus deposition of two distinct layers in different time-moments is debatable at the present state of knowledge, the first possibility is favoured. The field evidence at "Llanos de Turman" and "Berrazales" unquestionably shows that terrestrial sediments (colluvia; paleosols) are present and separate two marine conglomerate deposits, indicating that at least two distinct tsunami inundations are needed to explain the stratigraphy. However, at the new "La Ruina" outcrop, besides the two deposits mentioned above, a third and older marine conglomerate was found, clearly separated in time from the ones cited above. The existence of marine conglomerates emplaced in different moments is evidenced by the occurrence of intercalated paleosols, colluvia and other subaerial materials, implying significant time intervals between the emplacement of marine conglomeratic layers. A number of gastropod operculae from the tsunamiites were sent for U-Th dating to try to further constrain the age span of these deposits. The field evidence presented above shows that the emplacement of the deposits is related to, at least, three tsunami events. The lateral correlation between different outcrops is difficult due to variable number of deposits in each outcrop, lateral discontinuity and variability, and to compositional and textural similarity between distinct tsunami sediments. The occurrence of three Pleistocene tsunami deposits in the same area points to a relatively high frequency of tsunamis (generated by landslides, surface rupturing earthquakes, fast entry of voluminous volcanic deposits into the sea or large submarine eruptions). It is possible that this recurrence of tsunami inundations may reflect multiple-phased landslides responsible for the mega-landslide scars prominent in the geomorphology of the neighbouring island of Tenerife. This is a contribution from project "Estabilidad de los edificios volcanicos en Canarias: analisis de los factores geologicos, geomecanicos y paleoclimaticos. Aplicacion a los flancos N y S de la isla de Tenerife" financed by MCT, Spain.


This thesis explores how young people use new media in and out of school, in the Malaysian context, through communities of practice (COPs). A case study approach was used to investigate young people's digital practices in and out of school. This includes the relationships that are established between the contexts of in and out of school, and the identity formation that young people experience as they use new media in their everyday lives. In an attempt to unravel the complexity surrounding young people's use of new media in and out of school, this study captures insights from different groups of participants including the students, their peers, family members, as well as other individuals who use new media with them such as school leaders and teachers. Despite the Malaysian government's continuous efforts to integrate technologies such as computers and the internet into teaching and learning, this study investigates why young people's use of new media in schools remains limited. The study found that teachers' attitudes and knowledge of new media influence the way digital technologies are integrated in the classroom. For this reason, it is essential to provide teachers with continuous professional development opportunities in order to ensure that their knowledge and skills in the use of new media are up-to-date and relevant in the constantly changing digital world. It is also important for the policy makers to reform the existing curriculum and, for educators to change their pedagogical approaches from teacher-centred classroom strategies to learner-centred approaches, for teachers and students to be able to fully optimise the potential of new media in teaching and learning. Out of school, I found that the student participants' use of new media is generally richer, more varied and more frequent compared with their usage in school. The student participants generally have more frequent access to new media out of school as they engage in different practices such as playing computer games and using social media for an extended period of time. Even though the study found that the importance of the student participants' use of new media is often disregarded by their teachers, it revealed that they not only use digital technologies for leisure, but they also use these technologies to serve other important purposes including communication and socialising to meet personal needs, and to support their learning through communities of practice. Through using the critical lens of Wenger's (1998) 'communities of practice' (COPs) as a theoretical frame, I found that there is a huge difference in terms of access to new media in school in comparison with out of school, as well as differences in the way new media is used. There is a relationship established between in and out of school contexts regarding student participants' use of digital media. This relationship is established through the use of digital technologies that are considered as boundary objects and through brokering, as the student participants share their knowledge and, influence practices based on the new media experiences they gain from their participation in COPs. Relationships are also established across the boundaries of in and out of school through similar new media practices involving the student participants. The findings from this study reaffirm Wenger's (1998) conception of identity, as the student participants' active participation in new media based communities, in and out of school, leads to the formation of their identities. For example, some students see themselves as 'geeks' and 'experts' in new media, as they frequently engage in practices such as gaming, downloading applications, music and videos and using social media. More importantly, it is through their active participation in shared new media practices, in and out of school, that student participants develop an understanding of the important roles of digital media in their everyday lives.


This paper gives an impact analysis of utilization of NPP full scope simulator on operation parameters, training and education in nuclear power plant Krško. The Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration issued their simulator decree to NEK in April 1995. The first training session on the simulator was performed in April 17th 2000 and since then the simulator has been used on daily bases to improve operator knowledges, skills and performances.
 At the time, this was the first full scope simulator with the capability to simulate Beyond design basis accidents (severe accidents). The ability to simulate core meltdown and containment breach made it very suitable for emergency preparedness drills. After the 2017 simulator upgrade, fuel meltdown in the spent fuel pool can be simulated using the Modular Accident Analysis Program – MAAP5. This capability is still unique for full scope simulators even today.
 The simulator is also used for pre-testing of plant modifications before their implementation on site or for just-in-time training for infrequent performed evolutions or for procedure development and testing. The Pressurized Water Reactor Owners Group (PWROG) used the NEK simulator in 2018 to develop the new set of the Severe Accident Management Guidelines, incorporated with a completely new usage approach.
 In all of these years, the simulator has been actively participating in the increased reliability and stability of the electricity production and in achieving NEK's vision to be a worldwide leader in nuclear safety and excellence.


This tutorial provides an overview of the data mining process. The tutorial also provides a basic understanding of how to plan, evaluate and successfully refine a data mining project, particularly in terms of model building and model evaluation. Methodological considerations are discussed and illustrated. After explaining the nature of data mining and its importance in business, the tutorial describes the underlying machine learning and statistical techniques involved. It describes the CRISP-DM standard now being used in industry as the standard for a technology-neutral data mining process model. The paper concludes with a major illustration of the data mining process methodology and the unsolved problems that offer opportunities for research. The approach is both practical and conceptually sound in order to be useful to both academics and practitioners.


Background: Considerable attention has been focused on the impact of young people's alcohol use. To address this, schools often implement alcohol and drug education and there are many potential programmes to choose from. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify evidence-based alcohol education programmes for schools. Methods: A systematic review was undertaken of school-based programmes that targeted alcohol within a school setting and included at least one alcohol behaviour or knowledge change outcome. Six-hundred seventy-five abstracts were screened resulting in 454 studies assessed for eligibility, with 70 studies, evaluating 40 individual programmes, included in the final review. Results: Of the 40 programmes, 3 had good evidence of a positive effect. They included CLIMATE Schools (Australia), Project ALERT (USA) and All Stars (USA). Of the others, 4 showed some evidence of positive effect, 1 had no evidence of effect, 29 were inconclusive and 2 showed negative outcomes, such as increases in alcohol use. Although many programmes were evaluated, very few had sufficient evidence to be able to endorse their widespread implementation in schools. Conclusion: Three programmes included in the review had sufficient positive outcomes to be recommended for implementation, and four showed good outcomes in some areas. Schools should consider these results when deciding on introducing alcohol education. Overall, the evidence base is broad but relatively weak and further research is required, focusing on programmes identified as having good or potentially good outcomes.


Together with many success stories, promises such as the increase in production speed and the improvement in stakeholders' collaboration have contributed to making agile a transformation in the software industry in which many companies want to take part. However, driven either by a natural and expected evolution or by contextual factors that challenge the adoption of agile methods as prescribed by their creator(s), software processes in practice mutate into hybrids over time. Are these still agile? In this article, we investigate the question: what makes a software development method agile? We present an empirical study grounded in a large-scale international survey that aims to identify software development methods and practices that improve or tame agility. Based on 556 data points, we analyze the perceived degree of agility in the implementation of standard project disciplines and its relation to used development methods and practices. Our findings suggest that only a small number of participants operate their projects in a purely traditional or agile manner (under 15 percent). That said, most project disciplines and most practices show a clear trend towards increasing degrees of agility. Compared to the methods used to develop software, the selection of practices has a stronger effect on the degree of agility of a given discipline. Finally, there are no methods or practices that explicitly guarantee or prevent agility. We conclude that agility cannot be defined solely at the process level. Additional factors need to be taken into account when trying to implement or improve agility in a software company. Finally, we discuss the field of software process-related research in the light of our findings and present a roadmap for future research.


Precipitation and reference evapotranspiration are two important variables in hydrologic analyses, agricultural crop production, determining actual crop evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirements, and irrigation management. Both variables vary in space and time, and the weather networks that measure or quantify and report both variables are too sparse for practical applications by water resources planners, managers, and irrigators. Long-term (1986-2009) average annual (January to December), seasonal (growing season, May to September), and monthly (May, June, July, August, and September) precipitation and Penman-Monteith-estimated alfalfa-reference evapotranspiration (ETref) were spatially interpolated and mapped for all 93 counties in Nebraska using the spline interpolation technique in ArcGIS. Precipitation gradually increased from the western part and southwest corner (zone 1) to the eastern part (zone 4) of the state. Long-term average county annual precipitation ranged from 325 to 923 mm, with a statewide mean of 581 mm. The long-term average seasonal precipitation showed a similar trend as the annual precipitation and ranged from 215 to 601 mm, with a statewide average of 380 mm. Based on the annual average precipitation data, there was an approximately 30 mm decrease in precipitation for every 40 km from east to west. Seasonal and annual precipitation were inversely proportional to elevation with high coefficients of determination (R2 = 0.94 for annual and R2 = 0.88 for seasonal). Annual precipitation decreased between 18 and 131 mm for every 100 m increase in elevation. Seasonal precipitation decreased between 11 and 72 mm for every 100 m increase in elevation. The long-term statewide average annual ETref was 1,400 mm, with significant differences across the state: 1,662 mm (zone 1), 1,542 mm (zone 2), 1,350 mm (zone 3), and 1,285 mm (zone 4). The statewide long-term average seasonal ETref was 883 mm, with a maximum of 1,087 mm and minimum of 684 mm. The maximum monthly ETref of 268 mm was observed in July, and the minimum value of 12 mm was observed in December. The annual ETref increased by 47 mm for every 100 m increase in elevation, and the seasonal ETref increased by 29 mm for every 100 m increase in elevation. Spatially interpolated maps of precipitation and ETref can provide important background information and physical interpretation of precipitation and ETref for climate change studies in the region, which can lead to the ability to take proactive steps to balance water supply and demand through various available methods, such as changing cropping patterns to implement cropping systems with lower water demand, reduced tillage practices to minimize unbeneficial water use (soil evaporation), implementing newer drought-tolerant crop hybrids and cultivars, implementing deficit irrigation strategies, and initiating and deploying more aggressive and effective irrigation management programs.


If we define design work as those cognitive and practical things to which designers give their valuable effort, then our Natural Design framework allows the recording and replaying of design work. Natural Design provides a meta-structural framework that has developed through our observations of engineering design in safety and mission critical industries, such as aircraft design. Our previous work has produced parametrisable models of design work for software intensive systems, and we now look to make an initial assessment of our natural design framework for its fit to the more creative design practices. In this paper we briefly sketch the framework and subsequently attempt to locate 'creativity' in it. We find that, although there are good strong hooks for what the designer does, we are forced to find a role for the community of the designer in the creative process in our framework, something that was only implicit in our previous work.
 Keywords:
Natural design; Engineering design; Creativity


Abstract Researchers have noted that teacher education curricula fail to offer challenging theory-based courses that develop critical thinking required for making thoughtful decisions about ethical and moral issues (Beyer, 1991, 1997; Cummings, Dyas, Maddux, & Kochman, 2001; Goodlad, 1994; McNeel, 1994; Yost, 1997). To investigate this claim, the authors examined 526 courses in the elementary teacher education curricula of 30 state colleges and universities and found that only 12.80% were theory-based. Students who lack exposure to more theory-based courses may become teachers who are method-oriented "technicians" rather than individuals who are critical thinkers who reflect on their ethical and moral responsibilities to students. ********** Character education in the public schools has been a topic of concern in the recent school reform movement. Because of the fear aroused by what appears to be increasing violence in the public schools, the public, parents and politicians are demanding that schools implement programs to instill morals and values in students. According to Weber (1998), "The public school system has responded to this concern for the moral development of children and youth with efforts to strengthen or reclaim its historical role in the character formation of children" (p. 85). Although the content of public school character education programs is open to debate, once schools decide to implement them, teachers will be expected to provide leadership in their development and facilitation (Cummings, Dyas, Maddux, & Kochman, 2001). To be effective moral leaders, teachers must be able to reflect critically on and make ethical decisions regarding student, school and community issues (Yost, 1997). A few of these issues include: (1) censorship of books; (2) appropriateness of sex education programs; (3) the legitimacy of creationism versus evolutionism in school science; and (4) discrimination or unfair treatment based on race, class, gender, and/or sexual orientation (Beyer, 1997). Beyer goes on to state that a teacher's ability to consider the moral dimensions of classroom practice is essential in a democratic society: When teachers do not consider the moral dimensions of education, or the moral qualities of educative experience, other people and agencies including textbook publishers, individuals and organizations representing business and industry, politicians, and special interest groups have a relatively unobstructed hand in determining the moral perspectives communicated to students. (p. 247) If teachers are to be placed in a role of moral leadership, then teacher education programs will have a responsibility to integrate coursework into the curriculum that will foster ethical/moral development of teacher education students (Beyer, 1991; Beyer, 1997; Weber, 1998; Yost, 1997). According to Weber (1998), It is my belief that an effective teacher education program must begin with the personal ethical/moral development of the prospective teacher and, further, that the college or university bears responsibility for fostering such development in all of its students. If our future teachers are to guide others toward moral maturity, they must possess a certain level of moral maturity and be capable of making choices based on moral principles. We would not even consider the possibility that teachers who have not been prepared in math, science, or social studies should attempt to teach these subjects. Similarly, if we expect teachers to provide character education to children and youth, we should provide them with a background that includes an understanding of moral principles and experiences in ethical reasoning. (p. 86) Although instruction in the moral and ethical domains of teaching is considered to be an essential component of teacher education programs, numerous authors have suggested that such instruction is lacking (Beyer, 1991, 1997; Cummings et al. …


The presence of forward forces in foreign soil is not a modern notion, but is thought-provoking when a small state projects its military might in multiple locations of a similar strategic importance. The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) base lease in Berbera is a case in point which attracted a reproach from the public, and politicians. The joint parliament sitting to approve the draft agreement further complicated the reproach, resulting in many stakeholders to argue that the approval process suffered insufficient consultation, citing ambiguity, and suspicion. Berbera basing politics is critical to Somaliland's national security, but gained little scholarly attention that can explain the rationale, and the underlying assumptions. This paper will, therefore, provide a qualitative assessment on impact of UAE's overseas defense posture on Somaliland's political direction. Specifically, it tends to analyze the structural architect of the basing politics including  actors, interests, risks (animosities), and prophesy on scenarios for use. This paper uses secondary and primary sources to sketch out the key issues; it also employs relevant international relations theories: security dilemma, deterrence, defensive, proxy war, geopolitics, pre-emption, beggar-thy-neighbour, and safe-haven concepts to make sense on this matter.

 Key words: National security, basing politics, interests, actors, animosity, deterrence, collective security, collective defense.


For nearly two decades Britain has been engaged in some of the most ambitious constitutional and parliamentary reforms since the Reform Acts of the nineteenth century. Reform in the House of Lords alone has produced six White Papers, one Royal Commission, and dozens more parliamentary votes and reports by the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the joint committees. Canadians have watched these developments with particular interest, since many of the issues debated - the legitimacy of an Upper House, election versus appointment, and qualifi cations for membership - are similar to those discussed here. Yet before looking at possible lessons for Canada we need to refl ect upon another question: What is the Westminster Model and what elements of this model are refl ected in our own system?


Light of the Sufis introduces the complex and multilayered topic of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, by concentrating on its expression in the visual arts and offers new insights into the integrative and fluid nature of the Sufi experience that has solicited strong reactions-both negative and positive-in Muslims and non-Muslims alike for several hundred years. Sufism became well established in the 9th to 10th century and reached its height in the 12th to 13th century. From its inception, Sufism recognized the traditions and practices of other faiths and cultures with which it came into contact, adapting and incorporating elements of Greek philosophies, Christian mysticism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Buddhism. This diversity has been reflected not only in the words and the lives of celebrated Sufi mystics but also in some of the finest literature, music, performance, and visual arts produced in the Islamic world. Lavishly illustrated, this exhibition catalogue presents exceptional works in various media from diverse areas of the Islamic world, including North Africa, Turkey, Iran, and India, and dating from the ninth century to the present.


This article reports on a needs analysis undertaken to determine the educational needs of nurses and health workers in East Timor. The needs analysis, which used a theoretical framework described by Wass (1994), was conducted in both Australia and East Timor. It addressed the current health status of the East Timorese people and the educational requirements of East Timorese nurses and village health workers. Utilizing interviews, field observations and data from the World Health Organization and the United Nations, the following four categories of needs were assessed: felt; expressed; comparative; and normative. The findings document the almost complete destruction of the health infrastructure in East Timor and demonstrate the urgent need for assistance in the re-establishment and enhancement of nursing and primary health care education programmes. A series of recommendations outlining nurse and village health care worker education programmes are proposed.


The use of high-speed penetrator deployment technologies may offer the first opportunity to perform in-situ surface and subsurface analysis of Europan material. In order that such a unique opportunity returns the maximum scientific return, careful consideration to the instrument payload will be required. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is the gold standard in the analytical technique for the determination of the molecular and elemental composition. The current state of the art in light element and organic molecule detection is the 500 gram GC-MS Ptolemy instrument onboard the ROSETTA lander Philae. We believe that Ptolemy style science capabilities are imperative for any penetrator mission to Europa (or Ganymede) as these would allow for the full characterisation of the organic inventory and the detection of any compounds of biological significance at the penetrator impact sites. In addition, through isotopic composition analysis it may be possible to further constrain the origin of any detected compounds, enable the detection of biogenic signatures (i.e. through measurement of delta 34S) and allow the distinction between meteoric origin and local production of organic material. We will present the status of rugged instrumentation currently under development that will allow these scientific objectives to be met and thus enable Ptolemy style science to be conducted from a penetrator deployed scientific platform.


From an assortment of red and red-purple Munsell papers, 47 color-deficient and 13 color-normal subjects selected matches for eight standard blue-green and neutral papers. The color-deficient subjects were classified into the following groups: 7 protans with severe defects, 9 protans with mild defects, 10 deutans with severe defects, and 21 deutans with mild defects. For every subject the three colors (one at each of three chroma levels) chosen as matches for each standard were plotted on the CIE diagram, and a straight line, originating at the locus of the standard color, was fitted through the points. The slopes of these lines are significantly different for protans and deutans. Color-deficient subjects with mild defects tend to select the same matches as do those with severe defects, but the former show more variability. In addition, matches made by subjects with severe defects are more often rated "good" or "excellent," and are more likely to fall along a straight line than are those made by subjects with mild defects. Matches made by the color-normal subjects are most variable and never rated good. Data on the constants of the iso-chromaticity lines, the Munsell notations of the matches, and the lightness relationships are given. For all matches by deutans and for matches against neutral standards by protanopes, the agreement of the empirical lines with those predicted from spectral data by Judd is good. However, protan matches against blue-green standards diverge markedly from predictions; protans actually select colors which are yellower than those predicted from spectral data. When the data for all value levels are pooled, it appears that the iso-color lines for some subjects may be curved rather than straight.


This data-based cohort consisted of 26,508 (7%) United States veterans out of the 399,290 who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 from 1 March to 10 September 2020. We aimed to assess the interaction of post-index vitamin D (Vit D) and corticosteroid (CRT) use on 30-day mortality among hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Combination Vit D and CRT drug use was assessed according to four multinomial pairs (−|+, −|−, +|+, +|−). Respective categorical effects were computed on a log-binomial scale as adjusted relative risk (aRR). Approximately 6% of veterans who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 died within 30 days of their index date. Among hospitalized patients, a significantly decreased aRR was observed for the use of Vit D in the absence of CRTs relative to patients who received CRTs but not Vit D (aRR = 0.30; multiplicity corrected, p = 0.0004). Among patients receiving systemically administered CRTs (e.g., dexamethasone), the use of Vit D was associated with fewer deaths in hospitalized patients (aRR = 0.51) compared with non-hospitalized patients (aRR = 2.5) (P-for-Interaction = 0.0071). Evaluating the effect of modification of these compounds in the context of hospitalization may aid in the management of COVID-19 and provide a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this and future infectious disease outbreaks.


Recent evidence shows that homeownership rates among young households have declined substantially since the mid 1980s. Although factors such as late household formation and the increasing user cost of housing are contributing factors, reduced affordability is also a concern. Aggregate data indicate that first-time buyers are relying more heavily on gifts from relatives and less on own savings in accumulating the down payment. ; This paper explores the role of gifts in helping first-time buyers purchase a home using data from two different sources: surveys of recent home buyers in 18 cities between 1988 and 1993, and 1990 Boston loan applicants. The evidence shows that financial constraints are important in explaining the increased reliance on gifts, with the receipt of a gift being negatively related to income and wealth, and positively related to the one-year rate of appreciation of house prices. The evidence is mixed as to whether givers target gifts to certain types of households, such as young, married couples.


This paper considers located media production as a means for self representation and storytelling in local community settings. We present a pilot set of workshops in a local neighbourhood in Bristol, UK. Through a consideration of the workshop process and the resulting 'mediascapes' (located sound and images) we highlight a number of observations and questions which have emerged regarding the relationship of story to place in collaboratively produced located media. The software used to develop this work has been developed by the Mobile Bristol project, an association of Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories, Bristol, the University of Bristol and the Applicance Studio.( www.mobilebristol.com).


Comparing He-Yen Jhen's work to that of her Egyptian contemporary Malak Hifni Nasif allows lateral thinking across Asian and African societies on how feminists articulated their stances with regard to male counterparts in their own societies, as well as the shifting gender-differential practices of the Euro/American societies that they critically evaluated. Can such comparisons elicit shared vocabularies—and parallel silences—that help us to situate feminisms historically as both cosmopolitan and deeply local interventions in times and places marked by late imperial capitalism?


Abstract The effect of two pretreatments on the antioxidant activity was evaluated in quinoa protein hydrolysate, using supercritical CO2 extraction and ethanol as cosolvent, this type of pretreatment was compared to a conventional petroleum ether extraction method without recovery of bioactive compounds. The extractions were carried out at a temperature of 55°C and a pressure of 23 MPa using ethanol (7–8 g quinoa/100 ml); the CO2 mass flow was 35 g/min, the extraction time was 240 min and the particle size was 500 µm, enzyme COROLASE® 7089 was applied for enzymatic hydrolysis, finally ABTS test assessed antioxidant activity. A significant effect was found on the degree of hydrolysis (23.93%) and antioxidant activity (1,181.64 μmol TE/g protein) compared to a conventional method (24.33%) and (1,448.84 μmol TE/g protein). In conclusion, our results suggest that the use of supercritical CO2 and the addition of ethanol as cosolvent are the interesting green technology, to recovery oil and separate phenolic compounds prior to enzymatic hydrolysis to avoid interference with biological activities from quinoa protein hydrolysates, and shows highest antioxidant activity to be incorporate in food products.


This paper examines the determinants of identity theft, focusing especially on the influence of internet diffusion. Results, based on panel data across the U.S. states, show that a 10% in increase households with internet access would increase identity theft by about 9%, ceteris paribus. Other noteworthy findings point to states with greater corrupt activity having greater identity theft but greater police employment not having a significant deterrent impact. Dynamic panel regressions results reveal the presence of inertia in identity thefts. Some implications for policy are discussed.


This paper addresses the problem of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) by a mobile robot. An incremental SLAM algorithm is introduced that is derived from multigrid methods used for solving partial differential equations. The approach improves on the performance of previous relaxation methods for robot mapping, because it optimizes the map at multiple levels of resolution. The resulting algorithm has an update time that is linear in the number of estimated features for typical indoor environments, even when closing very large loops, and offers advantages in handling nonlinearities compared with other SLAM algorithms. Experimental comparisons with alternative algorithms using two well-known data sets and mapping results on a real robot are also presented.


This paper examines behavioral aspects of insurance adoption by households, applied to mortgage insurance. Using a comprehensive dataset, I show that households who are more financially literate, more financially active, less risk averse and those with a higher locus of control are significantly less likely to purchase mortgage insurance, whereas households with bequest motives are significantly more likely to obtain insurance. In general, it appears that households who choose not to insure exhibit a greater degree of confidence in their financial knowledge and control over the consequences of their actions. Since these behavioral explanations are not mutually exclusive, a joint-analysis is conducted and it is found that especially financial literacy and locus of control are strong predictors of insurance adoption. The results are not explained by local housing market conditions, presence of financial advisors or effects of peers. House price expectations, concerns about future prospects and the current financial situation of the household were found to be insignificant.


A simple, rapid, and accurate high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for quantitation of cationic disinfectants was developed using a silica gel column with aqueous mobile phases. The disinfectants are classified into two categories, both of which can be separated simultaneously on a μ-Porasil silica gel column (3.9 × 300 mm). An aqueous mobile phase (1), composed of CH3CN: H2O (70/30, v/v), triethylamine (0.04%), and acetic acid (0.1%), with UV detection at 262 nm, provides quantitation of benzalkonium chloride (1) and chlorhexidine gluconate (2) in cosmetics. The identification of two cationic disinfectants in each cosmetic sample can be achieved in 9 min with dextromethorphan HBr as an internal standard. With the mobile phase (2) of CH3CN: H2O (90/10, v/v), triethylamine (0.04%), and acetic acid (0.1%), setting the UV detection at 269 nm can identify the constituents of domiphen bromide (3), benzethonium chloride (4), cetylpyridium chloride (5), and dequalinium chloride (6) in pharmaceuticals. When propantheline bromide was used as an internal standard, the quantitation of four cationic disinfectants in each pharmaceutical sample could be completed within 16 min. The method provides a reliable, prompt way to analyze cationic disinfectants in both household cosmetics and pharmaceutical preparations available on the market. Regression equations of six standard curves revealed the related coefficients, r2, of between 0.9997 and 1.0000. The HPLC method can be carried out with a high level of precision and accuracy. From the intraand interday tests, the coefficients of variation (CV) were between 0.13% and 2.04% for cosmetics, and 0.08% and 0.87% for pharmaceuticals. The recoveries were found to be 96.75%~99.95% for cosmetics with CV of 0.45%~2.88%, and 99.17%~99.92% for pharmaceuticals with CV of 0.21%~0.47%.


We investigate the director relaxation of a nematic liquid crystal cell by considering the molecular moment of inertia, surface viscosity and anchoring energies at the boundaries. The problem solved here corresponds to a more complete description of the nematic director reorientation, since it incorporates ingredients that are usually neglected due to the mathematical difficulty raised by the moment of inertia and surface viscosity. In order to face this problem, we apply the half space approximation for the sample with the surfaces characterized by a time dependent easy direction, which can be mechanically or optically induced in the system. The results show that both, the molecular moment of inertia and the surface viscosity, have influence on the relaxation process of the director. In particular, the presence of the molecular moment of inertia introduces a finite phase velocity and, consequently, leads to a non-instantaneous response time for the distortion propagation in a liquid crystal cell.


Film, distance and objectification The act of viewing film and photographs brings us nearer to those portrayed but also emphasizes the distance between the real people and their celluloid reflections. This process of objectification effected by technology is particularly marked in the case of Nazi images of Romanies, where photographs are now almost all that remains of some half a million European Romanies who died as a result of Nazi persecution. Thousands of still photographs of heads, eyes, chins and profiles of Gypsies were taken by researchers from the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit in Berlin (set up in 1936 under Dr Robert Ritter) and are stored in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz. One of Ritter's team of researchers, Eva Justin, also took moving film images of Gypsy children as source material for her doctoral research into the supposedly criminal and asocial minority, and some fifteen minutes of footage are extant today. Two contemporary German-language films, Sidonie (Karin Brandauer, Austria, 1990) and Auf Wiedersehen im Himmel/see you in Heaven (Michail Krausnick, Germany, 1994)2 offer striking evidence of the power of film to bring the past to life, the power of the individual to reclaim images of his or her own past, and the power of the viewer to relate to the afterlife of photographic and filmic images. The two films zoom in on the genocide of the Romanies, and both are examples of intermediality. Sidonie is a based on Austrian writer Erich Hackl's short novel Abschied van Sidonie/Fareuiell Sidonia, Austria, 1989),3 itself a dramatization of the story of a young abandoned Gypsy girl, Sidonie Adlersburg, who is adopted by Austrian foster-parents but later deported to Auschwitz, where she perishes. Auf Wiedersehen im Himmel is a documentary film that traces the fate of a group of Gypsies in a Catholic children's home in Mulfingen in South Germany.4 Of the thirty-nine children deported to Auschwitz, only four survive. One further child who was not included in the transport also survives. Intermediality is much in evidence as Krausnick interweaves archive footage with film of the survivors' reactions to the footage and film of their visit to Auschwitz in the 1990s. These, then, are two of the very few German-language films which tackle the theme of the genocide of the Romanies, Europe's least understood and most maligned ethnic group. There are few eye-witness accounts, diaries or journals, partly because Romani is an oral language and partly because the Nazis excluded many Romanies from education. Only a small number of autobiographical accounts have been published, and even they have not been widely disseminated.5 The two films are therefore landmarks, in that they offer rare filmic counter-images to the dominant Nazi racist images in the 1930s and 1940s of an 'asocial' and 'inferior' race.6 The Romanies were systematically marginalized, persecuted, and some would argue, 'dehumanized' by the Nazis. But the term 'dehumanized' is problematic, as Yehuda Bauer highlights in the course of his interpretation of the Holocaust and other genocides: I believe one should as far as possible avoid the term dehumanization to describe what happened to the inmates of camps and ghettos, because, if anything, the term fits the Nazis: they 'dehumanized' themselves. What they did to their hapless victims was to transfer their own abandonment of all previous norms accepted as 'civilised' onto really civilized beings, Jews and others. The common use of the term dehumanization would leave the perpetrator as the 'human' and the victim as less than human. That, indeed, was the intended outcome, but in fact the Nazi treatment of those interned in camps and ghettos showed the opposite, because it was the Nazis who lost the characteristics of civilized human beings. When that minority of inmates who survived were liberated, they returned to their civilized ways of life; it is highly doubtful whether their torturers did, unless they repented, which apparently very few of them did. …


Purpose. The main aim of this paper is to assess and analyze the role of sustainability policy in influencing service innovation practices in the context of public transport. The intension is to understand the critical dimensions related to sustainability policy driven service innovation. The critical dimensions mainly focus on the relationship between innovation and policy, the challenges, competences and opportunities driven by sustainability policy. Design/methodology/approach. The paper is of an explorative nature. Critical case study method is adopted in this paper to understand the role of sustainability policy in service innovation. Findings. The study reveals that national sustainability policy framework drives the formulation and implementation of sustainable service innovation as a tool to achieve sustainable public transit system. The sustainability policy context in terms of responsibility, power and resource integration creates shared-platform that induces service innovation, which create value co-creation opportunities to the customers and other stakeholders. Research limitations/implications. The single case-study design of the present research does not enable empirical generalizations to be made. Contribution/value. The paper makes an original contribution to the study of sustainable and innovative public transit by explicitly linking the adoption of sustainability policy and its role in service innovation and value co-creation embedded on social and environmental perspectives. Practical implications. National policies often cannot influence local/urban transport directly, but become effective tool towards service innovation and value co-creation.


Majorization-minimization (MM) is a standard iterative optimization technique which consists in minimizing a sequence of convex surrogate functionals. MM approaches have been particularly successful to tackle inverse problems and statistical machine learning problems where the regularization term is a sparsity-promoting concave function. However, due to non-convexity, the solution found by MM depends on its initialization. Uniform initialization is the most natural and often employed strategy as it boils down to penalizing all coefficients equally in the first MM iteration. Yet, this arbitrary choice can lead to unsatisfactory results in severely under-determined inverse problems such as source imaging with magneto- and electro-encephalography (M/EEG). The framework of hierarchical Bayesian modeling (HBM) is an alternative approach to encode sparsity. This work shows that for certain hierarchical models, a simple alternating scheme to compute fully Bayesian maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates leads to the exact same sequence of updates as a standard MM strategy (see the adaptive lasso). With this parallel outlined, we show how to improve upon these MM techniques by probing the multimodal posterior density using Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) techniques. Firstly, we show that these samples can provide well-informed initializations that help MM schemes to reach better local minima. Secondly, we demonstrate how it can reveal the different modes of the posterior distribution in order to explore and quantify the inherent uncertainty and ambiguity of such ill-posed inference procedure. In the context of M/EEG, each mode corresponds to a plausible configuration of neural sources, which is crucial for data interpretation, especially in clinical contexts. Results on both simulations and real datasets show how the number or the type of sensors affect the uncertainties on the estimates.


We propose a new framework for how to use sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms for inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGM). Via a sequential decomposition of the PGM we find a sequence of auxiliary distributions defined on a monotonically increasing sequence of probability spaces. By targeting these auxiliary distributions using SMC we are able to approximate the full joint distribution defined by the PGM. One of the key merits of the SMC sampler is that it provides an unbiased estimate of the partition function of the model. We also show how it can be used within a particle Markov chain Monte Carlo framework in order to construct high-dimensional block-sampling algorithms for general PGMs.


The dissolution of alumina inclusions in CaO‐SiO2‐Al2O3 based slags have been measured using laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM). Experiments were carried out over a temperature range of 1477 to 1577°C. It was found that diffusion coefficients calculated from the experimental results showed a dependence on the slag viscosity. This is considered strong evidence that the dissolution process is at least in part controlled by mass transfer in the slag phase. The diffusion coefficients for the alumina particles are estimated to be in the range 10−11 to 10−10 m2/s.


The central purpose of this thesis is to analyse and discuss a number of selected issues that are relevant to adult students within the higher education sector and work organizations. A specific objective of the higher education sector should be to facilitate lifelong learning through the provision of adult education and training. There is a need for workers to up-date their knowledge and skills, and in relation to work organizations, adult education and training should be seen as important and necessary from the perspective of employees and employers. There is therefore a need for work organizations to invest in, and support employees adult education and training. The education and training of adults must be seen to occupy a central rather than a peripheral role within the higher education sector and work organizations. There is also a need for the higher education sector and work organizations to recognize and develop adequate and appropriate support structures in order to facilitate and increase adult education and training.

In this thesis, there is both a European Commission and Irish perspective to the review of the literature. Relevant publications are reviewed in the context of adult education and training within the higher education sector and work organizations. To broaden the context of the research work, three themes emerged from the review of the literature, and they are seen as central to an understanding of the dynamics of educational provision for adult students, and are integrated as core issues throughout this work. The three themes are paid educational leave, Access courses and adult educational guidance.

The methodology employed in this research work involved a combination of questionnaires and interviews. Data was collected from graduates in two higher education institutions, from work organization representatives and Access Officers. The results were analysed using both a quantitative and qualitative approach.

The thesis concludes with key recommendations relevant for future developments in the context of adult education and training.


The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, a vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators and also of heroism, a Stalinist anti-world at the heart of the Soviet Union where the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. The work is based on the testimony of some two hundred survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labour camps and exile. It is both a thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power. This edition has been abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation.


Akkermansia muciniphila is an abundant inhabitant of the intestinal tract of humans and many other animals. It is the sole intestinal representative of the verrucomicrobia in human stools and depleted in adults suffering from obesity, diabetes and several other diseases. A. muciniphila degrades intestinal mucin into mainly propionic and acetic acid, and lives in symbiosis with its host, marked by signalling to immune and metabolic pathways, priming trophic chains and likely providing competitive exclusion at the host-microbe interface. Since its recent discovery, A. muciniphila has increasingly been studied and recognized as a true intestinal symbiont promoting beneficial interactions in the intestinal tract.


The history of the Episcopal Church of Sudan belongs to chapter three of the history of the church that lives upstream from the falls in the River Nile. The first church above the falls was the church in ancient Rush, a daughter of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Byzantine Empire. This church grew from Christian monks seeking refuge south of Egypt, and from bishop-led missions sent by the Byzantine emperor. This church prayed in Greek and in the languages of the Nubian kingdoms. Baptism in the later Nubian period often included making the sign of the cross on a person's forehead with a red-hot iron. This Nubian Church flourished for centuries as a state church. It declined as migration and new caravan routes shrank the economy. In 1500 only architectural ruins and linguistic traces remained when Muslim Arab forces from Egypt consolidated control. Yet today's Sudanese Christians know very firmly that the so-called Ethiopian eunuch whom the Apostle Philip met and baptized while travelling on the Gaza road was not Ethiopian. He was a court official of a Nubian kingdom located near today's Rhartoum. That was chapter one.1 The second church above the falls arose from the work of Roman Catholic missionaries, particularly from the Austrian Empire. In 1848, Sudan with Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire. An East African and Red Sea trade in human beings was flourishing. The genius of the Roman Catholic missions was to empower runaway and freed slaves on the periphery of Africa to become evangelists back to the heart of Africa. Their slogan was, "The regeneration of Africa by Africans." Roman Catholics labored to create schools and agricultural stations in the Nuba Mountains and the valley of the White Nile. All these institutions went down to dust when a messianic Muslim reformer arose in 1881 on an island in the Nile to drive the Turks and all ancillary foreigners out of Sudan. This mystic and brilliant revolutionary, the Mahdi, appealed to the highest authority: There is no god but God And Muhammad is the Prophet of God And Muhammad al Mahdi is the successor of God's Prophet. As you know if you have seen Laurence Olivier playing the Mahdi and Charlton Heston playing the heroic English resister in the movie Khartoum, the Mahdi prevailed. The second church in Sudan came to an end. That was chapter two. The third church in Sudan is the one we have come to know in our day as a companion and a friend who lives by the power of God who raised Jesus from the dead. There were years in the 1980s and 1990s when some of us feared that civil war, combined with schism, might once again kill off this church. But the third chapter, after violent death and slow death have done their worst time and again,, seems to be a story of a church rising again and again to new life. Chapter three began in 1898, when European imperialism was at its zenith. A British and Egyptian combined military force defeated the Mahdi's successor government. An Anglo-Egyptian Condominium government was installed. This precarious alien authority resisted restoring real estate in Khartoum to the returning Roman Catholic missions. It resisted Protestants interested in reaching out to Muslims in northern Sudan. The Condominium sought to keep a fragile peace by assigning missionary societies to territorial spheres. The Roman Catholics - under protest - consented to sail their iron steamboat up a tributary of the White Nile to the territory belonging to the Shilluk people. Presbyterians travelled on rented Nile sailboats and slowly attracted Nuer people to their medical stations and schools. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) appointee Archibald Shaw stuck it out for three decades at Malek in the Anglicans' assigned territory among the Dinkas on the east bank of the White Nile. From one of his hard-won students Shaw earned the epithet, "the white man with the soul of a Dinka." Shaw was also alert and adaptive enough to realize that the church could not be contained by any single ethnic group. …


The internal reference point of traveler's decision-making is dynamic in nature. Public transport ridership considers a decision based on the utility value of gains and losses which can be modeled by using mental accounting theory. This study aims to analyze the dynamic of internal reference points for public transport ridership after implementing transport policies. It describes the decision of travelers' behavior when facing the dynamic value of the utility, whether it is increasing, decreases or stable. This study developed a travelers' behavior model based on mental accounting theory. The result showed that the public transport ridership's are more likely to change their reference point when realizing gains than losses for transport policies. Furthermore, the way of public transport ridership combines the decrease and increase of the utility value showed that travelers tend to consider which gains and losses occurred simultaneously. Therefore, the integration outcome is more desirable than segregation outcomes, and revealed that mental accounting theory plays a major role in public transport ridership. This survey was conducted for the short-term distance trip, particularly in shopping trip from the residential area (origin) to Community Business District (destination) in Matsuyama city, Japan.


Abstract This article considers the implications of current government education policy for those learners within the English post-compulsory sector undertaking General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ) Foundation (level 1) programmes. It argues that within the current policy context, a lower value is placed on young people working towards certain credentials than on others and that this value is determined by the potential economic value of the qualification. Therefore, those young people undertaking Foundation (level 1) programmes are perceived to be of less value than those undertaking more mainstream programmes at level 2 and above. In doing this, current education policy is effectively creating an invisible cohort of young people whose needs are not understood and who, constrained by social, cultural, class and educational barriers, are likely to form the underclass within the 40/30sol;30 society described by Hutton (1995). Finally, this article raises questions about how some of these issues might be effectively addressed and calls for a wider debate on these issues as one means of finding a greater level of esteem for the young people undertaking learning programmes at level 1.


The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the factors influencing approaches to e-learning of faculty, who directly instruct others, and instructional designers professionals, who work with adult learners indirectly. This study of over 300 postsecondary educators and their approaches to online learning was based on interdisciplinary theories pivoting around a three-tier conceptual definition of human learning proposed by Peter Jarvis in 2006. Concepts of the self-directed learner, the lifelong learning process, and the transformation of learners framed the scope of this research within a matrix of adult learning and cognitive theories.   Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses of thirty null hypotheses were used to investigate deep and surface approaches to e-learning and adult learners' perceptions of functionality and quality of online professional development courses. Factors analyzed in relation to the learning approaches included course specific elements: orientation, use of models and templates, audio visual channeling, collaboration, assessments, and perceptions related to technology and function of professional development e-courses. Findings indicate that education professionals engage deep approaches to e-learning. Both the length of their professional experience and sheer number of online courses taken matter, as motivations, vary between individual learners and professional groups. This study should contribute to better understanding of learning in electronic environments and help practitioners and future researchers use e-learning factors to advance professional development offerings and their application.


As the field of recommender systems has developed, authors have used a myriad of notations for describing the mathematical workings of recommendation algorithms. These notations ap-pear in research papers, books, lecture notes, blog posts, and software documentation. The dis-ciplinary diversity of the field has not contributed to consistency in notation; scholars whose home base is in information retrieval have different habits and expectations than those in ma-chine learning or human-computer interaction.
In the course of years of teaching and research on recommender systems, we have seen the val-ue in adopting a consistent notation across our work. This has been particularly highlighted in our development of the Recommender Systems MOOC on Coursera (Konstan et al. 2015), as we need to explain a wide variety of algorithms and our learners are not well-served by changing notation between algorithms.
In this paper, we describe the notation we have adopted in our work, along with its justification and some discussion of considered alternatives. We present this in hope that it will be useful to others writing and teaching about recommender systems. This notation has served us well for some time now, in research, online education, and traditional classroom instruction. We feel it is ready for broad use.


Oracle Bone Inscriptions (OBI) research is very meaningful for both history and literature. In this paper, we introduce our contributions in AIPowered Oracle Bone (OB) fragments rejoining and OBI recognition. (1) We build a real-world dataset OB-Rejoin, and propose an effective OB rejoining algorithm which yields a top-10 accuracy of 98.39%. (2) We design a practical annotation software to facilitate OBI annotation, and build OracleBone-8000, a large-scale dataset with character-level annotations. We adopt deep learning based scene text detection algorithms for OBI localization, which yield an F-score of 89.7%. We propose a novel deep template matching algorithm for OBI recognition which achieves an overall accuracy of 80.9%. Since we have been cooperating closely with OBI domain experts, our effort above helps advance their research. The resources of this work are available at https://github.com/ chongshengzhang/OracleBone.


It is undeniable that the progress of human civilization has altered the natural landscape of the world in ways that range from the merely aesthetic to the irreparably destructive. Some impacts are patently obvious. Others may not be as obvious to the casual observer, and yet they can be just as important in terms of truly understanding not only our impact on the world around us, but how we can mitigate this impact. One of the most far-reaching of these latter impacts is the increased and altered levels of background noise upon the natural acoustic landscape. These changes have the potential to hinder species such as songbirds that rely on acoustic signals as a vital part of many social processes. These impediments have been shown to increase stress levels and levels of predation, erode pair bonds, and decrease the likelihood of survival of populations in the novel acoustic environments we have created. Therefore further study of the effects of noise disturbance on songbird populations and breeding efforts may allow us to create informed conservation strategies to help mitigate these effects. While the effects of masking noise on various species of birds have been studied before, this is the first study designed to understand what effect the predictability of such noise disturbances may have on zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) behavior. The results pointed towards the predictability of the disturbance not having a significant effect on initiation or time spent vocalizing after the end of a disturbance block.


This book enters new territory by moving toward a new conceptual framework for comparative and interdisciplinary research on transcultural state formation. Once more, statehood and governance are highly discussed topics, whereby modern state building is often considered to be a genuinely European characteristic, despite the fact that early modern Europeans knew of, experienced and grappled with highly developed states in Asia. The articles collected in this book discuss how strategies of governance were part of transcultural transfers between the two continents. The first part presents and discusses concepts of statehood in order to provide a set of conceptual tools for analyzing the transcultural appropriation of governmental strategies. The second part is concerned with case studies that examine the transcultural perception of governance, and the third and final part gathers perspectives on political practice in transcultural encounters (e.g. military, administration, and diplomacy)


BACKGROUND
Ionizing radiation is an established carcinogen, but risks from low-dose exposures are controversial. Since the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII review of the epidemiological data in 2006, many subsequent publications have reported excess cancer risks from low-dose exposures. Our aim was to systematically review these studies to assess the magnitude of the risk and whether the positive findings could be explained by biases.

METHODS
Eligible studies had mean cumulative doses of less than 100 mGy, individualized dose estimates, risk estimates, and confidence intervals (CI) for the dose-response and were published in 2006-2017. We summarized the evidence for bias (dose error, confounding, outcome ascertainment) and its likely direction for each study. We tested whether the median excess relative risk (ERR) per unit dose equals zero and assessed the impact of excluding positive studies with potential bias away from the null. We performed a meta-analysis to quantify the ERR and assess consistency across studies for all solid cancers and leukemia.

RESULTS
Of the 26 eligible studies, 8 concerned environmental, 4 medical, and 14 occupational exposure. For solid cancers, 16 of 22 studies reported positive ERRs per unit dose, and we rejected the hypothesis that the median ERR equals zero (P = .03). After exclusion of 4 positive studies with potential positive bias, 12 of 18 studies reported positive ERRs per unit dose (P  = .12). For leukemia, 17 of 20 studies were positive, and we rejected the hypothesis that the median ERR per unit dose equals zero (P  = .001), also after exclusion of 5 positive studies with potential positive bias (P  = .02). For adulthood exposure, the meta-ERR at 100 mGy was 0.029 (95% CI = 0.011 to 0.047) for solid cancers and 0.16 (95% CI = 0.07 to 0.25) for leukemia. For childhood exposure, the meta-ERR at 100 mGy for leukemia was 2.84 (95% CI = 0.37 to 5.32); there were only two eligible studies of all solid cancers.

CONCLUSIONS
Our systematic assessments in this monograph showed that these new epidemiological studies are characterized by several limitations, but only a few positive studies were potentially biased away from the null. After exclusion of these studies, the majority of studies still reported positive risk estimates. We therefore conclude that these new epidemiological studies directly support excess cancer risks from low-dose ionizing radiation. Furthermore, the magnitude of the cancer risks from these low-dose radiation exposures was statistically compatible with the radiation dose-related cancer risks of the atomic bomb survivors.


Intramolecular hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) for the remote functionalization of C(sp3)–H bonds has emerged as a powerful strategy, but its asymmetric diversification remains a great challenge because of the requirement of harsh reaction conditions and less enantiotopic discrimination. To overcome this, we described a general and efficient radical protocol for the concomitant functionalization of both alkenes and the remote α-C–H bonds of alcohols or amines via 1,5(6,7)-HAT triggered by the addition of a trifluoromethyl radical to alkenes in a highly controlled site-selective manner. Furthermore, such an approach could be developed for late-stage asymmetric diversification at the remote sp3-hydridized positions of alcohols or amines via a cascade sequence for the facile construction of chiral CF3-containing homoallylic alcohols or secondary amines with good to excellent enantioselectivities. Mechanistic experiments and DFT calculations revealed that 1,5(6,7)-HAT is a kinetically relevant process and provided a rationale for the observed different reactivities between the linear alkenyl alcohol or amine and alkenyl ketone or amide.


Epidemiology strongly parallels the study of ecology, primarily being concerned
with the incidence, distribution, reproduction and persistence of species. The
spread of disease, or its transmission, is arguably the most important incident
studied in epidemiology, underpinning a pathogen's ability to reproduce and
persist within a host population. However, observations of individual
transmission events are often impossible to observe directly, making variation in
this process difficult to study. This has resulted in a great deal of
epidemiological theory being based on homogenous transmission of disease
through host populations. Understanding disease transmission as a
heterogeneous process requires an appreciation of the ecological dynamics
determining a pathogens ability to transmit. In this thesis a cross-disciplinary
approach is taken to examine the ecological dynamics that may affect disease
transmission at different ecological scales.
In Chapter 2 I review empirical evidence in support of density dependent
transmission. Transmission rates of density dependent transmitted diseases are
often assumed to scale linearly with host population density. This assumption is
pertinent to the calculation of the basic reproductive number R0. As R0 is
important in determining optimal vaccination strategies, population thresholds
and epidemic sizes, incorrect assumptions used in its calculation have the
potential to misinform disease control strategies. Alarmingly, there is very little
evidence to suggest that the prior assumption of a linear relationship between
disease transmission rates and host population density exists. Where evidence of
density dependent transmission has been found this has been best explained by
non-linear relationships. Furthermore, density may have much stronger effects
on disease transmission at small, local, scales (for example within one social
grouping of hosts). Disease transmission between groups of hosts, at global
scales, is more likely to follow frequency dependent dynamics. Disease
transmission rates should thus be thought of as variable across populations that
are not homogenously distributed in space, or across social structures.
In Chapter 3 a community of pathogens infecting a population of rural red foxes,
Vulpes vulpes, is described. Foxes cadavers were collected from a private estate
2
in Canterbury, Kent and a combination of direct and indirect testing for disease
is used to maximise the scope of disease considered as part of this community.
Specifically, I examine if any of the diseases included in this study occur
together, or apart, more frequently than expected by chance alone. Within the
samples collected it is found that the intracellular protozoan Toxoplasma gondii
co-occurs with the virus canine adenovirus type-I (CAV-I) more frequently than
expected by chance. Foxes concomitantly infected with these pathogens have
lower condition scores than foxes who were not positive for both pathogens.
From the data collected it is not clear whether hosts of lower condition are
more susceptible to co-infection or if the co-infection is more harmful to hosts
than being singly infected. T. gondii is not transmitted by foxes, but if infection
with this parasite increases susceptibility to CAV-I then this virus may benefit
from the presence of T. gondii within its host population. If it is the case that
foxes of lower condition are simply more prone to co-infection then it should be
expected that individual differences between hosts would cause heterogeneity
in disease transmission. The need for cross-disciplinary approaches when
studying pathogen communities is well demonstrated by this study, as is the
need for more consideration to be paid to the community ecology of pathogens
in epidemiological studies.
In Chapter 4 a model is formulated to explore the effects of an interaction
between a micro and a macro parasite. This is performed in the context of the
increased prevalence and geographical range of the highly zoonotic small fox
tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis following successful rabies elimination in
Western Europe. I explore the hypothesis that foxes with extremely high burdens
may be at a higher risk of contracting rabies than foxes with low worm burdens,
and thus rabies may have a regulatory effect on E. multilocularis populations by
preferentially removing "super spreading" hosts. It is demonstrated that rabies
limits E. multilocularis populations by limiting the density of available hosts. An
interaction between rabies transmission rate and worm burden only caused a
weak additional suppression on E. multilocularis populations, regardless of
whether this relationship was linear or exponential. The elimination of rabies
across Western Europe is certainly to be applauded. However, it should be noted
from this work that surveillance of pathogen communities following successful
eradication of one pathogen is of the upmost importance.
3
Finally, in Chapter 5 I examine how parasites adapt their investment in
transmission in response to environmental changes experienced within a host.
This is done by fitting models to data collected from mice infected with the
malaria parasite Plasmodium chabaudi during the acute stage of inaction.
Parasites are predicted to alter their behaviour in response to host stress,
immunity and the availability of resources. However, theoretical and
experimental studies reach conflicting conclusions regarding the "optimal
response" to degradation of their habitat. Models were fitted to time series data
from infection with one of six distinct genotypes. It is found that proportional
allocation of resources into transmission, rather than replication, is highly
sensitive to red blood cell (RBC) densities, with investment in transmission
increasing as RBC resources become scarce. Investment in transmission also
increases, albeit more weakly, in response to low parasite densities. These
analyses highlight the fact that the complexity of interactions between parasites
and their host hinder the identification of causal relationships, but supports
recent work that questions the role of terminal investment in transmission in
response to changes in the within-host environment.
The broad scope of work presented here investigates a wide range of ecological
factors (including community dynamics, habitat variability and reproductive
success) at different ecological scales, responsible for heterogeneity in disease
transmission. Transmission is a dynamic, and heterogeneous process. To better
understand the ecology of disease it is logical to investigate the mechanisms
behind this variation.


The ability of human liver cytochrome P450s to metabolize the environmental carcinogen N-nitrosodi-n-propylamine (NDPA) was investigated. The maximum rate of NDPA depropylation in seven human liver microsomal samples was 1.15 nmol/min/mg (range 0.53-2.60). Troleandomycin, a P450 3A4/5 inhibitor, inhibited depropylation modestly (10-60%) in three of seven samples. Diethyldithiocarbamic acid, a potent 2E1 inhibitor, and a 2E1 inhibitory monoclonal antibody (mAb) inhibited the reaction in all samples (23 to almost 100%). No significant inhibition was observed with the 2C9 inhibitor sulfaphenazole or with mAbs to 3A4, 2A6 and 2D6. The 2C8/9/18/19 mAb inhibited depropylation in one sample by approximately 25% and approximately 25% of the activity in another sample could not be accounted for by the inhibitors. Denitrosation of NDPA by three of the microsomal samples exhibited low K(m) values (51-86 microM) while two of these also had high K(m) values (2.6 and 4.6 mM). Purified human P450 2B6 and 3A4 and human P450 2A6, 2C8, 2C9 and 2D6 membranes had high K(m) values relative to their maximum turnover rates and are unlikely to participate in NDPA metabolism at micromolar concentrations. Conversely, purified rabbit 2E1 exhibited K(m) and V(max) values for depropylation of 52 microM and 13.4 nmol propionaldehyde/min/nmol P450, respectively. Values for denitrosation were 66 microM and 1.44 nmol nitrite/min/nmol P450, respectively. The toxicity of NDPA in transfected human liver epithelial cells expressing 2E1 was dose dependent down to 50 microM. No toxicity was observed in control cells or those expressing 2A6. These results indicate that 2E1 is the major human liver microsomal isoform responsible for NDPA metabolism at low micromolar concentrations. We also show that purified P450s catalyze the denitrosation of NDPA at approximately 10-20% of the rate of depropylation and K(m) values for both reactions are the same for each isozyme. This is consistent with the formation of an initial intermediate common to both pathways, presumably an alpha-nitrosamino radical.


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WS-Security is a standard providing message-level security in Web Services. Therewith, it ensures their integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity. However, using sophisticated security algorithms can lead to high memory consumptions and long evaluation times. In combination with the standard DOM approach for XML processing, the Web Services servers easily become a target of Denial-of-Service attacks. We present a solution for these problems: an external streaming-based WS-Security Gateway. Our implementation is capable of processing XML Signatures in SOAP messages using a streaming-based approach. The evaluation shows that such an approach greatly enhances the performance and is much more efficient in comparison to standard DOM-based frameworks.