A 60-GHz bidirectional radio-over-fiber (RoF) system using two-carrier-injected distributed feedback (DFB) laser is proposed and demonstrated to realize optical single sideband (SSB) modulation for downlink. An injection-locked Fabry-P'erot laser is also carried out to realize wavelength reuse in uplink. Transmission of 2.5 Gb/s on a 60-GHz carrier for downlink and 622-Mb/s baseband signal for uplink are both successfully demonstrated over 50-km single mode fiber without chromatic dispersion compensation.


The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is among the most demanding sailing competitions in the world. Unpredictable seas make the 628-nautical-mile course grueling under the best conditions, but the 1998 race proved to be the most perilous to date when a sudden and violent storm struck. Winds gusted over 100 mph and monstrous 80-foot waves towered over boat masts. Six sailors perished and another 55 were saved in what became the largest search and rescue operation in Australia's history. In the face of turmoil and tragedy, a crew of "amateur" sailors piloted their tiny vessel, the AFR Midnight Rambler, not only to the finish but to overall victory. While bigger, better-equipped yachts attempted to maneuver around the storm, Ed Psaltis and his crew made the daring decision to head directly into its path. Their triumph—perhaps even their survival—owes itself to an extraordinary level of teamwork: an alchemy of cooperation, trust, planning, and execution. Into the Storm chronicles their nearly four-day ordeal and draws parallels to the world of business, revealing 10 critical strategies for teamwork at the edge. Illustrated with examples from the story and compelling case studies, the book sheds light on what teams need to do to succeed in tough times. Finally, Into the Storm provides resources and tools to support teams as they navigate the chaotic seas of business today.


Viral, bacterial and fungal infections are the most common causes of meningitis. However, subarachnoid haemorrhage, chemicals, cancers and certain noninfectious inflammatory conditions may also lead to meningitis.
In this article we discuss bacterial meningitis, with specific emphasis on the most common causes of bacterial meningitis occurring after the neonatal period, namely Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae.
The brain and spinal cord are covered by membranes called the meninges. The meninges are made up of three separate membranes namely the dura mater, the arachnoid and the pia mater. The dura mater is situated directly beneath and adherent to the skull. The pia mater is the membrane that covers the brain and the arachnoid is located between the dura mater and the pia mater. The region between the arachnoid and the pia mater is where the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) passes and is called the subarachnoid space. Meningitis is an inflammatory disease of the pia mater and the arachnoid membranes including the CSF in the subarachnoid space and in the cerebral ventricles.


Summary Many methods have recently been proposed for efficient analysis of case‐control studies of gene‐environment interactions using a retrospective likelihood framework that exploits the natural assumption of gene‐environment independence in the underlying population. However, for polygenic modelling of gene‐environment interactions, which is a topic of increasing scientific interest, applications of retrospective methods have been limited due to a requirement in the literature for parametric modelling of the distribution of the genetic factors. We propose a general, computationally simple, semiparametric method for analysis of case‐control studies that allows exploitation of the assumption of gene‐environment independence without any further parametric modelling assumptions about the marginal distributions of any of the two sets of factors. The method relies on the key observation that an underlying efficient profile likelihood depends on the distribution of genetic factors only through certain expectation terms that can be evaluated empirically. We develop asymptotic inferential theory for the estimator and evaluate its numerical performance via simulation studies. An application of the method is presented.


Purpose Vein punctures are performed daily to sample blood. Ultrasound (US) offers an alternative to the blind landmark technique for difficult vascular access. A challenge for this procedure is the presence of US gel in the puncture area. We present a technique for US-guided puncture from extremity veins not palpable or visible to the human eye, while keeping the puncture area dry and gel-free. Methods Ten healthy volunteers underwent two US-guided vein punctures from veins that were neither palpable nor visible. One was drawn from an antebrachial vein and another from a brachial vein. A sterile barrier drape was made from a commercially available dressing and a piece of transparent sterile plastic. The barrier drape consists of an adhesive part placed on the skin designed for sonography and a free transparent flap constituting the barrier between the unsterile sonographic site and the sterile gel-free puncture site. Results The success rate for vein puncture was 100% in both locations. A total of 22 skin punctures were performed (11 antebrachial and 11 brachial). Gain output was increased 7% (4-12%), and 8% (4-15%), respectively, to compensate for attenuation of the US signal due to the drape. Alignment of the centre of the transducer with the long-axis of the target vein during the procedure was reported as a challenge. Conclusions US-guided blood sampling from a brachial and antebrachial vein was possible with a 100% success rate, while ensuring a dry and gel-free venipuncture area on one side and the transducer on the other side of a sterile barrier.


Reptile and bird eggs are priority samples for specimen banking programs that assess spatial and temporal trends of environmental contaminants. From endangered species, such as sea turtles, nonlethal sampling is required (e.g., unhatched eggs collected postemergence). Previous contaminant monitoring studies have used unhatched sea turtle eggs, but no study has tested whether their concentrations represent levels found in fresh eggs (e.g., eggs collected within 24 h of oviposition). The author analyzed three fresh eggs from different nest depths and up to three unhatched eggs from 10 loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nests in South Carolina, USA, for a suite of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Lipid‐normalized POP concentrations were not significantly different (p > 0.05) between fresh and unhatched eggs or among different depths from the same nest. The POP concentrations in loggerhead eggs from South Carolina were higher than previously measured concentrations in eggs from Florida and slightly lower than concentrations in eggs from North Carolina. This pattern agrees with previously observed trends of increasing POP concentrations in loggerhead turtles inhabiting northern latitudes along the U.S. East Coast. Contaminant profiles are discussed, including a higher chlorinated pattern of polychlorinated biphenyls possibly associated with a Superfund site in nearby Brunswick, Georgia, USA, and unusual polybrominated diphenylether patterns seen in this and previous sea turtle studies. Concentrations correlated with one of eight measurements of reproductive success; levels were negatively correlated with egg mass (p < 0.05), which may have implications for hatchling fitness. The present study suggests that unhatched eggs can be used for POP‐monitoring projects. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2013;32:747–756. © 2013 SETAC


The increasing popularity of mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital
assistants, and advances in wireless networking technologies, are enabling new classes
of applications that present challenging problems to application designers. Applications
have to be aware of, and adapt to, variations in the execution context, such as
fluctuating
network bandwidth and decreasing battery power, in order to deliver a good quality of
service to their users.
We argue that building applications directly on top of the network operating system
would be extremely tedious and error-prone, as application developers would have to
deal with these issues explicitly, and would consequently be distracted from the actual
requirements of the application they are building. Rather, a middleware layered between
the network operating system and the application should provide application developers
with abstractions and mechanisms to deal with them.
We investigate the principle of reflection and demonstrate how it can be used to support
context-awareness and dynamic adaptation to context changes. We offer application engineers
an abstraction of middleware as a dynamically customisable service provider, where
each service can be delivered using different policies when requested in different contexts.
Based on this abstraction, current middleware behaviour, with respect to a particular
application, is reified in an application profile, and made accessible to the application for
run-time inspection and adaptation. Applications can use the meta-interface that the
middleware provides to change the information encoded in their profile, thus tailoring
middleware behaviour to the user's needs. However, while doing so, conflicts may arise;
different users may have different quality-of-service needs, and applications, in an attempt
to full these needs, may customise middleware behaviour in conflicting ways. These conflicts have to be resolved in order to allow applications to come to an agreement, and thus
be able to engage successful collaborations.
We demonstrate how microeconomic techniques can be used to treat these kinds of conflicts. We offer an abstraction of the mobile setting as an economy, where applications
compete to have a service delivered according to their quality-of-service needs. We have
designed a mechanism where middleware plays the role of the auctioneer, collecting bids
from the applications and delivering the service using the policy that maximises social
welfare; that is, the one that delivers, on average, the best quality-of-service.
We formalise the principles discussed above, namely reflection to support context-awareness
and microeconomic techniques to support conflict resolution. To demonstrate their effectiveness
in fostering the development of context-aware applications, we discuss a middleware
architecture and implementation (CARISMA) that embed these principles, and report
on performance and usability results obtained during a thorough evaluation stage.


ABSTRACT The rapid influx of Rohingya refugees into Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, has led to the formation of huge camps, built on difficult terrain, short of space and with high population density. All these factors present numerous challenges to agencies seeking to provide latrines, water points, and bathing facilities. Feedback gathered from women and girls highlighted significant challenges around access, safety, privacy, and dignity, including management of personal hygiene and menstruation. Within the humanitarian community, site planning and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) infrastructure planning/design processes have mainly been dominated by male architects and engineers, often with gendered assumptions about the user. Acknowledging these challenges, Oxfam implemented the Women's Social Architecture Project to work with women and adolescent girls, and female architects with a background or interest in social or feminist design and architecture, to add a different perspective into the design and siting of WASH facilities. The project has consisted of formative research with Rohingya women and girls, and design workshops with architects in which Rohingya women have co-created designs that tackle the issues they face regarding WASH facilities. This article provides an account of the progress to date, together with feedback from women and girls and the WASH Sector in Cox's Bazar ahead of the final completion of the project in June 2019.


Abstract A new blended high-resolution real-time global sea surface temperature analysis (RTG_SST), developed specifically for use in operational numerical weather forecasting models, was implemented in NCEP's operational job stream on 30 January 2001, immediately following investigations of miss-forecast precipitation events in the mid-Atlantic states. Each daily analysis uses the most recent 24-h receipts of in situ and satellite-derived surface temperature data and provides a global SST field on a 0.5° × 0.5° (latitude–longitude) grid. The RTG_SST provides the sea surface temperature fields for the regional Meso Eta Model, replacing the previously used National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) 50-km satellite-only SST analysis. Forecast events leading to the implementation of the RTG_SST are described; comparison is made of the properties used in this new analysis with those of the Reynolds–Smith (RS) analysis and the NESDIS 50-km analysis; data ingestion, analysis, and v...


Introduction A little over a decade ago the United Nations commission garnered almost worldwide political consensus on the urgent need for sustainability. Various countries and institutions started to struggle with the same problem, the question was posed--what is sustainability, and specifically, what does it mean for a particular sector, nation, or region? (Goodland, 1995). This concept of sustainability encapsulates three major sectors of global productivity: environmental, economic and social. Overlaps exist among the three, and defining each component of sustainability distinctly may help organize the action required to approach global sustainability (Goodland, 1995). Sustainability also referred to as sustainable development can therefore be defined as "Improvement in the quality of human life within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems ... that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations" as stated by the Brundtland Commission (Enger, 2008). The need for sustainability arose from the recognition that the profligate, extravagant, and inequitable nature of current patterns of development, when projected into the not-too-distant future, leads to biophysical impossibilities; we cannot grow into sustainability (Goodland, 1995). The long term good health of populations depends on the continued stability and functioning of the biosphere's ecological and physical systems, often referred to as life-support systems (World Health Organization--Geneva, 2003). Environmental sustainability seeks to sustain global life support systems indefinitely. Source capacities of the global ecosystem provide raw materials such as food, water, air and energy, while sink capacities assimilate outputs or waste. Overuse of a capacity impairs its provision of life support services (Goodland, 1995). The notion of economic sustainability was firmly embodied in the writings of J. S. Mill and T. R. Malthus who both emphasized that the environment needs to be protected from unfettered growth if we are to preserve human welfare before diminishing returns set in. Economic sustainability revolves on consuming interest, rather than capital and can be defined as the amount of goods that can be consumed during a period, while remaining well off at the end of the period (Goodland and Daly, 1996; Goodland, 2002). Social sustainability is systematic. It involves human capital that invests in education, health, and nutrition of individuals and is now accepted as a part of economic development. Ultimately, there can be no social sustainability without environmental sustainability because environmental sustainability supplies the conditions for social sustainability (Goodland, 1995). It is all too easy to overlook this dependency, particularly at a time when human species is becoming increasingly and distanced from these (World Health Organization--Geneva, 2003) life-support, integrated, sustainable systems. As a result of human induced impacts on these systems, the human species have now placed their lives on the line. Human health plays an integral role on human existence and development, therefore an omnipresent and undeniable link exist between human health and sustainability. The last half-century has seen momentous and accelerating changes in humankind's economic activities, political relations and social and demographic profile. Urbanism and individualism within modern Western culture has diminished people's awareness of the dependence of continued good health on the natural world (McMichael et al, 1999). However, most changes to ecosystems have been made to meet a dramatic growth in the demand for food, water, timber, fiber and fuel (Health Synthesis, n.d.). Approximately 60% of the benefits that the global ecosystem provides to support life on earth are being degraded or used unsustainably (Health Synthesis, 2005). In the 30 years after 1950 and 150 years between 1700 and 1850, more land was converted to cropland. …


"The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Other Stories" collects some of Jack London's most profound and moving allegorical tales. This "Penguin Classics" edition is edited by Andrew Sinclair with an introduction by James Dickey. "The Call of the Wild", London's masterpiece about a dog learning to survive in the wilderness, sees pampered pet Buck snatched from his home and set to work as a sled-dog. White Fang, set in the frozen tundra and boreal forests of Canada's Yukon territory, is the story of a wolf-dog struggling to survive in a human society every bit as violent as the natural world. This volume of Jack London's famed stories of the North also includes "Batard", in which an abused dog takes revenge on his owner; and "Love of Life", in which an injured prospector, abandoned by his partner, must struggle home alone through the wilderness, stalked by a lone wolf. In his introduction, James Dickey probes London's strong personal and literary identification with the wolf-dog as a symbol and totem. Andrew Sinclair, London's official biographer and the volume's editor, provides a brief account of London's life as a sailor, desperado, socialist, adventurer and acclaimed author. Jack London (1876-1916) was born John Griffith Chaney in San Francisco, California. By the age of sixteen he had left school, worked in a canning factory, spent time as an oyster pirate and been a member of the Fish Patrol in the San Francisco Bay. In 1893 he joined a sealing cruise, which took him as far abroad as Japan. In 1896 he was caught up in the gold rush to the Klondike river in north-west Canada, which became the inspiration for "The Call of the Wild" (1903) and "White Fang" (1906). If you enjoyed "The Call of the Wild", you might like Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories", also available in "Penguin Classics".


Global scale assessments of coastal flood damage and adaptation costs under 21st century sea-level rise are associated with a wide range of uncertainties, including those in future projections of socioeconomic development (shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) scenarios), of greenhouse gas concentrations (RCP scenarios), and of sea-level rise at regional scale (RSLR), as well as structural uncertainties related to the modelling of extreme sea levels, data on exposed population and assets, and the costs of flood damages, etc. This raises the following questions: which sources of uncertainty need to be considered in such assessments and what is the relative importance of each source of uncertainty in the final results? Using the coastal flood module of the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment modelling framework, we extensively explore the impact of scenario, data and model uncertainties in a global manner, i.e., by considering a large number (>2000) of simulation results. The influence of the uncertainties on the two risk metrics of expected annual damage (EAD), and adaptation costs (AC) related to coastal protection is assessed at global scale by combining variance-based sensitivity indices with a regression-based machine learning technique. On this basis, we show that the research priorities in terms of future data/knowledge acquisition to reduce uncertainty on EAD and AC differ depending on the considered time horizon. In the short term (before 2040), EAD uncertainty could be significantly decreased by 25 and 75% if the uncertainty of the translation of physical damage into costs and of the modelling of extreme sea levels could respectively be reduced. For AC, it is RSLR that primarily drives short-term uncertainty (with a contribution ~50%). In the longer term (>2050), uncertainty in EAD could be largely reduced by 75% if the SSP scenario could be unambiguously identified. For AC, it is the RCP selection that helps reducing uncertainty (up to 90% by the end of the century). Altogether, the uncertainty in future human activities (SSP and RCP) are the dominant source of the uncertainty in future coastal flood risk.


The objectives of this study were to measure the incidence and types of medication prescribing errors (MPEs) in Iraqi hospitals, to calculate for the first time the percentage of physician agreement with pharmacist medication regimen review (MRR) recommendations regarding MPEs, and to identify the factors influencing the physician agreement rate with these recommendations. Methods: Fourteen pharmacists (10 females and 4 males) reviewed each hand-written physician order for 1506 patients who were admitted to two public hospitals in Al-Najaf, Iraq during August 2015. The pharmacists identified medication prescribing errors using the Medscape WebMD, LCC phone application as a reference. The pharmacists contacted the physicians (2 females and 34 males) in-person to address MPEs that were identified. Results: The pharmacists identified 78 physician orders containing 99 MPEs with an incidence of 6.57 percent of all the physician orders reviewed. The patients with MPEs were taking 4.8 medications on average. The MPEs included drug-drug interactions (65.7%), incorrect doses (16.2%), unnecessary medications (8.1%), contra-indications (7.1%), incorrect drug duration (2%), and untreated conditions (1%). The physicians implemented 37 (37.4%) pharmacist recommendations. Three factors were significantly related to physician acceptance of pharmacist recommendations. These were physician specialty, pharmacist gender, and patient gender. Pediatricians were less likely (OR= 0.1) to accept pharmacist recommendations compared to internal medicine physicians. Male pharmacists received more positive responses from physicians (OR=7.11) than female pharmacists. Lastly, the recommendations were significantly more likely to be accepted (OR= 3.72) when the patients were females. Conclusions: The incidence of MPEs is higher in Iraqi hospitalized patients than in the U.S. and U.K, but lower than in Brazil, Ethiopia, India, and Croatia. Drug-drug interactions were the most common type of MPEs in hospitals. Physician specialty and pharmacist gender and patient gender significantly influenced physician agreement with the pharmacist comments. Only one-third of the pharmacist recommendations were implemented. Phone drug applications would be helpful for daily hospital pharmacy practice. More pharmacist-physician collaboration is needed to address MPEs. Pharmacist-led MRR can identify and address MPEs to improve patient safety.

Type: Original Research


Aims: To analyze the relationship between exposure to chlorinated and aromatic organic solvents and malignant lymphoma in a multi-centre, population-based case-control study. Methods: Male and female patients with malignant lymphoma (n = 710) between 18 and 80 years of age were prospectively recruited in six study regions in Germany (Ludwigshafen/Upper Palatinate, Heidelberg/Rhine-Neckar-County, Würzburg/Lower Frankonia, Hamburg, Bielefeld/Gütersloh, and Munich). For each newly recruited lymphoma case, a gender, region and age-matched (± 1 year of birth) population control was drawn from the population registers. In a structured personal interview, we elicited a complete occupational history, including every occupational period that lasted at least one year. On the basis of job task-specific supplementary questionnaires, a trained occupational physician assessed the exposure to chlorinated hydrocarbons (trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, dichloromethane, carbon tetrachloride) and aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using conditional logistic regression analysis, adjusted for smoking (in pack years) and alcohol consumption. To increase the statistical power, patients with specific lymphoma subentities were additionally compared with the entire control group using unconditional logistic regression analysis. Results: We observed a statistically significant association between high exposure to chlorinated hydrocarbons and malignant lymphoma (Odds ratio = 2.1; 95% confidence interval 1.1–4.3). In the analysis of lymphoma subentities, a pronounced risk elevation was found for follicular lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma. When specific substances were considered, the association between trichloroethylene and malignant lymphoma was of borderline statistical significance. Aromatic hydrocarbons were not significantly associated with the lymphoma diagnosis. Conclusion: In accordance with the literature, this data point to a potential etiologic role of chlorinated hydrocarbons (particularly trichloroethylene) and malignant lymphoma. Chlorinated hydrocarbons might affect specific lymphoma subentities differentially. Our study does not support a strong association between aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, xylene, or styrene) and the diagnosis of a malignant lymphoma. which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


The films of Woody Allen often indulge in flights of the temporal imagination. This regularly takes the form of a central character's self-reflexive, critical examination of past experiences laced with a tone of nostalgic reminiscence. In Annie Hall (1977) Alvy Singer's "overactive imagination" presents an exaggerated childhood set under the Coney Island rollercoaster and populated by movie star lookalikes, demonic teachers and idiosyncratic family members. We get to accompany Alvy and Annie as they figuratively stroll through her encounters with her past boyfriends and turning points in their relationship. Such moments are also often tied aesthetically to an idealised vision of New York, a city that, for Allen, seems to represent an eternal anchoring point for both his emotional and cinematic identity. These romanticised incursions into the past cannot be defined as time-travelling in a technical sense, but are a rhetorical device that facilitates existential musings into memory which, in turn, psychologically contextualise actions or feelings taking place in the present. In not conforming to a realist logic of time and space this allows a playful and often contradictory exploration of the fundamental subjectivity of reminiscences - highlighting that in film, as in life, the past is a construction of unreliable fragments. In this chapter, however, I want to focus on two of Allen's films in which the protagonists are represented as going through a physical journey of time travel. Sleeper employs a generic time-travel device: Allen is frozen in cryostasis and awoken in the future, facilitating a parody of the science-fiction through formal homage to the silent slapstick of Buster Keaton. In Midnight in Paris time-travelling is a rather more fantastically whimsical affair: while drunkenly flâneuring round the nocturnal streets of Paris, Allen's screen surrogate, Owen Wilson, is magically transported back to the 1920s where he encounters the greats of modernist art and literature. Both films, one through form and the other through content, paradoxically offer, on the one hand, a critique of naive romanticism and the artistic mindset that tends towards nostalgic idealisation. Yet, on the other, they deploy and even amplify his familiar tendency for the loving recreation of time, place and mood, which thus feed emotional needs of the characters. Using the postmodernist line of Jameson and Hutcheon, who explore the contradictory dynamics of parody in the installing and undermining of artistic originality, this chapter explores Allen's time-travelling double-play of critical examination and nostalgic longing. I will analyse the dialectics created by the time-travel scenarios in Sleeper and Midnight in Paris, discussing how they operate through a dialogue with past art and cinematic forms, which is simultaneously questioning and reverential. Through this context I will interrogate the ideological confrontation between nostalgia and parody though Allen's use of time-travel as a cinematic mechanism, and, in turn, argue that his representations of existential anxieties reflect the human condition in its fragile relationship to past, present and future.


Research librarians no longer need to perform as many of the traditional chores of the research library. This is due to many factors like digitalization, changing research policies and changes in researchers' behaviour. With these changes also comes a demand for new skills. We seek an answer to how this demand can be met. We argue that changes that have taken place in the research library have also led to a loss of prestige for the research librarians. We use Bourdieu's field theory to analyse the power struggles in the academic field and in the field of the research library and to identify means of reclaiming the previous prestigious position in both fields.  We end up creating a 60 ECTS framework for a flexible part-time master's program for research librarians. The first cohort of students has already been enrolled and they evaluate the program in very positive terms.


Conversion disorder remains a mystery that has only become more complicated with the decline of the scientific status of psychoanalysis (e.g., Piper, Lillevik, & Kritzer, 2008; Rofe, 2008) and recent neurological findings suggest that this behavior is controlled by biological mechanisms (van Beilen, Vogt, & Leenders, 2010). Moreover, existing theories have difficulty explaining the efficacy of various interventions, such as psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, drug therapy and religious therapy. This article reviews research and clinical evidence pertaining to both the development and treatment of conversion disorder and shows that this seemingly incompatible evidence can be integrated within a new theory, the Rational-Choice Theory of Neurosis (RCTN; Rofe, 2010). Despite the striking differences, RCTN continues Freud's framework of thinking as it employs a new concept of repression and replaces the unconscious with self-deception. Moreover, it incorporates Freud's idea, implicitly expressed in his theory, that neurotic disorders are, in fact, rational behaviors.


I very much enjoyed reading and thinking about Krister Bykvist's interesting and carefully written paper. My comments will not be criticisms. I will not challenge the conclusions the paper draws about the complicated examples of conflicts between preferences that it discusses. For example, I will not attempt to defend any of the views criticized in section IV of the paper. And I agree with the positive solution presented in section V, when that solution is characterized in the broadest possible way. In cases where a choice that I must make now will create one or the other of two possible future 'selves' whose preferences would conflict over the question of which choice I should make, prudence tells me to create the self that will experience a higher level of well-being or welfare.


The western house mouse Mus musculus domesticus is a human commensal, and as such, its phylogeography relates to historical human settlement patterns and movements. We investigate the phylogeography of house mice in northern France and the British Isles (particularly Ireland and the Scottish islands) using microsatellite data and mitochondrial (mt) control region sequences from modern and museum material, placing these in a Europe-wide context. The majority of mtDNA sequences from northern France belong to a clade widespread across the British mainland and Germany, supporting an earlier suggestion that this clade distribution represents colonization by house mice in the Iron Age. The presence of the clade in south-western Ireland indicates possible Iron Age colonization there as well. However, the majority of the Irish sequences belong to a clade elsewhere associated with Norwegian Viking activity, and likely represent the main wave of house mouse colonization of Ireland, arriving from the Scottish islands during the Viking period and linked to urbanization. The St Kilda sequences (from 100-year-old museum samples of the extinct form 'Mus muralis' of Barrett-Hamilton) and sequences from South Uist and Lewis also belong to this clade. The clustering of populations shown by the microsatellite data is distinctly different from the mtDNA phylogeny, with populations grouping by geographic proximity, possibly reflecting the genetic effects of secondary colonization. When the mtDNA sequence data are placed in a Europe-wide context, it is clear that the distributions of the two prevalent clades from the vicinity of the British Isles are essentially limited to north-western Europe. These two clades show no evidence of expansion through central Europe, and may therefore reflect maritime colonization.


This paper gives a basic overview of the various attempts at modelling stochastic processes for stock markets with a specific application to the Portuguese stock market data. Long-memory dependence in the stock prices would completely alter the data generation process and econometric models not considering the long-range dependence would exhibit poor forecasting abilities. The Hurst exponent is used to identify the presence of long-memory or fractal behaviour of the data generation process for the daily returns to ascertain if the process follows a fractional brownian motion. Detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) using linear and quadratic trends and the Geweke Porter-Hudak methods are applied to detect the presence of long-memory or persistence. We find that the daily returns exhibit a small amount of long memory and that the quadratic trend used in the DFA overestimates the value of the Hurst exponent. These findings are corroborated by the use of the Geweke Porter-Hudak method wherein the Hurst exponent is close to the DFA using the linear trend.


Abstract:Earlier historical studies often suggested that the Soviet leader Iosif Stalin, distrustful as he was of Ho Chi Minh's policies and attributing little importance to Vietnam, remained unwilling to recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam until the Chinese Communist leaders threw their weight behind their Vietnamese comrades. On the basis of Soviet press articles, Hungarian archival documents, United Nations (UN) records, and other sources, this article shows that in fact Soviet interest in Vietnam significantly increased as early as 1948–1949, well before the proclamation of the People's Republic of China. This interest, expressed in growing press coverage and sporadic efforts to represent North Vietnam's cause in various UN organs, seems to have been linked to Moscow's strong disapproval of France's attempts to create an anti-Communist "puppet state." From the outset, the USSR took the position that the Communist North was the sole legitimate representative of the Vietnamese nation and, hence, that the Bao Dai regime in the South was ipso facto illegitimate. The article concludes that Chinese support to Ho Chi Minh was only one of the three major factors that persuaded Stalin to recognize North Vietnam; the two others were the "Bao Dai factor" and Moscow's dissatisfaction with France's new European policy.


The hotel sector of the travel industry is the leader according to the indicator of economic growth, which is observed in both developed and developing countries. Even under the economic instability and global natural disasters, the industry has seen growth in recent years. The franchising model for expanding activities is central to all successful hotel chains. The article deals with the franchising model for the travel business expansion and the economic performance of hotel chains such as Marriott International, Wyndham Hotels, and Hilton. They hold a prominent place in the global hotel business, have a steady tendency to expand their business, hold high positions in the ranking of the best franchises in the world and have been recognized by experts. The main risks for the franchisor and franchisee are determined when making a decision on the expansion of the international travel business, which must be taken into account when developing new markets for hotel chains. The main advantages of the franchising model of expansion, which promote understanding between the parties of the franchise agreement, dynamicize hotel chains expansion and allow for reducing their expenses and increasing incomes. It was found that the growth of net profit and total income in the indicated hotel chains was due to the increase in the number of rooms in franchising and the positive dynamics of franchise income. A more dynamic pace occurred after the crisis growth in revenues from the franchisee compared with the managerial model. A closer relationship between revenues and key financial indicators has been proved when using a franchising model.


People of Black African heritage in the UK have increased susceptibility of being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) compared to the general White population. Nutrition is central in halting T2DM and the progression of complications such as cardiovascular diseases. However, little is known about the factors influencing the diet of women of Black African heritage with T2DM. In addition, clinical and public health conceptions of the problem tend to be individualistic in orientation.

This study is an exploratory and in-depth inquiry into food choice and the implications of dietary change for women of Black African heritage who self-manage T2DM by diet alone. Eight participants were recruited using purposive sampling.
Recruitment sites included Black and Minority Ethnic charities in Norfolk and Suffolk. Data was derived from direct observation using the 'Accompanied Shopping Task',
combined with a 'Think Aloud Technique' called a 'Product Choice Reasoning Task'. In-depth interviews were undertaken and transcribed verbatim. Framework Analysis
was used to provide a procedure to manage data analysis, which was informed by the PEN-3 public health cultural model which moves beyond overly individualistic
conceptions of the issues.

The study showed that six participants prioritised the disease and used what I have called a 'Disease Focused Approach' to self-manage T2DM. Two used a 'Family
Focused Approach', as family played a crucial role in T2DM self-management. All participants undertook T2DM self-care by following a culturally appropriate diet. Their least preferred options for managing T2DM were medical therapy and physical activity. The study showed that although food choice is influenced by many factors, culture was particularly important. Moreover, participants showed greater knowledge
than had been anticipated about the role of nutrition to prevent progression of T2DM. Results are explored and presented for three main domains of experience for the
participants: first, food shopping and decision-making; second, diet choice and lifestyle; and third, the interface with health services. For each of these the culture was found to be of paramount importance.

The implications of the findings are presented in relation to the importance of culturally appropriate advice; culturally sensitive service provision; and the significance of household composition in managing the illness, especially for people with T2DM who have young children living at home.


use of certain drugs during pregnancy can result in transient neonatal signs consistent with withdrawal or acute toxicity or cause sustained signs consistent with a lasting drug effect. In addition, hos- pitalized infants who are treated with opioids or benzodiazepines to provide analgesia or sedation may be at risk for manifesting signs of withdrawal. This statement updates information about the clinical presentation of infants exposed to intrauterine drugs and the thera- peutic options for treatment of withdrawal and is expanded to include evidence-based approaches to the management of the hospitalized in- fant who requires weaning from analgesics or sedatives. Pediatrics


The toxicity of metronidazole (MTZ) in meristematic and elongation zones of Allium cepa roots was analyzed for 30 h of exposition. Toxic effects were evaluated by lipid peroxidation (content of thiobarbituric‐reactive substances [TBARS]), reduced glutathione (GSH) levels, ascorbate acid and dehydroascorbate acid content, and enzymatic activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase. The root zones showed differentiated susceptibility to MTZ. In the elongation zone, MTZ induced an increase of TBARS content and a significant rise in GSH levels, whereas in the meristematic zone, lipid peroxidation was not observed and all antioxidant defense parameters analyzed were significantly increased. These results indicate that MTZ exposure induced oxidative stress in A. cepa roots, and that the antioxidant defenses in the meristematic zone are more efficient compared with the elongation zone, which is probably related to higher oxidative metabolism of meristematic tissue. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012; 31: 968–972. © 2012 SETAC


Observation of speech spectrum leads to the fact that speech has a specific spectral fluctuation pattern both along time and frequency. In this paper, we integrate the usage of this nature in a multi-feature approach for voice activity detection. The effect of separating such specific spectral fluctuation using multi-stage HPSS (Harmonic-Percussive Sound Separation) has been analyzed over conventional features in voice activity detection, reducing frame-wise detection error by up to 78%, depending on the SNR conditions and noise type. The multi-feature approach has been tested using Hidden Markov Models to model the features stream as a sequence, which has out-performed standard and similar VAD proposals in utterance-based tests intended for automatic speech recognition.


A perturbation theory approach for the analysis of hybrid plasmonic- photonic crystal structures is presented. This theory allows for accurate calculation of the resonance frequency shift and quality factor change when introducing a resonant plasmonic structure into a photonic crystal microcavity. An example calculation is shown, agreeing to within 5% with comprehensive finite difference time domain simulations but taking an order of magnitude less time. This theoretical approach overcomes the challenge of poor scaling in computations with hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystal structures, allowing for rapid design optimization in such hybrid geometries.


We aimed to estimate the impact of a Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) scheme on utilization of healthcare from medically trained providers (MTP) by informal workers. A quasi-experimental study was conducted where insured households were included in the intervention group and uninsured households in comparison group. In total 1,292 (646 insured and 646 uninsured) households were surveyed from Chandpur district comprising urban and rural areas after 1 year period of CBHI introduction. Matching of the characteristics of insured and uninsured groups was performed using a propensity score matching approach to minimize the observed baseline differences among the groups. Multilevel logistic regression model, with adjustment for individual and household characteristics was used for estimating association between healthcare utilization from the MTP and insurance enrolment. The utilization of healthcare from MTP was significantly higher in the insured group (50.7%) compared to the uninsured group (39.4%). The regression analysis demonstrated that the CBHI beneficiaries were 2.111 (95% CI: 1.458–3.079) times more likely to utilize healthcare from MTP.CBHI scheme increases the utilization of MTP among informal workers. Ensuring such healthcare for these workers and their dependents is a challenge in many low and middle income countries. The implementation and scale-up of CBHI schemes have the potential to address this challenge of universal health coverage.


This report is a record of the results of the research project "Promoting community learning to develop OTOP product to the five-star level: a case study of Bang Jaocha woven bamboo products groups in Pothong District, Ang Thong Province." It is concerned with the development of products for the "One Tambol, One Product" or OTOP policy; a policy that was designed to promote the grassroots economy and local development. Under OTOP, people in communities were encouraged to participate in the development, production and sale of new products using their own local raw materials, intellect and resources. It is a way to promote self sufficiency by developing the grassroots economy. To evaluate OTOP products and promote high standards, government agencies set up system of judging products on a tambol, district and provincial level and awarded them a rating of one to five stars. However, in practice it seems that the development of five-star level OTOP products was mainly driven by the government sector. Government agencies sent officials to advise and/or train people in the communities so that they could produce high-quality products, but the people did not fully participate in the complete product development process. There was a lack of mechanisms to promote efficient public participation in the process. The purpose of this research project was to build up a community learning process for five-star OTOP product development that is truly participatory and sustainable, based on a pilot project with five woven bamboo products groups in Bang Jaocha Tambol, Pothong District, Ang Thong Province.


An application of a methodology for discovering strong probabilistic rules in data is presented. The methodology is based on an extended model of rough sets called variable precision rough sets model incorporated in DATALOGIC/R knowledge discovery tool from Reduct Systems Inc. It has been applied to analyze monthly stock market data collected over a ten year period. The objective of the analysis was to identify dominant relationships among fluctuations of market indicators and stock prices. For the purpose of comparison, both precise and imprecise, strong and weak rules were discovered and evaluated by a domain expert, a stock broker. The evaluation revealed that the strong rules (supported by many cases) essentially confirm the expert's experiences whereas weak rules are often difficult to interpret. This suggests the use of rule strength as the primary criteria for the selection of potentially useful predictive rules.


This book explores a little-known but fascinating chapter in the history of the north-west frontier of British India - between the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 and the early 1880s. It focuses on relations between the British and the highly independent Pashtun tribal groups living in the mountains of Waziristan. Permanent occupation was thought to be impractical, and instead the British tried various indirect ways of controlling the tribes. These ranged from hostage-taking, blockade and military expeditions, to enlisting them in local militias and giving them land in British territory. By the 1870s this policy seemed to be working. However tensions caused by the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80) upset the status quo and created millenarian expectations about the end of British rule. The result was a serious tribal incursion into British territory which led to British authority briefly collapsing along this border. Developments towards the end of the century (when considerations of imperial defence increasingly influenced British policy towards the tribes) and those in the early 20th century are also reviewed. The last part of the book looks at the conclusions to be drawn from the preceding narrative. Firstly the major influences on British tribal policy and the British strategies of tribal management are discussed. This is followed by an examination of the British understandings of tribal social and political organisation that underpinned these, and the significance of the cultural and religious aspects of the encounter.


This work examines the cross-border cooperation among the Nordic countries and with Russia by analysing the Interreg IIIA North and Interreg IIIA Oresund programmes. The focus is centered on the conditions that the well functioning cross-border cooperation necessitates, and challenges and barriers that it faces. Also, the actions to tackle the challenges, as well as the utilization of earlier experiences, are examined and analysed by using interviews and survey as research methods. This work shows that the differences in legislation and in administrative systems, together with finance and attitudes, are the major barriers for the cooperation. Accordingly, well working cross-border cooperation requires tolerance towards the differences, genuine view on cooperation, as well as shared understanding of the need and purpose of the cooperation. In addition, the careful strategy and project planning is of vital importance. It is argued that some of the barriers can be alleviated and overcome on project and programme levels, whereas other barriers can only be solved on national and transnational levels. However, the barriers and need for actions vary a great deal depending on the partners, projects, and larger circumstances. Finally, it is suggested that by continuing the long-term cooperation and by utilizing the earlier experiences, some of the barriers and biased attitudes can be overcome.


This paper uses the theories of price discrimination and optimal taxation to investigate effects of underwater mortgages on foreclosures and the incentives to earn income, and the degree to which those effects are shaped by public policy. I find that the federal government's means-tested mortgage modification plan creates a massive implicit tax that may be significant even from a macroeconomic perspective. An alternative of modifying mortgages to maximize lender collections would also feature means tests, but with less effort distortion and perhaps fewer foreclosures. The paper also considers the consequences of a public policy that left mortgage modification to lenders, subject to a requirement that modification would not be conditioned on borrower income.


This thesis focuses upon the cacicazgo of Gabriel Barrios Cabrera, in the Sierra
Norte de Puebla, Mexico during the 1920s. It seeks to analysis the extent to
which previously identified trends in post-revolutionary regional politics can be
applied to this isolated mountainous region.
Conclusions are based upon evidence obtained from national, state, municipal,
and private archives in Mexico. In addition, a programme of oral history was
conducted within the Sierra de Puebla.
The study is divided into six main components, each representing a significant
aspect of Barrios' cacicazgo. These comprise: local historical precedents of
Indian leadership and co-operation with non-Indian politicians; the range of
responsibilities and opportunities that Barrios enjoyed in his pivotal role as a
federal military officer under Carrancista and Sonorense administrations; the
nature of his grass-roots support, his use of cuerpos voluntarios and patronage
of municipal officials; Barrios' political affiliations beyond the Sierra and his
struggle for political supremacy within the Sierra; the nature and motives of the
cacique's regional development initiatives, and an analysis of the contradiction
of his apparent pro-campesino, yet anti-agrarian, stance; a case study of the
district of Zacapoaxtla, which demonstrates the importance of local factionalism
and portrays the practical application of the Barrios cacicazgo at the most local
level.
After identifying the causes of Barrios' fall from grace in 1930, the thesis
concludes by arguing that caciquismo in the Sierra de Puebla was essentially
different from models of regional power-broking found elsewhere in postrevolutionary
Mexico. While similarities existed, Barrios' style of leadership
displayed more of a consistency with local conditions and precedents than any
broader ideological tendencies. Continued research at the local level is essential
if we are to obtain a clearer understanding of the diversity of experiences
endured by Mexicans in the aftermath of revolution.


We consider the problem of extracting blindly data embedded over a wide band in a spectrum (transform) domain of a digital medium (image, audio, video). We develop a novel multi-carrier/signature iterative generalized least-squares (M-IGLS) core procedure to seek unknown data hidden in hosts via multi-carrier spreadspectrum embedding. Neither the original host nor the embedding carriers are assumed available. Experimental studies on images show that the developed algorithm can achieve recovery probability of error close to what may be attained with known embedding carriers and host autocorrelation matrix.


This thesis is centred on the study of opto-electronic devices and their characteristics to give a right understanding on the injection and transport mechanisms of charge carriers. Temperature dependence and high field limits are analyzed and the failure mechanisms during the glass transition phenomena in simple OLED structure are investigated by using variable temperature and AC impedance measurements. By these data, for the archetypal OLED structure ITO/TPD/Alq3/Al discussed in this thesis, temperatures around 328-329 K appear as a separation point between two different working regimes. Moreover, different possible approaches in the improvement of the photons extraction are analyzed to pick up the device performances. A modelling of the output coupling and some methods, like adopting microlenses or light scattering layers, to increase the external efficiency are discussed. Several kind of polystyrene-ZnO nanocomposites have been characterized to study the optical parameters of this mixture to be used as scattering film in lighting application. The optical parameters have been investigated and the anisotropy factor evaluated. We have found that increasing the thickness or the percentage in weight of ZnO nanoparticles there is an improvement of device efficiency. In particular, with a thickness of around 12μm is possible to reach 1.7 times the initial OLED efficiency value.


Delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) appears in mice immunized with less than an optimal immunogenic dose of sheep red blood cells (SRBC), but is blocked progressively as antibody production increases in response to larger doses of SRBC. Treatment with cyclophosphamide (CY) was shown to release T cells from this inhibitory influence of the humoral response, and cause enhancement of DTH. The magnitude of this enhancing effect on T-cell activity was markedly dependent on the time of treatment relative to the time of immunization, and on the time chosen for measuring DTH. The reasons for these pronounced effects of timing are threefold: (a) CY given before antigenic stimulation has a long-lasting effect on antibody formation, but no apparent effect on the precursors of activated T cells. (b) After antigenic stimulation, T cells also become susceptible to CY. (c) The production of a nonspecific participant (monocyte) in the DTH reaction is also suppressed by CY, though the supply of circulating monocytes is not immediately affected by the drug. The differential effect of CY on T and B lymphocytes depends on the differing physiological states of the majority of cells that make up these two populations. The former are resting cells that are insensitive to CY until exposed to specific antigen, while the latter are drawn from a rapidly replicating precursor pool and are susceptible to CY at all times.


Large-scale cancer genomics projects are providing a wealth of somatic mutation data from a large number of cancer patients. However, it is difficult to obtain several samples with a temporal order from one patient in evaluating the cancer progression. Therefore, one of the most challenging problems arising from the data is to infer the temporal order of mutations across many patients. To solve the problem efficiently, we present a Network-based method (NetInf) to Infer cancer progression at the pathway level from cross-sectional data across many patients, leveraging on the exclusive property of driver mutations within a pathway and the property of linear progression between pathways. To assess the robustness of NetInf, we apply it on simulated data with the addition of different levels of noise. To verify the performance of NetInf, we apply it to analyze somatic mutation data from three real cancer studies with large number of samples. Experimental results reveal that the pathways detected by NetInf show significant enrichment. Our method reduces computational complexity by constructing gene networks without assigning the number of pathways, which also provides new insights on the temporal order of somatic mutations at the pathway level rather than at the gene level.


In order to accurately model the subsurface of a new salt cavern gas storage facility at the Jemgum site in the Lower Saxony Basin (NW Germany), modern 3D pre-stack depth-migrated seismic data were utilized during an early planning stage. Gas storage projects are often regarded purely as engineering projects. However, the involvement of geoscientists provided an opportunity to further add operational value to the project by applying state-of-the-art geological modelling techniques. As part of the site characterization, a new generic workflow was developed to facilitate a more time-efficient creation of a static, multi-z-valued salt interface, essential for modelling of any complex salt structure. Uncertainties related to the reconstruction of salt interface meshes were analysed accordingly and used to quantitatively determine spatial uncertainties of the final static depth model. Furthermore, seismic-attribute images were created which enabled the detection of a mid-Miocene fluvial system evident at shallow depths of just 100–300 m below mean sea level. The study demonstrates that seismic data, targeting Rotliegend gas sands at depths of more than 4000 m, can be very beneficial to better understand the near-surface hydrogeological processes for gas storage.


The problems of inspecting urban design proposals are different to that of architecture. The larger context is a crucial aspect in urban design. Generally the issues are not of detailed design but rather understanding space and spatial features. Discussions about proposals use plans and large urban design models. The models are cumbersome and access difficult for collaborative consultation. This paper introduces a prototype for an Augmented Reality system for analyzing and representational design in an urban design scale. The system is designed as a workbench for collaboratively and dynamically exploring in an urban design model.


We present a CMOS image sensor with deep-subwavelength, digital 1-T pixels designed for use in a digital film concept known as Gigavision (GV) camera. In GV, the levels of gray in the picture are derived from the concentration of activated pixels. Activated pixels are pixels hit by one or more photons. The advantage of this approach is a predictable, highly uniform logarithmic response, thus enabling high dynamic range images. Applications include automotive and environmental monitoring, HDR vision, etc.


Radiation Cross-linking is a process, at which the control change of polymers carried out of the purpose to reach the new polymeric materials with modified properties occurs. The submitted study deals with the influence of radiation doses on micro-creep properties of filled on non-filled polyamide 6.6. Micro-indentation creep of modified polyamide were measured using modern machinery DSI method (Depth Sensing Indentation) and were compared to the basic (nonirradiated) material. From the results it is evident, that the technology of radiation cross-linking has a positive influence on micro-creep properties of tested polyamide when the improvement of micro-creep properties was in the order of ten percent against the basic (non-irradiated) material. The influence of radiation cross-linking on micro-creep properties was confirmed by the measurement of the created crosslinked part (gel content) at individual tested radiation dose.


Reading Between the Lines: Black Folklore and Literature in the Understanding of 18th Century Life in the African Diaspora; A Book Review EssayWilliam L. Andrews, To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760 - 1865 Urbana and Chicago (IL): University of Illinois Press, 1986. Pp. 111 + 353.William D. Piersen, Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England Amherst (MA): University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. Pp. iv + 223.Keith A. Sandiford, Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth Century Afro-English Writing Selinsgrove (PA): Susquehanna University Press, 1988. Pp. 181.In his introduction to Black Yankees, William D. Piersen writes, "For too long the black men and women of history have been encased in the passive voice of what was done to them, while their own vision of their lives remained hidden." (p. x) In this he is right, but in a year when many departments of African American Studies are celebrating their 20th anniversary it may be appropriate to observe that for too long Afro-Americans were said not to have a history at all. A quarter of a century ago many historians seriously argued there could be no history of black peoples, because blacks had left no written records, no primary sources on which scholars might draw in their attempts to understand the black past. Some conceded it might be possible for anthropologists, sociologists and other social scientists to study Africans and those in the African diaspora as their techniques were different from the historian. The new social history, insofar as it relied on the theoretical assumptions and methodological strategies of the social sciences might, some historians grudgingly admitted, provide some insight into African and Afro-American history, but as black peoples were too ignorant or too oppressed to set down their ideas on paper, their past would forever remain unknown and unknowable.But with the study of blacks legitimated by black studies departments at America's major universities, and with the long standing work of the historically black colleges finally winning the attention it deserved, historians discovered blacks had written a great deal indeed. As an embarrassment of riches surfaced for those interested in black nineteenth and twentieth century history some historians retreated back on the further side of 1800 insisting that this era of the black past could not be known, or if so could be known only through the eyes of white folk. Written materials by blacks were rare they insisted, unprepared for the contributions soon to be made by archaeologists, folklorists, and literary scholars to our understanding of black peoples in the 1700s. The eighteenth century, many historians now agree, was a crucial one in the history of blacks in diaspora. Europeans entered the century thinking of themselves as Catholics, Spaniards, Englishmen, Protestants, and such, and while these categories of thought remained important at the beginning of the nineteenth century they had also come to think of themselves as white. Similarly, Africans who had regarded themselves as Ashanti, Ibo, Muslim, or such, came especially in the New World to think of themselves as black. To understand these transformations of consciousness over the course of the 1700s it is necessary to examine not just the ideas of whites but of those of blacks as well.The three works reviewed here provide considerable insight into the experience of Africa's scattered children in a crucial century. Their authors explore different problems, but their conclusions complement and reinforce one another. Each of these books clearly spells out its central concern, and delivers what it promises. None of the books is narrowly conceived, and while all are focused and disciplined, each author is mindful of the larger context in which his work is situated and able to construct meaningful linkages between his research and other studies of the eighteenth century. …


The avian clade Trogonidae (trogons) consists of approximately 40 species distributed pantropically in the Neotropical, Afrotropical and Indomalayan zoogeographical regions.In this study, we evaluate the basal phylogenetic relationships within the trogons based on DNA sequences from three nuclear introns [myoglobin intron 2, b-fibrinogen intron 7 and glyceraldehydes-3-phosphodehydrogenase (G3PDH) intron 11]. In addition, previously published cytochrome b and 12S sequences were re-analysed and combined with the nuclear data set. The analysis of the three nuclear genes combined suggests a sister group relationship between the Afrotropical (Apaloderma) and Indomalayan (Harpactes) clades, whereas the Neotropical taxa (Trogon, Pharomachrus, and Priotelus) form an unresolved polytomy basal to these two groups. In addition, two of the three individual gene trees also support a sister group relationship between the Afrotropical and Indomalayan trogons. This is at odds with previously published studies based on mitochondrial sequence data and DNA–DNA hybridization. The third nuclear intron (G3PDH), however, suggests that the Afrotropical trogons are basal relative the other trogons. This was also suggested by the mitochondrial data set, as well as the analysis of the combined nuclear and mitochondrial data. Both of these conflicting hypotheses are supported by high posterior probabilities. An insertion in b-fibrinogen further supports a basal position of the Afrotropical clade. Analyses of the myoglobin intron with additional outgroups place the root differently and strongly support monophyly of each of the zoogeographical regions (including the Neotropics), and these three clades form a basal trichotomy. This suggests that that rooting is a serious problem in resolving basal phylogenetic relationships among the trogons.


An experimental investigation of the electric field in the bulk of a Bi12SiO20 crystal is carried out, and a two-region model is developed that can account for the buildup of screening charges near the electrodes. In light of our results, a simple method is proposed for the determination of the effective electro-optic coefficients based on applying a sufficiently high-frequency square-wave voltage to prevent screening charge buildup. A demonstration of this method for Bi12SiO20 leads to a value of 4.4 pm/V for the stress-free (unclamped) coefficient, and a subsequent consideration of piezoelastic contributions allows the strain-free (clamped) coefficient to be estimated at 3.7 pm/V.


This article describes the development of a social marketing intervention, called "the vegetable box," aimed at increasing the number of days per week that toddlers in the city of Rotterdam (the Netherlands) eat vegetables. The vegetable box tempts parents to offer vegetables as snacks and provides parents valuable insights on how to tempt their toddlers to give vegetables a try. This article presents the development of the vegetable box through a process of scoping, developing, implementing, evaluating, and follow-up. The vegetable box was evaluated by studying the effect, program, and process. The effect was evaluated by an experimental study with a pre- and posttest design and control group. Main results showed an increase in the number of days per week on which parents served vegetables and children ate them; surprisingly, though, the same result was found in the control condition. This was the first time that the present project team embarked on a social marketing journey. The article concludes with a description of the lessons learned.


There are many wonderful museums in Jerusalem, but one of my favourites is the Bible Lands Museum. Its collection includes historical artefacts from all around the "fertile crescent"—the great swathe of land from Persia to Egypt that was the source of many ancient civilisations, and gave birth to some of the world's great religions. Currently there are two special exhibitions there. One is centred on ancient musical instruments and is a multi-media event, helping to bring back to life the tunes and harmonies from thousands of years ago. The other is an exhibition showing the different faces of monotheism. It includes some fascinating examples of how the three principal local religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have influenced each other and shared many of their core symbols and modes of representation.

There are dozens of objects in both these exhibitions that deserve attention, but if you visit there and you are a doctor I suggest that you should head for the second and look at the display cabinet containing incantation bowls from the sixth and seventh centuries. Incantation bowls are small pottery bowls with painted writing on them, designed as charms to ward off diseases and other misfortunes. They were usually buried under the floors of houses to protect the owner and his or her household from harm attributable …


While both linguistic semantics and geographic information science have struggled to accurately and usefully define the meanings of natural language prepositions, there has been less dialogue between these disciplines than one might expect. In this paper we set out to describe the meaning of the English preposition at using well-established formal models of qualitative spatial relations within geographic information science (GIScience), ultimately proposing an account for its meaning which is novel for both discipline areas, and we relate this description to previous definitions of at from within linguistic semantics. The investigation in this paper illustrates that at cannot be handled using the mathematical formalizations of crisp spatial relations in GIScience. However, the model proposed in this paper based on contrast sets, Voronoi Diagrams and Galton & Hood's (2005) Anchoring theory, contributes to a better understanding of the meaning of at. The model also enables improved automatic interpretations of the preposition by partitioning space into contrast sets and representing at as indicating that a spatial entity is more closely related to a reference object than to any other in the set. We show how the model can be framed within a formal semantics account and how it can in principle be extended to account for spatial uses of other prepositions as well. The paper demonstrates potential areas of fruitful cross-fertilisation between GIScience and linguistic semantics.

EARLY ACCESS


We study the basic properties of tensor random fields (TRFs) of the wide-sense homogeneous and isotropic kind with generally anisotropic realizations. Working within the constraints of small strains, attention is given to antiplane elasticity, thermal conductivity, classical elasticity and micropolar elasticity, all in quasi-static settings albeit without making any specific statements about the Fourier and Hooke laws. The field equations (such as linear and angular momentum balances and strain–displacement relations) lead to consequences for the respective dependent fields involved. In effect, these consequences are restrictions on the admissible forms of the correlation functions describing the TRFs.


As small and medium enterprises develop their capacity to trade  electronically, they and their trading partners stand to gain considerable benefit from the resulting transaction efficiencies and business  relationships. However, this raises the question of how well small business manages its IT security and the threats that security lapses may pose to the wider trading network. It is in the interest of all members of an electronic trading network, as well as governments, to assist smaller companies to secure their business data. This paper considers the relationship between IT security management and IT policy implementation among small  businesses involved in business-to-business eCommerce. It reports the results of a survey of 240 Australian small and medium businesses  operating in a cross-industry environment. The survey found a low level of strategic integration of eCommerce along with inadequate IT security among the respondents, despite the fact that 81% were doing business online and 97% identified their business data as confidential. Businesses which implemented satisfactory levels of security technologies were more likely than others to have an information technology policy within the organisation. The paper proposes a model that outlines the development of security governance and policy implementation for small and medium businesses.


The present-day velocity field in the Northern Apennines has been estimated by the analysis of geodetic measurements, using the fairly dense network of 25 GPS permanent stations which started operating from 2001 to 2003. The first results of this investigation indicate a significantly higher mobility of the external part of the Northern Apennines Arc with respect to the internal zone (Western Tuscany). This kinematic pattern may account for the occurrence of major earthquakes in the axial zone of the belt and for the sinistral transtensional strain field inferred from earthquake focal mechanisms. The geodetic velocity field is also compatible with the Quaternary deformation pattern indicated by the distribution of neotectonic and volcanic activity in the Apennine belt and surrounding legions. A tentative estimate of the average Quaternary migration rate of extruding wedges in the Northern Apennines, inferred from the CROP-03 cross section, provides values (1-3 mm/y) compatible with geodetic velocities (0-3 mm/y). The results of numerical modelling indicate that the above velocities are much lower than those (some tens of mm/y) predicted as effects of post-seismic relaxation in Northern Apennines, induced by strong decoupling earthquakes in the Central Apennines, such as the one that occurred in 1915 in the Avezzano zone. This clearly indicates that the resolution of geodetic measurements in the study area is largely sufficient for recognizing the approach of new eventual transient effects, which might be interpreted as possible precursors of strong earthquakes in the study area.


This work is a descriptive analysis of the Kono sound system. Kono is a Sierra Leonean language belonging to the Mande family of languages.

The work is divided into two parts. The first
part consists of three chapters, and deals mainly with
non-tonal phonology. Chapter 1 discusses possible social
and historical factors that may have affected the development of the culture and the language of the Kono people, the classification and possible origin of Kono particularly, and the Mande languages generally, a brief survey of previous work on Yono, and the theoretical framework, upon which this work is based. This is followed in the next two chapters by a discussion of various sound segments with a view to establishing a phoneme inventory of the language. Problems of phonemic interpretation relating to the establishment of such an inventory are discussed. The vowel-consonant dichotomy is discussed in Chapter 2. So also are the problems relating to vowel length, dissimilar vowels in sequence, and vowel nasalisation. Chapter 3 deals with problems posed by the distribution of consonant segments, particularly those relating to palatalisation, labialisation, prenasalisation, and nasalisation.

Part Two deals with tone, and starts with a general
review of studies in tonal phonology in Chapter 4. Syllable
Structure is considered in Chapter 5, with particular consideration of how such a structure may be affected by its relationship with tone. The lexical and grammatical functions of tone form the basis of the discussion in Chapter 6. Finally in this part, there is in Chapter 7 an acoustic analysis of, fundamental frequency in relation to tone in Kono. This analysis was carried out with the object of Providing additional data to supplement our auditory analysis.


The book is concerned with the question of how the concept of "god" in urban Rome can be analyzed along the lines of six constituent concepts, i.e. space, time, personnel, function, iconography and ritual. While older publications tended to focus on the conceptual nature of Roman gods only in those (comparatively rare) instances in which different concepts patently overlapped (as in the case of the deified emperor or hero-worship), this book develops general criteria for an analysis of pagan, Jewish and Christian concepts of gods in ancient Rome (and by extension elsewhere). While the argument of the book is exclusively based on the evidence from the capital up to the age of Constantine, in the concluding section the results are compared to other religious belief systems, thus demonstrating the general applicability of this conceptual approach.


The usual narrative about Arabian Gulf countries has been one of unity and close relationships. The air and trade blockade on Qatar from its neighboring countries, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, as well as from Egypt, proves that the aspired unity is probably just a myth and that the political divide is worse than ever nearly two years into the blockade. Media, information, and new technology are at the core of the divide and have contributed to igniting the crisis. This Special Section, with the scholars' contributions, offers some perspectives to think about media and technology as foci in this political conflict. It launches a debate about the information war, and this introduction notes a possible vulnerability for members of the larger academic community in the region who take part in this debate.


Syntheses of practicable polymeric materials from the spectrum of natural renewable resource not only reduce the dependency on petrochemical but also help in environmental balance. Utilization of non-traditional and non-edible vegetable oils in polymer syntheses solves the waste disposal as well as maintains the equilibrium of demand and availability of raw materials. Jatropha curcas seed oil (JCSO) a renewable resource abundantly available utilized in synthesis of boron modified polyesteramide resin (JCBPEA). N,N-bis(2-hydroxy ethyl) Jatropha curcas fatty amide (HEJCA) was synthesize by aminolysis of JCSO with diethanolamine. HEJCA a diol condensed with phthalic acid to yield Jatropha curcas polyesteramide (JCPEA). To improve the performances and utility of JCPEA boron was incorporated in the polymer backbone to obtained Boron modified polyesteramide (JCBPEA). JCBPEA characterized by the measurement of physicochemical properties like specific gravity, refractive index, acid value, iodine value, soponification value. The structural elucidation of resin was carried out by spectral analyses.


Trace metals are essential for life in the oceans but are present in extremely low concentrations. The availability of trace elements in surface waters frequently regulates the growth of microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. As phytoplankton are responsible for taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide and exporting this to the deep ocean, trace elements are key components regulating the carbon cycle. New observations of the distribution of trace metals across all ocean basins from the GEOTRACES program have revealed a fascinating story of how the combination of trace metals interact with the ocean to regulate biological activity in new and surprising ways.


Modern chips may contain a large number of embedded test, debug, configuration, and monitoring features, called instruments. An instrument and its instrument data, instrument access procedures, may be pre-developed and reused and instruments may be accessed in different ways through the life-time of the chip, which requires retargeting. To address instruments reuse and retargeting, IEEE P1678 specifies a hardware architecture, a hardware description language, and an access procedure description language. In this paper, we investigate how P1687 facilitates instrument access procedure reuse and retargeting.


Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) are a large source of added sugar in Saudi diets and are commonly consumed among 75% of Saudis, especially young adults aged 18-30 years. The present study aimed to identify the health-risk behaviors associated with SSBs (e.g., soft, and energy drinks) consumption among university students. This association was examined separately for male and female students. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 414 students (195 males and 219 females) at King Faisal University (KFU) in Al-Hasa, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using a pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire. The prevalence of SSBs consumption was very high among students and varied between genders. Male students drank more SSBs than females, with soft drinks constituting the most common SSBs, followed by energy drinks. Greater soft drink consumption among male (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.67 to 2.82) and female (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.32 to 3.33) students was associated with more weekly fast food intake. Male students who consumed energy drinks were more likely to have fewer hours of sleep daily (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.61), female students skipped breakfast more weekdays than males (OR 1.67, 95% CI 1.07-2.61). Future studies need to provide longitudinal evidence regarding SSB consumption and health behaviors to determine the direction of this relationship. We also need to know more about the clustering of health-risk behaviors related to SSB intake by gender for health comparison.


The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been approached by various Episcopal Conferences or individual Bishops, by theologians, doctors and scientists, concerning biomedical techniques which make it possible to intervene in the initial phase of the life of a human being and in the very processes of procreation and their conformity with the principles of Catholic morality. The present Instruction, which is the result of wide consultation and in particular of a careful evaluation of the declarations made by Episcopates, does not intend to repeat all the Church's teaching on the dignity of human life as it originates and on procreation, but to offer, in the light of the previous teaching of the Magisterium, some specific replies to the main questions being asked in this regard. The exposition is arranged as follows: an introduction will recall the fundamental principles, of an anthropological and moral character, which are necessary for a proper evaluation of the problems and for working out replies to those questions; the first part will have as its subject respect for the human being from the first moment of his or her existence; the second part will deal with the moral questions raised by technical interventions on human procreation; the third part will offer some orientations on the relationships between moral law and civil law in terms of the respect due to human embryos and foetuses* and as regards the legitimacy of techniques of artificial procreation.


Stacked (two to three transgenic traits) corn (Zea mays L.) hybrids represented 40% of U.S. corn in 2008, despite limited agronomic studies. Field-scale studies were conducted on four farms in New York for 2 yr to evaluate the agronomics and economics of double-stacked {glyphosate resistance and Bt (Bacillus tburingiensis) European corn borer [Ostrinia nubilalis (Hubner)] trait} hybrids when following soybean [Glycine Max (L.) Merr.], as well as triple-stacked [additional Bt corn rootworm (Diabrotica spp.) trait] hybrids in continuous corn. Stacked hybrids vs. near-isolines had mostly lower weed densities, root damage ratings, and stalk lodging under generally low pest and lodging conditions in both rotations. Double-stacked hybrids vs. near-isolines yielded similarly when following soybean, but 5.7 and 3.6% higher at two sites where lodging exceeded 11%, and similarly at two sites where lodging averaged <3% in near-isolines in continuous corn. Triple and double-stacked hybrids yielded similarly. Grain moisture averaged 15 g kg -1 greater in stacked hybrids vs. near-isolines in both rotations, but similarly between double and triple-stacked hybrids in continuous corn. Partial returns had site x hybrid trait interactions in both rotations as increased yield revenue offset increased drying costs for double-stacked hybrids vs. near-isolines for three site-rotation comparisons, resulting in $45 to $89 ha -1 profit gain, but not for two-site rotation comparisons, resulting in $47 to $71 ha -1 profit loss. If stacked hybrids with the Bt corn borer trait have higher grain moisture, growers in northern latitudes should balance potential corn borer occurrence against increased drying costs.


Depoliticization presents itself to us both as a theoretical and a practical-political problem. The argument of the thesis aims to develop depoliticization as a philosophical concept which gains its impetus from and is tested against the politics of the European Union (EU). My approach to depoliticization (critique) is that ethics provides part of the solution, rather than simply being part of the problem. After a conceptual reflection, I analyze EU politics in terms of its modes of self-justification, the incontestable nature of some of its central institutions, and its one-sided reliance on negative integration through juridical means. In an attempt to develop the relationship between politics and ethics more constructively, I then develop an account of both direct and indirect relations.

A key aspect of my analysis is the distinction between localized and generalized depoliticization critique – only the latter extends to the ontological dimension, which is why the former falls short. This leads to an ambiguous patchwork of politicizing and depoliticizing effects, which is illustrated by the development of the ethical-political relationship between Rousseau and Schmitt. These are what I call direct relations between politics and ethics, in which ethics is directly 'brought' to politics.

I then consider indirect relations, in which a specific procedure is interposed: I consider Habermas' proposed reforms of EU politics, and interpret Rawls' political liberalism as a complementary account. In the end, direct relations between politics and ethics are found to be insufficient by themselves, and indirect relations, while promising, end up depoliticizing in ways that complement each other as much as the relations themselves. In order to remedy these flaws, I introduce a notion of political engagement that combines what is promising about direct and indirect relations. Political engagement combines a polemical politics with the shutting out of depoliticizing effects and is thus able to politicize across the board, fulfilling the requirement of generalized depoliticization critique. Europopulism, which I define in connection with Laclau, is my proposal to extend political engagement to European politics.


PURPOSE As prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron emission tomography (PET) becomes increasingly available in the United States, the greater sensitivity of the technology in comparison to conventional imaging poses challenges for clinical trials. The NCI Clinical Imaging Steering Committee (CISC) PSMA PET Working Group was convened to coordinate the identification of these challenges in various clinical scenarios and to develop consensus recommendations on how best to integrate PSMA PET into ongoing and upcoming National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) trials. METHODS NCI CISC and NCI Genitourinary Steering Committee members and leadership nominated clinicians, biostatisticians, patient advocates, and other imaging experts for inclusion in the PSMA PET Working Group. From April to July 2021, the working group met independently and in conjunction with the CISC to frame challenges, including stage migration, response assessment, trial logistics, and statistical challenges, and to discuss proposed solutions. An anonymous, open-ended survey was distributed to members to collect feedback on challenges faced. Representatives from each NCTN group were invited to present an overview of affected trials. From these discussions, the consensus document was developed and circulated for the inclusion of multiple rounds of feedback from both the Working Group and CISC. RESULTS The current consensus document outlines the key challenges for clinical prostate cancer trials resulting from the increasing availability of PSMA PET. We discuss implications for patient selection and definition of end points and provide guidance and potential solutions for different clinical scenarios, particularly with regard to best practices in defining eligibility criteria and outcome measures. RECOMMENDATIONS This article provides guidance regarding clinical trial design and conduct, and the interpretation of trial results.


Daniel 2 as satire. Readers use intuitive and acquired knowledge about genres in interpreting what they read and hear, underlining the importance of establishing the genre of a specific piece of literature. The genre of the tales in the Book of Daniel (1–6) has been researched over a long period, without leading to a consensus. In this article it is suggested that the genre of the tales in Daniel may be described in terms of satire, used as a means of resistance to foreign political oppression. Especially humor and irony are utilised in the satire to describe Jewish perception of the oppression and oppressor, and to make suggestions for acting in the crisis situation of Antiochus' suppression of the Jewish religion. This is demonstrated in terms of the tale in Daniel 2, and specifically in the depiction of the indirect characters in the tale – the God of the Jews in Daniel 2, in contrast to the powerlessness of the gods of the mighty heathen king. In this way the true nature of Jewish oppression is pictured in a humorous way when the Babylonian gods are at the mercy of the Jewish God.


Removal of dead or diseased cells is crucial feature of apoptosis for managing many biological processes such as tissue remodelling, tissue homeostasis and resolution and control of immune responses throughout life. Tissue transglutaminase (TG2) is a protein crosslinking enzyme that has been implicated in apoptotic cell clearance but also mediates many important cell functions including cell adhesion, migration and monocyte-macrophage differentiation. Cell surface-associated TG2 regulates cell adhesion and migration, via its association with receptors such as syndecan-4, s1 and s3 integrin. Whilst defective apoptotic cell clearance has been described in TG2-deficient mice, the precise extracellular role of TG2 in apoptotic cell clearance remains ill-defined. This thesis addresses macrophage TG2 in cell corpse clearance. TG2 expression (cytosolic and cell surface) in human macrophages was revealed and data demonstrate that loss of TG2 activity through the use of inhibitors of function, including cellimpermeable inhibitors significantly inhibit the ability of macrophages to clear apoptotic cells (AC). This includes reduced macrophage recruitment to and binding of apoptotic cells. Association studies reveal TG2-syndecan-4 interaction through heparan sulphate side chains, and knockdown of syndecan-4 reduces cell surface TG2 activity and apoptotic cell clearance. Furthermore, inhibition of TG2 activity reduces crosslinking of CD44, reported to augment AC clearance. Thus it defines for the first time a role for TG2 activity at the cell surface of human macrophages in multiple stages of AC clearance and proposed that TG2, in association with heparan sulphates, may exert its effect on AC clearance via crosslinking of CD44.


Borehole radar is an electromagnetic tool that can be applied to assist in the delineation of orebody geometry, ideally using routinely drilled cover and exploration boreholes. Successful trials of borehole radar for delineating reef horizons on South African gold and platinum mines have led to the development of a borehole radar system specifically designed for routine application in those enyironments. The radar design includes novel elements, including a receiver with instantaneous sampling down the borehole, and it is implemented in probes that can operate in 48 mm boreholes, with development planned for 38 mm boreholes. The radar is known as the Aardwolf BR40. The need for information about dislocations of 3 m to reefs determines the desirable radar resolution while available access geometry determines the range requirement. The electrical properties of typical gold and platinum rocks show that the range/resolution trade-off is feasible for the majority of economically important reef horizons. Boreholes drilled horizontally or upwards are accessed using a borehole crawler. Trials of the radar show that it meets its performance specification. The radar is robust enough for routine work imderground and is easy to use. The borehole radar is a useful addition to the toolbox of the mining geoscientist because it can give information about the reef plane along a line, rather than the single point information about the reef given by a borehole.


Global warming and globalization of trade have a decisive impact on the geographical distribution of insects. There is an exponential increase in the establishment of non-indigenous insects worldwide, along with the development of commercial networks. At the same time, global warming is promoting the expansion of many insect species northward and to higher altitudes. These two factors combined explain the multiple insect invasions observed in recent years.


L.H. LaRue demonstrates in his book, Constitutional Law as Fiction, that, at least in the realm of constitutional law, there is no simple correspondence between fiction and falsehood, or fact and truth. Partial or fictive accounts of our constitutional history, even when they are riddled with inaccuracies, may state deep truths about our world, and accurate recitations of historical events may be either intentionally or unintentionally misleading in the extreme. According to LaRue, the Supreme Court engages in a form of storytelling or myth-making that goes beyond the inevitably partial narratives of fact and precedent. The Supreme Court also tells stories about our collective past - our political and social history - to support the results for which it argues. Nevertheless, LaRue makes clear that criticism of this sort is not his mission. He believes that the Court's misreadings and mistellings of the historical record, like courts' misreadings of fact and precedent, are inevitable and not altogether undesirable. In his book, LaRue shows that the Court uses these stories, which are most assuredly about our past, not so much to tell us the truth about that past, but to establish what might be thought of as foundational myths which then render our constitutional law persuasive. It is therefore a mistake to criticize or even praise these judicially created stories solely by reference to their historical accuracy. Rather - and precisely because they are fiction (or myth), and in some sense are written and intended to be taken as such - they should be evaluated as fiction (or myth). We need ask of these stories not whether they are historically accurate but whether they are true or false as stories, whether they illuminate something important about our lives that the complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties of historical truth would obscure. This Essay has three parts. In the first part, I will provide a somewhat different account to the question at the heart of LaRue's book: the nature of the "truth" about our society that a judicially authored "story" might possess when that story purports to be about our past, but actually departs in significant particulars from historical fact. In the second part of this Essay, I examine some of the costs attached to this general practice both on and off the Court." In the third and final part of this Essay, I will explore one sort of more or less true story used by the Supreme Court to buttress its affirmative action jurisprudence.