An experimental program of research was carried out to assess the potential health and safety effects of participating in virtual environments (VEs) via head-mounted displays (HMDs). This paper presents the results obtained from nine experiments examining the effects experienced during and after participation in a variety of VR systems, VE designs, and task requirements, for a total participant sample of 148 individuals. A combination of methods including self-report scales, performance measures, physiological indicators, observation, interview, and user attitude/opinion questionnaires were used to measure simulator (VE) sickness, postural instability, psychomotor control, perceptual judgment, concentration, stress, and ergonomics effects. Greatest effects across the different systems, VEs, and exposure times were found for sickness symptoms and physiological measures, with some concern over postural instability and physical ergonomics, also. Although many of the effects were relatively minor and short lived, they were serious for five percent of participants and irritating for a considerable percentage more. The aetiology of the effects is sufficiently different to that for simulators or transport systems to justify us using a new term, virtual reality-induced symptoms and effects (VRISE). Implications are drawn for VR system design, VE specification, and the ways in which industrial use of VR/VE should be planned and supported.


In real computational world, scheduling is a decision making process. This is nothing but a systematic schedule through which a large numbers of tasks are assigned to the processors. Due to the resource limitation, creation of such schedule is a real challenge. This creates the interest of developing a qualitative scheduler for the processors. These processors are either single or parallel. One of the criteria for improving the efficiency of scheduler is waiting time variance (WTV). Minimizing the WTV of a task is a NP-hard problem. Achieving the quality of service (QoS) in a single or parallel processor by minimizing the WTV is a problem of task scheduling. To enhance the performance of a single or parallel processor, it is required to develop a stable and none overlap scheduler by minimizing WTV. An automated scheduler's performance is always measured by the attributes of QoS. One of the attributes of QoS is 'Timeliness'. First, this chapter presents the importance of heuristics with five heuristic-based solutions. Then applies these heuristics on 1kWTV minimization problem and three heuristics with a unique task distribution mechanism on Qm|prec|WTV minimization problem. The experimental result shows the performance of heuristic in the form of graph for consonant problems.


Abstract Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's text, "The Equal and the Different," was written circa 1975 at the request of the Brazilian artist Carlos Vergara, who had recently completed a series of photographs devoted the Rio de Janeiro-based carnival group, Cacique de Ramos. Viveiros de Castro, then an anthropology student at the Museu Nacional, locates in Cacique de Ramos a unique model of individual-group dynamics, one based neither on social hierarchy nor conformity, but mimesis and ecstatic deindividualization: a "passion of the same," as he writes, that emerges from deep within Western society.


Abstract Maize genotype selection represents a practical tool influencing forage yield and quality. The main objective was to investigate the contribution of genotype, site, and year to variability of maize yield and quality in the environment of Central Europe. Totally 63 maize genotypes at 11 sites over a 7-year period were evaluated for dry matter yield (DMY), dry matter content (DM), starch, cob, neutral detergent fibre (NDF), in situ digestibility of stover NDF (NDFD), and organic matter (OMD). The genotype showed the highest variability from all factors where stover NDFD varied from 261 to 529 g kg-1 and stover OMD from 376 to 609 g kg-1. In contrast to the whole-plant, variability of stover traits was more closely related to NDF than the DM content. Under standardized plant DM, all tested factors were significant and allowed interpretation of 70 and 60% of total variation of yield and quality for stover and whole plant, respectively. The average contributions of genotype, site, and year were 30, 7, and 5%, respectively. For variability in plant productivity and nutritive value, the importance of maize genotype selection was more than two times higher than the contribution of environment.


Despite the development of Union citizenship it is still work that acts as the key to Community rights. The right to equal treatment of workers on the grounds of nationality is accorded greater weight not only than that of Union citizens, but also than rights regarding other discrimination grounds, as all distinctions are eclipsed by that between workers and non-workers. Economic categorization is a process precedent to and isolated from social objectives of the Union, and its predominance suggests constitutional asymmetry – the relegation of social rights to a position beneath and after the guarantee of economic freedoms. It fails to deal with issues of intersectional discrimination where nationality is not the only factor. By patching together a set of generally applicable criteria to define migrant workers, the current regime both treats differently people who are in a similar situation – thanks partly to the arbitrariness of the criteria landed upon – and fails to treat differently people in different situations, by subjecting all migrants to the same test. This article argues in favour of an integrated interpretation approach: that the reach of free movement rights should be defined according to a duty of both formal and substantive equal treatment. The scope of migrant work should be subject to the same principles as the content of Community law. In this way some asymmetry could be redressed; not by attempting to Europeanise the social, but by socializing the (already European) economic.


This article provides an overview of the results of our project "The Kindergarten Room: A Multimodal Pedagogical Text". Our major initiative was to investigate what the multimodal texts in kindergarten represent and the extent to which they reflect and provide attributions to the children's activities. In addition, we wanted to investigate whether kindergarten walls and floors can be called 'pedagogical texts', and the extent to which texts on walls and floors establish a particular text culture. The study is being carried out in Norway. Our analytical approach is situated within the theoretical framework of Michael Halliday's social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics. A kindergarten room is a composite design that spatially utilises the co-deployment of various semiotic resources, such as architecture, language and visual images, and is thus viewed as a multimodal text. Our multimodal analysis is primarily based on the work of Kress and van Leeuwen. Our research is a qualitative study of three kindergartens. The material consists of video observations, photographs, field notes, documents and interviews with teachers and children. We believe that our analysis contributes to the body of knowledge regarding texts in the kindergarten room, the purpose of these texts, and thus the factors that influence the composition of kindergarten rooms.


Abstract The age-friendly cities and communities movement has focused on how to better support older adults to age well within urban environments. Central to 'ageing well' and 'active ageing' agendas is ensuring that older adults can participate in meaningful forms of social participation. The benefits of social participation in old age have been well documented, and research amongst community-dwelling older adults has explored some of the neighbourhood qualities that facilitate or impede such forms of engagement. However, understandings of how older adults construct and negotiate social participation within everyday urban environments have been largely unexplored. To address this gap, we present results from 104 interviews conducted with older adults living in three cities and nine neighbourhoods in the United Kingdom (UK). The findings explore three themes generated from the research: 'constructing meaningful social participation in old age', 'negotiating access to social participation' and 'navigating home and community'. Across these themes, the paper describes how experiences of social participation in old age involve a number of inter-connected physical, psychological and social processes experienced by individuals across a range of environmental settings including the home, outdoor spaces and community facilities. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for practice, specifically in the delivery of age-friendly communities.


This chapter shows how to compute basic descriptive statistics for a quantitative variable. You will learn the most popular measures of central tendency (the mean, the median and the mode) and dispersion (variance, standard deviation, range, IQR, median absolute deviation). The chapter will also demonstrate how to produce different graphs (box-and-whisker plots, histograms, density plots, Q–Q plots, line charts), which visualize univariate distributions and help one determine whether a variable is normally distributed. From the case studies you will learn how to analyse the distribution of word lengths in a sample, to detect suspicious values in subjects' reaction times in a lexical decision task, and to correct some problems with the shape of a distribution.


Faunus addresses the challenge of specifying and managing complex collaboration sessions. Many entities from various administrative domains orchestrate such sessions. Faunus decouples the entities that specify the session from entities that activate and manage them. It restricts the operations to specific agents using capabilities. It unifies the specification and management operations through its naming system. Each Faunus name is persistent and globally unique. A collection of attributes are attached to each name. Together, they represent a collection of services that form a collaboration session. Anyone can create a name; the creator has full read and write privileges that can be delegated to others. With the proper capability, anyone can modify session attributes between an active and inactive state. Though the system is designed for Internet scale deployments, the security model for providing and revoking capabilities currently assumes an Intranet style deployment. We have incorporated Faunus into a DisplayCast system that originally used Zeroconf. We are incorporating Faunus into another project that will fully exercise the power of Faunus.


Embracing more than 5,000 genera, distributed in 425 families and 46 orders, Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell's Classification of Mammals is the most comprehensive work to date on the systematics, relationships, and occurrences of all mammal taxa, living and extinct, down through the rank of genus. Since George Gaylord Simpson's 1945 classification, the paleontological record has been recalibrated, and the intervening years have seen much debate and progress concerning the theoretical underpinnings of systematization. McKenna inherited the project from Simpson and, with Bell, has constructed a completely updated hierarchical system that reflects the genealogy of Mammalia.


The following description of this image is an abridged account by James Barry published in 1783 under the title 'The Great Room Paintings; The Progress of Human Knowledge & Culture by James Barry'. "I have taken the point of time, when the victors pass in the procession before the Hellanodicae or Judges,where they are crowned with olive, in the presence of all the Grecians. The Three judges are seated on athrone [right] ornamented with medallions of Solon and Lycurgus, under which come trophies of the victoriesof Salamis, Marathon and Thermopylae. One of the judges with his hand stretched out is declaring theOlympiad. At the foot of the throne there sits a figure, who is just going to write down what the Hellanodicesis proclaiming; just behind his Herodotus with his history of Greece in his hand, and near him [left], andfurther in the picture, is one in white, with his finger on his lips, and that system in his hand, which was held bythe Pythagoreans, and has been since revived by Copernicus; near him stands Hippocrates and Democritus.Behind the stadium is the altis, where the statues of the victors were placed and the temple of JupiterOlympius. In the distance, is the town of Elis, and the river Alpheus.Near the table [right] an inferior Hellanodices is crowning the victor in the foot-race, and putting into his handa branch of palm; the next figure is a foot-racer, who ran armed with a helmet, spear and shield; the next is apancratiast, and the victor at cestus;* then comes the horse and the chariot. In the chariot is Hiero ofSyracuse; Pindar leads the chorus. The old man on the shoulders of the boxer and pancratiast is Diagoras of Rhodes, who having been often in his younger days celebrated for his victories in those games, is now beingcarried round the stadium by his victorious sons. The spectators consist of celebrated characters of Greece,who lived nearly about that time. The rearing up of the horse, which comes next after the boxer, has by opening that line of figures furnished me with an opportunity of introducing Pericles, whom I wished to represent speaking to Cimon; near him are Socrates, Anaxagoras [3rdand 2nd left], and Euripides [right, between Pericles and Cimon], who may be supposed to be entertained with the wisdom and eloquence of the speaker, whilst the profligate Aristophanes appearing just behind him is attentive to nothing but theimmoderate length of his head. When I painted this figure of Pericles, I knew of no bust of him remaining, and the late Lord Chatham being just then dead, and there being a striking resemblance in the character andfortunes of those two great men, I was determined to melt them into one figure.The man with the bandage over one eye [right], who is strewing flowers, and congratulating the armed foot-racer, shows this to be a contest of glory, and not of rancour. The baso-relievo on the chariot [left] is thecontest between Neptune and Minerva, for the naming and patronage of Athens. At one end [right] of thepicture is a statue of Minerva, at the other [left] a statue of Hercules treading down Envy. One the base of thestatue of Hercules sits Timanthes the painter, with his picture of the Cyclops and Satyrs; as there is noportrait of Timanthes remaining, from a vanity not uncommon amongst artists, I shall take the liberty to supply him with my own." - www.rsa.org.uk


To meet the demands of future automation systems, the architecture of traditional control systems such as the industrial robotic systems needs to evolve and new architectural paradigms need to be investigated. While cloud-based platforms provide services such as computational resources on demand, they do not address the requirements of real-time performance expected by control applications. Fog computing is a promising new architectural paradigm that complements the cloud-based platform by addressing its limitations. In this paper, we analyse the existing robot system architecture and propose a fog-based solution for industrial robotic systems that addresses the needs of future automation systems. We also propose the use of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) services for real-time communication and OPC-UA for information modelling within this architecture. Additionally, we discuss the main research challenges associated with the proposed architecture.


The devolved governance structure in Kenya places the provision of agricultural sector services such as extension at the local units. However, farmers' awareness on this aspect and where services are available remains limited and often, there is confusion. In order to provide clarity and enhance the understanding of extension service delivery, this study sought to characterize farmers' awareness of agricultural extension devolution and analyze factors that influence their awareness. Data was collected in Meru County using semi-structured questionnaires through face-to-face interviews on a representative multi-stage sample of 288 farmers. A binary logit model was applied to analyze the determinants of farmers' awareness. Slightly less than half of the respondents indicated that they were aware of agricultural extension devolution. The factors that were found to significantly enhance awareness are attendance to farmer field days, land tenure security, income and education.

 Key words: Extension-devolution, farmers, awareness, Kenya.


Background Although there is a growing body of research on driving and Alzheimer's disease (AD), focal dementias have been understudied. Moreover, driving has never been explored in semantic dementia (SD). Methods An experimental battery exploring road sign knowledge and route learning was applied to patients with SD and AD selected in the early-moderate stage of disease and to a group of healthy participants. Neuropsychological data were correlated to cerebral hypometabolism distribution, investigated by means of positron emission tomography. Results The two dementias showed opposite profiles. Patients with SD showed poor road sign knowledge and normal performance in route learning. By contrast, patients with AD showed low performance in route learning test with preservation of semantic knowledge of road signs. In SD, there was a correlation of semantic knowledge impairment with hypometabolism in the left temporolateral cortex. No correlation between the AD region of interests (ROIs) and the relevant behavioural indices was found, while in the whole-brain analysis there was a significant correlation between route learning and the superior frontal gyrus. Discussion and conclusions For the first time, driving skills were explored in SD, and it is showed a differential profile from the one detected in AD. We demonstrate that the left anterior temporal cortex is implicated in road sign knowledge, while a distributed cortical network, including the frontal cortex, is likely to process route learning.


The number of customer management related research publications has increased significantly over the last decade (a 70 per cent increase); where key areas or themes have mainly focused upon subjects such as customer satisfaction, customer service, customer loyalty, customer relationship management and customer value. The number of published articles relating to customer relationship management appears to be on the decline, having peaked in 2013 (a 25 per cent decrease); whilst other key themes have remained fairly steady. This would suggest that new trends in customer management are emerging, or are on the increase. The objective of this paper is to explore and highlight current and future trends in customer management by means of a literature review of marketing and related journals/texts spanning the last twelve months. The outcomes of this review and their relevance to marketing and customer management include themes relating to getting the organizational culture right, as well as adapting and connecting better with customers. Furthermore themes relating to personalization and designing customer journeys, as well as understanding the influence of innovation, co-creation and social media, can all influence brand credibility among customers. The themes highlighted all relate to ways in which companies can enhance their engagement and interaction with customers in a changing world; a world that is changing because of advances in technology and a proliferation of online communication, alongside increasingly powerful and demanding customers. Today's customers prefer to buy from companies who, not only genuinely understand their needs, but also understand how their offerings fit into their customers' lives. This paper summarizes trends that are relevant to both academia and business, where customers' expectations of companies are higher than ever before. Looking beyond customer relationship management can help companies better understand these new trends and innovations and how they can prepare better for the future.


The dimension of sound has long been considered completely missing from Flusser's thought, thus most Flusser research has not dealt with the auditive in his work so far. This article has a two-fold approach to counter this common perception; firstly, by looking at three (German) texts in which Flusser deals with music and sound directly – "Chamber Music", "The Gesture of Listening To Music" and "Horigkeit/Hoerapparate", and secondly by looking at Flusser's key text "Crisis of Linearity" which largely ignores sound. The former tackles these lesser known texts to examine how Flusser actively (though rarely) applied music and sound in his work, whilst the latter uses methods of sound studies to critique the absence of sound in his important media-philosophical thesis. Flusser's writings on music and sound are both striking for the contemporaneity yet problematic for their demoded appearance of concepts such as "pure music". Insights from contemporary sound studies question the dominance of the visual in Flusser's work and the epistemological consequences this might have.


Early sexual intercourse among American adolescents represents a major public health problem. Although early sexual activity may be caused by a variety of factors, the media are believed to play a significant role. In film, television, and music, sexual messages are becoming more explicit in dialogue, lyrics, and behavior. In addition, these messages contain unrealistic, inaccurate, and misleading information that young people accept as fact. Teens rank the media second only to school sex education programs as a leading source of information about sex. Recommendations are presented to help pediatricians address the effects of the media on sexual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of their patients.


Enterprise network architecture and management have followed the Internet's design principles despite different requirements and characteristics: enterprise hosts are administered by a single authority, which intrinsically assigns different values to traffic from different business applications.
 We advocate a new approach where hosts are no longer relegated to the network's periphery, but actively participate in network-related decisions. To enable host participation, network information, such as dynamic network topology and per-link characteristics and costs, is exposed to the hosts, and network administrators specify conditions on the propagated network information that trigger actions to be performed while a condition holds. The combination of a condition and its actions embodies the concept of the network exception handler, defined analogous to a program exception handler. Conceptually, network exception handlers execute on hosts with actions parameterized by network and host state.
 Network exception handlers allow hosts to participate in network management, traffic engineering and other operational decisions by explicitly controlling host traffic under predefined conditions. This flexibility improves overall performance by allowing efficient use of network resources. We outline several sample network exception handlers, present an architecture to support them, and evaluate them using data collected from our own enterprise network.


The definitive account of how a small Ozarks company upended the world of business and what that change meansWal-Mart, the world's largest company, roared out of the rural South to change the way business is done. Deploying computer-age technology, Reagan-era politics, and Protestant evangelism, Sam Walton's firm became a byword for cheap goods and low-paid workers, famed for the ruthless efficiency of its global network of stores and factories. But the revolution has gone further: Sam's proteges have created a new economic order which puts thousands of manufacturers, indeed whole regions, in thrall to a retail royalty. Like the Pennsylvania Railroad and General Motors in their heyday, Wal-Mart sets the commercial model for a huge swath of the global economy. In this lively, probing investigation, historian Nelson Lichtenstein deepens and expands our knowledge of the merchandising giant. He shows that Wal-Mart's rise was closely linked to the cultural and religious values of Bible Belt America as well as to the imperial politics, deregulatory economics, and laissez-faire globalization of Ronald Reagan and his heirs. He explains how the company's success has transformed American politics, and he anticipates a day of reckoning, when challenges to the Wal-Mart way, at home and abroad, are likely to change the far-flung empire. Insightful, original, and steeped in the culture of retail life, "The Retail Revolution" draws on first hand reporting from coastal China to rural Arkansas to give a fresh and necessary understanding of the phenomenon that has transformed international commerce.


With more than 140 million active users and 340 million tweets a day (as of March 2012), Twitter presents a great source of recommendation knowledge for articles shared on the platform. In this work, we analyze 836 Twitter users from the technology and entrepreneurship domain with 78,508 links shared by them. We explore and evaluate different (existing and novel) techniques for a recommender system for articles including the following ones: vector-to-vector similarity where the user vector is constructed from the text of the tweets produced, topic-modeling based approach where we learn the topic distribution for each article, as well as the novel hybrid technique which is based on piecewise article vector representation, content-boosted collaborative filtering with pseudo user-ratings as well as the relatedness function which depends on relevance, novelty, connection size and transition smoothness between articles.


Many state-of-the-art machine learning models such as deep neural networks have recently shown to be vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, especially in classification tasks. Motivated by adversarial machine learning, in this paper we investigate the robustness of sparse regression models with strongly correlated covariates to adversarially designed measurement noises. Specifically, we consider the family of ordered weighted $\ell_1$ (OWL) regularized regression methods and study the case of OSCAR (octagonal shrinkage clustering algorithm for regression) in the adversarial setting. Under a norm-bounded threat model, we formulate the process of finding a maximally disruptive noise for OWL-regularized regression as an optimization problem and illustrate the steps towards finding such a noise in the case of OSCAR. Experimental results demonstrate that the regression performance of grouping strongly correlated features can be severely degraded under our adversarial setting, even when the noise budget is significantly smaller than the ground-truth signals.


By Mutual Empowerment, strengths and weaknesses of humans and technology can be dynamically balanced, resulting in new concepts for mobile soldier support. One part of our research focused on developing the mutual empowerment mechanisms themselves - for example, for supporting soldiers with text messages that are relevant to their role, location or task; for increasing organizational awareness; and for predicting collateral damage. Another part of our research focused on well-founded methods for designing such systems in an iterative and coherent way. We have developed a modular user-centred design methodology which aims at developing a library of reusable components for mutual empowerment. We developed support tools for designing, prototyping and testing such components. This paper presents the methodology, the outcomes, and our reflections on the methodology.


A philosophical exploration of pop music that reveals a rich, self-reflexive art form with unsuspected depths.

 In the first major philosophical treatise on the subject, Agnes Gayraud explores all the paradoxes of pop?its inauthentic authenticity, its mass production of emotion and personal resonance, its repetitive novelty, its precision engineering of seduction?and calls for pop (in its broadest sense, encompassing all genres of popular recorded music) to be recognized as a modern, technologically mediated art form to rank alongside cinema and photography.

 In a thoroughgoing engagement with Adorno's fierce critique of "standardized light popular music," Dialectic of Pop tracks the transformations of the pop form and its audience over the course of the twentieth century, from Hillbilly to Beyonce, from Lead Belly to Drake.

 Inseparable from the materiality of its technical media, indifferent and intractable to the perspectives of high culture, pop subverts notions of authenticity and inauthenticity, original and copy, aura and commodity, medium and message. Gayraud demonstrates that, far from being the artless and trivial mass-produced pabulum denigrated by Adorno, pop is a rich, self-reflexive artform that recognises its own contradictions, incorporates its own productive negativity, and often flourishes by thinking "against itself."

 Dialectic of Pop sings the praises of pop as a constitutively impure form resulting from the encounter between industrial production and the human predilection for song, and diagnoses the prospects for twenty-first century pop as it continues to adapt to ever-changing technological mediations.


Article history: Received 6 October, 2016 Accepted 3 February 2017 Available online 6 February 2017 The article discusses the strength of concrete and other brittle materials in the case of nonuniform biaxial type of compression (σ1 > σ2 > 0) and triaxial compression of σ1 > σ2 = σ3 > 0 type (it was assumed that σ> 0 corresponds to compression). It is noted that, when considering the biaxial loading in the accepted model, probabilistic nature of distribution of stresses along the contour of pores and inclusions, i.e. stress causing formation and propagation of cracks in the material, plays an important role. Moreover, the stress across the circuit pores was regarded as a three-dimensional random field of S(α,β,γ,ω),where ω is a random argument. Considering the average number of overshoots NR we believed that the random field of S is not homogeneous (not stationary): its expectation is not constant, but is a function of nonrandom arguments Мs = Мs(α;β;γ). External load, corresponding to NR = const (and at the same time constant of level exceedance probability), first increases and then decreases a little. Heating up to 300оС (573K) and 400оС (673K) leads to violations, and long-term load leads to significant changes in the macroand microstructure of concrete. © 2017 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


This study presents a comparison of distribution and abundance of dominant megafaunal species at the TAG hydrothermal mound on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from 1994 to 2004. A geographical information system (GIS) database was compiled from georeferenced observations of faunal abundances at 534 locations on the TAG hydrothermal mound, determined by image analysis of ROV dive footage from November 2004. These data are compared with observations from submersible dives in 1994 to assess changes in the extent and population density of aggregations of the shrimp Rimicaris exoculata at the central black smokers of TAG. The GIS database was also used to assess changes in abundance and distribution of the anemone Maractis rimicarivora by simulating the path of a biotransect conducted in 1994 and 1995. There was no evidence of a decline in the extent of shrimp aggregations at the central black smokers of TAG between 1994 and 2004. This result indicates that occasional exposure to high-intensity submersible lighting, which took place during several scientific expeditions in the intervening period, does not pose an immediate conservation threat to populations of R. exoculata. Similarly, there were no significant differences in the distribution and abundance of anemones between 1994 and 2004. These results indicate a constancy in the identity, distribution and abundance of dominant species at TAG that contrasts with other vent sites where quantitative time-series have been established. The reproductive pattern of R. exoculata was also examined by dissection and direct measurement of oocytes from females collected in September 1994 and November 2004, providing the first comparison of reproductive development in samples from different months for this species. There was no significant difference in oocyte size–frequency distributions of females collected in these samples, indicating a lack of seasonal reproduction in R. exoculata.


Background: Neurodermatitis is a common chronic skin disease. Although not life-threatening, it can produce an important psychosocial burden, sleep disturbance and sexual dysfunction. Patients with neurodermatitis tend to have poor social skills or interpersonal resources and a lack of flexibility. However quality of life (QoL) of patients with neurodermatitis has seldom investigated. The objective of this study is to assess the impact of neurodermatitis on patients' QoL using the Dermatology Life Quality Index questionnaire, and assess its feasibility and internal consistency. Methods: One hundred and fifty consecutive outpatients seeking treatment for neurodermatitis and 250 patients with psoriasis in the Department of Dermatology, the Second Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, were assessed for eligibility for this prospective study from July 1, 2011 to September 30, 2011. Demographic data and disease-related characteristics were collected. Results: The overall mean DLQI score for neurodermatits (9.34) was lower than that for psoriasis (13.32) (P < 0.001). Patients with neurodermatitis scored significantly lower for all items except Q1 (symptoms) and Q9 (sexual difficulties). No strong relationship between disease-related characteristics and quality of life could be found. The inter-item correlation averaged 0.415 and Cronbach's alpha was 0.889, indicating high internal consistency. Conclusion: This is the first study to attempt to measure the impact of neurodermatitis for both male and female patients on QoL. Neurodermatitis moderately affected the QoL of the patients.


Certain transcription factors have an unusual ability to move themselves into cells other than those in which they were synthesized. Do these peripatetic factors actually find relevant gene targets in their adopted homes? Sessions et al. now construct mosaic plants to analyze the functions of mobile transcription factors. One transcription factor important in control of flower development not only moves but acts directly on target genes in other cells. Such sharing of regulatory molecules may serve to keep a group of cells acting in concert. Sessions, A., Yanofsky, M.F., and Weigel, D. (2000) Cell-cell signaling and movement by the floral transcription factors LEAFY and APETALA1. Science 289: 779-781. [Abstract] [Full Text]


During development of the nervous system, neuronal precursors that originated in proliferative regions migrate along radial glial fibers to reach their final destination. P19 embryonal carcinoma (EC) stem cells exposed to retinoic acid (RA) differentiate into neurons, glia, and fibroblast‐like cells. In this work, we induced P19 aggregates for 4 days with RA and plated them onto tissue culture dishes coated with poly‐L‐lysine. Several cells migrated out of and/or extended processes from the aggregates after 24 hr. Some cell processes were morphologically similar to radial glial fibers and stained for glial fibrillar acidic protein (GFAP) and nestin. Large numbers of migrating cells showed characteristics similar to those of bipolar migrating neurons and expressed the neuronal marker microtubule‐associated protein 2. Furthermore, scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed an intimate association between the radial fibers and the migrating cells. Therefore, the migration of neuron‐like cells on radial glia fibers in differentiated P19 aggregates resembled some of the migration models used thus far to study gliophilic neuronal migration. In addition, HPTLC analysis in this system showed the expression of 9‐O‐acetyl GD3, a ganglioside that has been associated with neuronal migration. Antibody perturbation assays showed that immunoblockage of 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 arrested neuronal migration in a reversible manner. In summary, we have characterized a new cell culture model for investigation of glial‐guided neuronal migration and have shown that 9‐O‐acetyl GD3 ganglioside has an important role in this phenomenon. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


From the early stages of industrialization in Europe, America or Japan, the living standards of populations have drastically improved thanks to explorations, the use of coal, steel, as well as of nuclear or nanotechnologies, although such progress is increasingly called into question. However, would these improvements have been possible had their initiators been aware of the human and environmental consequences right from the beginning? Nowadays, companies boasting ecological values attempt to limit the consequences of risks by regulating or even prohibiting any action deemed dangerous, as illustrated by the "precautionary principle". In this context, this paper offers a reflection on the importance given to geography when it comes to dealing with the notion of risk and accepting it, arguing for a transdisciplinary approach, thus integrating perceptions and representations of the risk concept into the study of territories.


Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is an important non communicable diseases epidemic that affects the world population including India. The prevalence of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) is raising throughout the developed and developing countries mainly due to Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension. Among the Hemodialysis patients one of the most common complications is Muscle Cramps. It can occur anywhere in the body, but common in calf muscles, feet, toes, thigh and abdomen. In pre-test 27 (38.5%) of them had moderate level of muscle cramps and 43 (61.4%) of them had severe level of muscle cramps during Hemodialysis. In post-test, out of 70 samples 05 (07.1) had no episodes of muscle cramps, 28 (39.9%) of them had mild level of muscle cramps, 37 (52.8%) of them had moderate level of muscle cramps. This study implies that the Intra Dialytic Stretching Exercise is an effective intervention to reduce muscle cramps during Hemodialysis among Hemodialysis patients.


A mild steel hook that was part of the auxiliary hoist of an electric overhead crane used in a foundry was of the shank type and the rated safe working load was 15 tons. Failure took place in a wholly brittle manner, and occurred transversely through the back of the hook. From the direction in which the fracture developed, as indicated by the radial lines on its surface, it was evident that a preexisting defect served to initiate the brittle fracture. Material adjacent to the fracture was decarburized and contained numerous globules of oxide and slag. It was evident, therefore that a fissure was formed during the manufacture of the hook and had not developed in service. The failure was associated with a surface defect, and it was recommended that the other similar hooks at the establishment be crack detected and any similar discontinuities eliminated.


This study examines the experiences and outcomes of the first participants in the Intensive Fostering programme in England and compares them with the outcomes of a comparison group who were sentenced to custody or an Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP). This study also compares the cost of Intensive Fostering placements with custodial placements and assesses the cost of services used. This study draws on information provided by the Intensive Fostering teams and carers, and the views of young people and their parents.


Studies were conducted to evaluate the impact of stagnation period on the metal dissolution from plumbing materials including lead, copper and brass. Experimental data showed that metal levels increased exponentially with time, with the sharpest increase occurring over the first 20–24 h. Metal levels may continue to increase following well beyond 24 h of stagnation. Copper levels increased until dissolved oxygen fell below 1 mg l −1 after which copper levels fell. Results showed that stagnation behaviour is complex in nature, difficult to predict and dependent on water chemistry. Experimental data fit well to a radial diffusion model when a diffusion barrier term is considered.


Currently the fastest growing population in the nation, Latinos comprise by far the largest percentage of new immigrants to the southern states. Latino Workers in the Contemporary South describes issues these newcomers face, particularly regarding work, and offers accounts of the impact of Latinos on their employers and communities at large. Though its discussions span a variety of regions, the book focuses in particular on areas of Georgia and Florida where booming Hispanic populations have had considerable influence in recent years. It documents the different ways in which Latino immigrants in today's South have adapted to the ambiguous and frequently inaccessible territory of the South's notorious "goodole-boy" network. Contributors to the volume discuss legal and illegal migration and immigration, gender-specific issues, language barriers, and the many adaptations made by immigrants. Essays highlight specific industries that provide work opportunities to immigrants, such as the poultry and carpet industries of Georgia and the onshore oil industry of southern Louisiana. The contributors address the changing cultures of areas with large Hispanic populations, among other issues surrounding the changing face of the South.


This all-in-one reference guide will help students, researchers, and interested readers make sense of the infamous election of 2000. Following an overview of the 2000 presidential race, five essays spotlight separate issues related to the race and its outcome. Biographical entries cover major players in the story. Primary documents from court cases show the actual wording of the legal decisions. Millions of U.S. citizens can easily operate ATMs, yet elections for the nation's highest office still involve manual ballot counting, punch cards, and dangling chads. Why? This all-in-one reference guide will help students, researchers, and interested readers make sense of the infamous election of 2000. Following an overview of the 2000 presidential race, five essays spotlight separate issues related to the race and its outcome. Biographical entries cover major players in the story. Primary documents from court cases show the actual wording of the legal decisions, and Dover considers into the political and legal issues behind the actions and rulings. Additional essays consider the role of federalism in national elections and the relevance of the Electoral College itself. The potential long-term consequences of the election are examined. Will there be sweeping changes in future presidential elections? In what areas will they appear? Finally, an annotated bibliography selects and reviews the most important responses written about the election. This guide is indispensable to anyone wanting to make sense of this perplexing historical event and electoral politics in the United States.


What is Virtual Reality (VR)? A professional tool, made to facilitate our everyday tasks? A conceptual mistake, accompanied by cybersickness and unsolved locomotion issues since the very beginning? Or just another source of entertainment that helps us escape from our deteriorating world? The public and scientific opinions in this respect are diverse. Furthermore, as researchers, we sometimes ask ourselves whether our work in this area is really "worth it", given the ambiguous prognosis regarding the future of VR. To tackle this question, we explore three different areas of VR research in this dissertation, namely locomotion, interaction, and perception. We begin our journey by structuring the VR locomotion landscape and by introducing a novel locomotion concept for large distance traveling via virtual body resizing. In the second part, we focus on our interaction possibilities in VR. We learn how to represent virtual objects via self-transforming controllers and how to store our items in VR inventories. We design comprehensive 3D gestures for the audience and provide an I/O abstraction layer to facilitate the realization and usage of such diverse interaction modalities. The third part is dedicated to the exploration of perceptual phenomena in VR. In contrast to locomotion and interaction, where we mainly deal with the shortcomings of VR, our contributions in the field of perception emphasize the strong points of immersive setups. We utilize VR to transfer the illusion of virtual body ownership to nonhumanoid avatars and exploit this phenomenon for novel gaming experiences with animals in the leading role. As one of our most significant contributions, we demonstrate how to repurpose the dichoptic presentation capability of immersive setups for preattentive zero-overhead highlighting in visualizations. We round off the dissertation by coming back to VR research in general, providing a critical assessment of our contributions and sharing our lessons learned along the way.


The structure of the copper protein plastocyanin from poplar leaves (Populus nigra var. italica) at 173 K has been subjected to two independent refinements, using a single set of synchrotron X-ray data at 1.6 A resolution. Energy-restrained refinement using the program EREF resulted in lower root-mean-square deviations from ideal geometry (e.g. 0.011 A for bond lengths) but a higher residual R (0.153) than restrained least-squares refinement using the program PROLSQ (0.014 A, 0.132). Electron-density difference maps in both refinements provided evidence for disorder at some side chains and solvent atoms, and the PROLSQ refinement made allowance for this disorder. The number of solvent sites identified at the 4sigma(rho) level was 171 in the EREF refinement and 189 in the PROLSQ refinement; 159 of the solvent sites are common to both refinements within 1 A. The root-mean-square differences between the atomic positions produced by the two refinements are 0.08 A for C(alpha) atoms, 0.08 A for backbone atoms and 0.12 A for all non-H atoms (excluding six obvious outliers) of the protein molecule. The two sets of Cu-ligand bond lengths differ by up to 0.07 A, and the ligand-Cu-ligand angles by up to 7 degrees. At 173 K the volume of the unit cell is 4.2% smaller than at 295 K. Greater order in the solvent region is indicated by the location of 79 more solvent sites, the identification of extensive networks of hydrogen-bonded rings of solvent molecules, and a general decrease in the thermal parameters. Within the unit cell, the protein molecules are significantly translated and rotated from their positions at ambient temperature. An important structural change at low temperature is a 180 degrees flip of the peptide group at Ser48-Gly49. Nearly all other significant differences between the structures of the protein at 173 and 295 K occur at exposed side chains. If the backbone atoms in the 173 and 295 K structures are superposed, excluding atoms involved in the peptide flip, the root-mean- square difference between the positions of 393 atoms is 0.25 A. Two internal water molecules, not included in previous descriptions of poplar plastocyanin, have been located. The plastocyanin Cu-site geometry at 173 K is not significantly different from that at 295 K. If plastocyanin undergoes a change in Cu-site geometry at low temperature, as has been suggested on the basis of resonance Raman spectroscopic evidence, then the change is not detected within the limits of precision of the present results.


The use of preservation seals on asphalt pavements is a crucial part of any effective pavement management program. It is important to optimize the use of available budgets to extend the life of our pavements as much as possible. The nation's highway system is one of our most valuable assets. Analysis of the performance of surface treatments on Utah pavements indicates that Open Graded Surface Courses (OGSC) have an average life, based on skid resistance of almost 9 years and that Chip Seal Courses (CSC) have a significantly longer life. Out of all the factors analyzed, traffic has the most significant effect on the performance of the treatment. Factors such as aggregate source and asphalt supplier were also investigated but lack of data prevented from reaching any significant conclusion. Based on the relative cost of both treatments and the performance observed through this study, it is recommended that Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) expand the use of CSC to certain roads with average annual daily traffic counts (AADTs) up to 20,000 vehicles and continue the existing procedure of using CSC in highway sections with AADTs below 5,000. It is also recommended that UDOT modify the existing policies and limit the use of OGSC where the running speeds are 55 mph or greater and AADTs are in excess of 25,000 vehicles. Medium volume facilities (5,000 to 25,000 AADT) should be sealed with treatments new to UDOT but proven in other states. An initial cost analysis showed that the implementation of the changes suggested as part of this report will result in savings of over $2 million per year in the maintenance budget, thus allowing for better use of resources while still serving the traveling public.


The structure of the Instrumentation and Control Engineering stream at Murdoch University exposes students to significant practical components as well as extensive development of theoretical knowledge. One of the most industry-like practical components that these students have access to is the Murdoch University Pilot Plant. For this reason, it is important that the Pilot Plant is operating smoothly and kept as up to date as possible. The main purpose of this thesis paper is to ultimately improve the performance of the Pilot Plant and hopefully enable it to become an even more valuable resource.

Throughout the time spent on this thesis paper, various improvements and new aspects have been developed and implemented into the Pilot Plant. One of the first ideas explored through this thesis was a significant recoding of the way instrumentation was activated and controlled, enabling all device control function blocks to be operated when the mode attribute is set to program. It is envisaged that this will allow for significantly less operator confusion as has been experienced since the recent upgrade. Further to this, a significant portion of this thesis examined the development and implementation of both maintenance and demonstration programs. Existing research provided evidence that sequential control modules would be the easiest method for coding the maintenance program. This program was designed to activate both upon user demand and automatically on a preset time to cycle various aspects of the Pilot Plant that are susceptible to seizing during extended periods of dormancy. Minimal running time was an important aspect that needed to be considered and this was achieved, with the program completing in two minutes.

The thesis then goes on to explore the development and implementation of the demonstration program. The demonstration program is quite similar to the maintenance program as it also employs sequential control modules. Its design allows for a systematic approach to turning on pumps and waiting until predefined conditions are met to allow the Pilot Plant to reach a steady state operating condition without any input from an operator. This was successfully achieved with a fully automated program from start to finish which it is envisioned will aid during times when tours of the Pilot Plant are being performed, allowing the tour guide to simply press a button and direct full focus to the explanation about the Pilot Plant. Finally this thesis explores the adaption and creation of new human machine interface pages to be implemented into Station to take full advantage of the newly developed code. Three new pages are created to allow easy integration of the new program settings, while minor modifications are also performed, to make operation of the Pilot Plant significantly simpler.

Through the significant research and development undertaken throughout this thesis, it has become evident that there are many more opportunities and directions that further projects could take to build upon this knowledge base and further improve the Murdoch University Pilot Plant and ultimately the Instrumentation and Control Engineering stream.


Nested data-parallelism (NDP) is a declarative style for programming irregular parallel applications. NDP languages provide language features favoring the NDP style, efficient compilation of NDP programs, and various common NDP operations like parallel maps, filters, and sum-like reductions. In this paper, we describe the implementation of NDP in Parallel ML (PML), part of the Manticore project. Managing the parallel decomposition of work is one of the main challenges of implementing NDP. If the decomposition creates too many small chunks of work, performance will be eroded by too much parallel overhead. If, on the other hand, there are too few large chunks of work, there will be too much sequential processing and processors will sit idle.
 Recently the technique of Lazy Binary Splitting was proposed for dynamic parallel decomposition of work on flat arrays, with promising results. We adapt Lazy Binary Splitting to parallel processing of binary trees, which we use to represent parallel arrays in PML. We call our technique Lazy Tree Splitting (LTS). One of its main advantages is its performance robustness: per-program tuning is not required to achieve good performance across varying platforms. We describe LTS-based implementations of standard NDP operations, and we present experimental data demonstrating the scalability of LTS across a range of benchmarks.


An analysis of the urban forest in Houston, Texas, reveals that this area has an estimated 33.3 million live trees with tree canopy that covers 18.4 percent of the city. Roughly 19.2 million of the city's trees are located on private lands. The most common tree species are yaupon, Chinese tallowtree, Chinese privet, Japanese privet, and sugarberry. Trees in Houston currently store about 2.0 million tons of carbon (7.5 million tons of carbon dioxide [CO2]); valued at $272 million. In addition, these trees remove about 126,000 tons of carbon per year (462,000 tons CO2 per year) ($16.8 million per year) and about 2,400 tons of air pollution per year ($20.4 million per year). Houston's urban forest is also estimated to provide 126 million cubic feet of net wood volume and to reduce annual residential energy costs by $54.6 million per year. Reduction in runoff provided by the trees in Houston is estimated at 173 million cubic feet per year with an associated value of $7.8 million per year. The compensatory value of the trees is estimated at $16.3 billion. The information presented in this report can be used to improve and augment support for urban forest management programs and to inform policy and planning to improve environmental quality and human health in Houston. The analysis also provides a basis for monitoring changes in the urban forest over time.


A pair of straight-line drawings of a graph is called parallel if, for every edge of the graph, the line segment that represents the edge in one drawing is parallel with the line segment that represents the edge in the other drawing. We study the problem of morphing between pairs of parallel planar drawings of a graph, keeping all intermediate drawings planar and parallel with the source and target drawings. Such a morph is called a parallel morph. Parallel morphs have application to graph visualization. The problem of deciding whether two parallel drawings in the plane admit a parallel morph turns out to be NP-hard in general. However, for some restricted classes of graphs and drawings, parallel morphability can be efficiently determined. The main positive result is that every pair of parallel simple orthogonal drawings in the plane admits a parallel morph. We give an efficient algorithm that computes such a morph. The number of steps required in a morph produced by our algorithm is linear in the complexity of the graph, where a step involves moving each vertex along a straight line at constant speed. We prove that this upper bound on the number of steps is within a constant factor of the worst-case lower bound. We explore the related problem of computing a parallel morph where edges are required to change length monotonically, i.e. to be either non-increasing or non-decreasing in length. Although parallel orthogonally-convex polygons will always admit a monotone parallel morph, deciding morphability under these constraints is NP-hard, even for orthogonal polygons. We also begin a study of parallel morphing in higher dimensions. Parallel drawings of trees in any dimension will always admit a parallel morph. This is not so for parallel drawings of cycles in 3-space, even if orthogonal. Similarly, not all pairs of parallel orthogonal polyhedra will admit a parallel morph, even if they are topological spheres. In fact, deciding parallel morphability turns out to be PSPACE-hard for both parallel orthogonal polyhedra, and parallel orthogonal drawings in 3-space.


Experience all your Android device has to offer! Teach Yourself VISUALLY Android Phones and Tablets, 2nd Edition is the perfect resource if you are a visual learner who wants to master the ins and outs of the Android operating system. With step-by-step instructions driven by targeted, easy-to-understand graphics, this informative book shines a light on the features, functions, and quirks of the Android OSand shows you how to use them. With the guidance provided by this easy to follow resource, you will quickly access, download, and enjoy books, apps, music, and video content, as well as photos, emails, and other forms of media, right from your phone or tablet! This book is perfect for Android users at beginner to intermediate levels. The Android operating system is graphics intensive, which is why a visual guide is the best way to navigate your Android device. Now that the Android OS is available on both phones and tablets, you can maximize the productivity and convenience of your devices by mastering the features, functions, and quirks of this operating system. Explore the latest Android features and functions Peruse full-color illustrations that walk you, step-by-step, through instructions for using the Android operating system Discover how to access, download, and enjoy multimedia content Sync your Android devices to maximize their capabilities Teach Yourself VISUALLY Android Phones and Tablets, 2nd Edition is the top resource for visual learners wanting to further explore the capabilities of Android devices.


Objective: Iron deficiency still remains the most common nutritional deficiency throughout the world and is the leading cause of anaemia in children. Early recognition of iron deficiency, even before the development of anaemia is crucial to prevent the systemic complications of this disease. Methods: Ninety-seven school children between 5 and 16 years were stratified into prelatent iron deficiency (10 cases), latent iron deficiency (14 cases), overt iron deficiency anemia (13 cases), and controls (60 cases). All hemograms were performed on the same day of collection using the same Sysmex XE-2100 analyzer with reticulocyte indices included. Biochemical markers such serum iron, total iron binding capacity and percent saturation (calculated) in addition to serum ferritin and serum transferrin receptors were simultaneously measured. Data analysis was done using ANOVA test, generalized linear regression, and ROC curve. Results: Our study indicates that a panel based on hematologic parameters including reticulocyte hemoglobin at a cut off of ≤27 and ≤25.6, serum transferrin receptors at a cut off >0.48 and >0.68, red cell distribution width at a cut off >13.8 and >16.8 may provide an alternative to the traditional biochemical panels for the diagnosis of latent iron deficiency and overt iron deficiency anemia respectively. Conclusion: Whenever iron deficiency is thought of, a hemogram including reticulocyte hemoglobin and serum transferrin receptors would be the adequate diagnostic panel obviating the need for a more extensive one. These parameters should always be interpreted in the clinical context involving dietary habits, social standard as well as family history.


Larger-than-life figures like Frank Furness tend to accumulate lively anecdotes, and some of them are even true. Furness did indeed amuse himself by firing his Civil War revolver at a stuffed moose's head in the drafting room, and he actually did fantasize, as Frank Lloyd Wright recounted, about gathering together all his clients so he could tell them to go to hell.1 Other such stories are questionable: Did he really have a mistress who "ran a profitable bawdyhouse," as Lewis Mumford reported, so profitable that she "kept his office going through the depression of 1873"?2 The most outrageous story of all concerns Furness's mighty library for the University of Pennsylvania (Figure 1). Supposedly the university, desperately needing a library building, approached the Pennsylvania Railroad and was given the discarded plans for an unbuilt railroad station. Without hesitation, Furness converted the depot into a library, barely changing the design.

Figure 1
Frank Furness, University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia, 1888–91 (from the Collections of the University of Pennsylvania Archives).

No one has ever paid the slightest attention to that story, for the documentary history is absolutely clear. In April 1887, Furness was appointed to design a new library for the university, which had recently built a new campus in West Philadelphia. He studied the plans for a year, consulting experts and visiting the latest library buildings.3 Plans were approved in July 1888, and construction proceeded for the next two and a half years; in February 1891 the library was formally opened to the public. The building still stands, a stirring performance by Furness at his imaginative best. All this is recounted, admirably and intelligently, in James F. O'Gorman's 1973 monograph on Furness, and augmented by Edward R. Bosley's 1996 monograph on the building.4

Yet the library has always baffled its …


We address the problem of real-time navigation in dynamic environments for car-like robots. We present an approach to identify controls that will lead to a collision with a moving obstacle at some point in the future. Our approach generalizes the concept of velocity obstacles, which have been used for navigation among dynamic obstacles, and takes into account the constraints of a car-like robot. We use this formulation to find controls that will allow collision free navigation in dynamic environments. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on a simulated car-like robot among moving obstacles.


Biostratigraphical study of the early to mid-Ordovician conodont fauna from ribbon-banded radiolarian cherts of the middle Burubaital Formation in Central Kazakhstan reveals an almost complete succession of conodont biozones from the late Tremadocian to the early Darriwilian. During this interval, biosiliceous sediments were deposited in basinal environments, inhabited by lingulate brachiopods, sponges, pterobranchs and caryocaridids in conditions of high fertility and primary productivity of surface water. The community structure of taxonomically diverse conodont assemblages typifying open oceanic environments is not significantly different from that of epicratonic basins of the North Atlantic conodont province. The regional increase of oxygenated bottom waters at the base of the Oepikodus evae Biozone is possibly related to considerable changes in palaeo-oceanographical circulation patterns. The finds of three natural clusters of Prioniodus oepiki (McTavish) enable us to propose an emended diagnosis of this species.


When it comes to objective-subjective issues, such as physical changes, it seems difficult to measure satisfaction through direct questions and quantitative methods. Question of the present study is to explain the methodological challenges of evaluating residents' experience of the severity of physical changes based on the satisfaction criterion. The research method is content analysis, which is accompanied by a logical argument and inferential model, obtained from the study of previous models, in the first phase of the research. Accordingly, residents' motivations and individual characteristics, dynamic nature of adaptation and satisfaction over time and finally, lack of contextual framework are some of the challenges in this field, and indicators such as individual characteristics, level of adaptation, emotional and cognitive assessment that leads to mental perception, have a cyclical relationship with each other over time. In the second phase of the research, a quantitative questionnaire is developed through extracting indicators from the study context, and reviewed by five experts using formal content method, in order to validate the proposed framework. Then, the snowball sampling method was applied to select 34 residents of both men and women with more than 25 years residency in Tusca neighborhood, as a target neighborhood, and Ahu neighborhood, as a control neighborhood in Mahmudabad city. In Tusca neighborhood, the indicators are extracted based on a semi-structured questionnaire. The results obtained from both neighborhoods indicate the validity of the questionnaire and its preparation process. The dependency of answers on residence place allows to achieve more precise results of residents' satisfaction with physical changes. Therefore, attention to the cognitive-perceptual experience of residents in a cyclical process and using a method based on qualitative-evaluative exploratory analyses, makes it possible to obtain real criteria for residents' satisfaction with the severity of changes.


We have developed a parallel FDTD code to simulate light scattering distribution from B-cells. The 3D internal structure of the B-cell was constructed numerically using images from a confocal microscope and the correlation between cell morphology and distributions of scattered light was established.


BACKGROUND: Rehabilitation outcomes for patients with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) after hospital discharge are not well understood. PURPOSE: The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to describe outpatient physical therapy (PT) after TKA and compare short-term (2 months) functional and clinical outcomes of patients following TKA who were discharged from the hospital to home and received (a) outpatient PT immediately (OP) or (b) home health PT before outpatient PT (HH). METHODS: The medical records of 109 men and women postoperative TKA discharged home were abstracted for the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), Knee Osteoarthritis and Outcome Score (KOOS), and knee range of motion (ROM) preoperatively and after discharge from all postoperative PT. Patients received outpatient clinic-based PT immediately after discharge from the hospital (OP) (n = 87) or home health PT before continued rehabilitation in an outpatient setting (HH) (n = 22). RESULTS: Despite demographic differences between OP and HH preoperatively, adjusted models revealed no significant differences among KOOS, 6MWT, or knee ROM between OP and HH upon completion of postoperative PT. Patients in OP completed PT on average 20 days sooner (p = .0007), although the amount of time in outpatient PT (p = .55) and the number of outpatient PT visits (p = .68) were similar between groups. CONCLUSION: Gains in function were achieved by patients in OP and HH independent of the postoperative PT setting, although OP achieved gains sooner.


To reveal the relationship between the classroom teaching quality and level of Ideology and Politics in colleges and universities and their influencing factors, PCA (Principal Component Analysis) is used to conduct its quantitative analysis. In this analysis, the relationship between the factors, such as teaching quality and level, teaching objectives and methods, teaching content, teaching language, teaching bearing, blackboard-writing, teaching process, student performance and others, is studied. As a result, a quantitative relation between the teaching quality and level and their influencing factors is obtained, which provides a decision-making basis for improving the classroom teaching level and quality.


Abstract. The activation of reactive halogen species – particularly Cl2 – from sea ice and snow surfaces is not well understood. In this study, we used a photochemical snow reactor coupled to a chemical ionization mass spectrometer to investigate the production of Br2, BrCl and Cl2 from NaCl/NaBr-doped artificial snow samples. At temperatures above the NaCl-water eutectic, illumination of samples (λ > 310 nm) in the presence of gas phase O3 led to the accelerated release of Br2, BrCl and the release of Cl2 in a process that was significantly enhanced by acidity, high surface area and additional gas phase Br2. Cl2 production was only observed when both light and ozone were present. The total halogen release depended on [ozone] and pre-freezing [NaCl]. Our observations support a "halogen explosion" mechanism occurring within the snowpack, which is initiated by heterogeneous oxidation and propagated by Br2 or BrCl photolysis and by recycling of HOBr and HOCl into the snowpack. Our study implicates this important role of active chemistry occurring within the interstitial air of aged (i.e. acidic) snow for halogen activation at polar sunrise.


High-order-harmonic generation in benzene is studied using a mixed quantum-classical approach in which the electrons are described using time-dependent density-functional theory while the ions move classically. The interaction with both linearly and circularly polarized infrared ( λ = 800 nm) laser pulses of duration of ten cycles (26.7 fs) is considered. The effect of allowing the ions to move is investigated as is the effect of including self-interaction corrections to the exchange-correlation functional. Our results for circularly polarized pulses are compared with previous calculations in which the ions were kept fixed and self-interaction corrections were not included, while our results for linearly polarized pulses are compared with both previous calculations and experiment. We find that even for the short-duration pulses considered here, the ionic motion greatly influences the harmonic spectra. While ionization and ionic displacements are greatest when linearly polarized pulses are used, the response to circularly polarized pulses is almost comparable, in agreement with previous experimental results.


The Make Your Path (MY Path) initiative provides disadvantaged youth with peer-led financial capability trainings, a savings account at a mainstream financial institution and incentives to set and meet savings goals. The program focuses on youth earning their first paycheck—a critical "teachable moment" to promote savings and connect youth with mainstream financial products. In 2011-12, Mission SF Community Financial Center (Mission SF) tested MY Path by delivering its suite of services to ten agencies participating in San Francisco's largest youth employment program, the Mayor's Youth Employment and Education Program (MYEEP). Participants saved an average of $507 over a six-month period and youth demonstrated increases in financial knowledge, reports of positive financial behaviors, and confidence about making financial decisions and doing business with a mainstream financial institution.


Over the last years, stand-alone and / or hybrid photovoltaic systems have spread in rural areas, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Compared to conventional systems (typically diesel generators), these systems can provide a reliable electricity supply at reasonable costs with a low degree of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, this paper focuses on modelling and investigation of an off-grid photovoltaic system (charging station) performance based on a located in Kenya. However, the model can be adapted to any other region and any type of photovoltaic systems module by changing model input data such as solar radiation, air temperature, longitude, latitude, load profile and standard test conditions parameters of the photovoltaic systems module. The modelled photovoltaic system (charging station) will be used to provide reliable and clean electricity for a number of important tasks (e.g. water purification, charging special floatable lanterns and electric bikes).


Diabetes mellitus is regarded as a noncurable but controllable disease. The disease necessitates constant reassessment of glycaemic control in people with diabetes and appropriate adjustment of therapeutic regimens. For several centuries medical practitioners have long been acknowledged the therapeutic properties of certain flowers. The medicinal properties of flowers are evaluated from the aspect of potential health benefits concerning mainly the influence of color, odour and flavour components in relation to antioxidant activity, and scavenging activity of reactive oxygen radicals. Though many flowers available in our surroundings have medicinal uses and are widely used in indigenous system, there is a scarce data about the medicinal uses of flowers. This review highlights therapeutic utility of medicinal flowers and enriches our knowledge regarding pharmacological aspects of the flowers used in managing diabetes.


Obtaining quality documentation is one of the most difficult jobs in the analysis, design and development of a data processing system. Most DP systems require three types of documentation before a system becomes operational. These three types are the results of three evolutionary phases in the installation of a given system. Figure 1 depicts the evolutionary phases and defines the three types of documentation required. Actually, there are four phases and four types of documentation in the life of a system. The fourth phase is the System Maintenance Period of an ongoing system, and the fourth type of documentation is the User Reference Documentation.


In one sense, human heads function much like those of other mammals. We use them to chew, smell, swallow, think, hear, and so on. But, in other respects, the human head is quite unusual. Unlike other animals, even our great ape cousins, our heads are short and wide, very big brained, snoutless, largely furless, and perched on a short, nearly vertical neck. Daniel E. Lieberman sets out to explain how the human head works, and why our heads evolved in this peculiarly human way. Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head's many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely. This is the first book to explore in depth what happened in human evolution by integrating principles of development and functional morphology with the hominin fossil record. "The Evolution of the Human Head" will permanently change the study of human evolution and has widespread ramifications for thinking about other branches of evolutionary biology.


With the federally mandated bridge scour program deadline of January 1997 approaching, scour evaluations are in full progress in many states around the country. A common physical situation at bridge sites is that bridge piers and abutments are founded on piles or pile-bent foundations, which are driven through alluvial sands and gravels into an underlying clay strata. Most of the well known literature does not address the scourability of such clay material in a quantitative way, and therefore, the engineer performing the scour analysis is left to his own judgement regarding how to estimate scour depths and rate the bridge. This usually results in a conservative assumption that the clay will behave like fine sand with the resulting rating of the bridge as scour critical or scour susceptible. The authors propose the use of, and have successfully used, a 1963 study by the USGS to provide guidance in quantifying the erodibility of clay soils. The USGS study in combination with evaluating bridge contractions similar to Laursen derivation of clear-water contraction scour equation for granular soils, results in a clay soil clear-water contraction scour equation which gives more realistic estimates of contraction scour in clay soils.


Identity formation is a critical dimension of how and why students engage in science to varying degrees. In this paper, we use the lens of identity formation, and in particular identities in practice, to make sense of how and why Melanie, over the course of sixth grade, transformed from a marginalized member of the science class with a failing grade to a highly valued member of the sixth-grade science community with a perfect score of a 100% for the sixth-grade exit project. Our findings reveal that the different figured worlds of the science classroom, such as whole class, small group work, and individual work, offered Melanie different affordances for identity formation that were built upon across such spaces, in both productive and unproductive ways. Our findings also take up the kinds of critical roles that members of her classroom community, in particular teacher and peers, play in supporting and constraining such a transformation. We discuss the implications identity formation has for understanding issues of gender equity and science learning.


Injecting drug use is highly prevalent in London and is associated with specific physical health problems. These problems are related to the toxicity of the substances, their mode of consumption and as a consequence of the drug taking lifestyle. Hepatitis B and C viral infections are common among drug users due to sharing of both needles and other drug taking paraphernalia. Hepatitis B infection can be prevented by immunisation. Hepatitis C infection can interact with alcohol consumption to accelerate liver damage. Sharing of drug injection equipment is high (up to 78%). Injecting drug users (IDUs) that live close to needle exchanges are significantly less likely to engage in sharing activities than those that live further away. Drug users are at particular risk of developing poor dental health, which is associated with morbidity and mortality, particularly cardio-vascular conditions and respiratory disease. Many female drug users have been involved with the commercial sex industry and are at risk of contracting blood borne viruses. Drug users who also use alcohol have an increased likelihood of physical morbidity and injury / trauma. Problem drug users have an increased likelihood of experiencing physical morbidity, but are less likely to engage with primary care services. Barriers to accessing primary care include convenience (access), apathy, procrastination and "self-medication". Drug users are more likely to report physical health complications at an Accident & Emergency department (AED) than at a GP practice. Further investigation of local AEDs is required to ascertain their potential for assessing and referring drug users to specialist services and other primary care providers. Integration of primary care and drug treatment services may encourage drug users to engage in treatment for physical morbidity and promote retention within addictions services. Physical health of drug users may be assessed as part of a formal induction to treatment services, or opportunistically as appropriate. Drug users presenting to primary care services for prescriptions related to their addiction may not experience such an assessment. Increasing GPs knowledge and skills can lead to greater implementation of screening practices. The provision of primary care services to clients attending addiction treatment centres can lead to improvements in drug users' physical health and enhanced treatment outcomes.


Comprehensive resource center dedicated to international material innovation, offers producers and users of materials a single source of inspiration, information and promotion.


This thesis covers investigations into high peak power short (nanosecond) and ultrashort (picosecond and femtosecond) pulse delivery through novel hollow-core microstructured silica fibres the Negative Curvature Fibre (NCF) and the Free Boundary Anti-Resonant Fibre (FBARF) for manufacturing applications. Both types of fibres provide light guidance in the NIR and green spectral regions via the AntiResonant Reflecting Optical Waveguiding (ARROW) mechanism. NCFs exhibit extremely low attenuations of 0.04 dB/m and 0.15 dB/m at 1030 nm and 532 nm respectively, not achievable with photonic bandap hollow-core fibres. These fibres have been demonstrated to deliver NIR and green picosecond pulses with peak powers at the level of 15 MW and 5 MW respectively, which significantly exceeds the capabilities of commercially available singlemode fibres. Optimised NCFs for transmission in both spectral regimes provide singlemode, high quality output and maintain the spectral and temporal properties of the original laser pulse. Furthermore, these fibres exhibit a low sensitivity to bending with useful bend diameters ≥ 5 cm, which is sufficient for most beam delivery applications. This was further improved by developing and introducing a dynamic fibre delivered power stabilisation system which enables efficient compensations of bend-induced power fluctuations. Practical implementation of NCF delivered pulses in manufacturing applications has been demonstrated in the precision micro-machining of metals, crack-free micromilling of fused silica and waveguide writing in borosilicate glass. The FBARF structure is a modification of the NCF design aimed for an improvement in energy handling capacity, light confinement and further reduction of bending loss. However, the fibres reported in this thesis (fabricated for guidance at 1 μm and green wavelengths) are preliminary designs, and so their full potential e.g. their energy handling capacities could not be fully established. Nevertheless, initial tests performed within this work indicated that further development of this fibre design should result in a reduction of the intrinsic attenuation and bend loss to a level comparable with the NCFs while increasing the optical damage threshold.


Selecting discriminative features in positive unlabelled (PU) learning tasks is a challenging problem due to lack of negative class information. Traditional supervised and semi-supervised feature selection methods are not able to be applied directly in this scenario, and unsupervised feature selection algorithms are designed to handle unlabelled data while neglecting the available information from positive class. To leverage the partially observed positive class information, we propose to encode the weakly supervised information in PU learning tasks into pairwise constraints between training instances. Violation of pairwise constraints are measured and incorporated into a partially supervised graph embedding model. Extensive experiments on different benchmark databases and a real-world cyber security application demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm.


Two critical nanoscale design parameters (CNDPs); namely, surface chemistry and interior compositions of poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers were systematically engineered to produce unique hyperpolarizable, electro-optical substrates. These electro-optically active dendritic films were demonstrated to produce high quality, continuous wave terahertz radiation when exposed to a suitable pump laser that could be used for spectrometry and molecular imaging. These dendrimer based dipole excitation (DDE) terahertz sources were used to construct a working spectrometer suitable for many practical applications including THz imaging and analysis of encapsulated hydrogen species in fullerenes.


This paper presents an autonomous algorithm for discovering exception rules from data sets. An exception rule, which is defined as a deviational pattern to a well-known fact, exhibits unexpectedness and is sometimes extremely useful in spite of its obscurity. Previous discovery approaches for this type of knowledge have neglected the problem of evaluating the reliability of the rules extracted from a data set. It is clear, however, that this question is mandatory in distinguishing knowledge from unreliable patterns without annoying the users. In order to circumvent these difficulties we propose a probabilistic estimation approach in which we obtain an exception rule associated with a common sense rule in the form of a ride pair. Our approach discovers, based on the normal approximations of the multinomial distributions, rule pairs which satisfy, with high confidence, all the specified conditions. The time efficiency of the discovery process is improved by the newly-derived stopping criteria. PEDRE, which is a data mining system based on our approach, has been validated using the benchmark data sets in the machine learning community.


We are witnesses to the increasing spreading of knowledge in all fields of scholarship and  life  itself. This has placed a burden on education at all levels. It has created a gap between possibilities and aspirations, which has in turn resulted in dysfunctional knowledge and dissatisfaction of pupils, teachers and parents. The objective of the Croatian National Education Standard (CNES) is to resolve these problems. The CNES is a comprehensive approach to the educational process and encompasses the objectives of  education and learning , educational content, proposed instruction methods, expected outcomes of teaching, instruction and the teaching environment. The overall objective here is to educate and prepare younger generations for getting their bearings under unpredictable future circumstances, for a knowledge-based economy and society. A large number of experts from the relevant higher educational and scholarly institutions and practicing teachers from throughout Croatia participated in the development of the CNES. The task of the CNES in the field of geography is to disburden pupils and to develop knowledge, skills and habits, and to train and socialize individuals, in compliance with the value system of the European Union. The CNES in geography has been presented, as in all subjects of the natural science group, through lecture topics. The structure of topics is tabular, with 13 parameters that indicate objectives of the CNES. An analysis of the CNES clearly shows that teaching geography is inconceivable without maps, because complex spatial reality cannot be perceived without corresponding knowledge, ability and habits from the field of cartography. The map, with its universal nature (cartographic symbols), is an irreplaceable lecture aid to educate and socialize pupils. Implementation of the CNES commenced in 2005 in an experimental 5% (49) of Croatia's schools. Implementation of CNES requires additional education of geography teachers, which has been conceived by means of seminars in several phases.


As video games have matured from a technical hobby to a fully-fledged art form, so too have the methods used to create them matured. In tandem with the constant evolution of graphical fidelity, gameplay mechanics, input devices, and storytelling techniques spanning the entire existence of video games, there has also been an evolution in the purpose, and implementation, of music and sound effects. Whereas early video games utilized simple melodies to attract players in arcades, modern video games have grown to utilize audio as a means for storytelling in itself. As the visual component continues to grow more realistic with each gaming generation, equally realistic audio has become increasingly important in creating a cohesive experience for the player. For this reason, many developers have turned to utilizing audio pipelines which allow for expanded mixing and audio processing techniques, resulting in the most immersive interactive audio experiences ever made.


Conditions for which a hospital and emergency utilization can be considered avoidable are often referred as ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs). Until now, there has been no published research related to ACSCs in Croatia. This study was undertaken with the aim of determining the trends relating to ACSCs in out-of-hospital ES from 1995-2012. The study is based on data from the Croatian Health Service Yearbooks. Five chronic and three acute conditions were chosen: diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, angina pectoris, asthma and COPD, bacterial pneumonia, urinary tract infections and skin infections. The results indicate that the ES in Croatia is overused, and consequently ACSCs are over-represented; 23.3% Croatian citizens visited the ES and around 15% of all diagnoses belonged to the ACSCs, with decreased trend. The leading diagnosis is hypertension, followed by asthma and COPD. For a better understanding of the importance of ACSC within the Croatian context, further research is needed.


History, Imagination, and the Performance of Music. By Peter Walls. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2003. [xiv, 184 p. ISBN 1-84383-005-1. $70.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Until twenty or so years ago, many traditional performers and musicologists viewed performance practice (a.k.a. Historically Informed Performance or HIP) with suspicion, despite its official designation as one of musicology's subspecialties. Recently the gap between the two camps has begun to narrow, partly due to the realization that the "authenticity police" do not represent mainstream HIPsters, but also in some measure as a result of recent works by well respected scholars and performers who address specific performance practice issues in a balanced and thoughtful manner. Among the most notable of these practical sources are Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell's introduction to The Historical Performance of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Performance Practice (for music before and after 1600), edited by Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), and the Early Music America series of performance practice guides for Medieval, Renaissance, and Seventeenthcentury Music edited respectively by Ross Duffin (A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 200O]), Jeffery Kite-Powell (A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music [New York: Schirmer, 1994]), and Stewart Carter (A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music. [New York: Schirmer, 1997]), the last two with revised editions in preparation. To this list should be added Clive Brown's Classical and Romantic Pmforming Practice from 1750-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Several other books treat the broader philosophical controversies that performance practice seems to excite. These include Nicholas Kenyon, et. al.'s Authenticity and Early Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Richard Taruskin's Text and Act (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), Paul Henry Lang's Performance and Musicology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), and Peter Kivy's Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). Two other volumes directly address the charges of those who feel threatened enough by performance practice that they go so far as to question its value: John Butt's Playing with History: The Historical Approach to Musical Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and the book under review here, Peter Walls's polemic, History, Imagination, and the Performance of Music. The book is based on a series of lectures Walls presented in 2000 under the auspices of Magdalen College and calls to mind the conversational style of Stravinsky's lectures, Poetics of Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), and other such similar collections. While Butt's Playing with History appeals to the musical philosopher, Walls's book, by no means lacking in philosophical perspective, is directed toward the performing musician, the person at thecenter of the vortex who must ultimately make the decisions. Full of wit, humor, and clever turns of phrase, the book is a pleasure to read. Walls's direct personal style and engaging manner draws the reader into his world, and the copious musical examples bring abstract issues into sharp focus, even if many of the facsimiles appear blurred as if they were actually faxed across the ages. In his introduction, Walls evenhandedly articulates the main criticisms leveled at HIP. The chapters that follow, relatively concise, to the point, and well-organized, are devoted to detailed individual discussions of various aspects of the debate. Through an examination of Johann Sebastian Bach's Adagio from the G Minor Sonata for Solo Violin, BWV 1001, the second chapter, "Escaping Tradition, Embracing History," demonstrates the role changing personal taste plays in reception history. …


Abstract. Severe flood events turned out to be the most devastating catastrophes for Europe's population, economy and environment during the past decades. The total loss caused by the August 2002 flood is estimated to be 10 billion Euros for Germany alone. Due to their capability to present a synoptic view of the spatial extent of floods, remote sensing technology, and especially synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, have been successfully applied for flood mapping and monitoring applications. However, the quality and accuracy of the flood masks and derived flood parameters always depends on the scale and the geometric precision of the original data as well as on the classification accuracy of the derived data products. The incorporation of auxiliary information such as elevation data can help to improve the plausibility and reliability of the derived flood masks as well as higher level products. This paper presents methods to improve the matching of flood masks with very high resolution digital elevation models as derived from LiDAR measurements for example. In the following, a cross section approach is presented that allows the dynamic fitting of the position of flood mask profiles according to the underlying terrain information from the DEM. This approach is tested in two study areas, using different input data sets. The first test area is part of the Elbe River (Germany) where flood masks derived from Radarsat-1 and IKONOS during the 2002 flood are used in combination with a LiDAR DEM of 1 m spatial resolution. The other test data set is located on the River Severn (UK) and flood masks derived from the TerraSAR-X satellite and aerial photos acquired during the 2007 flood are used in combination with a LiDAR DEM of 2 m pixel spacing. By means of these two examples the performance of the matching technique and the scaling effects are analysed and discussed. Furthermore, the systematic flood mapping capability of the different imaging systems are examined. It could be shown that the combination of high resolution SAR data and LiDAR DEM allows the derivation of higher level flood parameters such as flood depth estimates, as presented for the Severn area. Finally, the potential and the constraints of the approach are evaluated and discussed.


This article explores the risks and limits of transjudicial communication. In particular, I critique the scholarly contention that transjudicial communication can be built upon commonly accepted methods of legal reasoning. I argue that transnational courts do not uniformly understand or apply commonly accepted methods of legal reasoning, especially legal argument by analogy. As a result, transnational courts that utilize transjudicial communication can and do render specious, even destructive, judicial opinions. I analyze the case of Zaheeruddin v. State—a controversial decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan that upheld the constitutionality of Pakistan's antiblasphemy ordinances. The Supreme Court of Pakistan poorly analogized to numerous U.S. Supreme Court authorities to bolster and legitimize its deeply flawed decision.


The resistance of most plants to salt can be impaired by concurrent waterlogging. However, few studies have examined this interaction during germination and early seedling growth and its implications for nutrient uptake. The aim of the study was to examine the response of germination, early growth, and nutrient uptake to salt (NaCl) and hypoxia applied to barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. Stirling), in solution culture. Hypoxia, induced by covering seeds with water, lowered the germination from 94% to 28% but salinity and hypoxia together lowered it further to 13% at 120 mM NaCl. While the germination was 75% at 250 mM NaCl in aerated solution, it was completely inhibited at this NaCl concentration under hypoxia. Sodium ion (Na+) concentrations in germinated seedlings increased with increasing salinity under both aerated and hypoxic conditions during germination, while K+ and Mg+ concentrations were decreased with increasing salinity in 6 d old seedlings. After 20 d, control seedlings had the same dry weights of the roots and shoots with and without hypoxia but at 10 mM NaCl and higher, shoot and root dry weight was depressed with hypoxia. Sodium ion increased in roots and shoots with increased NaCl under both aerated and hypoxic conditions while K+ was depressed when salinity and hypoxia were applied together and Ca2+ was mostly decreased by NaCl. In general, hypoxia had greater effects on nutrient concentrations than NaCl by decreasing N, P, S, Mg, Mn, Zn, and Fe in shoots and by increasing B concentrations. The threshold salinity levels decreased markedly for germination, uptake of a range of nutrients, and for seedling growth of barley under hypoxic compared to well-aerated conditions.