Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of DrenchRite and how it relates to faecal egg count reduction tests (FECRT) will lead to clearer interpretation of DrenchRite results and a better perspective on both tests. In previous studies efficacy was estimated for worms resistant to BZ, LEV and BZILEV combinations by FECRT, DrenchRite and post mortem worm counts. Correlations of in vivo efficacy with FECRT determined by them were: Trichostrongylus colubriformis 88%, Ostertagia circumcincta 56% and Haemonchus contortus 69%. The low correlation for O. circumcincta was associated with the variability in estimating species composition when O. circumcincta was present at low levels. Correlations of DrenchRite with in vivo efficacy were: O. circumcincta 87%, T. colubriformis 82% and H. contortus 80%. The correlation between resistance determined by Larval Development Assay (LDA) and FECRT was not high at 61% (averaged over drugs and species). Similar data for Macrocyclic Lactones (ML) resistant worms are not yet available.

Previous studies have shown for some LDA systems that eggs are more likely to be inhibited in development to L3s early (2-3 weeks post infection (PI)) and late (beyond 10 weeks PI) after infection and are most resilient to the effect of drugs at about 7 weeks PI. No systematic changes in DrenchRite results were observed over age of worm infection when tested weekly for 2 to 14 week old worms.

Large bowel worms of sheep have not generally been examined under LDA conditions so a study was undertaken to determine the LD50s of susceptible Oesophagostomum columbianum (nodule worm) and Chabertia ovina (large mouthed bowel worm) on DrenchRite plates. LD50s for BZ and LEV were approximately 0.04 and 0.8 uM respectively for both worms. For the ML O. columbianum had a much higher LD50 (45 nM) than C. ovina (8 nM). In relation to the other common sheep worms, development characteristics of C. ovina in LDA is like H. contortus while O. columbianum is more like O. circumcincta. Both large bowel worms were very sensitive to BZILEV combinations, with LD50s 4 to 8 fold lower than those observed for H. contortus and O. circumcincta.


Sport is often promoted as a vehicle through which a variety of social policy outcomes can be achieved. One of the most common outcomes is the enhancement of social inclusion opportunities for marginalized youth populations. While a growing number of studies have examined the potential of sport-based interventions to address broader social concerns, few have focused upon the recruitment activities used within such programs to engage youth populations. Drawing upon interview data collected within two sport-based interventions delivered in London (UK), which both aimed to engage marginalized young people through sport, this article intends to examine three main issues. First, to explore the practices undertaken by the two organizations to recruit and retain participants in their sport-based interventions, and second, to examine the implications of these practices on participant recruitment strategies. Third, the article contends that within a context shaped by a neoliberal agenda, the necessity to meet predetermined participation targets encourages organizations to use the most efficient means possible to maximize numbers of program participants. However, such recruitment strategies often overlook young people whose social exclusion is more complex or acute, and who, arguably, are in greater need of intervention support.


The cloned oprH gene of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was mutated by inserting a 1.4-kbp fragment that encodes tetracycline resistance. This mutated gene was then incorporated into the P. aeruginosa chromosome by homologous recombination. Growth of the resultant oprH::tet mutant in Mg(2+)-deficient medium had little effect on susceptibility to polymyxin B, gentamicin, or EDTA unless the mutant was complemented by the cloned oprH gene in plasmid pGB25. In contrast, growth of the parent strain on Mg(2+)-deficient medium resulted in resistance to all three agents. These data support the hypothesis that overexpression of OprH under Mg(2+)-deficient growth conditions is conditionally required for resistance to these three agents.


Jeremy James is a Canadian-born, Australian-raised artist based in Europe, who has worked across a diversity of media to explore his interests and concerns with the relationship between representation and meaning. His early visual art practice was driven by a critical and deconstructive eye, particularly with reference to personal and cultural identity. Jeremy will discuss the ways in which his initial investigations at art school set the foundations for a career that has evolved predominately into theatre and performance.

Having initially studied at the Canberra School of Art in the early 1990s, Jeremy has worked as an actor, director, artist and teacher across the performing and visual arts. His interest in interdisciplinary practices lead him to Europe to further train with leading artists and teachers. He has developed a unique approach to contemporary performance which is informed and inspired by his early experience and training as a visual artist. Most recently, he was a member of Ariane Mnouchkine's renowned theatre ensemble, Le Theâtre du Soleil in Paris. He collaborated on all aspects of the company's epic-projects, Le Dernier Caravanserail and Les Ephemeres, from design and development to production and performance. He has toured extensively to major theatres and festivals internationally and received critical acclaim for his work. He has been invited to give workshops in France, Spain, UK, Canada, Argentina and Brazil, while teaching and leading masterclasses for actors and directors at drama schools and universities in Europe.


President Trump's "offer" to purchase Greenland has placed the country at the heart of world affairs and great power rivalry in the Arctic. Greenland is currently enjoying considerable interest from both the U.S. and China while Russia is increasing its military capabilities in the region. Traditionally, Greenlandic politicians have not been interested in defense and military spending without civilian purpose. And as security policy is constitutionally outside the self-government's authority the issue has not been high on the agenda. However, as Greenland is actively seeking independence from Denmark, the future of Greenlandic defense has become crucial to understanding its independence aspirations. This article examines how the Greenlandic self-government and the political parties envision the future of Greenland's security framework through close readings of government coalition agreements, political statements and media texts. Based on The Copenhagen School of Securitization Studies, the main argument is that Greenlandic defense and foreign policy is characterized by desecuritization. That is, a tendency towards downplaying the security and defense aspects of independence while instead highlighting i.e. economic aspects. The article analyzes this logic in Greenland's recent foreign policy aspirations and in debates on defense. Analytically, desecuritization is linked to two underlying narratives which Greenlandic politicians use to rhetorically downplay security aspects of defense and foreign policy by referring to either economic self-sufficiency or identity politics of the Inuit.


Protein thermostabilization has been the focus of recent research due to growing interest in the production of enzymes that can operate at temperatures that are industrially beneficial. Understanding the determinants of thermostabilization at the level of sequence and structure are important to design such enzymes. A bioinformatical approach was used to determine the extent by which reduced amino acid alphabets (RAAA) with n-grams (subsequences of length n) that were subjected to a t-test-based feature selection procedure can be used to discriminate proteins from thermophiles and mesophiles. Classification performance of 65 different protein alphabets with 3 different n-gram sizes was systematically evaluated using support vector machines in a test set that contained 707 proteins from mesophilic Xylella fastidosa and thermophilic Aquifex aeolicus. A classification accuracy of 91.796% was achieved with Hsdm16 RAAA with 13 features: EK-ILV-ST-A-G-F-H-Q-N-R-M-W-Y. The t-test-based feature selection procedure reduced the classification time without significantly affecting classification accuracy. The overall combination of methods in this paper is useful and computationally fast for classifying protein sequences from thermophiles and mesophiles using sequence information alone.


In this article, we put forward a novel way of exploring difference and contradiction in merging organizations. We examine how the media (re)constructs meanings in a major cross-border merger. Based on an analysis of press coverage, we attempt to specify and illustrate how particular issues are (re)constructed in media texts through interpretations of 'winning' and 'losing'. We also show how specific discourses are drawn on in this (re)construction. In the merger studied, discourse based on economic and financial rationale dominated the media coverage. Discourse promoting nationalistic sentiments, however, provided an alternative discursive frame to the dominant rationalistic discourse. We argue that the two basic discourses are enacted in three analytically distinct discursive practices in the media: factualizing, rationalizing and emotionalizing. We suggest that the ability of different actors such as top managers to make use of different discursive strategies and resources in promoting their 'versions of reality' in the media (or public discussion) is a crucial avenue for research in this area.


New in Paperback! Make learning more meaningful by teaching the "whole game" David Perkins, a noted authority on teaching and learning and co-director of Harvard's Project Zero, introduces a practical and research-based framework for teaching. He describes how teaching any subject at any level can be made more effective if students are introduced to the "whole game," rather than isolated pieces of a discipline. Perkins explains how learning academic subjects should be approached like learning baseball or any game, and he demonstrates this with seven principles for making learning whole: from making the game worth playing (emphasizing the importance of motivation to sustained learning), to working on the hard parts (the importance of thoughtful practice), to learning how to learn (developing self-managed learners). Vividly explains how to organize learning in ways that allow people to do important things with what they know Offers guidelines for transforming education to prepare our youth for success in a rapidly changing world Filled with real-world, illustrative examples of the seven principles At the end of each chapter, Perkins includes "Wonders of Learning," a summary of the key ideas.


Deception has been an important problem in interactive groups, impeding effective group communication and group work, yet deception detection in such a context remains understudied. Extrapolated from the interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and group composition research in cooperative contexts, this research proposes that group factors, including diversity and familiarity, have influence on the performance of deception detection. The measurement of group performance was not limited to success, as previous deception studies did, but included efficiency as well because it is fundamental to the effectiveness of deception detection. An analysis of data collected from a real-world online community found that behavioral familiarity had a positive effect, and gender diversity had a negative effect, on group success in deception detection. In addition, behavioral familiarity had a negative effect and functional diversity had a positive effect on the group efficiency of deception detection. The findings not only extend IDT in several important ways but also suggest the need to distinguish between noncooperative and cooperative groups, an important theoretical implication for group composition research.


On July 30, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (2002) into law. The legislation was crafted by the United States Congress to address issues related to accounting improprieties which came to light during the Enron scandal. The specific purpose of the legislation was "To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes" (116 Stat. 745). In order to comply with the law's requirements, financial officers of publicly-traded companies were now required to attest to the accuracy and validity of their companies' financial statements. The law stipulated that criminal charges could result from accounting improprieties. The passage of this legislation ushered in an era in which publicly traded companies began looking to implement systems and technologies that would help them comply with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislative requirements. This case study recounts the experience designing, developing, and facilitating a train-the-trainer software course for a global pharmaceutical company's Sarbanes-Oxley implementation. The paper will begin with an introduction of the case and a description of the stakeholders' roles. Secondly, the authors reflect upon the case through the framework of Caffarella's (2002) Interactive Model of Program Planning. Finally, the case concludes with details of the training program's delivery and a review of the case's implications on the practice of adult education. The names of the software company, the pharmaceutical company, and the audit firm discussed in this case have been changed to protect the identities of these organizations. Case Description and Stakeholder Roles Goriskco Software operates in the governance, risk and compliance market, with a focus on helping clients meet the compliance obligations of various industries by providing software for deploying online training and surveys, managing completion statistics for online courses, and managing company documentation. Following the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, Goriskco began marketing its software (Goriskco Enterprise) to customers looking for tools to support Sarbanes-Oxley compliance efforts. PharmaCo is a publicly traded multinational pharmaceutical company based in Europe. Since the company's stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, PharmaCo is required to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. In 2003, Goriskco Enterprise was chosen by PharmaCo as the software tool to help manage PharmaCo's SOX compliance process. The Goriskco software implementation was part of a larger SOX compliance project, which included a comprehensive approach to meeting SOX mandates. The training portion of the project included a two-day train-the-trainer workshop for key PharmaCo finance personnel who would serve as the company's SOX trainers. The project team for the SOX workshop (see Figure 1) was led by a global audit firm, Smith & Company, LLP (SmithCo), which served as the expert on internal controls and SOX legislation. The information in Figure 1 is intended to review the internal and external factors impacting the case study's environment. However, the majority of this case focuses on the internal core of the project, which is comprised of interactions between the project team for the SOX workshop. External factors related to the legislative and regulatory environment are noted in the case, but are not a main focus of this paper, as it was not an aspect of the case which the project team members could control. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] In the development of the software portion of the workshop, Goriskco personnel worked with a SmithCo training director who was responsible for the compilation and review of all program materials. The SOX workshop was conducted in Europe for 50 PharmaCo finance personnel representing eight countries throughout four continents. …


Data privacy concerns are increasing significantly in the context of the Internet of Things, cloud services, edge computing, artificial intelligence applications, and other applications enabled by next-generation networks. Homomorphic encryption addresses privacy challenges by enabling multiple operations to be performed on encrypted messages without decryption. This article comprehensively addresses homomorphic encryption from both theoretical and practical perspectives. This article delves into the mathematical foundations required to understand fully homomorphic encryption (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). It consequently covers design fundamentals and security properties of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and describes the main <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> schemes based on various mathematical problems. On a more practical level, this article presents a view on privacy-preserving machine learning using homomorphic encryption and then surveys <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at length from an engineering angle, covering the potential application of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> in fog computing and cloud computing services. It also provides a comprehensive analysis of existing state-of-the-art <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\textsf {FHE}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> libraries and tools, implemented in software and hardware, and the performance thereof.


The recovery of classical nonlinear and chaotic dynamics from quantum systems has long been a subject of interest. Furthermore, recent work indicates that quantum chaos may well be significant in quantum information processing. In this paper, we discuss the quantum to classical crossover of a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) ring. Such devices comprise a thick superconducting loop enclosing a Josephson weak link and are currently strong candidates for many applications in quantum technologies. The weak link brings with it a nonlinearity such that semiclassical models of this system can exhibit nonlinear and chaotic dynamics. For many similar systems an application of the correspondence principle together with the inclusion of environmental degrees of freedom through a quantum trajectories approach can be used to effectively recover classical dynamics. Here we show (i) that the standard expression of the correspondence principle is incompatible with the ring Hamiltonian and we present a more pragmatic and general expression which finds application here and (ii) that practical limitations to circuit parameters of the SQUID ring prevent arbitrarily accurate recovery of classical nonlinear dynamics.


(-)-Hydroxycitric acid (HCA), a competitive inhibitor of ATP-citrate lyase, is frequently used in dietary supplements for weight loss. Recently, it was reported in a 52w toxicity study that Garcinia extract powder induced testicular atrophy in rats. In order to study the safety, Garcinia extract was administered to 10 healthy adult men at dose of 3,000 mg/day as HCA for 30 days. No toxicological changes were observed on anthropometric indices or clinical analysis. In addition, serum testosterone showed no change throughout the test period. In regard to subjective symptoms, very slight anorexia (two cases) and headache (one case) occurred. Therefore, we consider that Garcinia extract is safe as administered under the condition of this study.


What would it take for an artificial system to have something like human consciousness? Central to human consciousness is subjectivity and the notion of an experiencing self. It is argued that the self is more like a story or myth than a persisting entity that has free will and consciousness. Memes are information passed from one person to another by imitation, and the theory is proposed that the idea of a persisting self is a memeplex; a group of memes that propagate together. This selfplex is the origin of ordinary human consciousness. Therefore, only systems capable of imitation (and hence of sustaining memetic evolution) can have this kind of consciousness. Two kinds of artificial system are imagined, one that can imitate humans and one that can imitate other systems similar to itself. The first would come to have human-like consciousness. The second might be conscious in a completely novel way.


To understand the complex damage pattern produced by the interaction between a 3-D sedimentary basin and 3-D spherical wavefronts, scattering of seismic waves by 3-D models due to a local point source is investigated by using the Pseudo-Spectrum method. The 3-D wavefields at different time steps are evaluated numerically for a corner diffraction and a sediment-filled basin model. 3-D wavefronts of both models are investigated from snapshots over free surface and vertical cross-sections. Numerical results show that model corners generate strong out-of-plane scattering energy which causes strong seismic energy focusing and defocusing in some specific locations. For an incident wave from a point source below the basin, the sediment-filled basin traps wave energy which propagates inward and focuses near the basin center. This energy extends to the basin bottom with decreasing amplitude. Besides, part of the incident energy is blocked by this basin, resulting in low amplitudes at the surrounding rock sites. This blocking effect is not predicted by the plane wave incidence. Comparisons are made with the results from 2-D models, and they show that the 3-D wavefronts from a point source or from in-plane scattering can be approximated by 2-D models; however, wavefronts from out-of-plane scattering cannot be reproduced.


Europe has two faces. On the one hand, there was a time when Europeans were enchanted by the miracle of integration. After having experienced bitter centuries of war and enmity, imperial devastation, and outbursts of nationalism, the nations of Europe had begun to move in precisely the opposite direction.Yet, although the European success story continues to this day, it also resembles the description of a distant epoch. Perceptions of the European Union are increasingly characterized by a resurgence of national egoism and declining levels of public approval.

In this situation it is helpful to recall the problem at the heart of the issue of integration, which is the conceptual schism among the member states. Contradictory and irreconcilable attitudes toward the future of Europe confront each other. The arguments are ostensibly about treaty texts, though deep down it is a matter of antagonistic views of the shape of things to come. If it proves impossible to reach some kind of agreement about the future political order of the continent, the Europe of 25 and soon more member states may well go into decline, and may possibly even fall apart. This problem cannot be resolved until the issue has been openly discussed.

The principal strategic question concerning the future of the EU continues to remain unanswered.Why is there a need to undertake new efforts, why is it necessary to mobilize new powers? The answer to this question is linked to the new constellations and conditions of world politics. It has to do with Europe's ability to shape developments in a new global order. Europe's future is increasingly being determined by developments taking place beyond its borders. There is a danger that the old continent will gradually become marginalized. Europe must not only react to these developments, it also has the potential to inject its own ideas into the formulation of the rules governing the new economic and political world order.

Both Europe's ability to exert its influence and the fate of the European continent depend on whether the Europeans will be able to renew the "European answer" in a manner that enables them to respond effectively to future challenges. Providing Europe with a new raison d'etre requires the EU to assert itself both internally and externally, and to clearly communicate the reasons for further European integration to citizens.


Perhaps the most important finding of the TIMSS video study is that the Japanese approach to teacher development is very different from the American approach. Our biggest long-term problem, according to Mr. Stigler and Mr. Hiebert, is not how we teach now but that we have no way of getting better. The video component of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was the first attempt ever made to use videotape to study national probability samples of teachers at work. In this article, we present a brief overview of this unprecedented study, which involved detailed analysis and comparison of eighth-grade mathematics teaching in three countries: Germany, Japan, and the United States. We also discuss implications of the video study for the improvement of classroom mathematics teaching in the United States. Collecting national samples of teaching can serve two important purposes. First, it gives us solid information about the processes of teaching and learning inside U.S. classrooms, information that is crucial for developing sound education policies. Efforts to improve student learning succeed or fail inside the classroom, a fact that has too often been ignored by would-be reformers. Setting standards for content and performance is an important first step. But student learning will not be improved merely by setting standards and holding teachers accountable. We must study directly the processes that lead to learning in the classroom, for if we do not understand these processes we will have little chance of improving them. Most other professional and industrial fields have determined that improving the quality of the processes is the surest road to improving products, but we in education have yet to learn this lesson. The videotape study of classroom instruction allows us to refocus on teaching processes, with the aim of improving students' learning. National samples of teaching also enable us to compare U.S. teaching methods with those used in other countries. This comparison allows us to see teaching in a new way. Teaching is a cultural activity.(1) It is an everyday event that occurs throughout all parts of American society. Over time, we have developed norms and expectations for teaching that are widely shared and passed along as one generation of students becomes the next generation of teachers.(2) Because our models of how teaching should look are so widely shared and so familiar, they become nearly invisible. We come to believe that this is the way teaching must be. When we observe teaching in other countries, these accepted and unquestioned practices are brought to light, and we see that we teach the way we do because we choose to teach this way. This realization is crucial because it opens up new possibilities for how we might improve teaching. Conducting the TIMSS Video Study U.S. students performed poorly in the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS), conducted in the 1980s. Consequently, as planning commenced for the TIMSS, there was great interest in being able to go beyond the cross-national achievement data to focus on the underlying processes that produce achievement. Instructional processes in the classroom were assumed to be an important cause of student learning. But how could something as complex as teaching be studied on a large scale, across cultures? One approach is to give teachers a questionnaire asking them to describe their instructional practices. Although such a questionnaire had been administered as part of SIMS, there are problems with this approach. Even within the U.S., we lack shared meanings for the words we use to describe teaching. One teacher will call something "problem solving" while her colleague next door calls the same thing a "routine exercise." The problem of no shared language is compounded in a cross-cultural questionnaire study. The responses are nearly impossible to interpret. Thus the decision was made to collect direct information on teaching by videotaping classroom instruction. …


Jean-Jacques Rousseau's best known political work, the Social Contract, begins and ends by pointing to its incompleteness. Rousseau indicates that the Social Contract's completion would require an elaboration of the principles of international relations. However, Rousseau neither completes the Social Contract nor explicitly sets forth a theory of international relations. The contradiction between pointing to the necessary completion and its simultaneous absence can be solved by arguing that the principles of international relations contradicted those of the Social Contract. A close textual analysis of the pertinent works, Rousseau's Social Contract, the Discourse on Inequality, the Geneva Manuscript, the State of War, and the Abstract and Judgment of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre's Plan for Perpetual Peace, demonstrates this thesis.

The argument begins by showing the presence of two diverging principles in the Social Contract and their implications for international relations. The dominant set of principles of political self-rule necessarily leads to an international state of war. A secondary set of principles of security leads to the demand of international peace. Rousseau rejects the international implications of the latter set of principles, which can take the form of the Roman Catholic Church, balance of power, empire, and commerce as sources of international order. Instead, Rousseau strongly suggests natural law and confederations as solutions consistent with political self-rule. Yet, even these solutions fail ultimately to overcome the state of war. Rousseau's intention in suggesting possible solutions to the international state of war was to moderate the potentially deleterious effects of democratic self-rule.

The incompleteness of the Social Contract is therefore due to the structure of international relations, whose principles are at the same time constituted by political societies and contradicted by them. This implies that the pursuits of security and freedom are mutually exclusive, contradicting in particular Immanuel Kant's claim of their compatibility and contradicting those contemporary theories of international relations derived from Kant.


The structure of a comprehensive research project into mine fires study applying the Ventgraph mine fire simulation software, preplanning of escape scenarios and general interaction with rescue responses is outlined. The project has Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) funding and also relies on substantial mining company site support. This practical input from mine operators is essential and allows the approach to be introduced in the most creditable way. The effort is built around the introduction of fire simulation computer software to the Australian mining industry and the consequent modelling of fire scenarios in selected different mine layouts. Application of the simulation software package to the changing mine layouts requires experience to achieve realistic outcomes. Most Australian mines of size currently use a ventilation network simulation program. Under the project a small subroutine has been written to transfer the input data from the existing mine ventilation network simulation program to 'Ventgraph'. This has been tested successfully. To understand fire simulation behaviour on the mine ventilation system, it is necessary to understood the possible effects of mine fires on various mine ventilation systems correctly first. Case studies demonstrating the possible effects of fires on some typical Australian coal mine ventilation circuits have been examined. The situation in which there is some gas make at the face and effects with fire have also been developed to emphasise how unstable and dangerous situations may arise. The primary objective of the part of the study described in this paper is to use mine fire simulation software to gain better understanding of how spontaneous combustion initiated fires can interact with the complex ventilation behaviour underground during a substantial fire. It focuses on the simulation of spontaneous combustion sourced heatings that develop into open fires. Further, it examines ventilation behaviour effects of spontaneous combustion initiated pillar fires and examines the difficulties these can be present if a ventilation reversal occurs. It also briefly examines simulation of use of the inertisation to assist in mine recovery. Mine fires are recognised across the world as a major hazard issue. New approaches allowing improvement in understanding their consequences have been developed as an aid in handling this complex area.


In the traditional sense, food ingestion consists of prehending, masticating, swallowing, and digesting plant matter. It is also possible to ingest plants without eating them. Volatile compounds are inhaled directly into the lungs and transported from the lungs into the bloodstream. Volatiles in high concentrations could presumably produce toxicosis, without an herbivore ever ingesting a plant in the customary sense. Volatile compounds may be aposematic, serving to warn potential predators of toxins in plants. We conducted three experiments to explore the roles of odor, taste, and toxicity in the food preferences of lambs. The first experiment determined if brief exposure to a novel odor followed by lithium chloride (LiCl)-induced toxicosis caused lambs to avoid a familiar food that contained the odor. Lambs that sniffed coconut-flavored barley and then received LiCl subsequently ate less coconut-flavored barley than lambs that did not receive LiCl. The second experiment determined if lambs were deterred from eating a familiar food by the odor of Astragalus bisulcatus. A. bisulcatus is a malodorous (to humans) sulfur-containing herb considered unpalatable and toxic. Neither odor nor intraruminal infusions of A. bisulcatus deterred lambs from feeding. The third experiment also determined how the degree of familiarity with the odor of A. bisulcatus, along with toxicosis, influenced preference of lambs for food with or without the odor of A. bisulcatus. Lambs with 8 d exposure to the odor but not given LiCl ate similar amounts of food, with and without the odor of A. bisulcatus, whereas lambs given LiCl showed a mild aversion to food with the odor during testing. Lambs with 1 d exposure to the odor but no LiCl ate similar amounts of food, with and without the odor, whereas lambs given LiCl showed a strong but transient aversion to food with the odor. Collectively, these findings show that lambs responded strongly to novel odors, but their response was transient and depended on the postingestive consequences of toxins and nutrients associated with odor inhalation. Thus, we submit that odor alone, in the absence of toxicosis or nociception, is not a deterrent to herbivores that continually sample foods and adjust intake based on the postingestive effects of toxins and nutrients. It also is unlikely that non-toxic plants can mimic the odors of toxic plants to avoid herbivory (Batesian mimicry), unless the odors are indistinguishable by herbivores, again because herbivores constantly sample foods.


We quantified nesting behavior of Palila (Loxioides bailleui), an endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper, by recording at nests during three breeding seasons using a black-and-white video camera connected to a videocassette recorder. A total of seven nests was observed. We measured the following factors for daylight hours: percentage of time the female was on the nest (attendance), length of attendance bouts by the female, length of nest recesses, and adult provisioning rates. Comparisons were made between three stages of the 40-day nesting cycle: incubation (day 1–day 16), early nestling stage (day 17–day 30 [i.e., nestlings ≤14 days old]), and late nestling stage (day 31–day 40 [i.e., nestlings > 14 days old]). Of seven nests observed, four fledged at least one nestling and three failed. One of these failed nests was filmed being depredated by a feral cat (Felis catus). Female nest attendance was near 82% during the incubation stage and decreased to 21% as nestlings aged. We did not detect a difference in attendance bout length between stages of the nesting cycle. Mean length of nest recesses increased from 4.5 min during the incubation stage to over 45 min during the late nestling stage. Mean number of nest recesses per hour ranged from 1.6 to 2.0. Food was delivered to nestlings by adults an average of 1.8 times per hour for the early nestling stage and 1.5 times per hour during the late nestling stage and did not change over time. Characterization of parental behavior by video had similarities to but also key differences from findings taken from blind observations. Results from this study will facilitate greater understanding of Palila reproductive strategies.


In Alma Lopez's digital print Lupe & Sirena in Love (1999), two icons—the Virgin of Guadalupe and the mermaid Sirena, who often appears on Mexican lottery cards—embrace one another, symbolically claiming a place for same-sex desire within Mexican and Chicano/a religious and popular cultures. Ester Hernandez's 1976 etching Libertad/Liberty depicts a female artist chiseling away at the Statue of Liberty, freeing from within it a regal Mayan woman and, in the process, creating a culturally composite Lady Liberty descended from indigenous and mixed bloodlines. In her painting Coyolxauhqui Last Seen in East Oakland (1993), Irene Perez reimagines as whole the body of the Aztec warrior goddess dismembered in myth. These pieces are part of the dynamic body of work presented in this pioneering, lavishly illustrated study, the first book primarily focused on Chicana visual arts.

Creating an invaluable archive, Laura E. Perez examines the work of more than forty Chicana artists across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, sculpture, performance, photography, film and video, comics, sound recording, interactive CD-ROM, altars and other installation forms, and fiction, poetry, and plays. While key works from the 1960s and 1970s are discussed, most of the pieces considered were produced between 1985 and 2001. Providing a rich interpretive framework, Perez describes how Chicana artists invoke a culturally hybrid spirituality to challenge racism, bigotry, patriarchy, and homophobia. They make use of, and often radically rework, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican and other non-Western notions of art and art-making, and they struggle to create liberating versions of familiar iconography such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Sacred Heart. Filled with representations of spirituality and allusions to non-Western visual and cultural traditions, the work of these Chicana artists is a vital contribution to a more inclusive canon of American arts.


Determining the role of environmental factors and disturbance in the distribution of reed canary grass within wetlands", Master's Thesis, Date iii ABSTRACT Reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) is an invasive species originally from Europe that has now expanded to a large range within the United States. Reed canary grass possesses a number of traits that allow it to thrive in a wide range of environmental factors, including high rates of sedimentation, bouts of flooding, and high levels of nutrient inputs. Therefore, the goals of our study were to determine if 1) certain types of wetland were more susceptible to Reed canary grass invasion, and 2) disturbances facilitated Reed canary grass invasion. This study was conducted within the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community reservation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in Baraga County. We selected 28 wetlands for analysis. At each wetland, we identified and sampled distinct vegetative communities and their corresponding environmental attributes, which included water table depth, pH, conductivity, calcium and magnesium concentrations, and percent organic matter. Disturbances at each site were catalogued and their severity estimated with the aid of aerial photos. A GIS dataset containing information about the location of Reed canary grass within the study wetlands, the surrounding roads and the level of roadside Reed canary grass invasion was also developed. In all, 287 plant species were identified and classified into 16 communities, which were then further grouped into three broad groupings of wetlands: nonforested graminoid, Sphagnum peatlands, and forested wetlands. The two most common disturbances identified were roads and off-road recreation trails, both occurring at 23 of the 28 sites. Logging activity surrounding the wetlands was the next most common disturbance and iv was found at 18 of the sites. Occurrence of Reed canary grass was most common in the non-forested graminoid communities. Reed canary grass was very infrequent in forested wetlands, and almost never occurred in the Sphagnum peatlands. Disturbance intensity was the most significant environmental factor in explaining Reed canary grass occurrence within wetlands. Statistically significant relationships were identified at distances of 1000 m, 500 m, and 250 m from studied wetlands, between the level of road development and the severity of Reed canary grass invasion along roadsides. Further analysis revealed a significant relationship between roadside Reed canary grass populations and the level of road development (e.g. paved, graded, and ungraded). v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Online reputation management is about monitoring and handling the public image of entities (such as companies) on the Web. An important task in this area is identifying "aspects" of the entity of interest (such as products, services, competitors, key people, etc.) given a stream of microblog posts referring to the entity. In this paper we compare different IR techniques and opinion target identification methods for automatically identifying aspects and find that (i) simple statistical methods such as TF.IDF are a strong baseline for the task, significantly outperforming opinion-oriented methods, and (ii) only considering terms tagged as nouns improves the results for all the methods analyzed.


Recent studies by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that Vietnam is one of the countries most affected by climate change. The variability of climate in this region, characterized by large fluctuations in precipitation and temperature, has caused significant changes in surface water resources. This study aims to project the impact of climate change on the seasonal availability of surface water of the Huong River in Central Vietnam in the twenty-first century through hydrologic simulations driven by climate model projections. To calibrate and validate the hydrologic model, the model was forced by the rain gage-based gridded Asian Precipitation–Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of water resources (APHRODITE) V1003R1 Monsoon Asia precipitation data along with observed temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation data from local weather stations. The simulated discharge was compared to observations for the period from 1951 until present. Three Global Climate Models (GCMs) ECHAM5-OM, HadCM3 and GFDL-CM2.1 integrated into Long Ashton Research Station-Weather Generator (LARS-WG) stochastic weather generator were run for three IPCC–Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC-SRES) emissions scenarios A1B, A2, and B1 to simulate future climate conditions. The hydrologic model simulated the Huong River discharge for each IPCC-SRES scenario. Simulation results under the three GCMs generally indicate an increase in summer and fall river discharge during the twenty-first century in A2 and B1 scenarios. For A1B scenario, HadCM3 and GFDL-CM2.1 models project a decrease in river discharge from present to the 2051–2080 period and then increase until the 2071–2100 period while ECHAM5-OM model produces opposite projection that discharge will increase until the 2051–2080 period and then decrease for the rest of the century. Water management impacts, such as irrigation or dam regulation, were not considered in this study. However, the results provide local policy makers with quantitative data to consider possible adjustment of future dam capacities for development of flood control policies.


Regular physical activity practice has been recommended for the prevention and rehabilitation of cardiovascular diseases and other chronic diseases by different health care associations worldwide, such as the American College of Sports Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Heart Association, National Institute of Health, the US Surgeon General, the Brazilian Society of Cardiology and many others. Epidemiologic studies have shown a direct relation between lack of physical activity and the presence of multiple risk factors such as those found in the metabolic syndrome. The regular practice of physical exercise has been show to have beneficial effects in the prevention and treatment of blood hypertension, insulin resistance, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity. Physical training therefore should be encouraged for both healthy individuals and those with multiple risk factors if they are capable of participating in a physical fitness program. Just as clinical therapy helps to maintain the function of organs, physical activity promotes favorable physiological adaptations that result in an improved quality of life.


On the dry region of Wonogiri Regency and Pacitan Regency, in the Central Java and East Java Province's border of Indonesia, there is a potential group of plant which is still disguise from the researcher's attention. These wild edible tuberous plant, were actually have potential source of carbohydrate as an alternative to rice or corn inside the forest system or agro-forestry system. Their minimum maintenance, adaptability to drought and shading make them a potential plant as the staple food for the local people residing inside or in the forest's buffer zone. Wild taro ( Aracaceae family) existence in the forest system or agro-forestry might increase the economic sustainability of forest. Using a Randomized block design method on the 5 plots sample located on the Northern slope of Wonogiri dry-land, the density and distribution type of wild taro and taro-like plants were surveyed. There were six genus of wild tuberous plant with 12 identified species and several endemic species identified. Xantosoma sp has the highest population, and generally the aroid plants have clumped distribution. Current situation of economical importance of other commodity and relationship with human agricultural activities may vary the distribution of Taro. Keywords: Edible wild taro, distribution, altitude


Statistical models are common tools for quantifying possible impacts of climate change on crops. Climate change involves shifts in both mean and variability of climate parameters, and experimental results and simulations have shown that both mean and variability can have the same-order effects on crop growth and yield. It is therefore important for impact models to be able to capture the effects of both these aspects. The aim of the present study was to test the ability of statistical crop models to predict the effects of changes in mean and variability of temperature and precipitation on grain yield of maize. Climate variables were aggregated over different time intervals to explore effects of temporal aggregation of predictor variables. To examine the predictive capabilities of statistical crop models beyond the ranges of observed data, we applied the 'perfect model' approach using the process-based crop model CropSyst. Statistical crop models were then fitted based on different sample sizes to explore minimum data requirements for predicting the effects of different synthetic climate scenarios. The analysis revealed that statistical crop models are generally able to quantify the effects of changes in mean and variability of temperature and precipitation with reasonable accuracy, provided that a minimum of 10 to 20 samples per predictor are available for fitting. Also, we can conclude that with total sample sizes of <300 observations, disaggregation of predictor variables increases the risk of model over-fitting. Disaggregation of predictor variables had small beneficial effects, particularly for predicting impacts of changes in climate variability, only with large sample sizes (>300 ob servations).


Abstract Within the Appalachian–Variscan orogen of North America and southern Europe lie a collection of terranes that were distributed along the northern margin of West Gondwana in the late Neoproterozoic and early Palaeozoic. These peri-Gondwanan terranes are characterized by voluminous late Neoproterozoic (c. 640–570 Ma) arc magmatism and cogenetic basins, and their tectonothermal histories provide fundamental constraints on the palaeogeography of this margin and on palaeocontinental reconstructions for this important period in Earth history. Field and geochemical studies indicate that arc magmatism generally terminated diachronously with the formation of a transform margin, leading by the Early–Middle Cambrian to the development of a shallow-marine platform–passive margin characterized by Gondwanan fauna. However, important differences exist between these terranes that constrain their relative palaeogeography in the late Neoproterozoic and permit changes in the geometry of the margin from the late Neoproterozoic to the Early Cambrian to be reconstructed. On the basis of basement isotopic composition, the terranes can be subdivided into: (1) Avalonian-type (e.g. West Avalonia, East Avalonia, Meguma, Carolinia, Moravia–Silesia), which developed on juvenile, c. 1.3–1.0 Ga crust originating within the Panthalassa-like Mirovoi Ocean surrounding Rodinia, and which were accreted to the northern Gondwanan margin by c. 650 Ma; (2) Cadomian-type (e.g. North Armorican Massif, Ossa–Morena, Saxo-Thuringia, Moldanubia), which formed along the West African margin by recycling ancient (c. 2.0–2.2 Ga) West African crust; (3) Ganderian-type (e.g. Ganderia, Florida, the Maya terrane and possible the NW Iberian domain and South Armorican Massif), which formed along the Amazonian margin of Gondwana by recycling Avalonian and older Amazonian basement; and (4) cratonic terranes (e.g. Oaxaquia and the Chortis block), which represent displaced Amazonian portions of cratonic Gondwana. These contrasts imply the existence of fundamental sutures between these terranes prior to c. 650 Ma. Derivation of the Cadomian-type terranes from the West African craton is further supported by detrital zircon data from their Neoproterozoic–Ediacaran clastic rocks, which contrast with such data from the Avalonian- and Ganderian-type terranes that suggest derivation from the Amazonian craton. Differences in Neoproterozoic and Ediacaran palaeogeography are also matched in some terranes by contrasts in Cambrian faunal and sedimentary provenance data. Platformal assemblages in certain Avalonian-type terranes (e.g. West Avalonia and East Avalonia) have cool-water, high-latitude fauna and detrital zircon signatures consistent with proximity to the Amazonian craton. Conversely, platformal assemblages in certain Cadomian-type terranes (e.g. North Armorican Massif, Ossa–Morena) show a transition from tropical to temperate waters and detrital zircon signatures that suggest continuing proximity to the West African craton. Other terranes (e.g. NW Iberian domain, Meguma) show Avalonian-type basement and/or detrital zircon signatures in the Neoproterozoic, but develop Cadomian-type signatures in the Cambrian. This change suggests tectonic slivering and lateral transport of terranes along the northern margin of West Gondwana consistent with the transform termination of arc magmatism. In the early Palaeozoic, several peri-Gondwanan terranes (e.g. Avalonia, Carolinia, Ganderia, Meguma) separated from West Gondwana, either separately or together, and had accreted to Laurentia by the Silurian–Devonian. Others (e.g. Cadomian-type terranes, Florida, Maya terrane, Oaxaquia, Chortis block) remained attached to Gondwana and were transferred to Laurussia only with the closure of the Rheic Ocean in the late Palaeozoic.


Transfer in reinforcement learning refers to the notion that generalization should occur not only within a task but also across tasks. We propose a transfer framework for the scenario where the reward function changes between tasks but the environment's dynamics remain the same. Our approach rests on two key ideas: "successor features", a value function representation that decouples the dynamics of the environment from the rewards, and "generalized policy improvement", a generalization of dynamic programming's policy improvement operation that considers a set of policies rather than a single one. Put together, the two ideas lead to an approach that integrates seamlessly within the reinforcement learning framework and allows the free exchange of information across tasks. The proposed method also provides performance guarantees for the transferred policy even before any learning has taken place. We derive two theorems that set our approach in firm theoretical ground and present experiments that show that it successfully promotes transfer in practice, significantly outperforming alternative methods in a sequence of navigation tasks and in the control of a simulated robotic arm.


Miocene sediments of southern Saskatchewan have long been known for the mammalian fauna they have produced, but little or nothing has been reported of the associated fish material. Recent examination of this material collected over half a century ago has revealed the presence of a walleye fish. Walleyes and other members of the family Percidae had previously been thought to have arrived in North America as late as the Pleistocene, and only in the last few years has evidence been found demonstrating their existence in North America in the Pliocene. The Pliocene material, from Arctic Canada, indicated that percids may have invaded North America from Europe during the late Tertiary via the Bering Isthmus. The material presented here shows that in fact percids were already in more southern areas of Canada about 10 million years prior to the Arctic walleye.


Although the Web itself might truthfully claim a sovereign disinterested and unbiased attitude toward the people who use it, the authors claim that search engines, the tools that navigate the astronomical number of pages (800 million and counting), favor popular, wealthy, and powerful sites at the expense of others. Some researchers have estimated that, taken individually, none of the Web search engines studied indexes more than 16 percent of the total indexable Web. Combined, the results from all search engines they studied covered only about 42 percent of the Web. But what about those portions of the Web that remain hidden from view? The article looks at how search engine developers, designers, and producers grapple with the technical limits that restrict what their engines can find. The authors also examine influences that may determine systematic inclusion and exclusion of certain sites, and the wide-ranging factors that dictate systematic prominence for some sites while relegating others to systematic invisibility.


Introduction Overuse of CT Pulmonary Angiograms (CTPA) for diagnosing pulmonary embolism (PE), particularly in Emergency Departments (ED), is considered problematic. Marked variations in positive CTPA rates are reported, with American 4–10% yields driving most concerns. Higher resolution CTPA may increase sub-segmental PE (SSPE) diagnoses, which may be up to 40% false positive. Excessive use and false positives could increase harm vs. benefit. These issues have not been systematically examined outside America. Aims To describe current yield variation and CTPA utilisation in Australasian ED, exploring potential factors correlated with variation. Methods A retrospective multi-centre review of consecutive ED-ordered CTPA using standard radiology reports. ED CTPA report data were inputted onto preformatted data-sheets. The primary outcome was site level yield, analysed both intra-site and against a nominated 15.3% yield. Factors potentially associated with yield were assessed for correlation. Results Fourteen radiology departments (15 ED) provided 7077 CTPA data (94% ≥64-slice CT); PE were reported in 1028 (yield 14.6% (95%CI 13.8–15.4%; range 9.3–25.3%; site variation p <0.0001) with four sites significantly below and one above the 15.3% target. Admissions, CTPA usage, PE diagnosis rates and size of PE were uncorrelated with yield. Large PE (≥lobar) were 55% (CI: 52.1–58.2%) and SSPE 8.8% (CI: 7.1–10.5%) of positive scans. CTPA usage (0.2–1.5% adult attendances) was correlated (p<0.006) with PE diagnosis but not SSPE: large PE proportions. Discussion/ Conclusions We found significant intra-site CTPA yield variation within Australasia. Yield was not clearly correlated with CTPA usage or increased small PE rates. Both SSPE and large PE rates were similar to higher yield historical cohorts. CTPA use was considerably below USA 2.5–3% rates. Higher CTPA utilisation was positively correlated with PE diagnoses, but without evidence of increased proportions of small PE. This suggests that increased diagnoses seem to be of clinically relevant sized PE.


CD25 has become widely used as a marker for a subset of regulatory CD4(+) T cells present in the thymus and periphery of mice, rats and humans. However, CD25 is also expressed on conventionally activated T cells that are not regulatory and not all peripheral regulatory T cells express CD25. The identification of a stable and unique marker for regulatory T cells would therefore be valuable. This study provides a detailed account of the phenotype of CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells in rats. In the thymus, CD4(+)CD8(-)CD25(+) cells were found to have a more mature phenotype than the corresponding CD4(+)CD8(-)CD25(-) cells with respect to expression of Thy1 (CD90), CD53 and CD44, suggesting that CD25 expression, and perhaps commitment to regulatory function, might be a late event in thymocyte development. CD4(+)CD25(+) cells in both the thymus and periphery were found to have enriched and heterogeneous expression of activation markers such as OX40 (CD134) and OX48 (an antibody determined in this study to be specific for CD86). CD4(+)CD25(+) T cells were also found to have enriched expression of CD80, at both the mRNA and protein level. However, functional studies in vitro and in vivo showed that neither OX40 or CD86 were useful markers for the further subdivision of regulatory T cells. Our studies indicate that, at present, CD25 remains the most useful marker to enrich for regulatory CD4(+) T cells in rats and no further subdivision of the regulatory component of CD4(+)CD25(-)CD45RC(low) T cells has yet been achieved.


The world of education is a world where there are learning activities between teachers and students, these two components cannot be eliminated in an educational process because if one of them is lost there will never be a learning goal. However, on the other hand there are components that also play a role as supporting learning activities both directly and indirectly. No less important components are facilities and infrastructure. Administration of educational facilities and infrastructure is very supportive of achieving a goal of education, as a personal education we are required to master and understand the administration of facilities and infrastructure, to improve work power effectively and efficiently and be able to respect the work ethics of personal education, so harmony, comfort can create pride and a sense of belonging both from the school community and the residents of the surrounding community


Background : South Africa hosts a large number of non-native freshwater fishes that were introduced for various industries. Many of these species are now listed under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEM:BA) Alien and Invasive Species (A&IS) lists and regulations, though the practical options available to conservation agencies to effectively manage these fishes vary greatly among species and regions. Objectives & methods : We assessed the history and status of national legislation pertaining to invasive freshwater fishes, and the practical implications of the legislation for managing different species with contrasting distributions, impacts and utilisation value. Results : The smallmouth bass, despite being a potential conflict-generating species, is fairly straightforward to manage based on current legislation. Two species of trout, which remain absent from the NEM:BA A&IS lists because of ongoing consultation with stakeholders, continue to be managed in regions like the Western Cape province using existing provincial legislation. To maximise the limited capacity for management within conservation agencies, we proposed a decision-support tool that prioritises invasive fish populations that represent high environmental risk and low potential for conflict with stakeholders. Using three case studies, we demonstrated how the tool can be used to set management goals of 'eradicate', 'manage against impacts and further spread' and 'continue to monitor population' as the most pragmatic solutions given the state of an invasion, its socio-economic impact and the capacity of the responsible agency to act. Conclusion : By choosing a pragmatic management strategy, conservation agencies can maximise the effective deployment of limited resources, while minimising avoidable conflicts with stakeholders.


ABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT OF AN ENERGY-BASED NEARFIELD ACOUSTIC HOLOGRAPHY SYSTEMDEVELOPMENT OF AN ENERGY-BASED NEARFIELD ACOUSTIC HOLOGRAPHY SYSTEM Michael C. Harris Department of Mechanical Engineering Master of Science iv Acoustical-based imaging techniques have found merit in determining the behavior of vibrating structures. These techniques are commonly used in numerous applications to obtain detailed noise source information and energy distributions on source surfaces. This thesis focuses on the continued development of the nearfield acoustic holography (NAH) approach. Conventional NAH consists of first capturing pressure data on a two-dimensional conformal measurement contour in the nearfield of the radiating source. These data are then propagated back to the vibrating structure to obtain the normal velocity profile on the source surface. With the source surface velocity profile known, the acoustic pressure, particle velocity, and intensity generated by the source can be reconstructed anywhere in space. The precision of source reconstruction is reliant upon accurate measurement of the pressure field at the hologram surface. For complex acoustic fields this requires fine spatial resolution and therefore demands large microphone arrays. In this thesis, a technique is developed for performing NAH using energy-based measurements. Recent advancements in the area of acoustic sensing technology have made particle velocity field information more readily available. Because energy-based measurements provide directional information about the field, a more accurate measurement of the pressure field is obtained. It is proposed that an energy-based system will significantly reduce the number of measurements required to perform NAH without sacrificing accuracy. Significantly reducing the number of measurements required to perform NAH will reduce the time, and therefore the expense, of using NAH as an analysis tool. v Many potential applications exist for an improved NAH measurement method in the automobile and aerospace industries. These industries provide numerous large-scale applications where employing time-consuming scanning methods is not cost-effective. This is especially the case for airplane in-flight passenger noise tests, where the expense of operating the airplane is extremely high. Therefore, even a small savings in data acquisition time would be very beneficial.


Craft art discourse has centred on the use of physical materials. In Finland, craft art students
are trained to understand various techniques and the materiality of their chosen medium.
However, the materiality is often taught in terms of physical properties (e.g. tensile,
elasticity, etc.). Conceptual or expressive properties (e.g. feel, impression, etc.) are hardly
discussed and it is left to students to experiment with these properties in their studio practice.
The conceptual issues of craft art practice concerning the use of materials thus remain
personal and implicit. This article illuminates how the conception of 'materialness' generated
from within practice-led research in textile art can stimulate students' creativity in relation to
physical materials and enable them to design the meaning and aesthetic of their work more
intentionally. The consideration of materialness can thus serve as a useful means for textile
artists and other craft artists in creating meaningful artworks with any chosen materials.


Water for irrigation in the Canterbury region of New Zealand is becoming an increasingly precious commodity as it is in many other areas of the world. Adequate use of this resource will define the economical and environmental future of the region. Current irrigation systems, even under best management practices, over-apply water, as they do not account for spatial variability of crop water needs in fields. Over-application of water is wasteful and has environmental and economical repercussions. Water requirements are determined by crop evapotranspiration (ET). Key factors affecting ET in Canterbury are wind and solar radiation. Both of these are significantly affected by windbreaks, resulting in variability in ET and water requirements across a field. Understanding the variability in ET caused by windbreaks will enable for the correct application of water through precision irrigation systems. A theoretical model was developed to estimate savings in irrigation by accounting for windbreaks in the Canterbury region. Windbreaks reduce evapotranspiration and therefore crops/pasture behind windbreaks needs less water than those in other parts of the field. Results for a case study in Canterbury show that windbreaks can potentially reduce the annual on-farm water consumption by 10 to 20%, while still maintaining ideal crop/pasture yields. In the short term, the application of precision irrigation systems in fields with windbreaks can have farm level benefits of improved water use and reduced nitrogen/phosphorus leaching. In the long term this could translate directly into cost savings because of a potential decrease in energy used for irrigation (running pumps, etc.).


Chromatin function depends on adequate histone stoichiometry. Alterations in histone dosage affect transcription and chromosome segregation, leading to growth defects and aneuploidies. In the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, aneuploidy formation is associated with antifungal resistance and pathogenesis. Histone modifying enzymes and chromatin remodeling proteins are also required for pathogenesis. However, little is known about the mechanisms that generate aneuploidies or about the epigenetic mechanisms that shape the response of C. albicans to the host environment. Here, we determined the impact of histone H4 deficit in the growth and colony morphology of C. albicans. We found that C. albicans requires at least two of the four alleles that code for histone H4 (HHF1 and HHF22) to grow normally. Strains with only one histone H4 allele show a severe growth defect and unstable colony morphology, and produce faster-growing, morphologically stable suppressors. Segmental or whole chromosomal trisomies that increased wild-type histone H4 copy number were the preferred mechanism of suppression. This is the first study of a core nucleosomal histone in C. albicans, and constitutes the prelude to future, more detailed research on the function of histone H4 in this important fungal pathogen.


The dynamic elastic-plastic behavior of a bent cantilever pipe subjected to an in-plane force pulse at its tip is described. A theoretical model based on a large deflection formulation of dynamic beam theory is described. This takes into account the plastic hardening-softening behavior which is characteristic of a pipe when it is subjected to large changes in curvature. This beam model was first formulated and applied by Reid et al. (1995b, 1996), who demonstrated that it was able to describe quite accurately the characteristics of freely whipping, straight cantilever pipes. The present paper extends this model to enable it to be applied to bent cantilever pipes and covers cases in which the bend angle is opened or closed. Previous attempts ( Wang, 1991) to analyze these problems using a rigid, perfectly plastic model were not completely successful due to the inability to identify admissible modes of deformation for all circumstances. A systematic program of pipe whip tests has been carried out in UMIST on right-angled bent pipes. To illustrate the validity and use of the theoretical model, two typical cases are considered and the results compared with the experimental data extracted from high-speed films of the tests. Excellent agreement between the two is demonstrated.


Camels have been regarded as the desert ship and they play multi-utility role in the world. Estimation of genetic parameters is foremost step towards managing the genetic resources for their conservation and sustainable utilization. Microsatellite markers have been extensively used in cattle, sheep, goat and camels. However, genetic characterization studies on camels has been poorly recorded. There has been a rapid increase in amount of molecular data produced from indigenous camel populations, which clearly shows awareness among the scientific community. Based on the studies carried out in Australia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Canary Islands, India, Egypt and Tunisia the camels have shown very wide genetic diversity via the predefined microsatellite markers. It is highly recommended that to use following microsatellite markers to find the highly informative heterozygosity data: YWLL08, YWLL09, YWLL38, YWLL44, YWLL59, VOLP03, VOLP08, VOLP10, VOLP32, VOLP67, LCA66, CVRL01, CVRL05, CVRL06, CVRL07 and CMS50. These markers have shown a high level of allelic richness and polymorphic information content. Therefore, future genetic diversity analysis on camel can be based on these highly useful markers.


The death of cancer cells under zero gravity or simulated zero gravity has an unknown cause. A prior theory of gravity by fractional, reversible fissing of matter and fusing of space to target is presented for explaining this mystery of gravitational killing of cancer cells. With this new theory a new math of divergent differentiations and divergent integrations are outlined to explain mysteries. By the mechanism given the variation in source gravity as computed by the new math can thereby explain effects on biology as the biology and chemistry have divergent differentiations and divergent integrations, which couple source of gravities and couple changing gravities to surrounding spaces and targets in surrounding spaces. Greater effects ofgravities in nano-scales than molecular scales are reasoned as nano-sizes have mass effects and greater collectivity relative to molecular scales. The mechanism also postulates superluminosity of rare with slowing to luminous with denseness (space reversal) for explaining inertia, denseness and back and forth time reversal. The loss of inertia due to space reversal is reasoned! Mass to energy and vice versa dynamics are involved relativistically. By such new mechanics there are differences in denseness as the superlumes fiss to rare so surrounding rare can couple and the superluminous rare concentrates to slow so as to couple to dense. There are limits of such superluminosity as by the vast distances and the vast, composite, dense spaces of matter and the slowness (inertia). These new mechanics of composite matter/space manifest group dispersion (by new divergent calculus) as provided by hidden mechanics as by self-interacting self-deforming conformations to explain observable phase dispersed (older calculus). The observables are manifested by phase dispersions of matter and space as by new divergent calculus via constructive self interactions. The new math is contrasted with the Newtonian integrals and derivatives, which are more finite in actions and consequences whereas the divergent integrals and divergent differentiations are more ∞ in actions and consequences. If dynamic ∞ and count ∞, then the counting and mechanics can be as demonstrated here by many ∞(s) or counter ∞(s).


We introduce TrustVI, a fast second-order algorithm for black-box variational inference based on trust-region optimization and the reparameterization trick. At each iteration, TrustVI proposes and assesses a step based on minibatches of draws from the variational distribution. The algorithm provably converges to a stationary point. We implemented TrustVI in the Stan framework and compared it to two alternatives: Automatic Differentiation Variational Inference (ADVI) and Hessian-free Stochastic Gradient Variational Inference (HFSGVI). The former is based on stochastic first-order optimization. The latter uses second-order information, but lacks convergence guarantees. TrustVI typically converged at least one order of magnitude faster than ADVI, demonstrating the value of stochastic second-order information. TrustVI often found substantially better variational distributions than HFSGVI, demonstrating that our convergence theory can matter in practice.


Given a rational function φ(X) with rational coefficients that is defined at every positive integer, we consider the sum ∑∞ n=0 φ(n). It is believed that when this sum converges, it converges to either a rational or transcendental number. We prove an analogue of this conjecture over fields of rational functions: Let K be a field and let φ(X) be a rational function with coefficients in K such that φ(0) = 0. Given a positive integer d ≥ 2, we define F(X) = ∑∞n=0 φ(Xdn). If d is not a power of char(K), then F(X) is either a rational function or transcendental over K(X). Our demonstration uses results from the theory of automatic sequences and from commutative algebra.


It is widely assumed that the U.N. Security Council is a collective security mechanism. This Essay challenges this assumption. It claims that the U.N. Security Council was designed and continues to operate as a Great Power Concert, akin to the Concert of Europe of nineteenth century Europe. Moreover, this Essay argues that the principal purpose of the Security Council is not the enforcement of international law or the prevention of aggression. Rather, its primary aim was, and remains, the prevention of war between the Great Powers and providing an institutional forum for these states to cooperate and coordinate their policies.
The Essay defines collective security and identifies is principal characteristics. Collective security is a mechanism that guarantees collective protection and assistance against aggression. This is because in a collective security mechanism, states agree to consider an attack against one as an attack against all. Nothing, however, in the U.N. Charter extends such a guarantee of collective protection against aggression to the U.N. Member States. Instead, as the negotiating history of the Charter demonstrates, the U.N. Security Council enjoys unfettered discretion regarding whether and how to intervene to prevent or repel acts of aggression or threats to or breaches of the peace. Moreover, because the Security Council was intended to function as a Great Power Concert, the five Permanent Members of the Security Council were granted an unrestricted right to veto any Security Council decision that they considered detrimental to their national interests.
The institutional design of the Security Council reflects the belief of the founders of the United Nations that the surest guarantee of world order and international peace and security is the maintenance of the balance of power between the most powerful states in the international system. This Essay argues that this assumption underlying the structure of the Security Council remains valid and relevant today. As American unipolar moment passes and as the global balance of power shifts, preserving the balance of power and preventing a confrontation between the Great Powers are essential to international peace and security and to the effective functioning of international law.


Biofilms are of great practical importance for beneficial technologies such as water and wastewater treatment and bioremediation of groundwater and soil. In other settings biofilms cause severe problems, for example in 65% of bacterial infections currently treated by clinicians (particularly those associated with prosthetics and implants), accelerated corrosion in industrial systems, oil souring and biofouling. Until recently, the structure and function of biofilms could only be inferred from gross measures of biomass and metabolic activity. This limitation meant that investigators involved in biofilm research and application had only a crude understanding of the microbial ecology, physical structure and chemical characteristics of biofilms. Consequently, opportunities for the exploitation and control of biofilms were very limited. The past decade has witnessed the development of several new techniques to elucidate the structure and function of biofilms. Examples include: the use of molecular probes that identify different microbes in complex communities as well as their metabolic functions; the use of microsensors that show concentration gradients of key nutrients and chemicals; the use of confocal laser scanning microscopy to describe the physical structure of biofilms and the development of a new generation of mathematical models that allow for the prediction of biofilm structure and function. However, much progress remains to be made in efforts to understand, control and exploit biofilms. This timely book will introduce its readers to the structure and function of biofilms at a fundamental level as determined during the past decade of research, including: Extracellular polymers as the biofilm matrix; Biofilm phenotype (differential gene expression, interspecies signalling); Biofilm ecology; Biofilm monitoring; Resistance of biofilms to antimicrobial agents and Biofilm abatement. Biofilms in Medicine, Industry and Environmental Technology offers a holistic and multi-disciplinary description of the topic, including biofilm formation and composition, but also biofilm monitoring, disinfection and control. All these aspects are presented from three points of views: medical, industrial and environmental biotechnological in a compact, easy to read format.


Achieving the SDGs will depend in part on the availability of fiscal resources to deliver the floors in social protection, social services and infrastructure embedded in the goals. A significant portion of these resources is expected to come from domestic sources. Raising additional revenues domestically, however, may leave a significant portion of the poor with less cash to buy food and other essential goods. Fiscal incidence analysis for twenty-nine low and middle-income countries shows that, while fiscal policy unambiguously reduces income inequality, that is not always true for poverty. In other words, the poor are made poorer by the fiscal system, primarily due to consumption taxes. The Domestic Resource Mobilization agenda could make this situation worse. The demand for additional domestic resources must be balanced against the competing need to protect poor households from becoming poorer as a result of taxes.


Instead of forming a typical bilayer or monolayer membrane, both the bridge (I-shape) and loop (U-shape) conformations coexist in the planar membranes formed by ABA triblock copolymers in a selective solvent. The non-equilibrium and equilibrium relaxation dynamics of polymer conformations are monitored. The non-equilibrium relaxation time depends on the initial composition and increases with an increase in the immiscibility between A and B blocks. The equilibrium composition of the loop-shape polymer is independent of the initial composition and A-B immiscibility. However, the extent of equilibrium composition fluctuations subsides as the A and B blocks become highly incompatible. The influences of the A-B immiscibility on the geometrical, mechanical, and transport properties of the membrane have also been investigated. As the immiscibility increases, the overall membrane thickness and the B block layer thickness (h) increase because of the increment in the molecular packing density. As a result, both the stretching (KA) and bending (KB) moduli grow significantly with the increasing A-B immiscibility. Consistent with the case of typical membranes, the ratio KB/KAh2 = 2 × 10-3 is a constant. Although the lateral diffusivity of polymers is insensitive to immiscibility, the membrane permeability decreases substantially as the A-B immiscibility is increased.

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The Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia is one of the world's climate change hot-spots. It is where 40% of Australia's electricity is generated from five coal-fired power plants, and is the source of 100 million tonnes of black coal exported annually to the global markets. A growing number of local residents of the Hunter Valley are questioning the sustainability of the region's coal dependent economy because of its harmful local ecological and social impacts and its contribution to global warming. Environmental organisations and some labour unions have identified the need for a 'just transition' to clean, renewable energy-based economies at local, national and global scales to respond to these threats. A just transition is a process of economic restructuring from unsustainable economies towards ecological and social sustainability while creating new Green Jobs and supporting people and communities who might be disadvantaged during the change process. This article considers the potential for a just transition in the Hunter Valley with respect to coal mining, the export coal industry and domestic power generation. Attention is given to potential for common ground among key labour unions, environmentalists and local residents, and to the critical role of government intervention for a successful just transition process.


Dry grassland sites are amongst the most species rich habitats of Central Europe. In Switzerland, they are home to a large number of plant and animal species that are classified as endangered or threatened. A key component for designing optimal and effective management schemes ensuring the sustainability of these ecosystems, is knowledge of their biomass production. In this study we explored the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing for mapping above-ground biomass in grassland habitats along a dry-mesic gradient, independent of a specific habitat or a phenological period. We developed statistical models between spectral reflectance collected with a spectrometer but resampled to Hyperion bands, and biomass samples. We then tested to what degree the calibrated biomass models could be scaled to actual Hyperion data collected over the study area. Biomass samples (n = 155) were collected from 11 grassland fields located in the Central part of the Swiss Plateu. To capture normally occurring variation due to canopy growth stage and management factors sampling was performed at 4 time steps during the 2005 growing season. We investigated the relationship between biomass and a.) existing broad and narrow-band vegetation indices, b) narrow band NDVI type indices and c.) multiple linear regression using branch-and-bound variable search algorithms. Best models for estimating and predicting biomass were obtained from the multiple regression and narrow band NDVI type indices contrary to existing vegetation indices. Spectral regions related to plant water content were identified as the best estimators of biomass. Furthermore, results from this study demonstrated the importance of seasonal biomass measurements for building reliable models. Finally, promising results in estimating grassland biomass were not only obtained for the Hyperion resampled field spectrometer data, but also for the actual Hyperion data, showing the potential of up-scaling to the landscape level.


We present new, third-epoch Hubble Space Telescope Hα and [S ii] images of three Herbig–Haro (HH) jets (HH 1&2, HH 34, and HH 47) and compare the new images with those from previous epochs. The high spatial resolution, coupled with a time series whose cadence is of order both the hydrodynamic and radiative cooling timescales of the flow, allows us to follow the hydrodynamic/magnetohydrodynamic evolution of an astrophysical plasma system in which ionization and radiative cooling play significant roles. Cooling zones behind the shocks are resolved, so it is possible to identify which way material flows through a given shock wave. The images show that heterogeneity is paramount in these jets, with clumps dominating the morphologies of both bow shocks and their Mach disks. This clumpiness exists on scales smaller than the jet widths and determines the behavior of many of the features in the jets. Evidence also exists for considerable shear as jets interact with their surrounding molecular clouds, and in several cases we observe shock waves as they form and fade where material emerges from the source and as it proceeds along the beam of the jet. Fine structure within two extended bow shocks may result from Mach stems that form at the intersection points of oblique shocks within these clumpy objects. Taken together, these observations represent the most significant foray thus far into the time domain for stellar jets, and comprise one of the richest data sets in existence for comparing the behavior of a complex astrophysical plasma flow with numerical simulations and laboratory experiments.


Abstract—Rating prediction is an important problem for recommender systems. The task is to predict the rating for an item that a user would give. Most of the existing algorithms for the task ignore the effect of negative ratings rated by users on items, but the negative ratings have a significant impact on users' purchasing decisions in practice. In this paper, we present a rating prediction algorithm based on factorization machines that consider the effect of negative ratings inspired by Loss Aversion theory. The aim of this paper is to develop a concave and a convex negative disgust function to evaluate the negative ratings respectively. Experiments are conducted on MovieLens dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods by comparing with other four the state-of-the-art approaches. The negative ratings showed much importance in the accuracy of ratings predictions.


Historians and political scientists continue to emphasize the connection between the expansion of the suffrage to almost all adult white males and Andrew Jackson's election to the presidency in 1828. That interpretation has the unfortunate effect of preventing general appreciation of what has been clear to specialists for decades, that the suffrage had significantly expanded and the United States become in many ways a functioning democracy long before 1815. Even before the Revolution at least 60 percent of adult white males had been able to vote, and that figure had expanded significantly by 1787. The traditional belief that voting must be restricted to those with a "stake in society" still persisted, but increasingly the stake was measured less by the freehold ownership of landed property than by measures of civic involvement such as taxpaying, militia service, and evidences of social contribution. Qualifications defined by wealth were gradually undermined by inflation, and restrictions on voting proved difficult to enforce in practice. After partisan differences became inflamed in the 1790s, turnouts rose to unprecedented—and sometimes unrepeated—levels. In the end this pressure from below created a situation in which even conservatives thought that honest elections required the legal recognition of what was in fact happening at the polls. There was no constitutional revolution in the 1820s, except in New York, and the growing political agitation that resulted in Jackson's election was nothing more than the application to presidential elections of what had become commonplace in many states before 1815.


For decades, there has been a concern with the negative framing of black women in the media. Historically, black women are placed into four stereotypical frames: The Mammy, The Jezebel, The Sapphire and The Matriarch. However, in 2008, a new image of black women arose through Michelle Obama. She was well rounded — beautiful, intelligent, insightful, humorous, strong, yet soft all at the same time. This study seeks to understand the changes in the framing of black women since Michelle Obama's time as First Lady. More specifically, this study focuses on the medium of magazine journalism, which seems to be largely ignored in the realm of media studies. Thirty articles from a mainstream (Glamour) and a black women's magazine (Essence) were analyzed for the presence of historical frames along with the emergence of new ones. The study employs the qualitative method of textual analysis as a way to determine frames and their meanings through a grounded theory approach. The primary outcomes of this study are a greater understanding of how historical frames still affect how magazines, mainstream and black, frame black women, and the revealing of new frames that depart from those historical representations. Furthermore, this study will be used as a foundation for editors, writers, educators and students alike, to create more authentic and multifaceted stories about black women.


We compare non-local magnetoresistance measurements in multi-terminal Ni nanostructures with corresponding local experiments. In both configurations, the measured voltages show the characteristic features of anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR). However, the magnitude of the non-local AMR signal is up to one order of magnitude larger than its local counterpart. Moreover, the non-local AMR increases with increasing degree of non-locality, i.e., with the separation between the region of the main current flow and the voltage measurement region. All experimental observations can be consistently modeled in terms of current spreading in a non-isotropic conductor. Our results show that current spreading can significantly enhance the magnetoresistance signal in non-local experiments.


We present a novel system and methodology for generating and then browsing multiple taxonomies over a document collection. Taxonomies are generated using a broad set of capabilities, including meta data, key word queries, and automated clustering techniques that serve as a seed taxonomy.The taxonomy editor, eClassifier, provides powerful tools to visualize and edit each taxonomy to make it reflective of the desired theme. Cluster validation tools allow the editor to verify that documents received in the future can be automatically classified into each taxonomy with sufficiently high accuracy. In general, those seeking knowledge from a document collection may have only a vague notion of exactly what they are attempting to understand, and would like to explore related topics and concepts rather than simply being given a set of documents. For this purpose, we have developed MindMap, an interface utilizing multiple taxonomies and the ability to interact with a document collection.


Objective The early detection of MRI findings suggestive of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) in natalizumab-associated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) is of crucial clinical relevance in terms of treatment decision-making and clinical outcome. The aim of this study was to investigate the earliest imaging characteristics of PML-IRIS manifestation in natalizumab-treated patients with multiple sclerosis and describe an imaging pattern that might aid in the early and specific diagnosis. Methods This was a retrospective study assessing brain MRI of 26 patients with natalizumab-associated PML presenting with lesions suggestive of PML-IRIS during follow-up. MRI findings were evaluated considering the imaging findings such as mass effect, swelling, contrast enhancement, new perivascular T2 lesions and signs suggestive of meningeal inflammation. Results Contrast enhancement was the most common imaging sign suggestive of PML-IRIS, seen in 92.3% of the patients (with patchy and/or punctuate pattern in 70.8% and 45.8% respectively), followed by new T2 lesions with a perivascular distribution pattern (34.6%). In those patients with contrast enhancement, the enhancement was present in the lesion periphery in 95.8% of the patients. Contrast-enhancing lesions with a perivascular distribution pattern outside of the PML lesion were observed in 33.3% of the patients. The most common overall pattern was contrast enhancement in the border of the PML lesion with either a patchy or punctuate appearance in 88.5% of all patients. Conclusions Contrast enhancement is the most common earliest sign of natalizumab-associated PML-IRIS with a frequent imaging pattern of contrast-enhancing lesions with either a patchy or punctuate appearance in the border of the PML lesion.


RightField is an open source application that provides a mechanism for embedding ontology annotation support for Life Science data in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Individual cells, columns, or rows can be restricted to particular ranges of allowed classes or instances from chosen ontologies. Informaticians, with experience in ontologies and data annotation prepare RightField-enabled spreadsheets with embedded ontology term selection for use by a wider community of laboratory scientists. The RightField-enabled spreadsheet presents selected ontology terms to the users as a simple drop-down list, enabling scientists to consistently annotate their data without the need to understand the numerous metadata standards and ontologies available to them. The spreadsheets are self-contained and remain "vanilla" Excel so that they can be readily exchanged, processed offline and are usable by regular Excel tooling. The result is semantic annotation by stealth, with an annotation process that is less error-prone, more efficient, and more consistent with community standards. RightField has been developed and deployed for a consortium of some 300 Systems Biologists. RightField is open source under a BSD license and freely available from http://www.sysmo-db.org/RightField.


Throughout history the development of technology has been affecting people's lives. Any kind of technological innovation may give a qualitative leap in human society. The impact of technology has penetrated into the study of various disciplines. Philosophy is no exception. In 1877, Karp formally proposed the concept of "philosophy of technology." Technology has been studied from the practical aspect of a tool to the level of philosophy. Although the concept of visual philosophy has not yet been formally proposed, the thinking of philosophical vision has already existed. This paper is to analyze the impact of philosophy of technology on the development of visual philosophy, from the perspective of instrumental theory and humanistic theory, and to clarify current values and directions of visual philosophy.


The purpose of this research is to explore how application of social location theory may improve data collection on health information access in order to better inform and improve the effectiveness of health communication and messaging. This dissertation proposes a framework to understand how people obtain health information based on the idea of social location, Ritzer and Bell's (1981) levels of social reality, and Dahlberg & Krug's (2002) social ecological model. This research addressed the extent to which three studies of health information access support the use of such a framework, and if so, how its application could improve our understanding of access to health information, and correspondingly, our methods of health communication. The first study examined the Douglas County Community Health Survey, a population-based telephone survey of 1,503 respondents ages 18 and older living in Douglas County, Nebraska in 2013. This study assessed how elements of social location influence respondents' primary health information source and the number of health information sources used. The second study drew on the 2011-2013 National Survey of Family Growth to examine sources of sex education (formal, parents, and doctor) and topics covered with each source (abstinence, STDs, and contraception) among a nationally-representative sample of 15-24 year-old male and female respondents. The third study looked at data from an online survey of 757 LGBTQ adults in the state of Nebraska. Demographic characteristics, health care access, minority status, outness to health care provider, personal autonomy, and discrimination experience were compared among participants who did or did not report seeking health information online. Finally, the results of the three studies were synthesized into a Social Location Framework. This framework provides a visual representation of how elements of social location relate to each other and collectively contribute to health information access, and provides for identification of potential gaps in the measurement of access to health information.