The systematic classification of Osmundaceae has long remained controversial. Recent molecular data indicate that Osmunda is paraphyletic, and needs to be separated into Osmundastrum and Osmunda s. str. Here we describe an exquisitely preserved Jurassic Osmunda rhizome (O. pulchella sp. nov.) that combines diagnostic features of Osmundastrum and Osmunda, calling molecular evidence for paraphyly into question. We assembled a new morphological matrix based on rhizome anatomy, and used network analyses to establish phylogenetic relationships between fossil and extant members of modern Osmundaceae. We re-analysed the original molecular data to evaluate root-placement support. Finally, we integrated morphological and molecular data-sets using the evolutionary placement algorithm. Osmunda pulchella and five additional, newly identified Jurassic Osmunda species show anatomical character suites intermediate between Osmundastrum and Osmunda. Molecular evidence for paraphyly is ambiguous: a previously unrecognized signal from spacer sequences favours an alternative root placement that would resolve Osmunda s.l. as monophyletic. Our evolutionary placement analysis identifies fossil species as ancestral members of modern genera and subgenera. Altogether, the seemingly conflicting evidence from morphological, anatomical, molecular, and palaeontological data can be elegantly reconciled under the assumption that Osmunda is indeed monophyletic; the recently proposed root-placement in Osmundaceae—based solely on molecular data—likely results from un- or misinformative out-group signals.


China has dominated the global aluminum production and consumption in the past few decades, therefore it is of particular interest to stakeholders in China and wo rldwide to explore whether such aluminum boom will continue or not in China. This study applies a scenario-based dynam ic material flow analysis to quantify the stocks an d flows along the anthropogenic aluminum cycle in China from 1950 to 2100. Potential future changes of significant param eters are explored and identified, and around 250 sets of sce nario results (including all flows, stocks, and los se along the aluminum cycle in China) are obtained for the compr ehensive scenario analysis. The main findings inclu de: (1) China's primary aluminum production will peak at around 40 MMT (million metric tons) before 2030, leading to t he end of primary aluminum boom that started from the early 1 990s; (2) Domestic aluminum demand will continue to increase to more than 40 MMT due to the growing accumulation of in-use stocks in meeting future societal needs; (3 ) China's old aluminum scrap generation will increase dramaticall y (around 0.7 MMT per year) soon and secondary prod uction will account for more than 60% of aluminum production af ter 2050s in almost all scenarios. Thus, there will be a rapid shifting in production capacity from primary to sec ondary routes. In this context, the corresponding p olicy should focus more on the urban mining, and improvement of end-of -life management systems and sorting technologies. These scenario results also reveal key opportunities and barriers in the process. Notably, it becomes increa singly important for China's and the global aluminum industry to investi ga e China's future role in the global market of pr imary and waste aluminum products.


OBJETIVES
To compare in terms of cost-effectiveness to entecavir (ETV) and tenofovir (TDF) in the treatment of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in public hospitals in Peru.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We structured a Markov model. We define effectiveness adjusted life years for quality (QALY). We include the direct costs of treatment in soles from the perspective of the Ministry of Health of Peru. We estimate the relationship between cost and effectiveness ratios (ICER). We performed sensitivity analyzes considering a range of willingness to pay (WTP) from one to three times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and a tornado analysis regarding Monetary Net Profit (BMN) or ICER.

RESULTS
Treatment with TDF is more effective and less expensive than ETV. The ETV had a cost per QALY of PEN 4482, and PEN 1526 TDF. The PTO maintains a progressively larger with increasing WTP BMN. The discount rate was the only variable with a significant effect on model uncertainty.

CONCLUSION
Treatment with TDF is more cost-effective than ETV in public hospitals in Peru.


[1] In gravel bed rivers, the microtopography of the bed exerts a significant effect on the generation of turbulent flow structures. Although field and laboratory measurements have indicated that flows over gravel beds contain coherent macroturbulent flow structures, the origin of these phenomena, and their relationship to the ensemble of individual roughness elements forming the bed, is not quantitatively well understood. Here we report upon a flume experiment in which flow over a gravel surface is quantified through the application of digital particle imaging velocimetry, which allows study of the downstream and vertical components of velocity over the entire flow field. The results indicate that as the Reynolds number increases (1) the visual distinctiveness of the coherent flow structures becomes more defined, (2) the upstream slope of the structures increases, and (3) the turbulence intensity of the structures increases. Analysis of the mean velocity components, the turbulence intensity, and the flow structure using quadrant analysis demonstrates that these large-scale turbulent structures originate from flow interactions with the bed topography. Detection of the dominant temporal length scales through wavelet analysis enables calculation of mean separation zone lengths associated with the gravel roughness through standard scaling laws. The calculated separation zone lengths demonstrate that wake flapping is a dominant mechanism in the production of large-scale coherent flow structures in gravel bed rivers. Thus, we show that coherent flow structures over gravels owe their origin to bed-generated turbulence and that large-scale outer layer structures are the result of flow-topography interactions in the near-bed region associated with wake flapping.


The free-flowing Clinch and Powell River Basin, located in southwestern Virginia, United States, historically had one of the richest assemblages of native fish and freshwater mussels in the world. Nearly half of the species once residing here are now extinct, threatened, or endangered. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's framework for conducting an ecological risk assessment was used to structure a watershed-scale analysis of human land use, in-stream habitat quality, and their relationship to native fish and mussel populations in order to develop future management strategies and prioritize areas in need of enhanced protection. Our analyses indicate that agricultural and urban land uses as well as proximity to mining activities and transportation corridors are inversely related to fish index of biotic integrity (IBI) and mussel species diversity. Forward stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that coal mining had the most impact on fish IBI followed by percent cropland and urban area in the riparian corridor (R2 = 0.55, p = 0.02); however, these analyses suggest that other site-specific factors are important. Habitat quality measures accounted for as much as approximately half of the variability in fish IBI values if the analysis was limited to sites within a relatively narrow elevation range. These results, in addition to other data collected in this watershed, suggest that nonhabitat-related stressors (e.g., accidental chemical spills) also have significant effects on biota in this basin. The number of co-occurring human land uses was inversely related to fish IBI (r = -0.49, p < 0.01). Sites with > or = 2 co-occurring land uses had >90% probability of having <2 mussel species present. Our findings predict that many mussel concentration sites are vulnerable to future extirpation. In addition, our results suggest that protection and enhancement of naturally vegetated riparian corridors, better controls of mine effluents and urban runoff, and increased safeguards against accidental chemical spills, as well as reintroduction or augmentation of threatened and endangered species, may help sustain native fish and mussel populations in this watershed.


Regionalization of Serbia, as an instruments whose adequate use would contribute to a decrease in interregional differences in development of certain parts, represents a complex task, which is only to some extent finished by adopting bigger territorial parts in Serbia. This work is made for the purpose of presenting the problems with regional planning process deriving from inconsistency which exists between administrative territorial organization into districts of the Republic of Serbia and functional areas of regional centers defined by The Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia, issued in 1996, then functional urban areas presented in The Strategy of Spatial Development of the Republic of Serbia in 2009-2013-2020 and in The Draft Law of Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia in 2010-2014-2021. Moreover, the work compares the above mentioned spatial areas with planned regions, for which the drawing up of regional spatial plans is scheduled, namely with statistical macroregions, whose defining is one of the recently adopted decisions in the Republic of Serbia. The aim of pointing out to the above mentioned inconsistency in so far used concepts of regionalization, is to contribute to the quality of regional planning of development, as well as to finding solutions which would refer to establishing borders of smaller, meso-regional totalities, and also to the determination of authorities of both middle levels of administration in our country. .


This thesis examines Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) for rainfall-runoff modelling. A simple ANN was first developed to predict floods in the city of Rome, located in the Tiber River basin. A rigorous comparison of the ensemble ANN and the conceptual TEVERE model were undertaken for two recent flood events in 2005 and 2008. Both models performed well but the conceptual model was better at overall hydrograph prediction while the ANN performed better for the initial part of the event at longer lead times.

Further experimentation with the ANN model was then undertaken to try to improve the model performance. Additional upstream stations and rainfall inputs were added including hourly totals, effective rainfall and cumulative rainfall. Different methods of normalisation and different ANN training algorithms were also implemented along with four alternative methods for combining the ensemble ANN predictions. The results showed that the ANN was able to extrapolate to the 2008 event.

Finally, Empirical Mode Decomposition was applied to the ANN to examine whether this method has value for ANN rainfall-runoff modelling. At the same time the impact of the random initialisation of the weights of the ANN was investigated for the Potomac River and Clark Fork River catchments in the USA. The EMD was shown to be a valuable tool in detecting signal properties but application to ANN rainfall-runoff modelling was dependent on the nature of the dataset. Overall uncertainty from the random initialisation of weights varied by catchment where uncertainties were shown to be very large at high stream flows.

Finally, a suite of redundant and non-redundant model performance measures were applied consistently to all models. The value of applying a range of redundant and non-redundant measures, as well as benchmark-based methods was demonstrated.


Abstract. Comparisons of aircraft measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) to the retrievals of CO using observations from the Measurements of Pollution in The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument onboard the Terra satellite are presented. Observations made as part of the NASA INTEX-B and NSF MIRAGE field campaigns during March–May 2006 are used to validate the MOPITT CO retrievals, along with routine samples from 2001 through 2006 from NOAA and the MOZAIC measurements from commercial aircraft. A significant positive bias, around 20% for total column CO, in MOPITT CO was found in the comparison to in situ measurements during 2006. Comparisons to the long-term records of measurements from NOAA and MOZAIC revealed an increasing bias in the V3 MOPITT CO retrievals over time. The impact of an instrumental drift is illustrated through retrieval simulations.


Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (MELC) major is the study of the languages, literature, history, and cultures of the Middle East from antiquity to modern times. MELC offers language programs in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish, and in the ancient languages of Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Aramaic. Students can explore the interconnected worlds of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and their neighbors, as well as the modern literature and diverse cultures of the modern Middle East. The major also offers study in pre-modern and modern Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. The department offers students the opportunity to participate in a discovery experience that is innovative, collaborative, transdisciplinary, and features digital research.


Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) shows large changes in cerebral oxyhemoglobin (Hbo2), deoxyhemoglobin (Hb), and oxidation state of cytochrome aa3 (Cyto2) in infants undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass and deep hypothermic circulatory arrest (CPB-DHCA). To evaluate the physiologic significance of these clinical NIRS measurements, we applied the technique in a piglet model of CPB-DHCA. After an initial stabilization period on CPB, animals (n = 8) were cooled to 15°C, subjected to DHCA for 1 h, then reperfused with rewarming and monitored for 180 min. NIRS measurements were compared with determinations of cerebral blood flow (CBF). During cooling, Cyto2 decreased markedly, whereas Hbo2 increased. DHCA was associated with a sharp decrease in Hbo2, a corresponding increase in Hb, and a smaller, less consistent further decrease in Cyto2. NIRS measurements recovered toward baseline with reperfusion. CBF decreased during cooling and recovered to baseline levels with reperfusion. These findings are consistent with existing human data and show that 1) cooling is associated with increased oxygenation of cerebral hemoglobin despite a reduction in CBF; 2) Cyto2 becomes more reduced during cooling, consistent with a net cellular oxygen deficit; and 3) DHCA is associated with rapid cerebral hemoglobin deoxygenation and a small further reduction of Cyto2.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To explore oncology nurses' perceptions and experiences with patient involvement in chemotherapy error prevention.

DESIGN
Qualitative descriptive study.

SETTING
In- and outpatient oncology units of a community hospital in Switzerland.

SAMPLE
11 actively practicing oncology nurses working in an ambulatory infusion unit or on wards.

METHODS
Oncology nurses participated in two focus groups on two occasions. Participants discussed their personal experiences with patients intervening to intercept errors, attitudes toward patient involvement in error prevention, and changes in relationships with patients. A content-analysis framework was applied to the transcripts and analytical categories were generated.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Perceptions about patient involvement in error prevention.

FINDINGS
Participants shared affirmative attitudes and overwhelmingly reported positive experiences with engaging patients in safety behaviors, although engaging patients was described as a challenge. Nurses intuitively chose among a set of strategies and patterns of language to engage patients and switch between participative and authoritative models of education. Patient involvement in error prevention was perceived to be compatible with trustful relationships. Efforts to get patients involved have the potential for frustration if preventable errors reach patients. Considerable differences exist among organizational barriers encountered by nurses.

CONCLUSIONS
Nurses acknowledged the diverse needs of patients and deliberately used different strategies to involve patients in safety. Patient participation in safety is perceived as a complex learning process that requires cultural change.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Oncology nurses perceive patient education in safety as a core element of their professional role and are receptive to advancing their expertise in this area.


In this integrated study of dynamics in MOOCs discussion forums, we analyze the interplay of temporal patterns, discussion content, and the social structure emerging from the communication using mixed methods. A special focus is on the yet under-explored aspect of time dynamics and influence of the course structure on forum participation. Our analyses show dependencies between the course structure (video opening time and assignment deadlines) and the over-all forum activity whereas such a clear link could only be partially observed considering the discussion content. For analyzing the social dimension we apply role modeling techniques from social network analysis. While the types of user roles based on connection patterns are relatively stable over time, the high fluctuation of active contributors lead to frequent changes from active to passive roles during the course. However, while most users do not create many social connections they can play an important role in the content dimension triggering discussions on the course subject. Finally, we show that forum activity level can be predicted one week in advance based on the course structure, forum activity history and attributes of the communication network which enables identification of periods when increased tutor supports in the forum is necessary.


The benefits of gender-diverse leadership extend beyond short-term financial performance. Companies with both women and men leaders in the boardroom and at the executive table are poised to achieve sustainable big wins for the company and society. New data from Catalyst and researchers from Harvard Business School suggest that gender-inclusive leadership and corporate social responsibility (CSR), examined through the lens of corporate philanthropy, are linked. Findings in Gender and Corporate Social Responsibility: It's A Matter of Sustainability include: Compared to companies without women executive leaders, companies with gender-inclusive leadership teams contributed, on average, more charitable funds. Even after controlling for key factors that might influence total donations, the presence of women leaders in Fortune 500 companies still has a significant, positive effect: more women leaders is correlated with higher levels of philanthropy. By keeping gender issues prominent, gender-inclusive leadership likely also affects the quality of CSR initiatives. When it comes to corporate sustainability, stakeholders should look to a new benchmark to help judge the long-term health of a company: the presence of gender-inclusive leadership, both on the board and in executive leadership teams.


The second edition of the "LexisNexis® Guide to FATCA Compliance," discussing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 (FATCA), has been vastly improved based on over thirty in-house workshops and interviews with tier 1 banks, company and trust service providers, government revenue departments, and central banks. The enterprises are headquartered in the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the United States, as are the revenue departments and the central bank staff interviewed.Chapter 1 of the book, "Background and Current Status of FATCA," is available here for free download on SSRN, and also from LexisNexis. The full book is available for purchase from LexisNexis. See weblinks provided in attached PDF. Chapter 1 is primarily authored by Associate Dean William H. Byrnes, IV, of Thomas Jefferson School of Law's Walter H. & Dorothy B. Diamond International Tax & Financial Services Program, with contributions by Professor Denis Kleinfeld and Dr. Alberto Gil Soriano. The lead author and editor of the overall book is Dean Byrnes (with Dr. Robert J. Munro).The second edition of the book has been expanded from 25 to 34 chapters, with 150 new pages of regulatory and compliance analysis based upon industry feedback of internal challenges with systems implementation. The 25 chapters in the previous edition have been substantially updated, including many more practical examples, to assist a compliance officer in contextualizing the relevant regulations, provisions of inter-governmental agreements (IGAs), and national rules enacted pursuant to IGAs.The nine new chapters in this second edition include, for example, an in-depth analysis of the categorization of trusts pursuant to the regulations and IGAs, operational specificity of the mechanisms of information capture, management, and exchange by firms and between countries, insights as to the application of FATCA, and the IGAs within new BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and European country chapters.This second edition will provide the financial enterprise's FATCA compliance officer with the tools needed for developing and maintaining a best practices compliance strategy, starting with determining what information is needed for planning the meetings with outside FATCA experts.


A numerical analysis of effectiveness of micro-jet impingement cooling on leading edge of a turbine vane is presented. An axisymmetric single round jet was assessed for its ability and consistency as a preliminary study including the investigation of parameters influencing the heat transfer distribution.
The analysis revealed that an increase in Nusselt number was attributed to increase in Reynolds number, decrease in jet diameter and H/D < 3. Significant improvement in heat transfer was observed for tapering nozzle configuration.
The study was then further expanded to 3D analysis of leading edge cooling of turbine vane. Effect of nozzle diameter to micro-scale was studied, which showed 65% enhancement in the heat transfer rates.


Registration of pesticides with the National Pesticide Board must undergo laboratory testing for short-term and long-term health effects. Laboratory animals such as rats are purposely fed with high doses of the pesticide to cause toxic effects. The objectives of this study are to investigate the effect of Bacillus thuringiensis-based Bafog-1 (S) and Ecobac-1 (EC) against Sprague Dawley rats, to assess the toxicity of these Bt products. The acute oral and acute dermal toxicity studies were conducted according to OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Guideline for Testing of Chemicals 425 (2001) and 402 (1987), respectively. The oral LD50 of Ecobac-1 (EC) and Bafog-1 (S) on female rats is more than 5000 mg kg-1, when administered orally with dose of 175 mg kg-1, respectively. Correspondingly, the LD50 for dermal administration of both Bt products is more than 2000 mg kg-1 for both male and female rats. There was no toxic symptom observed during the two weeks observation period in male and female rats. Post-mortem of the dermally treated animals at the end of the experiment did not show changes or adverse effect in the rats' internal organs, indicating these two products are non-toxic to rats. Bt as an environmental-friendly microbial insecticide is generally not toxic to human, domestic animals and vertebrates.


The two most basic problems concerning the work of Calpurnius Siculus are the question of dating the poems and the almost complete lack of a full and detailed literary analysis and interpretation of the poems. Although he is chronologically probably the next pastoral poet after Vergil, his work is almost unknown today. Despite this, he is generally regarded as a most unoriginal artist. However, a close study of his poems will reveal a fair measure of experimentation. A case in point is his treatment of the Golden Age myth in Eclogues 1 and 4. His own contribution has , however, been largely overshadowed by the many echoes, especially from Vergil.
The purpose of this article is therefore to determine if he applied the traditional elements of the myth creatively and whether he made any original contributions. Since Eclogue 1 is by far the more interesting, this will be dealt with in greater detail.


Unlike their counterparts in most industrialized societies, Japanese women are spending an increasingly longer proportion of their young adult years unmarried and living with parents. In this paper, we develop hypotheses linking the "comforts of home" to later marriage in Japan. To evaluate these hypotheses, we use six waves of data from a panel survey of young women to estimate hazard models for the transition from the parental home to first marriage. Results suggest that freedom from domestic responsibilities is associated with later marriage among coresident women who face the most difficulty in balancing family and career whereas material comforts of the parental home are associated with later marriage among women whose potential husbands have the most tenuous economic prospects.


I. INTRODUCTION Two years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court amended its rules and those of Ohio's intermediate appellate courts in order to fast-track appeals of cases involving termination of parental rights ("TPR") and adoption of minor children. (1) Three of Ohio's twelve appellate districts already had local rules to expedite or accelerate these types of appeals, (2) but in some districts, the amended rules established procedures that were entirely new. The major impetus behind the court's amendments to the rules was to move children out of foster care and into permanent adoptive homes more quickly. (3) Further, by amending the rules of the intermediate appellate courts, the court attempted to impose a greater consistency in the progress of these types of appeals across the state. (4) Both sets of amendments expressly abbreviate the time allowed to complete various stages of the appeals process. (5) If the deadlines established by the rules were met, both courts would achieve the goal of accelerating the resolution of TPR and adoption cases. (6) The amendment to the intermediate appellate court rules also prescribes a more consistent process across the twelve appellate districts. But, substantial differences in the progression of TPR and adoption cases from one appellate district to another persist because courts implement the amendments with their own internal operating procedures and practices. This Article analyzes the mechanisms for expediting TPR and adoption appeals in Ohio. Part II discusses the background and the rationale for promulgating the amendments to the rules. Part III describes the amendments to Ohio's Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Rules of Practice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. This section also evaluates the success of the amendments in meeting the declared goals of speed and consistency. Part IV concludes that Ohio's bold decision to promulgate amendments that detail the progression of expedited appeals (7) should be followed by state-wide efforts to define and measure their success, for the amendments can best serve dependent children if their ramifications are carefully evaluated and considered. II. BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE FOR EXPEDITING ADOPTION AND TPR APPEALS Moving children without undue delay from foster care into safe, permanent families--whether through reunification with the child's biological family or through termination of the birth family's parental rights and adoption--has been a focus of child welfare policy and legislation since at least the 1980s. (8) The resulting federal and state efforts to accomplish an appropriately swift resolution to child abuse, neglect, and dependency cases have come in many different forms. A patchwork of federal and state legislation, court rules, and internal operating procedures function together to set agency and court deadlines for evaluating and reporting on cases, filing briefs, scheduling oral arguments, and completing judicial decisions in TPR and adoption appeals. (9) Moreover, as in any statutory or regulatory scheme, new policies, goals, ideas, and needs regularly lead the courts and legislators to change and adjust the existing patchwork. A. Changes in Federal and Ohio Legislation The recent changes to Ohio's court rules follow on the heels of landmark federal legislation, the Adoption and Safe Families Act ("AFSA" or "federal Act") (10) and Ohio's complementary state legislation aimed at reducing the time abused, neglected, or dependent children spend in foster care. (11) In 1997, Congress enacted AFSA in order to reduce the number of children in foster care by doubling the number of adoptions, measured annually, by 2002. (12) To achieve this increase in adoptions, AFSA accelerated key procedural requirements at the trial court level. Among other things, AFSA requires the first permanency hearing to be held twelve months from the time a child first enters foster care, rather than the previous duration of eighteen months. …


Many of thermosetting resins have application only in filled state, reinforced with different mineral fillers. The co-filling of polymers with mineral filler and gases creates a possibility for production of polymer composites materials with low density. This processing leads to forming of new materials – gas-filled plastics (polymer foams). The properties of these materials are determined mainly by the shape and size of internal structural elements (pores). The interactions on the phase boundaries have influence on the materials properties too. In the present work, the gas-filled ureaformaldehyde resins were reinforced by waste phosphogypsum. The waste phosphogypsum (CaSO4.2H2O) is a solid by-product in wet phosphoric acid production processes. The values of the interactions polymer-filler were increased by using two modifying agents: polyvinyl acetate for polymer matrix and sodium metasilicate for filler. Technological methods for gas-filling and recipes of ureaformaldehyde based materials with apparent density 20-120 kg/m3 were developed. The heat conductivity of the samples is between 0.024 and 0.029 W/moK. Tensile analyses were carried out at 10 and 50% deformation and show values 0.01-0.14 MPa and 0.01-0.09 MPa, respectively. The apparent density of obtained materials is between 20 and 92 kg/m. The changes in the tensile properties and density of these materials according to sodium metasilicate content were studied too. The mechanism of phosphogypsum adsorption modification was studied using methods of FT-IR spectroscopy. The structure of the gas-filled urea-formaldehyde resins was described by results of electron scanning microscopy at three different magnification ratios – x50, x150 and x 500. The aim of present work is to study the possibility of the usage of phosphogypsum as mineral filler for urea-formaldehyde resins and development of a technology for the production of gas-filled reinforced polymer composite materials. The structure and the properties of obtained composite materials are suitable for thermal and sound insulation applications. Keywords—Gas-filled thermosets, mechanical properties, phosphogypsum, urea-formaldehyde resins.


Cluster temperature is an important material parameter essential to many physical and chemical processes involving clusters and cluster beams. Because of the diverse methods by which clusters can be produced, excited, and stabilized, and also because of the widely ranging values of atomic and molecular binding energies (approximately from 10−5 to 10 eV) and numerous energy relaxation channels in clusters, cluster temperature (internal energy) ranges from 10−3 to about 108 K. This paper reviews research on cluster temperature and describes methods for its measurement and stabilization. The role of cluster temperature in and its influence on physical and chemical processes is discussed. Results on the temperature dependence of cluster properties are presented. The way in which cluster temperature relates to cluster structure and to atomic and molecular interaction potentials in clusters is addressed. Methods for strong excitation of clusters and channels for their energy relaxation are discussed. Some applications of clusters and cluster beams are considered.


Abstract By the final decade of the twentieth century, rates of suicide in Sri Lanka ranked among the highest in the world. However, in 1996 the suicide rate began to fall and was soon at its lowest level in almost 30 years. This decline poses problems for classic sociological theories of suicide and forces us to question some fundamental assumptions underlying social scientific approaches to the suicide rate. Drawing from sociological, medical epidemiological, historical, and anthropological secondary sources as well as 21 months of original ethnographic research into suicide in Sri Lanka, I argue that there are four possible readings of the country's suicide rate. While the first three readings provide windows onto parts of the story, the fourth—a composite view—provides a new way of thinking about suicide, not just in Sri Lanka but also cross-culturally. In so doing the paper poses questions for how the relationship between suicide and society might be imagined.


We succeeded in driving the unidirectional rigid-body rotation of cholesteric (Ch) double-twist cylinder (DTC) droplets under a heat flux along the cylindrical symmetry axis. To directly observe the rigid-body rotation of DTC droplets, in each of which the center of the rotation and the symmetry axis of the structure correspond, we fabricated DTC aggregates that comprise several DTCs with intact structures. Given a steady heat flux, the DTC aggregates metastabilized by the shape and the surface anchoring show a unidirectional rigid-body rotation with a constant angular velocity. The rotational direction is determined by the molecular chirality and the direction of the heat flux, and the rotational velocity increases with the temperature gradient and decreases with the aggregation number N of the DTCs as 1 + 2/sin2(π/N). The behavior agrees with a simple model based on the linear phenomenological equation.


Abstract Objective: Previous guidelines and planning documents have identified the key role primary care providers play in delivering mental health care, including the recommendation from the WHO that meeting the mental health needs of the population in many low and middle income countries will only be achieved through greater integration of mental health services within general medical settings. This position paper aims to build upon this work and present a global framework for enhancing mental health care delivered within primary care. Methods: This paper synthesizes previous guidelines, empirical data from the literature and experiences of the authors in varied clinical settings to identify core principles and the key elements of successful collaboration, and organizes these into practical guidelines that can be adapted to any setting. Results: The paper proposes a three-step approach. The first is mental health services that any primary care provider can deliver with or without the presence of a mental health professional. Second is practical ways that effective collaboration can enhance this care. The third looks at wider system changes required to support these new roles and how better collaboration can lead to new responses to respond to challenges facing all mental health systems. Conclusions: This simple framework can be applied in any jurisdiction or country to enhance the detection, treatment, and prevention of mental health problems, reinforcing the role of the primary care provider in delivering care and showing how collaborative care can lead to better outcomes for people with mental health and addiction problems.


This paper analyzes some of the implications of North American labor market integration for fiscal policy. The economies of Canada and the US are both characterized by highly integrated internal markets for goods and services as well as for labor and capital, and subnational governments in both economies play an important role in the financing and provision of public goods and services, including higher education. Despite theoretical insights from traditional trade theory that suggest that "trade and migration are substitutes", labor markets in both the US and Canada exhibit substantial and persistent interregional migration, with gross migration rates that greatly exceed net migration rates, especially for highly-educated workers. High gross migration rates are consistent with the hypothesis that education contributes to skill-specialization and worker heterogeneity, and that mobility provides a form of insurance for investment in risky human capital. Mobility also constrains the ability of competitive governments to engage in redistributive financing of human capital investment, and recent trends in both the US and Canada reveal a diminishing level of financial support for public-sector institutions by subnational governments. The implications of labor market integration for the efficiency of resource allocation, for income determination, and for fiscal competition are important for evaluations of tax and education policies both at the subnational and at the international levels.


The optimisation process of a vibration energy harvester is usually restricted to experimental approaches due to the lack of an analytical equation to describe the damping of a system. This study derives an analytical equation, which describes the first mode damping ratio of a clamp-free cantilever beam under harmonic base excitation by combining the transverse equation of motion of the beam with the damping-stress equation. This equation, as opposed to other common damping determination methods, is independent of experimental inputs or finite element simulations and can be solved using a simple iterative convergence method. The derived equation was determined to be correct for cases when the maximum bending stress in the beam is below the fatigue limit stress of the beam. However, an increasing trend in the error between the experiment and the analytical results were observed at high stress levels. Hence, the fatigue limit stress was used as a parameter to define the validity of the analytical equation.


The flipped classroom has been gaining popularity in recent years. In theory, flipping the classroom appears sound: passive learning activities such as unidirectional lectures are pushed to outside class hours in the form of videos, and precious class time is spent on active learning activities. Yet the courses for information systems (IS) undergraduates at the university that the author is teaching at are still conducted in the traditional lecture-in-class, homework-after-class style. In order to increase students' engagement with the course content and to improve their experience with the course, the author implemented a trial of the flipped classroom model for a programming course with pair programming as the predominant in-class active learning activity. Student feedback on this pedagogy was generally very positive with many respondents considering it effective and helpful for learning. One of the biggest advantages mentioned by students is that they had the option to watch each video lecture as many times as required to be prepared for class. The author also observed that students were more engaged and empowered to take on more ownership for their learning. He recommends that other instructors consider rolling out their own trials of the flipped classroom incrementally for courses that would benefit the most from this pedagogy.


Abstract Condition monitoring and fault diagnostics of electrical machines are extremely important in any industrial setup. In some applications, such as the oil and gas industries, production units, power generation, refining and milling, the failure of critical equipment like generators, milling machines, motors, fans and pumps costs millions of dollars in reduced output, emergency maintenance costs and lost revenues. However, in the utility industry, malfunctioning of the electrical machinery is not acceptable not only because of its financial damage, but also the threat that is caused by a sudden failure or malfunctioning of the part. The research is aimed at developing a system that will detect incipient failures of electrical machinery before actual failure results in system or industrial process disruption. The objective is to make repeatable decisions based on complex relationships between large amounts of measured and estimated data. The condition of the machines will be available at all times, and the incipient detection and predictive maintenance system will provide an accurate prediction of any potential failure on demand. Two techniques are under consideration, the first one is based on pattern recognition that analyzes electrical measurements of electrical components to characterize the profile of electric machines at the beginning of life for a 'baseline signature'. Then, at regular intervals, or when a failure is suspected, the technique will be used to derive the present profile and compare it with the 'baseline' profile. The other method is based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFiS). The synergy of artificial neural network and expert fuzzy logic yield ANFiS that is a simple and effective diagnostic tool not requiring precise mathematical models of the motor and controllers. The proposed ANFiS controller will provide qualitative and quantitative knowledge of the health of a rotating machine through valid heuristic reasoning. Various types of electrical and mechanical faults will be investigated and the technique based on expert knowledge (ANFiS system) will be utilized for incipient fault diagnostics.


The period of unprecedented expansion of immigrant-led entrepreneurship that characterized the 1980s and 1990s has come to a close. Today, the growth rate of immigrant-founded companies nationwide, at 24.3 percent, has plateaued. In the high-tech hub of Silicon Valley, the proportion of immigrant-founded companies has dropped from 52.4 percent during 1995-2005 to 43.9 percent during 2006-2012.Immigrant founders of engineering and technology companies have employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated an estimated $63 billion dollars in sales during this time. While the rate of growth of immigrant entrepreneurship has stagnated, these numbers nonetheless underscore the continuing importance of high-skilled immigrants to the maintenance and expansion of the national economy. These findings are interestingly complex, since the two major skilled-immigrant groups — Indian and Chinese — are starting companies at higher rates than they did previously. Historically and today, the United States continues to benefit directly from the contributions of such immigrants. Far from expendable, high-skilled immigrants will remain a critical asset for maintaining U.S. competitiveness in the global economy.


ABSTRACT Despite an extensive debate and an openness of teachers to a strength-based approach to health and physical education, it is not always clear what a salutogenic strengths-based approach might look like in practice, at least not in the day-to-day work in schools. The purpose of this article is to present a salutogenic strengths-based school initiative in Sweden and to identify health discourses in the school's practice. An insider perspective is used to explore health in the school through Brookfield's four lenses for exploring one's own teaching practice. Two health discourses are identified: (1) an individual health discourse rooted in the fostering of personal development, and (2) a value-based health discourse build up around social relations and the fostering of democratic values. The individual health discourse can be understood as based in a pathogenic norm, and in the investigated school practice the individual health discourse dominated the school health initiative despite the salutogenic intentions.


Background: KCC3 lacking the two known phosphorylation sites is still regulated by cell swelling and WNK3. Results: Dephosphorylation of serine 96 is necessary for full activation of the cotransporter. Conclusion: Serine 96 is a third phospho-site involved in KCC3 regulation. Significance: The finding of new phosphorylation sites sheds light on an increasingly complex regulation of K+:Cl− cotransporters. The K+:Cl− cotransporter (KCC) activity is modulated by phosphorylation/dephosphorylation processes. In isotonic conditions, KCCs are inactive and phosphorylated, whereas hypotonicity promotes their dephosphorylation and activation. Two phosphorylation sites (Thr-991 and Thr-1048) in KCC3 have been found to be critical for its regulation. However, here we show that the double mutant KCC3-T991A/T1048A could be further activated by hypotonicity, suggesting that additional phosphorylation site(s) are involved. We observed that in vitro activated STE20/SPS1-related proline/alanine-rich kinase (SPAK) complexed to its regulatory MO25 subunit phosphorylated KCC3 at Ser-96 and that in Xenopus laevis oocytes Ser-96 of human KCC3 is phosphorylated in isotonic conditions and becomes dephosphorylated during incubation in hypotonicity, leading to a dramatic increase in KCC3 function. Additionally, WNK3, which inhibits the activity of KCC3, promoted phosphorylation of Ser-96 as well as Thr-991 and Thr-1048. These observations were corroborated in HEK293 cells stably transfected with WNK3. Mutation of Ser-96 alone (KCC3-S96A) had no effect on the activity of the cotransporter when compared with wild type KCC3. However, when compared with the double mutant KCC3-T991A/T1048A, the triple mutant KCC3-S96A/T991A/T1048A activity in isotonic conditions was significantly higher, and it was not further increased by hypotonicity or inhibited by WNK3. We conclude that serine residue 96 of human KCC3 is a third site that has to be dephosphorylated for full activation of the cotransporter during hypotonicity.


One area that is often overlooked by economists and social scientists is discounting. Most economic models of intertemporal choice make use of Samuelson's (1937) DU model which leads to an exponential discount function. Divergences from what economic modelling predicts and empirical findings are on the most part attributed to factors other than the discount function employed. We review the literature on the DU model and identify its behavioral anomalies. We look into suggested quasi-hyperbolic and hyperbolic models that in part account for these anomalies. We analyze an infinite IPD game and demonstrate that under quasi-hyperbolic discounting, cooperation emerges as an SPE at a higher level of the discount factor. We further demonstrate that the unemployment equilibrium in the Shapiro & Stiglitz (1984) Shirking model is not static under both hyperbolic and quasi-hyperbolic discounting.


Book synopsis: Strategizing Resilience and Reducing Vulnerability stems in the main from papers presented at the Third CAMIS Security Management Conference, which was held at Birkbeck College, University of London, in September, 2007. The varied but integrated body of knowledge covers national security, corporate security, intelligence work, and disaster/emergency management and planning. A range of perspectives, disciplines, approaches and styles are evident in the work and many intellectually challenging topics, and issues are included for discussion. The work will be of interest to a wide and diverse audience, indeed, it will appeal to senior managers, security and intelligence experts, law enforcement personnel, disaster and emergency management practitioners, as well as policy makers and their advisors, and academics and university students. The arguments entered into, the conclusions drawn and the recommendations offered, should stimulate interest into the complex and evolving body of security knowledge. The insights produced will add to the theory building process and stimulate a wider interest in the subject. In order to deal effectively with future security challenges, governments will need to devise and implement effective counterterrorism strategies. This means that policy makers will focus attention on the linkages between national security frameworks and security sector reform, and 'value-based' strategic planning. By understanding and broadening their knowledge of resilience, it should be possible for managers to devise a security architecture that embraces disaster and emergency management policies and practices. As a consequence, the knowledge and expertise acquired will be taken into areas such as security relating to major sporting events and this should ensure that the concept of security is placed in a wider and more strategic context than is the case at present.


India and other economies in the Global South are undergoing a proliferation in public Wi-Fi, with large-scale deployments from industry and government. In this paper, we report on a qualitative study on public Wi-Fi conceptions as held by urban Indians, textit{a priori} to connecting to a network. Our findings show that prior public Wi-Fi users and non-users alike raised a surprising range and depth of conceptions---ranging from suspicion of operators' intentions to monetize, to concerns about sexual image morphing, to fears of phone wipeouts, to aspiration---which were informed by popular media, BlueTooth cultures, and social learning. We found these conceptions of Wi-Fi networks to significantly influence adoption of public Wi-Fi. With enormous investments in public Wi-Fi initiatives, we call for network providers to address these deep conceptions among emerging users; by suggesting ways to build public awareness, better user experiences, and business model innovation.


In this paper, we present one of the first direct microeconometric studies of the impact of trade protection on household income in Ghana. Tariff measures at the two-digit ISIC level are matched to Ghanaian household survey data for 1991/92 and 1998/99 to represent the tariff for the industry in which the household head is employed. We examine the possibility that the effect of protection on income might not be uniform across households characterized by different skill levels. Specifically, we allow the relationship between welfare and trade policy to differ for households with different levels of education. In the absence of suitable panel data, the analysis applies pseudo-panel econometric techniques to our repeated cross-section data. This method has rarely been used in poverty analysis. The results suggest that higher tariffs are associated with higher incomes for households employed in the sector, so tariff reductions may reduce incomes (and increase poverty), at least in the short run, but with differing effects across skill groups. We find that this positive effect of protection is disproportionately greater for low skilled labour households, suggesting an erosion of welfare of unskilled labour households would result from trade liberalization. We conclude that contemplating trade liberalization without recognizing the complementary role of human capital investment may be a sub-optimal policy for the poor, at least in the short-run.


Scaling up deep learning algorithms has been shown to lead to increased performance in benchmark tasks and to enable discovery of complex high-level features. Recent efforts to train extremely large networks (with over 1 billion parameters) have relied on cloudlike computing infrastructure and thousands of CPU cores. In this paper, we present technical details and results from our own system based on Commodity Off-The-Shelf High Performance Computing (COTS HPC) technology: a cluster of GPU servers with Infiniband interconnects and MPI. Our system is able to train 1 billion parameter networks on just 3 machines in a couple of days, and we show that it can scale to networks with over 11 billion parameters using just 16 machines. As this infrastructure is much more easily marshaled by others, the approach enables much wider-spread research with extremely large neural networks.


Background Patients who enter the emergency room (ERER) present with a variety of conditions, ranging from mild to critical. As such, it may be hard to determine which patients are in need of intensive care unit treatment. The Pediatric Early Warning Score (PEWS) has been used to identify signs of critical illness in pediatric patients. Objective To validate the PEWS system for assessing signs of critical illness in pediatric patients at Dr. Mohammad Hoesin Hospital, Palembang. Methods Subjects were children aged 1 month to 18 years who received treatment in the ERER and Pediatrics Ward in Dr. Mohammad Hoesin Hospital in March to April 2015. Assessment with PEWS was based on vital sign examinations. Scores ranged from 0 to 9. The PEWS was generally taken twice, first in the ER , then after 6 hours in the ward. We obtained the cut-off point, sensitivity, and specificity of PEWS, in terms of need for pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) treatment. Results One hundred fifty patients were included in this study. Patients with PEW score of 5 or greater in the ER were relatively more likely to be transferred to the PICU, with a sensitivity of 94.4% and a specificity of 82.5%. The cut-off point obtained from the ROC curve was score 4.5 with AUC 96.7% (95%CI 93.4 to 99.9%; P<0.001). Conclusion A PEWS score of cut-off ≥5 may be used to determine which patients are in critically ill condition requiring treatment in PICU.


Employees and Type 15/31 POIs have access to Concur. To approve Travel Reconciliation/reimbursement expense reports: You must be the employee's HR Supervisor, have a fiscal role of org/program/project principal/fiscal manager on a SpeedType, or have a role as SpeedType Fiscal Staff Approver. To approve Procurement Card expense reports: You must be the cardholder's Procurement Card Approving Official (see Procurement Card section). To approve Fund 34 expenses on expense reports: Also see the Gift Fund tab.


Floods frequently produce deoxygenation and acidification in waters of artificially drained coastal acid sulfate soil (CASS) wetlands. These conditions are ideal for carbon dioxide and methane production. We investigated CO2 and CH4 dynamics and quantified carbon loss within an artificially drained CASS wetland during and after a flood. We separated the system into wetland soils (inundated soil during flood and exposed soil during post flood period), drain water, and creek water and performed measurements of free CO2 ([CO2*]), CH4, dissolved inorganic and organic carbon (DIC and DOC), stable carbon isotopes, and radon (222Rn: natural tracer for groundwater discharge) to determine aquatic carbon loss pathways. [CO2*] and CH4 values in the creek reached 721 and 81 μM, respectively, 2 weeks following a flood during a severe deoxygenation phase (dissolved oxygen ~ 0% saturation). CO2 and CH4 emissions from the floodplain to the atmosphere were 17‐fold and 170‐fold higher during the flooded period compared to the post‐flood period, respectively. CO2 emissions accounted for about 90% of total floodplain mass carbon losses during both the flooded and post‐flood periods. Assuming a 20 and 100 year global warming potential (GWP) for CH4 of 105 and 27 CO2‐equivalents, CH4 emission contributed to 85% and 60% of total floodplain CO2‐equivalent emissions, respectively. Stable carbon isotopes (δ13C in dissolved CO2 and CH4) and 222Rn indicated that carbon dynamics within the creek were more likely driven by drainage of surface floodwaters from the CASS wetland rather than groundwater seepage. This study demonstrated that >90% of CO2 and CH4 emissions from the wetland system occurred during the flood period and that the inundated wetland was responsible for ~95% of CO2‐equivalent emissions over the floodplain.


Purpose: Latest generation linear accelerators(linacs), TrueBeam (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) and its stereotactic counterpart, TrueBeam STx, have several unique features, including high‐dose‐rate flattening‐filter‐free (FFF) photon modes, reengineered electron modes with new scattering foil geometries, updated imaging hardware/software, and a novel control system. We have performed a comprehensive evaluation of three TrueBeam linacs at three different institutions and report on our commissioning experience. Methods: Acceptance and commissioning data were analyzed for three TrueBeam linacs equipped with 120 leaf (5 mm width) MLCs at three different institutions. Dosimetric data and mechanical parameters were compared. These included measurements of photon beam profiles (6X, 6XFFF, 10X, 10XFFF, 15X), photon and electron percent depth dose (PDD)curves (6MeV, 9MeV, 12MeV), relative photon output factors (Scp),electron cone factors, mechanical isocenter accuracy, MLC transmission, and dosimetric leaf gap (DLG). Results: Gantry/collimator isocentricity measurements were similar (0.27–0.28mm), with overall couch/gantry/collimator values of 0.46–0.68mm across the three institutions. Dosimetric data showed good agreement between machines. The largestdiscrepancy was observed with measured MLC DLG (for 6, 10 and 15 MV photons, average DLGs were 1.95 ± 1.15mm, 2.22 ± 1.30 mm, and 2.20 ± 1.24mm, respectively). Photon and electron PDDs were comparable for all energies. 6, 15 and 10 MV photon beam quality, %dd(10)x varied less than 0.3% for all machines. Electron beam quality specifier (R50) showed less than 1.7% variation for all energies. Output factors (Scp) and electron cone factors agreed within 0.27%, on average; largest variations were observed for small field sizes (0.77% variation, 2×2cm2) and small cone sizes (0.39% variation, 6×6 cm2 cone), respectively. Conclusions: Overall, strong agreement was observed in TrueBeam commissioning data. This comprehensive set of multi‐institutional data may serve as a benchmark for other institutions embarking on TrueBeam commissioning, ultimately improving the safety/quality of beam commissioning


Adult longevity of Drosophila is dependent upon many factors. In this study, the differences in longevity due to species, strain, and sex were examined for members of the D. virilis species phylad: D. virilis, lummei, texana, americana, and novamexicana. Newly eclosed adults from 12 laboratory strains representing diverse geographical localities were analyzed as to their longevity on standard cornmeal medium in order to discover interspecific, intraspecific, and sexual differences. The Texmelucan strain of D. virilis lived the longest. Males of this strain had an average longevity of 69 days, but females survived nearly 90 days. In contrast, the Chinook strain of D. americana was the shortest-lived with males surviving for 24 days, whereas the females lived 34 days. The other strains had mean longevities between these two extremes with there being significant interspecific differences. Drosophila virilis and D. lummei were not significantly different from each other but both lived significantly longer than the other three species; however, D. texana, D. americana, and D. novamexicana were not significantly different from each other. Significant intraspecific variation was found within D. virilis, D. texana, and D. americana. Females usually lived longer than males although the differences were not significant. Variation in the adult longevity of members of this phylad may be at least partially due to, although not limited to, differences in species, strain, and sex. OHIO J. SCI. 86 (1) 14-17, 1986


A superposition technique is introduced that allows for the application of discrete dislocation (DD) plasticity to a wide range of thermomechanical problems with reduced computational effort. Problems involving regions of differing elastic and/or plastic behavior are solved by superposing the solutions to i) DD models only for those regions of the structure where dislocation phenomena are permitted subject to either zero traction or displacement at every point on the boundary and ii) an elastic (EL) (or elasticlcohesivezone) model of the entire structure subject to all desired loading and boundary conditions. The DD subproblem is solved with standard DD machinery for an elastically homogeneous material. The EL subproblem requires only a standard elastic or elasticlcohesivezone finite element (FE) calculation. The subproblems are coupled: the negative of the tractions developed at the boundaries of the DD subproblem are applied as body forces in the EL subproblem, while the stressfield of the EL subproblem contributes a driving force to the dislocations it? the DD subproblem structure. This decomposition and the generic boundary conditions of the DD subproblem permit the DD machinery to be easily applied as a "black-box" constitutive material description in an otherwise elastic FE formulation and to be used in a broader scope of applications due to the overall enhanced computational efficiency. The method is validated against prior results for crack growth along a plastic/rigid bimaterial interface. Preliminary results for crack growth along a metal/ceramic bimaterial interface are presented.


This volume deals with the world of carpenters and joiners in late Imperial China, discussing both the technical and the religious and ritual aspects of building. It uses as its point of departure a unique and hitherto unused source: the fifteenth-century carpenter's manual Lu Ban jing. The first part of the book examines building materials, the life of labourers and craftsmen, and the process of building a house. Subjects included are the choice of favourable measurements, the ritual of raising the ridge pole, and the complete, annotated translation of the Lu Ban jing, preceded by a bibliographic essay. The sections on furniture construction are especially important for the art historian. The book is finely illustrated with more than eighty original drawings and includes a facsimile of the extremely rare, richly illustrated earliest edition of the Lu Ban jing, dating from ca. 1600.


Major portions of the eastern Alaska Range, south of the Denali fault, in the McCarthy, Nabesna, Mount Hayes, and eastern Healy quadrangles, consist predominantly of the Maclaren and Wrangellia tectono-stratigraphic terranes. The Maclaren terrane consists of the Maclaren Glacier metamorphic belt and the regionally deformed and metamorphosed East Susitna batholith. The Maclaren Glacier metamorphic belt is composed of argillite, metagraywacke, and sparse andesite flows that are progressively regionally metamorphosed from lower greenschist facies to middle amphibolite facies near the East Susitna batholith. The East Susitna batholith is composed of gabbro, quartz diorite, granodiorite, and sparse quartz monzonite. Isotopic ages are as old as a K-Ar hornblende age of 87.5 m.y., possibly reset, and a U-Pb zircon age of 70 m.y. The batholith is intensely deformed and regionally metamorphosed under conditions of the middle amphibolite facies. The Wrangellia terrane is divided into two subterranes: (1) the Slana River subterrane, composed of late Paleozoic andesite to dacite flows, tuff, limestone, and argillite, unconformably overlying massive basalt flows of the Triassic Nikolai Greenstone, Late Triassic limestone, and younger Mesozoic flysch; and (2) the Tangle subterrane, a deeper-water equivalent of the Slana River subterrane, composed of late Paleozoic and Early Triassic aquagene tuff, chert, minor andesite tuff and flows, limestone, unconformably overlying pillow basalt and massive basalt flows of the Triassic Nikolai Greenstone, and Late Triassic limestone. Both subterranes are intruded by locally extensive gabbro and diabase dikes and by cumulate mafic and ultramafic sills. Less extensive terranes (two) are the Clearwater terrane, a sequence of intensely deformed chlorite schist, muscovite schist, marble, and greenstone of Late Triassic age; and an unnamed terrane of ultramafic and associated rocks of presumable Paleozoic or Mesozoic age. Each terrane or subterrane generally has (1) a distinctive time-stratigraphic sequence reflecting a unique geologic history; (2) a missing provenance for bedded sedimentary or volcanic rocks; and (3) bounding thrust or strike-slip faults, interpreted as accretionary sutures. The Maclaren and Wrangellia terranes are juxtaposed along the Broxson Gulch thrust, which consists of an imbricate series of north-dipping thrust faults. Paralleling the Broxson Gulch thrust, a few kilometres to the south, is the north-dipping Eureka Creek thrust, along which are juxtaposed the Slana River and Tangle subterranes. The Maclaren terrane is correlated with the Kluane Schist and the Ruby Range batholith in the southern Yukon Territory, which represent the northward extension of the Taku and Tracy Arm terranes. If correct, this correlation defines a minimum displacement of the Maclaren terrane along the Denali fault of ∼400 km. The Maclaren terrane is interpreted to have formed in a synorogenic Andean-type arc setting on the west margin of Mesozoic North America in the middle to late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic. The Wrangellia terrane is interpreted to have initially formed in an island-arc setting during the late Paleozoic. Subsequently in the Late Triassic, the Wrangellia terrane underwent rifting near the paleoequator, with formation of the Nikolai Greenstone and associated mafic and ultra-mafic igneous rocks. In the middle and late Mesozoic, Wrangellia migrated toward, and was accreted during, the middle Cretaceous to the Maclaren terrane along the Broxson Gulch thrust. Subsequent dispersion of both the Maclaren and Wrangellia terranes along the Denali fault and the Broxson Gulch thrust commenced during the early Tertiary and continues through the present.


This paper is adapted from a talk given by the author at Duke University School of Law on April 6, 2005. The author argues that the Federal Communication Commission's recent crackdown on television indecency poses a significant threat to First Amendment protections by (1) limiting television viewers' freedom of choice and (2) implying the possibility of punishment for failure to cooperate with the political objectives of the governing party.


Background: Practice development projects are often situated within a specific context and team, while scholarship awards focus more on the personal and professional development of individuals. Personal and professional development is an important component of practice development, however, and this paper reports on a survey of nurses and midwives who had been awarded personal scholarships and examines the scholars' perceptions of the impact on practice development. Few studies of scholarships and their impact have been published previously.

Aims:

To present the outcomes of a research project that evaluated scholarships awarded to nurses and midwives, within the context of practice development

To critique the role of personal scholarships as a means to support practice development and/or service improvement

Methods: An online cross-sectional survey of nurses and midwives who had been awarded scholarships by a UK charity was conducted; 82 scholars responded, a 59% response rate. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and free text comments were analysed thematically.

Results: Scholars overwhelmingly perceived a positive impact on their personal and professional development but most also believed there had been a positive impact on patient care, safety and experience, and on colleagues and their organisation; some referred to the latter as a 'ripple' effect of their scholarship. An analysis of these results indicated some synergy with practice development values.

Conclusions: The award of scholarships to individuals appears to have a wider impact on scholars' colleagues and their organisation with a resulting impact on practice development. This is important as few individuals are awarded personal scholarships. The explicit promotion of personal scholarships within a practice development framework could further develop the relationship between the two, affirming a wider impact of the awards. The sustainability of the practice changes scholars reported was outside this study's remit but is an important issue worthy of further consideration.

Implications for practice:
•The award of personal scholarships is perceived positively by individuals in relation to their own personal and professional development
•The award of individual scholarships can lead to practice development or service improvement with benefits for patient care and a wider effect on the practice of both teams and organisations
•The long-term impact of scholarships on individual recipients and on practice development would be a useful area for future research
•There needs to be further exploration and recognition of the relationship between personal professional development and practice development – in particular, an exploration of how scholars make changes in practice could be insightful


RATIONAL DRUG DESIGN will be possible in the near term for only a few disorders. While modem technologies make possible the tailoring of compounds to block enzymatic actions, or put defective ligands in unoccupied receptors, the intricacies, interdependencies, and redundancies of human physiology will continue to defy simple pharmaceutical solutions to most diseases. Occasionally the rational drug designers will be lucky, but more often our lack of knowledge of the details, particularly the details of the integration of functions, will lead to ineffective compounds or unacceptable side effects. Rational drug design will be generally successful in the future, but not yet! The rapid emergence of drug-resistant microbial agents will lead to renewed searches for antibiotics. Common antibiotics were identified by screening natural products-for example, soils and molds. Renewed searches of other natural products will identify one or more "new" classes of agents with new modes of action. Rational drug design may play a role in this search, but whether synthetic or natural products will be identified first is far from clear. Helen M. Ranney Alliance Pharmaceutical Corporation San Diego, California


In old Russia, patron/client relations, "clan" politics, and a variety of other informal practices spanned the centuries. Government was understood to be patrimonial and personal rather than legal, and office holding was far less important than proximity to patrons. Working from heretofore unused documents from the Communist archives, J. Arch Getty shows how these political practices and traditions from old Russia have persisted throughout the twentieth-century Soviet Union and down to the present day. Getty examines a number of case studies of political practices in the Stalin era and after. These include cults of personality, the transformation of Old Bolsheviks into noble grandees, the Communist Party's personnel selection system, and the rise of political clans ("family circles") after the 1917 Revolutions. Stalin's conflicts with these clans, and his eventual destruction of them, were key elements of the Great Purges of the 1930s. But although Stalin could destroy the competing clans, he could not destroy the historically embedded patron-client relationship, as a final chapter on political practice under Putin shows.


Locally-generated data facilitates strategic provision of high level family planning (FP) and maternal and child health (MCH) services to its constituents. However, generation of such data remains to be a complex undertaking at the local level owing to both financial and technical capacity constraints. The USAIDassisted HealthGov Project, in collaboration with its regional and local counterparts, has facilitated innovations to improve existing information on health program coverage and identification of unmet need for FP and MCH and to generate new information on logistics and service delivery capacity of the supply side. Such innovations motivate the use of information not only in planning but real-time provision of FP and MCH services. The Department of Health (DOH) continues its efforts and technical assistance to sustain such innovations so that generation and analysis of data becomes an inherent part of the provision of services at the local level.


As the Free and Open Source (FOSS) concept has matured, its commercial significance has also increased, and issues such as quality and sustainability have moved to the fore. In this study, the authors focus on time-based release management in large volunteer FOSS projects, and reveal how they address quality and sustainability issues. They discuss the differences between release management in the traditional software context and contrast it with FOSS settings. Based on detailed case studies of a number of prominent FOSS projects, they describe the move to time-based release management and identify the factors and criteria necessary for a successful transition. The authors also consider the implications for software development more generally in the current dynamic Internet-enabled environment.


Background and aim: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) complications are increasing among patients of Kurdistan region of Iraq creating a growing public health concern. The study aimed to determine the prevalence of DM complications among Kurdistan region provinces and the associated factors.
 Methods: A cross-sectional study design was chosen. A total of 5186 diabetic patients were selected for this study from the three provinces of Kurdistan region of Iraq (Duhok, Erbil and Suleimania). The data collected from the files of patients registered at the diabetic centers in each of the mentioned provinces were retrospectively extracted to obtain a complete history of each individual patient.
 Results: The majority of the diabetic patients had hyperlipidemia (38.4%) and hypertension (37.7%) as complications, and about (0.7%) of the diabetic patients had stroke. A significant association was found between some of DM complications with demographic variables. This study showed highly significantly differences in diabetic laboratory tests among other variable groups (DM types, duration and the body mass index BMI). The results obtained indicated that the levels of HbA1c, fasting blood sugar (FBS) and random blood sugar (RBS) showed a significant increase (positive correlation) with the duration of the disease.
Conclusion: The common chronic complications among the selected patients were hyperlipidemia, hypertension, chronic heart disease (CHD), nephropathy and neuropathy. Early screening is highly recommended for any patient with suspected DM. Lifestyle changes to lose weight are important in both treating and preventing DM and to prevent the development of DM complications such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, neuropathy and nephropathy.


ABSTRACT As South Africa contemplates another episode of public procurement legal reform, we trace the post-apartheid history of such efforts and consider critical issues moving forward. South Africa has over the last few decades followed the international trend of an expanding 'contract state'. Public procurement is increasingly important to state operational and allocative concerns. South Africa's public procurement regime is progressively configured into a centrally steered but decentralised organisational form. Inflected through domestic public procurement politics, however, the development of this organisational form has been truncated, with the establishment of only limited central steering capacity producing a public procurement regulatory regime which is weak, fragmented and incoherent, contributing to problems of state incapacity and corruption. In 2013 South Africa's Minister of Finance announced a major push to reform South Africa's contract state. The effort aims to better establish, locate and extend public procurement regulatory authority. It has begun to elaborate a centre-led, strategic and increasingly developmental procurement methodology. It is moving towards more flexibility, effectively an attempt to reduce rigidity in rules while building more robust and distributed disciplinary mechanisms, ones which take account of deficits in regulatory capacity and political will. We consider the potentials and pitfalls of these movements and suggest ways to optimise them.


Truck Factor (also known as Bus Factor or Lottery Number) is the minimal number of developers that have to be hit by a truck (or leave) before a project is incapacitated. Therefore, it is a measure that reveals the concentration of knowledge and the key developers in a project. Due to the importance of this information to project managers, algorithms were proposed to automatically compute Truck Factors, using maintenance activity data extracted from version control systems. However, to the best of our knowledge, we still lack studies that compare the accuracy of the results produced by such algorithms. Therefore, in this paper, we evaluate and compare the results of three Truck Factor algorithms. To this end, we empirically determine the truck factors of 35 open-source systems by consulting their developers. Our results show that two algorithms are very accurate, especially when the systems have a small Truck Factor. We also evaluate the impact of different thresholds and configurations in algorithm results.


The timbre of an instrument is usually represented by sinusoids plus noise. Spectral modeling synthesis (SMS) is an audio synthesis technique which can create musical timbre and give control over the frequency and amplitude. Additive synthesis and LPC synthesis are usually applied for synthesizing sinusoids and residuals, respectively. However, it takes fairly large computing power while implementing the algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to present GPU-based techniques of implementing SMS for real-time audio processing by using parallelism and programmability in graphics pipeline. The performance is compared to CPU-based implementations.


By the first half of the twentieth century, vast numbers of the UK's towns and cities had formed their own municipal museums and their collections had swelled with non-European material culture sourced from across the world. Such institutions provided a British public with a unique medium through which to comprehend and appropriate their Empire and its peoples, but what were the messages that provincial museums conveyed, and how where they received by local audiences? What was the relationship between intended meaning and the popular understanding inspired by these displays?
Critiquing Foucauldian assumptions about the pervasive nature of curatorial control of audience reception, this chapter explores the practicalities of displaying and visiting municipal displays of ethnography. It exposes the problems of under funding, overcrowding and lack of specialist knowledge which dogged some curatorial attempts to present coherent, comprehensive, 'scientific' messages for their visitors and argues that publics formed individual responses to cultural heritage, sometimes rejecting official interpretation and drawing upon wider cultural references and experiences. Juxtaposing curatorial reports with media accounts, it is argued that museum audiences, faced with the displays and interpretation produced under such circumstances, struggled to engage with curatorial intent, instead drawing on their own experiences of Empire that had been formed away from the museum in more informal, sociable and peopled circumstances.
Research into the reactions of museum visitors of the past is notoriously difficult. Given the paucity of literature which has attempted to document or engage with the thoughts and responses of the historic museum visitor, this chapter analyses a range of potential methodologies and explicitly advocates the merits of placing museum-visiting in a wider context of public cultural production and consumption. By sourcing commentaries on other cultural proceedings away from the museum – the missionary fair, the charity bazaar, the theatre and the public lecture – a comparative picture or 'contextual shadow' can be built and used to inform our understanding of public notions of museum-going.


Hominin fossilised trackways are commonly used to reconstruct locomotory behaviour and to characterise track-maker biometrics. They are the most direct representation of hominin locomotion available, yet the recording and measurement of the tracks and the subsequent interpretation to characterise the track-maker is problematic. The fossil sites are susceptible to extreme cases of erosion, often resulting in the destruction of the fossil beds. In this project, a series of experiments using non-invasive methods tested the applicability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology to rapidly and accurately record footprints before further damage to the fossil interface occurred. Various flight paths, UAVs and camera types were incorporated to test the accuracy in minute depth reconstruction and subsequent 3D mesh creation. Data from the UAV was compared to traditional handheld methods of 3D modelling. Results indicated that a handheld DSLR camera following a circular path should be deployed to record fossil footprints. After successfully identifying the best practise for creating 3D reconstructions of footprints, this study sought to determine if the track-maker was identifiable from print shapes. An experimental study that combined morphological assessments with that of 3D motion capture systems to record modern human movement across different substrates at several speeds examined the variability in footprint shapes and investigated if these shapes can be used to infer biometric and/or biomechanical information about the track-maker. Numerous patterns of morphology were recognised, such as the changing prominence of the midfoot impression associated with limb posture, and a ridge-like impression that extends across the forefoot associated with an effective toe-off on a looser sediment. The latter was identified in a number of fossilised footprints. Although the internal morphology of tracks was sensitive to changes in shape concurrent with a range of variables (substrate typology and kinematics), track outlines were much more consistent within an individual. Outlines were statistically compared between tracks from nine different fossil localities, ranging from the Pliocene to the Holocene. It was established that all prints belonging to Homo species are statistically similar in outline shape, but disparate from prints associated with australopithecines. The main conclusion of this thesis as a whole is that functional morphology can be inferred from fossil tracks. Track morphologies are sensitive to substrate and speed, which need to be considered and approximated for accurate identification of the track-maker. The reconstruction of biometrics, however, needs to be refined by further analytical methods.


PURPOSE
In brachytherapy, dosimetric plans are routinely calculated with the TG43 formalism which considers the patient as a simple water box. However, an accurate modeling of the physical processes considering patient heterogeneity using Monte Carlo (MC) methods is currently too time-consuming and computationally demanding to be routinely used. As solution we implemented an accurate and fast MC simulation on graphics processing unit (GPU) for brachytherapy (HDR and LDR) applications.

METHODS
Based on Geant4 a MC simulation framework was developed on GPU. This framework was extended to include a hybrid GPU navigator, allowing navigation within a voxelized phantom derived from CT imaging including an analytical based structure for accurately modeling the 125I seeds (Source Tech Medical STM1251). In addition, dose scoring based on TLE including uncertainty calculations was incorporated. The implemented full GPU based modeling was compared with a classical CPU MC simulation based on GATE/GEANT4, as well as previously proposed GPU approaches based on the use of phasespace files for the seeds and their positioning based on simple replacement of voxels within the CT volumes.

RESULTS
Energy distribution from the seed and dose mapping including uncertainty were compared showing a high agreement (differences <1%). Preliminary results have shown that the GPU implementation is faster by at least two orders of magnitude compared to the GATE mono-CPU version. A comparison between dosimetric plans based on TG43 and a full MC simulation using the GPU code for LDR prostate brachytherapy led to 40%-100% differences depending on the level of tissue heterogeneity.

CONCLUSION
We propose a full GPU MC simulation based on Geant4, with a hybrid navigator dedicated for brachytherapy applications. Our evaluation shows large dose differences compared to the simplistic TG43 formalism in LDR and very fast execution times compatible with clinical practice.


This study examines the economic growth and domestic saving in India. The onset of gradual economic reforms since the 1980s provided some fillip to growth, and the momentum was carried forward through the adoption of a wide-ranging structural adjustment program since the beginning 1990s. The sustainability of an accelerated growth trajectory hinges heavily on the acceleration of saving and investment and the improvements in productivity. While foreign direct investment, liberalization of trade and the globalisation of goods and financial markets have well-documented gains, the accrual of these gains is contingent on the acceleration of productivity to a threshold level where the firms can effectively compete for market share in both domestic and international markets. Gobalization is unlikely to take developing economies out of low level equilibrium traps of underdevelopment, if it is not accompanied by the institutional reforms, development of adequate infrastructure, unleashing of productivities, development of efficient financial sector, and the improvements in the competitiveness of import-competing industries in the domestic and export-oriented industries in the international markets.


In this paper, the authors undertake a study of cyber warfare reviewing theories, law, policies, actual incidents - and the dilemma of anonymity. Starting with the United Kingdom perspective on cyber warfare, the authors then consider United States' views including the perspective of its military on the law of war and its general inapplicability to cyber conflict. Consideration is then given to the work of the United Nations' group of cyber security specialists and diplomats who as of July 2010 have agreed upon a set of recommendations to the United Nations Secretary General for negotiations on an international computer security treaty. An examination of the use of a nation's cybercrime law to prosecute violations that occur over the Internet indicates the inherent limits caused by the jurisdictional limits of domestic law to address cross-border cybercrime scenarios. Actual incidents from Estonia (2007), Georgia (2008), Republic of Korea (2009), Japan (2010), ongoing attacks on the United States as well as other incidents and reports on ongoing attacks are considered as well. Despite the increasing sophistication of such cyber attacks, it is evident that these attacks were met with a limited use of law and policy to combat them that can be only be characterised as a response posture defined by restraint. Recommendations are then examined for overcoming the attribution problem. The paper then considers when do cyber attacks rise to the level of an act of war by reference to the work of scholars such as Schmitt and Wingfield. Further evaluation of the special impact that non-state actors may have and some theories on how to deal with the problem of asymmetric players are considered. Discussion and possible solutions are offered. A conclusion is offered drawing some guidance from the writings of the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. Finally, an appendix providing a technical overview of the problem of attribution and the dilemma of anonymity in cyberspace is provided.


RATIONALE
Pulmonary complications of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation include infections and graft-versus-host diseases, such as idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS). Conflicting data exist regarding the role of the interferon (IFN)-gamma-producing Th1 CD4(+) T-cell subset and IL-17A in IPS.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the role of IFN-gamma and IL-17A in the establishment of pulmonary graft-versus-host disease.

METHODS
A semiallogeneic murine model based on C57BL/6 x BALB/c as recipients with transplantation of BALB/c RAG2(-/-) bone marrow and transfer of different genetic knockout T cells (T-bet(-/-), IFN-gamma(-/-), IFN-gammaR(-/-)) on a BALB/c background. Lung tissue was examined for parenchymal changes and infiltrating cells by histology and fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
After transfer of semiallogeneic bone marrow together with donor CD4(+) T cells lacking IFN-gamma or T-bet-a T-box transcription factor controlling Th1 commitment-we found severe inflammation in the lungs, but no enhancement in other organs. In contrast, wild-type donor CD4(+) T cells mediated minimal inflammation only, and donor CD8(+) T cells were not required for IPS development. Mechanistically, the absence of IFN-gamma or IFN-gamma signaling in pulmonary parenchymal cells promoted expansion of IL-17A-producing CD4(+) T cells and local IL-17A release. In vivo depletion of IL-17A reduced disease severity.

CONCLUSIONS
One mechanism of IFN-gamma protection against IPS is negative regulation of the expansion of pathogenic IL-17A-producing CD4(+) T cells through interaction with the IFN-gamma receptor on the pulmonary parenchymal cell population.


Background: before using a speech recognition system for the neonatal documentation, the underlying neonatal information has to be specified and structured. Up to now, the pre-structuring the first comprehensive examination of newborn (U2) and the respective data set entries has not been described in literature, yet. The common booklet for the documentation of the German U2 does not contain all examinations required nor does it show the choice of all respective finding statements. Objectives: to set up a documentation standard for the U2 distinguishing the most important diseases/disorders at a limited level of detailing. Methods: the finding scheme of the U2 has been specified based on the German national recommendation for the U2. Here, the U2 is the first exhaustive examination of the newborn. Due to a lack of detailed descriptions, the U2 has been formalized and arranged in cooperation with experienced medical experts, which carry out the U2 in daily routine. Results: if all possible finding statements are presented in a hierarchical structure, – even with a small font size – it would cover more than 20 pages. Hence, a more condensed structure has been set up for presentation. If the general practitioner (GP) is to see (a) the finding statements necessary but (b) no more, additional rules can be set up for the masking of finding statements excluded by the results of the prior investigation. Conclusions: the proposed structure for neonatal documentation serves as a basis for statistical analysis. On its basis, investigation can be carried out about (a) problems during the individual examination, (b) problem with the documentation and (c) the benefits of automated speech recognition systems.


This article talks about the specific fate of transference in the ways to work with psychoanalytical groups, using psychodrama with antisocial and borderline persons. The diffraction considered in the classic psychotherapy as a resistance, is presented as what sustains group associations, representing a primary factor of transformation and processing in psychodrama. The inversion container/content restores the full valence of topical transference in the work with antisocial subjects as the attempt of fusion or exclusion, respect the establishment of a bond with the other/others, and from which it follows the necessity and the importance to work on the here and now of the feeling and of the psychic experiencing of members.


The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation (BPCI) Act, enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, created a new licensure pathway for biological products demonstrated to be biosimilar with or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed biological product (the "reference product"). The FDA's approach to the regulation of biosimilars is based on the requirements set forth in the BPCI Act. A biosimilar product is highly similar to the reference product, notwithstanding minor differences in clinically inactive components, and there are no clinically meaningful differences between products in terms of safety, purity, and potency. The foundation of a biosimilar development program is an analytic similarity assessment that directly compares the structural/physiochemical and functional properties of the proposed biosimilar with the reference product. Data from clinical studies, which include an assessment of immunogenicity and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, are used to assess for clinically meaningful differences and not to independently establish the safety and effectiveness of the biosimilar. Like all products that the FDA regulates, the FDA requires that biosimilar products meet the agency's rigorous standards of safety and efficacy for approval. That means patients and health care professionals are able to rely upon the safety and effectiveness of biosimilar products in the same manner as for the reference product. Clin Cancer Res; 23(8); 1882–5. ©2016 AACR.


This Policy Brief presents forecasts of medal counts at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Building on previously developed statistical models that analyze the correlations between Olympic success and socioeconomic variables, the models underlying these forecasts go further, adjusting for the distortions in the historical record created by large-scale boycotts (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984) and doping. The latter consideration is critical to forecasting success in Rio insofar, as the forecasts are strongly influenced by performance at the immediately preceding Games. Subject to uncertainties over Russian participation and the possible impact of the Zika virus, the forecasts indicate that the United States is likely to continue to earn the greatest number of medals, but China is closing the medal gap. Brazil should get a boost from hosting the Games, but its home field advantage may not be as great as experienced by prior hosts. Slumping performance in Rio could add to Britain's post-Brexit malaise.


This paper reports on practices in national and international on-line cooperation in engineering remote laboratories (RLs) to support student collaborative activities. A structured aid enables them, in addition to acquiring technical skills and knowledge, to develop intercultural communication skills and the global perspectives sought by their profession. The concept of a Community of Practice (CoP) is a central pedagogical consideration for collaborative learning and is discussed in the paper. After reviewing practices of others, an emphasis will be placed on a team-based laboratory environment of NetLab – a remote laboratory framework created at the University of South Australia (UniSA).


Abstract At least 100,000 retired UK citizens currently live in Spain. Under EU law, they are entitled to access the Spanish National Health Service (NHS) with minimum administrative difficulty. What will their legal position be under a 'no-deal Brexit'? This is a question of Spanish law. The worst case scenario is that they will have to reapply for their residence permits under the Spanish legislation applicable to non-EU/European Economic Area citizens, with all the administrative inconvenience and cost entailed. If they successfully reapply, their personal health care costs will be considerably higher than at present, should they choose to remain in Spain. Very obvious questions of capacity planning arise. The Spanish system will potentially need to gear up for a significant administrative effort. Given the distinct possibility of a 'no-deal Brexit', the UK NHS should prepare to welcome significant numbers of pensioners home.


This study sought to explore the factors that help predict students' interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Qatar. Drawing on recent work in the field, the present paper examines the intersection of personal characteristics (gender and grade level) and contextual (teacher) variables, and their association with interest in STEM. The study involved a nation-wide survey of preparatory and secondary levels of education in Qatar implemented in 2015, and data from a sample of 660 preparatory (middle) and secondary (high) school students. Factor analysis extracted five valid dimensions and a path analytic model suggested that student interest in STEM is influenced by teachers, perceptions of homework assignments, self-confidence and intention to pursue further study. Gender and level of education were also identified as variables likely to affect student interest in a STEM field. The paper concludes with important recommendations for policy and suggestions for further study and research.


The companion Workbook to Financial Statement Analysis, Fourth Edition

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 Financial Statement Analysis Workbook, Fourth Edition will help expand your skills in analyzing financial statements, so you can successfully put your hard-won knowledge to work in the real world.