The emergence of event-driven architectures, automation of business processes, drastic costreductions in sensor technology, and a growing need to monitor IT systems (as well as other systems) due to legal, contractual, or operational considerations lead to an increasing generation of events. This development is accompanied by a growing demand for managing and processing events in an automated and systematic way. Complex Event Processing (CEP) encompasses the (automatable) tasks involved in making sense of all events in a system by deriving higher-level knowledge from lower-level events while the events occur, i.e., in a timely, online fashion and permanently. At the core of CEP are queries which monitor streams of "simple" events for so-called complex events, that is, events or situations that manifest themselves in certain combinations of several events occurring (or not occurring) over time and that cannot be detected from looking only at single events. Querying events is fundamentally different from traditional querying and reasoning with database or Web data, since event queries are standing queries that are evaluated permanently over time against incoming streams of event data. In order to express complex events that are of interest to a particular application or user in a convenient, concise, cost-effective and maintainable manner, special purpose Event Query Languages (EQLs) are needed. This thesis investigates practical and theoretical issues related to querying complex events, covering the spectrum from language design over declarative semantics to operational semantics for incremental query evaluation. Its central topic is the development of the high-level event query language XChange. In contrast to previous data stream and event query languages, XChange's language design recognizes the four querying dimensions of data extractions, event composition, temporal relationships, and, for non-monotonic queries involving negation or aggregation, event accumulation. XChange deals with complex structured data in event messages, thus addressing the need to query events communicated in XML formats over the Web. It supports deductive rules as an abstraction and reasoning mechanism for events. To achieve a full coverage of the four querying dimensions, it builds upon a separation of concerns of the four querying dimensions, which makes it easy-to-use and highly expressive. A recurrent theme in the formal foundations of XChange is that, despite the fundamental differences between traditional database queries and event queries, many well-known results from databases and logic programming are, with some importance changes, applicable to event queries. Declarative semantics for XChange are given as a (Tarski-style) model theory with accompanying fixpoint theory. This approach accounts well for (1) data in events and (2) deductive rules defining new events from existing ones, two aspects often neglected in previous work of semantics of EQLs. For the evaluation of event queries, this work introduces operational semantics based on an extended and tailored form of relational algebra and query plans with materialization points. Materialization points account for storing and maintaining information about those received events that are relevant for, i.e., can contribute to, future query answers, as well as for an incremental evaluation that avoids recomputing certain intermediate results. Efficient state maintenance in incremental evaluation is approached by "differentiating" algebra expressions, i.e., by deriving expressions for computing only the changes to materialization points. Knowing how long an event is relevant is a prerequisite for performing garbage collection during event query evaluation and also of central importance for developing cost-based query planners. To this end, this thesis introduces a notion of relevance of events (to a given query plan) and develops methods for determining temporal relevance, a particularly useful form based on time-related information.


A Top-down approach to Fundamental Interactions, viXra:1307.0082 [2] presents the author's attempt to understand if there is an information code underlying nature. Once the energy components were understood, a model for the neutron and proton was developed. The proton model is presented in Reference 2 and repeated below under the next heading. The proton model shows that there is a 10.15 MeV orbit that losses energy and is responsible for the binding energy curve. The goals of this paper are to verify the value 10.15 MeV and present a simple model of atomic binding energy. Literature cites "water drop" models for binding energy that are admittedly empirical. Quantum physicists have suggested that there should be "electron like" shells inside atoms but to the author's knowledge they remain unclear. If there are shells the nucleons should fall into lower energy states releasing the remainder as binding energy. The author explored this possibility. Empirically, the model was successful but no explanation could be found for why a nucleon occupied a given shell. The first part of the binding energy curve rises quickly and then levels off as saturation occurs. When the author compared the shape of the curve to a probability based model a simple relationship was discovered. The relationship is almost identical to the fundamentals presented in reference 2.


Ten years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia's measured output was still showing a net decline of around 40 per cent – but with no comparable decline in average living standards, both because the output drop affected mainly the defence sectors and because Russia's participation in international trade had increased. At the same time there was greater inequality. And despite expansion of small businesses and the service sector, industrial restructuring had made only slight progress. This reflected geographical problems as well as underdevelopment of key market institutions such as property rights, hard budget constraints and the banking system, which meant that capital and labour markets barely functioned.


It is amply documented that a value portfolio outperforms a growth portfolio over long spans in most markets worldwide; less well known, however, is how this outperformance is achieved. Decomposing the total returns of these strategies, Chaves and Arnott find that 1) value portfolios enjoy higher dividend income and 2) the average growth stock enjoys faster dividend growth than the average value stock, but surprisingly 3) value portfolios experience higher growth in dividends than growth portfolios. The authors argue that the first two findings are expected, but the third is not completely understood by investors. The third finding is a consequence of the nature of the rebalance rules for growth and value portfolios. Each rebalance replaces loweryielding value stocks with new higher-yielding value stocks and replaces higher-yielding growth stocks with new loweryielding growth stocks. It is, therefore, the act of rebalancing and reconstituting the growth and value portfolios that increases the growth rate for dividend income in value strategies and rather sharply reduces it in the case of growth strategies. Although this finding is analogous to that of Fama and French, which is reported in their 2007 "Migration" paper, Chaves and Arnott more specifically attribute much of the advantage of value strategies to the acts of reconstituting and rebalancing and their side effects on dividends. In so doing, they shed some light on the faster dividend growth of value portfolios.


The aim of our study is to present the case of a six weeks old infant, prematurely born, who was admitted to our hospital with systolic murmur and cyanosis. The diagnosis of cor triatriatum sinister associated with patent foramen ovale has been established by ultrasound examination. The infant died a month after admission. The necropsy confirmed the clinical diagnosis and also revealed the hypertrophy and dilation of the right heart, left ventricle hypoplasia, interstitial pneumonia and amniotic fluid aspiration bronchopneumonia. The possible cause of death in this case was right heart failure following pulmonary hypertension associated with acute respiratory failure. To our knowledge it is the first case with such a complex malformation reported in a premature neonate in our hospital.


We report inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements on molecular hydrogen deuteride (HD) trapped in binary cubic (sII) and hexagonal (sH) clathrate hydrates, performed at low temperature using two different neutron spectrometers in order to probe both energy and momentum transfer. The INS spectra of binary clathrate samples exhibit a rich structure containing sharp bands arising from both the rotational transitions and the rattling modes of the guest molecule. For the clathrates with sII structure, there is a very good agreement with the rigorous fully quantum simulations which account for the subtle effects of the anisotropy, angular and radial, of the host cage on the HD microscopic dynamics. The sH clathrate sample presents a much greater challenge, due to the uncertainties regarding the crystal structure, which is known only for similar crystals with different promoter, but nor for HD (or H2) plus methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE-d12).


The seismic risk mitigation from the perspective of the old buildings stock is truly essential in Algerian urban areas, particularly those located in seismic prone regions, such as Annaba city, and which the old buildings present high levels of degradation associated with no seismic strengthening and/or rehabilitation concerns. In this sense, the present paper approaches the issue of the seismic vulnerability assessment of old masonry building stocks through the adaptation of a simplified methodology developed for a European context area similar to that of Annaba city, Algeria. Therefore, this method is used for the first level of seismic vulnerability assessment of the masonry buildings stock of the old city center of Annaba. This methodology is based on a vulnerability index that is suitable for the evaluation of damage and for the creation of large-scale loss scenarios. Over 380 buildings were evaluated in accordance with the referred methodology and the results obtained were then integrated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) tool. Such results can be used by the Annaba city council for supporting management decisions, based on a global view of the site under analysis, which led to more accurate and faster decisions for the risk mitigation strategies and rehabilitation plans. Keywords—Damage scenarios, masonry buildings, old city center, seismic vulnerability, vulnerability index.


An expert on the brain argues that the mind is not a blank slate and that much early behavior is biologically predisposed rather than learned. Why do newborns show a preference for a face (or something that resembles a face) over a nonface-like object? Why do baby chicks prefer a moving object to an inanimate one? Neither baby human nor baby chick has had time to learn to like faces or movement. In Born Knowing, neuroscientist Giorgio Vallortigara argues that the mind is not a blank slate. Early behavior is biologically predisposed rather than learned, and this instinctive or innate behavior, Vallortigara says, is key to understanding the origins of knowledge. Drawing on research carried out in his own laboratory over several decades, Vallortigara explores what the imprinting process in young chicks, paralleled by the cognitive feats of human newborns, reveals about minds at the onset of life. He explains that a preference for faces or representations of something face-like and animate objects--predispositions he calls "life detectors"--streamlines learning, allowing minds to avoid a confusing multiplicity of objects in the environment, and he considers the possibility that autism spectrum disorders might be linked to a deficit in the preference for the animate. He also demonstrates that animals do not need language to think, and that addition and subtraction can be performed without numbers. The origin of knowledge, Vallortigara argues, is the wisdom that humans and animals possess as basic brain equipment, the product of natural history rather than individual development.... Download ebook, read file pdf Imprinting and the Origins of Knowledge


The agro-food industry is recognized as a major source of pollution. Porter and van der Linde argue in their well known hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between the level of regulation and the rate of environmental innovation produced by firms. Firms in the agro-food sector should thus develop a great number of such innovations. What is the reality? To explore this question, data collected in the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 8) on innovation by firms in the agro-food sector are used and subjected to a multiple correspondence analysis and a hierarchical analysis. The results suggest that Porter's hypothesis is not supported in the agro-food sector, because even though they are regulated, only a small number of firms innovate. The results suggest also that firms can implement an autonomous innovation strategy based on intangible innovation (e.g. organizational innovation and marketing innovation). An additional result is that small firms seem to innovate as much as their bigger counterparts and would rather use intangible innovation, but medium firms seem less innovative. JEL Codes: L20, L66, O31, Q55


We analyse the effects of local corruption on electoral outcomes with Spanish data. Based upon press reports published between 1996 and 2009, we are able to construct a novel database on corruption scandals and news related to bribe-taking in exchange for amendments to land use plans. Our data show that local corruption scandals first emerged during the 1999-2003 term, but that they peaked just before the 2007 elections. We estimate an equation for the incumbent's vote share at this electoral contest and find the average vote loss after a corruption scandal to be around 4%, and the effect to be greater for cases receiving wide newspaper coverage (up to 9%). The effects found for the 2003 elections are much lower. When we consider cases in which the incumbent has been charged with corruption and press coverage has been extensive the vote loss can rise to 12%. However, press reports have a negative impact on the vote even when no judicial charges have been brought. JEL Codes: P16, D72


The highland region forming the western slopes of the Western Ghats of Kerala state, India, is increasingly affected by shallow landslides and consequent debris flows. Many researchers suspected that the spatio-temporal probabilities of shallow landslide initiation in this area are dependent on the land use which in turn determines the mechanical and hydrological effects of vegetation on slope stability. A physically-based spatially distributed shallow landslide initiation model named STARWARS (Storage and Redistribution of Water on Agricultural and Revegetated Slopes) + PROBSTAB (Probability of Stability) model was identified as the most suitable for this research. This model was calibrated and validated for the Aruvikkal catchment (~9 km2). Climatic and hydrological data necessary for this was acquired from 13 automated open stand pipe piezometers, one discharge station (stage gauge) and one weather station starting from May 2007 onwards. Time series analysis revealed that the discharge of the catchment will respond within 1 hr after a rainfall event while perched water level may need about 6 hrs. Soil properties necessary and the soil depth were measured at representative locations and spatially interpolated using geostatistical techniques. Depending on the dominant plant species in each land use unit and the soil depth the corresponding root reinforcement applicable was derived from measured root tensile strength, pull out strength, root diameter and root density data using the perpendicular root model. Nine species of plants were tested of which Teak (Tectona grandis) trees offered the highest amounts of net root reinforcement. In order to evaluate the effects of long term and short term land use changes on slope stability in the region, historic (1913 to 2008) land use maps, soil depth maps and root reinforcement maps were derived. In addition the land use maps and corresponding root reinforcement maps of two future scenarios (2016 and 2058) were also derived. These data sets were used to simulate the corresponding slope stability and probability of failure conditions based on the 1985 rainfall time series which included the most extreme daily rainfall that has caused at least one shallow landslide in the study area in the past 57 years. In light of the empirical observations and the modelling results it can be concluded that a continuous rain storm of 4 to 26 hrs, totaling about 106 to 290 mm can cause a steep rise in the perched water table up to critical levels in regolith filled bedrock depressions and the persistence of this level for ~10 hrs may lead to shallow landslides in the study area. It was evident that land use changes which occurred in the early part of 20th century have reduced the root cohesion and altered the soil depth significantly by terracing. The land use changes from the pre-plantation (1913) scenario to present (2008) have resulted in an average increase in the potential area of failure by 43% and the spatio-temporal probability of failure by 49%. Thus, the research showed that in the study area the transition probability of land use change (and consequently the changes in soil depth and root cohesion) outweighs the rainfall quantity in determining the spatio-temporal probability of shallow landslide occurrence. This is in contradiction with the commonly held belief that the temporal probability of shallow landslides can be quantified with only the return probability of landslide-causing extreme rainfall events. Hence, transition probabilities of land use should be assessed and incorporated in regional scale landslide hazard assessments that utilize heuristic and stochastic techniques, especially in such anthropogenically modified terrains


RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Individual comparisons of the performance of risk-adjustment indices have been widely conducted. Few reviews have been conducted to summarize the performance of different risk-adjustment indices. A 30-day mortality rate is widely used to evaluate the quality of care in hospitals by federal agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This study examined relative performance of risk-adjustment indices that predict 30-day mortality.

METHODS
Databases including Medline, PubMed and PsycINFO were searched for studies that compared risk-adjustment indices. The search protocol included comparative studies in which the performance of risk-adjustment indices were compared across any defined cohort to compare 30-day mortality, including mortality within 30 days and intensive care unit mortality, which lasts less than 30 days. Data were extracted using a structured form and abstract data included author and publication year, population studied (including location, sample size, study time period), comparison indices, outcome studied, results and conclusions from the results. A meta-analytical approach was used to summarize all the studies. Scaled ranking score was used to estimate the relative superiority of any given risk-adjustment indices. A hypergeometric test was carried out to evaluate the performance of risk-adjustment measures.

RESULTS
Out of 2805 studies identified, 23 studies met the eligibility criteria. Main risk-adjustment indices used for comparison included Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score, Charlson co-morbidity index, Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score and Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS). Based on scaled ranking score, SAPS performed best (score 0.510) among all the risk-adjustment indices. However, based on hypergeometric test, the five measures performed equally well.

CONCLUSIONS
Although all the selected risk-adjustment indices perform equally well, SAPS seems better than other indices for short-term mortality based on scaled ranking score.


Six soil profiles, comprising four soils developed over andesite and two
developed over rhyolite were sampled in Jerantut District, State of Pahang. The soils
were characterized by physical, chemical, mineralogical and micromorphological
techniques. Classification of the soils were carried out according to Soil Taxonomy
(USDA, 1996), FAO/UNESCO Legend (1990) and Malaysian Classification Systems
(1992).
In general, the particle size distribution, colour and some of chemical properties
of the soils are directly associated with their parent materials and stage of weathering.
The high clay content and redder colouration suggest an advanced stage of weathering
and the presence of a high content of mafic minerals in the parent materials.
Soil reaction is slightly acidic to moderately acidic in both parent materials with
pH(water) ranging from 4.7 to 5.2 and with negative ll. pH values. The soils developed
over andesite have a CEC ranging from 10 cmol(+)/kg soil to 15 cmol(+)/kg soil,
while in rhyolitic soils, CEC ranges between 5 cmol(+)/kg soil and 10 cmol(+)/kg soil.
The more weathered soils have base saturation less than 50% by NH40Ac.
The organic carbon, nitrogen, available phosphorus and exchangeable Al
content are low for all the soils studied. The free iron oxide content is higher for the
soils derived from andesite which are deep soils when compared to soils on rhyolitic
materials which are moderately deep soils. The free iron oxide of the soils is 'active' in
nature based on the FejFed ratio of more than 0.05 except for one of the profiles over
andesite (profile 1) which is less than 0.05 and reflected an advanced stage of
weathering.
Mineralogically, both of the parent materials are dominated by feldspar and
quartz. Calcite, pyroxene, mica and chlorite are present as accessory minerals in
andesite while rhyolite only contain chlorite and cristobalite. Kaolinite is the most dominant alumina-silicate clay mineral for these soils. Traces of interstratified layer
and varying amount of feldspar, calcite, quartz, mica, halloysite and iron oxide are
present. However, in one of the profile over andesite (profile 4), vermiculite is present
in large quantity.


22nd National Conference of the Australian Society for Operations Research — ASOR 2013 DSTO led Defence Operations Research Symposium — DORS 2013


In the first of the two companion papers, we show that the dynamic aspects of the license utilization decision in an uncertain environment, together with the usual policy of rewarding high license utilization with future license allocations. creates four components of the license price. These are the scarcity, asset, option, and renewal value components. Each of these components are identified and explored in the context of the existing literature. The effect of imperfections in the license market on license price paths is also explored. In the second paper, we use monthly data on license prices and utilization to test for the presence of imperfect competition in the market for apparel quota licenses in Hong Kong. A competitive structural model which respects the dynamic aspects of the problem is developed and estimated. We argue that concentration could affect the supply side as well as the demand side by affecting the cost associated with the search. The regressions indicate that concentration of license holdings affect the supply of licenses as predicted by models of imperfect competition. Since the implementation scheme encourages full utilization, imperfect competition affects the supply path of licenses rather than total supply. Concentration does not affect the demand side. which means that search costs are not an important consideration.


ABSTRACT– A retrospective study of the demographic and clinical characteristics of 73 consecutive patients aged 60 years and over admitted for the first time into a psychiatric hospital in Nigeria shows that they constituted about 5% of all admissions over a 2‐year period. While the majority (58%) were aged below 70 years, 8% were aged over 80 years, with more females than males living to the older age groups. Single status, separation and divorce were more common among males; widowhood was more common among the females. A high illiteracy rate of 86% was recorded, with more males than females being literate. More than 84% belonged to the 2 lowest socioeconomic classes. There was a significant difference in the distribution of diagnostic categories, with senile dementia, affective psychosis, neurotic disorders and paranoid states more common among the females, while arteriosclerotic dementia and schizophrenia were diagnosed more often among the males. Functional psychosis (49%) was the largest diagnostic category, followed by organic psychosis (30%), while neurotic disorders (10%) ranked third. Within the functional psychoses, paranoid states (30%) predominated, followed by affective disorders (14%) consisting mainly of depressive symptoms; 6% presented with schizophrenic illness; and 11% presented with physical illness with associated psychiatric manifestations. There was a long delay before referral to hospital, associated with use of alternative medical facilities (traditional and spiritual healers). The probable sociocultural antecedents and medical and social implications of these findings are discussed.


In the current competitive market environment, customer loyalty efforts is one of the most important factors for achieving strategic success, especially considering that increased loyalty and customer satisfaction can have a positive influence on long-term financial performance of business entities. Since research has shown that retaining current customers can be more profitable than trying to find new ones, developing loyalty plays an important part in any marketing strategy aiming to create competitive differentiation and thus gain a unique position. Customer rewards programs (CRPs) and particularly, club cards, are considered to be a leading relationship marketing method. Despite their wide proliferation, club cards have revealed positive outcomes for firms and distinctive advantages to customers. In recent times, significant research has been carried out on issues regarding customer loyalty; however, not much of it has focused on the club card phenomenon and its impact in terms of customer satisfaction, recommendation and purchase increases as contributions to company profitability. Since traditional loyalty programs focus mainly on short economic profits and relationships, the club card has emerged as the value/customer-oriented option that focuses on longterm relationships. Through vast data resources, club card programs allow the tracking of purchase habits/increase and offer special treatment to the best customers. This underscores the uniqueness of this specific loyalty program, which results in improved customer satisfaction and retention. In this study, an analysis of club cards as a popular form of CRP that seems to have a positive influence on customer satisfaction, recommendation and purchase increase has been undertaken. It employs quantitative research techniques and tests a relevant hypothesis through the use of surveys sent to 500 customers with focus on three successful club card loyalty programs: Air Miles, Tesco Lotus and H&M. Programs on three different continents, North America, Asia and Europe were chosen to explore the impact of club cards, to provide the analysis a degree of general world-wide relevance. The findings of this research show that club cards do have a particular positive influence on customer satisfaction, recommendation and purchase increase. They provide customers with a feeling of being special, enhance long-term relationships and encourage customers to recommend membership to others, thus influencing positively the long-term financial performance of a firm. The survey responses indicate that the club card is one of the most popular CRPs which encourages loyal customers to continue to patronize the company. However, there is a need for more research in this field, particularly in the area of comparison of club cards with other forms of CRPs. It is anticipated that the findings of this research effort will provide an impetus for further research within the scope of loyalty programs, marketing strategy, customer retention, and customer relationship management.


Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) as a response to disasters from toxic waste dumps. Under the statute, Congress intended to pass the costs of cleaning up hazardous waste to potentially responsible parties. To achieve this objective Congress created two distinct forms of liability under CECRLA: operator liability and owner liability. The statute, however, did not define ownership liability. As a result, various courts devised three approaches to determine ownership of possessory interests in property. The first approach relies on the common law definition of owner, the second approach looks to site control as the determining factor, and the last approach uses a five factor test to determine de facto ownership. This Comment argues that the first approach is superior in fulfilling the goals of CERCLA and protecting the environment.


Discrete latent spaces in variational autoencoders have been shown to effectively capture the data distribution for many real-world problems such as natural language understanding, human intent prediction, and visual scene representation. However, discrete latent spaces need to be sufficiently large to capture the complexities of real-world data, rendering downstream tasks computationally challenging. For instance, performing motion planning in a high-dimensional latent representation of the environment could be intractable. We consider the problem of sparsifying the discrete latent space of a trained conditional variational autoencoder, while preserving its learned multimodality. As a post hoc latent space reduction technique, we use evidential theory to identify the latent classes that receive direct evidence from a particular input condition and filter out those that do not. Experiments on diverse tasks, such as image generation and human behavior prediction, demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed technique at reducing the discrete latent sample space size of a model while maintaining its learned multimodality.


The purpose of the study, grounded in sociocultural theory, is to describe the funds of knowledge of a Moroccan family living in Catalonia (Spain) in order to document how teachers can use these funds of knowledge to make direct links between students' lives and classroom teaching. The funds of knowledge approach is based on a simple premise: regardless of any socio-economical and sociocultural "deficit" that people may or may not have all families accumulate bodies of beliefs, ideas, skills and abilities based on their experiences (in areas such as their occupation or their religion). The challenge consists in connecting these bodies of educational resources with teaching practice in order to connect the curriculum with students' lives. In doing so, qualitative research can be carried out using several techniques such as self portraits, self-definition tasks, assessment of family artefacts, documenting routines through photographs, or the analysis of a person's significant circle. The results in terms of teaching practices illustrate the variety of ways teachers can make connections between home and school in ways that assist learners in their academic development. In this article, we propose using the term funds of identity to complement the concept of funds of knowledge.


The disposal of such high-moisture (up to 70%-80%) waste (wine dregs) troubles the brewery in Taiwan. The fluidized medium (sand in general) possesses the strong ability of heat reservation that makes the high-moisture waste pre-drying. In addition, the utilization of absorbed-limestone can get rid of generated SOx. It is very suitable to direct combustion of wine dregs due to its collective characteristics of pre-drying, combustion and elimination of pollutant. This paper was devoted to study the feasibility for self-sustained combustion of high-moisture Chinese Kaoliang-wine lees by Bubble-Type Fluidized-bed combustor. The results reveal that the moderate operational temperature is about 860°C with about 230mm-H2O pressure drop and 92.3% combustion efficiency for self-sustained combustion of wine lees. That is, the moisture content must be controlled below 70%. The emission of SOx (about 23ppm), NOx (about 67ppm) and participates can be neglected. The emission of CO was a vital problem, but can be suppressed to 92ppm by modulating some factors that are operational temperature, axial temperature distribution, primary air & excess air. The couple effects of these factors are studied in this paper.


Rhizobia form root nodules that fix nitrogen (N 2 ) in symbiotic legumes. Extending the ability of these bacteria to fix N 2 in non-legumes such as cereals would be a useful technology for increased crop yields among resource-poor farmers. Although some inoculation attempts have resulted in nodule formation in cereal plants, there was no evidence of N 2 fixation. However, because rhizobia naturally produce molecules (auxins, cytokinins, abscicic acids, lumichrome, rhiboflavin, lipo-chito-oligosaccharides and vitamins) that promote plant growth, their colonization and infection of cereal roots would be expected to increase plant development, and grain yield. We have used light, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy to show that roots of sorghum and millet landraces from Africa were easily infected by rhizobial isolates from five unrelated legume genera. With sorghum, in particular, plant growth and phosphorus (P) uptake were significantly increased by rhizobial inoculation, suggesting that field selection of suitable rhizobia/cereal combinations could increase yields and produce fodder for livestock production. Key Words: Rhizobia, N 2 fixation, plant growth, sorghum, millet African Journal of Biotechnology Vol.3(1) 2004: 1-7


Utilizing ethnographic material collected through conversations with artists and scientists who were engaged in an institutionally supported, collaborative research scheme, this paper aims to sketch the persistent organizing power of narratives that positioned the world on the one hand as an external reality, ontologically independent of the perceiver prior to action, and on the other, as a social reality which all perceivers are party to creating. The former, foundational to the self-descriptions of scientific and engineering participants on the scheme, is examined in relation to a concomitant logic apparent in patent law. The latter, foundational to the participants' understanding of art, is contextualized with reference to copyright law. I investigate how, in coming together to collaborate, these artists and scientists reiterated and reconstituted images of themselves as working with one or the other kind of reality. Further, I show how that division came to structure the emergence of different kinds of persons defined through their association with the different outcomes and registers for the effect of their endeavors, appropriate to the two kinds of reality.


Immunity to Neisseria meningitidis (N. meningitidis) involves both innate and antibody-mediated mechanisms. The acute-phase serum protein C-reactive protein (CRP) helps to protect the host from several bacterial pathogens, often by binding to surface phosphorylcholine (PC). Pathogenic Neisseria species can exhibit phase-variable PC modification on type 4 pili of class 1 and 2. This investigation demonstrates that CRP can bind to piliated meningococci in a calcium-dependent manner that is concentration dependent, of low affinity and specific for PC. Separate experiments confirmed that CRP can bind to both live and paraformaldehyde-fixed meningococci, suggesting that CRP has a role in the immune response to meningococci. CRP binding to PC on commensal species of Neisseria is known to increase serum bactericidal activity by initiating the classical complement cascade. In these investigations, CRP-opsonisation did not increase serum killing of N. meningitidis. CRP binding did, however, significantly increase phagocytic uptake of fixed meningococci by macrophages and neutrophils (and increased uptake by dendritic cells was also indicated). This CRP-mediated uptake was attributed to recruitment of the cellular receptor for CRP, FcyR, as blocking of these receptors with human IgG abrogated the increased uptake by macrophages in a concentration-dependent manner. In contrast, macrophage uptake of live meningococci was not increased by CRP-opsonisation and preliminary investigations detected no increase in intracellular killing of CRP-opsonised meningococci, indicating that live meningococci may evade CRP-mediated phagocyte detection. The absence of a direct killing effect of CRP led to the hypothesis that CRP provides an indirect advantage to the host by modulation of inflammation and antigen presentation by phagocytes. CRP-opsonised N. meningitidis induced greater macrophage HLA-DR expression, IL-10 and IL-1beta secretion compared to non-opsonised N. meningitidis in the majority of human donors. These studies indicate that CRP may increase antigen presentation and therefore accelerate the development of acquired immunity to meningococcal infection, whilst limiting the inflammatory damage to the host via increased IL-10 production.


Acclimatory adjustments of foliar vascular architecture, photosynthetic capacity, and transpiration rate in Arabidopsis thaliana ecotypes (Italian, Polish [Col-0], Swedish) were characterized in the context of habitat of origin. Temperatures of the habitat of origin decreased linearly with increasing habitat latitude, but habitat precipitation was greatest in Italy, lowest in Poland, and intermediate in Sweden. Plants of the three ecotypes raised under three different growth temperature regimes (low, moderate, and high) exhibited highest photosynthetic capacities, greatest leaf thickness, highest chlorophyll a/b ratio and levels of β-carotene, and greatest levels of wall ingrowths in phloem transfer cells, and, in the Col-0 and Swedish ecotypes, of phloem per minor vein in plants grown at the low temperature. In contrast, vein density and minor vein tracheary to sieve element ratio increased with increasing growth temperature – most strongly in Col-0 and least strongly in the Italian ecotype – and transpirational water loss correlated with vein density and number of tracheary elements per minor vein. Plotting of these vascular features as functions of climatic conditions in the habitat of origin suggested that temperatures during the evolutionary history of the ecotypes determined acclimatory responses of the foliar phloem and photosynthesis to temperature in this winter annual that upregulates photosynthesis in response to lower temperature, whereas the precipitation experienced during the evolutionary history of the ecotypes determined adjustment of foliar vein density, xylem, and transpiration to temperature. In particular, whereas photosynthetic capacity, leaf thickness, and foliar minor vein phloem features increased linearly with increasing latitude and decreasing temperature of the habitats of origin in response to experimental growth at low temperature, transpiration rate, foliar vein density, and minor vein tracheary element numbers and cross-sectional areas increased linearly with decreasing precipitation level in the habitats of origin in response to experimental growth at high temperature. This represents a situation where temperature acclimation of the apparent capacity for water flux through the xylem and transpiration rate in a winter annual responded differently from that of photosynthetic capacity, in contrast to previous reports of strong relationships between hydraulic conductance and photosynthesis in other studies.


The araza (Eugenia stipitata McVaugh) is a fruit species cultivated in domestic scale in the Amazon region. However, little is known about their nutritional needs during the initial phase. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of lime and phosphorus on growth and nutrition of seedlings of araza. The experiment was conducted in greenhouse, with samples of a Yellow Oxisol dystrophic in randomized blocks and factorial scheme 5 x 5: five doses of lime (0, 1.37, 2.83, 4.29 and 5.75 g per seedling) and five doses of phosphorus (0, 100, 200, 400 and 600 mg P kg-1) with four replications. Ten months after transplantation, the growth in height and diameter, shoot and root dry matter, and nutrient accumulation in the shoots were evaluated. Lime rates significantly influenced the height, diameter, and shoot, root and total dry weight. The phosphorus levels affected only the growth in diameter and dry matter in shoot and total. There was a significant effect of lime and phosphorus on the content of macro and micronutrients in the shoot, except for Cu, influenced only by limestone. The best development of araza seedlings can be obtained with application of up to 3.77 g of lime and 6.21 g of superphosphate per seedling.


This thesis studies the relationship between technology and industrial structure in the context of a growing market economy. Chapters 2 and 5 develop some general equilibrium models which permit a study of the relationship between quality competition, market structure and growth. Both market structure and the rate of growth are determined endogenously as functions of underlying parameters describing the pattern of technology and tastes, and the institutional environment. It is argued that quality competition constitutes an economic mechanism of primary importance, which provides essential incentives for innovation at the industry level, while also contributing to aggregate technological progress by way of R&D spillover effects. A related theme of the thesis is that constraints on quality competition are detrimental to growth. Chapter 3 presents a theoretical model which explains certain statistical regularities regarding cohort survival patterns, the persistence of firm turnover, and the appearance of shakeouts during an industry life cycle. By treating the market as comprising a number of strategically independent submarkets, this analysis separates the strategic interaction effects which occur at the submarket level, from the independence effects which operate across submarkets. Chapter 4 studies competition between two cohorts of radically different but substitutable technologies. By analyzing the entry of new-technology- based firms, the exit of incumbents and subsequent quality competition, this chapter explores the impact of a radical innovation on market structure and on the turnover of firms. Two critical levels of the parameter which measures the efficiency of the new technology are identified: the first must be attained for 'creative destruction' to take place, while the second must be attained for this 'creative destruction' process to take a 'drastic' form which involves the complete replacement of currently active firms by a wave of new entrants.


Informality is a salient feature of labor market in Egypt as it is the case with many developing countries. This is the first study of the determinants of worker transitions between various labor market states using panel data from Egypt. We first provide a diagnosis of dynamic worker flows across different labor market states. We develop transition probabilities by gender across different labor market states utilizing Markov transition processes. Next we identify the effects of individual, household, job characteristics and location on different mobility patterns by estimating a multinomial logit regression. The results point to the highly static nature of the Egyptian labor market. Government employment and the out of labor force are the most persistent labor market states. Further, only a few of the explanatory variables except high levels of education are found to have predictive power in explaining the transitions from formal wage, informal wage, self-employment, unemployment government employment and out of labor market states.


In White Innocence Gloria Wekker explores a central paradox of Dutch culture: the passionate denial of racial discrimination and colonial violence coexisting alongside aggressive racism and xenophobia. Accessing a cultural archive built over 400 years of Dutch colonial rule, Wekker fundamentally challenges Dutch racial exceptionalism by undermining the dominant narrative of the Netherlands as a "gentle" and "ethical" nation. Wekker analyzes the Dutch media's portrayal of black women and men, the failure to grasp race in the Dutch academy, contemporary conservative politics (including gay politicians espousing anti-immigrant rhetoric), and the controversy surrounding the folkloric character Black Pete, showing how the denial of racism and the expression of innocence safeguards white privilege. Wekker uncovers the postcolonial legacy of race and its role in shaping the white Dutch self, presenting the contested, persistent legacy of racism in the country.


Australian cities have traditionally relied for their water on a 'predict-and-provide' philosophy that gives primacy to big engineering solutions. In more recent years privatised water authorities, seeking to maximise consumption and profits, have reinforced the emphasis on increasing supply. Now the cities must cope with the stresses these policies have imposed on the eco-systems from which they harvest water, into which they discharge wastes, and on which they are located. Residents are having to pay more for their water, while the cities themselves are becoming less sustainable. Must we build more dams and desalination plants, or should we be managing the demand for urban water more prudently? This book explores the demand for urban water and how it has changed in response to shifting social mores over the past century. It explains how demand for centralised provision of water might be reshaped to enable the cities to better cope with expected changes in supply as our climate changes. And it discusses the implications of property rights in water for proposals to privatise water services.


Abstract This paper focuses on the 2013 Carpenter One Fire in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area (SMNRA) to understand how linked social and ecological factors affect fire regimes in ecosystems that exist in close proximity to human settlement and places culturally significant to Indigenous peoples. Ignited in July, this fire ultimately spread to 11,283 ha and cost USD $18.5 million to contain and extinguish. Priority was placed on protecting various private landholdings within the National Forest and on its periphery, which included several seasonal, high-value vacation homes. Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) consider the Spring Mountains landscape in Nevada to be their creation place and the center of their ancestral territory. Their oral history states that the Creator charged them with balancing the land, which is sentient and considered a close relative, at different points in time. This relationship includes a fire management model that creates small-scale landscape disturbances such as patch burns and fuels reduction, and protects fire-resilient trees. Assembling together ethnographic and United States Census data and literature, we argue that a decrease in indigenous fire management and a concurrent increase in fire suppression through Forest Service policy, old growth timber harvest, grazing, the introduction of nonnative invasive species, and private landholdings facilitated the unprecedented size and intensity of this wildfire. These circumstances are generalizable to many contexts in the American West. We conclude with recommendations for a Nuwuvi/Forest Service collaborative stewardship framework to conduct consultation on mutually compatible outcomes, including fuels reduction and controlled burns.


Abstract. The majority of data sets in the geosciences are obtained from observations and measurements of natural systems, rather than in the laboratory. These data sets are often full of gaps, due to to the conditions under which the measurements are made. Missing data give rise to various problems, for example in spectral estimation or in specifying boundary conditions for numerical models. Here we use Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) to fill the gaps in several types of data sets. For a univariate record, our procedure uses only temporal correlations in the data to fill in the missing points. For a multivariate record, multi-channel SSA (M-SSA) takes advantage of both spatial and temporal correlations. We iteratively produce estimates of missing data points, which are then used to compute a self-consistent lag-covariance matrix; cross-validation allows us to optimize the window width and number of dominant SSA or M-SSA modes to fill the gaps. The optimal parameters of our procedure depend on the distribution in time (and space) of the missing data, as well as on the variance distribution between oscillatory modes and noise. The algorithm is demonstrated on synthetic examples, as well as on data sets from oceanography, hydrology, atmospheric sciences, and space physics: global sea-surface temperature, flood-water records of the Nile River, the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), and satellite observations of relativistic electrons.


We present the results of numerical experiments in which we study how asphericities induced by the growth of the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) produce gravitational waveforms in the postbounce phase of core-collapse supernovae. To obtain the neutrino-driven explosions, we parameterize the neutrino fluxes emitted from the central proto-neutron star and approximate the neutrino transfer by a light-bulb scheme. We find that the waveforms due to anisotropic neutrino emissions show a monotonic increase with time, whose amplitudes are up to 2 orders of magnitude larger than those from convective matter motions outside proto-neutron stars. We point out that the amplitudes begin to become larger when the growth of the SASI enters the nonlinear phase, in which the deformation of the shocks and the neutrino anisotropy become large. From the spectrum analysis of the waveforms, we find that the amplitudes from the neutrinos are dominant over those from the matter motions at frequencies below ~100 Hz, which should be within the detection limits of next-generation detectors such as LCGT and the advanced LIGO for a supernova at 10 kpc. As a contribution to the gravitational wave background, we show that the amplitudes from this source could be larger at frequencies above ~1 Hz than the primordial gravitational wave backgrounds but, unfortunately, invisible to the proposed space-based detectors.


The aim of this study was to determine the associations between hysterectomy, bilateral salpingooophorectomy (BSO), and incidence of diabetes in postmenopausal women participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a series of trials conducted in the United States, during the period 1993–1998. A total of 67,130 postmenopausal women aged 50–79 years were followed for a mean of 13.4 years. Among them, 7,430 cases of diabetes were diagnosed. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the association between hysterectomy/oophorectomy status and diabetes incidence. Compared with women without hysterectomy, women with hysterectomy had a significantly higher risk of diabetes (hazard ratio = 1.13, 95% confidence interval: 1.06, 1.21). The increased risk of diabetes was similar for women with hysterectomy only and for women with hysterectomy with concomitant BSO. Compared with hysterectomy alone, hysterectomy with BSO was not associated with additional risk of diabetes after stratification by age at hysterectomy and hormone therapy status. In our large, prospective study, we observed that hysterectomy, regardless of oophorectomy status, was associated with increased risk of diabetes among postmenopausal women. However, our data did not support the hypothesis that early loss of ovarian estrogens is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The modest increased risk of diabetes associated with hysterectomy may be due to residual confounding, such as the reasons for hysterectomy.


In the past decade, innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have fueled a boom in the production of natural gas (as well as oil) from geological formations—primarily deep shales—in which hydrocarbon production was previously unprofitable. Impacts on US fossil fuel production and the US economy more broadly have been transformative, even in the first decade. The boom has been accompanied by concerns about negative externalities, including impacts to air, water, and quality of life in producing regions. We describe the economic benefits of the shale gas boom, including direct market impacts and positive externalities, providing back-of-the-envelope estimates of their magnitude. This article also summarizes the current science and economics literatures on negative externalities. We conclude that the likely scope of economic benefits is extraordinarily large and that continued research on the magnitude of negative externalities is necessary to inform risk-mitigating policies.


The invasive species Erigeron karvinskianus or Mexican daisy is considered a significant weed that impacts native forest restoration efforts in New Zealand. Mapping the potential distribution of this species under current and future predicted climatic conditions provides managers with relevant information for developing appropriate management strategies. Using occurrences available from global and local databases, spatial distribution characteristics were analyzed using geostatistical tools in ArcMap to characterize current distribution. Species distribution modeling (SDM) using Maxent was conducted to determine the potential spatial distribution of E. karvinskianus worldwide and in New Zealand with projections into future climate conditions. Potential habitat suitability under future climatic conditions were simulated using greenhouse gas emission trajectories under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) models RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 for years 2050 and 2070. Occurrence data were processed to minimize redundancy and spatial autocorrelation; non-correlated environmental variables were determined to minimize bias and ensure robust models. Kernel density, hotspot and cluster analysis of outliers show that populated areas of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch have significantly greater concentrations of E. karvinskianus. Species distribution modeling results find an increase in the expansion of range with higher RCP values, and plots of centroids show a southward movement of predicted range for the species.


Background Biomarkers that allow detection of the onset of disease are of high interest since early detection would allow intervening with lifestyle and nutritional changes before the disease is manifested and pharmacological therapy is required. Our study aimed to improve the phenotypic characterization of overweight but apparently healthy subjects and to identify new candidate profiles for early biomarkers of obesity-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Methodology/Principal Findings In a population of 56 healthy, middle-aged overweight subjects Body Mass Index (BMI), fasting concentration of 124 plasma proteins and insulin were determined. The plasma proteins are implicated in chronic diseases, inflammation, endothelial function and metabolic signaling. Random Forest was applied to select proteins associated with BMI and plasma insulin. Subsequently, the selected proteins were analyzed by clustering methods to identify protein clusters associated with BMI and plasma insulin. Similar analyses were performed for a second population of 20 healthy, overweight older subjects to verify associations found in population I. In both populations similar clusters of proteins associated with BMI or insulin were identified. Leptin and a number of pro-inflammatory proteins, previously identified as possible biomarkers for obesity-related disease, e.g. Complement 3, C Reactive Protein, Serum Amyloid P, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor clustered together and were positively associated with BMI and insulin. IL-3 and IL-13 clustered together with Apolipoprotein A1 and were inversely associated with BMI and might be potential new biomarkers. Conclusion/ Significance We identified clusters of plasma proteins associated with BMI and insulin in healthy populations. These clusters included previously reported biomarkers for obesity-related disease and potential new biomarkers such as IL-3 and IL-13. These plasma protein clusters could have potential applications for improved phenotypic characterization of volunteers in nutritional intervention studies or as biomarkers in the early detection of obesity-linked disease development and progression.


This paper presents a novel filtering method with a double triangular prism in an optical-readout thermal imaging system. First, the working principle of this system is described in detail, followed by the analysis of sensitivity. Then, infrared images of hands are obtained. On the basis of the analysis, it is concluded that this filtering method, whose noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) can reach 145 mK, is effective in obtaining high-quality images. Finally, comparing the filtering method with a knife-edge filter, we can draw the conclusion that the filtering method can effectively improve image quality (the value of NETD is less than that of a knife-edge filter).


The therapeutic effects of many herbal medicines have been well established; however, definitive mechanisms of action remain to be elucidated for many psychoactive herbal medications. Although several mechanisms have been identified, they are often insufficient to account for the observed effects of the plant or its extracts. This review emphasizes that, in addition to searching for more potent mechanisms, one must consider the additive and supra-additive effects of a plant's multiple constituents. Synergy may occur through pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic interactions. Examples are given that illustrate synergistic actions in St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), kava kava (Piper methysticum), and valerian (Valeriana officinalis).


An integrated sensor system is implemented using inter-integrated circuit mode (I2C) software, utilizing the PIC182585 MPLAB embedded control system utilizing hardware. The hardware implementation features high level of integration, reliability, high precision, and high speed communications. The system was demonstrated by temperature and CO2 sensors. An extension for Zigbee system is proposed to enhance the security of the integrated system. A bi-directional air/liquid flow sensor is also added to detect the flow magnitude and direction that can be applied to heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC), local and national security within subway systems, and medical equipment. The hardware design of the flow sensor included one heating element and two sensing elements to detect the bi-directional flow. Platinum sensors were found to be of high sensitivity and linear characteristics within 0℃ to 100℃ range, and their high temperature coefficient (0.00385 Ω/Ω/℃). Polyimide thin film heater was used as the heating element due to its high throughput and good thermal efficiency. Two bridge circuits were also designed to sense the temperature distribution in the vicinity of the sensing elements. Three high precision instrumentation low power amplifiers with offset voltage ~2.5 μV (50 μV max) were used for the overall design. The system security is also enhanced with the detection of poison gas using Carbon Nanotube devices (CNT). An antenna system was designed, and a frequency shift was detected to designate the type of poison gas used for a general threat.


From Kosovo to Quebec, Ireland to East Timor, nationalism has been a recurrent topic of intense debate. It has been condemned as a source of hatred and war yet embraced for stimulating community feel ing and collective freedom. Joan Cocks explores the power, danger, and allure of nationalism by examining its place in the thought of eight politically engaged intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries: the antago nist of capital, Karl Marx; the critics of imperialism, Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Frantz Fanon; the liberal pluralist, Isaiah Berlin; the neonationalist, Tom Nairn, and the postcolonial writers V. S. Naipaul and Edward Said. Cocks not only sheds new light on the complexities of nationalism but also reveals the tensions that have inspired and troubled intellectuals who have sought to lead lives between detached criticism and political passion. In lively, conversational prose, Cocks assesses their treatment of questions such as the mythology of national identity, the right to national self-determination, and the morality of nationalist violence. Although ultimately critical of nationalism, she engages sympathetically even with its defenders. By illuminating the links that distinguished minds have drawn between thought and action on nationalism in politics, this work provides a rich foundation from which we our selves might think or act more wisely when confront ing a phenomenon that, in fundamental and perplexing ways, has shaped our world.


In this paper the design data, flow sheets, operating results and running experiences of four municipal wastewater treatment plants are presented. The size of these plants varies between 95,000 and 830,000 people equivalents. Different activated sludge systems running with cascades and simultaneous nitrification/denitrification are practised in these plants. The data of these different plants are compared.


This study on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in the Wildlife and Tourism sectors in Southern Africa emanated from the TrustAfrica (TA) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) project "Assessing the extent and impact of illicit financial flows in key economic sectors in Southern Africa". The three components of the project are mining, agriculture and wildlife.
IFFs are illicit movements from one country to another of money or products that are illegally acquired. The money typically originates from three sources in the private sector: commercial tax evasion, trade misinvoicing and abusive transfer pricing. However, other types of criminal activity can produce IFFs, which in this study include the trafficking of live animals and plants and their products and associated corruption (bribery and theft by corrupt government officials) through which the proceeds end up in another country.
This wildlife trade and tourism IFF study is the first of its kind and the methodologies involved a combination of population modelling, estimated product offtakes and open source trade data. The trade research is limited to eight species groups – elephants, rhinos, lions, pangolins, crocodiles, abalone, sharks and rays, and cycads. The study concluded that for the period 2006-2014, Southern Africa lost almost US$ 1.5 billion in illicit transfers of funds or products overseas, or close to 50% of all wildlife commodity exports. Surprisingly, illegal exports of abalone meat made up almost half of this amount.
The IFFs in the wildlife tourism sector were much larger, estimated at over US$ 22 billion in the ten years 2006-2015, and deriving mainly from tax evasion and trade misinvoicing, sometimes involving offshore shell companies. We predicted that more than US$3 billion could have been lost in 2016 in the eight countries covered in this study.
The main causes of the huge losses to the economies of Southern Africa in wildlife trade were CITES trade bans and the fact that local communities were not empowered to manage what should rightfully be their resources on their land. Trade bans and disenfranchisement led communities to harvest illegally and to sell wildlife products to illegal exporters. The only way to mitigate these losses would be to do away with trade bans, bring most species into the legal sector, and establish supply and demand regulatory systems that would ensure conservation of the species while also satisfying legitimate stakeholder interests, primarily those of communities and enterprises that live in association with the wildlife and which share common habitats.


This is the first issue of Unity for 2000, although it is the second in seven months, since we produced our special post conference issue (vol. 2, no. 1, 1999) just before Christmas 1999. It includes two important historical documents, a confirmation of the importance of labour history by the pioneering American oral historian and broadcaster, Studs Terkel (reprinted from New Internationalist), and an obituary for George Petersen. In one respect this issue continues the theme of the previous one, in that it includes a piece by Shirley Nixon on the early history of the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC), as it is now called. In fact, this article is the first two chapters of Shirley's BA Hons. Thesis entitled The Illawarra Trades and Labour Council in Depression, Recovery and War, 1926–45, submitted to the Department of History at the University of Wollongong in 1984. Over the next couple of issues we plan to serialise the remainder of Shirley's thesis, which is an important historical resource not previously published. This journal article is available in Illawarra Unity Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History: http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol2/iss2/1


Contents: Part I:Introduction. J. Orasanu, M. Penney, Introduction: Comprehension Theory and How It Grew. Part II:The Comprehension Process. P.A. Carpenter, M. Adam-Just, Cognitive Processes in Reading. P. Wilson, R.C. Anderson, The Role of Prior Knowledge in Comprehension (or, What They Don't Know Will Hurt Them). A.L. Brown, B. Armbruster, L. Baker, The Role of Metacognition in Reading and Studying. R.W. Shuy, Changing Linguistic Perspectives on Literacy. W.S. Hall, T.G. White, L. Guthrie, Skilled Reading and Language Development: Some Key Issues. Part III:Instructional Implications. I. Beck, M. McKeown, Instructional Research in Reading: A Retrospective. R. Farr, R. Carey, B. Tone, Recent Theory and Research Into the Reading Process: Implications for Reading Assessment. T. Anderson, B. Armbruster, Readable Textbooks (or, Selecting a Textbook is Not Like Buying a Pair of Shoes). A. Rubin, J. Hansen, Reading and Writing: How Are the First Two "R's" Related? A. Collins, Teaching Reading and Writing With Personal Computers. J.A. Langer, Computer Technology and Reading Instruction: Perspectives and Directions. G.P. Knott, Literacy in the Secondary Level. Part IV:From Research to Practice: Case Studies. C.M.T. Smith-Burke, L.H. Ringler, STAR: Teaching Reading and Writing. K.H. Au, D. Crowell, C. Jordan, K.C.M. Sloat, G.E. Speidel, T.W. Klein, R.G. Thays, Development and Implementation of the KEEP Reading Program. G.M. McDonnell, The Step Up Language Arts Program: A Study of Effective Change. R.T. Schuder, Rethinking Reading and Listening in a Large Public School System: A Case History. D. Ogle, Collaboration for School Improvement: A Case Study of a School District and a College. C.M. Santa, Content Reading in Secondary Schools. L. Mikulecky, Effective Literacy Training Programs for Adults in Business and Municipal Employment.


The paper analyzes the input-output structure of European economy in 2010, based on six main economic sectors, for better characterizing the backward and forward linkages of inter-industrial economic flows. The changes of final demand and of sectoral production can be analyzed in the propagation processes, allowing to know the behavior at macroeconomic level of European economy. The common economic policies at European level can be undertaken to keep the equilibrium between different sectors, to stimulate the sectors with high levels of productivity, to ensure the efficiency of using the resources, and the sustainability of economic development, which are the purposes of a smart development.


Abstract In this paper, a first study of the atmospheric entry of carbonate micrometeoroids, in an astrobiological perspective, is performed. Therefore an entry model, which includes two-dimensional dynamics, non-isothermal atmosphere, ablation and radiation losses, is build and benchmarked to literature data for silicate micrometeoroids. A thermal decomposition model of initially pure magnesium carbonate is proposed, and it includes thermal energy, mass loss and the effect of changing composition as the carbonate grain is gradually converted into oxide. Several scenarios are obtained by changing the initial speed, entry angle and grain diameter, producing a systematic comparison of silicate and carbonate grain. The results of the composite model show that the thermal behaviour of magnesium carbonate is markedly different from that of the corresponding silicate, much lower equilibration temperatures being reached in the first stages of the entry. At the same time, the model shows that the limit of a thermal protection scenario, based on magnesium carbonate, is the very high decomposition speed even at moderate temperatures, which results in the total loss of carbon already at about 100 km altitude. The present results show that, although decomposition and associated cooling are important effects in the entry process of carbonate grains, the specific scenario of pure MgCO3 micrograin does not allow complex organic matter delivery to the lower atmosphere. This suggests us to consider less volatile carbonates for further studies.


For centuries the Rule Against Perpetuities provided protection against a pair of dangers: that important stocks of property would become, effectively, permanently inalienable as a result of perpetual conditional gifts; and that the dead would be permitted to control the destinies of the living by placing permanent conditions on the fixed stock of available wealth (i.e., land wealth). In recent decades, though, the states have increasingly abandoned the Rule and its protections. As of 2011 all states have migrated, at least in part, beyond the traditional "21-years-plus-life-in-being" Rule, and more than half have actually or effectively abolished their Rules, at least insofar as applied to grants made in trust form.This migration is, in the main, quite sensible. The traditional Rule was complicated, hard to apply, inefficient, and unsupple. Even the ninety-year wait-and-see variation, which has come mostly to supplant the traditional Rule, cannot differentiate between wise and beneficent gifts that should survive beyond the ninety-year threshold and problematic gifts that should not. The danger of inalienability can be dealt with by transmuting legal interests into equitable interests at some date certain, and by granting trustees of those equitable interests the power of alienation as a matter of law as of the same date. The dangers of dead-hand control have already largely dissipated because wealth is not primarily, today, held in the form of a limited and social-and-political-power-soaked stock such as land, but rather in a variety of highly mutable forms, none of which carry with them overarching political or social overtones. Remaining concerns about the small category of problematic dead-hand incentives can be resolved by targeted adjustments to well-established aspects of property and trust law that carry none of the disadvantages of the Rule Against Perpetuities in any of its forms.In short, then, the states have no good reason to revive their Rules Against Perpetuities, and it should not be imagined that they will. Abolition of those Rules does, however, raise some few legitimate concerns about alienability and dead-hand incentives, concerns best and most efficiently resolved by a few careful amendments to state trust and property law. This article proposes and explains a Uniform Perpetuities Reform Act with which Rule-abolishing states can make these targeted changes.


The Internet has proven to be able to connect billions of devices across the globe. In order to keep pace with today's high demands or even larger services and applications, traditional ways of networking will have to change or update. The future of computer networks needs to be agile without degrading efficiency, capacity, and availability. These new trends push forward the need for network programmability. Software‐defined networkings (SDNs) are the future of networking, but in order to deploy newer standards, they have to be tested. Furthermore, this calls for better testbeds that are close to a real environment as possible. Many tools have been proposed to provide a framework for testing newer approaches of networking, but they have come short in various characteristics, limiting the scenarios and their results. Our experience in containers (Docker) and the development of testbeds using this technology has now brought our attention to SDNs. DockSDN provides a tool that meets current and future needs and is our biggest contribution to the scientific community so far. DockSDN is presented in this work, which proposes various benefits and advantages over other tools. One of those benefits is that it uses dockers as building blocks for scenario deployment. Moreover, these scenarios can be done fairly quickly and is fully scalable through local PC hardware or elastic through cloud services. Now, the scientific community will be able to test a wide array of protocols in near real‐world conditions, saving financial resources and time.


This study is to identify the economic growth of oil-gas producing region and non-producing; examine regional disparities resulting from decentralization; and identify sources of disparities. This study uses GDP and population data districts and cities in the Province of Riau in 2001 to 2010. Analysis tools in the study is the pattern of growth, the Williamson coefficient of variation and T-Theil decomposition.  Regions not receiving funds from oil and gas tend to be more developed with average growth and high income. In the period 2000- 2010 only Pekanbaru are classified as the developed region of the receiving the oil and gas receiving fund. Following the decentralization of fiscal, income disparities between regions in Riau declined until 2006, and increased again until 2009. Disparity back in 2010 has decreased. Source's disparity, mainly due to income inequality among regions within a group, not because between group's gas and oil fund receiving with the non-receiving group. Source of disparity biggest between regions in the group's oil funds receiving.


A robust carbon tax would generate considerable revenue. Some carbon tax advocates have suggested returning those revenues to Americans through direct payments, often called carbon dividends. We examine how to design these dividends considering two, sometimes conflicting, principles. Carbon dividends can be viewed as shared income from a communal property right, much as Alaskans share in income from the state's oil resources. Dividends can also be viewed as rebating the carbon tax back to consumers. These views often have different implications for designing carbon dividends. Political and practical considerations are also important. With that in mind, we propose a carbon dividend design that combines beneficial features from both the communal property and tax rebate views.


Do inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) reduce wheezing/asthma exacerbations (WAEs) in infants and preschool children with a previous diagnosis of wheezing or asthma?

Included studies were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of ⩾4 weeks of treatment that compared an ICS with placebo in infants and children ⩽5 years of age with a diagnosis of wheezing or asthma for ⩾6 months before study entry. Outcomes were WAEs (worsening symptoms that required systemic corticosteroids), withdrawal from study due to WAEs, change in symptom score, change in salbutamol(albuterol) use, and change in pulmonary function (FEV1 and peak expiratory flow [PEF]).

Medline, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (all to Mar or second quarter 2008) were searched for RCTs. 29 RCTs {n = 3992, mean age 40 mo}* …


CASE DESCRIPTION
A 4-year-old spayed female mixed-breed rabbit was evaluated because of a 3-year history of sneezing and nasal discharge that were refractory to medical management.

CLINICAL FINDINGS
Signs of chronic left-sided rhinitis and sinusitis were observed on physical examination and confirmed by CT evaluation. Lysis of the rostral aspect of the left maxillary bone and destruction of nasal turbinates were evident on CT images.

TREATMENT AND OUTCOME
Pararhinotomy of the left maxillary sinus through the facies cribrosa was performed. Purulent material was removed from the maxillary sinus recesses, a middle meatal antrostomy was completed to allow permanent drainage into the left middle nasal meatus, and the tissues were closed routinely. Microbial culture of a sample from the maxillary sinus recesses revealed Bordetella bronchiseptica, undetermined fastidious nonenteric bacteria, and Streptococcus viridans. Medical management was continued, and nasal discharge resolved but sneezing persisted. Increased sneezing and bilateral nasal discharge developed 1.5 years later; CT examination revealed right-sided rhinitis, and culture of a nasal swab sample revealed Bordetella spp, Staphylococcus spp, and Micrococcus spp. Right-sided pararhinotomy and middle meatal antrostomy were performed, and medical management continued. A subsequent recurrence was managed without additional surgery; 4 years after the initial surgery, the rabbit was still receiving medical treatment, with mild intermittent nasal discharge and sneezing reported.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
This report describes a surgical approach for treatment of chronic rhinitis in companion rabbits with maxillary sinus involvement that included creation of a permanent drainage pathway from the maxillary sinus to the middle nasal meatus.


ABSTRACT Discipline alone is not enough to make a school a better teaching and learning environment. Like punishment, discipline applied as control can cause more difficulties than it remedies; continual emphasis on discipline with constant surveillance by the teacher for infractions may produce more problems than it solves. By clearly connecting learning to discipline for students, the teacher demonstrates that the goal has required behavior. This helps students to understand that what they need and want is directly related to how they act. This understanding is essential for effective discipline and student self control. When practiced as such, students are no longer cast into a position of submissive obedience. Instead, they can see themselves as acting responsibly toward desired goals. With this approach, the emphasis is on learning and teaching with discipline playing an important but subordinate role. Research findings indicate that classroom organization and management, as part of instruction, are key processes in establishing and maintaining an effective and disciplined learning environment. Effective school and teacher characteristics which reinforce a positive learning environment are cited. (JD)


Background Circulatory disease mortality in Russia is associated with hazardous drinking. Over the past 40 years there have been major fluctuations in mortality from circulatory disease that are closely correlated with deaths from acute alcohol poisoning (r=0.8 among working-age men). In a case-control study (2003–2005) hazardous drinking was associated with deaths attributed to ischaemic heart disease. However, rather than hazardous alcohol consumption increasing risk of atherosclerotic disease and subsequent myocardial infarction, these effects could be due to misclassified non-atherosclerotic damage to the heart induced by heavy drinking as occurs in extreme form in alcoholic cardiomyopathy. Methods A population-based sample of 1052 men aged 30–60 years living in Izhevsk (a medium-sized Russian city) were examined (2008–2009). Information about drinking was obtained by interview of proxy informants (mainly spouses or partners). Levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP—a sensitive and highly specific marker of heart muscle stress) and an atherogenic index (ApoB to ApoA1 ratio) were measured in blood. Results Compared to abstainers, men who drank hazardously had an increased risk of being in the top 20% of BNP (OR 4.80, 95% CI 2.29 to 10.1) adjusted for age and BMI, with non-hazardous drinkers being intermediate in risk. The equivalent association for the ApoB/ApoA1 ratio was in the opposite direction (OR 0.31, 0.16 to 0.61). Conclusion Hazardous drinkers show a lipoprotein profile associated with a reduced risk of atherosclerotic disease. However, they have raised levels of BNP. Taken together these results support the hypothesis that hazardous drinking among Russian men may induce non-atherosclerotic heart muscle damage.


Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of social responsibility, profits always trumped social concerns. CSR was only a fig leaf hiding abusive treatment of workers. But in recent years some concrete, positive results from effectively applied CSR programs convinced me of their value. In Mexico in 2001, workers at the Koreanowned KukDong sportswear factory succeeded in replacing a management and government dominated trade union with a democratic union of the workers' choice. Compliance officials from Nike and Reebok, two of the largest buyers, joined forces with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) enforcing their codes of conduct to achieve this result.


The Generalized Euclidean Distance (GED) measure has been extensively used to conduct morphological disparity analyses based on palaeontological matrices of discrete characters. This is in part because some implementations allow the use of morphological matrices with high percentages of missing data without needing to prune taxa for a subsequent ordination of the data set. Previous studies have suggested that this way of using the GED may generate a bias in the resulting morphospace, but a detailed study of this possible effect has been lacking. Here, we test whether the percentage of missing data for a taxon artificially influences its position in the morphospace, and if missing data affects pre‐ and post‐ordination disparity measures. We find that this use of the GED creates a systematic bias, whereby taxa with higher percentages of missing data are placed closer to the centre of the morphospace than those with more complete scorings. This bias extends into pre‐ and post‐ordination calculations of disparity measures and can lead to erroneous interpretations of disparity patterns, especially if specimens present in a particular time interval or clade have distinct proportions of missing information. We suggest that this implementation of the GED should be used with caution, especially in cases with high percentages of missing data. Results recovered using an alternative distance measure, Maximum Observed Rescaled Distance (MORD), are more robust to missing data. As a consequence, we suggest that MORD is a more appropriate distance measure than GED when analysing data sets with high amounts of missing data.


Abstract We constructed a survey to understand how authors and scientists view the issues around reproducibility, and how solutions such as interactive figures could enable the reproducibility of experiments from within a research article. This manuscript reports the results of this survey on the views of 251 researchers, including authors who have published in eLIFE Sciences, and those who work at the Norwich Biosciences Institutes (NBI). The survey also outlines to what extent researchers are occupied with reproducing experiments themselves and what are their desirable features of an interactive figure. Respondents considered various features for an interactive figure within a research article that would allow for them to better understand and reproduce in situ the experiment presented in the figure. Respondents said that the most important element that would enable the better reproducibility of published research would be that authors describe methods and analyses in detail. The respondents believe that having an interactive figures in published papers is a beneficial element. Whilst interactive figures are potential solutions for demonstrating technical reproducibility, we find that there are equally pressing cultural demands on researchers that need to be addressed to achieve greater success in reproducibility in the life sciences.


This is the ultimate journey around England. Christopher Winn takes us to each county, to see where history happened, where people and ideas were born, where dreams took flight and where men and women now rest from their labours. To tread in their footsteps, to touch and experience some of what inspired and moved them is to capture some of the flavour of their lives and make their stories alive and real. Crammed with facts and information, I Never Knew That About England celebrates the places and people that make the country unique and includes history, legends, firsts, supremes, unusuals, inventions, birthplaces and gossip. You'll be able to visit the bridge where Pooh and Piglet played Poohsticks and see where Alfred burnt the cakes. In a small village in Bedfordshire you can visit the graveyard where Long John Silver and Wendy rest. These stories will bring any place that you visit to life (keep one copy in the car and one in the house!) and enable you to discover the rich and surprising history of England.


Background: In recent years, nurse education has emphasised the development of high cost, high-fidelity simulations because they are considered to provide a more realistic learning experience. Integral is the facility to commit and learn from error. Error may provide a mechanism to make low cost, low-fidelity simulations more psychologically realistic and salient. We developed a web based medication administration simulation which included all essential cognitive elements of medication administration task, but was "low-fidelity" in engineering terms of its portrayal of the physical world. The simulation incorporated conditions designed to generate high rates of medication administration error. The purpose of this study was to determine if the low cost low-fidelity simulation provided a salient, effective and psychologically realistic learning experience for pre-registration nursing students over the long term. Methods : Individual qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 pre-registration nursing students, from one UK university, from a group of 49 students who had received the simulation as trial participants 2-years previously. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Most participants were able to reflect on their experiences of the simulation in depth, and considered the simulation to be a valuable component to their learning. The simulation encouraged students to question their practice and highlighted their vulnerability to medication administration error. It reinforced both the importance of completing checking procedures and the potential consequences of making an error in practice. Most students believed the low- fidelity simulation provided a psychologically realistic representation of medication administration, which was underpin- ned by the negative emotional reactions to making an error, for example, guilt. Conclusions: Low-fidelity web based simulations can provide a sufficiently realistic psychological representation of medication administration to produce a salient, effective learning experience over the long-term. Low-fidelity simulations can provide a low cost alternative to high-fidelity simulations. Making error in a simulation should be transformed from a useful but passive by-product into an active component of the simulation learning approach .


"Beware Architecture!" Architecture that entails surprise, even danger, is the subject of this exciting discourse on a body of work that has gained increasing international attention since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Graz and Vienna came to represent the radical edge of European architecture. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen looks at how this architecture tests the limits of the modern tradition, bringing to light work that is little known yet extremely consequential for contemporary theoretical discourse.Forged in a rarified architectural climate dominated by postwar Marxist-Freudian trends, the Austrian avant-garde challenges the traditional paradigms of objecthood, compositional form, programmic functionality, and spatial closure, emphasizing the fictional and the fantastic embodied in the more peripheral notions within the modern tradition: glass, ornament, machine mysticism, and the organic gestural line.Pelkonen moves between a solid analysis of individual works of architects and firms such as Volker Giencke, Gunter Domenig, Klaus Kada, Helmut Richter, COOP Himmelblau, and Haus-Rucker-Co, and others, and their historical and cultural contexts: philosophical debates on Heidegger, Bloch, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, and Giorgio Agamben; and the postwar debate on the avant-garde through the works of Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon, and the Wiener Aktionisten.


Airborne expendable bathythermographs (AXBTs) are air-launched, single-use temperature–depth probes that telemeter temperature observations as VHF-modulated frequencies. This study describes the AXBT Real-Time Editing System (ARES), which is composed of two components: the ARES Data Acquisition System, which receives telemetered temperature–depth profiles with no external hardware other than a VHF radio receiver, and the ARES Profile Editing System, which quality controls AXBT temperature–depth profiles. The ARES Data Acquisition System performs fast Fourier transforms on windowed segments of the demodulated signal transmitted from the AXBT. For each segment, temperature is determined from peak frequency and depth from elapsed time since profile start. Valid signals are distinguished from noise by comparing peak signal levels and signal-to-noise ratios to predetermined thresholds. When evaluated using 387 profiles, the ARES Data Acquisition System produced temperature–depth profiles nearly identical to those generated using a Sippican MK-21 processor, while reducing the amount of noise from VHF interference included in those profiles. The ARES Profile Editor applies a series of automated checks to identify and correct common profile discrepancies before displaying the profile on an editing interface that provides simple user controls to make additional corrections. When evaluated against 1177 tropical Atlantic and Pacific AXBT profiles, the ARES automated quality control system successfully corrected 87% of the profiles without any required manual intervention. Necessary future work includes improvements to the automated quality control algorithm and algorithm evaluation against a broader dataset of temperature–depth profiles from around the world across all seasons.


The Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt contains an extraordinary collection of ancient art, but even more of its treasures are hidden away in its basement. Museum workers are now preparing to show these valuable pieces in a new exhibition. What pieces will they exhibit? How will they decide what to display?


With the growing complexity in consumer embedded products and the improvements in process technology, multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) architectures have become widespread. These new systems are very complex to design as they must execute multiple complex real-time applications (e.g. video processing, or videogames), while meeting several additional design constraints (e.g. energy consumption or time-to-market). Therefore, mechanisms to efficiently explore the different possible HW-SW design interactions in complete MPSoC systems are in great need. In this paper, we present a new FPGA-based emulation framework that allows designers to rapidly explore a large range of MPSoC design alternatives at the cycle-accurate level. Our results show that the proposed framework is able to extract a number of critical statistics from processing cores, memory and interconnection systems, with a speed-up of three orders of magnitude compared to cycle-accurate MPSoC simulators


MORTON BEISER Srangers at the Gate: The "Boat People's"First Ten Years in Canada Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, xvi + 214 pp. (ISBN 0-8020-8227-7, CS 21.95, Softcover) Reviewed by TIM ROGERS and VALERIE PRUEGGER This book chronicles 10 years of research on the "boat people" since the arrival of 60,000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia circa 1980. The data upon which most of the monograph is based are drawn from the Refugee Resettlement Project, which is a longitudinal study of a representative sample of 1,358 refugees. This book and the data it reports serve to challenge a number of popular misconceptions including: (1) Immigrants and refugees cause unemployment - it is documented that immigration levels have had no effect on unemployment levels or the economy in general (p. 165); (2) Immigrants and refugees overuse and put tremendous strain on the social welfare net it is shown that these communities have been at the national average, or below, for drawing on social services such as health and social assistance (e.g., p. 169); and (3) Immigrants and refugees bring crime and disease to Canada - it is false that refugees pose potential risks to the host country (pp. 170-178). The book also fairly examines important facts about Canada's racist immigration and social policies, past and present. While Beiser notes concerns about depression, resettlement risk, language, and social support, among others, his data strongly support the common finding that most refugees adapt well and become proud and productive members of Canadian society. He coneludes with a plea to inject more informed awareness into both public discourse and policy making in order to achieve more balanced perspectives. After a brief introduction (Chapter 1), Beiser provides some context with a chilling introduction to the historical events in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that led to the "boat people" crisis (Chapter 2). More context is presented in the discussion of Canadian policies leading up to the decision to admit the refugees (Chapter 3). Then, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, Beiser explores, in respective chapters, issues of mental health, risk, resettlement stress, social support, and conception of time. A discussion of migration success (Chapter 9) is followed by an excellent concluding chapter which attempts to draw out policy and educational implications. This is an important book that warrants consideration in any efforts to explore the psychological aspects of Canadian culture and immigration studies. Despite minor quibbles with the use of words such as "exotic" to describe refugees and their homelands, and universalist assumptions about the meaning of depression, success, and time, this book is an excellent follow up to After the Door Has Been Opened: Mental Health Issues Affecting Immigrants and Refugees in Canada (Canadian Task Force, 1988). It supports a number of the recommendations made therein which remain valid and unimplemented to this day, although Beiser's reliance on statistical data from this document at times proves misleading. For example, Beiser's 1988 figures note that 75% of immigrants versus 10% of refugees speak either English or French, with a gap of 65% (p. 162). More recent data from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (1997) show that these figures have been reduced to 58% of immigrants versus 54% of refugees with knowledge of one of the official languages, leaving the gap at a mere 4%. The narratives and aggregate patterns presented in the book uphold findings, both qualitative and quantitative, in numerous reports of refugee adaptation by academics and service providers over the years. The biggest disappointment is the relegation of narrative data to a secondary role in favour of "dispassionate" methods. Narratives are offered with little analysis, often leaving the reader struggling to interpret what seems to be irrational or cruel behaviour (e. …


We explore a means to both model and reason about partial observability within the scope of constraint-based temporal reasoning. Prior studies of uncertainty in Temporal CSPs have required the realization of all exogenous processes to be made entirely visible to the agent. We relax this assumption and propose an extension to the Simple Temporal Problem with Uncertainty (STPU), one in which the executing agent is made aware of the occurrence of only a subset of uncontrollable events. We argue that such a formalism is needed to encode those complex environments whose external phenomena share a common, hidden source of temporal causality. After characterizing the levels of controllability in the resulting Partially Observable STPU and various special cases, we generalize a known family of reduction rules to account for this relaxation, introducing the properties of extended contingency and sufficient observability. We demonstrate that these modifications enable a polynomial filtering algorithm capable of determining a local form of dynamic controllability; however, we also show that there do remain some instances whose global controllability cannot yet be correctly identified by existing inference rules, leaving the true computational complexity of dynamic controllability an open problem for future research.