The district league table (DLT) as used by MOH to assess district level sector performance has generated useful insights and controversies in equal measure. Although the objective of the DLT remain noble, i.e. to inform stakeholders about decentralised service delivery, the tool does not provide sufficient information to guide stakeholders on how to support districts that are under performing. There is little information to provide plausible explanations as to why some districts make drastic climb or decline on the league table. The aim of this policy brief is to propose the adoption of social network analysis (and tools) to generate supplementary data that can better guide district and national level stakeholders to better recognize the drivers and bottlenecks of district level performance. Our study in three districts in northern Uganda demonstrates that social network analysis provides useful visual graphs and simple indices that capture the resource sharing and service delivery networks within a district. Our study findings expand the understanding of performance from the perspective of networks for district service provision, resource sharing and effectiveness of public and aid agencies at the sub-national level.


In the pharmaceutical context, many Southern African Development Community (SADC) members grant patents on drugs without substantially reviewing applications first, thus routinely granting patents for new versions of old medicines, thus extending patent life beyond the normal 20-year period. In contrast, Brazil and India, homes to major generic drug manufacturers in the BRICS grouping, examine each application before a patent is granted. It has been argued by health activists and academics that excessive patenting results in too many patents for minor innovations in medical technology and this in turn leads to higher prices of medicines, thus frustrating SADC citizens' right to access affordable essential medicines. This paper highlights how the legislative inclusion of World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) flexibilities around the requirements for patentability can be effectively used to curb incremental patenting and limit the proliferation of evergreen patents. This is achieved through a critical analysis the 2013 Supreme Court of India case of Novartis AG v Union of India before extracting useful lessons for the SADC. The highlighted lessons will in all likelihood inform the current intellectual law reform projects in most SADC members, including South Africa.


Group equivariant neural networks are used as building blocks of group invariant neural networks, which have been shown to improve generalisation performance and data efficiency through principled parameter sharing. Such works have mostly focused on group equivariant convolutions, building on the result that group equivariant linear maps are necessarily convolutions. In this work, we extend the scope of the literature to self-attention, that is emerging as a prominent building block of deep learning models. We propose the LieTransformer, an architecture composed of LieSelfAttention layers that are equivariant to arbitrary Lie groups and their discrete subgroups. We demonstrate the generality of our approach by showing experimental results that are competitive to baseline methods on a wide range of tasks: shape counting on point clouds, molecular property regression and modelling particle trajectories under Hamiltonian dynamics.


A workshop was held in Cambridge between March 20-22, 2017, to bring together the PiN team and the Global Species Programme (GSP) and TRAFFIC to discuss the inclusion of data from PiN landscape assessments within the Species Information Services (SIS), building on discussions held over the last four years. The objective of the meeting was to collectively agree on the content and architecture of a PiN benefits assessment within SIS and explore how to apply this assessment from an institutional perspective.


Rapid climate change poses complex challenges for conservation, especially in tropical developing countries where biodiversity is high while financial and technical resources are limited. The complexity is heightened by uncertainty in predicted effects, both for ecological systems and human communities that depend heavily on natural resource extraction and use. Effective conservation plans and measures must be inexpensive, fast-acting, and able to increase the resilience of both the ecosystem and the social-ecological system. We present conservation practitioners with a framework that strategically integrates climate change planning into connectivity measures for tropical mountain ecosystems in Costa Rica. We propose a strategy for doubling the amount of habitat currently protected in riparian corridors using measures that are relatively low cost and fast-acting, and will employ and expand human capital. We argue that habitat connectivity must be enhanced along latitudinal gradients, but also within the same elevational bands, via a lattice-work corridor system. This is needed to facilitate range shifts for mobile species and evolutionary adaptation for less mobile species. We think that conservation measures within the elevational bands must include conservation-friendly land uses that improve current and future human livelihoods under dynamic conditions. Key components include community involvement, habitat priority-setting, forest landscape restoration, and environmental services payments. Our approach is fundamentally adaptive in that the conservation measures employed are informed by on-the-ground successes and failures and modified accordingly, but are relatively low risk and fast-acting. Our proposal, if implemented, would satisfy tenets of climate-smart conservation, improve the resilience of human and ecological communities, and be a model for other locations facing similar challenges.


This paper presents the results of a Grounded Theory study of how Software Process Improvement (SPI) is applied in the practice of software development, focussing on what is actually happening in practice in the software industry in relation to the adoption of SPI 'Best Practice' Models, such as ISO 9000 and CMMI. The results produce a picture of attitudes and perceptions in relation SPI best practice models, grounded in the field data, and reveals that many software managers reject SPI because of the associated implementation and maintenance costs and are reluctant to implement SPI models such as ISO 9000 and CMMI. This paper presents the findings in relation to Cost of Process and the factors affecting it, including Bureaucracy, Documentation, Communication, Tacit Knowledge and organisational Creativity and Flexibility and the associated impact on the adoption of SPI best practice models.


OBJECTIVE: TO describe a case involving the removal of quinine by continuous venovenous hemofiltration (CVVH) in a patient with malaria and acute renal failure and to present recommendations on the dosing of quinine in such patients. CASE SUMMARY: A 50-year-old white man developed Plasmodium falciparum malaria following a visit to Nigeria. Although he received intravenous quinine, his condition deteriorated and he required intensive care management, including CWH for the management of his acute renal failure. Quinine plasma concentrations were measured to determine both total body and extracorporeal clearance of the drug. DISCUSSION: TO our knowledge this is the first report quantifying the removal of quinine by CVVH. The drug is not significantly removed by this extracorporeal process. The filter clearance accounted for less than 1.5% of the total body clearance. CONCLUSIONS: Initially the dosage of quinine administered to patients presenting with P. falciparum infection should not be reduced because of renal failure. This is particularly important when cerebral involvement is suspected. Subsequent dosage modification should reflect the severity of the patient's clinical condition and the plasma quinine concentration achieved, and should not be limited by the degree of renal impairment present.


ABSTRACT
 The aim of this research was to determine chemical composition and repellent and insecticidal activities of the essential oil of Kaempferia galanga L. rhizomes against the booklouse, Liposcelis bostrychophila Badonnel, and to isolate insecticidal or repellent constituents from the oil. The essential oil was obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Twenty-eight components of the oil were identified. The major compounds in the oil were ethyl-&rgr;-methoxycinnamate (38.6%), ethyl cinnamate (23.2%), 1,8-cineole (11.5%), transcinnamaldehyde (5.3%), and borneol (5.2%). Based on bioactivity-guided fractionation, four active constituents were isolated from the oil and identified as 1,8-cineole, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl &rgr;-methoxycinnamate, and trans-cinnamaldehyde. The essential oil exhibited contact toxicity against the booklouse with an LC50 value of 68.6 µg/cm2. Ethyl cinnamate (LC50 = 21.4 µg/cm2) exhibited stronger contact toxicity than ethyl &rgr;-methoxycinnamate and trans-cinnamaldehyde (LC50 = 44.6 and 43.4 µg/cm2, respectively) while 1,8-cineole showed weak acute toxicity. The essential oil also possessed fumigant toxicity against the booklouse with a LC50 value of 1.5 mg/liter air. 1,8-Cineole and trans-cinnamaldehyde (LC50 = 1.1 and 1.3 mg/liter, respectively) possessed stronger fumigant toxicity against the booklouse than ethyl cinnamate and ethyl &rgr;-methoxycinnamate (LC50 = 10.2 and 10.2 mg/liter air, respectively). trans-Cinnamaldehyde was strongly repellent to booklice, whereas ethyl cinnamate and ethyl &rgr;-methoxycinnamate were weakly repellent and 1,8-cineole did not repel booklice. The results indicate that the essential oil and its constituent compounds have potential for development into natural insecticides or fumigants and repellents for control of insects in stored grains.


This essay explores how the past Civil Rights Movement and discrimination against persons of color, mainly Latinos and African Americans, can help to address current forms of discrimination in our country. In particular, since the election of the first African American President, who also has immigrant parents, many people have claimed that we have reached a "post-racial" America. In the new post-racial America, proponents claim that the pre-Civil Rights Movement racial caste system of the sixties has been eradicated. In this context, this essay seeks to explore whether there is any link between the past experiences of African Americans with the current experiences of Latinos in resisting laws that deprive both groups of their basic civil and human rights. To this end, this essay first examines past employment discrimination against Latinos and African Americans. Second, the paper addresses why there is an historical absence of a unified movement to address discrimination against African Americans and Latinos. The underlying goal is to create a sense of identification between African Americans and Latinos and their experiences in the United States. This section also addresses how both groups may or may not benefit from unified strategies to address discriminatory laws and work for the passage of laws that exclude persons from membership in the American society. The third section addresses how the law has reified social exclusion of African Americans and Latinos. This section focuses on using past models of resistance in an attempt to address labor discrimination against Latinos and African Americans as a wise strategy. Finally, the essay will discuss how intersection and structural-racism theories can be used as a foundation for building a coalition between African Americans and Latinos.


Abstract Objective: There is a lack of research on humour among adolescents in South Africa. This article examines cognitive flexibility and humour. The objective was to investigate the roles of gender and language as possible moderating variables in the relationship between adolescents' cognitive flexibility and sense of humour. Design: A correlational research design was used in which pupils were asked to complete the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale to assess their sense of humour. In order to determine the cognitive flexibility of the sample group, Martin and Rubin's Cognitive Flexibility Scale was applied. Setting and subjects: The initial sample comprised 1 203 adolescents (Grade 11 and 12 pupils) randomly selected from the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Of these, a final 392 adolescents qualified after eliminating criteria had been applied. Results: No significant correlations were found between the total group or for the two genders. Significant positive correlations were found between cognitive flexibility and two of the scores for humour (creating and expressing humour), as well as for the total score for Afrikaans-speaking participants. Significant negative correlations were found between cognitive flexibility and all five of the scores for humour for the Nguni language speakers. Conclusion: This study recommends that culturally sensitive measuring instruments should be developed.


OBJECTIVE--To investigate the association between use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and serious, acute non-infectious liver injury. DESIGN--Retrospective cohort study, cross over design. SETTING--Health records from provincial database in Saskatchewan, Canada, 1982-6. SUBJECTS--228,392 adults who contributed 645,456 person years. All were either using or had used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Number and type of prescriptions for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Admission to hospital for newly diagnosed acute liver injury. RESULTS--There were 34 admissions to hospital; 16 among subjects currently using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and 18 among subjects who were not. The incidence rate among current users was 9 per 100,000 person years (95% confidence interval 6 to 15 per 100,000 person years). Subjects currently using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs had twice the risk of newly diagnosed liver injury as those not currently taking these drugs (rate ratio 2.3; 95% confidence interval 1.1 to 4.9) and an excess risk of 5 per 100,000 person years. The age and sex adjusted risk ratio was 1.7 (0.8 to 3.7). The strength of the association increased when only cases with no concomitant use of other hepatotoxic drugs were considered (4.0; 0.9 to 19.0). The rate ratio for people having received one to nine prescriptions was constant. There was no increased risk with long duration of treatment (1.0; 0.3 to 3.5). CONCLUSIONS--There is a small excess risk of serious, acute non-infectious liver injury associated with the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.


Lightning plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and in the initiation of wildfires, but the impact of global warming on lightning rates is poorly constrained. Here we propose that the lightning flash rate is proportional to the convective available potential energy (CAPE) times the precipitation rate. Using observations, the product of CAPE and precipitation explains 77% of the variance in the time series of total cloud-to-ground lightning flashes over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Storms convert CAPE times precipitated water mass to discharged lightning energy with an efficiency of 1%. When this proxy is applied to 11 climate models, CONUS lightning strikes are predicted to increase 12 ± 5% per degree Celsius of global warming and about 50% over this century. Climate warming should increase the incidence of lightning strikes in the United States. Striking when hot, and more when hotter Lightning occurs more frequently when it is hotter than when it is colder, but how much more lightning should we expect as global temperatures increase? Currently there are around 25 million lightning strikes per year. Romps et al. constructed a proxy based on the energy available to make air rise in the atmosphere and on precipitation rates to model the frequency of lightning strikes across the continental United States. They predict that the number of lightning strikes will increase by about 12% for every degree of rise in global average air temperature. Science, this issue p. 851


Brain cellular heterogeneity may bias cell type specific DNA methylation patterns, influencing findings in psychiatric epigenetic studies. We performed fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) of neuronal nuclei and Illumina HM450 DNA methylation profiling in post mortem frontal cortex of 29 major depression and 29 matched controls. We identify genomic features and ontologies enriched for cell type specific epigenetic variation. Using the top cell epigenotype specific (CETS) marks, we generated a publically available R package, "CETS," capable of quantifying neuronal proportions and generating in silico neuronal profiles from DNA methylation data. We demonstrate a significant overlap in major depression DNA methylation associations between FACS separated and CETS model generated neuronal profiles relative to bulk profiles. CETS derived neuronal proportions correlated significantly with age in the frontal cortex and cerebellum and accounted for epigenetic variation between brain regions. CETS based control of cellular heterogeneity will enable more robust hypothesis testing in the brain.


 A BSTRACT Federal and state law both provide a cause of action against inappropriate and unauthorized uses that "tarnish" a trademark. Copyright owners also articulate fears of tarnishing uses of their works in their arguments against fair use and for copyright term extension. The validity of these concerns rests on an empirically testable hypothesis about how consumers respond to inappropriate unauthorized uses of works. In particular, the tarnishment hypothesis assumes that consumers who are exposed to inappropriate uses of works will find the tarnished works less valuable afterwards. This Article presents two novel experimental tests of the tarnishment hypothesis, focusing on unauthorized and unwanted pornographic versions of targeted works. We exposed over one thousand subjects to posters of pornographic versions of popular movies and measured their perceptions of the targeted movies. Our results find little evidence supporting the tarnishment hypothesis. We do, however, find some significant evidence for an alternative "enhancement" hypothesis. Some of our subjects had more favorable attitudes toward the supposedly "tarnished" movies. These results should place the burden on parties asserting tarnishment to prove that it actually exists. In


A reversible fluorescent probe L based on rhodamine 6G is synthesized for the optical detection of Fe3+ in water. This probe displays favorable selectivity for Fe3+ with a 1 : 1 stoichiometry. It displays a fluorescence turn-on response in the process of rhodamine ring opening with Fe3+ and a fluorescence turn-off response with the addition of Na4P2O7 to the L-Fe3+ complex. The association constant between the probe and Fe3+ was detected to be 3.5 × 104 M−1, and the corresponding detection limit was calculated to be 1.9 × 10−8 M according to fluorescence titration analysis. Furthermore, bioimaging investigations indicated that this probe was cell permeable and suitable for monitoring intracellular Fe3+ in living cells by confocal microscopy.


Increasing recognition of general practice is reflected in the growing number of university institutes devoted to the subject and Health Services Research (HSR) is flourishing as a result. In May 2015 the Institute of General Practice and Evidence-based Health Services Research, Medical University of Graz, initiated a survey of Styrian GPs. The aim of the survey was to determine the willingness to take part in HSR projects, to collect sociodemographic data from GPs who were interested and to identify factors affecting participation in research projects. Of the 1015 GPs who received the questionnaire, 142 (14%) responded and 135 (13%) were included in the analysis. Overall 106 (10%) GPs indicated their willingness to take part in research projects. Factors inhibiting participation were lack of time, administrative workload, and lack of assistance. Overall, 10% of Styrian GPs were willing to participate in research projects. Knowledge about the circumstances under which family doctors are prepared to participate in HSR projects will help in the planning of future projects.


Obesity rates in the geriatric population have emerged as a serious health concern in recent decades. Yet, obesity-related differences in neuromuscular performance and motor control during fatiguing tasks, and how they are modified by gender, specifically among older adults, are still largely unexplored. The first aim of this study was to understand obesity and gender-related differences in endurance time among older adults. Motor variability has been linked with inter-individual differences in the rate of fatigue development, and as potentially revealing underlying mechanisms of neuromuscular control. Hence, the second and third aims of this study were to investigate to what extent motor variability at baseline could predict inter-individual differences in endurance time, and whether systematic obesity and gender differences exist in motor variability among older adults. Fifty-nine older adults (65 years or older) were recruited into four groups: obese male, obese female, non-obese male, and non-obese female. Participants performed submaximal intermittent isometric knee extensions until exhaustion. Knee extension force and muscle activation signals (surface electromyography) of a primary agonist muscle, the Vastus Lateralis (VL), were collected. Endurance time and metrics quantifying both the size and structure of variability were computed for the force and EMG signals, using coefficient of variation (within cycles and between cycles) and sample entropy measures. While group differences in endurance time were primarily associated with gender, adding individual motor variability measures as predictor variables explained significantly more variance in endurance time, thus highlighting the relevance of motor variability in understanding neuromotor control strategies. Males exhibited longer endurance times, higher EMG CV, lower EMG SaEn, lower force CV, and higher force SaEn than females. These findings are interpreted to indicate males as using a motor strategy involving better "distribution" of the neural efforts across synergists and antagonists to achieve better performance during the knee extension task. No obesity-related changes in endurance time were found. However, obese individuals exhibited a greater cycle-to-cycle variability in muscle activation, indicating a larger alteration in the recruitment of motor units across successive contractions and potentially increased neural costs, which may have contributed to comparable endurance time and performance as non-obese older adults.


Automatic meter reading (AMR) provides real-time consumption data, enabling to collect a huge amount of information about daily, even hourly, consumptions. It is then easy to assess lost volumes on the network, using supplied volumes information. However, because of the multiple components of water losses, the metering and calculation inaccuracies, the occurrence of new (detectable) leaks is hard to detect. Therefore this paper aims at proposing a user-friendly statistical tool that helps to quickly and reliably detect new leakage occurrence. The use of process control chart (like exponential weighted moving average) enables us to detect changes in the water loss time series, in particular, a new leak occurrence.


The novelist and essayist Elizabeth Hardwick is one of contemporary America's most brilliant writers, and Seduction and Betrayal, in which she considers the careers of women writers as well as the larger question of the presence of women in literature, is her most passionate and concentrated work of criticism. A gallery of unforgettable portraits-of Virginia Woolf and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Carlyle-as well as a provocative reading of such works as Wuthering Heights, Hedda Gabler, and the poems of Sylvia Plath, Seduction and Betrayal is a virtuoso performance, a major writer's reckoning with the relations between men and women, women and writing, writing and life.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare dental size measurements, their reproducibility and the application of Tanaka and Johnston regression equation in predicting the size of canines and premolars on plaster and digital dental casts.

METHODS
Thirty plaster casts were scanned and digitized. Mesiodistal measurements of the teeth were then performed with a digital caliper on the plaster and digital casts using O3d software system (Widialabs©).The sum of the sizes of the lower incisors was used to obtain predictive values of the sizes of the premolars and canines using the regression equation, and these values were compared with the actual sizes of the teeth. The data were statistically analyzed by applying to the results Pearson's correlation test, Dahlberg's formula, paired t-test and analysis of variance (p < 0.05).

RESULTS
Excellent intraexaminer agreement was observed in the measurements performed on both dental casts. No random error was present in the measurements obtained with the caliper and systematic error (bias) was more frequent in the digital casts. Space prediction obtained by applying the regression equation was greater than the sum of the canines and premolars on the plaster and digital casts.

CONCLUSIONS
Despite an adequate reproducibility of the measurements performed on both casts, most measurements on the digital casts were higher than those on the plaster casts. The predicted space was overestimated in both models and significantly higher in the digital casts.


The objective of this study was to develop criteria and procedures for the identification and measurement of social impacts in transportation planning and the process by which such analyses are integrated into the decision-making process. The guidelines developed from this study address several related but different parts of the total planning and design process. Two of the reports prepared as a part of this study are concerned with identifying and measuring social factors and conducting social and economic surveys to obtain necessary data. A third report is concerned with the development and implementation of community involvement programs. The assumption is made that an effective planning and design process must provide means by which the values and opinions of residents of affected communities and users of transportation facilities can be incorporated in technical studies and in the decision-making process. Two additional reports contain guidelines for the operation of interdisciplinary teams and team scheduling and management. The systematic interdisciplinary approach undertaken in the State of Washington provides a means by which technical data, community values and opinions, and planning and design concepts and standards can all be evaluated by the team in reaching a recommended solution to a problem.


ABSTRACT Scotland's Enlightenment and Britain's Empire were inseparably entwined, such that the former's conceptualisation of humanity bore the indelible impression of the latter. We argue here that, by tracing the career and writings of one among a much wider range of travellers educated in Edinburgh in the last years of the eighteenth century, the connections between Scotland's Enlightenment and colonisation can be usefully explored. Alexander Berry (1781–1873) was educated in medicine at the University of Edinburgh between 1798 and 1800 and then travelled to China, Australia, Fiji, and Aotearoa/New Zealand, before eventually becoming a prosperous landowner at Shoalhaven on the South Coast of New South Wales. Throughout it all, Berry speculated on the humanity of diverse peoples he interacted with as physician, merchant, landowner, and as a natural historian. His career exemplifies the entangled commercial, colonial, and scientific interests that characterised the global circulation of Enlightenment knowledge in the context of Britain's expanding Empire. From the intimacy of his encounters with non-European and Indigenous peoples, and the trans-imperial networks of trade and expertise in which he was engaged, his speculations on humanity bore the marks of both Enlightenment and Empire.


The least square Monte Carlo (LSM) algorithm proposed by Longstaff and Schwartz [2001] is the most widely used method for pricing options with early exercise features. The LSM estimator contains look-ahead bias, and the conventional technique of removing it necessitates an independent set of simulations. This study proposes a new approach for efficiently eliminating look-ahead bias by using the leave-one-out method, a well-known cross-validation technique for machine learning applications. The leave-one-out LSM (LOOLSM) method is illustrated with examples, including multi-asset options whose LSM price is biased high. The asymptotic behavior of look-ahead bias is also discussed with the LOOLSM approach.


This paper provides theory and evidence that worker effort has played an important role in the increase in income inequality in the United States between 1980 and 2016. The theory suggests that a worker needs to exert effort enough to pay the rental value of the physical and human capital, thus high effort and high pay for jobs operating expensive capital. With that as a foundation, we use data from the ACS surveys in 1980 and 2016 to estimate Mincer equations for six different education levels that explain wage incomes as a function of weekly hours worked and other worker features. One finding is a decline in annual income for high school graduates for all hours worked per week. We argue that the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs forces down wages of those with high school degrees who have precious few high-effort opportunities outside of manufacturing. Another finding is that incomes rose only for those with advanced degrees and with weekly hours in excess of 40. We attribute this to the natural talent needed to make a computer deliver exceptional value and to the relative ease with which long hours can be chosen when working over the Internet.


ABSTRACT In order to comply with the requirements of the Basel II Accord, banks need to frequently assess the market values of properties secured by mortgages. In lieu of property valuation reviews done by professional valuers, an index-based approach could potentially be used by banks to value property. This paper presents a study undertaken using data and resources from a South African commercial property finance bank to assess whether index-based valuations produce statistically similar valuations to those given by professional valuers. It was found that in the case of the particular bank, index-based valuations provide statistically similar market values to traditional valuations. Furthermore, index-based valuations provide consistent results when updating market values for properties with older historic valuations in the same way as for properties valued relatively recently. An index-based approach to review market valuations may thus provide considerable cost savings.


In real-life decision analysis, the probabilities and values of consequences are in general vague and imprecise. One way to model imprecise probabilities is to represent a probability with the interval between the lowest possible and the highest possible probability, respectively. However, there are disadvantages with this approach, one being that when an event has several possible outcomes, the distributions of belief in the different probabilities are heavily concentrated to their centers of mass, meaning that much of the information of the original intervals are lost. Representing an imprecise probability with the distribution's center of mass therefore in practice gives much the same result as using an interval, but a single number instead of an interval is computationally easier and avoids problems such as overlapping intervals. Using this, we demonstrate why second-order calculations can add information when handling imprecise representations, as is the case of decision trees or probabilistic networks. We suggest a measure of belief density for such intervals. We also demonstrate important properties when operating on general distributions. The results herein apply also to approaches which do not explicitly deal with second-order distributions, instead using only first-order concepts such as upper and lower bounds.


The development of hydroelectricity in Chile illustrates a situation where water resources can be both well and badly managed when a private or public utility company, in this case ENDESA, is powerful enough to operate largely outside standard policy and bureaucratic processes. It successfully increased hydroelectric capacity more than fourfold over three decades characterised by periods of significant political instability. This was done without noticeable conflict due to its recognised efficiency and absence of environmental concerns in Chilean policy until the late 1980s. Since that time there has been increasing pressure from international agencies and NGOs to place more emphasis on environmental dimensions in development. The interplay among the diversity of agendas and tactics adopted by the interest groups attempting to influence decision on hydroelectric projects has, in some cases, been counterproductive. ENDESA chose to withhold information and modify EIA procedures as tactics to reduce costs. The NGOs' single-minded dedication to preclusion of dam proposals tended to distort public debate. The government, presumably due to risk aversion, proved unwilling to take a proactive stance by not specifying and implementing requirements for approval of a dam project, providing a comprehensive policy framework for debate or facilitating dialogue on the issues.


This paper discusses whether the Asian financial crisis affected men and women differently in Indonesia by estimating the effect of district consumption shock during the crisis on changes in men's and women's working status and assets. I found that in rural areas there seems to be no effect of district consumption shock. In urban areas the fall in district consumption increases women's employment and decreases men's non-business assets. The effect is both cases is large. I also found that intra-household bargaining may be related to the effect of crises on men and women. Specifically, women who have sole decision-making power on employment prior to the crisis do not need to increase employment as much as a response to the fall in district consumption compared with women without sole decision-making power on employment prior to the crisis.


Wall temperature measurements with fiber coupled online phosphor thermometry were, for the first time, successfully performed in a full-scale H-class Siemens gas turbine combustor. Online wall temperatures were obtained during high-pressure combustion tests up to 8 bar at the Siemens Clean Energy Center (CEC) test facility. Since optical access to the combustion chamber with fibers being able to provide high laser energies is extremely challenging, we developed a custom-built measurement system consisting of a water-cooled fiber optic probe and a mobile measurement container. A suitable combination of chemical binder and thermographic phosphor was identified for temperatures up to 1800 K on combustor walls coated with a thermal barrier coating (TBC). To our knowledge, these are the first measurements reported with fiber coupled online phosphor thermometry in a full-scale high-pressure gas turbine combustor. Details of the setup and the measurement procedures will be presented. The measured signals were influenced by strong background emissions probably from CO*2 chemiluminescence. Strategies for correcting background emissions and data evaluation procedures are discussed. The presented measurement technique enables the detailed study of combustor wall temperatures and using this information an optimization of the gas turbine cooling design.


Alkaloid and terpenoid natural products display an extensive array of chemical frameworks and biological activities. However such scaffolds remain underrepresented in current screening collections and are, thus, attractive targets for the synthesis of natural product-based libraries that access underexploited regions of chemical space. Recently, we reported a systematic approach to the stereoselective synthesis of multiple alkaloid/terpenoid-like scaffolds using transition metal-mediated cycloaddition and cyclization reactions of enyne and diyne substrates assembled on a tert-butylsulfinamide lynchpin. We report herein the synthesis of a 190-membered library of alkaloid/terpenoid-like molecules using this synthetic approach. Translation to solid-phase synthesis was facilitated by the use of a tert-butyldiarylsilyl (TBDAS) linker that closely mimics the tert-butyldiphenysilyl protecting group used in the original solution-phase route development work. Unexpected differences in stereoselectivity and regioselectivity were observed in some reactions when carried out on solid support. Further, the sulfinamide moiety could be hydrolyzed or oxidized efficiently without compromising the TBDAS linker to provide additional amine and sulfonamide functionalities. Principal component analysis of the structural and physicochemical properties of these molecules confirmed that they access regions of chemical space that overlap with bona fide natural products and are distinct from areas addressed by conventional synthetic drugs and drug-like molecules. The influences of scaffolds and substituents were also evaluated, with both found to have significant impacts on location in chemical space and three-dimensional shape. Broad biological evaluation of this library will provide valuable insights into the abilities of natural product-based libraries to access similarly underexploited regions of biological space.


This paper aims to identify the inflection point in financial discourse, the moment of explosion and unpredictability in the 2007–2008 economic crisis, through an analysis of metaphors, and its relation to the concept of jumps in finance. The corpus is formed by articles dating from 2007–2008 published in The Wall Street Journal and related to the movements of the Standard & Poor's 500 index (S&P500) of the United States. For the purposes of this paper, two texts are analysed: "Traders in Lehman, AIG held out hope – Friday", and the speech "Four questions about the financial crisis" by Ben S. Bernanke. What is of particular interest is the transformation of unpredictability to predictability, as incorporated in this type of discourse to indicate a predetermined chain of events, chosen from a wide spectrum of possibilities. The theoretical framework draws on Juri Lotman's views on the concepts of explosion, unpredictability, inflection point and predictability.


John Bridges and Axel Hagermann summarize an RAS Special Discussion Meeting in January 2011, which looked at the prospects for the UK exploring Mars.

High-resolution imaging and near-infrared mapping of the martian surface, together with detailed studies of martian meteorites and exobiology research, have revealed an increasing amount of detail about how climate and surface processes have changed over the history of Mars. The exploration of Mars is now being planned through a joint NASA–ESA programme. New missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory in 2012 and the Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016 will also improve our understanding about the evolution of Mars. Mission planning is being guided by recent reports of methane in the Mars atmosphere and the identification of minerals and landforms associated with water such as the Eberswalde Delta. Mars research is also acting as a spur for the development of mission concepts and analytical techniques such as new XRD techniques, microRaman and a Life Marker Chip.

The second UK in the Aurora Programme meeting was held on 14 January 2011 at Burlington House, London. The aim was to bring together researchers, particularly in the field of Mars research and instrumentation, in order to provide a platform to show our research and to discuss what the priorities for future missions within Aurora should be. The Aurora programme encapsulates Europe's current plans, aiming to send unmanned spacecraft to explore our neighbouring world to examine its climate, search for evidence of past or present life, and learn how conditions there relate to those on Earth. The meeting was introduced by Frederick Taylor (Oxford).

High-resolution imagery of some of the surface of Mars using the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) at 25 cm/pixel has changed our view of the evolution of its surface and climate. One of the ways our view of Mars has changed is the recognition of the influence of glacial and periglacial activity in shaping landscapes. Matt Balme (Open University) and Peter Gallagher (Trinity College Dublin) presented new observations of periglacial landforms that appear to have been formed by water as part of freeze–thaw cycles: self-organized patterns of stone stripes, polygons, circles and clastic solifluction lobes. The low density of impact craters suggests these terrains formed in a geologically recent era. Kate Goddard et al. (Imperial College) presented a study of youthful gullies and depositional fans on Mars in Mojave Crater. Understanding the role of water or other processes, including CO 2 ice sublimation, in the formation of such gullies is a crucial way of reaching a more accurate understanding of martian climate variations within the last few million years. Balme and Gallagher speculated that because perchlorates (identified at the Phoenix landing site) have eutectic temperatures below 240 K and can remain liquid at temperatures far below the freezing point of water, perchlorate brines may explain freeze–thaw processes and could cause geomorphological changes.


Abstract The 10B(n,α0)7Li and 10B(n,α1γ)7Li angular distributions have been measured at the Geel Electron Linear Accelerator time-of-flight spectrometer in the incident neutron energy range from 0.1 keV to 1 MeV. A twin Frisch-grid ionization chamber has been used with two very thin 94% 10B-enriched samples mounted back-to-back on the common cathode. With this type of charged-particle detector, it is possible to measure the angular distribution of the alpha particles in a nearly 2x2π solid angle, with a clear separation of the alpha-particle yields from both reaction channels: α-emission to the 7Li ground state {α0} and to its first excited state {α1}. Hence, for the first time nearly the full solid angle at all incident neutron energies investigated has been covered. A strong angular anisotropy was observed and is discussed in the frame of the compound nucleus reaction mechanism. The alpha-particle center-of-mass angular distributions have been used to calculate the branching ratio 10B(n,α0)/10B(n,α1γ). Both data sets had a strong impact at the International Atomic Energy Agency Coordinated Research Project "Improvement of the Standard Cross Sections for Light Elements" and the corresponding evaluation of the standards data file for this reaction.


This letter is a comprehensive account of some recent findings about AdaBoost in the presence of noisy data when approached from the perspective of statistical theory. We start from the basic assumption of weak hypotheses used in AdaBoost and study its validity and implications on generalization error. We recommend studying the generalization error and comparing it to the optimal Bayes error when data are noisy. Analytic examples are provided to show that running the unmodified AdaBoost forever will lead to overfit. On the other hand, there exist regularized versions of AdaBoost that are consistent, in the sense that the resulting prediction will approximately attain the optimal performance in the limit of large training samples.


© 2015 WIT Press. In 2013, the UK exceeded the EU limit value for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) annual mean at 31 of its 43 zones and agglomerations. Current government predictions are that full compliance will not be achieved until after 2030, with 65% zones still expected to be exceeding in 2020. In February 2014, the European Commission launched legal proceedings against the UK for its failure to cut excessive levels of NO2. However, there is an increasing onus on local authorities to manage air pollution locally and a legal threat in the Localism Act 2011 that may make them liable for any EU fines. This research has examined Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) reports and monitored concentrations of NO2 over the last 14 years for all local authorities with exceedances due to road traffic and, as previously reported to this conference series, found that there is insufficient appropriate data available to evaluate the LAQM process as a whole on this basis. Instead, six case study local authorities, for which sufficient data were available, were individually evaluated to determine whether any action plan measures could be associated with changes in local NO2 concentrations. This paper describes the methodology and findings with respect to the implementation of action plan measures, using Bristol City Council as an example. It examines some of the challenges of quantifying air quality impacts and attributing changes to implementation of measures, and makes recommendations for improvements to UK air quality management.


Abstract Experimental and numerical studies of the fluid dynamics of thin liquid film wall protection systems have been conducted in support of the ARIES-IFE study. Both the porous "wetted wall" concept, involving low-speed injection through a porous wall normal to the surface, and the "forced film" concept, involving high-speed injection through slots tangential to the surface, have been examined. These initial studies focus upon the "preshot" feasibility of these concepts, between chamber clearing and the fusion event. For the wetted wall, a three-dimensional level contour reconstruction method was used to track the evolution of the liquid film on downward-facing walls for different initial conditions and liquid properties with evaporation and condensation at the free surface. The effects of these parameters on the film dynamics, the free surface topology, the frequency of liquid drop formation and detachment, the minimum film thickness between explosions, and the equivalent diameter of detached drops have been analyzed. Initial experimental results are in reasonable agreement with the numerical predictions. Generalized nondimensional charts for identifying appropriate "design windows" for successful operation of the wetted wall protection concept have been developed. The results demonstrate that a minimum repetition rate is required to avoid liquid dripping into the reactor cavity and that a minimum injection velocity is required in order to maintain a minimum film thickness over the first wall. For the forced film concept, experimental investigations of high-speed water films injected onto downward-facing flat and curved surfaces at angles of inclination up to 45 deg below the horizontal were conducted. Mean detachment length and the lateral extent of the film were measured for a wide range of liquid-solid contact angles at different values of the initial film thickness, liquid injection speed, and surface orientation. The results show that the film detaches earlier (i.e., farther upstream) for nonwetting surfaces and for flat (versus curved) surfaces. The nonwetting flat surface data are therefore used to establish a conservative "design window" for film detachment. Initial observations of film flow around cylindrical obstacles suggest that cylindrical dams are incompatible with forced films.


The most up-to-date guide on making the right capital restructuring movesThe Art of Capital Restructuring provides a fresh look at the current state of mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructuring around the world. The dynamic nature of M&As requires an evolving understanding of the field, and this book considers several different forms of physical restructuring such as divestitures as well as financial restructuring, which refers to alterations in the capital structure of the firm.The Art of Capital Restructuring not only explains the financial aspects of these transactions but also examines legal, regulatory, tax, ethical, social, and behavioral considerations. In addition to this timely information, coverage also includes discussion of basic concepts, motives, strategies, and techniques as well as their application to increasingly complex, real-world situations. - Emphasizes best practices that lead to M&A success - Contains important and relevant research studies based on recent developments in the field - Comprised of contributed chapters from both experienced professionals and academics, offering a variety of perspectives and a rich interplay of ideasSkillfully blending theory with practice, this book will put you in a better position to make the right decisions with regard to capital restructuring in today's dynamic business world.


The purpose of this article is to analyse the right or freedom to strike from an international and comparative vantage point. Some form of strike is universally acknowledged, although the nature, scope and extent may vary from country to country. In some legal systems a basic right to strike is expressly provided for in a constitution or statute. In other countries a strike has been established indirectly by case law as a freedom only. However, on the international plane there are both implicit and explicit provisions that establish, promote and protect the right or freedom to strike. This paper will seek to explore and compare the right or freedom to strike within some countries in the European Community. Similarly, the international labour standards will be examined with a view to identifying the principles relating to the right or freedom to strike. Against this background, it would be appropriate to examine the right or freedom to strike in the South African industrial relations system.


This multi-faceted collection of research papers on Advice in Discourse focuses on advisory practices in different contexts. Data is drawn from academic, educational and training settings, health-related practices, and computer-mediated communication. The languages involved are Cantonese, English, Finnish, Japanese, Spanish and Russian. The chapters treat professional and institutional practices, practices that contain peer interaction within an institutional framework, and non-institutional peer interaction, as well as solicited and non-solicited advice in written and spoken form. The work reported on clearly demonstrates the complexity of the advisory activity, which needs to be studied in its cultural framework and interactional context. The richness and diversity of this practice is studied from different methodological angles, covering qualitative and quantitative as well as theoretical and empirical analyses. The volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the research field, thought-provoking theoretical discussions and extensive references for future research. It is essential for linguists, advice-practitioners and for those who want to learn more about the discourse of advice.


In recent years, many experimental and theoretical research groups worldwide have actively worked on demonstrating the use of liquid crystals (LCs) as adaptive lenses for image generation, waveform shaping, and non-mechanical focusing applications. In particular, important achievements have concerned the development of alternative solutions for 3D vision. This work focuses on the design and evaluation of the electro-optic response of a LC-based 2D/3D autostereoscopic display prototype. A strategy for achieving 2D/3D vision has been implemented with a cylindrical LC lens array placed in front of a display; this array acts as a lenticular sheet with a tunable focal length by electrically controlling the birefringence. The performance of the 2D/3D device was evaluated in terms of the angular luminance, image deflection, crosstalk, and 3D contrast within a simulated environment. These measurements were performed with characterization equipment for autostereoscopic 3D displays (angular resolution of 0.03°).


These are exciting times for sociologists. Device-mediated communications enable unprecedented empirical opportunities to obtain real-time data on individual human interactions on a global scale. To realize this potential, the critical need is not a universally applicable theoretical framework but a widely shared analytical toolkit of models and methods for middle-range theorizing, including methods to collect, process, and analyze massive data, and to conduct online experiments with randomized assignment involving large numbers of participants.


Initializing and maintaining a track for a low observable (LO) (low SNR, low target detection probability and high false alarm rate) target can be very challenging because of the low information content of measurements. In addition, in some scenarios, target-originated measurements might not be present in many consecutive scans because of mispointing, target maneuvers, or erroneous preprocessing. That is, one might have a set of noninformative scans that could result in poor track initialization and maintenance. In this paper an algorithm based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm combined with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation is presented for tracking slowly maneuvering targets in heavy clutter and possibly noninformative scans. The adaptive sliding-window EM-ML approach, which operates in batch mode, tries to reject or weight down noninformative scans using the Q-function in the M-step of the EM algorithm. It is shown that target features in the form of, for example, amplitude information (AI), can also be used to improve the estimates. In addition, performance bounds based on the supplemented EM (SEM) technique are also presented. The effectiveness of new algorithm is first demonstrated on a 78-frame long wave infrared (LWIR) data sequence consisting of an Fl Mirage fighter jet in heavy clutter. Previously, this scenario has been used as a benchmark for evaluating the performance of other track initialization algorithms. The new EM-ML estimator confirms the track by frame 20 while the ML-PDA (maximum likelihood estimator combined with probabilistic data association) algorithm, the IMM-MHT (interacting multiple model estimator combined with multiple hypothesis tracking) and the EVIM-PDA estimator previously required 28, 38, and 39 frames, respectively. The benefits of the new algorithm in terms of accuracy, early detection, and computational load are illustrated using simulated scenarios as well.


With internet regulation and censorship on the rise, states increasingly engaging in online surveillance, and state cyber-policing capabilities rapidly evolving globally, concerns about regulatory "chilling effects" online—the idea that laws, regulations, or state surveillance can deter people from exercising their freedoms or engaging in legal activities on the internet have taken on greater urgency and public importance. But just as notions of "chilling effects" are not new, neither is skepticism about their legal, theoretical, and empirical basis; in fact, the concept remains largely un-interrogated with significant gaps in understanding, particularly with respect to chilling effects online. This work helps fill this void with a first-of-its-kind online survey that examines multiple dimensions of chilling effects online by comparing and analyzing responses to hypothetical scenarios involving different kinds of regulatory actions—including an anti-cyberbullying law, public/private sector surveillance, and an online regulatory scheme, based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), enforced through personally received legal threats/notices. The results suggest not only the existence and significance of regulatory chilling effects online across these different scenarios but also evidence a differential impact—with personally received legal notices and government surveillance online consistently having the greatest chilling effect on people's activities online—and certain online activities like speech, search, and personal sharing also impacted differently. The results also offer, for the first time, insights based on demographics and other similar factors about how certain people and groups may be more affected than others, including findings that younger people and women are more likely to be chilled; younger people and women are less likely to take steps to resist regulatory actions and defend themselves; and anti-cyberbullying laws may have a salutary impact on women's willingness to share content online suggesting, contrary to critics, that such laws may lead to more speech and sharing, than less. The findings also offer evidence of secondary chilling effects— where users' online activities are chilled even when not they, but others in their social networks receive legal processes.


In this thesis, I present an approach to a case-based reasoning system with explanation capabilities in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle domain. This product is meant to support Warhammer gamers in their initial army lineup, by providing suggestions based on previously successful games against an opposing horde. Explanations will be used in order to convey the reasoning behind the solution, to present the data the solution is based upon and why certain changes were made. The created product is capable of creating the army lineup and give partially satisfactory explanations, based on the goals set both for the application as a whole and explanations. Although a full domain model is not implemented, are the results promising; with the inclusion of more domain knowledge and cases, will a fully competent and accurate system be achievable.


The authors are seeking the best ways to employ evidence-based practices in software engineering research and practice so that the outcomes can inform practice and policy-making. The objective of this study is to investigate how other academic disciplines use evidence-based practices in order to help assess the guidelines that the authors have developed for conducting systematic literature reviews in software engineering. They undertook two studies to investigate how other domains used evidence-based practices. One used a questionnaire that was administered to a set of experts, and this was then followed up with a study that used semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding. As a result, the authors have identified how a number of disciplines that experience similar empirical constraints to those that apply to software engineering employ and rank different forms of empirical data. In conclusion, the authors describe the resulting changes that they made to their systematic literature review guidelines and also identify some issues that this study raises for empirical software engineering.


Objective In association with innate and adaptive immunity, the microbiota controls the colonisation resistance against intestinal pathogens. Caspase recruitment domain 9 (CARD9), a key innate immunity gene, is required to shape a normal gut microbiota. Card9 –/– mice are more susceptible to the enteric mouse pathogen Citrobacter rodentium that mimics human infections with enteropathogenic and enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli. Here, we examined how CARD9 controls C. rodentium infection susceptibility through microbiota-dependent and microbiota-independent mechanisms. Design C. rodentium infection was assessed in conventional and germ-free (GF) wild-type (WT) and Card9 –/– mice. To explore the impact of Card9 –/–microbiota in infection susceptibility, GF WT mice were colonised with WT (WT→GF) or Card9 –/– (Card9–/– →GF) microbiota before C. rodentium infection. Microbiota composition was determined by 16S rDNA gene sequencing. Inflammation severity was determined by histology score and lipocalin level. Microbiota–host immune system interactions were assessed by quantitative PCR analysis. Results CARD9 controls pathogen virulence in a microbiota-independent manner by supporting a specific humoral response. Higher susceptibility to C. rodentium-induced colitis was observed in Card9–/– →GF mice. The microbiota of Card9 –/– mice failed to outcompete the monosaccharide-consuming C. rodentium, worsening the infection severity. A polysaccharide-enriched diet counteracted the ecological advantage of C. rodentium and the defective pathogen-specific antibody response in Card9 –/– mice. Conclusions CARD9 modulates the susceptibility to intestinal infection by controlling the pathogen virulence in a microbiota-dependent and microbiota-independent manner. Genetic susceptibility to intestinal pathogens can be overridden by diet intervention that restores humoural immunity and a competing microbiota.


Abstract Here, I shall argue that Van Helmont needs to be added to the list of sources on which Newton drew when formulating his doctrine of absolute time. This by no means implies that Van Helmont is the factual source of Newton's views on absolute time (I have found no clear-cut evidence in support of this claim). It is by no means my aim to debunk the importance of the other sources, but rather to broaden them. Different authors help to explain different aspects of Newton's conception of absolute time.


Iwo Jima is a small volcanic island located in the Western Pacific about 1, 250 km south of Tokyo. The island, with an area about 23 km2, is mostly rimmed by sandy beaches exceeding 200 m in width. No ports or shore protection works have been constructed along the coast of this island since it became a territory of Japan. Further, the beach is always subjected to rough seas because it is fully exposed to the open sea. Therefore, a natural sandy beach has been preserved on this island, where we can observe the coastal geomorphology formed by ocean waves. It should be noted however, that there exists quite an unusual upheaval on this island. Since 1982, the author has been conducting various surveys along the entire coast of Iwo Jima to investigate both crustal movements and variations of the coastal geomorphology of this island. In this paper, cross-levelling data are analyzed to check variations of coastal geomorphology on Iwo Jima. Here, cross-levelling has been done at fifty measuring sections distributed along the entire beach of the island at intervals of roughly 300 m. The surveys have been performed 17 times so far since 1982 at each of the fifty sections, resulting in 850 data points. In the analysis, the following five physical terms have been chosen as the terms representing the features of the coastal geomorphology of the island : (1) Variations of the shoreline in a certain period, Δ Lx ; (2) Foreshore slope, Ifs ; (3) Variations of foreshore area in a certain period, Δ Sfs ; (4) Backshore slope, Ibs ; and (5) Foreshore height, Zfs.Analyses have been done on the data of each physical term to investigate both time-course and local variations. The following is a summary of the findings.(a) Shoreline has advanced roughly 50 m on average over the island during the past 14 years since 1982, and is still advancing at almost the same rate.(b) Foreshore slope is stable at every coast, keeping values which range from roughly 0.15 to 0.22.(c) Foreshore area has been increased roughly 170 m2 on average over the island during the past 14 years since 1982, and is still increasing at almost the same rate.(d) Backshore slope is stable at every coast, keeping values which range from roughly 0.08 to 0.18.(e) Foreshore height ranges from 1.6 m to 4.2 m, although it varies with time and location.


The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) land degradation neutrality (LDN) scientific conceptual framework underscores that LDN planning and implementation should be integrated into existing planning processes and supported by an enabling policy environment. Land-use planning, which requires the integration of different policy goals across various sectors concerned with land-use, can be an effective mechanism through which decisions with respect to LDN can be coordinated. Using Kenya as a case study, we examined current policy instruments that directly or indirectly impact on the use of land in a rural context, to assess their potential to implement LDN objectives. The qualitative content analysis of these instruments indicated that they are rich with specific legal provisions and measures to address LDN, and that there are a number of relevant institutions and structures across governance levels. However, the main shortcoming is the disjointed approach that is scattered across policy areas. Key policy improvements needed to support effective implementation of LDN include: a national soil policy on the management and protection of soil and land; a systematic and coordinated data collection strategy on soils; mobilisation of adequate and sustained financial resources; streamlined responsibilities, and governance structures across national, regional and county levels.


The organization of this thesis very much coincides with the progress and "evolution" of my work here at Caltech. I came in at a time when our research activities entered a phase of full-scale realization of holographic storage after theoretical model building and proof-of-principle investigations were successfully carried out. More and more efforts have been dedicated to various experimental examination and demonstrations. Therefore, the major portion of this thesis details results from these efforts. Theoretical treatments are developed when necessary and only serve as the starting point and justification of further, serious experimentation.

The centerpiece of my work described in this thesis is a large-scale fast random-access holographic memory using LiNbO[subscript 3]Fe. It is not only our first attempt to incorporate many important disciplines and understandings of holographic memory design, engineering and experimentation to construct a real working prototype, but also a tool and test-bed for later characterization and investigation of other aspects in the application of holographic storage technology. This system is described in detail in Chapter 2 and 3 and has been used repeatedly and extensively through all of our works. Another two threads in the work presented here are the use of the M/# as a system metric to evaluate the dynamic range limitations, and of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and Bit-Error Rate (BER) to characterize the system error performance.

In Chapter 2, the design of a large-scale random-access holographic memory using LiNbO[subscript 3]Fe is discussed in detail. High, system dynamic-range-limited storage capacity is demonstrated by using angle, fractal and spatial multiplexing with a key custom-designed component—the segmented mirror array. The SNR and BER obtained from the reconstructed information are comparable to those of conventional CD-ROMs.

Fast random access to the memory contents is materialized in a separate system using an acousto-optic deflector (AOD) as the addressing device and an electro-optic modulator (EOM) to compensate for the Doppler shift. Chapter 3 discusses the design issues and presents experimental demonstration of holographic storage using the system. The design and application of an optical phase-lock loop using the AOD and EOM for phase stabilization are also described at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 4 and 5 address two methods of thermal fixing to solve the volatility problem in holographic memories using photorefractive materials. First, "Low-High-Low" fixing is described in Chapter 4, along with the characterization of system error performance of non-volatile holographic storage using thermal fixing. A novel "incremental fixing schedule" is introduced to improve the system fixing efficiency. Experimental demonstration of a large-scale non-volatile memory with good error performance is also presented.

Chapter 5 shows theoretical treatment and experimental demonstration of high-temperature recording in LiNb0[subscript 3]Fe. Different charge transport mechanisms and their influence on the dynamics of holographic recording as well as the system dynamic range are discussed in detail. The two thermal fixing methods are examined and compared in terms of the M/#.

In Chapter 6, a very important holographic noise source, the inter-pixel grating noise, is evaluated theoretically based on a linear (small-signal) model, followed by experimental investigation of its influence on the system error performance of a large-scale memory. Random-phase modulation in the signal beam is discussed and demonstrated as an effective way to suppress this holographic noise.


This paper reports experiments on the possibility of formulating operational models of adaptive/evolutionary non-convex general equilibrium systems to be adoptable as a framework for social choice to implement a socially optimal growth and climate change program. To perform this task, this paper develops and implements a growth model which includes climate change and the adaptive process of endogenous technical progress in a new growth modelling non-convex framework named ADICE-ADAPTIVE as a framework for social choice and welfare optimisation in a knowledge economy. Literature in this area is not well developed and the present study has advanced knowledge in this field. A numerical implementation of an optimisation climate change and growth model with the adaptive processes of endogenous technical progress encounters difficulties of non-existence of an optimum solution. The feasible endogenous model results show an absolute reduction in GHG emissions and only a slower rise in GDP growth implying sustainability of social welfare both in economic and environmental terms. The present experiments show the limitations of climate change policies implied by known integrated climate change and economic growth optimisation models and the problems and prospects for formulating an optimal growth program in a knowledge economy including the climate sector. The findings of the study have implications for the need for and the possibility of optimal social choice and economic equilibrium in a non-convex intertemporal knowledge economy, taking into account the climate sector. Policy implications of the result emphasise research and development to foster technical progress which can have a positive effect on sustainability.


Mercury, Hg, is toxic heavy metal that is present in the environment because of natural and anthropogenic sources. Due to its high toxicity and its presence in aquatic systems, it is important to develop methodologies to control its existence in the environment.
This work tends to evaluate the extraction efficiency of mercury with ionic liquid (ILs) such as trioctylmethylammonium thiosalicylate (TOMATS) and trioctylmethylammonium salicylate (TOMAS), in extraction systems with solvents and with polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs).
It has been performed liquid-liquid extraction efficiency studies and elution with these two ILs depending on the pH and media that the mercury is found. It has been observed that TOMATS IL extracts mercury more efficiently than TOMAS LI and that it is not affected by the pH, but it is affected by the presence of high chloride concentrations. The best mercury extraction for the thiosalicylate derivate is due to the stronger interaction that presents this metal for the molecules with sulphur atoms. The elution of the metal-extracted is been possible using cysteine as an eluent for the case of IL with thiosalycilate anion, while in the case of the IL with salycilate anion, EDTA also allowed the metal recuperation. It has been designed a separation system based on PIMs. With this aim, 50% CTA + 50% IL (TOMATS or TOMAS) membranes have been used. In the same way that in liquid-liquid studies, the TOMATS IL was more effective in the metal extraction than TOMAS. When this membrane was implemented in a device in order to allow the metal preconcentration, using a 0,001 M cysteine as receptor phase, it was showed the correct efficiency of the system. It has been possible to transport between 70-80% of the metal present in natural water samples. In addition, it has been observed that there is a lineal tendency between mercury concentration in the aqueous phase and the recuperated one in the receptor phase. This fact shows the possibility of using this device as a passive mercury sampler in natural water


We examined effects of tempo and mode on spatial ability, arousal, and mood. A Mozart sonata was performed by a skilled pianist and recorded as a MIDI file. The file was edited to produce four versions
 that varied in tempo (fast or slow) and mode (major or minor). Participants listened to a single version and completed measures of spatial ability, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was
 superior after listening to music at a fast rather than a slow tempo, and when the music was presented in major rather than minor mode. Tempo manipulations affected arousal but not mood, whereas mode manipulations
 affected mood but not arousal. Changes in arousal and mood paralleled variation on the spatial task. The findings are consistent with the view that the "Mozart effect" is a consequence of changes in arousal
 and mood.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the cost to the NHS resulting from multiple pregnancies arising from IVF treatment in the UK, and to compare those costs with the cost to the NHS due to singleton pregnancies resulting from IVF treatment.

DESIGN
A modelling study using data from published literature and cost data from national sources in the public domain, calculating direct costs from the diagnosis of a clinical pregnancy until the end of the first year after birth.

SETTING
Academic Unit of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine.

POPULATION
Theoretic core modelling study using data from published literature.

METHODS
The analysis was based on the total annual number of births resulting from an IVF treatment in the UK. Main outcome measures total direct costs to the NHS per IVF singleton, twin or triplet family.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Cost of singleton, twin and triplet IVF pregnancies in the UK.

RESULTS
Total direct costs to the NHS per IVF twin or triplet family (maternal + infant costs) are substantially higher than per IVF singleton family (singleton: pounds 3313; twin: pounds 9122; and triplet: pounds 32,354). Multiple pregnancies after IVF are associated with 56% of the direct cost of IVF pregnancies, although they represent less than 1/3 of the total annual number of maternities in the UK.

CONCLUSIONS
Multiple pregnancies after IVF are associated with high direct costs to the NHS. Redirection of money saved by implementation of a mandatory 'two embryo transfer' policy into increased provision of IVF treatment could double the number of NHS-funded IVF treatment cycles at no extra cost. Further savings could be made if a selective 'single embryo transfer' policy were to be adopted.


The North American Free Trade Agreement has been misconceived, from its inception, as an economic agreement, but NAFTA's geopolitical and social importance go far beyond the economic sphere. This article contends that the NAFTA parties should address the social repercussions of economic integration in North America, and should consider adopting joint policies to assist disadvantaged persons and poorer regions within North America. The article contrasts the experience of NAFTA with that of the European Union, with its broad policies of social cohesion that are directed at leveling the differences in economic development between regions. The central thesis of the article is that the public infrastructure for a competitive, prosperous economy is lacking in Mexico, and that such an infrastructure is not likely to be established in the near future without assistance from Mexico's NAFTA partners, which are the most logical source of assistance. The unauthorized migration of Mexican workers to the United States, a prime safety valve for the Mexican poor, is one result of NAFTA's shortcoming in this regard. After a brief survey of development assistance to Mexico, the article suggests an alternative to the present approach: the creation of a North American Regional Development Fund to counteract weaknesses in physical and institutional infrastructure in Mexico.


Abstract During Helium implantation or generation in finite geometries, space dependent parameters and features affect Helium transport through the material. Conventional kinetic rate-theory models assume strictly homogeneous field parameters and as such can not directly resolve space dependent phenomena of helium transport. The current work outlines a new approach to simulate space-dependent helium transport during irradiation in finite geometries. The model and the numerical code, called HEROS, are described and applied to simulate typical IFE relevant helium implantation conditions. A case study using the HAPL IFE reactor design is used to demonstrate the capabilities of the HEROS code. It is shown that the HEROS code is capable of simulating very complex transient and space dependent Helium transport in finite geometries, including the simultaneous transient production of defects and space- and time-dependent temperature and temperature gradients. Space dependent nucleation and growth of helium bubbles during implantation are modeled along with the impact of biased migration and coalescence of Helium bubbles.


Background and Objective: Malaria is an arthropod-borne infectious disease transmitted by the mosquito Anopheles and claims millions of lives globally every year. Reasons for failure to eradicate this disease are multifactorial. The seasonality of the malaria is principally determined by climatic factors conducive for breeding of the vector. We aimed to study the relationship between climatic variability and the seasonality of malaria over an eight-year duration. Methods: This was a retrospective medical chart review of 8,844 confirmed cases of malaria which presented to The Indus Hospital, Karachi from January 2008 to November 2015. Cases were plotted against meteorological data for Karachi to elicit monthly variation. Results: A secular incline and seasonality in malaria cases over the duration of eight years was seen. More cases were reported in the summer, rainy season compared with the other three seasons in each year. There was significant association with specific climate variables such as temperature, moisture, and humidity. Conclusion: There is a marked seasonal variation of malaria in Karachi, influenced by various environmental factors. Identification of the 'the concentrated period' of malaria can be helpful for policymakers to deploy malaria control interventions.


An indirect amperometric detection of underivatized amino acids has been developed based on the use of a plastic film ring-disk carbon electrode in liquid chromatography. Bromide present in the postcolumn addition reagent is oxidized to bromine at the upstream (disk) electrode, and is subsequently detected at the downstream (ring) electrode. Most of the underivatized amino acids that are electroinactive under conventional amperometric conditions can react rapidly with the electrogenerated bromine. The concentration of amino acids can therefore be indirectly determined by continuously monitoring the reduction current of bromine. The signal monitored at the downstream electrode was largely dependent on the pH of the mobile phase, the generation and collection potentials, and the bromide concentration in the mobile phase. Under the optimized conditions, the detection limits of the 0.5 µM level were obtained for a number of amino acids with a linear correlation coefficient of 0.990–0.998 over the concentration range 1–100 µM. The primary advantage of this approach lies in the capability that it affords a simple and sensitive determination of underivatized amino acids. In addition, it was almost unaffected by fouling effects normally arising from the anodic oxidation of the sulfur-containing amino acid.


Among the many groups of workers whose labor built Singapore in the 20th century, there may be none as marginalized in memory as the women who travelled from China and Japan to work in Singapore as prostitutes. This study sketches in the trade in women and children in Asia, and - making innovative use of Coroner's Inquests and other records - hones in on the details of the prostitutes lives in the colonial city: the daily brothel routine, personal crises and violence, social relations, leisure, mobility, disease and death.

The result is a powerful historical account of human nature, of human relationships, of pride, prejudice, struggle and spirit. Ordinary people tumble from the pages of the records: they talk about choice of partners, love and betrayal, desperation and alienation, drawing us into their lives.

This social history is a powerful corrective to the romantic image of colonial Singapore as a city of excitement, sophistication, exotic charm and easy sex.


The small business capital gains tax (CGT) concessions are critical upon small businesses selling assets such as goodwill and real property as well as business restructuring. This article examines the alternative small business entity (SBE) and $6m net asset value basic conditions that small businesses need to be met to access the small business CGT concessions. While this article finds that the alternative SBE test and net asset value basic conditions clearly allow the vast majority of small businesses to potentially access the four small business CGT concessions, there are a number of other factors that work to limit its practical scope, such as further restrictive conditions and the high level of complexity. Many small business owners appear to be ignorant of the CGT implications of their decisions when they commence operations and as they grow their businesses. Tax practitioners and administrators need to understand these complex rules and work closely with small business. In particular, tax practitioners will need to be proactive in dealing with their clients to ensure eligibility and to maximise the four CGT concessions.


This paper analyzes Korea's growth process, not only rapid but also sustained for six decades at 6% per year. The sources of such growth were balanced among labor market demographic factors, capital investment, human capital accumulation, and productivity growth. However, the main engine of growth evolved sequentially, e.g., labor and human capital factors in the 1960s, capital deepening in the 1970s, and then productivity growth for the following periods. We found that major sources of the six-decade sustained growth were productivity growth and human capital accumulation rather than the expansion of labor force or capital investment. Counterfactual analysis of neoclassical growth model reveals that the accelerated productivity growth after the fast capital deepening was the key to Korea's long-term growth, avoiding the middle-income trap. Appropriate calibration of the neoclassical growth model allowing time-varying transitional growth parameters explains Korea's growth experience well and provides useful lessons for sustainable development policy.


Motivated by collaboration with a global spare parts service provider, we consider a two-echelon inventory system with multiple local warehouses, a so-called support warehouse, and a central warehouse with ample capacity. In case of stock-outs, the local warehouses can receive emergency shipments from the support warehouse or the central warehouse at an extra cost. Our focus is on using information on orders in the replenishment pipeline, i.e., pipeline information, to achieve cost-efficient policies for requesting emergency shipments. We introduce a policy where the request for an emergency shipment is based on the time until an outstanding order will reach the stock point considered. The goal is to determine how long one should wait for stock in the replenishment pipeline before requesting an emergency shipment, and the cost effects of using pipeline information in this manner. The analysis utilizes results from queuing theory and provides a decomposition technique for optimizing the policy parameters that reduces the complex multiechelon problem to more manageable single-echelon problems. The performance of our policy indicates that there can be a significant benefit in using pipeline information.


Phytoplankton species composition and primary production werestudied in the Atlantic Sector of the Southern Ocean in early austral summer1995/1996. Results from photosynthesis-irradiance experiments (P vs E curves)were used to examine photosynthetic adaptation in this part of the ocean. The studyarea comprised 3 different provinces: the Antarctic Polar Front (APF), the AntarcticCircumpolar Current (ACC) beyond the influence of frontal systems, and themarginal ice zone (MIZ). Phytoplankton composition derived from HPLC data,P*m (maximum biomass-specific photosynthetic production rate) values and arealdaily primary production (ADP) rates showed different features for these zones. Thecentral core of the APF was dominated (60%) by a bloom of large (>20 µm)diatoms (Thalassiothrix spp., Pseudonitzschia cf. lineola and Chaetoceros spp.),equal values for P*m at the surface and 1% light depths and ADP rates exceeding900 mg C m-2 d-1. At the fringes of the APF core, phytoplankton were smaller,diatom abundance decreased and dinoflagellates, prymnesiophytes and chrysophytesbecame more important within the community. Chlorophyll a concentrations andADP rates were low and comparable to values for the ACC outside the front: <0.5mg m-3 and <300 mg C m-2 d-1 respectively. Beyond the frontal systems, P*mvalues from the 1% light depth were significantly higher than at the surface. Therewas also a bloom of large phytoplankton species within the MIZ, dominated incontrast by Phaeocystis spp.; this province was characterised by ADP rates of 558mg C m-2 d-1. Vertical mixing processes, temperature, silicate concentrations andzooplankton grazing seem to be the factors controlling production and growth ofphytoplankton at this time.


This paper looks at the empirical record whether big infrastructure and public capital drives have succeeded in accelerating economic growth in low-income countries. It looks at big long-lasting drives in public capital spending, as these were arguably clear and exogenous policy decisions. On average the evidence shows only a weak positive association between investment spending and growth and only in the same year, as lagged impacts are not significant. Furthermore, there is little evidence of long term positive impacts. Some individual countries may be exceptions to this general result, as for example Ethiopia in recent years, as high public investment has coincided with high GDP growth, but it is probably too early to draw definitive conclusions. The fact that the positive association is largely instantaneous argues for the importance of either reverse causality, as capital spending tends to be cut in slumps and increased in booms, or Keynesian demand effects, as spending boosts output in the short run. It argues against the importance of long term productivity effects, as these are triggered by the completed investments (which take several years) and not by the mere spending on the investments. In fact a slump in growth rather than a boom has followed many public capital drives of the past. Case studies indicate that public investment drives tend eventually to be financed by borrowing and have been plagued by poor analytics at the time investment projects were chosen, incentive problems and interest-group-infested investment choices. These observations suggest that the current public investment drives will be more likely to succeed if governments do not behave as in the past, and instead take analytical issues seriously and safeguard their decision process against interests that distort public investment decisions.


Aim of the study: The aim of the study is to gain knowledge about how student-run teams in clinical practice can contribute to nursing students' development of professional independence. Background: In this educational model nurses are supervising students in their running of a team at a hospital ward. The students are responsible for meeting the patients' need of nursing care. The role of the supervising nurses is merely supervisors without responsibility for patients outside the team. Each nurse supervises four students. Methods: Data were collected from students and nurse supervisors through focus group interviews. A qualitative analysis technique was used to analyze the data. Results: Crucial factors for students' development of professional independence in this model are: adapted workload, suitable responsibility, sufficient supervision and peer teaching. Factors such as not to be given responsibility getting too much responsibility high workload and absence of supervision decreased the students' development of professional independence. Conclusions: The student-run team contributes for some students to development of the students' professional independence in nursing.


This paper presents the concept of the Elasto-Hydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL) effect for the thrust slide-bearings in scroll compressors, which accounts for the superior lubrication characteristics of these bearings. The thrust plate undergoes elastic deformation due to axial loading, resulting in the formation of a fluid wedge between the orbiting and fixed thrust plates, a region with very high induced oil film pressure which, in turn, accounts for the remarkably good lubrication characteristics of the thrust slide-bearing. Furthermore, the high oil film pressure induces further elastic deformation of the thrust plate, which forms a lubrication pocket with the thrust plate, more effectively increasing the oil film pressure between the sliding surfaces. The formation of the lubrication pocket was confirmed using FEM analysis and lubrication tests on the elastic deformation of the thrust plate. Subsequently a computer simulation flow chart to analyze the elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication of thrust slide-bearing is presented.


Most observations of polluted white dwarf atmospheres are consistent with accretion of water-depleted planetary material. Among tens of known cases, merely two involve accretion of objects that contain a considerable mass fraction of water. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relative scarcity of these detections. Based on a new and highly detailed model, we evaluate the retention of water inside icy minor planets during the high-luminosity stellar evolution that follows the main sequence. Our model fully considers the thermal, physical, and chemical evolution of icy bodies, following their internal differentiation as well as water depletion, from the moment of their birth and through all stellar evolution phases preceding the formation of the white dwarf. We also account for different initial compositions and formation times. Our results differ from previous studies, which have either underestimated or overestimated water retention. We show that water can survive in a variety of circumstances and in great quantities, and therefore other possibilities are discussed in order to explain the infrequency of water detection. We predict that the sequence of accretion is such that water accretes earlier, and more rapidly, than the rest of the silicate disk, considerably reducing the chance of its detection in H-dominated atmospheres. In He-dominated atmospheres, the scarcity of water detections could be observationally biased. It implies that the accreted material is typically intrinsically dry, which may be the result of the inside-out depopulation sequence of minor planets.


The direct link between the United States' energy security policy and its military policy in the Persian Gulf can be traced back to the formulation of the Carter doctrine in the late 19705 and the subsequent creation of the rapid deployment force (RDF)-ancestor to the US central command (CENTCOM)-in the early igSos.' The threat has evolved with the strategic context-from a Soviet incursion into the Gulf after the invasion of Afghanistan, to an Iranian attack against the Gulf monarchies after 1979, to the regional security implications of the Iraq-1 ran war, to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein after the end of the war with Iran-but the objective has remained the same: to "sanctuarize" the petro-monarchies of the Gulf, and especially Saudi Arabia, against any external threat; in other words, to prevent the heart of the world oil system from being caught up into the regional political instability.FROM POLICEMAN TO POLITICAL ENGINEERTo use a term from political philosophy, US involvement in the Persian Gulf under the Carter doctrine amounted to applying a "negative power": it was meant to prevent people from doing certain things more than it aimed at shaping the region. The US has made it impossible for Iran and Iraq, successively, to threaten the security of the production and export facilities of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the sea-lanes of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. But from the late 1970s until 11 September 2001, the US had never seriously tried to change the regimes of Iran, Iraq, or Syria, to prevent Iraq and Iran from fighting, or to push for political reforms in the monarchies of the Gulf. The type of power that the United States has applied in the Middle East under the Carter doctrine is that of a policeman, not that of a planner.After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Bush administration undertook a complete reorientation of US policy in the Middle East. At the core of the new approach is the idea that to win the "war on terrorism" the United States must take advantage of its unprecedented power to "advance freedom"-promote democracy and market economy-throughout the world, and especially across the Arab-Muslim world. The second aspect of the Bush doctrine-as the new policy has come to be called-is the concept of "preemptive war," which actually means preventive war: the nature of the threat confronting the United States-a combination of transnational terrorist networks, "evil regimes," failed states, and the proliferation of unconventional weapons-requires that the US be ready to act preventively. This second pillar of the Bush doctrine contributes to its "revolutionary" character but is of less importance for the purpose of this article than the policy of democracy promotion in the Middle East.The first comprehensive policy document presenting the Bush doctrine was the national security strategy of the United States of America (NSS) released by the White House in September 2002. It was also conveyed to the American people and to the world in a series of speeches by President Bush in 2002 and 2003.2 The latest NSS document, published in March 2006, tones down the doctrine of "preemption"-though it formally maintains it-but strongly reaffirms the strategic commitment to the "advancement of liberty." In his introductory letter, Bush reaffirms that "fighting and winning the war on terror and promoting freedom as the alternative to tyranny and despair" are the two "inseparable priorities" of US foreign policy, and that "the advance of liberty will make America more secure." The first sentence of the NSS itself states: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."1 The Bush doctrine has evoked an intense debate among foreign policy experts but, more than three years after the launch of the war in Iraq, the promotion of political freedom is still the guiding principle of the Bush administration's Middle East policy. …


Ubiquitous technology depends upon imposing standards. Choices in function and form reflect the homogenization of artifacts, necessitated by the intentions of experts to satisfy a plurality of users. In material publics, users with expert knowledge can develop customized artifacts satisfying desired affordances or aesthetics. This project involves a media archaeology of computer keyboard design to explore the relationship between experts, publics, and the creation of these artifacts. Participation in these communities and study of enthusiast records result in a public-expert knowledge. The importance granted to minutia of design, from the choice of plastics to spring tensioning, parallels new form factors that reflect highly personalized choices. These reassert user control over the materiality of an otherwise ubiquitous and mundane mediating artifact. Publics then create a new political materiality by recomposing artifacts beyond what commercial expertise prescribes.