The study was designed to assess the effects of unknown vocabulary on second language reading comprehension. Sixty-eight Grade 10 core French second language students took multiple choice comprehension tests on three passages, each of which involved differing proportions of unknown vocabulary. In the control condition the passages had no unknown words. In the medium condition one in 10 substance words were substituted with unknown vocabulary and in the difficult condition a substitution rate of one in six substance words was used. It was found that students performed significantly better on the control condition than on the other two (p < .05). No differences were found between the medium and difficult conditions. -- Results confirm the high correlations consistently found between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension and suggest that second language students are linguistically bound to the text. The theoretical implications for current interactive models of reading are discussed and classroom and curricular strategies are suggested for overcoming or circumventing difficulties in reading comprehension caused by vocabulary difficulty.


A valuable reference for both the pre-service and in-service elementary Physical Education teacher, this text complements Dynamic Physical Education for Elementary School Children, Sixteenth Edition. Teachers of kindergarten through sixth grade will benefit from using these lesson plans as a guide for presenting movement experiences and skills in a sequential and well-ordered manner. Plans also include ideas for integrating academic content into daily classes. The lessons are presented in three complete sets that cover unique developmental levels, grades K-2, 3-4, and 5-6. Each section contains a year-long syllabus to assist teachers with planning. This newly revised text includes all the information necessary to present a comprehensive lesson.


This paper examines the role of assets and liabilities in socio-economic mobility patterns using findings from 293 life-history interviews, conducted by the author and a small team of researchers in rural Bangladesh in 2007. The analysis shows that individuals on trajectories of long-term improvement in well-being are more likely to have had access to, or to have invested in, a range of productive, investment, or protective assets. Tangible assets such as shops, land, livestock, vehicles and agricultural machinery had direct effects on poverty status and on improvements in life trajectories over the long term; less tangible assets such as investments made in education, networks of relationships, or social status, were less easily assessed but also had positive effects. Characteristics of the most important types of assets are discussed, and the mechanisms by which they contribute to well-being are explored. The paper argues that liabilities should be included in 'asset-based' approaches to poverty dynamics. Liabilities counter the positive effects of assets and hold poor people in poverty, and cause others to decline over the long term. These include monetary debt, but also non-tangible liabilities such as illness, dowry, disability, social stigma, physical insecurity, subjection to domination, and other forms of disadvantage or incapacity. These downward pressures are better portrayed as the presence of a liability, rather than the absence of an asset. The paper argues that 'asset-based' approaches to poverty research need to become asset and liability-based. The analysis of life histories illustrates that a lack of accounting for liabilities can allow the causes of decline or stagnation in people's lives to be misjudged, allowing for the possibility of biased policy recommendations.


BACKGROUND
Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are third leading cause of nosocomial infection. Therefore, an effective, accurate and early detection of VRE along with their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) is required to initiate appropriate therapy and thus better patient outcome.

OBJECTIVE
To detect VRE by real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) and to compare the results with chrom ID (C-ID) VRE and PCR. Further the study also determined the fold change of vanA gene by Q-PCR in different groups of VRE isolates classified on the basis of glycopeptides MIC range.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
A total of 145 (80 VRE and 65 vancomycin-susceptible enterococci) clinical isolates were included in the study. After the screening of VRE isolates MICs were determined by E-test and agar dilution method. Further VRE was confirmed by vanA and vanB specific PCR and Q-PCR.

RESULTS
The sensitivity and specificity of C-ID VRE was 100% and 95.38%. However, sensitivity and specificity of conventional and Q-PCR were found to be 100%. Conventional and Q-PCR confirmed that our all isolates were vanA type. Mean R value was significantly higher ( P < 0.001) in group I (MIC > 1024 μg/ml) when compared to group II (MIC 512-1024 μg/ml) and group III (MIC < 512 μg/ml) isolates. The mean R was also significantly higher in group II when compared to group III isolates ( P = 0.038).

CONCLUSION
Q-PCR is a rapid technique to detect vanA in enterococci along with their MIC range, thus it might be helpful to decide the treatment modalities of infections caused by VRE.


We develop a method to estimate domain-specific risk. We apply the method to sickness insurance by fitting a utility function at the individual level, using European survey data on life satisfaction. Three results stand out. First, relative risk aversion increases with income. Second, marginal utility is higher in the sick state conditional on income, due to an observed fixed cost of sickness. Third, the domain-specificity of risk shifts the focus on the smoothing of utility, not consumption. The optimal policy rule implies that the replacement rates should be non-linear and decrease with income.


This chapter addresses the language issue in classrooms in Ghana and Tanzania. It is premised on the belief that language and the issue of a good quality education are inseparable. It is not possible for learners to learn if they do not understand lessons; and they cannot understand lessons if they do not understand the language in which the lessons are taught. This is also the case with teachers. They cannot teach effectively if they have problems in expressing themselves in the language of instruction (LoI) (Clegg, 2005). To use Qorro's analogy (2003), it is not possible to have electricity supply without copper wires, which act as a conduit of electricity. So, to say that you are interested in quality education without paying attention to the language in which that education is transmitted is like saying you are interested in electricity but you don't care about the wiring system! For this reason, the issue of the language(s) used in classrooms takes centre stage in discussing the quality of education in African countries, many of which still use former colonial languages as LoI. This is not to imply that a language that is accessible to both learners and teachers is the only prerequisite of a good quality education. As contributions to this volume clearly show, there are other factors that contribute to quality in education. It would be proper to say language is a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving quality education. Wolff (2006, p.50) has put it succinctly: "language is not everything in education, but without language, everything is nothing in education".


Much work in the analysis of proxy caching has focused on high-level metrics such as hit rates, and has approximated actual reference patterns by ignoring exceptional cases such as connection aborts. Several of these low-level details have a strong impact on performance, particularly in heterogeneous bandwidth environments such as modem pools connected to faster networks. Trace-driven simulation of the modem pool of a large ISP suggests that "cookies" dramatically affect the cachability of resources; wasted bandwidth due to aborted connections can more than offset the savings from cached documents; and using a proxy to keep from repeatedly opening new TCP connections can reduce latency more than simply caching data.


Following World War II, German antifascists and nationalists in Buenos Aires believed theater was crucial to their efforts at community-building, and each population devoted considerable resources to competing against its rival onstage. This book tracks the paths of several stage actors from European theaters to Buenos Aires and explores how two of Argentina's most influential immigrant groups, German nationalists and antifascists (Jewish and non-Jewish), clashed. Theatrical performances articulated strident Nazi, antifascist, and Zionist platforms. Meanwhile, as their thespian representatives grappled onstage for political leverage among emigrants and Argentines, behind the curtain, conflicts simmered within partisan institutions and among theatergoers. Publicly they projected unity, but offstage nationalist, antifascist, and Zionist populations were rife with infighting on issues of political allegiance, cultural identity and, especially, integration with their Argentine hosts. The book reveals interchange and even mimicry between antifascist and nationalist German cultural institutions. Furthermore, performances at both theaters also fit into contemporary invocations of diasporas, including taboos and postponements of return to the native country, connections among multiple communities, and forms of longing, memory, and (dis)identification. Sharply divergent at first glance, their shared condition as cultural institutions of emigrant populations caused the antifascist Free German Stage and the nationalist German Theater to adopt parallel tactics in community-building, intercultural relationships, and dramatic performance. Its cross-cultural, polyglot blend of German, Jewish, and Latin American studies gives the book a wide, interdisciplinary academic appeal and offers a novel intervention in Exile studies through the lens of theater, in which both victims of Nazism and its adherents remain in focus.


The Internet has quickly evolved into a vast global network owned and operated by thousands of different administrative entities. During this time, it became apparent that vanilla shortest path routing would be insufficient to handle the myriad operational, economic, and political factors involved in routing. ISPs began to modify routing configurations to support routing policies - goals held by the router's owner that controlled which routes were chosen and which routes were propagated to neighbors. BGP, originally a simple path vector protocol, was incrementally modified over time with a number of mechanisms to support policies, adding substantially to the complexity. Much of the mystery in BGP comes not only from the protocol complexity, but also from a lack of understanding of the underlying policies and the problems ISPs face that are addressed by these policies. In this article we shed light on goals operators have and their resulting routing policies, why BGP evolved the way it did, and how common policies are implemented using BGP. We also discuss recent and current work in the field that aims to address problems that arise in applying and supporting routing policies.


With the onset of the new assessment procedures and regulations requiring GP trainees to have one general practice-based educational supervisor throughout their training programme, there are fears that course organisers and trainers will spend an increasing amount of time conducting assessments and appraisals, and less time teaching trainees, to the detriment of their learning. The new GP curriculum is explicit about the areas in which GP trainees should be proficient. The Learning and Teaching Guide emphasises the importance of reflecting on experience as part of the learning process, and comments on the importance of group work in providing peer support, the shaping of attitudes and preparation for assessments. This paper forms a review of the effectiveness of facilitated group work and its role in delivering the new curriculum in a way that complements, supports and is integrated with the teaching that trainers provide and self-directed learning sets. The teaching of the curriculum for general practice within three years is only possible because of the structured teaching that exists within its training programmes, and removal of group work would reduce the time that the GP trainees have for reflective learning by up to a third as well as removing the peer aspect of their learning. Facilitators have an important role to play in maximising the benefits of group work by concentrating on maintaining its safety for the participants and its focus. The use of group work does not replace the teaching of evidence-based medicine or in-house teaching: it enhances and encourages it. However, a better understanding of the role of each would enhance the whole.


This document defines a new Session Description Protocol (SDP) media-
level attribute, 'content'. The 'content' attribute
defines the content of the media stream to a more detailed level than
the media description line. The sender of an SDP session description
can attach the 'content' attribute to one or more media streams.
The receiving application can then treat each media stream differently
(e.g., show it on a big or small screen) based on its content.
[STANDARDS-TRACK]


Ultrafine-grained metals produced by severe plastic deformation processes are distinguished with many outstanding mechanical properties such as a combination of high strength and ductility or improved fatigue behavior and thus can be used to meet the high strength requirements of the metal forming industry. Although several severe plastic deformation processes have been developed over the last three decades, the industrial utilization of such materials is still in an early stage. Production of bulk UFG materials is still expensive. Therefore, the few applications are limited to the sports goods, biomedical parts or sputtering targets where the price of the parts mostly doesn't play a major role in the buying decision. To overcome the efficiency problems of current SPD methods, a new process, called "Equal Channel Angular Swaging" has been proposed which is based upon the combination of the conventional ECAP and the incremental bulk metal forming method of infeed rotary swaging.
In the current study, firstly, mechanics of the process is investigated by using slip line field approach. It is determined that unlike conventional ECAP, due to the kinematics of the process, the friction forces help the deformation by drawing the samples into the forming operation. Accordingly, the loads in the feeding direction are relatively low. Therefore, ECAS has a great potential as a continuous and so economical SPD process.
Secondly, in order to validate the slip line solution, a tool system has been developed. By the development, a thermo-mechanical coupled finite element simulation approach is utilized to investigate the effect of the geometrical parameters on material flow and temperature formation as well as process loads. It is determined that both, channel length and outer corner radius has a significant effect on the process. Accordingly, a middle channel length of 15 mm and an outer corner radius of 5 mm have been selected for the tool system of the model experiments.
First experiments with the developed tool system prove the feasibility of ECAS process. The deformation of round bars from two different materials, commercially pure copper and low carbon steel was possible. Moreover, the deformation on the samples follows predominantly a simple shear pattern. Developed thermo-mechanical coupled finite element models are capable of representing the deformation as well as the process loads required to form the materials. However, due to the highly idealized assumptions by the slip line field approach, defined analytical formulas overestimate the real process forces. Nonetheless, the analytical theory is capable of representing the load correlations.
The materials deformed by ECAS process are distinguished by an increased tensile strength compared to their as-received state. Moreover, microstructural investigations reveal that an average grain size under 1 µm can be achieved even after a single pass with the developed SPD process.
Although model experiments prove the feasibility of ECAS and the process loads, especially in the feeding direction are low which demonstrate the potential for a continuous and economical processing, the investigated feed rate of 1 mm/s isn't appropriate for a wide commercial implementation. Therefore, in the last step of investigations, the effect of the most important process parameters of friction, temperature, feeding speed and feeding type is investigated by means of finite element simulations. These simulations reveal that a discontinuous feeding is inevitable for the speed-up of ECAS process. Moreover, an active cooling is definitely necessary to keep the temperatures at acceptable levels and to ensure an efficient grain refinement.


Is the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs)—especially mobile technologies, such as the mobile phone and mobile services—causing power shifts of global media networks to working-class populations, particularly migrant workers? This article addresses this question by examining social movements in China and Asia that have led to empowering (or disempowering) working-class people since the beginning of the century. It also draws on both classic and recent volumes about communication technology, power, and social development. Mobiles have become almost ubiquitous among Chinese domestic migrant workers and international migrants in most Asian countries. What does this mean for migrant workers, especially for their social lives that may serve as the basis for new formations of solidarity, both wirelessly and face-toface? How do grassroots networks of migrants make use of mobile phones in their work and lives, in their cultural expression, and in the organization of social movements? After examining these questions in the context of China and selected Asian countries, this article discusses the broader implications for future ICT studies in the contexts of migrant populations, social movements, and social change.


We review the paper by Hunsucker and Davison published in the International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education in 2010. The authors' two-part goal was to describe a protocol they named "in-water intervention" (IWI) that uses abdominal thrusts (ATs) and to report on its effectiveness at assisting drowning victims in waterparks. We identify serious shortcomings in the paper's methodology, interpretation and use of the literature, and ethical principles. We conclude that their primary assertions were unsubstantiated by the evidence they presented.


Monthly live weights and heights at withers of Brown Swiss and Holstein heifers were compared in the period from birth to 18 months of age between 1991 and 1994. This study was carried out under harsh climatic conditions of Erzurum, situated in North-Eastern Anatolia with an altitude of 1950 m. During the experimental period annual mean temperature was 4.3 °C and minimum and maximum average monthly temperatures being -17 °C and 19.5 °C respectively. Total annual rainfall was 389 mm, and average humidity was 68.4 %. Feeding systems were based on medium quality roughage consisted of dry hay (grass, alfalfa and sainfoin) grazing in a medium quality pasture. A commercial feed concentrate of 16 % crude protein was fed with an including calf starter initially according to age and live weight. The number of live weight records used for Brown Swiss and Holstein was 1628 and 725 respectively. Mean live weights at birth, 6,12, and 18 months were 35.5, 111.1, 202.7 and 314.2 kg for Brown Swiss, and 36.2,122.7, 215.3 and 323.9 kg for Holstein whereas height at withers were 66, 86, 102 ve 113 cm for Brown Swiss and 65, 89, 104 ve 114 cm for Holstein respectively. Live weight were regressed on age with third-order regression separately for each breed. Linear effects of age were significant but not quadratic and cubic effects. According to tentative model analysis linear regression functions of Brown Swiss and Holstein were different, although linear regression coefficients were similar for both breeds.


The level and distribution of the costs and benefits of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulatory program for meat and poultry change dramatically once economywide effects are included in the analysis. Using a Social Accounting Matrix Model, we find that reduced premature deaths had a strong positive effect on household income, with economywide benefits almost double initial benefits. Contrary to expectations, reduced medical expenses resulted in a decrease in household income, while HACCP costs resulted in an increase. Net economywide benefits were slightly larger than initial net benefits, with poor households receiving a proportionally smaller share of the increased benefits than nonpoor because of their weak ties to the economy. Our SAM analysis provides policymakers useful information about who ultimately benefits from reduced foodborne illnesses and who ultimately pays the costs of food safety regulation. This analysis also sheds light on a number of issues central to cost-benefit analysis involving health, highlighting the danger of equating changes in income with changes in well-being.


Abstract The papers in this special section at once undertake and undermine the discourse of hybridity, at once to recognize the strength of its rhetorical force and critique the limits of its explanatory power. Rather than viewing hybridity as a kind of floating signifier in all its ambivalence as many postcolonial studies have been noted to have undertaken, the papers explore its conditions of possibility in the context of the materiality of the historical situation and specifically in the concreteness of the authors' inscription in history and the worldly particularity of literature, literary form, and criticism. As a category, for a number of years now, hybridity has seemed indispensable for the renewed examination of the formation of the canon, the development of forms, modes of writing, or adaptation of texts in the exploration of its "subversive" possibilities. Apart from its literary inflection, hybridity studies have dealt with the transcultural amalgamation of diverse dimensions focusing variously from the racial to the religious, often interrogating cultural dynamics. But both as a literary trope and discursive category, among the issues that might bear emphasizing is that hybridity as a post-colonial condition has been so often decontextualized as if the experience were homogenous in its assumed universality, rather than heterogeneous in its particularity.


This article discusses a restorative justice project operating for the past two years within the wing of "government collaborators" in an Italian prison. The project has involved the wing's prisoners, the local and national prisons' administration, and the local university. After offering a short presentation of the project's aims and results, the author suggests that the introduction of restorative practices in prison creates ambivalence among the prisoners and the staff because of contrasting pressures, tensions, obligations, and working procedures. On the one hand, there are the goals and rules that guide a restorative process; on the other, there are the rules and constraints of a total institution. While the author believes that restorative justice practices introduced within a prison can offer definite advantages, he concludes that it cannot presume to change the distinctive traits of a total institution and ultimately cannot escape being transformed into an ideology of punishment.


Abstract The Current Population Survey (CPS) is the source of official US labor force statistics. The wording of the CPS employment questions may not always cue respondents to include informal work in their responses, especially when providing proxy reports about other household members. In a survey experiment conducted using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk respondents, additional probing identified a substantial amount of informal work activity not captured by the CPS employment questions, both among those with no employment and among those categorized as employed based on answers to the CPS questions. Among respondents providing a proxy report for another household member, the share identifying additional work was systematically greater among those receiving a detailed probe that offered examples of types of informal work than among those receiving a simpler global probe. Similar differences between the effects of the detailed and the global probe were observed when respondents answered for themselves only among those who had already reported multiple jobs. The findings suggest that additional probing could improve estimates of employment and multiple job holding in the CPS and other household surveys, but that the nature of the probe is likely to be important.


Traditionally, city governments had seen such einformal settlements' as illegal slums, lacking proper services or layout and damaging both to the health of the occupants and to the appearance of the city. They attempt hastily to push through settlement schemes, which are based on misconceptions and spurious assumption. Since the 1960s, Korea has achieved remarkable success in reducing poverty. But behind this picture of growth and progress, Korean housing has experienced serious problems. Nearly a quarter of all households in 2000 lived in accommodation that did not meet minimum standards in terms of floor space and basic facilities. New housing can be a driver of urban regeneration and decent housing stimulates both physical and economic improvement. In Korea, the housing regeneration projects tend to construct multi-family housing units and to pay less attention to rehabilitation of existing housing and community. The key issues covered in this paper are: (1) the characteristics of low-income community and housing poverty, (2) causal model of housing regeneration, and (3) policy implications and issues. The issue of housing insecurity and inequality arises most acutely in the case of urban redevelopment projects in low-income residential areas. The following questions are still raised here: what role has the government played in the housing regeneration process? Who has benefited directly from the redevelopment of substandard housing areas? The primary goal of housing regeneration should be given actively involving local residents and tenants in the planning and management of housing provision and redevelopment as a prerequisite to successful programme delivery; and experimentation with different models of housing construction appropriate to local needs and the achievement of ebalanced' and sustainable regeneration.


Background: The incidence of catastrophic expenditure due to health-care costs is growing and is estimated to be one of the major contributors to poverty. The need to pay out-of-pocket can also mean that households do not seek care when they need it. The total economic burden of cancer therapy amounts to the mean of 36,812 Indian National Rupee (INR). Out of this, 40% comprises expenditure incurred before coming to the hospital. Objectives: This study assessed the total out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) of lung cancer patients before they seek services for treatment at a tertiary care center. Materials and Methods: This was an institution-based cross-sectional survey in newly diagnosed and registered lung cancer patients > 18 years old. Self-designed, pretested, semi-structured questionnaire for sociodemographic details and direct costs incurred under various subsets was used. Data were analyzed using Epi Info version 188.8.131.52. Results: Out of 91 patients registered, 73 (80.2%) were male. The median OOPE was 19000 INR (range: 8000–40,000). We found that the total mean expenditure (19,516.48 ± 6488.22) was almost ten times their per capita income (2012.444 ± 1283.09). The total mean direct medical costs incurred were 8974.73 ± 5252 INR and direct nonmedical costs incurred were 10,574.73 ± 4414 INR. This study further showed that the direct nonmedical costs incurred were significantly higher (P = 0.02) than the direct medical costs. Similarly, the costs incurred on diagnostics were significantly higher (P < 0.001) as compared to the cost incurred on medicines. Conclusion: Lung cancer patients face the burden of OOPE at every stage, starting from the initial visit to a local health facility till the final diagnosis and treatment at a tertiary health-care facility. More measures are warranted to curtail preregistration and pretreatment expenses such as preventing people from traveling long distances just for imaging and diagnostic facilities and hence curtailing nonmedical cataclysmic expenditure.


This research explores the role of identity within a knowledge intensive organizational setting in which frequent change, ambiguous work, autonomous work practices, and pervasive client relationships mean that organizational members face many complex challenges in their day-to-day work life. On the basis of a longitudinal, multi-level, intra-and inter-organizational study of a group of people within a regional marketing agency, an integrated approach is proposed and developed as a way to explore and emphasise the complex role of identity, as both a resource and a struggle, in this organizational setting. The approach is generated from iterative cycling between data and existing theory in which the concepts of social identities and identity work are drawn together as a way to provide insight into the role of identity within the research setting. The research participants are seen to engage in identity work in order to create, change, protect and switch between multiple work-related social identities. It is argued that this is a crucial part of agency work, which agency employees work hard to achieve. It is also argued that they use this 'fluid framework' of identity as way of dealing with some of the challenges of their everyday work. The research itself is underpinned by a methodology guided by symbolic interactionism. The conceptualisation of identity as an ongoing process with occasional pauses is rooted in the Meadian concept of the 'I' and the 'me'. The contribution of this study to the developing field of identity and organizations is in the building of a conceptual bridge between those whose main concern is with the dynamics of identity creation and those whose main concern is with the product or outcome of identity processes. A practical contribution is also made to further understanding identity at work through the insights gained within this research setting.


We consider learning on graphs, guided by kernels that encode similarity between vertices. Our focus is on random walk kernels, the analogues of squared exponential kernels in Euclidean spaces. We show that on large, locally treelike, graphs these have some counter-intuitive properties, specifically in the limit of large kernel lengthscales. We consider using these kernels as covariance matrices of e.g.\ Gaussian processes (GPs). In this situation one typically scales the prior globally to normalise the average of the prior variance across vertices. We demonstrate that, in contrast to the Euclidean case, this generically leads to significant variation in the prior variance across vertices, which is undesirable from the probabilistic modelling point of view. We suggest the random walk kernel should be normalised locally, so that each vertex has the same prior variance, and analyse the consequences of this by studying learning curves for Gaussian process regression. Numerical calculations as well as novel theoretical predictions for the learning curves using belief propagation make it clear that one obtains distinctly different probabilistic models depending on the choice of normalisation. Our method for predicting the learning curves using belief propagation is significantly more accurate than previous approximations and should become exact in the limit of large random graphs.


From Aari to Zulu: Massively Multilingual Creation of Language Tools using Interlinear Glossed Text Ryan Georgi Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Fei Xia Linguistics This dissertation examines the suitability of Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT) as a computational, semi-structured resource for creating NLP tools for resource-poor languages, with a focus on the tasks of word alignment, part-of-speech (POS) tagging, and dependency parsing. The creation of a massively multilingual database of IGT instances called the Online Database of INterlinear text (Odin) made possible the potential for creating tools to harness this particular data format on a large scale. Xia and Lewis (2007); Lewis and Xia (2008) demonstrated the potential of using IGT instances from Odin to answer some typological questions such as basic word order for a large number of languages by means of utilizing the language–gloss–translation line structure of IGT instances to bootstrap word alignment, and consequentially syntactic projection. This dissertation seeks to perform a thorough investigation as to the potential for creating these NLP tools for endangered or otherwise resource-poor languages with nothing more than the IGT instances found in Odin. After introducing the IGT data type and the particulars of the resources that will be used (Sections 3.1 to 4.4), this thesis presents each task in detail. Word alignment will be discussed in Chapter 5, POS tagging in Chapter 6, and dependency parsing in Chapter 7. In Chapter 8, INterlinear Text ENrichment Toolkit (Intent), the software created to enrich the IGT data and extract NLP tools from it will be introduced, and a brief summary of where to find and use the software will be included. Lastly, Chapter 9 will discuss aims of the experiments, and the overall viability of IGT for the tasks attempted.


In this paper we describe the simulation of Taiwan's climate for the period 1979-1981 using the Hadley Centre PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies) regional climate modeling system. The PRECIS simulations of surface precipitation and temperature have been compared in detail with the Central Weather Bureau measurements, and also with outputs from the IPCC global climate models such as the HadCM3, the CCSR, and the NCEP 50-year reanalysis data. Our results show that the very complicated spatial patterns of surface rainfall as revealed from the measurements can only be reproduced using the PRECIS model. The inter-annual variability in rainfall has shown to be well reproduced by the PRECIS model. The PRECIS model also demonstrates a good capability in simulating the spatial distribution of surface temperature over the whole of Taiwan, especially over Taiwan's Central Mountain Range. Since the PRECIS simulations were produced in combination with the ERA-15 global model results, our results show that a good way forward in conducting regional climate modeling at the national level requires the use of both global climate models and high resolution regional climate models.


This paper summarizes the experience gained as an addition to Catalog of the Earth's Impact Structures with the new craters discovered by the authors. 79 new potential astroblemes from 4 to 1600 km in diameter have been added. Our concept of the search for craters is being supplemented with new elements: the location of the volcanic formations on a board of giablemes; the triangular shape of some craters. The impact origin of one of triangular craters has been confirmed in this research.


Materials exhibiting new functionalities due to interdependent electric (e.g. conductivity) and magnetic properties are potentially interesting for spintronics applications. We have investigated electronic and magnetic properties by means of x-ray spectroscopies and SQUID magnetometry in several magnetic materials, often in the form of thin films, which have shown promising properties for applications.One of the main subjects has been studies of inter-diffusion between layers in multilayer structures, which is an important factor for spin-dependent transport and magnetic properties. These studies have been performed by high kinetic (HIKE) photoemission spectroscopy where high photon energies increase the bulk sensitivity in comparison to soft x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Cu/Ni multilayers were studied mainly as a model system and revealed a diffusion process that was dependent on layer thicknesses and capping materials. CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB, which is used as a magnetic field sensor in hard drives, has recently been shown to exhibit a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) switchable by electric fields. We have studied both the interface quality and magnetic properties of thin CoFeB layers exhibiting PMA. Layered structures of full Heusler alloys Co2MnGe/Rh2CuSn have been proposed as a promising candidate for current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magneto-resistance sensors. Using HIKE,we have shown that diffusion of atoms, mainly Mn, occurs at temperatures lower than what is used in device fabrication, which likely contributes to the limited magneto-resistance values obtained.Lately, a large body of research has been performed on semiconductors doped with transition metal elements with the hope to find a ferromagnetic semiconductor at room temperature, a foundation for new devices combining spin and charge in their functionality. We have investigated Co and Fe doping in ZnO for different concentrations of the dopants and different annealing temperatures. The Co and Fe atoms are shown to forms clusters for which antiferromagnetic interactions are dominating.


The study of four-bar linkage to trace a desired path is an important part of obtaining the optimal geometry of a four-bar linkage which is used in design. When the number of the precision points exceeds a certain number, it is not possible to apply or it is difficult to apply analytical methods. Alternatively some intelligence optimization methods can be used based on the complexity of the problem. Path synthesis of four-bar linkages with multiple number of precision points has been illustrated as an optimization problem. The objective to be minimized is sum square error of all the points reached by the coupler point. The important constraints included are 1) Grashof's condition to have a crank rocker linkage,2) the transmission angle criterion and 3) input link angle sequence. The variables included are the link lengths and angles. A new optimization scheme known as harmony search method is implemented to get the optimum solutions. Harmony search method is based on musical performance process that occurs when a musician searches for a better state of harmony. The pitch of each musical instrument determines aesthetic quality just as objective function value assigned to variables. A computer programme based on this algorithm is implemented in MATLAB to obtain the optimum dimension of four-bar linkage. The function files are employed to generate initial feasible solutions and effective object function based on penalty function method. Four examples are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the method. It is found that the method is quite convenient and works in-par with other non conventional optimization methods like genetic algorithms and particle swam optimization.


Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major and costly epidemic in the United States and around the world. There are little treatment options and currently no cure. Past research aimed at treating neurons as a therapeutic target have not been successful treatments clinically. Recent interest has turned to another cell type, the astrocyte, as a potential therapeutic target. In this dissertation, we expand upon past findings by further exploring the role of astrocytes and astrocytic signaling in TBI in vivo. Creating a new mild TBI model based on human mild TBI biomechanics, we produced behavioral deficits and histopathological changes similar to mild human TBI. We modified and applied the new TBI model to see if the in vitro astrocytic response to mild mechanical injury could be reproduced in vivo. By imaging the intracellular calcium in cortical astrocytes after mechanical impact in vivo with a 2-photon microscope, we found that mild mechanical injury produced a strong intercellular calcium wave originating from the site of injury. Drug applications to determine the mechanism of calcium wave showed that ATP signaling, and not gap junction coupling among the astrocytes, was responsible for this immediate effect of mild mechanical injury. Next we tested two transgenic animals, each with a different aspect of inhibited astrocyte signaling to determine the effect on TBI recovery. The first transgenic line, VIPP, had an over expression of IP3 phosphatase and was able to reduce the injury induced intercellular calcium wave in astrocytes. Reducing IP3 signaling specifically in astrocytes led to a worse behavioral outcome in a more severe TBI model and no significant difference in the mild TBI model. The second transgenic line, dnSNARE, was used to study the role of inhibited vesicular release from astrocytes. Reducing gliotransmission in this manner improved outcome in both the severe and the mild TBI models. In both cases, baseline behavior did not differ from wildtype littermates suggesting that targeting either pathway may have limited side effects. Histopathologies revealed significant reduction of astrogliosis in both VIPP and dnSNARE injured mice compared to WT. Together these results suggest that injury level can affect the effectiveness of a particular pathway as a therapeutic target and that overall targeting gliotransmission is an effective strategy. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Bioengineering First Advisor David F. Meaney


The motives behind an individual's conversion to another religion are complex and frequently contested. The moment of conversion for the convert symbolizes the beginning of a new life and new opportunities; yet for the community he or she leaves, it is often interpreted as an act of religious and political betrayal, therefore prompting different, and often opposing, narratives of conversion. A number of tropes predominant in early modern English narratives dealing with conversion to Islam are of interest in this regard: the immoral deviant "renegade" motivated by excessive lust or greed who is worse than the "natural Turks," and the practice of violent, involuntary, forced conversion. These tropes, through their rhetorical construction of the renegade, attempt to fashion both individual and communal selves that act to relieve the psychological threat to the collective identity of the English community presented by the renegade's translocation of political, cultural and religious loyalties. It is therefore problematic to uncritically read these narratives as accurate depictions of the reality of conversion in North Africa as some previous studies have done: other contextual evidence and the use of alternative narrative frames portray converts and conversion from a significantly different perspective. In this article, primarily through the study of captivity narratives, I explore how and why these tropes of conversion were employed, the functions they fulfilled, and the contexts in which they were produced and consumed.


Storage techniques and queries over XML databases are being widely studied. Most works store XML documents in DBMS to take advantage of a well established technology and also to store both structured data and XML data within a single system. This work proposes a translation mechanism to execute queries expressed on XML documents that are stored in an ORDBMS using the DOM representation format. Transformation rules for automatic translation from XQuery to SQL3 are presented, where the object-based representation of XML documents is explored.


Historically offending theories have concentrated on external factors as explanations for offending behaviours. The benefit of utilising self-report methodologies and concentrating on the experience of the individual involved in the act is growing in popularity. The central aim of this research was to explore the distinct and varying encounters of women offenders during the commission of a crime. 128 women who had committed a criminal offence were recruited, the women had an average age of 36.40 years (SD = 11.12). Women offender volunteers completed a questionnaire exploring affective experiences, individual narrative roles, criminal and background factors, personality types and criminal thinking styles relating to their offences. To examine themes and patterns of women offenders Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE), Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) was utilised. Results indicated four main affective themes typical of women offenders' emotional experiences: Depression, Distress, Calm and Elation. Explorations of women offenders' narratives revealed a further four themes: Hero, Professional, Revenger and Victim. Additional explorations revealed the thematic relationship between affective and narrative experiences amongst women offenders revealing two clear Criminal Narrative Experience themes; Survivor and Agentic Actor. In this sample the Survivor theme was the most typical and illustrative of the women questioned. Further findings indicated the difference between offence type and the two CNE themes. Explorations of the two CNE themes were also explored with social, criminal and background factors as well as personality types and criminal thinking styles. The methodological, practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to offender management, treatment, rehabilitation and professional practice relating to women offenders.
Key


Cancer immunotherapy is a rapidly evolving and paradigm shifting treatment modality that adds a strong tool to the collective cancer treatment arsenal. It can be effective even for late stage diagnoses and has already received clinical approval. Tumors are known to not only avoid immune surveillance but also exploit the immune system to continue local tumor growth and metastasis. Because of this, most immunotherapies, particularly those directed against solid cancers, have thus far only benefited a small minority of patients. Early clinical substantiation lends weight to the claim that cancer immunotherapies, which are adaptive and enduring treatment methods, generate much more sustained and robust anticancer effects when they are effectively formulated in nanoparticles or scaffolds than when they are administered as free drugs. Engineering cancer immunotherapies using nanomaterials is, therefore, a very promising area worthy of further consideration and investigation. This review focuses on the recent advances in cancer immunoengineering using nanoparticles for enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of a diverse range of immunotherapies. The delivery of immunostimulatory agents to antitumor immune cells, such as dendritic or antigen presenting cells, may be a far more efficient tactic to eradicate tumors than delivery of conventional chemotherapeutic and cytotoxic drugs to cancer cells. In addition to its immense therapeutic potential, immunoengineering using nanoparticles also provides a valuable tool for unearthing and understanding the basics of tumor biology. Recent research using nanoparticles for cancer immunotherapy has demonstrated the advantage of physicochemical manipulation in improving the delivery of immunostimulatory agents. In vivo studies have tested a range of particle sizes, mostly less than 300 nm, and particles with both positive and negative zeta potentials for various applications. Material composition and surface modifications have been shown to contribute significantly in selective targeting, efficient delivery and active stimulation of immune system targets. Thus, these investigations, including a wide array of nanoparticles for cancer immunotherapy, substantiate the employment of nanocarriers for efficacious cancer immunotherapies.


Many optical processes of image formation, image transfer, and image analysis may be represented as one, or a succession of several, linear operations. A linear operation upon a flux distribution function of an n-dimensional argument is defined as one which replaces the value of the function at a point by a linear, weighted average taken over a neighborhood of that point. While such an operation is completely determined by the weighting function used, it is also determined by a "wave-number" spectrum which is a function of an n-dimensional wave-number vector. This wave-number spectrum is the complex conjugate of the n-dimensional Fourier transform of the weighting function. The wave-number spectrum of the flux distribution modified by any number of successive linear operations is the product of the wave-number spectrum of the original distribution, and the wave-number spectra of the several linear operations. An analysis thus performed in wave-number space replaces successive integrations by successive multiplications.This method of analysis is an extension of the usual method of treating filters in electronic circuits, and may be used to solve problems analogous to those treated in circuit theory. These are: (1) to evaluate the performance of a system; (2) to design a process to search an image for a configuration; (3) to reproduce a picture, with discrimination in favor of a configuration desired, and against others; and (4) to equalize a picture, i.e., to remove image degradation.


This letter comes from Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, a land where grateful patients may express their appreciation by giving a neurologist a cow or even by naming children after the doctor.

The United Republic of Tanzania is in East Africa. It comprises the mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar with a total population of 53 million, over 70% of whom are aged <30 years.1 Although rich in natural resources, Tanzania's per capita income is ranked 186th in the world.1 The Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) is in the town of Moshi in the Northern Zone of Tanzania, at the foot of the highest mountain in Africa, 'Mount Kilimanjaro' (5895 m) (figures 1–3). It is one of four national referral hospitals (catchment population 18 million), the others being in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza in Western Tanzania and Mbeya in the South. Northern Tanzania has a very diverse geography and population. It comprises mostly volcanic mountains, the Rift Valley and large areas of open savannah epitomised by its world famous national parks and Serengeti plains. The population includes several African Bantu tribes and Nilotic tribes, in our region ranging from Hadza hunter–gatherers and Masai cattle herders to Chaggas and Pare mountain people.

KCMC was opened in 1971 and has about 600 beds and 15 medical specialties. It has had its own medical school since 1999, with a postgraduate specialty training programme and over 20 ancillary healthcare training schools. Neurology does not have its own department and is accommodated within Internal Medicine and Paediatrics. Nationally Tanzania has seven practising neurologists, of whom two are in KCMC, with a small number of trainee neurologists in various stages of their training at home or abroad. Apart from ongoing patient care (all ages), we teach and do patient-based research (figure 4). Tanzanian …


Oriented attachment (OA) is an important nonclassical pathway for crystal growth from solution, occurring by the self-assembly of nanoparticles and often leading to highly organized three-dimensional crystal morphologies. The forces that drive nanocrystal reorientation for face-selective attachment and exclude improperly aligned particles have remained unknown. Here we report evidence at the microscopic level that ion correlation forces arising from dynamically interacting electrical double layers are responsible for face-selective attraction and particle rotation into lattice co-alignment as particles interact at long range. Atomic-to-mesoscale simulations developed and performed for the archetype OA system of anatase TiO2 nanoparticles in aqueous HCl solutions show that face-selective attraction from ion correlation forces outcompetes electrostatic repulsion at several nanometers apart, drawing particle face pairs into a metastable solvent-separated captured state. The analysis of the facet and pH dependence of interparticle interactions is in quantitative agreement with the observed decreasing frequency of attachment between the (112), (001), and (101) face pairs, revealing an adhesion barrier that is largely due to steric hydration forces from structured intervening solvents. This finding helps open new avenues for controlling crystal growth pathways leading to highly ordered three-dimensional nanomaterials.


Abstract. Many of the world's active volcanoes are situated on or near coastlines. During eruptions, diverse geophysical mass flows, including pyroclastic flows, debris avalanches, and lahars, can deliver large volumes of unconsolidated debris to the ocean in a short period of time and thereby generate tsunamis. Deposits of both hot and cold volcanic mass flows produced by eruptions of Aleutian arc volcanoes are exposed at many locations along the coastlines of the Bering Sea, North Pacific Ocean, and Cook Inlet, indicating that the flows entered the sea and in some cases may have initiated tsunamis. We evaluate the process of tsunami generation by cold granular subaerial volcanic mass flows using examples from Augustine Volcano in southern Cook Inlet. Augustine Volcano is the most historically active volcano in the Cook Inlet region, and future eruptions, should they lead to debris-avalanche formation and tsunami generation, could be hazardous to some coastal areas. Geological investigations at Augustine Volcano suggest that as many as 12–14 debris avalanches have reached the sea in the last 2000 years, and a debris avalanche emplaced during an A.D. 1883 eruption may have initiated a tsunami that was observed about 80 km east of the volcano at the village of English Bay (Nanwalek) on the coast of the southern Kenai Peninsula. Numerical simulation of mass-flow motion, tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation for Augustine Volcano indicate only modest wave generation by volcanic mass flows and localized wave effects. However, for east-directed mass flows entering Cook Inlet, tsunamis are capable of reaching the more populated coastlines of the southwestern Kenai Peninsula, where maximum water amplitudes of several meters are possible.


Artificial Intelligence is a
cutting-edge technology expanding very quickly into every industry. It has made
its way into structural engineering and it has shown its benefits in predicting
structural performance as well as saving modelling and experimenting time. This
paper is the first one (out of three) of a broader research where artificial
intelligence was applied to the stability and dynamic analyzes of steel
grid-shells. In that study, three Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) with 8
inputs were independently designed for the prediction of a single target
variable, namely: (i) the critical buckling factor for uniform loading (i.e. over
the entire roof), (ii) the critical buckling factor for uniform loading over
half of the roof, and (iii) the fundamental frequency of the structure. This
paper addresses target variable (i). The ANN simulations were based on
1098-point datasets obtained via thorough finite element analyzes.

The proposed ANN for the prediction of the critical buckling factor in steel grid-shells
under uniform loading yields mean and maximum errors of 1.1% and 16.3%,
respectively, for all 1098 data points. Only in 10.6% of those examples
(points), the prediction error exceeds 3%.


IT IS A well-known fact that inventory disinvestment can account for much of the movement in output during recessions. Almost one-half of the shortfall in output, averaged over the five interwar business cycles, can be accounted for by inventory disinvestment, and the proportion has been even larger for postwar recessions.' A lesser-known fact is that corporate profits, and therefore internal-finance flows, are also extremely procyclical and tend to lead the cycle. Wesley Mitchell finds that the percentage change in corporate income over the business cycle is several times greater than that in any other macroeconomic series in his study.2 Robert Lucas lists the high conformity and large variation of corporate income as one of the seven main qualitative features of the business cycle.3 The volatility of internal finance, which is also com-


For over a century, traditional bulk insulation materials like fiberglass and cellulose have been used in attics to prevent heat from escaping or entering American homes. But times are changing and today, builders and homeowners in Southern U.S. locations are discovering that adding attic reflective insulation may offer significant gains in thermal efficiency – often far greater than the same investment in additional layers of conventional bulk insulation. According to the US Information Administration (EIA 4 ), in 2009 in average more than 6% of the US household enduse energy expenditure was for space cooling (air conditioning) while in the US hot humid climate region this space cooling expenditure went up to more than 25%. In order to reduce cooling energy consumption, techniques to limit radiative heat transfer such as Radiant Barriers (RB) and Interior Radiation Control Coatings (IRCC) can be applied to existing residential attics in single family homes or light commercial buildings. RBs incorporate two layers of aluminum foil or aluminized plastic film. Aluminum has a low emissivity, absorbing and emitting a small amount of infrared radiation. IRCC work in a similar manner, but it is a coating usually sprayed on the back side of the roof deck. There are claims that RB and IRCC are easier to install and very energy efficient in retrofit projects. The goal of this study is to understand these claims with analyzing changes in the annual cooling energy consumption and peak cooling loads by both experimental and numerical approaches. In Austin, Texas, both RB and IRCC were installed in test houses and compared to a baseline house with no modifications. The test houses were instrumented and thermal and energy performances of the attics were monitored for over 6 months. In addition the whole building energy consumption before and after retrofit was compared using EnergyPlus energy consumption simulations.


The aim of this independent study project was to gain an understanding of menstruation as experienced by school aged girls in a quasi-rural village in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. Though a fact of life for roughly half of the world's population, menstruation continues to be a taboo topic and has implications related to both traditional Zulu beliefs as well as expectations for females in a largely patriarchal society. The qualitative research method of body mapping was used with teenage girls in an effort to facilitate both reflection and discussion on their lived experiences with their periods. Supplemental interviews with teachers, nurses, sexual health educators and a traditional Zulu healer were also conducted to gain a well-rounded understanding of the education and expectations in place for young females in the community. The findings were compiled and analyzed using secondary research as well as reflections on the personal experiences of the researcher. Though a lack of education and sanitary resources were not problems encountered in this study, menstruation was still found to be a topic that had both positive and negative effects on the lives of the individuals. Each story was different, some greatly influenced by restrictive traditional beliefs, others focusing on the need to avoid sexual encounters due to fertility, and others emphasizing a sense of pride and excitement in this symbol of maturation. This study resulted in a safe space for females to express their ideas about a largely hushed topic, as well as offered a new perspective on the continuity of attitudes regarding menstruation across cultural


We describe our first-hand experience with a cochlear implant (CI), being both a recent recipient and a hearing researcher. We note the promising loudness, but very unpleasant distortion, which makes understanding speech difficult in many environments, including in noise, on the phone or through the radio. We also discuss the extreme unpleasantness of music, which makes recognizing familiar melodies very difficult. We investigate the causes of the above problems through mathematical analysis and computer simulations of sound mixtures, and find that surprisingly, the culprit appears to be non-biological in origin, but primarily due to the envelope-based signal processing algorithms currently used. This distortion is generated before the signal even enters the cochlea. Hence, the long-held belief that inter-electrode interference or current spreading is the cause, appears incorrect. We explain that envelope processing may have been originally instituted based on an inaccurate understanding of the role of place coding vs. temporal coding, or alternatively, because of an incorrect analogy to radio modulation theory. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest immediate concrete steps, some possibly in firmware alone, that may lead to a much improved experience.


The COVID-19 pandemic continues to significantly impact the treatment of people living with aortic stenosis, and access to transcatheter aortic valve implantation. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) programmes require unique coordinated processes that are currently experiencing multiple disruptions and are guided by rapidly evolving protocols. We present a series of recommendations for TAVI programmes to adapt to the new demands, based on recent evidence and the international expertise of nurse leaders and collaborators in this field. Although recommended in most guidelines, the uptake of the role of the TAVI programme nurse is uneven across international regions. COVID-19 is further highlighting why a nurse-led central point of coordination and communication is a vital asset for patients and programmes. We propose an alternative streamlined evaluation pathway to minimize patients' pre-procedure exposure to the hospital environment while ensuring appropriate treatment decision and shared decision-making. The competing demands created by COVID-19 require vigilant wait list management, with risk stratification, telephone surveillance and optimized triage and prioritization. A minimalist approach with close scrutiny of all parts of the procedure has become an imperative to avoid any complications and ensure patients' accelerated recovery. Lastly, we outline a nurse-led protocol of rapid mobilization and reconditioning as an effective strategy to facilitate safe next-day discharge home. As the pandemic abates, TAVI programmes must facilitate access to care without compromising patient safety, enable hospitals to manage the competing demands created by COVID-19 and establish new processes to support patients living with valvular heart disease.


In this paper, we describe a biomimetic-fabric-based sensing glove that can be used to monitor hand posture and gesture. Our device is made of a distributed sensor network of piezoresistive conductive elastomers integrated into an elastic fabric. This solution does not affect natural movement and hand gestures, and can be worn for a long time with no discomfort. The glove could be fruitfully employed in behavioral and functional studies with functional MRI (fMRI) during specific tactile or motor tasks. To assess MR compatibility of the system, a statistical test on phantoms is introduced. This test can also be used for testing the compatibility of mechatronic devices designed to produce different stimuli inside the MR environment. We propose a statistical test to evaluate changes in SNR and time-domain standard deviations between image sequences acquired under different experimental conditions. fMRI experiments on subjects wearing the glove are reported. The reproducibility of fMRI results obtained with and without the glove was estimated. A good similarity between the activated regions was found in the two conditions.


International trade in food products has expanded significantly during the past few decades. These products include fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, fish, live animals and meat, nuts, and spices. However, international trade of these products is subject to a huge array of standards and regulations imposing potentially large compliance costs to many developing country suppliers.Standards and regulations apply to both the products themselves and the processes by which they are processed, handled, packed, etc. and respond to health concerns, consumer preferences and strategic commercial interests. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and other technical requirements can inhibit international trade in foodstuffs and other agro-industrial industries through varied channels. Costs of compliance could sometimes be so high as to induce loss of developing countries' comparative advantage in the production of basic foodstuffs. Exporting firms must often undergo significant structural adjustments to be able to accommodate the numerous and sometimes differing requirement of more developed countries. This is aggravated by the emergence of a growing number of private standards in addition to public standards. Given the lack of accredited laboratories and technical expertise in developing countries, suppliers face significant challenges to sell in global markets. Lack of harmonization can affect the performance of exporting firms.The nature, form and context of standards in the food and agricultural sector have been changing rapidly. We are entering a new world of standards that will demand significant changes in production and marketing strategies. These developments will present challenges to most of those involved in trade in agricultural products, but they will be particularly problematic for small producers in the developing countries. The countries of the Western Hemisphere have many small producers who have, or would like to have access to the large markets of the region. This paper is primarily designed to explain the emerging system of standards in the Western Hemisphere.Decisive action will need to be taken by developed countries and international organizations to avoid the development of a new set of sanitary and phytosanitary barriers to trade. These barriers are in part a function of regulatory action by governments and in part a reflection of the emergence of private standards often emphasizing processing methods. Institutions are being set up that are mandated to develop and monitor compliance to those standards. Most of these institutions operate either at the domestic or the multilateral, but regional bodies in the Americas also have an important part to play. To the extent that the mix of standards and institutions can be improved in the region, all producers will have better access to the richest markets in the world.Several countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region have expressed their need to understand the impact of food safety standards on trade issues.This document is part of the technical assistance activities of the Project "Strengthening Trade Related Capacities in the context of trade liberalization in the Americas", financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and executed by the ECLAC Washington Office.Preliminary results of the study on world SPS standards and principles were presented at the Fifth Annual North American Agrifood Market Integration Consortium Workshop, New Generation of NAFTA Standards, on May 21-23, 2008 in Austin, Texas.


Space-based data have provided important advances in understanding climate systems and processes in arid and semi-arid regions, which are hot-spot regions in terms of climate change and variability. This study assessed the performance of land surface temperatures (LSTs), retrieved from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua platform, over Egypt. Eight-day composites of daytime and nighttime LST data were aggregated and validated against near-surface seasonal and annual observational maximum and minimum air temperatures using data from 34 meteorological stations spanning the period from July 2002 to June 2015. A variety of accuracy metrics were employed to evaluate the performance of LST, including the bias, normalized root-mean-square error (nRMSE), Yule–Kendall (YK) skewness measure, and Spearman's rho coefficient. The ability of LST to reproduce the seasonal cycle, anomalies, temporal variability, and the distribution of warm and cold tails of observational temperatures was also evaluated. Overall, the results indicate better performance of the nighttime LSTs compared to the daytime LSTs. Specifically, while nighttime LST tended to underestimate the minimum air temperature during winter, spring, and autumn on the order of −1.3, −1.2, and −1.4 °C, respectively, daytime LST markedly overestimated the maximum air temperature in all seasons, with values mostly above 5 °C. Importantly, the results indicate that the performance of LST over Egypt varies considerably as a function of season, lithology, and land use. LST performs better during transitional seasons (i.e., spring and autumn) compared to solstices (i.e., winter and summer). The varying interactions and feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere, especially the differences between sensible and latent heat fluxes, contribute largely to these seasonal variations. Spatially, LST performs better in areas with sandstone formations and quaternary sediments and, conversely, shows lower accuracy in regions with limestone, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. This behavior can be expected in hybrid arid and semi-arid regions like Egypt, where bare rocks contribute to the majority of the Egyptian territory, with a lack of vegetation cover. The low surface albedo of igneous and limestone rocks may explain the remarkable overestimation of daytime temperature in these regions, compared to the bright formations of higher surface albedo (i.e., sandy deserts and quaternary rocks). Overall, recalling the limited coverage of meteorological stations in Egypt, this study demonstrates that LST obtained from the MODIS product can be trustworthily employed as a surrogate for or a supplementary source to near-surface measurements, particularly for minimum air temperature. On the other hand, some bias correction techniques should be applied to daytime LSTs. In general, the fine space-based climatic information provided by MODIS LST can be used for a detailed spatial assessment of climate variability in Egypt, with important applications in several disciplines such as water resource management, hydrological modeling, agricultural management and planning, urban climate, biodiversity, and energy consumption, amongst others. Also, this study can contribute to a better understanding of the applications of remote sensing technology in assessing climatic feedbacks and interactions in arid and semi-arid regions, opening new avenues for developing innovative algorithms and applications specifically addressing issues related to these regions.


Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) provides a unique platform for vehicles to intelligently exchange critical information, such as collision avoidance messages. It is, therefore, paramount that this information remains reliable and authentic, i.e., originated from a legitimate and trusted vehicle. Trust establishment among vehicles can ensure security of a VANET by identifying dishonest vehicles and revoking messages with malicious content. For this purpose, several trust models (TMs) have been proposed but, currently, there is no effective way to compare how they would behave in practice under adversary conditions. To this end, we propose a novel trust evaluation and management (TEAM) framework, which serves as a unique paradigm for the design, management, and evaluation of TMs in various contexts and in presence of malicious vehicles. Our framework incorporates an asset-based threat model and ISO-based risk assessment for the identification of attacks against critical risks. The TEAM has been built using VEINS, an open source simulation environment which incorporates SUMO traffic simulator and OMNET++ discrete event simulator. The framework created has been tested with the implementation of three types of TMs (data oriented, entity oriented, and hybrid) under four different contexts of VANET based on the mobility of both honest and malicious vehicles. Results indicate that the TEAM is effective to simulate a wide range of TMs, where the efficiency is evaluated against different quality of service and security-related criteria. Such framework may be instrumental for planning smart cities and for car manufacturers. INDEX TERMS Vehicular networks, trust management, smart cities, security, intelligent transportation systems, VEINS, SUMO, OMNET++, simulation.


Urban spaces are considered as important elements in the urban structure. These spaces are scenes in which the general activities of urban life take place and they are able to provide an opportunity for the development of innovations for the people and to act as a recreational and constructive environment in an urban collection to provide a setting while every human being would need to perceive his or her position. One of the factors in satisfaction and gratification of citizens toward the city and urban spaces is the effective connections of spaces and different land uses with the states and behaviors of the individuals. A theory is necessary to describe the urban spaces and to make models of reality. Therefore, new paradigms like environmental psychology and behavioral sciences came into being which attracted the public attention to a viewpoint to conduct the human studies in urban design. According to this, we must identify the behavioral patterns of the space users by identifying the behavioral mechanisms of the citizens in physical environments to provide multi-functional, flexible spaces that are responsive to the citizens.Unfortunately, in spite of many capabilities for enhancing the behavioral patterns and social interactions of the people, several urban spaces are degenerated due to the lack of attendance and attention to their physical environment as they are no more hosting citizens.The following research is a descriptive-analytic type which is done in a qualitative method with the aim of redesigning the urban spaces with regard to the influence of the physical environment on the behavior of the citizens. An effort was then made based on the field data and registering the behaviors by observations and through the subjective images of the citizens, it was analysed by using subjective questionnaire and SWOT matrix, and eventually a number of recommendations are presented to organize and redesign the Adl street in Qazvin in order to enhance the behavioral pattern of the citizens.


In this paper we address the data association problem of features observed by a robot team with limited communications. At every time instant, each robot can only exchange data with a subset of the robots, its neighbors. Initially, each robot solves a local data association with each of its neighbors. After that, the robots execute the proposed algorithm to agree on a data association between all their local observations which is globally consistent. One inconsistency appears when chains of local associations give rise to two features from one robot being associated among them. The contribution of this work is the decentralized detection and resolution of these inconsistencies. We provide a fully decentralized solution to the problem. This solution does not rely on any particular communication topology. Every robot plays the same role, making the system robust to individual failures. Information is exchanged exclusively between neighbors. In a finite number of iterations, the algorithm finishes with a data association which is free of inconsistent associations. In the experiments, we show the performance of the algorithm under two scenarios. In the first one, we apply the resolution and detection algorithm for a set of stochastic visual maps. In the second, we solve the feature matching between a set of images taken by a robotic team.


Civilian crisis management has long been considered the EU's forte. Recent research however has questioned the EU's claim to this specialization. I will interrogate how the EU has fared in building civilian capabilities for CSDP through a case study of the impact of the Europeanization of CCM norms in one of the newer EU member states - Poland. I investigate the domestic reverberations of an EU-level CCM governance - conceptualized as a vertical diffusion of norms - and a horizontal diffusion in the realms of policy setting, institutional adaptation, as well as in recruitment and training. I hypothesize that the European cognitive constructions and policy designs are the more likely to impact upon Polish security policy the more they resonate with the ideas embedded in the national security identity. Another intervening variable affecting the 'translation' of EU policy into the domestic context is state capacity. Due to weaknesses in the supply side of CCM and the refracting impact of national security identity and state capacity, I find that Europeanization has had a limited impact on the civilian response capability-building in Poland. Europeanization has been shallow, featuring adjustments on the margins rather than the core of the security policy.


"Hemorrhage, hemorrhage, hemorrhage—blood everywhere—clothes soaked in the blood, pools of blood in the stretchers, streams of blood dropping from the stretchers to the floor" Robertson OH, unpublished WWI diaries.1

In the sombre predawn darkness at 03:50 hours on the morning of 31July 1917; British, French and Belgian Forces advanced along the ridges and fields of the Gheluvelt plateau. So began the Third Battle of Ypres. Their objective was a small village called Passchendaele only 13 km away. However, it would take 3 months and over half a million casualties to get there.

Two medical officers; both called Robertson, one Canadian and one American, were part of this offensive. The Canadian was Major Lawrence Bruce Robertson, a surgeon who used uncrossmatched whole blood transfused by syringe directly from donor to recipient to demonstrate the life-saving potential of blood transfusion and the need to resuscitate the badly injured with 'something more than saline' . He felt that any danger of this novel blood transfusion method was vastly outweighed by its benefit. He published his experiences of 36 such transfusions, performed in the 2nd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station in the BMJ of 1916.2 Unfortunately, three of his patients suffered fatal haemolytic reactions and died.

Sir George Makins, the Surgeon General of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at the time, expressed considerable concern about this use of uncrossmatched blood transfusion within the BEF. An American officer, Captain Oswald Hope Robertson (US Army Medical Officer Reserve Corps), born in Woolwich, London, and emigrated with his parents to America when he was 18 months old, was sent to assess and solve the problem. From his past experience in the transfusion laboratories of Harvard Medical School and the Rockefeller Institute, OH …


This chapter describes the project approach (Katz & Chard, 2000). In-depth learning through projects involves actively relating the new to the familiar through a three phase process. In Phase 1, the recall of significant aspects of a literary reading can be facilitated by the sharing of personal experiences of the text. This leads to appreciation of the relevance of these experiences, perhaps as topics in their own lives. In discussion, or Phase 2, questions are raised and researched, where new understanding emerges. In Phase 3, the new information is combined into a group response. When students learn collaboratively through the project approach, they typically report deeper levels of personal involvement and satisfaction as well as greater understanding and depth of knowledge than when asked to learn by other means.


Introduction An eating disorder is a psychological disorder that many women can acquire, including collegiate athletes. Participation in sports activity can be a healthy and enjoyable experience that can enhance self-worth and self-image in female athletes (12). Many people may believe that because athletes participate in sports and maintain high levels of physical activity, they are not as self-conscience about their bodies. Contrary to this belief, (1) stated in their study that athletes are at a greater risk for developing eating disorders than non-athletes. Why female athletes have eating disorders when they are so active is a question of interest to many people. The purpose of this study is to find how prevalent eating disorders are in female athletes and examine factors that may have a relationship with eating disorders. Incorrect weight perceptions are more common in young women, with persistent overestimation of weight and attempts to lose weight even when unnecessary (7). (5) stated that female athletes are a group particularly at risk for developing eating disorders or engaging in unhealthy behaviors to control their weight. These athletes not only face the typical social pressures to be thin, but they also are immersed in a social context that focuses on their bodies. Eating disorders are behavioral syndromes associated with considerable mobility that present onset of the highest mortality rates among mental illnesses. The prevalence of eating disorders' has increased since the 1990s in both female athletes and non-athletes. Female athletes go through a lot of pressures and conflicts playing collegiate sports. Female athletes are a group particularly at risk for developing eating disorders or engaging in unhealthy behaviors to control their weight (13). The western cultural emphasis given to weight and body shape points towards a "beauty standard" centered on thinness disorders (11). For some female college athletes, college concerns and pressures may contribute to eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors (6). The sports environment can heighten body and weight related concerns because of factors such as pressure from coaches and social comparisons, body dissatisfaction, physique anxiety, and perfectionism (6, 11). A lack of professional guidance can make an athlete vulnerable to the onset of disordered eating (10). It appears that negative moods such as anxiety, perfectionism, and negative comments about body shape or weight from coaches are related to disorder eating in female athletes (1). (9) found that social pressure on body shape was strongly correlated with body dissatisfaction. Female athletes' body dissatisfaction has shown correlation with bulimia (6). According to (7), perfectionism, for example in sports has been found to be a risk factor for bulimic symptoms. However, prevalence of clinical and subclinical eating disorders has been found to be higher-among female athletes than non-athletes (5). Young women, particularly those in aesthetic sports are vulnerable to body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, and disordered eating (10). Situational factors specifically involvement in individual sports or team sports, may put athletes in situations where social physique anxiety and disordered eating is likely to be heightened to manage weight and shape concerns (13, 8). This is an important topic because although physical activity enhances self-esteem and promotes physical and emotional well-being, there is evidence that female athletes are at a risk of developing disordered eating. It is important to investigate some of the reasons why female collegiate athletes feel the need to have disordered eating. Results of the study can assist in developing and executing suitable eating-disorder prevention and intervention programs for female college athletes. The purpose of the study was twofold. First, it was to assess how prevalent eating disorders were among female college athletes. …


Background Perceptions of simulation-based education focus on the use of manikins. However, simulation can be any imitation of the real-world. Tactical Decision Games (TDGs) are used by emergency response teams (eg. nuclear) as "table-top" simulations to consider ambiguous, dynamic situations with limited resource. TDGs allow exploration of Team Resource Management (TRM) and individual Non-Technical Skills (NTS). Within healthcare their use has been limited to undergraduate or specific specialties eg. anaesthesia.1 We developed and integrated a TDG into a simulation programme to support development of TRM/NTS. Method Based on development principles2 we created a healthcare-based TDG around a "night on-call." It surrounds a team of four medics (varying grades), nurse and pharmacist who have 10 patients to prioritise and see. Each member of the team has limited abilities and resources; limited time is given to undertake the task. After completion the situation changes and the team must adapt. The TDG was trialled as part of a regular multiprofessional simulation day for F1 Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacists. The roles allocated to participants did not necessarily reflect their real-world role. Results At the time of writing the TDG has been trialled with 73 participants and reactional responses obtained. Using a 5-point Likert scale (5 Strongly Agree, 1 Strongly Disagree) average scores were obtained. Participants found the TDG enjoyable (4.6) and useful (4.5), with a positive opinion that it increased knowledge surrounding NTS (4.2). Participants agreed that it would likely lead to improved NTS in practice (4.0). Potential impact TDGs offer a novel approach to developing individual NTS and TRM. They are simple to create and easy to administer. To make an effective TDG developers must create dynamic, ambiguous scenarios with limited resource. Our next steps are to research whether TDGs support the development of appropriate team behaviours in simulated environments. References Patey R, Fioratou E, Flin R. (in preparation) Tactical decision games for anaesthetists. Schmitt J. Designing good TDGs. Mar Corps Gaz 1996;80:96–98.


Objective: The investigation of factors affecting the dimension and configuration of the intranasal ostium in successful external dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR). Material and Methods: Fifty-one patients were enrolled within this study. During operation, dimensions of bone window were measured. In the postoperative sixth month, changes in bone window size were evaluated using spiral paranasal tomography, and the intranasal ostium was examined with nasal endoscopy. Results: There were 19 patients who underwent DCR and 32 patients who underwent DCR+silicone tube intubations (SI). The mean bone window size was 214.37 mm2 during operation and 214.87 mm2 after six months. The mean intranasal ostium size was measured as 51.42 mm2 for patients who had undergone DCR and 28.66 mm2 for the DCR+SI cases. The endoscopic appearance of the ostium was observed as oval or round for the DCR cases and in slit form for the DCR+SI cases. A multiple logistic regression model showed that silicon tube intubation posed an 11 times greater risk for configuration distortion in the intranasal ostium (p=0.0079). Conclusion: Postoperative intranasal ostium size has a relation with the intraoperative bone window size. The difference of mean intranasal ostium sizes of DCR and DCR+SI cases was not statistically significant. However, because SI gives rise to ostium configuration by triggering fibrosis, it should not be carried out unless absolutely necessary.


Abstract This study combines a livelihoods approach with a regression approach to quantify the effectiveness of irrigation infrastructure investment on improving people's livelihood strategies. Using a unique dataset based on households in southern Sri Lanka, and a natural experimental setting, we estimate from a two-stage income regression model to show that irrigation access has a positive effect on income through livelihood choices. We also show through qualitative approaches that factors not linked to irrigation infrastructure may contribute to changes in livelihood portfolios. In addition, we highlight factors that result in certain households being unable to move out of poverty despite access to the improved irrigation infrastructure.


Here we discuss the influence of a substrate on transmission through subwavelength holes in metallic films. In particular, we show that in the case of transmission maxima associated with localized resonances of the apertures, that the wavelength at which this maximum occurs are strongly influenced by the presence of a substrate and the aspect ratio of the structure. Furthermore, we show that removing a shallow region of the substrate immediately below the apertures leads to blue-shifting of the resonance and increased transmission compared to that in the presence of a homogeneous substrate.


Few people would disagree that children with disabilities need adequate health insurance. But what kind of health insurance coverage would be optimal for these children? Peter Szilagyi surveys the current state of insurance coverage for children with special health care needs and examines critical aspects of coverage with an eye to helping policy makers and clinicians improve systems of care for them. He also reviews the extent to which insurance enhances their access to and use of health care, the quality of care received, and their health outcomes.Szilagyi begins by noting that nearly 9 percent of children with disabilities are uninsured for all or part of a year and that coverage even for many such children with insurance is inadequate—either not meeting their needs or not adequately covering the costs of care. By one estimate, nearly two of every five special needs children are either uninsured or inadequately insured.The author finds strong evidence that health insurance improves access to health care. Children with disabilities who are insured are more likely than those who are uninsured to have a primary care provider, to be able to reach a specialist, and to have access to supporting services. They also have fewer unmet needs for medical and oral health care and receive care more quickly. The bulk of the evidence shows that insurance improves quality of care for children in general and for children with disabilities. Parents of insured children with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their children's primary care, medications, specialty care, and overall health care than are parents of their uninsured peers. A handful of studies of specific diseases have found insurance to be related to improvements in quality measures, such as more doctor visits and greater continuity of care.In conclusion, Szilagyi stresses the need to provide adequate health insurance to all children with disabilities and to develop a set of best practices in health insurance to cover important services needed by this population. To that end, implementation of the federal health care reform act, including the mandate for insurance coverage, is important. He also urges support for medical home and other quality initiatives and better ways to monitor quality and health outcomes to ensure that children with disabilities receive cost-effective and equitable care.


The roots and stem bark of Ceiba pentandra and Anogeissus leiocarpus was subjected to hot Soxhlet extraction using solvent of different polarity, hexane, ethyl acetate, acetone, methanol and water. The methanol extracts gave the highest yield of 17.5% highest polar solvent while hexane being the lowest polar solvent gave the least percentage recovery of 1.12%. The colour and texture of each of the extract was also determined. Hexane and ethyl acetate extract showed yellow and orange colour, with the texture oily and solid. While acetone, methanol and water extracts gave brown and dark brown colour with the texture being solid and pastry. The acute toxicity of the extracts was also determined by using both the oral and interperitoneally dosage concentration. The interperitoneally dosage with slight modification tends to be toxic than the oral dosage.


Several different metrics have been proposed for quantifying the throughput of multicore processors. There is no clear consensus about which metric should be used. Some studies even use several throughput metrics. We show that there exists a relation between single-thread average performance metrics and throughput metrics, and that throughput metrics inherit the meaning or lack of meaning of the corresponding single-thread metric. We show that two popular throughput metrics, the weighted speedup and the harmonic mean of speedups, are inconsistent: they do not give equal importance to all benchmarks. Moreover we demonstrate that the weighted speedup favors unfairness. We show that the harmonic mean of IPCs, a seldom used throughput metric, is actually consistent and has a physical meaning. We explain under which conditions the arithmetic mean or the harmonic mean of IPCs can be used as a strong indicator of throughput increase.


Evangelical missionaries have missionised pretty much throughout Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among their favourite targets are the small-numbered indigenous groups in the Russian Arctic, where the numbers of converts are steadily growing. One particular denomination, known as the Unregistered Baptists, are among the leading agents of religious change in the North today. They are driven by the promise of the return of Christ after the gospel is preached "at the ends of the earth". I suggest that the Baptists' agenda is shaped, on the one hand, by the literal reading of the Bible, which allows them to be the divine instruments at the end times and, on the other hand, by the idea of Russia's special role in God's salvation plan. I shall analyse the Baptists' ideas and practices, using among others Bakhtin's concept of chronotope in order to demonstrate how powerful narratives are created and lived.


Infrared and optical photometry of a complete sub-sample of 194 galaxies in the Anglo-Australian Redshift Survey is presented. The Colour-Redshift diagrams are constructed and used, in a self-consistent manner, to reduce the data to zero-redshift colours at a fixed aperture size. Infrared and optical-to-ir Colour-Luminosity relations are analysed both as a function of morphological type and, in conjunction with published data, as a function of environment. An infrared Colour-Luminosity relation is found for all galaxy types. The slope seen for E-SO galaxies strengthen the hypothesis that metallicity is the driving factor in the relation at infrared and optical wavelengths. The Colour-Luminosity relations for spirals have slopes that are substantially steeper. The infrared Colour-Luminosity relations of spirals do not vary significantly with Hubble type and the type-dependence of their optical-ir Colour-Luminosity relation disappears when corrections for bulge contamination are made. The results imply that both bulge and disk material have distinct enrichment histories that depend on luminosity in a simple way irrespective of the host galaxy type. Comparison with stellar synthesis models has revealed that the optical-to-ir colours of spirals are also sensitive to metallicity variations. Moreover, a change in the slope of the initial mass function of star formation (from X=1.35 to X=3) is needed to produce their optical-ir colours over the observed range. The infrared Colour-Luminosity relation is fairly tight; the intrinsic scatter is small and does not appear to be environmental dependent. The relation for the field E-SOs, analysed in this study, agrees closely with that seen in both the Virgo and Coma clusters and is consistent with recent estimates of the Local Group motion; there is no evidence for any anomalous population of cool stars in the Virgo cluster galaxies. Although promising as a distance indicator in cluster sample, infrared photometry of high precision is required. The optical-ir relation for spirals, however, has an intrinsic scatter which is most likely due to varying amounts of star formation at a fixed luminosity and bulge-to-disk ratio. An application of the bulge-corrected optical-ir Colour-Luminosity relation to Bothun et al.'s sample of cluster spirals, reduces the scatter in the mean optical-ir colours amongst the clusters. However, the scatter is still larger than that observed in the infrared Tully-Fisher relation. A detailed analysis of the infrared luminosity function of 'field' galaxies is carried out in conjunction with its optical counterpart. The infrared luminosity function is found to be type-dependent. This implies that the E-SOs and the bulges of spirals have different evolutionary or formation histories. Moreover, the infrared luminosity function for a given morphological type of galaxies is found to be the same as its optical counterpart shifted by the respective mean optical- ir colours. Regarding this result, it is proposed that galaxies with strong/weak near-ir emission are not very common. The sensitivity of the luminosity function to inhomogeneities in the galaxian distribution is investigated. The best estimates for the luminosity function parameters are then used to predict deep number-magnitude counts at 2.2 µm (K ~ 18 - 20 mag).