"Look, these are the modern trees", Kostermans remarked, pointing to some concrete piles lying near the Forest Research Institute. None of the participants could have missed the sad impression of a moonscape around Kuala Lumpur, which tells of the construction boom in Malaya. "In Thailand, timber production is nose-diving", said the Director General of Forestry over the dinner table, "in the Philippines, nose-diving!" In Malaya, where in the mid-1960's the government decided to convert the carefully managed forests into oil palm plantation, it has been discovered that no more timber may have been left by the mid-1980's. So it was none too soon to amass and review the available knowledge on Dipterocarpaceae with an eye on management of the timber resource. Naturally conservation, although not on the agenda, lurched constantly in the background and popped up at all sorts of points in the discussion. The International Working Group on Dipterocarpaceae, which held its first Round Table conference at Paris in June 1977 (see the account in Flora Malesiana Bulletin 31, p. 3041-3047. 1978), assembled again from 27 June to 3 July 1980; organizers were Francis S.P. Ng and S.K. Yap. Participants numbered 56, from 8 countries; those from abroad were accommodated in the low-price FRI-hostel at Kepong, Selangor. Ms. Ming Anthony sent her regrets from Strasbourg, where she was about to take her Ph.D. on a thesis about galls in this family; they occur only in Red meranti Shoreas. There were 11 more apologies, several from Japanese workers who had liked to come; Mr. Gen Arihara was there anyway as an observer from the FAO Bangkok office. Several were enabled to come thanks to a UNESCO travel grant; without this, we would have missed some excellent contributions. Twenty-seven papers were delivered in 3 days, followed by 3 days of excursions. The organization was good; no one would have suspected that this was the FRI's first international meeting. It was opened by the Minister of Primary Industries, H.E. Dato Paul Leong Khee Seong, under whom Forestry resorts. Thereafter business started. Like in Paris, each session had a different chairman; that's why it was called a Round Table, although the large table in the conference room was actually U-shaped.


The general assumption that social policy should be utilitarian--that society should be organized to yield the greatest level of welfare--leads inexorably to increased government interventions. Historically, however, the science of economics has advocated limits to these interventions for utilitarian reasons and because of the assumption that people know what is best for themselves. But more recently, behavioral economics has focused on biases and inconsistencies in individual behavior. Based on these developments, governments now prescribe the foods we eat, the apartments we rent, and the composition of our financial portfolios. The Tyranny of Utility takes on this rise of paternalism and its dangers for individual freedoms, and examines how developments in economics and the social sciences are leading to greater government intrusion in our private lives. Gilles Saint-Paul posits that the utilitarian foundations of individual freedom promoted by traditional economics are fundamentally flawed. When combined with developments in social science that view the individual as incapable of making rational and responsible choices, utilitarianism seems to logically call for greater governmental intervention in our lives. Arguing that this cannot be defended on purely instrumental grounds, Saint-Paul calls for individual liberty to be restored as a central value in our society. Exploring how behavioral economics is contributing to the excessive rise of paternalistic interventions, The Tyranny of Utility presents a controversial challenge to the prevailing currents in economic and political discourse.


The field of Preview Control is concerned with using advanced knowledge of disturbances or references in order to improve tracking quality or disturbance rejection. Areas of application include guidance of autonomous vehicles, robotics and process control. This thesis studies Optimal Discrete-Time Preview Control, in which the controlled plant is assumed to be unconstrained, linear and discrete-time, with a preview horizon that extends for a fixed time into the future. Controller optimality is determined using either the H2 or H∞ norms. The central objective of this thesis is to produce a generic set of tools for solving a wide class of H2 and H∞ Preview Control problems. To this end, a very general preview problem is introduced, which captures fixed-lag smoothing, tracking with robust performance specifications, and also preview-based mixed-sensitivity design. In principle, whilst this problem can be solved using standard generalised regulator synthesis results, such an approach is found to require the solution of unacceptably large Discrete Algebraic Riccati Equations (DAREs). A core theme of this thesis involves the efficient solution of the H2 and H∞ versions of such DAREs, and also the order reduction of the resulting controllers. It is found that the dimension of all matrix equations required for controller synthesis, and also the order of the resulting controllers, is no higher than the degree of the plant plus weighting functions. Additional results are presented concerning the norm reduction that is achievable through preview action, and a discussion of the generic properties of preview controllers is provided. Preview Control appears to be well suited for application to autonomous vehicles. However, a class of nonlinearities generically associated with vehicle models prevents its immediate use. Fortunately, this nonlinearity may be accurately represented by a parameterised set of linear systems, from which a simple controller may be derived. This control scheme is successfully demonstrated on a nonlinear bicycle model.


MadX (Methodical Accelerator Design) is the de-facto standard software for modeling accelerator lattices at CERN. This feature-rich software package is implemented and still maintained in the programming languages C and FORTRAN. Nevertheless the controls environment of modern accelerators at CERN, e.g. of the LHC, is dom- inated by Java applications. A lot of these applications, for example, for lattice measurement and fitting, require a close interaction with the numerical models, which are all defined by the use of the proprietary MadX scripting lan- guage. To close this gap an API to MadX for the Java pro- gramming language (JMad) was developed. JMad was first presented to the public about one year ago. In the mean- time, a number of improvements were done, and additional MadX features (e.g., tracking) were made available for Java applications. Additionally, the graphical user interface was improved and JMad was released as open source software. This paper describes the current status and some new fea- tures of the project, as well as some usage examples.


In order to study the melon genotypes to broomrape, an experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications at Barekat research field of Jovein in Sabzevar, east of Iran. Seeds of 14 genotypes of melon (Melon, Magasi, Khatouni, Nishabour, Tabassi, Tallebi, Jim Abad, Eyvankay, Tashkendi, Mianeh, Mianeh atashbar, Atrak, Galia kayhan, Galia hybrid) were planted in a farm with a history of broomrape infestation and control treatments for each genotype were also planted in a farm with no history of broomrape infestation, but with the same physical and chemical properties of soil and management. The results showed that melon genotypes were significantly different based on fruit weight and plant biomass. Infestation broomrape led to a significant reduction in fruit weight and plant biomass. Melon genotypes tolerance to broomrape were significantly different. Among the melon genotypes, Jim Abad had the lowest fruit and plant weight loss. However its parasitization by broomrape was also the highest. This means that Jim Abad genotype is more tolerant to broomrape compared with other evaluated melon genotypes.


The rapid development of unconventional oil and gas generates a large amount of contaminated produced water. The treatment and reuse of such water generally require multiple treatment processes to remove different constituents from the waste, such as salts and organic matter. This study characterized the performance of a new microbial capacitive desalination technology for simultaneous removal of organic pollutants and salts from shale gas produced water as well as its energy production during the process. The microbial capacitive desalination cell (MCDC) was able to remove total dissolved solids (TDS) at a rate of 2760 mg of TDS per liter per hour and chemical oxygen demand (COD) at a combined rate of 170 mg of COD per liter per hour, which was 18 times and 5 times faster than the traditional microbial desalination cell (MDC), respectively. The MCDC had a coulombic efficiency of 21.3%, and during capacitive deionization regeneration, 1789 mJ g−1 activated carbon cloth (ACC) was harvested. One advantage of MCDC is that all three chambers could be used to remove both organic and inorganic contaminants. The reactor removed greater than 65% of the TDS and 85% of the COD in 4 hours of operation in the desalination chamber, and more than 98% of the salts and 75% of the organics were recovered during the regeneration process. This technology provides a new integrated process to complement current systems for organic matter and salt removal as well as energy recovery from real produced water.


Recently questions have been raised about the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus policies, and about whether stimulus to a recessionary economy should be in the form of tax cuts or expenditure increases. This paper evaluates alternative empirical approaches to measuring the impact of fiscal policy and presents new results based on simulations of a large econometric model of the US economy. The US economic stimulus has not been more effective because, large as it is, it has not been sufficient to offset the impact of a serious recession and because it has been phased in slowly. Multiplier simulations and other studies suggest that the recession would have been considerably more serious in the absence of the economic stimulus programme.


Diverging part of the river Neva discharge to the dry regions in the southern USSR has raised the question, to what extent such a river diversion will influence the hydrographic conditions in the Baltic Sea and the Danish Inland waters. In order to quantify the influence, the system has been divided into eight subareas, each of which is characterized by an equation for the mass, the volume and the dynamic balance (the mixing), respectively. The man-made change in the river runoff has been introduced in the equations, which have then been linearized and solved with respect to changes in the salinities, the discharges and the layer depths in the system. As a quantitative example the hydrographic consequences of a 25% reduc tion in the river Neva discharge have been outlined. The most pronounced influence is on the salinities, which are increased by 0.2 to 0.4 %0 allover in the system. Hence, if the river diversion had become executed in the beginning of this century a 30 to 40% higher salinity-variation would have been encounter ed in the Baltic Sea - compared to the actual variations during this century.


Knowledge is a key element to all the Human Resources and a major reason as to why some companies do better than the others. The more knowledgeable employees are in the organization, the more competitive that organization is. If the management is able to help employees to share this knowledge they have with the rest of the team, the organization becomes more productive. Human Resource Management is the management of an organization's workforce. Knowledge transfer is the process through which one unit such as department, group, team, division etc. is affected by the experience of another (Argote and Ingram, 2000).Organizational knowledge can be observed through changes in the knowledge or performance of the recipient of the unit. It should always be noted that transfer of this organizational knowledge is not an easy task. Knowledge transfer is of two types: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is more subjectively related to individuals making it difficult to formalize and transmit. Tacit knowledge has inherent value because it is inimitable, rate, unique and path dependent (Ghemawat, 1991). From individual perspective, tacit knowledge is acquired by experience through learning by doing and learning by using (Collins, 1991). On the other hand, explicit knowledge can be codified and is conveyed through formal and methodical language. Knowledge transfer is important to the organization in that it can produce more innovations and organization enjoys better performance if they occupy central network position that provides access to new knowledge developed by other units. Knowledge transfer can be done using two mechanisms which includes face-to-face communication and written media. The role of human resource management is to ensure that the organization has the knowledge that the company need for its success. The management faces a lot of challenges in transfer of knowledgewithin the organization among them being language barrier, trust problems, communication challenges and faulty information.


Background: Following the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the NSW Premier, Mr Bob Carr, launched a school-based initiative in NSW government primary schools called the Gold Medal Fitness Program to encourage children to be fitter and more active. The Program was introduced into schools through a model of professional development, Quality Teaching and Learning Materials (QTLM), then widely used by the NSW Department of Education and Training. The implementation of the Program was evaluated by a research team at the University of Wollongong for its effects on the fundamental movement skills, self-esteem and participation in physical activity of participating children and its success as a program of professional development for non-specialist primary school teachers. Purpose: This paper describes the component of the evaluation that was designed to determine the use and impact of the Quality Teaching and Learning Materials (QTLM), as an action research-based model of professional development for the Gold Medal Fitness Program from the perspective of the teachers from schools involved in the Program. Participants and setting: Ten government primary schools in New South Wales were identified by the Department of Education and Training (DET) as those to be targeted for the evaluation of the Gold Medal Fitness Program. In each of these schools the teachers who were most involved in the Program, and available at the time a member of the research team visited the school, were interviewed—this ranged from three teachers to most of the staff in some smaller schools. Research design: The research used an evaluation model to examine: (i) the role played by the Program, and specifically the QTLM model of professional development, in increasing teachers' understanding of, and perceived capacity to teach, fundamental movement skills as part of the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) curriculum; and (ii) teachers' perceptions of the efficacy of the QTLM model. Data collection: The teachers were surveyed at the workshops conducted at the conclusion of the GMFP and interviewed in groups at their schools during the Program. The school portfolios that were a key component of the QTLM approach were also provided by the schools and the DET for analysis. Data analysis: The surveys were analysed using SPSS to provide descriptive statistics and the interviews and portfolios were analysed as they addressed the research aims but also for other themes that emerged from the data. Findings: From the point of view of the schools involved in the Program, the GMFP via the QTLM was a very engaging and successful model of professional development. The professional development workshops generated enthusiasm for the Program. The Program provided materials, experiences and information which developed teachers' ability to teach fundamental movement skills and radically increased their confidence to teach physical education; it enhanced their capacity to program in an organised and sequential fashion; and it provided a context in which these outcomes could be readily communicated and taken up by the whole school. Conclusion: While it is difficult to determine the impact in the long term, the results of the study suggest that from the schools' point of view the GMFP was a very engaging and successful model of professional development; and that students did improve their fundamental movement skills. The research also confirmed other research which suggests that non-specialist teachers need and welcome support in teaching physical education in primary schools.


Improving the probability of detection of landmines is a challenging task for many scientists all around the world. The goal of this research is to be a part of this challenging work to investigate techniques for landmine detection. Two techniques for detecting the landmines, one in depth domain and the other in frequency domain, have been studied and a few modifications are suggested, along with the results. The data collected from Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) from various test sites is used to evaluate the performance of these detection techniques. The first technique is proposed for use with Handheld GPR systems, while the second technique is proposed for use with Vehicle mounted GPR systems. The techniques proved to be useful in improving the detection of low metal or plastic mines.


Background: Brain hemorrhage is a serious complication of antiplatelet therapy, particularly dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). It has been suggested that cerebral micro bleeds (CMBs) detected on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are a risk factor for future cerebral haemorrhage. However, little is known about CMBs in CAD patients during antiplatelet therapy. We investigated the temporal changes of CMBs and determined the risk factors for CMBs in patients with CAD on antiplatelet therapy.
Methods: This study prospectively enrolled 14 CAD patients who underwent antiplatelet therapy (DAPT in 13 patients) and had no history of symptomatic stroke. Brain MRI was performed at baseline and after 8-month follow-up.
Results: Baseline MRI revealed CMBs in two patients (14%). New CMBs were detected by follow-up MRI in two other patients (14%). CMB-positive patients had a greater number of coronary artery lesions (p=0.04) and a tendency to have a higher SYNTAX score at baseline (p=0.06) than CMB-negative patients. Although blood pressure (BP) at baseline did not differ between the CMB-positive and CMB-negative patients, BP after 8 months was significantly higher in CMB-positive than in CMB-negative patients (systolic BP: p=0.03, diastolic BP: p=0.02).
Conclusions: CAD patients with severe coronary artery lesions and poor BP control appear to be at higher risk for CMBs during antiplatelet therapy. Accordingly, strict coronary risk control, especially BP control, is necessary to prevent new CMBs in CAD patients receiving long-term antiplatelet therapy


The attini tribe comprises fungusgrowing ants, such as the basal Apterostigma and other more specialized genera, including the higher attine and the ones that cut the fresh plant tissue (Atta and Acromyrmex), maintaining an obligatory mutualistic relation with the fungus Leucoagaricus gongylophorus, which serves as a food source for the ants. Leaf-cutter ants are considered agriculture pests and populate the soil, a rich environment, especially due to the presence of several microorganisms. Some of these microorganisms are natural enemies that may cause epizootics (quickly spreading opportunistic diseases). Such defence strategies include polyethism, that is, division of labor among the individuals. The older ants take on the responsibility of foraging, as their integument is harder and heavily sclerotized, serving as a protective barrier against pathogens (including bacteria and antagonistic fungi). The younger ants, whose metapleural glands synthetize important secretions to eliminate and control microorganisms that could attack the colony fungus garden and the immature (larvae and pupae), remain inside the colony cultivating symbiont fungi. The sum of the survival strategies of ants in general, including social immunity and nest-cleaning behavior, represents a barrier for the application of biological control programs, mainly microbial ones.


Since the early 1950s Latin American countries have made systematic efforts to foster regional transactions. Nevertheless, the indicators of relative importance of regional trade remain well below the corresponding figures in other regions. This paper argues that a process of integration should take into account the differences between what can be achieved by negotiating with closer neighbours and with geographically distant partners. Also, at present there is an increasing competition from Asian goods, which have negatively affected Latin American producers. Among the lessons from the recent Asian experience are the economic links among countries that have helped to improve competitiveness as well as to foster the degree of convergence of the GDP growth rates of the participating countries.


Hypernymy identification aims at detecting if is A relationship holds between two words or phrases. Most previous methods are based on lexical patterns or the Distributional Inclusion Hypothesis, and the accuracy of such methods is not ideal. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective supervision framework to identify hypernymy relations using distributed term representations (a.k.a term embeddings). First, we design a distance-margin neural network to learn term embeddings based on some pre-extracted hypernymy data. Then, we apply such embeddings as term features to identify positive hypernymy pairs through a supervision method. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms other supervised methods on two popular datasets and the learned term embeddings has better quality than existing term distributed representations with respect to hypernymy identification.


Previous studies on Preferred Argument Structure have suggested (Du Bois 1987, 2002) and accepted (e.g. Goldberg 2004) specific cognitive motivations for PAS, namely that the general restriction of lexical arguments and new referents to the S and O roles facilitates the conceptually onerous task of referent introduction. In this paper, conversation data from English and Portuguese are analyzed. The data are generally inconsistent with the putative cognitive motivations for PAS presented in the literature. They suggest instead that PAS is most likely epiphenomenal and due to basic semantic and pragmatic factors, for example the correlation between human referents and given/non-lexical arguments, and the correlation between human referents and the A role.


This work focuses on the robustness of phoneme classification to additive noise in the acoustic waveform domain using support vector machines (SVMs). We address the issue of designing kernels for acoustic waveforms which imitate the state-ofthe-art representations such as PLP and MFCC and are tuned to the physical properties of speech. For comparison, classification results in the PLP representation domain with cepstral mean-and-variance normalization (CMVN) using standard kernels are also reported. It is shown that our custom-designed kernels achieve better classification performance at high noise. Finally, we combine the PLP and acoustic waveform representations to attain better classification than either of the individual representations over the entire range of noise levels tested, from quiet condition up to −18dB SNR.


Abstract. Recent results from diverse air, ground, and laboratory studies using both radiometric and in situ techniques show that the fractions of black carbon, organic matter, and mineral dust in atmospheric aerosols determine the wavelength dependence of absorption (often expressed as Absorption Angstrom Exponent, or AAE). Taken together, these results hold promise of improving information on aerosol composition from remote measurements. The main purpose of this paper is to show that AAE values for an Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) set of retrievals from Sun-sky measurements describing full aerosol vertical columns are also strongly correlated with aerosol composition or type. In particular, we find AAE values near 1 (the theoretical value for black carbon) for AERONET-measured aerosol columns dominated by urban-industrial aerosol, larger AAE values for biomass burning aerosols, and the largest AAE values for Sahara dust aerosols. These AERONET results are consistent with results from other, very different, techniques, including solar flux-aerosol optical depth (AOD) analyses and airborne in situ analyses examined in this paper, as well as many other previous results. Ambiguities in aerosol composition or mixtures thereof, resulting from intermediate AAE values, can be reduced via cluster analyses that supplement AAE with other variables, for example Extinction Angstrom Exponent (EAE), which is an indicator of particle size. Together with previous results, these results strengthen prospects for determining aerosol composition from space, for example using the Glory Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS), which seeks to provide retrievals of multiwavelength single-scattering albedo (SSA) and aerosol optical depth (and therefore aerosol absorption optical depth (AAOD) and AAE), as well as shape and other aerosol properties. Multidimensional cluster analyses promise additional information content, for example by using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to add AAOD in the near ultraviolet and CALIPSO aerosol layer heights to reduce height-absorption ambiguity.


Who or Whom?/ Its or It's / Lie or Lay? Can't remember those grueling grammar lessons from junior high? Troubled that your professional writing lacks polish? Stop worrying! You've just picked up the painless prescription for proper English! Acclaimed grammarians Mark Lester and Larry Beason know that English teachers aren't the only ones who expect careful and correct language choices. Precision in language can be the deciding factor when it comes to getting a job or winning a promotion. "The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage" gives you bottom-line definitions, tips, and simple rules that summarize the essentials you need to know. This second edition includes a chapter dedicated to grammar and its usage in digital communication, including texting, e-mail, social media, and new technology, so you can communicate correctly in any format. Whether your skills need drastic improvement or a quick brush-up, "The McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage" will get your grammar back on the right track with: straight forward explanations of common mistakes and why they happen; hundreds of correct and incorrect sentence examples, with errors clearly marked; quick tips for fixing your most stubborn grammatical mishaps; and, catchy memory aids for writing correctly the first time.


Soon after the Supreme Court in Blakely v. Washington declared certain judicial fact-finding within a state sentencing guideline system unconstitutional, Justice O'Connor described the Court's decision as a "Number 10 earthquake." But two years after the Blakely ruling, the case's broader impact and meaning for state criminal justice systems around the country has been largely overshadowed by developments in the federal sentencing system. Nevertheless, this is an exciting time for state sentencing. By granting review in yet another state sentencing case, California v. Cunningham, this past spring, the Supreme Court brings state issues to the national stage once more. State courts handle many more criminal cases than the federal courts. State sentencing procedures touch the lives of many more defendants, victims and witnesses than the federal sentencing system. Yet, these realities often get lost in all the attention paid to the federal sentencing system in the era of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, perhaps because the federal system is in everyone's backyard whether that backyard is in Manhattan or Montana. Especially in the academic world, there is seemingly endless interest in federal sentencing law and practices, but precious little discussion of state sentencing reforms generally or of developments in particular states. The direct and indirect impact of Apprendi and especially Blakely in the states is a rich and dynamic story, with many facets and lessons that should not be overlooked. The doctrinal uncertainty and confusion produced by Blakely and Booker makes it dangerously easy for jurisdictions to be concerned primarily with technical problems in particular sentencing laws rather than with broader reform issues. But the Supreme Court's coming work in Cunningham, like Blakely before it, should motivate state legislatures, courts, and sentencing commissions to reexamine and improve their sentencing systems. In this Commentary - which serves as the introduction to a broader symposium on state sentencing after Blakely - we argue in favor of robust state sentencing commissions as part of that reexamination and improvement. Creating and empowering a sentencing commission closes few, if any, substantive options for state sentencing systems. The resulting sentences urged by a sentencing commission can be comparatively high and tightly controlled by a central authority. In contrast, sentences can also be set relatively low and sentencing decisions can be left comparatively unencumbered by binding guidance. A pro-commission view is a process-oriented recommendation with few, if any, inherent substantive sentencing consequences. It does, however, encourage much-needed rationality and transparency in sentencing.


Abstract Over the next quarter century it is likely that Southeast Asian countries will experience high levels of growth in the number of disabled people. It is therefore significant that, over the past decade, the region's governments have at last ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). At this critical juncture, and in the face of ongoing human rights issues in several territories, this study presents comparative analysis of state and civil society organisations' (CSOs') discourse on CRPD implementation. The findings show that while governments have espoused a participatory approach to fulfilling their CRPD obligations, contemporary practice falls short. Disabled people currently experience barriers to shaping policy and accessing social welfare. There is a "disconnect" between state and civil spheres that hampers effective implementation based on partnership working and knowledge exchange. In turn, this raises issues of legitimation, performativity and the endurance of the Medical Model of Disability across the region.


Abstract:One of the most vivid accounts in the historical record of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was written by Antonio de Otermín, Spanish governor of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, who fled the uprising with his life intact, unlike four hundred of his countrymen. Due to a series of decisions by scholars, editors, and grant agencies in the twentieth century, this letter is today best known in an English translation and within the frame provided by the popular Heath Anthology of American Literature. The appropriation of Otermín's letter by the discipline of American (US) literature, because its subject matter involves territory that more than two hundred years later became part of the United States, merits scrutiny. One approach, outlined here, is to follow the traces of the publication history of this document and to interrogate the unique story it tells about the contingencies of print on the borderlands.


Fatty aminoesters containing mixtures of mono-, di- and triaminoesters
were prepared from the enzyme-catalysed esterification
of fatty acids and triethanolamine in organic solvents. Screening of
enzymes suitable for the reactions was carried out by conducting the
esterification reaction in n-hexane catalysed by 5 types of enzymes.
Lipozyme 1M and Novozym 435 gave positive results indicated by
the additional spots obtained on TLC analysis. FT1R analysis of the
products indicated the presence ester linkage at wavenumber 1740
cm-1. Reduction in transmittance of the hydroxyl group at 3500 cm-1
indicated the disappearance of the hydroxyl group which was originally on the triethanolamine molecule. Effects of some reaction
parameters such as time course, temperature, substrate mole ratio,
substrate concentration, amount of enzyme and thermodynamic
water activity were also investigated based on esterification of oleic
acid and triethanolamine catalysed by Lipozyme 1M and Novozym
435 in n-hexane.
Lipozyme 1M gave maximum conversion of 43.9% in 24
hours while Novozym 435 gave a maximum conversion of 37.34% in
6 hours. Optimum activity was obtained when the lipases catalyse
the reaction at 50oC, at substrate concentration of 1.0 M in n-hexane.
The lipases, however, behaved differently when preequilibrated in
salt hydrates of different thermodynamic water activity. Novozym
435 exhibited high esterification activity when preequilibrated in the
salt hydrates of lowest aw studied. On the other hand, Lipozyme 1M
exhibited optimum esterification activity when preequilibrated in
salts hydrates having aw value of 0.32. The activity of Lipozyme 1M
was drastically reduced when the mole of triethanolamine was
increased while Novozym 435 gave optimum activity when the
substrates were reacted at 1:1 mole ratio. In addition, when the oleic.


The present article describes a comparative study of the performances of liposomes and ethosomes as specialized delivery systems for distamycin A (DA) and two of its derivatives. Liposomes and ethosomes were prepared by classical methods, extruded through polycarbonate filters, and characterized in terms of dimensions, morphology, and encapsulation efficiency. It was found that DA was associated with vesicles (either liposomes or ethosomes) by around 16.0%, while both derivatives of DA showed a percentage of association around 80% in the case of liposomes and around 50% in the case of ethosomes. In vitro antiproliferative activity experiments performed on cultured human and mouse leukemic cells demonstrated that vesicles were able to increase the activity of both derivatives of DA. In addition, it was demonstrated that the aging of both liposomes- and ethosomes-associated distamycin suspensions did not heavily influence the vesicle size, while all samples showed a relevant drug leakage with time. Moreover, according to the different physicochemical characteristics of DA and its derivatives (i.e., log P), vesicle-associated DA showed the highest loss of drug with respect to both its derivatives. In conclusion, the enhancement of drug activity expressed by these specialized delivery systems-associated DD could be interesting to obtain an efficient therapeutic effect aimed at reducing or minimizing toxic effects occurring with distamycins administration.


This report presents a comparison of benefits under the Galveston Plan versus Social Security, based on different earner and family scenarios. These scenarios include single and married workers at the low, middle, high, and very high earnings levels. Executive Summary On January 1, 1981, the county of Galveston, Texas, opted out of the Social Security system and implemented the alternate plan (referred to in this report as the "Galveston Plan") in place of Social Security.1 The Galveston Plan has received recent attention in the press and in congressional testimony as an example of a privatized plan that could serve as a model for the privatization of Social Security.2 The purpose of this report is to compare and contrast the Galveston Plan with Social Security, and examine how certain workers with different earnings levels and family types fare under each system. Key findings indicate that in comparison to Social Security,3 Galveston's plan does not have a waiting period for coverage (full coverage begins in the first pay period of employment); it offers more pay-out options (lump-sum or various annuities) than Social Security; and, in general, provides higher benefits to those with higher earnings and/or those with fewer dependents who would qualify under Social Security. Furthermore, under the Galveston Plan, contribution rates (payroll taxes) are higher than under Social Security; there is a risk of outliving one's benefits under certain pay-out options (lump-sum or fixed annuity); there are no additional spousal or dependent benefits (benefits are based entirely on contributions);4 benefits are paid to a named beneficiary, and there is no guarantee that benefits will be provided to a spouse/divorced spouse or dependent child; benefits are not portable to future employers; benefits are not adjusted for inflation; and, in general, benefits are lower for those with lower earnings and/or with a greater number of dependents who qualify under Social Security. Whether the Galveston Plan provides a retirement, disability, or survivor's benefit that is higher or lower than Social Security's depends upon factors including the worker's earnings, time in the labor force, the age and number of beneficiaries, and the type of benefit being evaluated. This report presents a comparison of benefits under the Galveston Plan and Social Security based on different earner and family scenarios. These scenarios include single and married workers at the low, middle, high, and very high earnings levels. Earnings levels represent earnings at the following percentiles in the year 2045: low=10th, middle=50th, high=75th and very high=90th. In the case of disability and survivor's benefits, married workers are assumed to have two children (see appendix A for a full description of methodology). Findings from this analysis indicate that: Galveston provides a higher initial retirement benefit than Social Security to single workers (without dependents who would qualify under Social Security) at the middle, high, and very high earnings levels, and to married workers at the very high earnings level. Social Security provides a higher initial retirement benefit to lowearning single workers and to married workers at the low, middle, and high earnings levels. Because Galveston's benefits are not indexed to inflation, they lose value relative to Social Security's benefits over time. The initial disability benefits provided under the Galveston Plan are higher for single workers at all earnings levels and for married workers with two children at the very high earnings level. Social Security offers a higher benefit to married workers with two children at the low, middle, and high earnings levels. As with retirement benefits, inflation reduces the relative value of Galveston's disability benefits over time. In general, total benefits provided to survivors of current workers (nonelderly survivors) by the Galveston Plan are higher for workers who either do not have dependents, or in cases when dependents are present but do not qualify for Social Security. …


Build a powerful social media strategy to increase buzzand the bottom line Whether youre Fortune 500 or a small business owner, if youre looking for success in this field, you owe it to yourself to read this book.George G. Smith Jr., Social Strategist, PepsiCo After working with hundreds of organizations in their efforts to adopt social technologies, I can safely say The Social Media Strategist is the best guide available. Christopher Barger elevates the social media conversation with an experienced pragmatic insiders discussion about real adoption. This book should be on every corporate and agency practitioners shelf.Geoff Livingston, author of Welcome to the Fifth Estate and Now Is Gone This book is an absolute must-read for anyone seeking to better understand how to plug social media into their business from both a strategic and an operational standpoint, and should be required reading for communications and business management students around the world.Olivier A. Blanchard, author of Social Media ROI The Social Media Strategist is refreshing because it has substance amidst a sea of social media superficiality. It will help you think strategically and realistically so you can act efficiently and creatively. If youre serious about business and committed about leveraging social media, you need to read this book.Esteban Contreras, Social Media Marketing Manager, Samsung USA Christopher offers a refreshing point of view as a seasoned practitioner and leader in the earliest days of the social media evolution. He describes the challenges of large-scale internal change and the rewards of integrating social media business planning, and he shares real-world examples of successful campaigns.Shauna Causey, Head of Social Media, Nordstrom About the Book: In todays fast-paced professional climate, large companies are learning that launching a website and taking a wait-and-see approach to engaging customers is not enough. Competition is fierce, and those who master the social media space are the ones who come out on top. There is greater urgency than ever before to establish a vibrant social media programand it all starts with a key strategist who can best organize and leverage all of the organizations resources to cut through the bureaucracy and get real-time results. This is where The Social Media Strategist comes in. Before tackling specific social media programs, you first have to get your own organizationand everyone in iton board with making social media a business strategy priority. Christopher Barger, the award-winning former social media director at General Motors and IBMs former blogger-in-chief, describes all the challenges particular to getting a comprehensive social media program off the ground in a large firm. The Social Media Strategist teaches you how to: Manage internal office politics, from your legal team to the policy makers to the human resource department Present new ideas to lawyers and executives in a compelling, convincing way Teach your employees the guidelines and protocols theyll need to represent your company Turn your organization into a true media outlet, publishing content that is generated by in-house employees and is truly engaging to an outside audience Telling a company from the outside what it should do is one thing, writes Barger. Actually making it happen from the inside is quite another. Here, he takes the bold step of starting where all successful endeavors begin: by planning well, by putting all the moving parts in the right place, by constructing a solid foundation. Consult The Social Media Strategist and build the best-suited social media infrastructure for your company. Then, and only then, can you begin to raise your profile, connect with customers, and increase your profits using the most powerful new business tool.


This handy pocket guide provides all the information your students need to understand and interpret ECGs! A major portion of the handbook is devoted to examples of various dysrhythmias and exercises in ECG interpretation. Over 100 practice strips are provided to help your students hone their skills and gain confidence in ECG interpretation. The handbook also features brief explanations of how to set up ECG equipment and various waves and waveforms . Specific applications -- complete with home care considerations -- are provided for adults, obese adults, adolescents, children and infants. Critical thinking exercises teach students to think on their feet, and a trouble-shooting guide helps them prevent and respond to common errors


If one looks up "sports diplomacy" and Korea, the immediate results returned are overwhelmingly about T'aegwŏndo and interKorean relations. What is more difficult to find however, despite being demonstrably more politically consequential, is Korea`s strategic utilization and spread of Korean or Koreanesque martial arts such as T'aegwŏndo, hapkido, and kumdo, in targeted countries beyond the East Asian region. Similar to the diffusion of Japanese martial arts to the West, Korean martial arts from the 1960s and 70s have acted as a cultural ambassador from Eurasia to the Americas and elsewhere. In particular, with the advent of T'aegwŏndo as a demonstration sport in the 1988 Olympics, and as an official event since the Sydney Olympiad in 2000, the sport`s popularity has expanded. This study argues and provides evidence to the fact, that the spread of specifically T'aegwŏndo has been carried out as part of a larger government sponsored soft-power program and has proven especially politically profitable in terms of increasing the profile of the Republic of Korea. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 10 August 2018 Revised 24 September 2018 Accepted 30 September 2018


The serious imbalance between urban and rural territorial locations in terms of number, sex, age, educational and other structures of the population has a significant impact on the image of our country. The concentration of working population in cities and the depopulation of villages is a process that develops in its dynamics, and a retardation is hardly observed. The lack of opportunities for effective employment that can ensure a dignified existence of the individual, deprives the village of the opportunity to keep young people who prefer the migration instead the great amount of effort needed to survive on the ground. The creation of new jobs is not a panacea, as the lack of educated personnel makes these efforts meaningless. There is a vicious circle that is not subject to self-regulation, but requires external help and intervention. It is not uncommon for local populations in certain locations to denied asking for or refuse or just find no sense of being helped because of lack of capacity, opportunity, confidence, long-term success, etc. From one moment on, it can be concluded that these problems could not be solved at macro level, but another approach would have to be devised, bringing the relevant specificities of each area on which it is intended to have an impact.


To the Editor.— In a conceptually important study, Gur et al 1 measured with the xenon Xe 133 inhalation technique the blood flow in the grey matter of the superficial cortex. Their subjects were schizophrenic patients who were taking medication and control subjects at rest and during verbal and spatial tasks that were designed to explore hemispheric asymmetries in processing. The authors concluded that patients and control subjects did not differ at rest, but differences emerged with cognitive activation such that in patients the verbal task induced symmetric increases in blood flow and the spatial task induced greater left hemispheric increases, whereas in control subjects changes were compatible with hemispheric specializations. When sex differences were examined, schizophrenic women showed minimal changes that were greatest when performing the verbal task and not the spatial task as in other groups. Some of these results are open to question because group differences all


In a recent decision, the European Court of Justice has ruled that insurers cannot discriminate on grounds of sex in setting premiums or determining benefits. This paper discusses the background to this decision. It asks whether we are seeing a US-style 'rights revolution', fuelled by judicial activism, as suggested by Dobbin et al 's hypothesis of 'the strength of weak states' or Kagan and Kelemen's account of 'adversarial legalism'. It is shown that neither of these theories captures the distinctive nature of the ECJ's intervention. An industry-friendly policy was pursued in regulatory venues, but this was overridden by the ECJ's interpretation of the fundamental right of equal treatment. However, it is also shown that the judicial defence of fundamental rights is a weak basis for social policy, and does not foreshadow a revolution in the development of social rights in Europe.


Background Injuries sustained in sports and leisure time has been established as a leading cause of the paediatric injury burden in western countries. Injuries reported are mostly traumatic, but there is a growing concern about overuse injuries in children. Objective The objectives of this prospective cohort study were to report the incidence, prevalence and duration of traumatic and overuse injuries during a period of 2.5 years and to estimate the injury incidence rates. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting 10 public schools in the municipality of Svendborg, Denmark. Participants A total of 1 259 school children aged 6–12 years participating in the Childhood Health, Activity, and Motor Performance School Study Denmark. Risk factor assessment School children were surveyed each week during a period of 2.5 years. Injuries were reported by parents answering mobile phone text questions on a weekly basis (response rate 96.2%) and prospectively diagnosed by clinicians. Physical activity was measured from text messaging and accelerometer assessments. Main outcome measurements Overuse and traumatic musculoskeletal extremity injuries. Results A total number of 1229 injuries were diagnosed with a weekly mean injury incidence and prevalence being 1.2% and 4.6% respectively. Twice as many overuse as traumatic extremity injuries were diagnosed with mean injury durations being 5.3 and 4.4 weeks respectively. Overuse injury incidence rate was 1.03 injuries per 1000 physical activity units (95% CI 0.95–1.10). Traumatic incidence rate was 0.56 injuries per 1000 physical activity units (95% CI 0.51–0.61). Conclusions This study has added a wider perspective to the area concerning musculoskeletal extremity injuries in school children by including overuse injuries. The understanding of injury epidemiology in children is fundamental to acknowledge and ensure the appropriate prevention and treatment in relation to the growing and physically active child.


European accounts from the 17th century onwards have referred to the repute and manufacture of "wootz', a traditional crucible steel made especially in parts of southern India in the former provinces of Golconda, Mysore and Salem. Pliny's Natural History mentions the import of iron and steel from the Seres which have been thought to refer to the ancient southern Indian kingdom of the Cheras. As yet the scale of excavations and surface surveys is too limited to link the literary accounts to archaeometallurgical evidence, although pioneering exploratory investigations have been made by scholars, especially on the pre-industrial production sites of Konasamudram and Gatihosahalli discussed in 18th-19th century European accounts. In 1991–2 during preliminary surveys of ancient base metal mining sites, Srinivasan came across unreported dumps with crucible fragments at Mel-Siruvalur in Tamil Nadu, and Tintini and Machnur in Karnataka and she collected surface specimens from these sites as well as from the known site of Gatihosahalli. She was also given crucible fragments by the Tamil University, Tanjavur, from an excavated megalithic site at Kodumanal, dated to ca 2nd c. Bc, mentioned in Tamil Sangam literature (ca 3rd c. BC-3rd c. AD), and very near Karur, the ancient capital of the Sangam Cheras. Analyses of crucible fragments from the surface collection at Mel-Siruvalur showed several iron prills with a uniform pearlitic structure of high-carbon hypereutectoid steel (∼1–1.5% C) suggesting that the end product was uniformly a high-carbon steel of a structure consistent with those of high-carbon steels used successfully to experimentally replicate the watered steel patterns on 'Damascus' swords. Investigations indicate that the process was of carburisation of molten low carbon iron (m.p. 1400° C) in crucibles packed with carbonaceous matter. The fabric of crucibles from all the above mentioned sites appears similar. Preliminary investigations on these crucibles are thus reported to establish their relationship to crucible production of carbon steel and to thereby extend the known horizons of this technology further.


The widespread decline of honey bees globally has serious consequences for ecosystems and agriculture. Bees are the major insect pollinators, and thus mitigating their declines is of major importance to global food security. Recent findings, during a high resolution diagnostic radioentomology study, indicated that honey bees show preferences when storing food and when feeding other bees. If this is indeed the case, then honey bees might also preferentially spread pathogen/medication, which is in the food, to other bees within their hive. Here we show that bees from certain hives show preferences while feeding other bees and that bees from other hives do not. The simple, new method developed for assessing food and pathogen transmission in bees will help beekeepers to select and breed bees that have a higher propensity for spreading pathogen/medication within a hive. Therefore, the beekeepers' own selection and breeding programs will help mitigate global bee declines, at the grass roots level.


Despite rhetoric that suggests that the United States opens its doors to virtually anyone who wants to come here, immigration has been restricted since the nation began. In this book, Kevin R. Johnson argues that immigration policy reflects the social hierarchy that prevails in American society as a whole and that immigration reform is intertwined with the struggle for civil rights. The "Huddled Masses" Myth focuses on the exclusion of people of color, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities, the poor, political dissidents, and other disfavored groups, showing how bias shapes the law. In the nineteenth century, for example, virulent anti-Asian bias excluded would-be immigrants from China and severely restricted those from Japan. In our own time, people fleeing persecution and poverty in Haiti generally have been treated much differently from those fleeing Cuba. Johnson further argues that although domestic minorities (whether citizens or lawful immigrants) enjoy legal protections and might even be courted by politicians, they are regarded as subordinate groups and suffer discrimination. This book has particular resonance today as the public debates the uncertain status of immigrants from Arab countries and of the Muslim faith.


Character education (CE) in schools has been reported to support a safe school environment in which adults and students can embrace core ethical values such as respect, fairness, and responsibility, for example (Pala, 2011). It has the power to not only "cultivate minds [but] nurture hearts" as well (Pala, 2011, p. 26). The creation of a safe teaching and learning environment in which students and staff engage in critical discourse of ethical issues related character development can produce an atmosphere of human beings who feel better about themselves and their work. As a result, one cannot overlook the implications for school improvement that character education presents for those courageous enough to purposefully and intently engage its implementation in schools. Given the troubling trends in today's youth substantiated by research (Dahlberg, Toal, Swahn, & Behrens, 2005; Garofalo, Wolf, Kessel, Palfrey, & Durant, 1998; Lickona, 1996; Pena, Matthieu, Zayas, Masyn, & Caine, 2012), the purpose of this study was to investigate stakeholder perceptions of the influence of an exemplary character education program's implementation in a middle school and its contribution to school improvement. This study was a qualitative interview study in which 19 participants from teachers, support staff, administrators, and a parent were asked their insight regarding the implementation of an exemplary character education program that was grounded in the Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education. The interview study coupled with document analysis was the approach necessary to address the central research question: How did the three-year implementation of an exemplary middle school character education program contribute to school improvement at a middle school that was recognized for its exemplary character education program? Over a three-year period of character education program implementation, BOA Middle, experienced reductions in its out-of-school suspensions by over 65%, increased staff attendance, reduced teacher turnover from 33% to 11%, was named a PCS district Highly Enhanced School, met 29 of 29 academic targets, was named a Positive Behavior Intervention Support Model School for the state due to its exemplary character education program, experienced high growth as determined by student achievement and state accountability data, and met federal accountability growth standards. Through this study, the following themes emerged regarding participants' perceptions about the implementation of the exemplary character education program: • Character is Multidimensional • CE is 24/7/365 • Implementation requires consistency • CE fosters school improvement as Adults Lead and Students Achieve • School communities can support CE through Collaboration, Service Learning, and Reflection.


Highly constrained manipulation tasks continue to be challenging for autonomous robots as they require high levels of precision, typically less than 1mm, which is often incompatible with what can be achieved by traditional perception systems. This paper demonstrates that the combination of state-of-the-art object tracking with passively adaptive mechanical hardware can be leveraged to complete precision manipulation tasks with tight, industrially-relevant tolerances (0.25mm). The proposed control method closes the loop through vision by tracking the relative 6D pose of objects in the relevant workspace. It adjusts the control reference of both the compliant manipulator and the hand to complete object insertion tasks via within-hand manipulation. Contrary to previous efforts for insertion, our method does not require expensive force sensors, precision manipulators, or time-consuming, online learning, which is data hungry. Instead, this effort leverages mechanical compliance and utilizes an object agnostic manipulation model of the hand learned offline, off-the-shelf motion planning, and an RGBD-based object tracker trained solely with synthetic data. These features allow the proposed system to easily generalize and transfer to new tasks and environments. This paper describes in detail the system components and showcases its efficacy with extensive experiments involving tight tolerance peg-in-hole insertion tasks of various geometries as well as open-world constrained placement tasks.


ABSTRACT Modelling has been used extensively by all national governments and the World Health Organisation in deciding on the best strategies to pursue in mitigating the effects of COVID-19. Principally these have been epidemiological models aimed at understanding the spread of the disease and the impacts of different interventions. But a global pandemic generates a large number of problems and questions, not just those related to disease transmission, and each requires a different model to find the best solution. In this article we identify challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss how simulation modelling could help to support decision-makers in making the most informed decisions. Modellers should see the article as a call to arms and decision-makers as a guide to what support is available from the simulation community.


The vertical distribution of benthic invertebrates was assessed seasonally in three contrasting streams at Cass, inland Canterbury using freeze core and substrate colonisation techniques. Biomass and production of selected invertebrate taxa were also measured at the three sites that differed in water chemistry, bed stability, and riparian setting. Densities of aquatic invertebrates differed seasonally, with greatest numbers of most common taxa being present in summer and autumn. Overall, greatest abundances of invertebrates were found in the top 1 0 cm of the stream beds with densities being lowest at 20-30 cm, the deepest stratum sampled. Biomass and secondary production were calculated for Deleatidium spp., two species ofOlinga (o.feredayi and o.jeanae) , and Chironomidae, to determine whether conventional Surber sampling led to underestimations compared with freeze cores to a depth of 30 cm in the hyporheic zone. Results for the two streams for which full data sets were collected indicated that Surber sampling underestimated production of the different taxa to varying degrees although. Deleatidium production estimates for both streams were similar when calculated with freeze core data. However, estimates obtained for Olinga and Chironomidae were between 6.8 to 9.5 times greater. My findings have important implications for the accurate sampling of stream benthos, and indicate that conventional collection methods that consider only the top 10 em or so of stream beds may severely underestimate the density and biomass of invertebrates. Chapter


Ediacaran (ca. 635–541 Ma) marine carbonates capture a global δ^(13)C carbon isotope excursion to extremely negative values (∼–12‰)—known as the Shuram excursion (SE)—that cannot be explained by conventional mass balance scenarios. Furthermore, the carbon isotopic variation of bulk organic matter (OM) does not mirror that of carbonate through the excursion, suggesting that the OM reflects a mixture of different sources. To evaluate this hypothesis, we investigated thermally immature marine sedimentary rocks that record the SE from the Sultanate of Oman. Compound-specific carbon isotopic analyses of the extractable hydrocarbons reveal low δ^(13)C values of long-chain (>C_(20)) n-alkanes and mid-chain monomethyl alkanes as low as −40‰. Such light signatures are rare in marine rocks of any age and provide evidence that the SE reflects a primary carbon cycle perturbation. The magnitude of the SE recorded in these organic phases is smaller than observed in carbonate and implies that the primary perturbation to dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) was at least 5‰−7‰, and more likely 7‰−12‰, in magnitude when correcting for end-member source mixing. Due to isotopic differences in stratigraphic patterns of the different organic compounds, we propose that bulk organic carbon (both bitumen and kerogen) reflects source mixing between two distinct pools that previously masked the excursion in bulk δ^(13)C_(org) measurements. OM sources were derived both from autotrophs fixing ^(13)C-depleted DIC and from a less ^(13)C-depleted heterotrophic microbial biomass feeding on a marine OM pool sustained by petroleum expelled from older sedimentary OM. Expulsion of these sedimentary fluids also helps explain both the duration and magnitude of the SE.


In 1990 two artificial reefs were deployed in southern Portuguese coastal waters, off Faro (FPR) and Olhao (OPR) respectively. In order to investigate the fish assemblages and their intra-annual variability, the two artificial reefs were monitored monthly by means of visual censuses from March 1994 to February 1995. Due to the complexity of the reefs, three strata were considered for fish counts. The two artificial reefs showed similar patterns in terms of residence status and spatial occupation. Most species recorded are characteristic of the infralittoral, the Sparidae family being the most represented. OPR, which is located closer to the main openings of the Ria Formosa lagoon, showed higher mean values than FPR in terms of: fish density (2.01±0.74 fish/m 3 )), fish biomass (123.6±77.4 g/m 3 ) and number of species (7.5). The effect of the juvenile fish migrations from the lagoon to the coastal waters was more evident at OPR. FPR showed a greater intra-annual variation of the ecological indexes than OPR. The results show that artificial reefs that are equal in terms of complexity and size may aggregate different fish assemblages as a result of their isolation and the influence of both hydrological features (e.g. water temperature) and endogenous biological processes in the area (e.g. proximity of nursery grounds).


PURPOSE
To evaluate and compare the diagnostic ability of Cirrus and Stratus optical coherence tomography (OCT) to detect localized retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) defects in patients with normal standard automated perimetry.

METHODS
This study included 55 eyes of 55 subjects with preperimetric localized RNFL defects and 55 normal control eyes of 55 age- and sex-matched subjects. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCs) were calculated and compared. Based on the internal normative database from each device, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting preperimetric localized RNFL defects were calculated.

RESULTS
There was no statistically significant difference between the AUROCs for the best parameters from the Cirrus OCT (inferior thickness, AUROC = 0.728) and Stratus OCT (7 o'clock sector, AUROC = 0.760; P = 0.477). The sensitivity of the Cirrus OCT parameters ranged from 21.0% to 87.1% and that of the Stratus OCT parameters ranged from 4.8% to 30.7%, with the criterion of abnormal at the 5% level. Based on the normative database, the highest Cirrus OCT sensitivity was obtained with the deviation-from-normal map (sensitivity 87.1% and specificity 61.8%), and the highest Stratus OCT sensitivity was obtained with the TSNIT thickness graph (sensitivity 30.7% and specificity 85.5%).

CONCLUSIONS
There were no significant differences between the AUROCs for Cirrus and Stratus OCT, indicating that the two devices have similar diagnostic potentials in preperimetric glaucoma. After comparison with their normative databases, Cirrus OCT had generally higher sensitivities; however, this was largely at the cost of lower specificities than Stratus OCT.


The original binomial model is an easy-to-apply approximation procedure for valuing options under Black-Scholes assumptions. There is a single stochastic factor and the volatility, interest rate, and other parameters are known. However, weakening those assumptions typically produces a non-recombining lattice that blows up asymptotically when the number of time steps is increased for closer replication of the underlying continuous-time process. Various extensions of the basic lattice structure have been developed over the years. In this article, Russo and Staino provide a very general lattice model in the form of a "forward-shooting grid" that can handle three correlated risk factors: volatility, interest rate, and stock price. An innovation in the model is that volatility and the riskless interest rate are the primary state variables, while the asset price (whose returns process is a function of both volatility and the riskless rate) is treated as an auxiliary variable. The lattice determines the possible evolution of the volatility and interest rate, and the stock price is carried along as a set of possible values falling into discrete buckets at each node. The trivariate branching structure is represented in a lattice that allows eight branches from each node. This accommodates many of the standard continuous-time models, including non-zero correlation among the stochastic factors. A simulation exercise shows striking improvement in performance relative to earlier models in the literature.


Research indicates that outdoor teaching practices within a physical education (PE) context are controlled by several factors with the potential to weaken or strengthen PE teachers' communication of pedagogic messages. Drawing on 12 qualitative interviews with PE teachers in compulsory schools in Sweden, the findings in this study suggest that factors claimed to control teachers' pedagogic communication of friluftsliv (the Scandinavian equivalent to outdoor education) are based on the construction of a dominating pedagogic discourse for outdoor teaching in Swedish schools. Inspired by Basil Bernstein's theoretical concepts of the pedagogic device, the analysis of this discourse indicates that Swedish PE teachers and PE teacher education appear to reproduce friluftsliv as a teaching practice carried out in a remote wilderness setting involving specific equipment, financial resources and a certain amount of risk. In relation to these results, alternative ways to think of outdoor teaching in relation to the achievement of the national aims in Swedish PE are discussed.


This report was commissioned by the Department of Health (DH) and examines the concept of self-neglect. The relationship between self-neglect and safeguarding in the UK is a difficult one, partly because the current definition of abuse specifies harmful actions by someone other than the individual at risk. Safeguarding Adults Boards' policies and procedures commonly contain no reference to self-neglect; occasionally they explicitly exclude it or set criteria for its inclusion

The perceptions of people who neglect themselves have not been extensively researched, but where they have, emerging themes are pride in self-sufficiency, connectedness to place and possessions and behaviour that attempts to preserve continuity of identity and control. Traumatic histories and life-changing effects are also present in individuals' own accounts of their situation.

Self-neglect is reported mainly as occurring in older people, although it is also associated with mental ill health. Differentiation between inability and unwillingness to care for oneself, and capacity to understand the consequences of one's actions, are crucial determinants of response. Professional tolerance of self-neglect as lifestyle choice is higher than when it accompanies physical/mental impairment. Professionals express uncertainty about causation and intervention.


Others have shown that yeast strains bearing a ts mutation in the Srb4 subunit of Mediator cease transcription of all mRNA at the restrictive temperature, in a manner virtually indistinguishable from a strain bearing a ts mutation in the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II. We find that srb4ts Mediator is defective for the stimulation of basal RNA polymerase II transcription at the restrictive temperature in vitro. Taken together, these findings lead to the suggestion that Mediator is required for basal RNA polymerase II transcription in vivo. On this basis, Mediator is identified as a general transcription factor, comparable in importance to RNA polymerase II and other general factors for the initiation of transcription. The possibility that Mediator serves as an anti-inhibitor, opposing the effects of global negative regulators, is largely excluded.


Helical synchronous belt drives are more effective than conventional synchronous belt drives with respect to reducing noise and transmission error per single pitch of the pulley. However, the helix angle of the tooth trace causes axial belt movement. Therefore, flanged pulleys are used in a helical synchronous belt drive, in order to prevent the belt from running off the pulley. In the present study, the transmission error in a helical synchronous belt drive using flanged pulleys under no transmitted load was investigated both theoretically and experimentally for the case where the pulley was rotated in bidirectional operation. The computed transmission error agrees well with the experimental results, thereby confirming the applicability of the proposed theoretical analysis for transmission error. In this case, transmission error is found to be generated by the difference in axial belt movement between the driving and driven sides, and by a change in the state of contact between the belt and pulley teeth flanks. The transmission error is reduced when the installation tension is set higher than the tension that causes a change in contact direction between the tooth flanks. In addition, transmission error does not occur when the driving and driven pulleys are of equal outside diameter and have no alignment error between the driving and driven pulleys in the axial direction.


The project presents the strategy adopted by the Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey team for publishing its primary data and reports via three potentially transformative strategies for digital humanities: Loose coupling of digital data curation and publishing platforms. In loosely coupled systems, components share only a limited set of simple assumptions, which enables systems to evolve dynamically. Collaborative creation of map based narrative content. Connecting print scholarship (book, reports, article) to online resources via two-dimensional barcodes (2D codes) that can be printed on paper and can call up hyperlinks when scanned with a Smartphone. The three strategies are made possible by loosely coupling two autonomous services: Visible Past, dedicated to web collaboration and digital-print publishing and Open Context, which is a geo-historical data archiving and publishing service. The Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey, Visible Past, and Open Context work together to illustrate a new genre of scholarship, which combine qualitative narratives and quantitative representations of space and social phenomena. The project provides tools for collaborative creation of rich scholarly narratives that are spatially located and for connecting print publications to the digital realm. The project is a case study for utilizing the three new strategies for creating and publishing spatial humanities scholarship more broadly for ancient historians.


Miracle is one of the reasons used by most religious scholars for vindication. Islam also has introduced miracle as evidence of legitimacy. The majority of scholars and Christian scholars consider miracles as vindication for prophecy. Holy Prophet of Islam as the last prophet has miracles the most important of which is the Quran revealed during 23 years of his life. The most Orientalists who have biased and doubtful against views against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, have has unfair and neglecting judgments about the miracles of the prophet. They have mostly investigated the apparent miracles of the Prophet with prejudice and denying and have addressed the miracle of the prophet i.e. the Quran with doubts and without a comprehensive and historical information. They have attempted to question the authenticity of this everlasting and undistorted miracle of all times and they have used all the false stories, superstition, Israelis and.... to achieve this goal .


OBJECTIVE We tested the associations between genetic background and selected environmental exposures with respect to islet autoantibodies and type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Infants with HLA-DR high-risk genotypes were prospectively followed for diabetes-related autoantibodies. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) came from the Illumina ImmunoChip and environmental exposure data were by parental report. Children were followed to age 6 years. RESULTS Insulin autoantibodies occurred earlier than GAD antibody (GADA) and then declined, while GADA incidence rose and remained constant (significant in HLA-DR4 but not in the DR3/3 children). The presence of SNPs rs2476601 (PTPN22) and rs2292239 (ERBB3) demonstrated increased risk of both autoantibodies to insulin (IAA) only and GADA only. SNP rs689 (INS) was protective of IAA only, but not of GADA only. The rs3757247 (BACH2) SNP demonstrated increased risk of GADA only. Male sex, father or sibling as the diabetic proband, introduction of probiotics under 28 days of age, and weight at age 12 months were associated with IAA only, but only father as the diabetic proband and weight at age 12 months were associated with GADA only. Mother as the diabetic proband was not a significant risk factor. CONCLUSIONS These results show clear differences in the initiation of autoimmunity according to genetic factors and environmental exposures that give rise to IAA or GADA as the first appearing indication of autoimmunity.


Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG) is the only currently available vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), but it confers incomplete and variable protection against pulmonary TB in humans and bovine TB (bTB) in cattle. Insights into the immune response induced by BCG offer an underexploited opportunity to gain knowledge that may inform the design of a more efficacious vaccine, which is urgently needed to control these major global epidemics. Humoral immunity in TB and bTB has been neglected, but recent studies supporting a role for antibodies in protection against TB has driven a growing interest in determining their relevance to vaccine development. In this manuscript we review what is known about the humoral immune response to BCG vaccination and re-vaccination across species, including evidence for the induction of specific B cells and antibodies; and how these may relate to protection from TB or bTB. We discuss potential explanations for often conflicting findings and consider how factors such as BCG strain, manufacturing methodology and route of administration influence the humoral response. As novel vaccination strategies include BCG prime-boost regimens, the literature regarding off-target immunomodulatory effects of BCG vaccination on non-specific humoral immunity is also reviewed. Overall, reported outcomes to date are inconsistent, but indicate that humoral responses are heterogeneous and may play different roles in different species, populations, or individual hosts. Further study is warranted to determine whether a new TB vaccine could benefit from the targeting of humoral as well as cell-mediated immunity.


Seamen's wives know absence very well. Their lives are striated by it. Based on interviews with seamen's wives conducted in Ilocos norte, this article investigates the communicative practices obtaining amid absence and separation, and the wives' activities that bring their husbands home and bring "home" to their husbands. It examines how new communication technologies, particularly the cellphone, have engendered new ways of becoming present and intimate. For seamen's families, cellphone-mediated intimacy creates a space of imagined communion, which becomes the locus of the reproduction of family and affective ties and is itself the result of these emotional and material activities.


This paper discusses what the next few decades could bring for the developing countries in terms of the size and composition of their trade and inward investment flows, as well as a possibly changing policy framework within the global economy in which they have to operate. Both the prospects and implications are clearly different from country to country, but given the breadth of the paper the focus is more on impacts on groups of countries rather than on specific countries. The bottom line of the paper, is a cautious one. Three nagging questions are repeatedly re-emphasized. Can trade growth really be high enough on the import side in the OECD if now 100 or more developing countries see globalization and increased exports as their primary route to growth, industrialization, and development. Can barrier reductions in OECD markets and future WTO negotiations be relied on to fuel this, as in the past; and is there a more sinister scenario that new barrier increases could even choke off some of the trade growth? And what is to happen to development strategies if this course fails, as it seemingly has done so already for the low income countries? Having posed these questions, there are bright spots; the more rapid growth of South-South trade, even more rapid growth of least-developed to mid-developed country trade; higher growth rates of FDI than trade, and more and more developing country trade being investment driven. The papers' overriding message is perhaps that the world is not static, and country strategies toward the global economy need to reflect this.


Objectives: The visual-motor skill is one of the major factors in the learning process. Visual-spatial and visual analysis skills are components of the visual motor skill. Any deficiency in Visual - Motor skills and their components often causes problem in writing and learning processes in children. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of occupational therapy (O.T.) intervention on visual-spatial and visual analysis skills in children with L.D. Method: Fifty-eight children with learning disorder (L.D.) from "Learning Disorders Centers "in Tehran were assessed in this study. Out of them, 23children were selected. They were in second, third and forth standard classes. They had normal I.Q and no visual or auditory problem .All of the children took the "Test of Visual Motor Skills- Revised "(TVMS-R). They were divided into two groups: 11 in experimental group and 12 in control group. O.T interventions were performed for 16 sessions in the experimental group and finally all of the children were assessed with TVMS-R again. TVMS-R includes 8 categories and is designed based on copying some geometric figures. This test was standardized in Exceptional Children Institute, Tehran in 2002. Results: There was no significant difference of means between the pretest and the post test in the control group (P=0.10), but there was a significant difference of means in the experimental group based on paired t-test (P=0.000) Conclusion: Results showed that the O.T. intervention had a statistically meaningful effect on visual-spatial and visual analysis skills in children with L.D.


In the last few years we have observed an explosive growth of multimedia computing, communication and applications. This revolution is transforming the way people live, work, and interact with each other, and is impacting the way business, government services, education, entertainment and healthcare are operating. Yet, several issues related to modeling, specification, analysis and design of distributed multimedia database systems and multimedia information retrieval are still challenging to both researchers and practitioners. Distributed Multimedia Databases: Techniques & Applications points out these challenges and provides valuable suggestions toward the necessary solutions, by focusing on multimedia database techniques.


Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic stem cell malignancy that is driven by the oncogenic BCR-ABL fusion protein, and for which treatment with ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) has yielded great success. While this is the case, BCR-ABL leukemic stem cells can persist despite TKI therapy, and efforts have intensified towards determining the molecular pathways that are critical for the maintenance of such cells. Recent studies indicate that aberrant Hedgehog (Hh) signaling plays a crucial role in the survival of the leukemic stem cell population. The Hh pathway displays crucial roles during embryonic development, tissue regeneration and repair in adults. Several mechanisms that lead to the aberrant activation of the Hh pathway have been identified in various cancers. Here we review in detail the discovery that Hh signaling governs the maintenance of the critical leukemia initiating cells or leukemic stem cells (LSCs) in BCR-ABL-induced CML as well as discuss investigations on the role of Hh signaling in normal hematopoeisis. As inhibitors that directly target the positive Hh signal transducer Smoothened (SMO) have entered clinical trials, these findings offer a unique opportunity to potentially target the LSC population that is not eliminated with ABL tyrosine kinase inhibition therapy in CML.


Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication based on wireless local area network (WLAN) IEEE 802.11 standard technology can support user in-motion to achieve preferable Internet connectivity. Wireless access for the vehicular environment (i.e. IEEE802.11p) provides the required standardization for vehicle-to-vehicle V2X communication solutions supporting raw data rate up to 27 Mbps. This standard is created for urgent short message transmission. Otherwise, for transmission of large amount of data alternative solutions may be proposed. In this paper we present an experimental study of IEEE802.11g using off-the-shelf devices in vehicle-to- infrastructure small scale scenario. In order to evaluate the V2I the type of communication in large scale scenario, in this paper we propose analytic model to characterize the goodput of WLAN- based networks using Markov process.


The idea for these Lectures on Continuum Physics grew out of a short series of talks on materials physics at University of Michigan, in the summer of 2013. Those talks were aimed at advanced graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and faculty colleagues. From this group the suggestion emerged that a somewhat complete set of lectures on continuum aspects of materials physics would be useful. The lectures that you are about to dive into were recorded over a six-week period at the University. Given their origin, they are meant to be early steps on a path of research in continuum physics for the entrant to this area, and I daresay a second opinion for the more seasoned exponent of the science. The potential use of this series as an enabler of more widespread research in continuum physics is as compelling a motivation for me to record and offer it, as is its potential as an open online class. ¶ This first edition of the lectures appears as a collection of around 130 segments (I confess, I have estimated, but not counted) of between 12 and 30 minutes each. The recommended single dose of online instruction is around 15 minutes. This is a recommendation that I have flouted with impunity, hiding behind the need to tell a detailed and coherent story in each segment. Still, I have been convinced to split a number of the originally longer segments. This is the explanation for the proliferation of Parts I, II and sometimes even III, with the same title. Sprinkled among the lecture segments are responses to questions that arose from a small audience of students and post-doctoral scholars who followed the recordings live. There also are assignments and tests. ¶ The roughly 130 segments have been organized into 13 units, each of which may be a chapter in a book. The first 10 units are standard fare from the continuum mechanics courses I have taught at University of Michigan over the last 14 years. As is my preference, I have placed equal emphasis on solids and fluids, insisting that one cannot fully appreciate the mechanical state of one of these forms of matter without an equal appreciation of the other. At my pace of classroom teaching, this stretch of the subject would take me in the neighborhood of 25 lectures of 80 minutes each. At the end of the tenth of these units, I have attempted, perhaps clumsily, to draw a line by offering a roadmap of what the viewer could hope to do with what she would have learned up to that point. It is there that I acknowledge the modern masters of continuum mechanics by listing the books that, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, will enlighten the reader far above my poor power to add or detract. ¶ At this point the proceedings also depart from the script of continuum mechanics, and become qualified for the mantle of Continuum Physics. The next three units are on thermomechanics, variational principles and mass transport--subjects that I have learned from working in these areas, and have been unable to incorporate in regular classes for a sheer want of time. In the months and years to come, new editions of these Lectures on Continuum Physics will feature an enhancement of breadth and depth of these three topics, as well as topics in addition to them. ¶ Finally, a word on the treatment of the subject: it is mathematical. I know of no other way to do continuum physics. While being rigorous (I hope) it is, however, neither abstract nor formal. In every segment I have taken pains to make connections with the physics of the subject. Props, simple but instructive, have been used throughout. A deformable plastic bottle, water and food color have been used--effectively, I trust. The makers of Lego, I believe, will find reason to be pleased. Finally, the time-honored continuum potato has been supplanted by an icon of American life: the continuum football.


Since the 1990s, the knowledge, culture, and entertainment industries have found themselves experimenting, not altogether voluntarily, with communicating complex information across multiple media platforms. Against a backdrop of competing national priorities, changing technologies, globalization, and academic capitalism, these industries have sought to reach increasingly differentiated local audiences, even as distributed production practices have made the lack of authorial control increasingly obvious. As Katie King describes in Networked Reenactments , science-styled television—such as the Secrets of Lost Empires series shown on the PBS program Nova —demonstrates how new technical and collaborative skills are honed by television producers, curators, hobbyists, fans, and even scholars. Examining how transmedia storytelling is produced across platforms such as television and the web, she analyzes what this all means for the humanities. What sort of knowledge projects take up these skills, attending to grain of detail, evoking affective intensities, and zooming in and out, representing multiple scales, as well as many different perspectives? And what might this mean for feminist transdisciplinary work, or something sometimes called the posthumanities?


It is well known that microbes, zooplankton, and fish are important sources of recycled nitrogen in coastal waters, yet marine mammals have largely been ignored or dismissed in this cycle. Using field measurements and population data, we find that marine mammals can enhance primary productivity in their feeding areas by concentrating nitrogen near the surface through the release of flocculent fecal plumes. Whales and seals may be responsible for replenishing 2.3×104 metric tons of N per year in the Gulf of Maine's euphotic zone, more than the input of all rivers combined. This upward "whale pump" played a much larger role before commercial harvest, when marine mammal recycling of nitrogen was likely more than three times atmospheric N input. Even with reduced populations, marine mammals provide an important ecosystem service by sustaining productivity in regions where they occur in high densities.


Aim: To assess the results of corneal collagen cross-linking with ribo (cid:223) avin using ultraviolet-A light for keratoconus at one year in Indian eyes. Materials and Methods: Sixty-eight eyes of 41 patients with progressive keratoconus were included in this retrospective study. All eyes completed was 12 months of follow-up and 37 eyes had a one-year follow-up. The maximum follow-up was 16 months. Ocular examinations including refraction, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), corneal topography, were recorded at each visit. Results: The mean age was 16.9 – 3.5 years (range 12-39 years) and the mean follow-up was 10.05 – 3.55 months (range six to 16 months). Thirty seven eyes with a follow-up of at least 12 months were analyzed. The preoperative values on the day of treatment were compared with postoperative values of the 12-month examination. This showed that BCVA improved at least one line in 54% (20/37) of eyes and remained stable in 28% (10/37) of eyes ( P =0.006). Astigmatism decreased by a mean of 1.20 diopter (D) in 47% (17/37) of eyes ( P =0.005) and remained stable (within – 0.50 D) in 42% (15/37) of eyes. The K value of the apex decreased by a mean of 2.73 D in 66% (24/37) of eyes ( P =0.004) and remained stable (within – 0.50 D) in 22% (8/37) of eyes. The maximum K value decreased by a mean of 2.47 D in 54% (20/37) of eyes ( P =0.004) and remained stable (within – 0.50 D) in 38% (14/37) of eyes. Corneal Wavefront analysis revealed that spherical and higher-order aberrations did not show signi (cid:222) cant variations in the follow-up period. The coma component showed a very signi (cid:222) cant reduction at six months a ft er treatment and persisted throughout the follow-up period ( P =0.003) Conclusion: The results show a stabilization and improvement in keratoconus a ft er collagen cross-linking in Indian eyes. This suggests that it is an e ff ective treatment for progressive keratoconus.


ABSTRACT . Besides as a tourism area, Laut Tawar Lake also as a place to earn a living for fishermen around it. The aims of the study was to provide an overview of the condition of fisheries in Laut Tawar Lake. The method used was a survey method. The population were fishermen that consist of capture fishery dan culture fishery. The sampling technique used was sratified random sampling. The number of samples was 30 people that consist of 15 fishermen as cupture fishery dan 15 fishermen as culture fishery. Data was analyzed by descriptive quantitative. The results showed that the number of catches have declined in recent years. These shows that there has been a degradation of fish resources (stock) in the Laut Tawar Lake, as a result of overexploitation or overfishing. There has been a development of aquaculture significantly in recent years, this was due to meet the public demand for fish by increasing along with population growth, knowledge about nutrition and income of society. Looking ahead, it is necessary for the optimal management of managing the resource due to its sustainability, such as through effort rationalization, setting the open and close, and the Marine Protected Area.


Background: For most HIV/AIDS patients who adhere to their medication regimens, Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) effectively controls viral load, reduces the incidence of AIDS diagnoses, and lowers HIVassociated mortality. Despite strong evidence that HAART effectively increases survival in people living with HIV/ AIDS, HIV-infected individuals not only need to endure the physiological changes that occur during therapy, but they may also face social and psychological problems. However, few research studies have paid attention to the quality of life of injection drug users (IDUs) living with HIV. This paper examines quality of life among IDUs living with HIV/ AIDS relative to IDUs without HIV/AIDS.
Methods: A total of 71 HIV-infected IDUs from 4 methadone clinics in northern Taiwan completed a structured questionnaire that included demographics and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale brief version (WHOQOL-BREF). Another 71 HIV-negative IDUs were randomly sampled from 528 available methadone patients at the same 4 clinics as the control group. Scores from the WHOQOL-BREF were compared between HIV-positive and HIV-negative IDUs.
Results: Results from multivariate multiple linear regression indicated that after controlling for all other demography and clinical factors, average scores in these four domains of WHOQOL-BREF were significantly higher among HIV-negative patients compared with those in HIV-positive patients. The greatest group difference appeared in the social relations domain, followed by the psychological domain and then the environmental domain, with the least difference found in the physical domain.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that social relations and psychological issues are of great concerns for IDUs, especially HIV-positive patients. This indicates that understanding the impact of HIV infection on the quality of life particularly in the psychological and social relations realms is an important topic of future research


The bottom-gate nc-Si based thin-film-transistors (TFTs) grown by using the low-temperature plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (LT-PECVD) system with He diluted SiH are demonstrated. With the RF plasma power increasing from 20 to 100 W, the crystalline volume ratio of the nc-Si inside the a-Si:H film significantly increases from 12.5% to 32%, and its deposition rate is also enhanced from 9.5 to 14.5 nm/min. The faster deposition at higher plasma greatly suppresses the residual oxygen content in nc-Si film to 4% or less, which reduces the flat-band shifted voltage of the MOS diode by 2 volts. The increased crystalline volume with suppressed oxide in nc-Si films contribute to the enhanced Hall mobility and conductivity. The nc:Si TFT decreases its threshold voltage from 3.3 V to 2.7 V, and enlarges its field mobility from 0.3 to 1.3 cm2 V-s. The defect density in the nc-Si TFTs further decrease by one order of magnitude to 7.5 × 1016 cm-3 eV, which causes a shrinkage on the sub-threshold operation range to make easier the operation of the nc-Si TFTs entering into the above-threshold regime at lower voltage. The hydrogen-free He diluted SiH growth has shown its compatibility with the conventional recipe for the high-mobility nc-Si TFT fabrication.