Floor control is a means to manage joint or exclusive access to shared
resources in a (multiparty) conferencing environment. Thereby, floor
control complements other functions -- such as conference and media
session setup, conference policy manipulation, and media control --
that are realized by other protocols. This document specifies the
Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP). BFCP is used between floor
participants and floor control servers, and between floor chairs
(i.e., moderators) and floor control servers. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


The Southern and Central Alabama Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore. CRAIG T. SHELDON, JR. (ed.) University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2000. x + 315 pp., 10 maps, 134 figs., biblio., index, appendix. $39.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8173-1019-3. Reviewed by Amanda Regnier When picking up the University of Alabama Press' 2001 reissue of The Southern and Central Alabama Expeditions of Clarence Bloomfield Moore, the reader is in for a double treat. Along with the reports from the Alabama portions of seven of Moore's expeditions and three related articles, the volume contains an additional pleasant surprise delivered in the form of Craig Sheldon's introduction. The utility of Sheldon's introduction is twofold: he places the sites Moore visited into perspective by evaluating their status in the prehistory of the region and reviewing subsequent excavations at those sites, and he undertakes the painstaking process of correlating Moore's finds with currently recorded archaeological sites. For anyone interested in the archaeology of southern and central Alabama, this volume is a necessity, especially given the fact that, as Sheldon (p. 2) notes, Moore's research is the only published information for much of the region. Grouped together in this volume are the complete reports of Moore's expeditions along three rivers, the Alabama, Tombigee, and Choctawhatchee, and three coastal bays, Perdido Bay, Mobile Bay, and Mississippi Sound, and part of his report from the lower Chattahoochee River. Chronologically, the first of these expeditions was Moore's 1899 journey up the Alabama River from Mobile Bay to the Coosa-Tallapoosa junction. Along the Alabama, Moore, with his overarching interest in burial customs across the Southeast, was not disappointed, discovering a new form of urn burial in which major skeletal elements from multiple individuals were interred in a single urn. Moore's discovery of another form of urn burial was likely the impetus for the 1904 article included with this volume, "Aboriginal Urn-Burial in the United States," which is a less than successful synthesis, given Moore's attempt to trace this practice across the entire southern portion of the United States, from California to coastal South Carolina. On a more regional level, the importance of Moore's reports from the 19 sites that he investigated in the Alabama River Valley cannot be understated. While some of the Late Mississippian/contact period sites from which Moore recovered urn burials, such as the cemetery at Durant's Bend (IDsI) and the mounds at Matthew's Landing (1Wx169), have been subsequently revisited by archaeologists, other sites were destroyed before any further excavations could be conducted. Moore's reports from the Charlotte Thompson site, Big Eddy (1Mt5), and 30 Acre Field (1Mt7) are still the most detailed data from the Moundville-related sites in the upper Alabama River Valley that have been published to date. The most intriguing of these, the mound on the Charlotte Thompson place, which no longer exists, yielded a rich assortment of Mississippian ceramics, copper, and shell objects recovered alongside sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts, including the decorated brass plate illustrated in Sheldon's (p. 25) introduction. Moore was clearly impressed by the artifacts recovered at Charlotte Thompson, going so far as to have the copper analyzed by a chemist who had studied native copper of the Great Lakes region. The recovery of Mississippian prestige goods and objects of European manufacture within this single mound has intrigued researchers studying the routes of Spanish expeditions and their aftermath within the region for decades. …


Main Purpose: This study aims to explain the processes of management accounting change in the Jordanian Customs Organization (JCO) as well as in the Jordanian public sector within its socio-economic contexts, as influenced by NPM ideas and institutional pressures. It focuses on the regulative way in which new budgeting systems together with the managing-for-results approach were implemented throughout three levels of institutional analysis: political and economic level, organizational field level and organizational level. It also highlights the interaction process between these three levels from one side, and between management accounting and organizational change from another side.
Design/methodology/approach: The study presents the results of an interpretive case-study (JCO) in the public sector. It adopts six steps of qualitative research design and uses triangulation of data collection methods including interviews, observations, and documents and archival records. It is also inspired by a contextual framework (Pettigrew 1987), since it has a holistic view that comprises different perspectives. Particularly, it draws on theoretical integration by synthesizing three recent approaches, respectively: Dillard et al's (2004) framework inspired NIS for external processes and pressures; Burns and Scapens' (2000) framework inspired OIE for internal processes of change; and Hardy's (1996) framework inspired power and politics mobilization.
Key Findings: The study recognizes that management accounting change was carried out in the 'from-top-to-bottom' level of institutional analysis, which confirms the 'path-dependent' and evolutionary nature of the change. It confirms the evidence that other factors, beyond economic factors, may also play an influential role in the implementation of management accounting change. It also concludes that there was a radical change of management accounting systems in the JCO case-study, which was not only a decorative innovation in management accounting but was also represented in the working practices. The study also confirms that management accounting is not a static phenomenon but one that changes over time to reflect new systems and practices. Management accounting change is a part of organizational change; hence management accounting rules and routines are part and parcel of organizational rules and routines.
Research implications: The study has important implications for the ways in which change dynamics can emerge, diffuse and be implemented at three levels of institutional analysis. It provides a new contextual framework to study these dynamics based on an intensive and holistic view of an interpretive case-study in accordance with qualitative research-based 'Convincingness Criteria'. It also explains the interaction between the 'external' origins and 'internal' accounts, which identified that management accounting is both shaped by, and shaping, wider socio-economic and political processes. This broad sensitivity to the nature of management accounting has important implications for the ways of studying management accounting change. For example, changes in the political and economic level, particularly with respect to the introduction of the National Agenda, have resulted in changes in structures and systems at the organizational level, particularly regarding budgeting systems.
Originality/value: The study contributes to both MA literature and institutional theory by providing further understanding and 'thick explanation' of the dynamics of management accounting change in the Jordanian public sector: i.e. explaining the implications of the contextual framework for studying management accounting change; overcoming some of the limitations of NIS and OIE; and clarifying the necessity for bridge-building between the institutional theories to expand their level of analysis.


This book gathers together, in a new way, established and contemporary thinking about how to get the best out of information technology and information systems investments. Working managers who are beset by the complexities of information management in the age of Big Data and the Social Web, and students who are trying to make sense of information management in a chaotic world that is more and more driven by the Internet, will all benefit from this new treatment of a long-standing and problematic domain. Importantly, the book reveals and clarifies the dependencies that exist between the inner world of information technology and the outer world of people and organisations at work. The book differs from other books in its reflective approach. It avoids lengthy, descriptive, and prescriptive dogma. Rather, it provides tools for thinking about information management and it identifies strategic and tactical options at six levels: from the simple consideration of information technology and information systems, right through to issues of organisational performance and business strategy. At the heart of the matter are two critical and tightly connected issues: the ways that we conceive and manage an organisations processes, and the ways that we conceive and manage the information that an organisation needs to sustain those processes. The six-level framework that achieves this clarity is the Information Management Body of Knowledge (familiarly known as the IMBOK). This easy-to-understand and easy-to-remember framework has been found to be extremely useful in business, in government, in civil society and in education. Throughout the book, selected research papers are identified and summarised. There are also summary chapters from three different operational perspectives: performance and competency assessment using the IMBOK, undertaking research into related issues, and a review of parallel expert thinking. This book stands as a reference point and resource for all those who need to straddle the disparate worlds of information technology and business. It provides firm pedagogical foundations for courses dealing with business management in the information age, and it provides a sound reference framework for researchers who need to position research projects related to information technology and information systems in a wider context. For busy managers, who simply wish to identify, understand and successfully manage information technology-related opportunities, it provides an ideal arrangement of ideas and tools that will help them.


A large training set of fitness cases can critically slow down genetic programming, if no appropriate subset selection method is applied. Such a method allows an individual to be evaluated on a smaller subset of fitness cases. In this paper we suggest a new subset selection method that takes the problem structure into account, while being problem independent at the same time. In order to achieve this, information about the problem structure is acquired during evolutionary search by creating a topology (relationship) on the set of fitness cases. The topology is induced by individuals of the evolving population. This is done by increasing the strength of the relation between two fitness cases, if an individual of the population is able to solve both of them. Our new topologybased subset selection method chooses a subset, such that fitness cases in this subset are as distantly related as is possible with respect to the induced topology. We compare topologybased selection of fitness cases with dynamic subset selection and stochastic subset sampling on four different problems. On average, runs with topologybased selection show faster progress than the others.


Abstract In this work, a magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (MION-MIP) was prepared for the recognition and extraction of sulfadiazine (SDZ). The acrylamide-based MIP was imprinted directly onto the surface of 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate-modified magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. The synthesized MION-MIP with a diameter about 100 nm possesses fast adsorption kinetics and high adsorption capacity. The results also indicated that a higher maximum adsorption capacity (775 μg g-1) was achieved by the synthesized MION-MIP. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm model was found to describe well the equilibrium adsorption data. The results from the competitive binding experiment showed that MION-MIP was not only selective toward SDZ but the adsorption of sulfamerazine was also dramatically high. SDZ and sulfamerazine have an almost similar substructure where these two compounds were only differentiated by one methyl group. To explain this result, a computational study was carried out. From a different level of calculation with semiempirical (PM3), Hartree-Fock (HF), and density functional theory (DFT) calculation, SDZ and sulfamerazine showed similar interaction energy and interaction mechanism with the acrylamide monomer. Therefore, both SDZ and sulfamerazine could have the same binding property with the MION-MIP.


Neutral aminopeptidases are enzymes distributed in all living organisms. By hydrolyzing biologically active peptides in tissues and biological fluids, they are involved in the control of many physiological processes. They became established targets for new therapeutic agents in cancer, but also in parasitic diseases like malaria. Marine organisms are promising sources for biomolecules but few examples of neutral aminopeptidase inhibitors are described. The goal of this work was to search in Cuban marine invertebrates, for inhibitory activities of neutral aminopeptidases of biomedical relevance, belonging to the M1 and M17 metallopeptidase families. The screening of inhibitory activities was performed using aqueous crude extracts and their 2.5 % TCA treatments. The treatments with 2.5 % TCA increased the recovery of inhibitory activities versus all enzymes tested and from all of marine species. These inhibitory activities were dose-dependent in all cases, with certain selectivity for PfA-M17 regarding hLAP, and good inhibition of hAPN. Interestingly, some TCA treated extracts displayed promising effect on either Plasmodium parasite growth as well as on PC3 and 3LL cells. This contribution is the first report identifying inhibitory activities from marine invertebrates, directed against human and malarial neutral aminopeptidases, suggesting a potential for biomedical applications for the corresponding marine species.


An ad hoc model of energetic heavy ion beams, including secondary and tertiary particles, has been constructed for predicting radiobiological experiments. While the beam model is relatively primitive, it yields depth-dose and depth-radiobiological calculations in good agreement with experiment upstream of the Bragg peak. Beyond the peak, the model is somewhat coarse grained and seems to underestimate low-LET fragment production. These defects can be repaired at some cost in computer time. Presently a complete set of depth-dose and radiobiological results (RBE, OER, aerobic and hypoxic survival) is obtained in 4–8 min, for a single beam, at a cost of $10. The model can be extended to mixed radiation fields, or to explore the design of ridge filters. These predictions are based on cellular radiosensitivity parameters extracted from track-segment irradiations at about 8 MeV/amu. Their success implies that no new radiobiological results arise from irradiation with beams at 500 MeV/amu.


Background: Thalassemia/haemoglobinopathy is a hereditary disease with increased erythropoiesis and expansion of the bone marrow cavity. Consequently, there is a reduction in trabecular bone tissue resulting in osteopenia/osteoporosis. The present study was performed to determine bone mineral density (BMD) in children and adolescents with major thalassemia and its correlation with serum ferritin level. Methods: Seventy children and adolescents with major thalassemia were divided into two groups, (each group with 35 patients). Patients with serum ferritin level more than 1500 ng/dl were defined as case group and those with serum ferritin level lower than 1500 ng/dl were defined as control group. Thyroid and parathyroid function tests were performed as well as calcium and phosphorus serum level were checked. Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) was the diagnostic test for osteoporosis. Only patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia major were enrolled. Patients with delayed puberty, hypothyroidism or parathyroid dysfunction, renal failure, liver failure, growth hormone deficiency and also those who used Calcitriol were excluded from the research. Results: Results showed that the mean serum ferritin in patients who had femoral osteoporosis was higher from those with osteopenia and normal density in the femur. (p=0.001). In addition, the mean serum ferritin in patients with vertebral osteoporosis was higher than that in those with osteopenia and normal bone density in the vertebral bones, (p=0.002). There is a significant difference between serum ferritin in different bone densities. Conclusions: Bone density is a good indicator of bone status in patients with major thalassemia and we recommend measuring it annually.


Although the use of crop residues to enhance soil fertility has been suggested over the years, little is known about the nutrient composition of these residues as affected by specific nutrient management strategies. A study was conducted at the Soil Research Institute, Kwadaso, Ghana to examine the chemical properties of maize residues after application of different nutrient sources. The study was a field experiment arranged in a randomized complete block design. The treatments considered were application of poultry manure (PM), poultry manure + chemical fertilizer (PM + CF), chemical fertilizer (CF) and a control. Crop residues under CF application recorded the highest total N, P, K contents of 0.90%, 0.14%, and 1.19%, respectively. There were virtually no observable treatment effects on K, Ca and Mg contents of residues. The highest polyphenol (6.90%) and lignin (17.21%) contents were recorded under CF and PM + CF applications, respectively. The polyphenol: N ratios ranged from 7.7 in CF treated residues to 8.3 in residues on control plots. The study indicated that chemical fertilizer treated residues generally have higher nutrients composition and could have faster decomposition rate because of their lower polyphenol: N ratio than residues from all treated and untreated plots.


1. The effect of infusion of isotonic saline on the circulation in the renal cortex in the dog was investigated by an external counting technique involving measurement of the transit times for 'Krypton and l 311-labelled albumin after rapid injection into the renal artery. 2. During saline infusion superficial renal cortical blood flow and overall cortical blood flow rose by 23 and 15%, respectively. There was a 6% rise in the ratio superficial cortical blood flow to overall cortical flow, which however, was not significant. 3. Resistance to flow through cortex decreased. 4. Mean transit time for plasma through cortex decreased from an average of 2.9 sec in the control period to 2.6 and 2.1 sec during saline infusion. 5. Renal cortical blood volume, as estimated from the cortical blood flow and the mean transit time for plasma, was virtually unchanged. 6. These studies indicate that the decrease in resistance to flow during acute isotonic saline infusion is probably caused by a dilatation of the resistance vessels only. No significant redistribution of blood flow in cortex takes place; this, however, does not exclude regional changes in glomerular filtration rate.


The durability, reliability, and robustness of photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices are key factors for advancing the practical large-scale implementation of cost-competitive solar fuel production. We review the known degradation mechanisms occurring in water-splitting photoelectrochemical devices. The degradation of single components is discussed in detail, and the parameters and conditions which influence it are presented. Device short-term durability depends on the semiconductor material and its interface with the electrolyte. Catalyst and electrolyte degradations are considerable challenges for long-term durability. We highlight how PEC device design choices can affect the salience of alternative degradation mechanisms. The PEC device architecture and the initial operating design point are crucial for observed device performance loss. Device degradation behavior is further impacted by irradiation intensity and concentration, and by current density and concentration. Enhancing a physical understanding of degradation phenomena and investigating their effect on component properties is of utmost importance for predicting performance loss and tackling the durability challenge of PEC devices.


Key points Asthma patients want help to improve their ability to function in their daily lives (physical, social, occupational and emotional). Awareness of patients' problems and a willingness to treat them may improve both asthma control and quality of life. The clinician and the patient should negotiate a treatment plan that addresses both asthma control and the patient's needs, and that the patient is willing to follow. Valid, easy-to-use, self-administered asthma quality-of-life questionnaires can be used in the clinic to identify quickly the patient's specific problems and treatment goals. Educational aims To define HRQL and emphasise its importance in patients with asthma. To describe the HRQL impairments experienced by adults and children with asthma. To discuss the role of HRQL in clinical practice and the concept of shared decision making. To provide information on the selection, methods of administration, analysis, interpretation and cultural adaptation of HRQL questionnaires Summary An important contributor to poor patient compliance with treatment instructions may be a discrepancy between the goals of the clinician and those of the patient. Improved clinician awareness of patients' asthma-related quality-of-life goals and a readiness to address them may enhance patients' willingness to take medications and, thus, improve both their asthma control and their quality of life. The aim of this article is to explain how quick, valid, easy-to-use, self-administered and clinic-friendly HRQL can be used to identify patients' greatest needs, ascertain how troublesome they are and ensure that they are included in the treatment plan. HRQL questionnaires can also be used to monitor patient progress over time.


Background Most clinical trials of new treatments for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have shown weak discrimination between investigational agents and placebo when added to standard of care (SOC). The design of future SLE trials may be improved by considering strategies for reducing placebo response rates and better understanding the within-patient variability in disease activity during follow- up. We evaluated longitudinal patterns of response in SLE patients who received placebo plus SOC in two completed 52-week clinical trials. Baseline characteristics that discriminated persistent responders from non-responders were also examined, with the goal of identifying characteristics that may define patient populations with unmet medical need who should be targeted for enrollment in future trials Materials and methods Data was obtained from the Collective Data Analysis Initiative (CDAI) of the Lupus Foundation of America and included 147 patients from the placebo plus SOC arms of two randomised Phase II/III trials in moderately-to-severely active lupus patients without acute nephritis. BILAG-based response was evaluated at weeks 12, 24, 36, 48, and 52. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of response rates were performed. Baseline clinical variables that discriminated persistent responders and non-responders were identified using logistic regression. Results Cross-sectional response rates for patients treated with placebo plus SOC decreased from 46% to 37% between 12–52 weeks (Figure 1). The rate of complete and sustained response, i.e., response at all visits between 12–52 weeks, was only 14.3% (95% CI: 8.6%–19.9%). Agreement between response status at 12 weeks and 36–52 weeks was low (kappa = 0.15–0.25); furthermore only 31% of initial 12 week responders maintained response at all subsequent visits. Baseline factors contributing to persistent response to SOC included fewer active organ systems, high C3 levels, and type of background therapy. Conclusions An endpoint based on a sustained rather than landmark response may reduce high placebo response rates in SLE trials that continue aggressive SOC. Further exploration to assess the power of this endpoint to improve discrimination between active and placebo arms is indicated. The observed lack of stability in response to SOC over time highlights a potential weakness with shorter studies that use an endpoint of improvement. Our data also confirm earlier reports that the likelihood of response in the placebo group depends on the severity of disease and the aggressiveness of background treatments. Abstract CT-05 Figure 1 Temporal patterns in response status (Light = Response; Dark = No Response) Acknowledgements Lupus Foundation of America Collective Data Analysis Initiative Group.


Conclusions * Hong Kong reversion will have no significant impact upon the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region. Political and economic concerns far outweigh military considerations. * The United States has only limited ability to affect the transition in Hong Kong. In order to be effective, Washington's actions should firmly focus on U.S. interests in Hong Kong. Although the Hong Kong transition bears directly on overall U.S. relations with China, it should not assume paramount importance in determining the tone of the bilateral relationship. * Unilateral efforts by Washington will be counterproductive; U.S. policy should be closely coordinated with the large number of other nations having similar interests there. * Owing to the nature of the transition, U.S. policy should be phased. During the first phase-from the 1 July transfer until elections for a new Legislative Council are held-a policy of watchful waiting should be adopted to allow Beijing to demonstrate its sincerity in fulfilling the terms of the Basic Law. Second phase policy should be based on consideration of how U.S. interests in protecting regional stability, Hong Kong's economic viability, freedom of the press, and the safety of U.S. citizens and investments are being affected. * Hong Kong is economically self-sanctioning (that is, if China disrupts the status quo businesses will leave). Unless their lives are at risk, the people of Hong Kong and the international business community will probably sit out one crisis. It is unlikely, however, that they will be as passive if the situation deteriorates a second time. At the earliest sign of a subsequent disaster, whoever can probably will leave in whatever manner they have prepared. Such a course is not inevitable and clearly one the leaders in Hong Kong and Beijing will seek to avoid. Introduction On July 1, 1997 the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong will revert from British to Chinese rule and become a Special Autonomous Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. For the next year and more, the world will focus on the manner in which China handles the transition. The pressure will be squarely on China's shoulders to live up to the international agreements (the 1984 Joint Declaration and 1990 Basic Law) that provide the framework for the resumption of sovereignty over the territory governed by Britain for 150 years. Much is at stake for the Chinese leadership. How Beijing manages this responsibility will deeply influence the perceptions of other nations about how China will function as a major power. Hong Kong Reversion: The Impact on China's Military Position China has prepared a military force to move into Hong Kong on 1 July. At present, the Hong Kong Garrison has its headquarters just to the north of Hong Kong in Shenzhen. Elements of the army, navy, and air force will be stationed in the SAR after reversion, taking over locations historically used by British forces. The exact size of the garrison to be stationed in Hong Kong has not been disclosed, but is likely to total a few thousand troops of all services. Sub-elements of the garrison are expected to rotate into and out of the SAR from Shenzhen on a regular basis. The Chinese government has gone to great lengths to demonstrate that these troops are the best in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). They are receiving intensive training so that they understand their role in Hong Kong and maintain a professional demeanor. According to the Basic Law, Chinese military forces shall not interfere in local affairs. There has been no indication that the paramilitary People's Armed Police, the armed force primarily tasked with the internal security mission on the mainland, will be stationed as a security force in Hong Kong after reversion. Reversion will not have any major impact on China's military position within the Asia Pacific region. Hong Kong's harbor and its military and air facilities will not greatly enhance the ability of the PLA to concentrate force in any of the areas of greatest concern to Beijing: the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or along the border with Vietnam. …


We have studied the mechanism of contour perception by recording from neurons in the visual cortex of alert rhesus monkeys. We used stimuli in which human observers perceive anomalous contours: A moving pair of notches in 2 bright rectangles mimicked an overlaying dark bar. For control, the notches were closed by thin lines so that the anomalous contours disappeared or half of the figure was blanked, with a similar effect. Orientation-selective neurons were studied. With the receptive fields centered in the gap, 23 of 72 (32%) neurons tested in area V2 responded to the moving "bar" even though the stimulus spared their response fields, and when the notches were closed, their responses were reduced or abolished. Likewise, when half of the figure was removed, the neurons usually failed to respond. Neurons with receptive fields within 4 degrees of the fovea signaled anomalous contours bridging gaps of 1 degree-3.5 degrees. The anomalous-contour responses were compared quantitatively with response field profiles and length-summation curves and found to exceed the predictions by linear-summation and summation- to-threshold models. Summation models also fail to explain the effect of closing lines which add only negligible amounts of light. In V1, only one of 26 neurons tested showed comparable responses, and only with a narrow gap. The others responded only when the stimulus invaded the response field and did not show the effect of closing lines, or failed to respond at all. The contour responses in V2, the nonadditivity, and the effect of closure can be explained by the previously proposed model (Peterhans et al., 1986), assuming that the corners excite end-stopped fields orthogonal to the contour whose signals are pooled in the contour neurons.


This Article argues that if we wish to account for the limited gains made in the area of family law reform in Egypt in the twentieth century, it is crucial to relate the debate on family law with another debate, one revolving around the identity of the Egyptian legal system.' Whereas the dispute over family law reform forced decisions on gender and the family, the contest surrounding identity centered on the ongoing and agonized struggle by Egyptians to define the nature of their country's contemporary cultural identity.2 The question of identity was often framed as a debate over the "character" of Egyptian law, asking: Should law in Egypt be reconstructed to re-acquire its lost Islamic identity, or should it remain European and secular? 3


Both Knowledge Management and Appreciative Inquiry attempt to amplify human and organizational capacities by leveraging the best of each. Whereas knowledge management systems aim to help identifying the substantive organizational knowledge in its broadest sense and leveraging it to benefit the organization and its stakeholders, the appreciative inquiry methodology is also about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In their root cause, both knowledge management and appreciative inquiry "involve systematic discovery of what gives life to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms." Following a brief introduction of knowledge management systems and appreciative inquiry, this essay examines the corollary relationship between the two, and subsequently points to critical areas in which knowledge management practices can benefit from adopting the appreciative inquiry perspective. More particularly, we submit that appreciative inquiry can motivate organization-wide adoption of knowledge management systems and it can provide language-based mechanisms to facilitate effective knowledge exchange. The development of an appreciative-inquirybased mode of knowledge management opens new horizons and uncovers previously overlooked possibilities, which eventually can contribute to the overall organizational performance and wellbeing.


A 3-D spectral/spatial discrete Fourier transform can be used to represent a hyperspectral image region using a dense sampling in the frequency domain. In many cases, a more compact frequency-domain representation that preserves the 3-D structure of the data can be exploited. For this purpose, we have developed a new model for spectral/spatial information based on 3-D Gabor filters. These filters capture specific orientation, scale, and wavelength-dependent properties of hyperspectral image data and provide an efficient means of sampling a 3-D frequency-domain representation. Since 3-D Gabor filters allow for a large number of spectral/spatial features to be used to represent an image region, the performance and efficiency of algorithms that use this representation can be further improved if methods are available to reduce the size of the model. Thus, we have derived methods for selecting features that emphasize the most significant spectral/spatial differences between the various classes in a scene. We demonstrate the performance of the 3-D Gabor features for the classification of regions in Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer hyperspectral data. The new features are compared against pure spectral features and multiband generalizations of gray-level co-occurrence matrix features.


Trauma has become a hotly contested topic in literary studies. But interest in trauma is not new; its roots extend to the Romantic period, when novelists and the first psychiatrists influenced each others' investigations of the »wounded mind«. This book looks back to these early attempts to understand trauma, reading a selection of Romantic novels in dialogue with Romantic and contemporary psychiatry. It then carries that dialogue forward to postmodern fiction, examining further how empirical approaches can deepen our theorizations of trauma. Within an interdisciplinary framework, this study reveals fresh insights into the poetics, politics, and ethics of trauma fiction.


This study outlines the history of the art of ironwork in Italy during the Middle Ages, examining the principal personalities involved, documents and significant episodes. Scientific studies that examine artistic ironwork in Italy are scarce and yet there are ample collections of documents on the arts, in the form of photographic portfolios and manuals, compiled in the late nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. The first part of this study examines the background, quantifying the legacy of still extant ironwork, and analysing its future in terms of protection, study, imitation, reproduction, reuse and dispersal.Understanding the technical similarities between the processes generally used in the workshops of jewellery-makers and blacksmiths, and attempting to distinguish between original mediaeval works and copies has meant dealing with the problem of techniques, a subject that is examined in some notes on the installation, assembly, decoration, colouring and interpretation of the precepts expounded in the treatises. The main area of focus is on those types of works which are dealt with in greater depth in archive documents, which essentially means monumental ironwork and thus primarily gates and railings. Light is then shed on another series of works caskets and chests which appear in large quantities in collections and museums and on those that are still in situ, such as locks and door bolts. The chronological limits of this study are not clear-cut, but the focus is mainly on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The initial date has had to be pushed back to include Romanesque works."


Abstract Juvenile green turtles occupy home ranges on shallow reefs that parallel the southeastern coast of Florida. When disturbed, the turtles often flee eastward toward deeper water. We captured turtles at night and recorded their orientation during the next 2 days while they swam tethered inside a large circular outdoor pool and were exposed to the sun. The turtles from 2 reef sites were significantly oriented eastward. After 7–10 days of exposure to a laboratory photocycle advanced by 7 hours, turtles tested in the same pool were significantly oriented westward, the predicted direction if they used the sun for orientation. Westward orientation was unaffected by placing either disc magnets or brass discs of identical mass above the turtles' heads. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that orientation under clear skies is preferentially based upon solar cues. However, control turtles exposed for 7–10 days to a photocycle advanced by 1 hour were also expected to swim generally eastward, but, for unknown reasons, failed to show significant orientation. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that the sun is used as a compass, but additional experiments will be required to provide definitive evidence.


This paper studies how attractive young returnees are in the labour market and how they behave relative to stayers. We use the online CVs of young people that are posted on the major Slovak job-search portal. The analysis is performed using a set of regression models that investigate attractiveness, salary expectations and positions of interest to returnees in comparison to stayers. We find that the post-accession foreign work experience increases the attractiveness of job candidates, but that attractiveness premium varies depending on the returnee's host country. Returnees are more demanding with respect to their minimum salary expectations and are more likely than stayers to apply for positions advertised abroad. Return migrants are a diverse group - women, graduates, or people returning to economically underperforming regions, continue to face disadvantages with labour market integration.


We perform a theoretical prediction of the structure of amorphous YCrO3. We obtained equivalent amorphous structures by means of two independent first principles density functional theory based methods: molecular dynamics and stochastic quenching. In our structural analysis we include radial and angle distribution functions as well as calculations of bond lengths and average coordination numbers. We find Cr+3 atoms situated in slightly distorted oxygen octahedra throughout the amorphous structures and that the distribution of these octahedra is disordered. The presence of the same Cr+3 local environments that give rise to ferroelectricity in the orthorhombic perovskite structure suggests that the amorphous phase of YCrO3 may also exhibit ferroelectric properties.


Although the different roles of men and women in agriculture in different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa have been widely acknowledged, there have not been consistent efforts to collect data on these patterns. This paper presents a way of classifying gendered farm management systems and then describes pilots of four different approaches to collecting and georeferencing information on the dominant pattern in each area. Case studies from existing literature provided valuable insights but represent a time-consuming method, limited in spatial coverage and often leaving gaps because the original study authors did not report on all of the aspects of interest for a gendered farm management systems analysis. Expert consultations conducted in Ghana and Zambia allowed for dialogue among participants during map development, permitting them to explore nuances and dynamics. However, this technique may be restricted in scale to one country at a time, limiting cross-national comparison. An open online survey, or crowdsourcing, of the information tapped into a wide range of expertise, providing difficult-to-obtain widespread coverage, but had inconsistent data quality. Mapping of georeferenced information from nationally representative data could potentially provide widespread and relatively accurate data, but thus far the relevant underlying data have not been consistently included in large-scale surveys. Gender mapping offers an important step toward greater awareness of the diverse gender roles in agricultural farm management systems, but gaps remain between field reality and the understanding of gender relations in research, on the one hand, and between the researchers' understanding and what can be displayed on a map, on the other. Addressing these gaps requires developing a consensus on the key variables that characterize gendered farming systems, collecting these data systematically, and then linking the data to other spatial information for use in planning and prioritizing development interventions.


The study draws on the theory of optimal taxation and the practice in a number of federal and unitary countries to outline the conceptual framework of the allocation of revenue responsibilities among levels of government. A distinction has been made between decentralized tax policy (the power to set tax bases and rates) and tax administration (collection of taxes). Possible solutions for Bulgaria are drawn and formed on this base. It has been justified that, the strengthening of the tax autonomy of local government is the main objective of the reform in local finances but appropriate taxes are few in number and are with a limited revenue potential. Optimization of the real estate tax has been proposed, including taxation on local incomes from rent as well as local patent tax. The revenue potential of these autonomous local taxes especially in small municipalities is not large, which leads to the necessity of a semi-autonomous parallel local tax on personal incomes, as well as substantial central subsidies i.e. re-allocation of tax revenues across municipalities.


SUMMARY This paper presents seven material discharge trajectory methods and explains the differences between them. Most of these methods involve a series of equations to determine first whether low-speed or high-speed conveying condition apply, then the material discharge angle for low-speed conditions and finally the X and Y coordinates of the trajectory profile. There are also simplified methods which rely on graphical determination of the trajectory profiles. The methods have been analysed to investigate which included parameters can be declared as variables for a given conveying condition and then evaluated to determine the impact of the variations. These parameters include, adhesive stress, coefficients of static and kinetic friction, air drag, particle shape and size, divergent coefficients and material bulk density.


High temperature gas sensors based on catalytic metal-insulator-silicon carbide (MISiC) devices are developed both as capacitors and Schottky diodes. A maximum operation temperature of 1000 degrees C is obtained for capacitors based on 4H-SiC, and all sensors work routinely for several weeks at 600 degrees C. Reducing gases like hydrocarbons and hydrogen lower the flat band voltage of the capacitor and the barrier height of the diode. The time constants for the gas response are in the order of milliseconds and because of this good performance the sensors are tested for combustion engine control. For temperatures around 600 degrees C total combustion occurs on the sensor surface and the signal is high for fuel in excess and low for air in excess. At temperatures around 400 degrees C the response is more linear. The high temperature operation causes interdiffusion of the metal and insulator layers in these devices; and this interdiffusion has been studied. At sufficiently high temperatures the inversion capacitance shows different levels for hydrogen free and hydrogen containing ambients, which is suggested to be due to a reversible hydrogen annealing effect at the insulator-silicon carbide interface.


Lacustrine and coastal systems are vulnerable to the increasing number and intensity of tropical storms driven by climate change. Strong winds associated with tropical storms can mobilize nutrients in sediments and alter nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, leading to amplification of preexisting conditions, such as eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms (cyanoHABs). In 2016, Florida declared a State of Emergency within and downstream of Lake Okeechobee (LO) due to toxic cyanobacterial blooms (primarily Microcystis). The blooms originated in LO, but flood control measures released water from LO to the brackish St. Lucie Estuary (SLE). In September 2017, Hurricane Irma traversed the Florida peninsula with sustained winds exceeding 160 km h-1, generating torrential rains over the watershed. We quantified ammonium (NH4+) regeneration and potential uptake rates, and Microcystis toxin gene (mcyD) abundance in LO and SLE during the massive bloom in July 2016, the bloom in August 2017 (two weeks before Irma), and 10 days after Hurricane Irma landfall. In 2016, cyanoHABs were present in both LO and SLE, and potential NH4+ uptake rates were high in both systems. In 2017, the bloom was constrained to LO, and potential NH4+ uptake rates in LO exceeded those in SLE, and mcyD gene abundance was greater in LO than SLE. Post Hurricane Irma, potential NH4+ uptake rates decreased significantly in LO and SLE, while mcyD gene abundance decreased in LO and increased slightly in SLE. Average NH4+ regeneration rates could support 25–40% of water column potential NH4+ demand in the lake and, when extrapolated to the entire LO water column, exceeded external nitrogen loading. These results emphasize the importance of internal NH4+ recycling for bloom expansion and toxicity in the lake and downstream estuaries. In 2018, the cyanobacterial bloom in the Okeechobee region was one of the largest recorded and is presumed to be driven by the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Large-scale blooms have also been observed in SLE, likely due to LO flushing and decreased salinity post hurricane. Thus, results from this study support predictions that increased frequency and strength of tropical storms will lead to more intense blooms in aquatic systems.


The idea of Deep Geothermal Single Well (DGSW) heat production has existed for many years, but with no consensus regarding its potential applicability: proponents have made claims regarding thermal outputs that appear exaggerated, whereas detractors have stated that the concept can never be economic unless the capital cost of drilling has already been discounted. However, because this technology offers the potential of delivering geothermal heat projects 'off the shelf' with a minimum of site-dependent research, the possibility exists of achieving cost-effective solutions. The present study sets out to investigate this topic subject to environmental and subsidy regimes applicable in the UK; the results might also be useful for other jurisdictions. Under these conditions, the variant of the technology with greatest potential for cost-effectiveness is the hcDGSW, or conductive DGSW with heat production via heat pump. Analytical modelling enables the physics of the heat-exchange processes within a hcDGSW to be approximated. It is thus established that this option can indeed be cost-effective under the current UK subsidy regime for deep geothermal heat, provided boreholes are deep enough and in localities where the geothermal gradient is high enough. The environmentally optimum operational mode (optimizing savings in CO2e emissions) involves heat production at a lower rate than the economically optimum mode (maximizing profit). If such projects are subsidized from public funds, a particular operational mode might be specified, maybe as a compromise between these optima. After the 20-year duration of the subsidy, the technology might well no longer be economic, but the infrastructure might be easily repurposed for seasonal heat storage, thus offering the potential of making a significant long-term contribution to sustainable future heat supply. These preliminary results indicate that more detailed appraisal of this technology variant is warranted.


Want to develop novel robot applications, but dont know how to write a mapping or object-recognition system? Youre not alone, but youre certainly not without help. By combining real-world examples with valuable knowledge from the Robot Operating System (ROS) community, this practical book provides a set of motivating recipes for solving specific robotics use cases.Ideal for enthusiasts, from students in robotics clubs to professional robotics scientists and engineers, each recipe describes a complete solution using ROS open source libraries and tools. Youll learn how to complete tasks described in the recipes, as well as how to configure and recombine components for other tasks. If youre familiar with Python, youre ready to go.Learn fundamentals, including key ROS concepts, tools, and patternsProgram robots that perform an increasingly complex set of behaviors, using the powerful packages in ROSSee how to easily add perception and navigation abilities to your robotsIntegrate your own sensors, actuators, software libraries, and even a whole robot into the ROS ecosystemLearn tips and tricks for using ROS tools and community resources, debugging robot behavior, and using C++ in ROS


Basic and translational research on cancer, and development of new cancer therapeutics, has focused on different aspects of cancer cellular function. One area of focus is the life and death of a cancer cell. Apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death, is a fundamental process of cells including cancer cells. The signal transduction pathways of apoptosis involve many different proteins and their interactions with each other. Protein–protein interactions involved in these apoptotic signals, like those in many other biological processes, are often determined or influenced by a short fragment of protein sequence or even certain key amino acid residues with important functional or structural roles in the protein–protein interface. For biomedical and pharmaceutical scientists, developing new molecular tools to understand and control the functions of these small protein fragments or residues and the biological and pathological processes that they mediate is a task and challenge of both fundamental interest and practical value. In the work published on page 247 of this issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Huang, Zhang, Reed, An and their co-workers describe the development of new synthetic molecules as models to study the structural and functional role of the proline residue and tetrapeptide sequence important for the regulation of cancer cell apoptosis by the XIAP protein. The work was carried out jointly by the laboratories of Ziwei Huang and Jing An, formerly at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California and now the Cancer Research Institute and Department of Pharmacology of the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, Liangren Zhang at Peking University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Beijing, China, and John Reed at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Dr Huang, who led this international research team, stated 'Research on protein-protein interactions and their synthetic modulators has become a new frontier for biomedical research and pharmaceutical development. We have chosen a proline containing tetrapeptide as the model to develop new peptidomimetic molecules to study the role of proline and tetrapeptide in the binding of XIAP protein and potential inhibition of XIAP mediated protein-protein interactions critical for apoptotic signaling in cancer cells. Our results suggest that these tetrapeptide analogs can be further developed into new molecular tools to analyze the mechanisms of protein-protein interactions and signal transduction pathways of XIAP in cancer and potential leads to develop anticancer drugs. This study combined the techniques in structure-based drug design, chemistry, and cancer biology and expertise and resources at institutions in America and China. It is an example of international collaboration to apply chemistry to biology and medicine with the long term goal of finding new anticancer therapeutics.' The research team used the crystal structure of a known tetrapeptide AVPI derived from Smac protein bound to XIAP protein as the guide to design a series of peptidomimetic analogs containing a conformationally constrained proline mimetic exo-2-azabicyclo[2.2.1]heptane-3-carboxylic acid. Structural analyses using nuclear magnetic resonance and molecular modeling showed that some of these analogs can mimic the conformations of the parent tetrapeptide. Using a fluorescence polarization assay, one of these analogs was shown to be potent like the parent tetrapeptide in binding XIAP protein. This raises the possibility that such an analog may inhibit the antiapoptotic function of XIAP (a protein inhibitor of apoptosis), thus removing the roadblock of the death signal to kill a cancer cell. Dr John Reed, who led the binding and biological studies of these molecules in La Jolla, California, said, 'The progress made through our collaborations with Dr Huang and colleagues is a component of a substantial commitment we have made at Sanford-Burnham to discovery and design of small molecule chemical inhibitors of IAP family proteins as potential therapeutics for cancer. We are eager to advance the work towards drug-like leads that might provide renewed hope for those suffering from advanced malignancies.' The design and synthesis of the peptide analogs described in the study are the beginning steps in the long process of research and development of suitable pharmaceutical agents capable of penetrating a cancer cell membrane to reach the XIAP target and triggering the signaling pathway that causes the death of cancer cells in vivo. While further modifications and studies are needed on these peptide analogs in order to show their practical values as cell-permeable anticancer agents, the present study of these analogs is of basic research interest for understanding the role of proline and conformation of prolyl peptide bond in mediating the biological function of a protein. It is known that the two different conformational isomers (cis and trans isomers) of the prolyl peptide bond can mediate distinct function of the protein. Many studies in the past of proline and proline mimics show either a mixture of cis and trans isomers or purely cis isomer. In this study, the proline mimic displayed strictly the trans conformation. The interesting conformational and functional effects of the synthetic unnatural mimic of proline discovered here suggest an alternative probe of prolyl isomerization in biology and that such a proline mimic can be applied to study the role of proline and proline-containing sequence in other protein– protein interactions involved in a wide range of biological functions. Steven R Goodman, Editor-in-Chief of Experimental Biology and Medicine, said 'This elegant study by Ziwei Huang and colleagues explores the role of proline containing peptides in inhibiting the anti-apoptotic function of XIAP. This will potentially lead the way to new designer anti-cancer drugs. The article is a wonderful example of the interdisciplinary and international research that is the focus of our journal.'


Summary PathfindR is a tool for pathway enrichment analysis utilizing active subnetworks. It identifies gene sets that form active subnetworks in a protein-protein interaction network using a list of genes provided by the user. It then performs pathway enrichment analyses on the identified gene sets. Further, using the R package pathview, it maps the user data on the enriched pathways and renders pathway diagrams with the mapped genes. Because many of the enriched pathways are usually biologically related, pathfindR also offers functionality to cluster these pathways and identify representative pathways in the clusters. PathfindR is built as a stand-alone package but it can easily be integrated with other tools, such as differential expression/methylation analysis tools, for building fully automated pipelines. In this article, an overview of pathfindR is provided and an example application on a rheumatoid arthritis dataset is presented and discussed. Availability The package is freely available under MIT license at: https://github.com/egeulgen/pathfindR


A Monte Carlo based treatment planning system for modulated electron radiation therapy (MERT) is presented. This new variation of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) utilizes an electron multileaf collimator (eMLC) to deliver non-uniform intensity maps at several electron energies. In this way, conformal dose distributions are delivered to irregular targets located a few centimetres below the surface while sparing deeper-lying normal anatomy. Planning for MERT begins with Monte Carlo generation of electron beamlets. Electrons are transported with proper in-air scattering and the dose is tallied in the phantom for each beamlet. An optimized beamlet plan may be calculated using inverse-planning methods. Step-and-shoot leaf sequences are generated for the intensity maps and dose distributions recalculated using Monte Carlo simulations. Here, scatter and leakage from the leaves are properly accounted for by transporting electrons through the eMLC geometry. The weights for the segments of the plan are re-optimized with the leaf positions fixed and bremsstrahlung leakage and electron scatter doses included. This optimization gives the final optimized plan. It is shown that a significant portion of the calculation time is spent transporting particles in the leaves. However, this is necessary since optimizing segment weights based on a model in which leaf transport is ignored results in an improperly optimized plan with overdosing of target and critical structures. A method of rapidly calculating the bremsstrahlung contribution is presented and shown to be an efficient solution to this problem. A homogeneous model target and a 2D breast plan are presented. The potential use of this tool in clinical planning is discussed.


This article examines John Milbank's deconstruction of secular social theory, and the counter master narrative that he proposes.  Milbank depicts secular social theory as based on an ontology of 'violence'.  Instead, he proposes a participatory Christian master narrative based on an ontology of peace.  Two questions are posed in this article.  First, is Milbank's description of secular thought as undergirded by an ontology of violence valid?  Second, does the Christian counter narrative that he proposes provide an adequate and viable social theory?  After explicating Milbank's analysis of secular social theory and his alternative of an ontology of peace, the article comes to the conclusion that Milbank's analysis of secular theory is seriously flawed because of the very comprehensive and universal content that he gives to the term 'violence'.  His alternative social theory is also not viable because of the ecclesiocentric nature of his model.  It is argued that Milbank's alternative narrative displays contradictions and does not escape theocratic, relativist and 'violent' elements.


Environmentally friendly and energy efficient green buildings have gained their popularity across many countries including Australia. Despite their increasing popularity and rental premium, it is not known why tenants are more inclined to lease green over non-green office buildings in Australia. In addressing this gap, this study aims to explore tenants' motivations to leasing green office buildings. To this, this study first analysed over 2,000 tenants occupying over 100 green buildings in Sydney CBD. This allowed this study to identify which tenants are more likely lease green buildings than the others. The results show that tenants from; (i) the Finance and Insurance services sector, (ii) the Professional, Scientific and Technical services sector, and (iii) Real estate services sector account for over 50% of the entire tenant sample. Then, a judgemental purposive sampling method was adopted, and nine interviews were conducted with the key leasing decision-makers from the top three sectors. The interview findings reveal that the traditional aspects of location and costs are still the key motivational factors for green building tenants. However, many interviewees acknowledge that leasing a green office space could help improving their corporate image. This thus led to many tenants' beliefs that green spaces contain both symbolic value and tangible value, and that higher rents for green buildings are rather acceptable considering what they can offer. The results of the study suggest that understanding the demand of various types of tenants is essential to shed the light on the expensive rental price of green buildings in Australia. 


As semiconductor technologies have continued to scale according to Moore's Law, complexity , power consumption, and energy dissipation have become first-order considerations in microprocessor design. In processors that issue instructions out-of-order, store-load forwarding is a source of significant complexity and energy dissipation. To decrease the complexity and improve the energy efficiency of store-load forwarding, this thesis proposes the forwarding cache (FC), an address-indexed, set-associative alternative to the age-indexed, fully associative store queue (SQ). The SQ is a content-addressable memory (CAM) that holds in-flight stores in program order. Because the SQ is age-indexed, a load's address may match one or more stores located anywhere in the SQ. Thus, the SQ search is fully associative and priority-encoded. In today's wide-issue processors, the SQ is large (24 to 32 entries), multiported (to accommodate the issue of multiple loads in a single cycle), and fast (no slower than an L1 data cache hit). The energy and complexity required to perform a fast search in a highly associative, multiported CAM are substantial. The contributions of this work are as follows. First, this thesis shows empirically that address multiversioning and the accompanying age-ordered, priority-encoded search are rarely necessary to perform store-load forwarding correctly. While others have observed the same empirical result on a particular processor configuration using a particular load speculation policy , this thesis extends the analysis to a broad variety of processors using several load speculation policies. Second, this thesis proposes the forwarding cache (FC), an address-indexed, set-associative cache that performs store-load forwarding. Third, this thesis investigates the sensitivity of the FC's performance and energy dissipation to several design parameters, including size, associativity, number of banks, and number of ports. The results show that a small, simple, set-associative FC performs comparably to the complex, fully associative SQ on both control-intensive and scientific workloads, while dissipating nearly ten times less energy than the SQ. iii To my parents, Harry and Mary Ann, who have always encouraged and supported me, and to Chip Coulter, the very best computer science teacher any student could hope to find. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


In the last decade, several argument-based formalisms have emerged, with application in many areas, such as legal reasoning, autonomous agents and multi-agent systems; many are based on Dung's seminal work characterizing Abstract Argumentation Frameworks (AF). Recent research in the area has led to Temporal Argumentation Frameworks (TAF), that extend AF by considering the temporal availability of arguments. On the other hand, different more concrete argumentation systems exists, such as Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP), specifying a knowledge representation language, and how arguments are built. In this work we combine time representation capabilities of TAF with the representation language and argument structure of DeLP, defining a rule-based argumentation framework that considers time at the object language level. In order to do this, we use an extension of DeLP, called Labeled DeLP (l-DeLP) to establish, for each program clause, the set of time intervals in which it is available, and to determine from this information the temporal availability of arguments. Acceptability semantics for TAF can then be applied to determine argument acceptability on time.


Objects gravitationally captured by the Earth–Moon system are commonly called temporarily captured orbiters (TCOs), natural Earth satellites, or minimoons. TCOs are a crucially important subpopulation of near-Earth objects (NEOs) to understand because they are the easiest targets for future sample-return, redirection, or asteroid mining missions. Only one TCO has ever been observed telescopically, 2006 RH120, and it orbited Earth for about 11 months. Additionally, only one TCO fireball has ever been observed prior to this study. We present our observations of an extremely slow fireball (codename DN160822_03) with an initial velocity of around 11.0 km s−1 that was detected by six of the high-resolution digital fireball observatories located in the South Australian region of the Desert Fireball Network. Due to the inherent dynamics of the system, the probability of the meteoroid being temporarily captured before impact is extremely sensitive to its' initial velocity. We examine the sensitivity of the fireball's orbital history to the chosen triangulation method. We use the numerical integrator REBOUND to assess particle histories and assess the statistical origin of DN160822_03. From our integrations we have found that the most probable capture time, velocity, semimajor axis, NEO group, and capture mechanism vary annually for this event. Most particles show that there is an increased capture probability during Earth's aphelion and perihelion. In the future, events like these may be detected ahead of time using telescopes like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, and the pre-atmospheric trajectory can be verified.


Fluorescent C-dot nanocomposites (MB-CDs) have been developed as efficient photothermal agents for potential thermal ablation of cancerous cells. They are also promising multi-modal imaging tracers for both dual-channel cell tracking and photoacoustic imaging of ocular blood vessels. These features endow them with competency to serve in biomarker-targeted molecular imaging as well as in photothermal therapy against cancers.


Wireless communication has been evolving and growing rapidly during the last
few years. In order to meet the demand of this growth researchers as well as
industry have been working for new techniques and new standardizations.
Usually wireless communications performance is badly affected by channel
fading. Diversity technique is used to reduce the impact of fading on wireless
channel by conveying data over multiple independent fading channel paths and
combine them at the receiver.
Cooperative diversity is novel transmission technique where multiple terminals
use their resources in cooperative manner to form a virtual array that realizes
spatial diversity gain in a distributed fashion. Cooperative system can obtain
reliable communications, capacity gain and energy saving by mutual relaying
among users of wireless network.
In this thesis work we examine the performance of a cooperative system and its
ability to realize the advantages and the ideas behind its invention. We model
a simple decode and forward repetition-based cooperative system consisting of
three nodes representing source, destination and relay, which communicate
cooperatively between the source and the destination. To evaluate the
performance of cooperative system we measure the probability of error of
cooperative system using computer simulation. Our results show that a better
performance of a communication system could be achieved by allowing wireless
network partners to communicate cooperatively.
In the last part of the thesis, and for more investigation of the new technique
we built a test bed to implement cooperative system model so as to measure its
performance practically. Click router and computers with wireless cards are
used for the implementation. Click programming language is used to configure
the network nodes.


During a study of the interference produced by heat-inactivated influenza virus with the growth of live virus in fragments of chick chorio-allantoic membrane it was found that following incubation of heated virus with membrane a new factor was released. This factor, recognized by its ability to induce interference in fresh pieces of chorio-allantoic membrane, was called interferon. Following a lag phase interferon was first detected in the membranes after 3 h incubation and thereafter it was released into the surrounding fluid.


A ray-tracing model is developed for accurate optical simulation of plasma display panel (PDP). Thorough spectroscopic characterization of materials properties is carried out, based on which four types of material models of PDP layer materials are developed and incorporated in the cell model. Four test panels with different bus electrode structures are fabricated, the geometrical structure of which is measured and reflected in the ray-tracing model. Plasma fluid simulation is carried out to derive the spatial distribution of the ultraviolet light in the cell and the total number of Xe species. Simulation results show that the simulated panel reflectances are consistent with the experimental values within 3% error. In addition, the normalized angular luminance profiles obtained by simulation agree well with the measured results. However, the on-axis luminance value of the PDP panel, which is affected by both optical and plasma simulation, cannot be predicted accurately by this study.


The series Internet Of Things - Technologies, Communications and Computing publishes new developments and advances in the various areas of the different facets of the Internet of Things. The intent is to cover technology (smart devices, wireless sensors, systems), communications (networks and protocols) and computing (theory, middleware and applications) of the Internet of Things, as embedded in the fields of engineering, computer science, life sciences, as well as the methodologies behind them. The series contains monographs, lecture notes and edited volumes in the Internet of Things research and development area, spanning the areas of wireless sensor networks, autonomic networking, network protocol, agent-based computing, artificial intelligence, self organizing systems, multi-sensor data fusion, smart objects, and hybrid intelligent systems. Internet of Things is covered by Scopus.


ABSTRACT Research has explored how care managers in elder care – who often function as 'street-level bureaucrats' – regard professional discretion. The way in which length of work experience affects care managers' use of professional discretion remains, however, unexplored. This article present findings from 12 focus groups with 60 care managers. By bringing attention to how care managers experience the needs assessment process, this article sheds light on how these 'street-level bureaucrats' struggle when they try to balance their clients' needs against institutional frameworks and local guidelines. Length of work experience seems to play a role in how care managers claim to use professional discretion. Experienced care managers describe how they deviate from the guidelines at times in order to create an increased scope of action in their decision-making process. Those with less time in the profession describe greater difficulties in this respect. Findings suggest that research should explore if length of work experience plays a role in the actual way in which care managers assess needs and make decisions. As such, they contribute to our understanding of how needs assessment processes are navigated by professionals while also pointing towards the nature of professional discretion in gerontological social work.


Reforms in higher education are very often driven by both financial considerations and by efforts to improve the quality and relevance of courses and programmes of study. Privatization of services, corporatization of operations, and re-orientation of curriculum and student assessment are common recent reform measures in higher education. As a result of such reforms, institutions of higher education have become managerial and entrepreneurial in their approach, as well as in their operations. Although these reform measures were introduced initially on a small scale, they have cumulatively led to dramatic transformations in the organization of university activities leading to a restructuring of the institutions. Institutions have become progressively more independent from the government and have introduced new governance and management structures. This book, based on the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) research carried out in Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand and Vietnam, examines the trends in institutional restructuring in countries of the Asian region.


The p53 tumor-suppressor gene encodes a nuclear phosphoprotein that arrests cell cycle progress at G1. It may facilitate DNA damage repair and is frequently mutated in many human tumors. Hodgkin disease, a malignant condition of the lymphoid system, is characterized by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells and mononuclear variants (Hodgkin cells), whose etiology remains unknown. The large multinucleated Reed-Sternberg cells often comprise < 1% of the total cell population within a biopsy specimen and are thought to be the neoplastic component in an admixture of reactive cells. It has been shown in the large majority of cases that up to 60% of these multinucleated cells react with CM-1, an anti-p53 antibody. However, whether this "overexpression" of p53 protein reflects abnormality at the DNA level can no longer be assumed by immunocytochemistry alone. p53 from six Hodgkin disease-derived cell lines was examined by immunoprecipitation, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis, and sequencing. In one cell line, point mutations were identified in exons 5 and 8 of p53. Sequencing of cloned PCR products confirmed the mutations to be on different alleles. A strategy involving extraction of nuclei followed by enrichment by flow cytometry was used to determine whether p53 overexpression in the Reed-Sternberg cells from patient biopsy material was due to mutations in this gene. Single-strand conformation polymorphism revealed additional bands in the polyploid nuclear preparations, suggesting abnormalities, and sequence analysis confirmed the presence of point mutations.


Chronic pain is an ever-present issue and some estimate its cost to society at $635 billion per year. Not only does chronic pain cause increased visits to medical personnel, it also complicates other medical conditions and lowers productivity in the workplace. One area of study includes Chronic Post Surgical Pain (CPSP) in children that have undergone spinal fusion surgery for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS). Some of the major factors that may lead to CPSP include preoperative pain, psychosocial factors, age, intraoperative nerve injury, acute postoperative pain, and genetics. In order to explore the psychological factors, our lab has employed an Unpredictable Chronic Mild Stress (UCMS) paradigm, which models unforeseen life stressors and depression. Some sensory testing was conducted included Hot Plate and von Frey fiber testing. Previous studies from this lab have shown that adult male mice have hyperalgesia to thermal stimuli following a UCMS paradigm. To further explore this finding, a younger mice cohort of both sexes and a cohort that underwent Maternal Deprivation (MD) were added. Maternal Deprivation is a model of early-childhood stress and older female mice have been shown to have changes in thermal sensitivities as a result of early v childhood stressors. Our lab found that stressed young females also exhibit a heightened sensitivity to thermal stimuli at 49°C compared to their male and control counter parts. These results indicate that the thermal sensitivity of young females can be affected by early childhood stress and depression.


~~ / ~~ �' ~~~~ / ~~ )=�� Abstract Mahallati Wastewater Treatment Plant was selected for installing a UV disinfection unit to investigate its germicidal effect on microbial removal. Low pressure mercury lamps were used to generate germicidal ultraviolet radiation (UV-C). The UV system was operated over a period of 6 months that included both warm and cold seasons. A maximum UV disinfection efficiency of 14.4m 3 /h was recorded for the system on the basis of design criteria within turbidity ranges of 9 to 32 NTU. The minimum UV dose applied in the UV unit was 40000 cW.s/cm 2 and the highest bacterial density in the UV unit influent was 5.6*10 7 . Effluent total coliform or fecal coliform enumeration after exposure to UV ray showed the microbial density decreasing from four logs, or 99.99%, to as high as six logs, or 99.9999% removal efficiency, under different conditions. Effluent microbial densities in terms of total and fecal coliforms were below 1000MPN/100mL and 400MPN/100mL, respectively. These values comply with wastewater discharge or agricultural irrigation standards according to Iran Department of Environment. From our results, it is concluded that UV disinfection may be an effective technique for wastewater disinfection in Iranian wastewater treatment plants.


Foreword ( Sir Clive Woodward). Preface. List of Contributors. Section 1 Strengthand Conditioning Biology. 1.1 Skeletal Muscle Physiology (Valmor Tricoli). 1.1.1 Introduction. 1.1.2 Skeletal muscle macrostructure. 1.1.3 Skeletal muscle microstructure. 1.1.4 Contraction mechanism. 1.1.5 Muscle fibre types. 1.1.6 Muscle architecture. 1.1.7 Hypertrophy and hyperplasia. 1.1.8 Satellite cells. 1.2 Neuromuscular Physiology (Alberto Rainoldi and Marco Gazzoni). 1.2.1 The neuromuscular system. 1.2.2 Muscle fatigue. 1.2.3 Muscle function assessment. 1.3 Bone Physiology (Jorn Rittweger). 1.3.1 Introduction. 1.3.2 Bone anatomy. 1.3.3 Bone biology. 1.3.4 Mechanical functions of bone. 1.3.5 Adaptive processes in bone. 1.3.6 Endocrine involvement of bone. 1.4 Tendon Physiology (Nicola Maffulli, Umile Giuseppe Longo, Filippo Spiezia and Vincenzo Denaro). 1.4.1 Tendons. 1.4.2 The musculotendinous junction. 1.4.3 The osteotendinous junction. 1.4.4 Nerve supply. 1.4.5 Blood supply. 1.4.6 Composition. 1.4.7 Collagen formation. 1.4.8 Cross-links. 1.4.9 Elastin. 1.4.10 Cells. 1.4.11 Ground substance. 1.4.12 Crimp. 1.5 Bioenergetics of Exercise (R.J. Maughan). 1.5.1 Introduction. 1.5.2 Exercise, energy, work, and power. 1.5.3 Sources of energy. 1.5.4 The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. 1.5.5 Oxygen delivery. 1.5.6 Energy stores. 1.5.7 Conclusion. 1.6 Respiratory and Cardiovascular Physiology (Jeremiah J. Peiffer and Chris R. Abbiss). 1.6.1 The respiratory system. 1.6.2 The cardiovascular system. 1.6.3 Conclusion. 1.7 Genetic and Signal Transduction Aspects of Strength Training (Henning Wackerhage, Arimantas Lionikas, Stuart Gray and Aivaras Ratkevicius). 1.7.1 Genetics of strength and trainability. 1.7.2 Signal transduction pathways that mediate the adaptation to strength training. 1.8 Strength and Conditioning Biomechanics (Robert U. Newton). 1.8.1 Introduction. 1.8.2 Biomechanical concepts for strength and conditioning. 1.8.3 The force velocity power relationship. 1.8.4 Musculoskeletal machines. 1.8.5 Biomechanics of muscle function. 1.8.6 Body size, shape, and power-to-weight ratio. 1.8.7 Balance and stability. 1.8.8 The stretch shortening cycle. 1.8.9 Biomechanics of resistance machines. 1.8.10 Machines vs free weights. 1.8.11 Conclusion. Section 2 Physiological adaptations to strength and conditioning. 2.1 Neural Adaptations to Resistance Exercise (Per Aagaard). 2.1.1 Introduction. 2.1.2 Effects of strength training on mechanical muscle function. 2.1.3 Effects of strength training on neural function. 2.1.4 Conclusion. 2.2 Structural and Molecular Adaptations to Training (Jesper L. Andersen). 2.2.1 Introduction. 2.2.2 Protein synthesis and degradation in human skeletal muscle. 2.2.3 Muscle hypertrophy and atrophy. 2.2.4 What is the significance of satellite cells in human skeletal muscle? 2.2.5 Concurrent strength and endurance training: consequences for muscle adaptations. 2.3 Adaptive Processes in Human Bone and Tendon (Constantinos N. Maganaris, Jorn Rittweger and Marco V. Narici). 2.3.1 Introduction. 2.3.2 Bone. 2.3.3 Tendon. 2.3.4 Conclusion. 2.4 Biomechanical Markers and Resistance Training (Christian Cook and Blair Crewther). 2.4.1 Introduction. 2.4.2 Testosterone responses to resistance training. 2.4.3 Cortisol responses to resistance training. 2.4.4 Dual actions of testosterone and cortisol. 2.4.5 Growth hormone responses to resistance training. 2.4.6 Other biochemical markers. 2.4.7 Limitations in the use and interpretation of biochemical markers. 2.4.8 Applications of resistance training. 2.4.9 Conclusion. 2.5 Cardiovascular Adaptations to Strength and Conditioning (Andy Jones and Fred DiMenna). 2.5.1 Introduction. 2.5.2 Cardiovascular function. 2.5.3 Cardiovascular adaptations to training. 2.5.4 Cardiovascular-related adaptations to training. 2.5.5 Conclusion. 2.6 Exercise-induced Muscle Damage and Delayed-onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) (Kazunori Nosaka). 2.6.1 Introduction. 2.6.2 Symptoms and markers of muscle damage. 2.6.3 Relationship between DOMS and other indicators. 2.6.4 Factors influencing the magnitude of muscle damage. 2.6.5 Muscle damage and training. 2.6.6 Conclusion. 2.7 Alternative Modalities of Strength and Conditioning: Electrical Stimulation and Vibration (Nicola A. Maffiuletti and Marco Cardinale). 2.7.1 Introduction. 2.7.2 Electrical-stimulation exercise. 2.7.3 Vibration exercise. 2.8 The Stretch Shortening Cycle (SSC) (Anthony Blazevich). 2.8.1 Introduction. 2.8.2 Mechanisms responsible for performance enhancement with the SSC. 2.8.3 Force unloading: a requirement for elastic recoil. 2.8.4 Optimum MTU properties for SSC performance. 2.8.5 Effects of the transition time between stretch and shortening on SSC performance. 2.8.6 Conclusion. 2.9 Repeated-sprint Ability (RSA) (David Bishop and Olivier Girard). 2.9.1 Introduction. 2.9.2 Limiting factors. 2.9.3 Ergogenic aids and RSA. 2.9.4 Effects of training on RSA. 2.9.5 Conclusion. 2.10 The Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) (Romain Meeusen and Kevin De Pauw). 2.10.1 Introduction. 2.10.2 Definitions. 2.10.3 Prevalence. 2.10.4 Mechanisms and diagnosis. 2.10.5 Prevention. 2.10.6 Conclusion. Section 3 Monitoring strength and conditioning progress. 3.1 Principles of Athlete Testing (Robert U. Newton and Marco Cardinale). 3.1.1 Introduction. 3.1.2 General principles of athlete testing. 3.1.3 Maximum strength. 3.1.4 Ballistic testing. 3.1.5 Reactive strength tests. 3.1.6 Eccentric strength tests. 3.1.7 Conclusion. 3.2 Speed and Agility Assessment (Warren Young and Jeremy Sheppard). 3.2.1 Speed. 3.2.2 Agility. 3.2.3 Conclusion. 3.3 Testing Anaerobic Capacity and Repeated-sprint Ability (David Bishop and Matt Spencer). 3.3.1 Introduction. 3.3.2 Testing anaerobic capacity. 3.3.3 Testing repeated-sprint ability. 3.3.4 Conclusion. 3.4 Cardiovascular Assessment and Aerobic Training Prescription (Andy Jones and Fred DiMenna). 3.4.1 Introduction. 3.4.2 Cardiovascular assessment. 3.4.3 Aerobic training prescription. 3.4.4 Conclusion. 3.5 Biochemical Monitoring in Strength and Conditioning (Michael R. McGuigan and Stuart J. Cormack). 3.5.1 Introduction. 3.5.2 Hormonal monitoring. 3.5.3 Metabolic monitoring. 3.5.4 Immunological and haematological monitoring. 3.5.5 Practical application. 3.6 Body Composition: Laboratory and Field Methods of Assessment (Arthur Stewart and Tim Ackland). 3.6.1 Introduction. 3.6.2 History of body composition methods. 3.6.3 Fractionation models for body composition. 3.6.4 Biomechanical imperatives for sports performance. 3.6.5 Methods of assessment. 3.6.6 Profiling. 3.6.7 Conclusion. 3.7 Total Athlete Management (TAM) and Performance Diagnosis (Robert U. Newton and Marco Cardinale). 3.7.1 Total athlete management. 3.7.2 Performance diagnosis. 3.7.3 Conclusion. Section 4 Practical applications. 4.1 Resistance Training Modes: A Practical Perspective (Michael H. Stone and Margaret E. Stone). 4.1.1 Introduction. 4.1.2 Basic training principles. 4.1.3 Strength, explosive strength, and power. 4.1.4 Conclusion. 4.2 Training Agility and Change-of-direction Speed (CODS) (Jeremy Sheppard and Warren Young). 4.2.1 Factors affecting agility. 4.2.2 Organization of training. 4.2.3 Change-of-direction speed. 4.2.4 Perceptual and decision-making factors. 4.2.5 Training agility. 4.2.6 Conclusion. 4.3 Nutrition for Strength Training (Christopher S. Shaw and Kevin D. Tipton). 4.3.1 Introduction. 4.3.2 The metabolic basis of muscle hypertrophy. 4.3.3 Optimal protein intake. 4.3.4 Acute effects of amino acid/protein ingestion. 4.3.5 Conclusion. 4.4 Flexibility (William A. Sands). 4.4.1 Definitions. 4.4.2 What is stretching? 4.4.3 A model of effective movement: the integration of flexibility and strength. 4.5 Sensorimotor Training (Urs Granacher, Thomas Muehlbauer, Wolfgang Taube, Albert Gollhofer and Markus Gruber). 4.5.1 Introduction. 4.5.2 The importance of sensorimotor training to the promotion of postural control and strength. 4.5.3 The effects of sensorimotor training on postural control and strength. 4.5.4 Adaptive processes following sensorimotor training. 4.5.5 Characteristics of sensorimotor training. 4.5.6 Conclusion. Section 5 Strength conditioning special cases. 5.1 Strength and Conditioning as a Rehabilitation Tool (Andreas Schlumberger). 5.1.1 Introduction. 5.1.2 Neuromuscular effects of injury as a basis for rehabilitation strategies. 5.1.3 Strength and conditioning in retraining of the neuromuscular system. 5.1.4 Conclusion. 5.2 Strength Training for Children and Adolescents (Avery D. Faigenbaum). 5.2.1 Introduction. 5.2.2 Risks and concerns associated with youth strength training. 5.2.3 The effectiveness of youth resistance training. 5.2.4 Physiological mechanisms for strength development. 5.2.5 Potential health and fitness benefits. 5.2.6 Youth strength-training guidelines. 5.2.7 Conclusion. 5.3 Strength and Conditioning Considerations for the Paralympic Athlete (Mark Jarvis, Matthew Cook and Paul Davies). 5.3.1 Introduction. 5.3.2 Programming considerations. 5.3.3 Current controversies in Paralympic strength and conditioning. 5.3.4 Specialist equipment. 5.3.5 Considerations for specific disability groups. 5.3.6 Tips for more effective programming. Index.


Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an approach for designing and management of sustainable and resource-conserving agricultural systems. It seeks to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of soil, water, crops and other biological resources in combination with selected external inputs. Conservation agriculture has emerged as an effective strategy to achieve goals of sustainable agriculture worldwide. It has the potential to address increasing concerns of serious and widespread problems of natural resource degradation and environmental pollution, while enhancing system productivity. The primary focus of developing and promoting RCT practices has been the development and adoption of zero tillage cum fertilizer drill for sowing wheat crop in rice–wheat system. Other interventions being tested and promoted include raised-bed planting system, laser-aided land-leveling equipment, residue management alternatives, alternatives to rice-wheat cropping system in relation to RCT technologies, etc. CA offers an opportunity for arresting and reversing downward spiral of resource degradation, decreasing cultivation costs and making agriculture more resource-use-efficient, competitive and sustainable. 'Conserving resources-enhancing productivity' has to be new mission. Availability of machinery / equipment for promotion of resource conservation technologies is a prerequisite for achieving targets of agricultural production. Availability of implement at economical cost is major constraint in promotion of bed planting of crops. Likewise, machinery is not available for crop residue management that is impeding acceleration of this practice. Organizing farmers' days, holding of field demonstrations, cross-farm visits of extension experts and effective use of mass media i.e. print and electronic media for transfer of technology may play a major role in promotion of resource conservation technologies amongst farming community. Capacity building of farmers to acquire, test and adopt technologies through participatory approach will enable them to seek resource conservation technologies for their farms and thus they can reduce their production cost and combat production constraints. Improvement in coordination among various stakeholders (research, extension service, farmers, service providers, agricultural machinery manufacturers, etc.) for transfer of technologies will play a pivotal role in accelerating adoption of new interventions.


This paper reports evidence on the error properties of survey reports of labor market variables such as earnings and work hours. Our primary data source is the PSID Validation Study, a two-wave panel survey of a sample of workers employed by a large firm which also allowed us access to its very detailed records of its workers earnings. etc. The second data source uses individuals' 1977 and 1978 (March Current Population Survey) reports of earnings, matched to Social Security earnings records. In both data sets, individuals: reports of earnings are fairly accurately reported, and the errors are negatively related to true earnings. The latter property reduces the bias due to measurement error when earnings are used as an independent variable, but (unlike the classical-error case) leads to some bias when earnings are the dependent variable. Measurement-error-induced biases when change in earnings is the variable of interest are larger, but not dramatically so. Various measures of hourly earnings were much less reliable than annual earnings. Retrospective reports of unemployment showed considerable under-reporting, even of long spells.


Abstract Presbyastasis is the result of age-related physiological changes in the three sensory systems and their central connections that contribute to balance. In all likelihood, presbyastasis is a complex condition involving many intertwined systems rather than a lesion within the vestibular system only, thus evaluation and management need to be holistic. Balance problems can have detrimental consequences and are associated with falls, loss of quality of life and psychological sequelae such as anxiety, depression and panic. Healthcare practitioners need increased awareness of the pathophysiology of presbyastasis and its possible impact.


In 2013, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published its Disparate Impact Final Rule in which it sought to formalize its longstanding interpretation of disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) by setting forth a three-part burden-shifting framework. HUD subsequently revisited its disparate impact standard following the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Inclusive Communities and published a Proposed Rule on August 19, 2019. On September 24, 2020, HUD published a new Final Rule substantially altering the disparate impact standard laid out by the 2013 Rule.

This Comment will analyze the similarities and differences between the disparate impact standard in the 2013 Rule and the standard set forth in the current, 2020 Rule. Additionally, given that the 2020 Rule was drafted in response to Inclusive Communities, this Comment will examine whether, and to what extent, the 2020 Rule is consistent with the Court's ruling. Finally, this Comment will address the criticism leveled at the 2020 Rule by fair housing advocates and explore potential consequences of the new standard. Ultimately, this Comment will argue that, although the 2020 Rule finds some textual support in Inclusive Communities for several elements of its new framework, given the broad remedial purpose of the FHA, the core mission of HUD to eradicate housing discrimination, the potential, negative consequences of the new standard, and President Biden's recent memorandum on housing discrimination, HUD should abandon the 2020 Rule and readopt the 2013 Rule.


A recent study of the livestock water productivity (LWP), at higher spatial scales in the Blue Nile Basin, indicated strong variability across regions. To get an insight into the causes of this variability, we examined the effect of farm households' access to productive resources (e.g. land, livestock) on LWP in potato–barley, barley–wheat, teff–millet and rice farming systems of the Gumera watershed (in the Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia). We randomly selected 180 farm households. The sizes of the samples, in each system, were proportional to the respective system's area. Then we grouped the samples, using a participatory wealth ranking method, into three wealth groups (rich, medium and poor) and used structured and pre-tested questionnaires to collect data on crops and livestock management and applied reference evapotranspiration (ET0) and crop coefficient (Kc) approaches to estimate depleted (evapotranspiration) water in producing animal feed and food crops. Then, we estimated LWP as a ratio of livestock's beneficial outputs to water depleted. Our results suggest strong variability of LWP across the different systems: ranging between 0.3 and 0.6 US$ m−3 year−1. The tendency across different farming systems was comparable with results from previous studies at higher spatial scales. The range among different wealth groups was wider (0.1 to 0.6 US$ m−3 year−1) than among the farming systems. This implies that aggregating water productivity (to a system scale) masks hotspots and bright spots. Our result also revealed a positive trend between water productivity (LWP and crop water productivity, CWP) and farm households' access to resources. Thus, we discuss our findings in relation to poverty alleviation and integrated land and water management to combat unsustainable water management practices in the Blue Nile Basin.


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