Introduction: Application of doxorubicin (DOX), an anticancer anthracycline antibiotic, carries the risk of serious dose-dependent toxicity to non-target tissues. The aim of this study was to investigate whether DOX-induced spermatotoxicity could be prevented by using the Satureja hortensis hydroalcoholic extract (SE). Methods: Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups of six rats each. DOX was administered to two groups of rats in 5 equal intraperitoneal injections over a period of 4 weeks (accumulated dose of 20 mg/kg). One of these groups received SE at a dose of 100 mg/kg per day subcutaneously for 28 days along with DOX. A vehicle treated control group and a SE control group were also included. Results: Epididymal sperm analyses revealed that DOX caused significant decreases in sperm concentration, viability and motility along with elevated sperm abnormality, while SE coadministration provided marked normalization in the sperm quantity and quality compared to the DOX-only treated group. Conclusion: It is reasonable to suppose that protective effects of SE against DOX-induced reproductive toxicity might have been related to the antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects of this substance.


Introduction Recent in vitro studies with biopsies from patients with functional dyspepsia have reported microscopic mucosal damage in the proximal duodenum, that can cause impaired mucosal barrier function and potentially underlie dyspepsia symptoms. Measurements of baseline impedance (BI) in the oesophagus provide a surrogate for assessment of esophageal mucosal integrity. Unlike the oesophagus, the intestinal mucosa is almost always covered by fluids making the assessment of mucosal impedance difficult. We hypothesised that immediately after passage of a pIII of the MMC, the intestinal segment is devoid of fluids and we could measure BI. We aimed to evaluate duodenal BI by performing duodeno-jejunal high resolution manometry/impedance (HRM/Z) in patients with functional dyspepsia. Method Ten patients (9 females; mean age 35.4±8.4 y) with functional dyspepsia (Rome ć criteria) underwent 12–24/h ambulatory duodeno-jejunal HRM/Z (MMS ambulatory system B.V. Netherlands). The HRM/Z- catheter (UniSensor, Switzerland) comprises 20 pressure sensors (2 cm apart) and 9 impedance channels. (MMS ambulatory system B.V. Netherlands). HRM data was analysed to identify MMC phase IIIs. We measured BI in the proximal duodenum (DI) and in the jejunum (J I) 28 cm more distally, immediately before and immediately after the passage of MMC pIIIs. (figure) Results A total of 33 nocturnal MMC pIIIs (3.3±2.5/ per patient) were recorded. The mean duration of MMC cycle, pIIIs amplitude and pIIIs duration were 94.2±70.1 min, 34.2±13.1 mmHg and 6.02±2.1 min, respectively. When we compared BI before the passage of pIII, there was no significant differences between the duodenum (151.0±73.7 Ω) and the jejunum (169.7±70.1 Ω, N.S.). In contrast, when we analysed BI after the passage of the pIII, mean BI was significantly lower in duodenum (163.6±41.9 Ω) compared to the jejunum (261.2±44.9 Ω, p<0.001). Conclusion This pilot study aimed to determine the best timing to measure duodenal BI. Our results suggest that measurement of BI after passage of nocturnal MMC pIII (when intestinal fluids are minimal) might provide a good surrogate to evaluate duodenal mucosal integrity. Lower BI in the duodenum compared to jejunum might be a marker of functional dyspepsia. Further studies in healthy subjects and other patient groups are underway to test this hypothesis. Abstract PTH-137 Figure 1 Disclosure of Interest K. Nakagawa: None Declared, E Yazaki: None Declared, J Ooi: None Declared, Q Aziz Conflict with: Trustee, The IBS Network; Committee Member, Rome Foundation, D Sifrim Conflict with: Reckitt Benckiser (Hull, UK); Sandhill Scientific (CO, USA)


To investigate the possible role of circumcision in decreasing urinary tract infections in children less than five years of age the clinical and laboratory findings of 100 cases of urinary tract infection admitted to Al Khansaa Pediatrics Hospital were compared with a similar number of apparently healthy children. The results showed a strong relationship between circumcision and decreased incidence of urinary tract infections and that the risk of urinary tract infections in uncircumcised children was more than six-fold that of circumcised children of the same age.


INTRODUCTIONEffective ulcer management requires the wound to be in a moist but still breathable environment, to facilitate healing, absorb exudates and prevent maceration. One of the applicable methods to achieve this is the use of composite dressings. Most composite dressings are made of three layers to provide absorption and a bacterial barrier in a non- or semi-adherent cover. Various common textile materials such as cotton, polyester, polypropylene and cellulose can be used as different layers in those wound dressings. In addition to these established dressings, electrical stimulation therapy may be used in treating ulcers. It has been reported that electrical stimulation can reduce the area and depth of the wound in a shortened time compared to conventional treatment. In summary, encouraging wound healing results have been obtained both from using composite wound dressing and from applying of electrical stimulation. The aim of this study is to present a conceptual design based on a woven 3D structure that combines the composite wound dressing properties with electrical stimulation for pressure ulcers healing/management.METHODIn the suggested structure, different layers in X, Y and Z led were designed with different materials for different purposes. The top layer consisting of a low-density web to provide a non-adherent layer combined with two textile electrodes made of conductive threads, the middle layer contributes pressure release and absorption of exudates, and the bottom layer next to the wound for moisture keeping while still allowing adequate ventilation.Two key properties were addressed in the study: pressure release and the possibility to provide electrical stimulation of the wound. Simulation with COMSOL Multiphysics was used to study pressure distribution according to Hertz contact theory. The surface resistance of the electrodes were also studied using in-house designed four-point measurement probes.RESULTSThe simulation results show the composite structure to exhibit good pressure release properties. Surface resistance testing proved that the textile electrodes have resistance in the magnitude of 102 indicating that textile electrodes can be used for electrical stimulation in ulcers healing.The first results from this study demonstrate the feasibility to design a textile system combining established composite dressings solutions with means for electrical stimulation based on 3D weaving technique to be applied in pressure ulcer healing.


Despite the Holocaust's profound impact on the history of Eastern Europe, the communist regimes successfully repressed public discourse about and memory of this tragedy. Since the collapse of communism in 1989, however, this has changed. Not only has a wealth of archival sources become available, but there have also been oral history projects and interviews recording the testimonies of eyewitnesses who experienced the Holocaust as children and young adults. Recent political, social, and cultural developments have facilitated a more nuanced and complex understanding of the continuities and discontinuities in representations of the Holocaust. People are beginning to realize the significant role that memory of Holocaust plays in contemporary discussions of national identity in Eastern Europe. This volume of original essays explores the memory of the Holocaust and the Jewish past in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Devoting space to every postcommunist country, the essays in Bringing the Dark Past to Light explore how the memory of the "dark pasts" of Eastern European nations is being recollected and reworked. In addition, it examines how this memory shapes the collective identities and the social identity of ethnic and national minorities. Memory of the Holocaust has practical implications regarding the current development of national cultures and international relationships.


Slot antennas fed by the wiggly ridge waveguides are difficult to construct using a typical milling machine. Therefore, a special type of the double ridge waveguides is introduced here to feed the center line longitudinal slot antennas. Furthermore, in the proposed slot antennas, all the slots are placed along the waveguide center line. So, employing the proposed slot antennas leads to the elimination of the butterfly lobes that are attributed to the alternating offsets of the successive slots with respect to the centerline. In the proposed slot antennas, the ridges are placed on the lower broad walls of the waveguides while the slots are cut into the upper broad walls of the waveguides. The height of the ridges is changed gradually at the slot positions in several steps, i.e., the height of one of the ridges is increased upward while the height of the other ridges is decreased downward. It is shown that increasing the step heights leads to stronger radiation of the electromagnetic energy by the slots. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed slot antenna, a linear array antenna consisting of five slots with side-lobe level of –20 dB is designed and constructed. The simulation and the measurement results show that the designing goals are achieved which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed slot antennas.


The bacterial trigger for a rice innate immune response is identified. Innate immunity can be rapidly activated to defend a host plant against a microbial pathogen. The rice protein XA21, which is thought to be a cell surface–located receptor with a kinase domain, activates the plant's defenses in response to infection by certain strains of Xanthomonas bacteria. Lee et al. have now identified the bacterial gene that encodes the protein, AvrXA21, to which the plant receptor XA21 responds. The 194–amino acid protein needs to be secreted and sulfated to trigger the rice plant defense responses. Similarities exist between the receptor XA21 and other immune response receptors in both plants and animals. S.-W. Lee, S.-W. Han, M. Sririyanum, C.-J. Park, Y.-S. Seo, P. C. Ronald, A type I–secreted, sulfated peptide triggers XA21-mediated innate immunity. Science 326, 850–853 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In this paper, a coupled Fabry-Perot cavities filter, using the liquid crystal as the tunable medium, is investigate to achieve tunable flat top filtering performance across the C and L bands. A tandem coupled Fabry-Perot is presented for a tunable passband filter with flat top and minimum ripple in the passband. The overall tuning range of the filter is 172 nm. Several designs are shown with comparable performance to the commercial available 100 GHz fixed single channel filters.


The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global lockdown with severe health and economical consequences. As a result, authorities around the globe have expressed their needs for better tools to monitor the spread of the virus and to support human labor. Researchers and technology companies such as Google and Apple have offered to develop such tools in the form of contact tracing applications. The goal of these applications is to continuously track people's proximity and to make the smartphone users aware if they have ever been in contact with positively diagnosed people, so that they could self-quarantine and possibly have an infection test. A fundamental challenge with these smartphone-based contact tracing technologies is to ensure the security and privacy of their users. Moving from manual to smartphone-based contact tracing creates new cyber risks that could suddenly affect the entire population. Major risks include for example the abuse of the people's private data by companies and/or authorities, or the spreading of wrong alerts by malicious users in order to force individuals to go into quarantine. In April 2020, the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) was announced with the goal to develop and evaluate secure solutions for European countries. However, after a while, several team members left this consortium and created DP-3T which has led to an international debate among the experts. At this time, it is confusing for the non-expert to follow this debate; this report aims to shed light on the various proposed technologies by providing an objective assessment of the cybersecurity and privacy risks. We first review the state-of-the-art in digital contact tracing technologies and then explore the risk-utility trade-offs of the techniques proposed for COVID-19. We focus specifically on the technologies that are already adopted by certain countries.


International Journal of Exercise Science 7(2) : 152-160, 2014. Introduction: We demonstrate application of the 3-parameter critical power (CP) model derived for cycling and running, to performance at bench press exercise. We apply the model to both performance of a single repetition maximum (1RM) and multiple repetitions (reps) to failure at different submaximal weights. Methods: Sixteen weight-trained young adult male participants each performed a modified YMCA 1RM test and four sets of fixed cadence reps to failure at different sub-maximal weights. The CP model equation takes the form: n = ALC/(m – CL) + ALC/(CL – Lmax,), where n is the number of reps to failure and m is the sub-maximal weight lifted (kg). ALC is the anaerobic lift capacity (kg), CL is the critical lift (the maximal continuous aerobic ability at bench pressing, kg), and Lmax is the maximal 'instantaneous' lift (kg). Results: The 3parameter critical power model fits recorded reps to failure very well in almost all subjects (0.9556 < R2 < 0.9999), and provides estimates of the three model parameters for each individual. CL was not significantly different from zero, suggesting that the aerobic energy contribution to short duration bench press sessions is negligible. When used to estimate 1RM for each subject, the CP model produces estimates significantly greater (p < 0.05) than those obtained using the YMCA procedure. Conclusion: The CP concept can be used to accurately model bench press reps to failure at different submaximal weights in a homogeneous group of individuals. Prediction of 1RM is possible, but caution should be exercised in interpreting and using the prediction.


ABSTRACT Depo-provera, a long-acting progestational formulation, is widely used to facilitate infection of sexually transmitted diseases in animal models. We have previously reported that hormone treatments change susceptibility and immune responses to genital tract infections. In this study we compared the changes in susceptibility of mice to genital herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) after Depo-provera or a saline suspension of progesterone (P-sal). We found that following Depo-provera-treatment, mice had prolonged diestrus that lasted more than 4 weeks. This coincided with a 100-fold increase in susceptibility to genital HSV-2 compared to that of untreated mice. Mice given P-sal were in diestrous stage for 4 to 6 days before returning to irregular reproductive cycles. When these mice were infected at diestrus they showed a 10-fold increase in susceptibility compared to that of normal, untreated mice. P-sal-treated mice infected at estrus were susceptible to HSV-2, depending on the infectious dose. Normal, untreated mice in estrus were not susceptible to HSV-2, even at a high infectious dose of 107 PFU. In addition to alterations in susceptibility, Depo-provera treatment had inhibitory effects on immune responses to HSV-2. Mice immunized with HSV-2 protein (gB) and treated with Depo-provera showed significant lowering of local HSV-2-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgA in their vaginal washes. Mice immunized with an attenuated strain of HSV-2 2 weeks after Depo-provera treatment failed to develop protection when challenged intravaginally with wild-type HSV-2. In contrast, mice given progesterone and immunized at diestrus or estrus were completely protected from intravaginal challenge. These studies show that Depo-provera treatment changes susceptibility and local immune responses to genital HSV-2 infection. Animal models and vaccine strategies for sexually transmitted diseases need to consider the effect of hormone treatments on susceptibility and immune responses.


Bi-layer lift-off metallization techniques offer significant advantages in resolution, removal, process simplicity, undercut control and yield over conventional single-layer lift-off processes. Because of its ease of application, long shelf life and lower tool cost, the polydimethylglutarimide (PMGI) bi-layer process has become an attractive method for the metallization of III-V compound semiconductor devices. The LOR/PMGI bilayer lifts-off cleanly when fabricating source, drain or T-shaped gate ohmic contacts for gallium arsenide (GaAs), GaN, InP and other compound semiconductor devices. Because of its excellent undercut control, LOR/PMGI can be removed in either conventional photoresist removers or in low temperature, metalion free aqueous alkaline developers. Because LOR/PMGI is used with such a wide variety of photoresist and process conditions, a comprehensive process optimization has never been implemented. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore and optimize several key process parameters for controlling the critical dimensions (CD) of the MicroChem LOR/PMGI bi-layer process. LOR/PMGI coatings as thin as 0.20 μm, for the production of 0.45 μm metallic features, and as thick as 3.0 μm, for the production of thick metal depositions, will be investigated using common process controls, such as: LOR/PMGI bake time, bake temperature, TMAH development time and development method. By optimizing these process conditions, further improvements in resolution can be found.


Dealing with one of South Africa's biggest challenges, the HIV and AIDS pandemic, requires special recognition for unique and diverse interpretations of the problem. The Choose Life Training Programme (CL TP) focuses on ethical issues and a value-based lifestyle and is structured to include the following six core values: respect, responsibility, integrity, fairness, love and service. The rationale for following a value-based approach lies in the influence that values have on the behaviour of individuals. Although the CL TP uses a holistic approach, is inclusive and acknowledges diversity, the study material is currently available in English only and much of the inherent meaning of the programme might be lost in translation to participants of African language orientation. \ It is suggested that for sustainable behaviour change to take place, the participants of the CL TP must experience a change in their values but also within the framework of their cultural understanding. If Western programmes like the CL TP want to make a difference in the battle against HIV and AIDS through the faith community they have to acknowledge African interpretations to adapt the programme to suit the needs of the people. The purpose of this study is to explore African interpretations of the six core values of the CL TP. The first part of the study (see Article 1) aimed to explore the African participant's initial interpretation of the six core values. In the second part of the study (see Article 2), focus group discussions were held to explore the narrative interpretations of these values and whether these were different from the Western definitions before and/or after completion of the CLTP workshops. This exploration was necessary in order to make recommendations towards the development of the programme to make it more acceptable and accessible for all South Africans.


Counting the number of parasite eggs in faecal samples is a widely used diagnostic method to evaluate parasite burden. Typically a sub-sample of the diluted faeces is examined for eggs. The resulting egg counts are multiplied by a specific correction factor to estimate the mean parasite burden. To detect anthelmintic resistance, the mean parasite burden from treated and untreated animals are compared. However, this standard method has some limitations. In particular, the analysis of repeated samples may produce quite variable results as the sampling variability due to the counting technique is ignored. We propose a hierarchical model that takes this sampling variability as well as between-animal variation into account. Bayesian inference is done via Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. The performance of the hierarchical model is illustrated by a re-analysis of faecal egg count data from a Swedish study assessing the anthelmintic resistance of nematode parasite in sheep. A simulation study shows that the hierarchical model provides better classification of anthelmintic resistance compared to the standard method.


Introduction: In radiation therapy, to calculate the dose absorbed by the patient, parameters such as Percentage Depth Dose (PDD), Tissue-Air Ratio (TAR), and Peak Scatter Factor (PSF) etc. were used. For high energy photon beams, measurement of the TAR is subjected to some difficulties and because of the contamination of photon with electron it is inaccurate. The goal of this study was to find a formula for TAR from PDD and then calculate other dosimetry parameters as PSF and SP. Materials & methods: PDD at different treatment depths for field size 5 × 5 to 40× 40cm 2 was measured, then measuring the TAR for all treatment fields at the reference depth (10cm) and using the Tbl Curve Software, an analytical equation for TAR in 6MV and 18MV photon energies was obtained. Other treatment parameters S C , were calculated from this equation. Findings: The PSF value was greater than one; this value ranged from 1.03 to 1.18 for 6MV and ranged from 1.01 to 1.10 for 18MV. Both PSF and SP increase with field, but didnt have a significant and regular change with energy. Discussion & Conclusion: There is a good consistency between obtained values and reported values. Determine of PDD in megavoltage treatment make calculate of TAR, PSF and SP easy and possible. Using this formula prevents repetition of measurements and also it prevents the force on the accelerator.


UniPad is a face-to-face, digital simulation for use in classroom settings that runs on shared tablets and a wall display. The goal is to encourage students to talk, collaborate and make decisions together in real-time, by switching between working on shared 'small group' devices and a 'whole classroom' public display - instead of working by themselves using their own device. It is intended to improve peer discussion and teacher involvement by focusing and constraining shared attention at different stages of an activity. The domain for this study is finance management. The system was designed using an iterative, participatory design method with expert finance educators and then trialed using an in-the-wild study at a school. The findings show how the set-up helped in facilitating verbal participation in the classroom. We discuss how lightweight, multi-device shared technology systems, such as UniPad, can be designed and used for a range of classroom activities.


Financial markets produce high-frequency data and analysing it involves transforming the data, detecting patterns and testing financial models. These actions or steps form an exploratory analysis process (EAP). ADAGE is an open SOA incorporating a BPMS that allows users to model EAPs by composing analysis services. A typical application scenario is used to evaluate ADAGE's ability to express an EAP as a business process. It is shown that current BPMS technology cannot satisfactorily represent EAPs as fully executable business processes. Using the theory of situation awareness, EAPs are shown to be dynamic in nature. Hence three extensions based on the late composition technique are proposed: (1) a dynamic process representation of EAPs; (2) a process execution model; and (3) process templates to automate repetitive steps of EAPs.


Open Design is part of the new design wave that sets project sharing as key to speed up innovation and widen access to design products; Open Design is a direct descendent of the Open Source movement and focuses on product design. The research investigates which social, economical and cultural contexts represent the ideal ground for the growth and development of Open Design seeds. Three cities have been recognized as the perfect locations to set the research ground: Doha, a place where money and resources are not a problem, research receives great attention and capital, and the desire for notoriety is at the top of the agenda; Cuba, still suffering from embargo restrictions, lacks resources and money, but possesses great creativity and social awareness; and New York City, with its state-of-the-art that serves as a litmus test for new trends and ideas. The analysis of each reality contributed to figure out the correct responses to the topic. This paper has been presented as part of the Tasmeem Exploration P...


Recent advancement in human-computer interaction technologies goes beyond the successful transfer of data between human and machine by seeking to improve the naturalness and friendliness of user interactions. The user's expressed emotion plays an important role by allowing people to express themselves beyond the verbal domain. In the field of emotion recognition, most of the research is based on unimodal approaches and less progress has been made in terms of multimodal approaches. This thesis aims to achieve better emotion classification by adopting an audio-visual approach. For this purpose, the Surrey Audio-Visual Expressed Emotion database (SAVEE) has been recorded from four English male speakers. The database consists of 480 British English utterances in seven emotions (Ekman's six basic emotions plus neutral). The sentences were chosen from the TIMIT corpus and were phonetically-balanced for each emotion. The data were processed and labelled. The quality of recordings was evaluated in terms of expressed emotions by 20 subjects (10 male, 10 female). Average subjective classification accuracy of 67% was achieved with audio, 88% with visual, and 92% with audio-visual data for the seven emotions. Results indicated good agreement with the actor's intended emotions over the database. As a first step, speaker-dependent emotion classification was performed to develop a baseline method for audio-visual emotion classification, and to investigate different ways of audio-visual fusion. The method consisted of feature extraction (audio and visual), feature selection by Plus l-Take Away r algorithm, feature reduction by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) or Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), and classification by Gaussian classifier. Audio-visual fusion at decision level performed better than fusion at feature level and after feature selection. Audio features incorporated pitch, duration, energy and mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), and visual features were based on the 2D marker coordinates. Features were selected using three different criteria: Bhattacharyya distance, Mahalanobis distance, and KL-divergence. The Mahalanobis distance performed better than the other two criteria. In general, LDA performed better than PCA, and an average classification accuracy of 61 % was achieved with audio, 99% with visual, and 99% with audio-visual (decision-level fusion) for seven emotions using the SAVEE database. These results were achieved with the features selected by Mahalanobis distance. Speaker-independent experiments were performed on two databases: Berlin and SAVEE. The Berlin database has audio recordings in seven emotions, and has been widely used for audio emotion analysis. Additional audio features were extracted related to intensity, loudness, probability of voicing, line spectral frequencies and zero-crossing rate, and visual features including marker angle and PCA features. The extracted features were speaker-normalised, and classification was performed with two methods: Gaussian classifier and SVM. For the Berlin database, the best performance achieved with the Gaussian classifier was 86 % and with the SVM classifier was 87 % for seven emotions. For the SAVEE database, the SVM classifier performed much better than the Gaussian classifier, and the polynomial kernel performed better than the RBF kernel. The performance of features selected by Mahalanobis distance was better than those selected by Bhattacharyya distance. For seven emotions, average classification accuracy achieved with the SVM classifier was 67 % for audio, 68 % for visual, and 87 % for audio-visual (feature-level fusion). The subjective, speaker-dependent and speaker-independent experiments indicate that the SAVEE database contains good quality recordings of expressed emotions. The results indicate that both audio and visual modalities play an important role to convey emotions, and better emotion classification is achieved with the bimodal approach. Key words: multimodal emotion analysis, data recording, facial expressions, feature selection, audio-visual fusion, SVM.


A New Silent β Chain Variant: Hb Hounslow [β80(EF4)Asn→Tyr] We report a new neutral hemoglobin (Hb) variant, found, during neonatal screening, in a child originating from Afghanistan. This variant was revealed by cation exchange and reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), but was silent in electrophoretic methods except for globin chain electrophoresis in the presence of urea and Triton X-100. The structural modification was determined by protein structure studies and the substitution established by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The mutation, located near to the 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) binding site, was without any hematological consequences. The pitfalls presented by the presence of neutral Hb variants as modulator factors of the main hemoglobinopathies is discussed.


e a psi c u m a n n u u m plants under summer field conditions were grown in 17 cm plastic pots with different substrates: (1) Peat-Polystyrene (1:1) (v/v), (2) Composted Pine Bark, (3) Composted Grape Refuse-Olot s Volcanic Ashes (1:1) (v/v), and (4) Peat-Composted Pine Bark-Perlite (1:1:1) (v/v/v). Transpiration rate and stomatal resistance daily variation depended on irradiance and on substrate water contento Plants with one morning irrigation, 2 l/pot, showed stomatic symptoms of water deficit during the morning, in substrate (3), and in the afternoon in the other media. E.A. \rJ. % vol: (1) 22.7; (2) 21.8; (3) 8.0; and (4) 19.1 • Two more irrigations, 1 l/pot each, overcame restrictions of gaseous exchange in substrate (3), increasing ~anspiration rates and decreasing stomatal resistance substantially. Furthermore in _all substrates this three irrigation treatment extended, at least for one hour in the afternoon, the potential gaseous exchange in relation to irradiance assuming photosynthesis and stomatal resistance dependence of photon fluence rateo


Newcastle disease (ND) is one of the important poultry diseases in
Malaysia. Although the disease is controlled through vaccination programmes,
outbreaks have been reported in vaccinated flocks from time to time. The success
of any vaccination programme depends on several factors and one of them is the
integrity of the immune system. The bursa of Fabricius is an important organ of
the immune system which is responsible for humoral immunity against ND.
Realising its importance, a study was undertaken to investigate the effect of
velogenic viscerotropic Newcastle disease virus (VVNDV) on the bursa of
Fabricius. An initial detailed study on the normal structure of the bursa of
Fabricius was conducted as a basis for differentiating the effect of VVNDV on
the bursa of Fabricius.The effect of VVNDV on the bursa of Fabricius of vaccinated chickens
was determined by infecting these chickens via contact with non-vaccinated
chickens challenged intranasally with 0. 1 ml of inoculate containing 106 E1DSO of
the virus. The damage to the bursa of Fabricius was examined by histological and
electron microscopic studies, while virus was detected by isolation,
immunoperoxidase staining and transmission electron microscopy. The results showed that VVNDV damaged and replicated in the bursa of
Fabricius of vaccinated birds. Grossly, the bursa was swollen, oedematous,
haemorrhagic and necrotic. Histopathology showed that there were haemorrhages,
oedema, cystic cavities in the follicles containing mucous, necrosis of the follicles
and presence of a reduced number of lymphocytes and an increased number of
heterophils, macrophages and plasma cells. Scanning electron microscopy showed
increased mucous secretion and there was exfoliation of the microvilli. However
the follicle-associated-epithelium was intact in the vaccinated challenged birds. In
the non-vaccinated challenged birds there was total exfoliation of the epithelium.
Viral isolation and immunoperoxidase staining showed evidence of viral
replication in the bursa of Fabricius. Ultrastructurally, viral replication was shown
by the presence of virus budding and nucleocapsids in the cytoplasm of lymphoid
cells and macrophages.


Reactions of 3-amino-2-pyrazinecarboxylic acid (HL) with SnCl2 under different hydrothermal conditions and crystallization processes produced two new mononuclear Sn(II) compounds (1 and 2) of general formula [Sn(κN,O-L)2] (L = 3-amino-2-pyrazinecarboxylate), and single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that they are packing polymorphs, complex 1 crystallizing in the monoclinic C2/c space group whereas 2 in the monoclinic P21/c. The Hirshfeld surface analysis shows that the supramolecular features of both forms are guided by Sn⋯O and Sn⋯N contacts, as well as by strong N–H⋯O and N–H⋯N hydrogen bonds that differentiate the packing in the two forms. Complex 1 shows a one dimensional hydrogen bonded network whereas 2 shows a 2D hydrogen bonded network. To the best of our knowledge no examples of packing polymorphs based on tin(II) complexes have been reported so far. These polymorphs are interconvertible when immersed in a suitable solvent or mixture of solvents. They also act as heterogeneous catalysts for the cyanosilylation reaction of aldehydes with trimethylsilyl cyanide (TMSCN) and can be recycled several times without losing activity.


Martial, perhaps the best-known author of Latin epigram, has enjoyed a resurgence of scholarly attention over the past two decades, and much has been made of his self-professed debt to earlier Latin epigrammatists, especially Catullus. Less prevalent, however, has been discussion of how he relates to authors of Greek epigram, which may not be surprising given that Martial passes over the Greek epigrammatic tradition in nearly total silence. This dissertation seeks to explain the silence. Through close readings of specific poems by Martial, both in themselves and alongside epigrams by his Greek predecessors, I argue that he has fashioned an intentionally ambivalent attitude toward the Greek tradition. Martial contends with a fundamentally Roman literary condundrum – he must negotiate the inevitable and irreconcilable tension between acknowledging the importance of his Greek predecessors and asserting his own claim to superiority over them. But Martial, I suggest, relishes such tensions, depicting Greece and Greek epigram as inconsistent and even bipolar entities which he can then exploit as sources of humor or self-aggrandizement. I claim that Martial's suppression of the Greeks is willful; it in part offers a playful challenge to his educated audience to hunt for allusions, and in part contributes to his invention of a purely Roman epigrammatic tradition over which he himself reigns. Martial's engagement with the Greek tradition spans hundreds of years and several subgenres of Greek epigram, three of which I have examined more or less chronologically in this study. My four chapters offer an overview of Martial's treatment of Greek language, art, and literature within the Epigrams, and discuss how he interacts with Greek inscribed, erotic, and skoptic epigram. I ultimately reveal how Martial imagines for his audience a bipolar Greek epigrammatic tradition, deftly balancing himself between the two poles: at times he respectfully embraces his participation in the rich and varied history of Greek epigram, and at times he irreverently attempts to invert, subvert, or erase this history altogether, all for the entertainment of his well-educated readers, for whom his engagement with the Greek tradition would no doubt have been hidden in plain sight. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Classical Studies First Advisor James Ker


Amartya Sen has sought to refocus development theory towards the ultimate goal of freedom, and has in this context emphasised the importance of education in building human capabilities to lead the lives they have reason to value. However, research suggesting that genderbased violence is prevalent in the South African school system represents a paradox as it reveals that years of schooling can contribute to deprivation and capability failure rather than enhanced human capabilities and development. Literature reviewed for this dissertation suggests that over and above the lost educational opportunities due to gender-based violence in schools, it can cause long-term and even terminal health damages and contribute to increased society-wide levels of violence with substantial socio-economic costs. Anti-violence interventions among learners have been found to have minimal effect unless they are supported by the overall school culture. However, educators who are expected to ensure a safe school environment are not only responding inadequately to cases of gender-based violence between learners, but some are personally engaging in acts of gender violence towards learners. Recognising the significant role of educators, both as part of the problem and as key to any solution, this dissertation seeks to improve understanding of the context within which interventions at the level of educators may be possible. This study explores what previous research have identified as common attitudes, beliefs and knowledge gaps among educators in schools with high levels of gender-based violence. Findings include confusion about the legal and policy framework as it applies to such cases, a lack of will to acknowledge the problem and inadequate understanding of gender-based violence. The construction of men and women as essential opposites has been identified as an underlying reason for inadequate acknowledgement and understanding. Research on these dimensions forms the basis for a study using survey and focus group methodologies to assess the prevalence of such attitudes and knowledge gaps of issues around gender-based violence among student teachers about to finalise their studies and start their professional lives as educators. The data collected suggests that the student teachers will vary considerably in their ability to respond to cases of gender-based violence. A more concerted effort is required in order to prepare student teachers for the problem of genderbased violence and enable them to create more gender-friendly school environments. Possible routes for improvement are suggested.


PURPOSE
Effects of ultraviolet (UV) B on the pterygium and its cells have been studied previously, whereas little is known on the effects of UVA. Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) is a protease involved in tissue remodeling and cell migration, and its levels are increased in pterygium. The purpose of our study was to investigate the effects of UVA on the expression of uPA in cultured pterygium fibroblasts.

METHODS
Cultured fibroblasts from early-stage pterygia and normal conjunctiva were irradiated with different dosages of UVA and compared to nonirradiated cells. uPA activities in the medium and uPA mRNA in the cells were measured by casein zymography and RT-PCR, respectively. Total and phosphorylated p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK), and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) levels of cells treated with and without UVA were measured by Western blotting. Inhibitors of p38 (SB203580), ERK (UO1026), and JNK (SP600125) were added before the irradiation of UVA to test their effects.

RESULTS
UVA irradiation increased the uPA mRNA levels in pterygium fibroblasts and the uPA activities in cultured medium, which was accompanied with an increase in phosphorylated ERK and JNK. The ERK and JNK inhibitor, but not p38 MAPK inhibitors, significantly decreased the UVA-induced expression of uPA by pterygium fibroblasts. Normal conjunctival fibroblasts were less sensitive to UVA irradiation compared to the pterygium fibroblasts.

CONCLUSIONS
UVA stimulated the production of uPA, a key factor in the modulation of extracellular matrixes, inflammatory processes, and angiogenesis. This may have a role in the development and progression of pterygium.


Objective To determine the trajectory of cognitive test scores from infancy to adulthood in individuals born extremely preterm compared with term-born individuals. Design A prospective, population-based cohort study. Setting 276 maternity units in the UK and Ireland. Patients 315 surviving infants born less than 26 completed weeks of gestation recruited at birth in 1995 and 160 term-born classroom controls recruited at age 6. Main outcome measures Bayley Scales of Infant Development-Second Edition (age 2.5); Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (ages 6/11); Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-Second Edition (age 19). Results The mean cognitive scores of extremely preterm individuals over the period were on average 25.2 points below their term-born peers (95% CI −27.8 to −22.6) and remained significantly lower at every assessment. Cognitive trajectories in term-born boys and girls did not differ significantly, but the scores of extremely preterm boys were on average 8.8 points below those of extremely preterm girls (95% CI −13.6 to −4.0). Higher maternal education elevated scores in both groups by 3.2 points (95% CI 0.8 to 5.7). Within the extremely preterm group, moderate/severe neonatal brain injury (mean difference: −10.9, 95% CI −15.5 to −6.3) and gestational age less than 25 weeks (mean difference: −4.4, 95% CI −8.4 to −0.4) also had an adverse impact on cognitive function. Conclusions There is no evidence that impaired cognitive function in extremely preterm individuals materially recovers or deteriorates from infancy through to 19 years. Cognitive test scores in infancy and early childhood reflect early adult outcomes.


This research investigated the influence of the local geology on the groundwater potential of the two kunike
 chiefdoms (Sanda and Barina) in the Tonkolili District, Northern Sierra Leone. The local geology is made up of rocks
 typical of the West African Archean greenstone belt. The stratigraphic sequence is marked by the basic ultramafics
 followed by mafics (metavolcanics) and a metasedimentary unit i.e., quartzite and banded iron formations in a
 greenstone belt lying on or beside granitic basement rocks. The basement relationship of the granites to the
 supracrustals has been obliterated by intrusion of Late-Kinematic granites and by deformation and metamorphism
 during the Liberian tectonothermal event (=2700 Ma) which produced the dominant N-S to NNE-SSW trend. Because
 of the geology, aquifers in the studied area are located in two different lithologies-granitic terrain and schist belt.
 Aquifer characteristics such as transmissivity and yield were measured and compared for the different lithologies.
 Comparison results show that the yield is greater (0.03%) in the granitic terrain than in the schist belt. And this is
 because of the presence of clays in the schist belt. The research also revealed that groundwater is readily available
 in the area.


Here we report the genomic structure including the promoter sequence and coding region of NtPDR1 (Nicotiana tabacum Pleiotropic Drug Resistance 1), which is an elicitor-responsive gene encoding an ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter that might be involved in the defense response in tobacco, as we reported recently. The NtPDR1 gene consists of 20 exons and 19 introns. Among the introns, the first and fifth are much larger than the others and harbor typical miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs). One of the MITE elements in the first intron, termed NtToya1, belongs to the Toya family that was recently described in rice, while the other element in the fifth intron, termed NtStowaway101, shows high homology with the Stowaway elements of the IS630-Tc1-mariner family. Many of the genes we found to harbor Toya and Stowaway elements in Nicotiana species by BLAST search are also involved in stress responses or plant-pathogen interactions. The existence of putative cis-elements (a GCC box, three W boxes, and several JA-responsive elements) in the promoter region supports our previous finding that this gene is strongly inducible by elicitation and methyljasmonate, and that this ABC transporter might be essential for plant defense responses. Furthermore, Southern blot analysis and PCR amplification of the introns harboring the MITE-like elements from genomic DNA of three Nicotiana species suggests that NtPDR1 originated from N. sylvestris.


Microarray imaging is considered an important tool for large scale analysis of gene expression. The accuracy of the gene expression depends on the experiment itself and further image processing. It's well known that the noises introduced during the experiment will greatly affect the accuracy of the gene expression. How to eliminate the effect of the noise constitutes a challenging problem in microarray analysis. Traditionally, statistical methods are used to estimate the noises while the microarray images are being processed. In this paper, we present a new approach to deal with the noise inherent in the microarray image processing procedure. That is, to denoise the image noises before further image processing using stationary wavelet transform (SWT). The time invariant characteristic of SWT is particularly useful in image denoising. The testing result on sample microarray images has shown an enhanced image quality. The results also show that it has a superior performance than conventional discrete wavelet transform and widely used adaptive Wiener filter in this procedure.


Abstract. Phenology is experiencing dramatic changes over deciduous forests in the USA. Estimates of trends in phenology on the continental scale are uncertain, however, with studies failing to agree on both the magnitude and spatial distribution of trends in spring and autumn. This is due to the sparsity of in situ records, uncertainties associated with remote sensing data, and the regional focus of many studies. It has been suggested that reported trends are a result of recent temperature changes, though multiple processes are thought to be involved and the nature of the temperature forcing remains unknown. To date, no study has directly attributed long-term phenological trends to individual forcings across the USA through integrating observations with models. Here, we construct an extensive database of ground measurements of phenological events across the USA, and use it to calibrate and evaluate a suite of phenology models. The models use variations of the accumulative temperature summation, with additional chilling requirements for spring phenology and photoperiod limitation for autumn. Including a chilling requirement or photoperiod limitation does not improve model performance, suggesting that temperature change, especially in spring and autumn, is likely the dominant driver of the observed trend during the past 3 decades. Our results show that phenological trends are not uniform over the contiguous USA, with a significant advance of 0.34 day yr−1 for the spring budburst in the east, a delay of 0.15 day yr−1 for the autumn dormancy onset in the northeast and west, but no evidence of change elsewhere. Relative to the 1980s, the growing season in the 2000s is extended by about 1 week (3–4 %) in the east, New England, and the upper Rocky Mountains forests. Additional sensitivity tests show that intraspecific variations may not influence the predicted phenological trends. These results help reconcile conflicting reports of phenological trends in the literature, and directly attribute observed trends to long-term changes in temperature.


We study the effects of Massachusetts' healthcare reform on individuals' subjective well-being. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we find that the reform significantly improved Massachusetts residents' overall life-satisfaction. This result is robust to various sensitivity checks and a falsification test. We also find that the reform improved mental health. An additional analysis on the Tennessee healthcare reform supports our findings' external validity. Using the reform as an instrument for health insurance coverage, we estimate its large impact on overall life-satisfaction. Our results provide novel evidence on the psychological consequences of Massachusetts' healthcare reform.


1 In the long history of Harper's magazine, the most letters ever received about an article was in response to a 1996 essay by Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley entitled "Say It Ain't So, Huck"(Berube 693). In this now-notorious piece, Smiley took on the exalted critical status of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, questioning its preeminent role in American literary history and positing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin as a superior model for American literature. For Smiley, the most notable problem with Huckleberry Finn was that Twain took the public question of race and removed it to the private sphere. It was only on the raft floating down the Mississippi away from societal constraints that Huck was able to overcome the racist attitudes of his culture and understand Jim as a man. But far from being a solution, Huck's change of heart simply illustrates the problem for Smiley. If Huck feels positive toward Jim, and loves him, and thinks of him as a man, then that's enough. He doesn't actually have to act in accordance with his feelings. White Americans always think racism is a feeling, and they reject it or they embrace it. To most Americans, it seems more honorable and nicer to reject it, so they do, but they almost invariably fail to understand that how they feel means very little to black Americans, who understand racism as a way of structuring American culture, American politics, and the American economy. To invest The [sic] Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with "greatness" is to underwrite a very simplistic and evasive theory of what racism is and to promulgate it, philosophically, in schools and the media as well as in academic journals ("Say" 63). This extended quotation captures the force of Smiley's argument as well as much of what proved controversial following the article's publication. In attacking Huck's personal transformation, Smiley doesn't simply say the novel fails (by now a familiar debate); she argues instead that the problem of the novel is where it succeeds. By placing Huck's feelings at the center of the book, Twain derails any kind of structural understanding of racism. Racism becomes a personal matter rather than a political one, allowing readers to substitute feeling for action. It is precisely the opposite quality that stands out in Uncle Tom's Cabin for Smiley. She claims that the broader scope of Stowe's novel allows Stowe to present a range of voices--whites who are pro- as well as anti-slavery, blacks who emerge as heroic as well as psychologically wounded by their enslavement--so that the issue never boils down to a question of individual attitude. Even more crucially, in Uncle Tom's Cabin personal relationships are never removed from politics. The racist structure of slaveholding society supplants, in many cases, bonds of friendship, of loyalty, and, most importantly, of family. Stowe never forgets the logical end of any relationship in which one person is the subject and the other is the object. No matter how the two people feel, or what their intentions are, the logic of the relationship is inherently tragic and traps both parties until the false subject/ object relationship is ended. Stowe's most oft-repeated and potent representation of this inexorable logic is the forcible separation of family members, especially of mothers from children (65). Essentially, what Smiley admires is that Stowe's novel takes place "off the raft." In Uncle Tom's Cabin, there is no space where relations of power can be transcended, no space where the personal is not also always political. For Stowe, all personal interactions, even of the most intimate nature, are implicated in power relationships and reflective of the unequal distribution of power under the regime of slavery. For Smiley, this makes Stowe's novel a more thoughtful and more meaningful meditation on the place of slavery in nineteenth-century American culture. …


Nanotechnology is an emerging technology seeking to exploit distinct technological advances of controlling the structure of materials at a reduced dimensional scale approaching individual molecules and their organised aggregates or supramolecular structures. These technological innovations, referred to as nanomedicines by the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA), have the potential to turn molecular discoveries arising from genomics and proteomics into widespread benefit for patients. Nanomedicine is a large subject area and includes nanoparticles that act as biological mimetics (e.g., functionalized carbon nanotubes) "nanomachines" (e.g., those made from interchangeable DNA parts and DNA scaffolds such as octahedron and stick cube), nanofibers and polymeric nanoparticles. The rapidly increasing new field of nanotechnology, opened up by rapid advances in science and technology, creates myriad new opportunities for advancing medical science and disease treatment in human health care. This article presents a brief review of nanomedicines with an emphasis on its various aspects associated i.e. introduction, background, objective, advances, physiological principles of nanomedicine. The article also reveals the concept of nanotoxicology from nanomedicines and non-medical nanoparticles.


In this paper we present the results obtained from tests conducted on ultrafiltration treatment of a secondary effluent designated for possible industrial reuse. Tests were carried out at Empoli Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) (Florence, Italy) with the use of a hollow fiber pilot plant (mod. ZW-10, Zenon Environmental). Testing lasted for about 4 months, during which the pilot plant was fed by effluent from the wastewater treatment plant. Results show that the permeate was of high quality. The membranes were very efficient in reducing turbidity (94.5%) and TSS (98.7%). The reduction of COD (around 35%) was also good. The permeate also showed low SDI values (usually < 3%). With respect to microbiological parameters, treatment was shown to be above all efficient in the removal of Escherichia coli. The permeate already respects required quality standards set forth by a new technical law decree on water reuse, soon to be approved within Italian Legislation. Based on these test results, a preliminary design of a wastewater treatment plant with the complex of structures necessary to the distribution of the treated wastewater in the industrial area located closed to the plant, has been created. Under this design, treated water could be produced at a cost of 0.38 €/m3, which includes investment, financial charges and maintenance costs.


To identify the gene or genes associated with insulin resistance in Type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus, subtraction libraries were prepared from skeletal muscle of normal and diabetic humans and screened with subtracted probes. Only one clone out of 4000 was selectively overexpressed in Type II diabetic muscle as compared to muscle of non-diabetic or Type I diabetic individuals. This clone encoded a new 29-kilodalton member of the Ras-guanosine triphosphatase superfamily and was termed Rad (Ras associated with diabetes). Messenger ribonucleic acid of Rad was expressed primarily in skeletal and cardiac muscle and was increased an average of 8.6-fold in the muscle of Type II diabetics as compared to normal individuals.


In this study, wheat straw was pretreated with a microfluidizer to improve its enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol yields. The pretreatment was performed at various pressures (500, 1000, and 1500 bar) and solid loadings (1, 2, and 3%). The microfluidized biomass was then subjected to hydrolysis and simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF) experiments at different enzyme loadings (5, 10, and 15 FPU/g dry wheat straw) using a mutant yeast. The results indicated that the microfluidization method alters the structure of biomass and leads to a reduction in lignin content. The samples pretreated at 1% solid loading contained the minimum lignin concentration and provided the maximum sugar and ethanol yields. These results signified that the microfluidization method is more effective on biomass at low solid loadings. The process conditions were optimized for higher ethanol and sugar yields using response surface methodology (RSM). The optimum pressure and solid and enzyme loadings were found as 1500 bar, 1%, and 15 FPU/g dry wheat straw, respectively. The yields obtained at this condition were 82%, 94%, and 65% for glucose, xylose, and ethanol, respectively. High sugar yields implied that microfluidization is an effective pretreatment method for cellulosic ethanol production. On the other hand, low ethanol yield may indicate that the microorganism was sensitive to inhibitory compounds present in the fermentation medium.


Suffering from a well-covered "crisis of volume," the United States Courts of Appeals have patched together an ad hoc system of triage in an effort to provide cases with sufficient attention. For example, only some cases are assigned to central staff, analyzed by law clerks, orally argued, debated over by judges, or decided in published opinions. The courts have evaded overt disaster by increasing the number of active, senior, and visiting judges, but the additional personnel poses its own demands on attention—judges must also pay attention to one another in order to coherently develop and apply the law. With too little time and too many voices, they have increasingly abandoned the effort to coordinate that uniform approach to judging: the courts now create traditional precedent in less than 10% of cases, some larger courts have stopped the practice of circulating opinion drafts to the full court, and en banc proceedings are initiated at a miniscule rate.

This Article explains and illustrates how courts can leverage advances in artificial intelligence to more fairly and effectively allocate attention. A machine-generated mapping of a court's historical decision patterns—what I term "statistical precedent"—can help a circuit court locate the district court, agency, staff attorney, law clerk, and panel decisions that are most incompatible with the court's collective jurisprudence. Statistical precedent can also aid the court in identifying areas of law that are most in need of development. With the ability to locate likely errors and opportunities for law development, the circuit courts could distribute attention so as to revitalize their contribution to the rule of law.


It is undoubtingly noticeable that care workers' employment rights are currently prominent in the news and raise important social, market and legal concerns of equality and fairness. They stimulate debates on the consequences of the legal position on the 'wage-work bargain' of care workers and the national minimum wage laws are central to this. It can be said that national minimum wage (NMW) underpayments stem from laws which define social structures and attitudes about care giving. As such, the core substance of NMW regulations will be analysed to define how and why this issue exists and what is the impact. Inevitably, socio-legal issues about the gendered workforce, multi-level control of the industry and economics (the ageing population, social capital and market logics) will serve as perspectives of criticism to the current position of law on care work and the NMW.


Synthesis of novel triazole fused iminocyclitol-δ-lactams is described. The synthetic sequence involves the intermolecular [3 + 2] cycloaddition reaction of five-membered iminocyclitol derived azides with diethylacetylene dicarboxylate followed by intramolecular lactamisation, decarboxylation/reduction and final deprotection. Compound 3 is found to be a selective inhibitor of α-glucosidase from baker's yeast while two other compounds (2 and 4) that possess an additional hydroxymethyl group in the triazole ring are selective against β-galactosidase from E. coli. Docking studies suggest the significance of the lactam carbonyl group for effective binding of these inhibitors with the active sites through hydrogen bonding.


With the development of fuel cell based power systems, the need for more advanced DCDC power converters has become apparent. In such applications DC-DC converters provide an important link between low voltage fuel cell sources and inverter buses operating at significantly higher voltages. Advancements in converter efficiency, cost reduction, and size reduction are the most necessary. These challenges are formidable, even when considering the improvements made to conventional DC-DC topologies. However, it can be possible to achieve these criteria through the implementation of more advanced topologies. A recently developed efficient three-phase DC-DC topology offers benefits over standard designs. Passive component sizes and output ripple voltage were reduced as a result of an effective boost in switching frequency. Converter output voltage was reached more easily due to an increased transformer voltage boost ratio in addition to the turns ratio. For cost reduction, the converter was designed and built with discrete components instead of more expensive integrated modules. This thesis presents an overview of the three-phase converter, with a detailed focus on the design, implementation, and performance of the switching stage. The functionality of the threephase topology is covered along with the selection of converter components. Simulation results are shown for both ideal and real converter models. Considerations for the switching device package with respect to circuit board and heat sinking configurations are discussed in support of the selection of an insulated metal substrate (IMS) circuit board. An effective circuit layout designed to minimize parasitic trace inductances as well as provide favorable component positioning is presented. Experimental converter test results are shown and the causes of undesired effects are identified. Switching stage modifications and their results are discussed along with the benefits of proposed future design enhancements.


Precipitation forecasting experiments have been carried out with HIRLAM, a numerical weather prediction model. The model has been run with three different horizontal gridlengths: 22, 11 and 5.5 km. An attempt has been made to estimate the appropriate magnitude of the horizontal diffusion, which is used to control small‐scale noise in the model, by looking at kinetic energy spectra. It is shown that, for the higher resolutions, smoothing the orography gives smoother precipitation patterns. The small‐scale precipitation resulting from runs with the original orography has negligible extra skill compared to the smoothed orography runs. The results show that the model is able to forecast good precipitation amounts, even with 22 km gridlengths. No significant improvements occur when the higher horizontal resolutions are used. Experiments have been performed using the tendencies of the physical parameterisations computed on a coarser grid than that of the dynamics. The resulting precipitation patterns are very similar and this indicates a more economical way of integrating the model. Copyright © 1999 Royal Meteorological Society


Multi-person tracking with a robotic platform is one of the cornerstones of human-robot interaction. Challenges arise from occlusions, appearance changes and a time-varying number of people. Furthermore, the final system is constrained by the hardware platform: low computational capacity and limited field-of-view. In this paper, we propose a novel method to simultaneously track a time-varying number of persons in three-dimensions and perform visual servoing. The complementary nature of the tracking and visual servoing enables the system to: (i) track several persons while compensating for large ego-movements and (ii) visually control the robot to keep a selected person of interest within the field of view. We propose a variational Bayesian formulation allowing us to effectively solve the inference problem through the use of closed-form solutions. Importantly, this leads to a computationally efficient procedure that runs at 10 FPS. The experiments on the NAO-MPVS dataset confirm the importance of using visual servoing for tracking multiple persons.


This guide provides direction to sources that support the Communication Studies curriculum at AU. (Strategic Communication, Sport Communication and Public Relations)


The Magdalena River Turtle (Podocnemis lewyana) is a Colombian endemic species, endangered due to human exploitation and habitat destruction. To date, this species is poorly known ecologically and data on its genetic diversity are lacking. Here we report on the fi rst genetic survey of the species across its distribution range. We obtained mitochondrial DNA sequences (488 bp) of the cytochrome b gene from 109 individuals. Samples belong to populations located at several different localities, grouped in fi ve regions, along the four main river basins: Magdalena, Cauca, San Jorge, and Sinu drainages. We found two haplotypes, which differ in only one nucleotide substitution and which are represented with different frequencies in the fi ve geographic regions. These results suggest that P. lewyana harbors little genetic variation and is a genetically uniform species, but more variable markers (i.e., microsatellites) should be used to unravel fi ne-scale phylogeographic structures in this species.


The output voltage available from renewable sources like photovoltaic panels, fuel cells and battery banks are too low to be practically utilised. Therefore, the available voltage must be stepped up considerably before connecting to the load. In this paper, a novel topology, which consists of two interleaved stages and five voltage multiplier cells, is presented. The topology is derived from a classical boost converter and utilises two switches, two inductors for the interleave stage,12 diodes, 12 capacitors and one voltage lift capacitor to provide a voltage gain of 14. In general, a topology that provides a gain (N+ 2) times that of a classical boost converter utilises (2N+ 2) diodes and (2N+ 2) capacitors along with a voltage lift capacitor. The primary feature of this topology is its capability to provide high-conversion ratio without using a transformer; additional features are, continuous input current, moderate duty cycle operation and modularity. Experimental results obtained from a 100 W, 24 V/336 V prototype demonstrate the feasibility of the converter and validate the converter design.


The study was conducted to determine the effect of Malaysian jungle Tualang Honey (TH) on development of breast cancer induced by the carcinogen 7,12-dimethylbenz(α)anthracene (DMBA) in rats. Forty nulliparous female Sprague-Dawley rats were given 80 mg/kg DMBA then randomly divided into four groups: Group 1 served as a Control while Groups 2, 3 and 4 received 0.2, 1.0 or 2.0 g/kg bodyweight/day of TH, respectively, for 150 days. Results showed that breast cancers in the TH-treated groups had slower size increment and smaller mean tumor size (≤ 2 cm3) compared to Controls (≤ 8 cm3). The number of cancers developing in TH-treated groups was also significantly fewer (P<0.05). Histological grading showed majority of TH-treated group cancers to be of grade 1 and 2 compared to grade 3 in controls. There was an increasing trend of apoptotic index (AI) seen in TH-treated groups with increasing dosage of Tualang Honey, however, the mean AI values of all TH-treated groups were not significantly different from the Control value (p>0.05). In conclusion, Tualang Honey exerted positive modulation effects on DMBA-induced breast cancers in rats in this preliminary study.


Bali as tourist destination has great impact to the change of land use. This is related to the development of tourism supporting infrastructures such as hotel, villa, restaurant and other facilities which are developed at strategic area with beautiful landscape. Generally in the area has mountainous area that is from upper course area to downstream and beach area. The impact of this development activity is the need of the area which is originally on open are and function as water absorption area, then changed into impermeable residential area. This condition has resulted toward the increase of surface run off which directly influence the flood discharge in the river. The discharge of flood due to the change of land use is calculated by using Rational Method. The Rational Method has three components i.e. coefficient of run off, C, rainfall intensity, I, and catchment area, A. The value of coefficient run off (C) is determined based on the condition of land uses. The result of flood discharge due to the change of land use from period of 1992 to 2000, at one of Sub Basin Tampus in Ayung Basin has resulted the trend of decrease of flood discharge 30,36 %. This concern is true as according to condition existing DAS Tampus. Explainable theoretically if with the same of rainfall value (analysis from year data 1992 - 2000) but with variation of land opening change therefore time from rain from farthest point to the observation point (tc) related also will change. In the consequence of increase of tc value thus with the same rainfall will causes the intensity of rainfall is decrease. Value of tc in DAS Tampus is increase which in the year 1992 = 116 minute become 121 minute in the year 2000, because of the process of land closing by vegetation that is the continuation of new cultivated area in location, so that the rain process to become the surface run off is more slowly.
Keywords: discharge of flood, intensity of rainfall, coefficient of run off, and land use


The California Prison system is notorious for its highly racialized environment. A history of numerous instances of prison violence - labeled as 'race riots' - paints a picture of a system where inmates of different races require segregation to prevent brutal beatings, murders, and rapes. For example, following an incident deemed a 'race riot' at the California Correctional Training Facility, North prison, prison officials locked 300 inmates in isolation until inmates complained that their Eighth Amendment and Due Process rights were violated. In 2000, the Pelican Bay State Prison locked down a portion of the prison following a riot, presumed to be racially motivated, involving 300 inmates. In August, 2009, 1,175 inmates were involved in a riot that officials deemed 'stemmed from racial tensions,' in which 249 inmates were injured and seven dorm units, holding 1,300 beds, were destroyed at the California Institution for Men in Chino, California. The media and prison officials point to events similar to these as evidence that California prisons are racially charged. Jurisprudence has traditionally left prison segregation practices to a relaxed standard of review for Equal Protection suits, allowing California prison officials to segregate inmates according to race in double-occupancy cells. Justice Antonin Scalia, in Richmond v. J.A. Croson, wrote 'only a social emergency rising to the level of imminent danger to life and limb - for example, a prison race riot, requiring temporary segregation of inmates . . . can justify an exception to the principle embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment that 'our Constitution is colorblind.' This viewpoint is consistent with Justice Thomas's recommended relaxed standard and judicial deference to prison officials who oversee 'prisons that have been a breeding ground for some of the most violent prison gangs in America - all of them organized along racial lines.' Reports of riots, popular movies, and prior court opinions suggest this prison system's prior practice of initial racial segregating of inmates was a reaction to the racial prejudices and intolerances inmates brought with them to prison. Alternatively, it suggests inmates develop prejudices through prison interactions. This concept led to the practice of segregation in initial housing of inmates. As inmates were introduced to the California prison system, they were placed in cells with inmates according to race or ethnicity.In 2005, the Supreme Court changed the standard to be applied in cases of racial segregation at prisons. In Johnson v. California, Justice O'Connor's majority held that the proper standard of review was 'strict scrutiny' because the prior deferential standard too easily defended 'rank discrimination' and remanded the case back to the district court for review. The California Department of Corrections ('CDC') at that point settled with the plaintiff, Garrison Johnson, and began implementing policies to eliminate the use of race as a primary factor in initially segregating inmates as they are processed into prisons. The thesis of this article is that while the CDC claims its policies regarding initial housing in double-occupancy cells focused on separating members of conflicting gangs, in practice it segregated inmates coming into the men's prison system by perceived race. Research has shown that racial segregation in prisons increases inmate violence, which has the effect of increasing inmate sentences. In California, where inmate populations are disproportionately Black and Latino, this practice, questioned in the courts, is only one example of the segregation existing throughout the prison system. By carefully integrating all inmate cells and eliminating the policy allowing inmates to select their own double-occupancy cell partner, California will experience less violence within the prison, thereby reducing prison sentences.


The development of non-toxic theranostic nanoparticles capable of delivering a therapeutic cargo and providing a means for diagnosis is one of the most challenging tasks in nano-biotechnology. Gene therapy is a very important mode of therapy and polyethyleneimine (PEI) is one of the most successful vehicles for gene transfection, yet poses significant toxicity. Optical imaging utilizing quantum dots is one of the newer but fast growing diagnostic modalities, which requires non-toxic, highly luminescent materials, preferentially active in the near infrared region. Ag2S NIRQDs fit to this profile perfectly. Here, we demonstrate the aqueous synthesis of cationic Ag2S NIRQDs with a mixed coating of 2-mercaptopropionic acid (2MPA) and PEI (branched, 25 kDa), which are highly luminescent in the NIR-I window (λem = 810-840 nm) as new theranostic nanoparticles. Synergistic stabilization of the QD surface via the simultaneous use of a small molecule and a polymeric material provided the highest quantum yield, 150% (with respect to LDS 798 at pH 7.4), reported in the literature for Ag2S. These cationic particles show a dramatic improvement in cytocompatibility even without PEGylation, a strong optical signal easily detected by confocal laser microscopy and effective conjugation and transfection of the green fluorescence protein plasmid (pGFP) to HeLa and MCF-7 cell lines (40% efficiency). Overall, these Ag2S NIRQDs show great potential as new theranostics.


The clinical open day provides an opportunity for prospective students to experience a Radiology Department and is ideally suited to under 18's, where alternative
channels are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. Student feedback from the events is good, providing enough experience to inform their personal statements. This approach is time efficient, enabling a large volume of prospective students to experience the Radiology Department in short bursts, creating controlled disruption to the clinical workflow. Staff supporting these events find them enjoyable and a key part of continuous professional education.


This paper presents performance results for the multi-threaded design and implementation of a parallel pipelined Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) algorithm on parallel computers with Symmetrical Multiple Processor (SMP) nodes. In particular the paper describes our approach to parallelization and multi-threaded implementation on an Intel Paragon MP system. Our goal is to determine how much more performance can be enhanced using small SMPs on each node of a large parallel computer for such an application. The paper also discusses the process of developing software for such an application on parallel computers when latency and throughput are both considered together and presents their tradeoffs. The results show that not only scalable performance was achieved for individual component tasks of STAP but linear speedups were obtained for the integrated task performance, both for latency as well as throughput.


Building automation systems are believed to hold the key to significantly reducing the average energy consumption of our residential and commercial building stock, which in the U.S. is responsible for 41% of the total annual energy use in 2014. As these systems become more widespread and inexpensive, the complexity and challenges associated with their installation, maintenance and upkeep will increase. One of the primary challenges is the generation and update of the meta-data associated with the sensors and control points distributed throughout the facility. Previous research has attempted to reduce the human input required to perform these activities, by leveraging different signal processing and statistical analysis approaches to infer the sensor types and locations from measurements and/or tags obtained through a BAS. However, because of the relatively small sample size, the feasibility of applying these type approaches on large buildings, as well as their generalizability, remain as unsolved questions. In this paper, we propose a meta-data inference framework to learn from BAS measurement data in a semi-automated way. Furthermore, we evaluate the framework on two large buildings instrumented with thousands sensors and show the feasibility of applying data driven approaches in the real world. We present the results of our study and provide recommendations for future work in this area.


An appreciation of how some species are becoming more common despite unprecedented anthropogenic pressures could offer key insights for mitigating the global biodiversity crisis.  Research to date has largely focused on declining species, while species that are becoming more common have received relatively little attention. Macro-moths in Great Britain are well-studied and species-rich, making them an ideal group for addressing this knowledge gap. Here, we examine changes in 51 successful species between 1968 and 2016 using 4.5 million occurrence records and a systematic monitoring dataset. We employ 3D graphical analysis to visualise long-term multidimensional trends in prevalence (abundance and range) and use vector autoregression models to test whether past values of local abundance are useful for predicting changes in the extent of occurrence. The responses of Anthropocene winners are heterogeneous, suggesting multiple drivers are responsible. Changes in range and local abundance frequently occur intermittently through time, demonstrating the value of long-term, continuous monitoring. There is significant diversity among the winners themselves, which include widespread generalists, habitat specialists, and recent colonists. We offer brief discussion of possible causal factors and the wider ecosystem implications of these trends.


1. Life table response experiment (LTRE) analyses decompose treatment effects on a dependent variable (usually, but not necessarily, population growth rate) into contributions from differences in the parameters that determine that variable.
2. Fixed, random and regression LTRE designs have been applied to plant populations in many contexts. These designs all make use of the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the parameters, and describe differences as sums of linear approximations.
3. Here, I extend LTRE methods to analyse treatment effects on the stochastic growth rate  log λs. The problem is challenging because a stochastic model contains two layers of dynamics: the stochastic dynamics of the environment and the response of the vital rates to the state of the environment. I consider the widely used case where the environment is described by a Markov chain.
4. As the parameters describing the environmental Markov chain do not appear explicitly in the calculation of  log λs, derivatives cannot be calculated. The solution presented here combines derivatives for the vital rates with an alternative (and older) approach, due to Kitagawa and Keyfitz, that calculates contributions in a way analogous to the calculation of main effects in statistical models.
5. The resulting LTRE analysis decomposes  log λs into contributions from differences in: (i) the stationary distribution of environmental states, (ii) the autocorrelation pattern of the environment, and (iii) the stage‐specific vital rate responses within each environmental state.
6. As an example, the methods are applied to a stage‐classified model of the prairie plant Lomatium bradshawii in a stochastic fire environment.
7. Synthesis. The stochastic growth rate is an important parameter describing the effects of environmental fluctuations on population viability. Like any growth rate, it responds to differences in environmental factors. Without a decomposition analysis there is no way to attribute differences in the stochastic growth rate to particular parts of the life cycle or particular aspects of the stochastic environment. The methods presented here provide such an analysis, extending the LTRE analyses already available for deterministic environments.


This Article, a contribution to a symposium on the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, focuses on the Eleventh Circuit's opinion in Adler v. Duval County. Adler involved a policy that permitted students to vote on whether to deliver opening and/or closing "messages" at high school graduation ceremonies. The Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the policy against an Establishment Clause challenge. After the Supreme Court remanded the case for reconsideration in light of its decision in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, which outlawed a similar policy in the context of high school football games, the court, insisting that Santa Fe was distinguishable, again upheld Duval County's policy. I argue that the Eleventh Circuit's analysis in Adler was wrong, and indeed can be seen as little more than an act of willful resistance to the Supreme Court's opinion in Santa Fe.Beyond this simple doctrinal criticism, however, this Article suggests that both Santa Fe and Adler are fruitful subjects of study for what they say about two issues that have drawn relatively little sustained and serious attention: the role of majoritarian elections within the Establishment Clause, and the relationship between the Establishment Clause and the demographics of religion in local communities. I argue that John Hart Ely's representation-reinforcement theory of judicial review, presented in his influential work Democracy and Distrust, can contribute significantly to our understanding of both of these issues.In the first case, Ely's theory shows why majoritarian election processes that enable or encourage school prayer cannot generally insulate schools from Establishment Clause challenges. In the second, I argue that Ely's theory can help dislodge the usual baseline assumptions about the religious pluralism of the United States, which are accurate at the national level but collapse at the level of the overwhelmingly religiously homogeneous local communities in which many Establishment Clause cases arise. On this understanding, I argue that, contrary to some recent arguments, the Establishment Clause might best be understood as being more properly concerned with state and local establishments of religion than with federal establishments of religion.


We experimentally study the decision-making process of judges in China, where judges are specifically prohibited to cite prior decisions as the basis for their judgments, and where, in past surveys, most judges explicitly stated that precedent played at most a marginal role in their decisions. In an experiment resembling real-world judicial decision making, we find, however, that precedent seems to have a significant influence on the decisions of the participating Chinese judges. Indeed, judges spend more time reading prior cases than statutes, and they typically read precedents before they access the statutes. On the other hand, judges rarely mention the precedent in their reasons. Our findings suggest that the Chinese judiciary operates much more similarly to its homologues in the U.S. and elsewhere than their written opinions and much folklore would suggest.


Using Polish Labour Force Survey data, we examine whether competition for labour has induced individual pay to depend on outside options, availability and quality of jobs. Exploiting the lack of inter-regional job and worker flows we estimate the elasticity of individual pay, amongst a rich set of individual characteristics, to be approximately -0.1 for local unemployment (job shortages) and + 0.1 for local job reallocation (restructuring). Variations in local labour market conditions explain approximately 50 per cent of the differences in expected individual earnings across regions, while differences in inherited human capital and occupation structures explain the rest.


Chapter 1: Phase Equilibria in Binary and Ternary Hydrothermal Systems (V.M.Valyashko). 1. Introduction. 2. Experimental methods for studying hydrothermal phase equilbria. 2.1. Methods of visual observation. 2.2. Methods of sampling. 2.3 Methods of quenching. 2.4 Inderect methods. 3. Phase equilibria in binary systems. 3.1. Main types of fluid phase behavior. 3.2. Classification of complete phase diagrams . 3.3. Graphical representation and experimental examples of binary phase diagrams. 4. Phase equilibria in ternary systems. 4.1. Graphical representation of ternary phase diagrams. 4.2. Derivation and classification of ternary phase diagrams. Chapter 2: pVTx Properties of hydrothermal systems (Horacio R. Corti and Ilmutdin M. Abdulagatov). 1. Basic principles and definitions. 2. Experimental methods. 2.1 Constant volume piezometers (CVP). 2.2 Variable volume piezometers (VVP). 2.3 Hydrostatic weighing technique (HWT). 2.4 Vibrating tube densimeter (VTD). 2.5 Synthetic fluid inclusion technique . 3. Theoretical treatment of pVTx data. 3.1 Excess volume. 3.2 Models for the standard partial molar volume . 4. pVTx data for hydrothermal systems. 4.1 Laboratory activities . 4.2 Summary Table. 5. References. Chapter 3: High temperature potentiometry (Donald A. Palmer and Serguei N. Lvov). Introduction. Experimental methods. Data treatment. Acknowledgments. References. Chapter 4: Electrical Conductivity in Hydrothermal Binary and Ternary Systems (Horacio R.Corti). Introduction. Basic principles and definitions. Experimental methods. Static high temperature and pressure conductivity cells. Flow-through conductivity cell. Measurement procedure. Data treatment. Dissociated electrolytes. Associated electrolytes. Getting information from electrical conductivity data. General trends. Specific conductivity as a function of temperature, concentration and density. The limiting molar conductivity. Concentration dependence of the molar conductivity and association constants. Molar conductivity as a function of temperature and density. Conductivity in ternary systems. References. Chapter 5: Thermal Conductivity (Ilmutdin M. Abdulagatov and Marc J. Assael). 5.1. Introduction. 5.2. Experimental Techniques. 5.3. Available Experimental Data. 5.4. Discussion of Experimental Data. References. Figure Captions. Chapter 6: Viscosity (Ilmutdin M. Abdulagatov and Marc J. Assael). 6.1.Introduction. 6.2.Experimental Techniques. 6.3. Available Experimental Data. 6.4. Discussion of Experimental Data. References. Figure Captions.


In the spring of 2013, conservators within The Batten Conservation Complex (BCC) at The Mariners' Museum and Park (TMMP) in Newport News, Virginia began looking into the application of dry-ice cleaning for the removal of corrosion on wrought iron artifacts recovered from the wreck site of the Civil War Ironclad USS Monitor. Although the technology had been used in industry for several decades and had started to be researched within the conservation field, detailed information was limited on the types of dry-ice blasting equipment available as well as the operating requirements and limitations of the machinery. Furthermore, research on blasting technique and a developed procedure to identify safe cleaning parameters was also unavailable. Therefore, conservators at the BCC experimented with several blasting units and compressor systems along with investigating different blasting nozzles and various forms of carbon dioxide (CO2) media. The results of this experimentation enabled the conservation staff to gain a better understating of the dry-ice blasting process and design a blasting system adequate for its needs. Once, the blasting equipment was identified, a sample testing procedure was developed to determine safe clean parameters using a custom-made testing apparatus coupled with before and after cleaning photographs of sample material using a HYROX microscope.  Successful cleaning test results for corrosion removal on wrought iron led TMMP to seek grant funding to purchase a blasting system. Since April of 2016, dry-ice blasting has been regularly employed within the BCC with additional research being conducted to develop effective cleaning parameters for cast iron and copper alloys.

This presentation will provide an overview of the dry-ice blasting process and give insight into some of the considerations that need to be made when selecting and operating dry-ice blasting equipment. Additionally, a description of the method developed to identify safe cleaning parameters will also be given.
Click on Video link on the right to view presentation.


Missing data is a common problem in longitudinal studies because of the characteristics of repeated measurements. Herein is proposed a latent variable model for nonignorable intermittent missing data in which the latent variables are used as random effects in modeling and link longitudinal responses and missingness process. In this methodology, the latent variables are assumed to be normally distributed with zero-mean, and the values of variance-covariance are calculated through maximum likelihood estimations. Parameter estimates and standard errors of the proposed method are compared with the mixed model and the complete-case analysis in the simulations and the application to the weight gain prevention among women (WGPW) data set. In the simulation results with respect to bias, mean squared error, and coverage of confidence interval, the proposed model performs better than the other two methods in different scenarios. Relatively, the proposed latent variable model and the mixed model do a better job for between-subject effects compared to within-subject effects. The converse is true for the complete case analysis. The simulation results also provide support for application of this proposed latent variable model to the WGPW data set.


Considering the context of Le Morte Darthur, we may find it difficult to believe
that Thomas Malory could have been much of a feminist; and yet, he manages to
construct some of the most powerful feminine literary characters of his time. Arrested on
charges of rape, Malory spent years in and out of jail, gaining himself a reputation as a
scoundrel. His magnum opus, based in the older written tales of Arthurian legend, would
seem to provide Malory's fictional chauvinists a safe haven for their shenanigans.
Characters like Sirs Lancelot and Palomides have free rein through Arthur's Camelot –
until, of course, the fateful battle on Salisbury Plain. However, Malory gives his female
characters ample room to manipulate circumstances – this is especially true of characters
like Queen Guinevere, who enjoys a powerful central role, making her a key to
understanding the text itself.
The thesis explores the importance of Guinevere, focusing both on the power
dynamic and on the Queen's position as an intrinsic figure in understanding Malory's
structural technique. In Malory's construction, the narrative structure of Le Morte
Darthur reflects the shifting power structure of Camelot and the Round Table. Arthur's
supremacy is superficial only; once Guinevere appears as a strong, capable woman, she
becomes the power behind the throne and the force that moves the story. Since her
siphoning off of power undercuts Arthur's role as king, her position produces a fatal
instability in Camelot's dynamic. Guinevere's rise means that Arthur's fall is inevitable.


The purpose of this paper is to analyse and situate the changing discourses of social (in)justice in the context of political transition and restructuring process that Nepal has gone through since 2006. This paper discusses the origin and development of the discourse and analyses how its meaning has changed over time. As the paper argues, the earlier discourses of social justice in Nepal can be linked to the Hindu and Buddhist notion of dharma and various other ethnic cultural traditions. After Janandolan-I in 1990, the policy and practice of social justice began to be equated with the principle of equality, which was based on the assumptions of sameness. After Janandolan-II in 2006, the public conception of social justice has shifted towards a more vocal emphasis on social equity, inclusiveness, proportionate representation and participatory decision-making. The article provides empirical manifestations of social injustices in Nepal, linking them with various discourses and traditions of justice in the early and modern historical, socio-cultural and political contexts. It is hoped that a thorough understanding of historical shifting of public conceptions of social (in)justice in Nepal will be useful in guiding the country's future public policies towards inclusive restructuring and equitable development.


The changing demographic, economic, academic, societal, and political contexts of field education in social work have been topics of much discussion and scholarship since the mid-1990s. Recent additions to this changing context include the elevation of field education to the "signature pedagogy" of social work education and the pervasiveness of commercialization within higher education. This study explores the realities of these contexts through the lens of the Field Director. Findings from fifteen in-depth, qualitative interviews suggest that Field Directors experience a complex set of competing demands at a time when needs, requests, and requirements from students, university administrators, and accreditors are on the rise, while resources in the field are diminishing.


An interactive public video art installation incorporating Second Life users in a real life environment. Located on All Saints Gardens, Oxford Road, Manchester, for the Urban Screens Festival, October 12th 2007 from 5pm to 6pm.

The merged realities of 'All Saints Gardens' on Oxford Road, and its online three-dimensional counterpart in 'Second Life' will, for the first time, allow 'first life' visitors and 'second life' avatars to coexist and share the same park bench in a live interactive public video installation. Entering into this feedback loop through a portal between these two parallel worlds this event exposes the identity paradox in Second Life. 'Liberate your Avatar' examines this new crisis and reflects the history of 'All Saints Gardens', relocating Emmeline Pankhurst as an avatar within 'Second Life' where she remains locked to the railings of 'All Saints Gardens'.


This marvellous collection brings together the great myths and legends of the United States-from the creation stories of the first inhabitants, to the tall tales of the Western frontier, to the legendary outlaws of the 1920s, and beyond. This thoroughly engaging anthology is sweeping in its scope, embracing Big Foot and Windigo, Hiawatha and Uncle Sam, Paul Revere and Billy the Kid, and even the Iroquois Flying Head and Elvis. In the book's section on dogmas and icons, for instance, Leeming and Page discuss the American melting pot, the notion of manifest destiny, and the imposing historical and literary figure of Henry Adams. And under Heroes and Heroines, they have assembled everyone from "Honest Abe" Lincoln and George "I Cannot Tell a Lie" Washington to Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Martin Luther King, Jr. For every myth or hero rendered here, the editors include an informative yet readable excerpt, often the definitive account of the story in question. Taken as a whole, Myths, Legends, and Folktales of America reveals how waves of immigrants, encountering this strange land for the first time, adapted their religions, beliefs, and folklore to help make sense of a new and astounding place. Covering Johnny Appleseed and Stagolee as well as Paul Bunyan and Moby Dick, this wonderful anthology illuminates our nation's myth-making, enriching our idea of what it means to be American.