In this study, food wastes were used as substrates for the production of
polyhydraxyalkanoate (PHA) by Ralstonia eutropha (formerly known as Alcaligenes
eutrophus). Restaurant waste obtained from a local restaurant and house was blended
with an equal weight of water. PHA production was achieved via a two-stage process;
organic acids production from food waste followed by PHA production from the
organic acids. In the first stage. the study focused on the production of short-chain
organic acids from complex organic fraction of food waste. The food waste was
subjected to anaerobic treatment by the natural micro flora present in a 2-liter batch
stirred tank bioreactor with mixing at 200 - 400 rpm. The effect of pH, temperature,
substrate compositions of food waste on the production of volatile fatty acids (VFA)
was evaluated. For the effect of different pH, the batch anaerobic medium was done
[uncontrolled pH, controlled at pH 7 for different number of days (initial, one day, two
days and whole duration)].The effect of different temperatures (30°C, 37°C, 45°C) and different substrate
compositions [kitchen waste (A), restaurant waste (B) and restaurant waste mixed with
fruits waste (C)] have been done in the research. Restaurant waste mixed with fruit
waste (substrate C) produced 58 g/L organic acids compared to 42 g/L from kitchen
waste (substrate A) under same conditions at 37°C without control pH. Lactic acid
was the most predominant acid. followed by acetic, propionic, butyric and formic
acids. The study on the effect of temperature with uncontrolled pH shows that 37°C is
the best temperature, producing 58 g/L organic acids. with 83% lactic acid. In the
effect of pH. it was found that the highest amount of organic acids produced was 68
g/L with 84% lactic acid when the initial pH was adjusted to 7.0 without further pH
control.
Overall the best conditions for organic acids production is pH controlled at 7 in the
initial treatment at 37°C using restaurant wastes containing fruit waste. Studies on
microbial and enzyme activity was done on treated food waste to determine the factors
contributing to the high organic acids especially lactic acid. From the microbes
identified. Lactobacillus was predominantly involved in the fermentation to produce
lactic acid. The enzyme lipase, protease. cellulase and a-amylase were detected
throughout the treatments leading to the conversion of organic complex to sugar and
subsequently to organic acids with a-amylase as the highest activity. In the recovery
of organic acids from the fermented food waste, centrifugation was carried out to
remove the solids and oils. The supernatant was collected and concentrated by
evaporation for the second stage of bioplastic production.The results show that by evaporation method, the organic acids were concentrated
two-fold to about 100 g/L for use as substrates for fed:-batch fermentation. PHA
production from organic acids fermented from food waste, as a carbon source for fedbatch
fermentation is 4.2 g/L with 88% of dry cell weight. From the experiment, CIN
10-20 because ammonium concentration in the original food waste was high. This
encouraged cell growth in the medium rather than PHA production. In the PHA
production, since CIN must be high (around 100-150). removal of ammonium was
successfully achieved using Dowex 88wx resin for improved PHA production. The
ammonia-deficient organic acids from food wastes were successfully converted to
PHA by Ralstonia eutropha strain ATCC 17699. producing 8.9 giL with 90%(g/g)
PHA content.


Scholarly and popular critiques of contemporary free speech jurisprudence have noted an attitude of unquestioning deference to the political power of money. Rather than sheltering the ability to speak truth to power, they have lamented, the contemporary first amendment shelters power's ability to make and propagate its own truth. This essay relates developments in recent first amendment jurisprudence to a larger struggle now underway to shape the distribution of information power in the era of informational capitalism. In particular, it argues that cases about political speech — cases that lie at the first amendment's traditional core — tell only a small part of the story. The contemporary first amendment must be situated within a larger story about the realignment of information flows within circuits of power that serve emerging global interests, and to tell that story one must look to disputes about the speech implications of private economic regulation. As a result of that struggle, free speech jurisprudence about information rights and harms is becoming what is best described as a zombie free speech jurisprudence, within which speech, money, and information processing are equivalent, and speech advancing economic interests receives the strongest protection of all. Part II discusses a group of seemingly disparate cases about the contours of the contemporary first amendment, identifying two common themes. First, the cases construct a broad equivalence between speech and money that is heavily influenced by notions of information as property. Second, the idea of information as proprietary supports actions defining flows of unauthorized speech as contraband. Part III argues that first amendment decisions don't create distributional inequities in information power; they are symptoms of it. It explores the genealogy of the contemporary crop of free speech zombies, tracing their origins to deeper realignments in the legal regimes that more directly constitute and reinforce private economic power. First amendment jurisprudence has yet to acknowledge these realignments, and that failure of recognition is both intellectual and moral. Even so, the first amendment cannot serve as law's primary tool for rebalancing freedom of expression in the information age.


Results presented here provide evidence of an exception to the generalization that all chondrichthyan populations are especially vulnerable to exploitation to the extent that they remain at low abundance for a protracted or indefinite duration even after exploitation rates are reduced. Delta log-normal generalized linear models (GLM) and cluster analysis of fishery-independent catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data from 1977 to 2006 indicated the presence of at least two distinct stocks of spotted ratfish Hydrolagus colliei off the U.S. West Coast. CPUE of the continental slope and northern continental shelf and upper slope populations did not vary between 1977 and 1995 and increased from 1995 to 2006. On the basis of the timing of these changes, it is likely that both fishing and climate influenced these trends. Sex and size-specific differences in bathymetric distribution, along with the identification of nursery sites, indicate that fishery by-catch could have a significant effect on population growth. These aggregative behaviours, combined with low fecundity, indicate that H. colliei may be vulnerable to irreversible population depletion by fisheries mortality. Temporal abundance trends indicated, however, that their population size has increased significantly within the last decade, a demonstration of population stability. A literature review indicated that there is also evidence for population stability in other chondrichthyans. The paradigm that all chondrichthyan populations fail to rebuild in response to exploitation, therefore, may not be as broadly applicable as previously thought. Thus, it is not necessarily sufficient to make generalizations regarding the vulnerability of chondrichthyans across higher taxonomic scales.


Repeatable experiments with accurate data collection and reproducible analyses are fundamental to the scientific method but may be difficult to achieve in practice. Several flexible, open-source tools developed for the R and Python coding environments aid the reproducibility of data wrangling and analysis in scientific research. In contrast, analogous tools are generally lacking for earlier stages, such as systematic labelling and processing of field samples with hierarchical structure (e.g. time points of individuals from multiple lines or populations) or curating heterogenous data collected by different researchers over several years. Such tools are critical for modern research given trends toward globally distributed collaborators using higher-throughput technologies. As a step toward improving repeatability of methods for the collection of biological samples, and curation of biological data, we introduce the R package baRcodeR and the PyTrackDat pipeline in Python. The baRcodeR package provides tools for generating biologically informative, hierarchical labels with digitally encoded 2D barcodes that can be printed and scanned using low-cost commercial hardware. The PyTrackDat pipeline integrates with baRcodeR output to build a web interface for sample management and tracking along with data collection and curation. We briefly describe the application of principles from baRcodeR and PyTrackDat in three large research projects, which demonstrate their value to (i) help document sampling methods, (ii) facilitate collaboration and (iii) reduce opportunities for human errors and omissions that could otherwise propagate through downstream data analysis to compromise biological inference.


This creative arts research project provided me with an opportunity to develop new understanding within the field of contemporary art practice. The project focused on making new artistic productions within a recursive presentation cycle. The project afforded me significant creative growth and development as an artist and researcher. What I experienced was the development of artistic form generated through the efforts of a small team, and I acknowledge the co-authorship of the creative works with my collaborators. The project began with a gallery based installation work in 2008, followed by artistic productions presented to the public in performance spaces, a multi-purpose arts venue, and then back to a conventional exhibition space. In 2013, one of the artistic productions premiered at the Brisbane Festival and marked a high point but not the end point. The development and presentation of artistic production operated in a continuum rather than moving towards a culminating event. Exploration and discovery trace the creative process through inception, production, presentation and archival phases to illuminate what intermediality means to the 'narrative' of my practice within contemporary arts. A love of art making compels the journey.

The thought of intermedia as a research area started with a naive inclination towards interdisciplinary processes for developing creative works. Rather than providing evidence for an expert understanding of intermediality, it is an idea that requires testing against the currency of my practice and in the presentational context understood by society. Being creatively engaged with the interplay of media and with the processes of materiality, media and the body has driven my artistic practice. It has allowed me to generate forms of contemporary art involving interdisciplinarity and collaboration. The intermedial emphasis of my creative process has a marked impact on how I understand the pluralistic conventions of contemporary art. Intermediality is, for my way of thinking, a process that simplifies levels of complexity so that more levels of complexity can assert themselves in future practices. Intermedia converges and reconciles the areas of my practice that are related to media arts and spatial practices that are performative and sculptural.

The artistic productions represented in this project test intermediality within the collaborative and institutional setting. What resolves are specific knowledge centres which enhance innovations in practice, process and theory. Through performative action within a practice-led methodology, an epistemological framework is formed by what bounds generative knowledge in artistic production. Conceptual narratives and themes generate professional practice, collaboration and reflection. An auto-ethnographic approach to documenting the enquiry allows multidimensional entry points within a terrain of interconnected sites of research focus. The project resembles a membrane of vectors and ideas that offer ambiguous pathways. The journey does not pose deterministic answers to questions about research veracity. Instead, intermediality manifests a complex and creatively diverse artistic process. These attributes celebrate the interdisciplinarity of contemporary art practice. In so doing, the process questions the sliding tolerance between conventional forms that tend to announce genre specific artistic production. For example, the project's internal logic develops artefacts for exhibition in a gallery and simultaneously spatial sequences for the performance space. Therefore, the actions defined within the creative development exemplify a process of intermediality.

A small arts business co-directed by the researcher provides the infrastructure that administrates development and presentation of the artistic process in partnership with sponsors and venues. The research project focuses on the production and presentation cycle informed by the contributions of a core collaborative team. The practice-led method is an instrument that engages action, process tracing, temporal bracketing and performative analysis through iterative phases over several years. The public presentation of important artworks, along with audio-visual documentation represent dimensions of valorisation beyond the actions of practice-led research. The recursive cycle articulated an approach with underlying systems of innovation, implementation and reflexivity.

The emergence of new work in the continuum of practice is a temporal rupture that exists as an ephemeral series of action units moving towards the context of presentation. The documentation and auto-ethnographic account are the residues of the primary manifestation of semi-annual productions. The documentation of artistic trajectories forms a media archive: The Exquisite Resonance of Memory, 2008; Whispering Limbs, 2009; Cove, 2010; Sweet Spot and Nerve Engine, 2011 – 2014; and Terrestrial Nerve, 2012 – 2013. The media archive is residual and secondary; it illuminates a set of indicative concepts significant for the future of intermediality in the researcher's practice.

The impact of the research develops understanding and generates interest in the contemporary collaborative arts. The value of the research broadens the domain of artistic practice and will be of interest anywhere that creativity becomes managed between disciplines, such as software developers, performance ensembles, artists, designers, fabricators, creative partnerships.


Abstract Political tensions and rivalry between Iran and Israel have cast a shadow over India's bilateral relations with both these countries. While one offers energy security, the other provides military–security capability towards ensuring greater Indian influence in the Middle East. Conscious of their relative advantages and challenges, India has managed to maintain a fine balance in its relations with Iran and Israel. Despite the suspected involvement of Iranian citizens in the 13 February 2012 terror attack on the Israeli embassy vehicle in New Delhi, Israel could continue to be a marginal player in Indo-Iranian relations. The same, however, will not be true for the US, which seeks to limit and if possible change the substance and direction of Indo-Iranian relations.


Podcasts and videocasts (recordings of lectures with audio and video content) are valuable teaching resources which provide a flexible and engaging learning environment and help to accommodate a wider variety of learning styles. Getting students to generate videocasts of their work can give teachers a valuable insight into how students approach problems and the depth and breadth of their knowledge in the relevant subject area. A database of student videocasts can encourage a community approach in learning, where students can learn from the knowledge, tips, dead ends, tricks and approaches of their peers. Practical issues associated with the use of online teaching material and assessment methods are included. Key issues to consider include the carrying-over of course content and logistical issues such as file sizes, recording times and techniques of recording.


This book challenges this free market orthodoxy. The chapters include both cross-country analyses and individual country case studies by leading labor economists from seven North American and European countries. The unifying theme across the essays is that the orthodox case for blaming persistent high unemployment on labor market institutions is simply not supported by the available evidence. This question has enormous policy significance. Since the individual, economic and social costs of unemployment are so high, we need to fight unemployment as effectively as possible. But it is often forgotten - often by well-paid tenured economists - that eliminating social protections through rolling back the welfare state has high individual, economic and social costs as well. The essays in this volume suggest that the conventional focus on labor market deregulation has been misplaced. More plausible sources of joblessness include tight European macro economic policy,political instability, poor coordination between "social partners" (employers, unions, and the state), the challenge of responding to rapid demographic changes (the "baby boom"), and the need for rapid shifts in employment from agriculture, mining and heavy industry to service jobs in some less developed regions. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0195165845/toc.html


Social media refers to a suite of online communication tools that enable people to easily share information and network with like-minded others on the Internet. From a marketing perspective, social media are useful tools for promoting products, building a loyal customer base, sharing information and incentives, and generating buzz about products and services. This guide discusses how social media in general can be used to learn about consumer needs and preferences, and provides specifics on how to use social networks in this capacity.


The regulation of network industries has been profoundly transformed in the past twenty years. First, the "object of regulation" is no longer the same. Network industries have been opened to new dynamics, which have overwhelmed their industrial, technological and marketing frameworks. The relationships between players, of whom there are now significant numbers, and the interaction between users and suppliers have been totally reshaped. Beyond economic structures, these industries have been involved in significant societal changes. In short, networks are the infrastructure of our postmodern societies, the necessary conditions for the provision of a large set of "facilities" that form the foundation of both the economy and sociability. Second, "practicable" regulations are no longer the same (Laffont and Tirole, 1993; Armstrong, Cowan and Vickers, 1994; Joskow, 2002). In a knowledge-based economy, characterized in particular by extensive innovation, regulatory models designed in the nineteenth century to manage investments and the pricing of transportation infrastructures are no longer relevant. They are unable to handle the new central issues: the interactive dynamics of innovation in the areas of technology, uses and markets (Noam, 2001; Langlois, 2002). Third, Western societies have been evolving dramatically. Governance, specifically, has become more interactive, as suggested by the development of both lobbying and "public opinion" tyranny, which, to a large extent, are both symptoms and causes of the crisis facing traditional representative democracy. In this chapter, we suggest that the regulation of network industries is no longer a question of "command and control," in which the main issue for the regulator is to design "optimal" regulations, given information constraints both ex ante (when rules have to be designed) and ex post (at the implementation stage). Instead, it has become an issue of knowledge-sharing and the alignment of stakeholders' perspectives to guarantee a "satisfying" level of interoperability within a system decentrally managed, open to continuous innovation and characterized by strong systemic consistency constraints. In such a context, the regulator's role is to promote the sharing of knowledge among market participants, both to favor the spontaneous matching of plans and to limit monopoly capture, the latter tending to be more problematic on account of asymmetries of cognition between suppliers and users, leading competitors and followers, and suppliers and regulating entities.


This paper is a review of the basic principles and recent developments of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) as a method for the element- and isotope-selective trace analysis of solid materials. In the course of this review, the aerosol formation/transportation process, quantification issues, as well as technical aspects concerning the system configuration and ICP operating conditions are outlined. Furthermore, the performance of femtosecond (fs) LA-based analyses as one of the most important advancements made over the past years is discussed. The benefits offered by fs-LA in comparison to LA using nanosecond (ns) laser sources are demonstrated on the basis of oxide layer and silicate glass analyses with different applied calibration strategies.


Variation in sentencing outcomes represents the actions of a number of members of the criminal justice system. To isolate the part of the variation that is due to the discretion of the judge (or other sentencing agent, such as a prosecutor), one can model the sentencing guidelines themselves. Such a model captures any non-linearity in the sentencing grid. In practice, modeling the guidelines rather than legal factor scores (as is common in the literature) means that more of the variation that race and legal factors share in common will be attributed to the racial status of the offender. Using data from Maryland, we find that African Americans have 20% longer sentences than whites, on average, holding constant age, gender, and recommended sentence length from the guidelines. We find more judicial discretion and greater racial disparity than is generally found in the literature. Moreover, when we begin to try to explain this discretion, we find that judges tended to give longer sentences (relative to those recommended by the guidelines) to people in the part of the guidelines grid with longer recommended sentences (who are disproportionately African American) than they gave to people in the part of the grid with lower recommended sentences. I. Introduction There is a large literature on racial discrimination in sentencing outcomes that begins with the disproportionate representation of African Americans and other minorities in prison.1 IMAGE FORMULA10But black offenders tend to have other characteristics, such as longer criminal histories, that are considered by most observers of the sentencing process to be legitimate reasons for harsher outcomes. Researchers have dealt with this correlation between race and legally relevant factors by dividing racial disparity into two parts: warranted and unwarranted disparity. Warranted disparity is the variation in sentence outcomes due to legally relevant factors, such as criminal history, crime type, and crime severity. Unwarranted disparity (Stolzenberg & D'Alessio 1994) is the variation in sentencing outcomes that can be reasonably identified as being the sole result of race or other extra-legal factors (e.g., gender), after all legally mandated sentencing factors are taken into account.2 Partialing out warranted and unwarranted disparity is generally done using standard regression techniques. In general, the body of research on unwarranted disparity in sentencing outcomes has shown that legal factors have large effects on sentencing outcomes. Furthermore, there is little evidence of direct racial discrimination once these legal factors are included in the statistical models. This evidence led Sampson and Lauritsen (1997:362) to conclude that "there is little evidence that racial disparities reflect systematic, overt bias on the part of criminal justice decision makers (as a whole)." In response, some researchers have argued for an interactive, rather than additive, model to examine whether racial discrimination occurs indirectly through certain court contexts (e.g., plea vs. jury trial) or individual characteristics (e.g., employed vs. unemployed). This can be done by including interaction terms in multivariate models (Miethe & Moore 1986), testing for differences among age and gender subgroups of each race group (Steffensmeier et al. 1998), or estimating separate models for each racial group (Albonetti 1997).3 This type of research has emphasized greater statistical rigor and model specification over the development of a theoretical framework for understanding the sentencing process (Albonetti 1991). But the statistical parsing of unwarranted and warranted disparity may conflict with the desire to understand the key factors driving the sentencing process. For example, Dixon (1995) tested her organizational context perspective on sentencing using the same basic "racial disparity" statistical model (described previously) as Albonetti (1991) used to test her bounded rationality model of judicial decisionmaking. …


Although whether there is political influence on distributive policies is now indisputable, important debates have emerged about how politics distorts distributive policy outcomes. In this article, the authors improve the understanding of distributive politics by focusing on South Korea. They argue that because of Korea-specific institutional and cultural settings, an incumbent president allocates disproportionately larger amounts of pork-barrel benefits not only to his own turf but also to his rival's, while distributing smaller amounts to regions where votes are more evenly divided between the camps. This uneven distribution results from his aspiration to achieve dual objectives: to secure his "graceful retirement" and to achieve uninterrupted operation of government during his term. Using municipality-level data, the authors show that this U -shaped relationship between vote and money is statistically significant for both the Kim Young Sam (1993 to 1997) and Kim Dae Jung administrations (1998 to 2002).


Background: The most common indices assessing blood usage are crossmatch-to-transfusion (C/T) ratio, transfusion probability (%T), Transfusion Index (TI), nonusage probability (NUP), and wastage as percentage of issue (WAPI). This study, in a South Indian tertiary care hospital, audits blood utilization efficiency and revisits it after implementing corrective measures for deficiencies identified by the first audit highlighting the importance of continuous surveillance and proper measures in efficient blood utilization. Materials and Methods: Blood utilization over 6 months, assessed by C/T ratio, TI, %T, and NUP indicated inefficient blood usage (high C/T ratio). After initiating appropriate measures, reaudit over 1 month assessed effect on blood usage. The total duration was from December 2017 to November 2018. Request forms packed red blood cells provided patient demographics, number of units requested, and indication. Blood bank records provided number of units crossmatched and issued against each request. Results: Initial audit: total requests- 4450, C:T ratio-3.6, TI-0.5, %T- 32% and NUP- 72%. Reaudit: Total requests-948 (medical 52%, surgical 48%), Overall monthly WAPI- 0.1%, C:T ratio-2.4 (medical 1.3, surgical 3.5), %T-63.5%(medical 84%, surgical 43%), TI-1 (medical 1.4, surgical 0.6), NUP- 24% (medical- 11%, surgical 37%) C/T ratio – no subspecialty crossed the highest acceptable value (2.5) except gynecology and obstetrics (4.1) and pediatric surgery (2.75). All departments met the lowest acceptable %T (30%) except G&O (25.2%). All departments met minimum TI (0.5) except G&O (0.3), pediatric surgery (0.47), and surgical super specialties (0.3). Conclusion: Initial audit showed inefficient blood utilization. Appropriate steps taken to improve this included the establishment of standard protocols. Reaudit showed efficient blood utilization in medical departments and the need for further revision in practices for surgical departments. Hence, continuous monitoring is vital in ensuring effective blood usage.


The use of search engines has become almost as important as e-mail as a primary online activity. Arguably, search engines are among the most important gatekeepers in today's digitally networked environment. Thus, it does not come as a surprise that the evolution of search technology and the diffusion of search engines have been accompanied by a series of conflicts among stakeholders such as search operators, content creators, consumers/users, activists, and governments. This paper outlines the history of the technological evolution of search engines and explores the responses of the U.S. legal system to the search engine phenomenon in terms of both litigation and legislative action. The analysis reveals an emerging law of search engines. As the various conflicts over online search intensify, heterogeneous policy debates have arisen concerning what forms this emerging law should ultimately take. This paper offers a typology of the respective policy debates, sets out a number of challenges facing policy-makers in formulating search engine regulation, and concludes by offering a series of normative principles which should guide policy-makers in this endeavor.


A real‐time confocal scanning optical microscope is described. It is capable of generating 640 frames per second with 7000 lines per frame. It achieves this speed by simultaneously illuminating several thousand pinholes arranged in a spiral pattern on a rotating disk. An optical isolator is used to eliminate reflections from the surface of the disk. This type of microscope should have the same range and transverse definitions as a standard, single pinhole, confocal microscope.


A novel experimental procedure is introduced to determine phase fractions and the distribution of individual phases of TiAl‐based two‐phase alloys using the focused ion beam (FIB) technique. Two γ‐titanium aluminide alloys with a fine‐grained duplex and a nearly lamellar microstructure are examined. The special FIB‐based preparation procedure results in high contrast ion beam‐induced images for all investigated alloys and allows to quantify the phase contents easily by automated microstructural analysis. Fine two‐phase structures, e.g. lamellar colonies in γ‐TiAl, can be imaged in high resolution with respect to different phases. To validate the FIB‐derived data, we compare them to results obtained with another method to determine phase fractions, electron back‐scatter diffraction (EBSD). This direct comparison shows that the FIB‐based technique generally provides slightly higher α2‐fractions, and thus helps to overcome the limited lateral resolution near grain boundaries and interfaces associated with the conventional EBSD approach. Our study demonstrates that the FIB‐based technique is a simple, fast, and more exact way to determine high resolution microstructural characteristics with respect to different phase constitutions in two‐phase TiAl alloys and other such materials with fine, lamellar microstructures.


Virtual reality (VR) is becoming more and more popular thanks to the recent advance of smartphones and low-cost VR headsets. In this article; we propose an online system that creates a stereoscopic 3D gallery for individual use. Besides the ability to receive stereoscopic photos, the system also allows the users to upload two photos of an interested object (e.g. a personal collectable artefact) acquired by their smartphone. The photos are needed to be close to a stereo pair: i.e. the camera is slightly moved/translated to the right before acquiring the second shot. The uploaded images are automatically rectified into an epipolar stereo pair (photos will be horizontally aligned) after several corresponding points were detected. A simple stereo matching algorithm is applied to identify the average disparity range between the two photos, to generate the most comfortable VR viewable stereoscopic pictures. The system then builds a gallery with the collected photos to display 3D visualisation on VR devices such as Google Cardboard, the Samsung Gear VR or Google Daydream. This system is low-cost, portable, simple to set up and operate. With such system, Internet users all over the World could easily visualise and share their collectable items in 3D; which are believed to be useful for VR and social media community.


This inquiry is prompted by the unprecedented policy of the European Medicines Agency that enables the disclosure of clinical trial reports submitted for drug marketing authorization, effective as of January 1, 2015. It addresses the question whether such practice is in compliance with the international standard of clinical data protection under Article 39.3 of the TRIPS Agreement. Most scholarly and policy debate regarding this provision analyzes whether it precludes the referential use of data to facilitate the approval of a generic drug. Rather than focusing on a particular use, this Article seeks to identify the principle underlying the protection obligation by which the legitimacy of "use X" can be evaluated. In doing so, it interprets the provision from literal, historical and teleological perspectives, and it analyzes a peculiar overlap between three legal regimes: unfair competition, trade secret, and sui generis data protection. The proposed principle allows avoidance of situations where, due to the ambiguous notion of unfair commercial use, the protection of data under the TRIPS Agreement can be stretched indefinitely. With regard to data disclosure for experimental use, it is argued that the protection obligation under 39.3 TRIPS does not justify monopoly type protection of clinical trial data, neither does it require the reservation of experimental use exclusively for the data originator, even if such use can have commercial benefits for competitors.


The search for a market design that ensures stable bank funding is at the top of regulators' policy agenda. This paper empirically shows that the central counterparty (CCP)-based euro interbank repo market features this stability. Using a unique and comprehensive data set, we show that the market is resilient during crisis episodes and may even act as a shock absorber, in the sense that repo lending increases with risk, while spreads, maturities, and haircuts remain stable. Our comparison across different repo markets shows that anonymous CCP-based trading, safe collateral, and the absence of an unwind mechanism are the key characteristics to ensure market resilience.


This paper attempts to revisit the geometry of the demand and supply functions in economic analysis, taking mathematical exigencies into account. Leaning on the fundamental principles that guide the theory of demand and supply, the paper uses the analytical approach of data analysis to address the objectives of the investigation. Results of the study indicate that whether expressed in the standard mathematical form (Quantity-price relation) or casual mathematical form (Price-quantity relation), the demand and supply functions obey the laws of demand and supply. Also, the results reveal that the first component in the computation of the price-elasticity remains unchanged and takes into account the quantity-price relationship, irrespective of the functional form (Quantity-price function or price-quantity function) used in defining the demand and supply functions. Furthermore, the results show that the consumer and producer surpluses can still be evaluated without violating mathematical requirements with the quantity-price relation model of describing the demand and supply functions to accommodate welfare issues associated with the demand and supply concepts. As a result, it is suggested that mathematical requirements of logic, rigor, consistency, and objectivity be strictly respected when subjecting the analysis of real world economic phenomena to mathematical treatments.


While a number of gases are implicated in global warming, carbon dioxide is the most important contributor, and in one sense the entire phenomena can be seen as a human-induced perturbation of the carbon cycle. The Global Carbon Cycle offers a scientific assessment of the state of current knowledge of the carbon cycle by the world's leading scientists sponsored by SCOPE and the Global Carbon Project, and other international partners. It gives an introductory over-view of the carbon cycle, with multidisciplinary contributions covering biological, physical, and social science aspects. Included are 29 chapters covering topics including: an assessment of carbon-climate-human interactions; a portfolio of carbon management options; spatial and temporal distribution of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide; socio-economic driving forces of emissions scenarios.

Throughout, contributors emphasize that all parts of the carbon cycle are interrelated, and only by developing a framework that considers the full set of feedbacks will we be able to achieve a thorough understanding and develop effective management strategies.

The Global Carbon Cycle edited by Christopher B. Field and Michael R. Raupach is part of the Rapid Assessment Publication series produced by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), in an effort to quickly disseminate the collective knowledge of the world's leading experts on topics of pressing environmental concern.
- See more at: http://islandpress.org/book/the-global-carbon-cycle#sthash.CbWGvYvH.dpuf


An On-Off-On type fluorescent sensor (HL) has been developed, which exhibited high selectivity and sensitivity for Cu(2+) over other common ions in 100% aqueous solution. Once HL combined with Cu(2+), blue fluorescence was almost completely quenched and the L-Cu ensemble was formed. Moreover, the ensemble showed high specificity for S(2-) based on the displacement approach, and no interferences were observed in the presence of other anions. Such fluorescence modulation behavior simulates the performance of an IMPLICATION logic gate. In addition, the fluorescent sensor was successfully applied to fluorescent cellular imaging implying potential applications in physiological and environmental systems.


There are principal differences between the relational model and XML's tree model. This causes problems in all cases where information from these two worlds has to be brought together. Using a few rules for mapping the incompatible aspects of the two models, it becomes easier to process data in systems which need to work with relational and tree data. The most important requirement for a good mapping is that the conceptual model is available and can thus be used for making mapping decisions.


Estimating greenhouse gases from the Agriculture, Forestry and Other land Use (AFOLU) sector is very challenging partly due to the unavailability of data (particularly for land use and land use change sectors) and inadequate experts to analyze this data in case it is available. We used Collect Earth together with Machine Learning techniques to be able to predict and classify all the land use types based on some few points collected using Collect Earth. We investigated the adoption of this tool and technology in Rwanda to help its national and sub-national inventories. The use of Collect Earth and the Machine Learning (ML) implementation will help Rwanda monitor and predict its Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry in a cost effective manner whiles enhancing the quality of reports submitted to national and international bodies whiles introducing a new approach. Among the classification algorithms we tested, we had an overall classification accuracy of 97% using the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) algorithm to predict the six land Use classes across the country.


In cooperation with the Louisiana Rice Research Board, the Louisiana State University Rice Research Station and the USA Rice Federation, we conducted a questionnaire survey in 2002 to estimate the economic impacts of blackbirds on the rice industry in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, California, and Missouri. Survey areas in rice producing states were identified based on the 2001 National Agricultural Statistic Service's rice harvest records. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices in each state provided a mailing list of farm operators growing rice and approximately one third of the rice farm operators were randomly selected to be surveyed. The questionnaire was mailed to 6,191 rice farm operators in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, California, and Missouri during May and June, 2002. The overall response rate was 16%, 969 questionnaires returned. These respondents represented 440,695 acres of rice planted in 2001. Overall, 62% of the respondents that farmed rice in 2001 reported damage from blackbirds. Those respondents reported bird damage to 58,135 acres of newly planted rice and 95,208 acres of ripening rice or a total production loss of 33,623,500 lbs of rice, which at 2001 prices is equivalent to $1,916,539. In addition, 56% of the respondents to the question on bird damage prior to 2001 reported damage as far back as 1996. For all states, between 1996-2000 the average percent annual blackbird damage to newly planted rice ranged from 6% to 15%, and the average percent annual blackbird damage to ripening rice ranged from 6% to 14%. Louisiana and Arkansas respondents reported the highest damage, respectively. Rice operators that responded to questions regarding bird control spent between $316,578 and $460,000 to prevent bird damage to their rice. About 6% of the respondents spent over $4,000 each on hazing birds from their rice crop. Shooting and propane cannons were the most widely used methods for bird control. When production losses due to birds are projected for each surveyed state, results suggest that blackbirds directly caused about $13.4 million in rice damage in 2001. Arkansas and Louisiana had the greatest losses at $4.8 and $3.9 million, respectively, which represents over 60% of the total damage. Also, it was projected that approximately $3.2 million was spent on prevention of blackbird damage to rice and approximately $4.9 million was lost in government price supports. Our study estimated that minimal economic loss to the rice industry in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, California and Missouri from blackbirds in 2001 due to direct damage, prevention and lost price support was $21.5 million.


This paper presents an analysis of the determinants of re-employment probabilities for young workers in the U.S. Using data from the new National Longitudinal Survey youth cohort a model is developed to analyze the transition probabilities from nonemployment to employment. The key factors examined include personal characteristics, unemployment income, local demand conditions, and duration dependence. There are significant differences between the labor market experiences of whites and nonwhites, and males and females. High school dropouts have many more difficulties in the labor market than those who remain in school longer and/or receive other types of training. Local demand conditions are a strong determinant of the duration of spells of nonemployment and there appears to be strong evidence of negative duration dependence in re-employment probabilities for both young males and young females.


A new set of infiltration families has been developed, for 'normal' soils to describe cumulative infiltrated depth versus time. This new family of curves is described by the time required to infiltrate 100 mm (4 inches) for the normal non-cracking soils and so are called time rated curves. The new time rated curves better represent actual soil infiltration conditions than the SCS intake families. They also are described in a way that is more consistent with their use in surface irrigation design and management. These new curves should thus be more useful and reliable than their predecessors. Cracking soils do not fit the infiltration family concept as well and are more difficult to manage. Some discussion on the nature of infiltration on cracking soils is presented.


Outlying observations in time series influence parameter estimation and testing procedures, leading to biased estimates and spurious test decisions. Further inference based on these results will be misleading. In this paper the effects of outliers on the performance of ratio-based tests for a change in persistence are investigated. We consider two types of outliers, additive outliers and innovative outliers. Our simulation results show that the effect of outliers crucially depends on the outlier type and on the degree of persistence of the underlying process. Additive outliers deteriorate the performance of the tests for high degrees of persistence. In contrast, innovative outliers do not negatively influence the performance of the tests. Since additive outliers lead to severe size distortions when the null hypothesis under consideration is described by a nonstationary process, we apply an outlier detection method designed for unit-root testing. The adjustment of the series results in size improvements and power gains. In an empirical example we apply the tests and the outlier detection method to the G7 inflation rates.


The interview presents the American Psychological Association (APA) and the activities of Antonio E. Puente (Antonio E. Puente), Ph.D., as the President of this organization. Antonio Puente, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina (UNCW), Wilmington, was elected president of the APA in 2017.When asked about the main directions of the future work of the American Psychological Association, Antonio Puente, drew attention to the need for dramatically restructuring the work of the largest scientific and professional organization. It is caused by past investigation and Hoffmann report. After the terrorist attacks of 2009, some psychologists (not APA members) helped the CIA to obtain information using torture. Changes in the APA will apply not only to the budget and staff, but also its mission, goals and values.Antonio Puente, following Michael Wertheimer believes that to evaluate the significance of certain modern discoveries is very difficult in the field of psychology. It will be possible to make a new generation of professionals. He sees neuropsychology as priority sector, which is considered by Antonio Puente the basis of all psychology as a science. According to A. Puente the most promising area of psychology application is health care. Using psychological science in health care should be more efficient and cost-effective. This approach extends the value of psychology and contributes to improving clinical outcomes and reducing costs.Speaking of the most famous Russian psychologist, A. Puente highlighted L.S. Vygotsky whose work he considers extremely important. Antonio Puente expresses regret that the modern world is observing the highest figures of murders and suicides, mass shooting, and mental disorders. Therefore, psychologists have to admit they have not arrived to a final understanding of the psychological characteristics of the person.


The enterprise architecture's goal is to integrate business resources and IT resources in order to improve an enterprise's competitiveness. Our goal is the development of an object-oriented enterprise architecture method, called "SEAM". As part of SEAM, we have developed the CAD tool "SeamCAD". SeamCAD enables the modeling of hierarchical systems (spanning from business down to IT) at different levels of detail (e.g. from large business transaction to detailed interactions). This document is the user's guide of SeamCAD 1.x. It first gives an overview of the foundations of our method and then illustrates the functionalities of the tool.


This thesis is a comparative study of social mobility, describing and explaining the movement of individuals across the occupational class structure. The 1958 National Child Development Study and 1970 British Cohort Study are used, and research contributes new knowledge to the field in two important ways: Firstly, missing data is imputed to correct for observed nonresponse bias; and secondly, a latent growth modelling framework is employed to capture inter and intragenerational mobility within a single model. The upgrading of the occupational class structure has benefited respondents from both cohorts and absolute intergenerational mobility rates increased between the two Study periods. By contrast, relative mobility rates contracted and class background became more important in securing respondents an advantaged occupational class destination. This contraction in social fluidity was matched by a decline in the value of education between the two periods. Educational attainment became less important in predicting service class destination, raising questions about the future provision of appropriate employment for the burgeoning number of graduates. Latent growth models confirm that respondents from both cohorts have on average enjoyed upward mobility across the life course. Meritocratic and cultural capital variables are used to explain model variance and their significance demonstrates that lifetime mobility involves a mixture of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors. Latent class growth analysis recognises that the population is not homogeneous and identifies subpopulations whose members share distinctly different mobility trajectories. The upwardly mobile latent classes identified are associated with higher scores on the meritocratic variables evidencing meritocratic recruitment. For the middle class stable and working class stable latent classes the result is more ambiguous; merit or lack of it, is associated with class stability but so too is cultural capital. The identification of two downwardly mobile trajectories calls into question the meritocratic assumption that able individuals seek out class locations commensurate with their merit.


To label Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) or treat them equally with non-genetically modified foods without labeling is a contentious issue, not only in the United States, but around the world, and has been ever since these engineered foods were introduced in the late 20th century (Huffman, 2004). This article seeks to objectively look at the issues from those that want to label GMOs and from those that are against it; as well as offer suggestions for moving forward to satisfy parties on both sides of the issue.


This thesis develops an approach that supports multidisciplinary practice in requirements
engineering. It is argued that multidisciplinary requirements engineering practice is
ineffective, and some specific problems for multidisciplinary practice are identified. It is also
suggested that the incommensurability of conflicting paradigms is an underlying cause of the
problems in multidisciplinary practice, and a number of criteria for support to overcome
such problems are proposed.
A form of methodological support, which it is claimed may help overcome some of the
problems associated with multidisciplinary practice in requirements engineering, is
developed. This methodological support takes the form of a dialectic process, and its
associated products, which is conceptualised and then operationalised. As an illustration of
the methodological support offered to multidisciplinary practice, the operationalisation of
the dialectic process is applied to requirements constructed by the use of two different
requirements engineering techniques from two different disciplines (representing two
different paradigms), in the domain of Accident and Emergency healthcare. Finally, the
application of the operationalisation of the dialectic process is assessed with respect to the
criteria for support for multidisciplinary practice proposed earlier, and this assessment is
used to reconceptualise the dialectic process. The limitations of the research are identified,
and possibilities for future work proposed.
This thesis is aimed primarily at the requirements engineering community, and in
particular the practising requirements engineer. It makes two contributions to knowledge
supporting the practices of requirements engineering. First, the thesis contributes two types
of substantive discipline knowledge: an explanation of why multidisciplinary practice in
requirements engineering is problematic; and the proposal of criteria for support to allay the
difficulties of multidisciplinary practice. It is suggested that these criteria might be used in
the development of new types of support to overcomes such difficulties, or in the assessmment
of new requirements engineering techniques that claim to address multidisciplinary practice.
Second, the thesis contributes methodological knowledge in the form of a dialectic
approach that offers a new way of reasoning about requirements engineering. This
methodological knowledge takes two forms: a generic dialectic approach that might be
applied by requirements engineering practitioners to requirements, generated by a wide range
of requirements engineering techniques, representing alternative paradigms; and a
specific instantiation of the dialectic approach using the MUSE method and the Grounded
Theory method, that might be used in its current form by requirements engineering
practitioners to support their own multidisciplinary practice.


Thoughts about the role of development in schizophrenia have evolved in recent decades. Early formulations of the "neurodevelopmental hypothesis" suggested mechanisms whereby "probably congenital and static" neurophysiological insults might remain for the most part silent, behaviorally, until the onset of schizophrenia in late adolescence or early adulthood (1). Recent versions reflect a more dynamic view of the densely interacting effects of biology and environment on behavior over the course of development (2). They also emphasize the now extensive evidence that some children who will later have schizophrenia show marked abnormalities in motor, cognitive, emotional, and social development years before the onset of psychotic symptoms (3). Among these developmental manifestations, an increasing lagin intellectual development during childhood may show some specificity in prediction of later psychosis (4), while motor, emotional, and social problems seem to be nonspecific risk factors for a variety of adult neuropsychiatric outcomes (3).

At the heart of the literature on cognitive predictors of later schizophrenia (see (5, 6) for reviews) are a number of longitudinal studies of population-based birth cohorts, including the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (7). The cohort comprises 1,037 individuals born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand (91% of eligible births), who have undergone repeated assessments of health, cognition and behavior, with the first follow-up at age 3 and the most recent at age 38. In this issue of the Journal, Meier et al. (8) describe new Dunedin cohort analyses, extending an earlier round of analyses from Reichenberg et al. (9) that were described in the Journal in 2010. Both studies found that childhood IQ was lower, by approximately 0.5 SD relative to healthy peers, in cohort members who were later diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, for both reports, the central aims were to unpack this overall finding in order to address lingering questions about schizophrenia-related cognitive development. (1.) What course does cognitive development follow in people who will have this disorder – during childhood, and from pre-morbid to post-onset timeframes? (2.) Is developmental course similar across domains of cognitive performance? (3.) Is there a particular pattern of cognitive development that shows specificity for the development of schizophrenia?

Reichenberg et al. explored these questions using Dunedin data from four IQ assessments completed by age 13(9). Across a number of IQ battery subtests, there were two distinct patterns of performance in 35 individuals from the cohort who met rigorous criteria for schizophrenia by age 32: an early deficit in verbal and visual knowledge acquisition and simple reasoning that persisted, but did not worsen, across childhood assessments (which the authors labeled "static deficit"); and a lag in development for speeded performance, working memory and more complex problem-solving that emerged after age 7 and worsened by age 13 ("dynamic deficit"). This divided pattern was not apparent in cohort controls or cohort members with persistent depression. Interestingly, within the schizophrenia group, impairment on the static deficit measures was strongly correlated with lag on the dynamic deficit measures.

Meier et al. (8) have refined and extended these findings. Current analyses incorporated cognitive assessments completed by Dunedin cohort members at age 38 that were not available to Reichenberg et al., and examined additional comparison groups. Investigators report that the substantial childhood IQ impairment in cohort members who developed schizophrenia increased significantly (by ~6 IQ points) between ages 13 and 38. The divergence in IQ performance was driven by speeded, non-verbal IQ subtests, and was paralleled by declines of similar magnitude in non-IQ-battery measures of learning, processing speed, and motor speed. Importantly, Meier et al. added evidence that a widening lag in cognitive development was specific to schizophrenia –finding little or no evidence of IQ subtest or neuropsychological change from age 13 to 38 among controls, cohort members with depression, those who showed mild cognitive impairment as children, or individuals matched on childhood risk factors for schizophrenia (family history, SES, cognitive impairment) who did not develop the disorder as adults.

In sum, the Meier and Reichenberg studies suggest that two main facets of the broad adult cognitive impairment in schizophrenia (10) follow distinct developmental progressions up to and after the onset of illness. Members of the Dunedin cohort who developed schizophrenia showed very early impairment on IQ subtests tapping verbal and visual knowledge and simple reasoning that remained "static" through early teenage years and well into adulthood (9). In contrast, deficits in speeded performance and more demanding learning and problem-solving were "dynamic" – emerging after age 7, worsening by age 13, and lagging further relative to unaffected peers by age 38. There was very little evidence of this divided pattern of cognitive development in comparison groups.

As Meier et al. suggest (8), this division of measures into static and dynamic deficit groupings aligns generally with the division of cognitive performance into more "crystallized" and more "fluid" dimensions (11, 12). Crystallized operations make use of general knowledge and experience, for example in correctly pronouncing irregular words or identifying drawings of common objects. Developmentally – although knowledge accumulates throughout life – the neural systems that support crystallized operations mature fairly early and are thought to be resistant to aging and later brain dysfunction, which has given rise to the practice of estimating "premorbid" cognitive ability through measures of crystallized ability (13). Fluid performance depends on the abilities to work quickly, think abstractly, and solve novel problems, independent of acquired knowledge. Fluid abilities are thought to develop gradually to a peak in young adulthood and decline gradually thereafter (14). The Dunedin studies frame the question whether dissociated or interrelated pathophysiological processes underlie the two trajectories of cognitive development in schizophrenia but do not pursue it at length.

By now, however, it probably should be a corollary of the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia that strong dissociations among higher-order cognitive processes are unlikely. The "neurodevelopmental disorder" label presupposes that the cognitive impairment seen in adults arises from atypical interactions and compensatory responses across the range of cognitive processes (crystallized/fluid; static/dynamic; more impaired/less impaired) throughout development (15). The strong associations in the Dunedin schizophrenia group between performance on static deficit measures and dynamic deficit measures, reported by Reichenberg et al. (9), probably reflect these interdependencies. Likewise, adult pathophysiology is doubtless the product of complex interactions and compensations over developmental time. Clearly, genes encode protein building blocks rather than integrated behaviors, and their influence on cognition most likely emerges very gradually through low-level and widely-acting mechanisms (e.g., neuronal migration and synaptic plasticity)(15), interacting with environmental (16) and random influences.

The field continues to struggle toward more convincing models of the etiology of schizophrenia. The challenge is compounded by the diversity of trajectories preceding acute illness (17, 18) and the vast heterogeneity of adult clinical presentation (19). The Dunedin study and similar longitudinal designs provide much-needed detail about behavioral development in schizophrenia. Cross-disciplinary efforts to link these behavioral patterns with atypical development of molecular, cellular, and neural systems are another critical step. But we are still at an early stage in the evolution of the neurodevelopmental hypothesis.


The tsunami of super smart mobile device usage across global generation Z familiar with using disruptive technologies such as AR, VR, and IoT are now transforming existing industries and impacting on the skills required by BA and MA graduates seeking employment in the industry. While it's impossible to say exactly how far and where app based mobile technology will pull and push the fashion and textiles sector in the coming months and years; we predict that the future for the industry and young professionals involves an ever closer tacit relationship with open social media interconnect mobile technologies.
The sector must recognize that these graduates can change the future of the industry. They have the capacity to respond rapidly, create differently, innovate, inspire and communicate and manage change faster than ever in an increasingly digital era, and will become the future experts, generating what's happening right now with an intuitive tacit techne feel for what's coming next – this initiative encourages our undergraduates, MA and academics to invest in interdisciplinary experiences to establish a powerful user position to gain competitive advantage.
The platform of PLM technologies and associated business processes are now the backbone of the majority of global brands and manufacturers providing the capabilities to manage all aspects of product life: innovation, design, launch, supply chain, retail and post-retail. The platform of PLM provides a mechanism to create, collaborate and manage across the supply chain by connecting people, processes and product data throughout the lifecycle of a product. PLM connects established technologies such as CAD and PDM as well as emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). We must therefore consider how to prepare our students with a sound appreciation of commercial practices and knowledge of PLM as an important delivery tool.
The PLM team in Department of Fashion and Textiles led by Jo Conlon has implemented PTC's FlexPLM 10.2 PLM system and integrated PLM education within a new, and unique, learning and business design practice led programme for the next generation of industry professionals.
This project presentation outlines how we intend to extend that USP to all Fashion and Textiles groups in an integrated interdisciplinary workshop. The aim of this project presentation is to share best practice of PLM with Fashion and Textiles colleagues and students through the introduction of a non-assessed practice led experience of working with PLM through a departmental event week in February 2018:
Collaborate into the Future: Connecting design and business practice with Product Life-cycle Management (PLM)
This event also includes a range of industry experts participating to present the latest experiences in digital transformation within the industry.


The randomized available case study, in which a nonrandom set of cases (patients, animals, laboratory runs) is randomized among two or more treatments, is a staple of biomedical research. Traditionally, such studies have been analyzed as though the cases were a random sample from an infinitely large population (1). The resulting statistical inferences address incorrect populations. More importantly, in the presence of response measurement error these inferences are inappropriate for the correct populations, understating the differential impact of treatment (2). In this paper I develop and illustrate a nonparametric bootstrap approach to inference in such studies, an approach that is faithful to the local origins of the randomized cases and can account for the influence of measurement error.


This study investigated the reliability of self-reported ancestry by comparing the interview responses of probands and their siblings. A total of 546 sibling pairs were ascertained in a family-based study of susceptibility genes for Parkinson's disease and asked to identify maternal and paternal countries of origin. Probands were recruited prospectively from the Department of Neurology of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, from June 1, 1996, through May 31, 2005. Probands resided within Minnesota or one of the four surrounding states (Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota). Only 49 percent of these sibling pairs, primarily Caucasian, agreed completely on the countries of origin of both parents. The agreement increased to 68 percent when named countries were postcoded into six population genetic clusters (as previously defined by microsatellite markers). Self-reported ancestry may not be a reliable method to reduce the possible impact of population stratification in genetic association studies of outbred populations, such as in the United States.


In this paper, a miniature fluidic synthesis platform utilizing millimeter dimension channels for the synthesis of cadmium sulfide (CdS) quantum dots and nanocrystals is demonstrated. Traditional nanoparticle synthesis techniques involve macroscopic flasks where reaction conditions may vary at different positions inside the vessel. Therefore challenges in terms of batch reproducibility for large scale production are of great concern. Here, we show that it is possible to replicate reaction conditions so as to produce nanoparticles with similar optical characteristics across different batches using the same reaction parameters. Particle size control was established by varying the flow rate of the precursors, yielding gradually increasing nanocrystal sizes from 2.4 nm to 3.7 nm with increasing residence time. The as-synthesized CdS nanoparticles exhibited tunable photoluminescence by adjusting the molar ratio of the cadmium and sulfur precursors, giving rise to greenish-blue and orange-red emissions under ultraviolet light illumination. The particles were then studied and characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) absorbance, photoluminescence, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) techniques. Lastly, bioimaging of RAW264.7 mice macrophage cells using ligand exchanged CdS nanoparticles is presented.


This thesis is concerned with public relations education in Australia. It focuses on 1985–1999, as in these years there was significant growth in education and the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) sought greater regulation and jurisdiction over public relations activity. Existing historical scholarship focuses on the evolution of the Australian public relations industry towards professional status, and tertiary education is perceived to confirm the field's professional standing. In contrast, I consider the development of public relations education in a broader social context and the involvement of the PRIA in tertiary education.

This thesis aims to investigate the role of public relations education in the professionalisation of public relations in Australia. It uses a qualitative approach, combining archival research, focusing on the previously unstudied archives of the PRIA's National Education Committee, and interviews with practitioners and educators. This thesis provides an analysis of how, and why, the PRIA sought to regulate public relations education. The use of historical sociology allows the findings to be interpreted in relation to broader societal structures and institutional processes, such as the expansion of the Australian higher education sector, the PRIA's preoccupation with professional status, and the increase in female practitioners.

In developing a critical account of Australian public relations education, this thesis argues that higher education was pivotal to the PRIA's professional project. The findings confirm the constitution of public relations knowledge and its institutionalisation in the Australian academy were dynamic and contested, and that the PRIA's professional drive informed its attempts to regulate the transmission of that knowledge. A significant finding is the ambivalent attitudes towards gender and education, given the increasing number of female graduates. These findings contribute a unique Australian perspective to the global public relations scholarship on history and professionalisation and allow a reconceptualisation of the development of public relations in Australia.


Objectives: To determine the prevalence of antiphospholipid antibodies in patients with connective tissue diseases. Design: Descriptive transversal study. Setting: Dos de Mayo Hospital and Institute of Clinical Research, San Marcos University, Lima, Peru. Participants: Patients with diagnosis of collagen disease and healthy subjects. Interventions: In 100 patients with collagen disease and 50 healthy subjects, all from Metropolitan Lima and attended between January and November 2008, fibrinogen, prothrombin time, partial activated thromboplastin time, anticardiolipin antibody and lupus anticoagulant were determined. Main outcome measures: Presence of anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant. Results: Patients with collagen diseases presented antiphospholipid antibodies in 17%, lupus anticoagulant in 13%, and IgG anticardiolipin in 4%. Individualizing connective tissue diseases, in 70 patients with systemic erythematous lupus 10 were positive for lupus anticoagulant and 3 had IgG anticardiolipin; of 30 patients with rheumatoid arthritis three were positive to lupus anticoagulant and one presented IgG anticardiolipin. In the group of 50 healthy individuals, only one was positive for lupus anticoagulant. Conclusions: The prevalence of antiphospholipid antibodies in patients with connective tissue was 17%. The most frequent connective tissue disease studied was lupus erythematosus and the most frequent antiphospholipid antibody found was lupus anticoagulant.


The behavioral and environmental context of animal calls provides insights into their functions. Narwhals are a highly vocal species and, like other social cetaceans, rely on acoustic signals to communicate. We characterize and categorize narwhal whistles and pulsed calls, as well as investigate variation in these calls under different contexts (behavior, herd, and year) using recordings made during the month of August 2006–2008, in Koluktoo Bay (72°04′N, 80°32′W). We detected similarities among whistles but not pulsed calls that were produced under a similar behavioral context. Both whistles and pulsed calls recorded within the same herd were more similar than whistles and pulsed calls recorded within different herds. We did not find any type of whistle to be associated with a specific behavior although some acoustical features might be behavior specific. Both whistles and pulsed calls show properties that are consistent with the hypothesis that narwhals produce group- or individual-specific calls.


The explicit and implicit aims of creating ecological focus areas (EFAs) and implementing greening measures in European agro-ecosystems include the promotion of regulatory ecosystem services (ES) to sustain crop production in conventional cropping systems. However, the extent to which these goals are achieved with current policy measures remains poorly explored.

We measured insect-mediated pollination and natural pest control service provisioning in 18 winter oilseed rape fields as a function of the independent and interactive effects of local EFA establishment─sown wildflower strips and hedgerows─and landscape-scale greening measures within a 1 km radius around focal fields and quantified their contribution to crop yield.

Insect pollination potential and pest predation increased on average by 10% and 13%, respectively, when landscape-scale greening measures share was increased from 6% to 26%. For pollination, the increase was stronger in fields adjoining an EFA (14%) than in fields without adjacent EFA (7%).

Agricultural management practices were the main drivers of crop yield. Neither insect pollination potential or natural pest control (pest predation and parasitism) nor adjacent EFAs and landscape-scale greening significantly affected crop yield in addition to agricultural management.

Synthesis and applications. Local establishment of perennial, species-rich wildflower strips and hedgerows, combined with landscape-scale greening measures in agricultural landscapes, can promote multiple ecosystem services (ES) in conventional production systems. Benefits may be maximized when local and landscape measures are combined. However, enhanced pollination and natural pest regulation seem to contribute relatively little to final crop yield compared to local agricultural management practices in the high-input conventional production system studied. Further research is needed to better understand how to improve the effectiveness of ecological focus areas and other greening measures in promoting regulatory ES. Potential improvements include minimising trade-offs while promoting synergies between ES provision, food production and biodiversity conservation.


China has been increasingly active on the regional trade agreement front over since WTO Accession occurred in 2001. These agreements, unlike the US and EU cases, follow no template form of agreement but vary substantially one among the others and are in part an attempt to customize agreements to partner prior agreements. There are presently 12 concluded agreements, 6 under negotiation, and four others under consideration. These concluded are in the main with smaller countries. Those in prospect are with major trading areas (US, Japan, Korea, and India). All are driven in part by China's needs for export access to fuel continuing export lead growth, but other elements enter including using regional agreements to offset unwelcome elements of multilateral arrangements (such as the non-market economy labelling), and attempting to put in place via RTA building blocks an Asian trading hub. Outstanding issues not centrally addressed by these agreements include anti-dumping duties, and investment and competition issues.


As an emerging research discipline, scientific visualization is developing those trappings that demonstrate growth. New algorithms are just beginning to effectively handle the recurring scientific problem of data collected at nonuniform intervals. Volume visualization today is being extended from examining scientific data to reconstructing scattered data and representing geometrical objects without mathematically describing surfaces. Fluid dynamics visualization affects numerous scientific and engineering disciplines. It has taken its place with molecular modeling, imaging remote-sensing data, and medical imaging as a domain-specific visualization research area. Recently, much progress has come from using algorithms with roots in both computer graphics and machine vision. One important research thread has been the topological representation of important features. Volume and hybrid visualization now produce 3D animations of complex flows. However, while impressive 3D visualizations have been generated for scalar parameters associated with fluid dynamics, vector and especially tensor portrayal has proven more difficult. Seminal methods have appeared, but much remains to do. Great strides have also occurred in visualization systems. The area of automated selection of visualizations especially requires more work. Nonetheless, the situation has much improved, with these tools increasingly accessible to scientists and engineers.<<ETX>>


Monitoring blood perfusion and oxygenation changes is of vital importance and for this reason many different techniques have been developed over the decades. Photoplethysmography (PPG) is an optical technique that measures blood volume variations in vascular tissue and it is well known for its utilisation in pulse oximetry for the estimation of arterial blood oxygen saturation (SpO2). In pulse oximetry, mainly the pulsatile component of the signal (AC PPG) is used while the continuous DC component is mostly excluded. Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is another optical technique that measures changes in the concentration of oxygenated (ΔHbO2), deoxygenated (ΔHHb), and total haemoglobin (ΔtHb) from the variations in light attenuations at different wavelengths.

The main motivation of this research is to explore the capability of Photoplethysmography in assessing tissue perfusion and oxygenation similarly as NIRS. The hypothesis underlining this research is that the DC component of the PPG signal contains information on the overall absorbed light and this part of the PPG signal, acquired at least two wavelengths, may be used to obtain ΔHbO2, ΔHHb, and ΔtHb as performed in NIRS. Therefore, DC PPG attenuations may be related to haemoglobin concentrations by the modified Beer-Lambert law (MBLL). In order to investigate this, novel reflectance, custom-made PPG sensors and measurement systems, including advanced signal processing algorithms, have been developed for the acquisition and analysis of raw PPG signals (AC + DC) from different anatomical locations.

Three in vivo studies on healthy volunteers were carried out in order to investigate if ΔHbO2, ΔHHb, and ΔtHb estimated from PPG could indicate changes in blood perfusion and oxygenation. The studies consisted of vascular occlusions on the forearm, negative bed tilting, and whole body cold exposure. Raw PPG signals were acquired from different locations such as the forearm, fingers, and forehead, whereas simultaneous NIRS signals were used as a reference. The results showed that ΔHbO2, ΔHHb, and ΔtHb could be effectively estimated from PPG signals. These parameters indicated the changes in blood volumes and/or oxygenation, whereas comparison with NIRS signals showed good levels of correlation and trending. These promising results showed that DC PPG signals could be used to monitor changes in blood perfusion and oxygenation, extending the range of applications of Photoplethysmography.


The automotive industry is growing bigger each year. The central concern for any automotive company is driver and passenger safety. Many automotive companies have developed driver assistance systems, to help the driver and to ensure driver safety. These systems include adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, lane change assistance, collision avoidance, night vision, automatic parking, traffic sign recognition, and driver fatigue detection. In this thesis, we aim to build a driver fatigue detection system that advances the research in this area. Using vision in detecting driver fatigue is commonly the key part for driver fatigue detection systems. We have decided to investigate different direction. We examine the driver's voice, heart rate, and driving performance to assess fatigue level. The system consists of three main modules: the audio module, the heart rate and other signals module, and the Bayesian network module. The audio module analyzes an audio recording of a driver and tries to estimate the level of fatigue for the driver. A Voice Activity Detection (VAD) module is used to extract driver speech from the audio recording. Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients, (MFCC) features are extracted from the speech signal, and then Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) classifiers are used to detect driver fatigue. Both classifiers are tuned for best performance, and the performance of both classifiers is reported and compared. The heart rate and other signals module uses heart rate, steering wheel position, and the positions of the accelerator, brake, and clutch pedals to detect the level of fatigue. These signals' sample rates are then adjusted to match, allowing simple features to be extracted from the signals, and SVM and HMM classifiers are used to detect fatigue level. The performance of both classifiers is reported and compared. Bayesian networks' abilities to capture dependencies and uncertainty make them a sound choice to perform the data fusion. Prior information (Day/Night driving and previous decision) is also incorporated into the network to improve the final decision. The accuracies of the audio and heart rate and other signals modules are used to calculate certain CPTs for the Bayesian network, while the rest of the CPTs are calculated subjectively. The inference queries are calculated using the variable elimination algorithm. For those time steps where the audio module decision is absent, a window is defined and the last decision within this window is used as a current decision. The performance of the system is assessed based on the average accuracy per second. A dataset was built to train and test the system. The experimental results show that the system is very promising. The performance of the system was assessed based on the average accuracy per second; the total accuracy of the system is 90.5%. The system design can be easily improved by easily integrating more modules into the Bayesian network.


Combretastatin A4 (CA4) is a drug that targets tumor vasculature to inhibit angiogenesis. Whether CA4 has a direct effect on gastric cancer is not known. We herein investigated the effect of CA4 on growth and metastasis of gastric cancer cells at clinically achievable concentration and explored the associated antitumor mechanisms. Nine human gastric cancer cell lines, including two metastatic gastric cancer cell lines (AGS-GFPM1/2), constitutively expressing green fluorescence protein (GFP) were used. These metastatic AGS-GFPM1/2 cells expressed a higher level of phosphorylated serine 473 on AKT (p-AKT). Our results showed that CA4 (0.02–20 μM) has significant in vitro effects on reducing cell attachment, migration, invasiveness, as well as cell cycle G2/M disturbance on p-AKT-positive gastric cancer cells. In addition, a phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor, LY294002 [2-(4-morpholinyl)-8-phenyl-1(4H)-benzopyran-4-one hydrochloride], a specific AKT inhibitor, and 0.2 to 20 μM CA4 displayed a similar response profile on p-AKT-positive cells, suggesting that CA4-induced effect was mediated by inhibition of the PI3 kinase/AKT pathway. The results from in vivo GFP monitoring system indicated that CA4 phosphate (CA4-P; 200 mg/kg) significantly inhibited the s.c. and intra-abdominal growth of xenotransplanted AGS-GFPM2 cells in nude mice. Furthermore, CA4-P treatment showed a remarkable ability to inhibit gastric tumor metastasis as well as attenuate p-AKT expression. In conclusion, our study is the first to find that CA4 inhibited AKT activity in human gastric cancer cells. The decreased AKT activity correlated well with the CA4 antitumor growth response and decrease of metastasis. Further investigation on drugs targeting the PI3 kinase-AKT pathway may provide a new approach for the treatment of human gastric cancer.


The control of Plum pox virus (PPV), the most important viral disease that affects stone fruit trees, requires the use of reliable detection methods. The effectiveness of spot real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for the detection of PPV in samples collected from nursery blocks was compared with a validated PPV detection technique, the double antibody sandwich indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DASI-ELISA) using the PPV-specific monoclonal antibody 5B-IVIA/AMR. In total, 5047 nursery plants were analysed by both techniques. The agreement between the techniques was almost perfect (Cohen's kappa index of 0·88 ± 0·01). The diagnostic parameters (sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios) of both techniques were simultaneously evaluated in 2473 nursery plants by latent class models using maximum likelihood functions and a Bayesian approach. The sensitivity and specificity of both techniques did not vary according to the latent model applied. Spot real-time RT-PCR was more sensitive while DASI-ELISA was more specific for PPV detection. In addition, the findings demonstrate that latent class models are a flexible and potent statistical method to estimate the accuracy of diagnostic tests for plant pathology.


While the use of accelerometer derived Player Load has become increasingly prominent, the limitation of this approach is that training load is reduced to a single number with no differentiation between the mechanisms of loading, resulting in a loss of context. As recovery from different loadings occur at different rates, the inability to differentiate between the loading mechanisms could lead to under or over training in one or more of these mechanisms. This study sought to compare axis specific accelerometer derived Player Load with differential RPE scores to establish a means of quantifying the lower limb biomechanical load of adolescent badminton training, to
try and understand some of the context into the Player Load number. It was postulated that the Player Load from the vertical axis would provide a more precise measure of lower limb loading as other loading parameters, such as upper body rotation observed during a smash, would be removed from the calculation. Nineteen adolescent
badminton players (Age: 14.0 ± 0.8 y) based at a dedicated high performance youth training environment wore a GPS-embedded accelerometer between the scapulae in a purpose built vest during court-based training. After each training session the participants provided two RPE scores, one localised for the legs and one for breathlessness. Overall low correlations were observed between the Player Load and RPE values. The Player Load for the vertical
axis showed a stronger correlation with the RPE for breathlessness than the RPE for the lower limb stress. The results from this study suggest that axis specific Player Load from the vertical axis does not provide greater insight into lower-limb biomechanical load compared to overall Player Load in adolescent badminton players.


During the IronEx II experiment in the eastern equatorial Pacific (May to June 1995), the response of the microplankton community to mesoscale iron fertilization was followed using a combi- nation of marker-pigment, microscopical and flow cytometric techniques. Phytoplankton standing stock bloomed dramatically over a period of 6 d following 3 iron additions of 2 and 1 nM, respectively. Carbon biomass in the patch increased by a factor of 4, chlorophyll a by about a factor of 16 and diatoms by >70-fold relative to contemporaneous levels in the ambient community. The bloom then plateaued sharply and remained at a more or less constant level for 4 d, despite the addition of more iron (1 nM) and physiological indices (low C:chl a ratio and elevated photochemical quantum efficiency) suggesting that the cells were healthy and growing rapidly. Relatively large pennate diatoms (Nitzschia spp., median length 20 to 24 µm) dominated the patch bloom, with smaller pennate species and centric diatoms declining in relative importance. Heterotrophic bacteria increased at a slow rate (0.08 d -1 ) for >10 d during the experiment, as did heterotrophic nanoflagellates. There were also indications of enhanced cell size, cellular pigment content and possibly growth rates of small phytoplankton. Nonetheless, little difference was observed between the ambient community and the peak patch bloom with respect to the size composition of auto- and heterotrophic populations 3-fold increase in large heterotrophic dinoflagellates and ciliates suggest that protistan grazers may have played an active role in controlling the phytoplankton response to increased iron availability.


Random covers for finite groups have been introduced in [5, 9], and [18], and used for constructing public key cryptosystems. The primer [10] introduces a new approach for constructing pseudorandom number generators, called MSTg, based on random covers for large finite groups. In particular, on the class of elementary abelian 2-groups they allow a very efficient realization. The crucial point that makes random covers useful for group based cryptography is the fact, that the problem of finding a factorization with respect to a randomly generated cover is presumed intractable. In other words, random covers induce functions which possess the features of one-way functions. These in addition, as shown by results of statistical tests, behave randomly. We extend the preliminary tests done in [10] and investigate the statistical properties of the output sequences generated by MSTg on proposed class of groups and with different parameters, in particular the block size. We investigate the security of the system and claim that MSTg generators are suitable for cryptographic applications. Finally, we study the possibilities of parallelization of the generator algorithm and propose a method of using MSTg in practice.


Despite its increasing importance, mastery of academic English remains a substantial challenge among numerous learners of Arab heritage, one that is complex and multifactorial. The aim of this study is to explore underlying causes behind the underperformance of Arab learners' writing output, and suggest possible strategies and solutions for teachers and teacher-trainers of academic English. Focus on surface-level wring errors at the expense of written discourse and genre analysis may be one of the key causes. Additionally, insufficient training of teachers may be a substantial underlying factor, with emphasis being given to product- and process-writing, but perhaps less so at the text level. Therefore writing features that need to be addressed in a writing course for trainers, teachers, translators or learners should also include aspects relating to:(i) reader-writer responsibility as expectations vary across different cultures; (ii) the learners' developmental stage as this influences the written output; (iii) rhetoric and text features and how they relate to specific genres, and (iv) aspects of positive and negative transfer from the learners own discourse community. Teacher-training and teaching courses adopting these underpinning principles have already met with success among English writing learners and practitioners of Arab-heritage.


The authors parallelize the embedding strategy for mapping any two-dimensional grid into its optimal hypercube with minimal dilation. The parallelization allows each hypercube node to independently determine, in constant time, which grid node it will simulate and the communication paths it will take to reach the hypercube nodes that simulate its grid-neighbors. The paths between grid-neighbors are chosen in such a way as to curb the congestion at each hypercube node and across each hypercube edge. Explicity, the node congestion for the embedding is at most 6, one above optimal, while the edge congestion is at most 5. >


A numerical modelling case study is presented aiming to investigate aspects of the applicability of artificial neural networks (ANN) to the problem of landmine detection using ground penetrating radar (GPR). An essential requirement of ANN and machine learning in general, is an extensive training set. A good training set should include data from as many scenarios as possible. Therefore, a training set consisting of simulated data from a diverse range of models with varying: topography, soil inhomogeneity, landmines, false alarm targets, height of the antenna, depth of the landmines, has been produced and used. Previous approaches, have employed limited training sets and as a result they often have underestimated the capabilities of ANN. In this preliminary study, a 2D Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) model has been used as the training platform for ANN. Although a 2D approach is clearly a simplification that cannot directly translate to a practical application, it is a computationally efficient approach to examine the performance of ANN subject to an extensive training set. The results are promising and provide a good basis to further expand this approach in the future by employing even more realistic, but computationally expensive, 3D models and well-characterised, real data sets.


Immigration law is central to justifications for why five men remain detained indefinitely at Guantanamo, despite having writs of habeas approved in 2008. Since then, the Court of Appeals in Kiyemba v. Obama I, II, and III has used plenary powers reasoning to justify detentions under immigration law. The detainees are all non-combatants and Uighurs, Turkic Muslims from China. The Supreme Court may review these cases. Kiyemba I and III concern their judicial release into the U.S., while Kiyemba II regards barring their transfer because they may be tortured overseas. These cases raise significant constitutional habeas issues, but they also justify detentions with plenary powers. This reasoning defers immigration issues to the political branches and denies rights because of a detainee's alien status or presence overseas. This Essay argues that immigration law, i.e. plenary powers, provides a "fall back" legal justification for Guantanamo detentions. This is especially important after the Supreme Court's finding in Boumediene v. Bush that aliens on the base enjoy constitutional habeas rights. A critical non-legal context produces the Kiyemba detention quagmire. A transnational analysis of this context points to the normative influence of assumptions on diplomacy, culture, geopolitics, individual rights, and the War on Terror.


We investigate the effects of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) in an order-driven artificial financial market. FTTs are meant to limit short-term speculative behavior by reducing the amount of excess liquidity in the system. To quantify these effects, adjustments in trading strategies and their effects on liquidity need to be taken into account. We model an agentbased continuous double-auction, allowing for a continuum of investment strategies within the chartist/fundamentalist framework. For certain parameter combinations, our model is able to reproduce certain stylized facts of financial time-series. We find largely positive effects of the FTT for small tax rates. Additionally, for large tax rates we find the effects not to be as negative as previously found.


Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is often seen as a miracle cure to ensure competence, accountability, professionalism and lifelong learning in professions. However, critics warn that unless the quality of the learning that takes place in CPD can be ensured, it will not live up to expectations. This article focuses on six principles that can serve to enhance the quality of learning in CPD of lecturers in the natural sciences. It presents CPD as a viable option to promote professional excellence. A study amongst lecturers in the natural sciences at the University of Stellenbosch is used to underscore the principles presented in this article.


This paper discusses our experience in designing and deploying a 994-node sensor network to measure the social contact network of a high school over one typical day. The system aims to capture interactions of human subjects for the study of infectious disease spread. We describe unique challenges posed by a large-scale network that is heavily affected by humans. We present techniques to address challenges such as frequent node reboots and global timestamps. The end result of the deployment is a dataset of 792 traces which can be used to calculate the school population's contact network and the rough location where interactions occurred.