WHAT KIND OF WISDOM and knowledge did the Christ Child have? (1) Robert Southwell's poem "Christes childhood," from the Maeoniae, offers a carefully constructed reply that provides evidence about Counter-Reformation attitudes toward this ancient question and, more important for our purposes, evidence about Southwell's own understanding of the Christ Child's nature as fully human and fully divine. Pierre Janelle once remarked that the lyric presents the Christ Child as an ideal Jesuit hero--"the attitude of the boy Jesus seems to be modeled after the pattern of classical--and Jesuit--moderation" (162). This description, while it responds to the poem's careful searching for balance and integration, ignores its argumentative edge. The lyric is celebratory of Jesus's virtues but it is also instructive: in its own subtle way it takes a stand against very common folkloric depictions of the Christ Child as wonder working and even disruptive to reintroduce the simplicity and mystery of the Gospels' depiction of Jesus the boy and reaffirm his divine knowledge and power, while retaining one aspect of extrabiblical depictions that Southwell, unexpectedly, seems to consider important: the Christ Child at play. This poem differs from his other more famous poems on the Christ Child in that it presents the Child in a hieratic stance, an image of power and judgment rather than that of an active lover, eager sacrifice, or Warrior Babe. On the other hand, true to Southwell's love of paradox, while the poem presents us with a Child who is Judge of the World, it also represents him as a God who plays and perhaps experiences mirth. Though Southwell verges on declaring the humanity of Christ an act performed by a divinity, he achieves a balance that demonstrates that he also wishes to affirm the humanity of Christ. Southwell does not explicitly deny the folk tradition of a wonder-working Christ Child any more than he denies that the Christ Child grew and learned: he merely asserts that even the Gospel writers are unworthy to write of the miraculous acts springing from his divinity and humanity in this period of Christ's life. The claim is surprising in the end, for it implies that the wonders, teaching, and redeeming acts of Jesus depicted in the Gospels can be written of by men, but the wonder of his childhood is too great for human pens. The Counter-Reformation, like the Reformation itself, was concerned to remove extraneous pious legend from the truth of the Gospel, and in particular to safeguard the honor of Christ and his saints from a folk imagination that mythologized and embroidered with a very strong basis in the generally accepted apocryphal stories that had been handed down from very early centuries of the Church, some so old that they were known to Mohammed and included in the Koran, such as the tale of the boy Jesus breathing life into clay birds. The Catholic thinker Molanus, or Jan van der Meulen, even had called The Golden Legend the Legend of Lead because it was so filled with lies (De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris, pro vero earum usu contra abusus ["Treatise on Sacred Images"] of 1570). Even before the decree of the Council, tales about the boy Jesus had been omitted from some versions of the collection, a sign of sensitivity about their inappropriateness or even their potential to subvert orthodox doctrine about Christ. (2) Southwell's assertion that only angels might write of what Christ did during those childhood years seems to have no other reason for being in the poem other than to imply that what the legends passed on in popular religious culture was untrue. This odd caveat aligns itself with the decrees of the Council of Trent on sacred art, which made it clear that extrabiblical fables about the life of Christ were not to be represented: And if any abuses have crept in amongst these holy and salutary observances, the holy Synod ardently desires that they be utterly abolished; in such wise that no images, (suggestive) of false doctrine, and furnishing occasion of dangerous error to the uneducated, be set up. …


How do you teach the humanities to working class students living in the shadow of a BP oil refinery? Calumet College uses freshman learning communities that link humanities, social justice, and English composition classes to provide a foundation for college success to predominantly first-generation students who are often underprepared for college-level courses. This article describes the program, including the curricular linkages between the classes. Retention results between students who took stand-alone classes are compared to students who participated in loosely linked learning communities and closely linked learning communities. In addition, data from a preand post-course assessment of students' knowledge of general humanities concepts is included. A notable finding was the consistently higher performance of cohorts enrolled in closely linked learning communities, those in which the instructors shared assignments, responded to ideas raised in their colleagues' classes, and met regularly to discuss students' needs. Ginger G. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of English at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting, Indiana. Christopher Buczinsky is an Associate Professor and Director of the English Program at Calumet College of


The problem of this study was subsidy ("vanity") publishing among college and university faculty. The purpose of the study was to estimate the extent to which postsecondary faculty use subsidy presses for the publication of their scholarly writings and the professional reasons for which academicians choose these presses to publish their works, viz., tenure, promotion, or salary increase. An additional purpose was to compare the subsidy publication experiences of faculty according to the types of institutions which employ them.
The study involved 11 national subsidy publishers and 1,124 subsidy-published authors throughout the United States. Subsidy-published authors were identified occupationally as faculty by their appearance in the 1990 edition of The National Faculty Directory. The subjects in this study consisted of (a) faculty members listed in The National Faculty Directory. 1990 who are (b) known to have used subsidy presses for publishing their writings. A major finding of the study was that the proportion of vanity-published authors who are college and university faculty was small.
Twenty-seven percent of the faculty whose books had been published by subsidy presses indicated that they had written and published in order to earn salary increases. Another 23% indicated that they had their books published to obtain promotions. Seventeen percent had their books published for the purpose of gaining tenure. Finally, one-third of the faculty surveyed identified miscellaneous other reasons for publishing their books through subsidy presses.
More than two-thirds of the faculty who had used vanity presses (69%) claimed that their subsidy-published books had been effective in helping them achieve their purposes for publishing. Thirty percent judged their subsidy-produced books as ineffective. The majority of the subsidy-published faculty in the study were employed either by research universities or community/junior colleges. Only 26% of those surveyed indicated that they would choose a subsidy publisher if they had it to do again.


Although studies of walking have generated many of the principles for motor control, walking is but one of the many behaviors that an animal produces. This study investigates the relationships among the kinematic profiles of three behaviors in chicks: walking, swimming and airstepping. In addition to describing features of the hindlimb movements, such as retraction and protraction, we also examined the intra- and interjoint coordination patterns at the hip, knee and ankle. By using multiple levels of analysis, we identified some features that are common to all three behaviors, and therefore appear to be constrained, as well as some dissimilar or flexible features. Specifically, we show that resistance differentially affects the hip, knee and ankle joints. Our results also show that each joint plays a distinctive role in these behaviors. For example, we suggest that the hip stabilizes the hindlimb and regulates the rhythmicity of its movements. We also show that movement at the knee consistently precedes movement at the other joints in each behavior. Finally, differences in ankle movements are the key features that discriminate one behavior from another. Continuity among prenatal, perinatal and postnatal behaviors in chicks is discussed.


Abstract This is the first part of a two-part paper which introduces a general schema theory for genetic programming (GP) with subtree-swapping crossover. The theory is based on a Cartesian node reference system which makes it possible to describe programs as functions over the space N2 and allows one to model the process of selection of the crossover points of subtree-swapping crossovers as a probability distribution over N4. In Part I, we present these notions and models and show how they can be used to calculate useful quantities. In Part II we will show how this machinery, when integrated with other definitions, such as that of variable-arity hyperschema, can be used to construct a general and exact schema theory for the most commonly used types of GP


Frank Swinnerton worked as a clerk for JA Dent & Co. between 1901
and 1907 and as a publisher's reader for Chatto & Windus from 1907
until 1926, during which time he began his career as a writer of
fiction, became influential as a reviewer and commentator on
literary fashions, and began close friendships with Arnold
Bennett, HG Wells and Hugh Walpole. In 1926 he left London to
live in Cranleigh, Surrey, as a full-time writer of novels, short
stories, critical works, book and theatre reviews, and
miscellaneous articles for newspapers and periodicals. He died at
the age of ninety-eight in 1982.
This is the first biography of Frank Swinnerton to be
undertaken in Great Britain. An analysis has been made of each of
his works, both novels and non-fiction. His influence in literary
circles has been assessed, and his contribution to the book world
is placed within the background of literary output and trends in
the twentieth century. Swinnerton was not a great writer, but his
temperament, circumstances and talent combined to produce a
respected literary figure whose strength was his perception and
understanding of the progress of the British literary world
through the centuries.
Swinnerton's numerous friendships are dealt with as they
occurred, although major relationships are examined more fully at
the point where the friend died. For example, details on HG Wells
can be found with his death in 1946 and on Compton Mackenzie with
his death in 1972. Greater space has been given to his
involvements with Arnold Bennett and Hugh Walpole, in separate
chapters placed close to the time of their deaths in 1931 and
1941. One other chapter stands out of sequence. This examines
Swinnerton's relationship with his two wives: his complex
courtship of Helen Dircks and his second marriage to Mary Bennett.
This period, between 1917 and 1924, which also includes a
description of his first lecture tour of the USA in 1923, has been
placed immediately after chapters 7 and 8, which examine
Swinnerton's general life and work during the same period.
Apart from published works and newspaper and periodical
articles, the main material used has been Swinnerton's personal
diaries, which date from 1910 to 1978, and the correspondence and
miscellaneous papers in his personal possession. Also consulted
has been a doctoral thesis by Jesse Franklin McCartney presented
to the University of Arkansas in 1965, which annotates the large
collection of correspondence by Frank Swinnerton to writers,
publishers, boakmen and other literary figures, as well as their
replies, which are housed in the University library. Full texts of
these letters have been obtained where appropriate and used in
this work. Professor Blair Rouse of the University of Arkansas
wrote a critical appreciation of Swinnerton's work in the 1960s
and his widow has allowed use of the unpublished manuscript and
letters exchanged between Rouse and Swinnerton, and has sent
correspondence between Swinnerton and the Pinker family. Finally,
Swinnerton's friends and family have provided facts, opinions and
reminiscences.


Investigating why Latin American music came to be the sound-track of the independence era, this contribution offers an overview of musical developments and cultural politics in certain sub-Saharan African countries since the 1960s. Focusing first on how the governments of newly independent African states used musical styles and musicians to support their nation-building projects, the article then looks at musicians' more recent perspectives on the independence era.


"Theories of Comparative Analysis" provides a detailed examination of comparative analysis, the problem of predicting how a system will react to perturbations in its parameters, and why. It clearly formalizes the problem and presents two novel techniques - differential qualitative (DQ) analysis and exaggeration - that solve many comparative analysis problems, providing explanations suitable for use by design systems, automated diagnosis, intelligent tutoring systems, and explanation-based generalization.Weld first places comparative analysis within the context of qualitative physics and artificial intelligence. He then explains the theoretical basis for each technique and describes how they are implemented. He shows that they are essentially complementary: DQ analysis is sound, while exaggeration is a heuristic method: exaggeration, however, solves a wider variety of problems. Weld summarizes their similarities and differences and introduces a hybrid architecture that takes advantage of the strengths of each technique.Daniel S. Weld is Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. "Theories of Comparative Analysis" is included in the Artificial Intelligence Series, edited by Michael Brady, Daniel Bobrow, and Randall Davis.


Dancing giant puppets, human and beast, and the giant masks/body puppets known in Catalonia as bigheads (capgrossos) are widespread and hugely popular throughout the region. These typical process on the central day of the festa major, or local holiday/sain't day, of each Catalonian town or village. The festes majors usually take place over several days, with one day (often a Saturday) nominated as the day for ritual celebration and speeches. The festes are celebrated at different points over the summer months, with some as early as April and some as late as November. During the day of ritual and speeches, the giant puppets and bigheads process from a pre-designated location through a route which is repeated year after year, to a central square. Here, local dignitaries, officials and prominent citizens make speeches and say pryers in honour of the community, and the festival is toasted.


The Pathway Tools (PTools) software provides a suite of capabilities for storing and analyzing integrated collections of genomic and metabolic information in the form of organism-specific Pathway/Genome Databases (PGDBs). A microbial community is represented in PTools by generating a PGDB from each metagenome-assembled genome (MAG). PTools computes a metabolic reconstruction for each organism, and predicts its operons. The properties of individual MAGs can be investigated using the many search and visualization operations within PTools. PTools also enables the user to investigate the properties of the microbial community by issuing searches across the full community, and by performing comparative operations across genome and pathway information. The software can generate a metabolic network diagram for the community, and it can overlay community omics datasets on that network diagram. PTools also provides a tool for searching for metabolic transformation routes across an organism community.


We numerically study the surface plasmon interference formed by tightly focused higher polarization order axially symmetric polarized beams (ASPBs) based on the vectorial diffraction theory. The definition of ASPBs is stated, and the optical setup for surface plasmon polariton (SPP) excitation and mathematical expressions for interfering SPP fields are proposed. The simulation results show that the interfering SPP fields present a multi-focal spot pattern. In addition, the number of spots is related to the polarization order of the incident beams P as 2\times(P-1), indicating potential utilization in near-field multiple optical trapping and near-field imaging and sensing. The unique interfering phenomenon is also explained.


Nuclear renaissance isn't possible without the development of new nano-hetero-structured materials. A novel micro-hetero structure, entitled "cer-liq-mesh", nuclear fuel that self-separates the fission products from nuclear fuel, makes fuel reprocessing easier, allowing near-perfect burnup by easy fast recladding, being prone to improve the nuclear fuel cycle. Fuel heating analysis led to development of new direct energy conversion nano-hetero structured meta-materials resembling a super-capacitor loading from nuclear particles' energy and discharging as electricity, prone to remove 90% of the actual nuclear power plant hardware, increasing the energy conversion efficiency. Usage of ion beam recoil analysis is used to measure and prove the nano-grains' and nano-clusters' special properties, such as shape-enhanced impurity diffusion and self-repairing in cluster structured fractal materials. The nanograin liquid interface is studied by ion beam simulation in order to develop a new generation of nuclear fuels with enhanced breeding and transmutation properties, able to directly separate the transmutation products, thus reducing the need for hard, hazardous chemical processes. Ion-beam channeling in material may be extended to neutrons and gamma rays, and using hybrid NEMS structures new applications may create novel solid-state nuclear reactor control reactivity system, radiation modulators for gamma, neutrino communication systems and ultra-light radiation shielding.


Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known to contribute significantly to aggregate economic growth. However, little is known about the role played by management practices in SME growth since recession. We contribute to the literature on SME growth by analysing longitudinal administrative data on firms' employment and turnover, taken from the UK's Business Structure Database (BSD), with data on management practices collected in face-to-face interviews from the HR Managers and employees who were surveyed as part of the 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). We find off-the-job training is the only management practice that is robustly and significantly associated with higher employment growth, increased turnover, and a decline in closure probabilities, over the period 2011-2014. The findings suggest SME investment in off-the-job training is sub-optimal in Britain such that firms could benefit economically from increasing the amount of off-the-job training they offer to their non-managerial employees.


Mutations in presenilins (PS) 1 and 2 are the major cause of familial Alzheimer's disease. Conditional double knock-out mice lacking both presenilins in the postnatal forebrain (PS cDKO mice) exhibit memory and synaptic plasticity impairments followed by progressive neurodegeneration in the cerebral cortex. Here we further investigate the molecular events that may underlie the observed phenotypes and identify additional neuropathological markers in the PS cDKO brain. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay analysis showed reduced levels of the toxic beta-amyloid (Abeta) peptides in the cerebral cortex of PS cDKO mice. Interestingly, the reduction in Abeta40 and Abeta42 peptides is similar in PS1 conditional knock-out and PS cDKO mice. We further examined the gene expression profile by oligonucleotide microarrays in the PS cDKO cerebral cortex and found that a high number of genes are differentially expressed, most notably a group of up-regulated inflammatory genes. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR and Western analyses confirmed the elevated levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein, complement component C1q, and cathepsin S, up-regulation of which has been associated with inflammatory responses in various neurodegenerative processes. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that the increase in complement component C1q is confined to the hippocampal formation, whereas glial fibrillary acidic protein and cathepsin S are up-regulated throughout the entire neocortex and hippocampus. In addition, strong microglial activation occurs in the hippocampus and the deeper cortical layers of PS cDKO mice. These results indicate that the memory impairment and neurodegeneration in PS cDKO mice are not caused by Abeta accumulation and that loss of PS function leads to differential up-regulation of inflammatory markers in the cerebral cortex.


Over the past decade, software architecture research has emerged as the principled study of the overall structure of software systems, especially the relations among subsystems and components. From its roots in qualitative descriptions of useful system organizations, software architecture has matured to encompass broad explorations of notations, tools, and analysis techniques. Whereas initially the research area interpreted software practice, it now offers concrete guidance for complex software design and development. , We can understand the evolution and prospects of software architecture research by examining the research paradigms used to establish its results. These are, for the most part, the paradigms of software engineering. We advance our fundamental understanding by posing research questions of several kinds and applying appropriate research techniques, which differ from one type of problem to another, yield correspondingly different kinds of results, and require different methods of validation. Unfortunately, these paradigms are not recognized explicitly and are often not carried out correctly; indeed not all are consistently accepted as valid. This retrospective on a decade-plus of software architecture research examines the maturation of the software architecture research area by tracing the types of research questions and techniques used at various stages. We will see how early qualitative results set the stage for later precision, formality, and automation and how results build up over time. This generates advice to the field and projections about future impact.


Urination disorders progress with age and have no gender. According to the literature, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) frequently serves the cause of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTSs). In most patients, conservative therapy provides a good quality of life. In some patients, progressing symptoms that require surgical treatment. Transurethral resection (TUR) is most commonly used in the treatment of BPH. However, according to studies, the frequency of long-term persistence of LUTS after TUR may be more than 30%. We performed a retrospective analysis of medical records and prospective evaluation of TUR in the long term, which was carried out in patients with BPH. The real picture of the possibilities of examination and treatment of patients with LUTS together with urological can be accessed from portal UroWeb.ru. A survey of urologists in the public domain was conducted. Such an indication, as the ineffectiveness of conservative therapy has been established for young patients with a small volume of the prostate. TUR in this group of patients often continues LUTS and requires further medical treatment. The probability of the development of urethral strictures after TUR BPH is 15.4%. Conducting functional diagnosis of lower urinary tract will narrow the indications for surgery of BPH and in the post-operative period to choose the rational approach to treatment.


Atlantic cod is composed of multiple migratory and stationary populations widely distributed in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Northeast Arctic cod (NEAC) population in the Barents Sea undertakes annual spawning migrations to the northern Norwegian coast. Although spawning occurs sympatrically with the stationary Norwegian coastal cod (NCC), phenotypic and genetic differences between NEAC and NCC are maintained. In this study, we resolve the enigma by revealing the mechanisms underlying these differences. Extended linkage disequilibrium (LD) and population divergence were demonstrated in a 17.4-Mb region on linkage group 1 (LG1) based on genotypes of 494 SNPs from 192 parents of farmed families of NEAC, NCC or NEACxNCC crosses. Linkage analyses revealed two adjacent inversions within this region that repress meiotic recombination in NEACxNCC crosses. We identified a NEAC-specific haplotype consisting of 186 SNPs that was fixed in NEAC sampled from the Barents Sea, but segregating under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in eight NCC stocks. Comparative genomic analyses determine the NEAC configuration of the inversions to be the derived state and date it to ~1.6-2.0 Mya. The haplotype block harbours 763 genes, including candidates regulating swim bladder pressure, haem synthesis and skeletal muscle organization conferring adaptation to long-distance migrations and vertical movements down to large depths. Our results suggest that the migratory ecotype experiences strong directional selection for the two adjacent inversions on LG1. Despite interbreeding between NEAC and NCC, the inversions are maintaining genetic differentiation, and we hypothesize the co-occurrence of multiple adaptive alleles forming a 'supergene' in the NEAC population.


The suitability of three experimental devices: biofilm reactors (BR), biofilm exosamplers (BE), and modified robbins devices (MRD), for the analysis of water distribution pipe biofilms was examined in situ within an urban water distribution system (Rouse Hill Development Area, New South Wales). Stainless steel (ss) and unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) coupons were conditioned with biofilm in each device for a period of 70 days. Biofilm removal techniques (sonication and stomaching) were evaluated and optimized for this study. A multiparametric quantification of biofilm biomass using total protein (NanoOrange protein determination) and carbohydrate (phenol-sulfuric assay) content, total number of bacterial cells (BacLight Live/Dead® Bacterial Viability Kit) and total number of heterotrophic bacteria (R2A plate counts) is proposed. The presence of biofilm-associated faecal indicator organisms (Enterococci, E. coli, somatic, F-RNA and B40-8 bacteriophages) was assayed for each biofilm homogenate. Variability both within and between biofilm devices was observed. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the inherent heterogeneity observed with biofilm quantification, the relatively inexpensive biofilm devices were shown to yield reliable and comparable information on biofilm growth within an urban water distribution system. Furthermore. the multiparametric measurement of biofilm biomass was shown to provide a reliable and holistic quantification of distribution pipe biofilms.


"Language and experience in Jewish mysticism" is a work in which, after dealing with an approach of the so-called mysticism and its ways of study, its physical, psychic perspectives are explored, its phenomenological description, its stages, its ways and a slight characterization of the types of mysticism from the viewpoint of religion. By comparison, the Jewish mysticism is placed in what it has in common and peculiar language notion and its performing function in the experiential world in Jewish traditional texts, that is, the limit and the emptiness as shown in the letter, the world and discourse. The text is, in Jewish tradition and in any other religion, an ontological foundation, not only in the orthodox-Torah and Talmud- but also the hidden and the cabalistic. The mystic experience is present and it also nourishes the root of the very text and cultural forms of the Jewish Community. The text will be the roots and top of reality in the Sefirotico tree. Finally, the body of the mystic is changed into a text and speaks of what should-be-not mentioned. The metaphors and symbolism, which appear in the beautiful literature of the Jewish tradition, allow to appreciate the non-stop flowing of the emptiness, ultimate foundation of the mystic, and also ordinary experience. The analysis of the four commentaries of "Cantar de los Cantares" a masterpiece text, says so. The text embodies the whole society, as a law that articulates closely with de mystic saying, giving sense, programme and protagonist to the historical experience of the Jewish. Our intention is to connect the findings of universal echo that the Jewish mysticism contribute to present-day questions prompted in the political and social fields. Our expectations are to show that the Jewish mysticism and its peculiar point of view is a rich inspiration for philosophers, writers, therapists and endless list of etceteras. The texts are not only related to other mysticism but also, what they bring out is by no means fossilized, nonetheless, it is utterly alive, suggesting and worth taking into account.


In 2014, the European Commission announced the launch of a study of knowledge transfer by public research organizations and other institutes of higher learning "to determine which additional measures might be needed to ensure an optimal flow of knowledge between the public research organisations and business thereby contributing to the development of the knowledge based economy." As the European Commission has recognized, the EU needs to take action to "unlock the potential of IPRs [intellectual property rights] that lie dormant in universities, research institutes and companies." This article builds on our earlier work on structuring efficient pharmaceutical public-private partnerships (PPPPs) but focuses on the regulatory infrastructure necessary to support the efficient commercialization of publicly funded university medical research in both the European Union and the United States. Our comparative analysis of the EU and U.S. approaches to translational medicine shows that there are lessons to be shared. The EU can apply the experiences from the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act and PPPPs in the United States, and the United States can emulate aspects of the open innovation aspects of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative and the tighter patenting standards imposed by the European Patent Office. Thus, a secondary purpose of this article is to suggest amendments to the U.S. laws governing the patenting and licensing of government-funded technology to prevent undue burdens on the sharing of certain upstream medical discoveries and research tools.


Do recent moves in the construction industry towards collaborative working and other new procurement procedures really make good business sense? 'Procurement in the Construction Industry' is the result of research into this question and it includes the first rigorous categorizing of the differences between procurement methods currently in use. In the process of carrying out this research, the team has produced a comprehensive study of procurement methods which looks in detail at the relative benefits and costs of different ways of working, with sometimes surprising results. As such, it is not only a valuable guide for practitioners on the complexities of the procurement process, but also an outline of the relevance of economic theory to the construction sector.


[Summary of the book containing this chapter]: Peoples and minorities in many parts of the world assert a right to self-determination, autonomy, and even secession from a state, which naturally conflicts with that state's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The right of a people to self-determination and secession has existed as a concept within international law since the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, but the exact definition of these concepts, and the conditions required for their application, remain unclear. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning the Declaration of Independency of Kosovo (2010), which held that the Kosovo declaration of independence was not in violation of international law, has only led to further questions.

This book takes four conflicts in the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a starting point for examining the current state of the law of self-determination and secession. Four entities, Transnistria (Moldova), South Ossetia, Abkhazia (both Georgia), and Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia), claim to be entitled not only to self-determination but also to secession from their mother state. For this entitlement they rely on historic affiliations, and on charges of discrimination and massive human rights violations committed by their mother state. This book sets out its analysis of these critical issue in three parts, providing a detailed understanding of the principles of international law on which they rely: The first part sets out the contours and meaning of self-determination and secession, including an overall assessment of secession within the Commonwealth of Independent States. The second section provides case studies investigating the events in Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Nagorno-Karabach in greater detail. The third and final section extends the scope of the examination, providing a comparative analysis of similar conflicts involving questions of self-determination and secession in Kosovo, Western Sahara, and Eritrea.


The influence of different instructional constraints on movement organisation and performance outcomes of the penalty kick (PK) was investigated according to participant age. Sixty penalty takers and twelve goalkeepers from two age groups (under 15 and under 17) performed 300 PKs under five different task conditions, including: no explicit instructional constraints provided (Control); instructional constraints on immobility (IMMOBILE) and mobility (MOBILE) of goalkeepers; and, use of keeper-dependent (DEP) and independent (INDEP) strategies by penalty takers. Every trial was video recorded and digitised using motion analysis techniques. Dependent variables (DVs) were: movement speed of penalty takers and the angles between the goalkeeper's position and the goal line (i.e., diving angle), and between the penalty taker and a line crossing the penalty spot and the centre of the goal (i.e., run up angle). Instructions significantly influenced the way that goalkeepers (higher values in MOBILE relative to Control) and penalty takers (higher values in Control than in DEP) used movement speed during performance, as well as the goalkeepers' movements and diving angle (less pronounced dives in the MOBILE condition compared with INDEP). Results showed how different instructions constrained participant movements during performance, although players' performance efficacy remained constant, reflecting their adaptive variability.


Equines are important draft power for poor communities in developing countries like Ethiopia. It play important role in agricultural economy of growing worlds. Equine uses for transportation, riding, carting and others depending community cultural and life style. Cross sectional study was conducted on Equine gastro intestinal Strongylosis and Fasciolosis in Goba district of Bale zone Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Study involving a total of 384 (218 Horses, 107 Donkeys and 59 Mules) samples were conducted. These parasites are main parasitic disease affecting the wellbeing of horses, mules and donkeys with over all prevalence of 83.3% and 11.98%, respectively. The occurrence of equine Gastrointestinal Strongylosis and Fasciolosis in this study suggests the importance these parasites in the study area and the overall effect on drought power. There were statistically significant variation (P 0.05) between Equine Fasciolosis between male and female; species of equines (Horse, donkey and mule) and age groups of equines. This study revealed that equine Fasciolosis is an important parasitic disease of equine next to Strongylosis in study area. In conclusion, less attention given to equine in study area affecting the wellbeing of horses, mules and donkeys. For this reason, due emphasis should be given particularly in prevention and control of the parasitic disease in Equine using broad spectrum anthelmintic and management of equine should be improved.


The possible endogeneity of labor and capital in production functions, and the consequent bias of the estimated elasticities, have been discussed and addressed in the literature in different ways since the 1940s. This paper revisits an argument first outlined in the 1950s, which questioned production function estimations. This argument is that output, capital and employment, are linked through a distribution accounting identity, a key point that the recent literature has overlooked. This identity can be rewritten as a form that resembles a production function (Cobb-Douglas, CES, translog). We show that this happens because the data used in empirical exercises are value (monetary) data, not physical quantities. The argument has clear predictions about the size of the factor elasticities and about what is commonly interpreted as the bias of the estimated elasticities. To test these predictions, we estimate a typical Cobb-Douglas function using five estimators and show that: (i) the identity is responsible for the fact that the elasticities must be the factor shares; (ii) the bias of the estimated elasticities (i.e., departure from the factor shares) is, in reality, caused by the omission of a term in the identity; and (iii) the estimation method is a second-order issue. Estimation methods that theoretically deal with endogeneity, including the most recent ones, cannot solve this problem. We conclude that the use of monetary values rather than physical data poses an insoluble problem for the estimation of production functions. This is, consequently, far more serious than any supposed endogeneity problems. JEL Codes: C18, C81, C82


Summary

Tendinopathy is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in athletic and aged horses. These injuries require prolonged convalescence and heal by the formation of scar tissue instead of neo-tendon, predisposing to reinjury. This article reviews the biological processes involved in tendon healing and their implications for clinical practice to improve future treatment of these injuries.


The current work investigates the influence of real lubricant density-pressure behavior on the dynamic response of elastohydrodynamic lubricated conjunctions. Such a response is often based on a non-realistic universal equation of state, despite longstanding evidence of its lack of support by measurements. A finite element framework is employed to investigate the damping and stiffness characteristics of line contact EHD lubricating films, subject to a harmonic loading. Both the equivalent stiffness and damping coefficients of lubricating films are found to increase with the base applied external load, and its amplitude of oscillation. They decrease however with increasing mean entrainment speed and load oscillation frequency. That is, they both increase as lubricant films get thinner. By comparison with the real density-pressure response of a highly compressible silicon oil, the universal equation of state is shown to underestimate the lubricant film's stiffness and damping characteristics. The relative deviations in equivalent damping and stiffness coefficients can reach up to about 12% and 25%, respectively. Therefore, realistic lubricant characteristics should always be considered. In particular, the use of the universal equation of state should not be taken for granted, as is customary in the EHL literature. Lubricant density-pressure response is not of a secondary nature, when it comes to predicting the dynamic performance characteristics of EHL conjunctions.


In 1987, an improved resource management system that incorporates velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens var. utilis) to address soil fertility and weed (Imperata cylindrica) infestation was introduced to the small-scale farmers in a densely populated area of the derived savannas in Benin Republic (West Africa). Six years later, an adoption study was conducted to assess factors driving the adoption process. Four types of land tenure systems based on mode of access to land were identified: divided inheritance, purchasing, gifts, and sharecropping/renting. The first three provide long-term security over land, and together, they represent about 76 percent of the survey fields. Results from three variants of a probit model indicated that security over land was among the factors that significantly affect the adoption of the technology, with a high marginal effect on the probability of adoption, while gender did not have a significant effect. The most important determinant for adoption is the number of times a field is weeded during a cropping season (a proxy for the amount of labor required to tend a crop for better yields). High weeding requirements favorably affect the adoption of velvet bean only if farmers have full security on the degraded (weedy) land. The predominance of land tenure systems that provide secure property rights, namely the traditional acquisition of land through inheritance or gift mode and the gradual development of a land market, facilitated a quick spread of the Mucuna planted fallows in the study region.


Support for Islamist violence among Muslims — howsoever varied — is theoretically and practically important because scholars have demonstrated that popular support for terrorism may explain where terrorist events occur even though the mechanistic details of this predictive utility are disputed. For this and other empirical and theoretical reasons, scholars from various disciplines and scholarly commitments have sought to exposit respondent-level determinants of support for Islamist political violence. One of the common variables that is used in these studies is support for Shari'ah (often referred to as "Islamic law"); however, scholars using this variable arrive at divergent conclusions. Recent studies of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia suggest one reason for this is the way in which scholars conceptualize and instrumentalize Shari'ah. This scholarship argues that Shari'ah should be decomposed into at least three components, support for: scriptural literalism, good governance and restrictions on women. Using 2009 data from Pew's Tolerance and Tension, we replicate the empirical estimation strategies of those scholars to extend this analytical framework to four West African countries (Ghana, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau and Liberia), which have been neglected by scholars of Islamist political violence. We find partial support for this framework. Notably, in Ghana and Liberia, support for scriptural literalism coincides with support for religious violence. We find no correlation between religiosity and support for violence in any of the four countries. In Guinea Bissau, we find a puzzling positive relationship between secularism and support for violence.


We used immunofluorescence techniques to determine the localization of nucleoside diphosphate (NDP) kinase in NIH-3T3 fibroblasts. We found that cytoplasmic NDP kinase can be separated into two populations according to subcellular localization and response to extracellular stimuli. Specifically, within minutes of stimulation of resting fibroblasts with serum, growth factors or bombesin, a portion of NDP kinase becomes associated with membrane ruffles and lamellipodia. Another pool of NDP kinase accumulates independently of stimulation around intracellular vesicles. Transfection of cells with activated Rac mimics, whereas expression of dominant negative Rac inhibits, the effects of extracellular stimulation on the translocation of NDP kinase to the cell cortex. Neither Rac mutant affects the vesicle-associated pool. Association of NDP kinase with vesicles depends on microtubule integrity and is disrupted by nocodazole. In cell-free assays NDP kinase binds tightly to membrane vesicles associated with taxol-stabilized microtubules. Binding of NDP kinase to this fraction is reduced by ATP and abolished by GTP, as well as guanine nucleotides that are NDP kinase substrates. Thus, the localization of the two NDP kinase pools identified here is regulated independently by distinct cellular components: the appearance of cortical NDP kinase is a consequence of Rac activation, whereas vesicular NDP kinase is responsive to microtubule dynamics and nucleotides, in particular GTP. These results suggest that in fibroblasts NDP kinase participates in Rac-related cortical events and in GTP-dependent processes linked to intracellular vesicle trafficking.


and Implications The objectives of this study were to (1) calculate aggressive interactions around the water bowl drinkers and to (2) determine preference for a water bowl location when pigs were offered either one, two or three water bowl drinkers per pen. Information is available on the current drinker to nursery pig's ratios (drinker: pigs). In the UK producers are recommended 1:15, while in the US it is 1:10 for nursery pigs. A total of 225 crossbred were seven weeks of age. Conventional nursery pens had plastic flooring and all pigs had ad-libitum access to a commercially formulated diet. Water was delivered through a single stainless steel water bowl drinker and was provided ad libitum. All pigs received a natural light cycle from a curtain sided building. Nine pens were used for behavioral measures. Three treatments were compared. Treatment one (TRT 1; n = 3) was defined as one water bowl drinker per pen. Treatment two (TRT 2; n = 3) was defined as two water bowl drinkers per pen. Treatment three (TRT 3; n = 3) was defined as three water bowl drinkers per pen. One day prior to visual recording of drinking behavior, all pigs in a pen were identified with an individual number. One 12 V black and white CCTV camera was positioned over each water bowl drinker and behavior was recorded from 0700 to 1300 h over two consecutive days onto a DVR at 1 frame per second. The acquisition of drinking behavior (defined as the pig having its head in the water bowl drinker for 5 s or longer) was obtained by three experienced observers who viewed the recordings using 24 h mode (5 frame / s) onto the Observer software. Total number of aggressive interactions and length of aggression around the water bowl drinker over the 6 h period was not (P < 0.05) different between the treatments. The total amount of time that nursery pigs spent when offered two (F vs. O) water bowl drinkers in a pen did not (P = 0.47) differ. However, when pigs were offered three (F vs. O vs. A) water bowl drinkers in a pen there was a difference (P < 0.0001) for total amount of time spent at all three locations. In conclusion, pigs displayed a water bowl drinker preference with the alley location being the least favored; however, there were no difference in the number or length of aggressive interactions.


The Federal Constitution and nearly all state constitutions include takings clauses providing that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. To the extent that scholars have considered the role of state courts with regard to these takings clauses, they have focused around constitutional limits on judicial restrictions of what constitutes property. Little attention has been paid, however, to how state courts can expand the definition of private property — and the problems and possibilities associated with that capability.Through an original case study derived from unexamined historical sources, this Article explores the complex questions raised by constitutional property creation. It tells the story of a series of nineteenth- and twentieth-century cases on street grading, in which property owners sought relief when municipal officials vertically shifted streets — sometimes in excess of a hundred feet — to improve transportation. Though these regrades often loomed over people's homes or left them stranded on inaccessible cliffs, government officials contended that because the regrades did not physically take any property, abutting owners could not bring takings claims. In response, state courts created a novel "right of access" to land and treated this right as constitutional property confiscated by the regrades, an innovation which entitled affected owners to compensation for the serious damages their land suffered.As this history demonstrates, state courts have played an important role in takings law by recognizing new forms of constitutional property. By neglecting constitutional property innovation, scholars who argue that legislatures should be responsible for changes in property rules have missed a significant piece of the puzzle. Consequently, the history of court-made constitutional property rights carries implications for institutional choice analyses in property law. While there may be good reasons to prefer that legislatures allocate and define novel property interests as a general matter, courts have been overlooked as sites where constitutional property rights are created and debated in response to perceived political failures.


Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the "indignados" protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest. Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around "occupied" places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square or New York's Zuccotti Park. An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.


The problem of identifying subtle time-space clustering of disease, as may be occurring in leukemia, is described and reviewed. Published approaches, generally associated with studies of leukemia, not dependent on knowledge of the underlying population for their validity, are directed towards identifying clustering by establishing a relationship between the temporal and the spatial separations for the n ( n - 1)/2 possible pairs which can be formed from the n observed cases of disease. Here it is proposed that statistical power can be improved by applying a reciprocal transform to these separations. While a permutational approach can give valid probability levels for any observed association, for reasons of practicability, it is suggested that the observed association be tested relative to its permutational variance. Formulas and computational procedures for doing so are given.

While the distance measures between points represent symmetric relationships subject to mathematical and geometric regularities, the variance formula developed is appropriate for arbitrary relationships. Simplified procedures are given for the case of symmetric and skew-symmetric relationships. The general procedure is indicated as being potentially useful in other situations as, for example, the study of interpersonal relationships. Viewing the procedure as a regression approach, the possibility for extending it to nonlinear and multivariate situations is suggested.

Other aspects of the problem and of the procedure developed are discussed.

Similarly, pure temporal clustering can be identified by a study of incidence rates in periods of widespread epidemics. In point of fact, many epidemics of communicable diseases are somewhat local in nature and so these do actually constitute temporal-spatial clusters. For leukemia and similar diseases in which cases seem to arise substantially at random rather than as clear-cut epidemics, it is necessary to devise sensitive and efficient procedures for detecting any nonrandom component of disease occurrence.

Various ingenious procedures which statisticians have developed for the detection of disease clustering are reviewed here. These procedures can be generalized so as to increase their statistical validity and efficiency. The technic to be given below for imparting statistical validity to the procedures already in vogue can be viewed as a generalized form of regression with possible useful application to problems arising in quite different contexts.


The
development of advanced electrolytes compatible with lithium metal and
lithium-ion batteries is crucial for meeting ever growing energy storage
demands. One such class of materials, single-ion conducting polymer
electrolytes (SIPEs), prevents the formation of ion concentration gradients and
buildup of anions at the electrode surface, improving performance. One of the
ongoing challenges for SIPEs is the development of materials that are
conductive enough to compete with liquid electrolytes. Presented herein is a
class of gel SIPEs based on crosslinked poly(tetrahydrofuran) diacrylate that
present enhanced room temperature conductivities of 3.5 × 10-5 S/cm
when gelled with lithium metal relevant 1,3-dioxolane/dimethoxyethane, 2.5 × 10-4
S/cm with carbonate solutions, and approaching 10-3 S/cm with
dimethyl sulfoxide. Remarkably, these materials also demonstrate high
conductivity at low temperatures, 1.8 × 10-5 S/cm at -20 °C in certain
solvents. Most
importantly however, when contrasted with identical SIPEs formulated with
poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate, the mechanisms responsible for the enhanced
conductivity are elucidated: decreasing Li+-polymer interactions and
gel solvent-polymer interactions leads to an increase in Li+
mobility, improving the ionic conductivity. These findings are generalizable to
various SIPE chemistries, and can therefore be seen as an additional set of
design parameters for developing future high conductivity SIPEs.


The masonry facade of an 18-story condominium building was constructed with an inconsistent pattern of shelf angle supports, marginal lateral restraints and without any horizontal control joints. The resulting stacking and thermal stresses produced severe cracking, spalling and bowing of the masonry walls as well as associated structural and cosmetic distress within the building. A repair plan was developed to address these deficiencies. Specifically, supplemental anchors were installed to provide proper vertical support and lateral restraint for the walls. Where necessary, shelf angles were inserted to create the appropriate intermediate levels of support. Horizontal joints were then sawcut into the walls and the distressed bricks were replaced or repaired. These remedial measures were accomplished while the building remained occupied.


For the past two years the author has been teaching economics (History of Economic Thought and Economic Development) at the tertiary level via the Internet and computer-mediation. This is done primarily for students who are unable or who do not wish to attend classes on campus, but desire an education as good, if not better, as the campus based enterprise. This paper provides a reflective analysis of the theoretical content of that practice. Teaching 'online' is a vastly different enterprise than face-to-face exercises, thereby demanding a revaluation of one's pedagogical theory and praxis. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels articulated their claim that historically dominant classes embody their ideas in essential forms, representing them as universally valid. It is within this framework that we begin to examine what it means to "know" in economics. How knowledge is legitimated in universities continues to be under-theorised, particularly with regard to electronic transmission. The mechanism of transmission of particular concern here is that which is computer-mediated. Landow represents hypertext as the latest flowering in a long march of democratic processes originating in the displacement of Platonic authority by the lesser authority of the written word. It is argued here that the determinism of the "progressive narrative" within and around the "hypertext revolution" deserves careful scrutiny, particularly in its application to pedagogy. Pedagogical artefacts, such as computers, mediate the transmission of ideas. The question "how does this happen?" relates to the complexity of theorizing the relationship between the educational process and the social relations of capitalist social formations. Over two decades ago, Bowles and Gintis attempted a Marxist understanding of the nature of this relationship. In their conception, pedagogical mechanisms were seen to operate in a fairly deterministic way to mirror and model the norms and values of the capitalist class. The role of education was seen to be confined to the transmission of those norms and values. Unveiling the hidden curriculum was the central point of their endeavour. Herein, it is argued that knowledge is not deterministically set by the structures of social formations, being transmitted unproblematically through pedagogical systems. Capitalist ideas are hegemonic only to the extent that they embody common sense propositions. Since power works in multiple sites, with respect to pedagogic discourse, winning consent requires struggle and conflict at the level of both economy and culture. In this sense, the central concerns are: "whose knowledge, in what form, how is it selected and by whom, and to what ends". Further, the technologies employed in teaching are not neutral applications that simply guide the learner; rather, the artefacts of educational technology are themselves the products of social shaping, and are implicated in the reproduction and legitimization of social knowledge and inequalities. Pedagogical praxis is also a political praxis, i.e., personal knowledge is a function of class, race and gender experiences in relation with, and towards, others. The conceptual, symbolic and physical artefacts of pedagogy provide both the means and the object of our critique, through which teachers/learners come to challenge the status and legitimacy of dominant knowledge claims. Course material will be used for purposes of exemplificati on, examples of which can be found in the appendices to this paper. Alternatively, either or both of the courses may be viewed in their entirety by the reader. Simply email the author requesting the relevant URLs and passwords.


Graphical event models are representations that capture process independence between different types of events in multivariate temporal point processes. The literature consists of various parametric models and approaches to learn them from multivariate event stream data. Since these models are interpretable, they are often able to provide beneficial insights about event dynamics. In this paper, we show how to compactly model the situation where the order of occurrences of an event's causes in some recent historical time interval impacts its occurrence rate; this sort of historical dependence is common in several real-world applications. To overcome the practical challenge of parameter explosion due to the number of potential orders that is super-exponential in the number of parents, we introduce a novel graphical event model based on a parametric tree representation for capturing ordinal historical dependence. We present an approach to learn such a model from data, demonstrating that the proposed model fits several real-world datasets better than relevant baselines. We also showcase the potential advantages of such a model to an analyst during the process of knowledge discovery.


Peridomestic transmission of American cutaneous leishmaniasis is increasingly reported and dogs may be a reservoir of Leishmania (Viannia) in this setting. We investigated the prevalence of infection in dogs in Chaparral County, Colombia, the focus of an epidemic of human cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania (Viannia) guyanensis. Two (0.72%) of 279 dogs had lesions typical of cutaneous leishmaniasis that were biopsy positive by kinetoplast DNA polymerase chain reaction-Southern blotting. Seroprevalence was 2.2% (6 of 279) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Buffy coat and ear skin biopsy specimens were positive by polymerase chain reaction-Southern blotting in 7.3% (10 of 137) and 11.4% (12 of 105) of dogs, respectively. Overall 20% of dogs (21 of 105) showed positive results for one or more tests. Amplification and sequencing of the Leishmania 7SL RNA gene identified L. guyanensis in one dog and L. braziliensis in two dogs. No association was identified between the risk factors evaluated and canine infection. Dogs may contribute to transmission but their role in this focus appears to be limited.


The ability of laboratory and clinical strains of Porphyromonas gingivalis, Prevotella intermedia and Prevotella nigrescens to bind and to degrade lactoferrin (Lf) has been assessed. Lf bound readily to whole cells of each species apparently via high-affinity site and one or more low-affinity sites. P. gingivalis showed a lower affinity for Lf than the other two species (P < 0.001). Virtually all strains of P. gingivalis completely degraded Lf under the conditions employed, whereas P. intermedia and P. nigrescens showed only partial degradation. These data suggest that Lf binds to a high-affinity receptor on all these bacteria and, particularly in the case of P. gingivalis, is then degraded by cell-associated proteases. This property may provide protection to the cell against the effects of Lf in periodontal sites and so is a possible virulence factor in disease. There was no association between the ability to degrade Lf and whether the strains had originated from healthy or diseased oral sites.


The research interest on bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) has heightened over the past decade due to its proven high activity for water oxidation and organic degradations under visible light. Although metal doping and water-oxidation cocatalyst loading have been widely demonstrated to be useful to overcome the poor electron transport and slow water oxidation kinetics of BiVO4, the efficiency of this material is still greatly limited by poor charge separation. Various efforts directed at modifying the surface and bulk properties to improve the performance of BiVO4-based materials have therefore been developed, including crystal facet engineering, coupling with graphitic carbon material, annealing treatment, and nanoscaling. This review aims to provide insights into the most recent progress in these strategies in regard to their influences on the charge separation, transport, and transfer aspects of BiVO4, all of which are crucial to govern photochemical conversion efficiency. Understanding of these charge kinetics in relation to the properties of BiVO4 is of fundamental importance for rational design of BiVO4 with optimum structures, which may serve as a general guideline for the fabrication of metal oxide photocatalysts.


Spectral analysis of skin blood flow has demonstrated low-frequency (LF, 0.03-0.15 Hz) and high-frequency (HF, 0.15-0.40 Hz) oscillations, similar to oscillations in R-R interval, systolic pressure, and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA). It is not known whether the oscillatory profile of skin blood flow is secondary to oscillations in arterial pressure or to oscillations in skin sympathetic nerve activity (SSNA). MSNA and SSNA differ markedly with regard to control mechanisms and morphology. MSNA contains vasoconstrictor fibers directed to muscle vasculature, closely regulated by baroreceptors. SSNA contains both vasomotor and sudomotor fibers, differentially responding to arousals and thermal stimuli. Nevertheless, MSNA and SSNA share certain common characteristics. We tested the hypothesis that LF and HF oscillatory components are evident in SSNA, similar to the oscillatory components present in MSNA. We studied 18 healthy normal subjects and obtained sequential measurements of MSNA and SSNA from the peroneal nerve during supine rest. Measurements were also obtained of the electrocardiogram, beat-by-beat blood pressure (Finapres), and respiration. Spectral analysis showed LF and HF oscillations in MSNA, coherent with similar oscillations in both R-R interval and systolic pressure. The HF oscillation of MSNA was coherent with respiration. Similarly, LF and HF spectral components were evident in SSNA variability, coherent with corresponding variability components of R-R interval and systolic pressure. HF oscillations of SSNA were coherent with respiration. Thus our data suggest that these oscillations may be fundamental characteristics shared by MSNA and SSNA, possibly reflecting common central mechanisms regulating sympathetic outflows subserving different regions and functions.


This work focuses on the persistence of the 'Gates of Hades' iconographic theme among the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. The analysis considers both the written tradition and the iconographic evidence surviving in funerary contexts, showing how the idea of the nether world among the eastern civilizations constituted a background for Greek and Etruscan imaginary. The chronological period considered begins with Egyptian tombs of the Ancient Kingdom and moves on to concentrate on the period between the 7th and 5th centuries B. C., when the 'Gates of Hades' theme appears in Etruscan and Lydian necropoleis and on Attic vase painting.


Pin-based shape displays not only give physical form to digital information, they have the inherent ability to accurately move and manipulate objects placed on top of them. In this paper we focus on such object manipulation: we present ideas and techniques that use the underlying shape change to give kinetic ability to otherwise inanimate objects. First, we describe the shape display's ability to assemble, disassemble, and reassemble structures from simple passive building blocks through stacking, scaffolding, and catapulting. A technical evaluation demonstrates the reliability of the presented techniques. Second, we introduce special kinematic blocks that are actuated and sensed through the underlying pins. These blocks translate vertical pin movements into other degrees of freedom like rotation or horizontal movement. This interplay of the shape display with objects on its surface allows us to render otherwise inaccessible forms, like overhangs, and enables richer input and output.


The main argument of this article is that defining international terrorism will further the protection of human rights in the context of counter-terrorism. For this purpose, it will be shown that the transnational legal system under which counter-terrorism operates is fraught with problems regarding human rights protection. Secondly, it will be shown how domestic counter-terrorism legislation can become a breeding ground for serious human rights violations, when based on too broad or otherwise problematic definitions of terrorism. Finally, it will be explored how human rights protection has been addressed so far by the relevant bodies of the United Nations and to what extent, if finalised, an internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism in the framework of the UN Comprehensive Convention will contribute to a fuller enjoyment of rights in a counterterrorism context.


Activation of renal a-adrenergic receptors induces vasoconstriction, proximal tubular reabsorption of sodium, and inhibition of renin release. Excesses of these effects are present in varying degrees in animal models of, and in patients with, "essential" hypertension. Since essential hyperten-sion is genetically determined, we sought abnormalities of renal α-adrenergic receptors in the Oka-moto- Aoki strain of spontaneously hypertensive rats (sr-SHR) and their stroke-prone variant (sp-SHR). Total α-adrenergic receptor concentrations were determined by Scatchard analysis of [3H]dihydroergocryptine binding to a renal membrane fraction and were found to be increased (p < 0.02) in male sr-SHR at 4, 16, and 32 weeks of age and in female sr-SHR at 16 weeks of age as compared to age- and sex-matched Wistar-Kyoto controls. They were also increased in 9-week-old sp-SHR renal membranes (p < 0.005). Further studies revealed that this increase in renal α-adrenergic receptors was due entirely to an increase in α2-receptors as measured by [3H]yohimbine binding rather than to an increase in α1-receptors as quantitated by [3H]prazosin binding. No difference in binding affinities of the various radioligands could be demonstrated between any of the hypertensive and normotensive groups of rats. Plasma norepinephrine levels were elevated (p < 0.01) in the 4-, 9- and 16-week-old SHR, but not in the 32-week-old hypertensive rats. Thus, high renal α2-adrenergic receptor number is coupled with a significant increase in plasma norepinephrine concentrations during the development of hypertension in SHR. By mediating an enhanced receptor-coupled re-sponse, such as increased proximal tubular sodium reabsorption, this abnormality of renal α-adren-ergic receptors may contribute to some or all of the pathophysiologic derangements leading to hypertension in SHR. (Hypertension 4: 881–887, 1982)


Abstract. There is a long-standing challenge in cloud and climate models to simulate the process of ice particle riming realistically, partly due to the unrealistic parameterization of the growth of ice particle mass (m) and projected area (A) during riming. This study addresses this problem, utilizing ground-based measurements of m and ice particle maximum dimension (D) as well as theory to formulate simple expressions describing the dependence of m and A on riming. It was observed that β in the m − D power law m  = α Dβ appears independent of riming during the phase 1 (before the formation of graupel), with α accounting for the ice particle mass increase due to riming. This semi-empirical approach accounts for the degree of riming and renders a gradual and smooth ice particle growth process from unrimed ice particles to graupel, and thus avoids discontinuities in m and A during accretional growth. Once the graupel with quasi-spherical shape forms, D increases with an increase in m and A (phase 2 of riming). The treatment for riming is explicit, and includes the parameterization of the ice crystal–cloud droplet collision efficiency (Ec) for hexagonal columns and plates using hydrodynamic theory. In particular, Ec for cloud droplet diameters less than 10 µm are estimated, and under some conditions observed in mixed-phase clouds, these droplets can account for roughly half of the mass growth rate from riming. These physically meaningful yet simple methods can be used in models to improve the riming process.


Loopy belief propagation has been employed in a wide variety of applications with great empirical success, but it comes with few theoretical guarantees. In this paper we investigate the use of the max-product form of belief propagation for weighted matching problems on general graphs. We show that max-product converges to the correct answer if the linear programming (LP) relaxation of the weighted matching problem is tight and does not converge if the LP relaxation is loose. This provides an exact characterization of max-product performance and reveals connections to the widely used optimization technique of LP relaxation. In addition, we demonstrate that max-product is effective in solving practical weighted matching problems in a distributed fashion by applying it to the problem of self-organization in sensor networks.


N‐of‐1 study designs involve the collection and analysis of repeated measures data from an individual not using an intervention and using an intervention. This study explores the use of semi‐parametric and parametric bootstrap tests in the analysis of N‐of‐1 studies under a single time series framework in the presence of autocorrelation. When the Type I error rates of bootstrap tests are compared to Wald tests, our results show that the bootstrap tests have more desirable properties. We compare the results for normally distributed errors with those for contaminated normally distributed errors and find that, except when there is relatively large autocorrelation, there is little difference between the power of the parametric and semi‐parametric bootstrap tests. We also experiment with two intervention designs: ABAB and AB, and show the ABAB design has more power. The results provide guidelines for designing N‐of‐1 studies, in the sense of how many observations and how many intervention changes are needed to achieve a certain level of power and which test should be performed.


Background: Well-known risk factors for Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) are exposure to antibiotics and gastric acid suppressants. Recent studies have provided some evidence of an association between hypovitaminosis D and the risk of CDI. Therefore, this meta-analysis aimed to pool all the existing evidence to investigate the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) and CDI. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in 3 databases (PubMed, Embase, and Web of Sciences) for epidemiological studies that examined the association between mean 25(OH)D concentrations and CDI as well as between 25(OH)D status and CDI severity or recurrence. 25(OH)D status was defined as "lower" or "higher" at a threshold concentration of <20 or ≥20 ng/mL, respectively. Pooled effect sizes were computed using the inverse variance heterogeneity model of meta-analysis. Results: Eight publications (n = 4479 patients) were included in the meta-analysis. The mean concentration of 25(OH)D in patients with CDI was 3.54 ng/mL (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.39–6.89 ng/mL) lower than in patients without CDI. Patients with lower 25(OH)D status had a higher odds (odds ratio [OR], 1.61; 95% CI, 1.02–2.53) of developing severe CDI compared with those with a higher 25(OH)D status. No significant association was found between 25(OH)D status and CDI recurrence. Conclusion: The results of this meta-analysis suggest that lower mean concentrations of 25(OH)D were associated with CDI. A lower 25(OH)D status increased the odds of severe CDI but not of CDI recurrence.


This chapter provides expert coverage of the physical properties of new noncrystalline solids—tellurite glass and the latest laser applications of the material—offering insights into innovative applications for laser and sensing devices, among others. In particular, there is a focus on specialty optical fibers, supercontinuum generation and laser devices, and luminescence properties for laser applications. This chapter also addresses the fabrication and optical properties and uses of tellurite glasses in optical fibers and optical microcavities, the significance of from near infrared (NIR) to mid-infrared (MIR) emissions and the development of tellurite glass-based microcavity lasers. The important attributes of these tellurite glasses and their applications in lasers were discussed in this chapter.


Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (1H, 13C, and 31P) have been applied to the study of fractions of humic acids in Irish peat. Owing to the high fluorescence of these materials, no Raman spectra have been obtained, up to now, for the characterization of humic acids. The SERS technique was employed for the first time in the study of these complex substances, demonstrating that very valuable information about the aromatic groups and the spacial conformation of these macromolecules in water solution can be obtained. The combined use of these techniques has evidenced an increase of oxygenated groups in those fractions containing humic acids with low molecular weight. The presence of a greater number of carboxylate and phenolic groups can explain the high concentration of metals and phosphate ions found in these fractions.


The SoccerNet 2022 challenges were the second annual video understanding challenges organized by the SoccerNet team. In 2022, the challenges were composed of 6 vision-based tasks: (1) action spotting, focusing on retrieving action timestamps in long untrimmed videos, (2) replay grounding, focusing on retrieving the live moment of an action shown in a replay, (3) pitch localization, focusing on detecting line and goal part elements, (4) camera calibration, dedicated to retrieving the intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters, (5) player re-identification, focusing on retrieving the same players across multiple views, and (6) multiple object tracking, focusing on tracking players and the ball through unedited video streams. Compared to last year's challenges, tasks (1-2) had their evaluation metrics redefined to consider tighter temporal accuracies, and tasks (3-6) were novel, including their underlying data and annotations. More information on the tasks, challenges and leaderboards are available on https://www.soccer-net.org. Baselines and development kits are available on https://github.com/SoccerNet.


Effective stroke rehabilitation is characterised by an interdisciplinary team working cohesively and closely to provide a comprehensive program for each patient. These programs vary in the types of therapies provided as well as their intensity, frequency, and duration. Evidence related to stroke rehabilitation effectiveness, location, management, and composition is presented in this review. As well, past metaanalyses of stroke rehabilitation effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and comparison with other interventions are presented.


A number of theorists have proposed simulation theories of empathy. A review of these theories shows that, despite the fact that one version of the simulation theory can avoid a number of problems associated with such approaches, there are further reasons to doubt whether simulation actually explains empathy. A high-level simulation account of empathy, distinguished from the simulation theory of mindreading, can avoid problems associated with low-level (neural) simulationist accounts; but it fails to adequately address two other problems: the diversity problem and the starting problem. It is argued that a narrative approach to empathy obviates all these problems and offers a more parsimonious account.


An absolute essential for any elementary level student.

Essential Grammar in Use Third edition is a fully updated version of this best-selling grammar title. Now in full colour, with new content and even more exercises, this updated edition retains all the key features of clarity and ease-of-use that have made the book so popular with learners and teachers alike. Designed to be flexible, the Third edition is available both with and without answers, making it ideal for self-study, but also suitable for reinforcement work in the classroom. The 'with answers' version of the book comes with a handy pull-out reference panel which allows learners to review key grammar points at a glance. It is also available with a CD-ROM, offering extra practice of all the grammar covered at this level.


The notion of 'sustainability' emerged in The Ecologist's A Blueprint for Survival, in 1972. The quest to make modern civilization 'sustainable' inspired the UN's Stockholm Conference in 1972 and the 'global trusteeship' of subsequent international environmental treaties. 'Sustainability' is related to 'futurity', hence the Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined sustainable development as 'development which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. 'Sustainability' animates 'the precautionary principle', affirmed by the European Union (EU) in 1990 in its Bergen Declaration on Sustainable Development, which requires ecological preservation in cases of scientific uncertainty where serious or irreversible damage is threatened. The Earth Summit in 1992 established 'sustainable development' as the most important policy of the 21st century. 'Sustainability' is at the heart of The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, accords signed at the Earth Summit that herald a new paradigm of society, economics and the environment. The EU's Fifth Environmental Action Programme (1993) pursues 'sustainability' in industry, energy, transport, agriculture and tourism. 'Sustainability' has also been endorsed by the Clinton Administration (1994). In the light of these events, 'sustainability' is now used widely in biology, economics, sociology, urban planning, ethics and other domains. It is regarded as tantamount to a new philosophy, in which principles of futurity, equity, global environmentalism and biodiversity must guide decision-making. Far from being a mere doctrine of development science, 'sustainability' has emerged as a universal methodology for evaluating whether human options will yield social and environmental vitality.


Courts in First Amendment cases long have invoked the truth-seeking value of speech, but they rarely probe its meaning or significance, and some ignore it altogether. As new cases implicate questions of truth and falsity, thorough assessment of the value is needed. This Article fills the gap by making three claims. First, interest in truth-seeking has resurfaced in journalism, politics, philosophy, and fiction, converging on a concept of provisional or "functional" truth. Second, the appeal of functional truth for the law may be that it clarifies thinking about a range of human priorities — survival, progress, and character — without insisting on truth in an absolute or transcendent sense. Third, the law's current treatment of truth-seeking in First Amendment cases turns on whether a case implicates the truth of the past, present, or future. Cases about past truth involve its knowability; cases about present truth involve its hiddenness; and cases about future truth involve its falsification. Because judicial treatment of truth-seeking in each of these groupings is underdeveloped, legal thought can benefit from literary works by three major novelists: Paul Scott, author of Staying On; Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Never Let Me Go; and Ian McEwan, author of Atonement. Each of these works clarifies an important aspect of the truth-seeking value of expressive freedoms. The Article concludes by considering the value's limitations, focusing on the complex setting of campaign finance.


Even as globalization seems to be in retreat in political circles, the march of commercialization and markets continues. Government policies, whether tariffs, exits, or walls, cannot impede the competitive drive to meet consumer demand for products and services, whether within national boundaries or across them. In the sphere of intellectual property rights, the doctrine of exhaustion serves to limit the rights of intellectual property owners after a specific exercise of some or all of the rights. This volume provides an assessment of the successes and failures of the exhaustion doctrine as it has been applied through recent judicial decisions in the United States and the European Union. Irene Calboli and Shubha Ghosh explore how evolving interpretations of the exhaustion doctrine affects the large trade in gray market products and other international trade issues. A comparative approach to exhaustion, Exhausting Intellectual Property Rights offers a unique discussion of the often overlooked issue of overlapping rights.


Cloud computing is growing exponentially, whereby there are now hundreds of cloud service providers (CSPs) of various sizes. While the cloud consumers may enjoy cheaper data storage and computation offered in this multi-cloud environment, they are also in face of more complicated reliability issues and privacy preservation problems of their outsourced data. Though searchable encryption allows users to encrypt their stored data while preserving some search capabilities, few efforts have sought to consider the reliability of the searchable encrypted data outsourced to the clouds. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving STorage and REtrieval (STRE) mechanism that not only ensures security and privacy but also provides reliability guarantees for the outsourced searchable encrypted data. The STRE mechanism enables the cloud users to distribute and search their encrypted data across multiple independent clouds managed by different CSPs, and is robust even when a certain number of CSPs crash. Besides the reliability, STRE also offers the benefit of partially hidden search pattern. We evaluate the STRE mechanism on Amazon EC2 using a real world dataset and the results demonstrate both effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.


With the increase of terrorist activity around the world, it has become more important than ever to analyze and understand these activities over time. Although the data on terrorist activities are detailed and relevant, the complexity of the data has rendered the understanding and analysis difficult. We present a visual analytical approach to effectively identify related entities such as terrorist groups, events, locations, etc. based on a 2D layout. Our methods are based on sequence comparison from bioinformatics, modified to incorporate the element of time. By allowing the user the freedom to link entities by their activities over time, we provide a new framework for comparison of event sequences. Our scoring mechanism is robust and flexible, giving the user the flexibility to define the extent to which time is considered in aligning entities. Incorporated with high interactivity, the user can efficiently navigate through tens of thousands of records recorded in over a hundred dimensions of data by choosing combinations of categories to examine. Exploration of the terrorist activities in our system reveals relationships between entities that are not easily detectable using traditional methods.


Nongastric primary extranodal mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphomas are uncommon, with around 0.1% occurring in the prostate. Even less frequent is the presence of MALT lymphoma synchronous with another type of neoplasm in the same organ, especially the prostate. Only a single case of concurrent adenocarcinoma and MALT lymphoma of the prostate has been reported in the literature. We report a rare case of primary extranodal marginal zone MALT lymphoma incidentally diagnosed during radical prostatectomy for an adenocarcinoma of the prostate in a 53-year-old patient. Fourteen months later a recurrence of the MALT lymphoma involving both sides of the diaphragm was found and was treated with chemoimmunotherapy. High-dose radiotherapy was delivered to residual bulky disease in the pelvic region. At 18 months from the end of radiation treatment the patient was without signs of relapse of MALT lymphoma. This preliminary result confirms that rare cases of MALT lymphoma of the prostate should be discussed and treated under the collaborative supervision of hematologists and medical and radiation oncologists. In fact, at an advanced stage of the disease, a chemotherapy regimen with additional consolidation radiotherapy could be an effective strategy, as in all other lymphomas.


Ascochyta blight (AB) resistance reactions were studied in 23 chickpea cultivars, mainly advanced lines and Tunisian varieties from the Tunisian chickpea breeding program, growing both at two locations and under controlled conditions. Two co-dominant markers both associated with AB resistance were also used in this study; the CaETR marker tightly linked to QT LAR1 in combination with the SCAR SCY17 590 marker linked to QTL AR2 to explore their usefulness in discriminating between resistant and susceptible chickpea genotypes. These two markers contribute efficiently in the selection of new chickpea varieties with better combinations of alleles to ensure durable resistance to AB. The advanced line V10 presenting the resistance allele for CaETR, but being still heterozygous for the SCAR17 590 was characterized as resistant to moderately resistant in field studies and under controlled conditions. This line could be very useful for developing a new variety that is fixed for both resistance alleles and expresses good levels of resistance to AB in different chickpea cropping environments. These markers are very useful in assisting chickpea breeding programs, especially thanks to their robustness, their co-dominance and their utility across different genetic backgrounds.


In this study, nasal swabs taken from multiparous sows at weaning time or from sick pigs displaying symptoms of Glasser's disease from farms in Australia [date not given] were cultured and analysed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Within each genotype detected on a farm, representative isolates were serotyped by gel diffusion (GD) testing or indirect haemagglutination (IHA) test. Isolates which did not react in any of the tests were regarded as non-typable and were termed serovar NT. Serovars 1, 5, 12, 13 and 14 were classified as highly pathogenic; serovars 2, 4 and 15 being moderately pathogenic; serovar 8 being slightly pathogenic and serovars 3, 6, 7, 9 and 11 being non-pathogenic. Sows were inoculated with the strain of Haemophilus parasuis (serovars 4, 6 and 9 from Farms 1, 2 and 4, respectively) used for controlled challenge 3 and 5 weeks before farrowing. Before farrowing the sows were divided into control and treatment groups. Five to seven days after birth, the piglets of the treatment group were challenged with a strain from the farm which had were used to vaccinate the sows. The effectiveness of the controlled exposure was evaluated by number of piglets displaying clinical signs possibly related to infection, number of antibiotic treatments and pig mortality. Nasal swabs of sick pigs were taken twice a week to find a correlation to infection. A subsample of pigs was weighed after leaving the weaning sheds. The specificity of a realtime PCR amplifying the infB gene was evaluated with 68 H. parasuis isolates and 36 strains of closely related species. 239 samples of DNA from tissues and fluids of 16 experimentally challenged animals were also tested with the realtime PCR, and the results compared with culture and a conventional PCR. The farm experiments showed that none of the controlled challenge pigs showed any signs of illness due to Glasser's disease, although the treatment groups required more antibiotics than the controls. A total of 556 H. parasuis isolates were genotyped, while 150 isolates were serotyped. H. parasuis was detected on 19 of 20 farms, including 2 farms with an extensive history of freedom from Glasser's disease. Isolates belonging to serovars regarded as potentially pathogenic were obtained from healthy pigs at weaning on 8 of the 10 farms with a history of Glasser's disease outbreaks. Sampling 213 sick pigs yielded 115 isolates, 99 of which belonged to serovars that were either potentially pathogenic or of unknown pathogenicity. Only 16 isolates from these sick pigs were of a serovar known to be non-pathogenic. Healthy pigs also had H. parasuis, even on farms free of Glasser's disease. The realtime PCR gave positive results for all 68 H. parasuis isolates and negative results for all 36 non-target bacteria. When used on the clinical material from experimental infections, the realtime PCR produced significantly more positive results than the conventional PCR (165 compared to 86).


Professional development and teacher education policies have the potential to greatly affect teachers' abilities to teach and, as a result, students' abilities to learn. States can play varied roles in the provision of teacher education and professional development. This policy brief summarizes states' policy approaches to teacher professional development and education throughout teachers' careers. It explores what states are currently doing in the realms of pre-service education, induction and mentoring, ongoing professional development, and teacher evaluation, as well as the existing evidence regarding the effectiveness of such policies. We find that states play disparate roles in the provision of teacher education and professional development that fall along the regulatory spectrum from highly prescriptive to rather laissez-faire. Research on the effects of such policies is still in the early stages, and more attention is needed to determine the effectiveness of states' professional development policies.


Social media and big data uses form part of a broader shift from 'reactive' to 'proactive' forms of governance in which state bodies engage in analysis to predict, pre-empt and respond in real time to a range of social problems. Drawing on research with British police, we contextualize these algorithmic processes within actual police practices, focusing on protest policing. Although aspects of algorithmic decision-making have become prominent in police practice, our research shows that they are embedded within a continuous human–computer negotiation that incorporates a rooted claim to 'professional judgement', an integrated intelligence context and a significant level of discretion. This context, we argue, transforms conceptions of threats. We focus particularly on three challenges: the inclusion of pre-existing biases and agendas, the prominence of marketing-driven software, and the interpretation of unpredictability. Such a contextualized analysis of data uses provides important insights for the shifting terrain of possibilities for dissent.


As the annotation of multimedia documents uses multiple descriptors, it is possible to define multiple, semantically meaningful, similarity (or dissimilarity) relations among them. Therefore, for cases such as the mining of user interests for consumption of multimedia documents, based on usage history, where the clustering of documents is necessary, it is important to develop context aware clustering algorithms that are able to handle this type of information. We explain the relation between context, user interest and the multiple relations; furthermore, we present a clustering algorithm that is able to mine user interests from multi-relational data sets.


BACKGROUND
Data from large, multicenter, US studies determining the efficacy of triple therapy for the eradication of Helicobacter pylori are lacking, especially for a treatment duration of less than 14 days.

METHODS
Patients with H pylori infection and active duodenal ulcer disease or a history of duodenal ulcer disease within the past year were randomized to receive 30 mg of lansoprazole, 1 g of amoxicillin, and 500 mg of clarithromycin twice daily for 10 or 14 days. The primary efficacy end point was the eradication of H pylori as confirmed by negative histological and culture results at 4 to 6 weeks after the completion of treatment.

RESULTS
Of 284 patients enrolled in the study from 46 US sites, 236 met the entry criteria. At 4 to 6 weeks after the end of therapy, H pylori was eradicated in 85% (96/ 113) of the patients receiving 14-day triple therapy and in 84% (103/123) of those receiving 10-day triple therapy by per-protocol analysis (95% confidence interval for treatment group differences, -10.5 to 8.1; P>.05). There was also no significant difference between the 14- and 10-day treatment groups when analyzed by an intent-to-treat analysis of H pylori eradication. A similar proportion of patients in each treatment group reported an adverse event related to therapy (34% [46/136] vs 38% [56/148], respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with an active or a recent history of duodenal ulcer, lansoprazole-based triple therapy for 10 or 14 days is highly effective in the eradication of H pylori. The duration of therapy may be reduced from 14 to 10 days without a significant effect on regimen efficacy.


Problem area. Understanding what stress experience the Lithuanian nurses in intensive care. analyzing the influence of stress to the her health. How nurses can it control and manage in their work. Research questions are: • How nurses understand, what is the stress? • What is the microclimat in intensive care department? • How you collaborate with colleagues? • What are the main reasons of the stress? • How the stress influence in your health? Overall research aim To describe nurses working in intensive care, their stress experiences and how to manage this. 1 part aim To identify stress experience of nurses in intensive care. This paper work has the following tasks: 1. To review that is the stress 2. To explain the stress causing factors in literature review 3. To illuminate how nurses can control and manage the stress theoretically 2 part study aim To illuminate experience of stress among Lithuanian nurses working in intensive care. This paper work has the following tasks: 1. To explore what is the stress. 2. To illuminate the nurses thoughts and feelings about their stress experience. 3. To illuminate that influence have stress to nurses in intensive care 4. To illuminate how is importance to manage and to control the stress in nursing work. This study. The thesis is designed as two part study. Systematically review of the literature relating to stress and nurse's experience was used in 1 part of study. A literature review based on eleven scientific articles from 1993-2004, from the databases of PubMed and Elin @Blekinge, with the purpose to describe nurses experiences about stress in intensive care. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in 2 part study. Data collected from X intensive care of Kaunas Medical University hospital. Ten nurses took par in a semi-structured interview one-two times (about 30min. to 1 hour). Ethical approval for this study was granted by Ethics Committee of Kaunas Medical University hospital, Intensive care department which consist form several departments: Cardio anaesthetical, Central intensive care, Neuro surgical. Content analysis was used to classify the answers of the semi-structured questions. There was no specific theory used to classify information, data was the sole source of the analysis. The content analysis study goal is to offer knowledge of the experience relating to certain phenomenon and will also give a deeper understanding of the studied phenomenon. Through this analysis, the author tried to perceive the themes in the written material. The result of the study showed that most of nurses experienced negative feelings because of stress. The results showed that, this knowledge would help us understand the importance of how to manage and control nurses stress, in order to research general aim - the best caring and nursing of patients and the excellent medical aim.