Over the past few decades, clearing for shrimp farming has caused severe losses of mangroves in the Mekong Delta (MD) of Vietnam. Although the increasing importance of shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam has brought significant financial benefits to the local communities, the rapid and largely uncontrolled increase in aquacultural area has contributed to a considerable loss of mangrove forests and to environmental degradation. Although different approaches have been used for mangrove classification, no approach to date has addressed the challenges of the special conditions that can be found in the aquaculture-mangrove system in the Ca Mau province of the MD. This paper presents an object-based classification approach for estimating the percentage of mangroves in mixed mangrove-aquaculture farming systems to assist the government to monitor the extent of the shrimp farming area. The method comprises multi-resolution segmentation and classification of SPOT5 data using a decision tree approach as well as local knowledge from the region of interest. The results show accuracies higher than 75% for certain classes at the object level. Furthermore, we successfully detect areas with mixed aquaculture-mangrove land cover with high accuracies. Based on these results, mangrove development, especially within shrimp farming-mangrove systems, can be monitored. However, the mangrove forest cover fraction per object is affected by image segmentation and thus does not always correspond to the real farm boundaries. It remains a serious challenge, then, to accurately map mangrove forest cover within mixed systems.


In this introductory chapter to a collective volume dealing with the political economy of entrepreneurship,* we argue, based on a suggested unifying framework, that political economy is a fruitful approach to entrepreneurship. The importance of institutions in structuring such an analysis is also emphasized. The introduction also introduces the selected articles and puts them in context. Vital functions of the capitalist economy are ascribed to the productive entrepreneur, but the selected articles also show that the social value of entrepreneurship must be evaluated as it is realized. Three facets of entrepreneurship are claimed to be of particular importance from a political economy perspective: (i) Entrepreneurship is dynamic in the sense that it adapts to the politically determined institutional framework within which it acts. Under propitious circumstances, it can be a powerful engine of growth, but it can also be channelled in unproductive and destructive directions. (ii) Entrepreneurship enters directly into the political system. The close connection to property rights constitutes a link between entrepreneurship and private versus public ownership and redistribution. Under unfavourable institutional circumstances, rent-seeking and predatory entrepreneurship, via the political system, offer greater profit opportunities than the market. (iii) A political economy approach is necessary in order to understand how the political system shapes the institutional setup. Here, it is emphasized that the distribution of political power is partly determined by economic wealth. Hence, it is relevant to broaden the analysis to the effects on wealth creation and wealth redistribution stemming from entrepreneurial activity.


Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world. It is the main reason why research in this field becomes challenging. Not only for the pathologist but also from the view of a computer scientist. Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) images are the most common modalities used by the pathologist for cancer detection. The status of cancer with histopathology images can be classified based on the shape, morphology, intensity, and texture of the image. The use of full high-resolution histopathology images will take a longer time for the extraction of all information due to the huge amount of data. This study proposed advance texture extraction by multi-patch images pixel method with sliding windows that minimize loss of information in each pixel patch. We use texture feature Gray Level Co-Occurrence Matrix (GLCM) with a mean-shift filter as the data pre-processing of the images. The mean-shift filter is a low-pass filter technique that considers the surrounding pixels of the images. The proposed GLCM method is then trained using Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and compared to other classification techniques for benchmarking. For training, we use two hardware: NVIDIA GPU GTX-980 and TESLA K40c. According to the study, Deep Neural Network outperforms other classifiers with the highest accuracy and deviation standard 96.72±0.48 for four cross-validations. The additional information is that training using Theano framework is faster than Tensorflow for both in GTX-980 and Tesla K40c.


Most prostate cancers depend on androgens for growth and therefore the mainstay treatment for advanced, recurrent or metastatic prostate cancer is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). A prominent side effect in patients receiving ADT is an obese frailty syndrome that includes fat gain and sarcopenia, defined as the loss of muscle function accompanied by reduced muscle mass or quality. Mice bearing Pten deficient prostate cancers were examined to gain mechanistic insight into ADT-induced sarcopenic obesity. Castration induced fat gain as well as skeletal muscle mass and strength loss. Catabolic TGFß-family myokine protein levels were increased immediately prior to strength loss and pan-myokine blockade using a soluble receptor (ActRIIB-Fc) completely reversed the castration-induced sarcopenia. The onset of castration-induced strength and muscle mass loss, as well as the increase in catabolic TGFß-family myokine protein levels, were coordinately accelerated in tumor-bearing mice relative to tumor-free mice. Notably, GDF11 increased in muscle after castration only in tumor-bearing mice, but not in tumor free mice. An early surge of GDF11 in prostate tumor tissue and in the circulation suggests that endocrine GDF11 signaling from tumor to muscle is a major driver of the accelerated ADT-induced sarcopenic phenotype. In tumor-bearing mice, GDF11 blockade largely prevented castration-induced strength loss but did not preserve muscle mass, which confirms a primary role for GDF11 in muscle function and suggests an additional role for the other catabolic myokines.


Computer Vision (CV) is a rapidly growing field, intent on enabling computers to process, analyze, and understand the information of images to produce structured information and/or make decisions. In recent years, interest in computer vision has grown in part as a result of both cheaper and more capable cameras, but also largely because of affordable and increasing levels of computer processing power. Computer vision and image processing algorithms are involved with a range of applications: object detection, face detection & recognition, augmented reality, optical character recognition, navigation, and robotics. As the field of computer vision has matured, the resulting outcomes (face detection, object tracking, panoramic photo stitching, content search) have literally been placed in the hands of computer engineering and computer science students, in the form of their mobile phones and devices. Computer performance is still a primary barrier to seamless computer vision and thus represents an excellent target for teaching parallel programming techniques. In many ways such vision and image applications allow students to demonstrate their work to others by demonstrating easily understood outcomes. In the context of GPU programming, computer vision algorithms serve not only as an effective model for CUDA and OpenCL, but also in exploring computer organization bottlenecks. Lastly, computer vision applications give students a unique real-time requirement for which to explore optimization and parallel programming creativity since often solutions involve interesting heuristics applied within codes. The paper showcases several example computer vision algorithms used in teaching computer engineering concepts in computer programming, GPU programming, and computer architecture. All exercises and source codes of this paper will be made available for download and use by anyone in the community at the time of workshop presentation. Keywords-component; Computer vision, GPU programming,


ing and Indexing • Embase (Elsevier) • SCOPUS (Elsevier) Society Information Founded in 1900, the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) is a scientific society dedicated to improving the understanding and use of existing drug therapies and developing better and safer treatments for the future. With more than 2,000 professionals whose primary interest is to promote and advance the science of human pharmacology and therapeutics, the society is the largest scientific and professional organization serving the discipline of clinical pharmacology. To learn more, or to apply for membership, visit: www.ascpt.org All articles published in this journal are made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Permission is therefore not required for academic or commercial reuse, provided that full attribution is included in the new work. Disclaimer The Publisher, Society and Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this journal; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Publisher, Society and Editors, neither does the publication of advertisements constitute any endorsement by the Publisher, Society and Editors of the products advertised. Publisher CPT: Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology is published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148; Telephone: 781-388-8200; Fax: 781-388-8210.


Several studies in the marketing literature show that perceptual brand metrics are related to the intangible value of a firm and improve the ability to predict future cash flows. Using perceptual brand data for the three largest economies in Europe, the authors extend previous research by investigating whether perceived brand familiarity, differentiation and energy are reliable customer-based brand equity metrics for predicting future firm value. Furthermore, they investigate what impact these measures have on financial performance, measured as cash flow volatility. The authors find that notwithstanding the revealed cash flow relevance of energy, only changes in brand familiarity are associated with investors' expectations of future cash flows.


Background: Almost 60 million people are infected with and 25 million people have already died from HIV/AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected, with 67% of all people living with HIV and 91% of all new infections amongst children and 14 million children orphaned by HIV-related deaths. HIV can be transmitted from a pregnant mother to her child during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. In South Africa (SA) the mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT) rate is under 4% at 4 to 8 weeks after birth since implementation of the most recent national prevention of MTCT (PMTCT) programme. Aim: This study sought to investigate the level of knowledge of nurses and doctors working at Odi Hospital in Tshwane, and whether they were putting the current PMTCT programme into practice. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was undertaken using self-administered questionnaires developed from the current PMTCT guidelines. Results: Of the 102 participants, 12 (12%) were doctors and 90 (88%) nurses, of whom 9 (9%) were male and 93 (91%) female. Mean knowledge percentage was 60.8% and mean practice percentage was 77%. Regarding knowledge, the question on HIV counselling and testing scored an average 93.1%, while that on doses of drugs used in the PMTCT guidelines scored 17.7%. For practice questions scores ranged from 71% to 82%. Conclusion: Nurses and doctors working at Odi Hospital knew that HIV counselling and testing is important and must be done for all mothers; however, they were unsure of the dosages of drugs used for PMTCT. More than two-thirds of the doctors and nurses reported practising the PMTCT guidelines, but as their knowledge was inadequate their practice may not be appropriate.


Feasibility of Nuclear Plasma Interaction studies with the Activation Technique Thembalethu Nogwanya Master of Science Degree Electron-mediated nuclear plasma interactions (NPIs), such as Nuclear Excitation by Electron Capture (NEEC) or Transition (NEET), can have a significant impact on nuclear cross sections in High Energy Density Plasmas (HEDPs). HEDP environments are found in nuclear weapons tests, National Ignition Facility (NIF) shots and in the cosmos where nucleosynthesis takes place. This thesis explores the impact of NPIs on highly excited nuclei. This impact is understood to be more intense in highly-excited nuclei states in the quasi-contiuum which is populated by nuclear reactions prior to their decay by spontaneous γ-ray emission. Attempts thus far have failed in measuring the NEEC process [1, 2], while NEET process has been observed experimentally [3, 4]. Direct observation of NPIs is hindered by the lack of a clear signature of their effect in HEDP environments. Hence this should test a new signature [5] for NPIs for highly-excited nuclei by investigating isomeric to ground state feeding from the isomeric state. An experiment was performed using the reactions Au(C, C)Au and Au(C, C2n)Au at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in inverse kinematics with an Au beam of 8.5 MeV/u energy. Several measurements were performed with different target configurations. The activated foils were counted at the low-background counting facility of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. From these data, the double isomeric to ground state ratio (DIGS) were extracted with the assistance of the decay equations that were included in the experiment. As the NPIs effects are rather small the lines for analysis had to be chosen carefully so that the extracted ratios would not contain significant errors. The measured DIGS ratios were then compared with the result of the theoretical DIGS ratios. The results showed that the calculated DIGS ratios deviated substantially from unity although this was with large uncertainties. Because of the large errors obtained, the DIGS ratios were found to be inconclusive as a signature for detecting the effects of NPIs such as angular momentum distribution changes in HEDP environments. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/


CD4 T follicular helper (TFH) cells interact with and stimulate the generation of antigen-specific B cells. TFH cell interaction with B cells correlates with production of SIV-specific immunoglobulins. However, the fate of TFH cells and their participation in SIV-induced antibody production is not well understood. We investigated the phenotype, function, location, and molecular signature of TFH cells in rhesus macaques. Similar to their human counterparts, TFH cells in rhesus macaques represented a heterogeneous population with respect to cytokine function. In a highly differentiated subpopulation of TFH cells, characterized by CD150lo expression, production of Th1 cytokines was compromised while IL-4 production was augmented, and cells exhibited decreased survival, cycling, and trafficking capacity. TFH cells exhibited a distinct gene profile that was markedly altered by SIV infection. TFH cells were infected by SIV; yet, in some animals, these cells actually accumulated during chronic SIV infection. Generalized immune activation and increased IL-6 production helped drive TFH differentiation during SIV infection. Accumulation of TFH cells was associated with increased frequency of activated germinal center B cells and SIV-specific antibodies. Therefore, chronic SIV does not disturb the ability of TFH cells to help B cell maturation and production of SIV-specific immunoglobulins.


The feasibility of using planted biofilters for purification of recirculated aquaculture water in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam was assessed. The plant trenches were able to clean tilapia aquaculture water and to maintain good water quality in the fish tanks without renewal of the water. NH4-N was removed efficiently in the plant trenches, particularly in the trenches with Canna glauca L., probably because of plant uptake and nitrification– denitrification. Plant uptake constituted 6% of N and 7% of P in the input feed. Approximately 1.0 m 3 of water was needed per kg of fish produced, and 370, 97 and 2842 g fresh aboveground biomass of Ipomoea aquatica Forssk., Lactuca sativa L. and C. glauca, respectively, were produced. The leafy vegetables provide some extra income besides fish products, whereas C. glauca provides nice flowers and contributes to a significant nutrient removal with annual uptake rates of 725 kg N and 234 kg P ha 1 year 1 . This research demonstrates that integrated recirculating aquaculture-hydroponics (aquaponics) systems provide significant water savings and nutrient recycling as compared with traditional fish ponds.


Discourse markers and modal particles are fuzzy linguistic categories that are difficult to describe. The contributions in this volume go beyond this statement. They discuss the intersection between modal particles and discourse markers and examine whether or not it is possible to draw a line between these two types of linguistic expressions. On the basis of new synchronic and diachronic data, from speech and writing, from European and Asian languages or cross-linguistically, the authors answer the question whether discourse markers and modal particles are distinct categories, whether they form a cline, or whether modal particles are a subcategory of discourse markers. This common question shows up throughout all chapters, which makes the book to a coherent whole. By disentangling the complexity of categorizing multifunctional expressions, this book also sheds new light on the processes of meaning extension. The traditional discourse and modal functions are complemented by interactional and textual ones. A must read for functional linguists


Drugs that inhibit DNA topoisomerase I and DNA topoisomerase II have been widely used in cancer chemotherapy. We report herein the results of a focused medicinal chemistry effort around novel ellipticinium salts which target topoisomerase I and II enzymes with improved solubility. The salts were prepared by reaction of ellipticine with the required alkyl halide and evaluated for DNA intercalation, topoisomerase inhibition and growth inhibition against 12 cancer cell lines. Results from the topoisomerase I relaxation assay indicated that all novel ellipticine derivatives behaved as intercalating agents. At a concentration of 100 μM, specific topoisomerase I inhibition was not observed. Two of the derivatives under investigation were found to fully inhibit the DNA decatenation reaction at a concentration of 100 μM, indicative of topoisomerase II inhibition. N-Alkylation of ellipticine was found to enhance the observed growth inhibition across all cell lines and induce growth inhibition comparable to that of Irinotecan (CPT-11; GI(50) 1-18 μM) and in some cell lines better than Etoposide (VP-16; GI(50) = 0.04-5.2 μM). 6-Methylellipticine was the most potent growth inhibitory compound assessed (GI(50) = 0.47-0.9 μM). N-Alkylation of 6-methylellipticine was found to reduce this response with GI(50) values in the range of 1.3-28 μM.


A fundamental aspect of music is its ability to express emotions. To develop and extend the potential of music in computer entertainment, a deeper understanding of music's emotional aspects is essential. An experiment was designed to explore the suitability of a specially designed interface (REMUPP) as a means to investigate how musical parameters can contribute to expressing the emotions of 'happiness' and 'sadness'. In the experiment, a number of subjects listened to music examples where the musical performance was governed by a set of musical parameters that were controlled by the subject. The subjects adjusted the parameter settings to best express a given emotion. These settings were recorded and analyzed. The experiment verifies the REMUPP tool as a valid means for the investigation of musical parameters and emotion. Issues of importance for realization of music in the computer entertainment context are also addressed.


Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a technology that develops human and machine interactions. BCI allows the brain to move external devices without gestures, muscles, and sounds. This technology has great benefits, such as biomedical applications, neural rehabilitation, and entertainment applications. BCI depends on the ability of intermediate devices to translate brain commands, whether consciously or not, to select the appropriate action. The instrument most often used in BCI is the Electroencephalogram (EEG), so BCI-EEG seems inseparable. BCI actions can be Motor Imagery variables, emotions, or focus. Usually, the Motor Imagery variable is carried out in a conscious state, making it easier to control. The identifying Motor Imagery variables in the EEG signal needs to be improved continuously. First, an EEG signal needs to be extracted representing the variable under consideration, the Motor Imagery. Usually, the extraction of frequencies containing Beta and Mu waves is carried out. The next problem is that the multi-channel use of EEG recording resulted in data redundancy. Research with similar data has been discussed using Independent Component Analysis (ICA) but has not paid attention to the sequence. This study proposed the Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) methods as a multi-channel identification and handling method that considers the sequences of EEG signal data to classify BCI into four classes. Experiments using Hybrid CNN and RNN resulted in an accuracy of 98.62% and resulted in the shortest computation time compared to previous studies with similar data. We also experiment with the use of wavelets and some optimization weight models.


functional purposes for individuals with nonfluent aphasia. The goal of script training is to generate fluent speech in a limited context by restoring portions of automatic, natural language production into the speech of individuals with aphasia. A whole task approach (e.g. facilitating production of a set of related sentences as a unit) has resulted in fluent production of scripts that generalizes to functional contexts (Youmans, Holland, Munoz, & Bourgeois, 2005). Further research is necessary to determine how script training compares to traditional linguistic-based therapy. Though script training is intended to improve functional communication, some participants have demonstrated generalized improvement in language, as evidence by increase in verbal output from pre-test to post-test discourse samples (Powers and Munoz, 2004).
The purpose of this study is to explore how treatment outcomes from a whole-task script training method compare with outcomes from part-task (linguistic-based) method. Specifically, we examined response to treatment, generalization to functional contexts, and general increase in language output.
Participant Description. A multiple baseline across behaviors single-subject design was used to examine the effects of the treatments. DP was a 46 year-old man 2 years post onset of a left CVA. He passed a hearing screening, a simple screening for visual acuity, an oral mechanism screening, and the Mini-Mental State Exam.
Pre Treatment Assessment. DP exhibited Broca's aphasia as demonstrated by performance on the Western Aphasia Battery (AQ=54). Additionally, narrative and conversational samples were obtained using the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) and the Picnic picture from the Western Aphasia Battery. Conversation samples were obtained by asking DP to provide the following information: "Tell me about your most frightening experience," "Tell me about your stroke," or "Tell me what you usually do on Saturdays."
Script Training. Three scripts were developed as a collaborative effort between the clinicians and DP. We identified three scripts that were unique, relevant, and functional. Scripts consisted of 4-5 syntactically complete sentences. One script was used in whole-task training (Script 1), one in part-task training (Script 2), and one served as an untrained probe (Script 3). DP attended 50 minute sessions two times per week. Additionally, 15 minutes a day he complete at home practice consistent with each treatment method. Scripts were probed at the start of each treatment session and audiotaped and transcribed for analysis using the Systematic Assessment of Language Transcription (SALT). Script production was analyzed for the following dependant variables: total number of main body words, number of maze words, and percentage of mazes and frequency counts for designated word codes (for example, Correct Script Word [CSW]).
Whole-Task Training. Script 1 was trained using the whole-task approach. Repeated drill and a self-cuing hierarchy was used promote fluent production of the target script. Cueing sheets (see Figure 1 for an example) for each sentence were placed in separate pages of a talking photo album. Additionally, the use of a talking photo album allowed for the use of an audio cue (the clinician producing each sentence). The first script sentence was practiced; additional sentences were added in a forward chaining procedure when 100% accuracy had been reached in a single session following three consecutive attempts. Auditory and visual cues to support repetitive drill were controlled by the participants (i.e. the patient was taught to initially use the most facilitative cue [audio] then work his way up and down the hierarchy depending on effort) The criterion for attainment of script was 100% script accuracy during an independent probe.
DP's baseline performance on Script 1 was established over three sessions (Figure 3). He reached the 100% accuracy criterion following 8 treatment sessions. Accuracy of script production, as measured by percent correct script words (script words produced/total script words) was generally maintained at or above 80% after completion of training. The WAB was re-administered following Script 1 Training and DP demonstrated an increase in AQ (65, + 11 points). Additional data will be reported regarding pre- and post- test performance on discourse tasks, as well as additional measures obtained on script performance (such as error type). Interview with the participant indicated that he was using the script in a variety of functional contexts (for example, at church and on the phone).
Part-Task Training. The syntactic structures of Script 2 were trained using a modified version of the Sentence Production Program for Aphasia (Helm-Estabrooks & Nicholas, 2000). The SPPA is a treatment program with hierarchically organized sentence types (beginning with easier sentences), 15 sentences per level. The syntactic structure is first trained with a model, then elicited with a cue (see Figure 2 as an example). The script sentences were integrated to SPPA sentences with a comparable syntactic structure. The criterion for attainment of script was 100% script accuracy during an independent probe.
DP's baseline performance on Script 2 was established over eleven sessions (Figure 4). Treatment was initiated at SPPA sentence type 4 (Wh- questions) and included the script sentences (also Wh- questions, see example Figure 2). DP exhibited frustration at Level 4 and could not score above a 2 (out of 15); therefore, treatment at SPAA Sentence Type 1 was initiated. DP progressed through the SPPA levels (using criteria provided in the treatment manual) until level 4 was reached, at which point the script sentences were once again integrated with the comparable SPPA sentences. DP met criteria for completion of SPAA level 4 which included correct production of Script sentences. However, correct production within the context of the SPPA cuing did not transfer to independent probes (Figure 4). DP did not reach the 100% criterion. Accuracy of script production did not exceed 11%. The WAB was re-administered following Script 2 training and DP demonstrated a minimal change in AQ (63, -2 points). Additional data will be reported regarding pre- and post- test performance on discourse tasks, as well as additional measures obtained on script performance (such as error type).
Currently, we are in the process of completing the protocol with a second participant and expect to have the data to present.

References
Helm-Estabrooks, N., & Nicholas, M. (2000). Sentence Production Program for Aphasia. Austin, TX: Pro-ed.
Youmans, G., Holland, A., Munoz, M. L., & Bourgeois, M. S. (2005). Script training and automaticity in two individuals with aphasia. Aphasiology, 19(3-5), 435-450.
Powers, H. and Munoz, M.L. (November, 2004) Treatment outcomes following script training for Broca's aphasia. Poster session presented at the annual convention of the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.


2 Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of starch supplementation and season (summer vs winter) on thermoregulation, body weight (BW), water consumption and haematological parameters in alloxan-inuced diabetic and non-diabetic rabbits. Starch supplementation increased rectal temperature (Tr) of diabetic groups significantly during summer; in winter, (Tr) in non-diabetic rabbits fed Lucerne was significantly lower than other groups. During summer, non-diabetic starch-supplemented rabbits had significantly higher respiratory rate (RR) than other groups. RR values of experimental groups were significantly higher in summer compared with the respective winter values. In both seasons, diabetic starch- supplemented rabbits had lower body weight (BW) compared to the other groups. During summer, diabetic starch- supplemented rabbits had the lowest (BW). The diabetic group of rabbits fed Lucerne and starch had significantly higher (BW) during winter compared to the respective summer value. In both seasons, diabetic groups of rabbits had significantly higher water consumption compared to the non-diabetic groups. Starch supplementation increased water consumption significantly in diabetic rabbits. Water consumption of non-diabetic group of rabbits fed Lucerne and diabetic groups was significantly higher during summer compared with respective winter values. In both seasons, diabetic groups of rabbits had lower packed cell volume (PCV) and haemoglobin concentration (Hb)compared to the respective values of non-diabetic rabbits. Non-diabetic rabbits fed Lucerne had significantly higher Hb value during winter compared to summer value. During winter, non-diabetic rabbits fed Lucerne had significantly lower total leukocyte count (TLC) compared to values of other groups. Non-diabetic groups had significantly higher (TLC) values during summer compared to winter values. In diabetic groups, winter values of (TLC) were higher compared to summer value. The findings are relevant to the pathophysiological changes in human diabetes.


The objective was to establish and standardise a broth microdilution susceptibility testing method for porcine Bordetella (B.) bronchiseptica. B. bronchiseptica isolates from different geographical regions and farms were genotyped by macrorestriction analysis and subsequent pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. One reference and one type strain plus two field isolates of B. bronchiseptica were chosen to analyse growth curves in four different media: cation-adjusted Mueller-Hinton broth (CAMHB) with and without 2% lysed horse blood, Brain-Heart-Infusion (BHI), and Caso broth. The growth rate of each test strain in each medium was determined by culture enumeration and the suitability of CAMHB was confirmed by comparative statistical analysis. Thereafter, reference and type strain and eight epidemiologically unrelated field isolates of B. bronchiseptica were used to test the suitability of a broth microdilution susceptibility testing method following CLSI-approved performance standards given in document VET01-A4. Susceptibility tests, using 20 antimicrobial agents, were performed in five replicates, and data were collected after 20 and 24 hours incubation and statistically analysed. Due to the low growth rate of B. bronchiseptica, an incubation time of 24 hours resulted in significantly more homogeneous minimum inhibitory concentrations after five replications compared to a 20-hour incubation. An interlaboratory comparison trial including susceptibility testing of 24 antimicrobial agents revealed a high mean level of reproducibility (97.9%) of the modified method. Hence, in a harmonization for broth microdilution susceptibility testing of B. bronchiseptica, an incubation time of 24 hours in CAMHB medium with an incubation temperature of 35°C and an inoculum concentration of approximately 5 x 105 cfu/ml was proposed.


Objective The purpose of this study was to characterize the sensorineural hearing losses of a group of children and adults along three parameters important to the hearing instrument fitting process: 1) audiometric configuration, 2) asymmetry of loss between ears, and 3) progression of loss over several years. Design Audiograms for 248 60- and 61-yr-old adults and 227 6-yr-old children were obtained from the audiological database at Boys Town National Research Hospital. Based on right-ear air-conduction thresholds, the configurations were assigned to one of six categories: sloping, rising, flat, u-shaped, tent-shaped, and other. Left- and right-ear thresholds were compared to determine asymmetry of loss. Progression of loss was evaluated for 132 children for whom additional audiograms over an 8-yr period were available. Results In general, the children's hearing losses were more evenly distributed across configuration categories while most of the adult's audiograms were sloping or u-shaped in configuration. The variability of loss at each frequency was greater for the children than the adults for all configuration categories. Asymmetrical losses were more common and the degree of asymmetry at each frequency was more extensive among the children than the adults. A small number of children showed either improved or deteriorated hearing levels over time. In those children for whom progressive hearing loss occurred, no frequency was more vulnerable than another. Conclusions The results of the present study suggest that substantial differences in audiological characteristics exist between children and adults. Implications for amplification include the development of appropriate fitting protocols for unusual audiometric configurations as well as protocols for binaural amplification in cases of asymmetric hearing losses.


Reducing the deleterious effects of intensive tillage and fertilization on ecosystem integrity and human health is challenging for sustainable agriculture. The use of cover crops has been advocated as a suitable technique for this purpose, but scientific evidence to support this has been scarce. After four years and a complete rotation, including wheat, maize, and green pea as main crops in a ploughing system, we investigated the respective and combined effects of cover crops and nitrogen fertilization on soil chemical and biological properties using a controlled experiment combining soil chemical analyses, high‐throughput sequencing and community level physiological profiles. Cover crops impeded the soil carbon and nitrogen depletion induced by intensive tillage, not only in the topsoil but also within deeper soil horizons, where more specialized bacterial communities established. Cover crops induced a significant shift in soil bacterial community diversity and composition, which was associated with changes in soil chemical features and bacterial metabolic activities along the entire soil profile. Cover crops enhanced soil resilience to nitrogen fertilization by increasing functional redundancy and complementarity within soil bacterial communities and across soil horizons. Synthesis and applications. In the ploughing systems commonly used for intensive agriculture in Western Europe, the use of cover crops fosters a high functional diversity among soil bacteria and thus can help to achieve a more sustainable agriculture by reducing nitrogen fertilization while maintaining yields.


Incubation of hepatocytes or the SV40-DNA-immortalized hepatocyte P9 cell line with cholera toxin led to a time-dependent activation of adenylate cyclase activity, which occurred after a defined lag period. When added together with cholera toxin, each of the hormones insulin and vasopressin was capable of attenuating the maximum stimulatory effect achieved by cholera toxin over a period of 60 min through a process which could be blocked by the compounds staurosporine and chelerythrine. Attenuating effects on cholera-toxin-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity could also be elicited by using either the protein kinase C (PKC)-stimulating phorbol ester PMA (phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate) or the protein phosphatase inhibitor okadaic acid. Alkaline phosphatase treatment of membranes reversed the inhibitory effect of PMA. Cholera toxin also stimulated the adenylate cyclase activity of intact CHO (Chinese-hamster ovary) and NIH-3T3 cells, but this activity was insensitive to the addition of PMA. Overexpression of various PKC isoforms in CHO cell lines did not confer sensitivity to inhibition by PMA upon cholera-toxin-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity. Rather, overexpression of the gamma isoform of PKC allowed PMA to stimulate adenylate cyclase activity in CHO cells. It is suggested that the PKC-mediated phosphorylation of a membrane protein attenuates cholera-toxin-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity in hepatocytes and P9 cells. The cellular selectivity of such an action may be due to the target for this inhibitory action of PKC being a particular isoform of adenylate cyclase which provides the major activity in hepatocytes and P9 cells, but not in either CHO or NIH-3T3 cells.


The present study describes synthesis of copper oxide nanoclusters by electrochemical reduction method wherein copper metal sheet was used as a sacrificial anode while platinum was used as an inert cathode. The electrolysis was carried out at varied current density for 2 hrs in aqueous solutions using tetrabutyl phosphonium bromide (TBPB) as a capping agent. The nanostructure of the synthesized nanoclusters have been analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) and UV–Vis spectro-photometer. The copper oxide nanoclusters were screened for their antimicrobial activity.


In this thesis, we apply Bayes and Empirical Bayes methods for reliability growth models based on the power law process. We also apply Bayes methods for the study of microarrays, in particular, in the selection of differentially expressed genes. The power law process has been used extensively in reliability growth models. Chapter 1 reviews some basic concepts in reliability growth models. Chapter 2 shows classical inferences on the power law process. We also assess the goodness of fit of a power law process for a reliability growth model. In chapter 3 we develop Bayesian procedures for the power law process with failure truncated data, using non-informative priors for the scale and location parameters. In addition to obtaining the posterior density of parameters of the power law process, prediction inferences for the expected number of failures in some time interval and the probability of future failure times are also discussed. The prediction results for the software reliability model are illustrated. We compare our result with the result of Bar-Lev,S.K. et al.([7]). Also, posterior densities of several parametric functions are given. Chapter 4 provides Empirical Bayes for the power law process with natural conjugate priors and nonparametric priors. For the natural conjugate priors, two-hyperparameter prior and a more generalized three-hyperparameter prior are used. In chapter 5, we review some basic statistical procedures that are involved in microarray analysis. We will also present and compare several transformation and normalv ization methods for probe level data. The objective of chapter 6 is to select differentially expressed genes from tens of thousands of genes. Both classical methods (fold change, T-test, Wilcoxon Rank-sum Test, SAM and local Z-score (Chen,Z.[17])) and Empirical Bayes methods (EBarrays and LIMMA) are applied to obtain the results. Outputs of a typical classical method SAM and a typical Empirical Bayes Method EBarrays are discussed in detail.


Introduction: The use of pulsed laser irradiation to simulate the short duration, high-energy conditions characteristic of micrometeorite impacts is now an established approach in experimental space weathering studies. The laser generates both melt and vapor deposits that contain nanophase metallic Fe (npFe(sup 0)) grains with size distributions and optical properties similar to those in natural impact-generated melt and vapor deposits. There remains uncertainty, however, about how well lasers simulate the mechanical work and internal (thermal) energy partitioning that occurs in actual impacts. We are currently engaged in making a direct comparison between the products of laser irradiation and experimental/natural hypervelocity impacts. An initial step reported here is to use analytical TEM is to attain a better understanding of how the microstructure and composition of laser deposits evolve over multiple cycles of pulsed laser irradiation. Experimental Methods: We irradiated pressed-powder pellets of San Carlos olivine (Fo(sub 90)) with up to 99 rastered pulses of a GAM ArF excimer laser. The irradiated surface of the sample were characterized by SEM imaging and areas were selected for FIB cross sectioning for TEM study using an FEI Quanta dual-beam electron/focused ion beam instrument. FIB sections were characterized using a JEOL2500SE analytical field-emission scanning transmission electron microscope (FE-STEM) optimized for quantitative element mapping at less than 10 nm spatial resolutions. Results: In the SEM the 99 pulse pressed pellet sample shows a complex, inhomogeneous, distribution of laser-generated material, largely concentrated in narrow gaps and larger depressions between grains. Local concentrations of npFe0 spherules 0.1 to 1 micrometers in size are visible within these deposits in SEM back-scatter images. Fig. 1 shows bright-field STEM images of a FIB cross-section of a one of these deposits that continuously covers the top and sloping side of an olivine grain. The deposit has 3 microstructurally distinct sub-layers composed of silicate glass with varying modal fractions and size distributions of npFe( sup 0) spherules, along with nanocrystalline silicate material. A relatively thin (50-300 nm) topmost surface layer has a high-concentration of npFe0 spherules 5-20 nm in size. Element mapping shows the layer to be enriched in Fe by a factor of 2.5 relative to the olivine substrate, with Mg and Si depleted by 20% and 10% respectively. This is compositionally complementary to the underlying, middle layer of the deposit that is depleted in Fe, enriched in Mg and has a much lower npFe0 concentration. A third layer of nanocrystalline olivine occurs at the substrate interface. Discussion: The FE-STEM results suggest the topmost layer is a vapor deposit, underlain by a thicker microstructurally complex melt-generated layer. The compositional relations suggest the melt layer was partially vaporized, preferentially losing more volatile elements (e.g., Fe). The vaporized material re-condensed to form the thin, npFe(sup 0)-rich surface deposit during or immediately after the scan cycle. Nanocrystalline olivine that grew within the melt layer as it formed and cooled is similar in volume and microstructure to what we have observed in the impact melt lining of a micrometeorite impact crater in olivine. This suggest the time-temperature relations attained in the laser sample may not be too different from a micrometeorite impact. Our TEM observations, however, do not show evidence for the same level of mechanical dam-age (e.g., fracturing) seen around the natural micrometeorite crater.


Productivity-diversity theory has proven informative to many investigations seeking to understand drivers of spatial patterns in biotic communities and relationships between resource availability and community structure documented for a wide variety of taxa. For soil bacteria, availability of organic matter is one such resource known to influence diversity and community structure. Here we describe the influence of environmental gradients on soil bacterial communities of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, a model ecosystem that hosts simple, microbially-dominated foodwebs believed to be primarily structured by abiotic drivers such as water, organic matter, pH, and electrical conductivity. We sampled 48 locations exhibiting orders of magnitude ranges in primary production and soil geochemistry (pH and electrical conductivity) over local and regional scales. Our findings show that environmental gradients imposed by cryptogam productivity and regional variation in geochemistry influence the diversity and structure of soil bacterial communities. Responses of soil bacterial richness to carbon content illustrate a productivity-diversity relationship, while bacterial community structure primarily responds to soil pH and electrical conductivity. This diversity response to resource availability and a community structure response to environmental severity suggests a need for careful consideration of how microbial communities and associated functions may respond to shifting environmental conditions resulting from human activity and climate variability.


Writing in the December issue of the newsletter of the Products Liability Committee, Alan D. Kaplan of Gallagher Gosseen Faller Kaplan & Crowley, Garden City, New York, notes dismissal for spoliation of causation evidence and updates case information: As more and more courts have shown a readiness to impose sanctions for intentional or negligent spoliation of evidence, the sanction of dismissal has been granted with greater frequency. Moreover, this particular sanction has been recently granted in cases that did not involve spoliation of the actual product deemed defective by the plaintiffs, but rather an item of evidence cited by the defendants that would have helped to prove a causation defense. The Seventh Circuit has affirmed such a dismissal in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Sunbeam Corp., 53 F.3d 804 (7th Cir. 1995). The Second Circuit, faced a similar issue in West v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 1999 WL 65629, recently remanded to the district court but suggested the imposition of other severe sanctions. A few state courts also have addressed this issue. Spoliation dismissals generally The sanction of dismissal in federal court may be imposed under Rule 37 after a showing of willfulness, bad faith or any fault on the part of the offending party or its counsel. Jones v. MFTA, 836 F.2d 731 (2d Cir. 1987); Hogan v. Dow Chemical Co., 818 F.2d 210 (2d Cir. 1987). In the spoliation context, federal courts have found "fault," or non-intentional conduct, worthy of dismissal where key items of evidence were repossessed by mistake and unavailable as a result (Brancaccio v. Mitsubishi Motors Co., 1992 WL 189937, 90 Civ. 7852 (S.D. N.Y. 1992)), and where counsel, "failed to take simple, reasonable steps to secure evidence." Jackson v. Nissan Motor Corp., 121 F.R.D. 311 (M.D. Tenn. 1988). "Fault" is the equivalent of lack of reasonable care and is not dependent on intentional acts. Marrocco v. General Motors Corp., 966 F.2d 220, 224 (7th Cir. 1992). The sanction of dismissal has been imposed increasingly against parties who have lost or destroyed evidence that prejudices another party's ability to prosecute or defend the suit. See, e.g., Jordan F. Miller Corp. v. Mid-Continent Aircraft Service, 139 F.3d 912 (lOth Cir. 1998); Brancaccio, supra. The causation defense Although many of the earlier spoliation decisions involve the destruction of the socalled "crown jewels," recent decisions indicate that the destruction of evidence necessary for the establishment of a causation defense also will result in the most drastic of sanctions. Typically, such a causation defense revolves around the use of additional equipment or component parts together with the item alleged to be defective by a plaintiff. It might also involve the examination of the allegedly defective product itself, not for purposes of challenging a design defect claim, but rather to support a claim of lack of maintenance or misuse of the subject product. In the Allstate case, originally decided by the Northern District of Illinois in 1994 (865 F.Supp. 1267), a product liability claim against Sunbeam Corp. was pursued based on an allegation that a propane-fueled outdoor gas grill manufactured by Sunbeam was defective and responsible for a fire. The plaintiff alleged that a leak occurred somewhere in the gas train, causing the grill's fire to grow until it overheated the propane tank, causing it to vent a large quantity of gas. It was alleged that a thermal shutoff or safety disconnect device should have been installed. Sunbeam contended that the fire was more likely started by a spare tank of propane that had been stored beneath or directly behind the grill, and that the spare tank had been overfilled with liquid propane. Rather than accepting the plaintiff's theories, Sunbeam alleged that an entirely different piece of evidence was involved and that the mechanism causing the fire was totally different from that claimed by the plaintiff. …


Context. Solar flares radiate energy at all wavelengths, but the spectral distribution of this energy is still poorly known. White-light continuum emission is sometimes observed, and these flares are then called "white-light flares" (WLFs). Aims. We investigate if all flares are WLFs and how the radiated energy is distributed spectrally. Methods. We perform a superposed epoch analysis of spectral and total irradiance measurements obtained since 1996 by the SOHO and GOES spacecraft at various wavelengths, from soft X-rays to the visible domain. Results. The long-term record of solar irradiance and the excellent duty cycle of the measurements allow us to detect a signal in visible irradiance even for moderate (C-class) flares mainly during the impulsive phase. We identify this signal as continuum emission emitted by WLFs and find that it is consistent with a blackbody emission at ∼9000 K. We estimate the contribution of the WL continuum for several sets of flares and find it to be about 70% of the total radiated energy. We re-analyse the X17 flare that occurred on 28 October 2003 and find similar results. Conclusions. We show that most of the flares – if not all – are WLFs and that the white-light continuum is the main contributor to the total radiated energy; this continuum is consistent with a blackbody spectrum at ∼9000 K. These observational results are important for understanding the physical mechanisms during flares and possibly suggest a contribution of flares to the variations of the total solar irradiance (TSI).


We examine the dive and movement behavior of blue, fin, and humpback whales along the US West Coast in regions with high ship traffic where ship strikes have been identified as a major concern. All three species are known to feed in coastal waters near areas of high ship traffic. We analyzed data from 33 archival tag deployments representing over 3,000 hours of data that were attached with suction-cups or short darts for periods >24 hours and recorded depth (≥1 Hz), fast-lock GPS positions and other sensors. There were clear differences among the three species but all showed a distinct diurnal difference in diving behavior. While dive depth varied among animals based on where prey was located, whales spent a high proportion of their time closer to the surface where they would be more vulnerable to ship strikes at night than in the day. This was most pronounced for blue whales where vulnerability was twice as high at night compared to the day. We also found differences in movement patterns of whales between day and night. Movements were more localized to specific areas in the day near prey resources while at night these movements often involved directional movements (though sometimes returning to the same area). We show how in several specific areas like the Santa Barbara Channel, these differences in movements and locations translate to a very different overlap with shipping lanes at night compared to the daytime locations, which is the basis for most sighting data.


Drawing on contributions from user activists and academic researchers, this topical reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement. It considers different contexts in which such involvement is taking place and includes diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the issues involved. This original and insightful critique will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.


Contrary to the international trend of building Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) into national health systems there is no national CIRS in Austrian hospitals. In response to this lack of a national policy the Austrian Association for Gynaecology and Obstetrics (OEGGG) has started an initiative enabling Women Hospitals in Austria to join a voluntary international online CIRS. This study critically addresses the problem of preventable error leading to patient harm and investigates the contribution that CIRS, arguably one key element in the new patient safety movement, may have so that fewer patients die. This is necessary as progress in patient safety has been much slower than anticipated, despite the patient safety revival around the year 2000, increasing attention and numerous initiatives. Moreover there is little systematic documentation and contemporary knowledge about the implementation, management, and effect of CIRS in health care.This study critically investigates this gap from a critical ethnographic perspective and provides an in-depth account of CIRS in an Austrian context. The study uses interviews, a questionnaire, and fieldwork observation over a period of two years at one Women Hospital in Vienna. Interviews and questionnaire are used to assess the organisation and these data provide ground for subsequent critical ethnographic observation. The fieldwork observation in the hospital is used to illustrate ways in which this type of research can contribute to the growth of knowledge on managerial (non-clinical) aspects of patient safety. Observational studies can serve to identify latent managerial system vulnerabilities and leverage points that can aid the identification, development and implementation of overall system improvements. In addition a continuous in-depth literature review is being employed.Findings suggest that the current hospital organisation is ill resourced in implementing new patient safety strategies and effectively identifying and addressing critical incidents. In particular the study identifies latent managerial factors that complicate the performance of health care professionals and potentially contribute to adverse outcomes. It suggests that the 'systems approach' to error in health care currently focuses too much on core medical tasks and a principal separation between clinical and non clinical aspects of service provision needs to be made. Key contributions emanating from this research are a clinical / non-clinical patient safety continuum model, a patient safety framework, three phases of CIRS operationalisation, the research method employed, as well as the notion that different research ethics in different health systems require more careful interpretation of research contributions. In addition the continuous literature review reveals that one of the key arguments of the new patient safety movement, the high number of preventable errors leading to death in health care, is incorrect. This is critical as it does not allow channelling limited resources to where they are most needed. The study emphasises the need for more research in this subject area and more organisational support in health care organisations.


We report on the occurrence of strong nonreciprocal magnetochiral dichroism in helical structures of magnetic garnet spheres, which emerges as a result of the simultaneous lack of time-reversal and space-inversion symmetries, by means of rigorous full-electrodynamic calculations using the layer-multiple-scattering method. It is shown that a strong effect appears in flat band regions associated with enhanced natural and magnetic optical activity.


Abstract

Since the Great Recession in 2008 academic economics has come under heavy criticism. But a straightforward alternative is not in sight either. We analyse in this article how the major flaws of applied economics are the mirror image of its attractions to policymakers, mainstream political parties and reform-minded administrations. We first assess what the consensus until recently has been and how it could have been implicated in the crisis. Secondly, we argue, following Hall, that the policy consensus continues to persist because it is politically attractive. The article ends with observations of how the management of the Euro area crisis still shows the attractiveness of the consensus.

Policy recommendations:

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Introduce greater pluralism in advisory bodies on economic policy to include civil society organizations, such as trade unions, and consumer organizations as well as academic disciplines other than economics.

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Review compensation policy for representatives on advisory committees to create a level playing field for experts from civil society organizations and independent consultants with financial sector lobbyists.

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Support and back up critical voices in the financial industry and in regulatory bodies against those who defend regulatory neglect and the privilege of rent-seeking for the financial industry.


In the present paper, we review 4 topics that were identified through extensive consultation with stakeholders as issues of high impact and influence for the grains industry: improving soil testing and interpretation; role of fluid fertilisers in the Western Australian (WA) grains industry; using spatial and temporal information to improve crop nutrient management, particularly for nitrogen; and developing recommendations for managing emerging nutrient deficiencies. The key findings are summarised below. To further improve soil testing and interpretation, the review suggests that future research should focus on addressing soil sampling and interpretation questions, as they are important factors affecting the accuracy of fertiliser recommendations with changing cropping practices. There have been several studies to compare fluid with granular forms of P in WA, but the responses have not, so far, been consistent. More work may be needed to understand different crop response to fluid P fertiliser additions, particularly on low pH soils in WA. An understanding of the long-term performance of fluid P will also require an assessment of the residual value of fluid P compared with granular P under field conditions. Precision agriculture (PA) technology has potential to improve crop nutrient management and farm profitability in WA. The review indicates that understanding both spatial and temporal yield variation is critical for the successful adoption of PA technology by growers. The review also suggests that in WA, there is a need to explore the use of different layers of spatial information for determining management zones. In response to wide adoption of no-till and stubble retention cropping systems, increased use of fluid fertilisers together with advanced application technologies, and increased interest in cropping in the high rainfall zone, there is need to better understand growers' practices and attitudes to crop nitrogen (N) management, and thus to better position research and extension activities. The review also suggests the need to evaluate new fertiliser products and site-specific N management concepts and develop N management practices for waterlogging-prone soils for improved N use efficiency in cereal production systems in WA. The negative balance of magnesium (Mg) observed in WA cropping systems, together with the information reviewed on factors affecting soil Mg content and crop response to Mg application across Australia, suggests that there is a need to evaluate the risk and impact of Mg deficiency on acidic sandy soils of WA.


Abstract Theory on the strategic use of knowledge in planning large infrastructure projects is comparatively well-developed in the fields of public policy and urban/transport planning for Western democracies. But how policymakers make use of knowledge and what position policy analysts hold in non-Western countries still remains largely unknown territory in the literature. This article begins to explore this topic by studying two urban transport projects in the Chinese city of Dalian. Based on empirical evidence, the article concludes with a number of preliminary but notable differences between Western countries and China in terms of the administrative mechanisms underlying the strategic use of knowledge in policymaking. We found that Chinese institutional incentives with regard to cadre evaluation and promotion channels largely constitute the motivation of politicians to use knowledge strategically. Additionally, the wider social and administrative cultures in China, including a command-and-control tradition and a high level of power distance create a basis for the strategic use of information as well as the manipulation of analytical data.


Touchscreens enable intuitive mobile interaction. However, touch input is limited to 2D touch locations which makes it challenging to provide shortcuts and secondary actions similar to hardware keyboards and mice. Previous work presented a wide range of approaches to provide secondary actions by identifying which finger touched the display. While these approaches are based on external sensors which are inconvenient, we use capacitive images from mobile touchscreens to investigate the feasibility of finger identification. We collected a dataset of low-resolution fingerprints and trained convolutional neural networks that classify touches from eight combinations of fingers. We focused on combinations that involve the thumb and index finger as these are mainly used for interaction. As a result, we achieved an accuracy of over 92% for a position-invariant differentiation between left and right thumbs. We evaluated the model and two use cases that users find useful and intuitive. We publicly share our data set (CapFingerld) comprising 455,709 capacitive images of touches from each finger on a representative mutual capacitive touchscreen and our models to enable future work using and improving them.


Efficient schedulability analysis of aperiodic distributed task systems has received much less attention in real-time computing literature than its periodic counterpart. As systems become larger and more complex and as workloads become less regular, simple aperiodic task analysis techniques are needed to accommodate unpredictability and scale, while erring on the safe side. This paper presents a simple analytic framework for computing the end-to-end feasibility regions of distributed aperiodic task systems under a category of fixed-priority scheduling. It is based on a simple primitive called the generalized stage delay theorem that expresses the maximum fraction of the end-to-end deadline that a task can spend at a resource as a function of the (instantaneous or synthetic) utilization of that resource. For the task to meet its end-to-end deadline, the sum of such fractions must be less than 1. This constraint identifies a volume in a multidimensional space in which each dimension is the utilization of one resource. This volume is a generalization of the notion of utilization bounds for schedulability in single-resource systems. It extends the bound (a uni-dimensional schedulable region) to a multi-dimensional representation for distributed-resource systems. Prior work identified this volume for the special case of an infinite number of concurrent infinitesimal tasks. This paper generalizes the result to arbitrary sets of finite tasks, making it applicable to realistic workloads. We evaluate the performance of admission control based on feasible regions using simulation, showing that it is successful in eliminating deadline misses


This article is the final report of a study of legal ethics and professionalism involving in depth interviews about problem solving conducted with nearly two hundred lawyers practicing in various settings: in different sizes of firms, in different sizes of communities, in private practice and in in-house or corporate counsel positions. Previously published findings of this research project having established that lawyers rarely turn to their ethical codes to solve problems, preferring instead to rely upon informal information gleaned from within their own offices (although lawyers from smaller firms remain more often comfortable with information drawn from beyond the firm than those from larger firms), this article focuses on analysis of the interviews of those lawyers who identified themselves as concerned with issues involving their roles as lawyers. The analysis maps the lawyers' own descriptions of their situations onto the "hired gun" and "counselor" models of lawyer-client interaction taken from the literature. The findings confirm our preliminary findings that these two roles are not mutually exclusive. Although all the lawyers concerned with their roles began in a mentoring mode, most lawyers eventually relinquished their decision-making to their clients, a transition fraught with challenges for many of them. A minority, however, despite the dictates of their code of ethics, withdrew from cases or even, exceptionally, substituted their own decision-making for that of their clients. The article links the mentoring model to the care perspective in the literature of moral development and the hired gun model to the rights perspective. The findings did not establish any support for the claim that the presence of women is creating a "softer" voice in the legal profession. However, two aspects of the structure of the profession, private practice versus in-house practice and the size of the centre in which the practice is located, engendered variations in professional attitudes.


Background: Pseudo-TORCH syndrome is a rare, chronic disorder that is characterised by dimorphic features such as microcephaly, intracranial calcification, seizures, mental retardation, hepatosplenomegaly and coagulation disorders. Case Report: We present the anaesthetic management of a forty day-old boy with Pseudo-TORCH syndrome during magnetic resonance imaging. Microcephaly, growth failure, high palate and bilateral rales in the lungs were detected in pre-anaesthetic physical examination. The peripheral oxygen saturation was 88-89% in room-air and was 95% in a hood with 5 L/min oxygen. We planned general anaesthesia to ensure immobility during magnetic resonance imaging. After standard monitoring, general anaesthesia was induced with 8% sevoflurane in 100% O 2 . After an adequate depth of anaesthesia was reached, we inserted a supraglottic airway device to avoid intubation without the use of a muscle relaxant. Conclusion: In patients with Pseudo-TORCH syndrome, the perioperative anaesthetic risk was increased. We believe that using a supraglottic airway device to secure the airway is less invasive than intubation, and can be performed without the need of muscle relaxants.


Living in Rome during the last years of the Republic, Diodorus of Sicily produced the most expansive history of the ancient world that has survived from antiquity--the Bibliotheke. Whereas Diodorus himself has been commonly seen as a "mere copyist" of earlier historical traditions, Kenneth Sacks explores the complexity of his work to reveal a historian with a distinct point of view indicative of his times.Sacks focuses on three areas of Diodorus's history writing: methods of organization and style, broad historical and philosophical themes, and political sentiments. Throughout, Diodorus introduced his own ideas or refashioned those found in his sources. In particular, his negative reaction to Roman imperial rule helps to illuminate the obscure tradition of opposition historiography and to explain the shape and structure of the Bibliotheke. Viewed as a unified work reflecting the intellectual and political beliefs of the late Hellenistic period, the Bibliotheke will become an important source for interpreting first-century moral, political, and intellectual values.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Pastoralism is the main source of livelihood for Boran community inhabiting Northern Kenya. Over time, they have developed coping strategies aimed at minimising losses from aridity. Although the strategies may have served the community well in the past, they are presently perceived as inadequate in the light of climate change. This study investigated necessary adjustments in the strategies and innovations among the Boran in Merti Division of Isiolo County. Specific objectives are to investigate innovations by Boran pastoralist' in response to climate change, to find out the main drivers of innovation practices and to establish the relationships between herders' innovation practices, climate change and livelihood strategies Qualitative and quantitative approaches were applied. The target population was 400 from which a random sample of 80 herders was drawn. All the 6 local chiefs and 6 community leaders in the area were also interviewed. Data was collected using semi structured questionnaires and key Informant interviews. The resulting data was coded and statistically analyzed using the statistical package for a social scientist (SPSS). Then the results were analysed, discussed and presented in graphs, pie charts and tables. The results showed that there were main drivers of innovations among Boran pastoralists in Merti Division. They include prolonged droughts, conflicts and invasive species which are linked to climatic changes. There were also response strategies which were found to be improvement in their usual drought coping strategies while others are newly emerging strategies. The innovation practices include agreement between herders and ranchers, livelihood diversification, inter-community negotiations, change in mobility, among others. The study established that 53% of the pastoralists were aged over 40 years while 47% were aged below 40 years though there was no significant difference between the two groups (p=0.0921). On the period the respondents had worked as pastoralist, the results showed that majority (52%) had worked for more than 9 years while the rest had worked for less than 9 years as pastoralists. Further, the results of the study established that climate change was a key driver of herders led innovation practices. The study established that a unit deterioration of the climate change would lead to an increase in the herders led innovation practices by 4.5 units with this being significant at 5% level of significance (p=0.000). On the other hand, livelihood strategies were also to be significantly associated with herder led innovation with a p-value of 0.000. The study concluded that climate change has had an impact on Boran pastoralists' forcing them to improve their existing drought coping mechanisms and adopt newly emerging strategies. Some of the key recommendations are increasing participation of pastoralist in development of pastoral policies, reducing obstacles that hinder pastoral mobility and strengthening of security and peaceful existence in Northern Kenya in order to enhance adaptation to climate change. Key w ords: Climate Change, Boran, Pastoralism, Pastoral Innovations, Merti, Kenya


Aims: The paper will present an overview of the fidelity approach in the BeatIt study and describe the characteristics of therapists and supervision, and the development of a measure to assess the "quality" of therapy delivery that is designed as a non-specific therapy process measure for structured and manualised therapies. Methods: Therapist demographic and supervision data were collected. A nonspecific therapy process measure was developed based on previously available fidelity measures. Therapists in both arms recorded two therapy sessions that were rated by independent research associates (144 fidelity recordings were available for analysis), 45 recordings were also rated by a further research associate to determine inter-rater reliability. Results: The data indicated that the therapists were predominantly nurses, had no accredited therapy training and received a mean of one supervision for every 1.8 therapy sessions. Therapist in both arms provided a high quality of therapy and closely followed the manuals. The scale had good internal reliability (alpha = 0.76). Further detailed data for the psychometric properties of the non-specific therapy process scale will be presented. Conclusions: The fidelity data shows that the core protocol for the recruitment of therapists and implementation of supervision was followed and therapists provided high quality of therapy that was consistent with the manuals. The non-specific therapy process measure will support the development of therapy process research for people with intellectual disabilities.


Objectives: Ongoing developments in design have improved the outlook for left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation as a therapy in end-stage heart failure. Nevertheless, early cost-effectiveness assessments, based on first-generation devices, have not been encouraging. Against this background, we set out (i) to examine the survival benefit that LVADs would need to generate before they could be deemed cost-effective; (ii) to provide insight into the likelihood that this benefit will be achieved; and (iii) from the perspective of a healthcare provider, to assess the value of discovering the actual size of this benefit by means of a Bayesian value of information analysis. Methods: Cost-effectiveness assessments are made from the perspective of the healthcare provider, using current UK norms for the value of a quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). The treatment model is grounded in published analyses of the Randomized Evaluation of Mechanical Assistance for the Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure (REMATCH) trial of first-generation LVADs, translated into a UK cost setting. The prospects for patient survival with second-generation devices is assessed using Bayesian prior distributions, elicited from a group of leading clinicians in the field. Results: Using established thresholds, cost-effectiveness probabilities under these priors are found to be low (∼.2 percent) for devices costing as much as £60,000. Sensitivity of the conclusions to both device cost and QALY valuation is examined. Conclusions: In the event that the price of the device in use would reduce to £40,000, the value of the survival information can readily justify investment in further trials.


The impetus for the production of this short 'talking heads' film came from the provocative nudge/poke to talk about the visionary in Illustration. Our interest in exploring the visionary (this is a jointly authored package of film and text), lay in the manifestation of creative attributes that correlated with a synthesized idea of what it (the visionary) is and what it could be. We therefore assumed a conflated definition of the term visionary, one where the future facing 'leader' meets the imaginative 'seer'.

Our aim was to investigate visionary-ness in some of the new and emerging forms Illustration takes. We adopted a general focus on nascent visual language and style that, in our opinion, extends the boundaries of the discipline, as well as notions of thing-ness, materiality and immateriality. We deliberately selected practitioners whose work occupies a territory on the periphery of the mainstream. We hope that the title of the film reflects some of the disciplinary stretch.


Recent technological advances in microfabrication and fiber optics have made practical the construction of very small, sensitive sensors for acoustic or vibration measurements. As the sensitivity is increased or the size is decreased, a sensor becomes more susceptible to mechanical noise resulting from molecular agitation. Traditional noise analysis is often focused exclusively on electrical or optical noise ; consequently, mechanical-thermal noise may not be considered in new types of sensors until the prototype testing reveals an unexpectedly high noise floor. Fortunately, mechanical-thermal noise is relatively easy to estimate early in the design process because the equivalent noise force is only a function of the temperature and the mechanical losses in the sensor. There are a number of specific techniques that are applicable for evaluating either the total mechanical-thermal noise or the spectral distribution of that noise for simple or complex sensors. These techniques are presented and, in addition, a summary of other noise components is given in the context of design guidelines for high-sensitivity sensors.


In Apterygota muscles are attached to the cuticle by a series of discrete structures. The junction of the muscle and epidermal cells is demarcated by regular interdigitations of the two tissues, with desmosomes lining these processes. Within the epidermal cells, microtubules link up the desmosomes of the interdigitated region with dense material associated with cone-like depressions in the apical plasma membranes of the epidermal cells. Each of these 'conical hemidesmosomes' is situated opposite a pore canal. From within each cone, an electron-dense 'muscle attachment fibre' extends up the corresponding pore canal through the procuticle and is inserted on the epicuticle. There is no direct link between the microtubules and the muscle attachment fibres. The muscle attachment fibres are slightly elliptical in cross-section, and are twisted, this twist being in phase with the orientation of the chitin-protein microfibrils forming the lamellae of the procuticle. The attachment fibres are straight, and not helically arranged; patterns obtained in oblique sections of procuticle including these structures support the twisted ribbon model of pore canal shape. The cuticle, particularly in Thysanuran and Dipluran intersegmental membrane, displays the parabolic patterning typical of softer insect procuticle and procuticle deposition zones. The epicuticular insertion of the muscle attachment fibre is characterized by a pit in the cuticulin layer, the fibre passing through the middle of this pit. The microtubule-associated conical hemidesmosomes appear to be cytoskeletal in function. The muscle attachment fibres are rigid structures which are not digested by the moulting fluid enzymes. New muscle attachment fibres may only become attached to the epicuticle during its formation. The structures described in regions of muscle attachment in Apterygota are similar to those recorded for other arthropods.


BLACK MARRIAGE, WHITE PEOPLE, RED HERRINGS Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone. By Ralph Richard Banks. New York: Dutton. 2011. Pp. 189. Cloth, $25.95; paper, $16.INTRODUCTIONA staple of mystery novels, the red herring is a clue that misleads or diverts attention away from the actual issue. For example, in Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles,1 the fractious relationship between the deceased's widower and the deceased's maid is meant to distract the reader from discovering that the two are not enemies, but lovers who have conspired to poison the deceased.Ralph Richard Banks's Is Marriage for White People?2 is worlds away from Agatha Christie's novels. Decidedly a work of nonfiction, Banks's book considers the plight of middle-class African Americans who, according to statistics, are the least likely of any demographic group to get and stay married. Despite these obvious differences, Is Marriage for White People? shares some important commonalities with Agatha Christie's mysteries. Banks seeks to solve a mystery, but red herrings draw attention away from the true issue that should be the subject of Banks's concern.The mystery, of course, is the black marriage decline. In 1950, 78 percent of black families were headed by married couples.3 In 2007, only 33 percent of black women and 44 percent of black men were married.4 Though marriage rates are declining across the board, the point remains: African Americans are among the most unmarried racial groups in the United States.5 Banks asks: How did this happen? How did marriage go from being almost de rigeur among African Americans to being anomalous? Why do African Americans continue to lag behind other demographic groups in marriage rates? And what are the costs of this decline-for blacks and for everyone else?Focusing on middle-class African Americans as a microcosm of the larger black community, Is Marriage for White People? attempts to solve the mystery of the black marriage decline by identifying its causes and consequences. Drawing from over one hundred interviews completed for the project, Banks concludes that the marriage decline and gap are the products of a skewed marriage market in which there is a surfeit of marriageable middle-class black women and a scarcity of similarly situated black men. To correct the market and increase marriage rates, Banks encourages middleclass black women to expand their pool of dating and marriage prospects to include nonblack men. Doing so, he argues, will, in the short term, help middle-class black women find the stable relationships they want. In the long term, this move will help ensure more black marriages (and all of marriage's benefits) in the future.The trouble is that the book presents numerous red herrings that preoccupy the reader and divert attention from the real issue that should be of concern. The pressing public policy issue is not the black marriage decline, interracial marriage, or whether marriage is for white people. Rather, it is whether marriage should be the normative ideal for intimate life and the vehicle by which we confer a range of important public and private benefits. Banks's narrow focus on the black marriage decline prevents him from considering how the naturalization of the marital family as a privatized system of social provision impedes imagining new possibilities that better provide necessary social support and economic stability.This Review proceeds in three parts. Part I provides a more detailed description of Banks's project. Part II focuses on the core of Banks's argument: his critique of economically "mixed" marriages and his interracial- marriage prescription. Part III shifts to consider how Banks's project would have benefited from greater engagement with marriage's institutional role in society. To this end, Part III considers what is lost in focusing narrowly on marriage and the marriage decline. …


Abstract This article examines the resource management design of international courts (ICs) and asks: how are ICs designed in terms of the management of resources and what factors contribute to the resource management design of ICs? Theoretically, this article draws on existing literature to conceptualize resource management as a design feature of international courts and considers three causal mechanisms that might shape the resource management design of ICs: diffusion by emulation, the uploading of domestic governance norms, and bureaucrats who pursue institutional independence and sustainability. Empirically, I examine the resource management design of 24 ICs and assess who selects their chief administrators and approves their budgets. A case study on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is also analyzed in order to gain traction on the causal mechanisms generating resource management design of ICs. The article shows that there is a strong tendency for ICs to have greater control over the appointment of their chief administrators, but less control over their budgets. States generally retain authority to approve ICs? budgets. Moreover, it suggests that domestic judicial norms and national legal bureaucrats influenced the design of the CCJ's resource management.


This article traces a normative turn between the middle of the 1940s and the early 1950s reflected in the reformulation, interpretation, and use of rational choice theories at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. This turn is paralleled by a transition from Jacob Marschak's to Tjalling Koopmans's research program. While rational choice theories initially raised high hopes that they would serve as empirical accounts to inform testable hypotheses about economic regularities, they became increasingly modified and interpreted as normative approaches offering behavioral recommendations for individual agents, organizations, government, and teams. The predefined elements constitutive of these accounts, inspired by simple rules of logic, were now meant to represent the basic demands of rationality and theories of rational decision making specified rules of conduct that were meant to shape rather than explain behavior.


In this first major (two-part) paper assigned to students in all versions of English 302, students are asked to apply the six defining criteria from John Swales' (1990) scholarly article, "The Concept of Discourse Community," to a personal interest group to which they belong and then to a professional organization in their disciplines. The personal response is ungraded, but required for full credit on the graded professional discourse community analysis (DCA), in which students carefully and closely analyze the professional organization and Swales' six-point definition, then write a 1,000- to 1,250-word essay, identifying examples of each Swales point in an area of the organization found on its official website: common goals, mechanisms of intercommunication within the group, the organization's use of these participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback to group members, the use of specific genres, "lexis" (shared vocabulary), and membership requirements for novices and experts. When explaining the genres used by the organization, students must provide three examples, one genre per paragraph, analyzing the intended audience, purpose, writing style of each genre, explaining the writing distinctions between the chosen genres and how each genre furthers the organization's common goals. In the conclusion, students explain the benefits for professionals in their disciplines who join this organization. This assignment supports the English 302 core requirements of a discipline awareness project and rhetorical analysis. It also supports the English 302 Learning Outcomes: critical reading strategies; identify, evaluate, use research sources; and analyze rhetorical situations.
Included files: Instructor's Notes on how to incorporate the assignment into the 302 Classroom (ScolaroInstructorsNotes), Assignment Prompt (ScolaroAssignment), and Discourse Community Analysis Essay Structure handout (ScolaroActivity).


Precipitation in southern Africa and specifically in the southwest Kalahari – tropical summer rains in the north and the east, and extratropical winter rains in the southwest – is strongly influenced by a common climate force that also governs the seasonal shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). However, the displacement of the southern ITCZ since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ca. 22 to 18 ka) is controversial. We present new field results, 14C- and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)-data on fluvial and aeolian geoarchives in the catchment area of the lower Molopo River, southwest Kalahari, which indicate different periods of aeolian and fluvial activity in the last 40 ka.

Based on our new data, we present a reconstruction of the late Quaternary climatic dynamics and a conceptual model indicating a southward shift of the ITCZ during the LGM, contemporaneously with a northward shift of the westerlies. This model implies that since 24 ka the southwest Kalahari has received summer and winter rains, which resulted in pluvial conditions that annually led to pan flooding throughout most of the year, cessation of lunette dune development due to stagnated deflation, and onset of perennial flow in a part of the lower Molopo River south of the Nossob-Molopo confluence. In addition, glacial climate circulation patterns over the southern African subcontinent can further resolve controversies about palaeoclimate reconstructions, which have important implications for modelling past and future climate scenarios.


Objective Narcolepsy is a severe sleep disorder that is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexies and a tendency towards obesity. Recent discoveries indicate that the major pathophysiology is a loss of hypocretin (orexin) producing neurons due to immunologically mediated degeneration. Visfatin is a recently described proinflammatory adipokine. It is identical to the immune modulating pre-B-cell colony enhancing factor (PBEF). Our study examines the hypothesis that visfatin levels are altered in narcoleptic patients. Methods For the analysis, a total of n = 54 patients (n = 18 males and n = 36 females) with the diagnosis of narcolepsy according to DSM-IV and the International Classification of Sleep Disorders were examined (BMI mean 30.3±5.5, age mean 52.5±16.1 years). As a control group 39 unrelated (n = 12 males and n = 27 females) healthy volunteers with no sleep disorder according to DSM-IV were included (BMI mean 28.5±4.6, age mean 51.1±13.6 years). Peripheral visfatin levels were measured using a commercial enzyme immunoassay kit with a measurement range from 0.1–1000 ng/ml. Narcolepsy symptoms, severity and frequency of symptoms as well as the total duration of various aspects of the symptomatology were assessed by unstructured and structured clinical interviews in including the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy Sleep Inventory. Results Circulating visfatin was found to be significantly increased in HLA DR2 positive narcoleptic patients compared to controls. Conclusion Taken together, our results add to the evidence of disturbed immunological regulation in patients with narcolepsy.


Syndication systems on the Web have attracted vast amounts of attention in recent years. As technologies have emerged and matured, there has been a transition to more expressive syndication approaches; that is, subscribers and publishers are provided with more expressive means of describing their interests and published content, enabling more accurate information filtering. In this paper, we formalize a syndication architecture that utilizes expressive Web ontologies and logic-based reasoning for selective content dissemination. This provides finer grained control for filtering and automated reasoning for discovering implicit subscription matches, both of which are not achievable in less expressive approaches. We then address one of the main limitations with such a syndication approach, namely matching newly published information with subscription requests in an efficient and practical manner. To this end, we investigate continuous query answering for a large subset of the Web Ontology Language (OWL); specifically, we formally define continuous queries for OWL knowledge bases and present a novel algorithm for continuous query answering in a large subset of this language. Lastly, an evaluation of the query approach is shown, demonstrating its effectiveness for syndication purposes.


Underestimation of slant is a well-known bias in human surface attitude perception. Does this frontoparallel bias have a rational basis? If we consider a single tilt axis, and assume a world in which surfaces are uniformly distributed across slant, then a frontoparallel bias is predicted: surfaces with smaller slants project to larger regions of the visual field than more slanted, foreshortened surfaces and therefore should be observed more frequently. However, in natural scenes, surface slant is non-uniformly distributed and surface tilt varies widely. Here we consider the joint estimation of slant and tilt and relate it to natural scene statistics. On each trial, observers viewed a real, textured surface presented at one of 36 different orientations. The surface was viewed monocularly, through a small aperture, to reduce the reliability of slant and tilt cues, and therefore maximise the effect of biases related to perceptual priors. The use of a real surface eliminated cue conflicts that occur when slanted stimuli are rendered on a frontoparallel screen, which could otherwise lead to underestimation of slant. Observers reported perceived slant and tilt by rotating an unseen haptic paddle to match the orientation of the viewed surface. Consistent with previous reports of a frontoparallel prior, our results suggest a strong tendency to underestimate surface slant. However, slant underestimation was greater for ceiling planes than wall or floor planes. Evidence for a bias toward floor planes is also apparent in the tilt data, and reversals of perceived tilt were more frequent for ceiling planes than ground planes. Analyses of natural scenes statistics from the Southampton-York Natural Scenes (SYNS) dataset suggest that these perceptual biases are well-matched to the distribution of surface slant and tilt in natural scenes. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


We investigate the variability of the North Atlantic subarctic gyre in recent decades from time series of station temperature and salinity. Decadal variability stronger at the surface is identified, which exhibits vertical coherence over a layer deeper than the late winter mixed layer. In the northwestern Atlantic, it corresponds to the layer with a component of water from the Arctic Ocean or from the Canadian Arctic. The spatial coherence of the signal is investigated. An empirical orthogonal function decomposition of lagged time series indicates that a single pattern explains 70% of the variance in upper ocean salt content, corresponding to a propagating signal from the west to the northeast in the subarctic gyre. The most likely interpretation is that the salinity signal originates in the slope currents of the Labrador Sea and is diffused/advected eastward of the Grand Banks over the near western Atlantic. In the northwestern Atlantic, temperature fluctuations are strongly correlated to salinity fluctuations and are aligned along the average T-S characteristics. This signal suggests large variations in the outflow of fresh, cold water in the slope current, and is strongly correlated with ice cover. A basin scale atmospheric circulation of weakened westerlies at 55°N, weaker northwesterlies west of Greenland and weaker southerlies over the central and eastern North Atlantic is associated with the high salinity and warm water phase of the first principal component. This circulation pattern leads fluctuations in the northeast Atlantic and lags those in the northwestern part of the basin. The wind indices also suggest that the fluctuations of the fresh water outflow occur during intervals of anomalously northerly winds, either east of Greenland (1965, 1968-1969) or off the Canadian Archipelago (1983-1984).


Recently, researchers have discovered that many of social, natural and biological networks are characterized by scale-free power-law connectivity distribution and a few densely populated nodes, known as hubs. We envision that wireless communication or sensor networks are directly deployed over such real-world networks to facilitate communication among participating entities. Here nodes move in such a way that they exhibit scale-free connectivity distribution at any instance, which cannot be modeled by most of the prior mobility models such as random waypoint (RWP) mobility model. This paper proposes clustered mobility model (CMM), which facilitates in forming hubs in a network satisfying the scale-free property. We call this a scale-free wireless network (SFWN). In CMM, it is possible to control the degree of node concentration or non-homogeneity to easily assess the strengths and weaknesses of the scale-free phenomena. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there has been no such mobility model reported in the literature and we believe the proposed CMM can be usefully used to investigate the properties of the SFWNs that are likely to occur in a real deployment of wireless multihop and sensor networks. Another important feature of CMM is that it does not possess any unintended spatial and temporal characteristics found in other mobility models such as RWP. Finally, to highlight the difference between a SFWN and a conventional wireless network, extensive simulation study has been conducted to measure network capacities at the physical, link and network layers