The authors say that labor markets and their regulation are undergoing sweeping reforms due to the progress of international trade negotiations in developing countries. Improved labor rights, they note, create a solid base for strong and stable economic growth and attract foreign direct investment, which contributes to job creation and poverty reduction. Studies have shown that the Core Labor Standards (freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, abolition of forced labor, elimination of child labor, and freedom from discrimination) have contributed to higher productivity growth and other economic factors, they state. For example, they explain, the eradication of child and forced labor generally leads to economic growth because the elimination of cheap labor forces employers towards technological upgrades that positively impact productivity.


This article describes experiments with fieldwork methodology, carried out while researching the relationship between a Stalinist skyscraper (the Palace of Culture and Science) and the social life of contemporary Warsaw. Making use of three concepts of totality taken from social and art theory (the Maussian "total social fact," the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk , and anthropological holism), I show how the provocative style and public scale of "Palaceological" "ethnographic conceptualism"—which triangulates participant observation, artlike ethnographic interventions, and a quantitative survey—mirrors the bombastic manner and pervasive scope of the Palace's presence in the social life of the city. This text does not argue that an urban Gesamtkunstwerk or an experiment with ethnographic methodology can actually achieve (descriptive or actual) totality. Rather, it illustrates how an "urban portrait"—the product of an aspiration to approximate and to measure the totality of an urban environment, rather than to embrace partiality as an end in itself—might be assembled. In English, extended summary in Russian.


This paper is one of the first to analyse political influence on state-owned savings banks in a developed country with an established financial market: Germany. Combining a large dataset with financial and operating figures of all 457 German savings banks from 1994 to 2006 and information on over 1,250 local elections during this period we investigate the change in business behavior around elections. We find strong indications for political influence: the probability that savings banks close branches, lay-off employees or engage in merger activities is significantly reduced around elections. At the same time they tend to increase their extraordinary spendings, which include support for social and cultural events in the area, on average by over 15%. Finally, we find that savings banks extend significantly more loans to their corporate and private customers in the run-up to an election. In further analyses, we show that the magnitude of political influence depends on bank specific, economical and political circumstances in the city or county: political influence seems to be facilitated by weak political majorities and profitable banks. Banks in economically weak areas seem to be less prone to political influence.


The Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo observatories recently discovered gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral. A short gamma-ray burst (GRB) that followed the merger of this binary was also recorded by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM), and the Anticoincidence Shield for the Spectrometer for the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), indicating particle acceleration by the source. The precise location of the event was determined by optical detections of emission following the merger. We searched for high-energy neutrinos from the merger in the GeV--EeV energy range using the ANTARES, IceCube, and Pierre Auger Observatories. No neutrinos directionally coincident with the source were detected within $\pm500$ s around the merger time. Additionally, no MeV neutrino burst signal was detected coincident with the merger. We further carried out an extended search in the direction of the source for high-energy neutrinos within the 14-day period following the merger, but found no evidence of emission. We used these results to probe dissipation mechanisms in relativistic outflows driven by the binary neutron star merger. The non-detection is consistent with model predictions of short GRBs observed at a large off-axis angle.


A. kawachii has been traditionally used for production of the distilled spirit shochu in Japan. Citric acid produced by A. kawachii plays an important role in preventing microbial contamination during the shochu fermentation process. This study characterized homologous laeA genes; using CAGE, complementation tests, and ChIP-qPCR, it was found that laeA is required for citric acid production through the regulation of cexA in A. kawachii. The epigenetic regulation of citric acid production elucidated in this study will be useful for controlling the fermentation processes of shochu. ABSTRACT The putative methyltransferase LaeA is a global regulator of metabolic and development processes in filamentous fungi. We characterized the homologous laeA genes of the white koji fungus Aspergillus luchuensis mut. kawachii (A. kawachii) to determine their role in citric acid hyperproduction. The ΔlaeA strain exhibited a significant reduction in citric acid production. Cap analysis gene expression (CAGE) revealed that laeA is required for the expression of a putative citrate exporter-encoding cexA gene, which is critical for citric acid production. Deficient citric acid production by a ΔlaeA strain was rescued by the overexpression of cexA to a level comparable with that of a cexA-overexpressing ΔcexA strain. In addition, chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with quantitative PCR (ChIP-qPCR) analysis indicated that LaeA regulates the expression of cexA via methylation levels of the histones H3K4 and H3K9. These results indicate that LaeA is involved in citric acid production through epigenetic regulation of cexA in A. kawachii. IMPORTANCE A. kawachii has been traditionally used for production of the distilled spirit shochu in Japan. Citric acid produced by A. kawachii plays an important role in preventing microbial contamination during the shochu fermentation process. This study characterized homologous laeA genes; using CAGE, complementation tests, and ChIP-qPCR, it was found that laeA is required for citric acid production through the regulation of cexA in A. kawachii. The epigenetic regulation of citric acid production elucidated in this study will be useful for controlling the fermentation processes of shochu.


INTRODUCTION
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) leads to a progressive deterioration of the mus cle function and premature death. There are no longitudinal studies on the course of this pathology in Chile.

OBJECTIVE
To determine survival between the years 1993-2013, divided into two periods (1993-2002 and 2003-2013), and the effect of social determinants in patients with DMD admitted in Teleton Institutes of Chile (TI).

PATIENTS AND METHOD
Prospective follow-up study in a clinical series of 462 patients with DMD. The information was obtained by searching for patients with DMD in OLAP cube (Online Analytical Processing). From the clinical records of the TI of Santiago, the variables corresponding to the diagnostic method, stage of DMD described in terms of muscle de terioration and function according to Swinyard classification were recorded; existence and type of tests that conclude the diagnosis and, in the cases reported, the existence of family history. Kaplan Meier survival analysis was applied, where global survival was defined between birth and age of death. The determinant factors analyzed were estimated through the Cox-Snell's proportional risk model.

RESULTS
Survival at 20 years of age from TI entry was 51.7% (CI95%: 45.1-57.8), 48.5% in the period 1993-2002 and 72.8% between 2003-2013. The percentage of survival at the same age according to socioeconomic status (SES) was 82% in high SES, 67% in middle SES, and 42% in low SES, with a statistically significant difference between high and middle SES in relation to extreme poverty. Ac cording to country areas, the survival was close to 75 % at 17 years of age.

CONCLUSIONS
The survival information from patients with DMD from childhood to adult life is valuable for predicting the clinical course of the disease with the current medical care. There is evidence of improvement in the probability of survival at the age of 20 and marked inequity according to the socioeconomic variable.


Ymeri, P., F. Sahiti, A. Musliu, F. Shaqiri and M. Pllana, 2017. The effect of farm size on profi tability of laying poultry farms in Kosovo. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 23 (3): 376–380 After the war of 1998-1999, the Kosovo layer farms went through structural changes. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of farm size on the economic effi ciency of Kosovo laying hen farms. Research data are collected through surveys from 36 laying hen farms. Farms were divided into three groups, according to their size, and analysed accordingly. To determine the signifi cance levels of the dependent variables one-way ANOVA, is used. The results of the research showed that higher-capacity farms had a higher egg yield and a better feed effi ciency. Results also showed that as farm capacity increased, production cost per egg decreased and the profi t margin per egg increased. It was also found that the profi t margin were negative for group I and positive for groups II and III. Furthermore, farm size was positively related to economic and technical criteria, and small laying farms were negatively related to high sale prices of eggs.


This paper aims to discuss interesting experiential strategies of a specific European beer brand (Bergenbier) that maintained the balance between traditional and experiential marketing. My hypothesis is that the relationship between both types of marketing should be analysed from two angles: either commercials no longer focus on product features, but rather on events; or the experiential market is very well mirrored in ads. Additionally, this paper points out the levels of brand development that succeeded in engaging consumers so much that they found a new way to spend more time together, thus building a community. The aim is to make a comparative analysis between traditional marketing promoted by 50 TV campaigns (broadcast between 2004 and 2012) and experiential marketing events during the same interval. Basically, this paper seeks to analyze the relationship between traditional and experiential marketing, relying on the examples provided by Bergenbier campaigns, and to improve experiential strategic modules (according to Bernd Schmitt, shortened to SEM) by explaining their cultural dimension.


Soil nailing is an in-situ earth retaining technique and it has been excessively used all over the world for the various slope stability applications. The efficiency of soil nail structures is the resultant of complex soil-structure interaction among its various components, namely, in-situ soil, stiff reinforcement (i.e nails) and the facing. Often rigorous computational techniques based on finite element or finite difference methods are employed to study the complex soil-structure interaction and to assess the performance and stability of soil nail structures. PLAXIS 2D has been comprehensively used for the study of soil nail structures (e.g. Shiu et al. 2006; Fan and Luo 2008).


Abstract There is now expert consensus that directly observing the work of trainee therapists vs. relying upon self-report of sessions, is critical to providing the accurate feedback required to attain a range of competencies. In spite of this expert consensus however, and the broadly positive attitudes towards video review among supervisees, video feedback methods remain under-utilized in clinical supervision. This paper outlines some of the weaknesses that affect feedback based solely on self-report methods, before introducing some of the specific benefits that video feedback methods can offer the training and supervision context. It is argued that video feedback methods fit seamlessly into CBT supervision providing direct, accessible, effective, efficient and accurate observation of the learning situation, and optimizing the chances for accurate self-reflections and planning further improvements in performance. To demonstrate the utility of video feedback techniques to CBT supervision, two specific video feedback techniques are introduced and described: the Give-me-5 technique and the I-spy technique. Case examples of CBT supervision using the two techniques are provided and explored, and guidance as to the supervision contexts in which each of the two techniques are suitable, individually, and in tandem, are outlined. Finally, best practice guidelines for the use of video feedback techniques in supervision are outlined.


We build four new test sets for the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD) and evaluate the ability of question-answering systems to generalize to new data. Our first test set is from the original Wikipedia domain and measures the extent to which existing systems overfit the original test set. Despite several years of heavy test set re-use, we find no evidence of adaptive overfitting. The remaining three test sets are constructed from New York Times articles, Reddit posts, and Amazon product reviews and measure robustness to natural distribution shifts. Across a broad range of models, we observe average performance drops of 3.8, 14.0, and 17.4 F1 points, respectively. In contrast, a strong human baseline matches or exceeds the performance of SQuAD models on the original domain and exhibits little to no drop in new domains. Taken together, our results confirm the surprising resilience of the holdout method and emphasize the need to move towards evaluation metrics that incorporate robustness to natural distribution shifts.


Cloud applications are web-based distributed systems deployed over a fluctuating set of computing nodes and services. The design of cloud applications is particularly challenging because few assumptions can be made about the connectivity of nodes, the availability of services, as well as how the computing fabric will evolve in the long term. In this paper we show that logic programming combined with novel abstractions can be used to specify and synthesize cloud applications. Our tool-suite, called BAM, allows cloud applications to be specified independently from implementation technologies. The declarative nature of logic programming is essential to produce this decoupling. Code synthesis integrates state-of-the-art web technologies with well-known algorithms from logic programming to produce realistic and complete implementations from BAM specifications. First experiments show that mixing declarative logic programming with novel communication abstractions yields a powerful framework for architecting nextgeneration distributed systems.


Biomedical waste (BMW) management is an issue of major concern of all healthcare providers and healthcare establishments as the waste produced during the course of healthcare activities carries potential for infection and injury than any other type of waste. Biomedical waste management has recently emerged as an issue of present concern not only to hospitals, nursing home authorities but also to the environment. The bio-medical wastes generated from health care units depend upon a number of factors such as waste management methods, type of health care units, occupancy of healthcare units, specialization of healthcare units, ratio of reusable items in use, availability of infrastructure and resources etc. The proper management of biomedical waste has become a worldwide humanitarian topic today. Many studies across the country have shown that there are still deficiencies in the Knowledge, attitude and practices of the health care professionals in the organizations. Hence, A cross sectional study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding biomedical waste management among nursing professionals in a tertiary care hospital Bhubaneswar, Odisha. With due consideration to nursing personnel's availability, accessibility, feasibility, and resources, we decided to include (n=100) of them in our study. The number of nursing personnel was selected by simple random sampling in their respective department/specialty. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, practices and attitude of the nursing personnel regarding biomedical waste management. Overall, the knowledge, attitudes and practices towards biomedical waste management among the nursing professionals were satisfactory. Complete hepatitis B vaccine coverage among nurses (100%) in our study is attributed to hospital policy of free immunization to high risk groups. Such policy decisions do have a positive impact on work efficiency of nurses by creating a sense of being protected. European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 03, 2021 1128


This study explores forgiveness as human behaviors as opposed to an emotional response following perceived wrongdoing. Focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the purpose of this study is to critically investigate the concepts of forgiveness through philosophical, religious, historical, and practical lenses as understood by those who are intimately involved in the conflict's resolution. The aim is to determine how the application of forgiving behaviors may be effective in creating and sustaining moral relations and social justice consciousness whether or not an offense has occurred. Forgiving behaviors are defined as those human capacities, such as empathy, sympathy, love, benevolence, and trust, that are referenced as ethics of forgiveness, and are determined to be essential to humanitarian practices among local and global communities. Through a qualitative case study methodology, testimonies by twelve participants (four Israelis, four Palestinians, and four Americans) provide insight into the deeply embedded conflict and share their views on the role that forgiveness and ethics of forgiveness play in its resolution. Four research questions frame the study as a whole and are the basis of the participant interview questions, which are reported and analyzed in Chapters IV and V. Additionally, five challenges to forgiveness have been identified and explored that contribute to its effectiveness in conflict resolution. The greatest challenge is the military occupation of Palestinian territories by the Israeli government that purposefully denies basic human rights and daily living needs such as water and electricity to Palestinian people. As well, the taking of Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements results in displacement of Palestinian families into refugee camps and the increased building of a constructed wall further divides Palestinian territories and Israel. This study also includes description of efforts by participants and others to bring resolution to the conflict. Key findings offer possibilities for change based on the necessity for practices of ethics of forgiveness which reflect humanitarian interactions among perceived enemies. The environment that can best create these practices is the educational setting, thus a pedagogy of forgiveness is highlighted as providing hope for conflict resolution and demand for human, moral treatment of all people.


The CDMS and EDELWEISS collaborations have combined the results of their direct searches for dark matter using cryogenic germanium detectors. The total data set represents 614  kg·days equivalent exposure. A straightforward method of combination was chosen for its simplicity before data were exchanged between experiments. The results are interpreted in terms of limits on spin-independent weakly interacting, massive particle (WIMP)-nucleon cross section. For a WIMP mass of 90  GeV/c^2, where this analysis is most sensitive, a cross section of 3.3×10^(-44)  cm^2 is excluded at 90% C.L. At higher WIMP masses, the combination improves the individual limits, by a factor 1.6 above 700  GeV/c^2. Alternative methods of combining the data provide stronger constraints for some ranges of WIMP masses and weaker constraints for others.


KOBAYASHI The simplistic concept of "just export infrastructure technology" should be regarded as an out-of-date myth in the international construction market; added value is only generated when infrastructure projects are supported by comprehensive intangible technology enabling the infrastructure to be operated as a standardized system. The paper discussed the importance of international platform to achieve the diffusion and customization of technology standards by illustrating a project introducing pave management systems in Vietnam. In this case, engineering education by Kyoto University on asset management for road administrators and engineers in Vietnamese Government as well as university researchers have been one of major ingredients to become a strategic bridgehead for forming alliances and counteracting existing de facto


A fundamental problem in cooperative HumanRobot Interaction is object handover. Existing works in this area assume the human can reliably grasp the object from the robot hand. However, in some situations the human can produce perturbing forces in the object that are not meant to end in a handover. These perturbations can result in the object being dropped or the robot hand being damaged. This paper addresses this problem and presents a mechanism for reliable robot to human object handover implemented in a Shadow Robot hand endowed with tactile sensing. Given a stable grasping configuration, using BioTAC sensors we are able to estimate the contact forces applied to the object, and provide a feedback signal to a joint effort controller to maintain grasp forces despite perturbations. Our system is able to identify between object pulling forces which should result in an object handover, and other disturbances. Experimental results show that the hand releases the object only when the object is pulled, validating the proposed algorithm.


Improved Analysis of Value Added Cocoa Fermentation In Business Units productive (UUP) TunjungSari The purposeof this study was to determine the cocoa fermentation process, the determination of the value-added processing and obstacles encountered in increasing the added value of cocoa fermentation in productive Business Unit (UUP) Tunjung Sari. The study was conducted in January 2012, located at the Banjar Cangkup, Pesagi Village, District Penebel, Tabanan regency. Location selected (purposive). Data collection methods used were observation, interview and documentation. Selecting respondents (purposive) based on the duties and responsibilities ofeach.The analysis method used isdescriptive analysis method. This studyis descriptive qualitative. The primary data obtained fromdirect observationan dinterviews, and secondary data obtained from the study of literature. Based on the survey results revealed that the cocoa fermentation process include:(1)the procurement of raw materials, (2)bean sorting, (3)fermentation, (4)drying, (5)packing and (6)of storage.The results showed that the fermentation of raw material purchase cocoain 2011 amounting to Rp1,207,205,000, while sales of Rp 2,062,775,000. The added value obtained from the fermentation of cocoa processing Rp 2628.3/kg with a margin of 28.79%. From the above results should be productive Business Unit(UUP) SariTunjung more attention to quality, taking into account theamount of processing.


The root lesion nematode Pratylenchus thornei causes economic losses in wheat and barley internationally, through both reduced grain yield and grain quality. This study investigated the relationships between the pre-sowing P. thornei density and grain yield, and post-harvest nematode densities. Four field experiments were conducted at the same site between 2010 and 2014. A range of pre-sowing P. thornei densities were established in the first year by growing three cereal cultivars that ranged from resistant to susceptible. In the following year, plots were over sown with the five same cereal cultivars. A linear relationship was observed between the natural log of the pre-sowing P. thornei density and grain yield across all seasons. The results showed grain yield losses varied between cultivars and seasons. The importance of season was significant, with this study conducted over several seasons and highlighted the variability in yield losses between seasons which will need further investigation. The greatest yield losses observed were 25-28%, when the maximum pre-sowing P. thornei densities ranged between 150-250 P. thornei. g soil-1. An analysis of the relationship between the pre-sowing and post-harvest nematode densities revealed that increased pre-sowing nematode densities resulted in decreased multiplication rates in all seasons and in all cultivars. Nematode multiplication rates also varied between seasons. These results explain why it is difficult to predict nematode levels based on cropping history and highlight the importance of growing resistant cultivars to maintain low levels of P. thornei to minimize risk of yield losses.


In this paper, the propagation characteristics of near-infrared (NIR) light in the palm tissue are analyzed, and the principle and feasibility of using transcutaneous diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for non-invasive blood glucose detection are presented. An optical probe suitable for measuring the diffuse reflectance spectrum of human palm and a non-invasive blood glucose detection system using NIR spectroscopy are designed. Based on this system, oral glucose tolerance tests are performed to measure the blood glucose concentrations of two young healthy volunteers. The partial least square calibration model is then constructed by all individual experimental data. The final result shows that correlation coefficients of the two experiments between the predicted blood glucose concentrations and the reference blood glucose concentrations are 0.9870 and 0.9854, respectively. The root mean square errors of prediction of full cross validation are 0.54 and 0.52 mmol/l, respectively.


Migration can allow individuals to escape parasite infection, which can lead to a lower infection probability (prevalence) in a population and/or fewer parasites per individual (intensity). Since individuals with more parasites often have lower survival and/or fecundity, infection intensity shapes the life-history tradeoffs determining when migration is favored as a strategy to escape infection. Yet, most theory relies on susceptible-infected (SI) modeling frameworks, defining individuals as either healthy or infected, ignoring details of infection intensity. Here, we develop a novel modeling approach that captures infection intensity as a spectrum, and ask under what conditions migration evolves as function of how infection intensity changes over time. We show that relative timescales of migration and infection accumulation determine when migration is favored. We also find that population-level heterogeneity in infection intensity can lead to partial migration, where less-infected individuals migrate while more infected individuals remain resident. Our model is one of the first to consider how infection intensity can lead to migration. Our results frame migratory escape in light of infection intensity rather than prevalence, thus demonstrating that decreased infection intensity should be considered a benefit of migration, alongside other typical drivers of migration.


Abstract The EFSA Panel on Plant Health performed a pest categorisation of Phlyctinus callosus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) for the EU territory. This species is not included in EU Commission Implementing Regulation 2019/2072. P. callosus is a polyphagous pest native to South Africa which has spread to Australia and New Zealand, Reunion and St Helena. Immature development takes place in the soil where larvae feed on the roots of a variety of plants including grasses, root vegetables and herbaceous plants; adults are noted as significant pests of apples, nectarines and grapes, feeding on foliage and the surface of fruit causing scarring. Soft fruits such as strawberries and blueberries can also be damaged by adult feeding. P. callosus has been intercepted in Europe on apples and peaches from South Africa. Table grapes could also provide a pathway for entry to the EU. Rooted plants for planting could also provide a potential pathway. Hosts are grown widely across the EU in areas with climates comparable to those in parts of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia where the pest is established suggesting that conditions in the EU are suitable for the establishment of P. callosus. If introduced into the EU, natural spread would be limited because adults cannot fly and must disperse by walking. However, the movement of host plants for planting within the EU could spread juvenile stages much faster and adults could spread with fruits. The prohibition of soil or growing media from third countries should prevent the entry of P. callosus larvae and pupae. Other phytosanitary measures are available to inhibit the entry of P. callosus. P. callosus satisfies the criteria that are within the remit of EFSA to assess for it to be regarded as a potential Union quarantine pest.


Models of geographical space are empowered by a hard rhetoric that, in suggesting the concrete stability of the longue durée, lends the aura of geological fixity. But while places might themselves be sheer facts, our conceptions of them both in themselves and in relation to other places are cultural constructions born in particular moments in time. A coinage of the early twentieth century to demarcate a strategic middle ground between the "Near" and "Far" East, the "Middle East" is itself a relatively new category whose history has been far less stable than its hard rhetoric might suggest. In pointing to the mutability of geographical models, Green aims not so much to historicize but to question the continued usefulness of the more formal, closed model of the Middle East. For all such geographical models are ultimately analytical categories that are meant to enable us to trace forms of connectivity and commonality. And like any other analytical categories, geographical ones deserve no special treatment once they have outlived their usefulness. This seems particularly the case when we look to the geographical frameworks that have actually enabled original scholarship over the past decade or so, particularly the shift toward maritime conceptions of space (Mediterranean, Indian Ocean), which though by no means new have breathed new life into the study of the premodern and colonial/modern history of the Middle East. The rise of global and connected history has similar implications for the closedness and fixity of the traditional area studies paradigm, which, Green contends, doesn't help us meet the challenge and possibilities provided by the emergence of these new forms of history writing.


Dudley Randell, Broadside Press, and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit, 1960-1995 Author: Julius E. Thompson All the rage, these days, is found in calling New York the center of the Black Arts Movement. Nuyorican scenes of mythical proportion--East Village, Greenwich Village, Stanley's, St. Mark's, Cedar Bar--are now conjured by the next wave of young intellectuals and poets rebuffing Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s statement that the Black Arts Movement was the "shortest and least successful" movement in African-American cultural history (Time). Those in the know will speak of Umbra, the Black Aesthetic and Dasein. People will speak in generalities about Baraka's move from the Black Mountain School, to Black Nationalism, to Marxism, or talk about chauvinism within the movement. Mr. Julius E. Thompson's Dudley Randell, Broadside Press, and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit, 1960-1995 shows us that, while some main figures resided in New York at one time or another, the strongest publishing arm of the movement was centered thousands of miles away in Detroit, at Randell's Broadside Press. Thompson's book is a thorough assessment of the press. The book meticulously displays the publishing records and authors of Broadside Press as well as describes the parallel between Broadside and the growth and demise of a northern Black nexus, "Motor City" (Detroit, Michigan). Thompson provides a biographical reading of Randell's Black middle-class upbringing and his family's ultimate arrival in Detroit where the Ford Motor Company was the major employer of Blacks, though Blacks were "[T]he last hired and the first fired." Thompson provides figures on the hirers and the hazards facing Black labor in Detroit. He runs down the numbers on Black owned businesses--barber shops, dress makers, electricians, real estate brokers, lawyers, etc.--, reminding one of W.E.B DuBois' similar account in his seminal essay, "The Talented Tenth." Thompson portrays this booming, urban, Black, American city and suggests that from this economy arose new, "Black controlled institutions" such as the Nation of Islam, NAACP, National Urban League, the eighteen Black newspapers that served Michigan and the pride surrounding Joe Louis, "the Brown Bomber," all of which Thompson utilizes well to set the scene in which Broadside grew. In Thompson's discussions with Randell, Randell remembers early in his life reading Black luminaries such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes while also translating Catullus and Pushkin. Thompson also shows the friendship between Randell and poet Robert Hayden (a Detroit resident and teacher at Randell's alma-mater, Wayne State University). In an especially intimate passage from an interview with Thompson, Randell says, "When I would show Robert Hayden a new poem and he would ask where I was going to publish it, I'd be amazed. Why was he so eager to be published?" Thompson notes that Randell had a writing community at Wayne State, but that the more lauded community of writers, in Chicago (among them Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Danner, Margaret Walker and Frank Marshell Davis) were too far for Randell, a struggling student and poet, to reach regularly. Thompson suggests that Randell knew of these poets but sadly leaves any formal meetings with this "Chicago group" out. However, Thompson notes that Randell's poem "Legacy: My South" appears in Free Lance (1954) which was the publishing arm of the Chicago group and further implies Randell's relationship to some of the seldom sung, non-New York Black Arts centers (see Aldyn Nielson, Black Chant for more information regarding Free Lance). …


Alongside deploying weapons and sensors what makes a warship distinct is survivability, being the measure that enables a warship to survive in a militarily hostile environment. The rising cost of warship procurement, coupled with declining defence budgets, has led to a reduction in the number of ships in most western navies. Moreover, cost cutting is often aimed at aspects which may be difficult to quantify, such as survivability, and can lead to potentially inadequate designs. Innovation in both the design process and the design of individual ships is, therefore, necessary, especially at the crucial early design stages. Computer technology can be utilised to exploit architecturally orientated preliminary design approaches which can address innovation early in the ship design process and in issues such as survivability. A number of survivability assessment tools currently exist; however, most fail to integrate all survivability constituents (i.e. susceptibility, vulnerability and recoverability), in that they are unable to balance between the component aspects of survivability. Some are qualitative, therefore less than ideal for requirement specification, others are aimed towards the detailed design stages where implementing changes is heavily constrained or even impractical. Since a ship's survivability is dependent on layout, the approach adopted in this research takes advantage of an architecturally orientated ship design approach applicable to early stage design. Such a method is proposed and demonstrated on five combatant (including a trimaran configuration) and two auxiliary ship design studies. The proposed method combines various tools used by UCL and the UK Ministry of Defence, as well as a new approach for recoverability assessment and, therefore, tackles difficulties currently associated with the latter (e.g.: lack of data, human performance and time dependence) by using weighted performance measures. An overall approach for survivability assessment has been applied across the range of designs produced and conclusions drawn on their relative merits for overall survivability. The approach and implications of the integration of survivability assessment in the preliminary ship design stages, as well as the identification of major survivability design drivers, are discussed. Through the identification of problematic topics, areas for further research are suggested. It is envisaged that this research will assist in developing the design process of what are, according to Captain C. Graham, USN, "the most complex, diverse and highly integrated of any engineering systems" produced today on a regular basis.


ABSTRACT Williams, S.D.P.; Woodworth, P.L., and Hunter, J.R., 2016. Commentary on 'Coastal planning should be based on proven sea level data' by A. Parker and C.D. Ollier (Ocean & Coastal Management, 124, 1–9, 2016). A recent paper by A. Parker and C.D. Ollier (Ocean & Coastal Management, 124, 1–9, 2016), concerned with the use of 'proven' sea-level data for coastal planning, contained a number of incorrect or misleading statements about sea-level data sets and measurement methods. In this commentary, we address aspects of sea-level records that could have been misunderstood by readers of that paper. While we agree with the main point made by the authors, that the best possible sea-level data are required by coastal planners, we suggest that planners should base their work on wider and better informed sources of sea-level information.


Abstract We conducted a comprehensive literature review on abortion in seven African countries to synthesize and analyze the landscape of abortion-related scientific knowledge, with the aim of informing abortion-access related research and programs in the region. We find that that abortion is common, despite legal restrictions, and often occurs outside of the formal health care system. Use of medication abortion was reported to be low, potentially due to legal restrictions and insufficient provider training across the continent. Creative interventions that could improve people's knowledge of and access to safe medication abortion were identified and described.


This paper addresses the growth and development of the concept of interactivity in online newspapers from the perspectives of computer-mediated communication, journalism, advertising, and information system. This paper discusses the concept of interactivity that originated in the work of Heeter. The study maps Heeter's dimensions (content, availability and choice, communication opportunity, effort of users, responsiveness, and customisation and management of information) in the contemporary setting of the Australian online newspaper industry. The researchers reviewed 12 Australian online newspapers in two snapshots using a website content analysis approach. The results are the basis for discussion as to the level of interactivity in Australian online newspapers. Content availability and choice was found to be the most significant element of interactivity. It is noted that, while the majority of Australian online newspapers offer interactive functionality for expressing opinions, blogging, contests and polls, only one online newspaper provided genuine interactive gaming.


Automated Vehicles are an integral part of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) and are expected to play a crucial role in the future mobility services. This paper investigates two classes of self-driving vehicles: (i) Level 4&5 Automated Vehicles (AVs) that rely solely on their on-board sensors for environmental perception tasks, and (ii) Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs), leveraging connectivity to further enhance perception via driving intention and sensor information sharing. Our investigation considers and quantifies the impact of each vehicle group in large urban road networks in Europe and in the USA. The key performance metrics are the traffic congestion, average speed and average trip time. Specifically, the numerical studies show that the traffic congestion can be reduced by up to a factor of four, while the average flow speeds of CAV group remains closer to the speed limits and can be up to 300% greater than the human-driven vehicles. Finally, traffic situations are also studied, indicating that even a small market penetration of CAVs will have a substantial net positive effect on the traffic flows.


Digital signal processing is arguably one of the most important segments of any modern medical equipment. Recent advances in intelligence signal processing have married machine learning methods to traditional signal analysis and classification practices. In this talk, I will review state of the art brainwave analysis methods and our related advances in quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) analysis for brain computer interfaces (thought translation devices), as well as cerebral ischemia localization (e.g. for clamp monitoring during inetroperative carotid endarterectomy). The presentation will conclude with a discussion on corresponding R&D trends, especially near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a new complementary modality to EEG for portable and affordable monitoring of brain functions.


The effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on balance in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) are not well established. This study examined whether DBS randomized to the subthalamic nucleus (STN; n = 11) or globus pallidus interna (GPi; n = 10) improved compensatory stepping to recover balance after a perturbation. The standing surface translated backward, forcing subjects to take compensatory steps forward. Kinematic and kinetic responses were recorded. PD-DBS subjects were tested off and on their levodopa medication before bilateral DBS surgery and retested 6 mo later off and on DBS, combined with off and on levodopa medication. Responses were compared with PD-control subjects (n = 8) tested over the same timescale and 17 healthy control subjects. Neither DBS nor levodopa improved the stepping response. Compensatory stepping in the best-treated state after surgery (DBS+DOPA) was similar to the best-treated state before surgery (DOPA) for the PD-GPi group and the PD-control group. For the PD-STN group, there were more lateral weight shifts, a delayed foot-off, and a greater number of steps required to recover balance in DBS+DOPA after surgery compared with DOPA before surgery. Within the STN group five subjects who did not fall during the experiment before surgery fell at least once after surgery, whereas the number of falls in the GPi and PD-control groups were unchanged. DBS did not improve the compensatory step response needed to recover from balance perturbations in the GPi group and caused delays in the preparation phase of the step in the STN group.


For third generation systems and ultrawideband systems, RAKE receivers have been introduced due to the advantage of RAKE receivers which is their ability to combine different replicas of the transmitted signal arriving at different delays in a rich multipath environment. In principle, RAKE receivers combine all resolvable paths which gives the best performance in a rich diversity environment. However, this is usually costly in terms of hardware required as the number of RAKE fingers increases. Therefore, generalized selection combining (GSC) RAKE reception was proposed and has been studied by many researcher as an alternative to the classical two fundamental diversity schemes: maximal ratio combining and selection combining. Previous work on performance analyses of GSC RAKE receivers based on the signal to noise ratio focused on the development of methodologies to derive exact closed-form expressions for various performance measures. However, the remaining set of uncombined paths affect the overall performance both in terms of loss in power. Therefore, to have a full understanding of the performance of GSC RAKE receivers, we introduce in this paper the notion of capture probability, which is defined as the ratio of the captured power (essentially combined paths power) to that of the total available power. The major difficulty in these problems is to derive some joint statistics of ordered exponential variates. With this motivation in mind, we capitalize in this paper on some new order statistics results to derive exact closed-form expressions for the capture probability over independent and identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels.


: This research starts from the existing theoretical assumptions that education is a good investment for the employer and positively affects employee satisfaction. Our intention was to test this hypothesis through appropriate research in Serbia and to identify which factors and to what extent it influences.We started from the fact that HR is a complex process and influenced by various factors. In this context, special attention is paid to the integration of training and education into other HR processes, as one of the most important conditions for influencing business results and employee satisfaction. In doing so, it is especially true that the HRM concept in Serbia has been accepted with great delay and only with the arrival of foreign investors.The main goal of this research is to identify and examine the factors that influence the effects of training/education in the organizational context, and to determine under what conditions education can be an investment rather than an expense. This work is methodologically based on the analysis of the available literature and the results of the research of the authors statistically processed based on the survey on the example of -187 respondents from companies selected by random sample. An appropriate model is presented that in a simple way shows the factors influencing the cost-effectiveness of investment in education/ training.Key words: human rresource management, employee, satisfaction, training, investment, business results


This research project developed vital operational guidelines for design of a variable speed limit (VSL) system and its integrated operations with ramp metering control in contending with recurrent highway congestion. The developed guidelines can serve as an effective tool for traffic engineers to determine when to activate a VSL control and under what traffic conditions it needs to be supplemented by ramp metering operations to ensure the stability of traffic evolution over the congested highway segment. This report also presents various measures of effectiveness for evaluating the benefits of VSL and its integration with ramp metering control. A VSL control algorithm to compute the time-varying speeds in real time, based on detected traffic conditions, was developed in this study. Extensive simulation experiments, calibrated with the field data from US100 in Maryland, were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed VSL algorithm. Both the experimental results and sensitivity analyses with respect to key model parameters confirmed that proper implementation of VSL can indeed mitigate the congestion caused by the high-speed variance among vehicles and allow traffic flows to better utilize the available roadway capacity.


The development of environmentally benign methods for the synthesis of nanomaterials has become increasingly relevant as chemists look to shape a more sustainable future. In this critical review, we present current work towards developing alternative methods for synthesizing a wide range of high-quality nanomaterials with predictable and controllable size, shape, composition, morphology and crystallinity. In particular, we focus on the inherent advantages of utilizing porous membrane templates, ultrasonic and microwave irradiation, alternative solvent systems, as well as biologically-inspired reagents as reasonably cost-effective, environmentally responsible methods to generate metal, metal oxide, fluoride, sulfide, selenide and phosphate nanomaterials.


The book identifies different national characteristics in terms of the motivation to privatise, the scale of privatization and its consequences. In the opening chapters there is a detailed overview of the theoretical economic issues involved in privatisation and an assessment of privatization across the EU. The remaining ten chapters contain national case studies of EU countries which review the history of state ownership and privatization in each of these countries and evaluate the extent of privatisation. The role of European Commission directives in deregulating markets and stimulating privatisation is also examined.


This article assesses the extent to which government-administered financial shocks and lower interest rates can account for the massive accumulation of bank excess reserves in the Great Depression. Both factors are shown to be statistically significant. Financial shocks did exert astatistically detectable influence on the demand for excess reserves but those shocks at best can account for a step-like increase in the level of reserves held, an increase which was completed in less than a year. Financial shocks can explain no more than 1 percent of the variation in excess reserves during the Great Depression. We demonstrate that the most statistically appropriate form of the demand function is one which flattened rapidly as interest rates fell. The fall in interest rates can account for 80 percent of the movement of excess reserves during the Great Depression.


A lot of research has been done on the effects of music and sounds on performance in many areas of study. However, there have been mixed results about what kind of effects music can have. Musical pleasure was able to influence task performance, and the shape of this effect depended on group and individual factor (Gold B., et al. 2013). According to Fassbender (2012), music does have an effect on memory, music during a study or learning phase hindered memory but increased mood and sports performance. The objective of this experiment is to find if music can help memorize different tests like nonsense syllables, numbers and poems with rhyme. Students were from different faculties, N=74 (75% females) between age 17-22, participating in this experiment. Experiment had 4 different tests, self-created according to the experiment of nonsense syllables from (Ebinghaus 1885). First test had 50 nonsense syllables to lead to the next phase of experiment. Students were separated in 3 groups with almost the same numbers of correct nonsense syllables from the first test. First group was taking the tests without music at all and in silent, second group was doing the test with lyrics music and the third group with relaxing music. All three groups had 5 minutes for each 3 different tests to memorize 50 other nonsense syllables (including 3 same syllables), 12 lines from poems and 50 different order of numbers, then to write down how much they memorized. The music was the same during memorizing phase and was repeated during writing phase with same volume and with headphones on. Result showed that there are significant differences memorizing lines from poems and the same syllables between students without music and them with music. T-test for each group also showed the significant differences between these two groups. Regression analyses explain 33% of variance factors for memorizing the lines and 50% of variance factors for memorizing the same syllables, groups have the most impact on regression. Conclusions of this research are that music affects memory negatively resulting that students are able to memorize better without music. This research also concludes that silent is a key factor to recognize the same nonsense syllables. When it comes to memorizing better keep the music down!


Research has shown that parent-child shared reading interactions in the
preschool period can enhance children's early language and literacy skills, and it is
acknowledged that the way parents read with their children is particularly important.
This thesis explores the shared reading behaviours of parents and young children in
order to identify and develop reading behaviours, especially those that may promote
language and literacy skills. Two studies are reported. First, a short, intensive,
techniques-based reading intervention programme, called 'dialogic reading' designed to
enhance children's language skills was carried out using an experimental design.
Programme group parents were shown a number of 'dialogic' techniques to use when
reading with their children. Interviews showed that parents were implementing the
techniques and that they valued the programme. The early literacy skills of the
programme group were significantly enhanced by the intervention although there were
no effects on their language skills.
The second study explored in some depth how parents and children read
together, and whether behaviours that promoted language and literacy development
could be identified. Eight mothers with three-year-old children from varying socioeconomic
backgrounds were videotaped reading together. Two methods of analysis
were employed: a holistic and a more systematic approach. There were substantial
differences in the ways mothers and children read, although all mothers used a wide
variety of reading behaviours. There was evidence that referring to abstract events and
situations, or high-level demand language, promoted language and literacy
development. All mothers used some dialogic behaviours, particularly when supporting
their children's attempts to read to them. Study 2 also demonstrated that the type of
books read affected interactions, with expository books generating the most interaction.
Dyads ranked higher on a measure of education and occupation, the educational occupational
ranking (EOR), tended to engage in the highest levels of participation,
high-level demand language and the longest episodes. The findings show that the range
of shared reading behaviours used by parents is far more extensive than those promoted
by dialogic reading; indeed, dialogic reading largely overlooks important behaviours,
such as high-level demand language.


Many classic methods have shown non-local self-similarity in natural images to be an effective prior for image restoration. However, it remains unclear and challenging to make use of this intrinsic property via deep networks. In this paper, we propose a non-local recurrent network (NLRN) as the first attempt to incorporate non-local operations into a recurrent neural network (RNN) for image restoration. The main contributions of this work are: (1) Unlike existing methods that measure self-similarity in an isolated manner, the proposed non-local module can be flexibly integrated into existing deep networks for end-to-end training to capture deep feature correlation between each location and its neighborhood. (2) We fully employ the RNN structure for its parameter efficiency and allow deep feature correlation to be propagated along adjacent recurrent states. This new design boosts robustness against inaccurate correlation estimation due to severely degraded images. (3) We show that it is essential to maintain a confined neighborhood for computing deep feature correlation given degraded images. This is in contrast to existing practice that deploys the whole image. Extensive experiments on both image denoising and super-resolution tasks are conducted. Thanks to the recurrent non-local operations and correlation propagation, the proposed NLRN achieves superior results to state-of-the-art methods with much fewer parameters.


A system for generating chromosomal insertions in lactococci is described. It is based on the conditional replication of lactococcal pWV01-derived Ori+ RepA- vector pORI19, containing lacZ alpha and the multiple cloning site of pUC19. Chromosomal AluI fragments of Lactococcus lactis were cloned in pORI19 in RepA+ helper strain Escherichia coli EC101. The frequency of Campbell-type recombinants, following introduction of this plasmid bank into L. lactis (RepA-), was increased by combining the system with temperature-sensitive pWV01 derivative pVE6007. Transformation of L. lactis MG1363 (pVE6007) with the pORI19 bank of lactococcal chromosomal fragments at the permissive temperature allowed replication of several copies of a recombinant plasmid from the bank within a cell because of the provision in trans of RepA-Ts from pVE6007. A temperature shift to 37 degrees C resulted in loss of pVE6007 and integration of the pORI19 derivatives at high frequencies. A bank of lactococcal mutants was made in this way and successfully screened for the presence of two mutations: one in the monocistronic 1.3-kb peptidoglycan hydrolase gene (acmA) and one in the hitherto uncharacterized maltose fermentation pathway. Reintroduction of pVE6007 into the Mal- mutant at 30 degrees C resulted in excision of the integrated plasmid and restoration of the ability of ferment maltose. The integration plasmid (pMAL) was rescued by using the isolated plasmid content of a restored Mal+ colony to transform E. coli EC101. Nucleotide sequencing of the 564-bp chromosomal fragment in pMAL revealed an internal part of an open reading frame of which the translated product showed significant homology with ATP-binding proteins MalK of E. coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Enterobacter aerogenes and MsmK of Streptococcus mutans. This combined use of two types of conditional replicating pWV01-derived vectors represents a novel, powerful tool for chromosomal gene inactivation, targeting, cloning, and sequencing of the labelled gene.


Intensified globalisation, upheaval, conflict and inequality are creating new patterns of global migration and mobility in the 21st century. As a result, the dynamics of urban diversity is changing: global cities like London are increasingly characterised by the super-diversity of their residents, including increasing complexities of legal status. 'New' diversity interacts with 'old' ethnic diversity to create complex patterns of difference, the impact of which is felt at local level, including sites of service provision. This article draws on research on barriers to service access for Latin Americans in London, to examine the intersections between super-diversity and super-austerity. Latin Americans constitute a new migrant group in London with considerable internal diversity. The article discusses the interlocking challenges they face in accessing services. I argue that focusing on barriers to service access for this particular group provides a window onto new inequalities in super-diverse austerity Britain and the production of precarity.


An extensive user requirements study was carried out to define the scope of functionality for the applications of m-learning with the potential to enhance the student performance and experience within the BSc Multimedia Technology and Design (MMTD) course at the School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University, United Kingdom. Based on participatory action research and user-centered design, the study involved 58 students attending the course at Level 2. All students participated in three sequential study sessions. The first session included a presentation of the concept of m-learning and a selection of related applications and underlying technologies. The second session consisted of 13 moderated semistructured focus groups. The groups were steered to specify their ideas as to how m-learning could best contribute to the MMTD course. In the third session, working in the same groups as in the second, the students were briefed to refine the ideas arising from the focus group discussions and "translate¿ them into the concept of the single m-learning application (one per group) that was seen as being potentially the most beneficial for the course. The 13 smart-phone-based m--learning applications that were thus generated were subsequently analyzed and their individual functions broken down and grouped into five main functionality themes. These themes, outlining the scope of functionality for m-learning in the context of education of multimedia technologists and designers at the university level, are: administration, presentation, feedback, motivation, and innovation.


Providing structured yet adaptable models of project success within an organization, A Standard for Enterprise Project Management explains each of the basic elements needed for project success and integrates them into a balanced life-cycle continuum. It also supplies an inventory of practical policies, procedures, techniques, and templates for consistent management of projects. The book first discusses project authorization and initiation, followed by analysis and planning. It then covers execution, control, and closure. Each phase contains an explanation and an illustration of how to optimize success. Throughout the text, the author refers to numerous appendices that constitute both blank and completed templates. He provides details on how to use these tools, with an emphasis on balancing the benefits of standardization and the need for flexibility. The accompanying CD-ROM encompasses a full-color version of the book as well as four bonus features: 1. Quick start with Project 2003 that offers a one-page tutorial and three pages of screen prints designed to quickly generate readable and concise project plans 2. Complex project readiness grid that suggests how to manage intricate interrelationships in a project or program environment 3. Project management competency development grid that outlines a program for developing key skills among project managers within an organization 4. Traceability matrix that illustrates how various levels of requirements and final solutions are interrelated This book offers a painless guide to quickly getting business initiatives out of the clouds and onto the ground. Blending the rigor and discipline of project management with the thoroughness of business analysis, it shows how to successfully build, complement, and enhance project management and business analysis in any organization.


Summary
A simple medium for the collection and transport of stool or rectal swabs was tested in an area where diarrheas are endemic. In most instances, enteric pathogens survived 7 days or longer following inoculation of the medium. Interference by non-pathogenic bacteria commonly found in the stool was not apparent.
The medium consists of sodium thioglycollate, Na2HPO4, CaCl2, NaCl, and agar in demineralized distilled water, and is adjusted to pH 8.4. It is easily and cheaply prepared, does not need refrigeration prior to use or incubation following inoculation, and has a small space requirement. The semi-solid nature of the medium eliminates the leakage or spillage often associated with fluid-collecting media. Swabs for use with the medium are prepared by dipping them into hot Sorenson's buffer, pH 8.1, followed by sterilization and drying.
It was concluded that the medium provides a practical, effective means for the collection and transport of fecal material for subsequent bacteriologic examination.


Programmers frequently use keyword searches to find source code in large repositories. However, to do this effectively, programmers must specify keyword queries that capture implementation details of their desired code. I propose that code search should be about behavior, not about keywords. In this talk, I will present an approach to code search that allows programmers to provide inputs and outputs that define the behavior of their desired code. This approach indexes source code repositories by symbolically analyzing the programs and program fragments and transforming them into constraints representing their behavior. Results are identified using an SMT solver, which, given an input/output specification and the constraint representation of a program fragment, determines if the fragment matches the desired behavior. While promoting code reuse, my approach enables reuse where it was not possible before: the constraints can be relaxed, identifying code that approximately matches the specification. Further, the solver can then guide the instantiation of the code to produce the desired behavior. I will illustrate the generality of the approach by showing its instantiation in subsets of three languages, the Java String library, Yahoo! Pipes mashups, and SQL select statements. I will conclude by sharing my vision for new research directions related to this semantic approach to code search.


The soil-water diffusivity D(θ) is expressed by a functional form which becomes infinite as the soil-water content approaches a constant value, such as the saturated or near-saturated value. The function begins at the origin, and shows an approximately exponential rise in the intermediate soil-water content range. When combined with a previously suggested form of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity function K(θ), qualitatively reasonable forms for the relationship between water content and suction head can be inferred. A computer program was developed to determine the characterizing parameters in the function by a least-squares fit to experimental data for horizontal water absorption. The program used an optimum seeking technique with numerical solutions of the flow equations as obtained by Philip's method. For different types of soils and several bulk densities, the new functional form was compared with the commonly used exponential expression for D(θ), and was found to be more representative, particularly for soils which show a very rapid increase in D(θ) as saturation is approached.


This paper draws on an analysis of secondary statistical data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People In England (LSYPE) to investigate careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) services provided to young people in relation to the post-16 vocational qualifications they select. Post-16 education and training are highly differentiated in England and there is a huge range of courses and qualifications available to young people. These qualifications are not readily comparable and are of uneven value, especially those in vocational education and training (VET). In this context of confusion the Wolf Report (Wolf 2011: 13) accused schools of "gaming": advising students onto less demanding courses which benefit schools in their position on national league tables but which are of doubtful worth for the students themselves.

To assess the impact of CEIAG for young people in England more broadly this paper reports on statistical analysis of data from the LSYPE in response to two research questions:
• What formal CEIAG do young people receive?
• What evidence is there of young people being advised onto vocational courses which they do not complete or from which progression is difficult?

The LSYPE collected data from a panel of young people in seven waves between 2004 and 2010 on a wide range of topics including family environment, type of school attended and sources of advice and guidance. 15770 young people were involved in the first wave, dropping to 8682 by the final wave.

The LSYPE covered a period when CEIAG services were in flux and when new VET qualifications were being introduced with much publicity. There was found to be wide discrepancy in what young people perceived to be available. That discrepancy of provision may have exacerbated the problem of disadvantaged young people selecting courses leading to qualifications which, even if they completed them, have proved to be short-lived and which have little status in higher education or the workplace.

These findings are especially important given that the Education Act of 2011 has repealed the careers education duty on schools in England and moved responsibility for information advice and guidance from local authorities to schools.


We have developed a Monte Carlo program that can account for Raman scattering in the ocean when polarization effects are not considered. The program is capable of coupling an inhomogeneous atmosphere to an inhomogeneous ocean through a dielectric interface. We have studied the filling in of both the 486-nm H(beta) and the 518-nm Mg Fraunhofer lines caused by Raman scattering in the ocean. The amount of fill varies with solar zenith angle, angle of view, depth in the ocean, and magnitude of the cross sections. By monitoring the shapes of Fraunhofer lines we can learn a great deal about the relative importance of this inelastic process in oceanic optics.


Are the personal values of others a relevant cue when thinking about cooperating, and do values matter more than empathizing with others? To address these questions, the present study presented participants (N = 120) with the details of personal values (social values [e.g., family, friends] or economic values [e.g., phone, bike]) held by fictitious players of a linear public goods game (PGG). In addition, half those tested were induced to empathize with the other players via presenting perspective-taking instructions (empathy induction), and the other half were not. For those that believed they were interacting with real players in a cooperative game (n=70) values did indeed matter. Participants acted more cooperatively in the Social Value condition as compared to the Economic Value condition when there was empathy induction. While empathy induction (perspective-taking instructions) made little difference to levels of cooperation, it did reduce the use of the tit-for-tat strategy in the game. These findings present some challenges to recent work promoting the role of empathy in pro-social behaviors


From the Publisher:
Cryptography is the gold standard for security. It is used to protect the transmission and storage of data between two parties by encrypting it into an unreadable format. Cryptography has enabled the first wave of secure transmissions, which has helped fuel the growth of transactions like shopping, banking, and finance over the world's biggest public network, the Internet. Many Internet applications such as e-mail, databases, and browsers store a tremendous amount of personal and financial information, but frequently the data is left unprotected. Traditional network security is frequently less effective at preventing hackers from accessing this data. For instance, once-private databases are now completely exposed on the Internet. It turns out that getting to the database that holds millions of credit card numbers—the transmission—is secure through the use of cryptography, but the database itself isn't, fueling the rise of credit card information theft.
A paradigm shift is now under way for cryptography. The only way to make data secure in any application that runs over the Internet is to use secret (also known as private) key cryptography. The current security methods focus on securing Internet applications using public keys techniques that are no longer effective. In this groundbreaking book, noted security expert Nick Galbreath provides specific implementation guidelines and code examples to secure database and Web-based applications to prevent theft of sensitive information from hackers and internal misuse.


The forests and woodlands of Victoria's Box-Ironbark Region are one of the most important areas of animal diversity and significance in southern Australia. They provide critical habitat for a diverse array of woodland-dependant animals, including many threatened species such as the Squirrel Glider, Brush-tailed Phascogale, Regent Honeyeater, Swift Parrot, Pink-tailed Worm-lizard and the Woodland Blind Snake.

Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country gives a comprehensive overview of the ecology of the box-ironbark habitats and their wildlife. It covers all of the mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs that occur in the region, with a brief description of their distribution, status and ecology, together with a distribution map and superb colour photograph for each species. The book includes a 'Where to Watch' section, featuring a selection of national parks, state parks and nature conservation reserves as places where people can experience the ecosystem and its wildlife for themselves.

Wildlife of the Box-Ironbark Country is intended for land-managers, conservation and wildlife workers, land-holders, teachers, students, naturalists and all those interested in some way in learning about and appreciating the wildlife of this fascinating and endangered ecosystem.


Martin expression about the quantum defect of single-valence atoms is extended to many-valence atoms by identifying the weakest bound electron (WBE) under the weakest bound electron potential model (WBEPM) theory. Six Rydberg series energy levels of 2p6np2Po_(1/2) (ng3), 2p6np2Po_(3/2) (ng3), 2p6nd2D_(3/2) (ng3), 2p6nd2D_(5/2) (ng3), 2p6nf2Fo_(5/2) (ng4), and 2p6nf2Fo_(7/2) (ng4) for Ni XVIII are calculated by this method. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental results.


This review discusses observed impacts from different climate change-driven pressures on mangrove's role in modulating trace metal transfer at the land-ocean interface. It contributes to the literature in a global context and shows mangroves as mitigators or providing positive feedback to metal mobilization. Most chalcophile metals2+ accumulate in mangrove soils associated with sulfides while high sedimentation rates avoid their oxidation. Exudation of oxygen by roots fixates Fe, which co-precipitates metals as oxyhydroxides in the rhizosphere. These two biogeochemical processes reduce trace metal availability to plants and their mobility within estuaries. However, climate change-driven pressures alter this geochemical equilibrium. Increasing atmospheric CO2 and temperature, and the intensity and frequency of extreme climatic events, have proved to affect mangrove functioning and cover, but no direct observation on the impact on metal biogeochemistry is presently available, whereas sea level rise and saline intrusion impacts on the fate of metals have already been observed. Sea level rise increases erosion, that dissociates deposited sulfides releasing metals to the water column. Released metals adsorb onto suspended particles and can re-deposit in the estuary or are exported to continental shelf sediments. Saline intrusion may oxidize deeper sediment layers releasing metals to porewaters. Part of the mobilized metals may remain in solution complexed with DOM and have their bioavailability increased, as shown by high bioaccumulation factors and biomagnification and high metal concentrations in the estuarine biota, which results in higher human exposure through fisheries consumption. Since erosion occurs preferentially at the sea border and higher sedimentation at the higher reaches of the estuary, triggering mangroves migration landward, spatial gradients are formed, and shall be taken into consideration when planning mitigation or adaptation strategies. These observations suggest disruption of traditional humans dwelling in mangrove dominated coastlines by increasing contamination of coastal fisheries, often the principal protein source for those groups and an important source of income. Further research into the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of climate change driven alterations to metal biogeochemical processes in mangroves as contaminant levels are expected to increase.


The roundness and shape of clastic quartz-grains 0.25-0.315mm fractions from the East-China Sea Shelf sediments were investigated. Quartz- grains of most stations are characterized by great flatteness typical of that of sediments of large river under-water deltas. It is supposed that only some samples contain material from beach and shallow shelf sediments or aeolian. The supposed deltaic reworking sediment covers the shelf zone from the Changjiang River estuary to the shelf break.


Studies of the effects of bush clearing have mostly focussed on economic issues such as production. In this paper, biodiversity and ecological effects of bush clearing were investigated, largely through a literature survey. Vertebrate and plant taxa were focussed upon. Two future scenarios were discussed. The first scenario was that future wood harvesting would follow Forestry Stewardship Council Principles and Forestry Guidelines. The second scenario was that demand exceeded supply and that sound sustainable principles would be abandoned in certain areas, in order to chase demand. In the first scenario, biodiversity would be improved, as would ecological processes. In the second scenario, arboreal species, including cavity users, and species requiring microhabitats and shelter would be badly affected, with local extinctions of these species likely. Management recommendations are provided. Biodiversity research should be viewed as a priority, in order to better understand the effects of different wood harvesting management strategies.


In a major reinterpretation of American political thought in the revolutionary era, Marc Kruman explores the process of constitution making in each of the thirteen original states and shows that the framers created a distinctively American science of politics well before the end of the Confederation era. Suspicious of all government power, state constitution makers greatly feared arbitrary power and mistrusted legislators' ability to represent the people's interests. For these reasons, they broadened the suffrage and introduced frequent elections as a check against legislative self-interest. This analysis challenges Gordon Wood's now-classic argument that, at the beginning of the Revolution, the founders placed great faith in legislators as representatives of the people. According to Kruman, revolutionaries entrusted state constitution making only to members of temporary provincial congresses or constitutional conventions whose task it was to restrict legislative power. At the same time, Americans maintained a belief in the existence of a public good that legislators and magistrates, when properly curbed by one another and by a politically active citizenry, might pursue.


This study examines the influence of sex and propinquity on attitudes towards spouse abuse among South Africans. It is hypothesized that females would have a more negative attitude than males and that people with a high degree of contact with the abused (relatives and professionals working with the abused) (high propinquity group) would have a more favourable therefore negative attitude toward spouse-abuser than those with low degree of personal contact (low propinquity group).
Through in-depth interviews using a questionnaire, data were collected from 120 randomly selected participants in Gauteng and Limpopo provinces. Age of participants 18 to 50 years with a mean age of 32.2 (SD=8.27). Spouse-abuse as used in this study is defined "women and men who have been emotionally abused (nagging, sexual and emotion deprivation) and or physically beaten by their spouses with blows, slapped, kicked and have experienced these over three times in a single relationship.
A 2 X 2 ANOVA of data collected from 120 participants reveals that females have a more negative attitude towards spouse abuse than males and the high propinquity participants have a more negative attitude than low propinquity group.


France's Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration (MNHI) was founded in Paris in 2007, with the stated mission to change popular perceptions on immigration at a time of rising xenophobia. Within the MNHI is the Galerie des dons, an exhibition space dedicated to personal objects donated by immigrants and their families. Combining a museological and a new materialism approach, this article analyzes the textual mediation, spatial organization, material qualities, and social biographies of objects in the Galerie des dons collection as it existed from 2014 to 2019 in order to evaluate the MNHI's "new" narratives of immigration. It concludes that while the curatorial choices tend to reproduce an integration-oriented story of immigration, the individual objects in the Galerie serve as dissenting voices that complicate the institutional narrative.


Over the past decades, research on opinion leaders has been based on an implicit assumption that the structure of social networks is stable and that only attitudes and behavior are subject to change in a diffusion process. The finding that social groups often display similar attitudes or behavior was therefore regarded as evidence of opinion leaders' influence. However, network autocorrelation also can emerge due to social selection processes in which likeminded people establish new ties and cut dissonant ties. In fact, without controlling for social selection processes, one is likely to overestimate the power of influence processes. Stochastic actor-oriented modeling of dynamic social networks allows disentangling and quantifying these two processes. This reanalysis of a four-wave panel survey of adolescents' conversation networks and their TV use is the first to do this on the level of specific TV programs. The results demonstrate that influence of opinion leaders may become insignificant if parameters for social selection and general patterns of program preferences are included in the analysis. Overall, this study challenges an overly simplistic view of opinion leadership and illustrates the power of longitudinal social network analysis for disentangling social influence and social selection processes.


High-throughput molecular analysis of sewage is a promising tool for precision public health. Here, we combine sewer network and demographic data to identify a residential catchment for sampling, and explore the potential of applying untargeted genomics and metabolomics to sewage to collect actionable public health data. We find that wastewater sampled upstream in a residential catchment is representative of the human microbiome and metabolome, and we are able to identify glucuronidated compounds indicative of direct human excretion, which are typically degraded too quickly to be detected at treatment plants. We show that diurnal variations during 24-hour sampling can be leveraged to discriminate between biomarkers in sewage that are associated with human activity from those related to the environmental background. Finally, we putatively annotate a suite of human-associated metabolites, including pharmaceuticals, food metabolites, and biomarkers of human health and activity, suggesting that mining untargeted data derived from residential sewage can expand currently-used biomarkers with direct public health or policy relevance.


We propose and study two second-order in time implicit-explicit (IMEX) methods for the coupled Stokes-Darcy system that governs flows in karst aquifers. The first is a combination of a second-order backward differentiation formula and the second-order Gear's extrapolation approach. The second is a combination of the second-order Adams-Moulton and second-order Adams-Bashforth methods. Both algorithms only require the solution of two decoupled problems at each time step, one Stokes and the other Darcy. Hence, these schemes are very efficient and can be easily implemented using legacy codes. We establish the unconditional and uniform in time stability for both schemes. The uniform in time stability leads to uniform in time control of the error which is highly desirable for modeling physical processes, e.g., contaminant sequestration and release, that occur over very long time scales. Error estimates for fully-discretized schemes using finite element spatial discretizations are derived. Numerical examples are provided that illustrate the accuracy, efficiency, and long-time stability of the two schemes.


As a consequence of the colonization of New Zealand and the subsequent removal of many Māori from their traditional social structures and norms, Māori culture and identity has become muddied in the Pākehā dominated world. Exactly what it is to be Māori and the extent to which culture defines identity is not agreed upon. In this paper, it is discussed why Māori interests and needs, with respect to their cultural heritage, should be met, in relation to the benefits from its use and trade, socially and economically. This is followed by an analysis why current intellectual property regimes do not allow for this. Finally, a survey of recent 'pop-culture' appropriations of Māori culture is made and, from the reaction of prominent Māori to these, the interests and needs of the Māori and how they can best be met are extrapolated.


Selenium (Se) undergoes redox transformations and isotopic fractionations at relatively high redox potentials and could therefore provide insight into changes in oceanic and atmospheric O2 levels over Earth's history. We test this idea with Se data from the 2.5 Ga Mount McRae Shale (Hamersley Basin, Australia), which records temporary enrichments in abundances and isotopes of other redox-sensitive elements indicating a "whiff of oxygen" in Earth's atmosphere before the Great Oxidation Event. Se isotopic ratios expressed as δ82/78Se and abundances relative to crustal background show significant positive excursions of up to 1.1‰ and an enrichment 13 times above background, respectively, overlapping with excursions in Mo and N isotopes and abundances. Because Se has a relatively high redox potential and photosynthetic oxidation pathways are unknown, our data thus suggest that Se was mobilized by free O2 during this interval. The isotopic fractionation likely occurred during transport of Se oxyanions from the site of weathering to the outer shelf. Although O2 could have been produced locally on land and may not necessarily have increased in the global atmosphere, our results strengthen the inference of an early origin of oxygenic photosynthesis long before the Paleoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event. This is the first report of a Se isotope excursion in the Precambrian rock record, and it confirms that Se isotopes can serve as a useful redox proxy in deep time.


Opportunistic infections with the saprophytic yeast Candida albicans are a major cause of morbidity in immunocompromised patients. While the interaction of cells and molecules of innate immunity with C. albicans has been studied to great depth, comparatively little is known about the modulation of adaptive immunity by C. albicans. In particular, direct interaction of proteins secreted by C. albicans with CD4+ T cells has not been studied in detail. In a first screening approach, we identified the pH-regulated antigen 1 (Pra1) as a molecule capable of directly binding to mouse CD4+ T cells in vitro. Binding of Pra1 to the T cell surface was enhanced by extracellular Zn2+ ions which Pra1 is known to scavenge from the host in order to supply the fungus with Zn2+. In vitro stimulation assays using highly purified mouse CD4+ T cells showed that Pra1 increased proliferation of CD4+ T cells in the presence of plate-bound anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody. In contrast, secretion of effector cytokines such as IFNγ and TNF by CD4+ T cells upon anti-CD3/ anti-CD28 mAb as well as cognate antigen stimulation was reduced in the presence of Pra1. By secreting Pra1 C. albicans, thus, directly modulates and partially controls CD4+ T cell responses as shown in our in vitro assays.


Activation of the cell death program (apoptosis) is a strategy for the treatment of human cancer, and unfortunately a large number of drugs identified as cell cycle-specific agents for killing cancer cells are also toxic to normal cells. The present study demonstrates that the polysaccharide peptide (PSP) extracted from the Chinese medicinal mushroom, Coriolus versicolor, used in combination therapy in China, has the ability to lower the cytotoxicity of certain anti-leukemic drugs via their interaction with cell cycle-dependent and apoptotic pathways. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that pre-treatment of PSP (25-100 microg/ml) dose-dependently enhanced the cell cycle perturbation and apoptotic activity of doxorubicin (Doxo) and etoposide (VP-16), but not cytarabine (Ara-C) in human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 cells. The antagonistic result from combined treatment with Ara-C and PSP may be caused by the removal of HL-60 cells in the G1-S boundary by PSP before exposure to Ara-C. A negative correlation between the increase in apoptotic cell population (pre-G1 peak) with the S-phase cell population expression (R2=0.998), the expression of cyclin E expression (R2=0.872) and caspase 3 activity (R2=0.997) suggests that PSP enhanced the apoptotic machinery of Doxo and VP-16 in a cell cycle-dependent manner and is mediated, at least in part, by the PSP-mediated modulation of the regulatory checkpoint cyclin E and caspase 3. This study is the first to describe the cell cycle mechanistic action of PSP and its interaction with other anticancer agents. Our data support the potential development of PSP as an adjuvant for leukemia treatment, but also imply the importance of understanding its interaction with individual anticancer agents.


We show that existing synthesis techniques may produce asynchronous circuits that are not initializable by gate level analysis tools even when the design is functionally initializable. Due to the absence of any initialization sequence, a fault simulator or test generator that assumes an unknown starting state will be completely ineffective for these circuits. In this paper, we show that proper consideration of initializability during the asynchronous circuit synthesis procedure can guarantee initializable implementations, The assignment of don't cares during the synthesis procedure is intimately related to the initializability of the final implementation. We present a novel implicit enumeration procedure that selectively assigns don't cares to obtain an initializable implementation. Initialization sequences are obtained as a by product of our synthesis procedure.<<ETX>>


Aims. We discuss instrumental and analytic methods that have been developed for the first generation of bolometric cosmic microwave background (cmb) polarimeters. The design, characterization, and analysis of data obtained using Polarization Sensitive Bolometers (PSBs) are described in detail. This is followed by a brief study of the effect of various polarization modulation techniques on the recovery of sky polarization from scanning polarimeter data. Methods. Having been successfully implemented on the sub-orbital Boomerang experiment, PSBs are currently operational in two terrestrial cmb polarization experiments (Quad and the Robinson Telescope). We investigate two approaches to the analysis of data from these experiments, using realistic simulations of time ordered data to illustrate the impact of instrumental effects on the fidelity of the recovered polarization signal. Results. We find that the analysis of difference time streams takes full advantage of the high degree of common mode rejection afforded by the PSB design. In addition to the observational efforts currently underway, this discussion is directly applicable to the PSBs that constitute the polarized capability of the Planck HFI instrument.


Abstract Three species of potato tuber moths, Tecia solanivora Povolny, Symmetrischema tangolias Gyen, and Phthorimaea operculella Zeller (all Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), attack potato plants in the highlands of Ecuador and cause great economic losses. To understand their ecology and to develop precise integrated pest management strategies, a description of the molecular identification of each species and genetic diversity within populations is needed. In this study, we assessed the genetic diversity of a total of 112 moth samples of these 3 distinct species. Samples were collected from the 4 central provinces (Bolívar, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Tungurahua) in the Ecuadorian highlands, where potato is a major crop for food security. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Sanger sequencing, we compared mitochondrial gene sequences among conspecific moth samples. Each of the 3 species exhibited different patterns regarding genetic diversity; more than 1 haplotype was present in P. operculella and S. tangolias, whereas all T. solanivora samples were found to be genetically identical. This initial effort of molecular characterization of the potato tuber moths will facilitate identifying incursion and potential migration route of Gelechiidae species as well as prevention of the pest outbreaks.


This dissertation extends the theory of persistent homology to time varying systems. Most of the previous work has been dedicated to using this powerful tool in topological data analysis to study static point clouds. In particular, given a point cloud, we can construct its persistence diagram. Since the diagram varies continuously as the point cloud varies continuously, we study the space of time varying persistence diagrams, called vineyards when they were introduced by Cohen-Steiner, Edelsbrunner, and Morozov. We will first show that with a good choice of metric, these vineyards are stable for small perturbations of their associated point clouds. We will also define a new mean for a set of persistence diagrams based on the work of Mileyko et al. which, unlike the previously defined mean, is continuous for geodesic vineyards. Next, we study the sensor network problem posed by Ghrist and de Silva, and their application of persistent homology to understand when a set of sensors covers a given region. Giving each of these sensors a probability of failure over time, we show that an exact computation of the probability of failure of the whole system is NP-hard, but give an algorithm which can predict failure in the case of a monitored system. Finally, we apply these methods to an automated system which can cluster agents moving in aerial images by their behaviors. We build a data structure for storing and querying the information in real-time, and define behavior vectors which quantify behaviors of interest. This clustering by behavior can be used to find groups of interest, for which we can also quantify behaviors in order to determine whether the group is working together to achieve a common goal, and we speculate that this work can be extended to improving tracking algorithms as well as behavioral predictors.


The amphibian genus Leptodactylus includes around 50 species, of which only 2 are distributed in Mexico; the helminth fauna of these 2 species is poorly known. As part of a research program on amphibian parasites in Mexico from 1997 to 2005, 281 sabinal frogs Leptodactylus melanonotus from 42 localities in 11 Mexican states were examined from a helminthological perspective. A total of 20 taxa of helminths—7 digeneans (5 adults, 2 larvae) and 13 nematodes (8 adults, 5 larvae)—was found to infect this amphibian host species. These data represent 105 new locality records, and 11 taxa are recorded in L. melanonotus for the first time. Infracommunity analyses of the sabinal frogs from Tres Palos indicated that these hosts are depauperate. The helminth community is dominated by specialist species, with Cosmocerca podicipinus the most common in almost 50% of the infracommunities. Percutaneous infection and predator-prey interactions were the 2 most common infection routes by helminths in frogs from Tres Palos, with 79% of the parasites recruited via skin penetration. Finally, our results show that the helminth fauna parasitizing L. melanonotus throughout Mexico has low similarity with the helminth fauna of leptodactylids studied comprehensively in South America, with only 2 digeneans and 3 nematodes being shared by hosts from both regions. As a result of our survey, the number of helminth species parasitizing L. melanonotus increased to 34. Considering its native distribution range, this number is now 36 with the inclusion of the nematodes Oswaldocruzia costaricensis and Cruzia empera in Costa Rica.


BACKGROUND
Home visiting by public health nurses and family visitors is promoted as an important intervention for enhancing parent and child development. Mothers of children at-risk for developmental delays tend to be the most difficult to access and engage, and commonly drop out of home visiting programmes prematurely.

PURPOSE
This paper reports a study developing a theory that describes the process by which mothers of children at-risk engage with public health nurses and family visitors in a blended home visiting programme.

METHODS
Grounded theory was used to guide the collection, recording, organization and analysis of the data. A purposeful sample of 20 mothers receiving public health nurse and family visitor home visits were recruited from a public health unit in Canada. Data were collected through client record reviews and 29 in-depth interviews that explored participants' experiences, beliefs and expectations about engagement. Data collection and analysis continued until all categories were saturated.

FINDINGS
Mothers felt vulnerable and frequently powerless when they allowed the service providers into their home. Mothers with children at-risk engage with public health nurses and family visitors through a basic social process of limiting family vulnerability, which has three phases: (1) overcoming fear; (2) building trust; and (3) seeking mutuality. The personal characteristics, values, experiences and actions of the public health nurse, family visitor and mother influence the speed at which each phase is successfully negotiated and the ability to develop a connected relationship.

CONCLUSION
Public health nurses working with families at risk need to identify client fears and perceptions related to home visiting, and to explain the role of public health nurses and family visitors to all family members. Given the importance that mothers place on the development of an interpersonal relationship, it is important for home visitors continually to assess the quality of their relationships with clients.