OBJECTIVE--To describe unusual venous communications from the right to the left atrium resulting in cyanosis after the modified Fontan procedure, and their management with transcatheter occlusion. METHODS--Between September 1992 and November 1994, eight patients were assessed for persistent cyanosis after a modified Fontan procedure. Desaturation was found to be caused by unusual venous shunts originating at atrial level, and transcatheter occlusion with either a double umbrella or coil was attempted. RESULTS--Three types of venous channels were identified. The first type of communication consisted of thin long tortuous channels originating from the right atrial wall, and draining into the left atrium through a capillary network. The second type of communication was in the superior anterior portion of the atrial baffle, incorporating the pectinate muscles of the right atrium, draining into the neoleft atrium. These channels were shorter and often fanned out into small vessels toward the right atrial appendage. In each instance, the shunts were in the superior suture line of a lateral tunnel modification of the Fontan procedure. The third type of communication originated from the inferior vena cava, connecting inferior phrenic veins to pericardial veins and subsequently to the left atrium, at or close to the ostium of the left pulmonary veins. Before device occlusion, the room air aortic oxygen saturation was 88(SD 4)% (range 84% to 94%), and increased to 95(3)% (range 91% to 100%) following occlusion (PL << 0.001). The mean right atrial pressure was 14(4)mm Hg and remained unchanged after occlusion. In six patients there was complete shunt obliteration, while in two both occluded with umbrella devices, a small residual leak persisted. No complication occurred during or immediately after catheterisation. CONCLUSIONS--Unusual venous communications can evolve after the Fontan procedure, resulting in the development or persistence of cyanosis. Some of these communications may be present preoperatively as normal veins draining into the right atrium, enlarging with the increased atrial pressure after surgery. These observations affect long term function after the Fontan procedure. Transcatheter occlusion of these communications is technically feasible and effective, although recurrence may occur.


Violence, democracy and rights are issues that are not fully addressed in research methodology literatures, yet violence is of vital interest in substantive and theoretical debates across the social sciences, education, philosophy, politics and cultural studies. Methodology needs to be informed by, and be relevant to, the debates and practices within and across these perspectives on the worlds of everyday life. Research is fundamentally entwined with the political, the ethical and the legal. When it presumes the neutrality of method and ignores its radical roots of inquiry, it is in danger of being politically co-opted and ethically naive. Research that reveals what is at stake politically, ethically and legally is typically open to accusations of being partisan and therefore political. It cannot avoid being political in the broadest sense of the word, and consequently the researcher cannot escape – through some mystical notion of being 'objective' – the political, ethical and legal consequences of undertaking research. Research is vital to the construction of public spaces for debate, decision making and action. Hence, there is a close relationship between methodological practices, research design and the conditions under which violence, democracy and rights can be addressed.
Researching Violence, Democracy and the Rights of People explores what is at stake methodologically (both theoretically and practically) for researchers seeking to expand opportunities for people to become visible upon the public stages of debate, decision making and action, and thus make audible their experiences of wrongs and injustices, express their rights, and engage democratically in processes of change. Drawing on international contributions and contexts, this book introduces readers to the complex realities of real research and the substantive issues that their methodological approaches strive to deal with. It will benefit undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as post-doctoral and experienced researchers across a range of cultural and social science disciplines, as well as educational and sociological researchers. Its aim is to explore and contribute to the development of innovatory approaches to engaging in research that make a difference in the lives of people.


This paper formulates an energy community's centralized optimal bidding and scheduling problem as a time-series scenario-driven stochastic optimization model, building on real-life measurement data. In the presented model, a surrogate battery storage system with uncertain state-of-charge (SoC) bounds approximates the portfolio's aggregated flexibility. First, it is emphasized in a stylized analysis that risk-based energy constraints are highly beneficial (compared to chance-constraints) in coordinating distributed assets with unknown costs of constraint violation, as they limit both violation magnitude and probability. The presented research extends state-of-the-art models by implementing a worst-case conditional value at risk (WCVaR) based constraint for the storage SoC bounds. Then, an extensive numerical comparison is conducted to analyze the trade-off between out-of-sample violations and expected objective values, revealing that the proposed WCVaR based constraint shields significantly better against extreme out-of-sample outcomes than the conditional value at risk based equivalent. To bypass the non-trivial task of capturing the underlying time and asset-dependent uncertain processes, real-life measurement data is directly leveraged for both imbalance market uncertainty and load forecast errors. For this purpose, a shape-based clustering method is implemented to capture the input scenarios' temporal characteristics.


In this paper, we present accurate estimation of signal activity at the internal nodes of sequential logic circuits. The methodology is based on stochastic model of logic signals and takes spatial and temporal correlations of logic signals into con~iderai~ion. Given the State Tranzjition Graph (STG) of a Finite State Machine (FSM), we create an Extended State Transition Graph (ESTG), where the temporal correlations of the input signals are explicitly represented. From the graph we derive the equations to calculiste exact signal probabilities and activities. However, for large circuits the method can be computationally expensive. 'Therefore, we propose an approximate solution method and a Monte Carlo based approach. The approximate method unrolls the next state logic and calculates the activities using a probabilistic technique which considers spatio-temporal correlations of signals. All Monte Carlo based techniques that have been proposed for combinational circuits so far can not be directly applied to sequential circuits. This is because if the initial transient problem is not well dealt with, the estimated activities for some circuit nodes could be off by more thim 100% in comparison to the exact method. The proposed approach deals with this problem by gaining insight from Markov chain theory. Experimental results show that if temporal and spatial correlations are not considered, the power dissipation determined by the approxi mate method can be off by more than 40%. On the other hand, tlie results of the approximate method proposed in this paper are within 5% of that of long run simulation. However, for large sequential circuits and for some applications that require the accuracy of the activitit:~ of individual nodes, experiments show that the Monte Carlo approach is fast and accurate.


Rafting of marine and terrestrial organisms has been reported from a variety of substrata and from all major oceans of the world. Herein we present information on common rafting organisms and on ecological interactions during rafting voyages. An extensive literature review revealed a total of 1206 organisms, for which rafting was confirmed or inferred based on distributional or genetic evidence. Rafting organisms comprised cyanobacteria, algae, protists, invertebrates from most marine but also terrestrial phyla, and even a few terrestrial vertebrates. Marine hydrozoans, bryozoans, crustaceans and gastropods were the most common taxa that had been observed rafting. All major feeding types were represented among rafters, being dominated by grazing/boring and suspension-feeding organisms, which occurred on all floating substrata. Besides these principal trophic groups, predators/scavengers and detritus-feeders were also reported. Motility of rafting organisms was highest on macroalgae and lowest on abiotic substrata such as plastics and volcanic pumice. Important trends were revealed for the reproductive biology of rafting organisms. A high proportion of clonal organisms (Cnidaria and Bryozoa) featured asexual reproduction, often in combination with sexual reproduction. Almost all rafting organisms have internal fertilisation, which may be due to the fact that gamete concentrations in the rafting environment are too low for successful fertilisation of external fertilisers. Following fertilisation, many rafting organisms incubate their offspring in/on their body or deposit embryos in egg masses on rafts. Local recruitment, where offspring settle in the immediate vicinity of parents, is considered an important advantage for establishing persistent local populations on a raft, or in new habitats. Some organisms are obligate rafters, spending their entire life cycle on a raft, but the large majority of reported rafters are considered facultative rafters. These organisms typically live in benthic (or terrestrial) habitats, but may become dispersed while being confined to a floating item. Substratum characteristics (complexity, surface, size) have important effects on the composition of the rafting community. While at sea, ecological interactions (facilitation, competition, predation) contribute to the community succession on rafts. Organisms capable to compete for and exploit resources on a raft (space and food) will be able to persist throughout community succession. The duration of rafting voyages is closely related to rafting distances, which may cover various geographical scales. In chronological order, three features of an organism gain in importance during rafting, these being ability to (1) hold onto floating items, (2) establish and compete successfully, and (3) develop persistent local populations during a long voyage. Small organisms that do not feed on their floating substratum and with asexual reproduction or direct development combine all these features, and appear to be most suited for long-distance dispersal on rafts and successful colonisation after reaching new habitats. All available evidence suggests that rafting is an important process for the population dynamics of many organisms and that it also has had and continues to have a strong influence on coastal biodiversity.


Purpose: To describe the use of vascular plugs to close a complex type Ib endoleak following the sandwich procedure used in conjunction with endovascular thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm (TAAA) repair. Case Report: A 59-year-old man with a 6.5-mm TAAA was treated with initial deployment proximally of 2 Zenith TX2 stent-grafts. In preparation for the sandwich technique to preserve flow to the celiac trunk, a 10×100-mm Viabahn covered stent was delivered from a brachial access into the celiac trunk unprotected by the sheath of the introducer. The trigger wire system became snagged on the struts of the distal aortic stent-graft; when the wire was pulled, the proximal end of the Viabahn migrated outside the aortic stent-graft, which migrated upward. The main body extension intended for the aortic component of the sandwich technique was deployed close to the distal end of the aneurysm sac, but a large type Ib endoleak formed in the gutter between the Viabahn, aortic extension, and sac wall. The leak perfused the celiac trunk, and the procedure was terminated. Increasing sac size on 3-month imaging prompted closure of the leak with 2 type II Amplatzer vascular plugs aiming to occlude the endoleak outflow into the Viabahn and the endoleak outflow at the site of the gutter. Imaging follow-up at 6 months demonstrated successful exclusion of the TAAA with no residual endoleak and excellent perfusion of the celiac trunk. Conclusion: Transarterial treatment of complex endoleaks is feasible when preceded by meticulous imaging and detailed preprocedural planning.


Many features have been added to mobile devices to assist the user's information consumption. However, there are limitations due to information overload on the devices, hardware usability and capacity. As a result, content filtering in a mobile recommendation system plays a vital role in the solution to this problem. A system that utilises content filtering can recommend content which matches a user's needs based on user preferences with a higher accuracy rate.

However, mobile content recommendation systems have problems and limitations related to cold start and sparsity. The problems can be viewed as first time connection and first content rating for non-interactive recommendation systems where information is insufficient to predict mobile content which will match with a user's needs. In addition, how to find relevant items for the content recommendation system which are related to a user's profile is also a concern.

An integrated model that combines the user group identification and mobile content filtering for mobile content recommendation was proposed in this study in order to address the current limitations of the mobile content recommendation system. The model enhances the system by finding the relevant content items that match with a user's needs based on the user's profile. A prototype of the client-side user profile modelling is also developed to demonstrate the concept.

The integrated model applies clustering techniques to determine groups of users. The content filtering implemented classification techniques to predict the top content items. After that, an adaptive association rules technique was performed to find relevant content items. These approaches can help to build the integrated model.

Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed integrated model performs better than the comparable techniques such as association rules and collaborative filtering. These techniques have been used in several recommendation systems. The integrated model performed better in terms of finding relevant content items which obtained higher accuracy rate of content prediction and predicted successful recommended relevant content measured by recommendation metrics. The model also performed better in terms of rules generation and content recommendation generation. Verification of the proposed model was based on real world practical data. A prototype mobile content recommendation system with client-side user profile has been developed to handle the revisiting user issue. In addition, context information, such as time-of-day and time-of-week, could also be used to enhance the system by recommending the related content to users during different time periods.

Finally, it was shown that the proposed method implemented fewer rules to generate recommendation for mobile content users and it took less processing time. This seems to overcome the problems of first time connection and first content rating for non-interactive recommendation systems.


This paper provides a first discussion of the advantages and concerns of disaster tourism along with an initial step towards a code of ethics. Based on existing disaster and tourism codes, four guidelines are suggested and critiqued: 1. Priority in disasters should be given to the safety of disaster-affected people and responders, encompassing rescue and body recovery operations. 2. One individual should not put another individual at increased risk without consent. 3. The authorities in a disaster-affected area and their rules and regulations should be obeyed within reason. 4. Any donations or assistance offered to disaster-affected areas should be considered within the local context and should also involve nearby but non-disaster-affected communities. Targets, training, monitoring, enforcement, and evaluation for the code are also discussed along with the need for consultative processes for further developing and implementing the code. Three main areas of disaster tourism research are proposed for further work: disaster recovery, convergence behaviour, and supporting disaster risk reduction rather than post-disaster actions.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the abnormal cerebral blood flow (CBF) perfusion in patients with internet addiction (IA) and its possible association with IA severity.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Thirty-five adolescents who met the criteria for IA and 12 matched healthy volunteers were recruited for (99m)Tc-ethylcysteinate dimer based CBF perfusion imaging with single photon emission tomography (SPET) both at rest and in adenosine-stressed state. Regional CBF (rCBF) was measured and compared between IA subjects and the controls. Correlation analysis between those abnormal rCBF in adenosine-stressed state and the duration of IA was performed.

RESULTS
At the resting state, the IA individuals showed significantly increased rCBF in the left mid-frontal gyrus and left angular gyrus, but significantly decreased in the left paracentral lobule, compared to the controls. In adenosine-stressed state, more cerebral regions with abnormal rCBF were identified. Specifically, increased rCBF was identified in the right paracentral lobule, right mid-frontal gyrus and left superior temporal gyrus, while decreased rCBF were demonstrated in right transverse temporal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus and left precuneus. Those rCBF in rCBF-increased regions in stress state were positively correlated with the duration of IA, while those in rCBF-decreased regions were negatively correlated with the duration of IA.

CONCLUSION
We present specific functional changes in behaviour that may appear in IA patients related to the CBF findings in IA patients. Adenosine can be used as a pharmacological agent for stress CBF perfusion imaging in patients with IA, by which more cerebral regions of abnormal rCBF can be identified compared to the state at rest. These abnormal rCBF may indicate the neurological mechanism in IA patients.


During the flight readiness review process of a recent Delta IV mission, an independent review team from Analex Corporation presented results of simulations of the behavior of the second-stage cryogenic propellants. These results differed considerably from those Boeing and the Aerospace Corporation were showing at the time. A team consisting of representatives from Boeing, the Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office − Office of Space Launch (NRO/OSL), the Aerospace Corporation, Flow Sciences, and Analex investigated this slosh behavior and was chartered to resolve the discrepancy between analysis results. During the investigation, it was concluded that the slosh behavior of liquid hydrogen (LH2 ), during the second stage coast phase of flight, would not be constrained to the aft end of the tank and thus presented an increased mission risk. The presence of propellant in the tank forward dome at tank venting could lead to propellant ingestion into the vent/relief system and result in a thrust imbalance. This paper is an update to a paper previously released [1] that focused on the team's investigative efforts and resolution of the issues associated with the sloshing, including the implementation of a pulse-settling approach for propellant management. The update (italicized text) includes a discussion of the flight validation of the successful launches that implemented pulse-settling. Figure 1 is a screen-shot from a simulation of the LH2 sloshing in the second-stage tank during a coast period.


Self-localisation is an essential competence for mobile robot navigation. Due to the fundamental unreliability of dead reckoning, a robot must depend on its perception of external environmental features or landmarks to localise itself. A key question is how to evaluate landmark recognition systems for mobile robots. This paper answers this question by means of quantitative performance measures. An empirical study is presented in which a number of algorithms are compared in four environments. The results of this analysis are then applied to the development of a novel landmark recognition system for a Nomad 200 robot. Subsequent experiments demonstrate that the new system obtains a similar level of performance to the best alternative method, but at a much lower computational cost.


This comment argues that Isabelle Stengers, in her article "Comparison as a Matter of Concern," is justifiably concerned about the future of science in an imperium of commerce where epistemology has no clout. Agreeing with Stengers that we should focus attention on comparison-as-participant, this comment relates Stengers's argument to Verran's own work in contexts where the epistemic practices of science are challenged—in science lessons in Nigeria (case 1) and in episodes where environmental scientists try to work with Aboriginal Australian landowners (case 2). Drawing inspiration from her African and Aboriginal colleagues, Verran disagrees with Stengers that the only option for science is to make the terms of its defeat explicit. This comment suggests that the sciences might learn from other knowledge traditions in finding the places and the means to develop divergent practices through which resistance is possible. Verran identifies temporal disjunctions as possible sites of innovation, suggesting that contemporary sciences should forego their backward-looking traditional epistemic practices and learn to focus instead on equipping their participant-comparisons for an uncertain future.


OBJECTIVE To assess the prevalence of diabetes and IGT in the urban adult Brazilian population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We used a two-stage, multicenter, cross-sectional survey in a random sample of 21,847 individuals aged 30–69 yr from nine large cities. Subjects were first screened by FCG. All positive screenees (FCG ≥ 5.6 mM/L) and every sixth consecutive negative screenee were administered a 75 g OGTT and classified as diabetic, IGT, or normal (nondiabetic) according to WHO recommendations. OGTT findings from the negative screenees were extrapolated to all negative screenees after adjustments for potential biases. RESULTS The overall rates were 7.6 and 7.8% for diabetes and IGT, respectively. Men (7.5%) and women (7.6%) had similar rates of diabetes. Similar rates resulted with whites (7.8%) and nonwhites (7.3%). Diabetes prevalence increased from 2.7% in the 30–39-yr age-group to 17.4% in the 60–69-yr age-group. Diabetes was more prevalent among less educated people, but this difference disappeared after adjusting for age. Family history of diabetes was associated with a twofold increase in diabetes prevalence (12.5 vs. 5.8%); the same increase occurred with obesity (11.6 vs. 5.2%). Undiagnosed diabetes accounted for 46% of the total prevalence. Among previously diagnosed cases, 22.3% were not under treatment, 7.9% were on insulin, 40.7% were on oral agents, and 29.1% were on dietary treatment only. Self-reported diabetes prevalence was 0.1, 3.2, and 11.6% in the age groups < 30, 30–69, and > 70 yr, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of diabetes in Brazil is comparable with that of more developed countries, where it is considered a major health problem.


NMR spectroscopy is not only for protein structure determination, but also for drug screening and studies of dynamics and interactions. In both cases, one of the main bottleneck steps is backbone assignment. When a homologous structure is available, it can accelerate assignment. Such structure-based methods are the focus of this thesis. This thesis aims for fast and robust methods for NMR assignment problems; in particular, structure-based backbone assignment and chemical shift mapping. For speed, we identified situations where the number of N-labeled experiments for structure-based assignment can be reduced; in particular, when a homologous assignment or chemical shift mapping information is available. For robustness, we modeled and directly addressed the errors. Binary integer linear programming, a wellstudied method in operations research, was used to model the problems and provide practically efficient solutions with optimality guarantees. Our approach improved on the most robust method for structure-based backbone assignment on Nlabeled data by improving the accuracy by 10% on average on 9 proteins, and then by handling typing errors, which had previously been ignored. We showed that such errors can have a large impact on the accuracy; decreasing the accuracy from 95% or greater to between 40% and 75%. On automatically picked peaks, which is much noisier than manually picked peaks, we achieved an accuracy of 97% on ubiquitin. In chemical shift mapping, the peak tracking is often done manually because the problem is inherently visual. We developed a computer vision approach for tracking the peak movements with average accuracy of over 95% on three proteins with less than 1.5 residues predicted per peak. One of the proteins tested is larger than any tested by existing automated methods, and it has more titration peak lists. We then combined peak tracking with backbone assignment to take into account contact information, which resulted in an average accuracy of 94% on one-to-one assignments for these three proteins. Finally, we applied peak tracking and backbone assignment to protein-ligand docking to illustrate the potential for fast 3D complex determination.


This course examines the uneasy interaction between the two dominant concepts underpinning political and economic institutions in advanced industrial societies. It addresses in particular questions about the relationship of capitalism to democracy, both conceptually and empirical. We consider whether democracy undermines or supports capitalism, focusing on policies relating to central banking, redistribution, and property rights. We also examine how capitalism may undermine or sustain democracy and whether contemporary international circumstances heighten the tension between democracy and capitalism.


Why do black holes emit thermal radiation? And how does a
 closed quantum system thermalize? These apparently unrelated questions might be both connected to an essential feature of quantum techanics: the dynamics of quantum information and its chaotic properties. Indeed,
 regardless of the unitary time evolution, quantum information seems to be dissipated. The solution to these contradictions may heavily affect the near future
 technologies, in light of the recent progresses towards building a quantum computer.In this thesis we investigate the fascinating idea that such chaotic
 properties leave  traces on the late time hydrodynamic excitations. We do this from two opposite directions, both from weakly coupled  field theories, using a combination of field theory techniques, and from strongly-coupled field theories, using the AdS/CFT correspondence. Moreover, we studied a fermionic and bosonic quantum critical point, which are 'exotic' states of matter where quantum information plays an important role. The main results of this thesis consist of the formulation of a
 Boltzmann-like equation for many-body chaos, the discovery of a new property of
 thermal correlation functions (pole-skipping), and the analysis of which is the correct and meaningful observable to measure experimentally in order to probe quantum chaos.


Abstract The ambiact is a smart meter for social alarm systems. This innovative product is designed as a plug-adapter and can be placed between the power outlet and any appliance. If a connected appliance is not used for an individually untypically amount of time, (generally for more than 24 hours), the ambiact automatically generates an emergency call. This provides people living alone (especially the elderly) with more safety in their homes since help is called even if it cannot be actively summoned by themselves. People feel an increased quality of life since daily manual handling of care phones is no longer necessary, and social alarm operators get more satisfied customers and can even save costs by avoiding false alarms due to people forgetting regular handlings of their care phone. The impact achieved by the project was the development of an innovative and patented product which is accepted by both the customer (e.g. care providers) and the end-user.


This thesis reconsiders the theoretical and conceptual parameters of unrecognised entities and de facto independent territories which endure non-recognition and lack formal sovereignty in international law. These entities are traditionally assumed to represent "unrecognised states" and "de facto states" which endure in the international and interstate systems despite lacking legal recognition of their sovereignty. The following study examines anomalous conceptual features emerging from definitions, theories, frameworks, and discourses which situate these territorial entities alongside sovereign states in the international system. It challenges the equivalence with statehood which currently dominates mainstream thinking and assesses whether the concept of secession is still the most appropriate explanatory and causal dynamic in the emergence of unrecognised entities. The study engages with problematic areas of theoretical and conceptual discourse applied to unrecognised state-like entities. It examines how the case of Iraqi Kurdistan (as a de facto independent entity in the international system) deviates from long-standing assumptions on "unrecognised statehood" and existing conceptual frameworks designed for entities in different regional contexts. The discussion questions the appropriateness of using the unitary state as a theoretical reference point through which to understand ambiguous political systems of this type. The political and theoretical spaces occupied by these entities are examined not only in terms of international relations theory but also critical thinking on the production of power, ideology, and sovereignty. The discussion induces tensions into debates surrounding unrecognised states by arguing that it is inherently difficult to advance inquiry into unrecognised entities from a point of departure on sovereignty which is already embedded in state-centrism. The discussion examines how existing frameworks and approaches are open to critical revision and how the generalised assumptions of a small body of literature continue to circumscribe debates over unrecognised entities in academic analysis. The study frames the issue of de facto independent territories against a critical examination of approaches to sovereignty, secession, and the state. It also proposes an examination of these anomalous entities as Paretian systems – a theoretical perspective as yet unexplored within the field of study.


ABSTRACT Two novel gull-specific quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays were developed using 16S rRNA gene sequences from gull fecal clone libraries: a SYBR green assay targeting Streptococcus spp. (gull3) and a hydrolysis TaqMan assay targeting Catellicoccus marimammalium (gull4). The objectives of this study were to compare the host specificity of a previous C. marimammalium qPCR assay (gull2) with that of the new markers and to examine the presence of the three gull markers in environmental water samples from different geographic locations. Most of the gull fecal samples tested (n = 255) generated positive signals with the gull2 and gull4 assays (i.e., >86%), whereas only 28% were positive with gull3. Low prevalence and abundance of tested gull markers (0.6 to 15%) were observed in fecal samples from six nonavian species (n = 180 fecal samples), whereas the assays cross-reacted to some extent (13 to 31%) with other (nongull) avian fecal samples. The gull3 assay was positive against fecal samples from 11 of 15 avian species, including gull. Of the presumed gull-impacted water samples (n = 349), 86%, 59%, and 91% were positive with the gull2, the gull3, and the gull4 assays, respectively. Approximately 5% of 239 non-gull-impacted water samples were positive with the gull2 and the gull4 assays, whereas 21% were positive witg the gull3 assay. While the relatively high occurrence of gull2 and gull4 markers in waters impacted by gull feces suggests that these assays could be used in environmental monitoring studies, the data also suggest that multiple avian-specific assays will be needed to accurately assess the contribution of different avian sources in recreational waters.


Interprofessional education (IPE) has been defined as two or more students or professionals from different disciplines learning from, with, and about each other. It is anticipated that through a collaborative environment of interprofessional education, professionals gain the proficiencies to assure improved patient safety and quality of care. The purpose of this manuscript is to introduce the concept of IPE and highlight IPE in therapeutic recreation/ recreational therapy education. Three programs in Canada and the United States incorporate IPE in their programs: The Centre for Collaborative Health Professional Education at Memorial University in Canada, the University of New Hampshire College of Health and Human Services, and the Arizona State University Collaboratory on Central at the Westward Ho each offer students, faculty, and health-related colleagues collaborative learning and practice experiences. While these programs are grounded on the core competencies proposed by a panel of healthcare experts representing several peer professions, each of the selected sample programs has designed and implemented IPE in a unique way within their curriculum.


Egg cells have simple shapes, yet they have built-in asymmetries that can profoundly affect early steps in development. The football-shaped egg cell—or oocyte—of fruit flies contains a precisely laid mosaic of maternal molecules with the potential to induce different cell fates. As the fertilized oocyte divides, the resulting cells inherit distinct sets of maternal components, which endow them with different abilities to form head or tail, gut, muscles, or nerves. The spherical egg of frogs is also divided into areas that shift cells toward gut, muscle, or neural fate.

By contrast, the mammalian oocyte seems devoid of a clear blueprint for cell fates. All embryonic cells remain equally suited to give rise to all tissue types until implantation, when the embryo has divided several times. The general consensus is that in mammals, embryonic cells decide their fates by interacting with their neighbors, and not by a preset program handed down by the oocyte.

Still, a mammalian oocyte is not as simple as its roughly spherical shape suggests. For instance, its chromosomes hang close to its membrane, rather than at its center, and define a special area where some maternal molecules congregate. In addition, the oocyte remains in close contact with its sister cell from an earlier division, a far smaller cell called the first polar body. Both the chromosome area and the polar body are focal points that could, in theory, generate informative asymmetries. Such asymmetries may later influence which cells become the embryo versus the placental layers, or which cells initiate gastrulation movements. Watching the fertilization of mouse oocytes, Davor Solter, Takashi Hiiragi, and colleagues reported in a previous study that sperm enters the oocyte membrane preferentially in the hemisphere closest to the first polar body. A simple explanation is that the oocyte membrane is asymmetric, the hemisphere near the polar body harboring more receptors for sperm than the other. But now, after further experiments, Nami Motosugi, Solter, Hiiragi, and colleagues have come to a different conclusion.

When they removed the mouse oocytes from their protective envelope, a soft shell called the zona pellucida (ZP), the researchers found that sperm cells entered with equal frequency through both halves of the oocyte. This dispelled the notion of an asymmetrically distributed sperm receptor. The only exception was a small area lying above the oocyte's chromosomes, a taut patch of membrane that appears refractory to sperm entry.

Inside an intact ZP, the polar body presses against the oocyte, which locally increases the space between oocyte and ZP—the so-called perivitelline space (PVS). The authors reasoned that this local increase of PVS volume might be responsible for the sperm entry bias. Indeed, by simply enlarging the PVS all around the oocyte, either by removing half of the cell's content or by inserting a second polar body opposite the original one, they were able to significantly increase the frequency of sperm entry events far from the first polar body.

Using time-lapse videos and careful marking strategies, the researchers showed that sperm broke through the ZP at random locations, and could swim frantically for a few minutes before entering the oocyte. Once random motion brings a sperm cell near the polar body, the likelihood is high that it will remain there and pierce the oocyte membrane nearby, simply because of the additional swimming space afforded by the expanded PVS. This simple spatial asymmetry is sufficient, the authors argue, to explain the bias they observed in the choice of sperm entry site, without invoking any asymmetry of the oocyte membrane.

Aside from providing further evidence that the mammalian egg cell is unpatterned, these observations also support the validity of in vitro fertilization practices that introduce sperm more or less randomly directly inside the oocyte.

As to why sperm should normally spend several minutes pacing the PVS before fertilization, the authors suggest that this gives it time to complete the maturation that allows its fusion with the oocyte. That sperm should waver in the egg's antichamber before tying the knot will come as no surprise to anybody who has ever faced such a momentous decision.


Background Supraglottic airway devices have become prevalent in children because they are typically more user-friendly than a face mask and avoid many of the problems associated with endotracheal intubation. i-gel is a new single-use supraglottic airway device without an inflatable cuff. Pediatric i-gel is now available in four different sizes, 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5, on the basis of body weight. Patients and methods This study was carried out in Alexandria University Hospitals on 70 patients of American Society of Anesthesiologists grade I and II, aged 3–6 years. They were classified randomly into two equal groups of 35 patients each and admitted to undergo elective surgery under general anesthesia with controlled ventilation in the supine position without head and neck manipulation. In group I, a classic laryngeal mask was used and in group II, i-gel was used to maintain a patent airway during anesthesia. The devices were compared in terms of insertion success, hemodynamic responses, oropharyngeal sealing pressure, airway interventional requirements during maintenance, and postoperative complications. Results The time of insertion of i-gel was significantly shorter than that of the classic laryngeal mask airway (cLMA) (P<0.001) and the airway sealing pressure for the i-gel was significantly higher than that for the cLMA (P=0.043). Conclusion Both the i-gel and the cLMA are suitable devices for controlled ventilation for pediatric patients undergoing short surgical procedures who are not at risk of aspiration. The insertion time of i-gel was less than that of cLMA and airway sealing pressure of i-gel was higher than that of cLMA.


The challenge of producing high performance, productive and precise machine tools must be accepted by the machine tool industry. These requirements can be reached by increasing the grinding machine parameters, such as the cut depth or the feed rate. Both will increase the grinding force during the grinding process, and can result in an excitation of the machine structure. Based on this excitation, the machine structure shows an undesired dynamic behavior which can result in machine vibrations. These vibrations can cause chatter marks on the workpiece surface, and if large enough can result in a stop in production. To minimize the chance of this situation, the machine user often chooses machine parameters which will not excite the machine structure. This is a disadvantage, because the machine design allows much more efficiency. To employ the complete efficiency of the design, this paper presents an approach which allows the active reduction of possible vibrations during a grinding process.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


The basic asset pricing equation is adapted to include the effects of unemployment, con sumers' expectations, the price level and money supply on money market rates and gov ernment bond yields. Expected consumption growth is modelled using European unemployment figures and Eurostat Consumer Confidence Index. The price level is in corporated in the aggregate marginal utility function using production price index (PPI) as a proxy. An affine term structure model is derived using a state space system with an observation equation which links observable yields to these macroeconomic variables and a state equation which describes the dynamics of these variables. Unemployment and consumer confidence index will have a shift and a slope effect on the yield curve, for front-end yields moving faster than in the long end. Production price index exhibits a twist effect (flattening or steepening of the curve) which results in front-end yields shifting in opposite directions to the long end of the curve. This empirical work shows that yields are negatively correlated to money supply, as expected in classical IS-LM mod els. And that money supply exhibits a slope effect, with the front-end of the curve shifting faster than the longer end.


Eukaryotic DNA polymerase (Pol) δ replicates chromosomal DNA and is also involved in DNA repair and genetic recombination. Motif A in Pol δ, containing the sequence DXXXLYPSI, includes a catalytically essential aspartic acid as well as other conserved residues of unknown function. Here, we used site-directed mutagenesis to create all 19 amino acid substitutions for the conserved Leu612 in Motif A of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pol δ. We show that substitutions at Leu612 differentially affect viability, sensitivity to genotoxic agents, cell cycle progression, and replication fidelity. The eight viable mutants contained Ile, Val, Thr, Met, Phe, Lys, Asn, or Gly substitutions. Individual substitutions varied greatly in the nature and extent of attendant phenotypic deficiencies, exhibiting mutation rates that ranged from near wild type to a 37-fold increase. The L612M mutant exhibited a 7-fold elevation of mutation rate but essentially no detectable effects on other phenotypes monitored; the L612T mutant showed a nearly wild type mutation rate together with marked hypersensitivity to genotoxic agents; and the L612G and L612N strains exhibited relatively high mutation rates and severe deficits overall. We compare our results with those for homologous substitutions in prokaryotic and eukaryotic DNA polymerases and discuss the implications of our findings for the role of Leu612 in replication fidelity.


""Africa in Translation" is a thoughtful contribution to the literature on colonialism and culture in Germany and will find readers in the fields of German history and German studies as well as appealing to audiences in the large and interdisciplinary fields of colonialism and postcolonialism."---Jennifer Jenkins, University of Toronto The study of African languages in Germany, or Afrikanistik, originated among Protestant missionaries in the early nineteenth century and was incorporated into German universities after Germany entered the "Scramble for Africa" and became a colonial power in the 1880s. Despite its long history, few know about the German literature on African languages or the prominence of Germans in the discipline of African philology. In "Africa in Translation: A History of Colonial Linguistics in Germany and Beyond, 1814--1945," Sara Pugach works to fill this gap, arguing that Afrikanistik was essential to the construction of racialist knowledge in Germany. While in other countries biological explanations of African difference were central to African studies, the German approach was essentially linguistic, linking language to culture and national identity. Pugach traces this linguistic focus back to the missionaries' belief that conversion could not occur unless the "Word" was allowed to touch a person's heart in his or her native language, as well as to the connection between German missionaries living in Africa and armchair linguists in places like Berlin and Hamburg. Over the years, this resulted in Afrikanistik scholars using language and culture rather than biology to categorize African ethnic and racial groups." Africa in Translation" follows the history of Afrikanistik from its roots in the missionaries' practical linguistic concerns to its development as an academic subject in both Germany and South Africa throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sara Pugach is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Jacket image: Perthes, Justus. Mittel und Sud-Afrika. Map. Courtesy of the University of Michigan's Stephen S. Clark Library map collection."


Adult trees of a given species distribute sparsely in tropical rain forests due to high tree species diversity, and dispersal and sur vival of juveniles are impor tant processes to form such a pattern. Dispersal and juvenile survival of seven tree species were studied over 13 years in a 1−ha plot of tropical rain forest in Ulu Gadut, West Sumatra, Indonesia. All individuals of juveniles were marked and examined in 1989, 1998 and 2002. Estimation of dispersal kernel was successful for Calophyllum soulattri having the highest juvenile density among 7 species. Although dispersal kernel was significant in Gonystylus forbesii and Mastixia trichotoma, actual juvenile density was lower than expected in some subplots having high expected sapling density. Significant reduction of the sapling survival rate by neighboring conspecific saplings was detected in Calophyllum soulattri and Hopea dryobalonoides, and that by conspecific trees was detected in Swintonia schwenkii and Cleistanthus glandulosus. The negative ef fect of conspecific plants on juvenile survival was a more important factor than topography, and may be common in tropical rain forest trees. Aggregated distribution of saplings around mother trees might be formed just after seed dispersal; however, such patterns might be obscured by high mortality around mother trees, and relatively uniform tree distribution may be formed. Since regeneration is a rare phenomenon due to gregarious reproduction, we might be able to observe only limited stages of these processes simultaneously.


The infiltration and persistence of hematopoietic immune cells within the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) joint results in elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, increased reactive oxygen (ROS) and -nitrogen (RNS) species generation, that feeds a continuous self-perpetuating cycle of inflammation and destruction. Meanwhile, the controlled production of ROS is required for signaling within the normal physiological reaction to perceived "foreign matter" and for effective apoptosis. This review focuses on the signaling pathways responsible for the induction of the normal immune response and the contribution of ROS to this process. Evidence for defects in the ability of immune cells in RA to regulate the generation of ROS and the consequence for their immune function and for RA progression is considered. As the hypercellularity of the rheumatoid joint and the associated persistence of hematopoietic cells within the rheumatoid joint are symptomatic of unresponsiveness to apoptotic stimuli, the role of apoptotic signaling proteins (specifically Bcl-2 family members and the tumor suppressor p53) as regulators of ROS generation and apoptosis are considered, evaluating evidence for their aberrant expression and function in RA. We postulate that ROS generation is required for effective therapeutic intervention.


Abstract. Unclassified roads comprise 60 % of the road network in the United Kingdom (UK). The resilience of this locally important network is declining. It is considered by the Institution of Civil Engineers to be "at risk" and is ranked 26th in the world. Many factors contribute to the degradation and ultimate failure of particular road sections. However, several UK local authorities have identified that in drought conditions, road sections founded upon shrink–swell susceptible clay soils undergo significant deterioration compared with sections on non-susceptible soils. This arises from the local road network having little, if any, structural foundations. Consequently, droughts in East Anglia have resulted in millions of pounds of damage, leading authorities to seek emergency governmental funding. This paper assesses the use of soil-related geohazard assessments in providing soil-informed maintenance strategies for the asset management of the locally important road network of the UK. A case study draws upon the UK administrative county of Lincolnshire, where road assessment data have been analysed against mapped clay-subsidence risk. This reveals a statistically significant relationship between road condition and susceptible clay soils. Furthermore, incorporation of UKCP09 future climate projections within the geohazard models has highlighted roads likely to be at future risk of clay-related subsidence.


Objective This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of retinal imaging in critical care using a novel mobile optical coherence tomography (OCT) device. The Heidelberg SPECTRALIS FLEX module (Heidelberg Engineering, Heidelberg, Germany) is an OCT unit with a boom arm, enabling ocular OCT assessment in less mobile patients. Design We undertook an evaluation of the feasibility of using the SPECTRALIS FLEX for undertaking ocular OCT images in unconscious and critically ill patients. Setting This study was conducted in the critical care unit of a large tertiary referral unit in the United Kingdom. Participants 13 systemically unwell patients admitted to the critical care unit were purposively sampled to enable evaluation in patients with a range of clinical states. Outcome measures The primary outcome was the feasibility of acquiring clinically interpretable OCT scans on a consecutive series of patients. The standardised scanning protocol included macula-focused OCT, OCT optic nerve head (ONH), OCT angiography (OCTA) of the macula and ONH OCTA. Results OCT images from 13 patients were attempted. The success rates of each scan type are 84% for OCT macula, 76% for OCT ONH, 56% for OCTA macula and 36% for OCTA ONH. The overall mean success rate of scans per patient was 64% (95% CI 46% to 81%). Clinicians reported clinical value in 100% scans which were successfully obtained, including both ruling in and ruling out relevant ocular complications such as corneal thinning, macular oedema and optic disc swelling. The most common causes of failure to achieve clinically interpretable scans were inadequately sustained OCT alignment in delirious patients and a compromised ocular surface due to corneal exposure. Conclusions This prospective evaluation indicates the feasibility and potential clinical value of the SPECTRALIS FLEX OCT system on the critical care unit. Portable OCT systems have the potential to bring instrument-based ophthalmic assessment to critically ill patients, enabling detection and micron-level monitoring of ocular complications.


ABSTRACT Internet virus and worm attacks plagued the Internet during the summer of 2003. Millions of computers were affected, and Internet traffic was slowed worldwide. Businesses suffered lost revenue while computer users experienced crashes, cluttered email inboxes, or impaired performance. This was only the latest episode in a continuing problem. Many of these attacks, including the destructive attacks of August 2003, involve denial of service (DOS). A DOS attack occurs when an attacker sends malicious communications over the Internet, crashing computers or interfering with websites. The computer user or website is thus denied service and access to the Internet. This paper will explain how DOS attacks are perpetrated. It will explain why technical "black box" solutions like firewalls and anti-virus software have failed to provide effective protection. The paper will examine current remedies in civil and criminal law. It will explain why law has failed as an effective deterrent in this area. Government regulation, which has so far been rejected as a solution to the DOS problem, will nevertheless be considered and regulatory objectives will be identified. Finally, the paper will describe best practices that firms and individuals can employ now to limit their exposure to DOS attacks or to mitigate their impact. INTRODUCTION In February 2000 a series of high-profile DOS attacks occurred that knocked leading e-commerce sites like Ebay, CNN and Yahoo off the Internet. Financial loss has been estimated at $1.1 to 1.7 billion (Katyal 2001). The culprit turned out to be a Canadian teenager who used the name "mafiaboy". In the ensuing three and a half years DOS attacks have gained in sophistication and continue to menace the Internet community. For example, in July 2002 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) website was downed for four days by a DOS attack after it endorsed tighter copyright legislation (McCullagh, 2002). The more recent SQL Slammer worm is estimated to have disrupted half of all Internet traffic in January 2003, while the Sobig virus that emerged in late August 2003 affected one in 17 emails worldwide (Economist, 2003). eWeek magazine estimates that as of the end of August, 2003, 63,000 viruses have plagued the Internet, causing a total of $65 billion in damage (Mendoza, 2003). The events of 9/11 have caused an increased concern for the security of our nation's information infrastructure. DOS attacks have the potential of doing more than taking websites like eBay temporarily off the Internet. They can shut down power grids, hospitals, airports and other vital services (Guth and Machalaba, D., 2003). The objective of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of how these attacks are perpetrated and what social mechanisms might be employed to deter them. Law and regulation are two of our most effective social mechanisms for modifying behavior. However, they have so far failed to effectively deter these attacks. This paper will explain why. It will examine the legal sanctions facing those who perpetrate or facilitate DOS attacks. Government regulation, which has so far not been applied in this area, will be considered and regulatory objectives will be proposed. Finally, the paper will describe best practices that can now be followed to reduce the chances of being an attack victim or to minimize the harm following an attack. UNDERSTANDING DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS A DOS attack can be said to occur whenever a person maliciously causes an interruption in another's service over the Internet. There are many sub-types, but they fall into two broad categories: distributed denial of service and hacked denial of service. A distributed DOS attack floods a target with a great number of packets--small segments of information sent over the Internet. The target's server attempt to respond and establish the connections, but the volume of requests is too great and the server crashes. …


The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles-John Jacob Niles 2021-12-14 A legend in the folk music community, John Jacob Niles enjoyed a lengthy career as a balladeer, folk collector, and songwriter. Ever close to his Kentucky roots, he spent much of his adulthood searching for the most wellloved songs of the southern Appalachia. The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles brings together a wealth of songs with the stories that inspired them, arranged by a gifted performer. This new edition includes all of the melodies, text, commentary, and illustrations of the 1961 original and features a new introduction by Ron Pen, director of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky.


This Article challenges Treasury's recent regulations narrowly interpreting the fiduciary income tax charitable deduction under IRC § 642(c). Treasury's new interpretation highlights a fundamental tension in the federal tax system, which involves identifying transactions that are abusive versus transactions that take advantage of congressionally sanctioned tax incentives that were designed to further important public policies like charitable giving. For almost forty years, IRC § 642(c) had been liberally construed by Treasury, which was consistent with the legislative history and principles of statutory construction traditionally applicable to charitable deductions. Treasury's new restriction on income ordering rules in charitable trusts overrides the legal norms historically applicable to charitable deductions and is contrary to the legislative history, case law interpreting charitable deductions and Subchapter J of the Internal Revenue Code. If left unchallenged, this new interpretation has the potential to erode congressionally sanctioned tax incentives, charitable and otherwise, which is cause for great concern. This Article examines the history of charitable deductions in the United States and the case law that has liberally construed the deductions for almost a century. The Article also examines the statutory framework of Subchapter J of the Internal Revenue Code and concludes that Treasury's justification for its new interpretation of the deduction is without merit and that the regulations should be invalidated if challenged.


A research programme has been carried out for TRRL to compare different methods of testing vehicle electronic anti-lock equipment for electromagnetic compatibility. Most effort was concentrated on the comparison between the stripline component test used to satisfy the requirements of ECE Regulations No 13 and whole vehicle susceptibility tests performed on a range of commercial vehicles. The test vehicles included rigid and articulated HGVs, a passenger coach and a saloon car. In addition to the main programme, other test techniques have been considered. The use of bulk current injection as an alternative component test and the use of bulk current absorption spectra as a method of identifying worst case conditions and as a transfer function between bulk current injection data and whole vehicle data have been investigated. Component tests have also been performed using a large Transverse Electromagnetic (TEM) cell instead of the stripline. The research programme has demonstrated that it is not possible to correlate, on a point by point basis, the results produced by different test methods. By concentrating on worst case conditions, however, it has been possible to derive useful scaling factors between the different methods of testing. Care must be taken in applying these scaling factors since they inevitably depend on the exact configuration used.


The aim of this work was to investigate the prediction of the elastic constants of carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy laminated composites using a simple mathematical approach. For this purpose, a Matlab Calculation Code (MCC) has been developed in MATLAB, which provides sufficient capabilities for analysis of the mechanical behaviour of composite materials. The MATLAB code enables a variety of fibre orientation angles to be generated and a wide variety of fibre volume fractions to be analyzed under mechanical loading. In order to validate the accuracy of prediction results, a commercial grade epoxy resin (Araldite LY-5052) and unidirectional carbon fibre (Torayca T700) were used to fabricate some samples of laminated composites with cross-ply configuration using the hand lay-up method. Experimental results such as elastic modulus, tensile strength as well as elongation at break were compared with the theoretical data extracted from MCC. The theoretical analysis were verified with experimental results for the same type of composites. Although the values were different, excellent agreement in the trends of the changes was found for the two approaches. Therefore, it was concluded that the MCC is capable of predicting the elastic constants of laminated composites with a high level of confidence for a wide range of fabricating conditions. The results also showed that the tensile properties of composites made with 3-layer were generally greater than those of the other evaluated composites. This kind of behaviour may be explained by bondline defects, which adversely influence the mechanical properties.


While concealment has been a vital requirement for hunting, fighting and protection since earliest days, the use of camouflage as deception purposes came of age in the First World War. The growing use of aircraft was a factor no doubt as the author of this fascinating study concludes. The inventiveness and improvisation required suitedt the British temperament well. Given that those individuals who particularly excel at creativity are often artists, scientist and engineers with a fine disregard for orthodox military practice there are plenty of examples of clashes with more conventional military thinkers and bureaucracy. The levels of ingenuity achieved in hiding huge installations, airfields and ships are astounding. Lakes were hidden and river courses concealed. 'Active' camouflage designed to deceive the enemy as to strengths and directions of attack was accepted as a vital part of offensive planning for example at El Alamein and in the run-up to D Day, Guy Hartcup's Camouflage is not only instructive reading for military practitioners intent on developing their skills but a most interesting and entertaining read for a much wider audience. The use of photographs provides graphic examples of attempts at concealment and deception over the years in many different wars and theatres.


The development of therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been challenged with a myriad of obstacles: an evolving and incomplete understanding of disease etiology and progression, challenges with early diagnosis, multifactorial genetic and environmental factors that contribute to patient variability, and the cost of conducting lengthy clinical trials. One approach that has garnered a significant amount of attention and resources for its potential as a disease modifying approach is passive immunotherapy directed at clearing amyloid-β (Aβ) species, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. While passive immunotherapeutic trials directed at Aβ have not yet demonstrated clinical benefit, they have prompted important advances in the application and understanding of biomarkers, patient selection, novel functional readouts, and safety monitoring. Application of these lessons has enabled more recent clinical trials to incorporate better trial designs and refine inclusion criteria to optimize patient population enrollment. In addition, new passive immunotherapy targets emerging in the clinic have emerged, as well as novel technologies to enhance future antibody therapeutics. Taken together, the advances in research and clinical science have prepared the passive immunotherapy field to advance emerging promising disease modifying treatments in AD.


Recent breakthroughs in deep neural networks (DNNs) have fueled a tremendous demand for intelligent edge devices featuring on-site learning, while the practical realization of such systems remains a challenge due to the limited resources available at the edge and the required massive training costs for state-of-the-art (SOTA) DNNs. As reducing precision is one of the most effective knobs for boosting training time/energy efficiency, there has been a growing interest in low-precision DNN training. In this paper, we explore from an orthogonal direction: how to fractionally squeeze out more training cost savings from the most redundant bit level, progressively along the training trajectory and dynamically per input. Specifically, we propose FracTrain that integrates (i) progressive fractional quantization which gradually increases the precision of activations, weights, and gradients that will not reach the precision of SOTA static quantized DNN training until the final training stage, and (ii) dynamic fractional quantization which assigns precisions to both the activations and gradients of each layer in an input-adaptive manner, for only"fractionally"updating layer parameters. Extensive simulations and ablation studies (six models, four datasets, and three training settings including standard, adaptation, and fine-tuning) validate the effectiveness of FracTrain in reducing computational cost and hardware-quantified energy/latency of DNN training while achieving a comparable or better (-0.12%~+1.87%) accuracy. For example, when training ResNet-74 on CIFAR-10, FracTrain achieves 77.6% and 53.5% computational cost and training latency savings, respectively, compared with the best SOTA baseline, while achieving a comparable (-0.07%) accuracy. Our codes are available at: https://github.com/RICE-EIC/FracTrain.


Dimensional changes in polymerizable storage materials during exposure are a source of pixel misregistration in digital holographic storage. Lateral shrinkage or expansion of photopolymer recording materials can be deduced from quantitative measurement of the shift and the magnification errors of reconstructed holograms.


It has long been recognized that usual elasticity and flexibility concepts are of limited value in a multi-equation setting. This is because the response caused by a change in an exogenous variable will have feedback effects as the system obtains a new equilibrium. Consequently, it is necessary to examine total response measures in a system framework. In spite of this recognition there has been no known attempt to examine the structural implications of an econometric model by using total elasticities and flexibilities. This paper extends the results from Cavas, Hassan, and Johnson (1981) to obtain total elasticity and flexibility measures in a general dynamic model, using a quarterly model of the U.S. pork sector. The results indicate that supply elasticities are generally smaller than those reported previously.


In Fighting for Citizenship, Brian Taylor complicates existing interpretations of why black men fought in the Civil War. Civil War–era African Americans recognized the urgency of a core political concern: how best to use the opportunity presented by this conflict over slavery to win abolition and secure enduring black rights, goals that had eluded earlier generations of black veterans. Some, like Frederick Douglass, urged immediate enlistment to support the cause of emancipation, hoping that a Northern victory would bring about the end of slavery. But others counseled patience and negotiation, drawing on a historical memory of unfulfilled promises for black military service in previous American wars and encouraging black men to leverage their position to demand abolition and equal citizenship. In doing this, they also began redefining what it meant to be a black man who fights for the United States. These debates over African Americans' enlistment expose a formative moment in the development of American citizenship: black Northerners' key demand was that military service earn full American citizenship, a term that had no precise definition prior to the Fourteenth Amendment. In articulating this demand, Taylor argues, black Northerners participated in the remaking of American citizenship itself—unquestionably one of the war's most important results.


In this paper we present a new approach to multiple fault diagnosis in combinational circuits based on an effect-cause analysis. The main vehicle of our approach is the deduction of internal line values in a circuit under test N*. The knowledge of these values allows us to identify fault situations in N* (causes) which are compatible with the applied test and the obtained response (the effect). A fault situation specifies faulty as well as fault-free lines. Other applications include identifying the existence of nonstuck faults in N* and determination of faults not detected by a given test, including redundant faults. The latter application allows for the generation of tests for multiple faults without performing fault enumeration.


Sensor builders in the digital era have design limitations due to the constraint of maximum available digital array size. A straightforward solution exists, for example, when four cameras that each simultaneously captures an image from essentially the same perspective centre; they can be re-sampled to form a virtual large format image that can be exploited using a single (instead of four separate) instantiation of a frame model. The purpose of this paper is to address the less trivial time-dependent cases where the sensor scans the ground and the detector arrays obtain chips of imagery that need to be stitched together to form a single conveniently exploitable image. Many operational techniques warp the imagery to form a mosaic, or ortho-rectify it using an imperfect digital surface model (DSM), thus eliminating the possibility for accurate geolocation and uncertainty estimation. This algorithm, however, forms a single virtual image with associated smooth metadata, which can be exploited using a simple physical sensor model. The algorithm consists of four main steps: 1) automated tie point matching; 2) camera calibration (once per sensor); 3) block adjustment; and 4) pixel re-sampling based on an "idealized" virtual model. The same geometry model used to form the image, or its true replacement, must be used to exploit it. This paper verifies the algorithm using real imagery acquired from the Global Hawk (GH) UAV. Registration of the virtual image to a WorldView1 stereopair using four tie points yielded an RMS below 0.6 meters per horizontal axis.


Large post-breeding gatherings of Little Terns Sterna albifrons are regularly observed in the Lagoon of Venice, Italy. Here, during five consecutive trapping seasons, 2956 birds were examined and ringed. Their breeding area, as indicated by 163 direct recoveries (mainly juveniles, ringed as chicks), spans over a broad sector of the Adriatic coasts, with colonies located up to 133 km far. During their stay at the study area, adults undergo an almost complete moult. Two partial primary moult cycles can be observed, the first of them being suspended when 2-4 outermost long primaries have not yet been shed. Pre-migratory body mass build-up, enough for a flight longer than 1000 km, takes place during the very last days before departure to the winter quarters, in most cases when the moult has reached a suspended stage. Active primary moult and body mass increase do overlap in late moulting birds (after 27 August), indicating that the two processes are compatible, in case of time shortage. Post-breeding movements to the Lagoon of Venice seem to fit most requisites of moult migration.


Two Coumot models of imperfect competition among electricity producers are formulated as mixed linear complementarity problems (LCPs), and a simple example is presented to illustrate their application. The two models simulate bilateral markets. The models include a congestion pricing scheme for transmission, but other transmission pricing approaches can also be represented in this framework. The two models differ from each other in that one has no arbitrage between nodes of the network, while in the other model arbitragers erase any noncost-based differences in price. The latter bilateral model tums out to be equivalent to a Coumot model of a POOLCO. The models differ from other Coumot market models in that they include both of Kirchhoff's laws via a dc approximation, can include arbitragers, possess unique solutions, and are readily solved by efficient LCP algorithms. The key assumption that permits their formulation as LCPs is that each producer naively assumes that its output will not affect transmission prices.


The Declaration of Independence asserts that human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, including Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But human beings often do alienate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Recruits serving in the armed forces, for example, have given up both liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and have placed themselves in a position also apt to call for giving up their lives. And if the Declaration charged the Crown with taking unalienable rights, how is it that the Fifth Amendment explicitly contemplates that the federal government may properly take life and liberty? Perhaps even more puzzling, if "[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life," Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S.833, 851 (1992), what supports the notion of natural inalienable rights at all, rights the right holder cannot alienate, however much that may be the holder's well considered desire in exercising this liberty? The present article answers these questions. Ultimately, natural inalienable rights presuppose a transcendent legal order. They presuppose this order formally, because natural inalienable rights are rights against lawless takings of the objects of those rights. More fundamentally, they presuppose a transcendent legal order materially, because they spring from theories resting upon transcendent law. Natural inalienable rights are coherent only when such a legal order is presupposed.


This paper seeks to examine the potential for wikis in assessing learner achievement. There is a widespread recognition that groupwork is a beneficial method of learning, and that assessment is a key driver in determining the learning methods that are employed (e.g. Scouler, 1998; Black and William, 1998). Examining the processes of assessing groupwork and the potential that new technology can bring to this is essential to expanding its use. One new technology, which can be used to assess groupwork, is a wiki – an editable webpage which can track the comments made, plus any discussion which goes on behind the scenes, and log the time/date of contributions.


How did Shakespeare's plays sound when they were originally performed? How can we know, and could the original pronunciation ever be recreated? For three days in June 2004 Shakespeare's Globe presented their production of Romeo and Juliet in original, Shakespearian pronunciation. In an unusual blend of autobiography, narrative, and academic content, reflecting the unique nature of the experience, this 2005 book by David Crystal recounts the first attempt in over 50 years to mount a full-length Shakespeare play in original pronunciation. Crystal begins by discussing the Globe theatre's approach to 'original practices', which has dealt with all aspects of Elizabethan stagecraft - except pronunciation. A large section is devoted to the nature of the Early Modern English sound system. There are reports of how the actors coped with the task of learning the pronunciation, how it affected their performances and how the audiences reacted.


Lung injury in the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is in part due to polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN)-mediated oxidative tissue damage. By means of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) activation, oxidants may also induce several genes implicated in the inflammatory response. The dithiocarbamates are antioxidants with potent inhibitory effects on NF-kappaB. We postulated that the pyrrolidine derivative pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) would attenuate lung injury following intratracheal challenge with endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide; LPS) through its effect as an antioxidant and inhibitor of gene activation. Rats were given PDTC (1 mmole/kg) by intraperitoneal injection, followed by intratracheal administration of LPS. The transpulmonary flux of [125I] albumin (permeability index; PI) was used as a measure of lung injury. Northern blot analysis of total lung RNA was performed to assess induction of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) messenger RNA (mRNA) as markers of NF-kappaB activation. The effect of in vivo treatment with PDTC on LPS-induced NF-kappaB DNA binding activity in macrophage nuclear extracts was evaluated with the electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). PDTC administration attenuated LPS-induced increases in lung permeability (PI = 0.16 +/- 0.02 for LPS versus 0.06 +/- 0.01 for LPS + PDTC; P < 0.05). TNF-alpha levels and PMN counts in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were unaffected, as were whole-lung TNF-alpha and ICAM-1 mRNA expression. PDTC had no effect on NF-kappaB activation as evaluated with EMSA. PDTC reduced lung lipid peroxidation as assessed by levels of malondialdehyde, without reducing neutrophil oxidant production. We conclude that PDTC attenuates LPS-induced acute lung injury. This effect occurs independently of any effect on NF-kappaB. PDTC reduces oxidant-mediated cellular injury, as demonstrated by a reduction in the accumulation of malondialdehyde. Administration of PDTC may represent a novel approach to limiting neutrophil-mediated oxidant injury.


Cloud Computing builds on the latest achievements of diverse research areas, such as Grid Computing, Service-oriented computing, business process modeling and virtualization. As this new computing paradigm was mostly lead by companies, several proprietary systems arose. Recently, alongside these commercial systems, several smaller-scale privately owned systems are maintained and developed. This chapter focuses on issues faced by users with interests on Multi-Cloud use and by Cloud providers with highly dynamic workloads. We propose a Federated Cloud Management architecture that provides unified access to a federated Cloud that aggregates multiple heterogeneous IaaS Cloud providers in a transparent manner. The architecture incorporates the concepts of meta-brokering, Cloud brokering and on-demand service deployment. The meta-brokering component provides transparent service execution for the users by allowing the interconnection of various Cloud brokering solutions. Cloud-Brokers manage the number and the location of the Virtual Machines performing the user requests. In order to decrease Virtual Machine instantiation time and increase dynamism in the system, our service deployment component optimizes service delivery by encapsulating services as virtual appliances allowing their decomposition and replication among IaaS Cloud infrastructures. The architecture achieves service provider level transparency through automatic virtual appliance replication and Virtual Machine management of Cloud-Brokers.


New particle formation (NPF) has been observed frequently at Storm Peak Laboratory (SPL), a high‐elevation mountaintop observatory in Colorado. A detailed analysis of field measurements taken in March and July 2012 at SPL reveals significant and interesting differences in NPF during the spring and summer months. Persistent long‐lasting NPF occurred on a daily basis in March but was absent in July. Bursts of ultrafine particles did occur frequently in July, but such bursts were short‐lasting and did not show any obvious pattern. A global chemical transport model (GEOS‐Chem) coupled with a size‐resolved advanced particle microphysics model is used to interpret in‐depth this observed nucleation phenomenon. The model captures well the observed persistent daily nucleation events in March and the absence of regional‐scale NPF in July. Model simulations indicate that aerosol precursors were dominated by H2SO4 gas in March and by low‐volatile secondary organic gases (LV‐SOGs) in July, which are consistent with previous particle composition measurements at SPL. The observed persistent daily NPF in March and the absence of regional‐scale nucleation in July at SPL indicate that H2SO4 gas plays a much more critical role in the initial nucleation process, although LV‐SOGs dominate particle growth in July. Our analysis suggests that the short‐lasting bursts of ultrafine particles observed at SPL in July are likely associated with nucleation in subgrid power plant plumes, where concentrations of H2SO4 rather than LV‐SOGs are expected to be higher.


1-Aminopyrene (1-AP), a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) compound, is a major metabolite during biotransformation of 1-nitropyrene by microflora in natural environment and in the guts of animals and humans. Under UV-A irradiation, 1-AP has been shown to cause light-induced DNA single strand cleavage. Humic acids (HA) in aquatic ecosystems can influence the bioavailability, toxicity, and fate of organic xenobiotics. Therefore, photochemical fate and effect of PAH in natural aquatic environment may differ significantly across sites. The objectives of this study are to assess the time course (TC; 18 and 90 minutes) influence of HA (0, 20, and 60 ppm) on microbial ecotoxicity of 1-AP (0 and 10 μM) during solar photolysis process (PP). Microbial ecotoxicity of 1-AP during different time courses in the presence and absence of HA was measured with spread plate counting and microbial mineralization of 14C-D-glucose. The experimental results were analyzed as factorial arrangements of treatment in a complete randomized design using General Linear Model by SAS. LSMEANS was used to separate means or combination of means. Significant effect on glucose mineralization was found by the following treatment interactions 1-AP*TC, 1-AP*PP, TC*PP, HA*1-AP*TC, HA*1-AP*PP, and HA*1-AP*TC*PP. The treatment interaction HA*1-AP was the only one affecting spread plate counting. In the groups exposed to 1-AP (10 μM), microbial heterotrophic mineralization of 14C-D-glucose was significantly inhibited in the presence of HA in light and in darkness. Exposure to HA in light and darkness, however, did not necessarily inhibit bacterial viability at the HA concentration range assayed. Therefore, inhibition on microbial activity could have been caused by multiple factors, instead of toxicity of HA alone.


In Pentecostal political theology in Africa, there has been a movement from Pentecostal disjunction from state and society towards conjunction on governance levels. This eventually led to disillusionment with Pentecostal policymaking, both within African Pentecostal milieus and public discourses. The entrance of Pentecostal actors onto the political stage in African countries dates back to the transformative years from 1989 to 1993, in which democratic movements all over the continent were challenging autocratic presidential regimes. This era has been termed in political science the "second democratization" after the immediate postcolonial era of nation building in the 1960s. Almost invisible before, Pentecostal political impact was growing enormously and transformed into varied efforts to 'pentecostalize' governance since the turn of the millennium. In view of selected West African political cultures and Kenya discussed in this special issue of Nova Religio, a dialectics in Pentecostal visions of politics becomes obvious: The diversity of political strategies testifies to African Pentecostal potency in public discourses, but once entangled in actual policymaking, Pentecostal praxis discredits self-images of superiority in politics.


Which public policies and ownership structures enhance the governance of banks? This paper constructs a new database on the ownership of banks internationally and then assesses the ramifications of ownership, shareholder protection laws, and supervisory/regulatory policies on bank valuations. Except in a few countries with very strong shareholder protection laws, banks are not widely held, but rather families or the State tend to control banks. We find that (i) larger cash flow rights by the controlling owner boosts valuations, (ii) stronger shareholder protection laws increase valuations, and (iii) greater cash flow rights mitigate the adverse effects of weak shareholder protection laws on bank valuations. These results are consistent with the views that expropriation of minority shareholders is important internationally, that laws can restrain this expropriation, and concentrated cash flow rights represent an important mechanism for governing banks. Finally, the evidence does not support the view that empowering official supervisory and regulatory agencies will increase the market valuation of banks.


1 Chung Cheng Institute of Technology, National Defense University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC 2 Chinese Air Force Meteorological Center, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC * Corresponding author address: Mr. Jen-Chi Hu, Chung Cheng Institute of Technology, National Defense University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC; E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com This study aims to obtain the rate of rainfall (RR) over ocean areas using satellite data by establishing the relationship between Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) microwave brightness temperature (Tbs) data and island rain gauge rainfall. This study applied a rain identification technique developed by Grody et al. (1999) using AMSU-A data accepted to screen rain events over ocean areas. Using rain gauge data of Sakishima-shoto in Japan as a ground truth, validation of rain identification was conducted every May and June from 1999 to 2001. Including times of both rainfall and no rainfall, the overall rates of successful recognition were 87.3%, 87%, and 89% for 1999, 2000, and 2001, respectively. As for quantitative validation, the coefficient of determination was 0.72. To obtain further precipitation observations, another rainfall estimation retrieved by the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) data onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was compared with the AMSU-A data. The results displayed solid agreement in rainfall patterns and rain distribution. Additionally, when the AMSU-A RRs were multiplied by a factor of approximately 1.5 (particularly for heavy rainfalls), the intensities of the AMSU-A RRs roughly equaled those of the TMI RRs. Combining this data with the other satellite rainfall retrieval data, a series of AMSUA rain maps for sea areas were shown to mitigate the problem of relatively sporadic observations of rainfall at sea. (


Christian higher education administrators battle with how much to increase tuition on a consistent basis. One of the concerns with increasing tuition is the negative effect it will have on their prospective student market. The literature review was used to establish an understanding of the price-quality (PQ) relationship and its role in higher education, identify gaps in the research, and provide a context for the current study. The summary of the literature review is comprised of main points of interest through the previous sections and shows a need for further exploration into how the PQ relationship affects Christian higher education. A discussion of how the literature is used to engage the process of raising tuition helps the reader comprehend the higher education environment and culture. Budgetary needs, market positioning, new student enrollment and retention are only part of the discussion when trying to decide where to set tuition prices for the following year. Ensuring that institution leaders establish their value statement in the minds of students and parents becomes a crucial aspect of pricing in Christian higher education. Quality perception and rising tuition costs continue to influence decisions on campuses across the United States. The current study was used to discover the relationship between price and quality perception (represented as 20 dependent variables related to higher education) of 8 Christian institutions that are members or affiliates of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Correlations (to gauge the strength of the variables), descriptive statistics, and multiple regressions (to form predictability Running Head: TRENDS IN PRICING AND PERCEIVED QUALITY 4 measures from the historical data) were used. The current study showed significant findings regarding how price (tuition and fees) correlates with changes in enrollment figures, retention, financial aid, alumni financial involvement, class sizes, student-tofaculty ratios, and acceptance rates.


Traditionally the South African War was depicted in the historiography as almost exclusively a white man's war. Prior to 1980 books contained very little information on black participation in the war and blacks were perceived as being mere spectators during the war. In the last twenty years historians have increasingly given attention to the participation by blacks in the South African War. These historians have proved that blacks were active participants who played a significant role in the war.
It is a well-known fact that a concentration camp system was introduced in 1900 as part of the British military strategy to end Boer resistance during the guerrilla phase of the South African War. Boer women and children were removed from the land and brought into concentration camps. By the end of the war there were more than 40 camps for whites with a population of over 116 000.


Abstract Communal hunting allows some modern canids to catch large and powerful prey. As opposed to felids, for example, Recent canids have a limited ability to grapple and subdue prey by using their forelimbs. Instead, they engage in sustained pursuit predation and the success rate during this activity typically increases with the number of individuals participating in the hunt. Clearly, such behaviors do not fossilize directly and have to be inferred from anatomy. This paper focuses on how social pack-hunting in large-bodied fossil canids can be determined and the potential for it among Tertiary canids (Canidae, Carnivora). Craniodental adaptations for handling and killing large prey and forearm utility in running and grappling are investigated by principal components and canonical variates analyses. I also test whether fossil canids responded to predation of large prey by evolving the same morphological traits as their Recent pursuit-type relatives. The analyses show that small and large members of the Recent Caninae share similar craniodental morphologies. However, the same pattern is not present in the fossil subfamilies Borophaginae and Hesperocyoninae. In the latter, large representatives are characterized by being relatively short-faced with reduced anterior premolars and enlarged posterior premolars, thus approaching a "pantherine-like" configuration. These traits are interpreted as an adaptation for killing prey with felid-like canine bites. The elbow joints of large canids also do not converge on a single morphotype. All analyzed species of borophagines and hesperocyonines have retained the ability to supinate their forearms, unlike Recent large Caninae. It is therefore likely that manual manipulation was part of their hunting behavior, thus removing an essential part of the argument for social pack-hunting in these forms, as the benefits of such a strategy become less obvious. An association between the origin of pack-pursuit "wolf avatars" and the origin and evolution of grass-dominated ecosystems is hypothesized. The results presented here clearly suggest that Recent large canids are poor ecological, morphological, and behavioral analogs for their large fossil relatives.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the extent of shortfall in syringes by measuring the need from nationally validated sources and comparing it with position on the supply side. This was done in order to contribute to the ongoing national discussions that have focused on increasing syringe supply to curtail syringe reuse.

METHODS
Using 'Injections received' data from the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey 2006-7 (N: 5429) and the National Hepatitis Survey (N: 47,043), the study estimated the number of injections received in Pakistan. We matched these against the local syringe production figures from the syringe manufacturers' association and import figures from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

RESULTS
Approximately 731+/-867 million injections (5.1 12 injections per head) are received annually in Pakistan and around 861+/-961 million syringes are supplied to the open market. Overall, 52-77% Pakistanis receive at least one injection in any given year.

CONCLUSIONS
Injection need in Pakistan is among the highest worldwide but is completely matched by available syringe supplies, suggesting lower reuse than previously considered. However, highly prevalent Hepatitis B and C viruses suggest that even this reuse is a major public health concern and measures directed at both providers and recipients of injections are needed to curtail high injection need and syringe reuse.


"Cracking the Code" is an activity developed to demonstrate the processes of transcription and translation. This hands-on activity helps students understand the relationship between form (base pairing) and function (information storage and transfer) of nucleic acids. In this activity, students go through the processes of transcription and translation of a DNA molecule to create jewelry; a beaded bracelet or necklace is used as a tactile representation of a chain of amino acids. To determine the correct order of "amino acid" beads, students must first decode a strand of DNA using complementary base pairing rules. The decoding is a two-step process that illustrates transcription (the copying of DNA to RNA) and translation (using tRNAs to match the genetic code to the correct amino acid). This teaches the relationship between structure (base pairs) and function (information storage and transfer) in nucleic acids.


This report provides a synthesis of key safety solutions as well as issues that need to be considered when effectively addressing safety on urban mixed use arterial routes. Mixed use urban arterials account for a large proportion of high?severity crashes in Australia and New Zealand, particularly involving vulnerable road users. Austroads commissioned research to help identify solutions that might be applied on these arterial roads to improve safety through the provision of Safe System infrastructure. The project involved assessment of six case studies around Australia and New Zealand. Preliminary concept designs were developed for each of the routes based on the findings from the workshops and subsequent discussions. The likely safety benefits were assessed with estimates of likely crash reductions as well as alignment with the Safe System objective of eliminating death and serious injury.


ABSTRACT Nanosecond pulsed electric fields pass through the external membranes of biological cells (which have typical response times much greater than nanoseconds) and perturb fast-responding intracellular structures and processes. To enable real-time imaging and investigation of these phenomena, a microchamber with integral electrode walls and optical path for observing individual cells exposed to electric pulses was designed and fabricated utilizing photolithographic and microelectronic fabrication methods. SU-8 photoresist was patterned to form straight sidewalls 10 to 30 µm in height, and gold was deposited on the opposing walls and the top for a conductive, non-reactive electrode surface. Results from observations with the microchamber in real-time electroperturbation imaging experiments include intracellular calcium bursts and membrane phospholipid translocation. Real-time nanoelectropulse investigations with microfabricated imaging tools open new pathways for the study and engineering of biological systems.


Ubiquitous computing, mobile computing and the Internet of Things (UMI) have been widely used in several application areas. To date, methods and techniques for the application of these technologies in real life situations have continued to emerge; however, their use in education settings focusing on existing practices remain largely underexplored. A systematic mapping study (SMS) method was herein used to map initially identified 395 articles with the aims of systematically analyzing and presenting the evidence from the literature on the topic, and to identify important gaps as well as promising research directions. An appropriate methodological protocol has been adopted from the literature for the analysis, filtering, evaluation and report of the evidence. As a result, twenty-five studies have been selected and analyzed. The axes of analyzing systematically the literature were inspired by an existing UMI learning ecology. The analysis revealed important characteristics of existing UMI related educational practices in all levels of education, including  contexts and actors involved, methods and digital tools used, affordances and learning approaches important for achieving effective learning in IoT, Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing domain.


Mobile performance support system (mPSS) focuses on helping students to perform an authentic task with minimum support of others, providing them with sufficient information such as expert advice and procedures, just-in-time. Providing this support on a mobile device enables students to make their learning more efficient and relevant. Fieldwork has long been identified as providing students undertaking professional studies with a means of implementing theory into real life situations. In many ways there is a natural link between fieldwork and mobile technology. This paper reports our experience using performance-centered mobile learning to enhance active, fieldwork education and the investigation of its impact on students learning. Fieldwork education is vital for many engineering courses. Two case studies held outside the classroom are presented. In the first case, the students are admitted to the technical equipment in a base station of a Bulgarian mobile operator outside the city of Plovdiv. In the second case, students visit an electronics manufacturing plant and directly inspect the production process.