This study investigates the requirements and technologies to provide power from shore to ship when the electric ferry is at quay. Different rectifier systems will be evaluated in terms of requirements given by the utility grid owner BKK and the ferry company Fjord1. Two suitable rectifier systems based on voltage orientated control method will be simulated in Simulink under various load conditions. The simulation results will be evaluated with the grid parameters and requirements given by BKK. Important parameters to be considered are power factor, efficiency, harmonic distortion of current and voltage at the point of common coupling and stability of the rectifier. The voltage orientated rectifier system with L-filter is built in the laboratory where the goal is to validate the simulation results. The hardware design is based on insulated gate bipolar transistors from SEMIKRON and digital signal controller eZdsp delivered by spectrum digital.


Signal desensitization occurs through several mechanisms involving the inhibition of receptors, intracellular signal mediators, or nuclear transcription factors. Cross-linking of the T cell receptor (TCR) leads to receptor activation followed by rapid desensitization. TCR internalization occurs through protein tyrosine kinase-dependent and -independent mechanisms. Although both engaged and nonengaged receptors are internalized, it is not clear whether both unoccupied or activated receptors must be physically associated, or whether other protein factors are required. San José et al. studied T cells that express chimeric CD3ζ proteins that cannot associate with TCR complexes. Cross-linking chimeric CD3ζ caused the internalization of TCR complexes, and TCR engagement led to concomitant internalization of the CD3ζ chimerae. Internalization of engaged TCRs did not depend on cytoplasmic signaling; however, because activation of the chimeric CD3ζ could still cause internalization of the nonengaged TCRs, the authors suggest that nonengaged TCRs may be internalized through a mechanism that requires intracellular signaling. San José, E., Borroto, A., Niedergang, F., Alcover, A., and Alarcón, B. (2000) Triggering the TCR complex causes the downregulation of nonengaged receptors by a signal transduction-dependent mechanism. Immunity 12: 161-170. [Online Journal]


This study argues in favour of creating a new paradigm around gender transition that goes beyond politically distinctive 'label identities' and aims to include individuals who seem to lack a clear 'destination' within definitions of 'gender transition'. Contrary to sociological models that have constructed understandings of gender transition via separate categories into which individuals may be grouped, this study argues that those assigned to the categories of 'gender oscillators' and 'gender migrators' –or 'cross-dressers' and 'transsexuals'- do not necessarily constitute members of different groups. The thesis draws on a detailed discursive analysis of interactions within focus group discussions and critically engages with the notions of recognition and monstrosity as these apply to trans-gender theorising. Thirteen male-to-female individuals who self-identified as embodying various expressions of gender transition agreed to take part in three independent focus groups that explored participants' understanding of transition. An interdisciplinary methodological approach was adopted, this drawing upon the principles of discourse analysis to reveal how subject positions are formed within the gender-crossing discourse. Gender crossing tales were collected and analysed as a means of interaction and were set within the framework of myth and legend which had sought to explain human existence and possibilities of viable gendered personhood over the millennia. The use of metaphors was critically examined, particularly those which describe gender transition as a path which leads to a sought-after 'home'; a place where an individual expects and hopes to find recognition as their 'true' female self. This study argues that the various classifications of trans-gender expressions are products of the given sociocultural matrix that regulates recognition within relations of power. It also argues that those assigned to different categories actually share individual expressions of similar embodied feelings, namely the wish to be accepted as females, and that their journey 'home' is mobilised by a defence against the fear that the loss of the desired subject position will defeat one's capacity to have hope about anything. In an effort to introduce an alternative, value-free approach to the more-conventional clinical and politicised attempts to describe and classify individuals who cross the gender norm, this study suggests an account of the metaphorical positioning of the trans-gender self which aims to build connections across various understandings of non-normative gendered bodies and offer new forms of identity and agency which may make the lives of all individuals who gender-cross more liveable.


The technique of acoustic emission (AE) is still currentlu applied to the investigations of the plastic deformation of metals and alloys (e.g. [1, 2]). One of the controversial problems is the explanation of the influence of grain size on the acoustic emission (AE) activity [3, 4]. Some of the experimental results indicate that AE increases with diminishing grain size; however, there are cases where an increase of AE has been observed with increasing grain size. ...


The Information and Communications Technologies' market has been growing, and organizations around the world have been joining the great concern about the women's under-representation in programs related with science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas. This situation has led to the proposal of initiatives in distinct institutions to promote an increase in the participation of women. This article describes the experience of carrying out the I Workshop Women in Tech Occidente-Costa Rica (WITO 2019), which was attended by the fourth-year undergraduate female students of the bachelor's degree program in Inform´atica Empresarial from the Sede de Occidente of the Universidad de Costa Rica. This workshop was focused on identifying: student fears, skills, interests and how the program and university services could be improved. Main results showed that: (i) students do not feel completely prepared for the office environment, (ii) the university must improve the support provided to students in topics such as sexual harassment, ergonomics labs and complementary services, and (iii) participants consider that stereotypes should disappear, and gender equality can generate better results for organizations. Finally, this kind of activity encourages the empowerment of female students and it also inspires them to be role models.


Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex, multifactorial disease with genetic, microbial and environmental risk factors combining to result in recurrent inflammation of the intestine. Genetic analyses have uncovered a cluster of IBD risk genes, which regulate a cell stress response called autophagy. Functional studies of these autophagy-related genes highlight contributions of disease-associated dysregulation to several aspects of IBD pathology, which include alterations in microbiome composition and bacterial responses (xenophagy), antimicrobial peptide production by Paneth cells (crinophagy), enhanced levels of proinflammatory cytokines and enhanced T-cell subset responses. This suite of autophagy-gene regulated responses is modulated not only by the cell type or stimulus, but also by environmental context, with the overall balance of responses critical to the maintenance of health or induction of disease. These findings have opened up new avenues for the development of IBD therapeutics and increased understanding of disease mechanisms to facilitate a more personalised approach to the treatment of IBD.

Key Concepts:

Susceptibility to IBD disease is associated with genetic variants in a spectrum of autophagy-related genes.

Autophagy is a tightly regulated catabolic degradative pathway implicated in a number of disease-associated processes.

Autophagy-dependent processes altered in IBD include intracellular bacterial killing by xenophagy, Paneth cell antimicrobial peptide secretion via crinophagy, production of proinflammatory cytokines by macrophages, antigen presentation and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress responses in enterocytes.

Xenophagy is impaired by IBD-associated polymorphisms in ATG16L1, IRGM, NOD2, RIP2, PTPN2 and XBP1 resulting in chronic inflammation due to defective clearance of intracellular pathogens.

Both impaired and enhanced crinophagy are observed in Paneth cells from IBD patients. Alterations in crinophagy supress secretion of antimicrobial peptides by these cells.

Proinflammatory cytokine production by macrophages is enhanced in IBD. This process is regulated by a balance between autophagy and inflammasome responses. Genetic variants in both pathways are associated with increased IBD susceptibility.

Defective autophagy in dendritic cells, through gene knockdown or carriage of disease risk alleles in ATG16L1, IRGM or NOD2, alters antigen presentation and enhances T-cell stimulation.

ER stress activates autophagy through stimulation of the unfolded protein response mediated by XBP1. Disease-associated alleles of XBP1 are implicated in Paneth cell dysfunction and decreased xenophagy.

Keywords:

autophagy;
xenophagy;
crinophagy;
inflammatory bowel disease;
genetics;
Crohn's disease;
Paneth cell;
inflammasome;
ER stress;
proinflammatory cytokine;
antigen presentation


Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill teamed up with UnidosUS to explore whether and how our debt-driven higher education system makes it difficult for students to finish a college program or degree. The quantitative research, gathered from more than 1,500 respondents from across the country, offers insight into the primary barriers making college completion difficult. With 35 percent of the respondents identifying as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latinx, the data shed critical light on the unique circumstances and particular challenges facing Latino students. The report contextualizes the data within existing literature, bridging the gap between prior research on college completion and student debt.


This thesis discusses the results of two types of study, (a) of the relationships between journey-time and traffic flow during peak periods on two sections of urban road, each about 0.4 miles in length, and (b) of relationships between journey-times and a number of land-use variables over about 50 miles of suburban main roads in off-peak periods.
The results of study (a) show that the most significant relationships occurred when the data was analysed using non-linear or two-regime models. In the latter case the two regimes were separated by a critical flow. Above the critical flow changes in flow were correlated with changes in journey-time and below the critical flow the changes appeared to be random. Further evidence is provided to show that the use of different sampling intervals can give rise to different empirical relationships with the same data. A queuing model postulated by Davidson (1968) has been shown to give a satisfactory agreement with the results of study (a). A model is developed in this thesis which accounts for consistent changes in saturation flow arising from the use of different sampling intervals in Davidson's model. Additionally, an empirical index has been derived which reflects the changes in activity during the peak hour, and journey-time is highly correlated with this index.
Study (b) shows that after the effects of major intersections have been accounted for, journey-time was significantly correlated with a number of factors of land-use along the suburban main roads which were studied. Furthermore, a number of mathematical techniques have been used which permit the calculation of indices of the variation of the surrounding conditions and these techniques were shown to produce robust and repeatable results. Journey-time was significantly correlated with an Activity Index which was associated with a number of land-use parameters.


Prospects for comprehensive immigration reform look dim in light of past failures to enact legislation, such as the DREAM Act, and a continued period of divided government placing a skeptical Republican Congress in opposition to a sympathetic Democratic President. With legislative fixes for the United States' immigration system unlikely in the near future, the Obama Administration will continue to press its immigration agenda via executive order and enforcement memorandum. Such initiatives do provide real short-term benefits, but they are by nature temporary and lack the ability to provide any permanent status to their beneficiaries. Importantly, however, they are not the only tools that the executive branch wields if it is intent on implementing certain reforms even in the face of a divided Congress. This Article focuses on a little used mechanism, Attorney General referral and review, which could play an efficacious role in the executive branch's development and implementation of its immigration policy. This procedure permits the Attorney General to adjudicate individual immigration cases and thereby provide a definitive interpretation of law or institute new policy-based prescriptions to guide immigration officials in the future. Although used only four times by the Obama Administration, and sparingly in prior administrations, the history of its invocation establishes it as a powerful tool through which the executive branch can assert its prerogatives in the immigration field. Structurally, this Article presents both a historical overview of the referral authority and a doctrinal assessment of its prior use by modern Attorneys General. It also refutes common, but fundamentally misplaced, criticisms of the authority, including the purported lack of due process attendant upon referral. Finally, it concludes by considering certain proposals for reform that could make the authority a more robust avenue for executive branch immigration policy.


Carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of fossil horse tooth enamel from Nebraska and Texas show evidence for late Neogene environmental changes in the Great Plains. The earliest unambiguous C4 dietary signal among Texas equids coincides with the age of the classic late Hemphillian–age Coffee Ranch fauna, which we suggest is ∼6.6 Ma based on volcanic ash correlations. C4 vegetation was present in the diets of a small fraction of late Hemphillian equids in Nebraska and was thereafter ordinary in the diets of both Nebraska and Texas equids. There is no unequivocal evidence for abundant C4 vegetation in the diets of pre–late Hemphillian equids, and we suggest that the ensuing dietary change reflects C4‐biomass expansion in the latest Miocene. Carbon isotope ratios of post‐Hemphillian horses in Nebraska can be divided into two statistically distinct populations on the basis of whether tortoise remains co‐occur with horse remains, indicating that the two proxies (carbon isotopes and presence/absence of tortoises) record complementary environmental phenomena. The average δ18O values of late Hemphillian and younger fossil localities in Nebraska trend toward bimodal distribution, but more data are needed to confirm this pattern. Oxygen isotope ratios of Barstovian and Clarendonian horses are significantly enriched in 18O relative to Hemphillian horses, which in turn are significantly enriched relative to Blancan and Irvingtonian horses. A large portion of this oxygen isotope decrease appears to have taken place during late Hemphillian time. Secular variation in the Nebraska δ18O record correlates with changes in ungulate diversity, the disappearance of crocodilians in Nebraska, and global change in the latest Miocene.


In a family firm, the founding family has an influence over firm policy, corporate strategy, personnel issues, and so on, through ownership and participation in management even after the founder retires. Such family firms are prevalent among publicly traded firms not only in emerging countries, but also in developed countries. However, the prevalence and control mechanisms vary by country. In the US, when a founder steps down, they tend to hire professional managers and sell out their shares; thus, the prevalence of family firms is relatively low. In Western Europe, significant ownership typically remains with the founding family even after the founder retires: their children either hire a manager or run the firm themselves. In emerging markets, both management and ownership tends to remain with the family when the founder retires.Scholars have suggested that varying levels of family ownership and management across countries can be explained by the degree of legal protection for outside investors. However, they cannot explain the situation of Japanese family firms. In Japan, investor protection is relatively strong; however, when a founder steps down, founding family ownership tends to decrease, and yet the management role tends to stay within the founding family. Further, scholars have struggled to explain differences across countries in the performance of family firms relative to non-family firms. In the US, heir-managed family firms perform inferior to non-family firms. In France and Japan, however, heir-managed family firms exhibit superior performance.This paper aims to explain the differences in the prevalent patterns of family ownership, management and performance across countries. Specifically, it examines the role and size of professional manager markets, and suggests that these markets affect the decision of founders in key succession decisions. In testing its hypotheses, the paper presents a comparative data analysis of family firms in Japan, the US and France.


How was frontier expansion rationalized in the Americas during the late nineteenth century? As new states fleshed out expanded national maps, how did they represent their advances? Were there any distinct pan-American patterns? The renowned anthropologist and human rights advocate David Maybury-Lewis saw the Latin American frontiers as relatively unknown physical spaces as well as unexplored academic 'territory'. He invited eight specialists to explore public narratives of the expansion of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the western regions of Canada and the United States during the late nineteenth century, a time when those who then identified as 'Americans' claimed territories in which indigenous peoples, who were now seen as economic and political obstacles, lived. The authors examine the narrative forms that stirred or rationalized expansion, and emphasize their impact on the native residents. The authors illustrate the variety and the similarities of these nationalist ideas and experiences, which were generally expressed in symbolic and cultural terms rather than on simple materialist or essentialist grounds. The cases also point out that civic nationalism, often seem as inclusive and more benign than ethnic nationalism, can produce similarly destructive human and cultural ends. The essays thus suggest a view of nationalism as a theoretical concept, and of frontier expansion as a historical phenomenon.


Western blotting has been a standard protein analytical technique for over 30 years and is used in practically every life sciences lab by thousands of scientists worldwide. Western blotting data appears in thousands of published papers annually but, despite its popularity, the method remains as much of a skilled art as a science, and it is often a significant challenge to produce reproducible and reliable results. In this webinar we invite three experts to give us their hints and tips of how to get the best possible Western blot data using current techniques as well as take a glimpse into the future of how technological advances could bring the needed standardization to Western blotting. View the Webinar


Abstract:This article examines the nature of democratic fragilities in the Americas through survey experiments in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Encouragingly, strong majorities of citizens recognize violations of democratic principles, laws, and norms. Moreover, how incumbents justify antidemocratic actions has little impact on how citizens view them. Yet there are minorities, ranging from 10 to 35 percent of the population, who support efforts to erode democracy. And partisanship matters: Many individuals are seemingly "conditional democrats" who support antidemocratic actions if they voted for the incumbent. People are also reluctant to support impeachment for democratic violations, which creates an opening that would-be authoritarians can exploit.


This book offers an analytical account of the consensus and contestations of the politics of Chinese media at both institutional and discursive levels. It considers the formal politics of how the Chinese state manages political communication internally and externally in the post-socialist era, and examines the politics of news media, focusing particularly on how journalists navigate the competing demands of the state, the capital and the urban middle class readership. The book also addresses the politics of entertainment media, in terms of how power operates upon and within media culture, and the politics of digital networks, highlighting how the Internet has become the battlefield of ideological contestation while also shaping how political negotiations are conducted. Bearing in mind the contemporary relevance of China's socialist revolution, this text challenges both the liberal universalist view that presupposes 'the end of history' and various versions of China exceptionalism, which downplay the impact of China's integration into global capitalism.


Shortfall risk retirement income analyses offer little insight into how much risk is optimal, and how risk tolerance affects retirement income decisions. This study models retirement income risk in a manner consistent with risk tolerance in portfolio selection in order to estimate optimal asset allocations and withdrawal rates for retirees with different risk attitudes. We find that the 4 percent retirement withdrawal rate strategy may only be appropriate for risk averse clients with moderate guaranteed income sources. The ability to accept greater shortfall probabilities means that risk tolerant investors will prefer a higher withdrawal rate and a riskier retirement portfolio. A risk tolerant client may prefer a withdrawal rate of between 5 and 7 percent with a guaranteed income of $20,000. The optimal retirement portfolio allocation to stock increases by between 10 and 30 percentage points and the optimal withdrawal rate increases by between 1 and 2 percentage points for clients with a guaranteed income of $60,000 instead of $20,000.


A semi-distributed model, INCA, has been developed to determine the fate and distribution of nutrients in terrestrial and aquatic systems. The model simulates nitrogen and phosphorus processes in soils, groundwaters and river systems and can be applied in a semi-distributed manner at a range of scales. In this study, the model has been applied at field to sub-catchment to whole catchment scale to evaluate the behaviour of biosolid-derived losses of P in agricultural systems. It is shown that process-based models such as INCA, applied at a wide range of scales, reproduce field and catchment behaviour satisfactorily. The INCA model can also be used to generate generic information for risk assessment. By adjusting three key variables: biosolid application rates, the hydrological connectivity of the catchment and the initial P-status of the soils within the model, a matrix of P loss rates can be generated to evaluate the behaviour of the model and, hence, of the catchment system. The results, which indicate the sensitivity of the catchment to flow paths, to application rates and to initial soil conditions, have been incorporated into a Nutrient Export Risk Matrix (NERM).


Note.—No paper published or to be published in another journal will be accepted for this department. All papers must be in the hands of the Editor before the first day of the month pre ceding that in which they are expected to appear. Extra copies will be furnished to each contribu tor of an accepted original article, and reprints, in pamphlet form, may be had at the cost of the paper, press-work and binding, if ordered when the manuscript is forwarded. The Editor and Publishers are not responsible for the opinions expressed by contributors. The journal is issued promptly, on the first day of each month.


In the European context where fiscal consolidation is required in many countries, tax non-compliance behaviour becomes a very relevant issue for governments and policy makers. In this paper, we aim at contributing to the assessment of tax non-compliance, by estimating individual measures of tax evasion, focusing on employment earnings for two countries, Denmark and Estonia. Additionally, we simulate two different scenarios – a "true world" where some individuals underreport their income to the tax authorities and a "perfect world" where everyone reports truthfully their incomes – in the European microsimulation model EUROMOD, allowing us to obtain the fiscal and distributional effects of taking into account evaded employment income. Furthermore, the Estonian country case allows us to illustrate the importance of linking survey and administrative data not only to accurately estimate tax evasion, but also to correct survey income amounts for measurement error. Preliminary findings indicate that taking into account non-reported incomes has non-negligible fiscal and distributional effects when these are taken into account to compute tax liabilities and benefits, even in a country where estimated non-reported income represent a low percentage of earnings, such as Denmark.


"Enthusiasm" is a term to which Romantic criticism is blind. Where it is noticed, it is usually assumed that over the course of the eighteenth century it was rehabilitated. Whereas it had been associated with the violence and excess of the sects in the Civil War, it came to be identified with the healing powers of emotion and imagination. This essay argues for a more complicated understanding of the term's trajectory. The prohibition of enthusiasm found, for instance, in Locke comes to be replaced by a more regulatory discourse. From this perspective, its benefits had to be harnessed, but there remained a powerful awareness that poetic or noble enthusiasm could easily degenerate into its vulgar and dangerous avatar. These fears were intensified in the 1790s by Burke's representation of revolutionary transparence as a throwback to seventeenth-century puritanism. Poets such as Coleridge, whose case history provides the final section of this essay, inherited this complex understanding of the term. Coleridge came increasingly to distinguish a healing "enthusiasm" from the "fanaticism" of the mob, but desynonymization could never quite eradicate the fear that the fountains within of the former were deeply linked to the destructive energies of the latter.


Geologic mapping, together with 73 new K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar age determinations of 45 samples from 17 different volcanic units, plus paleomagnetic orientations, geochemical compositions, and terrestrial photogrammetry are used to define the chronostratigraphy of the Tatara–San Pedro complex, an eruptive center at 36°S on the volcanic front of the Andean southern volcanic zone. The Tatara–San Pedro complex preserves ≈55 km3 of lavas that erupted from at least three central vent regions. Remnant, unconformity-bound sequences of lavas are separated by lacunae that include significant periods of erosion. Quaternary volcanism commenced ca. 930 ka with eruption of voluminous dacitic magma, followed 100 k.y. later by the only major rhyolitic eruption. From 780 ka onward, more than 80% of the preserved volume is basaltic andesite (52%–57% SiO2), but petrographically and geochemically diverse dacitic magmas (63%–69% SiO2) erupted sporadically throughout this younger, dominantly mafic phase of activity. A few basaltic lavas (49%–52% SiO2) are present, mainly in portions of the complex older than 230 ka. The number of vents, the petrologic and geochemical diversity, and the temporal distribution of mafic and silicic lavas are consistent with emplacement of many separate batches of mafic magma into the shallow crust beneath the Tatara–San Pedro complex over the past million years.

Nearly two-thirds of the preserved volume of the Tatara–San Pedro complex comprises the two youngest volcanoes, which were active between ca. 188–83 ka and 90–19 ka. Repeated advances of mountain glaciers punctuated growth of the complex with major erosional episodes that removed much of the pre-200 ka volcanic record, particularly on the south flank of the complex. Dating the inception of a glaciation on the basis of preserved material is difficult, but the age of the oldest lava above a lacuna may be used to estimate the timing of deglaciation. On this basis, the argon ages of basal lavas of multiple sequences indicate minimum upper limits of lacunae at ca. 830, 790, 610, 400, 330, 230, 110, and 17 ka. These are broadly consistent with global ice-volume peaks predicted by the oxygen isotope-based astronomical time scale and with age brackets on North American glacial advances. Estimated growth rates for the two young volcanoes are 0.2 to 0.3 km3/k.y.; these are three to five times greater than a growth rate estimated from all preserved lavas in the complex (0.06 km3/k.y.). Removal of up to 50%–95% of the material erupted between 930 and 200 ka by repeated glacial advances largely explains this discrepancy, and it raises the possibility that episodic erosion of mid-latitude frontal arc complexes may be extensive and common.


"Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) is considered the foremost Italian composer of twelve-tone music. While the culmination of his efforts resulted in masterpieces such as Quaderno musicale di Annalibera, in which the transformation of a single row is the basis of the entire composition, earlier efforts in the technique show that Dallapiccola first viewed the twelve-tone technique as an aid in crafting melodies and a tool for delineating formal boundaries. Cinque Frammenti di Saffo, from the triptych Liriche greche, is Dallapiccola's first composition in which twelve-tone techniques are a primary component, but the cycle demonstrates a different view of dodecaphony than is evident in his later twelve-tone works. While twelve-tone rows serve as major components of the composition's overall framework, they are not the sole pitch elements in the work, and they illuminate the role that dodecaphony served in Dallapiccola's earliest use of the technique. This paper examines the melodic, harmonic, and formal outcomes of the incorporation of twelve-tone techniques in the Cinque Frammenti, also noting the setting of text in each movement and motivic cells that help to make the work cohere."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


RNA silencing is one of the main defense mechanisms employed by plants to fight viruses. In change, viruses have evolved silencing suppressor proteins to neutralize antiviral silencing. Since the endogenous and antiviral functions of RNA silencing pathway rely on common components, it was suggested that viral suppressors interfere with endogenous silencing pathway contributing to viral symptom development. In this work, we aimed to understand the effects of the tombusviral p19 suppressor on endogenous and antiviral silencing during genuine virus infection. We showed that ectopically expressed p19 sequesters endogenous small RNAs (sRNAs) in the absence, but not in the presence of virus infection. Our presented data question the generalized model in which the sequestration of endogenous sRNAs by the viral suppressor contributes to the viral symptom development. We further showed that p19 preferentially binds the perfectly paired ds-viral small interfering RNAs (vsiRNAs) but does not select based on their sequence or the type of the 5' nucleotide. Finally, co-immunoprecipitation of sRNAs with AGO1 or AGO2 from virus-infected plants revealed that p19 specifically impairs vsiRNA loading into AGO1 but not AGO2. Our findings, coupled with the fact that p19-expressing wild type Cymbidium ringspot virus (CymRSV) overcomes the Nicotiana benthamiana silencing based defense killing the host, suggest that AGO1 is the main effector of antiviral silencing in this host-virus combination.


Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are slowing becoming e cient platforms that can be
applied in scienti c/commercial remote sensing applications. UAS may o er interesting
bene ts in terms of cost,
exibility, endurance, etc. On the other side, the complexity
of developing a full UAS-system is currently limiting its practical application. Currently,
only large organizations like NASA or NOAA have enough budget and infrastructure to
develop such applications.
Nowadays, UAS technology o ers feasible technical solutions for airframes,
ight control,
communications, and a wide set of multi-spectrum sensors. However, the generalized
development of remote sensing applications are still limited by the absence of systems that
support the development of the actual UAS sensing mission.
This paper introduces a
exible and reusable hardware/software architecture designed
to facilitate the development of UAS-based remote sensing applications. This
exibility is
organized into an user-parameterizable UAS Service Abstraction Layer (USAL). The USAL
de nes a collection of standard services are their interrelations as a basic starting point
for further development by users. Functionalities like enhanced
ight-plans, a mission
control engine, data storage, communications management, etc. are o ered. Additional
services can be included according to requirements but all existing services and inter-service
communication infrastructure can be exploited and tailored to speci c needs. The overall
USAL architecture is demonstrated by means of a wild land re remote sensing application
currently being developed to support re ghters in the Mediterranean area.


Objective Disconnecting the endotracheal tube from the ventilator causes significant loss in lung volume, which is further exacerbated by suctioning. In-line catheter suction systems have putative benefits over open catheter suction by maintaining positive pressure, thereby minimizing hypoxemia and hemodynamic instability. However, there is a theoretical risk of generating large negative airway pressures and auto-cycling of the ventilator with in-line catheter suction systems. We studied the effects on lung volume with both these techniques. Design Open, randomized, crossover, clinical trial. Setting Pediatric critical care unit. Patients Fourteen paralyzed patients, age 6 days to 13 yrs. Interventions Each patient, acting as his or her own control, was suctioned with an in-line catheter suction system and open catheter suction. Each suction maneuver was standardized. Changes in lung volume were measured by inductance plethysmography. Heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation were continuously monitored. Measurements and Main Results Total lung volume loss was greater with open catheter suction compared with in-line catheter suction systems (p = .008). The most significant amount of lung volume loss associated with open catheter suction appears to be related to ventilator disconnection, rather than actual suctioning. Patients with decreased pulmonary compliance (<0.8 mL/cm H2O/kg) demonstrated a greater loss in lung volume, both absolute and relative, as a result of ventilator disconnection (p = .038 and .006, respectively). Patients suctioned with open catheter suction desaturated to a greater extent than patients suctioned with in-line catheter suction (p = .026). There was evidence of ventilator triggering during the actual suction maneuver in all patients during in-line catheter suctions. Conclusions The most significant loss in lung volume during suctioning occurs primarily during ventilator disconnection. Hence, open catheter suction results in greater lung volume loss when compared with in-line catheter suction. We suggest that in-line catheter suction is preferable, especially in patients with significant lung disease and who require high positive end-expiratory pressures, to avoid alveolar derecruitment and exacerbating hypoxemia during endotracheal tube suctioning.


The World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2021 theme and yearlong global campaign 'Commit to Quit' provides a welcome focus on providing essential support to tobacco users to become tobacco free and begin the path to better health. It is particularly pertinent for smokers for whom the COVID-19 pandemic has been a motivator to quit, and to support those struggling with additional social and economic stressors imposed by the pandemic. The emphasis on providing social support through digital communities is timely while many people continue to cope with, and recover from, the trauma of enforced and prolonged social isolation. However, in promoting this vital component of tobacco control, the focus on individual behaviour change must not obscure the fact that governments in almost every country give the tobacco industry exceptional treatment, by allowing continued sale of their lethal products. As tobacco use is a health, social, economic and human rights issue, the benefits of successful cessation accrue beyond the individual, most immediately and directly through reduced involuntary smoke exposure and tobaccorelated poverty for household members. Globally, nonsmoking women and children are disproportionately affected by others' tobacco use. 3 The provision of effective tobacco use cessation treatment is a necessary component of governments' human rights obligations, yet of the seven WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) MPOWER tobacco measures (Monitor, Smoke Free Environments, Cessation Programmes, Pack Warnings, Mass Media, Advertising bans and Taxation), it is the one with the lowest proportion of countries which have implemented it at bestpractice level. Beyond individual cessation, a broader issue is that the largely unimpeded privilege enjoyed by corporations to sell tobacco products is itself profoundly inconsistent with the fundamental human right to good health. Violation of this right occurs throughout the entire production cycle of tobacco products, from cultivation through to the consumer. Focusing on cessation, and demand reduction issues more generally, risks taking our gaze off the tobacco industry and the fact that it has no social licence. It is widely recognised that if the tobacco industry tried to establish itself as a new business today, in many places it would not be permitted to operate, and most of its products would never be approved for sale. Even in jurisdictions where ecigarettes, heated tobacco products and other alternative products are permitted for sale, it is primarily in the context of the magnitude of the harms of smoked tobacco that they are sanctioned. Rather than setting tolerance for known or potential harms inflicted by novel tobacco and other nicotine products based on the most lethal consumer products in history, alternative frames could be considered to shift the paradigm of tobacco control forward. The many demand reduction strategies that have been successfully implemented by countries in accordance with their FCTC obligations have laid the groundwork for progress. Indeed, a new approach—such as phasing out commercial tobacco sales—would be in line with FCTC Article 2.1, which calls on governments to go beyond the minimum obligations outlined in the FCTC. Another approach that may hold promise is the concept of an 'industrywide corporate death penalty'. A 2019 study, based on publicly available data, estimated that the American tobacco industry kills four times more people than it employs. In comparison, the American coal industry kills more than one person for every coal mining job. Drawing on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the author proposes that an industry's right to existence be based on three principles: (1) everyone has the right to life; (2) everyone has the right to work; and (3) human law should give corporations the right to exist if they are beneficial to humanity. On these principles, the study concluded that the tobacco industry meets the criteria for an industrywide corporate death penalty, (even though the analysis did not include tobacco's broader societal and economic harms, and the high burden of ill health it causes). Corporate death penalties, although legal, have not been recently used in the USA. However, they played a part in the closure of the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute, Inc— two industry front groups—in 1999. This approach recognises that no corporation has a natural right to exist. Recent WNTD themes have alternated between focusing on specific tobaccoinduced disease issues and the tobacco industry and its activities. Focusing on the industry is a powerful counter to the neglect of commercial determinants of health in many health frameworks. In boosting cessation support for individuals to become tobaccofree, we must not lose sight of these WNTD themes from previous years, and the need for society as a whole to quit tobacco. The continued existence of the legal tobacco industry, and widespread promotion and sales of its products, is a grievous example of privatised profit and socialised, inequitable costs, despite clearly articulated justifications for abolishing commercial sales of its most harmful products. 11 When the FCTC first came into force, it was hard to imagine many of the achievements that followed. Widespread implementation of strategies such as mass media campaigns, warning labels and plain packaging, tobacco taxes, and smoke free spaces—all of which are cessation support in the broadest sense—are testament to the power of this landmark treaty. It is instructive here to consider an earlier landmark document, the 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. It contained five action areas (building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and reorienting healthcare services towards prevention and health promotion), many of which have been operationalised by the FCTC. Cessation support fits clearly within 'developing personal skills'. Public health policy, community action and, to a certain extent, reorienting of health services have all been achieved to a greater or lesser degree. Similarly, FCTC demand reduction measures have created supportive environments for people to become and remain tobacco free. Yet while tobacco products remain widely available for sale, the most potent step in creating a supportive environment for people to be tobacco free has been missed. Increasing adult tobacco use cessation is necessary, but not sufficient, to accelerate progress to end the tobacco epidemic and to reduce the socioeconomic gradient in tobacco use. Achieving these goals needs much more than individual behaviour change. All of us—governments, civil society Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Diseases Division, Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, Northern Territory, Australia Action on Smoking and Health, Washington, District of Columbia, USA


This edition of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 uses a variety of approaches to Shakespeare, including historical and cultural studies approaches. Shakespeare's text is accompanied by an intriguing collection of thematically arranged historical and cultural documents and illustrations designed to give a firsthand knowledge of the contexts out of which Henry IV, Part 1 emerged. Hodgdon's intelligent and engaging introductions to the play and to the documents (most of which are presented in modern spelling and with annotations) offer a richly textured understanding of Elizabethan culture and Shakespeare's work within that culture.


Television studies must now address a complex environment where change has been vigorous but uneven, and where local and national conditions vary significantly. Globalizing media industries, deregulatory policy regimes, the multiplication, convergence and trade in media formats, the emergence of new content production industries outside the US/UK umbrella, and the fragmentation of media audiences are all changing the nature of television today: its content, its industrial structure and how it is consumed. Television Studies after TV leads the way in developing new ways of understanding television in the post-broadcast era. With contributions from leading international scholars, it considers the full range of convergent media now implicated in understanding television, and also focuses on large non-Anglophone markets - such as Asia and Latin America - in order to accurately reflect the wide variety of structures, forms and content which now organise television around the world.


In recent years, there has been an intensifying campaign by some stakeholders regarding concern over genetically modified (GM) foods in the U.S. As a result, the issue of labeling has entered into the federal agenda. This research uses Query Theory to provide a deeper understanding of the demand for GM foods and the preferences for GM policy. Query theory is first applied to the formation of hypothetical bias in the estimation of consumers' willingness-topay. To address this, the honesty oath is used as an ex-ante technique to reduce hypothetical bias. Paper one using Query Theory in a discrete-choice experiment (DCE) setting to examine the mechanism behind the effectiveness of the honesty oath in reducing hypothetical bias in discrete choice experiments. Our results show that the honesty oath can change the content and order of queries, thereby reducing hypothetical bias in discrete choice experiments. In the second paper, Query Theory is used to examine the thought processes of individuals in a DCE in order to deduce attendance to individual attributes. Respondents may attend some attributes of the good in question and ignore others during each choice task. As a result, respondents may not make the trade-offs between all the attributes as assumed. The results show that the query approach to modeling attendance to attributes outperforms two other common approaches: the stated and inferred approaches. Finally, in paper three, Query Theory is applied to the study of the influence of cultural worldview on the demand for GM foods policy in the U.S. Our results demonstrate that an individual's cultural worldview influences their preferences for GM policy and consumer valuations. The results also support our Query Theory prediction that cultural worldview influences individual's affective reactions to choice options leading to significantly different valuations. Though important differences do exist between individuals with different CWVs, there is common ground as well. Support for mandatory labeling is high with 82 percent of respondents indicating support for mandatory labeling which ranged from 71 percent to 88 percent, depending on CWV.


As health care delivery systems adapt to the changing marketplace, many struggle to define a clear strategy that will prove successful in managing the health of entire populations. The federal government continues to put increasing pressure on organizations to shift away from the traditional way of delivering episodic care and move toward managing populations as a whole-before, during, and after a patient presents in a health care facility. Private payers have begun to follow suit as risk-based payer contracts and bundled payment models become increasingly popular. For organizations to adequately influence the health outcomes of a population, they must be responsible for more than just a patient's medical care. They must partner with the community to create a strategy that encompasses the psychosocial and environmental factors that contribute to one's health. Although health care leaders know this industry transformation is imminent, there is minimal research that shares best practices in regard to designing and implementing a successful population health management strategy. Interviews were conducted with leadership from 10 organizations in order to understand the strategic approach taken by delivery systems and health care institutions that view population health as a key aspect of their overall mission. Responses were recorded and outlined in a detailed response grid. The objective is to provide a qualitative overview of how industry leaders are currently responding to population health. Additionally, common themes and recommendations are presented to serve as guidance for other health care organizations that are at the start of their journey toward population health management.


The present study investigates language preferences for swearing among two groups of multilinguals. The first group consisted of 386 adult multilinguals who filled out the Bilingualism and Emotion web based questionnaire (BEQ; Author and Pavlenko 2001-2003) and had declared that they were maximally proficient in their L1 and L2 and used both languages constantly. The second group consisted of 20 multilinguals with a similar sociobiographical profile who were interviewed about their language choice for the communication of emotion. A statistical analysis of the quantitative data revealed that despite similar levels of self-perceived proficiency and frequency of use in the L1 and L2, the L1 was used significantly more for swearing and L1 swearwords were perceived to have a stronger emotional resonance. An analysis of the quantitative data from the BEQ and the interview data confirmed the findings of the quantitative analysis while adding rich detail about the difficulties in deciding which language to choose for swearing.


Carbon/polyaniline particles with core-shell structure were synthesized as a novel dispersed phase for electrorheological (ER) suspensions in this study. Core of these composite particles was obtained by carbonization of polyaniline base in an inert atmosphere of nitrogen at 650°C and then coated with polyaniline shell. The morphology and composition of prepared particles were examined with scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, respectively. The analysis revealed the conversion of polyaniline to carbon via ring-opening happened during the carbonization process and successful coating of carbonized particles with shell layer. The products retained the original granular structure after carbonization as well as after the coatings. The dielectric spectra analysis suggests high particle polarizability of carbonized material. Thus, the measurements performed under oscillatory shear flow showed a remarkably high ER intensity at relatively low electric field strengths. Coating of carbonized particles by polyaniline base changes compatibility of particle surface with silicone oil medium and, consequently, flow properties of suspensions in the absence of electric field, but does not influence the shear rate dependence of the complex viscosity in the electric field.


Background and Objectives: Human papilloma virus is the major cause of cervical cancer in women and HPV vaccination is emerging as the most effective option. As the medical students will serve the community in the future, awareness regarding HPV vaccine is very necessary among them. The current study seeks to assess the awareness regarding various aspects of HPV infection and its vaccine among medical students. Methods: A Cross sectional study was conducted in November 2013 at Shree M P Shah Government Medical College, Jamnagar. Total 160 students of final year M.B.B.S. were included in the study. Data regarding HPV and its vaccine were collected by using pretested semi structured questionnaire by interview technique. Results: None of the students knew the correct incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in India. More proportion of students stated sex workers (37.50%), women having multiple sexual partners (16.88%) and young sexually active women (18.75%) as a high risk group for HPV. 89.37% of the students stated cervical cancer caused by HPV. 23.75% of the medical students did not know regarding availability of HPV vaccine. The awareness regarding dosage and age schedule, side effects, contraindication, storage temperature, cost, efficacy etc. was lacking in majority of them. Conclusion: The level of awareness about HPV and HPV vaccine was low and gaps in knowledge existed among medical students. There is need to accelerate efforts of more focused and integrated teaching strategy regarding various aspects of HPV and its vaccine.


China is facing growing water scarcity in many river basins due to rapid economic development, an expanding population, growing urbanization, and limited scope to develop new supplies. Water overdrafts, both from surface and sub-surface sources, are causing serious environmental problems ranging from the degradation of deltaic ecosystems of major rivers to aquifer depletion in North China. The attendant need to meet environmental water requirements is exacerbating the already tenuous problem of inter-sectoral water competition. The most widely advocated solution for the present and future environmental water management challenges of China involves the reallocation of water from agriculture to urban and environmental sectors. Such a solution can be myopic, unless potential repercussions on national food production and irrigating farmers are addressed. This paper identifies the role of increased water-use efficiency for enhanced environmental flows, and develops options for balancing environmental and food needs in China based on simulations using an integrated, global water–food projections model.


The aim of this publication is to present a new probability distribution which for particular parameter values has a bimodal density function and a bathtub hazard rate function. All the main reliability properties of such distribution will be described in details in this paper. Such a distribution can constitute a very good mathematical model that would enable the description of the lifetime of technical devices. It can successfully be implemented in the planning of a burn-in procedure and a preventive maintenance of non-repairable devices.


Hemmed in by the vast, arid Chaco to the west and, for most of its history, impenetrable jungles to the east, Paraguay has been defined largely by its isolation. Partly as a result, there has been a dearth of serious scholarship or journalism about the country. Going a long way toward redressing this lack of information and analysis, The Paraguay Reader is a lively compilation of testimonies, journalism, scholarship, political tracts, literature, and illustrations, including maps, photographs, paintings, drawings, and advertisements. Taken together, the anthology's many selections convey the country's extraordinarily rich history and cultural heritage, as well as the realities of its struggles against underdevelopment, foreign intervention, poverty, inequality, and authoritarianism.

Most of the Reader is arranged chronologically. Weighted toward the twentieth century and early twenty-first, it nevertheless gives due attention to major events in Paraguay's history, such as the Triple Alliance War (1864–70) and the Chaco War (1932–35). The Reader 's final section, focused on national identity and culture, addresses matters including ethnicity, language, and gender. Most of the selections are by Paraguayans, and many of the pieces appear in English for the first time. Helpful introductions by the editors precede each of the book's sections and all of the selected texts.


German photography of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has long been overshadowed by other forms of German art produced during this period. Yet many German photographers working then -- August Sander, meticulous recorder of life in Cologne; various photographers who have been linked to the Bauhaus movement; the mostly Jewish photojournalists of the golden twenties; and more recently, Hilla and Bernd Becher, with their series of pithead frames and water towers -- are justly renowned for their work. This superbly illustrated book examines the different levels and purposes of German photography from 1870 to 1970: art, photojournalism, propaganda, advertising, and architectural and fashion photography. Setting the historical background before which the use and abuse of photography takes place, the authors examine the extent that photography was influenced by the German nationalist movement, the changes it underwent during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, its links to the avant garde movements, and its development through the world wars and the Cold War. The authors reveal new and astonishing insights into such subjects as the influence of Soviet, Hungarian, and Czech photography in the Weimar Republic, the role of photography in Nazi propaganda, the depiction of Jewish life during the Third Reich in private and official photographs, and the different uses of photography in both German states after World War II. With biographies of all photographers of major importance and hundreds of photographs in color and black and white, the book is a treasure trove for all lovers of photography and German culture. This book is the catalogue for an exhibition that takes place in theKunst-und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn, Germany, from May to August 1997.


This paper is the second of a series of investigations into the key success factors for mobile government services (mGovernment) in Australia, Jordan and the United Arab Republic. The case study in this paper concerns a large regional city council in Queensland, Australia. It provides valuable insights into the adoption of mobile government services and applications over the council's wired and wireless network. Here, we report on a major achievement of the study namely, the identification of success factors for mobile government. Keywords-mobile; government, success factors; case study


Thought about lying and perjury became increasingly practical from the end of the twelfth century in Western Europe. At this time, a distinctive way of thinking about deception and false oaths appeared, which dealt with moral dilemmas and the application of moral rules in exceptional cases. It first emerged in the schools of Paris and Bologna, most notably in the Summa de Sacramentis et Animae Consiliis of Peter the Chanter. The tradition continued in pastoral writings of the thirteenth century, the practical moral questions addressed by theologians in universities in the second half of the thirteenth century, and in the Summae de Casibus Conscientiae of the late Middle Ages. This book argues that medieval practical ethics of this sort can usefully be described as casuistry—a term for the discipline of moral theology that became famous during the Counter-Reformation. This can be seen in the medieval origins of the concept of equivocation, an idea that was explored in medieval literature with varying degrees of moral ambiguity. From the turn of the thirteenth century, the concept was adopted by canon lawyers and theologians, as a means of exploring questions about exceptional situations in ethics. It has been assumed in the past that equivocation and the casuistry of lying was an academic discourse invented in the sixteenth century in order to evade moral obligations. This study reveals that casuistry in the Middle Ages was developed in ecclesiastical thought as part of an effort to explain how to follow moral rules in ambiguous and perplexing cases.


A report is given on the implementation of a frozen magnon technique in the FLAPW code FLEUR, showing that the procedure reduced computational costs compared with a previously implemented method, while delivering accurate results. Furthermore a generalisation was made of the well known one lattice formula that connects the total energy differences of spin-spirals to the adiabatic magnon excitation energies to multiple lattice systems.The implemented method was applied to B2 structured FeCo to investigate the changes of the Curie temperature with a tetragonal distortion and it was found that the FeCo films grown on Rh have characteristics that makes it a good candidate for HAMR storage media. The method was also applied to a selection of spin-gapless semiconductors in order to investigate their magnetic properties. It was found that all of the studied materials have a Curie temperature well above room temperature and excellent agreement with experimental results was obtained for the material Mn2CoAl that has been synthesised.Finally, the implemented frozen magnon method was adjusted to include constraining fields to restrict the directions of the magnetic moments. It was shown that this procedure significantly improved the agreement between the dispersion for all considered spin-spiral configuration and introduced significant adjustments of the exchange parameters. However for other materials, such as bcc-Fe, such corrections yield worse results and, motivated by the need for a consistent method, we considered a self consistent spin-spiral based method to extract the exchange parameters from the inverse transverse static magnetic susceptibility. Preliminary results show that the newly implemented method gives results close to the corrected frozen magnon method for FeCo and results close to the uncorrected frozen magnon method for bcc Fe and thus provides a consistent improvement over the two previously used methods.


The purpose of this paper is to examine, using choice experiments, the Japanese consumers' valuation of domestic Wagyu beef, domestic dairy beef, Australian beef, and US beef when considering their bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) test status. Some Japanese consumers give high priority to food safety while purchasing beef; this is expected to cause a non-compensatory valuation of food safety. As compared to the results derived from a compensatory utility model, a random parameters logit (RPL) with a non-compensatory utility model provides estimation results that are fitter for the respondents' decision-making rules and also provides more valid willingness to pay (WTP) for each type of beef. The results suggest that the RPL with the non-compensatory utility model is more suitable for measuring the valuation of food safety with regard to beef by the food safety conscious Japanese consumers. Moreover, the WTP for each BSE-tested type of beef reveals that the Japanese consumers seem to regard the BSE test to be very important for ensuring the food safety of beef.


1. The phenology of Neophilaenus lineatus (Homoptera: Cercopidae) was studied along altitudinal and latitudinal transects in the UK. The response of the life cycle to these existing temperature gradients has been used to predict the likely effects of future climatic warming. 2. The date of spring egg hatch varied by a maximum of 4 weeks across the altitudinal gradient (440 m) and by 2 weeks in different years of the study. Autumn and winter temperatures do not determine hatching date because the eggs are in diapause during this period. It is only when the eggs terminate diapause in early spring that temperature differences between years and altitudes (or as a result of climatic warming) start to affect the date of egg hatch. 3. The delayed egg hatching with increasing altitude meant that the start of nymphal development was later at higher altitudes. The development rate of nymphs at higher altitudes was not significantly different from that at lower altitudes because the altitudinal lag in temperature was partially compensated for by the more advanced state of the season. Annual differences in spring and summer temperatures resulted in variations in nymphal development rate between years, with a 1 °C temperature rise shortening nymphal development by 3·5 days. 4. The appearance of adults was delayed by 5·6 days for every 100 m increase in altitude, largely as a consequence of the later egg hatch at higher altitudes. The later appearance of the adults at higher altitudes and in colder years, reduces the length of the potential oviposition period as females are killed by autumn frosts. Climatic warming would expand the length of the oviposition period and thus increase the upper altitude limits of N. lineatus. 5. A 4·5 ° latitude difference within the UK appeared to have little effect on the timing of development in N. lineatus, possibly as a result of a geographical cline in temperature or photoperiod response. 6. Annual insects, such as N. lineatus, are likely to show a relatively small geographical displacement as a consequence of climatic warming. This is because of the temperature mitigating responses of diapause and the relative stability of the length of the development period over wide altitudinal and latitudinal ranges.


Fair Trade has come a long way in the last 20 years. The Fair Trade Revolution celebrates the movement's achievement and takes up the challenge of improving more lives through fair dealing with producers. Fair Trade is now mainstream, with large companies like Cadbury's and supermarkets such as Sainsbury's producing and stocking many Fair Trade products. The authors of this collection, many of whom were responsible for the initial success of Fair Trade, emphasise the importance of ensuring that farmers and other producers remain the main beneficiaries. Punchy chapters, illustrated with many real-world examples, cover all the important issues including the tensions between large and small operators, the impact of recession, environmental policy and the danger of large operators embracing Fair Trade more in word than in practice. Written by the leading lights of the Fair Trade movement, including Harriet Lamb (Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation) and Bruce Crowther (Establisher of the world's first Fair Trade Town) this book will inspire activists and consumers to keep making the right choices.


The contributors to this volume identify the cognitive and motivational influences on the intrapersonal, interpersonal and intergroup processes that lead to racism. Confronting Racism establishes a unique link between public discourse on race and social scientific analysis. Covering theory, implications for policy and applications to education, employment, crime, politics and health, the book provides a collective account of the variety of racial outcomes and dynamics that result from the complex and multifaceted nature of racism and race relations.


Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which organizations can store their data remotely in
the cloud (Internet) and access applications, services and infrastructure on-demand from a shared
pool of computing resources. It is clear that cloud technologies have proven a major commercial
success over recent years (since the appearance of products and cloud offerings like Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure). According to Gardner, Cloud Computing will play a large part in the
ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) domain over the next 10 years or more, since
it provides cost-savings to enterprises thanks to virtualization technologies, opening gates for new
business opportunities as well.
However, Cloud Computing has to face several challenges and issues. Storing and processing
data out of the boundaries of your company raises security and privacy concerns by itself.
Nowadays information is the commodity of XXI century, and certain information can mean power
and market advantage. As pointed out by Andreas Weiss, Director of the EuroCloud, in an
interview we held with him, data is one of the most important and valuable
resource any company has. Therefore, security mechanisms to protect this data are necessary to
make the right choices and decisions for the company without worrying about data safety. In the
paradigm of Cloud Computing we will have to trust a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), creating an
extra dependency to a third party which some customers, depending on the value of their data, will inevitably feel uncomfortable. Outsourcing business data in a place not owned by oneself can
scare organizations from using the benefits of Cloud Computing in an optimal way.


This paper presents a unique airflow-based thermal system that returns thermally conditioned integrated circuit (IC) devices to a near ambient temperature level. This "desoak" thermal system addresses specific requirements of new IC panel (lead frame and strip) test handlers, which have very high peak processing capabilities and can operate stand-alone or in-line. Analyses are presented for estimating the heating and cooling loads, and the IC device temperature response. Temperature control methods are described that help minimize the system size. The hardware design is detailed along with experimental data that verifies the cooling capacity of the system.


In recent years much attention has been paid to the effect on wages of skill-biased technology, especially the use of computers. Although empirical studies have shown a positive relationship between computer-use and earnings, doubts have been cast on whether this is a causal relationship or merely represents unobserved other factors, which are themselves positively linked to computer usage. In this paper we provide evidence that computers themselves raise wages. Although their impact on wages falls as other controls are included in the regression, it still remains significant whilst the effect of another proxy for unobserved factors becomes insignificant. Furthermore, improvements in computer use have an additional impact on earnings, supporting the productivity interpretation.


The objective of the article was to explore the usage of multinomial logistic regression (MLR) in risk analysis. In this regard, performing MLR on risk analysis data corrected for the non-linear nature of binary response and did address the violation of equal variance and normality assumptions. Additionally, use of maximum likelihood (-2log) estimation provided a means of working with binary response data. The relationship of independent and dependent variables was also addressed. The data used included a cohort of hundred risk analyst of a historically black South African University. In this analysis, the findings revealed that the probability of the model chi-square (17.142) was 0.005, less than the level of significance of 0.05 (i.e. p<0.05). Suggesting that there was a statistically significant relationship between the independent variable-risk planning (Rp) and the dependent variable-control mechanism (control mecs) (p<0.05). Also, there was a statistically significant relationship between key risks assigned (KSA) and time spent on risk mitigation. For each unit increase in confidence in control mecs, the odds of being in the group of survey respondents who thought institution spend too little time on Rp decreased by 74.7%. Moreover, the findings revealed that survey respondents who had less confidence in control mecs were less likely to be in the group of survey respondents who thought institution spent about the right amount of time on risk planning.


Malvasia di Candia aromatica is an aromatic white grape (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivar that grows in the Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy regions and is used for manufacturing sweet and dry white wines. A study of the gas chromatography analysis of the aromatic profile was carried out during the winemaking process for the production of a sweet semi-sparkling wine. At the end of the monitoring period, free monoterpenic and fermentative compounds characterised the aromatic profile of the wine. Linalool and nerol had a similar concentration, while the main fermentative compounds were the isoamyl alcohols, 2-phenylethanol, medium-chain fatty acids and their corresponding ethyl esters, and isoamyl acetate. All these compounds showed increasing trends during the fermentation process. The amount of linalool at the end of the monitoring period exceeded the threshold of perception, hence contributing to the floral scent of the wine. The higher alcohols (concentration up to 200 mg/L) and their esters also made a pleasant contribution to the aroma definition. Finally, the low temperature of fermentation helped to preserve the varietal aroma and enhanced the production of fermentative compounds, with a corresponding restraint of higher alcohols. This work is a first approach to a study of the sweet semi-sparkling wine (vino frizzante) obtained from Malvasia di Candia aromatica grapes. A more detailed investigation is required to understand how to improve the varietal and fermentative aromas of the wine.


Crimes of Bhopal ON THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER 2 TO 3, 1984, THE CHEMICAL DISASTER AT THE UNION Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, left a half million people surrounded by deadly poison clouds while they slept. The disaster killed more than 8,000 people in its immediate wake (Morehouse and Subramaniam, 1985). The death toll today is well over 20,000 and rising (Dinham, 2002), with over 30 survivors dying every month (Madhya Pradesh Government, 2001). Today, well over 120,000 survivors are in desperate need of medical attention for chronic exposure-induced diseases (Dinham, 2002), including breathlessness, persistent cough, early-age cataracts, loss of appetite, menstrual irregularities, recurrent fever, back and body aches, loss of sensation in limbs, fatigue, weakness, anxiety, and depression. An overwhelming majority of the exposed people earned their living through hard labor. Thousands of families are on the brink of starvation because the breadwinners are dead or too sick to work. Union Carbide simply abandoned the factory. Today, over 20,000 people in the surrounding area rely on drinking water contaminated with chemicals that have seeped into the ground water from the plant, causing cancer and other diseases (Labunska et al., 1999). Union Carbide's own report on the contamination indicates that over one-third of the factory premises is hazardously contaminated. A recent report of the Fact Finding Mission on Bhopal (1999) shows that the poisons in the groundwater are present in high concentrations in the breast milk of women in the surrounding communities. Union Carbide has yet to pay for containing the toxic groundwater, rehabilitating the degraded land, or arranging an alternate supply of drinking water. Corporate Crimes There is substantial evidence that Union Carbide, with complete control over the pesticide factory in Bhopal, was deliberately negligent in the factory's location, design, operation, and maintenance. Two years before the disaster, the corporation's safety experts warned in a confidential business memo of a "potential for the release of toxic materials." Warren Anderson, the company's chairman, and other senior executives ignored the warning and went ahead with reducing plant personnel, shutting down vital safety systems, and keeping people in the neighborhood in the dark about the deadly chemicals stored, used, and produced in the factory. Less than three months before the disaster, an internal Union Carbide memo warned of a "runaway reaction that could cause a catastrophic failure of the storage tanks holding the poisonous (methyl isocyanate) gas" at Union Carbide's Institute, West Virginia, plant. This warning was not shared with the management, let alone with operators of the Bhopal facility (Jones, 1988; Agarwal and Tandon, 1985; Bidwai, 1985; International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, 1985; Pesticide Action Network UK, n.d.; Chouhan, 1994). Three days after the disaster, Anderson, on a PR visit to Bhopal, was arrested along with other officials and soon released on bail. He was then escorted to New Delhi on a special government aircraft and allowed to leave the country. He never came back. Neither did any representative from Union Carbide Corporation. In January 1987, the Indian government's counsels for the prosecution, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), charged Warren Anderson, the corporation, and nine other Union Carbide subsidiaries and officials with manslaughter, grievous assault, and other serious offenses that were punishable by over 10 years of imprisonment and fines. In 1992, Union Carbide Corporation and former chairman Warren Anderson were proclaimed "absconders" by a judgment of the Bhopal District Court for their failure to appear to face criminal charges (Morehouse, 1994). Fifteen years later, India's prosecutors have had a rethink. On May 24, 2002, in a small dusty courtroom in Bhopal, the CBI presented an innocuous-looking four-page application before the Chief Judicial Magistrate with the purpose of diluting the charges they had earlier pressed against Union Carbide and Warren Anderson in the criminal case on the disaster in Bhopal (London Free Press, 2002). …


BACKGROUND
Head immobilization devices (HIDs) are a staple of neurosurgical procedures, including in the intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) operating rooms (ORs) where material modifications were necessary for compatibility with the magnets utilized.

OBJECTIVE
To present the experience in this OR environment and discuss the multifactorial nature of the observed adverse events.

METHODS
A retrospective chart review was performed, utilizing the Department of Neurosurgery and iMRI OR databases to identify patients who suffered complications related to HIDs between November 2007 and March 2016. A literature review was also done to identify the magnitude of the problem and the availability of safety guidelines.

RESULTS
Nine hundred and forty patients underwent surgery in the iMRI OR requiring head immobilization. Seven (0.7%) suffered complications related to the HID-depressed skull fractures (n = 7) and epidural hematomas (n = 6). Age at surgery ranged from 1.6 to 10.3 yr. All patients had posterior fossa neoplasms and associated obstructive hydrocephalus. Four patients (57%) suffered permanent neurological deficits. Six patients (86%) underwent a surgical procedure to evacuate the epidural hematomas and repair the depressed skull fracture. In contrast, 1 out of 445 patient (0.2%) suffered HID-related adverse events in the conventional ORs, aged 10.2 yr.

CONCLUSION
HIDs are important to provide stability and support during neurosurgical procedures. Modifications in the material or the shape of the pins can significantly change the pressure exerted. Most of these complications are preventable if certain precautionary measures are taken especially in certain high-risk patients, and the overall benefits of HIDs continue to outweigh the risks. There is a need for consensus on guidelines for the safe use of these devices.


Recent studies proved that certain electronic active circuits are capable to exhibit simultaneously a negative group delay (NGD) and amplification in microwave frequency bands. One of the simplest topologies generating this counterintuitive NGD function effect is formed by a series RLC-network in cascade with a transistor. By using this cell, similar to the classical electronic functions, dual-band NGD microwave devices with loss compensation possibility can be designed. Theoretic demonstrations concerning the theory of the NGD circuit considered are presented. The dual-band NGD concept feasibility is concretely illustrated by an example of EM/circuit co-simulations. So, in frequency domain, dual-band NGD with minimal values of about -1 ns was observed simultaneously within two frequency bands centered at about 1.05 GHz and 2.05 GHz. To highlight the functioning of the hybrid device considered, time-domain analysis showing the RF/microwave signal advancement is performed. As application, the concept investigated can be envisaged for data synchronization in multi-channel wireless communication systems eventually degraded by undesired EMI effects.


High concentrations of polyphenols and polysaccharides make it challenging to extract high-quality RNA from grape organs. To determine an optimal protocol for grape leaves, 15 different methods of RNA extraction were evaluated based on cost, time to complete the extraction, and quality of the RNA isolated. The addition of specific compounds to the extraction buffer to remove polyphenols and polysaccharides is often critical for downstream applications such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and microarray hybridization. RNA quality was assessed using spectrophotometric methods, formaldehyde-agarose gel electrophoresis, reverse transcription (RT)-PCR reactions, and Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. Large differences in RNA yield and quality among protocols were found. Some protocols that are commonly used for other species did not yield usable RNA from grapevine leaves. The optimum methods were Tris-lithium chloride, which, while relatively time-consuming, gave consistently high yields of quality RNA at very low cost and was suitable for PCR and microarray hybridization, and RNeasy Midi + polyethylene glycol, which rapidly provided high-quality RNA, but with lower yields.


Introduction: A brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a tangle of abnormal blood vessels connecting arteries and veins in the brain. An arteriovenous malformation can develop anywhere, but occurs most often in the brain or spine. Even so, brain AVMs are rare and affect less than 1 per cent of the population. The aetiology for AVM is not very clear. The most common presenting complaints of patients with AVM are headache or seizures. AVM are routinely diagnosed when CT scan is done for some other reason, not by suspecting AVM as the diagnosis. But this condition when it is classically diagnosed then can often be treated successfully to prevent complications that arise because of AVM malformations. This is a case report of a patient who presented with AVM malformation. The main presenting complaint of this patient was headache.
Case Blog: 38 years old male patient attended ENT OP with complaints of severe headache. No aggravating or relieving factors. The headache was insidious in onset. The patient had consulted some local doctor and he was not relieved by taking medications. A thorough ENT examination was done. ENT causes of headache and migraine were ruled out. Also patient was not having any sinus tenderness. The patient was advised to do an emergency CT scan of brain. CT brain showed some abnormal finding. As it was plain CT scan of brain without contrast, the lesion could not be well delineated (Figure 1). The patient was immediately referred to neuromedicine department for further evaluation and opinion. In neuromedicine department patient was advised for MR angiogram. MRA study confirmed the presence of arterio venous malformation. Now the patient is followed up regularly in the neuromedicine department.
Discussion: Arterio venous malformation can occur anywhere in the body. One among the most common sites of AVM is the Brain. The aetiology for AVM is not very clear. The most common presenting complaints of patients with AVM are headache or seizures.


A joint clustering and classification approach is proposed. This approach exploits unlabeled data for efficient clustering, which is applied in the classification with support vector machine (SVM) in the case of small-size training samples. The proposed method requires no prior information on data labels, and yields better cluster structures. Through cluster assumption and the notions of support vectors, the most confident k cluster centers and data points near the cluster boundaries are labeled and used to train a reliable SVM classifier. Our method gains better estimation of data distributions and mitigates the unrepresentative problem of small-size training samples. The data set collected from Landsat Thematic Mapper (Landsat TM-5) validates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


All primary energy sources, such as oil, gas, coal, nuclear and hydro need to be converted into end-user energy services known as mechanical work, electricity, heating and cooling. In the process of conversion, only a portion of the primary energy is transformed into the new form, while the rest remains unaltered and is lost. The various forms of energy services produced represent a different value or quality, e.g. heat holds an energy quality ranging from 0 and upwards, depending on the temperature difference which is utilized, as defined by the second law of thermodynamics. Energy efficiency in this context may also be defined as the ratio between energy quality output and input. Practically all fossil fuels are converted to energy services via combustion and heat, i.e. the conversion efficiency is solely determined by temperatures, meaning that high energy efficiency can only be obtained at large temperature differences, such as in power generation, while ordinary domestic heating will yield a very low efficiency. Given that some 30–40% of all fossil fuels today are used for domestic heating, representing an end-user energy quality of (say) 1/10 of what is obtained in modern power generation, there is a tremendous potential globally for energy efficiency improvements, not to mention the associated emissions reductions. The obvious solution is to pay more attention to the second law of thermodynamics, i.e. to shift from direct combustion heating to thermodynamic principles, e.g. by use of electrical driven heat pumps and/or combined heat and power as another alternative.


Apatite fission-track data indicate that Mesozoic strata exposed on the northern flank of the Chinese Tian Shan underwent ∼4-5 km of late Cenozoic unroofing, beginning at ∼24 Ma. This age apparently dates initial reactivation of the northern Tian Shan in response to the India-Asia collision, which continues to raise the mountain range today. Numerous studies of the Himalaya and Tibet suggest that a major shift from extrusion-dominated to crustal thickening-dominated tectonics occurred in latest Oligocene-early Miocene time, approximately coincident with the start of unroofing in the Tian Shan. This suggests that Tian Shan unroofing was a distant effect of that shift within the collision zone.


A Sampler of Useful Computational Tools for Applied Geometry, Computer Graphics, and Image Processing shows how to use a collection of mathematical techniques to solve important problems in applied mathematics and computer science areas. The book discusses fundamental tools in analytical geometry and linear algebra. It covers a wide range of topics, from matrix decomposition to curvature analysis and principal component analysis to dimensionality reduction. Written by a team of highly respected professors, the book can be used in a one-semester, intermediate-level course in computer science. It takes a practical problem-solving approach, avoiding detailed proofs and analysis. Suitable for readers without a deep academic background in mathematics, the text explains how to solve non-trivial geometric problems. It quickly gets readers up to speed on a variety of tools employed in visual computing and applied geometry.


Tax haven countries offer foreign investors low tax rates and other tax features designed to attract investment and thereby stimulate economic activity. Major tax havens have less than one percent of the world's population (outside the United States), and 2.3 percent of world GDP, but host 5.7 percent of the foreign employment and 8.4 percent of foreign property, plant and equipment of American firms. Per capita real GDP in tax haven countries grew at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent between 1982 and 1999, which compares favorably to the world average of 1.4 percent. Tax haven governments appear to be adequately funded, with an average 25 percent ratio of government to GDP that exceeds the 20 percent ratio for the world as a whole, though the small populations and relative affluence of these countries would normally be associated with even larger governments. Whether the economic prosperity of tax haven countries comes at the expense of higher tax countries is unclear, though recent research suggests that tax haven activity stimulates investment in nearby high-tax countries.


Any attempt to tell the story of federal involvement in the dismantling of America's formalized systems of racial discrimination that positions the judiciary as the first branch of government to engage in this effort, identifies the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision as the beginning of the civil rights movement, or fails to recognize the centrality of President Harry S. Truman in the narrative of racial equality is in error. Driven by an ever-increasing recognition of the injustices of racial discrimination, Truman offered a comprehensive civil rights program to Congress on 2 February 1948. When his legislative proposals were rejected, he employed a unilateral policy of action despite grave political risk, and freed subsequent presidential nominees of the Democratic party from its southern segregationist bloc by winning re-election despite the States' Rights challenge of Strom Thurmond. The remainder of his administration witnessed a multi-faceted attack on prejudice involving vetoes, executive orders, public pronouncements, changes in enforcement policies, and amicus briefs submitted by his Department of Justice. The southern Democrat responsible for actualizing the promises of America's ideals of freedom for its black citizens is Harry Truman, not Lyndon Johnson. The shift in white American opinion necessary for the passage of the civil rights acts of the 1960s was generated by the cumulative effects of actions taken between 1945 and 1953.


Tourism emerged as an important cultural activity in the United States in the 1820s as steamboats and canals allowed for greater mobility and the nation's writers and artists focused their attention on American scenery. From the 1820s until well after the Civil War, American artists, like Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, depicted American tourist attractions in their work, and often made their reputations on those paintings. Writers like Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and James described their visits to the same attractions or incorporated them into their fiction. The work of these artists and writers conferred value on the scenes represented and helped shape the vision of the tourists who visited them. This interest in scenery permeated the work of both serious and popular writers and artists, and they produced thousands of images and descriptions of America's tourist attractions for the numerous guidebooks, magazines, and other publications devoted to travel in the United States during the period. Drawing on this fascinating body of material, Sacred Places examines the vital role which tourism played in fulfilling the cultural needs of nineteenth-century Americans. America was a new country in search of a national identity. Educated Americans desperately wished to meet European standards of culture and, at the same time, to develop a distinctly American literature and art. Tourism offered a means of defining America as a place and taking pride in the special features of its landscape. The country's magnificent natural wonders were a substitute for the cathedrals and monuments, the sense of history that Europe had built over the centuries. Moreover, Sears argues, tourist attractions like Mammoth Cave, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Yosemite, and Yellowstone functioned as sacred places for a nation with a diversity of religious sects and without ancient religious and national shrines. For nineteenth-century Americans, whose vision was shaped by the aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque and by the popular nineteenth-century Romantic view of nature as temple, such places fulfilled their urgent need for cultural monuments and for places to visit which transcended ordinary reality. But these nineteenth-century tourist attractions were also arenas of consumption. Niagara Falls was the most sublime of God's creations, a sacred place, which, like Mount Auburn Cemetery, was supposed to have a profound moral effect on the spectator. But it was also an emporium of culture where the tourist shopped for Niagara's wonders and for little replicas of the Falls in the form of souvenirs. In Sacred Places, Sears describes how this strange, sometimes amusing, juxtaposition of the mythic and the trivial, the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the commercial remained a significant feature of American tourist attractions even after efforts were made at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Niagara Falls to curb commercial and industrial intrusions. Sears also explores how the nineteenth-century idealization of home stimulated the tourists' response to such places as the Willey House in the White Mountains, the rural cemeteries, and even the newly established asylums for the deaf, dumb, blind, and insane. And, in an intriguing account of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, he examines the reasons why an important nineteenth-century anthracite transportation center was also a major tourist attraction. Most of the attractions discussed in this book are still visited by millions of Americans. By illuminating their cultural meaning, Sacred Places prompts us to reflect on our own motivations and responses as tourists and reveals why tourism was and still is such an important part of American life.


In this study, mononuclear octahedral cobalt(III) Schiff base complex [CoL3], L = (5-bromo-2-hydroxybenzyl-2-furylmethyl)imine, was synthesized from the reaction of Co(NO3)2•6H2O and the Schiff base ligand L in methanol as solvent. It used as a new precursor to prepare spinel type cobalt oxide nanoparticles by a facile solid-state thermal decomposition. Controlling the temperature and time, Co3O4 nanoparticles were obtained in air at 550oC within 3.5 h. The Co3O4 nanoparticles was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These results confirm that the resulting cobalt oxide products were pure single-phases. Using the present method, Co3O4 nanoparticles can be produced without using any expensive organic solvent and complicated equipment. TEM result showed the products are almost flat with the size of about 10-50 nm. It has potential to be applied as a general method for preparation of other transition metal oxide nanoparticles.


The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused massive disruptions in many sectors of society including higher education Although the mainstream news outlets and social media have discussed how Malaysia's higher education system coped with the disruptions caused by COVID-19, a fuller narrative needs to be properly documented This qualitative narrative review involved an analysis of various types of publications including scholarly articles, world organizations' reports, university documents as well as commentaries and reports from mainstream news outlets and social media that directly focus on the topic It is evident from the review that Malaysian HEIs' priority was in safeguarding student and staff welfare in terms of their health and safety While providing emergency aid to students and support for institutions, the Ministry of Higher Education together with HEIs developed administrative measures to safeguard the delivery of programmes through remote online learning The analysis confirmed that while online learning is considered appropriate during an emergency period, the digital divide clearly still exists, posing the greatest challenge to Malaysia's recovery post COVID-19 The critical review on the immediate impacts of the pandemic on teaching and learning point to key recommendations for leadership, student welfare, and the importance of flexible education and evidence-based policymaking © Penerbit UMT


We identify some weak points of the LRTA*(k) algorithm in the propagation of heuristic changes. To solve them, we present a new algorithm, LRTA*LS(k), that is based on the selection and updating of the interior states of a local space around the current state. It keeps the good theoretical properties of LRTA*(k), while improving substantially its performance. It is related with a lookahead depth greater than 1. We provide experimental evidence of the benefits of the new algorithm on real-time benchmarks with respect to existing approaches.


BACKGROUND
Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a common disease in reproductive-age women and is associated to important gynecologic and obstetric complications.

AIM
To study the occurrence of BV in apparently healthy women attending family planning clinics, using Amsel and Nugent diagnostic criteria.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Two hundred thirty nine women consulting for symptoms associated to cervicovaginitis, were studied. A sample from the lateral walls of the vagina was obtained with a sterile swab for microscopic analysis, Gram stain and amine test.

RESULTS
According to Amsel and Nugent criteria a 31.1% and 31.8% BV prevalence was observed. The sensitivity and specificity of Nugent criteria, compared with Amsel criteria were 83.3% and 92.1%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
The high prevalence of BV found in this study suggests that this vaginal infection should be diagnosed with standardized methods. Nugent criteria are economic easy to perform and sensitive and we propose that they should be used in local health centers.


We present detailed experimental studies and modeling of the nonlinear absorption and refraction of GaAs/AIGaAs multiple quantum well structures (MQWS) in the small signal regime. Nonlinear absorption and degenerate four-wave mixing in the vicinity of the room temperature exciton resonances are observed and analyzed. Spectra of the real and imaginary parts of the nonlinear cross section as a function b of wavelength are obtained, and these are in excellent agreement with experimental data. A simple model for excitonic absorption saturation is proposed; it accounts qualitatively for the very low saturation intensities of room temperature excitons in MQWS.