Learning is more than the mere acquisition of information. Rather, professional learning across an individuals' Landscape of Practice (LoP) (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner, 2015) can be examined through the concept of knowledgeability – i.e. the consideration of socially-constructed perceptions of professional competence across the various settings in which practitioners operate. Journeying between these various settings within a practitioner's LoP requires regular boundary crossing – i.e. moving between different contexts. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the nature and learning potential of boundary crossings within sports coaches' and coach developers' LoP. Fourteen junior international sports coaches and 12 coach developers from 17 different sports were interviewed concerning their learning journeys to date. Akkerman and Bakker's (2011) framework of potential learning mechanisms at boundaries was utilised to better understanding how coaches and coach developers negotiated cross-sport interactions as a potential resource for development. We discovered that all four of Akkerman and Bakker's (2011) potential learning mechanisms of identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation were profoundly evident within the learning journeys of the 26 participants. In particular, the sub-concepts of othering, confrontation, crystallization, efforts of translation and perspective taking were fundamentally important to coaches and coach developers as they embraced new environments in which their expertise was not yet established. For example, confrontation and efforts of translation were evident as some participants reported initially dismissing the value of anything not overtly connecting to their sport but became, over time, increasingly appreciative, and eager to seek-out, cross-sport interactions. For other participants, these cross-sport interactions were initially destabilizing yet ultimately became immensely important in the process of crystallizing elements of their practice. We recommend that facilitators and brokers of professional learning environments (e.g., NGB coach development officers and coach educators) explore the concept of boundary crossing in order to better help coaching practitioners to enhance their professional practice.


The individual and combined effects of cadmium (Cd) and 3,3′,4,4′,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126) on the antibody response of fish against metazoan parasites were tested. Eels experimentally infected with the swim bladder nematode Anguillicola crassus were exposed to sublethal concentrations of Cd and PCB 126. Cd was added to the water resulting in an effective concentration of 21·7±12·8 μg/l (mean±S.D.). PCB 126 was applied orally at a dose of approximately 100 ng PCB 126 per g body weight. At the end of the experiment, 76 days post-infection (p.i.), eels were found to be infected with 2–3 worms. Immunoblot analyses revealed that the body wall of adult worms was the most suitable crude antigen, and was subsequently used for an ELISA to evaluate the immune response of A. anguilla under various conditions. A significant increase of Anguillicola-specific antibodies in the peripheral blood was first detected 61 days p.i., indicating that it was not the invasive larvae but the adult worms which elicit the antibody response. The presence of Cd in the concentrations applied did not appear to modulate the production of antibodies. In contrast, the exposure to PCB 126 resulted in a complete suppression of the antibody response. A similar effect was also found for the combined exposure of the infected eels to Cd and PCB 126. A suppressed immune response, as demonstrated here, may be the reason why hosts exposed to environmental pollution became often much more easily infected than unexposed conspecifics.


Background.
Teaching face to face and partly online is called blended teaching. In practical oriented subjects like physiotherapy more hands on training is required. Hence online teaching may not help to meet the learning outcomes. But a combination of face to face and online may be very effective in delivering the course contents. In this paper the effect of blended teaching on students learning is discussed.
Aim.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the efficacy of blended learning to improve the quality of student learning in physiotherapy education.
Materials and methods.
At INTI International University, we delivered physiotherapy selected courses in blended mode using various tools in the Blackboard platform. We also used zoom and skype to deliver in-classroom lectures with international expert from overseas. The efficacy of this method was evaluated through student's feedback and performance in the formative and summative assessments
Results.
The students participated in these courses perceived blended teaching strategies very effective and convenient. Blended learning encouraged more collaboration between students which was evident based on their summative exam scores.
Conclusion.
Blended teaching strategies may be effective in physiotherapy education to improve the quality of students learning. A higher quality studies will provide more evidence.


Acute diarrhoea is due to intestinal infection. The patient ingests a pathogen that has contaminated water, food, drink, toys or anything that can be placed in the mouth. An inadequate and unsafe water supply and poor application and practise of hygiene lead to faecal contamination.
The most important complication is dehydration, with a poor correlation between the clinical features and actual dehydration. The management of the dehydrated patient depends on a careful assessment of the state of the circulation and the need for resuscitation. In most instances, oral rehydration is appropriate and fully effective if the solution is offered in small quantities at a time. Normally-nourished infants do not require modification of their feeds, beyond adapting the quantity offered as tolerated, but if diarrhoea persists there is a risk of intestinal mucosal damage with malabsorption and nutritional consequences.


Abstract Active participation by foreign investors in Australian residential property market is common subsequent to the Global Financial Crisis 2008. Many residential properties in the Australian capital cities were purchased by overseas buyers. An estimated 18% of new dwellings in Sydney and 14% in Melbourne were purchased by foreigners in 2014. Simultaneously, house prices rose by 6.0% in 2014 and 5.0% in 2015 in the Australian capital cities. The focus of this research is to uncover the emerging determinants for the Australian residential property market. Cross border semi-structured interviews were conducted in Shanghai (China), the first such undertaken in Australia. Some unique investment strategies of the private investors from China emphasised on non-capitalist factors, such as early education and residential tourism, were identified along with some insights on the Chinese government policies that have incentivised the cross border investments from China. It is believed that understanding these investment strategies will assist policy makers to effectively manage the overheated Australian residential property market without compromising the steady flow of Foreign Real Estate Investment.


Abstract. The active layer above the permafrost, which seasonally thaws during summer, is an important parameter for monitoring the state of permafrost. Its thickness is typically measured locally, but a range of methods which utilize information from satellite data exist. Mostly, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) obtained from optical satellite data is used as a proxy. The applicability has been demonstrated mostly for shallow depths of active-layer thickness (ALT) below approximately 70 cm. Some permafrost areas including central Yamal are, however, characterized by larger ALT. Surface properties including vegetation structure are also represented by microwave backscatter intensity. So far, the potential of such data for estimating ALT has not been explored. We therefore investigated the relationship between ALT and X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscatter of TerraSAR-X (averages for 10  ×  10 m window) in order to examine the possibility of delineating ALT with continuous and larger spatial coverage in this area and compare it to the already-established method of using NDVI from Landsat (30 m). Our results show that the mutual dependency of ALT and TerraSAR-X backscatter on land cover types suggests a connection of both parameters. A range of 5 dB can be observed for an ALT range of 100 cm (40–140 cm), and an R2 of 0.66 has been determined over the calibration sites. An increase of ALT with increasing backscatter can be determined. The root mean square error (RMSE) over a comparably heterogeneous validation site with maximum ALT of  >  150 cm is 20 cm. Deviations are larger for measurement locations with mixed vegetation types (especially partial coverage by cryptogam crust) with respect to the spatial resolution of the satellite data.


Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is an important element of the Smart Grid as it is expected to facilitate the transport of meter readings from meters to the utility provider and control information (potentially) in the other direction. One approach to realize AMI entails deploying concentrator devices in a neighbourhood. The meters would then associate with and subsequently communicate over single/multi-hop short range wireless links with the concentrator which in turn would forward the data to the data management systems. A key problem that arises in such networks is for the meter to decide which concentrator to associate with when multiple of these are available in the vicinity. This paper proposes a tree balancing algorithm called 'TREEB' which enables the smart meter nodes to assess the state of concentrators in the vicinity and use this information to decide which concentrator to join. TREEB has been realized as enhancements to the IETF RPL protocol without affecting backwards compatibility. It is practical to implement, operates in a distributed manner and helps to balance the networks of the different concentrators as shown by results obtained from its performance evaluation.


For most casual baseball fans, the sight of a South African team at the 2006 World Baseball Classic must have been befuddling. But after the team--made up almost exclusively of amateur players--took an 8-7 lead into the ninth inning against the established baseball nation of Canada, any onlooker should have clearly recognized that the sport did not emerge overnight in the African nation. In fact, South Africa has a long history of baseball. The game was first played on its shores in 1895 when a group of Americans, who had migrated to South Africa during the gold boom just before the Boer War, settled in the Transvaal Province. The Americans were true missionaries for the sport, bringing equipment, creating a baseball diamond, and setting up games. Thanks to their persistence and local interest in baseball, an official league was set up in 1899, and, in September 1904, Transvaal's first official provincial baseball body was formed. In the league's inaugural season, the circuit was dominated by hitters. The Washington Post reported on December 25, 1904, that "the players of the different teams can hit the ball, even if they have not yet attained the accuracy and agility in fielding that their American cousins have reached." Of the thirty-seven players who were listed in the 1899 official records, twenty-three hit over .300, and the top batter registered a .535 batting average. Four years later, the game was still developing, and some South Africans were even boasting about the quality of their facilities. In a letter to former New York Yankees president Joe Gordon, L. A. Servatius, who was involved with the sport in the city of Johannesburg, crowed that the fields they were playing on were as "fast and level as a billiard table." Still, the sport at that point was experiencing growing pains. According to an article in the April 19, 1908, edition of the Washington Post, the South African League had just four teams, and they had to pay for the use of their fine fields at a location (Wanderers Athletic Association) where top teams from other sports were allowed to play for free. Nevertheless, Servatius was sanguine about the sport's future, which at the time featured games drawing from one hundred to seven hundred spectators. "The growing Africaner is taking to the game, and there is a possibility of a school league being formed in addition to our little organization," he wrote to Gordon. (1) By 1930 the sport had spread, thanks to a provincial player from Transvaal who moved to the Natal Province and brought baseball with him. A year later, on July 5, Natal and Transvaal played their first interprovincial contest in Durban. Along with the birth of baseball in Natal, the sport also spread to the Western Province at the start of the 1930s, again because of players from Transvaal. During this period, baseball was enjoying sustained growth in Transvaal, as junior membership exceeded one hundred for the first time in 1932. Baseball continued to migrate during this era with games being played in the Cape and in the Eastern Province, where an association was formed in Port Elizabeth in 1934. Baseball entered a quiet period between 1940 and 1946 because of World War II. But the game survived in Transvaal, and unofficial leagues were contested elsewhere by servicemen on leave. Following the war, provincial play returned, and the popularity of the game was such that baseball in Transvaal was split as a new Northern Transvaal association was founded. In 1951 an Eastern Transvaal association was also created. With the growth of the game in the 1950s, the first large National Tournament was held in 1952 in Cape Town and Johannesburg. South Africa stepped onto the international stage in 1955 when an American team of "All Stars" toured SA. The U.S. players were not superstars but a solid combination of amateur and college players. Coached by Terry Bartron, a high school skipper from Rosemead, California, and managed by Ray Hanson, the director of athletics at Western Illinois State College in Macomb, Illinois, the squad was selected by the United States Amateur Baseball Federation, based on nominations from the federation's affiliates throughout the United States. …


Earthquake is among the most devastating natural disasters causing severe economical, environmental, and social destruction. Earthquake safety assessment and building hazard monitoring can highly contribute to urban sustainability through identification and insight into optimum materials and structures. While the vulnerability of structures mainly depends on the structural resistance, the safety assessment of buildings can be highly challenging. In this paper, we consider the Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) method, which is a qualitative procedure for estimating structural scores for buildings suitable for medium- to high-seismic cases. This paper presents an overview of the common RVS methods, i.e., FEMA P-154, IITK-GGSDMA, and EMPI. To examine the accuracy and validation, a practical comparison is performed between their assessment and observed damage of reinforced concrete buildings from a street survey in the Bingöl region, Turkey, after the 1 May 2003 earthquake. The results demonstrate that the application of RVS methods for preliminary damage estimation is a vital tool. Furthermore, the comparative analysis showed that FEMA P-154 creates an assessment that overestimates damage states and is not economically viable, while EMPI and IITK-GGSDMA provide more accurate and practical estimation, respectively.


It is common to analyze the effects of alternative possible monetary policy commitments under the assumption of optimization under rational (or fully model-consistent) expectations. This implicitly assumes unrealistic cognitive abilities on the part of economic decision makers. The relevant question, however, is not whether the assumption can be literally correct, but how much it would matter to model decision making in a more realistic way. A model is proposed, based on the architecture of artificial intelligence programs for problems such as chess or go, in which decision makers look ahead only a finite distance into the future and use a value function learned from experience to evaluate situations that may be reached after a finite sequence of actions by themselves and others. Conditions are discussed under which the predictions of a model with finite-horizon forward planning are similar to those of a rational expectations equilibrium, and under which they are instead quite different. The model is used to reexamine the consequences that should be expected from a central bank commitment to maintain a fixed nominal interest rate for a substantial period of time. "Neo-Fisherian" predictions are shown to depend on using rational expectations equilibrium analysis under circumstances in which it should be expected to be unreliable.


Extruded aluminium sections have many features that make them suitable for use in environment-friendly products. Still there are much to be done to reduce the variability of section properties and to optimize the processing route from extruded section to finished and assembled component in order to meet cost, quality and performance goals, minimizing adverse environmental impacts and maximizing the conservation of valuable resources. Another important question taken up in this paper, however, is the problem of ensuring that aluminium sections are used in products and technical systems that are contributing to a sustainable development during their total life cycle. In order to ensure this, it is claimed that the it is necessary to carry out a product system diagnosis that combine ecological and competetive considerations. Further one has to promote design for environment that ensures functionality completely fitting into sustainable societies and innovatins based on a multidisciplinary approach, searching for synthesis of technology, the arts and the humanistic disciplines. The universities should take active part in this process, by creating new areas of competence and establish new alliances with the industry and the society.


. In this note we construct an infinite family of compact ancient solutions to the Curve Shortening Flow which span the halfplane.


Background— Pain triggers a homeostatic alarm reaction to injury. It remains unknown, however, whether nociceptive signaling activated by ischemia is relevant for progenitor cells (PC) release from bone marrow. To this end, we investigated the role of the neuropeptide substance P (SP) and cognate neurokinin 1 (NK1) nociceptor in PC activation and angiogenesis during ischemia in mice and in human subjects. Methods and Results— The mouse bone marrow contains sensory fibers and PC that express SP. Moreover, SP-induced migration provides enrichment for PC that express NK1 and promote reparative angiogenesis after transplantation in a mouse model of limb ischemia. Acute myocardial infarction and limb ischemia increase SP levels in peripheral blood, decrease SP levels in bone marrow, and stimulate the mobilization of NK1-expressing PC, with these effects being abrogated by systemic administration of the opioid receptor agonist morphine. Moreover, bone marrow reconstitution with NK1-knockout cells results in depressed PC mobilization, delayed blood flow recovery, and reduced neovascularization after ischemia. We next asked whether SP is instrumental to PC mobilization and homing in patients with ischemia. Human PC express NK1, and SP-induced migration provides enrichment for proangiogenic PC. Patients with acute myocardial infarction show high circulating levels of SP and NK1-positive cells that coexpress PC antigens, such as CD34, KDR, and CXCR4. Moreover, NK1-expressing PC are abundant in infarcted hearts but not in hearts that developed an infarct after transplantation. Conclusions— Our data highlight the role of SP in reparative neovascularization. Nociceptive signaling may represent a novel target of regenerative medicine.


The influx of immigrants into Malaysia has been extraordinary in recent years. Their contributions to the physical development of this country have most likely been underpaid, undermined, and manipulated by private employers. This paper analyzes the labor law in Malaysia that grants more authority and security to private employers than to workers and their well being. The provisions in the Employment Act of 1955 limit immigrant workers from being defined and protected under this law. This study is qualitative in nature and uses content analysis to address the legal limitations, and an exploratory interview conducted randomly with forty (40) legal Indonesian immigrants to get some insights from legal immigrants' perspectives. As a result, this paper shares finding on the provisions in labor law, the limits of statutory language and definitions, the ineffective enforcement, and the underpinning problems that continuously make immigrant workers a deprived minority.


We report two experimental studies of human perceptions of robotic facial expressions while systematically varying context effects and the cultural background of subjects (n = 93). Except for Fear, East Asian and Western subjects were not significantly different in recognition rates, and, while Westerners were better at judging affect from mouth movement alone, East Asians were not any better at judging affect based on eye/brow movement alone. Moreover, context effects appeared capable of over-riding such cultural differences, most notably for Fear. The results seem to run counter to previous theories of cultural differences in facial expression based on emoticons and eye fixation patterns. We connect this to broader research in cognitive science – suggesting the findings support a dynamical systems view of social cognition as an emergent phenomenon. The results here suggest that, if we can induce appropriate context effects, it may be possible to create culture-neutral models of robots and affective interaction.


The Mawchi Mine in Myanmar is a historic world-class Sn–W deposit within the tin province of Southeast Asia, extending from Yunnan in SW China through Myanmar and Thailand, via Malaysia, to the Tin Islands of Indonesia, over a distance of 2700 km (Cobbing et al. 1992; Schwartz et al. 1995). The Mawchi Mine (Fig. 17.1) is located about 219 km SE of Nawpyitaw, the capital city of Myanmar. It was the world's largest tin–tungsten quartz vein system exploited before World War II, and between 1980 and 1990 the Mawchi Mine produced 17 000 tons of ore (unpublished Mawchi Mine data).

 Fig. 17.1.
Granitoid belts of Myanmar and adjacent countries (modified after Cobbing et al. 1992 and Sone & Metcalfe 2008).

Bender (1983) gave a summary of the geology of the Mawchi Mine described by Hobson (1940, 1941); the petrology of the rock types and mineralization were described by Dunn (1938). Subsequently Khin Zaw & Khin Myo Thet (1983) discussed fluid inclusion studies, but no new data have been published on the geology of the Sn–W granites of the Mawchi Mine in recent years. In this contribution we discuss the petrogenesis and tectonic setting of granites associated with the Mawchi Sn–W deposit based on our recent investigations of its petrology, geochemistry and its timing through U–Pb zircon dating.

Cobbing et al. (1986, 1992) distinguished Granitic Provinces in the Southeast Asian Tin Belt; this concept has formed a widely accepted basis for the discussion of the granites in Southeast Asia. In Myanmar the Central Valley Granite Province (Cobbing et al. 1992) extends from Wuntho southwards into Salingyi and Popa. Most of the granitoids in this belt are metaluminous, calc-alkaline I-type granites; their composition ranges from diorite to granodiorite and their ages from Cretaceous to Cenozoic (Khin Zaw 1990; …


Abstract. A new satellite-derived climate dataset – denoted CLARA-A1 ("The CM SAF cLoud, Albedo and RAdiation dataset from AVHRR data") – is described. The dataset covers the 28 yr period from 1982 until 2009 and consists of cloud, surface albedo, and radiation budget products derived from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor carried by polar-orbiting operational meteorological satellites. Its content, anticipated accuracies, limitations, and potential applications are described. The dataset is produced by the EUMETSAT Climate Monitoring Satellite Application Facility (CM SAF) project. The dataset has its strengths in the long duration, its foundation upon a homogenized AVHRR radiance data record, and in some unique features, e.g. the availability of 28 yr of summer surface albedo and cloudiness parameters over the polar regions. Quality characteristics are also well investigated and particularly useful results can be found over the tropics, mid to high latitudes and over nearly all oceanic areas. Being the first CM SAF dataset of its kind, an intensive evaluation of the quality of the datasets was performed and major findings with regard to merits and shortcomings of the datasets are reported. However, the CM SAF's long-term commitment to perform two additional reprocessing events within the time frame 2013–2018 will allow proper handling of limitations as well as upgrading the dataset with new features (e.g. uncertainty estimates) and extension of the temporal coverage.


August 28, 1991 . . . the apologists for any means to achieve desired ends forget that the separation of "means" and "ends" is merely a verbal convenience. They forget that the means they employ are included in the ends. Anatole Rapoport, Science and the Goals of Man, 1950 Part 1: Introduction On the Ethical Study of the University The American university has a long history of concern for ethical matters.(1) Currently, the American Association of University Professors and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges establish standards on the ethical governance of the university. Further, the regional and professional accrediting associations, together with the collective bargaining agreement, are other vehicles that affect the university's moral governance |39, 93, 94, 99, 101~. However, powerful and pervasive external influences affect university governance, especially economic and governmental power. In the last thirty years or so, the ethos and argot of the business world have taken over the university. "Markets" are sought. "Contributions to margin" become goals. "Cost/benefit analysis" is used in deciding to drop a small-enrollment classical language department or in retaining a costly laboratory science curriculum. Students become customers. The faculty become employees excluded from the economic decisions relative to the curriculum. An economic engine, the university produces new and retrained employees, new arts, new sciences, and new technologies and provides packaged services for business, church, community, education, and government. Without doubt, the regional and professional accrediting associations act in the public interest protecting students and their parents as consumers |99, chap. 12 and p. 447~. Importantly, the accrediting associations serve as an important countervalent that sets governing standards for university boards of trustees, including the sheltering of their academic communities from attacks upon institutional autonomy and academic freedom |cf. 93, pp. 15-24; 99 pp. 442-48.~. The university's missions and goals no longer seem tied as imperatives to educational practice. With the exception of the university president, no one appears accountable for the cultivation and maintenance of institutional direction |67~. Like the American corporation, the university's broad dispersion of responsibility contributes to the university-wide practice of no one being specifically held accountable. If an institution's mission and goals become inapplicable, new general statements are drawn up, again without agential assignment of responsibility |cf. 26, 89~. One reads in The Chronicle of Higher Education and the daily press about administrative fraud, the scientific investigator who "fudges" data, faculty and student plagiarism, student cheating on tests, the "commercial production" of undergraduate term papers and their purchase by students, sexual harassment of students and staff, student athletes' use of drugs to enhance strength and stamina in athletic competition, and the "booster club's" corruption of student athletes. Of course, student activism is a perennial source of ethical controversy. What about recent revelations of dubious university accounting practices |cf. 67~? Such a continuing stream of disturbing reports sent me to seek empirical studies on the moral behavior of those who comprise the American university community. No empirical studies on the university's moral deportment were found in reviewing bibliographies that concentrated on the professional higher education literature since the 1950s, though one bibliography on the university presidency began with literature since 1900 |28, 29, 30, 44, 63, 96~. Two encyclopedic works on higher education yielded no citations of empirical studies on ethical behavior in American higher education |49, 56~. At roughly ten-year intervals, Lunsford in 1963, Peterson in 1974, and Bess in 1984, provided status summaries of social science research on organizational behavior for American universities |10, 59, 76~. …


The prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) has only moderately improved during the last decades. Major causes for this are the high number of patients that present with advanced stage of disease and the high frequency of second primary tumors. This emphasizes the need for early diagnosis of both primary and secondary tumors. Head and neck tumors arise in a field of premalignant cells, i.e. a precursor field. Early detection of these fields, in particular those with a high risk of progression, might improve the overall prognosis of HNSCC patients. Proteomics is the field of research that aims to study all proteins present in a cell or tissue and thereby enables the identification of protein biomarkers, i.e. those proteins, present in tissue or body fluids, that are indicative of the presence, state or behavior of a tumor or precancerous lesion. The development of protein biomarkers is characterized by different phases, starting with an initial discovery of the possible protein candidates, to the final thorough clinical validation of these candidates in prospective multicenter trials. The studies described in this thesis report the discovery and initial clinical validation of protein biomarkers that can predict malignant progression of HNSCC precursor fields. We used genetically characterized normal, precursor and tumor tissue from eight patients to identify proteins with a different expression level. We demonstrated that expression of four proteins, keratin 4, keratin 13, cornulin and small proline-rich protein 3, was not only significantly decreased in tumors, but also in an independent series of severe dysplasias, mucosal tissue at a high risk of malignant progression. This suggested that we found potential promising candidate biomarkers, and we decided to investigate whether these proteins might predict malignant progression of precancerous tissue in different patient groups. Our data revelaed that these candidate biomarkers could not be used to discriminate progressing from non-progressing leukoplakias, i.e. white lesions in the mouth that carry a potential risk of malignant progression. However, keratin 4 and cornulin expression in surgical margins of patients treated for HNSCC strongly correlated with the occurrence of local recurrence. In the future, patients at high risk for local recurrence can be considered for increased surveillance or tertiary treatment to eradicate precursor fields. Taken together, the work in this thesis describes different approaches to discover and validate protein biomarkers for head and neck cancer and has provided new input for the early detection of head and neck cancer.


Semogenesis, the creation of meaning, has been promoted by Halliday & Matthiessen (1999) as a 'guiding principle' in their presentation of a systemic functional theory of language — that language has within itself the resources by which people can create new meanings. Halliday & Matthiessen illustrated three processes of semogenesis and used an example of English intonation to illustrate one of the processes, deconstruction. This paper proposes two other processes, blending and reconstitution, to account for three other developments in English intonation: the falling-rising tone, the so-called high rising terminal/tone (HRT) and the mid level tone for routine listing.


The use of external representations (ERs) such as diagrams and animations in science education, particularly in the Molecular Life Sciences (MLS), has rapidly increased over the past decades. Research shows that ERs have a superior advantage over text alone for teaching and learning. Research has also indicated a number of concerns coupled with the use of ERs for education purposes. Such problems emanate from the mode of presentation and/or inability to use ERs. Regarding the later, a number of factors have been identified as major causes of student difficulties and they include visual literacy as one of the major factors. Given that little has been done to understand the nature of VL in the MLS the current study was conducted with the general aim of investigating this area and devising a way to measure the visual literacy levels of our students. More specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: i) What is the nature of visual literacy in MLS?; ii) Can specific levels of visual literacy be defined in the MLS?; and iii) Is a taxonomy a useful way of representing the levels of visual literacy for MLS? To respond to these questions, the current literature was used to define the nature of visual literacy and the visualization skills (VSs). These were then used to develop a Visual Literacy Test made up on probes in the context of Biochemistry. In these probes, the VSs were incorporated. The test was administered to 3 year Biochemistry students who were also interviewed. Results were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The later analysis utilized the Rasch model to generate an item difficulty map. The results of the current study show that visual literacy is multifaceted in nature and is context based in that it requires specific propositional knowledge. In line with this, it was found that visual literacy is expressed through a cognitive process of visualization which requires VSs. Based on the performance of these skills, learners' optimal visual literacy in the context of the MLS can be defined. Such performance can be assessed through the development of probes in the Biochemistry context. Furthermore, the current research has shown that using probes, the difficulty degree of each VS can be determined. In this instance, the Rasch model is a preferred method of ranking VSs in the context of Biochemistry in order of difficulty. From this, it was shown that given the uniqueness of each skill's degree of difficulty, each skill can thus be regarded as a level of visual literacy. Such levels were defined in terms of the norm difficulty obtained in the current study. Given the multifaceted nature of visual literacy, the current study adopted the view that there are infinite number of VSs and hence the number of levels of visual literacy. From the variation in the degree of difficulty, the study showed that there are nonvisualization and visualization type difficulties which contribute to the differences in visual literacy levels between Biochemistry students. In addition to this, the current study showed that visual literacy in the MLS can be presented through a taxonomy. Such a taxonomy can be used to determine the level of each VS, its name and definition, typical difficulties found in the MLS as well as the visualization stage at which each skill is performed. Furthermore, this taxonomy can be used to design models, assess students' visual literacy, identify and inform the remediation of students' visualization difficulties. While the study has successfully defined the nature of visual literacy for the MLS and presented visual literacy in a taxonomy, more work is required to further understand visual literacy for the MLS, a field where visual literacy is very prevalent.


The purpose of this research was to modify an existing scale to measure retail service quality in a college shop. This scale was modified based on the retail service quality scale (RSQS) to make it more contexts specific and culturally sensitive for the retail college shop (Al Waha) at Dubai Women's College. It also explores the relationship between the new retail service quality dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. A total of 424 completed questionnaires obtained from Al Waha customers was used in the analysis for the main study. Principal component analysis was used for scale reduction and multiple regression analysis was used to find associations. The new modified scale (Al Waha scale) resulted in 22 items across four dimensions: interaction quality, physical aspects, policy and understanding and caring which is a new dimension. The results confirm the association between the four new service quality dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. The results disclose the importance of age when evaluating physical aspects and caring and commitment dimensions. The study was performed among a very specific demographic sample; generalizations could only be made to similar college shops. Therefore, testing the modified model in other shops outside of the colleges is an area for future research. By modifying the RSQS scale to be context specific to retail shops in Dubai, this study provides an incremental step towards other scales in the region. This reveals that there are associations between Al Waha scale dimensions and overall service quality, satisfaction, loyalty and frequency of visits. Also, it indicated the importance of age when customers' evaluate physical aspects and caring and commitment dimensions. This scale gives managers a tool to improve service quality at their shops in order to become more competitive.


Henrik Meinander paints a brisk and bold picture of the history of Finland from integrated part of the Swedish kingdom to autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian empire, gradually transformed and maturing into a conscious nation, independent state and skilful adapter of modern technology. The main geographical context for his study is the Baltic region, and the author links his analysis to structural developments and turning points in European history. The book blends politics, economy and culture to show how human and natural resources in Finland have been utilized and the impact its cultural heritage and technological innovation have had on its development. In a departure from most conventional approaches, Meinander gives greater emphasis to recent and contemporary events. In other words, he puts Finland into a range of historical contexts in its Baltic and European settings to highlight how both together have formed Finland into what it is at the beginning of the twenty-first century.


Greenhouse gas emission inequalities between and within five income groups of countries are computed. The revealed dominant emission inequality between the high income groups and the low and middle income groups and its likely intensification by an internationally uniform abatement rate constitute a case for using per capita figures in analyzing countries' unilateral and internationally cooperative emission abatements. The analysis suggests that the cooperative expected net benefit maximizing emission abatement can be smaller than the unilateral abatement for weak countries and also for lower and upper middle income economies with high ability and inclination to politically and economically reward other countries. JEL Classification: O24, F51, Q54, Q56


It is important to draw critical attention to the broad policy perspectives that travel across the globe and operate at multiple scales. Social Investment is clearly one such set of ideas that has assumed increasing prominence over the last two decades. Like most such rapidly diffusing ideas, however, it admits of quite different interpretations. In this article I examine the most recent iterations of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs' (DELSA) interpretation of Social Investment against the backdrop of its earlier work. I argue that its initial formulations could be seen as an example of inclusive liberalism. Since then, however, DELSA has begun to embrace important elements of a social democratic version, including a concern with gender equality.

Policy Implications

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 While the idea of Social Investment may have opened anew a positive role for social policy, it is insufficient for such policies to focus narrowly on improving the human capital of the poor. Rather it is important to develop the human capital of all.

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 While Social Investment policies can include measures to facilitate work and family life it is also important to actively promote equality of the sexes in paid and unpaid work.

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 Social Investment policies, with their emphasis on the supply side, need to be complemented by policies to promote good jobs for all.

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 To be effective, Social Investment policies need to be accompanied by appropriate macroeconomic policies.


We consider whether workers who provide their services through online platforms, such as Handy and Uber, should be classified as independent contractors or employees. Using a formal economic model, we show how being too strict or too liberal in classifying workers as independent contractors (relative to the actual degree of control workers have) can be detrimental, not just to firms and welfare, but sometimes to the workers themselves. We also use the model to explore the extent to which an intermediate classification of workers between employees and independent contractors may lead to better outcomes. The intermediate classification is meant to apply to firms that retain control of some actions while their workers control others, as is the case for many online platforms.


The impact of holding costs on greenfield residential housing developments is becoming increasingly recognised as a major factor affecting housing affordability. This has led a number of jurisdictions throughout Australia to examine methods of streamlining procedures and processes ("red tape") in ways that curtail otherwise protracted regulatory appraisal procedures along the property development pipeline. Using a structured anonymous questionnaire, one major initiative in Queensland seeking to redress "red tape" the development of electronic development application processes – is tested by gauging industry participant's perceptions of their effectiveness. This information is also used to examine linkages that exist between various planning instruments, the length of regulatory assessment periods, and perceptions concerning housing affordability more generally. In addition, these results are able to be triangulated against quantitative data modelling focussed on the consequences of extended assessment periods as a typically critical component of holding costs.


In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework for characterizing shapes by building blocks. We address two questions: First, how do shape correspondences induce building blocks? For this, we introduce a new representation for structuring partial symmetries (partial self‐correspondences), which we call "microtiles". Starting from input correspondences that form point‐wise equivalence relations, microtiles are obtained by grouping connected components of points that share the same set of symmetry transformations. The decomposition is unique, requires no parameters beyond the input correspondences, and encodes the partial symmetries of all subsets of the input. The second question is: What is the class of shapes that can be assembled from these building blocks? Here, we specifically consider r‐similarity as correspondence model, i.e., matching of local r‐neighborhoods. Our main result is that the microtiles of the partial r‐symmetries of an object S can build all objects that are (r+ε)‐similar to S for any ε >0. Again, the construction is unique. Furthermore, we give necessary conditions for a set of assembly rules for the pairwise connection of tiles. We describe a practical algorithm for computing microtile decompositions under rigid motions, a corresponding prototype implementation, and conduct a number of experiments to visualize the structural properties in practice.


The taxonomy of Babina sensu lato was controversial in the past decades. In this study, the phylogeny of genus Babina sensu lato was re-constructed based on genetic analysis, morphological comparison and advertisement call analysis. We found that Babina sensu stricto and previous subgenus Nidirana should be two distinct genera in the family Ranidae. N. caldwelli is confirmed to be a synonym of N. adenopleura because of the small genetic divergence and the lack of distinct morphological differences. A new species, Nidirana nankunensis sp. nov. is described based on a series of specimens collected from Mt. Nankun, Guangdong Province, China, which can be distinguished from other known congeners by having a behavior of nest construction, distinctive advertisement calls, significant divergence in the mitochondrial genes, and a combination of morphological characters. Currently, the genus Babina contains two species and the genus Nidirana contains eight species.


Area-wide development viability appraisals are undertaken to determine the economic feasibility of policy targets in relation to planning obligations. Essentially, development viability appraisals consist of a series of residual valuations of hypothetical development sites across a local authority area at a particular point in time. The valuations incorporate the estimated financial implications of the proposed level of planning obligations. To determine viability the output land values are benchmarked against threshold land value and therefore the basis on which this threshold is established and the level at which it is set is critical to development viability appraisal at the policy-setting (area-wide) level. Essentially it is an estimate of the value at which a landowner would be prepared to sell. If the estimated site values are higher than the threshold land value the policy target is considered viable. This paper investigates the effectiveness of existing methods of determining threshold land value. They will be tested against the relationship between development value and costs. Modelling reveals that threshold land value that is not related to shifts in development value renders marginal sites unviable and fails to collect proportionate planning obligations from high value/low cost sites. Testing the model against national average house prices and build costs reveals the high degree of volatility in residual land values over time and underlines the importance of making threshold land value relative to the main driver of this volatility, namely development value.


America s latest war, according to renowned social critic Henry Giroux, is a war on youth. While this may seem counterintuitive in our youth-obsessed culture, Giroux lays bare the grim reality of how our educational, social, and economic institutions continually fail young people. Their systemic failure is the result of what Giroux identifies as four fundamentalisms: market deregulation, patriotic and religious fervor, the instrumentalization of education, and the militarization of society. We see the consequences most plainly in the decaying education system: schools are increasingly designed to churn out drone-like future employees, imbued with authoritarian values, inured to violence, and destined to serve the market. And those are the lucky ones. Young people who don t conform to cultural and economic discipline are left to navigate the neoliberal landscape on their own; if they are black or brown, they are likely to become ensnared by a harsh penal system.Giroux sets his sights on the war on youth and takes it apart, examining how a lack of access to quality education, unemployment, the repression of dissent, a culture of violence, and the discipline of the market work together to shape the dismal experiences of so many young people. He urges critical educators to unite with students and workers in rebellion to form a new pedagogy, and to build a new, democratic society from the ground up. Here is a book you won t soon forget, and a call that grows more urgent by the day."


The 1913 Armory Show was the first comprehensive exhibition of modern art to take place in the United States and served as America's introduction to modernism in the visual arts. Formally titled the International Exhibition of Modern Art—but informally designated the "Armory Show," given its location at the 69th Infantry Regiment Armory in New York City—the exhibition was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS), a small group of American artists, with the goal of offering a survey of modern art from Impressionism to Cubism and to spur the establishment of modern art in the United States. The exhibition ran for four weeks (February 17–March 15, 1913) and offered more than 1,300 works by 308 artists who hailed from twenty-five nations (though American artists composed more than half of this total).


A lively methodological debate together with organisational adjustments has dominated the international discussion on development evaluation in the last decade. Less discussed have been the evaluation processes, from procurement of consultants to the completion of evaluations, where many donors have used the same 'system' with only minor adjustments for many years. A key question is whether this 'system' is still 'fit for purpose' in view of the increasing complexity of many development interventions. This article presents three perspectives on development evaluation processes – the 'independence perspective', the 'transaction cost perspective' and the 'political economy perspective' – and argues that in particular the 'political economy perspective' constitutes a relevant perspective in analyses of evaluation processes. It is concluded that evaluation processes should be designed to reflect the specific characteristics of the individual evaluations, but also that more analysis and experimentation are required.


To investigate the role of drugs in the rising incidence of fractures of the femoral neck in the elderly a case-control study inquiring about the use of prescribed drugs was carried out. The drug histories of 102 patients with femoral neck fractures were obtained from general practice records and compared with those of 204 controls matched for age and sex from the same practices. At the time of fracture 41 patients with fractures and 126 controls were receiving at least one prescription (relative risk of fracture of the femoral neck in patients taking drugs = 0.42, p = 0.0006). For all types of prescribed drugs except antibiotics the risk of fracture of the femoral neck was less in patients taking drugs than in those not doing so, and this was true at all times in the year before fracture. Six patients with fractures were receiving thiazide diuretics compared with 37 controls (relative risk 0.28, p = 0.004). These results indicate that, contrary to popular belief, drugs that sedate or that impair postural control are not important factors in fractures of the femoral neck. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the hypocalciuria induced by thiazides protects against fracture, but the degree of protection is not significantly greater than that associated with other drugs.


ABSTRACT This paper claims that participatory approaches to water resource management in New Zealand are highly influenced by how institutional and community actors understand and practise democracy, including indigenous Māori rights under the Treaty of Waitangi. Drawing on case study analysis from a six-year research programme in which the aim was to evaluate existing and new methods for participatory decision-making, we highlight how different but co-existing democratic beliefs and practices, referred to as democratic logics can shape relationships between governance/decision-making bodies and affected communities. One particular case is examined in detail to illustrate how the various "logics" were strengthened, extended and challenged through participatory research methodologies. Our key message is that revealing and articulating existing democratic logics for participation can help promote and facilitate new participatory approaches, as well as increase robustness and community buy-in to local government decision-making.


In recent years, the study of neurodegenerative diseases has accomplished the development of a Medicinal Chemistry oriented strategy towards the design, synthesis and pharmacological study of a large number of compounds with central dopaminergic activity, but, has not found yet a drug capable to effectively cure these diseases. It is well known that both in Venezuela and particular in the Zulia region of this country, there is a high incidence of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson's, schizophrenia, mania, depression, tardive dyskinesia diseases, Tourette's disease, drug addiction and eating disorders. This has motivated us to direct our research into this important health area, in the search of a rational development of new drugs. This paper describes the design of analogs of N-[(2-chloro-quinoline)-3-yl-methyl]-4,5-dimethoxy-2-aminoindan hydrochloride (9) and the N-[(2-chloro-7-methyl-quinolin )-3-yl-methyl)]- 4,5-dimethoxy-2-aminoindan hydrochloride (10) as novel agents to counteract some of these pathologies. Their convergent organic synthesis was performed according to the synthetic strategies proposed, and the spectroscopic elucidation of the final products was made by NMR techniques 1H, 13C, DEPT, HETCOR and COSY, confirming their structures. The preliminary pharmacological evaluation in stereotypic behavior, demonstrates their agonistic activities on the central dopaminergic system, validating a ready-witted medicinal chemistry approach in the design of these click type drugs.


We investigate two modes of coupling the feedback energy from a central AGN to the neighboring gas in galaxy simulations: kinetic - velocity boost, and thermal heating. We formulate kinetic feedback models for energy-driven wind (EDW) and momentum-driven wind (MDW), using two free parameters: feedback efficiencyǫf, and AGN wind velocity vw. A novel numerical algorithm is implemented in the SPH code GADGET-3, to prevent the expansion of a hole in the gas distribution around the BH. We perform simulations of isolated evolution and merger of disk galaxies, of Milky-Way mass as well as lower and higher masses. We find that in the isolated galaxy BH kinetic feedback generates intermittent bipolar jet-like gas outflows. We infer that current prescriptions for BH subgrid physics in galaxy simulations can grow the BH to observed values even in an isolated disk galaxy. The BH growth is enhanced in a galaxy merger, which consequently requires different model parameters to fit the observations than an isolated case. Comparing the [MBH σ⋆] relation obtained in our simulations with observational data, we conclude that it is possible to find parameter sets for a fit in all the models (e.g. vw = 10000 km/s and ǫf = 0.25 for BH kinetic EDW), except for the case with MDW feedback in a galaxy merger, in which the BH is always too massive. The BH thermal feedback implementation of Springel, Di Matteo & Hernquist (2005) within the multiphase star-formation model is found to have negligible impact on gas properties; and the effect claimed in all previous studies is attributed to gas depletion around the BH by the creation of an artificial hole. The BH mass accretion rate in our simulations exhibit heavy fluctuations. The star formation rate is quenched with feedback by removal of gas. The circumgalactic medium (CGM) gas at galactocentric distances (20 100)h 1 kpc are found to give the best metallicity observational diagnostic to distinguish between BH models.


Liquid crystals in confined geometries exhibit numerous complex structures often including topological defects that are controlled by the nematic elasticity, chirality and surface anchoring. In this work, we study the structures of cholesteric droplets pierced by cellulose fibres with planar anchoring at droplet and fibre surfaces. By varying the temperature we demonstrate the role of twisting power and droplet diameter on the equilibrium structures. The observed structures are complemented by detailed numerical simulations of possible director fields decorated by defects. Three distinct structures, a bipolar and two ring configurations, are identified experimentally and numerically. Designing cholesteric liquid crystal microdroplets on thin long threads opens new routes to produce fibre waveguides decorated with complex microresonators.


Background: Temporary postoperative pacing could enhance recovery of the cardiac function. The right ventricular pacing (RV) is commonly used, but it can cause dyssynchronous contraction of both ventricles. Biventricular pacing (BV) could improve the systolic function by synchronizing the ventricular contraction. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of biventricular pacing in improving the hemodynamics in the early postoperative period compared to other pacing modes. Methods: This is a clinical crossover trial including 50 patients who underwent open cardiac surgery in the period from September 2017 to September 2018. Mean age was 46.78± 12.09 years, and 50% were males. Temporary pacing leads were attached to the anterior wall of the right ventricle 1-2 cm paraseptally and the lateral wall of left ventricle 1-2 cm paraseptally. Each patient was paced for 3 minutes in the first 1-4 postoperative hours with 20 minutes washout period between different pacing modes. Study endpoints included cardiac output, ejection fraction (EF) and wall motion abnormality. Results: Biventricular and right ventricular pacing increased postoperative cardiac output (6.31± 1.28 and 5.2±0.72 L/min; respectively), but BV pacing was superior to RV pacing (P-value <0.001). The effect of BV pacing was more evident in patients with EF < 50% (7.27± 0.895 vs. 5.26 ± 0.634 L/min; p< 0.001). The postoperative EF improved during BV pacing (53.16± 4.71%) compared to RV pacing (49.4± 4.07%; P-value <0.001). Both BV and RV pacing were associated with less paradoxical septal wall motion abnormality (P-value <0.001). Conclusions: Temporary postoperative biventricular pacing improves hemodynamics compared to right ventricular and no pacing. Routine BV pacing is recommended especially in patients with low ejection fraction.


Sludges having a high solids content, e.g., from industrial wastewater or sewage treatment, are dewatered using a high-mol. poly(di-Me diallyl ammonium chloride) and a water-sol., high-mol., highly crosslinked copolymer of di-Me diallyl ammonium chloride and 0.1-3.0 mol % of a crosslinking polymer chosen from >=1 of Me triallyl ammonium chloride, tetraallyl ammonium chloride, triallyl amine hydrochloride, N,N,N',N'-tetraallyl ethylene diamine hydrochloride, and methylene bisacrylamide. The latter copolymer is used in amts. of 0.01-0.5 %, based on dry solids, at 276-310 K. [on SciFinder (R)]


Globalization and technology have changed the practice of law in dramatic ways. This is true not only in the U.S. and Canada, but around the world. Global regulatory trends have begun to emerge as lawyer regulators have had to respond to new developments. In 2012, Australian regulators Steve Mark and Tahlia Gordon and the author, who is a U.S. academic, documented some of these global trends in lawyer regulation. See Laurel S. Terry, Steve Mark, & Tahlia Gordon, Trends and Challenges in Lawyer Regulation: The Impact of Globalization and Technology, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 2661 (2012). Their article concluded that regulators face issues in common regarding "who" is regulated, "what" is regulated, "when" and "where" regulation occurs, "how" it occurs, and "why" it occurs. The current article examines Canadian lawyer regulation in light of the global trends Terry, Mark, and Gordon previously identified. The current article asks whether there is evidence in Canadian lawyer regulation of these same who-what-when-where-why-and-how issues. The article concludes that these trends are indeed present in Canada and explains why it is important for Canadian lawyers, regulators, clients, and other stakeholders to be aware of these global trends. The article also addresses the issue of whether these trends matter in a jurisdiction such as Saskatchewan that is not a global financial center on the order of New York, London or Toronto. The answer the article provides is "yes" – these trends are relevant to Saskatchewan and to jurisdictions throughout the world that care about lawyer regulation.


Many researchers have devoted their work to the development of modal analysis extraction techniques in order to obtain more reliable identification of the modal parameters. Also, as a consequence of all this work, there are some other works devoted to the evaluation and comparison of these methods in order to find which one is the most reliable method with respect to certain characteristics. In this thesis the Rational Fraction Polynomial (RFP) Method, the Prony or Complex Exponential Method (CEM), the Ibrahim Time Domain (ITD) Method, and Hilbert Envelope Method are used to evaluate how the accuracy of the damping ratio is affected with respect to various parameters and conditions. The investigation focuses in the estimation of damping ratio because among the modal parameters, it is the most difficult to model. Each method is evaluated individually in order to understand how the damping ratio estimation is affected with respect to each method when the characteristics of the FRF are changed. Also, they are compared to show that, in general, the Rational Fraction Polynomial Method is a more reliable method than the other methods. To investigate this, a simulated analytical data and an experimental data are processed to estimate the modal parameters, but focusing in the damping ratio. For the simulated analytical data the damping ratio's percent of error were calculated. The highest damping ratio's percent of error of the RFP was 0.0073501%. In the other hand, for the CEM, ITD, and Hilbert Envelope Method their highest damping ratio's percent of error were 83.02%, 99.82%, and 4.077%, respectively.


This commentary shares a personal 'learning curve' of a science communication researcher about the impact of (playful) tools and processes for inclusive deliberation on emerging techno-scientific topics in the contemporary era of two-way science and technology communication practices; needed and desired in responsible research and innovation (RRI) contexts. From macro-level impacts that these processes are supposed to have on research and innovation practices and society, as encouraged by the RRI community, the author discovers more about 'micro-level' impacts; through conversations with peers of her department Athena (VU University, Amsterdam), as well as through experiencing the SiP 2015 conference in Bristol. Based on that, she defines several 'impact-spheres': a modular set of flexibly defined micro-level impacts that events in RRI contexts can have on both academic and non-academic participants, with respect and relationship development as focal assets to aim for; individual (micro-)changes that potentially build up towards an 'RRI world' Abstract


Ultrasound elastography tracks tissue displacements under small levels of compression to obtain images of strain, a mechanical property useful in the detection and characterization of pathology. Due to the nature of ultrasound beamforming, only tissue displacements in the direction of beam propagation, referred to as 'axial', are measured to high quality, although an ability to measure other components of tissue displacement is desired to more fully characterize the mechanical behavior of tissue. Previous studies have used multiple one-dimensional (1D) angled axial displacements tracked from steered ultrasound beams to reconstruct improved quality trans-axial displacements within the scan plane ('lateral'). We show that two-dimensional (2D) displacement tracking is not possible with unmodified electronically-steered ultrasound data, and present a method of reshaping frames of steered ultrasound data to retain axial-lateral orthogonality, which permits 2D displacement tracking. Simulated and experimental ultrasound data are used to compare changes in image quality of lateral displacements reconstructed using 1D and 2D tracked steered axial and steered lateral data. Reconstructed lateral displacement image quality generally improves with the use of 2D displacement tracking at each steering angle, relative to axial tracking alone, particularly at high levels of compression. Due to the influence of tracking noise, unsteered lateral displacements exhibit greater accuracy than axial-based reconstructions at high levels of applied strain.


"... the book is wonderfully illustrated with full color and descriptive images that complement each tutorial or exercise. Alex's teaching background really rings through as every item is nicely structured and very informative. Overall Alex's book is a winner. Well structured, illustrated and most of all easy to read and understand. While the overall theme is based in architecture, the techniques can be applied to any discipline and the wide range of topics covered are excellently delivered."-Richard O'Brien, CatchUp Editor, the official SketchUcation newsletterThe one-stop guide to SketchUp for architects, designers, and buildersSketchUp is the tool of choice for architects, interior designers, and construction professionals. Though the basics are simple to understand, getting the most out of it requires deeper instruction and guidance. Architectural Design with Google SketchUp uses easy-to-understand tutorials to describe both common and advanced process, illustrated throughout with full-color renderings.Handy sidebars throughout the book cover fundamentals and background informationEnd-of-chapter exercises help readers master new skills and techniquesA robust companion website includes helpful videos, sample files, and plug-ins


Summary The paper deals with some engineering aspects of residual soils in the tropics including experience of halloysitic soils during the construction of the Ruiru Dam in Kenya and the more detailed studies of residual soils carried out during the construction of the Sasumua Dam. Such soils, as compacted, have an unusually low dry density and high optimum moisture content but high shear strength. Engineering properties are apparently inconsistent with the index properties; moreover, standard control tests show marked variations. Mineralogical studies can explain some of these apparent irregularities. Water is bound to the halloysite crystals and the measured proportion of bound water varies according to the treatment in the test method. Further, the grading as determined by hydrometer tests varies markedly according to the dispersing agent used. The halloysite particles are collected in robust silt-sized clusters imparting to the soil a high shear strength and many of the properties of a granular material.


Natural fiber composites have various applications, since they can bring interesting mechanical and sustainability properties. Extrusion with a single- or twin-screw is the main industrial process to incorporate lignocellulosic fibers into polymers. In this review, the origin and preparation of lignocellulosic fibers are first presented, before discussing the composite processing, with a particular emphasis on the impact of process conditions on the composites final properties that is highly related to the final application. A broad panel of composites reinforced with lignocellulosic fibers is reviewed along with their polymeric matrix, lignocellulosic fiber type and pretreatments, and extrusion process conditions. Finally, the most critical extrusion process parameters (screw profile, speed and temperature) are also examined in order to determine some guidelines to optimize lignocellulosic fiber composites preparation.


This text introduces the beginner to FORTRAN. To help the reader develop analysis skills while learning programming, engineering computations are incorporated with sound programming practices. Eight major programming assignments sections, each with a sample and solved model, illustrate the methods of preceding chapters, as well as introduce discussions concerning engineering orientation. This second edition integrates numerous advanced topics in numerical methods as they relate to computational procedures in order to reinforce their application in other courses such as calculus and physics. Topics especially tailored to the beginning user include matrix equations, root of functions, curve-fitting, series expansions, integration and differentiation and differential equations.


Despite the growing national interest and body of literature concerning the Indian Residential School System, there has been little acknowledgement of the history of hockey within these schools. This thesis is an examination of hockey programs at three Protestant-run Indian residential schools in northwestern Ontario and western Manitoba during the middle of the twentieth century. By using church and government documents, this study highlights the complex relationship between settler colonialism, sport, and Indigenous survival. It reveals that while hockey was implemented into residential school curriculum as a means of assimilation, public relations, and eventually integration, it was also a space of negotiation, entertainment, identity, and even survival for Indigenous children within these schools. Microlevel decisions and effects greatly influenced the advancement of hockey from a local-level disciplinary technique to a federally mandated aspect of Indian education.


Since earlier investigations revealed that interplanted legumes competed with a late crop of corn (Zea mays L.) and suggested that legumes were incapable of benefiting associated nonlegumes over the same growing period, relatively short-season legumes, calopo (Calopogonium mucunoides), cowpea (Vigna sinensis), and greengram (Phaseolus aureus), were interplanted with corn in the early cropping season to measure their effects on both the early planted and the late-planted corn crops. Two days after harvesting the intercrops of corn and legumes, soil samples from the 0- to 15- and 15- to 30-cm depths were collected from the unfertilized plots of control (no legume), cowpea, greengram, and calopo order to determine in the greenhouse the soil N status. Two other greenhouse experiments were conducted to check the N-fixing and N-excreting ability of the legumes. The investigations showed that calopo, cowpea, and greengram fixed N when planted alone and when interplanted with corn. Cowpea and calopo interplanted with corn did not benefit the early corn crop, but as green manure they were an important source of N for the corn in the late-cropping season. On the other hand, greengram interplanted with corn in the early season increased yield of the early corn crop but contributed very little to the yield of the late corn crop. The data also revealed that tropical legumes are capable of fixing large quantities of N under improved conditions. Calopo, cowpea, and greengram fixed equivalents of 450, 354, and 324 kg/ha, respectively, when inoculated and grown in a complete nutrient culture (except for N) as compared to 370, 157, and 63 kg/ha, respectively, when not inoculated and grown in unfertilized soil.


We demonstrate a method to realize vertically oriented Ge nanowires on Si(111) substrates. Ge nanowires were grown by chemical vapor deposition using Au nanoparticles to seed nanowire growth via a vapor–liquid–solid growth mechanism. Rapid oxidation of Si during Au nanoparticle application inhibits the growth of vertically oriented Ge nanowires directly on Si. The present method employs thin Ge buffer layers grown at low temperature less than 600 °C to circumvent the oxidation problem. By using a thin Ge buffer layer with root-mean-square roughness of ∼ 2 nm, the yield of vertically oriented Ge nanowires is as high as 96.3%. This yield is comparable to that of homoepitaxial Ge nanowires. Furthermore, branched Ge nanowires could be successfully grown on these vertically oriented Ge nanowires by a secondary seeding technique. Since the buffer layers are grown under moderate conditions without any high temperature processing steps, this method has a wide process window highly suitable for Si-based microelectronics.


This Article analyzes the childhood obesity epidemic, and junk food advertising to children, from the perspective of "critical realism," an approach to legal theory that seeks to incorporate important insights from social psychology and other social sciences. Exploring the First Amendment implications of a proposed ban on junk food advertising, the Article argues that the central conception of human agency implicit in the Supreme Court's commercial speech jurisprudence rests on intuitively grounded presumptions that are false, and which threaten to leave consumers vulnerable to manipulation through advertising in ways consumers do not anticipate or appreciate. However, the Article explains that a second, more accurate, conception of human agency, which takes into account non-intuitive realities concerning the sources of human behavior, is also evident in the Court's commercial speech jurisprudence. The Article concludes that by developing and exploiting this second conception in the commercial speech cases, a qualified ban on junk food advertising can be seen as normatively justifiable and constitutionally viable.


PURPOSE
Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is the most common form of glaucoma and is accompanied by elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) resulting from increased aqueous humor outflow resistance through the trabecular meshwork (TM). The pathological mechanisms underlying increased outflow resistance have not been fully delineated. We recently demonstrated that chronic endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in the TM is associated with ocular hypertension in mouse models of glaucoma. The purpose of this study was to determine whether ER stress is also increased in human glaucomatous TM cells and tissues.

METHODS
Endoplasmic reticulum stress markers including GRP78, GRP94, and C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) were examined by immunohistochemistry in the TM of age-matched normal (n = 18) and open-angle glaucoma donors (n = 18). GRP78, GRP94, activating transcription factor (ATF)-4, endoplasmic oxidoreductin-1alpha (ERO-1α), phosphorylated eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2α (EIF-2α), and CHOP were examined by Western blot analysis in TM tissue lysates from age-matched normal (n = 4) and POAG donors (n = 5). In addition, ER stress markers were examined in primary TM cells isolated from normal (n = 4 NTM) and glaucoma (n = 4 GTM) human donors.

RESULTS
Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated a significant increase in GRP78 and GRP94 in the glaucomatous TM (n = 18) compared to normal TM (P < 0.0001, n = 18). Interestingly, there was minimum CHOP immunostaining observed in normal TM tissues. However, there was a 3-fold increase in CHOP levels in the glaucomatous TM (P < 0.0001; n = 18), indicating the presence of chronic ER stress in the glaucomatous TM. Western blot analysis of TM tissue lysates also demonstrated increased ER stress markers in the glaucomatous TM tissues including GRP78, GRP94, ATF-4, ERO-1α, and CHOP. Densitometric analysis of Western blots showed a significant increase in ATF-4, ERO-1α, and CHOP expression in the glaucomatous TM (n = 5) compared to age-matched normal TM (n = 4). In addition, primary TM cells obtained from glaucoma donors demonstrated increased ER stress markers including increased GRP78, GRP94, ATF-4, ERO-1α, and CHOP compared to normal TM cells. However, glaucomatous TM cells did not show splicing of XBP-1, a marker of unfolded protein response pathway.

CONCLUSIONS
These studies indicate the presence of chronic ER stress in human glaucomatous TM tissues and cells and further suggest that ER stress pathway may provide a novel target for developing disease-modifying glaucoma treatments.


Problem statement: In only a few years, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) has evolved from an exotic technology to a mainstream tool used by service providers to create revenue-generating services. MPLS provides a high reliable Label Switched Path (LSP). MPLS failures may degrade the reliability of the MPLS networks. Approach: For that reason, many studies have been conducted to keep the high reliability and survivability of the MPLS networks. Unlike User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Transmission Control Protocol does not perform well in case of like-failure of MPLS networks because of its inability to distinguish packet loss due to link-failure. After the recovery time, TCP takes longer time than UDP to continue as it was before the failure. Results: In terms of packet loss, TCP performs better than UDP. However, the receiving rate of the TCP traffic is much worse than UDP traffic. A need for a mechanism to improve the behavior of TCP after a link failure is needed. This study focused on comparing the behavior of different types TCP as well as UDP traffic over MPLS networks in case of link, node or congestion failures. Conclusion: Although extensions of RSVP-TE protocol support fast recovery mechanism of MPLS networks, the behavior of TCP will be affected during recovery time much more than with UDP.


A biophysically robust crop simulation model can assist industry planning and farmer decision-making via simulation analyses to quantify production potential and production risks. Accordingly, we developed a simple, yet mechanistic peanut simulation model for use in assessing climatic risks to production potential for both irrigated and dryland conditions. The model simulates pod yield, biomass accumulation, crop leaf area, phenology, and soil water balance and is suitable for application over a diverse range of production environments. The model uses a daily time step, utilizes readily available weather and soil information, and assumes no nutrient limitations. The model nas tested on numerous data from experiments spanning a broad range of environments in the tropics and subtropics. The model performed satisfactorily accounting for 89% of the variation in pod yield on data sets derived from independent experiments, which included crops yielding from 1 to 7 t ha(-1). Limitations of the model and aspects requiring better understanding to improve quantification are discussed. Despite some limitations, the model attains a useful degree of predictive skill for a broad range of situations and environments. This outcome is testimony to the utility of the simple, generic framework used as the basis for this model. The model is suitable for simulation studies aimed at assisting industry planning and farmer decision-making.


From 1994 through 2000, Nortel Networks transformed itself from a technology-focused to an opportunity/customer-focused company. By 2000, Nortel was a profitable, innovative leader in the telecommunications industry. The change was the result of an ambitious effort to redesign its entire new product development (NPD) process such that time-to-market was significantly reduced. NPD is highly knowledge-intensive work based on the individual and collective expertise of employees. The primary focus of this case study is on Nortel's efforts to reengineer the front-end of its NPD process and capitalize on knowledge assets. This effort was built around a processoriented knowledge management (KM) strategy, involving a tripartite and systematic focus on process, people, and technology. Through our case analysis we develop a model of KM success by exploring Nortel's KM strategy and the managerial, resource, and environmental factors that influenced Nortel's success. Nortel's experiences suggest lessons for other firms attempting to manage knowledge assets in core business processes.


In the past two decades there have been several projects on Spoken Language Understanding (SLU).
In the early nineties DARPA ATIS project aimed at providing a natural language interface to a travel information database.
Following the ATIS project, DARPA Communicator project aimed at building a spoken dialog system automatically providing information on flights and travel reservation.
These two projects defined a first generation of conversational systems.
In late nineties ``How may I help you'' project from AT\&T,
with Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition (LVCSR) and mixed initiatives spoken interfaces,
started the second generation of conversational systems,
which later have been improved integrating approaches based on machine learning techniques.
The European funded project LUNA aims at starting the third generation of spoken language interfaces.
In the context of this project we have acquired the first Italian corpus of spontaneous speech from real users engaged in a problem solving task, as opposed to previous projects.
The corpus contains transcriptions and annotations based on a new multilevel protocol studied specifically for the goal of the LUNA project.
The task of Spoken Language Understanding is the extraction of the meaning structure from spoken utterances in conversational systems. For this purpose, two main statistical learning paradigms have been proposed in the last decades: generative and discriminative models.
The former are robust to over-fitting and they are less affected by noise but they cannot easily integrate complex structures (e.g. trees). In contrast, the latter can easily integrate very complex features that can capture arbitrarily long distance dependencies. On the other hand they tend to over-fit training data and so they are less robust to annotation errors in the data needed to learn the model.
This work presents an exhaustive study of Spoken Language Understanding models, putting particular focus on structural features used in a Joint Generative and Discriminative learning framework. This combines the strengths of both approaches while training segmentation and labeling models for SLU. Its main characteristic is the use of Kernel Methods to encode structured features in Support Vector Machines, which in turn re-rank the hypotheses produced by an first step SLU module based either on Stochastic Finite State Transducers or Conditional Random Fields. Joint models based on transducers are also amenable to decode word lattices generated by large vocabulary speech recognizers.
We show the benefit of our approach with comparative experiments among generative, discriminative and joint models on some of the most representative corpora of SLU, for a total of four corpora in four different languages: the ATIS corpus (English), the MEDIA corpus (French) and the LUNA Italian and Polish corpora (Italian and Polish respectively). These also represent three different kinds of domain applications, i.e. informational, transactional and problem-solving domains.
The results, although depending on the task and in some range on the first model baseline, show that joint models improve in most cases the state-of-the-art, especially when a small training set is available.


This study presents the analysis of thermal lens fringes obtained by heating the Nile-blue/ethanol solution with a He–Cd laser in a Michelson interferometer by utilising the Hilbert transform method (HTM) and the Fourier transform method (FTM) with a Gaussian filter. HTM and FTM are used for obtaining local phase and refractive index change maps of the interferograms. The results reveal that HTM creates harmonics in the frequency spectrum; hence, the signal cannot be filtered very accurately, whereas FTM with a Gaussian filter can create a smooth filtering effect.


The growing demand for municipal water due to population increase and urbanization impels water managers to reconsider the existing traditional supply-sided management approach. Strengthening of water demand management (WDM) policies by improving water use efficiency has been adopted as a key target in arid regions, in particular. Indeed, increasing the added value per m 3 of water used is gaining importance, since it is a more environmentally-friendly strategy with regard to water resource management than expanding water infrastructure assets. Monitoring the water use efficiency index is the commonly applied method for assessing the performance of municipal water management that depends on physical (real) losses and non-physical (apparent) losses constituting non-revenue water (NRW). In this paper, the results of the study conducted in three medium-size urban settlements, namely Ordu, Carsamba and Ceyhan, are presented. Field surveys and evaluation of the data relating to municipal customer service have been carried out. In the light of the findings covering a four-year period between 2004–2007, the origin and reasons for NRW, and the means and tools for reducing it in order to improve water use efficiency are discussed.


Digital traces occur as a consequence of using digital devices or applications, but they can also be produced intentionally, as in the case of self-tracking activities. Self-tracking increases the amount of data that represents users' or communities' identity traces, and individuals, institutions, and companies are interested in analyzing these data, but few consider the framing conditions of the data collection, distribution, and evaluation. This article demonstrates how contextual factors influence self-observation data. Based on approaches of a sociology of quantification and a theoretical discussion of metadata in scientific research, it examines the individual, social, and technological contextual factors that influence the production, analysis, distribution, and interpretation of digital self-tracking data. The article develops systematization of the phenomenon of self-tracking data.


The increasing popularity of social interactions and geotagged, user-generated content has transformed the television viewing experience from laid-back video watching behavior into a "lean-forward"' socially engaged experience. This article describes a multiscreen, social TV system integrated with social sense via a second screen as a novel paradigm for content consumption. This new application is built upon the authors' cloud-centric media platform, which provides on-demand virtual machines for content platform services, including media distribution, storage, and processing. The media platform is also integrated with a Big Data social platform that crawls and mines social data related to the media content. Specifically, this new social TV approach consists of three key subsystems: interactive TV, social sense, and multiscreen orchestration. Interactive TV implements a cloud-based, social TV system, offering rich social features; social sense discovers the geolocation-aware public perception and knowledge related to the media content; and multiscreen orchestration provides an intuitive and user-friendly human-computer interface to combine the two other subsystems, fusing the TV viewing experience with social perception. The authors have built a proof-of-concept demo over a private cloud at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Feature verification and performance comparisons demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach in transforming the TV viewing experience.


Dualism in ralph ellison's invisible man I am outside of history, i wash i had some peanuts, it looks hungry there in its cage i am inside of history, its hungrier than i thot --Ishmael Reed (1972) The fields of African American literature and disability studies have only recently begun to inform each other's critical discourses. Many of the existing critical works about disability in African American literature primarily focus on the body and the literary portrayal and role of physical disabilities. (1) In Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson makes the compelling argument that African American writers such as Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Ann Petry "offer an African-American female self grounded in the singular body that bears the etchings of history and whose validation, power, and identity derive from physical difference and resistance to cultural norms" (105, emphasis added). In light of American history's traumatic impact on the African American body, the discussion of physical difference and disability in African American literature needs further analysis. Additionally, critics need to theorize the different mind in African American literature, which, as I argue below, in many ways "bears the etchings of history." More specifically, contemporary African American literature has portrayed characters with different, melancholic minds as figures who are not to be pathologized but who must be read as subjects engaged in acts of political resistance to dominant versions of memory and historiography. While melancholia has traditionally been understood as a personal, disabling mental or emotional condition, I argue that contemporary African American literature has claimed this form of mental difference as a source of political empowerment, while simultaneously holding a white racist system responsible for the emergence of this condition of emotional difference. Esther Sanchez-Pardo has examined the link between melancholia, modernism, sexuality, and race; she argues that "melancholia has a constitutive role in modernist sexualities" (2). I would like to expand on this examination by offering a discussion of Freudian ideas of melancholia and their relationship to contemporary African American literature. Perhaps the closest link between disability studies and the theorization of mental or emotional difference in contemporary African American literature can be located in the growing field of trauma studies. In recent years J. Brooks Bouson, Lisa Garbus, Robert Holton, Deborah Horvitz, Lisa Woolfork, and other critics have drawn on Cathy Caruth's works to discuss the wounded, altered, and literally or metaphorically disabled black self in African American literature. Another form of mental difference has been examined by Katy Ryan in "Revolutionary Suicide in Toni Morrison's Fiction." Ryan discusses the role of what may be the ultimate self-inflicted "disability" in Morrison's works. None of these critical examinations, however, has established an explicit link with disability studies. My discussion of melancholia in contemporary African American literature draws on both disability studies and trauma studies in an attempt to formulate a new theory of loss in African American literature. Traditional western theories of mourning and melancholia define melancholia as a mental or emotional condition that has the potential to disable a subject to the point of death or, more precisely, suicide. However, in thinking through the role of melancholia in twentieth-century African American literature one must engage a series of problems. First, it is imperative to revisit western definitions and theories of the mourning or melancholic subject. Most of these theories build on Freudian approaches to mourning. Beyond an assessment of what it means to mourn or to be melancholic according to traditional western classifications, it is crucial to explore the extent to which antebellum African Americans were allowed access to such emotional expressions and how antebellum realities have left an imprint on twentieth-century African American literature. …


The World Health Organization lists tuberculosis among the top 3 leading causes of death from a single infectious agent, and reported cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are on the rise. In an attempt to improve MDR-TB drug-directed therapy, we synthesized 11 4-substituted piperazine derivatives of 3-hydroxy-6-methyl-4H-pyran-4-one pharmacophore by reacting 5-hydroxy-2-methyl-4H-pyran-4-one with suitable piperazine derivatives under Mannich reaction conditions. Inhibitory effects of the 11 compounds on Escherichia coli DNA gyrase were evaluated via DNA gyrase supercoiling assay. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the 11 compounds and 41 compounds from our previous studies against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37RV were assessed, in vitro, by a broth dilution method. To determine the interaction pattern between active site amino acids and all 52 compounds, homology modeling for the construction of M. tuberculosis DNA gyrase B subunit was performed, followed by a docking study. The data presented here could prove useful in future studies on interaction field analysis and high throughput virtual screening of the derivatives of the 3-hydroxy-6-methyl-4H-pyran-4-one pharmacophore toward the development of more clinically applicable compounds.


Rituximab (RTX) improves the outcome in patients with systemic diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), but its benefit in primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is unclear. In the present study, a single-institution retrospective analysis was performed for 12 patients with newly diagnosed PCNSL treated with combined high-dose methotrexate (HD-MTX) and RTX. MTX was administered biweekly at 8 g/m2/dose until a complete response (CR) was achieved or for a maximum of eight doses. RTX was provided for a total of eight weekly doses at 375 mg/m2/dose. Following a median of 11 cycles of MTX, the radiographic overall response rate was 91% and the CR rate was 58%. A CR was achieved after a median 6 cycles of MTX. The median progression-free survival time was 22 months and the median overall survival time has not yet been attained. These results compare favorably to single-agent HD-MTX and suggest a role for immunochemotherapy in the treatment of PCNSL.


Structural adhesives are materials that are capable of bearing significant loads in shear, and sometimes tension, over a range of strains and strain rates. Adhesively bonded structures can dissipate large amounts of mechanical energy and can be lighter and more efficient than many bolted or vibration welded parts. The largest barrier to using structural adhesives in more applications is the many challenges engineers are presented with when designing and analyzing adhesively bonded structures. This study develops, characterizes and compares several material models for use in finite element analysis of adhesively bonded structures, in general, and a bonded tongue and groove (TNG) joint in particular. The results indicate that it is possible to develop a general material model for ductile adhesives used in structural applications under quasi-static conditions. Furthermore, the results also show that it is also possible to take bulk material data and apply it to an adhesively bonded specimen provided that the mode of failure of the bulk test specimen closely approximates the mode of failure of the bonded joint.


Determining relations between brain structure and function is a principal focus of evolutionary neurobiology. Here we investigate covariation between singing behaviour and the neuroanatomy in eight species of sylviid warblers from the closely related Acrocephalus and Locustella genera. We found a significant positive correlation between repertoire size and the volume of the higher vocal centre after controlling for variation in brain size and phylogenetic relatedness across species. This group is of particular interest, as earlier work has shown that an increase in male song complexity (as measured by syllable repertoire size) is caused by sexual selection pressure acting through female choice. Thus, in males of Acrocephalus species (which have complex songs), sexual selection appears to have led to increases in both syllable repertoire size and the relative volume of the higher vocal centre. In contrast, Locustella species have very simple songs, and repertoire size and the relative volume of the higher vocal centre remain small in males of these species. These results indicate that sexual selection may have shaped the evolution of a particular behavioural trait (song) by altering the relevant controlling area of the brain (higher vocal centre).


Charles L. Mee is a major American writer whose playscollages/montages for the theatreare widely produced and very influential. This is the first overview of Mee's work, edited and with writings by Erin B. Mee. Included in this section are an analytic introduction, an interview, a manifesto, a chronology, and a play.