This thesis brings together ideas from psychology (particularly the work of Sever and Townsend 1979) and from linguistics (particularly the work of Partee, 1983 and Moens and Steedman 1986) about the nature of temporal representation, especially with regard to the effect of different temporal connectives on language processing. Experiments in the second chapter looked at memory for temporal information and order and results indicated that information about temporal order is less well remembered that information about spatial order. The third chapter examines the role of before as introducing sentences that can be either factive or non-facrive and concluded mat there is no clear divide between these two types of sentence, the difference depends on knowledge of regularities in the world, and it is only with clearly non-factive before sentences that readers have definite expectations . about factivity. This theme is continued in the fourth chapter which looks at SALIENCE, by examining continuations from sentences with temporal connectives and notes that a tendency to continue text from the main clause is modified by an effect of continuing from the las: occurring event, irrespective of order in the text. The fifth chapter examines the effect of context for sentence processing and concludes that context consistent with the main clause of a sentence is preferred. It also shows that similar processes are involved in building up a model containing temporal information to those involved in building a model of a spatial array. The last experiment demonstrates that lack of a clear temporal referent disrupts language processing in the same way as lack of a clear antecedent for a pronoun does. The results are discussed in terms of a possible model for representation which would include events being represented in a form similar to a "nucleus".


The coastal-zone wetland in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province is the largest winter habitat of the Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) in the world. The essential research question addressed in this paper is: What is the carrying capacity for Red-crowned Cranes in this habitat? Since water is ample in the salt marsh, the two vital limiting factors for the crane habitat are food and shelter. In this study, based upon crane numbers and their distribution during the winter of 2004-2005, the authors adopt the "Neu technique" to analyze habitat selection of Red-crowned Cranes to 8 types of tidal flat environments in the Yancheng Nature Reserve. Applying the "heat quantity method", we find corn feed distributed by the nature reserve staff cannot support survival of wild cranes. Subsequently, using the "gravimetric method", with the crane utilization of each habitat as a weighting, we estimate that total food supply in the nature reserve is far greater than required by the crane population in one winter season. This indicates that food supply is not a determining factor for this particular habitat selection. Moreover, from analysis of food selectivity it is evident that the preferred food comprises vegetal paddy chaff and supplemental corn feed, with natural vegetation occupying only a small proportion of their total food consumption. The spatial distribution of cranes was between 0.8-2.5 individuals per km2, so that an optimum habitat of 1000 km2 may contain 800-2500 cranes. Observations from the present study show that preferred spatial location has shrunk in the past 10 years toward a core area surrounded by a buffer area (641 km2 in all), so that potentially the entire nature reserve could support ~570-2000 cranes. In addition, some 500 cranes are contained within an artificial waterfowl lake. In total it appears that the carrying capacity of the Yancheng Nature Reserve is of order 2500-3000 cranes, and they prefer to roost in a coastal habitat of lower salinity where food supply is plentiful, and which is distant from human disturbance.


Purpose Previous studies with children and adults have demonstrated a familiar talker advantage-better word recognition for familiar talkers. The goal of the current study was to test whether this phenomenon is modulated by a child's language ability. Method Sixty children with a range of language ability were trained to learn the voices of 3 foreign-accented, German-English bilingual talkers and received feedback about their performance. Both before and after this talker voice training, children completed a spoken word recognition task in which they heard consonant-vowel-consonant words mixed with noise that were spoken by the 3 familiarized talkers and by 3 unfamiliar German-English bilinguals. Results Two findings emerged from this study: First, children with both higher and lower language ability performed similarly on the familiarized talkers. Second, children with higher language scores performed similarly on both the familiarized and unfamiliar talkers, whereas children with lower language scores performed worse on the unfamiliar talkers compared to familiar talkers, suggesting an inability to generalize to novel, unfamiliar talkers who spoke with a similar accent. Discussion Together, these findings indicate that children with higher language scores are able to generalize knowledge about foreign-accented talkers to help spoken word recognition for novel talkers with the same accent. In contrast, children with lower language skills did not exhibit the same magnitude of generalization. This lack of generalization to similar talkers may mean that children with lower language skills are at a disadvantage in spoken language tasks because they are unable to process speech as well when listening to unfamiliar talkers.


A method of obtaining a topology preserving map from virtual coordinates of a sensor network is presented. In a Virtual Coordinate System (VCS), a node is identified by a vector containing its distances, in hops, to a set of nodes called anchors. VCS is a higher dimensional abstraction of the connectivity map of nodes, with dimensionality defined by the number of anchors. Physical layout information such as physical voids and even relative physical positions of sensor nodes with respect to X-Y directions are absent in a VCS description, and obtaining the physical topology has not been possible up to now. A novel technique, based on Singular Value Decomposition, is presented to extract a topology preserving map from VCS. Three options with different computation and communication complexities, as a result of using different subsets of coordinates as the input, are presented and analyzed; the input for the three cases consist of a) the entire virtual coordinate set, b)only the virtual coordinates of anchors, and c) virtual coordinates of a random set of nodes. Evaluation results indicate that last two approaches achieve comparable accuracy to the first, but with significantly less complexity. Topology preserving maps for networks representing a variety of topologies and shapes are extracted. A new metric termed Topology Preservation Error (E TP ) is defined to evaluate the topology preservation; it accounts for both the number of node flips and degree of the flips. The techniques extract topology preserving maps with E TP less than 2%


Objective. To evaluate the effects of habitual physical activity (PA) on the metabolic syndrome (MS) in young adult men and women. Research methods and procedures. Cross‐sectional PA data were utilized from 249 women and 237 men, aged 18–40 years in the Fels Longitudinal Study. MS components—abdominal circumference (AC), triglycerides (TG), HDL, blood pressure (BP), and fasting glucose (FG)—were dichotomized according to the National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III revised criteria. Leisure, sport, work, and total PA scores were calculated using the Baecke Questionnaire of Habitual Physical Activity. Multiple logistic regression modeling assessed the effects of PA, age, smoking, and BMI on MS status. Results. 26.9% of men and 19.3% of women had MS. For men, MS risk was reduced with increases in both total PA [OR = 0.65 (95% CI: 0.47, 0.90)] and sport PA [OR = 0.40 (95% CI: 0.23, 0.70)]. AC, TG, and HDL values also improved with total and sport PA. Among women, the risk for MS was marginally reduced by total PA [OR = 0.72 (95% CI: 0.50, 1.02)] and HDL levels were increased by both total PA [OR = 0.79 (95% CI: 0.63, 0.98)] and sport PA [OR = 0.54 (95% CI: 0.35, 0.84)]. Discussion. Increased total and sport PA reduces risk for the MS in young men, though not as clearly in young women. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 19:544–550, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The paper investigates the empirical relevance of the negative financial spillovers hypothesis according to which fiscal imbalances in one EMU member country bid up the interest rate faced by all other participants in the currency union. This idea questions the ability of financial markets to correctly price various types of risk now that the elimination of exchange rate fluctuations and the rapid integration of national government bond markets have made securities issued by different European governments closer substitutes. The paper takes an eclectic approach and tackles the issue from different angles, reviewing historical episodes, testing the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis in Europe as a whole and finally analyzing the impact of domestic and foreign fiscal variables on European bond yields. Despite the strong comovements displayed by European interest rates, empirical evidence does not support the idea that fiscal variables are a key determinant of these interrelations.


Radiative forcing impacts due to increased harvesting of boreal forests for use as transportation biofuel in Norway are quantified using simple climate models together with life cycle emission data, MODIS surface albedo data, and a dynamic land use model tracking carbon flux and clear-cut area changes within productive forests over a 100-year management period. We approximate the magnitude of radiative forcing due to albedo changes and compare it to the forcing due to changes in the carbon cycle for purposes of attributing the net result, along with changes in fossil fuel emissions, to the combined anthropogenic land use plus transport fuel system. Depending on albedo uncertainty and uncertainty about the geographic distribution of future logging activity, we report a range of results, thus only general conclusions about the magnitude of the carbon offset potential due to changes in surface albedo can be drawn. Nevertheless, our results have important implications for how forests might be managed for mitigating climate change in light of this additional biophysical criterion, and in particular, on future biofuel policies throughout the region. Future research efforts should be directed at understanding the relationships between the physical properties of managed forests and albedo, and how albedo changes in time as a result of specific management interventions.


OBJECTIVES
Digital ulcers (DUs) are frequent manifestations of systemic scleroderma (SSc). This study assessed functional limitations due to DUs among patients enrolled in the Digital Ulcer Outcome (DUO) Registry, an international, multicentre, observational registry of SSc patients with DU disease.

METHODS
Patients completed at enrolment a DU-specific functional assessment questionnaire with a 1-month recall period, measuring impairment in work and daily activities, and hours of help needed from others. Physician-reported clinical parameters were used to describe the population. For patients who completed at least part of the questionnaire, descriptive analyses were performed for overall results, and stratified by number of DUs at enrolment.

RESULTS
This study included 2327 patients who completed at least part of the questionnaire. For patients with 0, 1-2, and ≥3 DUs at enrolment, mean overall work impairment during the prior month among employed/self-employed patients was 28%, 42%, and 48%, respectively. Across all included patients, ability to perform daily activities was impaired on average by 35%, 54%, and 63%, respectively. Patients required a mean of 2.0, 8.7, and 8.8 hours of paid help and 17.0, 35.9, and 63.7 hours of unpaid help, respectively, due to DUs in the prior month. Patients with DUs had more complications and medication use than patients with no DUs.

CONCLUSIONS
With increasing number of DUs, SSc patients reported more impairment in work and daily activities and required more support from others.


Improving the academic achievements of disadvantaged students is one of the most important educational issues for many countries and regions including Taiwan. To achieve the goal, governments and non-governmental organizations in Taiwan have been allocating resources to after-school tutoring and private supplementary tutoring for the disadvantaged middle school students over the years. However, it is still uncertain whether these measures are truly effective. To determine whether disadvantaged students' academic achievement is improved by after-school learning (including private supplementary tutoring and after-school tutoring) and self-efficacy, analysis is accomplished using the "Taiwan Database of Children and Youth in Poverty". Some findings include: 1) nearly half of these disadvantaged students do not attend after-school learning, while their academic achievements are poorer; 2) majority of these students have lower self-efficacies, however their self-efficacies is slightly enhanced by after-school learning; 3) the higher the students' self-efficacies are, the slightly better their academic achievements will be; 4) attending after-school learning seems to have a direct effect on the slight improvement towards the students' academic achievements, furthermore, attending after-school learning can also indirectly affect the slight improvement of students' academic achievements through self-efficacies; and 5) among the different types of after-school learning, private supplementary tutoring is more effective than after-school tutoring in helping disadvantaged students increase their percentage in having better academic achievements. Based on these findings, suggestions are proposed to the education authorities for future references.


This article explores dilemmas that arise when using a participatory, experiential neighborhood problem-solving and planning program in settings that have different expectations and beliefs about youth and adults partnering in organizational and community decision-making. Using Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecology of human development and Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker's (2010) pyramid of youth participation, a series of dilemmas are explored. These dilemmas include: negotiating challenges of power; scaling up youth-adult partnerships into organizational decision-making and governance; reconciling tensions between practices, principles, and values when disseminating a program from one organization to another; dealing with organizational events that occur outside the youth program; and succumbing to pressure to achieve funder-derived outcomes. Two insights emerge from the analysis of these dilemmas. First, young people embrace adult-provided structure when adults and young people are not ready to work in emancipatory youth-adult partnerships. Second, as we move toward emancipatory youth-adult partnerships, the developmental sphere of youth programs has to expand to include the activities, relationships, and roles that traditionally have been limited to organizational leadership and governance. Likewise the developmental sphere of the governing body has to incorporate the activities, relationships, and roles of what has typically been the youth program.


Research on business model development has focused on the relationships between elements of value conceptualization and organization having a linear sequence in which business models are first designed and then implemented. Another stream of research points to business model development with these elements interacting in a cyclical manner. There is a need to improve our understanding of the connective mechanisms and dynamics involved in business model development, particularly from the challenging perspective of commercializing innovations. The aim of this paper was to explore business model development during the commercialization of innovations through a case‐based qualitative study. This study found from four case studies that specific elements of business model development, representative of the conceptualization of value and organizing for value creation, integrate in a dynamic and cyclical process in the commercialization of technology innovations. The study provides empirical evidence that adds new insights to literature on sequential and more interactive processes of business model development. It also contributes to literature on business model development and particularly how it relates to the commercialization of innovations.


In Detail High-end email and groupware is a domain where only few vendors can provide solutions. It is where companies like HP, Novell, or Scalix offer reliable and scalable products. And Scalix is the only one that has licensed parts under a free and open-source license (Scalix Public License). Scalix runs on Linux, is free for up to 10 users, offers a lot of possible features, ranging from caldav or syncml to clusters, and supports any client. Its flexible architecture gives you the freedom to choose your hardware platform, desktop client, security, directory, and storage infrastructure. "With over one million mailboxes deployed, 140,000 Community Edition downloads, 5,500 community forum members and almost 700 corporate customers, the Scalix collaborating platform is the most field-proven Linux e-mail and group calendaring solution available to enterprise." --The Scalix website With the right know-how, Scalix can be managed easily, and several thousand mailboxes are possible on a single server, Web GUIs and command-line tools help the administrator, and Scalix integrates easily with other professional tools, such as OpenVPN, Nagios, and others. During its history of almost 20 years, many tools and programs have been developed for Scalix to help you with your routine work. While the official documentation has several thousand pages, which are not all up to date, this book gives a detailed overview from installation to advanced setups and best practices for configuration and security. It will help you implement and manage both the free open-source Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition of Scalix.The author provides both a concise description of the features of Scalix and an easy-to-use starting guide for those new to administering it. By bringing together material that might take days to find online this book is a real timesaver. What you will learn from this book? Dissecting an email message and understanding how email and groupware servers work Installing Scalix on OpenSuSE 10.2, Fedora Core 5, and Windows Setting up Scalix in a multiserver environment with clustering and replication Troubleshooting and hardening your Scalix environment Working with the Scalix Administration Console (SAC) Managing users and handling common tasks Deploying the Scalix connector for Outlook and integrating with IMAP mail clients Understanding Scalix configuration files and administrative commands Standard Scalix monitoring tools and status reports Integrating Scalix in your centralized Nagios monitoring system Securing your server using firewalls, Stunnel, and OpenVPN Performing full, incremental, and single-mailbox backups and restores Integrating an external LDAP directory with Scalix and configuring the Scalix LDAP server Integrating Scalix Administration tools for Active Directory HA (high availability) and multi-server setups Setting up an active/passive cluster with backup functions Preparing Scalix for spam and virus filtering using smtpd.cfg and Clamav and Spamassasin Approach This book is a well-illustrated and practical guide to implementing and understanding Scalix. It includes exhaustive references to the relevant online documents and RFCs. Who this book is written for? This book is written for Linux administrators who wish to set up an email server for businesses or who wish to switch to Scalix from another email server. Scalix can be used very easily by beginners; however, advanced strategies and administrative tasks are difficult to learn and this book will help you master them all.


Using Multi-Theory Model to Predict Low Salt Intake Nigerian Adults with Hypertension Christine Adekemi Dokun-Mowete MSc, University of Ibadan, 1992 BSc, Kwara State College of Technology, 1983 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public and Community Health Education Walden University November 2017 Abstract Hypertension is a chronic non-communicable disease and a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, renal malfunction, disability, and premature death. One of the public health recommendations for the management of hypertension is the reduction of sodium/salt intake. There is need to develop and implement new evidence-based theoretical interventions to initiate and sustain behavior change in health education and promotion. Therefore, the quantitative cross-sectional method and design was used to investigate the adequacy of multi-theory model (MTM) constructs for the initiation and the sustenance of low sodium/salt intake behavior in hypertensive Nigerian adults. InHypertension is a chronic non-communicable disease and a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, renal malfunction, disability, and premature death. One of the public health recommendations for the management of hypertension is the reduction of sodium/salt intake. There is need to develop and implement new evidence-based theoretical interventions to initiate and sustain behavior change in health education and promotion. Therefore, the quantitative cross-sectional method and design was used to investigate the adequacy of multi-theory model (MTM) constructs for the initiation and the sustenance of low sodium/salt intake behavior in hypertensive Nigerian adults. In addition, the impact of the MTM (initiation) constructs on actual salt/sodium intake was evaluated to validate self-reported behavior. A convenience sample of 149 consenting Nigerian adults with hypertension and of ages 20 to 60 years, self –administered the valid and reliable 39-item MTM instrument. The findings of confirmatory factor analysis showed construct validity of subscales for the initiation and sustenance model. All items loading for the two models were significant, p < 0.001. Multivariate regression analysis revealed 40.6% of the variance in initiating the consumption of low salt diets explained by advantages outweighing disadvantages, behavioral confidence, and changes in physical environment. About 41.8 % of the variance to sustain the intake of low salt diet was explained by emotional transformation, practice for change, and changes in social environment. The results justified the predictive role of MTM and adequacy of its utility to build evidence-based health education programs and interventions to address the health need of people with hypertension and contribute to social change in the country. Using Multi-Theory Model to Predict Low Salt Intake Nigerian Adults with Hypertension Christine Adekemi. Dokun-Mowete MSc, University of Ibadan, 1992 BSc, Kwara State College of Technology, 1983 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public and Community Health Education


In order to provide architects with a method to compare different building geometries regarding the energy production, the aim of this project is to develop a flexible parametric design platform in order to optimize the shape of buildings according to their solar potential and energy consumption. To develop this algorithm, a case study of a standard domestic house in Beaumont (Fribourg, Switzerland) is chosen. With a Swiss standard consumption, the results show the impossibility to have a building more than 50% self-sufficient regarding the electricity without using a storage system. This happens due to the morning and evening electricity consumption peaks. In order to attempt to cover those peaks, the algorithm tells to implement the photovoltaic (PV) system on the best oriented facades and to cover the heat demand in winter, the solar thermal (ST) system is installed on the surfaces receiving the most irradiation in winter which are on the roof. As the objective is to cover the heat demand in winter, the area needed is huge (46m2). Therefore, a trade-off can be done between the area of panels installed and the building's autonomy in order to find the best geometry variant during the early design stage of the construction. Indeed, decreasing the area of ST panels from 40 to 20 m2 only decreases the self-suciency of 12%. Concerning the electricity production, a trade-off between East and West oriented panels and South oriented ones would decrease the surface of PV to install without decreasing the self-sufficiency. Indeed, the losses in the early morning and late evening production by removing some of the East and West oriented panels would be compensated by a better coverage of the midday consumption peak with South oriented panels.


Early in the twentieth century, parliamentary democracy developed within an 1809 constitution based on separation of powers. By the mid-1970s, the last remnants of this constitution had disappeared. After that, measures such as more openness in candidate nominations, positive preference voting and more scrutiny by parliamentarians were introduced to strengthen the democratic chain. But a weakening of political parties and an increased importance of external constraints are again moving Sweden towards a de facto separation-of-powers system. There is once again a considerable discrepancy between the written constitutional framework and the 'working constitution'. In particular, local and supranational constraints on national policy making provide reason for a reconsideration of the constitutional framework.


On 19 February 2008, the South African Constitutional Court handed down an important new socioeconomic rights decision, Occupiers of 51 Olivia Road v City of Johannesburg ('City of Johannesburg'). City of Johannesburg approved a landmark settlement between the City of Johannesburg and residents of several informal communities in Johannesburg who had sought to prevent the City from evicting them as part of an inner-city regeneration project. Rather than imposing a direct remedy, the Court instead constitutionalised a novel 'engagement' requirement in housing-rights cases. Engagement, which requires government entities to consult with residents affected by policy decisions that may involve eviction and publicly report on that process, offers a novel and potentially powerful mechanism for enforcing socioeconomic rights that limits court intervention in policy decisions.


The impact of IEQ (daylight, thermal comfort, acoustics and ventilation) in school settings is a subject of concern for many scholars and parents and teachers. This review has appraised the breadth of studies that have examined the influence of IEQ on learning performance and health in schools. Using the replicable search processes of a systematic literature, adopted from medical research practice, one hundred and fifty relevant articles were retrieved from four search databases (Science direct, Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar). Analysis of these articles has revealed that the impact on students' health and comfort of each individual IEQ variable is significant. This, in some studies, has been shown to influence learning performance. However, while these variables are inter-linked in building design they are not studied together in health and learning performance studies. An evidence-based method is proposed for investigating what relative contributory effect these four variables have on learning performance. As these IEQ variables individually have a very significant effect on student performance, this study has the potential to guide important changes in the design and refurbishment of new and existing school buildings. If successful, it could support educational quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. Keywords: Daylighting, Thermal comfort, Acoustics, Ventilation


Carotenoid cleavage oxygenases (CCOs) are non-heme iron enzymes that catalyze scission of alkene groups in carotenoids and stilbenoids to form biologically important products. CCOs possess a rare four-His iron center whose resting-state structure and interaction with substrates are incompletely understood. Here, we address this knowledge gap through a comprehensive structural and spectroscopic study of three phyletically diverse CCOs. The crystal structure of a fungal stilbenoid-cleaving CCO, CAO1, reveals strong similarity between its iron center and those of carotenoid-cleaving CCOs, but with a markedly different substrate-binding cleft. These enzymes all possess a five-coordinate high-spin Fe(II) center with resting-state Fe-His bond lengths of ∼2.15 Å. This ligand set generates an iron environment more electropositive than those of other non-heme iron dioxygenases as observed by Mössbauer isomer shifts. Dioxygen (O2) does not coordinate iron in the absence of substrate. Substrates bind away (∼4.7 Å) from the iron and have little impact on its electronic structure, thus excluding coordination-triggered O2 binding. However, substrate binding does perturb the spectral properties of CCO Fe-NO derivatives, indicating proximate organic substrate and O2-binding sites, which might influence Fe-O2 interactions. Together, these data provide a robust description of the CCO iron center and its interactions with substrates and substrate mimetics that illuminates commonalities as well as subtle and profound structural differences within the CCO family.


Safety and exploitation conditions of steel welded structure depend on many factors. The main role of that conditions is connected with materials, welding technology, state of stress and temperature. Because of that very important is good selection of steel and welding method for proper steel structure. For responsible steel structure are used low carbon and low alloy steel, very often with small amount of carbon and the amount of alloy elements such as Ni, Mn, Mo, Cr and V in low alloy steel and their welds. In the terms of the kind of steel it is used a proper welding method and adequate filler materials. In the present paper it was tested and optimized the chemical composition of metal weld deposit on the operational properties of steel welded structures.


The structural and nucleosynthetic evolution of 3, 4, 5, 6 and $ 7\,M_{\hbox{$\odot$}}$ stars with two metallicities ($Z = 0.005$ and 0.02) has been computed in detail, from the early pre-main sequence phase up to the thermally pulsing (TP) AGB phase or the onset of off-center carbon burning. Typically 10 to 20 thermal pulses have been followed for each TP-AGB object. This homogeneous and quite large set of models allows us to present an overview of the thermal pulse properties as well as of the nucleosynthesis accompanying the TP-AGB phase of intermediate-mass stars. More specifically, after a brief description of the previous evolutionary stages, predictions are given for the isotopic ratios involving C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Al and Si. Also the surface abundances of $^{\rm{7}}\rm{\bf Li}$, $^{\rm{19}}\rm{\bf F}$ and $^{\rm{23}}\rm{\bf Na}$ are reported. As the asymptotic phase of the thermal pulses has been reached for each star, we also indicate how these abundances will probably evolve until the stars completely loose their envelope, by including the evolution of the nucleosynthesis itself.


Construction and characterization of an optical switch, based on electrowetting and suitable for use with multimode fibers are described. With a 50-μm core, 0.23-N.A. input and output fibers, the measured fiber-to-fiber insertion loss at λ = 0.633 μm was 0.5 ± 0.1 dB for one channel and 2.0 ± 0.2 dB for the other, with cross talk of −22.8 ± 0.5 and <−51 dB, respectively. Response time is ≈20 msec with driving power of ≈25 μW and a voltage requirement of ≤1.0 V. The switch has been tested for over 107 cycles with no observable degradation.


A chilled, crystal glass; the purest gin; a touch of dry vermouth--vigorously shaken, not stirred--and a plump, green olive. The martini was and still is more than just a cocktail. Originally mixed in the nineteenth century, it became an American icon in the twentieth, and the favorite drink of such luminaries as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway. Bernard De Voto called the martini "the supreme American gift to world culture," while H. L. Mencken declared it "the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet."The first book of its kind to explore the drink's wide appeal, this volume serves up a fabulous cocktail of martini-inspired art, cartoons, collectibles, advertisements, and film stills that reveal how deeply this classic has permeated every aspect of American culture, from literature and film to politics and high society. Complete with bartending lore, traditional martini recipes, literary excerpts, memorable scenes from James Bond movies, and more, "The Martini "offers a toast to this intoxicating symbol of the American dream.


The taxonomic status of the colubrid snake Dendrelaphis tristis (Daudin, 1803) was investigated on the basis of morphological data taken from 64 museum specimens. Univariate and multivariate analyses of these data reveal that Dendrelaphis tristis is composed of two species. One of these species agrees with the description of Dipsas schokari Kuhl, 1820 which is revalidated in the combination Dendrelaphis schokari (Kuhl, 1820). The syntypes of D. schokari have been lost and a type for D. tristis has never been deposited in a collection. Neotypes are designated and described for both species in order to stabilize the names. D. schokari differs from D. tristis in having a lower number of ventrals and subcaudals, a larger eye, a shorter vertebral stripe and the absence of a bright interparietal spot. D. tristis and D. schokari exhibit a partially overlapping distribution. D. tristis ranges from Sri Lanka northward through most of India to Myanmar whereas the distribution of D. schokari is restricted to Sri Lanka and South-west India (Western Ghats). Although the two species coexist on Sri Lanka and in South-west India, these species presumably do not occur syntopically as suggested by their distribution patterns and morphology.


This working paper presents findings from Year 1 of CAG Consultant's evaluation of the Next Generation programme. While the overall programme started in June 2018, CAG Consultants, in partnership with Fiveways, were commissioned by Power to Change to evaluate the Next Generation programme in April 2019. The programme aims to support the community energy sector in two ways: by bringing more solar farms into community ownership whilst maximising the financial, environmental and social impact for their local communities, and by supporting the development of innovative business models for the community energy that are not dependent on Feed in Tariff subsidies. This paper presents interim evaluation findings about parts of the Next Generation programme, covering the processes used and early outcomes in both parts of the programme. It also shares learning from the programme for the benefit of community groups, policy makers and other community energy stakeholders, and makes recommendations for Year 2 of the Next Generation programme and wider work by Power to Change.


This text is a response to changes currently affecting counselling. A team of contributors identify the pressures forcing change, taking into account national and European legislation and the drive from within counselling towards greater professionalism and accountability. Part one considers the impact of accredation, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), developing Codes of Ethics and evaluating effectiveness. Part two looks at new interventions for common problems, such as smoking, depression, stress and abuse; new settings for counselling, including the workplace and medical practice; and new techniques, such as using narratives. The final part discusses issues in training, raising questions about the place of a feminist perspective and whether there are still myths about counselling which need to be challenged.


Abstract. Isotope composition, in many cases, holds unique information on the sources, chemical modification and sinks of atmospheric trace gases. Vital to the interpretation and use of an increasing number of isotope analyses is appropriate modelling. However, the exact implementation of isotopic information in chemistry-climate models is a challenge, and often studies use simplifications which limit their applicability. Here we implement a thorough isotopic extension in MECCA, a comprehensive kinetic chemistry sub-model. To this end, we devise a generic tagging technique for the kinetic chemistry mechanisms implemented as the sub-submodel MECCA-TAG. The technique is diagnostic and numerically efficient and supports the investigation of various aspects of kinetic chemistry schemes. We focus specifically on the application to the modelling of stable isotopic composition. The results of MECCA-TAG are evaluated against the reference sub-submodel MECCA-DBL, which is implicitly full-detailed, but computationally expensive and thus sub-optimal in practical applications. Furthermore, we evaluate the elaborate carbon and oxygen isotopic mechanism by simulating the multi-isotope composition of CO and other trace gases in the CAABA/MECCA box-model. The mechanism realistically simulates the oxygen isotope composition of key species, as well as the carbon isotope signature transfer. The model adequately reproduces the isotope chemistry features for CO, taking into account the limits of the modelling domain. In particular, the mass-independently fractionated (MIF) composition of CO due to reactions of ozone with unsaturated hydrocarbons (a source effect) versus its intrinsic MIF enrichment induced in the removal reaction via oxidation by OH is assessed. The simulated ozone source effect was up to +1‰ in Δ17O(CO). The versatile modelling framework we employ (the Modular Earth Submodel System, MESSy) opens the way for implementation of the novel detailed isotopic chemistry treatment in the three-dimensional atmospheric-chemistry general circulation model EMAC. We therefore also present estimates of the computational gain obtained by the developed optimisations.


—Crop yield prediction is a paramount issue in agriculture. The main idea of this paper is to find out efficient way to predict the yield of corn based meteorological records. The prediction models used in this paper can be classified into model-driven approaches and data-driven approaches, according to the different modeling methodologies. The model-driven approaches are based on crop mechanistic modeling. They describe crop growth in interaction with their environment as dynamical systems. But the calibration process of the dynamic system comes up with much difficulty, because it turns out to be a multidimensional non-convex optimization problem. An original contribution of this paper is to propose a statistical methodology, Multi-Scenarios Parameters Estimation (MSPE), for the parametrization of potentially complex mechanistic models from a new type of datasets (climatic data, final yield in many situations). It is tested with CORNFLO, a crop model for maize growth. On the other hand, the data-driven approach for yield prediction is free of the complex biophysical process. But it has some strict requirements about the dataset. A second contribution of the paper is the comparison of these model-driven methods with classical data-driven methods. For this purpose, we consider two classes of regression methods, methods derived from linear regression (Ridge and Lasso Regression, Principal Components Regression or Partial Least Squares Regression) and machine learning methods (Random Forest, k-Nearest Neighbor, Artificial Neural Network and SVM regression). The dataset consists of 720 records of corn yield at county scale provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the associated climatic data. A 5-folds cross-validation process and two accuracy metrics: root mean square error of prediction(RMSEP), mean absolute error of prediction(MAEP) were used to evaluate the crop prediction capacity. The results show that among the data-driven approaches, Random Forest is the most robust and generally achieves the best prediction error (MAEP 4.27 % ). It also outperforms our model-driven approach (MAEP 6.11 % ). However, the method to calibrate the mechanistic model from dataset easy to access offers several side-perspectives. The mechanistic model can potentially help to underline the stresses suffered by the crop or to identify the biological parameters of interest for breeding purposes. For this reason, an interesting perspective is to combine these two types of approaches.


Abstract Brachiopods are a phylum of shell-forming sessile marine invertebrates which have existed since the early Cambrian. Two very different biomaterial design strategies for their shells evolved early in their history. Both strategies use hybrid fibre composites, however, one is based on mineral fibres embedded in ~2 wt.% of organic biopolymer sheaths and the inorganic fibres are calcite single crystals. In the second strategy the fibres are biopolymers and are reinforced with Ca-phosphate nanoparticles to form a fibrous nanocomposite. Here the organic component (chitin) dominates. The Ca-phosphate nanoparticle-reinforcement strategy is not unlike that in vertebrate bone, however, the microscale structure is laminated with alternating laminae which have a different degree of mineralization. The calcitic shells feature an outer compact layer of calcite micro- and nanoparticles protecting the inner fibrous layer from the outside. Transmission electron microscopy of the fibrous layer reveals intercrystalline and intracrystalline biopolymers. The calcitic shell material is stiff with nano-indentation E-moduli of 63±8 GPa and relatively hard (Vickers microhardness up to 400 HV 0.0005/10 and nanohardness 4±0.5 GPa). Compared to inorganic calcite the microhardness is doubled and the nanohardness increases by 60%. We attribute this increased hardness to intracrystalline biopolymers. The nano-indentation E-moduli of the chitinophosphatic shells range from 3 to 55 GPa as a result of the varying degree of mineralization between their laminae, and similarly their nanohardness varies between 0.1 and 3 GPa. For brachiopods burrowing inside the sediment, the alternation of non-mineralized laminae with thin, more strongly mineralized laminae provides abrasion-resistance, hardness and longitudinal stiffness while it preserves the flexibility provided by the organic component for bending movements.


Background and Objectives: Ankle foot complex is the part of the body which is in contact with the ground and it is important to have an intact proprioceptive system in order to maintain postural control. Previous study has established that there is significant difference between ankle proprioception in pregnant women in their third trimester and non-pregnant women. There is lack of literature regarding when the ankle does the ankle proprioception gets affected during pregnancy and whether this change reverts back during postpartum and hence this study.
Method: A cohort of 70 primiparous women were included in the study and the women were followed through 12th week, 24th week, 32nd week , immediate postpartum and 6 weeks postpartum. The ankle repositioning error was measured using photography method and was analyzed using UTHSCSA Image tool software. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to measure the differences across various time periods.
Results: It was found that there was a significant differences (p<0.001) in ankle repositioning error in pregnant women across the trimesters and in the postpartum period and the value did not reach the first trimester value even after six weeks postpartum.
Conclusion: Ankle proprioception was significantly affected across the various trimesters of pregnancy with the peak variability observed in the third trimester and the value did not reach back to the first trimester value even after 6 weeks postpartum.


This thesis represents an endeavour to study and rethink bureaucracy through an ethnography of the bureaucratic organisation called 'Respect-the-Elderly Home' (REH) in rural China in the first decade of the 21st century. Its contextual concern is to examine the phenomenon of old age support being transferred from primary groups (family and village) to the state in the processes of modern state formation, a context in which elderly support is portrayed by both the Chinese government and mainstream academic discourse as a symptom of family dysfunction and moral crisis; and a state project to build up REHs to host the welfare category of 'Five-Guarantee Elderly' is hailed to be practically therapeutic and ideologically significant.
Based on long term fieldwork in one REH in southwestern China and more REHs generally (April 2010 – June 2011), this thesis reveals a secret function of this organisation, namely, 'accommodative inversion', and argues for a heterotopian looking-glass perspective to conceptualise it. The first chapter outlines the fieldwork setting in a way that its heterotopian qualities are simultaneously presented. The following chapters are divided into two parts. The first part delineates the realities of the institution-defined order and disorders of dining, spatial layout and temporal orientation, and explores the mechanisms which make the presumable incompatibility of these distinct orders practically irrelevant. The second part explores the dialectics of state and family in service delivery, guarantee and deprivation, and the condition of the residents as the served and the serving, and explains why structural inversions are inevitable through institutional processes beyond individual intention.
This research brings the myth of our era – of bureaucracy and in particular of the Chinese bureaucracy – into a dialogue with the literature on bureaucratic organisation that has emerged in social science since the 1960s. More significantly, by disclosing and expounding the violent nature of state welfare, it presents a fundamental challenge to conventional understandings of benefactor and beneficiary in state provision.


We describe our ongoing research that centres on the application of natural language processing (NLP) to software engineering and systems development activities. In particular, this paper addresses the use of NLP in the requirements analysis and systems design processes. We have developed a prototype toolset that can assist the systems analyst or software engineer to select and verify terms relevant to a project. In this paper we describe the processes employed by the system to extract and classify objects of interest from requirements documents. These processes are illustrated using a small example.


This communication is part of a larger teaching innovation project financed by the University of Barcelona, whose objective is to develop and evaluate transversal competences of the UB, learning ability and responsibility. The competence is divided into several sub-competencies being the ability to analyze and synthesis the most intensely worked in the first year. The work presented here part from the results obtained in phase 1 and 2 previously implemented in other subjects (Mathematics and History) in the first year of the degree of Business Administration Degree. In these subjects' previous experiences there were deficiencies in the acquisition of learning skills by the students. The work in the subject of Mathematics facilitated that students become aware of the deficit. The work on the subject of History insisted on developing readings schemes and with the practical exercises was sought to go deeply in the development of this competence. The third phase presented here is developed in the framework of the second year degree, in the World Economy subject. The objective of this phase is the development and evaluation of the same cross competence of the previous phases, from a practice that includes both, quantitative analysis and critical reflection. Specifically the practice focuses on the study of the dynamic relationship between economic growth and the dynamics in the distribution of wealth. The activity design as well as the selection of materials to make it, has been directed to address gaps in the ability to analyze and synthesize detected in the subjects of the first year in the previous phases of the project. The realization of the practical case is considered adequate methodology to improve the acquisition of competence of the students, then it is also proposed how to evaluate the acquisition of such competence. The practice is evaluated based on a rubric developed in the framework of the project objectives. Thus at the end of phase 3 we can analyze the process that have followed the students, detect where they have had major difficulties and identify those aspects of teaching that can help to improve the acquisition of skills by the students. The interest of this phase resides in the possibility to value whether tracing of learning through competences, organized in a collaborative way, is a good tool to develop the acquisition of these skills and facilitate their evaluation.


This pilot study is an initial exploration of a theoretical rubric proposed to "describe the progress of students' acquisition of scientific inquiry" (Halonen et al., 2003, p. 196), and an application of the utility of the rubric. Twenty-two undergraduates from a woman's college participated in two sections of experimental psychology. Students consisted of sophomores, juniors, and seniors who completed general psychology courses. Consistent with the Halonen et al. (2003) model, results indicated that authentic research experiences in the first phase of the course were positively correlated with changes in scientific thinking in a second phase. In turn, experiences in the second phase were positively correlated with evidence of advanced thinking skills in a third phase. The findings suggest that much of the basic skill knowledge acquired in the beginning lectures, textbook readings, and writing instruction of the course enhanced students' ability to apply that knowledge in later classes and the lab components. Further, the authentic learning experiences were instrumental in fine-tuning the skills learned from the lectures and textbooks readings. As a result, the current authors advocate the use of authentic experiences in teaching research methods, as a way for teachers to transform such classes in a beneficial and systematic way, in order to enhance acquisition of scientific thinking skills and to examine changes in scientific thinking as explicated in the Halonen et al. (2003) model.


The relationship between male gonadal abnormalities and habitats with different degrees of agricultural activities was quantified in two anuran species, Rhinella fernandezae and Dendropsophus sanborni . The study sites were selected along a gradient of increasing agricultural land use in south-western Entre Rios province (Argentina): an agroecosystem, a natural wetland (a non-agricultural site adjacent to monoculture zones), and a natural forest (not associated with agriculture). Rhinella fernandezae and D. sanborni were manually captured from each environment during field surveys. A scaled mass index (MI) was evaluated for each animal. Specimens of R. fernandezae from the agroecosystem and the natural wetland site presented poorly developed seminiferous tubules, lower testicular volume, and a lower number of seminiferous tubules, primary spermatogonia, and spermatids than specimens from the natural forest site. Additionally, we observed fewer primary spermatocytes in the agroecosystem group than in the natural forest group. Individuals of D. sanborni from the agroecosystem and the natural wetland site presented poorly developed tubules, higher proportions of irregularly shaped testes, and a reduced number of primary and secondary spermatogonia compared with specimens from natural forest sites. Consequently, the affected anurans are likely to have reduced reproductive success. We suggest that agrochemical use may be associated with decreased testicular development and function in both R. fernandezae and D. sanborni occurring in agroecosystems and nearby environments. Buffer zones are needed to prevent contamination, preserve wildlife, and enhance the conservation value of pristine natural forests.


Supported metal catalysts have applications across a broad range of industrial processes. The metal species are often the active catalysts in these processes, but supporting these materials upon a different material can produce desirable characteristics in the overall catalyst. These effects can include, but are not limited to, increased dispersion of active material, increased stability of the active material, and, depending on the supporting material, beneficial metal-support interactions can be generated.
The production of benzaldehyde from benzyl alcohol is a reaction with high commercial value. Gold-palladium catalysts have been shown to be effective at production of benzaldehyde from benzyl alcohol under relatively mild, solvent-free conditions. It has also been shown that the selectivity of this reaction is dependent upon the acidic or basic character of the support material.
Perovskites are a class of highly stable minerals with a general formula of ABO3, with A being a cation with a larger ionic radius than B. The acidic and basic character of a perovskite is strongly determined by the nature of the A cation, which allows for the possibility of adjusting this character by metal substitution. This study investigates the effects of gradual substitution of lanthanum for strontium in vanadate perovskites, and showed that incorporation of the substituted metal is effective up to a certain point, beyond which the material switches to two spate perovskite phases. The substitution of the metal ions was shown to have an effect on the acidic and basic properties of the perovskite materials using the Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) reaction, which forms different products on acidic or basic sites.
Following this, substitution with a wider range of group II metals was investigated and tested, both in the IPA reaction and as supports for precious metals in the production of benzaldehyde.
A separate series of investigations were performed on Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalysts. Fischer-Tropsch is a name given to a wide range of catalytic processes involving the production of hydrocarbons from a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, known as syngas. The formation of products is generally believed to proceed through a chain-lengthening process using single-carbon units. This leads to a broad distribution of products
Abstract
as opposed to a single highly selective product, and the selectivity pattern is often described using the Shulz-Florey-Anderson distribution. Much of the work on FT catalysts is involved in modifications of the catalyst system to produce a tighter distribution of products.
In this study a series of investigations have been made into the effects that variations of the preparation method of CoMnOx supported on activated carbon. The basic preparation is an impregnation method, and several changes in catalyst activity and selectivity were observed following changes to this. An investigation into the effects of altering the amount of manganese relative to cobalt in the system also highlighted several trends, leading to a greater understanding of the factors affecting the conversion and selectivity of the catalyst system.
A separate are of research in FT-style reactions is the production of alcohols from syngas, typically at higher pressures. As in the previous section, these an attempt was made to improve the activity and selectivity of these catalysts by alterations to the preparation methods, and also by alteration of the amount of secondary metal relative to cobalt. The catalysts used in these investigations consisted of CoMoOx supported on activated carbon. The standard preparation used a coprecipitation method based upon a similar method used for the production of CoMoS2 catalysts, which were also investigated in this study. Later investigations, notably those in which the amount of molybdenum relative to cobalt was altered, were prepared using an impregnation method.
A series of improvements to a base catalyst were achieved by alteration to the preparation conditions, but more substantial improvements were observed when the alteration of the metal ratios was investigated.
With regards to the use of activated carbon as a support material, it was also observed that it was possible to bring about the reduction of the cobalt species, and to a lesser extent the manganese and molybdenum species, by heating the catalysts to a high temperature in an inert atmosphere, namely helium.


Grain-legume crops are important for ensuring the sustainability of agrofood systems. Among them, pulse production is subject to strong lock-in compared to soya, the leading worldwide crop. To unlock the situation and foster more grain-legume crop diversity, scientific research is essential for providing new knowledge that may lead to new development. Our study aimed to evaluate whether research activity on grain-legumes is also locked in favor of soya. Considering more than 80 names grouped into 19 main grain-legume species, we built a dataset of 107,823 scholarly publications (articles, book, and book chapters) between 1980 and 2018 retrieved from the Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) reflecting the research activity on grain-legumes. We delineated 10 scientific themes of interest running the gamut of agrofood research (e.g., genetics, agronomy, and nutrition). We indexed grain-legume species, calculated the percentage of records for each one, and conducted several analyses longitudinally and by country. Globally, we found an unbalanced research output: soya remains the main crop studied, even in the promising field of food sciences advanced by FAO as the "future of pulses". Our results raise questions about how to align research priorities with societal demand for more crop diversity.


This paper aims to discuss the relevance that the concept of perezhivanie had for Soviet psychology and its implication for the development of topics that have been largely neglected both in Soviet psychology and in the Western Vygotskian tradition. According to the position defended in this paper, perezhivanie is not just another concept of Vygotsky's repertoire, it was an expression of the representation of one theoretical system that evolved in Vygotsky's thinking at the end of his work. Despite the fact that perezhivanie was introduced by Vygotsky in Psychology of Art, this paper emphasizes the relevance of the concept in the final moment of Vygotsky's work, specifically in 1933-1934, when the concept was used by the author as the unit of human development in its articulation with the concept of "social situation of development". The paper focuses on the relevance of both concepts for advancing a new definition of human development from a cultural- historical standpoint, as well as the topic of subjectivity within this theoretical account.


Rapid mass transfer in a binary system can drive the accreting star out of thermal equilibrium, causing it to expand. This can lead to a contact system, strong mass loss from the system and possibly merging of the two stars. In low metallicity stars the timescale for heat transport is shorter due to the lower opacity. The accreting star can therefore restore thermal equilibrium more quickly and possibly avoid contact.We investigate the effect of accretion onto main sequence stars with radiative envelopes with different metallicities. We find that a low metallicity (Z<10−3)4M⊙ star can endure a 10 to 30 times higher accretion rate before it reaches a certain radius than a star at solar metallicity. This could imply that up to two times fewer systems come into contact during rapid mass transfer when we compare low metallicity. This factor is uncertain due to the unknown distribution of binary parameters and the dependence of the mass transfer timescale on metallicity. In a forthcoming paper we will present ...


A sense of historical perspective is essential to understand and to balance the historical nature of contemporary research and writing on health care. Many of the major health issues of our time have an important historical dimension that is often overlooked, treated cursorily, or ignored. Not all outcomes are the result of a linear causal effect, and the historical comparative research method provides an effective means of making comparisons about certain events over time. Remote area nurses (RANs) have practised in isolated areas of Australia since the very beginning of white settlement (Schultz 1991; Priestley 1992; Strachan 1992; Russell 1995). This isolation was (and, in some cases, still is) imposed in the first instance by geography. In other cases, the isolation has been caused by the fact that these practitioners (who, for the most part, were prepared--as any other general nurse in Australia--for an urban setting) have been unable to access further education and intraprofessional support.

This book aims to answer the following questions using an historical comparative approach: 1) Which discourses have prevailed historically within Australia to ensure that remote area nursing practice is neither legitimised nor endorsed as an area of specialist, independent nursing practice in its own right? and 2) Which specific legal criteria are currently being applied to define the scope of practice of remote area nursing, and how appropriate are these criteria, given the reality of remote area nursing?

Perhaps the invisibility of remote area nurses was more a matter of being "out of sight out of mind" and, indeed, in many cases, this state of affairs seems to have suited remote area nurses. This situation began to slowly change for metropolitan registered nurses in the early twentieth century but, until very recently, remote area nurses appear to have been uninvolved in the clamour for changes in the legislation regarding this. In remote Australia, when the dust settles after a wind storm, nothing remains the same--everything becomes coated with dust that covers all the surfaces and penetrates the crevices. So it was with remote area nurses. Once they began to recognise the value of their voices and the collective power they generated as a cohesive group, they began to listen to and be heard by other nurses and by legislators. At last the remote area nurses' voices and influence is being felt in political corridors, as well as in local practice areas. These voices may now be heard in all avenues of the media, conferences, ministerial task forces and inquiries, as well as at local community levels. This study explores the public discourse of nurses, legislators, and the media in order to determine why such recognition has taken so long to occur. The study identifies that it is not enough to merely blame others; nurses have not simply been the victims but, in fact for many years, have contributed to the silence regarding their unique position as practitioners in this area of specialist, independent nursing in Australia.


Although theoretical models of the filtration efficiency of fibrous filters are typically based on a single type of fiber in an ordered array, many actual fibrous filters comprises fibers that are inherently randomly distributed. It is desirable to be able to estimate the filtration efficiency of such non-uniform fibrous filters from their composition arrangement and the filtration property of individual fibers. Toward that end, we approximate the filter system as a series of cells comprising individual fibers with random distribution, deviating from the homogeneity assumption in the classical models. With better characterization of the filter structure based on the Voronoi diagram, we theoretically revisit filtration efficiency by the top-down (TD) approach and the bottom-up approach. The proposed models are compared with the existing experimental and numerical results under different fiber volume fractions, indicating the high accuracy of the TD model for the filtration of submicron aerosol particles. The influence of the degree of randomness of fiber distribution on filtration efficiency is also quantified. Copyright 2015 American Association for Aerosol Research


Recent large-scale blackouts revealed that power systems around the world are far from the stability and reliability requirement as they suppose to be. The post-event analysis clarifies that one major reason of the interconnection blackout is lack of wide area information. Frequency dynamics is one of the most important parameters of an electrical power system. In order to understand power system dynamics effectively, accurately measured wide-area frequency is needed. The idea of building an Internet based real-time GPS synchronized wide area Frequency Monitoring Network (FNET) was proposed to provide the imperative dynamic information for the large-scale power grids and the implementation of FNET has made the synchronized observations of the entire US power network possible for the first time. The FNET system consists of Frequency Disturbance Recorders (FDR), which work as the sensor devices to measure the real-time frequency at 110V single-phase power outlets, and an Information Management System (IMS) to work as a central server to process the frequency data. The device comparison between FDR and commercial PMU (Phasor Measurement Unit) demonstrate the advantage of FNET. The web visualization tools make the frequency data available for the authorized users to browse through Internet. The research work addresses some preliminary observations and analyses with the fieldmeasured frequency information from FNET. The original algorithms based on the frequency response characteristic are designed to process event detection, localization and unbalanced power estimation during frequency disturbances. The analysis of historical cases illustrate that these algorithms can be employed in real-time level to provide early alarm of abnormal frequency change to the system operator. The further application is to develop an adaptive under frequency load shedding scheme with the processed information feed in to prevent further frequency decline in power systems after disturbances causing dangerous imbalance between the load and generation.


In this letter, a new direct sequence spread spectrum scheme for protection of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) binary pulse-position modulated (PPM)control signal is proposed. The UAV PPM control signal consists of data frames. Each of them contains a synchronizing pulse followed by a number of shorter pulses equal to the number of channels N. At the beginning of any pulse is the pause long 0.3 ms. The proposed scheme uses (N + 1) pseudonoise (PN) codes: one of them (PN0) is assigned to the synchronizing pulse while the each of the remaining N codes (PN1, PN2, ... PNN) corresponds to the appropriate channel. The same PN code is transmitted during the pause and the pulse which follows the pause. At the receiving side, the set of (N + 1) passive correlators is used to detect respective PN codes. Proposed scheme requires neither PN code tracking process nor data demodulation, so is resistant to timing jitter. Performance measures of the proposed scheme are calculated.


Knowledge Management (KM) has become one of the most discussed issues amongst academics and practitioners working in the information systems arena. The source of knowledge, the dissemination of knowledge, and the motives of the knowledge provider and knowledge seeker have received less attention in the literature than their significance warrants, both in terms of practical outcomes and in terms of ethical issues. This paper sets out to re-examine some of the foundations of Knowledge Management, to show that much of the current discussion - including by those who are critical of the conceptual basis of KM - neglects or underplays some otherwise well known aspects of the topic. The paper points to the more manipulative processes which characterise the darker side of KM. Why is it even necessary to explore the ethical dimension of KM? There exist shades of desirable and undesirable directions of the experience of KM, processes in need of a critical awareness. We cannot assume that however knowledge is interpreted, facilitated, conceptualised, or experienced, that KM processes will always have a desirable outcome. The first section examines the multidisciplinary foundations of Knowledge Management. The second section discusses 'relationship guidelines' for engaging with KM in organizations. The concluding part examines the issues raised from the previous discussion and relates these to the theme of ethics. The paper concludes that if the study of KM is to have an enduring future it must take a more holistic stance and recognise that its antecedents come from many more disciplines than those, which are cited in its literature.


This paper examines a method to apply to channel equalization problem by model selection. The selection process is based on finding a subset model to approximate the response of the full two weighted neural network model for the current input vector, and not for the entire input space. When the channel equalization problem is non-stationary, the requirement to update all the kernel weighs locations is removed, and its complexity is reduced. Using computer simulations, we show that the number of kernel weights can be greatly reduced without compromising classification performance.


ABSTRACT There are many studies on technical efficiency conducted on various firms including hospitals in line with the demand to consume resources efficiently. In measuring technical efficiency of a hospital, there are many methods  that can be applied and Data Envelopment Analysis is one of them. Even though Data Envelopment Analysis is widely used by the researchers, this method has its limitations. One of the limitations is that it is very model specific and the results may be influenced by the inputs and outputs selection. Hence, it is very important to identify the right hospitals' inputs and outputs that are commonly used in measuring hospital's technical efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis to ensure accuracy of the results. Therefore, this study is aimed to identify the hospitals' inputs and outputs commonly used in measuring hospital technical efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis. Two databases, namely Pubmed and CINAHL were used for searching articles between 2007 to 2017. The search were based on the inclusion criteria and the search terms including hospitals' inputs, hospitals' outputs, hospitals' technical efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis and DEA were used. Twenty-four studies were reviewed and assessed in the final stage. In conclusion, the inputs that were commonly considered by researchers in analysing hospital technical efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis include the number of doctors, number of nurses and number of beds. Other inputs include the number of other medical staffs, number of other non-medical staffs, number of total employed staffs, total expenditure, total non-labour cost, value of fixed capital and cost of drug supply. However, the hospitals' outputs that were commonly considered by researchers in analysing hospital technical efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis include the total inpatients, average daily admission, number of outpatients, number of surgeries, number of deliveries, the average length of stay, bed occupancy rate and total revenue. Even though this study has identified the commonly used inputs and outputs in measuring hospitals' technical efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis which can be used in conducting future research, the selection of inputs and outputs  should take into account the objectives of the hospital itself. Keywords: Hospital's inputs, hospital's output, technical efficiency, data envelopment analysis, DEA


We report genetic maps for diploid (D) and tetraploid (AtDt) Gossypium genomes composed of sequence-tagged sites (STS) that foster structural, functional, and evolutionary genomic studies. The maps include, respectively, 2584 loci at 1.72-cM (∼600 kb) intervals based on 2007 probes (AtDt) and 763 loci at 1.96-cM (∼500 kb) intervals detected by 662 probes (D). Both diploid and tetraploid cottons exhibit negative crossover interference; i.e., double recombinants are unexpectedly abundant. We found no major structural changes between Dt and D chromosomes, but confirmed two reciprocal translocations between At chromosomes and several inversions. Concentrations of probes in corresponding regions of the various genomes may represent centromeres, while genome-specific concentrations may represent heterochromatin. Locus duplication patterns reveal all 13 expected homeologous chromosome sets and lend new support to the possibility that a more ancient polyploidization event may have predated the A-D divergence of 6–11 million years ago. Identification of SSRs within 312 RFLP sequences plus direct mapping of 124 SSRs and exploration for CAPS and SNPs illustrate the "portability" of these STS loci across populations and detection systems useful for marker-assisted improvement of the world's leading fiber crop. These data provide new insights into polyploid evolution and represent a foundation for assembly of a finished sequence of the cotton genome.


Protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania undergo a complex life cycle involving transmission by biting sand flies and replication within mammalian macrophage phagolysosomes. A major component of the Leishmania surface coat is the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored polysaccharide called lipophosphoglycan (LPG). LPG has been proposed to play many roles in the infectious cycle, including protection against complement and oxidants, serving as the major ligand for macrophage adhesion, and as a key factor mitigating host responses by deactivation of macrophage signaling pathways. However, all structural domains of LPG are shared by other major surface or secretory products, providing a biochemical redundancy that compromises the ability of in vitro tests to establish whether LPG itself is a virulence factor. To study truly lpg(-) parasites, we generated Leishmania major lacking the gene LPG1 [encoding a putative galactofuranosyl (Gal(f)) transferase] by targeted gene disruption. The lpg1(-) parasites lacked LPG but contained normal levels of related glycoconjugates and GPI-anchored proteins. Infections of susceptible mice and macrophages in vitro showed that these lpg(-) Leishmania were highly attenuated. Significantly and in contrast to previous LPG mutants, reintroduction of LPG1 into the lpg(-) parasites restored virulence. Thus, genetic approaches allow dissection of the roles of this complex family of interrelated parasite virulence factors, and definitively establish the role of LPG itself as a parasite virulence factor. Because the lpg1(-) mutant continue to synthesize bulk GPI-anchored Gal(f)-containing glycolipids other than LPG, a second pathway distinct from the Golgi-associated LPG synthetic compartment must exist.


It is often claimed that the collapse of the wave function and Born's rule to interpret the square of the norm as a probability, have to be introduced as separate axioms in quantum mechanics besides the Schroedinger equation. Here we show that this is not true in certain models where quantum behavior can be attributed to underlying deterministic equations. It is argued that indeed the apparent spontaneous collapse of wave functions and Born's rule are features that strongly point towards determinism underlying quantum mechanics.


Advances in single-cell technologies have shifted genomics research from the analysis of bulk tissues toward a comprehensive characterization of individual cells. This holds enormous opportunities for both basic biology and clinical research. As such, identification and characterization of shortlived progenitors, stem cells, cancer stem cells, or circulating tumor cells are essential to better understand both normal and diseased tissue biology. However, quantifying gene expression in each cell remains a significant challenge due to the low amount of mRNA available within individual cells. This leads to the excess amount of zero counts caused by dropout events. Here we introduce RIA, a regression-based approach, that is able to reliably recover the missing values in single-cell data and thus can effectively improve the performance of downstream analyses. We compare RIA with state-of-the-art methods using five scRNA-seq datasets with a total of 3,535 cells. In each dataset analyzed, RIA outperforms existing approaches in improving the identification of cell populations while preserving the biological landscape. We also demonstrate that RIA is able to infer temporal trajectories of embryonic development stages.


As the fastest growing sector and accounting for around a fifth of worldwide electricity production, renewable energy has emerged as a significant source in the global mix. Much of this success has stemmed from significant policy effort and economic incentives at the country level, particularly in the OECD. Massive investment has taken place on a global scale, with costs for most technologies falling steadily. As a result, renewable energy technologies are becoming more economically attractive in an increasing range of countries and circumstances, with China, India and Brazil emerging as major deployment grounds. Going forward, the continued growth of renewable energy will depend upon the evolution of policy and market frameworks. Yet, further technology development, grid and system integration issues and the availability of finance will also weigh as key variables.
This new annual IEA publication, Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2012, provides a key benchmark, assessing the current state of play of renewable energy, identifying the main drivers and barriers to deployment and projecting renewable energy electricity capacity and generation through 2017. Starting with an in-depth analysis of key country-level markets, which represent 80% of renewable electricity generation today, the report examines the prospects for renewable energy finance and provides a global outlook for each renewable electricity technology. The report analyses enablers and barriers to renewable energy deployment in detail, examining larger electricity market issues that have implications for renewable development, including country-level demand projections, anticipated changes in conventional generating capacity and power system integration.


The non-tenured faculty at Stony Brook University Libraries has implemented an annual one-day retreat which includes presentations, posters of research in progress, group activities, and a discussion of current library issues. The retreats have inspired junior faculty members and assisted them in forming a supportive network of peer mentoring for guidance through the tenure process.


Although it has long been recognized that vortex-induced vibrations of subsea pipeline spans involve nonlinear and inelastic behavior, the current practice to assess such spans for fatigue and ultimate loading conditions is based on the modal analysis assuming linear behavior. Nevertheless, nonlinearity can be captured approximately by making the linearization amplitude dependent. The eigenvalue problem to be solved for the natural frequencies and mode shapes then involves a stiffness matrix that depends on the mode shape and amplitude of vibration. An important part of the nonlinearity comes from the soil, which is generally represented by springs. This paper presents a simple and particularly effective algorithm to solve this nonlinear eigenvalue problem by using the same algorithm that serves to track the bifurcated solution branches in quasi-static structural stability (buckling) analyses. This method is applied to an example in which the nonlinearity comes from the soil springs. The results demonstrate the importance of the nonlinearity, even at relatively low vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) amplitudes typical of the pure inline response. The inelasticity of the soil springs is also used to calculate the associated contribution to the modal damping ratio.


This paper addresses the application of a PCA analysis on categorical data prior to diagnose a patients data set using a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) system. The particularity is that the standard PCA techniques are designed to deal with numerical attributes, but our medical data set contains many categorical data and alternative methods as RS-PCA are required. Thus, we propose to hybridize RS-PCA (Regular Simplex PCA) and a simple CBR. Results show how the hybrid system produces similar results when diagnosing a medical data set, that the ones obtained when using the original attributes. These results are quite promising since they allow to diagnose with less computation effort and memory storage.


Flexural partitioning of a foreland system into foredeep, forebulge, and backbulge is the result of the interplay of lithospheric deflection under orogenic loading (flexural tectonics) and the structure of the underlying basement. Flexural tectonics is commonly invoked as the sole control on flexural profiles, which are modeled as dampened sine curves with wavelengths and magnitudes controlled by a number of physical parameters of the lithosphere and the applied loads. Basement tectonics is shown here to be an equally important control on the scale and shape of flexural provinces, by controlling the location of flexural hinge lines and the tilt directions within the foreland system. The case study for this paper shows that basement heterogeneity coupled with the selective reactivation of major crustal faults may lead to distortion of the ideal flexural profile, by modifying the wavelength and shape of individual flexural provinces.


The origin of amniotes was a key event in vertebrate evolution, enabling tetrapods to break their ties with water and invade terrestrial environments. Two pivotal clades of early tetrapods, the diadectomorphs and the seymouriamorphs, have played an unsurpassed role in debates about the ancestry of amniotes for over a century, but their skeletal morphology has provided conflicting evidence for their affinities. Using high‐resolution X‐ray microcomputed tomography, we reveal the three‐dimensional architecture of the well preserved endosseous labyrinth of the inner ear in representative species belonging to both groups. Data from the inner ear are coded in a new cladistic matrix of stem and primitive crown amniotes. Both maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference analyses retrieve seymouriamorphs as derived non‐crown amniotes and diadectomorphs as sister group to synapsids. If confirmed, this sister group relationship invites re‐examination of character polarity near the roots of the crown amniote radiation. Major changes in the endosseous labyrinth and adjacent braincase regions are mapped across the transition from non‐amniote to amniote tetrapods and include: a ventral shift of the cochlear recess relative to the vestibule and the semicircular canals; cochlear recess (primitively housed exclusively within the opisthotic) accommodated within both the prootic and the opisthotic; development of a distinct fossa subarcuata. The inner ear of seymouriamorphs foreshadows conditions of more derived groups, whereas that of diadectomorphs shows a mosaic of plesiomorphic and apomorphic traits, some of which are unambiguously amniote‐like, including a distinct and pyramid‐like cochlear recess.


Grassland habitat degradation intensified in the last century worldwide and in Europe. In Romania, substantial areas of biodiverse grassland habitats that persisted due to small-scale farming are now threatened by recent land-use intensification. However, data regarding the deviation from grazing optimum, essential for management plans encompassing both socioeconomic sustainability and environment conservation, are not yet available. To fill this gap, detailed statistics of the stocking rate and its deviation from optimum were generated by spatial modeling techniques. A toolbox was developed to assess such deviations inside or outside the Natura 2000 Network of protected areas. The analysis covered an area of 33529.42 km 2 , corresponding to all the Romanian permanent grasslands within the land parcel identification system. The results indicate that over half of this area is degraded, mostly from overgrazing. Less than 10% is not impacted by inadequate livestock density. Of the national grassland area, 17.34% is included within the Natura 2000 protected sites, indicating the substantial overlapping of agricultural and protection activities. For this category, the degraded area is slightly lower than at the national level (50.34% vs. 52.45%). These results can be applied for environmental conflict anticipation and optimal management of grassland habitats to achieve both socioeconomic and conservation objectives.


Al-Qur'an is a holy book of Muslims that is derived by Allah ﷻ revealed to Rasulullah ﷺ. Through an angelic messenger jibril with its pronunciation and meaning. Al-Qur'an is a miracle that he is very valuable to Muslims to this day. The scriptures revealed in the holy month of Ramadan, contained guidance and guidance for mankind in achieving the happiness of life in the world and the hereafter. Al-Qur'an was revealed to the Messenger Rasulullah ﷺ to be used as guidelines, concepts, and rules of human life as the word of Allah ﷻ " Al-Qur'an has no doubt about it; the guidance of those who fear Allah, those who believe in the Unseen, who establish the prayer, and spend of some of the sustenance which we bestow upon them." (QS.al-Baqarah [2]: 2-3). Writing methods used in this study include data collection methods (interview method, literature method, documentation method, and experiment method) and system development methods.To facilitate Muslims in reading and knowing the Qur'an both meaning and content then the authors make a study with the title "Mobile Web Based Al-Quran Index" this application will be used by the people in searching and finding suras and verses related to certain laws in the hope of getting the attention of the community because it better understand the meaning of the derivation of verses in the al-Qur'an.this research has been successfully implemented an application dictionary isitlah biology android based by using php programming language and database which is based on Structured Query Language (SQL) is MySQL with name indekquran.sql with 4 tables the authors apply the method of software development waterfall.


Oral neoplasm constitutes a predominant class of cancer that is encountered in South India. This is in large part due to the elevated risk of oncogenesis as a result of the habit of chewing of quids containing betel leaves, areca nut and smokeless tobacco. An array of molecular events are induced during the transformation of the buccal epithelium, among them the over-expression of oncogene products plays a key role. The c-Myc protein, a regulator of a number of key cellular signalling pathways, plays a pivotal role in a number of malignancies. The present study was undertaken to evaluate expression of the c-Myc protein in tumours of the oral cavity from the South Indian population, predominantly oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The c-Myc protein was over-expressed in 80% of the cases studied. Taking into account the pivotal role demonstrated for c-Myc in tumourigenesis, our observations suggest a key role for Myc oncoprotein in the genesis of OSCC as well as its potential as a therapeutic target in this population.


An explicit and detailed representation of in-droplet and in-crystal aerosol particles in stratiform clouds has been introduced in the global aerosol-climate model ECHAM5-HAM. The new scheme allows an evaluation of the cloud cycling of aerosols and an estimation of the relative contributions of nucleation and collision scavenging, as opposed to evaporation of hydrometeors in the global aerosol processing by clouds. On average an aerosol particle is cycled through stratiform clouds 0.5 times. The new scheme leads to important changes in the simulated fraction of aerosol scavenged in clouds, and consequently in the aerosol wet deposition. In general, less aerosol is scavenged into clouds with the new prognostic treatment than what is prescribed in standard ECHAM5-HAM. Aerosol concentrations, size distributions, scavenged fractions and cloud droplet concentrations are evaluated and compared to different observations. While the scavenged fraction and the aerosol number concentrations in the marine boundary layer are well represented in the new model, aerosol optical thickness, cloud droplet number concentrations in the marine boundary layer and the aerosol volume in the accumulation and coarse modes over the oceans are overestimated. Sensitivity studies suggest that a better representation of below-cloud scavenging, higher in-cloud collision coefficients, or a reduced water uptake by seasalt aerosols could reduce these biases.


Accident compensation, and particularly auto accident compensation, is typically thought to take one of two dichotomous forms: either no-fault or traditional tort. Further, conventional wisdom holds that while pure no-fault may be an option in theory, it is not one in practice. No pure no-fault auto regime has ever been enacted in the United States, and states these days are repealing, rather than enacting, modified no-fault legislation. Yet something peculiar is happening on the ground. Far out of the light of day, high-volume personal injury firms that I call "settlement mills" are quietly achieving many of no-fault's objectives — speeding recoveries, lowering systemic costs, and delivering relatively standardized sums to an apparently expanded set of clients — while ostensibly operating within traditional tort. What settlement mills are accomplishing, then, is in some respects astonishing — and certainly commendable. Yet, the fact settlement mills' distinctive operations are out of the light of day and rarely revealed to clients is problematic, raising profound issues of informed consent and highlighting severe information deficiencies in the market for legal services. A well-designed disclosure regime can preserve settlement mills' substantial benefits, ameliorate their unique costs, and, more broadly, improve the tort system's operation and address the vexing problem of attorney choice.


Pandirodesmus rutherfordi, n. sp., represented by 18 individuals including eight adult males, occurs in secondary forests near Charlotteville and Speyside, Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago. Along with the type and second species, P. disparipes Silvestri, from Guyana and known only from females, the segmental legs of P. rutherfordi alternate between long (anterior pairs) and short (posterior ones), spiracular openings are on straw-like tubules, and ozopores are located on paramedian metatergal spines. These features appear to be adaptations for biotopes of loose sand, detritus, or frass, and 17 specimens, including the six juveniles, exhibit coatings of "sand grains" that are loosely cemented together and to the smooth, translucent, grayish-white exoskeleton. The tubules and spines elevate the spiracles and ozopores above the coating, thereby ensuring that they remain open and functional. The coating, which provides camoufl age and lends strength and rigidity to the poorly sclerotized exoskeleton, is a subuniform "pavement" that covers the entire animal except the labrum/clypeus, tarsal and antennal apices, prozonae, paraprocts, and the gonopods in males. Ramose/dendritic setae, particularly on narrowly rounded podo-/antennomeres, trap "sand grains," and the ozopore secretions apparently constitute the "glue" that cements the coating, as evidenced circumstantially by layers of "sand" between the spines on the anterior metaterga, where they are physically closest. The alternating segmental leg lengths, in part due to differing ventrolateral and ventromedial origins, appear to be an adaptation for lateral/sideways motion in which the long (anterior) legs extend laterally and pull the body to the level of the short (posterior) ones, which continue the motion while the anterior legs extend to begin the next stroke. The opposing legs perform the complementary pushing motion a fraction after the long legs initiate the pulling stroke and hence are slightly and purposefully out of sync. An adult male paratype lacks the coating, probably because it had just molted and lacked time to amass it; the juvenile female paratype of P. disparipes also is "naked," as was, according to Silvestri, the now lost adult female holotype. Until fresh material is collected, coatings cannot be confi rmed for P. disparipes even though it shares the anatomical modifi cations that seem adaptions for such. The minute, triramous gonotelopodites of P. rutherfordi are unlike any known for a chelodesmid, so the current generic placement, in a monotypic tribe in the nominate chelodesmid subfamily, is retained. With species in both South America and the southern Antilles, Pandirodesmus/ini had to exist on both the "proto-Antillean" terrane and the adjoining part of Pangaean Gondwana before the former rifted in the Cretaceous/Paleocene, ~66 million years ago, and P. rutherfordi is a remnant of the former population that became isolated on present-day Tobago when the terrane fragmented. Affi nity between Guyanan and southern Antillean platyrhacid millipeds (Polydesmida: Leptodesmidea) suggest that Pandirodesmus/ini may occur sporadically as far north in the island chain as St. Lucia.


In ayurvedic medical practice, the ways in which and the reasons why people become ill are often explained with stories. This book explores the forms and functions of narrative in ?yurveda, India's classical medical system. Looking at narratives concerning fever, miscarriage, and the so-called king's disease, Anthony Cerulli examines how the medical narrative shifts from clinical to narrative discourse and how stories from religious and philosophical texts are adapted to the medical framework. Cerulli discusses the ethics of illness that emerge and offers a genealogy of patienthood in Indian cultural history. Using Sanskrit medical sources, the book excavates the role, and ultimately the centrality, of Hindu religious thought and practice to the development of Indian medicine in the classical era up to the eve of British colonialism. In addition to its cultural and historical contributions to South Asian Studies, the medical narratives discussed in the book contribute fresh perspectives on medicine and ethics in general and, in particular, notions of health and illness.


Simple viscoelastic dampers have been invented for use on the root attachments of turbomachine blades. These dampers suppress bending- and torsion-mode blade vibrations, which are excited by unsteady aerodynamic forces during operation. In suppressing vibrations, these dampers reduce fatigue (thereby prolonging blade lifetimes) while reducing noise. These dampers can be installed in new turbomachines or in previously constructed turbomachines, without need for structural modifications. Moreover, because these dampers are not exposed to flows, they do not affect the aerodynamic performances of turbomachines. Figure 1 depicts a basic turbomachine rotor, which includes multiple blades affixed to a hub by means of dovetail root attachments. Prior to mounting of the blades, thin layers of a viscoelastic material are applied to selected areas of the blade roots. Once the blades have been installed in the hub and the rotor is set into rotation, centrifugal force compresses these layers between the mating load-bearing surfaces of the hub and the blade root. The layers of viscoelastic material provide load paths through which the vibration energy of the blade can be dissipated. The viscoelasticity of the material converts mechanical vibration energy into shear strain energy and then from shear strain energy to heat. Of the viscoelastic materials that have been considered thus far for this application, the one of choice is a commercial polyurethane that is available in tape form, coated on one side with an adhesive that facilitates bonding to blade roots. The thickness of the tape can be chosen to suit the specific application. The typical thickness of 0.012 in. (.0.3 mm) is small enough that the tape can fit in the clearance between the mating blade-root and hub surfaces in a typical turbomachine. In an experiment, a blade was mounted in a test fixture designed to simulate the blade-end conditions that prevail in a turbocompressor. Vibrations were excited in the blade by use of an impact hammer, and damping of the vibrations was measured by use of a dynamic signal analyzer. Tests were performed without and with viscoelastic dampers installed in the dovetail root attachment. The results of the measurements, some of which are presented in Figure 2, show that the viscoelastic dampers greatly increased the rate of damping of vibrations. Accordingly, dynamic stresses on rotor blades were significantly reduced, as shown in Figure 2.


This note reviews the legal issues and concerns that are likely to play an important role in the ongoing deliberations of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany concerning the legality of ECB government bond purchases such as those conducted in the context of its earlier Securities Market Programme or potential future Outright Monetary Transactions.