Paint Shop Pro 5 is the latest version of this popular image editing software for Windows, which is downloaded and used by millions of desktop and webtop publishers. It's the perfect tool for non-graphics professionals who want to create, view, and manipulate graphics for their Web sites, business presentations, digital cameras, and personal artwork. Paint Shop Pro doesn't come with a manual, because it can be downloaded from the Web. This is the documentation you're looking for. The Paint Shop Pro 5 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide will quickly get beginning and experienced users up to speed on the new features of the software, and will show you how to prepare graphics for the Web, process images and convert scans and digital photos, create multimedia presentations, and more. With its numerous screenshots and to-the-point numbered steps, the book quickly teaches the basics of Paint Shop Pro, from navigating and selecting to working with color to using painting and drawing to all new features including the Animation Shop image animator. New users will find it easy to get up and running quickly with the software, while experienced Paint Shop Pro users will find a wealth of tips and new information about the latest version of the software.


This article first tries to characterize contemporary Western populist movements. It then details the key points of E. Laclau's penetrating analysis of populism, with a view to using it in a perspective other than its author's own. It hypothesizes that the center of gravity of the populism in the West resides in a reference to the demos, rather than ethnos or plebs. It goes on to probe the causes of growing citizen alienation, the main source of populism. It suggests that the social aspect, notably the destabilization of the lower-middle classes induced by the Neo-liberal order, does not exhaust the issue. Institutional demands soon emerge to remedy a perceived disenfranchisement of majorities generated over half-a-century by the rise of culturally-defined minority groups, resulting in a "tyranny of minorities". Further, citizens resent being treated as minors by a "framed democracy" in which their capacity for discernment is ignored, and their assent dispensed with, by ruling elites in the name of a presumed higher moral good, or directives from unelected faraway power centers. The root cause of the malaise is the ascent, from the 1960s onward, of individualism and the relaxation of citizenship norms, leading to a situation where authority and power are questioned or feared, and political leadership becomes weak. Now reduced to a managerial role, it takes to accommodating activists, and delegates policy-making to independent, nonpartisan authorities, experts, or international organizations, thus becoming unresponsive to the will of majorities. In that light, civic populism is a response to a deactivation of democracy. Representative democracy systems, put in place over two centuries when the masses were uneducated, are not aging well now that average education levels have considerably increased and majorities want to make themselves heard. Redefining the relationships between elites and grassroots, majority and minorities, is thus in order.


In this paper, we review the problem of accounting for heat exchange between the flow and the flow part surfaces when creating a calculation model for modeling the workflow process of low-flow stages of a centrifugal compressor using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The objective selected for this study was a low-flow intermediate type stage with the conditional flow coefficient Փ = 0.008 and the relative width at the impeller exit b2/D2 = 0.0133. We show that, in the case of modeling with widespread adiabatic wall simplification, the calculated temperature in the gaps between the impeller and the stator elements is significantly overestimated. Modeling of the working process in the flow part was carried out with a coupled heat exchanger, as well as with simplified accounting for heat transfer by setting the temperatures of the walls. The gas-dynamic characteristics of the stage were compared with the experimental data, the heat transfer influence on the disks friction coefficient was estimated, and the temperature distributions in the gaps between disks and in the flow part of the stage were analyzed. It is shown that the main principle when modeling the flow in low-flow stage is to ensure correct temperature distribution in the gaps.


I. INTRODUCTION Americans consider child molestation and sexual assault among the most heinous crimes that one can commit. (2) In response to the public's opinion regarding these crimes, Congress created exceptions to the longstanding rule barring character propensity evidence. (3) Over the protests of prominent legal figures, (4) Congress enacted Federal Rules of Evidence 413415 in 1994.5 Though these rules have been sustained by several appellate court decisions, (6) the constitutionality of Rules 413-415 has not been conclusively decided by the United States Supreme Court. Missouri's legislature has twice attempted to pass a statute regarding child molestation similar to Federal Rule of Evidence 414, and twice the Missouri Supreme Court has struck down these attempts as unconstitutional. (7) Although the Missouri Supreme Court relied entirely on state constitutional grounds in refusing to uphold statutes permitting propensity evidence in child molestation prosecutions, one must ask whether the Missouri Supreme Court should instead follow in the footsteps of the of the federal judiciary, which has allowed similar long-standing rules of evidence to be rejected in favor of the will of the legislature. The essence of this query lies in the answer to the question of whether the prejudicial effect of such propensity evidence and the threat to an individual's right to be tried only for the crime for which one stands accused outweighs the potential dangers posed to victims and society. II. FACTS AND HOLDING In the case of State v. Ellison, the victim was a pre-pubescent child, barely at the age of rational cognition, when the abuse by Donald Ellison began. (8) Donald Ellison's wife, Tena, and the child victim's mother worked together at Dairy Queen. (9) On days that the victim's mother was working, Tena would watch the victim. (10) However, on the days that both Tena and the victim's mother would work, the child and her sibling were left in the care of Donald Ellison. (11) In the summer of 2003, Donald watched the children while Tena and the victim's mother were at work. (12) On this occasion, Donald asked the victim to go to the bedroom with him, "where he engaged in sexual intercourse with the child, despite her repeat requests that he stop." (13) After this initial incident, Donald continued to make "inappropriate sexual advances" when the children were left in his care, showing the victim pornography and masturbating in front of her. (14) According to the record, Donald "ejaculated in the child's presence and asked her to drink his ejaculate" and he had "vaginal intercourse with the child a number of times in various rooms in Ellison's house." (15) Finally on August 19, 2004, the child could not bear the burden of the abuse any longer and broke down in the midst of a slumber party, revealing that Donald Ellison molested her. (16) After being taken home and later to the local police, the victim told her mother and police of the ongoing rape committed by Donald Ellison. (17) The child described to local deputies "various instances of sexual abuse that had taken place after her sixth or seventh birthday and continued until her ninth birthday." (18) The child later testified that she had not spoken of the abuse to anyone until the summer of 2004 because Donald Ellison threatened to kill her if she told. (19) Following the victim's interview with local deputies, police arrested Donald Ellison and charged him with child molestation in the first degree. (20) At trial, pursuant to section 566.025 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, (21) the State entered into evidence a certified copy of Ellison's prior conviction "for the class C felony of sexual abuse in the first degree for subjecting a 13-year old girl 'to sexual contact without her consent by the use of forcible compulsion and in the course of such offense Ellison inflicted serious physical injury' to the girl." (22) In a pretrial motion in limine, Ellison requested that the trial court "enter an order . …


A fascinating description of a global language, A Grammar of Mandarin combines broad perspectives with illuminating depth. Crammed with examples from everyday conversations, it aims to let the language speak for itself. The book opens with an overview of the language situation and a thorough account of Mandarin speech sounds. Nine core chapters explore syntactic, morphological and lexical dimensions. A final chapter traces the Chinese character script from oracle-bone inscriptions to today's digital pens. This work will cater to language learners and linguistic specialists alike. Easy reference is provided by more than eighty tables, figures, appendices, and a glossary. The main text is enriched by sections in finer print, offering further analysis and reflection. Example sentences are fully glossed, translated, and explained from diverse angles, with a keen eye for recent linguistic change. This grammar, in short, reveals a Mandarin language in full swing.


Knowledge Management System (KMS) has been widely used by many knowledge-centric organizations to manage their organizational knowledge activities and to improve knowledge
sharing among employees. However, it is essential to study the utilization rate of the system in the company. In this research, the KMS and two different enterprise microblogging systems are studied to determine which systems is able to facilitate better knowledge sharing within a company. We studied these systems' background information, features and functionalities to compare and contrast their benefits and usefulness toward the organizational knowledge management needs. Detailed
documents examination and interview with the employees were conducted to collect data to analyze the rate of KMS utilization, benefits and usefulness. Two microblogging systems were introduced to the employees and their attractive features and benefits offered by the microblogging platforms were presented to the employees in order to study and determine their usefulness and rate of
utilization in the company. The data collected was analyzed and a comparison table was created which described the similarities and differences in term of features and functions of all three systems. In this research, it was found that the enterprise microblogging systems offer attention-grabbing features and functions which are identical to other social networking systems like Facebook and Twitter had effectively improved the rate of utilization and hence increases the knowledge sharing in the companies. The research outcome had shown that enterprise microblogging systems have the potential to improve knowledge sharing activity within a company compared to a KMS.


This study focuses on assessing the psychological contract in the voluntary/community (sometimes now called the Non-For Profit Sector) sector in Ireland and comparing the psychological contract between employees in the voluntary/community sector and elements of the private sector, primarily the retail/leisure industry. The study applies Rousseau's Psychological Contract Inventory (PCI)as the primary tool to measure the psychological contract and uses Rousseau's PCI technical report as a comparator for the research findings.

The psychological contract is defined as "An individual's belief in mutual obligations between that person and another party such as an employer" (Rousseau 1998). The research was conducted during March to August 2012 in the recessionary period, (as a result of recent financial and economic crises), which has had a significant impact on both sectors in terms of reduced funding and falling retail sales. A finding of the study highlights that the external environment within which the organisations are operating can have a significant impact on the psychological contract.

The study also shows that whilst the psychological contract within each sector was broadly similar, and were also broadly in line with Rousseau's PCI report from 2000, there were distinct differences inherent in each sector that pose unique challenges for the management of the psychological contract.

The main difference between this study within the identified sectors and Rousseau's PCI report from 2000 was in the specific area defined as 4 Transitional ' Psychological contract. The Transitional psychological contract is usually found at times of uncertainty and change, for example during mergers or acquisitions. The study found that there were distinct differences between the assessment of the psychological contract in terms of the employees trust, perception of erosion of their benefits, terms and conditions and in terms of uncertainty about the future relations between employer and employee.


Task learning in robotics is a time-consuming process, and model-based reinforcement learning algorithms have been proposed to learn with just a small amount of experiences. However, reducing the number of experiences used to learn implies that the algorithm may overlook crucial actions required to get an optimal behavior. For example, a robot may learn simple policies that have a high risk of not reaching the goal because they often fall into dead-ends. We propose a new method that allows the robot to reason about dead-ends and their causes. Analyzing its current model and experiences, the robot will hypothesize the possible causes for the dead-end, and identify the actions that may cause it, marking them as dangerous. Afterwards, whenever a dangerous action is included into a plan which has a high risk of leading to a dead-end, the special action request teacher confirmation will be triggered by the robot to actively confirm with a teacher that the planned risky action should be executed. This method permits learning safer policies with the addition of just a few teacher demonstration requests. Experimental validation of the approach is provided in two different scenarios: a robotic assembly task and a domain from the international planning competition. Our approach gets success ratios very close to 1 in problems where previous approaches had high probabilities of reaching dead-ends.


Reconstituted cell-free protein synthesis systems such as the Protein synthesis Using Recombinant Elements (PURE) system give high-throughput and controlled access to in vitro protein synthesis. Here we show that compared to the commercial S30 crude extract based RTS 100 E. coli HY system, the PURE system has less mRNA degradation and produces ~4-fold more total protein. However the majority of these polypeptides are partially translated or inactive since the signal from firefly luciferase (Fluc) translated in PURE is only ~2/3rd of that measured using the S30 crude extract system. Both of the two systems suffer from low ribosome recycling efficiency when translating proteins from 90 kD to 220 kD. A systematic fed-batch analysis of PURE shows replenishment of 6 small molecule substrates individually or in combination prior to energy depletion increased Fluc protein yield by ~1.5 to ~2-fold, while accumulation of inorganic phosphate contributes to reaction termination. Additionally, while adding EF-P to PURE reduced total protein translated, it also increased the fraction of active product and reduced partial translated product probably by slowing down the translation process. Finally, ArfA, rather than YaeJ or PrfH, helped reduce ribosome stalling when translating Fluc and improved system productivity in a template-dependent fashion.


A new analytical method was developed for the determination of 35 different amino acids in human pancreas tissue sections embedded in O.C.T. by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry with precolumn derivatization. An AccQ-Tag was selected as a derivatization reagent because it could avoid the ion suppression caused by matrix compounds in the pancreas tissue. This new method uses two different internal standards during the pretreatment processes to achieve good accuracy and high sensitivity, as well as a multiple reaction monitoring time segment program during the acquisition process. This method was fully validated for 35 different amino acids and showed a good linearity of calibration curve (r2>0.993), with a lower limit of quantification in the range of 0.01–0.75 μM. Furthermore, this method was applied to the analysis of 35 different amino acids in human pancreas tissue sections, and successfully allowed for the determination of 27 of these compounds. The accuracy of our newly developed method was estimated to be in the range of 87%–115% based on the results of a recovery test. This method therefore represents a powerful analytical platform for the analysis of human tissue sections and could be used to investigate the mechanism of pancreatic disease.


The aim of multi-objective optimization or multipleattribute decision making is to find the most appropriate solution among Pareto solutions. Usually, decision makers are in charge of evaluating and rating objective functions or attributes. However, in a good number of practical decision making problems especially in the area of public services e.g. determining the service contents of public transport, the decision makers determine the service contents while the users evaluates the quality of the service. In these problems where decision makers and evaluators are different, an effective method is necessary that can estimate the preferences of the evaluators (users). In the paper, an interactive method is proposed that estimates or learns the user preferences and finds the solution based on the estimated results.


Data for the solubility of minerals in aqueous solutions at high pressures and temperatures are essential for our understanding of fluid properties, mass transport and growth/dissolution processes of minerals in Earth's crust and upper mantle. Almost all available data on mineral solubility above 0.5 GPa have been obtained by ex situ quench methods in piston-cylinder-type apparatus. To exploit the obvious advantages of direct in situ solubility determinations in diamond anvil cells, we have developed simple in situ mass-loss approaches to calculate the mass of the observed crystal at any given pressure and temperature condition. This strategy combines the advantages of in situ and ex situ experiments while circumventing their disadvantages. In the present paper we describe a method that takes advantage of the tendency of crystals to approach an idiomorphic habit during hydrothermal diamond-anvil-cell runs. It can also be used for cleavage fragments. Using a modified version of the Kristall 2000 software designed for crystal drawing, the three-dimensional habit of a crystal can be modelled based on a two-dimensional digital image. This three-dimensional model allows the crystal volume and therefore its mass to be determined by measuring the exact length of just one crystal edge. The accuracy of this method is demonstrated by modelling the mass of various mineral grains of different shapes, morphologies, masses, densities and complexities, and comparing the modelled values to their actual weight. Modelled mass calculations are within 1σ = 0.38 % based on the Gaussian Error propagation for crystals varying from 0.2 to 38 mg. This method can be used not only for solubility experiments, but also in all situations where the crystalline sample is accessible only by optical methods.


The timely diagnosis of dementia for people under the age of 65 years remains challenging in the UK because of variable referral routes to specialist assessment, complexity of diagnosis and the increased likelihood of a rarer form of dementia which requires further investigations. This study investigates the time to diagnosis and number of consultations for patients subsequently diagnosed with young onset dementia who were referred to a local Neurology service and/or Memory Clinic. A retrospective audit of case notes and clinic letters was carried out. The average time from GP referral to diagnosis was 9.7 months. This is quicker than reported in other studies, but the service described has a referral care pathway and good post diagnostic support. Nevertheless 72% of patients received two to five consultations and 7% between five and ten consultations before a diagnosis was made. 60% of people referred to Neurology services took over 6 months to receive a diagnosis compared with 30% of people referred to the Memory Clinic. YOD patients seen by neurology services took on average 6 months longer to receive a confirmed diagnosis than patients who were seen by the Wokingham Memory Clinic. Further research is needed to investigate the symptom and demographic profiles of those referred to the respective services. There are merits to assessment and follow-up within both Neurology and Memory Clinic services and this paper advocates for more joined up working between the two disciplines and commissioning of a care pathway for people with young onset dementia and complex dementia which could reduce the time to diagnosis and the need for multiple specialist assessments.


Architecture, at least since the beginning of the twentieth century, has suspended historical references in favor of universalized abstraction. In the decades after the Second World War, when architectural historians began to assess the legacy of the avant-gardes in order to construct a coherent narrative of modernism's development, they were inevitably influenced by contemporary concerns. In Histories of the Immediate Present, Anthony Vidler examines the work of four historians of architectural modernism and the ways in which their histories were constructed as more or less overt programs for the theory and practice of design in a contemporary context. Vidler looks at the historical approaches of Emil Kaufmann, Colin Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri, and the specific versions of modernism advanced by their historical narratives. Vidler shows that the modernism conceived by Kaufmann was, like the late Enlightenment projects he revered, one of pure, geometrical forms and elemental composition; that of Rowe saw mannerist ambiguity and complexity in contemporary design; Banham's modernism took its cue from the aspirations of the futurists; and the "Renaissance modernism" of Tafuri found its source in the division between the technical experimentation of Brunelleschi and the cultural nostalgia of Alberti. Vidler's investigation demonstrates the inevitable collusion between history and design that pervades all modern architectural discourse -- and has given rise to some of the most interesting architectual experiments of the postwar period.


In this paper, a novel, combined evolutionary algorithm for solving the optimal planning of distributed generators (OPDG) problem in radial distribution systems (RDSs) is proposed. This algorithm is developed by uniquely combining the original differential evolution algorithm (DE) with the search mechanism of Lévy flights (LF). Furthermore, the quasi-opposition based learning concept (QOBL) is applied to generate the initial population of the combined DELF. As a result, the new algorithm called the quasi-oppositional differential evolution Lévy flights algorithm (QODELFA) is presented. The proposed technique is utilized to solve the OPDG problem in RDSs by taking three objective functions (OFs) under consideration. Those OFs are the active power loss minimization, the voltage profile improvement, and the voltage stability enhancement. Different combinations of those three OFs are considered while satisfying several operational constraints. The robustness of the proposed QODELFA is tested and verified on the IEEE 33-bus, 69-bus, and 118-bus systems and the results are compared to other existing methods in the literature. The conducted comparisons show that the proposed algorithm outperforms many previous available methods and it is highly recommended as a robust and efficient technique for solving the OPDG problem.


Objective: The goal of the present study was to determine covariates of serum lipoprotein (Lp) (a) within fasting glucose and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) categories, and to detect features that were different among covariates based on residence in Marmara and Central Anatolia (Marm-CA) regions or remaining 5 geographic regions of Turkey. Methods: Data of randomly-selected group of 1167 men and women (mean age 61 years) who participated in biennial surveys of 2013 and 2015 were cross-sectionally analyzed in 6 categories. Results: In multiple linear regression analysis of nondiabetic women, homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) index score was inversely associated with Lp(a) (β coefficient 0.49; p=0.001); this was not true for men. In the whole sample, Lp(a) was significantly positively associated with female sex and with serum creatinine, and inversely in each sex with HOMA index (β coefficient 0.63; p<0.001). Linear models within separate categories showed significant associations of Lp(a) only in individuals with no evidence of diabetes other than HbA1c >6.5%: in women, positive association with total cholesterol and inverse relationship with creatinine were found, and in men, positive association with apolipoprotein (apo) B was determined. Similar age, diastolic blood pressure, fasting glucose, triglyceride, uric acid, and C-reactive protein values were obtained from participants of 2 regional groups. Residents of the Marm-CA region who were nondiabetic exhibited significantly (by 23%) lower serum Lp(a) among individuals with HbA1c ≥5.7%, significantly higher HOMA index score, concentrations of apoB, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Conclusion: Hallmark of prediabetic and diabetic glycemia/HbA1c categories seems to be an independent inverse association between Lp(a) protein (yet not of apoB) and HOMA score, this being primarily so in residents of Marm-CA region.


Abstract Introduction Sepsis is a life-threatening dysfunction resulting from the dysregulated host response to infection. The mortality of sepsis in Jamaica remains high amid the proven efficacy of the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines implementation in some countries. Aim of study To evaluate the inter-relationship of healthcare workers' attitude towards, knowledge of and practice of sepsis management in Jamaica. Material and methods A survey was done using an anonymous self-administered validated questionnaire to healthcare workers across Jamaica. Questions on knowledge, attitude, and practice of sepsis within private and public hospitals were answered. Results A total of 616 healthcare workers were eligible for analysis. Most respondents agree that healthcare workers need more training on sepsis (93.7%) and that formal sepsis training modules should be implemented at their hospitals or practice (93.2%). Several signs of sepsis as outlined by qSOFA were correctly identified as such by most respondents (60.6% to 76.4%), with the exception of a low PaCO2 (34.9%), which was correctly identified by a minority of respondents. While a majority (69.3%) were able to correctly define sepsis, only 8.8% of respondents knew the annual sepsis mortality rate. Postgraduate training (p<0.01) and formal sepsis training (p<0.05) were both predictive of high correct knowledge and practice scores. Specialization in Anaesthesia/ Critical Care Medicine (p<0.05) or Emergency Medicine (p<0.05) was predictive of high knowledge scores and Internal Medicine predictive of high practice scores (p<0.01). Conclusions This study revealed that education for healthcare workers on sepsis and the implementation of SSC is needed in Jamaica.


A compound two-dimensional monolayer mixing Mn atoms and 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinoclimethane (TCNQ) molecules was synthesized by supramolecular assembly on a Cu(100) surface under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. The interactions in the Mn(TCNQ)(2) network and in the full system arc analyzed from a molecular orbital perspective and in the light of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging and simulations. Structural, electronic, and magnetic properties are studied in detail using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. In the absence of Cu and depending on the theoretical method used, the TCNQ species can be formally described as either dianions TCNQ(2-) interacting with Mn4+ cations according to ligand held theory (using GGA calculations) or, alternatively, as radical monoanions interacting with Mn2+ cations in a high spin state (using GGA+U calculations). In the complete system including a Cu substrate, whatever theoretical method is used, TCNQs appear as dianions interacting with both Mn2+ cations in a high spin state (d(5)) and charged copper surface atoms.


Allergies mediated by immunoglobulin E (IgE) are the most common immunological hypersensitivity diseases. The prevalence has been continuously increasing in recent decades, and more than 25% of the population is currently affected. Symptoms of aller ‐ gies can be observed in the skin and respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, and systemic manifestations include anaphylactic shock. If an allergy is not properly diagnosed and treated, it tends to progress to a severe and chronic debilitating disease. Understanding the mechanisms by which the immune system induces and controls allergic inflamma ‐ tion depends on knowing the structure of several allergens and identifying epitopes, which are critical for the design of new strategies for treating allergies. Strategies for immunotherapy will be reviewed. Allergen‐specific immunotherapy has been used for nearly a century and remains one of the few antigen‐specific treatments for inflammatory diseases. There is a strong rationale for improving the efficacy of allergen‐specific immu ‐ notherapy by reducing the incidence and severity of adverse reactions mediated by IgE. Approaches to address this problem, including the use of modified allergens, synthetic peptides as vaccines, and alternative strategies for blocking IgE, will be discussed.


For almost 50 years, the production and processing of weapon fissile materials was the primary mission of the Soviet nuclear complex. The cloak of secrecy on all nuclear weapons activities was lifted in 1995. However, the Soviet Union did not declare the amount of fissile-material that it produced for military purposes, and Russia did not reconsider the release of this information. Non-governmental analysts have made estimates of Russia's stocks of weapon-grade plutonium based on assumptions about the power history of the production rectors but such estimates are uncertain. This article attempts to provide improved estimates of production and current holding of weapons plutonium in Russia based on recent publications of historical documents and memoirs on the design and operation of the production reactors.


The type of analysis is the survey research, where researcher observes to collect data at PT. Telkom Malang with research title is: "The Career Development Influence of Employees' performance PT. Telkom Malang". The purpose of this study is to determine career development of employees' career planning and career management, employees' performance at PT. Telkom Malang. To find out the significant influence of career development variables of career planning and career management to employees' performance and career development variables to determine the most powerful influence on employees' performance in PT. Telkom Malang. As analysis tool of this reaserch, reasercher uses a range of scales and multiple linear regression. Based on the research and discussion that has been done, it can be concluded that career planning and career management of employees in PT. Telkom Malang included in very well category, and the performance of employees at PT. Telkom Malang included in the high category. Career development of career planning and career management significantly influence employee performance in PT. Telkom Malang and career planning have a greater influence than the career management of employees' performance in PT. Telkom Malang. Some suggestions are proposed, namely the company expected to make efforts in order to support the career development that will be done by employees. It is expected that company always strives to create a mood or harmonious working environment that can support the creation of high performance for employees. Concrete step that can be done is applying the rules consistently with the prescribed procedure, so that it can be used as a basis for employees to work in the company. Keywords: Career Development, Career Planning, Career Management, Performance


It is shown by analytical calculation based on the tight-binding approximation that the isotropic Dirac cone in the Brillouin zone center can be created in two- and three-dimensional periodic metamaterials by accidental degeneracy of two modes. In the case of two dimensions, the combination of a doubly degenerate E mode and a non-degenerate A1 mode of the square lattice of the C4v symmetry is examined. For three dimensions, the combination of a triply degenerate T1u mode and a non-degenerate A1g mode of the cubic lattice of the Oh symmetry is examined. The secular equation of the electromagnetic field is derived and solved with detailed analysis of electromagnetic transfer integrals by group theory. This is the first theoretical prediction of the presence of the Dirac cone in the three-dimensional periodic structure.


A comprehensive review is presented of the physical behavior of yield stress materials in soft condensed matter, which encompasses a broad range of materials from colloidal assemblies and gels to emulsions and non-Brownian suspensions. All these disordered materials display a nonlinear flow behavior in response to external mechanical forces due to the existence of a finite force threshold for flow to occur: the yield stress. Both the physical origin and rheological consequences associated with this nonlinear behavior are discussed and an overview is given of experimental techniques available to measure the yield stress. Recent progress is discussed concerning a microscopic theoretical description of the flow dynamics of yield stress materials, emphasizing, in particular, the role played by relaxation time scales, the interplay between shear flow and aging behavior, the existence of inhomogeneous shear flows and shear bands, wall slip, and nonlocal effects in confined geometries.


We utilized philosophical and historical perspectives to analyze the interconnectedness between agricultural education, science, and society. Using historical evidence, the adaptive role of agricultural education was discussed and recommendations for future adaptability were described. Additionally, connections between agricultural education, science, and society were evaluated in light of the call for agricultural educators to illuminate the links between science and society. In our exploration, the feasibility of linking science and society within school-based agricultural education was considered as well as the motivation and competence of current agriculture teachers to link science and society. Three types of secondary agriculture teachers emerged: (a) science illuminators, (b) illumination attempters, and (c) vocational purists. Recommendations are made for research exploring how identified classifications of teachers meet the science and social learning needs of students. Additionally, recommendations include methods for operationalizing agriculture, science, and society connections to enhance student learning and the positive impact of school-based agricultural education.


Steven Nelson. From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture In and Out of Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. xiv + 247 pp. Photographs. Map. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $50.00. Cloth. In this study of the widely disseminated inscriptions of an African architectural form, the distinctive Mousgoum teleuk, or dome-shaped house of the Cameroon-Chad border area, Steven Nelson speaks in three distinct voices. The introduction and chapter 2 are framed as an informal travelogue; the author laments that an approach based on the observation that "one of these things is not like the other" appears to describe the Sesame Street generation's narrow perception of exotic travel (50). Later in the same chapter he explores the position of the nineteenth-century traveler Heinrich Barth regarding the teleuk and otherness; to do this Nelson switches personae and adopts Freud's interpretation of ego and society from Civilization and Its Discontents (55-56). He also calls into service Mary Louise Pratt's updated reading of this ego-centered stance in her essay in Henry Louis Gates's "Race," Writing and Difference (Chicago, 1986). These three approaches appear throughout the book, creating a kind of triple reading of both the teleuk dome and its spectators: one informal and journalistic, the second and third, old-school and new-school academic exegesis. In a parallel way African architectural historiography has moved through its own successive explanatory regimes. Environmental determinism, leavened by cultural factors such as polygyny, has been the default mode for explaining Africa's architectural diversity during the long dominance of the adaptation model in social anthropology. In the 1970s, Douglas Fraser introduced formalist structuralism to his students; one of them, Suzanne Preston Blier, published her dissertation in 1987 on Batammaliba architecture using house/body symbolism to explain its parts and their significance. As her student, Nelson, in his turn, devotes chapter 1 to a similar exegesis of the Mousgoum house. But this is not the real thrust of the book's argument, which is less about architecture than about its reception and representation, bringing into focus a third approach to African architecture through critical reading rather than either structural analysis or, to quote Shirley Ardener, "social maps and ground rules." Steering away from traditional history and ethnography (which are disposed of in the introduction) , he says relatively little about either the internal workings of Mousgoum culture or its place in the region. What interests him more is the way the teleuk as a design and habitation was apprehended by precolonial travelers and later by French colonial administrators and intellectuals as a cultural representation of "primitive genius"-but also as unmeasurable "otherness." With chapter 2, the book's real theme is introduced by means of a long engagement with travelers' visits-from Barth in 1852 to Olive MacLeod in 1911 to Andre Gide and Marc Allegret in 1926-which sets up the opportunity for close critical reading. …


Background:
Cultural factors have been shown to shape eating disorder symptoms. The origins of this cultural influence have rarely been investigated, although identity development is known to be important in the development of eating disorders. This study explores the prominence of bulimic symptoms and acculturation indices in order to further explain the association of the two. Quantitative and qualitative methods are used.

Method:
In a mixed sex school in East London all teenagers over the age of 13 years were given the BITE questionnaire and an acculturation schedule. A random sample of students proceeded to a second stage unstructured interview, during which a diagnosis on DSM-III-R criteria was established to make sense of the qualitative data.

Results:
A total of 266 subjects completed the questionnaire. A sample of 31 were interviewed for qualitative accounts of their eating pattern and their identity development. Asians were more likely to think about food, to fast and to indulge in compulsive eating. African–Caribbeans were more likely to eat 'sensibly' in front of others and make up in private. There were differences in acculturation items and bulimic symptoms among Asians appear to have more sociocentric origins.

Conclusions:
Cultural identity and acculturative processes influence the development of and form of bulimia. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.


The Edmonton Sun newspaper recently carried an interesting article entitled "Maybe U.S. needs yard sale" written by Eric Margolis. In Eric Margolis's article, he talks about the recent financial crisis devastating the Unites States of America's (US) economy, along with much of the other global economies as well (Margolis, 2008). The current economic situation has been blamed on the tendency of certain banks to lend out loans (at low interest rates) to individuals and corporations who do not have the funds to payback those loans. This mistake has occurred in nation-states such as the United States, and Iceland. However, Eric Margolis article is not about the causes of the current economic crisis per se, but rather on the irony of the whole situation facing the United States as a consequence of their belief in neo-liberalism and their treatment of other nation-states. However, first we will look at the specific article.


Plant invasion success can be determined by changes in insect-plant interactions. After invading a new habitat, local herbivores consuming native plants can establish new interactions with introduced plants (Host Switching Hypothesis; Keane & Crawley, 2002). New interactions can affect decreasing fitness of exotic species and thus invasion capacity. The process of native insects switching to exotic hosts can be facilitated by a) the presence at the area of invasion of native plant species chemically related to the exotic plant, either from the same genus or family, which facilitates host recognition by herbivores (Janzen, 1968), and b) the time since introduction, with higher probabilities of herbivores switching to new hosts with a longer invasion period (Colautti, 2004). We tested the predictions of the Host Switching Hypothesis on the genus Senecio. Senecio is represented in our study area by two native species, S. lividus and S. vulgaris, and two exotics with different colonization times, S. inaequidens (introduced to NW Europe more than a century ago) and S. pterophorus (introduced to NE Spain 30- 40 years ago) (Chamorro, 2006). We compared herbivory on these four species by sampling the flower heads from 15-30 individual plants at 6 populations in Montseny Natural Park (NE Spain). Sampling was conducted from May to November covering the flowering stage for all species. Flower heads were dissected in the lab and presence of phytophagous insects was recorded. S. lividus and S. inaequidens had the highest herbivore consumption, with 25% and 10% of damaged flower heads, respectively. S. vulgaris and S. pterophorus showed low values of predation (less than 5%). Damage was mainly caused by the Senecio specialist Sphenella marginata (Diptera: Tephritidae) and the Asteraceae specialist Phycitodes albatella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Other unknown Lepidoptera were also found consuming flower heads. Sphenella marginata was associated to the native species S. lividus and S. vulgaris, but also to S. inaequidens, illustrating a case of Host Switching only for the exotic plant with longer introduction time. Sphenella marginata was not found on S. pterophorus even though plant and insect phenology were coincident. Phycitodes albatella was present only on the exotic species, affecting predominantly S.inaequidens (29% of total predation). The presence of Phycitodes albatella on S. pterophorus was marginal (less than 1%) because insect- plant interactions were constrained by phenology. Our results show that the presence of chemically related hosts and a longer time since invasion may have facilitated host switching for the diptera Sphenella marginata from native Senecio to the exotics S.inaequidens but not for S.pterophorus. Newly established interactions between native herbivores and exotic plants may decrease plant invasive capacity in the long run. References : Chamorro, L., Caballero, B. et al. (2006) Anales del Jardin Botanico de Madrid 63: 55-62. Colautti RI., Ricciardi A., et al. (2004). Is invasion success explained by the enemy release hypothesis? Ecology Letters 7 (8): 721-733. Janzen, DH. (1968) Host Plants as islands in evolutionary and contemporary time. The American Naturalist 102: 592-595. Kean R.M & Crawley M.J. (2002) Exotic plant invasions and the enemy release hypothesis. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 17 (4). 164-170


Today, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) systems such as web services have the
advantage of offering defined protocol and standard requirement specifications by
means of a formal contract between the service requestor and the service provider, for
example, the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) , PBEL (Business Process
Execution Language), and BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). This gives a high
degree of flexibility to the design, development, Information Technology (IT)
infrastructure implementation, and promise a world where computing resources work
transparently and efficiently. Furthermore, the rich interface standards and specifications
of SOA web services (collectively referred to as the WS-* Architecture) enable service
providers and consumers to solve important problems, as these interfaces enable the
development of interoperable computing environments that incorporate end-to-end
security, reliability and transaction support, thus, promoting existing IT infrastructure
investments.

However, many of the benefits of SOA become challenges for testing approaches and
frameworks due to their specific design and implementation characteristics, which cause
many testability problems. Thus, a number of testing approaches and frameworks have
been proposed in the literature to address various aspects of SOA testability. However,
most of these approaches and frameworks are based on intuition and not carried out in a
systematic manner that is based on the standards and specifications of SOA. Generally,
they lack sophisticated and automated testing, which provide data mining and knowledge
discovery in accordance with the system based on SOA requirements, which
consequently would provide better testability, deeper intelligence and prudence.
Thus, this thesis proposes an automated and systematic testing framework based on user
requirements, both functional and non-functional, with support of machine-learning
techniques for intelligent reliability, real-time monitoring, SOA protocols and standard
requirements coverage analysis to improve the testability of SOA-based systems. This
thesis addresses the development, implementation, and evaluation of the proposed
framework, by means of a proof-of-concept prototype for testing SOA systems based on
the web services protocol stack specifications. The framework extends to intelligent
analysis of SOA web service specifications and the generation of test cases based on static
test analysis using machine-learning support.


The recent crisis of confidence in the accounting industry has raised issues about the need for reform. In one area the timing and technology are right today for significantly different accounting rules—particularly rules that govern the treatment of uncertainty in financial statements. Discussed here are some basic misconceptions about uncertainty that are actually sanctioned by current accounting practice. A variety of analytical tools are available to improve representation of uncertainty for firms. The authors address some of the legal consequences of relying on accepted but flawed accounting standards, and point to a possible path to reform of accounting practice.


Decorative grass plants is making it's way to become the trend in soil covering crop. It is commonly used in landscaping. The chain of distribution is needed to bring the crop from the farmers into the marketing place. The marketing phase in one of the most important step, it
ensures the continuity of demand and supply for the this crop. The objective of this research is: Firstly, to recognize the variety of the distribution channel of
the decorative grass. Secondly, to understand the function of the marketing one by the crop marketers. Thirdly, to find the marketing margin. Fourthly, to find price transmission elasticity. Fifthly, to find the crop's vertical market integration. The research is conducted at Desa Sukolilo Kecamatan Wajak Kabupaten Malang based on
reason that this village is a main producer of decorative grass. The sample consist of two body, the farmers and marketing firm. The sampling based on theory by Arikunto (1998), that says if the population being sampled is below 100, it can all be taken into calculation, and if population is over 100, then we take 10%-15% out of then into calculation. The sampling method for the farmers is simple random sampling. Based on the fact that these farmers are uniform in their place research. The farmers population has beeb counted as 198 people, therefore we take 15% out of 198 which yields 30. As the number of the sample next the snow ball sampling is used for the marketing firm( on which the farmers pick their business relation as the sample). The data obtaneid is divided into two different groups is primary data and secondary data.
Primary data mining used three technique are observation, interview and questionare. Secondary data is making used of publications and information from agriculture department. This research used two method of data analysis are descriptive analysis and quantitative analysis. Descriptive
analysis make use statistic table, quantitative analysis used data from margin analysis, transmission elasticity and from vertical market integration analysis. Data obtained from this research revealed that the decorative grass market is build on top of two marketing channel, which are: (1). Farmers – bulk trader – retailer, (2). Farmers – bulk trader. The marketing functions are buying, harvesting, transportation, loading unloading, informing the market and risk taking. The marketing margin for the 1st marketing channel located in Flower Market Malang is Rp 4.000/ m², in Bratang Market and Dukuh Kupang Market is Rp 5.291,66/ m², for the 2nd marketing channel the marketing margin is Rp 4.467,65/ m². The price transmission elasticity for marketing channel 1st is -0,24. The vertical integration shows these numbers for marketing channel 1st: -0,333<1, 0,13<1, - 0,937<1 .These means that the relation between bulk trader and farmers is oligopolic. Another number -,75<1, means that the relation between bulk trader and retailer is a oligopsonic. Looking at marketing channel 2nd, we see figure -0,953<1 , this means a oligopsonic relation between bulk trader and farmers. Corelate the marketing margin with retail price in marketing channel
1st, we get this figure M= -7625+1,5 Pr. For the t test, with significance of 0,05 and degrees of freedom (df) 6, the result for t table is 2,447, and t calculated is 3,873. It shows that the t table is less significant, and that means the marketing margin is a linear function of the retail price.


This is part 131 of a chronology begun in Journal of Palestine Studies 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984), and covers events from 16 May to 15 August 2016 on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the diplomatic sphere, regionally and internationally. The habba, or uprising, that began in Jerusalem in 9/2015 dissipated further as the Israeli government expanded its crackdown on the occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli Left, and the Palestinian minority in Israel. Israel9s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected international efforts to push Israel closer to peace talks with the Palestinians, instead shifting his ruling coalition further to the right. The French peace initiative advanced with Palestinian backing, despite Israeli opposition. Egypt lent its weight to international peace efforts, but failed to break the Palestinian-Israeli diplomatic impasse. Internally, the Palestinians prepared for municipal elections on 10/8/2016. Israel and Turkey reached a formal reconciliation agreement, paving the way for a return to full diplomatic relations. For a more comprehensive overview of regional and international developments related to the peace process, see the quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy in JPS 46 (1).


In vitro autoradiography with 125I-labeled melatonin was used to examine melatonin binding sites in human hypothalamus. Specific 125I-labeled melatonin binding was localized to the suprachiasmatic nuclei, the site of a putative biological clock, and was not apparent in other hypothalamic regions. Specific 125I-labeled melatonin binding was consistently found in the suprachiasmatic nuclei of hypothalami from adults and fetuses. Densitometric analysis of competition experiments with varying concentrations of melatonin showed monophasic competition curves, with comparable half-maximal inhibition values for the suprachiasmatic nuclei of adults (150 picomolar) and fetuses (110 picomolar). Micromolar concentrations of the melatonin agonist 6-chloromelatonin completely inhibited specific 125I-labeled melatonin binding, whereas the same concentrations of serotonin and norepinephrine caused only a partial reduction in specific binding. The results suggest that putative melatonin receptors are located in a human biological clock.


The orientation of the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) in near‐Earth space is generally a good indicator of the polarity of HMF foot points at the photosphere. There are times, however, when the HMF folds back on itself (is inverted), as indicated by suprathermal electrons locally moving sunward, even though they must ultimately be carrying the heat flux away from the Sun. Analysis of the near‐Earth solar wind during the period 1998–2011 reveals that inverted HMF is present approximately 5.5% of the time and is generally associated with slow, dense solar wind and relatively weak HMF intensity. Inverted HMF is mapped to the coronal source surface, where a new method is used to estimate coronal structure from the potential‐field source‐surface model. We find a strong association with bipolar streamers containing the heliospheric current sheet, as expected, but also with unipolar or pseudostreamers, which contain no current sheet. Because large‐scale inverted HMF is a widely accepted signature of interchange reconnection at the Sun, this finding provides strong evidence for models of the slow solar wind which involve coronal loop opening by reconnection within pseudostreamer belts as well as the bipolar streamer belt. Occurrence rates of bipolar‐ and pseudostreamers suggest that they are equally likely to result in inverted HMF and, therefore, presumably undergo interchange reconnection at approximately the same rate. Given the different magnetic topologies involved, this suggests the rate of reconnection is set externally, possibly by the differential rotation rate which governs the circulation of open solar flux.


This paper explores the way in which the Duffer Brothers' popular Netflix series Stranger Things draws on religious symbolism in order to create an allegorical landscape, one which invites viewers to consider the most pressing topics of our time—climate change and ideological opposition. It argues that apocalyptic sf, with its focus on urgent contemporary questions related to technological advancement, is the perfect genre for exploring secular spirituality and ethics, as it potentially impacts as well as appeals to religious and nonreligious viewers alike. The paper concludes by considering the way Stranger Things encourages viewers to consider what a 'spiritual' response to disaster might look like, and what we might do individually and collectively to become more aware of the damaged "hyperobjects" (Morton, 2013) that surround and move through us, but which can be extremely difficult to keep in clear view.


Sporting grounds have started to be recognized as fertile sites for the (re)definition of subjective and collective identities of youth of immigrant background. As a country of recent immigration and a rich sporting culture, Ireland is witnessing new forms of sport participation that critically challenge the status quo. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with an under-18 football team composed of teenagers of various immigrant backgrounds, mostly African, and run by African coaches, this article foregrounds their racialized position within the Dublin schoolboys leagues. In the Irish context, public discourses on immigration often conflate, in negative terms, African, Nigerian and asylum-seeker. This situation affects the way the team is perceived and the way the coaches run it. The team is arguably lived as a space of resistance against different forms of racism. A particular discourse on discipline is developed by the adults in charge, which conceals the necessity, for black youth, of learning to cope with racism. In spite of all that, football governing bodies downplay the problem of racism in the Irish game.


The first clinically proven nicotine replacement product to obtain regulatory approval was Nicorette® gum. It provides a convenient way of delivering nicotine directly to the buccal cavity, thus, circumventing 'first-pass' elimination following gastrointestinal absorption. Since launch, Nicorette® gum has been investigated in numerous studies (clinical) which are often difficult to compare due to large variations in study design and degree of sophistication. In order to standardise testing, in 2000 the European Pharmacopoeia introduced an apparatus to investigate the in vitro release of drug substances from medical chewing gum. With use of the chewing machine, the main aims of this project were to determine factors that could affect release from Nicorette® gum, to develop an in vitro in vivo correlation and to investigate formulation variables on release of nicotine from gums. A standard in vitro test method was developed. The gum was placed in the chewing chamber with 40 mL of artificial saliva at 37'C and chewed at 60 chews per minute. The chew rate, the type of dissolution medium used, pH, volume, temperature and the ionic strength of the dissolution medium were altered to investigate the effects on release in vitro. It was found that increasing the temperature of the dissolution media and the rate at which the gums were chewed resulted in a greater release of nicotine, whilst increasing the ionic strength of the dissolution medium to 80 mM resulted in a lower release. The addition of 0.1 % sodium Jauryl sulphate to the artificial saliva was found to double the release of nicotine compared to the use of artificial saliva and water alone. Although altering the dissolution volume and the starting pH did not affect the release. The increase in pH may be insufficient to provide optimal conditions for nicotine absorption (since the rate at which nicotine is transported through the buccal membrane was found to be higher at pH values greater than 8.6 where nicotine is predominately unionised). Using a time mapping function, it was also possible to establish a level A in vitro in vivo correlation. 4 mg Nicorette® gum was chewed at various chew rates in vitro and correlated to an in vivo chew-out study. All chew rates used in vitro could be successfully used for IVIVC purposes, however statistically, chew rates of 10 and 20 chews per minute performed better than all other chew rates. Finally a series of nicotine gums was made to investigate the effect of formulation variables on release of nicotine from the gum. Using a directly compressible gum base, in comparison to Nicorette® the gums crumbled when chewed in vitro, resulting in a faster release of nicotine. To investigate the effect of altering the gum base, the concentration of sodium salts, sugar syrup, the form of the active drug, the addition sequence and the incorporation of surfactant into the gum, the traditional manufacturing method was used to make a series of gum formulations. Results showed that the time of addition of the active drug, the incorporation of surfactants and using different gum base all increased the release of nicotine from the gum. In contrast, reducing the concentration of sodium carbonate resulted in a lower release. Using a stronger nicotine ion-exchange resin delayed the release of nicotine from the gum, whilst altering the concentration of sugar syrup had little effect on the release but altered the texture of the gum.


Recent and historical species' associations with climate can be inferred using molecular markers. This knowledge of population and species‐level responses to climatic variables can then be used to predict the potential consequences of ongoing climate change. The aim of this study was to predict responses of Rana temporaria to environmental change in Scotland by inferring historical and contemporary patterns of gene flow in relation to current variation in local thermal conditions. We first inferred colonization patterns within Europe following the last glacial maximum by combining new and previously published mitochondrial DNA sequences. We found that sequences from our Scottish samples were identical to (92%), or clustered with, the common haplotype previously identified from Western Europe. This clade showed very low mitochondrial variation, which did not allow inference of historical colonization routes but did allow interpretation of patterns of current fine‐scale population structure without consideration of confounding historical variation. Second, we assessed fine‐scale microsatellite‐based patterns of genetic variation in relation to current altitudinal temperature gradients. No population structure was found within altitudinal gradients (average FST = 0.02), despite a mean annual temperature difference of 4.5 °C between low‐ and high‐altitude sites. Levels of genetic diversity were considerable and did not vary between sites. The panmictic population structure observed, even along temperature gradients, is a potentially positive sign for R. temporaria persistence in Scotland in the face of a changing climate. This study demonstrates that within taxonomic groups, thought to be at high risk from environmental change, levels of vulnerability can vary, even within species.


ABSTRACT The creation of a European Banking Union and a European Energy Union have been two high-profile integration projects in a decade characterised by multiple crises. While recent research has focused on the direct effects of crisis on European integration dynamics, less attention has been paid to policy outcomes of market integration in sectors such as banking and energy. To address this gap, the study examines how distinct paths of integration, and the types of institutional change they involve, translate into patterns of sectoral governance. Further, it analyses the consequences of diverging patterns of sectoral governance for policy outcomes, examining whether the existence of supranational coordination bodies and public–private interaction is conducive to market integration. The findings from the analysis of the banking and electricity sectors suggest that while we see resilience and renewed integration in institutional terms, the change affecting policy outcomes appears to be more limited.


This article is about the implementation of a literary module in a large scale Swedish professional development programme for teachers called the Reading Lift, which was introduced in 2014 in response to alarming PISA results. While the government-assigned preparatory work stressed the importance of literature and literary didactic methods, this area was reduced significantly in the hands of the National Agency for Education. For upper secondary school, the Agency did not initially plan for any literary content. This article examines what happened when L1 teachers demanded a literary module. Specifically, we study how the module was implemented and how literature is viewed. The study is based on interviews with researchers who contributed with content on behalf of the Agency and qualitative content analysis of the literature module. Results show that the module represents a focus on knowledge and art, unlike the instrumental and skills focused perspectives on literature for compulsory school, explored in an earlier study. One explanation for this, is that the influence of street-level agency bureaucrats was reduced due to various circumstances. The result was to the benefit of literary education but at the same time a high-risk route for the Agency's requirements for measurability.


It is shown that a planar defect in the stacking sequence of an all-dielectric photonic crystal of garnet spheres strongly supports localized optical guided modes, which originate from Mie resonances of the individual spheres. If the defect breaks space-inversion symmetry and the garnet particles are magnetized inplane, nonreciprocal and lossless transport of light on the defect plane, expected on the basis of group theory in the Voigt–Cotto–Mouton configuration, is demonstrated in ultrathin films of the defect crystal by means of full electrodynamic calculations using the layer-multiple-scattering method properly extended to photonic crystals of gyrotropic spheres.


This research examined the effectiveness of the buddy support system on teacher parent
collaboration and students' social interaction in special education in Malaysia. Until
recently, there has been growing awareness of the powerful influence a peer group can
have in supporting inclusion. The study will explore teachers' and parents' understanding
of special educational practices, their willingness to communicate with each other, their
perceived roles as well as their expectations of each other in which these elements were
deemed vital in a collaboration process that encourages students' social interaction while
the effectiveness of the Buddy Support System as a moderator is investigated in this
collaboration process. This study adopted a sequential mixed method design, where
quantitative data was collected using teachers' and parents' questionnaires which
highlights the elements and importance of collaboration for a successful special education
programme, the elements of friendship, interactions, acceptance by classmates, the
importance of social interaction of young students with special needs, and the elements
of the effectiveness of the buddy support system. Two types of statistical techniques were
used to analyze the quantitative data. Descriptive statistics comprising mean and standard
deviation were used to analyze data relating to the domains of teacher-parent
collaboration, students' social interaction among SEN and mainstream pupils and the
effectiveness of the buddy support system as perceived by teachers and parents.
Inferential statistics comprising Pearson's R Correlation was used to analyze the
relationship between teacher-parent collaboration and students' social interaction as
perceived by the teachers and parents. PROCESS procedure for SPSS (Hayes, 2013) was
used to determine whether the buddy support system significantly moderates the
relationship between teacher-parent collaboration and students' social interaction in the
implementation of special educational practices. Results showed that the teachers rated
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themselves highest on the understanding about SEN while parents rated themselves
highest on the expectations of teachers' role in the implementation of SEN. Both teachers
and parents rated the acceptance by classmates domain the highest in students' social
interaction among SEN and mainstream pupils. Teachers rated the influence and benefit
domain of the buddy support system the highest while parents rated highest on the
influence domain of the buddy support system. Hierarchical multiple linear regression
results were able to confirm that by controlling the Buddy Support System variables
(moderators), teacher-parent collaboration domain did not significantly predict the
students' social interaction domains, which accounted for a significant proportion of the
variance in students' social interaction. Emerging themes from the qualitative data
supports the quantitative data results. The findings of this study will provide essential
guidelines for fostering effective buddy support system on teacher-parent collaboration
in special educational practices. Training and support could be further provided by MOE
to aid the goal towards 75% of students with special needs enrolled in inclusive programs
by 2025.


In this paper we present a novel multi-layer model for physically-based character skinning. In contrast to geometric approaches which are commonly used in the field of character skinning, physically-based methods can simulate secondary motion effects. Furthermore, these methods can handle collisions and preserve the volume of the model without the need of an additional post-process. Physically-based approaches are computationally more expensive than geometric methods but they provide more realistic results. Recent works in this area use finite element simulations to model the elastic behavior of skin. These methods require the generation of a volumetric mesh for the skin shape in a pre-processing step. It is not easy for an artist to model the different elastic behaviors of muscles, fat and skin using a volumetric mesh since there is no clear assignment between volume elements and tissue types. For our novel multi-layer model the mesh generation is very simple and can be performed automatically. Furthermore, the model contains a layer for each kind of tissue. Therefore, the artist can easily control the elastic behavior by adjusting the stiffness parameters for muscles, fat and skin. We use shape matching with oriented particles and a fast summation technique to simulate the elastic behavior of our skin model and a position-based constraint enforcement to handle collisions, volume conservation and the coupling of the skeleton with the deformable model. Position-based methods have the advantage that they are fast, unconditionally stable, controllable and provide visually plausible results.


For decades, numerous researchers have documented the presence of the fruit fly or Drosophila melanogaster on alcohol-containing food sources. Although fruit flies are a common laboratory model organism of choice, there is relatively little understood about the ethological relationship between flies and ethanol. In this study, we find that when male flies inhabit ethanol-containing food substrates they become more aggressive. We identify a possible mechanism for this behavior. The odor of ethanol potentiates the activity of sensory neurons in response to an aggression-promoting pheromone. Finally, we observed that the odor of ethanol also promotes attraction to a food-related citrus odor. Understanding how flies interact with the complex natural environment they inhabit can provide valuable insight into how different natural stimuli are integrated to promote fundamental behaviors.


Fusarium head blight of barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a devastating disease in many countries. We undertook a study to identify barley cultivars, if any, that are resistant to Fusarium head blight and deoxynivalenol (DON) accumulation and to determine if DON concentration is correlated with other plant traits in Eastern Canada and China. Barley cultivars were grown in the field under artificial inoculation conditions at two locations (Charlottetown and Ottawa) in Canada during two summers and at Hangzhou in China during two winters. Seed samples were collected for DON analysis from the barley performance trial at five locations in Ontario. None of the 64 barley cultivars were immune to Fusarium head blight infection. Two-row cultivars, however, were significantly more resistant to Fusarium head blight infection and DON accumulation than six-row cultivars. Three cultivars (Island, AC Alberte, and Chevron) were found to be most resistant, as they were consistently low in Fusarium head blight incidence and DON concentration in both Eastern Canada and China. In six-row barley, DON concentration was correlated positively with Fusarium head blight incidence at both Charlottetown and Ottawa, and it was negatively correlated with plant height at Ottawa. DON concentration and heading date were not consistently correlated. Barley yellow dwarf and powdery mildew appeared to have very little effect on Fusarium head blight infection. Susceptibility to DON accumulation did not result in low yield under natural infection conditions in Ontario. Cultivar × location interactions for DON concentration, Fusarium head blight incidence, and heading date were significant.


Humans can perceive scenes in 3D from a handful of 2D views. For AI agents, the ability to recognize a scene from any viewpoint given only a few images enables them to efficiently interact with the scene and its objects. In this work, we attempt to endow machines with this ability. We propose a model which takes as input a few RGB images of a new scene and recognizes the scene from novel viewpoints by segmenting it into semantic categories. All this without access to the RGB images from those views. We pair 2D scene recognition with an implicit 3D representation and learn from multi-view 2D annotations of hundreds of scenes without any 3D supervision beyond camera poses. We experiment on challenging datasets and demonstrate our model's ability to jointly capture semantics and geometry of novel scenes with diverse layouts, object types and shapes.


A central problem in ecology is to understand how human impacts affect plant-animal interactions that lead to effective seed dispersal services for plant communities. Seed dispersal services are the outcome of plant-frugivore interactions that often form local networks of interacting species. Recent work has shown that some frugivorous bird species are more critical to network organization than others. Here, we explore how patch size and the potential local extinctions of obligate frugivorous birds affect the reorganization of seed dispersal networks. We examined the structure of 20 empirical seed dispersal networks documented across tropical avian assemblages occupying widely variable habitat patch sizes, a surrogate of the amount of remaining habitat. Networks within small forest patches consistently supported both lower plant and bird species richness. Forest patch size was positively associated with nestedness, indicating that reductions in patch size disrupted the nested organization of seed dispersal networks. Obligate frugivores, especially large-bodied species, were almost entirely absent from small forest patches. Analysis at the species level showed that obligate frugivores formed the core of interacting species, connecting species within a given seed dispersal network. Our combined results revealed that patch size reduction erodes frugivorous bird diversity, thereby affecting the integrity of seed dispersal networks. We highlight the importance of conserving large forest patches to maintain tropical forest functionality.


The concept of disaster resilience has gained attention in political spheres and news outlets over the past few years, yet relatively few empirical measures of the concept exist. Furthermore, research into urban resilience has dwarfed our understanding of disaster resilience in rural places. This schism in what is known about the differences between urban and rural places becomes the topic of this article. Employing a suite of spatial and statistical techniques using an established measure of community resilience, the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC), we focus on two key questions to better explain the resilience divide between urban and rural areas of the United States. Nonparametric rank analysis, analysis of variance, and logistic regression help describe the relationships between rurality and disaster resilience in contrast to resilience in urban areas. Pinpointing the driving factors, or characteristics, of resilience in rural America compared to metropolitan America, accomplished through binary logistic regression, revealed notable distinctions. Resilience in urban areas is primarily driven by economic capital, whereas community capital is the most important driver of disaster resilience in rural areas. Within rural areas there is considerable spatial variability in the components of disaster resilience. This suggests that attempts to enhance resilience cannot be approached using a one-size-fits-most strategy given the variability in the primary drivers of disaster resilience at county scales.


In the world of Facebook, Twitter and Yelp, water-cooler conversations with co-workers and backyard small talk with neighbors have moved from the physical world to the digital arena. In this new landscape, organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to government agencies to political campaigns continuously monitor online opinions in an effort to guide their actions. Are consumers satisfied with our product? How are our policies perceived? Do voters agree with our platform? Measuring online opinion is more complex than just reading a few posted reviews. Social media is replete with noise and chatter that can contaminate monitoring efforts. By knowing what shapes online opinions, organizations can better uncover the valuable insights hidden in the social media chatter and better inform strategy. This book can help anyone facing the challenge of making sense of social media data to move beyond the current practice of social media monitoring to a more comprehensive use of social media intelligence.


Abstract. In the last two decades, technological progress has not only seen
improvements to the quality of atmospheric upper-air observations but also
provided the opportunity to design and implement automated systems able to
replace measurement procedures typically performed manually. Radiosoundings,
which remain one of the primary data sources for weather and climate
applications, are still largely performed around the world manually,
although increasingly fully automated upper-air observations are used, from
urban areas to the remotest locations, which minimize operating costs and
challenges in performing radiosounding launches. This analysis presents a
first step to demonstrating the reliability of the automatic radiosonde
launchers (ARLs) provided by Vaisala, Meteomodem and Meisei. The metadata
and datasets collected by a few existing ARLs operated by the Global
Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) certified or
candidate sites (Sodankylä, Payerne, Trappes, Potenza) have been
investigated and a comparative analysis of the technical performance (i.e.
manual versus ARL) is reported. The performance of ARLs is evaluated as being
similar or superior to those achieved with the traditional manual launches
in terms of percentage of successful launches, balloon burst and ascent
speed. For both temperature and relative humidity, the ground-check
comparisons showed a negative bias of a few tenths of a degree and % RH,
respectively. Two datasets of parallel soundings between manual and
ARL-based measurements, using identical sonde models, provided by
Sodankylä and Faa'a stations, showed mean differences between the ARL and
manual launches smaller than ±0.2 K up to 10 hPa for the temperature
profiles. For relative humidity, differences were smaller than 1 % RH for
the Sodankylä dataset up to 300 hPa, while they were smaller than
0.7 % RH for Faa'a station. Finally, the observation-minus-background
(O–B) mean and root mean square (rms) statistics for German RS92 and RS41 stations, which
operate a mix of manual and ARL launch protocols, calculated using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
forecast model, are very similar, although RS41 shows larger rms(O–B)
differences for ARL stations, in particular for temperature and wind. A
discussion of the potential next steps proposed by GRUAN community and other
parties is provided, with the aim to lay the basis for the elaboration of a
strategy to fully demonstrate the value of ARLs and guarantee that the
provided products are traceable and suitable for the creation of GRUAN data
products.


Plants have been one of the important sources of medicines even since the dawn of human civilization. In spite of tremendous development in the field of allopathy during the 20 century, plants still remain one of the major sources of drug in the modern as well as traditional system of medicine throughout the world. Over 60% of all pharmaceuticals are plant-based. Curcuma longa Linn. commonly known as Haldi, family Zingiberaceae is an important cultivated medicinal crop of India. It is well known throughout the country. Turmeric is a holistic gift of nature. Its use in medication, culinary and cosmetics is well known since centuries. Its constituents, especially curcumin has been found to possess tremendous therapeutic potency to the extent of incorporating the curcumin nucleus in many other compounds. It is official in various pharmacopoeias. The present study is a review on a description of its various pharmacological actions studied earlier and in the recent times. It has been found to posses a myriad therapeutic activities ranging from anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-hepatotoxic, anti-microbial, anti-depressant etc. to the more recent chemo-preventive, anti-fertility, neuroprotective, HIV-1 & HIV-2 protease inhibitor, and many more. More stress needs to be given for the application of various techniques to enhance the yield of such phytoconstituents. Tissue culture techniques lead to the improvement in therapeutically active constituents of Curcuma longa. Although these studies can exploit therapeutic potential of drug but further studies are required to get its maximum utility.


In 2017, a new Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) curriculum was introduced into all of Western Australia's classrooms. The aim of this study was to investigate how teachers transitioned to that new HASS curriculum. Using case study methodology, the experiences, opportunities and challenges faced by the early childhood (EC) staff in two Perth schools were investigated as they prepared for and implemented a new HASS Curriculum. The results suggested the need for strong leadership in times of change. The results also indicated that these small, independent schools needed good resources and professional development to help understand the changes. The research is significant because it starts a much-needed conversation about prioritising HASS in the early years of schooling as well as addressing the challenges faced by early childhood teachers as they transition to teaching new curriculum in a core learning area.


The use of closed suction drainage after spinal surgery remains controversial. The purpose of this study was to determine the indications for closed suction drainage after single-level lumbar surgery. Two hundred patients who were scheduled to undergo single-level lumbar surgery without fusion were prospectively randomized into two groups. One group had a closed wound suction drain placed deep to the lumbodorsal fascia before routine closure, whereas the second group had no drain placed. Hemostasis was achieved in all patients before the surgeon had knowledge of the randomization outcome. All drains were removed on the 2nd postoperative day, and the amount of drainage was recorded. After surgery, the patients were evaluated for signs and symptoms of continued wound drainage, hematoma/seroma formation, and/or infection as well as evidence of an acquired neurologic deficit. One hundred three patients had a drain placed before closure and two patients developed postoperative wound infection, both of which were successfully treated with orally administered antibiotics. Of the 97 patients who had no drain placed after the surgical procedure, one patient developed a postoperative wound infection that was treated with surgical incision and drainage, as well as intravenously administered antibiotics. Statistical analysis revealed that the presence or absence of a drain did not affect the postoperative infection rate. No new neurologic deficits occurred in any postoperative patient. The use of drains in single-level lumbar laminectomy without fusion did not affect patient outcome. There was no significant difference in the rate of infection or wound healing and no patient developed a postoperative neurologic deficit.


The 'character' of democracy is regularly summarised using political-institutional measures of, for instance, 'consensus' or 'majoritarian' democracy. Yet, there is little quantitative-comparative research on the origins of such configurations. Drawing on literature on endogenous institutions and constitutional design, this article proposes a model for the explanation of empirical patterns of democracy. Using a novel database of 26 continental (neighbouring) European democracies and Bayesian spatial modelling, the results indicate that while today's empirical patterns of democracy in terms of proportional power diffusion can be traced back to waves of democratisation rather than historical partisan power configurations, decentral power diffusion can partially be explained by socio-structural factors, and spatial dependencies exist for all variants of power diffusion.


The greater openness of developing countries? economies and the free trade agreements negotiated in recent years have spurred arguments in favor of greater integration in the world; they have also given rise to strong opposition. In some cases the opposition stems from the reaction of specific, domestically oriented sectoral interests, and in others from the activism of groups adhering to what has been termed "globophobia". Regrettably, the implementation of the Hemispheric Cooperation Program (HCP) has been constrained by the paralysis of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, and thus has been extremely slow. Although the future of the HCP process is unclear, the experience to date in the Hemisphere provides a sufficient basis to analyze its origin and peculiarities, as well as its chief difficulties and determinants. The bilateral negotiations between the United States and Central America, the Dominican Republic and the Andean countries also provide important input for the analysis in this study, and the lessons learned can be very helpful to ensuring the successful implementation of the HCP.


Triphenyl silicon hydroperoxide and its isostructural germanium complex were characterized by single crystal X-ray analysis revealing H-bonding of two triphenylhydroperoxocomplexes, with each hydroperoxo ligand acting as a hydrogen donor and a hydrogen acceptor. Only two other structures with localized protons of hydroperoxo complexes' main group elements (boron and tin) are known (compared to 130 p-block element peroxo compounds) and both exhibit the same hydroperoxo double hydrogen bonding motif. The reaction of the hydroperoxo complexes with triphenylgermanium chloride to give the dinuclear peroxobridged germanium complex demonstrates the higher reactivity of the hydroperoxo moieties compared to the peroxo moiety. DFT calculations provide an estimate of the hydroperoxo double hydrogen bond energies: 62.8 and 63.6 kJ mol−1 for triphenyl silicon, 63.6 and 65 kJ mol−1 for the germanium complex.


People's expectations after the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago and of reunification in 1990 were huge. The government promised to create "flourishing landscapes" within a few years. The euphoria of reunification came not only through the desire to finally become one country and one nation again but also had tangible economic reasons: the people from East Germany wanted better economic prospects, more opportunities to realize their potential, and ultimately to create more well-being for themselves and future generations. West Germans were hoping for a boom. This promise very quickly proved to be an illusion. And, solely from an economic perspective, economic policy errors were made, such as monetary union at an exchange rate that caused East Germany's economic competitiveness to fall rapidly and, at least initially, contributed to a sharp rise in unemployment. In addition, privatization through the Treuhandanstalt was probably premature. Nevertheless, did reunification fail from an economic policy perspective? It would be misguided to take the political promises of whirlwind prosperity as a measure of the success of reunification. It is difficult to answer the question as to what are realistic objectives and criteria for a systematic economic policy evaluation of reunification. The convergence of living conditions in eastern and western Germany is a measure that comes close to assessing this objective. It would be misleading, however, to equate convergence with complete equality of all economic indicators. Equality of income, productivity, or assets will never be achieved in any economy or country. There will always be differences between regions, and even within regions, in any small or highly integrated country. The different regions in western Germany have not undergone this process since 1945, which would have led to full economic convergence, had the country not been divided. Quite the contrary: there are often temporary divergences, i.e., diverging living and economic conditions, sometimes relatively poor regions transform into the most productive. Bavaria is just one example of western Germany experiencing such a process. Countries such as Italy and Spain have very large and persistent differences across regions that have not evened out for centuries but have actually become even greater through globalization. This present DIW Economic Bulletin is intended as an initial contribution to the economic policy evaluation of reunification. To what extent have income, productivity, and wages converged in western and eastern Germany? How has reunification influenced different population groups? How have assets and well-being developed in both parts of Germany? These are the key questions analyzed in the first part of this DIW Economic Bulletin.


The objective of this study is to know the relationship between MDR-TB treatment to the changes in diameter and thickness of cavity wall on chest X-ray (CXR) 6 month and 12 months post treatment. This study was conducted in MDR-TB clinic in Kariadi Hospital, Semarang on January 2013-December 2016. We examine cavitary lesions, evaluated with CXR in pulmonary MDR-TB patients before and after 6 and 12 months of treatment course. Subjects who had been diagnosed as pulmonary MDR-TB and had received MDR-TB treatment for at least 12 months were chosen. Subjects characteristics and cavities features i.e. cavity number, diameter and wall thickness from initial and follow-up CXR 6 and 12 months of treatment were retrieved. A total of 43 patients of MDR-TB, consisted of 22 males and 21 females, was recruited. Most of the subjects aged 31-50 year old and presented with single cavity. The cavitary lesions showed significant reduction over 6 and 12 months of follow up based on CXR (p<0.001) for both diameter and wall thickness. Both diameter and wall thickness changed significantly from initial to 6 months (r=-0.87, p<0.001), initial to 12 months (r=-087, p<0.001), and 6 months to 12 months (r=-0.84, p<0.001), respectively. In conclusion, CXR as a useful diagnostic instrument that can be used to evaluate pulmonary TB, in primarily low resource setting.


This research details the synthesis and application of a novel pectin–hydroxyapatite (PHAp) composite for fluoride (F–) adsorption from aqueous solutions. To determine the efficiency of the adsorption process parameters, i.e., adsorbent dose (0.1–0.4 g), initial fluoride concentration (10–30 mg/L), and temperature (298–313 K), the Box–Behnken design with three levels and three factors have been utilized. The quadratic model was established on 27 batch runs by regression analysis of the experimental data of these runs. The efficacy of adsorption was observed using the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The adsorption rate was found at 3.17 mg g−1min–1, and adsorption kinetics followed pseudo-second order (PSO) for PHAp. The significant novelty of this work is the synthesis of unique cubical-shaped rods biopolymer composite from hydroxyapatite. Additionally, this composite showed high adsorption capacity for F– compared to other hydroxyapatite adsorbents, and the improved adsorption capacity is attributed to its unique shape which provides a larger surface area. It can be reused for up to six cycles, which makes this method environment-friendly. The economic viability of the synthesized PHAp composite, in comparison to other adsorbents, is evident from the cost–benefit analysis.


This paper discusses alternative numerical approaches to the analysis of the structural behaviour of glass beams reinforced with GFRP laminates adhesively bonded, which were calibrated and validated from four-point bending tests available in the literature. For this purpose, smeared crack and damaged plasticity models were used to simulate the non-linear behaviour of glass, available in FEMIX and ABAQUS finite element softwares. The interaction between the materials in the composite beams, using polyurethane or epoxy adhesives, was defined thought different strategies. In all cases it was possible to simulate well the non-linear behaviour of glass-GFRP composite beams. However, while the FEMIX (smeared crack model) results showed greater resemblance to the experimental ones, ABAQUS models, showed to be able to capture in greater detail the effects of cracking in theses structural responses.


This Companion offers a critical overview of the diverse and dynamic field of Atlantic literary studies, with contributions by distinguished scholars on a series of topics that define the area. The essays focus on literature and culture from first contact to the present, exploring fruitful Atlantic connections across space and time, across national cultures, and embracing literature, culture and society. This research collection proposes that the analysis of literature and culture does not depend solely upon geographical setting to uncover textual meaning. Instead, it offers Atlantic connections based around migration, race, gender and sexuality, ecologies, and other significant ideological crossovers in the Atlantic World. The result is an exciting new critical map written by leading international researchers of a lively and expanding field.


There is a view emerging in the philosophy of science that research practices in science can be characterized in terms of discovering and describing mechanisms. Mechanistic explanations are based on the identifying the underlying mechanisms that generate a target phenomenon and strategies understood as decomposition of these mechanisms. Recently, there has been a discussion among mechanists about the necessity to include constraints and free energy flows into the explanations, as constitutive components of mechanistic explanations. This is directly related to the existence of control mechanisms that are non-autonomous and entail the existence of heterarchical networks. I refer to this as the 'constrained mechanisms approach'. This paper examines the extent to which this approach can be applied to the predictive processing framework, which is now an influential process theory, offering a computational description of perceptual and cognitive mechanisms in terms of hierarchical generative models approximating Bayesian inference. In other words, I examine whether the constrained mechanisms approach can be applied to the framework in which control mechanisms play an important explanatory role. I will argue that predictive processing models based on the free energy principle are amenable to this approach. In practice, this means that free energy principle offers a normative explanatory framework for predictive processing, and that in turn, this framework offers a biologically plausible account of the manner in which the principle is implemented in terms of hierarchical generative models and heterarchical active mechanisms. These analyzes are of great importance for those approaches that undermine the explanatory status of the free energy principle.


In this paper, we study low-rank matrix nearness problems, with a focus on learning low-rank positive semidefinite (kernel) matrices for machine learning applications. We propose efficient algorithms that scale linearly in the number of data points and quadratically in the rank of the input matrix. Existing algorithms for learning kernel matrices often scale poorly, with running times that are cubic in the number of data points. We employ Bregman matrix divergences as the measures of nearness---these divergences are natural for learning low-rank kernels since they preserve rank as well as positive semidefiniteness. Special cases of our framework yield faster algorithms for various existing learning problems, and experimental results demonstrate that our algorithms can effectively learn both low-rank and full-rank kernel matrices.


Preclinical models and data from clinical trials suggest that cancer is a preventable disease. However, demonstration of a preventive effect requires large phase III clinical trials of long duration and involves many thousands of participants. The decision to proceed with phase III studies therefore must be informed by robust efficacy and safety data. This requires a systematic review of all available preclinical, epidemiological, and clinical data, along with a mechanistic understanding of the biology of the disease under study. In this review we identify the issues that are critical to decision-making prior to embarking on late phase prevention clinical trials and provide a framework for making such decisions.


An area deep within the brain has been implicated in control of arousal or mental alertness. Two papers in this week's issue of Science [Munk et al. (p. 271) and Castro-Alamancos and Connors (p. 274)] show how signals from this area, the midbrain reticular formation, change the physiology of the cortex, the part of the brain that governs higher functions. In his Perspective, Steriade traces the history of this field and discusses the significance of these results.