Spinel-type structured Li4+xTi5O12 (0 6 x 6 3 ) is actually one of the most promising anode materials for Li ion batteries. In its nanostructured form it is already used in some commercially available Li ion batteries. As was recently shown by our group (Wilkening et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 9 (2007) 1239), Li diffusivity in microcrystalline Li4+xTi5O12 with x = 0 is rather slow. In the present contribution the Li conductivity in nanocrystalline samples of the electronic insulator Li4Ti5O12 prepared by different routes is investigated using impedance spectroscopy. The mean crystallite size of the samples is about 20 nm. The ionic conductivity of nanocrystalline Li4Ti5O12 obtained by mechanical treatment is higher by about two orders of magnitude compared to that found for a material which was prepared following a sol-gel method. The latter resembles the behaviour of the microcrystalline sample with an average particle size in the μm range rather than that of a nanocrystalline ball milled one with a mean crystallite size of about than 20 nm. The larger conductivity of the ball milled sample is ascribed to a much higher defect density generated when the particle size is reduced mechanically.


In this contribution we show how fibre activation and micro-buckling of fibre walls may explain, quantitatively, differences in the hygro-mechanical response of paper sheets due to the presence or absence of mechanical restraint during their fabrication. To this end, both effects are incorporated in an idealised micro-mechanical model of the fibre network. The model is used to predict the response of the network to wetting-drying cycles, as a function of the degree of restraint during production. Restrained-dried networks are predicted to exhibit an irreversible hygroscopic strain upon first wetting and a different reversible hygro-expansivity coefficient, compared with freely-dried networks, which match well with experimental values reported in the literature.


After the run up in debt-to-GDP ratios around the world in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the associated lower fiscal space, the question of prudent fiscal consolidation is back on the agenda. In this paper, I study the macroeconomic implications of fiscal consolidation triggered by the newly introduced "debt brake" in Germany, which dampens the accumulation of debt. I address this question using a medium-size new Keynesian DSGE model for Germany. The model includes the government debt-to-GDP ratio, government transfers, labour income tax, consumption tax and capital tax revenues. I find that the "debt brake" enforces fiscal consolidation in times of economic expansions without constraining fiscal policy makers in times of recessions. I also find that the debt brake raises the government spending multiplier initially but not over time. Finally, the debt brake, with a fiscal consolidation on the government spending and transfers side, leads to a significant stabilization of the private sector without increasing the volatility of the fiscal instruments.


In this brief essay, I will describe some of what I have learned from Ed Cooper as a fellow participant in the rulemaking process and as a coauthor of two volumes of his Federal Practice and Procedure treatise. To describe everything that Ed has taught me would require much more than the length of this essay. So instead, I will try to offer some representative examples-or, as Ed might say, some "sketches." Because others will discuss Ed's expert guidance of the Rules Committees' consideration of key issues concerning the Civil Rules, my discussion of Ed's scholarship and reporting work will focus mostly on the large subset of his work that relates to appellate practice. I will touch upon his unique contributions to the law and scholarship of appellate jurisdiction and procedure, and also upon his generosity and wisdom as a mentor.


A high-speed, high-resolution, and large-scanning-range three-dimensional measurement system was demonstrated using an electronically controlled wavelength-tunable orthogonally polarized high-power ultrashort twin pulse source and an all-fiber interferometer. Thanks to the high peak power, the ultrashort optical pulses propagated along a fiber while maintaining the pulse shape by means of the soliton effect, allowing us to demonstrate high-speed, high-resolution, and large-scanning-range measurement. First, the interference was analyzed by numerical calculations and then the measurement system was demonstrated experimentally. A longitudinal scanning range of about 25 mm, a longitudinal resolution of 33 μm, and a scanning speed of 1000 points/s were achieved without moving parts. For a measurement distance of 0.5 m, a sensitivity of 60 dB was obtained. Clear three-dimensional images of a 100 yen Japanese coin and metal samples were obtained using this system.


Manufacturing in the Northeast and the Midwest pushed the United States to the forefront of industrialised nations during the early nineteenth century; the South, however, lacked the large cities and broad consumer demand that catalysed changes in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, in contrast to older stereotypes, southerners did not shun industrial development when profits were possible. Even in the Appalachian South, where the rugged terrain presented particular challenges, southern entrepreneurs formed companies as early as 1760 to take advantage of the region's natural resources. In Mountains on the Market: Industry, the Environment, and the South , Randal L. Hall charts the economic progress of the New River Valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, which became home to a wide variety of industries. By the start of the Civil War, railroads had made their way into the area, and the mining and processing of lead, copper, and iron had long been underway. Covering 250 years of industrialisation, environmental exploitation, and the effects of globalisation, Mountains on the Market situates the New River Valley squarely in the mainstream of American capitalism.


Context The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a widespread pest in southern Australia and is subject to control over large areas using poison baits to protect both agricultural and ecological assets. Foxes and their prey are often cryptic or in low densities, making it difficult to quantify the efficacy of control programs. Aims We explore the use of remote cameras to estimate the activity and spatial occupancy of foxes and potential mammalian and avian prey species before and after poison baiting in the Goonoo region, central New South Wales. Methods In the first of two studies, we set camera traps at 48 sites in forest and cleared areas, on and off tracks, during autumn 2009. In the second study, we placed camera traps in forest and cleared areas, on tracks only, at 100 sites covering an area of ~441 500 ha during winter 2009. We examined camera-trap rates of all species detected and the activity and site occupancy of a selected subset of species before and after poison baiting. Key results Camera traps indicated greater levels of fox activity on vehicular tracks than off them, with this difference being more marked in forest than in cleared agricultural land. Fox activity and occupancy were greater in agricultural land than in forest, with no effect of baiting detected at the landscape scale. Thirty-five other mammal and bird species were identified from photos, with activity for most being greater on than off tracks. Conclusions No clear effects of fox-baiting were detected on foxes or potential prey species in either study by either activity or occupancy. The lack of a baiting effect may reflect rapid recolonisation by foxes from unbaited areas, as bait placement is generally clustered in agricultural land, or the ready availability of alternative food (lambs or lamb carcasses) in some cleared areas. Implications Our results demonstrate that remote cameras provide a simple means of monitoring changes in fox activity and occupancy at the landscape level, and that these measures have great potential to quantify the success or otherwise of fox-control campaigns on both pest and prey species.


This Article analyzes how the Thirteenth Amendment has been used to prevent forced labor practices in immigration detention. The Article assesses the effectiveness of Thirteenth Amendment litigation by dissecting cases where detainees have challenged the legality of labor requirements under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Given the expansion in immigration detention, the increasing privatization of detention, and the significant human rights implications of this issue, the arguments advanced in this Article are not only currently relevant but have the potential to shape ongoing dialogue on this subject.


Sepsis is a complex clinical syndrome that features excessive release of cytokines and other inflammatory mediators that could lead to organ dysfunction. Despite different treatment and management options, sepsis associated high morbidity and mortality rates remain. This has prompted intensive research into alternative therapeutic approaches such as targeted removal of sepsis related molecules using extracorporeal hemoperfusion. In this study, we explore the use of graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) as low-cost alternative hemosorbents for rapid removal of a broad spectrum of proinflammatory cytokine markers. Firstly, the physical characteristics, cytotoxicity, and cytokine marker adsorption profile of GNP were assessed. The results not only confirmed the surface characteristics of GNP and their ability to rapidly remove cytokine markers, but also indicated a low cytotoxicity towards the hepatic cell line HepG2. GNP were then incorporated into a freestanding flexible GNP-poly(tetrafluoroethylene) film with preserved surface characteristics and cytokine adsorption profile for potential use in hemoperfusion applications.


The Beginings of Skilled Trade Enterprise in the Czech Lands Development of free enterprise in the middle of the 19th century, which was based on capital relations in the sphere of both production and market, was incompatible with the old system of guild craft and its complicated regulations. The Law of the Trade Code from 1859 abolished all measures that had been in effect until then and introduced trade freedom within the new economic policy and the needs of modern enterprise. According to the law, all citizens had theoretically the access to all craft trades after paying the set taxes - this resulted in a huge wave of trades being set up. Freedom of production as well as sales was proclaimed. Commercial Code from 1862, by which the absolute free competitiveness in business ventures had been legalized, became an organic amendment to the Trade Code from 1859. The article deals with the concepts of trade, a practice of its gaining or losing, it pays attention to a number of amendments. Trade legislation was connected with commercial activity and its conditions. An important role in the support of commercial activities was played by trade and commercial associations - the article describes their long history from their formation in 1850 up to their dissolution in 1948. Working of firms in the branch of industry, commerce and craft trades was strongly influenced by licensing authorities that directly permitted or refused trade licenses. The last chapter focuses on the Law against unfair competition from 1927 that was passed as the important reaction to business practice.


Recent decades have witnessed an increasing corporate access to and control over natural
resources resulting in environmental degradation, inequalities and ill health. Since 1972, oil
companies have extracted more than two billion barrels of crude oil from the Ecuadorian
Amazon. During this process, millions of gallons of untreated toxic wastes, gas and oil have
been released into the environment. Indigenous federations, peasants movements and
environmental groups have claimed that contamination has caused widespread damage to
both people and the environment.
This thesis tells the story of how the relationship between local organisations and research
institutions developed around an epidemiological study constructed to address communities'
concerns. Local organisations set the agenda of the research: they were involved in the
hypothesis formulation, consulted in each step during the study and responsible of the
dissemination of the findings. This process is known as popular epidemiology.
The epidemiological study examines the impacts of oil development practices on the
environment and health of residents living in the proximity of oil fields. These residents were
exposed to high concentrations of oil chemicals in water used for drinking, washing and
bathing. The study suggested a higher risk of spontaneous abortions (POR: 2.47; 95% CI:
1.61-3.79) and adverse health effects such as skin mycosis, itchy nose and sore throat
(p<0.05) among women living near oil fields. An excess of cancers among the male
population was found in a village located in an oil producing area.
Practical and personal issues and dilemmas faced during the research process are discussed
with emphasis on the communication and dissemination of the findings. The thesis concludes
the need of alliances between communities and researchers in order to protect health and
environment. Popular epidemiology is an essential approach for public health researchers to
reaffirm their roots in improving public health as a primary value.


Humanity is facing a series of challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, decreasing availability of cheap fossil fuel energy and social inequality that, when taken together, constitute a sustainability crisis. Agricultural systems are vitally important for the survival of humanity and must be moved towards greater sustainability. In Vietnam, the challenges facing the agriculture sector are immediate and pressing. These challenges include the need to improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers, improve food safety and protect already heavily burdened ecosystems. In response to these challenges, a number of alternative agriculture approaches, including safe vegetable production and organic farming have emerged. While the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not permitted in certified organic agriculture, the requirements for safe vegetable production are not nearly as stringent. Chemical fertilizers and some low toxicity pesticides are allowed in safe vegetable production as long as pesticide residues are below proscribed limits. This research assesses the contributions that safe vegetable production and organic agriculture are making to the development of more sustainable agroecosystems in Vietnam. Organic production is still in early stages of development, with the majority of the projects directed towards production for export. Safe vegetables in contrast are produced primarily for the domestic market and demand is driven by consumer concerns over excessive pesticide use in conventional vegetable production. A sustainability assessment that explores the effect that safe vegetable production is having on eight major criteria for sustainability is applied in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City. Research methods included semi-structured interviews and group discussions with safe vegetable farmers together with interviews of other key actors from the agricultural sector in Vietnam. Along with the goal of protecting human health, farmers are interested in safe vegetable production because of improved economic returns made possible by reduced inputs and greater market access. While safe vegetable production is contributing to greater agroecosystem sustainability, further improvements are needed in some areas, specifically in the use of agrochemicals. There are encouraging signs in relation to pesticides, with some farmers reducing their pesticide use and moving towards less-toxic pesticides. Further movement towards sustainability could be fostered by a shift to the use of pesticides only as a last resort, a further shift from chemical to organic fertilizers, and improved capacity of farmers to experiment with and adapt safe vegetable production techniques.


Claire goes missing the night her father agrees to give her up for adoption. Her mother died when she was born. In the tiny fishing town of Ville Rose, Haiti, she and her father are not the only ones to have experienced loss. As the poor townspeople search by moonlight for the seven-year-old girl, each remembers what death has stolen from their own lives: a forbidden love cut down by slum gangsters; a mother whose rare affluence could not save her child. In prose that shimmers with folkloric imagery, Danticat intertwines their stories to reveal a deep connection between locals of distinct classes and creeds. Her vision of modern Haiti makes the unknowable familiar; like the townspeople, the reader shares a common humanity - always caught between the darkness and the light.


Political corruption, accountability and the media:
a study oi motives and justifications
This thesis is about political corruption. Specifically it is concerned
with two issues: (1) the way in which people alleged to have
committed a corrupt act seek to justify their actions; and (2) how the
media report the process of allegation and justification which
invariably occurs when such an issue becomes public. In short the
thesis is about accountability processes as they apply in Australia to
elected public officials, particularly political leaders.
The thesis uses a single case study - the so-called Metherell affair in
New South Wales - to argue that public figures will invariably
struggle to justify conduct which has been labelled corrupt. The
Metherell affair represents an important case study because it
illustrates how behaviour can be variously interpreted by different
groups and individuals. Conduct which is acceptable to some people,
for example one's political supporters, may not be acceptable to one's
political opponents. As such, individuals charged with political
corruption will seek to apply a situational morality when attempting
to justify such conduct. That task becomes even more difficult when
the individual is asked to justify his or her conduct in a separate
arena where different standards can be applied- in this case the
Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) which is
governed by its own legislation which includes a particular formallegal
definition of corrupt conduct.
Likewise, the case study provides an important insight into the
media's treatment of political corruption. Looking at the treatment of
this issue in four newspapers over four and a half months, the thesis
shows how the media was able to both inform and entertain the
reading public whilst acting fairly. The study shows that whilst the
media was critical of the Premier for sanctioning the appointment
which led to the Metherell affair, it did not consider him corrupt as
the term is popularly understood. In this sense it played an important
role in highlighting the differences between formal-legal definitions
of corruption (as applied by quasi-legal bodies like the ICAC) and
popular definitions which draw on a range of more subjective
considerations.


We consider nonlinear moment restriction semiparametric models where both the dimension of the parameter vector and the number of restrictions are divergent with sample size and an unknown smooth function is involved. We propose an estimation method based on the sieve generalized method of moments (sieve GMM). We establish consistency and asymptotic normality for the estimated quantities when the number of parameters increases modestly with sample size. We also consider the case where the number of potential parameters/covariates is very large, i.e., increases rapidly with sample size, but the true model exhibits sparsity. We use a penalized sieve GMM approach to select the relevant variables, and establish the oracle property of our method in this case. We also provide new results for inference. We propose several new test statistics for the over-identification and establish their large sample properties. We provide a simulation study that shows the performance of our methodology. We also provide an application to modelling the effect of schooling on wages using data from the NLSY79 used by Carneiro et al. [17].


The Palmiet project is located in rocks of the Table Mountain Group. These are the distinctive mountain building rocks prominent throughout the Western Cape and are characterized lithologically by quartzite and quartzitic sandstone. Apart from the distinctive shale band of the Cedarberg Formation there are other minor shale, siltstone and argillaceous horizons throughout the succession. The excavations for the work at Palmiet are entirely within the Nardouw formation, which has been extensively folded in a series of anticlines and synclines with axes generally in a northeast-southwest direction, i.e. more or less perpendicular to the line of the hydraulic conduit from the upper reservoir at Rockview to the power station. Numerous small scale folds and fold reversals are developed throughout this anticlinorium. The structure is characterized by the very distinct bedding planes delineating the folding and varying from thickly to very thickly bedded (300 mm to more than 1 000 m spacing).


AI adenosine receptors and associated guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins) were purified from bovine cerebral cortex by affinity chromatography (Munshi, R., and Linden, J. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 14853-14859). In this study we have identified the pertussis toxin-sensitive G protein subunits that co-purify with AI adenosine receptors by immunoblotting with specific antipeptide antisera. GiUl, GiaP, Go,, GBS6, and Go36 were detected. Of the total [3SS]guanosine 5'-0-(3-thio)triphosphate ([35S]GTPyS) binding sites, Gial and Go, each accounted for >37% whereas Giaz comprised <13%. GBB5 was found in excess over G@36. Low molecular mass (21-25 kDa) GTP-binding proteins were not detected. We also examined the characteristics of purified receptors and various purified bovine brain G proteins reconstituted into phospholipid vesicles. All three asubunits restored GTPyS-sensitive high affinity binding of the agonist 1251-aminobenzyladenosine to a fraction (25%) of reconstituted receptors with a selectivity order of Gi2 > Go 2 Gil (EDc0 values of G proteins measured as fold excess over the receptor concentration were 4.7 2 1.2, 24 2 5, and 34 f 7, respectively). Furthermore, receptors occupied with the agonist Rphenylisopropyladenosine catalytically increased the rate of binding of [3SS]GTPyS to reconstituted G proteins by 6.5-8.5-fold. These results suggest that A1 adenosine receptors couple indiscriminately to pertussis toxin-sensitive G proteins.


Abstract This article theorises the simultaneous enaction of securitising and desecuritising moves. It argues that the frequent simultaneity of these two processes, which are normally considered mutually exclusive within Securitisation Theory (ST), has previously gone unnoticed given a set of methodological, temporal, and ontological biases that have developed within ST. Demonstrating how these biases can be overcome – and even reconciled with the seminal texts of ST – by drawing on work from within social theory and elsewhere, we argue that the frequent simultaneity of (de)securitising moves most urgently requires us to reconsider the normative status of desecuritisation within ST. Although desecuritisation has traditionally been viewed as normatively positive, we argue that its temporally immanent enaction alongside securitising moves might introduce more violence into security politics and, in fact, exacerbate protracted conflicts. Ultimately, we make the normative ambitions of some within ST more opaque. Desecuritisation is not a shortcut to the ethical-political good within ST.


Precise understanding of hadronic interactions at high energies is a key to improve mass composition measurements of very high energy cosmic-rays and to solve the muon excess issue observed in high energy cosmic-ray experiments using an air-shower technique. The LHCf and RHICf experiments measures the differential production cross sections of very forward neutral particle as photons, neutral pions and neutrons at LHC and RHIC, respectively. These data are critically important to test and tune hadronic interaction models used for air-shower simulations. In this presentation, we introduce the recent results of both the experiments as well as our future operation plans. LHCf published an updated result of forward neutron measurement at pp, √ B = 13 TeV. From the observed neutron energy spectra, we also obtained the average inelasticity, which is one of the key parameters for air shower development, as 0.536 +0.031-0.037. In addition, several analysis are on-going; neutral pion measurement at pp, √ B = 13 TeV, centralforward correlation analysis with LHCf+ATLAS, photon measurement by RHICf. LHCf plans to have operations at ?? and ?O during the LHC-Run3 period. At pp collisions, new silicon readout system will be introduced to improve the read-out speed, and 10 times more statistics of the previous operation in 2015 will be obtained. Thanks to high statistics, rare particles such as [, 0 B and Λ will be addressed also. We also plan another operation at RHIC in 2024 with a new detector. The detector, a calorimeter composed of tungsten, Si pad and pixel layers, will have a much wider acceptance and higher sensitivity of 0 B measurement than the current detector.


Learn in-demand cloud computing skills from industry experts Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure is an excellent resource for IT professionals seeking to tap into the demand for cloud administrators. This book helps prepare candidates for the CompTIA Cloud+ Certification (CV0-001) cloud computing certification exam. Designed for IT professionals with 2-3 years of networking experience, this certification provides validation of your cloud infrastructure knowledge. With over 30 years of combined experience in cloud computing, the author team provides the latest expert perspectives on enterprise-level mobile computing, and covers the most essential topics for building and maintaining cloud-based systems, including: Understanding basic cloud-related computing concepts, terminology, and characteristics Identifying cloud delivery solutions and deploying new infrastructure Managing cloud technologies, services, and networks Monitoring hardware and software performance Featuring real-world examples and interactive exercises, Deploying and Managing Cloud Infrastructure delivers practical knowledge you can apply immediately. And, in addition, you also get access to a full set of electronic study tools including: Interactive Test Environment Electronic Flashcards Glossary of Key Terms Now is the time to learn the cloud computing skills you need to take that next step in your IT career.


Fluidic lenses have been developed for ophthalmic applications with continuously varying optical powers for second order Zernike modes. Continuously varying corrections for both myopic and hyperopic defocus have been demonstrated over a range of three diopters using a fluidic lens with a circular retaining aperture. Likewise, a six diopter range of astigmatism has been continuously corrected using fluidic lenses with rectangular apertures. Imaging results have been characterized using a model eye.


The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation.


This study analyses audio-visual translation through subtitling, a type of adaptation that involves a transformation in the mode: from the oral mode of the source text into the written mode of the target text. For this study, a Corpus of ten Italian films has been taken into analysis: the films analysed are the most recent productions which have been released in the last five years, i.e. from the year 2000 to the year 2005, and for which there is an international version on DVD.
The Corpus consists of the following audio-visual texts:

1. Andata e Ritorno
2. Baci e abbracci
3. Io No
4. La finestra di fronte
5. L'amore ritorna
6. Le fate ignoranti
7. L'ultimo bacio
8. Ma che colpa abbiamo noi
9. Ricordati di me
10. Santa Maradona

The versions of the films analysed are those which have been made available for the foreign market, therefore with English subtitles: for the analysis of the audio-visual texts in question, a slightly modified Multimodal Transcription, as devised by Thibault and Baldry (2000).
The purpose of this study is to show how the English subtitling of the Italian films listed above is not merely a translation but rather an adaptation from both a graphic, linguistic and cultural point of view focusing mainly on the cultural mediation process and the problems involved in it. Furthermore, this study will show how in the subtitling process of the above-mentioned films, differently from what it may be thought, the many deletions, decimations and condensations of the spoken utterances do not result in unnecessary semantic loss, since the concision processes work mainly on either inter-semiotic or intra-semiotic redundancies.


This article makes what Western scholars call a "leap in the dark" by suggesting that, instead of comparing the "West" with the "Rest", we should compare the "East" with the "East"in this case the media in China with the media in Russia. We have identified three blind spots in previous comparative media research that have resulted in turning attention away from comparative study of China and Russia. These are: (1) ahistoricism; (2) misunderstanding the relationship between the state and the market; and (3) understanding national media and communication as closed and homogenous systems. We propose three remedies: (1) historicizing comparative media studies 1 ; (2) re-conceptualizing the relationship between the state and media markets; and (3) rethinking the dynamics between the global, the national and the media.


A variety of nutritional management strategies that reduce enteric methane (CH4) production are discussed. Strategies such as increasing the level of grain in the diet, inclusion of lipids and supplementation with ionophores (>24 ppm) are most likely to be implemented by farmers because there is a high probability that they reduce CH4 emissions in addition to improving production efficiency. Improved pasture management, replacing grass silage with maize silage and using legumes hold some promise for CH4 mitigation but as yet their impact is not sufficiently documented. Several new strategies including dietary supplementation with saponins and tannins, selection of yeast cultures and use of fibre-digesting enzymes may mitigate CH4, but these still require extensive research. Most of the studies on reductions in CH4 from ruminants due to diet management are short-term and focussed only on changes in enteric emissions. Future research must examine long-term sustainability of reductions in CH4 production and impacts on the entire farm greenhouse gas budget.


The distribution and abundance of red foxes, other mammalian predators and their ground-dwelling mammalian prey were examined in 29 areas of two major regions of eucalypt forests in eastern New South Wales. In the southern region, red foxes and cats were abundant. Dingoes (andor wild dogs) were in low abundance or absent, spotted-tailed quolls were rare and medium-sized mammals (0.2-6 kg) scarce. In the northern region, red foxes were in low abundance and absent from some areas, such as parts of Chilelundi State Forest, where dingoes, cats, spotted-tailed quolls and medium-sized mammals were abundant. In both regions, small mammals ( 6kg) were widespread and generally abundant. Reasons for the absence or low abundance of red foxes in some areas were examined. Factors assessed were as follows: (i) relative abundance of other predators; (ii) abundance of mammalian prey; (iii) absence of European rabbits; (iv) habitat and its structure; (v) proximity to freehold land; and (vi) presence of roads. Distance from freehold land most adequately explained the absence of red foxes from some forests. Red foxes were present in all forests less than 2 km from freehold land and were in highest abundance in forests close (<1km) to freehold land. Severe disturbance such as clearing for grazing or agriculture appears to play some part in the distribution and abundance of the red fox and the demise of the medium-sized grounddwelling mammals.


The complete determination of soil water retention curves requires the sample volume to be measured in order to calculate its void ratio and degree of saturation. During drying in the pressure plate apparatus, cracks often appear in the sample altering its deformation and evaporation patterns. Consequently, this causes a significant scatter in the volume measurement when using the volume displacement method. This paper proposes a simple method to avoid cracking, by limiting friction and adhesion boundary effects, to allow for unrestrained shrinkage of the sample. Such modification of the technique decreases the measurement error by a factor of three.


A non-linear Langevin equation was constructed in order to approximate the behavior of the S&P 500 Index intraday price movements. Price changes were assumed to be a function of supply/demand offsets that resulted from new information. Based on this observation, I constructed an equation that describe the rate of return for the market data, which depended on (1) the sensitivity of the market to supply/demand offsets, (2) the liquidity of the market, (3) the memory effects of recent returns, and (4) the memory effects of the volatility of recent returns. MATLAB was used to find appropriate coefficients for these terms in the Langevin equation. I found that the Langevin model was capable of very accurately modeling the volatility and liquidity of the market, however, it was more difficult to model memory effects. Overall, I found that data sets with larger geometric mean values had a commensurately larger alpha and beta value, which suggests that the returns experienced in the short term are due to the dependence of future market prices on past market prices. This model approximates market returns over short periods of time—approximately one day—and should not be expected to remain valid over long time periods, given that underlying market conditions that are assumed constant in this Langevin model would be expected to change.


Self-management is nowadays seen as an important element in chronic care and therefore, self-management is increasingly embedded in chronic care guidelines; however, implementation in clinical practice is a slow and difficult process. Evidence, from research on self-management interventions, shows that self-management support can have beneficial effects; however, it is not effective in everyone. These interventions are mostly one-size-fits all interventions. The hypothesis underlying this PhD project was that a more tailored approach would lead to more efficacious self-management support. To optimize tailoring of interventions, a thorough understanding of effective intervention ingredients is required, as well as knowledge of tailoring strategies and subgroups of patients in which a given self-management intervention is most effective. Our aim with this thesis was to study patient factors that are of influence on self-management, the perceptions of care providers towards tailoring self-management, how self-management is tailored in clinical practice, what patient factors are involved in tailoring self-management support, and what nurses need to provide tailored self-management support. We conclude that many different perceptions exist regarding the terminology of self-management and related concepts, which leads to substantial variations in the provision of self-management support. Furthermore, patient assessment was found the key driver of tailoring; however there is wide variation in the way and extent this assessment is currently performed. The quality of the assessment determines whether and how self-management support is tailored in clinical practice. Many patient factors play a role in an individual's capacity and activation for self-management. In decision-making towards self-management support care providers consider motivation as the most important factor. Adequate self-management requires behaviour change in both patients and healthcare providers. Nurses need adequate time, tools and training to learn how to apply effective self-management support, and to actively change their role during consultations from professional driven to patient centred approaches. We found that a structured approach encompassing behaviour change techniques can help patients to adequately change their behaviour and thus increase their self-management. Throughout this thesis we have identified many relevant factors that can influence the success of self-management. Tailoring is complex and requires substantial knowledge of the individual patient factors that can influence self-management capacity. Care providers need to obtain more knowledge of these factors, and more education in self-management support and behaviour change. When care providers receive more training in these aspects, it is to be expected that self-management support will become more integrated in routine care and more tailored to the individual.


Afrolaophonte pori was originally described from the interstitial habitats of Israel and subsequently reported from Italy and the Aegean coasts of Turkey. It is the only representative of the genus in the Mediterranean Sea. The aim of this study is to present a detailed redescription of A. pori based on extensive material from different parts of the species' range to provide geographic distributional data and to reveal variations within and between the populations. We have examined numerous specimens collected from the Aegean and Mediterranean Turkish coasts and have presented a detailed redescription of both sexes. Despite the fact that the original description of A. pori does not meet modern standards, the present redescription of A. pori matches well with the original description in terms of setal and segmental pattern, except for the setation of the P1 exopods. Many populations collected from along the Aegean shores also had 2-segmented exopods, but the discovery along the Mediterranean coast of some specimens having 2-segmented exopods and 1-segmented endopods, as well as observation of asymmetric P3 rami on some specimens, directed us to conclude that all populations of Afrolaophonte in the Mediterranean Basin belong to the same morphospecies sharing the same gene pool.


In the context of growing inequity in access to food, threatened livelihoods for food producers, and environmental challenges, food security has garnered significant attention. Over the last twenty years, food security research has shifted from a focus on the individual and household to considering the role of community. It suggests that community well-being influences sustained food security and that local communities should have more ownership over their food system. Community food security has emerged as part of a movement in North America and Europe towards sustainable and local food systems. -- However, most community food security remains focused on agri-food systems to the neglect of fisheries. This study is a significant contribution to the community food security literature by examining the intersections of fisheries restructuring and community food security in the Bonne Bay region on Newfoundland's west coast. Since the 1990s collapse of regional cod stocks, many coastal areas in Newfoundland, including Bonne Bay, have undergone significant social and economic change related to the fishing industry. As food security becomes increasingly linked to ideas about the ' local' and 'sustainable,' this study interrogates what these ideas mean in the Bonne Bay region. -- This study presents the foodscape as a new conceptual lens for understanding community food security. Most simply, foodscapes are the sites or landscapes where food can be obtained as well as the interactions with food that unfold in these places. A foodscape analysis explores the connections among people, places, and food, including the connections among the acquisition, preparation and eating of food, to understand food security at interrelated household and community levels. Findings show that community food security in the Bonne Bay region takes places at the interface of formal and informal food economies. Most households use a food provisioning strategy combining food purchasing and self-provisioning. Local seafood remains important to diets, although there are increasing constraints on its access. -- This case study highlights important gaps and opportunities for future community food security research. First, a consideration of self-provisioning and informal economies has only been marginally explored in food scholarship. Secondly, this study calls for greater consideration of fisheries to truly address issues of equity and sustainability in food systems.


Early visual cortical neurons receive highly selective feedforward input, which is amplified or disamplified by contextual feedback and lateral connections. A significant challenge for systems neuroscience is to measure the feature space that drives these feedback channels. We occluded visual scenes and measured non-feedforward stimulated subregions of V1 and V2 using fMRI and multi-voxel pattern analyses. We found that response patterns in these subregions contain two high-level scene features, category and depth information. Responses in non-feedforward stimulated V1 and V2 differed from each other, suggesting that feedback to these two areas has unique information content. Further, we reveal that computational models of visual processing inadequately describe early visual cortex because they do not account for the brain's internal modeling of the world.


Rhizobial surface polysaccharides, including capsular polysaccharides (KPS), are involved in symbiotic infection. The rkp-3 locus of Sinorhizobium meliloti 41 is responsible for the production of pseudaminic acid, one of the components of the KR5 antigen, a strain-specific KPS. We have extended the sequence determination and genetic dissection of the rkp-3 region to clarify the structure and function of the rkpY gene and to identify additional rkp genes. Except for rkpY, no other genes were found where mutation affected the KPS structure and symbiosis. These mutants show a unique phenotype producing a low molecular weight polysaccharide (LMW PS). Creating double mutants, we have shown that biosynthesis genes of the KR5 antigen except rkpZ are not necessary for the production of this LMW PS. Polysaccharide analysis of genetically modified strains suggests that rkpY has pleiotropic effects on polysaccharide production. It directs KPS synthesis to the KR5 antigen and influences lipo-oligo 3-deoxy-d-manno-2 octulosonic acid (Kdo) production in S. meliloti 41. In addition, rkpY suppresses the lipo-oligoKdo production when it is introduced into S. meliloti 1021.


The equality of women in Lithuania is an important question of law, history, sociology, politics and other science, which, even though is investigated by all these sciences in different aspects, has quite a few common points. The purpose of this article is to touch the development of the establishment of equality of women in politics from the legal point of view, it is also aimed to reveal some important historical facts which determined the recognition and constitutional consolidation of women suffrage, one of the essential political rights of women. In the article, the author tries to note some historical facts about Lithuania and she states that women suffrage was recognized earlier in Lithuania than in most European states, it is linked to the decision of the Great Seimas of Vilnius of 1905. While construing the recognition of such right as far back as in 1905 the attention is drawn to the fact that the aim of the recognition of political rights of women was coincident with the general efforts to restore the statehood and is to be assessed as an integral part of the development of the democratic state. In the article, various constitutional and legal aspects of the suffrage and the activity of the first female members of the parliament while proposing draft Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania of 1922 and laws are analysed. Even though the main emphasis of the article is the recognition of women suffrage and its implementation at the beginning of the 20th century, in the opinion of the author, while analysing the development of women suffrage in the legal aspect, one must pay heed to the exceptional significance of the Statutes of Lithuania (1529, 1566, 1588) to the development of women suffrage. In the article some contemporary tendencies of the development of women suffrage are also briefly reviewed.


Background Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) in children is usually a self-limiting disorder. It may follow a viral infection or immunization and is caused by an inappropriate response of the immune system. Many viruses, such as parvovirus B19, cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), and rubella, are implicated in the occurrence of ITP. Aim The aim of the study was to investigate the occurrence of viral-associated ITP in Egyptian children. Materials and methods Viral studies included specific immunoglobulin M for rubella, EBV, and CMV. In addition, molecular detection for parvovirus B19 was carried out. Results Positive viral markers either by positive serology immunoglobulin M for rubella, CMV, or EBV or by a molecular study for parvovirus B19 were detected in 19 patients (38.8%). The most common viral infection was parvovirus B19 (30.6%), followed by EBV (16.3%), rubella (12.12%), and CMV (10.2%). Conclusion We conclude that in a large proportion of children with ITP in our region, an association with markers of acute viral infections similar to those of rubella, EBV, and CMV is present. Moreover, a significant proportion of the children had occult parvovirus B19 viremia. A study of occult viral infections is recommended in children with ITP.


JBuilder Developer's Guide provides comprehensive coverage of JBuilder from the practitioner's viewpoint. The authors develop a consolidated application throughout the chapters, allowing conceptual cohesion and illustrating the use of JBuilder to build 'real-world' applications. The examples can be compiled and run under JBuilder Personal edition, a free edition of JBuilder. JBuilder Developer's Guide is not version specific but explains the latest JBuilder 6, 7, and 8 features such as enterprise J2EE application development, CORBA, SOAP, XML tools, Enterprise JavaBeans, JavaServer Pages/Servlets, and JavaBeans technology. JBuilder repeatedly wins "developer's choice" awards as the best visual tool for developing Java applications.


An efficient connectivity-based method for multi-objective optimisation applicable to the design of marine protected area networks is described. Multi-objective network optimisation highlighted previously unreported step changes in the structure of optimal subnetworks for protection associated with minimal changes in cost or benefit functions. This emphasises the desirability of performing a full, unconstrained, multi-objective optimisation for marine spatial planning. Brute force methods, examining all possible combinations of protected and unprotected sites for a network of sites, are impractical for all but the smallest networks as the number of possible networks grows as 2^m, where m is the number of sites within the network. A metaheuristic method based around Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods is described which searches for the set of Pareto optimal networks (or a good approximation thereto) given two separate objective functions, for example for network quality or effectiveness, population persistence, or cost of protection. The optimisation and search methods are independent of the choice of objective functions and can be easily extended to more than two functions. The speed, accuracy and convergence of the method under a range of network configurations are tested with model networks based on an extension of random geometric graphs. Examination of two real-world marine networks, one designated for the protection of the stony coral Lophelia pertusa, the other a hypothetical man-made network of oil and gas installations to protect hard substrate ecosystems, demonstrates the power of the method in finding multi-objective optimal solutions for networks of up to 100 sites. Results using network average shortest path as a proxy for population resilience and gene flow within the network supports the use of a conservation strategy based around highly connected clusters of sites.


The floating storage unit Navion Saga at the Volve field in the North Sea suffered from two mooring line breaks in steel wire ropes in 2011. Investigations of the broken ropes indicated that a possible failure mechanism could be high stresses near the wire socket induced by large bending moments in leeward mooring lines. The scope of the current study has been to make a numerical model capable of capturing such behaviour of the steel wire rope and to check if the minimum bending radius could be as low as the rope's specified minimum bending radius.The numerical model has revealed a possible failure mechanism. The connecting link plate between the upper chain segment and the upper wire segment lies initially on the seabed. When lifted off the seabed, the link plate and the wire socket will fall to the seabed at a higher speed than the upper wire segment. A transverse wave in mooring line plane propagating towards fair-lead is generated when the wire socket hits the seabed. The wave leads to large curvature in the wire near the socket. Sensitivity studies of the governing parameters have been performed to assess the uncertainties of the numerical model. A modified system is presented and it is shown that the phenomenon which is likely to have caused failure in the original system will not occur for the modified one.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


A drought of exceptional severity took place in Central Europe in 1947, with marked socio-economic consequences and far-reaching political responses in the Czech Lands. A rich body of meteorological observations from the Czech Lands is drawn upon to construct a comprehensive picture of the various direct and indirect factors that led to this extreme event and to describe its impacts across a range of spatiotemporal scales. In terms of the Czech Lands in their entirety and the full 1804-2014 period of instrumental measurements, the 1947 drought, which lasted from April to October, may be expressed as very low monthly values of Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index for 1 month (SPEI-1), Standardised Precipitation Index for 1 month (SPI-1), and Palmer's Z-index. Independent evidence from mean monthly patterns of sealevel pressure suggests it originated in an anticyclone over Central Europe and ridges of high pressure extending over the area. Duration and deficiency volumes recorded at selected Czech hydrological stations indicate that the 1947 event was one of the 3 most important hydrologic drought episodes since the late 1880s. Severe agricultural drought was reflected in a low to extremely bad harvest of cereals and other agricultural crops. A critical lack of cereals was remedied by 'brotherly help', i.e. relief shipments from the Soviet Union given for reasons that were far more political than altruistic. The whole process received considerable attention in the national media, influencing public opinion for decades. It also led to various administrative responses and decisions at local, regional and even state levels. This study demonstrates that the 1947 drought was a significant climatic anomaly of great spatial extent, and with wide-ranging socio-economic consequences.


BackgroundFamily-based behavioural intervention programs (FBIPs) against childhood obesity have shown promising results, but the mediating mechanisms have not been identified. The aim of this study was to examine changes in obese childrens lifestyle habits during a 2-year FBIP according to their own and parents' reports, the concordance between these reports and the correlations to change in post-intervention z-BMI.MethodsAn observational study of 26 children (8.3–12.0 years) and their parents participating in a 2-year FBIP was performed. Weight and height were measured from baseline to 12 months after the end of the program. Eating habits and physical- and sedentary activity were reported separately by children and parents. Data were analysed with regard to concordance between parents' and children's reports and association between the lifestyle reports and change in z-BMI at the study endpoint using descriptive statistics and parametric and non-parametric tests.ResultsAccording to both children's and parents' reports, the level of physical activity among the children had increased after the intervention as well as the agreement between the informants' reports. According to the children, eating habits had improved, while the parents' reports showed an improvement only with regard to binge eating. The concordance between children and parents regarding eating habits was slight to fair also after the intervention. No statistically significant associations between changes in lifestyle reports and changes in z-BMI were observed.ConclusionsChild and parent reports of physical activity were found to converge and display an improvement in a 2-year FBIP, while the reports on eating habits showed a more refractory pattern. Changes in concordance and agreement between children and parents reports did not correlate with weight reduction. Further methods development and studies of the processes during family-based interventions against childhood obesity are warranted.


Video games have gone through a large amount of changes in terms of controls. Manipulating a joystick, mouse and D-Pad are standard control schemes since the 1960s, but now comes the time when new technology is inspiring developers to develop immersive and revolutionary user experience in gaming. From Virtual Reality to Augmented Reality, developers have built and theorized many products that showcased innovative controls such as body gestures, hand movements, facial recognition and voice commands.

With hardware that can sense body movement and hand gesture, it has come to a point where art is also involved to help broaden the horizon and also unify video games and art together. Since the release of home consoles, the game industries have tried to utilize art in some shape or form into their products like graphics, sounds and even controls.

The Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal), and PlayStation Move are prime examples of improving the user experience in gaming with the usage of motion sensors and augmented reality. With its ground-breaking technology, these products can also display creative ways to playa game using art such as brushing and stroking with the Wii Remote or PlayStation Move and drawing a picture into a piece of paper and have the PlayStation Eye copy the sketch. The other hardware (that is non-commercialized) is the Emotiv headset that allows user interaction using Brain Computer Interaction (BCI).

This project is about researching ways in which to increase the quality of user experience in computer vision based game systems. It has begun by reviewing historical precedents, testing current systems and exploring complementary technologies that will allow the development of prototype games that explore the user experience and quality of interaction. This thesis will be finalized and concluded at the end of this project.


Multisensory Flavor Perception: From Fundamental Neuroscience Through to the Marketplace provides state-of-the-art coverage of the latest insights from the rapidly-expanding world of multisensory flavor research. The book highlights the various types of crossmodal interactions, such as sound and taste, and vision and taste, showing their impact on sensory and hedonic perception, along with their consumption in the context of food and drink. The chapters in this edited volume review the existing literature, also explaining the underlying neural and psychological mechanisms which lead to crossmodal perception of flavor. The book brings together research which has not been presented before, making it the first book in the market to cover the literature of multisensory flavor perception by incorporating the latest in psychophysics and neuroscience. Authored by top academics and world leaders in the field Takes readers on a journey from the neurological underpinnings of multisensory flavor perception, then presenting insights that can be used by food companies to create better flavor sensations for consumers Offers a wide perspective on multisensory flavor perception, an area of rapidly expanding knowledge.


The phenomenon of cell type-specific DNA methylation has received much attention in recent years and a number of DNA methylation differences have been described between cells of the immune system. Of particular interest when studying DNA methylation are CpG islands (CGIs) which are distinct from the rest of the genome due to their elevated CpG content, generally unmethylated state and promoter association. In the instances when they become methylated this is associated with gene repression although it is unclear the extent to which differential methylation corresponds to differential gene expression. I have used an immune system model to assess the role of CGI methylation and the role of the methylation reader MBD2 in regulation of gene expression. A relatively small number of DNA methylation differences were seen between immune cell types with the most developmentally related cells showing the fewest methylation differences. Interestingly, the vast majority of CGI-associated cellspecific methylation occurred at intragenic CGIs located, not at transcription start sites, but in the gene body. Increased intragenic CGI methylation tended to associate with gene repression, although the precise reason for this remains unclear. Most differentially methylated CGIs were depleted for the active chromatin mark H3K4me3 regardless of their methylation state but some of these were associated with the silencing mark H3K27me3 when unmethylated. These findings suggest that intragenic CGIs are a distinct class of genomic element particularly susceptible to cell type-specific methylation. I also looked at the effect of removing the methylCpG binding domain protein MBD2 from immune system cells. Immune cells from Mbd2-/mice showed a number of previously uncharacterised phenotypes as well as a number of differences in gene expression compared to wild-type animals. Most of these genes increased their expression in the absence of MBD2 consistent with MBD2's role as a transcriptional repressor and Mbd2-/Th1 cells showed increases in histone H3 acetylation compared to wild-type Th1 cells. This work provides an insight into the role played by cell-specific CGI methylation and MBD2 in regulating gene expression.


Three empirical findings presented in this paper show that evidence based on the most recent U.S. experience does not indicate the kind of close or reliable relationship between money and nonfinancial economic activity that, if present, might warrant basing the design and implementation of monetary policy on money in a formally systematic way: First, extending the familiar time-series analysis to include data from the 1980s sharply weakens the evidence from prior periods showing that such relationships existed between money and nominal income, or between money and either real income or prices considered separately. Focusing on data from 1970 onward destroys this evidence altogether. Second, the finding by Stock and Watson that particular forms of time-series experiments still showed a significant role for money in affecting real output through 1985 not only becomes weaker on the inclusion of data from 1986 and 1987 but also, even for data through 1985 only, turns out to depend on the use in their analysis of a particular short-term interest rate, the Treasury bill rate. Using instead the commercial paper rate, which apparently is superior in capturing the information in financial prices that matters for real output, also greatly weakens their result. Simultaneously using the commercial paper rate and including data through 1987 destroys it altogether. Third, extending the analysis through 1987 also destroys the time-series evidence from earlier periods showing that money and income are co-integrated. Even if monetary policy were to be conducted in terms of targets for money growth, the failure of money and income to be co-integrated means that there is no empirical ground for resisting the "base drift" that results from persistent random differences between actual money growth and the corresponding target.


Two hetero structures with the step-graded buffers of different design grown on (001) GaAs substrates by molecular beam epitaxy were employed to reveal applicability of an extension of phenomenological approach developed for the description of strain relief in single layer hetero structures to multilayer thin film systems. Difference in the design of buffers provided to the formation of dislocation free layers of different thickness. The determination of the residual strains in the epitaxial layers was done using reciprocal space mapping performed with a tripleaxes X-ray diffractometer Smart Lab 9 kW and the following processing of data obtained within the linear theory of elasticity. It was established that, despite the different design of buffers the character of strain spatial distributions in them was similar. It gives possibility to attract a phenomenological rule to describe the strain relief in the final constructive elements of both hetero structures. A correction for a work hardening in the phenomenological rule governing the strain relief in single layer hetero structures was performed.


As technologies evolve students expect to be able to utilise the same functionality they use for personal and social communication for their academic and professional communication. To support students in their understanding of the benefits of global collaboration and practical implementation of good practices, educators must ensure that they are able to offer meaningful and realistic opportunities to experience real-world design scenarios. In a distributed setting, global collaboration is supported by collaborative design technologies and which students should experience to build their skills in digital literacy. Therefore, educators have a responsibility to ensure where available that state-of-the-art practices are being imparted to students.

The challenges of integrating technology in global design classes have been published in the literature which could be utilised by the wider design community to improve practices, but it is unclear if this knowledge makes its way back to the classroom across institutions and then is utilised to improve and iterate on current teaching practices. There are many situations within design education where this might be possible for project-based learning (PBL) classes such as classes in global design. One approach to achieve this is by utilising knowledge from the literature and from student experiences during global design workshop sessions and asking students to engage in critically analysing their own collaborative design practices. This is the approach taken in his research which focused on two global design classes.

This paper documents the results of four workshops across two institutions and two distributed design programs. These participants were asked to identify the challenges of distributed design, the functionality of technologies to overcome the challenges and guidance on how best to perform distributed design to best help future students. 17 challenges, 10 functionalities and 8 guidelines were developed. The identification of challenges, functionalities and subsequent guidance created can be utilised to assist future students and educators of distributed design. Analysis of gaps in the knowledge identify where theories have not been transferred from literature to the classroom and further studies of literature may help to identify what is missing and how best to fill the gaps in knowledge. In the future, it would be beneficial to improve how this knowledge is identified and delivered to students utilising the workshops as a delivery mechanism. The workshops also present a novel way to engage students in analysing their own collaborative work practices and discussing how they might improve in a distributed design setting with the help of available technologies.


Communication requires adaptability to the interlocutors' characteristics and variations, from mere behavioural flexibility to more profound brain plasticity. While plasticity in central processing has been mostly observed early in life - during development, the need for adaptation is present throughout the life, especially in social species for which breeding periods (intersexual signals prevail) are interspersed with more "social" (non sexual) periods. Birdsong is a typical communication signal whose structure, output and function may change over the year. Here we investigated whether female European starlings' primary auditory area (Field L) was tuned to these changes. Electrophysiological recordings revealed that Field-L auditory neurons were highly responsive to song elements that are crucial for intra-sexual social interactions during the non-breeding period, while they were highly responsive to male song elements involved in mate attraction during the breeding time. This adult plasticity in a primary sensory area, with responsiveness differing from time periods when individuals are tuned to social cues to periods when they are tuned to sexual cues, opens an interesting line of research that may be of interest for all social species, including humans, which all undergo such shifts of interest over time. The processing of these functionally relevant song elements reflect a high level of vigilance. In order to test this hypothesis we did the same recordings under anesthesia and found a clear impact of anesthesia on sensory and cognitive processes. Anesthesia induced an atypical increased neuronal responses towards biologically irrelevant sounds and prevented the seasonal neuronal tuning towards functionally relevant species-specific song elements.


A key challenge for educators in Vietnamese higher education (HE) lies in the implementation of top-down national educational reforms. Professional learning and development (PLD) is viewed by the government as a primary means to enhance lecturers' capacity to implement national educational initiatives. However, the nature of PLD for lecturers and its roles in supporting HE reforms in developing countries like Vietnam remain under-investigated. This study explores the practices of PLD for English as a foreign language (EFL) lecturers who are teacher educators within higher education, and the social, cultural, and political contexts within which these occur. The study employs a mixed-methods research methodology with a focus on qualitative approach and the use of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as the framework of analysis. A case study across three tertiary institutions provides the basis for an analysis of the phenomenon of PLD for EFL lecturers in Vietnam involving academic leaders and EFL lecturers. Complementary data collection methods were used: a questionnaire, individual semi-structured interviews, observations of PLD sessions, and relevant document review. Data were analysed both deductively and inductively to explore the roles of PLD in the educators' personal and professional growth, and their capacity to enact mandated initiatives in the selected institutions. The findings indicate that PLD is a complex, political and culturally situated phenomenon that plays a key role in supporting the professional aspirations of lecturers. The study foregrounds the lecturers' PLD experiences, the implications of PLD, and the influence of government and institutional policies and initiatives on the lecturers' PLD. This study proposes a model of PLD that raises critical questions about how HE institutions and policy makers might provide a supportive PLD environment to better foster lecturers' capacity to bring about changes at both personal and institutional levels. This model shows that PLD needs to be viewed across diverse forms including formal, collaborative and informal PLD. For PLD to be effective, consideration should be given to ensuring lecturers experience it as: (1) needs-based, relevant and meaningful for their learning and applicable to their teaching contexts, (2) encouraging them to be active and self-regulated learners, (3) promoting reflective and experiential learning, and (4) based on negotiated understandings of the purpose and function of PLD among all involved stakeholders. The study contributes to an understanding of PLD requirements for EFL teacher educators in an Asian context, and may be relevant to PLD for tertiary lecturers in a wider international context.


Multidimensional Scaling and Tourism Research. Mark Fenton and Philip Pearce. Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 15, no. 2,1988, pp. 236-254. Pergamon Press, Inc., Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523. DM255.00 annual subscription. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a form of analysis which permits the relationships among a set of elements to be represented as interelement distances in space. This article describes a number of the formal and technical features of MDS analysis and its variants. The main purpose of MDS approaches lie in their capacity to explore the structure underlying a set of judgments. Existing and potential uses of the MDS procedure in tourist studies are discussed.


This paper studies the arrival of 'Windrush Generation' and how it has contributed to Britain's multicultural society. Drawing heavily from the historical process, which seeks to explain how the West Indians arrived in Britain and integrated into a predominately White Britons, the paper critically examines into why the immigrants' expectations of welcoming reception and a better life were not initially met. It also carefully interrogates the struggles and challenges that the Caribbean migrants went through and the racial pressures that surrounded their integration into British society. In the end, the paper further looks at the implications that their arrival had on the state of race relations and political environment that surrounded in the adaptation of Immigration Control Acts.


T he idea that we need a "new economy"—that the entire economic system must be radically restructured if critical social and environmental goals are to be met—runs directly counter to the American creed that capitalism as we know it is the best, and only possible, option. Over the past few decades, however, a deepening sense of the profound ecological challenges facing the planet and growing despair at the inability of traditional politics to address economic failings have fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation by activists, economists and socially minded business leaders. Most of the projects, ideas and research efforts have gained traction slowly and with little notice. But in the wake of the financial crisis, they have proliferated and earned a surprising amount of support—and not only among the usual suspects on the left. As the threat of a global climate crisis grows increasingly dire and the nation sinks deeper into an economic slump for which conventional wisdom offers no adequate remedies, more and more Americans are coming to realize that it is time to begin defining, demanding and organizing to build a new-economy movement. That the term "new economy" has begun to explode into public use in diverse areas may be an indication that the movement has reached a critical stage of development—and a sign that the domination of traditional thinking may be starting to weaken. Although precisely what "changing the system" means is a matter of considerable debate, certain key points are clear: the movement seeks an economy that is increasingly green and socially responsible, and one that is based on rethinking the nature of ownership and the growth paradigm that guides conventional policies. This, in turn, leads to an emphasis on institutions whose priorities are broader than those that typically flow from the corporate emphasis on the bottom line. At the cutting edge of experimentation are the growing number of egalitarian, and often green, worker-owned cooperatives. Hundreds of "social enterprises" that use profits for environmental, social or community-serving goals are also expanding rapidly. In many communities urban agricultural efforts have made common cause with groups concerned about healthy nonprocessed food. And all this is to say nothing of 1.6 million nonprofit corporations that often cross over into economic activity. For-profits have developed alternatives as well. There are, for example, more than 11,000 companies owned entirely or in significant part by some 13.6 million employees. Most have adopted Employee Stock Ownership Plans; these socalled ESOPs democratize ownership, though only some of them involve participatory management. W.L. Gore, maker of Gore-Tex and many other products, is a leading example: the company has some 9,000 employee-owners at forty-five locations worldwide and generates annual sales of $2.5 billion. Litecontrol, which manufactures high-efficiency, highperformance architectural lighting fixtures, operates as a less typical ESOP; the Massachusetts-based company is entirely owned by roughly 200 employees and fully unionized with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. A different large-scale corporation, Seventh Generation— the nation's leader in "green" detergents, dishwashing soap, baby wipes, tissues, paper towels and other household products—has internal policies requiring that no one be paid more than fourteen times the lowest base pay or five times higher than the average employee. In certain states, companies that want to brandish their new-economy values can now also register as B Corporations. B Corp registration (the "B" stands for "benefit") allows a company to subordinate profits to social and environmental goals. Without this legal authorization, a CEO could in theory be sued by stockholders if profit-making is not his sole objective. Such status ensures that specific goals are met by different companies (manufacturers have different requirements from retail stores). It also helps with social marketing and branding. Thus, King Arthur Flour, a highly successful Vermont-based, 100 percent employee-owned ESOP, can be The New-economy movement


Viterbi Decoders are employed in digital wireless communication systems to decode the convolution codes which are the forward correction codes. These decoders are quite complex and dissipate large amount of power. With the proliferation of battery powered devices such as cellular phones and laptop computers, power dissipation, along with speed and area, is a major concern in VLSI design. In this paper, a low power and high speed viterbi decoder has been designed. The proposed design has been designed using Matlab, synthesized using Xilinx Synthesis Tool and implemented on Xilinx Virtex-II Pro based XC2vpx30 FPGA device. The results show that the proposed design can operate at an estimated frequency of 62.6 MHz by consuming fewer resources on target device.


Abstract. The chemistry in large thunderstorm clouds is influenced by local lightning-NOx production and uplift of boundary layer air. Under these circumstances trace gases like nitrous acid (HONO) or formaldehyde (HCHO) are expected to be formed or to reach the tropopause region. However, up to now only few observations of HONO at this altitude have been reported. Here we report on a case study where enhancements in HONO, HCHO and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were observed by the CARIBIC flying laboratory (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container). The event took place in a convective system over the Caribbean Sea in August 2011. Inside the cloud the light path reaches up to 100 km. Therefore the DOAS instrument on CARIBIC was very sensitive to the tracers inside the cloud. Based on the enhanced slant column densities of HONO, HCHO and NO2, average mixing ratios of 37, 468 and 210 ppt, respectively, were calculated. These data represent averages for constant mixing ratios inside the cloud. However, a large dependency on the assumed profile is found; for HONO a mixing ratio of 160 ppt is retrieved if the total amount is assumed to be situated in the uppermost 2 km of the cloud. The NO in situ instrument measured peaks up to 5 ppb NO inside the cloud; the background in the cloud was about 1.3 ppb, and hence clearly above the average outside the cloud (≈ 150 ppt). The high variability and the fact that the enhancements were observed over a pristine marine area led to the conclusion that, in all likelihood, the high NO concentrations were caused by lighting. This assumption is supported by the number of flashes that the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) counted in this area before and during the overpass. The chemical box model CAABA is used to estimate the NO and HCHO source strengths which are necessary to explain our measurements. For NO a source strength of 10 × 109 molec cm−2 s−1 km−1 is found, which corresponds to the lightning activity as observed by the World Wide Lightning Location network, and lightning emissions of 5 × 1025 NO molec flash−1 (2.3–6.4 × 1025). The uncertainties are determined by a change of the input parameters in the box model, the cloud top height and the flash density. The emission rate per flash is scaled up to a global scale and 1.9 (1.4–2.5) tg N a−1 is estimated. The HCHO updraught is of the order of 120 × 109 molec cm−2 s−1 km−1. Also isoprene and CH3OOH as possible HCHO sources are discussed.


From February to December 20XX, penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (PRSP) showing MICs of 16-32 microg/mL to cefotaxime (CTX) and 4-8 microg/mL to meropenem (MEPM) were isolated from 6 patients hospitalized at the general hospital S (2 cases) and hospital A (4 cases), close to the hospital S. Five elderly patients among these six cases came from nursing care facilities or nursing care-related medical facilities. All elderly persons (mean age: 81.7 years) were diagnosed as having pneumonia at the time of admission and the problematic PRSP was isolated from sputum samples collected on admission. Notably, all of these PRSP isolates simultaneously showed high resistance to macrolide agents mediated by an erm (B) gene and to fluoroquinolone agents via mutations in the gyrA and parC genes. Eventually, they were identified as multidrug-resistant S. pneumoniae (MDRSP) with high resistance to many agents. The capsule type of all strains was serotype 19F and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) revealed that they belonged to clonal complex (CC) 7993, which has not been reported before. It was thus concluded that the MDRSP that had spread within the nursing facilities was transmitted to the general hospitals via the elderly inpatients with pneumonia caused by these agents. Although one case finally had a poor outcome, the pneumococcal infection was not the direct trigger of the event. The current ratio of MDRSP is concluded to be very low. However, general hospitals that accept patients for therapeutic purposes from nursing-care facilities have to share epidemiological information in a timely manner with the nursing homes to prevent nosocomial infections.


The advances in computer science and structural designs are deeply intertwined. Rising energy costs and a growing green movement are driving the adoption of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for building automation. While previous WSN products have been applied in a variety of smart applications including supply chains and industrial applications, a cross industry effort between civil engineers and network engineers is underway to unify sensor networks with construction management that will simplify development, attract new entrants, and encourage innovation. With the prospect of installing sensors almost anywhere, buildings can optimize their energy consumption, improve safety and security, and reduce operating expenses. We model a sensor node as a replacement of a solar panel. A significant efficiency increase of solar energy gains can only be obtained by optimal exposure of the panels to sunlight. In this paper, we propose a system that controls the movement of rotating buildings in order to optimize the energy gained by the use of solar panels installed both on the building rooftop horizontally and on the sides of the building vertically.


The thesis is written with the following report structure: Chapter 2 - Software development In this chapter I will present the theory behind Software Development. I start with explaining the different software eras and methodologies that were a part of them, before describing the agile methods which this thesis has as a main component. Chapter 3 - Project Management In this chapter I will present the theory behind project management, with the focus on PRINCE2. Further I will look deeper into PRINCE2 and what techniques and components this method uses and the theory behind it. This is the other main component in this thesis. Chapter 4 - Team Management With the basic theory of Scrum and PRINCE2 from the previous chapters, will I in this chapter present the theory and studies done on team management on the two methods. Further I will look at the similarities and differences in team management compared to each other. Chapter 5 - Discussion and Conclusion In this chapter I will look at other studies and discuss the research questions, and than come to a conclusion. The main findings in this thesis was that it is no definitive answer to which method is best to use in a specific case, but it has been shown that PRINCE2 is efficient in large development groups, while Scrum has not been studied in this setting as much as it should have been. It has also been shown that the Scrum methodology and its techniques gives the developers an efficient workspace when in smaller groups, and still gives the customers what they want. Keywords: software development,agile software development, project management, Scrum, Prince 2, team management,


Abstract Treatment strategies for acute uncomplicated appendicitis have evolved and now conservative antibacterial treatment is recommended over surgical treatment, especially for paediatric patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate microbiota in paediatric patients with acute uncomplicated and complicated appendicitis, and antibacterial susceptibility of the causative microorganisms. Bacteriological identification was conducted using the VITEK2 analyser. Antibacterial susceptibility tests were performed and the results were evaluated in accordance with the recommendations of the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) "Clinical breakpoints and dosing of antibiotics" (Version 7.0, January 2019). Serodiagnosis of Yersinia enterocolitica was performed using indirect haemagglutination. The results revealed differences in microbiota in cases of acute complicated and acute uncomplicated appendicitis. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was identified more frequently in cases of acute complicated appendicitis. Mixed culture was prevalent in cases of both acute complicated and acute uncomplicated appendicitis. Very few positive extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) Escherichia coli cultures were identified. Most of strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were resistant to amoxicillin with clavulanic acid, ertapenem, ampicillin and cefotaxime. Some of E. coli isolates were resistant to ampicillin and to amoxicillin with clavulanic acid.


The chemical, biochemical, and enological literature has been broadly surveyed to identify the reaction mechanisms of oxygen and of its intermediate reduction products that should apply to wine. The reduction potentials of redox couples derived from wine polyphenols and oxygen, as well as that of the Fe3+/Fe2+ couple, have been calculated for wine conditions and form the basis for discussing how these redox systems are likely to interact. Values obtained for wine quinone/catechol couples agree well with those reported for wine-model conditions. Catechol derivatives are oxidized sequentially to semiquinones and quinones, while oxygen is reduced in turn to hydroperoxyl radicals and hydrogen peroxide. The whole process is mediated by redox cycling of the Fe3+/Fe2+ couple, which is made possible by the lowering of its reduction potential by coordination of Fe3+ to hydroxy acids. Hydrogen peroxide is then further reduced by Fe2+ in the Fenton reaction to produce hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize saturated hydroxy compounds. Intermediate radicals may react with oxygen, providing an additional pathway for its reduction. Thus, both ferric and ferrous ions, which are present in wine, perform an important catalytic function. The antioxidant activity of bisulfite is largely restricted to its reaction with hydrogen peroxide. Direct reaction of sulfur dioxide with oxygen, which is a radical chain process, is prevented by the radical scavenging activity of polyphenols.


Backscatter mosaicking is a necessary step in the analysis and interpretation of sidescan and multibeam sonar records. However, due to limitations intrinsic to the mosaicking technique, backscatter mosaics are restricted in their capacity to unambiguously discriminate seafloor properties. A more adequate technique to characterize the seafloor is the analysis of backscatter angular responses, since those responses are intrinsic properties of the seafloor. This technique sometimes lacks spatial resolution, however, as the analysis is limited to the swath width of the sonar. In this paper, we propose an approach to combine mosaicking and angular response analysis techniques in an attempt to take advantage of both the spatial resolution of the mosaic, and the angular resolution derived from the angular response analysis. In order to test these ideas, we used acoustic backscatter acquired by a Reson 8101 (240kHz) multibeam sonar during normal survey operations conducted on the NOAA Ship FAIRWEATHER around Cape Decision, Alaska in sprin g 2005. First, we defined parameters that uniquely described the angular responses, and treated those parameters as a feature vector in a multidimensional space. The parameters were then clustered with a simple unsupervised clustering algorithm. The result of the clustering analysis defined areas on the seafloor which had similar angular responses, which we called themes. We then used these themes to develop more robust indicators of angular response from their coverage areas, which were finally used as Ang le Varying Gain correction tables to assemble an enhanced mosaic.


Introduction Cognitive–behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) leads to insomnia symptom improvements in a substantial proportion of patients. However, not everyone responds well to this treatment, and it is unclear what determines individual differences in response. The broader aim of this work is to examine to what extent response to CBT-I is due to genetic and environmental factors. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine feasibility of a design to test hypotheses focusing on an unselected sample, that is, without selection on insomnia complaints, in order to plan a larger behavioural genetics study where most participants will likely not have an insomnia disorder. Methods and analysis A two parallel-group randomised controlled trial is being conducted across three London universities. Female students (minimum age 18 years) enrolled on a psychology programme at one of the three sites were invited to participate. The target number of participants to be recruited is 240. Following baseline assessments, participants were randomly allocated to either the treatment group, where they received weekly sessions of digital CBT-I for 6 weeks, or the control group, where they completed an online puzzle each week for 6 weeks. Follow-up assessments have taken place mid-intervention (3 weeks) and end of intervention (6 weeks). A 6-month follow-up assessment will also occur. Primary outcomes will be assessed using descriptive statistics and effect size estimates for intervention effects. Secondary outcomes will be analysed using multivariate generalised estimating equation models. Ethics and dissemination The study received ethical approval from the Research Ethics and Integrity subcommittee, Goldsmiths, University of London (application reference: EA 1305). DNA sample collection for the BioResource received ethical approval from the NRES Committee South Central—Oxford (reference number: 15/SC/0388). The results of this work shall be published in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number NCT03062891; Results.


Discarding the unreliable late evidence for the Library of Alexandria in the Hellenistic period, I establish a new history of libraries and books on more secure primary sources. Beginning in the second century BCE at various places across the eastern Mediterranean, rich, powerful men began to sponsor collections of books. These new public displays of aristocratic and royal munificence (euergetism) so transcended earlier holdings of books—which had been small, vocational, and private—that in an important sense they constitute the invention of the library. As political institutions, these libraries depended on a revaluation of books, treating them as valuable irrespective of their content, and in various domains people increasingly attended to books as formal objects. Romans accelerated the pace and scope of this biblio-political revolution and extended the revaluation of books, transformations which gave a deeply anachronistic imprint to the frequently cited late stories about Hellenistic libraries.


The 5-Minute Clinical Consult, 2011 provides rapid-access information on the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of over 900 medical conditions. This best-selling clinical content is accessible online with the enhanced, quarterly-updated site or on your mobile device, to ensure instant point-of-care access to information in whichever format best suits your needs. The content has been updated to include 20 new topics, more evidence-based medicine ratings, expanded clinical pearls and patient education sections, additional complementary and alternative medicine material, and updated ICD-9 codes highlighted within the text. The online content has been enhanced and now contains a better and faster search functionality providing answers in 30 seconds or less. It continues to have fully searchable content of the book with links to PubMed, plus additional topics not covered in the print book. The online content also has over 1,000 English and Spanish patient handouts from AAFP; full-color images; videos of medical procedures and physical therapy; a new dermatology library; drug databases from Facts & Comparisons including monographs, images, interactions and updates; and laboratory information from the new edition of Wallach's Interpretation of Diagnostic Tests. This content is updated quarterly with new topics, medical procedure videos, more diagnostic images, drugs, and more. You can access all your 5-Minute Consult content using any web enabled mobile device, including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, Palm, Windows PC, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Begin integrating the 5-Minute content into your daily workflow today.


We present a two-stage model of competing ad auctions. Search engines attract users via Cournot-style competition. Meanwhile, each advertiser must pay a participation cost to use each ad platform, and advertiser entry strategies are derived using symmetric Bayes-Nash equilibrium that lead to the VCG outcome of the ad auctions. Consistent with our model of participation costs, we find empirical evidence that multi-homing advertisers are larger than single-homing advertisers. We then link our model to search engine market conditions: We derive comparative statics on consumer choice parameters, presenting relationships between market share, quality, and user welfare. We also analyze the prospect of joining auctions to mitigate participation costs, and we characterize when such joins do and do not increase welfare.


Novel pyrazole-fused spiro[4H-pyridine-oxindoles] were synthesized under the catalysis of the binary ionic liquid mixture [1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidinium chloride][1-methylimidazolium-3-sulfonate] in solvent-free conditions. The hitherto unreported binary ionic liquid (BIL) was synthesized via an acid–base reaction and has a melting point much lower than that of the moderate temperature ionic liquid, [1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidinium chloride], it is made from. The synthesis of the spiro-products was realized via a thermodynamically-favored three-component domino reaction between isatins, 1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-5(4H)-ones, and 4-aminocoumarin. The domino reaction was highly convergent and functional group tolerant, providing a rapid route to synthesize spiro[4H-pyridine-oxindoles] in fairly high yields from simple bench-stable starting materials. No by-products could be resolved from the reaction mixtures under the optimized conditions.


The mean-field ENMO (electronic and nuclear molecular orbitals) wave function is written as a product of one-particle functions that pertain to different types of particles, antisymmetrized over the fermionic orbitals, thus allowing the simultaneous treatment of electrons and nuclei within a self-consistent framework. We implemented the ENMO-SCF (self-consistent field) as well as correlated versions of ENMO analogous to the MBPT (many-body perturbation theory) and CI (configuration integration) models of Born–Oppenheimer quantum chemistry. The ENMO methods are attractive by virtue of their similarity to traditional electronic structure theory models, and several researchers have recently implemented such approaches. Here we present the first fundamental study of the convergence of ENMO methods with respect to basis set and correlation treatment for simple systems. It is found that the elimination of the translational invariance of the full molecular Hamiltonian is pivotal for obtaining a physically meaningful spectrum. For example, the ENMO-full CI spectrum for the hydrogen atom contains a manifold of spurious states which cannot be removed by simple subtraction of centre-of-mass kinetic energy because of the general non-factorizability (non-separability) of the ENMO ansatz into internal and centre-of-mass parts. An alternative, hybrid approach that treats only some light nuclei in a molecule quantum-mechanically avoids the spurious states problem by breaking the translational invariance of the Hamiltonian. However, both simple analytical estimation and numerical examples for some diatomic hydrides show that vibrational energy levels are not accurately predicted in this approach; this suggests difficulty in using such methods to predict tunnelling splittings. Finally, slow convergence with respect to basis set and correlation method is observed and related to the failure of ENMO methods to describe interparticle cusps (including the electron/nuclear cusp) efficiently due to the lack of explicit interparticle coordinates. We elevate these previously unrecognized or underappreciated difficulties as being of prime importance to future progress in ENMO methods.


In this collection of essays, Nicholas Thomas, a leading theorist of historical anthropology, explores the historicization of cultural encounters in the region referred to as Oceania. Basing his claims on wide-ranging historical and ethnographic research and building on his celebrated studies of exchange and colonialism in the Pacific, Thomas describes how outsiders and islanders alike have constructed indigenous cultures over the last two hundred years. In Oceania documents and analyzes the "rhetorical artifacts" of explorers, missionaries, fiction and travel writers, and the people of the Pacific themselves to illustrate how Oceanic identities have been represented over time. Not content with conventional methods of anthropology or history, Thomas draws on postcolonial theory and literary analysis in extraordinarily wide-ranging analyses of texts, visual images, and historical processes. He demonstrates how cultures of the Pacific Islands have dealt with colonialist ventures, modernity, and the debate about the recuperation of histories and traditions. The picture Thomas paints of Oceania, however, is not one of a group of societies stripped of meaning, but one that shows how the interactions between indigenous cultures and European influences have created entirely new identities.