This study investigates the factors, particularly family factors, which influence reading among Form 4 ESL students in SMK Green Road, in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Most ESL teachers face various challenges in teaching reading as many students find it to be arduous and tedious; hence contributing to the lack of reading ability, interest and practice. Parental socioeconomic statuses (independent variables: occupation, income and academic achievement) and home reading environments (dependent variables: reading backgrounds and habits; attitude and motivation; exposure and support) were put forward as the affecting social factors. To identify these factors, questionnaires were distributed to 120 respondents. Although not fully generalisable, this study presents some interesting and helpful information. The findings revealed that in general, most students were from average home reading environments while their parents had low to average socioeconomic statuses. Though the students acknowledged the importance of reading in their daily lives, their average reading habits, attitude, motivation, exposure and support within the home domain had suggested otherwise. They mainly read for instrumental purposes while reading for pleasure seemed not to be given priority. On average, the correlation results suggested positive relationships between all variables, which were parallel to the hypotheses and other researchers' observations. Nonetheless, parents' occupation had negative significance values. Likewise, the regression data revealed that parental incomes were shown to be the strongest predictor towards constructive home reading environments, followed by parental academic qualifications. Notably, parental occupations also had the lowest ability to provide better home reading environments, hence refuting the hypotheses and findings in other studies. These outcomes may occur due to the low to average socioeconomic backgrounds of the majority of the students. As an implication, it is vital for students to improve their reading perceptions, abilities and practices to achieve personal, societal and national progress. On a final note, parents' early and continuous efforts to be involved in their children's literacy events in an out-of-school context are believed to be more powerful than socioeconomic statuses.


Brain Computer Interface (BCI) research advanced for more than forty years, providing a rich variety of sophisticated data analysis methods. Yet, most BCI studies have been restricted to the laboratory with controlled and undisturbed environment. BCI research was aiming at developing tools for communication and control. Recently, BCI research has broadened to explore novel applications for improved man-machine interaction. In the present study, we investigated the option to employ neurotechnology in an industrial environment for the psychophysiological optimization of working conditions in such settings. Our findings suggest that it is possible to use BCI-related analysis techniques to qualify responses of an operator by assessing the depth of cognitive processing on the basis of neuronal correlates of behaviourally relevant measures. This could lead to assistive technologies helping to avoid accidents in working environments by designing a collaborative workspace in which the environment takes into account the actual cognitive mental state of the operator.


PARTIAL INFORMATION FRAMEWORK: BASIC THEORY AND APPLICATIONS Ville A. Satopää Shane T. Jensen Lyle H. Ungar Many real-world decisions depend on accurate predictions of some future outcome. In such cases the decision-maker often seeks to consult multiple people or/and models for their forecasts. These forecasts are then aggregated into a consensus that is inputted in the final decision-making process. Principled aggregation requires an understanding of why the forecasts are different. Historically, such forecast heterogeneity has been explained by measurement error. This dissertation, however, first shows that measurement error is not appropriate for modeling forecast heterogeneity and then introduces information diversity as a more appropriate yet fundamentally different alternative. Under information diversity differences in the forecasts stem purely from differences in the information that is used in the forecasts. This is made mathematically precise in a new modeling framework called the partial information framework. At its most general level, the partial information framework is a very reasonable model of multiple forecasts and hence offers an ideal platform for theoretical analysis. For one, it explains the empirical phenomenon known as extremization. This is a popular technique that often improves the out-of-sample performance of simple aggregators, such as the average or median, by transforming them directly away from the marginal mean of the outcome. Unfortunately, the general framework is too abstract for practical applications. To apply the framework in practice one needs to choose a parametric distribution for the forecasts and outcome. This dissertation motivates and chooses the multivariate Gaussian distribution. The result, known as the Gaussian partial information model, is a very close yet practical specification of the framework. The optimal aggregator under the Gaussian model is shown to outperform the state-of-the-art measurement error aggregators on both synthetic and many different types of real-world forecasts.


Inspired by suprathermal ion experiments in the basic plasma experiment TORPEX, the transport of suprathermal ions in ideal interchange mode turbulence is theoretically examined in the simple magnetized torus configuration. We follow ion tracer trajectories as specified by ideal interchange mode turbulence imported from a numerical simulation of drift-reduced Braginskii equations. Using the variance of displacements, sigma(2)(t) similar to t(gamma), we find that c depends strongly on suprathermal ion injection energy and the relative magnitude of turbulent fluctuations. The value of gamma also changes significantly as a function of time after injection, through three distinguishable phases: ballistic, interaction, and asymmetric. During the interaction phase, we find the remarkable presence of three regimes of dispersion: superdiffusive, diffusive, and subdiffusive, depending on the energy of the suprathermal ions and the amplitude of the turbulent fluctuations. We contrast these results with those from a "slab" magnetic geometry in which subdiffusion does not occur during the interaction phase. Initial results from TORPEX are consistent with data from a new synthetic diagnostic used to interpret our simulation results. The simplicity of the simple magnetized torus makes the present work of interest to analyses of more complicated contexts ranging from fusion devices to astrophysics and space plasma physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4725420]


This chapter investigates evaluation with respect to the hearer and it shows how evaluation permeates the phonological level of linguistic description. In particular, it examines how interlocutors of different cultural backgrounds, namely, English and Spanish, perceive and evaluate certain utterances as polite or rude based on their pitch range. A perception test was designed by means of which 15 native hearers of each language evaluated different productions of the word mandarins/mandarinas which only differed with respect to their F0 scaling. The results confirmed that pitch range differences have an effect on the evaluation of sentences cross-linguistically. Whereas low pitch range productions were interpreted as "polite" in Spanish and as "rude" in English, utterances with a high pitch displacement were judged as "over-excited" in Spanish and as "polite" in English. The results corroborate the status of intonation as an off-record strategy used to signal attitude.


Studies looking at flood risk analysis and assessment (FRA) reviews are not customary, and they usually approach to methodological and spatial scale issues, uncertainty, mapping or economic damage topics. However, most of these reviews provide a snapshot of the scientific state of the art of FRA that shows only a partial view, focused on a limited number of selected methods and approaches. In this paper, we apply a bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science (WoS) database to assess the historic evolution and future prospects (emerging fields of application) of FRA. The scientific production of FRA has increased considerably in the past decade. At the beginning, US researchers dominated the field, but now they have been overtaken by the Chinese. The Netherlands and Germany may be highlighted for their more complete analyses and assessments (e.g., including an uncertainty analysis of FRA results), and this can be related to the presence of competitive research groups focused on FRA. Regarding FRA fields of application, resilience analysis shows some growth in recent years while land planning, risk perception and risk warning show a slight decrease in the number of papers published. Global warming appears to dominate part of future FRA production, which affects both fluvial and coastal floods. This, together with the improvement of economic evaluation and psycho-social analysis, appear to be the main trends for the future evolution of FRA. Finally, we cannot ignore the increase in analysis using big data analysis, machine learning techniques, and remote sensing data (particularly in the case of UAV sensors data).


This study effect of adding carrot to the characteristics of catfish sausages with the addition of carrots. This study used a completely randomized design. The addition of carrot treatment consisted of  0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of the total weight of catfish. The parametters observed include chemistry analysis consisting of moisture content, ash content, carbohydrate content, protein content, and fat content while organoleptic analysis includes texture, color, flavor and taste. This object of study was the catfish sausage with tthe addition of carrots consisting of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%. The study population was catfish and carrot meat. Sampling technique "Simple Random Sampling" . Samples form this study were catfish and carrots obtained from the market Manukan Kulon Surabaya. Analysis of data with analysis of single classification variant to know the preferences of the community using organoleptic analysis and laboratory tests for chemical analysis. The result of this study have differences in organoleptic quality of catfish sausages with the addition of different carrots treatment consisted of  0%,10%, 20%, 30%, dan 40%. Laboratory test result of sausage carbohydrate levels 22,19%, protein 17,51%, fat 18,47%, water content 50%, ash content 1,04% dan β – karoten 0,223mg/100gr.  Keywords : carrot, proximat, organoleptic, catfish sausage


This award-winning series systematically presents career biographies of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types of literature and time periods.


The adaptive cross validation (AVC) method is a very general method for system performance optimization. It can be used in the design phase to determine how a system should be designed, or it could be used during the operational phase to dynamically determine the control of the system. A novel formalism, suitable for presentation of mathematical models in technical publications, is used to formally describe the studied system, which is a circuit switched network. The generality of the method implies that it, is valid for general distributions describing inter-arrival and holding times, as well as for complex routing methods which make an analytical approach infeasible. The method is used for real-time control of two routing algorithm parameters. The results are very satisfactory.


The genetic and morphologic complexity of parasites makes them challenging targets for immunological studies. The chapter focuses on major parasites and the diseases they cause. Toxoplasma infection in humans arises from the consumption of undercooked infected meat or through contact with the feces of an infected cat. The species of Plasmodium that cause disease in humans are, in decreasing order of importance, Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, and Plasmodium ovale. Trypanosoma brucei is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is transmitted between humans by blood-feeding tsetse flies. In humans, trematodes live either within the bloodstream or within the lungs or intestine. The most important cestodes that infect humans are Taenia saginata, Taenia solium, and Echinococcus spp. Impaired lymphatic drainage associated with the adult parasites living within the lymph vessels can lead to elephantiasis, a self-explanatory condition in which there is severe swelling of the limb extremities, genitalia, and breasts. The chapter considers few general characteristics of immunity to parasites that deserve special attention, and discusses relationship between immunity and disease. With global warming, there is also an expectation that parasites previously considered to be largely tropical pathogens will move north and south of their traditional areas of endemicity to cause disease in formerly temperate zones. The ready spread of parasitic pathogens is also enhanced by the greater ease of global travel and by the global transportation of food (a factor in outbreaks of foodborne Cyclospora infection in the United States).


Fugitive dust, a physical factor commonly encountered in battle, would interact with the tail gas of armored vehicles during the diffusion process to affect infrared characteristics of tail gas and infrared detection probability of vehicles. However, limited information exists regarding the impacts of fugitive dust on infrared signature of tail gas. The gas-solid two-phase coupled flow and thermal infrared transport model was developed to comprehensively study the infrared characteristics of coupling phenomenon between dynamic dust and high-temperature tail gas, which considers the gas-solid coupled flow and heat transfer as well as the particle emission and scattering. The characteristics of coupled infrared caused by vehicle-induced and wind-induced dust were studied, along with the effects of particle physical parameters (i.e. particle size and concentration) on coupled infrared and the intrinsic mechanisms. Additionally, validation experiment was performed to verify the findings in the simulation results. The results show that 1) the coupling phenomenon can significantly enhance the infrared radiation intensity and detection area range of tail gas, especially in the 8-14 µm waveband; 2) the coupling phenomenon has different effects on the infrared signature of exhaust gas in different wavebands owing to the different proportions of particle radiation and gas radiation in the total radiation in different wavebands; and 3) the sensitivity of coupled infrared to particle size parameters and concentration parameters is also different, which is related to the spectral radiative physical parameters of dust particle components.


Background Only few countries have cohorts enabling specific and up-to-date cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk estimation. Individual risk assessment based on study samples that differ too much from the target population could jeopardize the benefit of risk charts in general practice. Our aim was to provide up-to-date and valid CVD risk estimation for a Swiss population using a novel record linkage approach. Methods Anonymous record linkage was used to follow-up (for mortality, until 2008) 9,853 men and women aged 25–74 years who participated in the Swiss MONICA (MONItoring of trends and determinants in CVD) study of 1983–92. The linkage success was 97.8%, loss to follow-up 1990–2000 was 4.7%. Based on the ESC SCORE methodology (Weibull regression), we used age, sex, blood pressure, smoking, and cholesterol to generate three models. We compared the 1) original SCORE model with a 2) recalibrated and a 3) new model using the Brier score (BS) and cross-validation. Results Based on the cross-validated BS, the new model (BS = 14107×10−6) was somewhat more appropriate for risk estimation than the original (BS = 14190×10−6) and the recalibrated (BS = 14172×10−6) model. Particularly at younger age, derived absolute risks were consistently lower than those from the original and the recalibrated model which was mainly due to a smaller impact of total cholesterol. Conclusion Using record linkage of observational and routine data is an efficient procedure to obtain valid and up-to-date CVD risk estimates for a specific population.


Background This article presents our experience in managing a rare kidney tumor – reninoma – by analyzing a relatively large series of cases from a single center. Material/Methods Nine cases of reninoma were reviewed. Clinical manifestations, imaging examinations, laboratory examinations, perioperative data, and pathological findings were summarized. A 58.8-month follow-up was performed to evaluate patient survival and recrudescence. Results The main clinical manifestations were hypertension, hypokalemia, headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, palpation, and sweating. Three patients had hypertensive end-organ damage, including brain hemorrhage, gestation termination, and grade III ocular fundus changes. All patients underwent retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy successfully. The mean warm ischemic time was 23.4 min. The median operation time was 95.1 min, with a median estimated blood loss of 60 ml. The median hospital stay was 6 days. No serious intraoperative or postoperative complications occurred. The histology and electron microscopy findings confirmed the diagnosis of reninoma in all cases. After 58.8 months of follow-up, symptoms involving hypertension were relieved in all patients, and no tumor recurrence or metastasis was detected. Conclusions Reninoma may have severe consequences despite being a benign tumor. Retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy is a feasible and effective method for the surgical removal of reninoma. Multidisciplinary cooperation plays an important role in improving the diagnosis and enabling the early surgical treatment of reninoma. Especially in cases of reninoma with moderate and high RENAL scores, an accurate diagnosis of reninoma based on multidisciplinary cooperation facilitates the selection of less invasive surgical approaches.


In many structured prediction problems, complex relationships between variables are compactly defined using graphical structures. The most prevalent graphical prediction methods---probabilistic graphical models and large margin methods---have their own distinct strengths but also possess significant drawbacks. Conditional random fields (CRFs) are Fisher consistent, but they do not permit integration of customized loss metrics into their learning process. Large-margin models, such as structured support vector machines (SSVMs), have the flexibility to incorporate customized loss metrics, but lack Fisher consistency guarantees. We present adversarial graphical models (AGM), a distributionally robust approach for constructing a predictor that performs robustly for a class of data distributions defined using a graphical structure. Our approach enjoys both the flexibility of incorporating customized loss metrics into its design as well as the statistical guarantee of Fisher consistency. We present exact learning and prediction algorithms for AGM with time complexity similar to existing graphical models and show the practical benefits of our approach with experiments.


Experimenting with the many potentials of anthropological analysis—that shifting interface between the empirical and the conceptual, the space and perhaps the time between ethnography and theory—is at the heart of our journal's intellectual mission. Our aim is to publish articles that display a spirit of analytical exploration by dealing in fresh ways with their empirical materials and showing in the action of their analytical treatment new paths for anthropological thinking to pursue. Alongside full-length research articles, in this issue we inaugurate Think Pieces in Analytics, a forum devoted to slightly shorter and more speculative texts, in which particular aspects of the scope, process, or aims of anthropological analysis are explored for their own sake. Mirroring the ambiguous and shifting character of both the concept and the practice of analysis, we give free rein to contributors to broach matters of methodology, theoretical approach, research ethics and politics, interdisciplinary interface, and institutional infrastructure, as long as their bearing on questions of analytical practice in anthropology is identified.


We describe an approach for identifying fine-grained entity types in heterogeneous data graphs that is effective for unstructured data or when the underlying ontologies or semantic schemas are unknown. Identifying fine-grained entity types, rather than a few high-level types, supports coreference resolution in heterogeneous graphs by reducing the number of possible coreference relations that must be considered. Big data problems that involve integrating data from multiple sources can benefit from our approach when the datas ontologies are unknown, inaccessible or semantically trivial. For such cases, we use supervised machine learning to map entity attributes and relations to a known set of attributes and relations from appropriate background knowledge bases to predict instance entity types. We evaluated this approach in experiments on data from DBpedia, Freebase, and Arnetminer using DBpedia as the background knowledge base.


Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum - synonym Venerupis philippinarum (Adams and Reeve, 1850) is one of the most successful marine invaders worldwide and represents almost 20% of worldwide mollusc total production. Originally distributed in the Indo-Pacific region, the species was introduced for aquaculture and fisheries in North America, Polynesia, the US Virgin Islands, as well as in Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe. Due to the commercial value of the species, population genetics and stock composition are of primary importance both in natural and invaded environments. Moreover, molecular genetics can provide valuable data in invasion biology, as, for example, the structure of the exploited populations, the origin of source populations and the routes of invasions. Furthermore, molecular data might be useful for the tracking of seafood products, as requested by the European Commission for European seafood products (see EC laws n° 178/2002, 509/2006, 510/2006 and their improvements). Despite all these considerations genetic data are lacking, especially for introduced populations, and should be urgently provided. In a framework of an European network of researchers involved in Manila clam studies, clams were collected in coastal lagoons and estuaries in both Mediterranean (Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) and Atlantic (Spain and Portugal) coasts of Europe. Both mitochondrial and nuclear molecular markers were applied to investigate the genetic structure of populations, specifically by the direct sequencing of 16S rDNA gene fragments and by the genotyping of 7 microsatellite markers previously used in native populations. Results demonstrated the occurrence of multiple haplotypes for 16S rDNA, even if one main haplotype was identified in the European analyzed populations. However, few sequences were available in Genbank to make comparisons with native populations. Concerning the microsatellite data, the genotyping of Manila clam populations showed low genetic diversity among them, considering the Fst values, and a lack of genetic structuring when analysed by Structure software. Both these data suggest the absence of geographic differentiation among the introduced populations of Manila clam, as a result of introgression due to translocations and other human activities. The levels of genetic diversity within introduced populations were comparable to those described from native regions, suggesting that multiple introduction events and mixed source populations can counterbalance the loss of genetic diversity caused by the founder effect. However, it must be remarked that microsatellites showed a strong occurrence of null alleles when tested by Micro-checker, as previously observed in other bivalves, suggesting that the problem is differently distributed among Manila clam populations or specific loci, thus microsatellites should be carefully checked before used in extensive population studies. In the near future, population genetics and stock identification of this species on a large scale should be assessed using new powerful markers such as those obtained by NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) methods. In conclusion, this research represents the very first extensive genetic investigation on Manila clam's European populations, defining the levels of genetic diversity that will help to inform management practices.


Zika virus can be passed from a pregnant woman to her fetus, thus leading to birth defects including more than microcephaly. It has been recently estimated that one-third of the world population will be infected by Zika, but unfortunately no vaccine or medicine is available so far. Zika NS2B-NS3pro is essential for its replication and thus represents an attractive target for drug discovery/design. Here we characterized conformation, catalysis, inhibition and dynamics of linked and unlinked Zika NS2B-NS3pro complexes by both experiments and MD simulations. The results unveil the unique properties of Zika NS2B-NS3pro which are very different from Dengue one. Particularly, CD and NMR studies indicate that unlike Dengue, the C-terminal region of Zika NS2B with a significant sequence variation is highly disordered in the open conformation. Indeed, MD simulations reveal that up to 100 ns, the Dengue NS2B C-terminus constantly has close contacts with its NS3pro domain. By a sharp contrast, the Zika NS2B C-terminus loses the contacts with its NS3pro domain after 10 ns, further forming a short β-sheet characteristic of the closed conformation at 30 ns. Furthermore, we found that a small molecule, previously identified as an active site inhibitor for other flaviviral NS2B-NS3pro, inhibited Zika NS2B-NS3pro potently in an allosteric manner. Our study provides the first insight into the dynamics of Zika NS2B-NS3pro and further deciphers that it is susceptible to allosteric inhibition, which thus bears critical implications for the future development of therapeutic allosteric inhibitors.


In 2011, Google released a 1‐month production trace with hundreds of thousands of jobs running across over 12,000 heterogeneous hosts. In order to perform in‐depth research based on the trace, it is necessary to construct a close‐to‐practice simulation system. In this paper, we devise a distributed cloud simulator (or toolkit) based on virtual machines, with three important features. (1) The dynamic changing resource amounts (such as CPU rate and memory size) consumed by the reproduced jobs can be emulated as closely as possible to the real values in the trace. (2) Various types of events (e.g., kill/evict event) can be emulated precisely based on the trace. (3) Our simulation toolkit is able to emulate more complex and useful cases beyond the original trace to adapt to various research demands. We evaluate the system on a real cluster environment with 16×8=128 cores and 112 virtual machines constructed by XEN hypervisor. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to reproduce Google cloud environment with real experimental system setting and real‐world large scale production trace. Experiments show that our simulation system could effectively reproduce the real checkpointing/restart events based on Google trace, by leveraging Berkeley Lab Checkpoint/Restart tool. It can simultaneously process up to 1200 emulated Google jobs over the 112 virtual machines. Such a simulation toolkit has been released as a GNU GPL v3 software for free downloading, and it has been successfully applied to the fundamental research on the optimization of checkpoint intervals for Google tasks. Copyright © 2014 © Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.


There is a worldwide trend towards defined contribution savings plans, where investors are often able to select their own portfolios. How much is this freedom of choice worth? We present retirement investors with information about the distribution of outcomes they could expect to obtain from the portfolios they picked for themselves, and the same information for the median portfolio selected by their peers. A majority of our survey participants actually prefer the median portfolio to the one they picked for themselves. We investigate various explanations for these findings and offer some evidence that the results are partly attributable to the fact that investors do not have well-defined preferences. Copyright The American Finance Association 2002.


The amide proton exchange rates in various lanthanide(III) DOTA-tetraamide complexes were investigated by CEST as a function of variable chemical structures and charges on the amide substituents. Comparisons were made between YbDOTA-(gly)(4)(-) (Yb-1), YbDOTA-(NHCH(2)PO(3))(4 (5-) (Yb-2) and YbDOTA-(NHCH(2)PO(3)Et(2))(4)(3+) (Yb-3). The general shapes of the CEST vs pH profiles were similar for the three complexes but they showed maximum CEST intensities at different pH values, pH 8.3, 8.8 and 6.9 for Yb-1, Yb-2 and Yb-3, respectively. This indicates that a more negatively charged substituent on the amide helps stabilize the partial positive charge on the amide nitrogen and consequently more base is required to catalyze proton exchange. The chemical shifts of the -NH protons in Yb-1 and Yb-2 were similar (-17 ppm) while the -NH proton in Yb-3 was at -13 ppm. This shows that the crystal field produced by the amide oxygen donor atoms in Yb-3 is substantially weaker than that in the other two complexes. In an effort to expand the useful range of pH values that might be measured using these complexes as CEST agents, the shapes of the CEST vs pH curves were also determined for two thulium(III) complexes with much larger hyperfine shifted -NH proton resonances. The ratio of CEST from -NH exchange in Tm-1 compared with CEST from -NH exchange in Tm-3 was found to be linear over an extended pH range, from 6.3 to 7.4. This demonstrates a potential advantage of using mixtures of lanthanide(III) DOTA-tetraamides for mapping tissue pH by use of ratiometric CEST imaging.


The development of in vitro techniques to model the surface-associated mode of growth is a prerequisite to understanding more fully the physiological changes involved in such a growth strategy. Key factors believed to influence bacterial persistence in chronic infections are those of the biofilm mode of growth and slow growth rate. Methods for controlling Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm population growth rates were investigated in this project. This microorganism was incompatible with the in vitro 47mm diameter membrane filter-based biofilm technique developed for the study of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis by Gilbert et al (Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 1989, 55, 1308-1311). Two alternative methods were designed. The first comprised a 25mm diameter cellulose acetate membrane filter supported in an integral holder. This was found to be limited to the study of low microbial population densities with low flow rates. The second, based on a cylindrical cellulose fibre depth filter, permitted rapid flow rates to be studied and allowed growth rate control of biofilm and eluted cells. Model biofilms released cells to the perfusing medium as they grew and divided. The viability of released cells was reduced during, and shortly after, inclusion of ciprofloxacin in the perfusate. Outer membrane profiles of biofilm populations exhibited at least two bands not apparent in planktonic cells grown in batch and chemostat culture, and LPS profiles of biofilm populations showed variation with growth rate. Cell surface hydrophobicity of resuspended biofilm cells varied little with growth rate, whilst it decreased markedly for cells released from the biofilms as growth rate increased. Cells released from the biofilm were more hydrophilic than their sessile counterparts. Differing growth rates, LPS profiles and hydrophobicity are proposed to have a bearing on the release of cells from the adherent population.


Climate warming and drying are modifying the fire dynamics of many boreal forests, moving them towards a regime with a higher frequency of extreme fire years characterized by large burns of high severity. Plot‐scale studies indicate that increased burn severity favors the recruitment of deciduous trees in the initial years following fire. Consequently, a set of biophysical effects of burn severity on postfire boreal successional trajectories at decadal timescales have been hypothesized. Prominent among these are a greater cover of deciduous tree species in intermediately aged stands after more severe burning, with associated implications for carbon and energy balances. Here we investigate whether the current vegetation composition of interior Alaska supports this hypothesis. A chronosequence of six decades of vegetation regrowth following fire was created using a database of burn scars, an existing forest biomass map, and maps of albedo and the deciduous fraction of vegetation that we derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery. The deciduous fraction map depicted the proportion of aboveground biomass in deciduous vegetation, derived using a RandomForest algorithm trained with field data sets (n=69, 71% variance explained). Analysis of the difference Normalized Burn Ratio, a remotely sensed index commonly used as an indicator of burn severity, indicated that burn size and ignition date can provide a proxy of burn severity for historical fires. LIDAR remote sensing and a bioclimatic model of evergreen forest distribution were used to further refine the stratification of the current landscape by burn severity. Our results show that since the 1950s, more severely burned areas in interior Alaska have produced a vegetation cohort that is characterized by greater deciduous biomass. We discuss the importance of this shift in vegetation composition due to climate‐induced changes in fire severity for carbon sequestration in forest biomass and surface reflectance (albedo), among other feedbacks to climate.


Developing a new field of molecular self-assembly in the sub-micrometer regime-with precision as high as that used to make discrete nano-sized molecular architectures through molecular design-is a major challenge for supramolecular chemistry. At present, however, there is no effective strategy for controlling the assembling molecules when their quantity is greater than one thousand. Herein, we propose a potential solution by exploiting a novel supramolecular system in conjunction with dynamically shrinking oil droplets, enabling more than a thousand component molecules to organize simultaneously into the form of sub-micrometer-scale ring structures. In our developed system, amphiphilic porphyrins, having potential two-dimensional assembling ability, were compartmentalized into droplets with narrow distributions and molecular numbers. These droplets were subsequently transformed into discrete ring-like structures during the process of solvent removal from the inner organic layer, i.e., shrinking the droplets. Unique self-assembled structures, which are not accessible through conventional supramolecular strategies, can be selectively created depending on the initial stage of the droplet.


The Web can be viewed as an open heterogeneous information space indexed by search engines and directories based on keywords. The indexing techniques fall short of providing satisfactory efficiency/effectiveness and recall/precision parameters which are required by information search and retrieval systems. The use of metadata for resource discovery would improve these search and retrieval parameters. However, the incompatibility of formats for exchanging metadata, metadata spam or even lack of widespread knowledge about metadata has inhibited this evolution. To improve these parameters and obtain a higher level of performance for searching and retrieving over the Web, interoperability and trust-ability are some of the fundamental factors to be improved. To solve these problems some projects try to create an infrastructure for interoperability based on metadata to give more semantics and organization to the Web. However, there is almost no agreement about the metadata element sets to be used, they do not catalogue all the information and they do not enter into the places where the information really lives, the databases. This paper raises issues of semantics based on metadata, ontologies and Z39.50. Additionally, it presents an architecture for an interoperable and distributed infrastructure over Thematic Portals, providing searching and retrieval services from the Web.


In the area of SAR imaging, it is of interest to be able to focus moving targets. In this paper, an algorithm for moving target focusing is presented. The algorithm is able to refocus a smeared moving target in a SAR image processed at one relative speed to the correct one% The algorithm works in the frequency domain and is based on the Range Migration algorithm. The refocusing can be made on the whole SAR image or small sub images corresponding to physical areas of interest for the end user. By applying the algorithm to a small image, the computational cost is greatly reduced compared with using the full SAR image. The performance is illustrated by applying the algorithm to simulated SAR data according to the parameters for the LORA system.


A proxy re-encryption (PRE) allows a data owner to delegate the decryption rights of some encrypted
data stored on the cloud without revealing the data to an honest-but-curious cloud service provider
(i.e. the PRE proxy). Furthermore, the data owner can offload most of the computational operations
to the cloud service provider and hence, using PRE for encrypted cloud data sharing can be very effective
even for data owners using limited resource devices (e.g. mobile devices). However, PRE schemes
only enables data owners to delegate the decryption rights of all their encrypted data. A more practical
notion is a conditional PRE (CPRE) that allows us to specify under what condition the decryption
of an encrypted data can be delegated, for example, only sharing all the encrypted files under a
directory called 'public'. In this paper, we provide an affirmative result on the long-standing question
of building a full chosen-ciphertext attacks (CCA)-secure CPRE system in the standard model
and for the first time, we show that a class of Hierarchical Identity-Based Encryption (HIBE) schemes
can be transferred to building a CCA-secure CPRE in the standard model. We also list out some concrete
HIBE schemes which fall into this class, e.g., Lewko-Waters HIBE. All existing CCA-secure PRE
schemes in the standard model are not conditional while all existing CPRE schemes are either not
CCA secure or not in the standard model. By instantiating our generic HIBE-based transformation,
we show that an efficient and concrete CPRE scheme which is both CCA secure in the standard model
and conditional can be built.


The stigma of mental illness in South Asian cultures has harmful effects on individuals in these societies (Kishore, Gupta, Jiloha, & Bantman, 2011). The present research examines the influence of cultural values on stigmatizing attitudes of individuals from different ethno-cultural groups, and further examines how these values may be passed on to future generations. Study 1 examined the endorsement of three kinds of stigma (public stigma, onset responsibility, and courtesy stigma) in three ethnic-cultural groups in the United States (South Asians, East Asians and European Americans), and tested the associations of these stigmas with cultural mechanisms (collectivism/individualism; interdependent/independent self-construals). Contrary to predictions, the three ethnic-cultural groups did not differ in their endorsement of public stigma and onset responsibility, however, South Asians were significantly more likely to endorse courtesy stigma than European Americans. Collectivist values were associated with higher stigmatizing attitudes, whereas interdependent self-construals were associated with lower stigma. Study 2 examined how differences in endorsement of stigma between South Asian American and European American parents may influence the socialization of stigmatizing attitudes in children. Parents' explanations of mental illness to their children were compared across ethnic-cultural groups and across ages of participants' children. Categories of explanations used by parents to explain mental illness to children did not vary across ethniccultural groups. However, across cultural groups, parents were more likely to encourage older children to maintain relationships with individuals with mental illness.


This essay investigates the explosive Soviet interest in space travel during the New Economic Policy (NEP) era of the 1920s, as expressed through amateur societies, the press, literature, painting, film, and other popular culture. In recovering an obscured history of the roots of Russian cosmonautics, it shows how the cause of space exploration in early twentieth‐century Russia originally stemmed from two ideological strands: technological utopianism and the mystical occult tradition of Cosmism. The former (seemingly modern, urban, international, materialist) alternately clashed and meshed with the latter (superficially archaic, pastoral, Russian, spiritual), creating an often contradictory but urgent language of space enthusiasm. Cosmic activists, who saw themselves as part of a new Soviet intelligentsia, actively used both ideals to communicate their views directly to the public. The essay argues that despite superficial differences, technological utopianism and Cosmism shared much of the same iconography, language, and goals, particularly the imperative to transform and control the natural world. In other words, the modern rocket with its new Communist cosmonaut was conceived as much in a leap of faith as in a reach for reason.


In the literature of comprehensive national accounts, national net investments are used to indicate dynamic welfare improvement in an economy. A well-known approach associates national net investments with the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets in an economy. Following this capital stock approach, sectoral net investments can be defined as the shadow value of change in stock of capital assets owned by a sector in an economy. An alternative approach is based on future commodity flows to a sector. This commodity flow approach associates sectoral net investments with the present value of changes in future commodity flows to a sector. In the present paper, I compare these two approaches and prove that they coincide with each other only if the future commodity flows to the sector can be attributed to current stock of capital assets in the sector alone. In empirical studies, commodity flow approach can be a better alternative if the purpose is to estimate the contributions to national net investments of a recipient of future cash flows.


Organic matter was extracted with pyrophosphate-NaOH buffer, pH 8.0 from the 02 horizon of a hardwood forest and exposed to S-methionine for 18 h to allow the incorporation of the amino-acid into the extract. Compared with other amendments, supplementation of the incorporation medium with Na,SO4 yielded the highest recoveries of the labelled organic matter. This material was chemically recalcitrant, requiring treatment for 6 h at 121°C with 6 M NaOH for complete release of the incorporated methionine. A and B horizon soils from several forests were exposed to labelled material following dialysis to remove unlabelled components and a minor S-labelled component. All samples began to release S-methionine after 48 h. Further metabolism of this amino-acid included mineralization and conversion to cysteine. A portion of the sulfate-S generated from mineralization was incorporated into organic matter and was recovered only by acid and alkali extraction. S-labelled methionine and cysteine were also found in these latter fractions, indicating that these amino-acids had been directly incorporated into organic material during exposure.


The phenomenon of widespread tree cultivation by local community in some countries during the last three decades has been explained by researchers with a macro perspective. This study is to understand the phenomenon at the micro level and from the native (peasant or farmer) point of view. This study aims to explain the tradition and changes in tree cultivation. Theoris economic system were used as the basis to explain the tradition and changes in tree cultivation in Rambahan village community of the Kuansing District and Ranggang Village community of Tanah Laut District. Case study method was used in this study. The data were collected from informants through individual interviews and focused group discussions. The results of this study show that the cultivation of trees has been practiced and institutionalized in the everyday lives of local people and passed down from generation to generation, as well as a source of socio-economic stability of families. Factors that farmers take into consideration in the selection of tree crops to be cultivated are price, easy to sell, harvesting intensity, knowledge and skills, labor availability (particularly family labor), and capital availability. The results of this study also indicate that some elements of the economic system of Ranggang and Rambahan communities have the characteristics of capitalism adherent, while some other elements have the characteristics of pre-capitalism. In other words, two communities are in a transition between pre-capitalism and capitalism as shown in the practice of tree cultivation. Keyword: tree cultivation tradition, tenancy system of land and tree, pre-capitalism community, Kuansing, Tanah Laut


This article analyzes the expression «founded on labor» contained in Article 1 of the Italian Constitution, focusing on its origin in the Constituent Assembly; on its meaning, within a systematic interpretation of the constitutional text; and on its legal status and effectiveness, especially in light of the recent attempts to challenge it, with a view to change or delegitimize it.
More specifically, the piece highlights how this formulation cannot be read as a mere synonym of the «Social State»: rather, it provides the core of post-Second World War constitutionalism, for which the main problem was the reconstruction of the foundations of social coexistence, devastated by the war and the annihilation of the human being by totalitarian regimes, rather than the simple integration of the working class into the State.
Bearing in mind Mortati's legacy, the article stresses how the deeper meaning of the formulation «Democratic Republic founded on labor» must be sought in the linkage, within the Italian constitutional system, between the central roles of both the human being and labor, which lays at the junction between the personalistic and the solidaristic principles.


This article examines the knowledge component in cluster literature from its origins to the present. A chronological perspective is deployed in order to shed light on how the concept of clusters has evolved. Given the increasing interest in clusters as knowledge repositories, and the apparent conviction among policymakers of the manageability of clusters, lessons learned from knowledge management (KM) practices in organizations might well be applied to the many policy efforts aimed at governing clusters. We argue that introducing KM initiatives on a regional level should be accompanied by an understanding of the possible downfalls that are associated with KM failures.


Agriculture is expected to feed an increasing population, forecasted to reach 8 billion by 2020, out of whom 6.7 billion will be in developing countries where the carrying capacity of agricultural lands will soon be reached. In Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, in spite of the abundance of natural resources and continued investments in development, poverty and food insecurity affect more than 55 percent of the rural population. Fifteen years ago, plant biotechnology comprised only a few applications of tissue culture, recombinant DNA technology and monoclonal antibodies. Today, genetic transformation, and marker-aided selection and breeding are just a few of the examples of the applications in crop improvement with profound implications for the LAC Region. Plant biotechnology applications must respond to increasing demands in terms of food security, socio-economic development and promote the conservation, diversification and sustainable use of plant genetic resources as basic inputs for the future agriculture of the Region. Food security is defined by FAO as the access by all people at all times to the food needed for a healthy and active life. The concept means the achievement of the food self-sufficiency, and guarantees that this condition will be sustained in the future. Food security implies reaching productive growth and the preservation of the environment. Malnutrition affects 15% the population in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and 13% of the population in South America, while the Region represents nearly 23% of the arable lands and 12% of the world cultivated areas. Plant biotechnology offers several possibilities for increasing productivity, diversification and production, while developing a more sustainable agriculture. It includes biopesticide production, plant tissue culture techniques, and the use of advanced molecular biology techniques for plant transformation, genomic analysis coupled with breeding and plant-disease diagnoses. Agricultural biotechnology in the LAC Region is characterised by a repetitive and academic model, where many of the project objectives do not respond to the real needs of crop production and food security in the Region. Many small research teams in universities or agricultural institutions, poorly connected and/or integrated, have a high dispersion of facilities and qualified labor force. The database of REDBIO/FAO in 1999, register 539 laboratories affiliated in 23 countries of the Region. 83% of the member laboratories have less than 10 researchers and technical personnel and only 72% of them have three postgraduates or more. The majority of these small research groups lack adequate technology and properly trained personnel to start relevant projects, attractive for public and private investment. Public and private institutions should play a key role to create or strengthen National Programmes to guide efforts toward the real production needs and food security. National Programs should identify objectives and priorities in each country, in order to promote regional collaboration, find financial support and facilitate the transfer of appropriate biotechnology and biosafety norms to the producers by promoting the application of valid results.


Meaningful participation of civil society is key to the success of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. Civil society organizations can act as trusted intermediaries between government, the private sector, and energy users on the ground, as well as having expertise in designing and delivering energy services, particularly for poor and vulnerable groups. The aim of this paper is to provide a 'snapshot' of the civil society experience of SE4ALL to date in order to understand the entry points for – and some of the challenges – of participation. Civil Society Participation in the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative


Whether you are an entry-level or seasoned designer or programmer, learn all about data structures in this easy-to-understand, self-teaching guide that can be directly applied to any programming language. From memory and addresses to hashtables, authors Keogh and Davidson, provide clear explanations that demystify this algebra of programming.


This article presents a new measure of family-driven age- and gender-related inequalities. This composite measure, which we call the Patriarchy Index, combines a range of variables related to familial behavior that reflect varying degrees of sex- and age-related social inequality across different family settings. We demonstrate the comparative advantages of the index by showing how 266 historical populations from the Atlantic coast of Europe to Moscow scored on the patriarchy scale. We then compare the index with contemporary measures of gender discrimination, and find a strong correlation between historical and current inequality patterns. Finally, we explore how variation in patriarchy levels across Europe is related to the socioeconomic and institutional characteristics of the regional populations, and to variation across these regions in their degree of demographic centrality and environmental conditions. The results confirm previous findings that family organization is a crucial generator of social inequality, and point to the importance of considering the historical context when analyzing the current global contours of inequality.


Using observations on 28 individually marked male Harlequin Ducks from mid-June until late November, we describe plumage changes which occur as individuals proceed from the alternate plumage through basic to the return of the new alternate plumage. We also describe the timing of these events, at the individual and population level. Conspicuous white tertial feathers which become visible early in the period of the basic plumage present a challenge to existing theories to explain the function of the drab basic plumage. We hypothesize that these feathers act as a badge of quality and are used as a sexual signal to other birds. Intra-sexual competition among males to assess the quality of rival males prior to subsequent pair formation is a proposed function of this feather badge.


SUMMARY South Africa's paediatric antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme is managed using a monitoring and evaluation tool known as TIER.Net. This electronic system has several advantages over paper-based systems, allowing profiling of the paediatric ART programme over time. We analysed anonymized TIER.Net data for HIV-infected children aged <15 years who had initiated ART in a rural district of South Africa between 2005 and 2014. We performed Kaplan–Meier survival analysis to assess outcomes over time. Records of 5461 children were available for analysis; 3593 (66%) children were retained in care. Losses from the programme were higher in children initiated on treatment in more recent years (P < 0·0001) and in children aged ≤1 year at treatment initiation (P < 0·0001). For children aged <3 years, abacavir was associated with a significantly higher rate of loss from the programme compared to stavudine (hazard ratio 1·9, P < 0·001). Viral load was suppressed in 48–52% of the cohort, with no significant change over the years (P = 0·398). Analysis of TIER.Net data over time provides enhanced insights into the performance of the paediatric ART programme and highlights interventions to improve programme performance.


This collection deals with an ancient institution in Eastern Polynesia called the rahui, a form of restricting access to resources and/or territories.

While tapu had been extensively discussed in the scientific literature on Oceanian anthropology, the rahui is quite absent from secondary modern literature. This situation is all the more problematic because individual actors, societies, and states in the Pacific are readapting such concepts to their current needs, such as environment regulation or cultural legitimacy. This book assembles a comprehensive collection of current works on the rahui from a legal pluralism perspective. This study as a whole underlines the new assertion of identity that has flowed from the cultural dimension of the rahui. Today, rahui have become a means for indigenous communities to be fully recognised on a political level. Some indigenous communities choose to restore the rahui in order to preserve political control of their territory or, in some cases, to get it back. For the state, better control of the rahui represents a way of asserting its legitimacy and its sovereignty, in the face of this reassertion by indigenous communities.


The interrelationship of natural fibre, yarn and fabric properties is both important and complex, and has attracted considerable research. An area which has received little attention is that concerning the effect of fibre diameter distribution, notably of relatively coarse fibres, on processing behaviour and yarn and fabric properties, except for their well-known effect on handle and prickle (scratchiness). Prickle is an unpleasant sensation sometimes experienced with garments worn next to the skin. The effect of fibre diameter distribution, of coarse fibres (or coarse edge, CE) in particular, on spinning performance and yarn properties, was investigated for 400 different wools. Multiple regression analyses were carried out to quantify the relationships between all the main fibre properties, including CE, on the one hand, and the spinning performance and yarn properties on the other hand. We found that CE had no significant effect on spinning performance and yarn properties, except for yarn neps and yarn hairiness. These findings are important for sheep breeding practices as well as for selecting the most appropriate wools when yarn of a specified quality is to be processed, because attention needs be paid only to fibre diameter, not to coarse edge.


The present study aimed at investigating the consequences of a massive loss of somatosensory inputs on the perception of spatial orientation. The occurrence of possible compensatory processes for external (i.e., object) orientation perception and self-orientation perception was examined by manipulating visual and/or vestibular cues. To that aim, we compared perceptual responses of a deafferented patient (GL) with respect to age-matched Controls in two tasks involving gravity-related judgments. In the first task, subjects had to align a visual rod with the gravitational vertical (i.e., Subjective Visual Vertical: SVV) when facing a tilted visual frame in a classic Rod-and-Frame Test. In the second task, subjects had to report whether they felt tilted when facing different visuo-postural conditions which consisted in very slow pitch tilts of the body and/or visual surroundings away from vertical. Results showed that, much more than Controls, the deafferented patient was fully dependent on spatial cues issued from the visual frame when judging the SVV. On the other hand, the deafferented patient did not rely at all on visual cues for self-tilt detection. Moreover, the patient never reported any sensation of tilt up to 18° contrary to Controls, hence showing that she did not rely on vestibular (i.e., otoliths) signals for the detection of very slow body tilts either. Overall, this study demonstrates that a massive somatosensory deficit substantially impairs the perception of spatial orientation, and that the use of the remaining sensory inputs available to a deafferented patient differs regarding whether the judgment concerns external vs. self-orientation.


Tuberculosis remains to be one of the severe infectious diseases, especially in developing countries. Universal and specific biomarkers for TB could accelerate the development of novel diagnostics and therapies for TB, which are urgently needed to control the epidemic effectively. In the studies included in this thesis, several candidate biomarkers for latent and active TB have been identified.
Our study design for testing novel Mtb antigens, revealed combined measurement of specific cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-10) in response to a subset of antigens (Rv0081, Rv2629, Rv1733c, Rv2006) could be a promising path to develop immunodiagnostics.
We also presented data, which suggest combined measurement of IFN-γ IFN F γ-17, and IP-10 in response to ESAT-6/CFP-10 could be useful immune markers for the diagnosis LTBI; IL-2 and IP-10 for the diagnosis of active TB; and IFN-γ, IL-17, MIP-1α, and IL-10 to discriminate latent and active TB. In addition, FCGR1A, TIMP-2, IL-7R and CD8A whole blood genes could be useful to classify active TB in HIV patients
We showed that IL-2, IFN-γ and IP-10 in response ESAT-6/CFP-10; and the leukocyte subsets (TLC, WBC, neutrophil) to be useful markers to monitor treatment in HIV negative TB patients. Similarly, IL-10 and MIP-1α in response to ESAT-6/CFP-10 may assist to monitor TB treatment and HAART.
In summary, whereas we feel that these identified biomarkers will have significant contribution towards TB control in the future, the effects of other potential confounding factors including endemic infections such as malaria and helminthes, granulomatous disease, host genetics, and Mtb lineages need to be addressed before these new biomarkers are moving to clinical practices.
Thus, we propose context-dependent validation studies by comparing findings from prospective cohorts from different epidemiological settings and populations with samples and data collected in a standardised way. The ideal approach for this will be the GC-6-74 TB consortium repository samples which consists of five African countries including Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, The Gambia and Malawi.
We suggest further biomarker research by including extrapulumonary TB patients and children where the need of better TB diagnostics is enormous; and from other easy to access specimens including urine, saliva and sputum. To increase the efficiency of biomarker discovery and consecutively to deliver novel clinical tests, there is a need of better understanding of the TB biomarker research process (from study design to validation). Nonetheless, research aimed to understand host-pathogen interactions, the interplay between innate and adaptive immune responses, and the complex cytokine interplay need to be continued.


The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of captioned TV programmes in teaching learners with HI at Karen Technical Training Institute for the Deaf (KTTID). The study investigated the effect of captioned TV programmes that would improve the instruction of learners with HI to enable more of them enter higher levels of education. The objectives of the study were: i) Finding out the opinions of learners towards captioning as an instructional tool. ii) Investigating the effects of captioned technology in the education of learners with HI, at KTTID. iii) Establishing whether learners at the KTTID could adapt to captioned TV programmes in their learning environment. iv) Identifying challenges that are likely to be faced by teachers when instructing learners with HI using captioned TV programmes and v) Establishing whether KIE embraces the concept of captioned TV programmes as a mode of instruction for learners with HI. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Population under study consisted of 204 persons. Sample size was a total of 78 respondents obtained using purposive sampling. Data was collected using 3 sets of questionnaires, observation checklists and key informant interview. Most data was analysed descriptively. The results indicated that up to 35% of the respondents were of the opinion that it was very good as an instructional tool, while 41% thought it was good. These results indicated a motivating influence of captioned TV characterized by increased rate of understanding of the programmes, improved learning behaviour and ability to remember. Up to 99% of the respondents indicated that captioning had improved their attentiveness. Behaviour of learners such as self-regulation and association with characters on the screen improved to the third, ten minute interval after introduction of captioning and then declined after the learners became used to the programme. Comprehension of the plot or theme of captioned material was more or less constant. In general, the use of captioned TV programmes on learners with HI increased the students' motivation, and improved their learning. In reference to the various uses of captioning, classroom instruction was ranked highest by the teachers with a mean rank of 1.6. In addition, development of effective communication skills was ranked second at a mean rank of2.1. Use of captioning for language development by the respondent teachers was ranked third with a mean rank of 4.1. With regards to the strengths and weaknesses of captioned TV programmes, up to 25% of the respondents were of the opinion that students enjoyed the lessons as they were able to combine what they read on the screen with what was being projected in the pictures as opposed to when one approach was used. Up to 19% of the respondents indicated that students could remember more in captioning than in other learning methodologies. In addition up to 33% of the respondents reported that through captioned TV programmes, students could learn a lot. Various challenges that hindered the development of captioning for learners with special needs included, inadequacy of captioning equipment and the teaching staff that was unfamiliar with what captioning entailed. In addition there were low levels of awareness among the school administrators on the concept of captioning and its use in education of learners with HI.


Surgical procedures are an important piece of a dermatologist's daily practice. Therefore, the optimization of post-surgical wound healing is an area of utmost importance and interest. Although low risk, one notable barrier to proper wound healing is surgical site infection. In an attempt to mitigate this risk and improve surgical outcomes, multiple topical products continue to be used both pre- and postprocedure. Traditionally, this includes both topical antibiotics and antiseptics. However, these products are not without consequence. The overuse of topical antibiotics as prophylaxis for infection has contributed to increased bacterial resistance, and in fact is no longer recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology in clean post surgical wounds. Topical antiseptics, including chlorhexidine and povidone-iodine, can have a cytotoxic effect on keratinocytes and may actually impede wound healing as a result. In addition, chlorhexidine in particular can produce both otologic and ocular toxic effects when used on the face. Emerging products, such as hypochlorous acid, may be a potential alternative to the more commonly used agents, as it has effective antimicrobial actions and minimal adverse effects. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to highlight several topical products used to optimize post-surgical wound healing and discuss both their efficacy and safety. J Drugs Dermatol. 2017;16(3):209-212..


Roebuck Bay near Broome (NW Australia) is with itsextensive tidal flats one of the foremost internationallyimportant sites for shorebirds in the Asia-Pacificflyway system. It is home to 150,000 shorebirds (or'waders') in the nonbreeding season, which suggeststhat the intertidal flats of the bay have abundantinvertebrate food to offer. To answer the question whyand how so many birds are able to make a living in themud of Roebuck Bay, about a quarter of the intertidalarea was quantitatively sampled for benthic animals inJune 1997 by a team of about 30 volunteers andprofessionals. For a series of 12 successive days atalmost every low tide 2-4 three-person teams walkedparts of the study area. In addition there was a twoperson Hovercraft team working the outlying sites. Tothe best of our knowledge, this is the first detailedmapping of benthic biodiversity on tropical intertidalmudflats. Covering the entire northem shore ofRoebuck Bay, benthos and sediment cores were takenat more than 500 stations laid out in a gridlike fashionwith intersections every 200 m. Each sampling stationyielded a list of invertebrate species, along with theirnumber and sizes, and a value for median gram size ofthe sediment. Most molluscs and many crustaceanswere sorted to species (even though many of thesespecies are presently unknown to science and needformal description). All worms (including thepolychaetes, but also groups such as phoronids,nemertines and sipunculids) were sorted and countedto family level (polychaetes) or at least to the phylumlevel (e.g. phoronids and nemertines). A total of 161taxa were identified from the quantitative samples;another 30 taxa were discovered opportunistically. Theactual number of species within the different habitatsof Roebuck Bay will be much higher, because first ofall, most of the animals were identified to highertaxonomic levels, and secondly, no samples weretaken from rocky habitats and within the mangals. Thetotal density of macrobenthic animals retained on a 1-mm sieve was 1,287 ind./m 2.The polychaete familiesChaetopteridae and Oweniidae dominated the fauna interms of abundance and biomass. The 20 mostabundant taxa made up more than 90% of the totalnumbers. Many rare taxa occurring at less than 2% ofthe stations were found. Polychaetes were most abundant with 70% of the individuals, followed by bivalves(12.5%), crustaceans (8%), brittle stars (4.2%), andgastropods (2.5%). All the remaining taxa amounted toonly 2%. In terms of biomass polychaetes contributeda lower proportion (45.4%). Thefew large sipunculidsmade up 23%, followed by bivalves (16.3%),crustaceans (10.5%), and gastropods (3%). Brittlestars, though high in number, made up only 0.4 % ofthe biomass. Thus, the macrobenthic invertebratefauna is very diverse, a feature quite typical for biotain the Indo-Pacific region. However, only 10% of thetaxa could be confidently assigned a species namewithin the three months of volunteer specialist's workallotted to this aspect. This large proportion impliesthat we have only scratched the surface of describingtrue biodiversity in Roebuck Bay. Clear verticalzonation pattems of faunal assemblages were notobvious and were probably veiled by other factors.Gastropods and bivalves were characteristic of theupper intertidal areas independent of gram size. Themid- and lower intertidal areas were numericallydominated by polychaetes in the sandier regions, butbivalves prevailed in muddy substrates. At the earliestpossible occasion, in October 1997, the shorebirdswere mapped over the surveyed area. For shorebirdspecies following the tideline, such as the two knotspecies (Red Knot Calidris canutus and Great Knot C.tenuirostris) and the two godwit species (Bar-tailedGodwit Limosa lapponica and Black-tailed Godwit L.limosa), it was rather difficult to find associationsbetween their occurrence and the densities of preferredprey. Presumably these prey behave in ways that makethem more easily detectable near the sea-edge thanelsewhere. Studies on the burying behaviour of threebivalve species demonstrate that behavioural featureslinked to seawater movements may indeed beimportant in determining their availability asshorebird-food. The concentration of speciesspecialized in feeding on large crabs and mudskippers(Eastern Curlew Numenius madagascariensis,Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus, and to a lesser extentGreenshank Tringa nebularia) on the soft and muddysediments in the northeast comer of Roebuck Baycoincided nicely with the distribution of theirpresumed prey.


Context. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is an essential diagnostic diagram for stellar structure and evolution, which has now been in use for more than 100 years. Aims. We introduce a new diagram based on the gravity-effective temperature diagram, which has various advantages. Methods. Our spectroscopic Hertzsprung-Russell (sHR) diagram shows the inverse of the flux-mean gravity versus the effective temperature. Observed stars whose spectra have been quantitatively analyzed can be entered in this diagram without the knowledge of the stellar distance or absolute brightness. Results. Observed stars can be as conveniently compared to stellar evolution calculations in the sHR diagram as in the HertzsprungRussell diagram. However, at the same time, our ordinate is proportional to the stellar mass-to-luminosity ratio, which can thus be directly determined. For intermediate- and low-mass star evolution at constant mass, we show that the shape of an evolutionary track in the sHR diagram is identical to that in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. We also demonstrate that for hot stars, their stellar Eddington factor can be directly read off the sHR diagram. For stars near their Eddington limit, we argue that a version of the sHR diagram may be useful where the gravity is exchanged by the effective gravity. Conclusions. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the sHR diagram, and show that it can be fruitfully applied to Galactic stars, but also to stars with known distance, e.g., in the LMC or in galaxies beyond the Local Group.


Young adults have low rates of outpatient service utilization and higher rates of emergency service use compared to older adults. This study explored pathways to crisis service use for uninsured young adults who accessed emergency psychiatric treatment. Participants were 55 young adults (ages 18–25) who were on an inpatient short-term stabilization unit and had qualifying diagnoses for outpatient services (bipolar, major depression, or schizophrenia). Semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted to understand decision-making and the events that led to service use. A team of coders used an open coding approach to develop a codebook and participated in iterative discussions of coded text to generate results presented. Themes across 3 dimensions were identified. Participants formed the intention to seek treatment through the interaction of escalating symptoms, triggering events, and motivating factors. Intention was translated to actualized service use through individual and systemic facilitators. Natural supports and service systems influenced the entire process. Findings highlight the importance of understanding motivating factors to better engage young people in treatment and including their support systems in efforts to increase awareness of problems and treatments. Systemic barriers identified suggest the need for enhanced coordination of care across systems such as drug and alcohol treatment, homeless services, and criminal justice and for ready access to outpatient services to reduce crisis psychiatric service use.


Scholars have long treated the Exceptions Clause of Article III as a serious threat to the Supreme Court's central constitutional function: establishing definitive and uniform rules of federal law. This Article argues that scholars have overlooked an important function of the Clause. Congress has repeatedly used its broad "exceptions power" to facilitate, not to undermine, the Supreme Court's constitutional role. Drawing on insights from social science, this Article asserts that Congress has an incentive to use its control over federal jurisdiction to promote the Court's role in settling disputed federal questions. Notably, this argument has considerable historical support. When the Supreme Court's mandatory appellate docket grew to the point that it was unmanageable for a single tribunal, Congress responded by exercising its authority under the Exceptions Clause. Congress made "exceptions" to the Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction and replaced it with discretionary review via writs of certiorari — precisely so that the Court could concentrate its limited resources on resolving important federal questions. Thus, contrary to conventional wisdom, Congress has often used its broad exceptions power to safeguard the Supreme Court's role in the constitutional scheme.


This thesis investigates the lived experience of contact supervisors in the contact encounter. Contact supervisors and managers from five London local authorities participated in ten semi-structured interviews. Data were thematically and discursively analysed paying attention to issues of performativity of text and disciplinary power. A psychoanalytically informed analysis was also applied to add further complexity to the psychosocial investigation of the 'warp and weft' of the psychological and the social in contact supervision.
Two core themes were identified. The Cinderella Service core theme postulated that the role of the contact supervisor is necessarily fractured and conflicted, as manifested in mutually enforcing and destabilising subject positions active in storylines of Rags to Riches and Doing the Dirty Work. Supervisors maintained panoptic systems of enclosed discourses, and concurrently resisted these through taking up alternative relational positions with regards to the triad of social care system/supervisor/family. The themes of rivalry and exclusion were voiced through the metaphor of early oedipal psychic functioning which enabled an understanding of the dynamics of unresolved mourning and loss at the heart of the contact encounter. The Gut Feelings/Fine Lines core theme presented the role of contact supervisor as a meeting point for competing moral dilemmas that are created and maintained through shifting relational experiences. These were articulated through the storylines Here-for-a-reason, Same-as-us and Parent-as-child that positioned and counter positioned supervisors in relation to families. The first order positioning of blame drew on neoliberal discourses of parenting, class and gender. The moral dilemmas faced by contact supervisors were formulated as being generated in part by a struggle to integrate dynamics of ambivalence.
In discussion of the findings, contact was characterised by degrees of paralysis, active in structural, moral and emotional interrelated dimensions. This aspect of supervised contact enabled an exploration of the present challenges in contact and the implications of this research project on supervised contact design and practice.
It is argued that because of the growth of contact supervision resulting from the increase in children in care it is urgent that this under-researched area should be studied and understood as a distinctive field of practice. This study offers a contribution of lived experience, psychosocially theorised to meet the lag between policy and practice. It stands as a call to focus on the contact encounter as the site for policy development derived from experience, respectful intervention for families rooted in relationships with supervisors and a validation and recognition of delicate and dedicated contact work.


An experimental study of the strain rate and temperature dependencies of the stress–strain behavior of PET under large strain deformation was conducted over a range in strain rates ( 20.005 to 22.0 s) and temperatures (90 8C–1058C) in both uniaxial and plane strain compression. The increase in crystallinity content with varying strain rate and temperature and for the two different states of strain that developed as a result of these deformation conditions was investigated using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The nature and evolution of the crystallographic texture was studied using Wide Angle X-ray Diffraction (WAXD) measurements. The stress–strain behavior is found to exhibit four characteristic features: (1) a relatively high initial stiffness, (2) followed by a rollover in the stress–strain curve to flow behavior, (3) followed by an increase in stress with continuing strain, (4) followed by a dramatic increase in stress with strain at very large strains. These four features strongly depend on strain rate, temperature and state of strain. DSC and WAXD measurements on deformed specimens indicated an increase in crystallinity with increasing strain rate and decreasing deformation temperature under both uniaxial and plane strain conditions. The WAXD measurements also revealed that the preferential crystallographic texture that develops is consistent with the molecular orientation which develops with the different states of strain. q 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All


A pseudotyped virus (PV) is a virus particle with an envelope protein originating from a different virus. The ability to dictate which envelope proteins are expressed on the surface has made pseudotyping an important tool for basic virological studies such as determining the cellular targets of the envelope protein of the virus as well as identification of potential antiviral compounds and measuring specific antibody responses. In this review, we describe the common methodologies employed to generate PVs, with a focus on approaches to improve the efficacy of PV generation.


OFSTED repeatedly finds the teaching of sexually transmitted infections in secondary schools 'inadequate' across the UK (3). This is thought to be due to a number of reasons, including the fact that staff teaching this topic feel inadequately prepared and not knowledgeable enough to do so (4). In 2010, over half of newly diagnosed sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in England were within patients aged 16-24 years (2). This could be the result of a lack of mandatory, quality sexual health education in schools, combined with larger scale social issues. Young females, in particular, reported feelings of shame when visiting sexual health clinics which on occasion may compel them to lie about their sexual history to a practitioner in order to protect a 'fragile sexual reputation'(1). In response to the recommendations of FPA and the aforementioned public health statistics, this session was developed to improve student understanding of sexual health and of the risks associated with different sexual behaviors. Another aim was, by integrating information about the importance of regular sexual health check-ups into sexual health education in schools, to reduce the associated feelings of shame across the young female population. The activity was carried out with two classes of Year 12 students (16-17 years) in an independent school in the London borough of Lewisham. The session builds on education about STIs, which is part of the national science curriculum, and extends concepts about transmission to the most common STIs prevalent within the population aged 16-24.


Iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is a common clinical problem, with an incidence in excess of one case per 1000 of population per annum.1 Large case series2–4 have consistently shown that about 10% of men and postmenopausal women with IDA have underlying gastrointestinal (GI) malignancy, often in the absence of any other clinical pointer to the diagnosis. It is for this reason that IDA is recognised as an urgent indication for GI investigation.5 Tumours responsible for IDA may lie anywhere along the GI tract, though the commonest site is in the proximal colon.

Bidirectional endoscopy (BDE), combines gastroscopy and colonoscopy in the same session, and is an efficient means of assessing the GI tract in IDA.4 ,5 As well as identifying cancer, it may pick up a myriad of less serious GI pathology (eg, coeliac disease, vascular malformations) in a further 20% of cases.2–4 BDE is labour-intensive, however, taking up to an hour to complete for each patient, and carries a small but significant risk of complications, particularly in the elderly and those with …


is paper argues that many philosophical theories of meaning idealize our actual language communities and thereby contribute to perpetuating group-based oppression. I focus on externalist theories of language that posit a division of linguistic labor (DoLL), and I argue that the DoLLs they imagine are free of oppression and untouched by its ešects. is distorts both basic theoretical assumptions and our ideas about which meanings are to be found in some language community. By thus obscuring oppression and its ešects, we prevent ourselves from adequately addressing oppression's ešects on the meanings we use to understand and communicate about the world.


Once upon a time in America Rediscovering the first color photographs of the New World These rediscovered Photochrom and Photostint postcard images from the private collection of Marc Walter were produced by the Detroit Photographic Company between 1888 and 1924. Using a photolithographic process that predated the autochrome by nearly 20 years, they offered people the very first color photographs of The United States. Suddenly, the continent's colors were available for all to see. The rich ochres and browns of the Grand Canyon, the dazzle of Atlantic City, became a visual delight not only for eyewitnesses, but for Americans far and wide. Imbued with this sense of discovery and adventure, the pictures gathered here are a voyage through peoples, places and time at once. They take us through North America s vast and varied landscape, encounter its many communities, and above all transport us back to the New World of over a century ago. Over more than 600 pages including fold-out spreads, this sweeping panorama takes us from Native American settlements to New York's Chinatown, from some of the last cowboys to Coney Island's heyday. As luminous now as they were some 120 years ago, these rare and remarkable images that brought America to Americans now bring American's past to our present. Text in English, French, and German "


OBJECTIVE
Adherence to treatment is important and relevant in HIV treatment. Previous studies in sub Sahara Africa and south western Nigeria reported that psychiatric morbidity influence treatment adherence. The present study was to examine treatment adherence among the male and the female patients with HIV infection and the effect of socioeconomic factors and psychiatric morbidity on treatment adherence.

METHODS
A total of 159 patients which comprised of 48 male and 111 female who were eligible for this cross sectional prospective study were included having given their consent to participate. Questionnaire relating to socioeconomic factors and treatment adherence were administered. Psychiatric morbidity was assessed using HADS. Data was analyzed with SPSS for windows version 16.0.

RESULTS
Treatment adherence was poor in 5.3% of the patients. The male patients had slightly better adherence than the female patients. Factors associated with poor treatment adherence include poor clinic attendance, presence of anxiety symptoms in males and poor education attainment in females.

CONCLUSION
Treatment adherence is related to socioeconomic factors and psychiatric morbidity. Treatment protocol in which mental health and detailed socioeconomic circumstance of patient is an integral part should be encouraged.


Baculoviruses (Family Baculoviridae) have been used to control Lepidopteran pests in China, Japan and India. Several studies on baculoviruses have been done in Kenya but there has been no commercial use. Collection of local isolates and characterization is recommended to identify and select the most potent isolate for use in mass production. Two Kenyan isolates of Plutella xylostella granulovirus, from field-collected and insectary larvae respectively, were characterized by electron microscopy and bioassays. The isolates were found to show the typical morphological features of Baculovirus in the genus granulovirus. The results of surface contamination bioassays for both isolates exhibited the characteristic dose-mortality response curve, with LD50 values that were not significantly different from each other. The median survival time of 2 nd instar larvae at an average temperature of 25°C ranged from 5.5 to 7.5 days depending on the virus concentration to which the larvae were exposed. Further investigation is recommended.


Abstract. This study reports laboratory measurements of particle size distributions, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity, and droplet activation kinetics of wet generated aerosols from clays, calcite, quartz, and desert soil samples from Northern Africa, East Asia/China, and Northern America. The dependence of critical supersaturation, s c , on particle dry diameter, D dry , is used to characterize particle-water interactions and assess the ability of Frenkel-Halsey-Hill adsorption activation theory (FHH-AT) and Kohler theory (KT) to describe the CCN activity of the considered samples. Wet generated regional dust samples produce unimodal size distributions with particle sizes as small as 40 nm, CCN activation consistent with KT, and exhibit hygroscopicity similar to inorganic salts. Wet generated clays and minerals produce a bimodal size distribution; the CCN activity of the smaller mode is consistent with KT, while the larger mode is less hydrophilic, follows activation by FHH-AT, and displays almost identical CCN activity to dry generated dust. Ion Chromatography (IC) analysis performed on regional dust samples indicates a soluble fraction that cannot explain the CCN activity of dry or wet generated dust. A mass balance and hygroscopicity closure suggests that the small amount of ions (from low solubility compounds like calcite) present in the dry dust dissolve in the aqueous suspension during the wet generation process and give rise to the observed small hygroscopic mode. Overall these results identify an artifact that may question the atmospheric relevance of dust CCN activity studies using the wet generation method. Based on the method of threshold droplet growth analysis, wet generated mineral aerosols display similar activation kinetics compared to ammonium sulfate calibration aerosol. Finally, a unified CCN activity framework that accounts for concurrent effects of solute and adsorption is developed to describe the CCN activity of aged or hygroscopic dusts.


Subgroup discovery is a broadly applicable descriptive data mining technique for identifying interesting subgroups according to some property of interest. This article summarizes fundamentals of subgroup discovery, before that it also reviews algorithms and further advanced methodological issues. In addition, we briefly discuss tools and applications of subgroup discovery approaches. In that context, we also discuss experiences and lessons learned and outline some of the future directions in order to show the advantages and benefits of subgroup discovery. WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2015, 5:35–49. doi: 10.1002/widm.1144


John F. Kennedy's foreign policy leadership style has evoked contradictory historical evaluations. The early assessments written by administration officials like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Theodore Sorensen, and Roger Hilsman depicted Kennedy as a consummate pragmatist, skilled crisis manager, and, more generally, a great world leader.(1) Kennedy's almost heroic reputation as a foreign policy leader came under attack for the first time in the early 1970s with publication of works by David Halberstam, Louise Fitzsimons, Richard J. Walton, and Henry Fairlie.(2) Whereas Halberstam put at least some of the blame for America's unfortunate involvement in the Vietnam War on Kennedy's shoulders, the work of the three other writers referred to Kennedy as the great cold warrior and considered his foreign policy as imperialist in fact, if not in intent. Neither the portrayal of Kennedy as a decisive and courageous statesman nor his depiction as an irresponsible and dogmatic cold warrior went unchallenged in light of growing insight into the U.S. policy-making process during the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Emerging from the new body of sources and literature of the 1980s was a far more ambiguous Kennedy, whose foreign policy decisions were often characterized by vacillation and indecisiveness, marked by rhetorical overkill on one hand and restrained pragmatism on the other. At the same time, it became clear that Kennedy's ambiguity often had to be attributed to the interplay of domestic and foreign concerns and their influence on Kennedy's foreign policy.(3) Despite the considerable number of books and articles written about Kennedy, his foreign policy achievements and presidential leadership style still await a balanced assessment.(4) This article contributes to our understanding of Kennedy's foreign policy by examining Kennedy's leadership in successfully concluding the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT). The authors conclude that Kennedy pursued the goal of signing a nuclear test ban with vigor and persistence from his first days in office through the trilateral debate of the treaty's language among American, Soviet, and British representatives in July 1963. Before the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, however, Kennedy felt that his domestic as well as his foreign policy position was too weak to take on arguments of those opposed to negotiating a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. Kennedy's room for maneuver expanded with successful conclusion of the Cuban missile crisis. The months leading up to the final, two-week-long negotiation of the LTBT were marked by Kennedy's willingness to use his greater political freedom and take the lead in pushing the test ban. In doing so, he was prepared to take considerable risks both domestically and in terms of U.S. relations with its allies. The test ban case reveals Kennedy as an active and flexible but still cautious president. His personal leadership and flexible organization of the policy process features that might have been a weakness regarding decision making on other issues formed the basis for successful negotiation of the first effective arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. While Kennedy was clearly not the cold warrior that Fitzsimons, Walton, and Fairlie accused him of being, his foreign policy decisions were subject to political considerations related to domestic and foreign pressures to a far greater degree than Schlesinger, Sorensen, and Hilsman lead the reader to believe with their emphasis on Kennedy's personal skills as a foreign policy leader and crisis manager. Senator Kennedy, a Nuclear Test Ban, and Nuclear Nonproliferation The issue of a nuclear test ban was not a new one in the 1960s. American, Soviet, British, and French delegations had discussed draft agreements to end nuclear weapons tests as early as the Truman administration. But during the early years of the cold war, the arms control and disarmament talks in Geneva never really left the realm of propaganda, and no substantive progress on the test ban issue was achieved. …


Sex, Time and Place extensively widens the scope of what we might mean by 'queer London studies'. Incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives – including social history, cultural geography, visual culture, literary representation, ethnography and social studies – this collection asks new questions, widens debates and opens new subject terrain. Featuring essays from an international range of established scholars and emergent voices, the collection is a timely contribution to this growing field. Its essays cover topics such as activist and radical communities and groups, AIDS and the city, art and literature, digital archives and technology, drag and performativity, lesbian London, notions of bohemianism and deviancy, sex reform and research and queer Black history. Going further than the existing literature on Queer London which focuses principally on the experiences of white gay men in a limited time frame, Sex, Time and Place reflects the current state of this growing and important field of study. It will be of great value to scholars, students and general readers who have an interest in queer history, London studies, cultural geography, visual cultures and literary criticism.


Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) appear to be well fitted to the education of design professionals, such as architectural and engineering students, mainly because of the unique culture of these professional schools, where the emphasis is on creativity, collaboration, social relevance and rapid communication of ideas. Attention is focused on the reflection-inaction theory of Donald Schon as well as the educational paradigm of constructivism as it is articulated by Dewey and Vygotsky. It is also argued that the full implementation of ICTs for professional education would also be extremely beneficial to the development of professional collegiality beyond the borders of geography and culture. All of this is followed by a consideration of important criticisms brought to bear upon both the use of ICTs in the classroom and the commonly held assumption that constructivism is the optimal educational paradigm.


This paper examines the evolution of the corporate profit base and the relationship between book income and tax income for U.S. corporations over last two decades. The paper demonstrates that this relationship has broken down over the 1990s and has broken down in a manner that is consistent with increased sheltering activity. The paper traces the growing discrepancy between book and tax income associated with differential treatments of depreciation, the reporting of foreign source income, and, in particular, the changing nature of employee compensation. For the largest public companies, proceeds from option exercises equaled 27 percent of operating cash flow from 1996 to 2000 and these deductions appear to be fully utilized thereby creating the largest distinction between book and tax income. While the differential treatment of these items has historically accounted fully for the discrepancy between book and tax income, the paper demonstrates that book and tax income have diverged markedly for reasons not associated with these items during the late 1990s. In 1998, more than half of the difference between tax and book income - approximately $154.4 billion or 33.7 percent of tax income - cannot be accounted for by these factors. This paper proceeds to develop and test a model of costly sheltering and demonstrates that the breakdown in the relationship between tax and book income is consistent with increasing levels of sheltering during the late 1990s. These tests also explore an alternative explanation of these results - coincident increased levels of earnings management - and finds that the nature of the breakdown between book and tax income cannot be fully explained by this alternative explanation.