Irving9s politically pious persona in The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829), "Fray Agapida," indicts Irving9s own exemplification of the postcolonial American literary sanctification of discovery, conquest, and colonization presented in The Life and Voyages of Columbus (1828). Through his satire of Agapida, Irving undermines the nationalistic and religious grounds upon which both the Conquest of Granada was most often justified and his biography of Columbus was commissioned to further. Irving links the reconquest of Moorish Granada, Columbus9s voyages, the Inquisition, and the Crusades to Irving9s satire of contemporary acts of literary, mercantile, and political imperialism in A History of New York. Instead of being a writer absorbed in his own romantic fantasies, in The Chronicle Irving attacks the casuistic use of religion, nobility, and enlightenment to sanctify conquest and usurpation. The conflict indicated by Irving9s satire of self- and nation-fashioning reflects many of the United State9s own struggles to establish a postcolonial identity.


The charitable tax subsidies are, at heart, redistributive. Some individuals (the recipients of charitable goods and services, such as students, museum-goers, and soup kitchen patrons) receive benefits. Other individuals pay for these benefits, both voluntarily (through donations) and involuntarily (in the form of higher taxes or reduced benefits). At first glance, it appears that the redistribution effectuated by the subsidies violates commonly-held notions of distributive justice. After all, the subsidies treat charities that serve the wealthy (like the opera) the same as charities that aid the poor (such as the soup kitchen). How can spending public funds on the wealthy in this manner be considered just? As this Chapter shows, so doing is just under expansive interpretations of resource egalitarianism and left-libertarianism that account for expensive tastes and talent-pooling. These understandings argue that individuals with expensive tastes deserve compensation to put them on equal footing with individuals with ordinary tastes when pursuing their visions of the good life – just as individuals who lack financial resources deserve compensation to put them on equal footing with the financially-advantaged when pursuing their life plans. Subsidizing not only the soup kitchen but also the opera thus helps a variety of individuals who are disadvantaged in their ability to pursue their visions of a good life to achieve those visions.


A great amount of revenue generated by businesses in the global economy can be linked to the trafficking and enslavement of human beings. Yet, the current discourse on human trafficking fails to recognize the magnitude of benefit consumers, businesses, and economies gain from the work of forced and trafficked labor. Moreover, the limited efforts that seek to address this situation have focused on ways to encourage businesses to voluntarily adopt more socially responsible practices. These measures have had only limited success, and are generally believed to be in tension with the for-profit purposes of businesses. Hence, the task of convincing businesses to truly unearth and remedy human trafficking in their supply chains seems an uphill battle. This Article challenges these prevailing views and offers a business approach to eliminate forced labor and human trafficking from global supply chains. Relying on a series of business studies that encourage strategic use of corporate social responsibility in order to increase competitiveness and pursue shared value, this Article makes the case for businesses to pursue supply chains clean of forced and trafficked labor as a core business strategy which is consistent with — and even advances — their profit-seeking goals. Many successful companies have incorporated environmental sustainability into their business models and achieved short-term profits and long-term added value. A few leading apparel manufacturers are similarly focusing on responsible yet profitable labor practices, and preliminary data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) Better Work Program demonstrates linkages between better work conditions and improved market competitiveness. Using this data, this Article shows that business policies that minimize the incentives to use forced and trafficked labor do not inherently compromise profits and can also improve a business's bottom line. In doing so, it suggests that the task of convincing business leaders to adopt better policies may be less challenging if framed as a core business strategy in the pursuit of profit.


In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we present the performance and capacity of the evolving cloud computing model. We provide an overview of cloud computing and its potential benefits from IT and business perspectives. We also present different cloud computing deployment models and roles involved in delivering cloud solutions. We present design and delivery solutions, highlighting the key performance and capacity considerations, and outline performance engineering considerations. We conclude by reviewing current cloud offerings and briefly evaluate their performance. We provide use case scenarios for clarification and elaboration of real-life cases where performance considerations are part of the cloud solution strategy. This paper is intended for IT professionals who are interested in adding cloud computing solutions to their data management systems. This paper also is intended for business professionals who seek a basic understanding of the performance implications of using cloud computing to deliver their business capabilities. In follow-on papers, we detail performance considerations in depth, from the perspectives of those who are responsible for creating cloud solutions and those who are responsible for managing the solutions after deployment. For more information, see Performance and Capacity Themes for Cloud Computing, REDP-4876.


Fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) are one of the new and very promising biocompatible nanomaterials that can be used both as a fluorescence imaging agent and a highly versatile platform for controlled functionalization to target and deliver a wide spectrum of therapeutic agents. Among the remarkable fluorescence properties are excellent photostability, emission between 600-700nm, quantum yield of 1 and moderately long fluorescence lifetimes. However the low absorption cross section of fluorescent (N-V)(-) centers limits FNDs' brightness. In this work we show that an approach based on the Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) may significantly enhance the fluorescence signal observed from a single ND. We demonstrate that organic dyes (fluorophores) attached to the FND surface can efficiently transfer the excitation energy to (N-V)(-) centers. Multiple dyes positioned in close proximity to the ND facile surface may serve as harvesting antennas transferring excitation energy to the fluorescent centers. We propose that, with the help of some of the functional groups present on the FND surface, we can either directly link flurophores or use scalable dendrimer chemistry to position many organic dyes at a calibrated distance. Also, the remaining multiple functional groups will be still available for particle targeting and drug delivery. This opens a new way for designing a new type of theranostics particles of ultrahigh brightness, high photostability, specific targeting, and high capacity for drug delivery.


This thesis addresses different aspects of the geological development during the Permian and Triassic (300 to 200 Ma) of the Netherlands and surrounding areas. The study area encompasses the Southern Permian Basin (SPB), a large intracratonic basin stretched out from the United Kingdom in the west to Lithuania in the east. This study revealed that, rather than one basin, the SPB actually comprised three basins, separated by subtle swells. The basins each originated differently with specific subsequent histories High-resolution stratigraphic correlations of the Permo-Triassic interval were carried out to (i) align the various stratigraphic schemes, and (ii) to define a single basin-wide stratigraphic framework for the SPB (Chapter 1). High resolution sequence stratigraphy as a correlation tool is presented in Chapter 2. Two new tectonic pulses in the Late Permian (Zechstein) are presented in Chapter 3. A detailed overview of the stratigraphy and tectonics of the Permian and Triassic in the Netherlands is presented in Chapter 4. The regional synthesis is presented in Chapter 5. It includes a series of new, high-resolution, paleogeographic maps illustrating the current insights in basin evolution. One of the recommendations of this study is a revision and redefinition of some units in the Permian and Triassic lithostratigraphy of the Netherlands (Appendix 1).
Following the Variscan Orogeny, at the end of the Carboniferous (300 Ma), the Netherlands was situated in the interior part of the super-continent Pangea, north of the Alpine-style Variscan Mountain chain, which formed as a result of the accretion of the Gondwana to Laurussia plates. These mountains supplied the bulk of the sediments to the Netherlands until Mid Triassic times; further, they formed a barrier for humid air masses from the Tethys. Climatic conditions were arid to semi-arid for most of the Middle Permian to Middle Triassic, becoming slightly more humid during the Late Triassic. Marine incursions in the basin have been recorded in the Late Permian from the north, and from the late Early Triassic onwards from the Tethys.
Late Carboniferous to Middle Permian rift/wrench tectonics triggered slab detachment and extrusive volcanism during a prolonged period (Early to Middle Permian). These processes resulted in the collapse of the Variscan Mountains. Initially molasse-type sediments were deposited, followed by eolian sediments and salts. Subsidence was essentially driven by thermal lithosphere contraction. Desert sediments (Rotliegend) were deposited during the Middle Permian, followed by cyclic evaporites of the Zechstein (Late Permian). The Triassic evolution is dominated by a complex interplay of climate, transgressions and short-lived pulses of rift tectonics. Cyclic sedimentation in the EarlyTriassic is attributed to climatic Milankovitch cyclicity. From the Middle Triassic onwards, rifting concentrated in the Central North Sea, Horn and Gluckstadt Grabens. During the pulses, up to 4,500 m of salt and fine-grained clastics accumulated here. Late Triassic compression, related to the closure of the Paleo-Tethys, resulted in the doming of Fennoscandia. Delta systems from the this high built out southward over the SPB during relatively humid periods. A major marine transgression flooded the area during the youngest part of the Triassic.


Central to the polarizing discussions of the late-period work of V. S. Naipaul has been the author's apparent faithfulness to methods—and political presuppositions—derived from nineteenth-century British models of literary realism. This essay explores Naipaul's pivotal late-period work Guerrillas as marking a shift toward what it terms postcolonial naturalism as a way of both distancing the author's aesthetic from the realism of a depleted romantic nationalism and anticipating, through its own codification of affect, an as yet unnamable globalization.


How to evaluate building sustainable performance is a hot issue in the world, the paper combine the "natural energy", "energy recycling" and " energy consumption" with 12 indicators into a evaluation system, and then use the set pair analysis(SPA) methods to evaluate the building sustainable performance. Through the empirical analysis with 3 cases, the results show that increase the natural energy utilization and enhance the energy recycling can reduce energy consumption and improve the building sustainable performance. In addition, the SPA also can quantitative the evaluation results.


Statistical Ineffective Fault Attacks (SIFA) pose a threat for many practical implementations of symmetric primitives. Countermeasures against both power analysis and fault attacks typically do not prevent straightforward SIFA attacks, which require only very limited knowledge about the concrete implementation. Therefore, the exploration of countermeasures against SIFA that do not rely on protocols or physical protection mechanisms is of great interest. In this paper, we describe different countermeasure strategies against SIFA. First, we introduce an abstraction layer between the algorithmic specification of a cipher and its implementation in hardware or software to study and describe resistance against SIFA. We then show that by basing the masked implementation on permutations as building blocks, we can build circuits that withstand single-fault SIFA and DPA attacks. We show how this approach can be applied to 3-bit, 4-bit, and 5-bit S-boxes and the AES S-box. Additionally, we present a strategy based on fine-grained fault detection suitable for protecting any circuit against SIFA attacks. Although this approach may lead to a higher implementation cost due to the fine-grained detection needed, it can be used to protect arbitrary circuits and can be generalized to cover multi-fault SIFA. For single-fault SIFA protection, our countermeasures only have a small computational overhead compared to a simple combination of masking and duplication.


Data for the Russian protest dataset were collected from namarsh.ru (Новости протеста section in left-hand sidebar), a website run by Russian opposition activists and dedicated to harvesting and dissemination of information on protests occurring throughout Russia. I began collecting and inputting the data in 2007, shortly after the website namarsh.ru had been set up. I expanded the range of variables over the years, particularly after the 2011-2012 protests wave, which highlighted the value of having nuanced baseline protest data to analyze protest dynamics in Russia overtime and to be able to pursue comparative analysis of protest in a variety of national and sub-national contexts.
The namarsh.ru website aggregates dispatches from a network of regional correspondents and from press and online reports. The dataset only records what the researchers deemed genuine protest events, meaning that events organized by the ruling United Russia party or pro-government youth movements, such as Nashi were not included. For most variables, the data cover the years 2007-2016. Data for some variables are only available beginning in 2009 or later. However, researchers using the dataset would be able to refer to the web-links to protest stories to extract data for the other years, as required for a specific research project.
Although the dataset records all protests listed on the namarsh.ru website, and this remains one of the most, if not the most comprehensive sources of over-time data on regional protests, this is not a comprehensive source of protest activism in Russia. Some protests are over-reported and others are under-reported on the namarsh.ru website. These caveats are discussed in the various publications in which the data were used. In employing these data, users may wish to refer to the publications listed below that discuss the merits and limitations of the data. These publications also illustrate the utility of the dataset when analyzing various aspects of the political process in Russia and other autocracies, for instance, media manipulation of information on protest; or the links between electoral fraud and protest activism.
Over the years, several researchers have contributed to the creation of the dataset. Aleksey Savrasov and Alisa Voznaya worked on the project during the early stages of data gathering. Dr Katerina Tertytchnaya's work on the dataset has been particularly invaluable over the last few years; she has taken the "driver's seat" in many ways concerning the coding and design aspects of the data.


Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter by Joan Williams is illuminating, intellectually challenging, and insightful. It is not, however, a typical law professor book. Neither academic inquiry nor policy analysis (although it contains elements of both), Reshaping the Work-Family Debate is more of a manifesto. Williams seeks measurable and meaningful change in the family and work lives of Americans, even if that change is imperfect or incomplete, and she sees theoretical or ideological rigidity as one obstacle to such change. Williams believes that coalition-building is essential to addressing the work family challenges she identifies. Although she has a lengthy list of policy proposals, she spends very little time in this book making the case for them because she believes that in our current political climate, enactment of such policies is impossible. So she wants to change that climate, by urging women to recruit men and progressive elites to make common cause with the white working class. This review evaluates and describes Williams' insights and proposed strategies for coalition-building. But it also discusses some gaps in Williams' analysis, such as her lack of focus on race and on single parents. These gaps are ripe for future work by Williams and by the many activists and academics she inspires.


Cubic zirconia with 15 and 20 mol% yttria shows serrated yielding between about 820 °C and 1250 °C. In the instability range, the strain rate sensitivity of the flow stress is zero. There are similarities of the stress dependence of the strain rate between the stress drops during serrations and stress relaxation tests. The stress relaxation curves exhibit a sharp transition from a minimum relaxation rate to zero rate corresponding to complete blocking of the dislocations. The minimum rates follow an Arrhenius-type relationship which divides the ranges of stable and unstable deformation at the low-temperature border of the instability range. The serrated yielding is interpreted as a strain rate softening instability caused by dynamic strain ageing. This results in a flow stress contribution which increases with increasing temperature, thus leading to a high flows stress in a wide temperature range.


BACKGROUND
Hemodialysis (HD) access is considered a critical and actionable determinant of morbidity, with a growing literature suggesting that initial HD access type is an important marker of long-term outcomes. Accordingly, we examined HD access during the incident dialysis period, focusing on infection risk and successful fistula creation during the first dialysis year.

STUDY DESIGN
Longitudinal cohort.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
All US adults admitted to Fresenius Medical Care North America facilities within 15 days of first maintenance dialysis session between January 1 and December 31, 2007.

PREDICTOR
Vascular access type at HD therapy initiation.

OUTCOMES
Vascular access type at 90 days and at the end of the first year on HD therapy, bloodstream infection within the first year by access type, and catheter complication rate.

RESULTS
Of 25,003 incident dialysis patients studied, 19,622 (78.5%) initiated dialysis with a catheter; 4,151 (16.6%), with a fistula; and 1,230 (4.9%), with a graft. At 90 days, 14,105 (69.7%) had a catheter, 4,432 (21.9%) had a fistula, and 1,705 (8.4%) had a graft. Functioning fistulas and grafts at dialysis therapy initiation had first-year failure rates of 10% and 15%, respectively. Grafts were seldom replaced by fistulas (3%), whereas 7,064 (47.6%) of all patients who initiated with a catheter alone still had only a catheter at 1 year. Overall, 3,327 (13.3%) patients had at least one positive blood culture during follow-up, with the risk being similar between the fistula and graft groups, but approximately 3-fold higher in patients with a catheter (P<0.001 for either comparison). Nearly 1 in 3 catheters (32.5%) will require tissue plasminogen activator use by a median of 41 days, with 59% requiring more than one tissue plasminogen activator administration.

LIMITATIONS
Potential underestimation of bacteremia because follow-up blood culture results did not include samples sent to local laboratories.

CONCLUSIONS
In a large and representative population of incident US dialysis patients, catheter use remains very high during the first year of HD care and is associated with high mechanical complication and bloodstream infection rates.


We measured the distribution of particulate and dissolved pools of the phytoplankton osmolyte dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) in the euphotic zone at a series of shelf (<40 m total water depth) and oceanic (>500 m depth) stations in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We also measured turnover rates of the dissolved DMSP pools (DMSPd) with tracer additions of 35S‐DMSPd and short‐term (<1 h) incubations, with the aim of examining the relationship between DMSPd turnover and bacterial production. Particulate DMSP concentrations were relatively low (<25 nM) throughout the study area with about twofold higher mean concentration at the shelf sites (15 nM) compared with the oligotrophic oceanic sites (7 nM). DMSPd concentrations averaged 3.0 nM in shelf waters and 1.3 nM in oceanic waters. Concentrations of dimethylsulfide (DMS), a degradation product of DMSP, also were low throughout the Gulf, averaging 2.0 nM for all depths sampled and 2.5 nM in surface waters. Microbial assem‐blages metabolized 35S‐DMSPd with the sulfur being incorporated into biomass, volatile compounds (DMS and methanethiol), and other dissolved products. DMSPd turnover was relatively slow (mean of 3.8 nM d−1) in oligotrophic oceanic waters and averaged 10‐fold higher (39 nM d−1) in mesotrophic shelf waters. DMS concentrations ranged from 0.2 to 5.1 nM in oceanic waters and appeared to be weakly related to DMSP turnover. In contrast, DMS concentrations in shelf waters fell within a narrow range (0.8–2.8 nM) and showed no relationship at all with DMSPd turnover. DMSPd turnover rates were high enough to sustain the measured concentrations and estimated turnover of DMS, even if the conversion efficiency of DMSPd into DMS was only 10%. DMSPd turnover was significantly correlated with bacterial production (as measured by 3H‐thymidine incorporation) and we estimate that DMSPd turnover contributed a mean of 3.4% of the carbon and ~100% of the sulfur required for bacterial growth in Gulf of Mexico surface waters. In addition to its role as a precursor of DMS, DMSP deserves attention as an important substrate for bacterioplankton in the euphotic zone.


The coccolithophores are among the few organisms of the phytoplankton to calcify. Although together with the planktonic foraminifera they dominate calcite production in the open ocean, the amount of calcite they secrete is difficult to determine. The amount of calcite in the form of coccoliths that is dissolved during sedimentation is also difficult to estimate as is the amount of calcite represented by sedimented coccoliths. Because of their minuteness, coccoliths cannot be directly weighed. Instead, indirect methods must be used to estimate their weight.

I describe here a method that allows quick estimations of the weight of individual coccoliths, based on the measure of their brightness when viewed in cross-polarized light. This birefringence method can only be applied to the group Heliolithae (excluding some of the coccoliths produced in the Family Coccolithaceae). For Coccolithaceae and some Ortholithae an estimate of the weight can be made using a correcting factor. The birefringence method is highly reproducible (+/− 0.13pg). However, a significant systematic error of 13.5% may occur when coccoliths with asymmetrical appearance in cross polarized light (e.g., Helicospheara carter i) are not measured in specific orientations.


In free space, the diffraction limit sets a lower bound to the size to which light can be confined. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), which are electromagnetic waves bound to the interface between a metal and a dielectric, allow the control of light on subwavelength length scales. This opens up a rich world of opportunities in science and technology, ranging from lighting and photovoltaics to photonic circuits and quantum optics. This thesis explores new ways to tailor the properties of SPPs such that they enable the confinement of light at nanoscale dimensions. A variety of metallodielectric geometries are used that can serve as waveguides for SPPs. We show how the SPP propagation characteristics can be controlled, and how light can be concentrated in subwavelength volumes by tapering and truncating the waveguides. In Chapter 2 we use a near-field microscope to image the fields of SPPs that are squeezed into a 50~nm thick dielectric layer between two Ag surfaces, showing that the wavelength of SPPs is significantly shortened with respect to that of light. Chapter 3 focuses on specific waveguided SPP modes that can exhibit a negative effective index of refraction. This enables negative refraction of light into the waveguide at optical frequencies. Chapters 4 and 5 show that the concentration of infrared SPPs in laterally tapered Ag stripe waveguides enhances the upconversion of infrared to visible light in Er ions in the substrate. SPPs focus at the 65 nm large taper apex. Calculations show that the observed focusing effect can only occur for SPPs at the interface between the metal stripe and the high-index substrate. The focusing in tapered waveguides is explained in terms of an adiabatic transformation of a SPP mode guided by the waveguides in Chapter 6. Tapered waveguides are used to efficiently excite SPPs on metal nanowires with diameters as small as 60 nm. Phase- and polarization-sensitive near-field microscopy allows retrieval of the propagation speed and the polarization nature of the excited nanowire mode. The efficiency with which a taper couples light to a nanowire is measured to be 50%. In Chapter 7, we show that SPPs that propagate onto a Si wedge on Ag come to a halt at a specific wedge thickness, concentrating energy in a subwavelength focus. Chapter 8 investigates field enhancement at a wavelength of 1.5 m in arrays of subwavelength apertures in a metal film. We study the enhanced excitation of Er ions positioned close to the metal film by collecting Er upconversion emission. Both propagating and localized SPP resonances are studied. The field enhancement due to localized resonances is shown to be independent of the incident angle. Chapter 9 describes the enhancement of the radiative emission rate of Er ions placed inside annular apertures. An increase of both the photoluminescence intensity and the photoluminescence decay rate is observed when the aperture resonance is tuned to the Er emission wavelength. We discuss some possible applications and future research directions in Chapter 10, in integrated photonics, photovoltaics, molecular sensing and metamaterials research.


Emission trading has become recently more and more import in environmental regulation. In the context of controlling greenhouse gas emissions, the directive on a Europewide trading scheme for large immobile sources may be perceived as one of the most important milestones in recent years. Prior to its start, however, a number of very specific design features have to be agreed upon. In the political discussion, the question of how to allocate emission rights is considered as one of the most important issues. So far, a distribution (almost) free of charge is the option of choice. An aspect that has interestingly attracted little attention in the past is the question of how to allocate emission rights over time. This may for example be done on the basis of a constant reference metric, as for example emissions in a certain fixed year, or on the basis of a rolling metric as for example emissions in the previous year. The following paper analyses four different allocation options in multi-period emissions trading that are currently discussed in the European context. The four options are applied for the electricity sector. A power market close to reality with five different types of power plants (hydro, nuclear, lignite, coal and gas) is simulated over two periods. The paper distinguishes between a market effect of emissions trading on the one hand and compliance costs for meeting the emission reduction obligation on the other. The market effect results from a price increase which is due to the fact that opportunity costs for using allowances, though received free of charge, must be considered. However, only compliance costs and not opportunity costs materialise as costs in the profit and loss account of utilities. It turns out that the electricity sector as a whole gains from the introduction of the instrument due to the increase of the electricity price. With regard to the different allocation options, it is found that utilities have different preferences depending on the fuel used.


Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a group of hematologic malignancies which, due to their molecular and clinical heterogeneity, have been traditionally difficult to classify and treat. Recently, next-generation, whole-genome sequencing has uncovered several recurrent somatic mutations that better define the landscape of AML genomics. Despite these advances in deciphering AML molecular subsets, there have been no concurrent improvements in AML therapy which still relies on the 'antracycline+cytarabine' scheme. Hereto, only about 40-50% of adult young patients are cured whilst most of the elderly succumb to their disease. Therefore, new therapeutic approaches which would take advantage of the new discoveries are clearly needed. In the past years, we discovered and characterized nucleophosmin (NPM1) mutations as the most frequent genetic alteration (about 30%) in AML, and today NPM1-mutated AML is a new entity in the WHO classification of myeloid neoplasms. However, mechanisms of leukemogenesis and a specific therapy for this leukemia are missing. Here, I aim to unravel the complex network of molecular interactions that take place in this distinct genetic subtype, and find their vulnerabilities to identify new targets for therapy. To address this issue, I will avail of relevant pre-clinical models developed in our laboratories and propose two complementary strategies: 1) a screening-based approach, focused either on the target, by analyzing synthetic lethal interactions through CRISPR-based genome-wide interference, or on the drug, by highthroughput chemical libraries screenings; 2) a hypothesis-driven approach, based on our recent gained novel insights on the role of specific intracellular pathways/genes in NPM1-mutated AML and on pharmacological studies with 'old' drugs, which we have revisited in the specific AML genetic context. I expect our discoveries will lead to find novel therapeutic approaches and make clinical trials available to patients as soon as possible.


Focusing on Psalms 78, 105, 106, and 136, Walter Brueggemann considers these psalms on their own terms and then takes up two issues that move in opposite interpretive directions: the Psalms in relation to the historical writing of modernity and the Psalms in relation to the voices of marginality. Brueggemann attempts to enter Israel's past as that past is experienced, voiced, and advocated in the Psalms both as liberating affirmation and as controlling censure. The Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation series explores current trends within the discipline of biblical interpretation by dealing with the literary qualities of the Bible: the play of its language, the coherence of its final form, and the relationships between text and readers. Biblical interpreters are being challenged to take responsibility for the theological, social, and ethical implications of their readings. This series encourages original readings that breach the confines of traditional biblical criticism.


This article addresses the question how ethnic identities are framed at festivals and which role consumption and commoditization play in this process. It looks at three kinds of festivals, multicultural, ethnic and neighbourhood festivals, and is based on observations at several festivals as well as interviews with organizers. The festivals are regarded as spaces of consumption. Not only is food and drink often a central part of such festivals, also the staged performances and the ethnic identities presented at the festivals should be considered consumables. It appears that ethnicity is framed in ways which are very particular, and which are seductive to the visitors of such festivals. Ethnic identities are highlighted with recognizable symbols, and less attractive aspects of culture are not included. Furthermore, through the consumption of ethnicity, visitors can even be said to enable this performance. Thus, the role of visitors and consumers at the festivals cannot be neglected in the performance of ethnicity. However, looking at the performance of ethnic identities through the lens of consumption acknowledges an active role for those who bring their ethnicity to the marketplace. Ethnic identities made tangible in objects and staged performances become objects of desire, but the people who identify with a certain ethnic identity also actively seduce the visitors


This paper deals with preference representation and elicitation in the context of multiattribute utility theory under risk. Assuming the decision maker behaves according to the EU model, we investigate the elicitation of generalized additively decomposable utility functions on a product set (GAI-decomposable utilities). We propose a general elicitation procedure based on a new graphical model called a GAI-network. The latter is used to represent and manage independences between attributes, as junction graphs model independences between random variables in Bayesian networks. It is used to design an elicitation questionnaire based on simple lotteries involving completely specified outcomes. Our elicitation procedure is convenient for any GAI-decomposable utility function, thus enhancing the possibilities offered by UCP-networks.


Like other state departments of transportation, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) has recently transitioned to load and resistance factor design (LRFD) methods for design of bridge foundations and other geotechnical structures within the state. With this transition, the opportunity exists to evaluate and improve upon traditional design procedures and methods to produce substantial cost savings for the agency and taxpayers of the state while maintaining appropriate and consistent performance and risk. With this objective in mind, MoDOT has recently embarked on a comprehensive research program intended to holistically look for ways to improve design procedures (interpreted broadly) for the benefit of the agency and public. The geotechnical aspects of this research are being collaboratively performed by the authors along with their students from the University of Missouri and Missouri University of Science and Technology. The specific geotechnical applications selected for the research program include design of bridge foundations including drilled shafts, driven piles, and spread footings, and design of earth slopes and embankments. The deliverables to be produced through the work include a revised design specification for bridge foundations, a new design specification for earth slopes and embankments, and several design commentary documents that will provide justification and explanations for the provisions in the design specifications themselves. Principal funding for the research is being provided by MoDOT with additional funding being provided by the National University Transportation Center at Missouri S&T and the University of Missouri. The two year research program began in November 2008 and will be completed in October 2010. This article provides a summary of the motivation and objectives for this ongoing research program along with a summary of the major activities being undertaken with a focus on the aspects of this work related to using drilled shafts for bridge foundations.


This is a study in failed colonialism and an evocative exploration of a number of questions that go to the heart of explaining the tragedy that engulfed Vietnam in the postwar era. Drawing upon a wide range of archival sources that have only recently become available, Scott McCon-nell examines the causes and consequences of the Vietnamese student migration to France after World War I. When the student exodus from Vietnam began, a victorious France was more conscious and proud of its status as an imperial power than ever before. It commanded the loyalty of many of its subjects: during World War I, hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the colonies had served France in the trenches, and afterwards many came to study in French schools and universities. But some of the leading figures among them learned not to appreciate French values, but to have contempt for them, and they sought to turn the knowledge they had gained in France against French rule. How did this occur? Why did so many Vietnamese who came to France during the Stalin era join the Communist movement? Why was the Communist party so much more successful than other parties in recruiting Vietnamese students? And why were the Vietnamese so much more receptive to the Communist message than students from other French colonies? McConnell believes the answers lie in the kinds of experiences that young Vietnamese had when they came to France. He shows that the French government's policies uere inconsistent and ineffectual, and French attitudes toward these young men changed from pride to hostility as they began to seem less the flowering of the French imperial idea than an ungrateful cadre of rebels. "Leftward Journey "records the birth of "Third World" politics on the Parisian Left Bank, and shows how its first echoes fed into allegiance to communism. The book vividly portrays the superior energy and sense of direction of the French Communist party during the thirties, and shows how the Communists outdid their socialist and bourgeois rivals in winning Vietnamese recruits. As a contribution to Vietnamese history, this book will be of intense interest to professional scholars. Students and teachers of twentieth-century European colonialism will also find it useful. It provides important background to American intervention in Vietnam and to those who are interested in Third World Communist and nationalist movements.


Jugendfeier or Jugendweihe, the youth 'rite of passage' ritual has been ideologically re-and-de-contextualised by various movements throughout the last 150 years of German history. It is most commonly associated with the communist German Democratic Republic where it was used as a state initiation ritual for the foundation of 'socialist personalities.' This thesis focuses on Jugendfeier the 'youth celebration' ceremony as performed by the German Humanist Association (Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands) in Berlin. Jugendweihe originated in the mid-nineteenth century as an alternative to Catholic First Communion and Protestant Confirmation. In the former East Germany between 1956 and 1989 more than seven million students aged thirteen to fourteen undertook the ritual. Significantly, it is claimed that in present-day Germany more than 100,000 students annually take part in the ritual throughout post-socialist Germany in one form or another. This thesis highlights the often contradictory nature of Jugendweihe by examining its historical development and continuation in post-socialist Germany. It contrasts the official views of Jugendweihe in the eyes of its organisers and supporters, as well as the unofficial opinions of its participants in the GDR and in contemporary Berlin. It is often assumed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German regime along with its culture, politics, economy, rituals and everyday way of life would likewise fade away. This thesis reconstructs the history of Jugendweihe from its Christian origins, details its implementation as a state-ritual in the GDR, and engages with the German Humanist Association's adaption of Jugendfeier in reunified Berlin. A study of such a contested ritual sheds light on larger discussions concerning identity, community, theories on ritual, and perceptions of secularisation and humanism. By studying the practices of a largely 'atheist' group that rejects religion, it challenges what constitutes collective and individual notions of religiosity and secularity.


This paper determines the influence of agroecological, land-elevation and socioeconomic factors in the raising of different types of livestock in Bangladesh using nationwide sub-district level data from two Agriculture and Livestock Censuses of 1996 and 2008, by applying a simultaneous equations model. Results reveal that socioeconomic, land-elevation and agroecological factors exert significant but varied influence on the type of livestock raised by householders. The number of cattle, goat/sheep and poultry raised per household are significantly higher for medium and small farms as well as for wage-labour households. Cattle raised per household is significantly higher for non-farm households, whereas poultry raised is significantly lower. Gross-cropped area, literacy rate and research and development (R&D) investment significantly influence the number of cattle raised per household, whereas population density negatively influences the number of goat and poultry raised per household. The number of cattle and goat/sheep raised per household is significantly higher in the Old Himalayan Floodplain, whereas poultry-raising is significantly higher in the Eastern Hills and seven other agroecologies. Raising all types of livestock is significantly lower in low-lying areas. The number of cattle raised per household is significantly higher at high land elevation, but significantly lower in medium-low land and low-lying areas. On the other hand, the number of goat/sheep and poultry raised per household is significantly higher in medium-high land areas and significantly lower in low-lying areas. The policy implications of these results will be relevant to investments in R&D, education, tenurial reform and measures to promote different types of livestock suited to specific agroecology and land-elevation levels.


Using energy equations a four degrees of freedom analytical model is developed for a two-disk rotor with shaft stiffness asymmetry. A radial constant force is applied to the outboard disk to emphasize the effects of gravity or aerodynamic side loading. Special emphasis is placed on characterizing the lateral and torsional vibration trends associated with shaft asymmetry which may be used to identify failing shafts in operational rotor systems. Simulation reveals distinct patterns in lateral and torsional response, with strong dependencies on the magnitude of the side load, magnitude of the asymmetry and proximity of the lateral and torsional natural frequencies. Notable interaction is also observed between the lateral and torsional response. Lateral response peaks are found to correlate to torsional response peaks under some conditions.


The Joint Curriculum Task Force of ACM/AIS/DPMA produced Curriculum '95 for undergraduate programs in Information Systems. One of the innovations in the curriculum was a second course: Personal Productivity with IS Technology. Although the curriculum describes the course, it is new and therefore is not well-defined in terms of instructional materials, assignments, etc. A workshop to discuss the new course is both timely and important to AIS members. The recommended course focuses on improving productivity of individual knowledge workers by assisting them to achieve effective and efficient management of their individual information management systems. The relationship between individual systems and corporate systems is that of "systems in the small" versus "systems in the large." Therefore, the course provides information useful to non-majors in managing their systems and to majors in learning to support users. The course offers an insightful overview of the entire system development process. The course is designed to achieve a balance between concepts and application of the concepts in practice. Technology concepts and characteristics are in order to focus students on long-term knowledge rather than transitory features. In this workshop we describe our implementation and experience with a similar course at the University of Minnesota. The course has now been presented to over 100 first-year MBA students. It is currently included in the MBA curriculum as an elective course for all MBA students and as a requirement for Management Information Systems majors. These experiences can be translated into pedagogy appropriate at the undergraduate level.


Abstract A special-purpose multigroup cross-section library optimized for nuclides and reactions arising in nuclear oil well logging was prepared for use in deterministic and Monte Carlo transport codes. The library is based on the recent ENDF/B-VI.8 evaluation, which includes among others improved oxygen and chlorine cross sections. A 175-neutron and 45-gamma-ray energy group structure was selected as a way to take into account the requirements of oil well-logging applications. This library is expected to improve the prediction of the neutron and gamma spectra at the detector positions of the logging tool. For the Monte Carlo codes the library can be useful in particular in calculations requiring multigroup cross sections, like adjoint or MIDWAY methods. Furthermore, comparison of deterministic and Monte Carlo calculations using the same or similar cross sections can reveal the uncertainty linked to the computational method and model. The use of the library for the interpretation of the carbon/oxygen neutron logging measurements in boreholes was studied. Preparation and testing of this library, which is available from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency Data Bank, is described.


Abstract The aim of this study was to evaluate whether an ice-skating exergame can stimulate intercultural social interaction between refugees and Dutch children in controlled play sessions organized at elementary schools. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study based on observations of exergame play sessions and structured interviews conducted after the play sessions. A total of 58 children (7-12 years old), divided into 29 couples, each of which consisted of a refugee and a Dutch child, played the game at two Dutch elementary schools. We used Johnson and Johnson's theoretical framework for cooperative interaction to structure the observations and analyze the results. A total of 8 dimensions (positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, social skills, self-analysis, language barrier, lack of teacher's training barrier and preventing formation of pseudo-groups), were used to analyze the ways in which the game facilitated social interaction among participants. The results showed that in controlled playing sessions the game could be used to foster positive interdependence, individual accountability and face-to-face promotive interaction.


Layered double hydroxides (LDH) and layered hydroxide salts (LHS) are widely studied as matrices to design new materials with applications in several areas of science and technology. Both LDH and LHS are composed of molecular layered units with surfaces fully covered by hydroxyl groups and positive‐charge residues within the layers; therefore, anions in the interlayer space are needed. Even though these anions are described as interlayer species without a covalent interaction with the molecular layered units, the substitution of hydroxyl groups is also possible; in other words, the functionalization of the surface could occur. This chapter reviews results previously published related to the functionalization phenomenon in LDH and LHS, which is not considered in most of the scientific reports of new materials derived from these compounds. In this text, the use of copper probes to study electron paramagnetic resonance spectra, reinforced with infrared spectroscopy to confirm functionalization, is described. The occurrence of functionalization instead of a simple anion exchange provides a change of properties in the final nanosized material.


This essay uses theistic humanism as a super structure to do a hermeneutic appraisal of the doctrine of salvation in a pluralistic world. It operates on the assumption that reality is multidimensional, just as human belief systems and cultural perspectives are diverse. More importantly, is the point that most countries on the African continent house a potpourri of belief systems, prominent among which are Christianity, Islam and Traditional African Religion (ATR). Thus, theistic humanism offers us the opportunity to do a pluralistic assessment of salvation, thereby making myriad interpretations of the notion of salvation possible.Again, the essay neither intends to examine the meaning of God nor is it interested in analyzing how God gets manifested in human existence. Rather, the basic objective is to consider the various ways in which salvation has been conceived in relation to the human condition. In the process of our delineation, it shall be shown that salvation as a doctrine can be conceived from two principal angles which are:1) the perspective of religion and2) the non-religious or secularist perspective. Whereas the first presents other-worldly account of salvation, the second presents a this-worldly account of salvation. The import here is that since in the most ordinary sense, God is all about perfection and human goodness, it implies that the quest for salvation in whatever dimension, deliberately or inadvertently, amounts to the search for the ultimate essence or the most perfect state of reality which religions call God. Consequently, the burden of this essay is to show that salvation is an ideal state of reality which humankind is striving to attain. Bearing in mind that humans as free beings that have the capacity to interpret salvation either anthropocentrically or theocentrically, thereby, making the myriad presentations of salvation possible; one is of the view that metaphysical notions of reality are also contagious of salvation. Hence, for monists and reductionists the way to salvation is narrow and single, while for the pluralists the way to salvation may be narrow but diverse. Thus, since the hermeneutic appraisal of salvation is hinged on the assumption that belief systems are diverse and multi-faceted, the essay privileges the pluralistic presentation of salvation over and above the monistic presentation of salvation.


Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the microshear bond strength of five universal adhesives for use with demineralized enamel, with and without pre-etching. Using five universal adhesives (Single Bond Universal (SBU), Clearfil Universal (CU), Prime&Bond Elect Universal (PBU), Bisco All Bond Universal (ABU), Gluma Bond Universal (GU)), composite cylinders were bonded to the labial surfaces of extracted upper incisor teeth, with or without pre-etching. A micro-shear bond strength test was performed. The debonding surfaces were evaluated with the use of SEM. The data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey's Post-hoc tests. SBU, ABU, and PBU increased the bond strength statistically when used in etch&rinse mode (p < 0.05). GU and CU did not change the bond strength statistically with the use of pre-etching (p > 0.05). The bond strength of universal adhesives on demineralized enamel, with and without initial acid etching, depends on the type of adhesive system used.


Philip Mansel's highly acclaimed history of Constantinople (formerly known as Byzantium) absorbingly charts the interaction between the vibrantly cosmopolitan capital - the city of the world's desire - and its ruling family. In 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror entered Constantinople on a white horse, beginning an Ottoman love affair with the city that lasted until 1924, when the last Caliph hurriedly left on the Orient Express. For almost five centuries Constantinople, with its enormous racial and cultural diversity, was the centre of the dramatic and often depraved story of an extraordinary dynasty.


Low embodied energy, ability to act as a carbon store and ease of recycling gives forest products an important role within a low carbon built environment. Almost 25 % of the coniferous resource within the South West of England is Douglas-fir, a species reputed for producing high quality timber. Despite this, the region is facing challenges in delivering the resources full potential, a contributing factor to which is a loss of knowledge regarding its quality. The aim of the work presented is to gain an improved understanding of the quality of Douglas-fir grown within the region, from the perspective of uses in structural applications, the factors which influence material quality and their interrelationships. Flexural modulus of elasticity, flexural and compressive strength were determined utilising small clear specimens derived from 1.3 and 8 m heights within 27 trees from six sites across the South West. Results showed a rise in the magnitude of properties with increasing cambial age, particularly so at younger ages. Differences in values were also recorded between stem heights and with rate of growth. These were however less than age related variations. Results compared favourably to those reported in other studies conducted on the species. Utilising SilviScan-3, anatomical properties including density, microfibril angle and cellular dimensions were measured. Significant variations were recorded with cambial age, and in some instances sampling height. The influence of growth rate on anatomical properties was small. Through statistical and composite modelling, microfibril angle was found to be strongly associated with changes in modulus of elasticity within juvenile wood. Within mature wood and for strength properties, density was the controlling factor. It was shown that a moderate proportion of variations in mechanical properties can be accounted for utilising visually identifiable wood characteristics. The new understanding that has been gained through this work presents opportunities for improved utilisation, the implementation of effective management practices and the development of more efficient visual grading techniques.


Growth is the combined result of interaction between several genetic and environmental factors over time and malocclusion is a manifestation of genetic and environmental interaction on the development of the orofacial region.[1,2,3,4,5] It is important to consider genetic factors in orthodontic diagnosis, in order to understand the cause of existing problem, which may also have an infl uence on the fi nal outcome of orthodontic treatment.[6,7,8,9] Generally, malocclusions with a genetic cause are thought to be less amenable to treatment than those with an environmental cause. Greater the genetic component, worse the prognosis for a successful outcome by means of orthodontics intervention.[10,11,12,13,14] Knowing the relative infl uence of genetic and environmental factors would greatly enhance the clinician's ability to treat malocclusions successfully. [15,16,17] Orthodontists maybe interested in genetics to help understand why a patient has a particular occlusion and consideration of genetic factors is an essential element of diagnosis that underlines virtually all the dentofacial anomalies.[1-11]. Malocclusion with a "genetic cause" is generally thought to be less amenable to treatment than those with an "environmental cause". The greater the genetic component, the worse the prognosis for a successful outcome by means of orthodontic intervention.[[1-7]. In recent times, malocclusions of genetic origin (skeletal discrepancies) when detected in growing period, are being successfully treated using orthopedic and functional appliances, except in extreme cases where surgical intervention is required. [6,8,9,12,14,15]. When malocclusion is primarily of genetic origin, for example, severe mandibular prognathism then treatment will be palliative or surgical. [16,17]. Examination of parents and older siblings can give information regarding the treatment need for a child and treatment can be begun at an early age.


The traditional view of tax holds that consumption taxes fail tax the yield to capital, whereas income taxes do, leading to John Stuart Mill's criticism of the income tax as a "double tax" on wealth that is saved. A better analytic understanding illustrates that there are two types of consumption taxes. A prepaid consumption or (equivalently) wage tax indeed ignores the yield to capital. But a consistent progressive postpaid consumption tax gets at such yield, at the individual level, when but only when the returns to capital are used to elevate lifestyles in material terms. Such a tax allows "ordinary" savings that move around labor earnings, in constant dollar terms, to different periods of an individual's life, such as times of retirement or heightened medical or educational needs. Because a progressive postpaid consumption tax falls on the yield to capital at the right time-when its use at the individual level becomes manifest-all other taxes on capital, such as capital gains, gift and estate, and corporate income taxes, can and should be repealed, in the name of fairness.


As we witness the birth of the world's newest nation, South Sudan, many security challenges lie ahead in the construction of the state. One fundamental internal challenge is building unity, cohesion and integration on an individual and national level among the diverse Southern communities. Sustainable unity towards building a Southern identity will only be recognised in an environment of mutual trust. In order to do so, civilian disarmament is a prerequisite. This calls for a carefully organised, integrated and non-violent approach that would effectively sensitise and incentivise disarmament and arms control among civilians.


Abstract. Technological advancement makes information dissemination more convenient. When a notable event occurs, social media serves a popular platform for citizens to share event-related information. Therefore, in the information age, how to effectively observe the event and improve event management ability is an open question worthy of attention. Traditional social survey methods and various automatic sensors have been widely used to monitor the specific event. However, widely used social media service provides a unique approach for the event study with individuals as smart sensors. How to perceive an event through social media data has triggered a series of researches. Currently, we can find when, where what happened and induced impact based on geo-tagged social media data. However, event study based on social media is still in its infancy. This paper provides an overview of event study based on geo-tagged social media data. Firstly, we introduce the event model and the characteristics of social media data. Then, how to detect and trace event, how to analyze event impact and visually express obtained knowledge are discussed respectively. Subsequently, based on the existing researches, we propose further questions and conclude.


In this article I develop the work of a number of critics—Gillen Darcy Wood, Sophie Thomas, Peter Simonsen, Julia S. Carlson—who have recently begun to revise our understanding of the relationship of literary Romanticism, and in particular that of Wordsworth and Southey, to visual culture. I show first that new means of mechanical reproduction—the woodcut, the aquatint—combined with technological changes in book production, stimulated a new print genre known as Views—an ancestor of the coffee-table book and often a spin-off wherein the public could see engravings of the scenes their favourite landscape poets described. Pictures sold poets, and, for the first time in history, popular writers were marketed to a mass readership able—and avid—to buy images as well as words. Wordsworth and Southey were not popular writers and were not at first marketed as illustrated poets. And they at first disapproved of the visual turn of their culture. This disapproval, I show, was never consistent or total and in fact they strove to take advantage of the vogue for the visual, collaborating with artists to publish volumes of Views in which their writing was combined with engravings of landscape. And these collaborations, I argue, were greatly influential upon them, causing them to alter the form and style of their writing as well as the publication formats in which it appeared. Wordsworth and Southey, in their late work, became writers of a moralised picturesque—of words that deferred to pictured views and tourist sights—and that sought to derive truths about human nature, life and society from them. Departing from their earlier suspicion of the visual, and of Views, they became practitioners, in conjunction with artists, of a virtual topography. Their continued marketing, in the 21st century, as part of the visual packaging of the Lake District in picture-book, DVD, and website is therefore not as contrary to what they stood for as it first might seem, shallow though it often is.


We present a new ensemble learning algorithm, DeepBoost, which can use as base classifiers a hypothesis set containing deep decision trees, or members of other rich or complex families, and succeed in achieving high accuracy without over-fitting the data. The key to the success of the algorithm is a capacity-conscious criterion for the selection of the hypotheses. We give new data-dependent learning bounds for convex ensembles expressed in terms of the Rademacher complexities of the sub-families composing the base classifier set, and the mixture weight assigned to each sub-family. Our algorithm directly benefits from these guarantees since it seeks to minimize the corresponding learning bound. We give a full description of our algorithm, including the details of its derivation, and report the results of several experiments showing that its performance compares favorably to that of AdaBoost and Logistic Regression and their L1-regularized variants.


Atrial fibrillation is a complex disease. Its etiologies are diverse and genetic factors may also contribute to this disease. With the advent of modern molecular biology technology, it is now possible to explore the genetic components in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation. Past molecular genetic studies on atrial fibrillation in the literature can be divided into linkage analysis studies and association studies. The subjects for linkage analysis studies are pedigrees of probands with Mendelian hereditary atrial fibrillation. The first locus identified for autosomal dominant atrial fibrillation locates at 10q22–q24. However, the exact gene is still unknown. Another linkage analysis study in Chinese revealed that LQT1 gene (IKs α-subunit) was the responsible gene. A missense mutation in the IKs α-subunit results in a gain of function, which is important in causing atrial fibrillation. The third known locus for familial atrial fibrillation locates at 6q14–16. The responsible gene remains still unknown. The other type of studies takes the case-control design (association studies) and the subjects have multigenic atrial fibrillation. In a study in a Japanese population, it was reported that the angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion polymorphism was not associated with atrial fibrillation. On the other hand, researchers in Taiwan reported that a nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism of the LQT5 gene (IKs β-subunit) is associated with atrial fibrillation. In summary, there is growing evidence showing that genetic factors are important in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation. We expect that more genes responsible for or contributing to atrial fibrillation will be identified in the future and these will elucidate the molecular mechanisms of atrial fibrillation.


Objective: To explore how genetic epidemiology has informed the identification of endophenotypes and how endophenotypes may inform future classification of eating disorders. Method: Literature review and synthesis. Results: Although a number of endo-and subphenotypes have been suggested for eating disorders, few reach the rigorous definitions developed for candidate endophenotypes. Conclusion: Further study of endophenotypes and subphenotypes for eating disorders may assist with developing a more homogenous classification system that more closely reflects underlying biological mechanisms, and provides a clearer focus for the development of coherent models and treatments.


Principal supervisors are responsible for developing and enhancing the instructional leadership capacity of the principals they support. With this responsibility in mind, the primary purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the influence of professional learning for principal supervisors on their instructional leadership capacity. Sociocultural learning theory framed this case-oriented comparative study that sought to examine how principal supervisors learn and how school districts make the learning possible. Similarities and differences of individuals were explored. Qualitative data was gathered from documents, questionnaires, interviews, and observations of principal supervisors, as well as from questionnaires given to principals in the participating district. The district included in the study was located in the Southeastern United States and was chosen through purposeful sampling. Using the Vygotsky Space model, the nature of professional learning for principal supervisors was examined. Evidence of individual and collective learning was coded through four iterative phases: (a) appropriation, (b) transformation, (c) publication, and (d) conventionalization. Qualitative analysis of the coded data helped identify themes and uncover potential relationships between professional learning for principal supervisors and the principal supervisors' ability to support and develop principals. Findings from the study speak to the need for specifically designed programs for principal supervisors. The findings highlighted similarities between the knowledge and skills both principal supervisors and principals believed were needed to better support principals. The outcomes described in the findings also pointed to a need for principal supervisors to engage in learning experiences that are both public and private and encourage growth for the individual and across the team of principal supervisors. INDEX WORDS: Principal supervisor, Principal, School district, Instructional leadership capacity, Sociocultural learning theory, Appropriation, Transformation, Publication, Conventionalization CENTRAL OFFICE LEADERSHIP: AN EXPLORATION OF PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT


Using the ExecuComp data set, which contains information on the five highest-paid executives in each of a large number of U.S. firms for the years 1992–97, the authors examine the gender compensation gap among high-level executives. Women, who represented about 2.5% of the sample, earned about 45% less than men. As much as 75% of this gap can be explained by the fact that women managed smaller companies and were less likely to be CEO, Chair, or company President. The unexplained gap falls to less than 5% with an allowance for the younger average age and lower average seniority of the female executives. These results do not rule out the possibility of discrimination via gender segregation or unequal promotion. Between 1992 and 1997, however, women nearly tripled their participation in the top executive ranks and also strongly improved their relative compensation, mostly by gaining representation in larger corporations.


Some recent studies have explored the false memory and its mechanisms. True memories depend on draw in the past, retrieve of the information, remember past events plus recombine (reorganize) them with new information to finally re-encode these elements creating a new memory. But, sometimes failures in this system lead to memory errors collaborating to false memory formation. This chapter will address new neuropsychological tools to evaluate true and false memory performance. Some neuropharmacological aspects as possible mechanisms of agonist and antagonist modulation of false memory will be discussed.


AbstractThis study determined the theoretical time-to-detect (TTD) global climate model (GCM) precipitable water vapor (PWV) 100-yr trends when realistic measurement errors are considered. Global trends ranged from 0.055 to 0.072 mm yr−1 and varied minimally from season to season. Global TTDs with a 0% measurement error ranged from 3.0 to 4.8 yr, while a 5% measurement error increased the TTD by almost 6 times, ranging from 17.6 to 22.0 yr. Zonal trends were highest near the equator; however, zonal TTDs were nearly independent of latitude when 5% measurement error was included. Zonal TTDs are significantly reduced when the trends are analyzed by season. Regional trends (15° × 30°) show TTDs close to those in the 15° latitude zones (15° × 360°). Detailed case study analysis of four selected regions with high population density—eastern United States, Europe, China, and India—indicated that trend analysis on regional spatial scales may provide the most timely information regarding highly populated regions wh...


Neptune has brightened by more than 10% during the past several decades. We report on the analysis of published Johnson-Cousins B and V magnitudes dating back to 1954 along with new U, B, V, R, Rc, I and Ic photometry that we recorded during the past 24 years. Characteristic magnitudes, colors and albedos in all seven band-passes are derived from the ensemble of data. Additionally, 25 spectra spanning 26 hours of observation on 5 nights are analyzed. The spectrophotometry demonstrates that planetary flux and albedo is inversely related to the equivalent widths of methane bands. We attribute the changes in band strength, flux and albedo to the high altitude clouds which rotate across the planet's visible disk. Bright clouds increase albedo and flux while reducing methane absorption. Synthetic V magnitudes derived from the spectroscopy also agree closely with the photometric quantities, which cross-validates the two techniques. The spectroscopic and photometric results are discussed within the framework of the secular brightness variations of Neptune.


The articles in this focus issue evaluate various aspects of water storage to manage water supply variability related to climate extremes and change within the context of reduced natural storage associated with wetlands, groundwater fl oodplains, glaciers and snow. Most of the papers in the focus issue address topics related to surface water reservoirs, including estimat-ing storage-reliability-yield relationships, storage requirements for water supply variability, economic issues related to coordinated reservoir management, storage operations under climate change, impacts of regulation and fragmentation on river fl ows, and economic aspects of management. In addition to surface reservoirs, storage from rainwater harvesting and in aquifers are also examined. Studies vary from global to basin scale. This focus issue provides valuable insights for use of storage to buffer climate extremes and change considering human and ecosystem demands for current and projected future climate conditions.


In this paper we describe several regional development-assessment methods and subsequently apply them in a comparative development level analysis of the Slovenian and Croatian municipalities. The aim is to compare performance and suitability of several parametric and non-parametric ranking methods and to develop a suitable multivariate methodological framework for distinguishing development level of particular territorial units. However, the usefulness and appropriateness of various multivariate techniques for regional development assessment is generally questionable and there is no clear consensus about how to carry out such analysis. Two main methodological approaches are based on parametric and non-parametric methods, where in the former an explicit econometric model containing theory-implied causal and possibly simultaneous relationships is estimated using likelihood-based methods and formally assessed in terms of the goodness of fit and other test statistics, subsequently allowing for estimation of the development level on a metric scale, while in the later, territorial units or regions are essentially classified into clusters or groups differing in the development level, but no formal inferential methods are applied to confirm the validity of the model, or to establish the difference in the development level on a metric scale. The possible advantages of the first approach are in the existence of formal testing and evaluation procedures, as well as in producing interval ranks of the analysed units, while its disadvantages are in the lack of robustness; often unrealistic distributional assumptions; and possible invalidity of the theoretically implied causal relationships. In this paper we consider a parametric, inferential approach based on maximum likelihood estimation of the linear structural equation model with latent variables for metric-scale development ranking, and a non-parametric approach based on cluster analysis for development grouping. Our analysis is based on ten regional development variables such as income per capita, population density, age index, etc. which are similarly collected and generally compatible for both analysed countries. Within the parametric approach, a simultaneous equation econometric model is estimated and latent scores are computed for each underlying latent development variable, where three latent constructs are postulated corresponding to economic, structural and demographic development dimensions. In the non-parametric approach, a combination of Ward?s hierarchical method and K-means clustering procedure is applied to classify the territorial units. We apply both methodological frameworks to Slovenian and Croatian municipality data and assess their regional development level. We further compare the performance of both methods and show to which degree their results are compatible. Finally, we propose a unified framework based on both parametric and non-parametric methods, where clustering techniques are performed both on the original development indicators and on the computed latent scores from the structural equation model, and compare these results with the results from each of the two methods applied separately. We show that a combined parametric/non-parametric approach is superior to each approach applied individually and propose a methodological framework capable of estimating the development level of territorial units or regions on a metric scale, while in the same time preserving the robustness of the non-parametric techniques.


ADAPTIVE RADIATION THERAPY OF PROSTATE CANCER by NING WEN August 2010 Advisor: Dr. Teamour Nurushev Major: Medical Physics Degree: Doctor of Philosophy ART is a close-loop feedback algorithm which evaluates the organ deformation and motion right before the treatment and takes into account dose delivery variation daily to compensate for the difference between planned and delivered dose. It also has potential to allow further dose escalation and margin reduction to improve the clinical outcome. This retrospective study evaluated ART for prostate cancer treatment and radiobiological consequences. An IRB approved protocol has been used to evaluate actual dose delivery of patients with prostate cancer undergoing treatment with daily CBCT. The dose from CBCT was measured in phantom using TLD and ion chamber techniques in the pelvic scan setting. There were two major findings from the measurements of CBCT dose: (1) the lateral dose distribution was not symmetrical, with Lt Lat being ~40% higher than Rt Lat and (2) AP skin dose varies with patient size, ranging 3.2-6.1 cGy for patient's AP separation of 20-33 cm (the larger the separation, the less the skin dose) but lateral skin doses depend little on separations. Five low risk localized prostate cancer patients were selected for the study. The CTV included prostate and 1cm proximal seminal vesicle. PTV was created by adding 1 cm margin to CTV except 6 mm posteriorly to limit rectal dose. The treatment plans were 7 to 9 fields IMRT. CBCT was acquired before each treatment for online image guidance. The rigid registration was performed online to fuse CBCT to SIM-CT. The patient position was corrected in three translational directions based on registration results. Dose was recalculated on each CBCT set under the same treatment plan. DIR was performed between SIM-CT and evaluated for each CT sets. Dose was reconstructed and accumulated to reflect the actual dose delivered to the patient. Then the adaptive plans were compared to the original plan to evaluate tumor control and normal tissue complication using radiobiological model. Different PTV margins were also studied to access margin reduction techniques. If the actual dose delivered to the PTV deviated significantly from the prescription dose for the given fractions or the OAR received higher dose than expected, the treatment plan would be re-optimized based on the previously delivered dose. The optimal schedule was compared based on the balance of PTV dose coverage and inhomogeneity, OAR dose constraints and labor involved. DIR was validated using fiducial marker position, visual comparison and UE. The mean and standard deviation of markers after rigid registration in L-R direction was 0 and 1 mm. But the mean was 2-4 mm in the A-P and S-I direction and standard deviation was about 2 mm. After DIR, the mean in all three directions became 0 and standard deviation was within sub millimeter. UE images were generated for each CT set and carefully reviewed in the prostate region. DIR provided accurate transformation matrix to be used for dose reconstruction. The delivered dose was evaluated with radiobiological models. TCP for the CTV was calculated to evaluate tumor control in different margin settings. TCP calculated from the reconstructed dose agreed within 5% of the value in the plan for all patients with three different margins. EUD and NTCP were calculated to evaluate reaction of rectum to radiation. Rectal EUD increased 5-7% in the real delivery of the plan with 10/5 mm margin for all five patients. As the margin was reduced, the percent difference increased to 5-14%. Margin reduction from 10/6 mm to 5/3 mm was a very effective way to reduce predicted GI toxicity. Calculated NTCP was decreased by 6% on average for each patient. As the margin was reduced from 5/3 mm to 3mm, NTCP was decreased by 2% on average. NTCP calculated based on actual dose distribution indicated that possibility was less than 10% to have rectal bleeding with grade level 2 or 3. Similar biological evaluation was performed for bladder. EUD of actual dose was 3% 9% higher than that of planned dose of patient 1-3, 11%-20% higher of patient 4-5. Smaller margins could not reduce late GU toxicity effectively since bladder complication was directly related to Dmax which was at the same magnitude in the bladder no matter which margin was applied. Re-optimization was performed at the 10, 20, 30, and 40 fraction to evaluate the effectiveness to limit OAR dose while maintaining the target coverage. Reconstructed dose was added to dose from remaining fractions after optimization to show the total dose patient would receive. It showed that if the plan was re-optimized at 10 or 20 fraction, total dose to rectum and bladder were very similar to planned dose with minor deviations. If the plan was reoptimized at the 30 fraction, since there was a large deviation between reconstructed dose and planned dose to OAR, optimization could not limit the OAR dose to the original plan with only 12 fractions left. If the re-optimization was done at the 40 fraction, it was impossible to compensate in the last 2 fractions. Large deviations of total dose to bladder and rectum still existed while dose inhomogeneity to PTV was significantly increased due to hard constraints set in the optimization to reduce OAR dose. In summary, ART did not show improvements in TCP if the patient was setup with CBCT. However, EUD of rectum and bladder was increased significantly due to tissue deformation, which varied daily. With the power of ART, margins added to the CTV could be further reduced to preserve critical organs surrounding the target.


Quenching to obtain martensite is the mostly applied process for standard rolling element bearings. Isothermal treatment in the lower bainitic range is used as an alternative method to generate favorable compressive residual stress on the surface of components, e.g., in spherical roller bearings. The duration of the bainitic treatment, however, is much longer than that of a martensitic treatment because more or less a complete transformation of austenite to bainite is usually requested. This causes higher energy consumption and a longer production period. Therefore it is desirable to perform bainitic treatment with a shortened process duration. In the present work possible processes for shortening the bainitic treatment of the bearing steel 52100 were primarily investigated by dilatometric experiments. Some selected processes were carried out in an industrial salt bath. The microstructures of bainite were observed by optical microscope, transmission electron microscope, and field emission scanning electron microscope. These were compared to martensitic microstructures. The cyclic fatigue strength of the steel after shortened bainitic treatments was examined using a rotating-bar fatigue test. The results show that the fatigue resistance while maintaining the requested minimum hardness of 58 HRC was even enhanced significantly through the shortened treatments particularly by means of a two-step bainitic treatment. The process duration was only about 25 % of the conventional time. The influence of the bainitic microstructure on the fatigue strength of the steel is discussed.


This paper proposes a Player Age (PA) model with the potential to be generalized to many different games. The model offers insight into the relationship between age and play style. Game developers can use the PA model to gain a better understanding of their target audience, and to optimize adaptive game features (i.e., AI, targeted marketing). In order to become generically applicable, the PA model is based on the literature on life-span developments in physiology and psychology. The PA model states that player age is a linear function of four factors: Speed of Play (-), Performance (-), Preference (+/-), and Time Played (+/-). The model is validated on a data set from Battlefield 3 (FPS). It explains 33.7% of the variance in age (range: 12-65 years) with a standard error of 6.743. To determine the generic quality of the PA model, future work will validate it on games of other genres.


PURPOSE
We aimed to identify if there is an association between the severity of cervical cancer at diagnosis and the pattern of recurrence.

METHODS
We conducted a retrospective study of recurrent cervical cancers diagnosed between 2016 and 2018. We characterized the cases according to histology, size, FIGO stage (according to 2009 and 2018 FIGO classifications) and nodal involvement at diagnosis, symptoms at the time of recurrence, interval between the end of treatment and recurrence, imaging methods used, and location of the recurrence. Statistical analysis was performed between histology, size, FIGO stage and nodal involvement at diagnosis and time to recurrence and type of recurrence (locoregional versus lymph node, distant or multiple site involvement).

RESULTS
We included 48 patients with recurrent cervical cancer. At diagnosis, mean tumor size was 5 cm and 83% of the patients had squamous cell carcinoma. The FIGO stage changed in 43.8% of patients between the 2009 and the 2018 classifications. A mean of 26 months elapsed between the end of treatment and recurrence. Recurrence was symptomatic in 64.6% of patients. Imaging identified recurrence in 97.9% of patients. The most frequent recurrence sites were locoregional and lymph node metastases. We found a statistically significant association between 2009 FIGO stage and time to recurrence (P = 0.030) and lymph node involvement at diagnosis and type of recurrence (P = 0.022). As expected patients with more advanced disease recurred sooner, though this was only observed for the 2009 FIGO classification. Absence of lymph nodes at initial diagnosis was associated with locoregional recurrence, while presence of lymph node involvement was associated with lymph node, distant or multiple site involvement of recurrence. No other significant associations were found.

CONCLUSION
In our cohort of recurrent cervical cancer, we found an association between patients without lymph node metastases at initial diagnosis and locoregional recurrence. Further studies are needed in order to evaluate whether this association has predictive value.


This paper discusses how the main characteristics of a focused beam in a laser complex (the beam-waist diameter d0 and position Delta S, the radiation intensity I, and the length lc of the caustic) depend on the control voltage U on a deformable mirror. It is established that the use of deformable mirrors in laser cutting of metal-plate materials improves its quality in virtually all parameters. In particular, when 8.5-mm-thick stainless steel was cut at a rate of 460 mm/min, the surface roughness of the cut was reduced by a factor of 1.5, and the depth of the high-quality cutting was increased by a factor of 3. © 2005 Optical Society of America


This paper introduces Pyff, the Pythonic feedback framework for feedback applications and stimulus presentation. Pyff provides a platform-independent framework that allows users to develop and run neuroscientific experiments in the programming language Python. Existing solutions have mostly been implemented in C++, which makes for a rather tedious programming task for non-computer-scientists, or in Matlab, which is not well suited for more advanced visual or auditory applications. Pyff was designed to make experimental paradigms (i.e., feedback and stimulus applications) easily programmable. It includes base classes for various types of common feedbacks and stimuli as well as useful libraries for external hardware such as eyetrackers. Pyff is also equipped with a steadily growing set of ready-to-use feedbacks and stimuli. It can be used as a standalone application, for instance providing stimulus presentation in psychophysics experiments, or within a closed loop such as in biofeedback or brain–computer interfacing experiments. Pyff communicates with other systems via a standardized communication protocol and is therefore suitable to be used with any system that may be adapted to send its data in the specified format. Having such a general, open-source framework will help foster a fruitful exchange of experimental paradigms between research groups. In particular, it will decrease the need of reprogramming standard paradigms, ease the reproducibility of published results, and naturally entail some standardization of stimulus presentation.


Hyperopt-sklearn is a new software project that provides automatic algorithm configuration of the Scikit-learn machine learning library. Following Auto-Weka, we take the view that the choice of classifier and even the choice of preprocessing module can be taken together to represent a single large hyper- parameter optimization problem. We use Hyperopt to define a search space that encompasses many standard components (e.g. SVM, RF, KNN, PCA, TFIDF) and common patterns of composing them together. We demonstrate, using search algorithms in Hyperopt and standard benchmarking data sets (MNIST, 20-Newsgroups, Convex Shapes), that searching this space is practical and effective. In particular, we improve on best-known scores for the model space for both MNIST and Convex Shapes.


A good understanding of the local and regional water cycle and how it is modified by landscape changes may help policymakers take the pertinent decisions in order to avoid adverse effects of future hydro–climatic changes. This knowledge is of particular interest in the most vulnerable areas of the world such as the African continent. In this context the aim of this project is to model hydrological responses to possible changes in climatic conditions in Lake Babati, northern Tanzania. For this reason a water balance model specially designed to simulate lake level changes was adapted to Lake Babati and calibrated with the available local meteorological and hydrological data record covering the last decades. The necessary ambient condition changes to produce a dry–out and an overflow of the lake were investigated and the response of the system to future IPCC climate change projections was studied. The results show that for instance a temperature change of less than 3oC or a precipitation change of around 100 mm/year could eventually bring the lake from a dry–out situation to an overflow situation. Furthermore, the IPCC derived scenarios show a clear tendency of the lake to increase its volume and reach the overflow level in a relatively short time.


Emerging alternative photovoltaic technologies such as dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and organic solar cells (OSCs) have recently gained much attention as well as maturity and are on the step of being commercialized. Bulk heterojunction hybrid solar cells containing inorganic nanoparticles and semiconducting polymers are still lagging behind in respect of device performance although they have theoretically the potential to exhibit better performances than devices containing solely organic compounds. In this article we review the recent state of the art development of bulk heterojunction hybrid solar cells. Critical factors limiting the solar cell device performance are highlighted and strategies for further device improvement are demonstrated by giving recent examples from literature.


Many works (of both fiction and non-fiction) span multiple, intersecting narratives, each of which constitutes a story in its own right. In this work I introduce the task of multiple narrative disentanglement (MND), in which the aim is to tease these narratives apart by assigning passages from a text to the sub-narratives to which they belong. The motivating example I use is David Foster Wallace's fictional text Infinite Jest. I selected this book because it contains multiple, interweaving narratives within its sprawling 1,000-plus pages. I propose and evaluate a novel unsupervised approach to MND that is motivated by the theory of narratology. This method achieves strong empirical results, successfully disentangling the threads in Infinite Jest and significantly outperforming baseline strategies in doing so.


Valvular heart diseases during pregnancy are complex with symptoms likely to affect patient's life quality, and endanger both mother's and child's life. Our survey aims at studying the combination of valvular heart diseases with pregnancy at University Hospital Yalgado Ouedraogo. This study was a cross-sectional study conducted from January 1st, 2015 to March 31st, 2016 in the delivery room of gynecology and obstetrics department. Inclusion criteria were: the presence of acquired and known valvular heart diseases followed-up or not; suspected valvular heart disease confirmed by a Doppler echocardiography and patient's consent to take part to the study. Twelve patients were involved in the study. The average age was 27.5 ± 3.9 years (extremes of 21 and 34 years). The average gestational age at the delivery time was 35 ± 4.7 weeks of amenorrhea with extremes reaching 25 and 39 weeks. None of the study patients were previously followed-up and treated for valvular heart diseases before pregnancy. Mitral disease was found among four patients. Seven cases had vaginal delivery. Two cases of spontaneous abortion were observed. We had seven hypotrophy newborns with an average weight of 2360 g at birth. Two patients suffering from congestive heart failure with a full type arrhythmia by atrial fibrillation were hospitalized in cardiology department. No death was reported during our study. Rheumatic valvular diseases are common among pregnant women. The cardiologist should plan pregnancies of patients suffering from valvular heart diseases. Treatment of those patients goes through the prevention of acute rheumatoid arthritis including a joint collaboration between cardiologists and gynecologists.


The Black Death was the largest demographic shock in European history. We review the evidence for the origins, spread, and mortality of the disease. We document that it was a plausibly exogenous shock to the European economy and trace out its aggregate and local impacts in both the short run and the long run. The initial effect of the plague was highly disruptive. Wages and per capita income rose. But, in the long run, this rise was only sustained in some parts of Europe. The other indirect long-run effects of the Black Death are associated with the growth of Europe relative to the rest of the world, especially Asia and the Middle East (the Great Divergence), a shift in the economic geography of Europe toward the northwest (the Little Divergence), the demise of serfdom in western Europe, a decline in the authority of religious institutions, and the emergence of stronger states. Finally, avenues for future research are laid out. (JEL N13, N30, N43, J10, I12, I14, I30)


We perform an unmodeled search for persistent, directional gravitational wave (GW) sources using data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO. We do not find evidence for any GW signals. We place limits on the broadband GW flux emitted at 25 Hz from point sources with a power law spectrum at Fα,Θ<(0.05–25)×10−8  erg cm−2 s−1 Hz−1 and the (normalized) energy density spectrum in GWs at 25 Hz from extended sources at Ωα(Θ)<(0.19–2.89)×10−8  sr−1 where α is the spectral index of the energy density spectrum. These represent improvements of 2.5–3× over previous limits. We also consider point sources emitting GWs at a single frequency, targeting the directions of Sco X-1, SN 1987A, and the Galactic center. The best upper limits on the strain amplitude of a potential source in these three directions range from h0<(3.6–4.7)×10−25, 1.5× better than previous limits set with the same analysis method. We also report on a marginally significant outlier at 36.06 Hz. This outlier is not consistent with a persistent gravitational-wave source as its significance diminishes when combining all of the available data.


The 2021 World Health Organization classification of tumors of the central nervous system emphasizes the significance of molecular parameters for an integrated diagnosis. Homozygous deletion of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2a (CDKN2A) has been associated with an adverse prognosis in IDH-mutant gliomas, supratentorial ependymomas, meningiomas, and MPNST. In this study, we examined the value of p16 protein immunohistochemistry as a rapid and cost-effective screening tool for a homozygous CDKN2A deletion. Genetic analyses for CDKN2A in 30 pleomorphic xanthoastrocytomas, 32 IDH-wild-type high-grade gliomas, 40 supratentorial ependymomas with ZFTA-RELA gene fusion, 21 IDH-mutant astrocytomas, and 24 meningiomas were performed mainly by a molecular inversion probe assay, a high-resolution, quantitative technology for the assessment of chromosomal copy number alterations. Immunohistochemistry for p16 proved to have a high positive predictive value (range 90% to 100%) and an overall low negative predictive value (range 22% to 93%) for a homozygous CDKN2A deletion. In a setting where molecular testing is limited for cost and time reasons, p16 immunohistochemistry serves as a useful and rapid screening tool for identifying cases that should be subjected to further molecular testing for CDKN2A deletions.


An optical fiber ring is used to generate multiple reference waves in a multiplexed fiber-optic Michelson-type sensor array. The array consists of N sensing segments connected in series along a single optical fiber path and is interrogated with a white-light interferometric technique. Experimental results with a two-sensor array are presented.


Plumbago is a genus of medicinal plants that are used in recent years to induce significant levels of apoptosis in various cancer cells. Purpose: The test substances that are obtained from Plumbago species are studied for their cytotoxicity against U87 cell line in a dose dependent manner and were first subjected to GC-MS study to know the bioactive constituents present in them. Methods: GC-MS was done using ethanol extracts of the roots of both the species. In vitro cytotoxicity of the roots of two species of Plumbago –P. zeylanica (sample I) and P. auriculata (sample II) were tested against U87 cell line. Test samples were taken at concentrations ranging from 400μg/ml to 3.12μg/ml to determine the percentage growth inhibition of both the test substances on U87 cell line. Results: GC-MS analysis on root extracts of P. zeylanica showed the presence of 27 phytochemical constituents and P. auriculata 16 in number .The test substances, Sample I and Sample II exhibited a cytotoxic CTC50 value of 88.07±4.4 and 23.11±0.9 respectively. Conclusion: P. zeylanica is more effective than P. auriculata in terms of its cytotoxicity as well in the number of useful bioactive compounds.