Models of hydraulic components based on impedance method have been implemented in a software called "SIMSEN". This tool allows the simultaneous solution of the electrical, hydraulic, mechanic and control equations ensuring a proper interaction between the four parts of a system. In this paper the interaction between hydraulic and electric part of 2 Francis turbines power plant is investigated by comparing the simulation results obtained with and without coupling hydraulic and electric phenomena. Using hydraulic, electric and hydroelectric simulation models, total load rejection, earth fault, out of phase synchronization and load variation have been investigated. Hydroelectric simulations offer the advantage to enable to study the coupling of hydraulic and electric parts and to optimize regulators parameters in interconnected mode.


Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia: Between Entanglement and Contention in Post High Growth focuses on the new and diversifying interactions between civil society and the state in contemporary East Asia by including cases of entanglement and contention in the three fully consolidated democracies in the area: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The contributions to this book argue that all three countries have reached a new era of post high growth and mature democracy, leading to new social anxieties and increasing normative diversity, which have direct repercussions on the relationship between the state and civil society. It introduces a comparative perspective in identifying and discussing similarities and differences in East Asia based on in-depth case studies in the fields of environmental issues, national identities as well as neoliberalism and social inclusion that go beyond the classic dichotomy of state vs 'liberal' civil society.


Background: Bite wounds, from human and animal origin, can lead to significant complications if appropriate therapy is not undertaken timeously. A basic knowledge of the microbiological flora is essential for each clinical setting in order to be able to facilitate appropriate empiric antibiotic therapy. Material and methods: All patients admitted to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital over a 27-month period with histories of bite wound and taken to theatre for debridement were included in this study. All culture data was collected together with sensitivity profiles for all organisms isolated. Results: In total, 38 patients were included in this study, with 25 sustaining human bite wounds, 11 sustaining dog bites, and only two with snake bites. The most striking finding is the predominance of Streptococcus spp isolated from human bite wounds. Although a relatively rare finding, Salmonella spp was isolated from one of the patients who sustained a snake bite. A surprising fraction of isolates were resistant to Amox-Clav, with only marginally improved sensitivity rates to second generation cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones. Conclusions: This study emphasises the importance of obtaining microbiological cultures on all patients admitted with bite wounds. This will not only assist in surveillance practices, but also provides the clinician with targeted therapy if the empiric antimicrobial should fail.


Flavour and CP violations that the neutrino-seesaw couplings of types I, II, and III induce radiatively in the soft massive parameters of the minimal supersymmetric SU(5) model, made realistic by nonrenormalizable operators, are analyzed. Effective couplings are used to parametrize the couplings of renormalizable operators and of the corrections that nonrenormalizable ones provide at the tree level. It is found that for a limited, but sufficient accuracy in the calculations of such violations, it is possible to extend the picture of effective couplings to the quantum level, all the way to the cutoff scale. The arbitrariness introduced by nonrenormalizable operators is analyzed in detail. It is shown that it can be drastically reduced in the Yukawa sector if the effective Yukawa couplings involving colored triplet Higgs bosons are tuned to suppress the decay rate of the proton. In the supersymmetrybreaking sector, the usual requirement of independence of flavour and field type for the mechanism of mediation of supersymmetry breaking is not sufficient to forbid arbitrary flavour and CP violations at the tree level. Special conditions to be added to this requirement, under which such violations can be avoided, are identified. Depending on how and whether these conditions are implemented, different phenomenological scenarios emerge. Flavour and CP violations of soft massive parameters induced by neutrino-seesaw couplings are discussed explicitly for the simplest scenario, in which no such violations are present at the tree level. Guidelines for studying them in other, less simple scenarios are given. Lists of all renormalization group equations needed for their calculations are provided for each of the three types of seesaw mechanism, at all energies between the TeV scale and Planck scale. Subject Index: 113, 132, 140, 142


While village members in Sagada, Mountain Province do not perceive local institutions and practices in terms of western concepts of democracy and citizenship, comparable indigenous values underlie their socio-political institutions. The dap-ay (ward) and the amam-a (council of elders), for example, encompass the democratic values of consultation, participation in decision-making, consensus-building, representative government and commitment to common good, while simpangbon embodies the concept of citizenship. Moreover, oral tradition and customary law provide the rules for exemplary and acceptable behavior. They guide the operation of the dap-ay and decision-making by the amam-a. These rules and institutions also co-exist with local government structures which, in turn, have not been indigenized to operate within the context of customary laws. In sum, Sagada may not have a formal democratic and representative government, nor a formal conception of citizenship, but the village democracy embodied in the dap-ay and the amam-a, along with the indigenous concept of citizenship as reflected in the simpangbon, have endured for centuries. Less bureaucratic and structured than formal democracy, these institutions have effectively sustained life in the village and helped enhance peace and social justice.


OBJECTIVES
There are limited data on the role of adipokines in atopic asthma.

DESIGN AND SETTING
To determine serum levels of resistin in asthmatic children in relation to body weight, asthma severity and gender, serum resistin (RES) levels were measured using ELISA in 89 asthmatic children (61 boys and 28 girls, aged 7.0-17.0 years) and in 33 healthy children. Among examined asthmatics 59 (19 girls and 40 boys) had normal weight (ANW) and 30 (9 girls and 21 boys) were obese (AO).

RESULTS
The mean serum levels of resistin were significantly (p<0.01) higher in all non-obese asthmatic children (4.11±0.1 ng/mL) than in healthy children (3.83±0.1 ng/mL). After stratifying by gender only ANW boys and AO boys had significantly higher RES levels than boys from control group. Both AO (4.4±0.2 ng/mL) and ANW girls (4.38±0.2 ng/mL) as well as girls from control (4.09±0.1) group showed significantly higher mean RES serum concentrations than boys from corresponding groups (3.99±0.1 ng/ml, 3.83±0.17 ng/ml and 3.44±0.06 ng/ml, respectively). No relationship between examined adipokine levels and asthma severity, spirometric parameters, degree of allergic sensitization, BMI, BMI-SDS was stated.

CONCLUSION
Increased serum RES in children with atopic asthma suggest that this adipokine may be implicated in its pathogenesis.


The aim of the study was to assess seasonal water quality variations in an earthen dam and their potential impact on the health of those using the water for domestic purposes. High values of chemical oxygen demand, from <0.7 to 87 mg/l, and turbidity, from 204 to 53,300 NTU, were reported. Turbidity and total suspended solids were the highest at the onset of rainfall, and generally declined from the wet to the dry season. Ammonia concentrations ranged from 0.14 to 270 mg/l and nitrate from 0.6 to 1,715 mg-N/l, and were highest towards the end of wet season, while NO2-N was highest (290 mg/l) in the dry season. There were some notably high phycocyanin (PC) pigment values (19.9 to 495 μg/l) unique to cyanobacteria, well above the WHO alert level of 30 μg/l. PC is associated with a variety of toxins affecting humans and animals. Possible sources of pollutants include animal droppings/urine and runoff from farms applying fertilisers. A further aim was to assess water treatability with a pilot inclined plate settler system for pollutants and microbial removal. The results of this study suggest that water treatment systems must be designed to take care of the worst influent water quality conditions.


In August 2014, the Ruytenschildt Bridge, a reinforced concrete solid slab bridge (reinforced with plain bars) in the Friesland province in the Netherlands was tested until failure. One of the goals of proof loading and testing this bridge to failure, was to study the failure mode of existing slab bridges. The combination of smaller shear capacities as prescribed by the Eurocode in combination with the heavier live load models, has raised concerns with regard to a number of existing slab bridges in the Netherlands. As the shear capacity of existing bridges is under study, the results of testing an actual slab bridge until failure are used to compare to the results of testing half-scale slab specimens in the laboratory, and the conclusions resulting from those experiments. In this paper, the results of the predictions based on the first order of approximation rating procedure from the Netherlands for shear, the Quick Scan method, as well as based on predictions of the failure mode and the average predicted capacity are compared to the experimental results. The predictions show a possibility of shear failure in the second span of the bridge. The experiment showed that both spans of the bridge failed in flexure. The observed failure mode is important, as some of the results indicate that the solid slab bridges, currently under discussion with regard to their shear capacity, fail in flexure in reality. Flexural failure is considered a ductile failure compared to the brittle failure mode in case of a shear failure.


Oxidative damage of biomolecules is implicated in the pathogenesis of various renal inJuries. Diazinon (O,O-diethyl-O-[2-isopropyl-6-methyl-4-pyrimidinyl] phosphorothioate), an organophosphate insecticide, has been used worldwide in agriculture and domestically for several years, which has led to a variety of negative effects in non target species including humans and therefore, are cause of concern. There are few studies on diazinon with reference to its toxicity in kidney on exposure to low doses based on LD50. The possible toxicity of diazinon is assumed to be as a result of induction of oxidative stress, however, there are not enough studies to confirm this as a result of exposure to low doses of diazinon for acute, subacute and chronic periods. Therefore, the present study was conducted to analyze the direct toxic effects of diazinon which caused biochemical and ultrastructural changes and to evaluate its mechanism of action with special reference to its possible reactive oxygen species generating potential (ROS) in kidney with acute, subacute and chronic exposure in rat models. Adult Sprague Dawley male rats were treated with diazinon in corn oil orally (gavage) according to the selected doses (10 mg/kg body weight, 15 mg/kg body weight and 30 mg/kg body weight) for 7, 14 and 56 consecutive days. The selection of dose regimen of diazinon was based on previously published data which indicate substantial alterations in many biochemical parameters. All of these animals were sacrificed 24 h after the last dose of diazinon or saline within a period of 1 h. Blood and kidney tissues of these animals were taken quickly. Kidneys were cleaned free of extraneous material and perfused immediately with ice cold saline (0.85% w/v, sodium chloride) for biochemical and histopathological studies to assess the derangement in the functioning of kidney. Body weight decreased Significantly in diazinon treated group compared to the saline treated control. Treatment of rats with diazinon induces oxidative stress in kidney, as evident by significant induction in lipid peroxidation (TBARS) which is accompanied by depletion of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant molecules (viz. GPx-glutathione peroxidase; GR-glutathione reductase; GST glutathione S-transferase; G6PD-glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase; CAT-catalase; GSH-reduced glutathione). In contrast, activities of renal y-glutamyl transpeptidase (yGGT) and quinone reductase (QR) were increased significantly. Parallel to these changes, diazinon treatment enhances renal damage as evidenced by sharp increase in blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (CRN). Additionally, histopathological examinations showed extensive renal injuries, characterized by nuclear pycnosis, kidney swelling with obliteration of space in Bowman's capsule, degeneration of tubular epithelial cells, necrosis of proximal tubules, flattened epithelium and congested blood vessels. Reviewing all observations, our results indicate that diazinon treatment eventuates in decreased renal glutathione, a fall in the activities of antioxidant enzymes including the enzymes involved in glutathione metabolism and excessive production of oxidants with concomitant renal damage, all of which are involved in the cascade of events leading to diazinon-mediated renal oxidative stress and toxicity. We concluded that in diazinon exposure, depletion of antioxidant enzymes is accompanied by induction of oxidative stress that might be beneficial in monitoring diazinon toxicity.


Oxalate decarboxylase (OxDC) catalyzes the Mn-dependent conversion of the oxalate monoanion into CO2 and formate. EPR-based strategies for investigating the catalytic mechanism of decarboxylation are complicated by the difficulty of assigning the signals associated with the two Mn(II) centers located in the N- and C-terminal cupin domains of the enzyme. We now report a mutational strategy that has established the assignment of EPR fine structure parameters to each of these Mn(II) centers at pH 8.5. These experimental findings are also used to assess the performance of a multistep strategy for calculating the zero-field splitting parameters of protein-bound Mn(II) ions. Despite the known sensitivity of calculated D and E values to the computational approach, we demonstrate that good estimates of these parameters can be obtained using cluster models taken from carefully optimized DFT/MM structures. Overall, our results provide new insights into the strengths and limitations of theoretical methods for understanding electronic properties of protein-bound Mn(II) ions, thereby setting the stage for future EPR studies on the electronic properties of the Mn(II) centers in OxDC and site-specific variants.


Summary 1. Parameter uncertainty challenges the use of matrix models because it violates key assumptions underlying elasticity analyses. We have developed a matrix model to compare Monte Carlo methods with elasticity analyses for estimation of the relative importance of factors in the asymptotic population growth rate, λ , of Cirsium vulgare (spear thistle) in Nebraska, USA. 2. We calculated λ for a base model using 11 parameter estimates available for Nebraska populations plus eight extracted from the literature, causing parameter uncertainty. We then calculated λ for 10 000 alternative models using Monte Carlo parameter estimation; parameters were drawn from the full range of each parameter in the literature and partial rank correlation analysis (PRCC) was used to order the parameters by the magnitude of their effect on λ . 3. Monte Carlo analysis found that insect floral herbivory, affecting the regeneration transition, was the most important parameter affecting λ , whereas elasticity analyses suggested that the transition from small to medium size was the most significant. Statistical comparison, using PRCC vs. lower level elasticity (LLE), showed that the Monte Carlo analysis provided a more accurate assessment. 4. As λ > 1 in 99% of the model runs even with significant floral herbivory, we added two parameters influenced by weed management (probability of large thistles dying without producing seed and proportion of seeds that failed to germinate). Simulations that included reductions in these parameters, along with floral herbivory, led to λ < 1 in 17% of the runs, suggesting these three factors interact to produce the low densities observed for this invasive thistle in our study area. 5. Synthesis and applications. This study demonstrates the utility of the Monte Carlo approach for modelling weed dynamics with parameter uncertainty and multiple, potentially interacting, parameters. Invasive population growth by C. vulgare could be limited by a combination of weed management practices and the biotic resistance imposed by native floral herbivores.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Patients hospitalized for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection are at risk for in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). It is unknown whether certain characteristics of cardiac arrest care and outcomes of IHCAs during the COVID-19 pandemic differed compared with a pre-COVID-19 period. Methods: All patients who experienced an IHCA at our hospital from March 1, 2020 through May 15, 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and those who had an IHCA from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 were identified. All patient data were extracted from our hospital's Get With The Guidelines–Resuscitation registry, a prospective hospital-based archive of IHCA data. Baseline characteristics of patients, interventions, and overall outcomes of IHCAs during the COVID-19 pandemic were compared with IHCAs in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: There were 125 IHCAs during a 2.5-month period at our hospital during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with 117 IHCAs in all of 2019. IHCAs during the COVID-19 pandemic occurred more often on general medicine wards than in intensive care units (46% versus 33%; 19% versus 60% in 2019; P<0.001), were overall shorter in duration (median time of 11 minutes [8.5–26.5] versus 15 minutes [7.0–20.0], P=0.001), led to fewer endotracheal intubations (52% versus 85%, P<0.001), and had overall worse survival rates (3% versus 13%; P=0.007) compared with IHCAs before the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Patients who experienced an IHCA during the COVID-19 pandemic had overall worse survival compared with those who had an IHCA before the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings highlight important differences between these 2 time periods. Further study is needed on cardiac arrest care in patients with COVID-19.


Four essays on the psychological aspects of art. A study of Leonardo treats the work of art, and art itself, not as ends in themselves, but rather as instruments of the artist's inner situation. Two other essays discuss the relation of art to its epoch and specifically the relation of modern art to our own time. An essay on Chagall views this artist in the context of the problems explored in the other studies.


Hippocratea africana (Willd.) Loes.ex Engl. (Celastraceae) is used locally to treat convulsion and microbial infections. The root extract of Hippocratea africana was evaluated for depressant effect and antimicrobial activity.Depressant activity was evaluated using open field, force swimming, tail suspension tests and phenobarbitone-induced sleeping time. Anticonvulsant activity was testedagainst pentylenetetrazol and aminophylline-induced convulsions. The root extract/fractions were screened for antimicrobial activity against some typed and pure cultures of bacterial and fungal species using Plate -hole diffusion methodon Mueller - Hinton agar (MHA) for bacteria and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA) for the fungi. Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MICs) of active test samples were determined. The root extract decreased significantly (p<0.01) the line crossing, walling and rearing activities in open field test and increased (p<0.001) the immobility time in force swimming and tail suspension tests. The root extract significantly (p<0.001) shortened the onset time of sleep and prolonged the duration of sleep induced by phenobarbitone sodium. The root extract and fractions (200 - 600 mg/kg) were found to delay significantly (p<0.05 - 0.001) the onset of tonic/clonic convulsion and prolonged the time of death of the treated mice in PTZ- and aminophylline induced convulsions. The crude extract, chloroform and aqueous fractions were active against Staph aureus, and B. subtilis. P. aeruginosa was sensitive to aqueous fraction only. The extract and fractions were inactive against any fungal isolate. The root extract of H. africana has depressant, anticonvulsant, sedating and antibacterial activities.


The viability of a telemedicine system is the strength of its business continuity. Business continuity can only stand if the telemedicine system remains continuously feasible. This article studies telemedicine risk in terms of its feasibility on all its five components: economical, technical, social, operational, and legal/ethical. Any deficiencies in one or more of the feasibility components will affect the system business continuity risk and can lead to infeasibility and possible dissolution. The telemedicine computing environment is full of uncertainties and ambiguities and it just involves too much background knowledge that Bayesian theory cannot accommodate. Decision theory however offers a basic evidence-based multi-criteria decision mechanism that can tackle those decision problems treating both quantitative and qualitative criteria under various uncertainties including ignorance and randomness. We propose an evidential reasoning model to assess a telemedicine business continuity risk based on infeasibility. This business continuity risk is modelled using Dempster and Shafer Theory as the plausibility of infeasibility of the telemedicine system. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the working of the proposed risk assessment model.


Some seven tenths of the earth's surface is occupied by sea water containing roughly three and a half per cent salts in solution. It is therefore not surprising that many sciences are applied to the study of this medium and an understanding of the chemistry of the sea is basic to all the other studies.
A knowledge of variations in salt concentration, distribution of suspended material, thermal gradients &c. is required for the
oceanographic study of translation of water masses. In ocean waters remote from the influence of tidal action, land drainage and similar disturbances, slight changes in the above-mentioned properties may be of considerable significance.
In marine biology, inter alia, a knowledge of the cheinical nature of the waters is required. In this case considerable
emphasis is laid on analysis such as the determination of phosphate, organic nitrogen, carbonaceous matter 8cc.
Within the field of fishery research and development, pollution control and marine engineering, the chemical analysis of
sea water forms an integral part of most projects.
There are many determinations common to several, if not all, the individual studies of sea water. The standard of accuracy,
or rather discrimination, to which any particular property is determined is dependent upon the application to which the result is subsequently to be put.
For instance, the determination of salinity (see page 4'E in the oceanographic study of current distribution requires values
quoted to at least.i. 500 parts per million (p.p.m.). For fishery development work applied to the cultivation of shellfish however, salinity values quoted to ± 5000 p.p.m. would be satisfactory.
Certain parameters, frequently involved in sea water studies, are considerably influenced by the apparatus and method used for sasnpling (see page 26). Accuracy is thus often limited by sampling rather than analytical technique.
The complexity of the problem of general water analysis may be seen by examining Table 1 below. This table is not intended as an exhaustive list of analytical methods nor of their applications to water analysis. It is intended as a brief indication of the range of analytical techniques required for general water studies. frequently, with sea water analysis, large numbers of sampies require analysing on a routine basis. Sometimes, due to the need for further samples on a successive tidal cycle, or perhaps deteriorating weather conditions in the open sea, a rather tight time limit for completion of analysis is imposed.
It is in cases such as this that some electroanalytical techniques are particularly suitable although there are also many
other applications where these methods have replaced older methods by virtue of improved accuracy and speed.
Whitnac$ 7 sums up the position nicely in his paper "The application of cathode ray polarography in the field of oceanography" in which he states:- "Present day research on the physical, chemical and biological phenomena of the deep ocean has placed new requirements on the methods of analysis that are needed in support of this work. Modern electroanalytical methods appear to have the desired range of precision, reproducibility and sensitivity that will be required,
plus the feature of using the basic principles in direct reading instrumentation with digital recording of data."


The institutional design of federal merger review in the United States leads to systematic underenforcement of merger law. This is so even though substantive merger law is relatively well settled, most mergers are not anticompetitive, and the review process properly permits them to proceed without challenge. However, with regard to the small number of mergers that raise significant competitive issues, and where the analysis of the merger's likely consequences turns on highly fact-specific, complex, information-intensive economic assessments based on imperfect data, two fundamental aspects of institutional design create systematic underenforcement. First is the asymmetric availability of judicial review: A determination by the antitrust agency that a merger is anticompetitive is subject to court challenge and judicial review, but a contrary determination is not. Thus, an agency's false positive (erroneous condemnation of a merger as anticompetitive) may be corrected in court, but its false negative (erroneous clearance of a merger as not anticompetitive) is almost always final. Second is the particular nature of judicial review: Because a court's evaluation of an agency determination that a merger is anticompetitive is non-deferential even though the court has less information, less expertise, and fewer resources than the agency and because the agency bears the overall burden of proof in a situation that involves considerable inherent uncertainty, courts will reject the agency's determination more often than they should. Thus, judicial review may correct most false positives, but it will also create additional false negatives. Together, these structural design elements likely lead to significantly more false negatives than false positives and a higher overall error rate than might be produced by various alternative systems. This institutional design might be appropriate if false positives were inherently more harmful than false negatives, but that is unlikely in the context of modern merger control. Thus, the system probably leads to approval of (or suboptimal relief for) an inefficiently large number of anticompetitive mergers. Examination of other advanced merger review systems may yield important insights including ways to correct this problem.


Markerless motion capture systems have the potential to provide an inexpensive, non-obtrusive solution for the estimation of body poses. Video analysis of human
dynamics has a wide variety of applications in visual surveillance, visual-based human computer interaction, human robot interaction, gesture recognition and analysis, etc.
Human pose estimation is a difficult problem, because human bodies are versatile, presenting a wide range of poses and self-occlusion occurrence. The goal of this project is to develop an automatic human pose estimation algorithm to recover the body and limb configurations in 2D from monocular video sequences without any special markers on the body. In this project, two approaches were described to
model the human body poses from a monocular video sequence. In the first approach, a cardboard person model was proposed to model the upper part of human body using template matching algorithm. However silhouette feature alone
was not enough to recover body configurations of the human when the body parts occluded each other and it was computationally expensive. Thus, a computer vision based
approach was proposed as the second method to automatically detect human body parts and estimate the human body poses from a markerless monocular video sequence. The input image was first segmented using a silhouette extraction function
based on the brightness level transformation to extract the moving silhouette patterns (human figures) from a static background for subsequent processing. Human body parts detection was then performed using colour, contours and
silhouettes cues. Human body model initialization was performed in a fully automatic way. The only assumption was the person should be in an upright and frontal poses
in the video sequence. Circular head fitting was first detected using circular Hough transform method. K-means clustering was then performed on the circular head
region to obtain the skin colour distribution of the face. A skin colour model was built from the detected face region and used to find the candidate positions of limbs. The
pixel classification performance was measured by using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Radon transform was used to obtain more accurate orientation of the upper arms. Various physical and motion constraints regarding the human body were then used to construct the upper body configuration. The relation of the hand position inside the torso region was introduced to estimate the human
pose for long sleeve attire's users. The final stage of this project was to recognize the pose performed by the human subject. Nineteen different body poses were considered for classification using feed-forward back propagation neural network, in which eight features are extracted from each pose. Our algorithm can recognize poses for any person entering the scene in either short sleeve or long sleeve shirt. It could also estimate the human poses even under illumination changes, self-occlusion occurrence and distance variations. There is no need for our system to use skin
colour model built from skin pixel database for skin colour detection. Human pose estimation using computer vision-based approach reduces the computational cost by finding correct body part candidates more efficiently.


A comprehensive analysis of the 2009 Current Population Survey–Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC) provides the first snapshot of the involvement of people with disabilities in a broad array of government programs. Focusing on the working-age population, this analysis reveals that people with disabilities represent one third of the persons who participate in safety-net programs. Among persons with disabilities, 65% participate in a safety-net program, compared with 17% of persons without disabilities. Among Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries, 38% participate in safety-net programs other than DI, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and Medicare. Furthermore, results suggest that only 3% and 8% of low-income nonworking safety-net participants with and without disabilities, respectively, utilize employment services. Improved data collection on the use of employment services is needed to further evaluate the interaction of safety-net and employment services programs.


Energy supply security is a hot topic today. It highly influences energy market, national security and also residents' daily lives. However, due to different aims and study strategies, definitions of energy supply security are different. In this report, it is defined as stable energy supply processes that result from good infrastructure, delivery of energy sources, carriers and services, which are sturdily controlled by effective energy policies. Prices of energy supply system are also maintained on a reasonable level over a continuous period thanks to the efficient crises assessment and management. In order to make a comprehensive research, energy situation has been deeply investigated on worldwide, EU and Swedish levels, respectively. Results from these investments obviously certify that due to the big amount of populations, there are significant imbalances between energy supply and demands in developing countries. To make things better, these imbalances don't exist in developed world, like EU Members including Sweden because of applications of advanced technologies and wide utilizations of renewable energy carriers. Oppositely, greenhouse gases emission is a severe problem in the world, which gives rise to temperature increasing year by year! Besides the global warming, some other factors also bring about uncertainties to energy supply security, so that efficient policies are necessary in order improve the recent situations and to create a secure atmosphere for energy supply, such as Directive 98/30/EC for natural gas supply security, Directive 2003/55/EC for integration and compatibility of the energy regulation and Directive 2003/54/EC, the first policy that regulates EU electricity market as well as IEM Directive, which is the improvement of Directive 2003/54/EC, etc. Although several policies aiming at creation of competitive energy markets and achieving energy supply security, vulnerabilities still exist in EU energy supply system, such as limited primary energy sources and high dependence on nuclear powers, energy network capacity inadequacy, high voltage electricity transmission, etc. Concerning Swedish energy supply system, extreme low temperatures in winter, drilling technologies and high economic budgets for heat sources from underground, hurricanes, thunderstorms to wind turbines and man-made disruptions are all potential vulnerabilities. Regarding these negative aspects, recommendations are given on four different levels, which are global, EU, Swedish and individual perspectives. Specific suggestions to achieve energy supply security include independence of different energy supplies, to enhance international cooperation, periodic assessments and inspections for energy facilities, population control, to keep original energy policies updated, to enhance abilities to resist abnormal weather conditions, to develop heat pump technologies and try to use energy in efficient ways, etc.


This paper reconciles the state‐of‐the‐art observations and simulations of evapotranspiration (ET) temporal variability through a diagnostic framework composed of an observation‐model‐theory triplet. Specifically, a confirmed theoretical tool, Evapotranspiration Temporal VARiance Decomposition (EVARD), is used as a benchmark to estimate ET monthly variance ( σET2 ) across the contiguous United States (CONUS) with inputs including hydroclimatic observations, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment‐based terrestrial water storage, four observation‐based products (ETRSUW by the University of Washington, ETRSMOD16 from MOD16 Global Terrestrial ET Data Set, ETFLUXNET upscaled from of fluxtower observations, and ETGLEAM from Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model), and four operational land surface models (LSMs: MOSAIC, NOAH, NOAH‐MP, and VIC). Five experiments are systematically designed to evaluate and diagnose possible errors and uncertainties in ET temporal variance estimated by the four observation‐based ET products and the four LSM simulations. Based on the results of these experiments, the following diagnostic hypotheses regarding the uncertainty of the observation‐based ET products are illustrated: ETRSUW captures the high σET2 signals in the Midwest with negligible bias and moderate uncertainty over the contiguous United States; ETFLUXNET systematically underestimates σET2 over CONUS but with the lowest level of uncertainty; ETRSMOD16 has medium bias with the highest level of uncertainty, and the spatial distribution of high σET2 signal from ETRSMOD16 is different from other estimates; ETGLEAM has slight negative bias and medium uncertainty, and σET2 in the West Coast is smaller than that from ETVARD. Regarding the LSMs, it is found that any of the four LSMs can be the best depending on a certain set of reference observations. The study reveals that LSMs have shown a reasonably worthy, though not perfect, capability in estimating ET and its variability in regions/aquifers with limited human interference. However, RS‐based observations and theoretical estimates suggest that all the four LSMs examined in this study are not able to accurately predict the ET variability in regions/aquifers heavily influenced by human activities like Central Valley and High Plains aquifers; they all underestimate ET variability along the West Coast due to seasonal vegetation responses to Mediterranean climate and human water use. In addition, LSMs underestimate intraannual ET variance in California and the High Plains with underestimated terrestrial storage change components in ET variance, due to the inappropriate representation of groundwater pumping and its impact on ET and other hydrologic processes. This paper urges advancing hydrologic knowledge by finding congruence among models, data, and theories.


Background Uptake of some childhood immunisations in the UK is lower among those from some Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. This systematic review of qualitative research sought to understand the factors that are associated with ethnicity that influence the immunisation decisions of parents from BAME backgrounds living in the UK. Methods Databases were searched on 2 December 2014 for studies published at any time using the terms 'UK' and 'vaccination' and 'qualitative methods' (and variations of these). Included articles comprised participants who were parents from BAME backgrounds. Thematic synthesis methods were used to develop descriptive and higher order themes. Themes specific to ethnicity and associated factors are reported. Results Eight papers were included in the review. Most participants were from Black (n=62) or Asian (n=38) backgrounds. Two ethnicity-related factors affected immunisation decisions. First, factors that are related to ethnicity itself (namely religion, upbringing and migration, and language) affected parents' perceived importance of immunisations, whether immunisations were permitted or culturally acceptable and their understanding of immunisation/the immunisation schedule. Second, perceived biological differences affected decision-making and demand for information. Conclusions Factors related to ethnicity must be considered when seeking to understand immunisation decisions among parents from BAME backgrounds. Where appropriate and feasible, vaccination information should be targeted to address beliefs about ethnic differences held by some individuals from some BAME backgrounds.


Project Management is the wave of the future. This discipline and its evolution continues to be one of the principal means by which operational and strategic changes are managed in the enterprise. The importance of Project Management for organisational success will expand, rather than wane, in years to come. Projects, particularly large scale complex ones with multiple stakeholders, are failing at alarming rates despite a wide spectrum of efforts to solve the problem. The lack of meaningful results and outcomes is due, in part, to the fact that organizations tend to operate on a set of unproven assumptions concerning project objectives, business requirements, user expectations, motivations, agendas, schedules, costs and time frames. The management dilemma is that Transnet has committed R 65 billion to projects in the hope of developing its core businesses to that of world-class standards as a logistics service provider in South Africa. Transnet's capital project division, Protekon, is responsible for managing the projects committed to this R 65bn capital expenditure. Transnet's perception of Protekon's failure to successfully deliver projects could result in appointments of external consultancies such as Hatch McDougal and Guba (HMG – an engineering consultant firm). Whereas, previously, Protekon was the monopoly service provider of engineering and project management skills within Transnet, Transnet's sub-divisions appear to be utilizing outside consultancies more frequently. The reason for procuring engineering and consultancy services external to Transnet, among others, is the perception that Protekon is performing poorly in delivering successful projects. The outsourcing of work, fuelled by the negative perception of Protekon's performance, directly impacts on the profitability of Protekon in the short to medium term. The objective of this dissertation was firstly to investigate the effect of Protekon's involvement in Transnet's project success; and secondly, to recommend strategies to improve the rate of project success, that could be applied within Transnet and Protekon.


Researchers work on facility location problems in different structures and solve them by developing different models over the years. In this study, we focus on the automated teller machine (ATM) site selection problem for a public bank in İstanbul. Twenty-five districts, which are located at the European side of İstanbul, are designated as ATM candidate districts. The balanced scorecard (BSC) model is modified to determine the criteria according to the literature review and experts' judgments for this problem. Internal, Customer, and Financial perspectives of the traditional BSC model are used as the main criteria and an external perspective is considered as the fourth criterion for modified balanced scorecard. The experts' criteria evaluations are gained and consolidated by the Modified Delphi Method. The criteria weights are determined by the Pythagorean Fuzzy-AHP method using the final pairwise comparison results obtained from the Modified Delphi Method. Subsequently, the Pythagorean Fuzzy TOPSIS method is applied to determine the best alternative site among alternatives to locate the ATM according to these criteria. Finally, the results are presented and discussed by sensitivity analysis.


The main objective of this research is design and realization of real-time monitoring and alarming system for patient health, especially for patients suffering from diseases during their normal life. The proposed system has an embedded microcontroller connected to a set of medical sensors (related to the patient case) and a wireless communication module (Bluetooth). Each patient is considered as a node in a wireless sensor network and connected to a central node installed at the medical center through an internet connection. The embedded microcontroller checks if the patient health status is going well or not by analyzing the scanned medical signals. If the analysis results are abnormal, the embedded unit uses the patient's phone to transmit these signals directly to the medical center. In this case, the doctor will send medical advice to the patient to save his/her life. The implemented prototype has been tested and calibrated with standard devices. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed system that is accurate in scanning, clear in monitoring, intelligent in decision making, reliable in communication, and cheap (about 100 US$).


The effects of the abdominal weight with the intention of producing training of the diaphragm, have not been sufficiently evaluated. We studied the function of the diaphragm during the abdominal weight training and during associated changes in the respiratory pattern. Six normal volunteers were studied. Flow at the mouth at functional residual capacity (FRC) was obtained as well as gastric pressure (Pga), esophageal pressure (Pes), thoracic and abdominal movements, maximal inspiratory pressure and mean and maximal transdiaphragmatic pressure (Pdi and Pdi max). Pdi/Pdimax and the diaphragm tension-time index (TTdi) were calculated. Studied steps: normal pattern (NP), abdominal pattern (AP) and weight of 1, 2, 4 and 6 kg with NP and AP as well. We found 1) The AP was facilitated by the abdominal weight, 2) Only with 6 kg (NP and AP) the Pga at FRC increased significantly (p 0.001), 3) the Pdi followed the variations of the Pga and increased with all the AP (p < 0.001), 4) The index TTdi load reached a value of 0.05 ± 0.02 (p < 0.001). The charges did not increase this rate more than did the AP alone. Our findings suggest abdominal weight increases propioception related to the respiratory movements and descent of the diaphragm. The loads on the abdomen produce minor changes in mechanics of the diaphragm (1/3 of the load required to develop fatigue in normal subjects). Al least in normal subjects these changes appear to be insufficient to produce respiratory muscle training.


[Purpose] This study was conducted to examine the association between Modic classification and the eating habits in patients with degenerative disc disease (DDD) and to determine the influence of nutrition on disease severity. [Subjects and Methods] Sixty patients with DDD visiting a low back pain outpatient clinic were enrolled. Through face-to-face interviews, they completed questionnaires regarding their demographics, disease activity, smoking and alcohol use, concomitant diseases, disease duration, and nutritional status.Exclusion criteria were age <20 years or >65 years, other comorbidities, missing MRI data, and inability to speak Turkish. [Results] Forty patients were finally included in the study. The frequency with which they consumed water, salt, fast food, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, whole wheat bread, white bread, butter, and margarine was recorded. A weak negative correlation was observed between the Modic types and fish and egg consumption. [Conclusion] Modic changes, which indicate the severity of DDD, seem to be correlated to patients' dietary habits. However, studies with comparison groups and larger samples are needed to confirm our promising results before any cause-and-effect relationship can be proposed.


We study the impact on the skill premium of increases in the quality of goods consumed by households ("trading up"). Our empirical work shows that high-quality goods are more intensive in skilled labor than low-quality goods and that household spending on high-quality goods rises with income. We propose a model consistent with these facts. This model accounts for the past rise in the skill premium with more plausible rates of skill-biased technical change than those required by the canonical model. It also implies that an expansion of the skilled labor force reduces the skill premium by much less than in the canonical model.


At first glance, it may seem strange that after more than two thousand years of biblical interpretation there are still major disagreements among biblical scholars about what the Jewish and Christian Scriptures say and about how one is to read and understand them. Yet the range of interpretive approaches now available is the result both of the richness of the biblical texts themselves and of differences in the worldviews of the communities and individuals who have sought to make the Scriptures relevant to their own time and place. A History of Biblical Interpretation provides detailed and extensive studies of the interpretation of the Scriptures by Jewish and Christian writers throughout the ages. Written by internationally renowned scholars, this multivolume work comprehensively treats the many different methods of interpretation, the many important interpreters who have written in various eras, and the many key issues that have surfaced repeatedly over the long course of biblical interpretation. This first volume of A History of Biblical Interpretation explores interpreters and their methods in the ancient period, from the very earliest stages to the time when the canons of Judaism and Christianity gained general acceptance. The first part of the book concentrates on the use of the Scriptures within Judaism. Chapters examine inner-biblical exegesis in the Tanak, the development of the Septuagint, the exegetical approach of Philo of Alexandria, biblical interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Targumim, the nature of rabbinic midrash, the stabilization of the Hebrew Bible, and the interpretation of the Bible in the Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The second part of the book probes themes specific to Christian interpretation of the biblical texts. Chapters here discusses how Israel's Scriptures are used in the New Testament writings, the hermeneutical approaches of the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists, Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis, the contributions of Jerome and Augustine, the formation of the New Testament canon, and the interpretation of Scripture in the New Testament Apocrypha and Gnostic writings. In addition to these in-depth studies, the volume includes a substantial introduction by the editors that gives readers both a broad overview of the primary issues and features of ancient biblical interpretation as treated in this volume and a means of sampling the ways in which the key figures, schools of interpretation, and issues discussed interweave and contrast with each other. Up to date, balanced, and engagingly written, this superb work - and those to follow - will soon become a standard resource on the history of biblical interpretation. Contributors: Peder Borgen Dennis Brown James H. Charlesworth Philip R. Davies Craig A. Evans Harry Gamble Leonard Greenspoon Alan J. Hauser Donald H. Juel Martin McNamara Esther Menn Richard A. Norris Jr. Gary G. Porton James A. Sanders Joseph Trigg Duane F. Watson Frances Young


We use cross-national harmonized micro data from a broad sample of developed and developing countries and investigate the heterogeneity of the effect of entry, contract enforcement regulation, and financial development on both the decision to become an entrepreneur and the level of employment of newly created businesses. We focus on the interaction between the level of regulation and financial development and some individual characteristics that are important determinants of entrepreneurship, such as gender, business skills, and social networks. We find that entry regulation moderates the effect of business skills, while accentuating the effect of gender, even after accounting for the level of financial development. Specifically, women are more likely to enter into entrepreneurship in countries with higher levels of entry regulation, but mainly because they cannot find better work. This effect is also more pronounced in countries that are less financially developed. Furthermore, individuals who report having business skills are less likely to enter entrepreneurship in countries with higher entry regulation. Finally, we also find that individuals who know other entrepreneurs are less likely to start large businesses in countries with higher levels of entry and contract enforcement regulation.


Introduction: Personality traits are divided into five basic dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness. These influence our attitudes and behaviours. Studies show that differences in personality traits may influence the dietary intake. Methods: A cross-sectional study aimed at determining the association between personality traits and body weight status with energy intake was conducted among adolescents in Hulu Langat district of Selangor. Height, weight and waist circumference were measured and respondents completed a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. Personality traits were assessed using the Malay version of USM Personality (USMaP-i). A single 24-h dietary recall was used to assess dietary intake. Results: A total of 430 adolescents aged 13-16 years (46% male and 54% female) was recruited. Female respondents tended to be more neurotic and agreeable compared to male respondents. A majority of the respondents (67%) were in the normal weight category, 26.7% were overweight and obese, while 19.0% had a high risk of developing abdominal obesity with a mean waist circumference of 72.65 ± 10.93cm. Males significantly had a higher intake of energy (1425±583 kcal), compared to females (1232±462 kcal). Conscientiousness trait (r=-0.158, p<0.01), BMI-for-age (r=-0.147, p<0.01) and waist circumference (r=-0.108, p<0.05) were inversely related to the energy intake of the respondents. Conclusion: Leaner adolescents and individuals with low conscientiousness were significantly consuming more energy than their counterparts. Understanding the personality traits that may regulate caloric intake is essential in order to develop effective interventions towards modifying obesity inducing eating patterns.


Methods of minimizing the effects of internally generated noise in transistor amplifiers are described. The study is both theoretical and experimental in nature, the greater part of the theoretical portion being based on van der Ziel's transistor noise model. From this model, analytical
expressions are formulated giving (in terms of easily measurable transistor parameters) the operating point and source resistance that will optimize the noise performance of the amplifier. The derived equations are substantiated by an experimental study. Both audio and radio frequency
amplifiers are considered. At audio frequencies, the work is primarily experimental in nature. Here, attention is focused on developing a simplified optimization procedure. For the radio frequency amplifier, formulas are also derived that describe the effect of source reactance on the amplifier's noise performance.

Formulas giving the noise figures of the transformer- coupled transistor amplifier are included. From these equations, analytical expressions are formulated that describe the emitter current and transformer turns ratio
which will minimize the effects of internally generated noise. An experimental investigation verified the results.

A portion of the work is devoted to a theoretical and experimental study of temperature and its effect on the noise performance of transistor amplifiers. This study, which considers temperatures from 77 to 320° K, differs
from those previously conducted in that a wide range of source resistances are used.

Equations describing the degradation in noise performance produced by resistive stabilizing components are given.

Also included is an analytical description of the methods used to obtain noise-factor measurements.


We defend the Fock-space Hamiltonian truncation method, which allows us to calculate numerically the spectrum of strongly coupled quantum field theories, by putting them in a finite volume and imposing a UV cutoff. The accuracy of the method is improved via an analytic renormalization procedure inspired by the usual effective field theory. As an application, we study the two-dimensional.4 theory for a wide range of couplings. The theory exhibits a quantum phase transition between the symmetry-preserving and symmetry-breaking phases. We extract quantitative predictions for the spectrum and the critical coupling and make contact with previous results from the literature. Future directions to further improve the accuracy of the method and enlarge its scope of applications are outlined.


ABSTRACTThe estimation of rock and fluid properties from seismic attributes is an inverse problem. Rock-physics modeling provides physical relations to link elastic and petrophysical variables. Most of these models are nonlinear; therefore, the inversion generally requires complex iterative optimization algorithms to estimate the reservoir model of petrophysical properties. We have developed a new approach based on the linearization of the rock-physics forward model using first-order Taylor series approximations. The mathematical method adopted for the inversion is the Bayesian approach previously applied successfully to amplitude variation with offset linearized inversion. We developed the analytical formulation of the linearized rock-physics relations for three different models: empirical, granular media, and inclusion models, and we derived the formulation of the Bayesian rock-physics inversion under Gaussian assumptions for the prior distribution of the model. The application of the inversion to real ...


Scientific argumentation has been greatly emphasized in the National Science Standard due to its ability to enhance students' understanding of scientific concepts. This study investigated the mastery level of scientific argumentation, based on Toulmin's Argumentation Model (TAP), when students engage in individual and group argumentations. A total of 120 students were selected and were first randomly divided into two groups to answer the Scientific Argumentation Test (ScAT). One group of students answered individually, while the other group was allowed to collaborate among group members. The Student Semi Structured Interview (SSSI) and Teacher Semi Structured Interview (TSSI) were also conducted on a selected group of students and their teachers to gather additional information to support the ScAT data. The findings showed that there is a significant difference in the mastery level of scientific argumentation between groups and individuals. Students who participated in group argumentation tend to perform better than those who participated in individual argumentation. However, the mastery level of scientific argumentation for both groups of students was generally unsatisfactory. Therefore, the teaching and learning of science in Malaysian schools need to emphasize more on group argumentative activities to enhance students' mastery of scientific argumentation, which will also their reasoning capabilities and scientific knowledge.


Data from automated vehicle location (AVL) systems, automatic passenger counter (APC) systems, and fare box payments have been heavily used to generate dwell time models with the goal of recommending improvements in efficiency and reliability of bus transit systems. However, automatic data collection methods may result in a loss of detail with regard to the dynamics of passenger activity, which may bias the estimates associated with dwell or passenger activity time. The purpose of this study is to understand better any biases that might exist from using data from AVL–APC systems or fare box payments when estimating dwell time. Manually collected data from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, are used to estimate detailed dwell time models. This study compared those estimates to models generated by using data similar to what was reported by AVL–APC systems and fare boxes. The results reveal an overestimation in the passenger activity component of dwell time, which is mainly attributed to excess dwell time that AVL–APC data and fare box payments generally do not capture. While AVL–APC and fare box technologies provide transit agencies with rich data for analysis, adjustments to such data collection methods are warranted to reduce the overestimation of dwell time and to provide a more accurate picture of what is happening on the ground to generate better interventions that can reduce dwell times.


Abstract Parental alienation is a construct which describes a campaign of disenfranchisement from children on the part of one parent against another, particularly during divorce. It has been at the forefront of child custody research aimed at explaining its short- and long-term effects on the children affected by it. During a time when tension between parents is at its highest and conflict regarding parenting responsibilities and parenting time arises, parents resort to parental alienation in an effort to control and hinder the emotional relationship the children would otherwise forge with the other parent. This paper is a review and integration of established ambivalence and parental alienation theory incorporating clinical examples. The clinical examples are cited from real interviews conducted by the authors from 2010 to 2016. The purpose and diagnostic utility of the examination of this subject matter is to exemplify the need for making a fine grain clinical analysis of ambivalence in order to most accurately assess the existence of parental alienation in a clinical situation with children. Specifically, the expressed lack of ambivalence as manifested by the alienated child serves as an observable defining characteristic of the presence of parental alienation. The understanding of this phenomenon provides predictive criteria for clinicians and forensic experts to establish or rule out the existence of parental alienation in clinical and forensic settings with implications for treatment and custody recommendations.


Cells release into the extracellular environment, diverse types of membrane vesicles of endosomal and plasma membrane origin called exosomes and microvesicles. A number of studies indicate that these extracellular vehicles (EVs) mediate the interaction between cancer cells and their microenvironment; and thereby, play a critical role in the development of cancers. EVs contain cargo which consist of proteins, lipids, mRNAs, and miRNAs that can be delivered to different types of cells in nascent as well as distal locations. Discovery of this latter cargo has drawn an increasing amount of attention, due to their altering effects on the transcriptome, proteins, and subsequent cellular characteristics in recipient cells. Cancer cell derived exosomes (CCEs) have been identified in body fluids of cancer patients including urine, plasma and saliva. Because CCE content largely depends on tumor type and stage, they invariably lend great potential in serving as prognostic and diagnostic markers. Notably, accumulating evidence demonstrates that EV-derived miRNAs have key roles in regulating various aspects of cellular homeostasis, including proliferation, survival, migration, metastasis, and the immune system etc. More recently, diagnostic and therapeutic exploitation of stem cells derived EVs are under investigation. This review aims to summarize recent advances in EV-derived miRNAs in a variety of tumor types, and suggests that these cancer-derived exosomal miRNAs play a critical role in regulating cellular functions in surrounding and distant locations. It also discusses the role of adverse environmental exposure in altering stem cell exosomal miRNA profiling, which we believe leads to changes in the extracellular environment as well as a diverse range of biological processes.


1. A rapid, robust, accurate and sensitive radioimmunoassay procedure is described for the measurement of plasma and urinary aldosterone. 2. A new, simple method is validated for the separation of free from bound moieties which has general applicability and which involves the measurement of free steroid by direct extraction into toluene-based liquid scintillator. 3. A new method, of validated specificity, is described for the measurement of the acid-labile metabolite of aldosterone in urine which avoids the necessity for preliminary chromatographic purification.


The STudent Accountability and Restorative Research (STARR) Project is a multi-campus study of college student disciplinary practices in the USA, comparing traditional conduct hearings that use restorative justice practices alongside traditional college student misconduct hearings. A coherent set of learning goals in college student conduct administration and a robust data-set capable of measuring student learning across different types of disciplinary practice, in particular, comparing traditional 'model code' practice with emerging restorative justice processes are examined. Integrating several student development theories, we identify six student development goals: just community/self-authorship, active accountability, interpersonal competence, social ties to institution, procedural fairness, and closure. The STARR Project includes data from 18 college and university campuses across the USA. We analyzed 659 student conduct cases based on surveys of student offenders, conduct officers, and other participants in the conduct processes. Using multiple regression to control for a variety of influences, we determined that the type of conduct process used is the single most influential factor in student learning. In addition, restorative justice practices were routinely found to have a greater impact on student learning than model code hearings.


While nanomaterials are found in a number of applications, much is still unknown about their properties. Therefore, there are concerns as to their potential health and environmental effects. As the first step to understanding the potential risks of nanomaterials, the California Environmental Protection Agency's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) requested information from manufacturers of certain nanomaterials. The Department was given the authority to make such requests under California's Health and Safety Code, sections 57018-57020. DTSC had requested information to manufacturers of CNTs in 2009 and DTSC expand the call-in to include nanometal oxides (TiO 2 , CeO 2 , ZnO), nanometals (Ag, nano zero valent Fe), and quantum dots in late 2010. DTSC asked information to manufacturers regarding analytical test methods, fate and transport in the environment, and other relevant data. This article reviews potential impacts by nanomaterials and the status of California nanoindustry, and addresses efforts and processes to facilitate data call-in, and finally, expectations and benefits of data call-in by DTSC are evaluated.


Abstract. New discoveries of the early Cambrian yiliangellinine trilobite Zhangshania typica Li and Zhang in Kunming preserve almost all instars from early postembryonic (protaspid) to mature (holaspid) phases in articulated state, in addition to mature specimens with antennae bearing paired spines on the basal articles. The ontogenetic series shows protarthrous development with some, but likely not all, early holaspid instars expressing additional pygidial segments, gradual rearward migration of the location of the longest pleural spines on the trunk segments, and striking positive allometry of the genal spines. It also reveals Parazhangshania sichuanensis Li and Zhang, 1990 to be the holaspid stage 3 of Z. typica, and therefore its junior synonym. This new find in the Hongjingshao Formation provides species-based regional correlation across the South China block and Z. typica may provide an important biostratigraphic marker for the base of the traditional Tsanglangpuan Stage.


This project examines the political phenomenon of the acceptance of Israeli Russian Jews claiming refugee status in Canada. The paper examines this phenomenon by unravelling the role of human rights in Canadian nation building, the Immigration and Refugee Board's (IRB) member-appointment process and the use of the IRB as a tool for enhancing Canada's image as human rights promoter, and Canadian foreign policy towards Israel. The main argument of this paper is that the reason for the acceptance of Israeli refugee claims is that some IRB members hold an agenda on promoting human rights. This project is based on the examination of academic literature, media articles, IRB and Federal Court decisions, and interviews with a variety of stakeholders.


In the almost twenty-five years that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has served on the United States Supreme Court, he has gained a reputation as being the foremost defender of free speech principles on the modern Court. In this paper, we seek to determine whether Justice Kennedy's reputation as a defender of free speech principles is justified. To that end, we undertake both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Supreme Court's free speech jurisprudence during the period of Justice Kennedy's tenure on the Court (i.e., from February 11, 1988 through the present), with a view towards determining whether Justice Kennedy has been more likely to support free-speech rights than the Court as a whole. Our clear conclusion is that as a quantitative matter, Justice Kennedy is in fact substantially more likely to defend free speech claims than the Court as a whole, across a wide range of First Amendment disputes. In addition, an examination of his majority and separate opinions in free speech cases demonstrates that Justice Kennedy has during his tenure made important and lasting contributions to the law of freedom of speech, most of which have expanded rather than contracted First Amendment liberties.


This paper introduces an abstract web programming language, QWeSST, and a methodology for proving properties of formalisms, such are QWeSST, that are parallel, distributed and concurrent. At its core, QWeSST is a small functional programming language extended with primitives for mobile code and remote procedure calls, two distinguishing features of web programming. It supports a localized view of typechecking and of evaluation, which reflects the way we program web applications and web services. We have developed a prototype implementation for QWeSST and used it to elegantly write simple web applications that are however not easily expressed using current web technology. We give two semantics for QWeSST, one is standard and models a naive form of single-threaded evaluation, the other is maximally parallel and exploits a presentation of its typing and execution behaviors based on an extended form of substructural operational semantics. It augments standard inference rules with a construction that realizes parametric multiset comprehension, which makes it convenient to capture ensemble-level behaviors. We prove that both semantics are type safe, the former using traditional methods, the latter by developing a proof methodology that parallels the multiset-oriented presentation of the semantics.


Polysaccharide-based biomaterials are an emerging class in several biomedical fields such as tissue regeneration, particularly for cartilage, drug delivery devices and gel-entrapment systems for the immobilization of cells. Important properties of the polysaccharides include controllable biological activity, biodegradability, and their ability to form hydrogels. Most of the polysaccharides used derive from natural sources; particularly, alginate and chitin, two polysaccharides which have an extensive history of use in medicine, pharmacy and basic sciences, and can be easily extracted from marine plants (algae kelp) and crab shells, respectively. The recent rediscovery of poly-saccharide-based materials is also attributable to new synthetic routes for their chemical modification, with the aim of promoting new biological activities and/or to modify the final properties of the biomaterials for specific purposes. These synthetic strategies also involve the combination of polysaccharides with other polymers. A review of the more recent research in the field of chemical modification of alginate, chitin and its derivative chitosan is presented. Moreover, we report as case studies the results of our recent work concerning various different approaches and applications of polysaccharide-based biomaterials, such as the realization of novel composites based on calcium sulphate blended with alginate and with a chemically modified chitosan, the synthesis of novel alginate-poly(ethylene glycol) copolymers and the development of a family of materials based on alginate and acrylic polymers of potential interest as drug delivery systems.


We report on an experiment that examined the influence of anthropomorphism and perceived agency on presence, copresence, and social presence in a virtual environment. The experiment varied the level of anthropomorphism of the image of interactants: high anthropomorphism, low anthropomorphism, or no image. Perceived agency was manipulated by telling the participants that the image was either an avatar controlled by a human, or an agent controlled by a computer. The results support the prediction that people respond socially to both human and computer-controlled entities, and that the existence of a virtual image increases tele-presence. Participants interacting with the less-anthropomorphic image reported more copresence and social presence than those interacting with partners represented by either no image at all or by a highly anthropomorphic image of the other, indicating that the more anthropomorphic images set up higher expectations that lead to reduced presence when these expectations were not met.


Based on P-wave velocity and density data, a new elastic model for chalk sediments is established. The model allows the construction of a series of isoframe (IF) curves, each representing a constant part of the mineral phase contributing to the solid frame.The IF curves can be related to the progress of burial diagenesis of chalk, which is revised as follows:Newly deposited carbonate ooze and mixed sediments range in porosity from 60 to 80%, depending on the prevalence of hollow microfossils. Despite the high porosity, these sediments are not in suspension, as reflected in IFs of 0.1 or higher.Upon burial, the sediments lose porosity by mechanical compaction, and concurrently, the calcite particles recrystallize into progressively more equant shapes. High compaction rates may keep the particles in relative motion, whereas low compaction rates allow the formation of contact cement, whereby IF increases and chalk forms. Rock mechanical tests show that when compaction requires more than in-situ stress, porosity reduction is arrested.During subsequent burial, crystals and pores grow in size as a consequence of the continuing recrystallization. The lack of porosity loss during this process testifies to the absence of chemical compaction by calcite-calcite pressure dissolution, as well as to the porosity-preserving effect of contact cementation.At sufficient burial stress, the presence of stylolites indicates that pressure dissolution takes place between calcite and silicates, and depending on pore-water chemistry and temperature, pore-filling cementation may occur over a relatively short depth interval. Limestone and mixed sedimentary rock form, and porosity may be reduced to less than 20%. Isoframe increases to more than 0.6.In hydrocarbon reservoirs in North Sea chalk, relatively high porosity and high IFs are found. The reason may be that recrystallization and porosity-preserving contact cementation progress, whereas pore-filling cementation is small, probably because pressure dissolution along stylolites is arrested. Pressure dissolution may be arrested for two reasons: (1) the introduction of hydrocarbons causes a fall in effective burial stress, and (2) adsorption of polar hydrocarbons on the silicates may shield calcite from the silicates.


The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which cost-effectiveness of a recently launched drug in the treatment of overactive bladder is supported by real world evidence. The demand for real world effectiveness data by Payers and decision-makers is increasing to better manage the uncertainty at the time of making reimbursement decisions. Real world data can help to fill the knowledge gap between clinical trials and actual clinical practice.
Overactive bladder is one of many chronic conditions likely to impact people as they age. It is a common condition characterised by a group of lower urinary tract storage symptoms, which has a profound and measurable negative effect on patient health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The economic burden of OAB is also considerable. Antimuscarincs have been the mainstay pharmacological treatment for OAB for over 30 years, but adverse events and persistence on medication remain a key issue. Mirabegron, a s3 adrenoceptor agonist provides an alternative option.
The thesis presents and critiques 9 peer-reviewed publications to demonstrate the value evidence generated pre-health-technology assessment (HTA) and that generated post-health -technology assessment in clinical practice. Each publication adds a new building block to the value proposition, and a sophistication of methods that help illustrate the value of the new drug compared to competing alternatives.
The impact of OAB on patient HRQoL is explored through analyses of both disease specific and generic validated patient reported outcome (PRO) instruments. Utility values are also derived for the purposes of health economic modelling. The comparison of efficacy and safety of mirabegron with other competing alternatives is assessed using network meta-analysis (NMA), a requirement from most HTA bodies in the absence of head-to-head evidence. The outputs from the NMA and the PRO analyses are then applied to a series of trial based and NMA based HE models to assess the cost-effectiveness of mirabegron. This is followed by an assessment of effectiveness through analysis of a large retrospective database to see if indeed cost-effectiveness is supported in the clinical practice.
The thesis concludes that cost-effectiveness of mirabegron is broadly supported by Real world evidence in terms of persistence and adherence while also highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the current research and making recommendations for future research.


We present a review of parametric fluorescence with bulk and guided geometries in quasi-phase matched lithium niobate. Whereas bulk experiments have yielded results close to theoretical predictions, waveguided versions have shown strongly reduced efficiencies. Attributing the observed conversion efficiency reductions to a loss of the material nonlinearity, to a destruction of the inverted domains during the waveguide fabrication, or to both, we carefully studied the influence of the proton-exchange process on the nonlinear and structural properties of the periodically poled lithium niobate. We found that an annealed proton-exchange process can essentially conserve the nonlinearity but will erase the periodic domain structure. This erasure can be avoided by use of a highly diluted proton-exchange melt. This direct proton-exchange process perfectly preserves all the nonlinear optical and structural properties of periodically poled LiNbO3.


What happens when a naive intern is granted unfettered access to people's most private thoughts and actions? Stephen Thorpe lands a coveted internship at Ubatoo, an Internet empire that provides its users with popular online services, from a search engine and e-mail, to social networking. When Stephen's boss asks him to work on a project with the American Coalition for Civil Liberties, Stephen innocently obliges, believing he is mining Ubatoo's vast databases to protect people unfairly targeted in the name of national security. But nothing is as it seems. Suspicious individuals surface, doing all they can to access Ubatoo's wealth of confidential information. This need not require technical wizardry--simply knowing how to manipulate a well-intentioned intern may be enough. The Silicon Jungle is a cautionary fictional tale of data mining's promise and peril. Baluja raises ethical questions about contemporary technological innovations, and how minute details can be routinely pieced together into rich profiles that reveal our habits, goals, and secret desires--all ready to be exploited.


The fabrication of thin multilayer polymer nanocomposite films and their judicious arrangement in a sandwich structure to attenuate incoming electromagnetic (EM) radiation, mostly by absorption, is discussed herein. Two key properties (reasonably high conductivity, with high dielectric loss and magnetic permeability) were targeted here by using multiwall nanotubes (MWCNTs) and BaTiO3/Fe3O4 (BT/Fe) co-doped graphene oxide (GO) sheets to design soft functional nanocomposites using bi-component blends of PC (polycarbonate) and PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride). High dielectric loss and magnetic permeability were achieved by uniformly distributing BT and Fe nanoparticles on the huge specific surface area provided by the GO sheets. The MWCNTs were non-covalently modified to exfoliate the nanotubes and to get a well-connected structure of the blend components. The MWCNTs were thoroughly characterized by TEM, UV-vis, fluorescence emission, Raman and TGA. This surface modification of the MWCNTs also helps with their specific localization in the continuous bi-component blends. BT and Fe were co-doped onto the GO sheets by a well-designed step-by-step synthesis protocol, and the product can facilitate the absorption of incoming EM radiation. This hybrid structure was thoroughly characterized by various microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. By following a sequential mixing protocol, the BT/Fe co-doped GO sheets can be specifically localized in the PC components of the blends while the MWCNTs localize in the PVDF phase through a process driven by thermodynamics. This provides excellent heterogeneous boundaries with multiple scattering within the engineered nanostructures, in addition to retaining the conducting network and the associated dielectric loss properties. The resultant local field variation of such boundaries and the presence of highly lossy materials readily enhance the EM attenuation coefficient. The bulk compositions exhibited a high shielding effectiveness (SE) of −35 dB at 18 GHz (>85% absorption), and when rationally stacked into a multilayer architecture with absorption–multiple reflection–absorption pathways, the SE was further enhanced to −46 dB for a thin shield of 0.9 mm thickness. Such a high SE indicates >99.99% attenuation of the incoming EM radiation. This new-generation EM suppressor, distinguished by its multifunctionality and tunable dielectric and magnetic properties, hence offers an amendable, cost-effective replacement to existing solutions.


BACKGROUND
Many unregulated over-the-counter agents for the treatment of depression are now available to patients and consumers. The potential for adverse neuropsychiatric effects with these agents has not been systematically studied in most cases.

DATA SOURCES
The author performed a MEDLINE search on a variety of herbal and nonherbal over-the-counter agents said to be useful in the treatment of depression. The Physicians' Desk Reference for Herbal Medicines was also consulted.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Although many of the herbal agents said to have benefits in depression appear to be safe, serious neuropsychiatric side effects and interactions have been reported for several over-the-counter "antidepressants." There is reason to suspect underreporting of those adverse events. Moreover, there is very little evidence from systematic studies regarding the potential for drug-drug or herb-drug interactions with these over-the-counter agents. Vitamins and amino acids touted for the treatment of depression are also not without risk.

CONCLUSION
Although some over-the-counter remedies for depression are probably safe and effective for as-yet unidentified subgroups of depressed individuals, more research is required before these agents can be recommended for routine use. Stricter U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight of these agents is indicated.


The Haredi (Jewish Ultra Orthodox) minority in Israel has an increased visibility in Israeli media in recent years. Many of its representations are negative and stereotypical. This article is an analysis of a documentary series about this minority group that the author co-directed also in an attempt to challenge these stereotypes. The article analyses the process of production of the series and the many decisions that had to be taken during it. It explores the difficulties in challenging the key stereotypes, especially in the context of Israeli commercial television.


The progress of biologic and ultrasound assessments in preg nancy has a favorable impact, demonstrated in the case we are presenting, in terms of monitoring the pregnancy rea ching the term, in a patient diagnosed with obstetrical antiphospholipid syndrome and septated uterus diagnosed after a previous spontaneous abortion at 6 weeks of gestation, when ultrasonographic evaluation and uterine cavity control have been performed. We pay attention to this case from the point of view of placental abnormalities that can occur if the uterine malformation leads to an anatomical perturbation of the insertion and development of the placenta, but also to the placental abnormalities from the antiphospholipid syndrome in which thrombosis can lead to placental dys function. These aspects are supported by laboratory tests that high light the antiphospholipid antibodies and ultrasound findings obtained from pregnancy monitoring (placental anomalies, fetal growth curve, uterine artery, umbilical artery and middle cerebral artery Doppler flows, amniotic fluid index). From the category of anti-phospholipid antibodies, anti-annexin V antibodies are directly involved in the disruption of placenta as early as 7 weeks of gestation.


Okmok and Recheshnoi are adjacent volcanoes on the island of Umnak in the Aleutian Arc. Ninety-five new chemical analyses of lavas from the two volcanoes show that Okmok exhibits a classical tholeiitic and Recheshnoi a calc-alkaline differentiation trend. Both volcanoes have erupted lavas that range in composition from basalt to rhyolite. This allows investigation of differences in both the differentiation systematics and the parental magma compositions. In contrast to the predictions of many recent models for calc-alkaline and tholeiitic volcanism, the major and trace element data show that the parental magmas for the two volcanoes have different compositions. These different parental compositions might themselves be produced by in situ differentiation or other complex fractionation processes from a very magnesian parental magma (16% MgO) with Okmok being derived by low-pressure fractionation and Recheshnoi by in situ fractionation at higher pressures. An alternative and simpler explanation is that the inferred high-MgO Okmok parent and the Recheshnoi parent are derived by different extents of melting in the mantle wedge. Modelling based on the rare earth elements suggests approximately 7% melting for the calc-alkaline parent and 20% for the tholeiitic parent. For these two volcanoes therefore, there may be a correlation between extent of melting and the tendency to follow a calc-alkaline or tholeiitic differentiation trend. Larger enrichments of highly fluid-mobile elements such as boron and cesium in the tholeiitic Okmok source suggest that variability in the volume of fluid flux from the slab may be responsible for the different extents of melting. If the partial melting model is applied generally to the Aleutian Arc, it provides an alternative explanation for the volcanic regularities of the arc described by Kay et al. (1982). Smaller extents of melting lead to less melt, fractionation at higher pressures, often including hydrous phases, a preponderance of plutonic rather than volcanic rocks, and smaller calc-alkaline volcanoes. Large tholeiitic volcanoes are often associated with fracture zones on the subducting Pacific plate (Kay et al., 1982; Marsh, 1982). Since fracture zones are more extensively altered than average oceanic crust and might also serve as sediment traps, they could serve as sources of a larger volatile flux from the slab, leading to greater extents of melting and large, tholeiitic volcanoes. If this explanation is correct, then the origin of the volcanic segmentation of the arc may be found within the subducted slab. This contrasts with the alternative model of control by the stress regime of the overlying plate (Kay et al., 1982; Singer and Myers, 1990; Kay and Kay, 1991). Inferences from Okmok and Recheshnoi may also apply to global variations in convergent margin chemistry. In general, arcs built On thick crust tend to be more calc-alkaline in character. On the Basis of the negative correlation between convergent margin crustal thickness and inferred extent of melting (Plank and Langmuir, 1988), lower extents of melting may contribute to a tendency towards calc-alkaline differentiation on a global basis.


Translocated oysters are well known to act as vectors of marine alien species, but to date this topic has received scant attention in South Africa, despite the fact that oysters have been imported into this region since 1894. Surveys of oyster farms in South Africa revealed four newly-recorded alien species: the black sea urchin, Tetrapygus niger, from Chile; the European flat oyster, Ostrea edulis (thought to be extinct since its intentional introduction in 1946); Montagu's crab, Xantho incisus, from the North Eastern Atlantic seas of Europe, and the brachiopod Discinisca tenuis from Namibia. Oyster imports are the most likely vector of all these species. The biological attributes of each species, the possible threats posed by their introduction, and the needs for additional control measures to limit or prevent further introduction and spread of alien species via oyster culture are discussed.


Abstract. The majority of scientific satellites investigating the Earth magnetosphere are spin stabilized. The attitude information comes usually from a sun sensor and is missing in the umbra; hence, the accurate experimental determination of vector quantities is not possible during eclipses. The spin period of the spacecraft is generally not constant during these times because the moment of inertia changes due to heat dissipation. The temperature dependence of the moment of inertia for each spacecraft has a specific signature determined by its design and distribution of mass. We developed an "eclipse-spin" model for the spacecraft spin period behaviour using magnetic field vector measurements close to the Earth, where the magnetic field is dominated by the dipole field, and in the magnetospheric lobes, where the magnetic field direction is mostly constant. The modelled spin periods give us extraordinarily good results with accumulated phase deviations over one hour of less than 10 degrees. Using the eclipse spin model satellite experiments depending on correct spin phase information can deliver science data even during eclipses. Two applications for THEMIS B, one in the lobe and the other in the lunar wake, are presented.


Background A developing body of evidence has provided valuable insight into the experiences of caregivers of people with motor neuron disease; however, understandings of how best to support caregivers remain limited. Aim This study sought to understand concepts related to the motor neuron disease caregiver experience which could inform the development of supportive interventions. Design A qualitative thematic analysis of a one-off semistructured interview with caregivers was undertaken. Setting/participants Caregivers of people with motor neuron disease were recruited from a progressive neurological diseases clinic in Melbourne, Australia. Results 15 caregivers participated. Three key themes were identified: (1) The Thief: the experience of loss and grief across varied facets of life; (2) The Labyrinth: finding ways to address ever changing challenges as the disease progressed; (3) Defying fate: being resilient and hopeful as caregivers tried to make the most of the time remaining. Conclusions Caregivers are in need of more guidance and support to cope with experiences of loss and to adapt to changeable care giving duties associated with disease progression. Therapeutic interventions which target these experiences of loss and change are worth investigation. Trial registration number ACTRN12615000120572, pre-results.


All efforts to reduce injuries in school rugby are welcome and the cluster randomised controlled trial by Hislop and colleagues deserves attention.1 Here, the authors presented a preactivity exercise programme that trained strength, agility and balance, with reductions in time-loss injuries and concussions claimed. Yet we highlight fiveprimary concerns that arise from this study, which are particularly important given that the programme is now being implemented nationally.2

Hislop and colleagues contacted 220 potentially eligible independent schools of which 40 consented to participate. There were 20 schools in each of the intervention and control groups—although 9 schools later withdrew (3 intervention, 6 control). Only seven schools (four intervention, three control) adhered to the programme at the optimal compliance rate of three or more weekly sessions. Yet no details are given of the characteristics and demographics of the …


The grave challenges of oil pollution have been over stated in several environmental journals. The liability accruing to such pollutions have also been extensively discussed by several legal scholars. Interestingly, this discussions on responsibility and liability seems to take a lead and an end to the involvement of the huge multinational oil players in the pollution saga; thus, ignoring the role and liability of other silent parties. Firstly, Nigeria is replete with environmental legislations following the directions of its National Policy on Environment. However, this paper shall not delve into a discussion of these legislative provisions, nor their discussions as it concerns oil pollution and its attendant liabilities in Nigeria. Rather the paper shall examine the extent of liability of the Nigerian government with respect to enforcement of regulation against oil and gas pollution in Nigeria.


Urban poverty in southern Africa is a multi-dimensional issue comprising both deeply rooted historical factors expressed in the built environments of cities and contemporary factors related to ongoing political and economic changes. The tension between states and street vendors throughout southern Africa is part of a perennial struggle for the use of urban space. For many low-income urban people, vending provides crucial resources, both in terms of household income and the distribution of basic goods through informal networks. This article focuses on the consequences for urban food security of street vendor evictions in Blantyre in 2006, under Operation Dongosolo. Dongosolo reshaped the geographies of where people could buy food and where they could earn a living. It re-established the primacy of formal-sector businesses and middle-class lifestyles, which served both contingent political purposes and long-standing expectations of what urban space should look like. I elaborate on three factors that led to Dongosolo: problems with the decentralisation process and the implementation of local democratic institutions; the formation of the Democratic People's Party (DPP) as the governing party and the associated shift in patronage networks; and the cultural attitude that the poor do not belong in the city. Close reading of the causal factors and consequences of Dongosolo for the urban poor demonstrates the structural nature of urban poverty in Malawi, which is embedded in local debates over the purpose of cities.


Abstract. Among the renewable power sources, solar power is rapidly becoming popular because it is inexhaustible, clean, and dependable. It has also become more efficient since the power conversion efficiency of photovoltaic solar cells has increased. Following these trends, solar power will become more affordable in years to come and considerable investments are to be expected. Despite the size of solar plants, the sitting procedure is a crucial factor for their efficiency and financial viability. Many aspects influence such a decision: legal, environmental, technical, and financial to name a few. This paper describes a general integrated framework to evaluate land suitability for the optimal placement of photovoltaic solar power plants, which is based on a combination of a geographic information system (GIS), remote sensing techniques, and multi-criteria decision-making methods. An application of the proposed framework for the Limassol district in Cyprus is further illustrated. The combination of a GIS and multi-criteria methods produces an excellent analysis tool that creates an extensive database of spatial and non-spatial data, which will be used to simplify problems as well as solve and promote the use of multiple criteria. A set of environmental, economic, social, and technical constrains, based on recent Cypriot legislation, European's Union policies, and expert advice, identifies the potential sites for solar park installation. The pairwise comparison method in the context of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to estimate the criteria weights in order to establish their relative importance in site evaluation. In addition, four different methods to combine information layers and check their sensitivity were used. The first considered all the criteria as being equally important and assigned them equal weight, whereas the others grouped the criteria and graded them according to their objective perceived importance. The overall suitability of the study region for sitting solar parks is appraised through the summation rule. Strict application of the framework depicts 3.0 % of the study region scoring a best-suitability index for solar resource exploitation, hence minimizing the risk in a potential investment. However, using different weighting schemes for criteria, suitable areas may reach up to 83 % of the study region. The suggested methodological framework applied can be easily utilized by potential investors and renewable energy developers, through a front end web-based application with proper GUI for personalized weighting schemes.


The characteristics of a Gaussian beam that is reflected or transmitted by an interface separating a denser medium from a rarer medium are mainly described by means of numerical integration. An approximate result is shown to compare with the exact value obtained by numerical integration. The cases where the incident angle θ is arbitrary, that is, θ = θc (critical angle), θ → θc, θ ≷ θc are treated. Transmitted power in the rarer medium is obtained, from which properties of a lateral wave are found.