Cognition, defined as the mechanism by which an animal acquires, processes, stores, and uses information present in the environment, is a trait that is sensitive to developmental conditions. Existing research supports the idea that the ability to develop and maintain cognitive abilities depends on the physiological condition of the individual, which can be influenced by the early environment. Alterations in maternal care, social stress, and malnutrition are some examples of environmental conditions that impact development and resulting cognitive abilities across taxa. The primary goal of this research was to determine whether immune system challenge during the critical song learning period in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) would lead to long term negative impacts on song quality and learning, spatial learning, and neophobia. Immune challenge during this period of development did not produce long term impacts on learning or memory, nor did it lead to any changes in neophobic responses. However, birds that were hatched later in a clutch performed better on the motoric and spatial tasks, and were less neophobic. Future research in zebra finches that can describe the variation in song attributes as a function of hatching order would be a useful first step in determining a mechanistic link between hatch order and song learning outcomes.


Diabetic nephropathy is one of the chronic complications of diabetes mellitus. Inflammatory mediators are believed to play a vital role as predictors of low grade systemic inflammation in diabetic nephropathy. Drug designing, one of the hottest topics have found its new pathway to create a history in the field of medical science. The lead compound analysis starts with CADD, assisting to identify and to optimize the right compound. The technique helps in generating a suitable compound specific to the disease; thereby an effective treatment is achieved. Molecular modeling method has been used for modeling a new molecule for Diabetic nephropathy using Lisinopril , a drug that's already designed. This drug is drawn using hyperchem, and its R group is modified by replacing different functional groups like OH, Br, CH2CH3, CH3, Cl, F, H, and NH2 , etc in its place and docked by using gold software.. The molecules designed as such are optimized using different algorithms and their affinity is checked with protein. The binding free energy of the protein is calculated by performing docking process. The molecule with minimum binding energy will have the maximum binding affinity. The binding free energy is calculated by the formula Z = Sum of the energy of optimized ligand devoid of solvation parameters and the energy of the protein - ligand optimization. The binding free energy of the designed molecules is obtained by eliminating the energy of the main molecule i.e. Lisinopril .From the results obtained it's clear that ligand 1 & 5 ( -3.65 & -2.73 ) for Diabetic nephropathy have the maximum binding affinity. So these molecules are determined as the best lead molecules targeting computationally.


Images such as Gantt, WBS, PERT, and CPM have always played important roles in project management. In recent years, new types of images, such as the system anatomy, have emerged in complex development projects. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate why the alternative images seem to be more useful than the traditional ones during turbulent and complex circumstances. In conclusion we find that the alternative images are focused on integration activities and critical dependencies in the project. Typically, they emphasize common understanding and comprehensibility over formalism and rigor. In addition, these alternative images seem to be resonant with how our cognitive apparatus conceives coordination, thus making them more apt for managing complex development tasks.


There is broad agreement among evolutionary linguists that the emergence of human language, as opposed to other primate communication systems, is characterised by two key phenomena: the use of symbols, and the use of grammatical structure (Tomasello 2003). In this paper, we show that these two defining aspects of language actually emerge from the same set of underlying cognitive mechanisms within the context of ostensive-inferential communication. We take an avowedly cognitive approach to the role of metaphor in language change, setting out how general capacities such as the recognition of common ground, the inference of meaning from context, and the memorisation of language usage, can together lead to the conventionalisation of metaphors, and thence to systematic changes in language structure, including the development of grammatical linguistic units from formerly meaningful elements through grammaticalisation (Hoefler and Smith 2009). We show that the relevant cognitive competences are general-purpose mechanisms which are crucially not specific to language; they also underpin non-linguistic communication, where the same processes lead to the emergence of apparently arbitrary symbols.


Objectives: To assess the effects of smoking on disease outcome in a large cohort of patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Between 1996 and 2004, 1787 adult patients (disease duration ≤ 1 year) were included in the BARFOT early RA study in Sweden. Smoking status was recorded at inclusion in the study. Disease Activity Score using 28 joint counts (DAS28), C-reactive protein (CRP), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) score, rheumatoid factor (RF), antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP), general health (GH) and pain visual analogue scales (VAS), and drug treatment were registered at inclusion and at follow-up at 3, 6, and 12 months. European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) response and remission criteria were applied at 3, 6, and 12 months. Results: The proportion of patients who smoked at inclusion in the study fell from 29% in 1996 to 20% in 2004. There were no significant differences in disease activity at inclusion stratified according to smoking status. At 12 months of follow-up, 18% of current smokers at inclusion, 12% of previous smokers, and 11% of never smokers had high disease activity (DAS28 > 5.1, p = 0.005). Significantly fewer current smokers were in remission at 12 months (33%) compared to never smokers (36%) and previous smokers (42%) (p = 0.013). Current smoking at inclusion independently predicted poor EULAR response up to 12 months of follow-up. Conclusion: The present study gives some support to earlier data indicating that RA patients who smoke have a more active disease but further studies are needed to confirm this.


Background: In 2005, Nigeria adopted the Reach Every Ward (REW) strategic approach to improve vaccination coverage for children of 0–23 months. Ogun state has coverage of up to 107% in 12 of its 20 local government areas (LGA). Conversely, there are pockets of unimmunized children across eight LGAs with the highest burden in Remo-North (23%). The exact factors responsible for this trend are yet to be determined. Objective: A participatory evaluation and action research (PAR) aims through iterative processes of reflection and action, between communities, health workers and local authorities to provide context specific solutions to barriers to access and use of immunization services in Remo-North. A formative evaluation assesses the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the PAR. Methods: Situational analysis was carried out at baseline, results of which were validated by community members, health workers and local government officials and used in an interactive learning process through dialogues between these groups, facilitated by the researchers. Joint Action Plans for change were developed and are being implemented in a first action phase of 4 months. The circle will repeat in a second round of dialogues/action phase. After one year, at end-line, the key components of change to be assessed are improved community knowledge and awareness of the REW strategy; and consensus on challenges and solutions regarding immunization among the three groups. Additionally, demonstrated ownership and responsibility for change among these groups will be assessed in order to identify the potential for sustained improvement of access and utilization of immunization services.


How can preachers make sermons not only say but also do? In the case of New Testament epistles, this question can be answered by using the tools of rhetorical criticism - that is, understanding how the epistles function as written-down speeches that follow the rules of the ancient rhetorical handbooks. Tim MacBride shows beginning and seasoned preachers alike how to harness the rhetorical power inherent in the New Testament text, so that they might 'catch the wave' rather than swim against the current. MacBride explains the concepts and introduces rhetorical jargon in a less formal and more practical way, making the subject more accessible for non-specialists. He includes extensive examples, summary tables and sample full-text sermons, as well as short exercises at the end of each chapter to enable readers to practise these new skills. This lively volume will be of value and interest not only to preachers but also to all who wish to read and apply the New Testament today.


The primary purpose of a UCEA Program Center is to work in a target area of interest over a substantial period of time through identifying and coalescing the interests and resources of UCEA-member and non-member institutions, school districts, and governmental agencies. Currently UCEA has eight program centers. Each of these centers has contributed greatly to UGEA's mission through their involvement of faculty in timely and significant work in focused areas of inquiry. The presence of these centers has also added, a vibrant dimension to their respective departmental academic activities. They have made substantial contributions to knowledge production and exchange of ideas in the field of educational administration and the varied organizations served by educational leaders. In this issue of the UCEA Review we want to share with our colleagues the names and institutions that house and support these centers as well as the focus of each center. We also want to remind you that at the 2003 convention many of these centers will have sessions that will present and discuss their current and future work. We invite anyone who may have an interest in the work of these centers to please attend their individual sessions and contact the directors for more information.


Encouraging students to engage fully with the learning experience in higher education (HE) is a challenge. With secondary schools increasingly "teaching to the test" and large class sizes in HE often necessitating the use of more didactic teaching methods, there is a significant risk of students becoming passive consumers of information, rather than developing into self-regulated independent learners. Recently there has been a drive towards development of openly-shared online resources (e.g. MOOCs, iTunesU and Khan Academy) to support learning, but these are traditionally designed by academic staff based on their perceptions of what students need. A more beneficial approach is for students to work as partners in curriculum design and support of teaching. The main aim of this project is to establish and evaluate the effectiveness of cross-institutional student-led collaborative learning environments (CLEs) to support the learning of Physiology in HE. We have evaluated the use of three online platforms (Facebook, Blackboard CourseSites and Learnium) for running Cardiovascular Physiology CLEs within one partner HE institution. These pilot studies involved three student cohorts: first year medical students (n=297), first year bioscience students (n=414) and second year biomedical students (n=137). Surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted to evaluate the dynamics of engagement and explore student attitudes towards collaborative learning. 25% of the medical cohort, 34% of the first year bioscience students and 31% of the second year biomedical students signed up to the CLEs. The main reason for non-participation was "not knowing it existed" (84% medic; 76% bioscience). The main motivations for joining the online CLEs were to "get help with hard topics" (76% medic; 61% bioscience), "curiosity" (61% medic; 54% bioscience) and "support from peers" (55% medic; 50% bioscience). Students who joined a CLE but did not engage in online activities felt they "had nothing of value to post" (68% medic; 86% bioscience), but did like looking at other student's posts. Other key reasons for lack of engagement were "need to focus on other coursework" and "haven't started revision yet". Other dominant themes emerging are that students want CLEs to cover more physiology topics and desire more input from academic staff. Organising small group meetings facilitated by near-peer students increased engagement with the online CLEs. Learnium (an online social network tool for learning and teaching) was the most popular platform, but training was required for staff and students to use the communities, boards and collaborative documents. Facebook and CourseSites were less popular due to their overly social and overly academic nature, respectively. We have recently built on this pilot study to establish three cross-institutional CLEs and will also present the outputs of these projects at the meeting.


When the Chinese government outlawed direct selling, Amway's signature marketing model, the company's executives had to decide whether to pull up stakes or find a new way to sell. They chose to stay put and cooperate. To comply with regulatory changes, the company established conventional retail stores and manufactured products in China instead of importing them from the United States. It changed its entire distributor compensation system. It could no longer rely on word-of-mouth marketing, so it turned to brand advertising. Throughout the process, Amway worked to demonstrate that it would be an honorable corporate citizen in China. Eventually legislation was passed allowing it to return to a direct-sales business model. It received a new license in 2006, and today China is its largest market, with more than $4 billion in annual sales.


ABSTRACT Background: The End-of-Life in Dementia (EOLD) scales comprise the most specific set of instruments developed for evaluations of patients' end of life by their families. It is not known whether the EOLD scales are useful for cross-national comparisons. Methods: We used a mortality follow-back design in multi-center studies in the Netherlands (pilot study 2005–2007) and the U.S.A. (1999), and we compared EOLD Satisfaction With Care (SWC; last three months of life), Symptom Management (SM; last three months) and Comfort Assessment in Dying (CAD) scores for 54 Dutch and 76 U.S. nursing home residents. Results: SWC total scores did not differ significantly between the Dutch and U.S. studies (31.9, SD 4.7 versus 30.4, SD 6.1), but three of ten items were rated more favorable for Dutch residents, as were SM total scores (29.1, SD 9.2 versus 20.4, SD 10.6). CAD total scores did not differ (32.0, SD 5.4 versus 30.5, SD 5.9, respectively), but the "well-being" subscale was rated more favorably for Dutch residents. Results were similar after adjustment for demographics and dementia severity. Conclusion: The Dutch families rated end of life with dementia in nursing homes as somewhat better than did U.S. families. Although differences were small, the observed patterns were consistent. This suggests validity of the SM and CAD to assess differences in quality of dying and possible sensitivity to differences between countries or time frames. Larger, simultaneous, cross-national studies are needed to confirm usefulness of the scales and to detect areas which need improvement in the respective countries.


This article explores the production history of the BBC's 1975 adaptation of Peter Dickinson's 'The Changes' novels. Drawing extensively on archival material, it pieces together the development and filming of what was, until that date, the Children's Department's most ambitious drama production. It situates the ten-part serial within its production context, drawing attention to the Corporation's major transformation of its children's television production following the appointment of Monica Sims as Head of the re-formed BBC Children's Department in 1967, and charts the Department's struggle to produce the serial in an atmosphere of financial stringency and corporate indifference. It concludes by arguing that the development of this remarkable series, unseen on British television since 1994, suggests that the BBC's mission to entertain, educate and inform is not a project coherently managed or maintained but is rather a consequence of individual personalities prepared to contest resources and restrictions in the process of producing 'quality' television.


Protected areas (PAs) play an important role in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem integrity. However, human development has threatened and affected the function and effectiveness of PAs. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) night-time stable light (NTL) data have proven to be an effective indicator of the intensity and change of human-induced urban development over a long time span and at a larger spatial scale. We used the NTL data from 1992 to 2013 to characterize the human-induced urban development and studied the spatial and temporal variation of the NTL of global terrestrial PAs. We selected seven types of PAs defined by the International Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN), including strict nature reserve (Ia), wilderness area (Ib), national park (II), natural monument or feature (III), habitat/species management area (IV), protected landscape/seascape (V), and protected area with sustainable use of natural resources (VI). We evaluated the NTL digital number (DN) in PAs and their surrounding buffer zones, i.e., 0–1 km, 1–5 km, 5–10 km, 10–25 km, 25–50 km, and 50–100 km. The results revealed the level, growth rate, trend, and distribution pattern of NTL in PAs. Within PAs, areas of types V and Ib had the highest and lowest NTL levels, respectively. In the surrounding 1–100 km buffer zones, type V PAs also had the highest NTL level, but type VI PAs had the lowest NTL level. The NTL level in the areas surrounding PAs was higher than that within PAs. Types Ia and III PAs showed the highest and lowest NTL growth rate from 1992 to 2013, respectively, both inside and outside of PAs. The NTL distributions surrounding the Ib and VI PAs were different from other types. The areas close to Ib and VI boundaries, i.e., in the 0–25 km buffer zones, showed lower NTL levels, for which the highest NTL level was observed within the 25–100 km buffer zone. However, other types of PAs showed the opposite NTL patterns. The NTL level was lower in the distant buffer zones, and the lowest night light was within the 1–25 km buffer zones. Globally, 6.9% of PAs are being affected by NTL. Conditions of wilderness areas, e.g., high latitude regions, Tibetan Plateau, Amazon, and Caribbean, are the least affected by NTL. The PAs in Europe, Asia, and North America are more affected by NTL than South America, Africa, and Oceania.


In stand-alone operations, on-site generators must balance and meet demand at any time for second-by-second fluctuations in output and load demand. However, the previous optimization tool for private generator configuration in hospital buildings did not consider demand sufficiency. Herein, this qualitative electricity problem was solved by proposing a new optimization method that considers the balance of power supply and demand in the stand-alone operation of on-site generators during power outages. As a demand sufficiency condition, a power balance simulator obtained available configurations of private generators that can be operated within the standard alternating current (AC) frequency range of 49-51 Hz. We also compared case study results by applying these constraints to the findings of previous studies. The same case study from a previous paper reported that the optimal amount of photovoltaic systems installed is approximately the upper limit (set at 600 m2 in this calculation) and the optimal solution. In contrast, the optimization results with additional constraints to keep frequency fluctuations within specified limits yielded an optimal value of much less than the previous optimization; one case study showed that the optimal installation amount of photovoltaics was 0 m2. On the other hand, the key equipment in this study was the emergency diesel generator. The emergency generator compensates for power shortages and balances supply and demand under the power outage. The result suggests that case studies with demand-satisfying conditions tend to select equipment configurations that effectively improve the expected power-shortage rate.


In multimedia communications, presence, and instant messaging systems,
there is a need to define Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) that
represent services that are associated with a group of users. One
example is a resource list service. If a user sends a Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) SUBSCRIBE message to the URI representing
the resource list service, the server will obtain the state of the
users in the associated group, and provide it to the sender. To
facilitate definition of these services, this specification defines
two Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents. One document contains
service URIs, along with their service definition and a reference to
the associated group of users. The second document contains the user
lists that are referenced from the first. This list of users can be
utilized by other applications and services. Both documents can be
created and managed with the XML Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP).
[STANDARDS-TRACK]


It is given that Human Resources are a key source of competitive advantage in firms. Starting from the proven link between human resources and competitive advantage in developed firms worldwide, and on the other side, the generally unsatisfactory handling of human resources in Kosovan firms, we decided to undertake this research. The study was conducted in seven wholesale distribution firms of food and non-food products in the Republic of Kosovo. A total of 35 directors and managers within these firms were surveyed. We have proposed that wholesale distribution firms of food and non-food products in Kosovo do not consider human resources significant resources in providing competitive advantage. Therefore, they do not possess a standard strategy for human resource development. Another assumption was that most of these firms have human resource departments, but in practice these departments mainly deal with administrative work. Additionally, we have proposed that human resource practices are more or less similar in firms that have or do not have human resource departments. The results of empirical study are generally consistent with the assumptions set out in this research.


Abstract The teleoperation of robot manipulators over the internet suffers from variable delays in the communications. Here we address a tele-assistance scenario, where a remote operator assists a disabled or elderly user on daily life tasks. Our behavioral approach uses local environment information from robot sensing to help enable faster execution for a given movement tolerance. This is achieved through a controller that automatically slows the operator down before having collisions, using a set of distributed proximity sensors. The controller is made to gradually increase the assistance in situations similar to those where ollisions have occurred in the past, thus adapting to the given operator, robot and task-set. Two controlled virtual experiments for tele-assistance with a 5 DOF manipulator were performed, with 300 ms and 600 ms mean variable round-trip delays. The results showed significant improvements in the median times of 12.6% and 16.5%, respectively. Improvements in the subjective workload were also seen with the controller. A first implementation on a physical robot manipulator is described.


Inverted selective plane illumination microscopy (iSPIM) enables fast, large field-of-view, long term imaging with compatibility with conventional sample mounting. However, the imaging quality can be deteriorated in thick tissues due to sample scattering. Three strategies have been adopted in this paper to optimize the imaging performance of iSPIM on thick tissue imaging: electronic confocal slit detection (eCSD), structured illumination (SI) and the two combined. We compared the image contrast when using SPIM, confocal SPIM (using eCSD alone), SI SPIM (using SI alone) or confocal-SI SPIM (combining both methods) on images of gelatin phantom and highly-scattering fluorescently-stained human tissue. We demonstrate that all the three methods showed remarkable contrast enhancement on both samples compared to iSPIM alone, and SI SPIM and the combined confocal-SI mode outperformed confocal SPIM in contrast enhancement. Moreover, the use of SI at high pattern frequencies outperformed confocal SPIM in terms of optical sectioning capability. However, image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was decreased at high pattern frequencies when imaging scattering samples with SI SPIM. By combining eCSD with SI to reduce background signal and noise, the superior optical sectioning performance of SI could be achieved while also maintaining high image SNR.


This study aims to strengthen the crime prevention aspects of the Design Guidelines of Maeulmandeulgi considering that a single-family housing area is vulnerable to crime. For this, CPTED Guidelines published in Korea were analyzed to derive CPTED principles by each design factor of the single-family housing. The Design guidelines used in the projects of Maeulmandeulgi were evaluated as the linkages with principles of CPTED, and the results were qualitatively analyzed. In addition, amendments and supplement points were derived by comparing these and CPTED guidelines as studied before. As a result, the Design Guidelines of Maeulmandeulgi covering the design techniques analogous to the methods of CPTED guidelines in many ways. Especially, these are more practical to be utilized since these guidelines address useful ways to apply to the whole village and techniques available only when a village community was formed. However several methods need to be revised; the items running counter to the principles of CPTED and the methods which insufficient compared with CPTED guidelines.


In this paper we investigate about several configurations of two intersecting branes at arbitrary angles. We choose the viewpoint of a brane source and a brane probe and use the low-energy dynamics of p-branes. For each p-brane this dynamics is governed by a generic DBI action including a WZ term, which couples to the SUGRA background of the other brane. The analysis naturally reveals two types of configurations: the "marginal" and the "non-marginal" ones. We specify possible configurations for a pair of similar or non-similar branes in either of these two categories. In particular, for two similar branes at angles, this analysis reveals that all the marginal configurations are specified by SU(2) angles while the nonmarginal configurations are specified by Sp(2) angles. On the other hand, we find that no other configuration of two intersecting branes at non-trivial angles can be constructed out of flat p-branes. So in particular, two non-similar branes can only be found in an orthogonal configuration. In this case the intersection rules for either of the marginal or non-marginal configurations are derived, which thereby provide interpretations for the known results from supergravity.


To a hyperbolic smooth curve defined over a number-field one naturally associates an "anabelian" representation of the absolute Galois group of the base field landing in outer automorphism group of the algebraic fundamental group. In this paper, we introduce several deformation problems for Lie-algebra versions of the above representation and show that, this way we get a richer structure than those coming from deformations of "abelian" Galois representations induced by the Tate module of associated Jacobian variety. We develop an arithmetic deformation theory of graded Lie algebras with finite dimensional graded components to serve our purpose.


Wireless sensor networks consist of hundreds or thousands of small sensors with have limited resources. The energy resource is the most challenging one to be maintained. The major reason for power drain is the communication between sensor nodes. Most of the routing algorithms for sensor networks focus on finding energy efficient paths to prolong the lifetime of the networks. In this paper, a novel routing algorithm has been proposed to detect the source of an event in the network. This algorithm also maintains a balance between the powers of different nodes in the network, so that the longevity of the overall network may increase.


Abstract. A direct relationship between gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) estimated by the eddy covariance (EC) method and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation indices (VIs) has been observed in many temperate and tropical ecosystems. However, in Australian evergreen forests, and particularly sclerophyll and temperate woodlands, MODIS VIs do not capture seasonality of GEP. In this study, we re-evaluate the connection between satellite and flux tower data at four contrasting Australian ecosystems, through comparisons of GEP and four measures of photosynthetic potential, derived via parameterization of the light response curve: ecosystem light use efficiency (LUE), photosynthetic capacity (Pc), GEP at saturation (GEPsat), and quantum yield (α), with MODIS vegetation satellite products, including VIs, gross primary productivity (GPPMOD), leaf area index (LAIMOD), and fraction of photosynthetic active radiation (fPARMOD). We found that satellite-derived biophysical products constitute a measurement of ecosystem structure (e.g. leaf area index – quantity of leaves) and function (e.g. leaf level photosynthetic assimilation capacity – quality of leaves), rather than GEP. Our results show that in primarily meteorological-driven (e.g. photosynthetic active radiation, air temperature, and/or precipitation) and relatively aseasonal ecosystems (e.g. evergreen wet sclerophyll forests), there were no statistically significant relationships between GEP and satellite-derived measures of greenness. In contrast, for phenology-driven ecosystems (e.g. tropical savannas), changes in the vegetation status drove GEP, and tower-based measurements of photosynthetic activity were best represented by VIs. We observed the highest correlations between MODIS products and GEP in locations where key meteorological variables and vegetation phenology were synchronous (e.g. semi-arid Acacia woodlands) and low correlation at locations where they were asynchronous (e.g. Mediterranean ecosystems). However, we found a statistical significant relationship between the seasonal measures of photosynthetic potential (Pc and LUE) and VIs, where each ecosystem aligns along a continuum; we emphasize here that knowledge of the conditions in which flux tower measurements and VIs or other remote sensing products converge greatly advances our understanding of the mechanisms driving the carbon cycle (phenology and climate drivers) and provides an ecological basis for interpretation of satellite-derived measures of greenness.


Abstract:This article offers slow peer review as an approach to student-to-student peer review in the writing classroom. Slow peer review is based in the values and theories of rhetorical feminism and, when executed purposefully, can function as a fitting alternative to fake news rhetoric. In addition to articulating the steps of slow peer review, this article illustrates how two students in a sophomore-level writing class engaged in the practice. Initial results suggest that nondirective description can lead to meaningful changes in student writing. The article concludes with further considerations for writing teachers who wish to conduct slow peer review in their own classrooms.


Green Touch is a start-up company in the Digital Menu arena that offers clients with an All in One Digital Technology solution and 24/7 customer support. Our goal is to offer a complete digital solution for the hospitality industry by offering state of the art technology which enables businesses to be more productive by reducing work flow for its employees and yet substantial increase profits. Digital Menus increase profits in more ways than one, WOW your guests with live images of your dishes, allow instant customer service/support with one click, allow the power of social media increase your marketing/advertising returns by allowing your customers to recommend your establishment to their Face book friends directly from the tablet. There is nothing better than "Free Publicity". Green-touch digital menu provides many benefits compared to the old traditional way of serving the customers. These digital menus can be electronically updated with new features all the day within minutes. The prices of the items can be changed and the offers can also be updated instantly. As waiters in a restaurant can be a problem any day with their behavior to the customers, which results in losing your customers. Where as in other hand anyone who comes to a restaurant can directly order their food without waiting for a waiter, can benefits more features using this digital menu which are placed on their tables.


The perception of shape, it has been argued, also often entails the perception of time. A cookie missing a bite, for example, is seen as a whole cookie that was subsequently bitten. It has never been clear, however, whether such observations truly reflect visual processing. To explore this possibility, we tested whether the perception of history in static shapes could actually induce illusory motion perception. Observers watched a square change to a truncated form, with a "piece" of it missing, and they reported whether this change was sudden or gradual. When the contours of the missing piece suggested a type of historical "intrusion" (as when one pokes a finger into a lump of clay), observers actually saw that intrusion occur: The change appeared to be gradual even when it was actually sudden, in a type of transformational apparent motion. This provides striking phenomenological evidence that vision involves reconstructing causal history from static shapes.


Recent developments in infrared (IR) spectroscopic time resolution, sensitivity and sample manipulation make this technique a powerful addition to the suite of complementary approaches for the study of time-resolved chemistry at metal centres within proteins. Application of IR spectroscopy to proteins has often targeted the amide bands as probes for gross structural change. This article focuses on the possibilities arising from recent IR technical developments for studies that monitor localized vibrational oscillators in proteins—native or exogenous ligands such as NO, CO, SCN− or CN−, or genetically or chemically introduced probes with IR-active vibrations. These report on the electronic and coordination state of metals, the kinetics, intermediates and reaction pathways of ligand release, hydrogen-bonding interactions between the protein and IR probe, and the electrostatic character of sites in a protein. Metalloprotein reactions can be triggered by light/dark transitions, an electrochemical step, a change in solute composition or equilibration with a new gas atmosphere, and spectra can be obtained over a range of time domains as far as the sub-picosecond level. We can expect to see IR spectroscopy exploited, alongside other spectroscopies, and crystallography, to elucidate reactions of a wide range of metalloprotein chemistry with relevance to cell metabolism, health and energy catalysis.


Big Data applications suffer from unpredictable and unacceptably high pause times due to Garbage Collection (GC). This is the case in latency-sensitive applications such as on-line credit-card fraud detection, graph-based computing for analysis on social networks, etc. Such pauses compromise latency requirements of the whole application stack and result from applications' aggressive buffering/caching of data, exposing an ill-suited GC design, which assumes that most objects will die young and does not consider that applications hold large amounts of middle-lived data in memory. To avoid such pauses, we propose NG2C, a new GC algorithm that combines pretenuring with user-defined dynamic generations. By being able to allocate objects into different generations, NG2C is able to group objects with similar lifetime profiles in the same generation. By allocating objects with similar lifetime profiles close to each other, i.e. in the same generation, we avoid object promotion (copying between generations) and heap fragmentation (which leads to heap compactions) both responsible for most of the duration of HotSpot GC pause times. NG2C is implemented for the OpenJDK 8 HotSpot Java Virtual Machine, as an extension of the Garbage First GC. We evaluate NG2C using Cassandra, Lucene, and GraphChi with three different GCs: Garbage First (G1), Concurrent Mark Sweep (CMS), and NG2C. Results show that NG2C decreases the worst observable GC pause time by up to 94.8% for Cassandra, 85.0% for Lucene and 96.45% for GraphChi, when compared to current collectors (G1 and CMS). In addition, NG2C has no negative impact on application throughput or memory usage. CCS Concepts •Software and its engineering→Garbage collection


The best resource on the very latest for Ubuntu users! Ubuntu is a free, open-source, Linux-based operating system that can run on desktops, laptops, netbooks, and servers. If you've joined the millions of users around the world who prefer open-source OS-and Ubuntu in particular-this book is perfect for you. It brings you the very latest on Ubuntu 10.04, with pages of step-by-step instruction, helpful tips, and expert techniques. Coverage Includes: The Ubuntu Linux Project Installing Ubuntu Installing Ubuntu on Special-Purpose Systems Basic Linux System Concepts Using the GNOME Desktop Using the Compiz Window Manager Managing E-Mail and Personal Information with Evolution Surfing the Web with Firefox Migrating from Windows Systems Sending and Receiving Instant Messages Using Command-Line Tools Working with Text Files Creating and Publishing Documents Other Office Software: Spreadsheets and Presentations Working with Graphics Working with Multimedia Consumer Electronics and Ubuntu Adding, Removing, and Updating Software Adding Hardware and Attaching Peripherals Network Configuration and Security Going Wireless Software Development on Ubuntu Using Virtual Machines and Emulators Connecting to Other Systems File Transfer and Sharing Managing Users, Groups, and Authentication Backing Up and Restoring Files Setting Up a Web Server Setting Up a Mail Server Setting Up a DHCP Server Setting Up a DNS Server Setting Up a Print Server Setting Up an NFS Server Up a Samba Server Updating your Ubuntu? Ubuntu Linux Bible, Third Edition, is the book you need to succeed! Note: CD-ROM is not included as part of eBook file.


New oil discoveries in the southwest area of Bohai Bay by CNOOC Limited-Tianjin and other international oil companies are mostly found in the Middle Miocene Minghuazhen Formation. The Minghuazhen reservoirs are dominated by fluvial channels and shallow lacustrine and deltaic systems. On seismic, fluvial channels are often difficult to follow, and a terrestrial succession such as in the Minghuazhen Formation typically lacks continuous reflections to trace on seismic data. These depositional facies, along with complex postdepositional faulting, makes seismic interpretation and reservoir characterization of this field very difficult. Due to these complications, many development wells may miss penetrating the main pay by very small distances. The interpretation workflows presented in this paper were used to characterize and locate channel distributions. As a result, over 20 infill well locations were proposed and water-injection selections were optimized so that each injection well could effectively penetrate...


The professional sport setting requires athletic trainers to work long hours, spend days on the road, and adhere to schedules made by others. These job expectations can lead to a reduction in work-life balance, and recent evidence suggests that role strain and reduced professional commitment are present. At this time, work-life balance of the professional sport athletic trainer has not been examined. Twenty-seven male athletic trainers who represented four major professional sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) participated in the study. We collected data online by asking our participants to respond to a series of demographic, Likert-scaled, and open-ended questions. Means and standard deviations were calculated for Likert scale data and scores were compiled for each question. All qualitative data from the online interviews were coded following a general inductive approach. Data source triangulation was the primary credibility strategy, followed by peer review and multiple analyst triangulation. Mean scores were 40.5 ± 6.6 for work-family/personal life conflict. Two major themes emerged from our data: barriers and facilitators. Barriers speak to those aspects of the role of the athletic trainer in the professional setting that limit work-life balance. Facilitators speak to those strategies and practices that stimulated work-life balance for our participants. The professional sports setting can be demanding and stimulate conflict, but, with support garnered from the organization and supportive spouses, balance can be gained.


Abstract:Anyone familiar with Russell's work on the multiple-relation theory of judgment will at some point have puzzled over the map of the five-term understanding complex at the end of Chapter i, Part ii of his Theory of Knowledge (1913). Russell presents the map with the intention of clarifying what goes on when a subject S understands the "proposition" that A and B are similar. But the map raises more questions than it answers. In this paper I present and develop some of the central issues that arise from Russell's map, and I offer an interpretation of it that reflects his evolving views in the manuscript. I argue that multiple lines in the map are not meant to represent many relations, but rather one comprehensive multiple relation of understanding. And I argue that such a relation relates in a complex way due to the distinctive nature of its relata.


● Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is clearly associated with an increased risk for adverse outcomes; however, the cumulative impact of renal and cardiac complications in high-risk populations is not known. In addition, little is known about patterns of nephrology care in patients with CKD. Methods: We conducted a retrospective longitudinal cohort study assessing CKD prevalence and progression, associations with all-cause mortality, and variations in patterns of nephrology consultation in older patients with diabetes in a vertically integrated health care system. Results: A total of 12,570 patients within a 7–Veterans Affairs hospital service network in 1998 to 1999 were identified by means of computerized records. Nearly half (48%) were affected with CKD; most had mild to moderate CKD. After an observation period of 3 years, mortality rates in those unaffected with CKD were high (4.7 deaths/100 person-years) and increased substantially with progressive CKD (eg, 20.1 deaths/100 person-years with an estimated glomerular filtration rate [GFR] of 15 to 29 mL/min/1.73 m 2 [0.25 to 0.48 mL/s/1.73 m 2 ]). Only 7.2% of patients with CKD had a nephrology visit during the entire 5-year study period. Although visits increased with more advanced CKD, only 32% of patients with an estimated GFR of 15 to 29 mL/min/1.73 m 2 had been seen in a nephrology clinic. We also found that nephrology referrals were driven preferentially by elevations in serum creatinine levels, rather than low GFRs. Conclusion: Many in this cohort of older patients with diabetes are affected with CKD. Mortality rates are high, and mortality risks associated with CKD amplify those of other risk factors. Nephrology visits are low and may represent an unexploited resource for improving CKD management. Underrecognition of CKD likely is related to overestimation of kidney function by relying on serum creatinine level in elderly patients. Am J Kidney Dis 46:406-414. © 2005 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.


Significant advances have been achieved in the fields of medical informatics and artificial intelligence in medicine in the past three decades and, having demonstrated an ability to support clinical decisions, knowledge-based systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in various clinical settings. Nonetheless, few systems have so far been successful in entering routine use. On the one hand, primarily due to methodological difficulties and with very few exceptions, developers have failed to show that pertinent systems are effective in improving patient care. On the other hand, support systems have not been sufficiently well integrated into the routine information processing activity of the clinical users. As a consequence, their clinical utility is disputed and constructive assessmenist further hindered. This thesis describes the development of an intelligent clinical information management support system designed to overcome these obstacles through the adoption of an integrated approach, geared toward the solution of the problems encountered in the acquisition, organisation, review and interpretation of the clinical decision supporting information utilised in the process of monitoring intensive care unit patients with acid-base balance disorders. The system was developed to support this activity incrementally, using the methods of object-oriented analysis, design and implementation, with the active participation of a clinical advisor who assessed the functional and ergonomic compatibility of the system with the supported activity and the integration of a previously validated prototype knowledge-based data interpretation system, which could not evaluated in the clinical setting for the reasons described above.


Although a growing body of work has focused on the effect of organisational justice and employee outcomes, such as job performance and OCB, little attention has been paid to the mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying this effect. Drawing on social exchange theory and social identity theory, I propose a model in which the effects of three dimensions of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) on job performance and helping behaviour occur via social exchange and supervisor identification. Additionally, I integrate leadership and organisational justice literatures by proposing the notion of ethical leadership style as a team level moderator influencing the above proposed mediation pathway. Finally, antecedents of ethical leadership are explored, with team perceptions of overall justice being expected to predict ethical leadership. I conducted two studies. In Study1, data were collected from seven organisations, with 241 responses being from 43 teams. Study 2 was based on 349 employees within 39 teams and 27 supervisors drawn from two large organisations.Generally, the findings of both studies showed that procedural and interactional justice were significantly related to job performance and helping behaviour via social exchange and supervisor identification, but that this was not the case with distributive justice. Support was also found for the moderating effect of ethical leadership, with the pattern of results showing that the relationship between social exchange and supervisor identification was stronger when ethical leadership was low.Findings of the moderated meditation revealed that the effects of procedural and interactional justice on supervisor identification were also stronger when ethical leadership was low.Support for overall moderated mediation, linking justice dimensions to job performance and helping behaviour dependent on levels of ethical leadership, was, however, not obtained (see Study2). Finally, team perceptions of overall supervisory justice were positively related to ethical leadership at the team level (see Study2). The implications for future research and practice are discussed.


Recent literature indicates increasing interest in deep neural networks for use in speech enhancement systems. Currently, these systems are mostly evaluated through objective measures of speech quality and/or intelligibility. Subjective intelligibility evaluations of these systems have so far not been reported. In this paper we report the results of a speech recognition test with 15 participants, where the participants were asked to pick out words in background noise before and after enhancement using a common deep neural network approach. We found that, although the objective measure STOI predicts that intelligibility should improve or at the very least stay the same, the speech recognition threshold, which is a measure of intelligibility, deteriorated by 4 dB. These results indicate that STOI is not a good predictor for the subjective intelligibility of deep neural network-based speech enhancement systems. We also found that the postprocessing technique of global variance normalisation does not significantly affect subjective intelligibility.


Although orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a widely accepted waveform in many standards and is expected to keep its dominance in future 5G systems with various types of parameterized waveforms, its performance in terms of spectral efficiency as well as transmission latency is usually degraded due to the excessive usage of cyclic prefix (CP). Particularly, in highly dispersive channels, CP rate might be very large in order to maintain the low-complex frequency-domain equalization. In this paper, we propose a novel method that can fit the low latency and high spectral efficiency requirements of future 5G wireless services by eliminating the need for inserting CP between successive OFDM symbols while keeping the whole detection process the same at the receiver side. In order to achieve that, we utilize specially designed alignment signals that can cancel the interference of one symbol on the other and add an additional signal component that makes the signal circularly convolved with the channel at the receiver side. Simulation results prove the superiority of the proposed scheme in terms of enhancing spectral and power efficiency, reducing latency, and improving physical-layer security against eavesdropping while using a low-complexity one-tap frequency-domain equalizer. These numerous, simultaneous, and desirable advantages have the potential to make the proposed technique a suitable fit for future 5G wireless services and applications including Internet of Things-based massive machine-type communication, ultra-reliable and low-latency communication, and enhanced mobile broadband.


For pasture growth in the semi-arid tropics of north-east Australia, where up to 80% of annual rainfall occurs between December and March, the timing and distribution of rainfall events is often more important than the total amount. In particular, the timing of the 'green break of the season' (GBOS) at the end of the dry season, when new pasture growth becomes available as forage and a live-weight gain is measured in cattle, affects several important management decisions that prevent overgrazing and pasture degradation. Currently, beef producers in the region use a GBOS rule based on rainfall (e. g. 40mm of rain over three days by 1 December) to define the event and make their management decisions. A survey of 16 beef producers in north-east Queensland shows three quarters of respondents use a rainfall amount that occurs in only half or less than half of all years at their location. In addition, only half the producers expect the GBOS to occur within two weeks of the median date calculated by the CSIRO plant growth days model GRIM. This result suggests that in the producer rules, either the rainfall quantity or the period of time over which the rain is expected, is unrealistic. Despite only 37% of beef producers indicating that they use a southern oscillation index (SOI) forecast in their decisions, cross validated LEPS (linear error in probability space) analyses showed both the average 3 month July-September SOI and the 2 month August-September SOI have significant forecast skill in predicting the probability of both the amount of wet season rainfall and the timing of the GBOS. The communication and implementation of a rigorous and realistic definition of the GBOS, and the likely impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the region are discussed in the context of the sustainable management of northern Australian rangelands.


The River and Harbor Act of 26 May 1824, signed by President James Monroe, authorized the first involvement of the United States Federal government in the construction of harbor works and assigned that mission to the Army Engineers. Since then, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has been faced with constructing, maintaining and repairing a wide variety of coastal structures. Construction techniques, materials, and cross-sectional design has evolved over the 170 year history of coastal structure experience in the United States, mirroring regional patterns of expansion, local economic development, and military requirements. This has resulted in a heterogeneous infrastructure with a wide variety of structure designs, conditions, and intentions. Many of these older structures have a long repair history. All are subject to gradual deterioration, which may eventually contribute to catastrophic failure. In order to plan effective repair and replacement strategies, it is important to be aware of the ageing process, methods of detection, and preservation options.


OBJECTIVE--To investigate the predictive value of microalbuminuria (albumin excretion rate 30-300 mg/24 h) as a risk factor for overt diabetic nephropathy in patients with longstanding insulin dependent diabetes. DESIGN--10 year follow up of patients with normoalbuminuria (albumin excretion rate < 30 mg/24 h), microalbuminuria (30-300 mg/24 h), and macroalbuminuria (> 300 mg/24 h) based on two out of three timed overnight urine samples. SETTING--Outpatient clinic of Helsinki University Hospital. SUBJECTS--72 consecutive patients who had had insulin dependent diabetes for over 15 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Urinary albumin excretion rate, mortality, and prevalence of diabetic complications after 10 years. RESULTS--56 patients were re-examined at 10 year follow up, 10 had died, five were lost to follow up, and one was excluded because of non-diabetic kidney disease. At initial screening 22 patients had macroalbuminuria, 18 had microalbuminuria, and 26 had normal albumin excretion. Only five (28%, 95% confidence interval 10% to 54%) of the microalbuminuric patients developed macroalbuminuria during the 10 year follow up and none developed end stage renal failure. Two (8%, 1% to 25%) normoalbuminuric patients developed macroalbuminuria and four (15%, 4% to 35%) became microalbuminuric. Seven (32%, 14% to 55%) of the macroalbuminuric patients developed end stage renal failure and six (27%, 11% to 50%) died of cardiovascular complications. CONCLUSION--Microalbuminuria is not a good predictor of progression to overt nephropathy in patients with longstanding insulin dependent diabetes.


The supply shock that hit the Nordic electricity market in 2002-2003 put the market to a severe test. A sharp reduction in inflow to hydro reservoirs during the normally wet months of late autumn pushed electricity prices to unprecedented levels. We take this event as the starting point for analysing some potential weaknesses of the Nordic market. We conclude that fears regarding supply security and adequacy are likely to be unfounded. Nevertheless, as inherited over-capacity is eroded, and new market-based environmental regulation takes effect, tighter market conditions are to be expected. It is then crucial that retail markets are fully developed so as to allow consumers to adequately protect themselves from occurrences of price spikes.


In this paper we propose the combination of graph- based characteristics and appearance-based descriptors such as detected edges for modeling static gestures. Initially we convolve the original image with a Gaussian kernel and blur the image. Canny edges are then extracted. The blurring is performed in order to enhance some characteristics in the image that are crucial for the topology of the gesture (especially when the fingers are overlapping). There are a large number of properties that can describe a graph, one of which is the adjacency matrix that describes the topology of the graph itself. We approximate the topology of the hand utilizing Neural Gas with Competitive Hebbian Learning, generating a graph. From the graph we extract the Laplacian matrix and calculate its spectrum. Both canny edges and Laplacian spectrum are used as features. As a classifier we employ Linear Discriminant Analysis with Bayes' Rule. We apply our method on a published American Sign Language dataset (ten classes) and the results are very promising and further study of this approach is imminent from the authors.


Native starch was extracted from nine germplasm collections of Araucaria angustifolia seeds in aqueous medium and they were characterized by Pasting Properties (RVA), X-ray Powder Diffractometry (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The gelatinization process of each sample was evaluated at different ratios of starch:water by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). A slight displacement in the gelatinization curves was observed for the pinhao starches prepared with different amounts of water.  With an increase in water content, most of the samples presented a decrease in the peak , the conclusion temperatures, and the range of gelatinization temperatures, while the enthalpy did not follow a standard behavior. A displacement or a narrowing of the gelatinization temperature range occurred with increasing water content. Pinhao starch showed pasting temperature in the range of 60-67 °C and there were differences in the pasting properties and degree of relative crystallinity between the analyzed samples. The C-type diffraction pattern was found for all the samples and the morphology of starch granules was similar, with oval and round shapes. Therefore, different characteristics were found among starches from nine germplasm collections, encouraging the protection of the biological diversity of selected species, aiming at future applications.


The predominant concern of developing countries is with their own economic development. While ideology plays an important role in their relations with developed countries and foreign private enterprises, the real issues in contention are exports, the removal of trade barriers, the stabilisation of raw material prices and the rapid acquisition and use of technology. Although the discussion of these issues with developed countries has long been characterised by tension, acrimony and dogmatism, recent events have opened up and sustained a pragmatic dialogue between the developed North and the developing South. In this North-South dialogue, the third world has advocated a new international economic order. Although the institutional developments which characterise the existing international economic order are relatively unaffected by the legal framework this new order is thought to imply, their functioning and objectives have been directly challenged. This paper considers specific aspects of this legal framework as advocated by the third world in the North-South dialogue.


The termination of long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation (LS-pAF) can be achieved by stepwise catheter ablation (step-CA) within the left atrium (LA). Our study aims to applying complexity measures derived from nonlinear time series analysis in order to characterize LS-pAF in terms of organization and to identify patients in whom AF can be terminated from those in whom AF cannot be terminated by step-CA within the LA. A total of 33 consecutive patients (age 61  ±  7 years, sustained AF duration 19  ±  11 months) with LS-pAF underwent step-CA. The organization of right bipolar electrograms before and during the ablation procedure was assessed using the coarse-grained correlation dimension. LS-pAF was terminated into sinus rhythm or atrial tachycardia in 22 patients during step-CA within the LA (left terminated patients—LT). In 11 patients the ablation procedure failed to terminate AF within LA (not left terminated patients—NLT). The statistical analysis of the estimated coarse-grained correlation dimension revealed that a higher right atrial (RA) organization before step-CA was associated to AF termination within the LA. During the ablation procedure, the level of RA organization displayed distinctive evolution between LT and NLT patients with a significant organization increase before AF termination for the LT patients.


This paper illuminates the transformational journey experienced while exploring nursing practice involvement in essential holistic foot care as a Doctor of Nursing Transcultural Nursing (DNP-TCN) practice project. The underlying theoretical framework is based on the relational caring complexity theory by Marilyn A. Ray and Marian C. Turkel, depicting model complexity concepts essential to holistic health and wellness nursing foot cares. As an advanced practice nurse, this practice shift is an assertion of health and wellness essentials in the model of holistic nursing, as foot health is tied to the health of the physical body and spiritual soul of the living. Individual foot care propels complex choices arising from intricately interconnected patterns forming the foundation of our lives as our feet transport us from one moment and one experience to the next. This final practice project aspires to convey the significance of essential holistic nursing foot care, within the culture of nursing, in facilitating a healthy, multidimensional life of an individual. Our feet form the foundation of what transport us from one experience, one paradigm, to the next. 'When we lose any fragment of meaning our feet provide, this influences and confounds every facet of our lives. As aspects of the relational caring complexity theory of Ray and Turkel, outcomes of this journey go beyond basic holistic nursing foot care, shaping the character of this nurse's transition from DNP student into participatory practitioner and novice author.


How is the usefulness of research assessed as university research becomes more and more commodified? The question is addressed through an analysis of how the results of a particular research project were received in a large private company that had provided the main funding for a research project on gender and top management, a project based on poststructuralist approaches. The ways in which the company received the research took many forms. There were differing responses from the organization's human resource staff, the managers and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) depending on their varying interests, hierarchical positions and individual investments in specific organizational moves and individual careers. People in different positions in the organization applied elements from rationalist and constructionist discourses and combined them in ways that were neither coherent nor fixed. The article offers a complex analysis of the many and still shifting forces involved in the recipients' assessments of usefulness. It poses questions for researchers and university management concerning researchers' current working conditions and the protection of research integrity.


Parsing human poses in images is fundamental in extracting critical visual information for artificial intelligent agents. Our goal is to learn self-contained body part representations from images, which we call visual symbols, and their symbolwise geometric contexts in this parsing process. Each symbol is individually learned by categorizing visual features leveraged by geometric information. In the categorization, we use Latent Support Vector Machine followed by an efficient cross validation procedure. Then, these symbols naturally define geometric contexts of body parts in a fine granularity. When the structure of the compositional parts is a tree, we derive an efficient approach to estimating human poses in images. Experiments on two large datasets suggest our approach outperforms state of the art methods.


The current study evaluates the using of finite element modelling as a tool to predict sea loads for high-speed wave
piercing catamarans based on sea trials data. The current sea trials data is for HSV-2 Swift; a 98 meter Incat Seaframe
designed by Revolution Design and configured to U.S. Navy specification. The ship was instrumented with a system of
sensors and data acquisition system to monitor structural response, ship motions, performance, and sea conditions. A
detailed finite element model of a similar vessel was modified to represent the existing ship configuration. A new
methodology is presented to investigate sea loads during trials, and the results from the FE analysis are compared to
trials data. It was found that a direct comparison of strain time histories of trial and finite element analysis, was hard to
achieve. However, the FE RMS strains are in good agreement with trials RMS strains and approached a correlation
coefficient of 95.5% for perfect heads seas condition and 80.2% for head seas with a slight loading asymmetry.


Multiple breast cancer loci have been identified in previous genome-wide association studies, but they were mainly conducted in populations of European ancestry. Women of African ancestry are more likely to have young-onset and oestrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer for reasons that are unknown and understudied. To identify genetic risk factors for breast cancer in women of African descent, we conducted a meta-analysis of two genome-wide association studies of breast cancer; one study consists of 1,657 cases and 2,029 controls genotyped with Illumina's HumanOmni2.5 BeadChip and the other study included 3,016 cases and 2,745 controls genotyped using Illumina Human1M-Duo BeadChip. The top 18,376 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the meta-analysis were replicated in the third study that consists of 1,984 African Americans cases and 2,939 controls. We found that SNP rs13074711, 26.5 Kb upstream of TNFSF10 at 3q26.21, was significantly associated with risk of oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer (odds ratio [OR]=1.29, 95% CI: 1.18-1.40; P = 1.8 × 10 -  8). Functional annotations suggest that the TNFSF10 gene may be involved in breast cancer aetiology, but further functional experiments are needed. In addition, we confirmed SNP rs10069690 was the best indicator for ER-negative breast cancer at 5p15.33 (OR = 1.30; P = 2.4 × 10 -  10) and identified rs12998806 as the best indicator for ER-positive breast cancer at 2q35 (OR = 1.34; P = 2.2 × 10 -  8) for women of African ancestry. These findings demonstrated additional susceptibility alleles for breast cancer can be revealed in diverse populations and have important public health implications in building race/ethnicity-specific risk prediction model for breast cancer.


Conductive thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanocomposites filled with graphene were fabricated and tested for organic vapor sensing. The observed finely dispersed graphene in the TPU matrix benefited from the formation of efficient conductive paths and the generation of stable electrical signals. Organic vapor sensing behaviors of the conductive polymer composites (CPCs) were evaluated using four kinds of organic vapors possessing different polarities (p), including cyclohexane (p = 0.1), tetrachloromethane (CCl4, p = 1.6), ethylacetate (p = 4.3) and acetone (p = 5.4). Unlike conventional CPCs that only respond to certain specific groups of organic vapors, the current CPCs showed a novel negative vapor coefficient (NVC) effect for all tested vapors. This observed NVC was due to both the inherent microphase segregation structure of TPU containing soft and hard segments and the wrinkled structure of graphene. In successive immersion-drying runs (IDRs) at 30 °C, fast response, good reversibility and reproducibility were observed for the non- and low- polar vapors (cyclohexane and CCl4), but residual resistance was observed for polar organic vapors (ethylacetate and acetone) after their desorption. The temperature dependent vapor sensing behaviors indicated that the vapor sensing responsivity increased with increasing the temperature due to higher absorption activation energy at higher temperature. This study provides guidelines for the fabrication of organic vapor sensors using CPCs possessing fast response, good discrimination ability and reproducibility.


Abstract The paper presents the characteristics of surface sediments in a seagrass-dominated environment of the inner shelf of the Pontinian Islands (Tyrrhenian Shelf, Central Mediterranean). The aims of this work are to characterize the carbonate production and sedimentary processes of a representative high-latitude, temperate Posidonia oceanica–dominated area, to discuss the role of seagrass in the siliciclastic–carbonate mixing processes, which provide analogs for interpreting the occurrence and importance of these types of deposits in the rock record. The majority of sediments are poorly sorted siliciclastic skeletal sand. Based on grain type and abundance and carbonate content, these deposits include six subfacies. The different subfacies reflect environmental changes within the seagrass environment associated with variations in light penetration and hydrodynamic conditions. Additionally, the seagrass facies range from purely carbonate to mixed carbonate–siliciclastic, depending on the amount of siliciclastic input and on the capacity of seagrasses to trap allochthonous sediments while hosting carbonate-producing biota. The type of substrate and the erosion and transport processes control the siliciclastic input. In these Pontinian seagrass meadows, sedimentary facies contain abundant siliciclastic grains produced by erosion of the volcanic substrate and trapped by seagrass blades and rhizomes. This Pontinian example illustrates that in heterozoan-dominated seagrass settings, mud-producing green algae are not present or are not calcifying, and consequently, seagrass deposits are much more grainy than photozoan counterparts. Ancient heterozoan tropical seagrass deposits likely will be discriminated from their temperate or subtropical counterparts only by careful taxonomic analysis of skeletal grains.


Genetics is a powerful tool for studying the function of different gene products as well as the physiological consequences of a normal or aberrant polypeptide. Until recently, the most powerful genetic applications have been restricted to relatively simple organisms whose genomes are more easily manipulated. For a number of years, in lower organisms, it has been possible to create defined genetic changes that are targeted to a specific locus or even to a defined codon or transcriptional regulatory sequence. With the development of gene targeting using embryonic stem cells derived from the preimplantation blastocyst of a mouse, it has become possible to extend these experiments to a mammalian system. Via homologous recombination, one can ablate, or "knock out," a defined genetic locus or mutate a particular set of nucleotides that encodes a peptide domain of interest. These techniques, when applied to genes that underlie normal cardiovascular function, promise to define the exact role(s) different proteins play during the development, growth, and maintenance of the heart. The ability to generate defined animal models of human disease in which the primary genetic defect is known should lead to fundamental advances in the study of the normal and failing heart.


Aim. To assess the impact of HIV infection on maternal deaths in South Africa from 2008 to 2010.

Method. Data extracted from the National Committee on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths database of maternal deaths, numbers of births from the District Health Information System (DHIS), and the estimated prevalence of HIV infection in the general population from the antenatal HIV and syphilis surveys were analysed. Estimations of the institutional maternal mortality ratios (iMMRs) for HIV-positive women compared with HIV-negative women and women of unknown status were made for each province and category of underlying cause of disease.

Results. The estimated iMMR for HIV-positive women was 430/100 000 live births and that for HIV-negative women 75/100 000 live births. In all categories of causes of death, the iMMR was increased in HIV-positive women. The major categories of causes of maternal death in HIV-negative women were complications of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (18.8/100 000 live births), obstetric haemorrhage (17.2/100 000 live births) and medical and surgical disorders (11.5/100 000 live births), while in HIV-positive women they were non-pregnancy related infections (NPRIs) (267.3/100 000 live births), obstetric haemorrhage (38.4/100 000 live births) and pregnancy-related sepsis (miscarriages and sepsis following viable pregnancies – 34.1/100 000 live births). The major complications resulting in deaths were shock (38.0%), cardiac failure (31.9%) and respiratory failure.

Tuberculosis (26.9%), community-acquired pneumonia (26.7%) and pneumocystis pneumonia (13.3%), and cryptococcal meningitis (4.2%) and other meningitis (8.7%) were the main underlying causes of death in the NPRI group, of which 87.4% were HIV positive. Complications of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were recorded as the underlying cause of death in 73 women (8.1% of those on HAART).

Conclusion. HIV infection is the most important condition contributing to maternal death in South Africa. HIV-positive women are more likely to die of any underlying cause than HIV-negative women, with NPRI being the most common contributory condition.


The continuous growth of fungal infections, coupled with the increased resistance of many microorganisms towards antifungal compounds, is an alarming health problem and the discovery of new antifungal agents has become a particularly important area of research. Jerangolid D is a potential antifungal agent of major interest. Recently, the first total synthesis of this natural product has been reported by our group. Its structure can be divided into three subunits: a substituted dihydropyran, an unsaturated lactone and a skipped 1,4-diene middle fragment. Our purpose is to operate a series of chemical modifications on these three subunits in order to create a set of new compounds, similar to Jerangolid D, but possessing hopefully enhanced stability, increased activity and lower toxicity. In this thesis, we shall initially describe our efforts towards the synthesis of the substituted dihydropyran. In order to do so, two methodologies have been developed, based upon previous work in our laboratory. The second one gave the best results and enabled access to the desired dihydropyran in 6 operations using an intramolecular silyl modified Sakurai cyclisation (ISMS) as the key step. The same pathway was used to construct new dihydropyrans by modifying the C-C triple bond. With the natural DHP in hand, different modifications were applied to the double bond in order to reach the right-hand fragment of jerangolid B, E and H in which the stereochemistry at C14 was still unknown. Subsequently, we will describe our efforts towards the preparation of the left-hand lactone of jerangolid D as well as a set of new analogues. Finally, we will present some preliminary investigations on the synthesis of new analogues of the central part of these natural products.


After the introduction of information technology (IT), the government needs to take the initiative to start IT projects for the automation of government process to the citizen. Statistics show that a high number of government IT projects fail and only 15 percent e-government projects are successful. In this study, we will answer this research question, what are the reasons for failure of IT projects in the government sector organization in Pakistan and how to overcome these issues? This research was conducted through a literature review, 20 articles from journals and conferences were selected through keywords for the period of ten years from 2003 to 2013. For suggestions, we have followed the same structured search procedure. We found and select articles with our keywords, after reading abstract and conclusion. Our study has described four factors for the failure of IT projects in government sector organizations in Pakistan. These factors are Technology, Management, Politics and Finance. The technology factor can be reduced by providing latest ICT infrastructure with an expert to run and maintain it. Management issues can be resolved by hiring an experienced, skilled and highly motivated project manager to complete a project successfully. Government should make new laws and regulations to help the implementation of these projects and bureaucracy should eliminate any power struggle during and after the implementation. The budget should be allocated before the start of the project to complete it on time. Our research study has provided guidelines to policy makers for automation of government organizations in Pakistan. By considering these suggestions, successful government projects can be achieved.


Background : Excitotoxins are a class of substances usually amino acids or their derivatives that normally act as neurotransmitters in brain but in excessive amounts lead to over excitation of neurons leading to a state of exhaustion & death. Over 70 types of excitotoxins have been identified so far and many have a free access to our body in form of taste enhancing food additives like monosodium glutamate, aspartame, sodium casienate etc. They have been implicated for the development of a wide variety of neurological disorders like Alzheimer`s disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and even for early ageing. Objective: The purpose of this review is to sort out truth about extent of involvement of excitotoxins in neurodegeneration from the massive propaganda against them wherein they have been implicated in almost all disorders of unknown etiology. Method: A comprehensive search strategy was developed incorporating both the peer reviewed, non peer reviewed literature and electronic databases like Medline. These were scrutinized and relevant research papers were examined. Conclusion : There is considerable evidence based research pertaining to the neurodegenerative effect of excitotoxins to the human brain. Yet the autonomous food regulating bodies like FDA refuse to recognize the immediate and long term danger to the public caused by the use of such excitotoxic food additives. Thus only means of protecting oneself from such type of neurological damage is to consume only unprocessed, fresh, whole, organic foodstuffs.


The Eurozone economic crisis, which began in 2008, has had far reaching and destructive effects on the future of Europe, its trading partners and the global economic system as a whole. In order to begin to understand the implications it has had on the future of Europe as a whole it is important to look at why different member countries suffered such divergent repercussions. This research seeks to explain this divergence by focusing on the experiences of Germany and France and comparing them to one another. The question to be answered is why has there been such a difference in economic success and recovery between the economies of France and Germany since the crisis? The ultimate answer to this question is that Germany and France were subject to six factors: 1) the use of an export -manufacturing development model; 2) the timing and nature of the economic reforms implemented by each state; 3) the orientation of the countries policies being in favor of national or Union interests; 4) the economic and political status of each state within the region; 5) the identity of major export partners; 6) the amount of capital flow into the state. Using both quantitative and qualitative data to study these factors we find not only the reasons behind Germany's economic success, but also some of the potential future possibilities of the Eurozone and of European integration plans as a whole. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Political Science First Advisor Nitya Singh, Ph.D. Second Advisor Jeffrey Bernstein, Ph.D.


Good establishment of urban transportation network in proportion to residential zones is an important element in urban planning. Increasing urban network has both positive (accessibility) and negative (air pollution) impacts. Accessibility and air quality are chosen as key elements with respect to their critical roles in quality of life and environmental impacts. A spatial and mathematical model is useful to find the effective functions and activities on accessibility and air quality. Also, it has capability to assign quantitative values to these functions. The overall objective of this study is to develop a decision support tool to plan appropriate locations for residential landuses and urban transportation network development through the use of spatial technologies to address two issues - accessibility and air quality.
Methodology of this study helps to select suitable sites for development of urban transportation network and residential zones. Petaling Jaya, a developing city in Selangor, Malaysia has been chosen as a case study. This method can explain the linkage between accessibility and air quality. It covers the optimum accessibility from residential to commercial and administrative area along reducing air quality. There are two main focuses in this method: definition of the optimum distance between residential zones and roads based on mathematical model, and definition of the optimum location of residential zones in proportion to urban transportation network. In this method, calibration of a complex mathematical spatial decision support model for air pollution monitoring and quantitative interpretation of urban accessibility explores and arranges important criteria such as traffic volume, wind speed, and travel time which could be interpreted to predict suitable landuses and urban networks location in quantitative framework.
The main finding of this research is a mathematical model, with about 90% accuracy, can be applied for the study area to find optimum distance from roads to avoid air pollution. Exploring potential locations for residential land use development as series of suitability maps to show current suitable and potential locations for future development is another finding of this research. Series of maps and quantitative parameters analyzed to find some area with good accessibility and air quality. The results show 66 % of study area has good accessibility and 20% of study area has potential for air pollution. The potential polluted areas are mostly located in residential landuse. Combination of accessible and non polluted areas with vacant lands and current residence areas show that 60% of current residential area are allocated in good accessible and air quality locations and with current transport network, 8% of study area has potential to develop for future. Also, there is a need to re-design of transportation networks and landuses for future development of residential zones. The spatial scenario planning framework developed in this research is an example of an effective integrated decision-making framework.
This research has successfully managed to develop a scientifically based approach to convert conceptual configuration of non polluted and accessible areas into strategic locations using geospatial technology. Modeling for emitted air pollution by transportation, interpretation of transportation accessibility and analyzing the successful and non-successful current and future development has provided an efficient spatial approach for urban planning. It is hoped that this mathematical and spatial based approach can be employed in transportation planning and residential landuse suitability assessment at both the local and structure plan levels.


Abstract This paper presents a framework for analysing which households are doing 'their bit' for sustainability in an era of climate change, using a two-stage cluster analysis of sustainable household capabilities. The framework segments households by their reported level of commitment to 'pro-sustainability' practices common to conventional government policies. Results are presented from a large-scale survey of Wollongong households, New South Wales, Australia. Results illustrate the importance of approaching household sustainability through everyday practices. Attention is drawn to the wide variation in participation in specific household sustainability practices. Investigation into sustainable household capability by household segments shows the limits of even the most committed households. Results show the importance of socio-cultural contexts in differentiating sustainable household capabilities—with women, suburban-detached households and lower income segments of the population ultimately doing most of the work of being sustainable.


1. Differential Perception of Environmental Light by Phytochromes M. Furuya. 2. Functions and Actions of Arabidopsis phytochromes K.J. Halliday, et al. 3. Signal Transduction in Photomorphogenesis: Intracellular Partitioning of Factors and Photoreceptors E. Schafer, et al. 4. Molecular Genetic Analysis of Constitutively Photomorphogenic Mutants of Arabidopsis J.P. Khurana, et al. 5. Cytosolic pH as a Secondary Messenger During Light Activation of Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxylase in Mesophyll Cells of C4 Plants Ch.B. Rao, et al. 6. A Role for Ectoapyrases and Extracellular ATP in Plant Growth and Development S.J. Roux, et al. 7. Auxin- and GTP-binding Proteins and Protein Kinases from the Protonema of the Moss Funaria hygrometrica M.M. Johri, et al. 8. Myoinositol Phosphates as Implicated in Metabolic Signaling and Calcium Homeostasis in Plants S. Dasgupta, et al. 9. The Phosphoinositide (PI) Pathway and Signaling in Plants I.Y. Perera, et al. 10. Phytochrome Signal Transduction in Cucumber Cotyledons D. Vidal, et al. 11. Calcium, Calmodulin and Phosphoinositides in Leaflet Movements Mediated by Phytochrome: Nyctinastic and rhythmic movements L. Moysset, et al. 12. Calmodulin and Plant Responses to the Environment: Modulation of Plant Tolerance to Toxic Metals by a Plasma Membrane Calcium/Calmodulin Binding Channel R. Sunkar, et al. 13. Calcium Signaling: Downstream Components in Plants G.K. Paney, et al. 14. Apoplast Calmodulin: The Identification, Functions andTransmembrane Mechanism D. Sun, L. Ma. 15. CDPKs in Plant Signaling Networks: Progress in Research on a Groundnut CDPK M. Das Dupta, S. Chaudhuri. 16. The Function of the Maize CRINKLY4 Receptor-like Kinase in a Growth Factor Like Signaling System P.W. Becraft, et al. 17. Novel Calcium/Calmodulin-modulated Proteins: Chimeric Protein Kinase and Small Auxin Up Regulated RNA B.W. Poovaiah, et al. 18. A Novel Ca2+/CaM-regulated Microtubule Motor Protein from Plants: Role in Trichome Morphogenesis and Cell Division A.S.N. Reddy. 19. Progress Towards the Identification of Cytokinin Receptors R. Hooley. 20. Salicylic Acid- and Nitric Oxide-Mediated Signal Transduction In Disease Resistance D.F. Klessig, et al. 21. Involvement of ROS and Caspase-like Proteases During Cell Death Induction by Plant Pathogens: Signaling in Plant Cell Death E. Lam, et al. 22. The Role of HSF in Heat Shock Signal Transduction and Heat Shock Response in Plants R. Prandl, et al. 23. Towards Understanding the Recognition and Signal Transduction Processes in the Soybean-Phytophthora Sojae Interaction M.K. Bhattacharyya, et al. 24. Elements of Signal Transduction Involed in Thylakoid Membrane Dynamics P. Weber, et al. 25. Novel Aspects in Photosynthesis Gene Regulation R. Oelmuller, et al. 26. Regulation of rDNA Transcription in Spinach Plastids by Transcription Factor CDF2 S. Lerbes-Mache. 27. Plastid Ribosome Biogenesis During the Early Steps of Chloroplast Differentiation: Elements Controlling the Activation of Nuclear Genes Encoding Plastid Ribosomal Proteins R.


The Late Permian Emeishan large igneous province (ELIP) is considered to be one of the best examples of a mantle plume derived large igneous province. One of the primary observations that favour a mantle plume regime is the presence of ultramafic volcanic rocks. The picrites suggest primary mantle melts erupted and that mantle potential temperatures (TP) of the ELIP were > 200oC above ambient mantle conditions. However, they may represent a mixture of liquid and cumulus olivine and pyroxene rather than primary liquids. Consequently, temperature estimates based on the picrite compositions may not be accurate. Here we calculate mantle potential temperature (TP) estimates and primary liquids compositions using PRIMELT3 for the low-Ti (Ti/Y < 500) Emeishan basalt as they represent definite liquid compositions. The calculated TP yield a range from ~1400oC to ~1550oC, which is consistent with variability across a mantle plume axis. The primary melt compositions of the basalts are mostly picritic. The results of this study indicate that the Emeishan basalt was produced by a high temperature regime and that a few of the ultramafic volcanic rocks may be indicative of primary liquids.


In a time of rapid change, when global forces are re-shaping the ability of ordinary people to influence the decisions which affect their lives, social change practitioners are challenged to learn new skills and competences, and to develop their capacities for learning through critical reflection on action. Drawing on two international dialogues, and linking to the authors' perceptions of the fault-lines that underlie some elements of higher education, the article explores learning needs for action researchers who aspire to promote participation as a key element of social change. The article presents the story of an innovative masters teaching programme within which action research is central to the overall learning process. Highlighting key challenges and also some unanticipated learning outcomes in regard to personal inquiry into identity, relationships, positionality and power, the article highlights issues relating to teaching and learning methods of reflective practice, bridging the personal and political and linking individual to systemic change.


Recently there has been an increased interest in the development of kernel methods for learning with sequential data. The truncated signature kernel is a new learning tool designed to handle irregularly sampled, multidimensional data streams. In this article we consider the untruncated signature kernel and show that for paths of bounded variation it is the solution of a Goursat problem. This linear hyperbolic PDE only depends on the increments of the input sequences, doesn't require the explicit computation of signatures and can be solved using any PDE numerical solver; it is a kernel trick for the untruncated signature kernel. In addition, we extend the analysis to the space of geometric rough paths, and establish using classical results from stochastic analysis that the rough version of the untruncated signature kernel solves a rough integral equation analogous to the Goursat problem for the bounded variation case. Finally we empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of this kernel in two data science applications: multivariate time-series classification and dimensionality reduction.


Girls with MLS syndrome have microphthalmia with linear skin defects of face and neck, sclerocornea, corpus callosum agenesis and other brain anomalies. This X-linked dominant, male-lethal condition is associated with heterozygous deletions of a critical region in Xp22.31, from the 5' untranslated region of MID1 at the telomeric boundary to the ARHGAP6 gene at the centromeric boundary. HCCS, encoding human holocytochrome c-type synthetase, is the only gene located entirely inside the critical region. Because single gene analysis is not feasible in MLS patients (all have deletions), we generated a deletion of the equivalent region in the mouse to study the molecular basis of this syndrome. This deletion inactivates mouse Hccs, whose homologs in lower organisms (cytochrome c or c1 heme lyases) are essential for function of cytochrome c or c1 in the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Ubiquitous deletions generated in vivo lead to lethality of hemizygous, homozygous and heterozygous embryos early in development. This lethality is rescued by expression of the human HCCS gene from a transgenic BAC, resulting in viable homozygous, heterozygous and hemizygous deleted mice with no apparent phenotype. In the presence of the HCCS transgene, the deletion is easily transmitted to subsequent generations. We did obtain a single heterozygous deleted female that does not express human HCCS, which is analogous to the low prevalence of the heterozygous MLS deletion in humans. Through the study of these genetically engineered mice we demonstrate that loss of HCCS causes the male lethality of MLS syndrome.


Introduction: The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences between irrigant replacement in the positive and negative pressure irrigation systems regarding root canal cleaning efficacy. Methods and Materials: A total of 27 extracted single-root mandibular premolars with 18-20 mm root canal length were decoronated and equally divided into three groups (n=9) based on the irrigation system used: positive irrigation with side-vented needle as the control group (C), positive irrigation with an open-ended needle as the first group (T1) and negative irrigation as the second group (T2). The root canals were irrigated with 2.5% NaOCl between each instrumentation, followed by a final irrigation with 5 mL of sterile distilled water. The irrigation replacements were monitored by means of computational fluid dynamic (CFD), while a scanning electrone microscope (SEM) was used to observe the smear layers and plug evaluations after the teeth had been sectioned longitudinally and buccolingually halves subsequently cut in apical third area. The result was analyzed using the Kruskal Wallis, Mann Whitney and Spearman correlation tests. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Result: Irrigant replacement in the negative pressure irrigation system tends to produce a greater effect in reaching the apical end compared to in the positive pressure irrigation system. This resulted in significantly superior smear layer removal in the apical third area (P<0.05). Conclusion: The irrigation solution exchange of the negative pressure irrigation system is more capable of reaching the apical end compared to the positive pressure irrigation system, resulting in a higher sanitation level in the apical third of the root canal.


We present an algorithm that jointly determines the optimal downlink beamformers and the optimal assignment of each mobile to a base station. The optimality criterion is based on a systems perspective; provide sufficient quality of service for all users, transmitting as little excess power as possible. Since the algorithm is centralized and requires knowledge about all the channels in the system, it may be infeasible in a practical implementation. However, it provides the ultimate benchmark in system evaluations. Numerical examples show substantial gain compared to ordinary base station assignment.


From 16 sediment samples collected from the Chilean part of the Strait of Magellan, 2338 Ostracoda were recovered. These represent 61 species belonging to 45 genera and 16 families. Previous work in the Tierra del Fuego Province has shown the faunas to be highly endemic, resulting from the relative isolation of the region and its particular climatic and oceanographical characteristics. The fauna of the Strait of Magellan is similar to those previously described with one notable exception: the occurrence of deep-water, psychrospheric species at shallow depths. Species of Bradleya, Agrenocythere, Poseidonamicus, Bythoceratina, and Legitimocythere, usually recorded from bathyal to abyssal depths of more than 1000 m, were found together in the same samples with a typical, shelf fauna. Such unusual depth distribution of psychrospheric species may have resulted from the extremely cold temperature and low salinity of the water in the southern Strait of Magellan, coupled with the upwelling of cold, deep water masses.


Abstract
Background: The extension, in September 2005, of free bus and tram travel in London to people 12-16 years of age and, in September 2006, to people under 18 years is likely to have had a range of impacts with implications for public health. The 'On the Buses' project aims to evaluate these impacts using a mixed method quasi-experimental design. This paper describes the protocol for the analyses of quantitative data for the study.
Methods/Design: Analyses will be based on routine travel survey and injury data for London, and will primarily entail comparison of pre-intervention to post-intervention change in the target age-group (12-17 years) against the corresponding change in people aged 25-59 years. The main outcome measures will include frequency and distance of all travel, and of active travel; frequency of independent travel, bus use; percentage of journeys <1 km travelled by mode; incidence of road injury, and of intentional injury. We will use conditional fixed-effects Poisson models.
Discussion: This quantitative study is part of a larger evaluation which draws on qualitative data, economic evaluation and literature reviews to describe the effect of free bus travel for young people on public health. It will also contribute to methodological development in relation to causal attribution in the absence of controlled experimental evidence, and in the use of routine data sets for assessing the effect of interventions on public health.