The relationship between podcasting and radio

There has long been the notion that radio is an adaptable medium; one which has constantly shifting boundaries, definitions, forms and technologies. As Jo Tacchi notes in her pioneering article in 2000 "Radio can be said to have certain characteristics, but the evidence suggests that radio is that history says it is: it has no essence since it has already taken, and continues to take, different forms" (p292). In that framework it would seem logical and appropriate to refer to audio work distributed on demand via internet as radio. Indeed, many podcasts not only sound like radio programmes, but are radio programmes that have been remediated in the podcast space. All of this points to podcasting being radio; offering further proof of radio's adaptability. However, we are now fully immersed in what Tizano Bonini has called a 'Second Age of Podcasting'; an age where the podcast space has become professionalised and commercialised. Today podcasters in Europe and the USA hold regular conferences to share ideas, learn new skills, and promote their work. Rather than being a form of radio, independent podcasting has developed its own cultures, practices and auditory styles. In this paper I intend to argue that whilst podcasting retains a place in the radio and audio business, it is time for us to consider it on its own terms. Whilst successful podcasts such as "Start-Up" (Gimlet Media) sound a lot like traditional forms of broadcast radio, productions such as "Distractions Pieces" or "My Dad Wrote a Porno" would sound distinctly out of place in a modern radio schedule. By reflecting on podcastness we can perhaps reach new understandings and concepts of what podcasting is, whilst at the same time recognises the inherent differences between the medium of radio and the business of radio. It is time to explore that key relationship between radio and podcasting and wonder in doing so do we risk losing sight of what each form does best, and who wins we when call podcasts radio?

Bonini T (2015) The 'second age' of podcasting: reframing podcasting as a new digital mass medium. Quaderns del CAC 41 18(July): 21–30.
Tacchi J (2000) The need for radio theory in the digital age. International Journal of Cultural Studies 3(2): 289–298.


Abstract. When a wind turbine operates above the rated wind speed, the blade pitch may be governed by a basic single-input–single-output PI controller, with the shaft speed as input. The performance of the wind turbine depends upon the tuning of the gains and filters of this controller. Rules of thumb, based upon pole placement, with a rigid model of the rotor, are inadequate for tuning the controller of large, flexible, offshore wind turbines. It is shown that the appropriate controller tuning is highly dependent upon the characteristics of the aeroelastic model: no single reference controller can be defined for use with all models. As an example, the ubiquitous National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 5 MW wind turbine controller is unstable when paired with a fully flexible aeroelastic model. A methodical search is conducted, in order to find models with a minimum number of degrees of freedom, which can be used to tune the controller for a fully flexible aeroelastic model; this can be accomplished with a model containing 16–20 states. Transient aerodynamic effects, representing rotor-average properties, account for five of these states. A simple method is proposed to reduce the full transient aerodynamic model, and the associated turbulent wind spectra, to the rotor average. Ocean waves are also an important source of loading; it is recommended that the shaft speed signal be filtered such that wave-driven tower side-to-side vibrations do not appear in the PI controller output. An updated tuning for the NREL 5 MW controller is developed using a Pareto front technique. This fixes the instability and gives good performance with fully flexible aeroelastic models.


This paper describes a method for the determination of carbon content of all grades of steel, utilizing a modern direct reading emission spectrometer and a single calibration curve. The normal errors present when applying steels such as Hadfield's manganese steel and chromium bearing stainless steels to a curve prepared from plain carbon low alloy standard, were investigated and found to be entirely dependent upon the manganese and chromium contents of the sample. The coefficient of variation, after correction for manganese and chromium, was found to be 2% at the 2.0% carbon level increasing to 3.7% at the 0.030% carbon level in extra low carbon stainless steels.


This paper describes an autonomous wireless system that generates road safety alerts, in the form of SMS and email messages, and sends them to motorists subscribed to the service. Drivers who regularly traverse a particular route are the main beneficiaries of the proposed system, which is intended for sparsely populated rural areas, where information available to drivers about road safety, especially bridge conditions, is very limited. At the heart of this system is the SmartBrick, a wireless system for remote structural health monitoring that has been presented in our previous work. Sensors on the SmartBrick network regularly collect data on water level, temperature, strain, and other parameters important to safety of a bridge. This information is stored on the device, and reported to a remote server over the GSM cellular infrastructure. The system generates alerts indicating hazardous road conditions when the data exceeds thresholds that can be remotely changed. The remote server and any number of designated authorities can be notified by email, FTP, and SMS. Drivers can view road conditions and subscribe to SMS and/or email alerts through a web page. The subscription-only form of alert generation has been deliberately selected to mitigate privacy concerns. The proposed system can significantly increase the safety of travel through rural areas. Real-time availability of information to transportation authorities and law enforcement officials facilitates early or proactive reaction to road hazards. Direct notification of drivers further increases the utility of the system in increasing the safety of the traveling public.


The decline of cortical functions with age occurs not only in humans but also in monkeys. Degradation of intracortical inhibition may underlie these declines. Leventhal et al. tested this hypothesis by applying either γ-amino-butyric acid (GABA) or GABA receptor agonists directly on neurons in the primary visual cortex of old macaque monkeys. This treatment improved orientation and direction selectivity to visual stimuli in neurons of aged monkeys, but not in young ones. A. G. Leventhal, Y. Wang, M. Pu, Y. Zhou, Y. Ma, GABA and its agonists improved visual cortical function in senescent monkeys. Science 300, 812-815 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Comparative osteological analyses of extant organisms provide key insight into major evolutionary transitions and phylogenetic hypotheses. This is especially true for snakes, given their unique morphology relative to other squamates and the persistent controversy regarding their evolutionary origins. However, the osteology of several major snake groups remains undescribed, thus hindering efforts to accurately reconstruct the phylogeny of snakes. One such group is the Atractaspididae, a family of fossorial colubroids. We herein present the first detailed description of the atractaspidid skull, based on fully segmented micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) scans of Atractaspis irregularis. The skull of Atractaspis presents a highly unique morphology influenced by both fossoriality and paedomorphosis. This paedomorphosis is especially evident in the jaws, palate, and suspensorium, the major elements associated with macrostomy (large‐gaped feeding in snakes). Comparison to scolecophidians—a group of blind, fossorial, miniaturized snakes—in turn sheds light on current hypotheses of snake phylogeny. Features of both the naso‐frontal joint and the morphofunctional system related to macrostomy refute the traditional notion that scolecophidians are fundamentally different from alethinophidians (all other extant snakes). Instead, these features support the controversial hypothesis of scolecophidians as "regressed alethinophidians," in contrast to their traditional placement as the earliest‐diverging snake lineage. We propose that Atractaspis and scolecophidians fall along a morphological continuum, characterized by differing degrees of paedomorphosis. Altogether, a combination of heterochrony and miniaturization provides a mechanism for the derivation of the scolecophidian skull from an ancestral fossorial alethinophidian morphotype, exemplified by the nonminiaturized and less extreme paedomorph Atractaspis.


The Ecstasy and Related Drugs Reporting System (EDRS) is conducted every year in the capital city of every state and territory in Australia. Interviews are conducted with people from the general population who regularly use ecstasy and other illicit psychostimulant drugs. The EDRS is designed to identify emerging trends among a sentinel group of drug users, and to inform the health and law enforcement sectors about patterns of drug use, drug markets, relevant health issues and other special areas of interest. This report presents major findings for Queensland in 2017.


Chronic stress is a trigger for several psychiatric disorders, including depression; however, critical individual differences in resilience to both the behavioral and the neurochemical effects of stress have been reported. A prominent mechanism by which the brain reacts to acute and chronic stress is activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, which is inhibited by the hippocampus via a polysynaptic circuit. Alterations in secretion of stress hormones and levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus were implicated in depression and the effects of antidepressant medications. However, the potential role of hippocampal BDNF in behavioral resilience to chronic stress and in the regulation of the HPA axis has not been evaluated. In the present study, Sprague Dawley rats were subjected to 4 weeks of chronic mild stress (CMS) to induce depressive-like behaviors after lentiviral vectors were used to induce localized BDNF overexpression or knockdown in the hippocampus. The behavioral outcome was measured during 3 weeks after the CMS procedure, then plasma samples were taken for measurements of corticosterone levels, and finally hippocampal tissue was taken for BDNF measurements. We found that hippocampal BDNF expression plays a critical role in resilience to chronic stress and that reduction of hippocampal BDNF expression in young, but not adult, rats induces prolonged elevations in corticosterone secretion. The present study describes a mechanism for individual differences in responses to chronic stress and implicates hippocampal BDNF in the development of neural circuits that control adequate stress adaptations.


The Internet is a relatively new technology that has developed explosively during the last 10 years. The Internet-technology has been accepted rapidly by users, but the legal and ethical aspects have not been updated at the same rapid rate. Trust in electronic services or products is founded on knowledge and an understanding of what happens during a session and of the effects that might occur. Within electronically based services there are obvious risks for invisible and undesired results such as intrusions on privacy. In the traditional relationship of a service provider and a user, the question of privacy is clear, whereas in the new, Internet-related relationship between a service provider and a user, it is not. We have performed an informed survey concerning privacy, carried out through interviews. From the answers in the interviews it is clear that the threat against privacy is perceived as a problem, but that it is overshadowed by other issues such as safe conducts of payment, functioning distribution systems and reclamation etc. This could be due to the difficulty of addressing an intangible problem such as privacy when there are other issues that are as important and easier to address since they concern an actual purchase. To increase the trust of the users in the Internet and e-commerce branch, we believe that the Internet peephole needs to be plugged from within the branch. A user should neither have to worry about where his or her personal information goes or who has access to it nor for which purpose it will be used. The users must be made aware of what threats their information faces and which certificates that can protect it. If the providers of products and services on the Internet do not gain the trust of the users, in the end, cyberspace will be a desolate place.


The manipulation of different kinds of content is fundamental to working memory. It has been suggested that the mere maintenance of color and spatial information occurs in parallel, but little is known about whether this holds true for manipulation as well. Using a dual-task delayed-response paradigm that required the manipulation of color and angles, this study finds that the two functions do not interfere. Conversely, interference did occur when both components of a dual-task tapped into the spatial system. Thus, color and spatial information are manipulated in parallel. A concurrent phonological task did not interfere with either maintenance or manipulation, whereas a task requiring central executive processes interfered with manipulation only. We speculate that the ventraldorsal dissociation of visual processing is conserved for manipulation processes and that manipulation differs from maintenance in the extent to which is relies on central executive resources.


In this study, hemoglobin, serum ferritin, serum transferrin, transferrin saturation, serum iron and total iron-binding capacity were measured in venous blood taken from 52 primiparous mothers approximately one hour before delivery and in cord blood from their newborns after birth. The mean maternal serum ferritin level was 12.9 +/- 8.9 ng/ml. This value was lower than that of healthy women. The mean serum ferritin level of cord blood was 103.0 +/- 54.1 ng/ml. While we found no correlation between maternal and cord blood hemoglobin values, we observed a significant positive correlation between serum ferritin values in maternal and cord blood. Only the serum ferritin levels of mothers whose iron stores had been depleted were significantly reflected in their babies' levels (p < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in other parameters (p > 0.05). It is concluded that serum ferritin levels, which are affected earlier than hemoglobin levels, should be measured for the diagnosis of occult iron deficiency.


[1] Traditionally the calibration equation for pyranometers assumes that the measured solar irradiance is solely proportional to the thermopile's output voltage; therefore, only a single calibration factor is derived. This causes additional measurement uncertainties because it does not capture sufficient information to correctly account for a pyranometer's thermal effect. In our updated calibration equation, temperatures from the pyranometer's dome and case are incorporated to describe the instrument's thermal behavior, and a new set of calibration constants are determined, thereby reducing measurement uncertainties. In this paper, we demonstrate why a pyranometer's uncertainty using the traditional calibration equation is always larger than a few percent, but with the new approach can become much less than 1% after the thermal issue is resolved. The highlighted calibration results are based on NIST traceable light sources under controlled laboratory conditions. The significance of the new approach lends itself to not only avoiding the uncertainty caused by a pyranometer's thermal effect but also the opportunity to better isolate and characterize other instrumental artifacts, such as angular response and nonlinearity of the thermopile, to further reduce additional uncertainties. We also discuss some of the implications, including an example of how the thermal issue can potentially impact climate studies by evaluating aerosol's direct radiative effect using field measurements with and without considering the pyranometer's thermal effect. The results of radiative transfer model simulation show that a pyranometer's thermal effect on solar irradiance measurements at the surface can be translated into a significant alteration of the calculated distribution of solar energy inside the column atmosphere.


With an aging population and the consequent increasing use of medical implants, managing the possible infections arising from implant surgery remains a global challenge. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that a precise nanotopology provides an effective intervention in bacterial cocolonization enabling the proliferation of eukaryotic cells on a substratum surface, preinfected by both live Gram-negative, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Gram-positive, Staphylococcus aureus, pathogenic bacteria. The topology of the model black silicon (bSi) substratum not only favors the proliferation of eukaryotic cells but is biocompatible, not triggering an inflammatory response in the host. The attachment behavior and development of filopodia when COS-7 fibroblast cells are placed in contact with the bSi surface are demonstrated in the dynamic study, which is based on the use of real-time sequential confocal imaging. Bactericidal nanotopology may enhance the prospect for further development of inherently responsive antibacterial nanomaterials for bionic applications such as prosthetics and implants.


This study examined the professional development needs and experiences of secondary principals in southwestern Pennsylvania. Professional development for principals has become critical as school leaders have been challenged by the need to create a school culture that helps prepare students for a global society and concurrently meets the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001). School leaders need to experience relevant, sustained, job-embedded, instructionally focused professional development in order to successfully lead their schools and students into the 21st century. The purpose of this study was to determine the professional development needs of secondary principals, what their preferred delivery method was for this professional development, what types of professional development initiatives they have participated in throughout the region, and if these all align and support one another. A questionnaire based on the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards, the Balanced Leadership Study responsibilities (Waters, et al., 2003), and the Pennsylvania administrative standards was designed and used to investigate the secondary principals' perspectives in relation to these needs and preferences for learning. Based on the findings of this study, the top five professional development needs of secondary principals in the southwestern Pennsylvania region include analyzing data, communicating effectively, using research and "best practices", building team commitment, developing information and data collection strategies. Coaching was the overall preferred delivery method for professional development for the secondary principals surveyed, followed by the method of mentoring. Many of the initiatives across the region were viewed as providing effective professional development in areas of need identified in the survey. Additionally, many principals recognized the importance of having professional development experiences that allow for professional reflection and collaboration with other administrators, as well as those that were focused on best instructional practices to improve student achievement. The findings of this study can be used to help providers of professional development design learning experiences for principals that address their stated needs through their preferred delivery method. It also offers Pennsylvania's Department of Education a secondary principal's perspective on some of the initiatives across the region. In light of current legislation that addresses principal professional development, the findings may offer some insight into how these initiatives can help support the current Pennsylvania Inspired Leadership (PIL) legislation.


The detailed microfacies analysis on a stratigraphic section located in eastern Durango contribute to the paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic understanding of the Cupido and Coahuila carbonate platforms in the southern part of the Coahuila basement block, a poorly investigated area. The stratigraphic section herein studied spans the Barremian-Albian interval and is composed of the upper Cupido, La Pena and Upper Tamaulipas formations. The recognition of this latter unit in the eastern part of the Durango state is a significant contribution to the stratigraphic scheme of the southern part of the Sierra del Rosario. The studied interval of the Cupido Formation is represented by different microfacies associations: 1) peritidal and subtidal facies deposited in a shallow lagoon. In these facies, an important microbial contribution and high energy events are recognized; 2) sand bars facies accumulated on the platform margin. Interaction of these facies with sea level fluctuations caused different levels of restriction and periodic flooding in the platform interior; 3) platform margin and fore-reef facies. The microfacies associations of the La Pena Formation were deposited on the periplatform zone in an outer neritic to upper bathyal environment. The microfacies associations of the upper part of the La Pena Formation and those belonging to the Upper Tamaulipas Formation are typical of open marine and relatively deep-water conditions. The microfacies have been divided according to their relation with the different phases of the Cupido Platform drowning. The definitive drowning phase began in the early Aptian when the sea level rose over the sand shoals on the platform margin. An increase in the crinoid content and a mixture of lagoonal and open marine biota are characteristics of the drowning phase at the end of the Cupido Formation deposition. The microfacies associations within the lower part of the La Pena Formation recorded the definitive drowning of the platform and an environmental stress that accentuated this event. Post-drowning facies in the upper part of the La Pena Formation and throughout the Upper Tamaulipas Formation are represented by pelagic facies deposited in an open marine environment with significant oxygen variations in the water-sediment interface. The sand shoals facies described in the Cupido Formation correspond to the western continuation of the Barremian-Aptian Cupido Platform margin.


This study determined the effects of a single sled push at different loads on sprint performance in competitive male soccer players. Twenty male competitive outfield soccer players (age 19.6±1.3y, body mass 73.6±8.2kg) were split into experimental (n=10) and control groups. In the experimental group, 20m linear sprint time was measured immediately before and 5, 6 and 7minutes after the sled push with either 50 or 100% body mass. The control group performed the 20m sprints only. A repeated measures ANOVA comparing control and experimental groups revealed no effects of time, group or time by group interaction for either experimental condition (all P>0.05). The repeated measures ANOVA compared the experimental conditions revealed effects of time (P=0.034) and group (P=0.002), but not time by group (P>0.05). The effects sizes demonstrated within group effects on sprint time that were small to moderate (-0.26 to 0.71) and trivial to small (-0.31 to 0.09) for the 50% and 100% body mass condition, respectively. These findings demonstrate that a sled push has no significant effect on 20 m sprint time in competitive footballers. If coaches continue to prescribed a sled push before sprinting, a single 15 m push with 50% body mass could have positive benefits.


The preferences of users are important in route search and planning. For example, when a user plans a trip within a city, their preferences can be expressed as keywords shopping mall, restaurant, and museum, with weights 0.5, 0.4, and 0.1, respectively. The resulting route should best satisfy their weighted preferences. In this paper, we take into account the weighted user preferences in route search, and present a keyword coverage problem, which finds an optimal route from a source location to a target location such that the keyword coverage is optimized and that the budget score satisfies a specified constraint. We prove that this problem is NP-hard. To solve this complex problem, we propose an optimal route search based on an A* variant for which we have defined an admissible heuristic function. The experiments conducted on real-world datasets demonstrate both the efficiency and accuracy of our proposed algorithms.


Online learning is a significant aspect of higher education today, with an ever increasing number of programs offering distance education. The evidence related to online teaching and learning best practice has grown significantly within the last decade. It is important for health care educators who are involved with web-based courses to be immersed in the evidence available to date, as we seek to provide sound andragogy in formulating and implementing online programs. This document will explore key evidence related to three different aspects of online teaching and learning. Application of teaching/learning theories and recommendations for best practices in this arena of higher education are essential.


Two-factor authentication is widely used by high-value services to prevent adversaries from compromising accounts using stolen credentials. Facebook has recently released a two-factor authentication mechanism, referred to as Social Authentication, which requires users to identify some of their friends in randomly selected photos. A recent study has provided a formal analysis of social authentication weaknesses against attackers inside the victim's social circles. In this paper, we extend the threat model and study the attack surface of social authentication in practice, and show how any attacker can obtain the information needed to solve the challenges presented by Facebook. We implement a proof-of-concept system that utilizes widely available face recognition software and cloud services, and evaluate it using real public data collected from Facebook. Under the assumptions of Facebook's threat model, our results show that an attacker can obtain access to (sensitive) information for at least 42% of a user's friends that Facebook uses to generate social authentication challenges. By relying solely on publicly accessible information, a casual attacker can solve 22% of the social authentication tests in an automated fashion, and gain a significant advantage for an additional 56% of the tests, as opposed to just guessing. Additionally, we simulate the scenario of a determined attacker placing himself inside the victim's social circle by employing dummy accounts. In this case, the accuracy of our attack greatly increases and reaches 100% when 120 faces per friend are accessible by the attacker, even though it is very accurate with as little as 10 faces.


During the 21st century, businesses benefit from two key components of effective innovation: social media and collaboration. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis to study the interrelatedness of these components. Featured in this chapter are classroom exercises to deepen the learning of students. By providing multiple recent social media examples, the reality of the integral ways in which social media permeates our lives is delivered. Introduced in the chapter is a sixth discipline, an extension of Senge's five disciplines of collaboration. Through the presentation of a new leadership model based upon the six disciplines, the impact of social media is examined. The conclusion of the chapter contains definitions of the concepts introduced. The use of social media has been and still remains a strategically keen tool in business effectiveness.*


The imputation of missing values in time series has many applications in healthcare and finance. While autoregressive models are natural candidates for time series imputation, score-based diffusion models have recently outperformed existing counterparts including autoregressive models in many tasks such as image generation and audio synthesis, and would be promising for time series imputation. In this paper, we propose Conditional Score-based Diffusion models for Imputation (CSDI), a novel time series imputation method that utilizes score-based diffusion models conditioned on observed data. Unlike existing score-based approaches, the conditional diffusion model is explicitly trained for imputation and can exploit correlations between observed values. On healthcare and environmental data, CSDI improves by 40-65% over existing probabilistic imputation methods on popular performance metrics. In addition, deterministic imputation by CSDI reduces the error by 5-20% compared to the state-of-the-art deterministic imputation methods. Furthermore, CSDI can also be applied to time series interpolation and probabilistic forecasting, and is competitive with existing baselines. The code is available at https://github.com/ermongroup/CSDI.


Medical privacy of NASA astronauts requires an organized and comprehensive approach when data are being made available outside NASA systems. A combination of factors, including the uniquely small patient population, the extensive medical testing done on these individuals, and the relative cultural popularity of the astronauts puts them at a far greater risk to potential exposure of personal information than the general public. Therefore, care must be taken to ensure that the astronauts' identities are concealed. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) medical data is a recent source of interest to researchers concerned with the development of Visual Impairment due to Intracranial Pressure (VIIP) in the astronaut population. Each vision MRI scan of an astronaut includes 176 separate sagittal images that are saved as an "image series" for clinical use. In addition to the medical information these image sets provide, they also inherently contain a substantial amount of non-medical personally identifiable information (PII) such as-name, date of birth, and date of exam. We have shown that an image set of this type can be rendered, using free software, to give an accurate representation of the patient's face. This currently restricts NASA from dispensing MRI data to researchers in a de- identified format. Automated software programs, such as the Brain Extraction Tool, are available to researchers who wish to de-identify MRI sagittal brain images by "erasing" identifying characteristics such as the nose and jaw on the image sets [1]. However, this software is not useful to NASA for vision research because it removes the portion of the images around the eye orbits, which is the main area of interest to researchers studying the VIIP syndrome. The Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health program has resolved this issue by developing a protocol to de-identify MRI sagittal brain images using Showcase Premier, a DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) software package. The software allows manual editing of one image from a patient's image set to be automatically applied to the entire image series. This new approach would allow a new level of access to untapped medical imaging data relating to VIIP that can be utilized by researchers while protecting the privacy of the astronauts. In the next step toward finalizing this technique, NASA clinical radiology consultants will test the images to verify removal of all metadata and PII. REFERENCES [1] Schimke, N., Kuehler, M., & Hale, J. (2011). Preserving privacy in structural neuroimages. In Data and Applications Security and Privacy XXV (pp. 301-308). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.


A monolithic solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fibre was fabricated based on a molecularly imprinted polymer that could be coupled with gas chromatography for extraction, and determination of chlorpyrifos. The time of extraction, pH, temperature and ionic strength were investigated as important factors on the extraction procedure. The fabricated fibre was firm, inexpensive, stable and selective which gave it vital importance in SPME. The selectivity of the fabricated fibre in relation to analogue compounds was also investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the calibration curve was linear in the range of 1–20 mg L−1 (R2 = 0.9899). The high extraction efficiency was obtained for chlorpyrifos with a detection limit of 0.23 mg L−1. The fabricated fibre was successfully applied to SPME of chlorpyrifos from apple and grape fruits after its extraction and followed by gas chromatography-flame ionisation detector analysis.


Electrophysiological studies have revealed that the properties of voltage-gated Na+ channels can be modified by phosphorylation. Na+ channels have multiple sites for phosphorylation by protein kinases A and C (PKA and PKC). A change in the phosphorylation state of Na+ channels is an important mechanism of neuromodulation for both central and peripheral neurons. In isolated primary afferent sensory neurons, application of an inflammatory mediator, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), causes an increase in excitability associated with a hyperpolarizing shift in the activation curve of the tetrodotoxin-resistant (TTX-R) Na+ currents. The experimental evidence indicates that the effect of PGE2 is mediated by an elevation in cAMP levels and activation of PKA. This potentiation of TTX-R Na+ channel activity is in marked contrast to the inhibitory effects of PKA and PKC on tetrodotoxin-sensitive (TTX-S) currents in central neurons. Infection of dorsal root ganglion neurons with Herpes simplex virus (HSV) results in an abolition of excitability associated with a selective loss of both TTX-S and TTX-R Na+ currents: voltage-gated Ca2+ and K+ channels are unaffected by HSV infection. The loss of Na+ current is due to a virally induced internalization process and requires extracellular Na+.


Background— Prior studies found that only about half of stroke patients arrived at hospitals via emergency medical services (EMSs), yet since then, there have been efforts to increase public awareness that time is brain. Using contemporary Get With the Guidelines-Stroke data, we assessed nationwide EMS use by stroke patients. Methods and Results— We analyzed data from 204 591 patients with ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke admitted to 1563 Get With the Guidelines-Stroke participating hospitals with data on National Institute of Health Stroke Score and insurance status. Hospital arrival by EMSs was observed in 63.7% of patients. Older patients, those with Medicaid and Medicare insurance, and those with severe stroke were more likely to activate EMSs. In contrast, minority race and ethnicity and living in rural communities were associated with decreased odds of EMS use. EMS transport was independently associated with earlier arrival (onset-to-door time, ⩽3 hours; adjusted odds ratio, 2.00; 95% confidence interval, 1.93–2.08), prompter evaluation (more patients with door-to-imaging time, ⩽25 minutes; odds ratio, 1.89; 95% confidence interval, 1.78–2.00), more rapid treatment (more patients with door-to-needle time, ⩽60 minutes; odds ratio, 1.44; 95% confidence interval, 1.28–1.63), and more eligible patients to be treated with tissue-type plasminogen activator if onset is ⩽2 hours (67% versus 44%; odds ratio, 1.47; 95% confidence interval, 1.33–1.64). Conclusions— Although EMS use is independently associated with more rapid evaluation and treatment of stroke, more than one third of stroke patients fail to use EMSs. Interventions aimed at increasing EMS activation should target populations at risk, particularly younger patients and those of minority race and ethnicity.


The world is a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment (Carvan, 2015) that calls for leaders who can effectively navigate the complexity of leadership today. Students of leadership studies must not only learn leadership information content, but also be able to effectively implement the content and process, requiring deep approaches to their learning (Petrie, 2014). This quantitative research study used the ASSIST Inventory to measure approaches to learning (surface, deep, or strategic) for students enrolled in an Organizational Leadership undergraduate program. Students showed a preference for deeper approaches, though, many continue to use surface approaches, which may lead to shallow understandings and the inability to put content into practice. Specific strategies are provided for instructors to help students move toward deeper approaches.


Chapter 1 introduced psychopathy and evaluated theories attempting to explain this disorder. Experiment 1 assessed passive avoidance learning in children with psychopathic tendencies. Results replicated previous findings with psychopathic adults indicating that this disorder is associated with poor passive avoidance learning. Experiment 2 developed a connectionist model of passive avoidance learning, the output of which was compared with the results obtained in experiment 1. The intact model successfully simulated performance of the comparison children whilst a model impaired in the formation of stimulus- punishment associations most successfully captured the performance of the children with psychopathic tendencies. Experiment 3 assessed the Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent (BOLD) responses associated with passive avoidance learning in healthy adults. Results revealed that successful passive avoidance learning was associated with activation within rostral anterior cingulate cortex, insula, caudate, hippocampus, and the amygdala. Experiment 4 assessed the performance of children with psychopathic tendencies on a novel probabilistic reversal learning paradigm. Results revealed that children with psychopathic tendencies presented with impairment only on the probabilistic contingencies. Further, it was revealed that the children with psychopathic tendencies committed more win-shift errors in the reversal phases. Experiment 5 assessed the performance of adult individuals with psychopathy using a similar task. Results revealed that adults with psychopathy were impaired in both the simple and probabilistic conditions. The adults with psychopathy also committed more win-shift responses in the reversal phases. Experiment 6 assessed the BOLD responses associated with probabilistic reversal learning in healthy adults. Results revealed that errors in both acquisition and reversal phases were associated with activations within dorsomedial and ventrolateral PFC and caudate, and deactivations within medial OFC cortex, amygdala and hippocampus. Chapter 6 re-evaluated the theories of psychopathy in light of the empirical work presented in this thesis, and discussed the implications of these results along with future research directions.


This paper considers the prospects for adding choice of portfolio composition to a life cycle model of retirement and saving, while preserving the ability of the model to continue to explain the course of saving and retirement. If eventually successful, such a modification might be used to improve understanding of retirement and saving behavior both under the current Social Security system, and under variations involving personal accounts. In particular we consider the implications of separating parameters that now reflect both risk aversion and time preference. We explore a number of barriers to developing a specification that is consistent with observed saving, retirement and investment choices. In our previous model with exponential consumption, individuals would hold portfolios exclusively in stocks, contrary to observation. Changing the exponent of consumption can reduce stock holdings below 100%, but at the cost of implausible retirement behavior. Introducing a separate parameter for risk aversion can restore plausible retirement behavior, but the pattern of stock holdings is too high, especially at younger ages, for plausible values of the risk aversion parameter. At the moment, no easy solution is at hand to this fundamental problem now being engaged by financial economists. This suggests that models of retirement and saving may, for the immediate future, be forced to constrain portfolio composition to correspond with levels observed in the data, postponing the inclusion of portfolio mix as a choice variable until further progress is made in modeling that behavior. This does not necessarily reduce the efficiency of life cycle models of retirement and saving. Rather it recognizes that portfolio choice may be influenced by behavior that is not fully consistent with that posed by a life cycle model. Individuals may, for example, be accepting recommendations from planners or firms that they would not otherwise follow if they fully understood how to balance risk and return in portfolio choice in the same way they balance risk and return in their saving and retirement decisions. If these behavioral considerations govern their portfolio choice, while retirement and saving are determined by life cycle considerations, a model that correctly constrains portfolio composition may in fact generate parameter estimates that accurately reflect the forces governing retirement and saving behavior.


Background: The use of modern contraceptives has been embraced by developed nations as a means of achieving controlled growth rate. Nigeria, Africa′s most populous nation at 158 million with a growth rate of 2% is expected to grow to 730 million by the end of this century. There is need for regular assessment of the knowledge and practice of contraception among women of childbearing age. Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the contraceptive-seeking pattern among women attending antenatal care in an urban city in a developing country and the factors affecting usage. Subjects and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 430 antenatal women using structured self-administered questionnaires on randomly selected attendees who consented to participate. Results were analyzed using SPSS Version 16 (Chicago, IL, USA). Results: Although majority of the women 71.2% (306/430) wished to have between 1 and 4 children, only 20% (87/430) had on their own sought for advice on contraception from a health facility. The percentage of women who had a knowledge of contraception was 61.4% (264/430) with highest source of information from antenatal clinics. Among the women, 41.2% (177/430) have used contraception since getting married; 16.1% (69/430) used natural and withdrawal methods while only 25.1% (108/430) used modern contraceptives. Reasons for nonusage of some modern contraceptives given by 340 women include fear of side effect 53.2% (181/340), objection from partner 7.9% (27/340), conflict with religious beliefs 4.1% (14/340) while 34.4% (117/340) had no reason for not using contraceptive. Conclusion: Contraceptive-seeking is low. Programs aimed at encouraging women to deliver in health facilities should be intensified. Health workers should utilize every opportunity to educate on contraceptive choices.


Abstract. Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is one of the major operations in image compression standards and it requires intensive and complex computations. Recent computer systems and handheld devices are equipped with high computing capability devices such as a general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU) in addition to the traditional multicores CPU. We develop an optimized parallel implementation of the forward DCT algorithm for the JPEG image compression using the recently proposed Open Computing Language (OpenCL). This OpenCL parallel implementation combines a multicore CPU and a GPGPU in a single solution to perform DCT computations in an efficient manner by applying certain optimization techniques to enhance the kernel execution time and data movements. A separate optimal OpenCL kernel code was developed (CPU-based and GPU-based kernels) based on certain appropriate device-based optimization factors, such as thread-mapping, thread granularity, vector-based memory access, and the given workload. The performance of DCT is evaluated on a heterogeneous environment and our OpenCL parallel implementation results in speeding up the execution of the DCT by the factors of 3.68 and 5.58 for different image sizes and formats in terms of workload allocations and data transfer mechanisms. The obtained speedup indicates the scalability of the DCT performance.


The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought unprecedented havoc across the globe. Every sector of society has been impacted and forced to change business as usual, to re-evaluate priorities and systems, and to innovate amid the unknown and possible lasting impacts of this threat to public health and commerce. Sport worldwide is also profoundly impacted. Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, nearly all competitive sports have been suspended, postponed, or cancelled, raising significant questions about how to deal with the severe financial impacts, legal issues, and when and how to resume play safely amid continued uncertainty. Like other sectors, the impact on sports is likely to far outlast the pandemic. Sports has been, and will continue to be, forced to pivot, innovate, and remain vigilant to survive as an industry and to ensure player, personnel, and spectator health, safety, and security. Recognizing that the crisis is not yet over and the impact of COVID-19 on the global sports industry is in the nascent stage, this article nonetheless seeks to examine the impact of COVID-19 on major competitive sports, from a financial, legal, and problem-solving perspective. The article contends that, while many financial, legal, and practical outcomes remain pending and unresolved, the rules for operating sports as we knew it have changed. To survive, sport must put safety first, anticipate and plan for this and future crises, innovate, and find common ground, despite technical force majeure rights that could pose a disparate impact on one party, to preserve industry and the very sports we adore. The challenges and lessons that can be learned from this crisis will have a lasting impact on and throughout the sport industry.


The current work focuses on the materials science aspects of the growth phenomena of titanium-based coatings TiN, (Ti,Al)N and (Ti,Al)(C,N) with face-centered cubic lattice structure, deposited by the industrially-styled Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique at room temperature. hese coating materials are widely spread in mechanical, tribological and decorative applications due to their exceptional physical and chemical properties. Recently, the trend of using temperaturesensitive materials like polymers and tool steels of the highest hardness demands new lowtemperature coating techniques for protective surface finishing as well as for functionalization of the surfaces. These titanium-based compounds can fulfill a wide range of these demands, but up to now there is a lack of industrially designed vacuum coating techniques operating at temperatures lower than 50 °C necessary for these materials. The PLD process is known as one of the most promising candidates for such coating demands. But up to now PLD is only a well-established laboratory coating technology and has not become a standard industrial coating technique despite its outstanding process features. The missing of PLD coating systems, which fulfill the requirements for industrial applications like high-rate deposition and adequate sizes of deposition chambers, is considered as one of the main obstacles for a breakthrough of the PLD technique. To overcome this problem an industrially designed PLD coating system has been developed and built at the Laser Center Leoben of JOANNEUM Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH.


Pollution aerosols strongly influence the composition of the Western Mediterranean basin, but at present little is known on their optical properties. We report in this study in situ observations of the single scattering albedo (ω) of pollution aerosol plumes measured over the Western Mediterranean basin during the TRAQA (TRansport and Air QuAlity) airborne campaign in summer 2012. Cases of pollution export from different source regions around the basin and at different altitudes between ~160 and 3500 m above sea level have been sampled during the flights. Data from this study show a large variability of ω, with values between 0.84–0.98 at 370 nm and 0.70–0.99 at 950 nm. The single scattering albedo generally decreases with the wavelength, with some exception associated to the mixing of pollution with sea spray over the sea surface. Lowest values of ω (0.84–0.70 between 370 and 950 nm) are measured in correspondence of a fresh plume possibly linked to ship emissions over the basin. The range of variability of ω observed in this study seems to be independent of the source region around the basin, as well as of the altitude and ageing time of the plumes. The observed variability of ω reflects in a large variability for the complex refractive index of pollution aerosols, which is estimated to span in the large range 1.41–1.75 and 0.002–0.068 for the real and the imaginary parts, respectively, between 370 and 950 nm. Radiative calculations in clear-sky conditions have been performed with the GAME radiative transfer model to test the sensitivity of the aerosol shortwave Direct Radiative Effect (DRE) to the variability of ω as observed in this study. Results from the calculations suggest up to a 50 % and 30 % change of the forcing efficiency (FE), i.e. the DRE per unit of optical depth, at the surface (−160÷−235 Wm−2 τ−1 at 60° solar zenith angle) and at the Top-Of-Atmosphere (−137÷−92 5 Wm−2 τ−1) for ω varying between its maximum and minimum value. This induces a change of up to an order of magnitude (+23÷+1435 Wm−2 τ−1) for the radiative effect within the atmosphere.


The subject is introduced with a review of the studies of youth citizenship by British authors, in which the transitions that a young person makes from dependency to independence are examined. A child is defined as a minor in British law, or any person under the age of 18 years. The thesis explores the history of attempts to involve children and young people in the governance of institutions which affect their lives and attempts to draw conclusions which may help in designing future attempts to do so. The various international agreements of the last seven years are reviewed in which governments agreed to confer on young people the right to participate in decision-making. Also analysed is the performance of the UN agencies that drafted those agreements in implementing them in their own projects. At this level, the culture of young people and that of large international bureaucracies are found to be seriously incompatible. It is also seen that most governments do not fully understand what they are signing in these agreements: none have fully implemented their commitments in fact. Examples of successful involvement of children in governance are found at the local level. Young people have formed impressive children's councils in schools and municipalities in France, Austria, Germany, the USA and the UK. In the USA, several large companies have also experimented with children's boards, as have some foundations and non-profit organisations. In the UK, successful children's participation in governance is reviewed in relation to two councils, one in Derbyshire, one in Devon. Changes in UK law are also examined. The final section of the thesis examines the author's own experience in setting up and running an organisation that specialises in working with young people to create platforms from which young people can express their concerns about global issues. He traces the history of the organisation - how its first event revealed the potential of fruitful participation between adults and children, through the development of different projects to today where young people run every aspect of the organisation in partnership with him. From this experience, twelve principles for a methodology of children's participation in governance are proposed.


Since the late 19th century, international efforts to standardise topographic mapping have encountered numerous challenges and many have experienced limited success as a result. Nevertheless, between the 1940s and 1990s, the Soviet Union undertook a standardised mapping project larger than any other attempted before or since – in total secrecy. Twenty-five years after the collapse of the USSR, this emerging and relatively untapped source of topographic data has potential to take on new life as a model for current and future standardisation initiatives. By asking fundamental questions about the accuracy, source materials, accessibility and symbology of Soviet city plans at 1:25,000 and 1:10,000, it is hoped that a foundation can be built for future applications of this unprecedented geospatial resource.


Background Studies suggest that seizures may precede the detection of cerebral tumour by several years. Aim To quantify the risk of cerebral tumour after new onset seizures, with particular interest in long term risk. Methods Using the Oxford Record Linkage Study (ORLS, 1963–1998) and English national linked Hospital Episode Statistics (1999–2005), cohorts of people with a first admission for epilepsy were constructed. Subsequent admissions with cerebral tumour were identified. The rate of occurrence of subsequent cerebral tumour in each epilepsy cohort was compared with that in a comparison cohort and expressed as a rate ratio (RR). Results The RR for cerebral tumour after epilepsy, relative to the rate of cerebral tumour in the comparison cohort, was 19.9 (95% CI 17.2 to 22.9) in the ORLS cohort and 19.7 (18.3–21.1) in the England cohort. The RR for malignant tumours were, respectively, 25.6 (21.7 to 30.0) and 27.3 (25.2 to 29.6). The RR for benign tumours were 10.1 (7.38 to 13.6) and 10.4 (9.07 to 11.8), respectively. The risk was highest for those aged 15–44 years at initial admission for epilepsy both in Oxford (24.2, 18.5 to 31.5) and England (38.1, 32.8 to 44.2). The risk of cerebral tumour was still raised several years after initial admission for epilepsy: in the ORLS cohort at 15 years or more, the RR was 3.29 (1.39 to 6.66) and, in the England cohort 5–7 years after initial admission, the RR was 5.27 (3.87 to 7.06). Conclusions Seizures may herald the development of cerebral tumour, remote in time as well as soon after onset, with implications for guidelines on continued surveillance of those with new onset seizures.


INTRODUCTION
Anaerobic bacteria which constitute a significant proportion of the normal microbiota also cause variety of infections involving various anatomic sites. Considering the tedious culture techniques with longer turnaround time, anaerobic cultures are usually neglected by clinicians and microbiologists.

AIM
To study the frequency of isolation of different anaerobic bacteria from various clinical specimens.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A retrospective study to analyse the frequency of isolation of different anaerobic bacteria, was conducted over a period of five years from 2011 to 2015 including various clinical specimens submitted to anaerobic division of Microbiology laboratory. Anaerobic bacteria were isolated and identified following standard bacteriological techniques.

RESULTS
Pathogenic anaerobes (n=336) were isolated from 278 (12.48%) of overall 2227 specimens processed with an average yield of 1.2 isolates. Anaerobes were isolated as polymicrobial flora with or without aerobic bacterial pathogens in 159 (57.2%) patients. Anaerobic Gram-negative bacilli (140, 41.7%) were the predominant isolates. B. fragilis group (67, 19.9%) were the most commonly isolated anaerobic pathogens. Anaerobes were predominantly isolated from deep seated abscess (23.9%).

CONCLUSION
Pathogenic anaerobes were isolated from various infection sites. Unless culture and susceptibility tests are performed as a routine, true magnitude of antimicrobial resistance among anaerobic pathogens will not be known. Knowledge of the distribution of these organisms may assist in the selection of appropriate empirical therapy for anaerobic infections.


The usefulness of eddy covariance for understanding terrestrial carbon exchange has been hampered by uncertainty over the magnitude and causes of a systematic underestimation of CO2 efflux on calm nights. We combined in situ measurements of the temperature, wind and CO2 profile with nocturnal Land Surface Temperature (LST) imagery from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) to infer the patterns of cold air drainage in an Amazonian tropical forest. The meteorological tower was located on a flat plateau that sloped gently to the southwest. The vertical profile from 0 to 64 m above ground level was divisible into two air parcels at night: a warm, low CO2, upper parcel and a cool, high CO2, lower parcel that was stable with respect to the upper parcel. The nocturnal wind direction of the upper parcel was from the east, a pattern that is consistent with the general circulation, whereas the wind direction of the lower parcel was from the northeast, a pattern that implies drainage down the local topographic gradient. The nocturnal patterns of LST were closely related to local topography and land use. In general, a nearby river was warm, gullies were cold, plateau centers were cold, stream drainages were cold, pastures were particularly cold, and upper slopes and plateau edges were warm. The in situ temperature and wind observations, combined with the observed relationship between elevation and nocturnal LST and the occurrence of warm thermal belts extending inward from the edges of plateaus, imply that cold air drainage occurs on clear nights. The slope of the relationship between LST and elevation varied between nights, indicating that the degree of thermal stratification, and possibly the extent of cold air drainage, also varied. The night-tonight variation in stratification across the landscape was correlated with the vertical temperature gradient at the tower but not the above-canopy friction velocity (u*). Criteria associated with vertical temperature gradients may prove better than u* for screening nocturnal eddy covariance observations to eliminate periods that underestimate CO2 flux.


The human visual system (eyes and brain) has the capacity to understand pictures where detail has been removed. The visual system also has the capacity to understand images that are exaggerated in particular ways. The authors coordinate a university graphic design class centered around vector illustration in which the communicative potential of caricature is explored. The researchers approach to teaching vector illustration is unique in that it departs from the usual crisp, clinical and often geometric aesthetic associated with vector graphics. Instead the authors use the potential enabled in illustration software, specifically layers and object oriented graphics, as a means to explain to students the theory and technique behind caricature. Students are presented with a brief to create editorial illustrations and asked to rationalise their visual decisions. This approach allows students to bring together theory and practice while gaining persuasive skills for future commercial work.


For memory constrained embedded systems code size is at least as important as performance. One way of increasing code density is to exploit compact instruction formats, e.g. ARM Thumb, where the processor either operates in standard or compact instruction mode. The ARCompact ISA considered in this paper is different in that it allows freeform mixing of 16- and 32-bit instructions without a mode switch. Compact 16-bit instructions can be used anywhere in the code given that additional register constraints are satisfied. In this paper we present an integrated instruction selection and register allocation methodology and develop two approaches for mixed-mode code generation: a simple opportunistic scheme and a more advanced feedback-guided instruction selection scheme. We have implemented a code generator targeting the ARCompact ISA and evaluated its effectiveness against the ARC750D embedded processor and the EEMBC benchmark suite. On average, we achieve a code size reduction of 16.7% across all benchmarks whilst at the same time improving performance by on average 17.7%.


: Purpose: The purpose of the article is an analysis and evaluation of the way the sustainable management functions under the COVID-19 conditions, as well as proposals for solutions in the health and safety management system aiming for the prevention or mitigation of crisis situations. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research is based on a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods. They involve collection of empirical material based on the examples of entities operating in crisis situations. The size of the research sample is representative for the research conducted. The aim of the research has been defined, and it is consistent with the subject of the article. It assumes an innovative character of the conducted research based on a diagnosis of the state of businesses in crisis situations that predestines us to formulate research problems in the form of questions to which we seek answers. The research uses theoretical and empirical methods. The applied methods have been adapted to the conducted research, which consists of: analysis of normative documents, system documentation of the assessed entities, audit assessment by means of direct and indirect interviews with authorized specialists and experts, observation of processes as apart of audit assessments, conclusions and generalisations based on the collected data and practical experience of the author of the article as an auditor. Findings: The conducted research indicates that it is the systemic solutions, e.g., introduced in accordance with ISO 45001 that allow for quick diagnosis of the level of risk in the workplace in crisis situations. The proposed ways of proceeding may contribute to the creation of a universal, systemic approach to health and safety at work based, among others, on systemic procedures and standardization documents, as well as extended responsibility at all organizational levels of the company. Practical Implications: As a result of the research, when looking for a solution to protect workers from undesirable effects caused e.g. by the COVID 19 situation, the requirements according to ISO 45001 were indicated. By implementing this system, which relies, among other things, on activities related to risks and opportunities associated with a safe workplace, companies can obtain effective protection of workers, also against biological risks. Originality/value: The solutions included in the article may have a practical application for all participants of supply chain in the conditions of the COVID-19 epidemic and after its end, as preventive actions. It presents solutions for companies and proposes a change in the approach to health and safety at work during and after the epidemic.


This study revolves around the issue of the participation of juvenile defendants in the youth court. The European Court of Human Rights has put forward the notion that defendants should be able to participate effectively in a court hearing. Moreover, in international children's rights law it is stipulated that minors who are in conflict with the law should be handled by specialised youth courts and trained professionals. These two notions are combined in this study. The first aim of this study was to formulate requirements for the effective participation of juvenile defendants in the youth court. The second aim was to study the actual participation of juvenile defendants in practice. Juvenile defendants' right to be heard and the fact that juveniles have a limited understanding of the juvenile justice process are taken as starting points to formulate directives in order for young persons to be able to participate effectively in the youth court. To enable juveniles to participate in the youth court the judge and other professionals in court should fulfil certain tasks. These tasks refer to hearing juvenile defendants and contributing to their understanding of the procedures and decision-making in court. Between 2000 and 2012, the cases of in total 3,019 juvenile defendants were observed in youth courts and other competent administrative bodies in the juvenile justice systems in 11 European countries, namely in Belgium, England and Wales, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain and Switzerland. From the empirical findings of this study it can be concluded that the requirements for hearing juvenile defendants are best met in the Scottish children's hearings system and in the juvenile justice system in Switzerland. In these countries hearing juveniles, giving a serious reaction to their views and hearing parents is done extensively. On the other side of the coin, in the youth courts in England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Spain hearing juveniles and giving a serious reaction occurs to a limited extent. Hearing the views of parents takes only more extensively place at the Scottish children's hearings, in Switzerland and in the Netherlands. The requirements for contributing to the understanding of juvenile defendants are best met in the Scottish children's hearings system and in the juvenile justice system in Switzerland as well. Giving explanations, avoiding judicial jargon and clarifying the judgment take place extensively in these countries. In general, addressing the consequences of the offence nowhere takes place extensively. Overall, it can be concluded that structural differences between systems, such as the legal tradition or the setting in which hearings take place, have an important influence on the participation of juvenile defendants. First, it can be concluded that a more intimate and informal setting contributes to making the hearing more accessible for the young person and his parents. Second, the fulfilment of the requirements is not possible in the adversarial youth courts in Europe. It can be concluded that individual countries, in which the adversarial legal tradition is dominant, should seriously invest in improving the juvenile justice practice.


This dissertation explores the controversial nature of current policies on the use of minority language place-names on official signage in Norway, Scotland and in Italy. Following a survey of recent developments in the study of multilingual environmental text and an analysis of the functions of place-names, these controversies are investigated in detail, with reference to legislation and reactions from the public and the media. The formats of the signs themselves are also the subject of close examination. Selected municipalities in northern Norway have, in recent years, erected signs in Sámi and Kven, but some of these signs have been a target for vandals. In Italy, the Lega Nord (Northern League), a right-wing separatist party, has long campaigned for dialect place-names to appear on signs. New regulations now allow this, but it remains a contentious topic. Meanwhile, in Scotland, the recent introduction of bilingual Gaelic and English signs in areas that previously only had English signs is considered by some to be costly tokenism. The principal function of road signs is to direct travellers, however they can also act as markers of boundaries, including linguistic boundaries. In addition, signs provide visual evidence of place-names in the landscape. The study of place-names on signs is still developing, but such investigations can shed new light on the symbolic importance of place-names for identity. 2


This thesis describes a novel digital background calibration scheme for pipelined ADCs with nonlinear interstage gain. Errors caused by the nonlinear gains are corrected in real-time by adaptively post-processing the digital stage outputs. The goal of this digital error correction is to improve the power efficiency of high-precision analog-to-digital conversion by relaxing the linearity and matching constraints on the analog pipeline stages and compensating the resulting distortion through digital post-processing. This approach is motivated by the observation that technology scaling reduces the energy cost of digital signal processing and at the same time makes high-precision analog signal processing harder because of reduced intrinsic device gain and reduced voltage headroom. In particular, the proposed calibration approach enables the use of power efficient circuits in noise-limited high-resolution, high-speed converters. Alternative stage circuit topologies that are more power efficient than their traditional counterparts are typically too nonlinear and too sensitive to temperature and bias variations to be employed in the critical stages of such converters without adaptive error correction. The proposed calibration scheme removes the effects of nonlinear interstage gain, sub-DAC nonlinearity, and mismatch between reference voltages of different stages. Gain errors and reference voltage mismatch are continuously tracked during normal operation and may thus be time-varying. Sub-DAC nonlinearity is assumed to be constant. A method to characterize the time-invariant non-ideal sub-DAC characteristics during an initial one-time offline calibration phase is proposed. Because the method only uses the existing uncalibrated analog hardware, it can only determine the relative sizes of the DAC error terms. One or two scale factors per sub-DAC remain to be estimated by the adaptation algorithm used to track the time-varying gain parameters. Because the scale factor is constant, it can be excluded from adaptation after its estimate has converged. This offline characterization of sub-DACs ensures that the entire characteristic of all sub-DACs can be estimated, and that calibration of DAC errors can be permanently turned off after initial convergence. Furthermore, it eliminates degrees of freedom in the error correction function, and fixes the gain of the calibrated ADC. The digital postprocessor linearizes the ADC transfer characteristic by applying an adaptive inverse model of the analog signal path to the digital outputs of the pipeline stages. The model uses piecewise linear (PWL) functions to approximate the inverse of the nonlinear stage gains. Previously reported background calibration methods are limited to low-order polynomial gain models. The PWL model is more general than low order polynomial models. The analog signal path can thus be optimized for power efficiency without any constraint on high order distortion. The previously reported split-ADC architecture is used to enable background adaptation of the error correction parameters during normal converter operation and without requiring an accurate reference ADC. The converter to be calibrated is split into two nominally identical channels, both channels processing the same input signal. The average of the outputs of the two channels is used as overall output. The difference of the channel outputs is used as an error signal. The mean-square value of this error signal serves as the performance function that is minimized by the adaptation algorithm. Because two non-ideal ADCs are used as reference channels for each other, precautions are needed to avoid that the adaptation algorithm simply equalizes the transfer characteristics of the two ADCs. The effect of the flexible gain model on these parasitic solutions is analyzed. A previously reported method to eliminate parasitic solutions in the case of linear gains is modified to also work with arbitrary nonlinear gain. A simplified version of the normalized least-mean-squares (NLMS) algorithm is used for parameter adaptation. Normalization assumes that the performance function is quadratic in the parameters, which is almost true because the channel output difference is almost linear in the error correction parameters. Because a low-noise reference signal is used, the LMS loop does not need to filter out noise. The normalization in conjunction with the low-noise reference signal significantly mitigates the convergence speed versus steady-state error trade-off. Heuristic strategies to control the NLMS algorithm are proposed to address identified weaknesses of the basic adaptation algorithm. The main benefits of the heuristic control are faster initial convergence and faster recovery from transient disturbances. Fast initial convergence is achieved by gradually increasing the granularity of the PWL gain models. Fast recovery after fast parameter changes is achieved by selectively reducing the search space for certain samples. A possible architecture for a hardware implementation of the postprocessor is analyzed to demonstrate the practicability of the proposed digital error correction scheme, and to propose detailed architectures for critical blocks. The analysis concludes that using the proposed architecture, the hardware implementation poses no specific difficulty in terms of area, power, or design complexity. A novel approach for adaptive nonlinear digital error correction for pipelined ADCs is proposed. The error correction models amplifier nonlinearity as a general piecewise linear function for maximum flexibility. The algorithm can be implemented using simple arithmetic and a small amount of memory only.


Wine has been popular worldwide for many centuries and currently remains an important component of our diet. Scientific interest in wine and its health effects has grown considerably since the 1990s with the emergence of the "French Paradox" concept, correlating moderate wine consumption, a characteristic of the Mediterranean diet, and low incidence of coronary heart diseases. Since then, the positive effects on health, health promotion, disease prevention, and disease prognosis of moderate wine consumption, in particular red wine, have been attributed to its polyphenolic compounds such as resveratrol, quercetin, and other flavonoids acting as antioxidants. Several epidemiological, in vivo and in vitro, studies have reported that moderate red wine or red wine polyphenolic extract consumption may be active in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, degenerative pathologies, and cancer. The aim of this review is to summarize the current findings about the effects of red wine polyphenols on cancer and to discuss how the polyphenolic composition of red wine may influence its chemopreventive properties.


The poor aqueous-solubility of many anticancer drugs limits their use as therapeutic agents. PacIitaxel, for example, is extremely useful for many refractory cancers yet its poor aqueous-solubility «1IJg/mL) requires solubilisation in Cremophor® EL, the latter which presents many clinical side-effects. To overcome such issues, micellar vehicles constructed from generally regarded as safe (GRAS) surfactants, such as poloxamer P105, that can not only solubilise but enhance the action of chemotherapeutic agents due to their inherent P-glycoprotein (Pgp) inhibitory activity has been investigated. Whilst poloxamer surfactants form thermodynamically stable hydrophilic micelles at high concentrations, they are prone to dissociation upon dilution especially in the case of intravenous injections.
Micelles were stabilised to prevent premature drug release via three methods (i) cross-linking di-acetylene bonds in tricosadiynoic acid which was initiated by UV irradiation in the presence of classical micelles formed from sodium dodecyl sulphate (SOS), (ii) generation of an interpenetrating polymer network within and around poloxamer P105 micelles by free radical generation using N,N-diethylacrylamide (NNOEA), and (iii) physical adsorption of a pre-formed, hydrophilic polymer, .polyacrylamide (10kOa) onto poloxamer P105, P103, L64 and F127 micelles: This final method of stabilisation produced superior results with respect to control over particle size, formulation homogeneity, and shelf-life stability hence, drug release from the stabilised system was further investigated.
Thermal differential scanning calorimetry (OSC) analysis suggested that a blend of poloxamer P105 and polyacrylamide were miscible resulting in a change in glass transition (Tg) from -71°C to -30°C. Photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) also confirmed an interaction as particulate size increased from 18nm ± 0.62nm (non-coated micelles) to 22nm ± 1.36nm (after coating; P<0.05) with low sample polydispersity values. The physlco-chemtcal stability of coated micelles containing poorly water-soluble molecule, dye Oil Red O (ORO) or anticancer drug, methotrexate, demonstrated an inverse relationship with polyacrylamide coating with respect to drug release. Thus, an inCrease in the coating level reduced methotrexate/dye release, which suggested overall formulation intactness.
Chemosensitivity studies (via MTT assay) on breast cancer cell lines showed that MCF-7 cells were far more sensitive to free methotrexate (lCso of 23nM ± 3nM) than drug resistant MCF-7/AOR cells (ICso>200nM) at 48h. In the presence of poloxamer P105 and methotrexate, MCF-7/AOR cells became sensitised, attaining a significantly lower ICso of 85nM ± 12nM (P<0.05) at 48h, while exposure of poloxamer alone at concentrations up to 15001JM, which is well above the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of,P105 demonstrated little to no signs of cell toxicity at 48h. These results demonstrate Pgp inhibitory activity bought about by poloxamer P105. Further investigations led to comparison of in vitro data obtained for poloxamer P105 in contrast to other poloxamers which were either reported to exhibit Pgp activity (poloxamer L64), to have unknown Pgp activity (poloxamer P103) or no Pgp activity (poloxamer F127). Results demonstrated that all the poloxamers tested exhibited Pgp inhibitory activity since a decrease in IC50 values were recorded between free methotrexate and poloxamer in the presence of methotrexate. However, while the resistant cells showed little sensitivity to P105 exposure alone at high concentrations all the other polexamera indicated cell sensitivity at concentrations just above their CMC values. Stabilised, coated poloxamer P105 micellar formulations containing methotrexate show great potential in the treatment of refractory tumours as developed by this study.


As the use of perpetual conservation easements to protect private property for the public's benefit grows in popularity, so grow the challenges associated with these perpetually binding promises. Today's conservation community faces significant challenges to amending and terminating perpetual conservation easements in the face of changing conditions, landscapes, climate, and public interests. Because of variations among different legal regimes' guidance for perpetual conservation easements, much remains unsettled regarding perpetual conservation easement amendment and termination. This Article examines inconsistencies in the legal regimes and explores current and emerging common law, legislation, and policies addressing perpetual easement amendment and termination. This Article posits that the conservation community can protect the integrity of perpetual conservation easements by providing clear, consistent guidance through existing or new legal frameworks for state legislatures, courts, landowners, and easement holders, and suggests the means to achieve or craft such guidance.


Research frequently addresses a gap between practice and research in the field of psychotherapy. Castonguay et al (2010) suggest that the practice of many full-time psychotherapists is rarely or nonsubstantially influenced by research. Boisvert and Faust (2005) ask 'why do psychotherapists not rely on the research to consistently inform their practice?' and suggest that concerns 'have echoed through the decades' about psychotherapists' failings to integrate of research and practice. This study focuses on therapists' (counsellors and psychotherapists) reasoning about their engagement with 'research' as described in dissertations and in personal, anonymously presented documents, research journals and interviews included. The study focuses on the stages which generally are referred to as 'data analysis', which in this study refers research stages where interpretation typically is required with synthesising and analysing in mind. Turning our attention to the therapists' 'narrative knowing' about research during these stages where generating own new knowledge is put to the forefront, have highlighted a complex relationship involving epistemological discrepancies, real or imagined, between practice and research. It also highlighted gender issues, culture and commonly held constructs about what constitutes a 'counsellor', which we believe influence therapists' presence in research. We decided to include the citation "Therapists have a lot to add to the field of research, but many don't make it there" in the title to illustrate some of the complexity. The study is based on a Professional Doctorate programme, which engages with psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists in practice-based research. In addition to drawing from dissertations already in the public domain students and graduates from the doctoral programme were invited to contribute their own embodied experiences from 'doing' a data analysis. The paper suggests a hybrid for narrative analysis, discussing the options to (re-)present narratives guided by a combined interest into the unique, personal whilst also looking for 'themes' within and across these narratives.


This paper derives the Ramsey optimal policy for taxing asset income in a model where government expenditure is a function of net output or the inputs that produce it. Extending Judd (1999), I demonstrate that the canonical result that the optimal tax on capital income is zero in the medium to long term is a special case of a more general model. Employing a vector error correction model to estimate the relationship between government consumption and net output for the United States between 1947Q1 to 2013Q2, I demonstrate that this special case is empirically implausible, and show how the cointegrating vector can be used to determine the optimal tax schedule. I simulate a version of the model using the empirical estimates to measure the welfare implications of changing the tax rate on asset income, and contrast these results with those generated in a version of the model where government consumption is purely exogenous. The shifting pattern of welfare measurements confirms the theoretical results. I calculate that the prevailing effective tax rate on net asset income in the US between 1995 and 2011 averaged 0.441. Hence abolishing the tax completely does generate welfare improvements, though only by the equivalent of less than a one percent permanent increase in consumption---less than a third the implied welfare benefit when the endogeneity of the government consumption is ignored. The maximum welfare improvement from shifting part of the burden of tax from capital to labour is the equivalent of a permanent increase in consumption of between only 1.173 and 1.304% and is attained when the tax rate on asset income is lowered to between 0.18 and 0.2. Allowing the tax rate to vary over time raises the maximum welfare benefit to 1.31%. All the results are very robust to a wide range of elasticities of labour supply.


With expansion in the fields of urbanization, technical development and industrialization, Qatar faces the challenge of advancing urban and industrial development while ensuring effective safety and environmental management. Whether assessing environmental quality, the impact of a metro system, or emergency response planning, decision making relies on the integration of disparate sources of data. Geospatial referencing provides a unifying framework from which civil engineering, public policy and research decisions can be made within a web-based environment. The foundation of a geospatial reference system should be the surface geology of the country and its marine habitats. In addition to bedrock geology, the database should include features such as lineaments, drainages, land movement studies, karst features and soil types. Marine data include biota, sediment types, water quality, hydrodynamic data, and ecological sensitivity. In an arid climate, where water resources are key considerations, it is important to have a consistent geological framework for both surface and near surface geology. Accordingly, the near surface, aquifers should have a sequence stratigraphic analysis. Within a web-based infrastructure, geospatial data can be accessible to many users with access controls set by data owners and can be appropriated to user needs. Such a geodatabase mapping tool may combine 3 functions: 1) database/resource-a query tool for government, industry and the public, 2) an evaluation tool allowing the end user forward modeling/impact assessment and cause/effect analysis capability, 3) a communication tool for decision making--where results from a query may be circulated to a linked forum of specialists for consideration. The emergence of web-based, spatial referencing GIS tools shows great promise in many key aspects of public policy and research, including data storage, data analysis, and decision making. The vision is the implementation of integrated diverse multi-scale, multi-disciplinary spatial data from geological rock samples to cutting edge multi-spectral satellite imagery for use in solving complex geological, geophysical, geotechnical and environmental problems.


The flow around a circular cylinder, a canonical bluff body, has been extensively studied in the literature to determine the mechanisms that cause the formation of vortices in the cylinder wake. Understanding of these mechanisms has led to myriad attempts to control the vortices either to mitigate the oscillating forces they cause, or to augment them in order to enhance mixing in the near-wake. While these flow control techniques have been effective at low Reynolds numbers, they generally lose effectiveness or require excessive power at Reynolds numbers commonly experienced in practical applications. For this reason, new methods for identifying the locations of vortices and their shedding time could increase the effectiveness of the control techniques. In the current work, two-dimensional, two-component velocity data was collected in the wake of a circular cylinder using a planar digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) measurement system at Reynolds numbers of 9,000 and 19,000. This experimental data, as well as two-dimensional simulation data at a Reynolds number of 150, and three-dimensional simulation data at a Reynolds number of 400, is used to calculate the finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) field. The locations of Lagrangian saddles, identified as non-parallel intersections of positive and negativetime FTLE ridges, are shown to indicate the timing of von Kármán vortex shedding in the wake of a circular cylinder. The Lagrangian saddle found upstream of a forming and subsequently shedding vortex is shown to clearly accelerate away from the cylinder surface as the vortex begins to shed. This provides a novel, objective method to determine the timing of vortex shedding. The saddles are impossible to track in real-time, however, since future flow field data is needed for the computation of the FTLE fields. In order to detect the Lagrangian saddle acceleration without direct access to the FTLE, the saddle dynamics are connected to measurable surface quantities on a circular cylinder in crossflow. The acceleration of the Lagrangian saddle occurs simultaneously with a maximum in lift in both numerical cases, and with a minimum in the static pressure at a location slightly upstream of the mean separation location in the numerical cases, as well as the experimental data at a Reynolds number of 19,000. This allows the von Kármán vortex shedding time, determined objectively by the acceleration of the Lagrangian saddle away from the circular cylinder, to be detected by a minimum in the static pressure at one location on the cylinder, a quantity that can be measured in real-time using available pressure sensors. These results can be used to place sensors in optimal locations on bluff bodies to inform closed-loop flow control algorithms of the timing of von Kármán vortex shedding. Lagrangian Visualization and Real-Time Identification of the Vortex Shedding Time in the Wake of a Circular Cylinder


Coral surface temperature was investigated with multiple temperature sensors mounted on hemispherical and branching corals under (a) artificial lighting and controlled flow; (b) natural sunlight and controlled flow; and (c) in situ conditions in a shallow lagoon, under naturally fluctuating irradiance, water flow, and temperature. Under high irradiance and low flow conditions, hemispherical corals were 0.6°C warmer than the surrounding water. Hemispherical corals reached higher temperatures than branching corals, by a measure of 0.2°C to 0.4°C. Microsensor temperature measurements showed the presence of a thermal boundary layer (TBL). The TBL thickness was flow dependent, and under low flow conditions, a TBL up to 3 mm thick limited heat transfer to the ambient water. Combined microsensor measurements of temperature and oxygen showed that the TBL was approximately four times thicker than the diffusive boundary layer, as predicted from heat and mass transfer theory. A simple conceptual model describes coral surface temperature as a function of heat fluxes between coral tissue, skeleton, and surroundings. The slope of the predicted linear relationship between coral temperature and solar irradiance is fixed by the efficiencies of light absorption and the heat losses to the skeleton and the water. Although spectral absorptivity may play a significant role in coral warming, shape-related differences in thermal properties can cause hemispherical corals to reach higher temperatures than branching corals. Shape-related differences in thermal histories may thus help explain differences in susceptibility to coral bleaching between branching and hemispherical coral species.


Hemithioindigo (HTI) is an emerging photoswitch with many advantageous properties compared to the commonly used photoswitches like azobenzenes, spiropyranes, or dithienylethenes. In this DIGEST the syntheses, physical and photophysical properties of HTI photoswitches and mechanistic explanations for the latter are reviewed. Emphasis will be placed on those distinct properties that render HTIs into unique phototools. Additionally, a broad variety of applications ranging from supramolecular to biological chemistry is presented to highlight the great potential of HTIs as upcoming, alternative photoswitches.


Neyman and Scott (1948) define the incidental parameter problem. In panel data with T observations per individual and unobservable individual- specific effects, the inconsistency of the maximum likelihood estimator of the common parameters is in general of the order 1/T. This paper considers the integrated likelihood estimator and develops the integrated moment estimator. It shows that the inconsistency of the integrated likelihood estimator reduces from 1/T to 1/T2 if an information orthogonal parametrization is used. It derives information orthogonal moment functions for the general linear model and the index model with weakly exogenous regressors and thereby offers an approximate solution for the incidental parameter problem for a wide range of models. It argues that reparametrizations are easier in a Bayesian framework and shows how to use the 1/T2- result to increase the robustness against the choice of mixing distribution. The integrated likelihood estimator is consistent and adaptive for asympototics in which T proportional to N to the power alpha where alpha is larger than 1/3. The paper also shows that likelihood methods that use sufficient statistics for the individual-specific effects can be viewed as a special case of the integrated likelihood estimator.


Several diseases affect maize plants and one among them is black bundle disease, causal organism of which is yet
to be confirmed with conflicting reports appearing in literature. In the present work, an effort was made to record
the disease incidence by carry out filed surveys in Southern most district of Karnataka state, India and also to
isolate and identify the causal organism. The surface sterilized pith tissue from the infected plants was cultured on
PDA medium to identify the organism in the affected vascular tissue. The isolated tissue produce Cephalosporium
acremonium which was confirmed based on morphological characters. In addition, Simplicillium sp. and
Macrophomina phaseolina were also isolated from the same infected plant material and suspected to have
participated in the disease development. In accordance with several reports in literature, Cephalosporium
acremonium was tested and confirmed as the causal organism of disease in green house experiments by following
the Koch's postulates. This is in contrast with some earlier reports, wherein the exact symptoms of black bundle
disease were reported as barren stalks in corn caused by Fusarium sp. The simplicillium sp. which had
morphological similarity with C. acremonium and had an ambiguous taxonomic status in literature was confirmed
as a distinct species through PCR based diagnosis.


The problem of deriving a complete set of aerosol optical properties from Sun and sky radiance measurements is discussed. Algorithm development is focused on improving aerosol retrievals by means of including a detailed statistical optimization of the influence of noise in the inversion procedure. The methodological aspects of such an optimization are discussed in detail and revised according to both modern findings in inversion theory and practical experience in remote sensing. Accordingly, the proposed inversion algorithm is built on the principles of statistical estimation: the spectral radiances and various a priori constraints on aerosol characteristics are considered as multisource data that are known with predetermined accuracy. The inversion is designed as a search for the best fit of all input data by a theoretical model that takes into account the different levels of accuracy of the fitted data. The algorithm allows a choice of normal or lognormal noise assumptions. The multivariable fitting is implemented by a stable numerical procedure combining matrix inversion and univariant relaxation. The theoretical inversion scheme has been realized in the advanced algorithm retrieving aerosol size distribution together with complex refractive index from the spectral measurements of direct and diffuse radiation. The aerosol particles are modeled as homogeneous spheres. The atmospheric radiative transfer modeling is implemented with well-established publicly available radiative transfer codes. The retrieved refractive indices can be wavelength dependent; however, the extended smoothness constraints are applied to its spectral dependence (and indirectly through smoothness constraints on retrieved size distributions). The positive effects of statistical optimization on the retrieval results as well as the importance of applying a priori constraints are discussed in detail for the retrieval of both aerosol size distribution and complex refractive index. The developed algorithm is adapted for the retrieval of aerosol properties from measurements made by ground-based Sun-sky scanning radiometers used in the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The results of numerical tests together with examples of experimental data inversions are presented.


In this paper we explore the trend of professionalization, with a focus on autonomization, in the Swiss wastewater sector. The aim is to evaluate the performance of water utilities in terms of legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness in the context of autonomization. We apply these criteria in an analytical framework to relate governance to the performance of water utilities. We argue that autonomization under public law may be a valuable means to create a business-oriented water utility but that it remains important to address the tradeoffs between legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness. The empirical component of this paper draws from a case-study analysis of the wastewater utility in Zurich, Switzerland, which has undergone autonomization but remains under public law. We find that this organization under public law is a case-in-point for illustrating that it is possible to have good business management in a municipal enterprise without needing to involve private actors or reorganize a utility under private law. We find that while the autonomization of the wastewater utility enabled it to have increased efficiency and effectiveness, there are tradeoffs with regards to legitimacy indicators as the decoupling of management from political decisionmaking leads to less direct democratic influence.