This article examines the issue of strengthening self-study research in teacher education by consciously situating individual studies within coherent research programs on particular substantive issues. Although acknowledging the positive professional development impact of self-study on teacher educators, this article calls for more closely connecting the self-studies of teacher educators to the mainstream of teacher education research so that the voices of practicing teacher educators are incorporated into syntheses of research on particular aspects of teacher education. The article rejects the dualism of research either contributing to greater theoretical understanding or to the improvement of practice and argues that self-study research should attempt to work on both goals simultaneously.


A detailed Rb-Sr geochronological and geochemical study has been carried out on granitoids of the North Patagonian batholith in Aysén. The results for 25 plutonic bodies reveal a complex age pattern. The principal zones defined are, from west to east: Late Cretaceous (a single 76 Ma pluton), Early Cretaceous (c. 135 Ma), Eocene (c. 45 Ma), and Early Miocene (25-15 Ma), reverting to mid-Cretaceous (120-90 Ma) in the Main Cordillera. The igneous suite is typically metaluminous and calc-alkaline, with hornblende-biotite granodiorite and tonalite dominant, although small bodies of Late Miocene/Pliocene (c. 10-5 Ma) peraluminous leucogranite occur sporadically. Tertiary plutonism extends to gabbroic compositions and is concentrated in the vicinity of the dextral strike-slip Liquine-Ofqui fault zone. The highest initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (c. 0.7050) occur in the Early Cretaceous group, with a sharp decrease to 0.7034–0.7045 that persists until a Late Miocene reversal to higher values (0.7040–0.7048). These variations are reflected by Nd isotopes, but trends in the ɛSr, v. ɛNd, diagram show that this is not due to contamination from the accretionary complex into which the batholith was emplaced. An origin by melting of mafic crustal underplate and lower crust is suggested for the main magma suite. The discrete episodes of magmatism correlate with significant changes in subduction kinematics.


The key technical contribution of this chapter is in proposing a protocol to search tags in a population of RFID tags. This chapter represents the first effort on addressing this important and practical problem for C1G2 compliant RFID systems. The key technical depth of this chapter is in the mathematical development of the theory that RTSP is based on. The solid theoretical underpinning ensures that RTSP always achieves the required confidence interval. We have proposed a technique to handle large frame sizes to ensure the compliance with the C1G2 standard. We have also proposed a method to implicitly estimate the number of tags in set C. We implemented RTSP and conducted side-by-side comparisons with TH, the fastest prior tag identification protocol. Our experimental results show that RTSP always achieves the required confidence interval and significantly outperforms TH in terms of search time.


In this paper, we explore the impact of workers' tenure on firm productivity, using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on private Belgian firms. We estimate a production function augmented with a firm-level measure of tenure. We deal with endogeneity, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of Ackerberg et al.'s (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Consistently with recent theoretical predictions, we find that tenure exhibits an inverted-U-shaped relationship with respect to productivity. The existence of decreasing marginal returns to tenure is corroborated in our analysis on the tenure composition of the workforce. We also find that the impact of tenure differs widely across workforce and firm dimensions. Tenure is particularly beneficial for productivity in contexts characterized by a certain degree of routineness and lower job complexity. Along the same lines, our findings indicate that tenure exerts stronger (positive) impacts in industrial and high capital-intensive firms, as well as in firms less reliant on knowledge- and ICT-intensive processes.


Arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and nickel are classified by IARC as human carcinogens (Group 1), while lead as a probable/possible carcinogen to humans (Group 2A). We explored associations between occupational exposure to metals and breast, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), colorectal, prostate, and stomach cancer in the MCC-Spain population based case-control study. Methods The analyses were based on 3047 controls, and 1499 breast, 1539 colorectal, 332 CLL, 1070 prostate, and 382 stomach cancer cases. Occupational exposure to arsenic, cadmium, chromium, iron, lead and nickel was assessed using the MatEmEsp job-exposure matrix. Logistic regression models accounting for education, sex, geographic area, number of jobs, body mass index (colorectal, prostate), smoking (stomach, colorectal), menopause (breast) and number of alive children (breast) were fit to estimate Odds Ratios (OR) and 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI). Results Occupational exposure to each of the studied metals was associated with higher prostate cancer risk. Associations were specially observed for a duration higher than 10 years, and among those working in occupations with higher probability*intensity of the exposure. Working in occupations entailing higher probability*intensity of the exposure to cadmium, chromium and nickel was associated with breast cancer. Arsenic exposure for more than 10 years showed a non-significant higher risk of colorectal cancer. None of the metals assessed showed any suggestion of an association with CLL, nor stomach cancer. Our results support the association between occupational exposure to carcinogenic metals and risk of hormone related tumours like breast and prostate cancer.


Hemsjukvardscentralen began its work from Tunasens Hospital in Uppsala in 1962, with the purpose to give conomic support to people who nursed their chronic sick relatives in home. Hemsjukvardscentralen ended its work in 1987, and delivered its archive to the County council of Uppsala in 1988. About half of the archive consisted of medical records of the patients who had received economical support, and many of the archival records was considered as "work papers", non-archival records that could be discarded. Two obvious problems emerge from the organizing of the records. The first problem was the difficulty to keep the principle of provenance while making a access point to the archive, especially when it's common in Sweden to use the double principle of provenance: a fusion between the respect des fonds, the external order, and the strukturprinzip, the internal order. The second problem was to compile a complete history of the Hemsjukvardscentralen's activities during its active years, and therefor decide which records to save and which records to discard – and which records who had a value for the future. This analysis therefore focus on the series F1 (the medical records) and F6 (the "work papers"). This is a one year master's thesis in archival science.


We study the allocation of driver's licenses in India by randomly assigning applicants to one of three groups: bonus (offered a bonus for obtaining a license quickly), lesson (offered free driving lessons), or comparison. Both the bonus and lesson groups are more likely to obtain licenses. However, bonus group members are more likely to make extralegal payments and to obtain licenses without knowing how to drive. All extralegal payments happen through private intermediaries ("agents"). An audit study of agents reveals that they can circumvent procedures such as the driving test. Overall, our results support the view that corruption does not merely reflect transfers from citizens to bureaucrats but distorts allocation.


Coordination in cooperative multiagent systems is an important problem in multiagent learning literature. In practical complex environments, the interactions between agents can be sparse, and each agent's interacting partners may change frequently and randomly. To this end, we investigate the multiagent coordination problems in cooperative environments under the social learning framework. We consider a large population of agents where each agent interacts with another agent randomly chosen from the population in each round. Each agent learns its policy through repeated interactions with the rest of agents via social learning. It is not clear a priori if all agents can learn a consistent optimal coordination policy in such a situation. We distinguish two types of learners: individual action learner and joint action learner. The learning performance of both learners are evaluated under a number of challenging cooperative games, and the influence of the information sharing degree on the learning performance is investigated as well.


Holy Communion and want of bread In Africa one out of three people suffers from undernourishment or malnutrition. In this respect the topical question whether Holy Communion and acts of charity to those who suffer from hunger can be linked. Jesus not only endows Holy Communion with a personal dimension of faith, but also foregrounds this aspect in the care for those who suffer from hunger. New Testament material reveals that in the congregation of Jerusalem partaking of Holy Communion developed into mutual diaconal care. It is thus for this reason inter alia that Paul warns against misusing Holy Communion. This kind of misuse was evident because the rich partook of Christ's meal of love without realising that they could only be part of this act of love by bestowing love themselves. In this article some practical guidelines to link the celebration of Holy Communion and the crisis of want of bread are discussed.


Abstract This study examines 12 recent CMA exams administered from June 1987 through December 1992 to determine the extent of information systems (IS) coverage. We evaluated each exam using a definition of IS knowledge and skills from the common body of knowledge developed by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). The results of the study indicate that the IMA has recognized the importance of IS knowledge, as evidenced by the extent of exam coverage and the relevance of the items tested. Because information systems courses are included in a model curriculum recommended by the IMA, the results of this study may be useful to accounting faculty in designing accounting systems courses.


Deficiencies of zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe) are widespread nutritional problems, caused mainly by low dietary intake. Biofortification of cereal grains with Zn and Fe in order to alleviate the health problems associated with these deficiencies is a global challenge. Based on the hypothesis that nitrogen (N) nutrition may affect the transporter proteins and other nitrogenous molecules which are involved in root uptake, root-to-shoot transport, remobilization, phloem transport and grain accumulation as well as grain localization of Zn and Fe, the potential of N fertilization in biofortification of wheat grain was investigated in this project. For this purpose, wheat plants were grown with different N and Zn treatments under greenhouse or growth chamber conditions. Increasing N application improved the grain Zn and Fe concentrations by up to 100%. This impact of N on grain Zn concentration disappeared at low Zn supply, whereas the combination of high N and Zn treatments gave rise to synergistic results. Under high Zn availability, higher N supply increased the shoot Zn and Fe contents by up to 300%, indicating a tremendous enhancement in root uptake. Higher N application also led to a 240% increase in Zn and 70% increase in Fe remobilization to grains. Improving the N nutrition enhanced the Zn and Fe concentrations not only in the whole grain but also the endosperm, the most widely consumed part of wheat grain. As an agronomic biofortification tool, optimized N applications may rapidly and effectively contribute to the mitigation of Zn and Fe deficiency problems in developing countries.


Abstract: This article attempts to identify and describe core characteristics of lonely middle school students, regarding how these students socially interact around their peers in classes. Findings reveal that lonely students often keep to themselves. Often, they distance themselves and select another activity, such as walking or reading. In some circumstances, they will not even speak a word unless someone asks them a question. Lonely students will choose to remain alone for various reasons: 1) They lack interest in the activity 2) They fear ridicule by their classmates and/or 3) They perceive that their peer do not want them to participate. If lonely students are forced to participate, they often remain on the outskirts of the activity; in essence, they will participate as little as possible. In summary, lonely students report that they choose to remain alone and distance themselves from their classmates. Strategies that can be implemented to encourage participation include creating small groups that are less competitive, incorporating peer assistance with activity skills, and/or encouraging lonely students to attend other activities after school that appeal to their interests.


Results of a two-year evaluation of youth leadership programs offered within community youth development programs in Connecticut are presented. Youth involved in leadership activities were contrasted with a comparison group of youth who were not involved in leadership programming. Participants in the leadership programs reported an improved sense of support from their local communities. Leadership training also appeared to offer an added benefit to males who reported significant improvements in their social self-efficacy in contrast to females engaged in leadership programs or youth comprising the comparison group. Youth who participated in the leadership programs appeared to be a uniquely talented group of individuals, initially scoring higher than the comparison group on a variety of youth outcome measures. However, a subgroup of youth who began the leadership program at a lower level of overall functioning were more likely than youth who began the program at a higher level of functioning to report positive changes.


A major writer and a leading figure in the public life of Rome, Seneca (c. 4BC AD 65) ranks among the most eloquent and influential masters of Latin prose. This selection explores his thoughts on philosophy and the trials of life. In the Consolation to Helvia he strives to offer solace to his mother, following his exile in AD 41, while On the Shortness of Life and On Tranquillity of Mind are lucid and compelling explorations of Stoic thought. Witty and self-critical, the Letters written to his young friend Lucilius explore Seneca's struggle to acquire philosophical wisdom. A fascinating insight into one of the greatest minds of Ancient Rome, these works inspired writers and thinkers including Montaigne, Rousseau, and Bacon, and continue to intrigue and enlighten.


Identify fusion theory has become a popular psychological explanation of costly self-sacrifice, with recent work positing that an interaction between negative outgroup relations and fusion with one's ingroup which would lead to sacrificial behavior that benefits the ingroup. We test this hypothesis using a behavioral economic experiment designed to detect biased, self-interested favoritism among eight different populations ranging from foragers and horticulturalists to the fully market-integrated. We find that while individuals favor themselves on average, those with higher ingroup fusion sacrifice more money to others. However, the posited negative interaction between ingroup and outgroup relations shows no consistent effects at the individual or population levels because outgroup fusion also predicts sacrificing an opportunity to take more money. We conclude by suggesting that the fusion scale measures generalized sociability and/or is not necessarily able to precisely capture outgroup hostility.


The growth dynamics and survival of the sponge Corticium candelabrum (Demospon- giae: Homosclerophorida) were surveyed in the northwestern Mediterranean for more than 3 yr. Growth and regeneration rates, fission and fusion events and survival were monitored monthly. Moreover, in situ punctual clearance experiments were conducted seasonally searching for possible relationships between food uptake and sponge dynamics. The monthly growth rates (GR) of C. can- delabrum were low (0.19 ± 0.02 mean (±SE) for the 3 yr of study), variable and seasonal, with the highest values in summer. The cumulative survival function followed a stepped profile with several consecutive months without mortality separated by shorter mortality events, which mainly occurred in cold months (winter-spring). However, an event of high mortality (76% of the monitored individ- uals died) took place in the particularly warm summer 2003. Fission events were frequent after pre- vious damage (e.g. partial predation) and only one fusion event was recorded along the study period. The diet of C. candelabrum was highly heterogeneous. Differences in clearance rates (CR) among picoplankton types with season indicated that the sponge retained with different efficiency the sev- eral picoplankton types present in the water. Survival and GRs were significantly different for small, medium and large individuals (size-classes I, II and III), with the small sponges showing the lowest survival (56.6% cumulative mortality for the last 2 yr of study) and the highest GRs (0.18 ± 0.03 mo -1 , mean ± SE). On the whole, the results indicate that C. candelabrum is a slow-growing but dynamic sponge.


Afitti is part of the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. It features dual and plural forms as part of its kinship terminology that have not been attested elsewhere in the language family. Kinship terminology in which possessive pronouns have merged with kinship terms is also known for a series of Eastern Sudanic languages. Nyimang, Afitti's closest linguistic neighbor, features a dual form but it is limited to its verbal system. The dual in Nyimang supports the suggestion that Afitti's kinship terminology with a dual form has a historical basis, since a regional influence of the Arabic system of duals can be largely ruled out. Morphological data on Afitti should further the analysis of its kinship terms in future studies.


The mechanisms by which luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) antagonists act on extra-pituitary tissues are poorly understood. In view of extensive use of Cetrorelix in gynecology and oncology, we investigated its effects on signal transduction pathways of G-protein coupled receptors and adenylate cyclase which are involved in a huge array of cellular events including normal and pathological cell proliferation. Thirty days after a single i.m. injection of 3 mg Cetrorelix pamoate depot to female rats, normal or ovariectomized, we evaluated the effects of this chronic treatment on the expression of alphas and alphai G-protein subunits in the ovary, breast and pituitary, as well as the adenylate cyclase response in vitro to LH-RH, vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating peptide (PACAP). Varied patterns of response to Cetrorelix, depending on the gland and estrogenic status were observed. Western blot analysis showed a modest decrease of alphas and a modest increase of alphai G-protein subunit levels in ovary, a marked increase of alphas and alphai levels in breast, and a lack of effect on alphas/alphai levels in pituitary. In the ovary, adenylate cyclase activity was not changed by in vitro addition of LH-RH, but the responses to VIP and PACAP increased after Cetrorelix treatment. In the breast, chronic administration of the LH-RH antagonist decreased the adenylate cyclase response to PACAP, which returned to normal after ovariectomy. In the pituitary, Cetrorelix abolished the stimulatory effect of VIP upon adenylate cyclase activity. Thus, the LH-RH antagonist Cetrorelix exerted selective modifications at different steps of the G-protein coupled receptors/adenylate cyclase system of signal transduction in the rat ovary, breast and pituitary.


Become an expert in Cisco VPN technologies with this practical and comprehensive configuration guide. Learn how to configure IPSEC VPNs (site-to-site, hub-and-spoke, remote access), SSL VPN, DMVPN, GRE, VTI etc. This book is packed with step-by-step configuration tutorials and real world scenarios to implement VPNs on Cisco ASA Firewalls (v8.4 and above and v9.x) and on Cisco Routers. It is filled with raw practical concepts, around 40 network diagrams to explain the scenarios, troubleshooting instructions, 20 complete configurations on actual devices and much more. Both beginners and experts will find some golden nuggets inside this practical guide. Every Cisco Networking Professional in this planet will have to configure some kind of VPN sooner or later in his/her professional career. This VPN Guide, therefore, will be a great reference for years to come. Some of the topics covered include the following: Policy-Based (IPSEC) and Route-Based VPNs (Comparison and Applications). Practical Applications of each VPN Technology. Configuration of Site-to-Site, Hub-and-Spoke and Remote Access IPSEC VPNs on Cisco Routers. Configuration of Route-Based VPNs using GRE, Static VTI, Dynamic VTI. Configuration of Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) on Cisco Routers. Configuration of PPTP VPNs on Cisco Routers. Configuration of Site-to-Site and Hub-and-Spoke IPSEC VPNs (including IKEv2 IPSEC) on Cisco ASA Firewalls. Configuration of Remote Access IPSEC VPN and Anyconnect SSL VPN on Cisco ASA Firewalls. VPN Authentication using Active Directory, RSA Server and external AAA Server. PLUS MUCH MORE In addition to the most popular VPN topologies and scenarios, the book contains also some special cases for which you will not find information easily anywhere else. Some special cases and scenarios included in the book: VPNs with sites having dynamic public IP address. Implementations of hub-and-spoke together with remote access VPNs on the same device. Using Dynamic Routing Protocols (EIGRP) to make VPNs on Routers more scalable. Spoke to Spoke communication via the Hub Site (using VPN Hairpinning on ASA). Remote Access users to communicate with Spoke sites via the Hub (using VPN Hairpinning on ASA). Site-to-Site IPSEC VPN with duplicate subnets on the two sites. IPSEC VPN Failover with backup ISP.


This thesis proposes an original method for assessing total costs of medical treatment. It defines the semi-Markov model with four states that are associated with specific costs of the treatment, and not with patients' health statuses. This method is applied to individuals' treatment data drawn from the Czech clinical practice in the treatment of the metastatic HER2+ breast cancer. The aim is to assess the cost-effectiveness of adding medication pertuzumab to the combination of trastuzumab+docetaxel within first-line therapy and to examine whether using individual data on Czech patients and the economic conditions leads to different results from foreign studies. Furthermore, employing censored data from the clinical practice in the thesis complicates the estimation of patients' overall survival in comparison to clinical-trials data that form random samples. Therefore, survival functions were not only estimated by the Kaplan-Meier estimator but also using the Cox proportional hazard model and the Accelerated failure time model that both control for the effects of included covariates. The addition of pertuzumab does not result in significantly longer patients' survival based on the employed data. Since the treatment is associated with higher costs, adding pertuzumab is not considered to be cost-effective. This discrepancy from the results of the international clinical trial CLEOPATRA could be attributed to dissimilar patients' length of follow-up.


Abstract Archaean cratons are the stable remnants of Earth's early continental lithosphere, and their structure, composition and survival over geological time make them unique features of the Earth's surface. The Kaapvaal Project of southern Africa was organized around a broadly diverse scientific collaboration to investigate fundamental questions of craton formation and mantle differentiation in the early Earth. The principal aim of the project was to characterize the physical and chemical nature of the crust and mantle of the cratons of southern Africa in geological detail, and to use the 3D seismic and geochemical images of crustal and mantle heterogeneity to reconstruct the assembly history of the cratons. Seismic results confirm that the structure of crust and tectospheric mantle of the cratons differs significantly from that of post-Archaean terranes. Three-dimensional body-wave tomographic images reveal that high-velocity mantle roots extend to depths of at least 200 km, and locally to depths of 250–300 km beneath cratonic terranes. No low-velocity channel has been identified beneath the cratonic root. The Kaapvaal Craton was modified approximately 2.05 Ga by the Bushveld magmatic event, and the mantle beneath the Bushveld Province is characterized by relatively low seismic velocities. The crust beneath undisturbed Archaean craton is relatively thin (c. 35–40 km), unlayered and characterized by a strong velocity contrast across a sharp Moho, whereas post-Archaean terranes and Archaean regions disrupted by large-scale Proterozoic magmatic or tectonic events are characterized by thicker crust, complex Moho structure and higher seismic velocities in the lower crust. A review of Re-Os depletion model age determinations confirms that the mantle root beneath the cratons is Archaean in age. The data show also that there is no apparent age progression with depth in the mantle keel, indicating that its thickness has not increased over geological time. Both laboratory experiments and geochemical results from eclogite xenoliths suggest that subduction processes played a central role in the formation of Archaean crust, the melt depletion of Archaean mantle and the assembly of early continental lithosphere. Co-ordinated geochronological studies of crustal and mantle xenoliths have revealed that both crust and mantle have experienced a multi-stage history. The lower crust in particular retains a comprehensive record of the tectonothermal evolution of the lithosphere. Analysis of lower-crustal xenoliths has shown that much of the deep craton experienced a dynamic and proteracted history of tectonothermal activity that is temporally associated with events seen in the surface record. Cratonization thus occurred not as a discrete event, but in stages, with final stabilization postdating crustal formation.


While technological advances in computing and telecommunications are revolutionising the way many organisations work, healthcare systems in The Gambia are very much lagging behind. No proper patient records or filing systems are in place. Delivery of effective healthcare depends on availability of routinely collected, good quality health data to provide useful information that is accessible when and where it is needed. Presently, in The Gambia, there is considerable scope for improvement in relation to such data. Electronic patient record system is long overdue. This research, focuses on the development of a Health Information System (HIS) capable of providing doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals with quick and easy access to the appropriate information needed to care for their patients. A systems analysis has been undertaken to identify the full need for patient health data, the range of users and the extent of present paper-based provision. From this analysis, a requirements specification has been produced for a proposed health information and administration system (HIAS) to become operational and also successful in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The requirements specification has taken the form of a series of precise statements of needs, buttressed with a corresponding justification in each case. By assessing what information and communication technology (lCT) is required and feasible, affordable and available in The Gambia, based on the extensive fieldwork involving interviews, observational study and questionnaires, a design specification (the logical and physical framework for the proposed ,IUAS) has also been produced as a precursor to the development of the proposed HIAS prototype. The approach,used will aid any implementor to progress from the proposed system to a fully functional one in an efficient and timely manner. Constraints in the programme of research were such that it was not possible to continue on with a prototype implementation based on this design. Hence it is now for The Gambia government to study and implement the proposed system. Several recommendations have been made in the areas of policies to be implemented, resources needed and training and motivation. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the value or role of health informatics in the provision of health care in a developing country. It has contributed in the understanding of the complexities of the problems in The Gambia and developing countries, building this understanding in terms of requirements analysis and design specification and in methodological issues.


In 1960, 94 percent of doctors and lawyers were white men. By 2010, the fraction was just 62 percent. Similar changes in other highly‐skilled occupations have occurred throughout the U.S. economy during the last 50 years. Given that the innate talent for these professions is unlikely to have changed differently across groups, the change in the occupational distribution since 1960 suggests that a substantial pool of innately talented women and black men in 1960 were not pursuing their comparative advantage. We examine the effect on aggregate productivity of the convergence in the occupational distribution between 1960 and 2010 through the prism of a Roy model. Across our various specifications, between 20% and 40% of growth in aggregate market output per person can be explained by the improved allocation of talent.


Peroxiredoxins (Prx), a ubiquitous superfamily of peroxidases, are an important component of the antioxidant network of the cell, with members of the subgroups of 2-Cys Prx and type II Prx being in focus of the present work.
A comparative characterisation of cytosolic PrxII B and PrxII C was performed in order to get insight into the functional stability and the biochemical differences between these highly homologous isoforms. In comparison to other Prxs, both cytosolic isoforms, especially PrxII C, exhibited remarkably high reaction velocities for conversion of peroxides with dithiothreitol as artificial electron donor. The relative turnover of various substrates revealed preference towards small peroxides, a characteristic that was more pronounced for PrxII B with exclusive conversion of hydrogen peroxide and tertiary butylhydroperoxide. The employment of different regeneration systems resulted in activities of PrxII B and PrxII C in presence of thiredoxin (Trx) and glutaredoxin (Grx). In vitro, Trx enabled higher activity of PrxII B than of PrxII C, whereas Grx-dependent peroxidase function was more enhanced with PrxII C. The cytosolic Grx CxxC4 allowed for the regeneration of both Prxs but not the cytosolic Grx CxxC10 or two chloroplastidic Grxs. A bioinformatic analysis also indicated a relationship between both components of the thiol-disulfide redox network since PrxII B and PrxII C/D transcripts were co-regulated with those of specific members of these protein families. Moreover, the differentiation of both cytosolic isoforms could be substantiated by means of an additional in silico analysis of publicly available expression data. The comparison of transcript regulation during different developmental states, in various organs and tissues as well as in dependence of a multitude of exogenous stimuli revealed differential regulation patterns for PrxII B and PrxII C/D.
The impairment of functional stability, which was observed during concentration-dependent measurements of the cytosolic type II Prx activities, might tentatively be interpreted to indicate a function of PrxII B and PrxII C in signal transduction. The inhibition of catalytic activity is hypothesised to be due to overoxidation and provides for a regulatory mechanism to control the high peroxidatic potential of PrxII B and PrxII C. Consequently, this redox-dependent modulation might allow for a function as peroxide sensor and therefore facilitates signals via influencing levels of ROS.
Besides a functional characterisation of Prxs, it is important for a mechanistic understanding of catalytic functions to determine structural properties with a special focus on analysis of conformational dynamics and involved transition steps. In this context dynamical imaging via diffracted x-ray tracking (DXT) provides a new tool to investigate the complex conformational changes with high spatial and time resolution. The chloroplastidic 2-Cys Prx undergoes the necessary structural alterations that are important for its proper functionality. To establish a protein for dynamical imaging via x-ray dependent techniques, various prerequisites have to be fulfilled. Their analysis was the subject of the present work. Particular attention was given to the characterisation of functional stability of 2-Cys Prx upon x-ray treatment.
In this context, amino acid variants of 2-Cys Prx were generated by site-directed mutagenesis. The modified but still functional proteins on the one hand enabled the stable immobilisation on a Ni-NTA surface by its N-terminally fused His-tag as visualised by surface plasmon resonance (SPR). On the other hand, a stable interaction of gold-nanocrystals with introduced thiol-groups of the variants was investigated as another necessity to visualise conformational changes via DXT. The specificity of binding events could be considerably increased by supplementing the binding reaction buffer with additives. The supplements minimised the unspecific hydrophobic interactions significantly. As another very important aspect, irradiation impacts on different biochemical properties of 2-Cys Prx were characterised. Besides a dose-dependency of the occurring impairments, two different amino acids could be tentatively assigned as primary sites of damage. Tyrosine residues can be hypothesised to be responsible for structural impairments that were manifested by formation of higher molecular aggregates at the expense of monomeric 2-Cys Prx. In contrast, impacts on functional features as peroxidase activity and DNA protection from ROS-mediated cleavage were likely due to modification of cysteinyl residues. Overall, the 2-Cys Prx exhibited a remarkably high stability to x-ray treatment. These characteristics underlined its suitability as candidate to be used for dynamical imaging via DXT. Furthermore, radiation-mediated damaging effects could be alleviated by adding scavenging molecules.


The goal of this thesis is to develop nontraditional strategies to provide motion control for different engineering applications. We focus our attention on three topics: 1) roll reduction of ships in a seaway; 2) response reduction of buildings under seismic excitations; 3) new training strategies and neural-network configurations. The first topic of this research is based on a multidisciplinary simulation, which includes ship-motion simulation by means of a numerical model called LAMP, the modeling of fins and computation of the hydrodynamic forces produced by them, and a neural-network/fuzzy-logic controller. LAMP is based on a source-panel method to model the flowfield around the ship, whereas the fins are modeled by a general unsteady vortex-lattice method. The ship is considered to be a rigid body and the complete equations of motion are integrated numerically in the time domain. The motion of the ship and the complete flowfield are calculated simultaneously and interactively. The neural-network/fuzzy-logic controller can be progressively trained. The second topic is the development of a neural-network-based approach for the control of seismic structural response. To this end, a two-dimensional linear model and a hysteretic model of a multistory building are used. To control the response of the structure a tuned mass damper is located on the roof of the building. Such devices provide a good passive reduction. Once the mass damper is properly tuned, active control is added to improve the already efficient passive controller. This is achieved by means of a neural network. As part of the last topic, two new flexible and expeditious training strategies are developed to train the neural-network and fuzzy-logic controllers for both naval and civil engineering applications. The first strategy is based on a load-matching procedure, which seeks to adjust the controller in order to counteract the loads (forces and moments) which generate the motion that is to be reduced. A second training strategy provides training by means of an adaptive gradient search. This technique provides a wide flexibility in defining the parameters to be optimized. Also a novel neural-network approach called modal neural network is designed as a suitable controller for multiple-input multiple output control systems (MIMO).


Manufacturing companies often lack visibility of the procurement interdependencies between the suppliers within their supply network. However, knowledge of these interdependencies is useful to plan for potential operational disruptions. In this paper, we develop the Supply Network Link Predictor (SNLP) method to infer supplier interdependencies using the manufacturer's incomplete knowledge of the network. SNLP uses topological data to extract relational features from the known network to train a classifier for predicting potential links. Using a test case from the automotive industry, four features are extracted: (i) number of existing supplier links, (ii) overlaps between supplier product portfolios, (iii) product outsourcing associations, and (iv) likelihood of buyers purchasing from two suppliers together. Naive Bayes and Logistic Regression are then employed to predict whether these features can help predict interdependencies between two suppliers. Our results show that these features can indeed be used to predict interdependencies in the network and that predictive accuracy is maximised by (i) and (iii). The findings give rise to the exciting possibility of using data analytics for improving supply chain visibility. We then proceed to discuss to what extent such approaches can be adopted and their limitations, highlighting next steps for future work in this area.


This encyclopaedic work celebrates the scores of leading pioneers who created the modern economic field of industrial organization, at the heart of which lie competition and monopoly, the two great forces that drive modern markets. Their pioneering work has shaped the field's growing research as well as the past, present and future debates in Europe and America over several centuries. This landmark book includes authoritative entries on all the major figures in both Europe and North America.


Word embeddings are becoming pervasive in natural language processing (NLP), with one of their main strengths being their ability to capture semantic relationships between words. Rather than training their own embeddings many NLP practitioners elect to use pre-trained word embeddings. These pre-trained embeddings are typically created and evaluated using general corpora. Thus, there is a deficiency in the understanding of their performance within a technical domain. In this thesis, we explore how the nature of the data used to train embeddings can affect their performance when computing semantic relatedness within different domains. The three main contributions are as follows. Firstly, we find that the performance of general pre-trained embeddings is lacking in the biomedical domain. Secondly, we provide key insights that should be considered when working with word embeddings for any semantic task. Finally, we develop new biomedical word embeddings and provide them as publicly available for use by others.


This book presents an analysis of consumption patterns in the OECD (rich) and LDC (poor) countries using recent data (1950–1998) and econometric methodology for a number of broadly aggregated consumer goods. The income elasticity estimates for the 46 countries and 9 commodity groups are tabulated. The reliability of these elasticity estimates, and also the demand theory hypotheses, are investigated using simulation techniques.


Recent legal scholarship suggests that the Supreme Court's decisions on immigrants' rights favor conceptions of membership over personhood. Federal courts are often reluctant to recognize the personal rights claims of noncitizens because they are not members of the United States. Professor Michael Scaperlanda argues that because the courts have left the protection of noncitizens' rights in the hands of Congress and, therefore, its constituents, U.S. citizens must engage in a serious dialogue regarding membership in this polity while considering the importance of constitutional principles of personhood. This Article takes up Scaperlanda's challenge. Borrowing from recent research in social psychology, this Article contends that "We the People" can better inform our ideas of polity membership by resisting existing invidious stereotypes of the noncitizen as the "alien" and by embracing instead the notion of equal personhood. This Article also urges citizens to demand the repeal of the "court-stripping" provisions of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. These provisions encourage the federal government to renege on promises not to deport noncitizen defendants in exchange for assistance in criminal prosecutions. Without fear of judicial review, the government is free to enter into cooperation agreements with noncitizen defendants and then breach those agreements with impunity so as to achieve its dual goals of criminal prosecution and deportation. The federal government should not be allowed to break its promises, especially when the goal of the agreement with the noncitizen is to facilitate a criminal prosecution, not to impact immigration law.


Health literacy is the combination of cognitive and social skills that is necessary for adequate response to information about health, illness and health care. Subjects with limited health literacy often experience difficulty in understanding the information provided by health care professionals and finding their way in the health care system, with consequent increased morbidity and mortality. Health literacy is a wider concept than literacy. Approximately 1.5 million people in the Netherlands, of which two thirds are of ethnic Dutch origin, have low literacy skills or are illiterate. The group with low health literacy is even larger. Health care professionals, including physicians, must be able to recognise limited health literacy in order to react appropriately, for example by adapting information provision, checking understanding, supporting communication with visual aids, and making longer appointments.Such measures may be expected to improve results, but investigation of their effectiveness is necessary


The government's Integrated Manufacturing Strategy identifies competitiveness as its primary focus, and value-matrices as the framework within which to assess manufacturing performance. This paper addresses these issues through two main components. The first is a review of interpretations of competitiveness and its determinants. The second is an assessment of South African manufacturing performance in a comparative context. This makes reference to recent studies of manufacturing sub-sectors, and draws comparisons with the performance of other developing countries. Drawing on the analysis, implications are discussed for the government's industrial policy framework and the use of a value matrix methodology. Manufacturing Competitiveness and Industrial Policy


Microsoft hails the latest version of its flagship server operating system, Windows Server 2008, as "the most secure Windows Server ever". However, to fully achieve this lofty status, system administrators and security professionals must install, configure, monitor, log, and troubleshoot a dizzying array of new features and tools designed to keep the bad guys out and maintain the integrity of their network servers. This is no small task considering the market saturation of Windows Server and the rate at which it is attacked by malicious hackers. According to IDC, Windows Server runs 38% of all network servers. This market prominence also places Windows Server at the top of the SANS top 20 Security Attach Targets. The first five attack targets listed in the SANS top 20 for operating systems are related to Windows Server. This doesn't mean that Windows is inherently less secure than other operating systems; it's simply a numbers game. More machines running Windows Server. More targets for attackers to hack.
As a result of being at the top of the "most used" and "most hacked" lists, Microsoft has released a truly powerful suite of security tools for system administrators to deploy with Windows Server 2008. This book is the comprehensive guide needed by system administrators and security professionals to master seemingly overwhelming arsenal of new security tools including:
1. Network Access Protection, which gives administrators the power to isolate computers that don't comply with established security policies. The ability to enforce security requirements is a powerful means of protecting the network.
2. Enhanced solutions for intelligent rules and policies creation to increase control and protection over networking functions, allowing administrators to have a policy-driven network.
3. Protection of data to ensure it can only be accessed by users with the correct security context, and to make it available when hardware failures occur.
4. Protection against malicious software with User Account Control with a new authentication architecture.
5. Increased control over your user settings with Expanded Group Policy.
...to name just a handful of the new security features. In short, Windows Server 2008 contains by far the most powerful and complex suite of security tools ever released in a Microsoft Server product. Securing Windows Server 2008 provides system administrators and security professionals with the knowledge they need to harness this power.

* Describes new technologies and features in Windows Server 2008, such as improvements to networking and remote access features, centralized server role management, and an improved file system.
* Outlines steps for installing only the necessary components and subsystems of Windows Server 2008 in your environment. No GUI needed.
* Describes Windows Server 2008?s security innovations, such as Network Access Protection, Federated Rights Management, and Read-Only Domain Controller
* Includes coverage of monitoring, securing, and troubleshooting Windows Server 2008
* Covers Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology, which is offered as an add-on to four of the eight versions of Windows Server 2008 and as a stand-alone product


The development of alternative forms of energy supply since the mid-1970s has brought with it a range of new issues and concerns, ranging from nuclear waste disposal to land use planning for energy efficiency. This latest volume in the acclaimed Energy Policy Studies series brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers to examine the relationship between energy and planning policy, with emphasis on urban and regional impacts. Like other volumes in the series, the articles included focus on the social, political, and economic dimensions of energy technology, resources, and use. The emphasis on issues of technological scale, resource allocation, environmental impact and quality, and urban and regional studies makes this a unique contribution to the literature. Contents: "Creating Land-Energy Transitions," by Andrew F. Huston, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; "Land Use Planning for Energy Efficiency," by Susan E. Owens, Cambridge University; "Nuclear Waste Landscapes," by Barry Solomon, U.S. Energy Information Administration; "Economic Development, Growth and Land Use Planning in Oil and Gas Producing Regions," by Robert L. Mansell, University of Calgary; "The Land Use Focus of Energy Impacts," by M. J. Pasqualetti, Arizona State University; "Energy Use and Land Use," by Stephen Lonergan, McMaster University; and a concluding essay by J. Barry Cullingworth, University of Delaware.


Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus is characterized by high blood glucose levels during pregnancy. The reported prevalence of GDM is 7% worldwide while 8% in Pakistan. About 19.5% of the women with GDM develop post-partum metabolic syndrome. Methods: A prospective cohort study carried out at tertiary-care hospital in Lahore from Jan 2013 - Dec 2014 to determine the incidence of Mets in women with GDM. After informed consent, women with and without GDM were enrolled during 28th week of pregnancy. Demographic and personal data were recorded. Presence of Mets was evaluated 6 months after delivery measuring their blood pressure, anthropometry, fasting blood sugar (FBS) and triglycerides. Cumulative incidence of Mets, means of blood pressure, anthropometric measures were calculated. Comparisons of general characteristic and component of metabolic syndrome were done by student t-test. Results: 102 women with GDM and 104 without GDM were followed. The Cumulative Incidence of Mets was 33% in GDM while 15.4% in non-GDM (P-value = 0.002). GDM group were significantly older than non-GDM group (P-Value < 0.001). In GDM group 29 (28.4%) had impaired FBS while in non-GDM group 7 (7%) had impaired FBS. Diabetes developed in 27 (26.5%) of GDM group while none of non-GDM group. BMI blood pressure fasting glucose, and triglycerides were significantly higher in GDM group than non-GDM group. Conclusion: The study highlights that GDM group has more risk of developing Mets. They should be monitored as high risk for other cardiovascular diseases along with diabetes after delivery. Keywords: metabolic syndrome, gestational diabetes mellitus, postpartum period


In this paper, I consider how the inefficiency of photographic images, as seen in their inability to fully represent, opens up and situates a post-factual functioning of representation. Thus our conception of notions that maybe understood as post-truth or post-factual do not necessarily present a real or persistent problem, since they are at the very centre of the symbolic functioning of image.

Using examples from contemporary photography, this paper suggests that a post-truth condition is very much integral to photographic image making. It will develop the formulation that representation, always and necessarily, requires something additional that cannot easily be comprehended; something that is, ultimately, in excess of itself (such an excess can be understood in the structure of conspiracy theories or in the functioning of religions. In such cases, in order for a system of belief to work it is necessary that there is something more to believe, something beyond what we can understand). From this basis, a line of thought is developed that considers whether the expression of post-truth narratives is a manifestation of the apparent realisation that there never has been any age of truth; instead we experience a certain accord with what feels genuine.

Furthermore, rather than measuring truth by some form of external gauge, truth can really only be accounted for by understanding something of the formal inconsistency or contradiction inherent in its articulation and its context. Therefore, any possible truth of a photographic image lies in the multiple, unresolved contradictions that sustain its representational meaning. Of course, it is in this sense that we can easily and inevitably determine that there is no inner truth to photography. But such a conclusion is rarely developed beyond this deadlock. Since, to do so would have to confront that what exists are merely a series of contingent, representational, displacements.

Perhaps then, the truest test of our post-factual times is to consider what truth-effect is inevitably forced upon us. This paper will argue that one reading would reflect on a single, unifying consideration of truth with a post-truth, of fact with the post-factual. Under this consideration, photographic images are no longer suggestive of image in the sense that they were ever imagined to be. Instead, they become a series of looping combinations, a concatenated folding of image onto image, an incessant demand which exchanges image for image. But what if there can be no unification? A possible alternative reading is to see photographic images as revealing only gaps and inconsistencies in the world. The truth-effect we would then experience is one of a particular hierarchy: opposing the authentic with the inauthentic, the empirical with the hypothetical. This then serves to partially obfuscate the affective nature of experience in general.

Inevitably, since these endless cycles of image-qua-image, truth and post-truth have passed, and continue to pass interchangeably and almost unnoticed, this paper will ask whether, in its complicit relationship with both fact and fiction, photography is the ground zero of the post-truth epoch.


Whlte spot syndrome baculovirus (WSBV) has been found across ddferent shrimp species and in different Asian countries. The detection of WSBV in shrimp with white spot syndrome has already been achieved by means of l-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In an attempt to establish a more sensitive assay, we evaluated the effect of 2-step amplification with nested primers on the sensitivity of WSBV diagnostic PCR. The sensitivity of the 2-step amplification was 10" to 10"imes higher than that of l-step amplification. Using both techniques, we successfully detected WSBV DNA in cultured and captured shrimp, crabs and other arthropods. Cultured Penaeus monodon (black tiger shrimp), P. japonicus (kuruma shrimp), P penicjllatus (red tail shrimp), and Metapenaeus ensis (sand shrimp) displaying white spot syndrome were collected from farms at different localities. One-step amplification of the DNA extracted from these shrimps consistently yielded an expected 1447 bp PCR product. Some of the tested specimens of cultured Scylla serrata (mud crab) that exhibited white spot syndrome were positive in l-step WSBV diagnostic PCR, while others were positive only in 2-step WSBV diagnostic PCR. Use of the 2-step amplification protocol also detected a WSBV-specific DNA fragment in Macrobrachium rosenbergii (the giant freshwater prawn) exhibiting white spot syndrome. We also confirmed that WSBV exists in wild-caught shrimp (P monodon, f! japonicus, P semisulcatus and P penicillatus) and crabs (Charybdisferiatus. Portunuspelagicus and P. sanguinolentus) collected from the natural environment in coastal waters around southern Taiwan. Detection of WSBV in non-cultured arthropods collected from WSBV-affected shrimp farms revealed that copepods, the pest crab Hehce tndens, small pest Palaemonidae prawn and the larvae of an Ephydridae insect were reservoir hosts of WSBV. The relatedness between WSBV and Thailand's systemc ectodermal and mesodermal baculovirus (SEMBV) is d~scussed in this paper.


This paper proposes a novel algorithm for multiview stereopsis that outputs a dense set of small rectangular patches covering the surfaces visible in the images. Stereopsis is implemented as a match, expand, and filter procedure, starting from a sparse set of matched keypoints, and repeatedly expanding these before using visibility constraints to filter away false matches. The keys to the performance of the proposed algorithm are effective techniques for enforcing local photometric consistency and global visibility constraints. Simple but effective methods are also proposed to turn the resulting patch model into a mesh which can be further refined by an algorithm that enforces both photometric consistency and regularization constraints. The proposed approach automatically detects and discards outliers and obstacles and does not require any initialization in the form of a visual hull, a bounding box, or valid depth ranges. We have tested our algorithm on various data sets including objects with fine surface details, deep concavities, and thin structures, outdoor scenes observed from a restricted set of viewpoints, and "crowded" scenes where moving obstacles appear in front of a static structure of interest. A quantitative evaluation on the Middlebury benchmark (1) shows that the proposed method outperforms all others submitted so far for four out of the six data sets.


A Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) [1] is a collection of wireless mobile nodes forming a temporary network without using centralized access points, infrastructure, or centralized administration. Swarm Intelligence (SI) [1] is an artificial intelligence technique based around on the study of collective behavior in decentralized, self-organized systems. Ant Colony Optimization is popular among other Swarm Intelligent Techniques. Ants-based routing algorithms have attracted the attention of researchers because they are more robust, reliable, and scalable than other conventional routing algorithms. Since they do not involve extra message exchanges to maintain paths when network topology changes, they are suitable for mobile ad-hoc networks where nodes move dynamically and topology changes frequently. In this paper, a different ant based routing protocols are studied. Keywords— Ant based routing protocol, ACO, Antnet, Anthocnet, PERA INTRODUCTION


The harmful use of alcohol is the leading risk factor for death, ill-health and disability among 15 to 49-year-olds in the UK. Drinking is linked to over 200 conditions and diseases (including cancer, heart disease, fertility problems, stroke and mental health issues) but public awareness is low; 77% of people are unaware of the link between alcohol and breast cancer. Recent NHS figures show that in 2018 at least 1.3 million people were admitted to hospital with a diagnosis linked to alcohol.

The Government's Chief Medical Officers' (CMO) low-risk drinking guidelines for the UK were updated in 2016 to reflect new evidence on health risks. Our research looked at 424 alcohol containers on shop shelves in October 2019 to see whether labels include this advice, which regular polling shows consumers want. Ahead of the full report (due to be published in Spring 2020) early findings show that:
• More than 70% of labels did not include the up-to-date CMO guidelines
• Nearly a quarter contained misleading, out-of-date health information

This research shows that the current approach to regulating labelling is not working. People cannot rely on the information provided on labels to give them the information they need - at the point of purchase - to make informed decisions about if, what or how much to drink.


Should an investor unwind his portfolio in the face of changing economic conditions? We study an investor's optimal trading strategy with finite horizon and transaction costs in an economy that switches stochastically between two market conditions. We fully characterize the investor's time dependent investment strategy in a "bull" market and a "bear" market. We show that when the market switches from the "bull" market to the "bear" market, complete deleveraging, reducing the degree of leverage, or keeping leverage unchanged may all be optimal strategies, subject to underlying market conditions. We further show that the investor may optimally keep leverage unchanged in the "bear" market, particularly so for illiquid asset. On the other hand, a lower borrowing cost in the "bear" market would prevent sell offs.


Presented is an extension of the non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF) by imposing an orthogonality constraint on the basis matrix and controlling the sparseness of the coefficient matrix for robust learning of compact local part-based representation of face images. The extended NMF is solved by a projected gradient algorithm with a data-driven initialisation scheme. In addition, an indicator is proposed to objectively measure the locality and compactness of local part-based representation and to quantitatively evaluate the efficiency of the extended NMF. Experimental results on benchmark face databases show that the proposed extended NMF is much more effective in learning local part-based representation and more tolerant to the variations, especially misalignment, of the training samples than conventional NMF and its major extensions.


Acquired C1-inhibitor (C1-INH) deficiency has been reported in patients with immunoglobulin abnormalities and lymphoproliferative disorders, and angioedema has appeared simultaneously with the lymphoproliferative disease. We present a 50-year-old woman with acquired C1-INH deficiency and angioedema which preceded by 7 years the diagnosis of malignant mantle cell lymphoma. During the interval she was treated with Danazole and there were no attacks of angioedema. When routine follow-up bone marrow aspiration revealed infiltration of nonspecified lymphoma cells, exploratory laparotomy and splenectomy were performed. A month later Danazol was stopped, C1-INH levels returned to normal and there were no attacks of angioedema. Mantle cell lymphoma consisting of lymphocytes with cytoplasmic IgM-lambda was diagnosed in the excised spleen but chemotherapy was not initiated. 6 months later, a second lymphoproliferative disorder, multiple myeloma IgA kappa, was diagnosed.


Purpose Postdocs make up a significant portion of the biomedical workforce. However, data about the postdoctoral position are generally scarce, including salary data. The purpose of this study was to request, obtain and interpret actual salaries, and the associated job titles, for postdocs at U.S. public institutions. Methodology Freedom of Information Act Requests were submitted to U.S. public institutions estimated to have at least 300 postdocs according to the National Science Foundation's Survey of Graduate Students and Postdocs. Salaries and job titles of postdoctoral employees as of December 1st, 2016 were requested. Findings Salaries and job titles for over 13,000 postdocs at 52 public U.S. institutions and 1 private institution around the date of December 1st, 2016 were received, and individual postdoc names were also received for approximately 7,000 postdocs. This study shows evidence of gender-related salary discrepancies, a significant influence of job title description on postdoc salary, and a complex relationship between salaries and the level of institutional NIH funding. Value These results provide insights into the ability of institutions to collate actual payroll-type data related to their postdocs, highlighting difficulties faced in tracking, and reporting data on this population. Ultimately, these types of efforts, aimed at increasing transparency, may lead to improved tracking and support for postdocs at all U.S. institutions.


This trial was carried out to determine the composition of n-alkanes (C24 to C36) in hypothetical diets comprising of pure Brachiaria brizantha Stapf. cv. Marandu and Arachis pintoi Koprov & Gregory. cv. Amarillo and mixtures of these two spececies with 15%, 30%, 45%, or 60% of Arachis pintoi); it also intended to identify the combination of alkanes that allows to calculate the botanical composition of diets with the smallest residual value (real less estimated values). The forages were sampled in the summer. The n-alkanes were extracted for the direct saponification method and identified and quantified by the gas chromatography analysis. Alkane C34 was used as internal marker. The proportions of A. pintoi in the diets were estimated by the minimization of z (sum of the squares of the deviations) between the real proportion of the analyzed alkanes and the pre-established proportions (treatments), using Duncan et al. (1999) equation. The prevalence of odd carbonic chains was detected. The total concentration of n-alkanes decreased as the proportion of A. pintoi increased in the mixtures. Good estimates of the botanical composition of the mixtures of A. pintoi with B. brizantha were obtained from the alkanes C29, C31, C33 and C35. The alkane C35 was fundamental for the quality of the estimates. The results indicate the great potential of the technique for studies of grazing animal diet.


Previous work suggests that normal GLUT4 content is sufficient for increases in muscle glucose uptake (MGU) during exercise because GLUT4 overexpression does not increase exercise-stimulated MGU. Instead of glucose transport, glucose phosphorylation is a primary limitation of exercise-stimulated MGU. It was hypothesized that a partial ablation of GLUT4 would not impair exercise-stimulated MGU when glucose phosphorylation capacity is normal but would do so when glucose phosphorylation capacity was increased. Thus, C57BL/6J mice with hexokinase II (HKII) overexpression (HKTg), a GLUT4 partial knock-out (G4+/–), or both (HKTg + G4+/–) and wild-type (WT) littermates were implanted with carotid artery and jugular vein catheters for sampling and infusions at 4 months of age. After a 7-day recovery, 5-h fasted mice remained sedentary or ran on a treadmill at 0.6 mph for 30 min (n = 9–12 per group) and received a bolus of 2-deoxy[3H]glucose to provide an index of MGU (Rg). Arterial blood glucose and plasma insulin concentrations were similar in WT, G4+/–, HKTg, and HKTg + G4+/– mice. Sedentary Rg values were the same in all genotypes in all muscles studied, confirming that glucose transport is a significant barrier to basal glucose uptake. Gastrocnemius and soleus Rg were greater in exercising compared with sedentary mice in all genotypes. During exercise, G4+/– mice had a marked increase in blood glucose that was corrected by the addition of HK II overexpression. Exercise Rg (μmol/100g/min) was not different between WT and G4+/– mice in the gastrocnemius (24 ± 5 versus 21 ± 2) or the soleus (54 ± 6 versus 70 ± 7). In contrast, the enhanced exercise Rg observed in HKTg mice compared with that in WT mice was absent in HKTg + G4+/– mice in both the gastrocnemius (39 ± 7 versus 22 ± 6) and the soleus (98 ± 13 versus 65 ± 13). Thus, glucose transport is not a significant barrier to exercise-stimulated MGU despite a 50% reduction in GLUT4 content when glucose phosphorylation capacity is normal. However, when glucose phosphorylation capacity is increased by HK II overexpression, GLUT4 availability becomes a marked limitation to exercise-stimulated MGU.


Abstract for the 22nd Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality Research: Innovation and value creation in experience-based tourism Destination development through storytelling focused on maritime cultureAnna Karin OlssonUniversity West  Within recent years, competition among destinations has escalated hence also the need for well-coordinated tourism offerings. Calls have been made for innovative offerings that are coordinated to contribute to overall destination development (Morgan, Pritchard & Piggott, 2003). At many destinations a large number of various stakeholders from private, public and voluntary sectors interact (see Garrod, Fyall, Leask, & Reid, 2012; Getz, et al., 2007). These stakeholders are often involved in different networks accordingly there is a need of coordination of the offerings of destinations. Earlier tourism studies furthermore show that networks are crucial since successful destinations are based on interrelated stakeholders that understand the concept of the destination and are committed to cooperate in offering a holistic experience to visitors (see Bornhorst, Ritchie & Sheehan, 2010; Morgan, Elbe, & Curiel, 2009; Swarbrooke, 2001).Storytelling has gained attention as an innovative means of competitive destination marketing as stories can give emphasis to the unique aspects of a place or a destination which often are difficult to replicate by others (Mossberg & Johansen 2006; Mossberg, et al. 2010; Olsson, Therkelsen & Mossberg, 2013). The storytelling concept is applied in business studies related e.g. business culture, personnel, management, consumers, brands, and advertisements (Mossberg & Johansen, 2006). This paper however focus on storytelling linked to marketing concepts of a destination i.e. destination based storytelling. Authentic events or characters though also fictive characters are the main ingredients of story-based marketing concepts e.g. Arn's footsteps (Mattsson & Praesto, 2005), Astrid Lindgren's World (Eide, 2011) and the Medieval Week on Gotland (Gustafsson, 2002; Sandstrom, 2005). Storytelling may offer unique competitive advantages and the opportunity to create storyscapes (Chronis, 2005, p. 389) and offerings as memorable extraordinary experiences (Mossberg, 2008) that stimulate the senses of visitors e.g. involving seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. Furthermore storytelling may also create conditions for co-operation among destination stakeholders. In this study storytelling is viewed as strategic experiential approach for destination marketing. This approach may unite networks and stakeholder cooperation hence acts as a strategic compass that directs internal and external destination development (Fog, Budtz, Munch & Blanchette, 2010).Today there is an increasing interest for exploring and /re/development of waterways sites with surrounding areas used for leisure, recreation and tourism. Many destinations encourage development of waterfront festivals and events as well as other activities both water-based and land-based (Erfurt-Cooper, 2009).The aim of this paper is to provide an explorative case study of destination based storytelling here limited to maritime culture and more specifically the strategic use of storytelling and stakeholder co-operation around canals, inland waterways and coasts within a Nordic context.The data collection includes a combination of different methods: interviews with main stakeholders, collection of existing documents related to the selected regions, and observations of storytelling events.The study is ongoing but so far a few stakeholders are interviewed and their insights in how to cooperate in order to develop destinations by means of storytelling are gained. Potential findings point out the importance of strategic co-ordination of offerings and various involvement and management of stakeholders in destination-based storytelling.


Non-Impeding Noisy-AND (NIN-AND) Trees (NATs) offer a highly expressive compressed casual model for significantly reducing space and inference time of Bayesian Nets (BNs). A causal model often includes a leaky cause for all causes not explicitly named. A leaky cause may be persistent or not. A conditional probability table (CPT) in a BN often behaves as if there is a persistent leaky cause (PLC). We discuss limitations for not modeling PLC explicitly during compression. We also reveal challenges if PLC is explicitly modeled. We extend an earlier solution that is limited to binary NAT models and is incomplete, to a solution that is applicable to multi-valued NAT models and is complete. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the solution experimentally for compressing general BN CPTs with PLCs.


The presence of triclosan (TCS) in water resources has drawn significant attention due to its endocrine disruption potential. Sulfate radicals (SRs), generated particularly by the metal-mediated activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS), have been proposed to effectively decompose TCS and many other pharmaceuticals and personal care products. In spite of its significance for understanding the efficiency of SR generation and catalytic/non-catalytic nature of the oxidation reaction, metal speciation has not been adequately highlighted in previous studies. This study investigated the detailed changes in metal speciation in cobalt/PMS and iron/PMS systems and correlated it with TCS decomposition under different pH conditions. A rapid oxidation of Co2+ to Co3+ and Fe2+ to Fe3+ generally corresponded with pseudo-steady state decomposition kinetics of TCS after its initial fast decomposition. The presence of potential threshold concentrations of metals to effectively activate PMS was found. A strong catalytic activity was observed for Co/PMS system at pH 3, where most of Co was present in the form of dissolved Co2+. The pH impacts were different for Co/PMS and Fe/PMS. TCS oxidation was fast at pH 5 for Co and pH 3 for Fe. However, long-term mineralization of TCS seemed less dependent on pH.


Rice farming is one of the most important activities in the agriculture sector, producing staple food for the majority of the world's growing population. Accurate and up-to-date assessment of the spatial distribution of rice cultivated area is a key information requirement of all stakeholders including policy makers, rice farmers and consumers. Timely assessment with high precision is, e.g., crucial for water resource management, market prices control and during humanitarian food crisis. Recently, two Sentinel-1 (S-1) satellites carrying a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor were launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the homework of the Copernicus program. The advanced data acquisition capabilities of S-1 provide a unique opportunity to monitor different land cover types at high spatial (20 m) and temporal (twice-weekly to biweekly) resolution. The objective of this research is to evaluate the applicability of an existing phenology-based classification method for continental-scale rice cropland mapping using S-1 backscatter time series. In this study, the S-1 images were collected during the rice growing season of 2015 covering eight selected European test sites situated in six Mediterranean countries. Due to the better rice classification capabilities of SAR cross-polarized measurement as compared to co-polarized data, S-1 cross-polarized (VH) data were used. Phenological parameters derived from the S-1 VH backscatter time series were used as an input to a knowledge-based decision-rule classifier in order to classify the input data into rice and non-rice areas. The classification results were evaluated using multiple regions of interest (ROIs) drawn from high-resolution optical remote sensing (SPOT 5) data and the European CORINE land cover (CLC 2012) product. An overall accuracy of more than 70% for all eight study sites was achieved. The S-1 based classification maps reveal much more details compared to the rice field class contained in the CLC 2012 product. These findings demonstrate the potential and feasibility of using S-1 VH data to develop an operational rice crop monitoring framework at the continental scale.


High voltage dc (HVDC) systems act as the prevailed solution for transmitting offshore wind energy to onshore main grids. Control of the voltage source converters (VSC) in HVDC systems is decisive for the performance. This paper proposes the control of VSC-HVDC with electromechanical characteristics and unified primary strategy, as a reaction to the updated requirements of the ac grid transmission system operators. As two important aspects of VSC-HVDC control, converter control and primary control are both designed in detail. Electromechanical characteristics make the VSC capable of providing inertia to the ac networks as well as simplicity in island operation. Besides, unified primary control is given as a universal primary strategy for VSC stations, and especially takes into account frequency support and control mode transition. The proposed converter control is validated in scaled-down 10 kW laboratory setups, while the proposed primary control is endorsed by the simulation tests on a CIGRE multi-terminal HVDC model.


Improvements in computer network infrastructures and information utilities have led to an increase in the number of social and work interactions carried out 'virtually' by geographically separated group members. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of a prototype system that supports synchronous and asynchronous collaboration between researchers separated by space and time. The system provides non-collocated team members with a digital virtual space for information sharing and discussion. For synchronous interactions, our design prioritizes the provision of shared context, real-time discourse, and real-time problem-solving and negotiation between the team members. In the case of asynchronous interactions, we have prioritized the capture of team decision-making and negotiation processes and the representation of these processes in a context-rich, hypertextual document of team problem-solving and negotiation.


Fecundity estimates of Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) were derived from fish collected in 1987 off the coast of USA and Canada from two spawning contingents in the Northwest Atlantic. Estimates for females of 310 to 446 mm fork length in USA waters ranged from 155 900 to 1 643600 eggs. Fecundities for fish between 313 and 435 mm fork length in Canadian waters ranged from 208 500 to 1 548 400 eggs. The 5and 6-year-old fish were dominant in both locations. Fecundity was related to fork length, somatic weight and age in both spawning contingents. Fecundity estimates for the individual females in USA waters were lower than those in previously published results, while estimates for both the 1987 USA and Canadian contingents were higher than those reported previously for Canadian waters and a North Sea area.


A systematic review is provided on artificial agent methodologies applicable to control engineering of autonomous vehicles and robots. The paper focuses on some fundamentals that make a machine autonomous: decision making that involves modelling the environment and forming data abstractions for symbolic processing and logic-based reasoning. Most relevant capabilities such as navigation, autonomous path planning, path following control, and communications, that directly affect decision making, are treated as basic skills of agents. Although many autonomous vehicles have been engineered in the past without using the agent-oriented approach, most decision making onboard of vehicles is similar to or can be classified as some kind of agent architecture, even if in a naïve form. First the ANSI standard of intelligent systems is recalled then a summary of the fundamental types of possible agent architectures for autonomous vehicles are presented, starting from reactive, through layered, to advanced architectures in terms of beliefs, goals, and intentions. The review identifies some missing links between computer science results on discrete agents and engineering results of continuous world sensing, actuation, and path planning. In this context design tools for 'abstractions programming' are identified as needed to fill in the gap between logic-based reasoning and sensing. Finally, research is reviewed on autonomous vehicles in water, on the ground, in the air, and in space with comments on their methods of decision making. One of the main conclusions of this review is that standardization of decision making through agent architectures is desirable for the future of intelligent vehicle developments and their legal certification.


In agricultural research we are confronted with problems relating to soils and rocks, fertilizers, plants, animal products and related materials as diverse as natural waters and micro-organisms. The analytical problem is to devise techniques which are applicable to all such materials without too drastic modification. At the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, spectrochemical investigations have been in progress for the past twenty years; are, spark and flame emission as well as ultraviolet and infrared absorption methods are at present in use. This communication presents an outline of this work.


Franny Armstrong's The Age of Stupid is a mosaic structured documentary which explores how human activity may indeed send the planet into ecological breakdown. The fictional and speculative future is conveyed through the dramatic device of a narrator, Pete Postlethwaite, who plays the world's last archivist. He speaks from 2055, attempting to analyse through the selected documentaries, how humanity caused its own collective suicide. However, the film invites more than a reading that emphasises its politically activist aspects. Rather, through a dialogue with Giorgio Agamben's concept of 'bare life', Walter Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence' (1921) and Jacques Derrida's critique of this in 'Force of Law' (2002), the film can deliver readings which do theoretical work. The dialogue between the film and the classical theoretical texts can offer a way of re-working the applicability of Benjamin's concepts of 'mythical' and 'divine' violence and the invocation to which they point. Namely, Benjamin's suggestion that it is important to declare a 'state of emergency' (1940).


The human ether-a-go-go-related gene (hERG, KCNH2) potassium channel has been implicated in diverse physiological and pathological processes. The KCNH2 gene encodes a rectifier voltage-gated potassium channel (Kv 11.1) that governs the chief repolarizing current, IKr, which is essential for normal electrical activity in excitable cells such as cardiomyocytes. It is also involved in cell growth and apoptosis regulation in non-excitable cells, such as tumor cells. Dysfunction of hERG is associated with potentially lethal complications, including diseases and sudden death under certain circumstances. While the mechanisms regulating KCNH2 expression remain unclear, recent data suggested that microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved, particularly in the context of several pathologic effects. miRNA is a class of RNA defined by its conserved, short, non-coding nature. miRNAs are important regulators of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level that bind through complimentary annealing to the 3' untranslated regions (3' UTRs) of target mRNAs, resulting in mRNA destabilization and translational repression. The primary objectives of this research were to 1) identify miRNAs regulating KCNH2 expression in cancer, 2) investigate the potential association between miR-362-3p expression and risk of drug-induced QT interval lengthening, and 3) identify miRNAs potentially regulating KCNH2 expression and function in cardiac cells. Through bioinformatics approaches, five miRNAs were identified to potentially regulate KCNH2 expression and function in breast cancer cells. The five identified miRNAs were validated through a Dual-Luciferase Assay using the KCNH2 3′ UTR. Only miR-362-3p was validated to bind to the KCNH2 3' UTR, decreasing luciferase activity by 10% ± 2.3 (P < 0.001, n = 3) when compared to cells transfected with luciferase plasmid alone. miR-362-3p was also the only miRNA that its expression positively correlated with overall survival of patients with breast cancer from The Cancer Genome Atlas-Cancer Genome (TCGA) database by log-rank test (HR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.18 to 0.82, P = 0.012). Cell proliferation was assessed by MTS assay (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium) 48 hours following transfection in breast cancer cell lines, including SK-BR-3 and MCF-7. miR-362-3p significantly decreased proliferation of SK-BR-3 and MCF-7 cells by 23% ± 8.7 (P = 0.014, n = 3) and 11.7% ± 1.0 (P < 0.001, n = 3), respectively. Cell cycle phases in SK-BR-3 and MCF-7 cells were differentiated by flow cytometry 48 hours following transfection. miR-362-3p and hERG siRNA (positive control) significantly increased the accumulation of cells in G0/G1 phase in MCF-7 by 11.7% (from 51.1% ± 0.64 to 57.1 ± 0.96, P = 0.002, n = 3) and 10% (from 51.1% ± 0.64 to 56.8 ± 0.96, P < 0.001, n = 3), respectively. The demonstrated ability of miR-362-3p to regulate hERG in breast cancer cells coupled with previously published data that indicated an alteration of miR-362-3p expression during HF and a potential association between its expression and QT interval prolongation suggesting an important role for this miRNA in regulation of hERG function during HF. Therefore, the contribution of miR-362-3p to hERG function was investigated in patients administered the QT prolonging drug ibutilide, known to inhibit hERG. A total of 22 patients completed a prospective, parallel-group comparative study during which they received subtherapeutic doses (0.003 mg/kg) of ibutilide. The study was originally designed to investigate the influence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) on response to drug-induced QT prolongation. Blood for determination of serum Ibutilide concentrations and miR-362-3p expression, along with electrocardiograms (ECGs) were serially collected over a span of 12 hours. ΔΔ-Fridericia-heart rate corrected QT (ΔΔ QTF) intervals were utilized for all analyses to account for baseline and diurnal variation. To assess the ability of miR-362-3p to predict ibutilide QT-induced ΔΔQTF changes, nonlinear mixed effects pharmacokinetic/ pharmacodynamic (PKPD) modeling was performed to assess the contribution of miR-362-3p to drug-induced QT interval lengthening. The model that best fit serum ibutilide concentrations versus time was a 3-compartment model with first order elimination and proportional residual errors, while the model that best described the ibutilide concentration- ΔΔQTF relationship was an Emax model with an effect compartment. In addition to miR-362-3p expression, several demographic and clinical data were evaluated as potential covariates on PK and PD parameter estimates. Of tested covariates, heart failure (HF) status on Emax (ΔOFV = -4.1; P < 0.05), and miR-362-3p expression on EC50 (ΔOFV = -9.9; P < 0.05) were incorporated in the final PKPD model. The mean individual Emax was significantly higher in HF patients when compared to non-HF patients (P = 0.015), while EC50 was negatively correlated with miR-362-3p expression (P < 0.0001, R2 0.93). Previous evidence indicates that miR-362-3p is altered in patients with HF. In addition, several miRNAs commonly regulate the same ion channel. Therefore, we have developed a large-scale high-throughput bioassay (HT-bioassay) to explore and identify other miRNAs potentially involved in KCNH2 expression and function in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPS-CM) during sustained β-adrenergic receptor (βAR) stimulation or overexpression of activated calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase 2 (CaMKII), which are classical consequences of HF. Through bioinformatic approaches, putative miRNA binding sites (n=327) were identified in the KCNH2 3′ UTR. Fragments containing these putative binding sites were synthesized, cloned into linearized plasmids, and amplified. The plasmid pool was transfected into hiPS-CM cells either treated with βAR stimulation or overexpressing CaMKII. Next-generation sequencing was performed to identify: 1) expression of putative miRNA binding sites and 2) endogenous miRNAs versus control. Eight predicted binding sites were found to be significantly downregulated in the CAMKII group (P <0.05, log fold change -0.287 to -0.59), and six significantly downregulated in the sustained βAR group (P <0.05, log fold change -0.29 to -0.72). Two binding sites were significantly reduced in both treatment groups (P < 0.05, log fold change between -0.38 and -0.61).Thirty-one miRNAs were predicted to bind to the 16 binding sites identified from the bioassay. Of these, seven were selected for further screening using dual luciferase assays. None of the putative miRNAs reduced luciferase activity. However, hERG expression was assessed by immunoblot analysis following transfection of the seven miRNAs into HEK293 cells stably expressing hERG (HEK293-hERG). Six of the seven miRNA mimics reduced hERG protein expression. An additional validation step was performed by assessing hERG-related current density by whole cell electrophysiology, in which three of the six miRNAs inhibited hERG protein transfected into HEK293-hERG cells. Those same three miRNA mimics significantly decreased Ikr current (P <0.05). Finally, expression of the miRNAs identified by HT-bioassay was examined in the patients enrolled in the clinical trial in which genome-wide next generation sequencing was performed on miRNAs extracted from whole blood samples. Of the 31 miRNAs identified from HT-bioassay, six were found to be expressed in patients (n = 12). A correlation analysis was performed between levels of the expressed miRNAs and corresponding QTF interval lengthening with ibutilide. Of the six miRNAs, only miR-4665-5p was significantly associated with QTF interval (P = 0.0379). In summary, miR-362-3p was identified to regulate hERG, and reduces proliferation of breast cancer cells through a mechanism that may be partially mediated by hERG inhibition. While miR-362-3p may have modest effects in cancer, in Aim 2 we demonstrated that it along with HF status accounts for a significant amount of variability in QTF prolongation following ibutilide administration. However, it is common for several miRNAs to regulate a single ion channel. Therefore, an HT-bioassay was developed to identify all miRNAs that potentially regulate KCNH2 during HF. In addition to miR-362-3p, thirty-one miRNAs were predicted to regulate KCNH2; one miRNA (miR-4665-5p) was significantly associated with QTF prolongation. The potential for miR-362-3p and HT-bioassay-identified miRNAs to reduce hERG-related current and influence susceptibility to drug-induced QT interval prolongation warrants further investigation.


A simple current. mirror using TFTs with input terminals which are capacitively coupled to the TFT gate, is used in this work, to design a built-in current sensor (BICS). The important feature in this application is that the voltage drop across the sensing TFT device can be reduced to almost zero value, while preserving transistor operation in the saturation region. This makes the proposed BICS appropriate for TFT applications without affecting the circuit operation. It also results in adequate linearity for the current monitoring, making the structure applicable to digital as well as to analog and mixed-signal circuit testing.


High concentrations of glucose have a protective effect on the glucoreceptor mechanism for insulin secretion during culture of pancreatic islets in chemically defined media. To study at what level glucose exerts this effect, insulin secretion from beta-cell-rich mouse pancreatic islets was measured before and after culture for 1 week in the presence of different substances. Before culture, glucose and inosine were potent stimulators, mannose and fructose were less potent and xylitol had no effect on secretion. Culture in 3mm-glucose resulted in a 10-fold decrease in the insulin response to glucose stimulation. A less marked decrease was noted after culture in 20mm- or 30mm-glucose. Inosine-stimulated secretion was much decreased after culture in high concentrations of glucose, whereas the responses to mannose or fructose were unchanged. After culture in 30mm-mannose, glucose-stimulated secretion was similar to that observed after culture in high concentrations of glucose, whereas the response to mannose had much decreased. There were no secretory responses to glucose or fructose after culture in 30mm-fructose, or to glucose or xylitol after culture in 30mm-xylitol. Culture in 10mm-inosine did not preserve any significant response to glucose or inosine. The insulin contents of islets and culture media were higher after culture in high concentrations of glucose, mannose or inosine than after culture in fructose, xylitol or low concentrations of glucose. It is suggested that glucose, and to some extent mannose, preserves the glucoreceptor mechanism for insulin secretion by influencing an early stage in glucose metabolism, presumably glucokinase activity.


This work reviews the tools and methods used for quantifying sustainable development. The paper first reviews categorization of the tools based on weak and strong sustainability. It then provides critical review of the UN review of sustainability indicators and the methods for calculating the indicators, which include the environmental footprint, capital approach to measuring sustainable development, green national net product, genuine savings, genuine progress indicator, indicator of sustainable economic welfare and human development indicator on sustainable development. The benefits of standardizing the assessment tools for sustainable development would be seen through well directed policy leading to a balance between economy, environment and society where none is compromised to achieve greater results in the other. However, there is still no single method of assessing the sustainability of development that is widely accepted as suitable and all methods developed have inadequacies that prevent a true measure of sustainable development from being determined. Keywords: Sustainability indicators, environmental footprint, genuine savings, sustainable economic welfare, human development indicator.


"Magnetic clouds" (MCs) are a subset of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) characterized by e n h a n d magnetic fields with an organized rotation in direction, and low plasma p. Though intensely studied, MCs only constitute a fraction of all the ICMEs that are detected in the solar wind. A comprehensive survey of ICMEs in the nearEarth solar wind during the ascending, maximum and early declining phases of solar cycle 23 in 1996 2003 shows that the MC fraction varies with the phase of the solar cycle, from 100% (though with low statistics) at solar minimum to 15% at solar maximum. A similar trend is evident in near-Earth observations during solar cycles 20 21, while Helios 1/2 spacecraft observations a t 0.3 1.0 AU show a weaker trend and larger MC fraction.


The rapid increase in the number of bilateral and regional free-trade agreements since 1995 is a striking development. The proliferation of these agreements has raised questions about whether they have, in fact, opened markets, created trade, promoted economic growth, and/or distorted trade. This study uses panel data from 1975 to 2005 and a gravity framework model to identify the influence of reciprocal trade agreements (RTAs) on bilateral trade in the world agricultural marketplace. A benchmark, Heckman sample-selection and two generalized models, one of which accounts for RTA phase-in effects, are used to gauge the impact on partner trade of mutual as well as asymmetric RTA membership. Empirical results show that RTAs increase agricultural trade between member countries but decrease trade between member and nonmember countries. Interestingly, RTAs were found to be particularly effective at expanding agricultural trade and opening markets in developing countries when developing- country trading partners are part of the same agreement.


Purpose

Despite the opportunities provided by pay-per-use (PPU) services, product companies in business-to-business sectors often fail to compete systematically by using them. The purpose of this paper is to explain how companies can avoid failures when it comes to PPU services. The paper describes the "seizing" capabilities needed to achieve the strategic objectives of PPU services.

Design/methodology/approach

The research process is divided into a pilot and an in-depth study. Altogether, 17 companies participated in the study.

Findings

The findings reveal that the seizing capabilities depend on the strategic objectives of PPU services. To expand the market share with PPU services, companies need to broaden the customer portfolio for PPU services, to align individual services within the entire service portfolio and to balance profits made by PPU services and other business lines. For strategic objectives such as rapid sales growth early in the market development and new market creation other seizing capabilities are required.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are not generalizable, due to the use of a qualitative study. The study is restricted to product companies in the business-to-business sector.

Practical implications

Managers often believe that extending and modularizing the service portfolio is beneficial. When achieving sales growth during the market development phase, these capabilities are in fact sometimes counterproductive. Practitioners have to look into the costs and benefits of setting-up their own financing company and working with banks.

Social implications

PPU services contribute to a more sustainable consumption and make product design more resource-efficient.

Originality/value

The study is original by virtue of systematically studying PPU services, providing a microfoundation for seizing capabilities and developing testable propositions for future research.