[1] This study analyzes the effects of thermocline shoaling on the ocean internal wave (IW) generation in the north South China Sea (NSCS). Seven years of satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from 1995 to 2001 are used for the statistical analysis of IW occurrence, and field measurements of sea surface wind, sea state, and vertical temperature profiles are used for analyzing IW generation and SAR imaging conditions. Latitudinal distribution of IW packets shows that 22% of IW packets distributed in the east of 118°E obviously originate from the Luzon Strait, and 78% of IW packets west of 118°E may propagate from the east or evolve into the solitons originating from the east boundary owing to the fission effect of shoaling thermocline. The yearly distribution of IW occurrence frequencies reveals an interannual variability, implying that there are long-term and large-scale processes modifying the SAR-observed IW occurrence. The monthly SAR-observed IW occurrence frequencies show that the high frequencies are distributed from April to July and reach a peak in June with a maximum frequency of 20%. The low occurrence frequencies are distributed in winter from December to February of next year with a minimum frequency of 1.5% in February. This study proposes that the IW generation needs the necessary and sufficient conditions: initial disturbance formation and wave amplitude growth. Owing to the dissipation effect on the initial disturbance, only fully grown waves have a chance to radiate out of the source region. A physical model and PKdV equation are adopted for analyzing the sufficient conditions for solitary IW amplitude growth. The results indicate that the thermocline shoaling provides the forcing to soliton amplitude growth, so that the soliton amplitude growth ratio (SAGR) serves as a decisive factor for the IW occurrence frequency. Theoretical analysis predicts a linear relation between the two. Application of theoretical models to field measurements in the Luzon Strait gives a correlation coefficient as high as 0.845 with a confidence level of 99% for months from March to November. The linear regression gives a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.6519 and a SAGR threshold (minimum) value of 0.90 for IW occurrence. According to the theoretical solutions, the eastward propagating disturbances have no chance to grow up, so that they hardly appear on the east side of the submarine ridges in the eastern Luzon Strait.


In the 1980s, the Producer Subsidy Equivalent (PSE) became the dominant measure of protection in applied studies of international agricultural trade. This paper analyzes potential biases in the ratio form of the PSE introduced by using actual domestic prices rather than social opportunity costs in the denominator. It is shown that doing so introduces a consistent under-estimation of the effects of trade restrictions and other price-support policies, relative to deficiency payments and other income-support policies. It is found that under plausible conditions this bias leads the PSE to rank protection levels across countries or crops incorrectly. In a sample of 250 activities across 33 countries, such errors were found to occur in 5% of crop comparisons and 8% of country comparisons, including a number of politically sensitive cases. An improved formula would therefore provide significantly more accurate results than the conventional PSE, with no additional data or more restrictive assumptions.


Background: For almost a decade, the East African Community has implemented the Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (EAC-MRH) programme among its member states to harmonise technical requirements and standards for medical products regulation, jointly conduct scientific review of medical product dossiers to assess safety, efficacy and quality, inspect pharmaceutical manufacturing sites and streamline decision-making processes. This initiative enables the cost-effective use of limited resources and efficient and effective delivery of regulatory services to be determined, thus instilling transparency and accountability in all stakeholders, optimising the pharmaceutical market and economic development and improving access to safe, high-quality, effective medicines in the region. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the current operating model of the EAC-MRH initiative, including challenges faced and to identify opportunities for improvement. Methods: The Process Effectiveness and Efficiency Rating (PEER) questionnaire, which was used to identify the benefits, challenges, and suggestions for improving performance of EAC-MRH initiative, was completed by assessors representing seven EAC authorities in the joint assessment procedure. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out to validate the responses. Results: This initiative has been of considerable value as it moves toward achieving its main objectives of shorter timelines for approval of medicines, information sharing among regulators and capacity building for assessments, resulting in quicker access and increased availability of medicines for patients in the region. However, the key challenges identified that have hindered effectiveness and efficiency were the lack of a centralised submission and tracking system; inadequate human resources, manufacturers' failure to submit the exact same dossier to all countries of interest; lack of an integrated information management system; lack of information on national medical regulatory authority or EAC websites; and challenges in monitoring and tracking assessment reports. Conclusion: The use of a robust information technology system for the central tracking of EAC products is essential to address the identified challenges and improve regulatory effectiveness and efficiency. One central point for payment is needed to expedite the process and to ensure transparency and the availability of information on decision making on national and regional websites. Other key strategies for enhancement include improving the capacity of assessors, work and information sharing and a coordination mechanism for the regional joint assessment, with the eventual establishment of a regional medicine agency.


Research Question/Issue: The origins of the global financial crisis have been attributed to the combination of a housing price bubble, innovative financial instruments as well as the lack of restraint by corporate executives and boards to engage in excessive risk-taking. The rise in subprime lending between 1997 and 2005 played a crucial role in inflating the housing price bubble. We take a unique dataset of US financial institutions heavily engaged in subprime lending and ask the following research question: Did board configuration play a role in determining whether a financial institution specialized in subprime lending? Research Findings/Insights: We use a matched-pair sample of firms in the financial industry from 1997-2005 with half of the sample specializing in subprime lending and conduct panel data logistic regression analysis. We find that the board configurations of those financial institutions that engaged in subprime lending were significantly different from those that did not. Specifically, subprime lenders had boards that were busier, had less tenure and were less diverse with respect to gender. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study uses the group decision making perspective in the context of subprime lending to examine board of director configuration and its influence on decision making processes around the issue of risky subprime lending. Findings show that how boards were configured did influence the decision to specialize in subprime lending. We find robust support for predictions based on the group decision making perspective. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The deterioration of mortgage lending requirements that gave rise to the defaults of so many subprime loans, in retrospect, appears to be something that should have been entirely preventable. By demonstrating that subprime specialists had significant differences in board configuration which impacted group decision making, this study offers guidance to policymakers considering additional regulation and for corporate officers examining corporate governance issues.


Helicobacter pylori is the strongest known risk factor for the development of gastric adenocarcinoma. H. pylori expresses a repertoire of virulence factors that increase gastric cancer risk, including the cag pathogenicity island and the vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA). One host element that promotes carcinogenesis within the gastrointestinal tract is Krüppel-like factor 5 (KLF5), a transcription factor that mediates key cellular functions. To define the role of KLF5 within the context of H. pylori-induced inflammation and injury, human gastric epithelial cells were co-cultured with the wild-type cag+ H. pylori strain 60190. KLF5 expression was significantly upregulated following co-culture with H. pylori, but increased expression was independent of the cag island or VacA. To translate these findings into an in vivo model, C57BL/6 mice were challenged with the wild-type rodent-adapted cag+ H. pylori strain PMSS1 or a PMSS1 cagE− isogenic mutant. Similar to findings in vitro, KLF5 staining was significantly enhanced in gastric epithelium of H. pylori-infected compared to uninfected mice and this was independent of the cag island. Flow cytometry revealed that the majority of KLF5+ cells also stained positively for the stem cell marker, Lrig1, and KLF5+/Lrig1+ cells were significantly increased in H. pylori-infected versus uninfected tissue. To extend these results into the natural niche of this pathogen, levels of KLF5 expression were assessed in human gastric biopsies isolated from patients with or without premalignant lesions. Levels of KLF5 expression increased in parallel with advancing stages of neoplastic progression, being significantly elevated in gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, and dysplasia compared to normal gastric tissue. These results indicate that H. pylori induces expression of KLF5 in gastric epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo, and that the degree of KLF5 expression parallels the severity of premalignant lesions in human gastric carcinogenesis.


What leads women to information technology (IT)? Successful recruitment is often perceived as relying on interest in IT. This study, however, identifies the pathways bringing women to IT that only partly rely on interest in IT and also involve other factors. In-depth interviews with 24 women in IT education and early research positions in Norway provide the empirical material for this qualitative study. Feminist technology studies and research on gender and technology provide a framework for the study, and the analysis is guided by the grounded theory method. The findings show that IT is a highly gendered field in Norway and that gender stereotypes affect women's expectations toward, and choices of, IT. Women enter the fields of IT despite stereotypes. However, for many such women, this follows a coincidence or a late discovery of IT as interesting, and some women have been on a "penalty round" in a different field before finally entering the fields of IT.


Joseph Heath argues that we should reject the idea of a 'just wage' because market prices are supposed to signal scarcities and thereby to promote overall efficiency, rather than reward contributions. This argument overlooks the degree to which markets are institutionally, socially, and culturally embedded. Their outcomes are hardly ever 'pure' market outcomes, but the result of complex interactions of economic and other factors, including various forms of power. Instead of rejecting moral intuitions about wage justice as misguided, we can often understand them as pointing towards questions about the embeddedness of markets, or lack thereof. At least in some cases, changes in the framework of markets can both increase efficiency (or at least not reduce it) and get us closer to conventional notions of fair wages, e.g. when gender discrimination is reduced. Thus, while an abstract notion of a 'just wage' remains problematic, we can and should recognize that some wages are unjust.


Online games addiction becomes a common phenomenon that affects many individuals, especially the adolescents and as well as our societies. The present study was aimed to determine the effects of online games addiction on physical and mental health of adolescents in and around Pondicherry population, India. Among the studied 584 adolescents, 172 (29%) adolescents meet 8 out of the 14 criteria and considered as addicted to online games. Result showed correlation between online games addiction and less physical activity, sleep disturbance, nervousness, abnormalities in social functioning and depressed mood were significant at p < 0.05. The present study concludes that online game has caused significant changes in the way adolescent communicate and interact.


Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative form of dementia that steadily worsens and eventually leads to death. Its set of symptoms include loss of cognitive function and memory decline. Structural and functional imaging methods such as CT, MRI, and PET scans play an essential role in the diagnosis process, being able to identify specific areas of cerebral damages. While the accuracy of these imaging techniques increases over time, the severity assessment of dementia remains challenging and susceptible to cognitive and perceptual errors due to intra-reader variability among physicians. Doctors have not agreed upon standardized measurement of cell loss used to specifically diagnose dementia among individuals. These limitations have led researchers to look for supportive diagnosis tools to enhance the spectrum of diseases characteristics and peculiarities. Here is presented a supportive auditory tool to aid in diagnosing patients with different levels of Alzheimer's. This tool introduces an audible parameter mapped upon three different brain's lobes. The motivating force behind this supportive auditory technique arise from the fact that AD is distinguished by a decrease of the metabolic activity (hypometabolism) in the parietal and temporal lobes of the brain. The diagnosis is then performed by comparing metabolic activity of the affected lobes to the metabolic activity of other lobes that are not generally affected by AD (i.e., sensorimotor cortex). Results from the diagnosis process compared with the ground truth show that physicians were able to categorize different levels of AD using the sonification generated in this study with higher accuracy than using a standard diagnosis procedure, based on the visualization alone.


The basis for this PhD project was to investigate E7080, a novel multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor, both pre-clinically and clinically. Traditional early clinical trials of cytotoxic agents in cancer patients may not be the optimal way to develop new targeted agents, whose mechanism of action often means they are cytostatic, rather than cytotoxic, and have much less in the way of toxicity. For this reason, the use of biomarkers to aid early clinical development is becoming increasingly popular.
The initial aims of this PhD were to develop a pharmacodynamic biomarker of the activity of E7080 in patient peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), and to gain a better understanding of its mechanism of action, while simultaneously performing a phase I clinical trial of E7080.
Two approaches were used to identify a pharmacodynamic biomarker of E7080's activity, a candidate approach and a global phosphoproteomic approach. Neither approach was successful in identifying a biomarker in PBMCs, partly due to the finding that PBMCs were not an ideal candidate for a biomarker of E7080 activity as they lacked expression of some of the main receptor targets of E7080.
Inhibition of three of E7080's main receptor targets, VEGFR-2, PDGFR-β and FGFR-1, was confirmed at concentrations of E7080 achieved in patients on the clinical trial. E7080 had no effect on basal proliferation of a number of different tumour cell lines, but caused a significant impairment of cellular migration and invasion in vitro, suggesting a potential role for E7080 in the adjuvant setting.
As the clinical trial of E7080 progressed, it became clear that patients with advanced malignant melanoma were deriving an unexpectedly high benefit from treatment with E7080, and our hypothesis was that this benefit was due to the inhibition fibroblast growth factor receptor-1 (FGFR-1) signalling, which has been implicated in the progression of malignant melanoma in vitro, and in mouse models in vivo. Therefore, a further investigation was undertaken to explore the relationship of FGFR-1 expression in human melanoma, and its impact on patient outcome. FGFR-1 expression was examined in a large human melanoma tumour tissue microarray, and was found to increase significantly as lesions progressed from benign naevi to primary malignant melanomas. FGFR-1 expression also significantly correlated with patient outcome. In patients with non-metastatic melanoma, low expression of FGFR-1 was an independent prognostic factor for poorer progression free and overall survival.
In conclusion, very encouraging evidence of efficacy was observed in patients treated on the phase I clinical trial of E7080, most notably with metastatic melanoma, with implications for future treatment. While it was not possible to identify a PBMC pharmacodynamic biomarker for the activity of E7080, pre-clinical investigation into the mechanism of action of E7080 has suggested a further role for E7080 in the adjuvant setting.


In temperate humid catchments, evapotranspiration returns more than half of the annual precipitation to the atmosphere, thereby determining the balance available to recharge groundwaters and support stream flow and lake levels. Changes in evapotranspiration rates and therefore catchment hydrology could be driven by changes in land use or climate. Here we examine the catchment water balance over the past 50 y for a catchment in southwest Michigan covered by cropland, grassland, forest, and wetlands. Over the study period about 27% of the catchment has been abandoned from row-crop agriculture to perennial vegetation and about 20% of the catchment has reverted to deciduous forest, and the climate has warmed by 1.14°C. Despite these changes in land use, precipitation and stream discharge, and by inference catchment-scale evapotranspiration, have been stable over the study period. The remarkably stable rates of evapotranspirative water loss from the catchment across a period of significant land cover change suggest that rainfed annual crops and perennial vegetation do not differ greatly in evapotranspiration rates, and this is supported by measurements of evapotranspiration from various vegetation types based on soil water monitoring in the same catchment. Compensating changes in the other meteorological drivers of evaporative water demand besides air temperature—wind speed, atmospheric humidity, and net radiation—are also possible, but cannot be evaluated due to insufficient local data across the 50-y period. Regardless of the explanation, this study shows that the water balance of this landscape has been resilient in the face of both land cover and climate change over the past 50 y.


Whether you are a novice writer or a veteran who has already had your work published, rejection is often a frustrating reality. Literary agents and editors receive and reject hundreds of manuscripts each month. While it's the job of these publishing professionals to be discriminating, it's the job of the writer to produce a manuscript that immediately stands out among the vast competition. And those outstanding qualities, says New York literary agent Noah Lukeman, have to be apparent from the first five pages. The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile reveals the necessary elements of good writing, whether it be fiction, nonfiction, journalism, or poetry, and points out errors to be avoided, such as: A weak opening hook Overuse of adjectives and adverbs Flat or forced metaphors or similes Undeveloped characterizations and lifeless settings Uneven pacing and lack of progression With exercises at the end of each chapter, this invaluable reference will allow novelists, journalists, poets, and screenwriters alike to improve their technique as they learn to eliminate even the most subtle mistakes that are cause for rejection. The First Five Pages will help writers at every stage take their art to a higher and more successful level.


Original available here Feb 25 (Reuters) A Taiwan-owned plant making parts for Apple Inc said it is offering around 80,000 yuan ($12,177) as compensation to each of the 115 workers hit by chemical poisoning but some of the affected Chinese workers said the sum was not enough. Wintek , owner of the factory in east China's Suzhou industrial park, said it has reserved 10 million yuan for compensation to the workers affected by the chemical hexyl hydride, and will pay more if the illness continues. But two workers contacted by Reuters on Friday said that the 80,000 yuan offered by the company to each worker so far was not sufficient. "Don't tell me 80,000 yuan, even 800,000 yuan will not be enough," said Hu Zhiyong, a 26-year-old worker. Hu, who said his daily medical expenses are over 800 yuan, added that his major demand is future health care after he leaves the company, as well as an apology from Apple. Reuters reported earlier this week that some of the workers had sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, urging the company to help address their grievances. Wintek has said it used hexyl hydride, also called n-hexane, from May 2008 to August 2009, but stopped after discovering it was making workers ill. The company used the chemical, which evaporates faster than alcohol, to speed up production. It has gone back to using alcohol. "We have accrued all liabilities," said Wintek's finance director, Jay Huang, on Friday. "If they discover any continued illness in the future, we will compensate as required by law." The company has set aside the 10 million yuan as a provision. According to Wintek, 91 workers have finished assessments on their health condition and 24 are still in the process of being assessed, and it estimates each will get around 80,000 yuan in compensation. Another 22 have been cleared of any poisoning. Hu said Wintek will bear all legal responsibilities and compensate affected workers even after they leave the company if they are diagnosed with continued illness. Li Wanxin, a 19-year-old worker, said the company has initially offered her 2,223 yuan in compensation: 1,500 yuan for medical expenses and 723 yuan as a living allowance. She said this was sufficient for now but wants more. Li said she has yet to receive the money because she needs to complete a final check-up required under labour laws to ascertain that she was indeed affected by poisoning while working at the plant. ($1=6.57 Yuan ) (Reporting by Clare Jim in Taipei and Suilee Wee in Beijing; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)


Breast cancer can be defined as a group of diseases with heterogeneous origins, molecu - lar profiles and behaviors characterized by uncontrolled proliferation of cells within the mammary tissue. Around one in eight women in the US will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, making it the second most frequently diagnosed cancer behind skin cancer [1 ]. In 2015, an estimated 231,840 cases of invasive carcinoma were diagnosed, and over 40,000 deaths were caused by breast cancer which accounts for almost 7% of all cancer mortality each year [ 1 , 2]. In 2015, 60,290 cases of in situ breast cancer were diagnosed, rep - resenting over 14% of all new cancer cases among women and men [ 1 ]. The steep increase in diagnosis of early‐stage breast cancer over the past 10 years is believed to be a result of more frequent mammography. However, since over half of these in situ lesions will not progress to invasive breast cancer, controversies have arisen about approaches to treat - ment and prevention of progression of early‐stage in situ breast cancer. Understanding the mechanisms of transition of normal breast to in situ pre‐neoplastic lesions and inva - sive breast cancer is currently a major focus of breast cancer research with implications for preventive and clinical management of breast cancer. In this review, we give an over - view of current knowledge on the molecular and pathological changes that occur during early‐stage progression of breast cancer and describe some of the current models that are used to study this process.


LukasOn, O., 2014. Why and how agricultural firms fail: evidence from Estonia. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 5-11 This paper is focused on a domain in literature that has received very low attention, namely firm failure causes and failure processes in agricultural sector. The two objectives of the paper are to determine the main reasons of firm failure in agricultural sector and find out whether failed firms go through different failure processes. The empirical part uses various data of bankrupt Estonian agricultural firms. Based on the failure reasons outlined in court judgments about bankruptcies, it is established that half of the firms fail because of factors from both, internal and external environment. The other half of the firms collapse because of reasons from only one environment, either internal or external. Based on the financial data from the annual reports of firms, three distinct failure processes are found by using factor analysis. Established failure processes have both, similarities and differences with those established in literature before.


We report an all-optical demultiplexer based on gain-transparent SOA operation in an ultrafast-nonlinear interferometer (GT-UNI). The GT-UNI comprises a robust fiber-chip setup in a novel, folded geometry. For switching window widths of 5.2 ps and 6.0 ps error-free demultiplexing of 160 Gb/s to 10 Gb/s is demonstrated.


This paper investigates the role of board structure and the effect of ownership structures on firm performance in New Zealand's listed firms. Several studies, the majority from the U.S., U.K. and Japan, have examined the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, ownership structure and firm performance. Those studies yielded different results, affected by the nature of the prevailing governance system for each country. Investigating New Zealand's listed firms could enhance the diversity of the growing body of work that examines this relationship. Though the majority of studies only tested a linear relationship between variables, a number of studies have found a non-linear relationship between board structures, ownership structures and firm performance, and this study confirms the non-linear relationship. Using a balanced panel of 79 New Zealand listed firms, this study employs a Generalised Linear Model (GLM) for robustness. The result reveals that board of directors, board committees, and managerial ownership have a positive and significant impact on firm performance. Meanwhile, non-executive directors, female directors on the board and block holder ownership lower New Zealand firm performance.


'He gave orders that they were not to get any hot glum pudding in flames, for fear the spirits in their innards might catch fire.' The Steel Flea is an uproarious and alcohol-soaked shaggy-dog story from one of Russia's great comic masters. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Nikolay Leskov (1831-1895). Leskov's works are available in Penguin Classics in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Other Stories and Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida.


Deliberative democracy grounds its legitimacy largely in the ability of speakers to participate on equal terms. Yet theorists and practitioners have struggled with how to establish deliberative equality in the face of stark differences of power in liberal democracies. Designers of innovative civic forums for deliberation often aim to neutralize inequities among participants through proportional inclusion of disempowered speakers and discourses. In contrast, others argue that democratic equality is best achieved when disempowered groups deliberate in their own enclaves (interest groups, parties, and movements) before entering the broader public sphere. Borrowing from each perspective, the authors argue that there are strong reasons to incorporate enclave deliberation among the disempowered within civic forums. They support this claim by presenting case study evidence showing that participants in such forums can gain some of the same benefits of deliberation found in more heterogeneous groups (e.g., political knowledge, efficacy and trust), can consider a diversity of viewpoints rather than falling into groupthink and polarization, and can persuade external stakeholders of the legitimacy of the group's deliberations.


This best-selling guide from authors Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas has been the go-to tutorial and reference book for photography/design professionals and the textbook of choice in college classrooms for decades. This edition includes their trademark features of clear, concise, step-by-step instructions; hundreds of full-color images; screen captures of program features; and supplemental tips and sidebars in every chapter. Among the new CC features covered in this extensively updated guide are: Smart Sharpen, Adobe Camera Raw as filter, intelligent upscaling, multi-shape and path selection, and camera shake reduction. New and updated Photoshop CC features are clearly marked with bright red stars in both the table of contents and main text. Includes eBook In addition to concise, step-by-step explanations of core tools and tasks, with plenty of helpful screen shots to keep you on track as you work, Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide includes the eBook. You can download digital versions of this book to load on the mobile device of your choice so that you can continue learning whenever and wherever you are. We provide you with EPUB, PDF, and MOBI eBook formats to ensure that you get the experience that best suits your viewing needs.


The rehabilitation of orphaned animals is commonly practiced but rarely scientifically documented. The behavioural development before release (e.g. regarding hunting skills) is particularly important for ensuring animals are self-sustaining after release. We document the rehabilitation and release of three confiscated cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) cubs and one leopard (Panthera pardus) cub, which were taken from the wild in Botswana. The animals were raised with minimal human contact and the development of their hunting skills was observed and assisted by limited pre-release training. After release, all animals were monitored and data showed they successfully hunted, with behavioural patterns similar to wild conspecifics. All established stable home ranges at the release site. Home ranges of the cheetahs ranged from 44 to 121 km2, travelling primarily during the early morning and evening, ranging from 4.5 to 9.4 km/day. While the leopard survived and probably reproduced within a stable home range (449 km2), all three cheetahs were shot within 7 months of release. Therefore, although orphaned large felids can successfully hunt after release using appropriate rehabilitation techniques, they face the same human—carnivore conflicts of their wild counterparts. Our study demonstrates the indispensable but commonly neglected need for post-release monitoring in wildlife rehabilitation.


My work focuses on a class of astronomical objects called protoplanetary disks. These flattened structures rotating around young stars are made of gas and dust and are the places where planets, like our own Earth, are formed. One of the main properties needed to explain the process of planet formation is the mass of protoplanetary disks. There is however not yet a consensus on how such masses can be reliably measured from disk observations. In this thesis, I investigate weather less abundant isotopologues of carbon monoxide (CO) are good candidates for tracing disk masses. Initially I tackle the problem from a theoretical point of view by running a grid of physical-chemical disk models. Subsequently I compare my model predictions with recently acquired observations of protoplanetary disks in the Lupus star-forming region. The conclusion of my work is that CO isotopologues are good disk mass tracers, but they need to be calibrated. Observations of other molecules like hydrogen deuteride (HD), atomic carbon and hydrocarbons can serve this cause.


Nuclear ribosomal sequence data from the internal transcribed spacers (ITS-1 and ITS-2), 5.8S subunit, and regions of the 18S and 28S genes were used to investigate sequence diversity among geographic samples of Nematodirus battus, and to infer phylogenetic relationships among Nematodirus species. Phylogenetic analysis of these data yielded strong support for relationships among species, depicting Nematodirus helvetianus and Nematodirus spathiger as sister-taxa and a clade of these 2 species and Nematodirus filicollis. This tree is consistent with caprine bovids as ancestral hosts, with a subsequent host shift to Bovinae in N. helvetianus. Eleven of 14 N. battus sequences were unique, with 19 variable sites among sequences representing 5 geographic samples. The lowest number of variable nucleotide sites was observed in samples representing apparently recent introductions to the United States and Canada, which is consistent with a population bottleneck concomitant with translocation. Comparison of directly sequenced polymerase chain reaction products and clones revealed evidence for intraindividual variation at some of the sequence sites, and this pattern of variation and that within geographic samples indicates incomplete rDNA repeat homogenization within species. This pattern of variation is not conducive for inferring phylogenetic relationships among sequences representing N. battus or addressing the putative history of introduction.


We report the initial results for femtosecond electromagnetic soliton propagation and collision obtained from first principles, i.e., by a direct time integration of Maxwell's equations. The time integration efficiently implements linear and nonlinear convolutions for the electric polarization and can take into account such quantum effects as Kerr and Raman interactions. The present approach is robust and should permit the modeling of two- and three-dimensional optical soliton propagation, scattering, and switching from the full-vector Maxwell's equations.


Cheng Ching Lake Water Works (CCLWW), located in southern Taiwan, draws its raw water from a eutrophic lake, which is treated by conventional processes, including pre-chlorination, coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. As the taste- and odor-causing compounds from algae cannot be completely removed by conventional treatment processes, and the hardness is high, there are complaints about water quality. In searching for suitable processes to upgrade the existing facilities, a two-year pilot plant test was conducted. In total 13 processes were tested, which could be divided into three groups. The main feature of the first group was the modification of the existing conventional treatment processes, which included eliminating pre-chlorination and incorporating GAC. The second group incorporated pre- and post-ozonation, GAC bed, with or without pellet softening, into the conventional processes. The third group featured membrane processes, mainly nanofiltration (NF) and its various pretreatment processes, such as microfiltration (MF) or ultrafiltration (UF). The results show that although the first group has higher removal rates of dissolved organic and disinfection by-product precursors, as measured by NPDOC and THMFP, respectively, than those from the existing full-scale plants, the improvement in taste and odour was not adequate. For the second group, the dissolved organic parameters and biostability of the finished water were further improved, and half of the total hardness could be removed by pellet softening. However, earthy and fishy odours still could be detected occasionally by flavour profile analysis. Generally speaking, the third group with processes involving NF could produce the highest quality finished water: no matter organic, inorganic, organoleptic parameters, or biostability were concerned.


This dissertation is divided into sections (chapters). The three chapters (from two to four) are dedicated fro each subfamily of the family leguminosae, whereas the remaining two (chapter first and last) cover the introduction of subfamilies of the family leguminosae and biological studies on their plants, respectively.

The first chapter delineate the characteristic feature of the family leguminosae, the various genera and species of the subfamilies with their important representative.

The second chapter outlines the subfamily Faboideae. A member of this family named as Lotus garcinii and the compounds isolated from this plant have been described which include acyclic diterpenoids, saturated fatty acids, common steroids, triterpenoids and some unusual compounds.

Tamarindus indica, a member of the subfamily caesalpinioideae was also investigated due to the reason that that leaves of this plants show the amazing phenomenan known as chemotrpism and this was solved by the parallel chemical and biological studies on the leaves which were collected during day and night times

In the fourth chapter the results are described which were obtained when prosopis juliflora, a member of subfamily mimosoideae, was explored phytochemically. As a results of this investigation , an acyclic diterpenoid, pentacyclic triterpenoid, common steroids and an alkaloid belonging to the class piperidine have been isolated and characterized

In the last chapter, the various plants of the family leguminosae which were collected during the summer season around the city (Karachi) were subjected to extraction and studies for antifungal and antibacterial activity. The promising results obtained from the biological activities have been discussed in this chapter. Structures of the naturally occurring isolated compounds from different medicinal plants were characterized through various spectroscopic methods including 2D NMR spectroscopy.


The secular rise in female labor force participation, highlighted in the recent macroeconomics literature on growth and structural change, has been associated with the declining price and wider availability of home appliances. This paper uses a new and unique country data set on the price of home appliances to test its impact on female labor supply. We assess the role of the price of appliances in raising participation by comparing it to other structural determinants such as average male income. A decrease in the relative price of appliancesthe ratio of the price of appliances to the consumer price indexleads to a substantial and statistically significant increase in female labor force participation. In the United Kingdom, for instance, the decline in the relative price of home appliances alone accounts for about 10 to 15 of the increase in female labor force participation from 1975 to 1999. This result is robust to the inclusion of additional controls, such as country dummies, time trend, government spending, and the growth rate of real GDP. To assess causality, we test for exogeneity and use the manufactured price index and the terms of trade adjustment as instrumental variables confirming that lower appliance prices lead to increased female participation.


This article outlines two compatible models for planning and implementing programs for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The Ziggurat Model begins the process with an assessment of individual strengths and concerns related specifically to ASD and identifies interventions across five tiers that are matched to the individual's profile: (a) sensory and biological, (b) reinforcement, (c) structure and visual/tactile supports, (d) task demands, and (e) skills to teach. Content from the Ziggurat Model is then placed with the Comprehensive Autism Planning System (CAPS) to allow the child's day to be operationalized and matched to student goals, state standards, and related benchmarks. This article overviews this process and offers a brief case study as an example.


1.1 Background: Hepatic resections are classically subdivided into major and minor resections. These definitions are important for the perioperative management as major resections are associated with a higher incidence of complications like liver failure or bile leakage. However, other perioperative factors might also influence patient outcome. The present study aims to evaluate the significance of major and minor hepatic resection as well as other factors on the postoperative course. For this purpose we analysed data retrospectively from our centre.
1.2 Patients and methods: The study was based on a prospective database of all liver resections performed at the University Hospital Mannheim between January 1998 and December 2010 (a total of 627 consecutive liver resections). In these patients 135 major hepatectomies, and 192 minor resections were performed. Wedge resections were excluded from analysis. Variables independently associated with the occurrence of complications were identified using a binary regression analysis model.
1.3 Results: 186 (56.9%) of the patients were male, the mean age of all patients was 61.9 years (SD 11.5). The rate of patients with postoperative liver failure was 3.4% and 30-day mortality was 5.5%. Mean length of stay was 15.6 days. Surgical and non-specific complications were significantly more frequent in major hepatectomies. However, we found that the performed procedure was no independent risk factor for the incidence of specific complications, liver failure and mortality. Multivariate analysis could reveal different other independent risk factors for the incidence of complications and mortality. Among these were ASA classification, low preoperative serum albumin and elevated preoperative levels of ALAT.
1.4 Conclusion: Our data suggests that quality and quantity of complications does not only depend on the extent of the performed procedure. Our analysis identified additional independent risk factors. These risk factors, as well as the performed procedure, should be considered in the perioperative management.


Recent literature has demonstrated promising results for training Generative Adversarial Networks by employing a set of discriminators, in contrast to the traditional game involving one generator against a single adversary. Such methods perform single-objective optimization on some simple consolidation of the losses, e.g. an arithmetic average. In this work, we revisit the multiple-discriminator setting by framing the simultaneous minimization of losses provided by different models as a multi-objective optimization problem. Specifically, we evaluate the performance of multiple gradient descent and the hypervolume maximization algorithm on a number of different datasets. Moreover, we argue that the previously proposed methods and hypervolume maximization can all be seen as variations of multiple gradient descent in which the update direction can be computed efficiently. Our results indicate that hypervolume maximization presents a better compromise between sample quality and computational cost than previous methods.


Racist violence across Europe in recent years has presented a serious social problem. In Britain, the British Crime Survey has revealed that racist incidents are far more extensive than the number represented by police statistics, and the extent of the problem presents a considerable challenge for policy intervention. The inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence has recently forced the issue of racist violence onto the public and policy agenda. But scholarly analysis of the problem is in its infancy, and the emerging literature has neglected antisemitic manifestations. There has also been little evaluation of policy intervention, and especially the role that legislation might play. Legislation against racially motivated violence has provided a key element of the Labour government's intervention against crime and disorder. Possible legislation against holocaust denial and a review of provisions against incitement to 'racial' hatred have also been on the policy agenda. But legislating against racism and antisemitism confronts a potential conflict between claims to freedom of expression and rights to freedom from acts of violence, threats, hostility and damage. It is timely, therefore, to evaluate the dilemmas confronting legislative intervention. In considering the moral and practical difficulties involved, this article argues that it is possible to legislate against acts of racism and antisemitism without unjustly curtailing the rights of the perpetrators of such acts. Practical limitations remain, however, and there is a need for policy learning from measures that have been established in European countries and elsewhere.


In 1998, New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) conducted an onboard survey of passengers on three of its commuter rail lines on their preferences for new shuttle services. During the first half of the 2000s, community-based shuttle service was introduced in several New Jersey communities—many under the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. Some of these services continue today, but others were discontinued. This study uses data from the onboard survey to identify the rider characteristics and spatial characteristics of communities that influence stated preferences for shuttle service to rail stations. Correlation analysis, factor analysis, and logistic regression are used to identify these characteristics. With the use of results from the stated preference analysis, the communities where shuttle service has continued were compared with communities where service has been discontinued, to identify the factors that may influence the shuttle's success. The analysis of stated preferences and the comparison of communities suggest that concentration of immigrant populations, non-English speakers, and persons with moderate income may be important for the success of shuttles in the study area. Sporadic evidence was found that parking costs and availability of parking at stations may influence people's decision to use shuttles. Similar evidence is found indicating that people with high incomes, people who live close to stations, and people who already use rail transit regularly may be indifferent to new shuttle service.


Using data from a longitudinal survey of college students from over 400 institutions, we examine the impacts of occupational internship programs and voluntary academic leave on returning academic achievement, post-college ambitions, and general facets of the college experience. Previous literature on college internships has focused on labor market effects and the literature on academic leave has emphasized its causes. Much less has been done to analyze effects of these occurrences on collegiate outcomes. College internships are found to have a positive effect on grades, increase desires to work full-time or attend graduate school immediately following graduation, and slightly increase ambitions to have administrative responsibilities and be financially well off. Voluntary academic leave is found to have only negative effects on collegiate outcomes, including study habits and academic achievement upon return. Implied policy implications are that colleges and universities should champion internship programs but discourage college tenure interruption for other reasons.


Runoff samples from experimental plots at four locations in Wisconsin were analyzed for total soil material, organic and ammonia nitrogen, available phosphorus, and exchangeable potassium. Correlation studies were carried out in an attempt to relate the selectiveness of the erosive process for a given fertility constituent to the quantity of eroded soil and concentration of suspended solids in the runoff. The relationship was found to be highly significant with multiple correlation coefficients of 0.63 for available phosphorus, 0.79 for nitrogen and for organic matter, and 0.87 for exchangeable potassium. The selectiveness of the erosive process for the four fertility constituents determined increases in the order: organic matter, organic and ammonia nitrogen, available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium. At the average values of erosiveness encountered in this study, the eroded soil material contained 2.1 times as much organic matter, 2.7 times as much nitrogen, 3.4 times as much available phosphorus and 19.3 times as much exchangeable potassium as the soil proper. The selectiveness of the erosive process for given runoff conditions appears to be greater on Fayette silt loam, 20% slope, than on Almena silt loam, 3% slope, or on Miami silt loam, 9% slope.


Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) have become a crucial tool on learning representations of graph vertices. The main challenge of adapting GCNs on large-scale graphs is the scalability issue that it incurs heavy cost both in computation and memory due to the uncontrollable neighborhood expansion across layers. In this paper, we accelerate the training of GCNs through developing an adaptive layer-wise sampling method. By constructing the network layer by layer in a top-down passway, we sample the lower layer conditioned on the top one, where the sampled neighborhoods are shared by different parent nodes and the over expansion is avoided owing to the fixed-size sampling. More importantly, the proposed sampler is adaptive and applicable for explicit variance reduction, which in turn enhances the training of our method. Furthermore, we propose a novel and economical approach to promote the message passing over distant nodes by applying skip connections. Intensive experiments on several benchmarks verify the effectiveness of our method regarding the classification accuracy while enjoying faster convergence speed.


Tort theory is torn between two competing conceptions. One of these - the justice conception - takes the tort law of accidents to be continuous with our ordinary notions of agency and responsibility, carelessness and wrongdoing, harm and reparation. The other - the economic conception - holds that tort accident law should express an appropriately scientific conception of human welfare. Theorists in the first camp have generally believed that justice in tort is a matter of corrective justice, that it is concerned all but exclusively with the rectification of losses wrongfully inflicted. This paper challenges that belief. It argues that we should understand tort law to be primarily a matter of distributive justice - a matter of the fair apportionment of the burdens and benefits of risky activities - and only secondarily a matter of corrective justice. Calling attention to the role that distributive justice plays in the law of torts has an interpretive advantage: it helps to explain and justify the existence of strict liability in tort, something which corrective justice conceptions have had difficulty doing. But focusing on the importance of distributive justice to the law of torts also has transformative implications for the law of torts: it implies that, other things equal, strict liability is to be favored over negligence.


After many decades of flourishing computer science it is now rather evident that in a world dominated by different kinds of digital information, both applications and people are forced to seek new, innovative structures and forms of data management and organization. Following this blunt observation, researchers in informatics have strived over the recent years to tackle the non-unique and rather evolving notion of context, which aids significantly the data disambiguation process. Motivated by this environment, this work attempts to summarize and organize in a researcher-friendly tabular manner important or pioneer related research works deriving from diverse computational intelligence domains: Initially, we discuss the influence of context with respect to traditional low-level multimedia content analysis and search, and retrieval tasks and then we advance to the fields of overall computational context-awareness and the so-called human-generated contextual elements. In an effort to provide meaningful information to fellow researchers, this brief survey focuses on the impact of context in modern and popular computing undertakings of our era. More specifically, we focus to the presentation of a short review of visual context modeling methods, followed by the depiction of context-awareness in modern computing. Works dealing with the interpretation of context by human-generated interactions are also discussed herein, as the particular domain gains an ever-increasing proportion of related research nowadays. We then conclude the paper by providing a short discussion on (i) the motivation behind the included context type categorization into three main pillars; (ii) the findings and conclusions of the survey for each context category; and (iii) a couple of brief advices derived from the survey for both interested developers and fellow researchers.


Austin Farrer was part of the extraordinary mid-20th century group of 'Oxford Christians', which also included C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, Charles Williams and Dorothy Sayers. Described as 'the one genius that the Church of England produced' in the last century and 'author of incomparably the most interesting theological books ever to come out of Oxford', his great legacy is that his considerable learning expressed itself as practical spiritual direction. He believed that after all the argument, analysis and sifting of evidence, the purpose of theology was to show how to live and how to love. He died in 1968 and his many books are now out of print. Here is a thematically arranged anthology of his most influential writings with an extended introduction that assesses his contribution to Anglican life and through today.


Hyperproliferating cells secrete an insulin antagonist that induces a cachexia-like wasting syndrome in fruit flies. Cachexia is a systemic condition that accompanies many diseases, including cancer, and involves muscle wasting, weight loss, and metabolic changes that can cause death or accelerate death due to the underlying disease. Studies from Kwon et al. and Figueroa-Clarevega and Bilder investigated how populations of hyperproliferating cells induce a condition similar to cachexia in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Using inducible expression of an activated form of the transcriptional coactivator Yorkie (ykiact) specifically in intestinal stem cells of the midgut, Kwon et al. found that the presence of hyperproliferating cells caused degeneration of the ovaries and body fat, impaired muscle function, and increased the volume of hemolymph in the abdomen, causing bloating. The muscles of ykiact flies exhibited morphological and transcriptomic changes indicative of mitochondrial dysfunction and reduced metabolic processes, including glycolysis. The ovaries likewise showed reduced expression of genes involved in glycolysis. Changes in the abundance of metabolites in the hemolymph and in the abundance of a marker of insulin signaling were consistent with systemic metabolic dysfunction, hyperglycemia, and reduced insulin signaling. Although glycolysis was reduced in other tissues, the hyperproliferating cells themselves exhibited increased glycolysis and insulin signaling. The secreted protein ImpL2 binds to circulating Drosophila insulin-like peptides (Dilps) to reduce insulin signaling. Hyperproliferating gut cells had increased expression of ImpL2 compared with controls, but expression of ImpL2 was not affected in ovaries or muscles. Reducing ImpL2 expression specifically in the midgut rescued the metabolic and morphological phenotypes and restored insulin signaling in ykiact flies. In a related paper, Figueroa-Clarevega and Bilder observed the same wasting syndrome following the transplantation of tumorous larval imaginal discs into the abdomens of adult flies. Using different combinations of mutations that transformed imaginal discs into neoplastic (malignant) or hyperplastic (benign) tumors, the authors observed that only malignant tumors induced the wasting syndrome. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that malignant tumors produced more ImpL2 than benign tumors or wild-type imaginal discs. Overexpression of ImpL2 in the hindgut was sufficient to induce wasting phentoypes, and reducing ImpL2 expression in transplanted tumors with an inducible RNA interference construct partially reversed wasting phenotypes, which may indicate that other factors are involved in systemic wasting induced by malignant tumors. This study also demonstrated that morphological changes in the fat bodies of tumor-bearing animals were consistent with lipid mobilization, that tumor-bearing animals had changes in circulating metabolites consistent with hyperglycemia, and that insulin signaling was reduced in nontumor tissues. Both studies demonstrated that, like cachexia in human patients, wasting syndrome in flies was not improved by increasing caloric intake. Findings from both studies are consistent with secretion of the insulin antagonist ImpL2 inducing cachexia by changing glucose metabolism in nontumor tissues, resulting in degeneration of those tissues. Proinflammatory cytokines have been implicated in inducing cachexia in mammalian systems, but these studies in Drosophila suggest that exploration of the involvement of insulin-signaling modifiers in mammalian systems may uncover additional factors that play a role in cachexia associated with cancer and other diseases. Y. Kwon, W. Song, I. A. Droujinine, Y. Hu, J. M. Asara, N. Perrimon, Systemic organ wasting induced by localized expression of the secreted insulin/IGF antagonist ImpL2. Dev. Cell 33, 36–46 (2015). [PubMed] A. Figueroa-Clarevega, D. Bilder, Malignant Drosophila tumors interrupt insulin signaling to induce cachexia-like wasting. Dev. Cell 33, 47–55 (2015). [PubMed]


The issues before the Supreme Court, arising as they did out of multiple cases and divergent appellate court rulings, were quite complex, and its final decision will be parsed rather differently by lawyers, health policy wonks, and economists (or metaphysical philosophers, in Chief Justice John Roberts's memorable phrase). This essay will focus on one singular element: did the final ruling enhance or detract from our collective power to exercise stewardship over our health care resources?

Clearly Americans diverge on key features of a desirable society and on the wisdom of using government to achieve even mutually desirable goals. But before politics settles the fate of the Affordable Care Act (and perhaps also the federal role in health policy for the foreseeable future), we should focus on what the Court has allowed us to consider: if we want it to, federal power may constitutionally be marshaled to compel insurers to end discrimination against the sick and to offer more transparent products so the marketplace will better serve consumers.


This catalogue essay takes Renee Green's exhibition Endless Dreams and Water Between as a pretext for exploring about how mapping, film and ideas of utopia are inter-related so as to consider how the artist's work facilitates creative thought. Meandering through the art works included in that exhibition, the essay considers how the show enfolds earlier works within it both as prelude and integral part, thus embodying a key idea that there are past events, connections, stories and hopes for the future that can only be glimpsed at through fragments in the present. The essay investigates the fictional and historical figures Green assembles in intriguing organizational structures and examines the modes of collective speculation her characters embark upon so as to engage with 'past feeling, times and histories' that have been 'forcefully forgotten', to see how these 'can fuel the present, in the wake of feeling a sense of lack and absence.'

Much of Renee Green's artistic practice is concerned with the forms that social existence and culture have taken at different moments and locations, and how they have been translated and have changed in the movements of peoples through migration and travel. The exhibition Endless Dreams and Water Between includes various pictorial, sonic and filmic mappings of islands and forms of island life. These evoke, trouble and reflect upon the notion of utopia. The essay suggests that film can have a utopian function, through which past dreams and aspirations for the future can be folded into the present. Film can operate as a kind of mapping, with montage bringing together seemingly tenuous connections to reveal the gaps in what we know. If the cinema screen is a place where people dream together, the screen operates as a site of possibility for collective dreams and aspirations, creating moments of intensity in how our past, present and future are imagined and understood.

There is a notion of utopia proposed by Ernst Bloch that chimes with Renee Green's practice, in which utopia may be defined as a 'a momentary nexus' that 'embraces the present'. Her art deals both in sincerity and irony, with fact and fiction, often at the same time. Circulating through the works, however, is also a sense of longing, a yearning that suggests that even in this age of extreme technological connectivity, in Brecht's phrase, 'something's missing' in the present.


Objectives We assessed the situation of academic publications on access to and use of medicines (ATM) in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) of the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). We aimed to inform priority setting for research on ATM in the region. Design Bibliographic review of published studies. Setting LMICs in EMR. Inclusion criteria Publications on ATM issues originating from or focusing on EMR LMICs covering the period 2000–2011. Publications involving multinational studies were included if at least one eligible country had been included in the study. Information sources and data extraction We conducted comprehensive searches of the PubMed, Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index. We used the WHO ATM framework for data extraction and synthesis. We analysed the data according to the ATM issues, health system levels, year of publication and the countries of origin or focus of the studies. Results 151 articles met the inclusion criteria. Most articles (77%) originated from LMICs in EMR, suggesting that the majority of evidence on ATM in the region is home-grown. Over 60% of articles were from Iran, Pakistan, Jordan and Lebanon (in order of volume), while we found no studies assessing ATM in Somalia, Djibouti and South Sudan, all low-income countries. Most studies focused on the rational use of medicines, while affordability and financing received limited attention. There was a steady growth over time in the number of ATM publications in the region (r=0.87). Conclusions There is a growing trend, over the years, of more studies from the region appearing in international journals. There is a need for further research on the financing and affordability aspects of ATM in the region. Cross-border issues and the roles of non-health sectors in access to medicines in the region have not been explored widely.


The aim of the paper is to investigate the thermal conditions (temperature distribution, heat losses) in the support system of the Vapour Suppression Tank (VST) of the Vacuum Vessel Pressure Suppression System (VVPSS), a safety important system of ITER fusion reactor, protecting the Vacuum Vessel (VV) against overpressures. The VVPSS includes four VSTs of identical volume and mounted as two stacked assemblies.
 The study focuses on the optimization of the design of the thermal insulation of the bottom part of the VST, connecting each two-tank stack to the basement, and also on the identification of the thermal loads at the interface between the tank support and the tank pressure boundary.
 A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of the VST has been performed for four different insulation configurations and considering both steady state and transient loads following accidental conditions.
 The results of the analysis are used to provide recommendation on the optimum configuration of the thermal insulation. Measures for minimization of the thermal gradient in the critical area of the joint between the tank hemispherical head and support skirt to limit the thermal fatigue on the welds are also suggested.


Students often find science to be disconnected from their everyday lives. One reason for this disengagement is that learners are often not given the chance to choose how to pursue their personal goals using science reasoning. Therefore, we are creating science programs that emphasize life-relevant learning - the ability to engage science learners in the context of achieving their own goals. We developed Kitchen Chemistry to engage and support children in the design of their own personal investigations. In this paper, we use a case study analysis to examine three groups of learners in Kitchen Chemistry. We analyze the decisions that learners make, how learners make these decisions, and the supports needed to make informed choices. We examine how the use of semi-structured activities, whole group discussions, adult facilitation, and mobile technologies interact and support learners in their decision-making practices.


For all living organisms, the ability to regulate internal homeostasis is a crucial feature. This ability to control variables around a set point is found frequently in the physiological networks of single cells and of higher organisms. Also, nutrient allocation and task selection in social insect colonies can be interpreted as homeostatic processes of a super-organism. And finally, behaviour can also represent such a control scheme. We show how a simple model of hormone regulation, inspired by simple biological organisms, can be used as a novel method to control the behaviour of autonomous robots. We demonstrate the formulation of such an artificial homeostatic hormone system (AHHS) by a set of linked difference equations and explain how the homeostatic control of behaviour is achieved by homeostatic control of the internal 'hormonal' state of the robot. The first task that we used to check the quality of our AHHS controllers was a very simple one, which is often a core functionality in controller programmes that are used in autonomous robots: obstacle avoidance. We demonstrate two implementations of such an AHHS controller that performs this task in differing levels of quality. Both controllers use the concept of homeostatic control of internal variables (hormones) and they extend this concept to also include the outside world of the robots into the controlling feedback loops: As they try to regulate internal hormone levels, they are forced to keep a homeostatic control of sensor values in a way that the desired goal 'obstacle avoidance' is achieved. Thus, the created behaviour is also a manifestation of the acts of homeostatic control. The controllers were evaluated using a stock-and-flow model that allowed sensitivity analysis and stability tests. Afterwards, we have also tested both controllers in a multi-agent simulation tool, which allowed us to predict the robots' behaviours in various habitats and group sizes. Finally, we demonstrate how this novel AHHS controller is suitable to control a multi-cellular robotic organism in an evolutionary robotics approach, which is used for self-programming in a gait-learning task. These examples shown in this article represent the first step in our research towards autonomous aggregation and coordination of robots to higher-level modular robotic organisms that consist of several joined autonomous robotic units. Finally, we plan to achieve such aggregation patterns and to control complex-shaped robotic organisms using AHHS controllers, as they are described here.


The main objective of the study is to examine the environmental management and disclosure practices employed by the various corporate enterprises in Singapore, Malaysia and India. An attempt has also been made to study the regulatory framework of environment management of the corporate sector. The study concludes that in the recent era, the concerns about environmental issues have gained momentum in the countries under study. They generally link environmental disclosure and financial performance measures and this should provide an incentive for companies to increase the content of their environmental management and reporting in their corporate reports. Mere compliance with legislative requirements is not sufficient by the corporate enterprises rather the companies should consider this as a part of their corporate social responsibility.INTRODUCTIONThe micro and macro aspects of environmental management have shaped new face of corporate environment reporting. The present practices indicate that the corporations disclose only the statutory information and the information relating to environmental disclosures are ignored by the companies. In order to make the corporate report more useful to the users, the same should include the voluntary disclosures like corporate social cost-benefit analysis, environmental accounting, and the extent of convergence to the global environment disclosure standards.The corporations all over the world have to play an important role in resolving the environmental challenges facing the world because of the resources they command and the extent to which they may be responsible for environmental degradation. Current disclosure practices followed by most of the companies do not fully reflect the environmental impact of corporate operations.It is now being realized by the economists, environmentalists, business managers and accountants that (1) if the benefits from rising incomes are offset by the costs imposed on health and quality of life by pollution, this cannot be called development; and (2) environmental damage can undermine future productivity. The corporate managers also need to remember the effects of their investment decisions on the environment.The need for corporate environment disclosures arises to comply with the statutory requirements, public opinion and the logic of public accountability. The reform process in India since 1991-92 has certainly improved the performance of the different sectors in the Indian economy. The Indian Corporate sector has started realizing the need for adequate corporate environment and social disclosures in order to repose the confidence of the stakeholders in the working of their enterprises and performance.RATIONALE OF STUDYWhen we are marching ahead towards the 21st century, there is consensus among stakeholders that corporate environmental performance involves the integration of environmental considerations into the corporate business practices, and reporting of environmental performance that is measurable and comparable over time.The concept of corporate governance in India has started gaining momentum and the deregulation, privatization, and globalization trends unleashed in the process of reforms led to renewed interest and need for good governance in the Country's corporate sector in order to have transparency and better environmental disclosure by the corporates.The purpose of creating awareness of environment management by corporate sector is to help improve practices of environment where this subject has received scant attention. Industrial development in market oriented economies like Malaysia, Singapore and India in Asia-Pacific region is taking place at an accelerated rate since economic liberalization began in these countries. Hence it is of great interest to study the environmental management and disclosure practices of various corporate enterprises in these economies.There is an urgent need to ensure a secure environment for the future. …


Strained layers are incorporated into many electronic devices and particularly into semiconductor lasers. These strained layers can relax, both elastically and plastically, which often impairs the performance of the device. This thesis presents several methods for calculating elastic strain relaxation: a Fourierseries method for stresses imposed on the surfaces of a rectangular block; a Fourier-integral for stress imposed on the surfaces of an infinite layer; and a Green-function method for the stress field about buried inclusions. The methods are used to calculate the strain distributions in a transmission electron microscopy sample, the relaxation at the end facet of a strained-layer laser, and the strain field about a rectangular buried layer. The effects of the strain relaxation on the optical absorption of the laser facet and the zone-centre band structure of the buried layer are discussed. The equilibrium theory of critical thickness is examined in detail and is shown to make unreasonable predictions for highly strained layers; a modification which corrects this behaviour is suggested. The equilibrium theory equates the line tension of a strain relieving dislocation to the strain energy it relieves in the layer. The additional energy corrections which can be included in the line tension are discussed, together with the failure of the equilibrium theories to reliably predict plastic relaxation in all situations.


The story of Czech theatre in the 20th century involves generations of mesmerizing players and memorable productions. Beyond these artistic considerations, however, lies a larger story: a theatre that has resonated with the intense concerns of its audiences acquires a significance and a force beyond anything created by striking individual talents or random stage hits. Amid the variety of performances during the past 100 years, that basic and provocative reality has been repeatedly demonstrated, as Jarka Burian reveals in his history of the dramatic world of Czech theatre. Following a brief historical background, Burian provides a chronological series of perspectives and observations on the evolving nature of Czech theatre productions during this century in relation to their similarly evolving social and political contexts. Once Czechoslovak independence was achieved in 1918, a repeated interplay of theatre with political realities became the norm, sometimes stifling the creative urge but often producing even greater artistry. When playwright Vaclev Havel became president in 1990, this was but the latest and most celebrated example of the vital engagement between stage and society that has been a repeated condition of Czech theatre for the past 200 years. Underlying all questions of the Czech theatre's relevance to its audience is the historically and culturally shaped relationship between the two. In Jarka Burian's hands, it also becomes an extremely important touchstone for understanding the history of modern theatre within western culture.


The Brexit debate is often analysed from the perspective of politicians, and in particular their views on and understandings of European law and politics. In contrast, this article concentrates on identifying the views of the senior judiciary. To do so, it analyses five extra-judicial speeches made between October 2013 to February 2014, a period particularly fertile in cases in the UK's top courts concerning the law of the European Union or the European Convention of Human Rights. In doing so the article charts the senior judiciary's vision of Europe. More particularly, it highlights the judiciary's strategies to limit the impact of both European treaties on the British constitution in what might be termed 'a search for judicial self-determination'. In addition, the article argues that a new extra-judicial process of constitutional change might be emerging. Finally, it concludes on the advantages and drawbacks of such a process of change.


The relationship between information technology investments and firm value as an area of inquiry has sustained interest among IS researchers over the past decade. Based on literature review of published work at corporate level productivity, researchers have developed three different approaches in assessing the correlation between IT implementation and productivity measures. Broadly speaking, the first two approaches focus on the effects of IT investment on direct, intermediary, financial and non-financial measures of productivity. None of these two approaches could positively prove either a direct correlation or lack of such a relation. The third approach, "complementary" approach, considers the IT implementation but emphasizes the role of complementary investments that enhance and complement the IT implementation. Recently, some studies focus on process approach, which emphasized on evaluation of impact of information technologies from process to process capabilities, and from capabilities to performance. However, there has been no well-founded empirical research on process-oriented evaluation of impact of IT simultaneously with considering complementary investment. The current paper aims to evaluate the level of impact of IT on organization process and the effect of these processes on capabilities. Finally, the impact of capability improvement on performance will be assessed. Results show significant relation between process influence, capability improvement and performance upgrading. On the other hand, this research assesses the  نارهت هاگشناد عیانص یسدنهم هدکشناد رایداتسا  کینورتکلا تراجت و یتعنص یبایرازاب تیریدم دشرا سانشراک  نارهت هاگشناد عیانص یسدنهم دشرا سانشراک Impact of Information Technology on Iran Distribution Company .. 99 impact of interaction between IT and organizational infrastructure. Data from 109 distribution companies was gathered in a field survey. The empirical work indicated constructed measures reliability and validity. The findings prove the moderating effect of organizational infrastructure as one of information technology complementary. In addition, by considering process oriented approach, the result of analysis shows the significant influence of IT on operational and managerial processes of organizations while these processes' impression improve capabilities of organizations significantly.


This study aims to find the different effects on the elderly caused by reading advertising with different information loads due to differences of cognitive age and advertising credibility. Young adults and middle-aged adults are compared with the elderly. The results reveal that different ages show differences in cognitive age but not in advertising credibility. Most of the respondents in the three age groups have a low cognitive age and low advertising credibility. The elderly have insignificant differences for advertising effect with a high information load. Young adults and middle-aged adults reveal significant differences for the advertising effect of a high information load; however, the advertising effect of a low information load shows no differences due to age. Cognitive age is found to influence the advertising effect of a high information load. The advertising credibility of the three groups is significantly related to the advertising effect of both high and low information loads.

 Key words: Elderly, information load, advertising effect, advertising credibility, cognitive age.


Until the implementation of the MHI health system in the Republic of Moldova, the health system was financed under a guaranteed minimum by the state, the rest of services being provided for paying services. This led to a serious degradation of the health system infrastructure and to a significant reduction of the access to health services. The situation was particularly unsatisfactory in the hospital sector. To redress the situation, with the MHI implementation, for financing the hospital care was proposed switching to the mechanism of payment «treated case by profile». Following the implementation of this mechanism has been increased significantly the productivity of hospital institutions manifested by increased levels of hospitalization for insured persons from 138 to 249%, the increase of share of using bed from 75,4 to 87,7 % etc. In 71,2 % of the leaders opinion of hospitals, the increase of hospital productivity was the result of the influence of used payment method. However, the mentioned method of payment has a number of drawbacks, the most important being that it had admitted a large disparity between costs within profile cases. To solve this problem, the method of funding per treated case was improved by switching to DRG. The rationale of switching to this method was made by comparing the logic assignment of cases to the group, but also by comparing the number of groups and cost differentials profiles encountered in contracted hospitals at the district level. To estimate the impact of the use of DRG on hospital activity were investigated: the number and provided complexity index cases, the number of operations and procedures carried out and a number of other indicators. Implementation of the DRG in Moldova has resulted in an increase in the number of cases rendered by 5%, the index of complexity of the case with 11,9%. Also, the average length of stay decreased by 7,4%.


ABSTRACT Every year after the rice harvest, some 2.5 million farmers in northwest India burn the remaining stubble to prepare their fields for the subsequent wheat crop. Crop residue burning causes massive air pollution affecting millions of people across the Indo-Gangetic Plains. We examine different tillage practices to provide urgently needed empirical evidence on how profitable it is for farmers to adopt no-burn technologies, especially the 'Happy Seeder' (HS) which is capable of sowing wheat directly into large amounts of crop residue. Apart from analysing the cost of rice residue management and wheat sowing under conventional-tillage and zero-tillage, we identify factors influencing the adoption of the HS and quantify its impact on wheat yields and –production costs. While we do not find any evidence of a yield penalty, our analysis reveals significant savings in wheat production costs, amounting to 136 USD ha–1. In addition, our analysis shows that the HS saves water and facilitates timely wheat sowing. We conclude that the private benefits of HS use combined with its societal benefits of reducing air pollution and enhancing agricultural sustainability justify particular policy support for its large-scale diffusion, to be supplemented by a stricter enforcement of the ban on residue burning.


Provides a broad overview of advanced multidimensional imaging systems with contributions from leading researchers in the fieldMulti-dimensional Imaging takes the reader from the introductory concepts through to the latest applications of these techniques. Split into 3 parts covering 3D image capture, processing, visualization and display, using 1) a Multi-View Approach and 2.) a Holographic Approach, followed by a 3rd part addressing other 3D systems approaches, applications and signal processing for advanced 3D imaging. This book describes recent developments, as well as the prospects and challenges in advances in imaging sciences and engineering such as 3D image sensing, 3D holographic imaging, imaging applications for bio-photonics and 3D image recognition. Advanced imaging systems incorporate knowledge from various fields. It is a complex technology that combines physics, optics, signal processing, and image capture techniques.Provides a broad overview of advanced multidimensional imaging systems with contributions from leading researchers in the field.Integrates the background, introductory material with new advances in 3D imaging and applications.Covers the most recent technologies such as high speed digital holography, compressive sensing, real-time 3D integral imaging, 3D TV, photon counting imaging.To be available as an enhanced ebook with added functionality of colour films showing the effects of advanced 3D applications such as 3D microscopy, 3D biomedical imaging and 3D for security and defense applications.Acts as a single source reference to the rapidly developing field of 3D imaging technology.Provides supplementary material on a companion website including video clips, examples, numerical simulations, and experimental results to show the theoretical concepts.With contributions from leading researchers from across these fields, Multi-dimensional Imaging is a comprehensive reference for the imaging technology research community.


While a number of acoustic localisation systems have been proposed over the last few decades, these have typically either relied on expensive dedicated microphone arrays and workstation-class processing, or have been developed to detect a very specific type of sound in a particular scenario. However, as people live and work indoors, they generate a wide variety of sounds as they interact and move about. These human-generated sounds can be used to infer the positions of people, without requiring them to wear trackable tags. In this paper, we take a practical yet general approach to localising a number of human-generated sounds. Drawing from signal processing literature, we identify methods for resource-constrained devices in a sensor network to detect, classify and locate acoustic events such as speech, footsteps and objects being placed onto tables. We evaluate the classification and time-of-arrival estimation algorithms using a data set of human-generated sounds we captured with sensor nodes in a controlled setting. We show that despite the variety and complexity of the sounds, their localisation is feasible for sensor networks, with typical accuracies of a half metre or better. We specifically discuss the processing and networking considerations, and explore the performance trade-offs which can be made to further conserve resources.


The objective of this study was to assess the attitudes of distance education students toward the use of ICT in learning and teaching. The sample and units of analysis were 500 adult students undertaking distance education studies at the Institute of Education Development (InED), UiTM. The variables studied were computer anxiety, confidence, liking and, usefulness. The response rate was 56.8%. The findings showed that even in this K-economy, there are still some students who are uncomfortable with using ICT, that is, the students do not favor the use of ICT through InED's learning management system. The findings are important to gauge the students' performance as well as to modify and strengthen InED's policy for using ICT and other technologies to impart knowledge and education.


Papers that do not include an element of robust or nonlinear control and estimation theory will not be considered by the journal, and all papers will be expected to include signifi cant novel content. The focus of the journal is on model based control design approaches rather than heuristic or rule based methods. Papers on neural networks will have to be of exceptional novelty to be considered for the journal. The International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control aims to encourage the development of analysis and design techniques for uncertain linear and nonlinear systems. The main focus of the journal is on the theory and design of regulating and tracking systems, but related areas such as linear and nonlinear filtering, condition monitoring and fault estimation are included. The physical modelling, simulation and identification of systems that may be uncertain or nonlinear is of interest. Papers are also welcome in the area of multi-agent systems considering coordinated control problems. Papers dealing with the general problem of consensus and synchronization that fail to demonstrate an application and/or include significant novelty will not be considered. Papers that demonstrate the potential for robust or nonlinear controllers in applications will also be welcome, but such papers must include sufficient novel material. The Journal provides a natural forum for papers on the theory and application of robust control design and estimation techniques, including H∞ or H2 design, multi-objective optimization, and variable structure and sliding mode control design methods. Papers will also be welcome on non-optimal methods of improving the robustness of uncertain systems, such as QFT design methods. Papers on linear and nonlinear model based predictive control algorithms are also encouraged, and those concerned with linear parameter varying, switched or hybrid systems. All aspects of the theory and techniques used in nonlinear control and estimation are also included ranging from gain scheduling to networked robust or nonlinear control systems. The development of nonlinear compensation and design methods using feedback linearization, back-stepping, Lyapunov based techniques, learning control, cooperative control and agent based systems are all of interest. Contributions on numerical algorithms for robust control, using for example linear matrix inequalities, and the topics of controller tuning, commissioning and implementation are all included. EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORS


IgG antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) are a dominant feature of several autoimmune diseases. We previously showed that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is characterized by increased ANA+ IgG plasmablasts/plasma cells (PCs) through aberrant IgG PC differentiation rather than an antigen-specific tolerance defect. Here, we aimed to understand the differentiation pathways resulting in ANA+ IgG PCs in SLE patients. We demonstrate distinct profiles of ANA+ antigen-experienced B cells in SLE patients, characterized by either a high frequency of PCs or a high frequency of IgG+ memory B cells. This classification of SLE patients was unrelated to disease activity and remained stable over time in almost all patients, suggesting minimal influence of disease activity. A similar classification applies to antigen-specific B cell subsets in mice following primary immunization with T-independent and T-dependent antigens as well as in lupus-prone mouse models (MRL/lpr and NZB/W). We further show that, in both lupus-prone mice and SLE patients, the classification correlates with the serum autoantibody profile. In this study, we identified B cell phenotypes that we propose reflect an extrafollicular pathway for PC differentiation or a germinal center pathway, respectively. The classification we propose can be used to stratify patients for longitudinal studies and clinical trials.


This paper that identifies new evidence that, because of a new inflation environment, hard times started significantly earlier for households on lower incomes than for the average UK household. Because the costs of essential goods and services have been rising much faster than standard rates of inflation for some time, households on modest incomes have fared far worse than official data suggests. More and more are struggling to achieve a minimum standard of living. Looking forwards, these lower-income households could largely miss out on the fruits of a slow recovery; following a substantial decline in their living standards, they may see little or no improvement during the next decade.


The optimal treatment for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) requires the rapid restoration of flow in the infarct related artery and reperfusion of the myocardium at the tissue level through angioplasty. Coronary angioplasty, in the setting of AMI, is aimed at reducing myocardial infarct size, preserving left ventricular function and improving long term outcomes. Paradoxically, the opening of an occluded vessel following a period of ischaemia can result in further myocyte death. This is called lethal reperfusion injury. Current treatments for AMI have failed to attenuate reperfusion injury and combined morbidity and mortality rates remain high. There is an urgent need for the development of novel cardioprotective therapies in the clinical arena. Remote ischaemic perconditioning describes the cardioprotective effect evoked by applying brief episodes of ischaemia and reperfusion applied to a limb with a blood pressure cuff prior to reperfusion but following the onset of ischaemia. Such strategies have been utilised in a number of proof of concept studies demonstrating the ability of remote ischaemic conditioning to attenuate reperfusion injury and reduce infarct size. As therapies for AMI improve, it has become increasingly difficult to demonstrate incremental improvements in currently used biomarkers. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is an important imaging technique that is able to assess traditional imaging parameters with a high degree of accuracy and reproducibility. CMR is also provides supplementary information due to its unique ability to characterise the myocardium and identify the components of reperfusion injury. The identification and quantification of these adverse elements of reperfusion offer further prognostic information beyond traditional imaging biomarkers and show promise as novel endpoints in clinical cardiovascular research. Data is presented on the use of remote ischaemic perconditioning in patients undergoing primary angioplasty. CMR endpoints have been utilised to assess the efficacy of this conditioning protocol in a high-risk patient group.


The problem of the commons is more important to our lives and thus more central to economics than a century ago when Katharine Coman led off the first issue of the American Economic Review. As the U.S. and other economies have grown, the carrying-capacity of the planet - in regard to natural resources and environmental quality — has become a greater concern, particularly for common-property and open-access resources. The focus of this article is on some important, unsettled problems of the commons. Within the realm of natural resources, there are special challenges associated with renewable resources, which are frequently characterized by open access. An important example is the degradation of open-access fisheries. Critical commons problems are also associated with environmental quality. A key contribution of economics has been the development of market-based approaches to environmental protection. These instruments are key to addressing the ultimate commons problem of the twenty-first century - global climate change.


In investigations on the role of the spleen in host defense against malaria, we studied the course of murine malaria in three groups of mice with altered splenic function: congenitally asplenic mice, adult-splenectomized mice, and adult-splenectomized mice which were reconstituted with spleen-cell suspensions. Intact mice infected with either Plasmodium yoelii or P. chabaudi adami experienced infections which resolved spontaneously, with low mortality. Congenitally asplenic and splenectomized-reconstituted mice were unable to clear their primary infections, and experienced high mortality; infections in the latter two groups of mice differed little from those in splenectomized, nonreconstituted controls. However, when asplenic and splenectomized mice were treated with cloroquine during their primary infections and then rechallenged with the homologous Plasmodium species, they experienced mild infections similar to those of intact controls. These observations support the concept that the host defense in primary malaria infections requires an architecturally intact spleen, and therefore is not solely dependent upon the presence of a subpopulation of immune spleen cells.


Objectives: According to Beck's cognitive theory, dysfunctional core beliefs are developed by stressful life experiences. In addition, depressive episodes could be considered as stressful events. Thus, it is assumed that patients with depressive disorder experience beliefs about depression and its outcome, due to repeated episodes of depression. The aim of this study was to develop an instrument for measuring maladaptive beliefs about depression and assess its psychometric features. Method: A three stage approach was used. In the first stage an item pool was developed and its face validity was approved by a focus group. Subsequently, 698 students of Ghazvin University completed Beck Depression Inventory-II and Depression Beliefs Scale (DBS), developed in the previous stage. 433 subjects completed the DBS again after 14 days. In the third stage, in order to assess discriminant validity, 93 subjects in three groups of patients with recurrent major depressive disorder (N=34), patients with first episode of major depressive disorder (N=29), and non-clinical subjects (N=30) participated in sad mood induction task and then completed DBS. Results: Exploratory factor analysis and Varimax rotation identified four factors related to depression, described as "lack of control on depression", "Catastrophizing", "worthlessness", and "incapability". Also, DBS and its subscales showed satisfactory discriminant validity, convergent validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Conclusion: Identified subscales in DBS reflect concepts of Beck's cognitive theory and Teasdale's differential activation hypothesis about relapse in depression. Also, these results provide preliminary evidence about desirable validity and reliability of DBS. However, psychometric properties of the scale should be assessed in patients with other types of depressive disorders such as dysthymia.


A new type of separator for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has been developed using ultrathin micrometer-sized sodium borosilicate glass platelets coated directly on a battery electrode with a water-based binder. The coating process is described in detail, demonstrating coating thicknesses of the glass separator of less than 50 µm. The high-temperature stability has been investigated and it has been shown that the separator is dimensionally stable to at least 600 °C. With regard to the electrochemical performance, full-cell tests on graphite || lithium iron phosphate cells showed a very good behavior, according to which comparable properties of the electrode/separator compound to a commercial polymer-based separator were achieved. This glass separator/electrode composite shows an interesting property profile and is a temperature-stable alternative to conventional polymer-based separators.