In April 2009, a novel influenza A virus was detected in Mexico and California. Thereafter, it spread globally to cause the first influenza pandemic of the 21 century. The virus was found to be antigenically unrelated to human seasonal influenza viruses but genetically related to viruses known to circulate in pigs. In view of its likely swine origin, it was initially referred to as 'swine-origin influenza virus' (S-OIV) A/H1N1, or pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009 virus but was later renamed by the World Health Organization as influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus. In its first year of circulation, the virus is estimated to have caused between 151,700 and 575,400 deaths globally. In Kenya, the virus was first detected in late June 2009 and in the next one year was the dominant virus in circulation. However, no laboratory confirmed deaths occurred in the country. The emergence and subsequent rapid global spread of this influenza virus provided a unique opportunity to observe the evolutionary dynamics of a pandemic influenza virus in Kenya, a tropical region where the virus circulates throughout the year. Understanding the evolution of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus within the country is essential for studying global diversification, the emergence, spread and resistance of the viruses circulating in this region of the world, as well as determining the genetic relationships among the Kenyan strains and vaccine strains. The aim of this study therefore was to reconstruct the evolutionary dynamics of the A(H1N1)pdm09 influenza virus in Kenya during its first year of circulation. To accomplish this, the study undertook whole genome Sanger sequencing of 40 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus isolates sampled nationwide during the pandemic period. To understand the evolutionary dynamics of the local A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses, the study employed the Bayesian evolutionary framework to analyze the resulting 320 individual gene sequences and the 40 complete genomes and compared them with sequences from two African countries, UK, USA and China isolated during the same period. The phylogenetic analyses showed that all of the Kenyan sequences sampled in the pandemic period grouped into at least four highly significant clusters and were interspersed with isolates from other countries. Two global clades (2 and 7) were identifiable within the first two weeks of the pandemic in Kenya, with clade 7 undergoing further diversification while clade 2 was not detected beyond the introductory foci. The time of the most recent common ancestor of the strains circulating in Kenya was estimated to be between April and June 2009, two months before the first laboratory confirmed case. High evolutionary rates and fast population growths was also observed. Progressive drift away from the vaccine strain was observed at both the nucleotide and amino acid level, with 2010 strains clustering separate from 2009 strains. A few unique clusters of amino acid changes were identified among all gene segments in the course of the pandemic, but no mutations previously associated with increased virulence were detected. The local strains were shown to be sensitive to neuraminidase inhibitors but resistant to adamantanes. Overall, results from this study indicate that two clades of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus were introduced in Kenya and that the pandemic was sustained by multiple importations. They also indicate that clade 7 viruses dominated local transmission with an efficient community spread that was devoid of any spatial patterns but a progressive genetic drift was evident. In conclusion, adaptive evolution and viral migration seem to play a vital role in shaping the evolutionary dynamics of local A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses.


This cross-discipline collaborative paper reports new developments in the design, manufacture and testing of 3D reinforced natural fibre woven composites with structural strength potential. It discusses the 3D weave architectures used, details the VARTM composite processing method and highlights the challenges of producing structural thermoset epoxy composites from naturally derived yarns such as flax and viscose rayon. It also introduces 3D woven composites embedded in a bio-derived resin and offers initial mechanical property data for these materials.This conference paper and oral presentation disseminated some milestone goals reached during an AHRC funded research project developing natural fibre composite materials (AHE007953/1 2007-09). This was a cross-discipline joint faculty collaboration between textile design and engineering composites within UU. Its International reach is evident through significant collaborations with (patent-holding) resin developers Prof R Wool (Centre Composite Materials, University Delaware, USA) and Transfuran Chemicals BVBA, Belgium. The intended application area is the engineering field.Selected from over 1500 abstracts submitted for ICCM-17, a major conference within the field with 1000+ global delegates, and 8+ plenary sessions running in parallel over 5 days. The paper was presented alongside leaders in the technical textiles field (Sir John Hearle, Director of the Textile Institute UK, 3Tex Inc, USA). Woven fabric and resin impregnation were customised in accordance with manufacturers technical recommendations to produce quality materials for a mechanical test programme. The mechanical test methods are scientifically verified against ISO Standard criteria. Naturally derived fibres (flax,viscose rayon) and bio-resins derived from crop oils (Soy-bean) and hemi-cellulose sugars (Furan) are essential new materials the author has developed (in collaboration with resin manufacturers) attempting to match the properties that glass and flax fibre/epoxy composites attained. These 3D woven, natural fibre bio-resin composites use materials which had not been produced together as the resin was still in commercial infancy and was customised to enable these composites to be fabricated.


Food industries play an important role and contribute to economic activities in many countries worldwide. However, the frequencies of outbreak of food borne cases reported around the world related to this industry posed a significant public health issue. All countries including Malaysia have already developed their own food laws and food regulations to protect public health and to prevent food borne outbreaks. However, despite the strict controlled at every stages of food production, from farm to table, food borne outbreaks still occur. Tiger Prawn (Penaeus monodon) is synonymous with Malaysian farming industries. Vibrio parahaemolyticus is one of the major seafood-borne gastroenteritis-causing bacteria, frequently associated with consumption of improperly cooked seafood. Cultured tiger prawn farm at LKIM Merlimau, Malacca was identified for sampling in this study. The duration of sampling followed the whole cycle of tiger prawn cultivation (until harvesting stage) involving two cycles (from 29 September 2003 to 29 April 2004). A total of sixty samples of cultured tiger prawn (25g/sample) and pond's water (25ml/sample) from both cycles were obtained. In our study, we found that most samples acquired were positive for V. parahaemolyticus (81.7%) when examined with specific-PCR (toxR). The presence of virulence gene, the tdh and/or trh genes have been considered the major virulence factor of the bacterium. In our study, none tdh gene was detected in all isolates. However, trh gene was detected in twenty-three isolates (38.3%) for both prawn and water samples. Temperature, pH and salinity play as an important factors in every stage of culturing tiger prawns. The optimum condition for those factors (temperature; 37oC, pH; 7.8-8.6, salinity; 3%) were promoted the growth of V. parahaemolyticus. RAPD-PCR was used to generate polymorphic genomic fingerprints to determine of genetic relatedness among V. parahaemolyticus isolates. Two primers (OPAR3; 5'-CTTGAGTGGA-3'and OPAR8; 5'-GAGATGACGA-3'), out of the ten primers showed the best results and were selected for further study. Primer OPAR3 and OPAR8 produced 1 to 8 bands and 1 to 9 bands, respectively with amplified products ranging from 0.25 to 10.0 kilo base pairs. Seven groups of antibiotics namely, the Aminoglycosides, β-lactams, Cephalosporins, Glycopeptides, Macrolides, Quinolones, Tetracyclines and others were tested against all V. parahaemolyticus isolates. They were highly resistant to ampicillin (100%), penicillin (100%), cefuroxim (100%), teicoplanin (100%), erythromycin (98%), rifampicin (98%), trimethoprim (98%) and streptomycin (96%), but sensitive to quinolones and tetracyclines groups of antibiotic. The antibiotic resistance profile patterns can be classified into four groups. In this study, MAR index range was between 0.40 – 0.60. Tiger prawn is a potential source of V. parahaemolyticus.


In the field of ischemic cerebral injury, precise characterization of neurovascular hemodynamic is required to select candidates for reperfusion treatments. It is thus admitted that advanced imaging-based approaches would be able to better diagnose and prognose those patients and would contribute to better clinical care. Current imaging modalities like MRI allow a precise diagnostic of cerebral injury but suffer from limited availability and transportability. The recently developed ultrafast ultrasound could be a powerful tool to perform emergency imaging and long term follow-up of cerebral perfusion, which could, in combination with MRI, improve imaging solutions for neuroradiologists. Methods: In this study, in a model of in situ thromboembolic stroke in mice, we compared a control group of non-treated mice (N=10) with a group receiving the gold standard pharmacological stroke therapy (N=9). We combined the established tool of magnetic resonance imaging (7T MRI) with two innovative ultrafast ultrasound methods, ultrafast Doppler and Ultrasound Localization Microscopy, to image the cerebral blood volumes at early and late times after stroke onset and compare with the formation of ischemic lesions. Results: Our study shows that ultrafast ultrasound can be used through the mouse skull to monitor cerebral perfusion during ischemic stroke. In our data, the monitoring of the reperfusion following thrombolytic within the first 2 h post stroke onset matches ischemic lesions measured 24 h. Moreover, similar results can be made with Ultrasound Localization Microscopy which could make it applicable to human patients in the future. Conclusion: We thus provide the proof of concept that in a mouse model of thromboembolic stroke with an intact skull, early ultrafast ultrasound can be indicative of responses to treatment and cerebral tissue fates following stroke. It brings new tools to study ischemic stroke in preclinical models and is the first step prior translation to the clinical settings.


We conducted a study to see if there was any difference in the affective learning of students who used software tutors to learn programming concepts. We used two software tutors – on arithmetic expression evaluation and tracing selection statements for this study. Data was collected over five semesters with the arithmetic tutor and over four semesters with the selection tutor, yielding a sample size in the thousands. The data was analysed using ANOVA, with sex (male versus female), representation (Caucasians and Asians versus other races), and discipline (Computer Science versus other disciplines) as fixed factors. We found no difference in the affective learning of any demographic group - all the groups felt in equal measure that they had learned using the software tutors. This is a positive result since affective learning complements cognitive learning. But, we did find statistically significant difference between the sexes and between the representation groups on prior-preparedness on arithmetic tutor, but not selection tutor. This may be because arithmetic tutor covered concepts that students had been exposed to in high school, but the concepts covered by selection tutor were unique to programming and unlikely to have been seen by students who had had no prior programming experience. Finally, non-Computer Science majors learned significantly more concepts than Computer Science majors on both the tutors, even though no significant difference was found between the two disciplinary groups on prior-preparedness. This may allude to difference in perceived self-efficacy of the two groups towards learning from software tutors.


Deployment and maintenance of UMTS networks involve optimizing a number of network configuration parameters in order to meet various service and performance requirements. In this article we address automated optimization of service coverage and radio base station antenna configuration. We consider three key configuration parameters: transmit power of the common pilot channel (CPICH), antenna tilt, and antenna azimuth. CPICH power greatly influences coverage. From a resource management point of view, satisfying the coverage requirement using minimum CPICH power offers several performance advantages. In particular, less CPICH power leads to less interference and higher system capacity. Optimal CPICH power, in its turn, is highly dependent on how the other two parameters, tilt and azimuth, are configured at radio base station antennas. Optimizing antenna tilt and azimuth network-wise, with the objective of minimizing the CPICH power consumption, is a challenging task. The solution approach in this article adopts automated optimization. Our optimization engine is a simulated annealing algorithm. Staring from an initial configuration, the algorithm searches effectively in the solution space of possible configurations in order to find improvements. The algorithm is computationally efficient; thus, we can optimize large networks without using excessive computing resources. We present a case study for a UMTS planning scenario in Lisbon. For this network, automated optimization saves up to 70 percent of the CPICH power used in the reference network configuration. In addition, the optimized network configuration offers significant performance improvement in terms of fewer overloaded cells and lower downlink load factor


Innovations in the field of assembling systems are going in many directions. One of them is a creation of a new generation of automated assembly systems, based on natural phenomena. Bionic Assembly System (BAS) is a new concept of advanced assembling system, which combines two basic control structures and principles: centralized control system, based on the hierarchy and self-organizing control system, based on the heterarchy. This paper describes hybrid control structure, working scenarios, scheduling, reconfigurations and logic of working cycles during the assembly of one unlimited sequence of assembly orders. These systems have some additional possibilities for minimization of assembling time using system and layout reconfiguration. Different possibilities of the reconfiguration of BAS are shown in this paper.


There is a puzzle at the core of corporate governance theory. Prior scholarship reports a strong relationship between firms best at creating shareholder value and those rated highly by the established corporate governance indices. Little work explores why, however. We hypothesize that the link between governance and performance depends centrally on context. We illustrate the importance of context by exploring circumstances when a firm's governance structure can operate as a signal of the quality of its management. The idea is that better managers are on average more likely to choose a highly rated governance structure than are bad managers because a structure garnering a high rating increases the risk of job loss more for bad managers than for good ones. Conversely, the choice of a poorly rated governance structure signals negative information about managerial quality because good managers would not wish to make a false negative signal. Signals of managerial quality can take on particular significance under certain circumstances.

This Article tests empirically the hypothesis that a particular context — the existence of an especially high information asymmetry between a firm's insiders and the market concerning the quality of its management — is a situation in which a change in the firm's governance structure will become a stronger signal concerning its management's quality. The test compares ordinary times with 2000-2002, a period of unprecedented corporate accounting scandals that led to greater than usual uncertainty as to which firms had the better managers. We show that an index-score-altering change in governance structure during these accounting scandal years is associated with a much larger change in a measure affirm value creation — Tobin's Q — than a comparable governance change in the years before or after the accounting scandal period. By running both OLS and fixed effect regressions, we are able to show that the market's perception of the effectiveness of a highly-rated governance structure at better incentivizing managers, or at filtering out bad ones, was not significantly different in the scandal years than in the years before or after. Thus, "signaling" — the third possible causal link between good scores and higher Tobin's Q must have been at work. The reasoning is that the clarifying signal arising from a governance change should have a bigger effect in a period of greater uncertainty as to which firms had good managers. This conclusion is further confirmed by empirical evidence that the impact of a governance change on Tobin's Q during the scandal years was especially elevated for firms engaging in substantial amounts of R&D. Such firms have been shown by other studies to be generally more opaque.

These results also teach a larger lesson: the impact of governance is in important respects contextual, depending on the particular circumstances of the time, and the particular characteristics of the firms, involved. This point, largely missed to date, helps illuminate the current debate concerning the corporate governance index studies. It suggests that that there is an empirically verified theory that provides one explanation for the index studies' strong results linking governance structure with firm value creation, but that, rather than a single link between the specified corporate governance provisions and peiformance, a range of linkages are possible whose direction and intensity depend centrally on the particular context in which a firm is operating.


The diversity of pathologic processes that may reside in a small anatomic compartment like mediastinum is impressive. The lesions may be neoplastic and non -neoplastic; and may include proliferation of somatic epithelial, lymphoid, mesenchymal and germ cell types. Anterior mediastinum is the preferred site for mediastinal masses, of which 40% or more are of thymic origin. Again approx. 90% of all thymic masses are in the anterior mediastinum. About 40 -50% of patients having anterior mediastinal mass are asymptomatic and when symptoms appear, those are mostly due to structural compression and displacement. These neoplasias are most common in the fifth and sixth decades of life and distributed evenly between men and women. In the present case study autopsy was performed in a case of sudden death, which had history of respiratory distress for some time and was being treated elsewhere by quacks. A huge anterior mediastinal growth was found on autopsy and diagnosis was confirmed by histopathology and immunohistochemistry.


Particulate matter collected aboard the University of Washington's Convair-580 research aircraft over southern Africa during the dry, biomass burning season was analyzed for total carbon, organic carbon, and black carbon contents using thermal and optical methods. Samples were collected in smoke plumes of burning savanna and in regional haze. A known artifact, produced by the adsorption of organic gases on the quartz filter substrates used to collect the particulate matter samples, comprised a significant portion of the total carbon collected. Consequently, conclusions derived from the data are greatly dependent on whether or not organic carbon concentrations are corrected for this artifact. For example, the estimated aerosol co-albedo (1 - single scattering albedo), which is a measure of aerosol absorption, of the biomass smoke samples is 60 percent larger using corrected organic carbon concentrations. Thus, the corrected data imply that the biomass smoke is 60 percent more absorbing than do the uncorrected data. The black carbon to (corrected) organic carbon mass ratio (BC/OC) of smoke plume samples (0.18/2610.06) is lower than that of samples collected in the regional haze (0.25/2610.08). The difference may be due to mixing of biomass smoke with background air characterized by a higher BC/OC ratio. A simple source apportionment indicates that biomass smoke contributes about three-quarters of the aerosol burden in the regional haze, while other sources (e.g., fossil fuel burning) contribute the remainder.


No previous scientific surveys have been conducted on inselbergs in the Drakensberg. The aim of this study was to collect specimens, identify, describe and name the vegetation clusters and assess biogeographical connections with other Afromontane regions. A total of 103 releves where sampled from six inselbergs. The plant sampling was carried out according to the Braun-Blanquet method with the plant and environmental data entered in TURBOVEG and exported as a Cornell Condensed format file (CC!) into Juice. Classification was completed using TWINSPAN (Two-way Indicator Species Analysis) (modified), resulting in 4 major communities, 11 communities, 13 sub-communities and 18 variants. Ordination (indirect) was carried out using CANOCO (version 4.5) to investigate the relationship between species. The four major communities identified are Rhodohypoxis rubella (wetland grass and forblands), Scirpus ficinioides – Crassula peploides (sheet rock grass and forblands), Pentaschistis exserta (high-altitude alpine grassland), previously undescribed, and Merxmuellera drakensbergensis – Helichrysum trilineatum (high-altitude alpine fynbos grassland), described in other vegetation and floristic studies. Four habitats were identified, namely wetlands, sheet rock shallow soil, highaltitude alpine grassland and deep soil high-altitude fynbos grasslands. Substrate and moisture availability appeared to be the defining micro-climatic conditions determining the different vegetation clusters whilst altitude is the overriding environmental factor influencing all vegetation. Conservation implications: Rising temperatures as a result of carbon dioxide increase is predicted to drastically decrease the number of endemic and near-endemic montane species, whilst altering the composition of vegetation units which comprise the alpine vegetation.


Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as progressive form of the disease are associated with cardiovascular risk factors including obesity, dyslipidaemia, hyperglycaemia and hypertension. When NAFLD is associated with cardiovascular disease, mortality of NAFLD patients is increased due to cardiovascular disease. Prevalence of NAFLD and NASH is high, but it seems that epidemic of the disease is under-recognized and under-appreciated. Linking pathophysiological mechanisms are complex and still not well understood. The main related pathophysiological mechanisms are lipid factors, insulin resistance, inflammation, proinflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress, pro-coagulant status, hyperglycaemia and adipokines. First-line management focuses on lifestyle modifications in both diseases. Several therapeutic interventions, insulin sensitizer agents, lipid lowering drugs, antioxidants, such as vitamin E, have been proposed. Statins appear to be safe, but their use in the treatment of NAFLD and NASH is under-appreciated. Many different agents are being investigated as future drugs for the treatment of this clinical entity. The aim of the review is to examine the extent of the epidemic and the mediating mechanisms, to critically evaluate current guideline recommendations, and to consider current and future medications for this disease.


The geomechanical properties of a shale reservoir are essential both to the development of natural fractures and to the formation's response to hydraulic fracture stimulation. We evaluate the rock mechanical properties in the Middle and Upper Devonian Horn River Group shale, including the Evie and Otter Park Members and the Muskwa Formation, applying core hardness measurements and log-derived Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and brittleness and relate these to shale composition and texture. Clay content is the most significant factor controlling the brittleness of shale rocks. The effect of quartz content on rock mechanical properties depends on the type of quartz present in the rock: authigenic quartz is positively correlated with brittleness, but detrital quartz has little or no effect. Factor analysis indicates that carbonate increases brittleness, while no obvious correlation between TOC content and brittleness was observed. Depositional facies are related to geomechanical properties because each facies has a distinctive composition. Massive mudstone and pyritic mudstone are relatively brittle because of abundant authigenic quartz cement. Laminated mudstone and bioturbated mudstone are relatively ductile because most detrital carbonate and quartz grains are set in a matrix of clay minerals. Brittleness in the Horn River Group shale shows both geographic and stratigraphic variability. Increasing brittleness in the northwest part of the basin largely results from greater distance from the clastic sediment source. The Otter Park Member represents a period of major relative sea level fall and is relatively ductile because of its high clay content, whereas the underlying Evie Member and the overlying Muskwa Formation are relatively brittle because of high carbonate and biogenic silica content, respectively.


The fish assemblages of the coastal area of the promontory of Cape Milazzo (Italy, Central Mediterranean), which has been recently designated by the Italian Law to become a national marine protected area (MPA), were characterized by visual censuses carried out over different habitats (rocky algal reef, Posidonia oceanica meadow and soft bottom) and depth ranges (0-3, 4-7, 12-16 and 24-30 m) to identify areas of major concern for the MPA zoning. The study area was divided into 6 sectors to assess spatial-related differences in the assemblage parameters, such as species composition and richness, and the size structure of species of recreational (e.g. SCUBA diving) interest. Fifty-eight taxa (56 species and 2 genera) and 20 families of fishes were totally recorded. Species composition was significantly affected by habitat and depth, whereas no significant changes were detected among sectors. Conversely, species richness and total density of fish showed no significant differences among sectors, habitat types and depth ranges. The majority of species of recreational value was recorded only off the northwestern part of the promontory. The implementation of fishing ban in such an area, characterized by the presence of a rocky bank, would contribute to the recovery of populations of some emblematic species (e.g. groupers and other large predator) and to the enhancement of environmentally sustainable activities such as scuba diving. Throughout the investigated area and, especially, in the eastern and southwestern coasts of the promontory, several species were almost exclusively represented by small and medium sized individuals, a likely consequence of an intense fishing pressure.


Information-Centric Networking (ICN) has recently emerged as a promising Future Internet architecture that aims to cope with the increasing demand for highly scalable and efficient distribution of content. Moving away from the Internet communication model based in addressable hosts, ICN leverages in-network storage for caching, multi-party communication through replication, and interaction models that decouple senders and receivers. This novel networking approach has the potential to outperform IP in several dimensions, besides just content dissemination. Concretely, the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), with its rich set of challenges and requirements placed over the current Internet, provide an interesting ground for showcasing the contribution and performance of ICN mechanisms. This work analyses how the in-network caching mechanisms associated to ICN, particularly those implemented in the Content-Centric Networking (CCN) architecture, contribute in IoT environments, particularly in terms of energy consumption and bandwidth usage. A simulation comparing IP and the CCN architecture (an instantiation of ICN) in IoT environments demonstrated that CCN leads to a considerable reduction of the energy consumed by the information producers and to a reduction of bandwidth requirements, as well as highlighted the flexibility for adapting current ICN caching mechanisms to target specific requirements of IoT.


Currently the building code authorities in many jurisdictions including Canada feel that a performance-based design approach should be used to ensure that the structure has adequate strength and deformation capacities. Although the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC 2005) is not yet a fully performance-based code, it presents an objective-based format which incorporates some concepts of the performance-based design. It provides a force-based seismic design approach, where the displacement capacities are provided indirectly. The current research focuses on the performance of a set of five, ten, fifteen and twenty storey steel moment resisting frame buildings designed according to the seismic provisions on NBCC 2005. A series of static and dynamic analyses have been carried out to evaluate their performance. It has been observed that the assumed ductility capacity in the force-based design may not always be achievable, and the capacity of the building, under seismic force decrease, with the increase of building height. Also the nonstructural element has a great effect on the performance of the structure and it decreases the drift demand. The thesis also examines a number of simple methods available for performance-based design of buildings and implemented some of them for one of the buildings considered here. It has been observed that the design base shear calculated for a target damage parameter or drift demand, varies based on the method used. Further studies are needed to develop a robust method for performance-based design within the context of the Canadian code.


Heterogeneous computing combines general purpose CPUs with accelerators to efficiently execute both sequential control-intensive and data-parallel phases of applications. Existing programming models for heterogeneous computing rely on programmers to explicitly manage data transfers between the CPU system memory and accelerator memory.
 This paper presents a new programming model for heterogeneous computing, called Asymmetric Distributed Shared Memory (ADSM), that maintains a shared logical memory space for CPUs to access objects in the accelerator physical memory but not vice versa. The asymmetry allows light-weight implementations that avoid common pitfalls of symmetrical distributed shared memory systems. ADSM allows programmers to assign data objects to performance critical methods. When a method is selected for accelerator execution, its associated data objects are allocated within the shared logical memory space, which is hosted in the accelerator physical memory and transparently accessible by the methods executed on CPUs.
 We argue that ADSM reduces programming efforts for heterogeneous computing systems and enhances application portability. We present a software implementation of ADSM, called GMAC, on top of CUDA in a GNU/Linux environment. We show that applications written in ADSM and running on top of GMAC achieve performance comparable to their counterparts using programmer-managed data transfers. This paper presents the GMAC system and evaluates different design choices. We further suggest additional architectural support that will likely allow GMAC to achieve higher application performance than the current CUDA model.


The early 1920s found social patterns in chaos. Traditionalists, the older Victorians, worried that everything valuable was ending. Younger modernists no longer asked whether society would approve of their behavior, only whether their behavior met the approval of their intellect. Intellectual experimentation flourished. Americans danced to the sound of the Jazz Age, showed their contempt for alcoholic prohibition, debated abstract art and Freudian theories. In a response to the new social patterns set in motion by modernism, a wave of revivalism developed, becoming especially strong in the American South. Who would dominate American culture -- the modernists or the traditionalists? Journalists were looking for a showdown, and they found one in a Dayton, Tennessee courtroom in the summer of 1925. There a jury was to decide the fate of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. The guilt or innocence of John Scopes, and even the constitutionality of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute, mattered little. The meaning of the trial emerged through its interpretation as a conflict of social and intellectual values.


This article examines lesbian teachers' negotiation of the public/private boundary in the school, focusing on identity management in the context of the heterosexualised space of this public institution. The study is based on interviews conducted with six lesbian teachers working in London secondary schools. I examine the teachers' responses, and the ways in which they mediate the 'polite' silences in relation to lesbian and gay sexuality, as situated in a framework of liberal tolerance found in public and political domains. Sex and relationship education guidance, as well as recent policy initiatives concerned with homophobic bullying, play an important role in framing the discourses around sexuality in the school. However, the continuation of problems with heterosexism and homophobia in schools is evident. I argue that the lesbian teacher's negotiation of the public/private boundary and of power relations involves the heightened importance of a 'good teacher' identity, and an emphasis on professionalism. While these teachers do not speak of direct victimisation or abuse, much change needs to take place to transform the school into a place where lesbian and gay sexuality may be named without fear.


Comparing key performance indicators across dairy farms may provide insightful information to dairy producers. Differences in management philosophies, facilities, and locations of dairy farms may influence overall performance of dairy operations. An ongoing extension program aims to benchmark reproductive performance and transition cow health of dairy farms located in Kansas and adjacent states. In this report, we compiled data from 2013 to 2015 of herds enrolled in the program and divided the data in warm and cool seasons to evaluate the impact of heat stress on key performance indicators. Annual pregnancy risk and warm to cool ratio of pregnancy risk varied from 20.9 to 22.5% and 75 to 82%, respectively. Annual insemination risk varied from 63.6 to 66.4% and warm to cool ratio of insemination risk varied from 96 to 97%, which suggests that heat stress does not remarkably affect insemination risk. In contrast, conception risk is significantly affected by heat stress because conception risk in the warm season ranged from 26.7 to 29.6% and in the cool season from 34.5 to 35.4% from 2013 to 2015. Percentage of cows that were treated for mastitis within 21 d after calving was below 4% annually. Warm to cool ratio of percentage of cows treated for mastitis ranged from 139 to 170%, indicating that during summer, cows are at increased risk of being affected by early postpartum mastitis. Benchmarking key performance indicators may assist dairy producers to identify areas of opportunity for improvement.


Multidecadal trends in areas burned with high severity shape ecological effects of fires, but most assessments are limited to ~30 years of satellite data. We analysed the proportion of area burned with high severity, the annual area burned with high severity, the probability areas burned with high severity and also the area reburned (all severities and high burn severity only) over 133 years across 346265ha within the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness (SBW) Area in Idaho, United States. We used burn severity class inferred from digitised aerial photography (1880–2000) and satellite imagery (1973–2012). Over this long record, the proportion burned with high severity did not increase, despite extensive area burned in recent decades. Much greater area burned with high severity during the Early (1880–1934) and Late (1975–2012) periods than during the Middle period (1935–1974), paralleling trends in area burned. Little area reburned with high severity, and fires in the Early period limited the extent of fires burning decades later in the Late period. Our results suggest that long-term data across large areas provides useful context on recent trends, and that projections for the extent and severity of future fires must consider prior fires and fire management.


The objective of this research was to investigate and test the necessary steps in
developing an adaptation planning framework for freshwater biodiversity. We used
Tasmania as a test case to demonstrate how downscaled climate model outputs could
be integrated with spatially resolved hydrological models and freshwater biodiversity
data. This enabled us to scope adaptation actions at local, regional and state scales for
Tasmania, and to explore how priorities might be set.
To achieve this integration we quantified how different climate change scenarios could
affect the risks to biodiversity and ecosystem values ('biodiversity assets') in
freshwaters, the scope and types of adaptation actions, and assessed the strengths
and weaknesses of the policy and planning instruments in responding to climate
change.
We concluded that downscaled climate modelling, linked with modelling of catchment
and hydrological processes, refines projections for climate-driven risks to aquatic
environments. Spatial and temporal hazards and risks can now be compared at a
variety of scales, as well as comparisons between biodiversity assets (e.g. relative risk
to riparian vegetation v. in-stream biota). Uncertainties can be identified and built into
adaptation processes. Notwithstanding this progress, we identified a number of issues
that need to be addressed in order to increase confidence in this process.
The main issues for improved and timely modelling are: frameworks for using and
downscaling outputs from improved global climate models as they become available;
better data on thermal tolerances of freshwater biota; and, improved methods for
predicting key water temperature variables from air temperature and other biophysical
predictors. Improvements are also needed in updating and maintaining high quality
biodiversity data sets, and better spatially explicit information on the contributions of
groundwater to surface waters and rates of recharge.
The list of adaptation options available is extensive, but the key challenge is to
organise these options so that stakeholders are not overwhelmed. Scenario modelling
that incorporates explicit tools for comparing costs, benefits, feasibility and social
acceptability should help with setting priorities but require further development.
A review of current Australian policies revealed a variety of responses driven by both
water reform and climate change agendas. Many agencies are actively revising their
policies to accommodate adaptation. However, we note that much of the reform of the
water sector in the last 10–15 years has aimed to improve certainty for nonenvironmental
water uses. Under the National Water Initiative, governments have
agreed that entitlement holders should bear the risks of reduced volumes or reliability
of their water allocations as a result of changes in climate. The key opportunity for
adaptive uptake of climate adaptations is by developing and periodically reviewing
water management planning tools. Pathways need to be developed for integrating the
traditional evolution of planning and policy with the needs for climate change
adaptation for aquatic ecosystems. Formal mechanisms for the uptake of knowledge
about identified risks into policy and legislative instruments remain under-developed.
An even bigger challenge is to integrate multiple adaptation strategies (sometimes at
different scales) to achieve specific adaptation objectives within regions or
catchments—especially where a mix of water management and non-water
management is required.


As typified by Ukraine and Egypt, most of the semi- or non-democratic countries in the EU's neighbourhood pretend to offer a degree of political pluralism. The standard is for a plurality of parties to run in national elections and participate in parliamentary sessions. In contrast to fully fledged democracies, however, these electoral rituals have little bearing on the composition of government and its policy output, which remains entirely dominated by the executive institutions and parties of power. This paper argues that the trademarks of these types of parties are a serious stumbling block for the development of a multi-party system based on competing ideological currents. For democracy to take hold in the EU's eastern and southern neighbourhood of the EU, it is crucial that the logic of parties of power be replaced by one structured around autonomous and ideologically cohesive parties. Thus, both ideological and organisational party-building should be an integral part of the EU's policy agenda to promote the spread of democracy in these regions.


The vertical and horizontal distributions of seven diazotrophic populations in the western tropical north Atlantic (WTNA) Ocean were examined using a nifH DNA quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) approach. The nifH phylotype abundances were highest near the surface and decreased with depth, with the exception of the cyanobacterial symbiont Calothrix, which was not detected at any station. Richelia associated with the diatoms Rhizosolenia clevei and Hemiaulus hauckii were distributed within the freshwater lens of the Amazon plume. Abundances of H. hauckii‐Richelia nifH genes dominated all depths in 6 of 10 vertical profiles and 10 of 20 surface samples. In addition, estimates of Richelia associated with H. hauckii increased northwest (8‐ 12°N, 56‐54°W) from the river mouth, where significantly ( p < 0.001) higher abundances (>105 copies L−1) were found in mesohaline waters (31‐34.9). nifH copy abundance for surface populations of the H. hauckii‐Richelia symbioses were positively correlated (r2 = 0.59) with salinity. Three unicellular cyanobacterial groups and Trichodesmium had similar horizontal distributions, where the highest nifH copy estimates were at stations with salinity ≥35 and northeast (6‐10°N 50°W) of the freshwater lens. The abundance of Trichodesmium spp. and unicellular Group B nifH gene copies co‐varied (r2 = 0.60). The QPCR study showed the dominance of H. hauckii‐Richelia symbioses in the Amazon plume waters, implying that these associations had an ecological advantage over the other diazotrophs. Outside of the plume nutrients were below detection, abundances of freeliving unicellular cyanobacterial phylotypes, including a novel group designated Group C, were abundant (>105 copies L−1) and comparable to the abundances of Trichodesmium spp. Thus, there appeared to be a cascade of diazotrophic communities along gradients of salinity and nutrients in the WTNA.


Rainbow gravity modifies general relativity by introducing an energy dependent metric, which is expected to have a role in the quantum theory of black holes and in quantum gravity at Planck energy scale. We show that rainbow gravity can be simulated in the laboratory by nonlinear waves in nonlocal media, as those occurring in Bose-condensed gases and nonlinear optics. We reveal that at a classical level, a nonlocal nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation may emulate the curved space time in proximity of a rotating black hole as dictated by the rainbow gravity scenario. We also demonstrate that a fully quantized analysis is possible. By the positive $\mathcal{P}$-representation, we study superradiance and show that the instability of a black-hole and the existence of an event horizon are inhibited by an energy dependent metric. Our results open the way to a number of fascinating experimental tests of quantum gravity theories and quantum field theory in curved manifolds, and also demonstrate that these theories may be novel tools for open problems in nonlinear quantum physics.


We present an approach for monitoring and interpreting human activities based on a novel multimodal vision-based interface, aiming at improving the efficiency of human-robot interaction (HRI) in industrial environments. Multi-modality is an important concept in this design, where we combine inputs from several state-of-the-art sensors to provide a variety of information, e.g. skeleton and fingertip poses. Based on typical industrial workflows, we derived multiple levels of human activity labels, including large-scale activities (e.g. assembly) and simpler sub-activities (e.g. hand gestures), creating a duration- and complexity-based hierarchy. We train supervised generative classifiers for each activity level and combine the output of this stage with a trained Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model (HHMM), which models not only the temporal aspects between the activities on the same level, but also the hierarchical relationships between the levels.


In the era of digitization, data has become a very important resource for competition. To generate value from these constantly growing amounts of data and to create innovative services and business models based on the data, organizations need to rely on well-trained data scientists and analysts. The required skill set for such experts is complex and challenges higher education in the information systems discipline. Despite some first and promising efforts, there is still a lack of novel teaching approaches for data driven innovation. In this paper we design a morphological box providing a solution space for teaching data driven innovation at universities. For the systematization we analyze the submissions of an academic analytics contest and combine our findings with the existing knowledge base. Furthermore, we present our learnings from two teaching cases and reflect our experiences when applying them in class.


D Mauricio

Dr D Mauricio, Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova, Lleida, Spain; email@example.com

Do exercise and diet interventions, alone or in combination, prevent type 2 diabetes mellitus?

Studies selected compared exercise plus diet or exercise alone with standard recommendations or no intervention, or exercise alone with diet alone, for ⩾6 months and reported incidence of diabetes in people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Studies of pharmacological agents were excluded. Outcomes included incidence of type 2 diabetes; glucose tolerance; fasting glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride concentrations; blood pressure; body weight; body mass index; waist-to-hip ratio; and waist circumference.

Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2008), …


Description: Clinical nursing practice is on the cusp of significant and unrelenting change amid globalization, austerity measures, and technological advancements as the world moves out of the industrial age into the knowledge age. With advances in technology, theory, and research, the potential changes to future nursing practice are unlimited. Issues such as telehealth, nanotechnology, and globalization are but a few of the major trends influencing healthcare and nursing practice. As these trends become reality and the need for nurses to transition their practice to fit with the changing world, understanding how nurses change their practice becomes crucial. Aim: My purpose in this presentation is to argue the need for a grounded theory study to better understand the process of nursing practice change. Understanding the process nurses undertake to change their practice can help to identify strategies to facilitate change in a safe and effective method. The connection between practice change and factors that influence that change is not a new concept. The literature is replete with discussion about barriers and facilitators to Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), Research Utilization (RU), Quality Improvement (QI), Theory-Based Practice (TBP), yet the success of these approaches at influencing nursing practice change has been less than optimal. I believe one factor contributing to this lack of success is our deficiency in understanding the process nurses undertake to any of these approaches into her/his practice.


This paper concerns how sustainable and low carbon living can be enabled in new housing developments in the UK. It is here recognized that consumption of energy and resources is not just what goes into the building, but also long-term through occupancy and activities. Current approaches, which require housing developers to reduce the carbon emissions of the homes they build through a mixture of energy efficiency and renewable energy systems, do not sufficiently contribute to the carbon emission reductions which are necessary for meeting UK Government targets and to avoid dangerous climate change. Purchasing a home ties people in to not just direct consumption of energy (heating, hot water, electricity), but also effects other areas of consumption such as the embedded energy in the building and activities associated with the location and the type of development. Conventional business models for new housing development, operating under current government regulations, policies and targets have failed to develop housing which encourages the adoption of sustainable lifestyles taking whole life consumption into account. An alternative business model of eco-self-build communities is proposed as a way to foster desired behavior change. The feasibility of eco-self-build communities and their scope for supporting low carbon sustainable lifestyles is assessed through stakeholder interviews, and through quantitative assessment of costs, carbon emission reduction potential, and other sustainability impacts of technical and lifestyle options and their combinations. The research shows that eco-self-build communities are both feasible and have the ability to deliver low carbon lifestyles. In comparison to conventional approaches to building new housing, they have further advantages in terms of delivering wider social, environmental as well as economic sustainability objectives. If implemented correctly they could succeed in making sustainable lifestyles attractive, and foster the development of pro- environmental social norms.


Protective materials based on lead are the usual X- ray shielding materials but their extended use leads to severe health problems due to the toxic nature of lead. Moreover, lead based materials are not appropriate for absorbing the regular energy region of X-ray used in medical field and hence natural rubber composites containing modified Gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) as filler is suggested as an alternative. Natural rubber composites were prepared with organically modified Gd2O3 at various filler loadings. The structural features of modified Gd2O3 were examined using FTIR, X-ray diffraction and SEM. The particle size of organically modified Gd2O3 was found to be in the nano range which contributes to the enhanced properties of the composites. The increase of filler loading improved the shielding effectiveness of the rubber composites. Examination of mechanical and X-ray shielding properties show the effectiveness of the material to be used as potential shielding materials.


The aim of this study was to find out whether secondary school mathematics and science teachers are using active learning strategies in their teaching. Ten teachers and nine teachers were observed teaching mathematics and science, respectively. Their knowledge about teaching for active learning and the constraints that impact on them were assessed through subsequent interviews. Although the results showed that the teachers' knowledge of active learning is consistent with literature, only' incidental aspects of active learning were observed in the lessons. The teachers identified a range of constraints, including those of a curricular, socio-economic, logistical, and professional nature. The potential for increasing the level of active learning in Zimbabwean science and mathematics. classrooms exists. In-service education could make a significant contribution towards the practical realization of this goal.


Background Athletics (also known as track and field) is one of the most popular sports in the world and is the centrepiece of the Summer Olympic Games. Participation in athletics training and competition involves a risk of illness and injury. Purpose To describe injury and illness in British Olympic track and field athletes over three full training and competition seasons. Study Design Descriptive Epidemiology Study Methods A total of 111 athletes on the British national program were followed prospectively for three consecutive seasons between 2015-2018. Team medical personnel recorded all injuries and illnesses during this time, following current consensus-based methods. All data pertaining to these records were reviewed and analyzed for sports injury and illness epidemiological descriptive statistics. Results The average age of the athletes was 24 years for both males and females (24 years, +/- 4). Total exposure for the three seasons was 79 205 athlete days (217 athlete years). Overuse injuries (56.4%) were more frequent than acute injuries (43.6%). The thigh was the most common injury location (0.6 per athlete year), followed by the lower leg (0.4 per athlete year) and foot (0.3 per athlete year). Muscle and tendon were the most commonly injured tissues, while strains and tears were the most common pathology type. Hamstring muscle strain was the most common diagnosis causing time loss, followed by Achilles tendinopathy and soleus muscle strain. Respiratory illness was the most common illness type (0.3 per athlete year). Conclusion Hamstring strains, Achilles tendinopathy, and soleus strains are the most common injuries in athletics and have highest burden. Respiratory illness is the most common illness and has the highest burden. Knowledge of this injury and illness profile within athletics could be utilised for the development of targeted prevention measures within the sport at the elite level. Level of Evidence 3


OBJECTIVES
To investigate differences before and after rollout of electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) in (1) patients' primary adherence to newly prescribed medications, (2) patients' understanding of how to use their medications, and (3) multiple pharmacy use.

STUDY DESIGN
Postvisit interviews and follow-up phone calls were done with 344 patients at an academic general internal medicine clinic.

METHODS
Patient interviews and follow-up phone calls were done (1) before e-prescribing, (2) 1 to 6 months after e-prescribing, and (3) 12 to 18 months after e-prescribing.

RESULTS
Overall, rates of abandoned prescriptions were 6.9% before e-prescribing, 10.6% 1 to 6 months after e-prescribing, and 2.5% 12 to 18 months after e-prescribing (P = .07). There was a reduction in awareness of the indication for a newly prescribed medicine among patients after e-prescribing (95.4%, 97.9%, and 89.8%, respectively; P = .03). There was a decrease in patients' ability to demonstrate proper use of their new medicine after e-prescribing (69.0% before e-prescribing, 67.1% 1-6 months after e-prescribing, 51.9% 12 -18 months after e-prescribing; P = .02). There was an increasing trend in the percentage of patients using multiple pharmacies after e-prescribing was implemented.

CONCLUSIONS
We found both potential benefits and unexpected consequences as a result of the rollout of electronic prescribing. Adaptation to e-prescribing might be improved with outreach and education, including explicitly informing patients of the change during the first months of rollout. Tangible prescription information for reminder purposes only may also be beneficial.


This is an evaluation of a week-long project that the European Opera Centre conducted with Year Five children at a Liverpool school. This was a child-led project that involved children experiencing a range of disciplines: Art and Design; Drama and Movement; Music (Composition and Performance); and Production. They chose which discipline to focus on whilst they worked on developing a short opera. This was performed at the end of the week to the school, families and visitors.

The project was based on the world's first hour-long animated opera: a cartoon film of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen commissioned by BBC Television and co-produced with Opus Arte and Los Angeles Opera in co-operation with the European Opera Centre. The story reflects the cycle of life, the passing of seasons, death and rebirth and is populated with a cast of animals and insects


In American film, official law tends to be indifferent, bureaucratic, and corruptible, constantly threatening to produce injustice. In contrast, "justice" is individual, unambiguous and readily accessible. As a result, seeing justice done often requires extralegal intervention. Films offer alternate trials in which apparently realistic but emotionally charged representations of personal experience, rather than legal procedure and evidentiary standards, determine guilt or innocence. The fairness of the verdict in the filmic alternate trial is measured not by the standard of due process, but by the viewer's moral sense. Nevertheless, as Carol Clover has observed, the narrative substructure of both the Anglo-American trial and mainstream film bear a striking resemblance. I argue that this resemblance arises from a common set of assumptions about narrative plausibility and the social world: the conventions that govern mainstream film are also the (largely unspoken) conventions of credibility and verifiability in legal discourse. Filmic alternate trials follow realist rules of evidence but articulates an underlying epistemology that is fundamentally melodramatic. They have done so at least since D. W. Griffith's deeply influential "Birth of a Nation" (1915), and they continue to do so today. And these melodramatic trials of our social realities inform our perception in legal and non-legal settings in ways that are so familiar they have become invisible to us.


In a 66-year-old patient with prolonged episodes of chest pain, catheter angiography revealed total occlusions of the right coronary artery and the distal circumflex artery (CX) as well as 2 sequential significant stenoses in the proximal CX and one significant stenosis in the proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD). To identify the culprit lesions with their respective territory, noninvasive assessment of viability was performed by F-18 FDG positron emission tomography (PET) and fused with a low-dose computed tomography coronary angiography using prospective electrocardiogram gating. Fused PET/computed tomography coronary angiography images demonstrated a large scar in the inferior myocardium, corresponding to the total occlusion in the right coronary artery, viable myocardium in the territory of the CX, and infarcted scar tissue with partially preserved viability in the anterior myocardium, corresponding to the presumably recanalized lesion in the LAD. The patient was scheduled for revascularization of the lesions in the LAD and the CX to reverse dysfunctional but viable myocardial segments.


This thesis is concerned with two broad categories of thyroid related research: the aetiology of autoimmune thyroid disease, and the nuclear basis of thyroid hormone action. Whereas the first is directly related to disease, the research in the second area is intended as a contribution to eventual better understanding of the pathophysiology of thyroid dysfunction, and nonthyroidal illness as it affects thyroid hormone action. The research concerning the aetiology of autoimmune thyroid disease utilized the technique of T lymphocyte migration inhibition testing and was designed to test the hypothesis of suppressor T cell deficiency as a pathogenetic mechanism in autoimmune thyroid disease. Migration of T lymphocytes in the presence or absence of specific antigen was displayed by projection microscopy and measured by planimetry. Inhibition in response to thyroid antigen was found in Graves' disease (GD) and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) but not in normal individuals. The addition of a low ratio of normal T lymphocytes to the GD or HT T lymphocytes abolished the migration inhibition whereas admixture with other GD or HT lymphocytes did not, suggesting the possibility that a specific T lymphocyte deficit, i.e. in suppressor cell function, was being corrected.


Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina is a lyrical yet fiercely disturbing portrait of a South Carolina family besieged by poverty, violence, and incest. Narrated by young Ruth Anne Boatwright--or Bone as she is called by her family--the novel begins, ordinarily enough, with her birth and early years and quickly focuses on the relationship between Bone and her violent stepfather, Daddy Glen. Glen's abuse of Bone reaches a fever pitch in the eighth chapter. There a young intern, who is treating Bone's second broken clavicle, notices that her coccyx has also been broken. Confronted by the angry doctor, the mother finally admits (if only temporarily) the seriousness of Glen's mistreatment of Bone. But at the beginning of chapter nine, the novel takes a surprising--and potentially misguided--turn. Glen, who has played such a pivotal role in the novel, becomes little more than a peripheral character. While Bone's world is still haunted and shaped by the threat that he poses, Glen no longer figures prominently in the action. And the story of Bone's abuse, which has heretofore dominated the novel, does not fully resume again until chapter seventeen. Although Bone spends some of this time with relatives--to escape the pawing hands of Daddy Glen--neither this nor Glen's promise to become a better father adequately explains why Allison stops the story of Bone's abuse so quickly and for so long. It is even less clear why chapters nine through sixteen focus so heavily on gospel music, Bone's friend Shannon Pearl, Bone's violent sexual fantasies, her reading and storytelling, and her midnight escapade at a local Woolworth's. Not only is it unclear how these eight chapters fit into the main narrative, but also these chapters appear to have little connection to each other. Allison's kitchen-sink realism seems to have run amuck. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Mary Hawthorne complains that in Bastard "one sometimes hears the clunk of fiction not sufficiently dissembled, and an indulgent meandering of plot into subplots that lead nowhere ... diminishes the book's potency" (18). The novel's unusual structure might suggest that Allison isn't fully in control of her narrative--a problem one might expect in a first novel. On the other hand, a more cynical reader could argue that these middle chapters have been included to bolster a slim volume with proven set pieces and folksy asides about gospel music and southern storytelling.(1) This view seems to be supported by fact that the story of Shannon Pearl in chapters eleven and thirteen is an adaptation of a short story that appeared in the 1988 collection Trash.(2) Worse, by interrupting the story of Bone's abuse, Allison appears to be sensationalizing her already shocking subject matter, simultaneously promising and delaying the inevitable rape scene. Commenting on the prevalence of incest in contemporary fiction, Katie Roiphe complains that the incest story is "our latest literary vogue," "the stock plot of a culture obsessed with sexual abuse" (65, 71). Roiphe acknowledges the use of incest as a plot device by southern writers such as William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell and, more recently, by African American women such as Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison; but she insists that "what may once have been a daring subject, what took our breath away in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, has now become a paralyzed literary convention" (71). She continues: It's possible that the incest scene could be made new, but at this late date we can't help suspecting that the scene is the product of cultural opportunism, a sign that the author has lost sight of what separates literature from Melrose Place. Beneath the swelling prose, the panties and the nightgowns, one feels the selling principle at work. Sex sells and perverse sex sells more ... (71) But it would be a mistake to categorize Bastard as an example of this kind of lurid, cultural opportunism, although it may explain why Bastard, despite the fact that it was a National Book Award Finalist, has generated so little critical attention. …


The nanoparticles (NP) applications in industry and biomedicine are growing despite of superficial understanding about the mechanisms of NP biological interactions and the possible toxicity. The beneficial NP applications in medicine, as well as potential adverse effects, first of all depend on the NP accumulation and localization in the organism. The human in pre-natal stages is more sensitive to toxic materials than the adult organism and, therefore, it is physiologically protected from harmful agents by the selective transport across the placental barrier. However, there is a lack of studies on the NP penetration through this barrier and the accumulation in foetus. In this study fluorescence spectroscopy and confocal microscopy methods were employed to investigate the distribution of polyethylene glycol (PEG) coated semiconductor quantum dots (QD) in the pregnant rat model. The main results indicate that QD are systemically distributed in the body and can be found in all the investigated organs, including placenta and uterus 3 h after the intraperitoneal injection. However, QD could not be detected in the foetal tissues (embryo, yolk sac placenta, umbilical cord). The study shows that QD mainly accumulate in the maternal blood sinuses of the placenta and the QD passage to the foetus is prevented by the placental barrier.


The accuracy of existing methods for estimating the drag based on experimental flow field measurements were assessed for two-dimensional bodies. The effects of control volume boundary placement and inherent simplifying assumptions were also investigated. Wind tunnel experiments were performed on a circular cylinder operating at a Reynolds number of 8,000 and 20,000, and on a NACA 0018 airfoil operating at a chord Reynolds number of 100,000 for three angles of attack (α), specifically, 5◦, 10◦, and 15◦. The circular cylinder experiments fall within the the shear layer transition flow regime. Airfoil investigations span both types of flow development common to low Reynolds number airfoil operation. For α = 5◦ and 10◦, a separation bubble forms on the upper surface of the airfoil, while, for α = 15◦, the flow separates without reattaching, resulting in a stalled airfoil. Wake velocity and pressure measurements were performed at several downstream locations to investigate the impact of control volume boundary placement. Wake profiles were measured between 3 and 40 diameters downstream from the circular cylinder axis and between 1 and 4.5 chord lengths from the trailing edge of the airfoil. In addition to wake profiles, the outer flow velocity variation was quantified to investigate the appropriate location to measure freestream flow characteristics in a test section with streamwise-varying outer flow conditions. The results show that drag estimates are strongly dependent on the streamwise position of the measured wake profile for all methods investigated. Drag estimates improved, and streamwise variation decreased, with increasing streamwise position of the flow measurements. For the pressure based method examined, wake measurements should be taken at least 10 times the projected model height downstream of the model. In the case of the circular cylinder, this is equivalent to 10 diameters and, for the airfoil investigated, it is approximately 1 chord length from the trailing edge. For the methods relying on velocity measurements, acceptable estimates of drag were possible when based on measurements taken at least 30 projected heights downstream, i.e., 30 diameters for the circular cylinder and 3 chord lengths for the airfoil model investigated. The findings highlight the importance of providing a detailed description of the methodology and experimental implementation for drag estimates based on flow field measurements. Finally the study offers guidelines for implementing momentum integral based drag calculations in future investigations.


When modelling the carbon dynamics of temperate soils, soil organic carbon (SOC) is often represented by three kinetic pools, i.e. fast, slow and passive/inert. Lignin is often considered to be relatively resistant to decomposition, thus possibly contributing to the passive SOC pool. One way to assess SOC turnover under natural conditions is to follow the fate of 13C‐labelled biomass in soils. We used compound‐specific isotope analysis to analyse CuO oxidation products of lignin from grassland topsoils and from an arable topsoil that had received a natural (by C3‐C4 vegetation change) or an artificial (by fumigation with labelled CO2) isotopic label for 9–23 years. Results indicate faster apparent turnover for lignin (5–26 years in grassland, 9–38 years in arable soil) compared with bulk SOC (20–26 years in grassland, 51 years in arable soil). Although these calculated lignin turnover times cannot be extrapolated to the whole soil profiles, this paper provides isotopic evidence that lignin in soils is not preferentially preserved, which is a consistent result from both ways of isotopic labelling. It also demonstrates, however, that a considerable proportion of lignin in temperate soils can be stabilized for at least a few decades.


Applications of polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) thin film transistors (TFTs) to active matrix organic light emitting displays require further performance improvement. The biggest leverage in circuit performance can be obtained by reducing channel length from the typical current values of 3-6μm to 1μm, or less. However, short channel effects and hot-carrier induced instability in scaled down conventional self-aligned polysilicon TFTs can substantially degrade the device characteristics. To reduce these effects and allow proper operation of the circuits, drain field relief architectures have to be introduced. In this work we show that a fully self-aligned gate overlapped lightly doped drain (LDD) structure, with submicron LDD regions, can provide an excellent solution, allowing effective short channel effect control and improved electrical stability.


In this paper, the complexity of full solution of Fredholm integral equations of the second kind with data from the Sobolev class \(W^r_2\) is studied. The exact order of information complexity is derived. The lower bound is proved using a Gelfand number technique. The upper bound is shown by providing a concrete algorithm of optimal order, based on a specific hyperbolic cross approximation of the kernel function. Numerical experiments are included, comparing the optimal algorithm with the standard Galerkin method.


BackgroundCommunity-owned solar mini-grids (SMGs) are increasingly promoted to provide communities access to reliable electricity, empowering local actors as they become active stakeholders in projects. However, early failures and difficulties in building local capacity have raised questions regarding their long-term sustainability and ability to be replicated to provide socio-economic benefits to the communities. This study assesses the sustainability of 24 community-owned SMGs in India operating over extensive periods of time using a novel scoring framework using mixed methods to derive its conclusions.ResultsThe study found that institutional, financial, and technical capacities, central for the SMG's long-term sustainability, could be achieved through community engagement from early stages, if communities are allowed freedom to develop governance procedures while at the same time clarifying roles and responsibilities. This creates strong sense of ownership that is key for effective and inclusive governance. User satisfaction, ensured through provision of usable supply in line with users' expectations, motivates actors to make regular payments, thus leading to economic sustenance. While social and environmental benefits were observed, energy consumption and engagement in productive activities remained marginal.ConclusionsThe study reports an example of community-owned SMG model that has been replicated sustainably over many cases, overcoming key challenges related to appropriate financial and technical management and producing positive social impact. Low engagement in productive activities was more a factor of the local socio-cultural contexts, rather than limited paying capacities of the users. To increase energy utilization and create environments for sustainable rural living, the study recommends implementation of systems that link energy with other rural development needs such as agriculture or water provision. The study also recommends more use of qualitative and quantitative data for impact analysis to ensure that conclusions are generalizable and provide rich contextual explanations for the observed phenomena.


The following mixed method study investigates Michigan's system of fiscal emergency management, which disproportionately impacts African Americans. According to conventional explanations, the overrepresentation of emergency political intervention (EPI) in black communities is a happenstance product of African American populations being concentrated in fiscally distressed urban areas. We first investigate this hypothetically spurious association using multivariate methods. While the State's objective fiscal scoring of local political units explains a great deal in terms of the distribution of EPI, black population is also an independently significant predictor. When we control for fiscal score, the odds of intervention in a local political unit (e.g. city, township, school district) increase by 50% for every 10 percentage-point increase in the local black population. Second, a qualitative analysis of the EPI law and its application both supports our statistical findings and points to two explanations of the role of race in EPI. First, racial bias and segregation may have a direct impact on EPI distribution. Second, race may play an indirect role, insofar as its effects are intertwined in complex ways with other processes and mechanisms. Specifically, we emphasize the relationship between post-crisis patterns of urban value extraction and the racial logic of emergency fiscal intervention.


The aim of visual relation detection is to provide a comprehensive understanding of an image by describing all the objects within the scene, and how they relate to each other, in < object-predicate-object > form; for example, < person-lean on-wall > . This ability is vital for image captioning, visual question answering, and many other applications. However, visual relationships have long-tailed distributions and, thus, the limited availability of training samples is hampering the practicability of conventional detection approaches. With this in mind, we designed a novel model for visual relation detection that works in one-shot settings. The embeddings of objects and predicates are extracted through a network that includes a feature-level attention mechanism. Attention alleviates some of the problems with feature sparsity, and the resulting representations capture more discriminative latent features. The core of our model is a dual graph neural network that passes and aggregates the context information of predicates and objects in an episodic training scheme to improve recognition of the one-shot predicates and then generate the triplets. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to center on the viability of one-shot learning for visual relation detection. Extensive experiments on two newly-constructed datasets show that our model significantly improved the performance of two tasks PredCls and SGCls from 2.8% to 12.2% compared with state-of-the-art baselines.


This paper explores the experience of information sharing, coordination, and integration of actions of the Civil and Military Polices in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in the context of the IGESP program. The IGESP is based on the introduction of information management systems and organizational changes akin to those associated with COMPSTAT. All the evidence presented points to a causal effect of the IGESP on crime. The most conservative estimates indicate a reduction of 24% in property crimes and 13% in personal crimes. There is also evidence that the IGESP is associated with improved police response, measured by apprehension of weapons and clearance rates. We present one of the first set of causal estimates – with a clear identification strategy – of the impact of COMPSTAT-like programs. The results suggest that the coordination and informational gains represented by the program may constitute a first-order factor in a successful policy for fighting crime.


Intertidal soft sediment microphytobenthic biofilms are often dominated by diatoms, which are able to regulate their photosynthesis by physiological processes (e.g. down-regulation through the xanthophyll cycle, referred to as non-photochemical quenching, NPQ) and behavioural processes (e.g. vertical cell movement in the sediment–biofilm matrix). This study investigated these 2 processes over a 6 h emersion period using chemical inhibitors under 2 light treatments (ambient and constant light at 300 µmol m–2 s–1). Latrunculin A (Lat A) was used to inhibit cell movement and dithiothreitol (DTT) to inhibit NPQ. HPLC analysis for chlorophyll a and spectral analysis (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) indicated that Lat A significantly inhibited cell movement. Photosynthetic activity was measured using variable chlorophyll fluorescence and radiolabelled carbon uptake and showed that the non-migratory, Lat A-treated biofilms were severely inhibited as a result of the high accumulated light dose (significantly reduced maximum relative electron transport rate, rETRmax, and light utilisation coefficient, α, compared to the migratory DTT and control-treated biofilms). No significant patterns were observed for 14C data, although a decrease in uptake rate was observed over the measurement period. NPQ was investigated using HPLC analysis of xanthophyll pigments (diatoxanthin and the percentage de-epoxidation of diadinoxanthin), chlorophyll fluorescence (change in maximum fluorescence yield) and the 2nd order spectral derivative index (diatoxanthin index). Patterns between methods varied, but overall data indicated greater NPQ induction in the non-migratory Lat A treatment and little or no NPQ induction in the DTT and control treatments. Overall, the data resulted in 2 main conclusions: (1) the primary response to accumulated light dose was vertical movement, which when inhibited resulted in severe down-regulation/photoinhibition; (2) diatoms down-regulated their photosynthetic activity in response to accumulated light dose (e.g. over an emersion period) using a combination of vertical migration and physiological mechanisms that may contribute to diel and/or tidal patterns in productivity.


This book deals with the cartel offence introduced into UK law by the Enterprise Act 2002. It is now, for the first time, a criminal offence to operate certain cartel arrangements in the UK, and those found guilty of the offence face the prospect of fines and/or imprisonment. This presents new challenges for competition lawyers, who may not have expertise in criminal law, and criminal lawyers who are unlikely to have expertise in the complex substantive issues raised by competition law. This book addresses these issues, providing a guide to the workings of the provisions, explanations of the definitions set out in the Act, and an analysis of the relationship of the new offence with the existing UK and EC competition law. Human rights issues and practical considerations in the application of the relevant procedural law are also dealt with. Relevant OFT guidance and statutory provisions are published in the Appendix.


Jean-Martin Charcot proposed the radical hypothesis that similar brain processes were responsible for the unexplained neurological symptoms of 'hysteria', now typically diagnosed as 'conversion disorder' or 'dissociative (conversion) disorder', and the temporary effects of hypnosis. While this idea has been largely ignored, recent cognitive neuroscience studies indicate that (i) hypnotisability traits are associated with a tendency to develop dissociative symptoms in the sensorimotor domain; (ii) dissociative symptoms can be modelled with suggestions in highly hypnotisable subjects; and (iii) hypnotic phenomena engage brain processes similar to those seen in patients with symptoms of hysteria. One clear theme to emerge from the findings is that 'symptom' presentation, whether clinically diagnosed or simulated using hypnosis, is associated with increases in prefrontal cortex activity suggesting that intervention by the executive system in both automatic and voluntary cognitive processing is common to both hysteria and hypnosis. Nevertheless, while the recent literature provides some compelling leads into the understanding of these phenomena, the field still lacks well controlled systematically designed studies to give a clear insight into the neurocognitive processes underlying dissociation in both hysteria and hypnosis. The aim of this review is to provide an agenda for future research.


This experimental research project is focused on the study of the deposition by Aerosol Assisted Metal Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition (AA-MOCVD) of doped copper (I) oxide, Cu2O, thin films. Among the semiconducting compounds, copper oxide present the most promising electrical, optical and productive features that establish this material suitable as p-type semiconductor. In literature many materials with the required properties are been reported, among them transparent conductive oxide (TCOs) are the most widely used. The developed TCOs are mainly n-type semiconductors, but there is still a lack of p-type TCOs. For this reason, this research is focused on the growth of a p-type transparent conductive oxide. P-type oxides are characterized by metal-oxygen bonds that form deep acceptor levels, which limit the holes mobility. Cu (I) oxides have one of the lowest ionic aspect, therefore it is one of the most promising candidates as p-type transparent semiconductors. This research will be aimed on the optimization of the deposition and the characterization of pure and doped-copper oxide. In the first chapter of this work, there will be an overlook of transparent conductive material and of the so-called transparent electronics. It will contain also a summary of the physical properties of the cuprous oxide, how conduction takes place in this material and there will be special focus on the already existing doped copper oxide systems and their possible applications. In the chapter II there will be the description of the AAMOCVD system and the experimental setup followed by a complete explanation on how deposition occurs. Moreover, the used characterization tools will be described with an explanation of how these systems work. The third chapter is dedicated to the explanation of the pure copper oxide deposition and its optimization and then we will illustrate the results of these depositions. In the work on Cu2O, we performed different depositions to establish the optimized deposition conditions trying to get the best films in terms of conductivity and optical transmittance. Once obtained the best deposition conditions, we focused the attention on the deposition of doped Cu2O, with the purpose to enhance the electrical and optical properties of the films. The 4th chapter will be dedicated to the study of the effect of the tin as dopant on the copper oxide deposition. This chapter will be divided in two sections. The first study aims to test and to investigate the incorporation of tin in the film using different chemical precursors starting from the obtained results from DBTD. The second section will be related to the effect of the precursor already studied in Resende1, the Dibutyltin Diacetate (DBTD) as precursor for the tin doping. The study of lithium doped copper oxide (Li/Li+Cu) is described in the chapter V, discussing the results obtained with this dopant through the analysis of the produced films using the characterization tools described in chapter II, investigating the main parameter in terms of electrical and optical properties. For each chapter, the results will be presented divided between structural, morphological then electrical and optical properties of the as deposited samples. Moreover, every chapter will contain also the annealing studies performed on the samples.


The critical role of early incestuous abuse in the development of high levelsof dissociative symptoms has been suggested. The present study examines the reliability and validity of the Dissociative Experiences Scale for use with an outpatient population and compares the frequency of dissociative experiences in adult female outpatients with and without histories of early incestuous abuse. The Dissociative Experienc e s Scale (DES) and a Background Information Questionnaire (/31(Jl were administered to a sample of 84 adult female outpatients from four diagnostic categories: Affective Disorder, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Panic Disorder, and Schizophrenia. Cronbach s alpha within each diagnostic category (range .88 - .94) indicated good internal consistency for the DES with this sample. The Kruskal Wallis analysis, x 2 = 8.49 (N = 84, d f = 3, p < .05), demonstrated support for criterion-related validity of the DES by indicating a signfcantd erenceamongdiagnosticcategories. Ryans pro ced u-re demonstrated a distinction between AffectiveDisorderand PTSD and between Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia (p < .01). Forty-four % (N = 37) of the subjects reported incestuous abuse before 16 years of age. Seventy-one % (N = 60) reported sexual or physical abuse, rape, or assault, at some time during their lives. Subjects with histories of early incestuous abuse scored significantly higher, X 2 =10.79 (N = 84, (I=1, p < .001), on the DES than those who reported no history of early incestuous abuse. When matched on diagnostic category and age, DES scores remained significantly higher, x 2 = 5.00 (N = 20, df = 1, p < .01), in. the subjects with histories of early incestuous abuse than in those without such histories. The results of the present study support the need for exploration of dissociative symptoms in incest survivors.


Rationale: Aflibercept, an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drug, is used for treatment of colon cancer as well as retinal diseases, including wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It is injected into the vitreous cavity of eyes for treatment of AMD. Although vascular suppression—including cardiovascular events—and local infection related to the injection procedure are well-known potential adverse events, pathological immune responses after intravitreal aflibercept (IVA) injection have not been described. Patient concerns: A 60-year-old Japanese man diagnosed with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV), a subtype of wet AMD, was treated by anti-VEGF injection. Ten hours after the last IVA injection, he presented with systemic erythema with itching. Diagnoses: On the basis of the palpable erythema and papules observed on the trunk and extremities, along with redness of the pharynx, the patient was diagnosed with maculopapular-type drug eruption. The findings of biopsy of erythematous skin on the back revealed lymphocyte infiltration and telangiectasia in the upper dermis, thus confirming the diagnosis. Interventions: The patient was administered 30 mg prednisolone to resolve the immunoreaction. Outcomes: With this treatment, the eruption turned brown, and the pharyngeal lesion and itching were resolved, and the maculopapular rash after intravitreal IVA was resolved. Lessons: This case illustrates the importance of medical staff being aware of aflibercept—a widely used anti-VEGF drug in various fields, including retinal diseases—as a potential cause of drug allergy.


The theme of the civil liability crisis in the conditions imposed by the modern society is one of the major issues which concern equally, the ethical-legal research of the medical care, but also the medical world. The traditional institution of civil liability, the way it has been governed by the Roman law, and then modernized by the Napoleonic Code, cannot be applied to new legal situations such as organ donation and transplantation, assisted medical reproduction, the legal protection of the human embryo and so on. Our survey aims to present some of the details of a new approach to professionals' liability within the medical field, adapted to the problems medicine and biomedical research are currently facing.


This study examines 28 selected cases of transition from a fixed to a more flexible exchange rate combined with devaluation over the period 1980–2013. The crises examined generally prove to be significantly correlated to a reduction in real wages and the wage share. However, both groups are also characterised by an important degree of variability with respect to sample averages, which suggests that the dynamics of real wages and wage shares were also influenced by the specific institutional and political environments in which such crises and devaluations took place. Finally, there appear to be no adequate empirical grounds for the claim that a decrease in real wages resulting from a currency regime crisis will result in improved levels of production and employment. All evaluations of the links between the currency regime and the dynamics of wages and distribution should in any case be carried out not in abstract terms but by comparing the possible implications of abandoning the regime with those of maintaining it. The opportunity of a comparative analysis also applies to the study of current episodes, such as the eurozone crisis.


Quantum many-body theory as a discipline in its own right dates largely from the 1950's. It has developed since then to its current position as one of the cornerstones of modern theoretical physics. The field remains vibrant and active, vigorous and exciting. Its most powerful techniques are truly universal. They are constantly expanding to find new fields of application, while advances continue to be made in the more traditional areas. To commemorate the impending 80th birthdays of its two co-inventors, Firtz Coester and Hermann K�mmel, one such technique, namely the coupled cluster method, was especially highlighted at this meeting, the eleventh in the series of International Conferences on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories. The history of the coupled cluster method as told here mirrors in many ways both the development of the entire discipline of microscopic quantum many-body theory and the history of the series of conferences. The series itself is universally recognised as being the premier series of meetings in this subject area. Its proceedings have always summarised the current state of the art through the lectures of its leading practitioners. The present volume is no exception. No serious researcher in quantum many-body theory or in any field which uses it can afford to be without this volume.


Earthquakes can be devastating, thus it is important to gain a good understanding of the corresponding geophysical processing. One of the challenges in geophysics is that we cannot directly measure the corresponding deep-earth quantities, we have to rely on expert knowledge, knowledge which often comes in terms of imprecise ( fuzzy ) words from natural language. To formalize this knowledge, it is reasonable to use techniques that were speci cally designed for such a formalization namely, fuzzy techniques, In this paper, we formulate the problem of optimally representing such knowledge. By solving the corresponding optimization problem, we conclude that the optimal representation involves using piecewise-constant functions. For geophysics applications, this means that we need to go beyond tectonic plates to explicitly consider parts of the plates that move during the earthquake. We argue that such an analysis will lead to a better understanding of earthquake-related geophysics.


The emphasis in the press on student street demonstrations, riots, and the like, may have given a distorted picture of student political opinion in developing countries. These demonstrations constitute a relatively small part of student political life, and only a small percentage of the total student body actually participates in them. The main purpose of the present article is to specify the ideological characteristics of student political activists and to differentiate them from the whole student body, that is, discerning how activists differ from the larger mass of apathetic students. Political participation is a broad concept which has been used rather loosely by sociologists and political scientists alike. But political participation is not a monolithic concept, as it embodies different forms, levels and degrees of intensity.1 Thus, reading about politics, voting, and stoning embassies are different forms of participation. By the same token, reliance on survey data tends to obliterate these differences by simply treating them as varying forms of political participation. However, not only are they different actions, but they also involve different degrees of intensity. This intensity differential is not without consequences. Many more are likely to read about politics than to go and participate in a street demonstration. Conceiving various forms of political participation as having different degrees of intensity is in itself a good justification for analyzing those forms separately.2 However, there are other reasons that justify this separation, the most important of which is that there is no inherent reason to assume that participants in a more intense form of politics are simply a random sample of the larger group of participants in a less intense form.3


The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the relational benefits enjoyed by SMEs to improve their sustainability and competitive advantage. For small businesses, these relationships are often vital for their sustainable practices, with supplier sourcing and knowledge sharing key aspects of business and marketing strategy. Small businesses were chosen as the focus for this study as they are seen to lack resources and competencies to implement sustainability practices to the same extent as larger organisations. Little past research has focused on SMEs alone in terms of sustainability and relationship building. In addition to this, there is little research into the impacts of internal resources of a firm on their capabilities to forge strong relationships. To explore this, a combined theoretical lens of the resources based view of the firm and relational theory were applied to SMEs working within a local food market through semi-structured interviews of 6 SMES to form a multiple case study for cross-study analysis of this context. This was paired with a presentation of the current literature regarding SMEs and their resources, relational theory and sustainable supply chain management to provide a discussion of the key enablers, lack of enablers and barriers to relational benefits. The core findings were in the importance of owner/managers in the success of relationship building and how constraints of size can be overcome through sharing of resources with external partners.


One of the group's main activities involves distributed data mining. The GOLF framework developed earlier was extended with the capability to adapt to dynamically changing environments and concept drift. The basic idea behind this method is to maintain a fixed age distribution in the network among the models. Young models help in adapting to sudden changes, while older models represent stability. The proposed method targets the maintenance of the age distribution and makes use of age during model propagation. The group members also invented new distributed solutions for bandit algorithms. The model they proposed has identical bandits at each point in the network. The goal here is to allow the peers to exchange as much information as possible about the arms with as little communication as possible. The group's solution achieves a linear speedup in the number of network nodes using a gossip protocol. An additional result is related to storing graph structured databases in an optimal way over multiple sites. Graphs should ideally be stored in such a way that the number of edges between any two sites is minimal, which leads to a partitioning problem. The research group proposed a fully distributed simulated annealing heuristics to tackle the problem, and demonstrated its favorable performance over several real-world networks. The paper describing this research won the best paper award at IEEE SASO 2013. The team's researchers also studied peer sampling algorithms, which are key components of peer-to-peer systems. They focused on environments where creating new connections is expensive, and where NAT-ed nodes are present, and proposed a solution in which a dynamically, but very slowly changing network is maintained, over which short random walks are performed.