The effects of underwater explosions on ships have beenstudied ever since it was realised that explosions under watercould be accomplished. In order to study the response of asandwich structure in water, exposed to an underwaterexplosion, we need to have knowledge about the whole chain ofevents, i.e. THE EXPLOSION, THE FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION andTHE RESPONSE OF SANDWICH STRUCTURES.There are several different kinds of loads generated by anunderwater explosion that might affect a vessel in water andthey are all very complex. At an explosion we have the initialshock wave that is transmitted through the water to thestructure. This initial shock wave, will give rise toadditional loads on the structure, when reflected on the watersurface and the sea bottom. The reflection on the water surfacecauses a zone of water just under the water surface to cavitateand the water surface to rise (spray dome). At the chargelocation we have the formation of the bubble, with itspulsation and migration towards the surface. At every bubbleminimum, a shock wave is generated which rapidly decreases inmagnitude for each pulsation. The bubble is also attracted tothe sea bottom and objects in the water, but rejected by thewater surface. However this is an area that is not covered inthis thesis. When the shock wave reaches a structure, thestructure moves away, but in the next instant when the pressureis applied, the structure is moving in the same direction asthe load and therefore the load pressure is decreased. As thewave hits the structure it bounces back and may causecavitation to occur at the fluid-structure interface. All thesephenomena must be taken into account when evaluating thepressure acting on a structural surface.Finally we have the response of the sandwich structure whichdepends on the many parameters that a sandwich structure ismade up of. We have the faces with their different properties,i.e. depending on reinforcement (fibre) material, reinforcement(fibre) direction and thickness (number of fibre layers). Thecore may vary in density and thickness. This gives us a verylarge number of possible sandwich configurations. However,since we are dealing with fast loading sequences the mass andits distribution in the structure are very important.Looking locally (transverse direction) at a sandwichstructure, the front face is first compressed into the corewhen hit by a shock wave. This initiates oscillation about thecore of the faces. This may cause significant transversetension in the faces and delamination may occur. This mode offailure has not been considered before and has to beinvestigated further in the future. Going from one dimension totwo dimensional problems leads to the study of sandwich beams.The change in behaviour of a sandwich beam when the parameterschange can in many cases be predicted by the use of a simpleexpression. In order to verify this, several numerical exampleswere analysed and some important conclusions were reached. Whenthe parameters of the sandwich beam change it is not only thestiffness of the beam that changes, but also the distributionof the energy between the faces and the core of the sandwich.This sometimes makes it very difficult to predict the completeresponse. For example, stiffer faces lead not only todecreasing deformation and face stress, but also to anincreasing core stress. This is due to the redistribution ofenergy between the faces and the core in the sandwich beam. Thebehaviour of three-dimensional structures, such as a sandwichpanel, is similar to that of a sandwich beam. One can use theexample of the beam to predict the change in the response of apanel when the parameters vary.This thesis does not try to cover the latest researchconcerning all the different phenomena occurring during anunderwater explosion. For some of the phenomena there are moreadvanced methods available. This is rather an attempt toprovide engineers with methods that can be used to solve thistype of problem.


We surveyed 119 psychiatrists to see how they would act with a patient who has taken a potentially lethal overdose, has no mental Illness, and Is refusing treatment. There was substantial disagreement. There may be a risk of action under civil law whether the psychiatrist decides to treat the patient without his or her consent or not. The Law Commission are examining whether mental disorder, as defined in the Mental Health Act 1983, should be used as a test of Incapacity to give consent to medical treatment. Such legislation would help doctors but may encourage a wide Interpretation of the definition of mental disorder.


Backgroud By studing the clinical and imaging features of myocardial bridge and severe atherosclerosis lesions in the segments proximal to the myocardial bridge, compared with that of pure myocardial bridge retrospectively, to analyse the clinical and imaging characteristics of these patients. Methods The study population consisted of 2 groups (192 patients). The CHD Group included 92 patients with severe atherosclerosis lesion of luminal narrowing of ≥70% in the segments proximal to the myocardial bridge. The bridge group included 100 patients with symptomatic myocardial bridge lesion of systolic luminal narrow. All lesions were successfully treated with stent by standard interventional techniques. Quantitative coronary angiography was performed before and immediately after stent deployment. Results The mean age and systolic pressue in the CHD patients were more than that in the pure bridge group (58 ± 11 vs 42 ± 10y and 157.8 ± 9.8 vs 146.1 ± 10.2 mmHg, respectively), p < 0.05. No significant difference was found between two groups such as gender, DM, smoking, hyperlipidemia, old myocardial infarction percentage. There was a significant difference in the extent of diameter stenosis during systolic stage between CHD and bridge groups (95 ± 5% vs 90 ± 7%). But the average length from the proximal end of myocardial bridge to the ostium of LAD and the average length of myocardial bridge had not difference between two groups. Conclusions The patients with severe atherosclerosis lesion in the segments proximal to the myocardial bridge has more risk factors of CHD, the extent of diameter stenosis during systolic stage has some promotive effect to CHD.


Abstract Pleasurable stimuli, including reward, inhibit pain, but the level of the neuraxis at which they do so and the cerebral processes involved are unknown. Here, we characterized a brain circuitry mediating pain inhibition by reward. Twenty-four healthy participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while playing a wheel of fortune game with simultaneous thermal pain stimuli and monetary wins or losses. As expected, winning decreased pain perception compared to losing. Inter-individual differences in pain modulation by monetary wins relative to losses correlated with activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). When pain and reward occured simultaneously, mOFCs functional connectivity changed: the signal time course in the mOFC condition-dependent correlated negatively with the signal time courses in the rostral anterior insula, anterior-dorsal cingulate cortex and primary somatosensory cortex, which might signify moment-to-moment down-regulation of these regions by the mOFC. Monetary wins and losses did not change the magnitude of pain-related activation, including in regions that code perceived pain intensity when nociceptive input varies and/or receive direct nociceptive input. Pain inhibition by reward appears to involve brain regions not typically involved in nociceptive intensity coding but likely mediate changes in the significance and/or value of pain.


The sensor-shifted stereo camera provides the mechanism for obtaining 3D information in a wide field of view. This novel kind of stereo requires a simpler matching process in comparison to convergence stereo. In addition to this, the uncertainty of depth estimation of a target point in 3D space is defined by the spatial quantization caused by the digital images. The dithering approach is a way to reduce the depth reconstruction uncertainty through a controlled adjustment of the stereo parameters that shift the spatial quantization levels. In this paper, a mathematical model that relates the stereo setup parameters to the iso-disparities is developed and used for depth estimation. The enhancement of the depth measurement accuracy for this kind of stereo through applying the dithering method is verified by simulation and physical experiment. For the verification, the uncertainty of the depth measurement using dithering is compared with the uncertainty produced by the direct triangulation method. A 49% improvement of the uncertainly in the depth reconstruction is proved.


The relevance of urokinase receptors to urokinase-mediated laminin degradation was investigated in cultured colon cancer. Six colon cancer cell lines degraded laminin in a plasminogen-dependent manner. The ability of the individual cell lines to cleave the glycoprotein correlated well (r2 = 0.9242) with the amount of urokinase recovered from the cell surface by a mild acid treatment. A radioreceptor assay indicated that colon cancer cells most active in degrading the laminin, possessed the largest number of urokinase receptors. Moreover, acid treatment which depletes the receptors of endogenous plasminogen activator augmented the specific binding of radioactive urokinase to the colon cancer cells by 12-200%. A cell line (HCT 116) which displayed 1.1 x 10(5) receptors/cell the majority of which were occupied with endogenous urokinase was selected and the effects of a urokinase receptor antagonist on laminin degradation determined. The peptide antagonist reduced laminin turnover by 60-80%. Morphological observations were consistent with these findings. Plasminogen-treated HCT 116 cells retracted from the culture dish and many cells were observed in the culture medium. This effect could be largely reversed by simultaneous treatment with the peptide antagonist. A poor correlation was found between laminin degradation and soluble urokinase (r2 = 0.1074). These data strongly argue for a role of the urokinase receptor in facilitating the action of the plasminogen activator in colon cancer.


This paper summarizes the results of the first-ever quasi-experimental design study of a youth financial capability initiative seamlessly integrated into a youth workforce development program. MyPath Savings supports low-income working youth to bank, save, and build their financial confidence through a comprehensive model that includes financial education, goal-setting, and non-custodial accounts. MyPath provided technical assistance and training to prepare nonprofits to implement MyPath Savings, as well as to the financial institution partner, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, to ensure the accounts youth received were aligned with MyPath's Youth Banking Standards. The study included 375 low-income young people ages 16-21 years old participating in youth workforce and employment programs operated by ten nonprofits in partnership with San Francisco's Department of Children, Youth and their Families.


Asymptotically stable linear time invariant systems are capable of tracking arbitrary reference signals with a bounded error proportional to the magnitude of the reference signal (and its derivatives). It is shown that a similar property holds for a general class of nonlinear dynamical systems which includes all robots. As in the linear case, the error bound may be made arbitrarily small by increasing the magnitude of the feedback gains which stabilize the system.


Robust spoken language understanding (SLU) is a key component of spoken dialogue systems. Recent statistical approaches to this problem require additional resources (e.g. gazetteers, grammars, syntactic treebanks) which are expensive and time-consuming to produce and maintain. However, simple datasets annotated only with slot-values are commonly used in dialogue systems development, and are easy to collect, automatically annotate, and update. We show that it is possible to reach state-of-the-art performance using minimal additional resources, by using Markov logic networks (MLNs). We also show that performance can be further improved by exploiting long distance dependencies between slot-values. For example, by representing such features in MLNs, but without using a gazetteer, we outperform the hidden vector state (HVS) model of He and Young 2006 (1.26% improvement, a 13% error reduction).


The paper revisits the problem of wage bargaining between a firm and multiple workers. We show that the Subgame Perfect Equilibrium of the extensive-form game proposed by Stole and Zwiebel (1996a) does not imply a profile of wages and profits that coincides with the Shapley values as claimed in their classic paper. We propose an alternative extensive-form bargaining game, the Rolodex Game, that follows a simple and realistic protocol and that, under some mild restrictions, admits a unique Subgame Perfect Equilibrium generating a profile of wages and profits that are equal to the Shapley values. The vast applied literature that refers to the Stole and Zwiebel game to give a game-theoretic foundation to the use of the Shapley values as the outcome of the bargain between a firm and multiple workers should instead refer to the Rolodex game.


The presence of cadmium in the environment undoubtedly contributes to an increased risk of exposure and ultimate toxic influence on humans. In an effort to comprehend the chemical and biological interactions of Cd(II) with physiological ligands, like citric acid, we explored the requisite aqueous chemistry, which afforded the first aqueous Cd(II)-citrate complex [Cd(C(6)H(6)O(7))(H(2)O)](n)() (1). Compound 1 was characterized by elemental analysis, and spectroscopically by FT-IR and (113)Cd MAS NMR. Compound 1 crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group P2(1)2(1)2(1), with a = 6.166(2) A, b = 10.508(3) A, c = 13.599(5) A, V = 881.2(5) A(3), and Z = 4. The X-ray structure of 1 reveals the presence of octahedral Cd(II) ions bound to citrate ligands in a molecular crystal lattice. Citrate acts as a tridentate binder promoting coordination to one Cd(II) through the central alcoholic moiety, one terminal carboxylate group, and the central carboxylate group. In addition, the central carboxylate binds to three Cd(II) ions. Specifically, one of the oxygens of the central carboxylate serves as a bridge to two neighboring Cd(II) ions, while the other oxygen binds to a third Cd(II). A bound water molecule completes the coordination requirements of Cd(II). (113)Cd MAS NMR studies project the spectroscopic signature of the nature of the coordination environment around Cd(II) in 1, thus corroborating the X-ray findings. Collectively, the data at hand are in line with past solution studies. The latter predict that other similar low molecular mass Cd(II)-citrate complexes may exist in the acidic pH region, thus influencing the uptake of cadmium by living (micro)organisms, their ability to metabolize organic substrates, and possibly Cd(II) toxicity.


International conservation donors have spent at least $3.4 billion to protect biodiversity and stem tropical deforestation in Africa since the early 1990s. Despite more than two decades of experience, however, there is little research on the effect of this aid at a region-wide scale. Numerous case studies exist, but show mixed results. Existing research is usually based on community perception or focused on short-term donor objectives rather than specific conservation outcomes, like deforestation rates. Thus, the impact of billions of dollars of conservation aid on deforestation rates remains an open question. This article uses an original dataset to analyze the effect of international conservation aid on deforestation rates in 42 African countries between 2000 and 2013. We first describe patterns of conservation aid across the continent and then assess its impact (with one to five-year lags), controlling for other factors that may also affect deforestation, including rural population, protected areas (PAs), governance, and other economic and commodity production variables. We find that conservation aid is associated with higher rates of forest loss after one- or two-year lags. A similar result holds for PA extent, suggesting possible displacement of deforestation from PAs. However, governance quality in high forest cover countries moderates these effects such that deforestation rates are reduced. Rural population is the most consistent factor associated with forest loss, confirming previous studies of this driver. Our results suggest that in heavily forested countries, development projects designed to support conservation work initially in conditions of good governance, but that conservation aid alone is insufficient to mitigate larger deforestation drivers.


PURPOSE
Identifying pathobiological correlates of clinical behavior or therapeutic response currently represents a key challenge for medulloblastoma research. Nuclear accumulation of the beta-catenin protein is associated with activation of the Wnt/Wg signaling pathway, and mutations affecting components of this pathway have been reported in approximately 15% of sporadic medulloblastomas. We tested the hypothesis that nuclear immunoreactivity for beta-catenin is a prognostic marker in medulloblastoma, and assessed the relationship between nuclear beta-catenin immunoreactivity and mutations of CTNNB1 and APC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Medulloblastomas from children entered onto the International Society for Pediatric Oncology (SIOP)/United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group (UKCCSG) PNET3 trial (n = 109) were examined for beta-catenin immunoreactivity, and where tissue was available, evidence of CTNNB1 and APC mutations. The results were correlated with clinicopathologic variables, principally outcome.

RESULTS
Children with medulloblastomas that showed a nucleopositive beta-catenin immunophenotype (27 of 109; 25%) had significantly better overall (OS) and event-free (EFS) survivals than children with tumors that showed either membranous/cytoplasmic beta-catenin immunoreactivity or no immunoreactivity (P = .0015 and P = .0026, respectively). For beta-catenin nucleopositive and nucleonegative medulloblastomas, 5-year OS was 92.3% (95% CI, 82% to 100%) versus 65.3% (95% CI, 54.8 to 75.7%), and 5-year EFS was 88.9% (95% CI, 77% to 100%) versus 59.5% (95% CI, 48.8 to 70.2%), respectively. Mutations in CTNNB1 were found exclusively among medulloblastomas that demonstrated nuclear beta-catenin immunoreactivity, but no evidence of APC mutation was found in these cases. All children with beta-catenin nucleopositive large cell/anaplastic medulloblastomas and beta-catenin nucleopositive medulloblastomas presenting with metastatic disease are alive at least 5 years postdiagnosis.

CONCLUSION
Nuclear accumulation of beta-catenin appears to be a marker of favorable outcome in medulloblastoma, and should be investigated further in large group-wide trials.


INTRODUCTION
Vitamin D deficiency is common among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). A higher level of serum vitamin D is expected in residents of the tropics in relation to inhabitants of non-tropical regions, due to greater sun exposure and increased production of vitamin D.

OBJECTIVE
To analyze serum levels of vitamin D, such as 25-hydroxyvitamin D - 25(OH)D, in Brazilian patients at the predialytic stage with CKD.

METHODS
We studied 125 patients (aged 57.4 ± 16.2 years, 78 were white and 55.2%, male), with creatinine 2.67 ± 1.73 mg/dL and creatinine clearance 43.7 ± 34.5 mL/min. Body mass index was 27.4 ± 4.7 kg/m², and waist circumference was 95.0 ± 14.0 cm. Calcium was 9.3 ± 0.6 mg/dL, intact parathormone (iPTH) 212.6 ± 221.2 pg/mL and serum albumin 4.2 ± 0.6 g/dL. The mean 25(OH)D was 23.9 ± 10.7 ng/mL.

RESULTS
Out of the 125 patients, we found that 92 (72.6%) had suboptimal levels of 25(OH)D < 30 ng/mL, and 65 (52%) had vitamin D insufficiency (15-29 ng/mL); 27 (21.5%) had deficiency (5-14 ng/mL) and only one patient had severe vitamin D deficiency <5 ng/mL. No differences were observed among the levels of 25 (H)D in stratified patients as to the CKD stage. Levels of 25(OH)D were higher among males (38.1 ± 20.6 versus 22.4 ± 9.7 ng/mL; p < 0.0001), and there was an inverse correlation between levels 25(OH)D and iPTH, proteinuria and abdominal circumference, and a positive correlation between 25(OH)D and calcium and serum albumin. Multivariate analysis only showed inverse correlation between serum 25(OH)D and iPTH and abdominal circumference.

CONCLUSION
Even though the Brazilian population live in a tropical region, most patients had suboptimal levels of serum vitamin D, and this pattern may play a role in the development of hyperparathyroidism.


The authors believe that restoration of confidence in ratings will require a change in the conflict-laden issuer-pay rating agency compensation models, careful studies of which are mandated under Sections 939D and F of the recently passed Dodd-Frank Act. While the investor-pay model is attractive, it has several limitations as the potential solution. The authors propose instead that both investors and issuers should pay for ratings, and describe how the Congressionally mandated method of payment used since 1975 to finance operations of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board could be cloned for this purpose. The establishment of the proposed new rating agency compensation system would require a buy-in by domestic and international market participants. If carefully crafted and implemented, the new system would be privately run, have virtually no additional costs, and eliminate the long-standing conflicts of interest that have plagued rating agency compensation models, providing the right rating agency incentives to ensure that ratings are both timely and accurate.


Professor Bogart was keynote lecturer for the 2007 Kratovil Conference Real Estate Law and Practice sponsored by the John Marshall Law School Center for Real Estate Law. This article was solicited in connection with that lecture. In this article, Professor Daniel Bogart criticizes the unfortunate habit of many courts to import the doctrine of good faith and fair dealing, as it has been developed in residential real estate law, into commercial leasing. Commercial leasing practice is hugely important to real property lawyers and generates a significant portion of their legal fees. More importantly, commercial leasing is the driving force behind much of commercial real property development. In the first Part of his article, Professor Bogart examines the doctrine of good faith and fair dealing and questions its applicability to commercial lease transactions. He draws upon the thoughtful scholarship of Professor Emily M. S. Houh and other scholars. Two approaches to good faith have dominated scholarly discussion: the Restatement Second of Contracts Section 205 and an economic analysis of lost opportunities. Section 205 of the Restatement essentially defines as "good faith" everything that is not "bad faith." Courts adopting this approach create an open-ended laundry list of bad landlord behavior, and aim to "do justice" among the parties to a dispute. This is the dominant view and has been used successfully in residential leasing scenarios to prevent unscrupulous landlords from preying on tenants. This approach is also a basis for the Implied Warranty of Habitability. A second approach to good faith and fair dealing is grounded in economics and seeks only to prevent one party from opportunistically extracting after the fact some right that could have been negotiated into the initial contract document. Professor Bogart argues that this second approach more closely fits the commercial leasing context, in which parties are or could be represented by counsel and are typically more business savvy than their residential counterparts. Indeed, as Professor Bogart notes in the article, this is behavior that real estate lawyers see routinely, and call "taking a second bite at the apple." Professor Bogart also argues that a casual application of the doctrine of good faith releases parties to the commercial lease from the bitter fruits of their negotiated agreements and lessens the value of good lawyering. One primary goal of courts, especially in the commercial context, should be to encourage parties to transactions to find good attorneys and then heed their attorneys' advice. In the second Part of his article, Professor Bogart tests three increasingly complex hypothetical commercial lease disputes and asks whether, in any of them, the landlord or tenant violated the doctrine of good faith and fair dealing. Each hypothetical is based on an actual, litigated lease dispute that rose to the state appellate level. In one case, the court found a party to have violated the doctrine. Professor Bogart argues that none of the fact patterns should be deemed to be the basis for a breach of the doctrine of good faith.


We model second harmonic generation in subwavelength III-V-on-insulator waveguides. The large index contrast induces strong longitudinal electric field components that play an important role in the nonlinear conversion. We show that many different waveguide dimensions are suitable for efficient conversion of a fundamental quasi-TE pump mode around the 1550 nm telecommunication wavelength to a higher-order second harmonic mode.


Development and Regional Application of Sub-Seasonal Remote-Sensing Chlorophyll Detection Models Carly Adeline Hyatt Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, BYU Master of Science Remote sensing has been used as an effective chlorophyll-a detection method in inland lakes and reservoirs. Concentration estimates of chlorophyll-a approximate the amounts of algae and phytoplankton in a body of water, can indicate the existence of large blooms and high nutrient loading, and can be used as an indicator of water quality. These biomasses pose potential threats to the quality of the water and the local environment by depleting oxygen, influencing the taste of the drinking water and detrimentally affecting aesthetics and recreation. Deer Creek Reservoir exhibited eutrophic tendencies in the early 1990's, caused by phosphorus pollution. This was made evident by accelerated algae growth. Following remediation efforts, Deer Creek Reservoir, as well as nearby Jordanelle Reservoir have been closely monitored with regular field sampling. These field data have been used to develop remote sensing methods using Landsat images to provide supplementary information for reservoir management. These remote sensing methods allow for mapping of the distribution of chlorophyll-a, which provides spatial distribution average, and maximum estimates of chlorophyll-a concentrations, data and information that are not feasible with in-field sampling. In this thesis, traditional methods for remote sensing models are discussed, and a novel sub-seasonal approach based on seasonal algal succession is proposed and demonstrated. Each seasonal model is created using a standard stepwise regression using historic field data and the associated Landsat images and is statistically tested for leverage to ensure unbiased model development. These sub-seasonal detection models are applied to 5 reservoirs in the central-Utah region to provide a more comprehensive description of reservoir behavior and water quality trends over the past 30 years. Historic trends of the average and maximum chlorophyll-a estimates are provided for each of the reservoirs. Example color maps are presented to demonstrate the ability of remote sensing to represent the spatial distribution of algae (using chlorophyll as an indicator). Limitations for this approach are discussed, as well as applications for remotely sensed water quality data on a regional scale.


The process of finding working gaits for legged robots always, to different extents, includes manual tuning, systematic search, or optimization of control parameters. This process populates a dataset of control parameter vectors and respective robot behavior factors, like forward speed. The dataset obtained from a tuning process can include many gaits which share a similar performance in one behavior factor, e.g. speed, but differ in the control parameter vectors used. Our question here is, using the tuning dataset, how a continuous drive function can be calculated which takes the desired behavior, e.g. speed, and maps that to a control parameter vector. If this question is answered properly, then the robot operator (or a higher level controller) will have a single control knob to continuously change the desired behavior factor.


Objectives: Strong self-esteem is related to good psychological health. Dyslexia has a negative effect on self-esteem, but this effect depends on support levels at home and/or school. Women with dyslexia are an under investigated group, and it has been suggested that female dyslexics should be given special attention from teachers with a view to improving their self-esteem. This paper set out to compare levels of self-esteem in women with dyslexia and normative women, and to investigate relationships between dyslexic problems and self-esteem. Method: It was hypothesized that women with dyslexia would have a weaker selfesteem. We have assessed dyslexia, using a Swedish battery of standardised pedagogical, IQ, and neuropsychological tests, and the self-esteem of twelve young women (mean age 19 years; range 16-30), using a Swedish questionnaire that distinguishes between different dimensions of self-esteem (physical characteristics, talents and gifts, psychological health, relationships with parents and family, and relationships with others). Comparative (t-tests) and correlational (Pearson's correlations and stepwise multiple regression analyses) statistical methods were performed. Results: The study subjects had a weaker self-esteem than that of a normative sample of females (N = 313) in all dimensions, except for the dimension of relationships with parents and family. Spelling ability was related to "Physical characteristics" (negative) and to "Relations with parents and family" (positive). Moreover, speed of reading was related to "Psychological health" (positive). Conclusions: The use of questionnaires that distinguish between different dimensions of self-esteem and a larger sample is recommended in future studies.


Using data obtained via natural quasi-experiments across four Super Bowl games (2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006), we investigate the impact of pod (commercial break) position on advertising effectiveness in multi-segment sport broadcasts. A series of multiple regression analyses was conducted by classifying pods into three categories based on their positions: quarter position, within-quarter position, and between-quarter position. The results support general primacy effects. The brands promoted during earlier quarters were significantly better recognized than those that appeared in later quarters in the quarter position comparisons. Similarly, the brands advertised during the first quarter were better recognized than those similarly situated in the fourth quarter. However, ad favorability was not related to commercial pod positions


Solar eclipses have both frightened and fascinated humankind for thousands of years. At first believed to be caused by angry gods punishing the people on Earth, we now know that a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and fully or partially covers the Sun. Ever since scientists were able to predict the next solar eclipse, people at least the less superstitious ones wanted to go there and see it for themselves. This book, published in 1899, was written for potential spectators of the total eclipse of the Sun on May 28, 1900. It deals with the science behind solar eclipses and their prediction, and lists a number of known historic eclipses from antiquity to the 19th century. Also included are eclipses mentioned in books, strange customs surrounding the eclipses, and how best to watch one.


Aim. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between selected demographic features of type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients and glycemia control expressed as the percentage of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in the period of publishing the first diabetes treatment guidelines for general practitioners (GPs). Material and method. Medical records of 209 patients with type 2 diabetes (84 men and 125 women) aged from 22 to 87 years (mean age 65.8 years) from two general practitioners' (GPs) practices in 2009 and 2010 were retrospectively assessed. Analysis of HbA1c was performed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Results. In regard to 2010 significantly higher mean percentage of HbA1c was found: in men compared to women (7.9±1.9% vs 7.1±1.1%); in patients <70 years of age compared to ≥70 years of age (7.7±1.8% vs 7.0±0.9%); in the population <70 years of age in men compared to women (8.2±2.0% vs 7.2±1.3%) and in the group of men <70 years of age compared with ≥70 years of age (8.2±2.0% vs 7.0±1.1%). Among the 66 patients analyzed in both years, lower mean percentage of HbA1c was demonstrated in the group <70 years of age in 2009 compared to 2010 (7.3 ± 1.1% vs 7.8 ± 1.5%). By contrast, regarding 2010 patients <70 years of age had a higher HbA1c than those ≥70 years of age (7.8 ± 1.5% vs 7.1 ± 0.9%). Discussion and conclusions. Demographic features of patients with type 2 diabetes treated in primary care are associated with glycemia control. GPs should take into consideration patients' demographic characteristics, especially being a younger men, when planning treatment of type 2 diabetes. MEDtube Science Dec, 2015; Vol.III (4) 12 science


Infant exposure to the microbial and allergenic content of indoor floor dust has been shown to play a significant role in both the development of, and protection against, allergies and asthma later in life. Resuspension of floor dust during infant locomotion induces a vertical transport of particles to the breathing zone, leading to inhalation exposure to a concentrated cloud of coarse (> 1μm) and fine (≤ 1μm) particles. Resuspension, and subsequent exposure, during periods of active infant locomotion is likely influenced by gait parameters. This dependence has been little explored to date and may play a significant role in floor dust resuspension and exposure associated with forms of locomotion specific to infants. This study explores associations between infant locomotion dynamics and floor dust resuspension and exposure in the indoor environment. Infant gait parameters for walking and physiological characteristics expected to influence dust resuspension and exposure were identified, including: contact frequency (steps min-1), contact area per step (m2), locomotion speed (m s-1), breathing zone height (cm), and time-resolved locomotion profiles. Gait parameter datasets for standard gait experiments were collected for infants in three age groups: 12, 15, and 19 months-old (m/o). The gait parameters were integrated with an indoor dust resuspension model through a Monte Carlo framework to predict how age-dependent variations in locomotion affect the resuspension mass emission rate (mg h-1) for five particle size fractions from 0.3 to 10 μm. Eddy diffusivity coefficients (m2 s-1) were estimated for each age group and used in a particle transport model to determine the vertical particle concentration profile above the floor.Probability density functions of contact frequency, contact area, locomotion speed, breathing zone height, and size-resolved resuspension mass emission rates were determined for infants in each group. Infant standard gait contact frequencies were generally in the range of 100 to 300 steps min-1 and increased with age, with median values of 186 steps min-1 for 12 m/o, 207 steps min-1 for 15 m/o, and 246.2 steps min-1 for 19 m/o infants. Similarly, locomotion speed increased with age, from 67.3 cm s-1 at 12 m/o to 118.83 cm s-1 at 19 m/o, as did the breathing zone height, which varied between 60 and 85 cm. Resuspension mass emission rates increased with both infant age and particle size. A 19 m/o infant will resuspend comparably more particles from the same indoor settled dust deposit compared to a 15 m/o or 12 m/o infant. Age-dependent variations in the resuspension mass emission rate and eddy diffusivity coefficient drove changes in the vertical particle concentration profile within the resuspended particle cloud. For all particle size fractions, there is an average of a 6% increase in the resuspended particle concentration at a height of 1 m from the floor for a 19 m/o compared to a 12 m/o infant. Time-resolved locomotion profiles were obtained for infants in natural gait during free play establish the transient nature of walking-induced particle resuspension and associated exposures for infants, with variable periods of active locomotion, no motion, and impulsive falls. This study demonstrates that floor dust resuspension and exposure can be influenced by the nature of infant locomotion patterns, which vary with age and are distinctly different from those for adults.


EU agencies have become key actors in the operationalization of the EU regime on public access to documents. A tension between confidentiality and transparency has become particularly evident in the framework of regulatory procedures concerning chemical substances, food, and medicinal products. Applicants must provide EU agencies with commercially sensitive information to trigger the scientific and technical evaluation needed for marketing authorization or approval. We analyse three EU agencies: European Chemicals Agency, European Food Safety Agency, and European Medicines Agency. They hold information that is both commercially sensitive and highly relevant for EU regulators and the public at large. Using decisions of the EU courts and the European Ombudsman, this article shows how a new "ownership" paradigm seems to have evolved, in conflict with EU public access legislation. New rulings on the Aarhus regime suggest that more information should in the future become disclosable, putting the agencies under increased pressure by companies trying to protect industry know-how. EU agencies are constantly arbitrating between conflicting public interests. As the exercise of political discretion is exactly what EU agencies are not expected to do, the situation calls for legislative intervention.


Recent IT attacks demonstrated how vulnerable consumers andenterprises are when adopting commercial and widely deployed operating systems, software applications and solutions. Diversity in software applications is fundamental to increase chances of survivability to faults and attacks. Current approaches to diversity are mainly based on the development of multiple versions of the same software, their parallel execution and the usage of voting mechanisms. Because of the high cost, they are used mainly for very critical and special cases. We introduce and discuss an alternative method to ensure diversity for common, widespread software applications without requiring additional computational resources. This method takes advantage of the componentisation of modern software solutions and enforces diversity at the installation time, by a random selection and deployment of critical software components. Randomisation criteria are adaptable to feedback gathered from software installations and affect software components' lifecycle. We describe a few encouraging results obtained from simulations.


[1] We present an analysis of ionospheric convection data derived from velocity measurements made by the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN). Our analysis uses an established technique for combining the network data to produce maps of large-scale convection by fitting a spherical harmonic expansion of the ionospheric electric potential to the radar measurements. We discuss how the basis functions of the spherical harmonic expansion describe different characteristic elements of the ionospheric convection pattern and show how their associated coefficients can be used to quantify the morphology of the convection, much like the total transpolar voltage is used to quantify its strength, in relation to upstream interplanetary magnetic field conditions and associated magnetospheric activity. We find that /3 of the voltage associated with the typical convection pattern is described by a simple twin vortex basis function. The magnitude of the twin vortex is strongly dependent on IMF BZ and the degree of its (typically westward) rotation is weakly dependent on IMF BY. The remaining /3 of the total voltage is associated with deviations from the basic twin vortex pattern, introduced by the addition of other basis functions, such as IMF BY associated dusk-dawn asymmetries, nightside convection features associated with tail activity, and "reverse" high-latitude convection cells associated with intervals of IMF BZ > 0.


Here we report on microfossil analysis of human dental calculus from Lapita (3000–2600 yr BP) and post-Lapita (2300–2000 yr BP) burials from Vao and Uripiv, Vanuatu. Phytoliths of introduced Musa and indigenous Heliconia in the calculus suggest the use of these taxa as food wrappings. Phytoliths and most other material in the calculus, namely sponge spicules, calcium oxalate crystals, xylem and charcoal, are unequivocal identifications. Another type of material, comprising degraded objects with a general morphology suggesting starch grains, is uncertain, however, as the unequivocal starch indicator, the Maltese cross, was not observed. We used a new method for calculus analysis, Fourier Transform InfraRed spectroscopy (FTIR), comparing the suspected starch with modern reference starch of prehistoric Pacific crops. Although the ancient FTIR analysis was limited to a small number of suspected starch grains, the results provide another line of evidence for starch. The calculus data are consistent with previous microfossil studies of Lapita deposits at the sites, and demonstrate the efficacy of this technique in contributing to the definition of the history of plant use and diet of early Pacific Island populations.


Large nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer inputs are used in many crop systems. Identifying genetic loci controlling nutrient accumulation may be useful in crop breeding strategies to increase fertilizer use efficiency and reduce financial and environmental costs. Here, variation in leaf nitrate concentration across a diversity population of 383 genotypes of Brassica napus was characterized. Genetic loci controlling variation in leaf nitrate, phosphorus and potassium concentration were then identified through Associative Transcriptomics using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and gene expression markers (GEMs). Leaf nitrate concentration varied over 8-fold across the diversity population. A total of 455 SNP markers were associated with leaf nitrate concentration after false-discovery-rate (FDR) correction. In linkage disequilibrium of highly associated markers are a number of known nitrate transporters and sensors, including a gene thought to mediate expression of the major nitrate transporter NRT1.1. Several genes influencing root and root-hair development co-localize with chromosomal regions associated with leaf P concentration. Orthologs of three ABC-transporters involved in suberin synthesis in roots also co-localize with association peaks for both leaf nitrate and phosphorus. Allelic variation at nearby, highly associated SNPs confers large variation in leaf nitrate and phosphorus concentration. A total of five GEMs associated with leaf K concentration after FDR correction including a GEM that corresponds to an auxin-response family protein. Candidate loci, genes and favorable alleles identified here may prove useful in marker-assisted selection strategies to improve fertilizer use efficiency in B. napus.


Adverse environmental experiences during early life identified as potential concerns for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 1% prevalence among populations. Maternal separation (MS) is an animal model that is widely used to study long-term behavioral abnormality. To date, a great deal of studies is focused on the potential therapeutic role of environmental enrichment (EE) for the early life stress consequences inducing anxiety, depression and learning deficits. However, the influence of sex on the effect of environmental enrichment for the autistic-like behaviors induced by maternal separation has not been studied. The focus of the current study is to investigate the therapeutic effect of environmental enrichment on the behavioral deficits related to ASD in female Wistar rats. Pups were separated from the mothers for 3 hours daily from PND1 to PND14. After weaning time (PND21), the rats were subjected to environmental enrichment until behavioral tests day. On PND42-PND50 autism-related behaviors such as social interaction, stereotype behaviors, anxiety behavior, and locomotion were tested. The results showed that EE reduced stereotype behaviors in maternal separation rat model of autism but increased anxiety behavior (p<0.05). Social behavior and locomotion decreased by maternal separation (p<0.05) but EE had no significant effect on these behavioral abnormalities (p>0.05). Current study demonstrates that repetitive behaviors induced by maternal separation can be treated by EE but the anxiety exacerbation


Mobile IPv6 uses IPsec to protect signaling between the home agent and the mobile node. Mobile IPv6 base document defines the main requirements these nodes must follow. This document discusses these requirements in more depth, illustrates the used packet formats, describes suitable configuration procedures, and shows how implementations can process the packets in the right order.


The majority of studies on person recognition have examined the processing of static faces. The few studies which have examined person recognition from dynamic videos of the whole person (e.g. O'Toole et al., 2011) have done so within the same media - examining person recognition from videos after exposure to dynamic displays vs. person recognition from still images after exposure to still images alone. In this study we examined the contribution of previous exposure to motion information to whole person recognition from still images, where no dynamic information is available. To this end used a matching task in which we presented either videos of a person walking or multiple still images from the same videos and asked participants to recognize the identities shown from novel still images of either the full body, face or body alone. We found that after exposure to videos the body contributed to person recognition beyond the face; however when no dynamic information was available, person recognition from the full body was no better than person recognition from the face alone. Furthermore, we found that when less facial information was available in the videos, the body contributed more to person recognition. Finally, since person recognition from images of the body alone proved to be at chance in these experiments, we demonstrated that the inclusion of a non-informative head context alongside body only images improved person recognition, thereby suggesting that full body context is important for person recognition. Overall, these findings indicate that exposure to people in motion enhances person recognition from still images beyond person recognition based on the face alone. This suggests that body motion improves the representation of body form, thereby making the body more informative to person recognition even from still images. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


We estimate the equilibrium effects of a public school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries. The program was randomized at the village-level, allowing us to estimate its causal impact on the market. Four years after the start of the program, test scores were 0.2 sd higher in public schools. We find evidence of an education multiplier: test scores in private schools were also 0.2 sd higher in treated markets. Consistent with standard models of product differentiation, the education multiplier is greater for those private schools that faced a greater threat to their market power. Accounting for private sector responses increases the program's cost effectiveness by 85 percent and affects how a policymaker would target spending. Given that markets with several public and private schools are now pervasive in low- and middle-income countries, prudent policy requires us to account for private sector responses to public policy, both in their design and in their evaluation.


Written by the great Hasidic master Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in the late eighteenth century, the Tanya is considered to be one of the most extraordinary books of moral teachings ever written. A seminal document in the study of Kabbalah, the Tanya explores and solves the dilemmas of the human soul by arriving at the root causes of its struggles. Though it is a classic Jewish spiritual text, the Tanya and its present commentary take a broad and comprehensive approach that is not specific to Judaism nor tied to a particular personality type or time or point of view. Opening the Tanya is a groundbreaking book that offers a definitive introduction, explanation, and commentary upon the Tanya. As relevant today as it was when it was first written more than two hundred years ago, the Tanya helps us to see the many thousands of complexities, doubts, and drives within us as expressions of a single basic problem, the struggle between our Godly Soul and our Animal Soul.


Background and Objectives Radiofrequency (RF) neuroablation is a common therapy for alleviating chronic pain. Larger lesion volumes lead to higher chance of ablating small sensory nerves; therefore, bipolar-RF and cooled-RF are improved alternatives to conventional monopolar-RF. This work provides an ex vivo comparison of bipolar-RF to cooled-RF lesioning in the presence of bone structure using some conventional temperature and time programs and in conjunction with injection of a variety of clinically used substances. Methods Studies were performed using chicken muscle near a bone structure. Cooled-RF was applied using standard parameters at 60°C for 150 seconds and perpendicular to the bone. Bipolar-RF was applied using interelectrode distances (IEDs) of 5, 10, or 15 mm at 80°C for 90 or 150 seconds with the electrodes positioned either paralleled between the bone and muscle or perpendicular to the bone. The effect of injection of various fluids (sterile water, 0.9% saline, 7.3% saline, 2% lidocaine, 0.25% bupivacaine, lidocaine/methylprednisolone (Depo-Medrol), or lidocaine/betamethasone (Celestone) on lesion size was compared with no fluid injected in the muscle. Temperature profiles of lesioning were also obtained using an infrared camera. Results The volume of bipolar-RF lesions is dependent on IED, being more favorable at IED equals 10 mm. The injection of some fluids induces significant (P < 0.05) changes in bipolar-RF lesion volume, although the changes are dependent on IED. Cooled-RF induces larger lesions than bipolar-RF, with no changes in volume induced by injecting fluids. Conclusions Cooled-RF yields larger lesions than bipolar-RF under the conditions used in this study. The spherical shape of cooled-RF lesions provides larger volume coverage than lesions obtained with bipolar-RF at IED equals 5, 10, or 15 mm under similar electrode tip temperature and lesioning time.


With an increased penetration of renewable energy sources in South Africa, especially photovoltaic (PV) and wind farm generating plants, power quality is becoming more important for utilities. With that also the accuracy of the measurements involved. For independent power producers (IPPs), these measurements are used to prove compliance to the national grid codes. Inaccurate results could prove devastating for an IPP and the predicted revenue to be generated to recover capital expenditure. One of the many electro-magnetic compatibility factors to be considered in this process of proving compliance, is the harmonic emissions of these plants. Instrument transformers form a key part of the harmonic measuring circuit. It is therefore important to ensure that the frequency response of these instrument transformers and the errors involved are quantified, in order to reduce the uncertainty in measurements. This paper considers literature of studies conducted on both current transformers and voltage transformers in this field. These studies show that significant errors, both in amplitude and phase angle, are involved when using instrument transformers for harmonic measurements. However, no mention is made on how the measuring errors can be taken into account during the characterization of these transformers. This paper focused on the aspects to be considered when quantifying these errors in measurements. A conclusion is drawn as to the important aspects to consider when developing a method to characterize and compensate for measuring uncertainties when instrument transformers are used for harmonic measurements, especially in renewable energy plant applications.


Adaptive combinations of adaptive filters are an efficient approach to alleviate the different tradeoffs to which adaptive filters are subject. The basic idea is to mix the outputs of two adaptive filters with complementary capabilities, so that the combination is able to retain the best properties of each component. In previous works, we proposed to use a convex combination, applying weights lambda(n) and 1-lambda(n), with lambda(n) isin (0,1), to the filter components, where the mixing parameter lambda(n) was updated to minimize the overall square error using stochastic gradient descent rules. In this paper, we present a new adaptation scheme for lambda(n) based on the solution to a least-squares (LS) problem, where the mixing parameter is allowed to lie outside range [0,1]. Such affine combinations have recently been shown to provide additional gains. Unlike some previous proposals, the new LS combination scheme does not require any explicit knowledge about the component filters. The ability of the LS scheme to achieve optimal values of the mixing parameter is illustrated with several experiments in both stationary and tracking situations.


We report zircon ages and Hf isotopic compositions for the Nkandla Granite of the Ilangwe Granitoid/Gneiss Suite exposed to the southeast of Nkandla in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Ilangwe Granitoid/Gneiss Suite is intrusive into the Ilangwe Greenstone Belt along the southeastern margin of the Kaapvaal Craton. Zircons obtained from the Nkandla Granite yielded an upper intercept age of 3254 ± 8 Ma, interpreted to be the age of intrusion, with evidence of lead loss events at 3086 ± 17 Ma and in the Phanerozoic. The ~3.25 Ga age is consistent with late Palaeoarchaean ages obtained from similar granitoid units throughout the southeastern Kaapvaal Craton. The intrusive relationship with the adjacent Ilangwe Greenstone Belt provides a minimum age for the, as yet undated, greenstone succession. Initial hafnium isotopic compositions range from ɛHf = −2 to +7, indicating a role for both mantle input and crustal reworking.


Honey is traditionally consumed by the local Saudian population as a nutrient, as well as for the enhancement of fertility. The decline in male reproductive health and fertility in the last 30 years has been linked to environmental toxicants including octylphenol (OP). OP has been considered an endocrine disrupting substance causing reproductive dysfunction and increase in reactive oxygen species production in different organs including testis and honey has an antioxidant property. The aim of this study was to elucidate the protective effects of honey against reproductive toxicity induced by OP in male Sprague Dawley rats. Six experimental groups receiving a combination of OP (0.1 and 1.0 mg kg_1 b.wt., corresponding to 1/100 and 1/10 LD50) and/or honey (20 mg/kg body weight/day) for 4 weeks were divided as follows: no treatment (control); low dose OP alone (Group A); high dose OP alone (Group B); low dose OP plus honey (Group C); high dose OP plus honey (Group D); and honey alone (Group E). OP caused a significantly decreased the fertility index and weight of testes. It induced testicular lesions characterized by moderate to severe degenerative changes of seminiferous tubules and incomplete arrest of spermatogenesis. Administration of Honey either alone or combined with OP ameliorated these toxic effects. Similarly, histopathological results revealed that OP caused alterations in the testes. In conclusion, Honey reduced the histopathological stress toxicity induced by OP in the reproductive system of male Sprague Dawley rats. A great attention should be taken during field application of octylphenol to avoid its deleterious effects in farm animals and occupationally exposed humans.


Contractual helpdesk services, also known as call center outsourcing is a growing industry. Helpdesk solutions, which offer customer service to consumers who have an issue, problem or concern, are an integral part of many organizations wider service function. For smaller companies, outsourcing helpdesk services is becoming more and more popular given the technical expertise and high investment costs required to develop, implement and maintain the infrastructure needed to support these services. Contracting for helpdesk services helps to alleviate smaller companies from concerns with technical issues, retaining employees dedicated to continuous research on the value proposition of emerging products or services, and in some cases, the need for hiring additional staff. While the basic principles for negotiating an outsourcing contract apply, this paper explores the special considerations pertinent to contracting helpdesk services. These include determining an optimal solution by mapping business requirements to specific call center resource options, determining the optimal call routing structure given budgetary considerations and understanding technical problems associated with the call center environment and developing a satisficing plan to address problems should they occur. As the technologies, including telecommunications and call routing options, that form the basis of helpdesk services evolve, so does the importance of helpdesk services as they move from cost centers to profit generating ventures.


The plate boundary and major crustal blocks in southern California are imaged by a tomographic backprojection of the Pg first arrivals recorded by the Southern California Array. The method, formulated specifically for local earthquake arrival times, is a fast, iterative alternative to direct least-squares techniques. With it, we solve the combined problem of determining refractor velocity perturbations and source and station delays. Resolution and variance are found empirically by using synthetic examples. A map showing lateral velocity variations at a depth of approximately 10 km is presented. The results show a strong correlation with surface tectonic features. Clear velocity contrasts exist across the San Andreas, the San Jacinto, and the Garlock faults. The Mojave region has the slowest velocities while the Peninsula Ranges have the highest. The San Jacinto block has velocities intermediate between Mojave and Peninsula Range velocities, and also has early station delays. This may indicate that the San Jacinto block has overridden Mojave material on a shallow detachment surface. No velocity variations are found associated with the Transverse Ranges, which we interpret to mean that the surface batholithic rocks in this area do not extend to Pg depths.


Historically, Chile has been an economy dominated by mineral and agro-industrial products and subject to frequent external shocks particularly in copper prices. Since the 1980s, the authorities have developed various mechanisms to cope with these shocks and dampen their effects on the domestic business cycle. These mechanisms include a fiscal rule, an economic and social stabilization fund, a pension reserve fund, and a (informal) 'defence fund'. The first two sovereign wealth funds are regulated by a Fiscal Responsibility Law and complemented by a flexible exchange rate regime and an autonomous Central Bank. This paper recognizes that this macro framework has been associated (causality is another matter) with reasonably good macro outcomes. However, the paper highlights some trade-offs and questions not always recognized in evaluations of the Chilean case and cautions against a blind endorsement of macro rules as the cornerstone for good macro management. In general, this framework entails more discretion than often portrayed and includes: (i) frequent revisions in the methodology that affects the fiscal rule and the level of the structural balance by the authorities, thereby reducing its anchoring role on expectations and policy predictability; (ii) SWFs tend to have clear rules for accumulating resources at good times but no rules for using them at bad times; and (iii) a possible bias to overaccumulation of resources in SWFs without paying attention to the opportunity cost of overinvesting in stabilization funds at the cost of less resources being available for funding egalitarian social policy in a high-inequality country.


While people in poverty have long been included in social policy research the purpose has principally been to discover their experiences of poverty, with little attention paid to their own conceptualisations of poverty and social exclusion. This research used focus groups
and in-depth individual interviews to explore the discourses of poverty and social exclusion with people identified as experiencing poverty, although this was generally a label they rejected. Due to recruitment through Sure Start Children's centres the sample of respondents were predominantly mothers of working age, although a number of men and non-parents also took part. The study, therefore, is not a representative sample of all people who may be associated with poverty but is an in-depth examination of some. Respondents reproduced many mainstream poverty discourses, including scepticism of real
poverty existing in Britain and the othering of people who might be seen as 'poor'.
'Poverty' was formulated in extreme and 'absolute' terms and was perceived as occurring 'elsewhere': another neighbourhood, another country or historically. Dis-identification
with 'poverty' was therefore accomplished in a number of ways, from its 'absolute' conceptualisation through to strategies of distancing and the presentation of
socially positive subjectivities, such as 'good parent' and paid worker. In this way
participants dis-identified with the characteristics and the label of 'poverty' but without denying economic and material hardships. People's discursive power therefore resided in their ability to renegotiate the label of poverty as one that was inapplicable to them and to redefine their difficult economic position in terms of 'managing'. The active concept of
'managing' allowed respondents to feel in control of their resources, however modest, and by extension maintain control over their choices and their lives. Not managing equated
with failure and thus with 'poverty'. The fact that respondents described themselves as managing meant that by definition they were not in 'poverty' as they perceived it.
'Responsibility' was also a key concept to emerge, deployed by respondents to avoid social censure for their own economic circumstances whilst simultaneously reproving others for theirs. The research also found that the majority of respondents had not heard of 'social exclusion' and did not perceive of themselves as excluded. As such, it was a concept that had little resonance for people in the study. It is argued that the use of the word 'poverty' within a British context needs to be
rethought if it is to have relevance for people experiencing socio-economic marginalisation. Alternative constructions within a human rights framework, such as a minimum living standard, may achieve greater recognition with people currently defined as experiencing poverty and as such lead to tangible demands for change.


In this article we review an important report produced by the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods (the PCAST report).2 The PCAST report builds on an earlier report prepared by the National Research Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward published in 2009 (the NRC report).3 These reports are focused on the organisation, funding and practice of the forensic sciences in the US. In their deliberate and unflinching concern with probative value, particularly the validity and reliability of procedures used by forensic scientists and the way opinions are expressed in expert reports and testimony, both have application to England and Wales. Both reports speak directly to forensic scientists, law enforcement, lawyers and courts. Forensic scientists, advocates, judges and legislators must respond to these criticisms and recommendations if we hope to place the forensic sciences on firm scientific foundations.4


Hyperspectral LiDAR (HSL) is a novel tool in the field of active remote sensing, which has been widely used in many domains because of its advantageous ability of spectrum-gained. Especially in the precise monitoring of nitrogen in green plants, the HSL plays a dispensable role. The exiting HSL system used for nitrogen status monitoring has a multi-channel detector, which can improve the spectral resolution and receiving range, but maybe result in data redundancy, difficulty in system integration and high cost as well. Thus, it is necessary and urgent to pick out the nitrogen-sensitive feature wavelengths among the spectral range. The present study, aiming at solving this problem, assigns a feature weighting to each centre wavelength of HSL system by using matrix coefficient analysis and divergence threshold. The feature weighting is a criterion to amend the centre wavelength of the detector to accommodate different purpose, especially the estimation of leaf nitrogen content (LNC) in rice. By this way, the wavelengths high-correlated to the LNC can be ranked in a descending order, which are used to estimate rice LNC sequentially. In this paper, a HSL system which works based on a wide spectrum emission and a 32-channel detector is conducted to collect the reflectance spectra of rice leaf. These spectra collected by HSL cover a range of 538 nm – 910 nm with a resolution of 12 nm. These 32 wavelengths are strong absorbed by chlorophyll in green plant among this range. The relationship between the rice LNC and reflectance-based spectra is modeled using partial least squares (PLS) and support vector machines (SVMs) based on calibration and validation datasets respectively. The results indicate that I) wavelength selection method of HSL based on feature weighting is effective to choose the nitrogen-sensitive wavelengths, which can also be co-adapted with the hardware of HSL system friendly. II) The chosen wavelength has a high correlation with rice LNC which can be retrieved by using PLS and SVMs regression methods.


Abstract Four new species of Ribes L. (Grossulariaceae) are described from Peru, three from the Amotape–Huancabamba Zone and one from the eastern slopes of the Andes in central Peru. Ribes chachapoyense Weigend & Breitkopf, R. tumerec Weigend & Breitkopf, and R. huancabambense Weigend & Breitkopf from the Amotape–Huancabamba Zone represent close allies of Ecuadorian species and underscore both the floristic connections of this region to Ecuador and its high levels of floristic distinctness and endemism. With these three new species, the species total for the Peruvian part of the Amotape–Huancabamba Zone now reaches 10, nearly half the species present in Peru. Ribes frankei Weigend & Breitkopf is possibly the most aberrant species of Ribes—it is a small, cushion-forming dwarf-shrub to 30 cm tall, with erect inflorescences that are virtually immersed in the leafy cushions. It is the smallest species of Ribes known so far and has been collected on vertical rock faces in the high Andes of Pasco in central Peru. The species total for Peruvian Ribes now reaches 23, which is nearly twice the number of species known for any other individual South American country, indicating that Peru, and especially the Amotape–Huancabamba Zone, represents the center of diversity of the genus in South America. Three of the newly described species are already at the brink of extinction due to habitat destruction (overgrazing, burning, mining, forest clearing: R. tumerec, R. frankei, R. huancabambense) and have to be considered as Critically Endangered. The fourth species, R. chachapoyense, has a slightly wider range and can be considered as only Endangered according to IUCN Red List criteria.


The Upper Cambrian Mt. Simon Formation (0-65 m thick) is a basal quartz arenite exposed in westcentral Wisconsin. A detailed field investigation of the physical and biogenic sedimentary structures of the Mt. Simon has led to the recognition of three distinct lithofacies. The lower one unconformably overlies Precambrian basement rocks. It consists of medium- to very large-scale sets of tabular and trough cross-bedded, medium- to very coarse-grained sandstone and pebbly sandstone with minor intercalated horizontal beds of very fine- to medium-grained sandstone, siltstone, and shale. Sparse examples of Skolithos and Arenicolites are present. This facies consists of a very thin sequence of possible braided-fluvial and marine foreshore deposits, overlain by probable marine shoreface and tidal channel deposits. Much of the facies seems to represent shallow subtidal deposition in a relatively high-energy regime. The middle lithofacies consists of two distinctly different subfacies, which probably were deposited in a low tidal flat setting. The higher-energy subfacies consists of small- to medium-scale sets of tabular and trough crossbedded, fine- to coarse-grained sandstones containing distinct zones dominated by Skolithos and Arenicolites . This subfacies probably represents deposition in meandering tidal channels. The lower-energy subfacies consists of thinbedded, horizontally-laminated and ripple cross-laminated, very fine- to medium-grained sandstone, siltstone, and shale, with common specimens of Cruziana, Rusophycus, and Planolites . This subfacies probably represents deposition on lower-energy tidal flats adjacent to the tidal channels. The upper lithofacies consists predominantly of structureless, densely bioturbated, very fine- to coarse-grained sandstone containing abundant specimens of Skolithos . The upper few meters of the facies consists of small- to medium-scale sets of trough cross-bedded, very fine- to coarse-grained sandstone with layers of disarticulated valves of the brachiopod Obolus . The upper facies probably represents deposition on tidal flats, perhaps in a midtidal flat setting, characterized by slower sedimentation rates, a correspondingly higher degree of bioturbation, persistent reworking of shelled macrobenthos, and periodic subaerial exposure. The Mt. Simon Formation is interpreted as a largely progradational (regressive), shoaling- and fining-upward tidal sequence. A marine interpretation is supported by the widespread occurrence of marine trace fossils within this unit. Evidence for a tidal origin is seen in the presence of unimodal cross-strata associated with reactivation surfaces, compound cross-strata, numerous scour and truncation surfaces lined with intraformational conglomerates, common clay drape laminae separating sets of cross-strata, interference and flat-topped ripple marks, and desiccation cracks. Sedimentation continued without apparent interruption as the overlying Eau Claire Formation was deposited. also under tidal influence. Recent reinterpretations of other basal Cambrian cratonic quartz arenites, together with this new interpretation for the Mt. Simon Formation, suggest that the long-held concept of basal transgressive sandstones deposited as blankets across the craton may be too simplistic, for deposition in braided-fluvial, marginal marine (tidal flat-tidal channel), and marine foreshore and shoreface environments seems indicated.


A class of metamaterials designed with low permittivity provides a platform for developing optical devices with unconventional properties. In most wave phenomena, the interplay between the spatial and temporal features of a wave is influenced by the medium in which the wave propagates. For example, the wavelength λ (a spatial feature) and the frequency f (a temporal feature) of a propagating signal are related via the phase velocity v of the wave in the medium as v = fλ. For electromagnetic waves such as radio, microwave, and optical waves, the phase velocity is determined by the medium's electromagnetic parameters of permittivity ε and permeability µ, which is then given as √εμ. When a wave interacts with a structure embedded in a host medium, both these temporal and spatial features play key roles in determining the scattering response of the structure. The recent development of a class of metamaterials in which the electric (ε) and magnetic (µ) properties can be tuned by design is providing a platform to engineer optical devices with unconventional properties.


Abstract The need to capture wild animals for conservation, research, and management is well justified, but long-term effects of capture and handling remain unclear. We analyzed standard types of data collected from 127 grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) captured 239 times in western Alberta, Canada, 1999–2005, and 213 American black bears (U. americanus) captured 363 times in southwestern North Carolina, 1981–2002, to determine if we could detect long-term effects of capture and handling, that is, effects persisting ≥1 month. We measured blood serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK), and myoglobin to assess muscle injury in association with different methods of capture. Serum concentrations of AST and CK were above normal in a higher proportion of captures by leghold snare (64% of 119 grizzly bear captures and 66% of 165 black bear captures) than capture by helicopter darting (18% of 87 grizzly bear captures) or by barrel trap (14% of 7 grizzly bear captures and 29% of 7 black bear captures). Extreme AST values (>5 times upper reference limit) in 7 (6%) grizzly bears and 29 (18%) black bears captured by leghold snare were consistent with the occurrence of exertional (capture) myopathy. We calculated daily movement rates for 91 radiocollared grizzly bears and 128 radiocollared black bears to determine if our activities affected their mobility during a 100-day period after capture. In both species, movement rates decreased below mean normal rate immediately after capture (grizzly bears: X̄ = 57% of normal, 95% confidence interval = 45–74%; black bears: 77%, 64–88%) and then returned to normal in 3–6 weeks (grizzly bears: 28 days, 20–37 days; black bears: 36 days, 19–53 days). We examined the effect of repeated captures on age-related changes in body condition of 127 grizzly bears and 207 black bears and found in both species that age-specific body condition of bears captured ≥2 times (42 grizzly bears and 98 black bears) tended to be poorer than that of bears captured once only (85 grizzly bears and 109 black bears), with the magnitude of effect directly proportional to number of times captured and the effect more evident with age. Importantly, the condition of bears did not affect their probability of capture or recapture. These findings challenge persons engaged in wildlife capture to examine their capture procedures and research results carefully. Significant capture-related effects may go undetected, providing a false sense of the welfare of released animals. Further, failure to recognize and account for long-term effects of capture and handling on research results can potentially lead to erroneous interpretations.


The development and interannual variability of sublitoral soft bottom communities of the German Bight has been studied continuously at four representative permanent stations as well as by occasional large scale mappings during the last 35 years.The benthic communities show a large interannual variability as well as some changes on roughly decadal time scale. In accordance with large-scale system changes documented for the North Sea, also the composition of benthic communities changed since the late 1960ies.To estimate possible climatic and anthropogenic influences, the development of the benthic communities was correlated with various environmental data and compared to the development of anthropogenic factors.The main factors influencing the development of the benthic communities besides biological interactions are the climate, food availability (eutrophication) and the disturbance regime. The most common disturbances are sediment movements during strong storms or by bottom trawling gears; extremely cold winters and occasionally also hypoxia add important large-scale disturbing influences.Only these long-term series provide the background of natural variation against which the effects of human inferences like e.g. fisheries, offshore wind parks or sand extractions can be properly evaluated.


[Extract] The Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research (ACTFR), James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, was engaged by the Department of Natural Resources to undertake a flora and fauna survey of two parcels of land, the Inkerman and Molongle blocks, associated with the potential future development of the Elliott Main Channel. The study area lie within the Brigalow Belt bioregion, a large and complex area that encompasses much of the 500-750mm per annum rainfall country from the Queensland-New South Wales border to Townsville.

The survey of the Inkerman and Molongle blocks was required, via field survey and literature review, to: identify common and significant flora and fauna species, habitat and communities; identify core and non-core conservation areas including significant communities, wildlife corridors or other areas of value requiring protection or careful management; and provide recommendations for the future sustainable management of the study areas.

The vegetation survey identified a rare grass species, (POACEAE Dichanthium setosum) in the understorey of vegetation type Melaleuca spp., Corymbia tessellarisand vine thicket species on creek banks (Inkerman community description 7 and Molongle 5a community description 5). In addition, four plant species collected were new records for the North Kennedy region: Malvaceae Abelmoschus moschatus; Marsileaceae Marsilea drummondii; Poaceae Sporobolus disjunctus; and Combretaceae Terminalia platyphylla.

A total of 15 broad vegetation types were recorded from the study areas: in Molongle 5a, six vegetation types, five of which were of bioregional conservation status and four of provincial (moderate to high) conservation significance; Molongle 5b, eight vegetation types, three of which were of bioregional conservation status and seven of provincial (moderateto very high) conservation significance; and in Inkerman, eleven vegetation types, six of which were of bioregional conservation status and four of provincial conservation significnace.

 The vertebrate fauna survey recorded a total of 138 vertebrate fauna species, comprising of 24 mammal species, 101 bird species, 6 amphibian species and 7 reptile species were recorded during the field survey. In addition, 41 specimens (comprising 14 mammals, 16 birds, 1 amphibians, 10 reptiles) were identified for the areas from the Queensland Museum database and a total of 392 species (292 birds, 56 mammals, 34 reptiles and 10 amphibians) for the Lower Burdekin Region from literature sources.

From the field survey and a review of secondary sources 13 species of conservation significance were identified for the Inkerman and Molongle areas: Northern Quoll Dasyurus hallucatus; Squirrel Glider Petaurus norfolcensis; Greater Glider Petauroides volans; Spectacled hare-wallaby Lagorchestes conspicillatus; Koala Phascolarctus cinereus; Bare-rumped Sheath-tailed BatSaccolaimus saccolaimus; Red Goshawk Erythrotriorchis radiatus; Square-tailed Kite Lophoictinia isura; Black-chinned Honeyeater Melithreptus gularis; Black-throated Finch Poephila cincta cincta; Ground Cuckoo-shrike Coracina maxima; Squatter Pigeon (southern subspecies) Geophaps scripta scripta; and Rufous Owl (eastern subsp.) Ninox rufa queenslandica.

The report recommends that any future development in these areas associated with the extension of the Elliott Main Channel should incorporate a reserve systems that:

•protects all 'endangered' regional ecosystems and a proportion of those that are 'of concern' that maximises their representation; •represents the diversity of regional ecosystems and vegetation types in the area and should also include portions of those regional ecosystems of 'no concern at present' and examples of all significant habitat types; that is connected to larger areas of more intact vegetation and habitat outside the development blocks; •has at least one continuous link from coastal to upland areas to act as a wildlife corridor; •is of a viable size that will again prevent its susceptibility to degradation via stochastic events and support in itself a stable fauna assemblage.

In addition, the following recommendations were made in regards to the sustainable management of the study area for nature conservation:

•develop and implement clear guidelines for the management and monitoring of these reserves such a new or pre-existing Environmental Management Plan; •consider the prospect of rehabilitation of degraded sites within the study area, particularly if some sites of conservation significance will be degraded or disturbed as a consequence of the Elliott Main Channel extension; •develop complementary community education programs to educate of local land-owners and community members as to the values and importance of conservation reserves in their local area; and •develop of long-term monitoring programs examining the viability and functioning of flora and fauna communities, together with an assessment of the effectiveness of environmental management guidelines, within any reserve systems.


The extent to which light-intensity physical activity contributes to health in older adults is not well known. The authors examined associations between physical activity across the intensity spectrum (sedentary to vigorous) and health and well-being variables in older adults. Two 7-day assessments of accelerometry from 2005 to 2007 were collected 6 months apart in the observational Senior Neighborhood Quality of Life Study of adults aged >65 years in Baltimore, Maryland, and Seattle, Washington. Self-reported health and psychosocial variables (e.g., lower-extremity function, body weight, rated stress) were also collected. Physical activity based on existing accelerometer thresholds for moderate/vigorous, high-light, low-light, and sedentary categories were examined as correlates of physical health and psychosocial well-being in mixed-effects regression models. Participants (N = 862) were 75.4 (standard deviation, 6.8) years of age, 56% female, 71% white, and 58% overweight/obese. After adjustment for study covariates and time spent in moderate/vigorous physical activity and sedentary behavior, low-light and high-light physical activity were positively related to physical health (all P < 0.0001) and well-being (all P < 0.001). Additionally, replacing 30 minutes/day of sedentary time with equal amounts of low-light or high-light physical activity was associated with better physical health (all P < 0.0001). Objectively measured light-intensity physical activity is associated with physical health and well-being variables in older adults.


It is commonly asserted that innovation markets suffer from excessive intellectual property protections, which in turn stifle output. But empirical inquiries can neither confirm nor deny this assertion. Under the "agnostic" assumption that we cannot assess directly whether intellectual-property coverage is excessive, an alternative query is proposed: can the market assess if any "propertization outcome" is excessive and then undertake actions to yield a socially preferable outcome? Grounded in the "bottom up" methodology of new institutional economics, this process-based approach takes the view that innovator populations make rent-seeking investments that continuously "select" among a range of "innovation regimes" that trade off securing innovation gains (which tends to demand more property) against reducing transaction costs and associated innovation losses (which tends to demand less). If we can identify the conditions under which privately-interested investments in lobbying, enforcement, and transactional arrangements are likely to yield socially-interested propertization outcomes, then the underlying datum at issue - whether there is "too much" intellectual property - can be determined indirectly at some reasonable degree of approximation. This approach identifies a "property trap" effect where, under high coordination-cost conditions, the regime selection mechanism is prone to fail: litigation risk and associated transaction-cost burdens drive innovators to move "too fast" to implement a state-provided property regime. Conversely, under low coordination-cost conditions, the regime selection mechanism is prone to succeed: adversely-affected entities that rely substantially on outside sources for innovation inputs have incentives to undertake actions that weaken property-rights coverage, including constrained enforcement, forming cooperative arrangements, or even forfeiting intellectual-property assets to the public domain. Counterintuitively, these relationships imply that large firms that rely substantially on outside sources for innovation inputs tend to have the strongest incentives and capacities to take actions that correct overpropertization outcomes. Preliminary evidence is drawn from the semiconductor, financial-services and information-technology industries.


Cross-nationally, having a working mother during childhood is associated with more egalitarian attitudes among both adult men and women. However, no previous studies have explored this relationship in the Middle East and North Africa, where women's employment rates have remained persistently low. In this paper, we examine the impact of having a working mother during childhood on Egyptian young people's attitudes towards women's roles in the public sphere, gender roles in the household, and ideals around number of children and women's age at marriage that are related to gender roles. In order to address the potential endogeneity of mother's work and attitudes formation, we use an instrumental variable approach with panel data from the Survey of Young People in Egypt 2009 and 2014 waves. Mother's employment is instrumented using the governorate-level female labor force participation rate and percentage of women working in the public sector in 2009. We find that having a working mother during childhood led to significantly more egalitarian attitudes towards women's roles in the public sphere among both young men and women. However, there was no effect on young people's attitudes towards gender roles in the household. Having a working mother led to lower ideal number of children among sons, but did not have any effect on views of the ideal age of marriage for women among children of either gender. In the Egyptian context, having a working mother during childhood thus appears to led to more egalitarian attitudes around women's roles outside the household but not necessarily their roles inside the household. This suggests that attitudes around gender roles in the household may be more strongly socially conditioned and thus less affected by individual experience, and is also consistent with the finding from labor market research that women continue to bear the brunt of housework and childcare in Egypt even when they are employed. Thus, while having an employed mother does have some liberalizing effect on individual attitudes, broader change in attitudes around gender roles both inside and outside the home may be needed in order to foster increased female labor force participation.


OBJECTIVE There has been conflicting evidence regarding the potential role of vitamin D in glucose homeostasis. This study was designed to investigate the effect of high-dose vitamin D3 treatment on β-cell function, insulin sensitivity, and glucose tolerance in subjects with prediabetes or diet-treated type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects (n = 44) were randomized to 30,000 IU vitamin D3 once weekly or placebo for 8 weeks. Hyperglycemic clamp assessed first-phase (0–12 min) and second-phase (12–120 min) insulin response, insulin sensitivity, and disposition index (DI). An oral glucose tolerance test assessed glucose tolerance and glycosylated hemoglobin assessed glycemic control. RESULTS A total of 21 (vitamin D) and 22 (placebo) subjects completed the study, respectively. Season-adjusted 25-OH-vitamin D [25(OH)D] levels were doubled in the active treated group (43–82 nmol/L). No effect of vitamin D treatment, compared with placebo, was seen on first-phase or second-phase insulin secretion. There were no group differences in insulin sensitivity, DI, or any measures of glycemic control. No hypercalcemia or other adverse effects of vitamin D treatment were seen compared with placebo. Subgroup analyses of those with the lowest basal and greatest increase in 25(OH)D levels did not change these results. CONCLUSIONS This study gives no support for any substantial effect of high-dose vitamin D treatment for 8 weeks in prediabetes or diet-treated type 2 diabetes on β-cell function, insulin sensitivity, or glycemic control.


This research studies the use of predetermined experimental plans in a live setting with a finite implementation horizon. In this context, we seek to determine the optimal experimental budget in different environments using a Bayesian framework. We derive theoretical results on the optimal allocation of resources to treatments with the objective of minimizing cumulative regret, a metric commonly used in online statistical learning. Our base case studies a setting with two treatments assuming Gaussian priors for the treatment means and noise distributions. We extend our study through analytical and semi-analytical techniques which explore worst-case bounds, the presence of unequal prior distributions, and the generalization to k treatments. We determine theoretical limits for the experimental budget across all possible scenarios. The optimal level of experimentation that is recommended by this study varies extensively and depends on the experimental environment as well as the number of available units. This highlights the importance of such an approach which incorporates these factors to determine the budget.


Pancreas stem cells are a potential source of insulin-producing β cells for the therapy of diabetes. In adult tissues the 'side population' (SP) of cells that effluxes the DNA binding dye Hoechst 33342 through ATP-binding cassette transporters has stem cell properties. We hypothesised therefore that the SP would expand in response to β cell injury and give rise to functional β cells. SP cells were flow sorted from dissociated pancreas cells of adult mice, analysed for phenotype and cultured with growth promoting and differentiation factors before analysis for hormone expression and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. SP cell number and colony forming potential (CFP) increased significantly in models of type diabetes, and after partial pancreatectomy, in the absence of hyperglycaemia. SP cells, ∼1% of total pancreas cells at 1 week of age, were enriched >10-fold for CFP compared to non-SP cells. Freshly isolated SP cells contained no insulin protein or RNA but expressed the homeobox transcription factor Pdx1 required for pancreas development and β cell function. Pdx1, along with surface expression of CD326 (Ep-Cam), was a marker of the colony forming and proliferation potential of SP cells. In serum-free medium with defined factors, SP cells proliferated and differentiated into islet hormone-expressing cells that secreted insulin in response to glucose. Insulin expression was maintained when tissue was transplanted within vascularised chambers into diabetic mice. SP cells in the adult pancreas expand in response to β cell injury and are a source of β cell progenitors with potential for the treatment of diabetes.


Abstract. We present the time mean heat budgets of the tropical upper troposphere (UT) and lower stratosphere (LS) as simulated by five reanalysis models: the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), European Reanalysis (ERA-Interim), Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis and Japan Meteorological Agency Climate Data Assimilation System (JRA-25/JCDAS), and National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) Reanalysis 1. The simulated diabatic heat budget in the tropical UTLS differs significantly from model to model, with substantial implications for representations of transport and mixing. Large differences are apparent both in the net heat budget and in all comparable individual components, including latent heating, heating due to radiative transfer, and heating due to parameterised vertical mixing. We describe and discuss the most pronounced differences. Discrepancies in latent heating reflect continuing difficulties in representing moist convection in models. Although these discrepancies may be expected, their magnitude is still disturbing. We pay particular attention to discrepancies in radiative heating (which may be surprising given the strength of observational constraints on temperature and tropospheric water vapour) and discrepancies in heating due to turbulent mixing (which have received comparatively little attention). The largest differences in radiative heating in the tropical UTLS are attributable to differences in cloud radiative heating, but important systematic differences are present even in the absence of clouds. Local maxima in heating and cooling due to parameterised turbulent mixing occur in the vicinity of the tropical tropopause.


This article discussed effective leadership from various theories. The dominant ideas on leadership initially begin with the traits theory, followed by behavior theory, situational theory and integrative theory. In analyzing these theories, one key theme emerged that contribute to effective leadership. It is the participative leadership style that was used in various forms such as the democratic, people-oriented and team leadership. Studies in Malaysia indicated that participative leadership is the key to a success of future public leadership in Malaysia. Ming-Yi Wu conducted comparative studies of participative leadership and concluded that it is culturally bound. There are differences between particpative leadership practiced in Taiwan, Japan and the United States. Furthermore, the researcher noted that most leadership studies are western biased, and thus there is a need to conduct studies in other cultures. This study focused on participative leadership among community leaders in Malaysia. It is based on a qualitative study, involving the in-depth interviews of eight Chairmen of Neighborhood Associations in Malaysia. The interview was recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded and analyzed into themes. One of the emerging themes from the findings relate to participative leadership. In conducting various leadership roles in the community, the leaders have to use the participative leadership approach in order to be more effective. However, the participation levels that the leaders can involve others in community efforts vary with situations.


The paper focuses on the potential benefits of fair value accounting (FVA) in the public sector and the shift towards the entity theory of consolidation supported by international accounting standards. The analysis of the Italian cases shows neither adjustments of the assets to their fair value, nor any recognition of intangibles other than goodwill in consolidated financial statement (CFS), maintaining the configuration of a municipal corporate group based on historical costs. These findings suggest a lack of focus on FVA by local governments (LGs), which is in contrast with international accounting standards. Using a combination of sources (such as annual reports and interviews), part of this paper is based on multiple-case studies of Italian LGs on the voluntary adoption of CFS.


Abstract:Zimbabwe's July 2018 general election came nine months after unprecedented action by the military—a coup in all but name—led to the resignation of longtime dictator Robert Mugabe. The administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former vice-president who took power following the coup, likely saw the election as a means of securing legitimacy and easing Zimbabwe's international isolation. Yet while the official results proclaimed a victory for Mnangagwa and his ruling ZANU-PF, the democratic legitimation they sought remains elusive. International observers criticized the lack of a level playing field, and opposition candidate Nelson Chamisa filed an unsuccessful court challenge. Moreover, the fatal shootings of at least six protesters after the balloting drew broad condemnation. Despite Mugabe's removal, the competitive authoritarian system that he established and its current militarized incarnation continue to shape Zimbabwe's politics.