Zyxin is a versatile component of focal adhesions in eukaryotic cells. Here we describe a novel binding partner of zyxin, which we have named LIM-nebulette. LIM-nebulette is an alternative splice variant of the sarcomeric protein nebulette, which, in contrast to nebulette, is expressed in non-muscle cells. It displays a modular structure with an N-terminal LIM domain, three nebulin-like repeats, and a C-terminal SH3 domain and shows high similarity to another cytoskeletal protein, Lasp-1 (LIM and SH3 protein-1). Co-precipitation studies and results obtained with the two-hybrid system demonstrate that LIM-nebulette and Lasp-1 interact specifically with zyxin. Moreover, the SH3 domain from LIM-nebulette is both necessary and sufficient for zyxin binding. The SH3 domains from Lasp-1 and nebulin can also interact with zyxin, but the SH3 domains from more distantly related proteins such as vinexin and sorting nexin 9 do not. On the other hand, the binding site in zyxin is situated at the extreme N terminus as shown by site-directed mutagenesis. LIM-nebulette and Lasp-1 use the same linear binding motif. This motif shows some similarity to a class II binding site but does not contain the classical PXXP sequence. LIM-nebulette reveals a subcellular distribution at focal adhesions similar to Lasp-1. Thus, LIM-nebulette, Lasp-1, and zyxin may play an important role in the organization of focal adhesions.


The successful implementation of any agricultural and food security policy hinges upon the effectiveness of an existing system used to formulate, implement and monitor policies. A policy that is inclusive in its formulation and established through the use of reliable evidence, and effectively implemented and monitored, is likely to promote sector transformation. In recognition of the importance of the quality of the policy formulation processes and the supporting institutional architecture, the Tanzania ASPIRES project under the Food Security Policy Innovation Lab (FSP) funded by the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) was established in 2016 with the main objective of accelerating the adoption of more effective policies and programs, to drive a broad based agricultural sector growth, improve food security and nutrition, and reduce poverty. This paper reports on the perceived quality and institutional architecture of agriculture and food security policy processes as it existed in 2015, to serve as a baseline qualitative indicators of the policy environment in Tanzania. The assessment is based on a survey involving 89 stakeholders from the government, NGO, private sector, donor, and research communities that are active in the agriculture and food security policy space in Tanzania. The overall results indicate that while there are positive aspects of the policy processes that are in place, there is scope for improvements. There is need to ensure that Tanzania's policy process is better informed by effectively utilizing available empirical evidence and enabling the availability and accessibility of reliable sector performance data. This will in turn enable a consistent assessment of the performance of the sector and appropriate allocation of resources for policy implementation.


This article presents a set of online activities, using free Internet resources, aimed at increasing students' understanding of sustainability in business. Incorporating sustainability education into business curricula can shape organizational work climates by influencing various microeconomic objectives such as (1) sustainability certification of products, operations, and supply chains; (2) zero-waste; (3) eco-efficiency; (4) work-place well- being; (5) and community vitality. Currently, European and North American business schools mostly focus sustainability education efforts at the graduate level. Due to this gap, the authors designed the activities described in this paper for implementation at the undergraduate level. The outcomes reveal that students who participate in these activities more successfully identify the relevance of sustainability, and corporate social responsibility in the work place and in their personal lives. In contrast, students who did not participate in these activities exhibited a vague understanding of these concepts, and were less adept at both identifying and describing socially responsible practices. In addition, students not exposed to the activities were less apt to engage in sustainability practices in their personal lives. The results indicate that educators can increase students' knowledge of sustainability, business ethics, and social responsibility by integrating the suggested activities into their curricula.


This article reports on three salient socio-cultural and systemic factors that are influential in play in Abu Dhabi Education Council's (ADEC's) kindergarten (KG) framework from the teacher perspective. Anecdotal evidence suggests that during ADEC's progressive educational reform, emphasis has reverted to academic performance outcomes rather than whole child learning through play. Tensions may then occur surrounding the nature and extent of play practices for early learning. Following semi-structured interviews with 60 KG teachers, three salient factors emerged. These are illustrated in this article and discussed in light of the international literature on play. Tensions in policy and practice highlighted in this article are: a focus on academic performance outcomes; children's readiness to engage in play and parent perspectives on play. The article then discusses what these tensions may mean for the future of play in ADEC KGs situated within a period of educational reform.


Background: Osteoarthritis (OA), a degenerative cartilage disease, results in alterations of the chemical and structural properties of tissue. Arthroscopic evaluation of full-depth tissue composition is limited and would require tissue harvesting, which is inappropriate in daily routine. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy is a modality based on molecular vibrations of matrix components that can be used in conjunction with fiber optics to acquire quantitative compositional data from the cartilage matrix. Purpose: To develop a model based on infrared spectra of articular cartilage to predict the histological Mankin score as an indicator of tissue quality. Study Design: Comparative laboratory study. Methods: Infrared fiber optic probe (IFOP) spectra were collected from nearly normal and more degraded regions of tibial plateau articular cartilage harvested during knee arthroplasty (N = 61). Each region was graded using a modified Mankin score. A multivariate partial least squares algorithm using second-derivative spectra was developed to predict the histological modified Mankin score. Results: The partial least squares model derived from IFOP spectra predicted the modified Mankin score with a prediction error of approximately 1.4, which resulted in approximately 72% of the Mankin-scored tissues being predicted correctly and 96% being predicted within 1 grade of their true score. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that IFOP spectral parameters correlate with histological tissue grade and can be used to provide information on tissue composition. Clinical Relevance: Infrared fiber optic probe studies have significant potential for the evaluation of cartilage tissue quality without the need for tissue harvest. Combined with arthroscopy, IFOP analysis could facilitate the definition of tissue margins in debridement procedures.


ABSTRACT Multipath fading is one of the most common distortions in wireless communications. The simulation of a fading channel typically requires drawing samples from a Rayleigh, Rice or Nakagami distribution. The Nakagami-m distribution is particularly important due to its good agreement with empirical channel measurements, as well as its ability to generalize the well-known Rayleigh and Rice distributions. In this paper, a simple and extremely efficient rejection sampling (RS) algorithm for generating independent samples from a Nakagami-m distribution is proposed. This RS approach is based on a novel proposal density composed of three pieces of well-known densities from which samples can be drawn easily and efficiently. The proposed method is valid for any combination of parameters of the Nakagami distribution, without any restriction in the domain and without requiring any adjustment from the final user. Simulations for several parameter combinations show that the proposed approach attains acceptance rates above 90% in all cases, outperforming all the RS techniques currently available in the literature.


A 74-year-old psychotic female patient who was treated with clozapine developed Sweet's syndrome followed by agranulocytosis from which she later died. A link between these two conditions seems unlikely. Sweet's syndrome is characterised by an acute onset of fever, leukocytosis and erythematous plaques with dense neutrophilic infiltrates. Frequent counting of the numbers of neutrophiles is advisable when skin disorders appear during treatment with clozapine.


Purpose: To present an ultra‐fast, reconstruction technique for digital tomosynthesis (DTS) imaging using GPU programming based on the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) platform (NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA). The standard algorithm proposed by Feldkamp, Davis, and Kress (FDK) was used for acceleration. Methods and Materials: The CBCT projections data were initially loaded onto the CPU RAM after image acquisition, then each projection image was sent to the GPU for preprocessing and back projection computations, until all projections are used to build the pseudo 3D DTS image volume. For convolution filtering of the preprocessing step, we have accelerated the Fourier transform calculations by utilizing the CUFFT (or CUDA FFT) library provided through CUDA. For the back projection step, which is the most time consuming part for CPU, we have parallelized the tasks as threads in GPU to gain massive speed up by assigning 512‐block‐size with number‐of‐slices‐blocks (for 512×512×number‐of‐slices reconstruction volume), all executed simultaneously. Results: The GPU‐based implementation achieved, at most, 1.3 and 2.5 seconds to complete full reconstruction of 512×512×256 volume, for the full‐fan and half‐fan modes, respectively. Increasing the number of reconstructed slices had negligible impact on the overall time. In addition, these ultra‐fast reconstruction times did not have negative impact on the integrity of the reconstructed images as there were negligible visual and pixel‐value discrepancies between the CPU‐ and GPU‐based implementations. This resulted in speed improvement of > 87 times compared with the central processing unit (CPU)‐based implementation, with visually identical images and negligible pixel‐value discrepancy. Conclusions: We have developed an ultra‐fast, reconstruction technique for DTS using CUDA‐based GPU programming. With this achievement, we have shown that time allocation for image reconstruction is virtually eliminated and the future efforts, therefore, can now be directed towards utilizing the information contained in the images for real‐time image‐guided RT.


Research into behaviours associated with specific syndromes, such as Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS), has neglected to explore the parents' perspective, particularly the potential impact of the notion of behavioural phenotypes on parents' causal explanations. Given the research focus on self-injurious behaviour (SIB) in CdLS, the present study examined parental concern across four topographies of challenging behaviour, causal explanations for these behaviours and optimism for change. As part of a larger study, a questionnaire survey of 86 parents of children and adults with CdLS was conducted. Quantitative data on parental concern and optimism with regard to behaviour problems were collected. Causal explanations for behaviour problems were examined by subjecting open-ended responses to a content analysis. Parents were as concerned about physical aggression and disruptive behaviours as they were about SIB. The majority of parents had deconstructed how CdLS might be associated with SIB in terms of other factors associated with CdLS, such as degree of intellectual disability. Parents did not believe that CdLS influenced SIB more than other challenging behaviours and their beliefs did not effect optimism regarding future change in the behaviour. Despite the focus of research on SIB in CdLS, parents of children and adults with CdLS are also concerned about other challenging behaviours. There was no evidence that a deterministic perspective had been adopted by parents and causal explanations were unrelated to optimism for future change.


As a new research area, laser surface wettability modification brings new applications for both laser and materials for industry. The picoseconds (10 ps) pulse laser surface micro-processing over alumina covered aluminium is researched. In the experiment, 10-ps laser pulse is employed and the energy threshold for different laser wavelength and repetition rate is measured. At the repetition rate of 5 kHz, the energy thresholds are: 1 064 nm: 4.0 μJ/pulse, 532 nm: 2.8 μJ/pulse, and 355 nm: 4.2 μJ/pulse. Picoseconds pulse laser is demonstrated feasible in surface scanning at industrial level.


The evidence of the benefits of physical activity for health is unequivocal. Physical activity referral schemes (PARSs) have grown exponentially in the last decade, and are a popular way for primary care trusts (PCTs) and local councils to meet the growing targets set by the Government to promote physical activity to the increasingly sedentary population. However, the efficacy of PARS to increase physical activity and in turn health has yet to be proven. Little is known about the determinants associated with uptake of referral and progress through schemes, as there is little published data following patients from point of referral. This prospective cohort study aimed to explore the influence of referral scheme processes and participant characteristics upon their access to, and exit from, the scheme. The dataset is unique as it contains a large cohort of participants (n=2958), and follows them from initial point of referral by their health professional until their discharge from the scheme. Scheme process variables were arranged into categories that represented the public health policy and physical activity context of the current study. Logistic regression was used to analyse the data, as it allows the prediction of a discrete outcome, such as scheme attendance level, from a set of variables of mixed data types, such as age and referring health professional. Findings predicted the scheme processes and participant characteristics that were associated with the four stages that marked participants' journeys through the scheme. More women (62.3%, N=1842) accessed the scheme via their health professional than men, while those with mental health and overweight/obesity referral reasons were consistently less likely to progress through contact (mental health OR 0.353 CI 0.188-0.663 P= 0.001, overweight OR 0.586 CI 0.362-0.951 P=0.03), allocation to leisure provider (mental health OR 0.550 CI 0.338-0.896 P=0.016, overweight OR 0.695 CI 0.495-0.975 P=0.035) and attendance of one or more sessions with a leisure provider (mental health OR 0.399 CI 0.275-0.579 P=0.001, overweight 0.639 CI 0.501-0.814 P=0.001). Older participants (OR 1.016 CI 1.010-1.023 P=0.001) and men (OR 1.00 - Reference value) were more likely to complete their planned physical activity sessions than younger or female (OR 0.823 CI 0.681-0.994 P=0.043) participants. Highlighting that PARSs do have a place within public health, but that those with obesity/overweight and mental health referral reasons need greater support to progress through the scheme and access physical activity. This study is the first to explore the impact of scheme processes upon participants journey through PARS, and the contribution of scheme processes upon participants' use (attendance) of PARS. This prospective cohort study marks a move away from previous research designs used to evaluate PARS. Although PARS are not the answer for public health, and the population level behaviour change needed, they should be acknowledged for providing a supported introduction to physical activity for specialist populations and as this study found, can be successful mediums for targeted groups of individuals to accomplish regular attendance to a physical activity programme over a period of time.


We present a nonergodic framework for probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (PSHA) that is constructed entirely of deterministic, physical models. The use of deterministic ground-motion simulations in PSHA calculations is not new (e.g., CyberShake), but prior studies relied on kinematic rupture generators to extend empirical earthquake rupture forecasts. Fully dynamic models, which simulate rupture nucleation and propagation of static and dynamic stresses, are still computationally intractable for the large simulation domains and many seismic cycles required to perform PSHA. Instead, we employ the Rate-State earthquake simulator (RSQSim) to efficiently simulate hundreds of thousands of years of M≥6.5 earthquake sequences on the California fault system. RSQSim produces full slip-time histories for each rupture, which, unlike kinematic models, emerge from frictional properties, fault geometry, and stress transfer; all intrinsic variability is deterministic. We use these slip-time histories directly as input to a 3D wave-propagation code within the CyberShake platform to obtain simulated Fmax=0.5  Hz ground motions. The resulting 3 s spectral acceleration ground motions closely match empirical ground-motion model (GMM) estimates of median and variability of shaking. When computed over a range of sources and sites, the variability is similar to that of ergodic GMMs. Variability is reduced for individual pairs of sources and sites that repeatedly sample a single path, which is expected for a nonergodic model. This results in increased exceedance probabilities for certain characteristic ground motions for a source–site pair, while decreasing probabilities at the extreme tails of the ergodic GMM predictions. We present these comparisons and preliminary fully deterministic physics-based RSQSim–CyberShake hazard curves, as well as a new technique for estimating within- and between-event variability through simulation.


This volume presents the latest research of an international group of scholars, engaged in the analysis of academic discourse from a genre-oriented perspective. The area covered by this volume is a central one, as in the last few years important developments in research on academic discourse have not only concerned the more traditional genres, but, as well, generic innovations promoted by the new technologies, employed both in the presentation of research results and in their dissemination to a wider community by means of popularising and teaching activities. These innovations have not only favoured important changes in existing genres and the creation of new ones to meet emerging needs of the academic community, but have also promoted a serious discussion about the construct of genre itself. The various investigations gathered in this volume provide several examples of the complexity and flexibility of genres, which have shown to be subject to a continuous tension between stability and change as well as between convention and innovation.


Enzyme Enhanced Oil Recovery (EEOR) has recently been categorized as one of the most effective EOR mechanisms. Laboratory and field studies have reported up to 16% of incremental oil recovery rates. EEOR recovers oil mainly by two main mechanisms: lowering the interfacial tension between brine and oil and altering the wettability on rock grains to a more water-wet condition. Therefore, EEOR would promote mobilization of capillary-trapped oil after regular waterflooding. Since capillary-trapped oil resides at the micro-scale, it is essential to assess EEOR fluid-fluid interaction at that scale. To further investigate the ways in which these enzymes contribute to EOR, an experimental micro-scale approach was developed in which EEOR was analyzed using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic devices. The PDMS microfluidics device was based on X-ray micro-CT images of a Bentheimer sandstone with resolution of 4.95 μm. We first compared the IFT reduction capabilities of one class of enzyme (Apollo GreenZyme ®) and a commercial surfactant (J13131) obtained from Shell Chemicals. For GreenZyme concentrations of 0.5, 1.5 and 2 wt%, the IFT values between GreenZyme solution and oil are 4.2, 0.7 and 0.6 mN/m, respectively. Whereas the IFT values for 0.5 wt% surfactant solutions and deionized water are 1.1 and 32 mN/m, respectively. We then compared the oil recovery of the two systems using the aforementioned sandstone PDMS microfluidics device. Recovery values up to 92% of oilwere obtained using GreenZyme. Surfactant and waterflooding on the same PDMS chips had recovery values of 86 and 80%, respectively. This study provides insights and direct visualization of the micro-scale oil recovery mechanisms of EEOR that can be used for design of effective EEOR flooding.


We have studied subwavelength confinement of the surface plasmon polariton modes of various plasmonic waveguides and examined their relative merits using a graphical parametric representation of their confinement and propagation characteristics. While the same plasmonic phenomenon governs mode confinement in all these waveguides, the various architectures can exhibit distinctive behavior in terms of effective mode area and propagation distance. We found that the waveguides based on metal and one dielectric material show a similar trade-off between energy confinement and propagation distance. However, a hybrid plasmon waveguide, incorporating metal, low index and high index dielectric materials, exhibits longer propagation distances for the same degree of confinement. We also point out that plasmonic waveguides with sharp features can provide an extremely strong local field enhancement, which is not necessarily accompanied by strong confinement of the total electromagnetic energy. In these waveguides, a mode may couple strongly to nearby atoms, but suffer relatively low propagation losses due to weak confinement.


OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare the rate of severe cardiovascular events and death in children who use attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications versus nonusers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We performed a large cohort study using data from 2 administrative databases. All children aged 3 to 17 years with a prescription for an amphetamine, atomoxetine, or methylphenidate were included and matched with up to 4 nonusers on the basis of data source, gender, state, and age. Cardiovascular events were validated using medical records. Proportional hazards regression was used to calculated hazard ratios. RESULTS: We identified 241 417 incident users (primary cohort). No statistically significant difference between incident users and nonusers was observed in the rate of validated sudden death or ventricular arrhythmia (hazard ratio: 1.60 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.19–13.60]) or all-cause death (hazard ratio: 0.76 [95% CI: 0.52–1.12]). None of the strokes identified during exposed time to ADHD medications were validated. No myocardial infarctions were identified in ADHD medication users. No statistically significant difference between prevalent users and nonusers (secondary cohort) was observed (hazard ratios for validated sudden death or ventricular arrhythmia: 1.43 [95% CI: 0.31–6.61]; stroke: 0.89 [95% CI: 0.11–7.11]; stroke/myocardial infarction: 0.72 [95% CI: 0.09–5.57]; and all-cause death: 0.77 [95% CI: 0.56–1.07). CONCLUSIONS: The rate of cardiovascular events in exposed children was very low and in general no higher than that in unexposed control subjects. Because of the low number of events, we have limited ability to rule out relative increases in rate.


We consider the manipulability of tournament rules for round-robin tournaments of $n$ competitors. Specifically, $n$ competitors are competing for a prize, and a tournament rule $r$ maps the result of all $\binom{n}{2}$ pairwise matches (called a tournament, $T$) to a distribution over winners. Rule $r$ is Condorcet-consistent if whenever $i$ wins all $n-1$ of her matches, $r$ selects $i$ with probability $1$.
We consider strategic manipulation of tournaments where player $j$ might throw their match to player $i$ in order to increase the likelihood that one of them wins the tournament. Regardless of the reason why $j$ chooses to do this, the potential for manipulation exists as long as $\Pr[r(T) = i]$ increases by more than $\Pr[r(T) = j]$ decreases. Unfortunately, it is known that every Condorcet-consistent rule is manipulable (Altman and Kleinberg). In this work, we address the question of how manipulable Condorcet-consistent rules must necessarily be - by trying to minimize the difference between the increase in $\Pr[r(T) = i]$ and decrease in $\Pr[r(T) = j]$ for any potential manipulating pair.
We show that every Condorcet-consistent rule is in fact $1/3$-manipulable, and that selecting a winner according to a random single elimination bracket is not $\alpha$-manipulable for any $\alpha > 1/3$. We also show that many previously studied tournament formats are all $1/2$-manipulable, and the popular class of Copeland rules (any rule that selects a player with the most wins) are all in fact $1$-manipulable, the worst possible. Finally, we consider extensions to match-fixing among sets of more than two players.


This essay demonstrates that Anthony Trollope was one of several Victorians aware of
"female marriage," a term that Elizabeth Barrett Browning used to describe committed
unions between women. After establishing that Trollope knew women in female marriages
at the time that he was composing his novel Can You Forgive Her? (1864-65), the
essay analyzes how female marriage inscribes itself within the form of the marriage
plot. Trollope9s novel aligns female marriage with contractual marriage, associated with
feminist demands to make unions between men and women more egalitarian as well as
dissoluble. The novel works to discredit contractual forms of marriage and to celebrate
indissoluble hierarchical marriage by associating the first with primitive savagery, the
second with an ideal of civilization that can accommodate male violence.


OBJECTIVE
To study the efficacy of topical application of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA) for dry eye treatment.

METHODS
Formulations containing ALA, LA, combined ALA and LA, or vehicle alone, were applied to dry eyes induced in mice. Corneal fluorescein staining and the number and maturation of corneal CD11b(+) cells were determined by a masked observer in the different treatment groups. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to quantify expression of inflammatory cytokines in the cornea and conjunctiva.

RESULTS
Dry eye induction significantly increased corneal fluorescein staining; CD11b(+) cell number and major histocompatibility complex Class II expression; corneal IL-1alpha and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) expression; and conjunctival IL-1alpha, TNF-alpha, interferon gamma, IL-2, IL-6, and IL-10 expression. Treatment with ALA significantly decreased corneal fluorescein staining compared with both vehicle and untreated controls. Additionally, ALA treatment was associated with a significant decrease in CD11b(+) cell number, expression of corneal IL-1alpha and TNF-alpha, and conjunctival TNF-alpha.

CONCLUSIONS
Topical ALA treatment led to a significant decrease in dry eye signs and inflammatory changes at both cellular and molecular levels.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Topical application of ALA omega-3 fatty acid may be a novel therapy to treat the clinical signs and inflammatory changes accompanying dry eye syndrome.


Treatment of failed total ankle arthroplasty is a challenge. To date, several revision modalities and techniques have been described, but there is still no ideal concept that fits for every patient. Surgical options comprise revision ankle arthroplasty, amputation, or salvage arthrodesis, with the latter being a viable approach because it has been proven to be reliable in achieving a stable and plantigrade foot. The goals of revision surgery include maximum pain relief, restoration of stability and length, and correction of alignment. When properly done, arthrodesis yields a significant improvement regarding pain and ensures stability and an adequate gait pattern. Massive bone loss associated with or without deformity of the hindfoot and/or coexisting subtalar osteoarthrosis pose specific problems. In such cases, tibiotalocalcaneal arthrodesis must be combined with reconstruction of the ankle region by filling the defect with a structural allograft. Among all the described techniques, the use of locked intramedullary nails offers several advantages, particularly in combination with allograft interposition.


An efficiency audit allows a firm to systematically review its entire operation and to determine potential cost reductions. Areas for potential cost reduction include management, production, purchasing, marketing and finance. By thoroughly evaluating these areas, management can determine a realistic goal for total cost reduction. This goal may be to break even or to increase profits 10 percent more than last year. Those areas with the greatest potential for cost reduction should have the highest priority. After management establishes priorities, it will be able to develop an action plan to put the firm back on the road to higher profits.


The present theory explains how specific dissociative reactions arise for the first time during a traumatic experience. During dissociation, according to this theory, the perceptual background associated with perception is lost or altered, creating " dysfunctional perceptual organization" (Fine, 1988). Dissociative symptomatology maps one to one with the background components of perceptual experience. The hypothesized psychological mechanism leading to the loss of or change in perception and, thus, to a change in background during trauma, is perception focused on the threat. Focused perception leading to changes in background can occur spontaneously or intentionally. Specific dissociative reactions hypothetically link to specific traumatic precipitants.


At the sea surface, the atmosphere and the ocean exchange momentum, heat and freshwater. Mechanisms for
 the exchange are wind stress, turbulent mixing, radiation, evaporation and precipitation. These surface fluxes are
 characterized by a large spatial and temporal variability and play an important role in not only the mean
 atmospheric and oceanic circulation, but also in the generation and sustainment of coupled climate fluctuations
 such as the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon. Therefore, a good knowledge of air-sea fluxes is required for the
 understanding and prediction of climate changes. As part of long-term comprehensive atmospheric reanalyses with `Numerical Weather Prediction/Data
 assimilation' systems, data sets of global air-sea fluxes are generated. A good example is the 15-year
 atmospheric reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium--Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Air-sea flux
 data sets from these reanalyses are very beneficial for climate research, because they combine a good spatial and
 temporal coverage with a homogeneous and consistent method of calculation. However, atmospheric reanalyses
 are still imperfect sources of flux information due to shortcomings in model variables, model parameterizations,
 assimilation methods, sampling of observations, and quality of observations. Therefore, assessments of the errors
 and the usefulness of air-sea flux data sets from atmospheric (re-)analyses are relevant contributions to the
 quantitative study of climate variability. Currently, much research is aimed at assessing the quality and usefulness of the reanalysed air-sea fluxes. Work
 in this thesis intends to contribute to this assessment. In particular, it attempts to answer three relevant questions.
 The first question is: What is the best parameterization of the momentum flux? A comparison is made of the wind
 stress parameterization of the ERA15 reanalysis, the currently generated ERA40 reanalysis and the wind stress
 measurements over the open ocean. The comparison reveals some clear differences in the mean drag coefficient.
 In addition, this study has indicated that progress has been made from the ERA15 to the ERA40 reanalyses by
 replacing the model parameterization with a constant Charnock parameter with one which depends on the sea
 state. The second research question is whether comparison of the response of an ocean model with ocean
 observations can be exploited to assess the quality of air-sea fluxes of the ERA15 reanalysis. To answer this
 question in a systematic way an inverse modeling approach is adopted using a four-dimensional variational data
 assimilation (4DVAR) scheme. Firstly, the functioning of the 4DVAR system is demonstrated from identical twin
 experiments. These experiments reveal that in the equatorial Pacific, a large reduction in wind-stress and
 upper-ocean temperature misfits can be achieved using an assimilation time window of eight weeks. It is
 concluded that the usefulness of inverse ocean modeling technique for global surface flux assessment is limited.
 The main merit of the developed ocean 4DVAR scheme will be to diagnose errors in the ocean analyses of the
 ocean model. The last research question is: are the ERA15 fluxes useful for the study of regional patterns of climate variability?
 The climate mode of consideration is the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave. This study stresses the importance to
 have the right climatological forcing conditions to assess time scales of climate variability and it confirms the
 usefulness of ERA15 air-sea fluxes as ocean model forcing fields to study climate variability on the interannual
 time scale.


Global warming or, more accurately, climate change remains a hotly debated issue in scientific, government and public circles. While the extent of the human contribution to climate change through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains highly controversial, the scientific evidence of significant changes in climate per se appears to be mounting (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Since changes in climate typically will include greater variability in temperatures, more extreme weather events and changes in precipitation patterns as well as a general warming trend, there are significant risks for agriculture.(2) If human activity does turn out to have a significant causal effect on climate change, the Kyoto Protocol and other related multilateral environmental agreements appear to have the potential to reduce these risks. The Kyoto Protocol, however, leaves possible channels for increases in emissions or so-called carbon leakage.


In this article, I will discuss prints from the French Revolution that utilize scientific instruments as political metaphors. France's fascination with science during the Enlightenment has been well documented, notably by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Christine Blondel in their recent investigation of its uses as a popular form of entertainment. Whether it was seen as an ally or a foe, the spectacle of science attracted Revolutionary artists. This pull reveals not only an understanding of scientific material thanks to the groundwork of the Enlightenment, but also a need to reposition science within a Revolutionary context. What the prints have in common is 'spectacle' in the sense that they are pre-occupied with the idea of illusion, not just as a negative act of deception but as a creative and potentially empowering process, allowing the viewer to see beyond reality into a brighter future.


Nanofiltration and low pressure reverse osmosis membranes are well-known in the field of drinking water production and their separation performance is very strongly related to their intrinsic characteristics. The membrane characterization (scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), zeta potential …) was realized on a NF270 and extra-low energy (XLE) membrane. SEM results of virgin NF270 and XLE membranes show that both are about the same thickness whereas that of the active layer of NF270 membrane is weaker than that of the XLE. The AFM measurements show that the roughness of the low pressure reverse osmosis membrane (XLE) is almost 20 times as high as that of nanofiltration (NF270). Zeta potential measurements showed that both membranes are negatively charged in pH (4–12) range. An increase in permeability by increasing feed pressure and temperature was also noted for the two types of membrane; but the permeability evolution for XLE membrane according to the volume factor reduction reveals a fall faster than that of NF270.


The detection and characterization of genetic variability at the infraspecific level is of great importance for the understanding of numberous ecological and evolutionary questions, such as speciation, gene flow, etc. The level of genetic diversity determines a species' ability to respond to changes in its environment and therefore its success in nature. Molecular markers are the tools of choice to answer these questions about biodiversity and two types of markers are especially suited to be used in phycology.Microsatellites are short repetitive sequences of 1-6 bp (e.g., [CT]n or [ATG]n) that occur in all living organisms and have shown to be excellent molecular markers for population studies because of their high degree of polymorphism and relative simplicity to use and analyse, even though their development is time-consuming. Microsatellite markers are under development or already available for a number of important phytoplankton species, i.e., the coccolithophorid Emiliania huxleyi. The DNA fingerprinting technique called Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) is another possibility for studying biodiversity in phytoplankton species. The advantages of this marker type lie in their high number of potentially polymorphic bands and that no prerequisite knowledge about the genome of the investigated species is needed, which makes them fast to establish. AFLP markers have been used, for example, for studies of the dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense.With these markers, detailed studies of population genetics, spatial and temporal changes in population structure and the interaction of genotypes with different biotic and abiotic factors are possible.


The relationships of calcium and dietary sodium, potassium and alcohol to blood
pressures were studied at three different levels of dietary calcium intake by adults in the
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES) I sample. At low calcium intakes
(<400 mg/day), after adjustment for age and body mass index, the strongest dietary
correlates of blood pressure were the ratio of sodium to potassium (Na:K), and alcohol
( P < 0.01). At higher calcium intakes alcohol, but not Na:K, was significantly related to blood pressures. Neither sodium nor potassium was separately related to blood
pressure when the Na:K ratio was included in the regression model. The threshold
effect of calcium was observed in all race-gender groups. These results indicate: (i)
the Na:K is a more important correlate of blood pressure than either nutrient alone; and
(2) a low calcium intake is necessary for the Na:K ratio to maximally affect blood
pressure.


This article challenges the view that the Victorian novel is based on an essentially female courtship plot leading to marriage by reassessing the assumption that it presents marriage as a healthy physical and psychological fulfilment of masculine desire. Drawing attention to the failed and masculine marriage plot, it argues that Anthony Trollope's He Knew He Was Right (1869) and John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga (1906-21) illustrate dangers of masculine desire and the pathologisation of jealousy. Both writers position themselves within hotly debated areas of nineteenth-century marital law, viewing their male protagonists through the eyes of a judge and jury. The use of psychological language to describe jealous monomania illustrates the influence of new forms of psychiatry upon fiction, and there is evidence of reciprocal contributions to that new discipline. Combining the analysis of Victorian marriage law reforms, treatises on insanity, and studies of marital violence, this article considers Trollope and Galsworthy's novels in a new light. Trollope's writing can be seen as a foundation for Galsworthy's more overt critique of Victorian marriage laws, such as the legality of marital rape, while masculine desperation for absolute control, increased rather than reduced by marriage, is presented as a cause of psychological disorders such as erotic monomania or erotomania.


We prove a central limit theorem for the components of the eigenvectors corresponding to the $d$ largest eigenvalues of the normalized Laplacian matrix of a finite dimensional random dot product graph. As a corollary, we show that for stochastic blockmodel graphs, the rows of the spectral embedding of the normalized Laplacian converge to multivariate normals and furthermore the mean and the covariance matrix of each row are functions of the associated vertex's block membership. Together with prior results for the eigenvectors of the adjacency matrix, we then compare, via the Chernoff information between multivariate normal distributions, how the choice of embedding method impacts subsequent inference. We demonstrate that neither embedding method dominates with respect to the inference task of recovering the latent block assignments.


Background:Persons appearing in trauma centers have a higher prevalence of unhealthy alcohol use than the general population. Screening and brief intervention (SBI) is designed to moderate drinking levels and avoid costly future readmissions, but few studies have examined the impact of SBI on hospital readmissions and health care costs in a trauma population. Research Design:This study uses comparative interrupted time-series and the Arizona State Inpatient Database to estimate the effect of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma SBI mandate on the probability of readmission and cost per readmission in Arizona trauma centers. We compare individuals with and without an alcohol diagnosis code before and after the mandate was implemented. Results:The mandate resulted in a 2.2 percentage point reduction (44%) in the probability of readmission. Total health care and readmission costs were not affected by the mandate. Conclusions:The estimates are consistent with a differential effect of SBI: SBI reduces readmissions among those who present with a less serious alcohol-related problem. Persons with more serious alcohol problems are less likely to respond to SBI. These higher risk individuals likely have a higher cost, which may explain the lack of change in readmission costs. Our study is a macrolevel intent-to-treat analysis of SBI's impact that corroborates the potential of SBI implied by efficacy studies in trauma centers and other settings. This study provides a framework for future research involving more states and health systems and evaluating other SBI policies.


How do people explore in order to gain rewards in uncertain dynamical systems? Within a reinforcement learning paradigm, control normally involves trading off between exploration (i.e. trying out actions in order to gain more knowledge about the system) and exploitation (i.e. using current knowledge of the system to maximize reward). We study a novel control task in which participants must steer a boat on a grid, assessing whether participants explore strategically in order to produce higher rewards later on. We find that participants explore strategically yet conservatively, exploring more when mistakes are less costly and practicing actions that will be needed later on.


Objectives. This study examined the reliability of the first positive HIV test date reported in the U.S. HIV/AIDS Reporting System (HARS). This date is essential to determine case counts for resource allocation for HIV treatment and prevention efforts. Methods. The dates of first positive HIV tests reported by individuals with HIV in an interview survey conducted in 16 states (n=16,394, interviewed 1995–2002) were compared with the dates of HIV diagnosis reported to HARS. The percentage of agreement for the year of diagnosis and the weighed kappa (k) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was calculated. Results. Self-reported year of diagnosis agreed with the year of diagnosis in HARS for 56% of date pairs (k=0.69; 95% CI 0.68, 0.70); 30% reported an earlier diagnosis year. Agreement differed by sex, age, race, exposure, and reason or place of testing (p<.01). Lower agreement was found when the self-reported diagnostic test was anonymous (k=0.57; 95% CI 0.52, 0.62) compared with confidential tests (k=0.66; 95% CI 0.64, 0.68). Lower agreement was also found for cases first reported with AIDS (k=0.58; 95% CI 0.55, 0.62) compared with cases first reported with HIV not AIDS (k=0.71; 95% CI 0.70, 0.73) as well as for participants interviewed three years or more after their HARS diagnosis date (k=0.55; 95% CI 0.52, 0.57) compared with those interviewed within one year (k=0.62; 95% CI 0.61, 0.63). More than 20% of participants in almost all groups, however, reported earlier diagnosis years than those recorded in HARS. Conclusion. As many as 30% of HIV diagnoses may have occurred earlier than recorded in HARS. Additional studies need to determine mechanisms to adequately capture diagnosis dates in HARS.


This article addresses the US Supreme Court's decision in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, __ U.S. __, 140 S. Ct. 2183 (June 29, 2020), which bookends the DC Circuit's previous decision in PHH Corp. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, (which was the subject of a previous article titled "Practical Takeaways from the D.C. Circuit's Decision in PHH Corp. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau"). The article discusses the problems the DC Circuit's panel (headed by then Judge Kavanaugh) saw with the constitutional structure of the CFPB, which featured heavily in the majority opinion in Seila Law (which was joined by now Justice Kavanaugh), as well as the implications of the Supreme Court's decision, which found the structure to be unconstitutional but remediable by severing the provisions that insulated the CFPB's director from removal at will by the President. TOPICS: Financial crises and financial market history, legal/regulatory/public policy Key Findings • The Supreme Court believed that too much power was concentrated in the hands of the CFPB's director. • The Supreme Court believes it solved the issue by severing the "for cause" removal provision and that doing anything more (like dissolving the agency) would cause too much havoc. • The CFPB has moved quickly to retroactively ratify the majority of its rules and enforcement actions, but litigation is likely to linger in contentious enforcement proceedings.


Many gene therapy strategies require transfer of highmolecular weight DNA into human cells. To enable clinical trials, these vectors need to be produced on a large scale and at low cost. The production of effective high-capacity vectors like HSV-amplicons and helperdependent adenoviral vectors is difficult to up-scale, so new inexpensive vectors are needed for the efficient delivery of high-molecular weight DNA to human cells. Bacteriophage lambda vectors can accommodate up to about 46 kb of therapeutic DNA and can be easily produced in an industrial setting. However, the lambda vectors transfer DNA into mammalian cells with only a low efficiency. It was shown that bacteriophage lambda virions ejected their DNA in the presence of the purified receptor for bacteriophage lambda, maltoporin (LamB protein), encoded by the malB gene of Shigella sonnei 3070. This property of S. sonnei maltoporin was exploited for the bacteriophage injection-driven DNA loading of liposomes and other polymer nanocontainers displaying maltoporin. Relying on the above evidence I hypothesize that the efficient gene transfer by industrially produced bacteriophage lambda vector virions, such as cosmid transducing particles, to human cells can be accomplished after incorporation (protein painting) of the purified S. sonnei maltoporin into the human plasma membrane.


Professor Stern seeks to expose the roots of the Hitler myth. He performs thoroughly and brilliantly the examination that Kenneth Burke saw as a crying need on the brink of World War II. The questions Professor Stern asks are fundamental and still of the first importance in our own society. How could a predominantly sober, hardworking, and well-educated nation be persuaded to follow Hitler and his inhuman and destructuve program? What was the source of his immense popularity? Why were his public utterances so powerfully persuasive? What were the shared assumptions behind 'The Final Solution,' Operation Barbarossa, 'The Night of the Long Knives'? Professor Stern has done a pioneering study of the rhetoric of Nazism, a rhetoric that coupled words and action. He examines the speeches, writings, and conversations of Hitler and places them in the context of traditional beliefs of the society into which Hitler, the 'ideal outsider,' made his way. With terrifying logic his career emerges as the creation of a man who translated the private sphere of sentiment into the public sphere of political action, the will to power into a weapon of mass hypnosis.


This book - the first commentary on Ernst Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms - provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human culture. Thora Ilin Bayer focuses on the meaning of cassirer's claim that philosophy is not itself a symbolic form but the thought around which all aspects of human activity are seen as a whole. Underlying the symbolic forms are Cassirer's two metaphysical principles, spirit (Geist) and life, which interact to produce the reality of the human world. Bayer shows how these two principles of Cassirer's early philosophy are connected with the phenomenology of his later philosophy, which centers on his conception of 'basis phenomena' - self, will, and work.


Traditionally, academics specializing in ADR and civil procedure have not tended to deal with each other's issues. The typical civil procedure course focuses on litigation, and at best throws in a few classes on mediation and negotiation. Similarly, the typical ADR course devotes little or no attention to litigation, law, courts, or administrative institutions. Thus, the two disciplines are taught quite separately. Further, this separation is not equal. While students are required to learn about litigation, and are also offered many additional litigation electives, the ADR curriculum is almost always purely elective, and the classes are much smaller. Yet, the relationship between civil procedure and ADR in practice is far different than it is in the academy. In the real world there is a blending between litigation and other dispute resolution approaches. Whether one practices in federal court, state court, or before administrative agencies, "litigators" are now ADR practitioners. Equally, ADR practitioners are typically also litigators, unless they practice exclusively as neutrals. As academics, in our teaching and our writing, we need to greatly improve the extent to which we recognize the interrelationship between ADR and litigation. The Article offers specific suggestions as to how we can improve our litigation and ADR courses. The Article also urges that by recognizing the interrelationship between ADR and litigation we can better analyze the multiple appropriate purposes of our system of justice.


Anyone who has tackled the proof of Morley''s theorem will almost certainly have encountered a situation of having two sets of angles - one set easy to determine, the other not obvious. This report destroys the pleasure and the education to be derived from seeking a solution. Morley''s theorem states that the points of intersection of the adjacent trisectors of any triangle form an equilateral triangle. We give a new, short proof, which uses a direct forward approach. It makes use of symmetry to make a dramatic reduction in the length of proof. Other known proofs are longer and usually work backwards or are restricted to acute-angled triangles. Most do not capture the problem''s essential symmetric and geometric properties.


Recently, mass spectrometry has become a powerful tool in cancer research. Mass spectrometry represents the method that allows identification, quantification and characterization of proteins in bio-logical samples. Nowadays, it is mainly used for bio-marker discovery that can enable early detection of cancer. This article is focused on protein analysis by mass spectrometry. At first, mass spectrometry and its importance in proteomics are described. Subsequently ionization type and mass analyzers are discussed. This relates to the possibility of online or offline analysis connection with separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography and electrophoresis. Different approaches for preparing proteins and methods of analysis of bio-molecules using mass spectrometers are described. In addition, the possibility of mass spectrometric analyses of samples and data processing are discussed.


Editing can help build stronger muscles Much of the controversy surrounding the gene-editing technology called CRISPR/Cas9 centers on the ethics of germline editing of human embryos to correct disease-causing mutations. For certain disorders such as muscular dystrophy, it may be possible to achieve therapeutic benefit by editing the faulty gene in somatic cells. In proof-of-concept studies, Long et al., Nelson et al., and Tabebordbar et al. used adeno-associated virus-9 to deliver the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system to young mice with a mutation in the gene coding for dystrophin, a muscle protein deficient in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Gene editing partially restored dystrophin protein expression in skeletal and cardiac muscle and improved skeletal muscle function. Science, this issue p. 400, p. 403, p. 407 Gene editing via CRISPR-Cas9 restores dystrophin protein and improves muscle function in mouse models of muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a devastating disease affecting about 1 out of 5000 male births and caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene. Genome editing has the potential to restore expression of a modified dystrophin gene from the native locus to modulate disease progression. In this study, adeno-associated virus was used to deliver the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–Cas9 system to the mdx mouse model of DMD to remove the mutated exon 23 from the dystrophin gene. This includes local and systemic delivery to adult mice and systemic delivery to neonatal mice. Exon 23 deletion by CRISPR-Cas9 resulted in expression of the modified dystrophin gene, partial recovery of functional dystrophin protein in skeletal myofibers and cardiac muscle, improvement of muscle biochemistry, and significant enhancement of muscle force. This work establishes CRISPR-Cas9–based genome editing as a potential therapy to treat DMD.


This book deals with the nature of contemporary globalisation. Maurice Mullard aims to show that globalisation is not an inescapable, unstoppable process somehow beyond human control, rather that it represents, and is being shaped by, a series of deliberate policy choices and policy decisions. The emphasis of this fascinating work is on how these policy choices are creating new forms of economic inequalities and also political elites that distort the democratic process.


Warfarin has been successfully used in the medical management of thromboembolic disease for nearly six decades. It is widely assumed that a dietary vitamin K-warfarin interaction exists. To avoid this potential interference with the efficacy of warfarin in stable anticoagulation, patients typically receive instructions to consume a constant dietary intake of vitamin K. While dark, green vegetables are primary sources of dietary vitamin K, these foods are not commonly consumed on a daily basis in the United States. However, there still exists dietary resistance to warfarin that is attributable to vitamin K. Based on food analysis studies on vitamin K, it is now known that dietary vitamin K is found in certain plant oils and prepared foods containing these plant oils, such as baked goods, margarines, and salad dressings. The preparation of foods with vitamin K-rich oils may also contribute to a diet-warfarin interaction, although this has yet to be confirmed in a clinical trial. A dose-response of vitamin K on the effect of warfarin anticoagulation has not yet been established. However, there are sufficient data to suggest that a constant dietary intake of vitamin K that meets current dietary recommendations of 65-80 micrograms/day is the most acceptable practice for patients on warfarin therapy. Vitamin K composition data for commonly consumed foods are now available and may facilitate successful anticoagulation for patients being treated with warfarin.


The Perron{Wiener{Brelot method is a powerful way of solving the Dirichlet problem in general domains. For every boundary data it provides an upper and a lower solution. In the case of the Laplace equation it is well known when these two solutions coincide and resolutive boundary data are characterized by means of the harmonic measure. For the nonlinear p-Laplace equation, the class of resolutive boundary data is not known, but there are some partial results, e.g. that continuous boundary data are resolutive. The invariance under perturbations on sets of capacity zero is also not fully understood in the nonlinear case. In the talk we shall see how some of these questions can be attacked by changing the metric in the domain and by considering new capacities.


Abstract The Neoproterozoic Noonday Dolomite (Death Valley, USA), a post-glacial cap carbonate, contains closely packed, meter-long, cm-wide, tube-like structures that define the vertical accretion direction. Similar tubestones are known from post-glacial cap carbonates in Namibia and Brazil. In vertical cross section, the tubes average 2 cm in diameter, pinch and swell greatly along their length, may bifurcate and coalesce, and are filled with brown laminated micrite/microspar where best preserved. The tubes do not root or terminate in a particular layer and are randomly distributed where present. The laminated host rock is composed of an early lithified, microclotted fabric with framework void space filled with sparry dolomite cement. The contact between the tube fill and the host rock is diffuse and feathered; commonly, wisps of laminated host rock cross the tube fill and bridge between adjacent stromatolitic structures, compartmentalizing the tubes. The tubes likely result from the contemporaneous interplay between microbialite growth and sedimentation/cementation, rather than fluid or gas escape, as demonstrated by the compartmentalization by bridging laminae. Vertical cross sections resemble inter-column depressions that form between columnar stromatolites. Bed-parallel sections, however, reveal that the tube structures represent isolated, sediment-filled depressions within a continuous layer of stromatolite. The genesis of this unusual stromatolite morphology is likely related to highly supersaturated seawater in the aftermath of low-latitude glaciation in Neoproterozoic time. Similar tube-forming microbialites are known from alkaline lake systems such as Lake Turkana, Pavilion Lake, and paleo-Lake Gosuite (Green River Formation). The tubestones are interpreted to represent a rarely attained end-member in stromatolite morphospace, likely associated with anomalously high carbonate supersaturation.


IPS is a math based software tool for automatic verification of assembly feasibility, design of flexible components, motion planning and optimization of multi-robot stations, and simulation of key surface treatment processes. IPS successfully implements the potential of the virtual world. IPS is developed by Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre and Fraunhofer ITWM, and distributed by IPS AB and fleXstructures GmbH.


The twenty century socialist revolutions have turned, first, into statist or technobureaucratic systems and, second, have proved to be a path to capitalism to the extent that the state is an effective instrument to promote forced savings. The first conversion derived from the high initial inequality conditions existing in modern societies and from the fact that although human beings are not only egoistic, their solidarity must be built. The second conversion from the fact that a state controlled economy is incompatible with the complexity of developed economic systems. Actually, men and women are always building a better state and a better society. If socialism finally turns reality, it will be the outcome of a gradual social construction.


This study aimed to explore concentration of a low grade sulfide-oxide lead-zinc sample containing 2.3% Pb, 1.91% Zn taken from Changarzeh mine, South Natanz, Iran. The effects of different parameters such as type and dosage of collector, milling retention time, dosage of sodium sulfur and its preparation time, application of sodium silicate, pH and solid content were investigated in relation to flotation efficiencies. Optimum experiment was carried out in cumulative flotation with 200g/t KAX as collector, 2000g/t Na2S, 500g/t sodium silicate, 30g/t MIBC and at pH=10. This test yielded 94% of lead recovery under optimum condition performance, and a concentrate with 70%Pb was produced through cleaning stages. Eighteen minutes was found to be the optimum time for lead flotation in laboratory scale. Application of gravity method for the production of a middle product was also considered. For shaking table the effect of table slope and water flowrate and for jig the effect of water flowrate and frequency were studied. Gravity separation by shaking table resulted in a concentrate with 46%Pb and 80% recovery, so shaking table could be proposed for production of pre-concentrate.


Measurements at the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve support a range of research activities aimed at improving the understanding of the atmospheric fate and transport of mercury. Routine monitoring was enhanced by two intensive measurement periods conducted at the site in summer 2010 and spring 2011. Detailed meteorological data are required to properly represent the weather conditions, to determine the transport and dispersion of plumes and to understand the wet and dry deposition of mercury. To describe the mesoscale features that might influence future plume calculations for mercury episodes during the Grand Bay Intensive campaigns, fine-resolution meteorological simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model were conducted with various initialization and nudging configurations. The WRF simulations with nudging generated reasonable results in comparison with conventional observations in the region and measurements obtained at the Grand Bay site, including surface and sounding data. The grid nudging, together with observational nudging, had a positive effect on wind prediction. However, the nudging of mass fields (temperature and moisture) led to overestimates of precipitation, which may introduce significant inaccuracies if the data were to be used for subsequent atmospheric mercury modeling. The regional flow prediction was also influenced by the reanalysis data used to initialize the WRF simulations. Even with observational nudging, the summer case simulation results in the fine resolution domain inherited features of the reanalysis data, resulting in different regional wind patterns. By contrast, the spring intensive period showed less influence from the reanalysis data.


Pools play an important role in people's life. They answer people's demand in rest and improve their health. At the same time pools are rather important for industrial use, for example in construction industry. In order to solve different construction problems it is essential to investigate the influence of microclimatic parameters on construction materials and structures. For this aim pools are in demand as special test sites for construction materials and structures in different environmental conditions including the case of a direct water impact. The efficient use of pools presupposes the necessity of constant hydroclimatic contro: air humidity and temperature, water temperature, chemical composition of water and air. Classification of pools of different purposes is presented in the article. The author considers the main problems of operation of pools as objects with complicated air-andwater environment. The questions of maintaining optimal microclimatic parameters in a pool are considered. The necessity of use of the control system of a microclimate, its efficiency, profitability and social effect of its implementation is described. A mathematical model of the thermal mode of a pool area is constructed. The process of indoor temperature regulation in the pool is considered.


The Same Fate as the Poor is the inspiring account of the lives of three Maryknoll Sisters who made the "option for the poor" and paid the ultimate price. In December 1980, Ita Ford and Maura Clark were two of the four churchwomen ambushed and killed by National Guard troops in El Salvador. Only a few months before, Ita Ford's best friend, Carla Piette, was drowned in a flash flood. The loss of these three lives was made more devastating by media furor and political backlash that followed the December murders. This new edition of The Same Fate as the Poor celebrates the lives of these women. It now includes excerpts from the report of the United Nations Truth Commission that proved without a doubt the culpability of the Salvadoran government in the deaths of Ita Ford, Maura Clarke Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel.


Presented in this thesis are two methods that are coupled to the instrumentation for the recovery and analysis of ultra-trace illicit drug residues. The electrostatic dust lifting process is coupled with nanomanipulation-nanospray ionization to retrieve drug particles off of hard surfaces for analysis. For the second method, drug residues from fingerprint impressions are extracted followed by analysis. The methodology of these hyphenated techniques toward forensic science applications is applied as to explore limits of detection, sensitivity, and selectivity of analytes as well as immediacy and efficiency of analysis. The application of nanomanipulation-coupled to nanospray ionization-mass spectrometry toward forensic science based applications is considered as future improvements to trace and ultra-trace analysis.


Integrated circuits and electronic systems fabricated in current technologies suffer from a wide range of faults that may occur during the fabrication process or during the life time of each circuit/device. Soft (non-persistent) faults are caused mainly by ionizing radiation. It is known that the rate of soft faults increases and the rate of hard faults decreases as technology improves. It is therefore vital to build systems able to tolerate faults, especially in order to improve the reliability of critical applications, such as systems working in extreme environments, satellites, aircrafts, medical instruments etc. Self-healing and fault-tolerant systems deal with faults through mitigation, self-test and self-repair mechanisms. A number of designs have already been proposed to improve reliability. The bio-inspired approach to self-healing systems is part of a very promising class of methods that try to mimic the successful reliability solutions found in living organisms to design self-healing electronic systems.
This project aims to further our understanding of how the unicellular nature of biological systems and their protective immune systems could be used to enhance reliability of digital electronic systems. A novel model, which takes inspiration from unicellular living entities (prokaryotes) to reduce the large hardware and software overhead found in current bio-inspired multi-cellular systems, is proposed and implemented in an architecture named Unitronics (Unicellular + Electronics). Unitronics proposes the application of mechanisms that take place during bacterial biofilms formation to improve the reliability of electronic systems. Concepts characteristic to bacterial formation, such as geometry of islands, void and cell, are used to define the prototype of Unitronics-based applications in the hardware layer. Each cell includes configuration information that defines the cell's phenotype once it has been programmed. Finally, other prokaryotic features such as bacterial species, transposone, horizontal and vertical gene transfer functions (HGT-VGT) define the genotype of Unitronics systems, and are used to evolve, test and repair cells within a community. A single cell is not able to repair itself; instead the cell includes just its own configuration bits. A faulty cell is repaired based on its similarities and differences to/from other cells within a community of cells. This method has several advantages, such as: balance between time and hardware redundancies; possibility of repairing several faulty cells at the same time; and compression of redundant information needed for fault recovery.
Several applications (including an e-puck object avoidance robot controller, signed and unsigned multipliers, and PID controller) are used to demonstrate the underlying theory and the practical viability of our bio-inspired model, and to show examples of performances that can be achieved using the Unitronics architecture we have proposed.


This study examines the adoption of hospital information systems (HIS), specifically focusing on the connection between the financing of health care and the adoption of these new technologies. Using a recently uncovered dataset detailing the systems installed at over 2300 hospitals, the results indicate that state price regulations slowed the adoption of these systems during the 1970's. In contrast, hospitals increased their adoption of HIS in response to the implementation of Medicare's prospective payment system. The evidence suggests that in the early years, these systems did not have the ability to save sufficient funds to justify their expense and adopters, in particular not-for-profit hospitals, were motivated by factors other than cost. By the early 1980's, this had changed: hospitals with the greatest incentives to lower costs were now more likely to adopt these technologies.


This article serves as an introduction to the FQS special issue "Participatory Qualitative Research." In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in participatory research strategies. The articles in this special issue come from different disciplines. Against the background of concrete empirical research projects, they address numerous conceptual considerations and methodological approaches. After reading the contributions, and engaging with the authors' arguments, we were prompted to focus in particular on those areas in which further work needs to be done. They include, on the one hand, fundamental principles of participatory research, such as democratic-theory considerations, the concept of "safe space," participation issues, and ethical questions. And, on the other hand, we focus on practical research considerations regarding the role and tasks of the various participants; specific methodological approaches; and quality criteria— understood here in the sense of arguments justifying a participatory approach. Our aim is to stimulate a broad discussion that does not focus only on participatory research in the narrower sense. Because participatory methodology poses certain knowledgeand research-related questions in a radical way, it has the potential to draw attention to hitherto neglected areas in qualitative methodology and to stimulate their further development.


The optimal estimation theory of the Wiener-Kalman filter
is extended to cover the situation in which the number of memory elements
in the estimator is restricted. A method, based on the simultaneous
diagonalisation of two symmetric positive definite matrices, is given
which allows the weighted least square estimation error to be minimised.
A control system design method is developed utilising this
estimator, and this allows the dynamic controller in the feedback path
to have a low order. A 12-order once-through boiler model is constructed
and the performance of controllers of various orders generated by the
design method is investigated. Little cost penalty is found even for
the one-order controller when compared with the optimal Kalman filter
system. Whereas in the Kalman filter all information from past
observations is stored, the given method results in an estimate of the state variables which is a weighted sum of the selected information
held in the storage elements. For the once-through boiler these weighting
coefficients are found to be smooth functions of position, their form
illustrating the implicit model reduction properties of the design
method.
Minimal-order estimators of the Luenberger type also generate
low order controllers and the relation between the two design methods
is examined. It is concluded that the design method developed in this
thesis gives better plant estimates than the Luenberger system and, more
fundamentally, allows a lower order control system to be constructed.
Finally some possible extensions of the theory are indicated.
An immediate application is to multivariable control systems, while
the existence of a plant state estimate even in control systems of very
low order allows a certain adaptive structure to be considered for systems
with time-varying parameters.


Angie Motshekga, the president of the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress (ANC 2014), is reported to have said that 'South Africa is not ready to have a female president ...' What is perturbing about her statement is the presupposition that South-African society perceives women as presently incapable of leading the country as president. Given the variety of literature on female empowerment in South Africa, Motshekga's statement comes both as a disappointment and a disempowering assertion as it does not exhibit a clear attempt to address patriarchy. This article re-interprets the character of Athaliah in 2 Kings 11 and probes it for the empowering possibility that it offers the women of South Africa. It argues that Athaliah was a politically astute queen and that the scarcity of female rulers in ancient Israel confirms the patriarchal bias against women. Thus, drawing from the reconstructed character of Athaliah and from the leadership demonstrated by selected women politicians against a patriarchal paradigm that is part of African cultures, the article submits that the perception of women as capable of leading South Africa as president is justified. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The present article partly responds to Angie Motshekga's statement that 'South Africa is not ready to have a female president ...' Thus, drawing from the insight in the fields of the Old Testament, social sciences and gender studies, this article submits that the perception that women are capable of leading South Africa as president is warranted.


On December 5, 1960, 4-month-old Theo Dahl, the only son of best-selling author Roald Dahl (1916-1990), had his skull shattered in a horrific traffic accident. What began as a personal tragedy for the Dahl family would soon evolve into a dogged crusade by Dahl to expand upon preexisting valve technology with the goal of developing a shunt that would not become obstructed. Based upon exclusive access to private archives of the Dahl estate, as well as interviews with those involved, this article tells the intricate tale of one famous father's drive to significantly alter the natural history of pediatric hydrocephalus. Dahl's collaboration with British toymaker Stanley Wade and pioneering pediatric neurosurgeons Joseph Ransohoff, Kenneth Shulman, and Kenneth Till to create the Wade-Dahl-Till (WDT) valve is examined in detail. The ensuing rift between the American and British contingents, the valve's multiple design revisions, and the goal of creating an affordable shunt for children in developing countries are among the issues addressed. The development of the WDT valve marked a significant turning point in the surgical management of pediatric hydrocephalus in general and in shunt valve technology in particular.


Domain names, or short domains, are memorable identifiers for websites, however their affiliation is not always clear. Cybersquatters register domains that closely resemble existing ones or well known trademarks for their own profit and therefore misuse the trust of a brand. The focus of this thesis is to support security personnel in the accurate detection of cybersquatted domains. Our goal is to identify such domains that have been crafted in bad faith based on the content present on the website, and therefore effectively reduce the number of websites that would otherwise require a manual review. We developed a tool based on logo matching with image hashing that can, given a target domain, report cybersquatted domains in global-scale domain lists that consist of several hundred million entries. For our case study we selected the websites of nine well known luxury and apparel trademarks from the Forbes Top 100 most valuable brands list that we fed to our tool. We performed a manual evaluation on more than 5 000 reported websites to determine whether the automatically assigned label, harmless or malicious, was correct. We realized that cybersquatting is still a relevant issue for selected brands as they try to protect themselves against this threat. Furthermore, we could identify 1 433 domains that host malicious content, including 639 fake web shops. Finally, we realized that image hashing algorithms are preferably not used in such scenarios, because logos on squatted domains are altered in a way that causes large differences in their similarity scores although they remain visually similar. We conclude that logos are indeed a typical feature used in many websites of cybersquatted domains and that our tool can report domains missed by existing tools and services.


In pursuit of the long-term goal of developing a general theory of humour, it is reasonable to study certain limited forms of humorous artefact in detail. One obvious class of humour to consider is verbally expressed humour, and in particular jokes. We propose a methodology for exploring this subarea. The central idea is to devise detailed symbolic descriptions of the internal linguistic structure of classes of jokes, at a suitable level of abstraction. These descriptions are intended to make explicit the semantic and pragmatic factors (broadly interpreted) that are relevant to the humorous effect of the subclass of joke in question, and also to contribute an accumulation of analysed data over which more general theorising may occur. An analogy is drawn with established practice in linguistics.


Our study examines the potential developments of cultural landscapes, taking into consideration various economic and social conditions (scenarios). The study takes place in three project regions which represent typical landscapes in Southern Germany and Austria. In each project area, the influence of a changing agri-food environment is analysed. The following scenarios are defined: (1) status quo (current economic and agri-political framework); (2) high-producer prices and constant (or even increasing) direct payments; and (3) low-producer prices and no (or very low) direct payments. In all three regions, potential production responses are estimated for all farms and aggregated on a regional level. The estimation takes into account social and economic parameters such as cash flow, size and type of farms, age of farmers and workload. The results show that the impact of the changing agro-economic environment differs in particular on the level of the study regions. Due to a lack of production alternatives, agricultural production in grassland areas is very unstable – especially if site conditions are unfavourable and economic conditions are disadvantageous. As a result, large-scale abandonment of agriculture is likely in low-yield grassland areas and consequences for landscape appearance might be dramatic. In high-yield grassland areas, agriculture is much more stable. However, under very disadvantageous conditions the extent of farms givingup production is as high as in marginal grassland regions. Nevertheless one cannot expect large-scale set aside, because remaining farmers use the possibility of growth and lease a considerable quantity of land In contrast to this, farm structure in the arable regions is stable due to a high potential of production alternatives. However, landscape appearance may also change dramatically in this region due to the increasing importance of maize.


Biclustering is the analog of clustering on a bipartite graph. Existent methods infer biclusters through local search strategies that find one cluster at a time; a common technique is to update the row memberships based on the current column memberships, and vice versa. We propose a biclustering algorithm that maximizes a global objective function using message passing. Our objective function closely approximates a general likelihood function, separating a cluster size penalty term into row- and column-count penalties. Because we use a global optimization framework, our approach excels at resolving the overlaps between biclusters, which are important features of biclusters in practice. Moreover, Expectation-Maximization can be used to learn the model parameters if they are unknown. In simulations, we find that our method outperforms two of the best existing biclustering algorithms, ISA and LAS, when the planted clusters overlap. Applied to three gene expression datasets, our method finds coregulated gene clusters that have high quality in terms of cluster size and density.


Justice Samuel Alito is regarded by both his champions and his critics as the most consistently conservative member of the current Supreme Court. Both groups seem to agree that he has become the most important conservative voice on the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts has a Court to lead; Justice Antonin Scalia and his particular brand of originalism have passed on; Justice Clarence Thomas is a stricter originalist and so writes opinions that other Justices do not join; and Justice Anthony Kennedy can be ideologically unreliable. Justice Alito, by contrast, is unburdened by the perceived responsibilities of being Chief Justice, is relatively young by Supreme Court standards (66 years old), is methodologically conventional, and is uniquely reliable. As a consequence, many conservatives love to celebrate him as the ideal Justice, and many liberals love to condemn him as politically driven.However one feels about Justice Alito as a jurist, he is carving out a distinctive role for himself on the Court at a pivotal time. That role and this time should be of interest to people who care about the Court's work regardless of their ideology. Particularly in light of Justice Scalia's passing, Justice Alito has become the primary judicial voice of the many millions of Americans who appear to be losing the culture wars, including in battles over gay rights, women's access to reproductive healthcare, affirmative action, and religious exemptions. Part I observes that Justice Alito relies upon a variety of "modalities" of constitutional interpretation; his conventional methodology distinguishes him only (albeit interestingly) from justices Scalia and Thomas. Looking elsewhere for what distinguishes Justice Alito from the rest of his colleagues, Part II observes that his tenth year on the Court coincides with a potentially significant moment in American constitutional history. Connecting the moment to the man, Part III examines Justice Alito's distinctive role, which is most apparent in his majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges. There and elsewhere, Justice Alito voices the concerns of Americans who hold traditionalist conservative beliefs about speech, religion, guns, crime, race, gender, sexuality, and the family. These Americans were previously majorities in the real or imagined past, but they increasingly find themselves in the minority. Part IV considers two alternative characterizations of Justice Alito — one from conservatives (who may view Justice Alito as a Burkean conservative), and the other from liberals (who may view him as a movement conservative). The Conclusion suggests that Justice Alito's distinctive role will likely be amplified in the years ahead, and identifies questions that follow for his supporters and critics.


Landslide of Ain El Hammam (AEH) has been an old slip since 1969; it was reactivated after an intense rainfall period in 2008 where it presents a complex shape and affects broad areas. The schist of AEH is more or less altered; the alteration is facilitated by the fracturing of the rock in its upper part, the presence of flowing water as well as physical and chemical mechanisms of desegregation in joint of altered schist. The factors following these instabilities are mostly related to the geological formation, the hydro-climatic conditions and the topography of the region. The city of AEH is located on the top of a steep slope at 50 km from the city of TiziOuzou (Algeria). AEH's topographic monitoring of unstable slope allows analyzing the structure and the different deformation mechanism and the gradual change in the geometry, the direction of change of slip. It also allows us to delimit the area affected by the movement. This work aims to study the behavior of AEH landslide with topographic monitoring and to validate the results with numerical modeling of the slip site, when the hydraulic factors are identified as the most important factors for the reactivation of this landslide. With the help of the numerical code PLAXIS 2D and PlaxFlow, the precipitations and the steady state flow are modeled. To identify the mechanism of deformation and to predict the spread of the AEH landslide numerically, we used the equivalent deviatory strain, and these results were visualized by MATLAB software. Keywords—Equivalent deviatory strain, landslide, numerical modeling, topographic monitoring.


The goal of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how prosodic lengthening in Spanish can be a means of marking information structure, particularly when an entire propositional content is involved. We test empirically the correlation between a form of prosodic marking used to identify a piece of content as already introduced in discourse – verum focus being a particular case of this general distinction – and evaluative values such as insistence and impatience. Native speakers consistently identify, in a perceptual experiment, the lengthened pattern with those discourse situations that involve repetition, often associated with insistence and impatience, and identify the nuclear stress as the locus of the marking.


RISK AND THE SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITION IN EAST GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES by Antje Barabasch This study investigates how young adults in vocational education perceive risk in regard to their professional futures in East Germany and the United States. It analyzes students' career aspirations and life plans in both countries and how they cope with uncertainties at the labor market. It further outlines underlying values, beliefs, and attitudes that guide young Americans and East Germans in their planning. Several theoretical frameworks ground this study and comprise the majority of the relevant literature. This cross-cultural comparative case study takes a mixed method approach using a concurrent triangulation design. The inquiry is framed by theories in the field of risk and cultural risk perception, school-to-work transition, vocational education and training, and welfare studies. In both countries, 129 students filled out a questionnaire. Additionally, narratives from nine focus groups and 29 biographical interviews were conducted. A three level analysis of the data was compiled that outlines the themes and categorizes them according to an individual, institutional, and macrostructural level of influence on risk perception in each country. Emerging premises on an individual level were choice, family and career planning concerns, geographical and occupational flexibility, further education and training, and agency. On the institutional level the influence of public career advisement institutions, teachers, parents, peers and friends was outlined. On the macro-structural level unemployment, political welfare reforms, the vocational education and training system were themes that have been of concern among the East German population. The dissertation also offers a comparative analysis of the data. This study reveals that young adults in East Germany are highly concerned about their occupational futures and tend to be pessimistic about current welfare reforms. They hold on to the idea of a standard biography and try to make strategic career plans. Their counterparts in the United States are highly optimistic about their futures, expressed little concern about labor market policies, but also appeared to be short term oriented in their life planning in order to remain flexible and mobile. RISK AND THE SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITION IN EAST GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES by Antje Barabasch


This document specifies the conventions for using the SEED encryption
algorithm for encryption with the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS).
SEED is added to the set of optional symmetric encryption algorithms
in CMS by providing two classes of unique object identifiers (OIDs).
One OID class defines the content encryption algorithms and the other
defines the key encryption algorithms. [STANDARDS-TRACK]


BACKGROUND
Anecdotally, patients volunteer reports of increasing hardness of their fingernails within months of starting diverse treatments for osteoporosis. The properties of both nail and bone may be linked in a comparable, measurable way.

METHODS
We examined the fingernails of two groups of patients, with (n = 9) and without (n = 13) osteoporosis at either the hip or lumbosacral spine. We performed nanoindentation to assess the degree of nail brittleness and Raman spectroscopy to assess the disulfide bond content of nail.

RESULTS
The mean moduli of fingernails of patients with low bone mineral density (BMD) are lower than those of patients with normal BMD. The mean difference in mean modulus between the groups was found to be 0.996 (p = 0.15 between groups). The spectroscopy data also showed differences between the two sets of nails. The disulfide bond content of the nails sourced from osteoporotic patients was lower than that from healthy patients (p = 0.06 between groups).

CONCLUSIONS
Bone collagen and nail keratin are two distinct structural proteins, and both require protein sulfation and disulfide bond formation, via cysteine, for structural integrity. A disorder of either process may lead to disordered collagen and keratin synthesis. This is reflected in the structural abnormalities seen in clinical syndromes in which there is either protein deficiency, disorders of sulfur metabolism, or cystathione beta-synthase deficiency. The relationship between nail and bone may exist in a measurable way. This pilot study should lead to further work to explore this relationship. Could nail prove to be a valuable adjunct to diagnosis or provide a means of more rapid follow-up after commencement of therapy?


Abstract. Monitoring of flows in sewer systems is increasingly applied to calibrate urban drainage models used for long-term simulation. However, most often models are calibrated without considering the uncertainties. The generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) methodology is here applied to assess parameter and flow simulation uncertainty using a simplified lumped sewer model that accounts for three separate flow contributions: wastewater, fast runoff from paved areas, and slow infiltrating water from permeable areas. Recently GLUE methodology has been critisised for generating prediction limits without statistical coherence and consistency and for the subjectivity in the choice of a threshold value to distinguish "behavioural" from "non-behavioural" parameter sets. In this paper we examine how well the GLUE methodology performs when the behavioural parameter sets deduced from a calibration period are applied to generate prediction bounds in validation periods. By retaining an increasing number of parameter sets we aim at obtaining consistency between the GLUE generated 90% prediction limits and the actual containment ratio (CR) in calibration. Due to the large uncertainties related to spatio-temporal rain variability during heavy convective rain events, flow measurement errors, possible model deficiencies as well as epistemic uncertainties, it was not possible to obtain an overall CR of more than 80%. However, the GLUE generated prediction limits still proved rather consistent, since the overall CRs obtained in calibration corresponded well with the overall CRs obtained in validation periods for all proportions of retained parameter sets evaluated. When focusing on wet and dry weather periods separately, some inconsistencies were however found between calibration and validation and we address here some of the reasons why we should not expect the coverage of the prediction limits to be identical in calibration and validation periods in real-world applications. The large uncertainties result in wide posterior parameter limits, that cannot be used for interpretation of, for example, the relative size of paved area vs. the size of infiltrating area. We should therefore try to learn from the significant discrepancies between model and observations from this study, possibly by using some form of non-stationary error correction procedure, but it seems crucial to obtain more representative rain inputs and more accurate flow observations to reduce parameter and model simulation uncertainty.


Iraq has the second largest oil resource in the world, presenting good business opportunities for foreign investors. However, foreign investors have avoided the country due to its ongoing unrest. This includes two wars (the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, then the Gulf war
in 1991), followed by United Nations (UN) sanctions, and most recently, since 2003 the country has become a battle ground for terrorists and insurgents in most parts of the country. Kurdistan Region is a safe and sustainable part of Iraq compared to the rest of the country. Its rich natural resources (oil and gas), and competitive investment laws are expected to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Region. However, despite Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) massive advertising campaign internationally, and the many incentives offered to foreigners to invest in the Region, there is little evidence of foreign multinational
companies' willingness to commit to long term investment in Kurdistan Region. This thesis is part of an overall research study, exploring the determinants of FDI in Kurdistan Region. In the previous documents the author investigated the Region's market attractiveness for FDI, through interviews with senior government officials in Kurdistan and
Iraqi Central Government (Document Three), and foreign investors (Document Four) regarding their main concerns relating to foreign investors' investments in Kurdistan Region. This study, investigating a different set of stakeholders, a number of UK and Turkey based organisations involved in FDI in the Kurdistan Region. It aims to investigate all the potential risks associated with investing in Kurdistan Region as well as to research how these organisations evaluate the Kurdistan market. The findings of this research project suggest that although Kurdistan Region presents good business opportunities for FDI, investing in the Region is closely associated with political and market risks. These risks are a result of Iraq's recent history of violence, the current conflict
between different ethnic groups over power and authority, and the Region's uncertain long term political risks which are affecting multinational companies' (MNC) modes of entry and preventing high-resource commitments (Uppsala theory).
The findings also suggest that participants' opinions regarding the Region's market attractiveness for FDI consideration are influenced by their own experiences, and the participants of this study play an encouraging role in MNCs' decisions to enter the Region.