An increased push for accountability in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has led to the imperative for what was previously an internal management practice widely-utilized in the private sector: organizational learning. Learning initiatives support organizations to utilize resources more effectively and to reach their objectives with adaptive strategies. In this paper, I explore the many components belonging to the organizational learning umbrella term from multiple disciplines, grounding my inquiry in the context of international NGOs. The findings from my qualitative research highlight aspects of learning and knowledge management in addition to organizational change and culture; to provide a comprehensive understanding of organizational learning and how it is optimally implemented. Notable attention is given to the apparent contrast of national culture and learning culture. I examined my research through a framework adapted from social capital theory, which categorizes learning into structural, relational and cognitive aspects. Analyzing learning initiatives through these three aspects provides a comprehensive understanding of how organizational learning systems are successfully implemented throughout a multinational organization, particularly at the field level of international NGOs. I conducted qualitative interviews with experts and field managers to complement the literature review and draw recommendations. These insights are valuable for senior management, field managers and field staff to utilize in advocating for and carrying out organizational learning systems.


Background: Malaria
infestation in pregnancy is a major public
health concern and ranks amongst the commonest complications of
pregnancy in Nigeria. Approximately 50,000 Nigerian women die each year from
largely preventable pregnancy related complications. Intermittent preventive
therapy for malaria in pregnancy (IPTp) is a key recommendation in the National
guideline for malaria treatment in Nigeria. This study assessed the
prescription pattern of intermittent preventive therapy with Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine for pregnant women among doctors practicing in 68 Nigerian Army Reference
Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: This
was a retrospective study using case notes of pregnant women seen at
antenatal clinic of 68 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria
from January, 2008 to December, 2008. A total of 336 case notes were reviewed.
The findings were precoded, data entry and
analysis was done using EPI INFO 2002. Results: A good proportion of the
women (82.9%) booked for antenatal clinic within the first and second
trimesters of pregnancy. Most commonly prescribed by doctors was the weekly
pyrimethamine (daraprim) for malaria prophylaxis in pregnancy (100.0%). Very
few doctors prescribed intermittent preventive therapy with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and the few who did
prescribed just one dose. Conclusion: The study showed a very low level of prescription of IPTp among doctors practicing at 68 Nigerian Army Reference
Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria. There is a great need for training of these doctors
and other health professionals on the recommendations of the current National
Antimalarial Treatment Guidelines.


Abstract On 26 December 1940, 1 580 central European Jewish refugees were imprisoned on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius by the British colonial government after attempting to enter Palestine illegally. Unable to be repatriated to Nazi occupied Europe, and because no other country would grant them safe harbour, the British colonial government used these refugees as a symbolic deterrent against illegal immigration to Palestine by imprisoning them at Beau Bassin prison for the duration of the Second World War. Intersecting with a number of different disciplines and modalities, we examine the Beau Bassin story as a way to reposition histories of WWII from a southern Hemispheric and Indian Ocean perspective. Both 'traditional' and 'ephemeral' in its make-up, the Beau Bassin prison archive consists of records from the National Archives in London and Mauritius, official colonial records of correspondence, parliamentary debates, records from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies' special committee on Mauritius 1940–1945, letters, memoirs, literary representations, art works, commemorative museum panels, life writing, interviews, and newspaper articles. In this article, we conceive of archives not simply as accounts of actions or records of what people thought happened, but rather as 'records of uncertainty and doubt in how people imagined they could and might make the rubrics of rule correspond to a changing imperial world' (Stoler 2010: 4). Approaching this story from a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective we locate the Beau Bassin story at the entangled apex of a confluence of narratives, from the history of the Indian Ocean region, Mauritian history, the history of the Second World War, to colonial studies, the history of penal colonies, Jewish Studies and the history of Palestine.


A novel framework for remote service discovery and access of IP cameras with Network address Translation (NAT) traversal is presented in this paper. The proposed protocol, termed STDP (Service Trader Discovery Protocol), is a hybrid combination of Zeroconf and SIP (Session Initial Protocol). The Zeroconf is adopted for the discovery and/or publication of local services; whereas, the SIP is used for the delivery of local services to the remote nodes. In addition, both the SIP-ALG (Application Layer Gateway) and UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)-IGD (Internet Gateway Device) protocols are used for NAT traversal. The proposed framework is well-suited for high mobility applications where the fast deployment and low administration efforts of IP cameras are desired.


"Duty and Healing" positions ethical issues commonly encountered in clinical situations within Jewish law. The concept of duty is significant in exploring bioethical issues, and this book presents an authentic and non-parochial Jewish approach to bioethics, while it includes critiques of both current secular and Jewish literatures. Among the issues the book explores are the role of family in medical decision-making, the question of informed consent as a personal religious duty, and the responsibilities of caretakers. The exploration of contemporary ethical problems in healthcare through the lens of traditional sources in Jewish law is an indispensable guide of moral knowledge.


This paper focuses on aspects of domain modeling for Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs), adaptive training tools to support one-to-one computer-based instruction. Domain modeling represents knowledge for a particular task or concept and includes: domain content (a library of scenarios or problem sets); an expert or ideal student model with measures of success; and a library of tactics or actions (e.g., questions, assessments, prompts, and pumps) which can be taken by the tutor to engage or motivate the learner and optimize learning. Today, ITSs support well-defined domains in mathematics, physics, and software programming. Since the military often operates in complex, dynamic, and ill-defined domains, it is necessary to expand the scope of domain modeling. We examined domain knowledge representation across a variety of dimensions: task domains, complexity, definition, and physical interaction modes in order to understand instructional options and drive adaptive training decisions.


Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy, which is characterised by progressive muscle wasting and the discovery of reliable blood-based biomarkers could be useful for the disease progress monitoring. There have been some reports showing that the presence of specific miRNAs in blood correlates with DM1. In one of these, our group identified four muscle-specific miRNAs, miR-1, miR-133a, miR-133b and miR-206, which correlated with the progression of muscle wasting observed in DM1 patients. The levels of the four muscle-specific miRNAs were elevated in the serum of DM1 patients compared to healthy participants and were also elevated in the serum of progressive muscle wasting DM1 patients compared to disease-stable DM1 patients. The aim of this work was to characterise the ontology of these four muscle-specific miRNAs in the blood circulation of DM1 patients. Here we show that the four muscle-specific miRNAs are encapsulated within exosomes isolated from DM1 patients. Our results show for the first time, the presence of miRNAs encapsulated within exosomes in blood circulation of DM1 patients. More interestingly, the levels of the four exosomal muscle-specific miRNAs are associated with the progression of muscle wasting in DM1 patients. We propose that exosomal muscle-specific miRNAs may be useful molecular biomarkers for monitoring the progress of muscle wasting in DM1 patients. There has been a growing interest regarding the clinical applications of exosomes and their role in prognosis and therapy of various diseases and the above results contribute towards this way.


In this paper we look at the interplay of technology and social preferences in different stages of economic development. We use a set of input-output tables for 32 different countries, published by OECD. The tables refer to the period 1996-2001 and were consolidated in 48 sectors so that structural comparisons were possible. Through the use of the fields of influence of structural change for partitioned input-output systems, we confirm that, for different levels of per capita GDP, technological progress is an important element to drive output growth. However, as an economy evolves, our dataset also confirm that the composition of final demand, which reveals social preferences in a static way, move away from agricultural and manufacturing to services activities. Such structural changes favor sectors with weaker output multipliers generating a force that helps driving income convergence among countries.


The initial program for reducing instrumentation data, used by the Geotechnical Branch of the Louisville District Corps of Engineers, was written in 1969. This program did not allow for field data entry, automatic transmittal of data to the District Office, processing, or historic comparison of data. The piezometric water surface elevations were manually calculated at the field offices. The instrumentation readings, along with the pool and tailwater elevations, were sent to the Dam Safety Section on pre-printed forms. Once the data was received at the District Office, it was preliminarily reviewed for anomalies and sent to the Information Management Office for keypunching. The keypunched data was then manually sorted into the appropriate files. Manipulation of the data was the most time-consuming aspect of the entire process, frequently causing backlogs. In 1988, development of new software was initiated to include capabilities of updating basic data and sorting data into appropriate files, as well as field data entry and automatic data transmittal. Coordination with the Information Management Office involved discussing system requirements, resulting in the development of efficient, user-friendly software applications. The new Remote Entry System (RES) program was implemented in January 1990. The improved software applications greatly reduced the backlog of data processing and evaluation. Previously, a typical data transaction required three to ten days. The data then required manual assimilation into the appropriate files and evaluation. Implementation of this new system has diminished a backlog of several months and currently reduces data transmittal and graphic reduction of data to a matter of minutes. The RES software also reduces the amount of human involvement in processing, consequently reducing the chances for human error. This system currently accommodates 600 instruments spanning 21 projects. However, it could be adapted to smaller or larger applications.


An educational game in mathematics targets cognitive skills oincluding pattern finding and generalization from example by teaching an agent. These can be difficult for young children, let alone teaching about them. Therefore, we have designed a new way of teaching an agent, the teach-by-guiding model. We describe the model and its basic implementation. Because this is a work-inprogress, we end by raising questions of how such an agent is perceived, and in what respect it may differ from other pedagogical agents.


Abstract Background and Objectives: Cardiac surgical interventions for children with trisomy 18 and trisomy 13 remain controversial, despite growing evidence that definitive cardiac repair prolongs survival. Understanding quality of life for survivors and their families therefore becomes crucial. Study objective was to generate a descriptive summary of parental perspectives on quality of life, family impact, functional status, and hopes for children with trisomy 18 and trisomy 13 who have undergone heart surgery. Methods: A concurrent mixed method approach utilising PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Parent Report for Toddlers or the PedsQL™ Infant Scale, PedsQL™ 2.0 Family Impact Module, Functional Status Scale, quality of life visual analogue scale, and narrative responses for 10 children whose families travelled out of state to access cardiac surgery denied to them in their home state due to genetic diagnoses. Results: Parents rated their child's quality of life as 80/100, and their own quality of life as 78/100 using validated scales. Functional status was rated 11 by parents and 11.6 by providers (correlation 0.89). On quality of life visual analogue scale, all parents rated their child's quality of life as "high" with mean response 92.7/100. Parental hopes were informed by realistic perspective on prognosis while striving to ensure their children had access to reaching their full potential. Qualitative analysis revealed a profound sense of the child's relationality and valued life meaning. Conclusion: Understanding parental motivations and perceptions on the child's quality of life has potential to inform care teams in considering cardiac interventions for children with trisomy 18 and trisomy 13.


The activator protein‐1 (AP‐1) and runt domain binding (Runx/RD/Cbfa) sites and their respective binding proteins, c‐Fos/c‐Jun and Runx2 (Cbfa1), regulate the rat matrix metalloproteinase‐13 (MMP‐13) promoter in both parathyroid hormone (PTH)‐treated and differentiating osteoblastic cells in culture. To determine the importance of these regulatory sites in the expression of MMP‐13 in vivo, transgenic mice containing either wild‐type (−456 or −148) or AP‐1 and Runx/RD/Cbfa sites mutated (−148A3R3) MMP‐13 promoters fused with the E. coli lacZ reporter were generated. The wild‐type transgenic lines expressed higher levels of bacterial β‐galactosidase in bone, teeth, and skin compared to the mutant and non‐transgenic lines. Next, we investigated if overexpression of Runx2 directed by the MMP‐13 promoter regulated expression of bone specific genes in vivo, and whether this causes morphological changes in these animals. Real time RT‐PCR experiments identified increased mRNA expression of bone forming genes and decreased MMP‐13 in the tibiae of transgenic mice (14 days and 6 weeks old). Histomorphometric analyses of the proximal tibiae showed increased bone mineralization surface, mineral apposition rate, and bone formation rate in the transgenic mice which appears to be due to decreased osteoclast number. Since MMP‐13 is likely to play a role in recruiting osteoclasts to the bone surface, decreased expression of MMP‐13 may cause reduced osteoclast‐mediated bone resorption, resulting in greater bone formation in transgenic mice. In summary, we show here that the 148 bp upstream of the MMP‐13 transcriptional start site is sufficient and necessary for gene expression in bone, teeth, and skin in vivo and the AP‐1 and Runx/RD/Cbfa sites are likely to regulate this. Overexpression of Runx2 by these regulatory elements appears to alter the balance between the bone formation‐bone resorption processes in vivo. J. Cell. Biochem. 99: 545–557, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The Open Journal of Cloud Computing (OJCC), an open access, peer-reviewed online journal, publishes original and creative research results on Cloud Computing and PostCloud Computing. OJCC distributes its articles under the open access model. All articles of OJCC are fully open access and online available to readers free of charge. OJCC aims to provide a forum for sharing and exchanging ideas, experiences and research results among scientists and practitioners of (Post-)Cloud technologies. OJCC publishes regular research papers, short communications, reviews and visionary papers in all aspects of Cloud Computing and PostCloud Computing. There is no restriction on the length of the papers. Accepted manuscripts are published online immediately.


Due to the fast pace at which research reports in behaviour change are published, researchers, consultants and policymakers would benefit from more automatic ways to process these reports. Automatic extraction of the reports' intervention content, population, settings and their results etc. are essential in synthesising and summarising the literature. However, to the best of our knowledge, no unique resource exists at the moment to facilitate this synthesis. In this paper, we describe the construction of a corpus of published behaviour change intervention evaluation reports aimed at smoking cessation. We also describe and release the annotation of 57 entities, that can be used as an off-the-shelf data resource for tasks such as entity recognition, etc. Both the corpus and the annotation dataset are being made available to the community.


PURPOSE
To evaluate the pattern of retinal integration and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) injected into the vitreous cavity of rat eyes with retinal injury.

METHODS
Adult rat retinas were submitted to laser damage followed by transplantation of DAPI-labeled BM-MSCs grafts. To assess the integration and differentiation of BM-MSCs in laser-injured retina, host retinas were evaluated 2.4 and 8 weeks after injury/transplantation.

RESULTS
Our results demonstrated that the grafted cells survived in the retina for at least 8 weeks and almost all BM-MSCs migrated and incorporated into the neural retina, specifically in the outer nuclear layer (ONL), inner nuclear layer (INL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL) while a subset of grafted cells were found in the subretinal space posttransplantation. At 8 weeks immunohistochemical analysis with several retinal specific markers revealed that the majority of the grafted cells expressed rhodopsin, a rod photoreceptor marker, followed by parvalbumin, a marker for bipolar and amacrine cells. A few subsets of cells were able to express a glial marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein. However, grafted cells failed to express pan-cytokeratin, a retinal pigment epithelium marker.

CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest the potential of BM-MSCs to differentiate into retinal neurons. Taken together, these findings might be clinically relevant for future mesenchymal stem cell therapy studies concerning retinal degeneration repair.


The objective of the present study is to propose a low-cost instrumentation methodology for urban areas, in order to effectively record actual strong motion variations on an adequately dense grid during at least light intensity seismic events. The proposed methodology is an efficient alternative to usual microzonation studies, which, due to economic reasons, are typically based on relatively few actual recordings and then use theoretical assumptions to assess the strong motion distribution throughout the area under study. The availability of actual recordings on a dense grid, which is feasible to implement through this new approach, minimizes many theoretical uncertainties inherent in the usual studies. For this purpose, an autonomous triaxial accelerograph based on MEMS sensor technology has been designed and manufactured, together with custom developed software for device configuration and data retrieval. The production cost of the developed devices is an order of magnitude lower than the presently available commercial products, thus making economically feasible their deployment on a dense grid all over the urban area under study. As a pilot case, over 20 prototype accelerographs have been already installed on a high-seismicity urban area in Greece, aiming to record the local variability of strong motion within a relatively small area. The expected strong motion records are georeferenced and postprocessed with custom designed GIS-type software, in order to produce explicit seismic hazard maps of the considered urban area. The application of the above procedure requires minimum maintenance and human intervention at a fraction of the cost compared to available commercial solutions.


We report on an injection-seeded Ti:sapphire laser pumped by the second harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser. The resonance between the low-power seed laser and the slave cavity is achieved by a ramp-hold-fire technique. Because of the triangular cavity design, the spatial beam profile is excellent; and combined with the narrow-linewidth pulses, the conversion efficiencies for nonlinear frequency generation are excellent.


Centaurs are minor planets thought to have originated in the outer solar system region known as the Kuiper Belt. Active Centaurs enigmatically display comet-like features (e.g., tails, comae) even though they orbit in the gas giant region where it is too cold for water to readily sublimate. Only 18 active Centaurs have been identified since 1927 and, consequently, the underlying activity mechanism(s) have remained largely unknown up to this point. Here we report the discovery of activity emanating from Centaur 2014 OG392, based on archival images we uncovered plus our own new observational evidence acquired with the Dark Energy Camera (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Blanco 4 m telescope), the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera & Spectrograph (Las Campanas Observatory 6.5 m Walter Baade Telescope), and the Large Monolithic Imager (Lowell Observatory 4.3 m Discovery Channel Telescope). We detect a coma as far as 400,000 km from 2014 OG392, and our novel analysis of sublimation processes and dynamical lifetime suggest carbon dioxide and/or ammonia are the most likely candidates for causing activity on this and other active Centaurs. We find 2014 OG392 is optically red, but CO2 and NH3 are spectrally neutral in this wavelength regime so the reddening agent is as yet unidentified.


Antitrust law and patent law assume that an invalid patent cannot distort competition unless the patentee enforces the patent by initiating infringement litigation or explicitly threatening to do so. The Article argues that invalid patents can destroy competition - even without such enforcement efforts - by creating legitimate fears of litigation, increasing the costs of market entry, delaying market entry, scaring away competitors' customers and business partners, and deterring research. Despite the anticompetitive risks posed by invalid patents, neither patent law nor antitrust law does an effective job of ridding the marketplace of invalid patents. In particular, because antitrust law currently holds that a monopolist does not violate the Sherman Act unless it actually enforces its invalid patent, a monopolist with an invalid patent can improperly exclude competitors while not exposing itself to antitrust liability. Finally, the Article argues that eliminating the enforcement requirement from antitrust claims based on invalid patents would better accomplish the goals of both antitrust law and the patent system.


Intermodal transportation (IMT) combines two or more different modes of transportation without changing the packaging of the freight transported in order to minimize the transportation cost and to utilize the benefits of modes that are used. One of the most common intermodal freight transportation systems is the Rolling Highway (Ro-La), where a special train system is used to carry highway vehicles on railway cars. This paper reviews IMT and proposes a system in which the facility layout problems are solved simultaneously with the scheduling problems arising in Ro-La transportation. In this context, the best station layouts are obtained by applying a layout improvement algorithm to several initial layouts with respect to different scoring functions. One of the important questions to answer in the IMT problem pertains to the number of loading and unloading platforms. Using the output of the layout improvement algorithm, the train scheduling model is solved to find the minimum number of platforms in a station, the number of trains, and the departures with the carried trucks and trailers, while scheduling train operations, with the objective of minimizing operation costs. The proposed IMT system is applied to the Marmaray Undersea Railway Tunnel Project with regard to different Ro-La systems, and its effectiveness is discussed.


The purpose of this paper is to introduce, examine, and evaluate the industrial experiences and effectiveness of a Thyristor Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC) replica controller installed in Korea in 2019 through a review of its configuration, test platform, and practical application, and further to propose operational guidelines for replica controllers. Four representative practical cases were conducted: a Dynamic Performance Test (DPT) under a sufficiently large-scale power system prior to the Site Acceptance Test (SAT), pre-verification for on-site controller modification during operation stage, parameter tuning to mitigate the control interaction, and time domain simulation for Sub-Synchronous Torsional Interaction (SSTI). None of these four cases can be performed in a Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) or on-site. Therefore, TCSC control performance was accurately verified under the entire Korean power system based on a large-scale real-time simulator, which demonstrated its effectiveness as a powerful tool for operations including multiple power electronics devices. Our review herein of these four practical cases is expected to show the usefulness of replica controllers, to demonstrate their strength to deal with practical field events, and to contribute to the further expansion of the application area from a perspective of electric utility.


We investigate the use of growth interruption to obtain low-density InAs quantum dots (QDs) on GaAs. The process was realized by Ostwald-type ripening of a thin InAs layer. It was found that the optical properties of the QDs as a function of growth interruption strongly depend on InAs growth rate. By using this approach, a low density of QDs (4 dots/μm2) with uniform size distribution was achieved. As compared to QDs grown without growth interruption, a larger energy separation between the QD confined levels was observed, suggesting a situation closer to the ideal zero-dimensional system. Combining with an InGaAs capping layer such as In-rich QDs enable 1.3 μm emission at 4 K.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To compare the effectiveness of two low-intensity approaches for distressed patients with cancer and caregivers who had called cancer helplines seeking support. Baseline distress was hypothesized as a moderator of intervention effect.

DESIGN
Randomized trial.

SETTING
Community-based cancer helplines in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia.

SAMPLE
354 patients with cancer and 336 caregivers.

METHODS
Participants were randomized to either a single session of nurse-led self-management intervention or a five-session psychologist cognitive behavioral intervention delivered by telephone. Assessments were undertaken at baseline (preintervention) and at 3, 6, and 12 months.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Psychological and cancer-specific distress and post-traumatic growth.

FINDINGS
No significant moderation by baseline cancer-specific distress was noted. For low-education patients, only the psychologist intervention was associated with a significant drop in distress. For all other participants, distress decreased over time in both arms with small to large effect sizes (Cohen's ds = 0.05-0.82). Post-traumatic growth increased over time for all participants (Cohen's ds = 0.6-0.64).

CONCLUSIONS
Many distressed patients with cancer and their caregivers may benefit significantly from a single session of a nurse psychoeducation intervention that can be delivered remotely by telephone and supported by self-management materials. Research is needed to develop an algorithm that moves beyond the use of distress as the only indicator for referral to specialist psychological services. Survivors and caregivers with low education and low literacy may require more in-depth and targeted support.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Brief nurse psychoeducation and stress management for cancer survivors and caregivers should be considered as part of a tiered approach to psychosocial care.


Ammonia and methane are structurally similar molecules. Not surprisingly therefore, microorganisms that use methane as a sole energy source (methanotrophs) and microorganisms that use ammonia as a sole energy source (ammonia oxidisers or nitrifiers) share many similarities. They have several key enzymes in common, most especially the ammonia monooxygenase/particulate methane monooxygenase enzyme family. The two groups are proposed to have a common evolutionary history. They occupy similar ecological niches, and compete for nitrogen. Enzymatically, nitrifiers are capable of methane oxidation, and methanotrophs are capable of nitrification. Microbial ecologists have attempted to find specific inhibitors for either group in order to study their respective roles in the environment. The contribution of ammonia oxidisers to methanotrophy in natural systems appears to be very minor, however methanotrophs may sometimes have important roles in the nitrogen cycle.

Key Concepts:

Some bacteria and archaea are capable of using methane or ammonia as energy sources.

Methanotrophs and ammonia oxidisers are each highly specialised to living on their particular substrate.

Methanotrophs and ammonia oxidisers have several key enzymes in common, and may share a common evolutionary history.

Both groups must cope with toxic by-products of ammonia oxidation.

Methanotrophs may be important in the environmental nitrogen cycle, but ammonia oxidisers do not affect the methane cycle.

Ammonia oxidising archaea appear to outcompete ammonia oxidising bacteria under ammonia-limiting and acidic conditions.

Keywords:

methane;
ammonia;
nitrification;
methanotrophy;
ammonia oxidation;
nitrous oxide;
denitrification;
chemolithotrophy;
biogeochemistry


Phenomenological Intentionality of Pedro Salinas in His Travels and in His Poem "La memoria en las manos" from Largo Lamento Andrew Willard Bishop Department of Spanish and Portuguese Master of Arts Intentionality, in its various forms, connects the subject with objects as they appear within the subject's view of the world. Poets, like artists, create with their bodies and perceive the world with their senses and with their souls. Subjects allow objects to reveal themselves, to manifest themselves having identities according to the contexts in which they appear. This system is called intentionality—a phenomenological concept in which appearances have ontological meanings. Phenomenology, as explained by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, provides a theoretical framework within which Pedro Salinas's poetry may be understood and interpreted. Pedro Salinas forms part of Spain's Generation of 1927 and produces collections of poetry about the intentionality of the beloved during a love affair. La voz a ti debida, Razon de Amor, and Largo Lamento form a type of trilogy under the suggestion of his friend Jorge Guillen. Salinas resides in America during and after the Spanish Civil War and composes poems which later appear in Largo Lamento posthumously. "La memoria en las manos" exemplifies how the subject intends the stone and his hands while remembering an experience with the beloved. The poetic self in the poem probes the identities of objects in order to comprehend the essence of the beloved and of himself. Pedro Salinas practices intense observations in real life when he travels. While teaching in various schools across the country, he attends conferences showcasing his literary criticism, poetry, and playwriting. He corresponds prolifically with his wife Margarita Bonmati. Through his correspondence with his wife, we see how despite distances and space, he thinks of her constantly. He relates a theory of tourism that coincides with Merleau-Ponty's "brute expression." On one occasion, he travels to Los Angeles, California to attend a literary conference. Along the way he travels through Missouri, Colorado, and Utah visiting various landscapes, national parks, and cities. He chronicles his impressions in letters to his wife. The letters Salinas writes and the appearances he contemplates show his focus and soul are not only his wife, but also Katherine Whitmore, his lover. Margarita and Katherine form a conflation that Salinas perceives in his surroundings.


This work describes a new human-in-the-loop (HitL) assistive grasping system for individuals with varying levels of physical capabilities. We investigated the feasibility of using four potential input devices with our assistive grasping system interface, using able-bodied individuals to define a set of quantitative metrics that could be used to assess an assistive grasping system. We then took these measurements and created a generalized benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of any arbitrary input device into a HitL grasping system. The four input devices were a mouse, a speech recognition device, an assistive switch, and a novel sEMG device developed by our group that was connected either to the forearm or behind the ear of the subject. These preliminary results provide insight into how different interface devices perform for generalized assistive grasping tasks and also highlight the potential of sEMG based control for severely disabled individuals.


How to increase a client's capability through outsourcing remains a problem. This papers draws on strategic management literature and the relational view to develop a theoretical model that explains the relationships between collaboration, agility, and outsourcing performance in software-as-a-service (SaaS) context. Collaboration are characterized as knowledge sharing and process alignment between a supplier and its client, agility as a supplier's sensing agility and responding agility. This study also investigates the moderating effect of environmental turbulence on the relationships between agility and performance. The proposed hypotheses are largely supported by the empirical data from 215 firms. The results show that SaaS performance is affected by both sensing agility and responding ability, which, in turn, are impacted by collaboration between a supplier and its client. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results.


The recent emergence of user generated content requires new content creation tools that will be both easy to learn and easy to use. These new tools should enable the user to construct new high-quality content with minimum effort; it is essential to allow existing multimedia content to be reused as building blocks when creating new content. In this work we present a new tool for automatically constructing virtual worlds with minimum user intervention. Users can create these worlds by drawing a simple sketch, or by using interactively segmented 2D objects from larger images. The system receives as a query the sketch or the segmented image, and uses it to find similar 3D models that are stored in a Content Centric Network. The user selects a suitable model from the retrieved models, and the system uses it to automatically construct a virtual 3D world.


Cervical carcinoma is still the most common cancer of women on the African continent. Mortality remains high - worldwide at 50% - mainly because of late presentation, advanced stage of disease and absence of a functioning screening process. The aetiological link between human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer has been well established and a number of high-risk HPV genotypes have been identified. HPV infection is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the world today - up to 80% of sexually active females will harbour HPV at some point in their lives. The majority of women will experience natural elimination of HPV infection because of an intact immune system. Persistent infection with a high risk type HPV puts women at high risk to develop precursors of cervical cancer or carcinoma itself. As part of a public health response to this serious problem, several HPV vaccines are under development. Use of vaccines still poses unanswered questions in many respects.


Cereal crop residues i.e rice straw and rice husk were used as substrate for the cultivation of oyster mushrooms (pleurotus spp.) Experiments for cultivation of P. florida and P. sajor-caju were carried out from April to October and for P. Sapidus and P. ostreatus form November to March, because required temperature and relative humidity could be easily maintained at the pilot pant of PCSIR Laboratories, Lahore, Pakistan.

Rice straw was found to be a better substrate than rice husk because it gave 29 to 48% higher yield by different oyster mushrooms species. Maximum yield )51.5 to 72.3 %) was obtained when an optimum amount of rice straw i.e. 1.5 kg/ tray (52x38x10 cm) was used for cultivation of different species of oyster mushrooms. Further increase in the amount of substrate to 2 kg/ tray, decreased the average yield by 11-16%. Supplementation of rice straw with different nitrogen source like 'Lobia' (Vigna cajang), corn gluten meal and leaf protein concentrate increased the yield of mushrooms form 72.3 to 83.5 % whereas ammonium sulphate, ammonium nitrate, urea and mustard seed meal suppressed or inhibited the growth of mushrooms sporophores. Scaling up of the mushrooms cultivation from 1.5 kg rice straw/ tray to 1.8 kg/ tower (120cm long, 70 cm diameter) and double layer spawning method improved the yield of crop by 4-5 %.

Proximate analysis showed that oyster mushrooms contained 25.24 to 36.35 % protein, 1.53 to 1.95 % fat, matter basis. PCSIR Model dehydrator was found more efficient than U.S.A Chamber type dehydrator because it reduced the moisture content of the mushrooms to safer limit (5.83%) in shorter time i.e. 96 hours. Preservation of mushrooms by freeze drying, hot air drying, pickling in oil or vinegar showed non-significant change in their composition. Freeze dried mushrooms on dehydration attained physical characteristics closer to the fresh mushrooms whereas hot dried samples were slightly inferior in quality. The pickles in oil showed similar acceptability as reference material i.e mango pickles

Feeding trails on albino rats showed that net protein utilization values of isonitrogenous experimental control diets, containing P. florida, P. sajor-caju, P. sapidus, P. ostreatus and casein, were 20.0, 29.40, 16.15, 35.20 and 73.25 % whereas protein efficiency ratio were 0.44, 0.87, -0.64, -0.64 and 2.53 respectively. The experimental diets showed true digestibility of 52.42 to 82.00 % and biological value of 30.81 to 42.68 %.

Fortification of traditional Pakistan dishes with oyster mushrooms (P. Ostreatus) increased the protein contents from 4.29 to 93.33% maximum being in 'allu Kabab' and minimum in lamb liver. Organoleptic evaluation showed that all the dishes after fortification with mushroom, were readily acceptable.

The propagation of different oyster mushrooms on rice straw its protein contents form 1.72 to 10.63 % and decreased the crude fibre, cellulose and lignin from 32.57 to 16.32 %, 35.02 to 17.84 % and 10.92 to 8.25 respectively. Recticulorumen digestibility of dry matter cellulose , minerals and protein of the biodegraded straw was enhanced from 3.6.99 to 51.94 %, 49.88 to 72.09% 20.14 to 33.27 % and 31.37 to 31.37 to 50.75% respectively over the non-degraded rice straw.


This is a true state-of-the-art volume in the fields of local governance, decentralization, and local democracy. It summarizes many of the insights emerging from original research of the past decade. It is also a future-looking volume with explicit policy relevance, paving the way for innovative thinking, and acting, on the next phase of development in the field. In a unique way this book brings together authoritative contributions from authors who to a large extent have been defining the field for the last decade or more. It looks at how good governance is created from top-down and bottom-up perspectives, illustrated through a wide variety of case studies. The case studies were selected for their relevance to the theoretical perspectives offered, as well as for their paradigmatic power in the current global evolution of decentralized policies and politics. The volume concludes that overall, local development and local politics will not go away -it has a huge potential -but also that the field is full of unfulfilled promises, some of which could be remedied through the perspectives revealed in this volume.


Background: This study aimed to investigate the biosorption of pentachlorophenol on Aspergillus niger biomass as a method for removal of pentachlorophenol from aqueous solutions. Methods: Modified A. niger biomass with NaOH was used to absorb the pentachlorophenol. The impacts of various experimental parameters like primary pentachlorophenol concentration, pH of the solution, contact time, and biomass dosage on the biosorption of pentachlorophenol were investigated. Results: The correlation of contact time, pH and initial concentration with the biosorption of pentachlorophenol by A. niger biomass was statistically significant (P<0.001). Pentachlorophenol removal increased with decreasing pH of the solution and the maximum efficiency was obtained at pH=3. The equilibrium adsorption capacity was increased from 4.23 to 11.65 mg/g by increasing initial pentachlorophenol concentration from 10 to 40 mg/L, while pentachlorophenol removal efficiency decreased from 87 to 55%. Both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms efficiently described adsorption equilibrium of pentachlorophenol on A. niger biomass. Correlation coefficients for the second order kinetic model were almost equal to one. Conclusion: A. niger biomass can be used to reduce the toxicity of aqueous solutions


Pigeons obtained food by making four responses on three keys in a specified sequence. Errors produced 5-second timeout periods, during which the keylights were off and responses had no effect. To establish a base line of repeated acquisition, the sequence of correct responses was changed from session to session. Cocaine (3 mg/kg) disrupted the behavior: total errors increased, the relative frequency of perseverative errors increased, the rate of within-session error reduction (learning) decreased and the total trial time (pausing) increased. During repeated drug administration (30-50 sessions), these effects disappeared, i.e., tolerance developed. Tolerance did not develop, however, to cocaine-induced increases or decreases in timeout responding; such effects were nondisruptive in the sense thay they did not reduce the rate of food reinforcement. For comparison, cocaine (3-10 mg/kg) was also studied under a "performance" condition, in which the sequence of correct responses was the same from session to session. Cocaine increased performance errors and produced pausing, but tolerance developed more quickly under the learning condition . The more rapid development of tolerance was presumably due to the stronger stimulus control of behavior under the performance condition.


Although transfusion of blood components is becoming increasingly safe, the risk of trans- mission of known and unknown pathogens persists. The application of vitamin B2 (ribo-flavin) and UV light to pathogen inactivation has several appealing factors. Riboflavin is a naturally occurring vitamin with a well-known and well-characterized safety profile. This photochemical-based method is effective against clinically relevant pathogens and inactivates leukocytes without significantly compromising the content and the efficacy of whole blood or blood component. This chapter gives an overview of the innovative technology for pathogen inactivation, the Mirasol ® pathogen reduction technology (PRT) System, based on riboflavin and UV light, summarizing the mechanism of action, toxicol - ogy profile, pathogen reduction performance and clinical efficacy of the process.


In April 1999 a 11.9-m long core from the 26-m water depth has beentaken in Lake Lyadhej-To (68°15'N, 65°45'E, 150 m a.s.l.) situated atthe NW rim of the Polar Urals. The lake has an area of 4 km2 and amaximum depth of 26 m. Lacustrine sediments are represented by thestratified to laminated clayey gyttja (6.9-1.5 m) and stratified siltygyttja (1.5-0 m). The 17 14C-AMS dates on picked plant remains and 3dates on dispersed organic carbon in bulk till samples provide the basisto develop the age-depth model for the core. The age-depth modelsuggests that lacustrine sedimentation started at about 10,950 cal yrBP. Here we present pollen-based reconstruction of the vegetation andclimate history of the area since that time.Pollen assemblages at ca 10,950-10,700 cal yr BP are dominated by Pre-Quaternary spores and redeposited Pinaceae pollen, pointing to a highterrestrial input. The rare Cyperaceae pollen and Equisetum sporessuggest sparse, treeless vegetation and severe climate conditions in thecatchment area. Between ca 10,700-8500 cal yr pollen spectra aredominated by Betula pollen. The pollen concentration is highest throughthe whole record. This may reflects a northward shift of the treeline andthe warmest conditions during the Holocene. Decrease in Betula pollencontent and increase in herbaceous pollen content registered in thepollen assemblages suggest cooling after ca 8500 cal yr BP. The coolingcontinues after ca 7500 cal yr BP, marked by the ongoing decrease oftree birch pollen and the simultaneous increase of dwarf birch pollen.A low pollen concentration in the upper part of the record together withthe low concentration of arboreal pollen and pollen of Alnus fruticosasuggests a southward migration of the tree line and tundra vegetationand comparatively cold climate around the lake during the last 6000years.Best modern analogue method (Guiot, 1990) has been applied to thepollen spectra from the upper 6.5 m of the core in order to getquantitative reconstruction of the Holocene climate. The lower part ofthe record with high content of re-deposited ancient pollen and sporeswas rejected. In the present study the reference modern pollen dataset is that compiled by Tarasov et al. (1999a; 1999b; 2002) fromnorthern Eurasia. It includes 1110 surface spectra for which taxapercentages were calculated based on the sum of 77 terrestrial pollentaxa. The same taxa were selected in the fossil records. For eachanalyzed fossil spectrum 10 modern spectra which have the smallestchord distance were considered as the best modern analogues followingGuiot (1990). Reconstructed mean July temperature (TVII) and annualsum of day temperatures above 5°C (GDD5) show similar changes,suggesting warmer than present summers 10,500-7500 cal yr BP. Firstsignificant cooling occurred ca 7000 cal yr BP, second ca 5500-3500 calyr BP, third after 1000 cal yr BP. During the early Holocene climaticoptimum TVII was likely 12-13°C, GDD5 - 400-600°C day, annualprecipitation - 400-500 mm. During the cold phases TVII most probablywas between 7 and 10°C, GDD5 between 100-300°C day and annualprecipitation - between 100 and 300 mm.


Leery of 800-page books that try to teach you everything about digital photography? You should be. Rather than delve into the nuances of efficient workflow, color management, or creating spectacular enhancements, these doorstop volumes tend to gloss over key information in an attempt to cover everything. Our new book series, Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography, is different. An award-winning photographer, Eddie is acknowledged as one of the premier trainers of digital imaging in the world, a highly sought-after expert who educates many corporations, studios and agencies. In this series, he brings his teaching experience to bear on technical issues in six focused and affordable books on digital photography that offer one topic per volume with answers that are quick to find when you need them most. The first book, Photoshop Workflow Setups: Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography, offers a step-by-step approach for configuring key areas of Adobe Photoshop CS2 to create an efficient, visually uncluttered workspace. Photoshop has so many different work areas and tools that it can become confusing or even intimidating for digital photographers to use in a production environment-whether you're a serious amateur or a working professional. This highly-visual, well-designed book presents Photoshop's vast collection of menus, palettes, and tools, showing you not only how they work, but how they should work for you and your specific needs. With his easygoing and authoritative style, Eddie demonstrates how to: Create an efficient workspace by using the "arrange" menu and setting the screen view Become familiar with palettes for layers, channels and paths; history and actions; color, swatches and styles; and more Set preferences for file handling, guides and grids, memory and image cache, and more Customize keyboard shortcuts and menus Work with Adobe Bridge Use Photoshop's selection, painting, graphics, and vector tools, among others In addition to this title, Eddie Tapp on Digital Photography will also focus on color management; advanced and professional production techniques; controlling digital color and tone; and creative enhancement techniques. We're thrilled that Eddie Tapp has finally agreed to publish books-and with O'Reilly.


This paper examines the progress made towards forging a Sustainable Development Strategy of the European Union on the basis of three structures of the global economy: Trade, Investment and Knowledge Generation. It identifies deficits in all three, and cites alternatives for improvement such as acknowledging ecological debt and setting up a Global Marshall Plan. It outlines how, over the medium term, compatibility with trade law could be maintained, and how Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIA) could cushion the effects of the current governance regimes. It then considers alternatives such as encouraging the EU's African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) partners to form Regional Trade Areas among themselves. Guidance is given regarding reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the question as to whether the investment regime can be governed multilaterally and, if so, at which venue.


Data on gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) G3 (well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (NET G3) and neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC)) are limited. We retrospectively study patients with NET G3 and NEC from eight European centers. Data examined included clinical and pathological characteristics at diagnosis, therapies and outcomes. Two hundred and four patients were analyzed (37 NET G3 and 167 NEC). Median age was 64 (21-89) years. Tumor origin included pancreas (32%) and colon-rectum (27%). The primary tumor was resected in 82 (40%) patients. Metastatic disease was evident at diagnosis in 88% (liver metastases: 67%). Median Ki-67 index was 70% (30% in NET G3 and 80% in NEC; P<0.001). Median overall survival (OS) for all patients was 23 (95% CI: 18-28) months and significantly higher in NET G3 (99 vs 17 months in NEC; HR=8.3; P<0.001). Platinum-etoposide first line chemotherapy was administered in 113 (68%) NEC and 12 (32%) NET G3 patients. Disease control rate and progression free survival (PFS) were significantly higher in NEC compared to NET G3 (P<0.05), whereas OS was significantly longer in NET G3 (P=0.003). Second- and third-line therapies (mainly FOLFIRI and FOLFOX) were given in 79 and 39 of NEC patients; median PFS and OS were 3.0 and 7.6 months respectively after second-line and 2.5 and 6.2 months after third-line chemotherapy. In conclusion, NET G3 and NEC are characterized by significant differences in Ki-67 index and outcomes. While platinum-based chemotherapy is effective in NEC, it seems to have limited value in NET G3.


The impact of coyotes on wildlife and agricultural resources in the province are of major concern to residents of rural Newfoundland (sheep farmers, outfitters, hunters, trappers). The coyote is a relatively recent arrival on the island of Newfoundland, and determining how to best manage this predator requires both an understanding of its ecology, and of the dimensions of human-coyote relationships.

This project is investigating the biology and ecology of coyote dynamics in the Mount Peyton area (central Newfoundland, south of Bishop's Falls). Caribou are an economically important species in the province, and are currently in decline. One of the possible reasons for caribou decline is increased predation by coyotes. This project is being conducted in close collaboration with biologists from the provincial Wildlife Division, as well as with local outfitters and trappers. It is anticipated that findings from the proposed project will directly inform policy and management decisions relevant to wildlife management in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. An understanding of the potential impact of coyotes on caribou populations will assist the Wildlife Division in developing management strategies that will contribute to the sustainability of wildlife resources in the province and to the development of the hunting/outfitting industry. Other questions being addressed are the role of small mammals as an alternate prey for coyotes as well as general questions about coyote ecology (behaviour, territory size, etc.).

The objectives of the proposed project are as follows:
1) To investigate the potential role that coyote (Canis latrans) may play in the recently observed declines in woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus) on the island of Newfoundland. These declines are having a negative impact on the hunting/outfitting economy in rural Newfoundland.
2) To better understand predator-prey dynamics between coyotes and large and small mammals

Since 2007, we have conducted three summer and one winter field season. In the first summer field season we successfully deployed 1 GPS collar, and observed coyote pups in the area, as well as made a number of sightings of caribou. As well, coyote scat was collected from across the study area, which is being analyzed for diet composition. Scats are also being subjected to DNA analysis to confirm identity as coyote (coyote scat can sometimes be mistaken for fox) and hopefully to identify how many individual coyotes are within the area. Winter field work has consisted of transect surveys to identify prey densities, as well as snow tracking to identify coyote behaviour, movement, kill locations and den sites. Recent field work has focused on non-invasive sampling, including calling/recording vocalizations, tracking and scat collections and monitoring.


Too many high school students go through a chemistry class without really understanding what it is like to conduct authentic scientific research. This investigation sought to determine if a term-long, inquiry-based science project modeled after the Discovery Channel show MythBusters affects student understanding of scientific lab processes, student attitudes towards science, and overall understanding of the nature of science (NOS). Students were interviewed, surveyed, observed, and graded over twelve weeks of designing an experiment, carrying out the experiment, and presenting their findings to a group of their peers. At the conclusion of the research, students demonstrated much improved skills, self-confidence, and understanding in carrying out scientific research. In addition, they learned to collaborate well with others, maintained and built upon favorable attitudes and interest towards science, but did not significantly improve upon their understanding of the nature of science.


The problem of ordinal classification occurs in a large and growing number of areas. Some of the most common source and applications of ordinal data include rating scales, medical classification scales, socio-economic scales, meaningful groupings of continuous data, facial emotional intensity, facial age estimation, etc. The problem of predicting ordinal classes is typically addressed by either performing n-1 binary classification for n ordinal classes or treating ordinal classes as continuous values for regression. However, the first strategy doesn't fully utilize the ordering information of classes and the second strategy imposes a strong continuous assumption to ordinal classes. In this paper, we propose a novel loss function called Ordinal Hyperplane Loss (OHPL) that is particularly designed for data with ordinal classes. The proposal of OHPL is a significant advancement in predicting ordinal class data, since it enables deep learning techniques to be applied to the ordinal classification problem on both structured and unstructured data. By minimizing OHPL, a deep neural network learns to map data to an optimal space where the distance between points and their class centroids are minimized while a nontrivial ordinal relationship among classes are maintained. Experimental results show that deep neural network with OHPL not only outperforms the state-of-the-art alternatives on classification accuracy but also scales well to large ordinal classification problems.


THEORIES of the origins of inflation and the effects of price increases on a mixed market economy abound; as a result, there is no widespread consensus as to how to restrain inflation efficiently while maintaining high employment levels and a healthy rate of economic growth. There is little dispute, however, that the government's varied microeconomic policies have substantial price effects. At a time when inflation is a major concern and there is no accepted general policy for its containment, the federal government should explore ways to lower the price level through a variety of basically microeconomic policy decisions. This paper focuses on options that are currently available to the federal government for lowering the price level. While these options are disparate and not easily synthesized into a simple framework, most have a similar theme: pursuing objectives through direct rather than indirect taxation, where "indirect taxation" includes government-mandated cost increases for producers of private goods and services. For a number of reasons, government programs are often financed through increases in producer costs rather than through direct payments from general government revenues. In some instances, such as when user taxes are levied, there is an equity or efficiency reason for doing so. In others, such as health and safety regulation, the reason is largely pragmatic: mandating cost increases for producers is simply the easiest (not the most efficient) means of achieving the desired objective. But in still other cases, such as agricultural policies or minimum wage legislation, programs are financed


A 3D type perylenediimide (PDI)-based molecule (TPE-PDI4) is successfully applied as an efficient electron transporting material in inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs). TPE-PDI4 has been previously demonstrated as an excellent non-fullerene electron acceptor in high-performance bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells. Considering its decent electron mobility and outstanding solution processability with favorable thin-film morphology, as well as compatible energy levels with perovskite materials, TPE-PDI4 serves as a promising candidate as the electron transport layer (ETL) material for perovskite solar cells. Herein, we report the fabrication of inverted perovskite solar cells using TPE-PDI4 as the electron transporting layer. A high PCE of 16.29% is obtained, which is higher than that obtained using a PCBM-based electron transporting layer under the same testing conditions. On the other hand, TPE-PDI4 also works well as an interfacial layer between perovskite and C60. A high efficiency of 18.78% is achieved in PSCs with TPE-PDI4 compared to a lower efficiency of 16.56% without this interlayer, indicating an enhanced charge transport/collection with the insertion of TPE-PDI4. Additionally, TPE-PDI4 shows a better water-resistibility than PCBM, which could more effectively protect the perovskite layer beneath. Therefore, devices with a TPE-PDI4-based ETL exhibit an enhanced stability. Our results demonstrate the great potential of TPE-PDI4 to replace expensive fullerene-based ETLs.


Using survey data, this study explored life satisfaction of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina in St. Louis, Missouri. The results showed no gender differences among any of the major variables. A hierarchical regression analysis found that the demographic characteristics did not predict life satisfaction except for education and that while discrimination had a negative impact on life satisfaction, English competency, attachment to the US, and sense of coherence had a positive impact on life satisfaction. The study has implications for social service agencies and others involved with serving refugees.


The thermoelectric properties of bismuth telluride based thermoelectric (TE) materials are well-characterized, but comparatively little has been published on the thermomechanical properties. In this paper, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and differential scanning calorimetry data for bismuth telluride based TE materials is presented. The TE materials' tan delta values, indicative of viscoelastic energy dissipation modes, approached that of glassy or crystalline polymers, were greater than ten times the tan delta of structural metals, and reflected the anisotropic nature of TE materials. DMA thermal scans showed changes in mechanical properties versus temperature with clear hysteresis effects. These results showed that the application of DMA techniques are useful for evaluation of thermophysical and thermomechanical properties of these TE materials.


Background: Shoulder pain is one of the most common conditions seen in recreational badminton players. It is caused due to repeated movements at the shoulder joint which further limits the range of motion and hence hampers the activities of daily living. M2T helps to release the myofascial tightness which causes the pain. Kinesiotape also helps in increasing the range of motion. Patients and Methods: Thirty recreational shoulder pain subjects were assessed and treated between the age group of 18-30 years at the KLE University's Indoor Stadium, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belagavi, Karnataka, India. Methods: The recreational shoulder pain subjects were divided into Group "A" and Group "B" by Randomized clinical trial. Outcome measures used were the visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain and the Disability of Arm, Hand, and Shoulder (DASH). VAS and DASH were assessed pre-treatment and post-treatment. Results: Inter-group comparison for both the groups had differences but showed no statistical significance. Hence based on results it can be concluded that both the treatment techniques are effective in reducing pain and increasing ability at the shoulder joint.


The ripening sugarcane is the most important aspect in production sistem for sugar and alcohol industry. The objective of this research was to evaluate technological quality, productivity and agricultural contribution margin of sugarcane variety RB855453 in function of plant regulators application at the beginning of the cropping season, in Igaracu do Tiete (SP), Brazil was studied. The experiment was carried out in a randomized block design with five replications. The treatments consisted of four plant regulators application of the class of growth retainers (Ethephon, Ethyl.trinexapac, Potassium nitrate and Potassium nitrate + Boron, in dosage commercial products of 2L ha-1, 0.8L ha-1, 3kg ha-1, e 3kg ha-1, respective) and a control (natural ripening). The maturators, general manner, provided the improvement technological quality of stems with positive reflex in productivity of sugar and agricultural contribution margin. The maturators Potassium nitrate + Boron, Ethephon and Ethyl-trinexapac, under weather conditions unfavourable to natural ripening process of sugarcane, allowed to anticipate the crop in five, eight, and twenty-five days, respectively, in relation a control treatment. In the subsequent crop season, under optimus weather conditions the ripening process of sugarcane, had no difference when compared to the control treatment.


This mini-symposium aims to provide an integrated perspective on recent developments in optogenetics. Research in this emerging field combines optical methods with targeted expression of genetically encoded, protein-based probes to achieve experimental manipulation and measurement of neural systems with superior temporal and spatial resolution. The essential components of the optogenetic toolbox consist of two kinds of molecular devices: actuators and reporters, which respectively enable light-mediated control or monitoring of molecular processes. The first generation of genetically encoded calcium reporters, fluorescent proteins, and neural activators has already had a great impact on neuroscience. Now, a second generation of voltage reporters, neural silencers, and functionally extended fluorescent proteins hold great promise for continuing this revolution. In this review, we will evaluate and highlight the limitations of presently available optogenic tools and discuss where these technologies and their applications are headed in the future.


In this dissertation I will be looking at the novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, paying particular attention to the narrator, Kathy, and how her use of narrative representation distances herself from her bodily subjugation. Narrative representation does not only reflect experience, but also has an active role in constructing it. Our reliance on the narratives of others in constructing our own sense of 'self' tends to encourage a repetition or recycling of the social values contained within them, and present a model of 'human' life which is more reflective of our textual encounters than our bodily experience. In Never Let Me Go, the clones primarily read nineteenth-century literature, and the values and beliefs espoused by such texts, as well as the structural life models they contain, are evident in the clones' attitudes towards their purpose as organ donors, as well as in Kathy's structuring of her own life narrative. The value given to this represented, or narrative, self, at the expense of bodily agency, is supported by the notion of mind-body dualism, in which the 'self' is equated with the mind rather than the body. This can lead to the body being seen, and treated, as an object. But because the clones themselves are also taught to prioritise a representation of self over a bodily self, they do not rebel against their lack of bodily autonomy, and continue to base their narratives upon models of human lives that bear little resemblance to their own. In this dissertation I argue that the only way for the clones to be recognised as 'human' by their wider society is to be able to represent themselves and their bodily difference, in order to affect a change in social and historical narratives, as well as in the definition of what it is to live a 'human' life.


Managing the environment is a complicated task constantly faced by decision-makers in all the world ́s communities. In Iceland heated debates have been going on over the recent years concerning whether natural areas should be industrially developed or protected for recreational purposes. The aim of this paper is to bring another perspective to the Icelandic debate, an economic valuation of ecosystem services. The term "ecosystem services" refers to the benefits human population derives from ecosystems. The ecosystem services provided by two lakes in the capital area of Iceland, Lake Elliðavatn and Lake Vífilsstaðavatn were assessed according to the categorization scheme of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) published in 2005. The MEA classifies ecosystem services into four categories; provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services and supporting services. Services from each category were identified and valued with economic valuation methods; market price, defensive behavior, travel cost and factor income. The final result is that the annual value of ecosystem services provided by Lake Elliðavatn in 2009 is in the range of ISK 83.263.647 101.308.524 (constant ISK 2009). For Lake Vífilsstaðavatn this value is in the range of ISK 5.713.925 5.981.560 (constant ISK 2009). It was concluded that although an economic valuation of ecosystem services can only serve as an indicator of a potential value of the ecosystem services provision, it still provides an important contribution to the debate of environmental manament in Iceland.


The use in nuclear physics of accelerators giving a pulsed output leads to difficulties when electrical methods are used for detecting the particles produced. The counting losses due to the finite resolving time of the counting system are enhanced by reason of the pulsed nature of the source, and may become considerable unless the counting speed is kept quite low. The present paper contains some calculations on the loss rates to be expected. It is desirable for the resolving time of the counting system, i.e. the dead time following each count, to be much shorter than the pulse length of the accelerator, but since this is itself usually only a few microseconds, this condition is not easy to achieve. If the dead-time is greater than the duration of the accelerator pulse, the calculations are relatively easy but the losses may be high. Calculations for intermediate cases show that the losses can be estimated fairly accurately, and results of practical value can be obtained up to fairly high counting speeds when the dead-time is as high as 40 % of the pulse length. The accuracy with which the loss can be calculated will usually be limited by the uncertainty in our knowledge of the shape of the output pulse of the accelerator and of the exact length of the dead-time of the counting arrangement. The attention of the reader is particularly directed to appendix III, where the results of the calculations of this paper will be found summarized. The experimental physicist who wishes to make use of the results without following the detailed analysis may pass directly from the end of § 1 to this appendix, which will also be of value to others for rapid reference.


Most work on unsupervised entailment rule acquisition focused on rules between templates with two variables, ignoring unary rules - entailment rules between templates with a single variable. In this paper we investigate two approaches for unsupervised learning of such rules and compare the proposed methods with a binary rule learning method. The results show that the learned unary rule-sets outperform the binary rule-set. In addition, a novel directional similarity measure for learning entailment, termed Balanced-Inclusion, is the best performing measure.


A sequence of simple models is discussed to identify and quantify key theoretical issues pertaining to how such oscillators can affect sound scattering. The first such model consists of a sound wave incident obliquely on a plate with a single rib which has a continuous smear of oscillators along it. The presence of the rib alters the apparent natural frequency of the oscillators and causes the backscattered sound to be anomalously high when the incident sound has the same frequency as the apparent natural frequency. The width of the spectral line in the plot of backscattered cross section versus frequency for the fixed angle of incidence is controlled both by the radiation of flexural waves away from the rib and by the overall loss of energy through radiated sound. Other models considered are an infinitely long cylinder with a single rib, smeared oscillators along the rib, an infinitely long cylinder with a single oscillator attached to a rib, a plate with a periodic array of ribs with attached oscillator...


&NA; Figure. No Caption available. BACKGROUND: Frailty is defined as a disability in those of advanced age, often with comorbidities, poor nutritional status, cognitive decline, and reduced functional status. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article is to discuss the concept of frailty, assess the use of a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), and understand the implications for treatment to maintain or enhance physical, functional, and cognitive health of older adult patients with cancer. METHODS: Literature about frailty in older adult patients diagnosed with cancer was reviewed to determine evidence‐based assessment and treatment options. FINDINGS: About half of all older adult patients with cancer experience some degree of frailty. CGA is a useful way to evaluate frailty and the extent of limitations. Many frailty‐specific tools have been developed. Evidence‐based strategies are available to address limitations associated with frailty in older adult patients with cancer.


Job scheduling plays an important role in improving the overall system performance in big data processing frameworks. Simple job scheduling policies, such as Fair and FIFO scheduling, do not consider job sizes and may degrade the performance when jobs of varying sizes arrive. More elaborate job scheduling policies make the convenient assumption that jobs are recurring, and complete information about their sizes is available from their prior runs. In this paper, we design and implement an efficient and practical job scheduler for big data processing systems to achieve better performance even without prior information about job sizes. The superior performance of our job scheduler originates from the design of multiple level priority queues, where jobs are demoted to lower priority queues if the amount of service consumed so far reaches a certain threshold. In this case, jobs in need of a small amount of service can finish in the topmost several levels of queues, while jobs that need a large amount of service to complete are moved to lower priority queues to avoid head-of-line blocking. Our new job scheduler can effectively mimic the shortest job first scheduling policy without knowing the job sizes in advance. To demonstrate its performance, we have implemented our new job scheduler in YARN, a popular resource manager used by Hadoop/Spark, and validated its performance with experiments in both real testbeds including Amazon EC2 and large-scale trace-driven simulations. Our experimental and simulation results have strongly confirmed the effectiveness of our design: our new job scheduler can reduce the average job response time of the Fair scheduler by up to 45 percent and achieve better fairness at the same time.


European governments have re-discovered labour migration, but are eager to be perceived as controlling unsolicited forms of migration, especially through asylum and family reunion. The emerging paradigm of managed migration combines the construction of more permissive channels for desirable and actively recruited labour migrants with ever more restrictive approaches towards asylum seekers. Non-state actors, especially employer organizations, trade unions, and humanitarian non-governmental organisations, attempt to shape regulatory measures, but their success varies depending on organizational characteristics. Labour market interest associations' lobbying strategies regarding quantities and skill profile of labour migrants will be influenced by the respective system of political economy they are embedded in. Trade unions are generally supportive of well-managed labour recruitment strategies. But migration policy-making also proceeds at the European Union (EU) level. While national actors seek to upload their national model as a blueprint for future EU policy to avoid costly adaptation, top-down Europeanization is re-casting national regulation in important ways, notwithstanding highly divergent national regulatory philosophies. Based on field work in and analysis of primary documents from six European countries (France, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, and Poland) this book makes an important contribution to the study of a rapidly Europeanized policy domain. Combining insights from the literature on comparative political economy, Europeanization, and migration studies, the book makes important contributions to all three, while demonstrating how migration policy can be fruitfully studied by employing tools from mainstream political science, rather than treating it as a distinct subfield.


Background Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) is usually the first-line intervention for obstructive sleep apnea, but up to 50% of patients are unable to tolerate therapy because of discomfort–-usually nasal complaints. No factors have been definitively correlated with nCPAP tolerance, although nasal cross-sectional area has been correlated with the level of CPAP pressure, and nasal surgery improves nCPAP compliance. This study examined the relationship between nasal cross-sectional area and nCPAP tolerance. Methods We performed acoustic rhinometry on 34 obstructive sleep apnea patients at the time of the initial sleep study. Patients titrated to nCPAP were interviewed 18 months after starting therapy to determine CPAP tolerance. Demographic, polysomnographic, and nasal cross-sectional area data were compared between CPAP-tolerant and -intolerant patients. Results Between 13 tolerant and 12 intolerant patients, there were no significant differences in age, gender, body mass index, CPAP level, respiratory disturbance index, or subjective nasal obstruction. Cross-sectional area at the inferior turbinate differed significantly between the two groups (p = 0.03). This remained significant after multivariate analysis for possibly confounding variables. A cross-sectional area cutoff of 0.6 cm2 at the head of the inferior turbinate carried a sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 77% for CPAP intolerance in this patient group. Conclusion Nasal airway obstruction correlated with CPAP tolerance, supporting an important role for the nose in CPAP, and providing a physiological basis for improved CPAP compliance after nasal surgery. Objective nasal evaluation, but not the subjective report of nasal obstruction, may be helpful in the management of these patients.


In a recent editorial, Whittaker (2014, Journal of Biogeography, 41, 1–5) suggested that biogeography is in the process of adopting a 'big science' model, characterized by increasing levels of individual specialization and international collaboration. Using network analysis based on co‐authored articles and bibliometrics, we trace this transformation, identifying where biogeographical knowledge is produced and how the global biogeography community is connected. Our data reveal dramatic increases in biogeographical research over the last 30 years, with a trend of increasing diversity of countries and institutions. Moreover, an analysis of keywords suggests that the widening availability of molecular phylogenies and the ubiquitous threat of climate change are increasingly driving biogeographical research agendas. These trends are associated with diverse social and technological forces, notably advances in communication technology and the increasing availability and quality of biogeographical data.


Bartolomeo Scala's life and writings are a definite portrait of florentine politics and culture in the second half of XV century. Public official, Medici family's confidant and friend of Marsilio Ficino among many others intellectuals, Scala is author of a lot of literary and philosophical texts, orations and letters, historical and controversial works in defense of florentine independence. As Florence's Prime Chancellor (1465-1497), Scala was the privileged witness of the transition of the city from medieval to modern political structure through the savonarolan revolution.


Recent advances in membrane technology have led to its broad application, and reverse osmosis (RO) systems now represent the fastest growing segment of the desalination market. Its performance is hindered by membrane fouling. In this study pre-treatment methods to reduce RO fouling were investigated including flocculation, adsorption and ion exchange. Detailed organic characterisations were made in terms of florescence spectroscopy excitation emission matrix (EEM), UV 254 absorbance and liquid chromatography-organic carbon detection ( LCOCD). The different pre-treatment methods were assessed in terms of the fouling potential. This was quantified in terms of the modified fouling index measured using a dead-end cell micro-filtration (MF) unit. The existing pre-treatment of granular activated carbon (GAC) filter led to a good organic removal. Among the pre-treatment methods tested in the laboratory, purolite ion exchange/adsorption was found to be better than FeCl 3 flocculation in terms of the amount as well as the wide range of organics removal. A pre-treatment of flocculation with Poly-ferric-silicate (PFSi) as flocculent gave a higher removal of organic matter compared to other pre-treatments tested. DOC was reduced from 11.5 to 4.25 mg/L, and it removed mostly the humic type substances.


Arsenic abatement from groundwater in locations with a central water distribution system is relatively simple. The real challenge is selecting the most effective and affordable treatment and scale up option for locations which lack the appropriate infrastructure. Groundwater Arsenic Remediation: Treatment Technology and Scale UP provides the latest breakthrough groundwater treatment technologies and modeling and simulation methods for project scale up and eventually field deployment in locations which lack the proper central water distribution system to ensure arsenic free groundwater. * Covers the different removal methods, such as chemical, adsorption, separation by membranes, and membrane distillation* Includes the state-of-the-art modeling & simulation methods for optimization and field deployment* Provides economic and comparative analysis of each arsenic treatment technology


Perceptual centres (p-centres) are the subjective moments of occurrence of acoustic stimuli. When sounds are perceived in synchrony or are regularly spaced, it is their p-centres which occur synchronously or are isochronous. In order to analyse or model the acoustic features which influence the p-centre, it is necessary to measure p-centres for many stimuli. However there is a problem: it is difficult for an external observer to determine the exact time at which a listener perceives a sound's occurrence. A possible solution is to find a measurable electrophysiological correlate of the p-centre. In order to investigate this, an experiment is described which compares features of the Auditory Evoked Potential (AEP) response and p-centres for a number of speech and synthetic stimuli. The results indicate a correlation between the latency of the dominant negative peak of the AEP and the p-centre.


Whitman has long been more than a celebrated American author. He has become a kind of hero, whose poetry vindicates beliefs not only about poetry but also about sexuality and power. In this work Mark Maslan presents a challenging theory of Whitman's poetics of possession and his understandings of individual and national identity. By reading his works in relation to 19th-century theories of sexual desire, poetic inspiration and political representation, Maslan argues that the disintegration of individuality in Whitman's texts is not meant to undermine cultural hierarchies, but to make poetic and political authority newly viable. In particular, Maslan explores the social impact of 19th-century sexual hygiene literature on Whitman's works. He argues that Whitman developed his ideas about poetry, sexuality, and authority by responding to a prominent argument that desire subjected male bodies to a penetrating and feminizing force. By identifying poetic inspiration with this erotic dynamic, Whitman imbued his poetic voice with a kind of transformative power. Whitman aligned his poetry with an impartial authority hard to find elsewhere and inclined his work as a poet to speak for the voiceless, for the masses, and for an entire nation.


IoT big data real-time analytics systems need to effectively process and manage massive amounts of data from streams produced by distributed data sources. There are many challenges in deploying and managing processing logic at execution time in those systems, especially when 24x7 availability is required. Aiming to address those challenges, we have developed and tested a middleware for Distributed CEP, with a data-centric and dynamic design, based on the Data Distribution Service for RealTime Systems (OMG-DDS) specification and its extension for dynamic topics/types (DDS-XTypes). Its main advantages include the use of OMG-DDS; witch is suitable for IoT applications with QoS requirements, its dynamic capabilities, and the scalable and parallel execution of the CEP rules on a dynamic set of processing nodes.


Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved superior performance in many visual recognition application, such as image classification, detection and segmentation. In this thesis we address two limitations of CNNs. Training deep CNNs requires huge amounts of labeled data, which is expensive and labor intensive to collect. Another limitation is that training CNNs in a continual learning setting is still an open research question. Catastrophic forgetting is very likely when adapting trained models to new environments or new tasks. Therefore, in this thesis, we aim to improve CNNs for applications with limited data and to adapt CNNs continually to new tasks. Self-supervised learning leverages unlabelled data by introducing an auxiliary task for which data is abundantly available. In the first part of the thesis, we show how rankings can be used as a proxy self-supervised task for regression problems. Then we propose an efficient backpropagation technique for Siamese networks which prevents the redundant computation introduced by the multi-branch net- work architecture. In addition, we show that measuring network uncertainty on the self-supervised proxy task is a good measure of informativeness of unlabeled data. This can be used to drive an algorithm for active learning. We then apply our framework on two regression problems: Image Quality Assessment (IQA) and Crowd Counting. For both, we show how to automatically generate ranked image sets from unlabeled data. Our results show that networks trained to regress to the ground truth targets for labeled data and to simultaneously learn to rank unlabeled data obtain significantly better, state-of-the-art results. We further show that active learning using rankings can reduce labeling effort by up to 50% for both IQA and crowd counting. In the second part of the thesis, we propose two approaches to avoiding catas- trophic forgetting in sequential task learning scenarios. The first approach is derived from Elastic Weight Consolidation, which uses a diagonal Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) to measure the importance of the parameters of the network. However the diagonal assumption is unrealistic. Therefore, we approximately diagonalize the FIM using a set of factorized rotation parameters. This leads to significantly better performance on continual learning of sequential tasks. For the second approach, we show that forgetting manifests differently at different layers in the network and iiipropose a hybrid approach where distillation is used in the feature extractor and replay in the classifier via feature generation. Our method addresses the limitations of generative image replay and probability distillation (i.e. learning without forget- ting) and can naturally aggregate new tasks in a single, well-calibrated classifier. Experiments confirm that our proposed approach outperforms the baselines and some start-of-the-art methods.


Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune disease in which destruction or damaging of the beta-cells in the islets of Langerhans results in insulin deficiency and hyperglycemia. We only know for sure that autoimmunity is the predominant effector mechanism of T1D, but may not be its primary cause. T1D precipitates in genetically susceptible individuals, very likely as a result of an environmental trigger. Current genetic data point towards the following genes as susceptibility genes: HLA, insulin, PTPN22, IL2Ra, and CTLA4. Epidemiological and other studies suggest a triggering role for enteroviruses, while other microorganisms might provide protection. Efficacious prevention of T1D will require detection of the earliest events in the process. So far, autoantibodies are most widely used as serum biomarker, but T-cell readouts and metabolome studies might strengthen and bring forward diagnosis. Current preventive clinical trials mostly focus on environmental triggers. Therapeutic trials test the efficacy of antigen-specific and antigen-nonspecific immune interventions, but also include restoration of the affected beta-cell mass by islet transplantation, neogenesis and regeneration, and combinations thereof. In this comprehensive review, we explain the genetic, environmental, and immunological data underlying the prevention and intervention strategies to constrain T1D.


In Europe 7.3 million tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) were created in 2002, and the fact that the growth rate of WEEE is 3–5% per annum, with a significant amount of this waste used to be dumped into landfills without any pre-treatment, has resulted in the introduction of a European WEEE directive. The directive requires companies who manufacture or import electrical and electronic equipment to take financial and legal responsibility for its environmental-friendly recovery and recycling. The current recycling applications of WEEE are often developed on an ad hoc basis and mainly attributable to the hidden economic value within used products. However, at present the recycling facilities are faced with the challenge to improve WEEE recycling activities to ensure that a larger proportion of components and materials are being recovered at a reasonable cost and yet at the same time legislative requirements are being met. A major assertion made in the research reported in this paper is that a systematic framework is needed to aid the decision making involved in adopting the best possible end-of-life strategies for WEEE. The paper presents one such integrated framework for the planning of the processes involved in the recycling of WEEE. Based on this framework, a computer-aided recycling process planning (CA R PP) system which generates bespoke recycling process plans for WEEE has been developed, which is also described and its functionality demonstrated using a typical WEEE product.


Attendees are taught an efficient organizational framework for Part II exam preparation that maximizes high‐yield active learning study activities and minimizes low‐yield study activities. This method is then combined with a productive group‐based study technique. The format and scope of the Part II ABR exam in radiotherapy physics is described, and the eligibility requirements are reviewed. High‐yield and low‐yield study activities are defined and examples are discussed in detail. A problem‐based strategy for limiting the scope of study material is described. A method for studying in groups by distributing delegable tasks among multiple group members and ensuring their completion is described. Learning Objectives 1. Understand the scope of material covered on Part II of the ABR radiotherapy physics exam and which references to study for the exam. 2. Be able to design and execute an efficient study plan that enables an active learning approach. 3. Learn to use group study techniques to enhance efficiency.


About the main psychological and philosophical aspects detached from the film Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovski, as well as the cinema techniques used by the director to convey his messages to the spectator. In the "Introduction" I briefly present the relevant elements of Tarkovski's biography and an overview of Stanislav Lem's Solaris novel and the film Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. In "Cinema Technique" I talk about the specific rhythm of the scenes, the radical movement triggered by Tarkovsky in modern cinema, the role of symbolic and iconic elements, and affinities with the fantastic area of Russian literature. In Psychological Aspects I analyze the issue of communication in a human society of the future considered by Tarkovsky as rigid, the obsession of the house, and the personal evolution of Kris, Hari, and the relationships between them. In Philosophical Aspects, the film is analyzed through the philosophy of the mind (Cartesian dualism, reductionism and functionalism), the problem of personal identity, the theory of heterotopic spaces developed by Michel Foucault, and the semantic interpretations that can be deduced from the film. It also analyzes the issue of personal identity through Locke's philosophy. "Conclusions" show the general ideas of this essay, namely that Man's attempts to classify and maintain forms of interaction with unknown entities will always be condemned to failure and will reflect a major mistake in the panoptic world in which we live. In this framework of analysis of the philosophy of mind, functionalism seems to be the most intuitive. Solaris is, however, a movie that begins as a search for answers and comes to provide these answers with a whole range of different questions.


Abstract. Past studies have identified a variety of pathways by which carbon monoxide (CO) may be transported from the surface to the tropical upper troposphere (UT); however, the relative roles that these transport pathways play in determining the distribution and seasonality of CO in the tropical UT remain unclear. We have developed a method to automate the identification of two pathways ("local convection" and "advection within the lower troposphere (LT) followed by convective vertical transport") involved in CO transport from the surface to the UT. This method is based on the joint application of instantaneous along-track, co-located, A-Train satellite measurements. Using this method, we find that the locations and seasonality of the UT CO maxima in the tropics were strongly correlated with the frequency of local convective transport during 2007. We also find that the "local convection" pathway (convective transport that occurred within a fire region) typically transported significantly more CO to the UT than the "LT advection → convection" pathway (advection of CO within the LT from a fire region to a convective region prior to convective transport). To leading order, the seasonality of CO concentrations in the tropical UT reflected the seasonality of the "local convection" transport pathway during 2007. The UT CO maxima occurred over Central Africa during boreal spring and over South America during austral spring. Occurrence of the "local convection" transport pathway in these two regions also peaked during these seasons. During boreal winter and summer, surface CO emission and convection were located in opposite hemispheres, which limited the effectiveness of transport to the UT. During these seasons, CO transport from the surface to the UT typically occurred via the "LT advection → convection" pathway.


The purpose of tillage for preparing seedbed place, exterminaring weeds, putting in and fusing plant's residue to the land in order to find the land condition that needed by root so it will increase air circulation, water infiltration, root growth and take the nutrients by the root. The low productivity of alabio's yam today because the tillage is still traditional in planting, and no specially treatments given to the land. This research has purpose to know the influence of the tillage method to growth alabio's yam ( Dioscorea alata L.). This research is conducted at Pasar Sabtu Village, Sungai Tabukan District, Hulu Sungai Utara Regency from May until June 2015. This study used a Randomized Block Design (RBD) single factor. Factor studied is tillage method, (t 0 ) zero tillage, (t 1 ) minimum tillage, (t 2 ) maximum tillage. Research result shows that the tillage method given is significant to the plant's height and the number of leaves at the age of 14 and 21 DAP, significant to the rod's diameter at the age of 42 DAP and very significant to the plant's height and the leaves at the age of 28, 35 and 42 DAP, and no significant to the rod's diameter at the age of 14, 21, 28 and 35 DAP. Maximum tillage gives the best growth for alabio's yam.


The first Earth Day is the most famous little-known event in modern American history. Because we still pay ritual homage to the planet every April 22, everyone knows something about Earth Day. Some people may also know that Earth Day 1970 made the environmental movement a major force in American political life. But no one has told the whole story before. The story of the first Earth Day is inspiring; it had a power, freshness, and a seriousness of purpose that are difficult to imagine today. Earth Day 1970 created an entire green generation. Thousands of Earth Day organizers and participants decided to devote their lives to the environmental cause. Earth Day 1970 helped to build a lasting eco-infrastructure-lobbying organizations, environmental beats at newspapers, environmental-studies programs, eco sections in bookstores, community ecology centres. In The Genius of Earth Day, the prizewinning historian Adam Rome offers a compelling account of the rise of the environmental movement. Drawing on his experience as a journalist as well as his expertise as a scholar, he explains why the first Earth Day was so powerful and brings one of the greatest political events of the twentieth century to life.