It has long been recognised that innovation is a key motor of economic change, as it stimulates intense forms of competition. In order to innovate, our research suggests that businesses need to be proactive, able to audit the environment to identify change and opportunity.

They must be open to challenge, and prepared to experiment; but most of all learning is the key. Small businesses face particular obstacles whilst innovating on account of their size; these include a lack of time, funds, staff and expertise. Consequently, small businesses have a high propensity to failure. The records show that some 66% of businesses cease trading during the 3 to 10 year period. Successfully managing a business is a challenge that calls on a wide range of skills and knowledge (Levy et al 2004).

For most business managers, it is the pooling of experience that generates the most useful knowledge and builds competence. Experience has demonstrated the value of bringing small numbers of businesses together in facilitated groups where, in a non-competitive environment, they gain the synergetic benefits arising from the sharing of their combined knowledge and experience. This paper presents early results from a research project aimed at assessing the impact of action learning on the innovative capability of small and medium sized firms.

Teams of senior managers from non-competing sectors embarked on a one-year process of group-based learning, underpinned by the methods and approach of action learning. Each participant identified an innovation goal of critical
importance to their organisation. In terms of continuous innovation this can involve goals directed at product, service and business process improvement. Operational improvements using inter-organisational action learning have been described and documented by Coghlan et al (2002). In this project, specific improvements in innovation management capability have been examined. Action learning 'sets' and targeted learning were employed to support the
learning required to allow action towards the achievement of these goals (Levy and Knowles, 2003). The paper tests the proposition that Action Learning, supported by targeted learning, is an effective, time and cost efficient method for supporting technological product and process innovation.

The paper argues that action learning develops innovation managers into "reflective practitioners". Reflective practice is a fundamental competence needed to enable effective innovation management (Pedler 1996) (Weinstein 1998). The paper reports that action learning set members found the process to be beneficial for supporting continuous innovation in their firms. The regular 'touchpoint' of the action learning process helped to create a continuity in thinking about innovation in their business. Indeed, the totality of meetings, when analysed identifies a process of continuous innovation of business thinking, business strategy and process.

The paper will present the results of post-programme interviews with participants and highlight learning and best practice in the use of Action Learning as a method for supporting Continuous Innovation in SMEs. Areas for further
research will also be discussed and emerging research questions highlighted.


Fifteen countries have emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Freedom's Ordeal recounts the struggles of these newly independent nations to achieve freedom and to establish support for fundamental human rights. Although history has shown that states emerging from collapsed empires rarely achieve full democracy in their first try, Peter Juviler analyzes these successor states as crucial and not always unpromising tests of democracy's viability in postcommunist countries. Taking into account the particularly difficult legacies of Soviet communism, Freedom's Ordeal is distinguished by its careful tracing of the historical background, with special attention to human rights before, during, and after communism. Juviler suggests that the culture and practices of despotism may wither wherever modernization conflicts with tyranny and with the curtailment or denial of democratic rights and freedoms.


We describe five cases of parasitic sinusitis and otitis in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and review 14 reported cases. The pathogens identified in our group of patients included agents such as Microsporidium, Cryptosporidium, and Acanthamoeba species. The clinical features common to these patients included a long history of HIV seropositivity associated with advanced immunosuppression and multiple opportunistic infections as well as long-standing local symptoms refractory to multiple courses of antibacterial agents. Symptoms often included fever and chills in addition to local tenderness and discharge. Invasive diagnostic procedures were necessary to obtain the final diagnosis and to initiate appropriate therapy. Although most patients responded at least partially to specific therapy, relapses and recurrences were frequent in patients who did not receive long-term suppressive therapy. The general outcome for HIV-infected patients with parasitic sinusitis and otitis was poor; however, deaths were generally associated with other complications of the underlying HIV infection.


In the push to improve patient outcomes in cardiac interventions, minimally invasive beating-heart surgery is a major field of surgical research. However, interventions on a soft tissue organ under continuous motion through remote incisions pose a significant challenge. Endoscopic approaches eliminate the associated morbidity of median sternotomy, but they require either mechanical immobilization of the heart or robotic motion compensation of the tools, both of which have serious drawbacks. While mechanical immobilization may cause electrophysiological and hemodynamic changes in the performance of the heart, active compensation requires high-bandwidth manipulators to track the complex motion of the heart. In this thesis, we address the issue of physiological motion during minimally invasive beating-heart surgery through the use of organ-mounted robots. These devices eschew the high dexterity and actuation e ort required of traditional surgical robots in favor of miniature robots that adhere directly to the operating site using vacuum pressure. Unlike mechanical stabilizers these devices are not fixed in the world frame and therefore do not immobilize the heart but instead move in unison with the heart providing a stable platform from which interventions may be administered. This thesis is built around two main contributions to the state of the art in robotic MIS. The first major contribution of this work is the development of spatiotemporal registration methods to improve positioning accuracy under virtual image guidance for organ-mounted robots. These e orts rely on frequencybased models, which capture the periodic motion of the heart, and anatomical models constructed from preoperative imaging. Using these models we estimate when in the physiological cycles the images were captured and the pose of the robot at that time to spatially align the models. Finally, we introduce a method for localizing these robots on the beating heart using function approximation that provides more accurate estimates over short time horizons. The second major contribution is the design and construction of new robots that provide a wider array of interventions using the organ-mounted paradigm. These e orts use emerging therapies as motivation for the design of an active cooling system for minimally invasive delivery of thermosensitive materials and a new parallel wire robot, known as Cerberus, for therapies that require coverage over large areas of the surface of the heart. Both of these new capabilities are demonstrated successfully in closed-chest beating-heart procedures. Overall, our contributions take a holistic approach to the advancement of the capabilities of organ-mounted robots. New form-factors provide specialized capabilities, while new approaches to registration improve our ability to accurately position these robots on the beating heart. Most importantly, everything presented in this thesis is demonstrated in closed-chest beating-heart procedures, or on data recorded in such a procedure.


In this paper we present and discuss the result of extensive field mapping (on a scale of 1:10.000) and a detailed macro and mesostructural analysis carried out in the upper Magra Valley, between the towns of Aulla and Pontremoli. The main purpose is the reconstruction of the present structural setting of the area, with special regard for its extensional structures and their plio-quaternary evolution. In the Lunigana region the Appennines are made up of Ligurian Units, tectonic units derived from an oceanic domain, which overrode the Tuscan Unit, belonging to the Adriatic margin (fig. 2). During the late Cretaceous, the closure of the Ligure-Piemontese ocean started and the Ligurian Units were stacked to form an accretionary prism (intraoceanic phase of Principi & Treves, 1984). From the early Miocene, during the collisional phase, the Ligurian Prism thrusted eastward over the foredeep basin of the Tuscan Unit with the interposition of a transitional unit, known as the Canetolo or Sub-Ligurian Unit. In the study area, the piling up of the tectonic units ends in the late Miocene. Afterwards, during the early Pliocene (Bartolini et alii, 1982), extensional tectonics thinned the Tyrrhenian side of the Apenninic Chain and formed the Lunigiana and Vara Valley grabens. The two asymmetric grabens, separated by a horst (Bernini, 1991), formed a thin-skinned extensional structure that detach above the "basement" (figs. 12 and 21) reached in the well Pontremoli 1 at 2900 m depth (Anelli et alii, 1994). The listric faults which characterize the Lunigiana region, present an Appenninic direction (NW-SE) and are clustered along seven main fault systems (fig. 8), over 10 kilometers long and with displacements over 1500 m. The extensional fault systems generate an asymmetric graben with steep faults dipping to the southwest whilst the northeastern dipping faults are less inclined. On the graben eastern side the biggest displacements are concentrated in the more external Groppodalosio system while on the western side they are concentrated in the internal Mulazzo system. On the surface, inside each fault system and between the fault systems, the displacement is transferred by NE-SW short transfer faults or, more commonly, by relay ramps. On relay ramps the strain is brittle-ductile and local deviations of the stress field occur (figs. 18 and 19). In the axial zone of the Lunigiana graben, two fluvio-lacustrine basins were forming during the extensional phase; the Pontremoli basin to the northwestern and the Aulla-Olivola to the southeastern, divided by the Annunziata ridge (Federici, 1978). The continental deposits of the two basins show the same vertical sedimentary evolution (fig. 3): an initial stage with lacustrine and palustrine deposits followed by fluviatile deposits. However, the onset of the continental sedimentation is not synchronous. In the the Aulla-Olivola basin the lacustrine deposits are Ruscinian, while in the Pontremoli basin they are upper Villafranchian in age (Bertoldi, 1995). In order to unravel the Plio-Quaternary evolution of the Lunigiana region it is fundamental to analyse the fluvio-lacustrine successions and how they relate to extensional structures. In fact the deposition and distribution of continental deposits in the two basins are strictly controlled by normal fault activity. The extensional tectonics started in the early. Pliocene and, still active as can be seen from the seismicity (Frepoli & Amato, 1997), was not continuous and constant in time. Two main breaks of extensional activity, toward the end of the middle-late Pliocene and middle Pleistocene, are recorded by two regional unconformities in the fluvio-lacustrine deposits (Bernini et alii, 1990). During the two breaks, the region underwent a generalized uplift to which the extensional tectonics followed enhanced by the uplift. The middle Pleistocene uplift is associated to a weak compressional regime mainly expressed on a meso-structural scale (fig. 15) without forming macro-structures. Considering the geometry of the Magra-Vara extensional system (fig. 21), which overlies a thin-skinned detachment fault dipping towards the Po Plain and considering that the extensional tectonics restarts after two episodes of regional uplift, we conclude that the main extensional phases, lower Pleistocene and middle Pleistocene in age, are controlled by vertical movements of the basement which stretches the Ligurian and Tuscan units on the Tyrrhenian side and favours their tectonic transport towards the Po Plain. The mesostructural data (tab. 1) agree with the proposed model because they show that the extensional tectonics of the Lunigiana graben is produced by radial stress field (fig. 20) in a brittle environment typical of a thin-skinned extension laterally unconfined.


Primaquine phosphate has been used for preventing relapse of Plasmodium vivax and P. ovale malaria since the early 1950s, based on its ability to kill latent (hypnozoite) and developing liver stages of these parasites. There are three uses for primaquine in malaria: radical cure of established infection with P. vivax or P. ovale malaria; presumptive anti-relapse therapy (PART; terminal prophylaxis) in persons with extensive exposure to these parasites; and primary prophylaxis against all malaria species. All persons for whom primaquine is being considered must have a glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) enzyme level checked before use, and persons who have a deficiency of G6PD must not take primaquine for prophylaxis or PART. The recommended adult dose for PART based on clinical trials and expert opinion is 30 mg base daily for 14 days, started on return from a malarious region and overlapping with a blood schizonticide. The adult dose for primary prophylaxis is 30 mg daily begun 1 day before travel and continued for 7 days after return. This review will examine the evidence for these recommendations.


Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) has been successfully employed to support translation of film subtitles. We explore the integration of Constraint Grammar corpus annotations into a Swedish–Danish subtitle SMT system in the framework of factored SMT. While the usefulness of the annotations is limited with large amounts of parallel data, we show that linguistic annotations can increase the gains in translation quality when monolingual data in the target language is added to an SMT system based on a small parallel corpus.


The partitioning of the earth radiation budget (ERB) between its atmosphere and surface components is of crucial interest in climate studies as it has a significant role in the oceanic and atmospheric general circulation. An analysis of the present-day climate simulation of the surface radiation budget in the atmo- spheric component of the new Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 1 (HadGEM1) is presented, and the simulations are assessed by comparing the results with fluxes derived from satellite data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and ground measurements from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). Comparisons against radiative fluxes from satellite and ground observations show that the model tends to overestimate the surface incoming solar radiation ( S s , d ). The model simulates S s , d very well over the polar regions. Consistency in the comparisons against BSRN and ISCCP-FD suggests that the ISCCP-FD database is a good test for the performance of the surface downwelling solar radiation in climate model simulations. Overall, the simulation of downward longwave radiation is closer to observations than its shortwave counterpart. The model underestimates the downward longwave radiation with respect to BSRN measurements by 6.0 W m (cid:1) 2 . Comparisons of land surface albedo from the model and estimates from the Moderate Resolution Im- aging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) show that HadGEM1 overestimates the land surface albedo over deserts and over midlatitude landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere in January. Analysis of the seasonal cycle of the land surface albedo in different regions shows that the amplitude and phase of the seasonal cycle are not well represented in the model, although a more extensive validation needs to be carried out. Two decades of coupled model simulations of the twentieth-century climate are used to look into the model's simulation of global dimming/brightening. The model results are in line with the conclusions of the studies that suggest that global dimming is far from being a uniform phenomenon across the globe.


Many states have delegated substantial authority to regulate federal elections to entities other than their institutional legislatures, such as independent redistricting commissions empowered to determine the boundaries of congressional districts. Article I's Elections Clause and Article II's Presidential Electors Clause, however, confer authority to regulate federal elections specifically upon State "legislatures," rather than granting it to States as a whole. An intratextual analysis of the Constitution reveals that the term "legislature" is best understood as referring solely to the entity within each state comprised of representatives that has the general authority to pass laws. Thus, state constitutional provisions or laws creating independent redistricting commissions that purport to limit a state legislature's power to draw congressional districts or otherwise regulate federal elections violate the Elections Clause.


Rational investors perceive correctly the value of financial information. Investment in information is therefore rewarded with a higher Sharpe ratio. Overconfident investors overstate the quality of their own information, and thus attain a lower Sharpe ratio. We contrast the implications of the two models using a unique survey of customers of an Italian leading bank with portfolio data and measures of financial information. We find that the portfolio Sharpe ratio is negatively associated with investment in information. The negative correlation is stronger for men than women and for those who claim they know stocks well, arguably because these investors are more likely to be overconfident. We also show that investment in information is associated with more frequent trading, less delegation of portfolio decisions and less diversified portfolios. In each case, the effect of information is stronger for investors who, a priori, are suspected to be more overconfident.


Estimating the realized and potential distribution of
species has become a very active field of research with capacity to propose
likely speciation mechanisms. Here, environmental variables and point locality
data derived from several sources were used to examine the concordance between
geographical distributions and environmental niches derived from occurrences
for eleven species of the genus Uromastyx (Reptilia, Agamidae). Our
results indicate that the degree of geographical overlap is definitively and
statistically lower than the degree of environmental similarity. This
reinforces the hypothesis that speciation process within the genus Uromastyx
will be mainly based on geographical isolation. However, the environmental
divergence among some groups of species cannot be excluded; high environmental
distances can be obtained for some related species and the environmental
gradient represented by two unique climatic variables allows discriminating
some species among which an ecological or environmental segregation would be a
plausible explanation.


Objectives To describe current disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) prescription in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with reference to best practice and to identify temporal and regional trends in the UK. Design Descriptive, register-based cohort study. Participants Permanently registered patients aged ≥18 years with a recorded diagnosis of RA between 1 January 1995 and 31 March 2010 and matched controls. Participants with RA were identified through screening of all patients in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) with a clinical or referral record for RA and at least 1 day of follow-up. Setting 639 general practices in the UK supplying data to the GPRD. Main outcome measures Medication prescribing between 3 and 12 months of RA diagnosis by region and time period (1995–1999, 2000–2005 and 2006–April 2010). Results Of the 35 911 patients in the full RA cohort, 15 259 patients (42%) had incident RA. Analysis of prescribing in incident RA patients demonstrated that between 1995 (baseline) and 2010 there was a substantial increase in DMARD, and specifically methotrexate, prescribing across all regions with a less marked increase in combination DMARD prescribing. Taking 12-month prescribing as a snapshot: DMARD prescribing was 19–49% at baseline increasing to 45–74% by 2006–April 2010; methotrexate prescribing was 4–16% at baseline increasing to 32–60%; combination DMARD prescribing was 0–8% at baseline increasing to 3–17%. However, there was marked regional variation in the proportion of RA patients receiving DMARD regardless of time period. Conclusions There has been a substantial increase in prescribing of DMARDs for RA since 1995; however, regional variation persists across the UK with relative undertreatment, according to established best practice. Improved implementation of evidence-based best clinical practice to facilitate removal of treatment variation is warranted. This may occur as a result of the implementation of published national guidance.


Dieback disease is the most important constraint to Kenya's passion fruit industry. It is widespread in all passion fruit growing areas and causes over 70% of total fruit loss in the country. Farmer practices such as use of unsterilized tools during pruning and grafting spread the disease. Inadequate plant nutrition and prolonged drought periods associated with climate change have been linked to increased disease severity. Dieback management efforts have focused on integrated measures that include plant nutrition, irrigation and use of fungicides. This study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of selected farmer practices in reducing spread of dieback in Central and Eastern Kenya. Data were obtained through surveys and from observations of agronomic practices in farmer managed experimental units. Selected farmer practices were simulated in experiments to identify their roles in disease spread. A Completely Randomised Block Design-Field experiment was set up to test efficacy of selected plant nutrients and fungicides in managing dieback. Nutrients tested included phosphorus as Triple Superphosphate (TSP), Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) and Mavuno® fertiliser (contains NPK and micronutrients), all applied at rates recommended for passion fruit. Fungicides tested included Fosfite®, Milraz®, Ridomil® and Topsin® applied as recommended by the manufacturer. Results indicated slowed disease spread to uninfected vines through proper field sanitation, pruning and removal of infected plants and plant parts. In plants where infected vines were not pruned, disease severity increased from a moderate rating of between 2 and 3 to a more severe infection scores of 4 or 5 within 3 weeks. Disease spread was slower during the rainy season, suggesting that water stress increased severity of infection. Application of fertilisers appeared to limit severity by boosting plant health and triggering recovery through regeneration of new tissue if applied at the early stages of infection. Applying fertilisers on plants infected at severity level 4 and 5 had no significantly beneficial effect on plant health. If applied as recommended, the tested fungicides reduce disease progress, but none is curative.


This paper is concerned with application of Kalman recursive estimates in the the capital asset pricing (CAPM) model with time varying beta parameters. Following Kyriazis (2011), Kalman estimates are derived using a Bayesian probability theory. Rate of convergence and sensitivity analysis of estimates are derived. Through five examples, applications of presented estimates are shown. Extension to the non-normal cases and suggestion of Bayes filter is also considered. Comparisons with method of moment estimates are given.


The case fatality rate of Covid-19 in pregnancies published so far varies significantly. In our cohort of 515 women we had 3 maternal deaths due to three varying pathologies related to Covid-19. Our first case died due severe ARDS and a superimposed Pneumothorax, our second case the main cause of death was Septic shock and our third case developed Covid-19 encephalitis that resulted in brain death. There is currently only 10 maternal mortality cases described in detail in the literature. All our 3 cases were of South Asian origin, 2 of which had a BMI above 35.


Healthy ageing can be defined as "the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age". Functional ability (i.e., the health-related attributes that enable people to be and to do what they have reason to value) is determined by intrinsic capacity (i.e., the composite of all the physical and mental capacities of an individual), the environment (i.e., all the factors in the extrinsic world that form the context of an individual's life), and the interactions between the two. This innovative model recently proposed by the World Health Organization has the potential to substantially modify the way in which clinical practice is currently conducted, shifting from disease-centered toward function-centered paradigms. By overcoming the multiple limitations affecting the construct of disease, this novel framework may allow the worldwide dissemination of a more proactive and function-based approach toward achieving optimal health status. In order to facilitate the translation of the current theoretical model into practice, it is important to identify the inner nature of its constituting constructs. In this article, we consider intrinsic capacity. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework as background and taking into account available evidence, five domains (i.e., locomotion, vitality, cognition, psychological, sensory) are identified as pivotal for capturing the individual's intrinsic capacity (and therefore also reserves) and, through this, pave the way for its objective measurement.


In this thesis, I consider the problem of accounting for model uncertainty in a parametric regression model with focus on the uncertainty involved in selection of the optimal transformation of a continuous predictor in the Cox proportional hazards model (Cox, 1972). I use the minimum AIC approach to select a posteriori the optimal transformation of a continuous predictor. First, I review literature on criteria and methods for selecting the " best-fitting " model based on the results obtained from a sample, in Chapter 1. Then, in Chapter 2, I discuss the general problem of model selection uncertainty on inference and summarize research in this area. Next, I evaluate the impact of the data-dependent model selection approach on type I error rate through simulations. In simulations, I generate data, assuming both linear and non-linear dependence of hazard on a continuous covariate as well as no association. The generated data are then used to estimate a series of models with various functional form, to assess the impact of model selection on type I error and on statistical power. Some of the above methodological problems are then illustrated in the analysis of a real-life dataset including several cardiovascular risk factors.


Managers of buyout funds typically offer their investors an 8% preferred return on their investment before they take a share of any additional profits. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, rarely offer a preferred return. Instead, VCs take their cut from the first dollar of nominal profits. This disparity between venture funds and buyout funds is especially striking because the contracts that determine fund organization and compensation are otherwise very similar. The missing preferred return might suggest that agency costs pose a larger problem in venture capital than previously thought. Is the missing preferred return evidence, perhaps, that VCs are camouflaging rent extraction from investors? This Article argues that the missing preferred return is evidence that venture capital compensation practices do not properly align incentives. Making VC pay subject to a preferred return would help investors screen out bad VCs and would motivate VCs more effectively when they find, court, and negotiate with entrepreneurs. This positive effect that the preferred return may have on deal flow incentives may be less important for VCs with strong reputations. Even for elite VCs, however, the status quo appears to be inefficient, albeit in a different way. If a fund declines in value in its early years, as is usually the case, the option-like feature of VC pay distorts incentives. Compensating VCs with a percentage of the fund, rather than just a percentage of the profits, would eliminate this distortion of incentives. Thus, the current industry practice is puzzling. None of the usual suspects like bargaining power, boardroom culture, camouflaging rent extraction or cognitive bias offers an entirely satisfactory explanation. Only by peering into a dark corner of the tax law can we fully understand the status quo. The tax law encourages venture capital funds to adopt a compensation design that misaligns incentives but still maximizes after-tax income for all parties. Specifically, by not recognizing the receipt of a profits interest in a partnership as compensation, and by treating management fees as ordinary income but treating distributions from the carried interest as capital gain, the tax law encourages funds to maximize the amount of compensation paid in the form of a profits interest. One way to do this is to eliminate the preferred return, thereby increasing the present value of the carried interest, which in turn allows investors to pay lower tax-inefficient management fees.


The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) provides a conceptual, model-driven approach, named Core Components (CC), for creating business document models. These business document models are essential for defining service interfaces of systems following the Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm. However, in such a highly dynamic environment with ever-changing market demands, business partners are confronted with the need to constantly adapt their systems. This implies revising conceptual business documents as well as adapting the corresponding service interface definitions. In this position paper, we discuss evolution challenges encountered while using CC in industry, present our current framework, as well as future challenges for model-driven business document evolution in service-oriented systems.


Reconfigurable cache memory is important to improve the cache performance and reduces the energy consumption. In this paper, a review for previous papers related with reconfigurable cache memory were presented and compared it with our work in which we implemented two dimensional reconfigurable cache memory with exploitation of full amount of cache memory size with different organizations and compare the performance of different cache organizations.


Poverty, which was traditionally a rural phenomenon, has become one of the main drivers behind people migrating to urban areas. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the global population lives in cities while the current annual growth rate of cities in sub-Saharan Africa is almost double the worldwide average. The provision of food for the growing number of poor urban citizens is a major challenge, which needs to be addressed by city authorities. As most of the urbanised poor are exposed to agriculture due to their rural backgrounds, agriculture should be viewed as a possible solution to the challenge of urban food security for the urban poor. Put differently, feeding a growing urban population living in poverty will be one of the major humanitarian and political challenges of the next century. This implies that increased pressure will be put on urban agriculture for food production inside or close to cities, especially in developing countries where poor transportation infrastructure between the cities and rural areas creates problems for food supply. This research explores the significance of urban agriculture as one of the solutions to urban poverty. The aim of this research report is to critically analyse the concept of urban agriculture and how it can contribute to urban renewal and the alleviation of poverty for the urban poor. It focuses particularly on the scope, problems and challenges of urban agriculture in the high density settlements of Khayelitsha-Mitchell's Plain in Cape Town where widespread poverty and high unemployment intensifies the need for low cost food production for poor households. The research takes into account the lessons learned in the past and looks at the role government, individuals, community organisations, NGO's and corporate South Africa can play in expanding urban agriculture. We look at the different types of urban agriculture and the various success factors and potential pitfalls in implementing strategies of urban agriculture. This research also takes a closer look at the various problems faced by those keen to utilise urban agriculture opportunities. This research indicates that urbanisation is inevitable and has a negative impact on the poverty levels of urban citizens due to the migration of the rural poor. This is relevant to the Western Cape and in particular, to the Cape Town townships of Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain, due to the accelerating migration from the rural Eastern Cape. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za


Integrating Environmental Considerations into Economic Policy Making: Institutional Issues. By Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. New York: United Nations Development Papers No. 21, 2000. Pp. 141. The concern for environmental protection has become especially important in the last two decades, particularly after the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987 which focused on the importance of achieving sustainable development as a global challenge for policy makers and governments alike. The book builds on this theme of environmental protection by presenting and discussing the results of four synthesis papers; three subregional papers which have focused on institutional arrangements and mechanisms in different regions (South Asia, Pacific Islands, and East and Southeast Asia); and one paper on Nepal, the Philippines and Fiji. It also reports on the institutional gaps present and provides technical assistance insights for integrating the environment into economic policy-making in line with the goals of sustainable development. The main ideas contained in the book are refreshingly simple and yet stimulating in terms of its approach towards integrating institutions with environmental protection. Basically, they can be summarized as follows. First, the existence of institutions (institutional mechanisms) is important for implementing successful environmental policies. Second, successful policies depend on the ability of government ministries and administration to effectively co-ordinate and cooperate with one another. Third, policy success is dependent on enforcement mechanisms, of which an important prerequisite is efficient monitoring. Finally, international agreements play an important part in influencing environmental policies in a country. A central theme is that the success of environmental policy statements (intentions) depends on translating such statements into policies that can be effectively implemented. In turn, implementation depends on the types of institutional mechanisms that exist in a country to facilitate such an action. Institutional mechanism is defined as both formal and informal rules and norms which are "in place to define and enforce the rules and policies of the government" (p. 3). Subsequent chapters expand on these and other inter-related ideas in a very clear and logical manner. The introductory chapter provides brief background information on the physical and economic characteristics of countries in the Asian and Pacific region. The different types of environmental problems existing in these countries are discussed with the link between environmental degradation and the functioning of an economy pointedly underscored. In Chapter 2, the importance of general policy statements in terms of their "environmental concerns" quotient is discussed, by examining for evidence from documents such as the country's constitution, legislation, development plans, and development policy statements, strategies, and visions. Chapters 3 and 4 then examine issues related to environmental management, co-ordination, and cooperation among government and administrative entities in the various countries. The importance of feedback from selected public representatives, the private sector, and non-government organizations (NGOs) is recognized as an important aspect for implementing and integrating environmental goals with economic ambitions. Different aspects of monitoring are discussed in Chapter 5, notably the techniques of monitoring, standards, shortcomings in present approaches, and suggestions for effective measures. Enforcement mechanisms are then discussed in Chapter 6. Fragmentation, irrelevance, and contradictions in environmental legislation are reported as some of the major shortcomings present in policy implementation. The slow litigation process is another weakness. Importantly, the non-excludable and non-rivalrous characteristics of environmental benefits have worked against incentives and created inertia for particular individuals to take legal action. …


Evaluation of sperm quality is important in order to understand the main biochemical processes occurring during motility of sperm, to determine the reproductive ability of fish species, and to optimize the environment for spermatozoa. Generally, once differentiated in the gonad the sperm remain there completely quiescent until they are released into an external medium. After activation, motility duration of fish spermatozoa is greatly affected by environmental factors such as pH, ion concentrations, and osmotic pressure. Investigating these factors in relation to fish sperm can help establish good activation or immobilizing media for improving artificial fertilization and preservation. This study aimed to determine the effect of activation solution pH, ions (K+ and Ca2+), and osmolality on the motility of cultured shabut (Barbus grypus Heckel 1843) sperm. The best pH level for activation of spermatozoa was pH 9.0. Ionic factors can stimulate the initiation of sperm activation and duration. Maximum percentage and duration of motile sperm were observed in solutions containing 5 mM K+ and no Ca2+ with an osmolality of 56 mOsmol kg–1. Concentrations of more than 20 mM K+ and more than 10 mM Ca2+ had negative effects on sperm motility.


Complete nucleotide sequence of an Iranian isolate of Maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV-Ir) was determined. The viral genome comprises 9499 nucleotides, excluding a 3′-terminal poly A tail. It consists of a 139 nucleotide long 5′noncoding region, a 234 nucleotide long 3′noncoding region and an open reading frame (ORF) which encodes a single polyprotein of 3042 amino acid residues. MDMV-Ir shares 86.4% to 91.9% nucleotide identity and 93.9% to 97.3% amino acid sequence similarity with other isolates of the virus. The nucleotide sequence identity of MDMV-Ir with full sequences of other cereal potyviruses available in GenBank ranged from 54 to 70.5%. The putative amino acid sequences of MDMV-Ir proteins showed 29.8% to 60% similarity to corresponding proteins of other cereal viruses in the GenBank. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses of the complete genome and derived polyproteins revealed that MDMV-Ir has the highest similarity to the Bulgarian isolate of MDMV, and among other cereal potyviruses it has the closest relationship to Sorghum mosaic virus. These analyses also indicated that MDMV populations are a monophyletic group originated in the Mediterranean basin.


This study addresses trade relations between the EU and the ASEAN countries during a period of intensified regionalism from 1990-2003. While earlier research has dealt with regional economic integration in both the EU and ASEAN, studies on trade policies between the two have been limited. The lack of empirical studies on various types of non-quantifiable trade policies appears to be connected also with methodological limitations. In addition, the parallel trends of regionalism and multilateralism have raised contradicting hypotheses on whether global trade is becoming more restricted or more liberal.

The theoretical and empirical focus of the study is to assess the impact of regionalism on trade policies between the EU and the ASEAN countries, given the changing patterns of trade flows between the two regions. This is addressed by posing two sub-questions: (1) How have trade policies evolved in the EU and the ASEAN countries during a period of intensified regionalism? (2) What kind of policy stances can be identified based on the competitive structure of industries in EU-ASEAN trade? Elaborating from earlier theorizing on regional economic integration, trade policies and the geography of international trade, a cross-disciplinary framework is built for the empirical study. The framework comprises the geographical levels of trade policy negotiation and decision-making (national, regional and multilateral), the extent of trade preferences, and the incidence of trade policies with regard to trade flows between the EU and the ASEAN countries. Methodologically, the study is designed to apply multiple types of data, both qualitative and quantitative. In a longitudinal and comparative approach, an institutional analysis of the two trade groupings is combined with an investigation into the various types of trade policies towards exports and imports in various sectors in EU-ASEAN trade.

As a result, the study elaborates on a new concept, the geography of trade policies. The evolving geography of EU-ASEAN trade policies is built up from three arguments: (a) the geographical scale of negotiation and decision-making is shifting from the national towards the regional and multilateral levels; (b) the hierarchy of regional trade preferences and networks is becoming more extensive and complex in both the EU and ASEAN; and (c) industry requirements are linked with trade policies in a way which combines industrial strategies with sensitivity to changes in global production in both the EU and the ASEAN countries. The findings illustrate the changing EU-ASEAN trade policies in light of regionalism and multilateral liberalization, as well as the changing pattern of trade between the two regions. Answering the two questions, the study concludes that: (1) Trade policies in both the EU and ASEAN have liberalized because of multilateral commitments and despite the alleged restrictive effects of regionalism, but the Asian financial crisis had a somewhat restrictive impact on some ASEAN countries' trade policies in specific sectors; (2) Four types of policy stances were identified in the EU-ASEAN trade relation that combined liberal vs. restrictive policies with global vs. local industries, where global industries have predominated. Consequently, the overall EU-ASEAN trade has become more liberal because of recent multilateralism, but also because machinery and electronics, the two major sectors that constitute almost 60 % of the total trade, include global industries with trade in intermediate products in global commodity chains, and have been largely liberalized already.


The development of active food packaging is addressed using polyolefins such as LDPE and PVOH, as well as biopolymers from flour (sorghum and corn) and byproducts of the food industry. Bacteriocins (nisin, natamycin), plant extracts such as oregano and thyme, as well as native plants of the northeast region of Mexico (Larrea tridentata, Schinus molle, Cordia boissieri, Leucophyllum frutescens), and essential oils of oregano and thyme as antimicrobial agents have been studied. The effect exerted by the process of incorporation of the antimicrobial agent (casting, extrusion) on the barrier and mechanical properties of the package as well as the antimicrobial activity of the containers (broad spectrum or selective activity) has been observed and the establishment of methods for their traceability.


FOTINA, A. A., V. I. FISININ and P. F. SURAI, 2013. Recent developments in usage of natural antioxidants to improve chicken meat production and quality. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 19: 889-896 For the majority of organisms on Earth, life without oxygen is impossible. Animals, plants and many microorganisms rely on oxygen for the efficient production of energy. However, the high oxygen concentration in the atmosphere is potentially toxic for living organisms. Recently free radical research has generated valuable information for further understanding not only detrimental, but also beneficial role of free radicals in cell signalling and other physiological processes. The benefit or harm of free radicals ultimately depends on the level of their production and efficiency of antioxidant defence. During evolution, living organisms have developed specific antioxidant protective mechanisms to deal with ROS. Therefore, the presence of natural antioxidants in living organisms is the major factor that enables their survival in an oxygen-rich environment. The protective antioxidant compounds are located in organelles, sub cellular compartments or the extra cellular space, enabling maximum cellular protection to occur. Natural antioxidants, including vitamin E, Se, carotenoids, carnitine and some others play important roles in chicken nutrition by maintaining antioxidant defences of their tissues. Optimal antioxidant supplementation is shown to be important to maintain high growth rate, immunocompetence and meat quality of growing broiler chicks. A new technology based on vita-gene concept has been developed to deal with various stresses by supplementing a complex mixture of antioxidants and other important elements via drinking water.


In this paper, optimal control is applied to study generator bidding in an oligopolistic electricity market. The repeated bidding process in (hourly-based) real-time electricity markets is modeled as a dynamic feedback system; an optimal control problem is then formulated to explore individual generator's long-term/multiperiod optimization behavior. Particularly in our formulation, the periodic property of the system demand is considered. Several lemmas are included for concerning system stability. Based on the necessary conditions for optimality from the Pontryagin maximum principle, a sweeping method is proposed, and an optimal state-feedback control rule is then obtained via backward induction. Numerical results suggest that the generator who unilaterally applies optimal control for generation decisions will obtain more profits. A sensitivity analysis is also performed, identifying these market factors that affect the performance of optimal control


Problem Many boys who undergo circumcision as a rite of passage in the Kikuyu community in Kenya are secluded for two weeks while they heal. During this period their parents are barred by the culture from seeing their sons and the boys are left entirely to the influence of their peers, who introduce them to all manner of vices like smoking tobacco, bhang, drinking alcohol, taking drugs of addiction, chewing of miraa, pre-marital sexual activities, and recruitment to illegal gangs. These vices negatively affect the boys' spiritual growth and expose them to physical, mental, social, and emotional health risks. An initiation rite of passage is a ceremony performed on boys and girls at the puberty stage of their development which is meant to mark a significance time in the child's life as they transition from childhood to adulthood. This traditionally involved circumcision of both boys and girls and mentoring of the initiates. The Abagusii girls are subjected to the old unbiblical and even outlawed cultural practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in this 21st century. Method The project sought to create and implement a strategy to provide a functional biblical substitute for initiation rites of passage for Kikuyu boys and Abagusii girls and thus reduce the number of boys and girls who undergo these rites in the traditional ways which are harmful and unbiblical. A functional biblical substitute for initiation rites of passage is one that combines the good values of the communities involved with the biblical principles and thereby contextualizing the process and improving on it. Results The Adventist functional substitute for initiation rites of passage was developed and implemented and many boys and girls were protected from the traditional practices. Church members were encouraged to consider the alternative strategy for their boys and girls as they transition into adulthood. A training manual was developed which was used to mentor the initiates and which shall also be used to train Trainers of Trainers (ToTs) to open up many centers for mentorship during the initiation rites of passage in the future. Conclusions The idea of developing functional substitutes to address the traditional practices in Africa is paramount. If this is not done the diehard, harmful, and non-biblical cultural traditions will persist even in those communities which are perceived as being Christian. The strategy that was developed has provided an excellent substitute for the traditional practices during the initiation rites of passage among the Kikuyu boys and Abagusii girls. The boys and girls who would have been negatively impacted during these rites of passage have been spared the torturous and harmful traditions and will continue in their health spiritually, mentally, physically, socially and emotionally.


DNS zone administration is a complex task involving manual work and several entities and can therefore result in misconfigurations. Orphan records are one of these misconfigurations, in which a glue record for a delegation that does not exist anymore is forgotten in the zone file. Orphan records are a security hazard to third-party domains that have these records in their delegation, as an attacker may easily hijack such domains by registering the domain associated with the orphan. The goal of this paper is to quantify this misconfiguration, extending previous work by Kalafut et al., by identifying a new type of glue record misconfiguration – which we refer to as abandoned records – and by performing a broader characterization. Our results highlight how the situation has changed, not always for the better, compared to a decade-old study.


Until recently, there has been relatively little self-conscious reflection - from either environmental or continental philosophers - on the specific contributions which continental philosophy, insofar as it is a distinctive tradition, might make to environmental thought. This situation has begun to change with several recent publications, such as Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine's (2003) edited collection Ecophenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself, and Bruce V. Foltz and Robert Frodeman's (2004) collection Rethinking Nature: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. This special issue aims to continue the discussion of how the continental tradition might advance or transform environmental thinking, both by reconsidering authors such as Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and by considering how themes and concepts from continental philosophy and social theory - including Merleau-Ponty's concept of flesh, Foucault's notion of discipline, and Bourdieu's social critique of taste - bear on environmental practice and theory.


User-item connected documents, such as customer reviews for specific items in online shopping website and user tips in location-based social networks, have become more and more prevalent recently. Inferring the topic distributions of user-item connected documents is beneficial for many applications, including document classification and summarization of users and items. While many different topic models have been proposed for modeling multiple text, most of them cannot account for the dual role of user-item connected documents (each document is related to one user and one item simultaneously) in topic distribution generation process. In this paper, we propose a novel probabilistic topic model called Prior-based Dual Additive Latent Dirichlet Allocation (PDA-LDA). It addresses the dual role of each document by associating its Dirichlet prior for topic distribution with user and item topic factors, which leads to a document-level asymmetric Dirichlet prior. In the experiments, we evaluate PDA-LDA on several real datasets and the results demonstrate that our model is effective in comparison to several other models, including held-out perplexity on modeling text and document classification application.


Striae distensae (SD; stretch marks) are well-recognized skin lesions that occur in a large percentage of the population. Although they rarely cause significant medical concern, they can be a source of extreme physiological stress to affected patients. They occur commonly in pregnancy, puberty and obesity, but also become manifest following various medical conditions and therapeutic interventions. The precise etiological mechanism of SD has yet to be determined, however numerous theories have been proposed and risk factors have been identified. To date, there are many different treatment modalities to improve size and color of striae including diet and exercise, topical and laser therapies and surgery but none have demonstrated a consistent effectiveness. This unmet medical need may be addressed by the use of Pirfenidone. Pirfenidone is a small synthetic non-peptide molecule of low molecular weight (185.2 Daltons) that has been identified to have immuno-modulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. Clinical evidence indicates that Pirfenidone can modulate collagenase and fibroblastic activity by the modulation of cytokines in the wound healing process, such as TFG-β and TNF-α, which lead to effective collagen remodeling. Pirfenidone has exhibited low-toxicity in pre-clinical and clinical studies. These in vitro and in vivo findings suggest that Pirfenidone may be a safe and effective treatment of patients with SD.


Experiential learning opportunities are significant supplements to the traditional lecture format. Among experiential learning methods, mock trials have been proven to be effective. Experiential learning provides the students with a platform from which they can integrate and apply concepts gleaned from class. Students are challenged to write and orally communicate these concepts at a level that would be clear to those involved in the experience. Kolb's model of experiential learning provides four stages through which students may become genuine learners. This study illustrates how the authors implemented a mock trial experience into their classes to create an experiential learning opportunity.


The aim of this paper is to review the experience of radical radiation therapy and the prognostic factors of patient outcome for clinically localised, medically inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Clinically staged node-negative NSCLC patients who were not a surgical candidates due to co-morbid diseases but who were eligible for curative treatment, were reviewed in the London Regional Cancer Program (LRCP). This study population was treated between 1 st Jan 1985 to 31 st Jan 2004. Patients were excluded if they were previously treated with chest radiotherapy. Patients with localised disease, but who refused surgery, were also included in the study. Eligible patients received radiation therapy which was given via localised portals and underwent simulation prior to therapy. The dose prescription range was from 50 Gy in 2.5 Gy per fraction to 60 Gy in 2 Gy per fraction. Hazard ratios and P-values were determined for time to recurrence and patient survival. A total of 74 patients met the study eligibility criteria. The median age of the cohort was 70 years (range 38-92 years). The cohort consisted of 52 males and 22 females. 39/74 (53%) had a pathological diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma. Clinical stages were 21 (28%) T 1 , 40 (54%) T 2 , and 13 (18%) T 3 , respectively. 59/74 (78%) completed their planned radical radiotherapy but 15/74 declined radiotherapy. The median follow-up time was 17.6 months (range 0.4-123.6 months). For patients who completed radiotherapy, the two-year and five-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 38.1% and 11.4%. Overall survival (OS) two-year and five-year rates were 33.2% and 6.9%, respectively. The median DFS and OS for T1 , T2 , and T3 were 18.7, 14, 15 months; and 23.1, 18.5, 14.5 months, respectively. Patients who received radiotherapy compared to those who did not, had median lung cancer-specific survival (CSS) times of 21 months and 4.9 months (P<0.001); OS times of 20 months and 5 months (P<0.001), respectively. Tumour size had impact on patient survival in univariate (P=0.004) and multivariate (P=0.002) analyses. In conclusion, radical radiotherapy significantly improves survival for patients with medically inoperable clinically staged localised NSCLC, and tumour size is a predictor of patient outcome. The OS, CSS, and DFS rates for patients with tumour size greater than 6 cm are significantly worse than those with smaller size tumours.


The asymmetric unit of the title compound, [Pt(C(25)H(22)P(2))(C(27)H(26)P(2))]Br(2) or [Pt(dppm)(dppp)]Br(2), where dppm is bis(diphenylphosphino)methane and dppp is 1,3-bis(diphenylphosphino)propane, consists of a discrete [Pt(dppm)(dppp)](2+) cation and two Br(-) anions at van der Waals distances. This is the first reported platinum(II) complex containing both dppm and dppp ligands. Noticeable features are that the coordination of platinum by the differing dppm and dppp ligands produces a distorted coordination geometry with differing ligand bite angles (and to a lesser extent bond distances), and that the strain induced by the formation of the four-membered dppm chelate ring has a marked effect upon the bond angles at the P atoms of this ligand.


A facile approach for the fabrication of large-scale interdigitated nanogap electrodes (nanogap IDEs) with a controllable gap was demonstrated with conventional micro-fabrication technology to develop chemocapacitors for gas sensing applications. In this work, interdigitated nanogap electrodes (nanogap IDEs) with gaps from 50–250 nm have been designed and processed at full wafer-scale. These nanogap IDEs were then coated with poly(4-vinyl phenol) as a sensitive layer to form gas sensors for acetone detection at low concentrations. These acetone sensors showed excellent sensing performance with a dynamic range from 1000 ppm to 10 ppm of acetone at room temperature and the observed results are compared with conventional interdigitated microelectrodes according to our previous work. Sensitivity and reproducibility of devices are discussed in detail. Our approach of fabrication of nanogap IDEs together with a simple coating method to apply the sensing layer opens up possibilities to create various nanogap devices in a cost-effective manner for gas sensing applications.


Understanding transport logistics trends and characteristics associated with firms has become important for long-term
transport policymaking aimed to support industries. A group of firms that deserves particular attention is innovative firms
because of their higher contribution to the economy and its growth. This paper presents an analysis approach that was
developed within a research program (PhD) on identifying transport logistics trends of innovative firms in the small-scale
economy of Tasmania, Australia. The analysis approach consists of a logistics-oriented and industry-based quantitative
analysis. It is based on the subdivision of the freight task into intrastate, export, and import freight subtasks; the association of
these with six transport logistics parameters; and the development of the concepts of firm class, logistics intensity, and freight
value intensity. The analysis approach was applied to the Tasmanian land freight task between 2002103 and 2005106 (period
for which detailed freight data are available). The application led to the development of several matrices, the analytical
examination of which allowed to acquire comprehensive understanding of the evolution of transport logistics patterns and
characteristics associated with Tasmanian industries. This understanding represents an essential prerequisite for the
development of long-term transport policies that take into account current and future needs of Tasmanian industries in terms of
logistics requirements. The analysis approach can be applied to any freight data that have similar structure to the Tasmanian
freight data, and to any group of firms.


Specific Emitter Identification (SEI) is the association of a received signal to an emitter, and is made possible by the unique and unintentional characteristics an emitter imparts onto each transmission, known as its radio frequency (RF) fingerprint. SEI systems are of vital importance to the military for applications such as early warning systems, emitter tracking, and emitter location. More recently, cognitive radio systems have started making use of SEI systems to enforce Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) rules. The use of pre-determined and expert defined signal features to characterize the RF fingerprint of emitters of interest limits current state-of-the-art SEI systems in numerous ways. Recent work in RF Machine Learning (RFML) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) has shown the capability to perform signal processing tasks such as modulation classification, without the need for pre-defined expert features. Given this success, the work presented in this thesis investigates the ability to use CNNs, in place of a traditional expert-defined feature extraction process, to improve upon traditional SEI systems, by developing and analyzing two distinct approaches for performing SEI using CNNs. Neither approach assumes a priori knowledge of the emitters of interest. Further, both approaches use only raw IQ data as input, and are designed to be easily tuned or modified for new operating environments. Results show CNNs can be used to both estimate expert-defined features and to learn emitter-specific features to effectively identify emitters. On the Use of Convolutional Neural Networks for Specific Emitter Identification


Primary Sjögren's Syndrome (PSS) is a highly prevalent autoimmune disease, typically manifesting as lymphocytic infiltration of the exocrine glands leading to chronically impaired lacrimal and salivary secretion. Sjögren's Syndrome nuclear autoantigen 1 (SSNA1 or NA14) is a major specific target for autoantibodies in PSS but the precise function and clinical relevance of this protein are largely unknown. Orthologues of the gene are absent from many of the commonly used model organisms but are present in Chlamyodomonas reinhardtii (in which it has been termed DIP13) and most protozoa. We report the functional characterisation of the orthologue of SSNA1 in the kinetoplastid parasite, Trypanosoma brucei. Both TbDIP13 and human SSNA1 are small coiled-coil proteins which are predicted to be remote homologues of the actin-binding protein tropomyosin. We use comparative proteomic methods to identify potential interacting partners of TbDIP13. We also show evidence that TbDIP13 is able to self-assemble into fibril-like structures both in vitro and in vivo, a property which may contribute to its immunogenicity. Endogenous TbDIP13 partially co-localises with acetylated α-tubulin in the insect procyclic stage of the parasite. However, deletion of the DIP13 gene in cultured bloodstream and procyclic stages of T. brucei has little effect on parasite growth or morphology, indicating either a degree of functional redundancy or a function in an alternative stage of the parasite life cycle.


In southern Peru, the pre-Oligocene volcanic suite (the Late Cretaceous to early Paleocene silicic tuff, agglomerate, and ignimbrite of the Toquepala Group) have positive ϵ Nd i (+0.6 to +5.3) and commonly negative ϵ Sr i values (-7.0 to +8.0), with 206 Pb/ 204 Pb ratios comparable to those ascribed to arc magmas. Although the former generally display unfractionated La/Yb (2 to 15) and low Th/U (0.1 to 4.2), the post-Oligocene volcanic suite, comprising early Miocene to Pleistocene calc-alkaline andesite flows and ignimbrite sheets with minor basaltic intercalations, has elevated La/Yb (9 to 34) and Th/U (3 to 8), which are correlated with negative ϵ Nd i (-0.9 to -12.0), positive ϵ Sr i values (+13 to +64) and low 206 Pb/ 204 Pb. The principal trace-element and isotopic characteristics that strongly characterize the post-Oligocene volcanic suite are precisely those that confer the unusual signature to the Precambrian basement granulite and gneiss exposed in the area of study (the Arequipa Massif). The latter commonly display high Th/U (20-70) and La/Yb (14 to >57), low 206 Pb/ 204 Pb (16.11 to 17.10) but present an extreme enrichment in radiogenic Sr (ϵ Sr +396 to +999). The contrasting trace-element and isotopic signatures exhibited by both suites can be best explained if the pre- and post-Oligocene volcanic suites originated from an isotopically depleted subcontinental mantle wedge, with the ignimbrite (rhyolite) being derived by crustal fractionation from andesitic parents. In this hypothesis, the post-Oligocene magmas must have undergone substantial crustal contamination (mainly by a thick Andean crust having a large Precambrian component) during fractionation, whereas the pre-Oligocene volcanic rocks underwent little contamination, perhaps because they ascended through a thinner late Mesozoic crust. We suggest, as one possibility, that the increasing degree of crustal contamination experienced by the post-Oligocene volcanic suites is partly related to the tectonic thickening of the Precambrian basement which took place during late Mesozoic-early Cenozoic time, a process which would promote larger degrees of contamination of mantle-derived magmas upon ascent. If this assumption is correct, then the rapid Cenozoic crustal thickening of the southern Peruvian Andean crust could result from a combination of massive introduction of juvenile magmas in the lower crust, underplating of a buoyant subducted oceanic plate, and crustal shortening, the latter mechanism being perhaps similar to that actually occurring in the sub-Andes where the Brazilian Shield is underthrusting the Eastern Cordillera.


This Article focuses on the rhetorical strategies employed by William L. Prosser in presenting overviews of tort law doctrines in his celebrated Handbook of the Law of Torts, which was first published in 1941 and went through three additional editions between that date and 1971. We devote special attention to Prosser's treatment of two relatively novel actions, intentional infliction of emotional distress and privacy, in which Prosser's conceptualization of the elements and scope of each of the actions was influential in their adoption by numerous jurisdictions. We also explore the sources of Prosser's influence among his contemporaries in the legal profession in the three decades beginning in the 1940s. Prosser was unquestionably the leading torts scholar of his time: his Handbook was regarded as the authoritative torts treatise of his day, his Torts casebook was the most widely adopted in the nation, and he was the principal Reporter for the Second Restatement of Torts, which was first published in 1965. We survey the reaction of reviewers to the first edition of his treatise, which was uniformly favorable, serving to establish Prosser's Handbook as the equivalent of a masterpiece. We also attempt to demonstrate, through a close reading of the paragraphs in which Prosser sought to make generalizations about tort doctrines, the way in which he sought to create an impression of doctrinal order that was not quite consistent with the cases he cited as support for his doctrinal propositions. Finally, we contrast the implicit criteria for scholarly visibility and influence under which Prosser forged his reputation with the quite different criteria operating in the contemporary legal academy, and seek to provide explanations for the origins of those sources of influence.


We study the effect of full and partial depletion on the dielectric response characteristics of ferroelectric thin films with impurities via a computational approach. Using a thermodynamic approach along with the fundamental equations for semiconductors, we show that films with partial depletion display unique features and an enhanced dielectric response compared with those fully depleted. We find that the capacitance peak at switching can be significantly suppressed in the case of high impurity densities (>1025 m−3) with relatively low ionization energy, of the order of 0.5 eV. For conserved number of species in films, electromigration of ionized impurities at room temperature is negligible and has nearly no effect on the dielectric response. In films with high impurity density, the dielectric response at zero bias is enhanced with respect to charge-free films or those with relatively low impurity density (<1024 m−3). We demonstrate that partially depleted films should be expected to exhibit peculiar capacitance–voltage characteristics at low and high bias and that the thickness effect probed in experiments in ferroelectric thin films could be entirely inverted in thin films with depletion charges where a higher dielectric response can be measured in thicker films. Therefore, depletion charge densities in ferroelectric thin films should be estimated before size-effect-related studies. Finally, we noted that these findings are in good qualitative agreement with dielectric measurements carried out on PbZrxTi1−xO3.


Some researchers conclude that school headmasters play an important role on school effectiveness. As the "spearhead" management holder, schools' headmasters must have a generic set of management skills such as planning, communicating, organizing and controlling. The complexity of the tasks and responsibilities of the headmasters in managing schools' management that leads to become a headmaster. They must have adequate competence. Emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and achievement motivation are part of the performance management where school headmasters must build in order to improve their performance. In this study, emotional intelligence contributes 0.65% to the performance of the school's headmasters. Job satisfaction gives influence on 23.5%, motivation influence on the performance of the school headmasters is 20.7%, while the influence of the three variables together is 30.1%.


Kimpul (Xanthosoma sagitifolium) is one type of local tuber plant that has high carbohydrate content (34.2g/100g). This plant provides an opportunity to be utilized as an alternative source of sugar. The use of kimpul as liquid sugar becomes an alternative sweetener that needs testing from the perspective of nutrition and health. The Glycemic Index (GI) is a term that is closely related to carbohydrate metabolism, which has the index (level) of food according to its effect on blood glucose levels. The study of the formulating process of kimpul liquid sugar that has a lower GI attempts the use of sugar from kimpul can be more appropriate and well-targeted. This study aimed to determine the engineering process to decrease the GI value of liquid sugar from kimpul through the treatment of tea extract addition and identify the nutritional value, calorific value, GI value, and tannin content in the kimpul liquid sugar as the result of the engineering process. The results showed that the addition of black tea extract with a 2% concentration could reduce the GI value of the kimpul liquid sugar. Thus, kimpul liquid sugar can use as a source of natural sugar with a low GI.


We used an in vitro culture system to investigate the effects of three auxin polar transport inhibitors (9-hydroxyfluorene9-carboxylic acid, trans-cinnamic acid, and 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid) on the development of early globular to heart-shaped stage embryos of lndian mustard (Brassica juncea) plants. Although the effective concentrations vary with the different inhibitors, all of them induced the formation of fused cotyledons in globular (660 pm) but not heart-shaped embryos. Inhibitor-treated Brassica embryos phenocopy embryos of the Arabidopsis pin-formed mutant pinl-7, which has reduced auxin polar transport activity in inflorescence axes, as well as embryos of the Arabidopsis emb30 (gnom) mutant. These results indicate that the polar transport of auxin in early globular embryos is essential for the establishment of bilateral symmetry during plant embryogenesis. Based on these observations, we propose two possible models for the action of auxin during cotyledon formation.


Glaucoma can be associated with a diffuse or localised loss of the retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL). This study evaluated the wedge shaped localised RNFL defects. Red free wide angle RNFL photographs of 421 patients with glaucoma and 193 normal subjects were examined. Localised RNFL defects were described for one eye of the normal group and for 20% of the patients with glaucoma. They were usually located in the inferior temporal and superior temporal fundus regions. Within the glaucoma group, localised RNFL defects occurred most often (p < 0.05) in normal pressure glaucoma, followed by primary open angle glaucoma, and finally secondary open angle glaucoma. They were positively associated with disc haemorrhages. The localised RNFL defects had a high specificity to indicate optic nerve damage. The nerve fibre layer defects occurring more likely in mild rather than advanced glaucoma, they were helpful in the diagnosis of early glaucoma. The association between localised RNFL defects and disc haemorrhages and the varying frequency of localised RNFL defects in different types of glaucoma may be important diagnostically and pathogenetically.


Rock magnetic variations record cyclicity within lithologically homogeneous basinal lime mudstones of the Lower Cretaceous San Angel Limestone, northeastern Mexico. Variations in ferromagnetic mineral concentrations, as measured by anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM), occur at frequencies consistent with Milankovitch orbital rhythms. Magnetic mineral compositions, grain-size distributions, and grain shapes from digested samples are congruent with far-traveled atmospheric dust. Prevailing winds and the proximity of the Cretaceous basin to an African eolian source support the encoding of orbitally modulated changes in wind intensity or source-area aridity. ARM measurements offer great potential to calibrate the pace of depositional processes in carbonates and to investigate high-frequency orbitally driven climate change in basinal strata throughout geologic time.


Several lines of evidence suggest that forest growth in many regions is declining as a consequence of changing climate. To predict the fate of forests in the future, a quantitative understanding of how the key climate variables (insolation, precipitation and temperature) interact with forests to cause the decline is a pressing need. Here we use a regionally-averaged tree-ring width index (RWIr) to quantify forest growth in the Southwest United States (SWUS). We show that over a period of 90 years, SWUS RWIr bifurcated into forest stands with enhanced (healthy) and reduced (declining) branches when regressed on shortwave-radiation and temperature, respectively. The reduced branch was controlled overwhelmingly by drought as measured with a regionally-averaged precipitationevapotranspiration index (SPEIr). As SPEIr approached -1.6 (previously shown as a tipping-point for SWUS conifer forest growth), RWIr approached zero and in extreme drought years, wide spread tree mortality has been observed. Modeled trends in SPEI based on four IPCC-GHG scenarios predict SWUS SPEIr falling below -1.6 more or less continuously within a few decades. With drought expanding north- and eastward over larger areas, tree mortality may become a semi-continental phenomenon with coniferous forests transitioning to more xeric ecosystems. Our results provide insights into how to differentiate functions of climate impacts on forest growth and how to identify tipping-point control parameters for forest regime transitions.


This study investigates Serious Games (SG) to assess motivational factors appropriate to an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). An ITS can benefit from SG' elements that can highly support learners' motivation. Thus, identifying and assessing the effect that these factors may have on learners is a crucial step before attempting to integrate them into an ITS. We designed an experiment using a Serious Game and combined both the theoretical ARCS model of motivation and empirical physiological sensors (heart rate, skin conductance and EEG) to assess the effects of motivational factors on learners. We then identified physiological patterns correlated with one motivational factor in a Serious Game (Alarm triggers) associated with the Attention category of the ARCS model. The best result of three classifiers run on the physiological data has reached an accuracy of 73.8% in identifying learners' attention level as being either above or below average. These results open the door to the possibility for an ITS to discriminate between attentive and inattentive learners.


Bibliometrics has moved well beyond the mere tracking of bibliographic citations. The web enables new ways to measure scholarly productivity and impact, making available tools and data that can reveal patterns of intellectual activity and impact that were previously invisible: mentions, acknowledgments, endorsements, downloads, recommendations, blog posts, tweets. This book describes recent theoretical and practical advances in metrics-based research, examining a variety of alternative metrics -- or "altmetrics" -- while also considering the ethical and cultural consequences of relying on metrics to assess the quality of scholarship. Once the domain of information scientists and mathematicians, bibliometrics is now a fast-growing, multidisciplinary field that ranges from webometrics to scientometrics to influmetrics. The contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics discuss the changing environment of scholarly publishing, the effects of open access and Web 2.0 on genres of discourse, novel analytic methods, and the emergence of next-generation metrics in a performance-conscious age. Contributors Mayur Amin, Judit Bar-Ilan, Johann Bauer, Lutz Bornmann, Benjamin F. Bowman, Kevin W. Boyack, Blaise Cronin, Ronald Day, Nicola De Bellis, Jonathan Furner, Yves Gingras, Stefanie Haustein, Edwin Henneken, Peter A. Hook, Judith Kamalski, Richard Klavans, Kayvan Kousha, Michael Kurtz, Mark Largent, Julia Lane, Vincent Larivi??re, Loet Leydesdorff, Werner Marx, Katherine W. McCain, Margit Palzenberger, Andrew Plume, Jason Priem, Rebecca Rosen, Hermann Schier, Hadas Shema, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, Daril Vilhena, Jevin West, Paul Wouters


South Africa's subantarctic Prince Edward Islands support substantial proportions of the global populations of a number of surface-nesting seabirds. Populations of most of these have decreased at the islands since the 1980s and 12 of 16 species are regarded as Threatened or Near Threatened regionally or internationally. The main causes of population decreases are thought to be by-catch mortality of albatrosses and giant petrels in longline fisheries, and environmental change influencing availability of prey to penguins and the Crozet shag Phalacrocorax [atriceps] melanogenis. It is proposed that the Prince Edward Islands Special Nature Reserve be expanded to include surrounding territorial waters so as to afford additional protection for seabirds breeding there, especially those species feeding near to the islands. Consideration needs also to be given to listing species as threatened or protected in terms of planned new legislation in South Africa and then developing management plans for them, preferably linked closely with the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels and the National Plan of Action (NPOA) – Seabirds. The islands should also be nominated as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in recognition of their importance to seabirds, with 13 of the 16 species exceeding the 1% of the global population criterion. A combination of research, monitoring and legislation will help conserve the surface-nesting seabirds of the Prince Edward Islands into the 21st century, but only providing the effects of climate change can somehow be addressed.


Outstanding problems in solar physics, observational trends and directions of instrumental development in solar astronomy are discussed briefly. These lead to the specification of observational opportunities and corresponding instrumentation for lunar-based solar observing facilities. First and second phases for a lunar-based solar observatory are considered. For phase I, an automated, compact Lyman--α/CIV telescope/coronagraph used principally to monitor flare activity on the solar disk as well as coronal disturbances, is proposed. For phase II, three facilities are proposed: an array of medium-aperture, extremely low-instrumental-scatter telescopes operating from extreme ultraviolet (EUV) through infrared (IR) wavelengths; X-ray, XUV telescopes of high-angular resolution; a hard X-ray, γ-ray facility. Dual-purpose (daytime/nighttime) operation is emphasized.


There are three concerns regarding Rachlin's altruism model. First, proximal causal mechanisms such as those identified by cognitive neuroscientists and behavioral neuropharmacologists are not emphasized. Second, there is a lack of clear testable hypotheses. And third, extreme forms of altruism are emphasized rather than common forms. We focus on an overarching theme – proximal mechanisms of individual differences in altruism.


Multimodal treatment in high-risk neuroblastoma has modestly improved survival; limited data exist on the late effects from these regimens. We report the sequelae of treatment incorporating 3 consecutive cycles of high-dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplants (ASCTs) without the use of total body irradiation (TBI). We reviewed the medical records of 61 patients treated on or following the Chicago Pilot 2 protocol between 1991 and 2008. Of the 25 patients who are alive (41%), 19 had near complete data to report. Specific treatment modalities and therapy-related side effects were collected. Fourteen of these 19 patients (74%) received 3 cycles of high-dose therapy with ASCT; follow-up occurred over a median of 13.9 years (range, 5.8 to 18.8 y). The majority of late effects were endocrine-related, including growth failure, hypothyroidism, and hypogonadism. Patients also developed secondary neoplasms and skeletal deformities. The most frequent sequela was hearing loss, seen in 17/19 patients. We found a high prevalence of various late effects in survivors of high-risk neuroblastoma using a non–TBI-based regimen including 3 cycles of high-dose therapy with ASCTs. As current treatment regimens recommend tandem ASCT without TBI, it is imperative that we understand and monitor for the sequelae from these modalities.


This study aims to explore the psychological capital factors which may affect self-leadership skills. To this aim, the effects of four sub-constructs of psychological capital (hope, optimism, resilience, self-efficacy) on eight sub-constructs of self-leadership (self-goal setting & visualizing successful performance, focusing thoughts on natural rewards, self-observation, self-reward, self-punishment, self-cuing, self-talk, evaluating beliefs and assumptions) have been investigated. The research data were obtained from 227 state officials in Ankara through questionnaires and convenience sampling. For the data analysis and model test, the structural equation modeling was utilized. The research findings indicate that different self-leadership behaviors are affected by different psychological factors, particularly hope and optimism. On the other hand, the findings reveal that self-cueing is influenced by each psychological factor except for hope. The results also show that none of the psychological sub-constructs has an effect on self-reward or self-punishment. Within this context, employees' psychological capital has been found to have a partial impact on their self-leadership skills.


In this study, two new benzotriazole (BTz) and dithienothiophene (DTT) containing conjugated polymers were synthesized. After successful characterizations of the monomers by proton-nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and carbon-NMR (13C NMR) techniques, poly(4-(dithieno[3, 2-b:2′,3′-d]thiophen-2-yl)-2-(2-octyldodecyl)-2H-benzo[d][1,2,3] triazole) P1 and poly(4-(5-(dithieno[3,2-b:2′,3′-d]thiophen-2-yl)thiophen-2-yl)-2-(2-octyldodecyl)-7-(thiophen-2-yl)-2H-benzo[d][1,2,3]triazole) P2 were synthesized via a typical Stille coupling. Electrochemical and spectroelectrochemical studies showed that both polymers can be multipurpose materials and used in electrochromic and photovoltaic applications. Reported study indicated that incorporation of DTT into the structure leads to fast switching times compared with BTz-based polymers and competent percentage transmittance in the near-infrared region. Multichromism is important in the context of low-cost flexible display device technology and both polymers are ambipolar and processable as well as multichromic. Throughout the preliminary photovoltaic studies, the best performances of photovoltaic devices were found as Voc = 0.49 V, Jsc = 0.83 mA/cm2, fill factor (FF) = 34.4%, and power conversion efficiency (PCE) = 0.14% for P1, and as Voc = 0.35 V, Jsc = 1.57 mA/cm2, FF = 38.2%, and PCE = 0.21% for P2. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2013


Over the past six years, the United States Supreme Court has carved out a distinct jurisprudential approach to youth. In 2005, the Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles in Roper v. Simmons. Then the Court ruled that juveniles could no longer be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses in Graham v. Florida. One year after Graham, the Court handed down J.D.B. v. North Carolina, completing what could be considered a trilogy of cases that forge a new approach to youth status in our justice system. In J.D.B., the Court held that age is a relevant factor in determining whether a juvenile is in custody for Miranda purposes. Justice Sotomayor explained that age is far more "than a chronological fact"; it informs behavior and perception. Looking to the future, with the specific attributes of children now firmly acknowledged in Supreme Court precedent, a qualitatively different analysis is possible for juveniles in a variety of contexts not yet considered by the Court. There are any number of scenarios, from pre-trial to disposition, that may require courts to approach the application of procedural and substantive criminal law differently to youth in juvenile and adult court proceedings. These include such matters as competency, self-defense, lack of mens rea, accomplice liability, voluntariness of waiver of rights, and suppression of physical evidence. This Article addresses three separate areas where the Roper, Graham, J.D.B. trilogy may prove to have a profound impact: waiver of right to counsel, Terry stops, and the nature of the attorney-client relationship. In each of these contexts, various attributes of youth have differing effects on the doctrinal determination. For instance, if juveniles are characteristically impetuous decision makers, they may require additional protections to ensure that they are afforded a meaningful opportunity to be represented by a lawyer. Likewise, considering age when assessing the reasonableness of whether a juvenile would feel free to terminate the encounter during a Terry stop may compel a different outcome after J.D.B. Finally, a juvenile's difficulty in weighing long-term consequences against short-term gains could put him or her at a significant disadvantage in terms of the quality of the representation he or she receives. Though the extent of J.D.B.'s impact is currently unknowable, it has great potential to ensure a meaningful delivery of constitutional protections to children in the investigative and adjudicatory phases of proceedings.


Stable isotope analysis has become a crucial tool for aquatic food web ecologists, but a lack of methodological standardization hinders comparisons between studies. One methodological inconsistency in stable isotope food web research is the decision whether to extract lipids before stable isotope analysis. The depletion in zooplankton stable carbon isotope values (δ13C) due to fatty acid content and the accuracy of mathematical correction models designed to predict this depletion were examined for a range of zooplankton species from nine lakes of diverse size and productivity. Large differences of up to 5% observed between δ13C values of nonextracted and lipid‐extracted zooplankton samples correlated with zooplankton fatty acid content. A mass balance δ13C correction model for fatty acid content using atomic C:N ratios and directly measured δ13C values of fatty acids accurately predicted (R2 = 0.95) lipid‐extracted δ13C values for both copepod and cladoceran zooplankton. Researchers should use mass balance lipid corrections as an efficient method to eliminate bias in comparisons of zooplankton and fish δ13C values and allow their results to be more easily compared with other studies.


Understanding the investment decisions of power companies is vital for a regulator as particularly deficient investments in generation capacity could jeopardize the market in the long run. Considering potential risks that could hamper investments, the paper focuses on regulatory uncertainty and firms' behavior to mitigate risk. The question of how uncertainty influences investment decisions has been explained by a number of researchers. In the specific case of regulatory uncertainty it is agreed that organizational strategies and decision processes are influenced. However, it is not agreed whether this form of environmental uncertainty triggers or hampers investment decisions. One stream in literature supports the argumentation that regulatory uncertainty results in reducing, postponing or cancelling of decisions. An opposing stream questions the direct consequence of regulatory uncertainty and the link to postponements of investment decisions. The argumentation can be based on either a real-option perspective that states that an organization exposed to regulatory uncertainty can have a benefit from small initial investments. Or the resource-based view can be predominant that argues that environmental uncertainty increases the probability that a company invests proactively. The paper provides a literature review to give a better understanding of the impact of regulatory uncertainty on firms and their corporate responses to mitigate the risk associated to generation investments. We further discuss potential investments in new technologies in the current environment (especially CCS) as risk mitigation measure in the light of regulatory uncertainty. Finally, we propose a new framework to give an answer to the question of generation investment under uncertainty. By matching the factor of irreversibility with the degree of perceived regulatory uncertainty, firms will follow different investment strategies, depending of the combination of the factors and value of the option to postpone based on the real option approach. Therefore, at highly regulatory uncertainty firms may prefer to invest in new technologies because of their high flexibility and high option value and rather postpone large irreversible projects.


Madagascar's southwest coast supports some of the largest
coral reef systems in the western Indian Ocean. These reefs
not only provide critical habitat to thousands of marine species
but also are essential to the survival of the indigenous Vezo
people who rely on healthy marine resources for food, transport,
cultural identity and income. However, coastal populations are
growing rapidly and international fisheries companies have
begun exploiting the region's waters through a sophisticated
collection network to supply an expanding export market. In
recent years local fishers have begun reporting declines in the
size and number of their catches.
Building on the success of a pilot marine no take zone
launched three years ago in the remote fishing village of Andavadoaka, Blue Ventures Conservation (BV), Madagascar's Institute of Marine Sciences (Institut Halieutique et des Sciences Marines – IHSM) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are now working with 21 neighbouring villages, and fisheries collection and export companies to develop a network of community - run marine and coastal protected areas that will
span more than 800 km2, aiming to benefit more than 10,000
people and protect coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds
and other threatened habitats along Madagascar's southwest
coast. The villages, grouped into three constituent geographic
regions, have established a management committee which
serves as a liaison between conservation scientists and community members, providing input and insight into all phases of conservation planning, from research activities to implementation of management plans. The management committee also selected a unifying name for the network: Velondriake, which means "to live with the Sea."
Along with protecting biodiversity and livelihoods, the
network is working to increase environmental awareness among
communities, expand local and national capacity for biodiversity
conservation and serve as a model for other community
conservation, economic development, and governance initiatives
across Madagascar and elsewhere. Velondriake aims to
benefit villages within the network by empowering members
of the local communities as managers of their own natural
resources, enabling communities to contribute directly to the
development of sustainable resource management systems to
support local culture and livelihoods. Additional benefits are
being brought to local partner organisations and institutions through the capacity building resulting from involvement of their
staff in the project and the improved availability of data, lessons
learned and best practice guidelines.


Characterizing the epidemiology of head and neck cancers is challenging and has received limited attention in the medical literature. Traditionally, 80%–90% of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) have been attributed to tobacco and alcohol use, but with growing public awareness and tobacco control efforts over the past few decades, there has been a downward trend in smoking prevalence in the US. There is also emerging evidence that human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for inconsistencies in HNSCC trends, with oncogenic HPV DNA found in approximately half of oropharyngeal cancers and in a high proportion of oropharyngeal cancers in nonsmokers and nondrinkers. The risk to HNSCC epidemiology is that whatever gains continue to be made in tobacco control may become lost in the increasing numbers of oropharyngeal cancers due to HPV. The purpose of this review is to explore the changing epidemiology of HNSCC, focusing on how it has been shaped by health policy and advocacy interventions and how it will continue to have public health implications in the future, particularly in considering preventive strategies against HPV. Given that the majority of HNSCCs are the result of exposure to preventable public health risks, more focus should be given to this area.


This paper reports a longitudinal study of the design and implementation of a Web-based groupware application. We studied the development of three versions of the application, and the preliminary discussions of the forth. We adopt a sensemaking perspective to analyze the dynamics of this process and show that improvisational action and bricolage (make do with the materials at hand) played a vital role in the development process, successfully within a small group of people, but less so when more, distributed people became involved. The paper introduces the problem of distributed sensemaking in IS development.