OBJECTIVE: To utilize ultrasonography for evaluating the esophageal transit time as well as the esophagus capability of differentiating among non-solid substances ingested (water and yoghurt). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-two young adults of both sexes with no gastric or esophageal complaint were evaluated, with a B-mode 3.5 MHz, convex transducer placed over the epigastric area. The esophageal transit time was determined by means of a chronometer activated when the deglutition was initiated (glottic movement), and stopped upon visualization of the bolus through the intra-abdominal esophagus. RESULTS: The mean esophageal transit time for water was 6.64 ± 1.83 sec, and 8.59 ± 2.70 sec for yoghurt. The comparative statistical analysis by a t-paired test has demonstrated statistically significant differences between the mean esophageal transit times for the two substances. CONCLUSION: This new experimental method for evaluating the esophageal transit time by ultrasonography demonstrates significant differences in the time required for a determined liquid or pasty food passing through the esophagus, elucidating clinical suspicions and allowing a more precise indication for further, more complex clinical studies.


The object and primary aim of this MFA project was to create a body of photographic images that combine the notion of maritime romance with the practicalities of shipbuilding. The images are visual evidence relating to personal experience and as such are reflective in content.

As a photographic artist my intention and motivation was to gain a thorough and intense command and understanding of my chosen medium in terms of theory, concept, practice and skill. My investigation process is informed by years of experience in both shipbuilding and photography. It involved experimentation into processes and materials in order that the viewer is informed of an aesthetic notion through visual stimuli.

 In order that I engage with the broader photographic history by means of abstraction, highlighting the aesthetic and that I gain insight into a broaden aesthetic, I studied extracts from the works of philosophers such as Russell, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and artist such as Motherwell and Rothko.

Conceptually, the body of work, resulting from my examination, is a combination of photographic images that are indicative of the shipbuilding environment. My intention is to draw the viewer into the world of the shipbuilder; to question the very notion of romance when related to shipbuilding.

From a practical standpoint I have explored new territories in film and paper development, and revisited some old ones in order that the images attain their optimum potential within the confines of practicality.

 My intention was to show that romance may exist in shipbuilding but it is romance built around hard work on hard materials in a hard environment and as such is not for the faint hearted.


extract] The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of adoption of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance by public listed companies in Indonesia. The author argues that the success of implementation of good corporate governance in Indonesia cannot be measured only by adoption of the principles in the code of corporate governance in each listed companies in Indonesia. Some thing was missing when a foreign legal system was adopted in Indonesia. This matter is called "legal culture". It is an important variable for the success of adoption of a foreign legal system as well as a foreign code such as the Principles of Corporate Governance.


In this study changes in fatty acids profile during frozen storage at -18°C of Cobia (Rachycentron canadum), caught from the Persian Gulf (Bandar Abbas) were studied. Changes in saturated fatty acids (SFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), EPA+DHA/C16, n-3 PUFA/n-6 PUFA (n-3/n-6) and polyunsaturated fatty acids /saturated fatty acids (PUFA/SFA) were investigated during a sixmonth storage at -18°C. Eighteen fatty acids were found in Cobia, with higher percentage of saturated fatty acids (46.07%), monounsaturated fatty acids (33.72%) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (15.44%). The MUFAs and PUFAs reduced from 33.72 to 26.26% and 15.44 to 10.78%, respectively. Palmitic acid (C16:0, 27.42% of total fatty acids) and stearic acid (C18:0, 12.62%) were the dominant saturated fatty acids. The major unsaturated fatty acids were determined as docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n3, 5.76%), oleic acid (C18:1n9, 25.76%) and linoleic acid (C18:2n6, 4.38%). As a result of the frozen storage (up to 6 months), marked content decreases were found in fatty acid groups such as monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and n-3 polyunsaturated, as well as in the n-3/n-6 ratio and it means that the


Given sparse or low-quality radial velocity measurements of a star, there are often many qualitatively different stellar or exoplanet companion orbit models that are consistent with the data. The consequent multimodality of the likelihood function leads to extremely challenging search, optimization, and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) posterior sampling over the orbital parameters. Here we create a custom Monte Carlo sampler for sparse or noisy radial velocity measurements of two-body systems that can produce posterior samples for orbital parameters even when the likelihood function is poorly behaved. The six standard orbital parameters for a binary system can be split into four nonlinear parameters (period, eccentricity, argument of pericenter, phase) and two linear parameters (velocity amplitude, barycenter velocity). We capitalize on this by building a sampling method in which we densely sample the prior probability density function (pdf) in the nonlinear parameters and perform rejection sampling using a likelihood function marginalized over the linear parameters. With sparse or uninformative data, the sampling obtained by this rejection sampling is generally multimodal and dense. With informative data, the sampling becomes effectively unimodal but too sparse: in these cases we follow the rejection sampling with standard MCMC. The method produces correct samplings in orbital parameters for data that include as few as three epochs. The Joker can therefore be used to produce proper samplings of multimodal pdfs, which are still informative and can be used in hierarchical (population) modeling. We give some examples that show how the posterior pdf depends sensitively on the number and time coverage of the observations and their uncertainties.


The regio- and stereo-specific oxygenation of polyunsaturated fatty acids is catalyzed by lipoxygenases (LOX); both Fe and Mn forms of the enzyme have been described. Structural elements of the Fe and Mn coordination spheres and the helical catalytic domain in which the metal center resides are highly conserved. However, animal, plant, and microbial LOX each have distinct features. We report five crystal structures of a LOX from the fungal plant pathogen Fusarium graminearum. This LOX displays a novel amino terminal extension that provides a wrapping domain for dimerization. Moreover, this extension appears to interfere with the iron coordination sphere, as the typical LOX configuration is not observed at the catalytic metal when the enzyme is dimeric. Instead novel tetra-, penta-, and hexa-coordinate Fe2+ ligations are apparent. In contrast, a monomeric structure indicates that with repositioning of the amino terminal segment, the enzyme can assume a productive conformation with the canonical Fe2+ coordination sphere.


Declining salmon prices, due primarily to expansion of farmed salmon production, have reduced revenues for Alaska's wild salmon fisheries by roughly 62 percent over the past 10 years. One possibility for reversing this trend is to differentiate wild and farmed salmon in consumer markets through quality improvements and marketing. We use a simple conceptual model to highlight the challenges that Alaska's wild salmon industry must overcome before the industry is likely to see significant revenue gains from increased quality. Our tentative conclusion is that product differentiation could increase profits for wild salmon. However, implementation may require significant departures from traditional production and management practices and possibly an amendment to the Alaska state constitution.


In The Mystery of the Mona Lisa, Jack is sent to the Louvre Museum in Paris to track down the theft of the world's most beloved painting. He must match wits with a seemingly invisible mastermind in order to stop Leonardo's masterpiece from slipping into the criminal underground forever. Can Jack's Hypo-Disk overpower a glove that shoots laser beams from its fingertips? Jack's adventures in the city of light demonstrate once again that when it comes to outsmarting the baddies, Jack is the go-to agent with endless tricks up his sleeve.


A method is developed to analyze the accuracy of the relative head-to-object position and orientation (pose) in augmented reality systems with head-mounted displays. From probabilistic estimates of the errors in optical tracking sensors, the uncertainty in head-to-object pose can be computed in the form of a covariance matrix. The positional uncertainty can be visualized as a 3D ellipsoid. One useful benefit of having an explicit representation of uncertainty is that we can fuse sensor data from a combination of fixed and head-mounted sensors in order to improve the overall registration accuracy. The method was applied to the analysis of an experimental augmented reality system, incorporating an optical see-through head-mounted display, a head-mounted CCD camera, and a fixed optical tracking sensor. The uncertainty of the pose of a movable object with respect to the head-mounted display was analyzed. By using both fixed and head mounted sensors, we produced a pose estimate that is significantly more accurate than that produced by either sensor acting alone.


Sildenafil is used to treat pulmonary hypertension in neonatal and pediatric patients. Pharmacokinetic studies in these patients are complicated by the limited sample volume. We present the validation results of an assay method to quantitate sildenafil and desmethylsildenafil simultaneously in 50 microL of plasma. Deuterated sildenafil was used as an internal standard. After liquid-liquid extraction, analytes were separated on an ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)-column and quantified via tandem mass spectrometry. The calibration range was linear, with acceptable accuracy and a precision of <15% for both compounds. The lower limits of quantification were 1 ng/mL. Matrix effects were present, but inter-plasma batch variability was under 12%. The method was successfully applied to samples from a pharmacokinetic study into sildenafil pharmacokinetics in neonates, making maximum use of the limited number and amount of plasma samples available.


With the rapid growth in demand for distributed computing, data centers are a critical physical component of the "cloud." Recent studies show that the energy consumption of data centers for both cooling and computing keeps increasing, and the growth in server power densities makes it ever more challenging to keep the servers below their maximum operating temperature. This paper presents a new dynamic load-balancing approach based on individual server central processing unit (CPU) temperatures. In this approach, a load balancer assigns a task in real time to a server based on the objective to keep the CPU temperatures below a maximum value. Experimental studies are conducted in a single rack based on production workload traces of Google clusters. This study also compares the performance of this method with two other load balancing approaches, Round Robin, and a CPU utilization-based method in terms of temperature distributions, local fan rotation speeds, system loads, and server processing times. Furthermore, we investigate how the effect of the proposed load balancing changes with different assumed applications run on servers. The results indicate that this new method can more effectively reduce both server CPU temperatures and local fan rotation speed in a rack especially for the most of web applications.


The present thesis report deals about the material scientists contribution to the interdisciplinary European project "MAGNANOMED" involving people having very different backgrounds (physicist, chemists, biochemists, veterinary surgeons, ...). The work carried out was aimed at the development of iron oxide based nanoscale superparamagnetic composite particles for biomedical applications. Particles showing a superparamagnetic behaviour are of particular interest as they are sensitive to magnetic fields without retaining magnetisation after removal of the latter. Not only superparamagnetic particles can be guided, but they also exhibit heating properties when submitted to appropriate alternating magnetic fields. These characteristics make them promising for targeted applications where they could act as careers as well as activators. The local temperature increase can be used for confined control release of linked entities or to modify specific cells activities in a well defined area. Moreover iron oxide nanoparticles can be used for magnetic resonance imaging enhancement. No single sample could meet the requirements imposed by every application mentioned above, so the chosen strategy was first to synthesize and thoroughly characterize iron oxide nanoparticles. In a second step, the particles would serve as primary building blocks for higher order composite structures or "beads" (with one or more iron oxide cores) to be formed according to the specific needs of every particular application. The surface tailoring, so that to ensure the desired properties in physiological media and allow further functionalisation, consisted in an important part of the work. Despite the many works carried out in the field over the past decades, the needs for well controlled biocompatible superparamagnetic beads are not only important but also growing. A focus was made on three specific applications: hyperthermia (controlled heating in a well defined body area by means of an external alternating magnetic field), drug delivery (magnetic targeted drug release) and DNA purification (magnetically driven separation in vitro). A supplementary application called ferrofluid actuated micro pump is also described as it turned out that a synthesis side product could be judiciously used in this field. The achievements realized allowed to define a reproducible and versatile synthesis route, which fulfils the above mentioned criteria as summarised in the following. Iron oxide particles, which physical properties could be well controlled, were shown to generate heat when submitted to an external magnetic field suitable for medical applications. The measured power dissipated could be successfully related to the particles and field characteristics using a theoretical approach and the tremendous influence of particles size distribution was highlighted. Polyvinyl alcohol coated iron oxide particles were produced for drug delivery. Biocompatibility was asserted based on both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The particles bio-distribution could be influenced by means of a constant magnetic field (magnet) and depending on the coating nature (presence of functional groups), the cellular uptake could be controlled. Silica beads with a homogeneous iron oxide particles space distribution were synthesised in view of DNA separation using a novel approach. The bead size could be adjusted in the 20 nanometres up to several microns range. Preliminary classical plasmid automated purification experiments revealed a competitive separation yield. These results are promising in view of the final targeted application in currently developed quicker automated processes. A highly concentrated iron oxide suspension (ferrofluid) showing suitable colloidal stability was successfully applied in micropumps actuated by means of a magnetically induced ferrofluid motion. The obtained pumping characteristics such as backpressure and flow rate were better then described in literature for similar devices using water based ferrofluids. AFM 3D-view of iron oxide particles coated with polyvinyl alcohol, average height 9 nm (left) and Stonehenge monument in Britain, heaviest stone 50 tons (right). "In its day, the construction of Stonehenge was an impressive engineering feat, requiring commitment, time and vast amounts of manual labour" [http://www.britannia.com/ history/h7.html] (see appendix 12.6). Nowadays, this remark still holds for Nano-stonehenge synthesis ...


Moringa oleifera is a tropical plant that has been traditionally used as a dietary supplement and medicinal plant. Previous research has suggested that consuming the leaves of Moringa oleifera has positive health benefits due to the bioactive compounds present. Therefore, the identification of bioactive compounds, either acting alone or in combination with other compounds is needed. A literature review on previously identified in Moringa oleifera leaves resulted in 168 phytochemical compounds identified which have various bioactivities. This study focuses on the phytochemicals that interact with light in the UV and visible regions, or photochemicals. Of interest are compounds that absorb in the phenolic (235-335 nm) and flavonoid regions (225-430 nm). Paper chromatography results suggest the presence of flavonoids in Moringa oleifera leaves. The absorbance and total phenolic content results suggest that the optimal extraction method was shaking in 80% ethanol. Capillary zone electrophoresis with absorbance detection at 340 nm was used to analyze the flavonoid compounds in the Moringa oleifera leaf extract solutions and isoquercetin and rutin were suggested to be present, while p-coumaric acid was most likely not present. Using capillary zone electrophoresis will assist with identification of bioactive compounds that promote positive health effects.


Rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and rodents possess continuously growing teeth, and dental problems are a major health issue in these species. Knowledge of tooth growth characteristics is required to adequately treat dental problems and advise owners concerning diets. Most research was performed using bur marks and measuring eruption and wear manually. However, this method cannot be applied to teeth less rostral than the first premolar; therefore, for evaluation of molars, other methods are needed. We evaluated the use of fluorochromes xylenol orange and calcein green to measure growth rates of rabbit teeth and compared this method to results obtained by manually measuring the distance between a bur mark and the gingival margin of the same tooth (eruption) and by measuring the distance between the bur mark and the apex of the same tooth on computed tomography scans (growth). Apical fluorochrome measurements correlated well with eruption and growth rates obtained with bur marks, whereas measurements coronal to the pulp cavity did not. Growth rates were approximately 1.9 mm/wk for maxillary and 2.2 mm/wk for mandibular incisors. Growth rates of premolars were 2.14 ± 0.28 mm/wk in rabbits on a grass/rice hulls/sand pelleted diet and 0.93 ± 0.18 mm/wk in rabbits on a hay diet. Growth of molars could only be assessed using the measurement in dentin on the wall of the pulp cavity, which does not account for the real growth. However, being similar to this measurement in premolars, one could hypothesize similar growth in molars as in premolars. We conclude that the application of fluorochrome staining can be used to measure tooth growth in teeth that are not accessible for bur marks or in animals that are too small to assess tooth eruption or growth by bur marks.


Pramod Bhatta, PhD (ed.). Education in Nepal, Problems Reforms and Social Change , Published by: Martin Chautari, Chautari Book Series-55, (2009). Page: 373, ISBN: 978-9937-8194-0-4, Price: NRs 400 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v4i0.4682 Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.IV (2010) 263-265


Homeownership is in crisis. Millions of families are at risk of foreclosure as they are caught between declining housing values and rising interest payments on adjustable-rate mortgages. The primary concern for such families is not that they will become homeless - most families who lose their homes could afford to become renters - but rather that they will lose their status as homeowners. For families required to sell their property by the government's use of eminent domain, a similar issue arises, as the 'fair market value' of some homes (the standard measure of compensation) is generally not enough to allow the family to purchase another home. The harm of losing one's status as homeowner has afar-reaching impact at both the individual and collective levels. Property ownership ties one to the larger community in myriad ways. As compared to renters, homeowners - even those with the same income, education, and other socioeconomic characteristics - tend to be more civically active and more apt to engage in market transactions linked to their homes. Losing this link to the larger market and community will harm a family's long-term prospects. When many families lose these connections, whole communities suffer.The link between the mortgage crisis and the full-scale financial meltdown has led to bipartisan support for a degree of government intervention unseen since the Great Depression. In this Article, we explore why homeownership is so highly valued-and whether the loss of homeownership status should impel government action. We conclude that this loss does warrant government intervention - but also argue that the myopic focus on homeownership absent an adequate regulatory regime and a broader economic agenda has had dire effects. The families caught by the subprime mortgage debacle were often targeted by predatory lenders because of their membership in vulnerable groups. The government's failure to prevent this exploitative behavior then requires its intervention now. However, it is crucial to ensure that government intervention does not create insurmountable barriers to entry for aspiring homeowners or moral hazard. Accordingly, our status-preservationist approach would protect only those who would have received loans had sound lending practices been utilized and would counsel against the view that homeownership alone is adequate to ensure healthy communities. Rather, homeownership has in the past been linked to behaviors that create sound communities. In the context of eminent domain, the argument for status preservation is even stronger, as it is justified by the U.S. Supreme Court's maxim that compensation should be based on fair market value unless doing so 'would result in manifest injustice to owner or public.' We conclude by considering the broader implications of the economic meltdown and reflect on whether it has so permanently altered our conception of homeownership that homeowner status is in the process of losing its value.


Abstract : The general problem of computer vision has been investigated for more than twenty years and is still one of the most challenging fields in artificial intelligence. Indeed taking a look at the human visual system can give us an idea of the complexity of any solution to the problem of visual recognition. This general task can be decomposed into a whole hierarchy of problems ranging from pixel processing to high level segmentation and complex objects recognition. Contrasting an image at different representations provides useful information such as edges. First, we introduce an example of low level signal and image processing using the theory of wavelets which provides the basis for multiresolution representation. Like the human brain, we use a multiorientation process which detects features independently in different orientation sectors. So, we end up contrasting images of the same orientation but of different resolutions to gather information about an image. We then develop an interesting image representation using energy zero crossings. We show that this representation is experimentally complete and leads to some higher level applications such as edge and corner finding, which in turn provides two basic steps to image segmentation. We also discuss the possibilities of feedback between different levels of processing.


One of the most important goals of unsupervised learning is to discover meaningful clusters in data. Clustering algorithms strive to discover groups, or clusters, of data points which belong together because they are in some way similar. The research presented in this thesis focuses on using Bayesian statistical techniques to cluster data. We take a model-based Bayesian approach to defining a cluster, and evaluate cluster membership in this paradigm. Due to the fact that large data sets are increasingly common in practice, our aim is for the methods in this thesis to be efficient while still retaining the desirable properties which result from a Bayesian paradigm. We develop a Bayesian Hierarchical Clustering (BHC) algorithm which efficiently addresses many of the drawbacks of traditional hierarchical clustering algorithms. The goal of BHC is to construct a hierarchical representation of the data, incorporating both finer to coarser grained clusters, in such a way that we can also make predictions about new data points, compare different hierarchies in a principled manner, and automatically discover interesting levels of the hierarchy to examine. BHC can also be viewed as a fast way of performing approximate inference in a Dirichlet Process Mixture model (DPM), one of the cornerstones of nonparametric Bayesian Statistics. We create a new framework for retrieving desired information from large data collections, Bayesian Sets, using Bayesian clustering techniques. Unlike current retrieval methods, Bayesian Sets provides a principled framework which leverages the rich and subtle information provided by queries in the form of a set of examples. Whereas most clustering algorithms are completely unsupervised, here the query provides supervised hints or constraints as to the membership of a particular cluster. We call this "clustering on demand", since it involves forming a cluster once some elements of that cluster have been revealed. We use Bayesian Sets to develop a content-based image retrieval system. We also extend Bayesian Sets to a discriminative setting and use this to perform automated analogical reasoning. Lastly, we develop extensions of clustering in order to model data with more complex structure than that for which traditional clustering is intended. Clustering models traditionally assume that each data point belongs to one and only one cluster, and although they have proven to be a very powerful class of models, this basic assumption is somewhat limiting. For example, there may be overlapping regions where data points actually belong to multiple clusters, like movies which can each belong to multiple genres. We extend traditional mixture models to create a statistical model for overlapping clustering, the Infinite Overlapping Mixture Model (IOMM), in a non-parametric Bayesian setting, using the Indian Buffet Process (IBP). We also develop a Bayesian Partial Membership model (BPM), which allows data points to have partial membership in multiple clusters via a continuous relaxation of a finite mixture model.


Experimental evidence in the literature suggests that foil bearing-supported rotors can suffer from subsynchronous vibration. While dry friction between top foil and bump foil is thought to provide structural damping, subsynchronous vibration is still an unresolved issue. The current paper aims to shed new light onto this matter and discusses the impact of various design variables on stable foil bearing-supported rotor operation. It is shown that, while a time domain integration of the equations of motion of the rotor coupled with the Reynolds equation for the fluid film is necessary to quantify the evolution of the rotor orbit, the underlying mechanism and the onset speed of instability can be predicted by coupling a reduced order foil bearing model with a rigid-body, linear, rotordynamic model. A sensitivity analysis suggests that structural damping has limited effect on stability. Further, it is shown that the location of the axial feed line of the top foil significantly influences the bearing load capacity and stability. The analysis indicates that the static fluid film pressure distribution governs rotordynamic stability. Therefore, selective shimming is introduced to tailor the unperturbed pressure distribution for improved stability. The required pattern is found via multiobjective optimization using the foil bearing-supported rotor model. A critical mass parameter is introduced as a measure for stability, and a criterion for whirl instability onset is proposed. It is shown that, with an optimally shimmed foil bearing, the critical mass parameter can be improved by more than two orders of magnitude. The optimum shim patterns are summarized for a variety of foil bearing geometries with different L/D ratios and different degrees of foil compliance in a first attempt to establish more general guidelines for stable foil bearing design. At low compressibility (λ < 2), the optimum shim patterns vary little with bearing geometry; thus, a generalized shim pattern is proposed for low compressibility numbers.


We present the extension of the Tinker-HP package (Lagardère, Chem. Sci.2018, 9, 956−97229732110) to the use of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) cards to accelerate molecular dynamics simulations using polarizable many-body force fields. The new high-performance module allows for an efficient use of single- and multiple-GPU architectures ranging from research laboratories to modern supercomputer centers. After detailing an analysis of our general scalable strategy that relies on OpenACC and CUDA, we discuss the various capabilities of the package. Among them, the multiprecision possibilities of the code are discussed. If an efficient double precision implementation is provided to preserve the possibility of fast reference computations, we show that a lower precision arithmetic is preferred providing a similar accuracy for molecular dynamics while exhibiting superior performances. As Tinker-HP is mainly dedicated to accelerate simulations using new generation point dipole polarizable force field, we focus our study on the implementation of the AMOEBA model. Testing various NVIDIA platforms including 2080Ti, 3090, V100, and A100 cards, we provide illustrative benchmarks of the code for single- and multicards simulations on large biosystems encompassing up to millions of atoms. The new code strongly reduces time to solution and offers the best performances to date obtained using the AMOEBA polarizable force field. Perspectives toward the strong-scaling performance of our multinode massive parallelization strategy, unsupervised adaptive sampling and large scale applicability of the Tinker-HP code in biophysics are discussed. The present software has been released in phase advance on GitHub in link with the High Performance Computing community COVID-19 research efforts and is free for Academics (see https://github.com/TinkerTools/tinker-hp).


Abstract Bullock, GS, Brookreson, N, Knab, AM, and Butler, RJ. Examining fundamental movement competency and closed-chain upper-extremity dynamic balance in swimmers. J Strength Cond Res 31(6): 1544–1551, 2017—Abnormal fundamental movement patterns and upper-quarter dynamic balance are proposed mechanisms affecting athletic performance and injury risk. There are few studies investigating functional movement and closed-chain upper-extremity dynamic stability in swimmers. The purpose of this study was to determine differences in fundamental movement competency and closed-chain upper-extremity dynamic balance, using the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and Upper-Quarter Y Balance Test (YBT-UQ), of high school (HS; n = 70) and collegiate (COL; n = 70) swimmers. Variables included the individual movement tests on the FMS and the average normalized reach (percent limb length [%LL]) for each direction, with the YBT-UQ. Statistical analysis was completed using a chi square for the independent test scores on the FMS while independent samples t-test to examine performance on the YBT-UQ (p ⩽ 0.05). HS swimmers exhibited a statistically significant greater percentage of below average performance (score of 0 or 1) on the following FMS tests: lunge (HS: 22.9%, COL: 4.3%), hurdle step (HS: 31.4%, COL: 7.1%), and push-up (HS: 61.4%, COL: 31.4%). Furthermore, COL males performed worse in the lunge (male: 9%, female: 0%), whereas COL females had poorer efficiency in the push-up (male: 17.6%, female: 44%). Significant effects of competition level and sex were observed in YBT-UQ medial reach (HS: female 92.06, male 101.63; COL: female 101.3, male 101.5% LL). Individual fundamental movement patterns that involved lumbopelvic neuromuscular control differed between HS and COL swimmers. General upper-extremity dynamic balance differed between competition levels. These data may be helpful in understanding injury and performance-based normative data for participation and return to swimming.


10 % Co/ZnO, 10 % Co/SiO2 and 10 % Co/TiO2 catalysts were prepared and screened using a fixed-bed reactor under industrially relevant F-T conditions. These materials have been characterised using a range of analytical techniques, including N2 porosimetry, XRD, TPR and CO pulse chemisorption analysis, in order to better understand how their physical and chemical properties are related to F-T performance.

Physical and chemical properties of each catalyst varied significantly depending on the nature of the support material. A positive correlation between Co3O4 crystallite size and the average pore diameter of the support was observed. Therefore, the average Co3O4 crystallite size was thought to be determined by the nature of the support pore structure. Co/SiO2 reduced at a slightly lower temperature than Co/TiO2 and Co/ZnO. TPR profiles were also broader in nature for Co/TiO2 and Co/ZnO indicating increased metal-support interactions during catalyst activation.

F-T activity of each catalyst was screened and the nature of the support material significantly influenced performance. Specific activity increased with increasing XRD crystallite size, metal dispersion and average pore diameter. However, turn over frequencies did not vary significantly between the three supported catalysts.

Therefore, activity per active site was largely independent of support or dispersion effects. The difference in specific activity was thought to be a result of increased metal-support interactions influencing the extent of catalyst reduction.

C7+ selectivity was seen to increase with decreasing XRD crystallite size, Co particle diameter and average pore diameter. Co/SiO2 had the highest C7+ selectivity value under steady state conditions. This trend was reflected in the shape of the liquid hydrocarbon product distributions which showed a shift towards higher molecular weight products. No correlation between C7+ selectivity and o/p ratio was observed in. Therefore, re-adsorption of α-olefins did not appear to account for differences in C7+ selectivity. Wax product distributions, ASF α-values and o/p ratios were consistent for all three catalysts.

The primary aim of this thesis was to further develop the understanding of how sulphur poisons typically found as impurities in coal, natural gas and biomass derived syngas alter the performance of cobalt based F-T catalysts. The sulphur tolerance of an industrially supplied 10 % Co/ZnO catalyst was tested in a range of in-situ poisoning studies. Various concentrations of H2S, DMS and C2H5SH were added directly to a purpose built fixed-bed reactor and the effects on catalytic activity and selectivity were monitored.

As the concentration of DMS added to the reactor increased, the length of time required for complete catalyst deactivation decreased. At 1 ppm the total DMS inlet required for deactivation was 13.5 μmol.g-1 giving a surface sulphur coverage of 0.4. Therefore at 1 ppm, one molecule of DMS was seen to deactivate approximately 2.5 surface cobalt sites. The total DMS inlet required for complete deactivation decreased with decreasing concentration of S fed to the reactor. Therefore, the effects of DMS on F-T activity of 10 % Co/ZnO were more marked at lower concentrations. Effects of H2S and C2H5SH were also tested and total S inlet required for complete activity loss increased with increasing molecular size.

S poisoning also brought about an increase in o/p ratio without influencing chain growth probability. It was concluded that Co/ZnO has specific catalytic sites that independently catalyse the secondary hydrogenation of olefins and their chain-growth to higher molecular weight products. Sulphur was thought to poisons those sites responsible for hydrogenation and not those responsible for chain growth. The extent to which secondary hydrogenation was suppressed was higher using H2S compared to DMS and C2H5SH.

H2S pulse chemisorption studies were carried out on all three supported catalysts. The nature of the support material did not significantly influence the amount of H2S required to saturate the catalyst surface. No bulk sulphides were detected to have formed during pulse chemisorption analysis. The ZnO support also offered no selective adsorption of H2S over the active Co metal.


This thesis explores the interplay between evidence (in terms of clarity, quantity and order) and source factors in the uptake and maintenance of second-hand, erroneous beliefs. Through a series of online paradigms, we demonstrate the uptake of a communicated belief (e.g., "Option A is better than option B") is conditional upon early experiences, given an unknown source. Further, we show that such a consolidation of belief then leads to a confirmation bias, wherein beliefs are maintained despite long-run contradictory evidence. Importantly, we demonstrate that such a bias occurs despite participants being motivated towards accuracy (as opposed to belief-maintenance), and the presence of counterfactual information. We accordingly forward an integrative confirmation bias account of consolidated belief maintenance. The focus then turns to explore the gatekeeping role of early experiences. Using short-term fluctuations in evidence, we not only demonstrate the impact of the first few pieces of evidence in consolidating beliefs, but that such effects are interruptible. Taking insights yielded from the Bayesian source credibility model, the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the source are then manipulated in conjunction with initial evidence. In line with predictions, beliefs from credible sources show consolidation prior to initial evidence, subsuming its role. Conversely, beliefs from dubious sources once again demonstrate the critical impact of initial evidence. Findings are related to the role of source cues and early experiences in increasing the confidence in a belief's validity, placed within the wider theoretical context, and novel implications for reliability updating are demonstrated. These empirical findings are then extrapolated to belief propagation in online networks using Agent-Based Modelling. This work demonstrates that the structure and incentives present in online networks exacerbate societal level erroneous belief uptake. Implications are drawn to literature including persuasion, placebo effects, and opinion dynamics, along with phenomena including superstition and pseudoscientific beliefs.


Matriculation Examinations results are the basis for admission to all South African universities across the country. Matric results are considered predictor of students' performance at university studies. With this understanding, the purpose of this research was to find out a relationship between successful performance at matric mathematics and performance in a first year mathematics course at the University of Transkei. In keeping with the research hypothesis, there was a statistically significant correlation between passing matric mathematics and performance in a first-year mathematics course. This holds true for both genders in the two analyses undertaken. In view of this, successful performance in matric might serve as an indicator of the potential students have in succeeding in their university studies. The findings of the present study challenge the views of those who have had reason to question the extent to which Matriculation Examinations predict students' performance at university level.


ABSTRACT Isotopic and trace-element analyses of dolomites from the Miocene Monterey Formation of California show that there is a strong correlation between the 13C values and the iron, manganese, and strontium contents of dolomites from different localities. Dolomites with negative 13C values have low trace-element contents, averaging less than 1 mole % iron, 300 to 400 ppm manganese, and 200 to 250 ppm strontium. Those with positive 13C values have much higher trace-element contents, averaging greater than 2 mole % iron, with values as high as 10 mole %, 1,200-1,400 ppm manganese, and 600 to 800 pm strontium. Monterey sections with dolomites with low trace-element contents contain higher percentages of dolomite and have lower sedimentation rates and lower detrital mineral contents than sections with dolomites with high trace-element contents. Differences in iron and manganese contents of dolomites from different sections are probably attributable to variation in the amount of readily available iron and possibly manganese oxide coatings on detrital minerals. Whether a dolomite forms in or below the zone of organic-matter oxidation by microbial sulfate reduction also may affect the availability of iron and manganese. In the zone of sulfate reduction, reduced iron, and possibly manganese, may be precipitated as sulfide minerals rather than be incorporated into dolomite. Differences in the strontium contents of Monterey dolomites are probably the result of different reaction stoichiometries of the dolomitization process. Calculations of the maximum depth of dolomite formation based on a diffusion-limited seawater source of Mg2+ for dolomitization show that for sections with high percentages of dolomite (10-20%), dolomitization must take place within the uppermost few meters of the sediment column.


Oxidative stress oligomerizes an outer mitochondrial membrane protein to trigger an antiviral response in the absence of infection. Stressing out interferons Cytosolic sensors of the RIG-I–like receptor (RLR) family bind to viral RNAs and induce oligomerization of mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) protein on the outer mitochondrial membrane. MAVS aggregation leads to the expression of genes encoding type I interferons (IFNs). Excessive type I IFN production is a hallmark of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Buskiewicz et al. showed that mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) induce MAVS oligomerization and type I IFN production in cells in the absence of viral infection. The MAVS-C79F variant, which is associated with decreased disease severity, failed to oligomerize in response to ROS, and cells expressing this variant exhibited reduced type I IFN production. These data suggest that oxidative stress in SLE patients may contribute to type I IFN production and could be targeted therapeutically. The increased expression of genes induced by type I interferon (IFN) is characteristic of viral infections and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We showed that mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) protein, which normally forms a complex with retinoic acid gene I (RIG-I)–like helicases during viral infection, was activated by oxidative stress independently of RIG-I helicases. We found that chemically generated oxidative stress stimulated the formation of MAVS oligomers, which led to mitochondrial hyperpolarization and decreased adenosine triphosphate production and spare respiratory capacity, responses that were not observed in similarly treated cells lacking MAVS. Peripheral blood lymphocytes of SLE patients also showed spontaneous MAVS oligomerization that correlated with the increased secretion of type I IFN and mitochondrial oxidative stress. Furthermore, inhibition of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) by the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ prevented MAVS oligomerization and type I IFN production. ROS-dependent MAVS oligomerization and type I IFN production were reduced in cells expressing the MAVS-C79F variant, which occurs in 30% of sub-Saharan Africans and is linked with reduced type I IFN secretion and milder disease in SLE patients. Patients expressing the MAVS-C79F variant also had reduced amounts of oligomerized MAVS in their plasma compared to healthy controls. Together, our findings suggest that oxidative stress–induced MAVS oligomerization in SLE patients may contribute to the type I IFN signature that is characteristic of this syndrome.


Abstract Yet Another Prolog (YAP) is a Prolog system originally developed in the mid-eighties and that has been under almost constant development since then. This paper presents the general structure and design of the YAP system, focusing on three important contributions to the Logic Programming community. First, it describes the main techniques used in YAP to achieve an efficient Prolog engine. Second, most Logic Programming systems have a rather limited indexing algorithm. YAP contributes to this area by providing a dynamic indexing mechanism, or just-in-time indexer. Third, a important contribution of the YAP system has been the integration of both or-parallelism and tabling in a single Logic Programming system.


This article presents a project that focuses on the multiple ways recently arrived migrant women position themselves, and are positioned, in relation to an urban community in a medium-sized town in central Sweden. The research draws on theories of place and social relationships in order to analyse how accessibility of place is structured and explores the tensions in the production of places. Special attention is paid to variations in narratives collected from participants about living in the town and to how the narratives influence the migrants' experiences of everyday places. The results shed light on the importance of social boundaries and of weak hegemonic relationships in generating a sense of homeplace, the ways our informants construct places in their everyday lives, and actions – or inactions – that result from ways that everyday places are constructed


Abstract Climate changes are multivariate in nature, and disentangling the proximal drivers of biotic responses to paleoclimate events requires time series of multiple environmental proxies. We reconstruct a multivariate time series of local environmental change for the early Miocene Newport Member of the Astoria Formation (20.26–18 Ma), using proxies for temperature (δ18O), productivity (δ13C), organic carbon flux (Δδ13C), oxygenation (δ15N), and sedimentary grain size (% mud). Our data suggest increases in productivity and declines in oxygenation on the Oregon shelf during this interval of global warming. We evaluate the association of individual environmental factors, and combinations of factors, with changes in faunal composition observed in benthic foraminiferal and molluscan communities collected from the exact same sediments as the environmental data. The δ15N values are the most parsimonious correlates with major changes in foraminiferal composition, whereas molluscan composition is most closely related to δ13C values, suggesting that different components of the environment are influencing each group. When the proxies that have the best supported relationships with the faunal gradients are removed from the analyses to simulate the absence of those proxy data, significant relationships between the faunal gradients and the remaining environmental proxies can still be found. This suggests that environmental drivers can be incorrectly attributed to faunal changes when key proxy data are missing. Paleoecological studies of biotic response that test multiple environmental drivers for multiple taxonomic groups are powerful tools for identifying the ecological consequences of past warming events and the regional drivers of ecological changes.


The essence of monetary policy consists of the introduction of innovative techniques into the system via economic debate. There is a period of incorporation or absorption of ideas, as well as, a period of readjustment. This paper reviews the key economic models that govern modern monetary policy; these constitute the decision making criteria for the Federal Reserve System. This paper reviews the creation of the Federal Reserve System as well as its operating procedures and how it implements monetary policy. We gain factual knowledge of monetary economic models such as the new Keynesian model and we discuss the importance of the Taylor rule. Furthermore, the paper reviewed how the United States economy was affected by variations in monetary policy and how the Federal Reserve adapted to the fluctuation in the economy.


All Australian businesses are governed by legislation aiming to prevent workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and sexual identity with serious penalties applying to companies found contravening legislation. While other Australian studies have examined these issues, Queensland has either not been included or relevant data is not easily identified. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study using a quantitative survey to determine the consequences of disclosure of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity to colleagues in workplaces in Queensland. Results suggest that while gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) workers are more open to disclosing their sexuality as a consequence they are experiencing more discrimination in the workplace, despite anti-discrimination policies. This suggests the need to further investigate companies' compliance with workplace legislation.


Abstract In this work we present a bat monitoring system for wind farms. The proposed system includes a thermal camera and an ultrasound acquisition device to detect and record bats that come into the detection range of each one of these devices. All events are registered simultaneously with climatic variables and sent to a central database using 3G/4G. The system was designed to allow several monitoring systems to send data to the central server at the same time. We expect this system to allow the determination of climatic conditions that favor bat activity, especially in the proximity of wind turbines, and to use this information to define shutdown strategies to mitigate bat mortality caused by these infrastructures.


Among the organisms acting in the natural biological control of tephritids, members of the family Braconidae are the most active form of natural parasite, and in Neotropical regions, members of Opiinae are the main control agents of Anastrepha. The objective of this work was to discover the percentage of parasitism and the species of braconid associated with fruit trees growing in cities on the southern coast of Bahia. During the period of August, 2005 to March, 2008, hosts fruits of fruit flies from several plant species were collected and from the fruits the following species of Anastrepha were obtained: A. fraterculus, A. obliqua, A. bahiensis, A. serpentina, A. sororcula and A. zenildae. Of the total of 838 specimens of braconids, 21.36% were of the species Utetes anastrephae (Viereck), obtained from yellow mombin, carambola, guava, mango and pitanga; 4.42% were of the species Asobara anastrephae (Muesebeck) obtained from the fruits of the yellow mombin, carambola and guava, and only one example of Opius bellus Gahan (0.12%) that came from a guava sample. The species Doryctobracon areolatus (Szepligeti) (74.10%) was predominant and emerged from puparia from all the host fruits collected, probably due to the greater efficiency of this species in locating tephritid larvae. The mean percentage of parasitism by Anastrepha spp. was 4.45%.


Dr Fry, LMC's Chairman, was educated at Oxford University, where he obtained an MA in Mathematics and a Doctorate in Economics. After teaching Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1980 Dr Fry jointly founded LMC International, and is the company's Chairman. He continues to devote almost all his time to the company's research and consultancy activity and he is in overall charge of its work in commodity-based sectors.


In the 1990s, government authorities in Zimbabwe introduced internationally praised policies to formalize the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, using a combination of district-administered and nationally administered licensing and capacity-building measures. While "decentralization" efforts in the 1990s and early 2000s were hampered by insufficient resource and power transfers, the model was seen by environmental scholars as a source of optimism. However, as economic crisis deepened in the 2000s, national officials (a) revoked the power of Rural District Councils to regulate riverbed alluvial gold panning and (b) increased barriers to formally licensed small-scale primary ore mining. This article examines the recentralization of power in this growing informal sector, exploring how heavy-handed implementation of national reforms contributed to livelihood insecurity. The study emphasizes how national officials invoked "formalization" rationales for mining policy shifts that obscured their underlying political and economic drivers, disempowering local district authorities and deepening the marginalization of informal livelihoods.


The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells. Oxford and Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004. xiii + 510 pp. $124.95 (cloth). "Appropriate" is the word that may best describe the thirty-six essays in this collection. On the one hand, they make for an appropriate companion to Christian ethics. The essays are fitting as they offer theological accounts of Christian practices. On the other hand, the essays as a whole also seek to appropriate Christian ethics, which is to say, they seek to take possession of Christian ethics and make it their own. As Hauerwas and Wells say in one of the four introductory essays on "Studying Ethics through Worship," "theological ethics is a discipline that reflects on the practices of the Church, seeking to understand how those practices shape the character of Christians" (p. 37). More specifically, the task is "to help Christians remember that their lives are shaped by story-determined practices that make all that they do and do not do intelligible" (p. 46). As Michael Cartwright's concluding essay on witness notes, the underlying concern is that "particular Christian communities produce and sustain the kind of witness to God in which their practices of discipleship can serve as credible signs of God's reconciling work in the world" (p. 483). The essays themselves are loosely organized around five foci that reflect eucharistie worship: (1) the worship community as gathered, as the ecdesia; (2) reencountering the story of Scripture and the creeds; (3) being embodied as given in prayer, baptism, and eucharist; (4) reenacting the story as matters of offering, worship, remembering, communion, silence, thanksgiving, and washing of feet; and (5) being commissioned as blessing, in having children, and as witness. Most of the essays move from scriptural, historical, and contemporary accounts to contemporary reflections. Outstanding in this regard are John Berkman on penitence and punishment (chap. 8); Jim Fodor on the public reading of Scripture (chap. 12); Daniel M. Bell on justice (chap. 14); Kelly S. Johnson on corporate prayer (chap. 17); R. R. Reno on work (chap. 24); Gerald W. Schlaback on the use of lethal force and Christian pacifism (chap. 27); Joel James Shuman on homosexuality (chap. 30); Stephen Fowl on blessing (chap. 34); and Joseph L. Mangina on conception, children, and family (chap. 35). Other essays, often personally written, offer refreshing probes, for example, Amy Laura Hall on the need for reconstructing male identity "for the complicated tasks of incarnate grace" that have been women's work (chap. 7); David Matzko McCarthy on the end of marriage as the forming of the "everyday life of household management, common work, companionship, and training in neighborly love" (chap. 21); Hans S. Reinders on parenting the mentally disabled (chap. 32); Mark Thiessen Nation on the washing of feet (chap. …


Recent studies show that the state-of-the-art deep neural networks (DNNs) are vulnerable to adversarial examples, resulting from small-magnitude perturbations added to the input. Given that that emerging physical systems are using DNNs in safety-critical situations, adversarial examples could mislead these systems and cause dangerous situations. Therefore, understanding adversarial examples in the physical world is an important step towards developing resilient learning algorithms. We propose a general attack algorithm, Robust Physical Perturbations (RP2), to generate robust visual adversarial perturbations under different physical conditions. Using the real-world case of road sign classification, we show that adversarial examples generated using RP2 achieve high targeted misclassification rates against standard-architecture road sign classifiers in the physical world under various environmental conditions, including viewpoints. Due to the current lack of a standardized testing method, we propose a two-stage evaluation methodology for robust physical adversarial examples consisting of lab and field tests. Using this methodology, we evaluate the efficacy of physical adversarial manipulations on real objects. With a perturbation in the form of only black and white stickers, we attack a real stop sign, causing targeted misclassification in 100% of the images obtained in lab settings, and in 84.8% of the captured video frames obtained on a moving vehicle (field test) for the target classifier.


We performed a community-wide study in metropolitan Baltimore to examine the prognostic role of length of time between hospital admission and ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest (VFib/CA) complicating acute myocardial infarction (MI). Risk of developing VFib/CA was particularly marked in the first few hours after admission to the hospital. We compared 128 patients experiencing VFib/CA within 48 hours of admission and 80 patients developing these complications after more than 48 hours. Patients with "early" VFib/CA exhibited a lower in-hospital case-fatality rate than those with "late" VBib/CA (67% versus 88%; p less than .01). Likewise, of patients discharged alive from the hospital and followed for as long as six years a greater proportion of the 38 with histories of "early" VFib/CA survived than of the 11 who had experienced "late" VFib/CA during hospital admission (.05 less than p less than .10). These results suggest that whereas "early" VFib/CA may reflect transitory myocardial electrical instability, "late" VFib/CA may indicate chronic instability and thus imply a poor prognosis.


The growing prevalence of dementia, combined with an absence of effective pharmacological treatments, highlights the potential of psychosocial interventions to alleviate the effects of dementia and enhance quality of life. With reference to a manifesto from the researcher network Interdem, this paper shows how arts activities correspond to its definition of psycho-social care. It presents key dimensions that help to define different arts activities in this context, and illustrates the arts with reference to three major approaches that can be viewed online; visual art, music and dance. It goes on to discuss the features of each of these arts activities, and to present relevant evidence from systematic reviews on the arts in dementia in general. Developing the analysis into a template for differentiating arts interventions in dementia, the paper goes on to discuss implications for future research and for the uptake of the arts by people with dementia as a means to self-care.


The Solid Waste National Policy (SWNP) established by Law No. 12.305/2010 and regulated by Federal Decree No. 7404/2010 indicates advances in solid waste management in Brazil. The main one is the implementation of shared responsibility for the life cycle of products, operationalized through the Reverse Logistics system. This system seeks the restitution of solid waste to the business sector for reusing in the production chain or for environmentally appropriate disposal. The challenge and successful implementation of the SWNP requires the government's strategic vision and a change in the behaviour of the Brazilian population. This process needs to be built through social debate and engagement of all stakeholders, from the social and economic inclusion of waste pickers in the recycling chain to the real commitment of entrepreneurs, transforming degrading jobs in entrepreneurship, combined with innovation. Despite the fact that the SWNP and other regulatory instruments generically indicate a stimulus to the incorporation of non-virgin raw materials in the production process of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE), no concrete step in this direction has been found yet. The complex nature of the productive chain of electrical and electronic products gives an indication of the interlinked network of inter-relationships of the industrial system involved in it, once it depends on the integration of several industries. In this context, it is important to structure a management model for the reuse of industrial waste, based on the creation of a network – 5Rs Network – that allows to Reduce, Redesign, Recycle, Reuse and Repurpose the waste generated throughout the production cycle of the EEE in the country. This paper reveals which industrial sectors are related to the EEE


Most readers of the BMJ will, I'm sure, be stunned by the revelations in Karl Sabbagh's article (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2066). A deluge of nearly 1000 hostile emails will strike most as the stuff of nightmares. The language of some of those missives—abusive and bigoted—will have seemed truly shocking.

But for journalists, especially those in the opinion business, there were few shocks in Sabbagh's essay. They have come to learn that in today's wired world, wading into any topic of controversy—not just Israel-Palestine—can bring an instant email bombardment. It simply comes with the territory.

So when I wrote in the Guardian during the US election campaign that the world's verdict would be harsh if Americans were to reject Barack Obama in favour of John McCain, I received what I estimate were between 3000 and 4000 emails. At one point, they were arriving at the rate of 10 a minute.

Many of these were just as vicious and ugly as those received by the BMJ in 2004. A random dip into the inbox produces this treasure from Middlesex, North Carolina: "As a proud American I can't think of a nicer way to say this to you: Go Fuck Yourself." Equally reflective, this from bioguy777: "I love it! A pansy-ass limey Brit begs the US to do his bidding while his own country slips further towards total Islamic rule. We're electing McCain, and the rest of the world can piss up a rope if they don't like it. 1776, BITCH!"

These messages were coordinated. It turns out that several rightwing …


The past twenty years have seen profound developments in the institutional competence of the European Union to address issues of migration and refugee status. The growth of the internal market, the expansion of passport-free travel, and the continuing arrival of individuals fleeing war or persecution led to the realization that a joint European approach to asylum seekers was necessary. Negotiations among the Member States have resulted in a Common European Asylum System. These European developments are largely unknown among refugee scholars, decision makers, and advocates in the United States. This article outlines the Common European Asylum System in order to broaden the policy debates concerning immigration and asylum in the United States. An examination of the five components of the Common European Asylum System - laws defining those who qualify for legal status, minimum standards for asylum procedures, basic conditions for accommodating asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their applications, temporary protection, and apportioning state responsibility for determining asylum claims - identifies both similarities and differences from the legal protection afforded asylum seekers in the United States. One of the major innovations of the common EU policy is the creation of an enforceable right of asylum for those who do not qualify as refugees but who can show substantial grounds for believing that they will suffer serious harm if returned to their country of origin. Known as subsidiary protection, EU law now requires the Member States to provide renewable residence permits to civilians at risk due to indiscriminate violence from armed conflict. In contrast to the United States, where individuals fleeing countries engulfed in armed conflict might, at best, be eligible to apply for the discretionary Temporary Protected Status, in the EU war refugees now have a judicially enforceable right to subsidiary protection. Moreover, in its first interpretation of this right, the European Court of Justice ruled that those seeking subsidiary protection need not produce evidence in every case that they have been singled out or targeted for harm. In overturning the Dutch government's denial of a residence permit to an Iraqi citizen who had fled the violence in his Baghdad neighborhood, the ECJ affirmed the new avenue of protection for civilians fleeing situations of indiscriminate violence. The arguments of the litigants before the ECJ resonate with arguments familiar to advocates and policy makers in the United States. Although refugees from war zones currently fall outside the scope of the U.S. refugee laws, the broad interpretation of subsidiary protection adopted by the ECJ gives new hope to migrants forced from their homes by the scourge of war.


The South African government and the South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) have committed to the creation of an active and winning nation through sport. As part of the national sports plan, coaching has been identified as a key element in the success of the South African sports system. In this context, SASCOC commissioned the development of the South African Coaching Framework, which was formally launched in 2011. The development and launch of the Framework has been accompanied by the gathering of research and scoping data to inform the processes of planning, implementation and impact evaluation. This article describes the current position of coaching in South Africa and the key issues being addressed through the South African Coaching Framework. The challenges that remain to be faced in maximising the contribution of sport coaching to the sporting and social vision of the nation are also identifed.


Although muscle disuse causes decreases in myofiber size and function, or atrophy, the cells rarely degenerate or undergo apoptosis. Wang et al. report that the transcriptional regulator Runx1 (also known as AML1), which is abundant in developing and degenerated muscle but absent from mature, innervated muscle, regulates a set of genes that counter myofibrillar disorganization and autophagy. Mice in which runx1 was selectively inactivated in skeletal muscle after birth exhibited more extreme atrophy following muscle denervation than did control mice. In addition, loss of Runx1 resulted in structural abnormalities and the accumulation of autophagic vacuoles in the denervated muscle, which were not observed in denervated muscle from wild-type mice. Microarray analysis indicated that 29 genes were controlled by Runx1 and that Runx1 was not simply activating the same genes that respond to innervation. The analysis of these genes may provide insight valuable for understanding muscle-wasting disease. Furthermore, Runx1 appears to activate a pathway that actively opposes atrophy, thereby preventing irreversible muscle damage following periods of disuse. X. Wang, C. Blagden, J. Fan, S. J. Nowak, I. Taniuchi, D. R. Littman, S. J. Burden, Runx1 prevents wasting, myofibrillar disorganization, and autophagy of skeletal muscle. Genes Dev. 19, 1715-1722 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The purpose of this study was to determine how pelvic morphology, body posture, and standing balance variables of scoliotic girls differ from those of able-bodied girls, and to classify neuro-biomechanical variables in terms of a lower number of unobserved variables. Twenty-eight scoliotic and twenty-five non-scoliotic able-bodied girls participated in this study. 3D coordinates of ten anatomic body landmarks were used to describe pelvic morphology and trunk posture using a Flock of Birds system. Standing balance was measured using a force plate to identify the center of pressure (COP), and its anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) displacements. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to determine differences between the two groups. A factor analysis was used to identify factors that best describe both groups. Statistical differences were identified between the groups for each of the parameter types. While spatial orientation of the pelvis was similar in both groups, five of the eight trunk postural variables of the scoliotic group were significantly different that the able-bodied group. Also, five out of the seven standing balance variables were higher in the scoliotic girls. Approximately 60% of the variation is supported by 4 factors that can be associated with a set of variables; standing balance variables (factor 1), body posture variables (factor 2), and pelvic morphology variables (factors 3 and 4). Pelvic distortion, body posture asymmetry, and standing imbalance are more pronounced in scoliotic girls, when compared to able-bodied girls. These findings may be beneficial when addressing balance and ankle proprioception exercises for the scoliotic population.


Disconnection from the natural world may be contributing to our planet's destruction. The authors propose a new construct, Nature Relatedness (NR), and a scale that assesses the affective, cognitive, and experiential aspects of individuals' connection to nature. In Study 1, the authors explored the internal structure of the NR item responses in a sample of 831 participants using factor analysis. They tested the construct validity of NR with respect to an assortment of environmental and personality measures. In Study 2, they employed experience sampling methodology examining if NR people spend more time outdoors, in nature. Across studies, NR correlated with environmental scales, behavior, and frequency of time in nature, supporting the reliability and validity of NR, as well as the contribution of NR (over and above other measures) to environmental concern and behavior. The potential of NR as a useful method for investigating human-nature relationships and the processes underlying environmental concern and behaviors are discussed.


Research in Sweden has recently defined and explored the concept of strong experiences of music, which had been hitherto ignored by much research in the psychology of music and emotion. From a large-scale study of over 900 adults, Gabrielsson and Lindstrom Wik (2003) found that strong experiences of music included positive and negative responses to music, and could occur with any genre of music. The current research explores the generalisability of the strong experiences of music studied by Gabrielsson and Lindstrom Wik with a university student population in England, and compares the efficacy of the methods of analyzing accounts. 64 undergraduate students who had elected to take a music psychology module completed a free written self-report of their strongest most intense experience of music, and then answered a series of structured questions about the experience. The findings support Gabrielsson & Lindstrom Wik's main response categories, with many more strong experiences occurring in listening than in performing (despite the high proportion of performers amongst the sample). Responses included fewer instances of perceptual descriptions and a large proportion of transcendental responses. Responses are analysed in terms of listening or performing. For listeners, most strong experiences were found to occur at music festivals or live events, and with popular music. Two types of respondent were uncovered: those for whom strong experiences were relatively frequent and could be repeated almost at will, and those for whom they were extremely rare. For performers, strong experiences were characterized as either relating to performance anxiety or to the sensory pleasure gained by performing in large groups. The current study supports earlier research in highlighting the importance of music in the narrative of people's lives, and indicates high levels of recall about experiences which may have taken place several years previously. A consideration of the efficacy of content analysis and thematic analysis sheds light on the best ways of analysing free written descriptions of musical


This essay examines the events surrounding the case of Thomas Preston, an English Benedictine who wrote in support of the Oath of Allegiance. Preston's career has been studied mainly as an "English affair," that is to say, as an example of the Catholic loyalist tradition as opposed to the Jesuits' uncompromising political stances toward the English monarchy. This essay presents new evidence to make the case that Preston was the center of an important international debate. Through a reexamination of his case in light of this new evidence it is shown how the Church of Rome reacted to the debates over political and confessional loyalty among the English Catholic community, and provides a deeper understanding of the many theological, political, and theoretical links between English Catholicism and Europe.


This thesis investigates the computer vision application of live fish recognition, which is needed in application scenarios where manual annotation is too expensive, when there are too many underwater videos. This system can assist ecological surveillance research, e.g. computing fish population statistics in the open sea. Some pre-processing procedures are employed to improve the recognition accuracy, and then 69 types of features are extracted. These features are a combination of colour, shape and texture properties in different parts of the fish such as tail/head/top/bottom, as well as the whole fish. Then, we present a novel Balance-Guaranteed Optimized Tree with Reject option (BGOTR) for live fish recognition. It improves the normal hierarchical method by arranging more accurate classifications at a higher level and keeping the hierarchical tree balanced. BGOTR is automatically constructed based on inter-class similarities. We apply a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and Bayes rule as a reject option after the hierarchical classification to evaluate the posterior probability of being a certain species to filter less confident decisions. This novel classification-rejection method cleans up decisions and rejects unknown classes. After constructing the tree architecture, a novel trajectory voting method is used to eliminate accumulated errors during hierarchical classification and, therefore, achieves better performance. The proposed BGOTR-based hierarchical classification method is applied to recognize the 15 major species of 24150 manually labelled fish images and to detect new species in an unrestricted natural environment recorded by underwater cameras in south Taiwan sea. It achieves significant improvements compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. Furthermore, the sequence of feature selection and constructing a multi-class SVM is investigated. We propose that an Individual Feature Selection (IFS) procedure can be directly exploited to the binary One-versus-One SVMs before assembling the full multiclass SVM. The IFS method selects different subsets of features for each Oneversus-One SVM inside the multiclass classifier so that each vote is optimized to discriminate the two specific classes. The proposed IFS method is tested on four different datasets comparing the performance and time cost. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvements compared to the normal Multiclass Feature Selection (MFS) method on all datasets.


Pasifika-led research in adopted homelands like Aotearoa (New Zealand) remains an area that needs attention. In particular, research frameworks that account for Pasifika knowledge must, at their core, embrace the values, languages, philosophies and cultural practices of those communities being researched. It is encouraging to see that Pasifika researchers and health professionals are continuing to take an active role in championing Pasifika heritage not only in Pasifika spaces, but extending this into mainstream arenas. It is for the purpose of adding to and supporting Pasifika indigenous knowledge that this article seeks to make a contribution. This article explores Pasifika health research within a Samoan context, with a specific focus on the Uputāua Therapeutic Approach (UTA) as a research framework. Insights are drawn from the author's research engagement with a number of research projects (Ola Fa'autauta Lifewise Project, 1997; Meaalofa as a Counselling Approach, 2004; and, Ua tafea le tau'ofe, 2011-2015), and from research literature on Samoan cultural practices.


Preface Dedication PLENARY PRESENTATIONS Forty Years of Engineering Structures, Mechanics and Construction Research at the University of Waterloo, by Mircea 1 Cohn and Donald E. Grierson Isospectral Vibrating Systems, by G.M.L. Gladwell Cold-Formed Steel Research at the University of Waterloo, by KM. Schuster CONCRETE STRUCTURES Sulphide, Sulphate and Sulphuric Acid Corrosion of Concrete in Laboratory Tests, by V Assaad Abdelmseeh, J. C. Jofriet, S. C. Negi and G. Hayward Summary of Development and Use of CSA 2004 Shear Design Provisions, by Evan C. Bentz Damage Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Decks Using TAM Network, by Hitoshi Furuta, Hiroshi Hattori and Dan M. Frangopol An Approximate Damage Model for Concrete under Finite Deformation, by S. Khajehpour, G.D. Morandin andR.G. Sauve Dynamic Response Analysis for a Large-Scale RC Girder under a Falling-Weight Impact Loading, by N. Kishi, T Ohno, H. Konno and A. Q. Bhatti Damage States for Reinforced CMU Masonry Shear Walls, by Jia Li and Terence A. Weigel Seismic Behaviour of Precast Column-to-Foundation Grouted Sleeve Connections, by Paolo Riva Air-Void Stability in Fresh Self-Consolidating Concretes Incorporating Rice Husk Ash 129 Md. Safiuddin, G.R. FitzGerald, J.S. West and K.A. Soudki Behavior of Concrete Bridge Decks Reinforced with MMFX Steel, by Hatem Seliem, Gregory Lucier Sami Rizkalla and Paul Zia Evaluation of Shear Design Methods for Large, Lightly-Reinforced Concrete Beams, by E.G. Sherwood, E.C. Bentz and M.R Collins FRP Repair of Corrosion-Damaged Concrete Beams - Waterloo Experience, by Khaled A. Soudki Compressive Strength Testing of Earthen Plasters for Straw Bale Wall Application, by Brendon Taylor, Stephen Vardy and Cohn MacDougall STEEL STRUCTURES GBT-Based Structural Analysis of Thin-Walled Members: Overview, Recent Progress and Future Developments, by D. Camotim, N. Silvestre, R. Goncalves and R B. Dinis Evolutionary Optimization of Braced Steel Frameworks for Tall Buildings Using a Hybrid OC-GA Method, by C.-M. Chan and K.-M. Wong Fundamental Characteristics of New High Modulus CFRP Materials for Strengthening Steel Bridges and Structures, by Mina Dawood, Emmett Sumner and Sami Rizkalla Modeling of Axially Loaded HSS Slender Steel Members Retrofitted with Composites, by Amr Shaat, Waleed Safwat El Sayed Fahmy and Amir Fam Quantifying Inherent Robustness in Structural Steel Framing Systems, by Christopher M. Foley, Kristine Martin and Carl Schneeman Stainless Steel Rebar for Seismic Applications, by Alberto Franchi, Pietro Crespi, Aldo Bennani and Marco Farinet Spread of Plasticity: An Adaptive Gradual Plastic-Hinge Approach for Steel Frames, by Yanglin Gong Empirical Analysis of Memetic Algorithms for Conceptual Design of Steel Structural Systems in Tall Buildings, by Rafal Kicinger and Tomasz Arciszewski Elasto-Plastic Finite Element Analysis of Prying of Top- and Seat-Angle Connections, by M. Komuro, N. Kishi and A. Ahmed Fully Stressed Seismic Design of Dampers in Framed Structures, by Robert Levy and Oren Lavan Inelastic Analysis of Semirigid Frameworks, by Y Liu, L. Xu and D.E. Grierson A New Method for Analysis of Structures Including Nonlinear Semirigid Connections, by Hamid Moharrami Evaluation of a Forty-Year Old T.Y. Lin Designed Elliptical Post-Tensioned Cable-Supported Roof , by Randall W Poston Story Based Ductility Models for Displacement Based Design of Steel Frames, by Mohammad Safi "Plastique" - A Computer Program for 3D Inelastic Analysis of Multi-Storey Buildings, by Vlasis K. Koumousis, Eleni N. Chatzi and Savvas P. Triantafillou COLD FORMED STEEL Analytical Predictions of Strength and Deflection of Light Gauge Steel Frame/Wood Panel Shear Walls, by C. Y Chen, A.F Okasha and C.A. Rogers Innovative Cold-Formed Steel I-Joist, by R.A. LaBoube Determination of the Lateral Strength of Shear Wall Panels with Cold-Formed Steel Frames, by Joel MartInez and Lei Xu Model Decomposition for Thin-Walled Member Stability Using the Finite Strip Method, by B. W Schafer and S. Adany Study on Shear Resistance of Cold-Formed Steel Stud Walls in Residential Structure, by Zhou XuHong, Shi Yu, Zhou Iianhua, Liu Yongjian and Di Jin ENGINEERING MECHANICS AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS Learning, Self-Diagnosis and Multi-Objective Control of an Active Tensegrity Structure, by Bernard Adam and Ian E C. Smith Micro- and Macro-Mechanical Approaches for Modelling of Polyethylene Material for Pipes, by J.A. Alvarado-Contreras, H. Liu, M.A. Polak and A. Penlidis The Mechanics of Early Embryo Development: Insights from Finite Element Modeling, by Xiaoguang Chen and G. Wayne Brodland Applications of Random Field Models in Stochastic Structural Mechanics, by Christian Bucher Relative NDT Evaluation of the Side Walls of a Brick Channel, by Giovanni Cascante, Homayoun Najjaran and Paolo Ronca Crack Induced Stress Field in an Elastic-Plastic Plate, by R.N. Dubey Micro/Meso-Analysis of Polymer Composites with Damage Evolution, by Fernand Ellyin, Zihui Xia and Yunfa Zhang Galerkin Method for Stochastic Algebraic Equations and Plates on Random Elastic Foundation, by Mircea Grigoriu Hypercube Point Concentrations Sampling Technique, by H.P. Hong Asymptotically-Correct Structural Modelling of Thin-Walled Anisotropic Closed Cross-Section Rotating Slender Beams, by F Khouli, FE Afagh and KG. Langlois Dynamic Sensitivities Using Efficient Reanalysis of Structures, by U. Kirsch, M. Bogomolni and I. Sheinman Symmetrization of Some Linear Conservative Nonself-Adjoint Systems, by B.L. Ly Interactive Knowledge-Based Assistance for Conceptual Design of Building Structures, by Rodrigo Mora, Hugues Rivard, Steve Parent and Claude Bedar High Performance Computational Modelling of Microstructural Phenomena in Polycrystalline Metals, by K. Inal and K.W Neale Interactive Visualisation Systems for Conceptual Building Design: A Practical Approach, by M. Y Rafiq, M. Beck and I. Packham Assessing Alternative Prefabrication Methods: Logistical Influences, by Robert Seaker and Sang-Hoon Lee A Study of Quasi-Static Delamination in Sandwich Structures, by Srinivasan Sridharan and Yupeng Li On the Monte Carlo Simulation of Moment Lyapunov Exponents, by Wei-Chau Xie and Qinghua Huang STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION Mathematical Programming in Structural Mechanics - The Past and the Future, by Adam Borkowski Optimization Method of Pile Foundations, by Anthony J. Hurd and Kevin Z Truman Gradient Based Optimization of Added Viscous Damping in Seismic, by Robert Levy and Oren Lavan Strategies for Computational Efficiency in Continuum Structural Topology Optimization, by Colby C. Swan and Salam F Rahmatalla Damage Detection Using Static Response Data and Optimality Criterion, by Kevin Truman and Gus Terlaje ENGINEERING RELIABILITY System Reliability Assessment of Steel Girder Bridges, by ArturA. Czarnecki and Andrzej S. Nowak Reliability of Bilinear SDOF Systems Subjected to Earthquake Loading, by H.P. Hong and P. Hong Risk-Based Maintenance Optimization of Aging Highway Bridge Decks, by Zoubir Lounis A Comparison of Probabilistic Models of Deterioration for Life Cycle Management of Structures, by M.D. Pandey and X. -X. Yuan Time-Variant Reliability Analysis for Series Systems with Log-Normal Vector Response, by Sayan Gupta, Pieter van Gelder and Mahesh Pandey CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT In-Pipe Ground Penetrating Radar for Non-Destructive Evaluation of PVC Lined Concrete Pipe, by Samuel i: Ariaratnam and Noel Guercio Freeform Construction Application Research, by R.A. Buswell, R.C. Soar A.G.F Gibb andA. Thorpe Risk Identification and Response Methods: Views of Large Scale Contractors Working in Developing Countries, by A. Samer Ezeldin and Wallied Orabi Better Visualization for Multiple-Site Infrastructure Programs Using GIS, by Tarek Hegazy Glass-Plastic Hybrid Construction, by J. Hildebrand and F Werner Development of New Bridge Restrainer Using Laminated Fiber Reinforced Rubber, by Nobutaka Ishikawa, Yashushi Nishimoto and Toni Ukishima Collapse Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Slabs: Are the Up and Down Roads One and the Same?, by David Johnson Decision Support System for Bridge Network Maintenance Planning, by Ming Liu and Dan M. Frangopol Antimicrobial Treated Construction Materials and Air Filters Reduce Facility Bioburden and Improve Air Quality in a Healthcare Environment, by G.M. McNeice, O.Z. Tyler and D. W Blackhurst Comprehensive Strategy for HSC Best Performance in Extensive Applications of Landmark Works in Italy, by A. Migliacci, P. Ronca, P. Crespi and G. Franchi Author Index.


Abstract. Chlorine monoxide (ClO) plays a key role in stratospheric ozone loss processes at midlatitudes. We present two balloon-borne in situ measurements of ClO conducted in northern hemisphere midlatitudes during the period of the maximum of total inorganic chlorine loading in the atmosphere. Both ClO measurements were conducted on board the TRIPLE balloon payload, launched in November 1996 in Leon, Spain, and in May 1999 in Aire sur l'Adour, France. For both flights a ClO daylight and night-time vertical profile was derived over an altitude range of approximately 15-35 km. ClO mixing ratios are compared to model simulations performed with the photochemical box model version of the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS). Simulations along 24-hour backward trajectories were performed to study the diurnal variation of ClO in the midlatitude lower stratosphere. Model simulations for the flight launched in Aire sur l'Adour 1999 show an excellent agreement with the ClO measurements. For the flight launched in Leon 1996, an overall good agreement is found, whereas the flight is characterized by a more complex dynamical situation due to a possible mixture of vortex and non-vortex air. We note that for both flights at solar zenith angles greater than 86°-87° simulated ClO mixing ratios are higher than observed ClO mixing ratios. However, the present findings indicate that no substantial uncertainties exist in midlatitude chlorine chemistry of the stratosphere.


This book covers fundamental concepts in financial markets and asset pricing such as hedging, arbitrage, speculation in different markets, classical models for pricing of simple and complex derivatives, mathematical foundations, managing and monitoring portfolios of derivatives in real time, etc. It explains different applications of these concepts using real world examples. The book also covers topics like financial markets and instruments, option pricing models, option pricing theory, exotic derivatives, second generation options, etc. Written in a simple manner and amply supported by real world examples, questions and exercises, the book will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners alike.


Efficient proliferation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) inside macrophage requires that the essential response regulator MtrA be optimally phosphorylated. However, the genomic targets of MtrA have not been identified. We show by chromatin immunoprecipitation and DNase I footprinting that the chromosomal origin of replication, oriC, and the promoter for the major secreted immunodominant antigen Ag85B, encoded by fbpB, are MtrA targets. DNase I footprinting analysis revealed that MtrA recognizes two direct repeats of GTCACAgcg-like sequences and that MtrA∼P, the phosphorylated form of MtrA, binds preferentially to these targets. The oriC contains several MtrA motifs, and replacement of all motifs or of a single select motif with TATATA compromises the ability of oriC plasmids to maintain stable autonomous replication in wild type and MtrA-overproducing strains, indicating that the integrity of the MtrA motif is necessary for oriC replication. The expression of the fbpB gene is found to be down-regulated in Mtb cells upon infection when these cells overproduce wild type MtrA but not when they overproduce a nonphosphorylated MtrA, indicating that MtrA∼P regulates fbpB expression. We propose that MtrA is a regulator of oriC replication and that the ability of MtrA to affect apparently unrelated targets, i.e. oriC and fbpB, reflects its main role as a coordinator between the proliferative and pathogenic functions of Mtb.


Delphinus bairdii Dall is a species of dolphin distinct from D. delphis Linnaeus, with which it has usually been synonymized. D. bairdii has a longer rostrum relative to the zygomatic width of the skull; the ratio of these measurements falls at 1.55 or above for bairdii and 1.53 and below for delphis. In the eastern Pacific Ocean, D. bairdii is found in the Gulf of California and along the west coast of Baja California, Mexico; D. delphis is presently found in the waters off California. Until approximately the beginning of the present century, bairdii occurred farther north in the eastern Pacific Ocean, at least to the Monterey Bay area of California. Restriction of bairdii to more southerly waters, probably as an indirect result of a change in water temperature, may have permitted delphis to move into inshore Californian waters. The Pacific population of D. delphis has a somewhat shorter rostrum than the Atlantic population, and is perhaps subspecifically different. A thorough analysis of the entire genus Delphinus is needed before the relationship of all the populations can be understood and names properly applied.


Many studies on the impact of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions do not consider indirect land-use change and land use avoided because of co-products utilization. This paper provides estimates of the land-use credit for corn ethanol when its by-product-distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS)-is used in swine feed rations to substitute for corn and soymeal. The range of estimates used here covers the land-use credit used in the literature. Moreover, this study departs from earlier studies because feed rations from a least-cost optimization are used rather than rations from feeding trials, and DDGS nutrient profile variability is fully accounted for. As a result, displacement rates and the land-use credit can be better characterized using a distribution rather than a single point estimate. The land-use credit for corn ethanol for DDGS used in swine feed rations ranges from -0.367 to -0.596 hectares, whereby substitution for corn in the feed ration accounts for 56.09% and soymeal substitution contributes 48.46%. Variability of the land-use credit is contributed more by the variability of land use from the substitution of soymeal than that of corn. Finally, when feed compounders discount the DDGS nutrient profile to ensure they are at or above any realized nutrient profile 90% of the time, the land-use credit for corn ethanol declines by 8.47% for DDGS in a swine feed ration.


We intend to develop a smartphone app that can tell whether its user is a driver or a passenger in an automobile. While the core problem can be solved relatively easily with special installations in new high-end vehicles (e.g., NFC), constraints of backward compatibility makes the problem far more challenging. We design a Driver Detection System (DDS) that relies entirely on smartphone sensors, and is thereby compatible with all automobiles. Our approach harnesses smartphone sensors to recognize micro-activities in humans, that in turn discriminate between the driver and the passenger. We demonstrate an early prototype of this system on Android NexusS and Apple iPhones. Reported results show greater than 85% accuracy across 6 users in 2 different cars.


Courts have started to recognize standing to sue for those on the government's No Fly List, which bars listed individuals from flying. This salutary step, however, leaves untouched the complex watch list infrastructure on which the No Fly List is built and whose flaws it inherits. Lower-profile watch lists have fewer determinate consequences on listed individuals than the No Fly List does. But, this article argues, they exact substantial costs. This article first explains why the incentive structure of terrorist watch lists encourages government agencies to list more people than necessary and not to check their work. It then demonstrates how a misguided understanding of the relationship between false positives and false negatives obscures the effects of these perverse incentives. Those effects, the article shows, extend beyond individuals listed on a watch to include government agents and agencies, public policy, and society at large. Yet, as I explain, neither the current statutory regime nor judicial doctrine can address these broad negative effects; even scholarship largely misses the point. To remedy this situation, this article proposes ways to build self-assessment and improvement — in the form of Bayesian updating — into the watch list process. More broadly, the article contributes to attempts to analyze and constrain the government's use of big data.


Fluoride as a supplement can affect the structural integrity of bone. Fluoride that is incorporated in the mineral, substitutes for the hydroxyl group producing hydroxyfluorapatite crystals and presumed to increase bone strength by preventing resorption. Because of this, fluoride therapy has been carried out in clinical trials for the treatment of osteoporosis. Although fluoride renders the mineralized tissues resistant to resorption, the effects of fluoride on bone strength and cortical bone mass specially that of the developing bone has not yet been characterized. The purpose of the study was to analyze the effect of fluoride on developing teeth and bone in young rats through histomorphometry. Sixteen wistar rats were used and divided into two groups; non-fluoride supplemented (control) and fluoride-supplemented groups. Four weeks after, the rats were sacrificed and the mandible and femur were subjected to histological and histomorphometric analyses. No clinical difference was observed between the two groups. The amount of mineralized cartilage was higher in fluoride-supplemented group compared to the control group. However, the amount of new bone was lesser in fluoride-supplemented group compared to the control group. This histomorphometric analysis showed that during endochondral ossification, 10 ppm fluoride administration caused some changes in calcified cartilage and bone mineralization in young rats.


Drawing together the new techniques available to the market researcher into a single reference, The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research explores how these innovations are being used by the leaders in the field. This groundbreaking reference examines why traditional research is broken, both in theory and practice, and includes chapters on online research communities, community panels, blog mining, social networks, mobile research, e-ethnography, predictive markets, and DIY research. This handbook fills a significant learning gap for the market research profession and Ray Poynter has once again proven that he is a guiding light. The practical and pragmatic advice contained within these pages will be relevant to new students of research, young researchers and experienced researchers that want to understand the basics of online and social media research. Rays views on how to be better with people and how to maximise response rates are vital clues that are likely to shape the future of market and social research. Peter Harris, National President, Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS). Its hard to imagine anyone better suited to covering the rapidly changing world of online research than Ray Poynter. In this book he shows us why. Whether you are new to online or a veteran interested in broadening your understanding of the full range of techniquesquant and qualthis book is for you. Reg Baker, President and Chief Operating Officer, Market Strategies International Finally, a comprehensive handbook for practitioners, clients, suppliers and students that includes best practices, clear explanations, advice and cautionary warnings. This should be the research benchmark for online research for some time. Poynter proves he is the online market research guru. Cam Davis, Ph.D., former Dean and current instructor of the online market research course for the Canadian Marketing Research and Intelligence Association Ray Poynters comprehensive, authoritative, easy to read, and knowledgeable handbook has come to our rescue ... it is a must read for anyone who needs to engage with customers or stakeholders in a creative, immediate and flexible way that makes maximum use of all the exciting, new technology now open to us. Market researchers need to know this stuff now. I can guarantee that anyone who buys the book will find it a compelling read: they will be constantly turning to the next page in order to find yet another nugget of insight from Rays tour de force. Dr David Smith, Director, DVL Smith Ltd; Professor, University of Hertfordshire, Business School