The first description of the rise of the Polish state appears in the twelfth century chronicle of Gallus Anonymous, whose chronicle refers to the legendary predecessors of Mieszko. The chronicler states that the version given there of the oldest history was that which was preserved by as he put it "faithful memory". The thesis of the evolutionary beginnings of the state has dominated the majority of the interpretations for many years. More recent archaeological investigations however, carried out in different regions of the country indicate that all over the Polish lands a similar, though not identical series of events took place in the tenth century. As a result there was a rapid, sometimes even catastrophic, collapse of many of the pre-existing tribal centres. These events were accompanied by permanent or temporary depopulation of former areas of settlement. Within a short time new centres of the Piast state arose on new sites, beginning the thousand year history of the Polish nation and state. A problem which is more widely discussed by the author is the origin of the creators of the Piast dynasty. In Polish historiography they have been assigned both a local as well as foreign (Varangian) origin. Archaeologists however have not earlier considered this problem in much detail, but the author belives that some archaeological evidence suggest that the birthplace of the new dynasty might have been southeast Wielkopolska and the region of Kalisz. This area shows a lack of the traces of the destruction of tribal centres so characteristic for other parts of the region. On the contrary, here we see traces of investment of considerable resources in stronghold construction and other evidence of the growth of the Kalisz region and the centre of Kalisz itself. What is more, Kalisz (which arose in the tribal period), unlike the rest of the pre-state strongholds, not only survived, but also developed successfully after the rise of the state. Thus, in the opinion of the author, it was precisely here that the best conditions xisted for the beginning of the Piast revolution, the archaeological traces of which are the destroyed tribal strongholds and the construction of new political centres in new locations. The Podeblocie complex situated 100 km to the south of Warsaw composed of a stronghold,  settlements and cemeteries, has gone down in history because of the scholarly storm which erupted around the discovery of three fragments of fired clay, called conventionally "the Podeblocie tablets". They were found in two archaeological features in a settlement of the "tribal period", dated to the ninth century. The objects have one feature in common: on their surface they have signs resembling writing. These inscriptions have been read as the monogram of Jesus Christ. If these hypotheses could be positively verified, we would be dealing with the evidence of the presence of Christians at least 150 years earlier than the date of the acceptance of Christianity by Poland. In the same context as the tablets were found pottery dated to the ninth century with interesting solar ornament. Similar decoration on ceramics from Poland are unique. From the point of view of Christianization of the Polish State the crucial position play discoveries which took place in the leading centers of the Mieszko I in the 2nd half of 10th century. In Poznan – in agreement with a tradition which tells of the place of residence of Jordan, the first missionary bishop – the greatest discovery of the past few years has been the palatium of Mieszko I, which has been dated to the second half of the tenth century. Further investigations have shown that adjacent to this building there probably was a chapel in the rectangular form with an-apse. The entire complex was therefore similar to that known from Ostrow Lednicki. Another discovery which has been the subject of controversy for many years is the so-called 'baptistery' from Poznan. This is a structure with a central post identified under the cathedral. This is regarded by some investigators as the remains of a mortar-mixer, others reject that interpretation, demonstrating that around this structure stood a rectangular structure. Even however if this was so, it still remains unclear whether this supposed baptistery functioned beside a church already in existence (and if so, what kind of church?). No trace of such a structure has been found. Another centre – Ostrow Lednicki, situated in Great Poland has a number of exceptional features. Here, within the circuit of the stronghold on the island, in its central part, was situated a residential complex of the first Piasts. This consisted of a two-part structure, identified as a palatium and accompanying centrally-planned chapel (or baptistery). The form of the palace shows Ottonian and southern influences. Another important element is the nearby aisleless masonry church, around which was a small cemetery. The uniqueness of Ostrow Lednicki is due to the fact that, besides fulfilling a residential function for the first Polish rulers, at the beginning of statehood, it became an important place for baptisms, a necropolis of the Piast dynasty, a place where the elite of the princely retinue gathered, as well as an example of engineering ability – the construction of bridges. From here has come one of the richest collections of archaeological finds of the highest rank. Giecz, situated forty kilometres south of Ostrow Lednicki, first enters the Polish historical record in a mention by Gallus Anonimous. On this basis we may assume that the stronghold fulfilled an important military role in the early Piast state. Within the ramparts of the site were uncovered the remains of a palatium building with a rotunda, as well as the remains of a church of St John the Baptist situated in the north part of the stronghold. The foundation of the palatium has been ascribed to Mieszko II, and the cessation of the construction explained by the invasion of the Bohemian prince Břetyslav at the end of the 1030s. A great change which occurred at the beginning of the early state period in the Polish lands was the transition from cremation to inhumation which was brought about by the introduction of Christianity in the second half of the tenth century. But many biritual cemeteries existed into the 12th and 13th centuries. This concerns principally those areas where paganism lasted longer (Pomerania and Mazovia), or those places where people of a different cultural tradition were buried. According to the Author many evidence, as 14C dating of human bones from the oldest cemeteries, showed that the beginning of great conversion – from incineration to inhumation took place still in the times of Mieszko I. Poland of the times of Mieszko I was, in today's terminology, a country undergoing deep structural changes. The processes of the fortification of the country and the beginnings of early urbanisation were inevitably accompanied by deep demographic changes. The scale of changes which were occurring at this time is a reflection of the position of a leader in charge of a well-trained and professional army, in which immigrant Scandinavians (among others) played an important role. The transformations which took place in Polish lands in the times of Mieszko I, were part of the processes of state formation which were taking place all over central Europe. The major structural transformations and political and ideological reconstruction of tribal organizations lie at the basis of the preservation of cultural and ethnic identity of the Lechitic tribes – later Polish – in the community of European nations


INTRODUCTION Epidemic forecasting and prediction tools have the potential to provide actionable information in the midst of emerging epidemics. While numerous predictive studies were published during the 2016-2017 Zika Virus (ZIKV) pandemic, it remains unknown how timely, reproducible and actionable the information produced by these studies was. METHODS To improve the functional use of mathematical modeling in support of future infectious disease outbreaks, we conducted a systematic review of all ZIKV prediction studies published during the recent ZIKV pandemic using the PRISMA guidelines. Using MEDLINE, EMBASE and grey literature review, we identified studies that forecasted, predicted or simulated ecological or epidemiological phenomenon related to the Zika pandemic that were published as of March 01, 2017. Eligible studies underwent evaluation of objectives, data sources, methods, timeliness, reproducibility, accessibility and clarity by independent reviewers. RESULTS 2034 studies were identified, of which n = 73 met eligibility criteria. Spatial spread, R0 (basic reproductive number) and epidemic dynamics were most commonly predicted, with few studies predicting Guillain-Barré Syndrome burden (4%), sexual transmission risk (4%) and intervention impact (4%). Most studies specifically examined populations in the Americas (52%), with few African-specific studies (4%). Case count (67%), vector (41%) and demographic data (37%) were the most common data sources. Real-time internet data and pathogen genomic information were used in 7% and 0% of studies, respectively, and social science and behavioral data were typically absent in modeling efforts. Deterministic models were favored over stochastic approaches. Forty percent of studies made model data entirely available, 29% provided all relevant model code, 43% presented uncertainty in all predictions and 54% provided sufficient methodological detail allowing complete reproducibility. Fifty-one percent of predictions were published after the epidemic peak in the Americas. While the use of preprints improved the accessibility of ZIKV predictions by a median 119 days sooner than journal publication dates, they were used in only 30% of studies. CONCLUSIONS Many ZIKV predictions were published during the 2016-2017 pandemic. The accessibility, reproducibility, timeliness, and incorporation of uncertainty in these published predictions varied and indicates that there is substantial room for improvement. To enhance the utility of analytical tools for outbreak response, it is essential to improve the sharing of model data, code, and preprints for future outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. Author summary Researchers published many studies which sought to predict and forecast important features of Zika virus (ZIKV) infections and their spread during the 2016-2017 ZIKV pandemic. We conducted a comprehensive review of such ZIKV prediction studies and evaluated their aims, the data sources they used, which methods were used, how timely they were published, and whether they provided sufficient information to be used or reproduced by others. Of the 73 studies evaluated, we found that the accessibility, reproducibility, timeliness, and incorporation of uncertainty in these published predictions varied and indicates that there is substantial room for improvement. We identified that the release of study findings before formal journal publication ('pre-prints') increased the timeliness of Zika prediction studies, but note they were infrequently used during this public health emergency. Addressing these areas can improve our understanding of Zika and other outbreaks and ensure that forecasts can inform preparedness and response to future outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.


Learning theories propose that an individual's awareness of their learning style facilitates their learning, creates a more positive attitude towards their learning and makes their learning more effective. Oxford and Anderson (1995) suggest that more research is required into comparison of learning styles across cultures and 'clashes' of learning styles involving both students and teachers in culturally diverse classrooms. The authors are undertaking a project which addresses this recommendation. Northumbria University are existing partners in a FDTL 4 CLaSS project. This project aims to allow students to identify their cognitive learning strategies, and then to provide opportunities for reflection and meta-analysis in order for students to enhance their learning in different contexts. During the project students were assessed with a wide range of questionnaires: 1. Entwistle: Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) 2. Felder and Soloman: Index of Learning Styles 3. Sternberg: Thinking Styles Inventory 4. Sternberg: Students about themselves 5. Warr and Downing (2000): Learning Strategies 6. Briggs, Kember and Yeung (2001): Study Process Questionnaire 7. Fleming: VARK: Visual, Aural, Read/Write, Kinesthetic However on the basis of reliability and validity three of the more common learning styles instruments – Entwistle's ASSIST, the LSQ and VARK – were retained and have now been used on over a thousand UK psychology students. Total student population is made up of around 3,300 international students mostly students who originate from Eastern Asia, around 10% of total cohort. Within learning styles literature there is a well-recognised "Chinese paradox" (Marton and Trigwell, 2000; Kember, 2000) where Haggis (2003) indicates the 'lack of fit' between learning styles models and this cultural paradox may be an indication of deeper problems. At Northumbria, we recognise that although international students may understand the various concepts described by the questionnaires, the interpretation and value placed in the concepts may differ. Therefore by utilising the knowledge gained from the FDTL experience, this research aims to examine international students' self-knowledge of cognitive learning styles in order to investigate whether we can learn from the students themselves more about 'cultural paradoxes'. Firstly, a small group of international students have volunteered to complete ASSIST, LSQ and VARK in an observational setting to examine language and concepts used within the questionnaires. Supplementary materials based on outcomes will be produced to assist large groups of international students in completinf the three questionnaires online. By utilising existing FDTL4 data as a control group, statistical comparisons will be made between the styles of international and UK students. All knowledge gained throughout the research project is intended to feed directly to a deliverable outcome of training materials for tutors with a guidance role outlining whether and/or how learning styles information (particularly with international students) may be effectively used as a platform for promoting student autonomy and self-evaluation.


Thomas Healy's The Great Dissent re-treads the familiar story of US Supreme Court Justice Holmes's First Amendment conversion between March and November 1919, when he launched his marketplace of ideas theory and strong-form version of the clear and present danger doctrine. Healy's book demonstrates that fresh perspectives on this vital and ever-intriguing change of mind or transformation on Holmes's part remain possible. The review offers its own perspective by highlighting the process of "reverse mentoring" which took place, in which the older jurist was mentored on free speech issues by the emerging thought leaders of the day – Laski, Frankfurter, Chafee – and showing how Justice Holmes's landmark dissent in Abrams was nonetheless and indisputably a product of his own jurisprudential ingenuity.


Abstract Within the framework of the International Energy Agency, an international collaborative study on fusion radioactive waste has been initiated to examine the back end of the materials cycle as an important stage in maximizing the environmental benefits of fusion as an energy provider. The study addresses the management procedures for radioactive materials following the changeout of replaceable components and decommissioning of fusion facilities. We define this as "the back end" of the fusion materials cycle. It includes all the procedures necessary to manage spent radioactive materials from fusion facilities, from the removal of the components from the device to the reuse of these components through recycling/clearance, or to the disposal of the waste in geological repositories. Fusion devices have certain characteristics that make them environmentally friendly devices; minimization of long-lived waste that could be a burden for future generations is one of these characteristics. Recycling and clearance procedures and regulations have been recently revised, and the effects of these revisions on back-end fusion materials are examined in the paper. Finally, an integrated approach to the management of back-end fusion materials is proposed, and its application to three fusion reactor designs is discussed.


In an era when culture itself has become central to political debates, when boundaries between hard news and soft news, facts and opinion are dissolving, cultural journalism contributes to democratic discourse on vital issues of our time. Cultural journalism is furthermore indicative of journalistic autonomy and specialisation within media organisations, and of the intertwined relationship between the cultural and political public spheres. Nordic cultural journalism in the mainstream media covers more subjects today than ever before, from fine arts to gaming, media industries, and lifestyle issues. At the same time, it harbours debates and reflection on freedom of expression, ethnicity and national identity. This book contributes to an emerging international research agenda on cultural journalism at a time when digitalisation, convergence and globalisation are influencing the character of journalism in multiple ways.


Background The impact of delayed surgery on clinical outcomes after histologic or radiologic diagnosis of clinical stage I adenocarcinoma remains controversial. We evaluated the effects of delayed surgery on outcomes of patients with early-stage lung cancer. Methods Associations between time intervals of "histologic diagnosis-to-surgery" (HDS), "radiologic diagnosis-to-surgery" (RDS), and overall survival in clinical stage I adenocarcinoma were assessed using multivariable Cox proportional hazard analysis. Results A total of 561 consecutive patients with preoperative histologic confirmation of stage I lung cancer between 2006 and 2016 were included. Median time to HDS and RDS were 20 (2–267) and 58 (38–2,983) days. Higher Charlson comorbidity score, receiving brain magnetic resonance imaging screening, and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery approach were significantly associated with increased risk of late HDS (>21 days). Smaller tumor size and non-radiologic solid-dominant pattern were significantly associated with increased risk of late RDS (>60 days). In the overall cohort, worse 5-year overall survival was associated with late HDS compared to early HDS (75.9% vs. 85.5%, P=0.003). No significant differences were found in later late vs. early RDS (83.7% vs. 83.3%, P=0.570). In 286 propensity-score matched patients, late HDS [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) =2.031, P=0.038], higher Charlson comorbidity score (aHR=1.610, P=0.023), larger tumor size (aHR=2.164, P=0.031), without brain magnetic resonance imaging screening (aHR=2.051, P=0.045), and tumor with angiolymphatic invasion (aHR=4.638, P=0.001) were significantly associated with lower overall survival. Conclusions In patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma, delayed surgery after a histologic diagnosis is an independent predictor of overall survival after adjusting for clinical risk factors, suggesting meaningful differences in clinical outcomes between timely vs. delayed surgeries.


It has been heavily argued municipal wastewater infrastructures in China are currently facing great challenges of low efficiency and poor performance while thousands of wastewater treatment plants were constructed during the past decade. In addition to raise funds needed for expanding the coverage of infrastructure, it is also believed that the participation of private sectors could help improve the management as well as the performance of facilities. Eight years later since Chinese Government called for the marketization reform of public sectors (including water, wastewater, transportation, etc.) and introducing private sectors to invest, operate and manage wastewater infrastructures, emphases of the reform have shifted from raising funds to both funds and efficiency/performance improvement. This paper reviews the development of private sector participation in China's water sector to date, and analyzes in details the innovative PPP development in Hunan Province, which has successfully raised fund needed, expanded wastewater infrastructure coverage, and improved integration of wastewater governance. It illustrates that the improvement of wastewater sector performance could come along the private sector involvement in some conditions.


In this work, we address the problem of estimating high-level semantic labels for videos of recorded people by means of analysing their facial expressions. This problem, to which we refer as facial behavior categorization, is a weakly-supervised learning problem where we do not have access to frame-by-frame facial gesture annotations but only weak-labels at the video level are available. Therefore, the goal is to learn a set of discriminative expressions appearing during the training videos and how they determine these labels. Facial behavior categorization can be posed as a Multi-Instance-Learning (MIL) problem and we propose a novel MIL method called Regularized Multi-Concept MIL to solve it. In contrast to previous approaches applied in facial behavior analysis, RMC-MIL follows a Multi-Concept assumption which allows different facial expressions (concepts) to contribute differently to the video-label. Moreover, to handle with the high-dimensional nature of facial-descriptors, RMC-MIL uses a discriminative approach to model the concepts and structured sparsity regularization to discard non-informative features. RMC-MIL is posed as a convex-constrained optimization problem where all the parameters are jointly learned using the Projected-Quasi-Newton method. In our experiments, we use two public data-sets to show the advantages of the Regularized MultiConcept approach and its improvement compared to existing MIL methods. RMC-MIL outperforms state-of-the-art results in the UNBC data-set for pain detection.


The proper preservation of both the current and historical scientific data will underpin a multitude of ecological, economic and political decisions in the future of our society. The SCIDIP-ES project addresses the long-term persistent storage, access and management needs of scientific data by providing preservation infrastructure services. Taking exemplars from the Earth Science domain we highlight the key preservation challenges and barriers to be overcome by the SCIDIP-ES infrastructure. SCIDIP-ES augments existing science data e-infrastructures by adding specific services and toolkits, which implement core preservation concepts, thus guaranteeing the long-term access to data assets across and beyond their designated communities.


Summary The Barton Clay crops out along a 4·8 km stretch of the Hampshire coast and together with its capping of Plateau Gravels forms a cliff profile averaging around 30 to 37 m high. The original classic work on the geology of the Barton Clay had suggested a total thickness of only 34·5 m; more recent work involving boring and levelling on the cliff face has shown the formation to be 46·4 m thick. Active degradation of the outcrop creates a markedly stepped profile, relatively flat bench levels being separated from one another by steeper scarp slopes. The benches are underlain by up to 6 m of slipped debris or bench rubble. The scarps are formed by exposures of the solid Barton Clay and Plateau Gravel in the case of the top scarp. The interface between the bench rubble and Barton Clay is formed by a shear surface, an underground continuation of the scarp surfaces, which has been polished and grooved as a result of the seaward movement of the bench rubble. These shear surfaces are developed along particular, identifiable stratigraphic horizons within the Barton Clay and tend to develop along these horizons irrespective of the height of the latter within the cliff profile. Variations in the morphology occur laterally along the outcrop and can be related to the erosional history and partly to the geology. Five individual processes of degradation are particularly active on the undercliffs; these comprise bench sliding which is sliding of the bench rubble over the shear surfaces, collapse of the scarp slopes or scarp slumping, wearing down of the scarp slope by weathering or scarp spalling, and erosion by mud-flows and running water. Both mud-flows and streams when well developed cut through bench rubble and into the scarp slope and locally destroy the stepped profile. The current activity of these processes is due to marine erosion of the toe, the net result of the processes being a progressive retreat of the cliff top averaging over one metre per year in some places.


The present invention discloses a system (100) for determining an estimated moisture content of an agricultural raw material comprising a network analyzer (103) for generating wave signals of a predetermined frequency to measure a reflection coefficient value of air and a reflection coefficient value of the material; a coaxial cable (102) formed by an inner conductor (104) surrounded by multiple tubular layers, having a portion of the inner conductor (104) extending out from the tubular layers at a first end of the cable (102) and the cable (102) connecting to the network analyzer (103) at a second end of the cable (102); a cable connector (106) having a first opening end for the cable (102) to be connected thereto by inserting the first end of the cable (102) through the connector (106) and a second opening end for the extended inner conductor (104) of the cable (102) to be projected out of the connector (106); and a metal plate (105) being perpendicularly disposed in between the second opening end of the connector (106) and the extended inner conductor (104), with the extended inner conductor (104) protruding from the center of the plate (105); wherein the inner conductor (104), connector (106) and metal plate (105) forms a sensor probe (101) for contacting the material at the predetermined frequency to determine the estimated moisture content through calculations based upon a normalized reflection coefficient value which could be the magnitude of reflection coefficient and/or phase shift of reflection coefficient acquired from the measured reflection coefficient values of the air and material and an actual moisture content value of the material that is obtained through calculations in accordance with a drying method. Such system is used to determine the moisture content of Dioscorea hispida. The present invention could also include a tubular insulator (107) surrounding the extended inner conductor (104) for determining the moisture content of Hevea rubber latex.


Expatriation has become an insightful context for studying employees' adjustment to different host organisations and countries, because it contains a vast array of contradictions and tensions. This context has attracted several studies, which have studied different characteristics of the adjustment as well as processual aspects involved in it. The adjustment of self-initiated expatriates working in distant locations which are substantially different from their own - in particular the move from the developed to the developing country with very different cultural characteristics - has, however, gained less interest. To develop the current understanding about western expatriates' adjustment in this setting further, the study adapts an individual-level perspective to expatriation and uses hermeneutical approach to describe and analyse the adjustment of Finnish expatriates to Pakistan. A qualitative study was carried out; seven Finnish expatriates having expatriation experience from Pakistan were contacted and interviewed, and the qualitative content analysis method was used to analyse and interpret the generated research data. The study shows how young Finnish expatriate proactively seek overseas experiences. They are also largely motivated by altruism. Their personal ambitions to do social good for both the local community and to the host country drive for expatriation. In addition, the studied expatriates actively try to overcome the experienced cultural differences. However, the experienced organisational hierarchies, the expatriates' freedom of choice, and the gender roles influence their adjustment, both regarding to the host organisation and the country.


An important but apparently neglected fact about U.S. exports is that export variation over time is dominated by variation in exports of capital goods and industrial supplies rather than consumer goods. This fact suggests that world investment demand rather than world consumption demand may be an important yet neglected determinant of U.S. exports. This paper documents a remarkably robust statistical relationship between U.S. exports and world investment demand, and shows that controlling for world investment changes other aspects of traditional export demand equations. To the extent that world investment behaves differently than world consumption, this finding may lead to a revision of current thinking about the ultimate determinants of U.S. exports and the mechanisms through which world economic shocks are transmitted to the U.S. economy.


Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the oral health status of elderly residents in the Nursing Home of Aydin Social Services, and to determine related risk factors. Materials and Method: The assessment of oral health was performed by first-year dental students using a structured questionnaire and by clinical examinations performed by an experienced physician in an examination room. Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests were performed for the comparison of non-parametric continuous variables in independent groups. Results: A total of 114 (78.6%) elderly residents were included. Of these, 5 (4.4%) visited a dentist regularly, 7 (6.1%) had not visited a dentist yet, and 78 (68.4%) had presented to a dentist with a complaint. No significant difference was found in the dental status between genders, and community periodontal indices did not significantly differ between age groups or gender. Decayed crown (p<0.002), decayed root (p<0.011), and filled teeth (p<0.006) scores were significant in the ≤74-year-old age group than in the 75–84-year-old age group. In contrast, missing teeth (p<0.001) and decayed, missing, and filled teeth scores (p<0.001) were significant in the 75–84-year-old age group than in the ≤74-year-old age group. Dental and periodontal statuses did not increase with age. Conclusion: The findings of the present study are important for the development of preventative and promotional dental health programs for the elderly. Oral health services may require better organization in nursing homes. The presence of a dental practitioner or access to regular dental visits to a specific dental unit will provide support in maintaining oral health in the elderly.


A strategy for arraying small gold nanoparticles on a mesoporous support modified with single-component or mixed self-assembled monolayers is described. The use of mixed surface modifiers allows easy access to a range of surface chemistries and modalities of interaction between nanoparticles and supports. A combination of thiol groups and linear semifluorinated chains effectively stabilized the nanoparticles against aggregation, while preserving their catalytic activity. The thiol-fluorous-supported catalyst was found active in Ullmann-type homocoupling of aryl halides and showed exceptional selectivity in this reaction.


Date of Degree 12-2015 Document Type Thesis Degree Name Master of Arts (MA) Program Communication Arts Advisor Hsin-I (Steve) Liu Advisor Robert Darden Advisor Valerie Greenberg Advisor Sharon Welkey Abstract Seventy-six years ago Hollywood experienced something never before nor since seen. The year, 1939, was Hollywood's "Dream Year" for production of some of the most memorable films of all time. Today, the term used to describe films of this success level is blockbuster. Film scholars and fans call them classics. It was the culmination of films of Hollywood's Golden Age starring every one of Hollywood's AListers of this Golden Age of film, from Don Ameche to Loretta Young. However, lost in this maze of the top-billed or leading actors were the character actors who were also known as supporting cast members or B-stars. What the performances of these character actors communicate to the world is the focus of this thesis. First, a reappraisal of three character actors, Eve Arden, Charles Coburn, and Thomas Mitchell was conducted through research of existing literature. Second, interviews were conducted with classic film experts, publicists, and those possessing unique knowledge and/or experience on the topic, to establish grounded theory. Analysis and findings of these interview responses provided insight into the contributions of classic film character actors – these three and at-large – as second-billed but not second-rate. Finally, findings supported the hypothesis of the deficiency in scholarly literature on this research topic and how character actors contributed to the overall and lasting success of their films. Recommended Citation Graham, Candace M., "Second-Billed but not Second-Rate: A Reappraisal of Three Character Actors From Hollywood's Golden Age" (2015). Theses & Dissertations. 70. https://athenaeum.uiw.edu/uiw_etds/70  Download


Translational language as a "third code" has been found to be different from both source and target languages. Recent studies have proposed a number of translation universal (TU) hypotheses which include, for example, simplification, explicitation and normalization. This paper investigates the "source language shining through" put forward by Teich (2003). The hypothesis is that "In a translation into a given target language (TL), the translation may be oriented more towards the source language (SL), i.e. the SL shines through" (Teich 2003: 207), which has attracted little attention in translation studies. If this feature of translational language that has been reported on the basis of translated English or German can be generalized as one of translational universals, it is of vital importance to find supporting evidence from non-European languages. The evidence from genetically distinct language pairs such as English and Chinese is arguably more convincing. This study presents a detailed case study of English passive constructions and their Chinese translations based on comparable corpora and parallel corpora. This research explores a new aspect of TUs and offers another perspective for translation studies.


The circulation of water on Earth that describes the continuous movement of water from the land to the atmosphere and back again is called the hydrological cycle. The transport of water vapor through the hydrological cycle is crucial for life on Earth and for our climate. In the atmosphere, water vapor is transported over large distances and undergoes often several phase changes, from evaporation to condensation, before returning to the ocean. These processes leave a characteristic imprint on the isotopic composition of atmospheric water vapor and the corresponding precipitation. Over the last-decade, global scale measurements of atmospheric water vapor isotopologues (HDO/H2O) have become available from different remote-sensing instruments that operate on satellites and overcome sampling difficulties of water vapor. The main objective of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate how these measurements and related modeling of water vapor isotopologues can provide new insight into the hydrological cycle.

This thesis uses mainly two satellite datasets, from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) and the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY (SCIAMACHY) and results from the isotope-enabled General Circulation Model (GCM) ECHAM4. Related datasets such as precipitation, isotopic composition of precipitation from the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) network, the Nino-3 index, and results from other iso-GCMs are also used. Analyses have been carried out using monthly averaged data both for the satellite HDO/H2O measurements and the model results. Using these data, a number of interesting conclusions of the hydrological cycle have been obtained.

1) Transpiration is the largest contributor to the evaporation fluxes from continental area and the results from both isotope and non-isotope based methods are consistent. 2) A number of established isotope effects on the global-scale as well as in the tropics, linked to the movement of InterTropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), are observed in the TES version 5, SCIAMACHY and the ECHAM model, demonstrating the improvement of the new version of TES dataset (version 5). 3) The isotopic composition of water vapor is a good climatic indicator for drought and flooding events and performs even better than the Nino-3 index. 4) For the lower atmosphere, our results show that rainout processes, less rain re-evaporation of falling droplets, and increase of convective updrafts and diffusive exchange within the convective systems, play an important role in producing the "isotope amount effect" during ENSO events. Simultaneously, convective updrafts control the water vapor at higher altitudes. 5) The regions with intense mixing and strong convection are marked by a flatter isotopic gradient. However, a model intercomparison does not show a similar relation: models simulating steeper or flatter isotopic gradients are not necessarily marked by weaker or stronger mixing (or smaller/larger ECS).

The results of this study show that the measurement of water isotopologues from satellite-borne instruments in conjunction with GCM models provide interesting new information when studying the land-surface-, and atmospheric hydrological cycle.


We present a modeling study of the long-range transport of pollution from Europe, showing that European emissions regularly elevate surface ozone by as much as 20 ppbv in summer in northern Africa and the Near East. Eu-ropean emissions cause 50–150 additional violations per year (i.e. above those that would occur without European pollution) of the European health standard for ozone (8-h average >120 µg/m 3 or ∼60 ppbv) in northern Africa and the Near East. We estimate that European ozone pollution is responsible for 50 000 premature mortalities globally each year, of which the majority occurs outside of Europe itself, including 37% (19 000) in northern Africa and the Near East. Much of the pollution from Europe is exported southward at low altitudes in summer to the Mediterranean Sea, northern Africa and the Near East, regions with favorable photochemical environments for ozone production. Our results suggest that assessments of the human health benefits of reducing ozone precursor emissions in Europe should include effects outside of Europe, and that comprehensive planning to improve air quality in northern Africa and the Near East likely needs to address European emissions.


This thesis is based on a longitudinal study of servicemen and their families, as they experience transition from careers in the Royal Navy to civilian life. The analysis is based on data derived from three sets of focused interviews with twenty couples, conducted in Plymouth over a period between November 1995 and October 1998, and the findings of a questionnaire survey of just over two-hundred leavers. It develops a theoretically distinctive approach, drawing on the literature of organisations, discourses and identity, in order to understand servicemen's relationships with naval careers, and the implications for adaptation to civilian life on leaving. The research examines the meanings that men attach to naval careers and organisations, and their symbolic significance for their experiences of both service and civilian life. The analysis addresses the effects of careers on identity, decision-making, personal relationships and friendship networks, families, domestic divisions of labour, career interplay, parenting and resettlement. Whilst general patterns of success or failure in resettlement have been the main focus of past interest, this thesis uncovers the differential experiences of leavers in all their complexity. The study identifies a relationship between quantitatively and qualitatively different levels of naval involvement and the personal and familial experiences of career change and resettlement. The main findings of the work relate to wider issues of organisations, cultures and discourses, and are relevant to current debates about the future of military cultures, as well as the more specific issues surrounding resettlement.


This RFC proposed a new service for the ARPA-Internet community and
requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. The network mail
path service fills the current need of people to determine mailbox
addresses for hosts that are not part of the ARPA-Internet but can be
reached by one or more relay hosts that have Unix to Unix Copy (UUCP)
mail, CSNET mail, MAILNET mail, BITNET mail, etc. Anyone can use the
service if they have TCP/TELENET to one of the hosts with a mail path
server.


There are many research papers on local self-government from 1990s till present in Lithuania. However, according to the author, there is a lack of research papers where the Lithuanian local self-government system would be analysed systematically. The author has published several articles in the academic journal Public Policy and Administration. In this article, the author, by way of creative analogy, presents his approach as to who is granted the right to (local) self-government and who enjoys this right (i.e., what is the subject of the right to (local) self-government) as well as explains who, in his opinion, enforces the right to (local) self-government and how. Summarizing the results, the author presents the following conclusions: 1. Interpreting the first paragraph of Article 119 of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania "The right to self-government shall be guaranteed to administrative units of the territory of the State, which are provided for by law. It shall be implemented through corresponding municipal councils", the following questions remain unanswered: what subject is guaranteed (granted) the right to (local) self-government? Is a municipal council really the only local authority through which the right to (local) self-government is implemented? 2. The systematic analysis of provisions on guaranteeing (granting) and implementing the right to (local) self-government, established in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, rulings and decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Lithuania Law on Local Self-Government, and the European Charter of Local Self-Government, suggests that: (a) three subjects may be considered as the subjects of the right to (local) self-government in Lithuania; (b) the developers of the constitutional doctrine of (local) self-government chose the territorial (local) community as the subject of the right to (local) self-government by applying analogy (the Constitution stipulates that sovereignty belongs to the Nation); (c) by making the subject of the right to (local) self-government equal to the Nation State (sovereign that has the supreme power in the state), the developers of the doctrine applied the analogy in respect of the implementation of the right to (local) selfgovernment: they essentially saw the implementation of the right to (local) self-government and exercise of the supreme power in the municipality as the same, the latter being exercised through the representative municipal (self-government) institution. 3. It is stated that in Lithuania, which belongs to the countries with the continental legal system and where the theory of dual local self-government is followed for interpreting the origin of local municipalities and the nature and content of local self-government, the right to independently deal with local matters (or otherwise, right to (local) self-government in a wider sense) is guaranteed (granted) to the local municipality, an organised territorial social body that is composed of permanent residents in a territorial administrative unit established by law, that has the status of a public legal person and that has the competence established (defined) by the state. 4. Guaranteeing (granting) the right to self-government to the residents of the territorial administrative unit is a process lasting for a defined time rather than a single action of the state. During the process, major qualitative changes take place in the life of residents (to be accurate, in their communication and their governing) of the territorial administrative unit, and some decisions adopted and actions taken on the national level give shape to a territorial, organised social body (local municipality) that has a legal status and the competence defined by the state. 5. Creatively applying the analogy, it may be asserted that: a) the right to self-government (right to (local) self-government in a broader sense) belonging to a local municipality is the right of a territorial organised community (local municipality) and the real power to exist (act) as a legally independent, self-governing and autonomous social body; in this case, the subject of the right to (local) self-government (in a broader sense) is a local municipality, and (b) the right to self-government (right to (local) self-government in a narrower sense) belonging to a municipal community is the right of a municipal community as of a special local municipal structural element to directly or through a municipal council (representative body of a local municipality) exercise, in the ways prescribed, the supreme power in the local municipality when dealing with local (public) matters within the competence of the local municipality; in this case, the subject of the right to (local) self-government (in a narrower sense ) is a municipal community.


The Cone Penetration Test (CPT), because of its precision, accuracy, and utility has been increasingly used in earthquake engineering applications in the last decade. This paper provides a brief survey of recent advances in applying the CPT to; liquefaction triggering, post-liquefaction deformations, cyclic failure of clays, dynamic slope stability, and seismic site response. In granular soils the continuous CPT measurements of tip and sleeve resistance are well correlated with the engineering properties of relative density and friction angle. In clay soils the CPT tip resistance is directly proportional to the undrained shear strength. CPT measurements are ideal for weak or soft soil layers, which are the primary culprits in seismic soil failure. The CPT is commonly instrumented with an accelerometer so that shear wave velocity measurements can be made concurrently with penetration measurements. This allows for the measure of the small strain stiffness of the soil for dynamic modeling and site response analysis. For tailings dams and earth slopes the combination of penetration measurements to estimate soil strength and small strain stiffness to assess the modal response provides a complete set of measurements for assessing the dynamic slope stability. For site response analysis the CPT provides the quickest and most cost effective means of layer-specific shear wave velocity imaging of the foundation conditions. A number or recent methods and projects are described in this paper to demonstrate the utility of the CPT in earthquake engineering applications.


The use of coccolithophores as proxies for past environmental conditions in the Arabian Sea is critically evaluated based on a number of recent studies. We investigated coccolithophores in terms of their production in the photic zone, their transformation to settling assemblages, their accumulation on the seafloor, and their final burial in the sediments. The living coccolithophore communities reflect local oceanographic conditions and seem to be more dependent on mixed layer depth and nutrient availability than on temperature and/or salinity changes. We found a strong seasonality in coccolithophore fluxes corresponding to the seasonal monsoonal development. Several species showed specific annual trends, however, the annual cycles of the majority of living species are not preserved and only a smoothed signal with gradual intraannual changes characterize the settling assemblages. In the surface sediments the distribution of species and species groups reflect the environmental parameters of the overlying water masses and may be successfully used to improve paleoclimatic reconstructions. Even though sediments in the Arabian Sea are annually laminated within an expanded oxygen minimum zone, no seasonal signal is preserved due to the event-like deposition of light laminae. However, interannual variability can be studied with a unique resolution. Differences in the species compositions of living coccolithophore communities, settling, and sediment assemblages result from taxonomical and preservational factors. Interpretation of variations of species compositions and abundances in the fossil record are further complicated by evolutionary shifts and events and changing environmental conditions (e.g. fluctuation of sedimentation rate). Despite all limitations and constraints, it is shown that the fossil coccolithophore core records bear great potentials to successfully monitor and reconstruct paleoenvironmental changes.


Background The aim of this study was to investigate ischaemic heart disease (IHD) case fatality in high-risk ethnic populations in New Zealand. Design This is a national data-linkage study using anonymised hospitalisation and mortality data. Methods Linked individual patient data were used to identify 35–84-year-olds who experienced IHD events (acute IHD hospitalisations and/or deaths) in 2009–2010. Subjects were classified as: (i) hospitalised with IHD and alive at 28 days post-event; (ii) hospitalised with IHD and died within 28 days; (iii) hospitalised with a non-IHD diagnosis and died from IHD within 28 days; or (iv) died from IHD but not hospitalised. Multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the proportion of people in each group, as well as overall 28-day case fatality, adjusted for ethnic differences in demographic and comorbidity profiles. Results A total of 26,885 people experienced IHD events (11.3% Māori, 4.0% Pacific and 2.5% Indian); 3.3% of people died within 28 days of IHD hospitalisations, 5.1% died of IHD within 28 days of non-IHD hospitalisations and 13.0% died of IHD without any recent hospitalisation. Overall adjusted case fatality was 12.6% in Indian, 20.5% in European, 26.0% in Pacific and 27.6% in Māori people. Compared to Europeans, the adjusted odds of death were approximately 50% higher in Māori and Pacific people and 50% lower in Indians, regardless of whether they were hospitalised. Conclusions Major ethnic inequalities in IHD case fatality occur with and without associated hospitalisations. Improvements in both primary prevention and hospital care will be required to reduce inequalities.


Much recent discussion in higher education has focused on the scope that exists to provide personalisation to students. This influences a range of factors, spanning the expectations that students have of the learning environment, the styles and methods used by lecturers, the need to deliver very specialist material to students, and the type of technological infrastructure that is adopted to support learning. For example, some viewpoints suggest that electronic resources to support learning should be delivered through a 'personal learning environment', as distinct from the currently familiar 'virtual learning environment', the implication being that personalisation is built into the learning environment as a core component. For teaching research methods, a personalised approach is attractive because students can be expected to vary in what approaches to research they are likely to use in other areas of their studies. Typically students want to make clear choices about exactly what research methods they learn. Furthermore there are particular variations in the extent to which students already have some experience of conducting their own research, and in the ease with which student are likely to adapt to a research mindset where they can deal with the demands of independent inquiry. For many students research is an individual pursuit, and indeed for students on undergraduate or taught postgraduate courses which include a major project, a piece of independent research is the most significant item of individual work within their course. Therefore this paper raises the question of whether research training needs to be as personalised as research itself. If it appropriate to prepare students for a major piece of research, where they will be choosing their own research methods, through a didactic course which covers a standard range of methods? Is it in fact essential that students are exposed to a wide range of research methods including those that they have no intention of ever using? The need to provide a range of skills and knowledge, and the possibilities to adapt this to students' requirements, constitute only one facet of personalisation. Another is the ability to adjust material to differing prior levels of expertise, and to help students in finding the most effective path to achieve the necessary learning. While students are unlikely to enter higher education with any significant exposure to academic research methods, some of them will have carried out activities that have resonances with the research process. So there is considerable scope for inviting students to identify the most appropriate level at which to start learning research techniques. The intention is to identify some general principles for the personalisation of research methods learning and to discuss in what circumstances these might be relevant.


The parasitoid, Cotesia flavipes (Cameron) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), was introduced for biological control of the stemborer, Chilo partellus (Swinhoe) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), in eastern and southern African countries. The parasitoid became firmly established in Ethiopia, with varying density and distribution in various regions of the country indicating that there are factors regulating the success of the parasitoid. From previous studies, it was known that the population of the parasitoid released, the type of host, and temperature highly affect some of the biological parameters of the parasitoid. The current studies were undertaken to understand the individual and interactive effect of temperature and relative humidity on the longevity and fecundity of C. flavipes. The study was conducted on C. flavipes collected from the Melkassa Agricultural Research Center Experimental Field, Ethiopia. C. flavipes was reared in the laboratory on C. partellus feeding on pieces of sorghum stem. The longevity experiment was conducted at 10, 20, 30 and 40 °C, while the fecundity experiment was conducted at 20, 25, 28 and 30 °C. For both experiments 40–50%, 60–70% and 80–90% relative humidity regimes were used. The results obtained indicate that the interactive effect of temperature and relative humidity significantly affected the longevity, the number of oocytes, and fecundity of C. flavipes implying that the two factors play an important role in the success of the parasitoid as a biocontrol agent against C. partellus. The results obtained suggests the importance of the selection of target release sites for maximum efficiency of the parasitoid, which can have a positive impact on the on-going augmentative release of C. flavipes in Ethiopia.


OBJECTIVE
To determine prevalence of FeLV infection and serum antibodies against feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) in unowned free-roaming cats.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional serologic survey.

ANIMALS
733 unowned free-roaming cats in Raleigh, NC, and 1,143 unowned free-roaming cats in Gainesville, Fla.

RESULTS
In Raleigh, overall prevalence of FeLV infection was 5.3%, and overall seroprevalence for FIV was 2.3%. In Gainesville, overall prevalence of FeLV infection was 3.7%, and overall seroprevalence for FIV was 4.3%. Overall, FeLV prevalence was 4.3%, and seroprevalence for FIV was 3.5%. Prevalence of FeLV infection was not significantly different between males (4.9%) and females (3.8%), although seroprevalence for FIV was significantly higher in male cats (6.3%) than in female cats (1.5%).

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Prevalence of FeLV infection and seroprevalence for FIV in unowned free-roaming cats in Raleigh and Gainesville are similar to prevalence rates reported for owned cats in the United States. Male cats are at increased risk for exposure to FIV, compared with female cats.


The Iranian writers and poets who, during the last 30 years, were thrown into the world of exile and forced to continue their private and professional life in new and often unfamiliar surroundings, have reacted differently in adjusting to the imperatives of exilic life. While political and philosophical tendencies have informed the reaction of some, the unavoidable pressures of life in a strange land have shaped the reaction of others. At times, the psychological strains have compelled a number of these to abandon writing altogether. Indeed, for a number of exiled Iranian writers and poets forced separation from their homeland has been no less than a virtual and irreversible death sentence. One may consider Ghalamhossein Sa'edi as a prominent representative of this group of writers and poets.
Confronted with the strains and stresses of a life in exile, some of these writers have begun to depict, in their works, and idyllic and dreamlike picture of the Iran of their childhood. While such a reaction might have soothed their inner pain, it may also have dulled their ability to perceive and depict the objective reality. Nader Naderpour could perhaps be placed in this category. A number of other exiled writers, however, have been able to adjust to their new life, and accepted the pain of separation from their familiar and beloved homeland as the price to be paid for a deliberate decision. In a process of mental projection, members of this group have been able to face the pressures of their new lives and succeeded in restarting their creative literary career. A most instructive example of such mental projection and transference could be seen in the works of Shahrokh Meskoob and specially in his Goftogu dar Bagh [Dialogue in the Garden], Safar dar Khab [Travelling in a Dream] and Mosafernameh [The Travelogue].


This Article considers how best to ensure that patients have the tools to make informed choices about their care as they near death. Informed decision making can help reduce excessive end-of-life care and unnecessary suffering, and result in care that aligns with patients' well-considered values and preferences. The many factors that contribute to dying patients receiving too much therapy and life-prolonging care include: the culture of denial of death, physicians' professional culture and attitudes toward treatment, physicians' fear of liability, physicians' avoidance of discussions about prognosis, and the impact of payment incentives that encourage overutilization of medical technologies.Under the doctrine of informed consent, physicians have an ethical and legal obligation to provide patients with timely and accurate information that will enable patients to make informed decisions about end-of-life care. However, compliance with the informed consent law does not ensure that patients' decisions are truly informed. The Authors provide several tools and techniques available to help physicians and patients achieve the goal of truly informed decision making, including training to promote the practice of shared decision making and the use of decision aids.


(ABSTRACT) In the recent years, environmental regulations enforced by federal, state, and local agencies have increasingly addressed water quality issues through progressively more stringent regulations. These regulations have raised concerns in the blue crab industry because processors are now subject to regulations under which new processors are unable to meet the effluent limitations with current processing techniques. This study focuses on the mechanized processing of crab claws. Currently, processors use a brine bath, referred to as the Harris Claw machine, to separate crab claw meat and shell, and this process yields a wastewater which is significantly high in pollutant strength, and is untreatable by biological methods due to the toxicity associated with the high chloride concentrations found in the waste stream. Several alternative crab claw processing systems were developed and evaluated in terms of the meat product yield, the meat product quality, and the wastewater characterization. Two alternatives involved the use of dense media, a 22.5% Staley 1300 corn syrup solution with 5.0% salt and a 30.0% Staley 1300 corn syrup solution, to separate the crab claw meat and shell. These methods, in full scale tests, produced meat yields comparable to that of the brine solution and improved the overall taste of the meat product. However, the effluents had significantly higher BOD 5 concentrations. Another alternative to the Harris Claw machine, involved the design, characterization, and testing of a hydraulic separator system (HSS). The HSS was tested on a small scale, but was found to have a meat yield comparable to the Harris Claw machine. The HSS significantly improved the flavor of a final meat product, although the HSS meat product had a significantly lower shelf life than the Harris Claw machine meat product. The wastewater quality was improved, because the HSS eliminates the problems associated with a high chloride ion concentration and potentially reduces overall water consumption.


This paper presents a mechanism for acquiring a case base for a CBR system that has to deal with a limited perception of the environment. The construction of case bases in these domains is very complex and requires mechanisms for autonomously adjusting the scope of the existing cases and for acquiring new cases. The work presented in this paper addresses these two goals: to find out the "right" scope of existing cases and to introduce new cases when no appropriate solution is found. We have tested the mechanism in the robot soccer domain performing experiments, both under simulation and with real robots.


Herein we report that 4-pyridinylboronic acid (1) in the solid state self-assembles into tetrameric macrocycles via B–N bond formation. The tetramers are linked via O–H···O bonds resulting in a material that can be exfoliated via sonication to give thinner sheets as we demonstrate via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and atomic force microscopy experiments. For comparison, the structure of the related compound 4-(pyridin-4-yl) phenylboronic acid (2) is also discussed.


Despite improvements in the clinical management of patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) over the last decade, the incidence of the condition remains high, especially in Europe. Globally, pneumonia continues to be associated with high morbidity, mortality, and health costs. Moreover, its management poses many challenges. The microbial identification of pathogens remains difficult even though new molecular tests have been developed, mainly because of the difficulties interpreting the results. Also, the epidemiological changes due to serotype replacement after introducing the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine represent an emerging issue. Whereas the lungs were once thought to be sterile, it is now known that there is a respiratory microbiome with a dynamic microbiological ecosystem. However, this is a relatively unknown field. This review article provides an overview of our current understanding of the epidemiology, physiopathology, and microbial etiology of pneumonia.


F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that baseball was "a game played by idiots for morons." (1) In this paper I will examine the views of the intelligentsia--erudite, "cultured," but nonbaseball individuals, including prominent artists, historians, scientists, statesmen, educators, philosophers, humorists, novelists--as they interpret what baseball is all about. We all know about Twain's observation of the "drive and push and rush" of baseball in the "raging" nineteenth century, and Longfellow's rage for "ball, ball, ball" that can rid Bowdoin students of their "torpitude," and Whitman's "hurrah game" that fills our lungs with oxygen. (2) But Whitman also had his reservations. In a discussion with his friend Tom Harned in 1889, Whitman asked: "Is it the rule that the fellow who pitches the ball aims to pitch it in such a way the batter cannot hit it? Gives it a twist--what not--so it slides off, or won't be struck fairly?" On Tom's affirmative Whitman denounced the custom roundly: "The wolf, the snake, the cur, the sneak, all seem entered into the modern sportsman--though I ought not to say that, for the snake is snake because he is born so, and man the snake for other reasons, it may be said." (3) This is reminiscent of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard, on why he wished to drop baseball as a college sport: "Well, this year I'm told the team did well because one pitcher had a fine curve ball. I understand that a curve ball is thrown with a deliberate attempt to deceive. Surely this is not an ability we should want to foster at Harvard." (4) "It is impossible to understand America without a thorough knowledge of baseball." No, that's not Jacques Barzun, but artist Saul Steinberg, who wrote: "Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem." (5) "Anyone who does not understand the game cannot hope to understand the country." No, again not Barzun, but George Grella, University of Rochester English professor, who wrote: "In its theory and practice baseball embodies some of the central preoccupations of that cultural fantasy we like to think of as the American Dream." (6) This is what Barzun should have written: "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind and greed and selfishness of America had better learn baseball." (7) What cultured American wrote the following? I've gotten so disgusted with baseball, I don't follow it anymore. I just see the headlines and turn my head away in shame from what we have done with our most interesting game and best, healthiest pastime.... The commercialization is beyond anything that was ever thought of.... Other things are similarly commercialized and out of proportion. But for baseball, which is so intimately connected with the nation's spirit and tradition, it's a disaster. Answer: Jacques Barzun. (8) And back to President Eliot in the 1880s: "I think baseball is a wretched game.... I call it one of the worst games, although I know it is called the American national game." (9) Gore Vidal's father, Gene, a pioneer aviator: "Baseball is the favorite American sport because it's so slow. Any idiot can follow it. And just about any idiot can play it." (10) Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's daughter: "Father and all of us regarded baseball as a mollycoddle game. Tennis, football, lacrosse, boxing, polo, yes: they are violent which appealed to us. But baseball? Father wouldn't watch it, not even at Harvard." (11) Journalist and humorist Kin Hubbard: "Knowin' all about baseball is just about as profitable as bein' a good whittler." (12) Television critic Marshall McLuhan: "Baseball will always remain a symbol of the era of the hot mommas, jazz babies ... and the fast buck." (13) Vannevar Bush, prominent scientist: "Is baseball a scientific game? …


Background: Diarrheal diseases is one of the major causes of mortality and the most common health problems in developing countries and have an important role in malnutrition of children. Due to the effects of diarrhea and malnutrition on each other, improving diarrhea treatment programs are important for children's health. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of vitamin A in improvement of watery diarrhea in 1-5 years old children. Methods: This study was performed on 227 children aged 1-5 years affected by acute watery diarrhea admitted to ShahidBeheshti hospital in 2014. Patients were divided into two groups, vitamin A group, and control group. Duration of diarrhea, the average of diarrheal episodes, and length of hospitalization were recorded. Data was analyzed by the use of Chi-squared and t-tests. Findings: The study included 227 patients in two groups of 116 patients (intervention group) and 111 patients (control group). It was found that the average duration of diarrhea in the group receiving vitamin A, was significantly lower (3.24±1.64 days in the intervention group and 4.95 ± 1.73 days in the control group, P <0.001) as well as Diarrhea frequency (5.78±2.00 vs. 7.77 ± 1.58 respectively, p<0.001) and length of hospitalization (4.03±1.63 days in the intervention group and 5.36±1.70 days in the control group, P <0.001). Conclusion: Intramuscular vitamin A prescription in the treatment of diarrheal diseases in children reduces the duration and severity of diarrhea.


Objective The threat of non-communicable diseases ("NCDs") is increasingly becoming a global health crisis and are pervasive in high, middle, and low-income populations resulting in an estimated 36 million deaths per year. There is a need to assess intellectual property rights ("IPRs") that may impede generic production and availability and affordability to essential NCD medicines. Methods Using the data sources listed below, the study design systematically eliminated NCD drugs that had no patent/exclusivity provisions on API, dosage, or administration route. The first step identified essential medicines that treat certain high disease burden NCDs. A second step examined the patent and exclusivity status of active ingredient, dosage and listed route of administration using exclusion criteria outlined in this study. Materials We examined the patent and exclusivity status of medicines listed in the World Health Organization's ("WHO") Model List of Essential Drugs (Medicines) ("MLEM") and other WHO sources for drugs treating certain NCDs. i.e., cardiovascular and respiratory disease, cancers, and diabetes. We utilized the USA Food and Drug Administration Orange Book and the USA Patent and Trademark Office databases as references given the predominant number of medicines registered in the USA. Results Of the 359 MLEM medicines identified, 22% (79/359) address targeted NCDs. Of these 79, only eight required in-depth patent or exclusivity assessment. Upon further review, no NCD MLEM medicines had study patent or exclusivity protection for reviewed criteria. Conclusions We find that ensuring availability and affordability of potential generic formulations of NCD MLEM medicines appears to be more complex than the presence of IPRs with API, dosage, or administration patent or exclusivity protection. Hence, more sophisticated analysis of NCD barriers to generic availability and affordability should be conducted in order to ensure equitable access to global populations for these essential medicines.


The purpose of this research study to  analized effectivity of cold compress due to patient's pain with closed fractures in Dahlia room at RSUD Arifin Achmad Pekanbaru. This research used  quasy experimental design  with non-equivalent control group that devided into experimental group and control group. The samples are 30 patients which taken by purposive sampling technique with concern to inclusion criteria. The instrument tools that applied for both of group was observation form such as Numeric Rating Scale (NRS). The experimental group was given the cold compress for 5-10 minutes. The data was analysed used  univariate and bivariate with dependent sample t test and independent sample test. The result of this research found that mean of intensity of pain towards experimental group before the compress is 7.00 and after compress is 5.47 was p value 0,000< α ( 0,05 ) . It's mean there was significsnt differences about interisty of pain before and after giving cold compress in experimental group. Wereas interisty of pain towards control group before and after giving cold compress was constant at 7.27. comparison mean of interisty of pain fracture experimental and control group have significant differences with p value 0,000<α ( 0,05 ) . This research found that giving cold compress to decrease interisty of pain toward patient with closed fracture at RSUD A rifin A chmad is effective. Keyword: closed fracture,cold compress ,intensity of pain.


While there is abundant scholarship on extant presidential libraries, rejected presidential library proposals are comparatively understudied. Here, we analyze the public controversies surrounding Richard Nixon's and Ronald Reagan's ill-fated plans for housing their presidential libraries at Duke and Stanford Universities, respectively. These parallel cases offer a glimpse into what Thomas Farrell terms "social knowledge in controversy" — episodes where prevailing social precedents governing human decision-making evolve in the crucible of public argument. What are the presumptions about how presidential libraries should be built and operated? How did they shape the public argument at Duke and Stanford during the early 1980s, and in turn, how did those schools' ultimate decisions to reject the Nixon and Reagan Library proposals reinforce or mold the presumptions? Through examination of primary documents housed at the Stanford and Duke University archives, we generate insight regarding the evolving political function of presidential libraries, and explore the utility of Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's theory of argumentation as a tool of rhetorical criticism. Such inquiry is especially timely in the contemporary milieu, where public controversy simmers regarding the 43rd American president's future library at Southern Methodist University, and where issues of government transparency and accountability persist as salient topics of public and scholarly concern.


Consider the edge-deletion process in which the edges of some finite tree T are removed one after the other in the uniform random order. Roughly speaking, the cut-tree then describes the genealogy of connected components appearing in this edge-deletion process. Our main result shows that after a proper rescaling, the cut-tree of a critical Galton-Watson tree with finite variance and conditioned to have size n, converges as $n\to\infty$ to a Brownian continuum random tree (CRT) in the weak sense induced by the Gromov-Prokhorov topology. This yields a multi-dimensional extension of a limit theorem due to Janson [Random Structures Algorithms 29 (2006) 139-179] for the number of random cuts needed to isolate the root in Galton-Watson trees conditioned by their sizes, and also generalizes a recent result [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincar\'{e} Probab. Stat. (2012) 48 909-921] obtained in the special case of Cayley trees.


Rising fossil fuel prices and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions are fostering a nuclear power renaissance and a revitalized uranium mining industry across the American West. In The Price of Nuclear Power, environmental sociologist Stephanie Malin offers an on-the-ground portrait of several uranium communities caught between the harmful legacy of previous mining booms and the potential promise of new economic development. Using this context, she examines how shifting notions of environmental justice inspire divergent views about nuclear power's sustainability and equally divisive forms of social activism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in rural isolated towns such as Monticello, Utah, and Nucla and Naturita, Colorado, as well as in upscale communities like Telluride, Colorado, and incorporating interviews with community leaders, environmental activists, radiation regulators, and mining executives, Malin uncovers a fundamental paradox of the nuclear renaissance: the communities most hurt by uranium's legacy - such as high rates of cancers, respiratory ailments, and reproductive disorders - were actually quick to support industry renewal. She shows that many impoverished communities support mining not only because of the employment opportunities, but also out of a personal identification with uranium, a sense of patriotism, and new notions of environmentalism. But other communities, such as Telluride, have become sites of resistance, skeptical of industry and government promises of safe mining, fearing that regulatory enforcement won't be strong enough. Indeed, Malin shows that the nuclear renaissance has exacerbated social divisions across the Colorado Plateau, threatening social cohesion. Malin further illustrates ways in which renewed uranium production is not a socially sustainable form of energy development for rural communities, as it is utterly dependent on unstable global markets. The Price of Nuclear Power is an insightful portrait of the local impact of the nuclear renaissance and the social and environmental tensions inherent in the rebirth of uranium mining.


The MaiMwana Project is a community-based intervention that organises women's groups (WG) in rural villages in Malawi. During the meetings, women discuss, develop and implement strategies to overcome maternal and neonatal issues. This intervention combines social strategies with empowerment, capacity building and knowledge across different sectors. It emphasises health promotion activities that rely on community engagement and participation aimed at changing behaviour of healthy individuals. The effectiveness of MaiMwana WGs is measured through a cluster randomised controlled trial design on maternal and neonatal mortality rates. However, the impact of the intervention is likely to occur on different aspects of women's wellbeing, not only on health.
Conventional economic evaluation techniques might fail to address comprehensively the complexity of community-based interventions such as the MaiMwana Project. Applying Sen's capability framework may provide an appropriate response to address this shortcoming. A crucial argument of Sen's approach is that wellbeing is the freedoms people have to pursue the kind of life they have reason to value. Social policies should aim to expand people's capabilities, and a policy is considered successful if it leads to an expansion of people's capability set. In order to assess and monitor progress in society, there is a need for developing multidimensional measures of wellbeing based on a broader evaluative space.
This thesis develops an outcome measure inspired by Sen's capabilities approach to assess women's wellbeing in rural Malawi.
To achieve this, the study has five objectives:
i. Identify a set of capabilities relevant to the context
ii. Propose a methodology to measure robustly these capabilities
iii. Aggregate the capabilities into a single metric (index)
iv. Validate and test the index.
During the exploratory phase, a series of focus groups was held in order to identify and value locally relevant dimensions of quality of life, or capabilities. The capabilities were assessed with a household survey on a sample of 345 women of reproductive age in Mchinji District, Malawi. The capabilities were aggregated into an index using four different methods: data-driven (principal component analysis), normative (equal weights and participatory exercise) and hybrid (survey ranking). The index was validated against the criteria of content validity, construct validity and reliability.


Joel Tenenbaum looks a lot like every other defendant who has been accused by the music industry of illegally sharing copyrighted work online, but with one key difference: his defense attorney is Harvard Law School Professor Charlie Nesson, and Nesson is out to turn his case into a public referendum not only on the music industry's efforts to enforce copyright through these direct-infringer suits, but also on the copyright rules that make the industry litigation possible. In this podcast, we engage Nesson's key arguments, focusing especially on Nesson's claim that copyright law's statutory damages regime runs afoul of constitutional protections against excessive and/or arbitrary civil damages awards. Guests include Professor Nesson himself; Steven Marks, General Counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America; and three of the leading academic experts on punitive damages: New York University Professor Catherine Sharkey, Florida State Professor Dan Markel, and George Washington University Professor Thomas Colby. UCLA Law Professor Doug Lichtman moderates. (Podcast available for free in the archives at ipcolloquium.com.)


Science projects are data publishers. The scale and complexity of current and future science data changes the nature of the publication process. Publication is becoming a major project component. At a minimum, a project must preserve the ephemeral data it gathers. Derived data can be reconstructed from metadata, but metadata is ephemeral. Longer term, a project should expect some archive to preserve the data. We observe that published scientific data needs to be available forever -- this gives rise to the data pyramid of versions and to data inflation where the derived data volumes explode. As an example, this article describes the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) strategies for data publication, data access, curation, and preservation.


The field of telecommunications has made tremendous progress of the past decade, especially in the area of wireless communications. The world becoming a global village due the advancement in the field of wireless communications, the requirement for standardization and uniformity becomes an essential issue. CDMA is the efficient technology that has emerged in the last decade and has revolutionized the pre-existing mobile communication concepts. CDMA is a spread spectrum-based technique for multiplexing, that provides and alternative to TDMA for Second Generation cellular networks. In FDD-CDMA the uplink and downlink transmissions use two separate frequency bands for duplex transmission. It would be correct to call TDD-CDMA as one of the flavors of CDMA technology and has taken the concept to a whole new level of performance, simplicity and cost effectiveness. In TDD-CDMA, the uplink and downlink transmissions use the same frequency band for duplex transmission by using synchronized time intervals. The TDD-CDMA (TD_CDMA) is very similar to FDD CDMA on all of its higher-level functionality. The major differences are in the physical layer, where TDD-CDMA combines TDMA and CDMA elements while FDD-CDMA combine FDMA and CDMA elements. This Research will focus on different features of TDD-CDMA and implementing channel equalization in Matlab. Channel equalization: In channel Equalization we implement the channel estimation algorithm to equalize the channel and reduce the BER in the received signal. The Channel equalization is carried out at the receiver.


The effect of poly(amido amine) (PAMAM) dendrimers of generations G2, G6, and G10 on the dispersion stability of titanate nanowires (TiONWs) as potential nanocarriers was clarified in order to develop biocompatible delivery systems. The PAMAMs adsorbed strongly on the oppositely charged TiONWs even under slightly alkaline conditions where the macromolecules possess low amounts of charged groups and they were able to reverse the charge of the particles. This process resulted in unstable dispersions near the dose where the charge reversal occurred, while stable samples were observed away from it. No generation dependence was found on the aggregation and charging behavior at low ionic strengths. Although heterogeneous adsorption of the dendrimers led to attractive patch-charge interactions at intermediate doses, interparticle forces of electrostatic origin described by Derjaguin and Landau, Verwey, and Overbeek (DLVO) played the major role in colloidal stability. The nanowires were found to adopt a face-to-face orientation within the aggregates, giving rise to the formation of well-defined bundles. Highly stable dispersions were observed once the TiONWs were coated with PAMAM dendrimers of higher generations even at elevated ionic strengths.


Different agents experience different histories and pursue different economic functions. This implies that once a picture of the economic system is taken, a lot of cross-sectional heterogeneity appears. This thesis consists of four essays each one of them makes a case where the intrinsic heterogeneity of the economic system is crucial for understanding macroeconomic performance. Firstly, it shows when and how an increase in the level of business cycle volatility harms the growth process in a Keynesian world where the decision to free resources and to take advantage of them lies on different agents. Secondly, it analyses the effects of an increase in research effort in a Schumpeterian world where innovation requires an entrepreneur to implement a valuable invention. In this context the observed decreasing returns in R&D might be the outcome of lack of entrepreneurial skills rather than any vanishing of investment opportunities. Thirdly, it extends the Solow-Swan growth model allowing for cross-sectional heterogeneity. In doing so it reconciles apparently conflicting results on cross-sectional convergence and stochastic output dynamics. Finally, it argues that cross-sectional heterogeneity is an important transmission mechanism. In the context of a stylized vintage model it is shown how the mechanism generating heterogeneity in the real world also generates persistence in the aggregate fluctuations. Moreover, as aggregate shocks create very high degree of persistence without affecting either the number of firms in the market or technological progress, this degree of persistence is simply attributed to cross-sectional heterogeneity.


Older persons receiving services in community settings, rather than Nursing Homes, are at risk of social isolation. Computer mediated communication offers technological resources that recipients of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) might use to reduce their social isolation. The present study involved personal interviews with 40 HCBS clients regarding their interest in communicating with members of their social networks and using computers. At the time of the interview, 30 of the 40 participants did not use computers and reported cost, lack of training, physical limitations, lack of interest and access, and fraud as the reasons for not using computers. After watching a videotape illustrating an easy-to-use computer interface that allows older persons to communicate with families and friends, 90% reported that it would be helpful for people like them. Participants said such a computer would be helpful because it would make communication with friends and family easy, it could accommodate visual and manual disabilities, and would be interesting. Eighty-five percent said they would use a system like the one they were shown if it were available to them.


Photovoltaic cells are attracting significant interest for harvesting indoor light for low power consumption wireless electronics such as those required for smart homes and offices, and the rapidly-growing Internet of Things. Here, we explore the potential of solution processable, small molecule photovoltaic cells as indoor power sources. By optimizing the solvent vapour annealing (SVA) time for the photovoltaic layer, a balance between its crystallization and phase separation is obtained, resulting in a record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 28% under fluorescent lamps of 1000 lux, generating a maximum power density of 78.2 μW cm−2 (>10% PCE under AM1.5G). This high indoor performance surpasses that of silicon based photovoltaic cells, and is similar to that of gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells. Besides, the ratios of the voltage at the maximum power point (MPP) to the open circuit voltage are similar from indoor lighting to one sun conditions, which is unique and allows a less power consuming method to track the MPP for a broad range of light intensities (potentially attractive for wearable photovoltaics). New insight into the effect of SVA on the indoor and one sun performance is provided using advanced optoelectronic characterization techniques, which show that the mobility-lifetime products as a function of charge carrier density can be correlated well with the performance at different light levels. Our results suggest that organic photovoltaic cells could be promising as indoor power sources for self-sustainable electronics.


The present study aims at identifying and apportioning fine aerosols to their major sources in Paris (France) – the second most populated "larger urban zone" in Europe – and determining their geographical origins. It is based on the daily chemical composition of PM2.5 examined over 1 year at an urban background site of Paris (Bressi et al., 2013). Positive matrix factorization (EPA PMF3.0) was used to identify and apportion fine aerosols to their sources; bootstrapping was performed to determine the adequate number of PMF factors, and statistics (root mean square error, coefficient of determination, etc.) were examined to better model PM2.5 mass and chemical components. Potential source contribution function (PSCF) and conditional probability function (CPF) allowed the geographical origins of the sources to be assessed; special attention was paid to implement suitable weighting functions. Seven factors, namely ammonium sulfate (A.S.)-rich factor, ammonium nitrate (A.N.)-rich factor, heavy oil combustion, road traffic, biomass burning, marine aerosols and metal industry, were identified; a detailed discussion of their chemical characteristics is reported. They contribute 27, 24, 17, 14, 12, 6 and 1% of PM2.5 mass (14.7 μg m−3) respectively on the annual average; their seasonal variability is discussed. The A.S.- and A.N.-rich factors have undergone mid- or long-range transport from continental Europe; heavy oil combustion mainly stems from northern France and the English Channel, whereas road traffic and biomass burning are primarily locally emitted. Therefore, on average more than half of PM2.5 mass measured in the city of Paris is due to mid- or long-range transport of secondary aerosols stemming from continental Europe, whereas local sources only contribute a quarter of the annual averaged mass. These results imply that fine-aerosol abatement policies conducted at the local scale may not be sufficient to notably reduce PM2.5 levels at urban background sites in Paris, suggesting instead more coordinated strategies amongst neighbouring countries. Similar conclusions might be drawn in other continental urban background sites given the transboundary nature of PM2.5 pollution.


We consider the widely-used average-linkage, single-linkage, and Ward's methods for computing hierarchical clusterings of high-dimensional Euclidean inputs. It is easy to show that there is no efficient implementation of these algorithms in high dimensional Euclidean space since it implicitly requires to solve the closest pair problem, a notoriously difficult problem. However, how fast can these algorithms be implemented if we allow approximation? More precisely: these algorithms successively merge the clusters that are at closest average (for average-linkage), minimum distance (for single-linkage), or inducing the least sum-of-square error (for Ward's). We ask whether one could obtain a significant running-time improvement if the algorithm can merge $\gamma$-approximate closest clusters (namely, clusters that are at distance (average, minimum, or sum-of-square error) at most $\gamma$ times the distance of the closest clusters). We show that one can indeed take advantage of the relaxation and compute the approximate hierarchical clustering tree using $\widetilde{O}(n)$ $\gamma$-approximate nearest neighbor queries. This leads to an algorithm running in time $\widetilde{O}(nd) + n^{1+O(1/\gamma)}$ for $d$-dimensional Euclidean space. We then provide experiments showing that these algorithms perform as well as the non-approximate version for classic classification tasks while achieving a significant speed-up.


The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of Citrus flavonoids can play a key role in their activity against several degenerative diseases and particularly brain diseases. In Brazil promising studies deposited in the patents "pharmaceutical formulation" form was obtained from the inclusion of Citrus sinensis L. (orange) essential oil with β-cyclodextrin and Citrus limon (lemon) compounds and their applications in therapy of Alzheimer's disease. In this chapter, we report activities of active compounds present in the genus Citrus , which include antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anxiolytic, insecticidal, and anti- cholinesterase activities. These activities are associated with some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Pharmaceutical formulations containing such compounds (for example, inhibitors such as acetylcholinesterase (AChE) of C. limon (5,8-dimethoxy-psoralen and 5,7-dimethoxycumarin) and essential oil from C. sinensis oils are reported in this chapter. These results indicate that the effects of the essential oil and substances of Citrus species are very interesting for further isolation of AChE inhibitors that can be used in the formulation of natural products for neurodegenerative diseases.


Build-and-Fill Development of Lower Ismay (Middle Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation) Phylloid-Algal Mounds of the Paradox Basin, Southeastern Utah Lincoln H Reed Department of Geological Sciences, BYU Master of Science Phylloid-algal mounds form heterogeneous hydrocarbon reservoirs in the southeastern portion (Blanding sub-basin) of the Paradox Basin. Well-studied Lower Ismay mounds exposed along walls of the San Juan River gorge in the vicinity of Eight Foot Rapids, the west limb of the Raplee Anticline, and at the classic Honaker Trail locality (southwestern Paradox Basin) have often been cited as outcrop analogs of productive subsurface mounds. Until now, however, there has not been a complete description of the distribution, size, and spacing of outcropping algal mounds at the classic Eight Foot Rapids locality. The Lower Ismay sequence was analyzed in the context of a build-and-fill model of deposition. There are three facies associations within the sequence: 1) a basal lowstand to middle highstand pre-mound facies association, 2) a late highstand to middle falling stage phylloid algaldominated relief-building facies association, and 3) a late falling stage, post-mound relief-filling facies association. Above the basal maximum flooding surface (Gothic Shale), the facies succession displays a distinct shallowing upward trend through the Lower Ismay sequence. Mound dimensions and facies stacking patterns permit evaluation of two depositional models. The first is a traditional, moderateto low-energy model of vertical and radial mound accumulation of phylloid algal plates. The second is a high-energy, tidally influenced model of accumulation wherein mounds become hydrodynamically elongate. Outcrop data indicate that algal-dominated buildups are domal in shape with no preferred axis of elongation. These patterns do not support a hydrodynamic accumulation of loose algal plate fragments. The absence of insitu algal thalli in all but the upper few tens of centimeters of the mounds, however, argues against a purely biological/ecological origin of mounds. A down-stepping ramp model is proposed wherein a muddy algal facies was deposited at the base of the mounds in the low energy of the outer ramp, followed by a grain-rich algal core in the mid-ramp environment. Mounds tops accumulated in an algal bafflestone facies in the inner ramp setting. Restriction of energy due to basinward algal buildup may have also contributed to deposition of algal bafflestone. Mounds accumulated radially at differential rates and were influenced by these variations in energy. This differential deposition of microfacies and subsequent diagenetic alteration have produced heterogeneities in algal reservoir rock, producing algal mound reservoirs that have a high potential for compartmentalization.


REFLECTANCE-BASED CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION OF THE LANDSAT SATELLITE ARCHIVE SANDEEP KUMAR CHITTIMALLI 2016 The primary objective of this project was to consistently calibrate the entire Landsat series to a common reflectance scale by performing cross-calibration corrections from Landsat-8 OLI to Landsat1 MSS. A consistent radiance-based calibration was already performed from Landsat-8 OLI through Landsat-1 MSS using bright targets and dark targets. The MSS radiance-based calibration results showed an uncertainty of about ±5%. Typically to convert from radiance to reflectance a solar model is used. Unfortunately, there are numerous solar models, all with various levels of accuracies. It was also seen that there is a data format inconsistency for different types of MSS data that impact the radiometric uncertainty of the products when compared to Landsat-8 OLI data. One of the advances Landsat-8 OLI has over to earlier missions is a solar model independent reflectance calibration. Hence, to reduce these uncertainties and remove the dependency on the solar model, direct reflectance-based calibration was performed for all previous missions using Landsat-8 OLI as the "standard". A consistent cross-calibration of all Landsat sensors was achieved using coincident/near-coincident scene pairs. The work started from cross-calibration of Landsat-8 OLI to Landsat-7 ETM+ and continued through Landsat-1 MSS. Due to the fact each Landsat sensor measures slightly different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, a spectral band adjustment factor (SBAF) was computed and used prior to the cross-calibration. To determine the significance of the bias derived from cross-calibration, a t-test was performed with a null hypothesis that the bias equals zero at a confidence interval of 95%. From the final calibration equations, it was found that for band 5 of Landsat-1 bias is significant. The effectiveness of these cross-calibration results is discussed by showing a significant improvement in the