Oceaninc resource and fishery will be able to be exploited on an ongoing basis for the prosperity of people which finally can become the source of growth of new economics area. So that strive to take care of continuity of fish resource and environment territorial water of sea and also
improve contribution development of area can reach.
Related to management of fishery sumberdaya and oceaninc is in perpective the area autonomy above, Central Java province through the Project Of Development of Coastal Society and Management Of Resource Fishery of Coast on an ongoing basis, which have location in Coast of Muarareja Tegal Town with special concentration in coast of Muarareja.
Step cultivation of frequent mangrove do not walk optimal because device do not be relied on inwrought consideration between ecological aspect, technical, and economic social. Enableness of coastal area society which still minim result mangrove forest estimated as pest of fishpond.
Planted Mangrove also destroy because act of society alone or punched by wave. Cultivation of mangrove have to be attached in advance knapping appliance of wave able to weaken waving sea. In the year 2006 have been planted by mangrove for the width of 2.250 hectare alongside pantura in 10. Result of whereas still is good enough, but how much/many gratuity which grow will evaluate in October 2006. Besides conservation, legal aspect which become the basis for arrangement and protection of green belt of coast very is needed.
Research method is the way of conducting an activity to look for, to noting, formulating and analysing compile its report. This research represent descriptive research that is by analysis depicting situation of obyek pursuant to collected data of research field and do not use statistical.
Condition of mangrove (mangrove forest) in Tegal Town, Central Java, progressively concern. Closeness of mangrove [in] coast having coastline enough length, around 12 that km only there are 248 tree per its it or half less than ideal closeness 600 tree per hektare. This condition cause
abrasi happened in Tegal town coast, especially in Countryside of Muarareja so that Tegal town coast decrease around 10 metre every year.
Attenuating of it mangrove exist in Tegal Town, besides caused by natural factor (wave attack) also the existence of change of behavior of undiplomatic resident in exploiting mangrove. For example, citizen action conducting hewing of mangrove to be made by prawn fishponds.
Besides, exploiting which at most is to firewood, both for have old and also its bydm soriyt.
Hewing to mangrove forest, have been done/conducted by owner and resident dam out prawn in coastal area is north the than Brebes till Tegal. According to all owner dam out prawn, deforestation of mangrove, because assessed to bother life of prawn, effect of acidity storey; level which enough is high the than mangrove forest. Affect konkret which can be seen from that deed, namely happened abrasi which of course harm to society alone, residence goodness and also missing fishpond sweeped by waving direct which can sea water dashing against it, because is irrepressible of mangrove, as protector of wave attack.
This year of government of Tegal Town raise budget to provinsi to continue the project of installation of knapping stone of wave. Last year have been used to handle abrasi 12 kilometre is later; then continued by this year because distance among/between coastline with fishpond closer 5-10 metre. Governmental of Province Central Java also budget fund to overcome the problem of this abrasi.
See symptom disforesting of mangrove to various the importance hence needed by community konsiderasi in management and protection and also rehabilitate mangrove ekosistem in an optimal fashion and have continuation. Cultivation and of penanggulangan have been conducted
by but its result not yet is maximal. While conducted socialization do not walk so that need more approach to society with more programs of focus.
Solution of damage of forest of mangrove which because of conducting dam out prawn cannot be finished only returned at traditional conducting pattern but also finish social impact of economics which is possibility will arise. Government of Tegal town have to earn to conduct approach that/ to be] forest farm of mangrove have come too far unintentionally which have is utilized as fishpond can be continued by because the area have shall no longger reprsentatif for the farm of conservation. But will be more be good if arising awareness of petambak to rejuvenate forest of mangrove around fishpond as penyeimbang. While forest of mangrove which still have variety potency involve high have to get protection maximally utilize to maintain continuity of forest of mangrove variety and in it.


Abstract. The wintertime ozone buildup over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) midlatitudes and its connection with the mean meridional circulation in the stratosphere are examined statistically on a monthly basis from October to March (1980–2002). The ozone buildup begins locally in October with positive total ozone tendencies over the North Pacific, which spread eastward and westward in November and finally cover all midlatitudes in December. The local onset of the buildup in October is not evident in zonal mean ozone tendency, which is close to zero. From November to March, zonal mean total ozone tendency (50°–60° N) shows a strong correlation (|r|=0.7) with several zonal mean parameters associated to the mean meridional circulation, namely: eddy heat flux, temperature tendency, the vertical residual velocity and the residual streamfunction. At the same time, on the latitude-altitude cross section, correlation patterns between ozone tendency and widely used eddy heat flux are not uniform during winter. The strongest correlations are located equatorward (almost throughout the stratosphere) or poleward (only in the lower stratosphere) of the edge of the polar vortex. Such distribution may depend on the existence of the midlatitude and polar waveguides which defined refraction of upward propagating waves from the troposphere either to the midlatitude stratosphere or to the polar stratosphere. As a consequence of the nonuniform correlation patterns, heat flux averaged over the common region 45°–75° N, 100 hPa is not always an optimum proxy for statistical models describing total ozone variability in midlatitudes. Other parameters approximating the strength of the mean meridional circulation have more uniform and stable correlation patterns with ozone tendency during winter. We show that the NH midlatitude ozone buildup has a stable statistical relationship with the mean meridional circulation in all months from October to March and half of the interannual variability in monthly ozone tendencies can be explained by applying different proxies of the mean meridional circulation.


Background Preclinical data suggest that sunitinib enhances the efficacy of radiotherapy. We tested the combination of sunitinib and hypofractionated image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) in a cohort of patients with historically incurable distant metastases. Methods Twenty five patients with oligometastases, defined as 1–5 sites of active disease on whole body imaging, were enrolled in a phase II trial from 2/08 to 9/10. The most common tumor types treated were head and neck, liver, lung, kidney and prostate cancers. Patients were treated with the recommended phase II dose of 37.5 mg daily sunitinib (days 1–28) and IGRT 50 Gy (days 8–12 and 15–19). Maintenance sunitinib was used in 33% of patients. Median follow up was 17.5 months (range, 0.7 to 37.4 months). Results The 18-month local control, distant control, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 75%, 52%, 56% and 71%, respectively. At last follow-up, 11 (44%) patients were alive without evidence of disease, 7 (28%) were alive with distant metastases, 3 (12%) were dead from distant metastases, 3 (12%) were dead from comorbid illness, and 1 (4%) was dead from treatment-related toxicities. The incidence of acute grade ≥ 3 toxicities was 28%, most commonly myelosuppression, bleeding and abnormal liver function tests. Conclusions Concurrent sunitinib and IGRT achieves major clinical responses in a subset of patients with oligometastases. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00463060


Nowadays "waste management" is a topic largely studied and questioned among government and
Institutional organizations, as a complex phenomenon with a range of consequences for the involved
stakeholders and society. In an European scenario, the Northern countries, where waste is considered as a
resource, implement an efficient management of the solid residues, while the Southern countries, like Italy,
seem to have a slowly evolution on waste treatment. Although different waste management options are
now available the development of a sustainable waste management system needs to be discussed from a
broader systems perspective, taking the environmental, social and economic issues into account.
In this study, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) in accordance to ISO 14040/44 standards, helps to expand the
perspective beyond the waste management system. Scope of this study is using LCA method to compare
the environmental performance of two different waste management systems in the municipality of
Avezzano (Southern Italy). These are landfilling, the Avezzano's original waste management, and
incineration for supplying heat and electricity to household; Waste to Energy is a system largely
experimented in Sweden, that has been agreed upon in Avezzano, but not yet implemented. After data
collection, models have been developed using GaBi 4, an LCA tool that allows to account material and
energy flows and carry out environmental impact assessment from a life cycle perspective.
Life cycle impact assessment has been addressed at mid-point level (i.e. problem-oriented); at the end
incineration results to be negative for the air quality, and consequently for human health, due to CO2 and
SOX emissions in the atmosphere. These substances affect not only the Climatic Change but also
phenomena like Acidification that impact flora, fauna, humans and artistic building. Although Landfilling is
more toxic for the soil quality. Incineration produces 35% more energy than landfilling and this is ideal for
the Avezzano inhabitants, as the city, like the whole Italy, depends strongly of foreign Countries for the
energy production. Implementing an incineration plant result 30% less economical than landfilling, and
currently in Italy there are no economic incentive to build Waste to Energy plants, and also there are still
problem of legality that make incineration project even more difficult to be implemented.


This paper emphasizes that the label PPP (public-private partnerships) covers almost all arrangements, as there is always some private and public involvement. PPP is a continuum of options that accommodate the public and private contributions. This paper emphasizes the different structures that must be devised to encompass the relative participations of each party and emphasizes the need to match these participations to project characteristics, local context, and financial arrangements. This is crucial to clarify the scope of PPPs, calibrate expectations, and withstand the pressures of returning to the mistakes of the etatist scheme as a response to the social discontent faced by the real or perceived failures of privatization.


In 1918, in the Crimea, the adolescent Vladimir Nabokov devised a new pastime: "parodizing a biographic approach" by narrating his own actions aloud. In this self-conscious "game," he orchestrated changes in grammatical person, gender, and tense in order to transform his present experiences into a third-person past, as remembered by a female friend in an imaginary future. Staging his own biography in this fashion allowed Nabokov to resolve the inherent conflict between his life and his art. Indeed, he went on to play the game of narrating his own biography throughout his memoir, Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, and in his fiction. Fifty years after Nabokov invented this game, he met his first real-life biographer, Andrew Field, who resisted playing it by Nabokov's rules. The ensuing quarrel between subject and biographer eventually inspired three other parodic texts: Nabokov's novel, Look at the Harlequins!; Field's biography, Nabokov: His Life in Part, and Roberta Smoodin's novel, Inventing Ivanov. Inevitably, each of these books became, like Speak, Memory before it, another performance of Nabokov's selfreflexive game. Indeed, Nabokov's critics, biographers, and disciples may find it almost impossible to represent his life and art without merely repeating his own representations of himself.


Online Banking Services are accessible to all the customer who have their valid user and id allocated by the bank. The System provides the different facilities like Balance enquiry, Funds transfer to another account in same or different bank, Request for cheque book, change in address, stop payment of cheques, viewing monthly and annual statements. Online Banking System has attractred the attentions of banks, securities, insurance companies in developing nations sice the 1990s and the rapid and significant growth in electronic sectors and commerce. The main motive of the online banking system is is to provide customer with alternative that is more responsive and less expensive also time saving. Online banking system is the most important financial activity which is now a days mostly carried out by any person who has an account in the bank. Not only unique id and password is allocated with that an new UPI code system is added as a security the bank.If a wrong password is given thrice in the session, that account gets locked and the customer is not able to use their account and an warning is pop up that the account is locked and the same locking system goes with UPI code. Whenever we deal with the Online banking system services the main concern of the customer is always related to the security regarding to the banking transaction and account login activities. The E-Banking services now deals with the single sign-in log on and it is not secured . Authentication is now an proposed system, in this activity of linking an individual process on the basis of username and password and basically the password is consist of characters, numbers, alphanumeric values, special character and etc.. to make the password strong so that the attackers chould not guess the password easily it might be difficult to remember the password but the strong password are mandatory otherwise the software shows the message as the password is weak and it doesnot accept that weak password until we create the strong password.


Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were investigated in northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) to characterize the responses elicited by different acoustic stimulus types, examine temporal resolving capabilities, and evaluate the potential for using evoked responses to estimate hearing sensitivity. Clicks and tone pips were presented to individual seals to characterize evoked responses to broadand narrowband stimuli. Tone pip trains and sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) tones were used to determine modulation rate transfer functions (MRTF) of the auditory system and to determine if the magnitude of the envelope-following response (EFR) relative to the stimulus level can be used to estimate hearing thresholds. Click evoked responses were characterized by three early positive peaks (~2.6, 4.4, and 6.1 ms) and a dominant negative peak at 7.2 ms and had average amplitudes of 264 nV (peak-to-peak [pk-pk]) for a corresponding stimulus level of 126 dB re 20 μPa (pk-pk). The use of dissociative drugs for the immobilization of the seals showed no demonstrable effect on the latencies or amplitudes of the click evoked response. Both the rate following response (RFR) and EFR amplitudes were maximal when the stimulus repetition rate or the amplitude modulation rate, respectively, were < 100 Hz. EFR amplitudes at the rate of amplitude modulation tracked near linearly with stimulus level. Thresholds for a 4-kHz SAM tone were estimated to be 45 dB re 20 μPa. Thus, the recording of AEPs is a viable means of studying auditory processes in the northern elephant seal.


The rapid introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing for Down syndrome into clinical practice has reignited the ethical debate around testing technologies and their potential impact on individuals and society. The debate is centred on the benefits of the new technology in terms of enhancing autonomous choice versus the rights of people with Down syndrome and their families not to be harmed. While cell-free DNA technology can increase access to early, safe information about a pregnancy it may also help undermine the inclusion of people with Down syndrome in our communities. Within this highly charged social arena, individual women and men make personal reproductive decisions and the quality of life of people with Down syndrome and their families is subject to public scrutiny.

Key Concepts

Noninvasive prenatal testing for Down syndrome (trisomy 21) using cell-free DNA in maternal blood has spread rapidly into clinical practice.
Noninvasive prenatal testing can be conducted reliably from around 9 weeks gestation, carries no risk of miscarriage, has a higher detection rate and lower false positive rate than existing screening tests but is not yet diagnostic for Down syndrome.
The introduction of noninvasive prenatal testing has reignited existing ethical arguments around the benefits of reduced of harm to the unborn foetus versus the potential harms to people with Down syndrome and their families.
The limitations of the new screening test have been less well publicised than the benefits, which may impact on the ability of women to make informed choices and interpret test results.
There are concerns that the widespread introduction of noninvasive prenatal testing as a safe, early and accurate test may lead to significant reductions in the number of people with Down syndrome being born and that the test therefore supports a eugenics agenda.
Personal contact with disabled people is associated with more positive attitudes towards disability, which in turn are associated with less favourable attitudes to termination of affected pregnancies; over time, a significant reduction in the number of people with Down syndrome would reduce opportunities for personal interaction.
The widespread introduction on noninvasive prenatal testing enables access to a safe test for more women; however, currently, the test is available through private health providers or medical insurance schemes only reducing access to many women on lower incomes.

Keywords:

Down syndrome;
trisomy 21;
informed choice;
informed decision-making;
autonomy;
noninvasive prenatal testing;
cell-free DNA testing;
ethical issues


The velocity tracking problem is motivated by the desire to match a desired target flow with a flow which can be controlled through time dependent distributed forces or time dependent boundary conditions. The flow model is the Navier-Stokes equations for a viscous incompressible fluid and different kinds of controls are studied. Optimal distributed and boundary controls minimizing a quadratic functional and an optimal bounded distributed control are investigated. The distributed optimal and the bounded control are compared with a linear feedback control. Here, a unified mathematical formulation, covering several specific classes of meaningful control problems in bounded domains, is presented with a complete and detailed analysis of all these time dependent optimal control velocity tracking problems. We concentrate not only on questions such as existence and necessary first order conditions but also on discretization and computational aspects. The first order necessary conditions are derived in the continuous, in the semidiscrete time approximation and in the fully finite element discrete case. This derivation is needed to obtain an accurate meaningful numerical algorithm with a satisfactory convergence rate. The gradient algorithm is used and several numerical computations are performed to compare and understand the limits imposed by the theory. Some computational aspects are discussed without which problems of any realistic size would remain intractable.


Requirements traceability is essential for developing software systems of high quality. Whereas the traceability of the refinement, deployment, and use of a requirement is called post-traceability, the traceability of a requirement back to its origin is named pre-traceability. We present a requirements engineering environment, called PRO-ART, which enables requirements pre-traceability, PRO-ART is based on three main contributions: a three-dimensional framework for requirements engineering which defines the kind of information to be recorded; a trace-repository for structuring the trace information and enabling selective trace retrieval; a novel tool interoperability approach which enables (almost) automated trace capture. In addition, we report on experiences made with the first prototypical implementation of PRO-ART and the resulting redesign and re-implementation, called PRO-ART 2.0, which mainly addresses scalability problems faced with in real applications.


In Canada, the total amount of accusations, in compliance with the laws on drugs, show a slight but constant progression. More than half of the sentences for drug-linked offenses have lead to incarceration, a third of the people sentenced for a simple drug possession have been jailed. The relevance of these sentences, making the Canadian detention centres populated with more drug addicts than the rehabilitation centres, is questionable. In France, legislation is mostly based on the December 31st, 1970 law: drug use and trafficking are severely punished. However, for a first arrest, the prosecutor can enjoin the arrestee to treatment: this is what is called therapeutic injunction. Even though therapeutic injunction spares substance users from a jail term, some limitations are encountered this measure is selective, based on social and judicial criteria, making it more forgiving than the average characteristics of drug addicts, it is only accepted and applied by half of the subjects. A specific inquiry has been done in a department in the Paris region, where drug addiction activity is abundant, and suggested a preventive role for the injunction in cases of recidivism. Global appreciation of the therapeutic injunction remains nuanced in a context of new measures in drug addiction, but it translates into the increasing necessity to introduce professional networks between the judicial and sanitary systems, intended for a young population dealing with the modern difficulties of social adaptation and high risk behaviour.


In sagebrush ecosystems, pinyon and juniper tree expansion reduces water available to perennial shrubs and herbs. We measured soil water matric potential and temperatures at 13–30 and 50–65 cm soil depths in untreated and treated plots across a range of environmental conditions. We sought to determine the effects of tree expansion, tree reduction treatments, and expansion phase at time of treatment over 12–13 yr post-treatment. Because the effects of tree reduction on vegetation can vary with the soil temperature/moisture regime, we also analyzed differences in soil climate variables between the mesic/aridic-xeric and frigid/xeric regime classifications for our sites. Growing conditions during all seasons except spring were greatly limited by lack of available water, low temperatures, or both. Advanced tree expansion reduced wet days (total hours per 24 hr when hourly average soil water matric potential > 1.5 MPa), especially in early spring. Fire and mechanical tree reduction increased wet days and wet degree days (sum of hourly soil temperatures >0°C when soil is wet per 24 hr) compared with no treatment for most seasons. Burning resulted in higher soil temperatures than untreated or mechanically treated woodlands. Tree reduction at advanced expansion phases increased wet days in spring more than when implemented at earlier phases of expansion. Added wet days from tree reduction were negatively associated with October through June precipitation and vegetation cover, rather than time since treatment, with more wet days added on drier sites and years. The longer period of water availability in spring supports increased growth and cover of not only shrubs and perennial herbs, but also invasive weeds on warmer and drier sites, for many years after tree reduction. We found that sites classified as mesic/aridic-xeric had warmer soil temperatures all seasons and were drier in spring and winter than sites classified as frigid/xeric. Land managers should consider reducing trees at earlier phases of expansion or consider revegetation when treating at advanced phases on these warmer and drier sites that lack perennial herb potential.


Abstract Customers demand a very a high quality of veneered furniture products with regard to surface appearance, shape stability and rigidity. To meet these requirements, it is important to improve the manufacturing process by a better understanding of the thermohydromechanical behaviour of the individual veneers. During the manufacture of strongly curved products, the veneers are exposed to large membrane and bending deformations and to a high pressure in the radial fibre direction. When hot-press forming is used, the veneers are also exposed to a high surface temperature during the pressing time (curing time). These severe conditions can result in plastic deformation perpendicular to the veneer surface as well as mechanosorptive strains in the curved regions, since the heating can significantly affect moisture distribution. How strong an influence these factors have on the distortion of the veneered product is far from being fully clarified. To study this complex multiphysical problem including temperature, moisture, large deformations for orthotropic materials, surface constraints and progressive glue interaction, a three-dimensional finite element simulation was performed. In this study, the simulation of deformations and stresses occurring during the manufacture of a curved veneered product (chair seat) of birch wood is described. The results show that heating, pressure and the fibre orientation in the veneers have a significant influence on the distortion of the chair seat.


This article presents a new eyelid localization algorithm based on a parabolic curve fitting. To deal with eyelashes, low contrast or false detection due to iris texture, we propose a two steps algorithm. First, possible edge candidates are selected by applying edge detection on a restricted area inside the iris. Then, a gradient maximization is applied along every parabola, on a larger area, to refine parameters and select the best one. Experiments have been conducted on a database of 151 iris that have been manually segmented. The performance evaluation is carried out by comparing the segmented images obtained by the proposed method with the manual segmentation. The results are satisfactory in more than 90% of the cases.


1. Cyclostigma kiltorkense, Haught. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, vol. v. p. 444. Stem clothed with a finely wrinkled bark. It is covered with numerous and very close striæ; and these very fine striæ pass away into spiral lines, and are in some places joined together. When the outer bark is wanting we have only these fine striæ. Such a specimen I received as C. Griffithi, Haught. On the bark there stand in regular rows small round warts, which have a circular depression at the top. These are surrounded by a projecting rim, which is often striatetd with fine cross lines. Sometimes these warts look like small hollows having a smooth middle part. The warts are about 2 millims. in diameter. They are from 8 to 13 millim. apart, and form highly oblique transverse rows. Pl. IV. fig. 5a is a piece of a stem; 5b a portion with the wart, magnified. Branches.—These agree entirely with the stems in the formation of the bark and in the warts. The bark is also wrinkled and covered with very fine and close striæ. The warts are from 6 to 8 millims. apart, and in a branch 13 millims. broad there are two or three in the oblique row (fig. 4, and, a portion enlarged, fig. 4b). As remains of fruit-cones, which Schimper has described as Lepidostrobus Bailyanus (Traité de Paléontologie Vegét. ii. p. 71), are often found near the stems of this they probably belong to it. In support of


Liberalism, democracy, and the rule of law are often thought to constitute a seamless unity, reflected in contemporary Western liberal democracies. That understanding, while not incorrect, does not tell the whole story. This article traces out a long historical pattern in which liberalism and the rule of law have combined to restrict the exercise of democracy. This pattern will be exposed by elaborating on four contexts: the shift in political theory from classical liberalism to modern social welfare liberalism; the shift from the common law to legislation as the primary source of law; resort to the rule of law by liberals from the eighteenth century to the present; and the contemporary implementation of neoliberal reforms in developing countries around the world. The article will argue that liberalism has enjoyed an opportunistic relationship with the rule of law, a relationship which has taken different forms over time, though repeatedly evincing an anti-democratic tendency on behalf of property rights.This relationship is a source of skepticism about the rule of law, and harbors the potential to discredit the rule of law in the eyes of many around the world. This article lays out this "dark side" of their relationship in an effort to separate what the rule of law requires from what liberalism wants.


OBJECTIVES: It is plausible that neurodegenerative processes of aging might have a contributing role in the development of chronic effects of exposure to organic solvents. This study evaluated the risk for neuropsychological deficits among retired workers, relative to their histories of exposure to occupational solvents. METHODS: This cross sectional study evaluated retired male workers, 62-74 years of age, including 89 people with previous long-term occupational exposure to solvents (67 retired painters and 22 retired aerospace manufacturing workers), and 126 retired carpenters with relatively minimal previous exposure to solvents. Subjects completed a standardised neuropsychological evaluation and psychiatric interview, structured interviews for histories of occupational exposure and alcohol consumption, and questionnaires assessing neurological and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: By comparison with the carpenters, the painters on average reported greater cumulative alcohol consumption and had lower scores on the WAIS-R vocabulary subtest, usually presumed to reflect premorbid intellectual functioning. These findings, however, were not sufficient to account for the other study findings. Controlling for age, education, vocabulary score, and alcohol use, the painters had lower mean scores on test measures of motor, memory, and reasoning ability; and a subgroup of aerospace workers with moderate to high cumulative exposure to solvents (n = 8) had lower mean scores on measures of visuomotor speed, and motor, attention, memory, and reasoning ability. Subjects were more likely to have an increased number of relatively abnormal test scores (three or more outlier scores on 17 test measures) among both the painter group (odds ratio (OR), 3.1; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.5 to 6.2) and the subgroup of aerospace workers with higher cumulative exposure (OR 5.6; 95% CI 1.0 to 38). The painters, but not the aerospace workers, reported significantly more neurological and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The findings are consistent with residual central nervous system dysfunction from long-term exposure to organic solvents, persisting years after the end of exposure.


This paper presents a simple model of distribution dynamics, in which the distributions of wealth, education and political power are circularly endogenous. Different levels of education translate into different income and wealth levels. Political power may (or may not) vary with wealth, and in turn affects decisions on the level of public expenditure on education. Since the market for education credit is imperfect, some people might need to rely on public schooling, the quality of which depends on those expenditure levels. As a result, educational opportunities differ along the wealth distribution. The dynamic system displays multiple equilibria, some of which are characterized by a vicious circle of interaction between educational, wealth and political inequalities. These particular equilibria, which are more unequal, are also shown to be inefficient in terms of aggregate output levels. Switching equilibria may be achieved through redistribution of political power.


There is significant pressure in Australia to improve freight productivity through the national reform agenda. A key component of the reform plan is to improve access to the road network for heavy vehicle operators. Assessment of bridge capacity is perceived to be critical to this aim. This project reviewed the current Australian Standard Bridge Design AS 5100.7: Rating of existing bridges (2004) and the BAG (Bridge Assessment Group) Guidelines for bridge load capacity assessment (1997) which are currently the principal documents for detailed bridge capacity assessment. With the current code review of AS 5100.7 underway, this report, and proposed code clauses, contributes to the code review as a direct input into the revision process.


This timely, thoughtful and provocative collection explores the current period in feminism, known by many as the 'third wave'. Four sections - genealogies, sex and gender, popular culutre, challenges - interrogate the wave metaphor and, through questioning the generational account of feminism, move feminist theory out from its present cul-de-sac. Contributions - from key and innovative third wave theorists, transgenderists, cybertheorists and cultural specialists as well as materialist and second wave feminists - introduce key debates and issues facing feminism, deepen our understanding of feminist theory and practice and indicate future trajectories for the feminist movement.


When animals are reared on a near-starvation diet, they live much longer than those that eat freely. Even the fruit fly Drosophila has this reaction to a low-glucose diet and lives considerable longer on a 5% than on a 15% sugar-yeast diet. This effect of dietary restriction is easily reversed when flies consume more food. Libert et al. report a less expected effect: Just the smell of the flies' food (yeast) can inhibit some of the effects of dietary restriction and shorten the flies' life span by 6 to 18%. Flies lacking an essential part of their odor receptors, which have greatly impaired senses of smell, live longer than flies with intact odor sensation. S. Libert, J. Zwiener, X. Chu, W. VanVoorhies, G. Roman, S. D. Pletcher, Regulation of Drosophila life span by olfaction and food-derived odors. Science 315, 1133-1137 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] M. Leslie, Odor of food hastens dieting flies' deaths. Science 315, 584 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


This report covers the progress made on the title project for the project period. Four major areas of inquiry are being pursued. Advanced solid state NMR methods are being developed to assay the distribution of the various important functional groups that determine the reactivity of coals. Special attention is being paid to methods that are compatible with the very high magic angle sample spinning rates needed for operation at the high magnetic field strengths available today. Polarization inversion methods utilizing the difference in heat capacities of small groups of spins are particularly promising. Methods combining proton-proton spin diffusion with {sup 13}C CPMAS readout are being developed to determine the connectivity of functional groups in coals in a high sensitivity relay type of experiment. Additional work is aimed at delineating the role of methyl group rotation in the proton NMR relaxation behavior of coals.


We present the algorithm and performance of tau reconstruction at the
CMS experiment, while highlighting a dedicated reconstruction algorithm
that uses calorimeter hits instead of tracks to reconstruct taus with
high transverse momentum. Describing the standard Hadrons-Plus-Strips
(HPS) algorithm and its dependence on track reconstruction and shower
modelling, we present the calorimetric tau (calo-tau) reconstruction
that uses minimal track information for high
p_{T}pT
taus. The pros and cons of these algorithms are discussed along with
their performance and potential uses. It is found that the calo-tau
algorithm outperforms the HPS algorithm in the high efficiency region.
This study is work in progress, and is an attempt to tune the
reconstruction for high p_{T}pT
taus. The calo-tau algorithm is not yet an official tau reconstruction
algorithm for CMS.


Law and Justice in Post-British Nigeria: Conflicts and Interactions Between Native and Foreign Systems of Social Control in Igbo. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Hard Copy, 2002, 236 pages. By Nonso Okereafoezeke Undeniably, African criminologists are redirecting much needed research toward the production of quality scholarship that addresses the missing link in the development of African criminology and criminal justice. The latest such cogent work is manifest in Law and Justice in Post-British Nigeria, written by Professor Nonso Okereafoezeke of Norfolk State University in Virginia. Noting that Nigeria is a complex society with its multifaceted ethnic dimensions rooted in Eurocentric and egocentric scrambling of wealth and power, Okerafoezeke investigates the confusion, prior to colonial dominion, that was engendered by the introduction of alien laws on an already existing native jurisprudence in divergent regions of Nigeria. He also employs Igbo legal traditions to illuminate the incongruities of the manifold legal systems that operate in Nigeria. Further, Okereafoezeke offers a lucid framework for the development of a justice system in Nigeria that is reasonable, equitable, and satisfactory to all its citizens. Excluding the introductory and concluding chapters, the book is divided, essentially, into three parts, each of which is comprised of three chapters. Part I explores native and colonial justice systems in Nigeria, as well as the application of formal and informal legal rules. The acceptance and elevation, by Nigerians, of the British legal systems over the universal acknowledgement and respect for the native legal systems is questioned. Naturally, the author resolutely asserts that the imposition of English law on Nigerians cemented the confusion that has led to inept case management in the country. (It should be emphasized at this juncture that, prior to receiving his doctorate in criminology, professor Okereafoezeke was a practicing attorney in Nigeria, which confirms that his apt analyses of Nigerian jurisprudence are not solely informed by critical scholarship, but also by his personal participation as a bona fide Nigerian jurist.) Using the reach criminological literature on formal and informal social control mechanisms and a survey of many actual Igbo cases, Okereafoezeke explains the principles for measuring formal and informal judicial proceedings. He accomplishes this by drawing on data showing, in the Nigerian context, that judicial matters are neither utterly official nor unofficial. Okereafoezeke contends that, against the bedrock of the Nigerian indigenous legal establishment, the imposition of alien laws on the natives produces cultural and legal anomie. In Part II, the author examines selected aspects of justice in "contemporary traditional" Igbo land. He explores law-making techniques and the growth of Nigeria's native justice systems, principles of Igbo traditions, customs and laws, and the enforcement of Igbo judicial decisions. Okereafoezeke advocates that traditional Igbo was characterized by "customary laws," which were generally unwritten laws. However, like any other society, as the Igbo and Nigerians move away from mechanical to organic communities, contemporary laws are written down in order to minimize exceptional vagueness and uncertainties in the application of the law. While traditional customary laws were rooted in truthfulness, respect, and universal conduct norms, Okereafoezeke contends that "a written law should be preferred to an unwritten law" (see page 115). Chapter 5 specifically addresses the methods and procedures used in the study. Employing the research techniques of content analysis, the author examines archival records and government and unofficial data, conducts interviews, and participates in field observations. In order to establish the dissimilarities between the Igbo traditional laws prior to colonial command and after the yoke of foreign law, actual cases and issues are addressed based on the research questions posed by the author. …


Abstract To deepen the understanding of the sociotechnical regime that directs the selection of structural frames in multifamily buildings in Sweden, we study the perceptions of contractor representatives. Contract managers (CMs) employed at contractor firms were interviewed regarding their role, the selection of the structural frame and how they perceived different options. The results show that CMs largely influence the selection of the structural frame in multifamily buildings, which are guided by the established concrete-based sociotechnical regime. The regime is maintained through cognitive rules regarding structural frame options and the alignment of skills of construction professionals. Because of their influence and their investments in the skills of construction workers, CMs make important contributions to maintain the regime and the concrete path dependency. Furthermore, the regime varies in strength in different locations. Some locations carry a strong norm to cast concrete frames on site. This makes it more difficult to deviate from the established practice. In other locations, wood-promoting initiatives have changed the cognitive rules associated with the regime. Nonetheless, the sociotechnical regime makes the selection of concrete structural frames beneficial. This prevents wood-framed multifamily buildings from entering common usage, even though such buildings can contribute to mitigating climate change.


Advances on manufacturing processes and the use of new materials are increasing the efficiency and reducing the cost of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies to a point that their deployment will reach desired levels for the sake of energy security and environmental concerns. Along these advances, the demonstration of the cost-effectiveness of this technology is vital to educate people and promote deployment of these technologies. In this sense, at the University of Texas at Tyler, two research and demonstration houses were built. House #1 is a conventional design with some advanced features, and House #2 has more advanced design features. In this study, House #2 is considered, which has relevant characteristics such as net-zero energy with 7.4 kW of solar photovoltaic system, advanced wall framing with open-cell foam insulation (R-24), unvented attic with open-cell foam insulated roof deck (R-24), vinyl-frame windows with double-pane, low-E glass (U=0.33, SHGF=0.23), ducted single-split system in attic (19.0 SEER, 9.0 HSPF), and high solar reflectance shingles. Since building energy performance depends on many factors, different scenarios or design characteristics can be assessed by using an energy model. In this study, the software OpenStudio (version 1.7.0) is used to develop a model for House #2. The software, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is a user interface for the well known whole building energy simulation engine EnergyPlus. This paper shows the more relevant steps on model development. As a means of validation of the model, energy consumption from the model is compared against monthly energy consumption data in a calibration approach that is available in the software. As an example of the use of energy models, since the house has high solar reflectance shingles, the model is used to evaluate solar absorptance of shingles as a design parameter that can reduce energy consumption during cooling season but increasing energy consumption during heating season.


This Article examines the convergence of two seemingly contradictory developments. One is the widespread rape of women by acquaintances, dates, and intimates, mostly without legal recourse. The other is the emergence of a generation of women who embrace a pro-sex orientation and define their sexualities accordingly. To date, legal theorists have failed to reconcile this move toward sex positivity with the ubiquity of non-stranger rape. SlutWalk – the global grassroots initiative that protests rape by embracing sex – provides a vehicle for first exploring tensions that arise when sexual agency is asserted against a backdrop of pervasive sexual violation. On analysis, sexual agency must be reconceived, which in turn exposes new perspectives on rape law and informs the next phase of reform.


In this paper, a simulation model of an emergency department (ED) at a large community hospital, Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, KY, is developed. Using such a model, we can accurately emulate the patient flow in the ED and carry out sensitivity analysis to determine the most critical process for improvement in quality of care (in terms of patient length of stay). In addition, a what-if analysis is performed to investigate the potential change in operation policies and its impact. Floating nurse, combining registration with triage, mandatory requirement of physician's visit within 30 min, and simultaneous reduction of operation times of some most sensitive procedures can all result in substantial improvement. These recommendations have been submitted to the hospital leadership, and implementations are in progress.


In 2008 Australians were promised a 'Digital Education Revolution' by the government to dramatically change classroom education and build a 'world-class education system'. Eight billion dollars have been spent providing computer equipment for upper secondary classrooms, yet there is little evidence that a revolution has occurred in Australian schools. Transformation of an education system takes more than a simplistic hardware solution. Revolutions need leaders and leaders need vision. In this paper, I argue that we must first develop educational leaders by inspiring future teachers with a vision and by designing our teacher-education courses as technology-rich learning-spaces. A multi-layered scenario is developed as the inspiration for a vision of a future-orientated teacher-education system that prepares teachers to deliver a 'world- class digital education' for every Australian child. Although written for the Australian context this paper has broad relevance internationally for teacher education.


Risk management for health care institutions involves the protection of the assets of the organizations, agencies, and individual providers from liability. A strategic approach can result in significant cost savings. Risk Management in Health Care Institutions: A Strategic Approach offers governing boards, chief executive officers, administrators, and health profession students the opportunity to organize and devise a successful risk management program. Experts in risk management have contributed comprehensive, up-to-date syntheses of relevant topics to assist with practical risk management strategies.


Rapidly rotating black hole (BH) solutions in theories beyond general relativity (GR) play a key role in experimental gravity, as they allow us to compute observables in extreme spacetimes that deviate from the predictions of GR. Such solutions are often difficult to find in beyond-general-relativity theories due to the inclusion of additional fields that couple to the metric nonlinearly and non-minimally. In this paper, we consider rotating BH solutions in one such theory, dynamical Chern–Simons (dCS) gravity, where the Einstein–Hilbert action is modified by the introduction of a dynamical scalar field that couples to the metric through the Pontryagin density. We treat dCS gravity as an effective field theory and work in the decoupling limit, where corrections are treated as small perturbations from GR. We perturb about the maximally rotating Kerr solution, the so-called extremal limit, and develop mathematical insight into the analysis techniques needed to construct solutions for generic spin. First we find closed-form, analytic expressions for the extremal scalar field, and then determine the trace of the metric perturbation, giving both in terms of Legendre decompositions. Retaining only the first three and four modes in the Legendre representation of the scalar field and the trace, respectively, suffices to ensure a fidelity of over 99% relative to full numerical solutions. The leading-order mode in the Legendre expansion of the trace of the metric perturbation contains a logarithmic divergence at the extremal Kerr horizon, which is likely to be unimportant as it occurs inside the perturbed dCS horizon. The techniques employed here should enable the construction of analytic, closed-form expressions for the scalar field and metric perturbations on a background with arbitrary rotation.


In this study, laboratory experiments were performed to investigate the impact of different food types and temperatures on the reproduction and growth of the benthic foraminifer Bulimina marginata . To study reproductive success, adult specimens were kept alive at 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14° C, and fed with either freeze-dried green algae or live diatoms. The effects of temperature, food type, and food quantity on test growth rate were studied under different combinations of these parameters. Lower temperature delayed reproduction, resulted in fewer offspring, and decreased growth rate. Fresh food produced better results than freeze-dried food probably because the latter reduces the amount of digestible compounds (carbohydrates and polyunsaturated fatty acids). In order to obtain reproduction and growth of the open marine species B. marginata in a limited period of time, we recommend keeping them at a temperature ranging 8–12° C (approximating their in situ temperature), and to feed them with fresh algae. The results of this study should be useful to researchers who wish to set up experiments that require culturing deep-sea foraminifera.


When he first laid eyes on the countryside around Chesapeake Bay in 1608, records reveal, Captain John Smith exclaimed, "Heaven and earth seemed never to have agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." In Maryland Geography, James DiLisio - another admirer of the Free State - pays tribute to Maryland's rich cultural, historical, and geographical heritage. This up-to-date, in-depth account interprets the contemporary environmental conditions of the "Marylandscape" by emphasizing its evolving political and socioeconomic contours. This closely researched volume, which is loaded with instructive charts and maps, is the result of DiLisio's lifelong fascination with the geography of his adopted state and his thirty-five years teaching Maryland geography at Towson University. Arguing that regional geography is a product of both natural and human events, Maryland Geography provides an account of the vital geographical stage that the people of Maryland have created. DiLisio touches on Maryland's pre-European American Indian heritage, post-colonial agriculture, and shifting industrial geography, as well as the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay and the rise of the modern economy. He considers the emergence of the isolated Eastern Shore; the rural tobacco land of southern Maryland; the rugged mining area of western Maryland; the prosperous, mixed farming area of the Piedmont; and the metropolitan Baltimore-Washington corridor. More than descriptive, the book examines major trends in the state-natural, economic, and demographic-in a way that prompts thinking about the consequences of growth and unbridled development. Aimed at college-level geography students, the book will also be of great interest to general readers, historians, politicians, and anyone involved in making policies relating to Maryland places.


A spatio-temporal model of a self-mode-locked laser is presented. It uses a full wave-optics approximation of the propagation in the laser resonator and includes dispersion, self-phase modulation, and self-focusing of the intracavity radiation. It is shown that the self-consistent evolution of the pulse toward steady state imposes strong space–time focusing in the crystal, where both the space and time foci are located. This combined focusing is inherent for Kerr-lens mode-locked lasers with linear and ring cavities, and with and without intracavity saturable absorbers. It is considered as a general mechanism for compensation of space–time astigmatism within the nonlinear resonator. The predictions of the model agree very well with the experiment.


Twenty years ago British GP Iona Heath observed that one of the key roles of the GP was to help protect people from the unnecessary diagnosis of disease.1 Perhaps the biggest challenge for doctors who take that role seriously comes from expanding disease definitions. The current definition of 'chronic kidney disease' labels 10% of the adult population as having the condition.2 New criteria almost triple the number of pregnant women labelled as having gestational diabetes.3 Thresholds defining attention deficit hyperactivity disorder continue to fall, meaning more children and adults will be diagnosed.4

We are labelling more and more healthy people as sick and building bigger potential markets for those selling medicines. For some of the newly labelled patients there will no doubt be benefits, but for others with mild problems or at very low risk of illness, a diagnosis can bring more harm than good, leading to overtreatment and wasting precious resources that could be better directed to those in genuine need.

The process of broadening definitions can be described as 'diagnosis creep' and often results from guidelines prepared by expert panels. In 2013 colleagues and I analysed recent changes made by expert panels to the definitions of 14 common conditions, including hypertension, depression and Alzheimer's disease.5 Of 16 publications from the panels, only one proposed a narrower definition, for five the impacts were unclear, and 10 proposed an expanded definition − pre-diseases were created, thresholds were lowered, or diagnostic processes changed to enable earlier diagnosis. In no case did a panel rigorously investigate and report on the potential danger that some people may be caught unnecessarily by the newly widened definitions. Among the panels that disclosed competing interests, 75% of panel members had multiple financial ties to a median of seven drug companies each. These members were paid by companies for activities like speaking, consulting, advising or researching. This is in direct contrast to recommendations from organisations like the US Institute of Medicine for more independence among those who write guidelines.6

For instance, among the blood pressure guideline panel that in 2003 created 'pre-hypertension', 80% of members disclosed ties to 12 companies each.5 Eight of the 11 members had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies that sold drugs for hypertension.

Over half of the members of the 2011 joint US National Institute on Aging – Alzheimer's Association panel that described 'pre-dementia' and defined 'pre-clinical' Alzheimer's disease had financial ties to a median of five companies.5 Similarly for the 2012 psychiatric panels, which widened the definitions of depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, over half disclosed links to companies, including those that could directly benefit from expanded patient populations.5

The decisions made by these heavily conflicted panels are not abstract academic exercises. They ultimately influence whether or not an individual is labelled as 'diseased', changing their life's narrative. Moreover, decisions that expand patient populations profoundly affect where we spend our health resources.

Health professionals should be more aware, and patients and the public better informed, about the controversy surrounding many contemporary definitions of disease. Diagnostic criteria are not set in stone – they are regularly changed, often with the best of intentions, but are also often rigorously challenged because of the potential for unintended harms. A peer-reviewed series in the BMJ is currently examining expanding disease definitions and the risk of overdiagnosis. The series has included articles on the evidence underpinning the controversy over gestational diabetes,3 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,4 chronic kidney disease,7 pre-dementia,8 mild hypertension9 and pulmonary embolism.10

With gestational diabetes for example, proposals to lower diagnostic thresholds and dramatically expand the patient population have generated ongoing criticism that too many women will be labelled unnecessarily.11 The proposals have been rejected by an independent panel constituted under the US National Institutes of Health consensus development conference series.12

Health professionals can help to expose and challenge diagnosis creep, and improve disease definitions. A group of doctors in the UK has successfully lobbied the Royal College of General Practitioners to set up a standing committee to address overdiagnosis,13 and similar moves are afoot in Australia. Across Europe the new 'quaternary prevention' movement is also gathering strength within primary care. This doctor-led movement is aimed at preventing people receiving diagnoses that may bring them more harm than good.14

Globally, efforts are underway from a range of organisations including the Guidelines International Network, to produce new guidelines for guidelines, to encourage expert panels to rigorously examine both benefits and harms before they shift diagnostic thresholds. In line with the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for more independence in guideline panels,6 a new approach must surely also mean an end to panel members being speakers or consultants for companies that directly benefit from their deliberations on diagnosis. While it is more difficult to find unconflicted experts, practical models do exist, including the National Institutes of Health consensus development panels.12

These efforts to reform the way diseases and diagnostic thresholds are set are happening concurrently with related initiatives to combat medical excess, like the Choosing Wisely Australia campaign. This aims to reduce use of unnecessary tests and treatments.15

Finally, in the interest of protecting people from the dangers of diagnosis creep, one might take the provocative advice of Dr Iona Heath. Addressing a symposium about the problem of too much medicine in Canada in 2014, Dr Heath prescribed this solution: 'Whenever I see the sort of guidelines that are, right now, driving overdiagnosis and overtreatment, I think of this: our responsibility not to follow the rules.'16


This paper examines the extent to which fundamental frequency (F0) contributes to the stereotype that Indo-Trinidadians have a distinctive way of speaking, namely that they have high-pitched voices in contrast to Afro-Trinidadians, who are perceived as having voices with a low tone. We report the results of an experiment in which the F0 of voice samples of both Afro- and Indo-Trinidadians was acoustically modified to investigate this stereotype. Listeners were presented with unmodified as well as modified samples and were asked to identify the speaker's ethnicity. Our results reveal that F0 is indeed one of the salient cues which Trinidadians rely on to distinguish ethnicity. In addition, phonation emerges as a potential ethnicity cue.


The origin of U.S. Corn Belt corn (Zea mays L.), heterotic groups, and heterotic patterns becomes less obvious with more cycles of breeding. Heterosis is poorly understood; simple curiosity cries out for more information. I endeavor to shed light on the effect of adaptedness and heterosis on U.S. Corn Belt corn. I relate pertinent happenings in the phenomenal increase in U.S. corn production. I briefly review the origins of Northern Flint and Southern Dent races of corn and two major, persistent open-pollinated cultivars; and how corn hybridization was preceded and eased by hybrid species of the horse (Equus spp.). I discuss heterotic groups and patterns. The objective of U.S. corn breeding has been to adapt a tropical crop to a temperate climate. Adaptedness is important. Open-pollinated cultivars emphasized local adaptation, but some cultivars were more popular, widely grown, and better adapted over a broad geographic region. Hybrid seed corn companies grew larger by selling more widely adapted hybrids that favored germplasm from the more popular, widely grown, better adapted open-pollinated cultivars containing more genes for adaptedness. I examine morphological differences between inbred parents of a widely adapted hybrid. Relatively constant percentage of heterosis of well-adapted hybrids over years is due to seasonal climate affecting hybrids and their parent inbreds in a like manner because of their selection for adaptedness. Adaptedness has been more important than heterosis in the U.S. corn yield and production increases. Adaptedness in analogous heterotic species hybrids of the genus Equus, where body size is female dominant, apparently discriminates for body size between mules and hinnies that have virtually identical genotypes—adaptedness determines superiority over and above heterosis.


The effect of an acute saline load on the sodium pump was determined from measurements of intracellular sodium and potassium, ouabain-inhibitable sodium efflux, and the number of sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase (Na,K-ATPase) sites per cell (using 3H-ouabain binding) of erythrocytes from 22 hypertensive and 21 normotensive subjects before and after a 2-1 infusion of 0.9% saline over a 4-hour period. Before the infusion, ouabain-inhibitable sodium efflux was the only measured parameter that was significantly (p less than 0.025) different between hypertensive (1.65 +/- 0.21 mmol/l red blood cell [RBC]/hr) and normotensive (1.46 +/- 0.25 mmol/l RBC/hr) subjects. After the saline infusion, there was a significant (p less than 0.001) decrease in the ouabain-sensitive sodium efflux of the hypertensive (1.55 +/- 0.22 mmol/l RBC/hr) but not of the normotensive (1.48 +/- 0.43 mmol/l RBC/hr) subjects. Although the changes in intracellular sodium of the normotensive and hypertensive subjects caused by the saline infusion were not significant, the fact that the change was in opposite directions in the two groups yielded a significant (p less than 0.02) differential response. After the saline infusion there was a significant increase in intracellular potassium (p less than 0.001, paired t test) and in the 3H-ouabain-binding affinity constant (p less than 0.001, paired t test) for both hypertensive and normotensive subjects. A second-order rate constant, which is an estimate of the apparent affinity constant of the sodium pump, was calculated from the ouabain-inhibitable sodium efflux, the intracellular sodium, and the number of Na,K-ATPase sites per cell.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Non-destructive testing (NDT) is one of the key method developed for the safety mechanism of many industrial fields, e.g. aerospace, oil and gas and power industries. Among the NDT techniques, eddy current testing belongs to the well-established ones and has been used since the 1940s. Eddy current testing is widely used to detect defects in electrically conducting materials, especially surface breaking ones. Many devices and developments push the eddy current testing to a highly technical level. Eddy current testing applied to NDT is a normalized technique that is performed by certified inspectors. These have received a specific training to interpret the complex signals produced by the eddy current equipment. One key challenge of the interpretation of the eddy current signals is caused by variations of the conditions and material properties that affect the response. Nowadays, the inspectors need a deep understanding of physics and in some cases years of experience for an accurate defect identification. The field of rapid prototyping is one of the most growing and successful areas in the industrial world in the past years. News topics show that this technique is becoming more and more rapid manufacturing. Already nowadays, parts are built with rapid prototyping and used for demonstrations and functional concept studies. But the failure rate of built objects with rapid prototyping, especially metallic ones, is still high. There is therefore a demand for so called "quality machines" able to control the quality of the manufactured components, if possible in situ and to generate the corresponding documentation. Industries and universities are undertaking projects and research in that direction and the eddy current technique has been identified as a potential candidate to reach this goal. In this context, we identified three specific needs for the eddy current non-destructive testing. Firstly, for many applications the accurate size and dimensions of the defects are necessary to estimate the remaining lifetime of a subject. The crack depth of fatigue cracks that is not accessible with standard eddy current instruments should be estimated accurately. Another special need that we observe is the development of an assisting device tool that will help the operators to identify cracks and defects easier. Finally, additive manufacturing of metallic objects has a high potential for improvements and eddy current testing would be an added value for lower failure rates during the manufacturing. In this work, we will demonstrate how eddy current non-destructive testing meets the above mentioned needs. To this end, • we measure the local magnetic field of the induced eddy currents with a special sensor array. We measure and calibrate our system on artificial defects and use a model to estimate the crack depth of fatigue defects. Finally we open these defects and compare the estimation with the actual defect; • we show the development of a 2D hand scanning eddy current system which provides images, and we will give a practical approach towards scanning devices. This 2D hand scanning device does not change the operators' hand scanning habits and provides; • we took into account delamination and porosity changes, which are two of the fundamental problems of additive manufactured parts, in order to demonstrate the performance of eddy current testing for additive manufacturing.


The study of regions and regional identity is one of the cornerstones of the field of geography. Historically within regionally-based research, there has been interest in vernacular regions and the use of business names as a data source for mapping patterns in regional identity. However, few studies of regional identity and names have taken full advantage of digital methods and the use of powerful online databases and GIS/mapping software. ReferenceUSA, an electronic database was used to collect all business names in the United States that contain the term coast(al). Once data were collected and cleaned, two distinctive avenues of analysis were conducted.   The first was a quantitative mapping of coast(al) business name patterns, finding that even inland establishments identify themselves with the coast. Several maps were produced to visualize the distribution and frequency of coast(al) named businesses and to better understand the spatial patterns of people's identification with the coast as a vernacular region. The second avenue is more of a qualitative image analysis of place naming and branding. Analysis has been done to examine how the physical environment is incorporated into a people's sense of place and why the coast is such a popular and powerful symbol.


30 years male presented with complaints of head ache from last 4 years without any significant family history and focal neurological deficit. On cranial imaging there was a mass lesion which appears well define, hyperdence compaired to adjacent white matter. It was seen in occipital horn of right lateral ventricle arising from the choriodal plexus as shown in Figure 1 by arrow ( transverse plane ), Figure 2 (sagital plane) and with the characteristic features of punctate calcification in the lesion without any perilesional edema and hydrocephalus. Choroid plexus papilomas are a rare benign neoplasm of choroid plexus seen in children and are rarer in adults.


While the role of public sector for innovation has been downplayed in the dominant, market-centered view, advanced economies are facing challenges to develop novel approaches to innovation policies. Reasons behind this include the changing focus of innovation and the catch-up by the latecomer countries. Based on a detailed case study of the implementation of a novel approach to innovation policy, demand- and user-driven innovation (DUI) policy, in EU and Finland, this paper examines how the role of the public sector has been transformed in implementing innovation policies and argues that the novel role of the public and semi-public sectors in a DUI policy can be understood as the governance of the evolutionary process of innovation, where the public and semi-public sectors should be deeply involved in the innovation process. This is contrary to the conventional role of the public sector to provide useful complementary resources such as institutional frameworks, funding, and education, while standing outside the innovation process. From institutionalist perspectives, the Nordic welfare and corporatist institutions, including the active third-sector organizations, might play a key role in implementing DUI policies.


A fully revealing portrait of Ralph Garber would require a latter-day Boswell. As ordained, however, an attempt must be made to create a recognizable word picture. And it must give initial attention to the range of influences and factors in Ralph Garber's inheritance and environment that, throughout his life, he experienced, absorbed and utilized in his remarkably creative career.


There is a tremendous amount of literature on and experience with wastewater disinfection alternative. However, it is difficult for wastewater professionals to sift through all of the available information, especially for relatively newer technologies. In addition, there are many factors, some of them site-specific, that influence whether a facility changes disinfection practice, and which alternative it chooses. There are few resources that provide a comprehensive discussion of decision factors with a direct comparison of the disinfection alternatives.

This project developed a singular document that presents the pros and cons and costs of the various technical options for wastewater disinfection. The resulting report is intended to be utilized by wastewater professionals to help evaluate and select the appropriate technology for their application. This report presents a review of the existing literature, a survey of disinfection practice by major POTWs, and surveys of facilities with UV and ozone systems. The known advantages and disadvantages of the mature technologies (chlorine, UV, and ozone), other technologies, and combinations of multiple disinfection alternatives are summarized. The report synthesizes this information and presents a coherent method for selecting a disinfection technology, based on individual priorities and criteria. Finally, the report identifies data gaps that would benefit from additional research.

This title belongs to WERF Research Report Series

ISBN: 9781780403670 (eBook)

ISBN: 9781843397991 (Print)


An examination of the transformation of the Japanese diet from subsistence to abundance and an assessment of the consequences for health, longevity, and the environment. In a little more than a century, the Japanese diet has undergone a dramatic transformation. In 1900, a plant-based, near-subsistence diet was prevalent, with virtually no consumption of animal protein. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, Japan's consumption of meat, fish, and dairy had increased markedly (although it remained below that of high-income Western countries). This dietary transition was a key aspect of the modernization that made Japan the world's second largest economic power by the end of the twentieth century, and it has helped Japan achieve an enviable demographic primacy, with the world's highest life expectancy and a population that is generally healthier (and thinner) than that of other modern affluent countries. In this book, Vaclav Smil and Kazuhiko Kobayashi examine Japan's gradual but profound dietary change and investigate its consequences for health, longevity, and the environment. Smil and Kobayashi point out that the gains in the quality of Japan's diet have exacted a price in terms of land use changes, water requirements, and marine resource depletion; and because Japan imports so much of its food, this price is paid globally as well as domestically. The book's systematic analysis of these diverse consequences offers the most detailed account of Japan's dietary transition available in English.


Abstract We derive a probabilistic seismic‐hazard model for the Dead Sea region to allow for seismic risk estimation, which will be part of a subsequent study. This hazard model relies as much as possible on data‐driven approaches, utilizing a seismic catalog compiled for the region by integrating data from different sources. We derive seismicity models using two different smoothing approaches and estimate a hypocentral depth distribution from historical observations. We do not include paleoseismological evidence apart from the observed seismicity. Because ground‐motion records are sparse in the region, we formulate the model in the European Macroseismic intensity scale from 1998. However, the collected macroseismic intensity data are still too few to derive a local intensity prediction equation (IPE). Thus, we choose among existing equations derived for different regions and combine them in a logic tree. Here, motivated by Scherbaum et al. (2010), we propose a two‐step approach to select the IPEs for the logic tree. First, we cluster a set of 10 candidate IPEs to identify groups of models that can be considered similar with respect to the distribution of the predicted values for a selection of the explanatory variables (i.e., magnitude and distance), using a k ‐mean approach (Steinhaus, 1956). Then, we apply different ranking techniques (Scherbaum et al. , 2009; Kale and Akkar, 2013) to identify within each cluster the most suitable model to be included in the logic tree. The resulting hazard models are consistent with existing probabilistic seismic‐hazard models for the region. We estimate a moderate‐to‐high hazard of intensity grade VII–VIII with 10% probability of exceedance within 50 years in close vicinity to the Dead Sea transform fault, the dominant seismogenic structure in this region.


There is strong expectation that cities, across time, culture and level of development, share much in common in terms of their form and function. Recently, attempts to formalize mathematically these expectations have led to the hypothesis of urban scaling, namely that certain properties of all cities change, on average, with their size in predictable scale-invariant ways. The emergence of these scaling relations depends on a few general properties of cities as social networks, co-located in space and time, that conceivably apply to a wide range of human settlements. Here, we discuss the present evidence for the hypothesis of urban scaling, some of the methodological issues dealing with proxy measurements and units of analysis and place these ndings in the context of other theories of cities and urban systems. We show that a large body of evidence about the scaling properties of cities indicates, in analogy to other complex systems, that they cannot be treated as extensive systems and discuss the consequences of these results for an emerging statistical theory of cities.


In her article "Mapping Memory in Tran's Vietnamerica" Mary Goodwin explores the use of maps, landscape paintings, and other topographic images in Gia-Bao Tran's graphic memoir chronicling the "postmemory" of the US-American son of wartime refugees. Tran's family immigrated to the United States in 1975 following the fall of Saigon. Tran knew nothing of his parents' hardships and struggle to escape Vietnam until he returned for relatives' funerals in his 20s. Similar to Spiegelman's Maus, Vietnamerica is a mixed-media memoir containing photographs, maps, and comics in various styles. Following Hirsch's lead in demonstrating the special historical value of photographs in Maus, Goodwin argues for the unique value of the maps and landscape visuals Tran uses to relate Vietnam's history and his family's experiences. The medium of the graphic novel presents its own challenges as auto/biography and historical record and topographic images introduce a complication in juxtaposing the "real" public world with the personal and individual. Thus Vietamerica becomes an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of perspective on a multi-dimensional history of war, exile, and personal struggles to come to terms with cultural and familial identity. Mary Goodwin, "Mapping Memory in Tran's Vietnamerica" page 2 of 7 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 17.3 (2015): <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol17/iss3/5> Thematic Issue Life Writing and the Trauma of War. Ed. Louise O. Vasvári and I-Chun Wang


This article presents an exploratory data-driven corpus study in a long diachronic perspective on three specialized corpora of medical writing; this is the first time that the eighteenth century is included. Our research questions deal with the scholastic thought style in medical texts, its stylistic and generic features, and its afterlives. Our assumption is that these features continue in some form beyond their heyday. But this study has a methodological aim as well: it is of interest whether scholastic features can be detected by means of Document Classification and whether the method yields new insights and patterns that have gone unnoticed, as data-driven methods have the potential of revealing pertinent features. We combine statistical analysis with qualitative assessments and contextualize our results by discussing the sociohistorical and sociolinguistic backgrounds of texts and their authors and audiences, as best results are often achieved by triangulation.
We were able to answer all our research questions in the affirmative. The method proved fruitful and showed the importance of an argumentative strategy with the complementizer because, not mentioned in the literature before. The development of the scholastic tradition in medicine underwent some changes: the connotations and attitudes may have changed and become more critical, but scholasticism had an afterlife that lasted for centuries.


In 2014, Georgia Tech launched an online campus for its Master of Science in Computer Science program. The degree, equal in stature and accreditation to its on-campus counterpart, offered a notably lower cost of attendance. Its design emphasized flexibility in both geography and time, allowing students from around the world to earn a highly-ranked MSCS without taking time off work or moving to campus. Five years later, the program enrolls over 8000 students per semester and has graduated 1500 alumni. It is believed to be the largest program of its kind and has received recognition from national organizations on professional education. Existing research on the pro-gram has focused on challenges and opportunities to scale that are agnostic to the content itself. In this reflection, we look at the creation and growth of the program as it relates to graduate-level CS instruction. In particular, we note a unique and powerful unity of content and platform: the online delivery of the program dovetails with the technical skillsets of the professors and students that it draws, putting both in the position to contribute and innovate.


Zeolites are crystalline porous materials with a regular framework which have non-toxic effects on a variety of human cell lines and have been explored for cell imaging and drug delivery. Understanding the interaction between zeolite nanoparticles and cells is imperative for improving their potentialities, since the process of internalization of these particles is still poorly understood. In this study, the intracellular trafficking and internalization kinetics of zeolite L into breast cancer cells and normal epithelial mammary cells were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal microscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). We also studied the involvement of endocytic pathways using two pharmacological inhibitors, chlorpromazine and dynasore. Zeolite nanoparticles were taken up by both cell types and the cellular uptake was fast, and started immediately after 5 min of incubation. Interestingly, the uptake was dependent on the cell type since in breast cancer cells it was faster and more efficient, with a higher number of nanoparticles being internalized by cancer cells over time, compared to that in the epithelial mammary cells. TEM results showed that the internalized nanoparticles were mainly localized in the cell vacuoles. The data obtained upon using endocytic pharmacological inhibitors suggest that the zeolite L uptake is mediated by caveolin.


Summary
An evaluation of the ecological distribution of A. glabratus and S. mansoni in Puerto Rico was made, based on information obtained at 421 stations visited from March 1953 through May 1954.
The density of the A. glabratus population depended generally on the type of surface water. Large bodies of standing water afforded an unsuitable environment whereas all types of running water and associated marshes, as well as small ponds and water collections, abounded with snails. The geological formation was also an important ecological factor both physically and chemically, the inland alluvial deposits being ideal for the snail. The third most potent factor was rainfall, of which the pattern of distribution throughout the year was more important than the amount. Even distribution was favorable, but concentrated, heavy rain flushed the snails out of the streams.
The amount of infection of snails and men with S. mansoni was correlated on the one hand with the density of snails, and on the other with the degree of pollution of surface water by human excreta and the various ways in which man exposed himself to infection through contact with the contaminated water.


Abstract Human cystatin C variant (L68Q), one of the amyloidgenic proteins, has been shown to form dimeric structure spontaneously via domain swapping and easily cause amyloid deposits in the brains of patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease or hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy. The monomeric L68Q and wild-type (wt) HCCs share similar structural feature consisting of a core with a five-stranded anti-parallel β-sheet (β-region) wrapped around a central helix. In this study, various molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the conformational fluctuations of the monomeric L68Q and wt HCCs at various combinations of temperature (300 and 500K) and pH (2 and 7) to gain insights into the domain swapping mechanism. The results show that elevated temperature accelerates the disruption of the hydrophobic core and acidic condition promotes the destruction of three salt bridges between β2 and β3 in both HCCs. The results also indicate that the interior hydrophobic core of the L68Q variant is relatively unstable, leading to domain swapping more readily comparing to wt HCC under conditions favoring this process. However, these two monomeric HCCs adopt the same mechanism of domain swapping as follows: (i) first, the interior hydrophobic core is disrupted; (ii) subsequently, the central helix departs from the β-region; (iii) then, the β2-L1-β3 hairpin structure unfolds following the so-called "zip-up" mechanism; and (iv) finally, the open form HCC is generated.


HepaRG cells, derived from a female hepatocarcinoma patient, are capable of differentiating into biliary epithelial cells and hepatocytes. More importantly, differentiated HepaRG cells are able to maintain activities of many xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes, and expression of the metabolizing enzyme genes can be induced by xenobiotics. The ability of these cells to express and induce xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes is in stark contrast to the frequently used HepG2 cells. The previous studies have mainly focused on a set of selected genes; therefore, it is of significant interest to know the extent of similarity of gene expression at whole genome levels in HepaRG cells and HepG2 cells compared with primary human hepatocytes and human liver tissues. To accomplish this objective, we used Affymetrix (Santa Clara, CA) U133 Plus 2.0 arrays to characterize the whole genome gene expression profiles in triplicate biological samples from HepG2 cells, HepaRG cells (undifferentiated and differentiated cells), freshly isolated primary human hepatocytes, and frozen liver tissues. After using similarity matrix, principal components, and hierarchical clustering methods, we found that HepaRG cells globally transcribe genes at levels more similar to human primary hepatocytes and human liver tissues than HepG2 cells. In particular, many genes encoding drug-processing proteins are transcribed at a more similar level in HepaRG cells than in HepG2 cells compared with primary human hepatocytes and liver samples. The transcriptomic similarity of HepaRG with primary human hepatocytes is encouraging for use of HepaRG cells in the study of xenobiotic metabolism, hepatotoxicology, and hepatocyte differentiation.


Rapid passage signals showing the effects of molecular alignment have been observed when low pressure samples of nitrous oxide are interrogated by radiation from a pulsed 7.84 µm quantum cascade laser. These effects occur when the sweep rate of the laser through a Doppler broadened absorption line is much faster than the collisional relaxation time, and when the power density of the linearly polarized laser radiation is sufficient to cause optical pumping. Using a laser pulse of duration 1.3 µs, the frequency sweeps approximately 90 GHz. The variation of the laser tuning rate during the laser pulse, from about100 MHz/ns at the beginning to about 20 MHz/ns at the end, allows the relationship between sweep rate and collisional damping to be investigated. It is shown, by comparing the experimental signals with those calculated by coupled Maxwell–Bloch equations, how the rapid passage effects in nitrous oxide are influenced by the number density, transition cross-section and reorientation lifetime.


In this paper, we investigate the effects of competition on bargained outcomes. We show that the neglect of either fairness concerns or decision errors will prevent a satisfactory understanding of how competition affects bargaining. We conducted experiments which demonstrate that introducing a small amount of competition to a bilateral ultimatum game - by adding just one competitor - induces large behavioral changes among responders and proposers, causing large changes in accepted offers. Models that assume that all people are self-interested and fully rational do not adequately explain these changes. We show that a model which combines heterogeneous fairness concerns with decision errors correctly predicts the comparative static effects of changes in competition. Moreover, the combined model is remarkably good at predicting the entire distribution of offers in many different competitive situations.


Background Tsetse flies transmit trypanosomes that cause human and African animal trypanosomosis, a debilitating disease of humans (sleeping sickness) and livestock (nagana). An area-wide integrated pest management campaign against Glossina palpalis gambiensis has been implemented in Senegal since 2010 that includes a sterile insect technique (SIT) component. The SIT can only be successful when the sterile males that are destined for release have a flight ability, survival and competitiveness that are as close as possible to that of their wild male counterparts. Methodology/Principal Findings Tests were developed to assess the quality of G. p. gambiensis males that emerged from pupae that were produced and irradiated in Burkina Faso and Slovakia (irradiation done in Seibersdorf, Austria) and transported weekly under chilled conditions to Dakar, Senegal. For each consignment a sample of 50 pupae was used for a quality control test (QC group). To assess flight ability, the pupae were put in a cylinder filtering emerged flies that were able to escape the cylinder. The survival of these flyers was thereafter monitored under stress conditions (without feeding). Remaining pupae were emerged and released in the target area of the eradication programme (RF group). The following parameter values were obtained for the QC flies: average emergence rate more than 69%, median survival of 6 days, and average flight ability of more than 35%. The quality protocol was a good proxy of fly quality, explaining a large part of the variances of the examined parameters. Conclusions/Significance The quality protocol described here will allow the accurate monitoring of the quality of shipped sterile male tsetse used in operational eradication programmes in the framework of the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign.


A protein that inhibits apoptosis is essential for the survival of immune memory cells. The humoral immune response, which comprises antibodies secreted by B lymphocytes, is critical for protection against pathogens. In response to infection, B lymphocytes proliferate and differentiate into antibody-producing effector cells. After an infection clears, a small number of cells persist as memory B cells; however, the survival signals that regulate effector and memory B lymphocyte generation are not well understood. To probe this question, Vikstrom et al. deleted prosurvival genes in activated, antigen-specific B cells during a T lymphocyte–dependent immune response in mice. They found that a specific programmed cell death inhibitor, known as Mcl1, was required for the formation of germinal-center B cells (an effector cell population) and memory B cells but not for their maintenance. Dysregulation of the B cell responses mediated by Mcl1 may be a trigger for lymphomagenesis. I. Vikstrom, S. Carotta, K. Lüthje, V. Peperzak, P. J. Jost, S. Glaser, M. Busslinger, P. Bouillet, A. Strasser, S. L. Nutt, D. M. Tarlinton, Mcl-1 is essential for germinal center formation and B cell memory. Science 330, 1095–1099 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


There has been a growing interest in developing remote sensing technologies to quickly assess the condition of bridges while minimizing traffic disruptions and limiting inspection crews' exposure to traffic. Currently, the calculation of the National Bridge Inspection (NBI) Rating for a bridge deck is done by inspectors visually inspecting the bridge deck. 3D optics is an innovative technology that can help assess bridge deck condition while at the same time enhance the ability to preserve the data for future reference and decision making. 3DOBS (the 3D Optical Bridge-evaluation System) was developed to address these issues while at the same time providing data that can be used to understand changes in condition in the future. The system is comprised of standard Digital Single Lens Reflex camera (DSLR) that is mounted to a vehicle, close-range photogrammetry software, and an automated spall detection algorithm. The camera is driven over each lane of the bridge collecting photos with a 60% overlap and then processed in the photogrammetric software. The resulting output is a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the bridge deck. This is then processed through the spall detection algorithm to identify spalls, calculate area and volume of individual spalls, and percent of the total bridge deck that is spalled. This information can be integrated into bridge management systems and decision making processes on bridge preservation.


Abstract An analysis of worker participation was carried out as part of a larger study on strategies for managing occupational safety and health in small businesses that hire immigrant workers. This analysis was based on the triangulation of three data sources: interviews with those who answered the questions on behalf of the small business owners or managers (n = 28); occupational health professionals who gave advice to the same small businesses (n = 26); and questionnaires completed by the immigrant workers (self-administered, n = 181). The results converged in that immigrant workers, compared to workers of Canadian origin, received less initial training when hired and were less able to identify risks. Immigrant workers informed their employer less often when they were injured and participated less in investigations following an accident. Many did not have protective equipment and, where the employer did provide it, they were less inclined to wear it. Generally, insufficient effort was made by small businesses to protect or inform immigrant workers of their rights and obligations, or to integrate them into the workplace. The study shows that it would be useful if company directors provided support to manage the occupational safety and health of immigrant workers and compliance with regulations, as well as endeavouring to understand the issues underlying equal labour and management representation in occupational safety and health.


Abstract The General Land Office (GLO) survey records of the Ashley County, Arkansas, area were analyzed for natural attributes including forest composition and structure, prairie communities and aquatic and geomorphological features. Almost 13,000 witness trees from at least 23 families were extracted from the surveys. Most (68% of the total) witness trees were black oak (Quercus velutina), pine (Pinus spp.), post oak (Q. stellata), white oak (Q. alba), hickory (Carya spp.) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), with 60% of the taxa having fewer than 20 individuals and 26% represented by a single tree. Witness trees were usually moderate sized with very few small or large individuals noted. The distribution of presettlement grasslands, bottomland forests and upland mixed pine/hardwood forests was approximately mapped across the study area. Catastrophic disturbances mentioned in the GLO records included windthrow, floods, fire, timber harvest and earthquakes. Even during this early period, European settlers were altering the Ashley County landscape with trails, homes, farms, cotton gins and small-scale land clearing. Other notable ecological features in these survey records included large woody debris, wetlands, unique terrain conditions and wild game.


Ammonia (NH3) volatilization is a major pathway of nitrogen loss which limits the
efficiency of urea as a fertilizer when surface-applied to soils. High pH and low cation
exchange capacity in soils have been identified as the principal causes ofNH3 volatilization
from urea. The several approaches proposed to correct such inefficiency in urea, thus far,
were fundamentally based upon delay of urea dissolution and impedance of urea
hydrolysis.
An attempt was made to establish a preferred environment within the urea-soil
reaction zone (microsite) using palm oil mill efiluent (POME) and peat. Both POME and
peat are organic matter-rich, and contain humic substances across their respective organic
matrix. Humic substances have been shown to interact with ammoniacal compounds and
urea. As such, a study was engaged to explore the effects of POME and peat, and their
respective humic derivatives on NH3 volatilization from urea surface-applied to two
Malaysian soils of contrasting pH values.
The organic materials and their humic derivatives were separately matrixed with
urea into pelletised form and evaluated under laboratory regimes for % NH3 volatilization,
pH change and NHt + -N recovery. Estimation ofNH3 volatilization was carried out using a
closed-dynamic air-flow system. Detennination of the chemical and physical attributes of
soils and materials, and measurement of the parameters studied were done using standard
procedures. Characterisation of the POME- and peat-derived humic substances was
performed using chemical and spectral methods.
Results showed that reduction in NH3 volatilisation by peat-treated urea was more
pronounced than that of POME in both soils. Such reduction was accompanied by a
corresponding increase in NH4+ recovery and decrease in pH particularly at the microsite.
The use of differing matrixing ratios did not yield significant variation in the performance
of matrixing agents. Acidification of POME and peat resulted in impedance of urea
movement from micro site to outersite.