— Electromagnetic interference (EMI) issues are expected to be crucial for next-generation system-on-package (SOP) integrated high-performance digital LSIs and for radio frequency (RF) and analog circuits. Ordinarily in SOPs, high-per-formance digital LSIs are sources of EMI, while RF and analog circuits are affected by EMI (victims). This paper describes the following aspects of EMI in SOPs: 1) die/package-level EMI; 2) substrate-level EMI; 3) electromagnetic modeling and simulation; and 4) near electromagnetic field measurement. First, LSI designs are discussed with regard to radiated emission. The signal-return path loop and switching current in the power/ground line are inherent sources of EMI. The EMI of substrate, which work as coupling paths or unwanted antennas, is described. Maintaining the return current path is an important aspect of substrate design for suppressing EMI and for maintaining signal integrity (SI). In addition, isolating and suppressing the resonance of the DC power bus in a substrate is another important design aspect for EMI and for power integrity (PI). Various electromagnetic simulation methodologies are introduced as indispensable design tools for achieving high-performance SOPs without EMI problems. Measurement techniques for near electric and magnetic fields are explained, as they are necessary to confirm the appropriateness of designs and to investigate the causes of EMI problems. This paper is expected to be useful in the design and development of SOPs that take EMI into consideration.


A significant percentage (50‐70%) of patients with metastatic breast carcinoma (MBC) will have disease involving the bony skeleton. Clonal selection mediated by parathyroid hormone‐related protein and other factors may explain the high incidence of osseous metastases in MBC. The presence of specific growth factors and cytokines in the microenvironment of bone may contribute to the successful establishment and growth of metastatic lesions and also might determine response or resistance of these lesions to chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. Osteolytic bone lesions in MBC frequently give rise to serious clinical problems including bone pain, pathologic fracture, hypercalcemia, and neurologic complications. MBC often is treated with systemic chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. The purpose of this article was to review the recent published literature describing the impact of systemic chemotherapy and hormonal therapy of MBC on the response of bone lesions and their clinical course and complications. Evaluating the response of bone lesions can be problematic and may be complicated by the phenomenon of "tumor flare" that may be observed with either chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. Use of the International Union Against Cancer criteria for the response of bone lesions is recommended. Several studies report objective responses (20‐60%) of lytic bone metastases to standard combination chemotherapy regimens such as cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and 5‐fluorouracil and cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and 5‐fluorouracil, mitoxantrone and 5‐FU, newer combinations, and single agents including paclitaxel and docitaxel but responses to vinorelbine may be less frequent. Complete responses of bone lesions to chemotherapy are rare but partial responses and disease stabilization can lead to long term patient benefit. A series from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center of patients with bone metastases treated with 5‐FU, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide chemotherapy reported a median duration of response of 14 months. In a recent multicenter study of 195 patients with lytic lesions from MBC treated with chemotherapy, the objective response rate (complete response + partial response) in bone was 18% and 65% of the patients developed at least 1 morbid skeletal event with a median onset of 7.0 months from the start of chemotherapy. Hormone‐dependent breast carcinoma has a proclivity to metastasize to bone. In earlier studies comparing aminoglutethimide or medroxyprogesterone acetate with tamoxifen, a higher response rate of bone metastases was observed for the first two agents. However, in more recent studies comparing newer aromatase inhibitors, such as anastrozole, fadrozole, and letrozole, with megestrol acetate, there were no significant differences in rates of response in bone. Patients with MBC with bony lesions respond to both chemotherapy and hormonal therapy and can have a prolonged survival. Therefore such patients are in a more favorable position to benefit from adjunctive supportive therapy such as bisphosphonates intended to reduce skeletal morbidity. Cancer 1997; 80:1646‐51. © 1997 American Cancer Society.


In the three day International Workshop on Models and Representations of Musical Signals papers were presented on physical modeling, non-linear dynamic systems for modeling and composition, sound editors using graphical representations, higher level representations of musical signals and their structure, but also papers on pitch/tone recognition and perception, and even the optical reading of scores. The two main issues that emerged from this wide scope of research interests was the problem of control and the choice of the proper representations, each motivated from both musical and perceptual standpoints.


Like the other information technology (IT) markets that comprise the Internet ecosystem, markets for broadband communications services are characterized by rapid innovation, declining costs, product differentiation and the potential for competitive price discrimination, network effects, and "multi-sidedness." Broadband ISPs make large, sunk cost investments and seek to differentiate their products in order to be able to earn economic returns on those investments. They seek to assemble and/or participate in systems that create new value for consumers, and do so by picking and choosing both the platforms in which they participate and the products with which they interconnect. They experience both supply-side economies of scale and scope and demand-side externalities that create powerful incentives to increase volumes by maximizing system openness, but, as with other IT firms, these incentives do not always outweigh the costs of interoperability. This paper examines the competitive dynamics of broadband through the lens of the economic literature on competition in IT markets. It concludes that broadband markets are shaped by three sets of characteristics that distinguish competition in IT markets from competition in more traditional ones. Like other IT markets, broadband: (1) is characterized by high sunk costs, declining costs, and rapid innovation (dynamism); (2) functions as a complementary component in modular platforms (modularity); (3) is subject to demand-side economies of scope and scale (network effects). It is generally agreed that these characteristics have important implications for competition analysis, including increased focus on market dynamics and on "vertical" relationships among market participants, reduced emphasis on traditional structural presumptions, and the need to assess efficiency and competitive effects of various forms of conduct on a case-by-case basis. One implication of this analysis is that the central metaphor used in the analysis of communications markets today – the notion that broadband networks are uniquely at the "core" of the Internet while content, applications and devices are at the "edge" – is at best misleading, and in any case does not justify differential policy treatment. To the contrary, for purposes of competition analysis, it is no longer possible to distinguish meaningfully between the competitive characteristics of broadband markets and other IT markets. Accordingly, there is no basis for asymmetric regulatory treatment – for ex ante regulation of broadband services and ex post antitrust scrutiny of other IT markets. The unavoidable conclusion is that competition oversight of broadband markets should be conformed to modern antitrust principles.


The present paper works on the potential applicability of design The present paper works on the potential applicability of design research based on a practical experience with the Portuguese company Recipor --- Recuperação e Valorização de Resíduos (residues recovery and valuation), S. A., who's mission is to collect, treat and valuate in a profitable way plastic residues e non iron metals, with domestic or industrial origins. The ecological appeal, the economical recovery process and the innovation investment justified the choice and the decision of taking this company as a subject to study design's influence on building and confirming it's corporate identity and in the implementation of design culture and thinking. The empirical search on collecting processes, treatment and application of residues took place at the company's premises. From the direct contact with raw materials, equipment and finished products we developed a quality based methodology study. The results denoted a strong relation between the company's vision, the organizational strategy and the market's affection for recycled products. This triangulation allowed a favourable environment for a temporary inclusion of a design investigating team, and leads to the understanding that, as the high-level project orientations were exposed, the expectation increased and acquired a more instrumental format with strategic effects. Grounded on data from field literature we draw the path of thermoplastics in general and of PVC specifically. We must highlight the growth of the investment made in collecting and recycling; the birth of a European network of certified recycling companies and the enormous applicability of this material on artefact production. This project's boundaries were established by practical challenges introduced by the company's direction; namely the optimization of the plastic reel products. The team's proposals were the result of the adopted design process.


Access to and use of safe drinking water can contribute enormously to health, productivity and social development. This study was conducted to assess the existing water supply and demand scenario of Dilla Town, Southern Ethiopia. To achieve the objective of the study, a total of 187 households were randomly selected and interviewed by using semi structured questionnaire. To collect the required data, interview schedule, observation, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were used. In addition, different documents were reviewed. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The survey result revealed that the town water supply cannot fulfill consumer demand for water. Obsolete supply system, electric power supply problem, lack of institutional capacity and budget shortage are the basic factors for this imbalance. According to the survey results, the average per capita consumption was found to be less than the recommended standard, which is approximately at least 20 L of water per person per day. In line with this, the most frequent complaints by water customers were regular interruption of water supply and unfair water distribution. The collected data also showed that there is prolonged water shortage in the town. Consequently, in order to narrow the supply and demand gap, expansion of water supply services that match with the town development must be carried out, the town water supply service enterprise should devise a mechanism so as to assure the equitable distribution of water among the residents and the concerned stakeholders should discharge their respective responsibilities properly.

 Key words: Dilla town, water distribution, drinking water, supply and demand gap.


This paper analyzes the syntactic structure of the construction represented by How many books did Ken borrow and Kim steal in total?, in which the semantics of the left-edge nominal (e.g., how many books) is cumulatively "shared" by the objects of the two clausal conjuncts. While efforts have been made to analyze the semantics of the construction in the literature, the syntax of the construction has been understudied and been considered a challenge to generative grammar. Extending Chaves's (2012 'Conjunction, cumulation and respectively readings', Journal of Linguistics 48:297-344) analysis for a subject-sharing construction, I propose a predicate-formation analysis for the construction. While providing a possible syntactic derivation for the construction, this research also probes the properties of the specific type of A-bar movement involved in the formation of a predicate.


We answer a long-standing open question by proving in ordinary set theory, ZFC, that the Kaplansky test problems have negative answers for aleph_1-separable abelian groups of cardinality aleph_1. In fact, there is an aleph_1-separable abelian group M such that M is isomorphic to M oplus M oplus M but not to M oplus M .


To perform a current sensing in capacitorless 1-transistor (1T) DRAMs on SOI, we have developed a sensing scheme with automatic reference generation. The reference current is generated by an adjustable current source. The electrical calibration of the reference current source is performed using a digital-to-analog converter and a successive approximations algorithm. By setting the reference just below the current of the data state "1", the data retention time in the holding mode is maximized. The proposed scheme is evaluated in a 2-kb test chip implemented in a 1-/spl mu/m partially depleted (PD) SOI process. The measured retention time under holding conditions is higher than 1s. In the continuous read mode, a few hundreds of the read cycles can be performed without a refresh operation. The test chip measures an access time of 25 ns with a read cycle time of 70 ns.


ABSTRACT: Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Acetylcholinesterase inhibition is one of the proposed mechanisms for treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Currently, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine are applied in different stages of Alzheimer's disease teratment. In recent years, various heterocyclic systems have been used as a skeleton to discover new acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. On the other hand, it is known that the benzoxazolone heterocyclic structure exhibited a wide range of biological activities. In this study, a series N-substituted-5-chloro-2(3H)-benzoxazolone derivatives were synthesized and evaluated their acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity. These compounds were synthesized by Mannich reaction of 5-chloro-2(3H)-benzoxazolone with the appropriated amines. The acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity of the title compounds was determined by colorimetric Ellman's method. The preliminary screening results indicated that 5-chloro-2-(3H)- benzoxazolone scaffold demonstrated different inhibition range against acetylcholinesterase enzyme depending on the structural differences. KEY WORDS: acetylcholinesterase Inhibitory activity, 2(3H)-benzoxazolone, mannich reaction, Ellman's method, synthesis.


Importance Proton beam radiotherapy (PBT) has the potential to reduce toxic effects in the definitive management of locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but long-term prospective data are lacking. Objective To report the final (5-year) results of a prospective study evaluating concurrent chemotherapy and high-dose PBT to treat unresectable stage III NSCLC. Design, Setting, and Participants In this open-label, single-group assignment study, with median follow-up of 27.3 months for all patients and 79.6 months for survivors, 64 patients were enrolled and analyzed; inclusion criteria were unresectable IIIA/IIIB histologically confirmed NSCLC, Karnofsky performance status 70 to 100, and 6-month prediagnosis weight loss of no more than 10%. Staging used positron emission tomography and/or computed tomography. Induction chemotherapy was allowed. Interventions Concurrent chemotherapy (carboplatin-paclitaxel) and passively scattered PBT (74-Gy relative biological effectiveness) in all patients. Main Outcomes and Measures Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), actuarial distant metastasis, and locoregional recurrence. Patterns of treatment failure were categorized as local/regional or distant. Acute and late toxic effects were prospectively assigned using Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, v3.0. Results Of 64 patients (22 [34%] female; median [range] age, 70 [37-78] years; stage IIIA, 30 [47%]; IIIB, 34 [53%]), 17 (27%) were alive at last follow-up. Median OS was 26.5 months (5-year OS, 29%; 95% CI, 18%-41%). Five-year PFS was 22% (95% CI, 12%-32%); 5-year actuarial distant metastasis and locoregional recurrence were 54% (n = 36) and 28% (n = 22), respectively. Treatment failures were largely (31 [48%] patients) distant, with low rates of crude local (10 [16%]) and regional (9 [14%]) recurrences. Rates of grade 2 and 3 acute esophagitis were 18 (28%) and 5 (8%), respectively. Acute grade 2 pneumonitis occurred in 1 (2%) patient. Late toxic effects were uncommon: 1 (2%) patient developed an esophageal stricture (grade 2) and 1 (2%) grade 4 esophagitis. Late grades 2 and 3 pneumonitis occurred in 10 (16%) and 8 (12%), respectively. Two (3%) patients developed a bronchial stricture (grade 2), and 1 (2%) a grade 4 bronchial fistula. There were no acute or late grade 5 toxic effects. Conclusions and Relevance Concurrent chemotherapy and PBT to treat unresectable NSCLC afford promising clinical outcomes and rates of toxic effects compared with historical photon therapy data. Further optimization of proton therapy, particularly intensity-modulated proton therapy, is still needed.


Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) is defined as a chronic symptom-based disease that affects the upper gastrointestinal tract, resulting in mucosal damage caused by the retrograde flow of gastric acid from the stomach through an incompetent cardiac sphincter into the lower oesophagus. Typically, symptoms include dyspepsia, epigastric pain, heartburn, belching, bloating, nausea, early satiation and postprandial fullness. Several risk factors have been identified, which mainly include alcohol (15%), aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (25%), corticosteroids, obesity and pregnancy (10%), hiatal hernias (60-80%), hypercalcaemia, Helicobacter pylori infection (40-90%) and hypersecretory states (Zollinger-Ellison syndrome). Complications of GORD include non-oesophageal reflux disease, erosive oesophagitis, Barrett's oesophagus and adenocarcinoma. A study in the USA showed that GORD was responsible for the greatest direct cost of any gastrointestinal disease, and most of that expenditure was on pharmacotherapy. The pharmacological management of GORD will be the focus of this article. Keywords : gastro-oeosophageal reflux disease, gastric secretion, dyspepsia, proton-pump inhibitor, histamine-2-receptor antagonists


Climate change will increase the frequency of extreme weather events, making more geographic places inhospitable to human habitation and secure livelihoods. This report presents a detailed picture of the potential impacts of climate change on migration in Asia and the Pacific. It draws upon a wealth of research to provide policy makers with informed analysis of an emerging phenomenon requiring urgent attention by governments and the international community. The report also suggests that climate-induced migration should be seen not only as a threat to human well-being but also as a potential tool to promote human adaptation to climate change.


Adoption of hybrids and improved varieties has remained low in the smallholder farming sector of South Africa, despite maize being the staple food crop for the majority of households. The objective of this study was to establish preferred maize characteristics by farmers which can be used as selection criteria by maize breeders in crop improvement. Data were collected from three villages of a selected smallholder farming area in South Africa using a survey covering 300 households and participatory rural appraisal methodology. Results indicated a limited selection of maize varieties grown by farmers in the area compared to other communities in Africa. More than 97% of the farmers grew a local landrace called Natal-8-row or IsiZulu . Hybrids and improved open pollinated varieties were planted by less than 40% of the farmers. The Natal-8-row landrace had characteristics similar to landraces from eastern and southern Africa and closely resembled Hickory King, a landrace still popular in Southern Africa. The local landrace was preferred for its taste, recycled seed, tolerance to abiotic stresses and yield stability. Preferred characteristics of maize varieties were high yield and prolificacy, disease resistance, early maturity, white grain colour, and drying and shelling qualities. Farmers were willing to grow hybrids if the cost of seed and other inputs were affordable and their preferences were considered. Our results show that breeding opportunities exist for improving the farmers' local varieties and maize breeders can take advantage of these preferred traits and incorporate them into existing high yielding varieties.


Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) or IEEE 802.11, was formed in 1990 to
exchange information by using radio frequency rather than wires. This standard
transmits information by three types of frame: data frame, control frame, and
management frame.
To provide security for WLANs, different security protocols have been designed such
as: wired equivalent privacy (WEP), wifi protected access (WPA), and the strongest
one, IEEE 802.11i (WPA2). Unfortunately all of the mentioned protocols provide
security only for data frame. Control and management frames are transmitted without
any protection even in IEEE 802.11i. The lack of protection on management frames
causes an intruder to launch different types of attack on the WLAN such as forgery,
session hijacking, denial of service and man-in-the-middle attack, which can lead to
expose the whole WLAN.
To address the problem, this thesis proposes and evaluates a new per frame security
model which is called Management Frame with Integrity and Authentication (MFIA) to authenticate transmitted management frames. The proposed model uses a secret key
and a new random sequence number (RSN) to secure communication between devices
in WLAN and to prevent intruder from exposing the WLAN. The proposed model
checks the authentication of a sender and the integrity of the management frames.
The proposed model has been evaluated by quantifying the probability of finding a
proper RSN by intruder, probability of different current common attacks on
management frames, and also required time for the specified attacks. The results show
that MFIA provides a high security level for management frames in all IEEE 802.11
standards. Required times to launch the attacks, show that allocating the specified
time by intruder is almost impossible in the proposed model so that makes the
mentioned attacks impractical. Results also show the proposed model can prevent a
variety of attacks on management frames.


In conventional economic theory, competition is an unmodelled process that is claimed to drive all economic actors to behave as if they were constrained optimisers. What is actually modelled in conventional economic theory is either a competitive equilibrium that is said to capture the result of the unmodelled competitive process or a game between two or, occasionally, among three agents. The common element in these approaches is the absence of any consideration of the effect of interaction among more than three economic actors at any one time. This is despite the natural presumption that such interaction is essential to any process of competition. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the interaction excluded from conventional economic theory gives rise to the distributions of data observed in real markets. The well known fat-tailed (leptokurtic) distributions found in high frequency time series data for financial markets is shown to characterise high frequency retail market data as well. This and other statistical signatures of real markets are replicated in an abstract simulation model of markets in which intermediaries (brokers or jobbers) can function. It is shown that a high density of agents in the social network is necessary for intermediation to be viable and for the preponderance of demands to be satisfied. Moreover, the leptokurtic statistical signature characterises only markets satisfying that density condition.


Objectives: To observe and compare the treatment effect of multiple insulin injections and insulin pump therapy on pregnant women with gestational diabetes.
Methods: From January, 2015 to May, 2017, 90 pregnant women with gestational diabetes enrolled in Linyi Chinese Medicine Hospital were collected and randomly divided into research group and reference group. In the research group, 45 patients were treated with insulin pump therapy. All 45 patients in the reference group were treated with multiple insulin injections therapy. General treatment effect of these two groups was then observed and compared.
Results: After treatment, in research group, patients' fasting blood-glucose level was 5.2 ± 0.6 mmol/L, 2 h post-meal blood sugar level was 7.3 ± 1.2 mmol/L and the blood-glucose standard time was 2.5 ± 0.8 d; However, in the reference group, the fasting blood-glucose level was 6.8 ± 0.6 mmol/L, 2 h post-meal blood sugar level was 8.8 ± 1.2 mmol/L and the blood-glucose standard time was 6.9 ± 1.4 d, P<0.05. When comparing the changes of peripheral blood sugar between the 2 groups after treatment, in research group, the peripheral blood sugar level was 4.8 ± 0.7 mmol/L before breakfast, 5.3 ± 1.2 mmol/L after breakfast, 5.8 ± 1.2 mmol/L before lunch, 5.4 ± 1.2 mmol/L after lunch, 5.2 ± 1.0 mmol/L before dinner, 6.3 ± 1.1 mmol/L after dinner, 6.7 ± 1.4 mmol/L before sleep, while in reference group, the peripheral blood sugar level was 3.6 ± 0.8 mmol/L before breakfast, 6.5 ± 2.3 mmol/L after breakfast, 6.6 ± 1.5 mmol/L before lunch, 7.3 ± 1.5 mmol/L after lunch, 5.8 ± 1.2 mmol/L before dinner, 8.6 ± 1.7 mmol/L after dinner, 7.3 ± 1.3 mmol/L before sleep, P<0.05. Hypoglycemia occurred more frequently in reference group than in the research group after calculation and observation.
Conclusion: Compared with multiple insulin injections therapy, the project of treating gestational diabetes patients with insulin pump therapy has more precise effect. Additionally, it has great safety and reliability, along with huge application value.


The fluorescence of dissolved organic matter (DOM) is suppressed by a phenomenon of self‐quenching known as the inner filter effect (IFE). Despite widespread use of fluorescence to characterize DOM in surface waters, the advantages and constraints of IFE correction are poorly defined. We assessed the effectiveness of a commonly used absorbance‐based approach (ABA), and a recently proposed controlled dilution approach (CDA) to correct for IFE. Linearity between corrected fluorescence and total absorbance (ATotal; the sum of absorbance at excitation and emission wavelengths) across the full excitation‐emission matrix (EEM) in dilution series of four samples indicated both ABA and CDA were effective to an absorbance of at least 1.5 in a 1 cm cell, regardless of wavelength positioning. In regions of the EEMs where signal to background noise (S/N) was low, CDA correction resulted in more variability than ABA correction. From the ABA algorithm, the onset of significant IFE (>5%) occurs when absorbance exceeds 0.042. In these cases, IFE correction is required, which was the case for the vast majority (97%) of lakes in a nationwide survey (n= 554). For highly absorbing samples, undesirably large dilution factors would be necessary to reduce absorbance below 0.042. For rare EEMs with ATotal > 1.5 (3.0% of the lakes in the Swedish survey), a 2‐fold dilution is recommended followed by ABA or CDA correction. This study shows that for the vast majority of natural DOM samples the most commonly applied ABA algorithm provides adequate correction without prior dilution.


Trauma lives in the body and is passed on unless it is confronted, creating an opportunity for the body to heal. Art in education spaces can provide opportunities for such healing because of the body's spontaneous response to art. If we can learn to sit in the pain, shame, fear, and deeply personal responses that trouble the body, the body becomes a tool for listening, learning, healing, and growing. By applying affect theory to art, we are able to access difficult content and open up discourse around self-love, community building, and restitution. This pivot point, the affective turn, is the moment when healing emerges.


Sports injury research has predominantly focused on acute injuries, often overlooking the complexities that may be associated with chronic injury. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to understand the experiences of individuals who continued to take part in sport with a chronic injury. Using a narrative methodology, 10 athletes who had experienced chronic pain for at least one year took part in interviews which asked them to narrate their story of pain. Results identify the imprisonment metaphor used to describe chronic injury and consider that the causes of this imprisonment may be both physical and environmental. Further, this study illustrates how athletes have coped with chronic pain, emphasizing the body-self relationship and the difficulties associated with adapted sport. These findings have important implications for practitioners working with injured athletes, emphasizing that the experiences of athletes in chronic pain may differ considerably from those in acute pain.


In a turbulent environment, organizations face different challenges in everyday business. Companies are forced to respond quickly applying different marketing strategies in order to preserve and eventually improve their competitive position in the market. In order to be able to react in the right way, companies need to implement marketing orientation.
The main aim of the research in this dissertation is to determine the extent to which the application of marketing orientation contributes to the success of fruit and fruit juice producers. The research on the relationship between marketing orientation and business performance of the company was carried out in the following way: in the first step, it was analyzed to which extent the surveyed companies were marketing oriented, and then, in the second step, it was examined whether there is a statistically significant link between the application of marketing orientation and chosen business indicators.
Following performances of fruit juice producers were selected: business success, competitive position, innovation capacities, ability to create value for all participants in the chain and long-term linkages with consumers and other stakeholders.
The obtained research results have led to significant findings. It was established that fruit and fruit juice producers continue to develop marketing, but they are even insufficiently focused on consumers, and even less on competition. It was proven that the application of marketing orientation is significantly associated with their business success, competitive position and innovation capacities. The research also identified the existence of a positive impact of marketing concept on reducing the differences between perceptions and expectations of consumers on one side and the delivered value on other side, which ultimately results in value increase for all participants in the chain.
The hypothesis about the positive correlation between long-term linkages of fruit juice producers with consumers and other stakeholders with business and national competitiveness is supported. Finally, the directions of further research that would lead to more complete examination of the analyzed links are proposed.


Wong, Jean K. 1986. Variation of wood properties within a dominant and a suppressed tree of tamarack [ Larix laricina (Du Roi) K. Koch ]. 72 pp. Major Advisor: Professor K.C. Yang Keyword: tracheid length, specific gravity, ring width, latewood percentage, within-tree variation, juvenile wood, Larix laricina. Radial and axial variations of tracheid length, specific gravity, ring width, and latewood percentage were studied from the stems of a dominant and a suppressed tamarack tree. The trees were 81 and 83 years old respectively, grown in a natural stand near Thunder Bay, Ontario. Specimens were taken from every other ring from the pith to bark along the south and north aspect, at heights 0.15, 1.5, 4.5, 7.5, 10.5, 13.5, and 16.5 m in the tree stems. Juvenile wood and mature wood in the stem were distinguished by using the variation pattern of tracheid length as the criterion. In the mature wood of the dominant and suppressed trees, the average tracheid lengths were 3.16 mm and 2.96 mm, specific gravities 0.48 and 0.45, ring widths 1.09 mm and 0.85 mm, and latewood percentages 36.7% and 35.1% respectively. In the juvenile wood of the two trees, the average tracheid lengths were 2.11 and 2.10 mm, specific gravities 0.48 and 0.44, ring widths 2.36 mm and 1.97 mm, and latewood percentages 29.7% and 33.1% respectively. At all heights sampled, tracheid length increased radially from the pith outward, and leveled off at a certain ring age towards the bark. The rate of increase in tracheid length with ring age increased with height. The ring age at which tracheid length started to level off was used as the boundary of the juvenile and mature wood. The ring age of the boundary decreased with increasing height. Average tracheid length of the juvenile and mature wood increased axially from the base upward, reaching a maximum at the 4.5 m height, then decreasing to the top. Specific gravity and latewood percentage increased radially from the pith outward in the juvenile wood for most of the heights, while they fluctuated in the mature wood. Specific gravity and latewood percentage varied axially without a definite pattern with increasing height in the dominant tree, and they decreased upward in the suppressed tree. Ring width decreased radially from the pith outward in the juvenile wood, and fluctuated in the mature wood. Axially, the ring width decreased with increasing height slightly in the mature wood, and it increased in the juvenile wood with height from the 1.5 m height upward, reaching a maximum at the 4.5 to 7.5 m heights, and then decreasing to the top. The difference between the south and north aspect was not significant in tracheid length and ring width. Specific gravity and latewood percentage was significantly higher in the south than north aspect. The dominant tree on average had significantly higher values of tracheid length, specific gravity, and ring width than the suppressed tree.


Fire prone ecosystems dominated by Pinus pinaster Ait. and Pinus halepensis Mill. are the forests most affected by fire in the Mediterranean Basin. Consequently, they are priority ecosystems to study the ecological consequences of changes in fire regimes, which are expected in the current context of global change. The objective of this Doctoral Thesis is to analyze the effects of different regimes of fire recurrence and burn severity in fire-prone ecosystems dominated by P. pinaster and P. halepensis.
The starting point has been to study the ability of multispectral Landsat scenes to characterize fire recurrence (article I) and burn severity (article II) in pine forests affected by large forest fires. The spatio-temporal patterns of wildfires during the period 1978-2014 were determined by visual analysis of Landsat false-color composites, specifically using Landsat 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 time series (MSS, TM, ETM + and OLI respectively). Then, fire scars were validated with the official wildfire reports. This method allowed mapping all fires documented in the official wildfire reports, demonstrating that the use of Landsat image time series is an effective tool to characterize fire recurrence. Similarly, to characterize burn severity we calculated different spectral indices (thermal, reflective and mixed metrics) using Landsat imagery. The ability of these metrics to determine the soil burn severity, the vegetation burn severity and the site burn severity (soil plus vegetation) along a climatic gradient was evaluated using linear regression models. We calculated the CBI (Composite Burn Index) in field plots to be used as ground truth in the evaluation of the performance of the spectral indices. Overall, bi-temporal indices based on the near-infrared and short-wave infrared regions of the spectrum (dNBR -differenced Normalized Burn Ratio- type indices) showed a high capacity to quantify the vegetation burn severity and site burn severity, whereas the capacity of Landsat spectral indices to determine the soil burn severity was relatively low. Additionally, we found large differences in indices performance along the climatic gradient, so we proposed a new spectral index, the dNBR-EVI, which shows greater capacity to determine burn severity and better transferability throughout of the different climatic conditions than the previously existing indices.
To investigate the effects of burn severity on soil properties, we conducted a study immediately after the fire (1 week) in a P. pinaster forest with siliceous soils (article III) and another study over the medium term after the fire (3 years) in both, P. pinaster and P. halepensis ecosystems, with siliceous and calcareous soils respectively (article IV). Results showed significant effects of burn severity on most soil properties studied immediately after the fire (aggregate size, pH, organic carbon, available phosphorus, microbial biomass carbon, and enzymatic activities β-glucosidase and acid phosphatase), as well as in some ratios between these properties (C:N ratio, microbial quotient and the specific activity of β-glucosidase). Among these properties and quotients, those related to enzymatic activities showed the highest sensitivity to fire, as they start to decrease at low severities. Over the medium term after the fire, we found that some soil properties (available phosphorus, microbial biomass carbon and enzymatic activities) remained affected by burn severity. The microbial biomass carbon, the β-glucosidase activity and the urease activity decreased with burn severity in the two studied ecosystems, and therefore, they could be used as potential indicators to investigate the burn severity legacy over the medium term after the fire in Mediterranean fire-prone pine forests.
The effects of fire recurrence and burn severity in the natural regeneration of vegetation were studied through remote sensing methods (article V) and through studies based on field information, focused on both the pine population (article VI) and the woody plant community (article VII). In the study based on remote sensing methods, we used the difference of the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) calculated with Landsat to estimate the vegetation greenness recovery after the fire. Results indicated that, following the fire (2 and 5 years), areas affected by high severity showed a low greenness recovery. On the contrary, the areas with high fire recurrence showed higher greenness recovery than low recurrence areas, because of the dominance of shrub species in high recurrence scenarios, which require less time than trees to reach the pre-fire situation. The field study revealed that in low recurrence and low severity areas the density and coverage of P. pinaster and P. halepensis seedlings was relatively high and enough to ensure the recovery of the tree canopy. As opposed, in the areas affected by high recurrence (3 fires in 34 years), as well as moderate recurrence with high severity (2 fires in 34 years), the natural regeneration of pines was endangered due to the lack of a viable seed bank. At the community level, we found that shifts in fire recurrence and burn severity modified the woody species diversity, as well as the species relative cover depending on their functional traits. The effects were particularly significant in the regions with summer drought such as Mediterranean areas. In general, our results indicated that woody vegetation with (i) non-arboreal life form, (ii) high specific leaf area, (iii) nitrogen fixing capacity, (iv) resprouting ability, (v) low seed mass or (vi) heat-stimulated germination may be more resilient to increases in fire recurrence and severity.
The results obtained in this PhD Thesis contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the discipline of fire ecology, and provide the scientific basis for an efficient forest management in fire-prone pine forests of the Mediterranean Basin. Likewise, this work can be considered as a reference to design forest management strategies in the face of future changes in fire regimes.


In this paper we consider communication from a source to a destination over a wireless network with the help of a set of authenticated relays. We focus on a special "diamond" network, where there is no direct link between the source and the destination; however the relay nodes help to establish such a communication. There is a single adversarial node which injects signals to disrupt this communication. Like the source, it can only influence the destination through the relays. We develop an approximate characterization of the reliable transmission rate in the presence of such an adversary. This is done by developing an outer bound, and demonstrating an achievable strategy that is within a constant number of bits of the outer bound, regardless of the channel values. A deterministic version of the same problem is solved exactly, yielding insights which are used in the approximate characterization.


A general automotive navigation system is a satellite navigation system designed for use in automobiles. It typically uses GPS to acquire position data to locate the user on a road in the unit's map database. However, due to recent improvements in the performance of small and light weight micro-machined electromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial sensors have made the application ofinertial techniques to such problems, possible. This has resulted in an increased interest in the topic of inertial navigation.In location tracking system, sensors are used either individually or in conjunction like in data fusion.However, still they remain noisy, and so there is a need to measure maximum data and then make an efficient system that can remove the noise from data and provide a better estimate.The task of this thesis work was to take data from two sensors, and use an estimation technique to provide an accurate estimate of the true location. The proposed sensors were an accelerometer and aGPS device. This thesis however deals with using accelerometer sensor and using estimation scheme, Kalman filter.This thesis report presents an insight to both the proposed sensors and different estimation techniques.Within the scope of the work, the task was performed using simulation software Matlab. Kalman filter's efficiency was examined using different noise levels.


This article explains how the contingent of complex interactions among pre-existing structural settings, institutional constraints, processes of regional and international transformative events, and uniquely combined developments within and between different contenders in the aftermath of the Second World War shaped Northern Ireland socio and political relations and thus instigated the Civil Rights Movement mobilization process. By re-introducing the time-space context into our studies of collective action, through a relational reading, my intent first is to advance our understanding of those episodes and complex patterns of interaction that give rise to social movements, and second to move beyond the static movement-centric approach explanation and away from the a-historical nature of much of the social movement literature. My historical-sociological research, into the longitudinal case study of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement mobilization, involves secondary and new empirical primary sources, such as archival analysis, qualitative examination of Northern Ireland daily newspapers during the 1960s, and the collection of 35 semi-structured interviews with key players from the Civil Rights Movement.


This work focuses on the specification of the threshold autoregressive model and forecasting. We consider U.S. Export is the amount of oil exported from January 1991 to December 2004. We present threshold models that are special cases of the procedure for non-linear models on average above TAR (threshold autoregressive). This means that we start with a simple model and we use a more complicated model if the diagnostic tests indicate that the model obtained is not satisfactory. We will use this procedure to compare an approach of ARMA models and approach the nonlinear threshold for the series. Between the two methods, the prediction threshold autoregressive model is better in the mean square error.


In this paper, we report the fabrication of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) by electrospinning of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) solution in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF)with different concentrations followed by stabilization and carbonization in a tubular quartz furnace. To improve the electrochemical performance, graphene nanosheets have been used to prepare porous graphene/carbon nanofibers (G-CNFs). The morphology of the porous G-CNFs were characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Diameter of CNFs and G-CNFs were found to be in the range of 400 – 500 nm reveals the fibers in nanoscale with high porosity. The electrochemical performance of as-synthesized CNFs and G-CNFs was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The CV curve of the pure CNFs show distorted rectangular shape whereas CV curve of G-CNFs exhibit a nearly rectangle-shaped profile which is the characteristic of an ideal electric double-layer capacitor. The improved electrochemical performance of G-CNFs is due to the improved internal electrical conductivity of G-CNFs via graphene nanosheets interlaying.


The popularity of online and anonymous options to report crimes, such as tips websites and text messaging, has led to an increasing amount of textual information available to law enforcement personnel. However, locating, filtering, extracting, and combining information to solve crimes is a time-consuming task. In response, we are developing entity and document similarity algorithms to automatically identify overlapping and complementary information. These are essential components for systems that combine and contrast crime information. The entity similarity algorithm integrates a domain-specific hierarchical lexicon with Jaccard coefficients. The document similarity algorithm combines the entity similarity scores using a Dice coefficient. We describe the evaluation of both components. To evaluate the entity similarity algorithm, we compared the new algorithm and four generic algorithms with a gold standard. The strongest correlation with the gold standard, r = 0.710, was found with our entity similarity algorithm. To evaluate the document similarity algorithm, we first developed a test bed containing witness reports for 17 crimes shown in video clips. We evaluated five versions of the algorithm that differ in how much importance is assigned to different entity types. Cosine similarity is then used as a baseline comparison to evaluate the performance of the document similarity algorithms for accuracy in recognizing reports describing the same crime and distinguishing them from reports on different crimes. The best version achieved 92% accuracy. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Alanine scanning mutagenesis of B-B-X-X-B motifis (where B is a basic residue and X is any nonbasic residue) in m1 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors was performed to determine the relative roles of basic amino acids in receptor coupling. This conserved motif is found in many G protein-coupled receptors and has been implicated in G protein activation. The KKAAR365 motif, located at the carboxyl-terminal third intracellular loop of m1 receptors, was mutated to AAAAA365, thereby generating a triple-substitution mutant devoid of ability to stimulate either phosphoinositide (PI) hydrolysis or cAMP accumulation. In contrast, a triple-alanine substitution of the KRTPR140 motif in the carboxyl-terminal second intracellular loop, yielding mutant AATPA140, had no effect on receptor coupling to the two independent second messenger pathways. Analysis of a series of single- and double-substitution mutants demonstrate that all three basic residues of the KKAAR365 motif participate in efficient m1 receptor coupling. The presence of second and third basic residues in this motif was absolutely critical for full agonist recognition of a high and low affinity state of the receptor. Mutation of either Lys362 or Lys365, but not-Lys361, abolished guanine nucleotide-dependent conversion of agonist affinity states and correlated with an inability of full agonists to fully activate PI hydrolysis. The different combinatorial double-substitution mutants also revealed that Lys365 was necessary but not sufficient, in the context of the KKAAR365 motif, for efficient receptor coupling. This residue cannot facilitate full agonist-stimulated Pl hydrolysis in the absence of both Lys361 and Lys362. In comparison, the critical residue Lys362 was both necessary and sufficient. Substitution of nearby basic residues Lys361 and Lys365 with alanine yielded mutant AKAAA365, which exhibited partial ability to couple PI hydrolysis after full agonist stimulation. Therefore, Lys365 seems to function in a hierarchal (interdependent) manner with nearby basic residues, whereas Lys361 and Lys362 can act independent of surrounding basic residues to facilitate partial m1 receptor coupling after full agonist stimulation. In contrast, all three residues must be present for stimulation of PI hydrolysis by a partial agonist.


Like fairytales in many other cultures, the folktales of Northern Sudan are not only reflective of the deepest aspects of culture, but also major formative influences on it. However, a central and often overlooked feature of these stories is the role women played as narrators and performers, and the related centrality of female figures within the narrative. In most of the popular stories, the heroine is the one who has all the action, and is not just the pretty girl who awaits her prince. In fact she is self-sufficient, and it is the handsome and valiant prince who figures as an extra. The heroine is always intelligent, resourceful, wily and at times even brutal, but is she who saves the day and performs the needed tricks to save lives and conquer evil. It is only then that she is rewarded with the handsome prince as her prize. It looks like the perfect revenge of women against a patriarchal society which denies them such roles.


With the proliferation of digital cameras and automatic acquisition systems, scientists can acquire vast numbers of images for quantitative analysis. However, much image analysis is conducted manually, which is both time consuming and prone to error. As a result, valuable scientific data from many domains sit dormant in image libraries awaiting annotation. This work addresses one such domain: coral reef coverage estimation. In this setting, the goal, as defined by coral reef ecologists, is to determine the percentage of the reef surface covered by rock, sand, algae, and corals; it is often desirable to resolve these taxa at the genus level or below. This is challenging since the data exhibit significant within class variation, the borders between classes are complex, and the viewpoints and image quality vary. We introduce Moorea Labeled Corals, a large multi-year dataset with 400,000 expert annotations, to the computer vision community, and argue that this type of ecological data provides an excellent opportunity for performance benchmarking. We also propose a novel algorithm using texture and color descriptors over multiple scales that outperforms commonly used techniques from the texture classification literature. We show that the proposed algorithm accurately estimates coral coverage across locations and years, thereby taking a significant step towards reliable automated coral reef image annotation.


Arteriovenous fistula (AVF) creation surgeries necessary for dialysis in patients with end-stage renal disease have traditionally been performed in inpatient settings under general anesthesia. Although more recent studies have demonstrated that these surgeries can be safely performed in outpatient centers with low postoperative complication rates, a direct comparison to surgeries performed in inpatient settings has not been investigated. This study sought to directly compare the rate of complications and postoperative mortality in AVF creation surgeries performed in outpatient and inpatient surgical centers. This multicenter retrospective study recorded emergency department (ED) visits, inpatient admissions, and mortality following 179 outpatient and 146 inpatient AVF surgeries in 2015 and 2016. Rates of mortality at 30 days and ED visits and inpatient admissions at 24-h and seven-day time points were compared in inpatient and outpatient groups. Following outpatient and inpatient surgeries, the rates of inpatient admissions in seven days were 0.685% and 4.47%, respectively, and the rates of ED visits in seven days were 1.37% and 3.91%. There were no mortalities in either group in 30 days. There was no difference between groups in the rate of ED visits within seven days or hospital visits within 24 h. There was a significantly lower rate of admissions (P = 0.0386) and total hospital visits (P = 0.0131) within seven days for outpatient surgeries. This study provides a direct comparison of postoperative complications in inpatient and outpatient AVF surgeries, further suggesting that providers can safely perform AVF surgeries in ambulatory centers.


Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have an increased risk for death from cardiovascular disease (CVD). They have multiple metabolic abnormalities that may accelerate atherosclerosis, such as hypertension, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia, along with other CKD-related risk factors. In addition, a considerable proportion of patients with advanced stages of CKD are malnourished, presenting "metabolic syndrome with malnutrition". The presence of malnutrition/inflammation dramatically changes the apparent relationship between CVD death risk and some risk factors. For example, in stage 5 CKD patients on hemodialysis, a higher body mass index and a higher plasma cholesterol are predictors of better survival. To understand the paradoxic epidemiology, we should recognize risk factors for occurrence of CVD events and risk factors of fatality after an event. In this article, we review the unique situation of CKD, emphasizing the need of more strict control of both types of risk factors to improve survival of CKD patients.


When early Christians began to study the Bible, and to write their own history and that of the Jews whom they claimed to supersede, they used scholarly methods invented by the librarians and literary critics of Hellenistic Alexandria. But Origen and Eusebius, two scholars of late Roman Caesarea, did far more. Both produced new kinds of books, in which parallel columns made possible critical comparisons previously unenvisioned, whether between biblical texts or between national histories. Eusebius went even farther, creating new research tools, new forms of history and polemic, and a new kind of library to support both research and book production. "Christianity and the Transformation of the Book" combines broad-gauged synthesis and close textual analysis to reconstruct the kinds of books and the ways of organising scholarly inquiry and collaboration among the Christians of Caesarea, on the coast of Roman Palestine. The book explores the dialectical relationship between intellectual history and the history of the book, even as it expands our understanding of early Christian scholarship. "Christianity and the Transformation of the Book" attends to the social, religious, intellectual, and institutional contexts within which Origen and Eusebius worked, as well as the details of their scholarly practices - practices that, the authors argue, continued to define major sectors of Christian learning for almost two millennia and are, in many ways, still with us today.


In this paper we study the identification of the b quark inside a boosted hadronically decaying top quark in the center-of-mass frame of the jet. We demonstrate that the method can be used to greatly reduce the QCD jet background even in a very high pileup condition. The method has a much smaller fake rate for QCD jets compared to typical b quark identification algorithms in jets at the same signal efficiency. When combining the b quark identification in the center-of-mass frame of the jet with jet substructure information, we can improve the rejection rate of QCD jet background by almost an order of magnitude while maintaining the same identification efficiency for the boosted top quark.


Tactile perception and haptics are essential for us, as we gain information about structures and surface properties of physical objects by using the sense of touch. Haptics also enables us to manipulate the physical world. The emphasis of this book is put on technologies for artificially deceiving our haptic perception. First, examples and a definition of haptics from a physiological point of view are given. Thereby, one focus is on cases of loss of haptics in everyday professional routine, in order to emphasize the impact of haptics. Then, an overview of products with extraordinary haptic properties leads to a more precise terminology. In the second part of the book, concrete technical aspects of haptic manipulation and manipulators are considered beginning with higher-level subjects like control and kinematics and proceeding with a detailed discussion of actuators and sensors and the interfaces to and from the mechanical environment. In the final chapter fundamental software engineering is introduced, including haptic interaction in virtual reality simulations. "Engineering Haptic Devices" is intended to be a reference book for technologies of haptic relevance as well as a textbook on methods of haptic engineering and applications.It is addressed to students and professionals of engineering disciplines or natural sciences.


Schiff base compounds were synthesized by condensation reaction of 1,4-diaminobenzene, naphthalene-1,5-diamine and 2,6-dichlorobenzene-1,4-diamine compounds with 2,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde. The obtained Schiff bases were converted to their polyphenol derivatives by oxidative polycondensation. Sodium hypochlorite and air were used as the oxidants. Experimental parameters such as temperature, reaction time and oxidant concentration were varied to determine the optimum oxidative polycondensation conditions. The structures of all compounds were confirmed by FT-IR. UV-Vis and H-1- and C-13 NMR analyses. In addition, thermal properties of the Schiff bases and the corresponding polymers were determined by TG-DTA, DSC and DMA techniques. Photoluminescence properties of the synthesized compounds were determined in DMF solutions. Electrochemical characterizations were made by cyclic voltammetry measurements. Solid state conductivities of the polymers were determined by four point probe technique using an electrometer. The number average and weight average molecular weights and polydispersity index values of the synthesized compounds were determined by the size exclusion chromatography.


This chapter analyzes the ways in which gestures compensate for children's difficulties to track reference by linguistic anaphors. The research, carried out on the narratives produced by two groups of Italian children (6 and 10 years old), analyzed both the incidence of representational vs. deictic anaphoric gestures and the functions they both fulfill in relation to linguistic anaphors. Results show that representational strategies play a dominant role in tracking reference in both groups of children; yet, in the far greater majority of cases those produced by younger children disambiguate linguistic anaphoric mistakes, whereas those produced by the older ones make the referents of correct linguistic anaphors more explicit. It is claimed that gesture can compensate for linguistic difficulties; yet, a definition of compensation is given, that is in line with Kendon's interpretation of speech/gesture relationship.


Domestication can be defined as evolution driven by artificial selection by humans, where individuals possessing desirable characteristics are favored and selectively propagated; over time this process leads to morphological, physiological and genetic changes that distinguish domesticated taxa from their wild ancestors, many times to the point in that the domesticated taxon is regarded as a distinct species. In this paper we address plants of Spondias known by the vernacular name umbucaja in Northeast Brazil. These plants are found in managed landscapes, but natural populations have not been identified due to widespread cultivation coupled with the clearing of original vegetation. Umbucaja can be regarded as domesticated because it appears to occur exclusively in cultivation, being actively maintained and propagated by man due to its juicy, delicious fruits. Umbucaja is referred to as being of hybrid origin in the literature, but this hypothesis remains largely untested experimentally. We carried out a thorough comparative examination of the overall morphology and also a morphometric analysis of leaf and fruit characters of populations of umbucaja and other Spondias species found in Northeast Brazil. We also reconstructed phylogenies and haplotype networks based on sequences of two noncoding cpDNA regions and the nuclear ETS region in order to ascertain the genetic affinities of umbucaja. Additionally we estimated the ages of diversification events in Spondias in order to determine when umbucaja diverged from related species. Although displaying some morphometric intermediacy in the leaves, a number of morphological features readily distinguish umbucaja from its nearest relatives Spondias tuberosa and S. venulosa. No haplotypes were found to be shared between distinct Spondias species, except in the ETS dataset where umbucaja and S. tuberosa shared the same haplotype. In the cpDNA dataset, haplotypes of umbucaja are nearest to haplotypes of S. venulosa, but genetic distances within each taxon are smaller than the genetic distance between the two taxa, suggesting different gene pools for each taxon. There is incongruence in the placement of umbucaja haplotypes in the cpDNA versus ETS datasets, and also incongruence in the trees recovered from the phylogenetic analyses of both datasets, which is an indication that umbucaja might have a hybrid origin with S. venulosa and S. tuberosa as its parents. However, umbucaja was found to have diverged from S. venulosa 3.79 million years ago, indicating that this taxon originated from natural processes. Based on the results of the molecular, morphometric, morphological and time divergence investigations we conclude that umbucaja should be regarded as distinct lineage that remained undescribed because at present it seems to be only known from cultivation, and also due to its putative hybrid origin. We therefore describe this taxon as Spondias bahiensis sp. nov.


In this paper, N-polar GaN films were grown on vicinal C-face SiC substrates by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition. In situ porous SiNx interlayers with different deposition times of 0 s to 120 s were adopted in the growth processes of N-polar GaN films. We find that the crystalline quality, such as surface morphology and structural characteristics, of N-polar GaN films can be controlled by changing the deposition time of the SiNx interlayers. The N-polar GaN film with a SiNx deposition time of 60 s exhibits the best crystallinity. Based on the observed porous feature of the SiNx interlayer from the phase image obtained using an atomic force microscope, we propose a model to illustrate the epitaxial growth mechanism of N-polar GaN films grown on the top of the porous SiNx interlayer. In this model, we reveal that the SiNx deposition time determines the SiNx coverage and the nucleated island density of overgrown GaN, which markedly affects the structural characteristics of the N-polar GaN films. This model can also be used to analyze the influence of SiNx deposition times on the stress states in N-polar GaN films. Additionally, the threading dislocation propagation behaviors were observed experimentally from the cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy image of N-polar GaN with a SiNx interlayer, which demonstrates the reasonability of this model. It is reasonably believed that this work provide a valuable information to obtain high-quality GaN films that can be used to the fabrication of N-polar GaN-based optoelectronic devices.


: This paper discusses the legal discourse and Communication as a research device. It also investigates theoretical, descriptive and applied issues of legal discourse and communication manifested in different languages, cultures, systems and societies. Given the central role played by language in the creation of socio-legal reality, learning in this series will focus on synchronic and diachronic forms of linguistics and structures of written and spoken discourse as a system of communication and action within and across the academic, professional and institutional boundaries of law. This paper also focuses on original, high-quality work in legal discourse and communication as well as extending to other social categories where the extensive logical areas are involved. It therefore, also promotes theories and methods taken from, but not restricted to, text and (critical) communication analysis, genre analysis, discussion analysis, corpus-based analysis, socio-linguistics, ethnographic, arbitration discourse analysis. These 'multi-modal' approaches to discursive accounts of legal language and communication in social and cultural formations expand to include rhetoric/argumentation analysis, multilingualism and translation/explanation and provide a medium for analysis across a broad spectrum of humanities and social science disciplines


The Mexican War has long been overshadowed in the public imagination by that most popular of all American wars, the Civil War. And it has been swept under the carpet of national conscience as, at worst, a calculated land grab from a neighbor too weak to defend itself. Otis Singletary's concise, dramatic account of the war that won the Southwest and California for the United States is designed to evoke in modern readers a fresh appreciation of one of the most colorful but neglected episodes in American military affairs-and certainly one of the most significant. Victory in this "military exercise" turned our attention to the Far West, made possible the Gold Rush of '49, and brought vast new territories and new peoples into the Union-altering the face of the nation and greatly influencing its future course. Mr. Singletary treats the military, political, economic, and diplomatic aspects of the war. He focuses on the ways in which the Mexican War exemplified the dynamic spirit of Manifest Destiny and was a microcosm of peculiarly American-and peculiarly democratic-problems of waging war. "All in all, this is the best short account of the Mexican War yet written."-T. Harry Williams, "The Journal of Modern History "


Subcutaneous rupture of the normal stomach is relatively rare. In a complete review of the literature, Glassman 1 was able to collect only fifty-three cases, and he added to this number two of his own. He classified these into three groups. The first group included cases due to severe or moderate trauma, of which there were thirty-two. The one outstanding symptom was shock. However, over 50 per cent showed hematemesis. The second group included those cases in which rupture occurred following very slight trauma. Glassman felt that distention of the stomach was the important predisposing factor in this type. In the third group were cases of spontaneous rupture. Of the fourteen cases collected, all showed a history of overdistention of the stomach due to either overeating or obstruction at the outlet. REPORT OF CASES Case1.—A girl, aged 17 months, entered the hospital on Feb. 5, 1929, in a moribund


Computerised production control developments have concentrated on Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II) systems. The literature suggests however, that despite the massive investment in hardware, software and management education, successful implementation of such systems in manufacturing industries has proved difficult. This thesis reviews the development of production planning and control systems, in particular, investigates the causes of failures in implementing MRP/MRP II systems in industrial environments and argues that the centralised and top-down planning structure, as well as the routine operational methodology of such systems, is inherently prone to failure. The thesis reviews the control benefits of cellular manufacturing systems but concludes that in more dynamic manufacturing environments, techniques such as Kanban are inappropriate. The basic shortcomings of MRP II systems are highlighted and a new enhanced operational methodology based on distributed planning and control principles is introduced. Distributed Manufacturing Resources Planning (DMRP), was developed as a capacity sensitive production planning and control solution for cellular manufacturing environments. The system utilises cell based, independently operated MRP II systems, integrated into a plant-wide control system through a Local Area Network. The potential benefits of adopting the system in industrial environments is discussed and the results of computer simulation experiments to compare the performance of the DMRP system against the conventional MRP II systems presented. DMRP methodology is shown to offer significant potential advantages which include ease of implementation, cost effectiveness, capacity sensitivity, shorter manufacturing lead times, lower working in progress levels and improved customer service.


Explosive volcanic eruptions may be triggered by processes in the conduit, including P-T variations, volatile loss, and crystal growth. These unobserved processes may be inferred via textural and chemical examination of eruptive products. Juvenile clasts were examined from vulcanian explosions of the Soufriere Hills volcano. Here we show that secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) depth profiling into plagioclase phenocrysts provides a nearly continuous record of magma ascent from chamber to surface via high-resolution (~10 nm) chemical profiles of decompression-induced crystal growth. Changes in lithium concentration allow quantification of crystal growth rates, which range from 2 × 10 −8 mm/s to 7 × 10 −8 mm/s. Anorthite variations suggest conduit temperature increases of 50 to 100 °C, assuming contemporaneous overpressures approaching 20 MPa. These data demonstrate a new means of constraining conduit conditions preceding explosive volcanic eruptions.


This research was prompted by the search for a fundamental theory for human resource management (HRM) after 30 years of existence. Applying first generation meta-analysis, the research aimed at identifying missing links in Jiang et al.'s (2012) A-M-O model. Thirty hypotheses were developed that focused on variables of HRM single practices in the A-M-O strategic bundles and made predictions about how they associate with various organizational outcomes. Data were collected at organizational level from 151 primary studies from 1985 to 2015, which extended Jiang et al.'s (2012) collection by 36 primary studies. The comprehensive meta-analysis results showed that there were seven missing links in Jiang et al.'s (2012) model and a correlation analysis showed that the three domains of HRM practices – ability-enhancing, motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing – had both direct and indirect significant associations with various organizational outcomes. The significant links completed Jiang et al.'s (2012) model and a new model was proposed for further research that will confirm an acceptable model and theory for HRM. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study are well discussed for research and management practices.


The aim of this diplom thesis is to provide a robust and e cient solver for large sparse and poor conditioned linear systems arising from the FEmethod for elliptic scalar PDEs of second order. For a counter example the problem of magnetic shielding is used. Therefore the Maxwell's equations for stationary objects are reduced to a scalar PDE of second order with appropriate boundary conditions. In order to solve the equation by means of FEM, a discretization for micro scales is introduced. Especially long thin elements are suggested to keep the number of unknowns small in areas of micro structures. Constructively a nite element analysis is carried out where also a convergence result of the FE-solution in H1 is presented. To achieve an e cient and robust solution strategy the algebraic multigrid method of Ruge and St uben is introduced. Additionally three di erent areas of application are presented for this AMG method, i.e. preconditioner, coarse grid solver for a full multigrid method, and black box solver. Because this AMG method normally works well for M-matrices, a technique is presented to attain M-matrices, if the underlying linear system arises from an FE-discretization. The method to achieve the M-matrix property is based on the element matrices. The algorithm was implemented as black box solver in the nite element package FEPP. Therein AMG was applied as preconditioner for the conjugate gradient method. Some numerical experiments are presented, where long thin quadrilaterals are used with ratio of the longest and shortest side of 1 to 10 3. Additionally parameter jumps of order 10 6 to 10+6 are considered. Concluding AMG has been proven, at least in a numerical way, to be an e cient and robust solver for magnetic shielding problems, if it is used as a preconditioner for the CG-method. If long thin quadrilaterals are used for discretization the modi ed preconditioner also behaves very robust.


Lanthanum fluoride consistently shows two strong thermoluminescence glow peaks at low temperature in pure material near 90 and 128 K. A model is proposed in which these thermoluminescence peaks arise from the annealing of halogen defect sites, similar to the H and Vk centers of the alkali halides. Relaxation and decay of these defects in the pure LaF3 lattice results in broad-band intrinsic luminescence. Addition of rare-earth-impurity ions has two effects. First, the broad-band emission is replaced by narrow-band line emission defined by the trivalent rare-earth dopants. Second, it preferentially determines the formation of the halogen defect sites at impurity lattice sites and such sites appear to increase in thermal stability since the glow peak temperature increases from 128 K in the intrinsic material up to 141 K through the sequence of rare-earth dopants from La to Er. The temperature movement directly correlates with the changes in ionic size of the rare-earth ions, when allowance is made for differences in effective coordination number of the impurity ions. The data suggest two alternative lattice sites can be occupied. The model emphasizes that the intense thermoluminescence signals arise from internal charge rearrangements and annealing of defect complexes, rather than through the more conventional model of separated charge traps and recombination centers. At higher temperatures there is a complex array of glow peaks which depend not only on the dopant concentration but also are specific to each rare earth. Such effects imply defect models giving thermoluminescence within localized complexes and possible reasons are mentioned.


Background: Today, using the mobile phone has grown widely. This massive growth captures the attention of researchers on biological effects of the mobile phone. Evidences have shown that the excessive use of mobile phone has negative impact on the physical and psychological health of users. Aims: The aim is to evaluate the effect of using mobile phones on the students' mental focus when they answer to general scientific questions, simultaneously in Ahvaz, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this practical study, a group of 60 students in the field of health information technology were participated. Participants were evaluated to verify the same level of information homogeneity and the ability of using a mobile phone. Therefore, the students were asked at the first step to respond to general information questions showed in computer monitor. Then, a message including 6–9 words by mobile phone was typed by the subjects while the typing time was registered. Next, they were asked to send a message while answering the questions showed on the monitor screen of the computers, simultaneously. At this step the difference between response accuracy to questions of the graphical test in two phases was analyzed. Results: The study results showed that the average scores of the correct response to graphical test, as typing a text on the mobile phone, was (26.8000) and the average scores of correct response to graphical test without typing a text on mobile phone was (30.2000). Moreover, the average scores when typing a text on mobile phone was 74.40 while the average scores for typing a text on the mobile phone and responding to graphics test, simultaneously was 194.12. Conclusions: The results showed that using the mobile phone has a negative impact on the selected students' performance to respond simultaneously to the general scientific questions.


This paper analyses informal networks and their utilisation during a period of water scarcity in an upstream and a downstream district in the Khorezm Province, Uzbekistan. The evaluation is based on an organisational theory approach on informal networks. Communication patterns between farm managers, district water departments and district governors in a year with a sufficient amount of water and in a year of water scarcity are compared with informal network structures. The analysis shows that in the year of water scarcity an informal network was utilised to receive water. The importance of the informal network increased with increasing experience and individual perception of water scarcity. The findings confirm the assumption that informal networks are utilised more frequently when formal networks fail or are not functional. The case study therefore confirms the importance of an informal network during a crisis.


We examine the impact of aid and export revenue; and their volatilities on domestic private and public investment in Cameroon. Our results show that export revenue is almost three times more volatile than aid. Export has a significant positive impact on both private and public investment, while aid has a positive influence only on public investment. Both export and aid volatilities hurt both types of investment. Through the use of interaction variables, we show that export revenue can completely eliminate the impact of aid volatility on investment, but aid is unable to do same with export volatility. Reducing export volatility is more of a priority for Cameroon than aid volatility.


Air and water permeabilities and gas diffusivity as functions of soil fluid phase (air or water) contents are governing chemical transport and fate processes in the vadose zone, and have frequently been identified as the three main transport parameters determining time and efficiency during soil vapor extraction (soil venting) at polluted soil sites. A mathematically flexible function that can accurately describe data for both soil water retention and all three transport parameters as functions of fluid phase contents in undisturbed soil with bi‐ or multimodal pore structure is required for numerical simulation studies. In this study, a bimodal probability law (BPL) model with a total of six fitting parameters is compared with new and literature data for soil water retention and the three transport parameters measured on undisturbed soils. Saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (K) at six matric potentials (pF) were measured on four volcanic ash soils (Andisols) where data for soil water retention, air permeability (ka), and relative gas diffusivity (Dp/D0) were already available. The BPL model accurately described data for soil water retention and the three transport parameters (K, ka, Dp/D0) for the four Andisols and other soils with bimodal porosity behavior. BPL model parameters did not correlate well between transport processes, however, an existing model for relating saturated hydraulic conductivity to air permeability at −100 cm H2O matric potential performed well for 10 bimodal Andisols. Results indicate that relations between fluid phase transport parameters at given matric potentials may be valid across soil types and useful in the BPL model.


Nanoparticles possess shape and size dependant properties that can be utilized in various applications such as microelectronics, optically active materials, sensors, etc. Methods involving the synthesis and organization of such nanoparticles or nanocrystals are thus of interest. Routes to attain the design and creation of desirable architectures by organization of pre-synthesized nanoparticles using (bio)macromolecules such as DNA have gained attention in recent years. We will discuss bioinspired strategies to synthesize nano- and microparticles based on the use of functional (bio)macromolecules. Such (bio)macromolecules typically facilitate (bio)mineralization via ionic bridges and hydrogen bonding with the growing minerals. These interactions facilitate the self organization of the (bio)macromolecules that can create appropriate scaffolds for structure direction of the growing (bio)minerals. In addition, catalytic residues/sites become available for facilitating the growth of the mineral phase. This mechanism can be exploited not only for silica synthesis but also for the synthesis and nano-patterning of various other systems based on aluminum, germanium, boron, tin, silver, gold, iron, calcium and so on. It is clear that future research in the field of biomineralization and biomimetic materials synthesis based on these concepts will be highly fruitful.


Characterization of the anticipated performance of energy technologies to inform policy decisions increasingly relies on expert elicitation. Knowledge about how elicitation design factors impact the probabilistic estimates emerging from these studies is, however, scarce. We focus on nuclear power, a large-scale low-carbon power option, for which future cost estimates are important for the design of energy policies and climate change mitigation efforts. We use data from three elicitations in the USA and in Europe and assess the role of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) investments on expected nuclear costs in 2030. We show that controlling for expert, technology, and design characteristics increases experts' implied public RD&D elasticity of expected costs by 25%. Public sector and industry experts' cost expectations are 14% and 32% higher, respectively than academics. US experts are more optimistic than their EU counterparts, with median expected costs 22% lower. On average, a doubling of public RD&D is expected to result in an 8% cost reduction, but the uncertainty is large. The difference between the 90th and 10th percentile estimates is on average 58% of the experts' median estimates. Public RD&D investments do not affect uncertainty ranges, but US experts are less confident about costs than Europeans.


Perceptual coding has long been recognized as a promising approach to achieve high efficiency in compressing digital images, since coding bits can be saved from representing the part of the image that is not perceivable by the human visual system (HVS). The perceptual redundancy inherent in color images can be found on the fact that the HVS cannot discriminate color signals of small differences. Color images are therefore expected to be encoded more efficiently if coding distortion can be shaped as the major part of perceptual redundancy. In this paper, the JPEG-LS coder in the near-lossless compression mode is perceptually optimized by making coding errors imperceptible or minimally noticeable. A visual model is introduced to estimate the thresholds of just noticeable distortion (JND) for three color channels of each pixel. With the estimated JNDs, the coding mode of each pixel in each color channel can be appropriately determined, and the quantization stepsize in predictive coding mode can be perceptually tuned for visually lossless encoding. Simulation results show that the performance of the perceptually optimized coder is superior to that of the un-optimized coder in terms of the bit rate required for achieving the same visual quality.


"Odanadi" meaning a friend for all seasons in Kannada, the language spoken by the people of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, is the name of an organization that has translated this verbal expression of human bonding into action. It advocates the cause of trafficked women and children for commercial sex in India. Based in Mysore, Karnataka, Odanadi Seva Samsthe's (Odanadi Welfare Organization) founding duo, K.V. Stanly and M.L. Parashuram, have launched a relentless campaign since 1992 to not only curb and expose the flesh trade, but also rescue, rehabilitate and empower the victims of sexual exploitation. They have rescued 1,230 women and rehabilitated them with alternative livelihoods, freed 650 minors, from the clutches of traffickers in various parts of Karnataka, and as many as 550 children have been reintegrated with their families. The mainstay of Odanadi's approach is its highly successful social policing program. Recognized by both the state and central governments, Odanadi is frequently consulted at the national level on its strategies and the central Human Resource Development Ministry is considering adopting the Odanadi model.


How Are U.S. Startups Using Instagram? An Application of Taylor's Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel and Analysis of Image Features, Functions, and Appeals Robert David Jenkins School of Communications, BYU Master of Arts Social media and their accompanying smartphone apps have opened brands to consumers in unprecedented ways. Of these sites, none, with the exception of Facebook, are more popular than Instagram, a social networking app that is image-centric and image-driven. As a free platform for potentially reaching, attracting, and engaging with millions of consumers, Instagram offers brands an unprecedented avenue for free advertising—all on a relatively level playing field. This means that brands, even startups, have the same access to potential followers as larger, more established brands. This advertising is more fluid, more frequent, and more inconspicuous than traditional advertisements; e.g., magazine spreads, billboards, or commercials. To better understand what elements are commonly found in startups image posts on Instagram, as well as to learn if or how those elements translated to engagement, this study employed a content analysis to deconstruct 438 image posts aggregated from the Instagram accounts of ten U.S. startups. Images were coded for salient image features, viral advertising appeals, fundamental image functions, and creative message segments as outlined by Taylor's seminal advertising model, the six-segment message strategy wheel (1999). Likes and comments were recorded during coding in order to measure engagement. Two approaches to analyzing the data were then taken. First, descriptive statistical analyses were applied to the data to determine how frequently elements appeared among startups' image posts. The second approach involved two phases. In Phase 1, crosstabs were conducted to discover what interrelationships exist among these elements. In Phase 2, a qualitative content analysis of the data compiled from the initial content analysis was conducted to determine if certain schema were commonly manifest among posts with high and low engagement in respects to likes and comments. The subsequent findings indicated that object(s) were the most common image feature, informing was the most common function, ration was the most common image function, and humor was the most popular viral advertising appeal, although as a whole, viral advertising appeals were rarely manifest. The qualitative content analyses suggested that more schema negatively affected engagement than schema that positively affected it, though several important themes and base combinations were perceptible among the top 10 percent of posts in relation to engagement.


Our goal is to invert total organic carbon (TOC) using the multilayer perceptron neural network. Three-dimensional seismic data recorded near two horizontal wells drilled in the lower Barnett Shale Formation are used as input to train a neural machine, while the calculated acoustic impedance from sonic and density well-log data for the horizontal wells is used as output. The multilayer perceptron neural machine is trained in a supervised mode, and weights of connections are calculated. The full 3D seismic data are then propagated through this machine, and a cube of acoustic impedance is inverted. A crossplot of the acoustic impedance versus the TOC is used to provide a linear relationship between these two parameters. This relationship is used to suggest a 3D TOC cube from the inverted cube of the acoustic impedance. Obtained results are checked with the Schmoker's TOC of another horizontal well drilled in the lower Barnett. These results show the ability of the genetic inversion to enhance characterizati...


Adult women survivors of childhood sexual abuse may face numerous lifelong challenges. Recommended therapeutic interventions for survivors assume that the process of reliving and exploring the abuse experience leads to psychological healing. Yet such therapeutic approaches may be traumatizing for both client and counselor and seem to be somewhat limited in affecting change in the numerous areas of concern of many survivors. Strength-based wellness counseling interventions may help survivors develop coping skills to enhance both overall quality of life and everyday functioning across multiple domains, while also providing a healthy foundation from which to explore and reframe their abuse experiences. A case example demonstrates this approach.


In this article, the authors contribute to the literature on predicting and preventing genocide in an international context, focusing on social death practices elaborated in articles II(b)-(e) of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG). Analyzing ex-gay movement texts, the authors apply James Waller's theoretical framework, which explains how ordinary people commit extraordinary acts of brutality, to the rhetoric and public policy advocacy of prominent ex-gay movement organizations and entrepreneurs. Further, they examine the extent to which this new religious movement promotes public policies in the United States and globally, and argue that these policies constitute social death as genocide of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gender peoples based on the UNCG definition. The authors conclude that emphasizing mass murder at the expense of social death constricts our view of genocide at an enormous human cost, including predicting and preventing mass murder, and accentuating the aftermath of genocide, leaving articles II(b)-(e) diminished, understudied, and, therefore, discounted in comparison. They suggest that revitalizing scholarship on social death will broadly enrich the field of genocide studies and enhance collective efforts to forecast and avert genocide in all of its manifestations.


Recently two algorithms have become available to estimate the 10-year probability of fracture in patients suspected to have osteoporosis on the basis of clinical risk factors: the FRAX algorithm and QFractureScores algorithm (QFracture). The aim of this study was to compare the performance of these algorithms in a study of fracture patients and controls recruited from six centers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A total of 246 postmenopausal women aged 50–85 years who had recently suffered a low-trauma fracture were enrolled and their characteristics were compared with 338 female controls who had never suffered a fracture. Femoral bone mineral density was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and fracture risk was calculated using the FRAX and QFracture algorithms. The FRAX algorithm yielded higher scores for fracture risk than the QFracture algorithm. Accordingly, the risk of major fracture in the overall study group was 9.5% for QFracture compared with 15.2% for FRAX. For hip fracture risk the values were 2.9% and 4.7%, respectively. The correlation between FRAX and QFracture was R = 0.803 for major fracture and R = 0.857 for hip fracture (P B 0.0001). Both algorithms yielded high specificity but poor sensitivity for prediction of osteoporosis. We conclude that the FRAX and QFracture algorithms yield similar results in the estimation of fracture risk. Both of these tools could be of value in primary care to identify patients in the community at risk of osteoporosis and fragility fractures for further investigation and therapeutic intervention.


Water data networks are increasingly being integrated to answer complex scientific questions that often span large geographical areas and cross political borders. Data heterogeneity is a major obstacle that impedes interoperability within and between such networks. It is resolved here for groundwater data at five levels of interoperability, within a Spatial Data Infrastructure architecture. The result is a pair of distinct national groundwater data networks for the United States and Canada, and a combined data network in which they are interoperable. This combined data network enables, for the first time, transparent public access to harmonized groundwater data from both sides of the shared international border.


This article argues that the courts should recognize that defense counsel's role is pivotal in criminal cases and take specific steps to strengthen the defendant's right to counsel. The article first examines the courts' view of the criminal defendant's role in four situations: when addressing questions of competency to stand trial, when addressing the propriety of excluding the defendant from various proceedings, when considering the allocation of decision-making authority between the defendant and counsel, and when discussing the responsibility of the pro se defendant. In each of these contexts, the courts generally ascribe a limited role to the represented defendant, relying on counsel to protect and enforce the defendant's rights. The article then argues that the courts should take four steps to strengthen the defendant's right to counsel. First, the courts should recognize a constitutionally protected interest in continuity of representation. Second, the courts should be more receptive to motions for substitute counsel. Third, courts should assure that the defendant is present at all discussions related to whether counsel will continue in the case. Finally, the courts should recognize the unusual responsibility assumed by a pro se defendant and enforce rules disfavoring the decision to proceed pro se. These procedural changes would enhance the fairness of the criminal process by strengthening the defendant's right to counsel.


This chapter surveys the existing empirical literature on international arbitration. It seeks to be thorough but does not claim to be comprehensive. The chapter focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative empirical studies, and covers studies both of international commercial arbitration and international investment arbitration. Part I describes empirical research on the use of arbitration to resolve transnational disputes — in particular, the extent to which parties use arbitration clauses in international contracts, why they do so, and the frequency of international commercial and investment arbitration proceedings. Part II examines arbitral procedures, and Part III considers the applicable law in international commercial arbitration. Part IV looks at the demographics of international arbitrators, with emphasis on their diversity (or lack thereof), and arbitrator decisionmaking, in particular potential biases of party-appointed arbitrators, whether arbitrators make compromise awards, and the psychological aspects of arbitrator decisionmaking. Part V looks at the controversy over studies of outcomes in investment arbitrations. Finally, Part VI examines empirical studies of compliance with and enforcement of international arbitration awards, while Part VII considers their precedential effect, if any.


ABSTRACT The emergence of medium-scale farms is having important consequences for agricultural commercialisation across Africa. This article examines the role of medium-scale A2 farms allocated following Zimbabwe's land reform after 2000. While the existing literature focuses on changing farm size distributions, this article investigates processes of social differentiation across medium-scale farms, based on qualitative-quantitative studies in two contrasting sites (Mvurwi and Masvingo-Gutu). Diverse processes of accumulation are identified across commercial, aspiring and struggling farmers, and linked to contrasting patterns of agricultural production and sale, asset ownership, employment and finance. The ability to mobilise finance, influenced by the state of the macro-economy, as well as forms of political patronage, is identified as a crucial driver. Contrary to assertions that A2 farms are largely occupied by 'cronies' and that they are unproductive and under-utilised, a more differentiated picture emerges, with important implications for policy and the wider politics of Zimbabwe's countryside following land reform.