The paper presents the core methodology for assessing solar radiation and energy production on building rooftops and vertical facades (still rarely considered) of the inner-city. This integrated tool is based on the use of LiDAR, 2D and 3D cadastral data. Together with solar radiation and astronomical models it calculates the global irradiance for a set of points located on roofs, ground and facades. Although the tool takes simultaneously roofs, ground and facades, different methods of shadow casting are applied. Shadow casting on rooftops is based on image processing techniques. On the other hand, the assessment on facade involves first to create and interpolate points along the facades and then to implement a point-by-point shadow casting routine. The paper is structured in five parts: (i) state of the art on the use of 3D GIS and automated processes in assessing solar radiation in the built environment, (ii) overview on the methodological framework used in the paper, (iii) detailed presentation of the method proposed for solar modelling and shadow casting, in particular by introducing an innovative approach for modelling the Sky View Factor (SVF), (iv) demonstration of the solar model introduced in this paper through applications in Geneva's building roofs (solar cadaster) and facades, (v) validation of the solar model in some Geneva's spots, focusing especially on two distinct comparisons: solar model versus fisheye catchments on partially inclined surfaces (roof component); solar model versus photovoltaic simulation tool PVSyst on vertical surfaces (facades). Concerning the roof component, validation results emphasize global sensitivity related to the density of light sources on the sky vault to model the SVF. The low dense sky model with 145 light sources gives satisfying results, especially when processing solar cadasters in large urban areas, thus allowing to save computation time. In the case of building facades, introducing weighting factor in SVF calculation leads to outputs close to those obtained by PVSyst. Such good validation results make the proposed model a reliable tool to: (i) automatically process solar cadaster on building rooftops and facades at large urban scales, (ii) support solar energy planning and energy transition policies.


The Shame of Poverty invites the reader to question their understanding of poverty by bringing into close relief the day-to-day experiences of low-income families living in societies as diverse as Norway and Uganda, Britain and India, China, South Korea, and Pakistan. The volume explores Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's contention that shame lies at the core of poverty. Drawing on original research and literature from many disciplines, it reveals that the pain of poverty extends beyond material hardship. Rather than being shameless, as is often claimed by the media, people in poverty almost invariably feel ashamed at being unable to fulfil their personal aspirations or to live up to societal expectations due to their lack of income and other resources. Such shame not only hurts, adding to the negative experience of poverty, but undermines confidence and individual agency, can lead to depression and even suicide, and may well contribute to the perpetuation of poverty. Moreover, people in poverty are repeatedly exposed to shaming by the attitudes and behaviour of the people they meet, by the tenor of public debate that either dismisses them or labels them as lazy and in their dealings with public agencies. Public policies would be demonstrably more successful if, instead of stigmatising people for being poor, they treated them with respect and sought actively to promote their dignity. This book, together with the companion volume Poverty and Shame: Global Experiences, presents comparable evidence from the seven countries, challenges the conventional thinking that separates discussion of poverty found in the Global North from that prevalent in the Global South. It demonstrates that the emotional experience of poverty, with its attendant social and psychological costs, is surprisingly similar despite marked differences in material well-being and varied cultural traditions and political systems. In so doing, the volumes provide a foundation for a more satisfactory global conversation about the phenomenon of poverty than that which has hitherto been frustrated by disagreement about whether poverty is best conceptualised in absolute or relative terms. The volume draws on the ground-breaking research of an international team: Grace Bantebya-Kyomuhendo, Elaine Chase, Sohail Choudhry, Erika Gubrium, Ivar Lodemel, JO Yongmie (Nicola), Leemamol Mathew, Amon Mwiine, Sony Pellissery and YAN Ming.


The performance of different DFT approaches in combination with dispersion correction is studied for the interaction between aromatic molecules and extended carbon-based materials on the example of the pyridine–graphene system. The basic interaction is modeled using graphene fragments of increasing size as well as periodic boundary conditions. Different DFT-D2/D3 methods are tested for small and medium fragment systems in comparison to wave-function-based CCSD(T) and SCS-MP2 approaches. Furthermore, the adsorption energy between pyridine and extended graphene sheets or periodic modeled graphene calculated by DFT-D2/D3 or nonlocal correlation functionals (vdW-DF) is compared to experimental values. The study of DFT-D performance along different scales reveals the dispersion correction as too strong along increasing graphene fragment sizes. Finally, this leads to different methodology advice for small and extended pyridine–graphene systems.


This research narrative tells the story of a Māori immersion early childhood centre's engagement with the performing arts. In this research, and fundamental to this narrative is the provocation that came from the drama based Community Artist who, joining the centre, listened, shared, planned and lived drama arts practices with the children and teachers. This activity rests within a more extended arts based teaching and research learning initiative (TRLI) known as Move, Act, Play, Sing (MAPS), which also involved provocations from music and dance Community Artists. Drama and storytelling are the focus of the encounters shared here, particularly what might be understood as a 'walking performance' linked to a local mountain, which featured in the children's lives and the life of the centre becoming-Māori. What emerged throughout the overall project was an affirmation of the intricate ties to lived experiences, sensations, encounters, interactions and intensities that are present in children's work. Drama as 'real' or living is supported within the imaginary, where Deleuze identifies 'real' as both virtual and the actual (1988). Attention is drawn to the movement or leakage between virtual and the actual, enabling another of Deleuze's concepts to operate, namely, the rhizome (Sellers, 2013). This research also draws on Deleuze and Guattari's (1988) concept of assemblages of desire invoking the imaginary as a new means of expression affecting unexpected relations and connections, and it is within these emergent, unexpected, yet still anticipated potentials that this article seeks new possibilities for drama in early childhood education.


OBJECTIVE Prompt initiation and intensification of antidiabetic therapy can delay or prevent complications from diabetes. We sought to understand the rates of and factors associated with the initiation and intensification of antidiabetic therapy among commercially insured patients in the U.S. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Using 2008–2015 commercial claims linked with laboratory and pharmacy data, we created an initiation cohort with no prior antidiabetic drug use and an HbA1c ≥8% (64 mmol/mol) and an intensification cohort of patients with an HbA1c ≥8% (64 mmol/mol) who were on a stable dose of one noninsulin diabetes drug. Using multivariable logistic regression, we determined the rates of and factors associated with initiation and intensification. In addition, we determined the percent of variation in treatment patterns explained by measurable patient factors. RESULTS In the initiation cohort (n = 9,799), 63% of patients received an antidiabetic drug within 6 months of the elevated HbA1c test. In the intensification cohort (n = 10,941), 82% had their existing antidiabetic therapy intensified within 6 months of the elevated HbA1c test. Higher HbA1c levels, lower generic drug copayments, and more frequent office visits were associated with higher rates of both initiation and intensification. Better patient adherence prior to the elevated HbA1c level, existing therapy with a second-generation antidiabetic drug, and lower doses of existing therapy were also associated with intensification. Patient factors explained 7.96% of the variation in initiation and 7.35% of the variation in intensification. CONCLUSIONS Approximately two-thirds of patients were newly initiated on antidiabetic therapy, and four-fifths of those already receiving antidiabetic therapy had it intensified within 6 months of an elevated HbA1c in a commercially insured population. Patient factors explain 7–8% of the variation in diabetes treatment patterns.


Popular music has had a long and often complex relationship with political life. A specific event in the mid-1970s ensured that musicians within Northern Ireland could not evade the vexed relationship of pop and politics. After a late night concert in Banbridge, Co. Down in July 1975, a popular Irish outfit called The Miami Showband were viciously attacked by the Ulster Volunteer Force, a Loyalist paramilitary group. In the course of the attack, three members of the band were shot dead, while another was critically injured. As Britain's Melody Maker music paper explained the following week, the attack was 'the first time that musicians [had] been chosen as a target for violence' in Northern Ireland, and local musicians were consequently in 'fear that the province's musical life [might] collapse'.

The event had two long-term effects on popular music-making in Northern Ireland. First, 'the myth of a sectarian-free popular music was shattered'; from now on it would be clear that musicians were 'as likely as anyone else to be identified in the restrictive religious and / or political terms that defined the Troubles'. Second, the attack would stigmatize Ireland - and particularly Northern Ireland - as 'a problem destination for international rock acts'. However, an unexpected consequence of the de facto touring boycott of Northern Ireland was an upsurge of domestic music-making. The late 1970s witnessed a marked increase in popular music-making activities across Northern Ireland, a development that overlapped – quite significantly - with the emergent 'do-it-yourself' ethos of punk, which convinced many youngsters in Northern Ireland (as elsewhere) to write songs that addressed their own everyday lives. This article explores the particular ways in which this political crisis was engaged - and also eschewed - by punk and post-punk bands in Northern Ireland, before addressing important aspects of the post-ceasefire music scene.


Author(s): Carvallo, Juan Pablo; Larsen, Peter H.; Sanstad, Alan H; Goldman, Charles A. | Abstract: Integrated resource planning (IRP) is a process used by many vertically-integrated U.S. electric utilities to determine least-cost/risk supply and demand-side resources that meet government policy objectives and future obligations to customers and, in many cases, shareholders. Forecasts of energy and peak demand are a critical component of the IRP process. There have been few, if any, quantitative studies of IRP long-run (planning horizons of two decades) load forecast performance and its relationship to resource planning and actual procurement decisions. In this paper, we evaluate load forecasting methods, assumptions, and outcomes for 12 Western U.S. utilities by examining and comparing plans filed in the early 2000s against recent plans, up to year 2014. We find a convergence in the methods and data sources used. We also find that forecasts in more recent IRPs generally took account of new information, but that there continued to be a systematic over-estimation of load growth rates during the period studied. We compare planned and procured resource expansion against customer load and year-to-year load growth rates, but do not find a direct relationship. Load sensitivities performed in resource plans do not appear to be related to later procurement strategies even in the presence of large forecast errors. These findings suggest that resource procurement decisions may be driven by other factors than customer load growth. Our results have important implications for the integrated resource planning process, namely that load forecast accuracy may not be as important for resource procurement as is generally believed, that load forecast sensitivities could be used to improve the procurement process, and that management of load uncertainty should be prioritized over more complex forecasting techniques.


ABSTRACT This article explores the links between neuroscience research, movement, and neurological dysfunction in relation to young children's learning and development. While policymakers have recognised the importance of early development the role of movement has been overlooked. A small scale study was undertaken in four early years settings in a London Borough in order to investigate whether an intervention resulted in improved movement experiences for children. This is the first study to assess the quality of movement-play using a newly developed measuring scale. Results showed that an intervention does result in improved movement experiences for young children. Consistently enhanced results were found in relation to the vital role of the adult at the two intervention settings. For Vygotsky the adult role is critical to the quality of play and learning for the child (Siraj-Blatchford 2009). There is scope for a larger scale piece of research spread across different sectors in order to further test the validity and reliability of the scale.


Introduction: The seeds of B. javanica are known as herbal material for anticancer, antimalaria and antiamoeba. Limited report is available on their antidiabetic and antibacterial properties. Methods: Methanol (ME) and Ethyl acetate extracts (EAE) were studied for their inhibition activities on α-glucosidase in vitro, including combination of ME with acarbose and inhibition mechanism. Antibacterial activity was tested by well diffusion and microdilution methods. The extracts were evaluated for their in vitro antioxidant property by DPPH assay, as well as their phenolic and flavonoid contents. Results: ME exhibited a strong α-glucosidase inhibition activity (IC50 271.97 μg/ml) compared to EAE and acarbose (IC50 of 1745.05 and 823.99 μg/ml, respectively). A low dose of ME gave an additive inhibition on α-glucosidase when combined with acarbose. By a kinetic analysis, ME was found to inhibit α-glucosidase in a mixed-type inhibition. Both ME and EAE showed strong antibacterial activities against gram negative and positive bacteria. The strongest inhibition was observed against C. violaceum and S. mutans for ME (MIC of both 0.387 mg/ml) and P. aeruginosa for EAE (MIC 2.938 mg/ml). Both extracts showed weaker antioxidant activities than standards; IC50 664.73 and 4225.40 μg/ml, respectively. ME was rich in phenolics (277.54 mg GAE/100 g DW), unlike EAE (1.86 mg GAE/100 g DW). Conclusion: This study can recommend B. javanica seeds as a source for antidiabetic and antibacterial agents. Combination with acarbose may have important role for the treatment of diabetes mellitus.


The purpose of this study was to determine if a colour difference exists between teeth that had orthodontic appliances bonded to and debonded from them and untreated controls subjected to whitening with 10 per cent carbamide peroxide. The sample consisted of 20 pairs of first and second premolars extracted for orthodontic reasons. The contralateral surfaces were divided into an experimental and control group. The experimental group underwent orthodontic bonding/debonding procedures. Both groups were subjected to 4 hour whitening and 20 hour hydration sessions for 30 days. The L*a*b* colour system was chosen to evaluate any colour change and these changes were calculated by determining the delta E from the L*a*b* values using a colorimeter. Colour change readings were taken before and after each 4 hour whitening. Additional readings were taken at 48 hour intervals for 30 days following the cessation of active whitening. The results were analysed using statistical (ANOVA) and graphical analyses (alpha = 0.05). A colour change difference of 2 CIELAB units was set as being clinically significant. A mean clinical colour difference was found for enamel surfaces subjected to orthodontic bonding/debonding of attachments relative to control sites after whitening. Bonding and debonding procedures resulted in a significant colour difference between orthodontic bonded and control sites at the end of the active period, which became insignificant at the end of the 30 day period of monitoring. Both the control and debonded sites responded to whitening; however, the control sites responded initially to a greater extent; the orthodontic debonded sites did not respond until after 2 weeks of continuous whitening. After the 2 week period the improved response of the debonded sites decreased the colour difference between the two groups.


Mobile code technology offers interesting possibilities to
the practitioner, but also raises strong concerns about security. One
aspect of security is secrecy, the preservation of confidential
information. This thesis investigates the modelling, specification and
verification of secrecy in mobile applications which access and
transmit confidential information through a possibly compromised
medium (e.g. the Internet). These applications can be expected to
communicate secret information using a security protocol, a mechanism
to guarantee that the transmitted data does not reach unauthorized
entities.
The central idea is therefore to relate the secrecy properties of the
application to those of the protocol it implements, through the
definition of a ``confidential protocol implementation'' relation.
The argument takes an indirect form, showing that a confidential
implementation transmits secret data only in the ways indicated by the
protocol.
We define the implementation relation using labelled transition
semantics, bisimulations and relabelling functions. To justify its
technical definition, we relate this property to a notion of
noninterference for nondeterministic systems derived from Cohen's
definition of Selective Independency. We also provide simple and
local conditions that greatly simplify its verification, and report on
our experiments on an architecture showing how the proposed
formulations could be used in practice to enforce secrecy of mobile
code.


The surface of our planet is the result of billions of years of feedback between biota and Earth materials. The chemical weathering of soils and the resulting stream and ocean chemistry bear the signature of the biological world. Physical shaping of the Earth's surface in many regions is a biologically mediated process. Given the pervasiveness of life, it is challenging to disentangle abiotic from biotic processes during field observations, yet it is of paramount importance to quantify these interactions and their feedbacks as the human impact on climate and ecosystems becomes more profound. Here we briefly review the fascinating connection between rocks and life and highlight its significance to science and society.


This article aims at exploring the antinomies and paradoxes of trade mark protection in international investment law. The negative impact of trade mark protection on public health seems counterintuitive or even paradoxical. Strong trade mark protection is usually associated with positive effects on consumer protection and, more generally, there is a sort of mystical thinking about trade marks. Brand names are deemed the keystone of a competitive economy, where individuals are encouraged to do the best they can and make their products recognizable to the public, who will determine their eventual success. However, it is a common criticism that in recent years law makers and judges have expanded the rights of trade mark owners too far, at the expense of the common weal. In some cases, trade marks have been used in an aggressive fashion by corporations in order to chill public health regulation. At the international level, this expansion ultimately determines the emergence of antinomies between intellectual property law and other branches of public international law. This article critically assesses international trade mark protection in order to verify whether such a paradox and the consequent systemic antinomies may be resolved. It also puts forward some legal mechanisms which may help policy makers and adjudicators to reconcile trade mark protection and public health in international investment law.


Background and objectives Family medicine postgraduate programmes in Kenya are examining the benefits of Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) curriculum, as a method to train residents in population-based approaches to health care delivery. Whilst COPC is an established part of family medicine training in the United States, little is known about its application in Kenya. We sought to conduct a qualitative study to explore the development and implementation of COPC curriculum in the first two family medicine postgraduate programmes in Kenya. Method Semi-structured interviews of COPC educators, practitioners, and academic stakeholders and focus groups of postgraduate students were conducted with COPC educators, practitioners and academic stakeholders in two family medicine postgraduate programmes in Kenya. Discussions were transcribed, inductively coded and thematically analysed. Results Two focus groups with eight family medicine postgraduate students and interviews with five faculty members at two universities were conducted. Two broad themes emerged from the analysis: expected learning outcomes and important community-based enablers. Three learning outcomes were (1) making a community diagnosis, (2) understanding social determinants of health and (3) training in participatory research. Three community-based enablers for sustainability of COPC were (1) partnerships with community health workers, (2) community empowerment and engagement and (3) institutional financial support. Conclusions Our findings illustrate the expected learning outcomes and important community-based enablers associated with the successful implementation of COPC projects in Kenya and will help to inform future curriculum development in Kenya.


The Internet is large, but it is finite. We examine the case of several attackers seeking victims in a large population where there is some prior statistic indicating likely viablility. We show that collisions reduce attacker gains: the sum of what several attackers can extract is always less than what a single attacker would extract alone. The problem gets worse as the density of victims in the population decreases.


There is abundant evidence that leadership development leads to positive impact. But how do we define impact, and what factors should be considered when assessing the results of leadership development? Our comprehensive framework is specifically relevant to leadership development and defines four levels of impact (individual, group, organizational, and societal) as well as three factors that contribute to its effectiveness (leader characteristics, leadership solution, and context). Understanding the four levels will enable organizations to clarify the goals and purpose of their development initiatives and know where to focus measurement. Attending to the contributing factors can help organizations understand the results they are getting and take appropriate steps to maximize the impact of their development initiatives.


Current and pending legislation provides colorectal cancer screening reimbursement for previously uninsured populations. Colonoscopy is currently the screening method most frequently recommended by physicians for insured patients. The experience of the SCOPE (Suffolk County Preventive Endoscopy) demonstration project (Project SCOPE) at Stony Brook University Medical Center provides a model for delivering colonoscopy screening to low‐income populations to meet anticipated increasing demands.


This paper joins in the debate on the size of the middle class in Latin America, providing an analysis of its structure and characteristics. Using several measurements, it finds that 40-60 percent of Latin American households are middle class, a share which has consolidated over the past decade. The analysis reveals that gender, age, and education are associated with the likelihood of being middle class. The example of Colombia illustrates that, while growing in size, this income group still faces deficits in crucial dimensions of well-being, such as education, job formality, and health care, which are generally associated with being middle class. The analysis reveals the fragility of this emerging group in the region.


Наведено результати експериментальних досліджень двостадійного термоусідання поліпропіленової термоусадної плівки. Визначено залежності коефіцієнта усідання поліпропіленової плівки в поперечному та поздовжньому напрямках від температури. Порівняно одно- і двостадійне термоусідання. Shrinkage called polymer films capable to contract under the influence of a temperature exceeding the softening temperature of the polymer. Different polymers have different properties at shrink, among which the most important is the shrink degree (shrink coefficient) and shrink stress. Shrink coefficient determines the multiplicity of reducing the linear dimensions shrink film, so that it gets the ability to tightly encircle the products subject to packaging, reproducing its outer contours. The process of packaging products in shrink film consists of two phases: formation package by sealing it in shrink film; shrinkage of the film through its blowing hot air. Hot air is blowing of package realizing by heat chamber or by heat tunnel. The aim of the paper is to investigate the shrink coefficient polypropylene film in the transverse and longitudinal directions, depending on the process temperature. During the implementation of the shrink method in case the object is subjected packing, sharp transitions or sharp edges possible undesirable deformation and/or damage to the object itself, or injury (up to fracture) packaging film (that is destroying the integrity of the package), it would be appropriate to use a two-step incremental shrinkage. Stepwise shrinkage was carried out in two stages: the first stage of the film was in the heat chamber 2 s, and at the next shrink stage – 5 s. In carrying out the experiment was seen addiction at the time that the first shrink stage exceeding 2 s, the relaxation of the film makes it almost fully realized and further shrinkage is negligible. After finishing shrinkage processes coefficient determined after the first stage and the overall shrink and total in the transverse and longitudinal directions, depending investigated transverse and longitudinal coefficients shrink temperature. A comparison of the experimentally obtained graph of the one-step and two-step in shrink follows that when shrink film at one stage, shrink ratio is increasing with increasing operating temperature, whereas the two-stage shrink biggest factor shrink was obtained at a temperature 170 o C . The total shrink degree in two-stage process is almost the same as in the one-step shrink.


We study inference and learning based on a sparse coding model with 'spike-and-slab' prior. As in standard sparse coding, the model used assumes independent latent sources that linearly combine to generate data points. However, instead of using a standard sparse prior such as a Laplace distribution, we study the application of a more flexible 'spike-and-slab' distribution which models the absence or presence of a source's contribution independently of its strength if it contributes. We investigate two approaches to optimize the parameters of spike-and-slab sparse coding: a novel truncated EM approach and, for comparison, an approach based on standard factored variational distributions. The truncated approach can be regarded as a variational approach with truncated posteriors as variational distributions. In applications to source separation we find that both approaches improve the state-of-the-art in a number of standard benchmarks, which argues for the use of 'spike-and-slab' priors for the corresponding data domains. Furthermore, we find that the truncated EM approach improves on the standard factored approach in source separation tasks--which hints to biases introduced by assuming posterior independence in the factored variational approach. Likewise, on a standard benchmark for image denoising, we find that the truncated EM approach improves on the factored variational approach. While the performance of the factored approach saturates with increasing numbers of hidden dimensions, the performance of the truncated approach improves the state-of-the-art for higher noise levels.


This study is aiming to outline the entrepreneurs' opinions regarding to the effect of the Intermediary Management Agencies (IMAs) and the subsidy Operational Programmes (OPs) in the concretisation of their investments. More specific, the study aims into the acquisition of knowledge and information about important subjects of the Operational Programme "Competitiveness" - Action 2.11.2 that concern the modernisation and development of enterprises that belong to the Tertiary Sector of the Central Macedonia Region, such as: Programme's contribution in the development of enterprises and the Greek economy, the entrepreneurs' opinion about the Intermediary Management Agencies in the process of their investments' completion and finally, the exploration of other interesting elements that had significantly contributed in the investments' completion. This research constitutes a first effort to evaluate Operational Programmes of the 3rd Community Support Framework (CSF) that its results will be published, in opposition of the forecasted ex-ante or ex-post evaluations that are produced in the frames of each Intermediary Management Agency's obligations on behalf of the empowered National and Community Committee. In other words, the results of this research will contribute in the activation of an essential dialogue and most important will contribute in the pursued more effective exploitation of the available resources. Taking into consideration the occasional reports of the empowered Community Authorities about Greek Intermediary Management Agencies' weaknesses, among other countries, in the field of rational management and exploitation of the Community resources, we mainly consider particularly useful and topical the discoveries of this research facing the imminent launch of the 4th CSF Operational Programmes.


In this work, we present a new continuously variable transmission concept: the Dual-Hemi Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT). It is designed to have properties we believe are required to apply continuously variable transmissions in robotics to their full potential. These properties are a transformation range that includes both positive and negative ratios, back-drivability under all conditions, kinematically decoupled reconfiguration, high efficiency of the transmission, and a reconfiguration mechanism requiring little work for changing the transmission ratio. The design of the Dual-Hemi CVT and a prototype realisation are discussed in detail. We show that the Dual-Hemi CVT has the aforementioned desired properties. Experiments show that the efficiency of the CVT is above 90% for a large part of the range of operation of the CVT. Significant stiction in the transmission, combined with a relatively low bandwidth for changing the transmission ratio, may cause problems when applying the DH-CVT as part of an actuator in a control loop.


INTRODUCTION
Hazardous drinking is characterized by decisions to engage in excessive or risky patterns of alcohol consumption. Levels of impulsivity and behavioral approach and inhibition may differ in hazardous drinkers and nonhazardous drinkers. A comparison of the relative levels of dimensions of impulsivity and behavioral inhibition and approach in adult men and women hazardous and nonhazardous drinkers may inform treatment and prevention efforts.

METHODS
In the present research, 466 men and women from a community sample were administered the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Approach System (BIS/BAS) scale, and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, version 11 (BIS-11). Relations among the dimensions of these constructs were examined using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), with age and race as covariates.

RESULTS
There were main effects of hazardous drinking on all 3 dimensions of impulsivity, the behavioral inhibition system, and the behavioral activation system Reward Responsiveness, and Fun-Seeking components, with hazardous drinkers scoring higher than nonhazardous drinkers.

CONCLUSIONS
This research provides a better understanding of the manner in which impulsivity and behavioral inhibition and approach tendencies relate to hazardous alcohol use in men and women. The present results have implications for alcohol-related prevention and treatment strategies for adult men and women.


National student feedback surveys are administered in a number of countries, and several of these encompass both campus‐based and distance learning students. The UK Open University achieves a high ranking in the annual National Student Survey (NSS), but there are some anomalies in the results. The NSS questionnaire was administered to three samples of students to explore the origins of these anomalies. The reliability and the validity of the questionnaire were satisfactory, but a substantial proportion of the respondents did not produce valid data. There was a high proportion of 'not applicable' responses to items concerned with learning resources and personal development. Other students responded 'neither agree nor disagree' to these items when 'not applicable' would have been more appropriate. This would have led to low rankings on these scales in the national surveys. Distance learning institutions need to advise their students about the importance of only rating items they have actually experienced or to negotiate changes to the questionnaires themselves if they are to ensure that their activities and achievements are properly represented in national student feedback surveys.


The hulk of Henry VIII's flagship is raised from the seabed in an operation that captures the mind of the nation. An elderly lady whose ancient house is scheduled for demolition dismantles it, piece by piece, and moves it across the country. "On Living in an Old Country" probes such apparently fleeting and disconnected events in order to reveal how history lives on, not just in the specialist knowledge of historians, archaeologists and curators, but as a tangible presence permeating everyday life and shaping our sense of identity. It investigates the rise of "heritage" as expressed in literature, advertising, and political rhetoric as well as in conservation campaigns and urban development schemes, and it explores the relations between the idea of an imperilled national identity and the transformation of British society introduced by Margaret Thatcher. First published in 1985, this updated edition includes an extensive new preface and interview material reflecting on the ongoing debate about the heritage industry which the book helped to kick-start.


Automated understanding and recognition of human activities and behaviors in a smart space (e.g., smart house) is of paramount importance to many critical human-centered applications. Recognized activities are the input to the pervasive computer (the smart space) which intelligently interacts with the users to maintain the application's goal be it assistance, safety, child-development, entertainment or other goals. Research in this area is fascinating but severely lacks adequate validation which often relies on datasets that contain sensory data representing the activities. Availing adequate datasets that can be used in a large variety of spaces, for different user groups, and aiming at different goals is very challenging. This is due to the prohibitive cost and the human capital needed to instrument physical spaces and to recruit human subjects to perform the activities and generate data. Simulation of human activities in smart spaces has therefore emerged as an alternative approach to bridge this deficit. Traditional event-driven approaches have been proposed. However, the complexity of human activity simulation was proved to be challenging to these initial simulation efforts. In this paper, we present Persim 3D-an alternative context-driven approach to simulating human activities capable of supporting complex activity scenarios. We present the context-activity-action nexus and show how our approach combines modeling and visualization of actions with context and activity simulation. We present the Persim 3D architecture and algorithms, and describe a detailed validation study of our approach to verify the accuracy and realism of the simulation output (datasets and visualizations) and the scalability of the human effort in using Persim 3D to simulate complex scenarios. We show positive and promising results that validate our approach.


A combined strontium isotopic ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) and paleontological method is newly applied to a modern lagoon in Egypt's Nile River delta to test its applicability as a paleosalinity proxy. Analyses of 22 surficial samples collected throughout the lagoon include 81 Sr isotopic analyses of mollusks, foraminifera, ostracods, barnacles, bryozoans, serpulid worm tubes, pore water, and gypsum crystals. Two salinity groups are distinguished in each sample: a lower salinity group (~1 ppt) mixed with a higher salinity group (~3‐10 ppt) that, respectively, are interpreted as the modern biocoenosis and an older relict fauna. The relict fauna denotes higher salinity conditions in the lagoon prior to closure of the Aswan High Dam (1964), and the modern fauna records freshening of the lagoon. Recent decreased salinity is a response to regulated Nile River flow and increased discharge into Manzala of fresh water via canals and drains. Quantification of this short-term salinity change holds promise for study of modern lagoons in other world settings, and may provide paleoclimatic information for older lagoon sequences in the Nile River delta and the geologic record.


Despite the fact that inequality and poverty are closely linked, for several decades multilateral organizations, government and even development agencies have prioritized economic growth and the fight against poverty as the objectives of their debates and policies, leaving inequality to one side. As a result, efforts to tackle inequality have been insufficient. Oxfam has calculated that if inequality in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region were to be reduced by five points between 2011 and 2019, some 17.4 million people could move out of poverty. If the opposite were to occur, a five-point increase could result in an additional 18 million people living in poverty. This report explores the causes of inequality in the LAC region, the impacts it has, and makes recommendations for how it can be tackled.


This book explores aspects of the Arabic Grammatical Tradition and Arabic Linguistics from both a theoretical and descriptive perspective. It also touches on issues of relevance to other disciplines, particularly Qur'anic exegesis and jurisprudence. The links between the fields of language and religion are historically strong in the Arabic and Islamic traditions as so much time and effort was spent by grammarians in interpreting the precise meanings of two of the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence - the Quran and Hadith. Prof Suleiman has assembled an international team of experts in this area and presents a thorough review of the sources and arguments. The book will be of interest to all students, researchers and teachers of Arabic Language and Culture.


Abstract The clay mineralogy of the Cretaceous strata of the British Isles is described and discussed within its lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphical framework using published and unpublished sources as well as 1400 new clay mineral analyses. The regional clay mineral variation is described systematically for the following strata: (1) Southern England - Purbeck Limestone Group (Berriasian/Ryazanian; Lulworth and Durlston formations), Wealden Group (Valanginian-Barremian/Aptian; Ashdown, Wadhurst Clay, Tunbridge Wells Sands, Grinstead Clay Member, Wealden Clay, Wessex and Vectis formations), Lower Greensand (Aptian-Lower Albian; Atherfield Clay, Hythe, Sandgate, Folkestone Sands, Ferruginous Sands, Woburn Sands and Faringdon Sponge Gravels formations), Selborne Group (Middle-Upper Albian; Gault Clay and Upper Greensand formations) and the Chalk Group (Cenomanian-Lower Maastrichtian). (2) Eastern England - Cromer Knoll Group (Ryazanian-Upper Albian; Speeton Clay, Spilsby Sandstone, Sandringham Sands, Claxby Ironstone, Tealby, Roach Ironstone, Dersingham, Carstone and Red Chalk (or Hunstanton Red Limestone) formations). (3) Scotland - Inner Hebrides Group (Cenomanian-Campanian; Morvern Greensand, Gribun Chalk, Coire Riabhach Phosphatic Hibernian Greensands formations). (4) Northern Ireland - Hibernian Greensands (Cenomanian-Santonian) and Ulster White Limestone formations (Santonian-Lower Maastrichtian). The stratigraphical patterns of clay mineral variation divide naturally into two types; firstly, the more complex pattern of the Lower Cretaceous strata and secondly, the simple pattern of the Upper Cretaceous. Clay mineral variations in the non-marine and marine Lower Cretaceous strata of England are best explained by the interplay of two main clay mineral assemblages between which all gradations occur. The assemblage which dominates the main clay formations consists of mica, kaolin and poorly defined mixed-layer smectite-mica-vermiculite minerals, and sometimes includes vermiculite and traces of chlorite. It is dominantly of detrital origin and detailed evidence indicates it is derived largely from the reworking of Mesozoic sediments although ultimately from weathered Palaeozoic sediments and metasediments. Although mainly of detrital origin, this assemblage contains a persistent component that formed coevally with the approximate depositional age of its host sediment. Whether this component is of soil origin or was neoformed in the sediment shortly after deposition is unclear. There is little firm evidence indicating the sources of this clay mineral detritus. However, in the strata of the Wealden Group of southern England, mineral trends suggest three sources; one of these was to the west (Cornubian Massif), another must have been the Anglo- Brabant landmass. In the Selborne Group (Middle-Upper Albian) and in the overlying Lower Chalk (Cenomanian) where this assemblage makes its last appearance in the Cretaceous of England, there is good evidence of easterly and south-easterly sources. The second main assemblage tends to be largely monominerallic, and usually dominated by smectite with or without small amounts of mica; less frequently, kaolin, berthierine or glauconite sensu lato is the sole or dominant component. It is considered to be of volcanogenic origin, derived from the argillization of volcanic ash under different conditions of deposition and diagenesis. The source of the ash in Berriasian-Aptian times seems to have been an extensive volcanic field in the southern part of the North Sea and in the Netherlands, whereas in the Albian (and extending into the Cenomanian) a westerly source dominated. The current controversy about the role of climate or pattern of volcanic activity controlling the clay mineral stratigraphy of the Lower Cretaceous is reviewed. In the lower part of the Upper Cretaceous strata of England, Scotland and Ireland, sand-grade glauconite is particularly abundant. Much of it represents the glauconitization of pene- contemporanous volcanic ash, possibly of basaltic origin, associated with continental breakup and the opening up of the Atlantic Ocean and the earliest stages in the development of the Hebridean Tertiary Igneous Province. The Upper Cretaceous Chalk facies of England and Ireland is dominated by a smectite-rich clay assemblage containing mica, and the various hypotheses for its origin (detrital, neoformation, volcanogenic) are reviewed in the light of available mineralogical, chemical and geological data.


This thesis calls upon ideas from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to disrupt readings of the plays and prose of Samuel Beckett predicated upon metaphysical presuppositions.
The Introduction focuses upon such presuppositions in the criticism of Martin Esslin. In Chapter one, substantial passages of Kantian exposition are given to prepare the ground for a parallel between Kant's critique of metaphysics and those Beckett texts examined through Chapters One, Two, Three and Four. In this first chapter, the limits which Kant places on possible knowledge are compared to the frustrations imposed upon the investigative duo of Beckett's Rough for Theatre II. Chapter Two considers Krapp's Last Tape as a parody of both Proustian and Manichaean metaphysical profundities. Chapter Three examines the consequences of staging the fabrication of a recognizably `Beckettian' image of the human condition in Catastrophe. Chapter Four engages with the textual specifications of The Lost Ones via an 'immanent' method of analysis, in opposition to `transcendent' or allegorical readings capable of promoting themes of metaphysical import.
Chapter Five marks a turning-point in the thesis. It investigates why analysis of The Lost ones should prove as troublesome as it does in Chapter Four. As a response, it details Beckett's efforts toward narrative 'indetermination' and links this process to the equally troublesome `noumenon of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Chapter Six reassesses the parallels drawn between Beckett and Kant thus far. The paradoxes and flat contradictions contained in Chapters One to Four provide the materials for Chapters Six's re-appraisal of the main thesis pursued here, that a critique of metaphysics can be found in Beckett's works analogous to that supplied by Kant. A secondary thesis is that a tendency toward self-defeat during such an interpretation is inevitable. The Conclusion reassesses this contention.


China has been confronting an unprecedented urban development ever since the initiation of economic reforms and the 'open door' policy in the 1980s. The urbanization in China has its very own characteristics due to its special political structure and cultural and historical background. Meanwhile, China has faced the transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy. Facing the rapid urban growth and socioeconomic change, however, the urban planning in China is actually far behind the development pace and needs reforms in both institutional and philosophical aspects. In addition, urban planning should have innovation to guide the unexpected fast urbanization process and to achieve a sustainable development in the new century. In this paper, the urban development and urban planning in contemporary China will be examined by the case study of Chengdu—one of the largest metropolises in Western China. In this research, historical materials were collected to show the historical background of China and Chengdu's changing urban development and urban planning practices from 1949 to 1976. Statistical data and government documents were collected to assess the economic development and demographic transition in Chengdu. In addition, GIS (Geographic Information System) were using in this study for spatial analysis. Land use and urban planning maps were applied in ArcGIS to reveal the detailed urban land use changes and urban growth patterns in Chengdu in the past two decades. Also, some important urban development projects and programs are discussed and illustrated by photos in this study as the results of the urban planning and various government strategies. The purpose of this research is to show the result of the 'Go west' program that launched by the national government in 1999, also, to reveal the great economic and urban development potential of western Chinese cities in the near future. The case study of Chengdu will provide a better understanding of the driving forces behind urbanization in contemporary China and the factors shaping this process. A better understanding of the economic and urban development in western China could improve the government's decision-making process for lessen the differences between eastern and western China in the future.


In the Missouri Ozark Mountains, species of the white-rot wood decay fungus Armillaria contribute to oak decline. To investigate the relationships of Armillaria species with their hosts, the DNA fingerprinting technique PCR-RFLP of the IGS region was modified and refined to efficiently identify to species Armillaria isolates collected from sites within the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP). Isolates were successfully identified as A. mellea, A. tabescens, and A. gallica. Contingency table analyses of the Armillaria species found in 2002 with their host tree species revealed that both A. mellea and A. gallica are equally recovered from recently dead dogwood hosts although A. mellea is significantly recovered more often from recently dead oak species, specifically red oak species. Analyses of isolates collected from stumps in 2003 and 2004 revealed no significant difference in the recovery of A. mellea, A. gallica, or A. tabescens from red and white oak species stumps.


North America is more a political and an economic invention than a place people call home. Nonetheless, the region shared by the United States and its closest neighbors is an intriguing frame for comparative American studies. "Continental Divides" is the first book to study the patterns of contact, exchange, conflict, and disavowal among cultures that span the borders of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Rachel Adams considers a broad range of literary, filmic, and visual texts that exemplify cultural traffic across North American borders. She investigates how our understanding of key themes, genres, and periods within U.S. cultural study is deepened, and in some cases transformed, when Canada and Mexico enter the picture. How, for example, does the work of the iconic American writer Jack Kerouac read differently when his Franco-American origins and Mexican travels are taken into account? Or how would our conception of American modernism be altered if Mexico were positioned as a center of artistic and political activity? In this engaging analysis, Adams charts the lengthy and often unrecognized traditions of neighborly exchange, both hostile and amicable, that have left an imprint on North America's varied cultures.


Food insecurity is common place among 44% (six million) of Zambian population. Conservation agriculture (CA) is an option being promoted to address this problem. There is little evidence showing whether CA adopters are better than non-CA adopters in terms of food security. Using a four years panel data, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, informal discussions and personal observations, this study documents the differences in household food security between CA adopters and non-CA adopters in relation to pulses. Results showed that most common pulses grown among smallholder farmers were groundnuts, cowpeas, soya beans and other beans. A tendency for the percentage of households growing pulses to be significantly higher among CA-adopters than among non-CA adopters was recorded. Cash income from pulses as percentage of total pulses production was significantly higher among CA adopters than among non-CA adopter in all the four years. Similar results were obtained for crop diversity and mean number of meals with pulses eaten in a day. Cases of women increasing their cash income from pulses because of CA practices were also reported. Focus group discussants explained that CA had reduced the intensity of food shortage during the peak hunger period because of early green harvest. With reference to pulses, it is concluded from this study that, among sampled smallholder farmers, CA adopters are relatively more food secure than non-CA adopters. Factors contributing to increased food security included farmer trainings in CA, increased access to planting seed, early land preparation and planting, and revitalisation of the practice of crop rotation.


Machine ethics is a sprouting interdisciplinary field of enquiry arising from the need of imbuing autonomous agents with some capacity for moral decision-making. Its overall results are not only important for equipping agents with a capacity for moral judgment, but also for helping better understand morality, through the creation and testing of computational models of ethics theories. Computer models have become well defined, eminently observable in their dynamics, and can be transformed incrementally in expeditious ways. We address, in work reported and surveyed here, the emergence and evolution of cooperation in the collective realm. We synoptically discuss how our own research with Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT) modelling and experimentation leads to important insights for machine ethics, such as the design of moral machines, multi-agent systems, and contractual algorithms, plus their potential application in human settings too.


STUDIES ON CYCLOOXYGENASE-1, ITS SPLICE VARIANTS, AND MODULATION OF CYCLOOXYGENASE-2 BY INDUCIBLE NITRIC OXIDE SYNTHASE AND NOVEL PHYTOCHEMICALS Yibing Xu Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Doctor of Philosophy Cyclooxygenases (COXs) are of important therapeutic value as they are the target site of aspirin-like drugs. Here I report nine new COX-1 splice variants in chapter 1, which I characterized with regard to heme-binding and other properties. Inducible NO synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) are co-inducible in many tissues following mitogenic and proinflammatory stimulation. In chapter 2, I investigate the physical and enzymatic properties of human COX-2 and iNOS and demonstrate that, despite reports to the contrary by another laboratory, they do not interact. The only reported COX-1 splice variant to exhibit cyclooxygenase activity has been isolated from dog brain and is termed COX-3. It contains an in-frame insertion of intron 1. However the existence of human COX-3 remains questionable since intron 1 is out of frame. Two putative in-frame human COX-3 isozymes, COX-1b2 and COX-1b3, (herein designated as COX-3-72 and COX-3-50) have been reported in the literature, but only one of them, COX-3-72, has been characterized. In chapter 3, COX-3-50 and COX-3-72 are reported to be over-expressed and determined to be active cyclooxygenases. COX-3-72 and, to a greater extent, COX-3-50, were stimulated by rofecoxib at physiological concentrations. A similar rofecoxib-stimulated COX activity is observed in quiescent A549 cells. Immunoblot and immunoprecipitation analysis suggest that human platelet and potentially A549 cells, contain a COX-3-50 like protein. Lonicera japonica is used as an anti-inflammatory treatment in traditional Chinese medicine. Its working mechanism is not well known. In chapter 4, I report that extracts from this herb inhibit COX-2 by three mechanisms: direct inhibition, transcriptional and post-transcriptional down regulation. COX-1 and COX-2 are similar to each other in their crystallographic structures. One of the most striking differences is that there are eight amino acids immediately following the signal peptide in COX-1 which are not found in COX-2. The function of this sequence is unknown. In chapter 5, I found that deletion of these amino acids decreased COX-1 Vmax by approximately 4-fold, but had little effect on other properties of the enzyme. Selecting bacteria transformed with recombinant plasmids is a laborious step in gene cloning experiments. This selection process is even more tedious when large numbers of clones need to be screened. In appendix I, I describe an ultra fast plasmid screening method. This new method was frequently used in the experiments performed in chapters 2-6.


In physics, the number of observed spatial dimensions (three) is usually taken as an empirical fact, without a deep theoretical explanation. In this paper, we provide a possible simple geometric explanation for the 3-D character of the proper space. We also provide a simple geometric explanation for the number of additional spatial dimensions that some physical theories use. Specifically, it is known that for some physical quantities, the 3-D space model with point-wise particles leads to meaningless infinities. To avoid these infinities, physicists have proposed that particles are more adequately described not as 0-D points, but rather as 1-D strings or, more generally, as multi-D "M-branes". In the corresponding M-theory, proper space is 10-dimensional. We provide a possible geometric explanation for the 10-D character of the corresponding space.


The majority of conventional controlled release technologies tend to be based around encapsulant systems in which a polymeric binder or gel typically responds to changes in the local environment in which the delivery device has been placed. The contents are often released when the particle, capsule, film or droplet is exposed to the appropriate physico-chemical trigger (typically a change in pH) with the timerelease-dose delivery characteristics controlled through manipulation of the encapsulant formulation. The adaptation of this core strategy for use in the next generation of transdermal microdevices or smart patch is explored. The core rationale of this work relates to the development of microneedle patches and other delivery architectures, which upon activation by an appropriate electrochemical trigger, leads to the release of a drug. The methodology adopted herein focused on the use of cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) as pH sensitive barrier films structured for use within a number of microscale (patch, implant, microneedle and microdroplet) devices. The barrier film was used as a means of entrapping a model drug with the controlled release of the latter achieved through the exploitation of the hydrogen evolution reaction. The application of an electrode potential resulted in an increase in the local pH thereby inducing the controlled dissolution of the barrier film and facilitating the release of the drug. A variety of approaches have been investigated leading from the use of standalone CAP films through to its direct incorporation as a component in the electrode material itself. The design and characterisation of the carbon composite material from a film to the development of conductive microneedles and electronic sutures is described. The ability to electrochemically manipulate the structural integrity of the composite structures and the ability to affect the controlled release of model drugs is critically appraised.


AIM
To examine whether rendezvous endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is associated with less pancreatic damage, measured as leakage of proenzymes, than conventional ERCP.

METHODS
Patients (n = 122) with symptomatic gallstone disease, intact papilla and no ongoing inflammation, were prospectively enrolled in this case-control designed study. Eighty-one patients were subjected to laparoscopic cholecystectomy and if intraoperative cholangiography suggested common bile duct stones (CBDS), rendezvous ERCP was performed intraoperatively (n = 40). Patients with a negative cholangiogram constituted the control group (n = 41). Another 41 patients with CBDS, not subjected to surgery, underwent conventional ERCP. Pancreatic proenzymes, procarboxypeptidase B and trypsinogen-2 levels in plasma, were analysed at 0, 4, 8 and 24 h. The proenzymes were determined in-house with a double-antibody enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Pancreatic amylase was measured by an enzymatic colourimetric modular analyser with the manufacturer's reagents. All samples were blinded at analysis.

RESULTS
Post ERCP pancreatitis (PEP) occurred in 3/41 (7%) of the patients cannulated with conventional ERCP and none in the rendezvous group. Increased serum levels indicating pancreatic leakage were significantly higher in the conventional ERCP group compared with the rendezvous ERCP group regarding pancreatic amylase levels in the 4- and 8-h samples (P = 0.0015; P = 0.03), procarboxypeptidase B in the 4- and 8-h samples (P < 0.0001; P < 0.0001) and trypsinogen-2 in the 24-hour samples (P = 0.03). No differences in these markers were observed in patients treated with rendezvous cannulation technique compared with patients that underwent cholecystectomy alone (control group). Post procedural concentrations of pancreatic amylase and procarboxypeptidase B were significantly correlated with pancreatic duct cannulation and opacification.

CONCLUSION
Rendezvous ERCP reduces pancreatic enzyme leakage compared with conventional ERCP cannulation technique. Thus, laparo-endoscopic technique can be recommended with the ambition to minimise the risk for post ERCP pancreatitis.


Obstetric cholestasis is a liver disease of pregnancy that can be complicated by sudden, hitherto unexplained, intra-uterine fetal death. Because intra-uterine death occurs suddenly, and because fetal heart rate abnormalities have been reported in obstetric cholestasis, we hypothesized that intra-uterine death is caused by impaired fetal cardiomyocyte function, resulting in fetal cardiac arrest. Obstetric cholestasis is associated with raised levels of maternal and fetal serum bile acids, and we propose that these may alter cardiomyocyte function. It was not possible to investigate the effects of bile acids on the intact human fetal heart at a cellular level. Therefore we used the closest available model of fetal myocardium at term: a primary culture of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes in which cells beat synchronously and develop pacemaker activity. The effect of the primary bile acid taurocholate (0.3 mM and 3 mM) on cultures of single cardiomyocytes, each with its own independent rate of contraction, was a reversible decrease in the rate of contraction and in the proportion of beating cells (P < 0.001). Addition of taurocholate to a network of synchronously beating cells caused a similar decrease in the rate of contraction. Furthermore, the integrity of the network was destroyed, and cells ceased to beat synchronously. Taurocholate also resulted in altered calcium dynamics and loss of synchronous beating. These data suggest that raised levels of the bile acid taurocholate in the fetal serum in obstetric cholestasis may result in the development of a fetal dysrhythmia and in sudden intra-uterine death.


Bone can be described as a highly ordered composite of type I collagen integrated with an inorganic mineral phase. In vitro models of bone mineralization using collagenous substrates have been reported in the literature. This study reports an in vitro system of mineralized reconstituted collagen fibers, with aligned fibrillar substructure. The collagen fibers were minerali'zed in a double diffusion chamber saturated with respect to calcium and phosphate. The morphology and ultrastructure of the mineral precipitate were evaluated as a function of the pH of the incubating media. Brushite crystal was observed at acidic pH. Large rectangular crystals formed at pH 5.15 and appear to associate with the collagen fibers. At neutral and alkaline pHs, hydroxyapatite crystals were observed in association with the collagen fibers . Spherical aggregates of hydroxyapatite crystals were seen at neutral and alkaline pHs, but these structures were reduced in size when formed on collagen at alkaline pH. On close examination these spherical structures were found to be hollow when viewed in cross section. The crystals precipitated within the interior of the collagen fiber at neutral and alkaline pHs were comparable in both size and shape to crystals observed in mineralized turkey tendon and skeletal tissues. These preliminary observations indicate that with further refinement the reconstituted collagen fibers may prove useful in model systems for the study of collagen mediated mineralization in vitro. In addition, mineralization of collagenous matrices may lead to the development of biomaterials for bone repair and replacement.


Review: What We Know About Climate Change By Kerry Emanuel Reviewed by Matthew Aaron Tennant Regent's Park College, University of Oxford Emanuel, Kerry. What We Know about Climate Change. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. 87 pp. ISBN 9780262050890. US$14.95, hardcover. Alkaline paper. What We Know about Climate Change is part of the Boston Review Series from MIT Press. The aim of the series is to provide "accessible, short books that take ideas seriously" (p. 87). Kerry Emanuel's contribution to the series hits its mark. This book is accessible (few technical terms) and short (85 pages of fast-reading text), and Emanuel engages the reader with an overview of the current scientific knowledge about climate change. He writes clearly, so this book will be of interest to the general reading public. Book clubs will enjoy this book because non-specialist members will be hard-pressed to find an excuse for not reading it. Emanuel begins with "the myth of natural stability." He argues there is a delicate balance in nature, and the environment does not naturally sustain itself. The second chapter is a lay explanation of greenhouse physics. He presents the concepts in an easy-to-follow format. The third chapter examines the difficulty of the climate problem. Emanuel explains the interdependency of climate variables and the chaos of climate forcing. Chapter four connects the physics of chapter two and the complexity of the climate in chapter three with anthropogenic climate change. He considers the difficulty in distinguishing between human-caused factors and natural variations in climate patterns. By introducing readers to parameterization, Emanuel suggests one of the weaker areas of predicting the future of climate change. The consequences of climate change are as complex as predicting how the climate will change. In chapter five, Emanuel writes about the various costs or penalties of climate change, including both the benefits and the detriments. He identifies warmer winters as a possible benefit and more intense storms as one of the potential detriments. Chapter six is about the role of the media. He suggests the media's desire to appear impartial actually gives a biased picture of climate change by allowing equal exposure to both legitimate climate scientists and pseudo-scientist-detractors. Emanuel points to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a truly unbiased alternative to the media's desire for scientific debate. The final chapter explores the political implications of the climate change debate and identifies the polarization of the climate issue along the lines of the conservative-liberal spectrum. Judith A. Layzer and William R. Moomaw write an afterword that points to the necessity of action, and they suggest inaction in the United States could become highly problematic in a future that will be dependent on sustainable energy technology. My only criticism of this book is that it might be too simple. Readers might accept Emanuel's explanation but not know what to do with it or not be engaged enough to stay with the problem. However, this book might be short enough to be widely read. If it stimulates conversation among readers, they might feel aroused to learn more about anthropogenic climate change and how to positively influence society's response to the increasing climate crisis. That outcome would make it well worth owning and recommending this little book. Matthew Aaron Tennant , Graduate Student, Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, Pusey Street, Oxford, OX1 2LB, United Kingdom.


This interactive event is meant to engage the CSCL community in brainstorming about what affordances in MOOCs would enable application of and research extending theories and best practices from our field. To provide a concrete focus as a foundation for this discussion, we present the innovative design of a recent edX MOOC entitled Data, Analytics, and Learning (DALMOOC). We have integrated several innovative forms of support for discussion based learning, social learning, and self-regulated learning. In particular, we have integrated a layer referred to as ProSolo, which supports social learning and self-directed learning. In further support of self-directed learning, intelligent tutor style exercises have been integrated, which offer immediate feedback and hints to students. We have integrated a social recommendation approach to support effective help seeking in the threaded discussion forums as well as collaborative reflections in the form of synchronous chat exercises facilitated by software agents. The event will include an overview, offering the opportunity for active engagement in the MOOC, structured brainstorming, and interactive, whole group feedback.


The basic mathematical features of the anomalous diffusion processes are discussed in detail, together with some of the open research subdomains belonging to it. Due to its practical importance in engineering applications, the possibilities of the necessary mathematical refinements are proposed and justified for the general case of the simultaneous convection-anomalous diffusion processes taking place through porous bulk materials.


Problem solving abilities of college graduates have received considerable attention among employers, university professors and the public at large. Problem solving is a generic skill that needs to be acquired in ensuring success in learning and in the workplace. This study focuses on problem solving abilities of Malaysian university students from the faculties of Engineering, Science, Computer Science, Medicine, Management and Law. A total of 3025 respondents participated in this study. Samples were chosen from seven public universities and two private universities. Data were collected using the Problem Solving Skills Scale (PSSS) component of the Social Problem Solving Inventory (SPSI). The SPSI consists of two major scales, Problem Orientation Scale (POS) and Problem Solving Skills Scale (PSSS). The purpose of this study was to describe the overall problem solving abilities of Malaysian university students, with comparisons made based on year of study and fields of study. There were significant difference between problem solving abilities of (a) final year and first year students, and (b) students from different fields of study.


Introduction Students prefer different teaching methods. The cultural Background of students may impact preference for teaching methods. The role of electronic learning (e-learning) in teaching Pathology in a multicultural classroom is controversial. It is important to understand students' opinions and adjust our teaching accordingly to cater their needs to make our teaching more effective and efficient for their learning(Vaughn and Baker, 2001). MATERIALS AND METHODS Questionnaires were distributed to stage 4 undergraduate and stage 2 graduate entry medical student cohorts. Students were asked to indicate the value of different learning methods which included attending lectures, reading around lecture notes, attending small group tutorials and using electronic resources. The usefulness of different electronic resources was also enquired. RESULT One hundred and thirty three students (43%) responded to the questionnaire; of which, 106 (79.7%) were undergraduate and 27 (20.3%) were graduate entry medical student cohorts. The responders were divided into two groups: students with English as first language and students with other than English as first language. A group of 105 students (79.5%) had English as their first language and a group of 28 students (20.5%) had other than English as their first language, of which Malay was the commonest language (67.9%). The most useful teaching methods in Pathology were ranked in following order: small group tutorials, reading around lecture notes, e-learning and attending lectures. There was statistically significant difference (p=0.0139) between both the groups of students for lectures as their learning method. Lectures were more popular among our students with other than English as their first language (41.7%). Self-study (97%) remained the students' choice for studying medicine. E-learning appears to increase as students' progress through medical college. Online interactive activities top our list of e-learning resources. CONCLUSION Small-group tutorial format and reading around lecture notes were perceived as the most useful learning methods in Pathology by the students. Cultural Background appears to affect students' choice for lectures. However, other teaching modalities do not seem to be affected by cultural variation. Delivering medical education through a variety of lectures, small group teaching and electronic format remains preferable, but increasing the number of small group tutorials and developing interactive electronic resources may aid the teaching in Pathology. REFERENCE Vaughn, L. And Baker, R. (2


Within the literature, it has been stressed that the popular business intelligence system (BIS) is a key form of information system (IS) that provides decision-makers with actionable and insightful real-time information to help enhance the organisational performance through more effective decision-making. Nowadays, in the context of the market growth of BISs, the mining sector in Jordan has begun to embrace the implementation of such systems, which are perceived to be necessary for supporting decision-making, and thereby leveraging competitive advantage. As per myriad systems that are organisation-wide, BISs are complex and their implementation can be challenging, with the risk that the measures of expected success may fail to be met. Problems in implementation can be multifarious, including the determination of which business processes and content should be included, which technologies are appropriate for the organisational needs, how business intelligence (BI) is to be integrated within the existent systems, and how to manage the organisational culture to promote change and acceptance. Currently, research for the determination of the key factors contributing to success in the implementation of BI is limited. Furthermore, there is a lack of research related to understanding success in BI implementation within developing countries, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in general, and in Jordan in particular. The existing gap is addressed by this study, which aims to identify those implementation factors that have an impact on BI success within the Jordanian mining sector, so that a suitable BI implementation success model can be developed for that particular sector. An extensive review of literature was undertaken, enabling a conceptual framework to be developed based on previous studies, the identified implementation factors and theories of success for ISs. For this research, a positivist philosophy was adopted with a deductive approach and quantitative method that utilised a web-based questionnaire survey to acquire quantitative data for the testing and validation of the proposed framework. A total of 372 valid instruments were received from a sample of managers working within the Jordanian mining sector. SPSS (v.25) was employed in the analysis of the demographic statistics, while AMOS (v.25) was utilised in testing the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis, and for testing the structural model via structural equation modelling; both of these demonstrated a good fit to the data, with good construct validity. The findings showed that BIS success was affected by a number of implementation factors: business plan and vision, management support, champions, resources, IT infrastructure, attitudes toward technology, project management, data source systems and user participation. Moreover, this research has confirmed that system quality impacts significantly upon information quality, while information quality also impacts significantly upon decision quality. In addition, the results indicated that BIS quality has a mediating influence in the relationship between information quality resulting from the system of BI and the implementation factors. Furthermore, the results showed that the information quality provided from the BIS has a mediating influence on the relationship between decision quality and system quality. This study progresses the body of literature in terms of i) investigating implementation factors that impact BI success within the mining sector in Jordan, ii) evaluating BI and IS success, iii) assessing the relationships of mediation amongst implementation factors that are associated with success in BISs, and iv) proposing a BI implementation model for the mining sector in Jordan. Moreover, this research makes a contribution and has particular relevance for decision-makers and practitioners seeking strategies for the improvement of success in BISs. The study offers guidance with regard to key implementation factors for BI, is convincing with regard to the value of BI and encourages its use within decision-making in order to ensure a positive impact on the quality of the decisions made.


Kin selection arguments, based on Hamilton's (1964) concept of inclusive fitness, provide a powerful heuristic and can therefore give us valuable insights into the different pathways through which natural selection acts. But their formulation can be quite tricky, requiring as they do, a close accounting of all the fitness effects of a particular item of behaviour. Here we propose a ''direct fitness'' formulation of inclusive fitness which often has a more straightforward derivation. Our method finds ESS trait values by the standard optimization techniques of simple differentiation plus two additional steps. First, slopes of group phenotype on individual genotype arise naturally during differentiation, and these slopes are replaced by coefficients of relatedness. Second, when behaviours influence different classes such as age, sex of recipient, or other life history components of fitness, the fitness effects on each component are weighted by reproductive value. We illustrate this technique first in a homogeneous population, with examples of group competition and partial dispersal behaviour, and then in a class-structured population, with examples of sex allocation and altruism between age classes. 7 1996 Academic Press Limited


A full-scale field study was conducted to investigate the influence of five different geotextile separators on the performance of a pavement system. Five years after the geotextiles had been installed, the site was excavated to evaluate the soil and geotextile conditions, collect representative samples for laboratory testing, and perform a series of in-situ tests. The fine-grained subgrade soils appeared to have consolidated since the geotextiles were installed. Density tests suggested that the subgrade in sections containing geotextiles consolidated more than in the test sections without geotextiles. Evidence of subgrade fines migration into the base course aggregates was found at some of the explorations where geotextiles were installed. However, the fines migration did not appear to adversely affect the performance of the pavement system. Permittivity testing suggested that heat-bonded geotextiles are more susceptible to clogging than needle-punched or slit-film geotextiles. Initial base course layer thickness was found to significantly affect the strength and elongation at failure of the geotextiles. The lighter-weight geotextiles contained more construction damage; however, the damage was not reflected in the results of the strength tests. Evaluation of current filtration and survivability criteria indicated that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) filtration design criteria produce reasonable predictions of filtration performance, whereas the maximum apparent opening size (AOS) values specified by Task Force 25 and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) may not always be effective in preventing fines migration. The Task Force 25 survivability criteria for geotextile separators appear reasonable, whereas the WSDOT survivability criteria may be too restrictive for some conditions.


Gastric emptying, food consumption and feeding periodicity of Rapana venosa were investigated under laboratory conditions and in the field respectively. Gastric emptying was best described by an exponential function, that was independent of meal size and the range of animal size when rapana were fed on fresh mussel. The fresh mussel (0.92-2.19 g) was fully digested by an average of 47 g rapana within the 6-8 hours. No change in feeding intensity was detected over 24 hours suggesting that rapana feed continioussly. Using gastric emptying rates from the laboratory studies, the data obtained from the field was converted to the food consumption estimates and concluded that an average of 50 g rapana in the eastern Black Sea marine ecossystem consume 0.17-0.30 g. mussel in a day, meaning that rapana in the eastern Black Sea marine ecosystem may cause an important predatory impact on the mussel beds.


The present study investigates discourse functions and syntactic complexity in English-as-asecond-language (ESL) learner output obtained via two different modes of computer-mediated communication (CMC): asynchronous and synchronous discussions. Two instructors and twentyfive students from two advanced ESL writing classes participated in this study. Answers were sought to the following questions: a) Are the discourse functions present in ESL learners' synchronous discussions of reading assignments quantitatively and qualitatively different from those found in asynchronous discussions? And, b) which mode of CMC shows more syntactically complex learner output? The results showed that the quantity and types of discourse functions present in synchronous discussions were similar to the types of interactional modifications found in face-to-face conversations that are deemed necessary for second language acquisition. Discourse functions in asynchronous discussions were more constrained than those found in synchronous discussions and similar to the question-response-evaluation sequence of the traditional language classroom. Concerning syntactic complexity, the delayed nature of asynchronous discussions gives learners more opportunities to produce syntactically complex language. Asynchronous and synchronous CMC have different discourse features which may be exploited for different pedagogical purposes. In the hands of experienced teachers, both modes of CMC can be used as novel tools to enhance the language acquisition process by encouraging interaction among participants, collaborative text construction, and the formation of electronic communities of learners.


The principal findings of this chapter on gender patterns of authorship and subject in scholarly publications on British authors in the period 1930-60, are that, within these parameters, women authors publish on female subjects much more than male authors do, and male authors rarely publish on women subjects, unless they are Virginia Woolf. An unanticipated result from the data shows that, as a subject, Woolf dominates the British academic monograph market for this period. She throws a historiographical shadow like no other twentieth-century woman author, which exacerbates a serious imbalance in the publication of scholarship on other women writers of this period.


A novel polymer (PTPBQ) with alternating terephthalate (TP) and benzoquinone (BQ) moieties is synthesized for the first time as an organic cathode for Li-ion batteries. Both TP and BQ moieties probably could remain electrochemically active and thus may make PTPBQ realize a maximum 4-electron redox behaviour and a theoretical specific capacity of up to ∼390 mAh g−1. In its practical application, Li-ion half cells based on PTPBQ can realize discharge capacities of ∼110 mAh g−1 on average for 400 cycles (40 mA g−1, 0.1C), and ∼180 mAh g−1 on average for 200 cycles (80 mA g−1, 0.2C) when the carbon additive is augmented to 40 wt%.


The type II secretion pathway is responsible for secretion of toxins and a variety of hydrolytic enzymes that include proteases, lipases, phospholipases, cellulases, and pectinases, which contribute to tissue damage and disease of animals and plants. Cholera toxin, exotoxin A, and aerolysin produced by Vibrio cholerae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Aeromonas hydrophila, respectively, are examples of three toxins that utilize the type II pathway for extracellular secretion. The biogenesis of all three toxins has been analyzed, and their crystal structures have been solved. The secretion of CT across the bacterial cell envelope occurs in two distinct steps that have different requirements; transport across the cytoplasmic membrane is followed by outer membrane translocation. A current hypothesis postulates that molecules secreted by the type II system may encode information critical to their secretion within their tertiary and quarternary structures. Restriction of proaerolysin to the poles could be evidence of periplasmic compartmentalization with concomitant secretion at the poles. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) was fused with Eps proteins to determine the cellular location, in living cells, of the type II secretion apparatus in V. cholerae. Recent intriguing data based on experiments accomplished with an active blue fluorescent protein (BFP) fused with ribosomal protein L1 in B. subtilis showed that ribosomes are located around the periphery of nucleoids, predominantly at the cell poles.


BBB vs. WWW. Digital Epistemology and the Literary Text, from Goran Printz Pahlsson to Ralf Andtbacka This paper explores the concept of "Digital Epistemology" as a critical perspective, or a mode of thought. The concept of "the digital" here is not primarily related to technical tools, electronic works of art, or to the production of databases. Instead, the digital is approached as a form of "lens" focused on the relation between cultural history, literary texts and a digital discourse. By approaching the concept in this way it is possible to detect digital traces in literary texts that do not explicitly deal with the digital as motif or theme, and where the author may or may not be aware of the ways in which his/her work is related to a digital epistemology. Examin- ing a few short examples from different literary texts, this paper further establishes a media- archaeological juxtaposition between digital culture and pre-modern modes of thought such as: the Wunderkammer, the emblem, the fragment, and also the archival principle of pertinence. The essay argues that digital epistemology possesses a dual function: enhancing the reading of art and literature in the light of digital culture, and inviting a reconsideration – and even resto-ration – of the impact of pre-modern aesthetics.


Vectors based on adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV) offer considerable promise for somatic gene therapy of various diseases (e.g. cystic fibrosis, hemophilia B, cancer). Limitations, however, still exist and require further improvement. The study presented here addresses two major problems that hamper a widespread use of AAV in human gene therapy: First, the loss of site-specific integration of recombinant AAV vectors (rAAV) due to the deletion of the rep gene, and secondly, the potential neutralization of AAV gene therapy vectors by preexisting antibodies.

It could be demonstrated that site-specific integration of a transgene encoding rAAV vector can be efficiently restored by providing rep as plasmid DNA in trans. Based on these findings, a rAAV vector was developed where a plasmid coding for Rep was coupled as polylysine/DNA complex (PLL/DNA) directly to the capsid of the virion and co-transduction of such a PLL/DNA coupled to AAV was shown. Thus, providing rep-DNA as PLL/DNA should allow rAAV vectors to integrate specifically at chromosome 19.

To characterize immunogenic domains of the AAV capsid and to develop strategies to circumvent neutralization by antibodies, AAV capsid mutants carrying peptide insertions in surface exposed loop regions were investigated in binding and neutralization assays. Three positions could be identified in the AAV capsid (at aa 534, 573, and 578 of the VP1 protein) where binding and neutralization of the virus by human serum samples was markedly reduced. These result suggest that capsid modifications could help to overcome binding and neutralization by human antisera in clinical gene therapy applications.


of a thesis at the University of Miami Thesis supervised by Professor R. Pamela Reid. No. of pages in text. (94) Stromatolites are lithified, laminated organosedimentary structures that dominate the fossil record for 80% of Earth History. Stromatolites form through two processes: the trapping and binding of detrital grains by microbial mats and precipitation of calcium carbonate within microbial mats. Stromatolites from Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay, Western Australia provide a unique opportunity to study depositional processes within the long-lived stromatolite ecosystem. This thesis focuses on investigating the applicability of various techniques for dating modern stromatolites and determining the role that stromatolites play as sediment sinks and sediment sources. Shark Bay stromatolites were dated using Uranium-Thorium geochronometry and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) C-dating techniques to date the stromatolite samples. The Uranium-Thorium technique yielded some inaccurate dates because stromatolite heads have the potential to accumulate detrital thorium that is indistinguishable from the daughter thorium produced by the uranium. Only areas with high amounts of micritic precipitate produced realistic dates. In contrast, AMS Carbon-14 dating appeared to yield realistic dates. The small sample size (1.5-2mg) of the AMS technique allowed us to target precipitated calcium carbonate within the stromatolites, thereby minimizing contamination from detrital grains. The ages range from modern to approximately 1000 years before present and are in agreement with previous studies. Thus, AMS C-dating of small amounts of precipitated calcium carbonate is considered an ideal technique for dating Shark Bay stromatolites. Point counting revealed that the stromatolites of Hamelin Pool are important sediment sinks that generally reflect the sediment composition of adjacent sediment at the time of accretion. However, the material trapped by the microbial mat that builds the stromatolite structure is less diverse than the material found in the depositional environment. Preferential exclusion of larger grains during trapping and binding by microbial mats is likely the result of decreased availability of the larger components in the water column. In addition, peloids are more abundant in the stromatolites than in the adjacent sediment, possibly reflecting in situ precipitation within the microbial mats. Irregular micritic grains produced in gelatinous microbial mats are an important sediment component in the depositional environment of Hamelin Pool, comprising as much as 55-60% of some sediment samples. These irregular micritic grains appear to be erosional fragments of precipitates that formed within gelatinous microbial mats. The abundance of irregular micritic grains that microbial mats are an important source of sediment in Hamelin Pool.


Evidence Aid is an international initiative to improve access to reliable evidence that will help people and organisations make well-informed decisions about interventions, actions and strategies in the disaster setting. It focuses on systematic reviews as the most reliable source of research evidence, maximising the power of existing research, avoiding undue emphasis on single studies and reducing the waste associated with research that is ignored or not accessible to decision makers. Evidence Aid is knowledge champion for influencers of the humanitarian sector, including funders, policy makers, NGOs, and humanitarian professionals. Evidence Aid was established by members of the Cochrane Collaboration after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. It provides access to information relevant to disaster risk reduction, planning, response, recovery, resilience and rehabilitation. This presentation will discuss the need for Evidence Aid, and describes its activities.Find out more about Mike.


In this paper, we propose an innovative approach to the segmentation of tubular structures. This approach combines all of the benefits of minimal path techniques such as global minimizers, fast computation, and powerful incorporation of user input, while also having the capability to represent and detect vessel surfaces directly which so far has been a feature restricted to active contour and surface techniques. The key is to represent the trajectory of a tubular structure not as a 3-D curve but to go up a dimension and represent the entire structure as a 4-D curve. Then we are able to fully exploit minimal path techniques to obtain global minimizing trajectories between two user supplied endpoints in order to reconstruct tubular structures from noisy or low contrast 3-D data without the sensitivity to local minima inherent in most active surface techniques. In contrast to standard purely spatial 3-D minimal path techniques, however, we are able to represent a full tubular surface rather than just a curve which runs through its interior. Our representation also yields a natural notion of a tube's "central curve." We demonstrate and validate the utility of this approach on magnetic resonance (MR) angiography and computed tomography (CT) images of coronary arteries.


This paper has five elements. The first is a brief overview of the wars in Africa. The second connects Africa and its wars to social injustices which were historically constructed and fostered by exploitative external and internal factors. The third examines the implication of increasing injustices in Africa (intensified by wars and civil conflicts) and connects colonialism, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, or eternal colonialism to internal/external political and economic manipulation, poverty, degenerating social conditions, and conflicts that result in wars. The fourth deals with the specific standard that has become the modus operandi favored by the West and other parts of the world who behave like the West when dealing with Africa; and the fifth attempts a number of suggestions useful in approaching the possibility of a transformative response toward constructing justice and peace in that continent.