China has a long history of education, which can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty (1523 B.C. to 1027 B.C.). During this long history changes occurred as the needs of society changed. During the Warring States Period (770 B.C. to 221 B.C.), the philosophies of Daoism and Confucianism were developed. These philosophies became the cornerstone of education theory and practice in China. At the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911), steps were taken to train teachers with the goal of universal education for all of its citizens. Since 1977, the Chinese government has taken strides in universal education one way they are working on this is by improving teacher professional development. This study examined the attitudes of teachers in the city of Guangzhou China as to their attitudes toward professional development. Using employment records, every third teacher was asked if they were willing to participate in the study. If so they were given the internet site to take the survey in the school. There were a total of 464 teachers who agreed to take part in the study. After teachers finished taking the study and the answers were examined, it was found that question 24 was not answered 150 times; further examination into this revealed that the question might have had a cultural bias indicting the teacher wanted to advance and take the supervisor's position. The instrument used was "Attitude Toward In-service Scale" by Kathleen FlanaganHudson, with a Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). The following statistical analyses were performed on the data: a one-way ANOVA, a two-way ANOVA, Tukey test, and a Brown and Forsythe's Test for homogeneity of total variance. The study indicated that there was no significant difference in attitudes of teachers based on gender. Teachers in the male category rated themselves a mean of 3.76 and a standard deviation of 0.45. Teachers in the female category rated themselves 4.03 and a standard deviation of 0.38. The study indicated that there was a significant difference in the attitudes of teachers toward professional development based on the years of experience. Teachers with more years of experience rated themselves higher on the scale. Teachers of the 5 years or less and the 6 to 15 years categories had means of 3.38 and 3.98 respectively and a standard deviation of 0.55. Teachers in the 16 to 25 years and 26 years or more categories had a means of 4.06 and a standard deviation of 0.21 and 0.22 respectively. The study indicated that there were significant differences in the attitude of teachers towards professional development based on the age of the teachers. Teachers in the age of 30 years or less and 31 to 40 years rated themselves a mean of 3.45 and 3.78, with a standard deviation of 0.56 and 0.47 respectively.


ABSTRACT This study provides a basis for deepening understandings of approaches which offer effective and enhanced learning experiences for predominantly East Asian international students following provision alongside local students in UK general further education colleges. A mixed methods approach employed a largely quantitative questionnaire to access the views of 25 international students, 22 of whom were Chinese nationals, and to identify four participants (two Chinese, one Japanese and one Maldivian) for subsequent semi-structured interviews. This fieldwork was supported by the collection of college achievement data for the international students and for the local students who had studied directly alongside them. The outcomes indicate that the international students achieved at least as well as the local students in relation to academic outcomes, and that they valued teachers who allowed their cultural experiences to directly contribute to classroom learning. The study also highlights the importance of inter-cultural activities. More prosaically, the outcomes also suggest that important concerns for these international students were that they should receive clarity in answers to their questions as part of the processes of learning, as well as the resolution of ostensibly more peripheral issues such as the quality and type of food available in the college catering outlets.


SONU SHAMDASANI & MICHAEL MUNCHOW, EDS.: Speculations after Freud: Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and Culture. Routledge, London and New York, 1994, 227 pp., $16.95. Speculations after Feud: Psychoanalysis, philosophy and culture is a collection of papers by psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cultural studies scholars who have a common interest in "Freud" as seen through the lenses of what is variously called continental philosophy, postmodernism, poststructuralism, literary theory, critical theory, and sometimes just plain old "theory." This "theory" approach is currently the source of some of the most creative and original thinking throughout academia, particularly in disciplines to which the French refer collectively as the sciences humaines (sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, literary theory, philosophy, history). As a result, "theory" is getting much attention on campus and many American universities are rapidly putting together interdisciplinary programs, often referred to as cultural studies programs, to serve as a home for this kind of scholarship. Unfortunately, "theory" is not readily accessible to first timers, and, as Shamdasani explains in his introduction to Speculations, "A new reader approaching this collection...is likely to experience an alienation effect." (my italics) The result: many clinicians' first response to this volume will be some form of rejection and repudiation. So why should clinicians bother? Don't we have enough to worry about? What about insurance cutbacks? To answer these questions, I must first deal with two others. What is "theory," and why is it creating such a stir across campuses? "Theory" is a collection of ideas associated with the diverse writings of Saussure, Manr, Freud, Nietzsche, Hegel, Gadamer, Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Lacan, Habermas, Kuhn, Fish, Rorty, Geertz (just to name a few). They roughly have in common a questioning and rethinking of the western enlightenment tradition, with an increased awareness of the role of language, culture, and power in shaping human knowledge and subjectivity. The stir around "theory" is created by the sense of liberation, rejuvenation, and excitement that is generated by the new ideas. In addition, the stir around "theory" is created by the oppositional reactions from defenders of the tradition. Unfortunately, the rhetoric becomes quite polemic at times, with defenders of the tradition calling the new ideas "relativistic" or, even worse, "nihilistic," and defenders of "theory" calling the tradition nothing more than an ill-disguised "will to power. …


Colchicine, which inhibits cell microtubule assembly by preventing polymerization of tubulin monomers, inhibits cell-mediated immune responses and promotes long-term survival of major histocompatibility complex-incompatible renal allografts in rats. Here we evaluated the effect of blocking cell microtubule assembly by colchicine on T cell and endothelial cell adhesion receptors involved in transducing signals for T cell activation. By using immunofluorescence flow cytometry analysis, evidence is presented that colchicine, in a dose-dependent fashion, downregulated L-selectin and leukocyte function-associated antigen-1, but not CD2 and CD44 on the surface of naive human peripheral blood lymphocytes. This effect was confirmed in two subsets of T lymphocytes, namely, CD45RA- and CD45RO-positive cells. However, colchicine did not influence the rapid shedding of L-selectin from T lymphocytes exposed to activating stimuli. Colchicine inhibited expression of interleukin-2 receptor on activated T lymphocytes. This effect was observed when T lymphocytes were stimulated with both anti-CD3 and anti L-selectin monoclonal antibodies. Colchicine also inhibited lymphocyte function in vitro as documented by inhibition of the human mixed lymphocyte response in a dose-dependent fashion. Moreover, colchicine downregulated surface expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 and E-selectin on activated human umbilical vein endothelial cells. These results indicate that blocking cell microfubule assembly inhibits surface expression of adhesion molecules on T cells and endothelial cells, and provides insights into the complex mechanisms of the action of colchicine in vivo.


A comprehensive introduction to network flows that brings together the classic and the contemporary aspects of the field, and provides an integrative view of theory, algorithms, and applications. presents in-depth, self-contained treatments of shortest path, maximum flow, and minimum cost flow problems, including descriptions of polynomial-time algorithms for these core models. emphasizes powerful algorithmic strategies and analysis tools such as data scaling, geometric improvement arguments, and potential function arguments. provides an easy-to-understand descriptions of several important data structures, including d-heaps, Fibonacci heaps, and dynamic trees. devotes a special chapter to conducting empirical testing of algorithms. features over 150 applications of network flows to a variety of engineering, management, and scientific domains. contains extensive reference notes and illustrations.


When it comes to our moral and legal obligations to nonhuman animals, we suffer from "moral schizophrenia." We claim to recognize that animals have morally significant interests in not suffering and that it is morally wrong to inflict "unnecessary" suffering on animals. Although we have laws that purport to reflect these moral sentiments, the overwhelming portion of the pain, suffering, and death that we impose on animals cannot be regarded as necessary in any sense. Our moral schizophrenia is related to the status of animals as property, which means that, as a practical matter, animal suffering will be regarded as necessary whenever it benefits human property owners. If we really are to take animal interests seriously, we can no longer treat animals as human resources. This does not mean that we must give animals the rights that we accord to humans, or that we cannot choose human interests over animal interests in situations of genuine conflict. Rather, we must recognize that animals have one right–the right not to be treated as property, and we cannot create conflicts between human and animals by using animals in ways in which we would never use any humans. As long as animals are human property, the principle of equal consideration can never apply to them (just as it could not apply to slaves), and animals will necessarily remain as nothing more than things that possess no morally significant interests. The theory presented applies to any animal that is sentient and does not require that animals have any additional cognitive characteristics.


Governance, socio-economic and geophysical indicators are indispensable measures of risk for water-related disasters leading to a better disaster risk mitigation and management for sustainable development. Water-related disaster countermeasures are weak in non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, thus higher economic losses and younger fatalities are concentrated there; for example, the majority of fatalities in developing nations are 50 years old or less, in contrast to those in developed nations where the most are older than 60 years old; furthermore, economic losses of 2.8, 19.7 and 2.7% of GDP were incurred during Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and Typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines, respectively. A transfer of scientific knowledge and technology from developed to developing countries is helpful in strengthening water-related disaster countermeasures to reduce economic losses and fatalities. Natural hazards correspond to geophysical features, thus the categorization of these features leads to an understanding of corresponding natural hazards which helps disaster mitigation and land-use and policy planning for future development. A combination of governance, socio-economic and geophysical water-related disaster indicators is therefore an indispensable development index.


The 40 Ar/ 39 Ar radioisotope system is widely used to date eruption and cooling of volcanic tephra–marker horizons that commonly provide the only means of correlating and assigning numerical ages to stratigraphy in which they are contained. This chronometer bridges the gap between 14 C and longer-lived isotopic systems that are too imprecise for dating young samples. However, 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages obtained from coevally erupted biotite and sanidine do not always match. Here, we use an independent chronometer, 238 U- 230 Th disequilibrium, to demonstrate that 40 Ar/ 39 Ar age disparity is not caused by differences in pre-eruption crystallization times. Our findings indicate that the presence of extraneous 40 Ar in biotite, and its absence in sanidine, may result from violations of two assumptions implicit in 40 Ar/ 39 Ar geochronology on volcanic samples: (1) Prior to eruption, minerals are devoid of 40 Ar due to rapid loss to an "infinite reservoir" such as the atmosphere, and (2) closure to volume diffusion is geologically instantaneous and coincident with eruption. We propose a mechanism whereby the presence of extraneous Ar in certain minerals is explained by the relative sequence of four events in a magmatic system: (1) crystallization, (2) mineral closure with respect to Ar diffusion, (3) isotopic equilibration of magmatic and atmospheric Ar, and (4) quenching of the system by eruption. These data have potentially far-reaching implications for studies that depend on geochronological data, necessitating re-evaluation of interpretations based solely on biotite with no independent age control, particularly in young samples where the effects are most pronounced.


One of the major problem in face authentication systems is to deal with variations in illumination. In a realistic scenario, it is very likely that the lighting conditions of the probe image does not correspond to those of the gallery image, hence there is a need to handle such variations. In this work, we present a new preprocessing algorithm based on local binary patterns (LBP): a texture representation is derived from the input face image before being forwarded to the classifier. The efficiency of the proposed approach is empirically demonstrated using both an appearance-based (LDA) and a feature-based (HMM) face authentication systems on two databases: BANCA and XM2VTS (with its darkened set). Conducted experiments show a significant improvement in terms of verification error rates and compare to results obtained with state-of-the-art preprocessing techniques


Readers who expect a book on mountain issues in the Caucasus will be disappointed by this volume. The fact that most of the Caucasian region is within mountain areas plays a minor role in the argumentation of the author, who is a political science scholar for international organizations. However, it was not his intention to provide details of mountain geography. The book developed from his recognition that no recent textbook covers a region that is of everincreasing interest in regional and global politics. If you do not find a book that is adequate for your work, you have to write it yourself—and this is what Coene has done. The result is a remarkable introduction to a region which—because of its former inclusion in the Soviet Union—has been neglected for a long time. Coene presents his text in 8 chapters of different length and weight. He starts with a glimpse of the geography in which he considers many facts but cannot provide an indepth analysis: 26 pages are not sufficient for more than an encyclopedic overview. Territorial division, government, and administration form chapters of similar length. Population and society form the third basic topic required to describe the current situation; the main focus of this chapter is on history and the manifold conflicts. Nearly all regional and ethno-political conflicts, mostly unsolved, are considered in depth, from their outbreak in the final months of the Soviet Union to the present situation. This chapter is the most sophisticated part of the book, reflecting the author's main interest. As he is one of the actors in the international organizations that intend to mediate these conflicts, the book continues with an overview on international politics that focus on the Caucasian region. The 2 remaining chapters, dealing with economy and culture, are relatively short and weak in argumentation. With regard to economy, this can be understood because the statistical basis for all deliberation and explanation is extremely poor. The statistical offices of the 3 post-Soviet successor states in the South Caucasus still do not provide current data of the appropriate amount and detail. The chapter on culture and traditions mentions different aspects, but does not integrate them into a holistic analysis of the region. However, this is not the main goal of the book, which is addressed to students and scholars in social and political sciences who wish to have a survey on the Caucasus. Overall, description prevails and argumentative interpretation is in the background. Yet it must be acknowledged that Coene does not omit topics such as physical geography, hydrology, climate, main landscape types, ecosystems, and biodiversity. He argues that there is a certain relationship (though not a dependency) between the natural background and the historical developments and recent political issues. In the chapter on physical geography, he does not intend to follow geodeterministic argumentations as it is not his main interest. This chapter is one of the most descriptive, enumerating important facts and omitting others, and does not develop an impression of the interrelationships between the physical background and human activities. Another criticism concerns the character of a textbook for students and scholars. Coene does not reflect scientific discourses concerning the region; he lists a number of scientific works, mainly in English and Russian, but does not meet the needs of a student who is looking for the basic texts and in-depth study of any topic. Developing such a volume would require a significant effort, but Coene wanted—and this should not be considered a negative—a brief introduction for students and scholars to one of the most critical regions of the world.


While standard no-arbitrage term structure models are estimated using nominal yields from a single country, a growing literature estimates joint models of yields in multiple countries or nominal and real yields from a single country. However, this paper argues that, in two of the most common applications joint modelling does not bring any material benefits in capturing the dynamics of bond yields. Joint models of US and German nominal yields do not offer economically significant advantages in fitting the cross section of yields or predicting future yields. We obtain similar results for joint models of US nominal and real yields.


In retinal image of the human eye, extracting tree shaped retinal vasculature is an important feature which helps eye care specialists or ophthalmologists to pursue proper diagnostic procedures. In this paper, an approach named Optimized Maximum Principal Curvatures Based (OPCB) segmentation is been proposed for efficient extraction of blood vessels from retinal fundus images. This algorithm proceeds into two stages. Firstly, pre-processing on input retinal images is done by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique which is an automatic process for computing the global optimum pixels of the image in order to avoid working with all or random pixels. Later, these optimal pixels are made to undergo further processing with Gaussian Filter to remove the noisy pixels among them. Secondly, the post-processing is carried out in four steps: (i)Maximum Principal Curvatures (maximum-eigenvalues) of the second order derivative matrix (Hessian) quantity of the pre-processed PSO image are computed by using 'Lambda Function', which then does region growing of the tree-shaped blood vessels by convolving Maximum Principal Curvatures with the mathematical erosion structuring element of. (ii)After extraction of blood vessels, section-wise contrast enhancement is performed by using Adaptive Histogram Equalization that work on 8x8 tiles of image being segmented for smoothing artificially introduced boundaries if any, and also for eliminating over amplified noise. (iii) ISODATA (Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique) thresholding is used to classify the image globally where the image's foreground vascular structure is segmented from the background. (iv) A 'morphologically opened' operation is performed to prune falsely segmented isolated regions, to achieve very accurate segmentation. This proposed technique tested online available colored retinal images of STARE and DRIVE databases. As an outcome, the proposed approach achieves the superior segmentation accuracy of 96% which outperformed many empirically proven segmentation methods which were proposed in the past.


Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are self-renewing multipotent cells which hold great potential in reconstructive medicine and tissue engineering. They have the ability to differentiate into cells of the mesoderm lineage and have been shown to be beneficial for the treatment of a variety of diseases. MSC can be derived from multiple adult tissues but have only limited expansion capacity in cell culture. Highly proliferative ESC-derived MSC can be an alternative source for MSC but currently no standardized protocol exists which meets clinical standards. We further developed and improved a protocol (Raynaud et al., 2013) to differentiate human embryonic stem cells (ESC) into highly-proliferative MSC. ESC-derived MSCs were tested for their characteristic surface markers by flow cytometry and the differentiation capabilities typical for MSCs (bone, fat) were verified. To characterize the differentiation process in-depth we performed comprehensive large-scale proteomic and phosphoproteomic profiling experiments using quantitative high resolution mass spectrometric analysis based on reductive dimethylation (Boersema et al., 2009). Experiments were designed as triplex comprising an internal standard, labeled with light isotopes, and time points, labeled either with medium or heavy isotopes. Differentiation was followed over a time course of 30 days including sampling days 0, 1, 2, 5, 15, and 30. Samples for proteomic analysis were fractionated by in-solution isoelectric focusing prior to mass spectrometry. Phosphoproteomic profiling was performed according to the TiSH protocol (Engholm-Keller et al., 2012) including phosphopeptide enrichment by titanium dioxide combined with sequential immobilized metal affinity chromatography. ESC-derived MSC were compared to adult tissue-derived MSC (bone marrow MSC) as well as to their origin (ESC). In total, 8615 proteins were identified with 5800 proteins on average quantified per sample. A total of 4064 proteins were quantified in all samples at all stages and were subjected to stringent statistical analysis. For phosphoproteomics, we identified and quantified more than 8000 phosphosites on 4000 proteins with around 4600 phosphosites on 1800 proteins per sample. A large overlap (75%) was observed for quantified proteins between proteomic and phosphoproteomic workflows. To further enhance the analytical depth, data was integrated with transctriptome profiling derived from next-generation RNA sequencing which enabled us to quantify the expression of over 14000 genes. To identify important regulators of differentiation, we performed clustering according to expression patterns. The established differentiation protocol is highly reproducible and robust, may be adapted for clinical use and thus be of great value for the stem cell research community. The comprehensive analysis of the differentiation process will improve understanding of MSC biology and therefore directly benefit MSC-based therapies. References Boersema, P.J., et al. (2009). Multiplex peptide stable isotope dimethyl labeling for quantitative proteomics. Nat Protoc. 4, 484-494. Engholm-Keller, K., et al. (2012). TiSH--a robust and sensitive global phosphoproteomics strategy employing a combination of TiO2, SIMAC, and HILIC. J. Proteomics 75, 5749-5761. Raynaud, C.M., et al. (2013). Human Embryonic Stem Cell Derived Mesenchymal Progenitors Express Cardiac Markers but Do Not Form Contractile Cardiomyocytes. PLoS ONE 8.


This article will examine the nexus between human rights; knowledge produced, maintained, and regulated by indigenous societies; and equitable principles inherent within private contract law. The issue of indigenous knowledge has generated significant controversy and challenges for the international business community. Scholars have begun to address the need for business managers to be aware of the ethical issues involving indigenous knowledge, e.g. activist stakeholders challenging what they perceive as the misappropriation of indigenous knowledge. This article will extend this area of research by examining the human rights-related aspects of indigenous knowledge in relation to business practices that can significantly harm the indigenous community that produces, maintains, and regulates this category of knowledge. This discussion draws from important international law instruments, such as the draft, "Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights," developed by the United Nations (U.N.) Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is another important forum that has explored the nexus between human rights and indigenous knowledge. As derived from various sources, the human rights related norms involving indigenous knowledge include: respect, dignity, autonomy, attribution, self-determination, and equity. The article will survey efforts undertaken by various national governments to protect indigenous knowledge, and will assess the human rights-related foundations and aspects of the various national legislations. The article will then examine the various international efforts that have taken place, or are presently underway, to protect these rights across international legal regimes. The efforts undertaken by the WIPO, the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), and the U.N. convention on biodiversity will be examined in greater detail. Lastly, the article will discuss the implication of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel; as well as questionable conduct of certain business entities in the context of common law doctrines of equity; including good faith, fair dealing, unconscionability, misappropriation, unjust enrichment, and estoppel. From this perspective, equitable remedies may be available to indigenous communities, if a court or an administrative legal regime finds that the transference of indigenous knowledge from indigenous communities to multi-national corporations was unfair and disadvantageous to the indigenous community. Equitable remedies include restitution, the creation of a quasi-contract, and monetary damages for the benefit of an indigenous community. The recognition of these common law equity doctrines ex ante is anticipated to provide ethical guidance to business managers seeking to position themselves and the enterprises they serve as global citizens that uphold the human rights-related aspects of indigenous knowledge. The role of private law is, therefore, positioned as a complement to the larger public regulatory framework.


The requisite role of HER3 in HER2-amplified cancers is beyond what would be expected as a dimerization partner or effector substrate and it exhibits a substantial degree of resiliency that mitigates the effects of HER2-inhibitor therapies. To better understand the roots of this resiliency, we conducted an in-depth chemical-genetic interrogation of the signaling network downstream of HER3. A unique attribute of these tumors is the deregulation of TORC2. The upstream signals that ordinarily maintain TORC2 signaling are lost in these tumors, and instead TORC2 is driven by Akt. We find that in these cancers HER3 functions as a buffering arm of an Akt–TORC2 feed-forward loop that functions as a self-perpetuating module. This network topology alters the role of HER3 from a conditionally engaged ligand-driven upstream physiologic signaling input to an essential component of a concentric signaling throughput highly competent at preservation of homeostasis. The competence of this signaling topology is evident in its response to perturbation at any of its nodes. Thus, a critical pathophysiologic event in the evolution of HER2-amplified cancers is the loss of the input signals that normally drive TORC2 signaling, repositioning it under Akt dependency, and fundamentally altering the role of HER3. This reprogramming of the downstream network topology is a key aspect in the pathogenesis of HER2-amplified cancers and constitutes a formidable barrier in the targeted therapy of these cancers. Mol Cancer Ther; 14(12); 2805–17. ©2015 AACR.


We present a new fast active contour for images in 3D microscopy. We introduce a fully parametric design that relies on exponential B-spline bases and allows us to impose a sphere-like topology. The proposed 3D snake can approximate blob-like objects with good accuracy. The optimization process is remarkably fast. Our technique yields successful segmentation results even for a challenging data set where object contours are not well defined. This happens because our parametric approach allows us to favor prior shapes. This work comes with a companion software that allows extensive interactions between the end-user and our snakes through the intuitive manipulation of the few control points that fully characterize them.


Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is one of the most commonly performed laparoscopic procedures. Problems occurring during laparoscopic cholecystectomy include bile duct injury, conversion to open operation, and other postoperative complications. Male gender is a risk factor for LC conversion rate.Our goal is to determine the effect of male gender on the outcome of laparoscopic cholecystectomy for Chronic Cholecystitis. We have done that through a retrospective clinical trial was carried out at our Hospital to evaluate the sex difference as predictor for difficult laparoscopic cholecystectomy. From a total number of 638 patients, who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy for Chronic Cholecystitis from 1st January 2012 to 1st of January 2015) two hundred and seventeen patients were excluded according to exclusion criteria and the remaining 421 patients were included.All the operation were done according to standard four-port technique through an open method was used, with first entry port in the periumblical region. 1 Anesthetic technique and perioperative management were the same for all patients during the study period.
Results: Patients who were candidates for elective cholecystectomy , were mostly females with (F:M ratio= 4/1), mean age 40 years (range 13-101 years) with mean age of 45 years(range 20-78 years) for the males, 40years (range 13-100 years) for the females. There were more difficult cholecystectomies in males in comparison to female patients for chronic cholecystitis.
The outcome of this study is male gender is a predictor for difficult laparoscopy for symptomatic gallstones presented as chronic cholecystitis


The following study continues the long-lasting debate on the authentic interpretation of the famous poem Dulcis Iesu memoria. As part of a major work, the paper shows the literary character of the deeply religious poem, still very popular these days, underlining its troubadour features. As the English origin of the poem has been revealed by Andre Wilmart, philological problems are not treated here; however, the mainstream tradition is accepted in a particular way: Saint Bernard did not write but did inspire the poem. It was the specific cultural and literary environment that exerted an obvious influence on the author, on the troubadour saint and inconnu as well.


ABSTRACT This article addressed the following questions: How are spirituality, spiritual need, and spiritual care in aged care defined? What constitutes spiritual care for older people in aged care? From an organisational perspective, what are barriers and enablers to providing spiritual care? Spirituality and spiritual care were defined in a variety of ways in the literature. The literature endorsed nurses and other aged care staff engaging in elements of spiritual care of older people as valuable. A whole-of-organisation approach is required rather than leaving it to the individual. New guidelines are being developed specifically for spiritual care in aged care.


Any global software development project needs to deal with distances – geographical, cultural, time zone, etc. – between the groups of developers engaged in the project. To successfully manage the risks caused by such distances, there is a need to explicate and present the distances in a form suitable for manual or semi-automatic analysis, the goal of which is to detect potential risks and find ways of mitigating them. The article presents a technique of modeling a global software development project suitable for such analysis. The project is modeled as a complex socio-technical system that consists of functional components connected to each other through output-input relationships. The components do not coincide with the organizational units of the project, and their teams can be distributed through the geographical and organizational landscape of the project. The modeling technique helps to explicate and represent various kinds of distances between the functional components to determine which of them constitute risk factors. The technique was developed during two case studies, of which the second is used for presenting and demonstrating the new modeling technique in the article.


There is a dynamic and complex relationship between migration and health. Migration can lead to greater exposure to health risks, such as those migrant workers working in conditions of precarious employment with limited access to affordable health care. Migration can also be linked to improved health – for instance, after moving from a context of persecution and fear of violence to a safe environment. In this chapter, we examine the four key aspects of migration and health: (a) the health of individual migrants ("migrant health"); (b) the ways in which migration can affect the health of populations ("public health"); (c) healthcare systems responses; and (d) the global governance of migration and health.


We report the experimental achievement of 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensation in a magnetic trap with microwave and radio frequency (RF) induced evaporation. Evaporative cooling is realized by using 6.8 GHz microwave radiation driving the 87Rb atoms to transit from the ground-state hyperfine state |F = 2,mF =2> to |F = 1,mF = 1>. Compared with RF-induced evaporation, 87Rb atoms are hardly to achieve pure condensate by microwave evaporation cooling due to the effect of atoms in the |F = 1,mF = 1> state being pumped back into the trapping |F = 2,mF = 1> state.


During the last five decades, policy approaches towards food security have promoted input-intensive agricultural technologies to increase global food production. However, there are concerns about the environmental, social and economic sustainability of this strategy. Environmental degradation causes the loss of 2 to 5 million hectares of arable land every year, mostly in developing countries. At the same time, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies affect up to 2 billion people worldwide and present a particularly huge burden among the poor. Further depletion of water, soil and land resources will impact the production capability of agricultural systems with negative implications for food production and quality. It is inevitable that the global food production system must strive for a more sustainable use of natural resources and reduce the environmental externalities of agricultural production. Simultaneously, agriculture must provide more nutrient-rich and diverse food items in order to tackle the complex challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition.
Natural resource management (NRM) strategies are a promising approach towards environmentally sustainable agricultural production. NRM practices, such as soil and water conservation and legume intercropping, may decrease soil erosion, improve soil fertility, and reduce production losses due to agricultural pests. NRM practices might also liberate smallholder farmers from the sole dependence on improved technologies and support asset-constrained households with affordable alternatives. Some policy agendas consider a simultaneous promotion of NRM and input-intensive technologies. The combination of these technologies can provide farmers with dual benefits: environmental externalities of agricultural production may be reduced, while achieving higher crop yields at the same time. Increasing the production potential of smallholders is very important to enhance farm households' food security. Under the condition of accessible, functioning food markets, increased production might also indirectly improve the quality of diets if crop sales can boost household income which in turn is used to purchase more diverse foods. An explicit resource management practice, that helps to reduce environmental externalities while improving dietary quality, is the diversification of own farm production, which is sometimes perceived as a key strategy to improve food and nutrition security among subsistence-oriented smallholder farms in remote rural areas.
In Malawi and other countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), rural smallholder farmers dominate the agricultural sector. They are responsible for the bulk of national food supply, but also belong to the poorest and most food insecure population segments. Malawi has been the pioneer in re-introducing targeted farm input subsidies in SSA that support smallholders with improved seed varieties and chemical fertilizer. Recently, the government has added NRM strategies to the agricultural development agenda to overcome environmental challenges among smallholder farms and support agricultural diversification to improve nutrition and tackle malnutrition problems. Simultaneously, Malawi's agricultural sector wide approach (ASWAp) attempts to increase smallholder market integration in order to reduce poverty and food insecurity through increased income opportunities. The combination of these strategies is expected to foster environmental resilience of smallholder systems, increase productivity, and improve food and nutrition security via different pathways.
However, this complex situation might raise questions among policy makers in Malawi and other SSA countries who tread a similar path. This dissertation sheds light on specific issues of policy concern. Research objective (i) addresses the question if a simultaneous promotion of input-intensive and NRM technologies among smallholder farms is possible. In particular, it investigates the under-researched issue if and how input subsidies influence the use of specific NRM practices such as legume intercropping, soil ridges, terraces or vegetative strips. Another question, which might be of policy interest, is studied under research objective (ii): how can specific agricultural production approaches and agricultural markets help to improve dietary quality in smallholder farm households? While an emerging number of studies has investigated the relationship between crop diversification and household dietary diversity among smallholder farmers, the role of markets and agricultural technologies for dietary diversity has received little attention. This dissertation contributes to the emerging literature by studying the above mentioned relationships with alternative indicators while additionally analysing individual food consumption recall data. Simultaneous household and individual level analyses, although rare, are important to ensure comparability between household and individual level data with regard to statements for nutrition policies.
Research objectives (i) and (ii) are analysed with farm household survey data from rural Malawi. First, a multivariate probit framework combined with an instrumental variable approach is used to analyse research objective (i). The model results highlight that participation of smallholder farms in the input subsidy program is positively associated with the adoption of legume intercropping and vegetative strips, while promoting the use of modern inputs. In line with previous research, the results confirm a positive association between subsidy participation and manure use. The practice of soil ridging seems to be restricted by FISP. Independent of the subsidy program results show that farmers tend to use modern inputs and NRM practices complementarily, often combining different types of technologies.
Research objective (ii) is investigated by analysing a number of different regression models. The models examine how different factors affect household and individual dietary diversity, particularly for young children and mothers. The results show that farm production diversity is positively associated with household and individual dietary diversity, yet smallholder market integration seems to have a stronger influence. The estimates indicate that specific input-intensive and NRM technologies are also positively associated with dietary diversity. In particular, legume intercropping is linked with child dietary diversity, while chemical fertilizer use is positively associated with mothers and household dietary diversity. Dietary diversity of young children and mothers is largely influenced by the same factors as the household diet.
In conclusion, this dissertation shows that input-intensive and NRM technologies are compatible in smallholder farming systems. The findings imply that trade-offs between different policy approaches promoting one or the other strategy do not necessarily occur. Certain NRM practices are even more common among subsidy participants than non-participants. To understand how a simultaneous promotion of NRM and input-intensive technologies can be realized successfully, future research should investigate the role of extension services more explicitly. Among the desired outcomes of a successful promotion of these strategies is improved nutrition. Indeed, specific input-intensive and NRM technologies seem to contribute to diverse diets; and so do farm production diversification and smallholder market integration. While nutrition effects from diversified production might be largely direct and market effects indirect, specific farming technologies could affect nutrition through both pathways. Interestingly, these findings are largely similar for both, household and individual diets. Thus, household level food consumption data might be used to address broader nutritional issues at the individual level. Overall, policy approaches that harmonise the promotion of input-intensive and NRM technologies while strengthening market access and participation might be suitable strategies to improve dietary quality among and within smallholder farm households.


It was a slow Thursday afternoon when IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor Jean Kumagai [above, left] popped into the cubicle of Photo Editor Randi Silberman [above, right] to ask if she'd like to come along on a trip to northeastern Mexico. The assignment was to cover the initial testing of an underwater robot in a deep sinkhole. Silberman jumped at the chance. "Normally I sit at my desk talking to photographers about the amazing things I'm sending them off to do," she says. "This time I'd get to do those things myself." And then she encountered Toilet Frog [right]. Arriving at the sprawling ranch where the robot team was based, she and Kumagai discovered an enterprising amphibian that had taken up residence in the ranch's septic system, swimming back and forth between its bathrooms. "Randi didn't seem to mind the frog that much," Kumagai says. "But I felt like every time I turned around, there it was—in the shower, on the kitchen floor, even in the toilet bowl. Very weird." Despite those run-ins with the wildlife, they captured a great story. Says Silberman, "I never thought I'd find myself climbing down a cliff holding on to just a rope, then getting into a kayak and paddling around to frame the perfect shot." But she did all that, and more, to document the expedition. Her photos and Kumagai's text come together in "Swimming to Europa," in this issue. Back in New York City, the two found themselves reminiscing fondly about the characters they'd met in Mexico. Even Toilet Frog. n


Background: The causes of hypertension can be either reversible and/or irreversible. Oral infections caused by transient normal flora, Porphyromonas gingivalis in particular is among the reversible factors which can directly or indirectly influence hypertension. Therefore, the study was conducted to determine the oral bacterial profile and establish an association between P. gingivalis carriage and hypertension.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted between January and July 2018 at Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam. Oral swabs were collected and cultured in the appropriate media for isolation of bacteria. Bacterial identification was done using cultural properties and series of biochemical tests. Cramer's V test analyzed categorical variables while Pearson correlation analyzed continous variables. Logistic regression was used in determination of Odds Ratio (OR). P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: In 120 hypertensive patients (HTP) the most isolated bacterial species were Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus agalactiae and Staphylococcus aureus by 20.6%, 18.8%and 7.1% respectively while for 50 nonhypertensive patients (NHTP) were 9.4%, 8.2% and 2.9% for S. pyogenes, S. agalactiae and S. aureus respectively. The prevalence of P. gingivalis was 10.6% in HTP and 1.2% in NHTP (p < 0.05). There was no significant association between harbouring P. gingivalis and hypertension (OR = 4.2; 95%CI = 0.944 -18.993; p = 0.130).Conclusions: Hypertensive patients exhibit high oral carriage of transient bacteria especially P. gingivalis as compared to non-hypertensive individuals. However, there was no association between P. gingivalis carriage and hypertension.


This study examines the determinants of multiple states of financial distress by applying a competing-risks model. It investigates the effect of financial ratios, market-based variables and company-specific variables, including company age, size and squared size on three different states of corporate financial distress: active companies; distressed external administration companies; and distressed takeover, merger or acquisition companies. A sample of 1,081 publicly listed Australian non-financial companies over the period 1989 to 2005 using a competing-risks model is used to determine the possible differences in the factors of entering various states of financial distress. It is found that specifically, distressed external administration companies have a higher leverage, lower past excess returns and a larger size; while distressed takeover, merger or acquisition companies have a lower leverage, a higher capital utilisation efficiency and a larger size compared to active companies. Comparing the results from both the single-risk model and the competing-risks model reveals the need to distinguish between financial distress states.


This paper draws attention to the 'language element' of graphic communication. It is argued that we need better tools for thinking about this and related matters; models are proposed which draw attention to general issues and aim to help break down barriers between different means of production. It is proposed that such general issues should be discussed at all levels of education because designers of graphic messages in the future are increasingly likely to be non-specialists. Finally, it is suggested that only in the light of a serious study of graphic language requirements will we be in a position to design satisfactory new systems and make good use of them.


The geographical engagement with social justice has neglected to adequately focus on the spatiality of the concept and its implications for geographical investigation. As a first response to this omission, this thesis illuminates the spatiality of social justice by suggesting that the concept is a historically and geographically located understanding of the manner in which society's benefits and burdens can be distributed. This thesis develops a route of geographical enquiry into the concept of social justice that moves beyond the tripartite of structuralist, post-structuralist and egalitarian approaches currently supported in this discipline. Drawing on relatively neglected liberal debates, the spatiality of social justice is investigated in relation to both theoretical and empirical accounts of this concept. It is subsequently suggested that Hayek's liberal challenge to the notion of unitary understandings of social justice, presents a productive alternative to current geographical investigations focused on this concept. Following Hayek's challenge, social justice is presented as a concept that is located, differentiated, bound to particular spatial arrangements and reflected through various imaginations of inclusion and exclusion. In this light a spatially sensitive account of social justice draws attention to the particularity of geography and history in shaping understandings of social justice. These themes are investigated within the concrete historical context of South African urban development. Here, the spatiality of social justice is explored with reference to the construction and demise of apartheid. This specific theme is then developed through a case study of the post-apartheid city of Tygerberg, the second largest local authority in the Cape Metropolitan Area. The investigation of Tygerberg illustrates that understandings of social justice are multiple, contested and located in particular understandings of the urban world at various stages of imagining the apartheid city. These differentiated understandings of social justice persist in the post-apartheid urban era, with notions of social justice shaped by the history and the geography of the apartheid realities from which it has arisen.


We review dispersion relations, which relate the real part of the optical susceptibility (refraction) to the imaginary part (absorption). We derive and discuss these relations as applied to nonlinear optical systems. It is shown that in the nonlinear case, for self-action effects the correct form for such dispersion relations is nondegenerate, i.e. it is necessary to use multiple frequency arguments. Nonlinear dispersion relations have been shown to be very useful as they usually only require integration over a limited frequency range (corresponding to frequencies at which the absorption changes), unlike the conventional linear Kramers-Kronig relation which requires integration over all absorbing frequencies. Furthermore, calculation of refractive index changes using dispersion relations is easier than a direct calculation of the susceptibility, as transition rates (which give absorption coefficients) are, in general, far easier to calculate than the expectation value of the optical polarization. Both resonant (generation of some excitation that is long lived compared with an optical period) and nonresonant 'instantaneous" optical nonlinearities are discussed, and it is shown that the nonlinear dispersion relation has a common form and can be understood in terms of the linear Kramers-Kr6nig relation applied to a new system consisting of the material plus some 'perturbation'. We present several examples of the form of this external perturbation, which can be viewed as the pump in a pump-probe experiment. We discuss the two-level saturated atom model and banclfilling in semiconductors among others for the resonant case. For the nonresonant case some recent work is included where the electronic nonlinear refractive coefficient, n2, is determined from the nonlinear absorption processes of two-photon absorption, Raman transitions and the a.c. Stark effect. We also review how the dispersion relations can be extended to give alternative forms for frequency summation which, for example, allows the real and imaginary parts of Z (2) to be related.


Debates about access and success are currently vigorous in higher education. There is much greater equity in terms of access but success in higher education continues to be racially patterned and far too few students graduate. This article argues for a more selective approach to access that is driven more deliberately by the need for increased success rates. It argues that higher education is carrying too much of the burden of expectation that it is the only viable route to economic participation for young people and thus that the demand for access is inappropriate. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 20 (2) 2006: 209-218


The three-dimensional crystal structure of the empty capsid of Physalis mottle tymovirus has been determined to 3.2 A resolution. The empty capsids crystallized in the space group P1, leading to 60-fold non-crystallographic redundancy. The known structure of Physalis mottle virus was used as a phasing model to initiate the structure determination by real-space electron-density averaging. The main differences between the structures of the native and the empty capsids were in residues 10 to 28 of the A-subunit, residues 1 to 9 of the B-subunit and residues 1 to 5 of the C-subunit, which are ordered only in the native virus particles. An analysis of the subunit disposition reveals that the virus has expanded radially outward by approximately 1.8 A in the empty particles. The A-subunits move in a direction that makes 10 degrees to the icosahedral 5-fold axes of symmetry. The B and C-subunits move along vectors making 12 degrees and 15 degrees to the quasi 6-fold axes. The quaternary organization of the pentameric and hexameric capsomeres are not altered significantly. However, the pentamer-hexamer contacts are reduced. Therefore, encapsidation of RNA appears to cause a reduction in the particle radius concomittant with the ordering of the N-terminal arm in the three subunits. These structural changes in Physalis mottle virus appear to be larger than the corresponding changes observed in viruses for which both the empty and full particle structures have been determined.


An Internet-connected Linux machine is in a high-risk situation. Linux Firewalls, Third Edition details security steps that any sized implementation--from home use to enterprise level--might take to protect itself from potential remote attackers. As with the first two editions, this book is especially useful for its explanations of iptables, packet filtering, and firewall optimization along with some advanced concepts including customizing the Linux kernel to enhance security.The third edition, while distribution neutral, has been updated for the current Linux Kernel and provides code examples for Red Hat, SUSE, and Debian implementations. Don't miss out on the third edition of the critically acclaimed Linux Firewalls.


The nation's ongoing battIe over defining wetlands has been portrayed as a tense political conflict between environmental protection advocates and economic development forces. A more accurate interpretation of the situation, I assert, is this: in our struggle to identify a diverse, complex and vast body of water systems in one definition, we have created a situation of extremes. Too vague a definition includes lands not worthy of protection by environmentalist standards. An overly-specific definition leaves wild systems open to commercial development. The search for an appropriate wetlands definition is particularly relevant for Georgia With 5.3 million wetland acres, Georgia ranks eighth among the contiguous states in total wetlands area The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that between the 1780s and 1980s nearly twenty-three percent of Georgia's wetlands were converted to other uses. This translates to an annual conversion rate of 7,700 acres. (Dahl, 1990). In Georgia or at the national level, ethics can assist the wetlands delineation conflict to resolution. An ethical approach does not prove one side right and the other side wrong, nor does it provide a theoretical resolution removed from the real world. Instead, it redefines the issue so that the values in each position that are worthwhile, yet which are perceived to be in opposition, may be seen as potentially reinforcing and achievable in concert.


We present a polynomial-time algorithm to learn an intersection of a constant number of halfspaces inndimensions, over the uniform distribution on ann-dimensional ball. The algorithm we present in fact can learn an intersection of an arbitrary (polynomial) number of halfspaces over this distribution, if the subspace spanned by the normal vectors to the bounding hyperplanes has constant dimension. This generalizes previous results for this distribution, in particular a result of Baum who showed how to learn an intersection of two halfspaces defined by hyperplanes that pass through the origin. (His results also held for a variety of symmetric distributions.) Our algorithm uses estimates of second moments to find vectors in a low-dimensional "relevant subspace." We believe that the algorithmic techniques studied here may be useful in other geometric learning applications. Our algorithm succeeds even in the presence of random noise, since the only use we make of the examples is to calculate the expectation of certain simple quantities.


Experience shows that with the exception of international manufacturing organizations operating in Slovakia and some national manufacturers, new trends, methods and information regarding quality management are rejected. Our goal is, with the help of the Kaizen method, to use acquired information from practice and available theoretical resources and to suggest approaches that can lead to a more flexible organization and improve results while utilizing the same resources. In this article we present in important contribution to management of change as a result of implementation of the Kaizen method in an organization. For better comparison, we analyze three manufacturing organizations operating in Slovakia. The Kaizen method is presented as a tool, with which we can solve a specific problem, achieve positive changes in all processes, on all organizational levels, in all organizations and with all employees of an organization.


Introduction: Wood smoke (WS) exposure is associated with increased prevalence of chronic bronchitis and rapid decline in lung function. However, potency of WS and cigarette smoke (CS) in activating mucin gene expression has not been compared. Aims and objectives: We tested the hypothesis that WS is more potent than CS in causing mucous cell metaplasia (MCM). Methods: C57BL/6 mice were exposed for 30 d to filtered air (FA) or CS for 5 days/week and 6 hours/day at 250 mg/m 3 total particulate matter (TPM) or to WS for 2 h/d at 10 mg TPM/m 3 . Extent of MCM was determined in stained lung sections. Mucin gene expression was analyzed by Western blot, qRT-PCR, and immunofluorescent staining. Findings were replicated in differentiated primary airway epithelial cultures from human (HAEC) and murine cells (MAECs). Results: WS exposure at 25-fold lower TPM concentrations than CS increased Muc5ac, Muc5b, SPDEF and Bcl-2 mRNAs in the lungs of mice, while these mRNAs were not significantly increased by FA or CS. This increase was accompanied with a 2-fold increase in MCM by WS compared with CS. Combined exposure to CS and WS showed MCM similar to WS alone. In HAEC, WS at 40-fold lower concentration increased levels of Muc5ac, Muc5b, SPDEF and Bcl-2 mRNAs by 2.5-fold more than CS. Further, WS compared with CS showed significantly enhanced activation of ERK1/2 and p53. Inhibition of ERK1/2 with UO126 suppressed WS-induced MUC5B but not MUC5AC mRNA levels, and WS-induced MUC5AC and SPDEF mRNA levels were reduced in p53 -/- compared to p53 +/+ MAECs. Conclusions: Exposure to WS compared to CS causes increased MCM by activating the ERK1/2 and p53 pathways to increase MUC5B and MUC5AC expression, respectively.


In this article I intend to outline the rules determining when the word-internal Baltic tenuis consonants k, t and p appear as the single stops k, t, p and when they appear as the geminates kk, tt, pp in old Baltic loanwords in proto-Finnic. I will critically assess the Baltic loan etymologies which contain tenuis consonants, at which point the Baltic origins of the Finnish words kukkura, lapa, mytyri and patistaa will be rejected and the suggested loan etymologies of the Finnish words hako, latu, mättää and äes as well as Est. matta and uba will be shown to be uncertain. Words of certain Baltic origin include Fin. ativo, kypärä, kavuta, ketara, lapio, nepaa, rainta, ratas, toe, vakka and ätelä, and those of probable Baltic origin include Fin. huttu, kääppä, makka(ra), mäkärä, oas, as well as Est. hakata and SEst. nakadaq. In addition to these, I will present completely new Baltic loan etymologies for the Finnish words kukka~ kukkuand lappa. In all certain and probable loanwords, Baltic tenuis consonants are found as geminates in disyllabic nominal stems and as single stops in trisyllabic nominal stems. This substitution rule may be the result of the overall impression that the target-language speakers get of the duration of the source-language words. When a Baltic verb was borrowed, a proto-Finnic verbal affi x was added to the borrowed stem, so that further ways of substituting the duration of the word form were not needed.


Well-resolved infrared observations of nearby galaxies are of fundamental importance to the study of the processes that affect galactic evolution. In this paper we report on the first imaging results from the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey (SINGS) using observations of the Sb galaxy NGC 7331. We present images of NGC 7331 over a large range of wavelengths that allow us to compare the distributions of gas, stars, and dust in unprecedented detail. As an example of the types of information that the full SINGS will provide, we use three methods to determine that the interstellar medium mass in the ring of NGC 7331 is ∼5 × 109 M⊙. We also present the first images showing emission from small hot (∼1000 K) dust grains, but we show that these dust grains contribute only a small fraction of the integrated 4.5 μm emission from NGC 7331.


Gray Hole Attack is an advanced transformation of black hole attack. Both of them are a common type of attack in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Malicious nodes may constantly or randomly drop packets and therefore reduce the efficiency of the networking system. Furthermore Software Define Network (SDN) has been highly developed in recent years. In this type of networks switch/router functionality is separated into the control plane and data plane. Network managers can select control policies and build operating rules according to their own preferences. In addition, network protocols and packet fields are also programmable. Because the switch/router only implements the data transmission and executes the switching/routing decisions based on commends coming from control plane. Compromised switches/routers themselves or malicious control instructions both can result in selectively dropped packets. This makes a gray hole attack possible in the infrastructure of SDN. Therefore, this paper would like to discuss time-base and random-base gray hole attack in SDN, and then propose a useful detection method based on weighted K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The simulation data collected from switches/routers indicate that our method does demonstrate pretty good performance.


We report on a diode-pumped 531-nm self-frequency-doubling Nd:YAB laser passively Q switched by a Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber. Pumped by 1.4 W of 807-nm GaAlAs diode laser radiation, the Nd:YAB laser system generates 5.6-ns-long TEM00 light pulses with an energy of 1.0 µJ at a repetition rate of 45 kHz. The experimental data are compared with the results of a numerical analysis based on rate equations that consider the optical properties of the Nd:YAB crystal and of the Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber.


Negation is present in all human languages and it is used to reverse the polarity of parts of a statement. It is a complex phenomenon that interacts with many other aspects of language. Besides the direct meaning, negated statements often carry a latent positive meaning. Negation can be interpreted in terms of its scope and focus. This paper explores the importance of both scope and focus to capture the meaning of negated statements. Some issues on detecting negation from text are outlined, the forms in which negation occurs are depicted and heuristics to detect its scope and focus are proposed.


Ezra Pound's significant engagement with visual art and artists makes him a natural subject for visual culture studies. As a young poet, Pound worked under the spell of Pre-Raphaelite painters and the impressionist James Abbott McNeill Whistler; later, as he "modernized," Wyndham Lewis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (among others) showed him the way. Throughout his London years (1908-20) Pound worked closely with artists, collaborating with them on projects such as BLAST, sitting for them (resulting in portraits by Lewis, Gaudier, and Alvin Langdon Coburn), "booming" them in his reviews (as in the art criticism he wrote for the New Age from 1917 to 1920), debating with them, and of course frequently infuriating them. The impact of vorticism, along with futurist painting, cubism, and collage on the "open form" of the Cantos has long been a central topic of Pound scholarship, from Hugh Kenner's The Pound Era and Timothy Materer's Vortex through Marjorie Perloff's The Futurist Moment, Charles Altieri's Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American Poetry, and Vincent Sherry's Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and Radical Modernism. In this well-documented field it is not easy to find an opening for an original critical intervention, but in Ezra Pound and the Visual Culture of Modernism Rebecca Beasley offers new research findings and detailed analysis of Pound's engagement with the milieu of artists, art criticism, and the ideas driving contemporary art during Pound's formative years in London and Paris. What distinguishes her approach from earlier studies of Pound and the visual arts, she claims, is her focus on the "shifting ideological significance" of the arts for him (2), "an insistence that the visual arts be seen as part of the 'argument' of Pound's work, providing a model that is not restricted to the formal" (7). In the current critical parlance, "visual culture" usually refers to all cultural artifacts and activities with a visual component (including advertising, new and old media, toys, fashion, landscape, etc.). Beasley's scope is restricted, however, by Pound's own preference for the traditional fine arts of painting and sculpture. In this book, approaching Pound through the discipline of visual culture studies means shifting the focus away from works of art or poetry and toward the discourse of art criticism as Pound practiced it. Beasley has exhaustively documented Pound's changing ideas about the visual arts, based on his prolific published and unpublished prose, and used her results to trace the evolution of his politics. She concentrates her attention on four episodes during the years 1908-24 that, she argues, map out his ideological transformation from individualist to fascist follower. Beyond its considerable documentary function, the book also seeks to illuminate the relationship between formalism and politics in Pound's art criticism and in criticism generally. Beasley contends that the vocabulary Pound developed for writing about art in the nineteen-teens was motivated by conservative political beliefs that led to his later fascism. She also argues, mainly by implication, that Pound's vocabulary and his work as a critic made possible the development of an academic practice of "formalist" literary criticism. She identifies this practice with New Criticism ("the formalist literary criticism in which modernist studies "was forged" [205]), but she also seems to have in mind any analysis of modernist writing that privileges formal experimentation for its own sake, such as Perloff's. "Formalism" is thus seen to carry a political agenda, whether as waged openly by Pound or as concealed in the practices of academic critics. Chapter 1 serves to orient this argument in the context of Pound's earliest art criticism, which he wrote as a graduate student smarting from his encounter with philology. Reacting against the academic study of literature, Pound proposed aesthetic appreciation, or "taste," as an alternative. …


Very early maturing hybrids of corn (L.) have become available recently and appear to be adapted to semiarid regions. Water use information is needed for these hybrids. The purpose of this study, at Mandan, N.D., was to evaluate the effects of maturity class of corn hybrid and of plant spacing on water utilization under dryland cropping. In each of 3 years, 68 and 85-day relative maturity class hybrids were grown at plant populations of 20, 30, 40, 60, and 74 thousand plants/ha in 50 and 100-cm rows on Temvik silt loam (Typic haploboroll). The 20, 40, and 74 thousand plant populations were monitored for changes in soil water content by the neutron method both in the row and midway between rows. Neither row spacing nor location of the access tube in respect to the row had an appreciable effect upon soil water content at any sampling date. Water withdrawal by corn was generally confined to the upper 90-cm soil depth, regardless of treatment. Increased population usually increased water use during vegetative growth, leaving less water for reproductive growth. Hybrids and row spacings had less effect upon water use. Except for dry matter production by the 85-RM hybrid at the highest population, water use efficiency (WUE) was greatest at a population of 40,000 plants. While the early maturing hybrid was efficient in using water for grain production, the later maturing hybrid used water more efficiently for forage production. Results of regression analysis between yields and water use suggest that the earlier maturing hybrid would be less affected by severe drought than would the later hybrid.


Novel applications for calix[4]recorcinarene (C[4]RA) sensing membranes have been investigated. A comprehensive deposition study was carried out, encompassing casting, spin coating and Langmuir Blodgett (LB) deposition. The spin coating thickness depended on the angular velocity w, following the description of d = c.wx with coefficients of x - 0.44 and - 0.48 for concentrations of 1 mg/ml and 2mg/ml respectively. The analysis of the LB deposited films established a thickness of 0.95 nm for a monolayer. Furthermore the C[4]RA, was successfully employed as a deposition matrix for a non surface active polymer, poly-ortho-methoxy aniline (POMA), which can otherwise not be deposited by LB. The composite film showed good homogeneity and based on thickness and UV measurements a structural model for it was developed, in which two polymer strands aligned themselves per C[4]RA layer, resulting in a monolayer thickness of 2.1 - 2.2 nm.The response of the C[4]RA and the composite membranes to a variety of organic and inorganic gaseous pollutants was investigated by Surface Plasmon Resonance studies, conductivity and capacitance measurements and UV spectroscopic studies. The integration of cast films into the gate of a charge flow transistor, is the first application of pure calixarenes in a conduction based sensor. The turn on response of the transistor is modulated by a variety of organic vapours, at the saturation vapour pressure, showing selectivity between polar and non-polar solvents, i.e. chloroform, methanol, acetone and hexane, with no cross sensitivity to water vapour. The modulation lies within factors of 45 for CHCI3 and 13 for CH3OH. The conductivity increase is partially attributed to micro-condensation of the vapours inside the micro-porous membrane. A successful application of this implementation as an explosion guard sensor for acetone is demonstrated.Gold electrodes with and without C[4]RA LB films have been characterised using impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammography. The modification of the gold electrodes by the C[4]RA film changes their constant phase element impedance, givenby 1/(w.Q)" with w being the angular velocity. The observed values were from Q =0.725-10 -5 Farad and n = 0.87 to Q = 0.828-10-6 Farad and n = 0.82. Organic analyteslike, chloroform and acetone in water can be successfully detected with these electrodes. It is shown by cyclic voltammetry, that the permeability of the C[4]RA LB films is modulated by the organic solvents.


Co-crystals are excellent materials for studying intermolecular interactions in the solid-state and can be used to further our knowledge of the balance between strong and weak intermolecular interactions. The O–HNarom synthon was chosen as the focus of this investigation of hydrogen bonding motifs. The starting materials selected all have two hydrogen bond donor and/or acceptor sites for the formation of extended networks. All molecules are also aromatic such that the influence of weaker ππ interactions can be included in the study. Two 33 grids of related co-crystals were produced from these starting materials and are reported in this thesis as part of an ongoing investigation into a broader set of co-crystals. A part of the work describes the investigation of co-crystals prepared by the combination of related benzenediol and diazine isomers taken from a 33 grid. The solid-state structures of each of the six starting materials are discussed briefly to describe the nature of intermolecular interactions involved in the single component crystals. Trends in hydrogenbonding patterns as well as the weaker interactions identified in the starting materials, can be used to recognise those in the subsequent multi-component crystals. Thirteen co-crystal compounds were obtained, of which twelve structures are novel. Each of these co-crystal structures is discussed in terms of intermolecular interactions and packing in the solid state. Hydrogen-bonding patterns and structural similarities are highlighted in related co-crystal structures as well as between co-crystals and their respective starting materials. The combination of benzenediol isomers with benzodiazine isomers yielded seven novel co-crystal structures in a second 33 grid is reported. The structure of phthalazine, which has not yet been reported, is included in addition to these co-crystals, while the structures of quinazoline and quinoxaline that were retrieved from the CSD are discussed briefly. Cocrystal structures are discussed individually, focusing on the intermolecular interactions that are significant to the structural architecture of the compound. Certain co-crystals that display structural similarities with structures of the 33 grid, as well as with co-crystals presented in Chapter 3, are discussed in the relevant sections. Lastly, two extended pyridyl diyne ligands that were synthesised for use in future cocrystallisation studies similar to those reported earlier are briefly highlighted. The crystal structures of the pure compounds and of a hydrate of one of the ligands were obtained and discussed briefly. To date only one of these structures has been reported in the literature.


The human brain is a vastly complex system that develops rapidly during human gestation. Its developmental pace is unprecedented in any other period of human development. By the time of normal birth the brain's layout verges on the adult human brain. All major structures have come into place, including the white matter pathways. The brain's white matter forms an intricate network of connections between gray matter regions. This macroscale brain network is referred to as the 'connectome'. Recent years have witnessed a rapid surge of interest in connectomics to study early brain development. In this thesis, we contribute to this literature, advancing our understanding of early macroscale brain network development and how this process relates to brain function. Firstly, we explored early developmental processes of brain network formation. We identified a number of key attributes of connectome development during the earliest stages after its emergence, from approximately mid-gestation through the neonatal period. Early connectome wiring follows a primary-to-higher order, bottom-to-top, and central-to-peripheral sequence. Furthermore, the structural brain network matures before its functional counterpart and functional brain circuitry undergoes substantially more extensive remodeling than structural brain wiring. Given the complexity of the developmental processes unfolding during the critical timeframe of (late) pregnancy, they are susceptible to injurious events, including preterm birth. In this thesis, we also investigated the brain-behavior relationship following preterm birth. To this end, we related brain metrics measured in the neonatal brain to childhood cognitive functioning in preterm born children. We identified a set of potentially relevant imaging features that may be predictive of distinct developmental domains. White matter maturation measured at term equivalent age was related to performance IQ at early school age (age five years), while white matter volume correlated with processing speed at age five years. Smaller ventricle volumes were associated with better cognitive and motor performance in infancy and early childhood. Finally, we studied brain-behavior correlates in preterm twins and singletons and found no significant differences in brain volumes, cortical maturation and neurodevelopmental outcome in late infancy between the groups that were comparable in terms of gestational age and birth weight. Pre-eclampsia was associated with smaller brain volumes but did not affect cortical development in our study. Collectively, these findings are relevant to clinicians and researchers interested in the heritability of traits, and draw attention to the putative impact of the intrauterine environment to early brain development.


Treatment of blood loss with plasma expanders lowers blood viscosity, increasing cardiac output. However, increased flow velocity by conventional plasma expanders does not compensate for decreased viscosity in maintaining vessel wall shear stress (WSS), decreasing endothelial nitric oxide (NO) production. A new type of plasma expander using polyethylene glycol conjugate albumin (PEG-Alb) causes supra-perfusion when used in extreme hemodilution and is effective in treating hemorrhagic shock, although it is minimally viscogenic. An acute 40% hemodilution/exchange-transfusion protocol was used to compare 4% PEG-Alb to Ringer's lactate, Dextran 70 kDa and 6% Hetastarch (670 kDa) in unanesthetized CD-1 mice. Serum cytokine analysis showed that PEG-Alb elevates monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), a member of a small inducible gene family, as well as expression of MIP-1α, and MIP-2. MCP-1 is specific to increased WSS. Given the direct link between increased WSS and production of NO, the beneficial resuscitation effects due to PEG-Alb plasma expansion appear to be due to increased WSS through increased perfusion and blood flow rather than blood viscosity.


Depositional events at the shoreline can be considered non-uniformly spaced samples of (relative) sea level; the shoreline trajectory constructed from shoreline positions in a cross-section through a delta can therefore be considered a proxy to the sea level curve. The problem is that depositional events are stacked on top of each other in the space domain and in order to infer the sea level curve, one must convert the shoreline trajectory from space- to time-domain. Therefore a method is presented that does exactly that. Shoreline trajectories from a number of cross-sections are used to infer the sea level curve, for two cases: (1) the sea level curve is periodic; (2) depositional events are sufficiently frequent. Here the concept is presented, together with a qualitative analysis of all possible deviations from the simple cases that would cause an error of the inferred sea level curve with respect to the true sea level curve. In this short note the concept of the method is presented; a comprehensive analysis will be presented elsewhere, which will follow after processing of the data from experiments that were conducted in the Eurotank flume facility.


Free-market capitalism, hegemony, Western culture, peace, and democracy - the ideas that shaped world politics in the twentieth century and underpinned American foreign policy - have lost a good deal of their strength. Authority is now more contested and power more diffuse. Hegemony (benign or otherwise) is no longer a choice, not for the United States, for China, or for anyone else. Steven Weber and Bruce Jentleson are not declinists, but they argue that the United States must take a different stance toward the rest of the world in this, the twenty-first century. Now that we can't dominate others, we must rely on strategy, making trade-offs and focusing our efforts. And they do not mean military strategy, such as 'the global war on terror'. Rather, we must compete in the global marketplace of ideas - with state-directed capitalism, with charismatic authoritarian leaders, with jihadism. In politics, ideas and influence are now critical currency. At the core of our efforts must be a new conception of the world order based on mutuality, and of a just society that inspires and embraces people around the world.


In the early hours of 20 October 1962, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched a series of devastating assaults on Indian posts stretched along thousands of miles of mountainous border. The attack drew a line under several years of acrimony over the border and an even longer period of uncertainty and ambiguity regarding each sides' respective claims. However, the SinoIndian War was far more than just a territorial scrap, bloody as it was. It was widely perceived as a Chinese attack on Nehruvian non-alignment, a peculiar foreign policy posture that he had developed to counter the Cold War. By rejecting Nehru so firmly, Beijing was demonstrating a clear turn from the moderation it had pursued in tandem with the Soviets to engage non-socialist Asia through the mid-1950s. Mao's attack on India was then a firm rejection of both Delhi's moderation and Soviet partnership and a major turning point in the history of the Cold War and Asia.
This thesis adds to the existing histories of the war by exploring Sino-Indian relations from 1949 when the two Asian giants cautiously swapped ambassadors. The ambiguous relationship between Beijing and Delhi is examined from the perspective of Nehru's ambitious overall foreign policy agenda, rather than just a narrow focus on the border and Tibet. The deterioration of ties between Delhi and Beijing is often characterised as the result of conflicting territorial and indeed imperial ambitions. But it is also true to say that from early in the 1950s there was a remarkable effort at collaboration and accommodation of their respective ambitions. Simultaneously, collaboration was always underpinned by an acute sense of competition for influence in Asia, in particular over the appropriate model of development for the region. In particular, this thesis gives far greater emphasis on Beijing's function within the dynamics of Sino-Indian relations, and shows how vital were the ideological shifts within the Chinese leadership. The ideologically framed judgements about Indian economic development policies had a major impact on how Beijing assessed the ongoing feasibility of its entire experiment with a moderate foreign policy in general and cooperation with Delhi specifically. By illustrating how these understandings of India also affected Chinese views of the Soviet leadership's competence, this thesis also makes an important contribution to the historiography of the Sino-Soviet split. Ultimately, relations collapsed with Delhi
not just because of hard territorial interests, but because Mao came to believe that the continued deferral of revolutionary goals was leaving the field clear for reactionary elements in China, India and beyond.


Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) affecting biodiversity (hereafter 'biodiversity diseases') have tremendous and increasing social, environmental, economic and political impacts worldwide. The devastating amphibian skin disease, chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (hereafter Bd), is an example of such a disease, and has been an important driver of species declines and extinctions since its recent emergence. Bd is now considered endemic throughout most of its climatically suitable range. However this does not imply that the disease is now benign.

The aims of my research were to 1) investigate and characterize population- and individual-level impacts of endemic chytridiomycosis, 2) investigate the amphibian host immune response to Bd infection to determine the practical utility of immunization, and investigate the potential for evolution of resistance, and 3) evaluate strategies to mitigate endemic chytridiomycosis and minimize the impact of future emerging biodiversity diseases.

I performed Cormack-Jolly-Seber and Pradel analysis of an intensive two-year mark-recapture data set from two populations of the common mistfrog (Litoria rheocola) in the lowland wet tropics of Queensland, Australia. I found that endemic chytridiomycosis continues to have substantial seasonally fluctuating population-level effects on amphibian survival which necessitates increased recruitment for population persistence. Populations at both sites exhibited very low annual survival probabilities but high recruitment. My results suggest that similarly endemically infected amphibian populations may thus be under continued threat from chytridiomycosis, which may render them vulnerable to other threatening processes, particularly those affecting recruitment success.

Multistate Mark Recapture analysis of L. rheocola from the Tully population, and examination of abundance, distribution and transmission of Bd between hosts, allowed me to identify and characterize pathogen aggregation as a key feature of endemic chytridiomycosis, and evaluate its implications for study, modeling and management of the disease. Examination of transition probabilities revealed that more infections occurred in cooler months, that recoveries were frequent throughout the year, and that survival probabilities were dependent on infection intensity. In order to account for the effects of over-dispersed pathogen distributions in future studies, I recommend the quantification of individual infection burdens as well as prevalence where possible.

I performed a controlled exposure experiment of individually-housed captive-bred Bd-naive Booroolong's frogs (Litoria booroolongensis) involving prior exposure and treatment with the antifungal itraconazole as a form of immunization. I compared survival and infection intensities between immunized and infection-naive frogs, and was unable to demonstrate differences indicative of clinically protective host adaptive immunity. My results are consistent with other studies suggesting Bd-induced suppression of the host adaptive immune system, and indicate that immunization for reintroduced frogs is unlikely to be an effective management strategy in the near future.

I performed a second controlled exposure experiment instead with alpine tree frogs (Litoria verreauxii alpina) from multiple populations with differing long-term Bd-exposure histories. I demonstrated population, clutch and individual-level differences in susceptibility to chytridiomycosis (measured as survival and infection intensities). I found that frogs from one long-exposed population survived significantly longer when compared with frogs from two other long-exposed populations and the naive population. My results demonstrate differences in survival and infection dynamics between populations and clutches associated with infection exposure history that are consistent with selection for disease resistance. Features of the natural history of this species, such as lack of Bd-exposure and high survival until after breeding at two years of age, may limit opportunities for natural selection of disease resistance. My finding of a more resistant population, however, holds promise for the future management of species threatened by chytridiomycosis.

I analysed skin, liver and spleen tissue samples from a subset of the frogs from this latter experiment using a systems biology approach in order to examine underlying mechanisms contributing to observed differences in population susceptibility to chytridiomycosis. Via total RNA extraction, next-generation sequencing, de novo transcriptome assembly, functional annotation and differential gene expression analysis, I found marked evidence for activation of gene pathways associated with immune responses in Bd-infected frogs, that differed among populations and times of sampling post exposure. I demonstrated a link between a chytridiomycosis-resistant phenotype from a long-exposed population, and evidence for a more robust early immune response at the level of gene expression compared with other populations. These differences in gene expression may putatively explain a large component of population-level differences observed in survival in the larger experiment.

In addition to gene expression analysis, via metabolite extraction, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and both univariate and multivariate analyses, I identified a number of key metabolites in the skin and liver tissues that predominantly differentiate moribund frogs with chytridiomycosis from both unexposed control and subclinical frogs. I also identified metabolites related to differences in population of origin, which may be associated with variation in phenotypic resistance between populations. These findings help build our understanding of the key mechanisms and pathways involved in pathogenesis.

In a review of current and upcoming techniques, I contributed substantially to developing a conceptual framework for management of endemic chytridiomycosis. This framework consisted of interventions to guide experimental management and applied research, and involved two main approaches, 1) reducing Bd in the environment or on amphibians, and 2) increasing the capacity of populations to persist despite increased mortality from disease. In this review I recommended trialling several promising management actions including habitat manipulation, antifungal treatments, animal translocation, bioaugmentation, head starting and selection for resistance.

Finally, to help improve timely mitigation of future emerging biodiversity diseases, I reviewed and evaluated the efficacy of current surveillance approaches for these diseases. Barriers to effective surveillance include a relative lack of social and political will, and the inherent complexity and cost of implementing surveillance for multiple and diverse free-ranging populations. I synthesized recommendations to address these challenges by 1) extending global animal disease surveillance systems to emphasize diseases that could predominantly affect biodiversity, and 2) utilizing a systematic, population-based and self-evaluative approach to improve timely disease recognition and management, with the aim of reducing species loss.

In summary, I found that endemic chytridiomycosis impacts amphibian population dynamics in Australia and is characterized by high mortality rate and turnover. I found that immunization is currently an ineffective strategy. However, from clinical and systems biology data, the evolution of innate immunity is possible and hence assisted selection may be a viable management strategy among other approaches.


This thesis is about analyzing the design implemented in Spandershoeve Restaurant in order to achieve upper market as their concept. It is written as the final project of the Hotel Management Program. Qualitative research has been conducted. This qualitative research begins with literature review that consists of three main parts, the importance of the design of the restaurant, the design concept with all factors that influence it, and the process of design with its maintenance. The second step is to make more detail information and accurate result by using interviews, questionnaires and analysis of design in Spandershoeve restaurant. The observation is also needed to give good analysis which is based on the literature review. From the whole research done by observation, analyzing data and information from interview and questionnaires, it can be concluded how the implementation design has influenced the restaurant concept and what kind of design in order to achieve restaurant vision suits with the concept. Finally, the writers can conclude that the right design is needed considering all aspect influencing in order to be appropriate with its concept to get the best result in its implementation. Innovation and adjustment in design technique nowadays are very important in competing in the restaurant business. Many new concepts of design are implemented both by old standing and new restaurant to attract customers as many as they can. These are some recommendations in order to create the best restaurant design: 1. Deciding restaurant concept and vision. 2. Design planning based on restaurant concept. 3. Finding all aspects needed and all factors influencing its concepts. 4. Design process: Implementation of its original concepts by using the theory combined with the skills and experience of designer. 5. Good maintenance. Since this is the first research implementing the right design in achieving the restaurant concept, fiuther research is recommended to give more detail information about this subject. This study can also be used as a starting point for further research.


Objectives The prognosis of ovarian teratoma with malignant transformation and peritoneal dissemination (PD) is poor. This condition is rare but associated with a high recurrence rate even after aggressive debulking surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. In the present paper, we describe our experience of using cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC) for this condition. Methods The data of ten female patients having ovarian teratoma with malignant transformation and PD between June 2007 and June 2017 were collected and reviewed retrospectively. CRS-HIPEC was performed according to the standard protocol. Patient characteristics, pathological reports, tumor markers, perioperative operative parameters, postoperative events, and disease status during the follow-up period were recorded. Results The primary ovarian neoplasms were pure mature cystic teratoma with malignant transformation (n=6, including 5 of mucinous adenocarcinoma), mixed germ cell tumor with mature cystic teratoma and yolk sac tumor (YST) (n=1), pure immature teratoma (n=1), immature teratoma with growing teratoma syndrome (GTS) (n=1), and immature teratoma mixed YST with GTS (n=1). The mean levels of tumor markers, including carcinoembryonic antigen, cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), and CA125, were markedly elevated. The recurrence rate was 10%. The median and mean disease-free survival (DFS) after CRS-HIPEC were 22.3 and 36.2 months, respectively, and the 5-year DFS rate is 88%. Conclusion CRS-HIPEC is a safe therapeutic option for reducing the recurrence rate in selected patients with PD originating from ovarian teratoma with malignant transformation.


In this paper, we report the fabrication of an antibacterial material, Ga-doped C-dots on Ga nanoparticles (Ga@C-dots@Ga NPs), which is deposited on a glass substrate for neural growth. A one-step sonochemical process is applied for the simultaneous fabrication and coating of Ga@C-dots@Ga NPs using PEG 400 and molten gallium. The physical and chemical characteristics of the synthesized materials were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), fluorescence analysis, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and other techniques. SH-SY5Y cells were plated on the substrates. The effect of the Ga@C-dots@Ga NPs on the development of neurites during the initiation and elongation growth phases was studied and compared with C-dots, Ga@C-dots and Ga NPs. Our research focuses on the influence of the physical and chemical properties of composites on neurite growth. We observed that cells grown on a Ga@C-dots@Ga-coated substrate exhibit a 97% increase in the number of branches originating from the soma. We found that surface modification and particle morphology play a significant role in the neural growth.